Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
—Dylan Thomas, from "Fern Hill"
New for Families
What Is This Childhood?
Finding the Spirit of Early Childhood in Language
and Creative Living with Our Families
Carol Toole
Illustrated by Eva Hoisington
This book explores the consciousness of the young child through language development, often in their own words. The child’s early utterances reveal a unity of word and experience and of experience and meaning. Children live more fully in perception than conception. Yet, speech as it unfolds eventually leads the child to abstraction, self-consciousness, and critical thinking.
This journey into childhood will deepen the quality of our attention and presence in each moment, enlivening our speech and interactions and thereby preserving our children’s sense of wonder and spiritual connection.
“A treasure-filled journey through the central role of language in the young child’s development. With insight and whimsy, Carol Toole shows us the links between perception, sound, movement, meaning, and early language explorations. The three “Rs” of rhyme, rhythm and repetition are cardinal rules for language acquisition in these years, and Carol gives her readers a wealth of hands-on ways to bring these activities home. She moves from language itself into the ways story and language support the child’s primary work: creative play.”
— Sharifa Oppenheimer, author, Heaven on Earth: A Handbook for Parents of Young Children
“Carol Toole offers us a glimpse into the child’s enchanting world as it finds expression in their newly acquired language. Her insights take us on a developmental journey and offer the reader stories, poems, verses, and many practical suggestions for parents.”
— Jack Petrash, author, Turning Lead into Gold: The Transformative Alchemy of Waldorf Teaching
New from Michaela Glöckler
The Task of the General Anthroposophical Society in the 21st Century
Michaela Glöckler
In her essay written "with heart and soul" on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society, Michaela Glöckler engages us in conversations she had regarding the task of this society. They include elementary questions such as: why become a member today? But they also make us aware in an inspiring new way of the task that moved Rudolf Steiner to connect himself with this founding event and with the people who joined it.
From the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner
Youth and the Etheric Heart
Rudolf Steiner Speaks to the Younger Generation
Addresses, Essays, Discussions, and Reports, 1920 –1924 (CW 217a)
Translated by Catherine E. Creeger
Young people today turn away from older people not because the latter have grown old but because they have remained young—that is, because they don’t understand how to grow old in the right way. Older people today lack this self-knowledge. Growing old in the right way means allowing the spirit to unfold in our souls as befits an aging body. When we do this, we show young people not only what time has done to the body, but also what eternity reveals through the spirit. Young people will find their way to older people who seriously attempt to experience spirit. To say that we must act young when we are with young people is just an empty phrase. As older people, we must understand—and demonstrate to young people—how to be old in the right way.
—Rudolf Steiner, from a lecture of March 9, 1924,
in Youth and the Etheric Heart (CW 217a)