Home is where the Heart is

It's all about perspective. This afternoon I took a walk to the Waldorf School here in Tübingen, where there was a "Martini Markt" kind of like a 'Waldorfaire.' I really needed to connect with holism again, so it was the perfect thing to do today.

I experienced this nostalgic bubble inside me, as I passed by candle-making stands, gingerbread decorating rooms, a nature-table store, a place for children to dress up as knights and joust, lots of parents helping out with coffee and cake booths, and little gnomes running around everywhere. It wasn't too different from the Waldorf fairs I've been to so far... just a bit colder!

This summer in Sweden, I worked as a WWOOFer on an organic apple orchard, where people came and made fresh apple juice at a "Musteri." I learned all about pressing apples and making fresh juice.


The school had their own, hand-cranking "Mosterei," where children got to juice apples. Sweet memories of summer...

 There was a little barn with goats. Just like at the Waldorf School in Taos, New Mexico, which I visited with my high-school class on our senior trip in May. It really was like walking down memory lane.. just in a completely different climate. It just goes to show how the Waldorf spirit really does exist all around the world. 

Whenever I feel homesick, all I really have to do is walk into an anthroposophical bookstore or a Waldorf school and I'll be cured for a while. 

Art has always been interwoven in my life. Naturally, I went to a Waldorf school. We had painting, handwork, woodwork, metalwork, sculpture in clay, stone, bone, beeswax. I think it's so important to learn more than just the academics... I find myself drawing all the time nowadays. When I need to memorize the main arteries or the cartilage of the larynx, I always draw it out. My wall is plastered with little drawings of blood vessels, neurotransmitters, the phases of meiosis, Glial cells, and the pleurae of the lungs. I'm so much more of a visual learner than a text-book learner. 

It was nice to see some of the art projects at the Tübinger Waldorfschule, and be able to compare them with my own. 

 Metalwork was one of the most challenging arts for me. I have a pretty big fear of machines with sharp blades, so cutting metal was a nightmare. But I loved worked around the fire, pounding molten iron into something practical.

The Tübinger Waldorfschule had a forge-demonstration room, with a small smithy and lots of banging hammers on anvils.

 

 At my old school there was a stairwell which the students painted. It depicted major moments in the History of Art. At the bottom of the stairwell were cave paintings, then higher up, the Egyptian hieroglyphs, then higher up a cathedral stained-glass rose window painting, then the "Birth of Adam" and at the very top a Van Gogh and a Gauguin.

I was so surprised to see the Egyptian painting at the Tübginer Waldorfschule- not because it's unusual in a Waldorf school, but because it looks so much like the one at my old school! I really did a double take.

 

I bought some honey from bees raised on the campus :) Homemade goods are always better and more environmentally friendly than store-bought ones. There's a much stronger connection to the food we eat, when we have a better idea of where it came from. 

All in all, going to the "Martini Markt" was probably the best thing I could have done today. I really wanted to go hiking, but I found something else that made me happy. The walk home was beautiful. The sun set around 4:45 pm... so early compared to what I'm used to. But it makes for beautiful silhouettes and shadows. The light is very special.