being human Autumn-Winter 2013

“Behind Color” by Laura Summer as installed at the 2012 conference

“Beyond the Object—Beyond Sensation

If we are interested in addressing our present-day unsustainable relation to the planet in a deep way, our way of thinking about the world needs radical reorientation. As far as I can tell, there is no better model for sustainable human thinking than the plant. — Craig Holdrege, Thinking Like a Plant

LIVING NATURE : Paths to Healing Nature, Healing Ourselves

with Dennis Klocek, Craig Holdredge, Henrike Holdrege & others

Climate change, soil depletion, species extinction, GMOs: unquestionably, nature is at risk, suffering the consequences of materialist-mechanistic, object-oriented thinking. Changing the way we think about nature, moving beyond this dead thinking to a living, participatory way of thinking, opens paths to experiencing ourselves and nature as a single, immanent living, soul-spiritual process with immense healing potential.

This conference will bring together Dennis Klocek, founder of the Coros Institute and director of Consciousness Studies at Rudolf Steiner College, Craig Holdrege and Henrike Holdrege of The Nature Institute, and others, to lead us in exploring new ways of perceiving, imagining, thinking, and acting that can transform the way we relate to the world we live in.

If we want to behold nature in a living way, we must follow her example and make ourselves as mobile and exible as nature herself. — Goethe

Hellenic Odyssey 2014

Join us June 29th - July 14/21st, visiting the Mystery places of Greece, journeying to temples, oracles, places of healing – Athens, Eleusis, Epidaurus, Delphi, Mycenae, Sounion, Meteora, Ephesus, Patmos, with talks, myths, eurythmy, museums, drama, dance—with time to swim, stroll, wander, and delight. led by Gillian Schoemaker, Hellenophile & eurythmist, & Rev. Julia Polter, Theologian & Friend of Greek Mythology

For details contact Gillian at 610 469 0864 or gillian_schoemaker@yahoo.com

ANTHROPOSOPHY NYC

the New York Branch of the Anthroposophical Society in America

138 West 15th Street, NY, NY 10011 (212) 242-8945

“The word ‘anthroposophy’ should be interpreted as ‘the consciousness of our humanity.’” – Rudolf Steiner

RUDOLF STEINER BOOKSTORE

Browse dozens of works by Steiner & others on education , biodynamics, science, health, art, spirit. Open Tues 3-5:30pm, Wed-Sat, 1-5pm.

TALKS

spirituality, health, education, social action, esoteric research, human & cosmic evolution

WORKSHOPS

self-development, biography, therapies, rhythms & cycles, threefolding, economics

VISUAL ARTS

exhibits, workshops, talks, museum walks

EURYTHMY

Rudolf Steiner’s therapeutic art of sacred movement art

EVENTS

music, theater, festivals, films, community celebrations

STUDY GROUPS

free, weekly and monthly, exploring transformative insights of Rudolf Steiner, Georg Kühlewind, Owen Barfield and others

SOME UPCOMING PROGRAMS

at 7pm except as noted; details at www.asnyc.org

Sat, Jan 11: Eugene Schwartz–Cosmos Becomes Man (+ 4/5, 5/17)

Mon, Jan 13: Linda Larson, Monthly Eurythmy Workshop

Wed, Jan 15: David Anderson–Spiritual Beings & Their Work (monthly)

Sat, Jan 18, pm: Natasha Garuleva–Photography Art Opening

Sun, Feb 2, 1-4pm: Phoebe Alexander–Winter Painting Workshop

Sat, Feb 22, 2-5pm: Karl Lorenzen–Decorative Art in World Cultures

Sat, Mar 1: Laurie Portocarrero, Glen Williamson – A Karmic Knot in Steiner’s Mystery Dramas: Maria & Johannes

Sun, Mar 23, 1-4pm: Phoebe Alexander–Spring Painting Workshop

Sun, Apr 6, 2-5pm: Phoebe Alexander–Tissue Blossom Workshop

Thu, Apr 17: Program for Passover/Last Supper

Fri-Sat, Apr 25-26: Gail Langstroth, Poetry & Movement Workshop

spiritual, therapeutic, world, & ‘outsider’ art

Rudolf Steiner College Seeks President

The Board of Trustees of Rudolf Steiner College is looking for an individual who has successful experience leading a mission driven institution.

An understanding of Anthroposophy as articulated by Rudolf Steiner and its many related endeavors such as Waldorf education and biodynamic farming, is desirable. The ideal candidate will be vibrant and development-oriented and have experience in an institution of higher learning.

For more information on the position and how to apply, please see:

www.steinercollege.edu/EO

Rudolf Steiner College | Fair Oaks, California, USA

Spiritual Science in the 21st Century

These highly accessible lectures from one of the foremost anthroposophical researchers in our time, range from education and global politics to postmodern philosophy and artificial intelligence. They explore profound happenings of our age with love, humor, and insight drawn from experience with the living source of the spiritual event of our times. Listening to their inner rhythm and intensity, we too can experience the heartbeats of our Time Spirit and become more free and creative in our own lives.

Yeshayahu (Jesaiah) Ben-Aharon is an internationally acclaimed philosopher, spiritual scientist, activist, a founder of initiatives from Kibbutz Harduf to the Global Event College, and author of The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century, The New Experience of the Supersensible, America’s Global Responsibility and The Event in Science, History, Philosophy & Art More information at www.event-studies.org

The Anthroposophical Society in America

General Council Members

Torin Finser (General Secretary)

Virginia McWilliam (at large)

Carla Beebe Comey (at large)

John Michael (at large, Treasurer)

Regional Council Representatives

Linda Evans (Eastern Region)

Dennis Dietzel (Central Region)

Joan Treadaway (Western Region)

Marian León, Director of Administration & Member Services

being human

is published four times a year by the Anthroposophical Society in America

1923 Geddes Avenue

Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1797

Tel. 734.662.9355

Fax 734.662.1727

www.anthroposophy.org

Editor: John H. Beck

Associate Editors:

Judith Soleil, Fred Dennehy

Cover design and layout:

John Beck, Seiko Semones (S2 Design)

Please send submissions, questions, and comments to: editor@anthroposophy.org or to the postal address above, for our Winter-Spring 2014 issue by 1/4/2014.

©2013 The Anthroposophical Society in America. Responsibility for the content of articles is the authors’.

from the editors

This autumn-winter issue has some substantial articles to accompany you into the northern hemisphere’s cold and dark months. It’s a time of mystery when we may consider the human being with wonder and reverance and find that we are really mysteries at the center of mysteries.

One great field of mystery is art. Our cover photo pictures an art installation called “Behind Color” by Laura Summer of the Free Columbia project. It is drawn from a lengthy report by David Adams of the 2012 conference “Beyond the Object—Beyond Sensation.” Held in Hudson, NY, this gathering, as David reports, took care to build shared experiences out of individual contributions. It also became a broad meeting of anthroposophically-informed artists with the state of art today in its service to human consciousness. David provided many photos, and thoughtful attention to his whole report will be rewarded.

Every issue does double duty with front sections of general interest followed by reports for members and friends of the Anthroposophical Society. Those include Torin Finser’s remarks at the annual fall conference and meeting of the Society in New Hampshire. Torin spoke to the questions of how fully human beings can meet each other, and what we can build from those meetings as an Anthroposophical Society. With an educator’s and author’s understanding of human qualities and concerns, he viewed the Society’s challenge: to carry a weighty treasure, anthroposophy, that asks so much of our attention, without missing the rich complexity of contemporary culture.

Rudolf Steiner himself appears as author. Frederick Amrine has recently re-translated a long-out-of-print essay on Goethe’s spirituality for the SteinerBooks Collected Works. His introduction and footnotes make some telling connections between Steiner’s insights and the contemporaneous birth of concepts which became depth psychology. It’s all in relation to the wonderful Goethe “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily,” a deep imagination of the psycho-social foundations of human evolution in our time. Which brings us to our initiative! section. This time we share another remarkable social impulse, Sophia Project, which undertook transformative service to mothers and children at risk of homelessness in the inner city of Oakland, California. Co-founder and director Carol Cole and board chair Robert McDermott plan three articles to record the goals and accomplishments and to lay open the process by which such a service can be conceived and brought to a full and healthy life.

We also are happy to share an initiative in its early, proposal stages: “Es-

HOW TO:

receive being human, contribute, and advertise

Copies of being human are free to members of the Anthroposophical Society in America (visit anthroposophy.org/membership.html or call 734.662.9355).

Sample copies are also sent to friends who contact us (address below).

To contribute articles or art please email editor@anthroposophy.org or write Editor, 1923 Geddes Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

To advertise contact Margaret Wessel Walker at 734-662-9355 or email advertising@anthroposophy.org

tablishing a Food Quality Research Network in North America.” As detached as such a title may sound, this undertaking from the Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association is centered on community building and consciousness expanding. How do any of us know that a particular food is really good? How does a farmer know that a farm’s products are as good as they might be? How can accomplishments in quality be shared with other farmers, and proper criteria made known to the public at large? And as a tail for this idealistic kite of a project we have Robert Karp’s report on a visit to the CSA pioneer, Temple Wilton Community Farm where alongside fine food social consciousness is raised. ***

Fred Dennehy usually introduces our book reviews, edited by Fred and by Judith Soleil, which came to this publication along with new book annotations from our 2009 merger with the Rudolf Steiner Library Newsletter. Judith, who took great care with all her contributions to being human, is moving to Maine to work at the Ashwood Waldorf School. It was a particular pleasure assisting her in preparing a special memorial section last year on her predecessor as librarian, Fred Paddock. Judith Kiely, her associate for the last few years, is stepping into Judith Soleil’s shoes. And much else is happening with the Library. Library services have been suspended effective 12/1/2013 to begin a relocation process. See the report on page 58. Library annotations of new books could not be prepared for this issue, but we have a very substantial group of reviews, beginning on page 12. Fred Dennehy will continue as editor in this area, and we will have his introductions back as well, in the next issue.

John Beck

The School of Spiritual Psychology Presents

Immortal Earth: The Spiritual Path of the Mineral World

A two-year Certification Course in Developing Healing Capacities with Crystals and Minerals for the Future of Earth, Her Creatures, and the Spiritual Human Being

The only available spiritual education into the Mineral World grounded in an esoteric tradition. Rudof Steiner wrote extensively on minerals in his Spiritual Science of Anthroposphy. Over the past ten years The School of Spiritual Psychology has developed his many reflections and suggestions into a clear and sustained imagination, methodology, and practices meeting the needs of our time.

•  A combination of intensive onsite workshop meetings and home study for developing capacities of experiencing the living qualities of crystals, minerals, and metals

•  Self-Transformation for the Sake of the Earth

•  A Training in Contemplative Action through accompanying the spiritual beings of the Mineral World in the forming of the New Heaven and the New Earth

•  Six Onsite Sessions over two years

•  Audio recordings

•  Home study direction

•  Original writings from Rudolf Steiner, Friederich Benesch, Robert Simmons, Robert Sardello, A. H. Alhborn – many unpublished manuscript excerpts

•  Contemplative work with thirty minerals and nine metals

•  Anthroposophical understanding of healing and the mineral world

•  Contemplative practices

•  Healing Contemplations with the twelve stones of the Apocalypse, twenty minerals, nine metals

Course Facilitators: Robert Sardello, Ph.D. and Cheryl Sanders-Sardello, Ph.D.

For Complete Course Description and Details: www.spiritualschool.org or write spiritualheart@embarqmail.com for brochure

being human digest

This digest offers brief notes, news, and ideas from a range of holistic and human-centered initiatives. E-mail suggestions to editor@anthroposophy. org or write to “Editor, 1923 Geddes Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104.”

WALDORF EDUCATION

“Essential Online” Conferences Go South

“Essential Online Conferences for Class Teachers” are going south from early December. 330 participants took part during the Northern Hemisphere summer, ending in mid-September. Soon it will be summer in the south.

The Essential Online Conferences save costs (no travel, accommodations, or dining expenses), and expand the content (25 to 45 hours per conference) and the time (14 days) to access and assimilate all that is presented. Waldorf educators Eugene Schwartz and Roberto Trostli can range as broadly and deeply as they choose. “High-definition video lets the viewer come within an inch or two of a science experiment or the vanishing point in a perspective drawing; ‘dynamic diagrams’ convey the interconnectedness of main lesson subjects. All the material is brand new, specially recorded and developed for online transmission.”

Link: www.iwaldorf.com

Embr o In Motion y

4 DVD Set

ENVIRONMENT – BIODYNAMIC AGRICULTURE

Observing Nature in the Goethean Mode

In the Greater Washington, DC, area, the George Washington Carver Institute has inaugurated Goethean Observation Walkabouts to deepen observation of Nature. The Christian Community Parish House is a point of departure into surrounding vast park lands. Four seasonal observation walks are planned by the GWC Institute. There is much to connect with in the geology, plant, animal, and human worlds. Nature can be a doorway into the invisible realms. All are warmly welcomed!

Contacts:

Michael Judge: Mjudge2000@gmail.com or Patrick Kennedy: cckennedy2006@gmail.com

“Dancing with Thoreau”

How does a connection with our natural environment strengthen our sense of community, our spiritual, physical, creative, economic, and intellectual pursuits? Biodynamic farmer, award-winning filmmaker (Garden Insects), and author (The Organic Bug Book, 2013) Chris Korrow is preparing Dancing With Thoreau , which pro -

A New Line of Anthroposophic Remedies! Unique Quality Control:

Is your poten�zed product more than “just sugar pills”!?

We introduce a reproducible, sta�s�cally validated, laboratory test to prove that the ac�vity of the potency is significantly greater than that of the water control. This test is based on the work of R. Steiner and L. Kolisko.

This seminar explores how human prenatal development expresses the essence of human spiritual unfoldment. Understanding the stages of embryological development provides a basis for therapeutic recognition of embryological forces in all later stages of life. This seminar is a rare opportunity to hear a world authority on modern embryology through a unique synthesis of scientific and spiritual principles.

• All products started from fresh substances

For more informa�on go to the Why True Botanica sec�on of our website www.truebotanica.com

with Jaap van der Wal, PhD, MD

being human digest

poses a kind of environmental activism where we are “optimized through our encounters with nature” and our lives become more compassionate, successful, balanced, and interesting as a result. With BD farmer and beekeeper, Gunther Hauk; author and Goethean scientist, Dennis Klocek; the founders of the Mother Earth School, a Waldorf-inspired outdoor kindergarten; and Sister Adrian Hoftstetter, OP (Dominican Sister of Peace and author of Earth-Friendly: Re-Visioning Science and Spirituality through Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Rudolf Steiner).

Links: breathedeepproductions.com indiegogo.com/projects/dancing-with-thoreau

The Season for Calendars

Stella Natura 2014 Biodynamic Planting Calendar: Planting Charts and Thought-Provoking Essays, edited by Sherry Wildfeuer. A basic introduction to astronomy, a simple ephemeris, a planting guide, a star map, aid for following the movement of the planets in the night sky, and articles by nine different authors.

Link: www.stellanatura.com

The Maria Thun Biodynamic Calendar, now in its 52nd year, adapted for North American dates and times. This useful guide shows optimum days for sowing, pruning, and harvesting various plant-crops, as well as working with bees. It includes Thun’s unique insights. In color with clear symbols and explanations, and including a pullout wall chart to be pinned up in a barn, shed or greenhouse as a handy quick reference. Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics, Inc. (540 745-7030)

Link: www.jpibiodynamics.org

HUMANITIES

Owen Barfield, in Print and Online

A lawyer by profession, Owen Barfield was one of the few anthroposophists of the English-speaking world to gain scholarly attention. History in English Words was widely appreciated, tracing how ordinary words have changed meaning over time and effectively revealing an evolution of human consciousness. When most retire, Barfield came to the USA and built a new following with his lectures. Two volumes of talks given in America are available: Speaker’s Meaning and History, Guilt, & Habit Barfield championed and helped recover Coleridge as a philosopher (as Rudolf Steiner did for Goethe as a scientist). In opposing a cultural Establishment so dominant as to be invisible to most of its followers, Barfield like Coleridge doesn’t “sell” ideas; rather, he reveals and shares the unique, personal process of gaining understanding.

At his death in 1997, aged 99, his one grandchild, also Owen Barfield, was 28 years old. A few years later the young man had an experience which awakened a relationship to his grandfather’s work and led him to take responsibility for the literary estate. The result is fine new editions of the out-of-print books and first access to articles, poetry, and short stories, many now freely available online.

Link: www.owenbarfield.org

being human digest

Liberating Arts? ClassicInsights.com

“The study of Liberal Arts today does not liberate students to practice freedom and love, which is the meaning of ‘liberal’ in liberal arts. I have spent the past forty years of my life correcting this dire situation by helping to create a liberal arts program made very inspirational, not merely intellectual. The program is held together by the themes of love and learning to think much better with your heart. We expose students to Rembrandt through a process of meditating on his great paintings. Mentors work one-on-one with students and offer video seminars. Working with enlightened persons this approach helps harness the power and utility of the Humanities...” — Andrew Flaxman, Director. “I think that there are so many people eager to further their education without going back to a university or college, that your offering of such a strong self-study program should be enormously helpful.” — Madeleine L’Engle, author, A Wrinkle in Time

Link: www.classicinsights.com

SOCIETY Reimagining Infrastructure

Orion Magazine has a new web-only feature “Concrete Progress” exploring reimagined infrastructure from prairie gardens to windmills. Columnist Peter Brewitt writes, “Arizonans are taking a hard look at their grassy lawns and their red rock mesas (and their water bills), and beginning to allow their front yards to revert to desert. Seattlites are channeling the rain instead of watching it wash down the pavement to the ocean. Mainers are eating their own produce and drinking their own milk. The new infrastructure is natural and efficient, crafted with texture and creativity and a close understanding of regions and landscapes. We are building

things in this country.” Other contributors take readers on a historical journey, New Hampshire to California, from 1934 to today; explore the crucial role of processing hubs in the local food movement; and visit an urban watershed, all with accompanying slide shows.

Link: www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/mag/7611/

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

November 1-3, thirty-five people raised funds for the Anthroposophical Prison Outreach in its first Walk-AThon. Alone or with friends and families, they walked in ten states, as well as Thailand and Switzerland. APO has donations and pledges for nearly $9,000, and plans to make this an annual event. Some experiences:

My husband and I along with our children enjoyed the opportunity to do something that supports APO. We are thrilled that inmates have an opportunity to grow and learn beyond their restrictions as prisoners. Inmates are people too and we all help each other heal. Susan Buerger, Switzerland

It was not easy for me, due to my age and physical challenges, but I believe wholeheartedly in the magnificent work that APO is doing. As a mentor to prisoners through this program, I have seen firsthand the inner change that takes place in the souls of these individuals deprived of freedom... Their reach into the light of spirit, is a most gratifying and

being human digest

The Walk-a-Thon was an opportunity for the Nashville Waldorf and anthroposophical community to be involved. I brought inspiration from How to Know Higher Worlds with me... Everyone I talked to felt a connection to the words where

Rudolf Steiner says: ‘I may then also come to the conclusion that this human brother of mine would have become a different man had my teachers taken the same pains with him that they took with me.’ I mapped the walk out in my neighborhood and both my children walked on the first day. We raised a little over $200. Money connects us to our fellow man, so my friends and I are now connected to this very worthy cause. Julia Emahiser, Nashville, TN

I walked the new bike path from Harbor Springs to Alanson, Michigan. I am honored to have this opportunity to help support APO in its work, and through this small gesture, I find an opportunity to walk in sacred step with those who have dedicated themselves to bringing the light of spirit consciousness into lives where it may be most needed, and where it may find its greatest effect. Thank you for including me. Mary Adams, Harbor Springs, MI

Link: www.anthroposophyforprisoners.org

HEALTH - THERAPY - COMMUNITY Update on Inner Fire

Profiled in a recent issue of being human, Inner Fire is a healing community offering a choice for people to recover from debilitating and traumatic life challenges

without the use of psychotropic medications. Beatrice Birch and her husband Tom Kavet have now purchased Grace Brook Farm, forest and open land in Brookline, just north of Brattleboro, Vermont. December 7th friends and potential donors gather for a celebratory launching with Robert Whitaker, journalist-author of The Anatomy of an Epidemic and Mad in America , and Sandra Steingard, MD, sympathetic psychiatrist, professor, and medical director of the Howard Center in Burlington. Beatrice has been invited to present Inner Fire at a gathering of individuals who have been through the psychotropic med-centered system at the Esalen Institute in California.

Inner Fire seeks ‘guides’ for BD gardening, forestry, the art of housekeeping, and cooking; it aims to offer eurythmy, rhythmical massage, Spacial Dynamics, speech/ drama, music, biographical counseling, anthroposophical nursing, and Hauschka artistic therapy. An essential aspect is that it be available regardless of financial situation, race, or religious beliefs. “We want to meet each other in our deepest humanity. Therefore, we need to develop a strong endowment so that all who are in need may engage. A place with the support we will offer is rare.”

Contact: beatrice.birch55@gmail.com

See Christ Differently

Walkers in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Taking Appearance Seriously

The Dynamic Way of Seeing in Goethe and European Thought

By Henri Bortoft; Floris Books, 2012, 235 pp. Review by Keith Francis

I never had the good fortune to meet the late Henri Bortoft, and everything I have read and heard about him suggests that this was a considerable loss on my part. After working for several months with his last book, Taking Appearance Seriously, I wish I could sit down with him over a glass of something convivial, congratulate him on his cogent account of the path to a dynamic, vivid, and fully realized way of experiencing the world of nature and humanity, and raise some questions about his views on physicists, the history of science, and the nature of language and meaning. The discussion might have gone on for a long time, but it is my opinion that most of the points over which I differ with Bortoft are peripheral to the main stream of his thinking; of course, he might well have disagreed about that.

The back cover of Taking Appearance Seriously gives a very good idea of the scope and intentions of the book: “The history of western metaphysics from Plato onwards is dominated by the dualism of being and appearance. What something really is (its true being) is believed to be hidden behind the ‘mere appearances’ through which it manifests. Twentieth-century European thinkers radically overturned this way of thinking... Henri Bortoft guides us through a dynamic way of seeing, exploring issues including how we distinguish things, how we find meaning and the relationship between thought and words.”

After completing his education at the University of Hull, England, Bortoft worked in the early 1960s with the highly respected physicist David Bohm on the concept of wholeness in the quantum theory. This led to an encounter with the hologram, at that time a recent innovation, and the realization that the idea of a picture that is completely present at each point while each point is part of the whole picture would be helpful in understanding the wholeness of human organizations.

While these ideas were on his mind, Bortoft was introduced to hermeneutics, a branch of philosophy dealing with the theory of understanding, viewed as a circular process wherein the whole can be understood only in terms of the parts and the parts only in terms of the

whole. It was then a short step from hermeneutics to phenomenology, which Bortoft considers to be “the most important and influential movement in European philosophy in the twentieth century.” “Phenomenology,” in this context, refers specifically to the philosophical movement founded by Edmund Husserl about 1905, rather than to the term’s general definition, the “study of appearances in human experience without regard to the question of objectivity and subjectivity.”

As Bortoft remarks, getting into phenomenology isn’t easy. “It is a philosophy which has the effect of seeming strange and yet familiar at the same time. Phenomenology seems to take the ground away from under our feet, whilst at the same time giving us the sense of being where we have always been—only now recognizing it as if for the first time. It’s hard to catch hold of because it’s like trying to catch something as it’s happening and which is over before we can do so. It can perhaps be described most simply as ‘stepping back’ into where we are already. This means shifting the focus of attention within experience away from what is experienced into the experiencing of it. So if we consider seeing, for example, this means that we have to ‘step back’ from what is seen into the seeing of what is seen.”

If the exposition seems labored and repetitive at times, it is largely because Bortoft feels that the distinction between “what is experienced” and “the experiencing of it”—or, as he expresses the matter at other points, between the appearance and the appearing of what appears (sometimes referred to as the appearance)—may be difficult to grasp, and that, since it is the idea at the root of the whole book, it must be grasped.

His most succinct explanation arose from the experience of standing on a bridge and looking first downstream and then upstream. Realizing that he habitually grasped the appearance after the process of appearing had taken place—in other words, downstream—he subsequently told a group of students, “Our problem is that where we begin is already downstream, and in our attempt to understand where we are, we only go further downstream. What we have to do instead is to learn to go back upstream and learn to flow down to where we are already, so that we can recognize this not as the beginning but as the end. That’s phenomenology.”

“This was a good start,” the author says, “a doorway into the movement of thinking in phenomenology…. Phenomenology liberates us from the dualism of metaphysics…. There is nothing behind the appearances, but

rudolf steiner library newsletter: reviews

this doesn’t mean that there is no more than the appearances. There is a dynamic depth behind the appearance that is the appearance. Because it is the appearance, it is the thing itself (not the thing-in-itself) manifesting.”

The “thing itself” is a process, not an object. For Bortoft, embracing phenomenology was the first step in the cultivation of a dynamic way of thinking that he found at the heart of Goethe’s scientific work. So far, so good, but in an effort to place Goethean science in a historical context, he makes the evolution of science from Aristotle to the nineteenth century sound far more smooth and linear than the bumpy, ramifying, and frustrating journey that it really was, and ignores the fact that the main impulse of scientists throughout the ages has usually been to get on with the job without worrying too much about any philosophical principles that may be lurking behind it. In asserting that before the twelfth century science was entirely empirical, and lining up Galileo, Francis Bacon, Descartes, and Newton with an Aristotelian approach dating from the thirteenth century, he carries over-simplification almost to the point of misrepresentation. It is true that the linked activities of observation and thinking have been the basis of scientific striving ever since the time of the early Greek philosophers, and are also, in Rudolf Steiner’s words, “the two points of departure for all human spiritual striving”;1 but the character of the result varies enormously with the styles of observation and thinking, as one can easily see by comparing the endeavors of Galileo and Francis Bacon, who were born within a few years of each other.

The foregoing merely gives an indication of a tendency present throughout the book, which goes along with an excessive dependence on authorities, many of whom will be unknown to most readers. My advice to the reader who is not well versed in the history and philosophy of science is to proceed with caution and keep the salt shaker handy. Fortunately, the author’s profound discussions of Goethe’s work are largely independent of his view of scientific history.

For many of the readers of being human, Goethean science, especially as brought into full incarnation by Rudolf Steiner, is a palpable presence. We have learnt to recognize the primal phenomenon and the processes of metamorphosis as fundamental to the course of nature, and we accept the basic principle enunciated by Steiner

in his struggle with nineteenth-century versions of one of the ancient problems of knowledge, that if our sense impressions are determined by atomic motions they must be valueless as a source of truth. “It is these reflections that compelled me to reject as impossible every theory of nature which, in principle, extends beyond the domain of the perceived world, and to seek in the sense-world the sole object of consideration for natural science.”2

Steiner found that this attitude of mind was fundamental to Goethe’s contemplative relationship to the natural world. Bortoft, who mentions Steiner only once in the main body of the book, sees Goethe’s way as a glorious demonstration of the power of dynamic thinking. The initial point of contact is the removal of the “thingin-itself” as an object of inquiry.

