Two Contributions on the Second Core principle
- From the Point of View of Early Childhood, Holly Koteen-Soulé
- The Breathing Rhythms of Childhood Biography, Adam Blanning M.D.
From the Point of View of Early Childhood
Holly Koteen-Soulé
CP #2: Phases of Child Development: This process of embodiment has an archetypal sequence of approximately seven-year phases, and each child’s development is an individual expression of the archetype. Each phase has unique and characteristic physical, emotional, and cognitive dimensions.
What makes the four-year-old different from the ten-year-old, and what makes them both different from the seventeen-year-old? The Second Core Principle of Waldorf education recognizes the critical importance of understanding the universal patterns of child development from birth to age 21, as well as the distinct characteristics of the first, second, and third seven-year cycles in the life of the child and adolescent.
To understand the differences we need to refer to the fourfold human being as described by Rudolf Steiner. The fourfold human being is comprised of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I-organization. Although Steiner uses the word body in relation to the etheric and astral, he notes that these are actually “bodies” of forces, rather than material substances.1
Each of the first three bodies is connected with one of the seven-year periods of development and lends to that period and the developing child certain characteristic attributes.
Birth to Age 7
The physical body is born at the emergence of the baby from the womb and is preeminent during the child’s first seven years of growth and development. Just as the child’s physical body is emancipated from the womb of the mother, according to Steiner, the other bodies also have a birth or emancipation from their protective sheaths.2 The subsequent births of the finer bodies are as important for Waldorf education as the child’s physical birth.
From birth to around the age of seven, young children are working on and out of their physical natures. Sensory experiences and movement are the means by which they develop their physical capacities and explore the world. Endowed with immense will forces, they take in the world by active doing. Whatever they sense in their surrounding, they become and act out or imitate. They master the essential human capacities of walking, speaking, and thinking through imitating the adults in their environment. They think through doing and learn by imitation.
The etheric body works in conjunction with the physical body during these first seven years, bringing forming forces to the physical body and maintaining its organic life processes. Edmond Schoorel suggests that the etheric body has its “inner birth” at the time the physical body goes through its “outer birth,” in that the baby is able to maintain its own life processes separate from its mother.3 Approximately seven years later, when the child’s physical growth and development has reached a certain conclusion and fewer etheric forces are needed to form and maintain the physical body, the etheric body is born or emancipated from the physical body. A portion of the etheric forces is freed for new adventures. The eruption of the child’s permanent teeth can be seen as a sign of the conclusion of this phase of development.
Between 7 and 14
With the birth of the etheric body, some of the child’s formative life forces are now available for psychological rather than physiological activities—for instance, for the forming of concepts, memories, habits, and temperament. The physical body is still active in gathering sensory experiences, but now the child of this age can form and recall inner pictures of his or her own experiences. This allows the child to be ready for direct instruction and to receive guidance from the teacher as a beloved source of worldly knowledge and skills. During the first seven years, rhythm is brought to the life of the young child out of regular and repetitive rituals in its surrounding, as well as out of the etheric forces of the parent and early childhood teacher. In the second period, rhythm and repetition help grade school children begin to strengthen their own etheric bodies and habit life.
Experiences connected to lively pictures and a rich palette of feelings are the ones most readily received and recalled. During the first seven years, the feeling life was still under the sway of the bodily instincts, impulses, and desires. Now the yet “unborn” astral body is connecting with the newly-freed etheric forces and the feeling life is slowly awakening. Feelings can be strong, even extreme, and often come over the child like uncontrollable weather. The inner life of the teacher, along with her stories and artistic activities, nourish and bring order, sense, and consequence to the imagination and developing inner life of the child between 7 and 14.
Whereas the young child thinks by doing, the grade school child thinks through images and pictures. This is not yet the abstract thinking capacity that will develop later, but rather a sense for wholeness, for relationships, and for the deeper meaning of things that can arise from a well-developed feeling life and artistic practice.
