Enjoy your holiday!
Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman
Posted in Community, Holidays, Seasons, Snapshot
Tagged 4th of July, Flag Photography, Fourth of July, Holiday, Independence Day, July 4th, July Fourth, Patriotic, Photography, USA
Parent and play advocate Mike Lanza is not one to move into a new neighborhood and hope for the best for his kids. The author of the new book Playborhood describes in great detail his philosophy and the elbow-grease steps he undertook to create a life for his kids, and those who live in proximity, that more closely mirrors the kind of playful, neighborhood-based childhood kids had 30-40 years ago than the sedentary, living-room-based one that many have today.
Lanza accomplishes this with great humor and plenty of vivid examples of people reclaiming their community spaces for play and gathering, from inner city Bronx, to an apartment-complex courtyard in CA, to a formerly faceless intersection in Portland, OR. As such, his can-do spirit is not only infectious, but is backed up with specific how-tos, so a reader could turn a driveway into a giant game board, or a yard into a nature or other playscape where kids will want to come play. A self-proclaimed neighborhood play evangelist, Lanza and his wife and three sons are walking the walk (and playing the play), and clearly influencing others to come along and have fun.
Playborhood also explores the larger issues of what makes a community work, from home and neighborhood design (think front porches and calm streets, for starters) to human behavior, such as having block parties and community dinners, and giving kids a little room to roam.
Lanza has created a terrific and heartfelt blueprint that should result in safer neighborhoods, more joyous and cohesive families and communities and, ultimately, more kids getting out to play.
Photos: Playborhood
Posted in Community, Design, Nature, Play, Reading, Slow News, Sustainability
Tagged Childhood, Children and Play, Mike Lanza, Nature Play, Neighborhoods, New Urbanism, Playborhood, Playscapes
If you have enjoyed a walk around your neighborhood, and certainly if you have participated in civic discussions about the way your neighborhood should grow and be planned, then there is a good chance that you, or your process, were influenced by Jane Jacobs.
Jane Jacobs lived and worked in New York City, and then Toronto. In her work, writing and life, she championed the idea of community building from the ground-up — often literally. Her ideas, which are collected in her seminal The Death and Life of Great American Cities, among other books, influenced methods that many architects, engineers and urban planners employ today when they plan and build to create a greater sense of community.
Sidewalks for walking, parks and other spaces for gathering, promotion of local and local-serving businesses, and scales that encourage people to populate and enjoy their neighborhoods are some of the ideas Jacobs prescribed, even though she had no formal architectural or planning education. (She claimed that her education arose from reporting on and experiencing cities.) She also rallied and helped organize her own neighbors in New York’s Greenwich Village, SoHo and Little Italy when those wonderful and unique neighborhoods were threatened with intense development, including the proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway, in the early 1960s. Jane Jacobs died in 2006 at the age of 89.
This is a schematic for the thankfully nonexistent Lower Manhattan Expressway:
Now, people all over the U.S. are saluting Jane Jacobs by participating in local Jane Jacobs Walks the weekend of May 5-6 and throughout the year. The walks are the brainchild of a group of people including representatives from the University of Utah’s Center for the Living City, a nonprofit collaboration created with Jane Jacobs and based on her work, and that group’s sister organization in Toronto, The Centre for City Ecology. Stephen Goldsmith, Professor for Campus Sustainability at the University of Utah, and director of the University’s Center for the Living City, and his team are heavily involved in the work. Anyone who wishes to celebrate Jane Jacobs’ life and legacy, and in turn their own neighborhood, is invited to join or host a Jane Jacobs Walk on May 5-6 and throughout the year.
The walks don’t have to be formal or rigid in any way. The idea is that people get outside and, by doing so, participate in the lives of their communities, simultaneously getting to know them and adding to their richness. The site offers opportunities to find a walk near you, as well as lots of information. Organizers hope that, in the spirit of Jane Jacobs, participants will “walk, observe, connect and share,” thus participating in moving conversations about their communities.
Photo of Jane Jacobs by Jane Jacobs Walk.
Map of Lower Manhattan Expressway by Wikipedia.
