It might sound a little quaint. Is this just escapism? Cuteness? A whitewashing of the true complexity of the world? Won\u2019t our children learn that, all too soon?<\/p>\n
How long can we shelter them?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes\u2026 It\u2019s staggering to think of what our children will face in their lifetimes.<\/p>\n Of what we all do.<\/p>\n One day, thirty or forty some years ago, our parents looked down at our own newborn faces, and thought about the world we were entering.<\/p>\n If they came of age in the sixties, like my parents, they probably had more than a few hopes for what our generation might accomplish to further the good in this world.<\/p>\n End racism. Pass the equal rights amendment. Learn to live sustainably.<\/strong> All those things they cared so passionately about, worked so hard to address, and ultimately passed on, still festering, to their children.<\/p>\n Now the wheel has turned. I look at my own children\u2019s faces, and for a moment, I think I must be my mother, looking down at me.<\/p>\n How can I prepare my children to meet the formidable challenges their generation will face?<\/p>\n With this question comes another one:<\/p>\n How did we get to this point?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ecologically speaking, this is, as we know, a pivotal moment for humankind<\/strong>. Global warming, the poisoning of our waters, rapid population growth, species extinction,<\/strong>\u00a0and the myriad other environmental issues facing our planet<\/strong>…<\/p>\n How did we get here? And from here, where can we go?<\/p>\n Some years ago, I became obsessed with this question. Obsessed enough to spend an entire graduate masters degree program exploring it. Later, I taught a college class called Spirit and Nature<\/strong>, with a syllabus that addressed exactly this. (Maybe a surprising thing to learn about me, that I used to be a college professor, but yes, it is true!)<\/p>\n In my Spirit and Nature class, we read a book called The Re-enchantment of Nature<\/strong><\/em>, by Allister McGrath<\/strong>. In this book, McGrath traces the roots of our current ecological crisis to the birth of an idea – the idea that the earth is devoid of spirit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n As McGrath explains it, the idea of\u00a0spirit as\u00a0something separate and distant\u00a0from the material world began during the scientific<\/strong> Enlightenment<\/strong>, when Western civilization moved in the direction of valuing analytical, left brain thinking<\/strong> over more intuitive, feeling based ways of knowing.<\/p>\n Many people still believed in Spirit, but more and more, spirit was seen as separate from the material world, and in some sense opposed to it. With this ideological shift, peoples of European descent moved even farther<\/strong> from the kind of worldview that had allowed traditional people to live sustainably<\/strong> for generations.<\/p>\n With God lodged safely in the sky, the earth was now a mere object for our consumption. The less we collectively identify the presence of spirit in the earth, the more reckless we can be in our use of the earth\u2019s resources, an attitude which has brought us now to \u201cEarth\u2019s eleventh hour.\u201d<\/p>\n If McGrath is right, and the environmental crisis is the result of this ideological shift, then a path of return is also clear\u00a0– it is to reawaken our knowledge of the innate sacredness of the Earth. \u00a0<\/strong>McGrath calls this needed shift \u201cThe Re-enchantment of Nature<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n Re-enchantment<\/strong> means that we can learn\u00a0to see with more than just the eye of reason – it means opening our senses, our heart, and our intuition along with our\u00a0mind<\/strong>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one thing to know that for us to start treating the earth as sacred would be a good thing. It\u2019s another thing entirely to know how to cultivate this ethos. \u00a0But one place where I think it’s absolutely vital that we do so is in our children.<\/p>\n How can we nurture our children’s spiritual life in a way that will prepare them to act for the good on behalf of our\u00a0planet, even at this difficult moment in our species’ history?<\/p>\n If we are religious, we might raise our children with prayer, blessings, religious holidays, and other traditions that help nurture our connection to the sacred. But when it comes to ecology, to interact with a sacred earth requires more than simply a belief in God<\/strong>. It means interacting with spirit in a way that is place-specific<\/strong>. It means getting to know our natural spaces\u00a0deeply, and it means actively caring for those spaces in a way that involves us inextricably, in the web of life.<\/p>\n All of which brings me back to\u2026 The fairies.<\/p>\n Because, bear with me…\u00a0\u00a0With fairy stories, we have a wonderful, concrete, and highly effective means of\u00a0nurturing the spiritual life of children.