being human summer-fall 2016

Tadadaho, the Peacemaker, and Hiawatha (l-r) Free Columbia Puppetry Project

photo: Fumie Ishi

Volunteers are the lifeblood of Camphill Village. Every year, the Village welcomes dozens of volunteers age 19 and over from around the world to stay for a year–often longer–and become a member of our rich and vibrant community life. They live in a home with other volunteers, help manage their households, work alongside volunteers and adults with special needs in one of our many creative workplaces, and help care for their emotional, physical, and spiritual needs.

Volunteering Lifesharing Education

Join our integrated community for a year, a decade, or a lifetime of service, and learn how people with developmental differences are living a life of dignity, equality, and a sense of purpose

v House Leaders

v Workspace Leaders

v Service Volunteers

v Students of Social Therapy in the Camphill Academy

CamphillVillage.org

Volunteer@CamphillVillage.org

Representing Anthroposophy Transforming the World

Note the constant swing

Between self and world

And you will find revealed: The human-cosmic-being; The cosmic-human-being.

–Rudolf Steiner

Fall Conference and Annual Members’ Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society in America

October 7 - 9, 2016

with Virginia Sease, Joan Sleigh, Torin Finser, John Bloom, Fred Dennehy, Herbert Hagens, speech artists, eurythmists

Pre-conference gathering for members of the School for Spiritual Science, Thursday, October 6, 7–9pm (blue cards required)

Threefold Educational Center, Chestnut Ridge, NY

full details online at www.anthroposophy.org/agm2016

Programs and resources in visual arts eurythmy

music drama & poetry

Waldorf education spirituality

esoteric research economics

evolution of consciousness

health & therapies Biodynamic farming social action

self-development

WORKSHOPS

TALKS

STUDY

GROUPS

CLASSES

FESTIVALS EVENTS

EXHIBITS

UPCOMING EVENTS & PROGRAMS

ASTROSOPHY, THE NEW STAR WISDOM with Jonathan Hilton, Friday, October 14th, 7pm

ANTHROPOSOPHIC MEDICINE FOR EVERYONE, Wednesday, monthly David T. Anderson, starting Sept 14, Oct 12, 7pm

EURYTHMY, Monday, Monthly with Linda Larson, Sept 12, Oct 17, 7pm

ART EXHIBIT OPENING: KHALID KODI

October, date t.b.a.

MEMBERS’ EVENINGS, Friday, monthly for all members of the NY Branch or Anthroposophical Society; Sept 9, Oct 7, November 4

And in planning for Fall 2016: Kuehlewind memorial lecture; a new poetry series; a biography workshop; a talk on ‘making money matter’

Plus weekly & monthly study groups...

Rudolf Steiner Bookstore

Open Mon-Thurs 1-5pm, Fri-Sat 11am-8pm, Sun 11am-5pm; call for info: 212-242-8945

Steiner has “the most impressive holistic legacy of the 20th century...”

— NY Open Center co-founder Ralph White

Did you know?

Making a planned gift doesn’t usually affect a person’s current income.

For more information, contact Deb Abrahams-Dematte at deb@anthroposophy.org

BRING EXPRESSION TO YOUR INTENTION AND LOVE FOR ANTHROPOSOPHY INTO THE FUTURE

Inspiring Waldorf Teacher Education

Since 1967

ALKION CENTER

specializing in Waldorf Teaching or Early Childhood Education

2-year, part-time diploma programs includes comprehensive Foundation Studies in Anthroposophy [can be attended separately]

One Week Summer Intensives in June & July

Alkion programs are recognized by AWSNA + WECAN

Low-Residency

Elementary & Early Childhood Teacher Education Programs with MEd Option

•

Professional Development and Introductory Courses & Workshops

A New and Complete Translation in The Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner

Art History as a Reflection of Inner Spiritual Impulses

I am going to show you a series of reproductions, of slides, from a period in art history to which the human mind will probably always return to contemplate and consider; for, if we consider history as a reflection of inner spiritual impulses, it is precisely in this evolutionary moment that we see certain human circumstances, ones that are among the deepest and most decisive for the outer course of human history, expressed through a relationship to art.

Rudolf Steiner

This informal sequence of thirteen lectures was given by Rudolf Steiner during the darkest hours of World War I. It was a moment when the negative consequences of what he called “the age of the consciousness soul,” which had begun around 1417, were most terribly made apparent. In these lectures he sought to provide an antidote to pessimism. After describing the movement of consciousness from Greece into Rome, which coupled with influences from the Orthodox East, he showed how these influences transformed as the Middle Ages became the Renaissance. Replete with interesting information and over 800 color and black and white images, these lectures are rich and dense with ideas, enabling one to understand both the art of the Renaissance and the transformation of consciousness that it announced. These lectures demonstrate (to paraphrase Shelley) that artists truly are “the unacknowledged legislators of the age.”

ISBN 978-0-88010-627-6

432 pages | paperback | Full color illustrations | $45

SteinerBooks

order phone 703-661-1594

www.steinerbooks.org

Find Christ in a New Way

The Christian Community is a worldwide movement for religious renewal that seeks to open the path to the living, healing presence of Christ in the age of the free individual.

All who come will find a community striving to cultivate an environment of free inquiry in harmony with deep devotion.

Learn more at www.thechristiancommunity.org

Marcus Knausenberger

8 from the editors

11 being human digest

14 initiative!

14 Los Angeles Awake & Alive, by John Beck

16 Opening the Realm of New Mystery Dramas and Performing Arts, by Marke Levene

17 Celebrating Initiative: Threefold at 90, by Bill Day

18 Eurythmy Spring Valley Celebrates Forty Years, by Maria Ver Eecke

20 Integral Teacher Education, by Robert McDermott

21 Towards an Integrated Approach to Teaching, by Elizabeth Beavan

24 arts & ideas

24 The Lear Elegies, by Elaine Maria Upton

26 Shakespeare and the Esoteric, by Frederick J. Dennehy

27 Gallery: Metamorphosis of Fear: An Exploration, by Elizabeth Lombardi

34 What's Wrong with Shakespeare (?), by Bruce Donehower

37 The Currency of Self, by John Bloom

39 Poems by Maureen Tolman Flannery

40 research & reviews

40 The Brain Is a Boundary, by Alexander Dreier; review by Frederick J. Dennehy

42 The Riddle of Consciousness: review of Eben Alexander's Proof of Heaven and The Map of Heaven, by Serguei Krissiouk 46

Vision of the Rudolf Steiner Library, by Douglas Sloan

for

members & friends

48 A Path to 2023, introduced by Torin Finser

“Steady As We Go,” by Katherine Thivierge

52 Many Shades of Green, Many Shades of Us, by Deb Abrahams-Dematte 53 News from the Rudolf Steiner Library, Hudson, NY, by Judith Kiely

by Laura Scappaticci 54

56 Ursel Pietzner, née Sachs, by Cornelius Pietzner

58 Ruth E. M. Finser: A Life of Transformation, by Siegfried Finser

60 Nancy Dow Anniston, by Michael Ronall

61 Dr. Mark Joshua Eisen, by Kathleen Wright

The Anthroposophical Society in America

General Council Members

Torin Finser, General Secretary

Carla Beebe Comey, Chair (at large)

John Michael, Treasurer (at large)

Dwight Ebaugh, Secretary (at large)

Micky Leach (Western Region)

Dave Alsop (at large)

Marianne Fieber-Dhara (Central Region)

Leadership Team

Deb Abrahams-Dematte, Director of Development

Katherine Thivierge, Director of Operations

Elizabeth Roosevelt, Interim Director of Programs

being human is published by the Anthroposophical Society in America

1923 Geddes Avenue

Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1797

Tel. 734.662.9355

www.anthroposophy.org

Editor: John H. Beck

Associate Editors:

Fred Dennehy, Elaine Upton

Design and layout: John Beck

Please send submissions, questions, and comments to: editor@anthroposophy.org or to the postal address above, for our next issue by 12/15/2016.

©2016 The Anthroposophical Society in America. Responsibility for the content of articles is the authors’.

from the editor

Dear Friends,

This is the first issue of being human which will not have been reviewed in galley proofs by Marian León. It was one of many ways she supported my work as editor and communications director from January 2009 to this year. After carrying a huge workload with exceptional grace, Marian has taken a post with the University of Michigan (see page 49). I find that it is qualities of co-workers that make it possible to perform endless triage as needed in any non-profit, between great mission and scant resources. Thank you, Marian!

I want to thank Katherine Czapp, whose health prevented her from continuing her fine proofreading, and Cynthia Chelius of the ASA staff for taking on this work which, at its best, is never noticed! And this is also our last issue with First Impression Printing; Terry and Steve Weaver retire at the end of August. We’re all grateful for their enormous patience and good work.

Learning from difficult times and emotions is a theme this issue. Our cover shows the Iroquois Peacemaker Deganawida, a great spiritual ancestor for all North Americans. Page 24 begins a section focused on Shakespeare and his unsurpassed revelation of the struggles of good and evil in human souls. The Gallery in this issue (page 27) presents Elizabeth Lombardi’s “Metamorphosis of Fear: An Exploration.” Do take time with the five images and then review the sequence of thoughts for each one. Our final life story, that of Dr. Mark Eisen (page 61), told with loving care by Kathleen Wright, was an actual battle with demons. (All four obituaries, pages 56-63, express so well why we choose to call this publication being human.)

The Fall Conference, described on the previous page, will carry the global theme anthroposophists are working with this year: “world transformation and self-knowledge in the face of evil.” I do hope to see many of you there!

At the conference we have a new General Secretary. Torin Finser has been a very great help and understanding friend of being human. He introduces “A Path to 2023” (page 48), an exciting and challenging opportunity to move into the future. Like Torin, incoming General Secretary John Bloom is a fine writer. On page 37 we have his essay, “The Currency of Self,” and on page 50 is the letter about the selection process.

And this is a poetry issue: Elaine Upton’s, on Lear ; Alexander Dreier’s, quoted in Fred’s review (p. 40); Maureen Flannery’s, on pages 23 and 39!

A final correction: Joan Treadaway sent us the article, “Nurturing the Beings of the Schools” (Easter-Spring issue 2016, page 19), but it was written by her fellow Arizonan (from Tempe) Peter Rennick. Thank you, Peter!

John Beck

HOW TO receive being human, or to comment or contribute

Copies of being human are free to members of the Anthroposophical Society in America (visit anthroposophy.org/join or call 734.662.9355). Sample copies are also sent to friends who contact us at the address below. To contribute articles or art please email editor@anthroposophy.org or write Editor, 1923 Geddes Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

This issue marks the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death in 1616 with three pieces celebrating him. Elaine Upton, who serves as editor for the book review section, has submitted a series of poems entitled “The Lear Elegies,” patterned loosely after Rilke’s “Duino Elegies.” They embody her exploration of Imagination and Nothingness, presented around Shakespeare’s drama of King Lear. It is a pleasure to give our readers these intimate responses to Shakespeare’s most intimate tragedy.

It is also a pleasure to include “What’s Wrong With Shakespeare?” by Bruce Donehower. Bruce has isolated the One Thing Wrong With Shakespeare in order to discover “What’s Right With Shakespeare.” I am not sure if I know of anyone who has articulated Shakespeare’s gift of negative capability better in modern terms: “… If we find ourselves outside the consolation of a meta-narrative that makes a tidy fable of human life, then we walk in freedom with the Bard.”

There is also an essay of my own, considering esoteric meaning in Shakespeare.

We have a review by Serguei Krissiouk, a medical professional, of two books that have received great attention recently in the popular press—Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey Into the Afterlife and The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion and Ordinary People are Proving the Afterlife, both by Eben Alexander, M.D.

Dr. Krissiouk’s review follows previous reviews by Walter Alexander of Sam Parnia’s Erasing Death and Sara Ciborski’s review of Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century by Edward F. Kelly and others.

The review finds common ground between Near Death Experiences and anthroposophy and, like the other reviews mentioned, calls for an open conversation between anthroposophists and modern explorers of the mysteries of consciousness and death.

Finally, I have reviewed The Brain is a Boundary: A Journey in Poems to the Borderlines of Lewy Body Dementia by Alexander Dreier, a collection of poems that explore a number of boundaries, including the one between perceptual distortion and poetic imagination. Readers will be gripped by the account of Mr. Dreier’s experience with the challenge of Lewy Body Dementia, but the heart of the book is not so much the etiology of his condition as the wonder of the rich array of his poetic gifts.

Frederick Dennehy

source development. the and wide Waldorf medicine, therapeutic insight

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• being human

ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN AMERICA

With Van James Athens, Delphi, Patmos, Ephesus, and more.

June 26-July 28

For information contact Gillian at 610.469.0864 or gillianschoemaker@gmail.com

“A how-to book for writing from and to the heart...”

being human digest

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

MEDICINE

Anthroposophic Medicine Getting Stronger

Dr. Adam Blanning has sent us a lengthy report too late for this issue. It is intriguing, however. He begins: “There have been some important events related to the growth of anthroposophic medicine, in the US and internationally, over the last several months. It is possible to feel the stirrings of new organizational and outreach possibilities—which is appropriate, as PAAM, the anthroposophic physicians’ association is 35 years old!

“An important prelude came in October 2014, with the founding of the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine (AIHM), a new umbrella organization which replaced the previous American Holistic Medical Association and Board of Holistic Medicine in the United States. One of the board members of AIHM, David Riley, arranged for PAAM (the Physicians’ Association for Anthroposophic Medicine) to be invited as one of the member associations. Since that time, PAAM has joined as a member association of AIHM and made steps toward collaborative activity, participating in association working groups and prioritizing PAAM board members’ attendance at the annual AIHM conference.”

If you would like a PDF copy of the full report by email, write to editor@anthroposophy.org and ask for “Dr. Blanning’s report.”

Resonare

Foundation Course in Music out of Anthroposophy

Our Mission:

● to encounter tone and interval in their

● spiritual as well as physical aspects

● to explore the phenomena of music

● through experiential research and study

● to foster creativity in a collaborative setting

● to re-awaken inner listening

AGRICULTURE Farming the Living Earth

We’re fans of the Biodynamic Association’s blog at biodynamicsbda.wordpress.com. Like a good social creature, it gathers from many fine sources. An August post, from Light Root Community Farm’s Summer Newsletter (Boulder, CO), begins, “We are in the midst of the hazy summer dream time here on the farm—long hot days abuzz with activity. The days seem to run into one another, waking early and working late into the evenings on the farm. Our summertime schedule is a solid rhythm of early morning milking and farm chores, mid-day lunch break and siesta time to escape the heat of the day, and when the heat breaks we emerge back out for an evening session... as the sun sets behind the foothills.” A strong

www.bacwtt.org

Begins September 2016 RESONARE.ORG

Studies in phenomenology, music theory, lyre work, singing, evolution of consciousness through music, Spacial Dynamics®, eurythmy, & improvisation. Five long weekends in 9 months.

being human digest

contrast to heat-evasion of city and suburb!

Another post addresses the Association’s biennial conference, November 16-20 this year in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The theme is Tierra Viva: Farming the Living Earth. Co-director Thea Maria Carlson writes, “The understanding that the earth is alive was once widespread— and still exists in many indigenous cultures and spiritual traditions today. Yet for centuries the dominant Western culture has treated the earth as an inanimate object, a storehouse of resources for us to extract, and a sewer to absorb our wastes. Industrial agriculture arises from and perpetuates this mindset, reducing the soil to a dead substrate whose only value is in the number of pounds of grain that can be harvested from it each year.” Read more at www.biodynamics.com/2016conference

Art Section Online

Another valuable resource is the North American Art Section website [northamericanartsection.blogspot.com]. Along with galleries, links, and blog posts, it offers free examination of the latest Art Section Newsletter, beautifully produced by David Adams, and subscriptions are available. The contents of the spring-summer issue now online include:

• Circle and Cross: Icons of Life and Death, by Van James

• Report on Svi Szir’s Workshop at Free Columbia

• Winged Beings, by Gertraud Goodwin

• The Human Heart: An Artistic Exploration, by J. Chequers

• Dancing with Colors, by Doris Harpers & Nikola Savic

• A Dialogue on Issues of Anthroposophical Art, Pt. 2

• An excerpt from “Through the Gate of Sense Impressions to the Etheric”

• Stop Press! New Book: Metamorphosis

The newsletter is typically forty pages and profusely illustrated, with the PDF in full color. Take a look.

HUMANITIES

Deepening Meditation

The Logos Working Group is a meditation group that meets every fall to carry on the work of Georg Kuhlewind (1924-2006). In its early years with Kuhlewind, the group was known as the Therapists’ Working Group because many participants were from the healing professions. However, meetings have always been open to anyone wishing to deepen a practice of meditation.

New Books for Educators and Parents

Edited by Ruth Ker $14

Kuhlewind was the foremost exponent of anthroposophy in Hungary, and a prolific author (The Life of the Soul, From Normal to Healthy, The Logos Structure of the World, The Light of the “I,” and The Gentle Will: Meditative Guidelines for Creative Consciousness). Until his death, he visited the US twice yearly to hold retreats, give seminars and talks, and meet with groups, including teachers, doctors, therapists, and branches of the Society from California to New England. His research encompassed psychology, epistemology (he had a profound connection to the The Philosophy of Freedom), esoteric Christianity, New Testament studies, child development, linguistics, Zen Buddhism, and the philosophy of science.

translated by Barbara Mees $22

being human digest

A gifted and inspiring teacher of meditation, Kuhlewind always offered only what he had achieved through his own inner work. He declined the role of leader, asking those who came to his workshops to take responsibility and initiative. The Logos Working Group continues in this spirit: a focus group suggests themes, any participant may guide sessions, and we encourage improvisation. Over the course of a three-day meeting, we work meditatively with texts, images, or themes; report, reflect, and listen; and share breaks, meals, and an evening of social activity.

The meetings are held Friday through Sunday, November 18-20, 2016, at the Farmhouse at Wisdom House, a retreat center in Litchfield, CT. It is an ideal site with comfortable rooms, delicious food, lovely grounds, and reasonable rates. Anyone interested in learning more may contact Joyce Reilly at 201-213-6294 or joycereilly@aol.com

EDUCATION

Resonare Means Music

Resonare is an anthroposophic music foundation course for musicians, music educators, class teachers, eurythmists, and fellow seekers on the path of spiritual knowledge. Its mission is to offer students an opportunity:

1. to encounter tone and interval in their spiritual as well as physical aspects

2. to explore the phenomena of music through experiential research and study

3. to foster creativity in a collaborative setting

4. to re-awaken inner listening.

New Times… New Model

It meets five weekends over the course of nine months. The rhythm for each weekend consists of an evening dinner and sharing on Thursday, classes all day Friday and Saturday, and an artistic review on Sunday morning. The curriculum covered in each weekend session includes phenomenology, music theory, lyre work, singing, studies in the evolution of consciousness through music, Spacial Dynamics®, eurythmy, and improvisation. An article by Catherine Decker explains:

Foundational to the Resonare program is a new conceptualization of the theory of music. Examining relationships among modes, scales, and keys within this framework, a future-bearing aspect of the musical experience is discovered.

The lyre serves an essential role in our listening work. By releasing the tone from the physicality of the instrument, the lyre informs us about the true nature of the tones themselves. As an instrument that reflects the essence of tonal character, the lyre supports our investigation of intervals and their relationships.

Part of each session is devoted to singing, based on the approach of Valborg Werbeck-Svardstrom. Students learn to uncover their voices, allowing a natural stream of vocalization to be revealed.

Improvisation enables participants to work with pitch, rhythm, and phrasing in new ways, leading to a fuller understanding of the interaction of musical elements. Various stringed and metal instruments all lend themselves to our improvising together. This activity strengthens our listening while asking that we stay in the present moment.

Resonare takes place in Philmont, NY. Online it is at www.resonare.org. First weekend is September 8-11th.

Spacial Dynamics® Core Studies Program

Mechanicville, New York

Portland, Oregon

October 6-10, 2016

November 6-10, 2016

For the first time, one can receive a training in Spacial Dynamics with a 2 year part-time program led by Jaimen McMillan in New York or Oregon, and then subsequent courses of specialized interests by certified Level III trainers at locations around North America.

IN THIS SECTION:

Initiatives small and large dot the sprawling landscape of America’s second largest city.

Marke Levene and friends have successfully shared a new mystery drama in “Readers Theater” format; their plans for international performance go ahead.

Starting ninety years ago as a farm to provide food for New York City’s anthroposophical restaurant, Threefold is a rich and mature community.

Forty years ago the first eurythmists trained on North American soil received their diplomas.

San Francisco’s CIIS is exploring the possibility of a Waldorf-based integral teacher training with advanced degrees.

Elizabeth Beavan’s description of an “integrated approach to teaching” sounds like a step toward Rudolf Steiner’s dream of shifting the educational expectations of all schools.

Los Angeles Awake & Alive

by John Beck

Seizing a chance to spend two winter-spring months in Los Angeles, I was able to enjoy the second largest US metropolis, experience its quite adequate public transit, and touch base with some anthroposophical initiatives. Finally I saw the Rudolf Steiner Community Center, beautiful home of the Los Angeles Branch of the Anthroposophical Society in downtown Pasadena, for two house-filling lectures: Rev. Bastiaan Baan on “The Origins of Evil” and Dr. Peter Selg on “Rudolf Steiner and Christian Rosenkreutz.” A Shakespeare workshop with associate editor Fred Dennehy was coming, and the Center’s 25th anniversary was celebrated in June.

On my two visits I greeted retiring branch president Jane Hipolito and husband Terry (two stalwarts of the Literary Arts and Humanities Section), Linda Connell of the Western Regional Council and its former General Council representative, author-translator Philip Mees, Margaret Shipman of the GEMS national study group and Traveling Speakers Program, former General Secretary MariJo Rogers visiting from Sacramento, and educational consultant Joan Jaeckel, now working on the startup ShadeTree School in Watts. The Branch has a large meeting room and stage, plus a library and seminar space, and a bookstore and reading room. Branch and related activities—study groups, arts classes, therapies—are listed at www.anthroposophyla.org.

Pasadena is a town north and east of LA city in Los Angeles county. In Altadena, between Pasadena and imposing mountains to the north, I called on Truus Geraets, therapeutic eurythmist and social activist on three continents. Her site at www.healingartofliving.com says, “Truus’ life included many endeavors, as she discovered how she could best serve ‘the future.’”

Elderberries Threefold Café (four stars on Yelp, 253 reviews; elderberriescafe.org ) is right on Sunset Boulevard in the middle of

The LA Branch: at the door, reading room, meeting hall.

Hollywood. Dottie Zold and friends’ visionary vegan hangout “strives to nourish the human being as a whole. We see our work starting with providing healing, nourishing food and drink, and ending with the creation of a world where every individual is allowed a dignified life truly worthy of the human being! We feel that we must start right now, right here, creating the world we want to see!”

