fairy circles and other magical places

A couple of weeks ago I was thinking about how my big girls are growing up and in some ways, away from me. It's not that I feel we are not close, we are. They like to tell me about what is going on with their friends, how their day went, etc. It's just that my hours to influence them, share thoughts and feelings are being swallowed up increasingly by other things; school, play rehearsal, friends, homework, etc. It is a normal growing up and away and healthy for them to explore their world but I wanted to find some way to be involved in their day a little more, find a way to interact with them about more than normal family life stuff.

They still take a home lunch most days to school. I decided to add something to their lunches. I used to write little notes every day and when they were in elementary school they loved it. I decided to make it a little more mature than "Hi honey, how was your test today? love mom".

On Monday's I share a poem. Tuesdays a quote. Wednesday's a scripture. Thursday's a note of gratitude/praise regarding something I had noticed during the week. Friday's a joke.

This poem was written by Hilda Conkling who lived from 1910 -1986. She started writing poems at age 4 and published her 1st book at age 12. She would tell her mom and her mom would write them down.

It was the first poem I shared.

Autumn Song

I made a ring of leaves

on the autumn grass:

I was a fairy queen all day.

Inside the ring, the wind wore sandals

Not to make a noise of going.

The caterpillars, like little snow men,

Had wound themselves in their winter coats.

The hands of the trees were bare

And their fingers fluttered.

I was a queen of yellow leaves and brown,

And the redness of my fairy ring

Kept me warm.

For the wind blew near,

Though he made no noise of going,

And I hadn’t a close-made wrap

Like the caterpillars.

Even a queen of fairies can be cold

When summer has forgotten and gone!

Keep me warm, red leaves;

Don’t let the frost tiptoe into my ring

On the magic grass!

It reminded me of our Lowe family reunion this summer. Carly planned the whole thing as a value project for her Young Women Personal Progress program. She contacted all my siblings and my parents and found out when everyone had summer commitments so she could find a time we could all meet at my parent's cabin on Cedar Mountain in Southern Utah. She organized a meal and cleanup schedule and had everyone send in their meal plan so she could make sure no one repeated a meal. She sent out a questionnaire to gather information to play a trivia game we called "who want's to be a Lowe-it-All" We divided into teams & played "Jeopardy" style with Carly acting as Emcee. The winning team then went into playoff mode and played against each other so we could have a grand champion. It was an upset with Matthew beating out Maury who was favored to win. Maury is our trivia champion. She has a great memory.

On a walk early in the week Carly and I discovered a plant growing in a perfect circle in the meadow. It was a lighter color green then the nearby vegetation and had a silvery sheen. It was pretty cool. She decided to bring the children on a walk the next day and would tell them it was a "fairy circle". It's where the fairies come to dance for their festivals. Because the fairies had danced here, some of their magic dust had fallen and that's where the plants grew to form the circle. The children would have to be very careful at the circle because if you step into the circle you would have to keep dancing til someone pulled you out.

Mark, Maury and I headed out first and placed bubbles, chocolate kisses and glow bracelets in the circle. We hid behind some nearby bushes and trees. Carly told them the legend on the way and most of the kids were skeptical. "I don't know if there's such things as fairies". Then they arrived and the little ones were all amazement. Alyssa gasped, "oh! Fairies ARE real!" Bethany wondered "How did they know our names?" (their names were on the bubbles) Jacob, ever skeptical, was the big doubter and at 9 yrs old that is to be expected. He kept looking over where we were hiding and I think he spotted us when Mark started growling. Carly had to keep shushing him to keep him from telling the little ones what he knew. The children on their walk home decided that butterflies are fairies in disguise.

Carly put my brother Matthew in charge of a hike. Since most of the children wanted to be involved he decided we would have those adults not hiking drive us up to Strawberry point, drop us off & then we could hike back to the cabin so it would be half as long and downhill for the kids. After we explored the point we began our hike back. We had to walk down this road quite a ways before encountering the trail head.

There were moths all over that we preferred to think of as butterflies or in the children's eyes; Fairies. They were beautiful; baby blue and black. Why are butterflies entrancing and Moths repulsive? I think it's the whole flying around bouncing off your lights, fuzzy wing, no pretty colors thing. The "butterflies" were everywhere in great numbers. The children would catch them in their hands, hold them a while and release them. The butterflies would land on their clothing and skin.

It was a magical day, an exciting day.

A day to remember.