Warren Lee Cohen

Here is a simple pentatonic song to open and close our bedtime storytelling and/or reading.  I composed it to introduce the lyre I made (posted below) for my two young daughters this Christmas.

Sun and moon and shining star
Gently guide my dreaming far
To the land of angels bright
Fill my heart your golden light.

The melody is D, E, G, A, B, D, E ascending
and then E, D, B, A, G, E, D descending.
This repeats twice with the lyrics.

This is my second Lyre, carved from a single piece of walnut with a padauk bridge. I used ultra-fine guitar strings (D, G, B and E). It is tuned to a pentatonic scale: D, E, G, A, B, D, E, which creates a gentle floating feel. The tone is quite mellow and can be amplified by placing it on a table.  The music dances about the central A, “Sun Tone”, and meanders without settling into a resolve – perfect for young children whose hearing does not crave the more grounded resolution of a major or minor scale. For them music floats just like their imaginative games which can flow fluidly from one theme to another without interruption.

I am grateful to Luciana, who sewed a beautifully quilted case for it complete with a little pocket for the tuning wrench. She is a craftswoman extraordinaire. We will play it every night at our story time to punctuate the beginning and end of the stories as we prepare to go to sleep. Now all I have to do is come up with suitable melodies and lyrics.

This is my second lyre. Carved from maple and tuned to a pentatonic scale it yields a gentle tone that resonates well with its flowing forms. It was a pleasure to make this and its sister lyre, which will be a Christmas gift to my girls, in a series of evenings this autumn – so much less demanding than a guitar. This lyre was donated to the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto Advent Craft sale to benefit early childhood education. Pentatonic music is well suited to the mood of early childhood and helps children to remain  lithe and dreamy.

A forlorn stump of a once grand maple has been waiting patiently in our back yard for a bit of love and attention. Staring patiently at us as we make our pizzas and tend our garden, this stately stump has been crying for some sort of redemption from its untimely demise. but it is so large, over 2 meters tall and more than a meter across. Then one morning as the girls frolicked in the garden my gouge came to life to reveal this being within the tree. What release we felt as chips came flying away.  And now we have a new friend in our garden. Welcome!!!

It was such a treat to work creatively with Kuniko, Paul and Bree again, an honor to reunite with Emerson Foundation Year colleagues. Somehow we all seem to have all grown a bit older and wiser and more tender through the challenges we have each had to meet in our respective countries. Kuniko is now a trained and practicing Biographical Counselor in Japan – a wise woman who is ready to listen and selflessly reflect. Bree is teaching music and English and developing her beautiful voice. And Paul continues to delight students and writers around the world with his creative approach to “silly-seriousness.” His genius, all of their genii are contagious. I am grateful that we created another opportunity to work together and that they had an opportunity to meet my family in our home outside of Toronto where they effortlessly warmed their way into the hearts of my daughters.

These pictures are courtesy of Kuniko, who courageously came all the way from difficult circumstances in Japan to study  with us in our Encounters with Imagination: festival of arts and education.

May we find many more occasions to come together in our striving and in our desire to play artistically.

Camphill Communities Ontario invited my family and me to build a festival bread oven to help them bake pizza and bread during their seasonal festivals throughout the year. 16 intrepid bread oven builders joined us to create this well sculpted oven out of clay, sand and straw. Our crew included people from age 3 to 60 and was inclusive of people with a variety of abilities. Everyone was able to contribute and feel pride in their creation.

We spread the work over two days, which gave everyone a chance to need the cob with their feet, build the oven, play in the straw and contribute to sculpting the final bread oven. There was plenty of time in between for sharing food and for discussing slow-bread-culture, for singing and silliness too!

It was hard to call it quits on Sunday afternoon as finding the final form was such an enjoyable process of collaborative sculpting. (Notice the temporary door that helped us model the oven as the real door was still being fashioned out of local hardwood. Soon a pavilion will be built to house the bread oven. This will match the architecture of the neighboring Novalis Hall)

Luciana took up the task of making a fire spirit, a salamander to acknowledge the essential working of elemental beings in this creative process of transforming flour, water, salt, leaven and fire into delicious bread. It is nice to see such a beautiful and lively fire being being born out of my calm and collected partner – nothing boring there!