Elderberries’ story is actively unfolding, rhizome-like. First offshoot is Have Seeds Threefold House, “a five-bedroom wayfarers’ inn and co-learning hub in the heart of LA, where wanderers, seekers, and students of life find home.” You can become a patron at patreon.com. When I dropped by, Emerson activist Stuart Weeks was talking with householders and Elizabeth Roosevelt, now ASA Interim Director of Programs, on the front porch. The next offshoot? Atlanta, which may extend as a “grailway” back to Nancy Poer’s ranch in Northern California. This whole millennial story unfolds best on Facebook!

At Elderberries I spoke for a few minutes with Caleb Buchbinder, who spoke at the fall conference in St. Louis last year about “Classroom Alive” which had organized a walking/learning trip from Sweden to Greece. Another walk took place in Los Angeles in January (map below). The journey comes to life in a video at Vimeo [vimeo.com/156753068]. A sample day, early on:

“Day 3. This morning we develop our capacity for taking joy in scraping the spilled pot of oats from the ground into hungry morning mouths. The day begins and with the first steps we have left the womb of the canyon and hit the hard pavement. Laughter is close on our heels, and as we flop down for lunch a flurry of free tacos rain down upon us. Already it is striking how at home we can be, getting water in the fire station, singing for the strangers we pass, making a lunch table in an unassuming patch of green. All around us the imposing structures of wealth rise up; walking on roads with no sidewalks in the wealthiest zip-code in the world we wonder at the lives lived here. Arriving at our destination for the night we are welcomed with pure generosity into a small retreat center in Beverly Hills. We spend the night hearing stories of our hosts’ work in creating the Earth to Paris campaign for COP21.”

Finally there’s who I didn’t see this time. The City of Angels sprawls over 500+ square miles between ocean and mountains. By natural gift it would be a small city; it blossomed thanks to the gift of imported water. And as the Hollywood “dream factory,” it is center of a century-long and global inundation of popular culture. Matre Matt Sawaya [facebook.com/matre.mattsawaya] is here, rapping and making videos about demilitarizing the LA schools. Filmmaker Matthew Temple (“The Girls of Summer”) of the former WeStrive.org is here, and Orland Bishop and ShadeTree Multicultural Foundation [www.facebook.com/shadetreefoundation]. Schools, teacher training, therapies, artists, students. A large, deep, quiet ferment. One must come back.

John Beck is editor of being human

“Sergei Prokofieff lectured on the Christmas Conference at the 2002 year-end conference at the Goetheanum. He contrasted the new mysteries with the old mysteries. The mysteries were the places in ancient times where spiritual wisdom was taught to selected pupils. In these mysteries pupils were given responsibilities as they progressed along their path of development. Their teacher observed their progress and gave them tasks and responsibilities suitable to their level of development. Anthroposophy belongs to the new mysteries. They are mysteries of the will. They are based entirely on freedom. We see what needs to be done, what needs to be supported. Then we take on these responsibilities ourselves to the extent we are able. No one assigns us responsibilities. We take them up freely.”

— From Linda Connell’s essay on the mission page of the Los Angeles Branch of the Anthroposophical Society.

Above, Have Seeds Threefold House; below, Elderberries crew at the counter

Opening the Realm of New Mystery Dramas and Performing Arts

by Marke Levene

Lemniscate Arts has taken a major step toward our goal of bringing a trio of performances—symphonic eurythmy, a Shakespeare play, and a new mystery drama— to places both familiar and unfamiliar with the majesty and scope of performance art inspired by Rudolf Steiner.

Those who have followed our progress can share our joy at having entered onto a new level of activity with our recent Readers Theater tour. In Copake, NY, Chicago, and Fair Oaks, CA, eighteen different artistic readers presented The Working of the Spirit, the new mystery drama showing next steps in the lives of the characters of Rudolf Steiner’s four dramas.

These readings were received with a great deal of enthusiasm. From the beginning of work on this text in Delphi, Greece in 2013, we have had an overarching question whether an audience unfamiliar with Steiner’s Mystery Dramas or anthroposophy would be able to find a pathway to comprehension of this imagination. Of those who participated as actors or audience in the Readers’ Theater, and had either no knowledge of Rudolf Steiner’s dramas or of anthroposophy, many expressed comprehension and a direct connection to their own soul questions.

We are now preparing Readers Theater presentations in England, in Gloucester and Forest Row, in October, and in New Zealand and Australia in November. These events will offer an edited version as part of our process of preparing to bring the full play onto the stage. Through Readers Theater presentations we also seek out acting and speech talent, musicianship, and other production skills.

SteinerBooks will offer the full text of the play in September with copies available in retail outlets and our web site, workingofthespirit.org . The site will also offer “Gift/Tickets” which have already proven successful in helping fund the tour preparation. The Gift/ Ticket impulse reflects the

growth of “crowd funding” where large numbers of people making modest contributions can unlock sufficient resources for endeavors that previously could only have been funded by wealthy individuals and foundation or government grants. The Gift/Ticket idea creates the possibility to build a project “of the people,” recognizing and participating in an artistic, global celebration.

A $100.00 contribution is the cost per Gift/Ticket, so a relatively modest contribution allows people to share in our developmental process in a living, dynamic way. The donor receives a voucher that can be exchanged anywhere in the world for a ticket to any performance. The risk associated with the Gift/Ticket is that if we do not manage to raise sufficient capital to bring this tour into being there will be no performance to redeem the voucher for.

We recently received confirmation that a European Trust will help support our performances in Europe. Combined with individual gifts and institutional grants, Gift/Ticket support has made our work to date possible. We hope it will be part of building the project as a community activity towards the meaningful goal of placing Steiner-inspired performance arts into a wider picture of contemporary culture. Symphonic Eurythmy, Shakespeare, and a new drama will bring images of the interplay between the physical and spiritual worlds onto the stage. Now, with sufficient capital we will move directly towards venue location and local community support globally.

With gratitude to the many people involved in our development and hundreds of supporters who have made it possible to get this far!

Marke Levene (marke@ workingofthespirit.com) is an actor, speech artist, eurythmist, and entrepreneur centrally involved in tours of Rudolf Steiner’s mystery dramas and of eurythmy performances with full orchestra. He served for many years on the Council of Anthroposophic Organizations.

The Readers Theater group in Chicago, in front of the Rudolf Steiner Branch.

Celebrating Initiative Threefold at 90

By Bill Day

The year 2016 brings the ninetieth anniversary of the purchase of Threefold Farm in Spring Valley, NY, by Ralph Courtney, Charlotte Parker, and other members of New York City’s Threefold Group. As we started contemplating celebrations and observances, we quickly realized that a host of landmark events at Threefold took place in years that end with the number 6: the founding of Threefold Farm (1926), the opening of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer’s Biochemical Research Laboratory (1946), the opening of Green Meadow Waldorf School’s first building (1956), the founding of the Fellowship Community and the Camphill Foundation (both 1966), Green Meadow’s first twelfth grade graduation (1976), the Waldorf Institute’s relocation to Threefold as Sunbridge College, and the founding of the Eurythmy Spring Valley Performing Group (both 1986), and the founding of the Pfeiffer Center and the Fiber Craft Studio (both 1996).

All those anniversaries cried out for a party, so on Saturday, May 21, a couple hundred of our closest friends gathered on the Main House lawn for games, speeches, a delicious buffet dinner (featuring updated menu items from Threefold Restaurant menus of the 1920s), cupcakes, skits, and sparklers. The New York Branch sent flowers and a note wishing us “another century of work—together!” and Dorothea Mier offered the hope that “such an event can truly bind us all together, more united, to go into the future having looked at the past.”

This fall, we look forward to welcoming friends from across the country for the Anthroposophical Society’s Fall Conference and AGM, “Representing Anthroposophy” from Thursday, October 6th through 9th. Come Celebrate Initiative with us!

Pictured from top left, counter-clockwise: Judith Brockway Aventuro reflected on nearly 40 years in the community; Rafael Manaças, Executive Director of Threefold Educational Foundation; Jeanette Rodriguez, director of the Otto Specht School; long-time Fellowship Community resident Michael Laney; Karl Fredrickson, Ann Scharff, Lady Carter, Ann Courtney Pratt; Carol Avery, Sayre (Sally) Burns, Mariel Farlow; Dorothea Mier, Beth Dunn-Fox, Patrick Kennedy; Michael Scharff, Maiken Nielsen, Julian Liu; Skip Herman with granddaughter Serena and the festive menu; everyone enjoying after-dinner skits...

Eurythmy Spring Valley Celebrates Forty Years!

by Maria Ver Eecke

As Threefold marked its 90th, the School of Eurythmy Spring Valley celebrated its 40th anniversary. Graduations at ESV are always grand events and friends come from afar, creating a mood of homecoming. After a two-hour performance in the Threefold Auditorium and a reception in the Threefold Café, at the stroke of midnight comes a skit where the teachers are roasted in good natured humor and the audience

realizes just how well these students know each other, as the graduates are portrayed by their classmates.

This special year honored the original alumni, the “A” Class of 1976 (pictured above, right). We gathered for tea in their first classroom, the home of Lisa Monges. Faculty and staff of Eurythmy Spring Valley and Threefold were the hosts. The alumni who attended were Kristin Hawkins, Alys Morgan, Grace Ann Peysson, and Carol Ann Williamson. Nancy McMahon and Francesca Margulies were unable to attend. Siegfried Finser stood in for his late wife Ruth. We were served scones with clotted cream, strawberries, and herb tea fresh from the garden.

After introductions, personal stories were told, giving space to our elders, who paved the way for all of us. I was moved by the way the younger eurythmists listened.

The School was the initiative of Kristin Hawkins, who asked Lisa Monges if she would begin a eurythmy training, as Lisa had the recognition from the Goetheanum Council to grant eurythmy diplomas. Lisa responded that such a training was best as a group process, and soon others joined the class. Kristin, a Waldorf alumna, had been doing eurythmy since she was ten years old.

Now, with a family of five, she was unable to attend the eurythmy trainings in Europe. For many years, Kristin taught, performed with stage groups, and gave therapeutic eurythmy lessons at the Fellowship Community, Green Meadow Waldorf School, and the Rudolf Steiner School in NYC.

Grace Ann Peysson remembered coming from Emerson College in 1965 to be the cook at the Threefold Farm. Many anthroposophical conferences took place during the summers. She spoke of the youth movement that met here in 1970. Grace Ann is presently living and working at Camphill Village Kimberton Hills, Pennsylvania.

Ruth Finser gave therapy sessions to children from the Hawthorne Valley and Great Barrington Rudolf Steiner schools, as well as having a private practice within her home. Nancy McMahon gave therapeutic eurythmy sessions at Raphael House and the Sacramento Waldorf School, as well as teaching a few groups of hygienic eurythmy at the Rudolf Steiner College. Francesca Mar-

Grace Ann Peysson, Siegfried Finser, Carol Ann Williamson, Kristin Hawkins, Alys Morgan.

Dorothea Mier, Annelies Davidson, Elsa Macauley.

L-R, back row: Kari van Oordt, Lucille Clem, Virginia Brett, Lisa Monges, Marianne Schneider, Norman Vogel, Maidlin Vogel, Margarete Proskauer-Unger (teachers); front row: Carol Ann Williamson, Grace Ann Peysson, Alys Morgan, Nancy McMahon, Francesca Margulies, Kristin Hawkins, Ruth Finser (Class “A”)

LECTURE–DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS FROM THE “A” CLASS

Language & Human Development & Its Renewal through Eurythmy — Ruth E. M. Finser

Consciousness in Movement — Francesca Margulies

How Anthroposophy Reveals Itself in Tone Eurythmy through the Classic & Romantic Periods — Alys Samuels-Morgan Space, Form, & Color in Eurythmy — Grace Ann Peysson

The Expression of the Inaudible in Tone Eurythmy — Nancy McMahon

The Romantic Impulse in Literature as Revealed through Shelley’s Work and the Expression of Thinking, Feeling, & Will through Eurythmy — Carol Ann Williamson

Approaches to Public Classes in Eurythmy — Kristin Hawkins

gulies performed and taught eurythmy at Pinehill, Monadnock, and Great Barrington Waldorf schools. Alys Morgan was a founder of the Mountain Laurel Waldorf School in New Paltz, NY, where she continues to teach eurythmy in kindergarten through eighth grade. Carol Ann Williamson is a therapeutic eurythmist, presently working at the Otto Specht School in the Threefold Community. (Six of the seven eurythmists of Class “A” became eurythmy therapists!) Siegfried Finser was recognized as the administrator who also developed a toymaking workshop for students in a work-study program.

Looking back, one felt that the weavings of destiny were at work: that the question was asked and the teachers and students came together to found the School of Eurythmy on this continent. At the beginning of the graduation performance that evening, Barbara Schneider-Serio invited the alumni onto the presidium to recognize them publicly. An honorary diploma was given to each one.

Congratulations to the alumni and the faculty of Eurythmy Spring Valley! May this good work continue to grow and flourish.

Maria Ver Eecke (editor@eana.org) is Editor of the Newsletters of the Eurythmy Association of North America (EANA) and the Association of Therapeutic Eurythmists in North America (ATHENA).

Eurythmy Spring Valley

On June 4th, 2016, the fourth-year class of the School of Eurythmy Spring Valley presented their graduation performance at the Threefold Auditorium for family, friends, and all who have supported them on an incredible journey. The three students in the “KK” Class are from Taiwan, Canada and the US. Their graduation program included works by J. S. Bach and Brahms, Rudolf Steiner, Kathleen Raine, Dag Hammarskjold, a Sicilian destiny story, and many humorous selections.

“When you land at one of the airports ... one of your first glimpses is of the tremendous geometry of the skyscrapers of New York City. You then drive northward, to the green suburb of Chestnut Ridge, NY, to the 148 acre Threefold Educational Foundation... Here, besides our center for eurythmy, is the largest Waldorf School in North America, an elder-care community, Waldorf teacher training, and a Biodynamic training, among others.

“Eurythmy Spring Valley is comprised of the internationally known performing Ensemble and the highly respected School, which offers both full-time and parttime training leading to a variety of careers in eurythmy.

“Human sound carries all of life within it... Though we may not be as aware as our ancestors of this reality, it remains true that the human voice is one of the most remarkable of instruments. It has the capacity to transform our inner experiences into another medium, sound. When the sounds of language and song are intoned, they set into motion, unique, yet invisible gestures through the air. Artistically expressed they reveal the specific gestures belonging to each consonant or vowel, each musical tone or interval. These innate forms living in sound, within our souls and in the world become the basis for the art form of eurythmy.”

From eurythmy.org, the website of Eurythmy Spring Valley.

Barbara Schneider-Serio, Beth Dunn-Fox, Sea-Anna Vasilas, Jana Hawley, Rafael Manaças

2016 Graduates (l-r) CoCo Verspoor, Yen Ling Yeh, Ivilisse Esguerra.

Integral Teacher Education at CIIS

by Robert McDermott

This essay on the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) and the companion essay on Waldorf education by Liz Beaven together present a vision for the creation of one or more programs in Integral Teacher Education at CIIS, an accredited undergraduate and graduate university in San Francisco. As I wrote in the dedication of my book, Steiner and Kindred Spirits (2015), CIIS is “a university dedicated to integrating the intellectual and academic with a variety of spiritual teachings and practices” (xi). It is worth noting that chapter 9, “Education,” in this book places Steiner’s educational philosophy in a wider context, addressing the relative merits of John Dewey’s, Maria Montessori’s, and Steiner’s approaches to education. In the same spirit, the emerging proposal for a CIIS program (or programs) could be called education inspired by “Steiner and Kindred Spirits,” i.e., an approach to education based on an anthroposophical understanding of human development, the child, curriculum, and pedagogy situated within a larger intellectual context.

CIIS was founded in San Francisco in 1968 by Dr. Haridas Chaudhuri, a disciple of Sri Aurobindo, the preeminent spiritual teacher of 20th-century India. Like Sri Aurobindo, Haridas Chaudhuri based his spiritual philosophy on the yogas of the Bhagavad Gita: spiritual knowledge, love, selfless action—approximately the same triple discipline—thinking, feeling, and willing—recommended by Rudolf Steiner. This triple discipline and approach meets a contemporary need, demonstrated by growth in CIIS enrollment. When I was appointed president in 1990, CIIS had 300 students in two schools. By the time I transitioned from president to faculty in 1999 CIIS enrolled 800 students in three schools. Currently it has 1500 students attending four schools: Consciousness and Transformation, Professional Psychology and Health, Undergraduate Studies, and American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

CIIS has a long relationship to Steiner’s work and a deep affinity with his social ideals. While teaching in the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness (PCC) program for the past fifteen years I have taught anthroposophy in many courses, including Karma and Biography; Death and Beyond; Steiner and Teilhard; Modern Esotericism; Krishna, Buddha, and Christ; Aurobindo, Teilhard, and Steiner. In a recent issue of being human , five CIIS

graduate students described the close positive relationship between their CIIS education and their involvement with anthroposophy or Waldorf education, or both. Throughout its history, CIIS has attracted many Waldorf alumni. These and other students have been heard to refer to CIIS as “Waldorf for Adults.”

Due to a close alignment of the ideals of Waldorf principles of education and CIIS’s mission statement, the leadership of CIIS is seriously interested in creating a program in teacher education. The CIIS mission statement could serve as a mission statement that fulfills this intention:

California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) is an accredited university of higher education that strives to embody spirit, intellect, and wisdom in service to individuals, communities, and the Earth. CIIS expands the boundaries of traditional degree programs with interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and applied studies in psychology, philosophy, religion, cultural anthropology, transformative learning and leadership, integrative health, and the arts. Offering a personal learning environment and supportive community, CIIS provides an extraordinary education for people committed to transforming themselves and the world.

Similarly, an integral approach to education would want to affirm the following Seven CIIS Commitments:

1. Practices integral approaches to learning and research.

2. Affirms spirituality.

3. Commits to diversity and inclusion.

4. Fosters multiple ways of learning and teaching.

5. Advocates sustainability and Social Justice.

6. Supports community.

7. Strives for integral and innovative leadership.

The CIIS faculty and administration recognize the importance of a spiritually-based approach to education as a foundation for the type of individual and social transformation that Rudolf Steiner recommended. In the face of equity and access issues, new demands imposed by the Common Core, changing workplace demands, and a national teacher shortage, there is an urgent need for innovative, enlivened, and effective approaches to K-12 education. A San Francisco university known for the quality of its holistic academic programs, and fully ac-

credited since 1981, CIIS believes that one solution for social transformation lies in preparing teachers to bring a new paradigm to the diverse modern classroom through integral teacher education.

In recent months, Liz Beaven has served as a link between CIIS and many leaders of the Waldorf school movement. Inspired by the shared ideals of CIIS and Waldorf, the senior administration of CIIS has appointed Liz to explore ways to create an integral approach to modern education, including the image of the human being that Rudolf Steiner placed at the core of Waldorf education. As a former class teacher and administrator of the Sacramento Waldorf School (1991-2012), president of Rudolf Steiner College (2014-15), current president of the Board of the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education, as well as a close observer of the CIIS culture, Liz is making progress researching the feasibility of at least one, and perhaps several, programs in Integral Teacher Education.

CIIS views expansion into teacher education as an inspired extension of its mission, values, and vision in support of the current and projected growth of a wide range of schools founded on the principles of Waldorf education. It plans to offer programs that can contribute to meeting a range of urgent needs. CIIS has the structure to support a new program inspired by the effective principles of integral and Waldorf education, and will be designed to address the challenges facing today’s children, teachers, and schools. Liz has discovered ample evidence of interest in these programs in the San Francisco Bay area, as well as nationally and internationally. A research and design phase of this exciting new initiative will continue through the coming academic year, 2016-17. It is already clear that this is the ideal time for CIIS to appoint a distinguished leader of Waldorf education able to join the ideals of Wal-

dorf education to the intellectual-spiritual ideals of CIIS.

The research and design phase will determine the final structure of programs, based on the identified needs of schools and prospective teachers. Working closely with the CIIS administration and faculty, Liz Beaven is currently completing the initial design work that has included extensive conversations with educators and a comprehensive review of the literature of existing programs in Waldorf, Montessori, and “mainstream” MEd degrees and certificates. Part of this initial work includes the exploration of options for California State Teacher Credentialing, considered important for providing options for employment for future teachers, for widening the spread of this approach to education, and for providing access to an enriched education for a wide range of children.

The following programs are being considered for implementation: Masters of Education; graduate certification in integral education; Bachelor of Arts Completion courses; public workshops for educators. All evidence suggests that CIIS would be an ideal incubator for a program, or programs, in integral education inspired by the principles of Waldorf education and including the perspectives and academic resources of a pluralistic, inclusive undergraduate and graduate university. This new educational paradigm will promote a thorough understanding of child development based largely on an anthroposophical understanding of child development, and will support teachers in their effort to bring renewed creativity, mindfulness, and joy to the classroom.

Robert McDermott, president emeritus of the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), and CIIS professor of philosophy and religion, was chair of the boards of Sunbridge College and Rudolf Steiner College. His books include The New Essential Steiner and Steiner and Kindred Spirits.

Towards an Integrated Approach to Teaching

By Elizabeth Beaven

Waldorf educators are eagerly anticipating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Germany, which first opened its doors in September 1919. Plans are underway for celebrations of a school movement that has grown from that first school to global proportions. The extent of this growth was demonstrated by the recent World Teachers’ Conference in Dornach, Switzerland. There, in a kaleidoscope of languages and cultures, over 850 individuals united by their

work in Waldorf education formed a living demonstration of the remarkable fruits of Steiner’s call for a new art of education, one that can positively effect social transformation and renewal.

With the founding of our oldest school, the New York Rudolf Steiner School, the impulse of Waldorf education made its way to North America in 1928. From that time until the early 1990’s Waldorf education on this continent grew quietly as a movement of independent schools. This

slow growth, made possible by the work of many devoted individuals, allowed Waldorf education to generate a distinctive culture and a rich body of practice and research. This slow growth began to shift in 1991 with the opening of the Milwaukee Urban Waldorf School, a public “specialty” school developed out of a social justice desire to offer quality education to underserved inner city children. Since then, the Waldorf educational impulse has spread to public education, largely through the mechanism of charter schools. This spread has occasioned much debate and discussion, and has arguably led to healthy and necessary research and opportunities for continued growth. Questions have abounded: how, exactly, is “Waldorf” to be defined? What is essential in this definition? Why is such definition necessary? How can the integrity of the Waldorf “brand” be protected, ensuring that the essentials continue to thrive? Is Waldorf education even possible in a public school setting? How do we ensure quality in our schools? How do we resolve the tension between the demands, compromises, and opportunities resulting from independence in education (one form of freedom) and the social justice need for access for many to an enlivened education (another form of freedom)?

