Sunday, November 22, 2015

CONFLUX CAFE #8



GREETINGS!

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"The physical, cognitive, creative and psychological benefits of child-directed play are well-documented. Less acknowledged, though, is a secret that really shouldn’t be one: quietly observing our children playing is a magical experience for parents."
6 Gifts That Encourage Child-Directed Play
In case you haven’t noticed, play is hot. Once taken for granted as a universal childhood right, in the last decades aggressive marketers of early learning
janetlansbury.com


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"If a child has been able in his play to give up his whole living being to the the world around him, he will be able, in the serious tasks of later life, to devote himself with confidence to the service of the world."- Dr. Rudolf Steiner

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Many people think of Waldorf schools as "artsy." Well, yes. Waldorf schools have a curriculum infused with art. We don't think of art as "extra" - art is an integral part of every school day. Thank you to Eugene Waldorf Schoolfor explaining why!
The Waldorf curriculum is fundamentally an artistic curriculum. It seeks to engage the developing child as his or her capacities for thinking, feeling and…

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Kimberton Waldorf School's photo.

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They should be free to choose what they think is worthy of saving from the past and decide for themselves what changes need to be made.
While there is much controversy around education reform today, it is generally assumed by all parties that the education of the younger generation plays an…


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Why I Send My Children to Waldorf School

by Joy Lapseritis, parent & president WSCC Board of Trustees
Waldorf School class teachers move through the grades with their students.
“You should check out the Waldorf School,” our son’s first childcare provider said to my husband and I as we lamented losing her as a “teacher” when he had grown too old for the infant room at the VNA Childcare Center in Falmouth.  We had entrusted this woman with his care since he was just 6 months old, and she had helped us learn to become parents, witnessing the messiness of our first attempts at parenting.  She was as much our teacher as his, and we wanted her to continue with him into the young toddler room at the tender age of 18 months.  “There is a type of school where the teachers do move along with the students,” she began, and directed me to the Waldorf School of Cape Cod, then located in Bourne.  Within short order I found myself sitting on the floor of a cozy, sunlit room listening to Claire Small conduct a model class and give a puppet show.  At first, I was confused by the faceless dolls and strange songs, but I was drawn to learn more, to discover the specific and thoughtful intentions behind each action and object.  Shortly thereafter our family moved to the Berkshires, and we had the rare fortune of choosing from among three local Waldorf schools.  Our son, Morgen, spent 4 years in early childhood bliss, and daughter Mathilde and I a year in a parent-child program before we moved back to Cape Cod and joined the Waldorf School of Cape Cod.  While we knew the Falmouth public schools were good enough, we actively desired for our children to experience a Waldorf Education.
Our children’s teachers are our co-parents.  Every day we learn how to parent our two very different children as they present us with new and unique challenges and joys, each needing something different from us – more space, more attention, fewer interventions, new boundaries.  This is true for all aspects of their lives, and it is more than reassuring that their class teachers are there to witness and guide them on their educational journeys with a long-term perspective. Waldorf teachers are specially trained to understand human development, and are well prepared for the next set of developmental challenges.  Having been Morgen’s teacher for five years, Kim Allsup has a deep knowledge of his personal growth over that time, and a view into the challenges he may face.  She brings this wisdom into her approach to him in the classroom, and to us as his parents so that we can be a mutually supportive team.  Waldorf teachers understand that education is not an event separate from the human development of a person – it is an integration of daily and lifelong experiences, internal and external – and we all educate each other as we move through life.  I shudder to think of how disconnected our children would be if they were passed from one teacher to another throughout their formative years.  Parenting has made me more reflective on my own childhood, and I have a real sense of distance and separation from my own education in public schools even though I was very successful academically.  Keeping a connection with a class teacher, even if only for several years in the event of a change, ameliorates that disconnection and forms a stronger bond between children and the adults who care for them daily.
Maintaining a class teacher from first through eighth grade presents benefits and challenges. Like many personal traits, the potential weaknesses of the class teacher/student relationship are closely tied to the strengths.  Human relationships are seldom without conflict, and there can be anxiety around keeping a teacher for eight years.  What if there are disagreements? (there will be). What if the teacher isn’t strong in all subjects? (they won’t be).  What if my child has a personality conflict or is “incompatible” with their teacher? (they likely will be at some point in the journey from age 7 to 14).  One of the gifts of the class teacher is that we are forced to discover and develop conflict resolution skills to cope with each of these eventualities – skills that are useful to everyone in life.  Parents, teachers, and children must find ways to resolve disagreements, to reach out for help from someone else, or agree to disagree and find a new path forward.  Faculty lean on each other to fill gaps, share techniques, and teach to the whole curriculum; they demonstrate to children how learning is a lifelong process and how no one knows everything.  Teachers must bring their maturity and long-term vision to both embrace and overcome interpersonal conflicts; children must learn tolerance and respect for every type of person.  All learn patience in this process.
Waldorf School graduates know how to learn and are successful in higher education.
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 Mercy For Animals's photo.