Already one of the families who participated in the workshop have built their own bread oven at their farm outside of Toronto. Others are busy gathering clay and bricks…

Encounters with Imagination: festival of arts and education was an inspiring success with over 50 people enrolling in 1 or more courses. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive with much encouragement to carry on with this initiative next summer. I thoroughly enjoyed bringing aspects of anthroposophy over the course of a week and felt well met by my students. What  a pleasure it was wrestling with ideas such as freedom and the journey beyond the threshold with intelligent and open minded individuals. We devoted the whole final day to looking at Rudolf Steiner’s large wood sculpture, The Representative of Humanity. We explored first the many contrasting elements of this piece and the dynamics between them before we ever tried to name them. Once we had fully characterized the forms and flow of these beings then it felt proper to share their names Christ, Lucifer, Ahriman and Humor and to explore our own understandings and relationships with them. It was a rich and evocative session.

In the second week I took part in Paul Matthew’s creative writing workshop and as ever was delighted by his creative genius and warmth. It was heartening to renew our friendship, which has only grown since our working together at Emerson and as well to see how my girls delighted in his presence. The highlights of the festival for me were the times we were all working together: singing and spacial dynamics in the mornings and evening events including pizza nights, poetry and story evening and a social art evening. this is where it really felt like a festival and I could sense the creative spirit of Emerson raying through our work. And now I look forward to a bit of a rest and then pulling together next summer’s festival.

Waldorf: Being a Teacher

I have been fortunate to be involved with Waldorf Education for the past 20 years. Not only is it a continuous source of inspiration for me, I have witnessed what a unique and wonderful approach to education it is. Children excell there in many faceted ways. Now that I have my own children, I could not imagine a more perfect school setting for them. Waldorf schools value childhood, protect their innocence, allow for creative play and foster the healthy development of imagination. They offer offer children opportunities to develop a broad range of skills, social/emotional maturity and conceptual depth that they will need for life. This truly is a broad based education rooted in the arts that  fosters balance, empathy, creativity and ultimately human freedom. It has been tested and refined over the past 90 years.

As a teacher, I feel that to be entrusted with professional task of looking after the well being of a group of students over a period of eight years. It is an awe inspiring responsibility and one for which I am eternally grateful. I could not now imagine a more satisfying or meaningful vocation than that of teaching in a ‘Waldorf school. As the director of teacher education at the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto I do have a vested interest; nevertheless, these sentiments do come directly from my experience and from my heart. I welcome any inquiries and/or questions.

I was invited to bake Dragon Bread with the first grade at the Toronto Waldorf School. The 25 students, their teacher and a few very helpful parents were delightfully enthusiastic to get their hands into the dough and to shape their imaginations into wholesome and tasty loaves of bread. Some chose to make their dragons spiky and scary others saw them as more amiable creatures, waiting to be of service. None had difficulty kneading and shaping their creations. they made them in the morning and we were able to bake them for lunch. They ate a part of it and took the rest home to share with their families. Whenever I see any of the students they are sure to ask me when we will be baking again. Children simply love the meaning-filled task of baking bread especially when it is done with imagination and love. They sense the rightness of it and are  eager to participate from the initial sticky dough all the way to eating the delicious crust and crumb.

And, while making 25 smaller dragons why not make a really large one? In response to a special request from Jef Saunders from Arscura School of Living Art, I made the largest Dragon Bread that I have yet attempted: sourdough with raisins and dried cranberries, jewels in the belly that was decorated with almonds. It was fun to make and according to many reports from their Michaelmas celebration delicious to eat. The photo is courtesy of Vibeke Ball. Thank you to one and all for a fun baking day!

I have received the most touching responses from my Art of Baking Bread and an Evolving Picture of Human Consciousness workshop this summer. Baking bread together can be spiritual work that nourishes us body, soul and spirit. It is enlivening, awakens the senses and can be a whole lot of fun.

Hi Warren,

I had the pleasure of meeting you and your family at the RSI this summer. From the evening session in which you showed how to bake bread, the guidance of your book and the great bread starter that you gave me, I am baking very nutritious breads for my family (at least once a week): corn bread, plain bread, apple bread, scones and even pizza. I have not bought bread since I started baking! Every time I make bread I feel I ma meditating. It is a wonderful experience that I have never had while cooking. I dare to say that it feels like a spiritual practice. My children also help and I am trying to help them deepen their relationship with what they eat. 
Thank you for all your work and for inspiring others. 
Best wishes, 

Alejandra

Hello Alejandra,

What a beautiful testament to the deep nourishment of baking bread and sharing this gift with others. Thank you so much for this note. I will cherish it and likely share it with the people who are gathering with me this weekend to build bread ovens and bake pizza together. This work of baking together continues to amaze me in its power to to cultivate spiritual companionship.

Blessings on the bread
Warren