~ November Supplemental ~

Turkey Note Holder

by: Amanda Formaro

Difficulty: Easy

Age: 7 and up

                                      

This cute little turkey can hang from your refrigerator or your front door. Whether his note says “Welcome”, “Where’s the Beef?” or “What’s for Dinner?," everyone will think he’s adorable!

What you'll need:
     ●  2 jumbo craft sticks
     ●  Brown acrylic craft paint
     ●  Small wooden clothespin
     ●  Paintbrush
     ●  Small straw hat, cut in half
     ●  Scissors
     ●  Small red foam heart
     ●  Miniature orange foam triangle
     ●  2 yellow foam chick feet
     ●  2 small wiggle eyes
     ●  White craft glue
     ●  Hot glue gun
     ●  9 feathers in fall colors
 

How to make it:

Paint both craft sticks and clothespin with brown paint, set aside to dry. Paint a second coat on the craft sticks, but not the clothespin.
 

1. Glue feathers in a fan behind one of the craft sticks. Sandwich the second craft stick behind the feathers.
2. Glue the straw hat half to the top of the craft stick.
3. Glue two wiggle eyes under the hat.
4. Glue red heart upside down for waddle. Glue the orange triangle upside down at the top of the waddle.
5. Glue the yellow duck feet to the bottom of the craft stick, pointing upward.
6. Glue the clothespin to the front of the craft stick, pointing downward.
 

Tips:
To hang on the fridge, attach two round magnets to the back of the turkey.
To hang on a door, attach a piece of ribbon or yarn to the back of the turkey.
Save the other half of your straw hat for another project.

Winter is Fallow Time

continued . . .

The deserts of Southern California winters are not touched with freezing temperatures and snow but we do have the shorter days of sunlight guiding us into the longer nights of winter. The darkness offers us the grace of a desert winter. The darkness allows us to cloak ourselves and descend. At Hallows Eve our focus was on slowing down and the descent into the darkness of winter. The Temple congregation received dream pouches. They were filled with more seeds (corn) for the future, flowers such as lavender, rose, hibiscus, and herbs including mugwort, witchhazel leaves, wormwood leaves, and alfalfa. Each person imbued their pouch with all that they wish to accomplish in the coming year. All their dreams, plans, intentions, relationships, projects, large or small, were magickally placed into the fragrant bags. Instructions were to put it under a pillow and dream all their aspirations into the world. This is our preparation for Spring.

Yet, our ancestors, who lived by the seasons and farmed the land to feed their families used this fallow time to prepare for the coming spring. All those tasks and chores that were set aside during planting and harvesting can now be tended to. So as we slow down and descend into the dark of the winter days and dream of 2009 and what we wish to grow in our lives, it is an opportunity to prepare our dream seeds for planting in the spring, whatever that means to each of us. Is it a new job to seek? Re-connecting to others? Career strategies to be outlined? A new business or project to be planned? Putting ourselves out to meet the other? Whatever must be done to care for those dream seeds during this winter, to protect them from the mold of procrastination, the mildew of hopelessness, and to keep them safe from the rodents of our own fears. We must trust the darkness of fertility and growth to nurture future plans into the reality of spring.

Regardless of where one lives, Winter is the time, not to stop, not to give up, but to plan for the hot days of Summer when crops grow full under a golden sun. Winter is the time to slow down. It’s hard to take inventory of yourself and your environment if you’re running helter-skelter. Slow down. Meditate with your dream pouch, inhaling the sweet aroma of embryonic dreams. Look, really look, at the complexity of the mix, examine the uncountable permutations. Know that if you take the time to protect those dreams, those plans throughout the Winter, get to know those dreams intimately, then you will know the proper time and place to plant those seeds of infinite possibility. And most assuredly some of the seeds will fall on fertile soil, be properly fertilized, be adequately watered, and will grow into a plant you will be proud of.