Mietzke's POST Holden Adventure

Today was a big day for me at work. I was taking down all of the Fall decorations and putting up the decorations for advent. I have been gathering things for the fireside room for weeks. Cutting logs, collecting about twenty ten foot long branches, dying banners, gathering greens, making and advent wreath and cleaning out candle holders. I have had many helpers in the task of preparing for the advent season. Liz, Wanda, Carol, Rachel, Melissa, Dan, Bill, Laura, Dawn, Dave and Dave, Joan, Eric, Jordyn and Nyrie. Today we all set to work hanging banners and swags around the Koinonia fireside room. We created a kind of triptych out of Aspen trees and Dave and I made an aspen Cross to hang in the center amid the branches. the trees are placed in a little alcove of sorts with deep blue banners behind them. The whole thing turned out beautifully. The banners and blue and white swags proved as difficult to hang as ever, but they really create a space for reflection and worship services. The Advent worship decorating was one of the first jobs that I did when I first arrived at Holden, It as fun to do it again and to have so much help! I love the deep blues! The cross that we made is nestled into the aspen and looks like a part of the winter forest, stark and bear but preparing for something... I love the mood of anticipation and longing that comes with both winter and advent, and I feel that we captured something of the mood with the room this year. Over the course of the advent weeks the room will begin to change moving towards the festive, with lights and stars and a huge Christmas tree to be decorated. I was so thankful for all of the help, and really pleased to see what transpired today!

Jordyn and Nyrie played all day and Jordyn was able to go on Dave's bus run with him down to the lake. The two of them love to get time together. They are so sweet with one another!

Thanksgiving weekend is like one long three day party at Holden. We had forty guests arrive on Wednesday and preparations began for Thanksgiving Day festivities. There was reed star making, clove apple making, table decorating, choir practice, and an advent wreath to make for the worship space, and a little bit of fabric dying. The day went fast with lots of activities and fun to be had by all. We got a little bit of snow and the children were our sledding and having a grand time! The dinner was fabulous there was turkey of course, and stuffing and mashed potatoes and green beans and cranberry sauce and squash. It was a delicious meal, but unlike any Thanksgiving I have ever experienced. The directors served the community and really made the experience special. One of my favorite parts of the day was the service at the tables, There was a choir that sang and good verses were read it really brought the focus of the day around to thankfulness nicely.
That evening there was a showing of the movie The Secret Garden, and then afterward there was apple and pumpkin pie. The kitchen went all out this year with the food! Cleaning up the meal was nice because so many people chipped in to help and the work went pretty fast.

Friday was another day full of activities and I got together with a bunch of girls and we all worked on Christmas gifts down in the craft cave. It was a lot of fun! We also had a fun family walk down through the forest by the river. We still don’t have much snow, but what we do have has been beautiful! Friday night we had a big bonfire out on the second level. Every year the village gathers the wood waste and does a big burn and Friday was the night. Dave and a few other fire brigade members went out to the burn pile and set it on fire with a torch. It was covered in snow so it took it a little while to get started. People from the village began to head out that way at about eight in the evening and the piles were going pretty well by that point. You could see the orange glow of the fire from the village and as you walked down towards it the trees looked like they were glowing golden with their snow covered tops. Nyrie, Jordyn, and I walked out there with my friend Rachel and as soon as others started to arrive, a huge snowball fight erupted! There were snowballs flying everywhere. It was amazing how bright and warm the fire was you hardly noticed the cold of the evening air. The girls were having a blast throwing snowballs and drinking coco. Nyrie kept reminding me that I needed to write about this on the blog, so here I am.
Once the fire got going Dave brought out the fire hose and we all got a chance to test out how a fire reacts to different kinds of water pressure from the hose nozzle settings. We had to be careful not to put to much water on so as to actually keep the piles burning. The girls really enjoyed getting a chance to try out the fire hose. We stayed out there until after ten and were all tired by the time we got back home. Dan Roberts had to stay out with the piles until four o’clock in the morning to make sure the fire stayed where it was supposed to. There were over fifty people that came to the bonfire.

