Wednesday, October 30, 2019 from 7:30-8:30 pm Eastern (GMT -5): Free webinar on the festival of All Souls with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

At the time of ‘All Souls’ we stand at the Cross Quarter between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice; a time when great transformations are possible. In the realities that Spiritual Science brings us, we glean the importance of working with the ‘so called dead’ and the angelic worlds, for both our own and their development, as well as for the future evolution of the Earth.

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Fostering the feeling life is part of the path of inner development. It leads to clarity, order and the forming of organs of clairvoyance. Bringing the verses in Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophical Calendar of the Soul together with his Rose Cross Meditation can cast light on the qualities of «bliss» and «earnestness».

In his preface to the Anthroposophical Calendar of the Soul (in GA 40) Rudolf Steiner writes that the weekly verses are about self-knowledge through feeling. Feelings are at the centre of the soul and it is from them that the organs of clairvoyance are formed. For self-education we are asked to consciously produce negative feelings, such as anger and wrath, and noble feelings like reverence and gratitude.

Here is an example: «The winter will arouse in me the summer of the soul» (verse 30, tr. Ruth Pusch). Summer is meant here in relation to the soul, inwardly, while winter is external, in nature. The feelings that correspond to summer in nature are joy, devotion to nature’s beauty, serenity, happiness – feelings of bliss in other words. When it is winter outside other feelings prevail: reflection on whether we are prepared for the winter, on what is essential, a sense of responsibility and other feelings of earnestness. Are there archetypes of our feelings?

In order to find an answer to this question we will contemplate the chapter on the path of inner development and the meditation in Esoteric Science (GA 13). Preparation comes first, proceeding from the plant’s green juices to the red human blood. I can feel «blissful» when I imagine a plant, how it produces leaf after leaf and then opens itself without passion to the chaste rays of the sun. While we are more advanced than plants we have had to pay for our advancement by developing drives, desires, and passions. This can transform sentiment into -«earnest» feeling.

Image of purified drives

Another step follows, however. We are able to evolve. We can transform the lower nature of our passions and birth them again at a higher level. With their consciously acquired purity, such chastened drives correspond to the plant’s unconscious purity. The red of the blood then resembles the red of a rose blossom imbued with the pure laws of growth. My soul can transform this into a feeling of ‹liberating› happiness. Now I imagine a black cross: this can be an image of obliterated lower drives and passions. Where the bars cross over, I imagine a circle of seven radiantly red rose blossoms. They are an expression of the purified and chastened drives and passions.

I stay with this image for as long as possible, not allowing it to be interrupted by any other image. I am asked to let the sensation I have acquired in the preparation «resonate along». What resonates as I meditate is therefore the feeling of «liberating happiness» that has passed through earnestness and been born out of bliss.

In this way the symbol of the rose cross becomes a sign that emerges along with the sentient experience. The effectiveness of this meditation is due to the soul’s resting in this experience. It seems to me that the feeling of liberating happiness is fundamental to any meditation; all other feelings can grow from this.

The art of holding the middle

We can transfer these three archetypal feelings of the Rose Cross Meditation to the Calendar of the Soul. The journey through summer becomes a path up into the heights of the cosmos, engendering feelings of bliss. The journey through winter becomes a path into our own self and into the depths of the earth; it transforms our sentiments into feelings of earnestness. The journey through the whole year, that is, the art of holding the middle between above and below, between bliss and earnestness, becomes for us a journey with Christ who, throughout the year, can instill in us a feeling of liberating happiness. As He said Himself, «My yoke is easy and my burden is light.» (Matthew 11:30).

Picture: Painting by Gabriela Henke, Hebrew 41, Verse 41, 2015 (detail), www.gabrielahenke.com.


Friedwart Husemann

Born 1945, worked as a physician and in leading positions within the Anthroposophical Society in Munich (DE) and the German Association of Anthroposophic Physicians. He is a journalist and writer of books.

A single dusty fan pushed heavy, humid air around a classroom crowded with tired and sweating bodies. After a morning of physical labor during a community workday at the Little Forest home kindergarten, this Waldorf classroom in southern China had new wood flooring inside and a brick pathway outside. The audience of forty or so people perched on benches and straightbacked chairs marked with names like “Little Fish” and “Flying Cloud.” Most were young and parents of the young children who played noisily outside in the dirt, water, and scrubby grass of a large, fenced lot. Outside the fence was a half-acre of land farmed primarily by elderly women who lived nearby. The open door of the classroom led to a covered porch overlooking the garden’s mounded rows of ripening corn, beans, and tomatoes. It was mid-summer, sunny, and very hot.

