Tender Tracks Thursday Day 6

September 28, 2017
Waxing Moon
Lake Lagunitas

The Sun was up, happy faces arrived and the 6th adventure began together.  The routine and rhythm of the days are settling in.  Austen is just a happy guy playing with all. Devin is finding his way with welcoming these children in as viable friends to play with. He misses his one “best” friend from his other school. And Puma, Avaline and Vita are getting used some changes and friends and teachers from last year but the rhythm, that is very familiar to them.

We are focusing a lot on creating unity one with the other in this group and today, it was grand to observe this taking place with gentle grace.  For Devin the full connections started to happen halfway through the day. For the others, they are learning more and more about each other.  It is nice to see Puma and Avaline have a far greater and more involved friendship together than last year. Vita, who played with Devin’s best friend Jasper last year a great deal of her days, has just jumped in and is playing with everyone with such ease and Puma, he is walking into having these other two new friends and playing much more this year with Vita and Avaline.

After Circle Austen and Vita needed to go to the bathroom. Ruby took them and I stayed with the other three. Another older class was there and they were doing their race to fill garbage cans with water to learn about how much water is used just in one short shower.  We all got in our spots from prior days and watched with enthusiasm.  Then the others came back and we were ready for our walkabout adventure.

I really thought, again, that it would be grand to make it to the place that we all went on the first day but, that was truly not the way the “nature” of the group wanted and needed to go.  Ruby and I saw that THIS was how the group was finding their unity.  Simply flowing with great ease and a gentle pace, being with everything that arose throughout the day.  Right as we were about to go up the stairs next to the water flow Avaline found a really nice water net.  I suggested that they go ask the people from the big kids class if it was theirs and, IT WAS NOT! So this fun new toy became ours for the day.  And for the rest of the day taking turns and playing with it was one of the great unifying pieces that we had.

When we got to the platform we did what we have been doing every time, looking over the edge and seeing if there are any crawdads, frogs, turtles, and fish down there.  And, there were lots of frogs.  It didn’t take long for the children to go down there and check it out.

In between eating, the rest of the day was FILLED with finding so many animal and plant treasures down there and trying to catch the frogs with the net.  What absolute joy and fun they had doing this!!!!  They also found so many crawdad skeletons and put those in special piles.  We also played Mother May I and Red Light Greenlight.  Towards the end of our time there we all wound up in this small little spot where there were lots of frogs.  We each tried our own special style of catching these friends. However, we discovered that the net did not have a top. The wise frogs would get caught in the net but, when the net got pulled up, these wise little friends POPPED out and back into the pond they went.  🙂

Being all together in the many ways that they were was warming and the children had smiles upon their faces throughout the day.

Just plain beauty.