LifeWays at Spindlewood: Summer Reflections
Journal Entry by Susan Silverio July 7, 2005
The children "crossed the bridge" early this year, June 2. As always I feel a mixture of jubilation and sadness. Here in Maine summer time is almost another planet: there are boats to sand and paint to put in the water, summer camps [cottages] to open, gardens to plant. It has been cold and wet this spring so the sheep were not shorn until mid-June. This year I hived a colony of honeybees for the first time and I am currently as preoccupied as a new parent. There is so much to observe and learn about these mysterious creatures and their society.
In previous years, when school was out, I would offer a few weeks of kinder camp in July, as much to keep myself in the rhythm as to give the children some stepping stones through the summer. This year I'm off to Rudolf Steiner Institute in Vermont to offer a course with Cynthia, "The Child from Birth to Seven: World Citizen."
This week Julie (the Spindlewood class parent) called and offered to help me clean the kindergarten. Usually I would wait to clean until the end of the summer, but she is finding the transition to summer a bit challenging, with the full-time care of the children, so - let's clean the kindergarten! She is such a blessing, and I am so grateful.
She arrived this morning with Havana and his friend Zachary, both four years. They step in to look around the kindergarten, but in a trice are off, armed with shovels to be busy about their own work. Soon they are trying to lift the sod in front of the schoolhouse, and I redirect them to "the construction site" nearer the sandbox.
As we work, Julie brings me the news of this morning's events in London, where her mother lives. I don't often listen to the news these days, but I do care, and want to hear the story from her heart. Together we care for what is before us, ironing the silks, and scrubbing and sweeping out the mudroom. To my amazement, she is willing to penetrate every corner, and so we heave the carpet, bring it outdoors and beat it over the picnic table. Under the carpet, we sweep out a year's worth of mud that has dried to a layer of sand. When all is swept and scrubbed, it feels as though the fairies could be dancing, and our hearts, though still grieving, are lightened by our laughter.
I discovered this passage today:
Everyone says that my life is the way of a simpleton.
Being largely the way of a simpleton is what makes it worthwhile.
If it were not the way of a simpleton
It would long ago have been worthless,
These possessions of a simpleton being the three I choose
And cherish:
To care,
To be fair,
To be humble.
When a man cares he is unafraid,
When he is fair he leaves enough for others,
When he is humble he can grow;
Whereas if, like men of today, he be bold without caring,
Self-indulgent without sharing,
Self-important without shame,
He is dead.
The invincible shield
Of caring
Is a weapon from the sky
Against being dead.
Lao-tzu
Tao Te Ching
[See "Reinventing Spindlewood" and more entries by Susan Silverio by clicking on "LifeWays Childcare" in the "Categories" section on the right.]
