Lakeside School at Black Kettle Farm offers birth –3rd grade education and Farm and Forest Summer Camp based on the Waldorf philosophy on a working farm in Essex, NY.

Incorporating the Individual

By Jess Wimett

Integration, or appears everywhere in our world.  It serves as the transitory dance between the individual and the group – always waxing and waning, but never ceasing.  We see it in the natural world; murmurations of starlings as they amass in undulating formations – only to break left and right and out into individuals specks across the sky.  It’s the way herd animals move into one another to feel safe inside themselves; the way that the cells in our bodies all agree to work separately together. Integration mirrors the deep nature within or human nature – the dissolution of self into something more whole, while still retaining our individual essence.  We are all alone, and in it together.

These conceptual fingerprints are with me at the gate at Lakeside each morning, as I watch the children tentatively peel away from their parents, into that brief moment of self-empowerment where they gear themselves up to run down the grassy hill, and their initiatory contact with the group of children already playing in yard.

I recently had the pleasure of taking a hike with the Elementary students.  A good clip of this outing was spent in little social clusters – with an exploratory trio of students taking the lead and leapfrogging who was the leader, and who was running to catch up.  This cluster communicated in clipped announcements that they would yell as they zoomed past or fell behind.

“I’ll see you at the next trail marker!”
“No fair!  My shoe came untied!”
“Lets run down this big hill!”

Behind this trio were the observers, who were contented to walk at a pace that enabled them to be present in their senses.  They talked calmly and in serene doses.

“The water is lower in the stream since last time we came here.”
“I love hiking when its sunny like this.”
“I can hear frogs in the water!”

And then there was a group in back, recalcitrant to leave their humanity behind.  This group was more or less huddled around me as I walked.  Some were purely enjoying the pleasant environment for a good chat, while others were put off by the hiking itself, or by some physical discomfort, and wanted to just sit.  The conversation of this group was notably more intrinsic to their sense of wellbeing.

“My dad is 100% Italian.  My grandmother was from Italy.  I haven’t been to Italy, but I have been to New Jersey.  When I get older I may explore the world, but for now my family makes me happy enough…”

“Well my dad tells me I’m ½ leprachaun, which is just horrible because I only want to be normal…  I think I may be getting sunburned and I need go back and get my spray.”

“I’m so thirsty I can’t go on and my legs hurt.  I’m so tired.  Can we go back to school now?”

And so the hike went, pleasantly weaving through the forest bursting with vernal energy.  We crossed over a modestly flowing stream, hopping along boulders and rocks, until we had reached a sloping hillside dappled with sunlight and the sound of the flowing water.

“Let’s stop here.”  I said.

“Why here?” they asked, almost in unison.

“Because we are going to spend the next ½ hour doing solo observation.”

This was a technique that I had done as an Interpretive Ranger in the Redwood National Park.  I would take children on 3-day ecological backpacking trips, and on the very last day we would do ‘solos’, wherein I would select a spot for each child out of eyeshot of one-another, and they would have to sit quietly for a length of time and just ‘be’ in the forest.

I was always surprised by the depth of response to these solos, and I wanted to see how these nature-seasoned Lakeside students felt about disconnecting from their social dynamics and integrating into the forest energy.

Each student selected a spot within my view from the top of the rise. And then we sat.  And listened.  And waited. The sounds of the forest were absolutely enchanting.  Little woodland symphonies of bird song, wind, rustled leaves, flowing water and the occasional insect humming by created a serenity that was palpable.

Within 20 minutes, the intrepid trio that had lead the hike all morning had slowly reformed their group and were wordlessly hunting for frogs, newts and dragonfly nymphs.   They gestured wildly, and pointed at this critter or that, as their mouths twisted from the effort of not speaking aloud.

The cluster that had remained taciturn and calm during the hike had been absorbed by the forest all along, and thus they stretched comfortably out on river rocks or leaned back against their elbows and let the sky kiss their faces as they took it all in.

And then there was the caboose cluster, who were most surprising in their reflections.  At first, they met this experience with fear.  They didn’t want to feel alone, and were anxious without their words.  But after a short amount of time, this shifted.  They settled into the experience and in the end, were the hardest to reconvene.  When I asked what everyone had noticed, it was they who had the most revelatory and awakening reports – of the things they noticed, the feelings that came and went and the understanding that they carried out of it.

I think this speaks to the deep alchemy underlying the concept of integration.  In the endless river of change, it is our vessel through transition.  Because while transitory energy can be anxious, fearful, lonely or emboldened, there is always something to meet us on the other side.  A new group, a new place, a new experience, a new understanding… And often, as I noticed after our hike, it’s the experiences that take us the furthest outside of our normal comfort zones that give us the most room to grow.