Anthroposophy in Hawkes Bay
Rudolf Steiner Centre, 401 Whitehead Road, Hastings
Events in brief for your diary
Friday 17 July to Sunday 2 August 2026
- MONDAYS 20, 27 July 7 pm. Conversations on the Christmas 1923 FOUNDATION STONE**
- Friday 24 July, 7 to 8:30 pm. Friday Conversation Group meets in the Library. Study text is Christianity as Mystical Fact* 3rd edition. Chap 3 p39.
- Saturday 25 July, 2 pm. Anthroposophy Hawke's Bay AGM.
Approving a new Constitution. - Saturday 25 July, from 3:30 pm (after AGM) to 5 pm. Talking, Listening, Caring. Invitation
Later in the year:
- First Saturday of every month, from 9:30 am. School of Spiritual Science. 1 August; 5 September; 3 October; 7 November; 5 December.
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Martina Bacchus
On Thursday 16th July in the afternoon, Martina passed peacefully after a long illness, surrounded by her four children, Oliver, Laurence, Sebastian and Sabina.
Funeral will be on Monday 20th at 10 am at "Rangimarie", 617 Heretaunga Street East, Hastings.
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Charitable donation Receipts for IRD tax relief.
In early April, as Treasurer, I sent out (so I thought) official receipts to all those who made donations. The letters were created, but Outlook failed to send them, as I discovered when people started enquiring where their letter was. A few days ago I repeated the exercise, so I trust a Receipt has reached everyone. When applying for a tax refund, you will need to know that our IRD# is 101-435-873.
If you still have not received your Receipt, please email me at robin@bacchus.co.nz
If the reason you did not receive a receipt was an oversight on your part, we would still love to receive a contribution to 38-2016-0511420-00.
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Arithmetic Musings #16
Metamorphosis in the Waldorf Maths Curriculum reflects the growth of children.
Let us first look at the larger picture of our whole human life.
Using the Soul Forces in Mathematics:
creating and working with patterns and form;
counting discrete objects – determining quantity.
Writing numbers;
number operations [adding, subtracting, multiplying, etc.]; calculations.
Involving action, change.
rhythm and rhyme, the counting sequence,
relationships [equals =, larger >, smaller < than];
ordinal numbers – rank, position [first, second, etc.].
Involving judgment, comparison.
the character of number, choice of symbols, concepts, cognition;
qualitative aspects.
Involving imagination, picturing.
Math in Lower School
– first stage
Analysis - from whole to parts; awakening to the world;
from the basket to the apples; from the forest to the trees.
Building and changing patterns and shapes (form drawing).
Counting in whole numbers (discrete); up and down.
Expansion and contraction.
Creating a number system – what do you need?
Four operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division.
– second stage
Between nine and twelve: engaging feelings – experiencing RELATIONSHIPS; becoming aware of one's inner self that no one else can see.
Inner - outer; measurement – relating self to the world by measuring it against oneself or in terms of human activities or occupations. The basic quantities first measured were Length, Time, and Mass. [Head, Heart, Hand]
These quantities are continuous rather than "discrete" or 'exact'. The whole process of measurement is more analytical than synthetic.
<<Qualities such as energy and momentum, velocity and acceleration; sound and light intensity, magnetic and electric field intensity, and so on, only came to be considered after the Copernican Revolution at the beginning of the 5th Post-Atlantean period in the 15th Century.>>
Our Eyes in our Head see distance, the beginning and the end of an object: inch (thumb), hand [4], foot [12], yard [36]. fathom [2*36]. A mile came from 1,000 [mille] Roman marching steps (left-right) marked along roads of the Roman Empire, as milestones (did they rest every mile??)
Our Heart in our chest-body beats with rhythm (about every second), experiencing Time: second, minute [60], hour [60*60], day [24*60*60], etc.
Our Muscles in our Limbs (arms & legs) experience the inertia/weight of objects we move (actually accelerate): ounce, pound (lb) [16], stone [14*16] - I don't know if this was actually a mill-stone of fairy stories. {a sack (cwt) was 8 stones (about 50kg); a ton was 20 sacks} For tiny weights, grains of wheat/grain were used.
Measurement serves as a practical introduction to fractions - mostly not decimal fractions!
Factors: creating larger numbers from Primes by multiplying is more synthetic; whereas, finding the factors of a large number is an analytic process.
A million minus one = 1,000,000 - 1 = 999,999 = 3*333,333 = 3*3*111,111 = 3*3*3*37,037 = 3*3*3*7*5,291 = 3*3*3*7*11*481 = 3*3*3*7*11*13*37 {seven Prime factors} [ missing are 2, 5, 17, 19]
When I see '37', I wonder how did that get there? In Celsius, it is the healthy, internal temperature of the human body, of our blood ! !! Celsius 0°C for transition from frozen ice forming a cap over ponds, lakes and rivers protecting the aquatic therein from being frozen solid to the flowing water; and 100°C for transition from boiling water to powerful, venting steam that powered the great engines of the Industrial Revolution and the steam trains traversed Europe of that time.
It divides that space close to the Golden Ratio.
There are many mysteries in this world.
Multiplication of large numbers - becoming familiar with several algorithms {set of instructions} for multiplication, like that of Scottish Laird John Napier (inventor of logarithms); and one for the reverse process of long division. (topic for a further musing)
Rich, poor, prime and perfect - the four number temperaments.
Proportion, ratio, fraction, decimal.
Geometry of circles and polygons - dividing a circle first into 6 equal sectors, then into all portions up to 8.
3rd stage:
From twelve to fourteen: Puberty: experiencing thinking as an individual -- COGNITION, knowing that you know.
Perspective drawing - seeing the World from a particular, individual viewpoint; and learning the LAWS of Perspective, which enable a 2-dimensional drawing to appear 3-dimensional.
Pythagoras’ theorem; Proof: How do I know? Many parallel proofs using a variety of methods, based on 4 basic geometric transformations [translation, rotation, reflection, and shear].
Algebra: Finding the mathematical processes hidden within problems.
Astronomy: Movements and rhythms of our universe – adopting different viewpoints. The Earth spinning on its own axis, creating our experience of day and night; the orbital dance of the Sun and Earth, creating the year and its seasons. The orbital dance of Earth and Moon giving us the 4-week month from New Moon to Full and back to New.
Exploring the 3-dimensionality of the 5 Platonic solids and the metamorphosis of form between them
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Over the next weeks, we will further some of the topics just mentioned here. If you have any comments or requests, please feel free to contact me. RB robin@bacchus.co.nz
Posted: Thu 16 Jul 2026