Oh will you be my Valentine, my Valentine, my Valentine,
Oh will you be my Valentine and wear my big rose heart?
Oh yes, I'll be your Valentine, your Valentine, your Valentine
Oh yes, I'll be your Valentine and wear your big rose heart!
(sung to the tune of the "Oh do you know the Muffin man?")
Valentine's Day brings a breaking with the contraction of winter, a stirring of life filled hope for Spring with lambs preparing to give birth and birds seeking mates for their springtime nests. The birds are singing here despite the deep snow. The depth of matter being penetrated by spirit shifts to a stirring, towards a flowing out of the Cosmic breath. Mother Earth is awakening at the surface even though she has been busy deep down in the earth :
Little dwarves so short and strong
Heavy footed march along
Every head is straight and proud
Every step is firm and loud
Pick and hammer each must hold
Deep in earth to mine the gold
Carefully flung o'er each one's back
Hangs a little empty sack
When their hard day's work is done
Home again they march as one
Full sacks make a heavy load
As they tramp along the road
Singing oh so merrily:
Crack, crack
The rocks we hack
Quake, quake the mountains shake
Bang, bang
Our hammers clang
In caverns old
We seek the gold
Valentine's is a day of fun and a day of whimsy. Children often love to make Valentines for each other. I remember making mailboxes in first grade, of cardboard boxes, paper bags, lace, ribbon and construction paper, for our Valentines. Remember the smell of the glue served up on the corner of a used torn up sheet of paper with a wooden ruler?
I remember anxiously awaiting that moment in the day when we were able to set up our mailboxes on our desks and go around the room and "mail" our Valentine's to each other. And then later to take time at home to sit down and go through them one by one and examine each gem.
The weeks leading up to Valentines are usually full of the Valentine making for friends and classmates, use those beautiful wet on wet watercolor paintings, take out the ribbons, lace paper doilies, snippets of paper "bits and edges" from past projects, glue and scissors.
This year we are making, by request, the
woven Valentine and marble painted Valentines.
Over the years I have come up with a little dish for each child that comes out goes on the bedside table a few days before Valentine's Day. That usually involves some musing about the last year. One child has a Valentine Babouschka:
Another has a silver heart:
What matters to our children is not so much that it be silver or a certain design but that we find something special for them, imbue it with our love and return to it each year, making it a tradition through repetition.
I make them each a Valentine and leave it along with a simple gift and something chocolate and sweet in or on the heart. Last year I left these glass hearts. One year I left heart shaped musical chimes. Another year it was pink quartz hearts.
For breakfast I bake heart shaped scones, recipe is
here. We have not had a regular Valentine's Day meal. This year I am going to make fondue as I am inspired by Cypress, over at Cypress Space, who shares her family's Valentine's traditions which look beautiful, delicious and fun
here
If you want to make a little wool heart pendant for your child, it is simple to make one with wool felt and a ribbon. I like to tuck a lttle crystal inside like this:
This is also a simple project for a five or six year old or older to make for a friend. Pretty stones, crystals and chocolates make good surprises inside.
Attach a ribbon and it becomes a pendant:
