Letter from the President
Dear Colleagues,
Resounding good wishes to all as this 2018-19 school year comes to a close.
In this issue of the AHE Journal, we appreciate contributions on the importance of working with the Archetypes as described by Joep Eikenboom, the inspiration regarding Breathing and Movement from Barbara Bresette-Mills and developing a deeper insight in relation to work with traumatized children as presented from a workshop led by Mary Jo Oresti and reported by Margaret Runyon.
As we near the Festival of St. John’s, we observe the children coming alive in their senses as the growing sunlight, air and warmth bring them joy. They are most happy being outdoors playing in the sand, water and blossoming world. Indoor activities, if centered around painting, can be quite helpful to unite their astral and etheric sheaths in a harmonious way. For the young and older child as well, the color magenta is particularly wholesome to experience as the color flows onto wet paper. The greens, yellows and cobalt blue are soothing and enlivening in this season. It is our challenge to both honor this time of year and learn how we may protect the children from the fierce rays of sunlight as the children feel this mighty power and are called to excarnate. Watercolor painting provides a method in how to shepherd that experience with grace and awareness. We’ve just had a visit from Martha Loving, painting therapist, at our school (Austin Waldorf School) who worked with many children and the faculty using these nurturing spring/summer colors.
We are happy to bring you this latest edition of the Journal and thank the contributors for their insight on these topics. Enjoy!
Kind regards,
Betty Jane Enno
President
Association for a Healing Education
Archetypal Quality of Audrey McAllen’s ‘The Extra Lesson’
by Joep Eikenboom
Audrey McAllen, in her book the Extra Lesson, only published those exercises with an archetypal quality, so that these exercises can be used for all children and are not depending on the individual spiritual relationship between teacher and child. The exercises are developed according the neurological and movement development of the child, and based on the movement patterns in the human being and the planet earth, as Rudolf Steiner has described in the ‘1909 Lectures’ .1
In those lectures, Rudolf Steiner gave the foundation for Anthroposophy by speaking of the spiritual background of the human sense organization and the spiritual forces that created the human body and the planet earth.
Additionally, in other work areas inspired by anthroposophical knowledge, Steiner gave impulses with an archetypal character. For the Biodynamic agriculture in his “Agricultural Course” Steiner prescribed nine different preparations to aid fertilization. He described how these were to be prepared. These preparations themselves were not meant to be the fertilizer, but the preparations mediate between terrestrial and cosmic forces into the soil. Yarrow blossoms, chamomile blossoms, stinging nettle, oak bark, dandelion flowers, valerian flowers and horsetail all prepared according certain guidelines, are added to the compost heap. When you add these preparations to the compost, they give the manure an archetypal and cosmic dynamic, so that the plants in the field and the planet earth itself can receive healing impulses from the cosmos.
For anthroposophical medicines Dr. Steiner along with Ita Wegman developed several medications, that in the Weleda range got the addition ‘Doron’ to their name. Doron comes from the Latin and literally means gift or given. They are medicines which Rudolf Steiner says are outright inspirations from the spiritual world. Steiner and Ita Wegman themselves describe Biodoron in their book, A Medication for Migraine. It contains a combination of iron, silica and sulfur, that intensify the activity of the nerve sense system, giving a better direction to the rhythmical activity in the metabolism, and limiting the pure vital metabolic activity and bringing that under the control of the Ego.
Other medications are Cardiodoron for the heart, Anaemodoron for absorption of iron in the blood, Choleodoron for the bile, and Hepatodoron for the liver. These typical medications have the intention to offer the organism an objective image of how the relevant organ should function according the laws of the planets and the cosmos. A cosmic archetype is offered so that the organism can focus on that, or not.
Now one can ask oneself: ‘What is the archetype that we offer our pupils or students with the Extra Lesson?’, and, ‘What is Steiner pointing at when he gives his diagram in the 1909 lecture?’
In the Hebrew esoteric tradition of the Kabbalah, creation started with Adam Kadmon. As we know from the bible book Genesis II, the human being Adam is still male and female. Likewise, the Chinese mythology speaks of the godhead Pangu. In the Northern mythology, story telling in grade 4, the creation of the world starts with the giant Ymir, who is defeated by Odin (Wodan) and his brothers. Ymir’s skull became the sky, his flesh became the earth, his hair became the trees, his eyebrows the bushes, his blood became the rivers, seas and oceans. The creation of the earth planet and the architectural form of the human being, as a result of previous planetary stages of development and evolution, is what Steiner shared in his lecture and diagrams in 1909. And Steiner himself used the same insights when he made the sketches for the first Goetheanum.
This lecture series is what inspired Audrey McAllen after the well known Anthroposophical Medical School Doctor, Norbert Glas, had asked her to work and help the children and students of the Wynstones Steiner Waldorf School in Stroud (UK). Norbert Glas himself couldn’t find any constitutional, medical or psychological reason that could possibly cause the problems these students had in learning to read and write, or in doing math.
At the start of the earth’s creation in the archetype of a three-dimensional planetary stage, including the spiritual image of the human being, all existed as an imagination, inspiration, and intuition of the gods. As was told in the Northern mythology, this image was condensed. Likewise the Hebrew heritage gave us the image of the Fall out of Paradise, caused by the influence of adversary powers. First the separation of the sexes and then the eating the apple, the soul-spirit of the human being was embodied more deeply, and with that the animal kingdom, plant kingdom, and concrete physical matter arose. The pure spiritual archetype of the human being was damaged, for it had to it had to absorb too much matter. A false I was implanted in the soul, which is the cause of suffering, illness, and finally death.
At the Mystery of Golgotha the archetypal image was rescued, so that the meaning of the entire earth development and human development would not be lost. The body that rose from the grave at the resurrection was the archetype of man rescued from the hands of the dead. The body was wrested from the death of matter by His divine light of spirit. Since that time the Christ Being is the Lord of the heavenly forces upon earth. He rescued the work of creation, which we name Father God, and through Him the healing Spirit can work.
Working with the children and students with the exercises that, like those in the Extra Lesson, are related to the archetypal spiritual image of the human being, we offer their souls the possibility to connect with the Spiritual Being of the earth, which is the same being that gave back the meaning of existence to the earth and the people living upon her.
Audrey McAllen’s words in a message to Extra Lesson practitioners:
The Extra Lesson directly addresses the evolutionary aspects of the human being during the Old Saturn, Old Sun, and Old Moon stages, which are mirrored in the first seven years of the child’s development. These first seven years are the basis for the birth of the Ego as a spiritual member within the Consciousness Soul between ages thirty-five and forty-two.
It is an objective factor highlighting the importance of the child’s development and is a concern of the Spirit.
In the case of the child with a specific pedagogical problem, one is concerned with the Ego that has been sucked, in the Earth period, into the astral body (the “Fall”) and the personal problem that the Soul is struggling with in this incarnation.
Each Extra Lesson exercise addresses the objective factor of the evolutionary development. To adapt and Extra Lesson exercises to meet the Soul needs of a particular child contradicts the purpose of the Extra Lesson exercises and weakens its effects and could even consolidate what is already a deficiency.
ALL the Extra Lesson exercises form a UNITY; not only reflecting the connection of the Human Being and the Cosmos, but his integration with the Super sensible Members of the Earth Planet. This is the reason for the effectiveness of Extra Lesson, and its effects should not be weakened by exercises from other disciplines that could cause confusion of the Soul in sleep.
Audrey McAllen was pointing at people that use random exercises they find, often in main stream approaches – Davis method, Brain Gym, Yoga etc. The Extra Lesson concept is part of Waldorf Education and developed from anthroposophy. Teachers should be conscious of the working of the exercises they use, and similarly, they should have an idea of the effects of the different subjects on the super sensible organization of the students. (See Balance in Teaching)
Audrey pointed out the difference between structural and constitutional. She advises, for example, not to have Extra Lesson and Curative Eurythmy during the same term.
One often can find good exercises in other approaches, but we always must check them in relation to the 1909 currents, and the hierarchical developmental stages, because there is where the Angels, etc. can support the work. Therefore, we need to share with colleagues, and study the backgrounds.
We have the responsibility towards the spiritual world, and towards the souls and spirits of the students that come to us. We cannot sell them stones for bread.
Joep Eikenboom
The Netherlands
1A Psychology of Body, Soul, and Spirit Anthroposophy, Psychosophy, Pneumatosophy (CW 115)
Joep Eikenboom has been a Waldorf class teacher in the Netherlands since 1980 and has worked with the Extra Lesson exercises since 1984. He has researched the root of these exercises in the work of Rudolf Steiner consulting extensively with Audrey McAllen, Liane Collot d’Herbois, and other educational support teachers. He has published his findings in Foundations of the Extra Lesson. Joep serves on the Advisory Board for AHE and will share his insights on The Deeper Aspects of the Extra Lesson at our Module 12 and Graduate Seminar in July of 2021.
