windinthemaples

Sunday afternoon, we had our September SpiralScouts meeting at North Park Village Nature Center. It was a small gathering, four children under five years old, but we had such a wonderful, sweet time. Our theme for the month was Autumn Blessings, acknowledging the passing of Mabon and introducing the idea of falling leaves as bright and beautiful symbols of blessings in our lives.

We started with a game of The Spider. The children (and us parents) thundered back and forth over the grass with shrieks and giggles as one after another got caught and became part of the hand-clasped web. Once everyone had been caught, the web linked together quite naturally into our opening circle where we discussed the five elements and how they are expressed in SpiralScout activities and badge work before I broke out into a rousing rendition of Air I Am. :D

Our main activity for the day was to make gratitude mobiles. To start, each child was encouraged to think of four or five things/people/experiences/whatever that they were grateful for. Really good things. With a boatload of stencils, they cut shapes to represent each of these blessings out of cardstock. Some freehanded their designs, so by the end each of us had a small pile of colorful, inventive paper shapes--keys and hearts and leaves and stars and dogs and cats and birds and fish. On the back of each shape, they wrote what the blessing was they were grateful for. It was heartwarming to hear some of the responses from such young children. Graeme and the other two year old present were grateful for things like fish and squares and whatever adorable words they came up with first. The older girls mentioned loved ones beyond the veil, a pet cat, shoes.

We tucked these blessing cards away and hiked through the autumn woodlands, gaping at the fearless deer that crossed our path and talking about the changes we could see in the fall landscape. We arrived at a very popular fallen tree in the center of the Preserve just in time for snacks--gorgeous organic pears and apples, little boxes of raisins and crackers. The children clambered over the fallen tree with their snacks and we read them a story, a translated Iroqouis thanks-giving prayer, Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message by Chief Jake Swamp. The light was slanting in golden cascades through the canopy overhead, the breeze was light and refreshing, the children were happy--it was magic.

Thank you, all the animals in the world,
for keeping our precious forests clean.
All the trees in the world, we are thankful for
the shade and warmth you give us.
Thank you, all the birds in the world, for singing
your beautiful songs for all to enjoy.
...
We give you thanks, twinkling stars,
for making the night sky so beautiful
and for sprinkling morning dew drops
on the plants.
...
And most of all, thank you, Great Spirit, for giving us all these wonderful gifts, so we will be happy and healthy every day and every night.

We packed up and the children skipped and ran back to our picnic table for the rest of the crafting. Here, we took found sticks and tree branches, punched holes in our blessing cards, and strung them along the branches with yarn and embroidery thread and little brass bells until they blew in in the breeze as blessing mobiles. The wind hopelessly tangled mine and Daniel's and it was both pleasantly sunny and cool and the children peeled off to play with each other at the end of our meeting.

It was wonderful.