One of the great virtues of Taking Appearance Seriously is the author’s ability to convey the distinctive ethos of Goethean science and to give clear explanations of the operations of metamorphosis and the primal phenomenon, while dealing carefully with certain misconceptions that have cropped up from time to time. There is a particularly acute discussion of the tendency to see the archetypal plant as an idea in the Platonic sense, rather than a grand, organic expression of multiplicity generated from and embraced in unity, of which the hologram is a pale, technological image. “What Goethe meant by the urpflanze is the dynamic unity of the coming-into-being of all plants as the self-differencing of One plant.”

I mentioned that Rudolf Steiner appears only once in the main text, but there is a very revealing endnote to the following remark: “It is very difficult to indicate the dynamical quality of Goethe’s organic thinking, and only too easy to describe it instead in a downstream way.”

“The striking exception to this is the philosopher Rudolf Steiner. His writings on Goethe are saturated with the dynamic approach, so much so that, although by no means always easy to read, anyone who takes the trouble to be-

1 Rudolf Steiner, Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path (New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1995) 29.

2 Rudolf Steiner, Goethe the Scientist (New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1950) 205.

come familiar with them can scarcely avoid beginning to pick up the experience by osmosis.”

This is very encouraging, but the next sentence may be harder for the committed anthroposophist to swallow: “This aspect of Steiner’s work is much less widely known than his later work with what he called ‘Anthroposophy,’ a more esoteric enterprise which, important as it is to his followers, has had the effect of taking attention away from other aspects of his work, especially his luminous contribution to understanding Goethe….”

Anthroposophy evidently appeared to Bortoft to have been a sideshow for a limited audience, while the real action was elsewhere. Anthroposophy, however, is inclusive rather than exclusive, and there are moments in Taking Appearance Seriously at which a reference to Steiner would have been very much to the point. His succinct statement of the reciprocal relationship between the whole and the part gives a vital human dimension to the discussion of multiplicity in unity: “A healthy social life is found only when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living.”

The latter part of the book brings the lessons of the earlier chapters to an extended consideration of the nature and problems of language and meaning. Of particular interest is the insightful discussion of the relationship between what the author puts into a book or a play and what the reader or playgoer gets out of it. In spite of the very frequent occurrence of the pronoun “we,” it seems advisable to take it that Bortoft is speaking out of his own experience of the change in perception brought about by the dynamic approach; but readers who feel that their modes of experience have developed in different ways will still find much that is of value here. Finally, there is a recapitulation of some of the initial thinking in the light of subsequent discussions, including a passage that invites serious consideration of the relationship between Bortoft’s and Steiner’s views of perception.

Those of us who have worked with Steiner’s Study of Man will probably remember puzzling over chapter 9, in which Steiner speaks of what Bortoft might have called an upstream/downstream dichotomy—in this case, one that embraces the whole of one’s life:

We did not begin living when we entered the menagerie and turned our attention to the lion. This action is linked to our life up to this point, which plays into it too, and what we take out with us when we leave the menagerie will again be carried over into the rest of life.

If now we consider the whole process, what is the lion first of all? He is first of all a conclusion. That is absolutely true: the lion is a conclusion. A little later, the lion is a judgment. And a little later still, the lion is a concept

According to Bortoft, in the shift “upstream” from appearance to appearance, we leave behind the subjectobject separation and enter into a “condition in which what manifests is what it is, without any mediation by intervening entities of any kind (images, representations) in consciousness” (italics mine).

My suggestion that the juxtaposition of these statements might be a fruitful subject for contemplation is really a microcosm of my response to the main thrust of Taking Appearance Seriously, which is the presentation and development of the concept and art of dynamic seeing. How does Husserl’s phenomenology relate to Goethe’s and Steiner’s, and how widely does the quality of perception vary from one person to another? It is possible that to some people the sight of a dandelion registers merely as a piece of information, while others, who may never have heard of the dynamic approach, experience the inner life of the plant shining out of its glowing petals—a manifestation of its etheric energy. This corresponds to the experience of the young lady studying nettles who gives us the final word of Henri Bortoft’s book. I wouldn’t quarrel with anyone who suggested that this has something to do with the earliest stage of the path of knowledge described in Rudolf Steiner’s Knowledge of Higher Worlds.

More Radiant than the Sun

A Handbook for Working with Steiner’s Meditations and Exercises

By Gertrude Reif Hughes; SteinerBooks, 2013, 97 pages. Review by Sara Ciborski

For newcomers to anthroposophy, finding entry into Rudolf Steiner’s indications for meditation can be challenging. They are spread over many lectures and books, are addressed to audiences of varied familiarity with spiritual science, and assume different levels of advancement in inner self-development. Because of this, More Radiant than the Sun is especially important: Gertrude Hughes has carefully selected from Steiner’s wealth of verses and meditations a few that in her lifelong experience as a meditator have proven most fruitful.

And the book is timely: as Hughes says in a wonderful introduction, many more people now than at any

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time in human history are meditating or attempting to. With a brief overview of the evolution of consciousness, she shows why meditation is a critical need of our times. For we are no longer “embedded in the creativity of… [our] spiritual origins” and must develop for ourselves “a creative mental life in our souls and with it a morality not of right and wrong, not even of good and evil, but of a free consciousness ready to explore morality and experiment with its essences by means of our awakened powers, both individual and social.” She also gives a brief account of the threefold nature of the human being, which (as constituted today) makes possible the training of the free attention that leads to the experience of the true “I” of selfless selfhood.

Four chapters present three meditations each. “Three Meditations on Self” includes the “More Radiant than the Sun” verse from one of Steiner’s esoteric lessons; the fragment “Life becomes clearer around me” from a verse given to eurythmists; and the version of the six essential (also known as supplementary or subsidiary) exercises from An Outline of Esoteric Science. Here and throughout, Hughes introduces Steiner’s words with a description of how and in what circumstances she herself began, overcame obstacles, and continued to work with these contents. In each instance she gives the full and exact reference from Steiner’s work.

In “Three Plant Meditations” she offers perceiving growth and decay; the seed meditation; and the plant meditation, all from How to Know Higher Worlds. “Three Meditations on the Cosmos” includes the aphorism “In thinking, I experience myself united with the stream of cosmic existence” from A Way of Self Knowledge ; the rainbow colors exercise derived from a verse in Speech and Drama; and the triangle exercise from Human and Cosmic Thought. Her description of her struggle to work rightly with the aphorism is very interesting. All of us who meditate according to Steiner’s indications eventually come to that threshold of experiencing (and knowing with certainty), for perhaps only the flash of an instant, that our thinking is not merely subjective and private (though its content may be) but is itself (as activity) the same everywhere for everyone.

In “Three Meditations on Moral Ideas,” Hughes presents the rose-cross meditation and meditating on a feeling of joy, both from An Outline of Esoteric Science, and the point and periphery exercise from Education for Special Needs. She ends with the Foundation Stone Meditation, complete with the daily rhythms, which are “an intimate

nod” toward the full verse with its complex structure. She gives her own translation (acknowledging help from Christopher Bamford’s in Start Now! ), which I like very much.

But this is not the end of the book: in a thoughtful closing essay, Hughes brings all that went before into relation with Grail knowledge, the Christian mystery, and the renewal of religion. There are some beautiful thoughts here. Having cited a passage in An Outline of Esoteric Science, she writes, “Clearly and very seriously, Steiner’s words about the Grail Knowledge tell readers that Christ has supplied the impulse of his eternal presence… [which] means that Christ has secured having that impulse available by offering His presence at any time and forever.” And “Grail Knowledge includes the contemplative inquiry and meditation that Steiner’s verses and exercises inspire and support in those who practice them, doing so with evolving spirit awareness... Our meditation must begin during our incarnated life. After we die it is too late to begin…” (Hughes’s italics.) And then this down-to-earth reminder: “There is something either superficial or ungrateful in those earthlings who fuss about whether their efforts in meditation have worth. Of course they do.”

She concludes by discussing writings pertinent to theme of anthroposophy and religion by two Christian Community leaders, Emil Bock and Michael Debus. And at the very end—Hughes is a professor emerita who loves, teaches, and writes about poetry—she gives us a poem by W. S. Merwin. 1

The growing number of good books on anthroposophical meditation suggests that comparison may be in order. Among the best are the eminently practical and accessible books of Georg Kühlewind, Arthur Zajonc’s Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry, and Michael Lipson’s Group Meditation (which despite its title is an excellent guide for the individual). While these authors are inspired by Steiner, they draw mainly from their own experience as meditators and from other spiritual traditions. If I wanted to recommend only Rudolf Steiner’s indications to someone new to anthroposophy, I would

choose Hughes’s book over the longer, more comprehensive Start Now! The latter is almost too rich with verses and themes for every occasion, every purpose, every level; the title seems inviting to a newcomer, but such a reader could conceivably be unsure where to begin with so much content. Whereas Hughes’s personal vignettes are a gentle way of assuring a newcomer that anyone can start; all it takes is perseverance. But More Radiant than the Sun is not only for beginners: these meditations can never be exhausted, they are the work of a lifetime.

Kindling the Word

The Karmic Background of Marie Steiner-von Sivers

By Rahel Kern and Brien Masters; Temple Lodge, 2012, 179 pgs. Review by Michael Vode

In this “study of an individuality,” the authors take on the formidable challenge of re-searching the life of Marie Steiner-von Sivers and her three previous, known incarnations because they are convinced that her “karma and mission hold something of vital importance for the spiritual and cultural development of the West.” In the preface, Mr. Masters states that their endeavor arose in part from an impulse to invigorate anthroposophical striving, keeping in mind Rudolf Steiner’s “core mission.” Their study offers many insights into all four incarnations, illuminating von-Sivers’s karma as Rudolf Steiner’s foremost coworker—and even anthroposophy’s cofounder—from the outset. The book has fifteen chapters, all of moderate length.

The introductory and concluding essays were coauthored; the other chapters were written by either Ms. Kern or Mr. Masters. The first eleven chapters comprise a comprehensive presentation of the four discrete destinies and their historical-cultural milieus. The authors painstakingly draw from myriad sources, including pertinent excerpts from lectures, letters, and personal conversations of Rudolf Steiner. Mr. Masters composed the foundational early chapters on Marie Steiner-von Sivers (1867-1948) and the following transitional chapter on Orpheus. Ms. Kern takes over in later chapters devoted to Pherecydes of Syros (6th century BC) and his teacher—the latter Marie Steiner’s first incarnation; Hypatia of Alexandria (370425 AD), the second incarnation; and Albertus Magnus (1200-1280), the third incarnation.

The last five chapters amplify the book’s historical-

spiritual perspective. These ultimate chapters elucidate the extraordinary spiritual intentions of the entelechy that unfolded throughout four incarnations. They especially emphasize the calling of the human I since the Scholastic period to undergo consciousness schooling as a wakeful, soul-spiritual ascent.

In the introductory chapter, the authors lay out a number of probing questions: (1) Why in anthroposophical circles has there been a longstanding under-appreciation, and even “seeming neglect,” of the enormous part Marie Steiner von-Sivers played in the life of anthroposophy over decades; (2) What is the significance of her humble, supportive integrity, and is this characteristic traceable to prior lifetimes; (3) How can Marie Steiner’s lifetime mission be understood in connection with Rudolf Steiner’s 1924 statement that art will be instrumental in the reemergence of a spiritual outlook in the West; (4) How are we to understand Rudolf Steiner’s comment to Emil Molt that an autobiography of Marie Steiner would not be fitting since “she is a cosmic being,” and “has this remark…had an inhibiting effect on the full appreciation of Marie Steiner von-Sivers’s karmic stature?”

A review can only touch on the overriding orientation of the essays and identify a few essentials of the panorama presented. Orpheus, an initiate of a Mystery stream at the outset of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, represents the book’s starting point. A clairvoyant spiritual leader, Orpheus initiated the first stage in the gradual descent of the human being from the realm of pure spirit to that of earthbound senses. The teacher of a seminal Greek thinker, Pherecydes of Syros, was schooled in the Orphic Mysteries. Rudolf Steiner referred to this teacher, Marie Steiner’s first incarnation, as die Namenlose (“the nameless one”) She mentored Pherecydes, although his spirituality—unlike hers—transpired as a sort of pictorial-conceptual halfway house at one remove from the spirit. Her mediation thus initiated the onset of a wakeful mentation that eventuated in philosophical thinking.

Hypatia, born in Alexandria late in the fourth century and educated by her unconventional, learned father, attained an altogether singular moral, spiritual, intellectual, and social stature for a woman of her time. With her earthly personality, Hypatia rediscovered the macrocosmic inspiration of the clairvoyant teacher of Pherecydes . Alexandria, Egypt was a foremost city of classical learning and scholarship in the first Christian centuries, drawing together diverse cultures, traditions, and religions while fostering a community of Greek, Christian, and Hebrew

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scholars devoted to science, art, and literature. The death knell of this vibrant mecca, however, was tolled some decades after Christianity’s institution as the state religion when Constantine’s Edict of Tolerance was revoked by Theodosius in 391. Power politics and rigid dogma increasingly severed Christianity from its origins, and a misogynist, conformist religion distanced itself from the living word. During this constricted time, Hypatia, who was not a Christian, fearlessly stood as a widely influential thinker, scientist, and counselor who deepened the inheritance of a Neo-Platonism threatened by a domineering, decadent Christianity. A greatly sought-after teacher, she was greatly admired for her character, knowledge, and wisdom. Her brutal, Church-instigated murder at the age of fifty-five signaled the end of classical antiquity and its treasures of immanent spiritual enlightenment. Her violent death was a martyrdom of symbolic proportions. With Albertus Magnus and the onset of Scholasticism approximately 800 years later, the approach to the world-creative Logos had to begin at a distinct remove from the spirit. The four chapters devoted to Albertus portray a groundbreaking adventurer in thought, word, and deed. These chapters strikingly highlight his philosophical-theological stature. As a young man, Albertus Magnus joined the newly-founded Dominican order. He wed vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty to a disciplined pursuit of truth, and was entirely devoted to Church, community, and world. The Dominican priest schooled himself in a cognition commensurate with a virtuous way of life that integrated faith-theology with reason-philosophy, which he understood as necessary complements of onefold reality. Christian thinkers including Dionysius the Areopagite, Origen, Augustine, and Boethius were formative theological and philosophical influences. The fourth-century BC Greek philosopher Aristotle, however, came to represent the starting point for the Scholastics inasmuch as his method was directed to sense-based consciousness. Convinced of Aristotle’s momentous importance for establishing a philosophical proceeding for a monistic worldview, Albertus Magnus translated all of his works and composed forty commentaries on them. He thereby laid the cornerstone for his pupil Thomas Aquinas, who incorporated and transcended Aristotle’s epistemology in his towering Summas. Albertus Magnus’s conception of reality as spirit-ensouled accorded with Thomas Aquinas’s refutation of the encroaching nominalist denial of the Word as theophany. The authors suggest that Albertus’s universal thinking helped prepare

the human spirit for anthroposophy centuries later. His collaboration with Thomas Aquinas in building a Wordcentered philosophy was transformed by Rudolf Steiner and Marie von-Sivers. In the fifth post-Atlantic epoch with the end of Kali Yuga and the commencement of the Michaelic Age, the anthroposophical Weltanschauung could unfold in the initiate’s fully awakened, meditative consciousness connected to Hierarchical foundations.

The first chapters sketch a sort of biography of Marie Steiner von-Sivers, accentuating her prescient wordgiftedness, charismatic presence, high idealism, and courage to forge a spiritual calling in a secular world. They discuss her soul-spiritual development in the context of seven-year cycles. She honed—especially during her years in Paris—a capacity for dramatic recitation steeped in a classical schooling. While in Paris she discovered the mystery plays of Edouard Schuré, but she was otherwise disenchanted with the pervasive naturalistic reduction of the word in poetry and drama.

Soon after meeting Rudolf Steiner, she resolved to abandon a worldly acting career to devote herself to what she soon understood to be her true calling. With Rudolf Steiner’s guidance, she soon awakened to heightened powers of dramatic recitation, experiencing a breakthrough “inner development,” especially connected to a mantric verse Rudolf Steiner composed for her. These chapters and the concluding essay expansively illustrate Marie Steiner von-Sivers’s importance for the emergence of anthroposophy. For instance, she wore many hats in the initial publishing company. At Rudolf Steiner’s request, she sat quietly at his side as an “inspiratrice” while he worked on the model of the first Goetheanum. Altogether paramount in their collaboration was her lifelong engagement with enlivened speech as a performer, actor, teacher, and director. Her spiritensouled, dynamic mode of declamation elicited from poetic texts revelatory power that revitalized listening. Speech as visible soul gesture was a ground for eurythmy.

Marie Steiner was a foremost presence, as recitation and the performance of plays accompanied courses, lectures,

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congresses, and eurythmy tours. Rudolf Steiner was immensely grateful for his wife’s indispensable artistic participation. The precarious state of speech performance today, the authors contend, further justifies the attention given to her life.

The thought-provoking research of Rahel Kern and Brien Masters evocatively characterizes Marie Steiner von-Sivers and her karmic background. Each author has an individual approach and style, although collaboration clearly accounts for the book’s structure and breadth. The evolution of consciousness in consecutive lives separated by centuries represents one dimension of the book’s scope. This seminal study in English presents a ground for further research, reflection, and meditation. We can assume that our reading between and beyond the lines of this book is the authors’ ardent hope and intention.

Two Anthroposophical Views of an Endowment from Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner’s Endowment: Centenary Reflections on His Attempt for a Theosophical Art and Way of Life, 15 December 1911

By Virginia Sease; Temple Lodge, 2012, 102 pgs.

Rudolf Steiner and Christian Rosenkreutz

By Peter Selg; SteinerBooks, 2012, 170 pgs.

Review by Gertrude Reif Hughes

I would like to offer a double review of Virginia Sease’s Rudolf Steiner’s Endowment: Centenary Reflections on His Attempt for a Theosophical Art and Way of Life, 15 December 1911 and the first chapter of Peter Selg’s Rudolf Steiner and Christian Rosenkreutz , “Portrayal of Christian Rosenkreutz.” In what follows, readers will see that the two pieces share a theme that arises as “A Spiritual Way of Working.”

The “Endowment” upon which Sease reflects became one hundred years old in December 2011. The Endowment has little to do with money, with certainty, or even with a gift. Rather, readers of the carefully organized and titled sections in Sease’s book will find that the Endowment followed originally from the Annual General Meeting of December 1911 in Dornach. The Endowment con-

tained elegant descriptions that Sease’s deep reflections find in “A Theosophical Art and Way of Life,” also called “A Way of Working.” The “Theosophical Art and Way of Life” demonstrates a creation in process rather than a finished plan. Its “Way of Working” will serve those who follow its knowledge and attend to its “what” and its “how”—particularly its how.

It seems to me, the “ways of working” are the Endowment, since interested persons can feel endowed by this way of life, because their own biographies feel enriching to readers who follow what Steiner offers to them. In his book, Rudolf Steiner and Christian Rosenkreutz, Peter Selg’s opening chapter, “Portrayal of Christian Rosenkreutz,” shows how “Rudolf Steiner informed the members of the Anthroposophical Society of the foundation for a “Society for Theosophical Art and Way of Living.” Selg emphasizes Steiner’s sense of a “foundation…directly inspired by the individuality…referred to since ancient times in the West as Christian Rosenkreutz.” As the following passage from Steiner quoted by Selg suggests,

I have particularly emphasized this most eminent experience of calling. I could use other events that relate directly to the spiritual world that can be found in life between death and birth, but in our spiritual context it is precisely this event that should seem significant to us, because it has to do with our spiritual movement (“Portrayal” p.7, emphasis added by Selg).

Steiner gave the following account as an example of a calling by Christian Rosenkreutz. Such callings, Selg says, demonstrate Steiner’s intimacy with Rosenkreutz (and Master Jesus, too), through Steiner’s own destiny with Christ and Christianity in his life. That destiny and inner vision Steiner found in his own soul experience, as he expresses it here:

The Christianity I sought was not to be found in any of the creeds…I had to enter deeply into Christianity, and found myself in the world where the spirit itself speaks of it. … Having stood spiritually before the mystery of Golgotha in a deep and solemn celebration of knowledge was highly important for the development of my soul.1

Despite their quite different tones and interests, both

1 See Peter Selg, “Portrayal of Christian Rosenkreutz,” note 153, where Selg says, “…we can assume an involvement of Master Jesus, even though Steiner did not mention him explicitly for reasons of discretion.” The entire note is important regarding Master Jesus, Christian Rosenkreutz, and other “active influences who played important roles in Rudolf Steiner’s life and work in the preparation and development of anthroposophy and its Christological orientation.”

“A Spiritual Way of Working”

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Selg’s “Portrayal” and Sease’s Endowment make wise and apt readings that enrich and clarify one another. Each author reflects upon and explores how to cognize spiritual acts that human beings need to attend to, indeed take responsibility for. Selg focuses upon Steiner’s connection to Rosenkreutz—both in Steiner’s incarnations and in his spirit existence—while Sease, too, sees the spiritual importance of Rosenkreutz’s connection to Steiner’s “theosophy” (later anthroposophy). Selg frames Steiner’s life in a portrayal that connects Steiner and his anthroposophy to Rosenkreutz, and to Sease’s “way of working” regarding the Endowment that is possible and appropriate to create out of anthroposophy. The two intimate and carefully written explorations feel both strange and enriching: strange because each piece has its own tone, but enriching because each piece offers readers a comprehensive consideration of the shared theme.

Sease (and Steiner) carefully emphasize the distinction between an endowment and a foundation. Whereas in 1905, “the fact that the difference between endowing and founding had not been grasped,” Sease clarifies that six years later, the Endowment “with its way of working stands under the protectorate of Christian Rosenkreutz and…Rudolf Steiner is the interpreter of its spiritual intentions.” Rudolf Steiner’s Endowment gives readers a deep view of Sease’s interest in deciding whether the Endowment of 1911 can be viewed as a current success, or must be perceived as having to wait for a later time. Throughout the various reflections Sease brings to bear on the “Endowment” and on Steiner’s “attempts” for a Theosophical Art and Way of Life, Sease knows (as does Selg) that Steiner and Rosenkreutz are interwoven, in part through the Michael School and its cultus. She quotes Steiner’s remark that “Rosicrucianism flowed into our stream; it will be worked on collaboratively, and also practiced to a certain extent.” Continuing what Sease says about Steiner’s Rosicrucianism, she offers “a further indication of the presence of Rosicrucianism,” which Steiner explained in the following words:

We are the Rosicrucianism of the twentieth century! For us, there is no other task than to connect with those principles that Rosicrucianism had and to make them applicable to the advancement of theosophy…All our strivings are directed towards understanding what sounds so easy: opening the heart to the spiritual world that is always around us; understanding a phrase such as this in the way Christ Jesus spoke it: I am with you always [even] unto the end of the world. (Sease, p. 5)

Sease’s “century reflections” on Steiner’s attempt to create an endowment occur in seven carefully explained chapters, each with a telling title. Something is being sought—it is not a thing, nor is it a person, but rather it is a “Way of Life” (soon to be called a Way of Working). A “Way of Working” is to be endowed , Sease says. She continues, “It was an attempt,” which sounds less like a result and more like a missed try. Nevertheless, she goes on to speak of the “continuing effect of the endowment impulse.” Steiner himself insists that the character of this continuing endowment impulse will be work done by a “tiny circle” of people who have been concerned, so far, with others entering and joining them slowly. Not that a society “or anything like one” is being built, nor will there be people with ranks or special powers. Rather, Steiner says that not just people but what people actually do will “exist in a living flow, a living development. Thus today no other principle will be set forth than the first: Recognition of the spiritual world as the fundamental reality. Sease closes with remarks Steiner made on 21 August 1915, when he returned to the fact that he had “once tried to assign certain titles to a number of close colleagues and long-standing Society members.” But, Steiner said, “The way in which the matter was understood…made it impossible. It was an attempt.”

Did Steiner mean that he had consciously risked this particular attempt knowing that one colleague had psychological difficulties as well as very fine capacities? Did Steiner perhaps try to give her an opportunity to discover herself as able to “attempt” her art among the team of the other individual contributors? Could there have been a spiritual situation that made it necessary for Steiner to offer her this attempt precisely because it might have allowed her to find herself able to carry out the endowment rather than finding herself overwhelmed or at least defeated by difficulties that remained in her from a much earlier time in her life?

Aside from such questions as these, another kind should be explored, or at least mentioned in some further descriptions of the futuristic aspects with which Sease

and Selg speak to their readers—Selg in his first and important chapter “Portrayal of Christian Rosenkreutz;” Sease in her final chapter, “The Continuing Effect of the Endowment Impulse.” Both authors connect their readers with a clear sense of the future. One hundred years after the events Sease and Selg portray, the work they want us—their readers—to understand, indeed to wake up to, brings us the realization that each of us can experience our own spirituality during our life and also thereafter. After all, when we read anthroposophy by reading Steiner, what our reading can give us is discoveries of new knowledge that we need in order to continue our own understandings of Steiner’s thought and deed—his anthroposophy. Now in my seventies, having begun working with anthroposophy in my twenties some fifty years ago, the futuristic portrayal by Selg and the “continuing effect” demonstrated by Sease’s descriptions—what but something new do I find? And what makes it new? The longer I realize what my long life of reading has brought me and still does, the more I discover that Steiner has been accompanying me and is still doing so today.

Steiner’s accompanying has the grand (or is it quiet?) presence of new understandings that live in my being so that I can find them there as mine and you can find them in your being as yours. No single date is needed! What happens for each of us comes in a specific way, perhaps, and perhaps at a specific moment, but the happening I am trying to uncover here has its own way of coming to us, and we have our own way or ways to recognize, cognize, or otherwise receive such happenings. Whether you or I read Selg and some day find Sease, or whether the opposite happens to you or to me is interesting, of course, but it is not the point. If you think of the receptions you experience, you find that the reality you “have” or “receive” happens in you , through you . Selg speaks of Rudolf Steiner saying of Benedictus (the character in the mystery dramas who plays Steiner) that he had to “serve the spirit spheres” with his counsel, meaning that Benedictus shows that Steiner’s own greatness includes difficulties and pains.