Breathing as Inspiration
by Barbara Bressette-Mills
As the next season comes upon us we prepare to ‘breathe out’ into the summer months. These fluctuations of seasons, of activity/rest, expansion/contraction, waking and sleeping are all processes in the realm of breathing.
“Amongst all the relationships which man has to the external world, the most important of all is breathing.” R. Steiner GA293, lecture 1
This may seem like such an obvious assertion – of course we need to breathe to stay alive. Yet the metaphor of breathing can underlie many life situations. One thing implied is the involvement of movement, of exchange, of working between.
As the next season comes upon us we prepare to ‘breathe out’ into the summer months. These fluctuations of seasons, of activity/rest, expansion/contraction, waking and sleeping are all processes in the realm of breathing.
“Amongst all the relationships which man has to the external world, the most important of all is breathing.” R. Steiner GA293, lecture 1
This may seem like such an obvious assertion – of course we need to breathe to stay alive. Yet the metaphor of breathing can underlie many life situations. One thing implied is the involvement of movement, of exchange, of working between.
Recently, I was readying for my Kindergarten eurythmy session in a small office space, separated from the classroom by cubby porch/coatroom. The class was already gathered in their room but I could hear that out on the porch one child had just arrived and was having difficulty leaving her mother. Mom had to leave and was urging the child to just go in. She’d repeatedly open the kindergarten door, whisper to her child, give a nudge but the child would whine and cling. Then she’d close the door again to speak more strongly. After two or three times I could sense the tension increasing. I imagine as teachers we’ve all experienced these moments.
Once I was ready, I wondered if there was a way to alleviate the situation. Sometimes that can be a delicate moment. Do I wait for them to work it out? Do I go out and thus interrupt? Do I intervene? As of this moment they did not even know I could hear them. But being as it was near time for my lesson – I went out , and quietly stood to the side.
But then, literally, a ‘space’ opened as mom separated a bit from the clinging child to say something. Stepping forward, I addressed mom and asked the child, “Would you like to go in with me when the time comes?” Mom looked relieved as the child nodded her head yes.
On one level this is just a random situation to be dealt with, but in the moment, noticing the opening, I felt that I could be a bridge between two forces not able to resolve. It was also an opportunity to enable the child to take an action to balance out her own ‘either/or’ moment. It was a stuck situation, tense, no movement was occurring. The third element of space or exchange was essential.
Our constant condition of existence is that of balancing between polarities. This necessitates movement, a movement between. The space of the in-between: of the transition; the change of direction; of the vortex; is the vital element. This is where an awakening can happen, where the enlivening occurs, where a new element can come in. This is where the ego enters.
We know from Rudolf Steiner’s first lecture in The Foundation of Human Experience (GA 293) how he stresses the importance of ‘teaching the child to breathe rightly.’ Relatedly he speaks of how the child needs to find the “right rhythm in the alternation of sleeping and waking” also a breathing experience of letting go and taking in every night and day. As educators and support teachers we are clearly being given the task to enable the child to connect with the earth and to reconnect with her/his spiritual nature. Breathing is not only enabling us to take in the physical world around us but also to reconnect with our spiritual nature.
The greater theme of breathing I revisit often. It’s become a sort of ‘mustard seed’ that keeps generating and inspiring my work. Another source of inspiration that I regularly return to is the zodiac circle of eurythmy gestures.
In its wholeness, the entire zodiac gives a picture of the human being and the relationship to the cosmos. In its parts we have the twelve separate positions around the circle. But there is always the counter image reflecting and working in conjunction from across the circle. Amid the eleven still(quiet) positions, there is one position that is in constant movement: the gesture for Aquarius. With both arms fully extended in front, one more above, the other below, one alternates them gently up and down, finding the balancing point only briefly in the passing.
It’s a beautiful archetype to carry as an imagination and as inspiration for our work.
We are not fixed in one polarity or the other, nor are we static in the place of equilibrium, but we are in the movement, the activity of balancing and harmonizing.
