First Friday Fun in May

Joy is the theme this month at the Christuman Way! And May 26th is Vesak, the Buddhist celebration the life of Buddha. So we looked at the story of Buddha who was born as Prince Siddhartha Gautama. As a young man, after only experiencing life within the palace walls, he goes out into the world and sees suffering. Instead of retreating again to safety and comfort, Siddhartha decides to give up all of his worldly possessions and titles and wanders looking for happiness. He finds what he is searching for while in deep meditation under a Bodhi tree and from this enlightenment, he teaches others what he has learned and gives birth to a new religion!

One of the symbols of the Buddhist tradition is the Dharmachakra or the Dharma wheel which represents the Eight Fold Path. We took this eight-spoked wheel and made it into a Wheel of Joy, in which the children put in various things, people, places, activities that bring them joy.

Vesak is also known as the Buddhist Festival of Lights and often lanterns are made and hung in celebration of Buddha’s enlightenment. We made our own lanterns and turned off the lights to bask in the glow of joy!

April's First Friday Fun

This month we flip-flopped themes with March so that we could coordinate with one of the great holy days of April: Passover. We began by telling the story of the Israelites and their journey out of Egypt where they had been enslaved by Pharaoh. How Moses proclaimed, “Let my people go” and God brought 10 plagues upon the Egyptians until they agreed to send the Jews from their land. And of course, the great miracle at the Red Sea, and how the water parted allowing the Jews to pass through before rushing in on the pursuing Egyptian army.

After lots of good listening, we moved to the table and discussed the Seder meal that commemorates this story. The kids tried the bitter herbs dipped in salt water and colored a plate that described several of the traditional and symbolic foods that are served.

Our final craft was a depiction of the parting of the Red Sea. Many of the kids took great care picking out the sea shells they imagined would be left on the sea bed.

Several kids continued to sort shells while the rest of the group rounded out the evening with a game of Passover Bingo — we had lots of fun learning about this sacred tradition in creative and fun ways!

First Friday Fun in March

Everyone was well enough to attend this month, including some new faces! So exciting to see our circle of friends growing :)!

The monthly themes of Death and Resurrection and Creativity flip between the months of March and April depending on when Easter lands. So while the adults are looking at various Easter-like stories and traditions this month, we had the kids dive into the “caves of their imaginations” inspired by a quote from our founder, Bill Boast: “All creativity begins in the dark.”

We talked about how humans have the ability to close their eyes and create images in the darkness of their own minds. Then we looked at some of the early forms of creativity that were documented and made in very dark places — caves! We read a book titled The First Drawing, by Mordicai Gerstein, who imagines it was a young child who made the first drawings on cave walls. He could “see” animals in clouds and in bushes and had to communicate what he was seeing to others!

Each child then was invited to make their own “cave wall” by crumbling up brown paper and using the creases and rips to make animals or various shapes, just as the cave artists used the bumps and coloring of the cave walls thousands of years ago. We dimmed the lights and let them draw whatever they saw or were inspired to create. We had some stencils of the animals from the famous Lascaux cave for them to augment their cave art. And they all put their signature on it by way of their hand prints, just like those those that have been found in ancient caves around the world.

Finally, we turned off all the lights and each kid took a turn highlighting their artwork by way of flashlight, bringing the drawings to life with the “flicker” of the modern torch. Another Fun Friday for sure!

February’s First Friday Fun!

Well, we weren’t able to gather in January…too many germs. But we were happy to be together again for the First Friday of February! As we looked at this month’s theme, Mystery of Grace and Love, we wondered about the vibration of love…and asked the wonderful Kirsten Antony of Soul to Sole Holistic Health, to join us in our discovery.

First, we put our hands on our own necks to feel the vibrations made from our vocal cords as we talked. Next, we shared the amazing experiments by Dr. Masaru Emoto outlined in his book, The Hidden Messages of Water. Emoto found that water exposed to positive words and intentions formed beautiful, symmetrical crystalline structures when the water was frozen, while water exposed to negative words and intentions formed disorganized, asymmetrical structures. Many of the children already knew that our bodies are made up of 60% or so of water…so what happens if we send negative vibrations in the form of mean words or thoughts to ourselves or others? What does that do to the very molecular structure of our own bodies? But what if we send positive vibrations, intentions, prayers, affirmations, how would that change the shape of our water molecules? Then, we created our own experiment, putting cooked rice into two different jars. On one we taped the words, “You Fool!” and on the other “You’re Great!”. We then each said these out loud or silently to each jar and will check the results next month!

Then it was Kirsten’s turn! She generously brought in her collection of Tibetan bowls, filled them with water, and allowed the children to play the bowls so they could see the vibrations that resulted from each “sounding” of the bowl. The kids were also up for the challenge of trying to make the bowls “sing”, a practice which takes great patience and perseverance. One child combined the two lessons by taping the words “I love you” onto one of the bowls, we believe amplifying the already beautiful vibrations emanating from the singing bowl!

Finally, the kids laid out their mats and Kirsten treated them to a 10 minute sound healing, letting them feel the vibrations wash over and through them. The whole evening was an awesome exploration of the vibration of love!

First Friday Fun in December!

This month we looked at the five pointed star in many different facets, beginning first with the star that gives us our very existence, the sun! And how for millennia almost every culture has marked the solstices with monuments both big and small.

We also talked about the star in the Biblical story of the birth of Jesus, giving the signal to the 3 Magi as to when and where the messiah had been born.

Finally, we came around the the very symbol of Christuman, the five pointed star and the sacred geometry that represents the five sides of the human that can be connected as a pentagon, and then radiate outwardly, or inwardly, into a five pointed star, only to be able to repeat the process infinitely. Elio was the model for this activity and we all marveled at how the geometry worked out.

Finally, all the kids made several different types of stars as ornaments to hang on trees or in their rooms. As we say at the end of each of our services: “A star is the world’s chance to be!”