Supporting the

Sense of Life
Nurturing well-being in young children
and the adults who care for them
Edited by Nancy Blanning

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

Supporting the Sense of Life:

Nurturing well-being in young children and the adults who care for them
© 2018 Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America

ISBN: 978-1-936849-48-2

Editor: Nancy Blanning

Copy Editor: Bill Day
Production Editor: Donna Lee Miele
Graphic Design: Amy Thesing
Cover Image: courtesy of the Hartsbrooke School, 193 Bay Rd., Hadley, MA
Images pp. 25-54 courtesy of Ruth Ker
Diagrams 1-5, 7 on pp. 97-141 courtesy of Barbara Baldwin
Image on page 141, The Transfiguration by Rafael: This image is in the public domain in the
U.S. and elsewhere as a photographic reproduction of a work of art in the public domain

Published in the United States by the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North
America, 285 Hungry Hollow Road, Spring Valley, NY 10977
www.waldorfearlychildhood.org
Visit our online store at store.waldorfearlychildhood.org

This publication is made possible through a grant from the Waldorf Curriculum Fund.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the written permis-
sion of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and articles.

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 Table of Contents
Introduction by Nancy Blanning.. ............................................... 5

1. The Elixirs of Life............................................................... 11

Susan Weber
February 7, 2014
The First Elixir: The life forces • The Second Elixir: The life processes •
The Third Elixir: The sense of life • The Sacramental Path • The Fourth
Elixir: The Christ forces

2. Observing Life Sense Development...................................... 25

Ruth Ker
February 8, 2014
The Early Childhood Setting: One of the best research environments •
How can we support the health of the developing life sense? • What are the
organs for the life sense? • How can we actively set about developing our
own soul-spiritual capacities? • What is earthly and cosmic nutrition? •
What other things can educators do to consciously nourish the life sense?

3. Enlivening the Life Forces: Lessons from “The Donkey”......... 55

Patricia Rubano
February 9, 2014

4. Nurturing the Sense of Life and Well-Being........................... 77

Adam Blanning, M.D.
February 6-8, 2015
Introduction – February 6, 2015 • Looking at Our Own Sleep Patterns to
a Picture of this Pathway – February 7, 2015 • Bringing these Insights into
our Practical, Daily Work with the Children – February 8, 2015

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

Table of Contents, continued

5. The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery.....97

Barbara Baldwin
February 5-7, 2016
Introduction • Foundational Concepts • Point and Periphery • The Life
Sense in Life • Point and Periphery Becomes Circle and Point in Curative
Education • A Curative Attitude: Observing the Life Sense in Devotion to
Small Things • Children Prone to Sensory Overload • The Social Aspect
of Point and Periphery • The Health of the Senses • Disturbances of the
Senses • Caring for the Caregiver – Caring for Ourselves

6. Selected Bibliography and Recommended Resources............ 142

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 Introduction

Introduction
Nancy Blanning

T
his book is dedicated to the sense of life: how we can under-
stand, support, and nurture it in our children and in our-
selves as the adults who care for them. When I was a child in
school, this sense did not even exist! There were five senses. That was
what all our school books said: touch, smell, taste, sight, and hearing.
Everyone knew that. We knew that senses were real because scien-
tific investigation—through dissecting, weighing, measuring, and so
on—identified the parts of the body that did the work of sensory
organs. The ear heard, the eye saw, the tongue tasted, and the nose
smelled. We all knew that when we touched something, sensation
followed.
But for Rudolf Steiner, sensory experience involved much more than
anatomy and physiology. It led to deeply philosophical and spiri-
tual questions: What is the true and full nature of the human being?
How do we come to know ourselves, and to know the physical world
through the four elements—earth, water, air, and fire—and their qual-
ities? How do we come to know and acknowledge other people and
communicate with them through thoughtful, respectful exchange?
How do we make sense out of the world, and find our place in it?
Rudolf Steiner rightly understood that we have many sense experi-
ences that the conventional five senses cannot account for. We expe-
rience ourselves inwardly; the physical, material world outwardly;
and other human beings socially and spiritually. Steiner pondered
these questions for thirty years before he shared his insight that

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

twelve senses orient us in this human life. Touch, life, self movement,
and balance are the foundational four senses. Then smell, taste, sight,
and warmth give us experience of the outer physical world. Finally,
hearing, word or language, thought, and the ability to perceive the
“I” connect us with ourselves and with other human beings.
Waldorf/Steiner early childhood education supports and nurtures all
twelve senses, but the first four are the primary focus of our work
with children from birth to age seven. We can see from the chil-
dren’s behavior how secure or uncertain they feel with touch, with
their own body geography and ability to move purposefully, and
with physical balance. But with the life sense—which Steiner also
called “the sense of well-being”—observation becomes subtle, even
a little bit mysterious. Steiner said that when all is well, we do not
consciously register that we even have this sensing capacity. It is only
when things are out of balance that this sense awakens to let us know
that we are not well, and that adjustments are needed. Especially for
the young child, the nurturing and support of a healthy sense of life
needs to be provided through the environment.
Our modern world is overstimulating, hurried, scattered, arrhyth-
mic, and altogether herky-jerky. The life sense loves calmness, sen-
sory protection, routine and order, beauty, warmth, and truthful
interactions with the natural world. Children’s use of technology and
screens has introduced another distraction, an addictive enticement
away from all the good things noted above. So how do we guide and
guard our children in the face of these modern challenges?
In 2014, 2015, and 2016, the WECAN East Coast February Conference
hosted presentations on “Nurturing the Sense of Life and Well-Being
in Young Children and the Adults Who Care for Them.” In 2014,
Waldorf practitioners Susan Weber, Ruth Ker, and Patricia Rubano
presented some of their practical experience in working with chil-
dren, families, and adults on their developmental journeys.
Susan Weber, a member of the founding circle that created Sophia’s
Hearth in Keene, New Hampshire, and served as its first director for

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 Introduction

twenty years, spoke out of her experience in working with children

and families in the birth-to-three setting. She opened the picture of
the sense of life in describing aspects of “life forces” and “life pro-
cesses” that flow in and around the life sense itself. Drawing from
Rudolf Steiner and the insights of Karl König, she provided a foun-
dation for understanding this sense. Susan described how the life
sense of these vulnerable, tiny children and their families is sup-
ported by the environment we adults create as a sheltered space for
the child’s first years of earthly ripening. She shared that everything
we do to support healthy development through nutrition, physi-
cal care, sensory protection, movement and exploration, and pre-
dictable rhythms are elevated—even spiritualized—and enriched
through our intention, attentiveness, caring warmth, and joyfulness.
The next featured speaker was Ruth Ker, a long-time Waldorf early
childhood educator and founding teacher of the Sunrise Waldorf
School in Duncan, British Columbia, Canada. She, too, delved into
the mystery of the life sense as described by Rudolf Steiner and
elaborated on by Karl König and Henning Köhler. These thoughts
broaden the picture of the life sense as it relates to the kindergar-
ten-aged child (three to seven years old). The setting of the Duncan
school allows for extended periods of time outdoors—working in
the garden, exploring in nature, and imaginative playing in free
interaction with the elements. These children get to revel in dirt,
puddles, and mud; lift and tote wood for building; pull heavily laden
wagons; and use wheelbarrows for hauling. Not all of our settings are
so fortunate as to have such access to the outdoors. The point is that
contact with the natural world, no matter how we manage it in rural
or urban settings, is an important supporter of a vital sense of life.
Finally, Patricia Rubano took a biographical leap in both time and
imagination. The sense of life is foundational for every human being
through the whole of life. Patricia, with many years’ experience in
the early childhood classroom, now focuses on biography work with
adults as the director of the Center for Biography and Social Art.
How do we, as adult educators, support the health our own life sense

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

in the unfolding of our personal biographies? Entering the hall wear-

ing a donkey’s ears and tail, Patricia treated everyone to a consider-
ation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, “The Donkey,” which had
been presented in eurythmy the previous evening. We were chal-
lenged to follow the donkey’s journey and consider parallels to our
own life paths. The care and development of our own life sense has
implications for how we can understand others in human encounters
and grow a healthy social life (each of the four foundational senses
corresponds to a higher social sense; the life sense corresponds to
the sense of thought). Going “up hill and down” with the donkey,
and coming to a kingdom where we can find expression of our true
self, offered practical advice on the archetypal journey to finding self.
This theme was continued at the 2015 conference by keynote pre-
senter Adam Blanning. As an anthroposophic family physician with
a private practice in Denver, Colorado, Adam acts as school doc-
tor for area Waldorf schools, and trains Waldorf school doctors.
Supporting the sense of life is a particular focus in anthroposophic
medicine, because a healthy sense of well-being engenders an expe-
rience of safety and security in being in a physical body. Resting in
this sense can provide a feeling of shelter and reassurance that life
is good. But our journey to this spot of security can get sidetracked
along the way. Dr. Blanning shared Rudolf Steiner’s description of a
pathway through the senses to get to the safety and comfort of the
life sense. In following this sensory pathway, the child makes his own
way toward this secure domain. Where the previous year’s presenta-
tions emphasized how parents and teachers create an external envi-
ronment that supports the child’s life sense, Dr. Blanning outlined
the inner, independent aspect of life sense development. Finding
our way to well-being when the environment is less than ideal is an
essential skill for all of us. We can call this self-soothing, self-regula-
tion, self-reassurance, even self-knowledge as a step to independent
personhood—a goal of Waldorf education.
In 2016, Australian curative educator and speech therapist Barbara
Baldwin explored “The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and

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 Introduction

Periphery.” For many years, Barbara has worked to build bridges

between home and school, between parents and teachers. She is an
expert on sensory disturbances and how they negatively affect the
sense of life in vulnerable children. Her presentations introduced the
concept of point and periphery, which Rudolf Steiner gave to the
first curative educators. We all move between the point—being cen-
tered, focused, and contained—and the periphery—being expanded
and “out”—as a normal alternation. Barbara explained that sensory
development can get “stuck” in one of these two extremes. The child
becomes the victim, not the villain, of what we see as misbehavior.
All sensory disturbances affect the sense of life, and all disturbances
to this sense affect behavior. To understand this gives us tools to view
distressed children with compassion. They are trapped in their cir-
cumstance and need our understanding to create relationship and
then our help to find a way forward.
Barbara gifted the conference with a wealth of information. For read-
ers newly studying sensory disturbances, this is an enlightening and
thorough introduction. Seasoned educators will find new pieces of
information to expand upon the knowledge base already developed.
All of us are encouraged not to rush to conclusions or judgments
about any child. Look at the child’s behavior through the lens of the
developing senses, be they healthy or disturbed. True, warmed inter-
est opens the door to new steps forward.
Preparing these presentations for print has been a rich and privi-
leged experience. The progression of presenters—birth-to-three
educator, kindergarten class teacher, biography counselor, physi-
cian/school doctor, and therapeutic educator—offer a panorama of
the sense of life that could not have been imagined or arranged in
advance. The presenters’ shared devotion and dedication to protect-
ing the health and well-being of children binds these chapters into a
cohesive whole. Thanks to every one of them for generously sharing
their experience, expertise, and insights. The little children in our
care will benefit from what they have shared and what we take into
our teaching.

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

1. The Elixirs of Life

Susan Weber
February 7, 2014

I
t is a gift to be together and launch this theme through the music
we shared with Eleanor Winship with her positive joyfulness
and gratitude for life—because that is really the wellspring out
of which we will draw forever and ever in our work with young
children.
This evening, I want to work with a picture of four elixirs of life. We
speak often about the child coming to birth to live her life on earth.
And we talk about all that imbues that life as the child prepares to
come to earthly birth. We talk about wanting to help the child build
capacities for life and we explore our biographies, our own paths of
life. And I thought this might be a moment to look at these elixirs,
of which I would like to imagine us to be the guardians. This is not
always the picture we hold. But let us hold this picture that we have
the potential to be the guardians of the elixirs of life.

The First Elixir: the life forces

The first elixir is the life forces, the forces of growth and develop-
ment. They are the forces that metamorphose into thinking. We
know that when our life forces aren’t strong, it is not easy to think
clearly. It is one of the first signs for us as adults when our life forces
are reduced, that thoughts just don’t come in the same way. So we
have to seek resuscitation, rejuvenation of our life forces. These are
forces in us that we also see around the child. They support the child
as he is growing and developing. As early childhood educators it is a
primary task to nurture the life forces of the child. Edmond Schoorel
describes the etheric body as the blueprint that the child fills in as he
takes hold of his body.1 These are also referred to as the etheric forces.
The younger the child, the more delicate the care will be.

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 The Elixirs of Life

The Second Elixir: the life processes

The second elixir of which we are the guardians is the life pro-
cesses. Rudolf Steiner did not say a lot about the life processes. He
wrote about it a little bit here and there in the lectures, The Riddle of
Humanity2, and in Anthroposophy—A Fragment3, as well. But it was
Karl König who took up this work with the life processes actively
and developed insights and applications in his own work with young
children.4
König described the life processes as a ladder. In the world of the
senses, we often have a picture of the senses configured as a circle.
We have the sense organs, some more easily isolated and defined
than others. But the picture is of a circle with each sense having its
own realm and its own domain. When we explore the life processes,
we are looking at something that does not have fixed organs or fixed
domains but that actually weave through the whole organism. They
weft and weave and one process can be layered upon top of another.
Let’s walk through this seven-fold picture of the life processes. Then
we can explore some examples of how we might see them play out
in the very young child. We hope that we might be stimulated to
look for places, with the children in our care and within our activ-
ity, where we can see these life processes in action. We hope we can
begin to see in a pedagogical way how we can support them to bring
even more well-being to the child.
The first process that Rudolf Steiner describes, and Karl König
expands upon, is breathing. It is interesting that in Foundations of
Human Experience5 and in other places, Steiner describes our task as
teachers as teaching the child to breathe. Karl König describes this

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

breathing in the life processes domain as the creation of an umbilical

cord between the child and the earth. We can picture this umbilical
cord in prenatal development very clearly in a physical way. Now we
have the picture that after birth, the child needs to develop his tie to
the earth, an umbilical cord through which nourishment comes, and
also through which breathing comes. And this is possible through
the support of this living, weaving life process. One could say here,
that in these first life processes, this is the place where the adult is
the most powerfully and especially active. The younger the child, the
more this is so. We know that the young child has barely begun to
create this weaving back-and-forth with the earth to enable the phys-
iology to unfold. He needs all of our care, support, and attention.
This first breathing to create the umbilical cord with the earth is, of
course, the literal breathing of the air coming in and out. And we can
imagine that the mantle we create around the child, this relationship
with the child, enables the child to breathe. The child can feel safe,
secure, and comfortable. And he can take this step into life, to say
“yes” to earth life. He can breathe this “yes” in and then breathe it
out to say “yes” again.
The second life process is the warmth process. We know that the
human being requires his own activity to maintain and sustain the
proper degree of warmth. If we look outside right now, it is very cold.
If we followed the inclination of what it is like outside, we would
become much too cold, so we have to have our own activity. This
development of capacity for developing one’s own inner warmth is a
very slow process. We know that this is not even complete in the first
seven years. We want to create a mantle around this second process,
which is necessary for sustaining life and well-being, this warming
process, to protect and strengthen the child.
We also notice this in particular examples. The baby’s food has to be
the right temperature. Why is breast milk the perfect food? It is just
the right temperature. The infant has a very narrow tolerance for how
warm or cold his food is. An attentive caregiver knows each child’s
temperature preference. Knowing what best serves each individual

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 The Elixirs of Life

child is part of the activity we can do to help each child adapt to the
outer world and its environment.
The third process brings the child even further “in,” and this is the
process of nourishing. Karl König uses the phrase “nourishing nutri-
tion and nutritional nourishment.” We know that we would also con-
sider sensory nourishment, not only the nutritional nourishment of
foodstuffs.
But if all we did was to take in nourishment, we would become
giants. We have to let some of it go. We have to discern and discrim-
inate what of the nourishment to keep to build up our bodily organ-
ism and what to excrete. Rudolf Steiner sometimes works with this
process, calling it secretion. In the digestive process, first the salivary
glands become active. Then, further down the digestive tract, our
other digestive glands and organs become active. We sort out what
stays and what goes. How do we know if an infant is healthy? We
can tell by the number of wet diapers in the day whether the excret-
ing, sorting process is working rightly. We know that many children
today carry the burden of constipation. In this case the sorting and
discernment process isn’t quite as strong as it needs to be.
So we can see that breathing is totally an exchange of the world-
out and the world-in. Then, we build up warming around the child.
Nourishment literally comes into the child. The sorting and discern-
ment become active. With each of the activities, the child is actually
taking hold. These things come from the outside, but there is also
life process activity internally, and the newborn baby hardly has the
possibility for this activity yet. This is where we observe colic, belly
cramps, crying, and other expressions of discomfort. Digestion is the
hardest thing for the baby to do.
All this work that the adult does around the child in developing
rhythm, warmth, and care, if we are attuned and sensitive, creates
a huge support for the child. The life processes are not in boxes and
separated out like the sense organs—sight, taste, hearing. They are
weaving, moving, and flowing through the sense organs, so that even

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

within the sense organs we can see where these life processes actu-
ally express themselves in each of the sensory activities.
As we move through the column or ladder of the life processes, as
the sorting process unfolds, the body holds on to the remainder
after the bowel discards what is not needed. This enables the child to
maintain herself. This is the maintenance phase or process: finding
a balance between taking in and releasing, or sending away, what
is not needed. The infant and young child is very close to the hun-
ger experience, and cannot maintain herself when nourishment is
not provided in a timely way. We see this in our classrooms. If, for
instance, we are a little delayed in getting snack ready for the chil-
dren, the children will begin to show us through their behavior that
they cannot maintain any longer. They need nourishment to help
build something up for themselves to continue with their day.
Then comes the process of growing. Maintenance is not enough; oth-
erwise, the child would remain a newborn forever. For the child the
process of growing is critical. Regardless of whatever else is happen-
ing with the young child, he is always growing.
The final life process of the seven is reproducing and creating anew.
Obviously, the adult is active in the procreation of children. But
also, when we translate these life processes into our inner activity as
adults, then we are creator-beings and we create something new that
arises out of this series of processes. In the growing child in the first
seven years, play is a powerful expression of creating.
Here is an example of how these life processes might look in the
infant. Picture a baby who is just beginning to be mobile, maybe roll-
ing from side to side, moving into side-lying and balancing on the
side with one hand out. Maybe one leg is able to move freely while
the child has enough balance to do this. If we think of this in terms
of these life processes, we could think the first process of breathing
with the world, this creation of an umbilical cord, may perhaps be
the adult breathing the environment around the child so that the
child feels secure and safe and ready to be active.

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 The Elixirs of Life

And then the warming step could be the adult creating those condi-
tions around the child where the child feels comfortable, is dressed
warmly, and has a warm place to freely initiate his own bodily explo-
ration of his environment. And then the nourishment for the child
is not the literal nutritional picture, per se, but is the nourishment
received through the stimulation of exploring his surroundings. This
nourishment comes from reaching the hand here, touching a toy
there, rolling again, and always being able to move freely to nourish
himself through his own self-initiated activity. Through the activity
comes sorting. He might try to get into a balanced position one way;
he might try a hundred times.
Then he discards the ways of moving that did not work. He practices
and practices, discarding what doesn’t work developmentally for his
body and his growth and unfolding. And he tries something new.
And interestingly enough, Anna Tardos, Emmi Pikler’s daughter,
described in her observations that for the infant, 90 percent of the
movement activity would be what the child has already integrated
and only 10 percent would be new. This is helpful and interesting,
because we are always naturally looking for what the child is learning
that is new. In family life and in culture we are looking for what the
child can master that is new. Yet here is a picture that the child has to
use 90 percent of what he has already learned and integrated in his
activity for the life process of maintaining. And only a small percent
is directed to exploring something new. The process of maintaining
is served when the child is permitted to practice what she already
knows. Being allowed to practice what she already knows is part
of this process of maintaining. Out of the maintaining and finding
some ability to know what is needed and what is not needed and to
let go allows the possibility to grow.
The baby grows into new capacities. One of the things that happens
in this sorting-discriminating-maintaining process is the integration
of the primitive reflexes. The primitive reflexes have to be “sorted”
away so that something else can enter in. That something else is what
is maintained by the child.

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

With these examples, we begin to develop a picture of the sequence

of these processes. Through all of this the child is growing. We could
perhaps even say—and this is left to us all for our research—that
there is something that is reproduced as the child masters new
capacities. We can see that when the second half of these seven-fold
processes actually rises up, the child is offering something back to
life. With the first half, something is coming toward the child from
the outside. Then with the second half, it is as though there is an
involuted spiral and something reaches back out as the child offers
his own being to the universe.
Rudolf Steiner says that these life processes are not organs of percep-
tion. Hopefully we can feel that through this consideration. These
are feeling-like, instinctive experiences. These life processes are
below the level of sense perception. They are much less conscious.
They are moving and active but at a deeper level inside the human
being. We could imagine that since they are seven-fold, there would
be a relationship to the astral body. In fact, Rudolf Steiner describes
that this is so, that these seven-fold processes do bear a relationship
to the astral body that one can explore further.
We can see that if we are with children in the first three years in
particular, we need to work with the life processes in such a way that
the child has movement that engages the whole body, so that the life
process can flow through movement. We need nutrition, we need
warmth. These are all things we think about in rhythm and care-
giving with the young child. They also come to mind as we envision
the physical environment for the baby and young child. These also
become markers for our use of the picture of the life processes as
a support for the child’s growth as well. The child has to be able to
experiment and make things his own and turn things inside out. We
can see that these processes have a time element. For the fullness of
health and well-being in the child to truly manifest, it is crucial that
enough time is allowed for each process. The processes must not be
truncated, collapsed, or contracted, but allowed enough time to flow
one into the next, into the next, so they can adequately live in their

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 The Elixirs of Life

rightfulness. We want to take this up as our research to see where

we can explore the activity of these life processes in our own situa-
tions. Where do we see the essential activity coming from the adults?
Where do we see the children manifest these processes themselves?
Karl König says that the twelve senses are a frame, so to speak. Within
the twelve senses, the seven living processes move and weave. It is not
a form we are considering here. Therefore, it is not anatomy or mor-
phology or physiology as we understand it today. It is living, weaving
etheric being. It is this second elixir of life, the life forces, that we can
point to so we can make this picture a tool for our insight.