It also was a special day for the school. Little Forest, one of the 300 private initiatives in China practicing Waldorf early childhood education, was celebrating its five-year anniversary and its new home on the first two floors of a three-story house on the outskirts of a large city, Yulin, in the province of Guangxi. The school’s founder and director, Chen Qiaohong, -- a grey-haired, motorcycle-riding visionary – had procured funding from the International Association of Steiner/Waldorf Early Childhood Education (IASWECE) and China Waldorf Early Childhood Education Forum (CFCEF) to support my 2-week mentoring visit to her school. As part of the anniversary festival, everyone gathered for the school’s first outreach event, a public lecture on a topic known in all corners of the world: the work of parenting.

Over the course of the afternoon individuals recalled memories of their own childhood to reflect upon the shared work of building a kingdom of childhood in the world today at school and home. What came forth in this honest and open collective self-reflection spoke not of cultural traditions that divide but of a common human experience that unites. What brings to children a world that is good, beautiful, and true, then and now, there and here. Family, home, human relationships: a father’s voice announcing his arrival home after work, a cat curled on a pillow at bedtime, the aroma, anticipation, and taste of a grandmother’s cooking, the cool touch of a mother’s hand on a warm forehead, a waiting dog. Hearth, home, and family. Warmth, love, and security.

More than 2000 kindergartens in 80 countries around the world exist in this year of Waldorf 100. After a summer spent with Waldorf teachers on the other side of the world, I return to my work here reassured by what I witnessed. Waldorf pedagogy is neither a theoretical system nor a collection of methods. It is a wellspring of living insight. As Orchard Valley begins a new school year, it is my hope that we might forge new intentions informed by the worldwide movement and begin to think beyond the confines of our own place and purpose in rural, central Vermont. In the preamble to the IASWECE statutes, Helmut von Kuegelgen writes: “Against a background of prevailing materialistic trends in education and modern culture, the protection, indeed the salvation, of childhood as the fundamental state of each individual’ unfolding life has become a worldwide pioneering work.”

Stephanie lives in rural central Vermont where she is a kindergartner teacher. She loves her family, dogs, and chickens. The opportunity to support the international Waldorf movement in China unites her experiences as a Waldorf early childhood educator and as a trained ethnographer who believes in the power of observation, participation, and deep listening. For that she is deeply grateful. 

In 2019, the Lakota Waldorf School received a First Nations grant through the Native Language Immersion Initiative, which supports Native American language-immersion and culture-retention programs.  Through the program, students at the Lakota Waldorf School will learn to speak and understand the Lakota language and learn a strong cultural identity and reverence for the heritage through gardening, food preparation, and other Lakota traditions.  In the article, Language, Culture and Food Come Together at Lakota Waldorf School,  published in the newsletter of First Nations Development Institute, author, Jennifer Churchill, says, "If you’re a Lakota child born in South Dakota, you can now find a place to belong, where your culture and language are fostered, creating a Lakota identity that will help you thrive. This is possible thanks to the Lakota Waldorf School, formed over 26 years ago..."  According to Isabel Stadnick, development director and one of the founders of the school: “Culture and language are major components of self-esteem and self-advocacy. Research has proven that children who grow up with a strong identity are more successful — in school, life and higher education.”

From waldorfeducation.org

This video was created, directed, edited and produced by current and former High Mowing School students. It shows a day in the life of students at High Mowing School. High Mowing School is a Waldorf high school located in Wilton, New Hampshire, United States.

From 14 July to 2 August the first module of a new training in anthroposophic curative education and social therapy took place in Cuernavaca (México).

México has a very active Waldorf school movement and the interest in anthroposophic special needs education has been growing steadily over the years. Introductory events have been offered again and again, all of them very well attended. The wish for training possibilities has grown stronger every year. Now it has become possible to start a course that will stretch over several years and that is open to teachers, educators, therapists, social workers, psychologists and physicians.

The course is sponsored by Gita - Centro Antroposófico de México, an organization based in Cuernavaca that has provided courses in Waldorf Education, organizational development, art therapy and general anthroposophy for many years. The new Curative Education and Social Therapy course was possible thanks to Doris Unger, a co-founder of the Cruz des Sur training organization that is active in several cities in Argentina. She will be a course coordinator and mentor on the new training.

