Flower Fable Part II in Transcendentalists Wednesday, July 22, 2009POSTED BY JILL AT 10:37 PMlink

Here's the second half of Transcendentalist Louisa May Alcott's Flower Fairy story, adapted by Emily Carroll. The first half is below, on a post from July 9th. The goal was to trim the story into something Jill could read to her Big Room kids. We wonder whether kids of this time (mid 1800s) would have been able to understand such long, flowery sentences, or if adults just didn't talk to kids in a kid-friendly manner. This story is such delight!



Part II
“Now I will go to the hills,” said Annie. “Maybe I will find my little fairy there.” Up and down the hills she went, but she did not find the fairy. She asked the dragonflies and lilies whether they had seen the fairy, but none of them replied. Then she wandered into the forest, and as she passed along the dim paths, squirrels pepped up at the sight of her and doves cooed softly. But none could answer her. Tired of her long search, she sat amid the ferns and feasted on the strawberries that grew beside her, watching the clouds glow around the evening sun.

The night wind rocked the flowers to sleep; the birds sang their evening hymns and all grew calm and still. As the light grew paler, Annie’s head began to fall. Soon she was asleep on the soft moss in the silver moonlight.
Just then, the fairy who Annie had sought all night sent a dream to the sleeping child by elfin spell. Little Annie dreamed that she sat in her garden, like often, with angry feelings in her heart. She ignored the magic flower’s ring and held tightly to her troubled thoughts. Then came a little voice to her, “Annie, let me show you what you are creating with your thoughts and feelings that are now in your heart. You will see how great their power becomes unless you get rid of them.”

Then Annie saw her own angry words change into dark, unlovely forms that were easy to identify from which passion or fault they came. The spirits of anger had red eyes and glaring faces. The spirits of selfishness with gloomy, anxious looks tried to gather all that was in sight, but the more they grabbed, the less they had. Spirits of pride turned away from the rest with crossed arms, noses in the air. These and many more spirits came from her heart before her eyes.

They gathered in strength, each gaining a strange power over her. She could not take her eyes away from them as they dimmed the sunshine so that everything looked like a shadow. All the flowers faded away and in their place rose a dark wall that separated her from all of her favorite things. Then the spirits got closer to her, begging her to obey, because she had welcomed them into her heart and now she was their slave. She sunk down to the withered flowers and wept for her lost freedom and joy. Then she noticed her fairy flower gleaming on her chest. A soft, glowing light shone from her flower like a flashlight. The radiant light became clearer and brighter until the evil spirits turned away and left the child alone. The light and perfume of the flower brought Annie new strength, and she bent to kiss the blossom, “Dear flower, help and guide me now, and I will listen to you always and obey my faithful fairy bell.”

Still in her dream, she realized the the flower saved her from the troubling spirits. Then a low voice spoke in Annie’s sleeping ear, saying, “The dark passions in your heart can shut out love and happiness forever. Remember well the lesson of the dream, dear child, and let only loving thoughts live in your heart.”

Hearing this voice, little Annie awoke to find it was all a dream. She sat alone in the morning light and watched the forest wake up as she thought of the strange forms she had seen. She decided to strive to be a patient and gentle child and to bring back light and beauty to the flower’s faded leaves. Even after this one nice thought, the flower perked its head and breathed its fragrant breath to reassure Annie.

The forest welcomed the morning with whistles, sunbeams and kind greetings. The world looked more beautiful than ever. Throughout the long cold winter, the bell seldom rang and seldom did the fragrance cease. Often she was tempted, but she only had to remember where those thoughts would lead her and she would turn around her ugly thought, welcome spirits of gentleness and love, and all was bright again. Annie grew happier until spring came like a bucket of color over the earth and woke the flowers, set free the streams and welcomed back the birds. She couldn’t wait for her fairy friend to return so she could thank her again for the lovely gift. Then one day her friend appeared!

“Wait no longer; I am back! You have learned to love my gift and its has helped you so much,” the fairy looked tenderly into Annie’s face. “And I have another gift for you from Fairyland.” She touched the child with her wand and told Annie to look and listen closely.

Suddenly the world changed for Annie. The air filled with sweet sounds and all around her were lovely little creatures. Elves sat in every flower singing and rocking amid the leaves. Bright, airy spirits drifted by within each breeze. In the fountain danced sparkly spirits who played in the water. Even the trees sang a low, dreamy song and the grass was filled with sweet voices she had not heard before. Butterflies whispered lovely tales in her ears. Birds sang cheery songs. The world was full of beauty and music that she had never dreamed of until now.
“Dear fairy, is this another, lovelier dream, or is this real?” she cried.

