Old Book Smell is Wonderful

[this blog post to be edited & finished later] 

 
One of my favorite scents of all time is old books. In part because books symbolize my love of knowledge, and in part because I worked in rare books and archives for a while (was graduate work focus), and because libraries have often been my happy place.

-- smell with memory and some of mine
-- feelings evoked
-- chemical compounds
-- link to history

UPCOMING: Comparing Book Scented Candles

If you have a favorite book or library scented candle, let me know! So that I can include it in the final blog post comparing results.

The Phillpian Star for the Nativity Fast

Such a beautiful tradition! It comes from the Slavic cultures and Eastern Europe, and is popular with many Eastern Christians. Similar to the Western tradition of Advent, the Nativity Fast (or The Phillipian Fast, or Philipovka/Filipovka) is the 40 day count-down that is marked by fasting, prayers and readings, and increasing light from the Phillipian Star: the beautiful candle holder in the center of it all. In this post I'll show you four styles my family has had, and how to use them.

In short: it is a six-sided candle holder in the form of a star, often the Star of David. A candle is lit each week of the Nativity Fast until you get to Christmas Eve and then the center candle is also lit. This evening light service is often accompanied by scripture readings, or a Jesse Tree, or some ritual that celebrates the story of this liturgical season.

This was our first Phillipian Star given to us by my eldest's godmother. I believe the men's group at the church made them as part of a workshop project with the children. It's wooden and holds standard size taper candles. You can see where the paint is worn from where I melted & chipped away the dripped wax. We put red candles at all the points of the star, and a gold or specially decorated candle in the center. Some people have many different colored candles with a theme to each week (more about that below). You can also make your own wooden taper candle holder easily; detailed how-to here. 

This one is not a candle holder at all. I sewed it for my little kids to do themselves without concern for fire. It's also space-saving since it hangs on the wall and doesn't take up precious counter or table top. The felt triangles and center circle (which used to have a golden design on it) adhere to the spots with velcro, and the little pocket at the bottom holds the unused pieces It folds up easily for storage till next year.

This one is pretty unique. It was made as a gift by the Sunday School/ECF teacher at church for the kids' families. Instead of a Star of David shape, it is a wooden board with an iconographic star shape painted on it with a Nativity icon in the center. The candles (either wax or battery operated) are set right on top, and each colored candle has it's own week's theme:
week 1: green, faith
week 2: blue, hope
week 3: yellow, love
week 4: white. peace
week 5: purple, repentance
week 6: red, communion
center candle: golden for the Incarnation

Here is another wall-hung example. You can see the details and instructions for this incredibly easy and affordable project here. Made from a place-mat and ribbon, it uses battery operated tea lights. I appreciate it so much since we have a small house and usable space is at a premium. I can leave it on and not be overly concerned about fire-curious children.


Your observance and use of your Phillipian Star can be as complicated or as simple as you want. The fullness of what this tradition can offer is beautiful! but only if it doesn't stress you out.
Sometimes, I can't add one more thing to the to-do list. In the years where a new child was welcomed, holidays (and life in general) got simplified a lot. We've just lit the candles, drank a warm beverage (hot cider, tea, hot chocolate), and the kids did a coloring page from the Nativity story while I read or sang something related. Other years, I made a pocket wall calendar that had an icon for every saint for every day, and also had a piece of paper with an activity suggestion on it.

Some additional links for further web-searching:
activity workbook:  https://ucymb.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/pilipivka-workbook.pdf
guide for phillip's fast for families: https://ucymb.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/st-philips-plan.pdf
ideas for the fast: http://www.sttheophanacademy.com/2011/11/living-nativity-fast.html
about in general: http://antiochian.org/nativity/pre-feast
excerpts of reflections by Thomas Hopko: http://puluka.com/home/liturgy/winter-pascha-reflections-on-phillipian-fast/

Tape Resist Orthodox Cross Art

This project is appropriate for all ages, requires little prep from the parent, and creates striking results! There's a kind of visual magic when the tape is removed, and both big and little kids will enjoy this.

I was inspired by this post on Sun Hats & Wellie Boots. and The Resourceful Mama. They did a simple cross, and we did an Eastern style cross for our Byzantine New Year party's art project. (get your printable Liturgical year icon wall calendar here) Not only does this provide experience crafting and painting, practicing motor skills, and exercising one's will to create a finished product, it also engenders greater familiarity with the shape of the tri-bar cross.