You might also be interested in:
Seeing at Child-Scale Helps Us Slow Down, Appreciate More, and Play
In GPS Era, Map Reading Skills a Lost Art
Roberta Brandes Gratz, Walking the Walk with Jane, Huffington Post
Posted in Community, Design, Field Trip
Tagged Cities, Greenwich Village, Jane Jacobs, Jane Jacobs Walk, Neighborhoods, New Urbanism, Suburbs, Urban Planning, Urbanism, Walking
May Day, or Beltane, comes at the exact mid-point of Spring and, as such, calls for celebration. The first maypoles were pine trees, which were carried in processions to Ancient Roman temples to honor the goddess Flora. In Pagan Medieval Europe — especially Germany, England, the Slavic countries and parts of Scandinavia — a tree would be cut down and brought from the woods into the village by a procession at sunrise, while horns and flutes played. The tree, a maypole, would be festooned with ribbons, garlands, flowers, wreaths, and other decorations to celebrate Beltane.
I’ve had the good fortune to take part in a few Maypole dances, with family and community groups. The tradition remains a special and delightful one that honors the season in a way that takes participants back to a more gentle and pastoral time.
You’ll need:
A tall tree branch or pole and something to anchor it. (Volleyball, tetherball, flag, umbrella and wooden poles work. 8-10 ft. is the optimal height.)
An even number of ribbons, at least one per dancer, in various colors, each 1½ times the length of the pole
Hammer and nails
Shovel, optional
Nail one end of each ribbon streamer to the top of the pole.
Anchor the pole into a pre-made umbrella or other stand, or dig a deep hole in the ground and make sure your pole is anchored properly in it.
Your maypole is ready for the dance.
The Roman Floralia festivals lasted up to a week and featured games, theatrical presentations, and floral-wreath adornments. During the early Floralias animals were set free and beans were scattered to encourage fertility. At different times in history, Floralias and May Day celebrations were bawdy affairs.
The holiday, which actually marked the first of summer for many years – with our current summer solstice being Midsummer) has always featured feasting and dancing, and often the crowning of a May Queen and King. In parts of England, and then in Puritanical America, leaders tried to do away with the Pagan holiday, but the charming, sweet aspects of the celebration have remained.
The maypole dance is beautiful and joyous, as the dancers weave ribbons weave in and out of each other’s steps systematically, until the ribbon-covered pole is left with a specific pattern. You may want to instruct dancers and have them practice in advance of the actual Maypole Dance.
You’ll need:
A decorated maypole
Dancers
Live or recorded music
Have participants each hold a ribbon around the pole.
Every other person should face clockwise, with the others facing counter-clockwise. (Have young children count off 1-2, 1-2 to determine which way to face.)
Dancers will alternate — first going in towards the pole, and under the ribbon of person coming towards them, then going out away from the pole, raising their ribbon over the person coming towards them. (To start, tell the 1s that they will go in and under and the 2s that they will go out and over.)
There is even a chant people may want to do:
In and out, in and out,
Weave the ribbons tight;
‘Round the Maypole we will dance
To the left and to the right.
The dance is over when the pole is completely wrapped with ribbons.
These celebrants in Glastonbury, England, look like they know what they’re doing and are having fun doing it.
See also: Celebrate May Day with Floral Wreaths, Crowns and Baskets.
Happy May Day!
Photos:
Top: Barwick-in-Elmet Maypole Trust
Others: Susan Sachs Lipman
Happy New Year, Dear Friends!
I recently had the opportunity to take two very special hikes on Mount Tamalpais, the mountain near my home that is laced with trails for seemingly every mood and workout. One I took when one of my closest and oldest friends came to visit, and the other I took on Christmas Day with my husband Michael. (Unfortunately, Anna had to stay home that day with a bad cold.) Both hikes prompted me to make a pact with my family – we’re going to take one new hike a month and discover a new trail (and perhaps an old favorite here or there.) We count among our blessings the fact that we live in an amazingly rich place with tremendous natural beauty and well-maintained access that allows us to enjoy it.
As with most New Years, I resolve to spend meaningful time with family and friends, improve my health and well-being, and partake in activities that feed the soul. Spending time in nature fulfills all three, while profoundly and, often mysteriously, filling the personal well of wonder and awe.
Andrea and I enjoyed the Matt Davis Trail on Mt. Tam, a winding trail that traverses the mountain before dipping down to sea level:
A friend on the trail, Yukiye:
Michael and I hiked Blithedale Ridge, a shoulder of Mt. Tam that afforded great views of the mountain and lots of camaraderie and cheer among fellow hikers, mountain bikers and family groups who were out a misty and pleasant Christmas Day.