Steiner’s physician, Ita Wegman, who looked after him during his last six months, described his passing: His passing away was like a miracle. He left quite naturally. It seemed as if the die was cast in the last moment. And once it was cast there was no struggle, no attempt to stay on earth. For a while his gaze remained steady and calm; then he said a few kind words to me, and deliberately he closed his eyes and folded his hands. In

my work as a physician I had never seen anyone pass away so quickly from the earth. The die had been cast and the other activity in the spiritual world began immediately. No further preparations were needed. (“Portrayal,” 84)

According to Selg, Wegman said that Rudolf Steiner’s presence in the spiritual world was absolutely essential because of the knowledge (or earth experiences) that only he could take to the spiritual world (my emphasis): “He was needed in the spiritual world; that was obvious. It was equally obvious that he had important knowledge to impart to the spiritual world; knowledge that only he could impart. …” According to her notes, Steiner told Wegman that in his last lectures and writings, he had given everything “that people were able to take in,” adding with regard to the present and future: “The main weight is on the spiritual world now. The dead need to be prepared for new earthly incarnation as does the third hierarchy” (“Portrayal,” 91). Selg adds that Ita Wegman wrote “in accord with her teacher” that with the active help of Michael, who is always by his side, Christian Rosenkreutz and his stream ensure with their active support that the work begun by Rudolf Steiner in 1879 will continue. Wegman adds this note (note 307):

The Doctor often said, “Rosicrucianism must be taught as part of anthroposophy. Christian Rosenkreutz stands as an inspiration next to another whom he has chosen; we will never be able to keep the Goetheanum alive if the Rosicrucian stream, be it ever so concealed, is not intertwined with our anthroposophic movement.”

Selg finishes the entire “Portrayal” section with these words about Steiner’s role in humanity’s history:

Rudolf Steiner said that Christian Rosenkreutz had suffered and endured much in the spiritual history of humanity, and that he would suffer more in the future— “that has to do with the great dangers that the truth will have to face in the future.” The individuality of Rudolf Steiner will be fully included in the suffering and martyrdom still to be endured by Christian Rosenkreutz in connection with the future of spiritual life.

Selg and Wegman deeply understand the dangers to be faced in coming times through Steiner’s individuality and the further suffering to be endured by Christian Rosenkreutz in connection with the future of spiritual life. The “truth” referred to above is anthroposophy (p. 93). Sease’s views also weigh Steiner’s truly strong will to bring anthroposophy to bear on what is needed for immediate and further management of activity by and for the

individuals who decide to work, alone and/or in groups, toward future needs. The needs have to do with what Sease’s essay has pronounced in its various ways and situations, which she summarizes this way in Steiner’s words: You might say I am using many words and phrases that are perhaps not entirely understandable. This must be the case in matters like the one being considered here, because the matter itself must be taken hold of directly from within its life. (Endowment, 87; 86)

In Rudolf Steiner’s Endowment : Centenary Reflections on His Attempt for a Theosophical Art and Way of Life, Sease describes a first point that she wants to communicate. Clearly, her title, which points to 15 December 1911, covers the seven people who felt called to specific tasks coming from their karmas. “These tasks,” Sease says, “unite their identity inseparably with the development of anthroposophy and with the individuality of Rudolf Steiner in the twentieth century.” She continues: “We can imagine or even sense that these seven people [among others] continued to work under the protectorate of Christian Rosenkreutz even if it was not in the sense that might have been made possible had the Endowment entered into existence.” Indeed, she caps that continuing vision, saying “These people are united by a shared karma through the fact that they had been interpreted for their individual tasks at that time.” (78-79)2

What is at stake in Sease’s careful movement of taking something “directly from within its life,” as she calls it, at the start of the paragraph above? Sease reveals what is at stake when she speaks about the nature and content of Steiner’s Soul Calendar :

Since Rudolf Steiner’s Soul Calendar first appeared at Easter 1912, people around the world have been living with its verses. In them, Rudolf Steiner steps forward as the great interpreter of nature, the soul, and the cosmos. In his foreword to the first edition, he “endows” a more significant indication, namely how the individual human being can develop his or her own capacities to become an interpreter. …He does not offer “prescriptions;” … instead, we are shown the way to the living weaving of the soul as it can come to be in the future. (79; 80)

In Steiner’s foreword to the second printing in 1918, Sease adds that Rudolf Steiner gives an even more precise

2 The phrase “being interpreted” is used throughout Sease’s descriptions in her Endowment Centenary Reflections to show that shared karmic tasks as well as other, individual tasks can be spoken of as “being interpreted” (rather than given) in regard to the Endowment and its reflections.

orientation for those who wish to undertake the Calendar’s exercises. Sease describes them this way, poetically and yet officially:

For each week, a verse is given in this calendar that allows the soul to experience what is happening during this week as part of the life of the whole of the year. What this life lets sound in the soul when the soul unites with it will be expressed in the verse. The intention is a healthy ‘feeling of being at one’ with the course of nature and an associated powerful ‘finding oneself’ that arises from it. The thought is that empathy with the course of the world in the sense of these verses is something the soul longs for—if only it understands itself rightly.

Yes! Our soul can find itself in the Calendar’s weekly verses. With each one, the soul of our being comes into a unity with its content. Steiner does not offer “prescriptions.” Rather, his Calendar leaves each of us to find our ways. Those ways are still to come—from the future in the future. Those future ways will clearly shape new forms for all who want to be “interpreters” of what they themselves decide to take on: “[E]ach soul ,” says Sease, “will find its way in accord with its own particular coloration.” (80) Leaving her readers with potentially strong seeds for the future, she ends with these words:

When we look at Rudolf Steiner’s work in the years following the end of the First World War (1918), we recognize that Rudolf Steiner—as the great initiate of the twentieth century—endowed impulses for humanity in every area of life, in education, medicine, agriculture, eurythmy (which was born in Berlin in December 1911 and January 1912), and social life not to mention art and other areas. He did not just endow them for decades but for centuries (emphasis mine) Even though the Endowment of 15 December 1911 did not achieve fulfillment, seeds were planted for the future, especially through the Calendar of the Soul , which can call forth metamorphoses in every human soul when cultivated in daily practice (emphasis mine).

IN THIS SECTION:

Like the House of Peace in our last issue, Sophia Project presents a remarkable story of commitment, caring, and deep service. Every outstanding initiative

is unique but also an inspiration and a model. This is the first of three articles which will tell the Sophia Project story from several perspectives and make its lessons available to others.

Next in this section we have an initiative at the early development stage. Although comparatively abstract at this point, this proposal for a food quality research network compensates with the clarity of its vision and the richness of the interactions it will foster. And following is a short report on a classic biodynamic farm, Temple-Wilton in New Hampshire, which stands at the beginning of the community-supported agriculture movement and is still innovating.

Sophia Project

By Carol Cole and Robert McDermott

Sophia Project, a member of the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America from 1999 to 2010, and an affiliate of the Camphill Association of North America, has served mothers and children at risk of homelessness for thirteen years. For its first eleven years it was located in the inner city of Oakland, California. For the past two years it has continued its work in San Rafael, California.

At the invitation of John Beck, editor of being human, we plan to tell the story in three parts of how a wise education within a loving community has brought deep and remarkable transformations to fifty families and 140 children. The story begins and is sustained by the project’s response to the needs of these families. It is based on the conviction that insights of Rudolf Steiner and Karl Koenig show how to create a community that enables individuals—children, mothers, and coworkers—to heal, strengthen, and build necessary capacities.

From the first day to the present Sophia Project has been anchored in the Waldorf approach to early childhood education specifically adapted for these children. This combination of a Camphill community and Waldorf education has realized profound results: the children and mothers had been homeless and had suffered abuse prior to joining this project; to date not one of these families has returned to homelessness, all but one of the mothers are employed and live with their children in their own apartments, and all of the children are performing successfully in school.

This is the story of the transformation process by which the children and their mothers who suffered from toxic levels of stress, alienation, poverty, fear, and abuse are now well. The Sophia Project required unfailing dedication, a profound ideal of a live-in community, an equally profound approach to early childhood education and transformation, and a loyal network of donors and supporters. This is a dramatically successful story of hard work based on and within anthroposophy in response to inner city families; it can be replicated.

Vision and Approach

Many friends with experience of the challenges of American inner cities advised that the kind of project the founders were envisioning could not succeed in west Oakland. Where they saw no end of trouble the founders saw protection and transformation of children and mothers.

The children and mothers for whom Sophia Project was created are on the front lines battling some of the most intractable problems of our society. As they become well, they develop capacities to transform the harshness and chaos that fomented many of these problems.

The founders knew that to be effective they and the live-in community would need to be available 24/7 in the same neighborhoods as these extremely vulnerable families.

In every respect, this project has been informed by the anthroposophical image of the human being as cosmic and earthly with a spirit flowing through the past, present, and future. This approach presupposes and in turn deepens the dignity and healing resources of mother and child.

First of all it was a drug house here... before Sophia Project came. It was violent, rowdy, loud, dirty. I was afraid a lot. And when Sophia Project came things started looking up….It is cleaner, it even smells better. The whole neighborhood seems to have lit up. The flowers are around here. The natural habitat, the snails, the butterflies and things are appreciated by me coz they weren’t around before. It seems like our neighbors are being more respectful of just general people walking the streets. Before they were pretty rude and disrespectful and now that they see that somebody from another part of their world has come into ours, per se, and is trying to help, what I’ve seen is that people that see people help, they start helping themselves and helping each other. Its been a blessing this place being here.”

Londa, Myrtle House next-door neighbor

not including capital costs; b) priority for inclusion in Sophia Project would be given to families that had lived at Raphael House and had moved to Oakland for financial reasons; c) Carol would continue as full time director of children services at Raphael House for three years and David would continue as part-time operations manager for two years. It is difficult to imagine how Sophia Project could have launched successfully without the generous collaboration of Raphael House.

Founding

For five years prior to founding Sophia Project, Carol Cole had been director of children’s services at Raphael House, the first family homeless shelter in San Francisco. (Prior to her work at Raphael House, Carol founded a multi-racial Waldorf early childhood program in Camphill, South Africa, at the end of Apartheid, and before that she was a kindergarten teacher at the San Francisco Waldorf School.) Raphael House, led by Father David Lowell, had a live-in community devoted to Russian Orthodoxy. From the beginning of their collaboration, Father David and Carol worked with an understanding that Carol would eventually create a project based on anthroposophy and Waldorf. After four years at Raphael House, Carol’s husband, David Barlow, who had been a Camphill co-worker in South Africa for twenty-two years, became the operations manager.

When the time came to start Sophia Project as an independent tax-exempt (501(c)(3) institution, Carol and Father David created an agreement for collaboration. A pro-bono team of management consultants at Stanford University School of Business studied and then praised the mutually beneficial relationship between Raphael House and Sophia Project: a) Raphael House agreed to fund much of the direct program costs for three years,

Equally indispensable was Ellie Wood’s generous gift of the down payment on a large, neglected house in west Oakland and her guarantee of the mortgage lent by Rudolf Steiner Foundation. The founding board consisted of Robert McDermott (chair), Ellie Wood, Kathy Gower (secretary), and David Barlow. In 2000 Sophia Project officially opened with 8 children in daily programs, 6am–6pm and overnight respite care for 5 children on 3 weekends a month. It held art days and festival celebrations for the neighborhood children, many of whom came to play on other days.

Houses and Neighborhood

Sophia House was located in west Oakland. Five years later the project purchased Myrtle House, two blocks away. In general, the neighborhood was violent but specific experiences can tell a different story. Shortly after the sale, a neighbor warned against taking a photo of the house. He said, “I have a lot of friends who don’t like pictures.” Five years later his infant daughter joined the program in our second house. Two years later, when we at-

tended his funeral, his daughter, on seeing us, brightened and ran to us to be held. In a similar way, David had a visit from several of the neighborhood women opposed to what they thought would be a safe house for battered women because abusers inevitably locate a safe house. When they heard that the project would be serving vulnerable young children they immediately lent their support. In the entire 11 years the Sophia community did not experience a break-in or any violence. This is a testament to the neighbors who in unseen ways worked to keep the community safe. The neighbors also appreciated the painstaking restoration of two dilapidated but once beautiful houses (see photos below and previous page). For its part, Sophia community members observed very strict protocols on dress and behavior when outside the houses. Despite the violence and the overhead police helicopters whose frequent presence sent children and adults alike scrambling inside, the houses and gardens did become safe houses for neighbors, children, mothers, co-workers, and visitors.

The Board and Funding

When Luis, 3 years old, arrived... he and his family were still struggling with homelessness. His mother was overwhelmed with the care of her other child, a 10-year-old handicapped girl, and was unable to do more than meet Luis’ basic needs. They had all experienced domestic violence. It took consistent, careful guidance for Luis to learn to trust others and to interact with the other children without hitting. After a half year he has become much more peaceful and found his way through the trauma. He spends a lot of time on the swings singing. With his arms extended to the side to hold onto the swing, it is easy to see his disfigured arm, which healed poorly after it was broken in a violent incident—a painful reminder of what he and many of our children endure. Less visible but equally powerful are the inner capacities Luis is now building which enable him to wait for a turn on the beloved swing, ask for help for a starting push, and immerse himself in the swinging movement and in his joyful (and quite loud) song: “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider went up the waterspout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain, and the Itsy-Bitsy Spider went up the spout again.” Perhaps Luis recognizes some of his own tenacity in that of the spider he sings about with such enthusiasm.

From the 2005 newsletter

In addition to its official responsibility for the financial and legal oversight, the board served the mission and integrity of the program. A few board members volunteered on a weekly basis in the programs and made enormous contributions to the program. At its meetings six times a year, Carol

explained some of the ways that she and the staff were applying the Waldorf approach to early childhood in the work with the children as well as in the lives of the co-workers.

Sophia Project families were struggling to survive. Their meager income was needed first for rent and secondarily for food. Sophia Project, which received no government funding, offered its services free to its families. In all, Sophia Project raised more than $5.5 million dollars. Most of this amount was provided by philanthropic foundations. Two thousand individuals supported the project, approximately thirty-percent of them from within the anthroposophical movement. Less than 1.5% came from anthroposophical or Camphill organizations. Camphill Beaver Run, parents in the East Bay Waldorf school, as well as mothers in the San Francisco Waldorf School parent handwork group and the Secret Santa group (both led by Sharry Wright), all contributed to the Sophia Project families. Sophia Project actively collaborated in programs with Children’s Hospital of Oakland, Rebuilding Oakland, Child Protective Services, and Habitat for Humanity.

The Live-in Community

Essential to the work of Sophia Project is the live-in community of co-workers. All program staff and interns lived at one of the two houses. Living out of Camphill principles, the staff worked to create a vessel of physical and soul safety. The long-term co-workers, as well as any intern who so wished, agreed to strive to live up to the “Sophia Project Leading Thought”:

Out of love for the children, children who together with their mothers have experienced inner

and outer poverty, violence, abuse, homelessness, and a lack of human dignity, we strive to live and work together in such a way that our community striving in service of Christ is manifest in ways the children can imitate and in which the mothers can participate and in so doing can develop the inner capacities needed to transform themselves and the world around them, serve the good and gain evermore strength and courage to transform that which robs and degrades human dignity.

Some of our families stay... in the neighborhood and make changes here, one step by courageous step. Having learned at Sophia House the importance of daily life, Joan now has a dinner table where most evenings she eats with her children. “The neighbors can’t believe I am still doing it,” she laughs. Some of her neighbor’s children join her family for a “sit-down” dinner. “They’ll be making their folks do it too one day” she smiles. Painfully, this new order does not suit all of her extended family and some do not come around much anymore. “I miss them,” she tells me, “but we have to do this now, the kids don’t need to act like nothing matters.”

From the 2004 newsletter

Interns came from around the world through the Waldorf movement, Camphill, and AmeriCorps. Before arrival, they received a detailed agreement describing service to which they were committing. At the start of each year the entire community underwent a five-day orientation concerning the structure of community living and working together.

Carol led the interns and staff in studies concerning the principles of the Waldorf approach to early childhood education, aspects of curative education, child study, family support work, as well as specific workshops on topics such as licensing requirements, domestic violence, and many aspects of power, rank, and privilege. Every coworker took up an education plan of varying level and intensity.

Teacher education took place both inside and outside the project. Two teachers completed their certification in Waldorf early childhood education. Sophia Project became the first satellite location for the bachelor’s degree in curative education at Camphill Beaver Run. The entire live-in community engaged in outings, artistic activity, the study of anthroposophical ideas, and inspiring biographies such as Martin Luther King Jr. Through these activities each member of the project collaborated in deepening his or her free spiritual life.

To the extent possi-

ble, the entire community strove to realize the ideal of the three-fold social order. Each member endeavored to honor the responsibilities and needs of each community member, including care of the houses and gardens, shopping and cooking, as well as health insurance, outside counseling, and education. Every co-worker was aware of the project’s finances, with a clear understanding of the need to live simply in order to ensure that the resources could be directed to the needs of the children and families.

Results

By 2013, Sophia Project served over 140 children and 50 families in its five-day and weekend programs. It also served dozens of neighborhood children. All but one family served by the Sophia Project daily programs remain housed and stable and have become agents of change in their own neighborhoods. Teachers regularly comment on the harmony that Sophia Project children bring to their class. Eighteen children have grants to private or parochial schools. Four are now in college and in the next few years several more will attend college. Thirty-five interns who worked for the Sophia Project and received training from Carol continue to work in organizations committed to serving vulnerable children and families.

The work continues.

Carol Cole (carol.cole@sophiaproject.org) co-founded and directs Sophia Project. Robert McDermott (rmcdermott@ciis.edu) is board chair of Sophia Project and president emeritus of the California Institute for Integral Studies.

Healthy Farms, Healthy Soils, Healthy Food

Establishing A Food Quality Research Network in North America

Overview

The biodynamic approach to agriculture is based on the idea that there is an intimate relationship between healthy soil, healthy farms, and healthy food. This notion is shared in many circles of the wider organic and sustainable agriculture movement as well.

But what makes an item of food healthy or high quality? Neither the absence of toxins (“pesticide free”) or certain nutrient groups (“fat free”) can be a sufficient criterion. The presence of specific nutrients (“high in vitamin C”), many nutrients (“nutrient dense”), or proportions of nutrients (“high omega-3/omega-6 ratio”) may be more indicative of genetically heritable factors than of the health and integrity of the crop or food product. Nutrient analysis can only be a useful criterion if one charts the quantities of substances relative to the developmental status of the organism, i.e., its vitality, health, maturity, ripeness, decay. Thus, making sense of quantitative analyses of substances presupposes the ability to directly or indirectly assess the status of development, health, and vitality of the plant or animal and its products as a whole. Such assessments of “life status” are inherently qualitative as life is not a substance that can be quantitatively measured.

On the conceptual side, integrative ideas have been developed by the biodynamic community describing health or quality as a dynamic balance between variously defined extremes such as “growth and differentiation.”1 Such insights offer the potential to integrate a host of quantitative data into a larger, more dynamic understanding of the factors that contribute to genuine food quality.

On the practical side, over the last eighty years biodynamic researchers have pioneered a host of quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the overall health and integrity of soils, plants, animals, and food products. The quantitative methods have included measuring crop plant

1 See, for example, J. Bloksma et al. 2007, “A New Quality Concept Based on Life Processes” (www.louisbolk.org/downloads/1910.pdf ), or W. Schad, 1998, “Health and Sickness in Medicine and Ecology” (www.anthromed.org/Article.aspx?artpk=45).

constituents such as nitrate and vitamin C, amino acid content, etc. Qualitative methods measuring life status or vitality in crop products have often entailed measuring the product’s resistance to decay and death. These qualitative methods include measuring electrical conductivity, bioluminescence, as well as holistic “picture-forming” methods such as copper chloride, sensitive crystallization, and various methods of paper chromatography. With the picture-forming methods, extracts of soil, plant and animal products are tested for their ability to interact with and form metal salts into discrete forms or “pictures.” The ability to make more structured pictures increases with product quality and with physiological ripeness.

These methods have been applied in many countries to a wide variety of crops ranging from vegetables to wine, from grains to dairy products. Long-term field trials, coupled with these evaluation methods, have shown that organic and biodynamic practices enhance the overall vitality and integrity of soils and food products while conventional practices decrease it. 2 The methods continue to be researched and developed in Europe.

Aside from the benefits of pure research to advance our understanding of health, the aforementioned methods can be applied practically to help both farmers and consumers assess soil and food crop quality. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Biochemical Research Lab in New York, under the direction of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, applied some of these methods for cooperating farmers and consumers. From the 1960s to the 1990s this kind of work was carried out at a higher level by the Scandinavian Research Circle (Nordisk Forskningsring) under the leadership of Bo Pettersson. The Circle tested wheat, rye, potatoes, and carrots from a network of cooperating biodynamic farmers in the four countries. Each year a report was given to each farmer of the quality of their products and how well they

2 See Kjellenberg, L. and A. Granstedt. 2005, “The results from the K-trial: A 33-year study on the effect of fertilization on the properties of soil and crop (www.orgprints.org/10765/1/K-trial.pdf ) and Granstedt and Kjellenberg 2011, “Skilleby Long-term field trial 1991-2010” (www.jdb.se/sbfi/files/ Skilleby_long%20term_field_trial_1991_2010.pdf ).

A concept paper developed by the Research Steering Team of the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association with support from the New World Foundation’s Local Economies Project

did relative to the other biodynamic farmers. This information was also used by the certification organization, Demeter, to monitor quality and to inform customers of their efforts to constantly upgrade their products.

We believe the kind of approach taken by the Scandinavian Research Circle is needed in North America to advance our culture’s understanding of quality, to help farmers upgrade their methods, and to ensure that consumers obtain high quality products. We propose to couple this method with a strong participatory component in which the insights, sensory observations and perspectives of farmers are fully integrated into a holistic research and development process.

Narrative Description of the Project

The Food Quality Research Network would consist of farmers, researchers, and cooperating laboratories. The researchers and labs would function as a single North American network, while the participating farmers would be organized into regional working groups. The farmers would ideally be employing a diversity of agricultural methods and soil fertility techniques, from conventional to organic to biodynamic, but would all share a desire to understand better and improve the quality of their products and soils. We anticipate that one or more research stations would also participate which will allow for certain questions to be addressed through a more traditional experimental design process.

Each regional working group would likely focus on one product for a number of years, for example, carrots. Each year in the fall, the members of the working group would bring samples of their carrots, as well as soil samples, to a day-long meeting in the region, organized by the researchers who are leading the project. The producers would bring to the meeting not only their carrots and soil samples, but also detailed notes on their growing methods, planting and harvest dates, weather conditions, plant observations, etc. A training session earlier in the year would have prepared them for how to gather this information and collect the samples, as well as which varieties to grow, etc. Producers who cannot attend or choose to opt out of these meetings would agree to send their samples and notes ahead of time.

At the meeting, a host of sensory exercises are led by different researchers through which the farmers are given the opportunity to develop, share, and refine their own sense of the health and quality of the carrot and soil samples. For example, structured exercises would be con-

ducted to gather careful observations of the form and texture of the carrots and soil samples. In addition, a carrot tasting panel would be assembled together with other ad hoc observations of the products and the growing season. Detailed notes would be kept from these sessions.

Prior to this session, samples of these same products and soils would also have been sent out to the network of laboratories participating in the project. The labs would conduct detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis with a variety of methods, in order to look at the quality of products from many perspectives. Each lab would have a different area of expertise and provide different testing methods. Quantitative methods might include Brix testing, soil microbiology testing and chemical analysis of phytonutrients and other crop and soil constituents. Qualitative methods might include root health studies, studies of keeping quality (rate of decay), animal feeding trials, tasting panels, and picture forming methods (e.g., sensitive crystallization and paper chromatography). A team of lead researchers would coordinate the distribution of samples and compilation of results from the various labs in the network.

The lead researchers would gather the results of all the tests, including the observations gathered at the farmers’ meeting described above, and work to formulate an understanding of the relative health, quality, and vitality of the products and soil samples and the on-farm factors that may have contributed to these results. The researchers would draft a detailed report to bring to another meeting with the farmers for in-depth sharing and discussion.

Through this effort, the farmers could recognize, objectively, which are the highest quality carrots and soils, how this was determined and what were the factors contributing to it. These discussions would in turn lay the groundwork for another year of research, in which each farm could identify and choose to make certain changes in their production practices, etc., in an effort to enhance the quality of their soils and products.

We believe the Network could be piloted in one region with other regional working groups of farmers added over time. To make it easier to participate, farmer meetings could take place in conjunction with regional agricultural conferences, reaching a wider audience and new collaborators. In addition, not all the farmers in the working group would be required to participate in the day long meetings. They could simply participate in the training session and then opt to get written reports on the quality of their products and soils.

Benefits

The benefits of a Network like this would be numerous:

1. The products and farming practices in a given region are steadily improved through an objective, participatory process that transcends labels like “organic,” “conventional,” or “biodynamic,” which sometimes divide farmers. The goal of this effort is not to prove any one system better or worse, but simply to determine on an objective basis what contributes to the health and quality of food and soils. What is learned by the farmers participating in the Network can then be readily shared with other farmers through various kinds of publications and events.

2. Farmers are trained to be more careful and in-depth observers of their farms, products, and soils, and to make better direct assessments of health and quality. They are also coming into a cooperative relationship with other farmers and researchers who can help them evaluate, enhance, and refine the management of their farms and the health and quality of the products they are producing. A collaborative learning community is being formed with untold benefits to the participants, their local communities, and the eventual consumers of the farm products.

3. Through this project, not only are products and soils tested, but also the prevailing theories and hypotheses regarding quality and health. By bringing a diverse group of researchers and labs together and correlating the results of different methods, together with the farmer observations, a foundation is created for a much richer understanding of the nature of food and soil quality and the factors and practices that contribute to it. This approach is likely to generate far-reaching, synthetic insights into the nature of quality.

4. After a number of years, the results of this project should also be highly applicable for consumer education. We believe it is extremely important for the future of a healthy food system to teach consumers how to assess food quality directly, in conjunction with what they can learn from ingredient labels or various certifications. Imagine, for example, being able to teach consumers about three key indicators of the quality of carrots, eggs, apples or wheat that they can assess with their own senses or through simple tests they can conduct at home.

5. Finally, we believe that a network of labs of the kinds described above could sustain itself over time through work with farmers and other research institutions on a fee-for-service basis.

Next Steps

As pointed out above, the purpose of this project is not to focus on researching biodynamic farming practices per se, but rather to make use of biodynamic insights and testing methods, together with a host of other perspectives and approaches, to enhance our understanding of quality soil and food and what contributes to it. Therefore, at this time, the Biodynamic Association is seeking to engage a wide range of potential partners, advisers, and funders in dialogue around this concept. On the basis of these dialogues, we anticipate this concept will be significantly enhanced and that a more detailed plan for the project along with specific funding proposals will be developed.

Project contact: Sarah Weber, Research Program Coordinator, (sarah@biodynamics.com).

