Monday 2 April 2012

Spring is here!

Budding tree
Spring Equinox celebrates the renewed life of the Earth that comes with the Spring. It is a solar festival, celebrated when the length of the day and the night are equal (this happens twice a year, at Spring and Autumn Equinox).
This turn in the seasons has been celebrated by cultures throughout history who held festivals for their gods and goddesses at this time of year. Aphrodite from Cyprus, Hathor from Egypt and Ostara of Scandinavia. The Celts continued the tradition with festivities at this time of year.
 Pagans continue to celebrate the coming of Spring. They attribute the changes that are going on in the world to an increase in the powers of their God and Goddess (the personifications of the great force that is at work in the world). At the time of Spring Equinox the God and the Goddess are ofter portrayed as The Green Man and Mother Earth. The Green Man is said to be born of Mother Earth in the depths of winter and to live through the rest of the year until he dies at Samhain.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/paganism/holydays/springequinox.shtml

The weather is becoming warmer and spring is apparent everywhere! time to celebrate outside!

My daughter has started to sing a song from the animated childrens programme "charlie and lola", lola's and Lotta's renditition of "spring is here"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHJxqhT_AiQ

How to celebrate with children? ......Go outside ! the weather is warmer so its ideal to explore outside.
we recently celebrated the equinox with fellow pagans and children at a local park, we went on a hunt to see what we could find in the way of flowers etc. We collected fallen flowers and sticks and made pretty pentegrams to further decorate at home. We made pictures with what we found and we had an equinox egg hunt (with chocolate eggs!), this went down well! and the egg is an amazing symbol of the new life that spring has brung.


Celebrating the birds!

to celebrate the birds returning home, go outside with a fieldguide(maybe one aimed at children) and see how many birds can be spotted, make a game of it, see if nests can be spotted.
make or reuse bird feeders and put out hair from hair brushes for their nests.

Dawn watching

if your brave enough get up early to watch the dawn, spring is about new life, the earth's waking.
the children will be able to see and hear the early birds as well as the sun rising.
make a toast to the sun with juice or whatever is appropriate in your family


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Celebrating-Great-Mother-Earth-honoring-Activities/dp/0892815507/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333393766&sr=1-1


Egg balancing

find out the exact time of the equinox, rumour has it you can balance an egg on its end at this exact moment!?
fun trying.......or messy!

Cooking
 using anything thats in season or egg orientated! chocolate nests are always fun to do

http://www.ehow.com/how_2001078_eggs-toast-eggs-nest.html
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/10484/easter-nests

Crafts
anything egg or spring orientated, spring pictures, paper daffodils, egg shaped garlands

http://www.momsandkids.co.uk/crepepaperdaffodil.tpl

Gardening

Our daughter has enjoyed this the most , as have we. Now is the time to plant almost anything. Now anyone who knows me knows iam not v good with plants!, but it seem our little person is! we have been planting food, lettuces. Great to encourage fussy eaters. Good things to plant that children love are the classics, cress on the windowsill, this takes about a week and the process can be seen on an almost bi daily basis and sunflowers!, these seem quite a sturdy breed and of course the fun is to see how tall they can be grown.



For older children that are interested there are many guided meditations suitable on youtube

Craft ideas and other links
worth a look some really good ideas!
http://www.growingupcreative.com/2010/03/5-eco-kids-craft.html


Goddess bless.xx








No comments:

Post a Comment