These and similar questions are being addressed in a number of ways. The Pedagogical Section Council worked to define the “core principles” of Waldorf education—that essential core that makes Waldorf, Waldorf. Their work has led the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA) and the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education (APWE)1 to work to define their own iterations of core principles from the perspective of their schools or institutes in an effort to clarify similarities and differences, with the ultimate goal of strengthening our work, insuring quality and integrity, and allowing Waldorf education to flourish in service of children and of our future.

At this time there exists a broad and expanding spectrum of schools working from Steiner’s indications (which include a developmental framework, a “true knowledge of the nature of the human being,” the imperative of the arts, and the need for integrated connections). This educational impulse is finding new and varied forms in response to a range of conditions. Worldwide and on this continent, there is an expansion into diverse

1 Through an agreement with the BUND, AWSNA is the steward of the terms “Waldorf,” “Rudolf Steiner,” and “Steiner” in educational contexts in North America. The APWE has an agreement to use the term “Public Waldorf”.

cultures, emerging needs, and varied school structures. These encouraging innovations appear to be aligned with Steiner’s original intent of a creative, constantly renewing, pedagogical approach. Viewed from the perspective of this widening spectrum, the old divide of “independent/private” and “public” schools no longer fully reflects a new reality.

No matter the form or location, effective education is profoundly influenced by the quality and capacities of teachers. This is especially relevant in Waldorf education, where teachers are charged with responsibility for pedagogical matters and are expected to continuously renew and reinvent their classroom approach based on the needs of their students and of the local conditions of the school (Tautz, p. 23). There is no comfortable prototype for a Waldorf school or for a Waldorf teacher: rather, there is an imperative of “taking hold of the living impulse of the Waldorf school in a concrete way and bringing it to realization.” (Tautz, p. 23). In remarks made to the original group of teachers before their intensive course of preparation, Steiner emphasized the social, transformative goal of Waldorf education: “From the Waldorf school there should go out a renewal of the whole educational system.” He emphasized the responsibility of the teachers in realizing this goal: “The success is in your hands.”

The first Waldorf school answered local conditions remarkably well and thus grew rapidly. Within six years there were at least six schools in four European countries. During these years, Steiner traveled extensively and gave a number of lectures in which he emphasized and refined his core pedagogical ideals. Reading these, one can sense a growing urgency to “develop an art of education that can lead us out of the social chaos into which we have fallen…. [and] find a way to bring spirituality into human souls through education” (Roots of Education, p. 1)

Addressing the goals of Waldorf education, Steiner continued: “What we are examining is mainly concerned with matters of method and the practice of teaching. Men and women who adhere to anthroposophy feel— and rightly so—that the knowledge of the human being it provides can establish some truly practical principles for the way we teach children.” (ibid , p. 17) He continued: “Moreover, I would like to point out that the true aim and object of anthroposophic education is not to establish as many anthroposophic schools as possible. Naturally, some model schools are needed, where the methods are practiced in detail. There is a need crying out in our time for such schools. Our goal, however, is to enable every

teacher to bring the fruits of anthroposophy to their work, no matter where they may be teaching or the nature of the subject matter. There is no intention of using anthroposophic pedagogy to start revolutions, even silent ones, in established institutions. Our task, instead, is to point to a way of teaching that springs from our anthroposophic knowledge of humankind.” (p. 18)

While acknowledging the danger of taking any one statement by Steiner as the basis on which to build an argument, these thought-provoking words are relevant to the context of contemporary education. Our schools in general face tremendous challenges, and our young people are confronting an uncertain future and a time of unprecedented change. Children everywhere would surely benefit from an approach to teaching that springs from the wisdom of an anthroposophic knowledge of the human being. A teacher is core to educational success; therefore, effective and conscious preparation of future teachers is essential—for all children.

Emphasis on the development of the individual teacher is possibly the most effective strategy for “taking hold of the living impulse of the Waldorf school in a concrete way” and allowing the impulse of Waldorf education to serve as a source of renewal “for the whole educational system,” Steiner’s stated goal. Preparation for this task includes a thorough knowledge of the true nature of the human being, a body of pedagogical information (Steiner’s “methods and practice of teaching”), and tools for an ongoing process of self-knowledge and reflection that will lead to creativity, renewal, and the ability to respond sensitively to the needs of a particular group of children. Such preparation leaves a teacher in freedom to practice enlivened teaching in any setting across the full spectrum of schools—from private Waldorf schools through varying iterations of charter schools and home schools through the vast array of “mainstream” public schools.

This focus on the individual teacher provides a new definition of education toward freedom; a teacher is free to adopt this approach and is free to practice it in any setting. Freedom can be understood not as the outer structures or conventions of schools, but rather as the ideals and practices alive within each individual. Parallel to this, the impulse of Waldorf education will be increasingly freed to take a more fully integrated role in educational renewal. The Waldorf impulse has much to contribute and can be enriched in turn by interaction with likeminded practitioners.

The recent World Teachers’ Conference sought to place Waldorf education in a broad context with an emphasis on social justice and the demands of the future. It spoke of collaboration, of finding our colleagues in the world, of re-thinking and re-imagining our work in anticipation of a new century of practice. In 1924, Steiner spoke with urgency about the need “to enable every teacher to bring the fruits of anthroposophy to their work, no matter where they may be teaching.” This need is surely even more urgent now. Meeting it will require ever-greater levels of engagement and collaboration with like-minded colleagues, dialogue, willingness to teach—and willingness to learn from others, in service of children and of the future.

References:

Steiner, R. (1997). The Roots of Education. Anthroposophic Press.

Tautz, J. (2011). The Founding of the First Waldorf School in Stuttgart. AWSNA Publications, Ghent NY.

Elizabeth Beaven (lizbeaven@sbcglobal.net) has been a Waldorf educator for more than thirty years as class teacher, parent, school administrator, adult educator, and author. She is currently conducting a feasibility study for CIIS, San Francisco, exploring the development of a new program in integral teacher education. She consults with a wide range of Waldorf schools, public and private, and is the president of the board for the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education.

Thoughts of the Dead

Unrealized ideas of the dead blow like a wind through trees beyond our bed, sprinkle the night with aspirations not our own, and spice our love with the desire of the disembodied. They fertilize our sleep like worker bees, their feet fluorescent with the pollen of another place and time. They perch like birds on the wire edge of our waking singing subliminal songs until we rise and set about doing the work the dead can no longer do.

Maureen Tolman Flannery is the author of Tunnel into Morning , seven other books of poetry, and a chapbook of poems Snow and Roses about Traute Lafrenz Page and her work with the White Rose Society in WWII Germany.

Raised on a Wyoming sheep ranch, Maureen and her actor husband Dan have raised their four children in Chicago.

IN THIS SECTION:

Elaine Upton shares the deep reflections of Shakespeare’s King Lear in a poetic mind of the 21st century.

What does “esoteric” really mean? And in what ways does the Bard of Avon and his four-century-old legacy qualify?

Teacher and writer Bruce Donehower makes the case for and against Shakespeare— something to do with freedom?

Incoming ASA

General Secretary

John Bloom finds money and selfhood to be at an intersection.

Maureen Flannery writes wonderful poems! On pages 23 and 39.

IN THE GALLERY:

Out of Rudolf Steiner’s dream of plays of light came an experiential art installation on how we fall into fear, and come back out. This paper presentation lacks the full power of the original, but seems well worth sharing!

The Lear Elegies

by Elaine Maria Upton

1.

Up—early or late—on the staged edges of things— at the hovel and in the sold-out house the lights already out. The trafficked sky—piqued-pink a rose dying and violet half-hidden lightning blue silence at the last twilight, a fumbling thunder of his thoughts— all this he nakedly overtakes, severely testing the ages, sight, might of tongues. We are—a priori— to know: he sat encumbered on a throne, gave away a kingdom. We are entering the apparent ending whose burly banner is hope— whose goal is greatness—and all the scened and unseen shapes that court kings: daughters, princes, serving men, earls, dukes soldiers, charters, waning trade, wives, an assortment of wars, haunted hovels he would visit, speech that heats and inherits lust, milk uddered from the mind’s slippage, fright deeper than midnight—fools’ cacophony, discourse that renders ‘casualties’ of causes, counters birth, collects coffins, buries queens, checkmates the breaths of children.

2.

The Earl of Gloucester—brutally blind—begged to be led to Dover. Wherefore to Dover? asked the masked Poor Tom. Any fool could answer: Dover rhymes with over and death. The sea’s wall makes a chalky ghost— mists ‘twixt Britain and France are where lover, madman, king-made-fool— and Macbeth making poetry with despotic dagger—meet. Where Nothing appears and seems the rule. Imagination disguised in blood or dressed in rags puts on the hollow crown. This is no kingdom but a stage of naked wretches the king—orating—owns.

3.

What shall come of all this that passes for life? An antiquated or an august anguish? An unsuspected catharsis spiraling in and out past the storm? Pythagoras reclaiming numbers? Three weird siblings, barren bosoms, gone beastly: Goneril, Regan, Edmund. Three—Poor Tom o’ Bedlam, Kent, Cordelia. These are in exile, disguised or nothing at all— as though Nothing were inside a choice and truth a dowry a daughter or friend could give. Lear and his fool play the zero in-between the darkened threes of branches, or zero disguises Cordelia’s heart—the encompassing O—sign of her name, her name a globe where the devil’s nothing is everything, womb-bearing word, poetry of a palpitating— center penduling between progressing angels and the slow Earth. Past time, poetry moves— moistens the eyes of virtue, hoarsens the throat of the antagonist— who of us can cast a stone?— and the racked rogue’s on a roundabout to repentance—then or now.

Is it possible?

A designer of Auschwitz sees his face in the cruel blueprint of things. There is no hiding place. After thirty-eight years of the discarded angel, he walks out of the wings. Who remembers? Is it possible? The frightened policeman in the U.S. city sits lonely with his guns. Turns the smart phone to off. Is it possible? The would-be bomber ponders at his mother’s grave in Paris at Per La Chaise.

Poetry ponders un-ponderously. Poetry undresses— unwords itself— unspools the life-lines—be-leaps the strings, arpeggiates the scales-- listens to itself in every self—dies into the silence—discovers possibility—creates what it wills.

Say—as though your way were dedicated and brave: I will be led unclothed to Dover. As though you were taught the thought and vision of a god—say: I have other meat to eat. Thy kingdom come. I would be led into the Mysteries of things. Thy will be done. Say: in poetry, the dovely magic of Jordan.

Beg your daughters not for soldiers, nor for bread, but gently inquire of a pillow for your death. At least one of them will meet your silenced howl, your foolish love. And the one—perhaps even another, lost—will grieve. Love is only what it only can be. What it must. Such is poetry.

4.

Four hundred years later—or who knows how long his hour on the stage-time out of joint—who knows how long or how suddenly folded-short the calendar?—a friend asked Where is Christ in all this? In Lear they swear by Juno or Apollo, the god who never stays put on poets’ pages. Yet who but Christ enters Cordelia’s passion, Lear’s repentant suffering?

Christ is a name for all things countering strange transcending things. Imagination remakes—purely—who we would be— created of nothing. Even Macbeth struts and frets his nothing and in disordered fantasies proclaims he’s murdered death and then assumes he’s heard no more. Nothing is generative. Have pity on the king who prays Never, never, never . . . Such words on and on do but seed ever. Endurance? Why not? —beyond the final scene—

Four hundred or forty –our experience in the wilderness confounds time again. Over and over . . . Daughter-fool-father-mother—confounded. King becomes Mother—heaven’s keeper and queen. So it must be. So it must be. This my heart’s necessity.

5.

Four hundred years or thirty or three—depending on how and not what your heart would hear and see. Each may presume to be inscrutably alone—each in the seeming suffers. Yet even then in the act of presuming no one is there— some Madonna and Child, some Pieta appears and teaches: If there’s one there’s another—Imagined, whether greatly or little. Schionatulander still listens at Sigune’s heart. So it must be and the artist must sing. Isolde’s throat trembles in Tristan’s ears. Begging, she births his gentle smile. And Lear—even his unhoused mind must still

dwell in possibility.

He makes a hearth of enfolding arms. and whisperingly he asks—

Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little.

You may author the unsung scene where she and he — this once-then-unclothed-king-turned-mother— sing as two birds in their gilded cage. You may see him prepare a table he— a wayward father has never yet prepared. He makes a sacred altar where the choler— his readied sulfur—combusts. And here he dares what he must. His heart—in hers—and ours in his—finds its abyss and breaks.

Elaine Maria Upton is a Shakespeare scholar and an awardwinning poet with extensive experience teaching in South Africa. She is an associate editor of being human and has contributed a book review, poems, and reflections.

Shakespeare and The Esoteric

by Frederick J. Dennehy

Is there esoteric meaning in Shakespeare?

We could try to select or formulate an esoteric principle and show how it inhabits the plays. But then, after seeing the plays again, I suspect that we would find that principle inadequate, and either struggle to redefine it, or give up explaining the plays esoterically altogether.

Esoteric meaning is fresh, new meaning before it becomes a mental habit, a possession, something for the ego to devour.

I think there is light to be shed, but it comes from the other direction. There is esoteric meaning in Shakespeare. Rudolf Steiner said that all genuine art is a reflection of the human experience of the divine. That means that Shakespeare, the most genuine of artists, can light up our understanding of the esoteric. The Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges said that Shakespeare was “everyone and no one.” He worked in the mystery of language better than anyone before or since. His art has been described by the scholar Harold Bloom as “so infinite that it contains us ; we don’t read his plays so much as they read us.”1

Shakespeare created meanings. He worked from inspiration to imagination, and from imagination, through explicit or implicit metaphor, to new meanings. Inspira-

1 Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (Riverhead, 1999), p. 27.

tion grasps what was not grasped before, and imagination makes new cognition comprehensible by relating it, not reducing it, to what is already known.

Esoteric meaning is fresh, new meaning before it becomes a mental habit, a possession, something for the ego to devour. Meaning “happens” in the changing from one plane of consciousness to another in the movement itself, in the metamorphosis. That “becoming” always takes us closer to the Origin, or the Source, before things are divided into subjects and objects. As Owen Barfield has said, there is “a very real sense” in which many of the thoughts and feelings that we have today were once meanings that Shakespeare brought into being.2 In fact, some that have already passed from fresh meaning into habit, into our most common expressions, were first Shakespeare’s inventions.

While Shakespeare represents human nature more universally than any other writer, his characters are so individual that we often feel we know them better than we do some of our friends. There are dozens that we recognize as themselves after only a few lines. Characters in most plays are definite personalities, and they simply unfold as we watch them In Shakespeare, character becomes. It is alive. In the mature soliloquies, for instance,

2 Owen Barfield, Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning (Wesleyan, 1973), p. 137.

Study for The Death of Cordelia, detail of a sketch by George Romney (1734-1802); Folger Shakespeare Library

Gallery: Metamorphosis of Fear: An Exploration

Elizabeth Lombardi

In this twenty-foot installation of five illuminated windows of translucent paper, a holding structure of black and white (above) describes how an individual perceives the dynamics of his or her surroundings:

In the first two sections, turbulent, threatening darkness descends from above, culminating in total darkness. After fear is confronted, the darkness contracts to become an area of moving, but not threatening ground. The light, which appears below in the beginning, does not support the figure while in a state of fearfulness but provides illumination in the upper areas of the last two panels. The five illuminated, colored windows describe the inner condition of the individual as she or he passes from anxiety and fear to equanimity and gratitude.

we see not just the exposition of someone’s thought, but the moving, forming process of Thinking itself. Shakespeare’s men and women look back on themselves, contradict themselves, re-conceive themselves, and even create themselves. We have the sense of Thinking while it is flowing, sometimes even boiling, before it has frozen into the discrete solid ice of past, mirrored thought.

No one embodies better than Shakespeare the paradox that the more individual you are the more universal you are. This is a mystery—if we can touch it imaginatively—that can direct us to true individuality, to the source of the self. It can take us back, as T. S. Eliot said, to where we started and know the place for the first time.

But there is another reason why Shakespeare sheds light on the esoteric. He lived from 1564 to 1616—at the sunrise of the Renaissance, of the Modern Age, of what Rudolf Steiner has termed the Consciousness Soul Age. The Consciousness Soul is the part of us by virtue of which we acquire a separate and independent consciousness, a separate mental existence.3 A self-consciousness.

In Shakespeare, we have all the excitement of the emergence of that self-consciousness. We have it in the delight and the exuberance of his language, particularly in the comedies. The lack of constraint, the disappearance of limits, the shedding of boundaries. But the loss of boundaries also means the loss of finished meanings, and that in turn means the melting away of answers and the loss of certainty.

At the outset of its long journey toward maturity, selfconsciousness is separated from everything familiar. The human being begins to experience the conditions of root-

3 Rudolf Steiner, On The Altered Conditions Of The Times.

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lessness and uncertainty. He may feel that he has to act, like Hamlet. But he finds enormous difficulty in doing that, because he no longer feels the instinctive promptings of the spirit.4

This whole experience of the Consciousness Soul is present just below the surface of Shakespeare’s waking consciousness. It breaks through over and over again in a volcanic eruption of new words, new feelings and even new impulses. As Owen Barfield has said, Shakespeare’s imagination was “secretly pregnant” with “the whole nature and history of the age that was to follow him. He was unconsciously the bearer of— consciousness.”5

It is in the mood, the whisperings, the vapors, that we find the Consciousness Soul in Shakespeare, never in exposition or analysis. There is no “occult doctrine.” 6 Shakespeare has nothing to “teach” us himself.

This is what Keats meant by negative capability —the ability to inhabit other persons, other places, and other ideas “while remaining in uncertainties, mysteries and doubts—without any irritable reaching out after fact and reason.” 7 Without judging. Without giving in to the seductions of reductionism, of one-dimensional thinking. It means a turning, a reversal of the will from grasping to receiving, enabling it to touch a universal sphere. It embodies the qualities of wonder and reverence which Rudolf Steiner sets as a precondition for knowledge of the spirit in How To Know Higher Worlds. It is artistic selflessness to the highest degree.

The Consciousness Soul is a living idea, and so it is always being revealed in different ways. Those very differences disclose its actual unity, its universality—what it is always coming to be. And so it manifested in Shakespeare, over the quarter of a century in which he wrote plays, in different forms.

There is a very general sort of trajectory in the sequence of Shakespeare’s plays. His genres are the remnants of the myths that long ago replaced direct percep -

4 See “The Form of Hamlet ” in Romanticism Comes of Age, p. 109.

5 Id. at 110.

6 At the time Shakespeare was writing, esoteric tradition was strong in England. There was an esoteric society, sometimes known as the School of Night, consisting of noblemen, occultists and poets, that met in London in the 1590s. George Chapman, the translator of Homer, and Sir Walter Raleigh, were both associated with it. Shakespeare was also writing as the dawn of the Rosicrucian Enlightenment was breaking. We have no way of knowing whether Shakespeare studied in an esoteric school or whether he gave much credit to them. He seems to have made fun of them in his early comedy, Love’s Labour’s Lost. But it is likely that esotericism in some form was part of the atmosphere that Shakespeare breathed.

7 John Keats, in a Letter to George and Thomas Keats, December 21, 1817.

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No one embodies better than Shakespeare the paradox that the more individual you are the more universal you are.

tion of the spiritual world. In Shakespeare (and others), they survive as narrative arcs, or, one might say, “musical keys.”

The plays are generally placed in one of four categories: histories, comedies, tragedies and romances (sometimes called tragicomedies). The histories are more of a miscellany than a separate genre. Some are forms of tragedy, others display aspects of comedy, and still others tend to be chronicles or pageants. The recurring theme of the histories, represented by the symbol of the crown, is the effort to transcend the confines of the lower self and to realize the higher self. This is the project of the

Gallery: Metamorphosis of Fear: an Exploration

Each person who observes the different stages may have different words to express them. To allow this freedom, the labels and smaller, hand-written thoughts of the artist are, in the installation, covered, but may be optionally lifted. (Here, the labels and surrounding thoughts are placed in the lower corner of the page following the corresponding image.) Note that the thoughts related to the third window are continued by the thoughts on the fourth window.

Consciousness Soul. The shadow side of that theme is the question of the legitimacy of the wearers of the crown and the burden of loneliness that the crown brings.

The comedies generally follow the pattern of the Christian myth of loss and recovery. Their arc usually begins in a prelapsarian state, followed by a fall into confusion or danger, whether through a storm at sea, exile, the frustration of hopes for marriage, or an absurd misunderstanding. Then there is a return to a near-paradisal state, in which everyone (or nearly everyone) achieves what he or she wants.

Shakespeare, in the 1590s, engages this myth of a fall

and a subsequent rise, which is the shape of the evolution of consciousness as Steiner describes it. He unfolds it in his brightest language, his most vivacious style. Fluid, rolling (but self-contained) metrical lines alternate with uninhibited prose. We have the joy, the exuberance, of language tumbling all over itself, playing games, inventing itself. The thrill of the new freedom of the Consciousness Soul.

These early comedies are very much about laughter. The moments of laughter happen when our free attentiveness witnesses the object self, levity’s experience of gravity. It is a lightning flash, a sudden “seeing” of the everyday world for what it is—old thoughts, finished forms and repetitive cycles. For an instant we cease to identify with our bodies and see them as the distorted mirror images of our higher selves. This accounts in part for the rich tradition of physical humor in Shakespeare’s comedies.

If we look on them as dramas of initiation, the Great Tragedies are all about the inevitable destruction of the everyday “I”— the “me’ feeling, the self that came to be after the Fall.

Laughter marks the first stirring of escape from the ego. The suddenness of the transition is crucial, because laughter is a “quick” experience in every sense of the word. The freedom of that transition is at once what Rudolf Steiner, in his 1910 talk “Laughing and Weeping,” 8 termed the “expansion of the astral body,” and the aesthetic distance we enjoy in the theater.

Verbal humor too—the unexpected change in tone, the double entendre phrase, the pun—which depend upon the quick juxtaposition of the opaque and the suddenly clear, derives its life from this feel of emergence. If weeping, which Steiner describes in the same talk as the “contraction” or “pressing in” of the astral body, is the look of heaven from earth, laughter is the look of earth

8 See Transforming the Soul, volume 2, Lecture 7, pp. 25-43.

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from heaven.

The Great Tragedies begin after 1600.9 In Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and others, the themes are no longer simple. The arc is no longer gentle. Where the low point in the comedies is misrule, incongruity, or absurdity, in tragedy it is bleak, empty, and infernal. The overarching conflicts of these tragedies—between light and darkness, love and hate, meaning and chaos are even more intense because in the first manifestations of the Consciousness Soul the clear awareness of providence, and the certainty of moral truth, are no longer there.

As the themes change, so does the language. The metrical line becomes much less regular. Where the earlier style was expansive, the later style looks hard at the limits of language and tends toward contraction, exposing and anatomizing words, showing them as “bare ruined choirs.” If his high Elizabethan style shows us the colors of spring, what Shakespeare is doing now gives us an autumnal feeling.