Between 14 and 21
The outer birth of the astral body is heralded physically by the onset of puberty and the beginning of adolescence. The physical changes that signify the beginning of this period are readily recognizable. Was there also an “inner birth” of the astral body, as there was with the etheric body, and if so when did that occur? The moment when the young child, around the age of two or three years of age, begins to say “I” signals, according to Schoorel, the “inner birth” of the astral body.4
As an early childhood teacher, this awareness helped me greatly to understand the changes that I perceived in young children as they began to refer to themselves as an “I.” This event in the life of a young child signals the end of a unitary consciousness or oneness with everything and a beginning of the separation that is required for the human being to be reflective and to think. The interval between the inner and outer birth of the astral body is around ten or eleven years. The seed of self-consciousness and abstract thinking that is planted at three takes many years—indeed the whole of the development between 7 and 14—before it is ready to flower.
Rudolf Steiner speaks about this in his seminal talk on education, The Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science. In this lecture he says,
Thought must take hold in a living way in the children’s minds so that they first learn and then judge. What the intellect has to say about any matter should only be said when all the other faculties have spoken. Before then the intellect has only an intermediary part to play; its task is to comprehend what occurs and what is experienced in feeling, to receive it exactly as it is, not letting unripened judgment immediately come in and take over.5
During the final period of child develop-ment, the intellect and abstract thinking capacities come at last into the foreground. With the astral body emancipated from its protective sheath, the search for truth and a sense of self begin. The young person who is searching for his or her own truth cannot help but question the authority of adults and teachers. Reverence for the experience of one’s elders is quickly replaced with criticalness. This is the expression of strengthening intellectual capacities, which is already present to some degree between 12 and 14.
These three periods of child development are sometimes referred to as the era of will, the era of feeling, and the era of thinking. However, the beginning of each seven-year period is more strongly influenced by the will element, the middle by the feeling element, and the final third of each period by the thinking element. It is as if there is an echoing of the past development and foreshadowing of the future development in each period. Pars pro toto: In each part the whole is reflected.
Whereas the early years of adolescence are often marked by rebellion and dissolution, as young teenagers seek to find their own way and to develop their ability to think and make well founded judgments, idealism and excitement about possibilities that lie ahead characterize the latter years of the period from 14 to 21.
Archetypes and Not Norms
These developmental archetypes help us understand what we are observing in our students and inform the shaping and presenting of our lessons. The timing of developmental changes can vary widely among normally developing children, as can the individual means by which they express the changes that are taking place during a particular period of growth and maturation. Our knowledge of the archetypes should not blind us to seeing our individual students.
The Birth of the “I”
Around the age of 21, the fourth birth—the birth of the ego or “I”—takes place, crowning the journey of child development and giving the young adult the means by which to direct his or her own life path and further development. For Schoorel, the inner birth of “I” occurs at what is sometimes called the nine-year change.6 This represents a distinct shift during the second period of child development when—like the milestone of early childhood at three—the child experiences both the pain of separation and the enthusiasm for a newly-found independence.
The Higher Bodies as Teachers
Waldorf teachers are familiar with the advice given by Steiner that is often called “The Pedagogical Law.”7 Schoorel indicates that the sequential births of the four bodies are the physiological basis for this principle.8 In the process of development from birth to 21, the unborn members of the human constitution influence the development of the lower members, the next higher member having the strongest influence. The higher body, as yet unborn, works on the lower body that has been born already. Specifically, the unborn ether body, with the help of the environment, educates the physical body; the unborn astral body educates the ether body, and the unborn “I” educates the astral body. In each case, this occurs with the help of the environment, which includes parents and teachers.
This education is not, however, a one-way process. Schoorel speaks about the relation between the etheric and physical bodies during the period between birth and age 7 in this way:
The stronger the imprint that the ether body makes on the physical body, the more the ether body itself will change and the more easily it will liberate itself from the physical body.9
It makes sense that this principle would also hold true for the relation between the astral and the ether during the second seven-year cycle and the astral and the “I” during the third period.
