Day of the Dead, Part 2

I was told not to retro-date blog entries with a tell-tale 11:59pm timestamp. But I don't recall actually promising not to do so.

Confession: I did not work on the novel today (apart from coming up with new names for a couple of minor characters).

Instead, I started work on a letter for R. that will be given to her during a retreat she and the other 6th grade girls in her class are having this weekend. The retreat is a Red Tent event (in this case, actually taking place in a yurt), where she and the other girls will be able to spend time with their teacher and each other learning about the changes that are starting to come for them - some already, some in the next year or two (or five). They'll be in a yurt, as I say, that is decorated in red, with sumptuous pillows and scarves and candles, where they can talk about what happens in adolescence, can look at other examples of changes in nature (I'm sure butterflies will come into this somehow), can discuss their feelings about themselves and about becoming young women (which I trust they're all bound to do eventually). They'll probably look at self-image issues and will do an art project. They'll have their meals made for them and served to them. In the evening, the mothers will come and walk with their respective daughters, and present their daughters with these letters and with a gift. The gift can be opened at a later time. It's a symbol (of whatever we choose it to be a symbol of). It's part of this rite-of-passage we're creating for them.

After the walk, we'll have dinner and a time of sharing together, then the mothers will leave and the girls will have a mom of one of the boys in the class come and do henna for them.

You'd have to have an idea of how Waldorf education works to understand why this is not a surprising sort of thing to happen with our little charter school. To some of my "readers," it all may sound as hippy and airy-fairy as it gets. And I know I sound like I'm poking fun at it. But in reality, I think this is great that the girls will have this experience.

I've much more to say about it, but even when I'm manipulating time (as with the datestamp of the post), I seem to run out of it.