End of Term Reflections.

I have been here (on a side note: as soon as I started writing the blog I realized that maybe it should be called "over here" rather than "over there" but no mind) for a whole term now.  I am in the middle of my holiday currently and the Christmas term will start on November 5th.  Like every time we start a new part of our lives, this makes me want to exclaim loudly how it seems like I just got here and also like I've always been here.  But I won't get into a discussion about psychological time here.  What is my evaluation of having lived here for one term?  I love it.  I really, really love it.  I love it so much in fact that my eleven months in England project has turned into a stay here until I'm done learning everything I can project.  I have decided that I will return next year for another year and after that?  We'll just have to see.

My gang.   

And to sum up the most exciting 2 and a half months of my life: 

We have bonfires.  

In front of Anne Boleyn's childhood home.
Note how cool and European I look in my fanny pack.

I am making wreaths with a small group of students.  Each of the co-workers has to work on a small group craft project as part of our course evaluation.  Mine, of course, is inspired by my wonderful father.  And also probably Euclid who gave me a strong love for circles.   

OCCASIONALLY, I even leave campus and go out without the students.  This is Dover Beach.  As if this was not cool enough, I  found a copy of the selected works of Matthew Arnold for 50p at a charity shop there and was able to read "Dover Beach" ON Dover Beach.  Score!  After I took this lovely photo, I turned around to take some pictures of the majestic White Cliffs and my camera died.  Go figure.     

Rudyard Kipling's House!  There is a tiny room full of tiny jungle animals
that I'm sure was not there when he lived there, but it was still really cool.

I told you this has been the most exciting time of my life and then I showed you pictures of students with twigs.  This may seem incongruous, but I assure you it is not.  I could write forever about how I love it and how it's hard and how it's lonely and how it's fulfilling - but none of that could really do any of this justice.  So instead I'll just tell you one of my absolute favorite things.

Every night before bed, I set the breakfast table with one of the students.  It's a simple task - setting bowls and spoons and cereals on a big table, but I cannot tell you how comforting it is.  There have been times in my life that the darkness of night seemed unceasing.  This is still the case sometimes.  But when you set the breakfast table, all those shining little bowls sit out and seem to promise morning in the most unassuming but comforting way possible.  The days are linked through our table, set for ten.  There is a place set for me - my name staring up at me from the label on the napkin ring.  This is your place in the world - right here.  Morning is coming, promises the table, and when it does the Muesli will be waiting.  

Michaelmas

Yesterday, we celebrated Michaelmas here at the Mount.  Michaelmas is a harvest festival centered around the archangel St. Michael.  St. Michael is the conqueror of the dragon and friend of mankind.  Reflection on him can help us all to overcome the darker sides of ourselves and let the lighter sides shine through.  St. Michael conquers, rather than slaying the dragon.  We must tame our passions - most notably pride and fear - though they cannot be exterminated.  Michaelmas is the first of many festivals to be celebrated here.  We started the day with a collection of performances.  I sang in a choir and recited and verse with my house but there was also music, dance and storytelling.

  

Calendar of the yearly festivals. 

After the morning gathering with the community, we split into groups to harvest different sections of the gardens.  My house was harvesting leeks.

The harvest! 

In the afternoon, we each worked on a different project with a group of students.  Each group produced something to share with the community at the end of the day - dancing, cooking, and iron forging were among the projects.  My group was preparing a harvest display for the dining room.  

The Masterpiece! (That's St. Michael in the center) 

To end the day, we had an outdoor supper of pumpkin soup and rolls,
followed by pudding - of course.  

I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day.  What a blessing to be able to spend time working together with a community.  The fact that we have been enjoying an Indian Summer helps too!  Holidays can be stressful - everyone running around trying to prepare some sort of wonderful day to be enjoyed.  It is so easy to get overwhelmed.  There is usually enormous pressure to prepare so much ahead of time so that everyone can "relax and enjoy the day" that one can forget to relax at all.  This harvesting festival, while almost continual work, was an important reminder that the beauty of the day is simply working together.

