Wednesday, March 6 from 7:30-8:30 pm Eastern (Can't make the live event? No problem! All registered attendees will receive a recording of the webinar via email within 24 hours of the live event.) Online with Zoom webinars. How: Click here to make a contribution at any amount you'd like and get your Zoom link. "The year 2019 started with the crescent Moon waning past the planet Venus at dawn on January 1st, and it will end with the waxing crescent Moon sweeping up past Venus at dusk, where the goddess of love and beauty will then be the lone evening planet. This image of Venus in the chalice of the Moon is a strong symbol of the Holy Grail from the mystery wisdom of the Middle Ages, and serves as a celestial signature for the entire year, beginning at dawn on New Year’s Day and completing at dusk at the year’s end. Such a configuration lends itself to imagining that 2019 is the year of the Sacred Quest, which is augmented by the fact that the planet Mercury will also make one of its rare transits of the Sun in 2019, on November 11th." |
Dear Travelers, This information about TERRA PARZIVAL has come to me from renowned violinist Miha Pogacnik; it might interest you. It's the celebration of 42 years of IDRIART, 100 years of Waldorf schools and 100 years of Three-Fold Society. On an earlier Parzival tour we spent a wonderful time with Miha and, as I start working on a second Parzival tour, I hope we can repeat our visit to this interesting area, a historical part of the Parzival story. Sarnia Guiton, Sophia Services, www.sophiaservices.ca Important steps are being taken also in the medical area, with 2020 being the centenary of Steiner’s first lectures for physicians and medical students. PAAM, the Physicians’ Association for Anthroposophic Medicine, is expanding its outreach and seeing AM as an active participant in the whole public health scene. The website has begun to reflect that, and non-medical people are being welcomed to PAAM as supporters. This has perhaps been further stimulated by actions proposed by the FDA to restrict use of homeopathic medicines, which form an important part of AM. PAAM responded almost a year ago, but it became apparent that public response would be helpful. The official deadline for comments has just passed, but agencies often keep the record open a few days later. If you didn’t hear from PAAM directly or on social media, you can read the letter here; it includes informational links and how to submit a comment. A vital entryway into anthroposophic medicine is North American IPMT (International Postgraduate Medical Training), a week-long intensive training course in anthroposophic medicine, currently taught on six different continents and in more than twenty different countries. Each year classes are offered for both newcomers and more experienced physicians. Inspiring, highly experienced international faculty bring a range of clinical workshops, plus guided small group work focused on refining observation skills, enlivening medical thinking, and exploring the importance of the physicians’ inner life. The next session is April 27-May 4 in Chestnut Ridge, NY (details here). The Sacred Gateway: Conscious Living, Conscious Dying, and the Journey Beyond ~Creating Death Caring Communities~ on April 26, 27, 28, 2019 at Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School, Ghent, New York, United States. Bring a new consciousness to your own life and death. Support those who are crossing and who have crossed over. Expand your practice and knowledge of working with the dying. Through interactive workshops, triad sharing, keynote discussions with Rev. Julia Polter, Lisa Romero, Linda Bergh, and Marianne and Dennis Dietzel, as well as experiential and artistic activities, we will consciously explore the spiritual and practical aspect of human life and death. More ... By Jaimen McMillan RSMT, RSME and Adam MacKinnon As parents and educators our challenge is to help our children develop into healthy, happy, free adult human beings. To do that, we have to realize that a child is not a miniature adult, but a unique, developing being who has to go through a process of becoming a mature human being.