It is as though the words themselves have changed jobs. In the earlier plays they are light-bearing. But after 1600 there is a quality of darkness, of opacity, not only in the choice of words but in the phrasing. The verse sometimes calls attention to itself, exposes itself in the effort to attain a meaning that it does not attain—because it cannot. We feel we are closer to some disclosure that has been eluding us all along. But we do not get there. The words lead us to a doorway, but then they mass and crowd together, blocking the entrance. They are not giving out light, but sounding a warning. We may never get past the door. And if we do, we may find—nothing.

Where the later tragedies point to the unreliability and inadequacy of language, we may be tempted, as many critics do, to seize upon the change to say that Shakespeare shares our own age’s skepticism about the possibility of any meaning. I disagree. I think the meaning is very much there, but we have to look for it beyond the words.

If we look on them as dramas of initiation, the Great Tragedies are all about the inevitable destruction of the everyday “I”—the “me” feeling, the self that came to be 9 These comprise certain tragedies composed after Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar.

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George Romney: “Lear in the Storm”

after the Fall. Because the souls of the tragic heroes are so much larger than life, the spectacle of their dissolution is overwhelming. A great performance of Hamlet or Lear or Macbeth will show us something bottomless, inexhaustible.

Owen Barfield once said that even if you can only see one small part of reality, but that part is presented with absolute accuracy and without saying anything that isn’t meant, what is suggested is the whole truth 10 In the Great Tragedies, that is what happens. In writing so starkly

10 “Of the Consciousness Soul,” in Romanticism Comes of Age, p. 84

Gallery: Metamorphosis of Fear: an Exploration

This work was originally created for an August, 2011 conference hosted by Free Columbia at the Basilica Industria, Hudson, NY. Invited exhibitors used a variety of media to express the theme of The Metamorphosis of Fear.

The theme itself is related to an unfinished project originally initiated by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in 1918 in collaboration with musician Jan Stuten aimed toward developing a new moving, colored “light-playart” as a humanly performed alternative to cinema.

Subsequent installations of this work occurred at the New Marlborough, Massachusetts Meeting House Gallery in 2011, and the SteinerBooks Research Seminar, Great Barrington, MA, August, 2012.

of despair and death, Shakespeare cannot help suggesting—but only suggesting—transcendence and resurrection. When you leave a great performance of King Lear you are exhausted, because you have just witnessed the most heartbreaking final scene in all drama. You have looked into the Abyss. But you also know that you have glimpsed—you can’t speak it, but you feel it echoing in the distance—a mystery that surpasses understanding. You sense the possibility of transcendence, but you do not enter into it.

To approach that entrance, Shakespeare had to find another form. After 1608, Shakespeare wrote no more

Rudolf Steiner has shown that every true ascent is preceded by renunciation. And the heart of imaginative truth reached through renunciation implies forgiveness.

tragedies. His way of dramatizing the problem of evil, the mystery of suffering, the question of Job, changes. From 1608 to 1611, there were four plays—Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest —in which Shakespeare was either the sole or the principal author They are usually known as the Late Romances, and they move us into a different world from the Great Tragedies. The trials and terrors of life, the vicious wrongs that human beings inflict on each other, are still present, but their final resolution is not death. It is reconciliation. Not the kind of reconciliation of the earlier comedies—one that typically transpires in laughter—and is designed to satisfy us as an audience, but one that instead challenges the boundaries of reality. The new themes of the Late Romances are recognition, repentance , renunciation, reunification, renewal, and resurrection.

Couples separated for decades are brought back together. Parents are reunited with children. The masculine principle of head thinking (usually a father) is subsumed by the feminine principle of heart thinking—Sophia (usually a daughter). The old generation learns from, and is completed by, the new. Revenge—the theme of so many Elizabethan and Jacobean plays and of course of Hamlet itself—is put aside. Power over others is let go. Human acts that would have been treated as unforgivable are now forgiven. These plays are called “Romances” because they are full of impossibilities and miracles. Second chances. What has fallen apart comes together, but in a new way.

These are not stories for children, not Hollywood happy endings, and not excuses for turning away from the Abyss. The inexhaustibility of the Great Tragedies is still there. But Shakespeare is beginning to work with

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what we might call, in the light of anthroposophy, the transformation of the Consciousness Soul into the “Imaginative Soul”11 which gropes its way to a reunion with the macrocosm, the spirit, through the imagination’s creation of meaning.

When he turns to the Late Romances, language changes even further. Sometimes the pentameter seems almost to disappear. It becomes more irregular, more elliptical, more grammatically unfixed. Syntactically looser. More elusive and enigmatic. More primitive and pure. Above all, more strange. The lines are full of repetitions, inversions, interpolations and breakings off, and sudden changes of mind. It is unfinished, newborn, gleaming with suggestion. Closer, in other words, to the wellspring of cognition—not judgment, but cognitive feeling.

As Russ McDonald notes in Shakespeare Late Style, lines and sentences are often suspended. Their meaning is withheld to the very end. Closure is prolonged. The use of language plays together with the driving excitement of the plots of the Romances. As Cecily puts it in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, “The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.”12 The impossibility, the obvious fairy tale quality of that ending is very much there, but at the same time there is an acceptance, even a welcoming, of the unreality, an acknowledgment of mystery, and a willingness to see into and believe the incomprehensible life of things.

We feel lifted into another realm that is consciously unreal, deliberately theatrical, and a place of wonder. The whole focus of the drama sometimes vanishes from what is said to what is not said—into vision and music. Song and spectacle are everywhere. But Shakespeare is not just pleasing his audience. He is grappling with the fundamental question of the transforming Consciousness Soul: In what way is Imagination true?

Rudolf Steiner has shown that every true ascent is 11 Owen Barfield, in “Of the Consciousness Soul,” (in Romanticism Comes of Age, p. 102) speaks of the evolution of the Consciousness Soul to what Rudolf Steiner once called ‘The Imaginative Soul.’ After an earlier version of this essay had been presented as a talk, I discovered that John O’Meara, in Othello’s Sacrifice, also sees a transformation from the Consciousness Soul experience to the beginnings of the Imaginative Soul in the Late Romances. Mr. O’Meara views Pericles, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest in terms of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. While I have great respect for Mr. O’Meara’s vision of the plays, I do not see the workings of anthroposophy in Shakespeare at such a precise level. Nor do I discern in the chronology of the plays a parallel initiatory experience of Shakespeare himself. I also find that while the Late Romances explore a world which is at an evolutionary advance from the Great Tragedies, they are not for that reason better dramas.

12 Russ McDonald, Shakespeare’s Late Style, (Cambridge 2006), p. 168.

on image #3 (see previous page)

preceded by renunciation. And the heart of imaginative truth reached through renunciation implies forgiveness. When it is unexpectedly granted, we feel a strange, sweet shock. It suspends the old law of cause and effect and creates a new one. The delight in taking offense, the instinct for blame and revenge are dismissed as manifestations of the need to experience ‘myself.’ Forgiveness is not a prescription we follow. It is a reality that we recognize, that we realize as the unhidden truth. It is the mysterious alchemy of the Late Plays.

Esoteric meaning is cold and dry without the touchstone of life. Shakespeare’s plays, as Ben Jonson said in his

Gallery: Metamorphosis of Fear: an Exploration

Artist Background

Elizabeth L. Lombardi

A long time art teacher in Waldorf Schools in Long Island, NY, Princeton, NJ, and presently Great Barrington, MA, Elizabeth Lombardi has also taught watercolor at Trenton State and Mercer County Community Colleges, NJ, as well as adult classes in Princeton, NJ. She was the artist-in-residence at the Arts Council of Princeton for many years.

Her own studies included Oberlin College, Ohio; The Arts Students’ League, New York City; Kunst Academie, Vienna, Austria; and Oskar Kokoshka Schule des Sehens, Salzburg, Austria; as well as further studies of the figure with Jacques Fabert in Buckingham, PA.

introduction to the First Folio, are “rammed with life.” Life (in Greek, “zoe ”) emerges in art when the artist is able to put aside his own ego and see clearly (clairvoyantly) what was formerly hidden, i.e., what is true. Because Shakespeare was able to do that more intensely than any other writer, his meanings are esoteric in the most genuine of senses.

Fred Dennehy is an attorney in practice in New Jersey, serving as General Counsel to a large law firm and specializing in professional responsibility. He earned a PhD in English and in recent years has performed in more than a dozen Shakespeare plays. He is a classholder in the School for Spiritual Science and editor for reviews in being human.

What’s Wrong with Shakespeare (?)

by Bruce Donehower

If feelings fail you, Vain will be your course, And idle what you plan Unless your art Springs from the soul With elemental force.

Goethe, Faust

On this the occasion of the celebration of the 400th anniversary year of William Shakespeare’s death, we will hear many voices praising the Bard’s enduring impact on world literature.

We will not hear many voices complaining that Shakespeare’s influence is overrated and overblown, and that enthusiasm for Shakespeare is naively misplaced. The suggestion of such a contrarian view will, in fact, puzzle or enrage many people—it now being a matter of accepted wisdom that Shakespeare is and was and shall remain the indisputable Genius of Western Literature (no one reads Homer anymore, really).

Imagine yourself a right thinking Christian of Shakespeare’s time, suffering through a raucous performance at the Globe. How confusing, how offensive...

But in fact there are reasons to complain of Shakespeare and to ask: “What’s wrong with a world that idolizes this playwright?”

Don’t get me wrong! I am a fan of Shakespeare. I taught his plays and poetry enthusiastically as a professor at UC Davis. I championed him in meetings of the Section for Literary Arts and Humanities. I enthusiastically lectured to anthroposophical branches on his seminal importance as a Rosicrucian initiate. (There, I have unfurled my banner!)

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But because I am trained in the discipline of the humanities, I take for granted that there are conflicting views. Say one thing is absolutely so, and it is certain that you can make a counterargument that the completely opposite position is in fact the absolutely right way to see the world. Shakespeare, by the way, does this all the time. We call it doubling—saying one thing while implying just the opposite at the same time, so that the poor reader doesn’t know what the heck to believe is True. The plays are rife with examples—and Shakespeare seems to take a devilish delight in the practice. For example, in our recent Section meetings in Fair Oaks we discussed how the “sublime” tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is mirrored and parodied by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The two plays are really one play turned inside out and outside in. (They were written at the same time.) Are we to weep for the tragic lovers, or die laughing at them? This constant doubling and shifting and unwillingness (no pun intended) to say “Just What We Should Think or Believe” is one reason that some folks find Shakespeare annoying—especially folks who want a story wrapped up with a fine moral and delivered to us with a homily that tells us how to live more meaningful lives. Shakespeare refuses—or, to use a cliché: Shakespeare always hides the cheese.

Imagine yourself a right-thinking Christian of the time, suffering through a raucous performance at the Globe. How confusing, how offensive, how blatantly physical, how maddeningly contra-metaphysical, how impossibly fun and randy and wild and wildly suggestive is the scene! Too much, too much—too natural! —might you cry.

And that, by the way, sums up one good reason to complain. Shakespeare, the so-called poet of Nature (Samuel Johnson started this line of thought), presents the world as it meets us in all its complexity, in all the multifaceted beauty and horror of our human situation, but he doesn’t offer us a summary metanarrative of moral oversight, an ideology, or some sort of narrated metaphysic with which to console us in our experience of our dream or nightmare of life. Characters, for example, like Polonius in Hamlet, may offer such consolation, but not Shakespeare. Shakespeare is never tendentious. For every Hal, there is a Falstaff. For every Romeo, a Bottom. And

so on. It can drive you nuts. Those who complained of Shakespeare, and of the theater in Shakespeare’s time— the Puritans, for example—were ceaseless in their fury to close down this riotous, mixed-up scene. And they did, in fact, prevail—eventually succeeding in their quest to institute a cultural revolution that closed down the theaters and rousted out the sort of questionable individuals who make the world wobbly, uncertain, weird.

So there’s One Thing Wrong with Shakespeare: he just won’t say what’s really so; he won’t—shall we paraphrase?—stand his ground.

Gallery: Metamorphosis of Fear: an Exploration

Elizabeth’s work has garnered awards both regionally and nationally. She has exhibited in several New Jersey museums including the New Jersey State Museum and the Montclair Museum. She is a past president of the Garden State Watercolor Society and an elected member of the New Jersey Watercolor Society.

Since moving full time to New Marlborough, MA in 2004, she has been active on the Gallery Committee of the New Marlborough Meeting House. She maintains a studio in her home at which she paints commissioned portraits and other works. SteinerBooks published her children’s book, Jonathan’s Journey, in 2012.

In more recent times, someone of note who voiced this complaint about Shakespeare, more or less, was Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy launched a salvo against Shakespeare in the later years of his life in which he took the Bard to the mat on a number of issues. His opening words are worth quoting. I don’t think we find a more humorous smack down of a famous author by another famous author outside the gripe that Mark Twain had with James Fennimore Cooper—but that’s another story. Tolstoy writes:

I remember the astonishment I felt when I first read Shakespeare. I expected to receive a powerful esthetic

If we find ourselves outside the consolation of a metanarrative that makes a tidy fable of human life, then we walk in freedom with the Bard.

pleasure, but having read, one after the other, works regarded as his best: King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth, not only did I feel no delight, but I felt an irresistible repulsion and tedium, and doubted as to whether I was senseless in feeling works regarded as the summit of perfection by the whole of the civilized world to be trivial and positively bad, or whether the significance which this civilized world attributes to the works of Shakespeare was itself senseless.

Not only is our adulation of Shakespeare and his dramas “senseless,” things get worse. Tolstoy concludes his paragraph in a grand crescendo of moral outrage and calls the adulation of Shakespeare’s “non-existent merits” an “evil.” Once the big E-word gets trotted out—well, you get the picture.

But this essay isn’t about Tolstoy. If it were, we could put Goethe on the scales to counterbalance Russian gravitas. Goethe in his youth had a destiny meeting with Shakespeare. Irresistible attraction, rather than “repulsion,” marked the encounter. In Goethe’s words:

The first page I read made me a slave to Shakespeare for life. And when I had finished reading the first drama, I stood there like a man blind from birth whom a magic hand has all at once given light. I realized and felt intensely that my life was infinitely expanded. Everything seemed new to me, unfamiliar, and the unaccustomed light hurt my eyes. Gradually I learned to see, and, thanks to my awakened spirit, I still feel intensely what I have gained.

Rudolf Steiner, by the way, underscored the importance of Goethe’s encounter with the Bard and the “deeply significant” influence that Shakespeare had on Goethe—and German literature generally, I might add.

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Steiner’s remarks about Shakespeare are entirely positive. Most interesting to me, however, is that Steiner appreciated that Shakespeare was a person of the theater—in his bones, an actor. Much that some folks find offensive, morally suspect, and/or wobbly in the Bard derives from this fact, one might argue. But Steiner cites this as a matter to be accepted and praised.

In other words, the “Play” for Shakespeare was the thing. “The intellect with its explanations, its consistencies and inconsistencies, cannot approach” those dramas, Steiner tells us (Shakespeare and the New Ideals). This, the complex drama of the human character in all our meanness, ridiculousness, sorrow, and sublimity (the list of confusion goes on)—this is what Shakespeare presents upon the stage.

To sum it up, then, “what’s wrong with Shakespeare” is the same as “what’s right.” It comes back to who we are. For those who would witness life through the lens of a metanarrative, finding morals and higher meanings and eschewing “fallen” nature as that which is undeserving of High Artistic Serious Intent—well, then Shakespeare is not your guy. But if we find ourselves outside the consolation of a metanarrative that makes a tidy fable of human life, then we walk in freedom with the Bard. His plays, in all their diversity, are alive, but they confront us with the same bewildering riddle as life. They are eloquent of that mystery, but at the same time, profoundly silent, like the Sphinx. Some can endure the mystery; some cannot.

Bruce Donehower (bdonehower@yahoo.com) is Lecturer in the University Writing Program at the University of California at Davis. He is the author of Miko, Little Hunter of the North, illustrated by Tom Pohrt (1990); The Singing Tree: An Alchymical Fable (2004); Ice: A Novel of Initiation (2004); and SancXtuary: A Novel (2012). He is translator and editor of The Birth of Novalis (2007). Most of his books are available from the Rudolf Steiner Library. He is active in the Literary Arts & Humanities Section of the School for Spiritual Science.

Shakespeare, portrait by William Blake

The Currency of Self

by John Bloom

Technically, money is meant to be nothing more than a holder of assigned value and to serve as a means for facilitating the exchange of goods and services. However, money is also a complicated social reality, and it is encrusted with layers of perception, values, assumptions, and behaviors. For example, we say we invest money. At the same time, it is hard to imagine ourselves as not invested with the money. This is the essence of mutuality. More broadly, every transaction we are directly involved in has an element of self, regardless of how dispassionate we may be. If we are to understand our relationship to money and all the issues connected with it, we first have to look at our understanding of self. And there is no better or more ubiquitous herald of this complex of issues than the selfie.

The Selfie

The practice of taking pictures of oneself via a smartphone or handheld digital device, a selfie, is distinguished from the studied art genre of selfportraits. With time, selfies may join that classification in name if not in physical manifestation. But for now, selfies serve a double function—as a self-generated affirmation of one’s existence, and as a social currency that has its origins in the mid-nineteenth century photographic form, the carte- de-visite.

Cartes- de- visite were 4-inch by 2.5-inch calling cards, first developed in 1845 by Eugene Disderi in Paris. They were extremely popular, and produced in large quantities to serve both relational and promotional purposes. Of course, the selfie is infinitely easier to create and distribute as it is essentially a weightless image. By necessity, cartes were produced in studio by a professional photographer with camera and replicable negative film. Through distribution, both forms follow and memorialize the pathways of relational networks.

Apart from its color and scale, the selfie has a different quality than the sepia-toned cartes. Selfies can be selfproduced on demand, and inevitably have a relationship to place. In fact, the practice of taking a selfie is often most

motivated by the desire to show where I am along with what I look like and who I may be with. My place in the world, as fleeting as it might be, is as important as my signature.

Fiat Currency

The selfie is a kind of fiat currency based on recognition and reputation. Its value emerges at the transactional level of send and receive, save or delete. The sheer ease of production, replication, and distribution assure a constant inflation-deflation that tracks with an inflateddeflated sense of self. We will likely never move past some need to assure ourselves of our own presence, beyond what a mirror might fleetingly reflect. To establish value for oneself through the circulation of selfies, as a way to hold oneself to accounts through the stories they tell, is something of an antidote (real or virtual) to how the fiat currency we call money actually works. Missing from federal fiat currency is any reflection of one’s self. In fact, federal fiat currency is designed to deny a sense of self. Conventional money is intended to promulgate the sense of a centralized monolithic authority in which individual identity matters least. While this submerging of self creates extraordinary efficiency in accounting, it is also dehumanizing. One could look at the selfie as an attempt to individualize currency, and demonstrate its abundance.

The Problem of Representation

The selfie could be seen as an illusion of and allusion to the experience of self. The dislocation or remove from direct experience points to the problem of representation in which the image is mistaken for the thing represented—a kind of substitution. What implications are there in thinking that the image of oneself, the substitute, is the primary object by which the balance of our understanding of the world emerges? I can’t help but find this question essential to understanding how the next generation perceives itself in the world. Image-driven, what’s-mybrand consciousness abounds. Self-knowledge in ancient wisdom and traditions is replaced by brand management. This is very different from the experience of inner moral compass, the voice of which constantly asks, “Am I living as who my higher self imagines me to be?”

Unknown person, carte de visite, 1870s, San Francisco.

The selfie heralds a kind of double bind for individuality. While I can instantly represent and distribute my selfimage and location at a particular moment, I can—at the same time—separate myself from that presentation. This is both gift and vulnerability. The gift of weightless distribution serves my memory and that of others.

Vulnerability resides in mistaking the illusion for reality, and thinking that you are in relationship with yourself and others. This is one reason why we are more fragile than ever in how we stand in the world—a fragility that translates as loneliness, isolation, and separation in a supposedly connected world. So what do we do with this double bind?

Identity

Identity, the self we know to be authentic, is the last frontier of the world of commerce. The degree to which our identity is defined by the media, perhaps even claimed by the media, is the degree to which we are defined as consumers. I, for instance, buy commodities based on the values alignment I have with those products, which in turn is based on how they’ve been marketed to me. I acknowledge that this sets me up to be a commodity, the customer, defined by the constellation of bought brands.

The notion of commoditizing and annihilating the self by capturing it in a picture leads to a deeper attachment to self as a way to protect against a sense of loss. The fixed image is anathema to the ever-metamorphosing spirit-self that is the essence of each individual. One consequence of this process is a need for ever more selfies. So the ethereal image of self abides as currency in the thin polluted air of our time—to trade or leave behind. The desire to be human, to be recognized by others, even the ability to recognize one’s self, all are getting lost in the selfie transactions for which there is no accounting and no bottom line.

Money as a concept is a tool of accounting and economic exchange. But the way we have come to use it is a reflection of the transactional self—all consuming, identity bearing, entirely virtual, and moving boundlessly across the world. It might seem a contradiction; but the more we picture ourselves, the more invisible we become. We mistake ourselves for our shadows as Plato framed it in

his metaphor of the cave. Where are we when we need us?

Blurred Distinction

The forces of illusory connection are strong and constantly reinforced at the speed of data, even as our capacity to connect in real time and place fades— despite the reality that such connection actually nourishes us. No doubt technology has contributed much to how we engage with and understand the world. Time and space have changed, as have our consciousness and expectations of the world. Our sense of self has shifted along with this evolution, but this has come with ever-increasing stress as we have to work harder to stay grounded. I cannot help but feel that the more we accept the selfie as feeding the brand of self, the further we are from the reality that forms our being. The more we trade in the self as currency, the more we commodify our self only to be stored and accumulated as bits and bytes of data, or unceremoniously deleted. As we convey what resembles us through a universal binary code, the more like money we become.

The distinction between money currency and the currency of self is blurring. As money is increasingly created and exchanged through digital block chains, so too is the self reimagined through the selfie with its own brand and value chain. What and how we value is linked with speed in exchange rather than depth of being. It is no wonder that we often feel defined by how much money we make or have, or don’t have. I am left with the relativist-absolutist question of identity. Finding a lasting definition of self, or even what a self is, is a difficult challenge partly because it is not a thing ; it is unique to each of us. What this calls for is the peculiar human capacity for self-knowledge, freed of the projections, messages, and expectations that culture, polity, and the economic world have sent our way. The selfie is a signifier of absorption with the self and the epitome of self-interest, a posture that is closely shared with money currency. An unmediated and objective knowledge of self may be our prime antidote to the currencies of our time, and the key to being in the world with a more conscious and compassionate practice of interdependence.

