Becoming - A Lifelong Task

By Vanessa Fountain

In Rose Kindergarten, I begin the year with the story of Little Boy Blue. It is a story about a child who loves being with his parents, but one day asks to go on an adventure. “Oh, I love adventures’ says his mother. ‘But mummy, I meant by myself’ says the boy”. ‘Oh, says mummy.’  

The story suggests the need for the child to step into the next developmental stage. 

His wise mother ensures he has his backpack, hat, shoes, lunch, water bottle, cuddly and for him to know that she will be there with open arms should he need her. And then with much hugging and kissing the little boy sails off on his adventure. And what a wonderful adventure it is, trying new things, meeting new people. When he finally sails home, he sees his mummy jumping up and down on the shore, crying ‘woo-hoo, woo-hoo, it’s me, mummy’. 

The children recognising the picture are at this point squealing with laughter! 

The boy then pulls his boat ashore and is swept into his mummy’s arms with squeezes and kisses. More giggles. The mummy then asks the boy the usual questions asked by a loved one, ‘did you have a good day, did you make a new friend, did you enjoy yourself, did you have enough to eat?’ To each question the boy shrugs his shoulders and makes an ‘I don’t know’ sound. At the end of the questions as they turn to go home, the boy says, ‘mummy’, ‘yes, dear’. ‘Mummy, can I go back tomorrow?’ to which the mummy with a cheeky grin on her face shrugs her shoulders and makes the same sound the little boy has made to her questions. Now the children are rolling on the floor in hysterics, because we all know that it means yes.  

My experience is that sometimes our children are not yet conscious of their experiences or able to verbalise the effects of experiences when they meet them so deeply and developmentally appropriately. 

It takes time to integrate, to form words, and to make pictures of what the rhythm, the circle, the painting, the play, the story awakens in them. If there are no external influences in the child’s world, such as television, dysregulated life rhythms, materialism etc., then the process is gentler, dreamier, less conscious. If these influences are present, then the child needs to process them. The fast paced ‘children’s show’ geared at poor attention spans needs to adapt to a slower rhythm of a simple story told over three weeks. 

It takes time to adapt, to let go of the need for instant entertainment, and to drop into the dream, the magic and the mystery of the story. 

In week one there was the excitement of the story and humour they could relate to. In week two, there were fidgets, ‘I’ve heard this’, ‘this story again’, ‘can I go to the toilet’. Week three brought stillness, wide eyes and open mouths. In the repetition they had found something new, something that met them deeply.  

Along with our Steiner Curriculum, our Early Childhood educators work with The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) Principles. 

These principles focus upon children’s Belonging, Being and Becoming. As adults we intuitively understand what this means. 

But I sometimes think that as parents we can forget that becoming is about change. 

To become, we need to explore, try, fail, succeed, make mistakes, repair the damage, be disappointed, disappoint, find things we love and find things that we don’t love etc. This is especially relatable to those of us who currently have or have been through the teenage years with our children. 

Becoming requires a safe place and safe holding, clear boundaries and developmental knowledge, where it is understood that we will make mistakes, life will be messy, we will show those around us our humanity, our striving, our gifts and our challenges.

And we will hopefully learn, grow and become. Who you saw in front of you yesterday may not be who you see in front of you tomorrow. It’s almost like they are asking us, please see me, support me as I move between one stage and another, show me your love is unconditional, and that I can be who I am right now in this ever-evolving adventure we call life.
One activity that I sometimes offer to parents is the ‘dream rattle’. Parents are invited to form a ball out of two pinch pots of clay. This ball is a reminder of everything we hope for and dream of for our children. Inside we wrap a small ball of clay in paper. The paper will burn off in the firing process to leave the ball unattached, making a ringer inside the sphere. We are then invited to decorate the outside with carvings and pictures of all we hope and dream of for our children. At this point I let the parents know that the ball inside is a seed, the seed that the child has brought with them. 

A blueprint for their life, the experiences, the adventures that they would like to have. 

Our clay spheres are the protection of that seed. In a way our hopes and dreams don’t belong on the sphere, except to provide an environment, a boundary, that protects, nurtures and holds childhood as sacred. A space that will allow the child the best chances of living the life they have come to live. This is incredibly important in childhood, but the process of evolving is, we hope, lifelong. 