“ This is a great secret; all the healing forces lie originally in the breathing system; whosoever really understands the whole circuit of the breath, knows from this study of man the healing forces. The healing forces do not lie in any other system. . . There, just in the breathing system, lies a mysterious web of healing, and all the secrets of healing are at the same time secrets of breathing.”
from – The Four Seasons and the Archangels, Rudolf Steiner GA 229 lecture V
Responding to Anxiety at School
Seeking Balance in an Anxious World
AWSNA SE Regional Conference
March 15-16, Emerson Waldorf School, Chapel Hill, NC
By Margaret Runyon
Over 100 teachers and staff members of Waldorf Schools from Baltimore to Cincinnati, from Puerto Rico to New Orleans, gathered on the Ides of March(!) to examine the growing phenomenon of childhood anxiety and how we can support children in our classrooms who suffer with anxiety and trauma. The beautiful wooded grounds and buildings of Emerson Waldorf School provided a soothing venue for delving into this pressing topic.
A string quartet of Emerson high school students welcomed us into the lecture hall for Friday evening’s keynote address by Dr. Daniel Nelson, director of the inpatient child psychiatric unit at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (and Waldorf parent).
In his talk, Dr. Nelson, who also works and trains onsite in post-disaster and school crisis situations, noted how events that may present as negative may also be the source of something rich and beautiful, emphasizing the therapeutic narrative—storytelling. What Dr. Nelson brought was more from a counseling perspective, but much of it was relevant to the classroom such as the importance of the breathing quality (inspiration/expiration) of therapeutic interactions. He advocated for schools as sanctuaries, places of support, nurture, guidance, creative practice, and trusting relationships.
We began Saturday morning with a song, led by Emerson Waldorf music teacher, Jason Child, who also serves as SE Regional Leadership Council member of AWSNA.
Mary Jo Oresti then gave the keynote for the day, bringing stories and wisdom from her 35 years at Detroit Waldorf School and with AHE. This was information all immediately useful and essential for teachers.
Mary Jo urged us to approach taking care of the students by starting with the physical and energetic environment of the classroom. She described the archetypal development of the physical/etheric, and how the astral and ego require proper integration into physical and etheric in order for the child to be present on earth in a meaningful way. Ensuring that integration of the sheaths is the core of Waldorf remedial education, the teacher addresses healing the interruptions to proper development that have manifested through trauma and other challenges.
Citing Rudolf Steiner, Henning Koehler, and Christof Wiechert, Mary Jo talked about the deeper objectives of Waldorf education, the challenges of working with anxious, nervous, and depressed children, and how we help our students develop grit and resilience. Nourishing the lower senses, especially the life sense and the sense of touch help to strengthen resilience. In closing with Steiner’s Pedagogical Law, she brought it all back to how adults may best be truly present for the child, and accompany them through their developmental stages.
Morning workshops included;
Moving through Anxiety and Fear
The Hopester Guide to Mental Health from Crisis to Recovery – A Family Perspective
Eurythmy: Soul-Balancing Exercises for the Health of the Teacher
and Mary Jo Oresti’s follow-up to the morning talk
Following a delicious catered lunch in the spring sunshine, afternoon workshops offered included;
Cultivating Healthy Relationships
Alexander Technique—Using the Body to Calm the Mind
Anxiety in the Classroom
The Four Archangels, the Etheric Body, and Anxiety
Anxiety and Trauma amid Natural Disaster: The Story of One Schools Journey toward Recovery
In the closing plenum, all presenters gave a brief synopsis of their workshop and took questions.The conference ended at 4:00 Saturday, which gave those who had driven a chance to get home (or at least a good start) yet that evening, though it did shorten our time for free conversation.
WEF Grants Available
Dear Friends,
Do you think your school would benefit from workshops with Educational Support themes? AHE can offer free workshops through a grant. Each school receives two one-day workshops for the full faculty and neighboring schools. Topics include: The Child of Today; Stress and Trauma; Child Study; Working With Adolescents; Working Memory; Games for Developmental Stages and Extra Lesson Introduction and more.
These workshops have been very successful and have sparked many school faculties to expand and deepen their views on behavior and learning.
Many of our speakers and consultants can travel to other areas of the country for school visits, education programs and workshops. A number of them work internationally in teacher development programs. AHE, over the last 30 years, has helped schools:
Establish Care Groups and Educational Support Programs,
Refine Child Study processes,
Assist in strengthening work in the high school,
Guide teachers in understanding the child of today and remediation,
Improve methods for teaching to various learning styles in early childhood, elementary and high school,
Present workshops on classroom movement, including early childhood,
Address issues such as trauma, removing hindrances and alternative healing methods,
Strengthen teaching through nourishing the teacher,
Assist schools with intake procedures,
Introducing schools to group work with Extra Lesson.
