Wow!  What a wonderful array of stories - children in gardens, children in nature, LifeWays director on a tractor (!), and the delight of the ever-giving pumpkin!  And much to my delight, Pamela also mentioned the biodynamic preparations that can truly enhance the earth's experience of human tender(ness) and spiritual intention.  If you want to learn more about biodynamic preparations, you may wish to contact the Josephine Porter Institute or the Biodynamic Association of North America, or you can obtain home-grown compost preparations from the oldest biodynamic farm in North America by contacting www.zinnikerfarm.com.  I am eager to support this third generation of Zinniker farmers as they have been one of the many raw milk farms that lost the battle with the government recently.  Now they are resurrecting with other products.

               What is it about nature?!  It heals us.  And all it seems to ask in return is that we return the favor!  And even when we become forgetful or selfish, nature often finds a way to re-group and/or to remind us of its magnificent strength.  Nature provides the ever-present metaphor that out of the ashes can arise new growth, beauty and sometimes something unpredictably new!  Just think of how many animals have become extinct and then look at how many new animals and insects have been "discovered" in the past decade or so!  While we are called upon to exercise our best morality in relation to care of the earth, we can also be open to the earth's resiliency and evolving nature. 

               Last week, I drove by a tree in my neighborhood and noted to
Michael, "Look at that tree. It is becoming beautiful again."  I had to admit that after the ice storm a few years ago that destroyed many trees in my neighborhood, I could not understand our neighbor's choice not to cut down the tree in his front yard.   It was, forgive me, UGLY - pruned by nature to almost nothing!  It was beyond my imagination that it could possibly come back from the fragment that remained.  Once again my limited viewpoint was proven incorrect.  I thought of the wonderful verse on Faithfulness offered to us by Rudolf Steiner.  You know the one that reminds us that there will be times when one you love(d) can become darkened in your consciousness.  You can barely remember why you loved that person in the first place.  Dr. Steiner calls upon us to remember the archetype of the individual - the archetype, the highest and best self of the individual.  Whether or not you stay in direct relationship with that person, you can still hold that image of them on their behalf.

               I couldn't help but wonder if that had something to do with the neighbor's decision to keep his tree.  Perhaps he remembered the archetype.  Perhaps he had even planted that tree, seen it through its gangly youth, nursed it to full growth, and mourned its seemingly tragic demise.  And when it, through nature's course, appeared hopeless to me (the judgmental onlooker), the owner held hope.  He remembered the archetype!  We did not have that privilege with our beloved hackberry which cracked completely in two and had to be cut down.  But guess what!  A new tree is growing from the stump!  We are participating this time in its shaping.  Let's leave that low branch, I will say to Michael; I think that will help it become a climbing tree.  Sure enough, this Easter, three-year-old Ben could climb that baby tree.

               Thank you, Nature, for teaching us about resurrection, resiliency, respect, reverence and robustness!  As an early childhood teacher/caregiver I came to learn early on that when I was outside with children, I was no longer the "teacher."  I became the assistant to Mother Nature, and I was never disappointed by her "curriculum!"

Nature's Blessings to You,

Cynthia

A photo essay showing how you can incorporate the experience of pumpkins all through the year.  

Susan Silverio is the director of Spindlewood Waldorf Kindergarten and LifeWays Center in Lincolnville, Maine.

Click here to read Susan's article