Healing and Moving Forward - Another Butterfly Release

Long time since I have written anything here...life changes, minds change... BUT it's time to get back into the cycle of observing, sharing, musing...   Today, I am watching for geese.  Listening for crows...  clearing the mind for the days ahead of creativity.  Thankful for reconnection at our recent Teachers' Convention.  Excited for learning more about healthful body and mind...in sharing and in healing... 

Butterfly Release

Today we released our Painted Lady Butterflies to the world.  We'd been cultivating them from a science kit for a few weeks, having received the larvae, mixed the food media, let the larvae develop into big caterpillars, and then watching the chrysalids form and rest.  It was fascinating watching the chrysalids twitch at times like a restless dreamer, and also to see the beautiful dots of gold that adorned the pupae.  They looked so royally decorated.

All too soon, our beloved butterflies began to emerge from the chrysalids and we fed them sugar water.  As more and more individuals began to emerge, we ran out of room in our container, so we took them out into the open air of a warm June afternoon and released them!

Several of the butterflies landed on students or on the many dandelions nearby.  They were very friendly and students enjoyed their company and beauty!

There is scarcely a more beautiful moment than watching a butterfly lift into the air on graceful wings...ethereal yet very real, and only just beginning to realize its potential world...

** We had prepared little haikus and were working on melodies to accompany our little release celebration, but there simply wasn't time...our friends had to go.... we wish them well, always...  Butterfly wishes!

SpringSongs from SomeAre Solstice

The rich green of luxurious spring growth and the serenity, inspiration, and delight of spring is only enhanced by the chorus of songbirds, fragrant forest, budding flowers, and lightening days...in the Peace Country, this time of year is Paradise on Earth!

Sharing Time

Today was another of those stellar occasions when music shared between friends ignites and inspires ideas and melodies!  Andrew brought his keyboard and Pia brought her recorders to share with our school today!  What a beautiful collaboration!  Some of the songs they played were over 300 years old!  WOW! We all enjoyed the music so much and the time passed all too quickly.  I just know that there'll be some flute collaborations in there too! 

Peaceful Night Flute Circle welcomed the two with a few flute songs...and although Andrew brought his flute along as well, the time went by too quickly for him to play flute with the students!  We look forward to sharing flute songs with him in the near future!

Woodwinds and Winds of the Woods

Everything happens for a reason...and everything seems to be connected!  When I was asked to offer a flute workshop for music teachers last August, I was thrilled and humbled!  I am on this path of learning myself, and I hoped that I had something to offer that would be of benefit to these band teachers, elementary music teachers, and other colleagues!  At any rate, it would be fun and would be a day of music!!!

The workshop class was a small group and we spent most of the day exploring the sounds and legacy of the Native American Flutes...even making ABS plastic flutes in the key of Aminor.  Everyone seemed very happy with their day... 

Two amazing collaborations came out of the event!  One fellow was inspired to develop an online virtual education course for our school district.  He worked with technicians and myself to gather materials, links, resources, and videos from which our distance education students could benefit.  Songs of the Peace came to be, and as a pilot project for this year, has proven most successful.

The second collaboration takes place tomorrow!  Banding Together! Yes, the high school band wind ensemble from a high school in our district, will be touring out to visit our little school!  The band teacher found the flutes to be inspiring and beautiful and quite different from the instruments with which his students were familiar.  He delivers the music program to some 30 members of the wind ensemble and together his students and my students will number in the realm of 65 musicians playing for each other and with each other!  Neither group is familiar with the instruments or style of the other group, and yet, at the end of the show, the two groups will play together on some popular tunes! 

It shall be so much fun!  The rest of the school and indeed, the surrounding community, is invited to come and share the music!

Sometimes "the road less travelled by" makes all the difference!

Windflowers

Here are the Windflowers (Bear Mountain Wind Park) of which we sing and play when the 35 member Peaceful Night Flute Circle performs with the 30 member Sexsmith Secondary School Wind Ensemble on Thursday!  It will be fun to perform this original song as we "band together" in concert!