To Enkindle the Soul of Another

by Laurie Clark & Joan Treadaway

…and something ignited my soul, Fever or unremembered wings. And I went my own way deciphering that burning fire, and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open. —Pablo Neruda

Five-year-old Jenna discreetly throws her crackers under the table at snack time. She has been hospitalized before with an eating disorder. David, who is six years old, wears thick glasses, has a speech impediment, and falls often as his balance system is compromised. Jonah was adopted by his uncle after it was discovered that there was abuse by his drug-addicted mother. Ten-year-old Keith whose subliminal animosity permeates his daily mood and underlies his expression of disdain and sarcastic responses, refuses to cooperate with most requests. And eight-year-old Evelyn, a silent introverted child, shoulders hunched, her body folding in upon itself, speaks in a gesture of longed-for protection, for invisibility, of “please hide me.”

These children bring questions, riddles from the spiritual world, expecting to meet a resonance when they come, and a welcoming gesture that leads them into a relationship of trust in finding their answers. Everywhere, simulated images on screens appear, giving the child a counterfeit shadowed picture of life. These images are a distorted reflection of the archetype the child is seeking. Standing in desperation before this “shattered mirror,” the children’s longing for that welcome often becomes a veil of aberrant behavior, masking a noble destiny.

Often, these children bring an extraordinary strength of will and carry their pre-birth instructions and resolves they have made with utmost integrity. Yet the clarion call for each child today sometimes comes to us as obscured by fear, defiance, a fury of demands; and even cloaked in the “silent tears” of deepest sorrow springing from a ravaged soul. We may never hear their stories, but we are called to meet their essential Being with active compassion—called to respond not with “this poor child” but with “I feel him, and I actively join in with him.”

There is an increasing number of children today who have these difficulties and are struggling to penetrate fully into their body; their “I” being hovering instead of integrating through the typical developmental stages into the self. Often this presents itself in the child as a disturbance in the lower senses. Instability in the senses of touch, balance, and self-movement shakes the child’s very foundations and may result in a disorder in the sense of life, the sense of well-being. Confidence and assurance in existence are traumatized when searching—for the way into one’s body and in the world—does not “make sense.”

There remain other unique and unusual children who bring various challenges that require the teacher tonavigate through uncharted regions of the soul, encounters with which she has previously had no experience. The teacher is in constant search of an inner soul map so that she can guide these children who are in her care.

What seemed misbehavior was the honorable struggle he valiantly fought...

Laurie Clark, a long time Waldorf educator, describes one of these remarkable children who was a six-year-old boy in her kindergarten class. He was adopted from a Russian orphanage at the age of two. His experience in the orphanage was horrifying and disorienting. His devoted adoptive parents did everything possible for him including choosing to live in a lovely home in the mountains so that he could experience nature as a healing element. In the classroom he was disruptive, often making loud noises and uncontrolled movements, and had a look of scorn on his countenance. It appeared as though he was fighting a battle within himself, struggling to find his way into his body, to find some grounding. What seemed to the onlooker as misbehavior, however, was the honorable struggle that he valiantly fought and took on as his challenge in this incarnation.

This child could not bear to be the one who was chosen in a game, to be in the center of the circle, or any other circumstance that would make him feel as though he were being exposed. At story time, after telling a fairy tale several times, the children love to dramatize the story or “play” it as the story is told. One day, much to everyone’s astonishment, when the question “Who wants to be the donkey in the story?” was asked, this boy who never volunteered for a part in a play, shyly raised his hand. Laurie held her breath and handed him the donkey ears for the play.

