Summer Is Almost Past!

It never fails. It always feels like this. Even before summer vacation starts, it seems that it has slipped by me. Just talked to Rebecca this afternoon. We must make LISTS!

I have lots of reading to do. The conference in Denver re-ignited my growing understanding that movement is foundational to all development. I do want to read Steiner's book on Curative Education, as well as Henning Koehler's Difficult Children: There Is No Such Thing. In the meantime I have picked up Disconnected Kids , a more mainstream book. And by "chance,"thanks to the daily librarians' comic strip "Unshelved," I came across the work of Anat Baniel, which is fascinating and thrilling.

Somewhat in conjunction with all this, I want to develop a few Ellersiek games for the children in the fall. I need to form a circle, something simple and my own, that I could use if Jill M. is out of the classroom. "I CAN DO IT." One of the principles from RS, declared in all humility - say it out loud!

Handwork-wise... finish my sweater and Lucia's sweater. And at least one little forest person. (Why were the directions so verkacked?) And also my own little Fairy Child - named Elderberry Rosehip. And finish the skirt made out of the 65-70 year old cotton sari that Mom brought home from India.

Novels! I am currently reading Lavinia by Ursula LeGuin, and that makes me want to read the Aeneid (in English) and also Ovid's Metamorphoses. Also reading The Lizard Cage . Other novels are tucked around the house.

I want to make headway on the faculty library - processing new books. Forget trying to automate. Who was I kidding? I have just brought home a huge box of supplies and books that have not been processed. More keep coming into the library like refugees that have just discovered that someone will give them safe haven - and food.

Lazuring! I have two areas in the house that I could do. One in the garage and one in the WC, main bathroom.

Reading spiritual/religious books. Right now I am quite excited about Cynthia Bourgeault's The Wisdom Jesus. I recommend it extremely highly.

Write letters!!!!!!!!!

There is more. But enough for now.

2 days later. Aaaaargh. I cannot even get a list finished, let alone accomplish the things on the list. There is MORE to the list. Later for that.

Ohhhhh! It has started to rain. Glory, glory. At long last - and it continue. May it presage a break in the drought that has afflicted those whom I love and who need a helping heart.

Rubicon

I have sent off my comprehensive exam to Sunbridge. This will determine if I receive my master's or not. I think this is the last great exam I will take until I cross the Threshhold. That is even greater. In the meantime I can chose to read novels and strive toward a Knowledge of Higher Worlds.

I thank all who have helped me, on this side and the Other Side.

Kindergarten with No Children

Yesterday was chilly and drizzly, yet timeless and heavenly. Our Early Childhood team had a day's retreat at the preschool. We brought lovely snack food and grazed constantly on breads, fresh goat cheese, baba ganoush, salsa and lime chili chips, and lots of fresh fruit.

During the morning we each were paired with one other for a half hour and then switched to another partner (snatching a snack in between.) As we talked we strolled through the neighborhood, peering into gated gardens or walking along the old acequia that the preschoolers play in. We each had a half hour to ourselves, and I spread some sheepskins on the floor and took a nap.

After a lunch of tamales, we drove to the Santa Fe Canyon Nature Preserve. There we walked to the pond that is home to bullrushes, red wing blackbirds, swallows, and a host of other birds. We sat for a good while in silence, just listening to the birds and the water, feeling the breezes, smelling the sweetness, and watching the birdswith their full-throated singing and their exuberant swooping.

Farther on we saw an elegant gopher snake gliding through the vegetation. We came to the beaver dam and saw the lodge. The trees that had been felled were striking, and we noticed that other trees had protective fencing around them.

Back at the preschool we warmed up with hot chai and then painted, made paper and chatted.It was a wonderful day, marred only a bit at the last by a visit from the administrator, reluctantly telling us that we should be thinking of various scenarios to save money if enrollment is down significantly. And also that the offer made to the 1st grade candidate was rejected - she is going to another school.

