And a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.
Tag: Festival
Holiday Bazaar
On Saturday, November 19th, the Washington Waldorf School in Bethesda, Maryland will hold what is probably the most unusual holiday bazaar in the Washington area, reflective as it is of the artistry of Waldorf education.
Adults with an eye to gift-giving appreciate the wide range of beautiful handcrafts, from pottery to woven scarves to toys to jewelry.
Younger children enjoy the storytelling and puppet shows, candle-decorating, visiting the Magical Maze of evergreens and twinkling lights, making an excursion to the Children’s Shop for their own secret purchases, and taking a peek into the pockets of the wandering Pocket Wizard or Pocket Lady. Older children like making wooden toolboxes, or copper lanterns, or ornamenting themselves with a henna-tattoo.
All will happily sink into a seat at the Bazaar Bistro for a truly delicious homemade lunch, a special dessert, or a cappuccino, where they can listen throughout the day to live musical offerings.
Admission is free, but, although it runs from 10 to 3, arrive promptly, because handmade goods and puppet show tickets sell out EARLY.
Fall Back
Even the Dead Are Rising Up to Dance
In honor of Día de los Muertos, here are our skull bread and bones (although they look rather like dog biscuits) and the bilingual song by Tish Hinojosa that we sing every year after the lighting of the candles. For more on this celebration, and the recipe for anise-flavored Pan de Muerto, please see Día de los Muertos.
Hasta Los Muertos Salen a Bailar
La luna llena acaba de llegar El otro mundo empieza a despertar Bajo las sombras vamos a cantar Hasta los muertos salen a bailar. Al camposanto, hay que celebrar Porque esta noche todo es embrujar Y el coyote empieza a aullar Hasta los muertos salen a bailar.Chorus
Flores, canciones, papel de colores Olores de antojos que traen Quienes recuerdan amores, santos, pecadores Allí vamos a estar. A The moon is full of something on the rise The other world is opening its eyes Out in the graveyard, we will sing a stance Even the dead are rising up to dance.Chorus
Love songs and flowers and papers, bright colors And smells of the food that we bring There we remember the saints and the sinners This night with them we will sing. A Los embrujados salen a bailar Y La Llorona mira donde está Ai con la momia enruedada va Hasta los muertos salen a bailar. ALos abuelitos salen a bailar Tíos y tías salen a bailar Hasta monjitas van de allá pa’ca Hasta los muertos salen a bailar. A
La luna llena acaba de llegar El otro mundo empieza a despertar Out in the grave yard we will sing a stance Even the dead are rising up to dance. A Hasta los muertos salen a bailar. Even the dead are rising up to dance.
—Tish Hinojosa
When Autumn Came
—Faiz Ahmed Faiz, translated by Naomi Lazard
Filomena
Jack O’Lanterns
Let justice roll down like waters
Today is the official opening of the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial (postponed from its earlier date due to Hurricane Irene). However, my son and I got up very early one weekday morning a couple of weeks ago and biked down through Rock Creek Park to see it sans crowds, and, indeed, our only companions were uniformed park service staff.
I realize that this monument has been somewhat controversial, what with complaints about the determinedly literal concept and the outsourcing to China and the misleading engraved quotation. But as I walked along reading King’s words and beheld his sunlit figure gazing intently across the Tidal Basin—and pondered the changes of the last fifty years, for much of which this man, so far ahead of his time, was responsible—I could only be moved. I look forward to returning in all seasons of the year.
Today is also the birthday of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980), whom we can thank for the preservation and restoration of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal as a park, with hiking trails and bike paths, thus averting its transformation into a highway. This is where you go in Washington, DC if you want to see hometown bald eagles, or the first bluebells. For sketches and a mini-bio, please see Justice of the Peace.
Aunt Bett
Michaelmas/Rosh Hashanah
This year two festivals of autumn fall upon the same day: Michaelmas, the feast of the dragon-conquering St. Michael the Archangel, and Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. And appropriately so, since both, although from different spiritual traditions, call for reflection upon and atonement for our deeds and misdeeds of the past year and a courageous awakening to our innermost thoughts. The days now grow shorter, and as we head into winter we plan consciously to nurture the light within.
So in our family we honor the season ecumenically, if perhaps sacrilegiously, and don red garments, blow our tofu horn, say special verses and blessings to help us reflect, and share apples dipped in honey and challah baked in the shape of a dragon. A light-filled MichaelmHashanah to you.
Dad
Camp Trinity
Each year at this time, we head for the wilds of Far Western Virginia and our annual church retreat, some of the housing for which is depicted herein (which used to be pretty chilly digs but which now offers baseboard heaters for the 21st century camper).
It’s a weekend that is difficult to describe: certainly there is plenty of serious discussion, reflection, prayer, and singing; but interwoven are hiking, yoga, dancing, hay rides, sessions of watercolor painting and dream work, and time for the more lengthy, intimate conversations for which the Sunday coffee hour is too brief.
The children play community-building games and create spirited art objects that enliven the setting of our closing liturgy. For our daughter’s Middle School group, this meant building and joyously spray-painting enormous colorful internally-illuminated free-standing totems that would be perfectly comfortable on the floor of the Whitney.
Every single year, departure for home is poignant. I post this sketch-memory as a token of gratitude.
For Camp Trinity sketches from past years, please see Holy Water and Stairway to Heaven.
Dawson
Mary & Chris
Equinox Cupcakes
To celebrate the autumn equinox, one of the two times of year when the day and the night are of equal length, my daughter and I baked half-and-half cupcakes (lemon/chocolate). We distributed them door-to-door in the neighborhood, wherever we saw lights shining in the window after dinner on Equinox Eve, since the actual event was to take place at 5:05 am EDT the following morning. And you don’t want to be caught cupcake-less. Although I’m not sure everyone waited until the following morning to eat them. Happy Autumn, everybody.