“ In a Golden Coach ” : An educational musical event about fullness of life

This article discusses a community musical event that took place in Winchester Cathedral on 17 November 2012. June Boyce-Tillman annually composes a participatory community music making event with a specific theme. One such event, In a Golden Coach, was designed for mass participation, in which school-children, dispersed instruments, an orchestra, solo singers, three community choirs and the cathedral organ participated. The central theme of the musical event was that the nature of the Queen’s vocation to serve people which can make her a role model for children. She lived a life that could be associated with fullness of life. Unstructured interviews with a group of pupils from two schools who participated in the performance, combined with an autoethnographic account of the composer’s intentions and aspirations, shed an interesting light on the role of musicking in the expression of spirituality. These two data sources are combined using grounded theory, and then applied to prominent concepts in the literature on spirituality particularly from Radboud University, Nijmegen. Finally, the expression of spirituality of performance is linked with the Aristotelian concept of eudaimonia, which is commonly translated as ‘wellbeing’ and can be related to fullness of life. The educational value of the musical event has moments that highlight fullness of life.


Prelude
It has been postulated that a community consists of members grouped around common cultural concerns, including social behaviour, beliefs, values, moral standards, economic status, habits, politics and so on (Bourdieu 1990).Throughout the history of many Western societies, diverse members of a community have come together on a Sunday to celebrate a Christian ritual of some kind.In both South Africa and the United Kingdom (UK) this habitual practice of common Christian concerns has been eroded severely in the last fifty or so years, arguably to the detriment of maintaining stable communities within these societies. 1Communities nowadays represent different spiritualities.
It is ... much more appropriate to speak of 'spiritualities' rather than spirituality in the singular.Christian spirituality differs from Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist [spiritualities] ...Many contemporary spiritualities have come into existence which are not defined by traditional religions but are secular or newly created (King, 2009:4).
It is almost impossible to define "spirituality".In a book edited by Hense, Jespers and Nissen (2014), called Present-Day Spiritualities, Hense (2014:1) makes it clear that "spirituality" is "a vague and indistinct category", although an increasing number of writers are making attempts in various disciplines and fields to offer definitions.Bender adds to this argument that "studying spirituality appears akin to shovelling fog" (Bender, 2010:182).
The urgent question underpinning this article is whether the arts -in this case music -can create such a necessary community for a short space of time, and whether this is in some way 'spiritual' -a term that will be debated at the end of the article.For the 1 "Contemporary Western people tend to define religion as a structure, organization, or institution.Those who speak of lively faith, holy connection, and finding God in the world or in their lives, often called themselves 'spiritual' instead" (Butler Bass, 2015:237).
moment it is sufficient to understand that a spiritual community consists of a group of people who do not share much culture in common.This community may be temporary, or come together just for a particular artistic event that initiates a community for a limited time -the duration of the event.This is the experiment underlying the musical event discussed throughout this article.
The musical event in question -In a Golden Coach -was set up in Winchester Cathedral, with an attempt to foster a sense of eudaimonia (wellbeing) in the participants.The article first draws on the intentions and aspirations of the composer -June Boyce-Tillmanautoethnographically. 2 It follows this up with a grounded theory analysis of unstructured interviews with a group of children involved in the community musical event, as well as additional non-participant observations by Hetta Potgieter.It finally draws these two strands of data together with a consideration of the current literature on spirituality.Because of the two methodologies involved, the first section of this paper uses a first-person narrative and the second part resorts to a third-person narrative for additional reflection and argument.

A spiritual musical event
There were three main intentions behind my musical event, In a Golden Coach (2012), held in Winchester Cathedral involving school children, community choirs, musicians from the university and a professional orchestra, the Southern Sinfonia.The first was to create a radically inclusive musical community of these various groups who would not normally be co-operating or even meeting together.Some of the musicians would be literate and others orate 3 musically, some young, some older, some professional and some amateur.The second intention was to create a spiritual event that would be acceptable both to people with an affiliation with an established faith who might describe themselves as spiritual and religious, as well as to those who would describe themselves as spiritual but not religious.
The third intention centred on the Queen's jubilee and her vocation.It concerned the nature of vocation, the finding of meaning -how we do it and what actions it involves.I will describe how these aims were fulfilled or at least attempted.

