Making Waffles

Gibbie loves to make waffles. And eat them. We really lucked out when my dad gave us this wonderful old waffle maker. It has a tiny round glass window on the top cover with an arrow that points to hot when it's ready for batter. Gibbie has been really coming into his own in being helpful around the house. I'm not sure if he thinks of it as being helpful or having fun or doing work, but I am celebrating his growing competence.

I was making waffles one day for our weekly breakfast with neighbors, and Gibbie was watching, and all excited over our new contraption. A waffle maker is one of those things that would usually have no justification in our kitchen. I don't like single-function gadgets, or most things that plug in, and try to cook without that kind of stuff. Except for waffle makers, which are just a phenomenal thing. Because we mostly eat all homemade food, sometimes there's not enough around our house in the way of snack food. Sure, sometimes I make energy bars, and the kitchen is stocked with yogurt, granola, fresh fruit, bread, and cheeses. But during busy weeks, when we're more likely to need more snacky stuff, I'm less likely to have all that around. Waffles are a super thing for this! We can have fun making a big batch, have a luxurious breakfast with fruit and cream and all, and then freeze the rest for instant toaster fun for ages to come.
So, in my waffle enthusiasm, I was eager to introduce our budding cook to waffliciousness. I had no idea how much of the process he would be able to do. The first morning he tried it, he ladled batter for dozens of waffles, pressed the lid down, watched for the steam to stop leaking out (the waffley sign of doneness), open the lid, and fork out a couple of lattices of golden goodness onto the butcher block. It's really fun for me to cooperate together, rather than just teaching cajoling. I like hanging in the kitchen, working together, a lot. Especially on Saturday mornings, when Paul is home, with BlueGrass Saturday Mornings on the radio (Local public radio jewel Jazz 88's jewel; just the best show for that sunny, relaxing productive kind of Saturday morning I like), and a morning with friends ahead of us.

take two

Because I had about four minutes to write that last post, I never got around to addressing it's title. This spring Paul mentioned that he read G.K. Chesterton writing about how we treat Easter as the climax of Lent, when really Lent is just supposed to be the prelude to the real show, Easter, which is a celebration of our great joy and hope. Therefore, he says we should be drinking champagne for breakfast. The thought inspired a much longer and freer and funner celebration of Easter at our house this year.
I love this picture of my mom, "Oma" to the kids, leading Gibbie, cousin Fiona, and Ezra in a little song and skit they put together for our family.


And then we have two little bears finding easter eggs their big cousins hid around the yard for them. Costumes are some of the best playthings; they get so much wear and delight out of them. What, you don't dress like bears for Easter?

Unschooling Our Four Year Old or Backstage with Little Bear

Putting on Birthday Soup for Gibbie's birthday party is such a great example of our learning process that I want to explain how it all came to pass. Gibbie loves pretending. We're always making up a story, or acting out a favorite book. Gibbie lives for the days when we go to our neighbor's house and the kids all put on costumes and do a little "show." (the show is usually mostly Gibbie announcing that the show is going to start in three minutes! a loose string of "tricks" or one well-used story about a lion and a Chinese person and a baby putting out a fire)
I don't know who's idea it was, but we started talking about doing a show for his birthday party. Lots of enthusiasm. I suggested we pick one of his favorite books as the story. We looked at his bookshelf and discussed the possibilities. He picked Little Bear's Birthday Soup. That was maybe a month before his party.
Gradually, the plan developed. I started a page in my planner for his party, and as he had ideas for it, wrote them down. It was my idea to make real curtains for the "stage" and I went and bought an old sheet for the fabric, but it was his idea that they would open by pulling a string. I sewed the curtains while he danced around excitedly one afternoon.
We read the book a lot. We discussed his costume. He and I both made drawings and discussed the features. I found out what he considered the essential features of little bear. He listened to my suggestions too. We tried out various plans for costumes for the other characters, and face paints for everyone. We ran our ideas by Paul and shared excitement with Ezra and friends and family.
We discussed the invitations; what they needed to say, what he wanted them to look like. We started making some by hand. He did drawings of little bear and told me what to write. We worked together, but he became very frustrated that they weren't turning out all the same, and it was taking a long time. I ended up making invitations/playbills by cutting and pasting from photocopies of the book's title page, and copying them. He folded them up and hand-delivered them.
He had a longer list of people who he wanted to come than could fit in our house. We talked about how this could work and decided that the kids who were going to be in the show would come first, get ready, and practice, and the grown-ups and little kids would come later. The little kids would sit on cushions in the front. He had definite ideas about all kinds of specific decorations, activities, and foods. Some he made happen on his own, some I did for him, a lot we worked together on, and some were eventually forgotten or rejected. He helped me clean the whole house for the party, bake the cake, prep the food, set up the props, make decorations and party favors. He designed valentine name tags and tickets for popcorn. The popcorn tickets were a feature he was most proud of. As per his instruction, I carved stamps out of rubber erasers that said, "popcorn!" and "recycle me!" He cut out tickets, stamped them, and planned how they would be used for the guests to order popcorn for the show. For a long time beforehand he dictated little signs advertising the show which he cut out and taped up everywhere.

