Truus Geraets & the Art of Living

As if in letters of gold, there should always stand before the soul of the anthroposophist: “Initiative is part of your karma; much of what meets you in life will depend on whether you can bring this initiative to consciousness.”

—Rudolf Steiner

It seems that initiative good will filled the consciousness of Truus Geraets through her whole life ~ initiative, and the feeling for the world which was part of her Dutch heritage. In 2018, she decided to return to the Netherlands; she crossed the threshold of death in 2023. An extensive account of her remarkable life with many pictures is at www.truusgeraets.nl and includes a link to an international Zoom peace gathering in her honor on December 3, 2023.

Her lifelong response to her sense of helplessness as a youth was the cultivation of “The Art of Living” across four continents. This art for Truus included witnessing, understanding, exploring, helping, healing; awareness of the human and cosmic spirit; the art of movement, eurythmy; and love. In the foreword to her book Love in Action , which grew out of her experiences in the US prison system, Truus asked, “To believe in the higher self of the other as much as of one’s own, isn’t that another expression of LOVE?”

At the time of her leaving the USA, she shared the account which follows. — John Beck

A Life of Initiative: The Story Thus Far (2018),

by Truus Geraets

I was born in 1930 in Holland, youngest of four children, growing up without a father but with a terrific anthroposophist mother, and with love for music from both sides of the family. I lived most of my life far from Holland, still I had this soft spot for it. I often told people, “You know I have been born with this ‘social streak’”. Extreme tolerance is the mark of Holland.

Around age sixteen, I came to the conclusion that the most important thing I could do with my life was to work with children “as they are the future.” I did a training for pharmacist assistant. I was mortified by the “immoral” practices of the pharmacist who declared to visitors that the little homeopathy cupboard carried only “nonsense stuff.”

The next phase saw me join my brother and sisterin-law who had just started Christophorus, a home for children in need of special care. Erna van Deventer, one of the very first eurythmists, came to work with a fouryear-old very disturbed little girl in my group; what she did totally baffled me. I saw before my eyes the healing power of eurythmy at work. She was the reason I started the study of eurythmy at the Goetheanum, but not before taking one year at the Seminar for Curative Education in Eckwaelden near Stuttgart. Many of our teachers had known Rudolf Steiner personally: Dr. Ernst Lehrs, Frau Dr. Lehrs, Albrecht Strohschein, Dr. Hauschka and Margareta Hauschka. Also, in Eckwaelden was Else Sittel, a very impressive eurythmy therapist and pianist. My intention when going to Dornach was to study eurythmy as an art as well as a healing art. This was not allowed, but I was not put off. Through all the years I attended regular afternoon sessions with Ilse de Jaager and received much stimulation from her for my later work with eurythmy therapy. Also significant in my biography was the fact that in the last year in Dornach (1959) I had an operation with local anesthetics, resulting in a near-death experience.

Coming to Holland in 1960, I made life-changing connections with a friend named Barbara with whom I lived four years, then moved with her to Scotland (Garvald School) before we started Haus Columban in Ueberlingen, Germany. Some of the 25 children were labeled “time-damaged” children, others severely handicapped. After three years and new rules, we found good places for all the children to go to, some to their parents and regular Waldorf schools. Two children went back to live with Barbara and me in the Westerwald.

This is now 44 years ago. In America I switched to giving eurythmy lessons to Waldorf classes. That continued once I had bought a house in a Black neighborhood in Kalamazoo, Michigan. While waiting for a work permit, I restored the whole house to create a space for eurythmy workshops. Then I started working, commuting between work at Esperanza School (an honor to have worked with Dr. Traute Page) and the Detroit Waldorf School. A small group of students of anthroposophy decided to start working with the innercity youth of Detroit, trying to create employment opportunities for them. They called it the Life Center. I suggested then that just living was not enough, it had to be the Art of Living. This became my lifelong code, alongside The Art of Healing.