You'll need thick paper or canvases, paint brushes and paint (either acrylics or watercolors), and masking tape or painters tape. Optional supplies include newspaper as a work surface, and embellishments. Don't forget your homeschool teacher's id to get your discount at participating stores! 

Use your tape and make your cross shapes. You can be very precise about this if you want, though I just eyeballed it. Make sure to press down the edges of the tape a little extra if you are painting on a surface like canvas that isn't perfectly smooth.

Set out the paints and let the kids have at it!  The whole piece should be covered in color -- only the cross will remain white. Enjoy the process! There is no wrong way to do this.

After you've let the paint dry a little, peel off the tape. If you feel your artwork is complete then hooray! Or, let it dry a little longer to add the next layers. We used glitter glue, metallic paint pens, and stick-on jewels.

What a joy to see all the different styles and outcomes! So colorful and vibrant, every one.

No! Girls are NOT Like Apples on Trees!!!

Some of you may have seen the below image floating around the interwebs. People are posting it as some kind of moral insight, a lesson about the truth of virtuous girls and courageous, righteous boys.

What a horrid thing -- no way! My "n and "o" keys cannot handle the amount of NO here! I suppose I would not be reacting so strongly if I had not been raised with similar beliefs, and experienced firsthand how damaging they are. Don't teach your daughters this bull.


There is SO MUCH WRONG HERE that I'm not sure where to start, so I'll just put a bunch of bullet-ed paragraphs here. 
-- The notion that a girl exists to look pretty on a tree to wait for a boy to come along and pick her makes her main potential in life to revolve around waiting around for a man. And not just that, but to wait around for him to take the action that affects her life. She is a passive object here (an apple) while he gets to remain an active agent in his own life. She is just the victim/object of his choices. She has no agency in her own relationship choices.

-- An apple is meant to be consumed!!! Do I even need to explain this part?! -- This sets up a system of comparison between women that a patriarchal society/mindset might use. We do not need to allow competition & comparison between women in order to get the attention of that boy who will choose us for consumption.
-- The poor little apples at the top think something is wrong with them because the boys aren't scrambling to get them. *UGH* More reinforcement that girls self-worth is only validated by the outside judgement and action of men/boys. *PUKE*RETCH*

-- And all those poor little consumable girls, just waiting for life validation and worth, can't even turn to the other apples and look for support or begin to the conversation about what bullshit this is because they are all busy competing with & judging one another. They have all been conditioned to fail, and have little or no way out of this system.

-- Women do not need to compete with one another for anything other than consensual sporting activities or contests. Allowing ourselves to be trapped in such a framework of isolation & judgement of on another is harmful at best, and destructive to everything around us.

--  The wording diminutizes women into girls. If they are old enough to be in a relationship, they are women or becoming women. Keeping them small is a means to more easily power-tip over them and keep them in their place. Likewise, using the term 'boys' also takes away a bit of their power/responsibility on the situation.

-- Judgement and labeling like "good" "easy" "top" "bottom" are such enormous bull-hockey I don't even know where to start on that one.


-- Teaching men and boys that their job is to judge and objectify the opposite gender is so damaging to who they are. It takes away these boys' inherent sense of worth and place in society and cheapens it by twisting it into a false power dynamic. One that will not serve them well; one that twists the idea of what real beauty and worthiness is, and corrupts their responsibility towards their fellow, equal humans. It also states that their own worth & bravery is dependent on them scoring the correct apple from the tree.


I'm sure there's more to be said. Post it in the comments.
Some worthwhile comments from others in a discussion of this topic: 
"You are not an apple waiting to be chosen, and you are certainly not rotten. Get out of the damn tree and choose your own life, your own adventure, and your own boy if you want one. But first, go be whatever and whoever it is you want to be. Sitting around in a tree is a waste of your potential." - T.M.

"...the creator of this might think that it will inspire self-esteem in the apples at the top of the tree... but it objectifies ALL of the apples." -- G.M.  
 

Intro to Human & Animal 4th Grade Lesson Block

In the fourth grade of Waldorf education there is a lesson block that looks at the relationship between humans and the rest of animal creation. I had a hard time making sense of it.  Having been taught something very different in my grade school days (ideas that have not served well, by the way) it was a whole new perspective to explore, and the full-on Anthroposophic Steiner model didn't work for me. The more I got into it, tho', I could see the core parts were good, and they integrate well with our Eastern Christian understandings.

