Craft Stars

My good friend Andrea sent me a link to make Finnish Paper Stars, which is a cool variation on a very simple craft I like to do, folding German Paper or Ribbon stars. With a little variation, you can make them swazis. I'll show you how to do that later. Good Yule everyone!

Tomten Treats

In heathen time reckoning the new day starts at dusk. So Wednesday night is the start of Thursday, which is the Tomten's treat day. This week he gets a banana nut muffin, and eggnog with lots of nutmeg. Fresh nutmeg is really great. 

Seasonal Crafts - rolled candles

This is one that I've seen around for a while and never thought to try. I have to say I was really surprised at how much fun it was, despite being very simple. The candle making kit is nothing more than sheets of colored beeswax and a long string of wick. 

We got the kit from A Toy Garden, but I know a few different "Waldorf-y" kinds of shops have them. The instructions suggest warming the sheets with a blow dryer, but I recommend using a handy sun-beam. It's much nicer, safer, more seasonal, and gives you the perfect excuse to sing some sun sings, as if you need an excuse!  ;-)  In case you needs some sun songs, there are a couple of books at the shop linked above, and some here - at Nova Natural, another favorite store for natural kids stuff. Our alltime favorite Sun Song though, is Sun-Hail by heathen bard Hilda. Here is her page, which I highly recommend to all heathen parents.

I'm glad I kept the wooden boxes from all the Melissa & Doug wooden toys we've gotten; even when we don't really needs the box to store the toy that came in it, they come in handy for projects like this one. Having the box to support the wax sheet while we carried, heated, and rolled it made things much easier for baby. The edges of the sheets are a little fragile and crumbly. First baby choose a sheet of wax, or 2 sheets if we wanted to make 2 colored candles. then she put the wax on the overturned box, and placed it in the sunbeam. While it warmed we measured and cut the wick. Then we stared by pressing the wick lightly into the wax, and folding the bottom edge up over it. I'd get the rolling started so it would proceed evenly, and we'd roll together, then seal the ends with a little crimping action, and press the seam down to seal it nicely. 

After we got a good routine down with making the candles we got fancy by adding decorating wax, also from the above vendors. Baby choose colors and cut out sh

apes with little wax cutters made just for this. I'd help pinch the stars into a more star-like shape as the cutter left them looking too much like little flowers. Then we'd stick them to the candles - just the warmth of our hands and very slight pressure was all it took. Easy! 

They came out looking pretty. We planned to give them as gifts, but we might keep at least a few of them, since we use so many candles - we always like to have one burning when we have a meal

Seasonal Crafting - LINZER COOKIES!

I don't think there is a better time for crafts than the later, colder half of fall. The weather tends to drive us indoors, and it's natural to want to do work to prepare for the winter months to come. For older kid's I recommend sausage making and brewing, but here are some good crafts for littler kids, we did these over the Thanksgiving weekend. 

LINZER COOKIES - these are old-fashioned sandwich style cookies. They are really festive and you can get the cutters with different holiday cut-out shapes - trees, ornaments, candy canes, stars,  etc. I like to make a few batches, and vary the filling: blackberry, raspberry, cherry, apricot, cloudberry, whatever kind of jam you like or have on hand. We made a special trip to a favorite German deli and let baby choose some jams. A great use for home-made preserves too! 

1  1/4 C flour (AP = All Purpose)

2 tsp. cinnamon 

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 C (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature

1 C powdered sugar (+ some for decorating

5 tsp. orange peel, grated

2 tsp. lemon peel, grated (substitute or add lime too if you like) 

3 large egg yolks

1 1/4 C Hazelnut meal

Blackberry Jam 

First put out the butter to warm, and make the hazelnut meal. 

Put shelled hazelnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast them at about 325 F for 5 minutes, watch them! When they start to smell toasty remove a few and rub them gently in a kitchen towel, you want the papery outer husks to come off. If they do not, heat again, 5 minutes or so at a time until the rub off easily. Remove the nuts and discard the husks. They will have a much nicer texture & flavor this way. Chop them finely, with a food processor or nut chopper if you have one, or a large knife if you don't. (This is labor intensive, but possible; I do it this way.) Do not over-grind; you don't want a creamy consistency, but more like corn-meal. Over-chopping or a blunt blade will bring out the oil. 

Sift and whisk the 1st 5 ingredients together. 

Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, add the citrus zest. 

Beat in Yolks and dry ingredients, and nut meal. 

When the dough is smooth, make a flattened patty out of it, wrap tightly, and chill for a minimum of 1 hour, overnight is fine. 

