Meeting in the Garden

On the Second Year of the Applied Anthroposophy Online Course

by Angela Foster & Jordan Walker

The caterpillar…has the time to create this sheath, to hang it up, so the sun forces, imprisoned inside, can now create the butterfly which is then able to fly out and enjoy the activity of a sun-being. — Rudolf Steiner, October 8, 1923

What growth is possible when a group, together every week, turns its attention toward the spiritual world? Many of us have experience with small in-person study groups. But what does this self-and-group metamorphosis look like with hundreds of people meeting online across time zones and geographic locations?

The mission of the Applied Anthroposophy Course (AAC) was, and remains, to provide an accessible platform in which to witness our individual development, and seek to understand our places, task, and context in the world as it also transforms. The mascot for AAC has been the butterfly—the winged flower-like creature that Rudolf Steiner tells us is a symbol for the human soul in metamorphosis. Working with Dr. Steiner’s lectures in Butterflies: Beings of Light, we studied the phases of butterfly development and considered them as a picture of our own transformation: from egg, to caterpillar, to chrysalis, to butterfly, before continuing on to a new egg.

AAC provides the growing space to hold the big questions together: What stage am I embodying? What is my task at this stage of being? When am I changing and what will I become? AAC also provides space to live into the answers, to discover that sometimes we shift in dramatic ways and other times the growth happens in small, seamless ways. Often it can seem as if all of these stages are happening in us and the world at the same time!

From October 2021 through May, 2022, two hundred individuals from across the United States (and a few from around the world) took part in the second Applied Anthroposophy course (AAC2). In reflection, it is wholly accurate to describe it as an experiment in, and experience of, an active research community.

On Wednesday nights, we gathered to hear students of anthroposophy share what they are striving to apply in their own lives. These leading thoughts acted as tuning forks for our inspiration and intentions. We were graced with presentations by Brian Gray, Henrike Holdrege, Penelope Baring, Lisa Romero, Bastiaan Baan, Orland Bishop, and many others. Each offered us their authentic humility, and their reverence for this common path which we all are walking. Last year’s faculty list is archived at www.appliedanthroposophy.org/aac2-faculty

Just as important as the inspiring sharings was what we learned from each other. The frequent break-out conversations and weekly chrysalis-themed working groups let us adopt “beginner’s mind” as we learned from, and with, each other. The Chrysalis groups remained open this year for registered individuals to participate in as many groups as they wanted. Some participants took part in multiple groups each week—some took part in one, and others joined us for just the Wednesday presentations.

Among the weekly Chrysalis Groups were Reverence in Inner Development (with co-guides Robert McDermott & Angela Foster), Biography Work (Anne de Wild & Chris Burke), the Festivals as a Path of Initiation (Hazel Archer-Ginsberg & Nancy Melvin), Goethean Conversation (Jordan Walker & Timothy Kennedy), Drawing the Six Basic Exercises (Laura Summer), and Opening the Door to Spiritual Perception (Jolie Hanna Luba & Verlyn McGilvray).

At the Anthroposophical Society’s founding, February 3, 1913, Rudolf Steiner gave this guiding thought:

“…we now stand at the beginning of not a new work, but a significant endeavor to consolidate and expand our old work…In the time that now lies ahead of us, I hope we shall find ways and means of representing what we fostered in the old form still more strongly and devotedly than before… If we feel that what we call anthroposophy is a necessity in our time and recognize that it must flow into contemporary cultural life and become a ferment in all domains—if we feel that anthroposophy can become that, wills to become that—then we shall be able to work in the right way. Words, however, are not the best tool with which to do all this; rather you must use your feelings and sensitivities, your purposes, the fundamental principles that you take into yourselves in order to develop your own individual powers…”

The coordinating team of AAC2 returned often to this quote for inspiration in forming and tending our gatherings. Meditating on these words, we experienced a true and powerful substance flowing into our work. It became clear to us that through Applied Anthroposophy we can aid in each other’s awakening as we learn how each of us is asked to apply anthroposophy to the world.

It’s been two years now that an online community has come together to engage consciously with self-development in service to the world. We are deeply grateful for the many striving students who joined us to learn and encourage each other. As we prepare for the third season of Applied Anthroposophy (AAC3!), we affirm that together, with each other and the spiritual world, we will co-create spaces that allow healing impulses to flow into the Now.

As AAC itself evolves, we sense a new guide flying into our garden. We’ll continue to learn from the butterfly... and next year, we invite the Honey Bee to join our work! We hope you, dear reader, will sense the benefits of our collective work and feel the invitation to join us too.

Angela Foster & Jordan Walker are the coordinating team for Applied Anthroposophy along with Tess Parker. Their bios can be read along with much more at www.appliedanthroposophy.org.