For further reading to understand better the Waldorf/Steiner mode of seeing this topic, the book  "The Human Being and the Animal World" by Charles Kovacs is especially good at delving into it. This blog post from Five of Us does a decent job of summarizing.
Of course, this is a natural opportunity to include the idea of humanity as the truest icons of the Divine, and that may lead into a further lesson about what icons are and how we use them. I particularly like this blog post on the topic.

This intro to the difference between human and animals helps support and make some important underlying foundational concepts that are needed in Eastern Christianity:
-- understand the nature of the flow of the spirit through our bodies will be useful later on when breathing & spiritual practice are taught
--  the beauty of the head, trunk, limbs metaphor is not lost later on when we learn about the purpose of humanity in God's creation
-- no judgement is placed on the rest of God's creation as lesser or lacking, just functionally and different in purpose
-- it also does not overemphasize intellect as tho' that is our most important tool; this sets up the importance of thinking and listening from the heart, and not accidentally giving the intellect and "monkey mind" too much significance

 

Here are the beginning pages to our block (the following pages are physical animal studies and observations).

The Schedule of the Festive Christmas Season; Nov-Feb

Recently I was asked in a Waldorf homeschooling group about the Christmastime observance and practice of those in our Eastern traditions, how long and when Christmas is celebrated, and the times around them and how we celebrate (there are variations depending on cultural heritage and which branch/church one follows -- some follow a different calendar of dates).  Such a big question! Below is a very brief summary of how we do things in our family's Slavic based traditions, with a bit of not-Slav thrown in. We also have some family personal patron saints to add in during this time, too.

Preparation for Christmas/Nativity/Incarnation starts on Nov 14th and celebrating big parts of the pre-Nativity narrative, and related story, occur during this time. It is our Advent. It's a fasting period (children, sick, elderly, and nursing and pregnant mothers do not fast), and every night there is a special reading or reflection to do along with a candle lighting ceremony and special candle holder that has a place for each of the six weeks and one special place in the middle for Christmas Eve & Christmas day. Depending on the household this evening candle lighting prayer/reading service might have an Old Testament story focus or a New Testament focus. It is called the Phillipian Fast, or Philopovka (because it starts on the feast day of St Phillip), and it goes for 40 days (weekends do not count amoung the fasting/preparation days). 

Traditionally, these special candle holders are made of wood in the shape of a six pointed star to sit in the center of the table. I made this one to hang vertically on the wall to save space and keep flames away from curious little hands. (click on the pic for instructions)

Our children get their presents on St Nicholas day which starts with discovering their boots that were left outside overnight have a candy cane left in them. Later that day each child gets one big gift wrapped in paper and ribbons that is specific to them. This is about when we start putting Christmas decor up.
 
On Christmas Eve we have Holy Supper: a long meal/prayer service that takes basically from the afternoon till the evening. It is loaded with symbolism in the set up and the amount of vegetarian food (it is still within the fasting period), and is meant as a blessing to family unity, history, and for the year ahead of the family. The day includes preparation and songs, and the meal starts when the children see the first star outside. It includes prayers blessings toasts and rituals interspersed with the meal. Our animals get the first food & first treats of the evening since animals were also witness to the Christ child's birth, and kept Him warm. If the children are old enough to do so, it might also include a play. At the end, our daddy does "fortune telling" for each member of the family from the smoke of a candle they blow out.

 
Christmas is December 25th and holy day full of church attendance and singing and joy. The leftovers from the night before are added to a few new dishes to eat during the day so that momma does not have to do a lot of work. Jolly times with family! and gratitude during this lazy day.
Christmas starts on the 25th and we celebrate Nativity until January 6th.


Jan 6th is Theophany, when we celebrate the Baptism of Christ (in the Western tradition they celebrate this day as Epiphany with a focus on the Three Kings). In preparation we decorating bottles for the kids to take to church. Water is blessed then (churches that are located near a body of water like a river or lake might process there to bless it), and each kiddo gets their own bottle to fill with Theophany holy water, and we also fill big bottles for our home use. We talk about how the whole world is washed clean in blessing.

We celebrate the Wise Men on Jan 7th, and the story of the Magi's journey captures young imaginations in so many ways! There is always something to focus on each year and related crafts to make that help plant the seeds for understanding this important part of the story later on.
We leave the Nativity things up for a little while longer for the children to explore the story a bit more, and then Nativity items get packed away and the tree comes down. The rest of the Christmas decor and lights stay up.

