"Gratitude is the vessel that we lift to the gods, that they may fill it with their wonder gifts"
R. Steiner
Language’s Magic Powers
I just finished a retreat on early childhood held in the Rocky Mountains above Boulder, CO. We looked at how we can bring consciousness to our language....and help support speech development in children...Joseph Chilton Pearce calls this 'lifted language'....different from our everyday speech. He says 'language builds the brain, but lifted language, as in storytelling, builds that part of the brain where our moral capacity and creative thinking comes from'. Makes me think of Einstein who said, to support a child's intelligence read them fairy tales, when asked what else to do to support intelligence, he said, read them more fairy tales.....We went around the circle and listened to all the different languages (aside from English) people had grown ...
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on November 15th, 2009
Thoughts on Puppetry for the Very Young
I believe in a renewal of puppetry where it opens the heart and soul, and brings, through the visible story, a picture of the possibilities of humanness. The movements and gestures of the puppets, the colors, quality of voice and music, choreography, staging, and story content lifts the veil of the everyday consciousness and connects us all with the spirit worlds. For this to be developed as a healing gift, we have the blessings of Rudolf Steiner's wisdom to guide us. For the last seven years I have been researching puppetry for the very young. This has centered around two to four year olds in a pre-school setting, as well as birth to two years with their mothers. I am often sitting on the floor with a close circle of little children, creating our story space with silk over our laps and legs.
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on November 10th, 2009
Thoughts on The Healing Arts of Nursery Rhymes
Preparing for the upcoming Boulder CO course on speech development in young children on Nov 12-14, I remembered this article from my website. I also encourage you to work with the finger puppets with new thinking and beautiful imaginations wrapped around them. My finger puppet book is so useful to delight children, and now I am seeing even more meaningful with the understanding of how the fingers connect to the speech/language center of the grain. Did you know that deaf children who use sign language (hands/finger talk) follow the same developmental patterns in acquiring their language as children who speak. While you are on my site with this article, check out the book page and read about the art of the finger puppet....
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on November 3rd, 2009
The Puppet Pot Project – Thanksgiving Stories
Inspired by Laura Simm's 'Story Bowl Project' a gathering of storytellers to raise money to feed the world....I thought the 'Puppet Pot Project' would be a good spin-off for us puppeteers. I thought right away of Stone Soup, and how a community was led to make a good soup for all to share, and of the magic cooking pot....Grimm's 'Sweet Porridge', and the many international versions of a cooking pot that keeps on cooking....I have enjoyed doing many of these in puppetry over the years. One favorite celebration was presenting a puppet show of Stone Soup at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving Day.
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on October 29th, 2009
The Power of Language
My course in Milwaukee was wonderful, such a fabulous group of teachers! They had in-depth thoughts and questions, and observations which made the time all the richer. It simply amazes me how important the Mother is in the child development equation. 3/4 of the human brain is developed in the first year. When we add imagination and warmth to our storytelling voices, we literally help build stronger pathways to the speech centers of the brain....home to 'understanding' and certainly future powers of creative thought. Support the pregnant mothers you know... get them excited about nursery rhymes, lullabyes, and sweet melodic verse and song. The beings behind language are waiting for us to celebrate!
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on October 29th, 2009
Speech Development in Children and Story Arts
I leave Wed. Oct. 21st for Milwaukee to teach a course in the Lifeways Early Childhood Training there. My part is open to all. The way speech and language arise in the child from the womb on is simply amazing and fascinating. We will look at the forming of the consonant and the vowel, and where the spiritual sources for these are. How do we support the most awesome process of acquiring language? One way is through the use of nursery rhymes and stories where the consonant is supreme. Our own story language quality, the alliteration, the clarity, the wonder, the repetition, and the intention all play a part in the support of the child's speech forming. What ...
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on October 19th, 2009
Kids Saving the Rainforest
Today is the annual Blog Action Day '09 focusing this year on Climate Change. In keeping with my interest in the world and Puppets for World Change work, I found a really amazing non-profit group called Kids Saving the Rain Forest, initiated by a teenager and her mom. It sparked an idea for a children's story as I read about it....all about how simple it is to love the earth and help the dear Mother Earth to keep it healthy. I have been working on a book on Mother Earth Puppet Tales....the Greening of Story......I will add this story to that. check out the links!!! http://www.kidssavingtherainforest.org/news.html http://www.blogactionday.org/about/en
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on October 15th, 2009
Puppets for World Change
I have been interested in the use of puppets for social change for 20 years. I had an Aha moment when I experienced Puppets Against Aids, an Oxfam sponsored puppet initiative on tour in Canada. Since then I started different projects....Puppets for World Change, Kids and Puppets Against Hunger, Puppets for Peace, PuppetAid.... urging others to lift their thinking about puppetry to include, not just the joy and healing of puppet arts, but of how to use the work to do good in the world. Here is the information about a visionary puppeteer who started Puppets Against Aids and many other social puppet works. http://www.africanpuppet.com/educmenu1.html
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on October 13th, 2009
Puppets and Opera
I have had the joy of training a few opera singers to use puppetry in their work. I have seen a puppet opera at the Goetheanum on the big stage in Dornach Switzerland...that was Baba Yaga, with full orchestra and soloists...amazing stuff. Now my friend Dolores Dauenhauer in Seattle is working on another puppet opera. I wish I could go experience it even if it is a 'work in progress' as she points out on her flyer...I always feel I am a work in progress too. If any of you get a chance to see it drop me a note and tell me about it. I am hoping for a photo dolores!!!! Song is a valuable friend of puppetry, as it is a kind of elevated speech...lofty and connects us to the spiritual more directly....Powerful when it is an opera trained voice....not for young children ...
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on October 10th, 2009
Giant Puppets Celebrating Unity in Germany
I found this interesting news about the celebration of the unification of germany....and the Wall going down.....using these enormous and very articulated puppets...the one in front told a story and was sleeping and waking up....From a country that oozes fairy tales and has a huge old puppet tradition, I found this quite cool....lots of $$ supporting puppetry in that town.
continue readeingPosted by Suzanne, on October 3rd, 2009
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