“This is all true,” replied the fairy. “Few humans receive this lovely gift. Most don’t know the language of butterfly or bird or flower and cannot see all that I have given you the power to see. These lovely creatures are now your friends and your playmates, and they will teach you many pleasant things and will be with you always. Your own happiness brightens this place and your flower will never fade. I must go again dear Annie, but I will be back every springtime with the earliest flowers to visit you. Be well, my friend!”

The fairy floated up to the soft white clouds, smiling down on Annie. She stood in her enchanted garden, where all was bright and fragrant and cheery.

  Flower Fable Part 1 in Transcendentalists Thursday, July 9, 2009POSTED BY JILL AT 5:31 PMlink

This is a story by Transcendentalist Louisa May Alcott. Emily Carroll has adapted it for contemporary readers. Here's the first half!





Annie sat all alone in a large, pleasant garden. She was very sad, and tear drops fell on the flowers beside her, who leaned toward her cheerily. The wind caressed Annie’s face and hair, and the sun beamed most kindly on Annie, even making little rainbows in her tears. But Annie hardly noticed the sun, wind or flowers because she was lost in her own tears.

“Annie, why are you crying?” said a small voice in her ear, and Annie saw a little figure standing on a vine beside her. The voice came from a lovely smiling face framed by golden locks of hair, and shiny glittery wings that fluttered in the wind.

“Who are you, lovely little thing?” cried Annie, already beginning to smile through her tears.
“I am a fairy of course and and have come to comfort you,” replied the spirit. “Now tell me why you weep, and let me be your friend.” She smiled even more kindly.

“Are you really a little elf, such as I read of in my fairy books? Do you ride on butterflies, sleep in flower cups, and live in the clouds?”

“Yes, of course, and much strangers things as well. But now, tell me why there is no light on your face. Why are these flowers sopping wet with your tears, and why are you sitting alone instead of joining all the birds and bees that are ready to play?”

“Oh, you will be very ashamed of me if I tell you everything,” Annie said, as tears began to fall again. “I can’t be happy when I’m so mean. I’ll never learn to be a good, patient child. Good little fairy, will you teach me how?”

“I would love to help you, Annie. Sometimes you hold strongly onto your anger or selfishness, but you must learn to cherish only happy feelings in your heart. I know it’s hard, but I will give you this fairy flower to help. Let me pin this to your shirt, near your heart, where it will stay until I undo the spell that keeps it there.”

The elf took from her pocket a graceful flower with snow-white leaves. “This is a fairy flower,” said the elf, “no one can see it but you. Now listen while I tell its power, Annie: when you do good you will smell a sweet fragrance from the flower to reward you. When your heart is filled with loving thoughts, when you have done something kind or performed a duty especially well, your nose will receive a special treat! But when you speak unkind words, or when selfish, angry feelings fill your heart, or if you do something cruel, then you will hear a chime from the flower’s bell. Whenever you hear the soft ring, listen to its warning�”don’t say the unkind word or do the unkind deed, and the lovely fragrance will be your sweet reward. "

“Oh kind and generous fairy, thank you for this lovely gift!” cried Annie. “I will certainly listen to my little bell whenever it rings. Can’t you stay with me? Then I would always be good.”
“I cannot stay now, little Annie,” said the elf. “Next spring I will be back to see how well the fairy gift has helped you. Goodbye my friend: treat the world kindly, and the magic flower will never fade!”

Then the fairy kissed Annie on the cheek, spread her shining wings, and flew up into the sky. Little Annie sat among the flowers and gazed at her precious flower.

The pleasant days of spring and summer passed away and though the autumn flowers were blooming everywhere, the fairy flower became wilted on Annie’s chest. The fragance seemed all gone, and the low music of its warning chime was constant.

At first, Annie always obeyed the bell. She would correct her actions with a kind word and the flower rewarded her with a sweet fragrance. But then, selfish thoughts fished for Annie’s mind, and she would give in and speak unkind words. Then the flower drooped pale and scentless, the bell rang sadly, and Annie became a selfish, willful little child.

