HUMAN REALM: imagination to understand

We only had a few days of this before Christmas consumed us, so I extended this week and blended it into Christmas, Chanukah and New Years. Underneath all these celebrations, there was this theme of light, miracles, hope and gathering humans together. 

On the last eve of the year, we tossed our frazzled, curly, dried, leafy wreath we had made earlier in the month, into the ocean. And watched it sweep away our tensions and fall into wavy laughing cuddles.

WOOL DOLLS

We crossed over the two weeks - from beasts to humans - enjoying the gift of wool from sheep. I finally got to making these standing dolls, a pre cut kit from Meg, our Steiner teacher. Stuffed with wool, and wrapped in felt, I had so much fun stitching together these dolls. And I was more lit up, when I saw my daughter animated as she played with them along the way in their different stages (a head, unstuffed body, hairless, and finally complete enough for now). These standing dolls were initially for storytelling so I wanted them to be able to reflect connections to us (like hair colours) as well as hold deep archetypes. There is king winter, Mother Earth, spring wanderer, and autumn harvester. The characters my daughter makes them to be is up to her. They all turned out perfectly wonky like humans. 

What characters would you create? 

BOX WRAPPING 

We had some cardboard boxes and brown craft paper recycled from some packages and decided to enjoy dressing them up a bit. My daughter had been enjoying the glitz of public Xmas decorations so I found some old glitter and metallic paint for us to jazz up the cardboard. A part from the fun sensory experience, they could then be used for gift wrapping. 

GIFTS  

We haven’t decided fully yet about what we say about Santa, as most of what she has heard comes from friends, family and mainstream media didn’t feel like a right fit yet. Nor did it seem important to her yet. For this year, it felt right to say Santa is a sprit which arrives at this time of year. He gives the spirit of giving to people. So through him, he inspired me to make and give these gifts to others. 

We filled the boxes she painted with her gifts the next day. A second hand sequin outfit, a collection of books and a bag of my old journey stones (divination stones from Minmia). She was overjoyed. We proceeded to go to our two family events as my parents are separated, and my did she receive a lot of gifts. She didn’t even rmemeber what she got because she just opened one after the other and yelled “more more” or “next”. I was left feeling sick, and not from the delicious food. I was saddened by the consuming culture, despite the great loving intentions of my family. Our handmade or thoughtful gifts felt lost and not enough in the maximum culture. I wonder if next year, we could limit it to one each? 

What do you do for gifts? 

PORTRAITS

The next few days I felt unsatisfied and seeking meaningful connection to the gift of humans. I realised we got lost in the gift giving and ran out of time for meaningful cards. So we tapped into gratitude. Using her new found drawing skill, I invited her to draw portraits for people in our lives who we appreciate. And then I could write love thank you notes to them. It got a bit much so this was an activity we could ebb and flow with over many days. 

What do you appreciate about a card? 

PHOTOS 

I finally collated and printed photos so that we could place them in albums and actually appreciate them. Rather than them be lost to the cloud. I loved remembering the stories and the humans that have touched our lives. The places where memories sing into our bones. The moments where we lived truly alive. With wonder. With imagination. With effort to understand. 

I’ve started sorting them, not just in time but in themes, like bath, ocean and adventures. Not only because they came back to the printers all jumbled in order, but because it’s like art to marry the connections in different stories that traverse time. 

What do you do with all your photos? 

And you’re left wondering, what is the gift of humans that minerals, plants and beasts didn’t already give us. 

With gratitude,

Clio 

. . .

h u m a n k i nd 

.  

in the end  

what will you make of it  

imagine

stories   

of gathering 

hope  

to be  

the gift  

. . . 

BEAST REALM: pondering the oneness

We begun this week with a real curiosity into what distinguishes humankind from the so called “beasts”. Aren’t we animals too? 

There is too much to explore here, just like in every other realm we have touched on. So I surrender to the fact I can’t do it all, and make a hopeful commitment to this tradition whereby if we revisit each of these realms each year, we will glide our awareness over more and more. Next year, maybe feathers, fur, silk, and more. 

