Study group

I've become involved with a new online community, called The Waldorf Board. It's a threaded discussion board for people interested in Rudolf Steiner, anthroposophy, and Waldorf education.

Somehow, I've gotten myself into an online study group on Steiner's lecture titled "Facing Karma." So far it's been a very interesting discussion, and has made me realize that I'm woefully forgetful of some of the basics of anthroposophy.

It's really easy to develop what I call a "cloud of information" around a topic. Kind of like if you're asked to define a word, and instead of a dictionary-style definition, you provide a bunch of images, words, experiences, and concepts that all hover around the word in your mind.

The down side to this is that while this cloud makes it easy for you to skim along and feel like you're understanding a text, when you're called on to really explain it to someone else you find that you're unable to be specific without admitting it's all your subjective opinion. Maybe I just grok it...so I can't externalize enough to explain it in words.

As I explained this cloud idea to Anthropapa, he pointed out that the way that I'm observing my own thinking process is just what Steiner talked about in Philosophy of Freedom. Wow, I'm good.

The Spiritual Influence of American Culture

Indeed, Anglo-Americanism is a modern cultural narcotic to anesthetize our urge to find the spirit within us. It is the task of Anglo-American culture to organize the material realm and spread it over the whole globe, but due to an inherent idiosyncrasy, it also numbs and distracts people in their search for the spirit with its Americanisms.

--Rudolf Steiner, Lecture in Ulm, 30 April 1918.

Amazing, that Steiner thought this way before the advent of television, computers, Britney Spears, or any other thing the US has foisted on the world. Of course, I say foisted knowing that most of the world has in general opened up and said aaahh to all we have to offer.

The other thing to realize about this quote is that Steiner wasn't trying to say that the material realm is an inherently bad thing. On the contrary, he believed that we need to be here on the Earth, materially corporeal, in order to work through our karma and advance spiritually. And in using the word "task," he is pointing out the fact that (in his cosmology) each major world culture has had/will have something to contribute to human development, despite its respective shadow side.

I'll never forget something one of my teachers said to me during my Foundation Year at Rudolf Steiner College: we should in some sense feel pity for the angels and the other hierarchies above ours, because in many ways they have no freedom.

That's right, we're lucky to be here, surrounded and benumbed by all this materialistic Western culture. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. There's nothing about being benumbed that helps us advance. But without our material existence we would never be able to choose our "cultural narcotic" du jour, or choose to strengthen our powers of perception or thinking.

Fighting against this numbness is something that Anthropapa and I have been struggling with for a long time. Back in the late 90's, we realized that TV was sucking away not only hours of each day, but our brain cells as well. And we didn't talk to each other enough. So, we ditched the TV completely for several years.

We don't watch TV any more, but now we have a wireless internet connection. Today, it's NaBloPoMo. Tomorrow morning, a little Facebook. Tomorrow night, perhaps something from Netflix.

I often seem to be trying to become comfortably numb. It's a lot easier than working on my karma.

More Waldorf school PR struggles...

...this time in Australia.

I don't know how the state schools incorporate Waldorf/Steiner methods in Australia -- if they are fully independent, charter schools (as in California) where some state requirements must be met, or some other structure.

But I do know a bit about the methods of education and the anthroposophical thought behind it, and feel moved to respond to some of the comments in the article:

"Critics say that its philosophical basis is too religious -- even comparing it to Scientology -- to be in the secular public system.

But supporters deny Steiner education is religious and argue it is a holistic approach to learning."

Anthroposophy is spiritual. In the anthroposophical view, all of human existence is imbued with spirit. Therefore any human interaction -- be it in a Waldorf/Steiner school, a public school, the grocery store, a prison -- involves the spiritual world. Only when we come from a materialistic, dualistic viewpoint does the concept of "secularity vs. spirituality" arise.

Waldorf/Steiner schools do not teach a religion to the students. They do foster the natural sense of awe, wonder, and respect for the world that children have. Anthroposophy is a philosophical world-view, not a religion. You can follow any religion you like, or none at all, and still work with anthroposophy.

"Supporters of Steiner are adamant anthroposophy is not taught to children, and that Steiner himself said the spiritual science was only for adults who chose to do it.