Eventually, she stopped trying and grew angry with the faithful flower and tried to tear it off. But the fairy’s spell kept it snug on her blouse, and her mean thoughts made the bell ring even louder. Each day she became more grumpy and wished she could return the flower since it did not help. She longed for the spring, when it could be returned and the mournful music would stop pestering her.

One sunny morning, with no clouds but lots of wind, Annie walked carefully through the flowers, hoping her flower fairy would be hiding inside. She peeped into the dewy cups of many flowers, but no little elf lay hidden there. She turned sadly from each, saying, “I will go to the woods and seek her there so I don’t have to listen to this tiresome music or wear this withered flower any longer.” She passed timid birds, lovely wildflowers, murmuring bees, dancing butterflies and asked them all if they could tell her of the fairy. But the birds looked at her with bright eyes and kept singing; the flowers nodded wisely on their stems, but did not speak; the bees just buzzed busily; and the butterflies luxuriously fluttered away.

  The Fledgling in Transcendentalists Tuesday, June 30, 2009POSTED BY JILL AT 11:08 AMlink

I am so glad Wendy suggested this book

by Jane Langton,

first published in 1980,

Newberry Honor book,

set in Concord, Massachusetts.

Just that makes it a must read for me.

But do you want to read it?

Here's the Library blurb, "Georgie's fondest hope, to be able to fly, is fleetingly fulfilled when she is befriended by a Canada goose."

It's lovely, lovely. A kid's transcendent journey. Every page inspired by Henry Thoreau. That's what I like about it.

What you might like is feeling like you, too, can fly.

  Transcendentalists—Lydia Maria Child in Transcendentalists Monday, June 15, 2009POSTED BY JILL AT 6:05 PMlink

Lydia Maria Child!

Never heard of her?

.

I guarantee you know her most famous poem! You"re gonna like this lady, I think...

Transcendentalist...Unitarian...abolitionist...Indian rights advocate...poet...essayist...editor of the first American magazine for children called Juvenile Miscellany. (link here to read her story, The Magician's Show Box, on Project Gutenberg)

The Big Room kids liked my suggestion that we e-publish our own Juvenile Miscellany.

I now have even more incentive to create a Big Room Web site...and we can put our miscellany there! Just give me a couple weeks to figure that one out. I for one will miss the UU and Me section in the center of the UU World mag. All the more reason to start up our own!

It was Maria's book, An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans

which convinced many, including Dr. Wm. Ellery Channing to speak out against slavery. It also made her unpopular in the 1830s with some of the Boston crowd.

So, that poem you know???

Think about a Thanksgiving day sleigh ride over the Mystic River and through the woods to grandmother's house...

this house

  Transcendentalists—-Julia Ward Howe in Transcendentalists Sunday, May 31, 2009POSTED BY JILL AT 1:09 PMlink

This week in the Big Room we continue exploring the ideas of the Transcendentalists. This time in the company of Julia Ward Howe:

abolitionist,

prison reformer,

women's rights advocate,

poet

and anti war activist.

Americans in the 19th Century were grappling with big unresolved issues—injustices that didn't jibe with the Revolutionary promise of "Liberty and Justice for All."

I wasn't sure how well our Big Room kids understood these social issues, since many have yet to study American History. But today reminding them that the Transcendental movement came alive in the time before Lincoln was President... most could recall, without any prompting, that slavery was happening and that African Americans had no rights. Some of us remembered that women didn't have the right to vote.

Native Americans were being massacred and forced off their land.

These were also the times when the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was formed by Henry Bergh...a Unitarian...and before the end of the 1800's , in order to protect children from abuse, he helped expand the laws against animal cruelty to extend to children as well.

Clara Barton...Universalist... founded the American Red Cross.

Dorothea Dix created new and better hospitals for the mentally ill.

Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton worked tirelessly for the abolition of slavery and the rights of women.

The Civil War certainly changed the nation, but so did the non-violent struggles of those determined to end injustice by speaking truth to power , educating the masses, writing, caring, laboring, organizing.

Julia Ward Howe, writer of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, had her fill of war by 1870, and organized the first Mother's Day on June 2, as a day of peace. A day when all mothers would stand together and insist that their sons should never be sent to war.

  Transcendentalists—Emerson in Transcendentalists Tuesday, May 26, 2009POSTED BY JILL AT 9:31 PMlink

Ralph Waldo Emerson, was a Unitarian minister whose transcendental theology became too radical for the church of his time.

It took, what...half a century for the Unitarians to begin to catch up?