<\/p>\n You see, with magical beings like fairies, Spirit becomes something specific<\/strong> – something children can see, imagine, feel, even talk to.<\/strong><\/p>\n Nature naturally inspires wonder, of course. But in magical beings, children access an aspect of nature that they can relate to in a language they know. They can interact in their native tongue – the language of play, story, and imagination.<\/strong><\/p>\n It needn\u2019t be fairies, either. What matters is what resonates for you.<\/p>\n Your culture. Your traditions.<\/p>\n Your ways of\u00a0giving the sacred a name and a face your children can relate to.<\/p>\n Would you like to cultivate your own child\u2019s sense of wonder in nature? If so, here are a few simple steps you can take.<\/p>\n Art by Sulamith Wulfing<\/p><\/div>\n These might come from books, or from your own experience or imagination. Fairytales and folktales are full of characters that will help your child feel into the magic of nature.<\/p>\n But you don’t need to use existing stories. \u00a0You can also weave the story into your own daily life. \u00a0In our family, because my own ancestry is Celtic and Jewish, I am bringing our children the nature spirits of Pagan Europe. It started pretty organically one day\u2026 I think I may have mentioned once to my son that there were fairies living in the birch tree. And maybe I showed him how we could make an offering for them, using mud, sticks, flower petals, lego wheels, whatever we had on hand<\/strong>. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n But ever since that introduction, my son\u00a0has been the main ambassador in our family\u2019s relationship with the backyard fairies. \u00a0He takes his duties very seriously, and I always love hearing his insights.<\/p>\n \u201cMama,\u201d he says, \u201cI think I understand the fairies better than anyone else in our family, don\u2019t you? I think I really know what they like.\u201d (Said while mixing cumin, turmeric, oat flour, xantham gum, garlic powder, and cupcake sprinkles in the kitchen to create\u00a0a new offering!)<\/p>\n To nurture wonder in your child’s daily life doesn’t\u00a0actually need to involves stories at all.\u00a0\u00a0It might be as simple as calling something in the natural world by a different\u00a0name. When the wind blows, for example, I might say, \u201clisten, I hear the wind children!<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n Or you might refer to plants and animals with a name that acknowledges their mythic nature, too. \u00a0There’s a tree I like to call\u00a0\u201cGrandmother tree.\u201d When I do this, I am showing my children that a tree, like a Grandmother, has something to teach them, and that she is worthy of their respect and care.<\/p>\n If you want to nurture your child’s sense of wonder, give them images<\/strong>\u00a0but don\u2019t tell them what to do with or think about those images<\/strong>. Instead, let them uncover their own answers. They will find their answers through play. \u00a0They need to get muddy. Get wet. Plant things. Splash, dig, and collect treasures. There is nothing so rich for children as full-bodied, hands-on outdoor play.<\/p>\n As much as it\u2019s important to give our children space to develop their own relationship to the natural world, it\u2019s also important\u00a0to find ways to honor the earth together. Pretty much any holiday your family celebrates can be adapted to incorporate a nature element.<\/p>\n For example, on Valentine\u2019s day, how about leaving a valentine for a place<\/strong>? It can be compostable… \ud83d\ude09 That tree in the Botanical Garden you love. Or an animal – the dove who wakes you up each morning cooing on the neighbor\u2019s roof.<\/p>\n Whatever you do, at the heart of it is this:<\/p>\n To experience wonder in nature, usually all we have to do is to be present<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Open our senses.<\/p>\n If we don\u2019t see, look closer.<\/p>\n A fairy says, \u201clook closer.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n If you can\u2019t find the wonder, look closer.<\/p>\n Like my favorite\u00a0poem says, spirit \u201cstops somewhere, waiting for you.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_cta admin_label=”Call To Action” url_new_window=”off” use_background_color=”on” background_color=”#9cd8a9″ background_layout=”dark” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” custom_button=”off” button_letter_spacing=”0″ button_use_icon=”default” button_icon_placement=”right” button_on_hover=”on” button_letter_spacing_hover=”0″ saved_tabs=”all” body_font_size=”18″]<\/p>\n If you enjoyed this post, here are a few ways to go deeper:<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_cta][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” max_width=”6.5in” text_font_size=”16″] As an\u00a0educator who emphasizes wonder in my teaching, people sometimes ask me about the fairies. Why sing songs about fairies?