John Bloom is vice president of organizational culture at RSF Social Finance; in October 2016 he will take on the responsibility of General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. This article was published in the Reimagine Money blog of RSF Social Finance, May 10, 2016, at rsfsocialfinance.org/2016/05/10/the-currency-of-self/

Author Selfie, iPhone, DC, 2016

Here and Now

Like understudies running lines, itching for their chance at center stage, they watch us, certain always they’d improve on the performance. Practicing existence in our choices and our failures, the unborns of the world wait. The voiceless dead around them burn with advice. Their regrets speckle the air like gnats on a summer night, as we plod on, half-embarrassed to be blessed here and now with so much life and so precious little wisdom.

Absence of Benign Deprivation

What you kids need is a good depression, my mother said, undone by the abundance her grace of simple living seemed powerless to overcome. Her words intrigued us even as we held them up to ridicule. What if that mysterious “good” in the Great Depression were something we might have to do without?

Now to our own children we say inexplicable things. And we can give them everything but what they truly need— the shaping form of need itself, the expectant concave gesture of emptiness, the thing they long for as I craved peaches when pregnant. While we fill their walls with art, their hours with lessons, their rooms with toys, their heads with wisdom, their ears with quality music in surround-sound, their fantasies have them orphaned, begging in the streets.

Take our daughter, loved and lavished by two parents and a house full of brothers. How often she pretends herself a lonely waif, building a cottage of cardboard or forming shelter among the trees, adorning barren surroundings with found objects, surviving on forest berries or singing for sustenance. Tales of street children spark her imagination more than princess stories.

The Little Match Girl feeds her hunger to be hungry. Her mind is most active in conjuring lack, putting up a tent village on the verdant, tree-lined streets of her neighborhood, peopling it with cripples and beggars and gaunt, mythic mothers with many babies nursing them thin. In her “pretends” she finally bands with capable, independent children like herself who can build amid the ruins. They begin to form a heart’s home out of dreams and nothingness.

Rhythm

Oh, tedium, I need you, those daily anticipated tasks plainly mystical in sameness, dutiful bodily doing that, rote as the road to home, unshackles the chance of rapture.

How to Wash a Body

Proceed to the room charged with merit, into time exiled from time. Enter the way you might lower yourself into a warm estuary undisturbed by ebb and rise of compliant tides. Liminal space will assist.

Everything you do will be the right thing. Clear away paraphernalia intended to hold Death at bay—the pills, unguents, tubes, machines.

Light six beeswax candles. Bring in silks and weavings the color of spring, flowers blossomed in unfiltered sunlight. Advance the onslaught of splendor. Close the eyes that no longer see, the mouth that has spoken its last profundity or a final curse of acid words that spewed from the throat like purge. They are even now dispersing into ether and light. Pass a pastel scarf under the slack jaw; tie it tight behind the crown to hold in the silence. Cut away garments no one will wear again. Discard them with the useless medicaments. Pull a clean sheet up over the torso, solicitous of final modesty. Press downward toward the pelvic bone to expel any lingering excretions. Remove and discard the soiled towel.

You are ready for cleansing. Scent warm, soapy water with rose petals or lavender oil. Wash gently as you would a newborn. Warmth will tiptoe gingerly off the skin out through the swirling air in the room. Anoint with frankincense.

Sing. Sing beyond sound.

Let the washing hum with all that is melodic in you. Sing as water sings, as clean sings as the silence tied into the silent mouth sings to the stars.

Maureen Tolman Flannery is the author of Tunnel into Morning , seven other books of poetry, and a chapbook of poems Snow and Roses about Traute Lafrenz Page and her work with the White Rose Society in WWII Germany. Raised on a Wyoming sheep ranch, Maureen and her actor husband Dan have raised their four children in Chicago.

research & reviews

IN THIS SECTION:

For many years Alexander Dreier delighted us with lectures as “Herr Dreier.” A new book shares the poetic depth of his experience with a neurological disaster.

What happens when a neurosurgeon “dies” and comes back? Eben Alexander has given new credibility to near-death experiences (NDEs), and an anthroposophic physician is grateful.

Douglas Sloan has been a fan and heavy user of the Society’s Rudolf Steiner Library for decades, continuing in its new home in Hudson, NY. He wants you to know about it, too.

Sara Ciborski, who has contributed many fine reviews to being human, would like for anthroposophy itself to be better known—as a rich spiritual path.

The Brain Is a Boundary

The Brain Is a Boundary: A Journey in Poems to the Borderlines of Lewy Body Dementia; by Alexander Dreier, Lindisfarne Books 2016.

Review by Fred Dennehy

Imagine you are driving home along a familiar road one evening. As you approach a well-lit underpass you suddenly see a large animal lumber off the curb in the path of your car. As you slam on the brakes—too late—you see an alligator directly ahead of you! But somehow, in the seconds that elapse before your car screeches to a stop, there is no sudden jolt or bump, nothing to mark the collision that had to have happened. You get out of the car and you look around, back and under. No alligator. Nothing like it. The only jolt was to your sense of reality.

This encounter with a non-existent alligator happened to Alexander Dreier in 2011. It was the catalyst leading him to a focused path of diagnosis for what had been a long-standing and baffling condition of debilitating fatigue, one that had been ascribed variously to Lyme disease and to that ne’er-do-well cousin scratching at the door of diagnostic legitimacy, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

But fatigue had been only the most alarming of a number of seemingly unconnected symptoms. Years earlier, Alexander had lost all sense of smell. And for some time, he had been experiencing intermittent visual distortions—seeing, for instance, in a granite outcropping, a rendering of Richard Nixon’s face, jowls and all, or the stunningly clear outline of a polar bear. Alexander had also developed a sleep disorder in which he found himself physically acting out violent dreams, and often finding himself caught in the nether world between wakefulness and sleep.

After the alligator incident, Alexander followed the modern path of self-diagnosis—Google. He came to the conclusion that he might have Lewy Body Disease (“LBD”), a progressive brain disorder having a family of symptoms including visual anomalies (ranging from mild visual distortions to outright hallucinations), problems with “executive functioning,” loss of the sense of smell and continuing low energy. After a dismissive (but in Alexander’s personal recounting, hilarious) non-diagnosis from a neurologist at a local hospital, who deemed Alexander too smart, articulate, and stable to have anything pathologically amiss, he received a sudden and alarming reversal of opinion from the same source—early onset Alzheimer’s. Nothing to be done. But Alexander had had experience with Alzheimer’s in his own family, and he and his wife Olivia concluded—correctly—that the diagnosis was wrong. He made an appointment with Dr. Bradley Boeve, one of the world’s leading experts in LBD, located at the Mayo Clinic. After a visit to Rochester, Minnesota, Alexander’s own two hour internet diagnosis was fully confirmed.

What is LBD? It is (at least in Alexander’s case) a very slow, progressive form of dementia. Small balls of protein called “Lewy bodies” form in the neurons and block the brain’s production of neuron transmitters that allow impulses to cross from one end of a synapse to another. In Parkinson Disease, these protein balls first strike the motor neurons, while in LBD they enter the inner recesses of the brain and especially affect those parts concerned with visuospatial processing, and so produce visual illusions and hallucinations. They also appear to be related to parts of the brain differentiating among wakefulness, dreaming, and deep sleep.

Without question, this is a sobering diagnosis to have thrust upon you. But along with the frightening decline you experience in performing ordinary tasks and in visual processing, you may experience a distinct increase in creativity. In Alexander’s case, the creative flowering did not come out of nowhere. For years (and it may be that the onset of LBD was decades long) he had been one of the funniest, wittiest persons any of us knew. He had been, among many other things, a stage comedian. His gift (sometimes it seemed like an affliction) for instant word play was amazing. What many did not know was that he was also a highly-skilled poet.

What does LBD do to a person already gifted in the expansion of word meanings and the quick (in every sense) perception of the confluence of the absurd and the meaningful? Does the distortion in perception caused by LBD cause a poet to move “backward” in the process that Owen Barfield termed “figuration”—from the ice crystals to the water, from the cheese to the milk, from thoughts to Thinking—closer to the Source? Alexander, who may know the answer to those questions better than anyone, thinks the answer is “yes.” “Every day,” he says, “I encounter another possibility of seeing, hearing, or simply observing some object that presents itself in a cloak of newness that radiates previously unknown features or knowings. Where yesterday there was a stout old apple tree in the orchard, today I notice a large-bottomed middle-aged dancer of indeterminate gender, seemingly engaged in rhythmical, gestural symphony with unseen companions.”

All this is by way of background to a remarkable collection of poems, some of which were written after Alexander’s diagnosis, but many of which were composed in the decade before. Some are directly about the experiences undergone by the poet as a result of LBD. Perhaps the most striking of these is “Chronicles of Lewy IV: What Happened”—an objective, sometimes ironic and always wonder-laden account of a real, day-long encounter at the boundary of the physical and elemental worlds experienced by Alexander on an island off the coast of Maine. Like “Lewy Body Chronicles IV,” most of the poems in this volume are of intimate and personal experiences, but viewed from a lens very different from the film of familiarity through which most of us recollect the event of our lives.

The poems touch upon Alexander’s remembrances of his mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, her death on the winter solstice, her memorial, and his subsequent

recollections. There are poems about war, about ordinary life on the farm, and some of the most touching love poems that I have read. Finally, there are poems specifically about boundaries and thresholds, liminal meditations that confront, struggle against and play with the delicate meetings of percept with concept. Of these, one in particular will call to mind for many readers the longstanding yearly retreats with Georg Kuhlewind which Alexander attended for decades:

Flossing My Mind

Flossing my mind, a word came out, fell to the floor, and with a barely audible - ping –bounced up to land dead at the side of the sink in a pulsating splatter of reddish pink at the edge, evidence of recent life, more recent dying, So sad, and yet, in the painful words of another stock phrase, dead words happen

It’s why we can’t think,

Indeed they die so young, so attentively ignored, that we take little notice even as their solidified corpses are paraded up and down, as if by sleight of hand they’d re-inhabit the word-souls long since departed to their moist and shadowy reward. This one was different. I saw it die, I felt it struggle for that moment like a fledgling just about to fly, before my mindless efforts plucked it from a thicket of supra-cranial energies, ripped its nascent self out of the womb of words, ejected it into this, our cold, clean, analytic world where the flag of stone and gravity stands unfurled, a realm where translucent word-flesh cannot for more than moments stay meaningfully alive.

But I did notice this time

And cradled its corpse with a new reverence.

Alexander’s poetic voice is distinct. After reading this collection, you would be able, I think, to identify a new poem of his if you happened to encounter one without attribution. If pressed to select a well-known poet for comparison, I would choose Robert Frost, who so often confronts universal themes through reference to the natural and the ordinary, and who sometimes seems to speak with two voices, one welcoming and conversational, and the other somewhat darker, suggesting at once both fright and childlike wonder.

I do not know which is my favorite of Alexander’s poems, but this is one of them:

Believe In The Silver Egret

Try to believe in the silver egret resting in still blue water.

If you escape the shackles of time you will come to know that behind her eyes is an impossibly high mountain layered over with sheets of gold. Give of your all to her, unwittingly, without concern. She will be neither embarrassed nor embraced by your attention.

At length will you sense the wind as it brings in a great four-masted schooner, sails covering all the sky, their fabric drawn taut with purpose.

You will be startled by thunder cracking behind, bolts of lightning tearing the sky ahead, and, you may notice smaller white birds fluttering over foam.

At this moment, above, all, believe in the silver egret resting in still blue water.

The Brain is a Boundary includes a prose section by Alexander detailing his experience with his diagnosis and the disease, and a medical afterword by Dr. Boeve, the physician who confirmed Alexander’s diagnosis and is currently treating him. There is also a wonderful and personal introduction by his friend Arthur Zajonc.

Fred Dennehy is an attorney in practice in New Jersey, serving as General Counsel to a large law firm and specializing in professional responsibility. He earned a PhD in English and in recent years has performed in more than a dozen Shakespeare plays. He is a classholder in the School for Spiritual Science and editor for reviews in being human.

The Riddle of Consciousness

Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife. Eben Alexander, M.D. (Simon & Schuster, 2012) 196 pages

The Map of Heaven: How Science, Religion, and Ordinary People Are Proving the Afterlife. Eben Alexander, M.D. (Simon & Schuster, 2014) 208 pages

Review by Serguei Krissiouk

If the story does not contain a question, but instead is filled with definitions and explanations, it is usually not an interesting story. Similarly, if the story of a human life does not contain vitally important, even burning questions—Who am I? Why am I here? or What is my purpose? —no descriptions or explanations can satisfy the mind and soul of a seeker. We innately search for the truth until the answers are received from the depth of our being.

Surprisingly, when the longing for immediate experience of reality begins, questions are more valuable than easy-to-get answers. It is always refreshing and encouraging to find a story filled with meaningful queries and honestly earned solutions, especially in our modern culture of information at our fingertips.

Consider the story of Dr. Eben Alexander, a highly trained neurosurgeon, whose near-death experience (NDE) in a seven-day coma opened unexpected, yet profoundly awe-inspiring realms of experience and knowledge.

Dr. Alexander’s books, Proof of Heaven (2012), and The Map of Heaven (2014), both published by Simon and Schuster, contain detailed accounts of the author’s personal NDE experience, induced by severe bacterial meningitis, along with his consequent discoveries of consciousness independent of body and brain.

Proof of Heaven is more descriptive and autobiographical than his second book, The Map of Heaven. The former paints a visceral, emotionally-charged, and sometimes dramatic picture of the author’s out-of-body experiences. The latter illustrates a more contemplative picture, by integrating his experiential knowledge and visions of the afterlife with those of the world’s spiritual leaders, philosophers, and scientists.

Both books contain a single clear message—that human consciousness holds the key to the doors of perception and understanding. Dr. Alexander explores his NDE as an indispensable tool for gaining insights into both the meaning of human life and the structure of reality. His intent is not simply to prove intellectually the independence of brain and body consciousness, but to take the reader with him through his personal NDE.

In Proof of Heaven, the reader senses the power of Dr. Alexander’s personal experience during this seven-day coma, which resulted in completely erasing his “healthy sense of scientific self-preservation.”

As a respected surgeon, Dr. Alexander understands acutely the potential risks involved in sharing such a heretofore “non-scientific phenomenon,” but the directness and sincerity of his message challenges the reader to think beyond what can be mathematically calculated and verified according to accepted scientific models.

He recalls the effect on his small and limited “self,” which became, during the experience, so overwhelmed by the magnificence and grandeur of creation that the “facade” of a good doctor and secular scientist indeed died. This death was so complete and final that an emptiness was created for a new life-giving and limitless essence to enter and transform his awareness and energies. He explains that this was, for him, a death and resurrection, or a second birth to the great and “more real than real” reality.

Dr. Alexander’s characterization of himself flying on the wing of a butterfly in his out-of-body experience may lead the reader to wonder about the significance of this image.

In Christianity, the  butterfly has long been a symbol of the resurrection of Christ as well as the resurrection of believers. The caterpillar disappears into a cocoon, which is like the tomb Christ lay in after the crucifixion, appearing dead. Later, it emerges from ‘death,’ having transformed into something more beautiful and powerful than it was. The butterfly symbol is seen especially around Easter; the Christian holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Christ. But the butterfly is also a symbol of every Christian’s hope of resurrection from the dead,

so it is sometimes displayed at the memorials and funerals of believers as well.1

We may also consider the biblical reference of Dr. Alexander’s butterfly metaphor:

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. —1 Corinthians 15:42-44

Dr. Alexander’s central message, that human consciousness is the most important essence and expression of being—both individual and cosmic—reveals itself as well to be the most precise and indispensable tool for any scientific investigation. Does this not align completely with one of the principal functions of anthroposophy as a study centered on human consciousness?

In the chapter of Proof of Heaven titled “The Enigma of Consciousness,” the author gives a very clear and convincing account of his experience of consciousness as “more real than the rest of physical existence.” He states:

In fact, I feel confident in saying that, while I didn’t even know the term at the time, while in the Gateway and in the Core 2 , I was actually “doing science.” Science that relied on the truest and most sophisticated tool for scientific research that we possess: Consciousness itself. The further I dug, the more convinced I became that my discovery wasn’t just interesting or dramatic. It was scientific… But what made my experience unusual was the jolting immediacy with which I experienced the basic role of Consciousness, or spirit. It wasn’t theory when I learned this up there, but a fact, overwhelming and immediate as a blast of arctic air in the face.

What can be more inspiring and heart-warming than this realization that we are beings living in the world of reality with a real purpose right now and right here? What can threaten, discourage, or belittle us, if we win this knowledge back—this deep and most mysterious knowledge of our true origin, destination, and being? Nothing! Nothing can destroy this eternal life that we are. But we must strive with utmost intensity to remember and regain our innate glory, which is indeed the gift of the Divine! Thus we solve the mystery of The Riddle of Consciousness, because this sacred knowledge is not foreign or

1 “butterfly,” ReligionFacts.com, 10 Nov. 2015; accessed 6 May 2016 at www.religionfacts.com/butterfly

2 According to Dr. Alexander’s description of his out-of-body experience, the Gateway is the realm of spinning filaments of white-gold light and living sound; the Core is the realm of the Divine. Proof of Heaven, Chapters 7 & 9.

external to us. This knowing is concealed in the depth of our being, dormant, waiting to be awakened and brought into the brilliant bright light of human consciousness.

In Proof of Heaven, Dr. Alexander examines a moment from his experience. “Here, to see was to know. There was no distinction between my experiencing and understanding it.” If we try to align our awareness with the meaning concealed in these words, we inevitably arrive at the key quality of reality: in the world of reality, “being” means “complete knowing” that our perception and consciousness is right here and right now. “The Kingdom of God does not come with observation; Nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17, 20-21) Though we have heard this many times, do we truly know?

What stands in our way? What prevents us from attaining to the world of reality? There are indeed serious barriers on the way, including the condition of near total automatism in the functions of the brain and nervous system—cold, mechanical, abstract thinking; automatic, reflex-like re-actions to external stimuli and internal urges; habitual, conditioned, and predictable perceptual and behavioral patterns.

Here is what Dr. Alexander says about the brain. “Our brains, in a very real sense do much of our thinking for us. Some of that thinking ... reaches our consciousness a fraction of a second after the thinking has actually occurred.” This observation is based on the study by Benjamin Libet and others, published in the journal Brain in 1983. Further on he notes,

There is strong evidence that the brain is a quantum computer: that it receives information from the morethan-physical worlds and transmits information back to those worlds via means that science has yet to understand. We may be materialists, but our minds aren’t. The physical brain simply can’t afford to be out of contact with super-physical world. But in the course of working to keep us alive on planet earth, our brains can encourage us to think materialistically by blocking our knowledge not only of the spiritual world but of our deep unity with it ... During my coma, my cortex was essentially erased. As a result, that higher world, which I ordinarily kept repressed, flooded into my awareness with a clarity and brilliance that blew me away. That brilliance and clarity is the core reality of the universe. It’s what really is. But we have allowed ourselves to be tricked by the survival-oriented parts of our brain to lose sight of that “glory” and that “freshness.”

Dr. Alexander’s thoughts concerning perception and the brain and its functions correspond in significant degree to numerous esoteric sources’ views on the subject. In the Bible it is stated very clearly, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18, 2-3). In Buddhism, the realm governed by habitual survival-oriented perception is called Maya —the world of illusion. Maya is the mode of perception, not really the world in its own right. The entire process of liberation, according to the Buddhist tradition, is wholly dependent on a very meticulous and demanding process of self-observation and self-transformation. The result of the work on oneself is heightened awareness, deep knowledge, understanding, wisdom, inner peace, tranquility and, in fact, spiritual rebirth.

According to another Eastern esoteric source, the ordinary mode of perception, thinking, and action is considered to be in its entirety “under the spell” of formatory apparatus—the automatic function of centers for thinking, feeling, instinct, and movement. One can argue with this statement and attempt to protect one’s sense of independence and free will, but if one observes and studies oneself meticulously, objectively, and without self-pity, it does not take too long to discover that ordinary, unrefined perception is indeed entirely mechanical. Taken in this context, ordinary life is slavery, not a life filled with dignity and grace.

What we habitually experience as the world around us is the description of the world. In this connection it is necessary and useful to carefully examine the ordinary cognitive process. In fact, this cognitive process is automatic to the degree that we usually don’t even consciously participate in it—we are, in so far as active conscious attention is concerned, almost absent from this process. The cognitive function is so involuntary that it can be compared to a magic spell which we often find in fairy tales. Many fairy tales’ central themes reflect a long and challenging path of transformation of the enchanted character by means of which the magic spell is broken and freedom is regained. This process involves struggle, often intensified to the degree of self-sacrifice. It is death and resurrection—the Phoenix burnt to a crisp and arising from the ashes, the alchemical crucible and the enigma of transmutation, the Great Work of alchemists, the death and resurrection of Christ. It is indeed the only way—the old must die for the new life to enter. The whole process of turning base impure substances into the pure refined

essence signifies a qualitative shift, a total transformation, and a birth into the new realm. This is the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone, the Great Work’s essence, and the deep mystery of the Christian impulse.

Dr. Alexander’s later book, The Map of Heaven, is a detailed account of what he has learned from others— mystics, philosophers, scientists, and many ordinary people—about the afterlife and the worlds beyond this earthly realm. The titles of all seven chapters of the book begin with the words, “The Gift of…” and continue with definitions of these gifts: Knowledge, Meaning, Vision, Strength, Belonging, Joy, and Hope. The author tells us about his enriching experience in the worlds beyond this realm. Yet his intent in writing his second book is not only to provide for us the means of orientation in these higher worlds, but also to attempt to create the bridge between this earthly world and the spiritual world, between science and religion, empiricism and mysticism. It seeks to reconcile the paradox of human situation—the limited with the unlimited, the mortal with the deathless, the confined with the eternal. The reconciliation of this paradox is the work which, if considered from the perspective of an impending death, is indeed the only real work during our stay in this earthly realm. It is no accident that the work on oneself was called the ‘Great Work’ by true adepts of alchemy, since the greatest and most important transformation was, and of course still is, the transformation of a human soul.

This deeply personal story of the author’s NDE rings true for both his contemporaries and those who have lived here on earth and passed away long ago. This personal story becomes a universal one, uniting us into a community of beings whose lives and destinies are deeply related and tightly interwoven. We all are partakers of this unfolding spectacle, the precise meaning of which is yet to be discovered by every single one of us. Something is stirred deep inside when one reads these words of the author:

…these higher realities strike you in a deeper place, because the higher in the worlds you go, the deeper the part of yourself that is being called out. At the very center, deep beneath the surface character we have built up in the course of this lifetime there is a part of us so central, so timeless, and so fundamental that mystics have been politely disagreeing for centuries as to whether it is the place where we intersect with God, or whether it is God itself.