Some weeks before the party, he stopped wanting to play Little Bear and was reluctant to practice acting it out. I got a little worried, because he had so much invested in this idea. We talked about the need to practice, and kept reading the story. He seemed nervous about being watched and wouldn't even repeat the lines. I resolved to abandon the show and just have games and cake if it looked like it was going to be too stressful. A few days before the show, he practiced it with me in costume, and had practically all his lines down word for word! After that, he wanted to practice every chance he got. We went over it with some of his friends when we could. We worked out some staging, talked about talking loudly and facing the audience. It seems he worked through his nervousness all on his own, and had been getting ready inside-- until he was ready to do it with others.

Of course, not everything worked out. There were some timing and logistical issues, things we would do differently next time. There were some nerves before and after the show, but what actor or host hasn't experienced those? I'm not going to detail the academic skills practiced here, or knowledge gained but I do want to highlight our process: how much it was driven by Gibbie's vision and ideas, how that vision led him to gain new skills, seek out resources, and solve problems; how he was externally supported but also internally motivated; how each step led to new ideas and spurred him on to try new things; how naturally social and interdisciplinary the process was; how much fun we had, and what a thrill of accomplishment!

After-bath Sweet

I'm not quite sure how I converted them all, but we have become a family of happy bathers. It's sort of a problem when we have house guests (whom we love to host!) because normal Americans shower all the time and our bathroom totally isn't set up for it anymore! I've read that baths take more water than showers, but this simply can't be true. Especially if you get three people in the bath!
Near the end of a bath these days the boys like to play a raucous game they call, "Bop 'em on the Head." It's very noisy and pretty splashy and I like to get out of the room at that point.
Not long after this I am summoned to "call the kitties." Then two sweet clean soft relaxed little kitties come meowing to the bedroom for their post-bath massages. Very sweet indeed.

Post-Modern Collaborative Advent Wreath

I posted last year on our Advent devotions, a family tradition we're carrying on from Libby's childhood. Advent is the season in the church year that comes before Christmas. It's a time of remembering Israel waiting for the light of the Messiah (who we believe is Jesus) to come, and a time of preparing our hearts for this Christ to come again. We explain it to the kids that when Jesus comes back, God will fix all the brokenness in the world; wipe away all tears and make everything how it was made to be. We do a little prayer time, light candles, sing and play instruments, and read a story or two. It's all very simple.
I love doing Advent devotions because it takes away the bustle of December and focuses us, draws our attention to the bright light that shines in the darkness. Don't we need light when it's so dark outside! Dinner time is really deep night for us this time of year! And then there are deeper darknesses too, for which we need even more light.Our advent wreath turned out so fun this year. All the supplies for this were thrifted or gifted. The colors of the candles are not "proper" at all; I just used what we had. The Christmas candle has little kids playing instruments on one side and ducks on the other. Of course he decided that the ducks will face out. I don't think that the colors of the Advent wreath are ancient tradition. Everyone seems to have their own idea about what each one stands for, so I make free with this tradition. For our Christmas candle, I try to find anything lovely. One year it was a rainbow, another it was covered in green sparkly swirlyques, and this year it's this little volks-art scene.
There are one, two, three, and four stars on each of the candles to represent what respective week we are on. By the time we get to the four-star candle, we will be lighting all four candles, and just a week away from Christmas. Gibbie helped me design and make the candle decorations. (they are made with soft colored wax that we cut and press onto the candles) We have a blackbird for peace, a lamb for joy, bunnies for love, and a sunrise for hope, all very personal symbols for us. I think this is the essence of liturgy; using ritual to make real to us spiritual truths that we cannot see.