But parents and religious experts are concerned that Steiner teachers learn about anthroposophy in their training and these beliefs seep into the classroom. 'What a lot of people don't get is that Steiner is based on a spiritual system not an educational one,' says cult expert Raphael Aron.... It is implicit in everything they do."

Anthroposophy is never taught directly to children (though in some schools here in the US I believe it is included in some high school senior classes about world religion). Steiner specifically stated that teachers should never speak of anthroposophy directly to students: "If anyone thinks the Waldorf School is a school for Anthroposophy it shows he has no understanding either of Waldorf School pedagogy or of Anthroposophy." (Spiritual Ground of Education, lecture 8 of 8/24/1922.)

But yes, of course, it is the foundation of Waldorf/Steiner methods. Of course the beliefs "seep into the classroom," but only in that everything that the teacher brings to the students is informed by the anthroposophical worldview, not that it is included in the curriculum. If teachers are including anthroposophy in their curricula, they are making a mistake.

"[Aron] said there was a lack of transparency in the schools and often parents were not told about what Steiner believed, making it not dissimilar to Scientology."

I can't speak about Scientology, but I believe that it is possible, and perhaps even common, that schools are not forthright and clear enough with parents about anthroposophy. Part of the problem stems from what I perceive as a fear of talking about some of the beliefs outright, because they are far outside the mainstream. Guardian angels, etheric bodies, reincarnation, karma, elemental beings...these all come into play, albeit mostly in minor ways. And personally I don't think these things are the crux of the pedagogy anyway, but I can see how some of these beliefs could come as a shock to parents, especially if not presented in a clear way.

However I also think that it's unreasonable to expect schools to discuss every belief that informs the pedagogy. Steiner gave about 6,000 lectures during his lifetime -- how would it even be possible to fully "disclose" anthroposophy to prospective parents? Do Catholic schools describe every bit of doctrine to parents? Do Montessori schools give parents all of Maria Montessori's writings?

"Mr Pereira, who is from Sri Lanka, said his concerns about Steiner's racist beliefs were realised when his children were not allowed to use black or brown crayons because they were "not pure". He said Steiner teachers at the state-run school recommended they not immunise their children because it would lead to the 'bestialisation of humans'."

This to me sounds like teachers trying to explain concepts, and failing.

In early childhood, it is thought that children should experience color in a moving, feeling way, without too much hardened form, because that is the state of the children themselves: moving, feeling, still soft (bones, rounded bodies, etc.) and not fully incarnated. That is why children in Waldorf/Steiner schools do watercolor paintings instead of coloring pre-drawn images, and that is why black and brown are discouraged -- these colors are "earthly" and tend to create form instead of color experiences. I would say that calling them "impure" is not accurate.

And there are numerous explanations and thoughts about discouraging immunization, but using the word "bestialization" seems excessive and inaccurate. I've talked before about the issue of Steiner and racism; linking crayons and race is just silly. I think that people bring up the race card about Steiner because it immediately causes fear and doubt, and obscures real discussion.

"Rudolf Steiner Schools of Australia executive officer Rosemary Gentle said anthroposophy was not taught to children, although teachers were introduced to the subject during their training.

'It has nothing to do with what is taught. It is just the approach to teaching,' she said.

'The teachers are given an anthroposophy background ... and it allows them to look into a child more deeply. You look at children as you would in a family. You strive to understand the child and recognise their emerging personality.'"

Perhaps my comparison with Catholic schools was problematic, because it is an inherent goal of that school system to create more Catholics. Waldorf/Steiner schools do not work that way. Sure, if you think you've got the best way to view reality, you hope that everyone else will climb on your bandwagon so that everyone can benefit. And if you have a world-view of any kind, be it intellectual development at the expense of artistic and social skills or religion as the basis of all reality or anthroposophy or secular humanism or whatever, it will surely inform your actions.

But the commonly stated goal of Waldorf/Steiner education is not to create more anthroposophists. It is to provide a developmentally appropriate and healing curriculum to help the children become balanced, socially aware, and able to integrate all parts of their selves -- body, soul, and spirit -- into a healthy adult life.

