MONTHLY LETTERS ARCHIVE
No letters Dec 2009/Jan 2010
November 2009
As I am writing this letter, Anthroposophy NYC’s beloved townhouse on West 15th Street is undergoing surgery. As a consequence of a blocked outflow pipe during floods that took place during the deluges in the middle of June, some walls and wooden floors suffered considerable damage. Struggles with the demons of the insurance world led to unfortunate delays.
Currently, reconstruction is underway. Floors have been replaced and one bathroom is operational. Although work to repair and expand the kitchen is not finished yet, soon our normally intense levels of activity will be possible. Study groups are resuming their weekly and monthly meetings and through the persistence and perseverance of many people, the New York branch has resisted adversity and kept itself afloat and moving forward.
But what does all this mean? And why do these things happen? What are these adversarial forces that keep bringing obstacles against which we never seem to stop fighting?
As a new member of the Anthroposophical Society, I often wonder what does it mean to be a member? What does my membership require of me? Beyond my good intentions,
how do I honor the selfless effort of many others working for me, before me?
As Anthroposophy is getting ready to celebrate her 100th birthday in America next year, I find myself having more questions than answers. What can I do? How can I help? Where am I needed? What genuine spiritual enthusiasm is behind my commitment and my work? What do I do to ensure the continuity of Anthroposophy in the world?
Participating in our programs and activities at the branch, we usually just note the outer trappings of our spiritual quests. But what is essential is that the soul-spiritual nature in you, meets the soul-spiritual nature in me. And through these meetings, the Being of Anthroposophy gets into the world. The building on West 15th Street is more than just a platform. It is the vessel where this wonderful Being exists and nurtures the Spirit into the world. Here the relationship of One with the Other is possible.
Self to self engaging through the intermediary of the One.
So next time you ask yourself, what can I do? How can I help? Where am I needed? Think in terms of relationships. How can I help somebody else? Help something that needs to happen? At Michaelmas we celebrate the dying of nature with the awakening of our highest human intentions. And for them to be realized, we need each other. There are many areas in which you are definitely needed at Anthroposophy NYC: participating in study groups, workshops, volunteering in the bookstore, as a support person before or after events. In this, harmony should always be a reachable and workable goal if we keep in mind that the future of Anthroposophy NYC depends on the participation and good will of all its members.
Monica Gonzalez
October 2009 Letter
My love of the earth and all her beings and creatures starts with
my recognition of the most important living entity of this planet,
soil.
Fertile soil is the most essential element for life on Earth.
Every living plant owes its well being and ability to grow to the
realms of life that reside in healthy soil. Its depletion and
destruction were responsible for the decline of Ancient Mesopotamia,
the Persian Empire and Roman civilizations, and in more recent
times, the abuse of soil contributed to the Great Depression in the
United States. This trend of neglect of this living being of soil is
leading our civilization down a path of destruction.
In 2001, a United Nations report found an alarming trend of soil
degradation. The report states that an estimated 40% of the world's
agricultural land is seriously degraded. Approximately 29 billion
tons of topsoil are lost worldwide each year, and as the human
population grows this number will certainly grow. This trend should
be a wake-up call.
Soil depletion is a global problem. The materialistic view held
by most people in the world ignores the interaction of the four
elements – earth, air, fire and water and their transformative
powers in our soil. Let’s try to comprehend what is being lost. In
the earth’s ecosystem, an incredible number of living organisms use
minerals, organic matter, sunlight, air and water to create an
environment that nourishes the plants, which in turn nourish us.
Therefore, I say where there are living organisms, there is Wisdom.
Behind this Wisdom, I believe, there is a conscious, intelligent
spirit.
Renowned physicist Max Planck stated, “Spirit itself cannot exist
for itself alone and to every spirit there belongs a Being so we are
forced to assume Spirit-Being. But as
Spirit-Being also cannot exist out of itself alone it must
have been created, so I am not shy in naming this mystery creator,
as have all peoples of all the ancient cultures of this world –
God (Lebendige Erde No 3/84, pg 133).”
In 1923 a student asked Rudolf Steiner, “Why is it so difficult
to connect with the spiritual world?” His answer was that “the
disconnect was due to the poverty of the soil!” So have we lost the
will to even ask these questions? Have our bodies lost the strength
to formulate them? I say there is always hope! The remedy starts
with our cognition of the living forces in our soil and its
relationship with the cosmos. Healing finds completion when we allow
Wisdom to penetrate ourselves so that something of the spiritual
world reconnects what was lost.
Our ancient soil holds many truths, most of them physically
visible. But in seeing the inner world of soil, we may be blessed to
gain insight into the legendary land of Shambhalla. May the
radiating warmth from this Divine throne bring us to health, and to
a loving peace along with our blessed companion Soil.
Anthony Spitaliere
September 2009 Letter
After our summer hiatus, the New York Branch will re-open on
Monday Sep 21st. and our volunteers are busy preparing the building
for this re-opening, with completing some paint touch-ups and
maintenance work. The bookstore is refreshing its inventory, to
coincide with some of the rich programs offered this year, and will
reopen on Saturday, Sep 26th.
The focus of this letter is our outstanding program offerings. In
highlighting a few special events scheduled to date, we will start
with our Michaelmas celebrations. First, Linda Larson will be
offering her monthly eurythmy program on
The Michaelmas Mood. Later in the week we will dedicate two days
to Goethe’s fairy tale, The Green Snake and Beautiful Lily.