For more information please visit our website – www.healingeducation.org to fill out an application form.
Please Join us in Welcoming our New AHE Board Member Barbara Bresette-Mills
Barbara Bresette-Mills, a eurythmist since 1991, has been active as a performer, teacher and therapist.
Currently teaching at the Austin Waldorf School, she also works with local homeschooling groups and various adult education initiatives, including the new Lifeways Program in Oklahoma.
In 2007 Barbara completed her therapeutic eurythmy training in Copake, NY through the Therapeutic Eurythmy Training of North America (TETNA) and offers private eurythmy therapy sessions for children and adults. Trained in additional eurythmy therapy focusing on eye conditions she recently brought those insights to the latest group of graduating therapists.
She was a member and co-founder of both the Austin Eurythmy Ensemble and Chaparral Eurythmy, performing locally and nationwide.
Barbara has been a board member for both the Association for Therapeutic Eurythmy in North America (ATHENA) and the Association for Anthroposophic Medicine and Therapies in America (AAMTA.)
PLACE PICTURE OF WORKSHOP SEMINARS HERE
Meet Several of our AHE Advisory Board Members
Additional members to be featured in the Winter newsletter
Melanie Reiser is the Executive Director, Membership for the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA). In this role she oversees membership processes for schools and institutes with special attention to ensuring that the foundational philosophy of Waldorf Education, anthroposophy, informs each institution’s whole environment. Melanie received her B.A. from the University of Virginia and her M.A. in Elementary Education from Antioch New England Graduate School and her Ph.D. from the University of Denver in Curriculum and Instruction. Prior to her current role with AWSNA Melanie worked in outreach and enrollment at several Waldorf schools and as a class teacher at the Detroit Waldorf School for 8 years, completing one cycle with a group of students from grades 1-8. During her time in Waldorf schools she held various leadership positions, including faculty chair, and served on a wide range of committees—from finances to personnel. She also worked as a systems engineer for automotive clients prior to her work in Waldorf education.
Melanie Reiser, PhD – Executive Director,
Membership Association of Waldorf Schools of North America
mreiser@awsna.org | WaldorfEducation.org
Since 1993, Jeff Tunkey has been a teacher of both Physical Education and Extra Lesson at Aurora Waldorf School, near Buffalo, NY, as well as the school’s Educational Support Team Coordinator. A graduate of the Spacial Dynamics 5-year Inservice training, Jeff is also one of the lead instructors for the Remedial Teacher Development program provided by the Association for a Healing Education (AHE). Through AHE and funding from AWSNA Jeff has visited and provided professional development workshops at about 20 other Waldorf Schools. He also provided a week-long session for the Renewal Courses in Antioch in the summer of 2018.
During the past decade Jeff has organized and taught a week-long developmental intensive in Western New York attended by a total of almost 100 Waldorf teachers from as far away as Manila in the Philippines.
The general goals of these courses and workshops are to (a) provide insights and practical activities for strengthening a teacher’s implementation of the foundations of Waldorf education, and understanding of student development in the lower grades; (b) to promote an objective and accessible approach to strengthening the whole class through observation, movement, drawing and painting exercises based on The Extra Lesson, spatial dynamics, and other anthroposophic sources; and (c) to help build bridges to modern pedagogical and physiologic research that parallels the spiritual scientific foundations Rudolf Steiner offered – a century ahead of his time.
For more information please go to www.movementforchildhood.com
OUR MISSION STATEMENT
- To bridge the expertise between the medical profession, art therapists,
and remedial professionals
in the service of healing. - To foster remedial education with the pedagogical principles of Waldorf Education.
- To deepen and further
the study of human development as described
by Rudolf Steiner and to incorporate appropriate modalities of mainstream methodologies. - To facilitate cooperation
and exchange between therapeutic educators, classroom teachers,
caregivers, parents and individuals trained in
curative education.
WHO WE ARE
For over thirty years, the Association for a Healing Education has served as an agent of change in the culture of education for children with individual needs. It has acted as a “listening ear” to the needs and questions of classroom teachers, parents and therapists who are involved with providing care for the child of today. Our main work is with children in regular classrooms who, faced with the challenges of their destiny and the world environment, often require some help for a time. Our intent is to help caregivers provide right practices in education, therapy and medicine through a deeper understanding of child development and hindrances to that development. We also serve as a bridge to the Camphill movement for Curative Education.