Quiet Sits

 The first rains of winter did not come until early November. The weather then became warm and clear for most of a month. By Northern California standards, the autumn colors were spectacular. Our fall colors are mostly browns but this year they were golden. The low autumn light glowing on the golden leaves has been beautiful.

Alysia and I wanted the Chrysalis kids to be out in the middle of this beauty so we took her class (8-11 year olds) on an all-day walk around the Redding Arboretum. In the middle of this clear, warm day, we did a quiet sit where we spaced 25 students along a trail at approximately 50-foot intervals. The quiet sit went almost 50 minutes. Afterwards in a sharing circle, more than half the sitters reported falling asleep. That delighted me. Such naps tend to be deeply flushing in a very unique way; I was glad kids experienced them. But later I realized these naps were also “authentic assessment” that at least half the class felt at home and safe enough within nature to fall asleep. No fear of spiders or snakes or whatever. That sense of “at home” was one of our goals in creating Chrysalis, though I never thought of kids falling asleep on a quiet sit as an indicator of reaching that goal.