Nevertheless, it was a wonderfully restorative day.

Easter 2009

There has been a singular lack of activity here, probably because I finally decided in February that the master's project I had embarked upon was no longer destined to be a project for evaluation but perhaps, instead, a magazine article. At any rate, I could not bear the thought of devising surveys to try to demonstrate or prove something.

In the course of my reading and ponderings, I seemed to have opened a number of doors that enticed me to step in and explore, and perhaps I have been caught in a wonderful maze instead of marching straight-forwardly towards a goal.

Among other books that I have been reading during my morning meditations, I lately have been compelled by Why Julian Now? A Voyage of Discovery, by Sheila Upjohn. Julian of Norwich is one of two of my confirmation saints, the other being the eponymous Melangell.

In the last several days before Easter, I have been waking up in the morning with the Taize song "Jesus, Remember Me" running as a continuous loop through my head and heart. On Friday evening I attended a Taize service at the St Francis Cathedral, and that chant was featured throughout. Yesterday, the day of Our Lady of Solitude, I felt pensive and heavy. But this morning I awoke to "I Am The Bread of Life!"

As I indicated above, I have been reading during my morning meditation/prayers, and I came across this passage, which loses impact because it has been taken out of the context of the prior musings. Nevertheless, I do not want to lose track of it.

She [Julian] understands that the journey through pain and death that is the result of man's choosing to know evil [the Fall] is not punishment for sin, but the inevitable penalty of incarnation. It is a consequence, not a curse. The demonstration of this is that Christ himself, who was wholly sinless, nevertheless had to bear the consequence of sin. His willingness to bear it breaks the chain that links sin and blame. 'And by this our good Lord Jesus has taken all our blame upon him- and therefore the Father neither can, nor wants to, put anymore blame upon us than upon his own son, beloved Christ.' p.44.

Cleaning the Desert Rose Kindergarten

Yesterday Chris and I took the class on our Friday walk to the arroyo, leaving Jill behind to prepare the room as best she could for the Open House today.

She was feeling quite overwhelmed by all there was to do, but she did exactly what L.T. recommends: when overwhelmed, stand quietly and perceive what corner is calling to you.

When we got back with the class after a couple of hours, Jill worried that we wouldn't see all her hard work. She shoveled out a bunch of stuff (a large trash bag half full) and wiped down surfaces with water only.

But Chris and I could both feel a real difference. The room seemed beautiful again. I am convinced that it is less the actual cleaning that matters and more the "penetrating the surroundings with consciousness."

Beauty, Clutter, Consciousness

Perhaps something new (for my project) has come out of my cleaning the bookcase on MLK day. It looks so different to me now - sparkling with new life. I touched each book, cleaned off the tops (and the sides, in some cases!) I read in some, and rearranged many, giving them new friends to talk to, exchange ideas with.
And I have a few new books, one by Gendler Notes on the need for Beauty and the other by O'Donahue Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, which have made me begin to think how to reshape my paper a bit. So far it has seemed pedestrian to me, and I want it to be beautiful! To give some sort of inspiration beyond what Linda Thomas has provided, not to outdo her, impossible, but to try to give another angle.
I pondering the role of penetrating clutter with consciousness (as in the bookcase) and how beauty can result, I have been thinking about how so many parents and other adults, when they first see a Waldorf kindergarten, think "how beautiful." But after one works there a while, I wonder how many of us see the room as beautiful? I know in our room, I see clutter and detrius and sheer messiness. And i also realize i can start in the corner where i work and begin to "penetrate it with consciousness."
I think one of the reasons Linda Thomas's workshops have been so inspiring is that she has cleaned off the lenses of our own inner eyes and we can see with new hope and appreciation what it is we do when we clean.

MLK Day

Today I have an extra day to which I had intended to dedicate to writing on my project. I spent the morning cleaning! It didn't feel right to write about cleaning when there was an area begging to be dusted.

