Teaching the ways of the Path to a Toddler...

During my child's infancy, I spent a lot of time thinking about when I would be able to start teaching my little girl how to follow an earth based path, and how I would teach her. First of all, teaching can and does begin at infancy, sometimes it's just harder to see and understand because babies lack the use of words to tell us in a voice that we easily understand. That aside though, we're now growing through our toddler years, and I'm steadily getting my daughter more involved so she can learn over time. Like most two year olds, she has the attention span of a gnat and frequently likes to turn her listening ears into the "off" position. So, having her take part in a longer ritual with a lot of speaking parts but little movement is next to impossible, and as the phrase "sit still" still translates into "jump up and down and act like a little heathen" working on breathing and meditation is also out. However, my daughter LOVES to help me in the kitchen. She has her own little apron and set of mixing spoons/whisks/spatulas to cook with. While I don't let her in there when I'm cooking on the stove (as I don't want her to accidentally set her hand on a burner) I have her come in and help me bake. While we bake, I go through the list of ingredients and we make it part of the recipe to look up those ingredients in one of my magical reference books. The two I use are Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Wicca in the Kitchen and The Encyclopedia of Magickal Ingredients: A Wiccan Guide to Spellcasting . The first one gets used much more frequently in this setting, but it never hurts to have a back up reference book. =) So, doing this, she is having fun, I am baking something which I love to do, and my daughter is learning something about the path she is being raised on. It's nothing huge, but the same goes for children and adults, it takes small steps to learn big things.

Today we made Spiced Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (recipe courtesy of Duncan Hines):

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg Duncan Hines® Moist Deluxe® Spice Cake Mix
• 4 large egg whites
• 1 cup uncooked quick-cooking oats
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup raisins

Baking Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease cookie sheets.
2. Combine cake mix, egg whites, oats and oil in large mixing bowl. Beat at low speed with electric mixer until blended. Stir in raisins. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheets.

3. Bake 7 to 9 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets. Remove to cooling racks; cool completely.

Oats are known for money and prosperity, while Raisins are ruled by the sun and fire and eaten to open the conscious mind.

Go bake and enjoy!