The Third Elixir: the sense of life

The third elixir is the sense of life. This is the “happy” sense, as
described by Karl König.6 It is the sense of well-being. It is not an
alarm system that tells us that we are coming down with a sore
throat. This is not the sense of life. Falling ill is a picture of my life
forces diminishing. But the life sense itself is a mirroring of well-be-
ing. We all know that for some children this is challenging process.
By means of the sense of life, the human being learns
to experience himself as a complete within-ness and
senses himself as a bodily self, filling space. The body
becomes mine through the sense of life. The sense of
life gives us security in our earthly existence. The sense
of life spreads its blanket of sensations over the life pro-
cesses in the body.7
Rudolf Steiner said that if we bought a pair of gloves that fit as badly
as our physical body fits our soul and spirit, we would throw the
gloves away.8 This is true for everyone to some degree. But we know
children for whom this is especially true. This third elixir, the sense
of life, mirrors what is happening under the surface, within our
sense of well-being. When all is calm, the lake’s surface is unbroken.
When we think of distressed children, we can picture that some of

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

them are like a shattered mirror or a disturbed lake. They are abso-
lutely uncomfortable in their bodies much of the time. This calm
mirroring that we hope for—that one’s body is a good place to be, is
comfortable to be in, and is a place in which the child wants to be
active—is not present for them.
The organ of the sense of life is the sympathetic nervous system, and
it requires nine months to mature adequately so that the child can
“tolerate” his organ system.9
The following example of a specific child will give us a picture of this
mirror being shattered, and then beginning to be healed through
days and weeks of life experience. A little girl came to Sophia’s
Hearth. She had been sent away from another childcare program.
She was just two years old. She had been sent away because she was
crying—screaming—all day long. The caregivers could not calm her.
They didn’t have a ratio that would enable someone to be with her in
even her most delicate times to try to bring her solace. She came to
Sophia’s Hearth and cried and screamed and screamed so much that
the caregivers’ ears were over-stimulated and they had to move out
of the space with her. The question had to be seriously considered as
to whether they could meet this child. We can imagine the mother’s
anxiety. There was not much of anywhere else to go after Sophia’s
Hearth. The most challenging time of the day was at nap time. This
child could not even lie down on her mat. She would sit and cry. She
would be walked in the hall in someone’s arms so the other children
could sleep. This went on and on from August into the fall. The
crying diminished. When they would talk to the mother, they could
see her anxiety.
Time went on. Thanksgiving came and the child had nearly stopped
crying. The caregivers noticed that the first sign of this mirror being
restored was not the cessation of the crying but through her show-
ing that she was making a home in this place and her body by begin-
ning to name the other children. It was not long before she could
name every child. And that then moved forward to her going to

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 The Elixirs of Life

the bathroom where she knew which hand cloth belonged to every
child. Even in this grieving and incredible pain, she was still taking
something in. She is now about two and a half years old. She has
just started saying “I” to herself. And she asked to have her bread
buttered on both top and bottom.
The other thing that is interesting is that this was a child with
extended breast feeding. Karl König’s and Edmond Schoorel’s10
observation is that the life sense does not become truly active
until the child is weaned—we might consider this at least nine
months old. There is in their work the suggestion that there may
be a relationship between weaning and the healthy manifestation
of the life sense.
We have a picture of the lake reflecting. If we have life processes
not doing well under the surface, how will the mirror be? Cloudy,
cracked, smudgy. It won’t be very nice. The feeling for the child of
“here I am at home in my body” cannot yet quite rise. This sense of
life is truly a sign, when we see it in a joyful, healthy way, that all is
right in the world for that child in this moment.
We can see that the sense organs are developing for the child in
these early years. We observe that everything has a slow ripening
period. Life processes mature unevenly and slowly. We may be able
to see, as we can how a child’s senses are maturing, how these life
processes are maturing as well. We can begin to see how each of
these processes is coming to expression through a deepening of
our work with rhythm. I wonder if there is a way to refine our work
in the classroom so we can see within our rhythm how the life pro-
cess is developing and is active!

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The Sacramental Path

When we work with the life substance, we are working with some-
thing that is sacramental, and we unite the eternal with the transi-
tory. Life is the sacred substance of our work. We can think about a
healing substance as a substance that has been humanized. When we
work in a sacramental way, we humanize and spiritualize the mate-
rial world around us. We transform substance so that it can touch the
child and heal the child. In these first three years, we have the possi-
bility to spiritualize all of the substances—nutritional substances, for
example—with our intention, with our attentiveness, with our care,
and with our joy.
We can take hold of the simplest activity that we do with the child.
The diaper can be spiritualized. The placing of the bib, helping with
a mitten, cutting an apple can each become a spiritual deed. In all
these ways we sacramentalize the life with which we work. With our
healing activity and substances, we humanize our vocation. We pro-
vide the child with a growing sense of security in which the mirror of
the life sense becomes calmer, more still, and reflective of the good-
ness of the world.
If we apply these life-bearing substances to the child, the child will,
in his way as he can in time, become filled with life. He will become
active within the unfolding of his destiny. This mirror of the sense
of life will become calmer and more still and reflective. The more we
work as Rudolf Steiner has described, as priests and priestesses in
our work, the more we take up this possibility of humanizing mat-
ter, miracles will occur. In our times there is probably nothing that
we are called upon to do more deeply than to humanize the world
around us. It is only the human encounter that can heal.
We are learning this more and more every day: that the adversarial
elements around us are simply there to point us to doing the good. It
is our invitation to see the good, to say I recognize you, I can name
you. And I am moving in this direction to humanize everything I
touch. For every human encounter I will try to be as present as I

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 The Elixirs of Life

possibly can. That we can fill ourselves with this joy, to have this pic-
ture that we can radiate to the children—“I am joyful to be with you.
I am joyful to follow the steps of your journey with my own being
and with my heart. I am joyful to get to know the mystery of who
you are.” Clearly this is what the parents are asking of us as well. Not
just that we ask them to know about warmth and nutrition, but that
we say to them, “I am interested in who you are. What is your path?
What do you care about? Who are you trying to become?” We want
to have joy and interest in this encounter that radiates our well-being.
And we become the models of this well-being for the child. We have
all heard the following quotation from Rudolf Steiner’s Education of
the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy. The question is how to make
it more active:
The joy of children in and with their environment must,
therefore, be counted among the forces that build and
shape the physical organs. They need teachers that look
and act with happiness [the life sense] and most of all
with honest, unaffected love. Such a love that streams, as
it were, with warmth through the physical environment
of the children. Pleasure and delight are the forces that
most properly enliven and call forth the organs’ physical
forms. It may be said to literally hatch the forms of the
physical organ.11
Over and over again we hear “pleasure,” “delight,” and “joy”—not
anxiety and worry, but positive picturing and radiating to the child
all that is possible from our hearts and souls as we work with them.

The Fourth Elixir: the Christ forces

This brings us to the fourth elixir of life, the wellspring that never
runs dry. It is the wellspring we read of in the gospels, the water of
life that will never cease to flow. These are the Christ forces. If we can
find in ourselves a relationship to those forces, we will have the pos-
sibility to live into our work and with all the children, families, and

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

colleagues around us with something that will, step by step, radiate

joy and well-being out into their world.

NOTES

1. Edmond Schoorel, The First Seven Years: Physiology of Childhood (Fair Oaks,
California: Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2005), p. 79.
2. Rudolf Steiner, The Riddle of Humanity: The Spiritual Background of Human
History (Forest Row, UK: Steiner Press, 1990).
3. Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy (A Fragment) (Hudson, New York:
Anthroposophic Press, 1996).
4. See, e.g., Karl König, A Living Physiology (Bolton Village, UK: Camphill
Books, 1999).
5. Rudolf Steiner, Foundations of Human Experience (Hudson, New York:
Anthroposophic Press, 1996).
6. König, A Living Physiology at 178.
7. Ibid.
8. Rudolf Steiner, The Kingdom of Childhood (Hudson, New York:
Anthroposophic Press, 1995) page 9.
9. König, A Living Physiology at 191.
10. Schoorel, The First Seven Years at 134-38.
11. Rudolf Steiner, Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy (Forest
Row, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1981), p. 22.

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

2. Observing Life Sense

Development
Ruth Ker
February 8, 2014

K
arl König’s image of the healthy life sense as a smooth, mir-
roring, reflective lake1 is helpful when we contemplate what
could bring disturbances or ripples to the sanctity of our life
senses. The life sense is in its element, and the human being feels
that “all is well,” when this pool is calm and still. Standing before
all of you in this big hall is a scary place for me and I’m guessing
that my life sense has a rippled surface right now. Sometimes we
can also observe or hear from the children how their life sense is
informing them.

The Early Childhood Setting:

One of the best research environments
Often the children have reactions or say things and, if we are truly
present with them, we can pick up the cues they are giving us. I’m
remembering some recent occurrences.
Here’s one story. Our school, located on the edge of farmland, pro-
vides the opportunity for the children to play on the hill overlook-
ing the farmer’s tree-lined fields. One day the farmer had a large,
smoky fire burning, and as the smoke wafted up to the playground,
it became obvious that the children were becoming increasingly agi-
tated and restless. Wearing a worried expression, finally one little
boy said, “Ruth, I can’t seem to find the good air. It’s not here today!”
In this situation, it became evident that the compromised air quality
unconsciously affected the sense of well-being of the whole group.
There were eighteen little rippling lakes that day!

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 Observing Life Sense Development

Another time, I escorted a little girl to the bathroom from the place
where we have our daily walk. Because it was closer, I took her down
to the grade school bathroom in the main school. From the moment
we entered the unfamiliar bathroom, she showed signs of agita-
tion and wanted to leave. I modeled what we do there by washing
my hands and going to the paper towel dispenser. At this point she
showed even more signs of distress and began backing away. I pulled
down the lever of the paper towel dispenser and out came the paper
towel. The little girl, gasping with obvious relief, said, “Thank good-
ness it isn’t one of those windy ones! I’m scared of them.” Later her
mother confirmed for me that she was frightened by the air-blowing
hand dryers in bathrooms.
Children are exposed to many new experiences every day. When
we seriously try to put ourselves in the child’s place, there are fre-
quent occurrences that have the potential to cause ripples in that
place of calmness—that still, calm pool.
So let’s take some time to strengthen our understanding of the life
sense so that we can be more attuned to our children’s experiences
when we return to our classrooms. We can glean many insights by
consulting some of the inspirational thinkers of our time.
Goethe said that we can always trust our senses and that they tell
us the truth, but our reasoning confuses matters. Rudolf Steiner
quoted Goethe and went on to say, “The life sense is something in
the human being, that if everything is in order, he actually does not
notice, something that he or she only notices if something in the
human being is not in order.”2
In our times, the life sense receives almost no attention in

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

mainstream research. Fortunately, we have much spiritual-scien-

tific research to call upon and I hope you will permit me to share
some of this today as we further our understanding together.
Rudolf Steiner tells us that it is the sense of life radiating into the
soul that makes it possible for us to be inwardly aware of ourselves
as a self-enclosed, living bodily totality.3 He also called it life feeling.
The sense of life works dimly within the organism but, whenever
anything is upset, then our life sense informs our feelings that some-
thing is amiss.
Just as the sense of touch can help us to have trust in “the other” and
ultimately, trust in God, the sense of life can help us to have a sense of
well-being in our earthly bodily home. We can feel at home on earth—
our soul has an anchor in this earthly reality. These two senses make it
possible for the child, and ultimately the adult, to be a resident in both
worlds—to feel safe and at home with heaven and earth.
For the newborn, the life sense is still developing and the harmoni-
ous interaction of all the organs that eventually can lead to a sense
of well-being is still in flux. Little children are consumed by what
is happening with their organs and overwhelmed by the newness
of their physical body to life. Many disturbances, large and small,
can cause ripples on this mirroring lake that Karl König describes.
Rudolf Steiner spoke about the life sense in a few places. In 1909,
he said that the life sense facilitates us having the first human per-
ception of “self,” the first time that we experience ourselves as a
body. He filled out the picture eleven years later, in the 1920s, when
he said that the life sense is a general feeling of oneself. “We could
not know ourselves as being a bodily self in space if we did not
have the activity of the sense of life radiating into the soul.”4 The
life sense helps us to know when we are hungry, thirsty, tired, and
so on. We would also be unaware of the flow of life and even be
unable to sense into our own biography if we did not have this life
sense within us.

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 Observing Life Sense Development

This inward sensing connected to the whole body is what Willi Aeppli
simply calls “Undefined...through this sense we go most deeply into
ourselves and experience through it our physical existence.”5 Karl
König tells us that these feelings are dimly recognizable, barely rise
to our consciousness, and mingle with other sense impressions and
feelings. Nevertheless, they “give our soul its anchor in this earthly
reality where it is a stranger.” He says, “The body becomes mine
through the sense of life.”6
A lot of us associate the sense of life with vitality, but Henning Köhler
asks us not to confuse these two things. Vitality is an awakeness, a
liveliness, an energetic state. The sense of life informs us that that our
body is energized, but it plays the role of mirroring the bodily state.
What it is really telling us is that deep down inside, the sense of life
is feeling peace and warmth and well-being when our organism is
in vital health.7 Interestingly, two other names that Rudolf Steiner
called the sense of life are “the vital sense” and “the feeling-life sense.”
The life sense has an intimate relationship with the etheric body.
Rudolf Steiner speaks about supersensible processes guided by high
spiritual beings that are inherent in the forming of our sense organs.
Then, specifically about the sense of life, he says:
The physical and etheric bodies cooperate to help the
sense of life develop. It is a certain mutual relationship
whereby something new occurs in the etheric body.
Something that is different permeates and flows through
the etheric body and saturates it, just like a sponge. It is
bestowed upon him by the surrounding, outer spiritual
world without his being able to participate in it. In the
distant future, humanity will have developed it within
themselves. And that which is saturating the etheric
body, coming from without, is Spirit Man.8
Steiner emphasizes that we are not ready to do this for ourselves yet;
but in the future, we will be.

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

How do these processes allow our sense of life to inform us about

where we are with our own well-being? To paraphrase: uncon-
sciously, Spirit Man expresses itself by contracting the etheric. When
this happens, our astral body is squeezed right out. Then, because
the etheric is compressed, the physical undergoes tension. And
when this tension happens, the astral slips right back in and then this
is when we can have the experience, the feeling through the astral
body, of the bubbling up of the feeling life radiating into the soul.9
This cooperative process informs us about what is going on with
our state of being because it is mirrored by the life sense. We can be
grateful for the work of the spiritual beings who have been involved
in these supersensible processes within us.
As the life sense develops—and it does take a while for this to hap-
pen—what the human being experiences is just a dimly felt recog-
nition of bodily sensations. This developing life sense later allows
us, as adults, to have a sense of our own biography. We can have the
feeling that life flows and that situations connect with one another
because our sense of life has helped us put things together in regu-
lar rhythms and routines.
As educators, we can inwardly sense into the biography of the child
as well. You might be familiar with the quotation from Education as
a Source for Social Change where Steiner said that educators, who are
in service to the child’s future, can perceive “each child as a question
posed by the supersensible world to the sense-perceptible world.”10
As teachers, this is a powerful thing to remember. We can be more
effective in our work if we can stand in awareness of our own biog-
raphy and also be able to carry this question about the children.
Educators and parents, while carrying these important destiny ques-
tions, do well to also be attentive in the moment to what is going on
for the child in his organism. The signals arising from the child’s life
sense as it mirrors an inner disturbance provide us cues that we can
observe with discerning eyes.
Children tend to be united with the moment, so when there are

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sensory or organ disturbances—and there are many because chil-

dren are so vulnerable while building their bodies—it is not always
possible for them to express what’s going on or to remedy a situ-
ation themselves. Our presence is important. Let’s imagine being
seasick. . . everything is topsy-turvy. Even in the midst of this distress
adults can still ask themselves, “How do I take hold of my organism
again?” We know that we will probably feel better when the sea stops
rolling. It is very different for young children, who are engaged with
their whole being in what is happening in the moment. Their total
engagement often does not involve knowing how to get out of the
situation; they need our help. They need our compassionate presence
and the assurance that we will take charge to help them. The possi-
bility of these kind and trusting relationships can help the young
child build a positive picture around what life is really like. The child
can have the unconscious assurance that “life is full of good people
who care for me and help me.”

How can we support the health of the developing

life sense?
Anything that supports the healthy etheric body—rhythm, good food,
sleep, exercise, experiences in nature—also supports the life sense.
Protection of the life sense of the developing child is important for
their future well-being. We can read more about this in Henning
Köhler’s book, Working with Anxious, Nervous and Depressed
Children, where he equates restlessness and nervousness with outer
signs of life sense disturbances.11 Some things that can strengthen
the child’s feeling of well-being and life sense, and ultimately his
etheric body, are safeguarding healthy approaches to diet; pro-
viding rhythmic regularity and order; giving appropriate praise;
allowing appropriate exposure to death; offering regular contact
with nature; humor; modeling tolerance and responsible processes;
providing games and non-moralizing stories that embrace simple
justice and fairness.

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When the sense organs are developing, children need rest. The sense
organs actually begin to develop in the embryo. At this time, they
are very fragile, very new. If we don’t use these sense organs, they
will atrophy. The sense organs are meant to be used, but used in the
right way. In order to refresh them, they need rest. Sleep supports
the health of the life sense in the child and the adult. The life sense
loves the settled feeling we experience when we are on the edge of
sleepiness. If you want to get to know the life sense in yourself, this
is where you can start your phenomenological research. Then take
time to consider how different most children’s worlds are from this
edge of sleepiness. We make many excuses to not take time to rest
or take a break or even to go to sleep on time. In our school com-
munities we see many sleep disturbances in the children and also
have the experience of parents rushing to the door, dropping the
child off and leaving in a hurry. Often, after inadequate sleep, the
child is caught in the midst of this haste—a far step away from the
edge of sleepiness.
Now, we can ask ourselves, “How do I receive the children so they
can find their way back to this dreamy, sleepy condition that is sup-
portive of the life sense?” In our own practices, it is very important
for us, as teachers, to get to school on time—ideally even early. This
is so we can ensoul the room beforehand and then be ready and pre-
pared so that we can consciously receive the children on these home/
school thresholds. Our well-traveled colleague Louise deForest rec-
ommends that we spend time straightening up the environment and,
even, touching the toys before school starts. She says that the chil-
dren can feel this caring gesture of the teacher who has endowed the
environment with this attention and intention beforehand. It is bet-
ter for the children if they are interfacing with a relaxed ambience in
the early childhood classroom rather than sensing that the teacher is
running around the room getting things together at the last minute.
An anthroposophical nurse living in my community once told a
personal story that demonstrates the value of rest for the life sense.
When she was ill as a child, her mother would create a “nest” in her

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bed, keep her home, and give her ample time to recuperate, often
at least one week. When she was telling a group of parents in the
Waldorf school about this, the looks on parents’ faces reflected how
odd they thought this was. Then the nurse told the parents about
going through a major illness and staying in her bed for two weeks.
She talked about this “nest” becoming something akin to a sacred
space for her. It was a place where she had really gone through
something, a transformation had happened in that special place.
And when her mother told her it was time to leave her bed, she felt
reluctant to leave behind the place where she had gained strength
and come into herself. She said she had a dim sensing that when she
left this, she could not go back to this same experience again. She
knew it was possible that she might be in the same recuperation bed
again, but she would be a different person when that happened the
next time. The parents’ reactions to this story confirmed how foreign
this idea was to their modern experience. After this advice from the
nurse, though, I noticed that more parents were able to give their
children extra time to rest and recuperate from their illnesses.
Rhythm and routine are instrumental for the development of a
healthy sense of life. The feeling that “all is well” flourishes when
things happen with continuity, when events have rhythm and reg-
ularity. Then, with this guarantee of few variations in routine, there
are fewer life sense upsets that bubble up for the children. The chil-
dren can rely on this regularity and the security that there will be
few changes. In our early childhood classrooms, we know well the
“rippling wind” that blows through the group if something happens
out of order.

What are the organs for the life sense?

The autonomic nervous system (ANS), sometimes called the veg-
etative nervous system, is the main organ for the sense of life. The
ANS, which develops gradually in the first few years of life, is com-
posed of parts called the sympathetic and parasympathetic. These

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two operate with mutuality and are all about cooperative intervals
of activity and rest. This gives us another picture for the sense of
life. The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic
nervous system (PNS) cooperate and gradually, as the child grows,
begin to do amazing things. The SNS is predominantly responsible
for helping to develop and sustain and inform the sense of life.
The PNS is what begins to develop, at about age three, into the
inklings of the sense of thought. We might also remember that
Steiner tells us that the sense of life prepares for the development
of the sense of thought. Karl König tells us that “in the third year of
the child’s development, the skill of forming thoughts awakens.”12
Three is quite a threshold when we think about all that happens
at that age! The sense of thought has tender beginnings already at
three. It is also about this time in the child’s biography that he des-
ignates himself as “I.” This is a time when the children also begin to
ask very interesting questions.
A memory comes to mind of being at the seashore with my hus-
band and son, then almost three. We went out onto the balcony of
our room and were looking out at the sea where the waves were
rolling in. Of course, when there is wind, there will be spray on
the crest of the waves. We could also see the waves pulling sand
back from the shoreline. My son was speechless with wonder for a
long while and then asked what was happening. His father gave an
explanation of the pressure of the water that was pulling the sand
back and the wind that was blowing the waves. The explanation
was interrupted by the child needing to use the bathroom, allowing
an escape from this factual explanation. As we left, my son pulled
on my skirt and seriously asked, “Mom, do water fairies have hair?”
One can see the emergence of the sense of thought, accompanied
by lush images in this example.
Gradually in the child’s life the sympathetic nervous system takes
on the function of sense organ for the sense of life and the upper
parasympathetic nervous system slowly takes on that function for

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the sense of thought. How precious it is that we can, through sup-

porting the development of these systems, help the human being
to be able to eventually listen to what is behind the word; to actu-
ally communicate with people and not just hear the words but
the thoughts behind what is being said. This tender framework is
already beginning its development when the child is three! This
means that, supporting the physical body’s possibility to have health
allows the human being to later on find meaning in life. Rudolf
Steiner takes a step further in the importance of health in an indi-
vidual’s sense of life when he says that “the sense of life expresses
itself in later life as a basic feeling of our inner life.”13
I was initially trained in mainstream education. Teachers were
taught to look for the moment when the child expressed what
seemed like a thought. And then we were instructed to begin “pick-
ing at the child’s words,” asking questions, and honing in on intelli-
gent answers. However, what children really need is time to wonder
and, if any answers are warranted, then to be provided with open-
ended, magical responses. Every opportunity for the children to
respond to something greater than dry, intellectual words, stripped
bare of imagery, helps the children to sink into the magical land of
wonder that they deeply crave. If we truly listen to young children,
they will show us what answers are needed.
A scenario comes to mind. One day I came upon two children, a
boy and girl, from different families, together in the playground
where a group of friends were gathering around them. I had already
learned that the boy’s father gave lots of intellectual answers to his
questions and the girl was left more free to wonder. I saw the girl
in tears and went to investigate what the trouble was. The little girl
was proclaiming, “He is not! Father Sun is not like that.” And the
boy was insisting, “He’s just a ball of gases. My Dad told me!” The
children around were full of angst about all of this. Then finally one
of the other children asked, “How does he get his gases?” And the
boy replied, “Silly! You know those pipes that come out from cars?
The gases just drift up and he grabs them.” Having said this, all of

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the children seemed satisfied, whereupon they dispersed and con-

tinued playing together. One can see that, even though his father
had given him explanations devoid of pictures, this boy had man-
aged to transform his words into a lively picture. His peers were not
satisfied with the father’s explanation either until they heard the
fanciful picture his son had reconciled.
As adults we can contribute to the child’s healthy life sense by try-
ing our best to bring goodness into these explanations and soften
these intellectual pictures that the children have been given. The
possibility of imaginative outcome, full of goodness, gives the chil-
dren a sense of well-being. It contributes to the “all-is-well” con-
dition in their life sense. If we listen to the children, we can see
that some of those intellectual things the children hear are then
transformed into a picture that is more easily digested by them. We
can help the children with this by supporting these magical pic-
tures, and even bringing them into our circles and nature stories.
Perhaps the children have something to teach us about forming
picture imaginations.
WECAN has published a collection of Rudolf Steiner’s quotes about
the threshold that bridges the kindergarten into the grade school
years. It’s called From Kindergarten into the Grades.14 Reading it,
I am struck by the number of times Rudolf Steiner mentions the
importance of the educator working on herself so that she can
have the inheritance of the pictures to share with the children. He
brings this up over and over again. He also says in almost every lec-
ture that educators need to take strides to develop the extra sense
organs that are needed to sense into these things, to evolve what
has been given to us in order to develop extra soul-spiritual capac-
ities within ourselves.

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How can we actively set about developing our own

soul-spiritual capacities?
In the course of deepening my understanding of what this sense of
life is, I felt supported by the many times that Rudolf Steiner reit-
erates that there are spiritual forces and supersensible beings that
are underlying everything we see in the world. Actually, our sense
organs would not be able to exist if they did not have the support of
these invisible beings working into them. Living beings work within
everything that is around us. It is important that we, as educators,
cultivate our respect for what the earth is and for what lies behind
the sense world. Sunshine, fresh air, and nature impressions sustain,
replenish and build the child’s body—and our own.
In our kindergarten, we always begin the morning outside, in all
weather conditions. Of course we each have our own unique situ-
ations and consequent routines. In our situation, we have noticed
that, if we miss our regular two hours outside, the teachers and the
children feel the lack in their own being—something akin to hunger,
a certain restlessness and yearning for the missing nourishment. This
time in outside play gives something supportive to everyone. This is
also a place where we can have daily interplay with those beings who
make themselves available and assist in sensitizing the developing
senses of the child and the teacher.
Our life sense is nourished by both earthly and cosmic nutrition.

