Larry led us on an exploration of Hawaii. Children fashioned the Pacific Ocean from cardboard and paint. Volcanoes were constructed from salt dough, live volcanoes erupted, and as tectonic plates shifted the dead volcanoes were converted to living islands with the help of green paint. Then the lands were populated with [...]]]>

Sunday was such an exciting start to our summer UU World Traveler program!

Larry led us on an exploration of Hawaii. Children fashioned the Pacific Ocean from cardboard and paint. Volcanoes were constructed from salt dough, live volcanoes erupted, and as tectonic plates shifted the dead volcanoes were converted to living islands with the help of green paint. Then the lands were populated with help from catamarans made from Popsicle sticks, corks, and glue. The lesson ended with some delicious fresh pineapple and bananas. What a day!

The Pacific Ocean	Creating volcanoes
Islands are formed.	Shifting plates create more volcanoes.
Fertile soil is formed.	Boats bring people.

Our volcano erupts!

We had a spectacular scavenger hunt, bounced in the bounce house, colored with sidewalk chalk, and enjoyed bubbles, egg balancing, and hula hooping. Who would of thought Courtney would barely edge out Indigo in a cookie eating contest?! And what a good sport Mike was when he got pummeled with sponges!

Thanks [...]]]>

Wow!  The Bon Voyage Party & Picnic was so much fun!!

We had a spectacular scavenger hunt, bounced in the bounce house, colored with sidewalk chalk, and enjoyed bubbles, egg balancing, and hula hooping.  Who would of thought Courtney would barely edge out Indigo in a cookie eating contest?!  And what a good sport Mike was when he got pummeled with sponges!

Thanks to everyone for all the help with the fun & games and to the social committee and families for the yummy food!

Bon Voyage
Cookie eating contest	Sponge toss

What’s visible and can’t be seen, never separate. No line divides the mystery from the known. A call at the core of our existence seeks [...]]]> Look into the lens of deep space, a cosmos intent on increase. Let forty million galaxies come into focus. Rivers of fire, the orbit of release, how this life moves round, one to the next and the many turns one.

What’s visible and can’t be seen, never separate. No line divides the mystery from the known. A call at the core of our existence seeks to expand our perception so that we leave nothing out–so that we feel how we are the interconnected web of existence; all of time.

These thoughts and images move through my psyche as infants enter our world and old friends leave. A perspective that spans larger than my ability to think or imagine allows for everything to settle into the patterns that allow me to follow the golden thread of my existence. How easy it is to collapse into the particular and be trapped. On the other hand, one can lose a sense of place and purpose if the floating carries you too far. This intricate balancing act, our lives, needs this tension between the finite and infinite. It provides a way to shape and give meaning to what we do and why we do it.

These late spring days and their intense green bring me into a place of such gratefulness for this earth that I fear any attempt to express it, will diminish its sweet potency. But gratitude is central to a healthy life. In the last rays of the sun a cottonwood seed drifts by. I wonder how many times it will lift and fall before finding its place in the earth. This puzzling ecstasy, the not knowing as a kind of freedom, allows the heaviness of my body to lift. To allow wonder to be a channel that conveys gratitude keeps it mostly honest.

So for all that comes into the world, all that moves within us, in our days and nights, and for that which leaves, I am humbled and locate that place in my heart where I want to be of service to this wild and fine mix, the ineffable, the babies grip and the hand that has held on for a long time.

Thank-you dear friends. Thank-you,

Michael

We are all connected.

UUFM RE Kids(photo by Kim Belanger)