[warm-up, creative parenting]

Did you play this game as a child? It bears repeating and is a great thing to do with your own kids. It’s non-competitive, free, interactive and instructive, for adults as well as children. Plus, if you bring a creative slant to it, it can be an experience that teaches about the close relationship between smell, memory and creativity.

THE GAME:

Place a series of smells under the noses of blindfolded people and ask them to name them.

Best played in the kitchen.

That’s it.

However, it’s not as easy as it would seem to be. Sometimes the smell is as familiar as your own name but the word for it will not come. This is probably because in order to do this we have to utilize two separate parts of the brain. The part that identifies smells as familiar and known—and the part that puts a word to that familiar and known smell, ordinarily with the assistance of sight.

It would be a great game to play at a Halloween party since this holiday is already so much about masks and the senses. Make it part of your “Haunted House” and have the kids identify a few ‘bad’ smells along with the good or neutral.

If you’re just playing this at home, talk to your kids about the brain and memory. Sit down with them and do a quick free-writing exercise just to see what the non-verbal sense of smell has aroused in your c-minds. If your children are too young to write, let them dictate their stories.

You can also use some of your game smells as the basis for art work. After you’ve played the Smell Game, tell your kids they can make art with the ingredients. Explain that this art work may not be as lasting as if you were using paint. It might be a good time to teach them words like “transient,” “ephemeral,” and “fleeting” and to talk about art and artists who make art that is intentionally so.

Smell Art Ideas:

Sprinkle jello on a paper and let them use their fingers to make art (this is a great sensory-rich way to help them learn to write their letters and numbers, but save that for another more structured time ) Enhance the smell factor by letting them dip their fingers in lemon juice first!

Dip paper in strong tea, coffee, fruit juice.

Use berries to make dyes, paint with them!

Finger paint with (a little) peanut butter. (Maybe even jelly, too?)

Put glue on the paper and use aromatic spices as you would glitter.

Take one item—how about a lemon?—and do a whole picture out using all parts of the lemon.

And, this is a whole other article, but don’t forget: edible art! Pancakes with food colouring, popcorn ball people, rice cake worlds.

LINKS

Here’s a lovely website
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0110299/html/index.php made by three young people about the brain and the mind, including pages on creativity (take the How Creative are you? quiz), the senses and memory.

The Ephemeral Arts - check this one out. it’s all about ephemeral arts on the Indian sub-continent; here’s another link to the same site, one that gives examples of these kinds of art. Use them with your kids!

Stayed tuned for my own Ephemeral Arts article. Coming soon!

Have fun and never forget that anything you can do with kids and creativity, you should be doing for yourself anyway. Tapping into our childhood well, keeps creativity flowing strong!

[-short fiction, collaboration-]

by Indie

Sara: How did you get here?
Boy: I followed you.
Sara: Impossible.
Boy: I only had to close my eyes the moment you vanished.

Silence for a moment. Sara in her private Wonderland was right to be astonished. “By Invitation Only” was the law of her fantasy realm, yet here was the boy, and somehow he had found a way in.

“Run that way,” Sara pointed off in the direction of the pink sun. He was off immediately. “But he’ll be back,” she thought to herself, “when I turn the path the opposite way.” Now she pondered the uses of a boy in her Wonderland. “He could put the leaves back on the trees.” They were constantly falling to the ground whenever the trees snapped themselves to attention. “Or put me on the slide, in moments I am not.” She slid the blue slide down to the gravelly ground. “Now come back,” she spoke.

“Here I am!” the boy announced, “I found a tablecloth. We can have a picnic!”