WOOL DYE

Animals provide such gifts, like wool from their coat. A simple fun activity was dyeing a section of an old wool blanket in natural food colouring and vinegar hot water solutions. It felt safe for my daughter to get her hands in. And now we have beautiful coloured felt to make some creations. 

What could you make with wool?

FARM 

Koa had a desire to milk a cow to understand where her cows milk comes from as opposed to her soy milks. So we made it out to Golden ridge farm as a last minute easy access to domesticated farm animals. We help baby ducklings and chicks. We fed goats, kids, lamas and horses. It was a kitschy but necessary experience that I feel sad is so far from our current lives. 

We milked a cow and it felt wrong because she was mostly empty from feeding her calf earlier, and I connected it to when my kids have drained my breastmilk. 

My son was sitting on the ground and a beautiful horse reached over the fence and dragged his beautiful huge nose along my sons face. I wonder what it was like for him. The whole experience tapped me into the fact that I feel scared when I’m with other animals. I felt how unpredictable they are maybe because I don’t spend a lot of time with them. They feel so foreign. And so they draw a huge sense of mystery within me, mainly unease but this desire to understand and this acceptance that I can never fully understand. Whilst I appreciate all the scientists and trackers who research animals, I just feel like there is more magic to it. Just like with research into humans, I don’t feel like we will ever be able to predict what and why we are. To find such hard truths is to not understand the mystery in spirit. 

What is your response to animals? 

ROCKPOOLS 

Our closest access to an array of wild animals is the ocean. Whilst im playing defence for my son trying out every shell led animal in his mouth, this week, dear friends have led my daughter through exploring the rockpools. They each have their own wonders they wish to share with her. In particular it’s different types of slugs and their slime. But we don’t touch the blue ones - blue in nature is often some kind of warning. 

What is your memory of rockpools? 

MAGPIE

One night I had a dream or a thought that I wanted to feed a magpie and befriend it, so I wouldn’t get swooped this season and so I could have a birdie friend. The next morning I went out to collect my laundry from the garden and a magpie arrived. It never has before. It looked and me like - go on, give me the food you were offering. So I went inside and so began our regular feeding visitations. A few days she would show her mate who I was - as if to say - do not swoop this one, and if I die, come here for food. And this week (after months of visiting us), she finally brought her juvenile bub to us. People say not to feed birds. I’m grateful for our relationship and I’m curious to see where it takes us. 

How do you interact with your local birds? 

As far as I can see, this week we have learnt that animals or beasts have so much to teach us. They remind us of primal instincts including caring and fear. I feel like their gift is softness. And in a mysterious way, they connect us to the oneness of creation. 

But I truly do wonder. 

What do you think makes us different? 

With gratitude,

Clio

b e a s t s  

. 

relating in a way of

tending not only to receive

but to revere

the tamed and the wild

I wonder

about you

day and night

a mirror

traversing the unknowable  

foreign of the same kind  

PLANT REALM: honouring all of life

I am discovering the heart amidst the full energy that comes with wrapping a year up, family weight and the productive push. In the lead up to the full moon, this week felt like light was pushing up and out… I needed to make things, get things done and fulfill commitments. Commitment was a strong theme here. Following through, persisting and then of course, having that in breath to the out breath.

The second week of our version of Advent (click here to read first week), was all about celebrating plants. For me that included roots, shoots, leaves, sheathes, seeds, pods, flowers, fruit and vegetables. It was all that we came from, all that we are embodying and all that we want to gift. As well as the compost, the death feeding the birth, and so the cycle continues. 

I realised that segregating the realms in this way is quite hard. That everything is interconnected. But perhaps this is the practice of celebrating the uniqueness of each separately, because otherwise perhaps we don’t appreciate them. Perhaps. 

INDIGO 

We crossed over from the mineral to the plant realm by natural dyeing. A mixture of minerals (soda ash and hydro) with plants (reduced indigo) into a vat, to produce this bubbly smelly concoction. It didn’t exactly feel kid friendly. With drop sheets, ventilation and gloves, unfortunately it only made sense for my daughter to watch, or be involved in the shibori tying art. The dipping was our job and it was time sensitive. So no… I’m not going to lie… in the heat of the day with two kids who just wanted to get into the pot or needed loving attention… it was hard.

