Where Am I?

First week of school has gone by - well, we have had the kindergartners three days. Went very well, actually.

The night-time cleaning elves made off with all our brooms and dustpans. Apparently this has become a rueful joke around the school. "How do you know if your classroom was cleaned last night?" "Check to see if all the brooms are missing."

I have now bought a new bamboo broom fro Thailand as well as a blue and a red short broom, also from there (World Market.) Then I bought a beautiful dust pan made by Sweep Dreams at the Tropic of Capricorn.

I still haven't heard from Sunbridge about the guidelines for the master's project.

The grounds of the school are far more verdant than I have ever seen. More flowers, fuller trees. It makes me more eager to pick up the trash I see.

More cleaning connections

Our mini-bios that we shared on Tuesday at faculty meeting have produced fruit, at least for me. Besides a new relationship to Aaron (who is almost exactly Bartzy's age) and a "Mennonite" connection to Kathy A., there are the cleaning connections and offers I mentioned before. Now Michael O has come to me with questions. He has moved into a neglected house in Seton Village and wanted some insight into elementals etc. Of course I know almost nothing, but I did give him the Linda Thomas article.

Just this mornng I came across a wonderful quotation which might fit into my article. It is a message from the Mock Orange Deva as conveyed by Dorothy Maclean in her book To Honor the Earth, p.20.

What fun life is! For us, to hold each little atom in its pattern is to hold it in joy. We see you humans at times glumly encountering experience, doing things because they have to be done. We marvel that your sparkling life could be so filtered down and disguised. Life is abundant joy. Each little bite of a caterpillar into a leaf is done with more zest than we sometimes feel in you humans. We would love to shake the sluggishness out of you and have you see life as bright and blooming, waxing and waning, eternal and one.

First faculty meeting August 2008

Well, this was an auspicious meeting. After a rousing get-together with singing and greeting each other, we spent considerable time introducing ourselves to the whole group. The format was - past, present,future - in 2 minutes. Needless to say, not everyone kept it to two minutes, but the self -intros WERE pretty short.

Many were light-hearted or even funny. Mine was not. (I was close to the end, when we were encouraged to be even shorter.)

It was the first time in the whole group that I alluded to Bart's death. And I also made a quasi-announcement that I was going to try to finish my master's project. On cleaning!

It has taken two years, but I am beginning to feel a part of the group.

Jennie Baudhuin (whose birthday is today!) told me that Eugene Schwartz has been VERY BIG on cleaning in the classroom. She will talk to me.

Early Childhood idea - let's get together and do a deep cleaning of each of our classrooms!

The official cleaners seem not to have done a very good job this time around. What to do?

More elementals

They're popping up everywhere! I have to get serious here.

First day back - a College meeting for 4 hours (my eyes are spinning widdershins) after an early morning meeting with Jill and Jennie. At least I am being treated as an equal, which is vastly interesting. Well, maybe not an equal. It's like there is no precedence for this - two leads and an assistant. Treated with respect, and I am grateful. (And separate but equal. I can buy that.)

At any rate, we all came into the meeting not know what the constellation would be, and we ended in agreement that I would stay with Desert Rose Kindergarten and Annie would join Jennie in Woods Rose (or whatever she might decide to name it.)

There is all sorts of dirt lying around down in the K where malevolent elementals may be brooding. Something must be done.

References to the elementals, and more

I am really hoping to do reading - and deep experiencing - to begin to have a conscious relationship to the elementals. Holly suggested yesterday in our talk that the insides of cupboards need also to be clean and orderly. When there is a deep sense of order, when the usefulness and purposefulness of the material world are acknowledged with appreciation, then the elemental beings are happy to work with us. (I hope I am not misquoting - I don't have it exactly)

So... longer ago I asked Natale Adams and also Eugene Schwartz about Steiner lectures that referred to the elementals. Natalie mentioned the lecture cycle Man as Symphony of the Creative Word and Eugene refered me to The Spiritual Heirarchies.

Whoa. Every door that I open leads to worlds behind the doors.

OK. Part of keeping a journal (did I say this already?), per suggestion of Holly, is to notice how consciousness at school begins to affect one's awareness at home. (I am glad Holly confessed to me that she has not always been as diligent at home as she has been at school, but that this imbalance has pretty much evened out for her.)

Well, besides buying two new brooms (one for home and one for school) and a red and a blue whisk broom for school, I have been starting to declutter the clothes closet and clean. I have also given the glassed-in portale a good sweep on the floor - lots of cobwebs and woolies and cat hair had collected in corners and on electric cords etc.

Ricardo has given me a good suggestion that I need to ponder. I wonder if I can team up with one of the grade's teachers (Danelle comes to mind) to do some deep cleaning in that classroom. How to observe potential effects would be the trick.

