You Know The Ancient Rhyme

You already know about
Jazz going with winter
The steam of an eerie night
The liquid tail of an eel

You have probably heard
The one about the little kitty
Who catches the mousey
Only to lose it again

A free life means
Free on the inside
Free to change willingly
Into anything instantly

You know the poetry
Of pure purposeless play
And so know that this poem
Belongs in the compost

You know the ancient rhyme
For 'twas you who first wrote it
With the ink of octopus on the back
Of a giant sea turtle.

Snap Painting

It's all over the preschool teacher blogosphere. Small medium and large size snap painting. I knew we would do it, was just waiting for the right moment, and the right materials.

Finally a pair of perfect sized baking pans arrive on the scene. Deep enough to contain some of the mess and the perfect width to fit the rubber bands I had on hand. The children played them like delicate instruments, looking positively serious in safety goggles and smocks. Snapping away as colors splattered the page in intricate design. Some not content with just snapping moved the bands to make way for fingerpainting, then snapped some more over the swirly mess.

I'm pretty sure we'll be snapping again this school year.

Slime

Give a child some homemade slime and some time and they may make something remarkable like this.

Stir Some Slime

~

Taken Apart Tape Machine

This is the sort of little surprise a teacher loves to find...

Cassettes!

Mom and Dad dumped a paper bag full of fifty or so old cassette tapes on me that they no longer wanted stored in their garage. Four track recordings made in high school that cause one to cringe. Tapes by some boring band from somewhere that will never be listened to. Broken tapes. Mc Hammer tapes. Whatever.

Took them to school and made them part of the curriculum. We pulled as much tape out of about 20 of them as we could in a few hours. Cut it up with scissors. Wound it around cardboard cones. Ripped it up. Listening to tapes while we did it. Music from Cambodia and Peru. Making tape wigs to wear on our heads. Paint gluing the clear cases. Busting open a broken tape machine. Pulling out some speakers, then a motor. Covering the insides with glitter glue and bits of colored somethings.

In a way it was selfish of me, sacrificing a part of my past like that in some strange ritual. Those old embarrassing recordings, now just a prop in the play of a child, never to be listened to again.

It's Nothing

•

Oktober

Cardinal at the window feeder
Two days of steady rain
Moving the plants that can't
Handle the frost indoors

Seeing you in a half dream
Wearing a made up face
With music behind you
From the island of Crete

You are always bearing living gifts
That the people turn down
They would rather drape themselves
In the corpse flesh of culture

You with your star eyes focused
Can achieve the inconceivable
Like lifting hot heavy stones
With the wind of your breath

You are a living verb while
They are noun-things in a herd
You are slow to come and
Slow to go while they hurry hurry

This evening cold and damp
Daring you to come out
Rain keeps quitting then starting
Again while cardinal feeds un-phased.

My New Teaching Strategy

If I find myself automatically rejecting a child's way of using certain materials because it doesn't fit with my agenda for the day, then I make myself figure out a way to turn whatever the child was doing into one of tomorrow's activities.

Markings

A relic unclaimed, no name

Left on the art table today

Blob of white glue and something

Looking like the iris of an eye

Black marker scratchings, cut up

Orange paper pieces placed but not

Pasted on the red rectangular page

The remains of a free form session

With scissors and creation like

The shed skin of a snake or

Wind markings in sand dunes.

The Insidious

A melting night so pleasant
A smell linked to the past
A walk to supermarket
Through thick din of cicada
Caressed by gentle sneezing
Of the occasional breeze
Walk Past sick men and women
Gazing in far out ways.

Lionhearted Marvel

Born wild, made tame
Joined a disk race of lame ladies
And gentlemen.

Bought. It.

Must find the way back
Through an otherworldly art
Form without norm.

This could be the last secret
Revealed unto you.

This could be the last forest
You will walk through, merrily.

Make. It.

Make it yours and give it away.
Dance more and slump less
Sit on a stump and grunt some, Son.

The Sun as a lion now
The Moon a lioness.

