All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.
I read this statement in an Waldorf inspired article about children’s art recently. I believe it was actually the title of a book the author referenced. My memory alludes me of the details. I’m tempted to go and get the article so I can cross reference it, and be a little more accurate with what I am attempting to convey.
But this isn’t that kind of writing. I’m not writing to inform. I’m not writing to be accurate.
I’m writing like a kindergartener would write. Unbound.
My memory and my interpretation integrated the article something like this: Before seven, before the ego is earthed in, children don’t see their art as an outcome. They don’t even see the whole piece. In their purity, they see the processes and the experiences and the components that to an adult appear to make the art whole and complete.
We are so quick as adults to ask the children - what is it?
Or worse, tell them. Oh what a lovely horse!
It’s not a horse, mum.
I’ve drawn strength (legs), embodiment (body), emotions (face), groundedness (hooves), adventure (actions)…
And besides it’s a rainbow dragon, not a horse. Obviously.
My mother recently reflected to me that she saw that I am becoming more like the person, the child, that I was when I was young. That she remembers, from when I was little. When I was unfettered.
I thought that to be a profound compliment. I’m making my way home.
I drifted so far from my Self and my Source, once the ego took force after 7 years old. All I could focus on was everything out there. What a delight the world had to offer. The experiences. The opportunities. The material truth.
The inner didn’t really exist for me for a long time. Not in my consciousness anyway. Just the facts. I only saw one version of reality, that was confirmed by external validation.
I pecked like Skinner’s pigeon.
I never created art like my mum, who was an artist. Or my cousin, who also had that same left-handed flair. I created art differently. It was a bit more “precise”. I didn’t understand that different was okay. And precise was just part of my style at in that period of my development. Despite many art gallery visits, artistic experiences and an exposure to art as a child, I was still raised in a world, far beyond my home, where there are right answers and wrong answers. The world of facts. So as a child I subconsciously decided there was right art, and wrong art. And mine was never quite right. My art wasn’t “creative” enough.
So I channelled my creativity into other things. Into success in the world of facts. Into the world of science, discovery and innovation. Dipping my toes out of the world of right and wrong answers occasionally… into understanding complexity and systems and psychology.
Apparently it’s common for people’s drawing abilities to stay at the same level as their seven year old self.
Oomph. I get it.
I always reflect on that when I try to draw a person for my children. I resort to drawing the same type of disproportionately thick-necked, broad-shouldered, fluid-limbed person, probably the same one I drew when I was seven, every time.
In the Steiner belief, post-kindergarten age is the time of our life where our ego truly takes hold.
I remember one of the exact paintings when I decided my art was not good enough. I vividly remember what my cousin painted… that was better. It’s no coincidence that these moments stick so profoundly in our memory.
I also remember the turning point, when I was pregnant with my first, and I was given an imperfectly round willow bark ring to make a dreamcatcher. I was triggered by the asymmetry. But I leant into it and created with freedom, and today it’s one of my “pieces” that brings me the most joy.
These days, I am learning to draw and paint again.
Rather, I am unlearning, so I can draw and paint again.
I’m also unlearning, so I can sing again. Like my ancestors.
And dance.
And write.
Which for the most part feels liberating and fun.
But what’s not really that fun is the realisation of all the other things I prioritise over creating art for arts sake. The total lack of value of I’ve placed on this crucial aspect of life and being alive. One of the most important threads in the weave of all cultures since our the beginning of our existence.
And how hard it can be for me to choose real over artificial.
Huh. It’s hard to read my own words sometimes.
Last week, I launched a new app, a new project I’ve been excited to birth. When I started birthing this project I was in a Deep Flow state. It was birthed off the back of a very stripped-back kind of week. The kind of week where creativity can be born because of the nothingness in your being. There is enough space. A transcended state.
By the end of the birthing process I was depleted, anxious, incredibly self-critical and sort of angry.
At some point in the process, my state of being changed.
I became focussed on the outcome, and then the next outcome, and then the next one… Finishing this task, achieving this goal, meeting this deadline.
Then there it was. The realisation I had lost the purity of simply being enthralled with the process.
I had stepped right out of my untainted kindergarten inspired art, and into the density of the conditioned mind and the adult world of expectations.
When I was searching for the recalibration I needed, I was reminded of this quote — all I really need to know I learned in kindergarten. I haven’t read this book, and it’s probably about something entirely different to my reflections here. But these words speak to me, and I get them with all my being.
When I look at my children and I witness their joy and wonder and unchained emotional expression, I witness their absorption in the process of life, their ability to be in a state of flow through play… I am reflected my own Truth.
I feel compelled to wrap this post up with some kind of moral or personal development opportunity. The habit of trying to motivate the reader is strong and ingrained within me. Motivation to sell, buy, act, grow, take action, become empowered. To give tangible and practical examples of what I did to heal these wounds, in this moment, and how you can too. You’re too familiar with that kind of email, I’m sure.
But these musings are only Truths, my truths, of the moment. Nothing more. Art for arts sake.
The whole purpose of Stories of Sunyata is exactly that.
xx