Warren Lee Cohen

I am tickled right down to my toes to receive this beautiful poem from Paul Matthews, my dear Foundation Studies colleague at Emerson College in Sussex England. Paul led me artfully to explore the full potential of science and art working side by side, of pursuing silly-seriousness, serious insights pursued imaginatively and at times peripherally. For the truth, much like a heffalump, can only be trapped in an unsuspecting sort of way…

BREAD FELLOW
(for Warren Lee Cohen)

Wisdom is a word you like.
I never relished it,

but have admired how
(loping across the yard)
you knead the good earth
with knees and feet.

It is in this wise
that I’ve savoured you.

Even your homespun hat
seems a bowl preparing
a thoughtful yeast to rise.

Your sourdoughs and your ryes.
You’ve tasted good.

Dear Warren,
Here is the poem I was trying to write for you upon your
farewell from Emerson all those years ago.
Whether it still applies to the person that you now are, I am not sure,
but as a poem I like it (unless the lines beginning:
It is in this wise… should come after: a thoughtful yeast to rise).
Anyway, here it is.

Love to all,
Paul.

This is my second Lyre, carved from a single piece of walnut with a padauk bridge. I used ultra-fine guitar strings (D, G, B and E). It is tuned to a pentatonic scale: D, E, G, A, B, D, E, which creates a gentle floating feel. The tone is quite mellow and can be amplified by placing it on a table.  The music dances about the central A, “Sun Tone”, and meanders without settling into a resolve – perfect for young children whose hearing does not crave the more grounded resolution of a major or minor scale. For them music floats just like their imaginative games which can flow fluidly from one theme to another without interruption.

I am grateful to Luciana, who sewed a beautifully quilted case for it complete with a little pocket for the tuning wrench. She is a craftswoman extraordinaire. We will play it every night at our story time to punctuate the beginning and end of the stories as we prepare to go to sleep. Now all I have to do is come up with suitable melodies and lyrics.

This is my second lyre. Carved from maple and tuned to a pentatonic scale it yields a gentle tone that resonates well with its flowing forms. It was a pleasure to make this and its sister lyre, which will be a Christmas gift to my girls, in a series of evenings this autumn – so much less demanding than a guitar. This lyre was donated to the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto Advent Craft sale to benefit early childhood education. Pentatonic music is well suited to the mood of early childhood and helps children to remain  lithe and dreamy.

A forlorn stump of a once grand maple has been waiting patiently in our back yard for a bit of love and attention. Staring patiently at us as we make our pizzas and tend our garden, this stately stump has been crying for some sort of redemption from its untimely demise. but it is so large, over 2 meters tall and more than a meter across. Then one morning as the girls frolicked in the garden my gouge came to life to reveal this being within the tree. What release we felt as chips came flying away.  And now we have a new friend in our garden. Welcome!!!

3 years ago we lived in Stroud where I had the pleasure of working with Gavin Pond. Gavin is a luthier, teacher, musician and all around great guy. 4 months before moving to Canada, I asked Gavin to teach me how to make a guitar. No matter how much he encouraged me to keep it simple, I refused to listen. I was simply too inspired by the beautiful forms he showed me of traditional instruments like citterns, lutes and other guitar precursors . If I was going to take the time and effort to make a guitar, I wanted to make one that was interesting, beautiful and that might hopefully sound ok. I was over ambitious and made just about every mistake possible. Nevertheless, with his guidance, I did manage to complete this instrument in about 2 1/2 years – a sweet little guitar, which I played publicaly for the first time at our summer festival of arts and education.

The woods that we chose for this guitar reflect the geography of my family. The back and sides are of English walnut. The top is made from North American Sitka spruce. The neck is made with a Brazilian mahogany. The little end peg is made with Canadian maple, our latest home. Thanks Gavin!!!

It was such a treat to work creatively with Kuniko, Paul and Bree again, an honor to reunite with Emerson Foundation Year colleagues. Somehow we all seem to have all grown a bit older and wiser and more tender through the challenges we have each had to meet in our respective countries. Kuniko is now a trained and practicing Biographical Counselor in Japan – a wise woman who is ready to listen and selflessly reflect. Bree is teaching music and English and developing her beautiful voice. And Paul continues to delight students and writers around the world with his creative approach to “silly-seriousness.” His genius, all of their genii are contagious. I am grateful that we created another opportunity to work together and that they had an opportunity to meet my family in our home outside of Toronto where they effortlessly warmed their way into the hearts of my daughters.