The sunflower bloom proud and bold--
The exquisite fucking clouds.

Oh lionhearted marvel of the flowering plants.

"My Mind Is Not Loose Enough For Ms. Pacman"

Last night I played my best game of Ms. Pacman ever, on the 1980 machine at the Video Saloon (a local bar). I advanced to the third pink level after the stork brought a second baby. Tracey Trance was witness to this epic performance, and we were both shocked to find that eating the "energy dots" no longer had any effect on the ghosts in this new and strange pink world of the Ms. Pacman universe, a world we could only guess about before last night.

After that game I asked myself, "why do I love playing this silly video game so much?"

Today I can think of 2 reasons:

1)The Practical reason -- I realized that playing the game actually provides training for my job. During last night's game Tracey Trance kept saying things to me like "you gotta maintain field vision" and "know where every ghost is at all times." The children in kindergarten are like the ghosts in the game, running wild and loose through the labyrinth of their imagination or all around the playground. My role is to remain aware of each one, know where they are, maintain field vision, and not get in their way. The Ms. Pacman game trains me in this way.

2)The Mythological reason -- The backstory tells the universal tale, and from a woman's perspective: Woman runs from ghosts seeking fruit and "dots" for nourishment, meets a suitable male and falls in love, then gives birth by way of a stork. She is Isis falling for Osiris and giving birth to Horus.

And why oh why is it called "Ms. PacMAN" and not just "PacWOMAN?" We will have to consult Hanz Bronze for the answer to that question, methinks.

Building A Box Maze

We built a box maze last week with about a dozen giant boxes that were in the school's recycling. We covered it with paint, chalk, tape, fabric, and reflective mylar paper.

It was used as a dog house, a spaceship, and a dog spaceship.

One of the children said today, "I wish we could build a box maze everyday."

I do to -- but they just take up so much space. We will do it again sometime though. There are always big boxes lying around.

Fairy Garden

Reading some other great teacher blogs turned me on to the concept of the "Fairy Garden." We worked on ours today, using a rickety old wooden chest I found laying around the school garden. I planted some thyme and we added various stones, wooden craft rounds, fake ferns and flowers, soil and sand. Some of the children started making little tipis and fairy homes as well.

Tomorrow we'll add some acorn jewels and write a "message" for the fairies and see if they respond...

If Porcupines Grew Poppies...

Ode To Winslow Woods

You are a miracle oh Forest
Left alone to die and grow
For many years in the neighborhood
They call "Little Appalachia"

Towering Tulip Poplars
Old Oaks standing over
Sinkholes and patches of Paw Paw
Mature enough to fruit

Huge vines climbing over everything
Some half dead half alive
Beech trees carved with the initials
Of young kids wild and in love

A home to Pileated Woodpecker

A place to walk the dog

A family of deer passing through

Children learn to build a shelter
Learn the names of trees
Mushrooms and wildflowers
While playing at "Wonderspot"

Families grill out on the edge
Celebrating birthdays and they are
Aware of you and your mystery
Even if they never enter

You are an unlikely gift oh Forest
In these foul times of waste and
Nature hating - you and your 30 acres
Are the heart of our community.

Paint It Red

Elijah's dad drove away in his jeep, leaving Grandma to watch him for the afternoon. It was a gorgeous day. Elijah played quietly in his sandbox, very focused on measuring precise amounts of sand after putting it through a sifter. Grandma sat close by in a lawn chair, pestering him with questions, testing him on his numbers and colors, repeatedly interrupting the flow of his play.

-- Do you like being four? she asked.

No response.

--Do you like being four years old?

--No! Elijah shot back assertively.

--No? Why don't you like being four?

(He walks away towards the driveway)

-- I don't like being four. I'm gonna take your car away, he said.

--You're gonna take my car away? But you're not old enough to drive, protested Grandma in the whiniest voice.

--I'm gonna drive it. And I'm gonna make it black.

--How you gonna do that Elijah? Paint it?

--I'm gonna paint it. Paint it Red.