Pre-heat oven to 325 F, roll out dough 1/8" thick, cut cookies. Half of them will be plain discs, the other half discs with a shaped hole in the center. Bake for up to 22 minutes, watch them, they burn easily. They should be light golden brown. Check after 10 or 15 minutes and turn the sheet if the cookies look to be browning unevenly. 

Cool cookies on a wire rack. Spread bottoms with jam, top with cut-out tops, sprinkle with powdered sugar. They are lovely, and make a nice gift in a cookie tin. Many thrift stores have loads of nice cookie tins for under a dollar. Put paper between the layers of cookies.

Tomten day

On Thursdays we honor our Tomten, the spirit of our household. Today Thursday is also Thanksgiving, so he'll get portions of our feast throughout the day. Here's his breakfast. 

Fresh coffee with sugar and cream, & scones. 

Here's a hail we made up this morning:

Hail to the Tomten - the spirit of our house,

Hail to the Huldafolk all about, 

Hail the Gods & Goddesses who watch us from above, 

Hail to our Ancestors who greet us with their love. 

Pip Podcasting

My kinsman Pip, a skaldic artist and all around nice heathen guy is doing podcasts of his music, all of which is suitable for heathen families, kids, and campfires. Enjoy!

http://piparskeggrskald.podbean.com/

Snowfall

Here's a song to enjoy singing together. It lends itself well to pantomime. 

First we mime shaking out a sheet, then sway as we sing and sign "snow". The sign for snow is made by holding the hands out high in front of you, palms down, and wiggling the fingers up and down and the hands back and forth as you bring them down, like snow flurries drifting and dancing down from the sky. It's just like the sign for rain, but more animated. You can figure out how to mime fluffing pillows and shaking blankets, just like you do it at home. For the This way and that-a-way's we sign snow while turning and sashaying around. It's pretty fun. 

Dame Holda shakes her bed like this - 

and the snow comes down, 

and the snow comes down. 

She fluffs up her pillows,

she shakes out her blankets, 

and the snow comes down, 

and the snow comes down.

It goes this way and that a-way

It goes this way and that a-way

It goes this way and that a-way

All through the town.

MORE FOOD - Fruit of the Week

So, each week we do a "fruit of the week". It can be any food, really - vegetables, grains, even meats are all "fruits" of the earth in a way. This is a great home school type activity, learning as we go through our day. We take inspiration from "the World's Healthiest Foods" website, and of course just by things we see - at the grocery store, in movies, wherever. Turns out it's actually pretty easy to get kids to try a food if you let them play with it first. 

This week we found a Pomelo - it looked like

 a huge green grapefruit,

 I wasn't sure what the heck it was about, so baby picked one out to take home and investigate. She likes holding her chosen item as she sits in the cart or runs around while I shop. 

When the item is smaller than a Pomelo we like to get a few of them, so she can carry them around in a basket, help me cut them up, break them open, peel them, or whatever without worry about wrecking a few.  The playing with the food, smelling it, talking about the look and smell, tasting it raw and then later prepared is key. Sometimes we even like to do a little craft with them, like making potato prints, cutting 

apple swans, or making maracas with beans in old poster paint jars. 

We look for recipes using the item on Epicurious, and end up talking all kinds of things, like seasons, ecology, culture and folkways, etc. Sometimes it turns out the the recipes we find are not particularly kid-friendly, but usually they can at least give us some inspiration. For instance, there were no recipes for pomelo, so I looked at grapefruit recipes, and got some ideas. In this case, there was a shrimp and avocado salad, and we make a salad with some of the same ingredients, so we adapted that, and added the new fruit to the familiar food. Often the idea is just for a food pairing. In addition to doing the salad, we learned the Pomelo grows in the Philippines, so that's a great excuse to get some Philippino food, and ask people we know for stories about their experiences in the Philippines. 

Also we don't hesitate to do foods we like more than once. You can do varieties individually, and then again together. Like for instance squash, some of the squashes are not too exciting to me, but they seem like more fun when you do a few at a time, but just focus on one. We did pumpkin, and compared it to acorn squash. We did squash in general and compared spaghetti squash wi

th butternut and zucchini.  Squash are crazy cheap, and this can make them a little more interesting; we vary our diet, explore our world, and learn things by accident. 

Cleanliness

I'm normally all about Traditional Values, but of course one of my favorite Traditional Value statements is: Everything in Moderation. In this case I'm taking a wrench to the traditional phrase, in order to render it functional. 

