A Year of Healing and Health

Last Winter I was sitting in my mom's living room, looking out the windows at the forest that surrounds her house watching the birds nibble at the suet seed balls we had formed and hung on our live holiday tree. I was trying to think of ways in which to involve my kids actively in their health and awareness. My kids have a decent palate, they like salad, stir fry, and vegetable soups of the general variety, but their favorite foods still hinge on starches laden with cheese. I wanted to broaden their horizons and connect them to their surroundings. We live in the Pacific Northwest which is home to a plethora of both local and international flavors and delights. I have taken my kids to Chinese New Year festivals, Japanese festivals, and local art festivals, as well as the local farmer's market on numerous occassions. They have enjoyed all of these. As a parent, I wanted more for them. I wanted them to know for themselves how to find those things around them that give them a spark, a zest for life, as well as inspires them and leaves them in awe of the beauty and bounty that surrounds us. I came up with a 12 month journey through the seasons and the surroundings to help them, as well as myself, create a deeper more intimate connection to our world, here and abroad. Each month has a food theme, an activity theme, and a nature theme.

The food themes centered around those foods that were appropriate for the month, with seasonal produce whenever possible, as well as how another culture may use those same dishes or ingredients. Every week we would sit down and design a menu plan for the week, and brainstorm which dishes we would be interested in trying that fit the theme of the month, locally foraged foods, locally grown foods, and our global theme in mind. At the end of the week, when we sat down again to plan our next menu, we would discuss which of those dishes or ingredients we liked, which were not our favorites, and whether we learned anything interesting that week while trying new foods. Not only did it create a unified effort to our meal plans, we also had a novel way to try new foods, which is sometimes difficult to do.

The activity theme also centered around what is available in our area at that time of year. For instance, walking or hiking in the winter months is available to a limited extent, and swimming and water sports are set for the summer months. As much as possible, I tried to combine the activity theme with the nature theme, so as not to overwhelm both myself and my kids with too many tasks. For instance, being February, the nature theme is Anything new awake in February combined with nature walks as the activity theme. I wanted my kids to be able to remember these experiences long after they were done, so I developed activities to help them get the most of these excursions. Some of those plans involved digital picture collages, focusing on what they saw around them, or picking a certain kind of plant or animal and trying to get multiple pictures in different settings of their chosen subject. Other options included paintings, drawings, stampings, or research excursions to the Library, so that we could be learning as much as possible about the world we live in, on as many levels as we could.

Each month I will post here what the themes are with weekly updates as to what we are doing and how that month is panning out. I will share our triumphs as well as our setbacks and any challenges we may face. I have soaring hopes for this to be a tremendously rewarding experience, and am so very excited to share in these discoveries with my children. These are my passions. My children. My food. My experiences in this life. Come and share them with me. The journey will be magnificent.

February

Around the world Soups and Stews-Warm the bellies in the winter.

Some ideas we've collected so far:

Tortilla soup
Minestrone
Tomato Basil soup
Morrocan chicken
Indian curry
Thai curry
Chinese chicken ball soup
Chili
Lentil dahl
Potato leek soup
Hot and sour soup
Egg drop soup
Creamy soup-mushroom, broccoli, asparagus, etc…
African ground nut stew
South American Winter Squash soup
Borcht
Cherry soup
Chikka paprikash
Ox tail soup
Clam Chowder

Anything new awake in February-Nature walks and day hikes.

Ideas we've come up with to explore this.

Photo collage

Photo journal

Drawings

Paintings

Journal Entries

Library research

Poetry

Check back next week to see what we found!

Gray Days Crystal Nights

The nights turn cool, chilly, with a sharpness that penetrates. The days grow short. Night envelopes more than its fair share. The once vibrantly colored leaves now brown, trodden, mudlike. Fat little bushtits fluff up and shiver, chirping out their protest to those passersby that will listen. Squirrels race, as if frantically searching, and nibble on strips of bark. They chatter, too, at passersby, but more like the grumpy old men in those too familiar stories. There are a few straggling wooly bears scrambling to find warmth, and the occassional hop of a frog after a deceptively warm rain. Otherwise it is quiet. It is winter.

Winter brings solace, necessary insulation, and sometimes a sense of loss; color gone from the landscape, warmth gone from the air, sounds gone from the winds. Misunderstanding. Winter is a time of rest and rejuvenation. This is the time to delve inward and heal. Storage for winter, hibernation, and slowed pace all participate in the healing of self. Solace allows for self reflection, so much harder to do when the world around you is a sensual feast. Insulation helps to retain the solace, to ensure the space necessary for the process. The loss; simply helps to make those things we miss in their absence that much more wonderful on their return. Cycles and Seasons.Embrace this winter. Take the time to heal. When spring comes back again your work will be rewarded. All things grow better in clean cultivated soils. Weeds are easier to pull in winter. Get in there and weed. Peace and health be with you.