(He starts to walk away again)

-- Where are you going? Come here Elijah. Look at these berries I have. Now are they blueberries or raspberries?

(He ignores her, keeps walking)

-- I'm tired of you, said Elijah with much sincerity.

-- You're tired of me? Well that's too bad, your stuck with me. I'm watching you. You don't have a choice, said Grandma, obviously taking his comment very personally. Then she shuffled him inside as the sun shot spears of glorious light all over the backyard.

You need to learn to be patient, Chris

Several weeks ago a child in one of the preschool rooms who loves the Beach Boys asked if I could play Surfin' USA during our music session. So I learned the song and we turned it into a fun dramatic play game with everyone pretending to balance on a surfboard, wipe out when a big wave hit, and paddle out on our tummies like real surfers do.

Of course the kindergarteners took this activity to another level when I presented it to their class. They used the large unit blocks as surf boards and acted out more complex scenarios in between my renditions of the song. Then about half the class really wanted to take the game outside, which we did.

We had even better blocks on the playground to use as surf boards and it just made more sense to "surf" outside, even though we are many miles from the ocean here in the landlocked Hoosier state.

They really wanted me to surf too so I joined them while the other half of the class played a baseball game. It took a long time for the "surfing" to get going though, as the children decided they needed to wet down their boards with their water bottles. "Alright, let's get surfing" I said. "Wait!" someone shouted, "we have to take our shoes off. Surfers don't wear shoes." Right. So we took our shoes off. " Now we're ready to go," I said. "Wait! Our boards are dry again (it was a hot day). We need to wet them down more," another child shouted.

This went on for quite some time, with me trying to get the game going and them continuing to make more preparations. I was getting noticeably impatient, especially as I began to hear arguments starting up in the baseball game on the other side of the playground. "We need to get surfing now," I said with a more firm, teacher voice. Then one of the surfer girls
said, "you need to learn to be patient, Chris."

She was absolutely right. Patience might just be the most important virtue for a teacher of young children to cultivate. I realized that all of the setting up for the surfing game was an important game as well, perhaps more important than the actual surfing. And I suppose if any of the children find themselves really surfing in the future, patience will be very important.

Bay Area Landing: Cheema

Flew right into three friends and
A San Francisco dance party.

Strolled around Jack London Square
Found a statue of the spirit-fire.

Biked up the San Leandro hills
To a friendly horse farm.

Hiked through wildflower chaparral
And wet eucalyptus groves.

Acorn Jewels

Found hundreds of acorn tops from a single tree in downtown Bloomington. The kids colored the insides thoroughly with markers, then filled them with Elmer's school glue and a pinch of glitter. They must be propped up somehow to dry so the glue doesn't spill. We used a base of "floam."

When they dry (takes about 24 hours) the color from the marker magically shines through the hardened glue and they look like jewels. They can be used for treasure hunt games, memory matching games, etc.

Love Affair With Bloomington

A love affair with Bloomington
Still as passionate as ever--

The people, the plants
Wild animals and ants
Nice neighborhood cats
Hidden library bats
Alleys secret and dark
Quiet spots in the park
Bright ideas abound
Simple pleasures are found

Like to kiss the sweet hills
With the hit of your heels
And to seek unique thrills
Riding swift on two wheels
Like to flirt with the dirt
Till your feelings are hurt
More a lifestyle than a town
To be lost and then found

Still as hot and heavy as ever
Love affair with Bloomington.

Stella and the Stone

Stella sent a semiautonomous servitor
With the form of a half frog half weasel
To locate the stone of living death
So that she might make use of it, for
Wouldn't you?
Wouldn't you wish for The Power of powers?
Blindly build a naked tower only to see it
Blasted into sweet wet oblivion?
She survived and thrived on attaining such power.

She demanded the secret knowledge
Commanding her beastly creation in an
Unrecognizable tongue to retrieve it and
Was most displeased when she received a vision
Of a humble tree in a forgotten forest
Surrounded by a humble fungus
More than half of the trunk rotted out
Neither dead nor alive nor neither nor both
But this was the secret, the stone
As shown to her by the frog-weasel.