On Thursday, Sep 24th, Joan Almon will begin with a
brief telling of this fairy tale,
examining some of the mysteries contained in it. The following day,
Glen Williamson and Laurie Portocarrero will give a
dramatic performance of this
extraordinary work, believed by many to have been a significant
stimulus for Steiner’s development of anthroposophy as a path of
knowledge. Both these events are open to
Waldorf high school students, at a discount. On Sunday, Sep
27th, at 7PM, we will hold the third
George Kuhlewind Memorial Lecture. This special event includes
wonderful refreshments, a musical performance on our unique Steinway
and a talk by Gertrude Reif Hughes on "Poetry as a Portal to
Spiritual Perception." Finally, on Oct 1st we will celebrate
Michaelmas.
Also in October, we begin David Anderson’s ten-part series on
Goethean Science, on Wednesday Oct
7th, followed on Thursday by clay
modeling, taking up the subject of the previous evening. Each
installment of the series will include a Wednesday lecture and a
Thursday clay workshop. Please see this newsletter for details.
In addition to the continuation of our monthly groups, in October
we will also offer a lecture by Steve Usher on Rudolf Steiner’s
Three-Fold Social Order and Its Relevance Today, and Robert Stewart
will speak on Faust: The Archetypical Modern Man, and Dorothy
Emmerson will begin a series on Chekhov Acting Techniques For
Non-Actors. An art exhibit by Andrew
Franck will fill our walls and the artist will hold an art
opening as well as a discussion/conversation Reassembling Wisdom:
Illustrating The Holistic Imagination of Spiritual Science about his
exhibit at Centerpoint Gallery.
Please review this newsletter, check our website regularly, and
most importantly, come and see what we have to offer. You may event
want to bring a friend.
Marianna Reges
June 2009 Letter
May 31 is Pentecost. Pentecost is the event that inflames the
gesture of universal understanding, the awakening of the ability to
speak the language of another soul’s individuality. This is the
yearly festival of true social interest and caring. It fills the
heart with love for others.
Rudolf Steiner often wrote and spoke that the ultimate goal of
humanity is the expression of love. He closes a lecture on the four
temperaments with these words:
- “Anthroposophy does not work by means of sermons,
exhortations or moral dogmas, but by creating an underlying
social foundation through which people can perceive and
understand each other. Spiritual science is the ground of life
and love is the blossom and fruit of a life awoken and
stimulated by it. Thus spiritual science may claim to lay the
foundation for humanity’s most beautiful goal - the true and
authentic love of others.”
How are you moving toward the expression of love? How does
anthroposophy help you evolve your individuality to be a greater
expression of love?
Ultimately, a branch is a place where we come to meet each other
through anthroposophy. The branch is not a place where we come to
meet anthroposophy and disregard each other. Yet sadly, we often
forget to engage with one another to the same degree we engage with
anthroposophy.
If we are merely students of anthroposophy and not anthroposophists,
then the branch is an enriching class room. If we are
anthroposophists then the branch is a center where we practice
loving one another.
Over the last year, I have made it a practice when ever I am
speaking at the branch to ask everyone to pair up with another
person, and gaze at that person for one minute. This is done in
silence. When we gaze at one another, we begin to unconditionally
love one another.
During the gazing exercises, the room energy becomes amazingly
still. The stillness is not deathlike, rather it is a vibrant,
balanced harmony. Everyone in the room is loving someone else.
Self-consciousness, awkwardness, superficiality and weariness
disappear. Initially, gazing not easy for the participants, for many
it is a new experience that takes them beyond cultural, and
therefore comfortable, boundaries. Gazing does not fall into
sentimentality and ordinary sympathy. It is not staring.
I have read personal accounts from those who knew Rudolf Steiner
saying that in his presence they felt loved. Imagine if people said
this about you.
As anthroposophists evolving our fullest humanity, can we awake
everyday willing to love? When we review our day before going to
sleep, can we feel the love we gave and received?
With loving interest,
Lynn Jericho
May 2009 Letter
Pentecost (or Whitsun), the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday,
falls on the tenth day after Ascension Thursday and is related
historically and symbolically to the Jewish Shavuot. Shavuot marks
fifty days after the day on which God gave the stone tablets of the
Ten Commandments to Moses at Mount Sinai. Today, Pentecost
commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles and
disciples as described in the Book of Acts, Chapter 2* of the New
Testament. There are many singular aspects to this event – the first
is the disciples being together “all with one accord in one place.”
Then there was the rushing mighty wind, the cloven tongues of fire
sitting upon each, with each inspired by the Holy Ghost to speak in
“other tongues” to a crowd made up of individuals of many distinct
cultural groups – all of whom miraculously experienced being spoken
to about the wonderful works of God in their own language.
Being students of spiritual science, we turn away from any
explanation suggesting “it was a miracle and God can do anything, so
stop trying to understand it.” In fact, the absolute possibility and
necessity for us to enrich our knowing is the bedrock on which
anthroposophy stands. Furthermore, the knowing that anthroposophy
speaks of is quite opposite to data and information (yes, even
opposite to “esoteric” information!), but is instead a livingly
experienced cognition. Georg Kühlewind, in Becoming Aware of the
Logos, wrote: “Cognition transforms man through and through, even to
his very blood.”
This language of Pentecost, then, may be that language
experienced before Babel, but so transformed in love that it
descends through speaking from a boundary region where the primal
tongue and all individualized languages still abide together.
How do we find the way to our own Pentecost? To practices that
can change the isolating stone of our dead thinking and habit? How
do we invite the Spirit down from the mountain heights into our very
cells? Please note certain preconditions in Acts 2 – the disciples
were of “one accord in one place” and the listeners were “devout
men, out of every nation under heaven.” That suggests both inner
preparation at the individual level, and true community on the
social side. Difficult, given the many “demons,” both personal and
societal working against us, but at times not impossible. Remember
that in unnoticed milliseconds, we go to that realm where meaning
precedes individual words and sentences every time we speak to or
listen to one another.