Tonight there was a Jacuzzi party the theme was the tropics. Little did we know that the weather would do its best to cooperate. It was up in the forties today and all of the snow is starting to melt. There is even green grass poking through in places. The whole village gathered at and in the Jacuzzi there were teeky(sp?) torches and a bar set up with smoothies and pineapple. We even had Hawaiian music and real live hula dancers, well the hula dancers were the village kids who did and awesome job. Jordyn and Nyrie were up there and very serious about their dancing. Then we hung out in the Jacuzzi and Dave put on a laser light show for us making patterns in the water and steam. The utilities folks went all out and served coconut cookies poolside. It was fun and decadent, and a little bit kooky. This whole week has been jam packed with events. All of the guests leave tomorrow and I have a feeling we are going to have a tired but happy staff.

I want to spend some time learning how to be something by being nothing
I want to ride wings of thought in silent observation of my own insignificance
To breath in and out,
To realize that I am but a whisper on the tongue of the wind
Here for a blink
To brush hands with love and grace
Maybe to tell a story to someone who will remember to tell it to someone
Who might write it down in a journal, as something to remember or ponder
I want to know my life’s worth in the pocket of the time thief
Who steels moments
And collects them in some unseen vault that keeps expanding to hold the value of lived experience
I want, I want, I want
To know where God put his fingerprint on my backside
So that I can prove that I was made by the famous one
Did love leave its mark between my shoulder blades?
If I had love in writing could I ask to be handled with care?
Would I then be seen with regard and question?
What could God have been thinking while he painted this one?
See the curve of her nose?
Was the thin fine hair really necessary?
Is she a masterpiece or has she been left unfinished with colors and lines
That linger and sway before the eye of the beholder?
If I had that glorious claim to fame…
That God created me in a moment of divine love,
Then maybe the gallery viewers would come back for a second glance
Maybe they would sit up on a bench and stare
Trying to reveal the truth
Behind these curves and lines that create me in time and space
The truth is:
I want to be something
Significant or insignificant
Created in a moment of love
I want to know
With my whole heart
That I am wearing divine genes

We had a really fun family night yesterday. It snowed four or five inches and the Jacuzzi is still open so Dave, Jordyn, Nyrie and I went down to the Jacuzzi and sat in it and watched the snow fall. When we would get to hot we would get out of the Jacuzzi and have a snow ball fight, and then sink back into the water to warm up. Daniel and Caroline were in the Jacuzzi as well and the girls had fun getting them with snow balls. Then a group of kids started sledding and Jordyn and Nyrie asked if it would be ok for them to sled in their bathing suits so we all did. Bathing suits and boots. It was cold and fun and whenever we would get cold we would just go back to the Jacuzzi to warm up. Dave brought his laser light along and made patterns in the steam and snow with the light. We decided we would start a club for the easily entertained. It was fun just being together, and having the snow in the valley makes the darkness of the days way more bearable. It lights everything up and has already begun to feel like Christmas!

I have cloths pins in my pocket,
I am hanging the laundry out to dry
I hang and pin my heart on the line
Here with these damp clothes
These cloths seem to hold all of my secrets…
The breeze lifts the bottom of the sheet
And sends it
A flutter round my head
These wet things need airing
Out in the open where they can be seen
And will not hold that damp smell
And mold
Sometimes I prefer putting them in the dryer
It is such a private affair…
Where no one ever wonders
About my despair
Until I hang the laundry out to dry
Until I hang my laundry out to dry


This Poem was inspired by a line of writing on My friend Gail's Blog.

It is Nyrie’s birthday today and we had a fancy English tea party at our chalet. Dave made a cake and I made Donuts from scratch with a little help from my friend Melissa who is better at following directions than I am, Thank God. We had all of the kids from the Elementary and high school over to join in the festivities. It was a fun party. Nyrie got nice cards and gifts and a stuffed chicken which made her day! The donuts turned out really yummy and I dressed up like the maid servant who served the guests. I can’t believe she is ten! She got a little bit of vanilla and a cute outfit and she looks so grown up. She has been in an anxious twitter about turning ten, but she seemed to relax into it as the day went on. The Holden community sang Happy Birthday to Nyrie, at dinner, to the tune of “There is no Business Like Show Business.” All and all I think she had a pretty good day!

