With Family

STORYLAND VALLEY ZOO
Nice shot, isn't it? I took it during a raptor demonstration at the zoo, on a magical day with daughters Rose & Laura, Rose's sweetie Ze'ev, and grandbabies Kaliana & Kai. Here's another one:

So proud to be riding on a pony!

A whole family life greeted me in Edmonton, in August, including days at the lake with Rose, Laura, and the two little 'Ks.' I got my nails done, got my hair done, and SCHOOL began to happen big time! (Is it obvious that I'm trying to catch up on my blog posts?) Meetings, home visits, watching with admiration as the WESE worker-women scrape and paint, saw and hammer, scrape and sew and transform three ordinary old classrooms into Waldorf places of wonder. Lesson planning, you may wonder? Mmm . . . I'm well behind in that department. And then, last weekend, a glorious mother/daughter retreat with my beloved singing sisters at Labyrinth Lake Lodge. (Oh! I didn't go as a grandmother, or even as a mother--I went as a DAUGHTER, with Kay as my other mother!) I was honoured with a ceremony (surprise!) recognizing my year away and my role in launching this new Waldorf program into the world.

My new students came to school yesterday afternoon to check out our new classroom, in preparation for their Big Day on Wednesday--so wonderful to see the classroom come alive with children!

Hey, today is watermelon day, in the French Republican Calendar--reminds me to be sure and enjoy summer's last juicy treats during these last few days of August!

This week Rudolf Steiner tells us:

I feel strange power, bearing fruit
And gaining strength to give myself to me.
I sense the seed maturing
And expectation, light-filled, weaving
Within me on my selfhood's power.

Yellowstone National Park

ONCE IN EVERY LIFETIME . . .
Everyone should visit Yellowstone National Park at least once--it is truly spectacular. Roaring, howling steam vents, boiling bubbling springs, and shooting fire-hose geysers are other-worldly surprises in the otherwise glorious mountain landscape. I had the honour of being (slightly) splashed with boiling white mud! Yellowstone was the climax of the road trip from New Hampshire to Alberta, for Ken & me. Yup, my sweetie drove 2700 miles across the continent to be there for me at my graduation in Wilton, and fetch me back home! August 1st, we 'did' New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York State, and enjoyed dinner at the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca! August 2nd, we left New York State and 'did' Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. That night we spent in the town of LeClaire, Iowa, on the Mississippi River. August 3rd and 4th were South Dakota--we loved the Black Hills, the Missouri River, and Badlands National Park. We shared the road with bikers everywhere, in the area for the big rally in Sturgis. August 5th and 6th were Wyoming, Montana, and the fabulous Yellowstone Park--you go there! By August 7th we (and especially Ken) were thoroughly tired of motels and motel breakfasts (even cook-your-own waffles can wear thin after awhile), and we pushed on home to Alberta.

So happy to be home!

Closing a Chapter

WILTON IN JULY
singing; juggling; cycling in the dark; fireflies; drawing; clay modeling; javelin; discus; flowers; gymnastics; eurythmy; games; science demonstrations; essays; skits on adolescence; rain & heat; coyote spotting; thunder & lightning; the art of speech; hummingbirds; Gregorian chant; lectures & readings; GRADUATION; good-byes; great food; great friends; great fun

My soul and the great World are one.

GLENDALOUGH
Such a peaceful photo, taken the evening of July 4th. You would never know we had just enjoyed the best/worst hailstorm I have ever seen at our cabin at Lake Wabamun. It was the last night of a five-day retreat with my daughter Laura, and my two grandbabies, Kaliana and Kai. We hiked through mud, we did a temper tantrum at the pancake breakfast, we ate a picnic lunch by the playground at the beach, we soaked in the hot tub every day before breakfast and before bed, and we even made our own cheese! I had forgotten how daily activities have to be wedged in between all the naps, sleeps, meals, and snacks that little ones need. Kai cut his first tooth, and Fiona the cat became less ornery and more tolerant of the kitty-loving Kaliana. Was Baba all worn out after her days with two active tots? Does Baba admit to being just a little-itty bit cranky? And how did Baba ever manage with four tots of her own, back in the day? A mystery, indeed.

NEW WALDORF PROGRAM AT AVONMORE SCHOOL
Try to imagine how excited I am to be preparing for the brand-new grade 1 & 2 class of a brand-new Waldorf program, in a new-to-me school, with a wonderful new-to-me principal! I began to imagine bright, shining, eager faces sitting in desks just as soon as I read their names on the class list! I will have 24 young charges, and will stay with them all the way through until at least grade 6, and possibly to grade 8. I have begun meeting them in their homes, and I'm struck with what a diverse group they are, with family origins from around the globe, and beginnings ranging from having been home-educated, to having attended WESE's playschool, to having attended Waldorf schools elsewhere, to having attended kindergarten or grade 1 in a public school. My dear friend Lynda, who is also one of my new Waldorf parents, asked me 1)what I am most looking forward to, and 2)what I feel my greatest challenge will be.
1). . . the oh-so-exciting First Day of School, September 2!
2). . . how will I manage my energy levels, teaching teach full time?
I feel very strongly that 'my' new 24 children have orchestrated this amazing endeavor from beyond the beyond, and I imagine them each making their way toward September 2, along their individual, unique paths, from 24 different directions. I feel that I am meeting my personal destiny, in this auspicious new beginning. Steiner must have written the following just for me:

The wishes of the soul are springing,
The deeds of the will are thriving,
The fruits of life are maturing.