Temple-Wilton Community Farm

A CSA Pioneer that Keeps Showing the Way

by Robert Karp

Some of you may be aware of the storied history of Temple-Wilton Community Farm in New Hampshire, one of the first and most innovative community supported agriculture (CSA) farms in North America. I had the great pleasure to visit the farm this October and wanted to share a report of the growth and progress of this beautiful and important farm.

Started by biodynamic farmers Trauger Groh, Lincoln Geiger, Anthony Graham, and a host of community members in the mid-1980s, the farm is known for pioneering a unique (some would call it “archetypal”) form of CSA, rooted deeply in the social and economic ideas of Rudolf Steiner. At Temple-Wilton, for example, there is not an equal, evenly distributed share price. Rather, members attend an annual meeting each year to review and discuss the farm’s total budget and decide what amount they each feel they can contribute to that budget. Each member writes down his or her proposed financial offering on a piece of paper; if those sums don’t add up to meet the annual budget, then the members go around again and offer additional sums until the budget is met. The process, in other words, is highly participatory, communal, and transparent.

This model of CSA has so many benefits. First of all,

it liberates everyone, farmers and eaters alike, from the notion that they are buying and selling produce. Instead, it fosters the consciousness among the members that they are making gifts to support the continued existence of the farm as a whole and that the produce they receive in return is a gift. But it also models transparency, through the fact that the farm finances and the plans for the farm each year are made completely transparent to the members, who have a chance to give input and raise questions. A true gift economy is thus being developed that harmonizes the different interests and need of the farmers, the land, and the community. For those who want to find out more, I strongly encourage you to read “A Brief History of the Farm” on their website, the seminal book Farms of Tomorrow Revisited , and Steven McFadden’s wonderful history of the CSA movement.

I was thrilled to discover on this trip that Temple-Wilton has more and more become a year-round CSA that can meet the bulk of a family’s food needs, offering their members everything—pork, beef, chicken, eggs, raw milk, cheese, and vegetables—throughout the year, not to mention fruit, bread, and other products from local affiliated farms. Members can stop by the farm at any time to pick up the food they need.

And consider this: the average contribution to the farm per household of two adults is $200 a month. This is not CSA as a trendy addition to one’s lifestyle, this is CSA as a core commitment to one’s health, to the health of one’s local community, and to the health of the planet.

The farm made a strong impression on me. The animals and the fields looked extraordinarily healthy and the whole place smelled wonderful: the perfect balance of the earthly and the cosmic, like fine wine, wonderfully made compost, or fresh-baked bread. How amazing it would be, I thought, to get the majority of one’s food from one vital, self-sustaining biodynamic farm organism. Imagine the impact on one’s health after seven years of nourishing one’s body from such a farm organism and renewing all one’s cells thereby.

It was also wonderful to see how the farm has grown over the last decade. Many new parcels of land have been acquired, making the farm ever more self-sufficient in terms of fertility and feed. All this land has been purchased with gifts from the local community and is secured long term by easements and/ or land trust ownership. There is a new café on the farm, which fosters a wonderful social element. The farm is also growing its commitment to farm-based education of children and youth from local schools.

New farmers have also found a home on the farm or in the surrounding community, and this younger generation appears to be playing a stronger and stronger role—starting new enterprises and holding out new visions for the future. I had wonderful meetings, for example, with Brad Miller, who works for High Mowing, a local Waldorf boarding high school. Brad is working to secure key additional parcels of land that would allow High Mowing to strengthen its farm-based education programs and provide important additional land for the growth of Temple-Wilton Community Farm.

The impression of the farm and community is thus one of growing maturity— evolving from high-integrity food production through innovative social arrangement to becoming more and more a center for community life and cultural renewal.

I am also deeply gratified to report that I spent a good deal of time with a hale and healthy Lincoln Geiger, who just a year ago had been severely injured by a bull. He reports that the accident was transformational for his inner life, and he shared deep gratitude for the many people in the movement who supported him with their thoughts and prayers. Trauger and Alice Groh are also still intimately involved in the work, nourishing the deep spiritual foundations for the community. They are currently seeking a new farmer for their land; we hope to publish a formal announcement of this opportunity in our forums soon.

Robert Karp is the Executive Director of the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association. This report is reprinted from the Association’s blog (http://biodynamicsbda.wordpress.com).

Top: A healthy Lincoln Geiger welcomed me to Temple-Wilton Community Farm. Center: Brad Miller is doing farm-based education at nearby High Mowing Waldorf High School. Bottom: Benjamin Meier, a self-taught master cheesemaker for Temple-Wilton.

IN THIS SECTION:

Rudolf Steiner’s work is now so widely available that it seems unnecessary to publish his lectures and essays here. This piece on Goethe’s spirituality, however, is unusually important and has never been available in English in an ideal form. In addition, the translator is Frederick Amrine who provides an introduction and fine notes. And this essay allows us to feature briefly the rather miraculous project at Threefold Educational Center in Chestnut Ridge, NY, which has brought four conferences around Steiner’s mystery dramas and will bring all of them in one festival next year.

Finally we have David Adams’ report of an extraordinary arts conference from 2012, which he describes as “probably the most inspiring, stimulating, and innovative anthroposophical event” he has experienced over forty years. Our cover image comes from this conference.

Goethe’s Spirituality as Revealed in The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily

by Rudolf Steiner,

translated

by Frederick Amrine

Translator’s Note

Over the coming year, the Anthroposophical Society will be sponsoring numerous initiatives related to Rudolf Steiner’s four Mystery Dramas (1910-1913).1 The following essay, published by Rudolf Steiner originally in 1899, is an important text both for the study of Steiner’s dramas, and within the historical development of anthroposophy generally. Aside from a few pages of his autobiography, and despite their great importance, this essay is the only place where Steiner discusses either Schiller’s essay or Goethe’s Fairy Tale systematically. The sole extant translation into English, a valiant but flawed effort, has been out of print since 1925: hence this substantial revision, which is effectively new.2

The first version of the essay was published originally in Steiner’s own journal, the Magazine for Literature, to commemorate Goethe’s 150th birthday on August 28, 1899, under the title “Goethe’s Secret Revelation.” This early version has been reprinted in volume 30 of the German Gesamtausgabe (Complete Works), which remains untranslated.3 Then in 1918, Steiner rewrote it as translated here for inclusion in a volume called Goethe’s Spirituality as Revealed by Faust and The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. This little book consists of three essays, two on Faust followed by the present essay on Schiller and Goethe. The long first essay, “Goethe’s Faust as an Image of his Esoteric Worldview,” had first been published as a booklet in 1902; the second, “Goethe’s Spirituality as Revealed in Faust,” was newly composed for the volume in 1918. (This second essay is very short but genuinely profound; I consider it a milestone in the history of scholarship on Goethe.) In 1956, the 6th edition of the German original was incorporated into Gesamtausgabe (Complete Edition) of Steiner’s works as GA 22. My fully revised translation of this volume with introduction and commentary is forthcoming from SteinerBooks as CW 22—an excellent opportunity for some individual or group to attain some measure of immortality by subsidizing the publication, with appropriate recognition in the published volume!

The original version of this essay (1899) seems to have been Rudolf Steiner’s first esoteric publication, and a lecture with the same title was likely the first openly esoteric talk that Steiner ever gave. At the end of Ch. 29 of his autobiography (CW 28), Steiner communicates his resolve to begin speaking openly about his spiritual insights, and then he immediately begins Ch. 30 with an account of his writing and publication of this essay. He proceeds on the following page to describe how a talk with the same title came to be his first esoteric lecture within the circle of Theosophists surrounding the Count and Countess Brockdorff in Berlin. Earlier in the same book (Ch. 12), Steiner describes at some length how important both The Fairy Tale and Schiller’s essay had been to him during his time in Weimar while editing Goethe’s scientific writings. He asserts that Goethe’s tale brings the reader right up to the very threshold of direct spiritual experience.

As Steiner himself notes in the following essay, Goethe’s Fairy Tale was the main inspiration for his

1 See GA 14, Rudolf Steiner, Four Mystery Dramas, trans. Ruth and Hans Pusch (Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks/Anthroposophic Press, 2007); also The Four Mystery Plays, trans. Adam Bittleston (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982).

2 Goethe’s Standard of the Soul, trans. D. S. Osmond (Anthroposophic Press/Anthroposophical Publishing Co.).

3 Methodische Grundlagen der Anthroposophie 1804-1901: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Philosophie, Naturwissenschaft, Ästhetik und Seelenkunde, 3rd edn. (Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1989), pp. 86-99.

own first Mystery Drama. As this is both widely known (the Pusch translation even includes a table of correspondences on p. 12) and too large a topic for the space available, my notes in the translation make no reference to the Mystery Dramas. But they do refer at several key points to parallels with Freudian and Jungian depth psychology, which Steiner anticipates here. Even these few allusions to the conceptual language of then-nascent depth psychology help greatly, I think, to explain Steiner’s profound fascination with a text that most Goethe-scholars would consider marginal and uncharacteristic. (Steiner’s interest in Schiller’s magnificent essay needs no explanation.) But it was only in the last year of his life, in his lecture of 8 July 1924 (GA 237, vol. III of Karmic Relationships), that Steiner revealed the profoundest reasons for his interest in Goethe’s Fairy Tale revelations that touch us all as anthroposophists in the most intimate way imaginable.

The Essay

¶1 Around the time of the beginning of his friendship with Goethe, Schiller was occupying himself with the ideas that found expression in his essay On the Aesthetic Education of Man. 1 In 1794, he elaborated a set of letters, 2 which he had originally written to the Duke of Augustenburg, for The Horae 3 The train of thought in the verbal discussions and the correspondence which took

1 Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), the dramatist who became one of Goethe’s closest friends and collaborators. Schiller was also a lyric poet and a historian, but Rudolf Steiner, like several of Schiller’s contemporaries, considered him a great philosopher above all. Steiner was influenced deeply by Schiller’s essay On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters (1794). A fine English translation by Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L. A. Willoughby, with facing German and extensive commentary, was published by Oxford UP in 1967 (rpt. in paperback since), and it has helped bring this neglected masterpiece some measure of the attention it deserves. Another edition published originally by Yale University Press and now reprinted by Dover as an inexpensive paperback is much inferior as a translation, lacks the German original facing the English, and is marred by Reginald Snell’s superficial yet condescending introduction. For a fuller treatment of Schiller’s essay in relation to Steiner and within its own intellectual-historical context, see Frederick Amrine’s essay “From Schiller to Steiner,” forthcoming in the next issue of the Research Bulletin of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education.

2 The final version is highly unusual, if not unique: an “epistolary philosophical treatise.” It has the density and deeply organic form of lyric poetry, and Schiller is also a master of rhetoric, which allows otherwise abstract arguments to speak directly to our feeling and will.

3 Die Horae was an elite literary journal edited by Schiller. Although it lasted only two years, it attracted the finest writers of the day and was highly influential. The Duke of Augustenburg was Schiller’s refined, enlightened, and politically liberal patron.

place at that time between Goethe and Schiller returned again and again to the nexus of ideas contained in these letters. Schiller’s meditations 4 were directed to the question: What condition of the human faculties is most conducive to human dignity in the best sense of that word? “Every individual human being, one may say, carries within him, potentially and prescriptively, an ideal man, the archetype of a human being, and it is his life’s task to be, for all his changing manifestations, in harmony with the unchanging unity of this ideal.”* [*Thus writes Schiller in the fourth letter.]5 Schiller aims to build a bridge from human nature as it exists in everyday reality to human nature as an ideal. Two drives 6 exist within human nature, which hold it back from ideal perfection when they develop in an unbalanced way – the drives of the senses and of reason. If the sense-drive has the upper hand, we become the servant of our instincts and passions. A force that darkens7 our consciousness casts a shadow upon the actions that we perform in light of that consciousness. [65/66] Our acts become the result of an inner necessity. If the rational drive predominates, we strive to suppress the instincts and passions and to give ourselves over to an abstract necessity that is not sustained by inner warmth. In both cases we are subject to coercion. In the former, our sensory nature subdues the spiritual; in the latter, our spiritual nature subdues that of the senses. Neither leaves us completely free in the kernel of our being, which lies between the material and the spiritual. Complete freedom can be realized only by harmonizing both drives. Our sensory nature must not be subdued, but rather ennobled; our instincts and passions must be permeated with spirituality in such a way that they themselves become the realizers 8 of the spiritual element that has entered into them. And reason must take hold of the human soul in such a way that it usurps the power of mere instincts and passions; then we shall fulfill the counsels of reason as though with a natural instinct and the power of passion. “When we embrace with passion someone who deserves our contempt, we are painfully aware of the compulsion of nature. When we feel hostile towards another who compels our esteem, we are painfully aware of the

4 Nachsinnen

5 All direct quotes from Schiller’s text will be taken from Wilkinson and Willoughby’s translation, despite their unfortunate use of gendered language.

6 Triebe, the same term that Freud would later employ in psychoanalysis.

7 trüben, the same verb that Goethe employs in his color theory to signify anything that is opaque and darkens light.

8 Verwirklicher

F.A.

compulsion of reason. 9 But once he has at the same time engaged our affection and won our esteem, then both the compulsion of feeling and the compulsion of reason disappear and we begin to love him…”* [*Fourteenth letter.] A person whose sensory nature manifests the spirituality of reason, and whose reason manifests the elemental power of passion, would be a free individuality. 10 [66/67] Schiller wants to found harmonious community within society upon the development of free individualities. For him the problem of creating a genuinely humane existence was bound up with questions about the creation of social forms. This was his answer to the questions posed to humanity by the French Revolution at the time when he expressed these thoughts.* [*Twenty-seventh letter.]

¶2 Goethe found deep satisfaction in such ideas. On 26 October 1794 he wrote to Schiller on the subject of The Aesthetic Education as follows: “I read the manuscript you sent me immediately and with great pleasure; I swallowed it in one gulp. Like a delicious drink that suits our nature and just wants to be imbibed and shows its healthy effects on our tongue through a pleasant humor of the nervous system – that’s how pleasant and salubrious these letters seemed to me. And how could it be otherwise, since I found such a coherent and noble exposition of what I have long recognized to be true, in part having already lived it, and in part desiring to live it?”

¶3 Goethe found that Schiller’s Aesthetic Education expressed all that he longed to experience in life in order to become conscious of an existence that should be really worthy of our humanity. It is therefore comprehensible that in his soul also, thoughts should be stimulated which he tried in his own way to elaborate along the same lines as Schiller’s. These thoughts gave birth to the literary work that has been interpreted in so many different ways, — namely the enigmatic fairy tale11 at the end of the narrative which appeared in The Horae under the title Conversations of German Refugees. 12 The Fairy Tale appeared in this journal in the year 1795. These conversations, like

9 Schiller means that in each case we can come to feel the irony of our inappropriate response, which confirms the reality of these drives within human nature.

10 This had been of course the great ideal of Steiner’s own book The Philosophy of Freedom, published five years earlier, which was deeply influenced by Schiller’s essay.

11 Rätselmärchen

12 The standard English translation is vol. 10 of the Suhrkamp/Princeton edition of Goethe’s Collected Works, but a less expensive paperback has been published more recently: The German Refugees, trans. Mike Mitchell (Dedalus, 2006).

Schiller’s Aesthetic Education, refer to events unfolding in the French Revolution. This concluding fairy tale cannot be explained by bringing all sorts of ideas to bear upon it from outside, but rather only by going back to the conceptions13 that lived in Goethe’s soul at that time.

¶4 Most of the attempts to interpret this literary work are recounted in the book entitled Goethe’s Art Tales by Friedrich Meyer von Waldeck.* [*Heidelberg: Karl Wintersche Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1879.] Since the publication of this book a few new attempts at interpretation have emerged of course as well.* [*I have tried to enter into the spirit of The Fairy Tale by taking as my starting point Goethe’s worldview as it had developed at the beginning of the 1790s. The results of my research were first presented in a lecture that I gave to the Vienna Goethe Society on 27 November 1891. What I said at that time has since expanded in many different dimensions. But everything that I have said or published since regarding The Fairy Tale is only an extension of the thoughts contained in that lecture. My Mystery Drama that appeared in 1910, The Portal of Initiation, is also the fruit of those thoughts.]

¶5 We must look for the embryonic thought underlying The Fairy Tale in the Conversations of German Refugees, which end with The Fairy Tale. In the [framing narrative], Goethe tells of the escape of a certain family from regions devastated by war. [68/69] In the conversations between the members of this family, everything comes to life that was stimulated in Goethe’s thinking14 by his exchange of ideas with Schiller along the lines characterized above. The conversations revolve around two intellectual foci. 15 One of them governs those conceptions of human nature which allow us to believe in the existence of some connection between the events of our lives – a connection that is impermeable to the laws of material actuality. The stories told in this connection are in part pure ghost stories, and in part they describe experiences which seem to reveal a “miraculous” element that takes the place of natural law. Of course Goethe did not write these narratives out of any kind of a tendency towards superstition, but rather out of a much deeper motivation. That soothing, mystical feeling16 which many people have when they are able to hear about something that “cannot be explained” by a rationality that is “limited” and attends

13 Vorstellungen

14 Vorstellungskreisen

15 Gedankenmittelpunkte

16 angenehm-mystische Empfindung

only to lawful connections was quite alien to Goethe. But again and again he found himself confronted by the question: Isn’t it possible for the human soul to emancipate itself from conceptions emanating solely from sensory perception and to grasp a supersensory world through a purely spiritual intuition?17 The drive towards this kind of cognitive activity might very well be a natural human striving based on a connection with such a supersensory world – a connection that is hidden from the senses and the understanding18 that is bound to them. And the inclination towards experiences which appear to burst the natural order of things might be only a childish aberration of this justified human longing for a spiritual world.

[69/70] Goethe was interested in the peculiar direction of the soul’s activity when giving way to this fondness for the sweets of superstition rather than the actual content of the tales and stories to which these tendencies give birth in unsophisticated minds.

¶6 From the second intellectual focus 19 radiate concepts and images20 touching our moral life. The stimulus for these concepts and images is derived not from material existence, but from impulses that raise us above the impulses stimulated by our sensory existence. Within this realm a supersensory world of forces21 enters into the life of the human soul.

¶7 Vectors which must ultimately end in the supersensible radiate out from both these intellectual foci. And they give rise to the question of our innermost human nature, the connection of the human soul with the world of the senses on the one side and with the supersensory realm on the other. Schiller approached this question philosophically in his treatise, but the abstract philosophical path was not Goethe’s. Goethe had to incorporate his thinking along such lines into a series of images. And this was accomplished through The Fairy Tale of The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. In Goethe’s imagination the various faculties of the human soul assumed the form of characters in The Fairy Tale, and the whole life and striving of the human soul was imagined 22 as the experiences and interactions of these characters. – Now as soon as anything of this kind is said one has to be prepared for the objection which will come from certain quarters that 17

in this way a composition is lifted out of the realm of imagination, [70/71] of fantasy, and made into an inartistic schema 23 of abstract concepts; the figures are removed from real life and transformed into symbols or even allegories that are not of the nature of art. Such an objection is based on the notion 24 that nothing but abstract ideas can live in the human soul as soon as it leaves the realm of the senses. It fails to recognize that there is a living, supersensory mode of perception just as there is a sensory one. And in The Fairy Tale, Goethe moves with his figures in the realm of supersensory perceptions, not in that of abstract concepts.25 My argument is not meant to imply in any way that these figures and their experiences can be reduced to this or that specific meaning. Allegorical 26 interpretation of that kind is as far removed as it could possibly be from the standpoint of this essay, which sees the old Man with the Lamp and the Will-o’Wisps in The Fairy Tale as nothing more nor less than the imaginative figures that appear in the work of art. What must be sought, however, are the particular thoughtimpulses that stimulated the imagination of the poet to create such figures. Goethe’s consciousness surely did not lay hold of these thought-impulses in abstract form.27 He expressed himself in imaginative figures because to his

23 Verbildlichung

24 Vorstellung. See the foregoing note. Here the Goethean sense of Vorstellung as a paradigmatic assumption is very strong.

25 In the same way, Jung would later personify and give names to the various real forces of the soul encountered through introspection. Indeed, according to Anthony Storr, “Jung encouraged his patients to conduct dialogues with these ‘figures from the unconscious’ as if they were real people in the external world” [Jung (Fontana/Collins, 1973), p. 13].

26 symbolische Ausdeutung, literally “symbolic interpretation.” Steiner often uses the term “symbol” to describe representations that would be better described as allegorical. It was Goethe who first drew this important distinction, and Goethe would have described both his own tale and Steiner’s interpretation of it as “symbolic,” while joining Steiner in rejecting any attempt to interpret it as an allegory.

27 It is telling here that Steiner describes Goethe’s unconscious motives as “thought-impulses,” which implies objectivity and universality. Many years later, Jung would begin his seminal essay on the “Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious” by distinguishing between “the personal unconscious” and “a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn…the collective unconscious” [C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Princeton UP, 1959), p. 3]. He goes on to describe in some detail three of those archetypes: the shadow, the anima, and the old man – all of which figure prominently in Goethe’s Fairy Tale. In 1899, Steiner was a year ahead of Freud and decades ahead of Jung, but for that reason he did not have available to him the vocabulary and conceptual apparatus of depth psychology. Instead, Steiner delivered the early version of his own spiritual psychology–tragically, perhaps–in the idiom of Theosophy.

genius any abstract form of thought would have been too lacking in content.28 The latent thoughts29 holding sway in the substrata of Goethe’s soul bore fruit as the imaginative figure. Thought, as the intermediate stage, lives only subconsciously in his soul and gives the imagination its direction.30 The reader of Goethe’s Fairy Tale needs the thought content, for that alone can attune one’s soul such that it can resonate with Goethe’s creative fantasy in re-creative imagination. [71/72] Entering empathetically into the content of this thought allows us to develop organs enabling us to live in the atmosphere that Goethe breathed spiritually when he created The Fairy Tale. This means that we focus our gaze upon the same psychological realities31 as Goethe; it was those powers of the soul, and not philosophical ideas, which caused these living, spiritual forms to burst forth before him.32 What is living in these spiritual forms is what lives within the human soul.

¶8 The way of thinking 33 that permeates The Fairy Tale is already present in the Conversations of German Refugees. In the conversations narrated there, the human soul turns toward each of the two aspects of the world between which human life is placed, the sensory and the supersensory. Our deeper, inner nature strives to establish the right relationship to both these spheres for the purposes of attaining a state of soul that is free and worthy of our humanity, and of fashioning a harmonious relationship to our fellow human beings. Goethe felt that what he brought to light about our relationship as human beings to both these aspects of the world in the embedded tales did not come to expression fully in the framing narrative of the Conversations of German Refugees. In the

28 inhaltsarm

29 Gedankenimpuls. Cf. Freud’s key term Traumgedanke, the “dream thought” or “latent dream,” first introduced in ch. 4 of The Interpretation of Dreams (1900).

30 This passage reveals that in 1899 Steiner was already working towards the distinction between “latent” thoughts and “manifest” images that would prove central to Freud’s account of the unconscious. Translating into Freudian terms, Steiner interprets Goethe’s Fairy Tale as a “manifest dream” that simultaneously reveals and distorts an esoteric reality beyond the threshold of consciousness. Steiner’s account of the contexts within which the “dream” of the Tale arose (the French Revolution, Schiller’s essay) would be the complex of the “patient’s” associations that the analyst uses to unlock the latent meaning.

31 menschliche Seelenwelt

32 Another succinct and prescient anticipation of depth psychology. Freud and Jung could not have expressed this central concept in their thought more eloquently themselves.

33 Vorstellungsart

all-embracing picture of The Fairy Tale he had to bring those enigmas of the human soul, upon which his gaze was directed, nearer to the immeasurably rich world of spiritual life. The striving towards a condition truly worthy of our humanity, to which Schiller refers and which Goethe longs to experience, is represented by the Youth in The Fairy Tale. His marriage to the fair Lily, who embodies the realization of the world of Freedom, is the union with those forces which slumber within the human soul 34 and when awakened lead to a genuine inner experience of the free individuality. [72/73] *

¶9 The old Man with the Lamp plays an important part in the unfolding of the plot of The Fairy Tale When he comes with his lamp into the clefts of the rocks, he is asked which is the most important of the secrets he knows. He answers, “the open one,” and when asked whether he will divulge this secret, replies, “When I know the fourth.” This fourth secret, however, is known by the green Snake, who whispers it in the old Man’s ear. There can be no doubt that this secret concerns the condition for which all the figures in The Fairy Tale are longing. This condition is described at the end of the tale. The conclusion depicts in pictorial form the way in which the human soul enters into union with the subterranean forces of its nature.35 As a result of this, the soul’s relationship to the supersensory realm (Lily’s kingdom) and to the realm of the senses (the kingdom of the green Snake), is attuned in such a way that in experience and in action it is freely receptive to impulses from both regions.36 In union with both, the soul is able to realize its true being.37 We have to assume that the old Man knows this secret, for he is the only figure who is always master of the circumstances; everything is dependent on his guidance and leadership. What is it that the green Snake can say to the old Man then? He knows that the Snake must offer herself up in sacrifice if the longed-for goal is to be attained. However, it is not his knowledge that will ultimately decide the matter. [73/74] He has to wait with this knowledge until the Snake has matured sufficiently that

34 A clear echo of the opening sentence of How to Know Higher Worlds (CW 10).

35 The subterranean Temple with its symmetries and four compass points is remarkably similar to the mandorla-like images Jung used to describe the outcome of individuation (see below).

36 See especially the extraordinary descriptions of such actively achieved indetermination in Schiller’s twenty-first letter.

37 In the same letter, Schiller goes so far as to claim that because we are fully human only when we achieve this state of aesthetic inner harmony, Beauty gives us our humanity anew each day.

it can resolve to sacrifice itself. – Within the compass of the life of our soul dwells a power that carries the soul’s development through to the condition of free individuality. This power has its task on the way to the attainment of this condition.38 If this condition were to be achieved, this power would lose its meaning. This power brings the human soul into connection with the experiences of life. It transforms all that science and life reveal into an inner wisdom for life. It makes the soul ever riper to achieve its desired spiritual goal. Once the goal is attained, this power loses its meaning, for it establishes our relationship to the external world. Having attained the goal, however, all our external impulses will have been changed into inner promptings of the soul. Then this power must sacrifice itself; it must suspend its functions; it must, without separate existence of its own, live on now in the transformed human being as the ferment permeating the other aspects of the soul’s life. Goethe’s spiritual eye was especially focused upon this power in human life. He saw it at work in the experiences of life and of science. Goethe wanted to see it employed freely, without any preconceived ideas or theories about an abstract goal. He wanted the goal to emerge out of the experiences themselves. When the experiences are mature they must give birth to the goal themselves. They must not be stunted by a predetermined end. This faculty of the soul is personified in the green Snake. She devours the gold – the wisdom derived from life and science, which must be incorporated into the soul so that wisdom and soul become one. This faculty of the soul will be sacrificed at the right time; it will bring us to our goal, will make us into free individualities. [74/75] The Snake whispers to the old Man that it will sacrifice itself. In doing so, it speaks a secret that is open to him, but of which he can make no use so long as it is not realized by the free resolve of the Snake. When this faculty of our soul speaks to us as the green Snake speaks to the old Man, then “the time is at hand ” for the soul to perceive life-experience as life-wisdom that establishes harmony between the sensory and the supersensory realms.

