Welcome Back

Dear Member of The Waldorf School of Santa Barbara Community,

At our faculty meeting yesterday a few of us observed how joyous the children are to be back in school, and how joyous we—the teachers and administration—are to be back in school, and how joyous many of you—the parents/caretakers—are, too.

In a time that can feel confusing, restless, and uncentered, a time where many humans struggle for meaning, where many work too much or find themselves "distracted from distraction by distraction," a Waldorf school can be good medicine. For a Waldorf school ventures a different mode of being, hazards a different sort of modern community. And often you don’t know how hungry you are for such a place until you arrive at one.

One of the things that sets a Waldorf community apart is the recognition of the divine image in each of its members. Founder of Waldorf education, Rudolf Steiner writes:

Ultimately, isn't it a very holy and religious obligation to cultivate and educate the divine spiritual element that manifests anew in every human being who is born? Isn't this educational service a religious service in the highest sense of the word? Isn't it so that our holiest stirrings, which we dedicate to religious feeling, must all come together in our service at the altar when we attempt to cultivate the divine spiritual aspect of the human being, whose potentials are revealed in the growing child? Science that comes alive! Art that comes alive! Religion that comes alive! In the end, that's what education is.

As we begin this year in joy and gratitude, let us recall Steiner's sense of the divinity in every human being as a starting point of this education; and let us work on keeping that sense of the divinity alive and well in the upcoming days. Let us do this for the sake of the children, our community, and this beautiful world we share.

In gratitude,

The WSSB Admin Team

PS The poem of the day is by Dan Gerber:

Often I Imagine the Earth

Often I imagine the earth
through the eyes of the atoms we’re made of—
atoms, peculiar
atoms everywhere—
no me, no you, no opinions,
no beginning, no middle, no end,
soaring together like those
ancient Chinese birds
hatched miraculously with only one wing,
helping each other fly home.