In a lecture on August 8, 1922, Rudolf Steiner wrote, “Once we
begin to meditate, we achieve the only really fully free deed
possible in this human life… When we meditate, we are completely
free.” Meditation exercises, as Georg Kühlewind guided them, are a
path toward concentrating attention sufficiently so that, beyond
“little me,” we may reach and dwell in the expansive meaning realms
of the true self and true community. There the amazement of the
first Pentecost awaits us.
Please check out our
new blog
on meditation (based on Georg Kühlewind’s approach).
Walter Alexander
* Thanks, Wikipedia.
April 2009 Letter
Relating To Our Multi-filtered Existence
As this newsletter goes to print, alarming reports about the
downward spiral of the U.S. and world economies continue to echo
among the media. We face an uncertain future with what appears to be
a self-feeding phenomenon of economic collapse. People lose jobs and
have nowhere to turn. Those who have jobs have reduced consumption.
The reduction in consumption results in further economic woes, as
goods and services are not sold nor consumed. Credit could help on a
temporary basis, if it only were available.
We receive all this information constantly. How can we discern
accurately what we are receiving?
We live with external and internal filters that reduce our
ability to perceive, to understand, and to relate to what goes on in
the world and our role in it. Some of these filters are so much a
part of our daily lives that we do not even think of them as
obstacles.
Unless one is a modern hermit, it is virtually impossible to
avoid finding out what individuals who communicate through the media
consider important for others to know. We read, listen, watch, and
surf the news and information that others have decided to
disseminate. At best, we are exposed to a filtered sample of what is
happening in the world.
Our public information sources tend to simplify causality. When
an event happens, for reporting purposes, its cause must be proximal
in time and space. Complexity is shunned. An explanation of an event
must fit the length of a sound bite, which is now down to seven
seconds or less in length from over forty seconds in 1968.1
Complexity is replaced by a fifteen words long
explanation, often notable by the absence of context.
However, when we receive the news, our almost automatic response to
any external event is in terms of how we feel about it. Whether we
react with anxiety, fear, or a determination to deal with what is
going on, our instinct is to relate the external to ourselves.
Self-reference is a comfort. It is also another filter. What,
exactly, do we learn from meeting events only on familiar grounds?
In instances where we choose to be active observers and
co-participants in contemporary events, we may apply logical
thinking, deductive reasoning, and induction. While useful to
determine relationships, sequences and infer generalizations, these
methods do not bring us any closer to understand reality and our
role in it. This illusory filter satisfies our curiosity and may
even give us a sense of completeness because we have observed,
identified, and connected events by the application of our
intellect.
So how can we overcome the multiple filters that stand between us
and our understanding of reality?
In 1923, Rudolf Steiner highlighted the difference between
relating to events by thinking differently about them and an
approach where an individual understands events by transforming
thinking and feeling:
For the anthroposophical world conception is
not based on merely exchanging the view of things prevailing today
for a different view similarly arrived at. As becomes evident in the
whole posture of anthroposophy, it is not enough to think
differently about all sorts of things, but — far more importantly —
to think these different thoughts in a different way, to feel them
with a different attitude of soul. Anthroposophy requires that
thinking and feeling be utterly transformed, not just changed as to
content.2
The desire to engage consciously with the world is the first step
in understanding it. There are many ways to approach a conscious
engagement with the world that overcome the filters mentioned above.
The April program is full of opportunities to explore these, from
movement to singing, to drawing and sharing of the fruits of the
application of enhanced cognition to the world.
Jesús M. Amadeo
1 “The Incredible Shrinking Sound
Bite” by Kiku Adatto, The New Republic, May 28, 1990, p.20 (pdf
online).
2 “Awakening to
Community”,
lecture given in Stuttgart, Germany, January 30, 1923.
March 2009 Letter
During the long dark days of winter, I look within and face my
limited understanding of the workings of the world. The cold dark
days encourage me to look within. Ironically, during this time of
self-reflection, I am strengthened by the guidance that the
spiritual world has to offer. I am reminded that the earth is our
most blessed companion.
The seasons breathe, establishing a rhythm, kindling the light
that shines from above and radiates from below. In this dynamic
sharing, I recognize the light of true thought that flows through
me. I am reminded that as humans we live amongst the shadows of this
earth, where our principle task is to spread our own light into the
darkness illuminating all with our brilliant hues. These palettes of
light, these great hues of color are mirroring the spectrum of human
emotions and are intimately related to the earth's seasons. The
breadths of these emotions span a lifetime, beginning with my first
memory and are all part of the vessel of my being. Like the
invisible aroma of a flower, life forces radiate from me and
permeate the earth. This intimate relationship with the earth
nurtures in me a feeling of connectedness, one of hope and of duty.
Our bodies and our souls have a friend in the radiant being of
the earth. If we dig down deeply into our feeling life we will
discover a place of wonder. This fertile ground is where reverence
resides. It is the place for new growth that germinates out of dark
earthly decay. All things that grow need to break down something of
themselves in order to reveal something of the Divine. We are the
vessels that support this spiritual revelation. Christ said, "I am
the Light of the World." In Him was Life and Life was the Light of
men. The Light shone in the darkness and the darkness comprehended
it not.
Let's not turn away from the call to invite this Light. When we
integrate the fire of our passions with the flame of our actions we
are never too far from our spiritual guides. When we bring
imagination to our everyday tasks, they eagerly participate in our
earthly journey. Through us and this sacred union of spirit and
substance, they may realize hope and freedom.
My hope is that all of what is streaming to us from the spiritual
world and from the earth finds a place to live in each of us and
grows in vitality and strength. In discovering our true spiritual
center, we can be in communion with each other and with the
spiritual world’s aims for us.
