I was so ready -- no, in need of -- this season this year! The dark season was indeed dark for us and we felt our middle age creeping into our bones a little more with every loss. The return of the light brought with it the deepest loss yet.
But now comes the time of new life -- the planting of seeds and the return of song birds. Maybe even eventually some warmth.
We took Jack to a children's Ostara circle on Friday and he absolutely loved it. They meet regularly at the Sabbats, and Jack wants to join them for Beltane as well. He loves circle, and the very idea of a circle aimed at his age, in which it was perfectly OK for him to dance around inside the circle while everyone was participating in their own way was a dream come true! Interestingly, he had been behaving less well in adult circle of late and I noted that when we celebrated at home later, he actually did much better than he has been. I'd have expected the opposite...
Yesterday started with Jack's discovery of a basket of gifts on his place mat. Since we don't usually use the parlour until later in the day, that took some time. He was pleased to find a CD of Mozart and another of Beethoven, and a Mary Pope Osborn novel (Dinosaurs before Dinner). A little more digging revealed not one, not two, but three dinosaurs! He played his CDs and read the first chapter of the book -- but the title of the second chapter was "Monsters", so he thinks maybe he needs company to read the second
chapter. He has a lot of trouble with books that have much emotional intensity.
As an example, _Five Run Away Together_ by Enid Blyton had to be out away for another time because the The Stick family was just so abusive that he couldn't take it!
Anyway, the chapter called Monsters in this latest find suggested that it might be scary, so we'll read it together.
Eventually he spotted his first hidden (plastic) egg -- and then the day became a flurry of egg-spotting. I didn't hide them very carefully this time -- next time, I think I will. Jack had found all of them within an hour and he ate all the chocolate as he found them. Needless to say, we needed a kite string on his ankle to make it through the rest of the day!
Later in the afternoon, Grandpa John came over and we had our Ostara celebration -- a very perfunctory circle, the work of which was planting our seeds for this year. I got a couple of things planted, but I also spent a lot of time helping Jack with his seeds and helping the guys get the balance of soil and "plant baby food" right. It's not that finely detailed a process, but if you didn't invent it, I guess it's a little weird.
After dinner, we chatted a while, but we were all feeling pretty sleepy so John left early. After a couple of hours, we started to feel more awake and we went off to hang out with Shelley for a while and then we came home and finished up our planting project.
In the end, we got 75 containers planted. A good start. We'll put the carrots and other things that don't want to be transplanted in after the snow has melted.
Edited to add: not all of those plants will go in our own garden. Some are also for friends.
Between the company, the circle, and the seeds, I am feeling more alive today than I have in some time.
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