Eurythmy is a movement art and anyone who observes children knows that children are continually in movement. It has been my experience that children take to eurythmy quite naturally. If they really get to move fully for a time, then they quite easily come to stillness. It is in these moments of quiet stillness that they can truly listen and take in something new from the world.

Children learn about the world by doing, exploring, playing, discovering. They experience the world very actively. As these external explorations teach the child about the world, an inner awareness begins to develop, an awareness of the self. Their "doing" in the world become internalized. Although it is a long process, undoubtedly a life process, we hope that by the time our high school students are ready to leave us at Green Meadow, they have been lead to an experience of true self awareness. I see this process as an interplay of "Behold the world, behold thyself." How many times have you heard these words from a child, "Look, did you see that? or "Watch me! See what I can do!"

The human body is the instrument for expression in eurythmy. We all have a common experience of ourselves on the earth. No one confuses up with down, thanks to the forces of gravity and levity. Our face is very different from the back of our head: we are oriented forwards and our awareness of the backspace is not so conscious, unless you have developed eyes in the back of your head as a teacher. However, it is not so simple with right and left directions, which can be easily be confused. It is my contention that the children who grow up folk-dancing, easily develop this sense of spatial orientation with an "Allemande left and Grand right and left around the ring". So much is taught in the Waldorf schools to help develop this internal orientation, with hand-work, form drawing, and eurythmy. The teachers watch this development take place over the early grades. When there is still some left-right confusion for a student after the third grade, private sessions of special (curative) eurythmy have helped time and again for those who have received such individual attention.

As eurythmy helps us become more aware of ourselves, it does even more to develop an awareness of the group through the dynamics of moving together as a unity. So much can happen between people in eurythmy in the actual space between people. Eurythmy has been called a social art, and many of the pedagogical exercises are specially tailored for an age appropriate group. Every class learns to create large spatial forms in movement. The first and second graders move together harmoniously and everyone has a place on the circle. The circle is the most beautiful image of a unity, one class as one community, as in a round table where no one person is at the head.

Third graders learn how the oval form becomes a figure-eight, which then flows into two circles. It takes many times for each child to take a turn to be a leader, but it really needs a good large number of at least fifteen in each group to make these forms visible, forms flowing one into another in movement. This is a true third grade experience of dividing space, for out of one complete form of the oval, two leaders have a counter movement of a figure-eight within a figure-eight and magically, we have created two circles. This form reflects the image of the creation story, where the heaven and the earth are separated. Now we can divide space, and I think that the children easily experience how the earth pulls us in to the common center, while the heavenly rays out to the periphery. "The day and the night He ordered so, with sun and moon and stars to glow." The children naturally experience polarities of day and night, light and dark, light and heavy, big and small, summer and winter, happy and sad. What we feel within us as human beings can also be found within nature, as an objective reality, mirroring our own experiences. These can all be expressed as soul moods of expansion and contraction in eurythmy, not only in each individual, but as a group movement together.

The forms that the children learn to create in movement are similar to their form-drawings in each grade. Fourth grade takes up cross stitch in hand-work, weaving forms such as Celtic knots in form-drawing, and the weaving of the May Pole ribbons in eurythmy. The celebration of the May Pole is definitely a time of heightened social awareness, for each one wants to weave perfectly, so that the class is presented at its best.

All forms are based upon the straight and curved lines and a combination of the two. By fifth grade, major scales in music have been practiced, moving direct, straight lines and the minor scales are practiced on curves with all of the tones. Most children clearly hear the difference between the major and minor keys. The choreography becomes more complex, with forms combining both straight and curved lines, and with quick changes of directions. These forms develop dexterity in movement and an agility in thinking (they really have to think on their feet!).

Geometric drawing comes in the sixth grade Main Lesson. Sixth graders are definitely ready to improvise their own forms, when we begin playing a game called "Chaos to Form" in eurythmy. The students have been clapping and stepping rhythms since the first grade. They are also very aware of the difference between a straight and a curved line. Now as they listen to a new rhythm, they choose their own form. Each student may go anywhere they choose in the room, keeping the rhythm and making the form visible. When the music stops, each person must freeze. A geometric form is called out at that moment, such as triangle, square, centigram or even a simple diagonal line or parallel lines. We count the seconds it takes for the entire class to run together and form (out of this chaos) such a large spatial form. Which student is it that calls out "I'm the corner! and who will move if there are four corners on a triangle? It is amazing just how quickly these classes learn to work together.

Artists work out of a sense of sensitive chaos. I know what each grade should study at each age level, yet each class is unique and very individual, with specific needs and possessing different talents. I am reminded of the woodcarver of masks who takes the time to study each piece of wood, so that each form would arise naturally out of the material. The art of eurythmy is a most creative part of this "forming". The students also need to feel a part of this creative process.

Every child loves the stars, remembers the first sighting of the night sky, and often wishes on the first star that appears at dusk. They also know how to shine like a star, with open gestures of wonder in eurythmy. We also can move the pathway of the star, or pentagram, beginning in first grade. By third grade, they fly through the star-ways like the "birds of fire" that our Native People named them. Fourth graders know to move pentagrams and pentagons. All children find it a special form and even adults are challenged by moving a perfect star with four other people. Last year, Mr. Cirone's fifth grade achieved moving a seven-pointed star. It is the STAR-WAY TRANSFORMATION that is a favorite of the seventh grade. Ms Kohlhaas' class never tired of moving this large form with its grand music.

By seventh grade, the students begin creating their own choreography. Yet their favorite form was a transformation of stars, by Rudolf Steiner. Twenty-five people form five stars, with all the heads of the stars on one inner circle, surrounded by a circle of the ten arms of the stars, surrounded by a circle of the ten star-feet. Thoroughly contused? Seeing or doing is definitely easier than explaining eurythmy. The graduating class of 1996 performed this for the Parent Assembly in February, 1991. What is so wonderful watching these seventh graders seriously move their star-ways within their group of five, is that each star then expands as a star-burst, travels along one of the circles to a new location and regroups with the same people, yet in different positions. WOW! Do they love that moment of release out of the form, when they are free to travel to a new place, meeting other people coming their way, or going in a counter direction. It is definitely a moment of organized chaos. Immediately afterwards, they are calmly moving the star-way path with their good friends, five ways, then chaos comes again. Somehow, this seems to reflect an inner, biological process that is going on within them at this time. Doesn't the nature of adolescence seem like a bursting out, as a transformation of the self forming anew out of chaos?

This is just a brief peek into the eurythmy classes at Green Meadow Waldorf School. These are classes that are full of life, out of the very nature of the art itself and the nature of childhood. Eurythmy forms and sensitive gestures help strengthen the life forces of each individual. As a senior high school student reported to a visiting family on a tour of the school, "I like to do sports and eurythmy has helped me there, especially with my own inner balance." That statement seems to sum up his Waldorf education and fifteen years of eurythmy, finding inner balance. ~~