Like pilgrims bringing new hope to a darkened world, we must
think anew, through our heart forces. While remaining respectful to
our old Karma, we must become awake and courageous in transforming
it.
As another springtime approaches I am hopeful that we, as earth's
most blessed companions, will hear her call--and that we will
consciously commit ourselves to serving the earth with a new spirit
of brotherhood out of which love, selflessness, joy and appreciation
will be the cornerstones of a new harvest.
Anthony Spitaliere
February 2009 Letter
It’s February – The darkest part of the winter has passed, but
not the coldest. The light is again growing stronger and longer, but
it’s a cold light. The sun’s warmth won’t begin to be felt until
late March… or even April. And yet, the strengthening light brings
with it the promise and anticipation of life-giving warmth and the
renewal forces of springtime. So for the time being, we and all of
nature must endure February’s icy grip.
But already, changes are visibly taking place. Animals and plants
sensitive to the expanding day length have begun their preparations
for spring. Buds are swelling noticeably in the trees, and animals
that have been holed up in their cozy dens are now stirring and
venturing out for a peek. Some have even given birth to young
conceived in the fall – and the den continues to serve as a
secondary womb-space, nurturing the life within until the sun’s
warmth returns once more. In stables, barns, woods and fields across
the frozen North, the larger animals are preparing to give birth.
Here in this coldest and deepest contraction of winter, we
experience the turning point toward the expansion and out-breathing
of spring. The Celts and other earlier cultures experienced the
blanketing of the earth by sparkling white snow as a blessing of
stillness and purification – and the rains, as baptismal cleansings,
bringing fertility to the earth and preparing her for her
re-awakening in spring.
But not all of life makes it through this difficult transition.
The forces needed to survive this protracted cold and dark are often
too great for the weakest, and by the time spring finally arrives
with its warmth and color and sound and resurgence of life activity,
these few are completely spent. When the first blossoms appear, when
seeds begin to sprout, just as nature around them is coming back to
life… they die. And there are many suicides during this period as
well – during this quietly dynamic transition from Christmas to
Easter – the month of February. The word itself comes from the Latin
februum meaning purification.
February 2nd (our Groundhog Day or Candelmas) and February 14th
(our Valentine’s Day) were once much celebrated pre-Christian
festivals having to do with purification, renewal and fertility.
February 2nd is connected with the celebration of Imbolc, one of the
four main festivals of the Celtic calendar, falling at the mid-point
between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It is dedicated
to Brigit, the Goddess of poetry, healing and blacksmiths; of
regeneration and abundance. Brigit was ultimately adopted by the
Christian church as a saint, and Imbolc was transformed into the
Christian feast day of St. Brigit. Later, Candelmas, which
commemorates the ritual purification of Mary 40 days after the birth
of Jesus, was added to the February 2nd festival. According to Pagan
legend, Brigit’s snake would emerge on Imbolc, either from her womb
or from a mound of earth where it hibernated, and its behavior would
indicate the length of the remaining winter. Early German settlers
to Pennsylvania adopted the groundhog for like purposes, giving us
our Groundhog Day.
February 14th (Feb 13 – 15) was an early, possibly pre-Roman
festival called the Lupercalia (sometimes, Saturnalia). This was a
raucous fertility rite involving the sacrificial slaughter of a goat
and dog, and among other things, ensuring young women fertility and
an easy childbirth.
As Christianity became more entrenched, the Lupercalia was
replaced by the celebration of one St. Valentine (there were
several). Legend has it that the saint was beaten and beheaded on
February 14th for defending Christianity to the Emperor (and trying
to convert him). While he was jailed, he fell in love with the
emperor’s daughter, who would visit regularly to bring him food. And
just prior to his death, wrote her a note expressing his love, which
he signed, “your Valentine.” A more exalted form of love was now
celebrated.
So it’s clear that February is the month in which the renewal
forces of nature begin to re-emerge in all of their varied forms of
creation and procreation, and in which the sun’s warmth first lets
itself be felt in the cold of winter through the kindling of Love in
the hearts of mankind… so that at Easter time we can sing “Love is
come again like wheat that springeth green…”
Phoebe Alexander
January 2009 Letter
Toward Bethlehem - Now, Then….
“Oh Little town of Bethlehem,
how still we see thee lie…”
My childhood Christmases are framed by advent candles and manger
scenes, with such carols as sound track. The tension of the years of
Christ’s work on earth, the sorrow and the triumph of Golgotha, come
much later in this story. Christmas is about hope, about the search
for a place to be born and finding a lowly one, serenaded by cattle
and gifted by kings. I see the countless Christmas card images of
stillness, soft light, warm hay, and the adoring parents looking on
as the babe reaches out to receive the gold, the lamb…
Recently, only weeks ago, I was in Bethlehem, and experienced
that it is really a place on earth. Located in an area of
Israel/Palestine called the West Bank, it is reached in about
fifteen minutes from Jerusalem through a barrier, called a security
wall, passing through a rigorous military checkpoint. The town
maintains an ancient look in its center, and during a period of
relative calm, tourists flock to the Church of the Nativity, to
touch the place where Jesus was born. Outside this holy site, the
town is as many in this area of the world - a bit dusty, struggling
to be part of the electronic age, hounded by poverty. There are
refugee camps, where hopelessness wafts like a wind through the
alleys: many are caught by it, many not. There are countless, it
seems, non-governmental agencies and grass roots efforts to change
the trajectory of this place, to bring order and energy to a
listless place. There are craft collectives, dance troupes, a
peace-curriculum school, and individuals with good intentions and a
deep commitment to change.