For me, the recognition of the origin of “The Pedagogical Law” and its physiological basis is tremendously helpful in understanding more deeply the process of development during the first 21 years and the distinct characteristics of the three seven-year cycles. It also gives me a new picture of my role as a helper of the child’s own unborn members. Lastly, it underscores for me that the goal of our work is to support young human beings in their process of achieving self-determining independence.
Endnotes
1 Rudolf Steiner, The Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1965), pp.9–16. Steiner uses the German word Leib rather than Körper, both of which mean “body” in English. Körper is a cognate of a more physical organization (akin to the English “corpus” or even “corpse”), whereas Leib, as its sound suggests, is more akin to a living body. “A body of knowledge” is an example of how “body” can have a meaning closer to Leib than to Körper.
2 Ibid., pp.21–22.
3 Edmond Schoorel, The First Seven Years (Fair Oaks, CA: Rudolf Steiner College Press), p.25.
4 Ibid, p.26.
5 Op. cit., Steiner, p.26.
6 Op. cit., Schoorel, The First Seven Years (Fair Oaks, CA: Rudolf Steiner College Press), p.27.
7 Rudolf Steiner, Curative Education, leture 2 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1972).
8 Ibid., p.24.
9 Ibid., p.22.
A Contribution to the study of the Second Core Principle: The Breathing Rhythms of Childhood Biography
Adam Blanning M.D.
Outer experiences are most powerful when they resonate within. As human beings we are deeply influenced by those encounters which speak to a truth we already carry in our own inner world. We appreciate things much more deeply when we can live into both their inner and outer manifestation—a love song sounds so beautiful and inspiring when we are in love, a heartbreak song unsettlingly insightful even if you have heard the song a hundred times before. We do not, however, learn to love by listening to love songs. The capacity for loving develops first. We are sometimes fooled that things happen the other way around and told that we are really defined and shaped by the information given to us. Most of the world relies on that dynamic, as it seeks to flood us with information as though we were each a large vessel that will be shaped by the sweet wine poured in. We are all swayed by these outer prods and recommendations, but that is not the main developmental dynamic of human growth.
There is an antidote to this outer tide. It comes whenever our inner world makes an unprompted shift. Unprompted, that is, because it does not arise as a reaction to something from the outside. Instead of information coming to us from the outside and prompting us to react in either a positive or negative way the new experience actually starts deeply within and then gradually pushes its way out. It brings with it a strong need to re-evaluate all that is around us. We see things in a new way. This can feel disconcerting because particularly in adult biography it may feel as though there are no outer circumstances or changes asking for a change; all may be relatively stable in terms of relationships, work, home, or hobbies. But in spite of there being no outer logic we meet an inner “itchiness” that forces us to grow and reorient—convenient or not.
These inner-to-outer shifts follow a strong seven-year rhythm. Some of the earlier shifts are accompanied by prominent changes in outer growth such as the appearance of adult teeth at age six to seven, or the pubertal changes that lead up to the fourteenth year. Even when children are not physically changing in dramatic ways their inner world is rarely still. The inner life of a child is never truly stagnant; the child hardly has a chance to come to rest because every few years a new aspect of consciousness is being “birthed.” As teachers and parents we should seek to know and to anticipate the rhythms of these inner changes. For then they can then be supported and met, acknowledged with encouraging experiences of interaction, adventure, or curriculum. Like hearing a love song when you are first falling in love. When this “resonating” happens the child is reassured that the world is a good place. Such striving to meet and encourage children as they blossom into new capacity stands at the very heart of Waldorf education and its curriculum.
