Waldorf Wednesday: Biodynamic Cooking; Planetary Grains

I had the greatest intention of writing out a bit of research I have been doing into biodynamic gardening and cooking.  I was given this book as a Christmas gift and have been slowly adding new recipes into our rotation. We spend a lot of time cooking each day. 20-30 minutes for breakfast, about the same for lunch and at least an hour for dinner. We eat well, and like to show love through food but even with such good intention we are getting repetitive. We are having a hard time finding the time to really think about new meals.  In one of the chapters of The Biodynamic Food and Cookbook, there is brief mention that there are 7 grains for 7 days and that this theory, based on planetary relationships of grains, can serve as a guide while cooking.  After some discussion about how to change our household shopping and cooking we have decided to add this chart to our wall so that when stuck, we can base meals around the grains that coincide with that day. 

Sunday: Sun: Wheat
Monday: Moon: Rice
Tuesday: Mars: Barley
Wednesday: Mercury: Millet
Thursday: Jupiter: Rye
Friday: Venus: Oats (sewing your oats?!)
Saturday: Saturn: Corn

We are slowly forming our weekly rhythm and I think this could be a nice addition in doing so.   I like the idea that I bake our bread every Sunday.  Right now it is whenever I have time.  Sometimes that is never and we buy our bread.  It doesn't feel right to do that on a regular basis because I love baking bread so much.  Perhaps that is one more thing I can do regularly and take refuge in its predictability. 

What are your family rhythms? 

The Root Children Have Come!

The Waldorf family classic "The Root Children" by Sibylle Von Olfers has made its debut in our home.  I have had such fun creating them and still plan on adding snow drops, daisys and a few others before spring is officially here.  Narina is still only 1 and a half, so she calls them flower babies.  I think that is perfect.  They make me smile and I look forward to adding them to our family nature table next month.

 
 

 

Waldorf Wednesday: Nature Table March

Waldorf Wednesday: Nurturing Magic

Things are buzzing around here.  I feel the energy of creation around me as I plug away at my custom Waldorf doll sales.  I am just finishing off my last one for this week and am going to pop them in the mail.  This week our Waldorf Wednesday revolves around creating magic.  Laying the framework for traditions to come. Our neighbours recently moved out. Apparently the women who owned the house liked to do ceramics.  They left a pile of old gnomes, fairies and angels scattered around their yard.   They are really roughed up and somewhat on the tacky side, but where there is tacky, there can also be beauty.  While photographing some of my dolls, I came across a fairy.  In the right surroundings she looks beautiful.  I quickly brought it back to our house and placed it in the snowdrop flowers that were just starting to bloom.  I decided that I would move it around the garden during the year, depending on what was growing.  Every day when we go to the car, we pass the fairy, where I have made a point of saying hello or good bye.  Narina now does the same.  A few days ago when she was collecting rocks in a pot she stopped and ran to the front garden where the fairy lives.  She started to give each stone to the fairy, laying them in front of her ceremoniously.  It was quite special for me.  I can see how this will grow into more elaborate rituals as Narina gets older.  Perhaps this will be the fairy that puts little gifts for her in the giant mushroom for solstice... 

I am having so much fun being a mummy.

Waldorf Wednesday: Kinder Lyre Part 2, Creating Rhythm

As I posted last week, we have been slowly integrating the kinder lyre into our daily lives.  When we first received it, I thought we would be waking Narina up with the lyre singing our morning song.  I thought we would use it to summon the family to meals, and then again to put her to bed.  Well Narina wakes up five minutes before the alarm goes off so that didn’t work.  The family meals?  Yeah, we didn’t even try that one. Finally to go to sleep... I think this will work in the future but at the moment Narina is too excited about the lyre and wants to touch it herself.  So after bath time and before we go upstairs, Narina has a breastfeed.  The fire is lit, the lights are dim, and Dan plays they lyre for a few minutes while Narina feeds.  Our evenings have become so sacred and this aspect of them has only enhanced that. 

Waldorf Wednesday: Meal Time

There is something really satisfying about having home baked bread right out of the oven.  Top that with chutneys that are home made and soup made from veggies from your own garden and you have yourself my ideal meal.  You also have something I dreamed of for years.  The meals in our house are the biggest part of our day.  We spend a lot of time cooking or preparing.  It is where most of our money goes and where we show our love. Our goal this year is to bring intention into our food. We have done a good job with infusing our food with love but we are hoping to offset some of the cost with garden vegetables this year.  Last year's crops were so sparse. Fingers crossed.  Narina has already had her fingers in dough and in the soil.  Our family is creating our intention and that is awesome.   We are adding things slowly to the rhythm of our home. It is easy for me to get carried away with trying to over achieve an ideal, but then things phase out and we want these things to stick. 

Waldorf Wednesday

 

For Christmas my brother and sister in law gave Dan and I a beautiful bees wax candle.  We decided, with a bit of inspiration, to light our candle with each meal.  Narina, with her growing vocabulary, says  “fire” and points towards the candle before we have lit it.  In this way we have created something simple that we can maintain but that holds the space of ritual and beauty during meal times.