Living mockumentary

In my 22 years of life I have experienced some rather interesting days. Today for sure is in the top ten. I will try my best to describe it, but I am still in a bit of a state of shock and again emphasize the idea of it being an "experience" (not narrative).

I knew today would be different because Christina and I would be venturing out of the Purple Palace and attending an English teaching conference on the other side of town. We were excited for a bit of a change and eager to gain some tips for the classroom. At most we were afraid of having to give mini-presentations in a break-out group, little did we know what was to come.

The conference was attended by English teachers mainly from two schools. To give you a small taste of the crowd, there were two young Danish girls who climbed on each other at break, middle-aged Italian twins, Chris- an American who reminded me of Jon Lovitz, a few Thai teachers, a very serious man named Casper who looked like his face was taken straight from a glasses add...I could spend the day just describing them all. The conference was lead by Khru Marianne, a German born woman who now lives in England working with special needs adults in a small community. She is a rather petit woman, maybe in her mid-fifties, wearing a most like organic cotton, burnt orange, flowy moo-moo (more India looking than Jamaican), with matching schrunchy material leggings and scarf. She, along with everyone in the room, was barefoot. It all began with her lecture to introduce the Waldorf Education ideas. The following quotes are taken from the handout:

"Path of life on earth: evolution----involution" (there was a diagram with this one)
"Man'task: freedom and love"

She also discussed (in depth) about the relationship between man and animal, man and plant, and, man and mineral. One of the best quotes of the lecture; " if man were like jellyfish, life would be quite different." Straight face. Oh, she also pointed out the the development of the mind is inverted with the development of the "testis." Providing man with a security blanket to make rational decisions, not based on instinct. Of course, all of this is changing as new generations develop faster. (She got a lot of nods of that one. )

Then we had a short coffee break.

After coffee and some chitter-chater with some QUITE interesting folks, we all came back together in a circle. She kept telling us to make the circle flow, at which time I lost it and so did Christina. Marianne then instructed that she would tell us one of Grimm's Fairy Tales and then hand out clay. We needed to take the clay in silence, roll it in our hands and listen to what part of the story/character the clay wanted to be molded into.

So there we were, sitting in a circle of 33 adults and one boy (who had on a teacher badge, but could not be over 16), trying to keep quite to listen to out clay. Soon, Susan, a 30 something Danish teacher asked Marianne if she could step on the table. Silence. Danish then took her circumference of clay, slapped it on the table and promptly stepped on it with her right foot. She called it art. Trying my best to compose myself, I sculpted a rather nice old man who was pointing, put it on the display table and took another piece of clay to keep busy. 15 minutes later we were instructed to walk around the table and observe everyones work. We then sat down and discussed "what we felt with the clay in our hands." I've never felt like I was in a crazier group of supposedly sane people. I of course took the opportunity to share my thoughts...something about feeling like a child and adult at the same time. BIC trained me well for such occasions of BS.

Lunch.

Education Through Art time, meaning we sat a tables of four, soaked a piece of paper in water and were given blue and yellow watercolours to paint. We were supposed to, surprisingly, feel the colors and paint a castle with light shinning through it. Two people at my table were chatting and Marianne came over, "there will be a break for you to chat, but right now I want you to remain in silence so you can BE the blue and yellow." It gets better.

Singing and Eurythmy: We moved from the art tables to an open space. Christina and I parted ways at this point bc we knew we couldn't keep the laughter in for this one. We started off breathing out making bubbly, lip vibration, exhale sounds as our torso and arms went down and silently coming back up. Followed by a series of up, down "tunes" using this sound effect and our hands to guide the "course." We also sang ocean waves using ahhh's. Yes, at this point I thought I was in the special needs village or that someone had slipped everyone something potent and controlling. Onto Eurythmy. Apparently Eurythimy is an "art form" that takes four years to learn and master, and consists of whole body movements that represent the basic sounds. Supposedly the sounds are universal, but I think they were just the GErman alphabet. It was cracked out and needed to be experienced to know full-well how absolutely absurd it felt. We then had some reflection time, at which I did my best to control the temptations of laughter.

I left feeling a bit violated, very confused and realizing once again how surreal my life is these days. No matter how much I tried to describe this, Chris and I both agreed that the experience is one of those that we will forever have for ourselves. For better or worse the Woldof Education System and Khru Marianne will forever be with me.