Was it worth it? Yes. Having my hands in physically making was so satisfying to my creator needs… and allowing my kids to witness and help (even if small) in creating gifts feels so enriching to our lives. And what we get to see on the other side of a sweaty day, is pure beauty. All the patterns, lines and shapes felt like they were stories from the ocean, the cloudy sky and even the night sky. We used beeswax candle drips to create a resist for the night sky stars, or raindrops.

What do you see in the blue?

WEAVING 

We held our Weaving with Nature workshop this week too, exploring local native fibres in a coil stitch style. It is a great simple style that allows you to make many shapes, including birds, hats and baskets. With some of the participants interested in dyeing colours, we concocted a beautiful pink with hibiscus petals.

I continued the dyeing at home through the week with my daughter, using beetroot and turmeric as safe dyes for her to interact with. While they aren’t super colourfast, they were a fun relatable activity for us to use what we had in our home for what we needed. I used the golden yellow strands to weave a little star in an afternoon between cooking dinner and cleaning. Again not a skill they can pick up yet, but I love that they can see something come together in a new form from plants we have collected. 

What can you create with the plants around you? 

HAPA-ZOME

We did even MORE natural dyeing this week with the Japanese art of Hapa-Zome. We bashed some flowers and leaves into some cotton handkerchiefs as gifts. We started by soaking the hankerchiefs in soy milk as a mordant to help bind the plant dye to the fabric fibre. We then collected maple leaves from my dad’s garden and some coreopsis from the road side. 

Bash.

Bang. 

Release. 

Repeat. 

It requires more attention to detail and louder sounds than you realise. But again, I feel like my daughter was engaged in persisting or witnessed hard work to bring something to life. We aren’t sure these hankies will last the wash with boogers, but we can re-dye them in the future if need be. 

Do you still use hankies or are you a tissue person? 

TENDING THE GARDEN OF THE HEART

Tending to the garden at home lately has been daily watering our seedlings, weekly toppling up plant cuttings, as well as giving some more sunshine and hydration to our indoor plant babies. We harvested seeds from our old beans, we collected casurina needles for our green shelter, we picked up fallen bougainvillea. It is a rhythm I am so grateful to have a space where we can give. Give the care they need. And where they don’t survive or thrive, we can attune to looking at their needs. 

I attune to my own needs, and this week I needed Zen Thai Shiatsu. I needed to receive bodywork where I could have 90 minutes to myself. I needed presence to breathe, like a plant. I needed deep rest where I wasn’t being pulled at, but I was cradled in the earth, like a plant. I needed to stretch so I could see the light, like a plant. And after, I felt connected to the vessel that I am inhabiting. 

I felt less fire overwhelming my head, and more space flushing in my body. The stressful energy that has been tugging at me shifted with a simple giggle. This week I discovered compassion because there was a grounding rightness that I had chosen exactly all of this. Now I need to practice the art of boundaries, AND showing up with love for this existence. The plant realm revealing to me how we are tubes and channels for life to flow through.

How do you tend to your vessel?

With love and gratitude, 

Clio

plants 

.

a seed lay fast asleep 

buried deep  

of earth and water  

breathing shelter 

with a cloudless sky 

tainted by our roots 

woven complexity 

to shine 

committed to forgetting 

remnants persisting 

awake said the sunshine bright 

remember said the rain light 

and it arose to see 

what we chose to be  

a channel

always already here 

. . .

MINERAL REALM: laying the foundation for traditions my family can belong to

I kinda hate Christmas. Mix the memories of stressful family feelings growing up and the capitalist consumer nonsensical waste, I am the grinch. Or was. This year I am seeing the benefit of the magical with my children… and I feel it too.

So I searched for the meaningful. Whilst I’m not religious, I am spiritual. And my Steiner playgroup community reintroduced me to Advent… and it got me thinking of how I’d like to approach traditions that my family can belong to in our seasonal celebration of the beginning of summer, the end of the year, Christmas, and chanukah. 

