Category: Practices for Inner Development
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Michaelmas, 2025
Today is Michaelmas, otherwise known as the Day of Courage. It is the time in the year when the cooling forces of autumn sober the party of summertime growth. It is also the harvest time. In most Waldorf schools, stories are told, songs are sung, and a pageant features the Archangel Michael taming the terrible…
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Self Care for Teachers (and Homeschoolers)
In this post, I’m going to discuss one simple, yet profoundly important, practice of self care for teachers and homeschoolers. Teaching can be and is deeply rewarding. At the same time, it calls us to live a high ideal. As Indian saint Shrii Shrii Anandamurtii, founder of spiritual movement Ananda Marga and Neohumanist Education says,…
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Homeschool Easter
Homeschool Easter. You don’t have to be Christian to connect to its mythos and find value in its celebration. Of course, Christianity imbues this spring holiday with rich imaginations, but that’s not the point. The point is the resurrection of life as shown in these common symbols: In this post, I give some indications for…
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The Formative Power of Gratitude
On Thanksgiving each year, many of us practice giving gratitude. Is this just a nice family tradition, or is there a truly formative power of gratitude? Let’s start with words of wisdom from wise people. Eckhart Tolle once said (paraphrased), “If you practice gratitude, life will give you more things to be grateful for.” In…
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Civic Education in Homeschool
In the wake of this 2024 U.S. presidential election, I feel called to write a post about civic education. We have a deeply polarized nation, and that’s not good. For the record I must say that as a teacher, it’s not my place to take sides. Rather, it’s my job to preserve the sacred balance…
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Emotional Intelligence
In this third post of our series on the 6 Basic Exercises, we will discuss “Control of Feeling.” A better title for this exercise would be “cultivating emotional intelligence through mastering the feeling life.” However, the Austrian simplicity of Rudolf Steiner preferred the shorter title, so we’ll go with that. This is probably the hardest…
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Freewill (Control of Will)
In this blog post, we will discuss freewill. However, this will not be a philosophical treatise on whether or not freewill exists. Rather, it will be a practical guide on how to become free of will. This is the followup to a post we wrote a few months ago entitled Control of Thought. The Six…
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Humor as Medicine in the Home
Have you ever found yourself talking with your spouse about something stressful which pressingly needs to be discussed…like, now? Meanwhile, your young child or children are in the room, and they will inevitably be stressed out, too? Your solid parenting instinct recognizes this, so you try going into another room. However, because your children are…
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Control of Thought
Dr. Steiner advises that people spend a month doing each of the Six Basic Exercises. The first is called “Control of Thought,” and we will describe it here. Below is the version I practice, and it’s based on indications from Steiner, Florin Lowndes, and Mark Riccio from the Organic Thinking website. As a side note,…
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The Six Basic Exercises
In Ancient Greece, Plato spoke of the soul as a chariot driven by the three horses of thinking, feeling, and willing. Becoming a true philosopher demanded the student learn to control these horses. Thereby, the individual, and not the horses, could drive the chariot where he or she wanted it to go. This need is…