I took all the books and extra stuff off of the bookcase next to my bed. Every home gets dusty, though it seems that in New Mexico we get dust in excess. I do actually dust the bookcase fairly regularly, but I don't take everything off and get into the cracks behind. Whew! The reward was two-fold (at least.) Not only does the bookcase look and feel better (I can't take a good picture of it because my little camera's lens is all scratched up), but I found books that I didn't remember were there.

I have been crying easily in the last couple of days (that is, more readily than usual.) Almost anything can set it off - Obama's train trip to DC, finding a book of dreams and reading in it, the deaths of the children in Gaza - that sort of thing.

I re-found an important book for my project The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World by Rudolf Steiner. In it there is an emphasis on the responsibility for cultivating feelings of devotion, serenity, cheerfulness, and inner contentment. It is thereby we release elementals from their enchantment in lower realms and enable them to return to higher worlds.

When I consider my occasional weeping alongside these observations, I still feel OK. It seems to me that my tears are arising from tenderness rather than sullen discontent.

Speaking of tears. I found a quotation that I had written down from Confessions of a Pagan Nun which delighted me today (during the dusting).

I could put [my tears] in copper cups, but they are like the waters of the sea, vast and deep, but unable to quench any thirst. One can only drown in such waters or take from them fish to eat. The fish in my tears are so small that only a fairy could make a meal of them. p.35

My First Order in Euros

I have received another generous answer from Linda Thomas, housemother to the Goetheanum. She recommended to me the collection of lectures, Steiner and Nature Spirits. She then mentioned she had an interview published in a book on healing in the Flensburger series, and that it was available in English. Ha! I couldn't find it even in German, let alone English. But I persevered and after several missteps, I found it in German. Heilen: Bekannte und Unbekannte Wege. That left ordering it. Isn't Visa wonderful!

Linda Thomas, Housemother to the Goetheanum

Linda Thomas has been the inspiration for my master's project in cleaning (ha ha ha ha - I am including the ha-ha's for my daughter and my friends). I have heard that she does not answer emails.

She answered mine, I am so grateful to report. I did not ask for information. I asked only for her blessing, and she gave it to me. Thank you.

Avoiding Working on My Paper

My paper is about cleaning, right. Ergo, first I must clean (and think about my project as I clean.) De-cluttering is a major step in cleaning. Sort and file those papers!

Plus cooking for the Thanksgiving meal that was yesterday. Trying to get some things done ahead of time. Look what I found as I was sorting! A recipe for Lemon Butter Mousse...sounds great. It will save my baking a pie and be a light and delicious conclusion to the traditional meal.

Halfway into making the mousse, I realized that it involved about four different bowls, whipping heavy cream, whipping egg whites, softening gelatin, squeezing fresh lemons, zesting said lemons (though that was easy, now that I have a posh zester/grater like Alkelda and Bede's). And, I discovered last evening, the mousse is by no means light!

I did not roast the traditional turkey but rather two free-range fresh roasting chickens. And peeling, by hand, the cloves of 5 heads of garlic to make the 40 clove roasting chicken from the Gourmet Cookbook. (We have a whole chicken left, but the clean-up from the one we ate was simple. Bones and grease and scraps were all bundled together. Issa took it all home for her personal coyote .)

Ricardo wondered if all the work was worth it? In one way the evening was a disappointment. Ricardo was tired and Terry's boys were wild and running through the house. They needed to go home. So it was not one of those evening where we just sat around the fire and talked. But I was glad to give the children a place to go for Thanksgiving, and Issa too, though she probably would have been just as happy to stay home because of the snow starting to fall. She is a California girl, after all, and I think most of her round-the-world travels took place in tropical climes.

Maybe today I can start on this project, but of course I will not be able to do my interviews until my little tape recorder arrives -I hope that will work better than taking notes. So far I have not taken notes at all. Sigh.

A Lovely Gardening Blog

I have just discovered this blog: Nature Abhors a Garden. Wonderful inspiration. Today I wandered about the back garden, spreading a bit more straw and wondering about the winter season and next spring. What will survive? Will anything flourish? What an adventure!