She found her way to the tree to see
Three tree fairies relaxing on its limbs.
Each one offered to grant her a wish.
She wished first for a fabulous palace
Made of broken mirrors and mouse hair
Then she wished to be Queen of Earth.
Both of these wishes were granted but
Her third wish was not which was to be
Supreme Ruler of All and she was then
Asked to leave by the fairies who were
Annoyed at her arrogance.

My Brain Looked Like This at the Time of Drawing

The Watchtower

The Jehovah's Witness man in the tan suit with thin moustache showed up at my door again. He seems to come about once a month these days. He no longer has the young boy with him, whom he calls "Mr. Jackson," which is good because that always made the exchanges slightly uncomfortable, as the boy would remain silent during my conversations with the old man.

My windows and front door were open to let the warm air of early March in, as an eccentric incense burned in the kitchen and Peruvian mountain music played on the stereo. I heard him calling over the music in his gruff voice "hello!?!" I did not want to deal with him so I hid in the shower for a few minutes. He did not leave so I decided to show myself and at least take his magazines (which I often cut up for collages and other more sinister purposes) and bid him good day.

His literature and his rap mostly dealt with what God's Kingdom would be like -- see picture above -- and he assured me said kingdom was coming quite soon. I remain perplexed as to why pictures of God's Kingdom always feature children riding on elephants and women carrying baskets of bountiful produce amongst flowing fountains. The magazine reports that the kingdom will be "firmly established" by the ruling megalomaniac male deity and "it will never be overthrown."

I told him that God's Kingdom sounded pretty lame and male dominated to me. I then told him that I could show him the Goddess Kingdom (Queendom?) which is already here, if he would but follow me a few miles outside of town, deep into the secret wild spaces within the forest. He laughed nervously and handed me another pamphlet, this one titled "How to Protect Your Children From the Occult."

Busted

Governor Daniels going to cut down
Mighty trees of the backcountry
Our forests of Monroe county
Has he ever even hiked them?
Taken the time to look at what lives?
To listen to their message?

We read recently that he was
Busted for possession of Cannabis
Hashish and LSD while living
In the dorms of Princeton, 1970
So surely he must be aware
Of the wild, unspeakable worlds
That thrive beyond normal perception
He must have a memory, at least
An inkling of what it felt like
To be sensitive and open enough
To receive Nature's endless gifts.

VINE Portal

An old fashioned walk
Through the wilds
Of Bloomington where
Purple brambles and
Power line love birds
Intermingle freely.

Tree Burls V

Derma Dream

Removed one face upon
Finding out it was fake, only to reveal
Another artificial face.
A farce of a face!
A ludicrous, empty show
So easily peeled off
One face after another
Layer upon layer
And it never ends--

Photo by Vincent L.
Facepeeling by Tia T.

Tree Burls IV

Tree Burls III

Tree Burls II

Tree Burls I

Play close attention to the tension
Take time by the throat
Do the whole extra-dimensional-dance
Reestablish total control over
The telling of your story.

The ice storm rages outside. Work called off early today, Nature reminding us that our daily commitments are arbitrary and subject to her alterations.

While pondering this we received a monthly email update from one Paleo, a traveling musician whose writing we do admire and enjoy, perhaps more so than his music. He writes an email on the first of every month and he has not missed a month, not for at least the few years since we accidentally signed on to his list. Regarding this strict commitment he wrote,

"existence herself is held together by a tight weave of arbitrary commitments made by elements and atoms and forces of all kinds, to be there like they said they'd be, to do the things they promised they would when they said they'd do them. the sun does that, and so will i, til one or the other of us books it and takes the solar system with them"

Quite right on. We eagerly anticipate next month's message.

In the meantime we shall enjoy our surprise "time off" despite that we absolutely love our daily work and would be just as happy doing that today, ice storm or not...