Kiss turkeys.....dont eat them.


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During my student teaching I remember telling my mentor teacher that I was nervous about the responsibility of teaching a whole room full of children "how to read". She let me in on the secret when she said "This is going to sound corny, but it just sort of happens magically." Of course, for the magic to happen, there needs to be a strong early childhood foundation! Take a look at this great article if you're interested to hear "the Waldorf way" smile emoticon
This is a guest post written by Barbara Dewey of Waldorf Without Walls in which she describes learning to read the Waldorf way.


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Waldorf education shared a link.
It's one reason children during the Great Depression and World War II were…




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  CONFLUX CAFE

"An association is not an organization and not a combination. It comes into being through the conflux of the individuals within the economy. The individual does not have to adopt something handed out from a central body, but is able to contribute the knowledge and ability he has in his own field. From a collaboration in which each gives of his best, and where what is done springs from the agreement of many — only from such associations does economic life in general derive.
Associations of this kind will come into being. We can foster them and make them arise more quickly, or we can wait until they arise from necessity"....Rudolf Steiner.

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Anne Perry.
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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Conflux Cafe # 7

Dr. Phil's photo.

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The Role of Purposeful Work in a Waldorf Kindergarten

Waldorf-Kindergarten-Curriculum-Making-Soup-03-300x224
by KAREN SMITH
Karen Smith’s article is available at the Online Waldorf Library. The OWL is a great resource for parents and teachers and has an extensive selection of articles, books and journals about Waldorf Education.
As Waldorf early childhood educators, one of our primary goals is to teach by example. Through our work, the children learn important lessons to prepare them for the academics they will begin in grade one. This teaching method is quite different from the trend in mainstream education today, where out-of-context abstract concepts provide the basis for all learning, and opportunities for shared work activity with adults are not available.
There is much work to be done in a Waldorf kindergarten. As the calm and steady focal point, the teacher places herself in the center of all the activity, projecting an attitude of purpose and enthusiasm for her work. Preparing the food, dusting, polishing, repairing toys, folding the laundry, washing the dishes, sewing, and mending are all jobs the children can learn to accomplish.
In all aspects, an important requirement of a Waldorf teacher is that her actions be worthy of imitation and filled with purposeful joy. The care with which an item is placed on a shelf, a door closed, or a chair moved is noticed and replicated by our young students. We must be consciously aware of the quality of our movements, for whether we like it or not, we will see the children mirror for us what we have presented to them as it emerges in their actions and play.
‘The joy of the child in and with his environment must be reckoned among the forces that build and mold the physical organs. He needs people around him with happy looks and manner and, above all, with an honest unaffected love.

