I love this spring season of winds and showers.  It feels like a cleansing breath in the middle of not only Lent, but also in this season of the year and perhaps also of  this time in my own life.  A season,  for me at least,  where burnout in homeschooling and in parenting lurked in every corner; where every foray seemed frought with difficulties.  Have you ever been there? Perhaps, like me, you have been, and perhaps like me you also find the cleansing spring tides that most perfect remedy.  Beautiful and lovely days are here!

I find this a wonderful time to…

• Begin your spiritual practices anew
• Clean out clutter in the home
• Spring clean
• Jump start healthy eating with a spring cleaning of the pantry
• Make plans for a new school year
• Make homeschooling fun again
• Change tactics regarding a troublesome situation in parenting
• Observe the children in front of us and how we can best guide and help those children
• Cast aside the things that are not working
• Renew putting your self -care at the top of the list
• Find your own strength courage as we head toward the end of the school year

Last night I attended a Tenebrae Mass.  In the Episcopal Church and Anglican tradition, this is a service of  darkness usually celebrated during Holy Week.  Prayers and readings are chanted, sung or read as candles are extinguished one by one until the church is in darkness with the exception of the sanctuary lamp.   In our parish, we also use incredible choral music. The children sang, and it was an amazing and stirring performance.

How often life is like that service; we feel at the end and in the darkness but yet there are others beside us and walking with us.  And if we look up just right, we can see in the distance the light just like that sanctuary lamp and the promise that things will come together and it will be good.  Life is always and still beautiful, my friends.

May you all have a blessed spring and find the renewal that is so important this time of year.  It promises to be a glorious time ahead.

Many blessings,
Carrie

Are you starting to think about Lent?  Lent begins for the Western Church on Wednesday, March 1 and ends on Saturday, April 15.  I am starting to get some ideas in place for Lent for both myself and the children, and wanted to share in case any of my ideas would be helpful in your own family.

One of the major things we do in Lent is house cleaning and home making.  In fact, I have an entire series of posts regarding this under the Family Life header.

I have divided the list in my head into Prayer/Reflection, Gratitude and Kindness, Charity, and Nature.  Then I started breaking down activities and books into these areas, with the idea and hope that we will have a peaceful Lent.  We are Episcopalian, which is part of the Anglican Communion, so many of our family’s Lenten traditions and expectations reflect this spiritual path.

Prayer/Reflection:

For myself: The 5 Marks of Love by The Society of St. John the Evanagelist; there are also children’s guides for parishes on this material.  I also plan to look and investigate  the  Devotional Societies of the Anglican Communion.

For the children:

Books for Children About Prayer and Self-Reflection:

• The Monk Who Grew Prayer
• The Hidden Garden:  A Story of the Heart by Jane G. Meyer
• St. Seraphim’s Beatitudes: Blessings For Our Path To Heaven
• In The Candle’s Glow
• From I-Ville to You-Ville

Actions:

• Pray Morning and Evening Prayers from the Book of Common Prayer
• Pray the Great Lenten Prayer of St. Ephraim
• Learn about the Saints who have Feast Days during Lent
• Memorize the Beatitudes
• Memorize the 5 Marks of Mission  of the Episcopal Church
• Attend Mass
• Confess to our priest

Gratitude and Kindness:

For myself:  I love the gratitude journaling prompts over at Orthodox Mom

Love people – spend time with those we love

For our family:

• Ideas from our our positive family attitude Pinterest Board
• Plan a special siblings’ day – gratitude for each other
• No complaining
• We will be looking for ways to spread the mission of The Episcopal Church in kindness: to commit to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to love our neighbor as ourselves; and to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being.

Charity:

For our entire family:

• Serve others in need through donations of goods, money, and time.
• Collect coins throughout Great Lent and donate to The Episcopal Charities Foundation of our diocese.

Nature for the entire family:

For myself:  Maintain an advocacy role in the arenas of climate change, clean water and clean air, and renewable energy sources

• Hike several times a week.
• Rest and observe quiet several times a day outside

My plan is to put together a Lenten book basket, to use a morning time to meet and tackle some of the things from the prayer/reflection section, to go over the Feast Days of different Saints during Lent and add icons or pictures of these Saints to an ever expanding list that we hang in our school room, and to put a chart up reminding ourselves ways we can celebrate Lent.

I would love to hear your plans for this Lent.

Blessings,
Carrie

And down from all the stars

Streams blessings like wondrous rain

So that all our weary powers

Grow newly fresh again.

And out of obscure dark

The Lord comes into view

To knit torn threads together

And all of life renew

-Friedrich Hebbel, found in the book “Celebrating Festivals With Children” by Freya Jaffke

Epiphany is coming on Friday!  For those of you new to celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas, which culminates in Epiphany and the end of Christmastide and the beginning of the season of Epiphany, this day can be a sweet and simple celebration of light.  There is a quote from St. Theophan the Recluse that makes me think of this day:  “All the Christian mysteries shine here with their Divine light and enlighten the minds and hearts of those who with faith celebrate this great festival.”

First of all, we can set the mood by changing our nature table to a blue backdrop to make a landscape of kings.  Perhaps a small house can be formed with rounded wood and a yellow veil, eight pointed stars and Mother Mary with her child upright on her lap. Some Waldorf Education sources recommend that Mother Mary receive a golden crown. The Kings approach a little closer each day and then slowly make their way home again after Epiphany. On Epiphany, the children may find twelve small candles burning on the morning of Epiphany.   During the last day of January, Mary and Joseph and Jesus can make their way into Egypt.

