ChildWild » paganism

Happy 6th Birthday, Rio!

Sierra — Mon, 24 May 2010 18:58:08 +0000

Rio is 6 years old today. 6! 6 is much too big. I cannot possibly be the mother of a six-year-old.

Yet there it is. I can still feel, when I close my eyes, the exquisite touch of her soft, squirmy, wet self being laid in my arms for the first time. I can hear her first rapsy breath and see the vague motion of her arms, tiny fists shaking at the light.

How could that tiny creature have grown into this big, wild, creative, wise person?

I suspect I’ll be asking that question for a long time yet. Maybe the rest of my life.

Rio celebrated her birthday yesterday and today. In honor of turning 6, she has decided she wants 6 birthday parties. She’s well on her way to achieving that. We had a family party for her yesterday with grandparents and great-grandparents and cousins and etc.

She was given tickets to take her family to see the Indigo Girls, and her very own very first guitar. This guitar is not even joking. It is a musical instrument, not a toy. I mean, a toy in the way that music is play and all instruments are toys, but not a toy as in “it is a guitar, not a small object in the shape of a guitar”.

After family party, we had a big fete with her many friends, which turned into the hippie birthday party of my dreams with people of all ages playing their wide variety of stringed instruments on the front lawn. The kids were so happy.

Today, Rio’s birth was celebrated in her kindergarten class, where she got to wear a little crown and pick the book at storytime. Then we celebrated again this evening going to the new Indian place in our neighborhood for her birthday dinner.

Next week, when her brother gets here and the lifeguards come on duty, we’re going to Walden for a birthday picnic. And when we arrive in Argentina we’ll have a Southern hemisphere party for her when we celebrate her sister’s actual birthday on July 9.

Which is to say, that child really will get 6 birthday parties for her 6th birthday. Magic.

Rio. Usually these birthday posts are love letters to you, but you’re so big now. You don’t need the letters as much to come back to later, when the world comes into focus. I feel like when I tell you I love you, now, you really hear me.

If I have a birthday message for you this year, it’s this: I hear you too. When I’m scrambling to finish an article on deadline or talking to you over my shoulder while I put a load of laundry in or asking you to repeat yourself over the wails of your toddler sister: I hear you. I may not hear your words every time, and I know I’m often short-tempered and distracted, but I am paying attention to the you behind the words.

I see you, beautiful growing complicated girl. You’re like a wild horse and a wildflower all in one bright body. Keep doing that. Ride your bike and read your books and paint your nails green and pull up all the radishes in the garden when I’m not looking.

There is nothing in the world wrong with you. I look at you and see my strength and wildness and beauty with none of the deep shadows I seem to carry. I mean, sure, you’re moody sometimes, and your fits rival the worst of even my teenage tantrums. You scream and throw things and make no sense. None of that matters at all. It vanishes in the blazing light you are, the shine you give to everything you touch with your hands and your songs and your kind words. You’re perfect. I love you.

Birthday Rum Spiced with 21 Hot Peppers

Sierra — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:36:13 +0000

Bridget’s dad had a birthday party over the weekend. I helped him celebrate by drinking rum spiced with 21 hot peppers. That was even better than I thought it would be, and I thought it was worth walking across town for.

Dead simple recipe:

Grow little hot red peppers all summer.
Watch them ripen.
Harvest them.
put them in a bottle of rum.
Wait a week.
Drink.

It’s that last step that’s a doozy, of course. This was not a drink for the faint of heart. But if, like me, you ocassionally find yourself glancing up at the sun and thinking it looks tasty, this might be your new favorite cocktail. Why 21 hot peppers? Wikipedia allows as how its a Haitian tradition to celebrate the Brigid, who they revere as Maman Brigitte. From the article:

Maman Brigitte is worshipped as the Lady of the Cemetery; her colors are purple, violet and black. She is the wife of Baron Samedi, and characterised as a hard working, hard cursing woman who can swear a blue streak and enjoys a special drink made of rum laced with 21 hot peppers. People suspected of faking a possession by her may be asked to drink her special rum or rub hot peppers on their genitals, which she occasionally does. Those who are not truly possessed are soon identified.

No one suspected me of faking possession by Bridget, which is a good thing, because the test sounds grisly. The rum was delicious, though. A perfect drink for toasting little Bridget’s health.