‘A love which fills the physical environment of the child with warmth may literally be said to hatch out the forms of the physical organs. The child who lives in such an atmosphere of love and warmth and who has around him really good examples for his imitations is living in his right element. One should therefore strictly guard against anything being done in the child’s presence that he must not imitate.’ —Rudolph Steiner, ‘Education of the Child‘
Our daily work in the classroom inspires in the children an incentive toward industrious play. The meaningful tasks that a teacher performs can be better comprehended by children when those same gestures are experienced in their play as they explore how an activity is done. In today’s mechanized world, most of the tasks that formerly were completed by humans are now done by machines. Children have little opportunity to see adults use their hands to wash dishes or bake bread. Objects that in days long ago would have been repaired are now thrown away and replaced.
Observing the work of the adult engaged in meaningful activity serves to boost the energy of children, developing in them an I can do it attitude. According to Rudolph Steiner, “If before the seventh year children see only foolish actions in their surroundings, the brain will assume the forms that adapt it to foolishness in later life.”
The life skills that the kindergarten child learns in a loving and enjoyable way are essential as a foundation for their future experiences as a capable and responsible adult.
Sometimes the activities that must be completed in a classroom are not those we prefer to do, but rather those that need to be done. When children observe the perseverance of an adult completing a mundane task with as much reverence and pleasure as the tasks we do enjoy, it imparts the work ethic that all jobs can be done to a high standard‹any job can be a job well done.
The rhythm of our work is comforting for our students. The child who exhibits a chaotic will may gradually become more harmonious upon finding an outlet to calm him through scrubbing, sawing, shaking butter, and other forms of physically challenging work. Meaningful work is a positive cure for aggressive behavior. Children who exhibit unfocused and uncontrollable behaviors may gradually be redirected into positively focused imitative behaviors, as the teacher’s actions strengthen a child’s emerging will. The teacher seeks opportunities to gently, but firmly, guide a child toward greater self-control and focused attention, without fear of failure. Those children who find transitions to be difficult find comfort and satisfaction in the expected repetition of a daily routine.
When a teacher follows a set rhythm, the children can relax, as they have no need focus their energy and attention on worrying about what the teacher or the class will be doing next. They are carried peacefully along by the steady stream of the teacher’s activity. When inviting a child to join in an activity, it should not posed as a question. Simply stating I need your help, rather than Would you like to help? builds up a child’s self-confidence which will emerge in his future impulses of play. Helpful, is a high purpose, to which a child may have limited opportunities.

Children are always aware of what the teacher is doing. Whenever a new project or work activity is begun, they eagerly offer their interest and assistance. Even if they do not take an active role in helping, a child will often contentedly play in the shadow of the teacher, occasionally checking in on the progress of the activity. The teacher must have logically thought the activity through in advance, including tidying up the work place, so as to have all the materials needed for the children to be easily integrated. She must remain calm and purposeful as she guides them in the task. It is not important that work be completed quickly with as little mess or effort as possible. What is important is that the child be surrounded with a sense of pleasure and respect for the work they have contributed. By allowing a child to participate in real and practical work, the child gains satisfaction and a sense of purpose as an essential and needed member of the group.
Adults are responsible for setting the mood of the children’s play each day. When adults are engaged in meaningful and purposeful work, the children play in a much more imaginative, content, and focused manner. When we instead take an onlooker stance, the children feel the adult’s eyes focused upon them, and as a result, they often become more agitated and chaotic in their play. When adults chat idly among themselves, the children also become idle and fussy.
If we can find ways of introducing activities to children which are not verbal and awakening, an inner connection can be made that affects the child on a deeper, subconscious level. Certainly our advanced planning and preparation in bringing imitative work to the children can imbue our actions with a more sensitive inner quality.
Most teachers are comfortable filling their time inside the classroom with purposeful work. The challenge many teachers experience is finding a balance between purposeful work and the need to keep constant supervision over the children while outside. It is indeed important that we always know what is going on with the children in our care, but at the same time, it is also important that the children not feel as if they are always being watched. Children take comfort in knowing their teacher is accessibly nearby, and when a teacher has the courage to trust that all will be well, the universe and the angels help make it so. Taking up a meaningful task which still allows the teacher to keep a watchful eye over the play ground maybe best for the salutogenic health of the children.
I have found that in my own work, on the days that I have not brought a project of some kind outside, the children continually run to me to settle their minor conflicts. Conversely, on the days when I am intent on a task of my own, they more frequently find ways to work out difficulties among themselves. Although I am busily working, I am always available, and I readily stop whatever I am doing to come to a child in need.
Undertaking a project that has a long time before completion teaches by example the value of perseverance and a job well done. This year, my long-term outside project was to carve a wooden spoon. At the beginning of the school year, I began carving a seasoned branch from an apple tree. Throughout the months as the shape of the spoon slowly emerged, I never directly answered the children when I was asked what it would become. Because it is much more interesting for a child to ponder the outcome of a project, “What do you think it might be?” was my reply. Their answers were always quite charming. Some thought it might be a paddle for a boat, a sword, a hammer, a fork, or a walking stick. My response to their ponderings was, “Perhaps, but I am not sure yet what this tree wants to become.” Only in the spring did a few children think it might become a spoon. At the end of the project, as it was becoming a real spoon before their eyes, the children were eager to have me finish it to use to serve our porridge. I was delighted in their excitement when we were finally able to utilize the spoon in the last weeks of class, completing the lesson that diligent work does indeed have purpose.
The children have regularly wanted to help me work on my project, which I allowed them to do using a safe 4-in-1 rasp. In our class each year, the children themselves work for many months to make a wooden sword of their own, so they are familiar with the use of a rasping tool. They were quick to say that the rasping work on my project was more difficult, which was due to the very hard apple wood I chose for this spoon. They also watched me struggle with a carving tool, which only I used. By observing an adult engaged in work on a difficult activity all year long, the children witness the effort and the rewards from persevering to complete a project. For a child to understand self-discipline and self-control, he must have first experienced and observed it in the striving adults around him.
In gathering ideas from others, I found that most teachers fill their outside time with sweeping, raking, and gardening. Teachers at urban Waldorf schools with limiting playgrounds must find different ways to accomplish many of the activities commonly undertaken at Waldorf kindergartens. Our play ground is rented from a strict church landlord, so the opportunities we have to garden and compost are minimal. However difficult it may be, working with the soil is an important task for adults to undertake. Through caring
for our environment outdoors, we project through example a reverence for nature that fosters soul warmth within the children. Even planters filled with flowers offer children an opportunity to work with and care for the earth.

