Palo Alto Tender Tracks Day 13, Oct. 25, 2011

Day before New Moon
Hidden Villa

Bodi was sick today and, tomorrow is Giulio’s Birthday so we celebrated today. He and his Mom came with wonderful snacks that the children ate up. But, before that, Aleki and Lucy arrived first, then Jasper, then Grace, then Kashi, and then Giulio came racing in with his scooter.  We all played for awhile and they seemed to want to go to circle so there we went.

Aleki wanted to show us all his beautiful new backpack that was an airplane but Audrey thought that maybe it looked like an Alien Dog’s face and Kashi thought it looked like a butterfly.  Aleki passed it around so everyone could see it and right then Anjalie came in.  He really wanted to share it with her too and she looked at it as well.  He was quite happy with this back pack and it helped settle him by showing it to everyone.  There were more sharings from others and then we all finally settled into the circle and began singing all of our songs which led us into, the special celebration of the morning: Giulio’s BIRTHDAY!  There was a story just for Giulio with candles and gifts and songs and then his delicious birthday snack.  They all appreciated and enjoyed this very much and then, off to play until it was time to go on our adventure to Hidden Villa.

I wish to say that during circle they were all so generous and present.  I gave Jasper a job and Anjalie pointed out that he seems to get to do them a lot. I asked if she would like to take the Thank you Plate to the trees and she said yes.  When I asked Jasper if he minded if she would do this instead of him, he, with great ease, said  “Sure” and went to sit down to let her take over. Just beautiful.

Todays “mission” was to gather material to add to the cape costumes for Thursday.  At Hidden Villa near the Big Rock,past the garden, past the sheep, past the cows, past the pigs and the chickens, past the horses and goats, down the beautiful trail, along the waters edge, over the bridge and to the left.  And so this was explained to the children that we would need to do all of the above in order to get where we needed to go today.  This is no easy request since once we get there all those places and animals are a great draw!  Yet, They did it!  We did look a  bit at the  wonderful young cow and sheep that were right along the way and we gathered leaves as we went and then, they found the water and the bridge and there we stayed eating lunch and exploring.

Kashi and Jasper went under the bridge and ate and played amongst themselves for quite sometime.  There were a lot of other school children coming and going and Kashi, in particular, was really mesmerized by them all.

Early on Grace sat down by herself with her lunch. The rest of us were all sitting together and I asked her if she wanted to sit there all alone and invited her over.  She was quite happy about that and gladly came to the group where we sat and ate.  However, Lucy, Alexi and Giulio discovered  a flat board back along the trail and were running to see it and then wanted to drag it over to where we were.  All the while I was making Forest crowns for them.

Audrey had gone to the bathroom and then Lucy said she had to go poop so, she took a buddy, Anjalie and, with great directions and an agreement to follow them and come right back, they went to the porta potty where Audrey was.

It wasn’t too long after that when they all came back and, after many, many, many other children left the Big Rock, we went over there.  Audrey, Kashi, and Gracey had not been there before and it turns out none of them had ever gone all the way up to the top where the “Storytelling Tree” is.  That is where we spent the rest of the day playing many games.

Kashi had a wonderful airplane that was going to Hawaii and Austrailia.  When the children would just come on it after it had “taken off” Kashi kept letting them know that they could not do that because it was in the air!  Well, magickal powers became evident within those that could jump upon it while in the air but Kashi was still not quite sure about all of this within his own world/game.

The children were helping gathering Ferns and giving thanks as they picked them as well as many other leaves and lichen as I continued to make the crowns for our special day on Thursday.

Gracey at first was a bit timid in getting up the Big Rock but it wasn’t long before she was climbing right up and ended the day with a beautiful brown bottom from slidding down the parts that were so fun to do so.

Jasper was indeed a “changed man” today with a GREAT deal of kindness, patience and help towards others. However Alexi was, for some reason, not happy with Jasper and unwilling to let him know what that was about.

Gracey seemed a bit within today and Kashi seemed a bit “spacey.”  Giulio was playing and running all around but still didn’t quite get why we didn’t go see all the animals and really wanted to see the chickens.  Anajalie was filled with big sounds and much to say today and Lucy was following the pack. And even though there was some airy, scattered energies it also at the same time, was easeful with peacefulness around the edges and flowing  rivulets showing up many different times throughout the day.

I was amazed at how well they have taken on a game I shared with them once on how to modulate their volume in the bus. Now, if one of them gets a little too loud they do this: they put their hand over their voice box and say AHHHH in a gentle tone.  Several times while we were driving they all, in harmony were making this beautiful toning.