Radically inclusive community
The processes of setting up these inclusive musical performances are complex.When we do a big project of this kind, we have what are called twilight sessions, which means the teachers come together with me and the Hampshire music service leaders.We explain the project, we go through the music and we explain the practical bits of the project like the massed rehearsal; the timing at the cathedral and the coaches that will be needed.
The teachers can go back to their schools with some knowledge about what they have let themselves in [for].One of the teachers added: "There was no escape, you know.I don't read sheet music, I am not a pianist.I sing but … and I've got some kind of idea, but I'm not a qualified musician so it was very lucky that [the person from Hampshire Music Services] came in from the music service and she just spent an hour with the children, teaching them the songs and very gratefully left us a CD".Similar processes go on with the community choirs and the orchestra.Radical community involves considerable organisational skills.
2 "Ethnography is a design of inquiry coming from the anthropology and sociology in which the researcher studies the shared patterns of behaviors, language, and actions of an intact cultural group in a prolonged period of time" (Creswell 2009:14).From 1997 till 2016 June Boyce -Tillman's composed choir and orchestra compositions for communities (See Boyce-Tillman 2016 in bibliography).

3
The descriptors orate and literate a taken from the work of Walter Ong (1982).The word orate describes in this article musical traditions which do not use notation, whereas literate refers to those traditions which use notation.
I have also been concerned to break down the fourth wall between performers and audience and over the course of my pieces I have done this in a variety of ways like processions moving among them.It was the form of the Bach cantata that influenced me most.In these the congregation were expected to join in what were then well-known chorales as well as listen meditatively to the work of a choir and soloists and instrumentalists.But those pieces were for congregations with a shared belief system.My pieces always involve the audience singing; but here in the light of the varieties of spirituality one cannot assume a common belief system in the gathered group, even though the piece is performed in the cathedral.The audience included children's parents, people interested in the theme, cathedral attenders and so on.All make music together -musicking is another term used for these music activities. 4So the words are, in general, appropriate both to a more secular spirituality as well as a more religiously based one.There is a reference to heaven in the final verse but in a way that refers to the concept as inclusion: Jubilee sets us free!Make the thanksgiving song

Echo the praise of heaven
To which we all belong.
Rework the Wisdom theme today!
We hear God's call and we obey.
The whole work was based on a hymn that I had been commissioned to write for the Queen's jubilee.Both performers and audience sang this, the first verse of which is

Jubilee sets us free! Work for community;
Value diversity Held in a unity.

Act justly with respect today!
We hear God's call and we obey. 5  The first episode explored this in more detail using a song I had written in the Valley of the Gods in Colorado Springs -a sacred place for the indigenous people where forgiveness between them and the white American culture was achieved: Sing of a place, a sacred place, A space for me, and a space for you, Where nations meet and laugh and greet, A space for me, a space for you.

Sing of a place, a sacred place,
A space for me, a space for you, Where love is born and pain forgiven, A space for me, a space for you.
It celebrated a place where community was recreated.
4 "To make music is to part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing" (Small, 1998:9).

5
All the texts other than those referenced are attributed by June Boyce-Tillman.The text and music of "In a Golden Coach" are not published.