Happy Equinox, closing out the Gratitude Project

Sierra — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:05:28 +0000

Today’s the Equinox, and the last official day of the Gratitude Project. As always after six weeks of honoring my blessings, I’m infused with gratitude for all the small wonders in my daily life. I don’t want to stop paying attention to them, or writing about them. But I’ll drop the daily practice of it, because I’ve come to value the particular season of taking up the Gratitude Project and letting it go again.

I want to close with my gratitude for the simple spiritual gifts I’ve come into through the elimination diet, which has overlapped the last three weeks of the gratitude project for me. Yes, I’m physically healthier than I was before I started. I’ve learned a lot about my body and my eating habits. I’ve lost a little weight. I’ve gained some clarity in areas I used to be quite fuzzy.

But the real gift of this period, for me, has been the way it’s taught me to appreciate food. I’m not eating bread, or ice cream, or the delicious salsa I made a gallon of and canned for winter. Not drinking beer or hot cocoa.

Two things have happened. One is that I’ve learned to appreciate the foods I am eating more. There are so many: hummus and falafel and fruit and seltzer and apple butter and quinoa. Foods I ignore because pizza is easier I’m now relishing.

More interesting to me, I’ve learned to delight in the foods I’m not eating in new ways. The smell of bread baking is wonderful, as is watching my daughter savor a bowl of ice cream. A friend brought a honey cake to a small gathering this evening, and I was blessed with genuine pleasure at her kindness in making and sharing it. I didn’t need to eat it to participate in the ritual around it. I didn’t need to eat it to feel nourished by it.

I suspect this last is a valuable lesson for me. Changing my diet won’t cut me off from the social rituals attached to food and drink, and it won’t rob me of pleasure in the foods I love. I can still smell bread, still hang out with friends who are drinking, still serve cake. It’s this awareness that will let me continue long-term keeping to healthier food choices.

Gratitude Project

Sierra — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:23:43 +0000

Every year between Lammas (August 1) and the Fall Equinox (September 22), I celebrate the Gratitude Project with an ever-changing group of friends and family. It’s simple: I aim to post, or write in my private journal, something I’m grateful for every day. Want to play along? Comment here and let me know where you’ll be posting your gratitudes.

Today, I’m grateful for yesterday being a day so full and wild that I actually missed posting in my blog, something I almost never do. It was a day surrounded from morning to very, very late at night with people I love doing lovely things. I played cards, snuggled my kids, had long talks with old friends, experimented with strange food, jumped in a bouncy castle, went to a birthday party, and slept in late. In roughly not that order at all.

Today was just as full, with ritual and circus and a delicious brunch. I’m grateful for the chance to do all that, and just as grateful for the fact that there is not a blessed thing on my calendar tomorrow.

Those pesky house fairies

Sierra — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 04:20:14 +0000

*crash*

I come into the room to find Rio sitting on the floor, crying and clutching her bum. It’s pretty clear that she just fell off a piano stool and hit her tailbone, but she’s too upset to talk about it yet, so I just hold her. Eventually, Serena toddles in to see what’s going on, looks a bit worried and pats Rio gently.

“She’s so rude!” Rio shouts, pointing at her sister. “She finally got those house fairies to help her! She made them knock that stool over and hit me on the butt!”

um…

I can’t say with real certainty that she’s wrong. The next thing Serena did was grab Rio by the hair and try to haul her off my lap, screaming, “Mama! Mine! Mine Mama!” Clearly, there are limits to sisterly love and concern.

Still, I find the notion of a conspiracy between Serena and the invisible house fairies that only Rio can see less plausible than the idea that my active five-year-old happened to slip and fall. I’ll let her figure that one out on her own though. I’m certainly not going to tell her fairies don’t exist just because these ones were mean to her.

Summer Solstice Festival at the Growing Center

Sierra — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:46:46 +0000

Tomorrow, I will be leading a Summer Solstice Festival at the Somerville Growing Center, starting at 4 p.m. We’ll be doing sun-painting again if the weather is good.

Here’s the skinny on the overall project:
A series of family-friendly festivals celebrating the turning of the wheel of the year. Through song, story, art and play we will explore the changing seasons and our changing selves. You are encouraged to bring a potluck contribution and, if you are able, a small donation to help cover costs. Sponsored by Viriditas, a Boston-area Reclaiming group.