Invisibility is more likely for "next to godliness".  Or, whatever, add your own quip there. I'm unconvinced that even the reasonably religious can get much use out of the original version there. The correct rendering should obviously be:

"Cleanliness is next to Healthiness". 

Havamal

Sometimes I talk with pagan parents on message boards and such, about raising kids, imparting our values, and sharing our traditions with them. I don't get the feeling they find much use in my advice, but I give it anyway, feeling it's not harmful to expose them to our folkway a little. I always mention the Havamal, as it's a great introduction to the heathen worldview, and generally full of excellent advice. They almost invariably say "great, but my kid is only blah blah blah old, what can parents of younger kids do?" often mentioning a kid older than mine who they think would not benefit from hearing the lore. It's a shame, the lore if good for babies, for parents, for everyone. 

For my Germanic Heathen readers, our "lore" is obviously going to be the Eddas, sagas, and other folklore. For folks from other traditions, you will need to figure out for yourself what texts are foundational ones for you, but the point is don't sell your kids short by assuming some recent re-hash is better than reading an older version. There is great value in the "archaic" seeming elements included in older versions. We allow more of the ancestors to speak when we make the effort to seek the most archaic versions of our lores. Give your children the opportunity to become familiar with the voices of their ancestors, you owe them that.

We started right in at birth, reading the Eddas along with Grimm's "fairy tales" and more mainstream children's books. As soon as my girl was old enough to do patty-cake, we started doing Havamal verses patty cake. I'd read one stanza, repeat it, then we'd repeat it together doing patty cake until we got tired of that. This made patty cake more fun for me, and exposed her to both lore and some great vocabulary words. If you do old fashioned or Waldorf influenced home school activities this can be an easy activity for morning circle time. 

We kind of evolved one of the verses for our own use. Depending on your translation, it's between 15 and 20

Silence becomes the Son of a prince, 

To be silent but brave in battle: 

It befits a man to be merry and glad 

Until the day of his death,

or

Silent and thoughtful and bold in strife 
the prince's bairn should be. 
Joyous and generous let each man show him 
until he shall suffer death.

There are loads of other versions, you probably have a favorite. I don't really have a particular favorite of this one verse in particular, but our modified version is very useful to us. If the fact that it's a modern adaptation might upset you, please stop reading. 

The Chief's daughter should be:

Silent, Noble, 

Brave in Battle, 

and Cheerful

Until the day she dies. 

For each of these we also have a pose that we do, and we use this for focusing and regaining our composure whenever necessary. I believe in working with kids on self-control. 

The more you can control yourself, 

the less others will be able to control you. 

With that in mind, here's our little lesson:

SILENT

For Silent we place he palms together, one up one down, just below the chest. By silent we mean more than "don't talk" it means a heathen needs self-control, to silence both the body and the mind, to be still. Developing the ability to be truly still, or even an awareness of the utility of stillness is good for the developing character. 

NOBLE

For Noble we stand with the elbows bent, and palms up. Noble to us encompasses generosity, thoughtfulness, and good manners. Nobility of spirit motivates the heathen in that we are compelled to right action not through guilt or fear of external censure, but simply because our own inner nobility of spirit demands we do well. 

BRAVE IN BATTLE

For Brave in Battle we stand in what some heathens call Elhaz pose, arms fully up-stretched, up and out from the shoulders like a mighty tree, palms outwards. We liken this to the pose of the Valkyrie. The upright Elhaz is the Valkyrie facing outwards, the raven foot-print faces forward, when the Valkyrie stands between you and your foeman, no harm can come to you. (When the Valkyrie turns to face you, the raven foot-print in Elhaz inverted, death, she folds you into her cloak and carries you away from this world. ) This stance brings out our bravery, and we remind ourselves that if we need to cultivate bravery all the time, in everyday life, and if we can't be brave when facing all the little trials and difficulties of the day we have no hope of being brave in battle. We also note that bravery does NOT mean we don't feel afraid, it means that when we do feel afraid we stubbornly refuse to let fear control us. 

CHEERFUL

The Cheerful pose we take from Tai Chi, it's a beginning pose that encourages relaxed belly breathing. The right thumb rests on the navel, the left hand cups the right under the curve of the belly. Cheer is important for the Chief's daughter, it sets a good example. We can choose to be cheerful despite difficulties, even to defy difficulty and foemen, and I like the "until the day she dies" part for this - we remember that someday we will die, so let's do our best today, and every day until then. All we can do it our best. I find that cheerful. 