Jan Göschel, a member of the leadership team of the Anthroposophic Council for Inclusive Social Development, was present at the launch and spoke about the impulse of anthroposophic curative education and social therapy at a time of instability and uncertainty.

Over the next years, more colleagues will support the initiative. We hope that the course participants will take with them the inspiration and means to realize new practical initiatives within the field of inclusive social development in México. More ...

Waldorf educator and author David Mitchell has shared the following thoughts on Michaelmas.

Why do Waldorf schools celebrate Michaelmas?

Summer’s haze vanishes when the clear skies and crisp air of September arrive. This is the time we establish our rhythms for the year; in many respects it is more of a New Year than January 1. It is a time of separation and individualization. The cool, pristine air wakes us from our summer daze and our thinking becomes more precise. With the beginning of school, we send our young ones off with memories of our own education etched indelibly into our own personalities. It is a time when we naturally think back upon our own lives. The autumn is a rare time. In many parts of North America the trees are ablaze with splendid color like the scarlet maples of New England, the twittering yellow aspens of the Rocky Mountains, and the orange sumac of the South are but a few examples. The evening skies come alive as meteor showers streak across the dark canopy like blazing arrows. The remnants of this cosmic metallic presence is unknowingly absorbed into our blood from the very air we breathe, invigorating our blood with its homeopathic qualities of iron. Darkness starts to wrap around us and we are moved inside to the comfort of our homes. Our thought life also goes inward. The dreamy mood of summer is replaced by a new vigor that seems to aid us in our tasks. Beyond external observation, what does all of this mean?

An ancient intuitive wisdom placed a festival at each of the four turning points of the solar year. In the autumn this festival was named after a mythological figure, the archangel Michael, the heavenly warrior. The name Michael is Hebrew, and its meaning is a question: “Who is like God?" Legend tells that Michael, along with Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael, was sent out into the cosmos by God to seek a name for man. With sublime spirit power, Michael, as the messenger of God, proclaimed man’s earthly name: “Adam." There are many other legends of Michael, the most notable being of his confrontation in heaven with the rebellious angels, led by Lucifer, who sought to overthrow God. The forces of Michael cast them out of heaven and held them in control in their earthly form as dragons. Michael did not slay the leading dragon, but through his inner forces was able to hold it within his control, at the tip of his spear. If we examine this story, we can begin to find the meaning of Michaelmas and the task of Michael. The dragon is not an external reality, but rather lives within all humankind, represented by cold, dead, rationalistic and pragmatic thinking. It is alive within every mortal as a potentially evil force. Michael’s message to humanity is not to try to slay the dragon within ourselves, for we would not live in freedom if we did, but rather to overcome it with consciousness. It is the consciousness in our thinking which calls for exactitude and selflessness, as well as the strength of will needed to follow a moral path in life. Michaelmas is a festival of inner strength and initiative. It is a time when our higher being can conquer anxiety and fear, for it is the task of Michael to awaken mankind to the eternal within. The backdrop for the drama of history is the struggle between the powers that strive for the forces of Goodness against those that struggle for the purpose of Evil. It is within each individual on earth that this drama is enacted. Mythology can be thought of as a psychological healer for mankind; it gives one courage through its images of Good conquering Evil. What does this old picture have to do with us in our comfortable modern communities? We live in an age of individuality and personal freedom. Our society offers us a multitude of choices. This often puts great stress on the young as they seek to find a direction in their lives. The prevalent “Me" generation often sees only the first roughshod steps toward becoming free individuals, without recognizing the more evolved counterparts of responsibility and love. What is the picture of society that stands behind our drive toward free individuality? We are struggling amidst the unsettling realities of the crumbling forms of social order 2 our justice system, government, marriage, schools, churches that all once were rocks of stability to mankind now shift treacherously under the feet like slippery sand. We must fend for ourselves. No longer can we be sure what we hear is truthful. Out of our own initiative and strength we must give direction to our lives. The “new forms" we create and the discernment of what is really “true" both in the present and in the past, lie fully on our own individual shoulders. In the creation of “new festivals" there exists a powerful mystery involving the unfolding of community building and spirit focussing.
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In the legend of Michael we find he offers four gifts: strength, courage, the will to do deeds, and love, to those who are willing to undertake self transformation and look towards that which is divine in every human being. Both the transformation and the battle with the dragon are uniquely individual; they reside within our powers of thought, and we are the only ones to have access to them.