I am overwhelmed with how cool my life is.    

A smattering of the vibrancy of my life.

I've been trying to find this perfect combination of time to write and fascinating things to say and beautiful pictures and a coherent theme in order to throw them all together for a post that could wow everyone.  This combination is not coming together as much as I'd like.  Instead I'll just share a few things that are happening in my life.

1.  Our first craft project in College 1 is pottery.  However, instead of heading for the wheels or even for a nice new packet of clay, we trekked out to....the woods.  And we dug clay.  And now we are in the process of wetting the clay (squelching) and removing all the imperfections - wood, leaves, stones, etc.  It is wonderful to simply feel the earth.

2.  In art, we are doing wet on wet watercolor painting.  Our first project was a yellow circle surrounded by blue and next was yellow on the top of the page and blue on the bottom - just barely meeting.  It is very therapeutic and just having two colors to use is so clearing for one's mind.  On Friday, I entered the art room after a very difficult incident with a student and I was very worked up.  Being handed a paintbrush and asked to stand (we always stand rather than sit while painting) alongside the students - I found a great calm come over me.  I could concentrate on the simplicity of two colors and the strokes of my own hand.  The students need help with focus and staying still and listening - but I do too.  The reasons why painting is good for them are not lost on me.

3.  In religion class, we passed around different objects from the garden and started to ask about life.  Just barely starting to ponder these things - no heavy theological truths - just students sitting around a table carefully examining the bounty of the world that God has created.  Where does all this life come from? the students were asked.  Watching them interact with each object and fully experience what was before them was incredible.  It is so easy to forget how beautiful everything is.

4.  On Saturday night, we had a birthday party for one of our students.  The joy that accompanied "Dancing Queen" - the last song of the night was so invigorating and wonderful.  

Life is vibrant here.  We must never stop dancing and looking and painting.  Every experience here is in brighter colors than I can describe.  The therapies that are in place for the students in order to help them order their lives are having the same effect on me.  I am proud of what I am doing.  I am seeing the world fully.  It is not easy work but each day I am aware of how far the human soul can stretch and how gracious God is to man.    

Weekend.

During the week, the schedule is VERY busy.  I am working with the first year students and so they take classes in a little bit of everything.  This is great for me - because I really get a taste of everything at the Mount.  It is also quite a run-around!  Literally a RUN around.  About half of class time is spent just trying to find escapee students :)  "How could I possible lose 4 students in a half hour tea break...?"  I am asking myself on a regular basis.  

The weekends offer a bit of a different flavor.  On Saturday, breakfast is an hour later than usual (so 9:00) which means we all get a little extra sleep.  The mornings are spent cleaning which is an absolutely fabulous feeling.  Everyone has a job and so the whole house gets a complete scrub down.  I am in charge of the girl's bathroom and laundry room.  The washing is very therapeutic and really helps to prepare yourself for the rest and reflexion that is to come.  The cleaning also allows for some one on one time with the students since they are working alongside the co-workers.  It is a great time for conversation and getting to know each other.  The feeling of sitting down with your house after the cleaning is so wonderful.  I have lived in various degrees (mostly on the lower half of the spectrum) of cleanliness in college and living in a place that is floor to ceiling sparkling gives me such pride.  The students can also feel the importance of their roles in this community as they contribute to these domestic tasks. The house really feels prepared for the special day that is Sunday.  How nice to set this day aside!    

After the cleaning routine, everyone in the house showers, dresses and prepares for festive supper.  Festive supper is a silent meal of bread, cheese, and cold meats that starts with a blessing of the meal and ends with the reading of a bible passage.  It is a little strange to eat a meal with others in complete silence, but it also very refreshing.  I think I fear silence a little and it nice to have an opportunity to embrace it.  After supper, it is quiet time for the students and usually meetings for the staff.  Sunday brings the service.  The service here is unlike any other I have attended and I will need more time to process it until I can write it all down.