I feel my fate,
My fate finds me.
I feel my star,
My star finds me.
I feel my goals in life,
My goals in life are finding me.

My soul and the great World are one.

Life grows more radiant about me,
Life grows more arduous for me,
Grows more abundant within me.

CALENDARS
The Chinese almanac has us into the last month of summer--enjoy it, folks, autumn rustles in on August 5th! Today the French Republican Calendar honours mint, glorious mint. There are more than 600 varieties of this clean, fresh smelling and tasting herb. My favorite salad uses a dressing flavoured with fresh chopped mint leaves and curry paste.

LAST TASTE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
Just one last day in Edmonton; then I'm off for my second three-week summer intensive term in New Hampshire. Singing, games, eurythmy, the science curriculum, the adolescent, speech, and the study of 'man' (meaning everybody). Yes, it's hard to leave home again, even for three short weeks, but it will be lovely to see my New Hampshire friends, and I'm looking forward to a road trip home with Ken, after my graduation.

Rudolf Steiner's summer meditation from The Calendar of the Soul:

Surrendering to senses' revelation
I lost the drive of my own being,
And dreamlike thinking seemed
To daze and rob me of my self.
Yet quickening there draws near
In sense appearance cosmic thinking.

Home is Where the Heart Is

Yes, I've been home, home, home for a month now--aaahh!  While settling in, I felt a wariness in the part of me that wasn't quite certain I was really, truly back home to stay.  In another part of me, being in Edmonton felt so natural that perhaps I hadn't been away after all.  I felt confused about what season and month it was, having returned from a glorious New England spring and summer to Alberta's end-of-winter/early-spring brownness and barenness.  I came home to an instant life, swept into the busyness of family and events and things that needed doing, that had nothing to do with being a graduate student!  I've been dabbling in this and that since my return home, not seeming to accomplish much and feeling the lack of rhythm and regular routine in my life.  

Home is belongingness, confidence, inner peace, and joy.

FEED THE BIRDS

I'm the one who wanted to hang a bird feeder at the corner of our downtown balcony, and Ken humored me by installing it about a year and a half ago.  We watched and waited in vain to be discovered by the wee feathered folk.  This winter, the pillar poplars seemed to enjoy a growth spurt, and they are now as high as the balcony above ours.  And we have birds!  They are mainly LBJs--little brown jobs--and they are oh, so welcome, with their entertaining twittering and flitting about.

On this particular day of the year the French Republican Calendar honours the honeysuckle.  There are 180 species of this plant, at least one of which grows wild in Alberta.  It attracts hummingbirds, and some caterpillars feed upon its leaves.  May your day be as sweet as its nectar!

Our focus tends to be outward, during this season of waxing warmth and light.  (Our feeling soars into wide realms of space; we notice the ascent of the sun; inner events are experienced but dimly.)  Here is this week's verse from Steiner's  Calendar of the Soul:

To summer's radiant heights

The sun in shining majesty ascends;

It takes my human feeling

Into its own wide realms of space.

Within my inner being stirs

Presentiment which heralds dimly,

You shall in future know:

A godly being now touched you.

Good-bye, Keene!

I went for a good morning, good-bye walk to delightful Robin Hood Park this morning, placing my unfired clay modeling assignments in strategic locations, to quietly dissolve into the landscape. New England autumns are celebrated, and so should be the New England springs--this one was early and splendiferous, with blossoms bursting open like smiles on tree branches, on bushes, and in the grass everywhere.

After whining, in my last post, about being sick so much, I became sick again--so tired and discouraged with getting sick all the time, that I tended to focus on navigating through each day, rather than on my imminent joyful homecoming. But now my boarding passes are printed, my jumbo suitcase is packed to the point of zipper strain, and the rest of my belongings are question marks surrounding my smaller suitcase, open on my bed (will this fit in? will this, too?). I had to slide my big suitcase down the stairs on its belly--tip will be a must, for the taxi driver who will come for me in the morning! Bank account is closed; refund of the cell phone deposit is negotiated; public library and university library books are returned. Books and clothes are in the mail.

Yesterday 'my' Grade Fours gave me gifts, a book of hand-drawn pictures and handwritten greetings, and their individual thank-yous and wishes for me and my own students, to come. Wonderful children, and I learned so much from them and from their teacher! It was perfect to have Rose and Ze'ev visit me in Keene, this past weekend. We ate in restaurants (what novelty!), got caught in the rain on Pack Monadnock, visited the Horatio Colony Nature Preserve, and I couldn't stop talking--Rose and Ze'ev didn't seem to mind! They packed some of my boxes to the lovely house in Wilton that will be my home for three weeks in July, and carried another box to Ottawa, to mail to Edmonton for me. Thanks Rose! Thanks Ze'ev!