I had to create sources of income in a place where eurythmy was totally unknown. So, I went to an institution for mental patients to offer my expertise in eurythmy. Though the staff had never heard of it, they let me start with the idea, “If they like it, you can continue.” And they liked it. In this time, I also met those caught up in drugs and crime. That led me to offer eurythmy in a big prison in Michigan’s upper peninsula.

I took a year off from eurythmy (made possible by a small inheritance after my mother’s death) to become a mentor for many inmates of the Jackson State Prison, which housed 5000 people. I describe this story in my book Love in Action. I came to meet my true soul mate, born on the same day as me, but 18 years younger. At his insistence we got married, a Muslim wedding inside the prison! I accompanied him for over thirty years, when he was more often inside than outside of the prison system. I became well qualified to report on “Perspectives of the Prison System in America from both sides of the walls.”

When Dawud was released but could find no work in Michigan, I moved with him to Texas. It was easy to find work there as I was the only eurythmist far and wide. I covered Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.

After we divorced in 1984, there was no need for me to stay any longer in the United States. I was now free to follow a long-deferred dream to do some work in Africa. The opportunity to follow this dream arose when the Max Stibbe School in Pretoria, South Africa, adopted a Black farm school. I loved the work, teaching eurythmy to classes of ninety children in a chicken coop, but I disdained the racist remarks toward the Black teachers.

And so, I found my way to Johannesburg to work with an anthroposophical doctor, who prescribed eurythmy therapy for his patients. I also could work on weekends in the Weleda lab.

Meanwhile, I found the friends with whom to start the first Waldorf school in a Black township. We knew that we had to make use of this window-in-time to do something unusual. Where half a million people live in one square mile, it obviously is a very dangerous place. My car was hijacked twice, the second time with a distinguished guest from America, Joan Almon, in it! The Inkanyezi School was seen as an oasis of peace amidst all this devastation. [The name means “starlight.” –Editor] It is a wonder that the school still exists and is thriving with 360 pupils.

In 1994, I was able to get back from the bright sunshine into the deep snow cover of Maine, at the invitation of Jennifer Greene. I immediately organized monthly eurythmy workshops, where people came from faraway places. During the week I taught eurythmy in three different Waldorf schools, while also taking in the rich natural beauty of Maine. However, I wanted to live in a state that was multicultural. That is how I came to choose California, and specifically, Los Angeles.

Special attractions here were Orland Bishop and Wiep de Vries. With my car, I again covered long distances to do eurythmy therapy work in three different Waldorf schools. The Westside School in Santa Monica allowed me to use their building on a weekend for a Social Forum in 2012 and we were able to fundraise for scholarships for many young people to attend. Already in 2001, I was able to work together with Tim Smith, lecturer at the CSU university in Northridge to organize a most successful Social Forum with Nicanor Perlas from the Philippines and Orland Bishop, attracting many young people to learn about Rudolf Steiner’s farreaching ideas to create a healthy society. In Hollywood, Dottie Zold built on those social impulses with the Elderberries Café.

In 2000, I met Ben Cherry when Ute Craemer and I gathered support for a World Social Forum to be held at the Goetheanum. In 2018 the idea still awaits realization. [The impulse is carried forward now in the World Social Initiative Forum.] Over the years I followed the work Ben was doing in China within the burgeoning Waldorf school development. I now decided to contact him, expressing my wish to contribute eurythmy as a healing art in China. In 2018, I will go for the fifth time, as people appreciated my approach. People relate to my style.

In 2018, came the time for big decisions, to leave California and the US and the many good friends and colleagues here, and go once more into unchartered waters, just as the Dutch Seafarers did, exploring new horizons.

A few performances I did with groups of teachers over the years: in 1962, a Russian legend by Alex Remisow in Holland; in 1968, excerpts from the Hiawatha story by Longfellow in Scotland; in 1971, a lyre concert on the Kalewala with children in our Home in Rengoldshausen, Germany; in 1977, the Mexican story of How Music Came to Earth at the Esperanza School in Chicago; and in 1990, The Little Angel’s Way to Earth with students of our Baobab College in Alexandra, South Africa.