Does the parenting guilt ever end?

No, I think not.

SillyBilly has asthma. For almost a year after we relocated from California to New York, he had no wheezing. We thought perhaps he had grown out of it, or maybe something in the air in Cal. had caused the problem.

In the last few months things have started to flare up again. We had to renew prescriptions, and started to actually use the nebulizer that we had hardly ever used before.

We finally got an appointment with the anthroposophical doctor, who prescribed several remedies to be taken daily, as a long-term constitutional approach.

SillyBilly was thrilled to learn that one of the remedies is actually made of meteors! (ferrum sidereum -- helps with incarnation as well as finding equilibrium between outer influences and inner responses, e.g. asthma as a response to allergens).

We were doing well, remembering to take the remedies twice a day, plus an added bonus spoonful of local honey to assist with allergies, when early this week SillyBilly seemed to have a sniffly nose. The next day he had a little cough, but I wasn't too worried about it.

The next day he was having a lot of coughing and wheezing, so we arranged another visit to the doctor. He prescribed different remedies for the acute phase of asthma.

I dutifully gave SillyBilly one dose of these remedies when we got home, and within half an hour he was having a severe asthma attack! I gave him some albuterol through the nebulizer, and called the doctor. He called back and told us to stop all of the other remedies and just use the acute remedies every two hours.

So far, things are calming down. We have only given SillyBilly one nebulizer treatment today, which is down from several a day plus once or twice in the evenings, which is a whole lot of albuterol for a little guy. He even got to go to the last day of summer day camp, though he came home early because he was not feeling great. (Though that turned out to be more just needing his Mama than anything physical.)

Where does the guilt come in?

Well, SillyBilly has had trouble with his lungs since his birth. He had severe meconium aspiration after being overdue 4 1/2 weeks. He was in the hospital for 31 days, had to have VV ECMO (blood bypass to allow his lungs to rest) for 10 days, and almost died.

I am having trouble not blaming myself. I chose to skip being induced at 42 weeks. I chose to go with a lay midwife at the last minute instead of continuing with the allopathic doctor. And I have a hard time not thinking that those choices "caused" SillyBilly's lung problems.

I know it's both incorrect and unproductive to blame myself. SillyBilly has his own karma to work out, as do I. But dealing with a sick child now makes it all the harder to knock off that kind of thinking.

Steiner and Racism

I've been mulling over a blog post on anthroposophy for a long time now. You see, it touches on a very touchy and contentious subject: racism. And I haven't been sure I really want to step into such murky waters. Much of the criticism of Steiner published online revolves around the racism question, and it is so inflammatory and biased that I hesitate to add another voice to the discussion.

However it's something that I think anthroposophists cannot shirk from. Steiner exhorted us to shine the light of consciousness on everything we say and do. And I certainly don't think that a balanced view of this issue can be obtained by reading what is already out there.

Steiner had a lot to say about human development, evolution, and the role "races" have to play in the spiritual development of mankind. Unfortunately, many of his statements, if taken out of the overall context of his beliefs and other statements, sound baldly racist to modern ears. And that is a valid concern today, given that Waldorf teacher training includes extensive reading of Steiner's books and lectures.

Much of the discourse on this subject has been based on cherry-picking quotes to back up opposing claims, as can be done with the Bible (e.g., Thou shalt not kill vs. thou shalt not suffer a witch to live). I don't think that kind of argumentation is productive, so here I will not give any quotations but merely give my perspective.

I will be clear from the start: in my opinion, Steiner was not racist in the way that we use the word today. He believed in the exalted spiritual nature of each human being, regardless of their physical or cultural ancestry. To him, any artificial divisions among groups of people -- race, religion, nationality -- are materialistic and counter to the goals of spiritual development both for individuals and humanity as a whole. Time and again in his books and public speeches Steiner declaimed against divisiveness (in fact, his writings against nationalism were in large part why the Nazis suppressed anthroposophy and Waldorf schools in Germany).

I will give one example, though I tread lightly here. Steiner believed that the function of Jewish culture and religion was to properly develop a hereditary stream for Jesus to incarnate into. Therefore, after Jesus was born, in some sense the Jewish culture and religion were no longer necessary for humanity's spiritual development.

He did not mean, to my understanding, that Jews should be eradicated or are somehow less developed or valid than other people. He just meant that the impulse of the Jewish faith was no longer the most current in the overall stream of human spiritual development.

You see how tricky this gets?

Now the question is: how much of this affects Waldorf schools? The fact is that some of Steiner's lectures that include discussion of race are typically included in Waldorf teacher training programs, though in my experience not for the purpose of discussing race or even really anything to do with teaching. They are merely part of the overall picture of Steiner's work and belief about human evolution and Christianity. And teachers do typically continue to study Steiner's works during their work as teachers. So this question does merit some examination into current Waldorf methodologies.

And the next question: even if we were to decide that some of Steiner's comments were racist, does that mean we have to reject everything else he said and did? Perhaps it's overly apologetic, but after all, he was a white male Roman Catholic from the 19th century German culture. No matter how much we think he was clairvoyant and special, he was still a human being, and error could have crept in. Do his beliefs about the ancient evolution of humanity truly cast a pall over the demonstrable good that his other works do: Waldorf schools, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophic medicine, socially beneficial banking, to name a few?

Steiner said explicitly that we no longer need gurus. We no longer need to take anyone's words as articles of faith, and in fact doing so will hinder our development. Concepts must grow and develop, and to simply take what was given in the past leads to petrification instead of fruitfulness. So we have to read Steiner and decide for ourselves whether what he said even applies to our time today. I believe he was showing us the way that race was important in the past, and in doing so he underscores how unimportant it is for the present.

Warmth and Health

I thought it was time to bring up a little more anthroposophy, after too many silly little posts! That, and my paying work has slowed down. So, here are some recent thoughts about warmth.

Springtime is here, and the weather is warming up. However, despite the sunny skies around here, it's still chilly for most of the day. I'm fighting daily battles with SillyBilly, who wants to wear his shorts and t-shirts and sandals, to get him dressed warmly enough. And we are all still snorting and hacking our way out of that nasty cold virus we had last weekend.

Rudolf Steiner and other anthroposophical writers have said a lot about warmth and the human being. Steiner linked warmth and the blood directly to the activity of the human ego, also known as the "I" (this is distinct from the Freudian ego -- here we are referring to the immortal spirit of the individual). In the young child, warmth allows the physical body to develop properly, with good structure and function:

If the ego is to be able to perfect the organs so that they endure in good health throughout life, there must be a well-maintained deep body warmth. For...it is the warmth organization wherein the ego works....[In the adult] the ego is fully incarnated and is able to control the body temperature, whereas [in the child] the ego is in a process of incarnation and is not yet fully in charge.
--Joan Salter, The Incarnating Child

Steiner also described the 12 senses: the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, and the seven senses of warmth, life, self-movement, balance, word, thought, and the I and Other. We can see that in a baby, the sense of touch and warmth are pre-eminent, in the toddler the sense of self-movement leads to walking and the sense of word leads to talking, while older children work on balance in their see-sawing and tree climbing.

Young children do not have a mature sense of warmth, clearly seen in the child who is blue with cold yet refuses to come out of the swimming pool! Adults must help the child by providing appropriate clothing and environment. On another level, the sense of warmth relates to the emotional and spiritual atmosphere or mood: cold, impersonal and insincere, or caring, loving and genuine.

As adults we know how uncomfortable it is to feel cold and how it prevents us from working properly either physically or mentally. A baby feels even more uncomfortable and yet he cannot complain....The soul and spirit need sufficient warmth for their work of moulding and remoulding the body.
--Wilhelm zur Linden, When a Child is Born

I have read (not experiencing the difference myself as I have never traveled abroad) that Americans are particularly guilty of underdressing. I do remember that in Sacramento many times I would be wearing a wool sweater on a winter's day, and see other people running around in shorts! And certainly even on snowy days here in New York, not everyone wears a warm hat or even a coat. What are we doing to our health with this? I believe being chronically cold leads to bad health, because the body is too busy keeping up its internal temperature to do its other work, like immune functions, properly.

In the child, illness that may be brought on by being cold is often resolved via fever. The body brings on an elevated internal temperature in order to kill, or prevent proliferation of, the virus or bacteria. However there are other physical as well as spiritual aspects to fever:

Thermoregulation and fever also have a soul-spiritual aspect. Heat is more than just a quantitative factor measured with a thermometer. As such, warmth also manifests in the activity of the human soul and spirit. We "feel warm inside" when we meet a good friend or revisit the familiar landscape of our childhood....Conversely, fear anger, or great sorrow, or even hate, envy, or discontent in our surroundings, makes our blood "run cold."
...
Fever helps a child's I adapt its inherited body to its own purposes, making it a more suitable vehicle for self-expression....From a purely outer perspective, the rapid regaining of weight lost during a feverish illness is an indication that the body is being organically remodeled. The child has deconstructed some aspect of her inherited body and is rebuilding it under the independent direction of her own warmth organization.
--Michaela Glöckler, Wolfgang Goebel, A Guide to Child Health

So, here's what we do. My kids wear thin, soft wool underwear on all but the hottest days, and most nights. They wear long sleeves and pants through three seasons. When they go to daycare, and often at home, they wear slippers or booties to keep their feet warm. They wear hats most of the time outdoors (sunhats in summer of course). Tummy aches bring out the hot water bottle, one of our dearest friends! When the kids get a fever, we do not suppress it with medication -- we address any discomfort by sponging down or wrapping their calves with tepid lemon water cloths, and make sure they have extra fluids and rest. We make an effort to make their surroundings beautiful to warm their souls.

The spirituality behind Waldorf

A few months back, Papa Bradstein and I were chatting and he inadvertently dropped a bomb in my mind: he asked, what is the spiritual background of Waldorf education?

I say it was a bomb because at the time I stammered out a few lame sentences, and then we went on to some other topic. And I've been thinking about me stammering ever since. Why can I not explain the background of something that I've been working with for almost 10 years? Is it just too complex, or have I not tried to make enough sense of it?

In either case, I decided to give it a try. Now, in discussing this with Anthropapa, he pointed out that to reduce something like spirituality or child development to a few bullet points is automatically ridiculous: you can't take something organic and interconnected and break it down in a materialistic, reductionist way. But anyway, I'm still doing it! OK now, deep breath as I dive into the pool of decidedly woo-woo stuff that may lose me most of my loyal 5-6 readers...

1. Human beings reincarnate. Therefore a child is not a tabula rasa to be filled with knowledge; on the contrary it is our task to lead them to their own inherent wisdom. Viewing children in this way leads to a profound respect for them as individuals, and acknowledges that intellectual development alone is not the sole reason for education.



2. The human being is comprised of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an immortal spirit. Waldorf education attempts to bring these bodies into balance through healthy development; mainstream education (and indeed mainstream culture in general) is seen as overly materialistic and intellectualized.
   



3. Humans develop in seven-year phases starting at birth. The first, birth-7, is linked with the will and learning via imitation and physical activity. The second, 7-14, is linked with the feelings and learning via imagination and the arts. The third, 14-21, is linked with the thinking and learning via abstract concepts. Waldorf curricula seek to educate the child in accordance with these developmental stages: for example, there is no "intellectual" teaching in Waldorf kindergartens because the child needs to learn about the world through the senses and in movement.
   



4. To be continued...
   

Parenting and inner work

One of my recent posts mentioned Rudolf Steiner's "six basic exercises," and I thought I would expand on them a bit in relation to parenting. I am taking inspiration from an essay by Signe Schaefer in More Lifeways. I find that these exercises are wonderful, challenging work, and that our children are truly our teachers when it comes to inner growth.

The first exercise relates to thinking. Often parents find themselves easily distracted, and our powers of mental concentration are challenged daily by the ever-changing demands of children. Steiner recommended that we take a small everyday object (e.g. a button or paperclip) and try to focus our attention completely on it. Sounds easy, but it's quite difficult to maintain complete attention for any length of time. Over many days we focus on the form of the object, as well as its manufacture, in a measured, conscious way instead of merely fleeting impressions. We also observe our own thought processes to discover the times and ways we become distracted. This exercise not only helps us become more conscious of our thinking, it also helps us gain a sense of self-control and confidence, so easily lost when faced with the complexity of modern parenting.

The second exercise relates to our will forces. This is another realm in which parents can be easily distracted: I was about to do the dishes when I realized I needed a clean dish towel, but on my way to the linen closet I noticed the cats needed clean water, and then the kids came into the bathroom asking for a snack, so we returned to the kitchen to find the dishes still filling the sink! So we choose a small unnecessary act (in my last post the example was touching my earlobe at 11:45 am) and endeavour to remember and complete it each day. This exercise helps parents strengthen their sense of inner resolve, and helps us feel less on "auto-pilot" or discouraged by lack of follow-through.

The third exercise involves our emotions. We are often unable to remain calm in the face of the baby who won't stop crying or the siblings who won't stop fighting. To begin this exercise, at the end of the day we review our emotional responses: when were we "out of ourselves" and not fully present because of strong feelings? When did an emotional response lead to unintended consequences? Were many of these responses habitual? Eventually we seek to have these insights in the moment instead of in reflection; this helps us stay centered and present, so that we can face our lives with equanimity.

The fourth exercise urges us to find something good, true, or beautiful in any situation. So often we become focused on the negatives in our days: the whining children, the burnt meal, the rude customer at work. Challenging ourselves to guide our thinking and feeling consciously toward the positive when faced with the negative helps us be find balance in our judgments. We can learn to see the beauty in the messes the children make while playing and the strength of will in the argumentative neighbor.

The fifth exercise helps us become more open and receptive to the future and new experiences. We may find ourselves relating to our children's perspectives with scorn or antipathy: the boy who loves to hit and break things, the girl who must eat each kind of food in the meal separately. At the end of the day we can ask ourselves when did we shut down to new ideas? When did we discard someone's opinion as too far from our own? Did we experience a moment when our actual experience differed from our habitual expectations? Working in this way we can begin to work with the gift of open-heartedness that our children bring to the world, and be open to our own capacity for growth and renewal.

The last exercise is to bring the other five exercises together into our daily lives. If we practice the exercises faithfully for a time, we can begin to see them interweave and enliven us. One image is that of the five-pointed star: each point is important itself, but put together they make a radiant, living image. Over time we might find that we have become more conscious, centered, tranquil and in harmony with our surroundings. We can face our days as parents with love, positivity, openness, and objectivity, and model such behavior to our children. As Signe says at the end of her essay, parents and children "are truly on a path of mutual development: their needs for care ask us to grow, and our love and attention nourish their unfolding."

Asthma and anthroposophy

I've suffered from asthma since I was 17. Over the years I've had many trips to the ER and have gone through countless inhalers. Luckily it's never been severe, but asthma symptoms have definitely limited my activities.

Asthma is a mysterious thing. No one really knows what causes it. There are identified triggers--pollen, exercise, anxiety--but these vary from person to person. No one can really say why someone develops asthma in the first place. Tiny babies can have it; adults can also develop it as I did.

Last year I bought a DVD about the Buteyko method, also known as eucapnic breathing. I'd heard about this from friends and thought I'd give it a try, since it's completely non-invasive. Essentially, Dr. Buteyko stated that asthma sufferers overbreathe. Buteyko believed that asthma is caused by too little carbon dioxide in the lungs; CO2 regulates the ability of the body to take in oxygen, so that if CO2 levels go down, so does the amount of oxygen the blood can absorb. Seems paradoxical, but it makes sense.

The one big thing about this method is that you must always breathe through your nose. Always! Doing this automatically decreases the incoming airflow, among other things. But asthmatics are very often mouth-breathers, and it's an unconscious habit.

So, the main thing I've been doing is to try to be conscious of my breathing and keep my mouth shut! This is where the anthroposophy comes in.

Rudolf Steiner developed his "six basic exercises" to help foster consciousness and balance in our thinking, emotions, and will forces. The "will exercise" involves doing a small, unnecessary act at a certain time each day. For example, I would decide to touch my earlobe at 11:45 am daily. Choosing something insignificant takes away any chance that external influences will help me: something like feeding the cats already must happen, and something like eating a piece of chocolate has its own incentive! So I have to choose something that will require my conscious intention to remember.

I have to admit: I've never been very successful at this exercise. It's far too easy to forget after a few days, and then just give up amid all the myriad activities and distractions of life. But I have tried to use a modified version of this exercise in relation to the Buteyko method.

If I catch myself breathing through my mouth, I bring my full consciousness to it and change over to nose breathing. I try to stay conscious of my breathing for as long as possible afterwards. I then work towards some of the other Buteyko advice such as breathing fairly shallowly and relaxing.

In this way I hope to bring more consciousness to what is normally a very unconscious activity. It's not quite the will exercise, but it's what I'm able to do right now.

Something about this has been working: I've used very little asthma medication in the last year and certainly have had no crises. Have I become more conscious overall? I'll have to get back to you on that.

Chaos in Everyday Life

It seems like most of my days are spent doing housework. With four people, it's incredible how many dishes and loads of laundry pile up, not to mention cooking, sweeping, cleaning up toys, vacuuming, making beds...the list goes on.

It's a challenge not to be overwhelmed and uninspired by the endless nature of housework. But I've got a few resources to help me practically and spiritually.

The title of this post comes from a wonderful article by Linda Thomas written for Kindling, an early childhood journal from the UK, available online through the Online Waldorf Library. Linda is the manager for cleaning services at the Goetheanum, the headquarters of the General Anthroposophical Society, in Dornach, Switzerland. This is a huge building, which includes a 1000-seat auditorium. So, this woman knows about cleaning on a large scale.


The inspiration for me comes in her words about the deeper meaning of cleaning and caring for a space and its inhabitants.

"Order seems to have this special quality of merging into disorder without much effort, yet the opposite never occurs. I have to consciously intervene in order to re-establish the lost order."

Oh yes. It's as if she's in my house, after a few hours of the Huntlings playing and scattering toys about. The thing that strikes me is that creating order needs to be a conscious activity, whereas chaos can be created without much thought at all.

"When I clean, I do not simply want to remove dirt. I consciously try to create space for something new."

I've noticed that when their room is very messy, the kids have a hard time playing. It's too distracting and chaotic for them. But if we spend some time tidying up then they can begin playing again.

"If we are unable to lead the meditative, spiritual life we wish to lead, we can try to find a spiritual attitude towards everything we do in our daily lives....Often it is not the work we have done which tires us. It is the mere thought of all the things that still need to be done that really exhausts us."

This rings true for me. I've been a big-league procrastinator all my life (still haven't sent out 2006 Christmas cards, oh well) and have always felt overwhelmed and depressed by big cleaning tasks. Of course this leads to a downward spiral of bigger, more intimidating messes. I've learned to break things down into manageable bits, and usually find that I can finish the big tasks even if they looked insurmountable before I started. So I've discovered it's all in the attitude. And if I can remember that caring for my home is a loving act toward my family, then it's all the easier.

Another inspiring book is The Spiritual Tasks of the Homemaker, by Manfred Schmidt-Brabant. He looks at homemaking on an esoteric level. Just as many people believe we have guardian angels, Schmidt-Brabant talks about the elemental beings that surround us. Some of these beings are represented in the old stories of house brownies or gnomes, or in fairy tales like the Elves and the Shoemaker. While we won't actually see brownies in our homes, Schmidt-Brabant says "...the elemental world is everywhere where there are processes going on within matter." When we fail to clean a forgotten corner of the house, movement stops in that place, and the life seems drained out of it. We joke around our house that sometimes a certain shelf or corner becomes "invisible", because we've stopped paying attention to it and it's cluttered or dirty.

Schmidt-Brabant looks at the homemaker as the center of the home, the creator of the family unit. Through the work of the homemaker, the material world of the home is humanized, and therefore spiritualized. He also describes the home as the carrier of modern culture. Previously culture was shared and strengthened through geographical proximity. Now with our pluralistic societies (I'm assuming he's speaking of Western culture primarily) we no longer have this community support, and must develop our family's cultural life ourselves.

And then, there's the scarily practical, big yellow book: Home Comforts : The Art and Science of Keeping House, by Cheryl Mendelson. Scary because, while a very helpful reference book, it also includes such minutiae as three ways to fold socks; a chapter titled "Peaceful Coexistence with Microbes"; and schedules for daily, weekly, monthly, semi-annual and annual housekeeping. Oh my.

The Purpose and Meaning of Fever

"Thermoregulation and fever also have a soul-spiritual aspect....When we have a good idea or wax enthusiastic about an ideal, warmth can literally shoot into our limbs. Conversely, fear, anger or great sorrow...makes our blood "run cold."...Fever helps a child's I adapt its inherited body to its own purposes, making it a more suitable vehicle for self-expression."

-A Guide to Child Health, Michaela Gloeckler and Wolfgang Goebel

Today, SillyBilly had a blazing hot fever, diarrhea, stomach pains and vomiting. He was listless and whiny.

My first reaction is to freak out and say, GIVE ME A MAGIC DRUG TO MAKE IT ALL BETTER! I start to worry that he's too hot, that he'll have a seizure, that he has appendicitis, God knows what.

But then, being a good anthromama, I remember that fever is our friend.

I think, it's important to be calm and reassuring, which is really hard if you're freaking out. So I think to myself, I am now calm and reassuring, watch me be competent, here I go. I make SillyBilly take tiny sips of chamomile tea, I bundle him up in my bed, I help him throw up without ruining the bed, I read quietly to him, I hold his hand as he takes an unheard of morning nap.

Then when he wakes up and seems even hotter, I calmly prepare warm lemon water, soak a pair of my cotton socks in the water and wring them out, put them on SillyBilly's legs with a top coat of my wool socks, tuck him under the bedsheet and read more stories to him. I repeat this three times and then try lemon water compresses since he's complaining about the socks feeling funny.

SillyBilly keeps sipping chamomile tea with honey, and takes another afternoon nap with Papa. When he wakes up, he's talking, playing with toy cars, asking for food and feels much less hot.

TRIUMPH!

OK, so I left out the part where I frantically checked my childcare books for reference to appendicitis, intussuception, and other scary things. I left out the part in the morning where we checked him for meningitis with the "kiss your knee" test. I checked his temperature with a thermometer only once (102.5) and the rest of the time we used our hands to judge.

Now I'm wondering if he'll be different tomorrow. I have read that many people have noticed developmental changes in their children after high fevers and other serious illnesses. One thing so far is that right before bed, he spontaneously announced he had to pee, and went in the potty! Perhaps we are on the road to potty training after all.

To diaper or not to diaper, that is the question

"There is a sense of urgency about childhood - of hastening progress, of accelerating development. Is this born out of wanting the best for children or from some belief or value base which says the state of childhood is worth less than the state of adulthood and so we must do all we can to reach the day when childhood is over...But children have their own pace and while, as adults, we pursue our own (and others') time scales and agendas, we need to be mindful of the need young children have to take their time. "
-Cathy Nutbrown, from Gateways, Spring/Summer 1999

I quote this because we are in the middle of potty training SillyBilly. He is resisting it, saying vehemently that he does not want to wear underwear, he does not want to sit on the potty. He doesn't care about being a big boy, going to kindergarten, wearing big boy underpants, or any other motivational tool we tried (though we haven't tried money, he's really into coins). He also tells me directly that he still wants to be a baby.

I want to respect his feelings, but I also really want to potty train him. I know he physically can do it, and he can learn to pay attention to the physical sensations ahead of time. But am I rushing him? Is he insecure in some way that is making him need to stay in the baby state a little longer? Did our separation for the first month of his life make him more needy now?

In the anthro world we talk about the parent (particularly the mother) needing to be the "ego" for the child for the first several years, as they are too involved with forming their physical bodies to be completely present consciously. In this case, should I be the ego and state unequivocably that it's time to potty train....or should I back off and let him be a willing participant?

It seems doomed to fail, and indeed doomed to many years of psychotherapy, if I force him in this. But part of me also feels like I could be letting him down by not being the strong ego in this interaction, something I struggle with anyway.