Heidi Haffner Finser, Oct 16, 1951 – Apr 7, 2021

Heidi crossed the threshold at home surrounded by her family (husband Mark Finser, daughter Yohanna Finser and son Benjamin Finser). These biographical sharings were spoken at a gathering on June 13, 2021, in Mill Valley, California, to celebrate Heidi’s life.

Eulogy by Rev. Michael Latham, priest of The Christian Community of San Francisco

Being a newly ordained priest, I’ve experienced many firsts. Two were with Heidi, the sacrament of the last anointing and her funeral service. And it was more than perfect because Heidi helped me. She was working to support both the sacrament and the funeral service.

When we witness a young child, we see hands reaching out to touch, to explore everything with wonder and enthusiasm. As adults we begin our day by touching the water that runs through our hands when we bathe, the clothes we put on, our thoughts when they touch the air as we speak. In our soul, we can be touched too. When someone acts lovingly a golden ray comes toward us, and we say, I am touched. And when someone touches us in this way, we open like a flower, a warm breath flows into our hearts and a healing balm for our soul.

Heidi Haffner Finser

Heidi was born Heidi Haffner to a father, Wilhelm, and a mother Gerda, on October 16, 1951, in Uslar, Germany, a small town in lower Saxony. The family lived and worked in a micro brewery begun by her great-grandfather. She joined a brother Henrich, four years her senior. One year later she was joined by her sister Ulla.

Heidi’s father Wilhelm had experienced medical problems from internment during World War II, and he suffered an embolism and died. Young Heidi touched death at the tender age of five. When she was six and playing with her five-year-old sister, a motorcyclist in the grip of alcohol ran over her sister and sped away. Heidi was found on the side of the road, holding her dead sister, touching death a second time. She entered school in the fall, but was disconnected to her studies and unable to learn. Yet something golden was trying to touch her.

Her mother Gerda had heard about a school that might help and brought Heidi to a Waldorf school about 100 kilometers north in Hanover. While her brother Henrich went to boarding school, Heidi and Gerda rented a room in Hanover during the week, and developed what was to be a lifelong connection to this new education and to each other. We could perhaps imagine Heidi silently holding these childhood tragedies deep within her breath, yet gently being touched by the healing rays of Waldorf education and eurythmy. At nine years old, a brother Martin joined the family. Heidi adored her new sibling and was like a second mother to him. Over the next few years she moved around Europe with her mother and her younger brother to the UK, Switzerland, and France; she entered many Waldorf schools and graduated in 1969.

Now very talented in languages, Heidi moved at 18 to Oxford to study at a secretarial school, but knew in her heart, this was not truly for her. She went to Stuttgart where during a week-long orientation weaving all the anthroposophical streams, her heart was touched as she realized that eurythmy was her path. At 21, she entered the Vienna Eurythmy School headed by two very strong and profound teachers; this early training left indelible impressions on her soul. An American family, the Sharp family, entered the lives of Heidi and her family. They had met at a Waldorf school, the Ecole Montliea in Chamby, Switzerland, and the families became lifelong friends. Her mother Gerda came to the United States to live in Los Angeles in the early seventies and ran a new-age bookstore with her good friend, Betty Sharp. In 1975, Heidi received her eurythmy diploma and for the next few years she performed, ethereal and sprightly, joyful and harmonious, a quality that moved space itself. Eurythmy spoke in her and through her. In 1977 Heidi traveled all over Europe with a renowned London eurythmy group. She then came to live in the US and Los Angeles. The West Coast was calling her, as well as her mother.

In 1983, living in Los Angeles she found a small cabin in Malibu as her home. There was a raging Santa Ana fire threatening the area. She was to go out early to a rehearsal. Wondering if she should leave, she was told that the winds had changed direction and the fire was heading away from her location. She went out with only her cello. The fires changed direction. When she returned, everything was gone. All her treasures, her books, her notations from years of study, poems that she loved and worked with, her eurythmy dresses, all was lost. Before her stood a single lone, large crystal that had been on her windowsill, its form completely intact, but cloudy looking. She touched it and immediately it dissolved into ash.