¶10 The Youth has had premature contact with the supersensory world – with the fair Lily – and he has been paralyzed, deadened. Life revives in him and he marries the fair Lily when the Snake – the soul’s life experience –is offered up in sacrifice. Thus the longed-for consummation is attained. The time has now also come when the soul 38 Jung would later speak of a “self-regulating principle” within the mind that leads it up to the beginning of the “esoteric process” of individuation, which is “the central concept of his psychology” [Storr, 81].

is able to build a bridge between the realms on this side and on the other side of the river. This bridge is built of the Snake’s own substance. From now on, life-experience has no separate existence; it is no longer directed merely to the outer sensory world as before. It has become an inner power of the soul which is not exercised consciously as such, but which functions only when the sensory and supersensory aspects of our inner human nature warm and illuminate each other reciprocally.39 – This inner state is brought about by the Snake, but the green Snake by itself cannot impart to the Youth the gifts whereby he is able to control the newly founded kingdom of the soul. These gifts are bestowed upon him by the three Kings. From the brazen King he receives the sword with the command:

“The sword on left, the right free.” The silver King gives him the scepter with the words: “Feed the sheep.” [75/76] The golden King sets the oaken garland on his head, saying, “Understand what is highest.”40 The fourth King, who is formed of a mixture of the three metals, copper, silver and gold, collapses into a formless clump.41 – While on the path towards the development of a free individuality, three faculties of the soul form a single alloy: will (copper), feeling (silver), and thinking42 (gold). Over the course of a lifetime, experience reveals to the soul everything that it will assimilate through the operation of these three forces. Power, through which virtue works, 43

39 Here Steiner is referring to a key concept in Schiller’s treatise that Schiller had borrowed from Fichte: the “reciprocal interaction” of two different faculties which mutually limit and thereby transform each other. (Imagine multiplying a fraction by its reciprocal: the result is always 1, i.e., unity.) Schiller boldly extends this epistemological concept into the realms of art and even politics; indeed, art holds out the promise of a genuinely revolutionary politics because it can heal our inner imbalances in this way, and make us adequate vessels to embody an ideal state that adequately reflects the humane ideals of human nature itself. Fichte and Schiller present in a philosophical guise archetypal images of integration that appear more directly in alchemy (the marriage of the King and Queen) or in works of art (e.g., the trials of fire and water at the end of Mozart’s Magic Flute). Goethe’s Fairy Tale also presents these archetypal images in a more immediately imaginative form.

40 Goethe’s triadic imagery here is a direct parallel with the many philosophical and psychological triads in Schiller’s essay, but it also parallels the triple ideals of the French Revolution (liberté, égalité, fraternité), and of course it anticipates Steiner’s own later idea of an ideal “threefold social order” created in the image of threefold human psychology (thinking, feeling, willing) and physiology (nervous system, rhythmic systems, metabolism).

41 Here Goethe’s Tale clearly alludes to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2.

42 Erkenntnis, literally “knowledge” or “cognition;” changed so as to conform to the more familiar triad of psychological faculties that is omnipresent in Steiner’s later writings and lectures on spiritual psychology.

43 die Macht , durch welche die Tugend wirkt : the German original is inherently ambiguous, and might also be translated “The power through which virtue

is revealed to the will; Beauty (beautiful appearance) reveals itself to feeling; Wisdom reveals itself to thinking. As human beings we are separated from the state of “free individuality” by the fact that these three forces work in our soul in alloy; we shall attain free individuality to the degree that we assimilate the gifts, each of the three separately with its unique qualities, 44 in full consciousness, and unite them in our souls ourselves – in free, conscious activity. Then the chaotic alloy of the gifts of Will, Feeling and Thinking that had previously compelled us collapses under its own weight.

¶11 The king of Wisdom is golden. Whenever gold appears in The Fairy Tale, it embodies some form of Wisdom. The operation of Wisdom in the life-experience that is finally sacrificed has already been described. But the Will-o’-Wisps also seize upon the Gold in their own way. We bear within our souls a capacity (in many people it develops abnormally and seems to fill their whole being) by which we are able to assimilate all the wisdom that life and science bestow. [76/77] But this capacity in our souls does not endeavor to unite wisdom completely with the inner life. It remains one-sided knowledge, as an instrument of dogma or criticism; it makes a person appear brilliant, or helps to give her a one-sided prominence in life. It makes no effort to achieve a balance by integrating experience of the outer world into the soul. It becomes the kind of superstition as described by Goethe in his Conversations of German Refugees, because it does not try to harmonize itself with that which is natural.45 It becomes an ideology before it has become life within the soul.46 It is what sustains the lives of false prophets and sophists. It makes no effort to assimilate Goethe’s wise maxim: “We must surrender our existence if we want to exist.” The green Snake, the selfless life-experience that has developed for love’s sake to conscious wisdom,47 surrenders its existence in order to build the bridge between sensuality and spirituality.

¶12 An irresistible desire pushes the Youth onward to the kingdom of the fair Lily. What are the characteristics of this kingdom? Although human beings have the deepest longing for the world of the fair Lily, they can reach works is revealed…”

44 in ihrer besonderen Eigenart

45 das Naturgemäße

46 Cf. Steiner’s gnomic formulation at the end of the “Preface” to his Philosophy of Freedom: “One must be able to confront an idea and experience it; otherwise, one will fall into its bondage.”

47 erlebte Weisheit, literally “experienced wisdom”

it only at certain times before the bridge is built. At noon the Snake, even before its sacrifice, builds a temporary bridge to the supersensory world. And in the evening and morning they can pass over the river that separates sensory existence from supersensory existence on the Giant’s shadow – the powers of representation48 and of memory. [77/78] Anyone who approaches the Mistress of the supersensory world without the necessary inner preparation49 will suffer harm to his life like the Youth. Lily also desires the other region. The Ferryman who conveyed the Will-o’-Wisps over the river can bring anyone back from the supersensory world, but he can take no one to it.

¶13 Anyone who longs to be touched by the supersensory world needs first to have begun orienting her soul towards50 that world through life experience, for the supersensory world can be grasped only in free spiritual activity. Goethe expresses his own conviction that this is so when he writes in his Prose Aphorisms : “Everything that sets our spirit free without giving us mastery over ourselves is detrimental.” Another of his aphorisms runs: “Duty is love for the commands that we give to ourselves.” The kingdom of unbalanced supersensory activity – Schiller’s “form drive” – is that of the fair Lily; the kingdom of unbalanced sensuality – Schiller’s “sense drive” – is the home of the Snake before its sacrifice. – The Ferryman can transport anyone into the latter realm, but he cannot convey them into the former. All of us have descended involuntarily from the supersensory world. But we can re-establish a free union with this spiritual world only when we have the will to pass over the bridge of sacrificed life-experience. It is a union independent of any “time,” of all merely passive inner states. Before this free union has taken place there exist two involuntary conditions of soul which enable us to attain to the supersensory world, which is one with the kingdom of the free individuality. One such condition is present in creative imagination or fantasy which is a reflection of supersensory experience. Through art we can join the sensory and the supersensory. In art this condition 51 manifests also as freely creative soul. This aspect is depicted in the crossing which the green Snake, who typifies life-experience that is not yet ready for supersensory existence, makes possible at noon. The other inner state arises when our level of consciousness – like the Giant’s, who is an image of the macrocosm

48 Vorstellung

49 Eignung

50 an dieses Ubersinnliche…herangearbeitet

51 reading er as referring back to der Zustand

within us – is dimmed, when conscious cognition is obscured and lamed in such a way that it plays itself out as superstition, hallucination, mediumistic trance. Goethe sees the faculty of the soul that manifests itself in this way in consciousness that has been dimmed down as one with that power which is prone to lead men to freedom in a revolutionary way, through force and despotism. In revolutions the urge for an ideal state manifests itself obscurely; it is like the shadow of the Giant which lies over the river at twilight. Schiller’s letter to Goethe of 16 October 1795 provides strong evidence that this interpretation of the Giant is also justified. Goethe was traveling, and he wanted to extend his journey as far as Frankfurt am Main. Schiller writes: “I am indeed glad to know that you are still far away from the commotion along the Main [River]. The shadow of the giant might rough you up a bit.” The results of caprice, of the unregulated laissez faire of historical events, is personified in the Giant and his shadow in conjunction with the dimming of human consciousness. The impulses within the soul that lead to such events are certainly associated with the tendency towards superstition and chimerical ideology. [79/80]

¶14 The old Man’s lamp has the quality of being able to give light only where there is already another light. One cannot help being reminded here of the saying of an “old mystic,” quoted by Goethe: “If the eye were not sunlike, / Never could it see the sun; / If God’s own power lay not within us, / How could Divinity delight us?”52 Just as the lamp does not give light in the darkness, so the light of wisdom, of knowledge, does not shine in those who do not bring to it the appropriate organ, the inner light. What the lamp denotes will become even more intelligible if we take heed of the fact that in its own way it can shed light upon what is developing as a resolve within the Snake, but that there must first be knowledge of the Snake’s willingness to make this resolution. There is a kind of human knowledge which is at all times a concern of the highest human striving. It has arisen from the inner experience of souls in the course of the historical life of humanity. But the goal of human striving to which it points can be attained in concrete reality only by way of sacrificed life-experience. All that the consideration of the historical past teaches us, all that mystical and religious experience enables us to say about our connection with the supersensible world – all this can find its ultimate

52 The “old mystic” whom Goethe paraphrases is the ancient neo-Platonic philosopher Plotinus (204-270 CE).

consummation only through the sacrifice of life-experience. The old Man can transform everything with his lamp in such a way that it assumes a new, life-promoting form, but real inner development depends on the ripening of life-experience. [80/81]

¶15 The wife of the old Man is the character whose own body is pledged to the River for the debt that she has come to owe it. This woman personifies the human powers of perception and ideation 53 as well as humanity’s memory of its past. She accompanies the old Man. With her help he has possession of the light that is able to illumine what has already come to light within external reality. But the powers of ideation and memory are not united in life with the concrete forces active in the evolution of the individual human being and in the historical life of humanity. The faculties of ideation and of memory cleave to the past; they conserve the things of the past so that they can promote all that is becoming and evolving in the present.54 The conditions maintained by memory, within which the individual and the human race are always living, are the precipitates of this power of the soul. Schiller writes of them in the third letter of The Aesthetic Education: “the force of his [the human being’s] needs threw him into this situation before he was as yet capable of exercising his freedom to choose it; compulsion organized it according to purely natural laws before he could do so according to the laws of Reason.” The river divides the two kingdoms, those of free spiritual activity in supersensible existence and of necessity in sensory life. The unconscious powers of the soul – the Ferryman – transport us, as humans who originate in the supersensory world, into the world of the senses. Here we find ourselves initially in a realm where the powers of ideation and memory have created the conditions within which we must live. But they separate us from the supersensory world; we feel ourselves beholden to them when we must approach the power (the Ferryman) that has brought us unconsciously out of the supersensory world into the world of the senses. [81/82] We can break the power that these conditions have over us, and which is revealed in the deprivation of our freedom, only when we free ourselves through “the fruits of the earth” – that is to say, through self-created life-wisdom – from the obligation, from the coercion imposed upon us by those conditions. If we cannot do this, these conditions – the water of the river – take our individual

wisdom away from us. Our inner life simply disappears.

¶16 Upon the river is erected the Temple in which the marriage between the Youth and the fair Lily is consummated. The “marriage” with the supersensory realm, the realization of the free individuality, is possible in a human soul whose forces have been given a new structure that represents a transformation of their normal configuration. The life-experience previously acquired by the soul has matured to such a degree that the force brought to bear upon it is no longer exhausted in adapting to the world of the senses. This force becomes the content of what is able to stream into our inner nature from the supersensory world; then our actions in the material world become the executors of spiritual promptings. In this condition of soul, those human faculties which had previously flowed along false or one-sided channels gain a new significance that accords with a new, higher consciousness within the personality as a whole. The wisdom of the Will-o’-Wisps, for example, which has broken free of the world of the senses and has wandered into superstition or chaotic thought, serves to open the door of the “Sanctuary”55 [82/83] that is the symbol of the inner state wherein the chaotic alloy of will, feeling and thinking 56 holds us in bondage within a constrained 57 inner life shut off from the supersensory world.

¶17 In the fairy-tale images of this literary work we have discussed we can see how the evolution of the human soul presented itself to Goethe’s inner eye.58 It is an evolution that begins with a mentality that feels estranged from the supersensory world until it attains those heights of consciousness where life in the realm of the senses is permeated by the supersensory realm of the spirit to such an extent that the two become one. This process of transformation was visible to Goethe’s soul in delicately woven figures of fantasy. The problem of the relation of the physical world to a world of supersensory experience free of all sensory elements, with its consequences for the shaping of human society, is a thread that runs throughout the  Conversations of German Refugees. This problem finds a comprehensive solution at the end of The Fairy Tale in the weaving of poetic images. This essay merely indicates the path leading to the realm where Goethe’s imagination wove the fabric of The Fairy Tale. Living un-

55 Schloß, literally “castle.” In the first encounter, this space is described ambiguously as a “vault,” a “Sanctuary” and a “Temple” (Carlyle’s translation).

56 Erkennen, literally “knowing.” See the earlier note.

57 unfrei, literally “unfree”

58 Geistesauge

derstanding of all the other details can be developed by those who realize that The Fairy Tale is a picture of the life of the soul as it strives towards the supersensory world. Schiller realized this fully. He writes: “The fairy tale is full of color and humor and I think that you have given most charming expression to the ideas of which you once spoke, namely, in reference to the reciprocal interplay of the faculties and their reciprocal interactions.”59 [83/84] For even if one were to object that this reciprocal interaction of the faculties refers to faculties of several different individuals, we can plead the well-known Goethean truth that although from one point of view the faculties of the soul are distributed among different human beings, they are nothing but the divergent rays of the collective human soul.60 And when different human natures work together in community, we have in this mutual action and reaction nothing other than a picture of the multifarious faculties that, taken together, constitute a single, shared human nature.

August 8-17

59 Schiller’s letter of 29 August 1795 60 Jung’s later concept of the collective unconscious is clearly anticipated here.

The Soul’s Awakening at Threefold

The fourth Mystery Drama conference — anticipation for the four-drama 2014 event

Two hundred enthusiastic and fortunate souls gathered this summer in Chestnut Ridge, NY to attend The Soul’s Awakening, Rudolf Steiner’s fourth and final mystery drama performed by the Threefold Mystery Drama Group. It begins in a modern setting, a factory office... Several individuals may be able to help bring spiritual transformation to the factory, characters who have appeared in the previous mystery plays, and we now follow their progress into spiritual realms, travel back to previous incarnations, see the thread that connects these souls and their paths through time. Beginning with a few pieces of furniture, the various locales of this theatrical journey grew increasingly epic with an initiation scene in Ancient Egypt, enormous Sphinxes framing the stage, to the solitary lair of Ahriman with a wildly creative backdrop of molten red and frozen gray, and a clifflike rock formation center stage. Artistic cohesion was the key to the success of this production, with original music and excellent lighting design. Through speech eurythmy, the spiritual beings truly appeared to be moving on a higher plane.

At the surrounding conference, the exciting announcement was made that in 2014 all four of Rudolf Steiner’s mystery plays will be presented during a nineday conference from August 8-17. It will be the first time all four plays have been presented in English at a single event. I, for one, don’t plan to miss it! I can already feel the silence in the auditorium, the brief moment when we all share in the great drama of being human.

Excerpts from a review by Clio Venho, drama teacher at the Rudolf Steiner School in New York City—the full review is posted online [www.anthroposophy.org/articles].

A large feeling of gratitude flew from one’s heart towards the stage when the curtain closed on the 2013 Mystery Drama conference. When at the very end of the last scene, Benedictus, to free himself from the power of

Ahriman, affirms that human beings should work towards their spiritual development not for themselves but for the betterment of the world, he freed a part of me. What a help on one’s path to have found companionship and inspiration in the courageous characters of the Mystery Dramas. —Marie Eve Piche

The Mystery Dramas: an instruction manual for meeting one’s sister-soul, for connecting with one’s karmic adventuring fellowship, for taking over the Mystic League, and for bringing a book and a machine to all of humanity. —Travis

Henry

To really witness Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas takes courage and a sense of Self... a humbling and at times an overwhelming glimpse into unseen worlds. As a young person relatively new to anthroposophy, they flesh out invisible spirit world forces that I have tried with difficulty to imagine and understand... I relate to the stories outside myself; however, feel touched and moved by the serious endeavor of spiritual partnership and understanding. The dramas have inspired a more rigorous recommitment to my own spiritual practice and path of self-knowledge. —Megan Durney

I was struck by the immediacy of the drama . Somehow seeing the destiny of these souls unfold allowed me to enter into my own destiny in a new way. I had the vivid impression that I was not only witnessing their paths, but could see in them glimpses of my own. —Clifford

Venho

The intense, anticipatory atmosphere and inwardly enthusiastic mood in the hall...was able to become a kind of living force in and of itself, sometimes even going beyond the limitations of personal sensibilities, opinions, and aesthetics... I experienced myself being stretched, molded, densified, chiseled, engraved, rasped, and ultimately reformed around the shape of a new sense of knowing. —Virginia Hermann

Note: You can reserve a place for next year’s four-drama festival at www.threefold.org today.

At a rehearsal for the August 2013 Mystery Drama conference.

Photo by Bill Day

Beyond the Object— Beyond Sensation

A conference report

by David Adams

Let me state up front that for me this concentrated, three-day conference in July 2012, in Hudson, New York, was probably the most inspiring, stimulating, and innovative anthroposophical event I have participated in during forty years of involvement with anthroposophy. This conference not only explored and showcased a number of new, cuttingedge modes of activity in the visual arts that anthroposophists are beginning to experiment with, in the general direction of adding elements of motion, time, and observer involvement to the visual arts to give them more of the nature of music, a direction that Rudolf Steiner said art must take in the future. It also can be seen as pioneering a new mobile structure for an anthroposophical conference. This new form of anthroposophical gathering is essentially permeated by the artistic element but also brings deep content in a way that leaves the participants free to attend to it, even to modify it, as well as to deepen it with further contemplation and activity, or not. Participation is possible at a number of different levels simultaneously. Although I’m not yet sure how much this approach can be extended to other kinds of conferences, it gives me hope that anthroposophy may, in fact, continue to evolve in the forms of its expression.

Beyond the Object ’s key innovative element was two open, ever-changing, semi-joined central installation-art areas that worked to stimulate, perform, absorb, and reflect in “the installation” the very events of the conference. Or, another way to say this is that the artists of the installations as well as others continued to play artistically and conceptually with certain themes in the manner of musical improvisation and variation.

It felt as if those of us in Hudson were placed in a kind of threshold transformation zone or crucible. We lived an artistic life those intensive three days, and the processes of artistic creativity enveloped us from all directions. It seemed as if our habitual selves were taken into the pressure cooker of the conference and emerged clearer, more inspired, and directed, each in our own individual ways. Communicating this in words will be difficult, but I will attempt it by describing in detail a few “highlights.” My hope is that these will intrigue the reader to look up the complete, more detailed, and fully illustrated report to be found on the blogsite of the Art Section in North America at http://northamericanartsection.blogspot.com/

The conference exhibition, titled “Spacing Time,” opened the evening before the conference, at 4:00 on Thursday, July 19, in the “Great Hall” of the Basilica, a

former factory/warehouse building now devoted to cultural purposes in Hudson. Since the artists exhibiting also spoke about their work at the start of the conference, I will cover the works later in this report.

A somewhat rambling film was shown at 5:00, by performer/filmmaker/Waldorf graduate Sampsa Pirtola from Helsinki and Los Angeles, with some added live rap/ spoken poetry by Los Angeles spoken-word artist Matre (Matt Sawaya; see www.mcmatre.com). The black-andwhite film seemed to me to be about the mysteries of destiny and incarnation. It showed the tall, slender figure of “the world’s greatest unknown rock musician,” Immanuel (who is “managed” by Sampsa), seemingly searching for his destiny in various contemporary settings including a southern California desert, the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert, an Occupy protest, and scenes of graffiti art and an art gallery in Los Angeles. “Immanuel” is really Sampsa’s performance alter ego.

At times the film was accompanied by live poetic narration by Matre, who spoke of “a ray of light coming down through dark clouds,” “a landscape of expression,” and “an oasis of exploding creativity” giving life to even the darkest landscape. The film ended with a large gathering of mostly young people, who followed Immanuel from an interior space out along a street where they were

Fig. 1. Immanuel Greeting Participants Entering Portal to Ilandea.

led to shake hands with him and then walk through a mobile “portal” (like a kind of detached door frame). As the film ended, Immanuel himself—with trademark sunglasses and unusually striped black-and-white shirts—appeared at the doorway holding a similar framed portal, and we seventy-plus persons in the audience were all silently invited to arise, shake his hand, and walk through the portal from the “auditorium” space into the large hall of the Basilica. I came to understand this as Immanuel’s friendly invitation to us to join him in the somewhat magical and certainly artistic realm from which he comes, Iland (or Ilandea).

As part of the continuation of this piece of groupparticipation performance art, we were then directed with a bit of interpretive help by Matre to form a circle of people around a large chalk circle previously marked on the concrete floor of the hall. Immanuel in the center began to gesture to us and speak in some unknown language. Somehow we understood that this small social circle was to connect with the larger circle of the cosmos (macrocosm and microcosm). Immanuel then seized hold of some invisible vertical force or energy ray, struggling to pull it down from the cosmic into the earthly circle, a difficult task that Matre had to help him with. After that, he wrote the word “Ilandea” in the center of the circle, distributing pieces of chalk and inviting us to also write a word in the circle, during which task he somehow disappeared. It seemed that nearly everyone wrote some word or phrase of inspiration and hope into the circle: “peace,” “trust,” “listen,” “patience,” “awaken,” “connection,” “acceptance,” “modesty,” “fearless,” “nurture,” “love,” etc. (figure 2). I came to understand “Ilandea” as a realm of human creative possibility, and it certainly proved its potency at this conference. That day being the birthday of Nelson Mandela, the chalk circle was later titled the Nelson Mandala by Sampsa and dedicated to him.

Around 6:00 we were called to move back to the auditorium/theater room to view a “color/light/sound performance” (or “vocal music/kinetic painting piece”) of William Blake’s early, dreamlike, visionary poem, “The Book of Thel” (1789). This was presented as a new kind of “puppetry” that was on a large screen (maybe 12 feet high) by a group of 5 puppeteers led by Nathaniel Williams and Laura Summer (also including Lisa Bono, Karen Dare, and Andrea Williams) along with five singers. Initially inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s unfulfilled 1918 project for a new colored “light-play-art” as an alternative to cinema, the presentation involved three

overhead projectors throwing various prepared transparent colored backgrounds onto the screen, as well as some spontaneously painted backgrounds that were part of the performance, moving jointed “shadow puppets,” stencils and cut-out figures, reflections from patterned and segmented mirrors, as well as other special effects. The most impressive in my opinion were the delicate waving forms of nature beings created by blowing on clear trays of water placed on top of a projector (fig. 3).1

The performance on the large screen was accompanied by some extraordinary, moving—at times, even otherworldly— a capella vocal music and rhythms partly composed, seemingly partly improvised, and led by Marisa Michelson and Faye Shapiro, with additional vo-

The Book of Thel, performance of July 19, 2012, Hudson, NY. Fig. 3 (above, left). Thel and the Lily of the Valley, still scene. Fig. 4. Singers (below). Fig. 5 (above, right). The Clod Inviting Thel into the Earth, still scene.

Fig. 2. The Nelson Mandala, detail, Large Hall, Basilica, Hudson, NY, July 19, 2012

cal accompaniment at times by Ellen Cimino, Katie Schwerin, and Don Jamison (fig. 4). The poem is basically a tale of Thel, a young virgin, youngest daughter of the Seraphim, who tentatively moves from the realm of the unborn or innocence into the world of experience and earthly nature. She begins to explore the mysteries of sorrow, death, and the flesh through encounters with nature spirits in the form of a Lily of the Valley, then a cloud, then a worm, and finally a Clod of Clay, but then fearfully flees back into her unborn heavenly realm (figures 5-6). The poem begins and ends with “Thel’s Motto”:

Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?

Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?

Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?

Or Love in a golden bowl?

Introductions

The next morning the conference proper began at 10:00—as an overnight rain continued to fall with only a small decrease in the hot temperatures—with a welcome and initial reading by our “M.C.” Seth Jordan of an inspirational poem selected by Matt/Matre, William Staf-

When I Met My Muse

I glanced at her and took my glasses off—they were still singing. They buzzed like a locust on the coffee table and then ceased. Her voice belled forth, and the sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and knew that nails up there took a new grip on whatever they touched. “I am your own way of looking at things,” she said. “When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation.” And I took her hand.

William Stafford (1914-1993)

ford’s “When I Met My Muse.”

We then went around the circle having everyone introduce themselves by name and place and a work of art that they felt was like themselves or to which they were particularly attracted. We discovered that participants had come to the conference not only from New York State but from Ontario, Israel, Germany, and several places in California. It seemed as if more than half of the participants were in their twenties, with a few even younger.

The Exhibition

We then walked around the great hall to view the various artworks on display, with the artist offering a short explanation or presentation of each work. First up was Lailah Amstutz’s hanging assemblage piece consisting of a row of 37 test tubes full of red liquid capped by beeswax, hanging in front of two windows in the brightest corner of the Basilica (figure 7). We were encouraged to shake the tubes and observe the fluid inside; it turned out to be blood drawn under a nurse’s supervision from eight of her friends. My interpretive mind immediately rushed to references to the ego/sun forces in the blood and the warmth community of the beehive as an image of a futuristic spiritual community life—but one also could just appreciate the beautiful red colors and unusual substances glowing in the sunlight.

We then moved on to Manfred Bleffert’s complex, ever-changing, Joseph Beuys-like installation, concerned initially with the nature of America—part of an ongoing effort by someone German-born to understand the American inner and outer constitution in relationship to the forces of the American environment. The installation was marked by a path of parallel, weaving chalk and rope lines that extended down the main axis of the great hall and then “bent” around the edge of the center circle (the Nelson Mandala). Along the way it featured a number of “stations,” then continued out a side door of the hall, and ended in an adjoining room where some black paint long ago splattered on the floor sat in a flood of light from a

Fig. 6. Live Painting a Scene like that in The Book of Thel on the overhead projector, Kinetic Painting Workshop, 2012, Hudson, NY.

