Palo Alto Tender Tracks Day 10, Oct. 13, 2011

Day after New Moon
Foothill Park-The Island

All were here, the Sun was very bright, shinning and hot.  They were all filled with great exuberance, joy, lot’s to say and share and came to a place of hussssshhhhh, and a wwwwhiiiiiiissssssppperrrrr and ears s t i l l and w a i ting…………..when the story began.
There they became fixed and present while listening to the story of the little turtle who was scared and found a way to be brave and bold all the while, unbeknownst to him, he discovered how to dye his new little blanket with the gifts of plants.

After circle there was the usual play and then off to our adventure of gathering our own plants to make dyes for ourselves.  Going to the Island is, as always, magickal and filled with such fun adventures.  The first thing we see were these magnificent mushrooms gracing the lawn. Some big, some small, some felt like silk, some bumpy, all magnificent as they pushed their way up from the depths of dear Mother Earth.  The smells of them were strong and the textures underneath varied with the type of gills they had.

As we walked there was the exploration of taking the high road or the low road and being delighted that these two paths converged.  Audrey spied a rabbit and with sign language told us all about it so that maybe, if we were quiet, we could see one too. But alas, quietness was not where todays energy wanted to go so, no rabbit seeing for most of us but a lot of Coot water birds, memories of places we have played at before and just plain running all around was what was to be taken in.

At the Island all  scattered to their favored places.  The only ones who had never been here before were Laurie, Audrey and Grace. Kashi said he had and he acted like he had been here before because he took off and went straight to the big rock right next to the pond underneath the Willow tree.   There were great games of Hide and Go Seek.  Lucy took Laurie on a great adventure with that and Laurie thought Lucy was quite skilled with here Hiding and Seeking abilities!  Audrey became a Blue Bird that we just could not find!  But we finally did and what a laugh we had.    Anjalie and Grace helped me the most with gathering the sage brush and Audrey and some other children helped her gather the Toyon Branches.  We should have enough for a decent dye bath.

I want to share the picture I have a Giulio from the day: BIG SMILES and running joyfully around, all day.
Kashi: my favorite line from him today was, “Kashi’s container fell in the water, to the bottom. Jaspers is right underneath there though. See?”
I am not able to give you his voice inflections and innocence in the sharing but there it is.  Well, we will need to figure out how to either keep their containers close by or, in truth, eat on the land part not so close to the waters edge next time.  Sigh of sadness here.
Jasper was enjoying his own explorations as he continues to work with his personal impulses that sometimes collide with his own gentle and loving heart for others.  These are the things four year olds are grappling with and he is valiant with it at the moment .
Grace, Lucy and Anjalie: They all played together today and this was very fun to see.  They had an ease about them all as they made up games with the on going intention and desire to include everyone.  This didn’t often happen because, in typical four year old style, they create the game, the intention is made, and then another game comes along. Or really, it most often with this age group seems to be more about the creating and saying what you are going to do rather then actually doing it!
Bodi and Aleki “ran with the pack” playing all the games mentioned and the image of the day left in my minds eye is of their large smiles and laughs.

But oh yes, I did  not mention, today we needed to hammer the Oak Galls that we gathered on Tuesday.  They all gathered in a circle in the middle of the Island, took the pronged end of the hammer to break open the galls and hammered away.  Jasper had the most fun with this.   After a while they were all done having their hand at either breaking up the Galls or trying to accept Jasper kept at it for a long time.  Then came rousing running games and then Bodi and Jasper stopped to pound more but, oh no, Bodi hit his finger and what a bit of pain that was.  There was tending to that with an ice pack that he was less thrilled with and a bandaid, which was most wanted and the holding the hand up in the air just to make sure it felt as good as it could.  Then Jasper had to poop and Bodi really wanted to come along and watch.  Jasper had no problem with that.  When we got back from that, Anjalie said she had to poop and Bodi wanted to come for that too and she had no problem either!  So, Bodi got well, and, the Earth received some nice gifts.

In the middle of our day, I heard Lucy shout , with an ease in her voice, “Wendolyn, I fell in the water.”  Well, I ran as fast as the Lizards run when trying to get away from something, to Lucy. There she was, holding on to the rock, half in and half out of the water and saying things like, “That was fun. I am all cooled off now.”  She, Kashi, Jasper, Giulio and Bodi were trying to catch the little fish in the water.  They all wanted to jump in like Lucy but in truth, we are not to swim in the water. Oh well.  She showed no signs of distress but rather joy over the whole matter and continued to play with ease.

As we were walking back I saw a big bull frog jump into the water so we looked and looked to see if we could see him but, noooo, he was hiding from our eyes.

In the bus on the way home Kashi and Jasper were struggling over some imaginary artifact in the shape of a Cattail leaf.  I stopped the bus a couple of times to bring some unity and finally brought out the Golden Guide books for Jasper, but all the children wanted a book and they spent the rest of the ride home sharing all the wonders they were finding in these treasure full books.