Hokusai Says
by Roger Keyes
Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing
He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat
yourself as long as it is interesting.
He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says every one of us is a child,
every one of us is ancient
every one of us has a body.
He says every one of us is frightened.
He says every one of us has to find
a way to live with fear.
He says everything is alive —
shells, buildings, people, fish,
mountains, trees, wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.
He says it doesn’t matter if you draw,
or write books. It doesn’t matter
if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your veranda
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.
Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
is life living through you.
He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Love, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.
What does it take to make a Steiner Teacher?
The pedagogy is an organism. Steiner education requires teachers to ‘live’ the curriculum and to embody the values inherent in anthroposophy. This is not a formula. A key factor in the equation of knowledge and practice is time. Just like a tree, it takes time, as well as effort to grow a Steiner teacher.
There are formal qualification pathways, but just as everyone who graduates from a university degree doesn’t go on to practise in that field, Steiner pedagogy requires the practitioner to apply their self development within a living school culture. Part of that process of cultural induction requires ‘wise heads’, people who have walked the path and are prepared to enact a Steiner Education posture in their lives. These are people to learn from and emulate. They are friends, colleagues and often mentors. Each faculty at Orana contains senior teachers who have a long collective history in Steiner Education. These people act as Grandfather or Grandmother trees in a forest, sheltering and encouraging the growth of younger or less experienced ones. A Steiner education ethic is not easily put into a nutshell, it needs to be lived.
Michael Janssen-Gibson