These pictures are courtesy of Kuniko, who courageously came all the way from difficult circumstances in Japan to study  with us in our Encounters with Imagination: festival of arts and education.

May we find many more occasions to come together in our striving and in our desire to play artistically.

Encounters with Imagination: festival of arts and education was an inspiring success with over 50 people enrolling in 1 or more courses. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive with much encouragement to carry on with this initiative next summer. I thoroughly enjoyed bringing aspects of anthroposophy over the course of a week and felt well met by my students. What  a pleasure it was wrestling with ideas such as freedom and the journey beyond the threshold with intelligent and open minded individuals. We devoted the whole final day to looking at Rudolf Steiner’s large wood sculpture, The Representative of Humanity. We explored first the many contrasting elements of this piece and the dynamics between them before we ever tried to name them. Once we had fully characterized the forms and flow of these beings then it felt proper to share their names Christ, Lucifer, Ahriman and Humor and to explore our own understandings and relationships with them. It was a rich and evocative session.

In the second week I took part in Paul Matthew’s creative writing workshop and as ever was delighted by his creative genius and warmth. It was heartening to renew our friendship, which has only grown since our working together at Emerson and as well to see how my girls delighted in his presence. The highlights of the festival for me were the times we were all working together: singing and spacial dynamics in the mornings and evening events including pizza nights, poetry and story evening and a social art evening. this is where it really felt like a festival and I could sense the creative spirit of Emerson raying through our work. And now I look forward to a bit of a rest and then pulling together next summer’s festival.

Welcome parents, educators and artists interested in working with the imagination. The Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto has invited a team of internationally acclaimed artists and educators to offer a diverse selection of practical and artistic workshops. Each explores how the capacity for imagination can be cultivated to serve the arts and education and to enrich our lives. Enrol in one, two, three or four of these week-long workshops and savour your encounter with imagination.

The capacity for imagination is central to advances in all fields of human endeavour. Scientists, artists and educators alike rely upon creative capacities to forge new understanding and build healthy relationships. The cultivation of imagination is fundamental to Waldorf education, in which teachers and students alike are encouraged to perceive living interconnections between seemingly separate things. These reveal that individuals and objects are but a part of a whole meaning-filled world. Imagination lifts the veil of materialism and offers insights into how to work holistically in any endeavour.

Yes, I love to make bread.
I love to combine flour, water, salt and leaven.

I love the alchemy of how earthly substance combines with water; of how air is created by the leavening culture and how at last fire completes the transformation from four simple ingredients into whole loaves.

These are the staff of life.
I like the feel of the dough as I kneed it with my hands, how when I push it, it pushes back against me.

My life meets its life.
We shape one another.

But how, I wonder, am I the bread of life?
In what ways do I nurture the life in myself and in others?

Perhaps it is in those special meetings in which I knead the being of another and equally allow her to knead the essence of me.
I meet you.
You meet me.
Life!

There is a Japanese saying:
Friends eat together from the same bowl.

Let us then companions be.
Let us eat from the same loaf.
Kneading, forming, baking community.

Bake bread. Break it and share it out.

~Warren Lee Cohen

I was invited to bake Dragon Bread with the first grade at the Toronto Waldorf School. The 25 students, their teacher and a few very helpful parents were delightfully enthusiastic to get their hands into the dough and to shape their imaginations into wholesome and tasty loaves of bread. Some chose to make their dragons spiky and scary others saw them as more amiable creatures, waiting to be of service. None had difficulty kneading and shaping their creations. they made them in the morning and we were able to bake them for lunch. They ate a part of it and took the rest home to share with their families. Whenever I see any of the students they are sure to ask me when we will be baking again. Children simply love the meaning-filled task of baking bread especially when it is done with imagination and love. They sense the rightness of it and are  eager to participate from the initial sticky dough all the way to eating the delicious crust and crumb.

And, while making 25 smaller dragons why not make a really large one? In response to a special request from Jef Saunders from Arscura School of Living Art, I made the largest Dragon Bread that I have yet attempted: sourdough with raisins and dried cranberries, jewels in the belly that was decorated with almonds. It was fun to make and according to many reports from their Michaelmas celebration delicious to eat. The photo is courtesy of Vibeke Ball. Thank you to one and all for a fun baking day!