I think so many of us now would find inspiration in the transcendentalist's desire to pare down our material needs in order to be more free to follow a spiritual, moral, artistic path. Make time for the big stuff.

So...Emerson, the major dude.

But I have to admit, I have never gotten through a single one of his essays.

I told the kids last week, reading his stuff makes me feel really ignorant. It's so dense, and he seems to use words to define something so specific that only a disciple would catch the reference.

Apparently I have company. Wikipedia mentioned that folks attending his very popular lectures would comment, "I have no idea what he said, but it was surely beautiful!"

So for the kids I pulled (from the UU kids book) the rebus letter he wrote as a kid to his older brother. It's a fun puzzle.

And even though I can't make heads or tales of his essays, Emerson is fabulously quotable...especially at graduation time.

We read a dozen quotes including:

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.”

(read more quotes here)

Then we took one of his quotes, and (I think quite brilliantly) made it into our own rebus:

and then several kids penned their own rebus puzzles, and wrote their own sage words of graduation advice.

  Transcendentalists?—not Hawthorne! in Transcendentalists Thursday, May 21, 2009POSTED BY JILL AT 9:03 AMlink

When all's said and done, Nathaniel Hawthorne was not a transcendentalist. The writer of The Scarlet Letter, was a Concord neighbor to Emerson, Channing, Thoreau and Alcott, but he became deeply skeptical of their utopian beliefs.

Like Louisa May Alcott, he published stories for children at a time when he was in need of some cash.

We read from A Wonder Book For Boys and Girls, (I love the title), where Hawthorne presents Greek myths framed within a story of young college graduate, Eustace Bright.

Eustace, like some Yankee Pied Piper, tromps around Tanglewood followed by a hoard of children who can't get enough of his storytelling and lessons in natural philosophy.

(Hmmm...I'm thinking this Eustace guy sounds an awful lot like Thoreau...coincidence?)

The kids have names like:

Periwinkle

Blue Eye

Dandelion

Clover

Squash Blossom

Buttercup

Huckleberry

We read Hawthorne's retelling of Pandora's Box...

We made cardboard versions of boxes and decorated them...some of us decorated them with what we thought came out of Pandora's box...some scary stuff! But we all appreciated the last thing left in the box...Hope.

Then we considered whether Hope made it worth the trade off. Whether we wished all those horrible troubles had never escaped.

Here's some Emily Dickinson on the topic:

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

  transcendentalists—Alcott in Transcendentalists Wednesday, May 20, 2009POSTED BY JILL AT 2:05 PMlink

Louisa May Alcott

Before Little Women made her famous, Alcott wrote a volume of Fairy Stories...her first published book, which afforded her the ability to lift her family out of poverty.

Bronson Alcott, Louisa's father, was an idealist with grand transcendental notions about philosophy, utopian society, education and self improvement. Pursuing wealth was not one of his priorities, and the family often scraped by on meager provisions.

One thing they were rich in, though, was the company of brilliant thinkers and writers.

Can you imagine growing up in Concord, MA with neighbors and friends like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Lydia Maria Childs? What stories they must have told!

We read Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau's Flute, by Julie Dunlap.

Certainly Louisa and her friends were kept busy with an amount chores and school work that the average Big Room kid would find oppressive. But this story of the young Thoreau leading Concord's children in a discovery of nature and purpose, through quiet deliberate observation, is really inspiring.

We also read one of Louisa's Flower Fables, which you can find here

We made our own flower fairies with pipecleaners and fabric flower petals...

but I must insist...finding real flowers in nature or a garden and imagining them as fairies is far more satisfying. I hope we can all spend time this summer looking for fairy acorn dishes, and moss carpets, and pebble furniture.

  transcendentalists—Thoreau in Transcendentalists Thursday, May 14, 2009POSTED BY JILL AT 6:04 PMlink

The best place to start is with Henry David Thoreau, and DB Johnson's perfect storybooks, Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, Henry Builds a Cabin, Henry Works, and Henry Climbs a Mountain.

We built a Lincoln log cabin...but it really needed a pond beside it.

Henry David Thoreau, A Neighbor to Nature, by Catherine Reef, is an excellent biography. Perfect for young readers.

I suggest it is worth making a spot in your heart for Thoreau.

He speaks to the idealistic, earnest aspirations of 19th century American philosophy, literature, spirituality, environmentalism, and civil justice.

We are not a perfect people. Henry suggests we have the means to become better.