Now i am going to practice adding an image,

Re-embarking on the voyage of my master's project

I have until the end of July, 2009, to write up my master's project on Cleaning in the Kindergarten. I had decided to bag it, but I have changed my mind.

I talked to Holly today, and she encouraged to me to give it a swing.

She was glad I was familiar with Linda Thomas , whose article was so inspiring to me. She urged me to try to get in touch with her.

Also, I need to read about the elementals, especially in relationship to cleaning.

And she also encouraged me to keep a journal, which I will try to do here. ONWARDS.

Getting Ready for Seattle/Orcas Island

Filling up the ollas and emptying out the fridge. (Well, I am obviously leaving things in the fridge, but I would rather not have things moldering if I know Ricardo won't cook with them.) Yikes. The time has zoomed passed and now I must go to bed. Our guest and we watched "Becoming Jane " together = quite, quite poignant.

Garden

Today is Thursday, the one day I can legally water my plants with Eldorado water, not just grey water. I am cautiously pleased that a number of plants seem to be making it, this second summer of my learning to garden in the high desert.

Keys to fragile success: WATER, of course. (I thought xeric plants did not need much water, but that turns out to be maybe after the third year, and even then.....)

Soil amendments - I use a lot of Soil Mender and Yum Yum mix, both developed here in Santa Fe, I understand.

Straw mulch - I have used two bales so far and have two more in reserve. The problem is, when the monsoons come, all the plants are so grateful, including the seeds left in the straw as well as all of the seeds scattered under the birdfeeders.

Big river stones surrounding the plants. These help preserve some of the water, collect miniscule amounts of dew, help me remember where some of these tiny plants are so that I can both water them and avoid stepping on them, and, I hope, will help me with mulching over winter (and know where not to dig!)

Ollas, which preserve the water and let it seep out slowly. A plus which I did not expect - the purslane which I love to eat is fat and succulent around the ollas, so I guess i have a monoculture vegetable garden as well. (I just discovered that purslane is rich in Omega-3's!)

Finally, allowing the large weedy-looking asters to grow tall and shade the young plants. The sun is just too fierce. Eventually I hope I can weed out many of the asters and leave the rest nicely grouped for a wild flower show in the fall.

I am growing primarily plants which are aromatic and attractive to hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, and people. The big three groups I love are agastache, the artemsias, and lavender. There are lavender farms near here, but I have yet to keep any lavenders going to grow big and bushy. Patience.

A vicious hailstorm tool out, or nearly, a special trumpet vine, but we keep watering it and hope it comes back next year. I am also just getting some moonflower vines started after trying multiple times.

I have saved all my receipts for the garden in a jug which is overflowing. Billions of dollars, I fear.

Visitors to Santa Fe

I had been told that when we moved to Santa Fe, we would have LOTS of people visiting. I did not quite believe it, though I hoped it to be true.

Well, tonight is the first night in a while that I have not thought about supper for anyone else but Ricardo and me. I know the parameters there- life is a good deal simpler.

But what fun I have had! Lots of folk visiting or else coming over for supper while there were other visitors.

The longest and best lot were Alkelda the Gleeful with Lucia, and then Bede as well. Nephews Zack and Lennie. Guest Running Horse. Gary, the guitarist. Rebecca, dear cousin. And then Liz and Aaron for a few days. Whew! And hurrah.

Pray for my Intentions

I would like to use this space, truly, for reminding myself of my intentions and also for recording things i don't want to forget.

The summer is speeding by. Lucia and Alkelda and Bede were here, and it was lovely. This came on the heels of my visit in Denver - a conference and also spending time with cousins Arlen and Lola. Several things came out of all of the Denver experiences.

1. Intention to read to the Dead. I am using Bart's big notebook to start on keeping a list of those to whom I want to read.

2. Write a "birth" story for Bart eventually, i.e. like a birthday story but going back over the rainbow bridge.

3.meditate on the point/periphery

4.Think about the epileptic/hysteric polarity

5.prepare more spring rolls and also make art (inspired by the Denver art show)

Something that has come up more recently is the encouragement to finish my masters in the next school year. Yikes! This is going to be monumental. More on that later.

I need to do something about the lyre and also the lyre association.

Gear up for the new school year. I have a sneaky suspicion that there will be some change that I am not expecting.

I am finished with this post for now. I will say only that i am currently addicted to Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe books. Very literate and witty, and they make me want to go back to some of the old English Lit classics. (In my spare time, ha ha.)

Martinmas

OK, I am not really blogging about Martinmas. I am only noting that the last time I wrote, it was before Michaelmas, and here it is, time for Martinmas! Self-flagelation, or however you spell it. And yet I am in a space where I can (relatively) simply give thanks for being involved with work where celebrating the festivals is important . And what a joy that Lucia is being drawn into festival life.

