Mama Rising

All I can do, is write from my heart today. After a mostly joyous, sometimes tempestuous, and nearly constantly exhausting eight weeks of school holidays, today my children returned to school. The oldest is now in Class 5, the second is starting Class One- a significant milestone in the Steiner Education approach and the third joins his brother and sister at the same campus for the first time, in the second year of kindergarten the school offers (the littlest is still tucked firmly under my wing at home). Ready for the new year of school There are days when time loses it's regular pacing and quickens against the social fabric of our family life. Today was one such day. Time is never a constant- in fact, it is a construct, and far less linear than we currently believe. The summer was full of the sweet humming notes  of slow mornings, swims in the river, sweaty days in which we could do nothing but lay around, stories, tree climbing, trampolining and gardening. This ...

Stars are a beautiful symbol, aren't they? There is magic in sitting out on the earth (especially with a child), staring up at the night sky. I experience an expansiveness that transcends my human-ness when I spend time with the stars. They capture the imagination of my little ones equally, and are often one of the first things my children learn to draw. This simple project will capture your imagination too, and is equally useful for decorating at Christmas time, Winter or Summer Solstice, or anytime you need a little more starlight in your life really! I've stumbled upon something this year. We haven't got around to "preparing" for Christmas until the day before Christmas Eve. We had some half-hearted attempts at our usual advent calendar and the Waldorf/Steiner four Sundays of Advent tradition, which were quickly scuttled by our cats (for the physical centrepieces and candles and such) and by our busyness and overwhelm. So we surrendered, a...