Sivdnidit – a blessing

The Sami have their blessing tradition: sivdnidit. Can we learn to interact with nature and each other with such an inner attitude of blessing? For me, it’s about the way to become more human on earth, to expand the inner, deep connection to ourselves, each other and everything that lives and is. Can we learn to interact with nature and each other with such an inner attitude of blessing? For me, it’s about the way to become more human on earth, to expand the inner, deep connection to ourselves, each other and everything that lives and is.

On this path, my meeting with Finnmark has been important; the kindergarten in Tromsø and later the kindergarten in Langfjordbotn. It was almost 3 wonderful years with the little Waldorf kindergarten in Langfjordbotn. The adventure there was an exciting experience and an encounter with the northern Norwegian, including the native people: Kven and Sami.

The adventure in Langfjordbotn has come to a close but not my engagement in the for north! The Waldorfkindergarten in Tromsø is blossoming, and even further up, in the very north east tip of Norway, a new project is taking shape: The culture house in Vardø is now starting up its activities as a cultural center with many exciting projects. In my heart, however, it is the development of pedagogy through an inspired encounter between the Sami and the anthroposophical that works most deeply. Now my hands are freer to work on the development of a pedagogy that incorporates the Sami understanding of nature and people.

At the other end of the country, as the new principal at Kongsberg Steinerskole, I am involved in the development of an equally exciting project: children and farm. Throughout my working life this has been important to me; how to strengthen the connection between child and nature, our connection to the Earth and the living. Now I experience it as a gift that I get to help build a stone school on a living farm, with a curriculum for the children from kindergarten and throughout the school year.

In the outer world, my two workplaces are almost 2000 km apart. In the reality of my heart, they belong closely together, indeed they are one. It is not just about learning to work with the soil and the animals or being out in the woods and fields; it is about an inner attitude, a deeper connection to being human, to the vital energy and the living Earth. There is a bliss in this, a blessing for a human being in feeling enveloped and trustingly playful and alive.
Sivdnidit!