Copyright Alan Whitehead & Earthschooling: No Part of this book, post, URL, or book excerpt may be shared with anyone who has not paid for these materials.
Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss…
DANCE OF THE DYNAMIS – CLASS 8
The Class 8 teacher was also a bee man, so it was no wonder that he was often late for the weekly teacher’s meetings; what with chasing swarms, and arranging new stories on the bee boxes. He smelt of a combination of honey sweet and pine-needle smoke.
“Sorry I’m late,” he puffed, his hair and soul in disarray “I’ve just been extracting some honey for the school fete.”
Chairperson looked stern “Hmmm, well it is Class 8 we’re discussing. Anyway you’re here now; I’ll open the discussion shall I? The children – oh dear, students – turn 14 in Class 8, a not insignificant number. 14 is 1+4, 5 – 5 is the number of the so-called Etheric Archetype of Man, symbolized by a winged human figure standing with limbs outstretched in a 5-pointed star. In fact the pentagram itself is sometimes used as a symbol for the Etheric Archetype; we see this figure representing the Gospel of Saint Matthew which, as we know, is the Christian expression of the 4th cardinal point of the zodiac.”
The athletic Class 10 teacher stopped trying to stand his pen on its end – he was always restless when he had to site for long periods. “Aquarius eh? Isn’t Class 8 the year of Aquarius in the Educational Zodiac? Let’s see, Class 1 Cancer, 2 Leo – 6, 7 Capricorn – yes it is! Class 8 is the Water-bearer – but what’s that to do with Saint Matthew?”
“I was just getting to that,” replied a slightly peeved Chairperson “Saint Matthew expresses the limbdevelopment in human evolution, that which occurred on this earth – these 14 -year-olds are certainly at sixes and sevens when it comes to limb growth; the Aquarius factor is also associated with the blood.
As we know, the teen years are a kind of recapitulation of the Ancient Moon planetary evolution, in which occurred the birth of the Astral Body, that which is happening, in a high form, to Class 8. This Moon period was a 5-fold creative process, beginning with, after the mandatory replay of Ancient Saturn and Sun, the sacrifice of the Spirits of Motion. They poured their own soul, or Astral, substance into the germinal astrality of mankind – something the same is happening with our 14-year-olds.
This soul gift expresses as a love of intelligent movement, not the semi-conscious, Mercurial kineticism of childhood, but one based on self-consciousness – and we all know how self-conscious teenagers are! These things are connected you know. Anyway they have to learn to move all over again – hence gangly.
I daresay that if they’re not provided with consistent, and hopefully creative, movement expression at this time, they’ll find it themselves – self-confidence is the big brother of self-consciousness. They might revel in the movement of running away from the police, or of kicking in phone booths – the Dance of the Delinquents!
Everyone in the room grew pensive, they have all been 14 once.
“The trouble is,” went on Bee Man quietly “that with some of my more difficult students, I really don’t likethem – they’re not people I would choose to spend time with; they’re rude, offensive, vulgar and …”
“Hold it!” said the Class 7 teacher, a softly rounded academic soul with rimless glasses perched on his nose “Next year my 13-year-olds are going to be 14 – surely they won’t be like that? Anyway one thing’s sure, there’s on success with teenagers unless they’re loved.”
“Loved!?” exclaimed Bee Man “Even their mothers don’t love them!”
“Perhaps so, but their teachers must – or they’ll do long-term psychological damage, like producing cynicism in later life. Now those bees you’re always playing around with – they’re symbols of love. Indeed an excellent meditation is to empty one’s mind and concentrate on a hive of bees. Think away the individual insects, and what then appears is a glowing vision of pure love.
The same can be done with the hateful or difficult 14-year-old. In the privacy of your ‘closet’, to use a New Testament term for meditation, concentrate on the individuality of the person in question – not the external trappings and anti-social behavior, but the core of gold. When this is perceived, a tide of the most sublime love will wash across the soul, transforming a negative to a positive attitude. The student in time will sense this change and behave accordingly.”
“Oh, I thought you meant by love the usual mindless saccharine variety. It seems that this ‘vision splendid’ of the individual would be a kind of Ganymede figure. You know, in the Greek legend – Ganymede was a 14-year-old boy, and the most beautiful of mortals (hard to believe), anyway Zeus thought that the comely boy was too good for this earth, and had his eagle – symbol of thought – kidnap him and deliver the terrified youth to Mount Olympus. Ganymede there became the Cupbearer of the Gods – the Water bearer, Aquarius!
In some ways this story is a depiction of the rites-of-passage of 14-year-olds; in though at least they are transported into a higher realm than the relative simplicity of childhood – and we have to meet that thought need. The conceptual adventures we take them on is their Mount Olympus – for the time being anyway.”
“Yes,” began Kindergarten softly “this rite-of-passage seems to be proclaimed to the world through speech as well. The Dynamis are, in a higher Christian sense, the forces of Mars – and Mars is the Regent of Speech. Martian types are orators – look at the Romans, and that diminutive dictator, Hitler. He could sway thousands at his vast rallies just with the power of oratory, not content mind, just oratory – and Churchill…Anyway I’ve observed that, when 14-year-olds are expressing their becoming speech faculties artistically, they are far less likely to descent into the nether regions of adolescent after-dark adventures. I suggest lots of speech work; poetry, public speaking, plays, recitation and declamation – all be included in a Class 8 program. I know these young people drive their parents crazy with their verbal fencing – usually there is a Martian tone to the discourse – an adversarial challenge even. Some parents reject their vociferous offspring outright ‘I just can’t talk to you anymore!’ they say, ‘You were much more sensible (gullible?) as a child.’