We were a delegation of a group called Compassionate Listening,
out of Seattle, a Quaker-inspired approach that sends folks to
conflict areas to listen - simply that - to people’s narratives of
their lives and present situations. “An enemy is one whose story you
have not heard” is a sort of mantra we practice, through training as
well as our own convictions, a non-judgmental hearing, a
listening-in to the core of what is being told. Often a person
listened to experiences a kind of change just through this act- a
new perspective on their situation that arises as a calm, sacred
space held for them by a bunch of caring strangers from Salt Lake,
Cincinnati and Vancouver. Sometimes it is a subtle shift, sometimes
a confirmation, and sometimes: revolutionary, transformative. It is
my thought that through this intention to really hear the other, we
enter to a realm above and beyond the words, into the realm of
meaning and intention. We practice a kind of attention that allows
us to enter into the truth that is not anyone person or side’s
possession , a realm where community and communing is possible.
In Bethlehem, we met with government officials, ex-soldiers and
combatants, teachers and community organizers. We listened. We
visited the church, and we experienced its division into sections
for Roman Catholics, Armenian, and Greek Orthodox services. We
listened …we shopped for embroideries, we took countless pictures of
The Wall, and a few furtive ones of young soldiers with guns. And we
listened.
What is the meaning of Bethlehem, two thousand years ago and
today, if not this listening? Not to the angry words or the poverty,
the rejection or the disempowerment - but to the realm where we are
all together where we commune as a verb, where we appear to one
another and are led by one another as shepherds and kings were led?
The Christ Child was born in Bethlehem and placed in a manger, a
feeding trough, a place of nourishment. His mission was to bring us
together in communion, to be consumed by us in the Holy Meal of our
presence to one another. Bethlehem today is visibly marked by this
exterior wall and the many walls inside us, but it is a place where
attention must be and is paid to this effort to live in peace.
Bethlehem, Oh little town, your stillness can be created day to
day in our hearts, so that when we speak to one another, there and
here, we can be listening and can be heard.
Joyce Reilly
December 2008 Letter
Turning Points
Momentous change. Here at the close of November’s first week as I
write this December letter, two events with both local and global
significance have swept by and over us. The first was the NYC
Marathon, and the second, the election of Barack Obama, a man of
multiracial blood, to the presidency of the world’s most powerful
nation.
Starting with the marathon – what makes it unique? As a frequent
air traveler, during take-offs and landings I sometimes fly over
sports stadiums with events in progress. From a jet plane
super-bird’s-eye view, it seems quite clear that these vortices of
powerful emotion have some more than ordinary but little understood
place in the world. In my recent discussions with two prominent
psychic researchers, they both pointed out that devices called RNGs
(random number generators) go sharply out of randomness in the
presence of strong emotional fields – and did worldwide, for
example, during the year 2000 celebrations and in the hours before
and after 9/11!
The NYC marathon is no typical event, even among marathons.
Participants routinely speak of the intensity of energy unlike that
experienced in any other race, especially from the crowds lining
First Avenue when the runners turn off the Queensboro Bridge, or
along the final miles in Central Park. But the truly amazing thing
is that after the two winners cross the finish line (a Brazilian man
and a UK woman this year), no one goes home. The cheers, the surging
waves of whitest-hot encouragement and yes, love, keep pouring out
for hours to the tens of thousands who also ran – or rolled wheel
chairs, or limped, or wore bizarre costumes, or bore some banner of
a cause or whim. One could not help but sense how much more was in
that outpouring than is found in the conventional sports fan’s cries
for my team or against yours. That supporting flame, which burned
more fiercely the more human and flawed the participant, was
undoubtedly for all of us – from all of us! The unconquerable heart
recognizing its own in struggle!
This calls up the memory of a recurrent dream from my early
childhood. Always a race through a tiled tunnel (fed by early
experiences of the drive through the Holland Tunnel, I’m sure)
amidst a varied crowd – sometimes through side chambers, but always
through a tunnel, long and dimly lit.
Yes, the symbolists and psychologists will say – ah, the birth
canal—and maybe they’re right. The one time I remember it ending up
somewhere seemed to be Macy’s with my mother waiting for me! But
above all, what the race awakens for us is our communion in the
journey we make together.
So – what turning point is this the emblem of – this race where
after the pros have crossed the line, the cameras stay on and the
real life just begins? It is finally, in a worldwide-local public
demonstration, the proof that the age of heroes has ended, and the
age of humanity has begun. The president is not a war hero, but a
community organizer.
So with this, we invite you to celebrate with us that birth in
the Holy Land that signifies all of this and more. In our Holy
Nights events, we share together spiritual science’s daily task, one
step by struggling step making sacred the ordinary, and making real
the sacred in all of us.
Walter Alexander
November 2008 Letter
In the fall of my eleventh year, my beloved grandmother crossed
the threshold. She left behind seven sons, her husband, a few
grandchildren, and many others. She had helped raise me, and the
times I spent by her side, making dinner, playing cards, sitting
with her while she crocheted, were the times I felt most happy and
safe.
The following years of my youth were characterized by emptiness
as prominent as the joy and innocence it replaced. Shock and
numbness, and a searing sense of loss were gradually transfigured
into a faded longing that remained in ways that were all too
tangible. A cloudy grief colored the background of my days, even as
the melodramatic concerns of my teenage existence came to the fore.
When I turned to those around me, I found no insight, no answers
about death in general, or about her death in particular, that were
in any way satisfying. The replacement for the loss in my heart
never came. I missed her. I yearned for her. And, in a way, I
suppose I began to search for her.
When I was 18 and graduating from high school, my brother,
father, mother and I went to a restaurant to celebrate. At the
beginning of the meal my father handed me a card. It must be my
graduation card, I thought. As I opened it, something started to
stir inside and my heart started to race - as it does now as a write
this. I saw the handwriting of my grandmother. Her distinctive
cursive letters and blue ink instantly brought her memory to by
mind. At once, her warmth and sweetness were all around. Before she
died, my father explained, she had asked him to save this note and
give it to me when I had grown.