The infant, the young child and even the adolescent are to some degree “outside” themselves. They are in a process of incarnation, of bringing into their growing and changing physical bodies other dimensions of their being—energetic, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Rudolf Treichler, a psychiatrist who was a student of Rudolf Steiner, held that parents can help children by bringing them IN in such a way that they can go OUT again freely, IN enough so that the children are really present in their bodies (fully incarnated), and OUT in such a way that they can come back in. This rhythmical breathing of OUT and IN is necessary in becoming a mature, free adult. If children are not brought in to their bodies in a timely way, they may ‘hover’ on the periphery of life—seeming dreamy, perhaps lazy, or even disengaged. On the other hand, if the outside world drives them in too much, they can get stuck, and then they can’t get back OUT in a healthy way. They may then seek inappropriate ways to get out, such as alcohol and drug abuse. A predictable, observed daily schedule with established times for meals, play, going to bed, and getting up support a healthy “going in” and “going out.” Family time sharing experiences of the day in relaxed conversation is also good. Screen time with computers, smart phones, and television, especially for the young child is not helpful. The more time spent in front of a screen, the harder time the children will have to go “out”, to enter, for example into imaginative play or deep sleep. It is important that parents to be role models in these areas. One way children venture ‘out’ is through healthy movement. As a child grows and develops, there is a deepening relationship to the three planes of space: progressing from the horizontal (transverse) plane; to the frontal (coronal) plane, and finally to the symmetry (sagittal) plane. What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society – is what Anthroposophy Worldwide would like to bring to you in a new form. With this issue we warmly welcome all the members who have not received Anthroposophy Worldwide before and who have decided to subscribe to it. Using digital channels offers new possibilities of a closer connection, new forms of participation and the availability of contributions, letters to the editor and material. We will develop these possibilities, as well as the design of the print version, step by step. Because Anthroposophy Worldwide will, for the first time, come out in print, as newsletter and website, all in several languages (which means that several processing steps are required for each contribution), the printed version will have 12 pages. The thematic concept has been adapted with the help of the Communications project group, which is part of the Goetheanum in Development initiative. The group has extended the structure of Anthroposophy Worldwide by adding further contents and was also actively involved in this issue. The group members, Matthias Girke, Gerald Häfner, Christiane Haid and Justus Wittich, were joined at the end of 2018 by the editorial team of the Goetheanum journal. We send you our best wishes for the New Year, the year in which we celebrate a hundred years of Waldorf Education. It was in 1919 that, following Rudolf Steiner’s efforts for the social threefolding impulse, the first Waldorf School opened its doors. We are looking forward to being more closely connected with you! Justus Wittich for the publisher, Sebastian Jüngel for Communications. More ... Please forward this announcement to your faculty and staff, and include in your bulletin and/or newsletter. Thank you very much! Greetings Friends, We are hoping you can join us in the beautiful Pacific Northwest this summer for another exploration and deepening of our puppetry and storytelling pursuits. This summer, while exploring our theme of “Nurturing a Resilient Heart,” we will also practice working on elements of performance: Movement and gesture, color, lighting, voice, music, ways of staging, opening and closing a performance, polarities like tension and humor, courage and fear, pacing, turning story into script, etc. We will also be busy making things for staging our puppet shows and stories: Natural dyeing of large scenery cloths, wet felting props and possibly making colored transparency puppets. Our wonderful teachers will include Janene Ping, Jennifer Aguirre, Susan Strauss and possibly others. Let me know your questions, Marjorie Rehbach The cost of the conference will be $425 (USD) with extra for room and board. If you bring a puppet show to share, you will receive 10% off the conference fee. A few work-study opportunities will be available. More details, including early bird discount, deposit info, registration info, housing, etc. will be available soon. More info ... Do you want to receive updates as they come in? Subscribe to our mailing list here. by Linda M. Platas As first appeared on the Development and Research in Early Mathematics Education (DREME) website as The Why and What of Spatial Relations on Oct. 25, 2017. Reprinted with permission from the author. Original blog post. Monique, like many toddlers, loved emptying and filling everything. She filled pots and pans with wooden blocks, took the lid off her shape sorter bucket and filled it with rubber balls, and she delighted in emptying her small basket of toys. At the same time, through interactions with caregivers she was learning positional words and phrases such as in, on top of, and under.