The experience touched Heidi deeply. Deep is a word Heidi treasured and would write about in her future poetry. Deep is the inner realm where life touched Heidi.

Heidi on stage, circa 1985

In 1984-85, she studied therapeutic eurythmy in Vienna and Dornach. She returned to the United States and taught at many West Coast Waldorf schools. In 1985, at 33 years old, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Heidi began to be renowned for her ability to adapt the art of eurythmy beyond its usual boundaries. At children’s parties she used eurythmy to create magical worlds for children. Eurythmy lived in her and through her, and the reality of eurythmy as healing power became a stronger impulse in her. She was invited to many workshops and to the founding of new therapeutic centers.

In the mid-eighties, the AIDS pandemic was ravaging the world. This pandemic was highly localized in certain groups of people, and prejudice and fear gripped many at this time. Heidi was invited to participate in a therapeutic center started by Dr. Robert Gorter and others in the Castro, the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. Heidi swept aside prejudices and stepped in. A community was in pain and distress. Her heart opened and compassion flowed out toward her fellow souls.

In June 1988, she traveled to Fair Oaks, California, where leaders of a workshop were to be paired with a eurythmist. On her arrival she saw, standing at the door, a tall, seemingly blond man bathed in light over his head, as something deep was stirred within her. She asked another eurythmist who was this? Mark Finser, she was told. At an evening forum where they had gathered in a circle, Mark looked opposite him and saw a striking woman, and his soul was deeply stirred. Afterward he approached her and asked a very original question. “Have we met before?” She asked, “Who are you?” And was startled to be told “I’m Mark Finser.” He was not blond. Love worked deeply within their breath. And both highly serious and very devoted professionals danced on that breath and played hooky from parts of the conference. However, she lived on the West Coast and he on the East.

Mark and Heidi on their wedding day

Mark invited her to a conference in Copake, New York, over St. John’s Tide, on the esoteric work of the Templars. In early August, she joined Mark again on the East Coast and what follows are a lot of yeses: yes to a marriage proposal on August 7th, yes to a civil marriage on December 2nd and the Christian community marriage sacrament on December 4th. Yes, to their first child Yohanna, born June 24, 1989. And yes to their second child Benjamin, born December 11, 1990.

For Heidi, now Heidi Haffner Finser, motherhood weighed heavily on her body. She was highly sensitive during her pregnancies, yet within these pregnancies, the spiritual world was connecting to her with colors flowing toward her, yellows for Yohanna, blues greens for Benjamin, before she knew the sex of either child.

Heidi built a life with Mark, living in Philmont, NY, then building a home in Hawthorne Valley, but the call of the West Coast proved very strong. In December 1997, the family left by train arriving here in Mill Valley, California, on January 3, 1998. In July, the family moved into their current home, the longest home for both Heidi and Mark in their entire lives. Her mother Gerda came to live here in Mill Valley six months before her death and died in September 2000.

In June 2006, Heidi became a U.S. citizen. During this process her memory began to falter. She also began to receive lots of traffic violations, and social boundaries became blurred. What was earlier seen as a free, independent spirit began to push too far beyond boundaries and became worrying. Mark mentioned these behaviors to a dear friend, Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, who recommended that Heidi be seen by a doctor. In December 2006 at age 55, Heidi was diagnosed with Frontotemporal Lobe Dementia. This was both a blow, as there is no cure, and perhaps a relief. Heidi chose to see this as a spiritual event, not to become a victim; she chose to touch the inside of this disease. Mark resigned from his CEO duties to be more present for Heidi and he started rethinking how he worked and was being compensated. He brought a future-forward vision to his new work, supporting families in their money journey. Financial resources came to him so that he could provide the best care for his wife.

In her disease, as social boundaries fell, Heidi felt and believed that everything belonged to everyone so she could take whatever she wanted from wherever she wanted. This proved worrying and legally challenging in stores. With Whole Foods, Mark created a beautiful system that allowed her to move into this stage in a lovingly held way. The management agreed that when Heidi entered the store, someone would follow and just make a list of everything she was taking. Mark was provided with this list of items, for which he paid. The employees came to know and care for Heidi and for Mark. A new community was formed to help support her. Heidi had helped create, to co-create a new community spirit.

