Toothiness

I learned today that Rudolph Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education, believed an individual's childhood could effectively (for intents and purposes) be divided up into three seven-year periods:

1. The first "physical" stage, in which the child exists very much in-body and adjusting still, ends upon the loss of baby teeth, or around seven.

2. At seven, academic learning can commence, a "spiritual" life commences, "the heart being a veritable vortex of forces and streaming currents (Steiner, n.d.)." In Waldorf, reading commences. This seems right to me. According to Lena's Waldorf-trained teacher, awareness of the world's danger also sets in (feeding the nightmares of fantasy?) and the internal wrestling with these occurs.

3. From ages 14 to 21, Steiner defines the "astral" body as taking over: "the bearer of instincts, drives, passions, desires, and of the ever-changing content of sensation and thought," organizing ego against the physical body, carrying joy and sorrow simultaneously.

(Though it seems to me that Steiner's quotes for both #2 and #3 seem similiar both in their poetry AND their implications...?)

***

I can only observe, at this point, the transition from the first to the second stage, and even then, just the stirrings. I am fascinated by the way E.'s physical and psychic selves seem to be shifting at once, calamitously. Last night, she had an awful nightmare--so bad, she said, that she could not tell me. Today she realized that her bottom tooth was suddenly taking on a wobbliness of huge proportions. Her first tooth to lose. What is being lost? What is changing before our eyes?

Oh, tooth fairy, oh magical beings, oh Fairy Una, oh creatures that protect this six year-old girl, come out and form a ring.