The rotating rhythms of childhood biography unfold through the differentiated activity of the four members of the human being. Each time a child begins to see the world with new eyes it is linked to a new capacity for experiencing oneself. These new capacities come from many small “births,” not just the main one we think of at the end of pregnancy. They relate not only to the physical body but also to new and differentiated activity of the etheric body, astral body and I. Each of these members is present at birth, but proceeds to make significant steps in independent activity and conscious capacity over the first twenty-one year of life. The progression of these multiple births is very helpfully laid out by Dr. Edmond Schoorel in his book: “The First Seven Years: Physiology of Childhood.” Dr. Schoorel describes how the development of each member needs to be described from two different aspects: first, in terms of how its activity becomes individualized (relating to an activity within the body, an “inner birth”), which is later followed by a further step through which those same forces become independent from the body and move into more conscious activity (an “outer birth,” very much analogous to moving from a stage of building organs to now using the organs). From Dr. Schoorel’s description we can understand that the physical body becomes individualized with the process of conception when a distinct physical structure is formed (a fertilized egg which within hours becomes a cluster of cells that grows into an embryo); then about nine months later the physical body becomes independent through the birthing process when it physically separates from the mother’s body. Conception gives a physical anchoring, a physically-perceptible hereditary basis for growth; then birth gives independent physical existence. Parallel steps of maturation can also be traced for the etheric, astral and I:
- The shifts for the etheric body are: first, the physical birth process, in which the etheric body becomes individualized and distinct from the mother’s etheric forces; and then the seventh year of life, when etheric forces are emancipated from their earlier task of growth and organ development and are now freed for activities of abstract thought and memory.
- For the astral body: the first birth comes in the third year (age 2-3, “the terrible two’s,”) when astral sensing and the emotional life awaken in a new way through the forces of sympathy and antipathy; then outwardly through adolescence (age 12-14), accompanied by physical changes of sexual maturation, when the feeling life opens to experience social cohesion and isolation, joy and sorrow, and artistic depth and sensitivity.
- For the I-being: the first birth comes in the ninth year (often referred to as the “Rubicon”), when there a strong realization of individual identity and a separateness from parents, teachers, siblings and friends; and then again in the twenty-first year, when experiences of true individual intention and morality dawn, often accompanied by a major step out into independent adult life, away from the family and community of origin.
We will now take these nodal points (conception, birth, 3rd year, 7th year, 9th year, 14th year, 21st year) and explore how the changing activity of the corresponding spiritual member relates to aspects of growth and awareness. We will begin with the processes of conception and birth as the dynamics of each of these processes can have an important influence on a child’s later experience.
Conception: With this step the physical body becomes distinct from the body of the mother and father, the very first step of individualization. Here begins the meeting of the hereditary stream (the physical body) and spiritual stream (the I and the astral body). All of the spiritual planning which has preceded this incarnation must now begin to reconcile itself to the physical body. The way in which the physical meeting of egg and sperm happens (the combining of two hereditary streams) can influence how accessible the hereditary body becomes for the incarnating individuality. For the physical body, really a model body that must be penetrated and transformed, needs to be developmentally broken in for a child to make good use of it and to feel at home. If the body somehow remains inaccessible it may impede entry into some aspects of life. As parents now often wait longer to have children and as fertilization processes can be manipulated in sophisticated ways it is worth considering this first “birthing” process and the dynamics involved.
Mechanically-facilitated conception processes, such as in-vitro fertilization or artificial insemination, remove the egg and sperm from the etheric sheaths of the mother’s body which may exaggerate the density and gravity of the hereditary body. Also, older ovum or sperm are known to increase the risk of birth defects and developmental challenges like autism which we can similarly relate to an inherently dense physicality (and relatively weakened etheric) which limits or slows the healthy transformation of the physical body. Activities that support and stimulate the transformation of the hereditary body—like sustained work, movement that makes the child red-faced and sweaty, dressing in layers to protect a child’s warmth, giving a child the space and time to really work through a fever or inflammation as well as approaching deeds and tasks with real enthusiasm—all allow a child to find the right pathway for meeting and changing this physical body.
It is really important that looking at the process of conception does not lead to any kind of judgement or quiet condemnation of a conception process. That has a cooling effect on our relationship to a child. We should not second-guess a child’s pathway in coming into the world. The priorities and dynamics at play are a wonder. But looking at this first individualization of the physical body can help us know what experiences might particularly nourish the child in later life.
Birth and Infancy: With the birth that comes at the end of pregnancy two different “births” actually happen: the physical body becomes independent (it’s second birth), while etheric forces are individualized (a first etheric birth).