Spiritual inclusivity
Winchester Cathedral is a space where prayer has been valid for thousands of years (TS Eliot Little Gidding) 6 for a variety of peoples; many come now for a variety of purposes who would not subscribe to the creedal belief systems of Christianity.I was helped by a Deanthe very Rev. James Atwell -who had a vision of the cathedral as a space open to everyone regardless of belief.It has inspired much of my music -its spaces, its acoustics, and its long history.Scattering choirs around it fascinates me and gives amazing acoustic and dramatic effects.Over a period of time I have learned how to use it effectively and what will worklike slow-moving processions with candles or sounds and the sounds of crying from the earth coming from all directions.Some of these have been influenced by what happens in the liturgy in the cathedral.
For this work I used texts from spiritual sources including the Hebrew book of Micah and other religious texts and tunes from Hindu, Nigerian and Ghanaian sources.The notion of the peaceful meeting of the paradox of different belief systems was represented by these texts being sung around the cathedral by different children's groups.
I had worked hard at the hymn verses to make them appropriate for a mixed audience/ congregation.They would not offend people of a particular faith tradition, but also will be acceptable to those with no particular belief system.The tunes are straightforward and I taught them as part of the event, as they are likely to be unfamiliar.As religious attendance declines in the UK, few people have the experience of singing in a church acoustic and this event gives them that opportunity; for some this will be a spiritual experience.So the hymn text itself -which everyone was asked to sing -was deliberately open in its language, leaving people free to interpret it as they would.
The form of the whole piece was an attempt to create a space for a variety of spiritualities.
The figure of the dancing clown highlights the relationship between dance and religion, which is a chequered one, but the image of Jesus as Lord of the Dance appears first in the medieval carol: We hear God's call and we obey.
So it is only an oblique hidden reference to Jesus as the angel clown or Lord of the Dance; it could be construed also as a reference to a Hindu dancing god, or simply to the Morris dancer Will Kemp who danced from one end of England to the other to celebrate Queen Elizabeth I.I love English folk music and it gave me a chance to introduce Morris dance tunes with a small instrumental group separated from the chancel group.
The hymn was adapted so that sometimes it is the Jubilee that will set us free and sometimes Wisdom.These two words came from Jewish texts.The Jubilee year was the forty-ninth or fiftieth year described in Leviticus 25: 8-13 and would involve the freeing of slaves and prisoners, the forgiving of debts so that God's love could be clearly manifest.We do not know if it was ever carried out, but I thought it was a brilliant idea and one taken up by the Jubilee debt campaign at the Millennium.The notion that we might have tried it out in relation to the Queen's Jubilee seemed a good starting point for a vision of justice.Wisdom is used in a variety of ways in our culture.For those with a religious dimension to their thinking, it is a feminine part of the Divine, but for others, it is the ability to make informed choices.By using a word of this kind people are free to interpret it -make meaning -as they will.
So the work in a variety of ways used a less fixed set of words open to many interpretations and illustrating a variety of spiritualities.The music was intended to be approachable and uplifting.Roderick Dunnett (2012), critic of the Church Times wrote that "from the haunting opening with solo trumpet and horn ... this proved a work of joyous, vigorous impact: energetic, forceful, and varied".

Vocation and meaning
The piece celebrated the Queen's jubilee; but the Queen is used in it not as political figure but as one who had a clear vocation which she has embraced all her life.I am old enough to remember when as a young woman with a young family she was called back from a tour of Kenya on the sudden death of her father to take up her onerous task.In that sense she becomes more a role model than a constitutional figure.The context of the work was the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and reference is to her pursuit of this Wisdom in her vocation: Come celebrate our Queen today!She heard God's call and she obeyed.
Her vocation is contextualised through the use of a song from that period which gave the participants a sense of history by means of the very different sound of the popular music at the time: In a golden coach, there's a heart of gold

Driving through old London town
With the sweetest Queen the world's ever seen Wearing her golden crown.
One of the spiritual questions of our times is how we make meaning in our lives.I used the text from Micah 6:8 to see some of the ways in which it has been found -'to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly.'A distant choir sings this text at the opening.These I interpreted in several episodes.The second episode concerned having mercy on the damaged earth, with weeping sounds from all over the cathedral, while the nave choir sings

Hold the green:
As we travel on the earth, Hold the green you have seen, Leaving footprints from our birth, Hold the green you have seen, And we will walk gently for the holding of the green.
We are blowing with the trees, Hold the green you have seen We are flowing in the seas, Hold the green you have seen, And we will walk gently for the holding of the green.
During the performance one choir was processing through the Cathedral singing a round concerned with Gaian beings.This term was invented by the ecotheologian Anne Primavesi (2008) to link human and other-than-human worlds: Come, Gaian beings, we form the parts of earth In honouring and sharing we bring new life to birth.
Walking humbly was interpreted as working with the silent poor.The children's choir processed in pairs singing: Walk the road, walk the way, walk the suffering road.
Share the pain, walk the way, share the lonely road.
All the choirs joined in the pursuit of justice with: We can share a vision of a justice day, When all debts are cancelled and chains rolled away, When we all are equal underneath the sun, And we'll work together for this day to come.

The Children
But what did the school children who took part in an hour-long music production have to say? Unstructured interviews, lasting about half an hour, were conducted with groups of children from participating schools in groups of about six, as well as with their teachers.The ethical procedures, getting the permission of the parents, the head of the school, the teachers and the children, were in keeping with those in place in each individual school context.