It is very beneficial for children to see something made from nothing. In watching an adult fashion an item such as a basket from nothing but vines, it sparks imaginative possibilities within children that should be nurtured at this young age.
The following list is offered as a seasonal spring board of purposeful work ideas. Some projects are meant for teachers alone and others are meant to be completed with the assistance of the children. These ideas offer a variety of ways to contribute to a child’s understanding and their development of fine and gross motor skills.
Ideas for Purposeful Work Outside:
The following list was gathered from Waldorf kindergarten teachers around the world. Those ideas noted with an *** indicate projects that are primarily done only by a teacher.
Autumn
-Wash napkins, placements, or other cloth items and hang on a clothes line to dry. The next day gather and fold.
-Make a scarecrow from old clothes stuffed with hay. Have the children sew on buttons for the facial features.
-Make a straw or vine wreath. Have the children help to decorate it
seasonally.
-Make leaf crowns and garlands for display in the classroom.
-Build a leaf press, then gather leaves and flowers to press for use in future projects.
-In corn season: take off silks and turn husks down to allow fresh corn to dry for 2-3 weeks. shell dried corn. use husks to make dolls or wreaths.
-Dry harvested gourds for one year to make Thanksgiving rattles.
-Carve a pumpkin and save the seeds to plant in late spring.
-Pick up pecans or other edible nuts to crack with a wooden mallet and eat.
-Plant spring bulbs.
-Harvest garden produce, herbs, or flowers for plant dying.
-Plant-dye fabric for Michaelmas and other festivals.
-Dry herbs to make tea, potpourri, scented pillows as gifts.
-Thresh grain to grind for bread.
-Rake leaves or the sand box.
-Spread wood chips or mulch.
Winter
-Build and maintain a bird feeder.
-String whole peanuts or apple slices for the birds.
-Fill terra cotta flower pots with lard and sunflower seeds for the birds.
-Build snow men.
-Shovel snow for paths.
***Cut ice blocks for igloos.
Spring
-Spread compost for new garden plantings.
-Plant pumpkin, gourd, or other seeds.
-Plant flowering plants, summer bulbs, etc.
-Make flower necklaces and garlands.
-Make horse reins using finger knitting and a felt chest cover.
-Gather fresh moss for the nature table.
-Wash windows with vinegar/water and dry with old newspaper.
-Wash wool fleece. Use it for felting projects.
-Help the children make a foot felting wall hanging for the classroom.
Summer
-Blow bubbles with a bubble pipe made from straws or hollow pithy twigs reamed out with a screw and cut into small pieces.
-Wash outdoor tools, toys, furniture.
-Create a large outdoor weaving using vines, flowers, yarn, roving, grasses, and other found objects.
Anytime of the year
-Weed the garden.
-Water the plants.
-Turn and sift compost.
-Turn the jump rope.
-Organize outside storage shed.
-Cut corners from painting/drawing paper.
-Untangle classroom ropes.
-Pick up trash.
-Clear the underbrush from a pathway in a forested area.
-Build a tepee or hut in the woods with fallen sticks and vines.
-Sweep walkways. Help the children to make little brooms by attaching pine needle clusters to a stick with yarn.
***Make a broom.
-Care for kindergarten animals.
***Handwork: felting, sewing, knitting, crocheting, drop spindle.
-Clean painting boards with nail brush.
-Make a bench from two tree trunks and a plank nailed in place.
-Make a chair from a tree stump by cutting a log from the top halfway, then from the side to form a seat. Sand till smooth, then finish with oil and beeswax polish.
-Saw wood or branches.
-Sand woodwork items and toys.
-Sand cutting boards with fine sandpaper, then re-wax with beeswax paste.
-Sand the wooden play structure when splinters are found.
-Split logs with a hammer and wedge. Help the children to make a pretend hatchet from a stick and a large wood chip tied together with yarn.
-Make clothes pins from split sticks wrapped with wire.
-Mend toys, fences, furniture, etc.
-Build fences or edges for a garden or pathway with branches or stones.
-Build a climbing ladder.
-Build a wheel barrow from planks and an old tricycle tire.
-Weave baskets using vines cut from the forest.
***Carve or rasp wood to become a spoon to use in the classroom (have a rotten log nearby for children to carve with blunt old dinner knives).
***Carve little toys for the class.
***Carve wooden handles for jump ropes.
-Saw a coconut in half to make little drums as a rhythm instrument for use in circle.
-Cut bamboo to make little flutes to use in circle.
Reflective Conclusion
After having spent the past year engaging in purposeful work outside (alongside and with the children)I am even more convinced of the critical importance of our activities throughout the day. As an experiment, some days toward the end of the year, I brought nothing outside to occupy my time. I stood around watching the children as I had done daily the previous year. I noted that the level of whining increased, as did the requests for me to settle differences among the children. I was used as base in games, whereas when I was working on a project, the children respected the space I needed to accomplish my task.
Next year, I plan to carve another spoon. I had considered working with a machined rectangle of softer butternut wood that I purchased from a woodworker store. However, upon reflection it seemed that the real blessing that I gave to the students was not the end product of the spoon, but rather the notion that a common bark-covered stick with no real purpose could become a useful item. Imagination and the will to act on it and follow through is an invaluable life ability. It enables a person to confront obstacles and propose solutions, however fanciful, that he can then execute. This nurturing of creativity and execution is a central pillar of the Waldorf philosophy. The hardness of the wood was not a hurdle, but instead very advantageous, for it showed that difficult tasks can be overcome by carving away at the problem at little bit every day.
For my future work, I intend to make an outside lesson plan each year that occasionally includes projects from the preceding list that the children can assist me in creating. This list is rich with project ideas which I have not yet explored myself. I intend to work my way through the list in the years to come, choosing projects which will challenge and refine my way of working with and inspiring the children in my care. Karen Smith is a kindergarten teacher at The Waldorf School of Atlanta, located in Decatur, Georgia. She obtained her early childhood teaching certificate from Sunbridge College in 2004, and this article was her final paper presented at the completion of her training.