Posted from Blogium for iPhone

Knot

Book Review: Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke

We have always been fascinated by the idea of humans learning to control fire. It must have been pure magic to our early ancestors. The smoke would have seemed like a spirit to them, released by the burning plant. Smoke had many uses for humans back then, as it still does today. This book examines the following uses in the introduction: medicinal, ceremonial, recreational, pest control, perfume, flavoring, and preservation. This introduction is somewhat brief. The remainder of the book is a list of over 1400 plant taxa with 2,383 ethnobotanical uses from 125 countries.
We were quite interested in the "macro-religious/ceremonial use" section, where the authors discuss the Delphic oracles of ancient Greece.



"Plants may have been burned in the oracles' presence to produce pnuema enthusiastikons, or hallucinogenic vapors, that helped the priestess commune with gods like Apollo . . . All of Pythia's mantic sessions were held in a special chamber in Apollo's temple while seated on a tripod that was fastened to the omphalos, or "navel" stone. Below the tripod was a small hole through which vapors arose, shrouding the diviner in a dense fog of fumes."
They also mention Indigenous Australians who use plant-derived smoke "to strengthen babies and mothers during and immediately following childbirth." They describe a bed of smoldering ash, fragrant with the smoke of various plants, which the babies were passed through in order to keep them well protected from evil spirits.
The real treasure of this book is the extremely thorough list of plants which have been used by humans at some time for their smoke. Each entry includes the species name, common name, and a brief description of how it has been used and by whom. We were surprised to see that garlic was used by people in Hungary for it's smoke, mixed with pig excrement and burned in order to calm frightened children! A quick glance through this extensive list reveals many surprises.
Uses and Abuses of Plant-Derived Smoke: Its Ethnobotany as Hallucinogen, Perfume, Incense, and Medicine. Marcello Pennacchio/ Lara Vanessa Jefferson/ Kayri Havens. Oxford University Press 2010.

network pareidoliac exercize I

What do you see?  Comments from the facebook:

"alien caveman beating his chest"
"alien fossil"
"the face of death in a mushroom cloud in a lightning storm"
"the state of Wisconsin"

Feel free to add to this list here.

Art in the Afternoons

The children are so creative right now, coming up with amazing art projects all of the time with no direction or guidance from a teacher.

One child constructed several pop- up books, folding pieces of paper with hearts, houses, and flowers cut but left attached, so that they really do pop up when you unfold them. She also wrote simple captions and stories in Japanese. She enjoys giving them as gifts and teaching others in the class how to make them.

Another child had been making a collection of gorgeous colored pencil designs which resemble fractal imagery. He works with great intensity and attention to detail. He remarked that the colorful patterns "just come into my brain." His most recent work looks quite like a classic Fibonacci spiral.

A group of children playfully took to drawing cartoons of their teacher with markers. We were depicted as a pink and green horse with explosive bowel movements, a baby with chicken pox, and a ghost wearing bright red lipstick.

Posted from Blogium for iPhone

snow crystal melting

form dissolving

unique features lost

in a homogenous wet

pool reflecting all things

while possessing none

Speak Your Mind

Hoozer

We are proud to be a "hoosier." The word most likely derives from the Anglo Saxon "hoozer" with "hoo" meaning hill or rise, and "zer" possibly referring to "shire." Thus the word hoozer seems to mean "one who lives in the hill country" or something like that. A charming idea and a charming, weird, absurd word. Too bad it was hijacked by the university sports teams. It does function beautifully as a chanted mantra at stadium events, we must admit...

Technically only the southern third of the state is hoozer country, as that is where the hills are, knobby old hoozer hills that only barely escaped the last great glaciers. We hoozers of the southern hills are outsiders -- wierdos who stay close to nature. We disdain the manners and customs of polite society and find our own way through the forests of chaos. We accept no authority and subscribe to no ideology. We are hill folk of the finest quality.

It is time to take the name Hoozer back.

Babies At The Window

Curious babies peering out the window

Hands pressed against the pane

Eyes wide open, taking in the outside

Laughing babies, crying babies

We watch them watch us, too cold

For them to play outside, but we

Sprinkle snow at the window to show

How we are feeling and sometimes

They see us sledding and snowangeling

Finding foot long icicles which

We use as our magic wands

For if magic means anything

It means this, what we are doing

The babies bouncing and drooling

About the window watching us

Play in the snow, so now they know

And when they grow they will already know

How to have fun with snow.

