Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1998 16:13:39 -0500 From: "Win Wenger, Ph.D." To: John McPherson , anakin@dur.mindspring.com, mcole@napanet.net, mjoyner@botree.com, GeoNelson@aol.com, "Rolls Straveca (SRCS)" , "Swcgluck@aol.com" , RickAshby@aol.com, Kuene@cts.com (Corbin/Kueneman) Childwrite Project; Context Builder # 2-W Gentlepersons: here is my second context-builder, the first of two stories I once wrote for very young children, to see if this helps spark ideas toward our project to write children's literature for Project Renaissance and LMS procedures and for General Semantics, among other things. I'll send my second such story soon. Please let me know how this one strikes you and what ideas this begins to stir in you or at least what comes to mind. What FIRST comes to mind on each of these, if you pick up on that and describe it to someone or to a tape recorder, may be your most valuable resource. This story, its main purpose (if purpose can be described--it sort of wrote itself as an "inspired piece") was to create or help build in the very young child a sense of beauty and wonder. --Also some sort of positive valuation of nature and the environment. Without much help from me, there emerged this "creation myth:" DEW SONG ONCE upon a time, there lived a girl so lovely that whoever saw her thought that she must be a goddess, she was so very beautiful. - 1 - Her name was Aurora. Aurora lived in the edges of a great forest. - 2 - Every morning before first light, while the stars were still shining far above, Aurora would come out into the meadow, to delight in the fresh smells of the dawn and to listen to the Earth being very still. - 3 - Aurora would slip out somewhere from between the strong silent trees, when it was still so dark that you couldn't see the trees. You could only feel their good strength here and there around you. She would walk barefooted into the soft grasses of the meadow and listen to the silence all around. - 4 - So lovely was she that she glowed with her beauty. She let down her long golden hair to comb it, shaking out the diamonds with which she had pinned it up. The radiance of her hair would always wake up at least one sleepy bird. - 5 - So lovely was Aurora, combing her long golden hair, that the heart of that one sleepy bird would leap for joy and he would begin singing. His song would awaken other birds. Soon many birds would be celebrating Aurora's loveliness with song. - 6 - The sound of birds singing would help the sun find his way into the world. Soon all would be bright. Aurora always left at least a few diamonds around from where she had let down her golden hair to comb. You could almost always see a few of her diamonds shining in the sun across the grass, or winking brightly in the very petal-tip of some delicate wildflower. - 7 - One day the sons and daughters of Man came and slew the trees! They cut down nearly all the trees and put up in their place many boxes all around--boxes to live in, boxes to work in, boxes to shop in. The forest was gone and with it the silence and the fresh smells of dawn. Aurora moved far, far away. - 8 - But so lovely had she been that the birds still remember. Before first light every morning the birds still talk about her beauty and break into song, helping the sun find his way into the world. - 9 - --And the world still remembers her loveliness, too. Here and there along the grass, sometimes, shining in the sun's first light, you can still see Aurora's diamonds gleaming different colors, or winking as points of brightness among the flowers. Copyright 1975, 1987, 1995, 1998 by Win Wenger, Ph.D., win@thebestweb.com, Box 332, Gaithersburg, MD 20884-0332 U.S.A. ================================ I even have some very fine artwork that was done for this story and the one which will follow, by a very fine illustrator, but never managed to get this published. The second story for children, "The Philosopher's Stone," will follow in awhile. --win win@thebestweb.com P.S. - see also some really great stuff at-- http://www.winwenger.com http://www.botree.com http://www.anakin.com http://www.amateur-spirit.net http://www.enchantedmind.com http://members.aol.com/richardpoe/index.html