Lent: stripping

We have begun the season of Lent: the forty days before Easter. I think lots of people think Lent means giving up chocolates, or not eating meat on Fridays. Lots more have never even heard of Lent. The word has it's root in "lencten," as in lengthening days, or spring. Just as the days are longer now, but it's not any warmer yet here, a lot of our growth during this season is real, but not always yet visible.
Our priest said it's a time to strip away all the unnecessary things we can. I think this is what many spiritual practices, like fasting, which means doing without certain foods, or eating less frequently, are getting at--taking away our excess so we can focus on deep things less distractedly.

I've come across a new picture I'd like to share. A sweet friend of ours wrote recently on her family's blog,
"I come home from work to Ken and Miri peering out the window in our house waiting for me - I can't tell you how this makes me feel as I literally run to the door of my home.[...home...] It is a place of complete freedom, a place of incredible love and support, and for me it is a place stripped of pretense and/or the temptation to be what one is not.
So I walk in the door and am greeted with the warmest, most enthusiastic greetings, kisses from Ken and Miri as Miri helps me strip off my coat, in many ways reminding me that I am home and it's time to strip away all the facades and worries of the day. I am home. And I realize that I could be anywhere with these two and I would still be home, always at home."

The past few days, I keep returning to this image, of returning home to loving family, taking off one's coat, and with it all masks and cares. I think fasting--doing without--is a way of taking off the things that are not really us, the things which are not worthy of our true selves.

It is right to be sorry for the wrong that I do; the ways I am unkind to others, take too much for myself. But now that I am God's own child, now that he has called me his own, all that stuff, the unkindness, the taking too much, is not me anymore. So I want to take off that coat, wet, cold, and salty from the day, the winter, the roads, strip it off, until I am just the real me. As she so beautifully illustrates, stripping off the false self removes bulk so that we can be intimate.

If we decide to do a kind of Lenten penance (the spiritual practices of doing without certain bad or unnecessary things, and doing certain good things, in sorry-ness for our badness) it is not because we're guilt-ridden. It's not because we're so bad, we need to sit in a corner and think about what we've done! No, we observe this season in preparation for Easter because any of the bad habits or wrong ways we may have are not the real us. Our real self, unencumbered, is God-born, loving, and very tenderly loved.

In the Hinterlands

When driving up north, when the deciduous forest changed to scraggly jack pines, and the pastures left off for rocky outcroppings, my mom would say, "we're entering the hinterlands!" When it gets cold like this, it feels like the hinterlands right here!
The air temp didn't get above zero today. When we ventured out to go to school, I dressed the kids in their soft woolen unders, their school clothes, wool sweaters, and seemingly many layers of coats, hats, mittens, socks. They still love going outside! Gibbie still begs to play for longer in the snowbank (excuse me, dirt-encrusted icebank) on the way to the car. At school, their teacher asked if it was cold on the way to school with shivers in her voice. Gibbie nonchalantly and seriously responded, "just a little." Bundle up, and you hardly notice it!

So we've been playing indoors a lot! We've had a rennaisance of the art box. Here we are making valentines. So far none of them will actually make it into mailboxes, as I will explain in a moment. We are working with glue! I take scraps of used tin foil (or any other unusable, unrecycleable piece of small garbage; a pop bottle cap would work great) to make a little glue-pot, and squirt in a small amount of school-glue. The children apply the glue to the paper or table with q-tips, and then stick on scraps of colored paper. The beauty of these heart-felt creations is fleeting, alas. Part of the process for Gibbie is folding up his work after he finishes. Even if it's covered in wet glue. So it gets all glued to itself and crumpled up. I think all the love is glued in too!