Fig. 7. Lailah Amstutz, Blood, human blood, glass, beeswax, 2012.

bright skylight above—an appropriate ending to Manfred’s path that thereby seemed to dissolve into light (figure 8). Gradually over the three days this “splatter” became surrounded, first by a loop of rope, and then by several large, flat, dark-painted wooden palettes or risers, upon which Manfred arranged various changing configurations of small drawings and paintings as well as other objects. As the conference progressed, Manfred showed himself to be a master artistic shaper of both the given physical space and social environment.

Along the snaking path the various “stations” were marked in a variety of ways, including tone bars from a Bleffert wooden xylophone as well as a number of found materials that Manfred had located in the vicinity of the Basilica: bricks, metal pipes, wood, pieces of iron, etc. (fig. 9). In its initial version the installation pathway featured a number of books and drawings empty or filled with a dense handwriting in German that appeared to be Manfred’s own journals, concerned perhaps with his observations of American life and geological forces from his trips to North America over the past few years. By Friday morning the books had vanished, many being replaced by further writings in chalk on the floor as well as paper drawings. See, for example, the image of one individual “station” in figure 10.

Manfred was kind enough to share with me a number of his many preparatory drawings or sketches. The installation also seemed to work with the theme of “black and white,” “dark and light,” “death and life (forces),” as well as

positive and negative electrical charges—polarities also relevant to the forces of America. Some of Manfred’s drawings suggest that one also could look from above at the stations as “vertebrae” along a “spine,” whereby the installation could also be seen as a bent human form (see drawing mysteriously titled “way of post-death to where?” figure 11), perhaps in a semi-fetal position on the journey to a new birth or life beyond death. I also should point out that Manfred has a way of artistic writing, both with his drawings and his installation, that mixes both English and German words and can turn some or all of these words backwards or even upside down or apparently start to disintegrate certain words -– sometimes all of the above in a single line of print! While this can make for poetic juxtapositions, it also increases the effort needed to decipher what he is expressing.

One of Manfred’s drawings for his installation was labeled “the radioactive forces of America and their relieving through the waters from the depths of the earth” (water being a common image of life forces, of the etheric) and shows the jagged or rectangular radioactive forces interpenetrated by weaving blue watery lines that transform them to become more organic (figure 12). Rudolf Steiner described how persons in America have a particularly strong connection to the rigidifying and densifying sub-earthly forces of magnetism, electricity, and gravity (working through the Ahrimanic human Double in our unconscious will life).2 To counter this influence, we need to rediscover the powers of life and resurrection that also live within our will and the Christianized life forces of the earth, like a kind of healing water flowing below the surface. This can also be a reference to our human social-

Manfred Bleffert, America , Basilica, Hudson, NY, 2012. Fig. 8 (top). Ending splatter beneath skylight, July 19 (first day). Fig. 10 (middle). Station with bricks, flatbed cart, and positive/negative electrical charges. Fig. 9 (bottom). Last part

Manfred Bleffert, ink drawings, 2012; from top: Fig. 11. way of post-death to where? Fig. 12. the radioactive forces of America and their relieving through the waters from the depths of the earth Fig. 13. how to go to an end in with on America uncalled installation Fig. 15. Untitled (“American Suncross”).

etheric connection, as Steiner describes in his lecture The Structure of the Lord’s Prayer as relating to the petition “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

One is a member of a community by virtue of certain qualities or characteristics of the etheric body. ... It is important for Man’s life in the community that his etheric body should harmonize with the etheric bodies of those with whom he has to associate... The task of man’s etheric body therefore is to adjust itself to the etheric bodies of others... Failure to achieve harmony with the community is the consequence of defects of the etheric body.3

This theme of a kind of redemption or transformation of the subearthly electromagnetic forces of America by the purifying power of water and etheric community is also echoed in the 18th-century American “Rosicrucian” tale, “The Ramapo Salamander,” which Manfred has composed into a narrated musical presentation.4

One of Manfred’s “stations” (as well as certain later activities and adjustments) concerned itself with symbolic references to the human constitution of certain geometric forms: a square for the physical body, circle for the etheric body, a lemniscate (or spiral) for the astral body, and a triangle for the ego. One of his drawing studies depicts the line of his installation as a progression through four forms (figure 13): first a doubled triangle of self, then a spiraling “electric coil” astral form (perhaps conflating the themes of radioactive/electromagnetic geological forces in America with the “death forces” of consciousness that the astral body brings), then the square physical world, and finally the round etheric body. Is he suggesting that the American path must progress from increased self-consciousness awareness of the electro-magnetic forces of our continent and technological culture—forces that tend to direct us to a physical level of life—and only then can one find the way to emerge again into the abundant life and will forces also present in America? If so, this picture also resonated with certain later images in the conference.

The most prominent station in the installation consisted of a close grouping of four hand-made wooden chairs with the “portal-frame” from Immanuel still nearby (figure 14). Below the chairs was inscribed in chalk on the floor what I interpret as a kind of “American sun-cross” shape (a combination of the elements of sun-circle and earth-cross, of life and death -– used often in various versions in the early work of Joseph Beuys to refer to the Christ impulse within the earth; see figure 16 for a view of the chalk cross with the chairs removed). As can be seen from one of

Manfred’s preparatory drawings (figure 15 on the previous page), this cross reflects on the one hand, a version of the Old Celtic and Irish Early Christian sun-cross—an expression of the pure forces of the resurrected sun-being Christ now dwelling within the life forces of the earth5 —and, on the other hand, a kind of electrical wiring diagram with positive and negative poles. This preparatory drawing seems to me a symbolic image of the polar potential of forces within America, both strong electro-magnetic forces and Christianized life forces.

Manfred related his imagination for the chairs in the form of a little “American story.” He gave us the picture of a man who was sentenced to death in the electric chair by the government, but whose three friends sacrificially volunteered to hold his hand at the moment of electrocution. Because this caused the electrical charge to be absorbed by all four men, the force of the current was not strong enough to kill any of them individually, thereby saving their friend from death. This sacrifice of the three for the one was also referred to by words in German chalked onto the floor at the “chairs” station (figure 16).

Manfred then related a historical story from China that he said was like the opposite of the American ten-

Manfred Bleffert, America, 2012. Fig. 14 (top): 4 wooden chairs, original configuration, frame on floor. Fig. 16 (center): detail of “chairs area” with chairs removed, showing “suncross” and writing in German. Fig. 17 (bottom): 3 chairs supporting 4th with rope attached to “portal frame” and tone bar.

dency. During the Chinese Revolution the Yellow River was rising due to heavy rains, and it was feared that it would flood the downstream areas. Mao Tse-tung joined his hands with many others and stepped into the river, creating a wall of people that raised the water level so it flowed over the banks and over the upper countryside, thereby saving the lands downstream from flooding. America itself is the electric chair, explained Manfred. Its forces ray up into us, yet we are connected to each other. This is different from anywhere else in the world. It is not possible to really live in America without transforming these electrical (“decaying light”6 ) and subnature forces into life forces—one message of this installation,— a task that can only be accomplished by creating counterforces with the aid of Christ.7 “We must start to change,” he said, as he began to move the four chairs into a new configuration in the center of the Nelson Mandala circle. He formed a triangular arrangement of the three chairs that then supported the one “electric chair” above them with the “portal frame” slung around it and an earthbrick on its seat (see figure 17). Manfred then took a rope from the path of his installation with one of the wooden tone bars tied onto it and slung it up and over one of the girders high up in the ceiling of the Basilica, raising and lowering it several times, and then also attaching the rope to the portal frame and the brick on the seat of the “electric chair.” A few minutes later he used the rope like a puppet-string to make the portal frame do a little walking “dance” toward the chairs.

We then moved on to consider the first of Laura Summer’s large painting installations, Traveling. This consisted of 36 separate paintings on unstretched canvas arranged in 6 rows of 6 paintings each hanging on one side of the great hall (figure 18). Her instructions for this interactive piece invited us to choose sequences of three or four of the paintings at a time, contemplate the gesture of movement between them, assign qualities to this, and write them on pieces of paper provided nearby. Then we were to try to figure out the overall theme of the work and write that down. She had placed a few clues around the hall to tell us what the work is about, but I nevertheless found out only after the conference that it was based on passages from St. John’s Gospel.

After looking at Jude

Neu’s metamorphosis studies mounted on the adjoining wall, both paintings and ceramic reliefs, we saw along the far end of the hall Laura’s twelve “collage/ paintings” related to the narrative of a booklet she had published titled let go the shore with the images based on her reading of Rudolf Steiner’s ca. 1888 “Credo: the Individual and the All” (figure 19).

Finally, Laura introduced her large, interactive “swinging paintings” work, Behind Color, with its strong red, blue, and yellow tones (see cover). This work also included a page of instructions for viewers posted on the wall nearby, asking us to contemplate what is in and “behind” each color.

Sampsa Pirtola then discussed how the Nelson Mandala created on the floor in the great hall the previous night was like creating a cosmos in a circle—an invitation for all of us to hold a space and create a higher potential. Along with this went a concept of collective ownership as a way to transform the field. Perhaps it was this idea, along with the constant availability of chalk, that led some participants to continue to modify the “central installation” or to create new chalk drawings across the floor of the great hall as the conference progressed (see figure 21).

The Initial Four Workshops

After lunch the participants convened again for three hours in their respective four workshops:

1. Kinetic Painting and Puppetry, led by Nathaniel Williams.

2. Performing Rudolf Steiner’s Fourth Apocalyptic Seal , led by David Adams.

3. Tone and Sound , led by Manfred Bleffert.

4. Translation from Text to Other Mediums, led by Laura Summer.

Laura Summer: Fig. 18 (above) Traveling, 36 paintings on unstretched canvas. Fig. 19 (below) let go the shore, detail, 1 of 12 paintings

Fig. 21. Emily Hassel, Walkable Spiral Poem, 2012, chalk on concrete floor

I can only report briefly on the first day of my workshop. The first hour was spent introducing the medium of performance art and some of the many meanings of the fourth apocalyptic seal, so that it would be possible to be at least somewhat creative and improvisatory in developing a performance art work based on it. This began with a brief history of this seal, adapted by Steiner from earlier versions and introduced with the other apocalyptic seals as part of the initial expression (“installation”) of anthroposophical visual art at the 1907 Theosophical Society International Congress in Munich. The seal’s multifaceted meanings include its relationship to mysteries of the human blood circulation (red and blue blood), the polarity of the red Jachin and blue Boaz columns in the soul, sun and moon forces from the Old Sun and Old Moon evolutions, Solomon’s Temple and the Temple Legend, wisdom and power, the Trees of Life and Knowledge, future states of human evolution, new Christ mysteries of the blood, and ultimately two fundamental cosmic forces or streams of uprising expansion and withering contraction that govern and project into all of life and evolution. We then began to explore the qualities of possible movements, speech sounds, or bodily imagery related to the two polar forces.

Setting the Context

We gathered again in a circle in the great hall at 4:30 for an hour’s talk by Nathaniel Williams to help set the context for the conference and its theme—purposely scheduled only after the participants had already accumulated a fair amount of observations and experiences without much conceptual content. As with most of our events, this was opened with a few minutes of spoken, spontaneously improvised, poetic, usually rhyming rap by Matt, including the sentiment of wishing to “dismiss my overload before it explodes... let myself ignite and observe myself as I light up.” Matt continued these contributions throughout the conference, doing a brilliant job of capturing and reflecting back to us the aesthetic process of striving and transformation that we were invited to go through during the conference.

Nathaniel invited us to consider the nature of artistic experience by comparing the experiences of three writers: a 19th-century Norwegian scientist who found key experiences with art as what gave meaning to his life; a postmodern philosopher who saw art as a rebellious but somewhat superficial experience; and a British art historian who cited ways of creating an artistic sensation that

would help to sell art objects, thus objectifying the artwork into an economic commodity. Nathaniel concluded that a true perception of art can’t be quantified. Paying conscious attention to artistic experience can be difficult because, as Rudolf Steiner said, as we move into the future, visual art is less and less about objects. Now more and more what is most interesting in art is what is not visible; it is the subtle experience that happens within us. Art really lives “slightly beyond the object.”8

Friday Evening Performances

That evening, after another unusual performance of William Blake’s “The Book of Thel” followed by a musical concert by Manfred on his specially designed glockenspiels with alternating copper and iron bars, I presented a program of projected works of historical examples from the tradition of “visual music.” I showed these in the context of Rudolf Steiner’s unfulfilled 1918 initiative with Jan Stuten to create a new colored “light-play-art” of forms and colors moving to music or speech, but controlled by the human being, as an alternative to cinema. A diverse tradition reaching back several centuries, “visual music” or “color music” includes the invention of color organs and other similar machines, abstract experimental films, concert light shows, and more recent projected computer animation works. All of these works strive to move beyond the fixed visual-art object, bringing more time, motion, and music into the visual arts.

We looked at a couple of early films from the 1920s in Germany by Viking Eggling and Oskar Fischinger (who was very interested in anthroposophy at the time), followed by two later color animated films by Fischinger,

Fig. 22. Oskar Fischinger, Allegretto, 1936-1943 still from 35 mm film

Fig. 23. Jordan Belson, Samadhi, 1967 film still

Fig. 24. Stan Brakhage, Night Music, 1986, still from handpainted film

one set to jazz music and one silent (figure 22). Two films followed by California artist Jordan Belson (who was inspired by Fischinger after his move to Hollywood in 1936), Samadhi (1967) and Epilogue (1984), showcasing examples of his very spiritual approach to setting moving colored forms to music (figure 23). We then viewed a couple of excerpts of silent, flowing color works created by Thomas Wilfred in New York as part of his “lumia” art on specially invented machines (the Clavilux) in 1932 and 1948. Finally we concluded with three somewhat more recent works by experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, scratched and painted directly onto filmstrip and silently projecting a more rapid dance of ever-changing colors expressing various themes (figure 24).

Workshop on Form

Saturday morning I noticed that Manfred’s installation had again changed. The four chairs were now facing outward at the periphery of the central circle, facing all four directions in an expanded crosslike formation, again suggesting another version of the early Christian cross-in-circle designs mentioned earlier (figure 25).

Our activities began with Nick Shiver Pomeroy’s workshop on experiencing the qualities of form (vs. forms as objects), introducing the idea of experiencing a language of formqualities with various polarities, between which we tried to discover well-balanced forms. In a series of observational exercises we used thirtysome balls we shaped from a local whitishgray clay arranged in various configura-

tions emphasizing specific qualities: concentrated, expanded, organically related (figure 26). In the process we developed many new insights about just what is possible to be a center and a periphery in a given formation.

At the end of this Manfred asked individuals each to take one of the balls and move it beyond the circle of the workshop exercise into relationship with the “central installation,” creating interesting juxtapositions. One of these was the contrast between the red clay bricks and the white clay balls: the dry, aged bricks from the structure of the Basilica represented the past, rectangular, already formed earth; while the “purer” white clay balls were recently formed of fresh clay, still damp, and could be thought to represent the life forces of the earth as well as a more living artistic process (figure 27).

The Future in Contemporary Art?

At 11:15 we reconvened into a circle to listen and discuss for an hour with a selected panel (Faye Shapiro, Manfred, and myself) the topic of “What Do You See in Contemporary Art that has Something of the Future in It?” Each of us made a short introductory presentation and then the floor was opened for questions and other contributions.

Manfred began with a somewhat enigmatic presentation contrasting with drawings on a slate blackboard the qualities of chalk (also charcoal) and water—quite different substances and shapes, emblematic of the contrast of life and death forces he has been working with in his installation. He related his lifelong quest for “the new” to a nearly constantly changing relationship between the sun and the earth. Although their outer results disappear over time, form-creating steps taken by human beings continue to the end of the world; nothing can dissolve them. He concluded by quoting John Cage’s saying (slightly modified): “Something is an echo of nothing; nothing is an echo of something.”

In her contribution Faye pointed to three prophecies (Blake’s “The Book of Thel,” Steiner’s story “The Being of the Arts” [October 28, 1909], and the 700+ paintings of young German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (19171943) assembled into a kind of musical theater) and three artistic examples from her experience that have a future element in them (the collection by Belgian artist Francis Alys of 300-some paintings copying an 1885 French painting of the possibly fictitious fourth-century Saint Fabiola, patron saint of difficult marriages, abuse victims, and nurses; a performance art piece by Marina Abramov-

Fig. 25. Manfred Bleffert, America, 2012, with 4 chairs as a “cross” on periphery of circle

Fig. 26 (below). Nick Shiver Pomeroy, Workshop on Form, Organic, Related Placement of Clay Balls, 2012

Fig. 27. Manfred Bleffert, America, fig. 10 station with added clay balls, etc.

ic, The Presence of the Artist, involving visitors sitting and gazing into Marina’s eyes for an extended time; and a part of Matthew Barney’s extended, filmed performance piece, the Cremaster Cycle, where cheerleaders move in certain forms that imitate those created by Muses in a zeppelin hovering above.

My third offering spoke about how the original earlytwentieth-century impulse of pure form and color in art as a way to reveal the working of the invisible spiritual world behind the outer visible appearance became somewhat lost from the 1930s to the 1960s. New impulses of the “sixties generation” tried to bring art and life closer together and wanted to restore a living spirit to art by bringing motion and time into the static

spatial/visual arts—as Rudolf Steiner had already called for as needed for the future of visual art. Not fully successful, this generation did develop useful new forms of artistic practice: installation, process art, performance art, environmental art, even conceptual art—and it worked further on the already existing tradition of “visual music” (especially through the concert “light shows” of the period). These new forms seem to be re-emerging and developing further since the start of the 21st century.

I find that an anthroposophically schooled observation of contemporary art reminds me that, in trying to find ways of uniting matter and spirit in works of visual art, we are not limited to traditional artistic media. Some contemporary art provides ideas and strategies for finding the practical means to move from the static, “spaceimage” to the mobile “time-image” in artwork—that is, to move visual art closer to musical art, to bring elements of motion and time into our work, and to emphasize the work as the experience rather than a fixed object. Contemporary artwork can show or suggest to us a whole spectrum of possible ways to relate meaning and appearance. Today it helps me to understand that ultimately it is our own spiritual activity, our own being as artists that is the medium. In whatever forms we work, we must first transform ourselves. Thus, I consider Steiner’s How to Know the Higher Worlds the pre-eminent anthroposophical artist training manual. We don’t need to be afraid of some kind of corrupting influence from involving ourselves with contemporary art, but we can enter into it, strengthened by our own anthroposophical preparation and discrimination, for the sake of discovering what positive potentials it has to offer.

Later, in response to a question, I added that some contemporary expressions of installation and projective digital art environments are like an external imitation of a longing many feel for clairvoyant experiences of immersion into the flowing spiritual world of color and tone, the world ego. Changes in our human constitution as humanity crosses the threshold are already affecting contemporary art.

In the ensuing discussion, a few comments were made that audiences have a difficult time “getting” or appreciating contemporary forms of the arts. It then was suggested that contemporary art should have everyone participate instead of the traditional division between active artist and passive audience. This is in line with Joseph Beuys’s famous saying that “every person is an artist.” Perhaps the “audience” need themselves to become creative

Manfred Bleffert, America, 2012: Fig. 28 (above) detail: half-cross at former “chairs” station. Fig. 29 (below): hanging stretched “Tao” strings and metal pipe “musical bow.”

musicians or artists in order to “get” it. At the same time any artist ahead of his or her time has this problem. If one is true to one’s vision, people will eventually understand and follow it.

We then spent a final half hour sharing and gathering questions that were living in participants, to be able to use these in small group discussions on Sunday.

More Changes to the America Installation

After another session of the workshops I noticed a couple of new stations in Manfred’s installation. At the place where at the beginning the four chairs had stood over the “sun cross” form, Manfred had created a halvedcross formation out of white clay vessels set on top of bricks (and chalk outline) with the original chalk “sun cross” in the center of the new half-cross (figure 28). This half-cross was a motif that had been introduced in the early 1960s and repeatedly used by Joseph Beuys (whom Manfred knew) as an image relating to the Christ impulse, among other things. For Beuys the image of the cross combines opposites such as mind and matter, intuition and reason, east and west. The half-cross represents a one-sidededness or unhealthy split that needs to be balanced or healed by creative human spiritual activity.

Manfred also pointed out to me that in the center circle there were now four ropes stretched from the rafters under tension with the connected but loose swinging metal pipe also hanging near them (figure 29). The pipe served as a kind of semi-functional or symbolic “bow” for “playing” the four tone-cords like violin strings representing the four (invisible and inaudible) tones of the Tao. This refers to a sequence of four tones (B A E D) that Steiner called the “Tao” and gave as “an esoteric exercise” or “meditation for eurythmists.” 9 In this sequence can be experienced “the highest to which humanity could aspire,” “a seed, which one day will blossom fully out of innermost human nature.”10

After this I began integrating some of the materials from my workshop with the “central installation.” I placed a large blue placard in one side chair and a red placard in the opposite side chair, backed by corresponding raised red and blue spotlights. Along the axis of the hall I placed a painted yellow placard at one end and then a chart I had prepared for my workshop at the opposite end. This roughly duplicated the color relationships of the red Jachin and blue Boaz columns with the yellow angelic sun between them, as in the apocalyptic seal. Under the title “The Fourth Apocalyptic Seal and Grail Art,”

the diagram on the chart placed on the chair at the fourth or “front” end attempted to summarize a number of esoteric relationships between the Jachin and Boaz columns and their relationships to several esoteric meanings and to how this conference was trying to deal in a new, futureoriented way with the visual arts.11

To summarize briefly a couple of these esoteric ideas, the new Christ-Ego-sun potential hovering between and above the red and blue pillars in the fourth apocalyptic seal represented the potential in the post-Golgotha era for human beings to purify the astral body to become Spirit Self (Manas). With Lucifer’s aid, we can use the astral fire with the strength of Boaz to practice the old, more outward “Royal Art,” which transforms the physical world into works of art, architecture, and beauty, as has been practiced for thousands of years. With Christ’s aid, we can use the astral fire with the wisdom of Jachin to practice a new, more inward Royal Art, converting human passions into piety, empathy, love and devotion, purifying the life-forces, transforming them into works of social or “etheric” art. Only by such inward and outward transformation can we unite the pillars of Strength and Wisdom, and here lies the evolutionary importance of the arts. The old Royal Art tended to create beautiful artistic objects out of matter, while the new Royal Art must master the etheric forces, which are always in motion. This bringing of time and motion into the visual arts gradually leads “beyond the object.” Also, an “etherically oriented art” works with what comes from the periphery rather than focusing on a central art object. This might involve collaborative artistic efforts as well as a holistic orientation that is also very open to ongoing change. Thus, the central installation image of the human constitution and higher potential acquired yet another layer of both past and future esoteric meaning, as well as

Fig. 30. Katie Schwerin Plant Forms : colored shadows projection still

Katie Schwerin, Colored Veils : Fig. 31 (above): colored shadows projection. Fig. 32 (below): Jen Close working behind screen

referring to Steiner’s inaugural anthroposophical artistic work from 1907.

Saturday Evening Performances

Saturday evening began with us gathered in the “auditorium” room for a demonstration of a new “colored light/shadow” approach to puppetry being worked out by Katie Schwerin from New Hampshire. She gave three separate demonstrations on a relatively small puppet-theater-sized screen, perhaps four feet in width, each accompanied by cello music played by Nathan Kimbal. Visually, the first performance showed plant forms and flowers (figure 30), the second one showed delicate moving veils of various colors (a bit like eurythmy veils; figures 31), and the third showed more abstract or geometric forms and patterns moving on the screen. These forms were created by Katie’s two assistants, Jen Close and Eric O’Sullivan, working (“dancing,” as Katie said) from behind the screen and its large frame with various objects and materials, while Katie “painted” from the front by mixing in different proportions of colored lights with a six-channel dimmer box. Behind the screen we could see that there were three spotlights with colored theatrical gels mounted on each side directed to the

space just behind the screen: three warm colors of red, orange, and yellow on one side, and three cool colors of blue, violet, and green on the other side. The crossing of the changing colored lights over materials in the center created ever-shifting patterns of moving colored shadows on the screen (figure 32).

This was followed by a musical concert by Manfred, where, in addition to the copper-iron glockenspiels, he also played on a glockenspiel composed of bars of opalescent glass with swirled coloring and some added end bars, several of iron and one of stone (figure 33). It was an interesting sonic addition to the metallic instruments. Then Sampsa showed an expanded version of his film shown Thursday night, incorporating at the end colored footage from earlier in the conference. This fit together surprisingly well with the earlier footage and helped us see how it related to our activities at the conference. I then had Sampsa also show a short, abstract “visual music” film he had created as his Waldorf school senior project in Helsinki several years earlier. This led into my showing of further examples of visual music films including an example of projected computer animation and music by Bill Alves from 2002.

Workshop on Substance

We began Sunday morning with a workshop on the qualities of substances led by Lailah, who encouraged us to be aware of what we feel with different substances. She then arranged us into an inner circle and an outer circle and blindfolded those in both circles. She took out seven white bowls covered with cloths, each containing an unknown substance. While other volunteers held up the bowls, the persons in the inner circle felt the contents of the bowl with their hands. Meanwhile those in the outer circle asked rather imaginative questions about the qualities of the substance to those in the inner circle feeling it, to help them try to guess the substances. The exercise was intended to slow down our visual perception with the blindfolds and give our other senses a chance to be foregrounded.

Small Group Discussions

After then breaking up into discussion groups based on topics from yesterday’s questions, we came together in a large circle and heard reports of the conversations. In the way the central installation(s) and even the workshops functioned during the conference, the typical boundaries between artist and audience tended to dissolve. Perhaps

Manfred Bleffert: Fig. 33 (top) Opalescent Glass Glockenspiel. Workshop on Tone and Sound: Fig. 34 (center) explaining wooden xylophone exercise. Fig. 35 (bottom) rhythmically scraping bricks on the concrete floor.

this unfamiliar situation is the reason why so many of the discussion groups felt the need to grapple with finding a new or deeper understanding of this changing artist-audience relationship. Other groups worked in various ways with issues of understanding our experiences of art and its effects on us and on viewers in general.

For example, it was stated that in our time both the artist and the observer have additional responsibilities. The artist needs to help supply to the audience a certain orientation, understanding, and context. The audience has to move beyond first sensory impressions and previous conditioning by both practicing extended observation and contemplation of the work and by acquiring more background knowledge about the artist and the work.

From Manfred’s Tone Workshop

The last meeting of Manfred’s workshop Sunday afternoon dealt with time as movement in relationship to sound and silence. The group undertook a number of exercises on one of his large wooden xylophones. Manfred challenged us to imagine music working in silence. It was demonstrated that even with quite long intervals between tones, we can remain with our intention “in between,” not going out of a progression of tones (figure 34). Yet it is a challenge to try to “hold” the tone in our awareness during the long silence between distantly sounded tones.

