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Attention! Island Magic Alert

Attention, Folks of  the Puget Sound region,

Sightings are confirmed. Forests filled with leaves of tales are springing up on the island, in downtown Seattle, and in Tacoma. Teapots are running wild in most neighborhoods, and foxes seem to be everywhere.

Please report if you have spotted magic where you are. Signs of magic include:

Magical Youth

  • Blackberries, ripe. Kids delighting in them. Those who are kids at heart are doing so as well (such as you?)
  • A fire under the stars. Maybe s’mores on sticks. Certainly stories and maybe silly songs offered by those circling the fire. ALERT: individuals around summer campfires are very likely secretly members of the Animal Force superhero team, or, if not, at least likely possess mysterious qualities of the natural world within their souls and bodies. Might you be one of these wild and wondrous people?

If you have witnessed magical sign of these or any other kind, we at Forest Halls urge you to report your sightings at the following two events:

Friday, August 1. 7-8:15PM. Jane Valencia will perform harp, song, and (very short!) magical tales at the Vashon Book Shop for the First Friday Gallery Cruise. Drop by for  fun tales and beautiful tunes, and share your own tales of mystery & magic. This is event is free!

Saturday, August 2. 10am-12:30. Jane and her wee Scottish harp will be at the Vashon Writers Booth at the Vashon Island Farmers Market, where you can peer into any number of alternate worlds by way of books by island writers.

Jane’s own book, Because Of The Red Fox, will be attending both events. Find out what the fox really says!

Can’t attend either event? Report your magic here on our FoxTales Blog.

Thank you for including enchantment in your awareness!

cheers,
Jane Valencia

Island Magic Alert Squad, Chief
Forest Halls

 

 
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Magical Forest Music

If you’re a magical naturalist, then it’s quite likely you sing when you’re adventuring in nature. (Many magical naturalists love to sing). And if you sing in nature, it may even be possible — perhaps even likely! — that you hear music in the wind, the ocean, in bird song. Perhaps the plants sing to you (they sing to me!).

If you like music — drumming, singing, humming — try this the next time you’re wandering in nature.

1) Put on your top secret Animal Forms. Don’t know what top secret Animal Forms are? Just download our free Because Of The Red Fox book preview. Scroll to page 25 to the section entitled, “Attention! Animal Forms”, and try them on for yourself.

2) Okay! Now, Fox Walking and using those Owl Eyes, and especially your Deer Ears, sneak outside.  Pick up a couple of sticks, if you’d like, and tap them together.

3) With those Deer Ears, start listening to things. Wind in the leaves, airplanes in the distance, or cars nearby. Bird song. Crow calls. Choose one sound and imitate it.

4) Get melodic with that sound. Or jazzy. Be playful or melodramatic.

5) Wow! You’re hearing the magic of music in the world around you! Wow, you’re making magical music!

6) Choose another sound, and repeat steps 2-5 for as long as it’s fun.

7) Come back and share your musical adventures in the comment box below!

firHere’s how we co-created musical magic with a group of kids today.

Scene: A Pacific Northwest forest

It’s a “Community & Ecology” day in the Vashon Wilderness Program summer camp for 4-6 year olds, and what better way to nourish group connection than to make music together! Along the trail, we pick up sticks, tapping them together. We sing “The Earth Is Our Mother” and other songs as we wander along.  We explore the sounds of the different trees, gently drumming on their trunks. (I think the slightly hollow sound of the Red Elder is particularly nice — Elder has been traditionally used to make flutes, by the way).

Near one of the raven-frequented areas, we stop to improvise a “Raven song”.  We listen for the language of the ravens, creating two simple phrases for two groups to sing (assisted by our apprentices). With drummers and singers, and instructor Stacey Hinden taking a raven song solo, we perform a whole song to the trees, and take a bow at the end. We think the forest enjoyed it!

Next time you’re in nature, alone or with others, try improvising and creating some simple music inspired by nature. So much fun! Please share your own magical musical tale here!

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Magic By The Pond

This week I have the astounding pleasure to serve as co-instructor to twelve kids, age 4-6, in deep nature connection. This is by way of the Vashon Wilderness Program Summer Camp.

Today we explored mammals and animal tracks and sign. We are adventuring in a beautiful woodland filled with extremely talkative ravens. (Have you ever heard a Raven say, “Gloop!”? This is a vocalization very much in the vocabulary of these forest Ravens!).

We had lunch by a large pond, where we watched swallows dive and skim the water (for water striders?), and we played “Grizzly In The Grassland” in a field. We finished our time at the pond with each child blindfolded and silent, listening to the birds and other sounds surrounding us, and making squiggles and other marks in their journals, depending on what they heard.

Stacey Hinden, who I am instructing with, and I were deeply moved and astonished at the attentiveness of these kids. All of them (even brand-new and very young campers) were silent for 7 minutes, and some of the more experienced kids went the full ten minutes they had challenged themselves with. We had originally set them to a five minute challenge, but they had clamored for ten (breaking the record of the campers of last summer who had pursued a similar sit for six minutes).

And, as the minutes passed, and the silence continued, birds came closer and closer to the kids, singing away and comfortable in the company of these gentle, curious young humans.

Have you shared some special quiet moments with kids in nature?

And how about yourself. Care to challenge yourself to a blindfold nature sit? Just find a place outside where you feel comfortable, blindfold yourself, and sit and listen. For 5 minutes. Or ten. If you’d like, have a journal on your lap and make special marks for everything you hear. When you’re done with your sit, take a look at what you drew, and recall your experience.

Then tell someone about your adventure.

I invite you to share your stories — about special quiet moments in nature with kids, and/or your blindfold sit spot adventure — in the comment box here!