The Sun Mother
As we continue to learn about the sun and its many properties, this week I decided, instead of continuing on a scientific course with the kids, to head down a mythical path instead…
This had us exploring an Australian Aboriginal creation story, re-told in the Barefoot Book of Earth Tales, entitled “The Sun Mother”.
 Long before the earth as we know it came into existence, the earth was cold, dark and all the creatures lay sleeping. It wasn’t until the sun mother walked on the earth, that things began to come to life. The sun mother came down to the earth, and first coaxed the plants and trees awake with her warm embrace. These were the first living things to make their presence known on the earth.
Next the sun mother stepped into the cave where all the insects and animals, flying ones, swimming ones, and walking ones, lay resting. These too she warmed with her rays and brought to life. Now the earth was really buzzing with life! Here the children got to pretend to be any animal they wanted, and soon we were all howling, hopping, growling, and running. It didn’t take long, however, until some animals came to be dissatisfied with their forms. They saw animals that could fly or swim when they could not, and they wanted these things too! The sun mother, being very generous, offered the animals to change their form one time. They could ask for wings to fly, or fins to swim, or legs to walk. And some of the animals did. This is how we get such unusual animals like the platypus. Lastly, the sun mother made the moon and the morning star, so that the animals could have light at nighttime too. The moon and the morning star came down to earth and were the first humans. The humans were given a very important role—to care for the creation. As humans, we talked about what this might mean, and the kids came up with: taking care of the water, taking care of the animals, and taking care of the cities. |
To bring the story to life, we made unusual creatures. Creatures that could have wings, legs, as many eyes as the kids wanted, fur, feathers, and all sorts of unusual things.
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Check out some of their creations! And join us on June 27th for our field trip to Jonathan Rogers park, as we explore some of the sun’s creations at the community garden there!
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