Waldorf's Holes

       I was reading a book on the subway today, called The Spirit of the Waldorf School. It talks in the beginning about how the Waldorf Academy was founded in the early twentieth century by Rudolph Steiner, after Germany had suffered from war, recession and a collective broken heart. I say this is so because the nation had gone from being highly ambitious to being disillusioned by the First World War. Steiner’s school started out of a need to integrate principles of mind, spirit and emotion into schools. In his lecture, “The Intent of  the Waldorf School”, Steiner remarks, “Naturally, the Waldorf School will have to reconcile itself with current institutions and public opinion concerning education and teaching.  We will not immediately be able to achieve all that we wish to achieve—quite understandably we will, on the whole, find it necessary to comply with the present requirements of public education…In a manner of speaking, we will be able to use only the holes that will remain in the tightly woven web that spreads over the education system.” (p.9-10)

              Steiner introduces a beautiful analogy in this piece, and that is learning to see ‘holes’ in a tightly woven system. I think this is an interesting way of describing an experience that goes even deeper than education. It is the tension I can relate to, between the tendency to create a system and the tendency to lose the sense of one’s being in too many systems. It’s possible to say, we are never the sum of our systems.

            Steiner’s analogy also made me realize how much we speak through holes, not through the threads previously created. The world is now covered with every possible network of communication and transportation, to the point where I can communicate to someone thousands of miles away in less than a second. Someone recently was remarking to me that they could not live without Skype or the technologies that keep people close and in contact. Yet still, there is a need for spaces and gaps, for holes, and for mysteries. With Facebook, I see that our contact with people seems closer and easier than it ever was before. But we often don’t engage the person at all, only passive images on facebook. The mind works in this way. I see the image of my friend or colleague on facebook, and then I think that I must be connecting with that friend. From the image, I can tell where this friend has gone, but can I tell where they are now?

Facebook is an example of a network that builds images, but it’s still not alive. It doesn’t breathe or live. It doesn’t have awareness. But it looks to be aware, because we populate it with mind’s artifacts: laughter, desire, the traces of happiness, a good meal, an already eaten meal, a controversy, a petition, a snag, a bad day, a happy face icon. It can confuse me to know, who am I interfacing with? Do these images and emoticons have an ability to be aware, as much as I imagine they do?

Perhaps the good news is that social media can lead people to reflect on how salient images really are, if people are curious to go there. Has anybody thought to uncover what the images of facebook say about people’s motivations? For example, what motivates a person to state on Facebook that they are going to change their diet “Starting from today?” Why is there a need to declare this decision? What is behind it? What is powerful about images that it increases my resolve to do something or change my lifestyle? Steiner’s metaphors of the holes in the fabric reminds me of the need to keep questioning the fabric itself.

Steiner’s analogy also relates to the mind. In a sense, the mind does not get snared in any fabric. Even if fabrics of thought was so dense, it wouldn’t affect my basic ability to be aware. The Surangama Sutra mentions the analogy of seeing in the dark. If I cover my eyes, I may think I am seeing nothing, but what is it that allows me to conclude that I see darkness? The awareness hasn’t left, even if I cannot claim to see anything clearly.

 

References

 

Steiner,Rudolph (1995), The Spiritof the Waldorf School. Hudson,NY: Anthroposophic Press