Sunday afternoon?  Usually an outing!  This week, we went to a castle.

 When I was little my conception of England was rain boots every day and visiting castles whenever you felt like it.  That's actually pretty close to the truth.  Lately, I have been pretty homesick.  So I have to remind myself often that God is with me always and also that it is really cool to take field trips to castles.       

The Morning Verse

While the jobs around the house - domestic life, if you will - take up much of my life, I am also working with the first year students in the classroom during the day.  Each morning, we recite a poem together, written by Rudolf Steiner, that is worth sharing:

To wonder at beauty,

Stand guard over truth,

Look up at the noble,

Resolve on the good.

This leadeth man truly

To purpose in living,

To right in his doing,

To peace in his feeling,

To light in his thinking.

And teaches him trust,

In the working of God,

In all that there is,

In the width of the world,

In the depth of the soul.

Sometimes the days feel too long, and the students are difficult, and you feel so very far from home.  But there is comfort even still!  This morning verse has helped to center my life and keep me focused not only on what I am doing here at Camphill, but what we should all strive to do always and everywhere.  

I will write more about what I am actually doing in my classes soon, I promise!  It is really good stuff :)

The Rhythm of Life

The term has officially begun!  One of the most important things here, one that we emphasize as much as we can with the students and with ourselves is the rhythm of life.  There is a strong emphasis here on the seasonal rhythm which is emphasized especially in the fact that we eat out of our own garden.  All students and staff must be aware of what is growing currently.  Grocery stores are more confusing than we may realize - seeing all food available to us all year, it is easy to forget that not everything grows at all times.  Also, in some seasons, certain foods are in abundance - which means currently that we are eating apples at almost every meal.  This may seem simple but waiting for food to ripen and being aware of when it does helps to settle all the students into their lives.  We also have a very constant daily rhythm that we follow.  Each student and co-worker is given a timetable that we then follow for the entirety of the year with very little variance.  This timetable includes showering slots, times for calling home, jobs, and leisure time.  Of course, for many of our students, especially those with autism, a scheduled life is essential to their very ability to move comfortably through their day.  But this daily rhythm is by no means for them alone.  I find myself also very comforted by the rhythm of constant meal times and regular jobs.  It has only been a few days here and already I can feel my body thankful for the even life here.  This is not to say that each day is not varied - only to present that that there is a cycle to things here.  My house mother pointed out to me that we all breathe in a rhythm and that is most natural to us all - why not model our entire life after such a pattern.  One of my students is very happy to be able to tell me what season it is every morning.  He is not bored that for months at a time, his answer will not change, he is merely happy that the season passes day by day.

Life has become much simpler for me here.  I feel as if each day is longer than I can even pull myself through but then as I reach the end and reflect back on what I have done - it hardly seems packed.  Today?  Today was the singing of a song, the telling of a story, and then cutting apples in the yard with the some of the students for drying.

It is a beautiful place here.  It is a good place.  It is a healing place.  One of the mottos of the Mount is "Our work is our prayer, our prayer is our work."

         I do not doubt for a moment that I am in the right place.

Orienting, Acclimating, and Deutsch

I moved in and there are so many new things happening at every moment that it is impossible to process it all.  I have settled (a little) and am starting to meet all of the people who work here at the Mount.  I live in a wonderful house (called Saint John's!) with a family.  They have two children (ages 9 and 12) who will be attending school during the day but will be home at night.  I have gotten along very nicely with the family so far.  They all drink coffee which was a great relief to me. The other trainee in the house is a boy from Germany who is taking a gap year before he goes to University.  (My use of the word 'college' instead of University has caused great confusion when I try to explain what I spent the last four years doing!) There are thirteen new trainees here including me but I am the only American.  Eight of them are German, two are Chinese, two are Brazilian and one is from the UK a few hours north of here.  Since so many of them are German, I hear a lot of German during the day.  They laugh at me when I try to pronounce German words and I won absolutely no fans when I asked if they all liked Polka music and Immanuel Kant.  Go figure!  The language barrier is very fun at times and we are all having a great laugh about it.

