Speaking of the Spirit

In our class, we often speak of spiritual matters. Whenever we explore a country and its culture, we learn about one of the primary religions of that country. In our biome materials, there is a set of cards that depicts how indigenous people of that biome satisfy their human needs. One of those needs is for spiritual experience. For the uninitiated, a biome is a large geographical region of the earth with a particular soil and climate and the flora and fauna that live there are well-suited to the biome. The biomes are: oceans, mountains, deserts, wetlands, grasslands, polar regions and temperate and tropical forests. The biomes, though very different, all share the same parts. They all have soil, water, air, flora, fauna and energy. The energy all comes from the sun, nourishes the plants, which nourish the animals who eat them, who nourish the larger animals who eat them. Then the plants and animals die and the energy makes its way into the soil, where it nourishes the plants again. The cycle continues and the energy itself never dies.

Right now we are studying Brazil, so we have been learning about the Yanomami of the tropical forests of South America. Their spiritual needs are partially satisfied by visiting other tribes, dressing to the nines in body paint, feathers and flowers and performing the Dance of Presentation for their hosts. Then they spend the night. We have also been learning about Catholicism, as that is the dominant religion of Brazil. We know about the practice of giving something up for 40 days to observe Lent. When we studied Egypt we talked about fasting from sunup to sundown during Ramadan and we have made the connection that many religions have some aspect of sacrifice.

Two of our kids, Ben and Clare, have a wonderful dog, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, named Guinness, who is their parents' firstborn. Guinness is a beloved family member who is plagued now by kidney failure and the children understand that Guinness will one day die. The other day at group, Clare, the older of the two kids, told us that her family had been stargazing the previous night (we also study constellations) and they had found Orion and the Dog Star. "Maybe when Guinness dies, his spirit will go up to the Dog Star!" Clare said quite cheerily. "Oh! Maybe whenever you see the Dog Star, you will think of Guinness," I replied. She nodded her assent.

At another group, shortly thereafter, I was telling the kids how my sister, who is very spiritual, but not Catholic, was giving up complaining about her husband for Lent. I told them I thought that this was a terrific experiment because not only has it done not a speck of good for my sister to complain, but it would be interesting to see what happens when she gives this up for 40 days. "Where will all that energy go?" I wondered aloud. Another little boy, Jude, who is 3 (and 3/4, he would want you to know) who had recently had the lesson about the parts of the biomes, said,
"Maybe the energy will go up to the sun!" When we study the energy cycle, there is no part that returns the solar energy up to the sun, but you have to admire the kid's logic.

People regularly ask us if Montessori has a religious perspective and for us, it does not, but I feel privileged to converse with the children about matters of the spirit and aspects of our lives that are unseen. I think such discussions prompt more questions than they do answers and and they entice the children to wonder. And isn't that wonderful?