Dave and I went up to the third level today to look out over the valley and get some time together. There were many puddles that were frozen over and we played around with getting air bubbles under the ice and seeing where the air could find places to escape. We also stomped on some of them sending cracks all the way across. There is something satisfying about breaking ice. It was good to get some time together. Just the two of us.

There is a fire burning in much of Santa Barbara right now, and it is hard to be at Holden and not have current information about where it is and if people I know and love are in danger. My folks just moved back there this last month and I don't really even know where they are living, but they are currently out of the country so I know that they aren't in the path of the fire. I don't however know about my brother and his family or my cousin JJ who are also living in SB. I am waiting to hear from someone. I did see that We know many people in the areas that have been devastated by the fire and I am praying for them and wishing I could do something to support them right now.

It is absolutely breath takingly gorgeous outside right now! The moon is full and filling the valley with light. The mountains all around have white peaks stark against the dark of the sky. It has been so rainy and dark for the last few days the gloom threatening to take over. The sky clarity feels like breathing in fresh air. The wind picked up last night and blew hard knocking down trees and sending flurries of snow that danced but never settled around Holden. At lunch we watched the flurries out the window during our noon service. The dry cold feels good after all of that wet bone chilling rain and I feel that winter piece of myself awakening, call it soul, call it inner light, I have a new eye open, awaiting snow and quiet. The crisp clear air feels like a promise of rest, inner quiet, and resolve. The moonlight is a reminder of snowshoeing in the brightness through the patterns of blue shadows and silver light. Anticipation of the inner spiral of light lives in me with such longing. It the summer I live so far out of myself with my eyes always directed outward never settling, and though I do not have leaves the fall has been a time of release and turning my focus inwards. Now I can feel the gesture of coming into myself, of being, and I am ready.

The village has been working on lanterns all week for our lantern walk which will happen tonight as our vespers service. We will tell the story of Saint Martin who was known for his gentleness and his compassion for the poor and suffering. He was also known as someone who worked to resolve conflict without the aid of the sword. In walking with our lanterns through the darkness we are practicing and thinking about how we might be light in the world when darkness abounds. The lanterns have turned out beautifully! We made tin lanterns and glass lanterns covered in tissue paper. It has been pouring rain all week and I do mean pouring! So I think we will do our walk through the Village center and then end it at the dining hall. We will sing lantern songs as is traditional in the Waldorf Schools. Lantermas has been one of our favorite celebrations in our family it feels like the first part of preparing for the holidays and acknowledging the change in season and the change in the light, as well as entering into our own inner experience of light. I love that Holden is open to these traditions.

After school today the girls, Ellie and I went down to the "creek" to see how the rain has changed it. The water is flowing higher and faster than I have ever seen it. Its power was deafening! We stood on the bridge and I actually made the girls hold on because the rough movement was disorienting. We all got soaked, and I found myself wishing that the rain was snow and feeling ready for that blanket of white. The rain feels so heavy and it makes me want to climb into bed and sleep. The clouds are low in the valley and sometimes it feels like we are being swallowed by the gray. I am ready for winter, but it looks like fall is sticking around for at least the rest of the week.

Here at Holden we are a little behind in the news. I was just reading a New York times article from the 5th of November, and I felt a burst of emotion as I read an article written by a journalist named Ethan Bronner, who is writing about our election from Gaza. What I read filled me with a sense of what I hope our country really could be.

He wrote from GASA:

"From far away, this is how it looks: There is a country our there where tens of millions of white Christians, voting freely, select as their leader a black man of modest origin, the son of a Muslim. There is a place on Earth -call it America- where such a thing happens."

This was the opening to his article and I was filled with such a sense of possibility, of hope. Maybe we can change who we are and how we are in the world. Maybe we really can be peace with the right leadership. Maybe we can say no to racism, oppression, and hate, and maybe we really do have it within us to live love actively in the world. Maybe, just maybe.