In this treasured letter she spoke to me of her love and support.
In it, she honored the young woman she knew I would become! She
would miss seeing me, she wrote, loved me very much and would always
be with me.
Did I find her again in that brief moment? Had she always been
there? In my quest for insight and answers, I discovered a picture
created by Rudolf Steiner that spoke - and speaks - to my searching
self. Anthroposophy, he says, is to become the language of the
living and the dead. Its living pictures translate into freedom from
that part of myself that believes separation is final and that my
prayers and my longing may not reach across it. Communication,
Steiner says, can and does take place, and when two souls are
connected across the threshold, the spiritual work done by one on
earth will be the substance that the dead soul will be able to
recognize. This insight into the connection between the living and
the “so-called dead” brings an urgency and responsibility to my
being on Earth.
I look to and am grateful for these insights. I will hold them
closer on All Souls Day and in these November days.
That day I saw beneath dark clouds
The passing light over the water
And I heard the voice of the world speak out
I knew then as I have before
Life is no passing memory of what has been
Nor the remaining pages of a great book
Waiting to be read
It is the opening of eyes long closed
It is the vision of far off things
Seen for the silence they hold
It is the heart after years of secret conversing
Speaking out loud in the clear air
It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees
Before the lit bush
It is the man throwing away his shoes
As if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished
Opened at last
Fallen in love
With Solid Ground
"The Opening of Eyes" by David Whyte
(Songs for Coming Home:
Poems, 1987)
Lisa Bono
October 2008 Letter
For most of my adult working life, I have been a volunteer. This
sounds very noble, and for this reason, it sets my teeth on edge
just to write those words. I have had the good fortune to meet the
Threefold Social Order in practical life, by being involved in
Camphill and other communities where an alternative-to the
mainstream life is being built. Here, we are able to put aside
economic concerns for ourselves individually, and are challenged to
give our work according to our talents and abilities, resting in the
knowledge that the balance of such abilities in the community
ensures that the economic realm is also served. Perhaps we were not
volunteers at all in the modern sense, because we also received all
we needed to live, and live a beautiful life, from this community.
Now I live a very different life. I still feel myself to be in a
community, but the bonds that hold us together, the subtle way in
which the strength of one upholds the weakness of the next, is much
harder to see. Yet here at the Branch, I know that I am more than
needed. I am essential. Not because I have such sterling qualities,
but because - I, we, are all we have. WE are the community, and we
are brought together by our love of spirit and the way it is
manifested through Anthroposophy. Or maybe we are here because we
like the pot-luck suppers and took a marvelous painting course once,
or admire Waldorf education - no matter. WE are it! There is no one
else to praise or blame, no underlying structure or overbearing
authority to hold us up or bail us out. WE must structure, organize,
paint and decorate - it’s all up to us. And what we have as
motivation for forming this Branch, for working sometimes harder
that we could have imagined to keep it alive, is our individual
expression of the spiritual life, and our shared and recognition of
each other as on a path of development and dare I say, healing.
A volunteer is usually thought of as an extra, an “auxiliary”, to
use an old-fashioned term. Here at the Branch, nothing is extra. Our
Branch is All-Volunteer; or better put, All-Essential. Let’s find a
better word for using will in service of soul and spirit freely! For
we are a branch, the Branch New York City, Centerpoint. We sit on
West 15th Street, a little above, a little below the surface, with
our bookstore full of the riches of thought and our auditorium full
of art and beauty, and the hallways full of the warmth of each
other. There are so many things to be done, and the Branch will be
richer, indeed, only as wealthy, as that which you can freely will
and share with all of us.
This autumn, as the Branch begins another year of activity and
the fruit of our summer rest begins to ripen - please be a part of
that WE. For as much or as little time that you have - you are
needed, you are ESSENTIAL, to this Branch, to the community, and to
the spiritual life of New York City. Please feel invited to speak
with any member of the Council or other active members about what
YOU CAN DO AND or how you can be a part of the LIFE AND work of the
Branch.
Where the needs are:
• Arts • Bookstore • Finance • Fundraising • Hospitality • Internet
Marketing •
• Maintenance • Membership • Newsletter • Program • Space Use •
Technology •
Joyce Reilly
Sept 2008 Letter
As I sit down to write this letter it is high summer – July 28th,
to be precise – and, thanks to superabundant rain, the Massachusetts
countryside is lush and green. When you read my words it will be
September, the first autumn colors will be appearing, and we shall
be close to Michaelmas. The significance of today’s date is that
exactly eighty-four years ago Rudolf Steiner gave a magnificent
lecture [1] in which he described the
process by which, under the guidance of the
Archangel Michael, human
beings gradually gained the ability to think and act independently
of their ancient spiritual mentors. Michael is one of the seven
Archangels who, for successive periods of about three hundred years,
have the spiritual leadership of human evolution. Having been the
ruling Archangel in the early years of classical Greece, when the
descent of the cosmic intelligence began, Michael again took up that
position towards the end of the nineteenth century, shortly before
the dark age of the Kali Yuga ended. It was not by accident that, a
few years later, the Anthroposophical Society was founded, in the
belief that, having been kicked out of the nest by the divine beings
who fostered our evolution for so long, we can now find our way back
to the spirit in freedom.
