Warren Lee Cohen

Paulo Freire had a passion for education and its potential to educate towards freedom. He was responsible for a huge surge in literacy in 20th century Brazil. In particular he saw how cultivating critical thinking can lift people out of situations of oppression and give them the moral character and inner strength they need. Interestingly, Waldorf education, inspired by Rudolf Steiner has also been called an “education towards freedom” because it too fosters independent and essentially moral thinking for its students and encourages them not only to think out of the box but also to have the inner resouces to be able do what they set out to do. In this I am referring to the balanced development of thinking, feeling and willing, the head, heart and hands of Waldorf education.

While the methods these two educational pioneers vary, their aims clearly run in parallel streams and I have found it inspiring to read again their work. Here is a link to an excellent article about Paulo Freire entitled: Rethinking Education as the Practice of Freedom: Paulo Freire and the Promise of C. To find out more about Waldorf education please look at Why Waldorf Works

Advent, Channukah, Divali, Christmas and Kwanza

In the spirit of this wonderful stream of festivals of light , I have been setting my intentions for the coming year, which I hope will be filled with fruitful meetings, growth, play and a deepening sense of love filled work. My work educating Waldorf teachers at the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto is proving dynamic and deeply engaging. I am fortunate to have also  been invited to offer a number of shorter workshops and presentations in Canada and Brazil. These help me to create a nice balance of work and play and allow me to cultivate my many disperate interests such as Waldorf Education, baking bread, building bread ovens, inner development and sculpture. Come join the fun.

I received a link from a Bread artist in Bulgaria who is taking her love of bread and her desire to build community around the world by creating BREAD HOUSES, in home workshops in which the art of baking bread gives time and space for conversation and rekindling traditional crafts. I love the idea of cultural revival centred around the practical/spiritual activity of baking bread. This theme will inspire two Art of Bread workshops planned for this winter and spring in Toronto. Look here for details in the new year.

My dear friend Hal Walker has the ability to make music with just about anything. He is a highly skilled pianist and harm0nica player and is always exploring new instruments and ways of making music. He leads a church choir and teaches music of all varieties as an artist in residence and wandering minstrel. It is great to see him in action on his new website playing BANAKULA. Check it out.

Hal Walker plays Banakula

I am pleased to announce my first baking workshop in Canada.  Come and join me if you can.

We’ve landed and set up house in Richmond Hill, just north of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. Our garden is filled with wild flowers and large patches of raspberries. I am directing the Teacher Education Program at the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto. Luciana is knitting up a storm and taking care of our lovely little girls.

The sourdough starter made the long journey from England to Brazil and at last to Canada. It was a bit sluggish at first, but soon sprung back to life. And the wheat, the hard Canadian wheat is a pleasure to work with, much more elastic than what I had grown used to in England. Tomorrow I am going to consult on my first new bread oven project. A workshop is soon to follow.

A brave group of 18 oven builders gathered at Taurus Crafts to build two bread ovens in one weekend! The first oven was a quickly built  ”festival oven” that we fired up on the very same day we built it. We dried it completely on the second day and made delicious pizza in it. This oven had walls about 4 inches thick with neither door nor chimney and stood on a temporary and mobile plinth.

The second oven was crafted to last with a collaboratively sculpted exterior, oaken door and oven walls about twice as thick. This oven will work well for both pizza and many loads of loaf bread and had all of our creative energies pressed into its outer shell. Many thanks to the fine folks at Taurus Crafts who helped organize this exciting weekend. Participant comments are included below the photographs.

Dear Warren,
I want to say a very belated thank you for your wonderful course at Taurus Crafts . I was completely blown away by your heartfelt approach. You really communicated your passion and deep understanding of bread making, which has helped me return to my baking ready to (tentatively) abandon my recipes and start feeling my way into the unknown. I’m going to suggest the current class 3 maybe helps build an oven in our garden.

Another participant who went home to build another bread oven commented:
Hi Warren — here are the photos — We had a really great day doing it – superb weather – good friends and several now want to build their own — and we are the experts!!!
Many thanks for your inspiration.

Here are a few pictures (thanks to Wendy Cook) from our conference and workshop together at Embercombe in Devon. Together we focused on the evolution of human nutrition and its connection with human consciousness. And of course we got our hands in the dough and baked some beautiful loaves in their wood-fired oven.

Thought you might like to know we are baking regularly again, have spread your starter far and wide, and my daughter Mel ran a workshop recently ; unexpectedly Brian Goodwin and Cristel came and Mel taught Brian to bake – he had never done it before and threw himself into the tactile aspect, finding it very satisfying!
I hope you and your family enjoy your travels. Thankyou again for the workshop.
Love, jenny

A group of us came from England to Fabrizio Rossi’s beautiful villa in southern Italy. Each day we baked bread in the old bread oven built into the side of the villa. Then in the afternoons we each worked on one painting for the whole stay. We painted in stages that reflected the process of transformation that the bread goes through from milling, mixing with water, kneading, allowing time to rise, kneading and shaping and at last baking in a fiery oven. Each step is another process of transformation that turns simple substances into life sustaining and enahancing nourishment.

This bread oven was designed and built in the Autumn with the help of three sculptors. The form emerged as we were building it to try to suit its function and environment. It has a privileged location right outside the kitchen window and next to the main entrance. It greets them every time they come home.