Appreciating the Natural World

This time of year when the holiday season can often become so distorted with “what do I get?”, I wanted to have the children have an opportunity to listen to the earth and the forest before gathering branches and cones for a door wreath.  I know myself, and I can become so focussed on gathering from the land that I have often forgotten to STOP, APPRECIATE and ASK.   With these ideas in mind I took my grade six class up to the forest behind the school the other day.  I asked them if we could sing a song before entering the forrest and see if they had a different experience than they usually did while walking amoung the trees.  It was a song a friend had taught me that works with the First Nations People and asks the ancestors if we can enter the land before stepping forth.   The children loved to sing the song. To give back to the animals, I had one of my more active students in charge of a big bag of bird seed that we divided up and walked with.  

On top of this intention, I asked the children to walk in silence and again compare their experience of being in the forest with that that they usually experience.  This is an exceptional group of students that I have had the pleasure of teaching on and off for many years.  They did walk in silence.  They did feed the animals and they did ask before collecting branches.  

Finally, based on a talk I had been to with a Lakota Elder in the summer, I asked them to find one tree and truly appreciate it.  Hug and listen to it.  

This is what they shared.

“I felt so peaceful.”

“When I usually put my ear to a tree it is cold.  This time it was warm.”

“I was led by my ear.  It was like the tree pulled me.”

“It was so quiet and beautiful.  I saw so much more than I usually do.”

“I loved collecting.  It felt honouring of the forest.”

“I have been in that forest many times and it has never felt like that.”

We came back into the classroom and the children, with not more than a bit of wire, twine and recycled ornaments, made the most beautiful wreaths I have ever seen.  I told them, that for me, this had been the best experience I had had of the season.