I say “belief” rather than “knowledge” because it is not a
foregone conclusion that things will work out that way. We must
strive to create the Michaelic spirit of courage within ourselves so
that we can defeat the Ahrimanic powers that wish to bind the human
being to the material world and take the divine intelligence for
themselves. At an earlier stage of our history the human heart was
united with the cosmic intelligence, but now, through the work of
the hierarchies, the intelligence has moved into our brains and
nerves, a process so powerful that it was accompanied by cosmic
thunders and lightnings. We became head-men instead of heart-men,
and when Michael returned he found an intelligence bereft of
spirituality through its exposure to Ahriman’s forces. As Steiner
says, if we are to succeed in following the path of Michael, “these
thunders and lightnings must become enthusiasm in the hearts and
minds of anthroposophists.” Head and heart must be united so that,
in Steiner’s words, “hearts begin to have thoughts.”
Thinking is a divine gift, and, like many gifts, it can become a
burden, so that one is often tempted to remain in a realm of
unformed feeling. To unite heart and mind is to bring feeling and
thinking together, so that feeling is given form and direction and
thought is endued with warmth. Let us use our capacities joyfully
and remember that when the divine powers decided to download the
cosmic intelligence into the human soul they certainly expected us
to use it.
Keith Francis
[1] Karmic Relationships, Vol. 3,
Lecture 7, Dornach, July 28, 1924
Keith directs the
15th Street Singers
which resumes weekly rehearsals on Oct. 19th. He will give a series
of lectures on the "Evolution of Consciousness" beginning Nov. 13th.
June 2008 Letter
May 3rd’s celebration of 21 years of “the
branch,” the Anthroposophical Society in New York City, at 138 West
15th Street was a deep and joyful event. It began with hellos and
hugs and too brief looks at the overflowing art exhibit, then turned
to remembrance of Jesse Smith, illuminated by photos of his
brilliantly quiet face as a young man we never knew, while David
Ralph played piano and Walter Alexander and Albert Spekman
reminisced and shared facts of Jesse’s life.
That reminder, that each person is so much larger than our
encounters, laid a foundation for after-dinner slide shows and conversation.
Seen in the cosmic mirror of anthroposophy, it is a mystery drama that we skate
across while at best half-asleep. Jorge and Michelle Sanz-Cardona showed slides
and told stories of the building’s transformation when “the branch” moved in.
Shirley Latessa, Ted Pugh, Robb Creese, Doug and Fern Sloan, Jonathan Hilton,
Joyce Reilly, Bibi Smith, Glen Williamson, Dorothy Emmerson and Sonia
Saldarriaga were among the many who reawakened moments from this 21 years (which
seems so much longer). Charles Harper, Inge Dyrenfurth, Daisy Aldan and others
of the "so-called dead" were invoked, especially Lydia Wieder and William
Gardner, who had created an anthroposophical arts center in the building before
inviting the branch to move in.
Many from among the living were missing, too, of course.
Robert McDermott sent an extended voice-mail. Gloria Kemp, attending the
memorial for the branch’s long-time friend Tony Bingham, sent photos of Lydia.
Marsha Post was felt in the strong embrace of our steps to full ownership and
renovation of the building in 2001-3. The piano's graceful notes recalled Clark
Remington. The current council members all attended, with many other long and
loyal bearers of this demanding social impulse.
And so the evening’s mysterious human glow was full of
warmth. In aging faces we saw spirits younger and brighter. We felt the physical
absences and were tugged at gently, by some spiritual solidarity, vast and deep.
Blessed by the immense vision and heartfelt gifts of Rudolf Steiner, we wondered
that they are still so much unknown.
John Beck
May 2008 Letter
In the last period of his life, Rudolf Steiner
wrote a series of brief paragraphs and letters entitled Leading
Thoughts. The first one begins with two powerful assertions:
“Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the Spiritual in the
human being to the Spiritual in the universe. And it arises in the
human being as a need of the heart, of the life of feeling.” These
assertions are as countercultural today as they were eighty years
ago, for the predominant secular and scientific mind-set of our
times regards the notions of heart thinking and a spiritual world as
rank speculation. Anthroposophy, however, makes the claim that our
potential as developing, autonomous spiritual beings in part stems
from our efforts to let unfold latent powers related to a higher
realm of existence than that of our ordinary consciousness. The
theme of the year lays emphasis on the cultivation of the heart’s
capacity by a “deepening through the arts.” We might consider how
artistic expression is related to pursuing “a path of knowledge.”
In heart thinking, the meaningful is always under way,
always coming to be. It is as if an intuition or an insight arises from an
unseen, inexhaustible wellspring, endlessly configuring into wholeness in
present understanding. While we depend on the already known sense world for all
practical activities, our familiarity in this process does not lead to further
development of personhood. In artistic expression, on the other hand, the
heart-inclined senses convey perceptible intuitions that are as objectively real
as what we see and hear on a daily basis. The life of art lies in the
participant’s full-bodied experience of it. When in undistracted attentiveness
we make or enter a work of art, we seem lifted out of ourselves. Our perception
becomes keener. We may encounter a painting, piece of music, sculpture, play,
poem, or dance that speaks in a way that opens an unknown vista or re-awakens a
realization. Artistic beauty expresses untranslatable but highly ordered
meaning. Our full participation is an act of faith in what our heightened,
altered senses tell us. Goethe remarked that it is only belief that makes
composition fecund—a belief that is at the furthest remove from the cold
intellect. Meditation gives rise to similar intuitions, but without reliance on
the sense world.
Anthroposophy in practice should be artistically oriented.
The Hierarchies who inspire meaning depend on human souls to realize the urgency
of pursuing the soul-spiritual path, one that will both individualize and unite
them in love. Our co-creative work in the arts counters and transforms the
egotistical impulses that threaten us from within and without.
