Susan Gaylord's Spirit Books

The sun was slipping down behind the trees and the birds were settling in for a long evening. It was peaceful, very peaceful... way too peaceful to be in the middle of a girl scout meeting, but as I looked around there they were - all six of them, fully focused on building spirit books.

My love affair with Siusan's books started many years ago, and her presence in our girl scout meetings actually began with one of our first meetings as Daisy's. We had planted paper-white bulbs and then proceeded to record their growth of a flip book. During national poetry month I had dragged tree branches in from the outside (a permanent reminder having been left on the walls -which still cause eye brows to be raised in this house) and had the girls hang their own poetry books from the limbs. We have folded hot dog and hamburger books, made index card books to remind us of the Girl Scout law and promise and have generally incorporated all of her ideas in one way and another to promote the various badges that we have been working on, but the spirit books were a totally different concept entirely.

It had been a very busy week and by the time Tuesday morning had arrived I really had no plan, no magical idea was simmering, nothing had grabbed me by the toe nails, I was beginning to get a little concerned... I am generally considered a little on the OCD side of being organized and not to have a plan was a little disturbing. We are in the middle of working on a series of badges and subconsciously I had the feeling we needed a little break.

A few days earlier I had read Susan's new post involving a gaggle of middle schoolers who had built their own spirit books and as I was casting around for inspiration I thought... why not?

Keeping one eye on the weather and selling my soule each time it clouded over, I gathered hot glue guns, wire, yarn, string, old paper grocery bags and abandoned them on the deck.

Once the girls arrived I explained the concepts of spirit books and we looked over Susans blog here. (scroll down a little) I reiterated the physical boundaries of our meeting site, asked them to respect anything living (and yes, that encompassed snakes, raccoons, mice, faires, flowers and trees) and threw open the doors.

Stunned, they stood for a moment, then surged forward en mass with whoops of joy filling the air... and then silence settled. At the back of our garden is a forest; a patch of woods big enough to never get lost in, but if you imagine hard enough you might discover Robinson Crusoe, and it was from these depths that they dragged logs, stumps, branches and trees. Hot glue was used with abandon and twisted wire was sent spiraling. leaves were formed into books and camellias were picked.

At some point a little book was made and declaired fit for the fairies which only serverd to notch up the excitement level and soon fairy books were popping up all over the place. We were so oblivious to the time that mothers arrived unexpectedly and building had to be halted. The girls had one last chance to add to their dwellings, and then begged me to send pictures to Susan before reluctantly going home.

After the rabble had left I headed back outside to spend some time looking at the dwellings and the closer I looked, the more I was blown away by the complezxities of their engineering abilities and the exuberance of fun - even a fairy research lab had been created...

I offered silent thanks to Susan while sitting on the steps, for there are not many people who understand the power of nature, or its hold over children... but I have a feeling that she just might.

I do also have to offer her my thanks for posting our photos on her blog... it was thrilling to see the girls creations, and I hope that on Tuesday they will be equally thrilled to see them.