On the Sunday closest to Feb 2nd, the Presentation in the Temple, we bless the candles for our homes for the coming year. We spend the preceding weeks taking inventory of what we need, and making candles. Then we arrange them neatly in a basket to take to church where everyone places their baskets up front to be blessed.

The festive season continues until February altho' within that Christmas season we might no longer be focusing on the Nativity story part of it as strongly after the 6th, there is a lot more story & fun stuff in there. We leave up all our decorations and garlands until Feb when we take most of them down. I still leave up greenery which we can decorate with other fun things until Spring. 

February also begins the season of house blessings! The priest comes to your house and blesses it all, and then you follow to the next house of the person in your area, and end up at one last person's house for a party all together. These prayers are not spoken but sung, so it's a day full of singing, holy water, candles, and then feasting with friends. The priest walks around with holy water, and blesses every bit of it while we sing. I make sure to have all our cupboards and closets open to also get the nooks & crannys blessed. Sometimes there is a toast and some goodies to eat before going to the next house. It can be a lovely community building event. It also encourage not being too dormant during the cold months -- we don't have "Spring Cleaning", we have hurry-and-rush-Winter-house-blessing-cleaning.


When the Christmas season is done, and we pack away the decor, we get a small breather before preparing for the next festal season: Pascha/Easter! 

Making a Vertical, Wall-Hung Phillipian Star for the Advent Fast

In the Eastern Christian tradition we have a six week fast right before Christmas. This Advent time fast is called the Phillipian Fast, or Phillipo Fast or Philopovka, because it starts on St Phillip's feast day, Nov 14th. One of the ways we mark this time is through a candle holder in the shape of a six sided star. A new candle is lit each week, and the special candle in the middle is for Christmas Eve and maybe Christmas day.  Some traditions have a different color candle for each week with a matching quality to meditate on that week, and others have all red candles for the weeks and a gold one in the center. There are lovely readings and prayer services that you can do along with your family during this time and at the lighting of the candles.

In past years, we've a style of candle holder made of wood it holds lovely tapers and makes a striking centerpiece. Nothing compares to the warm, focusing glow of candlelight.  One of my more recently mobile children has not figured out candle etiquette, and altho' we didn't have difficulties with our older children around matches and fire, this little one makes having flame about a problem. We all seven of us live in a very small house (less than 1000sqft of living space), so space is at a premium, especially on the only table.

A friend came up with the thought of having a Phillipian Star that hung on the wall. What a great idea! But how? and wouldn't the flames of the candles on the bottom melt the candles above extra quickly? And how, and of what materials, could you make a wall scone in that shape that wasn't a fire hazard? More importantly, how could I do it with the skills I already have and on a budget?

I mulled it over for a while, and then it came to me: fake candles! Those battery operated candles, some needle and thread, some glue and materials and *voila* easy-peasy. As I went I modified it to be even easier! and I didn't need to whip out a lot of tools, and it took only 20 minutes to make. Even better: I got everything at the dollar store. Yup, you read that right -- super effective & cheap project. 

tools needed: round place-mat, ribbons, hand sewing needle and thread, scissors, glue, battery t

ealight candles

1) The ribbon was glued onto the round place-mat with fabric glue. It took a little math to get the geometry and placement right, and you do need to allow time for the glue to dry. We did some book reading & kitchen cleaning while it dried.

2) I measured ribbon to go around the side of the tealights to make a loop, careful to singe/melt the edges on a real candle (best anti-fray ever). At first I glued the loops together, but it took too much time, Simple tacking them with a needle & thread by hand was much faster.

the loops of ribbon around the tealights are tacked on only at the top so that it can be lifted to turn the candle on & off

3) Sew on the loops in place at the points of the star by just a few stitches only at the top so that the loops hang down. The faux candles are light-weight and not creating a lot of tension/pull so it doesn't take much. This way, too, it's easy to slide them into the loops (or replace them later as need be), and easy to get to the little stitches to turn them on or off.

4)  I used a staple gun to attach it right to the wall. I also added a bit of left over gold glitter paint to the ribbon lines that make the star and to the center candle. Done! and out of the reach of little hands, no fire-hazard, and still visually striking.

the finished product!

We use ours with six red candles around the edged and a golden one in the middle. The tealights themselves are white, so I made the colors by the ribbons, You could also paint the tops of the tealights if you want -- they take paint remarkably well.  I found some tealights that had red glitter on them like little peppermint candies, so I got some of those for the red candle spots after Thanksgiving for the weeks of December -- because glitter makes everything better *wink*.