Sunday, December 23, 2012

A token of the Victory of the Sun

Caring for our Advent gardens, now adorned with our handmade candles and ready to be taken home!


It is quite true that Christmas falls when it is still Winter, but nature is already heralding a victory which can be a token of hope in anticipation of the victory that will come in Spring- a token of confidence, of hope, of faith...to use words which are connected in nearly every language with Christmas. There is confidence that the sun, again in the ascendant, will be victorious over the opposing powers of nature...
~Rudolph Steiner, lecture: The Christmas Festival: A token of the victory of the Sun.
(full text found here--and it is an incredible and worthy read.)


bowls set up for setting the table..

 Making our own grated cinnamon! I think I recall finding this little grater at the dollar store! It is well loved here:)




Clove oranges, one of my favorite Christmas crafts. Poking holes with a fork prior to inserting the cloves is helpful in guiding little hands...


One of my gifts to each playgarden child..



Little balls of rainbow yarn..


 
Some reflections on doll play by waldorf teacher, Christine Natale:

"A young child playing with a doll, investing it through their imagination with life, with needs, with wants, with the need for the child's love is the first and primary exercise of the child's soul capacity for empathy. Playing with a doll and imagining that it needs care, feeding, "changing", rocking to sleep, to be taken for a "walk", dressed, bathed and to be spoken to and sung to is the essential way for the child to practice loving in a safe way. By safe, I mean that because the doll only gives the child "feedback" that is in the child's own total control, the child does not have to cope with or deal with any negative reaction from the doll unless he or she creates such a reaction in his or her own imagination. This is possible, and a way for the child to process the experience he or she may have had with his own reactions to his or her parents or other people or other adults' and children's reaction to him or her. But this whole process is still safely in the child's own emotional control.

By practicing on a doll or stuffed animal or any other "inanimate" object, the young child becomes more and more ready to invest the power of their own imagination onto living people and animals. The child grows more and more aware that babies, other children, animals and even grown ups have the same needs, wants and feelings as they themselves do. This is empathy. This is the ability to project oneself into the life of an "other." This is the prime foundation for healthy relationships of any kind. This is the emotional shift from "I need", "I want" to "you need", "you want." Without this shift, no amount of "moral" education will ever be possible.

There is a popular meme circulating around. I believe it features a bust of Socrates and goes something like, "For a healthy person, no laws are necessary - for an unhealthy person, no laws are effective."

This kind of imaginative play - imagining LOVE (and need we say it? NOT imagining violence) is a non-gender-based necessity and its acceptance is a wonderful sign that we are finally emerging from the military/ industrial complex paradigm of the 20th century.

Blessings on all parents who recognize this and not only "allow" it but support it whole heartedly. And God Bless the Mothers and Fathers of our world to be!
"




Wishing you and your family a most blessed Christmas Season....
May it be filled with magic and light!

 





4 comments:

  1. Many blessings for the season to you and yours. :)

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  2. I'm a little late, but I hope you had a beautiful Christmas and wish you a brilliant New Year. Your advent calenders are such a lovely idea and your clove oranges bring back such sweet memories. Thank you for posting the words of Christine Natale about dolls. I will be copying that and sending it to my in laws who think me strange for wanting to give a doll to our child if he is a boy (not everyone knows yet so the gender is still secret, but soon I hope to make a post). Take care and have a blessed day.

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  3. I hope that your Christmas was wonderful. Happy New Year, friend! I hope your 2013 is filled with many good things.

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