How did I get here?

We went to the annual WECAN (Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North American)Conference early this month. It's held at Sunbridge Institute just outside New York City. The keynote speaker opened with a question, "How did you get here?" referring to the journey we each took to get to the conference that weekend but also the big picture of how we came to do the work we are doing. The speaker went on to explain his journey to teaching in a Waldorf kindergarten in France, including both the conscious and unconscious components. Then he spoke about his work before he closed with a verse from Rudolf Steiner, a verse that returned us to the opening question.

The wishes of the soul are springing.
The deeds of the will are thriving.
The fruits of life are maturing.

I feel my fate,
My fate finds me.
I feel my star,
My star finds me.
I feel my goals in life,
My goals in life are finding me.
My soul and the great World are one.
Life grows more radiant around me,
Life grows more difficult for me,
Life grows richer within me.

Strive for peace.
Love peace.
Live in peace.

This verse was pinned to the bulletin board in my kitchen for years and I would ponder its meaning and my destiny path. As I look back now, I marvel over what has happened in my life, bearing witness to the words in the verse. I am not afraid of life growing more difficult (as I was when I first encountered the verse) because I now know difficulty is balanced by wonder and sheer delight in meeting a destiny path. As I walk it, it carries me along.

When I was young, my mother stayed at home with eight children and my father would drive to work mornings. During the 1970's, he noticed many women bringing young children to places outside their home for the day. This troubled my father, it was a new social model, one he did not understand and he was concerned about how the children would fare. My father is deceased more than 10 years now and I think of him often and his consistency (never missed a day of work) as well as his sensitivity toward the issue of child care.

Almost ten years ago, I was teaching in the Early Childhood program at Aurora Waldorf School and I wanted to do some training over the summer. I decided to go to the Rudolf Steiner Institute which was then housed on a college campus in Maine. Surveying the course offerings, I chose a LifeWays course because it matched my sensibility of "keeping it simple", empahasizing relationships and processes rather than products in Early Childhood Education.

When I took the course, I found there was an option to continue LifeWays training; I did and became certified. The question of child care that my father posed when I was young, resurfaced and I found the concept of creating a LifeWays Center growing in me. I took steps forward wondering how it would all work out and knowing it would both at the same time.

Through this process, I was brought to the task of social entrepreneurship, a task although difficult, made easier by the knowledge that it's my work to do. At the onset, resources I thought were available were not and other unexpected resources showed up. It's been interesting to discover what is beyond each bend in the road and to see our three year old Center becoming what it is meant to become for in the process, we are all becoming. What a joy to witness what was once invisible now living in the physical world for all to see!

Yet we are not done; we've laid the foundation for hosting a LifeWays training in Buffalo and we are eagerly anticipating what it will become. Soon we will know if there are enough participants for the first Buffalo training to begin in April or if we are meant to find another way. At any rate, we know that what we need to find we will find, and the rest will find us.