Stone Thoughts

"I speak cold silent words a stone might speak
If it had words or consciousness,
Watching December moonlight on the mountain peak,
Relieved of mortal hungers, the whole mess
Of needs, desires, ambitions, wishes, hopes.
This stillness in me knows the sky's abyss,
Reflected by blank snow along bare slopes,
If it had words or consciousness,
Would echo what a thinking stone might say
To praise oblivion words can't possess
As inorganic muteness goes its way.
There's no serenity without the thought serene,
Owl-flight without spread wings, honed eyes, hooked beak,
Absence without the meaning absence means.
To rescue bleakness from the bleak,
I speak cold silent words a stone might speak."

-   Robert Pack

Oak and Moon

waning gibbous moon through autumn oak leaves

The cool autumn days were a much needed relief and my compass is finally finding north again, I think.  I must have been in the honeymoon phase of death during the first few months after Julien was born.  When that wore off in late September, things got dark.  Really dark.  

But autumn has a way of un-sticking our stuck places.  Sitting under this big oak tree season after season, watching her leaves change colors and her form change shape has certainly taught me that nothing lasts forever.

I've been practicing letting go -- again and again and again -- and I'm back to working with the moon cycles.  This is my second waning moon and, as I sit here right now, I cannot find the right words to describe the peace that has washed through me since giving my grief to autumn and to the waning moon.  I've been working with a meditation I wrote for A. --- visualizing each emotion, each thought, blowing away with the falling leaves.  My great oak tree is resting now, her leaves - whose birth we witnessed in spring - now cover the sweet, earthy ground below.  Her barren branches reach into the pale sunlight like arms stretching during the deep yawn that comes before sleep.  

I'm ready for the long rest of winter too.  I'm ready to nourish my body with roots and soups and home-baked bread and to welcome the stillness that only comes when we enter the dark half of the year. 

After breaking my cup in September, I've been filling it up again with some beautiful literature.  I've been sitting outside under my old, oak tree re-reading Thoreau's Walden, enjoying Noam Chomsky's Profit Over People: Neoliberalism & Global Order, falling in love with Jack Petrash's  Understanding Waldorf Education: Teaching from the Inside Out, and I'm just diving into Rhythms of Learning : What Waldorf Education Offers Children, Parents, and Teachers  -- a wonderful collection of essays by Rudolf Steiner edited by Robert Trostli.

Through the turning of the seasons and the pages of these books, I seem to be remembering that what matters most about education - and life - is not the pedagogy to which we subscribe, but the reverence we are able to nurture in our children.  I feel that this must be the thing most central to education.  By honoring one another, the earth, and the very sacredness of our own lives, we create a soft place to fall when things fall apart.  I think that when we listen very closely, we can hear the moon and the old oak trees whispering this wisdom. 

Socially Conscious Math

Today was a Math and Social Studies day and our Main Lesson was the number ten.  After writing "t-e-n" and "10" on the board a few times, we used wooden blocks to answer math facts with sums of ten.  We also outlined our hands, numbered our fingers one through ten, and counted by fives and tens. Then I read a sweet tale about generating good karma, The Little Caterpillar's Stripes, from the Oak Meadow Kindergarten Syllabus.  Introducing math concepts through archetypal stories integrates Math with Social Studies and Language Arts.  For a great article on the significance of integrating subjects, read Why Integrate?: A Case for Collating the Curriculum.

In our socially conscious math story, a fuzzy caterpillar must do ten good deeds in his bug community.  After each act of kindness, he earns a yellow stripe.  After the tenth stripe is earned, he makes a soft nest called a pupa and drifts off to sleep.  When he awakens, he discovers the consequences for his kindness: he's transformed into a beautiful butterfly.  I had Amelie take picture notes while listening, then answer questions on content, characters, sequence, and moral.  We finished in her Main Lesson Book by writing the number ten a few times and drawing a picture from the story.

Wooden blocks are a great tool for nurturing creativity.  Amelie shared these today during Circle Time and asked to name some of the things about them that were the same and different.  Some of our observations were: they are all the same size and shape, there are different patterns in the wood grain, they all have light and dark colors, they all have faded  spots, and, like Friday's snowflakes, no two are the same.  Later, Amelie took a few minutes for building.

Next up, we kept up the social consciousness with a short discussion about the earthquake in Haiti.  We found Haiti on the globe, lit a candle, and had a few moments of silence.  I think we'll do this every day this week. While we certainly don't want our kids feeling scared about events like these, I think acknowledging what is happening in the world is essential to raising conscious, compassionate kids. 

After lunch, it was time for Art-Social Studies integration. This is the last week of our December-January thematic unit, Bringing Back the Light.  To honor the winter season and the various holidays, we've been discussing the return of the sun and what it means to feel full of light.

A dear friend just sent us, You with the Stars in Your Eyes: A Little Girl's Glimpse at Cosmic Consciousness, by Deepak Chopra.  This little treasure fit our thematic unit perfectly... "the stars gave us eyes so they could see themselves."

After five minutes of mindfulness with Susan Kaiser Greenland on mindfulness together, we finished our day with a little dancing and yoga stretching.  Tomorrow we'll see some friends, sign up for the new ballet term, and have a piano lesson.  On Wednesday, we'll revisit the number ten, explore it's essence, march and sing our math facts, and maybe start the letter P.