For those unfamiliar with the heathen lore, here are some Havamal links for you

Havamal in the Wikipedia

Havamal at Folklore & Mythology pages, divided into thematic sections (Olive Bray translation) 

Havamal at Ragweed Forge - a great place to buy Thor's Hammer pendants and throwing axes (Auden Taylor translation) 

Havamal at the Asatru Aliance page (Hollander translation) 

Havamal at Sacred Texts (Bellows transaltion) 

Havamol at Northvegr site (Thorpe translation)

Meal Blessing

I'm generally opposed to the habit I see among lots of parents of letting their kids "graze" - setting out snacks and allowing the kids to wander up from play and grab food, and wander back to play with food. I can see a certain utility in this; especially during play-dates, it allows the moms to chat while the kids feed themselves, and minimizes struggles over table manners. The problem I have with that is, well, anything worth doing is going to require some effort, and I think table manners are worth doing. I also find grazing to be messy, and it makes me nervous, I'm always worried that the kids are touching everything with sticky hands, picking up lead dust, spreading germs, and generally being slobs, and learning slobbish behavior. 

We generally sit down to eat at the table, and say a meal blessing. I don't like to eat in a hurry or on the go, I'd rather just not eat and wait until there is time to have a nice meal. Supposedly there is a statistical correlation between eating family meals together and children's avoidance of behavioral problems, criminal activity, etc.  I don't need research to show me this though, it seems like an obvious part of being a human being, sharing mealtimes with your fellows. Plus it's enjoyable. 

The meal blessing we use is one we made up ourselves:

Hail Erda, green & good - 

May we be worthy of this food!

Hail Sunna shining high - 

May we always bravely try!

Hail our Family, everywhere - 

May we enjoy the time we share!

Erda is our Earth Goddess, roughly equivalent to "Mother Earth". We remember that all food comes from the green and growing earth, and that we should try to be, not just grateful, but realize that we should strive for worthiness. For us to live other life has died, our behavior needs to reflect the gravity of that truth, we must always strive for goodness in our actions, and always work at being aware of what our lives mean, the impact we have on others, and what use we have made of the great gifts we have been given by our ancestors. 

Sunna is the Sun goddess, she shines on the good and the wicked alike. She is brave and steadfast in showing her shining face to all the world, everyday. Wolves pursue her hoping to devour her, jotuns gape at her beauty, and yet she never falters in her course. All life feeds on the bounty she gives. This inspires us, her greatness & beauty sustain us in our bodies and spirits. We generally don't eat after sunset, but when we need to we switch this to "Hail Mani in the sky", as he's our moon god. 

Ideally we say this while holding hands in a circle. When we think of our family everywhere, sometimes this brings to mind certain relatives or close friends who we will mention with an additional "hail!" sometimes we think of our ancestors in the halls of the dead, the known whose deeds we recall, and for us this even includes the unknown, all the way back to the beginning of life. 

We end this like most heathen toasts with a "hail!" meaning that all present have heard and acknowledged the memories, ideas, or feelings expressed.  

FOOD!!!!!!!

Hi folks. 

I'm going to be posting a lot about food, so I thought it would be as good a place as any to start. 

These Things are Though Best:

Fire, the Sight of the Sun,

Good Health and the Gift to Keep it,

and a Life that Avoids Vice

Anyone who has been to a heathen event can attest that we have as many problems as the mainstream culture with food related health problems, if not more. This doesn't make sense people. For folk who value self control, common sense, and being in tune with our own natures, we really could do much better in the feeding our faces department. 

Don't let the more annoying examples of food police or granola cry babies claim the high ground and reap the benefits of health, vigor and longevity while many of us are missing out. You love yourself and your folk? You love life in this beautiful middle realm? Make a better effort to live that virtue, and to resist the media and industrial food cartels who want you to pay to live like you're on a feed lot. Reclaim your wholesome food heritage and respect your body, and your children's health and well being.

First and best step 

- go organic. 

Don't complain that it's expensive, it's cheaper than illness, and better things usually cost more. Don't worry that you can't eat all organic all the time, just try to start, every little bit helps. Likewise, don't fall for the foolish line of "reasoning" that says "well, I'm exposed to this, that and the other risk, what's the point of eating healthy with all that other stuff being wrong?" C'mon. That's just silly. If you are exposed to loads of other risks, all the more reason to do your best in this one area, one you can in fact control to a great degree. Offset the other risks with some healthier less-poison-filled food. 

It's also healthier for the farmers, for our soil and water. Yes it's not perfect, and if you want to you can find ironic examples of hypocrisy, flaws in the program, sure, but it's STILL better than the available alternative. 

