Twenty-three years ago, Lisa McCarthy began teaching children beneath a large maple tree in her backyard. Now, McCarthy’s school has a permanent home in Belmont Heights — and a new mural of the tree stretching above the school’s entrance.
In 2008, McCarthy founded Maple Village Waldorf School, which emphasizes holistic, arts-based education. The mural’s artist, Sea Lee, who teaches games and movement at the school, said they wanted to honor the tree as “guardian of the space where our school began.”
For two weeks this spring, Lee repaired and primed the stucco exterior, then ascended the wall via scissor lift and scaffolding to paint the mural. The result: McCarthy’s tree and an accompanying rainbow, which represents protection, guidance and the promise of what comes after a storm in many indigenous traditions, Lee said.
Now, Lee, who has indigenous heritage from Hawai’i and Mexico, is painting another stretch of the building’s exterior. Their mural draws on their knowledge of plant medicine and native flora. Piñon, laurel, willow, elderberry and oak trees span the wall. Nearby, painted cattails spring up from a creekbed. Above the plants sit seven stars, representing the Pleiades constellation and the story behind it.
“Habia una vez, there were seven sisters who married seven brothers who they loved dearly,” Lee said, beginning the story of the constellation, which they’d heard at an annual gathering of elders. In Lee’s telling, the sisters worked hard each day to tend the land and gather food while the brothers hunted. One day, the brothers returned empty-handed, saying they’d caught no rabbit or fowl. They returned without food again the next day. And the next.
The youngest sister, sensing something out of balance, followed the brothers and discovered they’d in fact had a successful hunt, yet hoarded the meat for themselves, feeling “no remorse for their wives,” Lee said.
The youngest sister returned to the women and relayed what she’d seen. Betrayed, they decided to leave together and prayed to their creator, who called them into the realm of the sky nation. There, they remain as protectors of the land, “keepers of all those who are innocent and trusting,” Lee said.
The mural and its symbolism have a natural home at the school, said McCarthy. “So much of Waldorf education is teaching through storytelling and oral history,” she said. The mural also reflects the school’s reverence for the land connection to the neighborhood, she added.
On Friday, May 22, from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., neighbors across Long Beach are invited to the school to learn about the mural. Students will present on the native plants, representatives from the Tongva nation will hold a land acknowledgement and blessing at 2:45 p.m. and McCarthy will lead guided tours inside the school.
The mural is Lee’s “farewell gift to the school,” said Kari Rahni, whose kids were taught by Lee and who now works as a marketing and outreach coordinator at the school.
After 12 years teaching students at Maple Village, Lee is heading to Santa Cruz to build a house for their mother “as she enters her elder season,” Lee said. But they are not done painting: Lee’s mother’s dream color for her house is “magenta pink,” Lee said.