Spirit-Recalling, Spirit Awareness, Spirit-Beholding

by Torin Finser

At a recent weekend of meetings of the Collegium of the School for Spiritual Science in North America, the Council of Anthroposophical Organizations and the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America, I took a lunchtime walk down Hungry Hollow Road. Originally just a dirt road on the outskirts of Spring Valley, NY, this rural lane evolved into a central artery in an active anthroposophical community, now including not only the Threefold Educational Foundation but also the Fellowship Community, Eurythmy Spring Valley, Green Meadow Waldorf School, and several other initiatives. Serving people from birth to old age, this community will host our Annual General Meeting and conference on October 2 and 3, 2009, as it has countless conferences over the past seventy years.

As I took my walk, I passed houses that brought back vivid memories of people I knew so well in my childhood: Lisa Monges, who taught me eurythmy at age four and later sponsored me for membership in the society; Howland Vibber, who often played God in the Paradise Play; Connie Ling, who gave me my first lawn-mowing job; Ernst Daniel, who ran the farm and taught me how to milk.... Some recollections were not so distant, such as my meal at the Fellowship Community sitting next to Henry Barnes in May 2008; others went way back, such as the Tasha Tudor cottage that served as summer home for the Wetzels, now just a patch of etherically rich trees and shrubs. I recalled meeting the stately Charlotte Parker on her regular afternoon walks (perhaps one of the reasons she lived to be over 100), and Madame Selke, who always checked the mileage on my odometer to tell me if I had biked to Buffalo yet. All these wonderful people resurfaced in my feeling-memory, giving rise to a deep sense of gratitude.

This spirit-recalling led to a kind of inner dialogue as I walked further. Conversations came back to me, not so much in words but in gesture and inner meaning. In some cases I felt an acute sense of loss and a growing wish to have said goodbye in a more conscious way. What was left unsaid?

My feet guided me to the top of the hill and my hand surprised me by knocking on the door of Ann and Paul Scharf. Much to my surprise, they were home and ever so willing to see me. My childhood doctor, the parents of my childhood friends—in that moment were both a memory and a contemporary presence. We had a wonderful conversation that covered many topics in a short half hour and managed to include both thank-yous and the sharing of insights. When asked for advice for the Anthroposophical Society, Dr. Scharf gently oriented me in the direction of the associative principle in Rudolf Steiner’s work. Which brings me to “spirit-awareness.”

Some of us are comfortable looking backward, others are eager to move into the future, but many struggle to live fully in the moment. This is in part because the soul is often beset by sensory overload coming from the physical world, and by new ideas and impulses coming in part from the spiritual world. The soul, in some ways the most vulnerable part of our human nature, has to work hard to breathe properly into everyday living.

This “breathing with” is part of our challenge to live in spirit awareness in the presence of the other. This does not happen with an “on/off switch” as with much of our technology today, but rather the awareness rises and falls in rhythmic patterns. Even in a conversation there is an ebb and flow of being present; some of us occasionally try to reassert awareness by talking, as it is often more challenging to remain present just by listening.

My colleague Hartwig Schiller, general secretary in Germany, has been speaking about a “situational society.” I hope his article can soon be translated; in essence, he describes how the Anthroposophical Society lives most fully in situations—at times simply in fleeting moments—when human beings find one another in spirit-seeking. If there is truth to this observation then there may be many implications for how members and friends see themselves in free association. I find that our consciousness often reverts back to old Roman, institutional forms: buildings, chairs, membership cards, dues.... Perhaps the world today is asking us to take a leap in our spirit-awareness in how we work together, and to see the situational moments of human encounter as more real than the outer trappings. What is needed to effect this kind of reorientation? How can we work with our organizational forms so that there is maximum flexibility for the soul realm of spirit-awareness?

Looking forward, spirit-beholding can further draw us together. Dr. Johannes Tautz once said in a presentation I attended that the past divides but the future unites. It is for this reason that the general council has begun conversations in groups and branches on “imagining our future.” Peter Senge, author of the bestseller The Fifth Discipline, writes: “The practice of shared vision involves the skills of unearthing shared ‘pictures of the future’ that foster genuine commitment and enrollment rather than compliance” (p. 11). My way of understanding this is that in the process of creation we awaken will forces that can help meet us out of the future. Imagining our future is a relational activity achieved best through conversation and dialogue. The Greeks saw dia-logos as the free flow of meaning through a group, allowing for insights that individuals could not attain on their own. Old forms of leadership were sometimes seen as “telling people what to do.” The leadership of the future has more to do with initiating processes that allow for transformational experiences. Imagining our future, or spirit-beholding, is thus simply a vehicle to release our inner striving.

Finally, in calling upon spirit-recollection, spirit-awareness and spirit-beholding, Rudolf Steiner repeatedly—and I believe intentionally—used the word “practice.” In my mind, this certainly means “do it.” It is like the student who asked the teacher, “which meditation is the best one for me?” and the teacher’s response: “the one you actually do.” So, with any of the exercises given by an initiate, we need to move beyond gratitude to actual practice.

If we are to take courage and do more practicing, we might also want to prepare to practice more forgiving. We often hold oneanother to a standard we have not achieved ourselves. If we are to move forward as a human race, perhaps we need to allow for more risk-taking, initiative, and even the occasional mistake. Our flaws make us more vulnerable, but also more lovable.

Torin M. Finser was General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America, 2007-2016.