I remember one day in a Waldorf school in a big city where I worked as a class teacher, finding my way down long hallways and flights of stairs to a basement room, with a door, that held a couch, a bookshelf, and a small table with coffee supplies. A colleague was sitting on the couch when I tentatively opened the door. “Come on in,” she said. “We’re allowed to talk about Steiner in here.” Through the decades that I worked in Waldorf education I saw many shadows of that reluctance to mention Steiner’s name in public. Rudolf Steiner died at the age of 65 on March 30, 1925 after a life of rigorous intellectual and spiritual pursuits that laid the foundation for Waldorf education, anthroposophic medicine, deepening modernization in the arts- architecture, painting, music, speech, drama and movement, and enlivening pursuits in agriculture that helped launch, with his Agricultural Course in 1924, the whole of the organic farm movement. Steiner’s agricultural observations …READ MORE >
SPRING while homebound
The daffodils are in full bloom, and that means it is time to get the garden ready to plant. Some weeks ago Michael tilled leaves into the beds of rich red clay that we are enticing along on the journey to rich brown humus. Then he hauled wheelbarrow load upon wheelbarrow load of compost…READ MORE >
Innovative Saddler in Virginia – Tad Coffin Performance Saddles
A help wanted post on Craigslist piqued my interest. I hadn’t thought of saddle making, but then I didn’t know that not many miles from our place, just west of Ruckersville, Virginia, there was a saddle manufacturing shop. I pictured sewing machines like the oily industrial stitcher in the neighborhood shoe repair shop when I…READ MORE >
A Glance into the World of Gourds
My interest in gourds began when I was introduced to the axatse, a rhythm instrument used in West African drumming ensembles. The axatse is a dried gourd that has been emptied of its seeds and covered in netting with small shells attached. When the gourd is shaken, the shells rattle and make a loud…READ MORE >
spring garden walk
June. Rain. And all our young plants are in the ground, soaking up the water, waiting for the sun. Behind the fence that defines our protected zone, the garden is starting to look organized, beans and potatoes are up, and there have been greens for weeks. Still negotiating with…READ MORE >