The step of physical independence is quite clear. The first breath, followed by the cutting of the umbilical cord, mark major steps of physical separation from the mother. A child now suddenly has to breathe on her own, produce her own warmth, suck, swallow, pee and poop. All of this was previously done by the placenta as part of the mother’s body. Nutrition is admittedly not yet fully independent. A child needs breast milk and will not be able to truly nourish itself with food until quite some months later, but the specific physical bond to the mother has changed. Nutrition, as milk, does need to come to the child, but with this step of physical independence the milk could come from a different mother, or from formula. Nutrition is no longer linked specifically to the birth mother. This is an expression of the physical independence which was not possible during the pregnancy.
Etheric forces also become individualized with birth. The child now has her own etheric forces, evidenced by the way that a child can move to another family, or be adopted into a whole new set of conditions. She will carry these etheric forces with her for the rest of her life. This does not mean that the etheric forces of the mother or a new caretaker do not have an influence—the etheric forces of surrounding adults are indeed exceptionally important. The child will need to bathe in them for the next seven years. Parent’s etheric forces buffer the child, and offer formative activity to the child’s physical body. By being bathed in a parent’s etheric protective harbor, children up to the age of seven are able to live in a very imitative place, nourished by the rhythms, patterns and experiences brought by those who care for them.
The timing of this shift at the end of pregnancy is important for both the physical and etheric bodies, for the healthiest window for delivery comes when there has been enough growth that an infant can successfully switch from growing organs to using them. When a child is born quite early, parts of the body are required to abruptly become more physicalized. Organs which should still be in a developmental stage are forced to into functional use. This earlier-than-ideal transition accentuates a shift away from body-directed, unconscious etheric growth activity (think of building the eyes, versus now needing to use the eyes to see). The resulting prematurely physicalized organs may fall into a hardened state, which may make it more difficult to really penetrate and claim the organs completely later on. Prematurity may accentuate the physicality of early life.
Prematurity may also significantly impact the etheric body as physical independence comes before etheric forces are really ready to be fully individualized. This can result in an overall etheric depletion. That depletion is compounded by the required shift in etheric activity toward wakeful, sensing activity. We can therefore view prematurity as a kind of karmic, situational acceleration of etheric forces from growth to wakefulness; this makes protection of the child’s sensory life in the following years particularly important.
The transition from infancy to toddlerhood is marked by ever greater steps of physical strength and mobility, steps of self-contentment and steps of more independent nutrition, all related to a consolidation of the etheric forces that became independent at birth. Outwardly a child makes many physical strides learning to sit independently (6 months), crawl (9 months), stand (12 months), then walk and eventually run. Through a reciprocal inward gesture, sensing connection to the body grows through the pathways of touch, balance, and self-movement. Capacities for more independent calming and self-soothing are also an important part of these years, connected to a greater sense of own well-being. Digestion and nutrition also improve. Many of these steps act in concert as evidenced by the fact that the transition from nursing as the major means for nutrition, to the growth of teeth, to an interest in food, to the eventual ability to take in all types of food, follows much the same pathway as the capacity to calm oneself—whether it is learning to fall asleep without nursing, to recovering from the surprise of a fall, to learning to sleep in one’s own bed, to restfully going back to sleep after a middle-of-the-night awakening. The child is learning to move the body, to feel the body, to be at home in the body.