Don't be turned off by big jerk celebrities or whoever else has annoyed you talking about healthy food. Remember than pesticides are another product of Big Foreign Oil, a tool of the New World Order, go hand in hand with mono-culturalism in the fields, and then in stores and on our tables. Resist it. 

You might also be surprised in the benefits, not just to "health" that nebulous idea that we sometimes forget doesn't just mean the absence of sickness, but in your children's behavior. More and more parents of kids with "behavioral issues" hyperactivity, ADHD, autism, etc. are finding that better diets helps their kids level of happiness and self-control. How the heck could it NOT? 

On a heathen esoteric level, we believe that objects have power, for good and ill. Isn't it worth at least trying to give your kids better food, food that carries the might of happy landwights and traditional farmers? And don't you owe it to your kids to take care of your own body and health, so that you will be best able to take care of them, until they are ready to take care of themselves and their kids?

How to start? Just dive in!

Or, if you want to make some targeted changes, focus on getting organics for the most heavily pesticide-laden items. 

The 2 crops with the highest use of pesticides are Coffee and Cotton. 

Organic coffee is also frequently "fair trade" which helps keep farmers on their own land, rather than traveling to the USA to work as migrants, which is also a positive thing. Organic Cotton is becoming more and more available, and I can attest that it's usually much nicer than industrial cotton, it's softer, "premium", and well worth the higher price. Sticking to only organic fabrics has helped me to buy less overall, which is good. When I can't get organic, I get used, no additional pesticides there! 

Another area to take a hard look at is animal products. Many toxins, not just pesticides BIOMAGNIFY, that means that as animals live they take in toxins which collect and become concentrated in their tissues. If I spray poison on the ground, some will get stuck on (and worse, inside) plants. Some will get on and into animals, but as animals typically live longer, and eat a lot of plants, they keep getting exposed, and the toxins build up to greater levels in their tissues than the maybe "safe" level I sprayed on the ground. 

So Meat and dairy, although expensive, are a great "bang for your buck" kind of purchase. This is ESPECIALLY true for your kids! The relatively large amount of food kids eat and their smaller body size, coupled with their great need for nutrition for growth makes it really vital to feed them well. 

We tend to eat too much fat and animal protein in our culture anyway (and fair play to us, our ancestors worked hard to get us to the point where we could indulge in loads of delicious foods!) and we could stand to curb that a little. I'm NOT saying go vegetarian, I'm just suggesting that if you spend the same $$$ on organic meat & dairy as you're spending now on industrial foods, you'll be getting less quantity, but more wholesome foods at a healthier nutritional ratio. 

Absolutely do not assume that because you live in a rural area and see lovely farms that you're local grocery store produce brand is wholesome or organic, that might have been true at one time, today it's highly unlikely.  

Targeting the healthiest items is another good trick. Some fruits and vegetables tend to have very high pesticide levels, others by their nature absorb less. 

12 BEST CONVENTIONAL PICKS
These conventionally grown foods have been shown to have consistently low pesticide residues. 

• Asparagus
  
• Avocados
  
• Bananas
  
• Broccoli
  
• Cauliflower
  
• Corn (sweet)
  
• Kiwi
  
• Mangos
  
• Onions
  
• Papaya
  
• Pineapples
  
• sweet peas
  

On the other hand, some crops are more heavily sprayed, and some foods by their nature absorb more pesticides, these include:

• Apples
  
• Cherries and berries
  
• stone fruit - peaches, nectarines
  
• peppers, 
  
• greens, 
  
• melons
  

There have been many studies done in this area so by all means do your own research. Here are some links I've found useful. 

Produce to Buy ORGANIC

TreeHugger - lots of green-living articles

World's Healthiest Foods - great general articles of different delicious foods, very positive and approachable, no hippie slant

Last but not least, do you want ONE good tip to help you eat much better, avoid the worst excesses of agribusiness and the unhealthy food industry? 

REFUSE TO CONSUME ANY CORN SYRUP!

Look at your labels. The lowest common denominator for crummy fake food, overly processed empty calorie junk food is High Fructose Corn Syrup. It's not in ALL bad foods, but it's not in ANY good foods. If you decide to go Zero Tolerance on the corn sweetener you will immediately start re-thinking your eating habits. 

As you look for better alternatives, you might start to remember awesome recipes your grandma made, the least healthy of which is likely going to be better for you than corn syrup junk food. Honor your grandmothers by preparing the old family recipes with organic ingredients, that's what they used, as that's all our ancestors had, it was all they needed, and it will do you good too.