I yearn for "do-overs." I wish I had been able to bring these festivals, this conscious rhythm of life to my own children. Can I learn to accept my deep failings and be grateful for the foundation that my Mennonite upbringing did manage to help root my children in something beyond the personal?

Leaving that aside, what about these first months of this second year in Waldorf-land? I was going to blog almost every day. What a laugh! I am already several weeks behind in the minutes for the College of Teachers. Grrrrrrrr.

Labimmel, Labammal, Laboom.

Laurie Clark (Denver, WECAN) was here this past week. She is adamant that we assistants get a break before naptime. My enforced break led to my going to the school library and checking out a couple of books. The Jeanette Winterson novel regarding Time (I forget the title) is lovely, and I am addicted.

Labimmel, Labammal, Laboom.

I brought leftover soup to the faculty lounge today. This is a loving gesture that is appreciated, I am finding. Terry has been doing this for a while now, and I am grateful for her encouragement. (Our kids have been eating so much of the soup that heretofore I have never had enough to bring. But I will try to make extra to have enough to share.)

First Week (and Birthday)

Yikes. I understand so much more viscerally now why my Waldorf K buddies rarely answered my emails in a timely fashion, when i was still a librarian. I do not know how anyone has the time to live a satisfying life outside of Waldorf Land.

I was going to write each day .... this year... about daily life in the K. But whoosh! There goes a week, with faculty/COT meetings after school and nothing quite getting accomplished what needs to be accomplished.

Things to do: a partial list.:

Write to Holly Koteen
Write to Jim and Maureen
Practice the lyre
Establish a spiritual practice
Work on my master's project

IMPORTANT

organize my stuff
write minutes for COT - constantly
clean house

aaaargh.

The circle for this week has been from "Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures" by nancy Blanning and Laurie Clark. Jill M. has jumped off from the "Sunflower Circle" on pages 71 ff. It is charming and light, a real winner. I realize that I had elements of this in the circle I wrote for Sunbridge. What I needed to do was SLOW DOWN. Fascinating.

I played the lyre a bit tonight.

First day of school

Yesterday was the 1st day of kindergarten, though two days ago was Rose Ceremony where I saw my erstwhile Kindergartners enter in through the flower gate with nary a backward look (though some were nervous or self-conscious.) I went to COT in the afternoon, such a long day that I wondered if I would survive this year.

The first day of Kindergarten, I was there early and started the millet. It was a bit chaotic and not very reverent in mood, with parents zooming through the K to set up for their tea on the playground. JM was in the hall greeting, and at a certain point she came in with children on the round rug, doing a little fingergame, and I went out in the hall and helped Terry with nap bags. Finally we got most of the parents out of there.

Two parents stayed - Mitch with Leo, and Betsy with John. John is going to be a big challenge, a choleric boy with a loud voice. But i was interested that JM not only allowed Betsy to stay but also gave her instructions on how to be. I realized later that JM was using thistime as a way to start modelling behavior for Betsy.

Actually, it was a good thing she was there. She ended up doing all the dishes when i ended up caring for Sam who threw up and needed to go home.

Our rhythm is different this year. But later for that. I have to get ready. Getting up at %:30 am still doesn't give me enough time! By the way, Chris and I had four sleepers yesterday already!

Sloth

I realize that sloth is the opposite of a virtue. Sigh. I can see some definite advantages to sloth, I fear. But I am too lazy to figure them out.

I am not at my own computer, so I am resorting to this slothful way of saving an interesting website. I have already forgotten the name of it. But it has some fascinating slothful ways of cooking.

auspiciousdragon.net

Aha! I knew there was a dragon involved!!!! Thank the powers that be for control C and control V.

Nature Spirits and Elemental Beings

I was able to make inroads into this book, which contains some esoteric material (at least for my limited understanding). The books is written by Marko Pogacnik of Slovania - published in English by Findhorn Press. He is involved with earth healing as a "lithopuncturist," a type of acupuncture for the Earth. I think he came to Santa Fe to give advice on the particulars of our school in relation to its geography. I gather that we have some special issues to grapple with (duh!).

The part I want to note in particular as having relevance to my cleaning studies comes on pages 70 ff. He is discussing the legend of the dwarfs of Cologne. It is a legend reminiscent of the Elves and the Shoemaker. I knew I had read about this somewhere, and when i came across it again in this book, I realized I had better make a note of it. P.71..... "The legend of the dwarfs of Cologne also explains how this wondrous union [between creative people and the elementals] collapsed because of an interfering human mind. [.....] [The elementals}cannot exist on the mental level. And they will never return. The craftspeople must complete all their work by the sweat of their brow."

From Santa Fe to Seattle

Here I am. After a heart-rending adventure last night with Twitch not coming in, the moon bright, and the coyotes howling and ripping through the arroyo like the Hounds of Hell, and Twitch still not around in the morning, I was quite tired and weepy. I did not sleep after 3 am - I lept from the bed twice and ran out to the deck with my heart pounding. Dave our builder shared his horror story of his beloved cat being taken off by a huge owl.