In seeking worldwide collegiality, Karen created an international Waldorf Early Childhood teacher discussion group on the Internet. The membership of the group continues to grow with over 500 members from 15 countries. This closed list is open only to Waldorf teachers, ensuring a high level of trust and confidentiality in their discussions of Waldorf education. If you are interested in joining, please visit www.groups.yahoo.com/group/waldorfearlychildhoodteachers/ or you can contact Karen directly at karen@kevinandkaren.com to request an invitation to join the group.
Photos from the Cincinnati Waldorf School, the Russian Kindergarten Seminar, and the Waldorf School of New Orleans, in that order.
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Smashed Peas and Carrots's photo.


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LILIPOH Magazine's photo.



Thanks for Reading!

Anne Perry.
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Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Top of the South Newsheet. #3


Dottie Zold's photo.



Welcome Spring!









​'But always when an age of Michael dawns, a longing begins to arise in mankind to overcome racial distinctions and to spread through all the peoples living on the Earth the highest and most spiritual form of culture produced by that particular age. Michael's rulership is always characterised by the growth of cosmopolitanism, by the spread of a spiritual impulse among peoples who are ready to receive it, no matter what language they speak. Of the seven Archangels who send their impulses into the evolution of humanity, Michael is always the one who gives the cosmopolitan impulse — and at the same time the impulse for the spreading of whatever is of most intrinsic value in a particular epoch.'


