As Amy posted already, we started decorating Jareth's new room yesterday. We're creating a place that can be a sacred space for him. No longer a box with four walls, now it is a space spiralling with symbols of the cycles of life and the world around him. There are the four phases of the moon, the four seasons, the cycle from dawn to midday to dusk to night.
It isn't all done yet, but it has begun. The first coat of paint for the moon is up. It's a glow-in-the-dark paint. It's difficult to see by daylight, and I think it will take a few coats to be heavy enough to work well at night.
There is a mouse hole painted on the east wall. East is about morning, and spring time, and the new moon, and about new beginnings. There will soon be a mouse looking out of that hole. He'll have glow-in-the-dark eyes, and he will look out from his night-time hole out to the new day.
Other totem animals for Jareth are Wolf and Bear. Particularly Bear has resonated with him. He is surrounded by plush bears. They dance in a mobile above him at bedtime. One of the first animals he hugged was Cloud, a polar bear. The first animal we got him, even before he as born, was a beanie-style Winney the Pooh bear.
So Wolf and Bear will adorn his walls, along with a few other animals. The nocturnal ones will probably also have glow-in-the-dark eyes, and they will watch over him in his sleep and keep him safe in the dark.
Each of these things is becoming a spell of its own. Each of the items is being hand done. It's a magical process, and we're loving it. There are ladybugs crawling up the bookshelf that will be his big-boy-bed headboard. There are fluffy white (with some gray) clouds in the blue sky that is his ceiling.
Maybe by next weekend he'll be moved in. I think he is really going to love the room when he's old enough to appreciate it. Ironically enough, in three or four years, when he can really apprecate it...that's probably the point we'll be looking to move. His room in the next house he can take more part in planning, and it can reflect what he wants. He's not old enough to do that, so we're laying a foundation for him. We want him to feel as loved as he is. I think he will.
Posted by fictionman at November 7, 2004 09:57 AM | TrackBack (0)