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What is earthly and cosmic nutrition?

Human beings depend on nutrition not only from earthly sources in
our immediate environment but also from the whole cosmos. Daily
food intake forms the basis for life and growth. In the same way,

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external stimuli and the new impressions we get from cosmic nutri-
tion enrich our inner life and encourage spiritual growth. Both are
necessary for the human being to have a sense of well-being. We can
support the children’s life sense by giving them healthy diets which
help them to anchor their body on earth. We can also tend what
Rudolf Steiner calls their feeling life sense by being attentive to the
forces from the cosmos that are active everywhere.
Let us imagine now that the earth is a microcosm and cosmic space
is the macrocosm around it. We can imagine that the earth is a
mighty being wandering in this peripheral space and is actively
collecting all the gifts and impressions from the sun, moon, and
stars there. And then this earth-being brings those impressions

back into herself and creatively manifests them outwardly—such

as the star in the primrose or the star hidden within the apple. Let’s
shift this picture and suppose that there is another macrocosm, and

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this time it is the earth. And now the child and the teacher are the
microcosm, wandering on the earth. They are also witnessing these
amazing things that the earth has taken into herself—the star in the
apple and in the primrose. In The Essentials of Education,15 Rudolf
Steiner talks about how important it is that we experience this awe
and wonder with the child. It is not just an arbitrary “something”
that happens in our thinking processes, there are actual spiritual
substances coming to us through stopping to look and wonder and
admire and “be” in the magic of this event. This transference of
substance gives our thinking the possibility of nurturing the pic-
tures for the children that they need. This is a process that it is
important for us to engage with. It fuels us and gives us the possi-
bility to create imaginative pictures for the children. These pictures
are gifts from other beings that we can take into ourselves just like
dear old mother earth has done.
There is another macrocosm and microcosm. If we develop the right
kind of relationship with the children,16 if we think about connect-
ing to them, attaching to them—not the kind of attachment where
we carry them around all over the place, but the kind of attachment
where we sustain the connection and do not allow ourselves to break
it—then the children will reveal themselves to us in the most amaz-
ing way. Then the teacher becomes the macrocosm and the children
are the microcosm. Sometimes this reverses when the children come
up with their amazing imaginations and we get to be the recipient.
When we then share picture imaginations out of ourselves, we see
how animated the children become. Receiving these pictures just
stops them in their tracks and they seem compelled to respond. We
could use picture imaginations rather than, for example, saying,
“Stop yelling,” “It is too loud in here,” “This is hurting my ears,” or, as
we sometimes say, “Use your inside voice.” These directives have very
little meaning to a child. They are empty abstractions for the child’s
ear. Rather, in picture-language, we could say, “My, it sounds like
the squawking parrots are in the land. I wonder if Brother Robin is
here somewhere?” Awakening this imaginative capacity in ourselves

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is hard work for us, as educators, because we have been accustomed

for so long to first go to factual understandings in our thinking
processes.
We can look at Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, The Long Walk to
Freedom, as we contemplate two things related to the developing life
sense—the importance of children having nature experiences and
the adults in their life whom they are drawn to emulate. Mandela
writes about his amazing childhood, where he played on the veld
every day, his parents unaware of his whereabouts. He and his friends
would compose their own expansive plays and hack branches and
pretend that they were oxen and they would slide down the clay hills
until their backsides ached.17 They would play to their hearts’ con-
tent all day long. When this picture was shared with a kindergar-
ten colleague, she—an adult known for her sweetness and gentle-
ness—shared that when she was a child, she and her brother used
to play jackals for weeks, even months. One year they played jackals
all summer long. In our adult mind, we think of jackals with alarm.
What this speaks to me, however, is that, in this unrestricted play,
she could really play something out fully and get a sense of it. This
is what Nelson Mandela was allowed to do. We can all recognize the
life forces he carried through his whole biography. Even to the end of
his life he seemed full of strength and purpose.

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Mandela spoke of a person in his life, the Reverend Harris, a stern

man who had strength of purpose. Some of his friends were afraid
of Reverend Harris. But when he was in the garden, the way he was
as a devoted gardener, touched Nelson Mandela deeply. Mandela
said that Reverend Harris implanted within him a life-long love of
gardening; standing as an example of a good man who was unself-
ishly devoted to a good cause. He further goes on to say of Reverend
Harris that he was not someone who nurtured him but rather, it was
who Reverend Harris was in his being that made the impression.
And it was out of respect for this way of being that Mandela was
inspired to carry this influential memory into his later life.
In 1998, a Waldorf center opened in a township in South Africa.
Nelson Mandela, who was still president at that time, gave the open-
ing address. In keeping with his oft-quoted principles about children
and society, he said many things about children as both society’s
most vulnerable citizens and its greatest wealth.18 Nelson Mandela
most assuredly was given ample opportunity to strengthen his life

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forces. The results of this interplay of cosmic and earthly nutrition

on this one human being benefited all of humanity.
Now let us investigate a little further how the spiritual beings par-
ticipate in the building of the life sense for the child. We all take for
granted that the food children eat is of great importance. The qual-
ity of nutrition is one of the first things on our lips when we think
about nurturing the young child. And...there are so many alterna-
tives these days. Perhaps you also have the experience that, on bread
day, there is a plate with coconut butter and gluten-free bread. On
another plate by a different child’s table spot is placed only rye bread
and Earth Balance—no butter. And then there is another plate with
the kindergarten bread with no butter and another plate actually
with bread and butter. There is quite an array these days of different
dietary needs and preferences we encounter. To discuss all of this is
not something we want to go into right now. But one thing I’ve found
to be useful is to grind nuts or seeds into the snack grain to add a
bit of protein. Some children have traveled quite a distance to school
and then, after being outside for two hours, I want them to eat some-
thing sustaining. Something raw is always served with the grain as
well. No sweetener is served; there are only some raisins to sweeten
our porridge. Although initially there may be some upturned noses,
eventually most children are hungrily devouring what their eighteen
other classmates are eating.
Rudolf Steiner says that the food we eat affects the physical body,
and it also affects our thinking and our spiritual faculties—the rela-
tionship we will have later on to thinking spiritual thoughts and to
spiritual beings themselves. The food itself isn’t what builds up our
body. He talks about two streams. There is the stream of earthly
nutrition and the stream of cosmic nutrition. When we take food
in, it breaks down into little particles. Then, if we were consider-
ing the mineral substance of the food, we would see that it is actu-
ally completely destroyed in our digestive processes. After that,
it becomes etherized until it becomes warmth. In that condition,
it can be united with the cosmic stream of nutrition. This cosmic

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nutrition, in combination with this transformed earthly nutrition,

is what then builds human substance.
Steiner’s teachings guide anthroposophical medicine in saying that
the amount of vitality in the food that we eat is extremely import-
ant.19 If the vitality isn’t there, the transformed substance composed
of the union of cosmic and earthly nutrition cannot be pushed out
with sufficient vigor into the limbs and into the whole body. It is
imperative that the earthly nutrition the children receive be as full of
life forces as possible so it can go through this rigorous transforma-
tion and still be potent enough to permeate the child’s whole body.
I was pondering whether I could think of a possible relevant life
experience about this phenomenon and I’m wondering if the fol-
lowing might be one. One year, a little boy who had been adopted
from China came into our kindergarten family. In China there
used to be a tendency to value boys more highly than girls. But for
some reason, this boy had been kept with the girls in the orphan-
age. Perhaps it was because he was premature and tiny when he was
born. The adoptive mother brought photos showing us how he had
spent the first fourteen months of his life, propped up in one of
twenty wooden cradles with forty other children, lined up in several
rows in a big room.
This boy was fed gruel, and when his adoptive mother got him at
age two-and-a-half, he could barely walk. When he came to the kin-
dergarten he was still very thin, pale, and under-developed. Later,
when he had played in the kindergarten for a few months, both
indoors and out, he began to grow, get rosy cheeks and was able to
strengthen in his belief that he could take on the same tasks as the
other children. I saw him recently as a young adult and, although he
is still small compared to most people his age, when we spoke, he
seemed full of self-esteem and confidence that “all is well with me
and the world.”

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For many years, I’m guessing that we have all followed the Waldorf
recommendations of natural toys, natural fabrics, getting into nature,
and wholesome foods. But when we understand the living forces
inherent in these things, we can have deeper realizations about the
benefits for the children—the soul/spiritual harvest they stand to
reap from elemental substances in their outdoor and indoor play
spaces. These environments and what is in them is actually building
the child’s bodily organism. We, as early childhood educators, have
the honor of supporting the foundational sense organs simply by
providing a healthy environment. This has far greater repercussions
than we might realize.

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It’s obvious that warmth, sunlight, air, sounds, and visual impressions
are all contained in the substances that come to us through cosmic
nutrition. Rudolf Steiner tells us that there are also trace minerals
and metallic substances that enter the earth’s atmosphere from cos-
mic space. These are also very important for us. Earthly nutrition
gives us the substances we need for building, in particular, the brain
and nervous system. And it gives us the forces we need for will activ-
ity and the functioning of our metabolic organs. Cosmic nutrition
gives us the substances for our metabolic organs, our muscles, and
our blood, and the forces particularly for thought activity.

We have talked a bit about how the spiritual world is involved. And
we also want to get very practical as well. How do the adults in the

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child’s life nurture her sense of the world being predictable, safe,
sensible, and secure? Gordon Neufeld, a developmental psycholo-
gist from Vancouver, British Columbia, spoke of the phenomenon
of increased entitlement in the “privileged” children of today—we
may encounter this in our programs as well. Dr Neufeld encourages
parents and educators to strengthen the resilience and security of the
children by providing reliable firm boundaries. He gives the familiar
scenario of the child coming home after school and wanting a cookie
before dinner. He emphasizes to parents that, if it is the family rule
that there is no cookie before dinner, the parents should not give in.
He says that children need to meet “the wall of futility.” This prepares
them to be resilient in a world that does not mirror flexible laws. He
says that parents and educators need to be double agents—angels of
comfort and angels of futility. In the kindergarten, as we work out of
imitation, sometimes we have to firmly bring the children along with
us until they can imitate us. And there are times when we do have to
give the children the “gift of no.”20

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What other things can educators do to consciously

nourish the life sense?
1. The purposeful, meaningful activity of the teacher gives the child
a sense of well-being. When we are on the playground, we need to be
active, not standing idle or talking with our colleagues.

Our kindergarten has its own garden plot that the kindergarteners
take care of all year. If the teacher lays down a tool, a child is likely to
pick it up and run off with it, they are so inspired to be in these will
activities. It’s of tremendous interest and comfort to the children that
there is order in the world. This is strengthening for the life sense.

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2. Holding a generally positive, loving mood. This, of course, nour-

ishes the child’s sense of well-being. One year, I was fortunate to have
four practicum students who came all at different times. The children
welcomed these students and had various reactions to their presence
in the classroom. Because of the children’s reactions, I noticed that
one student stood out. She was full of peace, radiating interest, and
so happy to be with the children. The children were drawn to her like
flies to honey. She embodied the qualities of warmth and love and
joy, all of which are nourishing to the life sense.
3. Beauty in the environment. Creating a clean, tidy and aestheti-
cally beautiful space helps the children feel at home.
4. Toys that are open-ended support the life sense. These help the
children feel confident in their own ability to transform situations.
Traditional wooden toys with movable parts are living examples of
the creative ability to bring order and life-giving properties to the
children. The children’s cheeks turn visibly pink when playing with
these toys.

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

5. Some children, when building their bodies, are very sensitive to

off-gassing, chemical substances, detergents, and the like. Even some
of the strong essential oils we love to use can be almost painful to
the children. We can protect the children by our own consciousness
around these things.
6. Regular rhythms that make sense for the children. Sometimes
these rhythms can vary slightly to meet the shifting needs of the chil-
dren. For instance, as the children are readying for transition into the
grade school, some teachers have observed that the older children
need some time together on their own. I have worked this into our
regular program because, required by law, our program has a longer
day. This means that the parents get their errands done before com-
ing to pick up their children. I have specifically asked my parents
to take their children directly home after school, if at all possible.
This is easier for them to do when the children are with us longer.
Surprisingly, the consequence of a longer kindergarten day has been
that the vitality of the children is more robust and their sense of well-
being tends to be more consistent.
Later in the year, in January or so, the six-year-olds do need some-
thing different. I don’t see that this is a need for structured activity,
but rather a need for the new capacities arising out of the six-year
change to be met. I make subtle changes to the routine but I do not
change the order of our day. And, for the last half hour, instead of
going outside again, we lengthen the morning and play traditional
games. While the younger children watch or play, the older children
do more complicated things that the younger children really don’t
want to get involved with.
At this time, when the “birth of the etheric” turns the children into lit-
tle “bubbling pots,” we sometimes also take up, indoors or outdoors,
the children’s passion for skipping [rope]. The etheric body has an
affinity to and a natural tendency to pass into cosmic space and is at
home there. Rudolf Steiner says, “The etheric body is not subject to
gravity—on the contrary—it is always trying to get away. Its tendency

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is to disperse and scatter into far cosmic spaces.”21 Remember, I previ-

ously mentioned the intimate connection of the etheric body and the
life sense. No wonder the older child in the kindergarten takes such
joy in skipping when the birth of the etheric is underway.

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7. Children want to hear that this world they have incarnated into
is safe. They want to have people around them saying, “Yes, this is a
good place”; “Yes, you can test your strength in this safe place and I
will protect you.” We can still carry this nourishing attitude for the
child’s life sense while, at the same time, providing the protection
of reasonable boundaries. Sometimes I think we spend too much
time saying “no” for the wrong reasons. We can set healthy limits and
still give the children the opportunity to challenge their strength and
take reasonable risks. For example, in the child-devised wagon ride
below, when the children are riding on the chairs within the wagon,
it is perfectly safe as long as the children remain sitting and those
pushing use their “walking feet.”

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 Observing Life Sense Development

In closing, what a privilege we have, as educators, to be in this sup-

portive role, along with other mighty beings, of carefully nurturing
this emerging sense of well-being in the young child. If we regard
this task rightly and accept this partnership with all its graces, it can
bring life-giving forces to the children as well as ourselves and others.

NOTES

1. Karl König, A Living Physiology (Bolton Village, UK: Camphill Books, 2006),
pp. 189–93.
2. See generally Rudolf Steiner, A Psychology of Body, Soul, and Spirit (Great
Barrington, Massachusetts: Steiner Books, 1999), originally translated and
published as The Wisdom of Man, of the Soul and of the Spirit (New York:
Anthroposophic Press, 1971).
3. See, e.g., Rudolf Steiner, Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms
(London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1986; Great Barrington, Massachusetts:
Steiner Books, 1986).
4. Ibid.
5. Willi Aeppli, The Care and Development of the Human Senses (Edinburgh,
UK: Floris Books, 2013), pp. 11-12.
6. König, A Living Physiology, pp. 188–89.
7. Henning Köhler, Working with Anxious, Nervous, and Depressed Children
(Chatham, New York: AWSNA, 1995), p. 24-25.
8. Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy—A Fragment (Hudson, New York:
Anthroposophic Press, 1996), and Rudolf Steiner, A Psychology of Body, Soul,
& Spirit (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1999), pp. 20–21.
9. Ibid.
10. Rudolf Steiner, Education as a Force for Social Change (Hudson, New York:
Anthroposophic Press, 1997), pp. 56–57.
11. Köhler, Working with Anxious, Nervous and Depressed Children.
12. König, A Living Physiology.
13. Rudolf Steiner, The Boundaries of Natural Science (New York:
Anthroposophic Press, 1983).
14. Ruth Ker, Editor, From Kindergarten into the Grades, (Chestnut Ridge, New
York: Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America, 2014).

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15. Rudolf Steiner, The Essentials of Education (Great Barrington, Massachusetts:

Anthroposophic Press, 1997).
16. Ibid. at 70.
17. “We sat on flat stones and slid down the face of the large rocks. We did this
until our backsides were so sore we could hardly sit down.” Nelson Mandela,
The Long Walk to Freedom (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2000),
pp. 9-10.
18. No direct transcription of Mandela’s address exists, but this account is in
keeping with Mandela’s expressed thoughts about children and society at the
time, for example, “The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats
its children,” 27 September, 1997, collected in “Nelson Mandela quotes about
children” at Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund,
www.nelsonmandelachildrensfund.com/news/mandela-quotes-about-children.
19. See, e.g., Jeff Smoth, R.N., “Earthly Nutrition, Cosmic Nutrition, and
External Nursing Therapies” at AnthroMed Library,
www.anthromed.org/Article.aspx?artpk=320.
20. Gordon Neufeld, Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More
than Peers (Toronto, Ontario, Candada: Vintage Canada, 2013), p. 222.
21. Rudolf Steiner, The Roots of Education (Hudson, New York: Anthroposophic
Press, 1997), pp. 38–39.

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 Enlivening the Life Forces: Lessons from “The Donkey”

3. Enlivening the Life Forces:

Lessons from “The Donkey”
Patricia Rubano
February 9, 2014

P
atricia enters to applause and laughter—wearing a donkey tail
and donkey ears.*
There’s a lot of trust going on that Susan has allowed me to
come up here. I might just make an ass of myself.
Her headgear falls off.
They don’t make these things like they used to! My husband accom-
modated me last night when I said that I needed some donkey ears.
A short time later—a winter hat, some paper ears, a dangling rope
behind and, presto! I’m an ass!
I definitely wanted to bring the donkey along this morning after the
eurythmy performance last night. It so happens that in the Biography
and Social Art course, that same fairy tale informs us about life. I
seem to have had an affinity for donkeys throughout my life, with
Eeyore being one of my favorites. “Life is soo hard.” What melan-
cholic would not love Eeyore?
But Eeyore is not the only character living in this skin with me. I
have the spoiled girl from the puppet show in me, too. “You don’t

*Editor’s notes on activity during the lecture will appear throughout.

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know how hard my life is! It’s so cold here! I’m used to the warmth!”
And yet someone asked me to talk to you about enlivening the life
forces? I’m still working on it! I go to school and all the parents there
think that I’m wonderful and I’m so great. They put me up on that
pedestal, you know? But go ask the people at home about the tired,
grumpy, irritable me that they live with.
So this question of the life forces is a life’s work and is ongoing. I
was not sure what I would say about it because I’m sure you have
been to some of the workshops covering all those things we already
know—and need to be reminded of. We need to exercise and paint
and dance and play—to do the things that rejuvenate us. And we do
need that. Yesterday, Ruth was showing us all kinds of earthly, mate-
rial things that the world around us is busy telling us that we need
to take advantage of. And then there is the ever-flowing fount that
Susan Weber referred to that I hope will be touched on today.
The bad news is, growth is hard work. Darn it! But the seven-year
phases of development do not stop at twenty-one. A lot of you are
in your thirties and forties and I remember being at those stages. It’s
hard! But I think the way the Asian cultures speak of life in three
stages captures something quite well. The first twenty years is to
learn. The middle twenty years is to fight, though I prefer the word
“struggle.” And the last twenty years—and these are often no longer
the last years, to be sure—are to grow wise. Being in one’s thirties
and forties is the perfect time to take up, if you haven’t already, some
inner work. Start Now1 is a book containing spiritual exercises given
by Rudolf Steiner. Or Michael Lipson’s book, Stairway of Surprise,2
is a good one for the six basic exercises. To look in, to “know thy-
self,” is vital for anyone working with children. Choosing practices
that are right for you can support your own continued growth and
development.
We can also start taking up other aspects of the work of becoming
human for ourselves. We are always looking out for the children and
the development of their lower senses. But we cannot stop with the

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 Enlivening the Life Forces: Lessons from “The Donkey”

study of child development. We must carry the picture of human

development over a whole lifetime. And we cannot stop with the
lower senses, which form the foundation for the future, but must
take up for ourselves the development of the higher senses.
So, I wanted to bring the donkey and Rudolf Steiner along today to
help me speak to some of this. I think most of you were present at
the eurythmy performance of the Grimm’s fairy tale, “The Donkey,”
last night or perhaps you are at least familiar with the story. It has
become a favorite of mine and I will bring us through it this morning.
At the beginning of the story we meet a king and queen who have no
child. What a picture of a future that is in danger we have right there
because, of course, a child is the future. Then a child comes, but the
queen cannot see beyond the donkey skin. Fortunately, the king can.
And this activity of learning to see beyond, that we need to take up
and learn to do, is right there in the fairy tale.
I recently looked at the beginning of many fairy tales. I was looking
for something else, but what I actually found was over and over how
they start: “Once there was a little girl whose father and mother had
died and she no longer had a room to live in or any possessions.”
Or, “There was a serving maid who went on a journey with her fam-
ily. Some robbers stopped them and killed all of the family except
her.” The fairy tales immediately tell us that life is not easy. They tell
us of trials, and they also tell us of helpers. Rudolf Steiner says that
we are birthing something new into the world at this point in evo-
lution. We are living at the time of the birth and development of
the Consciousness Soul. Most of us here are women, and we know
about labor pains and what it takes to bring new life into the world.
Rudolf Steiner tells us that this life journey is hard and that it must be
so. This new faculty of consciousness cannot come to birth without
struggle and without rubbing up against one another.
The fairy tales also tell us, as Rudolf Steiner observes, that we have to
break the enchantment. We have to break the spell. And one of the
spells we have to break is this notion that life is supposed to be easy.

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If we “do it right,” it is going to be smooth and easy. Growing up in

a church, I think I learned that, if I do it right and if I am good and
pious like the little girl in the story, it will be smooth. I will be blessed
and my prayers will be answered. Then that scenario did not work
so well for me, so I found the Eastern traditions and there was a lot
that spoke to me deeply. But there was also the notion of enlighten-
ment. So I wanted to be enlightened. I thought this was a static state
that I could get to. I wanted to get there. And then it was all going to
be okay. But the real teaching for enlightenment is, “Before enlight-
enment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood,
carry water.” That is really what I am here to tell you.
Have you seen the light in someone’s eyes, like Janene Ping when she
said, “I love a good story!”—the light in Ruth’s eyes when she was
sharing with us about the mud and sand and all the working in the
garden? We all love a story, but what makes a good story? It is all the
characters in it and all the drama and tension and excitement. We
have to remember that all those characters in the story—any story—
are in each one of us. All of the characters are me.
I have that spoiled little girl in me and I also have the good little girl
in me who takes care of her mother, who takes care of the plants.
And I think that this is another enchantment, this view that I am I
and you are you. And we are enclosed in these singular, individual
donkey-skin bodies. St. Francis referred to his body as Brother Ass.
That is the one who carries me through life, but is this body that
carries me through life who I really am? What part do all these other
parts within and the people outside have to do with “who I am”?
How do I develop those higher senses that let me come into a real
sense of the ego of the other? What is it to be a human being? To
“know thyself ”? What is this human becoming?
Signe Schaefer was the founder of the Biography and Social Arts
Program here at Sunbridge. And she has written a book, Why on
Earth? Biography and the Practice of Human Becoming.3

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 Enlivening the Life Forces: Lessons from “The Donkey”

At some point Steiner essentially says that it is impossible to really be

a human being now. But it is always possible to step into the becoming.
So how do we do this? How do we step into this? As I have already
said, we cannot stop with the lower senses. We cannot stop with child
development alone. We have to ask ourselves the questions that the
fairy tale asks. Can we see behind? Can we see beyond? Can we hear
not what is said but what is meant—the thought behind the words?
Can we follow the thoughts of another? These questions have to do
with the higher senses.
I can reflect back to when I first heard of the twelve senses and
studied them. I tried so long to memorize what they were and had
to keep going back to the book, so I will remind you. These lower
senses are the ones that tell us about ourselves—the senses of touch,
of life, self-movement, and the sense of balance. Then we go into the
middle senses, and these tell us about the interweaving of self and
world. These are the senses of smell, taste, sight, and warmth. But the
higher senses are the ones that tell us about the other person. These
are the senses of hearing, of the spoken word, the sense of concept,
and the sense of the ego of the other. And this life sense we have been
talking about and tending to needs to form the basis and evolve into
this sense of concept, the sense of thought. Can I follow the thoughts
of another? And what this requires of me is to lay down my own
thoughts for a time and be able to follow along with the thoughts of
another. But to do that, I have to strengthen my own “I.”
There are two directions we can travel to work on this and ideally we
will travel both—one moves inward and the other moves outward—
both in service to our task, which as I understand it is to learn to love
out of freedom.
What can phases of human development tell us about this?
How many here were children?
All raise their hands.