Slowly, however, her body began shutting down. She had increasing difficulty in her movement and her speech, in her eating and her balance. This led her to a life where her needs were met by being touched by others.

In 2010, she lost her speech. Yet touch still remained in her breath. Her breath communicated her understanding of what was being spoken and her consciousness in those around her. In her breath she communicated this in its rising and falling, weaving around the air. Sound was very important to her. She recognized loved ones through the soul forces that came through in their voices. She loved music. She would respond with much joy to music. Nature in its fullest form had always touched Heidi. In nature she was eager with childlike enthusiasm to seek the God within. The love of nature blew through her like a wind. Deep within nature she saw and felt the Gods’ working and weaving on earth.

Perhaps nature was also, for Heidi, the human being on earth, building a society through compassion. She had a childlike enthusiasm about everything in life. She was very happy and grateful to be a eurythmist. She loved performing and was also very dedicated to therapeutic eurythmy, to healing. Yet not everything was easy for her or with her. With an early childhood filled with such loss being touched by death so young, some relationships could be difficult for her. She suffered in her soul when she could become overwhelmed by her feelings, especially with those whom she loved and respected, and with those whom she brought into this world. Yet, what she was able to bring into this world touched all those around her. On those she taught, helped, and loved, she left indelible impressions. Many flowers she touched have been opened.

Although she has now left the physical earth, she had been residing in the in-between for some time. Heidi came into this world like an eager child, touching everything. She has touched so much here. She has now stepped across a threshold that touched her as a child. Yet, she has left us with a remarkable life, lived openly, authentically, challenging in places, but she chose to step fully into it. And with her crossing, she leaves us some steps also.

To behold a world, that yearns for our touch.

To experience the deep reality of our spiritual origin.

To rise up to the divine within us and touch all creation with our heart.

Mark Finser:

I am going to read one of Heidi’s poems that seemed one of her favorites. She wrote twentyone of them shortly after her diagnosis. One could feel at the time that she was trying to get as much down as quickly as possible and many of them can be seen as not just poems, but her views and legacy on life. At the time a dear friend, Henry Dakin, who has since also passed, sat with her for hours and helped put them into a little booklet. The love and the patience that he showed her during that time was amazing.

Heidi’s use of words was quite unique and different, but it conveyed an essence of what she really wanted to leave behind as a teaching. The first one of the sequence, and the only one that I will read today, is for me particularly prophetic because it was written around 2008. So about two years after her diagnosis. If you think of what we’ve all gone through with the world pandemic in this last year, socially and otherwise, it is quite profound. Simultaneously, we had social unrest, as “I can’t breathe” swept this whole country, a mantra for us all to think about what it’s like, not to be able to breathe. At the same time as the coronavirus that affects one’s breathing. We all know how important breathing is in all forms! So here is her poem that she wrote about breathing and all about community and a new form of communication.

I

Breathe Deep

And find new ways

To Communicate:

Rise to Communicate

Inside out, opening new ways

To loving actions turning us around

From heavy weight, hard tired sounds

The flow of nature lifts my heart

The sounds of nature deepen my heart

The forms in nature touch my heart

After breathing deep

I now can communicate

The forms in nature touch my heart

The sounds of nature deepen my heart

The flow of nature lifts my heart

From heavy weight, hard tired sounds

To loving actions turning us around

Inside out, opening new ways

Rise to communicate

— Heidi Haffner Finser

I’m so grateful that Orland Bishop is here today. In 2001, RSF Social Finance put on a gathering in this building. About 150 people were present and Heidi in her remarkable way had us all moving in eurythmy in this big room, no chairs, we were just all moving. Orland spoke at that gathering. In his amazing way, in his heart-filled way, Orland had also connected with Heidi. Her mother had just passed the year before and Orland did a ceremony in our little rose garden where Heidi’s mother’s ashes were. And they did a ceremony for the ancestors. This was very, very important for Heidi and really helped her. She was forever grateful to Orland for that time.*

* Orland is the founder and director of ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, and author of The Seventh Shrine

Orland Bishop:

What do we bring to such occasion more than our hearts? To join in the sacrament of memory, I ask you to be with us, you beings who help us carry our lives through these worlds, through these times. I like to start with a ceremonial song. [Sacred chanting.]

