Why On Earth? Biography and the Practice of Human Becoming

A review by Sarah E. Putnam, PhD

Anyone seeking to follow the Delphic injunction to “know thyself” will benefit greatly from this lyrical, practical book by Signe Schaefer. In a tone that is conversational, compassionate, and deeply personal, Schaefer poses far-reaching and difficult questions, and provides experienced guidance on the path to self and higher Self discovery. She references the well-known texts on biography by the O’Neils, Burkhard, Lievegoed, and SturgeonDay, among others, and goes beyond them in this integrative and inspiring work.

Out of his research, Rudolf Steiner, described the human individuality as a being with continuing existence, extending before birth and beyond death. Each person comes into earthly conditions and situations with unique gifts and burdens, the effects of which are observable in his or her biography. Each of us also comes into life with certain intentions, created by our higher Self in order to further our development toward wholeness.

Schaefer addresses these issues, ever mindful of the freedom of the individual while speaking of destiny, gender, temperament, the seven-year phases, and life stages. Along the way, she takes insightful excursions through wide-ranging topics. She discusses the women’s movement and the fourfold human being, works with questions such as “why seven (years)?”, takes a whirlwind tour through the planetary types, and awakens and deepens her readers’ involvement with a topic through practical exercises. Readers familiar with literature on the senses, drawing in nature, Waldorf education, the foundation books, and human development will appreciate her big-picture vision and ability to integrate ideas from diverse approaches. She makes thoughtful and incisive use of poetry and literature to capture a feeling, an image, or a life stage. Throughout, the author is true to her central question of what it means to be “on a long journey of becoming”, a human being in the active sense of the verb, a “human becoming” (p.12). Indeed, she is leading the reader, through exercises and questions that prompt personal reflections, to answer the question posed by her title 'Why On Earth?': “Why am I here, in this place, in this family, at this time?”

The structure of the book reflects these questions about incarnation and becoming and honors the complexity of human existence as a gradual process of transformation from the inherited body, characteristics and talents with which we were born into a self-created, free being. Schaefer begins with the most generic and archetypal aspects of incarnation: gender, temperament, and the phases of life. Then, using the imagery of the four seasons of the year, she devotes a chapter to each: spring (birth to twenty-one), summer (twentyone to forty-two), autumn (forty-two to sixty-three), and winter (sixty-three and beyond). As she takes us through each of these stages, she makes clear how development becomes more and more individual, less predictable, and more free.

The penultimate chapter is a crescendo of this progression toward individuation, a call to the reader to grow in self-knowledge by pursuing an inner path of meditation. Organized around the Foundation Stone Meditation’s three mantric calls to the human soul—to the inner practices of spirit recalling, spirit sensing, and spirit beholding,—the author describes the six basic exercises from Steiner’s Outline of Esoteric Science with a clarity that comes from personal experience. She ends the chapter with a powerful example of an activity that she shared with a loved one, a moving lesson in how we can support each other on the inner path. I predict that this chapter will be copied and disseminated widely. The final chapter is on the Myth of the New Isis. In our materialistic and cyber-saturated time, when the push is ever stronger for the mechanization and computerization of the human being, this story carries powerful messages about threats to the human spirit. The telling and discussion of this tale are a skillful consummation of this book on human becoming, warning and awakening us to the call of the spirit within and around each of us.

Schaefer’s profound understanding of Steiner’s work, her years of teaching foundation studies and leading the biography and social art program, and her experience teaching workshops around the globe give her a unique capacity to draw from and integrate a broad spectrum of knowledge, personal interactions, and observations. Eminently readable, the book is an enjoyable conversation with a trusted, deeply thoughtful, and caring friend. The wisdom she brings, her practical, step-by-step approach, and her warm-hearted, expressive writing voice make this book a potentially transformative experience for her readers.

Sarah Putnam (sputnam01@att.net) received her doctorate in cultural psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and has taught in both the university setting and in business. She is an experienced educator and trainer and enjoys discovering the richness and beauty of the inner life with her clients.