Making time to become – my long service leave

For my long service leave I didn’t journey overseas, climb high mountains or abseil down into caves. I did spend a lot of time swimming in our gorgeous ocean and began to learn about the seaweed that calls our coast home. I read some amazing books on seaweed around the world, the impact of overharvesting and the flow on effects to the habitat of other marine creatures. I learnt of the many species impacted by overfishing that then in turn impact the seaweed with catastrophic outcomes. 

But my long service was more about stopping, resting and working on my life work – me. 

It seems such a luxury to stop, put everything down, allowing the soft voice of the heart to speak and to ‘perhaps’, listen.
It always seemed so impossible while raising children and holding a class, to even contemplate stopping. However, with grown children, a stable class and fabulous parents, the soft voice of my heart was, well, more like a screaming, hysterical banshee. I was well past contemplating the whisperings of my heart and chanting a few ‘ohms’ – mutiny was afoot and my heart the harbinger I had been too ‘everything’ to hear.

It took time to slowly put things down. Mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

 It reminded me of the jettisoning of my extraneous possessions after the first full day of walking the Camino De Santiago, only it was a slower process. The habit body held on tight to all the stories of should, would and could. I needed to move to think, so I renovated, I stripped decks, painted verandahs, removed rust from recycled gates (with an angle grinder - very satisfying), treated and painted the gates and installed them. And all the while I listened. 

I listened, holding space for that part of me that needed to be heard.

 I realise now that I went through an experience somewhat like the stages of grief. Denial, anger (the angle grinder), bargaining, depression and acceptance. (It makes you want to take long service leave doesn’t it!). 
 But why was I experiencing grief? In yoga we use ‘savasana’ (or corpse pose) to allow the body to integrate what it has learnt from our yoga practice. To let go of what it needs to let go of and to allow space for what needs to be. We can do all the right things, but our body, mind and soul need time and space to integrate the new and to, with gratitude, let go of that which now belongs to the past. 

Rudolf Steiner said that it is not what you know but who you are that is important. 

But the ‘who’ you are, is not a fixed point. We are forever striving and growing. Making mistakes and doing our best to make good our learning as spiritual and human beings. Sometimes the growth, the learning is slow and in small increments but equally it can be so fast and so profound that it takes your breath away.
 If I can give you the “Cliff Notes” of my long service leave, it is this. It is not a luxury to stop, to take time for yourself, to integrate the latest living/learning and loving. You will not be a lesser (fill in the blank). It’s ok to make changes and be an evolving version of you. 

It’s your life, don’t live it for an idea, a someone or something else, be authentically you. 

Authenticity is encoded in our being and when we deviate from the truth of who we are (consciously or unconsciously), our spirit, our body and our mind will let us know. By taking the time to listen to our hearts, to integrate our learning, we will be our most authentic selves, making course changes by smooth conscious, imperceptible degrees that lead us back to ourselves. Or you can do what I did. I am lucky to have a family where I could say, this is no longer me, I’m still working out who I am and where I want to be and they supported me every step of the way.
Did I enjoy my long service holidays. Yes, I did. Do I feel refreshed? I’d say renewed. It was at times a long journey through some foreign lands. I climbed more than a few metaphoric mountains and certainly spent some time in the caves of the dark night of the soul, but I feel renewed, centered and excited to be back.
I did wonder how I came to be so out of touch with who I currently am. Why I had not integrated my learnings and changes in compass settings in real time. Maybe we can’t, maybe like our little ones, it needs to percolate in the background, to emerge later as a strengthened will, an imagination or an intuition that aligns with this new version of the self. Perhaps as adults we need a block of intentioned time (think meditation retreat -angle grinder optional) or perhaps as adults we need something less subtle, that jolts us awake and makes us question our choices. (In my case, a good case of burnout and the exasperated inner voice turned banshee). I think we can get caught up in what we think our different roles or the parts of our life should look like and the enticement of the stability of who we think we are. Spirit/energy is not static and nor are we. I am excited to see where my journey takes me and who I am yet to become. Today I try to remind myself that I am liminal, beyond the labels, beyond the roles, where I rest in an ocean of possibility, between states, the long outbreath, following the whisper of my heart.