Author: Regina Reiter

When I left the Waldorf School of Atlanta, believing that I had no choice but to resign from my position of Class Teacher of Grade One, I was devastated! My self-esteem plummeted to the floor, and I doubted that I could ever teach again! Thanks for my sister-in-law, Deborah, a door opened to a new possibility.

“You could talk with Deron Davis over at Dunwoody Nature Center. He’s the director there, and probably could use teachers who love the outdoors,”  she suggested when I shared my plight with her.  I set a time to meet him within a week. He, indeed, was delighted to meet me, and practically gave me a job that same day! “I definitely need someone who could take this idea I have and run with it.” He took me over to Brook Run Park, which the County had just purchased, and showed me a musty building with a beautiful deck that overlooked a dense forest. “I’m trying to get this area to use as a demonstration of Outdoor Education. I need a lead teacher, someone who can create a program over here for the summer.” read more

 One of the ironies of my life was that when I lived in Evansville, IN I found little connection with other parents in the homeschool community. I resigned to enrolling my children in the public school and got involved there the best I could. While they went to school, I studied to become a Waldorf school teacher, dreaming of having my children at a school where I resonated with the education and my friends were the faculty.

I landed a job in the Waldorf School of Atlanta, Georgia, fulfilling that dream, when the boys were almost finished with their schooling! David was in 11^th grade, Adam in 7^th, and Simon in 5^th. The dream, however, turned into a nightmare, and Adam and Simon stayed in the school just one year. David endured a year at the local high school where he was in a 2% racial minority. read more

Eleanor Winship called me. “Would you please come interview at the Atlanta Waldorf School?”

That was late May, 1999.

In February, 2000, she stood in my first grade classroom, saying, “I have called my friend to see if he could come take your class, to make it easy for you to get out of this.”

In between those two statements, marking the beginning and the end of my welcome with the Waldorf School of Atlanta, Eleanor played many cards in the game that was my life with the school. Although I was not aware of it at the time,  I am deeply grateful for being introduced to the idea that we are spiritual beings having a human experience and that relationships are the medium in which our soul’s mission is dabbled. read more

LaVonne Sheets and Van James taught me how to use the properties of light, dark, and color to awaken my heart and reveal my soul and what wanted to be expressed.

I  met LaVonne through the Waldorf School of Louisville initiative. Her painting classes looked so inviting that I drove all the way to Louisville and back weekly for a six-week session. For the first time, I experienced light as a phenomenon that dispelled darkness and then fell either behind or in front of the darkness which was created by forms. How fascinating! read more

What a blessing to be a contribution. I had a very strong belief that what I had to offer would not be useful to anyone.  I didn’t think I could create my own program or school for my children. I believed that I had to join one that already existed. When we moved to Evansville, I had just heard about a school that sounded wonderful – Waldorf School. John found out that Becky Trela had a Waldorf daycare in New Harmony, 35 miles from our home.

I could take Adam there! Once a week, she had a playgroup, so I’d drive there and join in. I have no recollection that Adam had a good time, in fact, he may have already been too old for the program, so I just went on my own, first pregnant, and then with Simon. Actually, I don’t remember when I found out about Becky’s school, but it seems that it was right away. read more

It’s easy to start feeling unworthy and that I haven’t done enough when I remember Calvin and Nelia Kimbrough, founders of the Patchwork Central Ministry in Evansville, Indiana.

When I think of them, I think of people who have been willing to do what their hearts want, to be clear on a mission and live it out, to be proud of what they do and how they do it to carry it out for decades, for their entire life time.

I know them from two places where they have done the same thing for decades, create rituals and celebrations, create art and photos and take a stand for poor people. read more

I could get most of my groceries in one monthly trip while living in Evansville, Indiana from 1988-2000. That’s because I was a member and coordinator of The Quality Buying Club, a group of five to a few dozen women and men who pooled monthly bulk orders and received delivery together from the Federation of Ohio River Co-ops (F.O.R.C.)

I could buy pretty much everything we ate from the Co-op except fresh vegetables, which John and I would buy at Schnuck’s, a four-mile bike ride away. We had a bike trailer called a Bugger that could haul up to 100 lbs of kids or stuff. Evansville was laid out in a grid of straight streets, allowing us to ride side streets.  Often, we could leave our car parked in our driveway for a week at a time and still get everywhere we wanted to go. The monthly trips to the Patchwork Central Ministry where the buying club met would be my main use of the car to get groceries. read more

“We need to get this baby out now. OK. Regina, I need you to push.” Kate’s knowledge and her calming sureness, saved Adam’s life, I believe. She was there for my second homebirth, the day after Fourth of July in Metro Washington, D.C. “It’s great that he waited until today. Yesterday, I would not have been able to get here with all the holiday traffic.”

Adam, who didn’t get his name until his third day out of the womb, was arriving fast.  Three hours before, I was in a swimming pool feeling mild contractions, but enjoying how the water was relaxing me.  I probably lingered too long because by the time I got home and realized that my baby was being born that day, my calls to the midwife, Kate, and assistant, Julie, didn’t give them much time to get there.  And when they did, the birth was well underway. read more

“You can do this. It’s not that hard to install a window.”

I’m grateful, today, that Larry Niemiec opened that window in my life! He was right too, as Larry generally is about construction because that’s his mastery. In fact, he managed the construction one of the skyscrapers in Atlanta, Georgia! What a blessing it was for me to have his friendship when my new husband and I had moved in to an old house.

We thought it would only need touching up and redecorating. We were wrong about that! When we scraped the wallpaper off the dining room wall, the plaster fell off with it. Once the plaster was off, Larry, and other “rehabbers” in Covington, KY, advised us to remove the wooden lath as well. With the lath removed, it was logical to install insulation. And with the walls reduced to studs, it made sense to relocate and update the windows…… and move walls for better traffic flow………….. and rewire the house……………… and update the plumbing. read more