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The Motueka Anthroposophical Group invites you 



​ 
FESTIVAL  of Micha-el 
The tendency exists in mankind to wipe out the various differences which were fostered by the blood and nerve temperament. It is not a tendency of the spiritual worlds to create further differences among mankind, but it is a tendency of the spiritual worlds to pour a cosmopolitan element over mankind."
Signs of the times, Michael's Battle and its Reflection on Earth,   Rudolf Steiner.  
​​You are invited to join us for a
Clay Forming Workshop  11.am
Lead by Erika Vink. 
Erika will bring us her experience from a Teacher Conference in this relaxing and enjoyable activity.    (Family Friendly)
 
Followed by shared lunch   12 pm
1 pm
Reflections on Michael and Raphael
 and Report back from the Anthroposophical  Conference held the weekend before in Hastings. 
Music.
(adults only)
Attend Any or All activities  
Saturday, October 10th.
Motueka Community House
Decks Reserve
 
11 am -3 pm.
RSVP

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Eating in the future

The man of the future will approach plants that are of use to him consciously; not as now when he reflects on which yield the best substances for his body; he will then have a vital relationship to every plant, for he will know what it is they have absorbed, and what passes from them to him. Eating will not be to him a mean occupation, but an act consummated with soul and spirit, for he will know that everything he eats is the external form of something spiritual. In our immediate age, when men know little about the vital inward relations between themselves and the world, all kinds of substitutes are made use of. Why have the Initiates of all ages urged people to say grace before eating? The grace should be a token of the recognition that, together with the food, something spiritual enters into man.
Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 105 – Universe, Earth and Man – Lecture III – Stuttgart, 6th August 1908
Therefore



Rudolf Steiner's Grace before Meals.


The plant seeds are quickened in the night of the earth,
The green leaves are sprouting through the power of the air
And all fruits are ripened in the might of the sun.
So quickens the soul in the shrine of the heart,
So blossoms Spirit-power in the light of the world,
So ripens Man's strength in the glory of God.

Rudolf Steiner



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Bucket List

So for Threefold the concept is in the Economic realm that one must really excel at their product, and it must be out of a healthy balance for the coworkers bring about that production. When one excels in that particular product, business, then the fruits of the labour, after paying the co workers, the bills, and the owner a portion of the fruits, the rest goes to the Cultural realm which supports a more beautiful collaboration in the community itself.
 The business must look to how it can serve the community out of its gifts from the community who find a value in what is offered from the business.


So, we need a Steiner Association of like minded businesses who seek to excel at their product that the community is finding a value for which serves their love also for a healthy earth existence.

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Ernst Lehrs:
"Rudolf Steiner told us young people: 'Anthroposophy is meant to be the great school of courage.' ... Later on we were to learn more exactly the ac...tual character of this courage. It was the courage to say to oneself, 'The life of the world must be made new again from its very foundations.'"

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The fundamental maxim of free men is to live in love towards our actions, and to let live in the understanding of the other person's will. - Philosophy of Freedom
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Anthroposophical Society in America's photo.
Edith Maryon's sculptures

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The time will come that people will say: It is pathological for people to even think in terms of spirit and soul

Posted on July 29, 2015 | Comments Off on The time will come that people will say: It is pathological for people to even think in terms of spirit and soul
The time will come, and it may not be far off, that people will say: It is pathological for people to even think in terms of spirit and soul. ‘Sound’ people will speak of nothing but the body. It will be considered a sign of illness for anyone to arrive at the idea of any such thing as a spirit or a soul. People who think like that will be considered to be sick and — you can be quite sure of it — a medicine will be found for this. At Constantinople the spirit was made non-existent. The soul will be made non-existent with the aid of a drug. Taking a ‘sound point of view’, people will invent a vaccine to influence the organism as early as possible, preferably as soon as it is born, so that this human body never even gets the idea that there is a soul and a spirit.
The two philosophies of life will be in complete opposition. One movement will need to reflect how concepts and ideas may be developed to meet the reality of soul and spirit. The others, the heirs of modern materialism, will look for the vaccine to make the body ‘healthy’, that is, makes its constitution such that this body no longer talks of such rubbish as soul and spirit, but takes a ‘sound’ view of the forces which live in engines and in chemistry and let planets and suns arise from nebulae in the cosmos. Materialistic physicians will be asked to drive the souls out of humanity.
Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 177 – Fall of the Spirits of Darkness – Lecture 5 – Dornach, 7th October 1917
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A VERY ENDEARING PERSONAL STORY ABOUT RUDOLF STEINER
concerns this little dog that you see in the foreground of this picture. His name was Malcomb and he adored Dr. Steiner.
The dog would follow him around and jump in the backseat of the car whenever the Herr Doktor would get in. Malcomb would sit beside Steiner and they would have all sorts of humorous conversations.
...
One day Steiner announced to those in the car with him: “Malcomb wants to start The Canineosophist Society!”
We wonder if it was Malcomb who inspired Dr. Steiner to say that if dogs could speak they would say "I smell, therefore I am."
from Sophia Sun - Newsletter 2012
See More


