Kid Craft
By Aunt Becky
(Excerpted from the now-defunct San Diego Pagan)
Making things, creating objects from nothing, spending quality time with your children and friends, and just having fun: these are some of the most important things in life. Whether we realize it or not, it makes us who we are. Creation is physical, spiritual, primal, joyful, and relieves stress. But most of all it's just plain fun!
The kids are running around the house like banshees from the nether world chanting things that make no sense. They have painted themselves, the cat, and the bathroom. The dog is wearing your best ritual robes because "she needs to look pretty for the goddess, too!" And you are sitting in the corner trying to figure out how to explain to anyone who happens to stop by that children really do like being duct-taped to the wall. And no, those aren't gags, they're educational vocal learning devices.
It's definitely time to get out of the house.
If your children are anything like the ones I have in my life, they have been trying to get into your altar box since they could crawl. And when caught, all they'd have to sat for themselves was "It smells so good in there," or "I didn't know any better," or "Those things are so pretty!" The more creative (and manipulative) children will come at you with "the pixie in the corner told me I could," or "But I want to be magic, too!" Well, what can you say to that?
I say, let them discover that their play can be just as magical as my altar box.
Go out into the back yard. Help them take cuttings of the grass, the roses that are done blooming, and any flowers that might be in the garden. Heck, maybe even throw in a handful of dirt. Depending on the trees you have in your area, maybe some bark, leaves or pinecones can be added to the mixture.
Put all this stuff on a screen wrapped loosely in newspaper from your recycling bin. If you have one, put it in a dehydrator, otherwise put it in a warm oven (just heated by the pilot light) or just where it can sit in the sun. Let it dry a couple days until all parts are brittle.
Now the really fun part: using a coffee grinder, a mortar and pestle, or even a rock on the sidewalk, let the kids grind all the stuff into a coarse powder. This should keep them busy for a while.
This might sound a bit weird to you, and in truth there are some things that just aren't meant to be burned together, but trial and error is the key here. After a few tries and some charcoal you'll find you really have created an incense that smells like home.
We had a lot of fun doing this on a camping trip a few summers back. The place we went to was really quite pretty and worth remembering, and when we were done the incense we made smelled just like we were sitting in the middle of the woods. It was like a memory in a jar.
A few things to remember:
Don't pick in protected areas
Don't pick a flower if there's only one of them -- leave enough to maintain the population
Ask permission if you're on private property
If you're not familiar with the plants, don't pick them without looking them up. I don't have to tell you it's a bad idea to pick poison oak for your incense!
If you're picking bark from a tree, be sure to only take a little, respectfully, and be careful of damaging the tree
Have a great time and Blessed Be.
--Aunt Becky
For many of us, some of our most magical memories are of working in the kitchen with our parents or a relative who took a special interest in us as children. We remember the exciting smells and new flavors, some of them too wonderful to express (like chocolate!) and others that made our mouths pucker in revulsion.
This is an exercise in creativity, exploration and sympathetic magic: Use your favorite recipe to make any kind of dough with which you can easily make a flat, workable surface. For example pastry dough, phyllo dough or even sugar cookie dough work just fine. Roll the dough out and cut it into a circle or square or any symmetrical shape.
Now gather some ingredients you can use to paint this dough "canvas" with: chocolate syrup, brown sugar, candy sprinkles, mint leaves, very thin slices of fruit, raisins, or anything else you can think of that will go well together.
Help the children use these items to make a picture or design representing their wish. Explain that when they make something like this they are putting their own positive or happy energy into it, and that this helps good things to happen in their lives.
Once the picture is completed, wet the edges with a little egg white. Then fold the dough over and pinch the edges together. Cook according to the recipe, and eat.
We adults would call this a positive affirmation or a kind of sympathetic magic, but I find that with children having something physical really adds a new dimension to what they are doing. Of course, this is fun even for us big kids!
Remember that children have infinite room for variation in what they learn, so don't be surprised at what they come up with after doing something like this.
And be ready to smile, because eventually they're going to come up with something that makes you laugh so hard your belly will hurt.
Blessed be on all paths,
--Aunt Becky
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