Arts, Environment and the Child: Walking the Wheel of the Seasons

My first day back at the Waldorf school and I realize how much I have missed it. The environment is so nurturing and pleasing to come to. So different from many schools, I would like to make other school a little more warm and approachable like the Waldorf school. The kids did not forget me, even though it had been more then a month. I felt instantly re-established with the kids. Within moments they were sitting on my lap asking to sing songs, telling them their stories.

After school I got to learn a little bit more about Anthroposophy: A 20th century religious system growing out of theosophy and centering on human development.... I learned that Waldorf is a part of anthroposophy and so is biodynamic farming. WELL, I guess I have got a lot to learn. I thought I was just interested in Waldorf education because of all the cool nature songs and stories that are told, there is so much more to it.

I saw on Abby's website "If you want your children to be brilliant, tell them fairy tales. If you want your children to be very brilliant, tell them even more fairy tales." -Albert Einstein

It seems to work well for the Waldorf children.. I wonder what Einstein thought about fairy tales. Did his parents read him fairy tales? Does he like them because he say's "imagination is more important than knowledge"

Olympia Waldorf

School.

I am a bit annoyed at this dream weaver stuff. I can see it's potential usefulness for the communication between the members of the class and Profs. ... Also for the Profs. to check up on how we are getting on. What mainly bothers me is that anyone on the web can log on to this thing. I am not the on-line diary kind of person. I like having actual conversations with real people about this stuff and I like knowing who I am talking to, who is reading this. So if there is any way we could get this off the web I would be more willing to write. With that said I will attempt to force myself to genuinely write to the dreamweaver abyss, so it wont loom over me like a cloud. goodness having a conversation with a computer drives me nuts.

Synergy reflections.

Mushroom man
“We should save the old growth forests as a matter of national defense.
Paul Stamets knocked my socks off. He was probably the most energetic speaker I witnessed at Synergy… He is so into what he does and the magnitude of it all that he stutters. He can’t seem to get his words out fast enough. His research ranged from the ancient uses of mushrooms to how mushrooms will save the world… considering his fungi centric-ness it sounded a bit like a self fulfilling prophecy. The information he presented was still mind blowing. He likes mushrooms so much that he is about to turn into one. In reference to the quote at the top, Stamets believes that mushrooms will save the world through bio remediation… oyster mushrooms are able to break down fossil fuels into basic and safe elements. And they can move heavy metals out of the soil … thought they can not break heavy metals down because they are already in their most basic element. On the ---chart. He also discovered a mushrooms can get rid of termites in a non chemical non-damaging way that may also be applied to other insects (its hard for me to rap my brain around this one) He also believes that Alqaeda took a strain of small pox, the same kind that wiped out most of that Native Americans. He has figured out a way that Homitopsis officionalis (a rare mushroom that only grows in the old growth forests) can cure this, which is how he came up with his ending quote “We should save the old growth forests as a matter of national defense”  people were jumping out of their seats.  He also said something interesting. .. that business could be an avenue for social change. He has spent 25,000 dollars in anti- pox research. He believes in the intelligence of nature, of every single organism that has made it this far on the planet…. How much trial and error that has happened that has given us all incredible survival intelligence. I thought that this was an interesting idea. I was also inspired to take the fungi class next fall.

Peggy Dylan
Another incredible lecture. She talked about how to achieve your dreams. She is a self proclaimed mystic and has worked with different sprit based people all over the world. She talked about one imagining the image of one’s dreams and how to choose the image that brings up that you can see in the most vibrant color. She said that breathing helps one manifest. She says you don’t have to know how to accomplish your goal when you start out, you just have to know what your goal is in a clear image. She said when you come to an obstacle remember to breathe and to bring back your image. By recalling the image you get energized and that is how you can be shown how to overcome the obstacle.
She drew a cool diagram of this on the board but I have trouble trying to describe what she drew. When people begin to loose hope about their dreams they can ask .. What is it that I love about that dream? What books can I read to inspire that dream? That creates a positive energy around the dream image.

Then she talked about a Peruvian shaman practice or process called the snake the puma and the condor.It was very empowering. Me and a man placed a piece of metal rebar between our two necks and walked towards each other and bent the rebar! My neck hurt for days and then I got sick with a fever that burned for days. Strange. I really don’t know if there is a correlation, but I don’t get sick often.