Shortly after her second birthday, while playing with her wooden block set, Monique noticed a sphere lying next to the base of a cone, and announced “I-skeem!” excitedly. Her mother, looking over, took a minute to realize that Monique saw what looked like an ice cream cone in the arrangement of blocks. At school several months later, Monique was burying toys in the sandbox. Teacher Jorge watched as she hid two small toys. After talking with her about “seeds” (they had read The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carle, earlier that morning), he watched as she accurately retrieved both toys from where she had buried them. What is this all about? What do positional words, three-dimensional shapes, and buried toys have to do with each other? An Anthroposophical Perspective of Psychology Anthroposophic Psychotherapy has its foundation in the image of the human being, raised from the Spiritual Science created by Rudolf Steiner. This image considers the human being as an individual formed by the physical-etheric, the psychic dimensions, and the spiritual dimension or I. This workshop is for those who want to expand the academic perspective, and are in search of a new integrative view. On this occasion the theme will focus on early childhood, education as the center for health. March 2019 Friday 22 from 18:00 a 21:30 Saturday 23 from 9:00 a 19:30 Sunday 24 from 9:00 a 13:00 We can help find transportation and lodging in Tijuana. Themes: Open talk: Building Resilience - Education as Therapy Child Development - Current Paradigms & Their Limitations Assimilating Sense Life as Inner Experience The Invisible Human Being Within Us: The Pathology Underlying Therapy Small Groups Digestion Exercise Life Processes: A Key to Understanding Pathology Questions & Answers Concluding Contributions from the Presenters Costs: UNTIL FEBRUARY 28. $127 (USD) AFTER MARCH 1st. $148 (USD) REGISTRATION PROCESS 1. Fill out the following form https://goo.gl/forms/0wmyUojBLjz3OzRq1 2. It is necessary to reserve your place with $50 (USD). You can do it thru Paypal with the email semilleroeducativo@gmail.com 3. Registration must be completed before the workshop begins. Contact us at +52 664 381 1071 from 9am to 2pm Monday thru Friday or email info@semilleroeducativo.com for any question or clarification. Kind regards, Semillero Comunidad Educativa semilleroeducativo.com Children’s Vocal Development
Whilst we have progressions for children’s musical and instrumental development, it is hard to find such developmental progressions regarding what we should expect in terms of children’s vocal development—namely what is NATURAL for their voices to do—or how to listen for the sounds of this development. Surely we should have concerns about this, given the goal of matching all aspects of children’s music making to their innate development? Fortunately, some well known academics have researched and written up this question (e.g. Graham Welch, Leon Thurman and Carol Klitzke). Having said this, like much research it remains hidden away behind the doors of academia and struggles to find its way into classroom practice. So here, first of all, are some insights on the growth of children’s vocal anatomy – inspired by the book Bodymind & Voice edited by Thurman and Welch. Laryngeal dimensions increase slowly and steadily in size and firmness throughout childhood. Likewise, the vocal folds increase their total length by about 6.5mm between the ages of 1 to 12. In the first few years of a child’s life, the vocal folds are made up primarily of mucosal tissue. Only around the age of 2/3 years old does the thyroarytenoid muscle—the vocal folds ligament—begin to develop which gradually gives the vocal folds more stability and structure. Consequently, only by age 10 are the vocal ligament and mucosal tissues considerably developed. In the same vein, the vocal tract – which extends from the true vocal folds to the exterior surfaces of the lips – is also very short in early childhood. Until the age of 2 years the tongue lies entirely in the oral cavity, and then its base begins the gradual descent into the pharynx, so that by the age of 4, the posterior one third of the tongue is located in the pharynx. Only by age 5 is the basic adult configuration of the vocal tract present, but of course this does not mean it has reached its full size. Only by age 9 will the curved contour of the vocal tract be comparable with that of an adult, but even then it still remains shorter and smaller. |
Sophia Institute offers a variety of programs, courses, publications and other resources to anyone interested in Anthroposophy and Waldorf/Steiner inspired education. Currently there are students from all over the world enrolled in the Sophia Institute online courses. Sophia Institute publications are available worldwide. The Sophia Institute newsletter and blog provide insights and information concerning the work of Anthroposophical initiatives, Waldorf/Steiner Schools, the Camphill Movement, and related endeavors. More ...
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