For more ideas about getting into nature, especially with kids, or starting a family nature club, see the Children & Nature Network. I also have a lot of ideas on my Slow Family Resources page.
As always, thanks for joining me on this journey. I wish you time in nature, and all else that fills your soul, in 2012.
You might also like:
Happy New Year: Celebrate with Traditions from Around the World and at Home
Wildflowers in Bloom
Hooray for Stewards of Trails and Open Space
Photos: Susan Sachs Lipman
Posted in Community, Nature, The Great Outdoors
Tagged Hikes, Hiking, Mill Valley, Mill Valley Hikes, Mt. Tamalpais, Nature, New Years Resolution, Resolutions
Winter Solstice is just about here, in the Northern Hemisphere — Our longest night and shortest day of the year, when Winter will officially begin at 5:30 a.m., Coordinated Universal Time, on Dec. 22 (12:30 a.m. on the U.S. East Coast, 9:30 p.m. 12/21 on the U.S. West Coast.) At that moment, the sun will be directly over the Tropic of Capricorn. For the many who yearn for longer days, this is the cheering moment they start coming back, little by little, as the North Pole gradually begins to tilt closer to the sun. (I truly enjoy the whole year as it occurs.) Of course, those in the Southern Hemisphere are celebrating their Summer Solstice and their longest, sunniest day. This is a great site that explains how the Solstice occurs.
This link illuminates cultural and religious celebrations from around the world that mark the Winter Solstice, the year’s longest night, and the return of the light. I was interested to learn that the ancient Roman 7-day festival, the Saturnalia, sometimes slipped into debauchery, but also included the postponing of war. Locally, (and currently), in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a wonderful Winter Solstice celebration in the Muir Woods that my family has attended many times. It occurs rain or shine, and will take place Wednesday, Dec. 21, at Muir Woods National Monument, from 3-8 p.m. The event, which is free with a park entrance fee, includes Winter woods-inspired crafts, such as making Solstice crowns; singing, storytelling, and a shadow puppet show; hot chocolate for purchase; and the beautiful ancient Redwood-lined trails of the park lit with luminaria, and often ringing with the voices of choral performers. Attendees should dress warmly, bring flashlights and prepare to have fun. Perhaps there’s a Solstice celebration in your area. Let us know!
Photo – Burning Sun Wheel at Winter Solstice: Thomas W. Fiege/Schandolf
Posted in Community, Holidays, Nature, Seasons
Tagged Muir Woods, Solstice, Solstice Celebration, Winter, Winter Solstice
Updated December 21, 2012
Last year, my family gave me a cow for my birthday. I never got to see it, but it was one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. The cow helped its recipient family, which may be anywhere on the globe, in multiple ways. Milk from the cow offered nutrition to the family and neighbors and was sold to support the family and buy needed food and supplies for a larger circle. Calves from the cow were given or sold to others in the town or village, so that they too could be nourished and supported. The cow was bought through Heifer International, which offers gifts of sheep, goats, chickens, pigs and other animals and resources, to help people worldwide achieve hunger relief, self-sufficiency and income by becoming trained in farming skills. My family chose the cow for me because it seemed the most directly nourishing. I was extremely pleased and moved to be part of such a beautiful and empowering gift from an organization that has made a big impact using a simple model.
Read more stories about Heifer. They offer gifts at many levels and opportunities to get involved.
Looking for other groups to support with a gift? There are a great many organizations doing wonderful work. The following are just a few. Think about the recipient and something that would have meaning for him or her. (Please send your suggestions for more, especially those outside the U.S., so we can learn about them.) Also be sure to take these steps to research any group before donating:
Here are some organizations that have crossed my radar and are doing good work.
Full disclosure: I work for these folks. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t believe heartily in their mission of building an international movement to connect all children, their families and communities to nature. In an age when many children are deprived of school recess, let alone nearby yards, parks and woods, it seems essential for their future physical, psychological and spiritual health, and the health of the planet, that we support those working to reconnect children and people with the green spaces around them. C&NN does this by providing the latest research and resources to parents, teachers, urban and playground planners, health care professionals, nature professionals, and those working at the grassroots level to enact change.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America
An incredible number of children, particularly those at risk, cite the lack of a caring adult in their lives. For more than 100 years, BBBS has been providing and supporting long-term, caring adult mentors to youth ages 6-18, in communities across the U.S. The carefully administered one-on-one relationships between the “Bigs” and the “Littles” has changed many lives, in terms of confidence and personal and academic achievement.