So follow along our adventure this month, for this last week we began by celebrating the Mineral Realm. 

What do you love and dislike about your end of year celebrations? 

ALTAR 

We made a simple altar on a round plate of clay, rocks, stones, seashells and bones. We have a tendency to gather treasure from nature and it was not surprising that we had too many of these. We rolled and decorated a beeswax candle and placed it in the centre of an old clay bowl which had been fired in a ground pit, and blackened in the centre. Being on a plate, we could carry it to be the centrepiece of our low dining table, or place it on our side cabinet to clear some space. Each day we played with the altar, added bits or rearranged it. 

What do you do with all the rocks you’ve collected?

CALENDAR 

Advent doesn’t have to be about daily chocolates or gifts in anticipation. It can be about tracking and time passing us by. Many Waldorf advent traditions will do the winter spiral calendar as you move inwards for the solstice. I just wasn’t sure if it felt relevant being summer which is more of an expansive season. This week I was particularly inspired to create a circular moon calendar because I began menstrual bleeding for the first time since I was pregnant with my son. It also happened to be the phase of the moon I was born on, as well as timing up with my son's 9 month exogestation. 

So we worked clay as a mineral. First we rolled out a slab of clay, cut a rough circular shape, and smooshed dimples into it with our knuckles. We went around the edge imprinting dents with a weirdly spherical rock we found (it looks like planet earth with clouds of white floating around green grains). Inspired by a Hawaiian moon phase journal I have from the World Oli Movement — we decided on 30 moon phases. 

Then we got charcoal we had kept from a campfire and crushed it up in a mortar and pestle. My daughter loved this part. We rubbed the fine charcoal into the edges and divots of the clay. And blew away the excess with our breath. Then it was my controlly turn to carve the white phases back. 

Here the lesson is not that she gets something everyday, or that we are getting closer to the ultimate day at the end of the year. Instead each day she wakes, we ring the bells, and she moves the stone over. She enters a ritual of being a part of movement. It was for me, about being cyclical in nature. That time passes. That phases come again and we can wonder how different it is. It was for me to track the moon in connection with my cycle, our moods, environmental activity, anything. But mostly, it turned out beautiful and I like it. 

We also started drawing our weekly schedule with symbols on our chalkboard painted fridge. She moves the love heart along as the days change so she can see what’s next in our rhythm. And we get to make up symbols together that she can understand. 

How do you track time? 

PAINT 

Exploring natural pigment is a great tactile and magical experience. You can find natural colours in nature and pound them up into a finer powder. These pigments we used were gathered, crushed and gifted to us by a dear local friend. We mixed them each with sand from our local beach, and added water with pva glue as a binder. I would like to try out more natural binders but this one felt of ease in the moment. She slopped them onto small canvases and we laid them to dry into these beautiful gifts. 

We also used handmade water colour paints from Ruco Paints to decorate beautiful hemp journals from True House Collective. These are also a gift for christmas.  

I am loving that advent is providing a focused time for gift giving. She asked about Santa and I am unsure what to do yet. But what felt right in the moment as Ricky and I fumbled to try find words was… that Santa is a spirit who brings us the gift of giving. (And anyone dressed up as Santa is not the spirit but a representation of, and please don’t follow some random man dressed in red anywhere). So we spend advent, making gifts for others as well as celebrating the gifts from the mineral, plant, animal and human realms. 

What gifts could you make with the mineral realm?

LOOSE PARTS 

I wanted to include my little bub so I gathered a platter on an accessible table for him, now he’s pulling himself up. I chose large solid stones and seashells that weren’t easy to break or choke. He would visit each day and choose some to gnaw on, bang or throw. 

What other baby safe rituals could involve the mineral realm? 

PILATES 

Relevant because my body matters - we started doing 20 minute Pilates videos on YouTube at home. I have my personal qigong practice but I find that requires privacy and I just wanted to shake things up. I want to regain my strength. My daughter joins in, dances around or watches because it’s a screen and she’s glue. My son is busy exploring the room or climbing on me. But I feel so good adding this to my day. Building the foundational strength to do life. 

What moves do you add to your day? 

With love and gratitude,

Clio