If rejection occurs, the parent can expect shoals ahead. Oh, and teachers should engage the kids with good-humored sparing, not oppression.”
Athletic returned from making a cup of coffee “But why do these teenagers so often slip into such offensive speech habits, when they spoke so well as children?”
Prim looked up from a drawing she was working on “Time’s precious,” she would say “I’ve got to get my lesson preparation done sometime. Anyhow, I can assure you that these are not speech ‘habits’, formed from long use; but a pretension for acceptance by the peer group, and also of making speech their very own, instead of merely an inherited characteristic.
Yu know that at 14, there is considerable activity down…there.” She glanced involuntarily at Athletic’s tight, white jeans, then at his tiny smile and blushed.
“You mean the maturity of the sex organs? In boys the ejaculation ammo chambers, the testicles.” Athletic was enjoying Prim’s discomfort.
“I er, wouldn’t put it so graphically, but yes. ‘Testicle’ is akin to the word testament – to speak. Not surprising then that when it does occur, there is a corresponding voice change – and that’s when the new speech inflections appear.
The task of the modern 14-year-old is to wrest the speech faculty from the folk soul, and make it his, or her, own. You don’t have to worry, the fine speech learnt as a child (assuming this to be so) returns in about two years – returns from its immortal dwelling place in the Etheric body. The suffering parent simply has to wait it out – supposition is just what the youngster wants! This is a Mars phenomenon remember. Naturally this speech reclamation is easier if the student has an artistic and intelligent language program at school – including movement of course – in a higher sense, speech and movement are one.”
Chairperson looked longingly at Athletic’s coffee, but went on bravely. “This Ancient Moon contribution of the Dynamis, or Mars Beings, created in the soul of Man the capacity for Sympathy and Antipathy. One can really observe this in the first year of adolescence – wishy-washy they are not! Both boys and girls suddenly like and dislike with a passion – food, people, school subjects…teachers!
It’s a kind of Moon/mars polarity – after all, the planet Mars is the detritus of the Old Moon; we see this polarity – sympathy with Moon, antipathy with Mars – in the student’s everyday demeanor. One can also see it in the two speech extremes of young adolescents – the verbal athlete, and the inhibited speech cripple.
It is the teacher’s task to provide vehicles of expression for the speech-active teenager, and encourage the tight-lip to open up. ‘We know you’re in there Big Al!’ we might call in to this hidden treasure – humor is an essential tool for high school teachers.”
Class 8 was taking notes “Let’s see,” he said “I’ll have a unit on the history of dance – and we’ll have a disco as well. I’ll let the students do most of the arranging; then they’ll have a performance-based Eurythmy unit – the most sublime movement activity of all, touching as it does, the deepest recesses of the newly-emerging soul. And I’ll have seven different sports this year, calling on each of the seven bodily ‘systems’. Let’s see; field gymnastics for the muscular system, snooker for the nerve/senses system…anyway I’ll work that out later.
Of course we’ll have an end-of-year play where every student has an important speaking role – in fact I might cast myself in the play, just to make sure of their commitment to the content ha, ha – which of course we’ll write in a workshop-type activity. And then…”
“Yes, well I don’t think this meeting’s the place to design your program – but keep up the speech work;” Chairman interrupted “that might counteract the bad-language muscles some of your young charges are sure to be flexing. Many adults become tolerant of profanity with teenagers, but we must present a better picture – a kind of lexiconic lifeline of imagination to guide them through this. A swearing teacher is like a blind man leading them across the freeway. Insist that swearing is the least imaginative form of expression, a gutter-mouth is proving, not how tough he is, but that he’s a dill…”
Just then, one of Bee Man’s little winged friends flew in looking for her mentor; instead she found the exposed neck of Chairperson, a neck red with self-righteous animus, he was still fulminating about bad language in high school when, after facilitating a perfect landing, the little bee realized that this overheated swearing-crusader needed an injection of Love, so in true sacrificial spirit, she stung him!
“YOW!! You little X&*(($$#@!” he roared.
“I don’t think That’s a shining example of speech for our children.” Sniffed Prim.
“I’m glad I didn’t hear that,” added Kindergarten, looking abstractly out the window “I can’t go to class with those kinds of images in my mind.”
“Hmmm, a honey been eh? Mellifluous means ‘honey-voiced’ – a far cry, or should that be ‘buzz’, ha, ha, ha, from that outburst.” Said Athletic, struggling hot to enjoy chairperson’s mishap too much.
“I don’t think you’re a fit person to advise us on these matters if you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head!” Academic snapped, his glasses slipping down his nose.
Chairperson’s neck was even redder than before; he glared at the disapproving assembly “Lucky we have our meetings on Thursday – Jupiter – or Wisdom – Day, because if it were Tuesday – Mars Day, I’d sure as hell give you all a piece of my mind!”
“…and then we could have an afternoon Block Lesson on Jazz Ballet,” mumbled Bee Man, the Class 8 teacher, scribbling furiously; he’d ignored the whole unseemly incident – after all, it was only a little bee sting.
Leave a Reply