First Book provides access to new books for children in need, sometimes the first book a child will ever have. Expanded to include online content and other educational resources, First Book has distributed more than 85 million books and materials to programs and schools serving children from low-income families throughout the U.S. and Canada. Judging by its ratings, it’s an exceptionally well-run non-profit with an admirable track record and goal.
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Many historic homes and sites, neighborhood schools and public lands are in danger of being lost forever to development. Their loss can affect more than aesthetics and character — communities and livelihoods, resources and aspects of America’s rural and cultural heritage are destroyed as well. The THP brings awareness and considerable public-policy muscle to saving endangered sites. The group also works to rebuild neighborhoods after natural disasters and to revitalize communities using smart growth and sustainable practices.
About an acre of American farmland is lost every minute. Family farms are in grave danger, from factors ranging from corporate farming to unsustainable development that results in the paving over of farms for roads, housing tracts and malls. American Farmland Trust works with legislators, communities and farmers to protect America’s farm and ranch land; promote environmentally sound farming practices, clean air and water, and a healthy food supply; and ensure an economically sustainable future for farmers and ranchers.
Your or Recipient’s Local Land Trust
Many areas have land trusts, which work to purchase and preserve land for the enjoyment, recreation, habitat preservation or agricultural use of future generations. A donation to a local land trust makes a wonderful and thoughtful gift. The Land Trust Alliance has a list of accredited land trusts.
NWF works to protect wildlife and wild spaces in the U.S., for everyone’s enjoyment and health. They are actively working at the public policy level to expand clean energy, reduce our dependence on oil, and improve our relationship to the natural world through areas like health and urban planning. They provide resources and education about the many ways families can enjoy nature, through programs like their popular Certified Wildlife Habitat, which allows people to nurture and learn about animals and the ecosystem in their own backyards.
Started by students a few years ago, TTG has grown into a national movement devoted to education and advocacy about environmentally and socially responsible choices for individuals, schools, and communities. The group promotes global sustainability by identifying and working to eliminate toxins that threaten public and environmental health. At the same time, it empowers young women and men to lead and advocate.
Looking for more?
My Slow Family Resource List offers still more wonderful groups who are working to help create a rich, just and sustainable world for children, families and communities, such as The Center for Ecoliteracy, Edible Schoolyard, the National Park Trust and many more.
This list of 25 Top Children’s Charities includes many well-known ones and some you may not know, that I think are doing great work, including KaBOOM!, CASA, Children’s Defense Fund and Locks of Love.
The Good Human lists wonderful Green Charities who are doing great work, including the David Suzuki Foundation, Earth Justice, The National Resources Defense Council, and The Center for a New American Dream.
Mother Nature Network offers a list of Green Charities that features Earth Island Institute, The Sierra Club Foundation, the California State Parks Foundation, which desperately needs our help this year to prevent park closures, and the only group to make both “Green” lists, The Nature Conservancy.
And, now you can even give the gift of giving! I recently learned about Charity Checks, which allows you to order blank checks for recipients or even for your own family. Recipients receive checks in the denominations of your choice, and then they get to choose their own charities. The entire face value of the check goes to that charity. No money goes back to Charity Checks. This unique organization was the brain-child of Lisa Sonne and Victor Dorff. Not only is the structure of their organization highly unusual (a charity whose sole purpose is to funnel funds to other charities), it can have a powerful and tangible impact on families and children. Explains Lisa Sonne in Huffington Post:
You really get to watch the kid think about something that never has occurred to him or her before. There’s a certain empowerment there. It’s one thing to say, ‘What do you care about?’ when it’s abstract. But if you say to a kid, ‘Okay, here’s $25. Do you want to save a puppy’s life? Feed a hungry person? Buy a book for the library?’ Suddenly, the kids find themselves thinking about things they never thought about before.
Gifts that help others work in so many profound ways. They are truly the ultimate gifts.
Friesian Holstein Photo: Keith Weller. Bear Photo: Charity Checks.
