Grom: Courage

 

• These creatues are short, about four ft in height,                                                                                  

• They are a hybrid of a human and an elf.  

• They are optomistic by nature and this makes them courageous, persistent                                                                                       hard working because they know they can acheive their goals.

• Groms see songs as inventions and they also invented a seed drill to give to                                                            Jack in the Green to make it easier for him to plant seeds.                                                                                                               Their long term plan is to create an alternative energy, a replacement for                                                                                               fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and oil and teach city folk a "garden friendly"                                                                                 way of life. 

• This character helps makes students empathetic towards the millions of children                                                                                   all around the world that go to bed hungry and thirsty. 

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It's simple and easy to dress as a Grom   

Try and include 2-3 three of these items in your costume.

 

1. They carry walking sticks and some march around keeping the beat with                                                                                                their sticks and feet.

2. They wear old pajama type clothing with one pant leg or sleeve rolled up. 

3. They also wear special hats to block out the sun and protect their heads.                                                                                       These hats can look like a muffin on a tray. 

4. They paint their faces, have tattoos on their arms and dye their hair.

5. They weave sticks, feathers and bones in their long teased hair. 

6. They paint their faces, have tattoos on their arms and dye their hair.

7. They  wear big garden gloves for digging burrows and have dirt on their faces.

8. They create and wear jewellery.

 

How To Act as a Grom (Backstory) 

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1. Groms each have their own original walk. Some walk with small steps,                                                                                               some, big steps and some walk without bending their knees.  

2. When they moan and groan because of their hunger pains, their have very worried looks on their faces. 

3. They don't usually whine or complain a lot but when they do, they grumble.

4. They speak in low guttural grunts and broken English and short melodies that are whistled, hummed or yodeled.

5. They sing and hum long sounds to help them sleep and meditate.

6. They create dances for rituals and special celebtations. 

7. Favourinte Instruments : music box, calimbas, djembes

8. Hobby: Repurpose  re porpoise? water bottles into shakers 

 

MORE BACKSTORY

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1. They have all sorts of digging tools and live in a maze of tunnels.

2. They have special calls to communicate over distances and blow conch shells. 

3. They eat roots & yams taros, kava  tubers that grow underground and mushrooms that grow above ground. 

4. They sleep at night but go to bed late telling stories of far away lands including mountains, valleys and a dangerous forbidden place called "The Hard/Flat Space".  (the city)  They oftern use hand made puppets to help tell these stories.

5. They hibernate in the winter in their burrows and have a huge autumn festival feast to fatten up for the winter.

6. They fear the cold more than anything and visit Jack (in the Green) for food and medicines if they awake in the Winter.​

7. They use the calm water as a mirror to see their reflections. They believe this is magic and call it a "water echo". 

8. They are great inventors and have created a seed drill to aid Jack in the planting of seeds.

9. They make up nicknames and namerhymes for each other. 

10. Each Grom has a favourite creature or animal that best reminds them of themselves. They often keep SongBirds as pets who migrate south while the Groms are hibernating. 

11. Sport: Bury acorn cups in the ground and roll spherical rocks towards them.

12. Favourite Pet: The lowly Earth worm (see notes below from Nature a day at a Time - Cathie Katz,  

13. They are the salt of the Earth meaning they are very kind and honest. Basic, fundamental goodness; the phrase can be used to describe any simple, good person: “I like Mary: she's reliable, trustworthy, and straightforward; she's the salt of the Earth.” 

14. They often argue and debate over the difference between a cupcake and a muffin*. 

15. They bake Amaranth cookies: (Pigweed) Nutriocious seeds that are eaten by Groms and birds. Groms grind them into a paste and make cookies in the shapes of their favourite animals. These are eaten in during rituals as a way of celebrating the spirit of nature*  (Notes: The patterns of communication that indigenous peoples created to communicate with these forces, they called ceremony. Of those patterns that were devolped for this relationship with Gaia, some are the ancient pattens of behaviour that Stephen Harrod Buhner calls "sacred plant medicine" )

 

*Muffins: Often contain berries and fruits, eaten for breakfast,

preffered by adults,  ie Bran muffin, 

 

Cupcakes: decorative Icing, sweet, preffered by kids, desert 

more like a birthday cake,  ie chocolate or vanilla cupcakes

 

Hybrid

Kid: This isnt a cupcake, this is a bran muffin with cream cheese

icing on it. I dont want it! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Nature a day at a Time - Cathie Katz,   c 2000 Sierra Club Books San Francisco 

Cathie Katz, a resident of Melbourne Beach, Florida, is Senior Editor at the Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory at Cape Canaveral Air Station. She is the author of several books, including The Nature of Florida's Ocean Life and The Indian River Lagoon: A Casual Field Guide.

 

Additional Exercises

 

Draw a picture of a Grom.

Give your Grom a names and a nickname and a namerhyme.

Dress up as your Grom.

Become your Grom by dressing up, walking, talking, singing drumming, sleeping in your burrow and living like a Grom.

 

Definition of the homonym "Grom" 

 

In the city, Grom means beginner skateboarder.

A grommet (grom) is a young participant in extreme sports. Originally, a grommet was a surfer under the age of 16. In recent years, this has expanded to include other extreme sports, most notably skateboarding and snowboarding. Notice how these pictured Grom congregate at the bottom of a half pipe making it impossible for the older riders to skate the vert ramp. It is this "getting in the way" behavaviour that makes Groms problematic at a skatepark. But wise, older, empathetic riders remember that they were once Groms too. And they must take time out of their session to show these younger riders "the way". 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the garden, Grom means loud noise or thunder.  

Grom, (гром) meaning 'thunder' or grumble in several Slavic languages including Russian. 

The Groms in the story use their loud echos to capture the attention of the wind who blows rainclouds over to the garden.

It is these rainclouds that bring water to the garden helping the plants to grow, the fish to spawn and wash away the grey smog and soot and make the garden green again. 

 

Vids (these links will take you to YouTube) 

 

 

The Feral Kid  (Please note that Garden Groms do not carry weapons of any kind but do carry a variety of instruments) 

 

Beyond ThunderDome's Child Tribe

 

Butterfly Eyebrows on Todd Rundgren  (Grrrl groms decorate ther eyebrows with Butterfly wings to pay omage to Earth Angel, a Butterfly Faery) 

 

The Burrowing Owl: Can it make a burrow? Why are some birds called Owls?  What do Owls and the Talking Rock have in common? 

http://wildlensinc.org/eoc-single/burrowing-owls-bc/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl