On Friday at 7.15, we got a call from our son’s school: “We’re closed today due to the expected weather, with increasing rain and storms”. My 10th grader who just got out of bed did not look disappointed at all when I told him the news. And me being a Swede about it, thinking to myself, if this weather is a reason for closing schools, our Swedish ones would only be operating occasionally.
I also got a call from my Mama in Stockholm, with questions of concern: “How’s it going, are you alright?” The heavy rain in California had made it all the way to prime time news in Sweden. This made me remember those mornings when driving to work first required you to locate your car somewhere under the snow masses, and then you could start digging. True story, not alternative facts, very very true! Tremendous snow masses, tremendous!
While my son snuggled back to bed, I drove up to Altadena and Village Playgarden, the Waldorf-inspired kindergarten where I sometimes work as a substitute teacher for the little ones. Once a week I also teach a music/singing/movement class up here with a homeschooling teenager group called “Arising”. Lucky me who is a part of this great community.
“At Village Playgarden we seek to support reverence in our lives, reverence for self, parents, teachers, peers, animals, nature. We believe that children learn most through imitation, and reverence is taught by positive modeling, action, and gentle guidance or suggestions from the teachers and caregivers, not by insisting that children say or do certain things”.
This is a quote from their website, but it’s not just a fancy slogan, I see everyone at Village Playgarden work with the children just as described above. This atmosphere of reverence was for sure one of the things that made me fall in love with Waldorf pedagogy in the first place.
Affirmation of the week: I Have Infinite Potential
“Waldorf Education is not a pedagogical system, but an art, the art of awakening what is actually there within the human being”. Rudolf Steiner, who is the Papa of Waldorf, believed that every student had within them a potential to change the world in a positive way.
After my 4 years of Waldorf teacher training, where I had the privilege to getting to work with my hands in all imaginable kinds of ways, I also started to see this potential. I could see it in my children and in my young students and I slowly started to see it in myself. That I too, had lots of potentials. I was capable.
I guess in a way, we can say that this reminder is from Rudolf Steiner who wants you to know that you have lots of potential too, in case you forgot it. You have infinite potential. And once we discover and acknowledge our potential, I'm pretty sure he wants us all to use it to make this world a better place. Now is the time.
And if you still don't believe you have all this potential, use the affirmation I HAVE INFINITE POTENTIAL and repeat it frequently, with confidence and conviction, until you get the message that the Universe is Infinite, and so are You. Brought to you by Dr Steiner.
Sunday love from Echo Park
/Maria