Age 2 -3 years: feeling and voicing a new experience of self. The third year of life marks an additional, big step on the pathway towards self-sensing as the astral body becomes individualized. Awareness of self comes to the fore in a new way because the astral body comes into new activity, with the possibility for sensing self and not-self. Sympathy and antipathy rush in, though still largely on a non-volitional level. These forces, which work now in the metabolism, will be later liberated into consciousness awareness (at puberty). The “terrible twos” can be recognized as a kind of little “adolescence” and may bring forward a variety of excessively astral, cramp-like experiences and behaviors, such as:
- temper tantrums, breath-holding spells
- aggressive behaviors like hitting, biting, yelling
- mood swings, new found likes and dislikes
These burgeoning forces of awareness are inevitably a little scary—for the shift in experience happens first, rises into the feeling life, and only through time and repeated experience starts to feel normal. In that in-between space there often arises a very real wish to go back, to return to when things were known and safe. Regressive behaviors—like having trouble falling asleep, or simultaneously pushing for independence while having inexplicable separation anxiety, are part of that process. Children at this age need to find space to healthily explore and express these emotions. Parents/caretakers need to not fall into the trap of aggressively shutting down this new life (by repeatedly scolding), yet not be fooled into thinking that this astral bubbling is the expression of a deep and varied feeling life (i.e. when a child says she does not want to wear a coat when it is cold outside, this is not a reasoned response, much more an exercise in antipathy). Good rhythms help a child settle these swinging astral forces into their own physiology, so that they can learn to feel: now it is time for eating, now for play, now for rest. Astral activity in the metabolism lends the possibility for this kind of rhythmic physiology.
The kindergarten years (3-5) serve as a time of consolidation for these astral forces in the child’s limbs and metabolism. Children now seek and enjoy more active cooperative play and activity. The astral forces that were so unsettled between two and three years now support a more robust metabolism, with the possibility to really use the body more and more capably. Stories settle very deeply into the child, as does festival life, with ever greater awareness that outer tales have inner truthfulness—i.e. that a child can successfully embody such qualities and deeds. Awareness of this maturation process comes as well, with the child realizing that there is a difference in age, that an almost six-year-old is “bigger and stronger” than a four- or a five-year-old.
Age 6-7 years: observing and remembering the world in a new way. at age six-and-a-half to seven years, etheric forces begin to be freed from their task of growth and organ formation. A portion of the etheric body now becomes independent, with forces available for new kinds of thinking and memory activity. New capacities for abstract thought come forward. Examples of this include the ability to understand jokes and puns—where very concrete thinking becomes more mobile. Up until this age a child may imitate the pattern of a joke (such as a “knock-knock” joke), simply by repeating the progression, then inserting some new word(s) at the end, then knowing that it is time to laugh. With liberated etheric, the sounds of a word can now move flexibly in consciousness so that it is possible to move back and forth between different meanings (like “lettuce” and “let us”). This shift happens gradually, though it is not uncommon for a child to suddenly understanding reading, when the capacity to understand abstract representations (letters) and their associated sounds becomes comprehensible.
This shift brings physical shifts as well, namely the first loss of baby teeth and the eruption of adult teeth. The proportions of the body also start to change—the head now relatively smaller as the limbs begin to grow at a faster rate.
This emancipation of etheric forces also influences the way a child interacts with the outside world. In many ways forces of growth and thought truly become the child’s own—he is less imitative. A child may hear full well what is said, but is less easily shepherded. The root experience of being physiologically connected to parents and caretakers, especially to the mother, also fades.
Access to these liberated etheric forces of thought and memory becomes easier and more practiced in the eighth year. This brings new possibilities for attention.
Nine-year change: feeling oneself as different. With nine years, the I becomes individualized. This is characterized by a strong experience of individuality, of truly being a single person, separate from parents, teachers, siblings. Superficially, it could seem like this is a repeat of the seven-year change, in that a significant step of independence is achieved; but this experience of self is really happening on a different level and has a distinct character. We can perhaps best capture the seven-year change as a child experiencing for the first time a capacity for comfortably functioning away from parents; the seven-year-old child learns to be comfortable and successful as a child among peers. Children after the seven-year-change no longer dependent on the adults around them the way that a young child does. They can be carried by the tides of activity that carry a whole class—not necessarily so imitative of the teacher as united with their peers.