May is the height of spring, with the rejoicing of Easter
still sounding, and the events of Ascension and Whitson near at hand. The
Logos-Son’s ascension to the realm of the clouds and the Spirit’s illumination
in tongues remind us that human beings today more than ever have the freedom to
pursue “a path of knowledge” towards “the spiritual in the universe.” May our
artistic deepening realize with renewed vigor this privilege and responsibility.
Michael Vode
April 2008 Letter
As spring “creeps over the window-sill”, those
of us who are lucky enough to live in the great city of New York may
regret the absence of mountains, forests and cow pastures. There are
however, many compensations, including the abundance of kind and
helpful people, the wonderful park system and, not least, the wealth
of artistic experience that is always available.
“The object of
an art is to gain a partial revelation of that which is beyond human senses and
human faculties – of that, in fact, which is spiritual… The human, visible,
audible and intelligible media which artists of all kinds use are symbols not of
other visible and audible things but of what lies beyond sense and knowledge.”
These are the words of Ralph Vaughan Williams, the great
visionary English composer who died fifty years ago. Many musical organizations
are celebrating his life and commemorating his death, and the Fifteenth Street
Singers will add their tribute at the Spring Concert (April 27th).
Music, as Vaughan Williams said on another occasion, can
“open the magic casements” for us, and we can certainly take his words in a
wider context. Art of all kinds has the potential to cast an inner, spiritual
light on the outer world, to take us into the realms from which that light
proceeds and to help us to understand the mysteries of being. This is not to say
that the purpose of art is didactic; art is to be enjoyed, and, as Rudolf
Steiner says, it is enjoyment that starts us on the path of enlightenment.
We therefore hope that you will come to the Branch and enjoy
its many artistic offerings, including drawing with David Anderson (April 1st),
singing with Dorothy Emmerson (April 10th), eurythmy with Regine Kurek and Linda
Larsen (April 11th and 12th), and Eugene Schwartz’s lecture and visit to the
Museum of Modern Art (April 25th and 26th)
Some of us, like the retired Waldorf teacher writing this
letter, can’t often afford Broadway, Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, so another
benefit of life in the city is that on almost every day of the week there is a
free or very low-cost performance of something worth seeing. In this context it
is worth repeating the customary Centerpoint note: “No one is turned away from
any event for inability to pay. Best contribution is always welcome.” It seems
very probable, however, that everyone who receives this letter is adequately
fed, housed and clothed, and this places us in a small minority of the earth’s
population. I often wonder how the magic casements are opened for our
fellow-citizens who are homeless, cold and ill-fed, but not in any way to be
regarded as our spiritual inferiors. Art is an essential part of the
anthroposophical path but people do come to the spirit without the benefit of
concerts, plays and museum trips. There is something to be learnt from pondering
this question.
Keith Francis
March 2008 Letter
As Easter approaches, how does our theme of
“heart-thinking” and “a deepening through the arts” come alive? A
time of rebirth, resurrection and new life arising out of change and
death - this is a transformative part of the year.
In more than one instance, Rudolf Steiner
mentions the mission of our human existence on this earth as coming
truly to know “love.” When we deepen our experience of great art, we
can discover an experience of truth and warmth, and we may move
closer to the fulfillment of this mission of love. Is the artist
sacrificing something of himself to reach that depth of truth which
can touch our hearts, when bringing into being a great and universal
work? Is the artist in a sense experiencing a rebirth, even a
resurrection? How blessed we are that through the human spirit we
have this possibility, to create something far beyond ourselves and
to appreciate such great works.
In the art of movement known as Eurythmy, when
we move the gestures for the sounds creating visible speech and
visible music, we are returning to our origins. Within these
gestures we experience the “word” as a living being, as a becoming.
Yes, sometimes in the opening to a new sound, a new word, it is a
rebirth. Eurythmy can bring us to a refined experience of the
artistic and spiritual nature of our being and of the word as Logos.
In Hamburg in 1908, when Rudolf Steiner was speaking about the
Gospel of St. John, he held a lily-of-the-valley blossom in his hand
as he said, “‘In the beginning was the Word,’ . . . Just as this
flower arose from its seed, and the seed is hidden in the blossom,
so have the world and man arisen out of the Word; it was originally
a silent world, for man was at first mute, but the Word was hidden
within him, as in the blossom the seed is hidden. And the Word began
to sound forth from man: ‘I am.’ ”
We can create art in its fullness only with the
ego’s presence, with the “I am.” Great art in all its forms is still
awaiting creation, still awaiting our opening to our higher ego and
through it to truth and to the influence of the spiritual world. As
we continue to strive further on our path of spiritual development,
both the creation of art and the appreciation of art can be a
transformative experience. And in the process, our thinking may be
enlivened and warmed through with love. This verse from Rudolf
Steiner seems to embody our theme:
In Love lives the seed of Truth,
In Truth seek the root of Love:
Thus speaks thy higher Self.
The fire’s glow transmutes
Wood into warming rays.
Wisdom’s resolving Will
Changes the outer work
Into abiding strength.
So let thy work be the shadow
Cast by thine I
When it is lit by the flame –
Flame of thy higher Self.
I wish you all the warmth, illumination and
hope of the Eternal Easter that lives for us, and that may live
within us.
Linda Larson
Archangel Michael, human
beings gradually gained the ability to think and act independently
of their ancient spiritual mentors. Michael is one of the seven
Archangels who, for successive periods of about three hundred years,
have the spiritual leadership of human evolution. Having been the
ruling Archangel in the early years of classical Greece, when the
descent of the cosmic intelligence began, Michael again took up that
position towards the end of the nineteenth century, shortly before
the dark age of the Kali Yuga ended. It was not by accident that, a
few years later, the Anthroposophical Society was founded, in the
belief that, having been kicked out of the nest by the divine beings
who fostered our evolution for so long, we can now find our way back
to the spirit in freedom.