International Mud Month

There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.

Carl Sandburg

We sit each day in cubicles and under flickering lights, staring at screens that shimmer with a digital world, and every day we lose ourselves a little bit to the cold light of electron pathways.

Children dive into games, experiencing narratives created by dreamers of other worlds, without ever learning to open their minds and find the narrative within themselves.

International Mud Month was created to remind us that outside, away from the geometrical perfection of man’s world, lay the organized chaos of mother nature’s realm, and the importance of maintaining our connection to it.

History of International Mud Month

In 2009 the children of Bold Park Community School joined forces with the boys of the Nepalese Panchkhal orphanage to celebrate the visceral and primal connection we all share with Earth and the outdoors.

Bold Park used this opportunity to raise funds to help support the less fortunate children of Nepal. Since that fateful beginning, schools, families, and ECE centers from all over the world have worked together to promote the idea that we all need to play in the mud sometimes, just to remember what it means to be human.

In 2015 it was decided that one day of playing in the mud simply wasn’t sufficient to ground us after a year of being lost in the technological glitz and digital glamour of our modern world, and so it was changed from “International Mud Day” to “International Mud Month”, and thus the celebration continued!

It’s not all about our personal connection with the Earth, but also about how we as humans connect to one another, and the relationships we form throughout our lives. Like any two ponds of mud, no two humans are exactly alike, and so International Mud Month encourages us to share that diversity and celebrate it!

How to Celebrate International Mud Month

First off, get ye to the mountains and fields! Out among the blooming flowers and down into the flowing creeks. Head out over the airy mountain, and through the wooded glen, and get muddy up to your neck in search of fairy dens!

Then start organizing with others to create fund-raisers centered on remembering that we were all wild once, and we should not let the digital world tame us! Get out there and play in the mud!