Our Advent Calendar

I made and designed this Advent calendar to go with a book we are using throughout this time: Advent Storybook by Antonie Schneider and illustrated by Maja Dusikova. This book was the only present we gave our first babe on his first Christmas. (He didn't care a whit that he only got one present from us, but now that he's more aware, he loves this book!)
The book is structured as twenty-four charming little stories in which a little bear follows a star to Bethlehem. In each story there is one special visual image. I'm assuming the book was designed to go with the kind of calendar that has a little door to open every day, because it always says, "On December 5th, the little bear opened the door and found a rosebush." or whatever. We read that, and then I have Gibbie look through all our paper stars and find the one with the rosebush. He holds it in his hand until the end of the story, when he puts it in our calendar's pocket for the day. Ezra gets blank stars to hold, and puts them wherever he wants in the calendar!
I like Advent calendars because they are a visual representation of time passing in days, which is so hard for little kids to get, that we are actually getting closer to something. I designed ours to be mostly purple, the color of waiting and reflection and royalty. (I made the third week, usually pink, to be mixed warm prints because I liked the way it looked) As we near Christmas, the strip of dark pockets fills with silver starry paper circles; like light coming into our darkness!
The kids love the whole thing. Gibbie helps me color the little pictures for each day on the backs of the starry circles. (not all our pictures look as cute as these ones!) Ezra is fascinated with moving the circles around, and laying them out in different ways. He also liked moving around the cloth pieces when I was working on the color design of the calendar-- very carefully laying them out one by one, and then rearranging.
I really like this book. The illustrations are lovely. The stories are good. The messages are simple. I think parents who wanted their kids to know the Christmas story, or the spirit of the Christmas story, but didn't want anything too heavy-handed would also like it. The stories are original and fun. There is a little aphoristic moral at the end of each story, like "god will always be with you", or "patience and kindness are great strengths". While don't think they would offend anyone, these don't really add much to the story either. The stories themselves say it better.
It's so tempting to spell everything out for kids, make sure they "get it". Sometimes we just make the beautiful more boring and less compelling. Anyway, this is a real sweet book, and a good beginning for talking about Advent and Christmas, and some of what it means to follow God, or just count down till the holiday.
Oh- we do move the calendar up high when we're not using it, as otherwise all the circles are methodically and evenly distributed throughout the house.

Lo He Comes, Part II

Here's what our "Advent Devotions" may look like:
-we light candles
-we sing
-we read something true and good from a bible storybook or quality Christmas book
-we pray
-we extinguish the candles
-we work together to carefully put everything away in a safe place

I say may look like, as there are inevitable interruptions, each time is different, and we often don't do all those things at one go. We also have a special calendar that is very important in this time, which I am excited to show you soon.So, back to my favorite Advent song, Lo He Comes; verse two:

Every eye shall now behold him, robed in dreadful majesty;
those who set at nought and sold him, pierced and nailed him to the tree,
deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
shall the true Messiah see.

Wait! Deeply wailing? What is this? This isn't Christmas cheer? That's exactly why this impacted me so much as a child. The darkness of the lyrics caught my attention. I was riveted by these astounding images. What could they mean? We had some great conversations spurred by these questions, which I pondered long afterwards.
This song is for me kind of like metaphysical poetry; there are worlds contained in this nutshell. Namely, who is this robed in dreadful majesty? Kind of a scary picture, but it balances the happy happy fun time pastel Jesus we get so often; he isn't a Precious Moments doll. There is a dread in majesty. What do angels always say first when they appear in the bible? Do not be afraid. Apparently they're freaking terrifying.
For myself, I always sing we who set at nought and sold him, not they, because this refers to myself and everyman, not some distant other. I'll save the glory of love and wonder found in the next two verses, more typical Christmas sentiments, for another day.
Anyway, kids not only can handle real imagery, depth and complexity; they need it. A kid won't swallow a fakey story or a sweetly dumbed down God. They, like the rest of us, are hungry for authenticity, for the living God.
That's not to say that they don't also need an appropriate format. Hence, all of the hands-on, participatory elements in our "devotion" time. It's really appropriate to Christmas, when we celebrate God's incarnation, his coming to us as a person, that we engage so directly. I can see clearly that my kids need me not to simply tell them about God, but to meet God for themselves. I just want to introduce them. Remember how Big Bird met Snuffleupagus long before everyone else on Sesame Street? He kept talking about his great friend Snuffleupagus and no one could believe him. Because they have not encountered God for themselves, I think too many children think God is just our imaginary friend, a nice fiction. Maybe for many of us, God and spirituality is just a pretend game, something special we talk about, not someone dear to us, who we know and love and live with.
You can see from the pictures that there is a lot of rotating of instruments, and quite a bit of enthusiastic singing and storytelling! Did you notice Ezra playing the harmonica in most of these photos? After all, we are, as Gibbie says, a band. We have an ever-growing repertoire of songs, and Gibbie usually plans what we will sing. Right now, he really likes the loud songs. Actually, I do too.

Lo He Comes: Part I

During Advent when I was a girl, I remember sitting around the living room, lighting the candles, the glow of my mom and dad's and sister and brother's faces. Each reading little passages from the bible, and singing this song. We sang others, but this is the one I remember most.
The tune has a somber quality, like a great crescendo, and to me, it is the essence of Advent.
The words alone, without music, may not convey the sense, but let's try:

Lo! he comes, with clouds descending, once for our salvation slain;
thousand thousand saints attending swell the triumph of his train;
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ the Lord returns to reign.

Lo! He is coming! Our heart's desire, coming back for us; what a great hope! This is what we cling to in this time of deep winter, waiting for the light. The light is promised, we know it is coming. It dimly flickers in our hearts even now, but not is yet shining in the glory of day. This morning I waited for the sunrise with the boys, looking out the window, watching the deeply colored sky lighten after the long night, but it was a long time before we finally saw the sun itself.
Thousand thousand saints attending; the thought that you and I may be numbered among the great crowd of saints on that day is almost too much to think of.

More tomorrow; the song gets better and more mysterious, but isn't it just so different from the holiday bustle, all the whistles and bells of the Holidazzle season?

presents, expectations, and elves

Recently a friend said that she had always noticed that in my family as I was growing, we gave gifts that she thought would have seemed... insufficient? ...unacceptable? to other kids. I was surprised, (and don't be offended, mom; I don't think she meant it in a negative way at all.) because I think we are the best givers ever!

I don't know how many gifts the typical American kid gets at Christmas, and really, I don't care. As a kid, I never felt shortchanged at Christmas. To me, it always seemed like we all had a wonderful wealth of presents.
Talking with other parents of young kids lately, all just figuring out how our families will do holidays for ourselves, I've found that my extended family may be somewhat uncommon for Americans in that we:
-make a lot of gifts by hand
-freely admit and even brag about how little we spent on a gift
-don't feel bad about, and even appreciate, giving and receiving used gifts

One family whom I admire gives each child three presents a year:
-a book
-something useful and practical (like clothes)
-something fun

The reason I never felt deprived (besides the fact that I actually wasn't deprived at all) is that many presents are not as satisfying as just a couple things that are just right. Not advocating asceticism here: I love giving (and getting!) presents. The wonder is in finding just the right gift. The thing that is perfect. This often means not making the thing that I want him to like, that really if I'm honest, I would like making better than he would like having! That's not a good gift. It means buying something if she honestly wouldn't appreciate something I made. It means trying to figure all this out, trying to get to know our family better, and love them more. Presents are supposed to be the loving overflow of our relationships, not the penalty we pay at holidays to avoid guilt and criticism! In that spirit, I'm enjoying this last stretch of making and finding, even knowing that not all my gifts will match my loved ones' heart's desires. (and enjoying the luxury that Paul took the kids away this afternoon so I could work on things; it was heavenly!)

Just to put things in perspective a bit, a different friend recently told me a story about some good friends from Haiti:
-the kids were thrilled to get any present, like a plain shirt.


Oh, the elfin part of the post of this post is the pictures. Can you tell we're impersonating woodland elves? That's a big tree we're inside of! I think it was a cottonwood. Maybe it was struck by lightening long ago, or was deformed otherwise, and healed in this shape?
Also speaking of elves*, we're enjoying a great little book mom gave me years ago, called, Santa's Favorite Christmas Story. It embraces both Santa Clause and the story of Jesus' birth, while helping sort out the difference between the two for kids. And it's beautifully illustrated, with salty watercolor paintings!
*Though there are no elves in this story, but elves make me think of Santa.

