Warren Lee Cohen

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.

At my recent Waldorf Science Curriculum Presentation at the Trillium Waldorf school in Guelph, I invited the participants to use a Phenomenological, Goethean Scientific process to explore the content and complex relationships and ultimately message of this wonderful painting by Joseph Wright. That’s right, we used a scientific process to find out way to a deeper understanding of a work of art. An engaging 45 minute discussion ensued in which we progressively worked our way from what we saw in the painting (objective – earth mode), the relationships and movement we observed (water mode), what each of the characters are expressing (air mode) and lastly the essence, meaning or message of this work of art (fire mode). Two days later I received these poetic insights from one of the participants, a biodynamic farmer no less:

On my way home from the Trillium evening, the following word/play came my way… The bumper sticker for the bird in the jar painting we looked at might be something along these lines: “A vacuum abhors nature too…”

As a rhyming couplet, may be:
“Which one does, the other, more…
Nature or a Vacuum…abhor?”

How delicious it is when art and science play together so harmoniously.

Thank you Mark!

Here is a link to more on Phenomenology and Goethean Science.