Mayfair at Emerson College

The Emerson College sign pokes out of a tree lined drive way as we drive into Forest Row.  I have been up it a few times.  Views of biodynamic farming plots peep through the drive up to the parking lots.  Women in long skirts.  Men with beards.  Lots and lots of children.  The smell of the ground as we parked in the meadow made me feel like I was home.  One thing I love about going to every Steiner related function I have been to so far is how you are greeted with smiles.  The culture where I live doesn't offer smiles first.  If you smile, people will often smile back, but I don't remember the last time I was smiled at by a stranger.  When I stepped inside the main building at Emerson College, a woman walked by dinging an art piece bell.  A man followed her smiling with his children and through the front door a family waked in and each of them smiled fully at me.  It filled my heart.  There were people from all walks of life.  Face painting under a huge weeping willow, clay sculpting, a maypole, storytelling, and music.  It was so beautiful.  We were with friends who are expecting their first child in a little over a month and to be able to be surrounded by the energy of young children who are being raised in a way that I hold dear was something I was really happy to share. 

Both Dan and I would love to study at Emerson College.  It has a lot to offer and is a cornerstone (with rounded edges) to the Steiner community in the area. 

From the Emerson College website

Emerson College is an Adult Education school based on Rudolf Steiner's insights. It was founded in 1962 and has trained and transformed thousands of students from all around the world towards being wholesome and free human beings.

The College is at the heart of a new initiative called Emerson Trust which aims to respond to the needs of our times by inviting new initiatives, and working with the local and global communities in the fields of research, healing, community, housing and more generally, social renewal. 

Students from the UK and from many countries overseas are studying in several domains: biodynamic agriculture, storytelling, visual arts and sculpture, the new foundation year in anthroposophy through the visual arts, biographical counselling, and more.