Beloved family, beloved community, and to the soul spirit we know as Heidi, help us live into your memory, that we might form a more true community to fulfill what we are still here and have time to do. Death renews us. It liberates us from our failures. And puts us again in beginning to be able to witness among ourselves how memory gets truly reconnected, re-membered. And as we heard in the ceremony of Heidi’s life story, the unique forming of destiny, to be able to choose moments when something comes through us and affects others in the world. And through that, the world gets to know us.

Well there’s another kind of memory, one that moves from who we are to the stars. There’s an old idea that the stars see us and know our names, and guide us through who we are to become in the world on earth. These movements, this amazing movement of eurythmy, is the wisdom of the stars. Heidi chose to utilize in this way of practice, a cognition that is of another reality in order to move memory into the form that we see, into the relational context that this tremendous eurythmy holds for the higher imagination. Without which there will not be a renewing of our world.

We don’t just live from the memory of the past, the ancestral memory. We live from the memory of the stars. Their memory of us. Their memory for us. And it’s not because of belief that this is true. This is true because of the feeling that we have now of a being who is no longer in the form that we had recognized her to be. And this star wisdom that now allows us to remember her, this quality, is giving to this earth in this moment, something of a new ecology that isn’t remembering the dead that we give to the earth, something that is not of nature. But truly of the human experience coming out of what we have experienced while a soul has been affecting our lives.

And what a soul she was to our lives! I remember that garden ceremony. We had a bit of ash that I think was gathered from the fireplace. And the beauty of nature that was part of it, but there was something truly unique about her seeing, Heidi’s seeing. And it was as if she was initiating me to do what she saw I came here to do. It actually was a request for me to honor what she was asking me to do, not just for her, but for those who were inspiring me to do it. She was putting me in touch with my own ancestors.

And she was in a way the kind of teacher that was mentioned, who understood death at a very young age, and those who know that reality will have to take on weight of things that are difficult. And will have to stand even against the unknowings in the world and be who we are here to be. This was the courage with which she dedicated her movement of life guided by the wisdom that replaced the form of cognition we call the intellect. And only allow light and love and life to be truly expressed and see what others will do with that. And all of us have been the others to that story in some way, close and through distant calls and prayers to encourage her loving family, to act into that sacrament coming from the future.

There are some conditions that are not because of what happened before or what happened to some aspect of our bodies, but it’s to prove who we are. And there is such wisdom in the story of Lazarus, in which the Christ said to his sisters, he didn’t die of anything of this world. He died to prove who I am. What if some people are giving their testimony of life to prove who we are so that we could, when we have these moments of intimacy of remembering deeply, go all the way in and ask what have I done with what was given to me to bring to the world and would choosing it again, now make this world better?

I know from who we know ourselves to be, and the reason of being here now that we are becoming better in this ceremony of life, we are better because of Heidi’s fruitful revelation of spirit. And I want to say to her, as we lift this veil and contemplate the mystery and the wisdom of life, “Thank you for the ceremony in my life, in this garden that was Eden, and that day, in that time where a beginning a friendship that would last for eternity.” I send my love to you, Heidi, and I ask of this vessel of community to feel with each other that love, and may we take it wherever we go and make this earth a garden and a ceremonial space for those who need to be remembered, need to be acknowledged and need to be encouraged to move their spirit into the world. Thank you for the invitation to share this with you. My love is with you.

Yohanna Finser:

So when I sat down to try to write something to share today, it felt like an impossible task. How could I possibly paint a picture for you all that would do justice to somebody who was remarkable and paradoxical in so many ways?

She was fierce and stood firmly on the earth. Her laughter, speaking and singing voice, her presence in stillness and in movement filled even the largest of spaces. Yet her gentleness and innocence permeated all that she did. She always knew what to do and acted without hesitation with full confidence in the outcome. But if it didn’t turn out the way that she had planned, she was flexible and accepting and would redirect to find a way to make it work. She was always present in the moment and never dwelled on the past or worried about the future.