\u00a0 Why now? It might sound a little quaint. Is this just escapism? Cuteness? A whitewashing of the true complexity of the world? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":" As a music educator who emphasizes wonder in my teaching, people sometimes ask me about the fairies. Why sing songs about fairies? Why now?<\/p> It might sound a little quaint. Is this just escapism? Cuteness? A whitewashing of the true complexity of the world? Won\u2019t our children learn that, all too soon?<\/p> How long can we shelter them?<\/p> Yes\u2026 It\u2019s staggering to think of what our children will face in their lifetimes.<\/p> Of what we all do.<\/p> One day, thirty or forty some years ago, our parents looked down at our own newborn faces, and thought about the world we were entering into.<\/p> If they came of age in the sixties, like my parents, they probably had more than a few hopes for what our generation might accomplish to further the good in this world.<\/p> End racism. Pass the equal rights amendment. Learn to live sustainably. All those things they cared so passionately about, worked so hard to address, and ultimately passed on, still festering, to their children.<\/p> Now the wheel has turned. I look at my own children\u2019s faces, and for a moment, I think I must be my mother, looking down at me.<\/p> How can I prepare my children to meet the formidable challenges their generation will face?<\/p> With this question comes another one: Ecologically speaking, this is, as we all know, a pivotal moment for humankind. Global warming, the poisoning of our waters, rapid population growth, species extinction and the myriad environmental issues facing our planet...<\/p> How did we get here? And from here, where can we go?<\/p> Some years ago, I became pretty obsessed with this question. Obsessed enough to spend an entire graduate masters degree program exploring it. Later, I taught a college class called Spirit and Nature, with a syllabus that addressed exactly this. (Maybe a surprising thing to learn about me, that I used to be a college professor, but yes, it is true!)<\/p> In my Spirit and Nature class, we read a book called The Re-enchantment of Nature, by Allister McGrath. In this book, McGrath traces the roots of our current ecological crisis to the birth of an idea - the idea that the earth is devoid of spirit.<\/p> As McGrath explains it, this trend began during the Enlightenment, when Western civilization moved in the direction of valuing analytical, left brain thinking over more intuitive, feeling based ways of knowing.<\/p> Many people still believed in Spirit, but more and more, spirit was seen as something that was separate from the material world, and in some sense opposed to it. With this ideological shift, peoples of European descent moved even farther from the kind of worldview that had allowed traditional people to live sustainably for generations.<\/p> With God lodged safely in the sky, the earth was now seen as a mere object for our consumption. The less we collectively identify the presence of spirit in the earth, the more reckless we can be in our use of the earth\u2019s resources, an attitude which has brought us now to \u201cEarth\u2019s eleventh hour.\u201d<\/p> If McGrath is right, and the environmental crisis is the result of this ideological shift, then we can also imagine the path of return - it is to reawaken our innate, remembered knowledge of Earth as something so much more than a collection of discrete resources available for our use.<\/p> We might remember the earth as something whole and even sentient, in and of itself.<\/p> A complex web of interrelated systems where everything has a role to fill and nothing is extraneous.<\/p> If McGrath is right, then the way we have strayed also suggests our return. McGrath calls this needed shift \u201cThe Re-enchantment of Nature.\u201d<\/p> Re-enchantment means learning to see with more than just the eye of reason - it means opening our senses, our heart, our intuition as much as our mind. It means re-learning how to feel the sacredness of the earth.<\/p> It\u2019s one thing to know that this would be a good idea. It\u2019s another thing entirely to know how to cultivate it, especially when it comes to nurturing the spiritual life of children.<\/p> If we are religious, we might raise our children with prayer, blessings, religious holidays, and other traditions that help nurture our connection to the sacred. But when it comes to ecology, to interact with a sacred earth requires more than simply a belief in God. It means interacting with spirit in a way that is place specific. It means getting to know the natural spaces we frequently deeply, and it means actively caring for those spaces in a way that involves us inextricably, in the web of life.<\/p> All of which brings me back to\u2026 The fairies. Yes, the fairies. Because fairies are one wonderful way that you can nurture the spiritual life of your children.