Nova Scotia
Branch AGM Report
Whitsun Festival
May 20th
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Institute Rudolf Steiner Quebec
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Vancouver
The Pulse
Easter/Whitsun edition
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Duncan
Contact:
The Pulse
Easter/Whitsun edition
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The
eNews is published 10 times per year for members of the Anthroposophical Society In Canada.
Please send correspondence and articles in either Word doc or iWork pages without formatting except for paragraphs to
the editor.
BACK ISSUES are available on our website:
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Contact Info
Anthroposophical Society in Canada
# 130A - 1 Hesperus Rd.
Thornhill, ON
L4J 0G9
Administrator
416-892-3656
Public Website
Members website
please note you will need to use the password ASC to access the
members only page
Council
Secretary
General Secretary
School For Spiritual Science
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Being Human USA
Published by the Anthroposophical Society in America.
Link
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Present Age - Switzerland (printed in English)
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Welcome to the (late) April edition of the eNews. We look forward to greeting many of you at the AGM and Conference and just want to add a reminder that meals need to be booked before May 11.
PS. Reminder: The password to access the Members Area is ASC and is always printed in the left-hand column under Editorial Notes.
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Anthroposophical
Society in Canada
Annual General Meeting and Conference
May 18 - 20th
Toronto Waldorf School,Thornhill, ON
Conference theme:
The Work of Anthroposophy: Creating Moral Substance
Please register for conference attendance and meals if required.
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École Imagine
Dear members of the Anthroposophical Society,
Please allow us to begin by introducing ourselves. We, a group of teachers, parents and friends (with Waldorf or anthroposophical background) have worked for over 20 years to build a Waldorf community in the Laurentians, one hour north of Montreal, in the cultural hub of Val-David - a village nestled between mountains and lakes. Our grassroots work has branches in several projects that share common values: École Imagine (our Waldorf school), four Kindergartens (one
maternelle
and 3 daycares), the organization of conferences, parenting workshops, lecture groups, eurythmy classes. We nurture a close collaboration with anthroposophical partners: Maison Emmanuel (a Camphill and biodynamic farm with a coffee shop located next to École Imagine), IRSQ (a Waldorf teacher training center now based in Val-David), ISAEL (Extra-Lesson Training Center) and Maison Phoenix project (residence for seniors with anthroposophical background). For over a year, 7 members of the
First Class
have been meeting monthly and, in November 2017, 12 people gathered to start the process of founding a branch of the Anthroposophical Society in Val-David.
A board of trustees was set up from the beginning whose main goals were to obtain a permit from the Ministry of Education to open a Waldorf school and to purchase a building.
Here are some milestones:
-
-
2009:
Founding of the first Waldorf
school-like
project with
20 children
(Kindergarten & grade 1) initiated by parents and supported by three experienced Waldorf teachers (Sara Vallières, Noémi Glen and Jocelyne Arseneau) and a team of four Waldorf trained subject teachers (eurythmy, music, handwork, foreign languages), in a beautiful setting in Ste-Agathe, and later in Val-Morin. From the very beginning, the focus and distinct color of our Waldorf school is the contact of children with nature and the outdoors (hiking, snowshoeing, skiing, ice skating, etc.).
Since then, these young entrepreneurs....Read on
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The Foundation Stone Meditation and Daily Life
The Foundation Stone Meditation was the subject of a workshop led by Arie van Ameringen, General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada, on Saturday, March 10, 2018. The workshop was held at the Montreal Rudolf Steiner School and was attended by 11 participants. The previous evening, in the Society premises above the Grande Ourse toy store, Arie had given a talk to an audience of 14 entitled New Perspectives in Understanding the Foundation Stone. The Saturday workshop also included concentration exercises, form drawing with Jean Balekian, and eurythmy with Andrée Lanthier. Both of these artists worked with the straight line and the curve in their workshop sessions; these two elements can be used to form multiple artistic combinations, which the participants were able to experience in a joyful and festive mood.
The gathering was designed to encourage the members of the Anthroposophical Society to work more closely with the Rhythms of the Foundation Stone. And indeed, this verse can become a source of inner strength for any individual, whatever his or her field of activity. Arie is in the process of organizing a collaborative international research project aimed at exploring how the Foundation Stone can connect with various fields of human endeavour (medicine, education, etc.).
