New Hampsha

NEW HAMPSHA --Sally Bruno

Up heyuh in New Hampsha,
the wintah’s deep in snow,
and tempachas will sometimes drop
to zero or below.

Up heyuh in New Hampsha,
when sprintime’s all abud,
the apple blossoms scent the fields,
and dirt roads melt to mud.

Up heyuh in New Hampsha,
our summah’s cool and sweet,
with puhple lupine growing wild
and clovah ’neath owuh feet.

Up heayuh in New Hampsha,
the autumn is an aht.
It drenches trees in liquid flame
that breaks the brim-full haht.

Up heayuh in New Hampsha
we snowmobile and ski;
we fish the teeming mountain streams
and dine beside the sea.

Come heayuh to New Hampsha
and breathe our mountain ayuh.
No mattah if you lose your way—
you can get heayuh from theyuh.

A Change in the Year

To My Sister

William Wordsworth
(1770-1850)

---

It is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you;--and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:
We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.

Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth:
--It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason:
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey:
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,
We'll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

HEAVENLY SPRING DAYS!

No, I don't feel guilty crowing about how spring has arrived in New Hampshire, knowing that all my Edmonton buddies were suffering at minus forty degrees only last Wednesday morning. Edmontonians, rejoice! Spring is almost at your doorstep! I just about squealed when I went for my Beauty Walk on Saturday (walking in the woods,with my camera, that is, spotting the beauty in nature) and saw GREEN STUFF coming right out of the ground! Saturday and Sunday were the kind of early spring days that one dreams about all winter, with the sun's warmth penetrating through the back of my jacket. I went back on Sunday with a thermos of tea, and sat sipping it on a bench among the pines, overlooking the reservoir, smiling inside and out. A woman about my age had her fingers happily dabbling in the earth of her flower beds, and I stopped to admire her blooming yellow and purple crocuses. And there's a particular spot on the way to my Sunday-morning coffee shop, where I have begun to hear the unmistakable call of a mourning dove.

Everything is more fun in the spring, and knowing that I'll be home in two months.

FRENCH REPUBLICAN CALENDAR--Dandelion

Ah, today is the day of the lowly dandelion--one of my favorite flowers! The dandelion figures prominently in my botany project book for my Waldorf curriculum class. I held my webcam above my drawing of a dandelion seedling to show Ken, and his comment was, "Hey! That's a weed!" A Saskatchewan farm boy, he is not fond of the dandelion.

RUDOLF STEINER'S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL--Joy-of-growth is now calling to our human souls!

Thus to the human ego speaks

In mighty revelation,

Unfolding its inherent powers,

the joy of growth throughout the world:

I carry into you my life

from its enchanted bondage

and so attain my truest goal.

Antioch New England University

I'll need some photos of my school, to go along with the memories from this year that I'll be bringing back with me to Edmonton. The beautiful ceramic chimes are hung above the main entrance, and rumor has it they're played in a ceremony once or twice a year. I would love to buy one at the bookstore, to take home with me. And there are the wooden lawn chairs in the entrance, where I like to sit and enjoy my lunch in the natural light, and where I sat with my cell phone to hear the details of my grandson's birth in October.

Budding New Life

The major term assignment for my current Waldorf Curriculum Preparation Course is the creation of a representative main lesson book on a single block topic, accompanied by a teaching plan. In Waldorf education, the main lesson book is a work of art, a record of learning, and the nearest thing to a textbook that is allowed into the classroom. I chose Grade 5 Botany--what could be more wonderful to draw than plants and flowers? For my own preparation, to enter into the world of plants in a living way, I have embarked upon a photographic study of a tree twig, here in the yard of my house in Keene. I will photograph it at intervals while it swells and develops and produces a bud, over the course of the next several weeks. So far, I have been unable to identify it by its bark, so it remains a mystery tree for the moment.


GESTATION
Eleven weeks until I return home, but (as I always ask) who's counting? I calculated that my weeks in New Hampshire, including the two July stints, will total exactly forty--a pregnancy, and something new is quickening within me, as a result of my studies and experiences here. My yearning to be home is always present--a persistent, gentle wistfulness.

