Marin Tender Tracks Day 4 Nov. 29, 2011

Waxing First Quarter Moon
Lake Lagunitas

Leo and Sidona were not with us today.  Bodi came with joyful spirits, Lenny happy that he had his backpack, Simone smiling and thinking it was funny that she wore her coat almost the whole day and Benny pretty peaceful.   I was excited to get them to the Lakes spot so that they could have time to unwind, settle, hear the story of the day that would lead them into getting little apple seeds to take home to  plant and then make “birds nests” out of halved apples, with bird seed in them to hang on trees.

When we got out of the bus Simone and Lenny were having fun “sword fighting” with sticks.  There was great discussion about how to play with sticks, still have fun and still keep hurt free. But alas, Benny stepped too close and got hit and then got quite angry.  His anger subsided fairly quickly and then there was the topic of “How do we stay safe and play in this way and do you want to keep playing this way?”  They all still wanted the freedom to play with their sticks and they also wanted to stay free of hurts so, the journey continued.

They were delighted when we found the waters really flowing into the pond straight ahead and played a bit there.  There were so many places that at least half would have stayed here or there but, I was on a mission, so to speak, so I encouraged them to move on.  As we went up the trail next to the big, mmm, what do you call it, the water trough?  there were boards that are fun to edge along on that hold this trough up.  Benny made it all the way across it even though it was quite high for a bit.  Lenny started but got a bit scared to go further so we figured out a way that he could get down with as little of my help and as much of his ability and ingenuity as possible. Well, I didn’t verbalize it  that way to him!  He made it down but then Simone let me know that Benny had smooshed a Banana Slug.  Oh dear….. I shared the work of the Banana Slug people, eating poop and helping rotting things go back into the Earth.  I certainly know that I don’t want the Banana Slugs job and wondered if Benny did.  He, as you can imagine, did not want to eat those sorts of things so, we decided that maybe keeping the Slug people free of death today might help the Earth a bit and free us up from needing to eat poop and rotting things!!!!.  ( I hope you are laughing here)  We gave some nice words to the dead Banana Slug, put it on the side of the trail and went on.  Running and exploring they did with glee. The warm yet also cool Autumn breezes were playing and pulling us all along in such a fun and joyful manner.  After a variety of explorative stops we made it to the place I wished them to be.  It did not take long however though for Bodhi to get a very unpleasant bonk on the cheek.  Benny and Lenny were on top of a big stump and dropped a small log through a little hole.  Bodhi was at the bottom of that.  Whether it was on purpose is a bit unknown.  Lenny aluded to the fact that he did it on purpose and then he said that Benny told him to do it.  So, I really don’t know if those were words because he didn’t want to get in trouble from the mistake or they really did do it on purpose.  What was true was that it really hurt not only Bodhi’s body but he was quiet surprised and maybe a heart ache too besides his cheek not looking quite as easeful as before.   We had more gentle words about how we all wished to play together and get along and after that there were no more hurts to or from any one.
They then got their food out, and story came.  Then there was the excitement of finding the seeds, eating some of the apples, making our nests, and finding places to put them for the birds.  That was quite a journey for all of them fore, where will the birds go to eat these treats?  We will come back next week to see what happened to the gifts.

There was talk of Star wars and the like between Benny and Lenny so it seemed just the right time to tell a story about a Great Hunter who followed the ways of Nunam Shua, the spirit and Guardian of animals and the Earth.  The hunter took tender care of how he walked and how he took the life of the Caribou to give to his people.   He was rewarded for this by Nunam Shua who was watching him unawares and he and his village never lacked for food again.    I then got into making them Bows and Arrows and found their own sticks for bows and I made them.  Each one really liked this and truly practiced the challenging task of putting that stick/arrow in the right place to make it fly.  This is truly about small motor skills leading into large motor, eye hand coordination and the like.   They played with these all the way back to the bus.

Today had a good amount of conflict resolution type talk, walking in kind ways one to the other and respecting all of the life.