I prayed and visualized and tried to be philosophical, since the morning newspaper had several stories of human tragedy, but still I was torn between holding out for hope but trying to be realistic. And then - a rattling in the closet in my office. I opened the door and there was a black furry thing who was slightly annoyed and certainly bemused by being covered with kisses. Thank good ness she was found before she was reduced to a skeleton in my closet, since R. does not hear reliably and might never have found her while I was in Seattle.I could leave with a light heart!

An Affirmative Phone Call

What an unexpected pleasure, to receive a phone call from my Lead, who is on vacation in the East, seduced by water and leafy trees, both of which are in short supply here in the high desert.

She was excited and thrilled and totally inspired by the glimpses she got of the work of some fibre artists. She was on a high and needed to talk to someone who would understand. What an honour to receive this phone call from the East Coast! Sometimes I feel overlooked and rather inessential - my problem, I realize , and it is by no means a predominant theme in my life - but a call like this is invigorating and affirming.

Fie! Poor Me

Trying to tie up loose ends before the great trek to Seattle. I heaved and ho'ed a couple of bags of steer manure and cotton burr mulch to spread on the back garden here at the house. It had rained yesterday a bit and I wanted to get this all out before the sun hit. I am not sure whether I am burying wild flower seeds which will now have difficulty penetrating the mulch, or whether perhap I am amending the soil so they have a better chance, or even, horrors, am I making the soil TOO rich for some of these desert plants. Is there a metaphor here? Let me give it some thought.

Went to school to finish what I could do in respect to cleaning - without the Lead K teachers there.

It was very discouraging. Years of neglect and stuffing odd things away in a basket and hanging on to everything (except stuff I found in the trash I sometimes hauled out!) I think that part of the horror and ennui is that I have been guilty of similar things (though never this awful, ha ha) and I have some of the zeal of a convert working in me. It is AWFUL and DEPRESSING. Should never be in a Waldorf K.

I know my lead will freak out and think I made things worse. What I did was haul things out of cupboards that no one has looked at. I put them out on the table. I washed shelves and put other things back.

I also got rid of papers and notes that were several years old and totally irrelevant. I have to get out of Dodge. It is just as well that I continue as Assistant and not as Co-Teacher. I have had no energy to work on songs, circles, stories.

Seven Planetary Grains

One of the things that I cannot seem to get nailed down is the associations of the grains with the different days of the week. Frankly, I would like to tinker with our "snack" menu at school.

Googling does not always come up with good sites as answers to questions. I used Answers.com to get this site.

http://www.alchemycalpages.com/7grains.html

Hmmmmm.

New Resolve

O ho! No wonder I have not been blogging. My sign-in name had changed and I forgot my password. But here I am now.

Alkelda the Gleeful suggested making this blog my personal struggles with matters of the Waldorf Kindergarten. Good idea, though of course there is a bit of dissonance vibrating between Waldorf K and writing on the computer. On the other hand, I am royally sick of having papers and files all over the place... as well as printing out web pages and juicy posts.

I have recently gone through the struggle of trying to clarify my new position at the school. Technically, I remain "Kindergarten assistant" as well as "Nap teacher", plus supervising early morning drop off, and also the clerical/administrative stuff for licensing, etc. This is to total 40 hours a week and does not include Early Childhood meetings, Faculty Meetings, work on the College of Teachers, festival work, parent evenings, and probably more.

I had thought that I would be more of an Assistant Teacher (semantically, and in my mind, essentially different from teacher assistant), which would mean that I would have an hour or two off in the afternoon to help the teachers with things like parent work and making puppets and buying supplies and all the things that have so often fallen through the cracks.

But i shall not complain right now. I am grateful that they have made this job full time which gives me the recognition and stature actually to be on the COT - as well as giving me medical benefits. Hurrah.

My work this summer at the school is giving me more connection to some of the faculty but especially to the administrative staff. This is all to the good.

So far this summer I am making sure that we have enough nap bags for our expanded program (I have made 8 new bags and have over-dyed the rest with Rit... Fuschia.. so all relate in some way, even though there is a big range in colour intensity and value.) I am also knitting face cloths in cotton yarn - each one different with stripes and simple textures- in yellow, rose, apricot, robin's egg blue, and lavander.

I have bought little pink washcloths to use as serviettes and also simple wooden serviette rings to mark with the children's names and then, perhaps, symbols.

My sister has bought enchanting little cups and bowls from IKEA for the class. The bowls are lined with soft green and the cups with coral.

I have an order in with Lehman's for another "rapid washer" and also a space-saver, Victorian style clothes dryer.

I am also pondering mydormant master's project on cleaning. Do we detect a pattern here?