“What will we eat?” she smiled coyly, “There’s no food here.” There really was nothing. If Sara became hungry, she merely forgot more of the real world, to notice, moments later, that her socks became striped or a wall sprouted dots in shades of primary colors. The boy went away, then returned a while later with a handful of jelly beans. Sara was trying to catch her breath after swinging a complete Ferris-wheel cycle on the swing. He let the jelly beans fall and helped her, heading off the long strip of breath that looked like a rosy red ribbon flapping in the chaotic wind. What a mad dance it was! Never more than two feet on the ground between the two of them, and sometimes none, and neither in reach of the other - nor the ribbon. But finally they cornered the renegade breath. Sara snatched one end, the boy the other, and they shared it between the two of them. Afterwards, contented and waiting for something to say, they noticed the spot where the jelly beans had fallen. A spiral of cotton candy had sprouted into the strawberry sky!

“You can’t catch me” Sara teased, or maybe it was the boy. They chased each other first one way, then the other, all the way up the candy, pausing for little bites along the way, for the running was making them hungry. When they reached the top they were holding hands and stickily sweet all over.

There they sat, on top of the Wonderland world, breathing their breaths together. “I still would like to know how you slipped into my Wonderland,” Sara persisted.

“It was easy,” the boy answered while glancing down at rainbow meadows. “This whole fantasy is my imagination.”

She smiled with primal joy, and joined his gaze into the fairy-tale lands below, “I knew there had to be a logical explanation.”

Story #377
Indie, © 2005 - 2007 all rights reserved - originally published October 13, 2006 in The Synchronicity of Indeterminancy
Thanks to dark firefly for sharing her photograph with Indie and now with us!

Please see Indie’s other contributions to The PCQ: Hacker Baby, Vicious Pirates , The Great War of 2015

Indie’s blog, The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy, is an experiment in creativity with daily posts of an original one-minute short story inspired by a found photo. All stories are fictional. The idea is based on the Indeterminacy recordings by John Cage, pairing one-minute short stories with random sounds. His daily stories can be found at: indeterminancy.blogspot.com His blog was recently honoured as a Blogger Blog of Note. Congratulations Indie!

about the writer:
Indie is an American - originally from Cincinnati, Ohio - living in Europe since the 80’s. He enjoys avant garde, dadaistic, and surrealistic art, literature and music. He has a special love for comedy. Indie holds a masters in psychology and is employed as knowledge engineer, designing natural language dialogue systems. He’s lucky enough to be married to a wonderful muse and has a son 10 years of age.

[-survey-]

4:At what age did you begin your first collection?

Read the rest of this entry »

[-poetry-]

This poem explores the most intimate kind of space:
what’s inside us

by Chaphan Paul Trombley Read the rest of this entry »

[-craft, kids-]

here’s a fun activity to do with or without your kids!

by Suze Corte

Spring is in the air, so we know you’re going to want to make some of these hanging delights to brighten your porch, balcony or sunroom.

This is a tried-and-true project that’s fun for children and adults of any age. We are giving away our secrets, here, so the least you can do is dig in and have yourself some fun! You have to let your project dry overnight before you complete it on Day Two.
So if you’re into INSTANT gratification, see Optionalities*.

Materials:

Yarn-any color
White glue (like Elmer’s)
Liquid starch
Bowl
One-inch brush
White tissue paper
Colored tissue paper-Spring colors, torn into random 2-5 inch shapes
Nylon fishing wire
Hole puncher
Scissors
Spray starch (optional)

Day One:
Cut off a long piece of yarn 14-18 inches for each Floaty Tissue Paper Delight. You’ll probably want to make at least three.
Tie the length of yarn together and knot it so that you have a circle of yarn.
Mix together in your bowl: 1 cup of glue, ¼ cup of liquid starch and ¼ cup water.
If the amounts are not exact, that’s okay. You can have tons of fun no matter how the mixture comes out.* If the mixture becomes lumpy, add more water and/or glue.
After you have your mixture the consistency of very heavy cream, you’re ready.

Lay out two sheets of white tissue paper on your worktable, one on top of the other. Drop your yarn circle into the glue mixture and coat it all over. Mix it around with your hands for sensory fun.

