Workshops

Currently scheduled presentations and workshops for 2010

  • “What is Waldorf Education and why is it worth paying for?”
    Presentation at the Trillium Waldorf School
    Wednesday 17 February at 7:00
    540 Victoria Road North
    Guelph, ON Canada
    N1E 6Z4
    Telephone: 519-821-5140
  • Science in Waldorf Education: The Importance of Discovery
    Presentation at the Trillium Waldorf School
    Wednesday 17 February at 7:00
    540 Victoria Road North
    Guelph, ON Canada
  • The Art of Baking Bread and an Evolving Picture of Human Consciousness
    Rudolf Steiner Institute, near Boston
    July 11 to 17
  • Bread Oven Building Weekend
    August 2010
    Time and place still to be determined
    If you are interested in hosting or participating in this event, please contact me at
    Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto
    9100 Bathurst St #4
    Richmond Hill, ON L4J 8C7
    905 764 7570
    email: info@rst.ca
    website http://www.rsct.ca/

Course Descriptions

FireAndBreadTWSFeb10
FireAndBread

7 February and 30 May
Course fee $75
(includes all ingredients, Bread and starter to take home)
Come explore the art of baking bread using whole grains and natural leaven, sourdough starter. We’ll bake a variety of breads using the same simple sourdough culture. We’ll touch upon the aspects of baking that create healthy and nutritious bread and, of equal importance that allow for joy and meaning in the baking process. You’ll learn how to make and use your own sourdough culture. You’ll take home fresh baked bread, sourdough starter and inspiration for future baking. We’ll break for a potluck lunch. Please bring something to share and an apron.
Bread baker, oven builder and Steiner teacher, Warren Lee Cohen began baking 20 years ago in order to create life-sized sculptures in bread. He directs the Teacher Education Program at the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto and leads baking workshops internationally. His books include Baking Bread with Children, Raising the Soul and Dragon Baked Bread.
Inner Development for Parents and Teachers
Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto
May 3 to 7, 2010 9:00 to 12:30 daily
Based on research from Raising the Soul, this course will explore approaches to meditation, attention and intention as has been developed by Rudolf Steiner, Marshal Rosenberg and others. Contemplative work will be balanced with exercises in clay modeling.

Spiritual Practices Workshop
Camp NeeKauNis, Ontario
June 18-20, 2010

Come to this beautiful place to explore ways to deepen your understanding of inner practices and spiritual development. In this experiential weekend we will discuss and practice methods of spiritual deepening which can support both individual meditation practices and collective worship. We will explore how spiritual practices can be a practical and grounded means for personal, professional and community development and how these basic exercises can form the foundation for significant contemplative inquiry.

We will begin our weekend by building a gateway of gratitude and then doing a series of soul harmonizing exercises developed by Rudolf Steiner. We will practice and reflect upon different kinds of meditation, including ones in nature. These are calming, centring and may bring you closer to knowing “that of God in you”.

The Art of Baking Bread and an Evolving Picture of Human Consciousness
Rudolf Steiner Institute, near Boston
July 11 to 17

Come learn the Art of Baking with master baker, bread enthusiast and Waldorf teacher educator, Warren Lee Cohen. In this hands-on workshop we will explore the development of bread and the culture around breaking bread together. Our endeavors will span the gamut from the earliest flat breads, to hearty hearth loaves to the flakiest of croissants. We’ll work with unleavened dough, natural leaven, sourdough, commercial yeast and chemical rising agents to make a variety of tasty and nutritious breads that will help us understand with all of our senses how humans’ relationship to both food and consciousness has evolved over time. We will wrestle with how this most basic staff of life has also served as a central symbol in cultic and religious rites that inspire many spiritual traditions around the world.

Real bread demands our attention at this time in history. It is under threat and has been reduced to a processed foodstuff. Yet bread, simple grain, water and leaven bread still has much more to offer humanity if only we can delve into its potential for physical, soul and spiritual nourishment.

Our morning baking sessions will be offered an added leaven by afternoon painting sessions with Kevin Hughes. Kevin will lead us through a series of painting exercises to help us imagine more deeply into the alchemical process that allows the baker to transform wheat, water, leaven and salt into life giving and spirit nurturing bread.