I have been thinking about my master's project. And it has sent me to cleaning a bit. Hmmm. An interesting phenomenon. But Holly Koteen told me I would probably become more conscious of cleaning in my home life as I study it for my project.

I have returned to Rudolf Steiner's Knowledge of Higher Worlds which was required reading for my Foundation studies at Sunbridge. At the time I found it hard going. I have just started rereading it, so I don't know how it will progress, but so far I am finding it amazingly refreshing and understandable. Four years can make quite a difference - can it be only four years?????

Now I understand why Ann Stahl had us choose a plant and observe it daily. My plant was the bronze fennel. I planted bronze fennel summer before last, but it died. This year I had better luck. It is frozen in the garden now, but I am hopeful that it will return next spring. That is a primary exercise - to observe burgeoning life and then decline and death - and rebirth - in Nature. An added insight now is the importance of developing an established root system. (I have also learned via Gail not to cut down perennials in the fall - the cut-off stems will act like straws, drawing any moisture down into the root system and rotting it out.) I hope I am developing established root systems - in a metaphoric sense, of course!

Martinmas: a Lament and a Vow

OK. How on earth am I going to write a master's paper if it takes me a month even to acknowledge that I have not completed my previous posting?

It is Martinmas. I want to take my little lantern into the world, with whatever light I can shed. I just read in Knowledge of Higher Worlds that an idea must not be sequestered as a treasure for oneself but become an ideal for the benefit of the earth.

I will TRY to do my part. I hereby request the aid of the angels.

I have just returned from Takoma Park. On November 9 was the memorial service for Jillian Raye, who crossed the threshold on November 2, All Soul's Day.

Conversation with Barb

Yesterday I kept an appointment I had made with Barb Booth, our school administrator, to talk about my cleaning project. This was at her suggestion. I did not take notes, but i do want to record here what I remember. I don't think I could have taken notes, since it was really storytelling.

When Barb was in her mid twenties she joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Sierra Leone. This was in the '70's, before the made influx to the urban areas from the coutryside, and before the terrible years of violence, rape, and pillage.

She toughed it out for a year teaching in a high school, which was a farce that she hated. Then she took another training in agriculture and was sent to a village - aid workers who were women were being allowed to work in agriculture for the first time that year.

Though there were unenlightened practices in the villages (wife-beating, child-beating), there was much about the life of community and simplicity that appealed to Barb, and when she returned to the States, she began looking for a community that embodied or practiced similar virtues. Ultimately she found the Camphill village at Kimberton, Pa. She began a bio-dynamic training. Within weeks, after a houseparent left the community abruptly, she was made a house parent with responsibility of shepherding a number of developmentally-challenged villagers, cooking and cleaning, as well as working in the gardens.

Barb ended up staying on for seven years. She told me that this was toward the end of the heavily European-influenced "co-workers," who had strong opinions about everything from anthroposophy to the correct way to wash a floor.

Despite kicking against the pricks at times, it was here that Barb really experienced a different way of living that turned on its head the customary American way of thinking that elevates product above process (not Barb's words) - that values work according to some sort of hierarchy of importance. And very low on that ordinary, customary way of thinking is the work of cleaning. Custodial work.

But here in the Village where the villagers were able to do what they could, and work that was valued, no matter how slowly it might be achieved, then everyone had the dignity of being able to contribute work of value.

Hey, I'm still here

Yes, though this evening, for instance, I came home and then, at the encouragement of Ricardo, took an hour or so nap. I was incredibly refreshed - I have been incredibly tired!

Now i fear that getting my cleaning project off the ground is going to be too much. I MUST get on track and devise a plan. I think the main action , at least initially, is going to be the interview.

I am doing so well with interaction and cooperative work in the K, that I am loath to say how difficult it is for me at work to deal with clutter and disorganization.

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.