GRADE SIX ACOUSTICS
Here's something worth trying at home--trust me, you'll be amazed! Cut two lengths of ordinary string, each about half a metre long. Tie one end of each string to a large fork or spoon from your cutlery drawer. Tie a small loop in the other end of each string. Play around with these for awhile--be creative--and look and listen for the effects of your experimentation. Now carefully place one of the small loops over your right index fingertip, and the other over your left, and insert your fingertips, with string, quite far into your ears. With or without help, contrive to get the two implements to tap together. What do you experience now? Aren't you glad you tried it?

REVERENCE IS A FORCE
Reverence is much more than a 'nice' way to approach the world and each other; much more than an attitude that motivates us to care for and protect people, creatures, and things. Waldorf students who are led, through reverence, into a living relationship with nature and the phenomena of the world, are developing a sixth sense with which to perceive and connect with the universe, and penetrate into the mysteries of existence. The habit of reverence leads us beyond Bloom's taxonomy to even higher-order thinking skills of imagination, intuition and inspiration. It is also referred to as heart-thinking. Goethe entered into a kind of thought-conversation with his subjects of study, and today's cutting-edge research scientists enter into a similar kind of dialogue with whatever they are observing, through which they are able to open up to and receive information from their subject of scientific study--a plant; a colour; a particle; a wave. Adopting an attitude of reverent curiosity; honouring the wisdom of the world, is in itself a way to grow and learn.

AFRICAN INITIATION POETRY
There was an African tribe that gave a certain task to all the children at age thirteen, when they were going through an initiation and passing through the outer gate of childhood. They were to create poems in this specific style. They were given the first line and asked to add five more lines based on some examples. My fellow students and I were given this task to do in class on Friday. Here is my poem, dedicated to the three most wonderful young women I know,
Rose, Laura and Christina!

Young woman you are:
the aurora dancing across the sky
the crocus blooming in the snow
the songbird's joyful melody
the rain upon parched, cracked clay
the azure butterfly in the forest.

ERNEST L. BOYER, SR.
I was thrilled to be selected from among my classmates to receive the 2009 Boyer teacher scholarship, which provides for an education student with the potential to develop characteristics that Dr. Boyer believed essential for good teaching. I am ever so grateful!

CALENDARS
According to the French Republican Calendar yesterday's tool of the day was the spade, and today's plant is the narcissus. This past week I bought three paperwhite bulbs, on sale in a shop on Main Street. They are fat and bursting with joy-of-growth! I have them in a clear glass vase in my north bedroom window, and I'm looking forward to the day when their strong perfume will scent the indoor atmosphere.
Welcome, month of March!
Spring will reach its zenith this month--are you ready to enjoy it?

Within the light that out of world-wide heights
Would stream with power toward the soul,
May certainty of cosmic thinking
Arise to solve the soul's enigmas--
And focusing its mighty rays,
Awaken love in human hearts.

Monadnock Waldorf School

Here is my Monday-to-Wednesday world, as an intern in the Fourth Grade Class at Monadnock Waldorf School. The individual lined handwork baskets sit in a row on their shelf, and a class photo is posted on the classroom door. Miss Marshall has a blackboard drawing of all-father Odin, from Norse mythology, with the two ravens Hugin and Munin on his shoulders. The display on the nature table changes gradually with the seasons, and the penguin diorama was done by Miss Marshall's daughter, when she was in fourth grade. The weekly schedule is on its own chalkboard, and the spelling word list is posted by the water-drinking cups. My pen and folder, thermos of tea and backpack await me at my student-sized desk tucked under the window. The yellow tissue stars glow by recess time, as the morning sun streams through the windows! The universal Waldorf morning verse, for Classes 1 to 4:

The sun with loving light
Makes bright for me each day;
The soul with spirit power
Gives strength unto my limbs.
In sunlight shining clear
I reverence, O God,
The strength of human kind
Which Thou so graciously
Has planted in my soul,
That I with all my might
May love to work and learn.
From Thee come light and strength;
To Thee rise love and thanks.

--Rudolf Steiner