Waldorf Matters … Handwork with the Ancestors
Ms Alex Greaves teaches Handwork and the Arts Award at Elmfield as well as supporting students as an LSA. In our weekly blog series about key aspects of Steiner Waldorf education, Alex discusses the history of Handwork and its significance to Waldorf teaching.
Once upon a time, before Maths and English were the core subjects, there was spinning.
Not the bicycles that you peddle furiously to loud dance music, but the spinning that creates yarn and thread. This is the spinning that was done all over the world with all types of fibres, with all types of spindles and then eventually with the spinning wheel.
Spinning was such an important subject that wool became more valuable than gold and it kick started the industrial revolution. There are even Goddesses of spinning and handwork: Frigg, Odin’s wife in the old Norse way of life; Athena in Greece; Isis in Egypt; Spiderwoman for the Navajo and Ameterasu the Goddess who spins and weaves the sunbeams in Japan.
Spinning was instilled into every aspect of life, so much so that the brothers Grimm penned several spinning tales onto paper so that we can catch a glimpse into the tales told in the past.
Spinning, and handwork, was such an important subject that not only did it bring us the gift of cloth and money to feed the family, but it also brought people together as a community: handwork was taught from generation to generation.
Women and men would gather together to share their knowledge, to pass on their experiences and to tell the stories of their ancestors: through the ages, and throughout the world, each culture creating their own techniques and styles. It was such a vital part of people’s way of life and it kept them connected to each other and to the land.
The time given to process the flax and to wash and card the fleece may seem, at first, laborious but it also gave the time to think, to breathe and to be part of something purposeful.
And this is where I find myself as a Waldorf handwork teacher.
To be able to teach one of the first core subjects.
To bring a fleece for the children to touch and smell and to connect to the animal that once wore it. To be out walking on a Duke of Edinburgh expedition through a field and point out to the pupils that the felt we made last week came from the sheep that graze on this land. To pass on a skill that that takes time but keeps you warm and brings comfort. To sit in a class and share our day, our stories and songs while our fingers weave, knit, felt and spin just as our ancestors once did.