She was a professional performer, as you all heard, and an artist, a therapist, and also a present, creative parent who gifted us with a warm and loving childhood filled with adventures one after the next. She viewed the world as an inherently good, pure, true place. And at the same time, she stood for change, working diligently to bring about greater peace, love, and harmony in the world.

She was on the go from the moment that her feet touched the floor to the moment that she went to sleep. Yet, she was never rushed or too much in a hurry to appreciate the beauty everywhere, her joy for life, art, human connection, and spirit carried her in all that she did.

She is and was a marvel, one of a kind, a light-filled radiant being who teaches us still how to raise ourselves up to be the best we can be in this lifetime and beyond. She will be missed, of course, but she will never be gone. Our relationship has changed as relationships do, but our connection and love continues to grow and mature. I love her more today than the day that she passed. And I feel closer to her as our relationship reaches new heights.

Thank you all for being here with us today, this is a real treat and exactly what she would have wanted.

Rachael Flug:

My oldest daughter went to Highland Hall Waldorf School. In 1984, Heidi was the eurythmy teacher. As the teacher released the children into the room, there was chaos everywhere. I looked at Heidi wondering, what would she do? She had this wonderful twinkle in her eye. She began, but she did not say one word. She began to move among the children and they were so fascinated by what she was doing. One by one, they followed her and they came and formed this wonderful circle, as she was able to bring them all together. Two children did not join. One child was in the corner and the other child was hiding under the piano. And all the children looked at her, and looked at them, and looked back at her. And in that moment, she turned and faced the children, extending a hand to each of them. It was a tender gesture, a loving and careful gesture of caring. She stood there and she waited. And the two children came toward her at first, slowly, but then running. They grabbed her hands and came to each side of her. So now the circle was complete. A few days later I asked my daughter, tell me a little bit about those two children. Do they join in other activities at the school? And she said, “Oh no, Mommy. They only join for Teacher Haffner.”

Benjamin Finser:

Thank you all for coming to celebrate my mother’s life. She was diagnosed with dementia when I was fifteen years old, which was fifteen years ago. And so I lived half of my life with her journey with this disease. And I think it’s really easy for people to focus on the negative and to feel sympathy for my father, for myself, for my sister, and also to focus on what my mother lost, her speech, her physical abilities her cognition.

But I actually view her journey through a very different lens, not one of loss, but one of immense abundance. And so I wanted to share this perspective to celebrate her courage and also her determination. And I want it to highlight the beauty of her life, not just before she was diagnosed with dementia, but importantly, after she was diagnosed and during the last fifteen years. Soon after she was diagnosed, she decided that dementia would not be her death sentence, but rather an opportunity to evolve spiritually and contribute to others.

She would use this new gift to shape the world for the better. To many, it may seem like she was in total denial, but I believe her conscious choice was in direct relation to her beautiful experience of life over the subsequent years. And it certainly had a profound impact on my life. She was interviewed after her diagnosis and to the interviewer’s confusion she actually said that dementia altered her experience of life by enabling her to connect with nature. Through her connection with nature, she could learn valuable insights and share these lessons with the world.

She was so inspired by her newfound connection with nature that she began writing poetry about the lessons she learned. During this time, as I’m sure many people here remember, it was impossible to run into her and not hear about her poems. I would sometimes get home from high school and believe I was helping her with a word formatting issue only to find that I was in for a reading of her entire collection of poems (Laughter).

She took every opportunity to share this wisdom with whoever would listen. She taught me about the importance of focus. Throughout our lives we have so many negative issues that we could focus on, but I believe there are just as many beautiful things. Our ability to direct our focus to what is good can be the difference between a life of pure bliss and a miserable existence, or one of suffering.

Meaning is also a powerful tool that she utilized. She was determined not only to focus on the good, she also adopted the most empowering meaning she could from her situation. To her, this diagnosis meant that she could now tap into nature’s teachings and translate these gifts into lessons for others. This is such an empowering concept for me to think about, to know that even during a time when she was stripped of her freedom and many of the abilities that we believe make us human, she actually had immense power in her decision to focus on the good and create an empowering meaning from the situation.