Manfred then gave us the image of the four animals, donkey, dog, cat, and rooster, from the Grimms’ tale, “The Brementown Musicians.” He further suggested that these four represent four different levels or members of human consciousness: the physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego. We tried playing the rhythms of the different animals meeting each other. Manfred then had groups of four of us come to the xylophone, and each person played the rhythm of a different animal, starting with one (the slow donkey) and gradually adding the other three until all four were sounding together. Then in reverse order each rhythm stopped one at a time until all was quiet. This required a lot of concentrated listening!

Finally, we were directed to take a brick and scrape it on the concrete floor in various forms and rhythms (figure 35). First, we scraped the brick in the shape of a square with four straight scraping movements, one to each corner of the square (as in 4:4 meter). Then we scraped the brick in the shape of a circle, in one continuous movement (or 1:1 meter). Then we scraped the brick in a lemniscate pattern, making two circular movements with a brief pause in the center (as in 2:4 meter). Lastly, we scraped the brick

in the form of a triangle, with three linear movements (as in 3:4 meter). Some of us further experimented with standing on two bricks, scraping the bricks along the concrete floor by shuffling along to different rhythms (forward and backward), a bit like ice skating—or even, as demonstrated by a few brave souls, doing this as a kind of dance while holding hands with someone! As stated earlier, these four forms were other ways of representing the four elements of the human constitution: square for physical body, circle for etheric body, lemniscate for astral body, and triangle for the ego.

The Gift Economy

The conference participants then gathered together for a final session, which began with short talks by Seth and Matt concerning new ways of thinking about gifting and support of the arts (including this conference). In what Matt called the “Gift Economy” there is a mutual invitation to each other to practice being in the freedom to give. The economy depends upon human relationships. Normal sales transactions have a fixed end with nothing further. This cuts off the relationship when the transaction is finished. He invited us not to buy something but to be a creative participant in the productive process, which is really a collaboration. Then the relationship remains open and can progress into all kinds of mutual support. This kind of relationship brings a feeling of lightness, excitement, and collaboration to economic life; it is “fun-raising” rather than merely “fund-raising.”

The Closing Event

After each of the workshops shared something from their work, the whole-group circle formed again around the central space for a closing event, and Laura invited each person to speak a single character-

Fig. 36 (top) Karen Dare and David Adams sound the Tao on Bleffert gongs. Closing Event: Fig. 38 (center) Immanuel and Participants Mopping Up. Fig. 37 (bottom) Immanuel enters with mop and bucket.

istic word that had arisen in them during the conference. Almost none of these words were the same as the words first inscribed in chalk into the circle on the opening night, suggesting how the participants had been changed by the events of the conference.

Then, as three of us (Manfred, Karen Dare, and I) filled the space with the resonant tones of swinging Bleffert gongs tuned to the four tones of the Tao (figure 36), Immanuel made a surprise reappearance, wielding a large mop and bucket and beginning the task of cleaning up the Basilica floor and clearing out the space (figure 37). Everyone soon joined in, and the three musicians then changed to more rousing improvised music on the Bleffert wooden xylophone until the hall was cleared in a remarkably short time, and people began slowly dispersing and saying their farewells (figure 38). The reappearance of Immanuel for the closing wrapped up the conference as a kind of journey from Ilandea to Tao—two imaginations of future human higher potential and creativity that marked the conference.

A Few Afterthoughts

One thing I have noticed about much of Manfred Bleffert’s music is that it has a strong spatial element, relating both to various sounding substances and to the movement and placement of tones in space (something Rudolf Steiner predicted should be the case with music of the future). Manfred’s sprawling, multi-functional installation, which initially was concerned with his continuing quest to understand the nature of America, also dealt in multiple ways with the exhibit and conference themes: “Spacing Time” and “Beyond the Object.” As Manfred’s installation gradually merged with the Nelson Mandala that it partly surrounded, other individuals took the initiative to add their own tweaks and additions to the flexible, now joint installation. Thus, the “central installation/art space,” as I came to think of it, became like a new kind of mobile “visual-social art,” a gathering space that was continually metamorphosing, both to add new content and forms, and to absorb and reflect the ongoing activities, moods, and themes of the conference—a kind of artistic “Akashic Record” of the conference activity.

When you remove or downplay the finished physical art object from the visual arts, what is left? The creative process, with its rhythms, stages, polarities, signposts, different styles of development, work on refinement of sense activity, etc. Although some artists will find this removal of the object as goal or product to be disorienting, as if

the ground were being pulled out from under them, this points to new requirements for the artist to become secure in processes of movement and transformation. Now the question is: How can we deepen this experiential, process approach?

David Adams (ctrarcht@nccn.net) teaches art history at Sierra College in California, is the Secretary of the Council of the Art Section in North America, and co-edits the Art Section Newsletter

Endnotes

1 A taste for this can be had from short clips in the little “Free Culture” film on YouTube by Sampsa at www.youtube.com/watch?v=NShY2jAZryY or else at the full, filmed version of the second “Book of Thel” performance at the conference at vimeo.com/47686569 (with “password” as the password).

2 See Rudolf Steiner, Geographic Medicine and the Mystery of the Double, November 15, 1917; GA 178 (Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1979), pp. 9-15, 18; and Carl Stegmann, The Other America: The Western World in the Light of Spiritual Science (Oakland, California: privately published, n.d.), vol. 1.

3 Rudolf Steiner. The Structure of the Lord’s Prayer, February 4, 1907; GA 97 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1971), pp. 23-24.

4 For more information, see David Adams, “The Ramapo Salamander and Esoteric America,” The Golden Blade 54 (2002): 89-100; or, without the footnotes: “The Ramapo Salamander and Esoteric America,” in The Riddle of America, ed. John Wulsin (Fair Oaks, CA: AWSNA Publications, 2001), pp. 9-20; Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Mary and Hugo; or the Lost Angel (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1857, reprinted 2010); Jane McDill Anderson, Rocklandia: A Collection of Facts and Fancies, Legends and Ghost Stories of Rockland County Life (Nyack, NY: privately published, n.d.); and the version in Charles M. Skinner, Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, Vol 1 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1896).

5 For historical examples and discussion, see Jakob Streit, trans. Hugh Latham, Sun and Cross (Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1977).

6 Rudolf Steiner, The Etherisation of the Blood, 4th ed., October 1,1911; GA 130 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1971), pp. 29, 41-42.

7 Rudolf Steiner, The Karma of Vocation, 2nd ed., Nov. 26-27, 1916; GA 172 (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1984), p. 187-188.

8 For a more complete presentation of Nathaniel’s topic, see his essay at northamericanartsection.blogspot.com/

9 Rudolf Steiner, Eurythmy as Visible Music, February 23, 1924; GA 278 (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1977), pp. 81-82.

10 Rudolf Steiner, “Die welträtsel und die anthroposophie,” November 16, 1905; GA 54, as quoted in Werner Barford, IAO and the Eurythmy Meditations (Chestnut Ridge, NY: Mercury Press, 2001), p. 40.

11 My chart was partly based on the ideas from Rudolf Steiner in The Temple Legend (especially the final lecture of January 2, 1906; GA 93, titled “The Royal Art in a New Form” (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1985) and in notes of an instructional lesson from August 31, 1906; GA 265, from the old “Cognitive-Ritual Section” of the Esoteric School of the Theosophical Society (which can be found on pages 415-416 of Freemasonry and Ritual Work: The Misraim Service by Steiner (Great Barrington: SteinerBooks, 2007).

of the Anthroposophical Society in America

The 2013 Fall Conference and Annual General Meeting

Opening Night Welcome by Torin Finser

On behalf of the Anthroposophical Society in America, it is my great pleasure to welcome you here tonight. We are meeting in Keene, NH at a time when the wonderful fall foliage reminds us of the gifts of summer sun (this week’s soul calendar verse). Yet beyond nature, this weekend will be a special moment of human encounter, when friends from distances near and far will find one another. Indeed, this conference is dedicated to the theme of the human encounter and the path to community. Also at this moment of our opening, let us be mindful of another encounter, that of each human being with his angel. Indeed, spiritual beings are all around us, waiting to hear our questions and ever so ready to work with us.

Last summer, at a beach café on the coast of Bornholm, Karine and I had a human encounter with two Americans from New Orleans, a wonderful afternoon conversation with Gordon Walmsley and his wife, both eurythmists, residing now in Copenhagen. Some weeks after we returned to NH, we received several books containing his poems, one of which has found its way to our opening tonight as a dedication to our conference:

I am told that angels

And all beings of the sun

And of all the unseen worlds

Must answer

Questions we urge on them

But that there is one condition:

That the questions be real.

Because if a question

Doesn’t have

The right heat

No angel can hear it. I believe that, say it many times In many ways, and find it to be true Not because someone told me But because I have tested it Letting it resonate in chambers consecrated to me and you long long ago before the time when questions could grow, as now into sacraments and when I think about this –about the many-colored marvel of the question

think of it as a glowing bridge spanning our world and a world of beings possibly unseen……

(from Touchstones by Gordon Welmsley, portion of poem, p. 54-55)

What can happen when this encounter reaches its ultimate goal? A substance, a spiritual substance of all pervading love enters into human hearts, as described in Rudolf Steiner’s book, The Fifth Gospel in regard to the desciples:

It seemed to people as if these men had been transformed, as if their very souls had been made new; they seemed to have lost all narrowness, all selfishness in life, to have acquired largeness of heart, an all-embracing tolerance and a deep understanding for everything that is human on the Earth. This is the future of our work as an Anthroposophical Society, the future that humanity today so desperately needs. May this conference be at least a modest step in this direction.

Sunday Talk by Torin Finser, General Secretary

I would like to expand the title of my talk today to focus on The Renewal of the Anthroposophical Society through the Human Encounter and Conscious Community Building. At the opening on Friday night, I shared the importance of asking real questions [see poem above]. Over the past two days of our conference, I have heard many, many real questions. Here is a sampling of but a few:

• Why do the initiatives, rather than the Society, often receive our best energy, focus, and time?

• How can we develop a language so that the Society can be understood by others?

• How can the ASA be seen as a fountain, a spring of life?

• Does our enthusiasm for anthroposophy sometimes stand in the way of our technique of communicating it?

• How can we share the fruits of anthroposophy with those less fortunate—our vets, the homeless etc.

• What about the branches?

• How can we best interface with the larger world?

• How can we create the inner space to really “hold” questions and be open to the questions of others?

In the spirit of the last one, perhaps we should not be so eager to look for immediate “answers” (for as I get older I am less and less satisfied with what can appear as answers) but rather let these questions resound again and again so they begin to speak back to us.

Next I would like to name some of the challenges we face in the human encounter before moving on to possible pathways for exploration that might lead to greater awakening to community:

1. To the external world, we often appear archaic, old fashioned, 1910-ish. This comes across in our forms, our language, graphics, and at times our ritualistic ways of interacting.

2. Our interpersonal struggles are often well telegraphed. For instance, in his new book, Time Journeys – a Counter-Image to Anthroposophical Spiritual Research, Sergei Prokofieff states on page 90:

The cultivation of the Christian initiation was entrusted to those who were the guardian of the Holy Grail, and later to the fosterers of the community of the Rose Cross. What proceeds from the Christian initiation should, according to its entire nature, work in an impersonal way. Everything personal should be excluded from it; for the personal has brought only quarrels and strife into humanity, and will do this increasingly in the future.

He goes on to discuss this in regard to how certain matters, such as the mystery name of Rudolf Steiner, need to adhere to the Rosicrucian law of 100 years. You can read more on this if you have interest, but the aspect of the quote that I would like to emphasize is “the personal has brought only quarrels and strife into humanity and will do this increasingly in the future.”

What is meant by personal ? Especially in our American culture in which the meeting between people is often so warm and friendly, and when we have all learned to practice empathy and other interpersonal skills, this warning about the personal can at first be challenging to our natural inclinations.

Prokofieff is of course speaking about a very particular “person,” namely Rudolf Steiner, and the laws of initiation. He is also doing this in the context of refuting many of the pronouncements of Judith van Halle regarding Rudolf Steiner and the Christian mysteries. Yet as I have worked with this idea, I have grown in appreciation

of the fact the “personal” does indeed cause a great deal of mischief. Instances include words that are shared inappropriately, even betraying confidences of a personal nature, sarcastic or cynical remarks, etc. Some people have boundary issues. We need greater discernment as to what we share and how we share it so we don’t create those nasty little social tiffs that can take up much of our time.

3. We sometimes struggle with egotism. We seem to know a lot but don’t always handle it well. There is nothing worse than a half-baked spiritual seeker. From a recent publication (Prokofieff) I would like to turn to a 1942 manuscript since republished as Awakening to Community With hand notes in the margins by Marjorie Spock (sister of the famous Dr. Benjamin Spock) and Theodora Richards, the second lecture by Rudolf Steiner further develops the above thoughts:

The moment the mental state of this…condition of consciousness, which we may call a lower condition, is taken over into what we will call a higher state of consciousness, that very moment the person becomes among other persons a crass egotist... And when a number of people come together...and do not lift themselves with their whole inner feeling to the supersensible sphere— when they come together simply to listen in the everyday mood of soul to the language of the supersensible world—there exists the very great possibility that they will fall to disputing one another, because they have become egotists among themselves. ( p. 21-22)

And there are further challenges in the human encounter:

4. As we all know, there are other spiritual paths available to people these days, and to make matters worse, some of these people seem to be having more fun. Instead of talk of the Double and 1935, there are places from Calistoga, CA, to Kripalu, MA, that feature everything from mud baths to meditation weekends. When was the last time you even heard a General Secretary talking about having fun? Enough said.

5. Anthroposophy brings with it high expectations for self-development. But many of us will admit in moments of inner honesty that we have not made enough progress in our meditative life, thus setting ourselves up for the question, Am I worthy? And then we enter into a guided tour called “Guilt Trips.” And a gap opens up between our expectations of ourselves and the reality of where we are.

6. We sometimes also struggle with the use of language. I don’t just mean insider language such as “etheric” and “heart thinking,” but rather everyday framing of issues and the use of words that come from a place of raw

emotion. “How can you people turn your backs on...” When we spout unprocessed emotions we weaken ourselves. Instead of celebrating one another we often fall into a place of judgment. Why do we judge each other so harshly? It seems that in some quarters, emotional intelligence has not kept pace with the development of thinking made possible through anthroposophy.

7. Finally, with all these challenges in the interpersonal realm (and there are more), one has to ask, Is the current form of the Anthroposophical Society even relevant today? And is loyalty and gratitude towards Rudolf Steiner—felt by so many people around the world—enough of a reason to be a member?

So what can we do? Simply describing our challenges, wringing our hands, is a disservice to the ideals and intentions of anthroposophy. For as Steiner once said, “It is anthroposophy which keeps this Society together.” But let me begin the next section of this talk with my old friend, Martin Buber. The Jewish writer and philosopher speaks of I-it encounters and I-Thou relationships. The I-it is where we usually reside: our perceptions, feelings, thoughts, as well as our relationship to all the objects around us: the full clutter of “it.”

But the realm of Thou has a different basis.

When Thou is spoken, the speaker has no thing for his object. For where there is a thing there is another thing. Every It is bounded by others; It exists only through being bounded by others. But when Thou is spoken, there is no thing. Thou has no bounds.

When Thou is spoken, the speaker has no thing; he has indeed nothing. But he takes his stand in relation.

(Buber, I and Thou , p. 39)

With this guidance from Buber, we can look at ASA from two points of view: what I would call the old way, the I-it encounter, and the I-Thou relationship:

I-it I-Thou

Place bound, branch mtg A spirited conversation anywhere

Dues Financial participation

One headquarters Sponsorship of activities

Personality driven Collaborative teams, situational leadership leadership

Ordinary book reading Doing research

A society that reacts Proactive support to issues for initiatives

An Anthroposophical Soceity that focuses on the IThou is one that lives in the moment, is situational, at times totally invisible to the senses (as in spiritual re-

search), but it is felt, experienced, inspired by activity arising out of anthroposophy. The Society of the future will not need to distinguish between itself and “the initiatives or daughter movements,” it will be part of these initiatives, will live in the deeds of the initiatives.

We had a wonderful example of this recently when we received a packet of nine membership applications from one school—the faculty had been working with anthroposophy for some time, and one teacher who had taken my workshop in Austin proposed when she got home that they all join the Society! And the school responded to this initiative and wrote a check for all these new memberships. Something in that community moved, a relationship was recognized.

Moving now to the theme of overcoming selfishness, we delve ever deeper into the riddle of the human encounter. Again, Rudolf Steiner observes:

To become an anthroposophist does not mean simply to become acquainted with anthroposophy as a theory, but demands in a certain sense a transformation of soul. Some people, however, are not willing to undertake this. ( Awakening to Community, p. 24)

How can we work toward this transformation of the soul so we do not approach anthroposophy as just another subject to be “learned” and talked about? We have to be willing to change, to change our ways of thinking, feeling, and willing. For some, anthroposophy changes our thinking as we acquire new thoughts and new concepts, but our emotional responses to one another remain the same. We still get frustrated or angry at even the slightest provocation. Others have perhaps worked on their feeling life, have cultivated a refinement of sensitivity in the arts, but still carry around “old concepts” when it comes to salaries or budgets for example. Still others do good work in the realm of willing but need to do it on their own terms, for feelings and thoughts remain unchanged. So the transformation spoken of needs to be holistic, complete, all encompassing, sun-filled

In former times Michael spoke “from above,” but now he can be heard “from within” where he wishes to establish his new habitation. Formerly we received our Sun-nature from the cosmos, but can now receive it from within. We have to create, through inner activity, our “inner sun” which can radiate out to meet others in the human encounter. The future of our Society depends on this. We have to recognize one another and help one another on our paths rather than fall prey to hindering one

another by falling into the personal.

Perhaps the greatest inspiration to help us with egotism and selfishness is the example of the pre-earthly deeds of Christ, in which he intervened long before the actual birth as Jesus of Nazareth. He incarnated as an Archangel to prevent attacks on the senses, the organs, the soul, and even the ego itself. In this context I will only speak of the third sacrifice, which Rudolf Steiner describes as follows:

In the last part of the Atlantean period humanity faced a third danger. Thinking, feeling and willing were threatened with disorder through the entrance of selfishness. What would have been the result of this? Well, the human being would have intended this or that, and followed this or that impulse of will, while his thinking would have impelled him in quite a different direction, and his feeling still another. It was necessary for human evolution that thinking, feeling and willing should become unselfish members of a united soul. Under the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman they could not have done this. Thought, feeling and will, becoming independently self-seeking, would have rent asunder the harmonious working of Christ. (Four Sacrifices, p. 10)

So working as an Archangel, the Christ intervened at this time to prevent this soul disorder. A memory of this deed was preserved in myths and legends, such as that of St. George, who in overcoming the dragon was able to reaffirm the sanctity of the human soul. Likewise, the Greek sun-spirit, Apollo, was seen as the great harmonizer through the beautiful notes sounding from his lyre. All this was due to a pre-earthly deed of Christ working to prevent mankind from the abyss of destructive selfishness.

I would now like to remind us how these human dynamics are mirrored in great celestial movements of the stars and planets. I recently received an email with an article attached by Alan Thewless, an astrosopher living in the Kimberton area. He describes his work comparing the planetary configuration at the time of the founding of the first Goetheanum in September 1913, with the situation today. He observes:

The chart shows Saturn, the planet that is intimately connected with the unfolding of destiny, shining through the Earth from deep below. Close by, to the right of Saturn, are Mars and Pluto; these two planets were in conjunction on September 17th and it is interesting to note that they were also in conjunction at the birth of Rudolf Steiner. Just to the left of Saturn stands the waning Moon. We can thus imagine that as the Foundation stone was being lowered it was embraced by

the “rays” of those planets working through the Earth, and most especially Saturn, the bearer and recorder of karma.

These last words, “the bearer and recorder of karma,” lingered in my consciousness long afterwards. To what extent are we a Society of gathered karma? Perhaps those who have particular tasks with one another have sought out the vehicle of the Society to work through their karmic issues or karmic knots. And while we are working these things through, where does that leave all the other Platonists and Aristotelians around us? Are they waiting for us to do our internal work, our housecleaning, before they engage more fully? Do they intuitively feel we are too bound up with Saturn to move forward?

For this is just one part of the picture. At the time of the first foundation stone, shining directly overhead was Jupiter as a future promise for the work to come. And then there was Pluto, which Willi Sucher describes as follows in a letter of May, 1972:

With regard to Pluto, it is good to remember that this sphere can either assist and help to carry high degrees of spiritualization: however, if its impacts are left uncultivated they can easily fall into the power of beings who promote severe destruction. Much depends upon the sincerity of the inner work, meditation, and concentration of the individuals on such occasions.

So we have a situation of great challenge and opportunity. Will we remain in the Saturn sphere of reliving the past, sorting though our karmic relationships, circling the wagons to “protect” the work, or will we summon the inner mobility, creativity and Michaelic strength to work out of the core impulse of anthroposophy: a wide, embracing, far reaching view of humanity? According to Alan, we have a particular opportunity from today until the Holy Nights of 2018 when a meeting of Pluto with Jupiter similar to that at the laying of the Foundation stone takes place. We have a five year window of opportunity. Will we use it wisely?

One could say that the first founding of anything is Gabrielic in nature, a kind of first birth. A second founding in an anthroposophical sense can be Michaelic in nature. The second founding is one based on the higher self and consciousness soul development. This is where we stand today.

Ever since the colloquium and conference in Ann Arbor in 2012, the General Council has been working with the material generated by participants in moving toward a new “heart/sun centered” picture of the Society. Just as

the heart is a truly selfless organ, sensing and collaborating with all parts of the body, we are starting to build an initiative oriented organization. This means that our resources will increasingly be directed toward activities rather than just administrating and maintaining. Beginning last year we started cosponsoring events: the Tulane University Symposium, the Biodynamic Conference, the AWSNA conference in Austin this past June, and next August the Mystery Dramas in Spring Valley. When we co-sponsor and collaborate, we visibly demonstrate the vital link between the Society, the initiatives, and our common aims to further anthroposophy.

Secondly, the leadership team (Dennis, Marian, and I) last May proposed to the council a new collaborative leadership structure for the Society, with details still to be elaborated. These individuals would focus on discrete areas of activity with specific fields of engagement: a development director who will work with the initiatives, our CAO and others, a director of membership and programs to make anthroposophy more visible in the world, a director of research and library services to work with the sections, Collegium, the Research Institute, our library, Steinerbooks and others, and finally an operations director to manage the day to day finances and our beautiful building in Ann Arbor. We are also looking anew at the role of the General Secretary. These individuals would work as a five member team, meeting once a month face to face in Ann Arbor and virtually once a week. We have begun with the development position so as to generate new resources as we move forward step by step in a gradual implementation intended to support initiative, creativity, research and future capital, spiritual and human.

As stated in Rudolf Steiner’s letters to members: In anthroposophy, it is a question of the truths that may be brought to light by it. In the Anthroposophical Society it is a question of the life that is fostered in it. (31)

If we become an initiative society, we can facilitate the release of the amazing resources that live in our membership and those around us who are waiting to engage. We can further the work of the sections as class members take on greater leadership in their communities and in their professions. We can be seen as dynamic, inclusive, and forward looking by how we engage with contemporary issues. (Rudolf Steiner was himself heavily engaged in contemporary matters.)

We need to move from being a collection of “teachers,” with all of the connotations that brings, to being a

community of ‘learners.” For in the end, anthroposophy offers the most comprehensive field of inquiry available to modern humanity. Rather than telling the world, and each other, what ought to be done, we need to focus more on finding the right questions and the partners who can work with us out of the School, the Society, and the surrounding community. Let us embrace rather than criticize, ask rather than tell, and celebrate human accomplishment rather than look for each other’s shortcomings. We are not perfect, so let’s not pretend. It is okay to admit mistakes, especially if it means we can allow for some risk taking. The greatest risk taker of modern times was Rudolf Steiner. At tremendous personal sacrifice, he threw himself into one initiative after another. That is why today we have Waldorf schools, Camphills, anthroposophical remedies and therapies, the Christian Community, biodynamic farms, etc. Surely, if he devoted so much of his last years to these initiatives, and at the same time re-founded the Anthroposophical Society, they must be inseparable?

So let us move from I-it to I-Thou, from Saturn to Sun, from teaching to learning, from telling to dialogue, from old rituals to reverse ritual and back. This is a process of awakening to each other. These changes in the human encounter will establish a new community, one that may not be visible at first, but will live in the etheric. Just as the first foundation stone was laid in the ground and the second founding in the hearts of those present, we need to now focus on the etheric heart forces of the human encounter. When we are fully present to one another, the soul/spirit substance is palpable. It is visible to spiritual beings whose presence we have only begun to feel. If we can turn things in this dynamic way, we will receive the help of Michael who has been waiting for the call. And he will in turn summon a host of Michaelic souls to help us carry forward.

So on this Sunday in October, the day of the sun, with the resplendent colors of the human soul depicted in the New Hampshire trees around us, let us rededicate ourselves to the unfinished work of Society building and help anthroposophy incarnate for the sake of human beings on the earth today and tomorrow. We are needed. Let’s do this work together.

What’s Happening in the Anthroposophical Society in America

Poor roof insulation, increasing heat loss and risk of ice dams

Poor accessibility

Very slow satellite internet connection limits technology services

Linda Evans Joins General Council

With Ann Finucane’s retirement by term limit, Linda Evans has become Eastern Region representative on the GC. This introduction is courtesy of Kathleen Wright.

Linda Evans was working as a public school Social Worker in Detroit when a colleague of hers told her about Waldorf education. She decided to check it out and in 2003 enrolled in the Waldorf Teacher training program in Detroit. While there, Linda learned about the Anthroposophical Society, the Christian Community and the First Class. Within a short time, she became active in all three. She also became friends with Ernst Katz and learned much from him. Linda also became interested in Biodynamics and Curative Education. She is currently enrolled in the Extra Lesson Program that is given during the summer. Linda works as the Coordinator for Alternative Education in Maryland.

Rudolf Steiner Library: Moving Forward

In the last issue of being human (summer 2013) the Library Steering Committee wrote about the General Council’s decision to place the Carriage House (home of the Rudolf Steiner Library) on the market. There was a review of the five year process which led to the conclusion that the Carriage House, as a building and a location for the library, was no longer a suitable home for the archives, collections, and activities.