As seen by the author, the path of ascension into the

higher worlds offers the most important gift, the gift of consciousness, but it does not mean that it is an easy path. He further explains:

The place we are going is one where terrors and confusions of this life will be resolved. But that resolution does not mean that evil, and what Christianity traditionally calls sin, do not exist. Of course they do. But they are not able to touch, or triumph over, the goodness and love that are the heart and soul of the Universe.

There is in the book a quality that transmits deeply felt truth and a sincere intent to share. One cannot accuse the author of superficiality or wishful thinking when reading his words:

You are loved—that was the most important message of my journey... The universal truth of unconditional love from the source is the most powerful message of my odyssey. It starts with loving yourself, which empowers you and connects you to oneness... The mystical traditions of all great faiths offer the same nonexclusive message—it is all about connecting to the divine through the heart.

It is difficult to express the message of the author more accurately. We are indeed loved by our Father and by the creative powers and beings which have created us. There can be no other attitude or feeling toward us, creatures, sons and daughters of these creative powers, because nothing can be created without love. Love is not a feeling or attitude only. Love is the creative, life-giving and sustaining force of the universe.

Can one think of a better or simpler way to finish the work? Honestly, I cannot. Thank you, Dr. Alexander, for your closing words …

“All is well. We are living in a new world.”

Serguei Krissiouk describes himself as a student of life and seeker of knowledge. He is an anthroposophically trained physician, holistic counselor, and homeopath, and has certificates from Emerson College (UK) Foundation Study and the Seminar for anthroposophical doctors at Filderklinik, Germany.

The Vision of the Rudolf Steiner Library

by Douglas Sloan

The purpose of the Rudolf Steiner Library is to empower and sustain the work of anthroposophy in the world. In does this by fulfilling several interrelated tasks.

Acquisitions. The Library is our anchor for works by Rudolf Steiner and other anthroposophists. It contains all the works of Rudolf Steiner in English plus German originals of his complete works. Also in the collections are many typed manuscripts of his unpublished works, and many significant, anthroposophically-related journals, some old and difficult to find. The collections include books on issues of importance in the wider culture that are of vital concern to anthroposophists. Of particular note are titles relating to the daughter movements of anthroposophy, including Waldorf education, early childhood, the Christian Community, Biodynamic farming, the social order, economics, speech and drama, the Camphill movement, and anthroposophic impulses in the arts and medicine. The riches of the Rudolf Steiner Library collections are without equal in North America. Circulation. Books are available to both members and non-members of the Society for study groups, research and personal study. In addition to general readers, many persons engaged in the special fields mentioned above make ample use of the extensive library holdings.

Preservation is a constant and challenging task. Paper is subject to deterioration, so care must be taken to provide suitable climate and atmospheric conditions and convenient, protective storage space. The Library must be equipped to make normal repairs on the collections.

Outreach. The Library is not an inert or passive storage system. Now and in the future, it can take a role in stimulating wider interest in the work of Rudolf Steiner and in anthroposophy’s engagement with the world. Such outreach may include sponsoring lectures and organizing conferences and colloquia, placing interviews and book reviews online, and participating in webinars.

Research. The Library collections offer rich enticements to researchers. The librarian’s special knowledge and familiarity with the collections offer important assistance to researchers.

The Library’s Needs Today

As reported in the Spring issue, financial constraints facing the Anthroposophic Society have necessitated serious reductions in funding available for the Library’s operations, materials, and salary for our skilled librarian.

Library supporters and volunteers are working to realize the full vision of the Library in serving anthroposophy. At the end of November, 2015, the Library moved into a modern, cheerful, and environmentally controlled facility in Hudson, New York. Local volunteers helped settle the Library into its new home with its holdings cleaned, repaired, and reorganized. With the leadership of librarian Judith Kiely the Library has continued to carry out basic services including lending, mailing, and providing guidance to enquirers.

The pressing question today, however, is whether the vital services of the Library to anthroposophy and the Anthroposophical Society can be not only sustained but also developed to the full realization of the Library’s potential and vision. Additional funds provided directly by friends and members of the anthroposophic movement will be crucial. In an effort to respond to this need for solid, additional support for the Library, the Rudolf Steiner Library Circle of Friends has been working since September, 2015, to address three essential tasks. These include:

1. Providing financial support for library personnel, books, materials, equipment, and/or services to supplement funding by the Anthroposophical Society.

2. Informing the public of the work of the Rudolf Steiner Library, its programs, events, and educational and volunteer opportunities.

3. Building understanding of the importance of the Rudolf Steiner Library to the continuing development of the anthroposophical movement in North America.

Essential to the work of anthroposophy, the Rudolf Steiner Library looks to the continued commitment and support of all the friends and members of the Anthroposophical Society. Interested persons are invited to direct questions or comments to the Rudolf Steiner Library Circle of Friends, either by email at info@rslfriends.com, or by post at PO Box 933, Philmont NY 12565.

Douglas Sloan is professor emeritus at Teachers College, Columbia University. He served on the advisory committee for the Library, and as council president of the New York Branch of the Society. In 2015 Lindisfarne Books published his The Redemption of the Animals: Their Evolution, Their Inner Life, and Our Future

Make It Known!

Anthroposophy Offers a Spiritual Path for Our Times

by Sara Ciborski

In a recent issue of being human, John Beck urged readers to undertake a campaign to make anthroposophy more visible. From where I stand, what is unfortunately less visible than it should be is that the source and fruit of anthroposophy is meditation. Many people who meet anthroposophy through Waldorf education, biodynamic farms, or other initiatives, don’t realize—because no one tells them?—that anthroposophy offers a modern path for fully conscious, individual, spiritual self-development and contemplative inquiry.

Do we make it clear, beyond our one-sentence definitions (e.g., “the wisdom of the human being”) that with the study of anthroposophy one may learn techniques for meditation—indeed, a variety of spiritual practices, which are not just relevant but critical for our times?

I’m not referring to those whose encounter with anthroposophy leads to serious engagement in the initiatives; students in Waldorf teacher education programs, for example, are given practical guidance for inner work. I’m thinking rather of folks whose contact with anthroposophists is casual or brief. We know that many people today, especially young people, want to learn how to meditate. That young and old are flocking to specifically Buddhist and other mindfulness centers attests to a widespread longing for spiritual practice. Many of them might be receptive to Steiner’s approach—if they knew that anthroposophy is an option.

We are reluctant, for good reasons, to interfere with individual destiny in this matter. But it would not infringe on anyone’s freedom if—when speaking about Rudolf Steiner or the initiatives—we were more forthcoming about anthroposophical meditation. And beyond simply recommending books or book-study groups, ideally we would make it possible for any interested person to learn from experienced students of anthroposophy some of the particular ways that we practice. And we would need to be prepared, whenever an opportunity arises in conversation, to give a thumbnail description of our practice.

To begin, we could use the phrase in italics above. But it is important to add—to distinguish the anthroposophical path from some others—that it is a cognitive path,

which can lead toward understanding as well as to inner peace, to confidence in thinking, and to knowing rather than faith. We could also stress that anthroposophical inner work addresses burning questions about the meaning of the individual self and destiny, the nature and meaning of evil, the evolution of consciousness, and the riddle of matter in relation to spirit. Mindfulness practice, as far as I know, does not engage directly in these questions. At the same time, like most other paths, anthroposophy is concerned to cultivate reverence, devotion, gratitude, and strength and insight for personal and social renewal. Specifically (we could say) that anthroposophical practice may include:

• Meditative reading of sacred texts and the study of Steiner’s basic books.

• Working with Steiner’s epistemology: how do we know what we know?

• Exercises to strengthen attentiveness and direct attention to its source.

• Exercises to develop sense-free thinking and to strengthen soul faculties to act independently of external influence or inner pathology.

• Exercises in perception and concentration.

• Meditation on specific texts, images, concepts, and themes.

• Artistic activity to awaken new spiritual faculties: poetry, music, painting, drawing, speech, movement. These points could be used in outreach—a flyer, for example, if a local branch wanted to offer an introductory meditation workshop. I know that some individuals and groups have indeed been offering guidance in practice based on, or enriched by, anthroposophy. If they would share their experience, it may encourage others among us to make this essence of anthroposophy more widely known and accessible to spiritual seekers everywhere.

Sara Ciborski (saraciborski@gmail.com) has been a member of the Anthroposophical Society since 1984 and a First Class member since 1994. She is a Waldorf parent and grandparent, worked in development for Camphill and AWSNA, and is the author of the recently published monograph Assessment for Learning in Waldorf Classrooms: How Waldorf Teachers Measure Student Progress Toward Lifelong Learning Goals. She lives in New Hampshire.

of the Anthroposophical Society in America

A Path to 2023

Introduction by Torin Finser

In recent years, General Secretaries and Goetheanum Leadership have worked ever more intensely together on creating a theme of the year. It has been an opportunity to study together and deepen our work out of anthroposophy, as well as survey the needs of our society worldwide.

The common thread for several years has been transformation and self-knowledge. As reflected in my spring contribution in being human, this year the emphasis is on self knowledge and the encounter with evil . Our work also looks at the challenges we face, and at the original intentions of the Christmas Foundation Meeting, so that we focus on essential tasks given us by Rudolf Steiner. With each panel of its great mantra we have worked with presentations by section leaders, country representatives, and others to draw forth new meaning from this living content—remembering Rudolf Steiner’s saying that in spiritual science, material must be continually created anew!

In preparation for the 100th anniversary of the Christmas refounding in 1922/23, John Beck, the Leadership Team, and General Council have been looking at a pathway toward preparation of our own in this country. Following the lead of members in the Swiss society, we want to offer a possible sequence of yearly working-themes of our own. What follows is meant only as an invitation, as everything we do in a free association of people has to be either taken up (or not) out of individual intention and initiative. Our thought is that groups and branches could enliven their work by taking the practice-theme for each year and finding study material and opportunities to share from person to person, experiences with the exercises. For indeed, the central thoughts outlined below will be familiar to all as the “basic exercises”—simple yet every so challenging to actually practice on a daily basis! We have suggested possible connections to anthroposophy’s “daughter” initiatives as a way to reach out to new friends at the same time as taking this opportunity to deepen our individual work.

It would be wonderful if in the years ahead, participants in this adventure would share their experiences in groups and as individuals in being human and on our web site, thus becoming more and more an active, interactive community. We are a vast country, and many members live far from others, but through our common striving on shared goals and exercises, we can become ever more active representatives of anthroposophy! —TMF

Background

Conscious of the spiritual power living in the rhythms of 33+ years, and the special significance of 100th anniversaries, we have been noting and celebrating the initiatives of Rudolf Steiner and his colleagues. Special hundred-year attention has been given to:

1910: Rudolf Steiner’s four mystery dramas, given in August annually in Munich, through 1913

1910: the first study group in America

1911: the inauguration of the art of eurythmy

1912: first publication of the Calendar of the Soul

1912: founding of the Anthroposophical Society

1913: laying the first Goetheanum foundation-stone

1914: the absence of a fifth Steiner mystery drama as the “Great War” broke out (mirrored in 2014 by first presentation of all four mystery dramas by one cast in English, at Threefold Educational Center)

1915: Rudolf Steiner’s admonition to Friedrich Rittelmeyer that opportunities for fundamental cultural advance come only once in a hundred years

1916: the penetrating social insights which flowed from this year into the aftermath of the world war.

Along with 2011, the 150th anniversary year of Rudolf Steiner’s birth, these centennials have focused our efforts on raising public awareness of anthroposophy while deepening our own engagement and practice of it. We will be further challenged by impulses from a century ago:

1917: the threefold character of the human being the threefold character of the social organism of humanity

1919: the Waldorf education movement

1920: the opening of the Goetheanum fundamental insights in medicine & the sciences expanding work in the arts

1922: the East-West Congress in Vienna birth of the Christian Community the burning of the first Goetheanum at year’s end

1923: the birth of the youth movement the year of questioning in 1923 the Christmas Foundation Meeting

So at the end of 2023 we will renew the impulse given a century earlier to the Anthroposophical Society, followed by the founding of the School for Spiritual Science, the karma lectures, “leading thoughts,” Biodynamic agriculture, and everything leading up to Rudolf Steiner’s passing.

While recalling the particular creative deeds of each year 1917-1923, we are looking to have a guiding thread in the seven years ahead of us. Out of countless possibilities it would be helpful to work with processes that are both fundamental and equally applicable to individuals, groups, and the Society as a whole.

To the challenge of the theme for this year’s conference, “Representing Anthroposophy,” the following adds

“Working-themes” with the six basic exercises as a thread 2017-2022

2016 “Representing Anthroposophy”— manifesting what Rudolf Steiner described as the “consciousness of our humanity.”

2017 Examination of anthroposophy’s extraordinary gift of ideas and how we apply them, as well as our personal thinking.

2018 Examination and furtherance of the will of anthroposophical initiatives, and how they are rooted in anthroposophy.

2019 Examination of emotions and reactivity, the development of equanimity toward the use of feeling for knowledge and insight.

2020 Examination of the tendency toward conflicting views, and the exercise of positivity as a ground for community and healthy social life.

2021 Consciousness and practice of open-mindedness, for creativity and “Michaelic world affirmation” (compare Otto Scharmer’s “Theory U”).

2022 Working to experience harmony, inner assurance of conscious direction of thought, feeling, and action, and a further opening to the cosmic order.

an elaboration of the basic exercises, on the left, and on the right some specific work that can be useful at the national level. As the basic exercises are meant to strengthen and harmonize the individual’s soul forces under the direction of an awakening selfhood, so our attention to these working themes could bring us to 2023 as a more conscious, purposeful, harmonious and united Society and Movement. — John Beck

Examples of ASA working goals, year by year, especially in communications

This theme is the AGM and Fall Conference theme and picks up the Identity Initiative proposed to members in a mailing last summer; details soon online

This year would see the development of our website as a resource on the basic ideas of anthroposophy.

We have long hoped to develop anthroposophy.org as a hub for initiatives, building a picture of how they work together toward a renewed and global culture.

This would be a year to support working with biography as a social art, and with all the arts as lifelong developmental activities.

Strengthened by prior years, this could see new work on our relationship to other streams and movements in the world, looking for a cosmopolitan integrity.

This exercise brings us back to recent theme-of-theyear work from the Goetheanum: how we see our place in the world.

Turning in the sixth year to appreciation of the deep bases of anthroposophical insight into human life and the ordering of the cosmos.

2023 Renewal of the Society and Movement in the 21st Century Strengthened and refreshed, taking up more fully the gift of the Christmas Foundation Conference.

Thank You, Marian León!

The following email was sent to members in early June on behalf of the General Council and Leadership Team:

Marian León has resigned as Director of Programs of the Anthroposophical Society in America to take a position with the University of Michigan. She will, however, continue to support current projects through the fall conference and Annual General Meeting, “Representing Anthroposophy,” October 7-9 in Chestnut Ridge, NY.

Marian began work for the Anthroposophical Society in America in 1999. We have benefited from her deep commitment to the membership, her support of the work of groups and branches and her amazing creativity in the area of programs. We certainly wish her

all the best in her new position, and look forward to her active participation in the Society as a member. General Secretary Torin Finser who has worked with her longest of us offers these reflections:

Over nine years working with Marian I experienced again and again her wonderful artistry in connecting people, ideas, and initiatives in a rich tapestry of activity. Whether on the phone, in a meeting or on the road, Marian brought people into conversation. She would then take up what she had heard and form a conference, webinar, or AGM meeting. The annual meetings themselves were transformed over the years into events that became more and more lively, engaging, and interactive. In addition to carrying major initiatives such as the Mystery Drama Conference and the webinars with AWSNA, Marian was instrumental in designing our new collaborative leadership structure consisting of the three directors, and thus was able increasingly to devote more time to the programing she loved. We are very grateful that

Welcome, John Bloom!

June 14, 2016: Letter to Members from the General Council and Leadership Team on the Selection of the next General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America

Last week at its June meeting at Rudolf Steiner House in Ann Arbor the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America met with the four candidates for General Secretary proposed by the Nominating Committee...

With deep appreciation for the Committee’s work and for the qualities and accomplishments of all the nominees, the General Council unanimously decided to ask John Bloom to take on the duties of General Secretary. John has accepted and will assume his new duties in October at the AGM and Fall Conference. Under the

The candidates met with the General Council and Leadership Team for a day and a half with opportunities

cal Society in America, and small group conversations on practical steps they would take to increase membership

ing our outward impressions with a chance to take our considerations into sleep, which inevitably led to greater clarity and harmony. It was a joy to get to know these four individuals better and to be inspired by their past, present, and future relationships to anthroposophy and

A three-person transition team including Rudiger Janisch, who served on the Nominating Committee, current General Secretary Torin Finser, and John Bloom

will work with the General Council, new Council Chair Carla Beebe Comey, and the Leadership Team to ensure that the Society’s work goes forward seamlessly.

The new General Secretary will serve the whole country but also add visibility to work in the Western region. Torin Finser noted that “one of the most important tasks of a general secretary is to foster connections and bring members and friends into conversation. John is very good at that. Our future sustainability depends upon the activity of our members and the human, financial, and spiritual resources we can access through our conscious activity and collaborative work.”

John Bloom has been a member of the Anthroposophical Society since 1983, and a member of the School for Spiritual Science since 1992. He has also served for many years on the Council of Anthroposophical Organizations (CAO) and since 2014 as a member of the Society’s Development Committee.

John lives in San Francisco with his wife Joan Caldarera, a teacher at the San Francisco Waldorf High School. John has been at RSF Social Finance (formerly Rudolf Steiner Foundation) since 1998, and currently is Vice President, Organizational Culture (www.rsfsocialfinance.org). His work at RSFSF has included developing educational programs that address the intersection of money and spirit in personal and social transformation. He has worked with numerous non-profits in the areas of capacity building and culture change. He has led workshops, lectured, and written about aspects of money, development, and governance for non-profits, and he has done much to familiarize RSFSF’s growing staff with Rudolf Steiner’s work. He has had a long-standing involvement with aspects of Biodynamic agriculture and agricultural land preservation, and has been an exhibiting artist with works in major collections. He looks forward to serving the Anthroposophical Society and its destiny, in collaboration with the General Council, Leadership Team, and members, and working with the North American Collegium and the many initiatives of our movement.

The General Council and Leadership Team

Deb Abrahams-Dematte, David Alsop, Carla Beebe Comey, Dennis Dietzel, Dwight Ebaugh, Torin Finser, Micky Leach, John Michael, Elizabeth Roosevelt, Katherine Thivierge

Note: there is an article by John Bloom on page 37, “The Currency of Self,” first published in May in the Reimagine Money blog of RSF Social Finance.

“Steady As We Go”

by Katherine Thivierge

It has been quite a whirlwind since joining Marian León and Deb Abrahams-Dematte on the ASA Leadership Team last August. I have gained an understanding of Society finances and have appreciated the colleagueship and focus of working with Marian and Deb. I have a fuller sense of the different communities in the country and have enjoyed getting to know members at the St. Louis Annual General Meeting and over the phone. I look forward to meeting many more of you at the upcoming AGM in Chestnut Ridge, NY (October 6-9). One exciting thing for me, away from financial reports and budgets, is that I am rehearsing these months with speech artist colleagues for a dramatic performance there.

We made a commitment at the October 2015 AGM to provide members regular financial reports. The 2016 approved budget along with financial reports for the 4th quarter 2015 and 1st quarter 2016 were emailed to members. As reported in the covering email in May, we received in the first three months of 2016 about one-half of the membership contributions and donations which were budgeted for the year. This is due partly to very conservative budgeting, and partly to the prompt response of members to the renewal reminders. The generosity of the membership in their renewal contributions and donations is most appreciated. Our expenses were right at 25% of total annual budget at the end of the first quarter.

I also would bring your attention to the page on our website (www.anthroposophy.org/rsh) for Rudolf Steiner House in Ann Arbor. We rent out the house for outside events, and have nine rooms for visitors at reasonable rates. Cynthia Chelius (734-662-9355; cynthia@anthroposophy.org ) is house manager. Tell your friends!

And please feel free to contact me if I can assist you or if you have any questions.

Katherine Thivierge (katherine@anthroposophy.org ; 734-6629355) is ASA Director of Operations.

Many Shades of Green, Many Shades of Us

by Deb Abrahams-Dematte

After many days in my home office, wishing for spring to finally arrive in New England, I had the chance to travel to the Berkshire (MA)-Taconic (NY) region. At the beginning of my road trip, the leaves were just starting to emerge, giving the branches along the lovely back roads and parkways an optimistic shimmer of green. As I continued through the week, the leaves came into their full glory. The rich and varied shades of green, and the landscape, changing daily, provided the backdrop for an experience of the many people and initiatives that make up the anthroposophical community in this part of our country.

Rudolf Steiner has said “What man sees on the physical plane, he takes to be reality… But in truth it is not so, for what is actually present as a reality is the spiritual world… And not until we have recognized the spiritual in the things around us do we truly know reality,” (Calendar of the Soul , May 7, 1912).

Here, and around the country, there are many individuals and initiatives actively living their anthroposophy, living out of their connection to the work of Rudolf Steiner and a spiritual understanding of the world. The efforts span an incredibly wide variety of interests from theater and art, to agriculture, education and social change—all honoring the connection between the spiritual and the physical.

First on my week-long journey was the distinct pleasure of attending a Readers Theater presentation of The Working of the Spirit, written by Michael Burton from an outline of scenes and events by Marke Levene, and hosted by Camphill Village Copake. The performers were devoted and eloquent, and the audience was engaged and appreciative. People came from near and far to attend this performance and the one held the next day, Future Dawning, written by Glen

Williamson. This is part of a larger effort for the Steinerinspired performing arts (see Marke’s article on page 16).

Next was the Council of Anthroposophical Organizations (CAO), business and organization leaders who come together twice a year to share expertise and support for the Society, the movement, and each another. We discussed the purpose and future of the CAO itself and the Society. How can we best serve the movement and the needs of our time? We were joined one evening by twenty local members who shared their recent activity and the many interests and ideas which they see as being called for in our time. I am most grateful for the good will, thoughtful contributions and our time together.

And then came the Lazarus Project, a collaborative and multimedia gallery show: works of Finnish multimedia artist Sampsa Pirtola, producer Jordan Walker, painter and Free Columbia co-founder Laura Summer, and production designer and musician Tim Kowlaski combined in a thought-provoking and transformed setting. I was fortunate to hear a talk by Nathaniel Williams, “New Ways of Seeing,” an element crucial to a hopeful future.

A trip to this beautiful region would not be complete without a visit the Rudolf Steiner Library: the research, lending, and mail order library of the Anthroposophical Society. Douglas Sloan describes this gem of a resource on page 47, and updates from our vastly knowledgeable librarian Judith Kiely follow my report. [Late word: See the next page for news of a grant award!]