Take the yarn out of the glue mixture and plop it onto your tissue paper. It will be drippy and that’s fine. This is a messy project. Begin to form a shape with your yarn circle. Make a large shape, fairly simple, with lots of open space in the center of the yarn. It can be a heart, a nebulous shape, a bird, anything!

Once you’ve got your shape ready on top of the tissue paper, dip your brush into the glue mixture and very lightly brush glue onto the yarn and the surrounding tissue paper. If you brush too briskly or too much, the tissue paper will tear, so a light, springy touch is what you’re after.

Take your pieces of torn up colored tissue paper and lay them down onto your yarn circle, overlapping as you go. This is willy-nilly placement; don’t worry about being exact. The pieces can flop over the yarn onto the white paper; that’s perfectly okay.

As you’re laying out the colored pieces, dip your brush in the glue again and again and use a light stroke to make the paper stick. You can brush right over the top of all the tissue paper. If some of the paper tears, you can “mend” it with another piece of tissue paper.

When you’re done, there will be about two to three layers of tissue paper. Keep it light! Next, place two more sheets of white tissue paper on top of the colored layer. Brush over this lightly, as well. Make sure it’s all nice and sticky and gluey. Hang your creation up to dry. We use a drying rack and clothespins. It might drip, so put newspapers underneath to keep the floor clean. If you want to make this nice and stiff, you can apply some spray starch at this stage. Experiment!

Day Two:
Your tissue paper creation should now be dry. Cut around the shape just barely outside the yarn, cutting away the excess tissue paper. You will be left with your interesting shape ready to hang. Punch a hole in the top and hang with nylon fishing filament. Watch how your Floaty Tissue Paper Delight plays with the spring breeze! Make lots and hang them all over your special space!

Have fun and let us know how this turns out for you!

*Optionalities: If you’re really into sensory experiences, transform your glue mixture into “Gak” once you’ve made your Floaty Tissue Paper Delight. Just add more liquid starch until you start getting a solid mixture. It will be slimy and fun. This will wash off hands with soap and water and lasts if you store it in a sealable plastic bag. We hope you have loads of fun, and that playing with all of this frees up your creative spirit!

about the author: Suze Corte is a pre-school teacher with many years experience as an art teacher, primarily to young children. she is also an artist and writer and contributing editor to The PCQ. More of her artistry can be seen at her flickr photostream or click on Suze Corte in the tags to see all her PCQ posts.

Originally published in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration

Suze Corte is a writer, artist and pre-school teacher in Houston, Texas. In 2007, she was chosen as be the Houston Area Association of Educator’s of Young Children’s Teacher of the Year and the Texas Association of Educators of Young Children’s Teacher of the Year. Congratulations, Suze! It is a well-deserved recognition.

[-essay, parenting-]

What do yoga, Carlos Castañeda and being a loving, effective parent have to do with knowing who and where and what you are? Read this great essay to find out.

Playing the edge, finding one’s spot and being one’s true self

by guest essayist, Joe McCarthy

I recently attended a four-class parenting seminar on Love and Logic, wonderfully facilitated by Cindy Horst. The three “rules” of Love and Logic are:

1. Take care of yourself by setting limits in a loving way
2. Give choices whenever it’s reasonable.
3. Let empathy and consequences do the teaching.

Throughout the classes, parents were encouraged to stretch to allow children to experience more consequences directly, enabling them to fail early and often, rather than being protected or rescued from those consequences. There is much to be gained by moving out of our comfort zone, but stopping short of real pain. Cindy notes that the Love and Logic principles can be used not only by parents interacting with their children, but in school and the workplace as well.

I see these principles as applying equally well to my interactions with my self.

This notion of stretching to the edge of our comfort zone reminded me of the concept of “playing the edge” that Erich Schiffman describes in his wonderful book “Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving Into Stillness”. Reviewing the highlighted passages in my copy of the book revealed close alignment with some of the concepts taught by Don Miguel Ruiz in “The Four Agreements” and by Don Juan (via Carlos Castañeda) in “The Teachings of Don Juan”. I’ll include some relevant passages below.