This Grimm fairytale “The Donkey” is about a king and queen who have everything they want except for a child. When God grants them their wish and a child is born to them, he is not a human child, but a donkey. The queen wants to “throw him into the river and let the fishes devour him,” but the king insists that he will grow up and wear the kingly crown. The donkey loves music and learns to play the lute. One day, out walking, he sees his donkey form in the mirrored water of a well, and decides to leave his kingdom. He walks uphill and down and enters another kingdom where he sits at the gate and plays his lute until the gatekeeper opens the entrance and takes him in to the king. The king grows fond of the donkey and after some time, marries him to his beautiful daughter. When the donkey is alone with the princess, he takes off his donkey skin and reveals himself as a prince each night. Each morning, before he leaves the chamber, he puts his donkey skin back on. When a servant divulges this secret to the king, the king himself goes at night into the chamber of the princess and sees the donkey skin lying on the floor and the handsome youth asleep beside his daughter. He quietly takes the donkey skin that is lying on the ground and has it burnt to ashes. When the prince awakens and cannot find his donkey skin, he becomes full of anxiety and decides that he must escape. The king meets him at the door, however, and begs him to stay and to show himself as he truly is. He gives the prince half his kingdom and offers the other half after his death. The prince inherits his own father’s kingdom as well, “and lives in all magnificence.”

This boy recognized himself in the archetypal situations which “The Donkey” presented. He had such an intense desire to portray this inner reality that truly belonged to him, that he overcame his fear of exposing himself in order to have this living experience. The teacher, standing beside the child as witness to his experience, had an inner resounding of the significance this had for this boy. Through this recognition, a deep unspoken communion occurred in the relationship between the teacher and child. An inner condition of feeling the other within oneself transpired, a kind of “inside out” understanding in the soul of the teacher where the soul condition of the child became her own experience. A transformation in the relationship arose out of this significant occurrence. After Laurie took this experience into her sleep, this poem came into being:

She gave me away

I opened my mouth for her milk

But she left and I swallowed the wound instead

That pierced through my body

It still runs through my blood like a fire

And I have to fight to still the pain I become a hunter at sunset

Searching for my life Have you seen it?

The wild animals that live inside me

Hold parts of me hostage

they seek me out

And I am the hunter and the hunted.

At night, I lay my skin down beside my bed

And am lifted and carried to the king

Meet me there at the gate

For this is where the wedding takes place

And you must be my forgiving guest at the feast

Always be my forgiving guest There, each night

to inherit the kingdom of my life......meet me there......

This is the conversation we never had

This is the only conversation we must always live

—Laurie Clark

Henning Köhler, in his book 'Difficult Children: There Is No Such Thing', speaks about the awakened healing force that can arise between teacher and child when such thoughts are taken into sleep.

When the child goes to sleep, the finished world really does die, as a parent or teacher, one can confirm this process, as it were; one can allow the relationship-healing force that lives within it to become active by consciously engaging in it, paying particular attention to those children with whom one has a challenging time. Here it is important to find essential concepts that encompass in an image the inner aspect of the event. At night, the child withdraws into the space of innocence, the pure sphere of hope, where what matters is not what was, but only what we wish out of the force of love. For my part I practice breaking with what has been and orienting myself entirely toward what is yet to come; I do so by ensuring my love for the child for the day and the time to come. Assuming I do this, and assuming that in sleep he hears what I am thinking and feeling, I place myself in a position to receive him the next day in such a way that I am a sounding board for what he brings along out of the night. Regular, conscious exertion in all tranquility, best combined with planning something specific to do with or for the child the next day that stands out as an offer to form a relationship, leads to success. By success I mean not making the child more partial to my intentions and expectations, but only deepening the relationship. Nothing else.

While the responsibility of the teacher is to attempt to help the child through these incarnational difficulties, it may not always be possible to find the way to do so. Perhaps a beginning is to remain open and stretch oneself to catch moments of recognition like the one described. The teacher, who is privileged to escort the child, has the opportunity to expand to a place of vulnerability and research (look back and explore) within oneself on behalf of the child. The capacity that the teacher is always trying to develop is to find ways to remain uncluttered in the soul attitude towards the children in their care. Judgments, labeling, and trying to tackle the behaviors of the child before understanding their inner condition can detour the teacher from the path to the true and accurate picture that the child is presenting. Any irritation that the teacher has with the child because of his behavior must be honestly faced and overcome before any progress can occur. Heiner Priess, a curative educator, speaks about the possibility of the transformation of an irritation similar to the process of an oyster that uses an irritant to make a pearl. An evolving attitude of radical astonishment and deep understanding must be the approach one takes with a child so that one can recognize and take hold when these mysterious opportunities arise that are truly an act of grace.