Michael Support Circle Update: Welcome and thank you to new organizational member Shining Mountain Waldorf School! Members pledge $500 or more for five or more years, contributing to the sustainability and long-term impact of the Society, in service to our members, the movement, and the world. If you’d like to learn more, write to me at deb@anthroposophy.org

Warm thanks to our members and friends for your generous interest, care, and support. Together we are vibrant, growing, diverse and strong! Your membership contributions and gifts make the work of the Society possible. Thank YOU for helping to bring Rudolf Steiner’s vision to reality, connecting with the spiritual reality underlying practical deeds, and making a positive difference in the world.

Deb Abrahams-Dematte (deb@anthroposophy.org) is ASA Director of Development.

News from the Rudolf Steiner Library, Hudson, NY

by Judith Kiely, Librarian

Did you know …?

• You can download articles, such as “The Double” by Richard Schmitt, from all the back issues of the Journal for Anthroposophy, which we have digitized and made available on New York Heritage Digital Collections [www.anthroposophy.org/rsl-nyh].

• We will scan and email you any other article or excerpt from a book for your personal study or research, as allowed by copyright law.

• You can search our online catalog [rsl.scoolaid.net] to find out if a lecture by Rudolf Steiner has been translated to English. Use the following format “dd-mmm-yyyy” in the Anywhere search box: for example, “10-oct-1916” (with quotes).

• You can now make postage reimbursements for mail orders from the library with PayPal. If you have a PayPal account, direct your payment to [rsteinerlibrary@gmail.com].

Expanded Hours. You can now call or visit the library on Wednesdays. We have been able to extend our hours of operation thanks to the volunteer labor of long-time volunteer Martin Miller and library assistant Nadia Bedard. Our new hours are Wednesday–Saturday 10am–3pm.

Grants & Institutional Partnerships. The library has received a $2,000 grant from the New York State Regional Bibliographic Databases program through our consortium the Capital District Library Council in Albany, NY. The grant will enable us to continue to add items to our online catalog and to make them available for discovery on WorldCat [www.worldcat.org ].

We have also finalized an agreement with the Camphill Academy of Glenmoore, PA, to offer library services to all students, faculty, and staff at the academy for the year beginning July 2016.

Donations. In-kind donations to the library this year include a set of six upholstered reading chairs, an air purifier to enhance air quality, a custom-built handicapped service desk attachment (required by building code), and many books and miscellaneous supplies. Thank you to all who provide ongoing support to the library!

Donated used books that we don’t need are listed for sale on amazon.com by volunteer Mary Haley. As of May 31, we have earned $350 from such sales this year.

SteinerBooks donates one copy of every new book they publish to the library. In addition, this year they have offered a 50% discount to patrons for the purchase of books for the library. Contact me for a wish-list of needed titles to take advantage of this generous offer.

Your donation for the library, whether given to the Anthroposophical Society in America or the newly formed Rudolf Steiner Library Circle of Friends, will increase our yearly base budget of $60,000, per a funding agreement established between the Friends and the Society.

Volunteers. Library assistant Nadia Bedard leaves for graduate school at the end of July, so if you’ve been thinking of volunteering, now is a good time. We need help with packing and unpacking mail orders, re-shelving, book repair, and more. Contact the library or sign up online [library.anthroposophy.org/volunteering/sign-up/].

Lending and Research Services. Remember: we ship library materials to members anywhere in the USA for a modest fee; and the first half-hour of research assistance on anthroposophical topics is free to members. We are continually working to upgrade library services. If you have suggestions for improvements to our services, please contact us—we want to hear from you!

Contact Information

Rudolf Steiner Library of the Anthroposophical Society in America , 351 Fairview Ave Ste 610, Hudson, NY 12534-1259. | (518) 944-7007 (voice & text) | rsteinerlibrary@gmail.com | Hours: Wed–Sat, 10am–3pm. Homepage: www.anthroposophy.org/rsl Library catalog: rsl.scoolaid.net

Library Access for Waldorf

A late update: we’re excited that the Waldorf Educational Foundation has awarded $15,000 to the Society that will enable the Rudolf Steiner Library to offer free one-year individual memberships from September 1st to Waldorf school faculty, board, and staff, Waldorf teacher trainees, and parents of Waldorf school students at any of the Waldorf schools and teacher training centers in the continental US (a limitation due to cost and delivery time of media mail). Read more about this great opportunity and register if you qualify at www.anthroposophy.org/ rsl; or call us at (518) 944-7007. If you have questions, please contact librarian Judith Kiely.

Welcome the New AnthroPops

Commentary by Laura Scappaticci

It is time to welcome the new anthropops. Time to greet us warmly, just as we are. Time to embrace our wrong use of the word “gesture” and understand that when we say etheric, we may not quite get what it means. Realize that our kids are in Waldorf charters, or are homeschooled, or in plain old public schools. Know that our brothers are gay, our friends just transitioned from male to female, and that we believe that everyone is equal. Equally incarnated, equally able to love, valuable, no matter where they fall in the evolution of consciousness.

We new anthroposophists are on social media. We tweet about Steiner. And the Pope. And David Bowie. We believe in both accessibility and depth. We are branding our own form of anthroposophy, because Generation X is practical and inventive, and the Millennials can’t be tied down to one thing. We need the cliff notes for Parzival, though we regret this fact. We are living faster, though we want to slow down for the occasional Goethean observation.

We aren’t purist, and perhaps this is why we feel your eyes pass over us at branch meetings, just when we thought you would be thrilled to see us. We would love to have more time to read, and some of us do read; before bed, on the weekends, every moment we can. But we may never be able to parallel your commitment to Steiner. Your judgement of us as light weights passes on a cycle, requir-

ing us to reject those even newer than us, to wonder about their depth, but we know that a circle is a closed form and we cannot afford to look around only at each other.

We see you. The old heads. The ones we consider wiser. You glow to us. A beautiful warm glow, as if your skin is illuminated from underneath. We believe in your nonjudgement, your equanimity. We believe in your wisdom and depth. We need you.

And you need us. You need our quick email responses, our rejection of dogma, our social consciousness that raises potlucks, and childcare options during study groups, and the occasional gin and tonic after a long work week. You need us to bring anthroposophy into the now. To allow it to change and grow, as Steiner intended. We feel that this is not an old conversation that happened in Dornach so long ago, but rather a paradigm change that is coming, that we must all be ready for. That we look to you for, in many ways.

Please hug us. Please answer our questions. Please help us evolve into our best “I”, though it will undoubtedly look far different than yours.

Laura Scappaticci (laurascap@gmail.com) recently served as the Dean of Student Life at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, CA. She is interested in bringing anthroposophy to newbies through an upcoming podcast/blog. This summer she is attending Waldorf teacher training in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.

Greetings to the Girasol Group

From Dennis Dietzel’s June 16th letter on behalf of the General Council

I am pleased to report that the Central Regional Council and the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America have voted unanimously and enthusiastically to grant recognition to you as a formal group of the Anthroposophical Society.

It was with great joy and interest that we read of your anthroposophical activities in the Akron (Ohio) area. It is obvious that your commitment to anthroposophy runs deep, and we wish you well in your study and continued work together. It is wonderful to hear of the practical work in education, healing arts, and agriculture, as well as your study and class work together.

As fellow members, we are grateful when a group of individuals feels and acts on the impulse to take up anthro -

posophical work and make it more visible in the world. By doing this, you are linking with like-minded individuals across the country and internationally, and connecting with Rudolf Steiner’s impulse at the Christmas Foundation meeting. I am always inspired to think of members meeting together in this spirit:

When human beings are met together, seeking the Spirit with inner singleness of purpose, then they too find the way to one another—the paths from soul to soul.

from The Life, Nature and Cultivation of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner, February 3, 1924

We wish you and all of your group members all the best as you continue your important work together.

New Members of the Anthroposophical Society in America, recorded 2/23/2016 to 8/15/2016

Jennifer L J Aguirre, Sonora, CA

Josh Allain, San Francisco, CA

Stacey M Alston, Clarkston, GA

Roselyn K Aring, Copake, NY

Alice Barton, Austin, TX

Jacqueline F Bellamy, Dublin, NH

Kate Bentley, Flagstaff, AZ

Russell G Bernhardt, Reseda, CA

Sarah Borchers, Petaluma, CA

Jenelle M Boyer, Viroqua, WI

Bianca M Brousseau, N Valley Stream, NY

Hilary Budet, Morrill, ME

Michael A Bush, Milwaukee, WI

Jesse Lee Cable, East Point, GA

Antonio Carlos Cadena, Brooklyn, NY

Annette P Campana, Kirkland, WA

Janelle F Cardenas, Kettle Falls, WA

Joy A Chambers, Kenmore, WA

Jennefer R Choquette, Bergenfield, NJ

Richard Cirulli, White Plains, NY

Daniel Collett, Nevada City, CA

Barbara Cousens, Alexandria, VA

Christian Davis, Spring Valley, NY

Marcel DesRochers, Pacific Palisades, CA

Emmy Diep, San Francisco, CA

Betty Jane Enno, Austin, TX

Norma Fickel, Freeland, WA

Jennifer F Foley, El Prado, NM

Matthias G Fuell, Peterborough, NH

Susanna Gaertner, Scotts Valley, CA

Theodore M Groh, Manchester, NH

Joseph J Allam Ann Arbor, MI died 07/09/2014

Nancy Aniston Toluca Lake, CA died 05/25/2016

Daniel S Birns Santa Cruz, CA died 07/28/2016

Iana Questara Boyce Clinton Township, MI died 02/2015

Beth Calvano Charleroi, PA died 04/19/2016

Elizabeth Dodge Groves, Tucson, AZ

Seth M Gummo, Philipsburg, PA

Angela Hakimi, Walnut Creek, CA

Wilja Happé, Carpinteria, CA

Beth Anne Heckler, Lawrence, KS

Maryanne Hinton, Port Townsend, WA

Rebecca Lynn Hipps, Germantown, MD

Wayne Hoff, Monterey, CA

Emili Kellner, Barkhamsted, CT

Geraldine S Kline, Wilton, NH

Sneha Kolar, Salinas, CA

Deborah LeDean, Novato, CA

Sherry M Lewis-Ramirez, Austin, TX

Margaret Long, Walnut Creek, CA

David M. MacDonald, Pipersville, PA

Steven March, San Leandro, CA

Gina Marrujo, La Mesa, CA

Anne Elise Melly, Arlington, VA

Alicia Merinoff, Haworth, NJ

Mary Metcalf, Vergennes, VT

Karla K Mitchell, Detroit, MI

John Moffitt, Decatur, GA

Katie Murphy, Saint Louis, MO

Sandy L Musclow, Portland, OR

Hayley Myhre, Centralia, WA

Paul A. Nelson, Olympia, WA

Nicholas Novak, Des Plaines, IL

Jayme Oates, Notasulga, AL

Bree Ojeda, Chula Vista, CA

Robert Pasquale, Soquel, CA

Faustina B Pfister, Centennial, CO

Tom Pichard, Woodinville, WA

Loucile B Powers, Norton, OH

Pilar Ramos, Memphis, TN

Lorne Rauch, White City, OR

Douglas A Reed, Cheyenne, WY

Eniko Reeder, Fairfield, IA

Paul Reimers, Wichita, KS

Angie Ross, Levering, MI

Geoffrey S Ross, Canaan, NH

Lila Rubio-Quero, Decatur, GA

Jack Randall Rusk, Aliso Viejo, CA

Daniela Sales, Saint Louis, MO

Laura Scappaticci, Fair Oaks, CA

Lorian L Shick, Santa Rosa, CA

Laura A Singh-Sahdev, O Fallon, IL

Jeremy Tyler Smith, Newark, DE

Alexandra Spadea, Pomona, NY

James Millard Spicer, Sarasota, FL

Lissette Lazara Spicer, Sarasota, FL

Marlene Sullivan, Prescott, AZ

Deanna Trust, Denville, NJ

Alexine von Gleich, Williamstown, NJ

Wendy L Walter, Brookline, NH

Linden Weiss, Chaplin, CT

Kim G Wetherell, Langley, WA

Katja Valentina Wishart, San Rafael, CA

Evangeline Irene Wolfe, El Cerrito, CA

Shawnte Yates, Washougal, WA

Katie M. Yeomans, Newton, NH

Pang-Wei Yin, Chestnut Ridge, NY

Lisa S Zimmerman, Phoenix, AZ

Members Who Have Died

Mark J. Eisen Chapel Hill, NC died 05/12/2016

Ruth Finser Mill Valley, CA died 02/07/2016

Linda C. Folsom Durham, NC died 04/11/2016

Mary Tertia Gale Hopewell, NJ died 07/23/2016

Paul Glavin Lenox, MA died 03/20/2016

Wendy L Hall Reno, NV died 02/18/2016

Marilyn R Hauk Wheat Ridge, CO died 02/25/2016

Richard Hicks Spearfish, SD died 02/28/2016

James McClurkin Atlanta, GA died 07/2016

Donald Melcer Austin, TX died 06/01/2016

Samuel M Moore Glendale, CA died 06/10/2016

Charlene H. Orszag Los Osos, CA died 08?/2014

Sheri Reiner Makawao, HI died 07/12/2016

Richard Schmitt

Fair Oaks, CA died 04/11/2016

Doug Sheffer Basalt, CO died 02/2014

Louise Sierau

Great Barrington, MA died 10/24/2015

Val V. Steigelmann Cleveland, OH died 09/03/2015

Frank Tome

South Pasadena, CA died 05/2015

Werner Von Gundell San Diego, CA died 03/25/2016

Ursel Pietzner, née Sachs

(*16 June 1927–†28 July 2015)

by Cornelius Pietzner

In “retirement”, Ursel Pietzner conceived and undertook projects which gave her both joy and focus. A year before she died, she began a memoir from which this obituary incorporates excerpts (in italics).

Ursel was born in Germany and died at her beloved home in Camphill Beaver Run, Pennsylvania, 88 years later in high summer. I was born June 16, 1927, a summer child, in the evening. My father climbed over the big iron gate, which was locked, when he heard my mother’s cry in the Elizabethan seminary in Heidelberg. Their joy was immense. My name was to be Ulrike, but I looked too grumpy; they had to call me “Ursula,” the little bear.

With her two younger sisters, Eva and Renate, she spent childhood at, and attended, the Odenwaldschule, a progressive boarding school where her father was principal. My parents met in the school in the early 1920s. They were both teachers: he, art (drawing, painting, sculpting); she, music (violin). They married in 1924 in Freiburg. Before that, he was also responsible for a group of boys (the son of author Thomas Mann, etc.). During these years, father corresponded with the great philosopher Martin Buber about child drawings, etc.

For Ursel these were mostly happy years. She learned a love of nature, was athletic, excelled in sports, and played the viola. The family was cultured and musical, her maternal grandfather a professor of music from the Gdansk area, and her entire family highly accomplished on various instruments.

Her father read poetry to the family Sunday mornings, and Ursel learned early to draw and sketch with accurate observation and a sure hand.

The Sachs family had to leave the Odenwaldschule immediately after the war in 1945, followed shortly by the early death of her father. Ursel moved to Stuttgart and attended the Waldorf School briefly. She took up a practical training in weaving; postwar Germany was poor, and Ursel learned to “make do”: We had our lunches, a hot meal, in the restaurant “Schwanen.” The waitress knew us and tried to make our limited portions (on food stamps) as big as possible; but of course, we were always hungry. We could pick up apples under trees, and collect corn ears from harvested fields, to exchange for flour at the bakery. This modest, even Spartan, approach she carried for the remainder of her life—no luxury and no waste.

In Stuttgart she learned of Dr. König and Camphill and in August 1949 journeyed to Scotland with her sister Eva. She was placed in Heathcot, a school where Carlo Pietzner was principal. At her arrival, he was away at the Goetheanum. Carlo came back soon one evening and the next morning came to breakfast to greet everybody. I still see him standing at the door, in a brown corduroy suit, with his blue eyes looking around—seeing me, greeting me. Something must have happened then, because I noticed he liked me. The following weeks (and months!) confirmed that. But these were difficult weeks to settle in

and learn. And the physical and spiritual situation was totally new and strange.

Her training was thorough and far-reaching, spiritually and outwardly: In the house I became the mother of the “green” nursery, with eight children, mostly cerebral palsy. I even had to sleep with them! (My bed was in one corner). The nights could be tough, if Maria had a seizure and I was at her bedside. After a while, I moved with some of my children to another room, four in the nursery, two next door with me. There was much carrying and physical help needed.

Her spiritual journey and experiences are described with some selfirony and humor. For example: The Festival of Offering (Sunday) services were strange and difficult for me, not “understanding” them. In a children’s service I learned that the weekly gospel reading was different every Sunday only after the celebrant had forgotten his Bible and stood there in deep silence, looking into space, until someone had run over to the house and brought him a Bible! The Offering Service to which I had to go, for adults, at festivals, was still more “holy.” Dr. König lovingly called Eva and me the “heathen sisters.”

To both the Camphill community and Sunday services Ursel developed a profound and earnest relationship, living deeply into the mood and words of the Sunday Service. She carried a serious commitment also to the striving and study of anthroposophy as a member of the School of Spiritual Science and Class Holder.

Though the work in Scotland was still young and new, Ursel went from September 1951 to early 1953 to southern England to help build up the work of Ringwood Sheiling Schools. This

was now absolutely like pioneering life! Apart from cooking, we had to do everything! Children, school, therapies, walks, entertainment (acting out fairy tales on Sundays was great fun!), excursions, etc.

Carlo and Ursel, who married in 1953, went later that year to Northern Ireland to build up Camphill. Here her three children, Clemens, Christiana, and Cornelius were born. These were intense years, raising the young family along with the inner and outer responsibilities of deepening the community.

In 1961, again at the request of Dr. König, the Pietzner family sailed with Mary Elmquist and Renate to America to pioneer Camphill in upstate New York (Copake) and expand Downington Special Schools in Pennsylvania. Gladys Hahn had prepared Orchard House (Copake) for us, before she and Bill left. Her warnings were serious: poison ivy, hunters that shoot anything that moves (unless you wore orange clothing) and it was hunting season!—black widow spiders... rattle snakes….

Carlo spent a great deal of time at Copake, Ursel and the children at Downington Special Schools. As the latter lacked potential for growth, Ursel spent weekends, children in tow, driving the countryside looking for a suitable property. She found Beaver Run and it was acquired in 1963. Camphill Children’s Village was soon born with the consolidation of Downington and Donegal Springs. Here Ursel could develop roots, raising her family, directing the growth of Beaver Run with Carlo and others, and integrating herself slowly into American culture and climate. I learned to drive, in the evening (no time by day) with our maintenance man. I was the first female coworker who passed the test the first time! Carlo and I went to Washington to celebrate (visiting Eunice Shriver, sister to John F. and Robert Kennedy, presenting her with a lovely

enamel bowl from Copake).

Beaver Run grew rapidly, partly by interest of the federal government which financed construction of five residential houses simultaneously. Ursel’s role expanded. Carlo had said WE had to carry the karma with the children and their parents! That was scary to begin with, but I learned and became confident. Coworker admissions with the visas, etc., from abroad, was also my task. Slowly, I took on a lot of administration, and I think in the course of years became, and felt like, the soul of Beaver Run. I had also to travel overseas... Taking over from Carlo was an honor. My responsibilities for Beaver Run and trust in people, and in the Being of Beaver Run, made me think of every coworker and houseparent for years every evening before going to sleep! That was good.

Carlo’s death in Copake in April of 1986, significant in many ways, also “freed” Ursel to develop her own considerable gifts and capacities and grow ever further into her role, taking on her own persona and identity, deepening her character. She was twelve years younger than Carlo, not yet sixty when he died. No longer “Carlo’s wife,” she was Ursel. Something new and independent emerged.

There were many journeys over the years, numerous visits to Norway where she visited Christiana and her family. She loved to be there and would stay for weeks, well taken care

of in all respects by her daughter. A highlight was an 85th birthday celebration hosted by Christiana with Ursel’s three children and their partners.

In her last three decades, Ursel developed a large and diverse circle of friends. She was genuinely interested in people, and could be direct and occasionally sharp. Some would say that this was being honest. She was honest to herself—that is, authentic (and occasionally eccentric). She would often be the one to say what needed to be said in difficult settings, eschewing diplomacy for the plain, sometimes hard, truth. She had likes and dislikes and opinions, but she could change and was willing to work on them.

She was spiritually stalwart and also in this regard honest. This led her to examine assumptions and anthroposophical homilies that had carried and supported her striving for many of her earlier years. She was both open and without ambition, and she had deep, earnest, human and spiritual questions to the end of her life.

Ursel concluded her Memoirs with the Calendar of the Soul verse 34, (Nov. 24-30). She felt much closer to the German original, and wasn’t really happy with the English translation.

Geheimnisvoll das Alt-Bewahrte

Mit neuerstandnem Eigensein

Im Innern sich belebend fühlen:

Es soll erweckend Weltenkräfte

In meines Lebens Aussenwerk ergiessen

Und werdend mich ins Dasein prägen.

And finally, to close, she writes:

I am myself, my destiny is fulfilled, and what I can still give to the “Aussenwelt” (outer world), may be a little love, a little lightness, a little joy, and a very little wisdom. And gratitude for all that has been.

My angel knows.

— Dornach, August 2015

Ruth E. M. Finser A Life of Transformation

15 October 1928-7 February 2016

by Siegfried E. Finser

In the early morning before sunrise of February 7, 2016, Ruth Elisabeth Maria Finser crossed the threshold with the same courage and clarity of soul with which she had faced every other challenge in her life. She had received the last rites the evening before, graciously thanked the Christian Community priest and made sure he was offered some refreshment. She wanted to make sure her husband, her three children and four of her seven grandchildren were present. Her eyes took in each of them, already as from a great distance and her expression warmed. It was still possible to look together at a few photo albums and she identified one or two pictures none of us could remember.

We sang a few of her favorite songs. (Singing was one of her life-long joys. Even as a child she was always asked to do the solos.) She remembered the words when we faltered. After midnight Ruth asked what day and date it was and seemed satisfied that it was Sunday and the 7th of February. Then she was tired and closed her eyes.

The family dispersed to their various places for the night. Angela, Yohanna (her only granddaughter) and I stayed with her in the living room and slept. Early the next morning, Angela awoke, hearing a loud voice calling out “take me!” She jumped up confused and rushed over to Ruth’s hospital bed. She was breathing very hard and her heart was visibly laboring through her nightgown. Angela woke Siegfried and hurried to get Mark, who had stepped away momentarily, from his house next door. All four stood by her as she knowingly released herself from the connection with her body and exhaled her final breath.