Advent Candles

Our lovely neighbors and friends invited us to their house to make our advent wreaths together. This was doubly nice as it meant I actually got the wreath made on the first day of Advent. Now, in my book, Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas, and varies in length, depending on what day of the week Christmas falls on. I'm also big into using real things. No plastic greens for us! I'm also big into using what we already have around the house.
I've just discovered that thrift shops are a great source of candles! Our candles are from the box of Christmas stuff I keep in the basement, leftover from past projects and set aside for just this use. (A few years ago I found out that buying new candles packaged for Advent--three purple, one pink-- can be ridiculously expensive!)

The basic idea of Advent is it is the season of preparation for Christmas. We are like people waiting in darkness for our Messiah to come to us. We remember his first coming, and prepare for him to come again. Our church put out a little bulletin on preparing for Advent, which reads in part, "It might sound odd, but one symptom of our contemporary lives is that we can often be 'out of touch' with what is going on in our very own hearts." Thus, Advent is a season of introspection, preparation, and longing.

Now, the tradition is four candles in a wreath of evergreens.* They are purple, except for the third week's candle, which is pink. I have heard lots of explanations for this. At our church, the weeks are hope, peace, joy, and love. At Hand in Hand, the kids' school, they are the weeks of the Prophets, the Holy Family, the Shepherds, and the Christ. Go figure. Purple is the color for the liturgical season of Advent because it is the color of royalty, majesty. Gibbie's teacher, Miss Greta (who we will miss terribly next semester!) explained that Christmas is a great mystery. It takes time for us to approach a mystery. The purple reminds us that approaching a mystery is serious, but we need the pink to remember to celebrate the mystery as well, even when we're being serious.
We do daily readings, songs, and prayer, lighting the candles, lighting one more each week. If we use the wreath much, some candles will have to be replaced before Christmas. There is one big, special candle in the center of the wreath for Christmas.
*Despite a wonderful little class I'm in on the historical roots of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, I don't have any idea where the candles and wreath tradition comes from. Maybe I'll find out next week!

I don't think it matters a whit what color the candles are. Mine were white this year because it's what I had. We did decorate them with stripes of the traditional colors. We like the Stokmar candle decorating wax. It comes in a slim box, with about twenty differently, brightly colored sheets of beeswax. It can be tricky to use, and doesn't want to stick to some candles I've tried. No problems this year, though using some of the same candles. Hmm. I would recommend having everything at room temperature, and removing any plastic wrap from candles a while before the project if possible.

I like to stretch the wax by rolling little strips of it thinner with a chopstick or knitting needle. This also makes it easier to manipulate. We also decorated candles for the kids' teachers this way. Gibbie helped make the stripes on one advent candle, and later pressed on some of the pieces to his teachers' candles.

Hopefully more to come soon on our Advent times together, calendar, stories, and songs, as we have more pictures!
We wait in hope for your word to be fulfilled.
We wait in peace for your kingdom to come.
We wait in joy for the glory of our Saviour.
We wait in love for Emmanuel.

This is the way the Babies Ride

I s'pose these rhymes are old as the hills, as I learned them on my Grandma's knees. Our kids like them too! This first is a rhyme for bouncing baby (or any little one) on the knees. On the last verse, baby leans back upside down. I've found I know right away whether or not a babe is ready for this kind of fun.