Other photos: Susan Sachs Lipman
My family, like many, has always placed a great importance on birthdays. After all, that’s the day to celebrate a person’s actual birth, their very existence on the planet. By celebrating a person, we revel in the richness they contribute to our family and community life. We also mark the milestone by celebrating the birthday person’s life, their achievements and aspirations, perhaps even their birth story. Birthdays, even if shared within a family or circle, are still fairly unique. Each one gets his or her chance to shine on their individual day.
We always mark the precise day and time on our daughter Anna’s birth, and that moment has special power for us. Because Anna was born at 11:19 on a Saturday morning, we even often stop what we’re doing at 11:19 on Saturdays throughout the year. (This is a blessing of having a birth time when that is widely possible, as opposed to Thursday at 3 a.m.) We just make a simple note of that time – nothing more. We have all come to know that that is an expression of gratitude for Anna and even a little prayer for all the babies coming into the world at that moment. Now, in Anna’s teen years, this small gesture has survived as a shorthand.
Children at school or elsewhere on their birthdays can look at the clock and mark the exact time of their year turning, if possible. Of course, with numerous children, adopted children, busy lives and more or odder or less precise birth times, one may not be able to do this each week or even each year, and neither do we. It’s a nice gesture to remember and note the birthday moment or a token of it when possible. After all, what better birthday gift can there be than the knowledge that those around you are grateful for your existence?
Celebrations of both everyday and special occasions add rhythm and texture to family and community life. They allow people to gather for happy occasions and honor and celebrate a range of life passages, even some that may be challenging. They also allow individuals and families to punctuate time and mark passages for themselves, both publicly and in a way that carries over into ones internal life. Celebrations can lend power and blessings to events, and even moments, that help separate them from the everyday. Though modern life often ignores rites of passage that have been celebrated for millennia, birthday celebrations largely endure.
Once Anna went to school and I wasn’t always with her to mark her precise birth time, I began to try to pause on my own to reflect, and urged her to do so as well. This year on her birthday, I had the joy of going for a neighborhood walk, on a break between rainstorms. I paused at 11:19 to enjoy shafts of autumn sunlight shining through these beautiful golden leaves and celebrate my radiant daughter.
Happy Birthday to celebrants all year and wherever you are.
Photos by Susan Sachs Lipman
Posted in Community, Holidays, Odes
Tagged Birthday Rituals, Birthdays, Celebrations, Rituals, Slowing Down
What does it mean to be a child in a city, or anywhere? How does a child see things? Quite differently from adults, as it happens. This perspective might help many of us to slow down, appreciate more, and be more playful, as we orient to a child’s experience of scale.
The Hand-Made Play Collaborative in Tokyo (one of the busiest cities in the world) investigated how children enjoy and learn from non-commercial play, by telling “one story of the everyday treasures of a rainy day walk“.
This is their map of a child’s experience of a city.
Children experience a great deal from the time within the pauses of activity, the research tells us. They like routine — a small ritual within a routine walk can have great meaning. They learn by experiencing and experimenting, by noticing similarities and differences and moving things around. Adults tend to hurry kids, to grow impatient with their observations and not honor the way they experience time.
The main message from Hand-Made Play:
Slow Down. Stop and listen.
It can be a challenge to get out of our adult mindsets and concerns to do this. The rewards, however, are rich for both children and adults. Paying attention to child-scale could impact our actions and even our city planning. As usual, it is beneficial to try to see through the eyes of a child.
Images: Hand-Made Play
Thank you, Kerala Taylor of Kaboom, who first wrote about Hand-Made Play.
Posted in Community, Design, Field Trip, Play, Slow News
Tagged Child Development, Child Scale, Children, Hand-Made Play, Imagination, Imaginative Play, Parenting, Play, Slow Cities, Slowing Down, Tokyo
Slow Family Online has been nominated for a Most Awesome Parent Blogger Award from Red Tricycle and giggle!
Please help us win by voting for Slow Family by October 31.
All voters in all categories — from coffee shops to baby strollers — are entered for a chance to win a $500 Gift Certificate to giggle, a Flip Video Camera (value $300) and a large organic plush Winnie-the-Pooh (value $110).
Vote for Slow Family, let me know about it by commenting on our Facebook page or on the blog, and you’ll also be entered for a chance to win a cute, 100% cotton baby “Red Tricycle” T-shirt! The winner will be chosen by random drawing.
Red Tricycle is a wonderful site featuring fun family ideas in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco Los Angeles and San Diego.