<\/p> You see, with magical beings like fairies, Spirit becomes something very specific - something children can see, imagine, feel, even talk to.<\/p> Nature naturally inspires wonder, of course. But in magical beings, children access an aspect of nature that they can relate to in a language they know. They can interact in their native tongue - the sweet language of play, story, and imagination.<\/p> It needn\u2019t be fairies, of course. What matters is what resonates for you.<\/p> Your culture. Your traditions.<\/p> Your ways of naming the sacred, and identifying within it a face your children can see, speak to, and love.<\/p> Would you like to cultivate your own child\u2019s sense of wonder in nature? If so, here are a few simple steps you can take.<\/p> Give them the stories.<\/p> These might come from books, or from your own experience or imagination. Fairytales and folktales are full of characters that will help your child feel into the magic of nature. Since then, he has been the main ambassador in our family\u2019s relationship with the backyard fairies, and I always love hearing his insights.<\/p> \u201cMama,\u201d he says, \u201cI think I understand the fairies better than anyone else in our family, don\u2019t you? I think I really know what they like.\u201d (Said while mixing cumin, turmeric, oat flour, xantham gum, garlic powder, and cupcake sprinkles in the kitchen to create an offering for them!)<\/p> But it doesn\u2019t necessarily have to involve stories of any complexity. It might be as simple as calling something in the natural world by a more evocative name. When the wind blows, for example, I might say, \u201clisten, I hear the wind children!\u201d<\/p> Sometimes I like to call a tree with a relational name, like \u201cGrandmother tree.\u201d When I do this, I am showing my children that a tree, like a Grandmother, has something to teach them, and that she is worthy of their respect and care.<\/p> 2. Let them play.<\/p> Give your children images of wonder in nature, but don\u2019t tell them what to do or think about those images. Instead, let them play, and they will uncover their own answers. They need to get muddy. Get wet. Plant things. Splash, dig, and collect treasures. There is nothing to compare, for richness, to full bodied, hands-on outdoor play.<\/p> 3. Honor the earth in family rituals<\/p> As much as it\u2019s important to give our children space to develop their own relationship to the natural world, it\u2019s also wonderful to find ways to honor the earth together. Pretty much any holiday your family celebrates can be adapted to incorporate a nature element.<\/p> On Valentine\u2019s day, how about leaving a valentine for a place? It can be compostable... :) That tree in the Botanical Garden you love. Or an animal - the dove who wakes you up each morning cooing on the neighbor\u2019s roof.<\/p> Whatever you do, at the heart of it is this:<\/p> To experience wonder in nature, usually all we have to do is to be present. Open our senses. Listen. If we don\u2019t see, look closer.<\/p> A fairy says, \u201clook closer.\u201d<\/p> If you can\u2019t find the wonder, look closer. If you lose the thread, listen closer. Like the poem says, spirit \u201cstops somewhere, waiting for you.\u201d<\/p>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[53,3,7,4,5,11],"tags":[62,25,98,101,80,79],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/pablo-68.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/6925361_f520.jpg\")
<\/p>\n1. Give\u00a0Them Stories<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/dc43a7f5e290b9c454bfd0abb1c4d121.jpg\")
2. Let\u00a0Them Play<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Fairy-Mailbox.jpg\")
<\/p>\n3. Honor\u00a0the Earth Together<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.noevenable.com\/singingcircles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/offering.jpg\")
<\/p>\nWherever you live, you can\u00a0download our latest album<\/strong><\/a><\/span>. \u00a0It’s pay what you want!<\/h3>\n
Or explore our in person offerings in the SF Bay Area<\/h3>\n
Apple Star<\/a><\/span>— <\/strong>An\u00a0<\/strong>Outdoor Waldorf Parent Child Class\u00a0<\/strong>(starts 9\/5)<\/h3>\n
Meadowlark<\/a>\u00a0Music Class<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0for children and caregivers<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Mothersong Chorus<\/a><\/span>, <\/strong>an\u00a0intergenerational singing circle <\/strong>for women and girls.<\/h3>\n
How did we get to this point?<\/p>
In our family, because my own ancestry is Celtic and Jewish, I am bringing our children the tales of the nature spirits of Pagan Europe. For us it happened pretty organically\u2026 I think I may have mentioned once to my son that there were fairies living in the birch tree. And I showed him how we could make an offering for them, using mud, sticks, flower petals, lego wheels, whatever we had on hand. ;)<\/p>