The venue
Although many of the children lived no more than six kilometres from the cathedral, none had ever visited it before.One boy said: "Well, we saw pictures of the cathedral about a week before and we looked at a distance at it and it looked really like … just really amazing!"They were overawed by the sheer size of it: "We couldn't imagine that you could hear us 'cause we seemed so far away from everybody".The participants were clearly entranced by the cathedral space and its awe-inspiring character.The children and their teachers stated that they would like to go back to the cathedral for another concert, and would also like to hear other people sing there.Children clearly developed their musical understanding in the context of the cathedral.They all mentioned the initial effect on them of this enormous building's acoustics when they started singing.A girl recalled: "I was quite shocked because when we had to like sing, the words weren't really clearly like sometimes you couldn't hear it and because the church was so big, you couldn't hear it so you had to make your voice louder."Another boy remarked: "We were nervous about I'm building a Sukkah '…'cause we had to be like on time and we were behind and couldn't really hear well".

Feelings
Participation in the project clearly affected the children emotionally.In preparing for such a big event, they mentioned that they felt both nervous and excited: "A bit afraid 'cause I'm thinking, well this building is probably a thousand and a high hundred years old and I'm just about to walk into it and it's massive."Another girl commented: "I felt nervous and excited at the same time because I've … never sung and I knew I'd be singing ... in front of lots and lots of people"; while her friend commented: "No, the whole thing just felt like massive -at a point I just felt like it was going to come down on me".One girl proudly remarked: "My mom said that every time I performed always makes her cry ...And she says even though she could hear everybody, she said, she could hear me cause she know where my voice is cause I sing in front of her.One child said: "When the orchestra played and the drums ... vibrations ran through my body".

Meaning
The children understood the significance of the texts used.One child said: "I think we agreed on We can share a vision."Another child said: "I like the ... In a golden coach' the second line ... 'In a golden coach there's a heart of gold' which basically represents the Queen."Another girl said "I liked 'Jubilee sets us free'".Another boy remarked "You respect the Queen but also ... the songs …you can respect everyone ... so you don't always have to respect just one person."

Special moments
There were moments of transformation 8 in many of the participants' accounts.A boy says "it was just awesome to listen to the sounds ... there were the songs that we sang ... but they were carried away in this big cathedral ... [The scene] where we walked through the cathedral created a weird atmosphere.Another girl continued that it was really good to be chosen, while another shyly said, "I probably wouldn't have ever been in there ... So it was really fun"."It was quite a special opportunity for us to go" commented another girl.
"We looked at a distance at it and it looked really like … just really amazing".The Queen in person has an uplifting impact on the children and although she could not attend the event the idea that the performance was to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee pleased the children."I think that it was really good that we got to sing about the Queen ... I think someone came instead of the Queen but it was really good singing in front of her too even if it wasn't the Queen.I really enjoyed it".All children interviewed said they would like to be part of such events in future.To them it was a journey: travelling with a bus, be part of the performing groups and the experience of singing to other people.They were emotionally touched.The day of the interviews was rainy and windy.Their passionate conversations about singing and being one of a group of choirs that could reach the audience were stark in contrast with the picture we saw through the window.

Findings
Several themes crystallised from the interviews with a group of children.These themes will be linked to the literature for the sake of clarity.

