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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…
THE SINGING LAND
Sound Stories – Class 4 – Main Lesson
This can be reviewed later in your acoustics block in 7th or 8th grade…
An exploding volcano is the loudest sound known on earth. When Krakatoa (a nice ‘sound’ word) erupted in Indonesia in the 19th Century, it was heard in Sydney. This is not a bad image with which to open the Class 4 Sound Stories and Studies main lesson.
It is the Will unit in the 3-fold Science stream – that of the Physical Sciences – the feeling and thinking main lessons are the Life and Human sciences respectively. Collectively the Sciences are the Physical Body main lesson of the 4 main lesson streams. This physical body has a physiognomic focus down the center bank (longitudinally) of the head. The Physics/Will lesson further focuses on the lower third of this bank; form the mouth to the larynx. How appropriate then for a lesson on sound, where the supersensible receptive area of the child is its very own sound-producing mechanism. But back to the lesson.
A good division of sound for our incipient scientific exploration is the 4 Kingdoms; Krakatoa is a phonic expression of the mineral kingdom – phonic? This lesson is great for vocabulary extension, through ‘sound’ spelling lists and the like: symphony; sonority; vox; vocal; chord; cacophony; purr; pandemonium – even if it means ‘house of all demons’!
Other mineral kingdom sounds are: crashing waves; sighing winds; bubbling brooks; thunder; and even the hiss of an aurora. All musical instruments are essentially mineral-kingdom creations. A feature of ‘mineral’ sound is its beauty or grandeur. The ring of cracking ice of the polar regions in the Spring melt is a sustained, grinding, crackling, moaning, roar.
The children love to add to the 3 lists of the 4 kingdom sounds – this is true ‘discovery’ education. 3 lists only? The second kingdom, the Plants, is a world of almost total silence That is unless a plant is externally excited.
About the only sound plants make is when fire pops open seed pods in sandstone country. The true home of plants is the Sun; a world of clairaudience, or spiritual sound. Each rose and rockmelon was created by this supersensible tone world, but must remain silent on the earthly plane. On the Sun plants are positively garrulous!
The Animal Kingdom is something else again; this is a Moon or soul world. A large part of the lesson can be productively spent marveling at the illimitable faunal fugue – and its reception. Sound was born on the Ancient Sun, or the original manuscript for sound that is. This was the same planetary state in which the animal world was created.
Using the ‘germinal-precursory-perfect-declining’ 4-fold sense-evolution principle, we find that on earth animal’s senses are ‘perfect’ (ours, in their 4th stage, are in decline). Most perfect of all animal senses is perhaps the ear. How amazing are a tiny bat’s shortrange UHF (ultra-high frequency) emission and reception organs. He uses this ‘radar’ to fly at speed through the lightless labyrinth of his cavern world. How about the great whales? This time the animals hear and sing (a kind of ‘sonar’) with ELF (extra-long frequency). Whales are reputedly able to communicate over thousands of miles! Indeed there’s even thought to be a spiritual dimension to whale song!
Another discovery activity is to have the children speculate on the design of animal ears, each species unique – to hear a different drum beat. Why are bloodhound’s ears like huge muffs – floppy and passive? To deaden sound of course, so that their ‘perfect’ bulb of a nose can concentrate on smelling the world. For one sense to be highly sensitive, others must decline – both bats and whales, while remarkable listeners, seeonly poorly.
Why are the desert Fenec Fox’s ears 4 time larger than his common vulpine cousin? And the opposite – why do rainforest animals often have small ears – tiny even?
The animal world expresses soul rather than physical sound. The mechanical song of many invertebrates is an expression of a collective soul which surrounds them; playing, say, on the Cicada Symphony Orchestra with invisible fingers – the Summer Day Suite perhaps?
The higher animals, through their manifold cries, directly express their own disposition, whether it be pain, joy, fear or anger. If the mineral kingdom creates the loudest sounds on earth; the animal has the greatest range. And the human kingdom? We have the most beautiful – or spiritual – sounds; the ego expression of speech and song.
Though not all human sounds are sonorous; a baby has an in-built, a-tonal edge to its cry – or wail! This is to make sure that you get up at night to attend its needs – or be driven crazy! After describing the benefit to the world of beautiful sound, it becomes almost a moral obligation to improve one’s own evocations; through a cultivation of good speech in particular. (A good singing voice is also a terrific bonus, easily attained with a little training.)