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Good—I thought so! So, we have all had the benefit of the hierar-
chies to carry us in our childhood development—a “natural” devel-
opment carries us. We learn to walk, talk, and think by the grace of
the gods, not by being taught. And as adults, Steiner suggests that
much of what we need to do is to get out of the way so the child can
develop. We know this and see it and trust it. Whereas the rest of the
world is saying, “Teach them. Teach them,” we are saying, “Remove
the obstacles, create the right environment, be worthy of imitation
and the children will develop.” It is in the nature of the children to
learn from everything around them.
We are carried, as I said, to a certain point, then gradually engage
ever more consciously in our own learning. But eventually comes
the time where Steiner tells us that “natural” development comes
to an end and it is truly up to us to take up self-development for
ourselves—or not. Somewhere in our late twenties or early thirties
we notice that a certain invisible support and the “natural” talents
we had begin to fade if we do not now bring something new out of
ourselves and make them our own. Between twenty-eight and thirty
there is often an inner crisis of sorts.
I hope that you have all at least heard of the six basic exercises and
have some familiarity with them. Many teachers have told me that
they learned of these in teacher training but could not really relate
to them or tried them but then could not sustain them. I will say
personally that I have tried them and laid them down and tried them
and laid them down. But the older I get and the more I work with
them, the more dear they are to my heart. They are meant to help us
strengthen and gain a mastery over our thinking, feeling, and will-
ing. I will briefly review them now.
Rudolf Steiner gave these exercises as a necessary strengthening to
prepare for meditation, but I think we could say they are a necessary
companion for life in the twenty-first century. He gives us a concen-
tration exercise to do for only five minutes a day. The objective is
to keep my mind focused on one thing for five minutes, something

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 Enlivening the Life Forces: Lessons from “The Donkey”

mundane like a paper clip. In doing this, I find a strengthening hap-

pening in the realm of thoughts.
Next is the one that I fail at consistently even to this day. This is the
will exercise. To do something for no other reason than that you have
decided to do it. I do not think of myself as a weak-willed person,
but this exercise made me realize that most of what I do is motivated
by or done on behalf of others. To consistently do something simply
because I decide to do it is hard.
Then in the realm of feeling is the goal of developing equanimity
by attending to feelings but expressing them only as you choose to.
Then come practices for positivity and open-mindedness. And the
sixth weaves them all together. So this is just an example of the myr-
iad ways of inner work that Steiner gives. Many other exercises are
out there that are so valuable—if we practice.
I really appreciate that there are so many other spiritual teachers of our
day who are saying essentially the same things we hear from Rudolf
Steiner—and even brain research supports so much of what we are
doing. For me, that validates these thoughts I have been living with
for years. If others are saying similar things in different words, that
to me says, “Yes, consciousness is evolving.” One does not have to be
an anthroposophist to wake up to the fact that there is more than this
material world, and this acknowledgment is happening all around.
There are certain things at certain moments that we need to hear.
When I was in my thirties and was dealing with chronic fatigue, I felt
like a veil was in front of me. I just couldn’t make my way through it
to the people and the world around me in the midst of that stage of
life with all its responsibilities and stresses. And I think Dr. Michaela
Glöckler gave a lecture where she spoke about cultivating interest.
Since then I have seen how often the importance of this quality of
interest streams out of so much that Steiner says. Thich Nhat Hanh
also says that “inter-est”—to inter-be—is the ability to stream into
the other. This has been a real key for me. Steiner’s work and that of
Georg Kühlewind describe that when the child’s etheric forces are

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freed from growth as their primary task, then the child can begin to
think. Forces continue to be freed. As we get older and our life forces
decline in the body, these forces are freed for our use in other ways.
These freed forces Kühlewind speaks of as freed forces of attention.
These may be used consciously or they may become masterless forces
being drawn by whatever harnesses them. It is an aspect of our free-
dom that we can choose where to put our attention.
We each have our particular interests—puppetry, singing, and so
on—that we naturally gravitate toward and take joy in. I always
thought that interest is something that just sort of happens to us and
that we had little control over. It is true that we are born with partic-
ular gifts and inclinations, but it was a revelation for me to consider
that we can choose what to be interested in! The secret is that I can
choose where to put my attention.
I have made a discovery through doing a perception exercise with
other people. We observe a stone and then inwardly picture it as
accurately as possible, back and forth a few times. Then we look in
a different way—one that asks the stone to “reveal thyself,” back and
forth a few times. What I have found is that everyone falls in love
with their stone and a certain progression occurs through this prac-
tice of attention. I describe it in this way: Wherever I put my atten-
tion, interest arises. Wherever interest arises, I can actually come
to an understanding. Where there is understanding, I tend to fall
in love. So this freedom of what we do with our attention actually
potentially leads to love. This was so strong for me because I thought,
If we can fall in love with a stone simply through consciously plac-
ing our attention there, what would be possible if we did that with
one another? This whole process makes me think of a child study—
to practice objective observation without analyzing and also ask
inwardly and reverently for the child to “reveal thyself.”
There is a short quotation from John Tarrant, a Zen teacher. He says:
“Attention is the most basic form of love. Through it, we bless and
are blessed.”4

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What drains our life forces? For me it is feeling disconnected, it is

feeling separated. It is feeling enclosed in my own little shell here, my
own little world. Steiner says that this is the way of the world right
now. That is what is “normal.” We are developing the Consciousness
Soul, and that means that the antisocial forces are stronger than the
social forces. To be conscious of something, to be able to see it, we
have to be apart from it. We no longer easily sense our way into the
other. Because of this, we walk around enclosed in our own “habit”
like hermits who do not even see each other. We are solitary beings.
One of the two directions spoken of earlier is this inner work. I work
with my own “I” to strengthen my faculties of thinking, feeling, and
willing. And the other direction is to put our attention out into the
world. Steiner says in many different ways—to find the world, look
into yourself. To find yourself, look into the world. And we can do
this with the natural world, as in the exercise of concentrating upon
and picturing the stone. We observe it and find ourselves falling in
love with it. Or a tree. Steiner suggests that this is a good way to come
into touch with the elementals. A practice done in many training
courses, including the biography course, is to follow something in
the natural world through the course of a whole year, thus helping
ourselves learn to observe, to see the processes of growth and devel-
opment that are present in any life form.
Where else can we practice this? As mentioned, we do this with child
study and we learn a lot about development. I question whether
many of us think to do this in the adult sphere. It behooves us to do
our own biography work to look at our own life and see what has
formed us. A lot of people may think that biography work is just
navel-gazing and that psychology is just an inner turning. What I
am trying to say here is that biography work can be an outer turn-
ing also, because we are dealing with an enchantment by which we
think we have formed our own lives. Have you ever thought much
about the fact that most people have little to no memory of the first
three years of life or more? We are here on earth and living a life, but
someone else actually holds the memory of that time for you! That

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is an amazing thought to me—that someone else holds a part of my

life for me. And whenever we look back on our lives, it is filled with
all the different characters in the story. We find all the people who
have helped us to become who we are—the prince and princess, the
wicked witch, and the troll. They are all there. They are there outside
of us and they are also there inside us. What better way to wake up
to them than, in our Waldorf way, through a fairy tale with a little
biography work alongside?
In biography work, there are infinite entry points into exploring our
lives. There are temperaments, soul types, and the seven-year phases
themselves, to name a few. But a fairy tale is a wonderful way to enter
in. (Please note that anything I say about this fairy tale should be
taken as a suggestion—with a question mark. We cannot pin down
fairy tales. If we do, it is like pinning an insect on the display board.
It is dead. We want to ask “I wonder? Perhaps it means this.”) For our
own little practice right now, here are some questions and thoughts
to ponder:
At the beginning of “The Donkey,” there is a queen who cannot see
beyond the donkey skin. She has wept night and day, lamenting her
barrenness and thus has not slept—has not entered into the night-
time, spiritual world. She is a wreck, and can see only the physical,
outer appearance. Is this why she cannot see the ego of the other?
She says that she would rather have had no child than to have a don-
key. If the queen is a picture of the feminine, the soul, then we must
consider what condition the feminine, the soul of the human being
has come to. She is the old queen and has been awake to the material
world too long. She does not see clearly and is awash in emotion. But
it is clear that the king, the spirit in each of us, can still see the true
nature of the child—or at least accept that the child is as God has
chosen to create it. He sees the donkey as his child, his heir, and will
have him treated as such.
In our own lives, there have been people who could see and rec-
ognize us and there have been people who could not. For yourself,

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take a moment to remember and inwardly thank a couple of the

people who saw you. Individually, we may also be able to say thank
you even to those who did not see us because something happened
out of that, too.
Patricia pauses silently for a moment; the audience follows suit.
Now, on with our little donkey tale! It is possible to see four trials in
this fairy tale; there are always trials in a fairy tale. The first we could
consider an earth trial. Our little donkey has hooves, but he wants to
play the lyre; he wants to master the physical form he has in order to
play and create music. Because he is “persevering and industrious,”
and no excuses can stop him, he transforms his hooves to play as
“well as the master himself.” Relating this to our own lives, we can
ask ourselves what we have taken up to develop because we were
drawn to something, but it took hard work. The puppet show we saw
was a lot of work to stage and perform, but did you see how the pup-
peteers loved their work? What is something that we each have had
to work at? Turn to your neighbor and share for just a few minutes.
The auditorium erupts into vibrant sharing.
Our donkey masters the earthly form he has been given. But at a
certain moment he is melancholy and goes out walking. He sees his
donkey’s form reflected in a well—could we see this as a water trial?
He is so shocked that this sends him on a journey. Has there been
a time in your life when you received a reflection that was rather
shocking? Yes? This can take many different forms. I can share an
experience of working with a particular assistant one year. This per-
son had been hired when I was away, so we had never met in per-
son. I am ultimately grateful for this encounter because it came at a
time when I was asking to really see myself as others see me—and I
had learned by then, as a Native American teacher put it, to pray for
things to come in good and gentle ways. It was not an easy relation-
ship and this was new for me. One good thing was that we could face
one another and admit that our encounters were not easy. But we
realized that we had something to do with each other and we shared

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a language that let us speak about an element of karma that we felt

was at work. The assistant told me that I reminded her of a sister
whom she had not spoken to in years. She lambasted me one day
just before class and said that I never told her anything she was doing
well—I only told her things that she was doing wrong. Fortunately,
I had had enough experience in my life by then to know that I work
pretty well with people and that this was an overstatement, at least.
I could let go of the part that felt like it was her own reactivity, but
I had to try to understand her experience and find what part did
belong to me.
It was painful to realize that I could recognize this criticism from my
husband about how I was at home. I can always see how something
could be done differently, or better—and I point it out. When I was
growing up, my father never told us that we did something right
or well—that was just to be expected. If you did not do something
right, then that was what you heard about from my two perfectionist
parents. So I could trace this back and see how I had inherited this
and how it lived on in me. That was a shocking reflection because I
recognized something unpleasant about myself that sent me on an
inner journey to learn to share my appreciation of others, and I still
continue to work at this.
Sometimes it is an outer journey. A friend had a high school teacher
who told him that he could never make it in college. I don’t recall
whether the friend had thought to go on to college or not, but the
result of this teacher’s comment or “reflection” was that he took it as a
challenge to show that he could make it. He went to college and later
ended up as a Waldorf teacher. So we can ponder this, too. Where
have we received reflections—from a child, parent, colleague—that
have sent us on a journey? Where have these journeys taken you?
What changes occurred? While I am posing these questions for you
to consider for yourself right now, if you wanted to do this in a way
that supports social understanding and connection, you could do
this within your faculties and share about your journeys. Small shar-
ings go a long way.

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Generally, we only do this kind of thing when we have a natural sym-

pathy or affinity for someone, so we become friends and we share
some of our life stories. But this is the same thing as “interest hap-
pening to us.” This sharing of stories can be life changing and we
can choose to do it. We can even choose to do it with people with
whom we do not have a natural affinity. And something happens;
something transforms in the doing. An early childhood faculty, for
example, could take any fairy tale and explore it in this way. Working
with it will deepen your understanding of the fairy tale and also of
your own life and of one another.
Returning to the story. The donkey takes with him on his journey
“one faithful companion.” The story does not identify this compan-
ion—is it his lute? His angel? His true self? This is one of the mys-
teries in the story, but we do know that he has his lute. I think of this
next part as the air trial.
He is on the journey and he decides, “Here we shall stay.” This ass is
very decisive and we can find a lot of will in this story. He comes to
this kingdom where an old king has a beautiful daughter, but the gate
does not open when he calls, “A guest is without—open that he may
enter.” This is not sufficient, so he sits down and begins to play—I
imagine that he brings a heavenly music, the music of the spheres.
He has overcome his hooves to become a master musician; he has
seen his true form in the water and gone on a journey and now the
air carries the truth and essence of his being to the gatekeeper. The
gatekeeper, however, cannot believe his eyes—a much more outward
directed sense—but he does hear, which is already one of the higher
senses. He tells the king what he has heard, the door is opened and
our little ass enters a new kingdom.
Maybe there is a special gift each of us has that has opened doors for
us. Maybe there have been moments when we just knew that there
was something we had to do, and that meant entering a new realm.
Something new is required to cross that threshold, and our donkey
has developed something on his journey. He will not sit with the

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servants or the soldiers. “I am no common stable ass. I am a noble

one. I will sit by the king.” He has developed will, but there is still
something lacking. The king asks, “How does my daughter please
you?” He knows immediately, “I like her above measure.” One of my
teachers pointed out that this phrase may hold a hint about this new
realm we have entered. We are above the quantifiable world. This is a
world beyond measure—a world of qualities.
To sit beside her is exactly what he is wishing for. He behaves “dain-
tily and cleanly” and it seems that he is well suited to be in this king-
dom, but eventually he comes before the king looking sad. He still is
in need of the Parzival question. He needs something, some higher
part of himself to draw out his deepest need and desire. And the
king asks him, “What ails you? I wish I did know what would make
you content.” And then then there is a series of tests. “Do you want
gold?” “Do you want jewels and rich dress?” “Do you want half of my
kingdom?” The donkey answers no to each of these offers. Though
he does not seem to know it himself yet, he is looking for something
else; “I want my soul. I want the other half of myself.” In this story,
the trials are not necessarily outward as in a battle or task, but are
more inward as we are told that the donkey is despondent and wants
to go home. “What good does all of this do me?” Have we ever our-
selves felt that way? Sometimes I think, “I have meditated for all this
long time, gone to how many workshops, but what good does it do
me? I still have this donkey skin on! I don’t fit—I’m not enough.”
The donkey has persevered and been industrious, he has recognized
his imperfect form and can sound his true tone. He has a strong will.
He has gone through all these other trials, but he still needs and we
need someone to ask us, “What ails thee?”
The longing to be seen and heard in our full reality has arisen in
every human soul since the beginning of the twentieth century and
is growing increasingly urgent.
We long to be seen and heard inside our donkey skins. We can feel
that. This longing was not there in the same way in my parents and

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certainly not in my grandparents. That is part of the Consciousness

Soul times we live in. We have work to do here, so we need each
other. We need someone to see us and to hear us into our full reality.
So the king does see or at least senses and he asks, “Do you want
my pretty daughter to be your wife?” And the donkey immediately
knows and answers, “Oh yes, that is exactly what I have been wishing
for.” And so the wedding takes place.
The princess in this story says little, but I love the line when the father
asks her in the morning after her wedding night, “But surely you are
sad that you have not got a proper man for your husband?” and she
answers, “Oh no, dear father, I love him as well as if he were the
handsomest in the world and I will keep him as long as I live!” I like
to think that this is the soul that loves unconditionally and provides
the safety to reveal oneself wholly and fully. The one with whom we
can enter the holy of holies and sense the “I” of the other. Is that not
what we are all longing for?
So the donkey has been seen in his full reality, but the “coming out”
is not easy. There remains one more trial to undergo. And it requires
the king—the masculine, the spirit—to do it. After he has learned
that at night a handsome prince steps out of the donkey skin and
reveals himself to the princess, he takes the donkey’s skin and burns
it! Some people are angry about this part of the story—I have come to
really appreciate that king in his role as helper and witness. He stays
awake all night and watches—he does not desert the young prince,
but “wants to see how the robbed man will behave.” Who is the king,
really? Who stands watch as we struggle through our own karma?
Most of us know the picture that Steiner gives of that other part of
us that goes along with us in life. This is the one who, while we are
walking along the street, runs ahead, climbs to the roof and loosens
the brick that will fall on us. To get more insight into one’s eternal
being, one should look at the events and people in life that have been
the most difficult. We identify with the pleasant event, but the dif-
ficult events are more ‘me’ than that which goes easily. I have, with

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real intention, loosened that brick to fall on my head. This “second

man” in “me” just may be the one at work in these matters of destiny.
Sometimes it looks like someone else did something, or sometimes it
just looks like a random life event. This could be an illness, a loss, or
an accident. Whatever vehicle it comes through, it just might be that
I myself have intended it.
What can we make of this burning of the skin? What is the effect of
this deed? When we work with this story in the Biography and Social
Art course, we explore this question. Consider for yourselves what
skins have been burned in your life? Those times that were not nec-
essarily comfortable or easy. Maybe someone encouraged, nudged or
even pushed you to do something you didn’t feel ready for...maybe
there was a sudden change or a great loss that left you feeling vul-
nerable and naked...what part of yourself was then revealed or even
developed as a result?
If there was time, we could all share, but since there is not, I will
share one of mine with you.
I can tell you that I felt very nervous when Susan Howard asked me
to speak at this conference. It would have been easy to say, “Thanks,
but no thanks.” But I was able to recognize a progression in my own
life and a model of development through someone else that allowed
me to take a deep breath and say, “Okay.”
As a new teacher here at Green Meadow, I found it intimidating just
to hold a parent meeting, but I got used to it. Then I could speak
before a larger group of parents at an all-school meeting. Then I
began to work with adults and groups more often. I became more
comfortable and not only that, but I watched Joan Almon go from
being “just another Waldorf early childhood teacher” to become
a dynamic speaker at conferences like this. So, although each new
step was a challenge and sometimes a trial and I would never have
considered it on my own, someone else saw a capacity in me and
nudged. And though it felt like a big risk—“What if I make an ass of
myself?”—I accepted. Now, that’s not a big one, but I can tell you that

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I still feel quite vulnerable, a bit like standing here naked before you
and that’s why it helped to put on that donkey disguise!
The fairy tale itself is more dramatic than my example, but through
the burning of the skin, the donkey’s true self is revealed to all. When
he accepts the invitation to stay there in his true form, he inherits the
kingdom. He inherits not only one kingdom but two. This is a special
story, for he inherits both heaven and earth! This may tell of a time
only very far in the future, but isn’t this what we are going for? We
cannot live with only one. We want and need both.
Why should we go through all of this? I will acknowledge again that
this life path is hard work, but I want to also call up the picture of
young children. All we have to do is look to them. What do they have
to do to learn to walk? How many times do they fall? We are trying to
urge parents to allow the children this natural struggle so that they can
grow strong in themselves. We, too, need the struggle to grow strong
and maybe we can even try to learn to love the struggle—our own
and those of others—as a natural part of development. We need each
other to share the struggle or at least to play witness to one another.
And we need to celebrate the achievements and enjoy the results, like
the puppet shows and the beautiful environments we create and the
joy we engender in the children. Is there anything more wonderful
than the beaming of a child when they break through and achieve a
new skill or capacity? Let us be that with and for one another!
In Steiner’s words: “To contemplate the destinies of human beings
with reverence and awe, that is something our times demand of us.”5
We can do this by reading biographies, but what if we did this for the
people closest to hand?
Even stronger is Steiner’s emphasis on the importance of an under-
standing of destiny. Humanity will not be able to survive unless it
takes the reality of destiny into its consciousness.6
We are living in a depressed world. The visions of the future, even
for the children, are fuzzy and often bleak. Like the beginning of this

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

fairy tale, the future is in danger. But the fairy tales also tell us that if
we meet the trials with a pure and simple heart, there is a marriage
at the end and a new king and queen will inherit the kingdom. We
do have a destiny and there is somewhere that we are going. If we
learn to work with one another in community with this knowledge,
we are building invisible temples together. It is our karmic ties that
connect us so that we may build the mystery temples of today. We
need each other. As Rudolf Steiner wrote, “The things done here on
earth through love, friendship and the intimate understanding of
one another; these are the building stones of temples being erected
in the regions of spirit. For those convinced of this truth, it should be
an uplifting feeling to know that the ties binding soul to soul are the
basis for eternal being.”7
It is true that the natural world revives us, but to have a true encoun-
ter with another human being enlivens us. We are all experts at
meetings! How many meetings do we sit in? But do we consider that
every meeting we sit in holds the potential to meet and encounter
one another? If I am practicing control of thought, then maybe that
can be a chance to keep my thought on what the other is actually
saying, not what I am going to do when I go home or what I will say
next. If I am practicing will, I can attend to what I am doing in my
limbs. Do I cross my arms? Turn away? Roll my eyes? These are all
expressions of my will as it lives unconsciously in my body; in my
movement. I can work on these things. And obviously I can prac-
tice equanimity when that person over there is saying that again!
Positivity that we will win through to a unified vision in the end—
that even the obstacles have a role to play and will add something.
I know well that there is always plenty of opportunity to practice
open-mindedness in a school community. And this requires letting
go of a lot of what I think and hold dear—hard work indeed! We
have to practice these things in community. And when we do, peo-
ple become more real to us—they become more three-dimensional.
This rubbing up against one another is actually what Steiner says will
wake us up to karma.

