International Day of Peace

Today, September 21st, is the United Nations International Day of Peace. This was a huge holiday at the Montessori school I taught at previously. The girls and I are making a Peace tree at Circle time today, using a basket of beautiful origami which someone threw away -- threw away! -- and my husband rescued it from the trash. He's in Maintenance so he's always rescuing useful things from the trash. Like the full-size chalkboard which was sitting out by a dumpster. We put up in the laundry room and I wrote the recipe list on it. My recipe list helps me when we are hungry... it lists all the recipes we have the ingredients on hand for already. Now it looks lovely, and the girls can see at any time if we have the ingredients for something they would like to make!

Anyway... we are using the rescued origami and our little metal tabletop tree to make a lovely centerpiece for Tea Time. Now that Leah is baking every day for her Measurement unit, we are having Tea in the afternoon around 4 pm when my third daughter comes home from school. It's a nice way to get together and share about our day. We usually do Philosophy together with Becca as well (her homework is simple: 20 minutes Reading, 20 minutes Writing, 20 minutes Research -- and I can count anything new she learns as Research) and sitting down for a Philoso-Tea is always fun!

Anyway... Natalie and Leah wanted to make more of the origami cranes so they asked me to print out the pattern. Oh oh! Natalie just remembered where she had put her origami things; for a while she misplaced her book. (Her book involves cutting so I think it's technically kirigami.) Now she's eagerly showing it to Leah!

My favorite thing is the papers. I can't fold origami at all. I am VERY verbal in my learning style and my spatial skills are poor. I'm always in tears when I try to follow a diagram.

I was told once that phone book pages are the perfect weight for origami and helpful for beginners to practice on.

Other great books that have to do with paper folding are Paper Johnand Little Oh

Zac is demonstrating peace by sitting and trying to fit his entire giraffe in his mouth at one time.

I love babies. They're always so in the moment!

Origami isn't the only way to celebrate peace, although the story of Sadako is certainly one way. Wangari's Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africais also a lovely book.

You could give to Heifer or Kiva, our two favorites at Christmas time.

You can celebrate in any way you choose! We are starting Time as our Philosophy topic. It goes with Measurement for Leah and it also goes with Peace, since the two philosophers Marietta McCarty chooses are Augustine and Alan Watts. They both conclude with the idea of living in the now, the only and forever now, the constant present. In Buddhism, misery comes from the desire for things to stay the same, from the mistaken idea that the goal of life is constant okay-ness. Accepting that things are essentially impermanent is the way to be freed from this trap, and to be at peace.