Bright Circumstance

Dear Members of The Waldorf School of Santa Barbara Community,

A few weeks ago the Santa Barbara Independent published "Pandemic Poems" by Sixth Graders at Vieja Valley school. A few of the poems limned rending challenges our WSSB children didn't face. Writes one student:

I wake up one morning getting ready for school
and I hear my mom saying there’s a new virus called Corona Virus.
I blow it off but little did I know that the Corona Virus would change 2020.
School gets canceled for two weeks, two weeks turn into months,
we start something called Zoom.
The next few months I am stuck inside,
nothing to do and extreme boredom...
I ask myself why this virus? Will it ever end?

At WSSB we've been lucky that our children didn't face this stuckness, the unbalancing screen time, the extreme boredom; we've been lucky that they've been held by an in-person, on-campus, and live Waldorf school.

How easy it is -- like a fish in its element of water -- to become inured to the bright circumstance we inhabit, to not see it: to not see the children climbing the loquat tree, to not see the children tending the lambs, playing their violins, learning about Vandana Shiva and Cesar Chavez, reciting their times tables, buying mugwort and coreopsis at the plant sale (thank you, Miss Liz!), acting in their first play (thank you, Mr. Gebeau!), and dancing around the Maypole. But we shan't be inured to the gift of this year! Because it is precisely this -- a firsthand, non-virtual, reverent, grounding, and love-based education -- that our world needs now, despite the momentum of our times. Here at The Waldorf School of Santa Barbara we aim -- humanly and fallibly of course -- to not merely reflect society but help guide and shape it.

It is plain the worth of this education is not lost upon us. To wit: this year WSSB raised $92,400, hearteningly exceeding the goals of our Annual Giving Campaign and Hike-a-Thon. This is extraordinary and humbling. And we are deeply, deeply grateful to you -- parents, grandparents, caregivers, and community members -- for this support. And we endeavor to do right by your generous faith in our work and mission.

With gratitude,

The WSSB Admin Team

PS The thought of the day is by Thomas Merton:

"In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers."

PPS The poem of the day is by the young Nigerian poet, Gbenga Adesina:

Glory

Glory of plums, femur of Glory.
Glory of ferns
on a dark platter.
Glory of willows, Glory of Stag beetles
Glory of the long obedience
of the kingfisher.
Glory of waterbirds, Glory
of thirst.
Glory of the Latin
of the dead and their grammar
composed entirely of decay.
Glory of the eyes of my father
which, when he died, closed
inside his grave,
and opened even more brightly
inside me.
Glory of dark horses
running furiously
inside their own
dark horses.