Theme 1: Inclusive Community
Researchers of the Radboud University's Titus Brandsma Institute use various research methods to investigate spirituality in a project called "Spirituality Network for Education" (SPINE).This project started in 2001 and the initial idea was that there should be a book for students because of the shortage of suitable references on spirituality.Kees Waaijman 8 The word "transformation" is linked with different concepts, like spirituality, music, society, conflict, education, health, politics, culture, etc. Transformation is part of a process or a journey.
In the chapter "Music as agent in a transforming society" Delport (2006:80-87) discusses the South African education transformation and refers to several philosophers like Nussbaum who mentions the deep connections that music can make that help people to respond emotionally.
took this further.From this project Waaijman developed Spirituality International (SPIRIN), a digital encyclopaedia -"a living community of scholars and students" -that opens new avenues for debate (Huls, 2011:141-154)."The circle of spiritual knowledge (words, things, images, texts, histories, processes, professions, disciplines, theories) functions as a circle of learning for researchers, lecturers, students and professionals in the field of spirituality" (Waaijman, 2006).This encyclopaedia is multidisciplinary; it includes different subject fields and is multicultural, dealing with all cultures and religions.The main sections of the encyclopaedia are linked with various cross-connections and main sections are (Huls, 2011:142): Who is who -details about the members; SPIRIN Bibliography -Publications agreeing on a newly developed classification system.
SPIRIN Encyclopaedia -Digital bibliography in the field of spirituality; SPIRIN Education -An encyclopaedia should give an opportunity for learning.The cycle of learning (egkuklios paideia) links SPIRIN Education with SPIRIN Encyclopaedia."Every freeborn Greek should first enter this round of education before he learned a specific skill or got a function in public life" (Huls, 2011:144). 9 One important aspect of the cycle of learning In a Golden Coach was also to create a radically inclusive musical community; a multicultural approach about spirituality; and finding of meaning.Whilst the dimensions of spirituality may be describe with words such as "meaning", "transformation" and "connectedness", the modes (approaches) maybe an "experience" (involvement), "trait" (characteristic) or a "state" (ceremonial).Maureen Miner and her colleagues write: The modes of spirituality refer to the ways in which the dimensions of spirituality manifest themselves and include: spirituality experience (sensing meaning, transformation, and connectedness) a trait (seeking meaning, transformation, and connectedness), and as a state (attaining meaning, transformation and connectedness) (Miner et al., 2012:17, 18).
In the case of the musical event under discussion it became clear from the interviews that different ways of living were presented.A minority of the children indicated that they and their families sometimes attend religious occasions.The majority of them were not aware of Winchester cathedral and its traditions; in other words the children represented different types of spiritual approaches to belief.Hense (2014:5) defines two groups of believers: 1) Religious believers, who are of the opinion that the power which brings us fulfilment lies beyond us in external sources, and 2) secular believers who are convinced that these sources lie within us or with the world.
The second group of believers are often called spiritual but not religious.The possibilities of connectedness of diverse groups lead to seeking strategies that may achieve transformation -both cultural and personal -reflected in the children's accounts.
In a Golden Coach presents a possible place for the arts in this pattern of seek-search-attain.Music events give an opportunity to sing, listen, experience atmosphere and to take part actively."Children have a natural sensitivity and openness that allows them to hear the inner wisdom.Listening to intuition means noticing those subtle cues that we often tell 9 Potgieter, one of the authors, had an opportunity to do research at this institute from March to June 2014, and would like to thank Prof Jan van der Watt of Radboud University for the opportunity.
children not to pay attention to -a gut feeling, a vague discomfort, a fleeting idea" (Hart, 2003:43).
One way of exploring these patterns of spirituality further is to relate them to the practice of artists working with a spiritual intention (as we have done in this article, where the abstract theories emerge from the data using methods such as grounded theory).There is an increasing number of artists who see the arts as a way of transforming society, following Dewey in his 1934 text Art as Experience: What then does aesthetic experience mean for Dewey?Together with aspects of artistic doings and contextualism of this doing, the aesthetic aspect of experience means a qualitatively different, fulfilling and inherently meaningful mode of engagement in contrast to the mechanical, the fragmentary, the non-integrated and all other no meaningful forms of engagement (Westerlund, 2002:191).
The arts, especially music, have the potential to move people deeply."It can stir the emotions as nothing else, inspire people to the loftiest thoughts and sentiments, and bring them together in indissoluble bonds" (Van der Dungen, 2008: xv).Ruth Illman sees that the bringing together of fragmented parts of society needs "more than just intellectual tools.
We need to see the other, hear him/her call, and answer to him/her in a concrete way" (Illman, 2009:168).Her vision of the meeting of art and dialogue is that it can facilitate a "dialogue of souls", which can be an "incarnating encounter" (Illman, 2012:60).Artists open up new perspectives, give new meaning to the traditions passed on.Wuthnow (2001:139) mentions that although artists have usually not obtained formal theological training, "their stories capture the public's imagination and their songs and images stir the soul in ways that often rival the teachings of religious leaders".They are often in the position of 'edge walkers', prophetic of a new way of knowing.

Theme 2: Transformation
Artists' aspirations to reform or improve the world are often shared by educationalists.theorist 1920-1983).She describes these moments as follows: There is a great variety of spiritual states of one kind or another -ranged along a continuum and depending on context -some more controlled than others -a brief moment of day-dreaming or reverie in a busy day, intuitive initiations of a poem or a song, subliminal perception, an ability to dissociate from a boring situation to create a poem or plan a musical piece, a period of incubation in the creative process. 10 In their discourse authors refer to flourishing, eudaimonia, well-being and fullness of life.It was not the intention of the authors to discuss the philosophical differences that underpin these concepts.