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 Enlivening the Life Forces: Lessons from “The Donkey”

We believe that we are with this group of people for a reason, that
our karma has brought us together. But until we wake up to who they
are in a true, three-dimensional, full-bodied way, we cannot discover
what we might have to do with each other. When we direct our atten-
tion toward these others we become more and more interested and
if we are open to them, we will gain new understanding. When we
truly understand one another, the inclination to criticize and blame
falls away and genuine compassion and empathy arise.
I will let these gray donkey hairs of mine speak and say that once
upon a time, I thought this earth was not such a great place to be
and I resisted and resented being here. Now, many years and much
hard work later, I love my colleagues, even the difficult ones. I love
the parents, even the difficult ones, because when I see them, I see
what stands behind them as a whole life story. I seldom know the
details, or what their childhood was like, but when you work with
parent-child classes, you do get to hear some of that just in the shar-
ing, especially when you get to do some study time with the parents
alone. All the images from the many life stories I have been privi-
leged to receive through so many people have awakened in me a gen-
uine feeling of karma over time. With these gray and white hairs, I
can actually speak about karma now. When I was younger I believed
it but could not talk about it because it wasn’t real for me. But it is
real now. When I enter into any group, there stands the question of
what have we to do with each other and I believe I have learned to
see some of it playing out.
We do have something to do with each other. We have something to
offer each other. Over time, this illusion that I am me and you are
you can begin to dissolve and the hold of our antisocial egotistical
orientation begins to lessen.
Children are allowed to be egotistical and selfish—because their
“self ” is still the whole world. They need to be egotistical as young
children so that in old age they can give blessing because they no
longer need to be egotistical. Life is a process of coming into our

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

individuality, our “I,” and then, when it is strongly established, to be

able to step aside a little bit. Entering into the thoughts of another
requires me to “lay down my own life for another”—to lay down my
cherished opinions and beliefs. Kühlewind says something like that
and it opened a door for me. I had always thought that “laying down
one’s life” was only about physically dying, but I now see how I have
to die to myself in order to make room for another. The more I have
managed to lay aside my world conception and my opinions for a
time, to try to see what the other sees, what a relief I have found it
to be! I am lighter. To enter into the ideas and opinions of another
is one path to the Christ, according to Steiner. There are other ways,
but this is one.
When we feel a connection, we find meaning. When we read a book,
watch a movie, hear a story, we begin to see the threads that stand
behind the events. We should learn to do this for one another. The
thread is not so easily seen in our own lives. It is so easy to look at
someone else’s life and say, “I can see why that keeps happening to
her over and over. It’s so obvious!” Can I look at my own life in the
same way? Yes, we can begin to see the threads and the meaning
in our own lives as we learn to bring objectivity to our own lives
as we share pieces with others—as we see the archetype of human
development that stands behind our own unique and individual life.
As I listen to the stories of others, I begin to experience that I am
you and you are me. The veil separating us begins to grow thinner.
I am living this particular life in this unique way, but the “I” is not
those details. Rather, that “I” is the essential core of my being that
is moving through these experiences. The amazing thing is that as
I strengthen this sense of my “I,” it becomes more possible for me
to lay it aside. The more I share my life story, the less attached I am
to it; the less I feel it is “mine” and the more it is “a” life being lived.
The more I lay down my life for another, the more I can truly see
myself. And the more comfortable and at peace I feel with who I am,
the happier my life sense is, but not in a physical way. The more my
life sense is at ease, the more I can enter into the thoughts and make

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 Enlivening the Life Forces: Lessons from “The Donkey”

space for the ego of the other. The opposite of this on the physical
level is when we are ill, when our life sense is off and we feel raw and
don’t want to be touched, we cannot think for ourselves or follow
the thoughts of another. These are the ways that I can make some
links for myself between the lower and the higher senses. Being in
touch with my body and at ease in my life sense may be the key to
the transformation—the turning inside out—of the lower senses of
touch and life to become the sense of concept that can follow the
thoughts of another and the sense of the “I” of the other, that can
enter into that holy space—or let it enter me.
I fully believe that everyone longs to be seen and heard in their full
reality. But it has occurred to me that if we are all waiting for some-
one else to see and understand us, who is doing the seeing, who is
doing the hearing, who is doing the understanding? We have to take
turns for each other. This is a real social deed for the times we live
in; to offer our attention and our warmth of interest to another. And
this is what will give birth to the new faculty that wants to come
into being—this Consciousness Soul—that will ultimately lead us
beyond our own little “I.”
I realize that this little thing that I call “I” is the same “I” that the
other is carrying around inside their skin. I am just manifesting it in
this way right now and you in your way, but we can meet somewhere
up higher where this shared “I” is.
Once upon a time there was a little girl who was born into a world
where a beast was growing larger and larger. But the little girl wanted
to change the world and to protect the children. So she took on the
disguise of a kindergarten teacher—or sometimes a donkey—and
she found that by changing herself, she changed the world. And by
changing the world, she changed herself. We need to care for the
children; we need to care for each other. Thank you for caring.

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NOTES

1. Rudolf Steiner, Start Now!: A Book of Soul and Spiritual Exercises (Great
Barrington, Massachusetts: SteinerBooks, 2004).
2. Michael Lipson, Stairway of Surprise: Six Steps to a Creative Life
(Anthroposophic Press, 2002).
3. Signe Eklund Schaefer, Why on Earth?: Biography and the Practice of Human
Becoming (Great Barrington, Massachusetts: SteinerBooks, 2013).
4. Susan Piver, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart (New York: Atria Paperback,
2010), page 50. For further information about John Tarrant, see
www.pacificzen.org/teachers/john-tarrant and tarrantworks.com/about.
5. Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies, Volume 2 (Forest Row,
UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004) page 208.
6. See, e.g., Rudolf Steiner, “The Three Realms of the Dead: Life Between
Death and a New Birth” in The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric (Great
Barrington, Massachusetts: SteinerBooks, 2003): “A true understanding of
destiny is the important development that must spread over the earth. It must
take hold in legislation and in the form of political parties; it must provide
the very foundation of society. Anything incompatible with the spiritual
evolution of humankind will simply dissolve; it will break down.”
7. Rudolf Steinter, Rosicrucian Wisdom: An Introduction (Forest Row, UK:
Rudolf Steiner Press, 2005), page 45.

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 Nurturing the Sense of Life and Well-Being

4. Nurturing the Sense of Life

and Well-Being
Adam Blanning, M.D.
February 6-8, 2015

Introduction
February 6, 2015

I
t is pretty easy, as a physician who often sees sickness, to experi-
ence the life sense of another person. If you glance at someone
across the room, you can get a read on that person’s life sense.
When the life sense is functioning well, we take it for granted. The
feeling we can have after a good meal is an experience of life sense.
When we are tired, we experience a diminished life sense. We can see
a disturbed life sense in children who are uneasy and restless, who
need a lot of attention and direction. These needs often come forth
suddenly in transition times. Circle has ended. It is time for free play
and there is a problem. A similar moment can happen when we are
starting to put on snow clothes. One of these children always has
an argument or meltdown. This is an expression of an imbalanced,
undeveloped life sense.
We can enter into what this feels like for the child with an exercise.
Let us focus our vision across the room very precisely. This should
be very easy for us to do. If we woke up in the morning and couldn’t
do this, it would be distressing. Now let go of vision and think of

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breathing. Take a deep breath. Take some fast breaths. This is not
too bad. But maybe we haven’t been thinking about breath all day
long. If we woke up and had to think about our breathing, it would
be a bad thing. Breathing is usually automatic. Now slow down your
heart rate. Now try to speed it up a little bit—imagine that someone
has jumped out from behind and scared you. There are people who
do practice control of heart rate through such things as biofeedback
or meditative practices that work with the breath. We can slow the
heart rate through the breath.
Now increase the blood flow to your spleen. That is too hard. Contract
your gall bladder. From anatomy we know that the spleen is on left,
the gall bladder on the right side of the body. But we should not
actually know this from personal experience. As we go on a descent
from looking and seeing, to breathing, then to the pulse, we get lower
down into unconscious realms that are more asleep.
Now think about doing something that really helps you to relax.
Write down on your note paper what that was.
Now we can practice more thinking about the life sense. We can
observe the life sense by whether we are hungry or not. Try to feel,
“Am I hungry?” There are variations of this—satisfied, nauseated, or
full. “Am I thirsty? Do I need to go to the bathroom?” These are all
aspects of the life sense. Children who have a disturbed life sense
may have trouble connecting to these body states. They do not nor-
mally sense if they are hungry and then are suddenly starving and get
frantic. Or we may see a child who eats and eats without awareness
of when “full” has been reached. We think that this is not healthy for
them. This is an imbalance in life sense. Needing to go to the bath-
room frequently is an imbalance. It is also an imbalance for the child
who does not feel the need and waits and waits until it is too late and
has an accident.
For yourselves as kindergarten teachers, ask yourself, “How tired am
I?” Most of us all override the life sense when it comes to this ques-
tion. Another aspect of imbalance is not knowing when one is tired.

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 Nurturing the Sense of Life and Well-Being

Hunger, thirst, needing to go to the bathroom, and fatigue are all

pathways to the life sense that let us know how we are feeling. When
all these are working well, we feel well and complete. Like with the
lullaby that we sang earlier today with Eleanor Winship, there is a
harmony of the inner world when all systems are functioning well.
This is a healthy life sense.
One way to approach how we can learn of the life sense of the child
would be to ask, “How do you feel?” If the child has eaten five bowls
of porridge, we could ask whether he or she is hungry. We could
develop a questionnaire and ask the child to rate on a scale of one to
ten, “How is your hunger, thirst, fatigue?” We could strategize this
and, of course, it sounds atrocious. But we can see that there are
children whose lives are very much like this. “Are you hungry? Shall
we go? Are you having fun? Do you want a snack?” This is asking the
child to think and analyze how he feels using the intellect, which is
in a totally different realm of than the life sense.

LIFE TASTE
SELF- SMELL
MOVEMENT TOUCH
BALANCE
Diagram derived from Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms by Rudolf
Steiner (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1986). Discussion of these senses
proceeds from right to left, beginning with TASTE and then descending in an arc
through the other senses, leading ultimately to LIFE.

How do we get to the life sense by considering what we do with a

newborn baby? If she is distressed, how do we calm her? The best
response is to nurse. Nursing is related to the sense of taste. This is
the best route for the newborn. The baby travels directly from taste
to the life sense. This is built in. It is fantastic. A newborn nurses and
the world is good. She has a complete sense of well-being.
As the baby gets a little older, it can be helpful to have someone else
hold the baby sometimes, like dad. Dad tries everything and then

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gives the baby back to mom. As soon as the child is in mom’s arms
and can smell the mother, the baby calms. The baby comes to mother
who smells of milk. Immediately all is well.
What is the next stage? What works if one doesn’t have milk and the
right smell? We swaddle the baby, put a hat on her head, and hold
her securely. As soon as the limbs come in and the baby feels pro-
tected, she calms. Here we deal with touch.
When babies are older, swaddling doesn’t calm and satisfy any more.
Then we put the baby up on the shoulder, pat, and move. The baby is
being moved. Being moved engages the sense of balance (known as
the vestibular system in the mainstream world).
Then at a certain point we put the baby down and the baby moves
himself. The baby then goes into self-movement (proprioception in
mainstream terminology).
This progression is important because all of us trace these steps
on our pathway into the world. In this progression, Steiner actu-
ally starts with VISION placed above TASTE on this diagram. In
Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms,1 Steiner began
with vision, which is an orientation point for experience of the world
as the human being grows older. We go out into the world and see
and touch something as a beginning point to enter this pathway to
the life sense. But if we just take care of a baby, we can build this pro-
gression ourselves, beginning with taste. This ordering is different
from Rudolf Steiner’s other lectures, where touch is the innermost
sense. Steiner says that with touch we actually feel ourselves. If I grip
my piece of chalk, it is hard. If I grip my tie, it is relatively soft. I am
sensing how my hand changes; the object I am touching does not
change; the change occurs within myself. Taste is an outward sense.
Smell is more inward. The life sense is how I feel myself in myself.
Children struggling with the life sense will go to one of the other
senses as a beginning point. Every time we try to go to sleep or self-
soothe, we go through this pathway of the senses. Before we go to

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 Nurturing the Sense of Life and Well-Being

sleep, we often move, wipe our face on the pillow, and so forth. There
is lots of touching. We do this as a pathway to the life sense. Going
to sleep is the greatest opportunity to practice traveling this inward
pathway. We have to travel this path when we wake up and need to
settle to go back to sleep. This also happens when we are in a social
situation and don’t know what to do. When a child with a healthy
life sense is in this spot, he has an anchor. Other children who do
not have this anchor go to another sensory spot on the pathway to
help them get to the security provided by the life sense—bumping
into someone else, moving in big ways. This can be the child who
destroys circle time at the reverential moment. “They should get a a
better life sense,” we might wish we could say! “The parents should
get them a better life sense, pronto!”
Or we can understand that the child at this moment has lost his
moorings and doesn’t know where to go. We live in a world out away
from this inner path. This pathway has to happen in the first seven
years. If it doesn’t happen before the change of teeth, developing this
pathway becomes a therapeutic activity. We can be so bombarded by
the world that the life sense never actually develops.
We can take an example from a Waldorf school lantern walk. At a
particular school the lantern walk ends at second grade. Beyond that
grade, the mood gets pretty frenetic. Why? It is dark, and we are
used to orienting everything by our vision. There was screaming and
yelling. With vision withdrawn, children went to hearing, which is
higher on the continuum of senses, as a means of orientating. Many
children also began banging, crashing, and running. We can under-
stand that when the children’s vision was gone, they had to collide
with something or they were totally lost—run or be lost; spin or be
lost. Rather than view these as troublesome behaviors, we can see
that these are signals that life sense is underdeveloped in providing
an anchor so the child feels secure. Using these senses is actually very
wise compensation for trying to get to the life sense.
When we see a child going crazy before nap, we can think of the

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disturbed life sense. We watch and if a child shows that he needs

touch, we give it to him before he begins to go wild. We give strong
touch, with compressions or something heavy to carry. We can ask
the child to hold open a door with a heavy spring that is hard to hold
open. We work to understand what the child is seeking through dis-
rupting behaviors and provide socially healthy ways for him to get
to the life sense.
Further discussion arises from a lecture attendee’s question: What of
a child who begins yelling at nap time? Touch has not soothed her.
I would respond that there are lots of children who are unpracticed
in this pathway. It is hard, so they will find ways to orient that do not
involve the lower senses of self-movement, balance, and touch, but
go to upper senses such as hearing. Find out how the child sleeps at
home. What steps does the child take then?
There is a natural progression of the child becoming more indepen-
dent in going out into the world. In his first year of life, the child
holds up his head (about three months), sits independently (six
months), crawls (nine months), and walks (twelve months). As he
is moving into the world in motor development, there should at the
same time be a reciprocal movement inward toward self-soothing.
As a physician, I try to help families find a good bridging moment
for the child to find the way into sleep other than nursing on the
breast. When? As a doctor I experience that somewhere about six to
nine months a family comes to consult. Baby is doing pretty well but
mom looks exhausted. Six to nine months of interrupted sleep seems
too much for the family’s healthy balance. I recommend that at about
four months there is nursing, a little bit of playing, and then going
to sleep. If this can be worked toward before six months, it will be
much easier to step forward into the time when rhythm and sched-
ule really need to be more consistent. A newborn is living in the arc
taste/smell/touch. During the time leading up to six months, we can
shift the emphasis to smell/touch/ balance. There is, of course, great
variation in viewpoints about nursing. Each situation is family- and
culture-specific.

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Here are some take-away points:

• This pathway into reaching the life sense takes a lot of prac-
tice. When we see children in distress who are acting out, con-
sider whether they are invoking the other senses as a pathway
to get to the life sense. They are not terrible little people. They
are thwarted in getting to the security of the life sense and
are doing what they know in order to feel good. The older the
child, the more important it is for her to chart this path inde-
pendently. Touch is a beautiful way to calm and feel. Giving a
back scratch and massage can work well for a while. But if it
works and we adults and the child become dependent on this
as the gateway, it can go on for too long. A backrub of 45 min-
utes or an hour is too much. So we need to step away and let
the child find another way to proceed on the path. Whenever
we are giving stimulation that is getting longer and longer, it
is a good time to step away and let the child go deeper and
further on the inner path.
• However the child learns to go to sleep at night—the routine fol-
lowed—needs to be recreated every evening. If the child awakens
in the middle of the night, she depends upon the ritual being
repeated again in its entirety. For example, if the parent lies with
the child until he falls asleep, when the child wakens in the night,
he wants this again. If the ritual for going to sleep is elaborate,
this all becomes more complicated. Simple is better.
• A recommendation is that much of the bedtime ritual be moved
out of the bedroom. After bath a child might start running around
(balance and self-movement) as a step toward sleep. Wrestle,
snuggle, run around, and read a story, as the child needs. Move
into the bedroom for a two-minute ritual of candle and verse,
then the parent moves outside.
When we put a baby down awake and he fusses a bit and moves,
he is following the pathway inward to the life sense. Practicing this
pathway gives the child independence to self-sooth. When a child

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pulls us along to be outer anchors, this shows us an undeveloped

life sense.

Looking at Our Own Sleep Patterns to a

Picture of this Pathway
February 7, 2015

Did you sleep well? Did you do anything before you went to sleep?
Did you rub your face on the pillow? Did you stretch? There are also
scrunchers. Did you scrunch?
Some of you must be gifted to lie down and be asleep in 30 seconds.
Discovering oneself in this way can lead to a celebration of realizing
that we do have methods of self-soothing when we are in a different
situation. To come to the life sense, we have to be able to release from
the outside world. We twist our mouth, cross our legs, etc., to bring
attention into ourselves.
This presentation is still in the category of active work and research.
This is an attempt to develop a way of looking and observing instead
of following a set of rules. We can refine some of what we encoun-
tered last night. These are big concepts that call forth a lot of think-
ing. Last night was more thinking. Today is a sort of feeling day.
Tomorrow will be a willing day to share practicalities of what we can
do in our classrooms.
To review last night:
• Taste is related to nursing.
• Smell detects the presence of the mother and her milk. Even the
smell associated with mother and milk is calming.
• Touch is satisfied by swaddling. Touch is about physically
encountering things but also about feeling oneself change in
relationship to the world.
• Balance is engaged when the child is being moved about by the

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 Nurturing the Sense of Life and Well-Being

parent, cradle, or rocking chair. Balance is also called the vestib-

ular sense. But balance as Rudolf Steiner spoke of it is broader
than the vestibular system. The term vestibular is more specific
to balance as registered by the inner ear. We experience more
than just physical balance in relation to the earth’s gravity. This
sense of equanimity operates on multiple levels.
• Self-movement relates to knowing that one has moved and
where one’s body parts are in relationship to one another. Self-
movement is also called proprioception. But self-movement as
we understand it is a broader, more all-encompassing term.
Reading Rudolf Steiner can be overwhelming in both content and
thought. Steiner spent years thinking about and refining his obser-
vations before he spoke about these subjects. We do not know
how many years he had been thinking and refining his percep-
tions before he got to the structure he presents in his lectures. He
had already worked extensively before he came to his own clarity.
Coming to our own clarity, coming to our own understanding is
also a weaving back and forth.
The progression spoken of last night of the child maturing in outer
movement development is accompanied by a simultaneous inward
movement. These movements are unique to each individual child
and family situation. When talking about these things, parents can
start to feel guilty and incompetent. Things are different for dif-
ferent children. The guidelines shared last night are windows of
opportunity for when a child can make a shift. Some children never
need support to cultivate their life sense. They can settle in a state
and rest there—the hierarchies are guiding in a harmonious way.
If a family’s first child is one of these, then the second will likely
be very different. We have to adjust to each individual. Following
this pathway will hopefully bring us to a point where we will have
some idea of what to do in any particular situation. There are no
“shoulds.” What works for one child may be completely wrong for
another child or family situation.

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The doctor speaks out of a medical bias. People do not come to him
to ask him to admire a child’s beautiful life sense. Usually families
come to him because the life sense is not unfolding well.
We have seen a puppet play with a little girl pushing and pulling on
a rock set in her pathway. There are times and places where the child
needs strong sensory experiences. For example, the child needs
touch. For some children the body is big and the spiritual activity
inside does not quite fill it out yet. A child I recently observed was
always building houses; he built three during free play. He was in
movement most of the time. He did not give hugs. If he had, they
would have been big, strong hugs. His body is bigger than his sens-
ing activity. In building houses (inside of which he had no interest
to play) he was pushing in his physicality to meet his spiritual-sens-
ing capacity.
The next day, in a different kindergarten, I saw two or three boys
on the morning walk who deliberately walked into telephone poles
to smack their bodies against. Some touch senses need that kind of
reinforcement all the time.
In the classroom with the big, house-building boy, there was also
a small, dark girl with a baby-doll mouth who watched the visitor
very carefully. She frequently gets into confrontations with other
children. This happens with almost every encounter, so sometimes
she plays by herself. For her, her body is small and her sensing
activity extends outward beyond her physical boundary. After the
first boy had built a house and had moved on to build another one,
this little girl came in and played very happily by herself with a veil
over her head. She did not want to build the house, but she wanted
to live in it. The boy wanted to build the house but not live in it. He
wanted to be constantly doing. The girl has trouble coming to the
sense of life because she is always guarded about what might come
toward her. When there is a strong sensory need, this can stand as a
stone in the path of getting to the life sense. If there is a stone in the
path, we will often see difficulty with the life sense. When a child

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bangs into a telephone pole over and over, he is trying to educate

his life sense. He is trying to sculpt his body. When we direct our
attention to think to feel our socks, we are expanding our sensing
activity. A child who is always thinking about socks and collars is
constantly sensing and has no let up from experiencing. A child
with overly awake sensing can be happy and at peace in her bed
and is then able to pull her astral body in.
It is important to think about imbalances, because they can tell us
why a child is having difficulty over and over again as a pattern.
Then we can intervene to give the sensory input more support at
another time.
Another day I saw a child who has had a complicated medical life so
far. She got a triangular hollow block, wiggled almost like she was
doing the twist, and then stood on the block. She was creating her
own therapy. If there could be more opportunity for that child to
have that block, this could be therapy.
Until these sensory needs are addressed, the path to the life sense can
be blocked. With unmet sensory development, there will usually be
an undeveloped life sense.
Let’s say there is a child who needs a long time to suck. Is this bad?
There are children who do need to nurse for years and years. There
are children who need pacifiers for a long time. Some need the suck
sensation for a longer time than they can nurse, longer than mom
can tolerate. These children need more than a person can provide.
With a child who needed taste and smell a lot, as a doctor one would
try to move the child toward the next sense in the sensory progres-
sion. Go ahead and begin removing the binky, but also move toward
supplying something further along on the progression. We can try to
both give the child more of the sought-after sensory experience and
also look to see where the child is stuck.
Where does the life sense go? In The Riddle of Humanity,2 Rudolf
Steiner gives a picture of a seven-foldness, inside the circle of the

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twelve senses, that is like the planetary movements, which are never
static. The relationships of each to the other are constantly chang-
ing. This inner world is the realm of the life processes. The seven life
processes are:
• Breathing
• Warming
• Nourishing
• Secreting / Separating going simultaneously outward
and inward. Sorting may be a better word.
• Maintaining
• Growing
• Reproducing
In his book The First Seven Years,3 Dr. Edmond Schoorel speaks of
these life processes and gives other names for them as well. His terms
for the metabolic processes are:
• Taking in
• Adapting
• Breaking down
• Sorting
• Maintaining
• Growing
• Bringing into being
These are important because everything we bring into ourselves, be
it substances or experiences, has to go through these processes to
make them our own. We can also apply these seven processes to the
steps we go through with our thinking. Dr. Schoorel adjusts these
seven steps to describe the thinking process:
• Taking in
• Recognizing
• Analyzing

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• Questioning
• Combining
• Imbedding
• Recreating
We can also consider the progression of these life processes along
with adult biographical development, with its characteristic nodes
and crisis points, to enlighten our picture of adult human develop-
ment. When development begins to stir, there is a kind of “itchiness.”
What was at peace is not anymore. Then, as the change comes closer,
we can say, “I know what this is about.” And we can stay at this stage
a long time.
In the next step, something has changed and you can never go back.
This is akin to nourishing/analyzing.
The secreting and sorting stage involves questioning. What is the
right next thing? What must be left behind? What stays?
Then comes the stage of ashes, of maintaining. You feel that some-
thing is gone. You are exhausted from asking questions, so you just
stop. It can feel like you need to be doing lots of things, and you are
not doing anything. But it is really a time of grace. This stage can be
so helpful. A person has to get to this place before growth can hap-
pen. This is maintenance—embedding, a planting-in, a quiet, hold-
ing place that allows something new to come forward. We live in a
world where embedding is incredibly hard to do.
I heard a news feature recently about boredom. Should anyone ever
be bored? The reporter said she has never been bored since she got
a smartphone. “Boredom” is a kind of maintaining. Children need
this. They are constantly encountering; they do not need more. They
need to be able to take something in and just let it live.
As with eating, there has to be time of not eating. Our sense of physi-
cal hunger works really well if we eat and then don’t eat for a while. If
we give a child a snack, or continuously answer the child’s questions

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over and over, we can never move through to the life sense.
One way to build maintaining is to establish consistent rhythms. This
is one of the beauties of the Waldorf kindergarten. But even though
we live in Waldorf communities, we can get pushed to “fastness.” In
a Waldorf first grade I recently visited, the speaking of the morning
verse was fast. It is appropriate to meet the children where they are
and then move to where they need to be led. We can begin at a faster
tempo and then gradually lead the children to a calmer pace.
We live so much in orienting to the outside world that to have that
removed makes us anxious. Children who ask questions all the time
might be avoiding going to the life sense. The child’s unspoken expe-
rience may be, “I don’t know that I can get to the life sense, so I will
do something else to keep from going on the path. Even negative
attention helps me to know where I am.” We need to create the space
for the child to take these steps. We are always going through the
seven steps. When we sing in rounds here in our conference and
can create and hear the harmonies, it is like being able to tolerate the
harmony of how these different activities are sounding together.
Morality lives in the limbs. Moving the limbs—intentional, purpose-
ful activity—is the spiritual activity that allows us to morally experi-
ence the world. Holding open a heavy door to experience self-move-
ment can be a more potent experience than going to an occupational
therapist. The child can feel good about doing something that also
serves others. The more that children can do real work, the more
they will find the experiences they need in self-movement, balance,
and touch.
The next stage we will consider is where the awakening to the life
sense happens. We have so far been talking more about sleeping pro-
cesses. We have been talking about the eye of the needle, coming to
know oneself on the path to the life sense. We want to help the chil-
dren be able to thread the needle. The individual can better encoun-
ter the outside world when he knows himself.