How does one enkindle another fellow human being? The word enkindle is defined as “to make luminous,” “to make or cause to become.” Enkindle also means to start a fire. To enkindle warm loving interest in another is to create enthusiasm within them for their existence; one brings warmth and light to another human being just as the sun does to the earth so that life can flourish and grow. The child’s sense of well-being is enhanced and encouraged, the invitation to “move into one’s house,” into the body, and “make it a home” is created through such deep welcoming warmth. The word enkindle can also be used as a noun: an enkindler, one who warms another’s life, to become like a sun for another human being. Are we all not meant to be enkindlers of one another? In the situation of the child/teacher relationship, is it not a mutual awakening, a mutual enkindling? The potential for the spirit to think through the teacher with the child as the guide brings soul-redemptive possibilities on this journey.

Herbert Witzenmann describes the potential for “becoming the bearer of another individuality” in the book The Virtues, in the section of March 21 to April 21:

In devotion is experienced the being of living thinking: we do not develop our own subjective thoughts; rather the spirit thinks through the thoughts which indwell our being. The spirit does not do this as our master, but in that we unite with it in free action which at the same time is perception. Through not thinking our subjective thoughts concerning others, but in surrender to their own thoughts, our own individuality becomes the bearer of another individuality. Through this thinking, when all superficiality is overcome, we lose ourselves in this other individual in order to find ourselves again within him. In this way, freedom turns into community for devotion. Thus this becomes force of sacrifice.

What inner schooling are we seeking in order to observe, hear, and listen, so that we don’t miss the opportunity to ask, “What ails thee?” This Parzival question leads us to see our own need for inner development as the child stands before us and we seek the healing power of the Grail. One of the ways that Rudolf Steiner describes the Holy Grail is that it represents a quest, a potential in every human being, “a spiritualization that we acquire through our own efforts” in connection to the Christ mystery.

“This highest imaginable ideal” takes great courage to contemplate as a path to journey upon, holding the hand of the child who is trying to find their way. Thus, it is the child, these very children, who demand the most from us and guide the teacher upon this path. Through the struggle to perceive the child’s question, something new can be born within the teacher. It is this striving for empathetic perceptions that hopefully can lead one towards the healing power of the Grail.

These very children demand the most and guide the teacher upon this path...

How do we bring this warmed will power into our inner life in order to meet the child? Is it perhaps with our will power enlivened by our meditative work, astute observation, and a humble asking of the Parzival question? Sometimes, when all attempts the teacher makes with a child fails and we have done everything that we know how to do, all that we have left is to wait patiently and stand by the child developing this inner gesture of the “forgiving guest” during these trying behaviors.

The teacher lives in hope, searching and waiting for an opening in the relationship for an opportunity to enkindle “the conversation we must live.” This requires the teacher to step into undefined territory on behalf of the child and to find a way to recognize his radiance, his true individuality. Through this recognition and development of authentic relationship an unveiling of the child’s true nature is revealed, and the potential to “live in all magnificence” with which the fairytale “The Donkey” ends becomes a tangible image that shines as a sun into the child’s future.

Laurie Clark (laurieclark525@comcast.net) has had the privilege of being a Waldorf Kindergarten teacher for more than three decades. Presently, she teaches at the Denver Waldorf School. She is a teacher trainer, workshop presenter, mentor, WECAN representative, and member of the Teacher Education Network. She has co-authored a book about therapeutic movement for young children entitled Movement Journeys and Circle Adventures with Nancy Blanning.

Joan Treadaway (joanaway@msn.com) has a private practice, Childhood Consulting Services, in Prescott, Arizona, working as a Waldorf Remedial Therapist with children and families, calling on fifty years background in education. She consults and lectures widely on the needs of children today and is a member of the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America and its Western Regional Council, working with groups and branches in the west.