Writing in this blog just over a month ago on December 6th, I wrote about how I wanted to be closer in personality to Rilke’s description of when he met with the sculptor Rodin.
Greeting guests and friends with “peaceable, caressing eyes”, the gentle “smiles of a woman and the eager hands of a child” are all attributes I want to emulate and aspire to.
And so it was that last week, on a drizzly day when all of eastern Australia was being rained upon, some 20 children (and a few parents) were present at Windgrove giving me ample opportunity to be Rodinesque.
Well, I’m not always successful with serious adults who find themselves at Windgrove, but if there is one skill I possess, it is to make kids of any age feel at home. Whether they’re in my studio or out with me walking the Windgrove Peace Path, the little child in me identifies rather easily with the little tykes tugging at my shirt sleeves and I, therefore, have no problem talking their talk, walking their walk and greeting them with “the eager hands of a child”.
During their brief visit, when I spoke to them my language naturally went to their level. (Notice I didn’t say “down” to their level. Who knows at what age deep perception and imagination are best served.) This was not “baby talk”; rather a non-threatening easeful, sometimes quirky, always respectful discourse — to our society’s future adults — on the complex ideas surrounding art, earth and the sacred.
In a few months I will be flying to California where, at the Esalen Institute, I will be addressing the question, “How shall we love when we are losing everything?” For the sake of my Roaring Beach children I hope I can provide some clues in the answering of this global, as well as local, question.
I only have to view a line up of kids waiting with good natured patience to have a swing on a bit of rope for my heart to yearn that their future will be filled with much goodness, joy and happiness.
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