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Bringing these Insights into our Practical,

Daily Work with the Children
February 8, 2015

Today is the “will” day for us to take some threads from this weekend
and begin to tie them together.
There is a progression during a conference. The first day, questions
are about facts—“Did you just say?” “Did you mean...?” The next
day come observations—“This is life sense, this is life sense. Is this the
life sense?” Then the last morning come lots of questions about—“I
have a child who. ..” In other words, “How does all this relate to my
actual work?”
As the child is on the outward path, going out into the world, there
is an accompanying inner movement (depicted by the chart we have
been working with). We can envision a hand reaching in. Some chil-
dren can reach only a little way in. As their motor activity gets out-
wardly bigger, their inner activity becomes larger as well. Eventually
the child can reach the life sense. This matures into independent
movement and the gateway through taste can fall away. As the child
moves more toward self-movement, her dependence on smell falls
away. We still have these connections but it does not have to be active
and touched upon at every moment. We hope the child can roll and
shake and move around so that she learns to self-soothe.
Whenever there is a step forward, there is also a regression. A new
capacity awakens and the child is suddenly aware of being more inde-
pendent in the world. This is exciting, but the child doesn’t know to
be excited. If a new sibling arrives and the child’s relationship to the
world has changed, there is regression. So the child goes backward
a little. But the whole spiritual stream is carrying the child forward.
In the Karma lectures,4 Rudolf Steiner describes how the spiritual
hierarchies are active in our physiology. He says that there is a dif-
ference between the part we are aware of and the part guided by the

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hierarchies. To describe this spatially: if we were in water, the top of

the head above the eyes would represent the part we are consciously
aware of. The healthy unfolding of spiritual development is bathing
us all the time. When a child expresses distress in a developmen-
tal moment, this is a picture of the child realizing that something
new is coming that she doesn’t know how to handle. As parents and
teachers, we are inclined to try harder, to hold the children tighter, to
protect them more in anxious moments.
We can give a child taste, smell, and touch experiences. We can give
the child the opportunity to sense balance, but we cannot make them
sense balance. No matter how much I love the child, I cannot do this
for her. Somewhere in her there is a shifting point where she has
to experience balance, self-movement, and life for herself. To create
balance experiences, there is actually a machine like a giant gyro-
scope where the child is given intense sensory experience. We can
give the child experience but cannot make the child be in it. We can
provide the gateway, the pathway for it, but we cannot do the expe-
riencing for them.
We can do the same thing with the life processes. We meet some-
thing consciously through nourishing but then we reach a point
where we cannot logically go from one point to another. We have to
stop at maintaining outwardly so something inwardly can manifest.
In the grief process, when there is a loss and it hits us like a wave
every moment, it is such a shock. Then we come to a place where it
is not with us continuously. In time we come to where we can forget
about it for a while. This can be bittersweet. But eventually we can
still be holding someone spiritually in a new way. It is sort of like the
liberated etheric forces for the seven-year-old. It has already hap-
pened before we realize it.
We feel the child’s insecurity so we remove challenges. Then the
child gets stuck a little bit. If the child is uncertain and those around
him are uncertain, then the child really doesn’t know what to do.
Helicopter parenting is not healthy for the life sense. A time comes

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with a sensory needful child when everything the child needs can-
not be provided from the outside. We can see with circle time, for
example, that a child may need to practice outside of the circle time
with an adult, away from the group, to learn to do it on his own.
The child needs to make an inward change. At the nine-year change,
the health of the life sense becomes incredibly important. The child
feels isolated and desperately needs the security of the life sense. If
we become primarily dependent on the outside world, that leaves
us very open and vulnerable to influences from the outside because
we don’t know what will happen if we don’t have that connection
(i.e., the smartphone). This can lead to dependent relationships with
people, with technology, with substances. The human being cannot
find his home within himself. If the child has not found the way to
the life sense by the time the teeth change, getting there will become
a specific therapeutic activity.
So what do we do? We can create little homes.
• Child is used to having another person beside him to go to
sleep. The child needs touch. We can give something to touch as
replacement, such as blanket hugs, swaddling, lots of stuffed ani-
mals in the bed, layers of covers, tucking the bed in really tightly,
for example.
• Co-sleeping/attachment parenting. What is the opposite of
attachment parenting? Is it abandonment parenting? These
words do not really describe what we are striving for. Are there
times when the parent must be totally connecting to the child?
Absolutely, but not exclusively. If there is attachment, there has
to be unfolding as well. We can call this life-process parenting.
There are cultures where everyone sleeps together in same bed
and same room, and it works beautifully. We live in a culture
where it is really easy to be bounced around and overstimulated
in the world outside of home and classroom. In this kind of
environment it is even more important to have one’s own space
in which to reflect and digest. If we are in a community where

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life is rhythmic and flowing, then culturally we are living in the

life senses all the time. A child may ask why the adults get to
sleep together. This is because we are able to sleep alone. But if
we depended upon another for all of our orientation and secu-
rity, it would not be good. If I cannot feel safe within myself and
my interaction with the other, then I will avoid the other. As a
doctor, I do not see children who have healthy life senses. I see
those who have troubles. And these are helpful places to look for
information and insight.
• Doing joint compressions (self-movement) is a marker to help
the child remember where the destination of deep relaxation and
sleep is, and this is a step on the pathway we are going along.
• When we have gone through our process of touch, balance, and
self-movement, escort the child into the darkened bedroom
and say “It is dark. It is time for sleep.” Don’t rock her until she
falls asleep.
• A child with a history of trauma or sexual abuse is a child whose
life sense has been disrupted. These children have extra needs,
absolutely. Adoption is a biographical life-sense trauma. This
child needs an extra-long approach. The same kind of progres-
sion would still be a goal. Some anchoring sensory behaviors
may last a long time. We do for the child what is needed but we
always hold in mind, “Where are we going?”
• Masturbation: The child is self-soothing. Assure that it is not a situ-
ation of abuse. Most of the time a preschool child realizes that this
is a touch experience that feels different. Sometimes the child has a
vocabulary that is beyond his understanding. What to do? Provide
a safe and private place. Set a boundary by saying that this is pri-
vate—not shaming. Shaming is not good for the life sense. If we put
a boundary on it and it is not changing, what can we do? Give the
child her own baby doll or something else to hold. Sexual stimula-
tion does provide a short-cut to the life sense, but we want to give
other touch experiences to the life sense that will be reassuring.

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 Nurturing the Sense of Life and Well-Being

• To the child who asks questions all the time, reply, “I wonder?”
Acknowledge the child and then give him something to do—peel
a carrot. Often these children ask questions to establish connec-
tion, not to seek information or explanation.
In considering first-grade readiness, the life sense is an important
criterion for children who are borderline. Some children are plenty
smart and will do well academically, but lack a healthy life sense.
They do well until the nine-year change or adolescence, and then
they will fall apart. If we ask how the life sense was at school entry,
and the experience at nine-year change and adolescence, we will
likely find that these children are not as independent and depend
more on their peers.
Rudolf Steiner says that we come into the life sense. There is a spiri-
tual capacity that unfolds from each of the senses. For the life sense,
it is the spiritual experience of well-being. For self-movement, it is
the experience of one’s own free soul element; I feel myself free. For
balance, there is the capacity of equanimity, having inner tranquility.
When the physical organ matures, there is an experience of a spiri-
tual organ that lifts us up to a spiritual experience. With touch, that
is an experience of feeling permeated by God. These are all worthy
capacities and experiences to strive for through this pathway toward
the life sense.

NOTES

1. Rudolf Steiner, Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms (Hudson,

NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1986).
2. Rudolf Steiner, The Riddle of Humanity: The Spiritual Background of Human
History (Forest Row, UK: Steiner Press, 1990).
3. Edmond Schoorel, The First Seven Years: Physiology of Childhood (Fair Oaks,
California: Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2004).
4. See, e.g., Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships Vols. 1-8 (Great Barrington,
Massachusetts: SteinerBooks, 2015).

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

5. The Life Sense from

the Perspective of Point
and Periphery
Barbara Baldwin
February 5-7, 2016

Our rightful place as educators is to be removers of hindrances.

Each child in every age brings something new into the world
from divine regions,
And it is our task as educators
To remove body and soul obstacles out of the child’s way,
To remove hindrances so that the spirit may enter
In full freedom into life.
—RUDOLF STEINER1

Introduction

E
arly in my career in curative education I felt drawn to the work
of early childhood education: I wanted to experience what the
children bring into the world from divine regions. A ques-
tion I hold to this day is: How can we remain open in this modern
world so eager to impose our expectations on children? How can we
remain open enough to receive this wonderful gift of new spiritual
impulses to carry us into the future? You kindergarten teachers are

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

blessed to be closer to the spiritual world through the children you

teach. How can we learn from them and yet still be aware of their
frailties and open to their needs?
When a child is born, the spirit, which was expanded in its pre-
earthly life, gets compressed into this tiny frame, has to learn to ori-
entate itself within this small body in the physical world. Dr. Hans
Erhard Lauer, the first person to elucidate Rudolf Steiner’s under-
standing that the four lower senses are actually a reflection of the
child’s pre-earthly existence, wrote:
Everything we take in through the senses is more than
mere sense impression. Through our senses we experi-
ence those spiritual forces which make us what we, as
human beings, can become. The early experiences of the
lower sense are an echo of prenatal experiences.
The Sense of Balance is a reflection of our experience in
the actual Spiritual world (the realm of the Zodiac)
The Sense of Movement is a reflection of our experience
in the planetary spheres
The Sense of Life is a reflection of our experience in the
etheric region that surrounds the earth
The Sense of Touch is related to the formative effect of
the external world on the human organism.2
In infancy the sensory experience is still unified and undifferenti-
ated. As the three faculties of thinking, feeling and willing develop,
the senses take on a more distinctly sensory character. Initially this
happens unconsciously, but it can later be raised into consciousness.
This process can clearly be seen when observing a small child: how
he inadvertently touches the sides of the bassinet, which slowly trig-
gers awareness. The action is repeated until it becomes an experience.
Actions such as bumping into things and scratching are attempts to
experience boundaries in the physical world—where perhaps the
early experiences were somehow insufficient.

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

In this presentation we will explore the life sense within the context
of the twelve senses, particularly how it reveals itself with all its frail-
ties in children who have different learning needs and who may be
in need of special education.
We will view various conditions of the senses in relation to the con-
cept of point and periphery. This is a central concept in curative edu-
cation and the motif of the meditation given by Rudolf Steiner to
curative educators.
We will also view extremes of sensory activity, particularly in rela-
tion to the life sense, which we encounter in children today.

Foundational Concepts
Steiner originally spoke of only ten senses,3 regarding touch and
ego, or “I,” as intrinsic to all sensory activity: every sensing is a form
of touching and our ego is involved in every sensory process. This
remains true;4 however, he later distinguished these two as senses
in their own right: the sense of touch gives us a boundary between
self and world, and the sense of ego enables us to go beyond the
physical boundary to an awareness of the other as a separate being.
Touch and ego are deeply connected. The sense of touch conveys an
awareness of where I end and the world begins, and at the same time
gives an innate sense of security, of being within my own body. It
separates us from the world and thus connects us to ourselves within
our body. We find many disturbances in this area in children today,
often manifesting in excessive touching of self and others, hitting,
and scratching, which can be understood as an attempt to reinforce
the experience of the body as a boundary.
Similarly, the sense of touch forms the basis for the unfolding of the
sense of I and other. Steiner referred to this sense as the Ich-Sinn,
the I-sense, which was translated as the sense of ego. This has led to
misunderstandings and confusion between the activity of the ego—
as in I do, I feel— and the sensing of the other as a separate entity.

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

To sense the other, we have to activate the sense of ego, we “sleep

into the other and wake up to ourselves” in quick succession.5 To do
this requires the fundamental experience delivered by the sense of
touch. Just as many children today have disturbances of the sense of
touch, so many adults (as well as children) have a weakness in the
sense of I or other: a lack of awareness, in some cases even a fear of
invading another’s space. This lack of awareness also expresses itself
as rudeness, indifference, and lack of empathy—in some cases even
as a total blotting out of the other.
This brings us to the fundamental distinction between doing and
sensing, between thinking and perceiving.
In the infant, willing and sensing are inseparable; they only grad-
ually become separate faculties. In doing, our will and metabol-
ic-limb system are involved; in perceiving, our intention and ner-
vous system are involved. Willing is instinctual, inherent from
birth; it engages the musculature. Sensing and perceiving slowly
awaken in the child through the effects of the environment. As the
will activity permeates the body and comes under the child’s con-
trol, the sensory system is freed into activity. In willing, an inner
motivation moves toward the world; in sensing and perceiving, the
world imprints itself on our being. Kindergarten teachers know
that the young child is fully sense organ,6 taking in all sensations
from her environment. Perceptions make a deep imprint on the
young and susceptible organs of the child.
Karl König points out the fundamental distinction between dis-
crimination and integration. Discrimination is an analytical activ-
ity: through discrimination I learn to differentiate and the world
becomes richer. Integration is a synthesizing activity: I bring things
together, make a wholeness of parts, and in so doing the experience
of my self becomes stronger.
I remember as a child, walking and playing on the
meadow, enjoying the feel and the smell of the grass and
jumping into the pungent newly-mown piles of grass.

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

My father, a gardener, one day taught me to distinguish

the different types of grass and to recognize the differ-
ent “weeds” as herbs. Suddenly, the greenness under-
foot was no longer just “grass.” It became a whole world
of enormous interest, and I delighted in my new-found
awareness and knowledge.7
We exist in a twofold relation to the world. On the one hand: I am my
world, I am at the center of my world and from this center I activate
my senses, which connect me with the world. On the other hand: the
world flows in through my senses and affects me unconsciously, yet
the more I become conscious of the world the more I can refine my
sense activity and thus become more cognizant of myself as separate
from the world—as a knowing and growing separate entity.
Many senses are already active in utero, but only when the child exists
in the world does it gradually wake up to the world of the senses: the
world enters the child’s consciousness through the senses, and as the
sense impressions penetrate his consciousness, he activates his sense
organs and intentionally connects with the world.
The I-being of each one of us is the great integrator of the senses.
Without the “I,” the sense world invades us. As the “I” awakens
through the sense activity, it is able to educate the sense organs and
their activity.

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Point and Periphery

Point and periphery is the central theme of these talks. In many
verses Steiner refers to this motif of the relationship between self
and world:
Through the wide world there lives and moves the real
being of man;
While in the innermost core of man the mirror image of
the world is living.
The I unites the two and thus fulfils the meaning of existence.8

Diagram 1

Every sense has a central and a peripheral aspect, and this fact is
essential to your work as kindergarten teachers. We are all obviously
the center of our own lives, but both in our families and in our work,
we form the periphery for our children. How we do this determines
the level of protection or openness we provide. In the family, we have

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

to grow with our children and be overly protective. In our kindergar-

tens, we have to provide the level of protection and openness appro-
priate for each age group, and also for the temperament, constitu-
tion, and needs of each child. This task demands constant awareness
and adjustment. We have to be grounded in our center, so that we
can move our awareness to the periphery without losing the center.
Every morning we create the circle, a periphery which is at the same
time its own center. Each child is her own center on this periphery.
At the same time we create a center whose periphery is the room
and the world. What happens to children who are unable to join
in creating the circle? Do they experience this “intangible” element
too strongly? Some throw themselves into the center, as though they
cannot bear to be exposed on the periphery; others remain on the
periphery and cannot let themselves become part of the little “center.”
I have heard many kindergarten teachers say that children on the
periphery are happy and prefer to be outsiders. As a result, some
children have, with the teacher’s blessing, remained on the periph-
ery for their entire kindergarten career. But the truth for many is
that they want to join in but cannot. As they adjust to the routine of
the kindergarten, being in the periphery may be fine; but we must
always inwardly include them and gradually also outwardly invite
them into the circle.
As stated by Naoki Higashida, a Japanese poet who began to write
as a 13-year-old boy with autism: “The truth is, we’d love to be with
other people. But because things never, ever go right, we end up get-
ting used to being alone, without even noticing this is happening.
Whenever I overhear someone remark how much I prefer being on
my own, it makes me feel desperately lonely.”9
These children are stuck in their own little centers and can’t find a
way to connect. They can’t move between center and periphery as
most of us learn to do. They experience intense discomfort at the
transition from home to school, from indoors to outdoors, from one
activity to another. Many children today have such difficulties with

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transitions. The experience of these difficulties is conveyed through

the life sense and may be expressed through behaviors like pushing
and bumping, hitting and biting, or covering the ears and screaming.
These behaviors express the feeling of discomfort arising in the life
sense; they communicate to the world that the child does not feel
safe, happy, or secure.
How can we respond? Find what this shy, sensorily insecure, defen-
sive, or autistic child enjoys, what he can respond to, and begin there.
Join him in repetitive play, so that he does not feel so alone. Join
him in his little center. Realize that he can often participate from a
distance, even though he seems to be ignoring you. Perhaps he can’t
show his participation through facial expression or eye contact, but
do not give up on him or assume he does not understand.
At the other extreme is the child who throws herself into the middle
of the circle, spoiling the togetherness and destroying the ambience.
Basically every child would like to join in and be part of the group
with the other children, would like to please her teacher and parents.
She would if she could— but she can’t. Some feel a constant agitation
and restlessness, which drives them into action, when the rest of the
class is silent.

Case study:
Josh was a “wild boy,” always on the move, who pushed
and shoved his way to get what he wanted. He talked with
a loud voice, and any piece of wood would become a gun
or a weapon, which he wielded indiscriminately, mak-
ing loud, vulgar-sounding noises. How to deal with this
disturbing factor in the kindergarten? The kindergarten
director working with Josh met him each day with a rake
or a broom. She greeted him with a smile, handed the tool
to him, and invited him to help her with the “job” she was
doing. That done, she’d send him to the wooded end of
the kindergarten to “shoot the wild bear” or to catch the
giant fish. There he could shout and wield his weapons,

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without endangering others, and got rid of some of his

surplus energy by the time everyone came together for
play time or morning circle.

It takes moral imagination to understand and deal with these chil-

dren, so that we don’t resort to isolation or even punitive measures.
Another example of this separation can be seen in children who want
to speak but can’t. Some can speak at home but not at school; some
can speak with other children but not with adults; some fall silent the
moment they step out of their homes. These children carry the diag-
nosis of selective mutism. Adults who have overcome their silence say
that they find this diagnosis offensive. It is not a choice; they long to
speak, but cannot. Teachers often report that they “won’t” talk because
they’ve heard the child talk to other children or their parent. This is
not the case and one should not take it personally. These children
long to chatter away like other children—and at home they are often
loud and bossy—but outside the home, they are unable to make a
sound. Their muteness is a silent expression that something is blocked
between them and the world—often based on fear or anxiety. Only
love, patience, and acceptance can help to heal the pain they feel at
their exclusion. These children are usually extremely intelligent and
often quite interactive; they just cannot speak.

Case study:
Lilly is a slender girl with light transparent skin and big
eyes. She keenly observes everything that the other chil-
dren do, listens to and enjoys stories, often smiles when
another child is naughty. She clearly understands every-
thing, is intelligent and usually plays quietly in a corner.
She likes to help the teachers with little tasks. At home
she is reported to be boisterous, loud, and dominating.
Initially she is totally silent at kindergarten, following all
routines, but never speaking or making a sound. When
she needs something, she stands and looks, using her

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eyes to indicate that she needs the toilet or wants a drink.

Gradually she is heard to hum some of the circle songs
(mother reported that she knows them all and sings them
at home) and with time joins in with all the gestures. Very
slowly and quietly, she is able to join in. It would have
been a fatal mistake to cajole, or even compliment her
on her progress. This could have set her back completely.
She might once again have become paralyzed by expec-
tations. Quiet patience and acceptance helped to unlock
the prison of the center and allow her to move more freely
between self and others, between center and periphery.

Again, every sense has its central and peripheral aspect. Listening
to a lecture, you can focus your auditory and visual attention on
the speaker and screen out all peripheral information to direct your
attention to what is important. We usually do this constantly without
thought. Karl König gives an amusing example about the sense of
touch which also includes the senses of self movement (body image)
and life sense.
Imagine lying on a beach, the sun warming you from above, the sand
warming you from below: you expand into a generalized sense of
well-being. Suddenly you feel a tickling, which moves up your arm—
an ant. You feel it progressing upward, but you don’t want to lose the
basking sense of warmth and wellness. However, soon the general
sense is lost and you focus on the advancing ant.
Without moving any other part of the body or looking, your other
hand swats it, finding the exact spot to catch the creature and toss it
back into the sand. You resume your sunbathing at the beach.
How is this possible? At one moment you were totally lost in the
peripheral experience of well-being; the next, your sense of life
is disturbed by the itch, your sense of touch follows its progress,
and your sense of self movement informs your other hand exactly
where to swipe in order to catch the creature. Attention moves from

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peripheral to central awareness and back again to relaxation and

semi-oblivion. The senses work together seamlessly throughout.

The Life Sense in Life

Let’s look at the genesis of the life sense and come to an understand-
ing of its disturbances. The life sense is already present in utero and
is closely linked to the mother’s sense of wellness. It is functional
in its own right from the moment of birth; a sleeping baby radiates
a sense of harmony and contentment. Conversely, as soon as the
infant experiences any discomfort, hunger, or pain, the life sense
leaps into action, sending messages of the disruption into this state
of harmony, and the child cries. The sense of life gives information
about the state of the body, not about the soul, so we must realise
that when a child cries, it is externalising the bodily pain. Soul pain
arises later. As Edmond Schoorel says in his excellent book about
the first seven years of life: the sense of life mirrors the bodily func-
tions, alerting us to anything that is not in order within the body,
within the life processes.10
Early in life, any disruption of the life sense is overwhelming. The
infant can’t distinguish the different parts of her body, so any dis-
comfort or pleasure is a whole-body experience. Just think of a baby
feeding: she drinks not only with her mouth; fingers and even toes
show their involvement and enjoyment. Similarly, pain for an infant
is a total experience, giving rise to gut-wrenching screams until an
adult can find and fix the cause. A toddler can usually tell that he
has hurt himself, but not be able to point to the cause of the pain.
Only gradually does this become more localized. By age four, most
children can tell whether they have a headache or a tummy ache, or
where they have hurt themselves after a fall.
Now, there are children whose sense of pain remains heightened.
These children respond intensely to every discomfort. The smallest
hurt or pain causes a major disruption in their sense of well-being.
They cry excessively and long. They are demanding, need comforting,

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often need some outward form of first aid (cream or a bandage)

before they can find a state of equilibrium again. In actual fact, these
children rarely reach a state of equilibrium but live in a continuously
heightened state of alertness and anxiety because they so often feel
hurt, pain, and discomfort.
We know these children well in our kindergartens. In the mornings
they cling to their parents, find it difficult to adjust, like to be close
to the teacher. They generally don’t move around much, preferring
to stay in one place. They often whine and complain: “It’s too noisy,
too hot, too cold, too bright, there’s not enough of this or there's
too much of that .. . .” They can easily get on our nerves because
they are demanding and often need extra coaxing and coddling.
What is going on here?
These children’s senses are too alert. They feel too acutely. When any
sense is overreacting, it affects the life sense. Any disruption any-
where will affect the life sense of these children—and initially they
need our protection, our understanding, and our sympathy. Only
gradually, through our understanding and empathy, can they learn
to manage their pain and discomfort.