Rolling Logs

We created a fun new game today. For now it can be called Rolling Logs. We found a thick cardboard tube about 5 feet tall with a 3 inch diameter, the kind they ship posters in. Two players are the "rollers" and they sit on the floor about 6 feet apart. Everyone else takes turns jumping over the "log" as the rollers roll it back and forth at different speeds. When your feet touch the log, your turn is done. We mostly played one kid at a time, sometimes two. Anymore than that gets a bit too crowded. The kids did not mind waiting in line. They chanted in support of their friends while they jumped. Kids also take turns being the rollers. We played this game for over an hour. It provides great indoor exercise, excitement, and improves coordination. It is best to play on a carpet or soft floor of some kind, as the kids will sometimes fall down.

Wowking

Walking alone in a world of snow
Knowing what most do not know

A feedback of farce
The illusion of closure
Blustery bits of crystal
Striking the cheek raw

What tropical fruit 
Would you truck up here?
A poisonous fish out of water
Flapping out like a hay wire  

Walk sore and skip soaring
Past the factory parts
Farther than old men walk 
In a lifetime for money

To wipe their little dirties with
To spike their spineless romance
To fire up the lion or
Lick the latest on loan

Walking along as the white and wet 
Lays a soft blanket the world will forget.

Thawing

The Vital Role of Play in Childhood...

While we do not work in a Waldorf school (as far as we know there are none in Indiana), we do find many useful ideas in the Waldorf philosophy of early childhood education, especially the emphasis on the importance of unstructured free play for young children.  We really enjoyed the following article:

http://www.waldorfearlychildhood.org/article.asp?id=5

Today's Play

Today in the fields of play we became
Cats and dogs and daddies and babies.
I started out as the owner of the pets,
Having them fetch and feeding them
From an empty old mustard bottle
Still smelling strongly of mustard
While they barked and meowed,
Moving about on all fours.
Then one of them put on a jersey and
Became a famous basketball player baking a cake--    
A cake containing chocolate, meaning
The dogs could not eat it so we decided
To bake them their own dog cake too.

Next some of them got married and
The rest of us became cats at the wedding
Meowing the Wedding Song melody as
Brides and grooms proceeded down the aisle.
Then I became their new baby,
Crying and crawling while they
Tried to comfort and feed me as
Two terrifying dragons had shown up
Feasting on insects with tweezers,
Screeching and breathing fire
Around poor little weeping baby.

This dramatic play experience
Was totally spontaneous and improvised.

Excerpt from The Hearing Trumpet

"Men are very difficult to understand," said Carmella. "Let's hope they all freeze to death. I am sure it would be very pleasant and healthy for human beings to have no authority whatever. They would have to think for themselves, instead of always being told what to do and think by advertisements, cinemas, policemen and parliaments."

by Leonora Carrington

The Soma Solution

One of the ethnobotanical problems that has been on our mind lately is the identity of Soma.  Soma was a sacred beverage among the early Indo-Iranians.  It is mentioned a lot in the Rig Veda and seems to have been highly influential on early Hinduism.  Scholars have been debating the possible ingredients of Soma for decades.  An early ethnomycologist named R. Gordon Wasson became convinced about 45 years ago that Soma's main ingredient was Amanita Muscaria, also known as the Fly Agaric mushroom.  Now a new researcher named Chris Bennett believes that Wasson was mistaken and that the Cannabis plant was the main ingredient.  We have ordered his book, The Soma Solution, and will post a review when we finish reading it.

The Amanita Muscaria has also been getting a lot of attention lately as "the Christmas mushroom" or "the Santa Claus mushroom."  NPR even posted a story about it:  NPR Santa and Shrooms 
There is a better article on the subject here:
The Psychedelic Secrets of Santa Claus

Hermit with Bird and a Craft Round

13 Stones