On “playing the edge” (from Erich Schiffman’s book):

A large part of the art and skill in yoga lies in sensing just how far to move into a stretch … This place in the stretch is called your “edge.” The body’s edge in yoga is the place just before pain, but not the pain itself … Sensing where your edges are and learning to hold the body there with awareness, moving with its often subtle shifts, can be called “playing the edge.”

One of the things you learn in yoga is to enjoy working with intensity. Intensity is simply more “energy” at any given moment, more feeling … Yoga can teach you to enjoy and learn from a broader range of experience. It will encourage you to seek out and process more intensity … Skill in yoga involves creating the perfect amount of intensity — not too much, not too little.

The real key to depth in postures is going slowly, making sure you have thoroughly opened your early edges … Proceed slowly, edge by edge and gate by gate … Respect your tight edges. Work with them sensitively. Lure them to greater openness.

Never be in a place you don’t want to be. If you do not like it, change it. Adjust. Find the degree of stretch you can totally immerse yourself in … Never fight yourself.

This last part reminds me of Don Juan’s notion of finding one’s spot (via Carlos Castañeda’s book):

Finally he told me that there was a way, and proceeded to create a problem. He pointed out that I was very tired sitting on the floor, and that the proper thing to do was to find a “spot” (sitto) on the floor where I could sit without fatigue. I had been sitting with my knees up against my chest and my arms locked around my calves. When he said I was tired, I realized that my back ached and that I was quite exhausted.

I waited for him to explain what he meant by a “spot,” but he made no overt attempt to elucidate the point. I thought that perhaps he meant that I should change positions, so I got up and sat closer to him. He protested my movement and clearly emphasized that a spot meant a place where a man could feel naturally happy and strong. He patted the place where he sat and said it was his own spot, adding that he had posed a riddle I had to solve by myself without any further deliberation.

Finally, re-reading the opening chapter of Schiffmann’s book reminded of the concept of mitote in Ruiz’ book:

Your mind is a dream where a thousand people talk at the same time and no one understands each other. Everything you believe about yourself and the world, all the concepts and programming you have in your mind, are all the mitote. We cannot see who we truly are; we risk to be alive and express what we really are.

Schiffman addresses this issue of who we are - and who we are not - and suggests that yoga can provide a way to discover and experience our true selves:

Yoga is a way of moving into stillness in order to experience the truth of who you are … From very early on, a fundamental conflict was introduced into our psyches revolving around this basic and most important issue: Who am I, really? And because we were not encouraged to find out for ourselves, we believed what other people told us. The result is that we feel guilty, ashamed, embarrassed, and confused about who we are. We feel judged … [Yoga teaches you to] turn your attention inward and focus on yourself. Focus on what it feels like to be you. Experience you.

One of the things I like about Love and Logic is that it encourages children to be who they really are. Rather than trying so hard to control children, the program points to a path through which children can more naturally unfold to be their true selves, with gentle guidance and support from their parents. This approach resonates with me, and I will try to apply it as best I can. And, regardless of how this affects my children, I plan to get up extra early tomorrow to have more time to find my spot, play my edge … and experience being me.

about the author:
Joe McCarthy’s mission is to help people relate to one another. He has played the edges of academia and industry, and is currently moving out of his comfort zone and opening up to the intensity of a new entrepreneurial path aligned with this mission. More about Joe’s entrepreneurial aspirations can be found at interrelativity.com; other dimensions of his journey can be found on his blog: gumption.typepad.com. This article is a slightly revised version of this one originally published on his blog.

illustration from the yellow woman series by nancy sm waldman © 2005 - 2007 all rights reserved

Published with the permission of the author in the April 2005 issue of The Practically Creative Quarterly, theme: inspiration