Case Study:
A large-headed six-year-old boy with blue eyes and curly
blond hair talks with a pleasant and melodic voice and
can express himself well—when he feels well. However,
he often feels unwell, tires easily, seems to complain a lot,
but can’t really express himself well during these states.
It’s as though he goes into shut-down. Once, in a play-
ground, he wanted to go onto a small rotating toy, but
soon wanted to get off, not wanting to expose himself to
the gyrations. He wanted on and off again several times,
until the adult, losing patience, called him a “wuss,” add-
ing insult to injury. He really was trying to overcome his
fear and discomfort caused by an oversensitivity in the
sense of balance. The physical pain he was trying to deal

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

with now had become soul pain as well. Though the adult
quickly realized the shock and distress she had caused and
apologized, the adult carried shame and guilt at having
misread and mismanaged the situation for a long time.
I know. I was that adult and for a long time I inwardly
asked for forgiveness from my grandson, for this shame-
ful lapse in my human understanding and empathy.

This incident taught me how easily and how often we do these chil-
dren an injustice. They are so sensitive that they are often late with
such things as bike riding and other skills that come naturally to
most children. Their hypersensitivity causes discomfort, makes
them anxious, and prevents them from engaging in activities in
which they really long to participate.
At the other end of the spectrum of reactivity, we have children with
a very high pain threshold. Very often they seem like a bull in a china
shop: being “klutzy,” blustering, bumping into things and people,
pushing things over, talking too loudly and reacting too little. We
know them well and often fear the disruption they bring into the kin-
dergarten. We like things to be calm and orderly, but these children
arrive with a bang. In some cases (though not all) they have a strong
urge to play. They direct things and they know exactly what they want
and will punch and pull to get things their way. When they fall, they
never cry, don’t seem to notice pain, and seem totally oblivious to any
pain they cause others. Bumping into others gives them sensation.
They are sensation-seeking because their life sense is under-respon-
sive, so they do not receive the neural feedback they need.
Every child wants to belong, to be accepted and loved. It pains them
not to feel the connection, yet they will often repeat annoying or
painful behaviors because at least the pain gives them an experi-
ence. I knew a boy who fell and cut his leg to the bone but didn’t
notice it until other children screamed and pointed to the blood. His
life sense gave him no feedback, so he was constantly in search of
sensory experience—and this search was a danger to himself and a

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

major disruption to the class.

These children, too, need nurturing, but from the opposite extreme.
One needs to give them deep muscle experiences: rolling them in
a blanket, kneading them like dough, rubbing and brushing their
skin to awaken them to sensation. Then gradually soften the touch
to bring them to awareness of themselves. Simple body geography,
touching with playful slapping and scratching, rubbing, brushing,
tapping, and stroking help them feel the enclosing boundary of their
body. This helps them sense differentiation, so they can be drawn
from the periphery into the comfort of their own center.
Each sense has its own pattern of growth and development, which
is more or less the same for everyone, unless there is a disturbance.
The disturbances may be of two kinds: either hyper—too sensitive;
or hypo—under-sensitive. Hypo children don’t experience their
boundary and get lost in the periphery, as in some forms of ADHD.
Those in the hyper extreme get caught within their own organism
and can’t connect (as in Asperger syndrome). Some swing between
these two poles and this really confuses us. We see both in our kin-
dergartens and both can be disruptive and should give us cause to
pause and consider what is going on.
If we can recognize these extremes of behavior as aspects of center
and periphery, we can find a new pathway to understanding, and
develop new approaches to what appear to be “behaviors” but which
are really disturbances in the life sense.

Point and Periphery Becomes Circle and Point

in Curative Education
In 1924, Rudolf Steiner gave twelve lectures to a group of young
doctors and educators that laid the foundation for what we know
today as curative education.11 Five introductory lectures are fol-
lowed by content based on live child observations. These lectures
gave practical indications for therapeutic education and deep

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

insights and directives for the art of curative education. In the

tenth lecture, he presents the meditation for curative educators,
based on point and periphery, relating the exercise to the most
profound knowledge of the human being. The theme of point and
periphery, the relationship of what is within to what lives with-
out, what works from one incarnation to the next, is fundamental
to any work with children who have difficulties incarnating into
their bodies. We cannot do this work without inner preparation.
The point and periphery meditation is one tool to help us prepare.

Exercise:
Sit comfortably and relaxed. Now visualize a point. Make sure that
you are really visualizing a point and don’t let it disperse. A point
is solid, compressed, contracted spacelessness. Now expand this
point, but keep it as a point. Let the point grow without allowing it to
become a circle, without letting it lose its quality of a point. See how
far you can expand the point without allowing it to become anything
other than a point.
Let that go.
Now visualize a circle. Round, complete, spatial, with inner and outer
space, but mainly with an inner space and spaciousness. Now con-
tract this circle, without losing the quality of the circle. Don’t allow
it to become a point. Maintain it as a circle, no matter how small it
becomes.
Let that go.
Now imagine each of them again. Then gradually, very gradually,
speed up the process of alternating between the two, without losing
the essence of the initial exercise.
Once we become proficient at this, we can experience a natural
movement between the two poles. We can learn to breathe into the
movement between them: we can, with a small effort, let go of one
and enter into the other, without getting lost or caught in either.

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

We live between these poles daily and can usually move with ease
between point and periphery. Little children can’t do this. As they
grow and mature, most children develop focal and peripheral atten-
tion. However, some do not. They remain more or less imprisoned
in one extreme. Some are unable to contract from the periphery to
the center to gain self-awareness. Others are so caught up in con-
sciousness and self-awareness that they can’t relax or expand their
sensing. Others can’t move smoothly between the two, often having
a tantrum before being able to change their orientation.
Now let us look at the Steiner’s meditation.12
In the evening, after we have lived the day in the world,
we visualise a blue circle with a yellow point (see Diagram
2, upper image), and flow out into the cosmic blue of the
night, with the thought “In me is God.” In the morning,
we converge toward our body, which we can experience
as a blue dot (we have contracted into our bodies—astral
and ego draw in from the periphery every morning to
unite with the physical and etheric). This becomes our
center when we awaken from our sojourn in the spiri-
tual world, and we visualize the yellow circle and the blue
point (Diagram 2, lower image), with the thought: “I am
in God” and allow this thought to radiate throughout
the day. This becomes clearer if we think of ourselves as
always in the blue and God as represented by yellow.

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

Evening Meditation

Try to accustom yourself to

live into the consciousness:
In me is God. In me is
God—or the spirit of God,
or whatever expression you
wish to use, but please do
not think of this truth as
theoretical.

Morning Meditation

Let the knowledge that

I am in God shine
through the whole day.

Diagram 2

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

Finding the Spiritual Essence

through Paradox of outer Polarities
And now consider! When you bring to life within you these two ideas, which are then
no longer mere thoughts, but have become something felt and perceived inwardly,
have even become impulses of will with in you, what is it you are doing?

First, you have this picture

before you:

In me is God

And on the following

morning, you have this
picture before you:

I am in God

The two figures are one and the same. In the morning, you have a circle (yellow) and
a point (blue). And in the evening you have a circle (blue) and a point (yellow). You
begin to understand that a circle is a point, and a point is a circle. You acquire a deep
inner understanding of this fact.

Diagram 3

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

Then Rudolf Steiner draws a diagram to indicate the human being

in the Curative Course (see Diagram 4) The head is shown with the
physical body on the outermost layer (the skull), enclosing the cere-
brospinal fluid (of the etheric body), which surrounds the nerves (of
the astral body). The diagram places the ego of the human being in
the very center—in the upper pole.
The same elements appear in reverse order in our limbs. The physical
lies in the center of each limb (in the bones), surrounded by mus-
cle, then blood, and finally the ego on the outside. With our body
we express our ego through our movements. When we see some-
one walking towards us, we can recognize our friend by how her
limbs move. When we see someone we know in a restful sitting posi-
tion, we recognize the shape of his head and his profile, which has
imprinted itself onto the physical. The “I” is hidden within. Diagram
4 depicts this aspect of point and periphery in the physical body.

A Curative Attitude: Observing the Life Sense in

Devotion to Small Things
We have to learn to observe the details and the polarities between
the head and the limbs. Steiner exhorts curative educators to pay
attention to the detail, to take an interest in the minutiae of the
expression of what is human, to devote ourselves without judgment
to what is present. Kindergarten teachers and curative educators
pay attention to these things in preparation for a child study; we
also school ourselves to pay attention to these things on a daily and
hourly basis, so that at any time we can recall every detail of the
child’s physicality, her movements, gestures, speech, and so forth.
We must be able to live into the child’s constitution, so that we have
a sense of who she is from the inside—feel what it is to be large- or
small-headed, fantasy-rich or fantasy-poor, and so on.
In the curative course, Steiner describes the head in its formation
as a result of our deeds in former incarnations, and the thoughts we

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carry in our heads as related to the past. Our capacity for thought is
something that arises from the past; whereas our will, our capacity
to act, is directed to the future. Our thoughts are not products of our
brain; they originate in the cosmic ether, from which we gather the
etheric forces to form our etheric body. Thoughts, per se, can never
be wrong; only our way of connecting and interpreting them can go
awry. We can connect and interpret thoughts in original ways, but
every thought we have has been thought before. Everything I say
or write has been gleaned, read, or heard from someone before me.
In our heads, Steiner says, we are acquisitive. We take each other’s
thoughts and put them together to write essays, give speeches, and
make points. This activity rightly belongs in the upper pole. What
happens if this activity is displaced and sinks into the area of will?
In lecture 9 of the course for curative educators, Steiner says, “Then
we become little kleptomaniacs.”13 If the “thieving,” which has its
rightful place in the head, slips into the realm of will, then we start
to take, hold, and possess things that don’t belong to us. If we make
the effort to live into this state, then we no longer judge children
who take things. It is no longer a moral issue; it is an experience for
which we can feel empathy. We learn to deal with the situation with
love and understanding.
I am often asked what to do with children who steal or take and col-
lect things. In the lecture just mentioned, Steiner gave a wonderful
description of the symptoms, causes and remediation of conditions
such as kleptomania. He describes how morality belongs solely to
the earth, and doesn’t exist in the spiritual world. It is something
we acquire here on earth through our will. Thus this type of acquis-
itiveness is also not primarily a moral issue, but an immaturity
between the separation of the upper and the lower pole. Steiner
then describes helpful remedies.

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

Understanding the Human Being

In envisioning or meditating
upon the metabolism, we
can imagine a “limbs figure”
and a “head figure.” In the
human being this becomes
a reality: the I-point of the
head becomes, in the limb
figure, the circle.

These two figures, these

two conceptions, are one
and the same, are not at all
different from one another.
They only look different in
representation.

Red = Ego
Blue-Purple = Astral
Yellow = Etheric
Gray lines = Physical

Diagram 4-1

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

There is a yellow circle;

here it is too! There is a
blue point; here it is too!

One is a diagram of the

head, and one a diagram of
the body.

When the point claims a

place for itself in the body,
it becomes the spinal cord,
and then the part it plays
in the head organization
is continued in the spinal
cord. There you have
the inner dynamic of the
morphology of man.

Red = Ego
Blue-Purple = Astral
Yellow = Etheric
Gray lines = Physical

Diagram 4-2

Children Prone to Sensory Overload

There are children who seem to cope better if allowed to remain
on the periphery. These are children who easily experience sensory
overload—sounds, colors, and even smells are too much for them.
They sometimes react with “inappropriate” behaviors, which are
merely an immature response to overpowering messages from their
life sense. Teachers must be alert to these reactions in their earli-
est stages: blinking, hands over the ears, squeezing the legs together,
or even the touching the genitals. These early signs of overload
are externalized messages from the life sense. We often don’t pay
enough attention to them until they develop into disturbances in the
classroom.

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If we are observant, we can also notice when these children look

with interest, perhaps smiling as they watch the others play or even
during the morning circle. These moments indicate when to move in
and invite the child a little closer, away from the periphery.
In the morning, we may see these children walking around the
periphery, gently touching, sometimes even handling objects briefly,
then replacing them. It’s easy for us to make quick judgments. Based
on our prior learning about the senses, we may say they are seeking
touch, so they must be hypo. This may be true and additional tactile
experiences may help the child to further integrate their perceptions.
However, we need to look how they touch. Sometimes touching is a
form of orientation. Most neurotypically developing children take in
the situation through their vision. They can look into a space and feel
okay. However, many children today don’t gain sufficient security
from merely looking: they need to touch their way into the space,
so they explore the room through touch. If we then forbid them to
touch, they remain alienated from the space. They may need to do
this every morning, because for these children each day begins with
a sense of insecurity, as their life sense is on high alert. They need to
feel all the objects again, to reaffirm the objects’ reality and also their
own physical presence, in this place, at this time, today.
It helps for such children to arrive early, so that they can feel the
objects and get comfortable in the space before the other children
arrive; then they can gradually acclimatize to the increasing level
of noise and interaction. If they arrive when class is already in full
swing, they have to accommodate to what is already there, which
makes a much greater demand on their life forces and life sense.14
Steiner described children with obvious needs as Seelenpflegebed-
uerftige Kinder, or children in need of soul care. But life sense con-
cerns may also reside, if somewhat hidden, in the average child.
Through all children, we are given the opportunity to study and
understand the subtleties of the body and the soul. Steiner states that
all teachers should have an understanding of normal development;

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and all educators of children with special needs should be familiar

with both typical and atypical child development.
The onus is on us to understand these differences. Feeling a need to
fix them is an outdated attitude. When we identify children as diffi-
cult and disturbing, we are actually saying that their behaviors are
difficult for us; they disturb us. The children are not disturbed by their
behavior—in fact many behaviors are simply coping mechanisms.
Steiner says we must rid ourselves of our fear of differences, and learn
to meet the essence of the other. He calls the concepts of normality
and abnormality mere abstractions. When we try to drive out abnor-
mality, he says, we drive out a piece of genius.15 He rejoiced when he
walked around the first Waldorf school and saw naughty children.16
In such children, he said, the spirit is active. He stated that when he
looked into the Akashic records, he saw that people of genius often
had a previous incarnation in an incomplete or imperfect body; they
needed to have certain experiences on earth that could only be had in
an imperfect vessel that could not house the spirit in the normal way.
It is not our task to fix problems or to normalize children. Our
task is to know, recognize, and understand children’s hindrances,
to help them step forward in fulfilling their own purpose and des-
tiny in this life.

The Social Aspect of Point and Periphery

The principle of point and periphery lives in every aspect of our
lives. It gives us the opportunity to bring awareness to situations and
connections that would otherwise slip by unnoticed. When we are
observing children, nature, situations, how does it reveal itself?
Point and periphery is also a social experience. In the Curative
Course, Steiner gave therapeutic and medical indications to help
children overcome their difficulties. Although these indications still
hold true, in the past much of the work took place in isolation—
between child and nurse or therapist. Today, we look at things more

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

from a social perspective. How can we create inclusive situations, in

which all children can find their place? How can we create situations
in which everyone experiences growth and enrichment?
This may not always be possible. These days there is a wider range of
capacities and challenges, and it is almost impossible to meet these
within a class as whole—one must always be aware of and pay special
attention to a child who cannot keep up or fit in. If we take a more
social approach, we are looking for opportunities for learning and
growing for all children, through the acceptance and inclusion of
children with different abilities.
I believe that the ideal of inclusion lives strongly in most educators.
But the reality of having children with diverse needs and behaviors in
the classroom may be too much for many of us. We are torn between
our ideals and reality.
How do we deal with this tension? These words by Heinrich Rombach
might help:
We don’t have potential because we are perfect; our
potential lies in our imperfections. Development might
be seen as finding our way out of our imperfections.17
The children with differences give our other students, our classes,
and our schools opportunities to overcome egoism, judgments, and
habitual mental stances, to create new neural pathways of social
acceptance and inclusivity. These children give us opportunities
for social, emotional, and spiritual growth—if we only could have
the courage to accept them. Just acknowledging that this is so is an
important first step.
Challenging situations help us to grow, to become who we really want
to be. We need to celebrate imperfections. To invite a little chaos into
our lives helps us create something new.
We all exhibit some form of challenging behavior that we have
learned, as normally functioning people, to hide, mask, or downplay.

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We can do this because our center, our ego, can re-establish balance
when it goes out of kilter and sets free our idiosyncrasies. Children
with special needs cannot do this. The imbalances are too great and
their egos are not sufficiently incarnated to redress the situation.
Karl König describes disability as something primarily human.18
Most disabilities belong to a specific phase of development that has
become stuck or arrested, so that further growth and development
is no longer possible without extra help. Illness and disability are
imbalances or displacements of the natural harmony; we are con-
stantly overcoming these quirks and setbacks. We may have diffi-
culty in meeting the world in the mornings or coming to rest in the
evening. Others need to have consistent physical order and regu-
lar schedules to feel well. If we notice these states in ourselves, we
can rest, eat, or drink to restore our sense of harmony and well-be-
ing. What in us is an idiosyncrasy can become a disability in our
children because they do not have the forces—are not well enough
integrated in their thinking, feeling, and willing—to manage these
imbalances. Their distress becomes their state of being—they can-
not realign themselves.
Consider children with ADHD. Every day they get into trouble,
often not knowing why. Every day they go to school, hoping that
this day will be different, but having no idea how they could make it
different. If we can understand and empathize, if we can meet them
with respect rather than exasperation, we can say, “I know that you
tried.” That will make a great difference—to them and to us. They
breathe a sigh of relief at being understood. Their life sense can for
a moment be restored from the high alert state of “fight or flight”—
which is their “normal”—and align for a moment with the state
of “rest and digest,” which is our state of harmony and relaxation.
Normal lies in the gentle alternation between the two.
We have these children in every class and we will continue to get
more. They are the casualties of our time: the rushed lifestyle, the
pollution, the misplaced use of technology, the overstimulation, the
nature deficit disorder, and so on. Some of them have a diagnosis or

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

label, others do not. Children with all variety of “disorders” and phys-
ical challenges will ask to join our kindergartens and schools. How
do we deal with their differences in our classes and kindergartens?
Children are smart and can see that one child needs more help, or
is excitable and erratic and needs the teacher’s calming influence.
Most children intuitively accept this, and make natural adjust-
ments. Some children perceive this difference but can’t internalize
it and so become bullies. We need to pay attention to these chil-
dren because this inability to internalize difference may emerge
as a difficulty in internalizing shapes and patterns that make up
letters and words. Their behavior may be an early indication of a
learning difficulty. Many children will openly ask the child: “Why
can’t you walk?” (or see or hear). This questioning is all right, and
we shouldn’t regard it as rude. We do, however, need to be vigilant
that this questioning does not become mean or hurtful. Individual
situations can be subtle, and the questions and answers may not
be obvious.
While each case must be handled individually, as a general guide-
line it is not respectful nor helpful to tell the class “about” the child.
That creates separation. We need to find ways to be inclusive, to talk
about the child with the child present, so she is part of the conver-
sation: “Penny is learning that—aren’t you, Penny? Just like some of
us are learning to tie our shoes.” Our language needs to normalize
and include the difference. Difference is normal; we’re all different
and we must learn to celebrate and make space for difference. Of
course, one can tell stories of the child, gnome, or animal who was
different and gifted in its own way. We also need to be prepared for
questions and answer them openly. Questions and curiosity belong
to healthy children. If we in any way suppress these qualities in our
children, we stifle their growth and actually cause a contraction in
their attitude to life and to their life sense. Here there should be
expansion and interest.

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

The Health of the Senses

Diagram 5 presents an overview of the senses and their functions,
organs, and gifts.

FUNCTIONS, ORGANS AND GIFTS OF THE SENSES

SENSE OF TOUCH – awareness of physical boundaries, defining self and non-self
Organ – skin
Gift – trust
SENSE OF LIFE – conveying feeling of well-being or unwellness
Organ – autonomic nervous system (particularly sympathetic nervous system)
Gift –harmony
SENSE OF MOVEMENT – proprioception; perception of own body movements
Organ – peripheral nervous system
Gift – freedom
SENSE OF BALANCE – perceiving uprightness and relation to external space
Organ – semicircular canals
Gift – centeredness, inner equilibrium
SENSE OF SMELL – directly connecting with periphery; air
Organ – nose
Gift – morality
SENSE OF TASTE – actively internalizing substance; fluids
Organ – tongue
Gift – tastefulness (personal, cultural)
SENSE OF SIGHT – overviewing visual space /perceiving light, dark and color
Organ – eyes
Gift – insight
SENSE OF WARMTH – balancing warmth and cold inside and outside the body
Organ – circulation with heart at center
Gift – soul warmth, interest
SENSE OF HEARING – differentiating between noise, sound, voice and tone
Organ – ear, specifically cochlea
Gift – penetrate being-ness of world and other
SENSE OF WORD – ability to recognize words and gestures as meaningful
Organ – pyramidal system
Gift – opening to the Logos
SENSE OF THOUGHT – understanding thoughts behind words
Organ – parasympathetic nervous system
Gift – understanding spiritual content
SENSE OF EGO – perceiving the ego of the other
Organ – the whole human form at rest with head at its center
Gift – perceiving spiritual essence

Diagram 5.

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

PARASYMPATHETIC NERVES SYMPATHETIC NERVES

“Rest and digest” “Fight or flight”

Constrict Dilate pupils

pupils
Inhibit
Stimulate saliva Cranial saliva
nerves
Constrict Relax
airways airways
Cervical
Slow nerves Increase
heartbeat heartbeat

Stimulate Thoracic Inhibit

activity of the nerves activity of the
stomach stomach

Inhibit release Stimulate

of glucose; release of
stimulate glucose; inhibit
gallbladder gallbladder
Lumbar
nerves Inhibit activity
Stimulate
of the intestines
activity of the Sacral
intestines nerves
Secrete
epinephirine &
norepinephrine
Contract
bladder Relax bladder

Promote
ejaculation
and vaginal
Promote contraction
erection of genitals

Diagram 6

The life sense is the foundation for the sense of thought. Both the senses of life
and thought have as their organ the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which
is divided into the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system.
Diagram 6 shows the two systems and how each controls different responses:
the sympathetic nerves give the warning signals of “fight or flight” to the life
sense; each organ responds according to which part of the autonomic nervous
system is dominant. For example, the pupil of the eye responds by dilating.
Furthermore, if we look at the place of origin of each reaction, we see that the
sense of thought originates in the cranial nerves (the vagus nerve), whereas the
life sense originates in the organs themselves. Image: VectorMine/Shutterstock.

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

Ego Touch

Thought Life

Word Movement

Balance
Hearing

Warmth Smell

Sight Taste

Diagram 7

Diagram 7 shows the relationship between the higher and lower senses.
The life sense, which is deeply linked to all our senses, represents the whole
human being: the upper, more energizing and wakeful; the lower, calming
and less conscious; and the soul aspects of thinking, feeling, and willing. All
of these must be in harmonious interplay for the sense of thought to unfold.