This brought to a close the final years of her life, perhaps the most challenging of all. Already in 1997 the hip replacement ended many of her activities, left her off balance, and gradually bent her over to walk only a few steps with pain. In 2007 Ruth was first diagnosed with colon cancer and she faced chemotherapy and radiation “for our sake” she said. A few months later she had a mild stroke and then the years of reflux and nausea finally culminated in esophageal cancer. In Boston they removed the esophagus and pulled up the stomach for its connection with the remaining stump. Although thanks to the anthroposophical mistletoe therapy and her positive spirit she conquered both cancers, the reflux and nausea increased after that and she needed constant medication. All through this time Ruth developed friendships with her grown grandchildren mentoring them and providing loving support. For those last nine years, she slept in a recliner at a 45 degree angle, suffering from constant bed sores. She stayed motionless through the night in order not to wake me. She suffered tirelessly to spare us in those last nine years.

Ruth’s most public and professional period was her 50’s and 60’s. As a therapeutic eurythmist she helped countless men, women, and children. Every evening she settled in with her pink eurythmy books around her and carefully prepared what she would do with each of the patients the next day. She always consulted and worked with three doctors in those years.

When she had finished a session, the patient went to the room next door to rest and let the eurythmy go on working. So many people have come up to all of us and expressed their gratitude for her healing ministrations. All of the children are now grown, many highly productive and creative individualities, most of them remembering her helpful presence in their biographies.

This professionally active period had its beginning with one of the greatest challenges of her life. She was more than forty years old when she began her training in the Spring Valley Eurythmy School. It was a very strenuous four-year training which she undertook as part of the A Group, the first class ever to start the school in America and graduate. She had a slight numbness in one foot from earlier injuries to her ankle, and the teachers made no promises, sometimes even discouraging her. Her intentions were mainly to use eurythmy therapeutically. We, and she also, believed it was her immense, intense anthroposophical clarity that helped to pull her through. She persevered and once again overcame all obstacles with love, devotion, and determination.

Many of us will remember Ruth in the earlier years, say between the ages of 26 and 45. This was the period which began with marriage to Siegfried and was devoted entirely to the creating and managing of a unique

family life. It was a fairy tale marriage in Marlborough, New Hampshire, at Camp Glenbrook, complete with triple rainbow spanning the chapel by a dark blue lake. We found curtain rings that not only fitted but seemed to work as well as any precious metals. The following 60+ years of marriage are proof of that. Torin was the first and then came Mark and lastly Angela. Each one is a wonderful story in itself. I should also mention the many, many children that came to us either as foster children or just boarding for a summer or a month or two. Ruth had a great love of children. She recognized in them the salvation of the future. She was firm and loving, interested in their lives, their experiences and stories.

One day when he was very young, Torin came home from school really unhappy. “What’s the matter?” Ruth immediately sensed his distress. “Jan said that I came out of your stomach. Is that true?” Torin asked indignantly. “No,” said Ruth, “I carried you in a special place under my heart!” Torin was greatly relieved, finished his snack and went out to play. Ruth always told the real truth.

Every evening, the children prepared themselves for bed, dressed in pajamas and dressing gowns and assembled on the sofa in the living room. Ruth gathered them around her so she could reach even the furthest one with her enfolding arms, and read stories and later whole books. After that it was prayers, sometimes a few remaining conversations in bed and then, when the candle was put out,

to sleep. There are so many memories and stories of the family life that Ruth created for all of us (and later the grandchildren) and sustained with her all-abiding love and clarity.

This Ruth achieved despite the great challenges of her earlier life and her childhood. I first met her in New York City in the study group Ruth had started after the first anthroposophical youth conference in Spring Valley, NY. Francis Edmunds was the guiding light. Together we studied The Philosophy of Freedom for three years. It gave us the foundation for living in tune with the spirit of our time. Of course that all occurred after she finished her BA degree at Swarthmore College and had worked for Time Life and a literary agency in New York City.

At the request of her grandchildren, Ruth managed to complete some sketches of the story of her life, especially the earlier years. She was born in Berlin early in the morning of October 15, 1928. Her mother was Marga von Gottberg and her father was John Alexander, who only later re-entered her life. Marga was enlisted by Frau Dr. Steiner to join her new speech school at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, where she then acted on the stage. While her mother was absorbed completely in the speech work, Ruth as a small child was mostly alone. She was a familiar sight wandering around the Goetheanum and village streets, moving often from rented room to rented room in the village. Eventually Marga was offered a teaching position in Dresden until the school was closed by the Nazis and then on to Danzig

which was eventually also closed despite many compromises.

The war caught them both in Germany which brought them increasingly difficult challenges nutritionally, but mostly constant fear of being denounced as students of anthroposophy. The eventual “liberation” by the barely civilized Russian army brought a whole new series of challenges and fears. Marga taught the sixteen-year old Ruth to say quietly to herself “Christ in me.” The thought remained with her for a lifetime, even to the very end.

John Alexander, her biological father stormed into her biography again in time to save both Ruth and her mother from being shipped off to Siberia in the closing days of the war. It is a story filled with terror and miracles that he found them and rescued them through the Russian checkpoint in a bullet riddled car. A short semester at Michael Hall School in England followed and then to America with her newly discovered father who was made delegate to the United Nations, Economic and Social Council. Through the help of Henry Barnes and Hermann von Baravalle she eventually started at Adelphi University and then finished her BA degree at Swarthmore College.

These are only the highlights of 87 years of courage and clarity in overcoming a constant stream of challenges. She faced them all with the same fortitude of soul and transformed them each and every one into deeds of love. She demonstrated even with her last breath how a world beset by fear, doubt and hate can be metamorphosed into acts of courage, love, and devotion.

Nancy Dow Aniston

22 July 1936 – 25 May 2016

by Michael Ronall

When I learned from Albert Spekman at the beginning of June that Nancy had died the previous week, vivid images began to surface from our friendship during the time that she lived in New York City, a friendship that continued by telephone for years after she returned to California. The study of spiritual science permeated all our exchanges, during which she often pointed out meanings to phenomena that I would otherwise have easily overlooked. She served as a collegial classmate in anthroposophy, a confidante and cogent advisor through emotional trials, and a reliable intellectual and social critic.

Nancy loved anthroposophy with unrivaled and devoted passion. In the study groups led by Inge Dyrenfurth that we attended for years, her attentiveness to both the conceptual content and the social dynamics within the group was rigorous and penetrating. She prepared her presentations meticulously, critiqued others’ sensitively, and in retrospect I realize how charitably she tolerated the extent to which some of us roamed far from the assigned subject, notwithstanding that she herself always proceeded with dedicated, systematic restraint through the passages that she was aiming to assimilate and make available.

When observing the difference that anthroposophy brings to its students’ lives, she remarked on the deep peace that it brings; that peace informed her faith in humanity’s future evolution, and so equipped her to wait patiently for an eventual resolution of the many human faults that were visible to her and to her friends. Thus Nancy met

others’ grumbling over what Rudolf Steiner once tactfully termed “the intrigues among our dear members” by noting what a privilege it is simply to keep company with our fellow anthroposophists. What picture of them did she carry? Citing Steiner’s own description, she placed herself among those who, while sojourning on earth, look longingly back to our prenatal spiritual existence. Nancy herself faced an often rocky destiny, and so this characterization must have resonated for her, and yet she met untoward events with the best judgment, grounded in the fiercest courage and receptive equanimity that she could produce, holding fast to an acute awareness of the karmic consequences that all our deeds, words, and thoughts generate. When her partner in a small business venture (not the present author) expressed vengeful fantasies about a client who had defrauded them, she promptly advised him that his present suffering was infinitesimal compared to the future that he was preparing for himself by harboring such thoughts. But her diligent cognitive stewardship did not prevent her from deftly inflecting her personal longings with self-irony: At the mention of a friend visibly doted upon by both her present and past husbands, Nancy exclaimed, with full awareness of the inappositeness of her wish, “I want to live her life!”

Nancy herself was ready to take an emotional bruising when she judged it warranted, knowing well that her tender feelings would suffer. For example, managing to live both elegantly and frugally, she was a virtuosic bargain hunter, but morally (if not in practice)

she deferred to our teacher Inge’s blunt, dismissive response to Nancy’s proud display of a trophy that “Hunting for bargains is a sign of selfishness.” Here as elsewhere she would, reluctantly but faithfully, force herself to distinguish comfort from truth.

Her recognition of form as well as content extended well past our group and into the Branch and larger movement, as well as into her daily work. For several years, she, another member of our study, and I earned our living in the same advertising agency, where our common spiritual pursuit leavened the days by casting an esoteric perspective on the intricate interpersonal dynamics that inevitably shape office politics.

Her hunt for value shone forth the more purely when directed to soulphenomena. She served me as a psychological tutor, dissolving any temptation to dismiss the experiences of the unphilosophical souls we met in the advertising world, and instead prizing with them the nourishing substance of their daily lives, as when she celebrated how the face of one hardened executive would light up with joy whenever he mentioned his infant daughter.

Nancy had come to this job after years of homemaking, and admitted that the transition was difficult. Marveling to the point of disbelief when she suffered the penalties of unjust favoritism accorded another officeworker by their common supervisor, she managed to accept with profound resignation that the roots of such irrationality “must” lie in the karma of the two individuals involved, and would therefore remain inaccessible to any logical appeal to fairness. Her place in this constellation prompted her to reflect on the brute fact of having a boss at all, for this stood in sharp contrast to her previous domes-

tic situation, where, she wistfully recognized, “You’re the only boss.” But despite the oppression she suffered, she admired her supervisor for her achievements in a man’s world.

A former model and actress, Nancy found that she could employ her theatrical skills with Michaelic presence of mind in the recurrent struggle to assert herself. And so she assimilated knightly fervor to her traditional, ladylike composure and directed it colorfully into the competitive and stressful atmosphere of a conventional business office. Its population by anarchic and sometimes unstable souls—not all marked by the creativity legendarily invoked to justify the culture of the advertising industry— could shock her, as when a twentysomething secretary addressed her arrogantly, and what’s more, had dared to do so “without a stitch of makeup.”

Raising her daughter immersed her in the tasks not only of handling that exotic species, the urban American

Dr. Mark Joshua Eisen

1 April 1953 – 12 May 2016

by Kathleen Wright

May 14, 2016 saw funeral rites of the two spiritual paths that were a part of Mark Eisen. It was the eve of Christian Pentecost, midway between Jewish Passover and Shavuot. Mark’s body was prepared by a Jewish mortuary and clad in the customary white shroud. Rev. Richard Dancey led a Christian Community service with a beautiful, insightful account of Mark’s life, comparing the first half to that of a creative genius and the final third to the life of Job. Following a bountiful dinner, the Jewish Kaddish was read and sung at sundown by Mark’s brothers, sister (via Skype), and physician.

adolescent, but in the irrationality with which its specimens sometimes infect their elders. She related a conversation that took place on the day following a teenagers’ party at her home, when the mother of one of the guests phoned to report, persistently, that her son’s jacket had gone missing at Nancy’s house. After exposure to this extended series of reiterations, Nancy suddenly interjected, with strategic ingenuousness, “Oh, I get it! You think I’m responsible for keeping track of your son’s clothes!”

During the years that the branch in New York had no home of its own, Nancy hosted our celebration of the Twelve Christmas Nights with such devotion that, as December drew on, her young daughter, at first perplexing Nancy, asked with innocent awe, “When are the Holies coming to our house this year?” This hospitality once proved a little risky, when a visitor to New York whom none of us knew attended the festival and stayed on long

Mark was born April Fools Day in New York City to Morton and Victoria Eisen. Following Michael and Eric, followed soon by Debra, he was the third son, a sweet boy with a luminous smile who loved to please others.

Mark struggled with reading and writing, but at an early age his love for music showed a savant capability: he played any piece masterfully by ear the first time he heard it.

Before his Bar Mitzvah Mark began having terrible pain in one hip and cancer was discovered. Confined to bed for six months, this active boy found comfort (and maybe healing!) listening to jazz and playing his be-

after almost all the other guests had left, complacently and uninvitedly playing interminable cocktail melodies on Nancy’s piano. This went on until he had finally to be gently and firmly escorted to the door by the only other remaining guest, having obviously expected, as Nancy incredulously yet accurately phrased it, “That I would swoon at his music so that he could spend the night!”

When emailing arrived to facilitate our long-distance communication, in response to my asking how to reach her, she gave me her e-address, which began NancyCEO. As this included the abbreviation for Chief Executive Officer, familiar enough from the corporate life we had shared on Madison Avenue, my curiosity was predictably piqued, which in turn evoked Nancy’s characteristic Michaelic aplomb.

“CEO?” I asked.

“Of my life! ” she affirmed. —Spring Valley, NY

loved piano. He decided he wanted to become a musician, but he admired the doctors who had saved his life.

Following Michael’s footsteps, Mark went to the University of Michigan. He became fast friends with a “hippie” named Roger Schultz. Mark put on fabulous “rum and cola” nights, playing piano and performing songs, some he had written, with dancing and all sorts of merriment.

A second influence at UM was a professor, Dr. Ernst Katz. Katz was not shy about telling students about anthroposophy; it intrigued Mark and he told Roger about it. The two were frequent visitors at the Rudolf Steiner House in Ann Arbor where they met Bruce Kirchoff. Dr. Katz roped Mark and Roger into performing in several festival plays his wife Katherine had

written. On his last birthday, Mark was having extreme difficulty making sentences due to his illness. Roger reminded him of the Christmas plays.

Mark broke into his luminous smile and began reciting lines from forty years ago, lucidly recalling how in one performance a little boy from the audience responded to Mark’s line. Touched, Mark had answered back, and it added great humor to the play.

Bruce Kirchoff pursued graduate studies at Duke University and found that a Waldorf School was planned in the area. Soon after, Mark received his MD from UM, was accepted at Duke to do his residency, and arrived in the fall of 1980. He began attending workshops in anthroposophical medicine, and gave a couple of lectures on its relation to childhood illnesses for the inquiring parents of the Waldorf school. He dreamed of becoming the school’s doctor. Roger Schultz moved to NC in 1985 with his son Osha who began in the first kindergarten. Mark took jobs in emergency rooms and when he saved enough money, he went to Europe for a full anthroposophic medical training at the University of Witten/Herdecke. He also trained in therapeutic eurythmy and rhythmical massage and worked at both Weleda and WALA, learning pharmaceutical production and how to grow biodynamic herbs and make BD preparations for soil and plants. He traveled extensively, spent time in Dornach and Arlesheim, and visited a number of Camphill Villages.

In 1989 Mark finally returned to North Carolina, began taking patients, and also visited other anthroposophical communities to treat patients. On a visit to Texas, he met and was smitten with Eileen Bristol. Their love of music, humor, and anthroposophy made them an instant couple.

Our community feared Mark would move to Texas, but he persuaded Eileen to move instead.

Eileen arrived in Chapel Hill in late 1989. She and Mark were a “dynamic duo” for the next ten years. Their extraordinary accomplishments put our anthroposophical community on the map. Eileen’s knowledge and savoir-faire combined with Mark’s enabled the community to grow ex-

the help of Barbara Renold performed scenes for the community.

Mark’s holistic and alternative family medicine practice included Eileen’s Hauschka Massage and guests including Hauschka cosmetologists. He often sent patients to Eve Olive for therapeutic eurythmy; some he worked with himself as he loved eurythmy. Eileen started a business in the waiting room selling books, remedies, art supplies, and cosmetics. And Mark and Eileen would somehow take off a couple of midday hours to go home and work their biodynamic garden, a magnificent acre plot of flowers, trees, bushes, fruits and vegetables with a koi pond Mark had dug.

ponentially in activity and membership. They brought many well-known anthroposophists for conferences and workshops, took part in writing bylaws for our community, and helped establish a non-profit corporation. They started an Anthroposophical Therapies Group, and helped found ARTEMISIA. In the mid-1990’s they started a “Branch Home” committee that raised over $30,000, money still in the bank awaiting a new initiative. Mark soon opened his own office and the couple purchased a spacious house. They hosted study groups and planning meetings and had grand parties where Mark would play and sing his zany songs. He formed a jazz group with parents from the Waldorf School, “Dr. Duck and the Quacks,” which helped fundraise for the school. With the Bornhorsts Mark started a mystery drama study group and with

Mark lectured at UNC medical school’s Alternative and Complementary Medicine program. He launched a campaign for patient access to alternative medicine when there was a movement to forbid it. He wrote for the AnthroMed online library including an article titled “There is a Tooth Fairy.” Mark had an extraordinary ability to bond with children and made visits at Emerson Waldorf School, observing special children for the teachers.

Mark was a dedicated member of the School of Spiritual Science and had a special devotion to the Calendar of the Soul . He often recited its verses at festivals, sharing his interpretation. He was also a wonderful artist; his water colors, paintings, and pastel drawing are on a professional level. During the Holy Nights he would do one art work a day describing his mood. When his mother became ill with pancreatic cancer, he insisted she come to stay with him and Eileen, and they cared for her until the end.

The tireless, immense work came to an end in 1999. Eileen tells that although she loved Mark, she could not live with him. His illness had been

Mark Eisen, left, with Dennis Klocek

manifesting for some time in angry tirades, fixed thinking, insistence on his own way, extreme criticism of others. These qualities were the polar opposite of how his “Higher Self” manifested at other times.

Shortly after Eileen left, Mark attended a workshop on angels led by Karyn Martin-Kuri. Karin asked each participant to share their mission in life, their purpose for incarnating. When it was Mark’s turn, he began to weep and with his head down and hands crossed, he said simply “to become a human being.” I recalled that the German word for “human being” is “Mensch” and in Yiddish the highest compliment is to call someone “a real mensch”—so different from English “human,” which points to weakness, as “he’s only human.”

Mark’s life began a decline in all areas; as Richard Dancey observed, he became Job. He who had once had everything a man could desire began to lose everything. Job thought “God” was taking everything away from him; Mark knew that it was “Ahriman.” He no longer had desire or will to care for his garden; it was overrun with weeds. He couldn’t keep up with patients’ records; filing and billing went into chaos. He asked for community help; several people tried but found they could not work with him. Patients lost confidence, stopped coming. Giving a public talk, he could not remember what he had to say. He was having more angry outbursts; people became frightened and he lost their friendship. He was asked not to come to a couple of study groups. Mark felt he was losing his community. His ability to speak coherently worsened as did his ability to read, talk on the phone, play the piano, paint and draw. He totaled his car and was forbidden to drive. He started getting lost when he went for walks.

Mark was bewildered by his sufferings. He did not accept the doctor’s diagnosis, Lewy body dementia, insisting he was merely “depressed.” Yet, for years he had confided to friends that he saw “demons” lurking everywhere. Asked if he had told his doctors, he said they would think he was having hallucinations, but he knew he was having “real spiritual experiences.”

In 2011, a pulmonary embolism forced Mark to close his practice. He needed home health care, a few hours a week, a few hours a day, finally 24/7. He was blessed with good caretakers— Mary, Christopher, Bob, and Mikey, who realized how special he was.

In spite of illness and paranoia, he remained devoted to anthroposophy. Until a short time ago, Mark would go outside at night and do eurythmy for the stars. His beloved Squeaky the Cat would watch inquisitively as Mark danced the planetary and zodiac formations under the night sky. Mark wanted to be included in all the community’s events. He literally hungered for anything anthroposophical. He often asked me to organize gatherings at his home for study, festivals, and simple parties. We managed to have a few, but it was difficult arranging things.

On Mark’s birthday this year, his caretaker Madelyn informed his guests that his agitation was causing so many problems she feared he might need to be committed to a mental facility. He had to be coaxed to eat, but his behavior at the party was very congenial. He was happy to be surrounded by old friends. Outwardly he seemed physically healthy.

A few weeks later, Mark was taken to UNC hospital and heavily sedated; returning home, he required a hospital bed. He could no longer walk, sit up, or eat. Sunday, May 8, I visited and began to pray some of his

favorite verses including one he had given me for healing: “I gather the warmth of the sun into my heart and I let it flow through all my limbs.” Mark seemed to come to life. He indicated with his hands that he could not speak. I said, “You don’t have to speak. I can read your mind.” His face lit up and he laughed. I asked the aide to put him more upright in bed. I told Mark that he had done great things in his lifetime and was much loved and appreciated; that I knew he was disappointed with his life, but that his will forces would inspire others. His eyes and hands told me he was understanding.

Debra arrived shortly after I left and stayed until the day before he crossed the Threshold. On that Thursday, a new care worker from Sierra Leone named Mohamoud was observing Mark sleep. He saw that Mark had exhaled, but did not inhale again. As I came in my car, I felt Mark was sitting beside me. I said “Are you gone already, Mark?” and I knew he was.

A life of triumph and tragedy, Mark served as physician, community leader, eurythmist, musical genius, comedian, artist, writer, actor, amateur astronomer, meditant, collector of gems and stones, connoisseur of teas, brother, uncle, dear friend, cat daddy, anthroposophist, and Jew; in short, a true Mensch.

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” —The Book of Job

Workshops and Events

Exploring the Outdoor Kindergarten and the Art of Storytelling with Annie Bosque and Sieglinde de Francesca

August 5 – 7, 2016

Consciousness Studies with Dennis Klocek, Patricia Dickson, and Pamela Whitman

August 8 - 26, 2016

Raphael Garden’s 7th Annual Harvest Dinner and Pie Auction

September 10, 2016

Advent Spiral of Light

December 3, 2016

Summer Professional Development Workshops

June - August, 2017

Thomas Meyer Lecture Series

October 30 - November 2, 2017

Conferences

Threefold Conference

November 11-12, 2016

Early Childhood Symposium

November 18-21, 2016

Alliance Annual National Conference

January 13-15, 2017

Western Waldorf Educators' Conference

February 19-21, 2017

The Bookstore at Rudolf Steiner College

Biodynamics

Master Gardener position

Our Master Biodynamic Gardener is retiring and we are o ering a rare opportunity for the right person to transition into an important leadership role. Full-time, year-round, competitive pay.

rudolfsteinercollege.edu/master-biodynamic-gardener

Steiner’s Lectures on Agriculture with Harald Hoven

September - November, 2016

Perspectives on Biodynamics Workshop Series with Harald Hoven

September 2016 - May 2017

Anthroposophical Studies with Brian Gray

Theosophy (Weekends)

September 9-11 and September 16-18, 2016

Becoming Human – Biography, Star Wisdom, Life Cycles (Days)

September 12-16, 2016

Apocalypse of St. John in Our Time (Evenings)

September 12-15, 2016

How To Know Higher Worlds (Weekends)

October 7-9 and October 14-16, 2016

Parzival and the Grail Quest (Days and Evenings)

October 10-14, 2016

Christianity as Mystical Fact (Evenings)

December 2-4 and December 9-11, 2016

Esoteric Christianity (Days and Evenings)

December 5-9, 2016

Supporting teachers, students, parents, and the Waldorf community, we stock an extensive book collection with hundreds of titles for all ages. We also carry children’s wooden toys, beeswax candles, unique gifts, an excellent chocolate selection from fair trade, organic, and biodynamic sources, natural body products and homeopathic remedies. Shop in-store or online at www.rscbookstore.com