Theme 3: Meaning and vocation -Seeking eudaimonia
In his mammoth study The Secular Age (2007) Charles Taylor discusses how, in pre-modern societies, God or some faith in a supernatural being was connected to the state or a political organisation, even in everyday life.But in the so-called Western cultures these public spaces have progressively been "emptied of God". 11The "West" appears to be constructing a secular world.But deep in the human spirit there is a desire to make meaning and many human beings appear to strive towards living a purposeful life.This desire could also be described as the intuition that every human being has.It should be kept in mind that "spiritual moments are direct, personal and often have the effect, if only for a moment, of waking us up and expanding our understanding of who we are and what our place is in the universe" (Hart 2003:8).Common worldview questions asked within this domain in Western cultures include the following: • Why do I live?
• What is my purpose on earth?
• What do I admire in other people? 12 In Taylor's thinking these are linked with an experiential quality that he calls "fullness of life".He argues it as follows: Somewhere, in some activity, or condition, lies a fullness, a richness; that is, in that place (activity or condition) life is fuller, richer, deeper, more worthwhile, more admirable, more what it should be.This is perhaps a place of power: we often experience this as deeply moving, as inspiring.Perhaps this sense of fullness is something we just catch glimpses of from afar off; we have the powerful intuition of what fullness would be were we to be in that condition, e.g. of peace or wholeness; or able to act on that level, of integrity or generosity or abandonment or selfforgetfulness.But sometimes there will be moments of experienced fullness, of joy and fulfilment, where we feel ourselves there (Taylor, 2007;5 our emphasis).
These special moments may be experienced in different ways and enhanced by various people.Co-operation between artists, teachers, lecturers, community leaders could be mutually enriching, and could help with the wider questions of meaning.Events in the wider world often cause a wide variety of people, from children to adults, to ask profound questions about the meaning and purpose of living.Wong (2012:12) refers to Victor Frankl (2006), who taught that 'meaning in life' is what every individual strives to discover.Frankl found that 'the will to meaning' is the key to living a worthy and fulfilling life, regardless of personal preferences and circumstances (Wong, 2012:12).

Postlude
The placing of In a Golden Coach in a religious space gives it a flavour closer to a religious spirituality.However, the responses of the children were more about the dimensions of the space and the feelings engendered, rather than the Christian narrative with all its image, which are on display in abundance in Winchester Cathedral.So despite its history, the space is able to embrace a variety of spiritualities; as such it becomes an open space -'a cathedral without a roof' (Potgieter, 2017:167-188).The following figure summarises the value of the arts in a musical event.
11 This analysis has been criticised by various scholars such as Bender (2010).
12 These questions are differently phrased by various authors.These are the so called "big" questions and address the way we live in the world (Hart, 2003:9).The interviews revealed that the spirituality of children was informed and enhanced by this community musicking event.The children's comments showed moments of awareness, ecstasy, wonder, awe, seeing the invisible, wisdom, happiness, emotions, and so on.It is hoped that this analysis of some of the elements that link spirituality and the arts will enable the creation of similar events to develop an experience of fullness of life.

Figure :
Figure:The value of the arts in a musical event It was picked up by Sydney Carter in his song Lord of the Dance of which the audience is asked to sing the last verse -it being familiar to many in the UK because of its popularity in schools.But Jesus is not explicitly named in the hymn: Tomorrow shall be my dancing day; I would my true love did so chance To see the legend of my play, To call my true love to my dance; Chorus Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love, This have I done for my true love. 76 See Eliot, T.S. in bibliography.
They would claim that access to the spiritual/liminal space encourages and enables human flourishing and growth 10 -what Aristotle called eudaimonia.Pawelski and Moore's book The Eudaimonic Turn (2013) opens new avenues to investigate meaning in life.Waterman  (2013:6)defines eudaimonia as "determining what objective qualities of human functioning make for a good life, a life well lived, such that when it ended we can say that this person has lived a quality life".Hense (2014:5) says the "[t]he term 'fullness of life' indicates flourishing, dignity, wellbeing, wholeness, and purpose".These qualities were in the mind of the creator of In a Golden Coach and also apparent in some of the children's accounts at a personal and cultural level.Boyce-Tillman (2016:29)links this 'fullness of life' with what she calls liminal or spiritual moments, drawing on the work of Victor Turner (British cultural anthropologist and drama