Diagram 6 offers a snapshot of human physiology related to the

senses, and Diagram 7 relates the higher and lower sense to each
other.
The sense organs are spread throughout the body, with their cen-
ter in the nerve-sense system of the upper pole. Each sense organ is

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

formed in utero for its specific function, yet it only awakens to full
functioning if four preconditions are fulfilled:
1. Each organ must be fully developed in order to fulfil its role as a
sense organ. A sense that is incomplete or physically deformed can-
not serve as an instrument for receiving the sense impression.
2. The sense organ must be healthy. A head cold and a stuffy nose
may infringe on the senses of taste and smell. Dairy intolerance may
result in blockage of the ears. In these cases, the organs are not healthy
and are unable to fulfil their role as instruments of perception.
3. The soul must be awake enough to be present in the sense activ-
ity. The organs may be fully formed and healthy, but they still may
not serve the child if the soul is not sufficiently awake. The sense
organs awaken the soul of an infant. But in certain forms of global,
or overall developmental delay, this does not happen. The astral
body is “asleep” and unable to respond to sensory stimuli. The child
remains unreceptive to sound or light or touch until we can reach in
and awaken the soul.
4. The “I” can direct attention into the sense organ. When we are
tired, we may see and hear, but not comprehend. This happens when
the “I” cannot direct its intentionality into the sense organs, as is
often the case with ADHD. We have to will the organs into activity,
directing our attention to focus on the intended object, sifting out
peripheral information. We need to have the will to perceive.
In summary, there are four prerequisites for sense perception:
1. A fully developed organ - physical level
2. A healthy organ - etheric level
3. A soul that is awake - astral level
4. The will to perceive - level of the “I”19
Even when all these conditions are in place and each organ per-
forms its function, no single, individual sense functions on its own.
In a healthy person, multiple senses work together to convey the

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

fullness of a sense perception. Here again, we can find irregulari-

ties; a child may rely too heavily on one sense to the exclusion of
others and be deprived of the full sensory experience. Children
who rely too strongly on their vision may miss verbal instructions
from the teacher, as though they are deaf; yet their ears are fully
functional. In such a case, the activity of the eyes can extinguish
the activity of listening: the soul is totally absorbed in one sense
perception to the detriment of all others. We often find this in chil-
dren with certain learning difficulties. They are perfectly normal
children in many respects, but their sensory activity has become so
one-sided that they cannot function in a classroom with its many
variables and distractions
The four lower senses develop during the preschool years and
form the foundation upon which the higher senses develop. We
all know that the lower senses are at risk in modern societies, due
to our sedentary and passive lifestyle. Let us take a quick look at
the senses in relationship to the disturbances we see in our kin-
dergartens and schools.
Through the sense of touch, we perceive the surface and boundary
of the physical body. Every contact with the outer world makes its
imprint on the skin, which we register at a subconscious level. For
some children this imprint is either too weak or too strong, as dis-
cussed above in “The Life Sense in Life,” and the children respond
accordingly to gain the imprint that will satisfy their sensory needs.
Bumping, rubbing, hitting, biting, and scratching, among many
other behaviors, can be signs of a disturbance in the sense of touch.
Through the sense of life, we perceive our state of well-being or its
absence, based on the balance of the workings of the internal organs.
Each of us registers our own state of well-being upon waking every
morning and can take the necessary steps to deal with an experience
of imbalance. In young children, the life sense is still a very general-
ized sensation. Not feeling comfortable and comforted in this realm
can cause a real disturbance in their ability to participate. These

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

may be children who complain a lot. A disturbance in any sense will

affect the life sense, so if children’s senses are too open, the life sense
is under constant attack.
The sense of self movement provides us with a sense of where our
body is in relation to itself. Just as our mouth seems to know what
word to form to express our thoughts, so the movements of our hand
anticipate an action.20 Many children get too much or too little feed-
back from this sense, and are unable to move with the grace and
fluidity that we expect in a kindergarten-age child. Children love to
move; movement is their medium. But some children always seem
to miss the mark. They knock things over, break things, are clumsy
and ungainly, and are generally slow to develop fine motor skills. A
careful look at their sense of movement will reveal their distress.21
The sense of balance tells us about the relationship of our body to
the external world. With this sense we perceive our uprightness or
any deviation from the upright position. Many children today have
a disturbed perception in this sense. This can lead to a reluctance to
engage in physical movement, or an almost manic need to move in
order to get feedback from the space around them
With these four lower senses, the child takes hold of his physical
organization. We can observe this wonderful process in infancy as
the little child goes through the stages that lead to standing upright
and walking. By the time children come to kindergarten, we expect
these lower senses to be more or less integrated and in the process of
refinement. However, ever-increasing numbers of children have not
completed this process due to a disturbance of these bodily senses.
We need to devise songs, games, and exercises to help the children
to complete this process.22 These four senses are trained by the body
and for the body. This means that they develop through the activities
of the body; and the more the senses are engaged, the more inte-
grated in the body the child becomes.
The four middle senses have less to do with the body and more to do
with connecting to the world through the awaking soul. We share the

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

world with other souls, whereas our connection to our body is our
own. We respond with sympathy or antipathy to the outside world.
We have likes and dislikes in the realm of smell, taste, color, tempera-
ture, and even sounds. Here, too, we see disturbances—preferences
can become obsessions and aversions. We often see this with foods,
which is normal for a short phase of development. But if it contin-
ues over a longer period, it is a sign of a sensory disturbance, and
the child needs help to move forward. The middle senses connect us
with the world around us. If they become directed towards the body
and self-gratification, they are disturbed. When these senses are
functioning well, they teach the child to know his own soul, because
they recognize the soul qualities in the environment.
The higher, more cognitive senses connect us to the spirit world—
to the other. The sense of hearing, like the other senses, is already
present at birth. The three highest senses, word, thought, and “I,” are
entirely dependent on education—in the broadest sense. In order to
develop, they require the presence of other human beings. In saying
this we can immediately intuit the level of damage that is caused by
technology and screen time. Many children today are obsessed with
their smartphones and tablets. In our regular routines of the Waldorf
kindergarten, we do much to alleviate the sensory shortfalls that
may result from this preoccupation. However, we know from recent
research23 that certain deficits are appearing that are attributed to
screen use: a growing number of children do not understand gesture,
facial expression, or the inflection of the voice (all connected to the
sense of word); they hear what we say and understand the individ-
ual words but not the message (sense of thought). Some children
are oblivious to the presence of others, treat others like objects, or
are unable to empathize when another child is hurt (sense of other).
Here again, we must rid ourselves of bias and judgment, perceive the
disturbances in these senses, and activate Rudolf Steiner’s pedagogi-
cal law: to engage with knowing intentionality so that our interven-
tions can be really effective.24

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

Disturbances of the Senses

To really understand children with special needs, we need to look
not only at the functioning of their senses, but also at their distur-
bances. If we understand the senses in their fullness, we will have
a vital tool for meeting the needs of all children. Many behaviors
and difficulties that we see in children today can be understood
through the senses.
During the developmental stages of childhood, the sense organs are
gradually awakened and can take hold of and assimilate the impres-
sions coming in. Who is taking in and assimilating? It is the “I” or
ego of the child, gradually awakening from within, stimulated by the
sense world from without. As already mentioned, the senses help
us to differentiate and discriminate the world around us and, in so
doing, assist in the integration and the incarnation of the individual.
The ego is the great integrator, enabling each sense organ to mon-
itor and regulate what comes in, so that it can be assimilated and
integrated.
However, in many of our children, the ego cannot fulfil this task. It
cannot filter what comes in. For some children, too much comes in
through one or more of the senses. Too much information, too many
impressions invade the child’s inner space, and she becomes defen-
sive. The child wants to screen out some impressions. These children
are hyper in one or more of their senses. If, on the other hand, the
ego cannot take hold of the sense impressions at all, if the stimuli
from the senses do not reach the child, the impressions are insuffi-
cient and the child seeks for more and becomes sensation-seeking.
These children are hypo in their sensory life.
Let us look at how this plays out in the sense of touch.
The well-functioning sense of touch gives a sense of boundary, of
containment, of belonging. If this sense is hyper, the child experi-
ences too much sensation, cannot screen himself from incoming
stimuli, and becomes what we call tactile defensive. Some children

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say that their clothes are itchy and irritating. Parents have to cut off
all labels for this reason. In class these children will avoid being in
the midst of things, will go to the end of a line, and will play on the
periphery, all to avoid being bumped into or inadvertently touched.
All touch hurts. Even a small bump hurts. The child experiences it
as painful. That is her experience and you can’t argue with that. In
extreme cases, any touch hurts; every little bit is too much. It is so
painful that the child withdraws from almost any contact—unless
she initiates it and controls it herself.
How different it is with the child who is hypo in the sense of touch.
He is not getting enough sensation and is always craving more:
he bumps into children and objects so he can feel himself and his
boundaries; he likes pile-ups, lying on other children—without
any sexual connotations, just needing to feel his physical self. He
squeezes people’s hands, thumps, hits, and scratches. He’s not trying
to be annoying; he just really needs these sensations.
For the hyper child, everything hurts; for the hypo child, nothing is
enough.
With the life sense we perceive our state of wellness or otherwise. If
we are healthy we feel well, and the life sense doesn’t give us much
feedback. We take our wellness for granted. As adults, can cope with
things and make inner adjustments if something is slightly amiss.
For a child who is hyper in the life sense, any variation or surprise
is upsetting and unsettling. It is as though she can’t really settle into
life: it’s too warm or too cold; the food is too much or too little; her
clothes are too tight, too loose, too itchy; the light is too strong—and
the list goes on. When we ask her to participate, she needs time to
adjust, to prepare herself. Life is hard for her. Because she complains
about everything, people get annoyed with her. She then feels alone,
unloved, and misunderstood, and she often gets teased. These chil-
dren have a hard time, which can continue into adulthood. Even then
other adults often get impatient with them. Yet they are just taking
care of their existential needs. We must remember that if any sense is

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

in imbalance, the general sense of well-being is affected. These hyper

individuals often become sensitive, perceptive adults, keen observers
who notice and attend to details as valued collaborators. They have
empathy—probably because they have suffered so much. They create
safety in being self-protective and seldom get hurt.
By contrast, children who are hypo in the life sense are a danger to
themselves. They are often hypo in many other senses as well, so they
often get hurt. They have a very high pain threshold, which means
they don’t notice warning signals that keep most of us safe. Because
many sensations don’t really register with them, they seek more.
They don’t have particular likes or dislikes, tend to eat whatever is in
front of them, and eat too much, even if it’s too hot or too cold. They
often don’t know what to wear—they dress too warmly in summer
and not warmly enough in winter. They can get enthusiastic, then
lose interest quickly. They don’t sense when they’re tired, so they
keep going when they should rest. Then they make mistakes. They
are easily confused and are often misunderstood.
The senses of self movement and balance are closely linked, so we
will deal with them together.
Every movement has an effect on the balance of the whole organism.
Even the smallest movement of the hand changes the subtle equilib-
rium of the body. In early childhood, when the senses of movement
and balance are still developing, the child cannot yet adjust and eas-
ily falls over when reaching for something. As the senses mature,
children become able to engage differently, their whole vestibular
system coming into play when needed. Children who are hyper in
their senses of movement and balance register every little change
in their system, are easily overwhelmed by sensory input, and are
reluctant movers. They play quietly in a corner, avoiding the activi-
ties of the group, and often like to stay close to the teacher or close to
the wall. They prefer the periphery, even if they enjoy watching the
activity in the center.
In one kindergarten, two children, an active boy and a tentative girl,

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

were neighbors and friends. At home they regulated their play and
adjusted to one another. In kindergarten the boy was very active, at
the center of everything, and the girl played quietly on the periphery.
On the day I visited I witnessed the following: the boy was directing
the play—moving tables and chairs with much noise and ado, piling
them high and making a ship with a look-out tower. Meanwhile the
girl played quietly with cloths and ribbons. When the ship was ready,
the boy fetched the girl. He helped her climb to the top of the tower,
where he had placed a chair for her. From that safe position, she was
able to be part of the game, sitting happily and safely away from the
masses, without feeling threatened. This is a beautiful illustration of
the hyper/hypo polarity, and a beautiful example of sensitive inclu-
sion on the part of the children.

Caring for the Carergiver – Caring for Ourselves

We cannot close a discussion of the life sense without talking about
caring for the carer. Obviously, as parents, we need to take care of
ourselves. We need a partner or wider network as a supporting
sounding board for our questions, problems, and frustrations. As
teachers, we can be interested in and caring toward parents. But our
primary concern must be the children in our care and their growth
and well-being.
We cannot deal with challenging children unless we are grounded in
ourselves, attending to our own self care. We often talk about parents
and children not having good boundaries. We need to consider our
own boundaries.
During the pioneer stage of a school, everyone is involved with set-
ting things up and getting things ready: teachers, parents, grandpar-
ents, all together as co-workers, become friends and share energies
to create the school. Then school begins and the teachers become
“the teachers” and the parents become “the parents.” We have to
learn to set boundaries, accept our respective roles, and put process
and procedure in place. This is an important step that takes time and

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thoughtful, respectful conversations. If this doesn’t happen and roles

remain unclear, confidences are broken, things can get very messy,
and deep and unresolvable hurts can arise.
This is especially so if a child begins to show delays or developmen-
tal difficulties. Parents have left their school because their child was
no longer accepted by the other parents. Teachers have been over-
whelmed by worried parents.
There can be friendships, but clear boundaries need to be established:
a teacher needs her privacy, both in time and space. There need to
be set times for conversations and feedback outside of school hours.
We do set up limits and boundaries in general ways already. But in
the case of children with special needs, there need to be clear proce-
dures that are mutually understood and respected. It may be a good
idea to have a journal in which both parents and teachers can suc-
cinctly record anything unusual that happens at home or at school.
There needs to be agreement about regular meetings to assess the
child’s progress set on the calendar well in advance. If these forms
are set and adhered to, it is easier to maintain healthy boundaries.
As teachers, we must consciously step into our working space in the
morning, and consciously step out of it in the afternoon. We leave
school knowing that the space will be ready to step into the next
morning, and we can let it rest for the evening.
Learning to care for the caregiver, that is, learning to take care of our
own life sense, requires attention. Being fully present for our family
at home, just as we are for our children in the kindergarten, is quite
demanding. Our professional persona is so different from our pri-
vate one. So what are the golden rules for teachers to nurture their
life sense?
• Pay attention to the transition between work and home
life.
• Be fully present, wherever you are, in everything you do,
even when relaxing. As Karl König said in the early years

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

to the co-workers of the Camphill community: “When in

the garden, be a gardener; when in the classroom, be a
teacher; and I would add, when at home be a spouse, par-
ent, homemaker; when in a meeting, be a meeter; when
with yourself, be yourself.”25
• Set a rhythm for your life and breathe life into that rhythm.
• Take joy in being alive.
The life sense conveys to us a sense of wholeness. The foundation for
the life sense lives in the etheric forces of growth and rejuvenation.
We need to consciously nurture these forces, and we do so through
enlivening all our senses. The more alive we are in the life of our
senses in general, the stronger the life sense can become. Let us cul-
tivate health and equanimity and meet life with the fullness of our
trust in the spiritual world.
Raphael’s masterpiece, The Transfiguration, provides us with a
beautiful image of point and periphery, both in its wholeness and
in its parts.
At the bottom of the painting, a group of people is gathered around
a youth in the throes of an epileptic seizure. Everyone is so focused
on the youth that the radiant figure of Health, in the foreground,
goes totally unnoticed. All eyes are on the drama, the facial and body
gestures all depicting excitement and vexation. Like the youth, the
onlookers have succumbed to a state of excarnation: they point to
the center (the youth) but their own center is empty. But if we look
closely, we see a striking connection between the youth and Health,
who is pointing directly at his heart, their two bodies molded as one.
We all carry health within us, and it is our task to promote health
within ourselves and in the world.

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

Rafael, The Transfiguration, 1516-20 (Pinacoteca of the Vatican Museums).

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

In the upper part of the picture appears the Risen Christ—the force
and the source of health. If we only pay attention to the news of wars,
lies, and politics, we can get caught in the doom of destruction, not
noticing the beauty of the natural world, the goodness in the world.
The forces of rejuvenation are all around us.

Rafael, The Transfiguration, detail.

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

You, who from the light of heaven

Descend into the darkness of earth
To reveal spirit light
To enkindle spirit warmth
To call forth spirit strength
In the struggle of existence.

You through the warmth of my (our) love

Enlightening thinking
Calming feeling
Healing willing.

Because you are rooted in the Spirit-heights

And working in the grounds of Earth
You will become Servant of the Word:
Illuminating the Spirit
Realising Love
Strengthening Existence.26

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

NOTES

1. Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Ground of Education (Great Barrington,

Massachusetts: Anthroposophic Press, 2004), lecture 4 (GA305).
2. Hans Erhard Lauer, Die Zwölf Sinne des Menschen (Basel: R. G. Zbinden &
Co, 1953), ch. 3. Author’s translation from the German.
3. In 1916 Rudolf Steiner referred to the senses as a twelve-fold unity in writings
and lectures collected in The Riddle of Humanity: The Spiritual Background of
Human History (Forest Row, UK: Steiner Press, 1990)
(GA170) and Toward Imagination: Culture and the Individual (Hudson, New
York: Anthroposophic Press, 1990) (GA169).
4. Here we have to distinguish between touch and sensing. I-touch is different
from the sense of touch. When I touch, I reach out and seek contact with
the world; in sensing, the world makes an imprint on me. (In the case of
the sense of touch, the external world makes an impression on the tactile
sensors below the skin. They are compressed, causing the sensation we call
touch.) This arises through the nerve-sense system (NSS) of the upper pole.
Similarly my sense of myself, my identification with myself, is an active
state, whereas the sense of I or other is an activity of the NSS. We sense the
other and in sensing the other, our own self is in a certain sense eclipsed. See
Rudolf Steiner, The Foundations of Human Experience (Hudson, New York:
Anthroposophic Press, 1996), lecture 8.
5. Steiner, The Foundations of Human Experience.
6. On the child as sense organ, see Rudolf Steiner, Soul Economy (Great
Barrington, Massachusetts: SteinerBooks, 2003) (GA303); on the soul imitat-
ing the surroundings, see Rudolf Steiner, The Child’s Changing Consciousness
and Waldorf Education (Forest Row, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1988)
(GA306).
7. Karl König, Being Human (Heilpädagogiksche Diagnostik) (Hudson, New
York: Anthroposophic Press, 1989), p. 37.
8. Rudolf Steiner, Verses and Meditations (Forest Row, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press,
2004). p. 59.
9. Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump (New York, Random House Press,
2014), p. 27.
10. Edmond Schoorel, The First Seven Years (Fair Oaks, California: Rudolf
Steiner College Press, 2004), p. 135.
11. Rudolf Steiner, Education for Special Needs: The Curative Education Course
(Forest Row: Rudolf Steiner Press,2015) (GA317).
12. With kind permission from Karl Kaltenbach, founder of Warrah Village in
NSW, Australia, for this elegant presentation of Steiner’s meditation.

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 The Life Sense from the Perspective of Point and Periphery

13. Steiner, Education for Special Needs, lecture 9.

14. In some kindergartens, children with additional needs are invited to join the
class a little later than the other children, so that the class has already estab-
lished its routine. I suggest that sensitive and vulnerable children visit the class-
room during the holidays to get a feeling for the space when there is nobody
around (except the teacher). They can then gradually spend short periods of
time with the group to acclimatize, before being fully admitted to the class. In
this way they get to know the classroom, before they get to know their class-
mates. These decisions must be taken individually, according to the need.
15. Steiner, Education for Special Needs, lecture 1.
16. Schoorel, The First Seven Years, p 243.
17. Heinrich Rombach (1923-2004), a German philosopher at the University
of Würzburg, Germany, quoted in a lecture by Prof. Rüdiger Grimm in
Dornach, Switzerland, October 13, 2002.
18. König, Being Human, ch. 1.
19. Schoorel, First Seven Years, ch. 4.
20. Observe yourself: if you want to pick up a pencil, your hand places itself in
anticipation of the pencil; if you want a drink, your hand will form itself in
anticipation of the size of the cup. This is the result of the working together of
the senses of sight, balance, and movement in conjunction with our will.
21. For example, observe how the children hold hands in the morning circle: do
they look at each hand as they grasp, or do they seem to know where their
hands need to go; do they squeeze too hard, hurting the next child? This isn’t
necessarily malicious: it may be that their sense of movement cannot gauge
the correct pressure.
22. It is best to do these things with the whole class, rather than to single out a
particular child for therapeutic exercises. This is the social aspect of thera-
peutic education: everyone gains in growth and awareness physically, emo-
tionally, socially.
23. Liraz Margalit, Ph.D., “What Screen-Time Can Really Do to Kids’ Brains:
Too much at the worst possible age can have lifetime consequences”
(Psychology Today, April 2016), www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/
behind-online-behavior/201604/what-screen-time-can-really-do-kids-brains
24. Steiner, Education for Special Needs, lecture 2.
25. See Karl König, “Leading Thoughts,” at www.karl-koenig-archive.net/mission.htm.
26. Author unknown, usually attributed to Karl Schubert, first curative teacher,
appointed by Rudolf Steiner.

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 Supporting the Sense of Life

Selected Bibliography
Aeppli, William
The Care and Development of the Human Senses (Edinburgh, UK:
Floris Books, 2013)
Ker, Ruth
Editor, From Kindergarten into the Grades, (Chestnut Ridge, New York:
Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America, 2014)
Köhler, Henning
Working with Anxious, Nervous, and Depressed Children (Chatham,
New York: AWSNA, 1995)
König, Karl
—A Living Physiology (Bolton Village, UK: Camphill Books, 1999)
—Being Human (Heilpädagogiksche Diagnostik) (Hudson, New
York: Anthroposophic Press, 1989)
Lipson, Michael
Stairway of Surprise: Six steps to a Creative Life (Anthroposophic
Press, 2002)
Neufeld, Gordon
Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers
(Toronto, Ontario, Candada: Vintage Canada, 2013)
Schaefer, Signe Eklund
Why on Earth?: Biography and the Practice of Human Becoming (Great
Barrington, Massachusetts: SteinerBooks, 2013)
Schoorel, Edmond
The First Seven Years: Physiology of Childhood (Fair Oaks, California:
Rudolf Steiner College Press, 2005)
Steiner, Rudolf
—Anthroposophy (A Fragment) (Hudson, New York: Anthroposophic
Press, 1996)

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 Bibliography

—The Boundaries of Natural Science (New York: Anthroposophic

Press, 1983)
— The Child’s Changing Consciousness and Waldorf Education (Forest
Row, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1988)
—Education as a Force for Social Change (Hudson, New York:
Anthroposophic Press, 1997)
—Education for Special Needs: The Curative Education Course (Forest
Row: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2015)
—Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy (Forest Row,
UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1981)
—The Essentials of Education (Great Barrington, Massachusetts:
Anthroposophic Press, 1997)
—Foundations of Human Experience (Hudson, New York:
Anthroposophic Press, 1996)
—Karmic Relationships Vols. 1-8 (Great Barrington, Massachusetts:
SteinerBooks, 2015)
—The Kingdom of Childhood (Hudson, New York: Anthroposophic
Press, 1995)
—A Psychology of Body, Soul, and Spirit (Great Barrington,
Massachusetts: Steiner Books, 1999)
—The Riddle of Humanity: The Spiritual Background of Human
History (Forest Row, UK: Steiner Press, 1990)
—The Roots of Education (Hudson, New York: Anthroposophic Press,
1997)
— Soul Economy (Great Barrington, Massachusetts: SteinerBooks,
2003)
— The Spiritual Ground of Education (Great Barrington,
Massachusetts: Anthroposophic Press, 2004)
—Spiritual Science as a Foundation for Social Forms (London: Rudolf
Steiner Press, 1986; Great Barrington, Massachusetts: Steiner
Books, 1986)
—Start Now!: A Book of Soul and Spiritual Exercises (Great
Barrington, Massachusetts: SteinerBooks, 2004)
—Toward Imagination: Culture and the Individual (Hudson, New
York: Anthroposophic Press, 1990)
—Verses and Meditations (Forest Row, UK: Rudolf Steiner Press, 2004)

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