As close as we’ve ever got to the actual equinox, this felt like a really special time to be in the woods with our fabulous forest family.
A full harvest moon 3 days ago and a super moon at that, autumn officially begins tomorrow in my diary but today felt like a day of soft warm and sunny blessings, at that point in the year where day and night are in perfect balance. The day began slightly blurry and misty and the sun soon burnt it off so even in tea shirts we felt hot.
The forest family today consisted of about 8 or 9 families and umpteen gorgeous 4 year olds. There was also a teenager and a 5 & 6 year old and 2 babies, but the majority were funny, plucky, curious and lovable 4s, including twins. You never know what is going into the mix at KFFS but this was strangely both unique and uniform.
The fab fours got stuck into making biscuits, cutting shapes that started as
suns and
moons but ended up as bunnies, piglets, hearts and yummy goo. Parents and other children delighted in making circus poi out of old socks and gloriously bright ribbons and before long the woods were full of cool dudes spinning shapes around their bodies in a blur of colour.
The 2 lovely hearth keepers continued calmly throughout all this cooking magic soup out of people’s veg. Music was made, pixies or fairies appeared in wings and fun was had by all.
Just before lunch was the Loosening leaf ceremony in the play circle
near the hammocks. 6 tall bamboos were tied together and supported by the rim of a tyre. Loads of bamboo leaves with blessings on were loosely tied into a pink net held at the top of the bamboos. All the children came and held onto the bamboos and after a countdown they shook the bamboos hard while all chanted: ‘Shake, shake and shake again’. Bamboo leaves fell all round us, and on each one was written a word in big letters. The words represented things that make us happy. I recall children-chocolate- friendships- singing- dancing- butterflies- birdsong- cake- making things- the beach- holidays- cake etc and all these words, repeated by each adult came fluttering down, flooding us with happy hormones. A lovely way to practice letting go, each seemed like a gift to us all, and one lady was heard later to say that she felt really good.
At lunchtime there was a story from ‘Alice Apple
’about how the Apple got the star at its centre, and then 2 varieties of apple were cut to demonstrate. And Lady Lion Sarah sang a beautiful equinox song which we all tried to join in with.
Song and story, ceremony and tasty goo, laughter and adventure… these are the ingredients of our forest family sessions.
Come and experience it next time!
Sat 19th Oct: 10-1pm
Kinda Elders in the woods 