In the Western Church, Epiphanytide extends from now until Shrove Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday). Epiphany means “manifestation” , although I have also heard it translated as “to shine above” or “to shine over”.  The many facets of Epiphany show the ways that the Son of God is manifested to Jewish and Gentile alike.  The first part of tradition concerns the Three Kings, and the second part of tradition concerns the Baptism of Our Lord some thirty years later.  Some other explorations include the transformation of the water into wine at Cana and the Tranfiguration.

Tradition dictates that there were Three Kings, apparently derived from the three gifts they wrought:  gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These gifts pointed to the mystical gifts of the Son of God.  Over time, the Three Kings acquired names:  Caspar (or Jasper or Gaspard), Melchoir, and Balthazar.  Melchoir, the king in red, offer gold as a symbol of wisdom; Bathazar, the king in blue offers frankincense as a symbol of piety, and Caspar, in green, offers myrrh as a symbol of healing forces and vitality.

The feasting often begins on Twelfth Night, the night before Epiphany, and Epiphany, like Christmas, usually includes gift-giving. In some countries, Epiphany, not Christmas, is the main gift-giving holiday.

When the Wise Men come to visit Christ, they find him not in the manger where he was born, but at his house.  So, there is often a focus on blessing the home at Epiphany.  Some will see door jams marked in chalk with 20+C+M+B+17 and sprinkled with Holy Water and blessed by a priest.

The feasting usually involves a King’s Cake with a bean placed inside. The person receiving the bean either becomes the Queen or King for a day, (or may be the person who has to host the Candlemas party!).  Here are a few recipes for this special day.  I think this year we will actually be making rice pudding with a bean in it.  Of course, in Latin America and Spain, a King’s Ring with a figurine of the infant Jesus inside is most customary.  In those countries, children write letters to the Three Kings and leave their shoes out in anticipation of a gift. In Waldorf Kindergartens, sometimes star cookies are baked.

The Baptism of our Lord leads to the blessing of the water in church.  In the Orthodox Church, bodies of water are blessed. I have some beautiful pictures of the Orthodox Theophany on my Epiphany Pinterest page.  Most of all, the inner aspect of this festival stirs me. What am I manifesting in my life?  What is still hidden inside and can be revealed?  At the Baptism, the triune nature of God is revealed, and I can wonder how I can be faithful this year.

Possible stories for this Feast include:

• The Biblical Accounts
• The Story of Baboushka, found in “Festivals, Family, and Food” and in many picture books
• An Epiphany Story of the Tree, found in “Festivals, Family, and Food”

Many blessings to you on this special Feast,

Carrie

I just love January.  It has such a cozy feeling of candlelight, warm sweaters, a fire going, warm foods, books and handwork and board games.  This is one of my favorite months!

This month, in our family,  we are celebrating:

The Twelve Days of Christmas, January 1- January 5

Epiphany on January 6.  Are you getting ready yet?  Here are some suggestions for fun things to do with your children.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day – January 16

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity– January 18-25

This is the month of Feast Days for many Saints and Holy People, so I am thinking we may do some read alouds around the biographies of some of the famous Saints and missionaries.

All month long we will also be celebrating King Winter, Jack Frost, and animals in winter in art, song, and nature walks.  I hope to share a bit more of that with you all this month!

Things to love this month:

The January Book Box

Warming Meals

Fun things to do with children:

Cut out paper snowflakes, including really cool 3-D snowflakes; dip candles; roll candles; play board games or card games with your children;  draw, paint, model; whittle wood; make popcorn together; bake together; play in the snow – build snow forts; have snowball fights; snowshoe; downhill or cross country ski;  ice skate on a pond; read and tell stories; build forts inside; take a walk outside in the cold – look for animal tracks or berries or birds or all of the above; knit, crochet, cross stitch, finger knit, spin, sew; sing and make music together – learn some new songs; clean, scrub, dust, work around the house – rearrange furniture; go bowling or find an indoor swimming pool to swim in; write letters to family and friends; write stories together; snuggle on the coach with hot chocolate and marshmellows; cook for a neighbor; find a place of worship to attend and get involved; throw a party; clicker train your dog, cat, or other animal; take care of plants; start seeds indoors when it it is time

Get Your Rhythm Together:

Sometimes we just need a change of pace in January and we need a different rhythm than what we had before the holidays.  We can often start with the basics, such as rest and sleep times, meals, and times to be outside and then add in our task of the day, our household chores, our errand day, and if we are homeschooling, our homeschooling time.  Right now, my intention for January with a 9th, 6th and 1st grader is to have our  artistic rhythm look like this: Mondays baking and painting, Tuesdays coloring/drawing  in the afternoons,  Wednesdays modeling, Thursdays painting, and Fridays seasonal crafts/handwork.  All of us can work on projects with our first grader or our own projects and it feels nice and unhurried in an otherwise sea of main lessons for three children.  I have a household rhythm as well for each day of the week.  I would love to hear your rhythm for your home and family!

Get Your Homeschooling Together:

This is the month I am going to get together a few friends to read some of Steiner’s lectures on education.  If you are homeschooling a certain way, maybe you can all get together and discuss possible plans for fall homeschooling and bounce ideas off each other.  Maybe you can hold a tea and invite those interested in homeschooling to come.   Sometimes January is a good, quiet month to begin laying out the next school year as well.

Get Your Self-Care Together:

As part of my vitality practices, this year, I have pledged myself to daily prayer and gratitude and to exercise a certain number of days per month.  My husband and I are planning some date nights, and I am planning some outings with friends.  It promises to be a fun month!

I can’t wait to hear what you are up to!

Blessings,

Carrie