According to Arie, the Foundation Stone urges one to develop a daily practice in one's own life. He recalled the context in which it was given at the time of the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach on December 25, 1923, before an audience of 800 individuals. "It is a meditative text, a strength-giving meditation, but also a prayer. Rudolf Steiner called it the Foundation Stone of Love," Arie said, as he also referred to the Grail Stone and the Philosopher's Stone. The meditation is constructed in such a way that it offers a picture of the human being in a process of becoming, giving an imagination of how the three human soul forces - thinking, feeling, and willing - are evolving.
The New Mysteries
But why did he give this meditation, since tradition has handed down to us many other powerful sacred verses (The Lord's Prayer, the Prayer of Francis of Assisi, the Sayings of Buddha, etc.)? "Because," Arie explained, "the Foundation Stone Meditation is unique in that it is the very basis of the New Mysteries." A Mystery is a deed performed for the good of all mankind, an impulse..... Read on
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New Research Area on Website
At the Encountering Our Humanity conference in 2016, an important part of the conference was the research forums where there was an opportunity for participants to share their work, inspired by anthroposophy.
In our ongoing effort to support member initiatives, we have added a
Research
area on our website which already has three contributions. We welcome further contributions. Please send to Jef Saunders
ascnat@gmail.com
.
"This is indeed written in the karma of every single Anthroposophist. Be a person of initiative... This should stand written in golden letters, constantly before the soul of the Anthroposophist."
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Friends, Colleagues, how can we, ourselves, do spiritual research? -
Timothy Nadelle
In the course of our work in anthroposophy, the impulse to do primary spiritual research can naturally awaken. Yet our own limitations immediately confront us. "I am not an initiate. What could I possibly bring to the world which Steiner has not already presented in clearer and more direct forms than I could ever hope to share?"
And yet the question of how to approach (or whether to attempt) spiritual research is deeply connected with the question of how to walk the path of knowledge. From a certain perspective, they are the same question.
There are indeed many ways to take up this question, as many ways as there are individual human beings. I wanted to share one approach, with which I have engaged for many years and which reached a certain culmination last year.
When I first read the Philosophy of Freedom at the age of twenty-one, I was a little disappointed. I had taken a couple of courses in philosophy at university and had been disturbed to find that for every convincing school of thought there appeared an equally convincing school which took issue with and effectively disproved the premises upon which the earlier school rested, or the conclusions to which it led. It never occurred to me that developments in philosophy over time reflected an evolution in human consciousness. It never occurred to me that philosophy itself had hit a wall in the nineteenth century and required an entirely new impulse to carry it forward.
And yet, while I was profoundly moved by all the other foundational anthroposophical books - knowing that in discovering anthroposophy I had found my way home - the Philosophy of Freedom left me feeling unsatisfied. What Steiner presented as proofs were not what I had come to expect as proofs. It was only much later that I came to recognize that Steiner's proofs were ones I needed to come to myself through actual experiences in consciousness, not through....Read on
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The Body, Soul and Spirit of the Earth -
J. Duncan Keppie
"The findings of true natural science everywhere are in line with the results of spiritual scientific investigation".... "Never are there any grounds for contradictions between spiritual science and true natural science
"
(R. Steiner,
1911. What Has Geology to Say About the Origin of the World? Lecture in Berlin, Germany, GA 60)
.
"
I am Man, I am the Past, the Present and the Future. Every mortal should lift my veil
"
(Steiner,
1918, S-3463).
SUMMARY
The Goethean method involves discovering the dynamic processes (metamorphosis, transformation) involved in various cycles (e.g. plant, animal and rock cycles) that are hidden beneath successive layers (or veils), the outer one identified by the senses. In this context, a comparison of Steiner's threefold subdivision of the Earth and current natural science subdivisions reveals the following
(
terms: Steiner underlined
,
natural science in
bold
,
italicized introduced here)
:
(1) FIRST VEIL: MINERAL =
surface rocks, soil, water
=
beauty
;
(2) SECOND VEIL: BODY: World of Nature Spirits that produces the Forces of Nature
=
solid lithosphere+plastic asthenosphere
= wonder
: these use the etheric, natural, life forces to produce archetypal processes, such as weathering, crystallization, plate tectonics, metamorphism, and melting that produce the various stages in the rock cycle, e.g. magma, igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks;
-
(3) THIRD VEIL: SOUL: Spirits of the Rotation of Time, which orchestrate the Laws of Nature emanating from the astral, soul forces =
viscoelastic mesosphere
=
renewal
: this is created by additional archetypal processes (rhythmical mantle convection and plumes, and ring vortices that involve heat, radioactivity, and boson transfer);
-
(4) SPIRIT: Planetary Spirit (Ego) from which arise the Meaning of Nature =
liquid and solid core
=
love:
wherein lie archetypal processes, such as gravity and magnetic energy fields involving the exchange of elementary particles, gravitons and photons, respectively - gravity drives convection, plate tectonics and holds the planet and its' atmosphere together, whereas magnetism provides a balance between earth and solar energy/radiation.