Rose and Ze'ev arrived in Keene on Friday, in time to join my classmates and me in a year-end pot-luck celebration--I was thrilled to be able to introduce them to my wonderful classmates, who were kind enough to say all kinds of nice things to my dear daughter and her partner, my dear friend! I'm very glad I will be able to spend three more weeks with my companions-in-learning, in July.

After I publish this post I will cut myself off from the world by packing away this computer. Tomorrow will be spent in that peculiar vacuum of airports and planes that seems to displace the traveler's connections to time and location. I will go heavily armed with novels and knitting (I've decided to take my chances with a pair of short, almost toy-like bamboo knitting needles), so that I can read and knit furiously to distract myself from the noise and hubbub of air travel. I'm expecting a painless but long day, with a big prize at the end of it all--my own husband's smiling face, and a ride in my own car to my own home in Edmonton! The very prospect feels downright magical!

Will I ever visit Keene again?

Today join the French Republicans in a moment of contemplation of the edible herb borage, with its lovely star-like blue flowers, fuzzy leaves, cucumbery taste, and its boundless energy for showing up in your garden year after year, after you first choose to plant it.

For your soul:

There has arisen from its narrow limits
My self and finds itself
as revelation of all worlds
Within the sway of time and space;
The world, as archetype divine,
displays to me at every turn
the truth of my own likeness.

Lady April

Lady April has come to town, wearing a golden daffodil gown,
All the way from sunny Spain, Lady April has come again.

Celandine and cuckoo-flower dance beside her, hour by hour,
All the birds come out to sing, Lady April a-welcoming.

April, for me, has been about preparing and presenting--in particular, my Big Internship Week, when I was handed the reins for four consecutive main lessons in Grade Four, and my beautifully illustrated botany block book, the major assignment for my Waldorf curriculum class. April has been about greening grass, crocuses, daffodils, pansies, and forsythia. It has been about the most marvelous, melodic birdsong accompanying me on my short walk to school every morning, and the return of the morning doves, with their soft, distinctive hoots. Robins, squirrels, and blackbirds are everywhere, bustling importantly about. April, for me, has been challenging due to illness, and I'm wondering whether missing loved ones in Edmonton has made me more susceptible to whatever viruses are lurking about. I am feeling much heartier now, and a lot more cheerful!

THE GIFTS OF ABSENCE
My relationships with my husband and children have strengthened, during my time away, in unexpected ways. Ken and I have relied on our daily phone calls for mutual support, and I feel a deeper level of understanding, trust, and 'common ground' between us now. One of my children has opened up to me in a lovely, new way, sharing feelings about significant life events. Another of my children has grown healthily independent, learning to stand upright and cope with life's disappointments from a place of individual resourcefulness. I've been made to feel appreciated by my offspring in numerous ways--every mother's dream! Although Ken has been in my life for less than seven years, my children have been sure to include him in all family get-togethers during my absence--he is delighted and deeply touched! And he has bonded with 'my' grandchildren all the more strongly, given opportunities to play with them without their Baba 'interfering.' After every visit I am treated to a play-by-play description of everything Kaliana did and said!

What a wonderful family I have! Shall I sit back, and let them plan our future get-togethers?

SOUL LEARNING
Although there is a 'summer sequence' program at Antioch University, enabling teachers to complete my program during a series of summers, rather than relocating for an entire school year, I chose the 'year-round' program for two reasons. First, I am isolated in Edmonton, as there is no group of Waldorf colleagues there, with which to work. I wanted a 'Waldorf immersion' experience, and second, I wanted a transformational experience. Christopher Bamford articulates what I sought and have found beautifully, within his description of the sevenfold gift of 'Celtic Christianity,' in Chapter Six of his book, An Endless Trace:

" . . . there is deep love of learning and study, study as a curriculum of the soul. Too often, learning and study are discounted, if not abused and reviled, as synonymous with intellectualism abstraction, and literalism or conceptual bigotry. When study and learning are for the transformation of the student, and not for the mere accumulation of information, what is learned becomes who one is."
"The Celtic Christians were . . . interested in becoming fuller, more realized human beings. Their learning was not something other than who they were."
"They studied, they learned, in order to love. Their theology, their religion, was always practical, vibant with life, mystical."

CALENDARS
The Chinese almanac has summer coming in next week, on Tuesday, May 5 (New Hampshire didn't wait!). Today is lily of the valley day, in the French Republican Calendar. I have always loved this tiny flower's exquisite scent. Wikipedia tells us that, "traditionally, Lily of the Valley is sold in the streets of France on May 1. Lily of the Valley became the national flower of Finland in 1967. The meaning of this flower is 'You will find Happiness.'"

For your soul:

I sense a kindred nature to my own:
Thus speaks perceptive feeling
As in the sun-illumined world
It mergest with the floods of light;
To thinking's clarity
My feeling would give warmth
And firmly bind as one
The human being and the world.