Every time I try my hand at a little "Wie geht's" they all erupt into laughter.  

So far it has been mostly learning and cleaning and a bit of fun.  The grounds are incredible (pictures to come).  The students come on Tuesday!  I cannot wait to meet them.  I have two girls in my charge who will be sharing a room next to me.  There is a lot to learn and it is all coming very fast. I can hardly remember where to go for each of the classrooms and workshops I'll be working in.

Here's my new room, all to myself!  Pictures of the outdoors to come....

Farewell Uncle Sam

It's my last night in the United States for a year!  I've eaten all my favorite foods and packed my suitcases so I guess that's it.  This past week has been really surreal.  I'm as prepared as I can be and yet I feel like I am not ready at all.  It's been an odd mix of suddenly feeling nostalgic about things I didn't ever realize I cared about while also being hit all of the sudden with the fact that I AM LITERALLY MOVING TO ANOTHER COUNTRY.  I feel pretty scared to get on the plane, but I'm not going to lie, I also feel pretty cool.  Part of me never really thought this day would come. I actually had a crisis the other day when I convinced myself that I was trapped in an Achilles and the tortoise type paradox wherein my trip to England was the tortoise and I was Achilles and it would constantly escape me in an infinite race - well, when you start starring in your own daydreams as a Greek hero it is really time to move out of your parents house.

So I'm going to bed tonight feeling fabulous and terrified and strong.  And to quote British Airways -

                     Anna S Goold, you're ready to fly.

Choosing a Path

In May I graduated from St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, which means I have to do something else now besides read really hard books with people I love.  I don't know what I want to do with the rest of my life - but everybody's got to do something.  In the fall, I made a decision that I wanted to live in a completely different place than where I've ever lived before (i.e. New Jersey for 18 years and Maryland for 4) while also serving others.  After researching my options, thinking about what was important to me and praying for direction, I stumbled upon the Camphill Movement.  I was sort of familiar with the name because I had done some reading about Waldorf Schools and Camphill is heavily influenced by Rudolf Steiner who is the founder of the Waldorf schools.

Camphill communities aim to provide village-inspired living situations for individuals with special needs.  In the communities, which vary in size, the special needs villagers live and work alongside volunteer co-workers in order develop their own unique personalities, tend to the earth, and make beautiful things.  There is a strong emphasis on handiwork which appealed greatly to me immediately.  The idea of treating every human with respect for their individuality while learning to rely on those around us is a model for living that could benefit anyone!  

There are Camphill communities all over the world and while reading about the movement I realized I could be involved in something I truly saw as important while getting to live somewhere new.  Back in the fall, I started to send out some emails to different communities and by early December, I had settled on the community I would be joining.  

The Mount is a community specially tailored for young adults.  It is a three year college that teaches craft based programs to its students located in Wadhurst, East Sussex over there in the United Kingdom.  I will be living in a residential setting with the students and working alongside them as they work through their education.  Hopefully, we'll get to do a lot of growing up together. Making the decision to move to another country seemed like a lot of fun 8 months ago but it hasn't started to feel so real (read: frightening ) until very recently.  Finally the time of my departure draws near - I leave one week from today to return next July.     

If my description of this new adventure seems vague, it is to me too!  So much of what I'll be doing is as of yet unknown to me.  All I can tell you for now is that I am so, so, so excited to start this new journey in my life and also very scared.  My goal in blogging is to be able to document my process of adjusting to living in a new country while also sharing some of the great things that are going on in the Camphill Community.       

If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.  

Psalm 139: 9-10