A Weekend of Connection

My weekend was truly one of connection and gifts received. After a day of munching on cinnamon rolls and a grilled feast, my family and I ended our day beside the creek, where my sons practiced their "fishing" and caught several "whoppers."

We watched in awed silence as the last light of the day caught the barn swallows as they swooped above the water catching bugs for their dinner feast. They dove down to the creek in swift arcs, skimming the water's surface. Then they launched themselves upwards and began the dance again, their scissor tails silhouetted against the sky.

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I also want to share another weekend experience of connecting with a slightly larger group. On Friday and Saturday I attended a lecture and workshop given by Gene Campbell, a former Waldorf teacher. Campbell spoke on the topic of "Raising Loving Children."

Campbell is a down-to-earth speaker, and she emphasized the importance of establishing "loving authority" over our children: setting boundaries that cannot be crossed and enforcing family rules and responsibilities consistently and without anger. She observed that modern society seems to put control into the hands of children rather than parents, and this ends up just confusing children who are developmentally unprepared to handle such choices.

I went home late that night to find the kids still awake, and I immediately put Campbell's suggestions into action: those kids were in bed in record time!

Saturday's workshop was informative and challenging. It shifted the focus from the child to adult cognitive and emotional development. I know that I often focus on my children's emotional development without much thought to how my own development affects how I parent. We used movement exercises and music to identify our own emotional strengths and challenges.

We started out the day by moving together as a group. We formed a circle and moved towards each other and back out again. This simple exercise helped us to connect with each other as a group.

Then we worked on simple individual movements. I tend to carry stress in my body, especially in my shoulders and lower back, so I know how emotions can play out physically. We loosened up by feeling how our feet connect with the ground. We were encouraged to then let our heels carry our weight, our shoulders relax, and our abdominal region settle into a centered position. I could immediately feel a difference in how I carried myself and a welcoming release of tension. One point that Campbell made hit very close to home for me. She pointed out that if we consistently hunch our shoulders or carry them in a strained way, we are blocking the circulation to our arms and to our hands, the center of our creativity. How I carry myself physically is essentially blocking my creativity!

Another simple movement exercise involved moving our bodies in different "planes": up and down, forward and backwards, side to side. The movements looked a bit like the smooth flow of Tai Chi.

Campbell suggested that the forward and backward movements can be seen as a metaphor for our past, present, and future. She held her hands up beside her head, forming an imaginary plane separating front and back. In back of us, she explained, lie our past experiences. In front of us are our present and future. We can selectively pull wisdom from our past, like plucking fruit from a tree, to inform our present and future development. But if we allow past experiences to puncture that imaginary plane and intrude on our present, they effectively limit our vision of the present and our imagination for our future path. I know that I often let sad memories from my past weight me down, and I can see how effective it would be to bat those feelings away and put them back behind me where they belong.

We then explored how movement, music, and touch can be incorporated into our parenting. Kundry Wilwerth, a former Waldorf teacher, puppeteer, and an absolute Living Treasure of songs, presented simple, poetic songs and finger games to play with our children. Wilwerth and her husband Lyn Wilwerth and son have translated the work of Wilma Ellersiek from German into English. Ellersiek was a Waldorf educator in Germany who developed games in the 1960s that captured the innocence of childhood. They were a conscious attempt to resist the increasing academic demands on the very young child.

The songs were absolutely enchanting and so engaging to perform. The words and concepts presented were rooted in nature and in the everyday activities of children around the home. They presented challenging vocabulary in a concrete way. For example, one line ended with the word "repose," and the song had the children bow their heads like a flower drooping down to rest for the night. Another song worked with the hands. Each hand became a fist with a different name, and they wound wool yarn into an "enormous" ball, complete with arms circling a huge sphere.

Ellersiek's touch games allow parents to teach the very young child and transfer their love through song and touch. One song started out on the toes ("Mama me, mama mo, . . . the great big toe") and ended with a "great big hug." I had the privilege to try out this song with Lyn Wilwerth himself, and it was a very special moment of connection for me. I can see how powerful this game would be between a parent and child. The Wilwerths' translation of Ellersiek's songs can be ordered through WECAN (Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America) Books.

After lunch came the most challenging exercise for non-musical me: learning to play the recorder, an important instrument in a child's early music education in the Waldorf schools. Campbell taught this exercise not so much as a musical experience but as a lesson in creating a loving, supportive group environment. As each of us learned the notes and how to create a pleasing sound on the recorder, we listened attentively to each other and tried to create one "crystal" gift of sound in the middle of the circle. Then, as each person individually presented a simple group of notes as a gift to the group, we focused our loving attention on listening to that performer and receiving this gift of sound. No matter where we were on the learning curve, each of us presented what we could to the group.

The recorder session was also a lesson in self-awareness: how we responded to the challenge revealed something about ourselves. For me, it was a real challenge to put myself out there in front of the group and try something new and difficult in a way that expressed something of myself. However, Campbell's guidance had in fact helped create a circle of trust where judgment had been suspended.

It was a tiring and emotional couple of days for me, but it was an essential exercise in stretching myself as a parent and as part of a larger community. It reinforced my growing sense that the body is an essential component of learning, creating, and loving. For myself, I know that I have a lot of work to do in this area so that I can be a healthier person and parent. In the meantime, though, along my developmental path I also have the responsibility to share my gifts, meager though they may be, with my children and my community. This blog post is a start in that direction, and I welcome any feedback and guidance along this path.