“Let there be light”
22. Week of August 29
Ageless, expanding, universal light
Becomes the light in me
Outward to inner, boundless contained
Center from periphery
Inner sun ripens inner fruits
From the world, I come to be
This week, I will begin another year of teaching in a Waldorf School. I will be teaching third grade for the third time.
The story content for the third grade is traditionally drawn from the Hebrew tradition. It is customary - but not required - for the class to begin the year with the first verse of Genesis and to then paint the creation of the world as it unfolds over the next seven days, beginning with light breaking into the darkness. In this way the children create a world, and we arrive together in the world of our new school year together.
We will explore many other creation stories from world traditions during our academic journey through the grades; this story is not the only story. This story, along with many of the others, presents images that are consistent with what we theorize about the beginnings of the universe.
“Around 13.7 billion years ago, everything in the entire universe was condensed in an infinitesimally small singularity, a point of infinite denseness and heat.
Suddenly, an explosive expansion began, ballooning our universe outwards faster than the speed of light.” - From the Space.com website.
Matter and energy, radiating outward, creating the universe. Creating our world and all of the other worlds. Creating us. Whatever else you may believe about life, the current scientific view is that we are made of the same substance as the stars.
So this edge of universal expansion, and the center point of its origin, is also a part of us. The light of the universe lives in us, and in our relationship with everything else that exists.
Obviously I’m not going to bring that to the children as an intellectual idea, but rather as a feeling, an image. It’s kind of awesome, right? As a teacher, it’s this feeling for the awesomeness of the young lives that stand before me, painting the light, that I hope to carry into each day of the next academic year. Look at them - they are all light, all stars.