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| A plum blossom promise that spring is on its way. |
He is fascinated and repelled by flames and that tension is ever present. One must pull on an extra layer of patience when the boy picks up a match box. Today he is frustrated by how I am constantly bringing his burning paper back to the center while he is insistent on making small fires around the edges of the stove. If a mother is an expert at one thing it is tending. The fire represents my mother work - pulling the rolling marbles all back to the center again so that they may immediately all roll willy-nilly out from the center in a chaotic, entropic dance. To be a mother is to be Sisyphus.
I stay patient.
I silently thank myself.
Soon our fire literally roars.
Warmth. And time for me to return to my task at hand - getting all of our items put away in their new home - the Warthog School for the time being is now is session in the yome.
Originally his plan was to play with trains but I hear him say aloud to no-one in particular, "I think I'll just sit and watch the fire." The power of the flame. Entrancing. Naturally meditative. It lasts a moment and then he is off. He has an idea.
I am up at the wash house and I suddenly notice that he is alone somewhere between me and the cabin and he is unafraid. He usually never leaves my side on the land. Spooked by an imagination that has been kept powerfully in tact, he is a boy who still wants to be close to my jeans and muddy boots. I cross paths with him as I am returning with my laundry load. He has a heavy cast iron pot with a half-gallon milk carton, honey, and a whisk.
"I'm making a special treat. I'll wait for you so you can tell me how much honey to put in. We are going to have warm milk and honey on the fire."
To watch what comes next is to see a primitive, instinctual, tea ceremony channeled from hundreds of years ago. If you focus on the milk sloshed onto the wood floor however you will miss the brilliant spontaneous enactment. If motherhood is something else - it is constant choosing. Choosing for "yes", and "and", and for having an experience, messy, overwhelming, and exhausting as it may be.
He pours me a mug that is way too big and I receive it with the deep reverence it deserves. I believe it was transferred through a plastic funnel and a mini dutch oven from the play kitchen before making it to my mug. It seems that when you are five, the more steps there are, the more in depth the process gets, the better. Frivolity is a happy good word like joy and glitter. Who cares when the play kitchen utensils last got washed, did you see how cool the milk looked coming out of the funnel? It is over an hour later that I feel the full affect of his sweet gift and my heart is warmed in a way I never knew before motherhood, "You know mom, I wanted to have milk by the fire because I wanted to be like Frog and Toad." I know exactly the chapter he is talking about.
Today was a display of the natural magic that I knew would arise in them if only I could carve them out a safe space to be held by nature. An imagination nourished by animal allies rather than defined by cultural icons. Time and space to be bored, and alone, and wandering, and wondering, long enough to be deeply spontaneous and creative. Today, by the light of Imbolc, I saw illuminated a treasure; naturally occurring "affinity for life". Yes, I shared some off the top narrative about today's holiday; I mentioned the pregnant ewe's who will be birthing by equinox (the "in the belly" history of the "Imbolc" holiday). I talked about sympathetic fires being lit for the sun as it slowly gains dominance over the winter. They were sparse fragments from which he managed to weave the rich and meaningful frog and toad tea.
Natural magi, children are the teachers, not the students, of the Warthog School.