This is the way the children ride--clip...clop...clip....clop...
This is the way the ladies ride--trit, trop, trit, trot...
This is the way the gentleman ride-- trim trim trim trim trim...
This is the way the huntsman ride--gallupa-gallupa-gallupa-gallupa...
This is the way the farmers ride! GALLUPA! GALLUPA! GALLUPA! GALLUPA!
and THIS is the way the BABIES ride-- Wheeeeeeee! Wheeeeeeee! Wheeeeeee!
And there's one for tickling little feet. I stick my finger into the sole of the lil foot as if sticking in nails during the first bit, and slap the soles of the feet at the very end.
Stick a nail here, stick a nail there,
Stick a nail here, stick a nail there,
Shoe the old horsey, shoe the old mare,
but let the little pony go bare, go bare!
Of course, we have a little sing-song-y way of doing each rhyme. Sure, it's a lesson in rhyming, vocabulary, metered verse, memorization, music, rhythm. Primarily, though, it's a chance to laugh and giggle and squeal; and that's good for everyone. Right now, the older brother in the house is particularly delighted with anything that makes the little brother laugh and laugh, and the little one lives to make his brother do just that.
Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
Meet a fine lady upon a white horse;
with Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
she shall have music wherever she goes!

Ukranian Easter Eggs

A few weeks ago, some of our family gathered at Oma's house to dye eggs for easter. These are called Pysanky, and they are traditional Ukranian Easter eggs. They look almost painted, but the process is actually just like batik-- you make designs in wax on the egg and dye the unwaxed shell, layering wax and colors. You can see here my eggs as well as the works-in-progress of our friend Lori.

The process is honestly rather tedious and can be rather infuriating, as eggs do break--but it is all the more beautiful for that--Lent is a season of patience and care. (plus it was great to talk and catch up while hunched over our eggs for hours on end!)

These are the tools of the trade. In the cup are kistkas. Each has a small metal funnel set through a wooden handle. To work an image on an egg, one scoops beeswax into the wide end of the cone, then heating the narrow end in the candle flame. As the wax melts, the kistka is drawn over the surface of the egg, leaving a trail of wax which hardens as it quickly cools. I'm not sure how much you can see in the above picture the varying thicknesses of line.

Ukranian eggs are usually bright vibrant colors, working from lightest to darkest. First is the color of the egg itself, then yellow, light green, dark green, red, etc... until all the colors are covered with black.

That's right; there's nothing pastel about this Easter! As wax and dye are layered on, the egg looks messy, clotted with globs of sometimes blackened wax, as you can see here in Mary's egg in progress. Underneath, however, the brilliant colors are preserved.

We tend to have illustrations of traditional Ukranian egg designs scattered over the table while we work, but I've noticed most of us (Mom and Diane excepted) just use these for ideas if at all, drawing freeform pictures. After an egg's design is completed, the artist actually holds it right in the candle flame to melt off the wax. The trick is not to singe the shell (or one's fingers!) or get the egg too hot. (They can explode!)

We're not Ukranian, but we've been making these eggs since I was a kid. The little ones were around, though we kept them well away from the work table! Gib loves to see his cousins (he had been begging to see 'Lyssa and Befany, and had lots of fun playing with his Cousin Nafan on the stairs) and we need excuses like this one to get together. Lent is the season before Easter. It is the last of winter before spring; and a time of self examination, of looking honestly at my own faults and wrongs; and of remembering Christ's love for me in light of these. The beauty is that looking at shadows more clearly shows light. Jesus' giving of himself shows his great love for me.

People think that Easter is about how Jesus died for us--it's not exactly. That's what Lent and Holy week (that's the week just before Easter) are about--the death of all in me that is not of God, of all my sinful self (my hatred, malice, injustices...) When Jesus died, all that in me died with him. But all this leads to Easter, the jubilation of life. For you see, His death was the end of Death, and then He came to Life. This is my greatest joy; Death turning into Life. Out of a ruin comes strong, beautiful life. Life vibrant and full, the breath of God in me. Ahh.
So, the eggs. I made the cross here glorious, in celebration of the life we have discovered in Christ. The other side is a hand with a heart. This is the Lenten side. The hands of Christ were written with love for me, as was written in Isaiah--See; I will not forget you; for I have carved you on the palm of my hand. I love that these are opposite sides of the same egg; for us every death leads to greater life. Death always turning into life.

Also an egg for Ezra; E on one side, a lovely red-cheeked babe on the other. Maybe a special egg for Gibbie will come next year. Being second, Ezra will need a few things just for him. And lastly, my rose egg. The thorns and blooms have long been a symbol of that same theme of sorrow turned to beauty.

May the brightest light shine into your deepest gloom.

Alleluia.