It is imperative in the near future to, as well as beautify world sound, to reduce the cacophony of that peace-of-mid shatterer, the machine. Some class discussion should take place on the dire consequences of ever-increasing noise pollution. The word noise is form the Latin ‘nausea’; noise can result in long-term illness of the individual or community – on in the short term, just make you throw up! The Anglo-Saxon word ‘sound’ has rather a healthy implication – ‘a sound mind’.
Another mainly human development is artificial acoustics; of course there is natural acoustic phenomena everywhere. The same sound is different when heard in a still forest, than from a windy headland. Artificial acoustics are in buildings especially; a cathedral is referred to as a ‘larynx of stone’, due to its marvels of acoustics. More detailed information on sound is found in the author’s book Horns of Hermes.
The 1st Goetheanum, the one with the 2 interpenetrating domes, was known as The House of Speech. The class can play around and experiment with building acoustics, sensitizing the ear, as well as educating mind and heart.
And speaking of ears; a simple description of this amazing organ is appropriate 9the larynx as well), from the auricle, right into the auditory nerves – all 48,000 of them. These are like tiny yellow (etheric0 Sea Lilies, or Crinoids, swaying in the warm sea of the cochlea. This shell-like form is a supremely lovely and efficient hydraulic system.
Sound waves are conveyed from the auricle, through the ear drum, to the tiny ear bones and pinhead-small oval and round windows. Here they exert or decrease pressure on the cochlea fluid, this pressure is perceived by the auditory nerves Sea lilies are Echinoderms, the 9th animal phylum – these ‘spiny skins’ (starfish, urchins, etc.) are the first creatures to incorporate hydraulics into their physiology.
Starfish open tough bivalves with their tube-like feet. These tubes are filled with fluid and, like the hydraulics of a truck’s braking system, exert far more pressure than mere muscular power could. The 9th phylum relates to the 9th (evolutionary) sign of the Zodiac – the ‘animal’ circle. This 9th sign is Pisces, with its nominal (by Rudolf Steiner0 Sense of hearing! The Echinodermata are literally ‘ears’ wandering around on the ocean floor.
Included in this ear section of the lesson, should be aspects of ear health. Children who develop hearing problems, like heavy waxing and infections, often do so as a protection. There is something in their small world that they don’t want to hear. This could be carping parents; vulgarity (if they’re particularly refined little souls); verbal abuse; or continuous criticism of themselves or others – especially of their beloved teacher/s!
When on addresses the cause, the ear problems more than likely disappear; all without life-destroying anti-biotics! The sounds children are exposed to affect them for life; and the younger the child, the more so. 200decibels will kill them (and anyone else) on the spot; 150dbs and they will be instantly struck deaf; 130dbs and they will suffer chronic hearing problems. Small children should not be subjected to very loud music, especially through amplification. Indeed the less electronic sounds they hear, the better.
Naturally the quality of sound also affects the developing Being – especially in the first 7 years. A child suffering continuous mechanical noise is likely to become desensitized and enervated. Natural sounds (and good acoustic music) on the other hand fortify and enrich. Indeed sound pollution can cause nervous breakdowns in noise-toughened adults. Reversal of his can take place when, say, the swivel-eyed patient sleeps near a tinkling fountain.
Not only children, but all creation is built up form sound, or The Word – the Logos. This force emanates from the Sun Realm; when the gods whisper, a flower – or a fetus – unfolds. These diving invocations, or spiritual sound patterns, attract molecular matter; much as iron filings take a fancy to a magnet.
To moderate the intellectual component of a Sound Science lesson with 10-year-olds, there should be lots of activities; a few of these might be:
Learn a little of ‘sign’ language, to empathize with those who live in a perpetual world of silence; have ‘dead quiet’ (or living quiet!) times, when the children are so button-lipped that they hear that which usually escapes them – and anyone else for that matter. These sounds could be from the next room, or belong to a family of twittering wrens outside. 60 seconds is a good ‘quiet time’ – perhaps the children can list the sounds they heard.
Then there’s the mimicking of bird calls – a good training in pitch; find who has the best hearing, say by whispering words which the class has to write down – all the way down in volume until all children agree they can’t hear anything at all; make a tin and wire ‘telephone’ to demonstrate how sound moves through iron 15 times faster than air; listen under water – sound moves through water 4 times faster than air; speak through various shaped megaphones, like cardboard tubes, a rams’ horn, and even an Hawaiian Triton (‘3 tones’) shell. These help the child to experience natural amplification.