One of my takeaways from Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is that suffering is not in the facts; it’s in our interpretation of those facts. My mother taught me to become an ultimate master of meaning. I now view it as my responsibility to see the world as it is, not worse than it is, but then adopt the most empowering meaning for my life, regardless of the circumstances around me. As her vocabulary evaporated to just a few words, her facial expressions replaced those words. Then as her face became less expressive, her eyes and hand grip took over at the end, even the twinkle in her eye or her shift of attention communicated her love and her wisdom.

As the years passed, it was so clear to me that she not only shared her wisdom with others through her poems, but importantly, she applied these teachings to transform herself. Through her example she changed my life.

Just in April, before passing on to her next adventure, she taught me another lesson about life. She taught me that life isn’t about what we get, but who we become, and from that evolved state, what we can give to others. Her transformation, and the love she emanated, affected everyone she came in contact with, especially our family. And this gift will live with us forever.

Gratitude has been my antidote to the feeling of loss and I’m incredibly grateful to have been her son. I feel so lucky for the time that I had with her and I miss her like crazy. And I would give anything to sit with her again in the garden or to play her music and watch her expressions. The beauty of the last fifteen years is to have a big bank of memories with her that I can pull out whenever I want.

And another blessing of her diagnosis is that it served as a constant reminder, how life is short and to maximize every day that we have. I love the saying, “Life happens for us, not to us.” This is exactly the faith that my mom channeled when she decided to face this challenge. Problems, she taught me, are life’s way of calling us to grow. My mother’s challenge with dementia helped to sculpt her and in turn, shaped me. Our biggest problem is probably the thought that we shouldn’t have any problems, but if we trade our expectations for how things should be for appreciation for how they actually are, and we look for the gifts that are ever present, our whole world can change. My mother exemplified this better than anyone I know.

Karine Munk Finser:

Heidi, our hearts are full. And if we’ve cried tears here, they’ve fallen into buckets of gold. So much has been spoken and shared here today. A testament of the transformational space of love. The mysteries of agape we have witnessed in the family of Mark, Heidi, Yohanna, and Benjamin. We, who journeyed with you, beside you, were allowed in. And it touched our lives deeply.

Heidi was my sister-in-law and I cannot remember not loving her. We were kindred spirits; there was nothing conventional about our encounters. When we met a dawn by the shore in Florida, Heidi showed me how to find the unbroken vermilion shells by taking me into the waves, although I was afraid of sharks. Magically, quite magically, the white turret shells, whole and beautiful, would appear between her toes in the waves. She had that touch! We would bike to the next town and sit under the trees in silence, watching the clouds change shapes. And we would marvel together at their many hues, many shapes.

Some years back when Heidi lost her words, but could still gesture, she would stand outside the house to wave goodbye to us as we drove off after the holiday celebration, usually Thanksgiving. She would wave with her whole being, looking to me just like a butterfly. We know that from ancient times, a butterfly has always been seen as a nature angel or as a being that brought extra light, spirit light, into this world. Heidi was a person of the extra.

John Keats said, “I almost wish we were butterflies and lived but three summer days. Three such days with you, I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.” [from Letter to Fanny Brawne] Heidi, like the butterfly, lived in warmth and light. Her inner experience of nature was revealed in her poems, expressions of encounters where she managed to bridge nature and speak her own name in the process, thereby opening a space of new growth. She told me,

The dew drop, it’s an image of our own wholeness. We are that drop. And just as a dew drop attempts to bring softness and wholeness to the suffering earth when it visits us, we also have that wholeness to offer one another. In spite of our fragmentation, we are always in essence whole.

Later when Heidi no longer wrote or spoke, and then much later, no longer moved, she pulled further into the spirit worlds, as increasingly her essence shone down upon her family as a mystery light, the extra that no one could foresee. The unconventional incredible love we witnessed and stood in awe of. It radiated like living waters into her family, the people she loved so much.

I’d like to close our time together by honoring you, Mark, Yohanna, Benjamin, and your capacities to receive all that Heidi wanted to give you. You were the great compassionate receivers and the empathetic givers in this story. And I have not experienced greater love.

And now to embrace all of you, thank you. Thank you for your coming, for your presence, your open hearts, your love, your care for all that was shared here. Thank you all, all of you for making this time possible. And speaking for Heidi now, are we ready for love?