The nine-year-change, in contrast, brings the experience of individual self: “I am my own person, I am a unique individuality” (and different from all my peers). I am different, not only from my parents, but from all other human beings. There is something unique about my experience. Children at this age start to realize the unique qualities (and also struggles and failings) of teachers, parents, and other caregivers who up until this point have been viewed with much broader admiration and a certain amount of blind acceptance. The darker aspects of individuality come more to the fore, along with the need to start finding an inner moral compass. Right and wrong can be felt inwardly in a new way—joys and challenges as well. Stronger friendships, based more strongly on individual qualities and interests emerge.
This step of individualization of the I is felt primarily as an inward experience. This is more a change of experience of self than a shifting experience of how one sees the outside world. Worries often come at this age, not so much because of outer awakening but from new inner perception. Fears of death, of separation, and of possible loss often arise.
The nine-year change is an interesting threshold, because at a certain level, a child’s comfort in the world becomes more directly dependent on her own inner resiliency and flexibility. For issues such as anxiety, or restlessness that results in continual disruptions and reassurance, the child must take an inner step. Up until this point it has been possible to work hard to shelter an anxious child from any outer experiences that could be worrisome or troubling. A child can still be carried and buffered by parents (especially to age seven). Between seven and nine those needs for extra reassurance or redirection can still generally be met—by the broader interest and activity of the class as a whole (who generally accept such behaviors without special consideration), and by some extra attention from the teacher or teacher’s assistant. But with the step of I-individualization, children begin to notice things. Classmates may become less tolerant. And with the child’s new awareness of self, there is no way to completely shield a child from experiencing isolation or loneliness.
There is a characteristic melancholy that often accompanies the nine-year change, but moving away from connection and dependence on the outside world can also be tremendously encouraging for the child. Now there can be the beginning of a new orientation, oriented towards one’s own destiny and future tasks in the world. Enthusiasm and encouragement go a long way towards meeting and welcoming this first expression of true individuality. For when the nine-year change finds healthy expression it provides an anchor for puberty and the adolescent years that follow.
Adolescence, 12-14 years: seeing and connecting to the outside world in new ways.
With the liberation of astral forces into consciousness, sympathy and antipathy now move towards the outside world. They are still busy accomplishing last steps of growth in the body, as evidenced by the physical changes of sexual maturation (breast development, widening of hips for girls, widening of shoulders for boys, voice change), and adult patterns of hair growth (pubic, under-arm, and facial hair). These mark some of the final orchestrations of physical growth by the astral body. As the astral body lives in opposites and contrasts—in light and dark, in sympathy and antipathy, in male and female—it is appropriate that at this stage bodies become more differentiated. The beginning of the menstrual cycles (menarche) marks an important shift, where astral forces begin to move rhythmically from physiology to consciousness, from an up-building, inward phase to a breaking-down, releasing phase. These changes come more quickly for girls than for boys, with an accompanying earlier release of these astral forces into the feeling life and into consciousness. For both boys and girls, shifting into a more adult awareness happens most healthily when it comes as a certain physiologic “ripeness” liberates forces from their activity in the body. Astral forces can, of course, be prematurely pulled out, just as etheric forces can be prematurely pulled out through an early push for intellectualization. In both situations the child is asked to understand and participate in something which has not yet been properly birthed. Early pushes toward adult dress, media and sexuality lead to an uneasy reliance on imitation—like a child who is trying to understand the humor of a pun before etheric forces for abstract thought have really been liberated. So too the challenges of entering adolescence, with its shifting experiences, when this particular threshold has become so confused.
The astral shifting that defines adolescence has become more complicated as the physical, emotional and social aspects of this change become less cohesive. It is increasingly common for the physical changes of sexual maturation to come at an earlier age (as early as nine), while true astral emotional and social maturation commonly comes later. In earlier times, when the astral, “group” soul aspect of social life and community was much more dominant, pubertal changes marked a true transition into adult life and readiness for marriage and childbearing. With the current developmental emphasis on individualization there is less predictability, though anecdotal observations suggest that Waldorf education may help allow astral forces to really complete their work in the body, with an accompanying delay in menarche. Then the transition into adolescence can be more comfortable and cohesive.