Make lists of tonal sounds and a-tonal noises; make other lists of onomatopoeic words – like scrape, sigh, tinkle and tintinnabulation! Visit an echo place (and tell the Greek story of Echo); listen for the ‘doppler effect’, that in which sound precedes an object for a longer time as it approaches then as it recedes. (Maybe leave this one for the Sound Physics main lesson in Class 9!)
Measure sound travel – have a child bang a cymbal at 100 meters, then 200 meters, right up to, well a kilometer even (s/he must remain visible) – you need a stopwatch for this. Do voice impersonations of well-known figures, or even other children in the Class – it can be hilarious!
Although the ‘science’ side of the lesson should not be in any way intellectual, a description of how sound travels in waves, or frequencies (unlike light, which travels in rays), helps the teacher bring to life much of the phenomena observed or experienced. This is so especially in the perception of sound; bass sounds, with their long, shallow waves, are ‘heard’ in the stomach – while the ‘tweeters’ (to use hi-fi jargon) are head-focused. Mid-range frequencies of course massage the heart.
Stories help develop concepts in a healthy way; how about a boy who offends the sacred silence, and as a consequence, is struck deaf 9like old Zacharias!). he has to learn to listen again; to defend the World Whispers! The manifold sound information taught can indeed be a gourmet meal for the soul when embellished through story.
Then there are factual sound tales; these often amaze the children, filling them with a sense of awe at the majesty of the natural world. How about the story of the largest of musical instruments – a mountain-ringed lake? In very rare circumstances, this lake becomes a great single-stringed ‘violin’. A canoe glides over the mirror surface dragging a fishing line on a pole. When the taut line shudders, a specific frequency is created; the topographic features then amplify this with a god-like humming and ringing, like a divine lyre!
Another good story is of how Tibetan monks once purportedly lifted huge stones weighing many tons, hundreds of feet onto a plateau from the valley below. They did this, so the tale goes, with highly focused chanting and frequency-modulated blasts from their ever-so-long Temple Trumpets. Or how about describing the dynamics of Old Testament Joshua’s brilliant triumph in bringing down the Walls of Jericho? He also used voice and horn, but as an Aries Initiate, he used ram’s horns.
The human sound element deserves to be heard loud and clear – so to speak. The Islanders of La Gomera communicate at distances of up to 8 kilometers, with their unique ‘Silbo’ language, a kind of whistle. This was learnt no doubt from their smaller, yellow brethren – after all, La Gomera is in the Canary Islands!
Stories of the Great Caruso, he who could break champagne glasses with his top notes, is always popular; and speaking of high notes, the highest sound heard by humans is by asthmatic children! If someone can make a connection between this most mystifying of illnesses, and the equally cryptic world of sound, it may lead even to a cure for this most sinister and debilitating disease.
Sound cannot travel through a vacuum, so all those space movies with their boom-boom special effects are errors – on a galactic scale. There is no air in space, hence no sound. If someone was sitting in a vacuum bubble on Krakatoa when it exploded, they wouldn’t hear a thing – ‘They wouldn’t feel a thing either!’ a witty Class 4 may retort!
Although sound is one of the more ethereal sense impressions, it does have a body, soul and spirit organization. The Body of sound is the volume; the Soul is the pitch (or in another aspect, the key). This expresses through major and minor. These aspects have the power to move the soul most marvelously – even in animals, who have a soul of a kind – dogs howl at some music!
The pure tone world is one of Spirit — originating as it does in Upper Devachan. These 3 factors could even be interpreted in color – red, blue, and yellow, respectively. This is another example of the evolution of the Art of the 20th Century – Science – to the Art of the 21st Century, Spiritual Science!
The ear is the oldest and highest developed (even if now in decline) of all our sense organs. The first ‘sounding’ was on the Ancient Sun creation. ‘Higher Perception’ can even ‘hear’ a child being created in the womb as the 9 Muses, through the 9 solar months of gestation, ‘sing’ the baby into existence.
Indeed the whole world is an ear – and a voice. All substances and beings resonate to specific frequencies, harking back to the singular conditions of their creation. These concepts are a first step – imaginatively transposed – in gently leading 10-year-olds through the portals of a new millennium from the tangled by-ways of Natural Science, to the light path of Spiritual Science – that which sings in a voice that can be heard from Krakatoa to Sydney!
CICADA SONG
Deep in dark and song-less ground,
With roots for friends, Cicada is found,
Slow his birth,
In his cradle of earth
Then upward he creeps without a sound.
Singing sap of light-filled tree,
Rises sun-ward – so does he.
A prelude so long –
Till dawn rings like a gong.
His shell he will shed – then he’ll burst into song!
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