The library’s collection of approximately 36,000 books, journals, and manuscripts

is housed in a 19th century carriage house that was relocated to its current site from a nearby estate in the Hudson Valley. It is a charming historic structure that retains many traces of its original function, such as the iconic weather vane, the harness room, and the original double doors of the hay loft on the upper level. For those who have not had the opportunity to visit the library, the building is situated on a wooded hill just above the town of Harlemville in upstate New York. Under the caring hands of the dedicated librarians that have worked within its walls, the collection flourished in the Carriage House through the three decades it has been housed within the quaint building. Yet as the library’s holdings started to grow beyond the capacity of the shelving, as preservation standards for library materials matured, as the capabilities and expectations for technology exploded, the building began to show its age.

As mentioned in the previous article, an environmental assessment of the Carriage House was made in 2007. The report revealed there were some immediate and intermediate steps that could be taken to protect the collection, but long-term solutions would be costly. Through the report it became clear that the library building was not an optimum, or even a suitable, physical setting for a collection of such value to the Society. The collection faces numerous challenges in the Carriage House:

Environmental Conditions

Unstable climate conditions

No temperature control

No air conditioning

No humidity control

No light and air quality control or monitoring in collection areas

Aging carpeting encouraging dust, mold spores, and pests

Building Condition and Security

No fire suppression in a wooden facility with wood-paneled interiors

No water alarm system in areas vulnerable to flooding from frozen or burst pipes

Insufficient water management to channel rainwater away from the building and slab

Poor locking mechanisms, no physical alarm system

Storage, Staff and Patron Space

Moderate to severe crowding, especially for unique manuscript and journal materials

No room for growth of either circulating materials or archival collections

Storage spaces are exposed to hazards from mechanical and electrical failures

Insufficient work areas for circulation activity, collection processing, preservation and digitization

Insufficient work areas for researchers and visiting scholars, especially for working with manuscript collections.

Following the preservation assessment, the Council and library staff acted to address immediate concerns. Much of the work to secure the safety of the collection and the individuals who work in the building has now been completed, but the longterm questions remain.

Earlier this fall, being human, the Rudolf Steiner Library E-News, and the Society’s E-News published the link to a survey to gather thoughts from the membership. The survey results are still being analyzed, but early results make clear how important the library is to the membership as a service, a place, and a concept. Out of 300 respondents (a strong representation of the membership statistically), a full 87% said that having a library was very important for the Society, with another 12% saying it was important; only 1% said having a library was unimportant. Perhaps more significantly, over half, a full 57%, said that the library was important enough that they would be willing to contribute regularly in order to maintain services. Notably, this strong support for the library and its services held true even as 39% reported that they rarely or never borrowed materials, and another 42% said they borrowed materials on occasion. One respondent commented, “Is there a value in having a library even if the usage of it is below ideal? Answer: yes. Even if in an extreme example the library were not used, there would be value to having it.” Another reflected that “the library has offered to me a way to self educate. If it wasn’t for the library I would not be a member of the Society now... It is the soul of the Anthroposophical Society in America. I have extreme gratitude towards all the hard work the library staff offers.” A third stated

that “The library is key to the continuation and spread of anthroposophy.” Such responses illustrating the importance of the library for both the personal level and in the broader world-context of anthroposophy itself were typical to the free-response questions in the survey.

Recognizing the unique value of the library and its importance to the members, the Council acted this fall to enable the full transition of the collection out of the Carriage House in order to properly care for the collection, increase access, and expand library services. The Council approved a Library Steering Committee to guide the process of moving the collection and establishing a new vision for library services for the next five years. The membership of the Steering Committee includes Marian Leon, Virginia McWilliam, and Maurice York. At the Annual General Meeting in Keene, NH this October, the Library Steering Committee introduced a working transition plan for the first phase of the move. The plan can be downloaded from the library web site at http://steinerlib.us/HcRWqw, or call the office for a printed copy at 734-662-9355.

Alongside the process of caring for and relocating the existing collection, the Steering Committee will be working to form a new vision for the future potential of library services and collections. This parallel process will seek input from all corners of the Society, the associations, the daughter movements, and all who have a vested interest in the life of anthroposophy on this continent through virtual Town Hall Meetings. An opportunity stands before us to engage with the question of how to build on this great treasure—the largest single collection of English-language anthroposophical literature in the world—to extend the quality, range, and depth of support for research and study throughout the anthroposophical movement. These meetings will be held nationally via the web in January 2014 and will explore questions vital to the future support of the research and study of anthroposophy throughout its various forms and initiatives. The Steering Committee invites all to participate in these Town Halls. Watch the library web site and regular library mailings for announcements of specific dates and times and updates on the process.

The Steering Committee, then, is the caretaker and facilitator for these two paths: the move of the current collection, and the vision for the future. Related to the move, the primary goals charged to the Steering Committee are to preserve and care for the collection; move it quickly and efficiently to a new home; and reopen the library as quickly as possible in order to minimize the disruption of services to the membership. In order to accomplish these goals, it is apparent that the library will need to temporarily suspend services so that the focus of staff time can shift to cleaning, rehousing, organizing, and moving the collection. The library is suspending lending and research services as of December 1, 2013. As a precursor to the closing, all due dates on newly checked out library materials have been extended to one year, and all currently checked out materials will be extended by one year. The library is encouraging members to request as much material as desired and enjoy the privilege of holding items for this extended period. The library staff and the Steering Committee regret that services must be suspended temporarily, and would not take this step unless it were absolutely necessary to expedite the move and the reopening of library services. All involved with the library appreciate the support and understanding of the membership and the community. Please email, call, or write any concerns or questions about this temporary closing to the contact points listed below.

As part of the move process, the Steering Committee will be issuing a call for volunteers to help with the monumental, oncein-a-generation task of cleaning and moving the collection. Opportunities to help abound—watch the library web site, blog, and the regular print library mailings for more information. Comments, ideas, questions, and concerns are welcome throughout the transition. All are invited to use the communication channels below to keep up with news about the move, learn about volunteer and community events, and communicate with project managers and staff.

Blog: http://library.anthroposophy.org/

Email: rsteinerlibrary@gmail.com

Phone: 734-531-9430—leave a voicemail

US Mail: Library Steering Committee, 1923 Geddes Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

The Work of the General Council

[The following report was written last spring, and of course the details of the Council’s work have evolved. We share it, however belatedly, for its picture of the concerns and efforts of those who volunteer their time to this work.]

One of the many activities supported by the Anthroposophical Society in America through the financial participation of members is the work of the General Council (GC); therefore, I would like to share a picture of that work. The GC meets together physically three or four times per year, usually for 4 to 5 days; and we also have a monthly phone meeting. All of the GC members are also involved in committee work which involves other phone calls and occasional trips to meetings.

There are seven members of the GC: Linda Evans, representing the Eastern Region; Dennis Dietzel, representing the Central Region and Council Chair; Joan Treadaway, representing the Western Region; Torin Finser, General Secretary; Jack Michael, Treasurer; Carla Beebe Comey, Secretary and member at large; Virginia McWilliam, member at large and, when needed, our human resources support. Marian Leon, our Administrative Director, also attends all Council meetings and countless committee meetings. We often have guests, such as John Beck, Director of Communications and editor of being human, and we meet with other leadership groups of the Society, such as the Council for Anthroposophical Organizations (CAO) and the Collegium of the School for Spiritual Science in North America.

Our meetings move around the country and, wherever we are, we try to set aside an evening to meet with local members and friends. In January 2013 we were in Phoenix, Arizona, and one evening we went to the Desert Marigold School, a public charter school inspired by Waldorf education, where we experienced a wonderful potluck meal and then a circle of around 40 people sharing their joys and struggles in working out of anthroposophy in the Phoenix area. Some had travelled over an hour for the evening. Experiencing the life blood of anthroposophy always gives an inspiring lift to our meetings, and we hope we

are able to offer some inspiration to folks around the country in these gatherings. Torin Finser ended the evening in Phoenix with some words comparing the insights of Martin Buber and Karl Koenig in relation to community. Many of you will remember Martin Buber’s I and Thou, in which we become complete with each other and all of creation through relationship. Karl Koenig urges us to move from karmic community, where our relationships are governed from the past, to spiritual community, where our relationships move freely into the future. We took up this theme of moving from karmic communities to spiritual communities at our annual conference in October, 2013 in Keene, NH.

The GC has two distinct but complementary tasks: we are the Board of Directors of the Anthroposophical Society in America, responsible for the legal and financial well-being of the organization, and, as a Council, we strive to serve the spiritual needs of our members and work in attunement with the good spirits of our time. In the January meeting in Phoenix the Council continued with the theme that was shared in a mailing before Christmas 2012, “The Anthroposophical Society, the School for Spiritual Science, and the Initiatives from the point of view of the Human Heart.” This led to rich conversation and was enhanced through experiencing the “Harmonious Eight” in eurythmy, led by Carla Beebe Comey. We also heard a free rendering by Dennis Dietzel of the 4th Recapitulation Lesson of the Class Lessons for the School for Spiritual Science. Bringing this content into our meetings takes time, but always raises the quality of our work

Could You Help with the Human Resources Committee?

From Carla Beebe Comey, Council Secretary: We would like to ask for anyone who has human relations expertise to join a small committee that will assist with personnel issues that will arise through the Society’s restructuring. If interested, please write to me:

Carla Comey

Anthroposophical Society in America

1923 Geddes Avenue

Ann Arbor, MI 48104

above the mundane and opens us to true inspiration.

Every meeting of the GC brings unique challenges. Here are some topics from the January, 2013, GC meeting in Phoenix:

• Review of being human and direction for communications in the future.

• Discussion of how to support the library in moving into the future. [See previous article.]

• Clarification of roles amongst leadership bodies within the Society.

• Planning for the 2013 Society conference and AGM.

• Completing priorities for the 2013 fiscal year. While we still have a deficit budget, funded by bequests from members and those who contribute generously to the Society, through much hard work we are headed in the right direction with a significantly smaller deficit each year.

• Report from the Western Regional Council. We have a report from one Regional Council representative at each meeting.

• Report on activities in Dornach. As General Secretary, Torin Finser attends meetings in Dornach with the Executive Council and other General Secretaries from around the world. He shares the activities from those meetings with the GC and takes our activity to them.

• Discussion of goals for 2013.

In addition to Council meetings there are several committees active on behalf of the Society. The current committees are:

Human Resources (Carla, Marian)

Finance (Dennis, Jack, Marian, Gordon Edwards, John Price, Dwight Ebaugh)

Development (John Bloom, Marian)

Library (Virginia, Marian, Fred Dennehy, Deborah Kahn, Maurice York)

Communications (Joan, John Beck, Marian)

Leadership Team (Torin, Dennis, Marian)

At times the work feels overwhelming, but we are heartened by what the future holds. Since the Colloquium in August 2012 many individuals and the other leadership groups (the CAO and Collegium) have stepped forward to help shoulder the work of the Anthroposophical Society. We are grateful for the support and opportunity to serve. We look forward to your comments and future working together.

Dennis Dietzel, Council Chair

Arline Monks

March 20, 1937–September 17, 2013

Dear Friends,

We regret to inform you of the passing of our colleague, Arline Monks. Arline was a person of many talents which she gave in service to Rudolf Steiner College, anthroposophy, and the protection of childhood. She played a major part in the development of the College for almost thirty years. Her absence is a great loss, and we are filled with gratitude for what she brought and know that she has left behind a powerful challenge that we will work hard to meet.

Arline Monks had the ability to hear a need and immediately see the bigger picture and its possibilities. In this way, she recognized that Waldorf education needed to be accessible to all children. She pioneered and then coordinated the Public School Institute for over twenty years, serving as a gateway for over a thousand public school teachers and administrators to be introduced to Waldorf education and to adapt it to their particular situation: an inner city public school, a school for at-risk teenagers, adults in prison, children on a reservation, or staff development for 1,000 Spanish-speaking children. Arline was RSC Development Officer and co-director of the Public School Institute, but those designations do not tell the whole story. Her vision was to help make Rudolf Steiner College a vibrant center of early childhood, Waldorf education, and biodynamic agriculture. She guided fundraising for the Stegmann Education Building and for the Norton Complex of student housing and library. Her insistence on beauty of the buildings and the surrounding landscape permeated all she touched and made these areas a significant attraction on the campus. Her deepest passion was in protecting the spirit of childhood. She had been working on the second phase of the Caldwell Early Life Center when the economy went into its downturn in 2008. Yet her dedication to this initiative

continued to burn strongly. It is our deepest hope that this initiative can be carried forward and realized as part of a dedication to Arline’s dream. With enormous dedication and will, Arline took on the most difficult tasks, made the necessary contacts, inspired donors, and helped make dreams a reality. Arline touched the hearts of many people, and her passing will leave behind sadness, loss, and deep gratitude.

E-mail from Rudolf Steiner College

Ben Emmett

August 20, 1925–August 3, 2013

His life and work for anthroposophy in New Mexico

Ben Emmett was born on August 20, 1925 in Roswell, NM, and raised with five brothers and sisters, himself being a younger twin. Destiny took him after high school in Roswell to Europe in World War II, when after a combat engineer training in England, to clear mine fields, he was hit in Luxemburg by shrapnel in his left leg during an explosion. This war experience saved him from heavier experiences—when he was released from the hospital in England, the war was over. His more peaceful activities took him to study the arts at the University of California in Oakland and in Mexico City. But his dream to get established in Paris, France, did not come true. He couldn’t make a living there and followed a friend’s suggestion to try his luck in Munich, Germany. Was it karma guiding him? We met in a dance studio that he visited to make drawings of the dancers; he joined the group and we married a few months later. Munich was the birthplace of our son Andrew and our adopted daughter Susanne; it was also the birthplace of a different culture for him and of anthroposophy for both of us.

My father was an anthroposophist, but was not very successful to introduce us, since we just studied Yoga, but destiny has its own way of working, as we all know. In

one of our nightly discussions with common friends just one sentence changed the course of our lives. When our friend Klaus said, “The earth is to become a star,” the power of these words lifted me virtually off my chair. I wanted to go off and make the earth a star, right there in the middle of the night! All arguments were suddenly absurd. The next months were filled with study groups for both of us. The piano teacher of the Munich Waldorf school, Luise Braun, created these groups just for us.

That was the legacy we took along when we decided in 1966 to move to the United States and started our layman’s odyssey in Cedar Crest, New Mexico, in the house that provided the background and home for our work, as well as we knew it. What we still had to learn we replaced with love and enthusiasm and with the help of the many, many people who passed through our house.

Michaelmas 1972 was a milestone, when the Christian Community Priest James Langbecker gave a talk on anthroposophy to thirty guests of various backgrounds at our long breakfast table, and our friend Mary Haemmerle, who had just moved from Chicago, Ben, and I offered our first study groups. Some of our guests from then are still our friends today! All helped to shape our anthroposophical beginnings for 38 years, with studies, biodynamic garden work, birthdays, weddings, and yearly festivals in our house and in the homes of our friends. We visited Waldorf schools and biodynamic gardens and many other creations, and our newsletter What is happening in NM? was born, which we saw as an important community link to let people know what other like-minded souls had been creating. We witnessed the start of the Santa Fe Waldorf School, the many ups and downs of life; we grew, learned and created ourselves. We set up tables, St. John’s fires, Christmas carol singings, Easter festivals, and much more. We were blessed to enjoy growing group work, with Santa Fe, Taos, and the environment. When after a few years in the town of Albuquerque we moved to our daughter’s house in Edgewood, at the foothills of our beloved mountains, Ben

used to say: We are on top of the world!

He passed away on August 3, 2013 after years of struggles with kidney failure, but always filled with the saying “Not I but the Christ in me”—and always striving to understand heart thinking.

I and many of our old friends from years ago feel and hope for his blessings and guidance for the continuance of our work here.

from Estelle Emmett

Barbara Peterson

January 7, 1917–April 17, 2013.

Barbara von Nostitz Peterson passed away on April 17, 2013 , age 96. She will be dearly missed by family and friends and by many who came to know her during her decades of service to Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School in Viroqua, Wisconsin. She was an incredibly thoughtful, kind, and dedicated human being who loved deeply, worked hard, and had a delightful sense of humor.

For most of her life, she relentlessly saw the best in everyone and was reluctant to judge anyone. She was a hugely giving person, called herself a “penny philanthropist,” and always was appreciative of even the smallest of gifts or kindly gestures. She was a master connector, always finding exactly the person someone needed to meet to accomplish a task or make their life better. This was just one of her many gifts, which she wore with humility and with no apparent knowledge that she had these treasured abilities.

She was born Barbara Josephine von Nostitz in Braintree, MA, second youngest of six children of Katharine Coykendall and Hans Paul Theodor von Nostitz. She attended Packard Collegiate Institute and earned a bachelor’s degree in education and English from Adelphi University, showing talent as a writer and visual artist, particularly in sculpture and charcoal sketches.

In 1941, she married Charles Dinsmore Peterson, and was blessed with two daugh-

ters, Judith Ann and Carol Virginia. In the 1950s she taught high school English on Long Island, but became dissatisfied with the experience. Following the death of her husband Charles, in 1965, she sought out the alternative education methods offered by the Waldorf Institute in Garden City, NY. There she received her certificate in Waldorf education in 1967, made friendships that lasted all the rest of her life, and pursued a path that took her to the Waldorf School of Garden City, where she gave 16 years of faithful service under John Gardner. During this same period, she undertook graduate studies at CW Post College of Long Island University, eventually earning her master’s degree in Library Science.

After retirement, she moved to Viroqua in 1984, where she helped to develop the new Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School as secretary to the faculty, registrar, alumni liaison, and ultimately librarian. At Pleasant Ridge she found her life’s work and true calling, made friendships that she described as “very dear to her,” and “learned many things about life, parenting, teaching, and the workings of a school.” Her life was an expression of her belief in anthroposophy, the mission of the school, and her gratitude to “all who carry the ideals of the school forward.” In 2000, she was received the statewide Ageless Heroes Award.

She had a deep spiritual life, which helped sustain her through the loss of her dear older daughter Judy in 1992. Shortly thereafter, she founded the St. John’s Study Group, which met at her home continuously, on E. South Street, then at her Maplewood Terrace apartment and at last, at Bethel Nursing Home, in the family room, where the beautiful birds would hush as verses and lectures of Steiner were read and discussed, then resume their song, as tea was served.

After a vigil of three days was held in a friend’s home, a memorial service to honor Barbara and celebrate her life took place at Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School on Saturday, April 27, 2013. Barbara often said that her family was her earthly treasure. She is survived by her sister, Constance Kempees of Layton, UT, daughter, Carol V. Hicks, of Beavercreek, OH, and an extended family.

from Mary Christenson, Development Director, Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School

Members Who Have Died

Dore Deverell, Carmichael, CA; died 7/2/2013

Nancy B. Dill, Kimberton, PA; died 10/5/2013

Ada Ruth Dogger, Harlingen, TX; died 10/7/2013

Ben Emmett, Edgewood, NM; died 8/3/2013

Arline Monks, Carmichael, CA; died 9/17/2013

Jim G. Steeber, Pinckney, MI; died 9/20/2013

New Members of the Anthroposophical Society in America, recorded by the Society 7/23/2013 to 11/22/2013

Julia Alamo, Chestnut Ridge, NY

Karen Allison, Saint Paul, MN

Susan Andrews, Tigard, OR

Joanne Andruscavage, Chapel Hill, NC

Jessie Barber, Hardwick, VT

Sarah Beasley, Arroyo Seco, NM

Joanna Bergmann, New York, NY

Thea Blair, Nevada City, CA

Karine Bouis-Towe, Chatham, NY

Lee Brown, Hypoluxo, FL

Karine Calhoun, Albany, OR

Erin Cartwright, Lake Oswego, OR

Mark Cevoli, West Gardiner, ME

Clare Collinson, Hardwick, VT

Sarah Damerow, Georgetown, CA

Susan Das, Austin, TX

Louise Drosse, Amherst, MA

Jeffrey Duke, Essex Junction, VT

Mary Elverhoy, Portland, OR

Angie Foster, Phoenixville, PA

Andrew Gilligan, Providence, RI

Sandra Greenstone, Ann Arbor, MI

John Harris, Pikesville, MD

Peter Hayes, Portland, OR

Amy Heath-Carpentier, Edwardsville, IL

H. Holmes Hendricks, Galveston, TX

Johanna Hibbard, Portland, OR

Bart Hopkins, New York, NY

Warren Hunt, Lambertville, MI

Jonie Hurtt, Portland, OR

Michelle Jarvis, Beaverton, OR

Fred Johnston, Hayward, CA

Brad Klaas, Wenatchee, WA

Branigan LaCount, Somerville, MA

Sue Levine, Boulder, CO

Heather Denise Lovetree, Langley, WA

Leaf Eichten Lovetree, Langley, WA

Tawana Lundin, High Falls, NY

Walkyria Machado, Brooklyn, NY

Anne Macias, Menasha, WI

Lisa Maynard, Tempe, AZ

Mary McDonough, Wilton, NH

Camille McNutt, Nashville, TN

Cal Mejia, Columbus, OH

William Minehart, Newfoundland, NJ

Cate Mulvihill, Baltimore, MD

Joseph Murray, Staunton, VA

Natalie Norman, Portland, OR

Mark Notzon, Decatur, MI

Elizabeth Nugent, Portland, OR

Krista Palmer, Great Barrington, MA

Marguerite Pelose, San Jose, CA

John M Price, Dexter, MI

Carolyn Priemer, Shaker Heights, OH

Pam Rosenthal, Carbondale, CO

Carlos Lopez Sanabria, Islamabad, Pakistan

Christopher Scappaticci, Kutztown, PA

Laura Scappaticci, Kutztown, PA

Peter Schoen, Fair Oaks, CA

Judith Blair Scoville, Nashville, TN

Jeramy Shirley, Los Angeles, CA

Nancy A St. Vincent, West Greenwich, RI

Nancy Walker, Portland, OR

Nancy Walty, Fair Oaks, CA

Nils Wiberg, Charlestown, RI

Sarah Wiberg, Charlestown, RI

Jennifer Yanover, West Bloomfield, MI

Call Me Safely Home

You called me, (my Name was known), Out of paradise And into this world.

I have been coming like a quick snake through grass, then, upright, on hard earth I tread, soul and body dry and sun metalsharp upon my skin.

I've wandered breathless and looked over my shoulder in fear.

I've looked in dark doorways, my face at rest, palms turned upward, open to what may be. I've lived in concrete and plastic, bowed down desperate, and borne the constant assault of idiot machines, my ears too tender. I've leaned out over the river stripped like a winter tree branch, testing my roots to see if they would hold.

Rock me now in the rhythm of the ages, and call me safely home from breathless wandering. Let the sun just warm me, and my roots hold, no fear compel me. Let singing be the sound, and grasses only wave in lovely dances with the wind, and where I live is built of earth and sky.

Call me safely home to be the true Companion, call me safely home as You called me here, call me safely home my Name is Written. Call me safely home once more.

Patricia J. Gilmartin

Is the seed the apotheosis of the plant? Or is the plant the apotheosis of the seed?

Remember Me (To My Children)

I'd just as soon

BE part of a fish

As planted at roots of a spreading tree It doesn't matter to me

At all

So long as the soul is growing, Free

My Mother Is Inborn In Me

Giving thanks, you rise, raining down the peace from out of heights,

And shining, radiating hope, you rise And send back word of things are yet to come. This is the season. This is the month and day of your recall, and so you go, obedient and fierce in flames of choosing too, and now

The doors of karma are swung wide.

Now you stride a heavenly road

Now you grab the staff of life and Tumbling, humble, meteoric tumult

Rise.

Jenny Leonhardt

Written for my mother, Patricia Jeanne Gilmartin (1945-2012) the night she died

‘Don’t stand at my grave to weep’ –nor locate me, But in every breath and breeze of a cloud and with wind in spray off the foaming sea.

I live in the bosom

Of the world

And SHINE at night in starlight And moon

Can you see me?

I LIVE EMBODIED in light

With expanse of unfathomable space for a tomb.

NO END of me

I am part of YOU

I live in your joys

Your eyes, your tears

In memory of our time together

In passing Present and Future years. I live in your heart your life

Your child

I, still expanding, In death UNdefiled. My Song is unloosened

My world is so Wide I live in Your SINGING now my body has died.

Patricia J. Gilmartin

What if the seed is more important than cause and effect?

Our cause and effect cognition wants a sequential answer. But what if the seed and the plant are one? And we are missing the whole by slicing it into cause and effect.

What if by demanding sequential logic, we are obfuscating eternity?

What if the seed contains all that is plant and the plant contains all that is seed?

What if seed and plant abide within one another?

Could the seed free us from mere cause and effect linear logic?

—Neill Reilly

Week 1:

June 22rd to June 27th

After More than a Hundred Years: Christ, Sophia, and Anthroposophy

“after Auschwitz”

With Christopher Bamford

The Riddle of Destiny: A Study of the Biographies of Key Characters in Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas

With Marke Levene

The Joy of Teaching: The Art of Time Management in Classroom, Main and Subject Lessons, Teacher Preparation and Classroom Skills

With Christof Wiechert

Getting off on the Right Foot:

Teaching Grades 1 & 2

With Christopher Sblendorio

Finding our Feet–the Earth is our Home!: Teaching Grades 3 & 4

With Elizabeth Auer

The Turning Point of Childhood:

Teaching Grades 5 & 6

With Patrice Maynard

Discovery and Enlightenment!:

Teaching Grades 7 & 8

With David Gable

Social Inclusion, Discipline & Guidance: From Understanding to Practical Strategies for Working with Exclusion, Teasing, and Difficult

Behavior in Children and Teenagers

With Kim John Payne

Meeting the Emerging Self: World Languages in Grades 6, 7, and 8

With Kati Manning and Lorey Johnson

Wet-Method Painting through the 8 Grades of the Waldorf Curriculum: Find the Artist within You With Ted Mahle

Liane Collot d’Herbois: Celebrating her Life and Mission through Presentations and Charcoal, Pastel, and Painting Exercises

With Charles Andrade, Iris Sullivan, and Karine Munk Finser

Working With Adults: An Introduction to Eurythmy in Practical Life

With Leonore Russell

Preliminary Schedule

Week 2: June 29th to July 4th

The Incarnating Child: Medical and Pedagogical Support in the First Seven Years. A training module for Medical Doctors, Health Professionals and Healing Educators and Practitioners

With Michaela Gloeckler, MD

Organizational Integrity: Building Relationships for Healthy Waldorf Schools

With Leonore Russell and Torin Finser

Crossing the Threshold: Are We There Yet?

With Eugene Schwartz

Self-Education through Intuitive Thinking and Artistic Perception With Signe Motter, Elizabeth Auer, Douglas Gerwin, and Hugh Renwick

Projective Geometry

With Jamie York

Art History: The Evolution of Consciousness through the Visual Arts

With Ted Mahle

Space is Alive!

With Jaimen McMillan and Katie Moran

Inspiring and Rejuvenating our Lives: Goethe’s Italian Journey, the Italian Renaissance, and Rudolf Steiner’s Art History Lectures

With David Lowe