Adolescence generally is a time of loosening, then reforming. Metabolic activities become more autonomous and separate from the models and patterns of the adults around them—the proverbial rush of “hormones”—though the free-swings of astral activity go far beyond mood or sexuality. Instinctive knowledge about when to sleep, when to eat, what activities to prioritize, what feels boring, what is overstimulating, all gets lost for a period of time. These patterns lose their previous consistency because the astral forces that regulated them have appropriately become independent from the adults around them. A certain chaos ensues because the child must now learn how to guide his or her own physiology.
Social connection becomes paramount. Peer pressure gives form and influence to astral forces. It is now possible to be more deeply connected to friends, and alternatively more severely isolated from them, than at any previous time. Styles emerge, causes, passions, and new artistic sensibility. In adolescence, a child can be inspired to a pursuit of true excellence, or apathetically find no inspiration for joining the adult world. The need to strongly influence this dysregulated inner world tempts many adolescents to self-medicate uncomfortable sensations away, which is really accomplished by manipulating one’s own astral forces. This can be done through sensory-seeking behaviors (extreme sports, video games, etc.) and/or substance-seeking behaviors (caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, drugs). It can also be accomplished by manipulating physiologic connections to our feeling life: through food (with patterns such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge-eating), by finding physical markers and re-enforcements of boundary (tattoos, cutting), through sexuality (where physical affection/encounter may seek to remedy emotional trauma or vulnerability).
As a teenager makes his way through adolescence these liberated astral forces become more comfortable. The swings of emotion and connection are less volatile, the body a better known partner for giving expression to these forces. This settling is guided by the child’s (now teenager’s) I, which is still working inwardly, preparing the way for taking true hold of the helm at age twenty-one.
(One addition—which is not actually part of this repeated birthing process for the four members, but it is very helpful to know and recognize—the first moon node. This comes approximately every 18 years and seven months (repeating at ~37, 56, and 74 years), when the sun and moon cross paths in the same place in the heavens as when someone was first born. This repetition opens a window to a remembrance of the intention that first prompted one’s incarnation: questions like “how well does my life match what I am really supposed to be doing?” come forward. It brings the possibility for significant introspection and the potential for sober melancholy, but is often followed by the emergence of new courage and enthusiasm. In acts as a prelude to the greater step of I independence that comes with age 21, a kind of inner working of the I)
Age 20-21 (the twenty-first year): the “I” becomes independent. A shift is now possible not just away from the characteristics of the hereditary body (physical body) but also from the family and sometimes the culture (etheric body) of origin and from the social and emotional turmoil of adolescence (astral body). This step is in many ways the crowning achievement of childhood growth and development.
Where liberated etheric forces make abstract, body-free thought possible, and liberated astral forces make more refined social and artistic sensitivity possible, the liberation of I activity make more independent and original intention possible. Questions related to the best ways to meet one’s life task come to the fore (“what is my mission, my vocation?”) Moral sensing becomes more refined. Relationships shift as one is now better able to also sense the “I” of another human being. Experiences of the twenty-first year are different than the anxieties and insecurities of adolescence: the main task now relates to finding one’s own truth rather than the more adolescent focus on finding one’s place in relation to the outside world and social environment.
Development certainly continues beyond the twenty-first year. It carries a different flavor than the first three seven-year periods because adult development depends more on how we use and refine our capacities than on the process of birthing those capacities. The process of incarnation into the body reaches its fullest potential in the early thirties, with a turning point around the age of thirty-three; from that point on we actually begin to lift, to excarnate some of our capacities out from their bodily tasks and into a more body-free state. What feel like later steps of physical decline are—viewed from another side—simply a birthing away from the body and back towards the spirit, just as the process of conception and birth into the physical world is a kind of death away from the spiritual world. By breathing more and more into this developmental weaving we can appreciate that we are all moving, all constantly changing. What we do not see—that which has not yet met the body, that which lives unconsciously at work in the body, or that which has been released from the body—still represent essential aspects of our humanity. We are simply only able to see on one side of the mirror. Observation of these rhythms offers small but vital glimpses of the full process.