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The destiny of our physical earth-planet in another two thousand years will not depend upon the present constitution of our mineral world, but upon what we do and allow to be done. With world-consciousness, human responsibility widens into world-responsibility.  Rudolf Steiner

From The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman by Rudolf Steiner


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“Despite all animosity Rudolf Steiner went calmly on his way. He went all through the spiritual world just as exactly a geologist goes over the Earth, and brought his findings down in such a way that they could be grasped by present day thinking. That was what was exceptionally interesting in Rudolf Steiner. Unnoticed by the people confronting him, he transformed scientific thinking into imaginative thinking, and this was again grasped by day consciousness; and he transposed ...what was imagined into concepts and mental pictures. So it was always a continuous transformation of day – consciousness into seership and vica versa.
I often heard him say about himself that the Imaginations were really always there, and day consciousness only had to intervene so that they could be regulated and put in order. ‘Yes,’ he once said, ‘I am on Earth and in Heaven at the same time, and while I look at you I experience you, and your supersensible being tells me significant things. I know what is around you.”
Ita Wegman
Address on Rudolf Steiner's birthday
February 27 1933
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A few days after the first EVER union at a Target store was formed, Target announced they plan to replace many workers with fleets of robots. ...because, you know, capitalism.
http://usuncut.com/class-war/target-union-robot-workers/
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Best to You.
Anne Perry.






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CONFLUX CAFE # 6









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The First ever Waldorf School!

first waldorf school


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In times to come,
Human beings will have to live
The one for the other,
...
And not the one through the other.
Thus is reached the world’s ultimate aim,
When each one is with themselves
Yet each would give to the other,
What none would demand.
Rudolf Steiner

See More
Biodynamics, Aikido, and Traditional Rural Skills






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'Study Rhythms, they the bearer of life,' Dr. Rudolf Steiner's answer to Dr. Rudolf Hauschka's question: 'What is life?' with thanks to Thomas Moore!
Shared by Kathryn C. P.

Thomas Moore
"Everyday repetition, like a regular restaurant, helps make an activity a ritual, serving the soul, not just the spirit."
Art by Silvia Pastore

***​Waldorfish's photo.


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"Research continues to point out that young children learn best through meaningful play experiences, yet many preschools are transitioning from play-based learning to becoming more academic in nature." "Ironically, it is through active free play outdoors where children start to build many of the foundational life skills they need in order to be successful for years to come."
Here is a new post from pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom, author of a number of popular posts on this blog, including “Why so many kids can’t sit still...




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Detroit Waldorf School's photo.




Norse Mythology in the third grade!


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5 Steps to calm down your hormonal teenager that when applied immediately calm and reduce the likelihood of re-occurance.


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Unbelievably  generous offering!!!

On this website you’ll find more than 1,400 beautiful, fun, appealing songs in every imaginable genre; whether you’re interested in browsing, looking for new sources of inspiration, keen on listening to new arrangements, or eager to explore, this site is full of free songs to download.
waldorfschoolsongs.com




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Why do we insist on sending our kids to school so early?
As another of his children begins the long slide into full-time schooling, Dad of four Harry Wallop wonders why we don't take a leaf out of Scandinavia's education textbook
telegraph.co.uk


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Education is a Cultural Activity, not a Political or Economic One
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***Imagine a School Where's photo.


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Thanks for reading!
Anne Perry.


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