Marin Tender Tracks Tues. Nov. 3, 2015 Day 15

Waning Moon
Lake Lagunitas

Today was wild and filled with fun, explorations, storytelling, group cohesion, laughter, some tears from too wild of playing, changing that sort of play and moving into more fun together. The season has now truly changed and it is very  evident.   Halloween, all it’s hoopla, time change which means change of ones rhythm of body, heart and mind and Fall finally arriving with cold nights, shorter days, cold mornings and cool, fresh air not felt in many, many months with a wind now and again to let us know that Old Man Winter truly is on his way.
With ALL of that, it is clear that the  children needed time to unwind, have time and space to unfold and find their own rhythm within the group’s rhythm. So, after circle, Michelle and I sensed that they just needed to roam.  And that is what we provided for them. She and I did have an intention to gather Madrone Berries and we were delighted that that is what brought them over an hour of complete focus as well as contentment, ease, relaxation, pleasure and connection to Nature.  Io, Xander and I went to the bathrooms while everyone else gathered there belongings to go adventuring in the direction of full Madrone trees that we saw while driving in, near the other lake before the Parking Lot.
When we were trying to find them we listened and listened to hear where they were and, we found them by doing so! We saw the color of their clothes, heard their voices and caught up. Michelle put down a cloth for the berries to fall onto after shaking the trees to get the berries down.
When the three of us got their Rhett and Io were way up in the trees getting berries, or trying to get berries down.  We wound up, for reasons I no longer recall, went up the road and found a work yard or something like that. There was a HUGE pile of wood and such and then there were LOT’S of Culverts all ligned up together. Some had wood stored in them to keep them dry it seemed during the rain. The children LOVED!!!!!!!!!!!! playing in these and kept going in and out and in out of the many different sizes of these fun things.  Xander and Alara were concerned about workers coming and maybe we would get in trouble. But we did not!!!!  We just had fun and then went back down to eat lunch. We set up a beautiful place with our table cloth decorated with Madrone berries for the center piece while we ate all around it.   After lunch Rhett, Alara, Aaron, and Talay went to a grove of Madrones and spent the next hour IMMERSED in Harvesting Madrone berries. Velia kept Ariel company while Michelle walked them back to the porta potties.  Io and Layton had a GRAND time being cats and such up in the tree limbs and Xander helped me sort the Madrone Berries. Actually he just really loved feeling the berries through his fingers so he kept his hands in the bag and enjoyed the sensations of them most of the time.
When Michelle came back they had a present!  They found on the dumpster a wooden game called, oh dear I can’t remember, but they all knew what it was. There were wooden blocks that you stack and then try to pull one piece out at a time with the stack collapsing.  Michelle had about 5 of them all  playing this game together.
While they did that I moved my self closer to the other group to hear what they were talking about. Such sweet play and they were truly having so very much fun gathering, gathering, gathering and helping one another do so. At the end of the day we discovered that they had gathered a lot IN THEIR BACKPACKS!!! 🙂
A bit after lunch time Ariel was filled with EXUBERANCE as she shared her experiences of a variety of movies. Some of the kids joined her with their recollection of the movies and great laughes were to be had with her grand animation of the tales.  Michelle did brilliant “Aikido moves” taking these stories and weaving them into the natural world that was all around us.  Everyone was just alive, happy and relaxed into the gifts of life.