Summer Mantel

We honor the seasons at our house as part of our Native American culture. Also because we love nature and it just feels right to honor the gifts that the Great Father has given us in way of animals, the trees and plants, the changing seasons.

One way we embrace the changing seasons is to decorate the mantel.
This summer I've used sunflowers, lemons, a honeycomb, rocks and crystals, peacock feathers, sage and a smudging shell and lots of candles in gold, red and orange.
Some handmade items:
The sun medallion that Noah made (I adore that!) I've also added the gourd bowl I made a few years ago. I left the painting of my mom hanging that Autumn painted. We'll just call her "Mother Earth" for now:)

This weekend we'll have a bonfire in the back yard after the Pow Wow. We'll honor Dad with a prayer. (for Father's Day) we'll also do a Birthday blessing for Kevin. We'll roast marshmallows (just cause they're good!)
I'm also coming up with a strawberry dessert for the Solstice. The Ojibwa use the full moons to mark the months of the year. The month of June is Ode' imini-giizis meaning Strawberry Moon. So I'm thinking Strawberries are perfect! The Summer Solstice is also known as The Rising Day to the Ojibwa. It is a time of renewal, sacred ceremonies, a time to pray for healing medicines, good crops and good harvests.
Hopefully Noah and I will take a nice long quiet walk in the woods on Monday to refresh our souls.
I'd love to hear if you have any plans to celebrate the Summer Solstice!

The Harvest Moon

A full moon will occur early on Sunday, October 4. It is given the special name of Harvest Moon since it is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox. In years past, farmers depended on the light of the Harvest Moon to gather ripening crops late into the night. Most Harvest Moon's occur in September, but sometimes (like this year) it will occur in October. The next time a Harvest Moon will occur in October is 2017.

October Moon/ Leaves Falling Moon:

Our Ojibiwa Heritage

October's great path of the moon is respect. For us, the new year begins now and not in January. This is a time of sleeping seeds and birds flying south for the winter. Leaves begin to fall; the sun turns pale in the sky. It is the Moon of Putting Away and the Moon of Remembering Old Names. Preparation begins for the coming winter.

We look for signs of whether it will be a hard winter: Do the clouds have long tails? Does the chipmunk work harder, storing food for winter? Does ice have an early voice? What does the raven say? Does the coyote change his song? Do our hearts stir with warning?
Now is the time to learn respect for all living things--even for those who are not your friends. Is there a voice from your past that you didn't pay attention to? Take time to mend broken connections. Find out why someone does not like you; respect that person even so.
Respect starts on the simplest level.

Walk to the mountains where the first snow has already fallen. Notice that the stream has a collar of ice along the edges. Dry leaves move on the wind, sighing. Inside you, something calms down. Turn your face to the sun: For everything in the past, thank you. To the future, yes.
Respect is a matter of equality, even in the worst of times.

Taken from "Dancing Moons" by Nancy Wood

Happy Full Moon!

Of course Whimsical Moon should have a post on the full moon! It's always amazes me when we are teaching preschool how wound up the children are on the full moon. We can forecast the full moon by them!

"The Moon is a white strange world, great, white, soft-seeming globe in the night sky, and what she actually communicates to me across space I shall never fully know. But the Moon that pulls the tides, and the Moon that controls the menstrual periods of women, and the Moon that touches the lunatics, she is not the mere dead lump of the astronomist.... When we describe the Moon as dead, we are describing the deadness in ourselves. When we find space so hideously void, we are describing our own unbearable emptiness.." -D.H. Lawrence

Okay... my gyno. doctor told me about the full moon and the effects on woman. I thought he was loopy! That moon needs to stop messing around with me!!!

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Full Sturgeon Moon - August

The fishing tribes are given credit for the naming of this Moon, since sturgeon, a large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, were most readily caught during this month. A few tribes knew it as the Full Red Moon because, as the Moon rises, it appears reddish through any sultry haze. It was also called the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon

I just love Native names for the moon!

They dined on mince and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon. -Edward Lear, "The Owl and the Pussycat"

I want to dance by the light of the moon with a runcible spoon.

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As long as the moon shall rise

As long as the river shall flow

As long as the sun shall shine

As long as the grass shall grow

-Native American prayer

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"Under the full moon life is all adventure." -Sigurd Olson, The Singing Wilderness