At Waldorf schools circling the earth, the children hear stories and legends of Michael. Then, on or around September 29, the teachers in many of our schools lead their students out onto the fields, where they see an enactment of Michael’s battle with the dragon. Then each and every child participates in feats of skill and courage and a pageant unfolds. This event is often followed by a large picnic with all families invited. This “new festival" is involved with the awakening of the “will" for rightful deeds.

On September 19, 2019, Waldorf education will proudly mark its 100 year anniversary! The first Waldorf school was founded in Stuttgart, Germany in 1919.  Today there are over 1,100 Waldorf schools and almost 2,000 Waldorf kindergartens in greater than 80 countries.

In celebration of Waldorf education's centennial, schools worldwide are engaging in social and environmental impact projects throughout 2019 and 2020. The higher aim is to regionally and internationally create a vital interconnectedness essential in today's world.  The community-building activities --  large and small, complex and simple, instructive and entertaining -- will be as diverse as the world in which we live.

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The Future of Waldorf Education: Beyond 100 by Torin Finser  (Adapted from a speech at the Center for Anthroposophy in New Hampshire, June 2019.)

In 2019 we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Waldorf education.  This evening I would like to look beyond 100, towards Waldorf education’s future.  But first, a look at the past.  Taking the number 100, let us divide the past century into three periods.  We will look at the number 33⅓, first from a more external point of view and then from an internal aspect.

If we add 33⅓ to1919 we come to 1952.  I would call the years from 1919 to 1952 Waldorf education’s European period.  Of course the Steiner School in Manhattan was founded in 1928 and schools opened elsewhere, but the first school was founded in Stuttgart, and Waldorf schools proliferated during that period throughout Europe, in Scandinavia and the U.K., including reopening after World War II.

The Waldorf School of New Orleans, the sole Waldorf School in the state, has opened its doors to its new home in the Bayou Road area. Its new campus, part of the Rose Collaborative, is located at 2539 Columbus St. The new location is for nursery through eighth grade. The Waldorf Early Childhood Center remains on Peniston Street in the Garden District. This long-anticipated move to the newly renovated campus coincides with the 100th anniversary of Waldorf schools around the world. The first Waldorf school was founded in Stuttgart, Germany, in September 1919.

Today there are over 1,100 Waldorf schools and almost 2,000 Waldorf kindergartens in more than 80 countries. The Waldorf School of New Orleans is the sole Waldorf School in Louisiana. Alembic Community Development has partnered with Rose Community Development Corporation to develop the 47,300-square-foot Rose Collaborative as a new cultural hub for the arts, education and community in the iconic former St. Rose de Lima church building and two schoolhouses on historic Bayou Road in New Orleans. Waldorf School of New Orleans will lease the 23,000-square-foot redeveloped schoolhouse as one of the anchor tenants, along with Southern Rep Theater, which occupies the former St. Rose de Lima church. After several years of leasing, the school will become eligible to purchase the building. Bayou Road is one of the city’s oldest streets; it originally followed the historic portage between the Mississippi River and bayou out to the Gulf of Mexico. Today, Bayou Road sits at the crossroads of several of the city’s most culturally resonant neighborhoods. Following decades of disinvestment and decline, the “Belles of Bayou Road” business owners invested in storefronts when others saw only blight and vacancy, and more recently the public sector invested $900,000 in façade and infrastructure improvements toward supporting the burgeoning corridor. Bayou Road is now home to an eclectic mix of small businesses and the St. Rose de Lima Church, a 1925 building that was de-consecrated following Hurricane Katrina, has been vacant for more than a decade. The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America has partnered with the Waldorf Early Childhood Association and the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education in the production of Seeding the Future, a video brief that provides a glimpse into the principles of Waldorf education, an education that fosters concern for others, connection to the world, and the capacity to be in service to society. Seeding the Future is a trailer to the international film, “Learn to Change the World.”

From Gentilly Messenger

Simplicity Parenting author, Kim John Payne, is holding a new free workshop next week in celebration of the release of his newest book, “Being at Your Best When Your Kids Are at Their Worst: Practical Compassion in Parenting.”

Emotional self-regulation is such an important topic for parents, and what better time to talk about it than at the beginning of a new school year.

The workshop begins Monday, September 9th, and it's an online, video/audio-based workshop, so there’s no set time for the sessions. You can watch/listen whenever it works for you.

Click here to learn more and register, it's free  (tuition is free but registration is required)