ASH MAGIC

We had a lovely magic-moment yesterday at the Kindergarten
in the woods round the bonfire, when one child threw his paper
beaker into the red embers of the burnt logs, we all watched as
it turned from white to a beautiful matt black with glowing orange
edges, then the whole became orange, still holding its shape so
to become grey, the colour of ash, a delicate blue-grey and
torn-edged, silk-papery in its looks, then to our surprise it became
the explanation for what we had seen earlier, those floating grey
fairy-like shapes so slowly, slowly, spiralling down to land like forest
leaves on the surface of the crystals on very white snow. 

The staff present were ever patient as they let child after child do
the same thing, even with unused beakers, all the while these cones
were watched intensely, their every change commented on, many of
them described the shape of the Norwegian o with the line through it,
was it the handles?

It was one of these that made me say "perhaps they are floating," as some
went upwards now, "to decorate the trees, they look like Christmas stars
for the tops of all the firs," and that one went, first left then right then up
some more to the dark of the tops and disappeared between the branches
just below the very top. 

What simple moments of wonder but how the experience stays with one
as adult and child both watch and learn of the magic of weight and change
in the objects of this world.