Lovelocks' Gaia hypothesis posits that the biosphere regulates the Earths' atmosphere, however with advent of the Anthropocene Era the balance is being upset by humans, who are rapidly changing the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and lithosphere producing massive extinctions - can humans curb this trend? This will require re-awakening knowledge and love of the Earth, the only living planet in our galaxy. Possible green solutions include primal energy sources, which include deep geothermal energy and artificial photosynthesis.....Download full article pdf
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Found? The lost continents of Atlantis and Lemuria
by
During the late 1800's and early 1900's following Plato original ideas, the lost continents of Atlantis and Lemuria were envisaged by Steiner and Scott-Elliot to have lain in the Atlantic and Indian oceans, respectively. These lost continents appear to be substantiated by modern geological research: (i) the Atlantic Ocean was formed by Mesozoic and Cenozoic motion of the plates away from a central ridge, the mid-Atlantic Ridge, which dispersed fragments of the super-continent, Pangea (≡ Atlantis): and (ii) a slab, the southeast Indian Slab (≡ Lemuria) that lies in the mantle beneath the Indian Ocean, was subducted during the Mesozoic.
Theosophical Knowledge
In 1904 and 1911, Rudolf Steiner (1904, 1911) wrote about Atlantis and Lemuria based on Theosophical spiritual knowledge stating that he could not publish any maps because they were part of the secret Âkâshic Records (Blavasky, 1888). However, Steiner (1912) was quite clear what he meant by Atlantis when he said "I
n this primeval Atlantean epoch the surface of the earth-globe, to-day covered by the Atlantic ocean, was a mighty continent; while where Europe, Asia and Africa are now situated, scarcely any continents were as yet formed. Thus the solid matter, the substance of the earth has been transformed by its inner motion. The earth-planet is in a continual state of inner motion".
Furthermore Steiner (1904, 1911) writes, "
As to the sources of the information to be given here, I am for the present obliged to be silent. He who knows anything at all about such sources will understand why this must be so; but circumstances may arise which will make it possible to speak on this subject very shortly. How much of the knowledge lying hidden in the womb of the Theosophical movement may gradually be communicated, depends altogether on the attitude of our contemporaries"
. Steiner (1904, 1911) refers to a contemporary theosophist, Scott-Elliot, who published articles and maps of Atlantis and Lemuria (Scott-Elliot, 1896, 1904), and credits the source of the Atlantean maps as the mighty "
adepts in the days of Atlantis
", but he was uncertain who made the Lemurian maps suggesing: "
some of the divine instructors in the days when Lemuria still existed, or in still later days of the Atlantean epoch
". Scott-Elliot (1896) suggests that Atlantis was extant during the Tertiary (Fig. 1c-d) extending from the Atlantic Ocean into surrounding continents, South and North America, Africa, Europe and southern Asia (Fig. 1c), becoming isolated in the Atlantic Ocean at ca. 800,000 years (Fig. 1d). According to Scott-Elliot (1896, 1904), Atlantean remnants, called Ruta and Daitya, survived into the Pliocene (Fig. 1e), and lasted into the Quaternary as the island of Poseidonis in the Atlantic Ocean west of Iberia (Fig. 1f). A precursor of Atlantis appears on the Permian-Triassic-Jurassic map (Fig. 1a). Scott-Elliot (1896) states that mapping of the ocean floor showed an "
immense bank or ridge of great elevation is shown to exist in mid-Atlantic. The ridge rises almost sheer about 9,000 feet from the ocean depths around it, while the Azores, St. Paul, Ascension, and Tristan d'Acunha are the peaks of this land which still remain above water. A line of 3,500 fathoms, or say 21,000 feet, is required to sound the deepest parts of the Atlantic, but the higher parts of the ridge are only a hundred to a few hundred fathoms beneath the sea
". Whereas Scott-Elliot (1896, 1904) provides the physical attributes of Atlantis and Lemuria and the "
outward events of the life of these our Atlantean forefathers",
Steiner (1904, 1911) writes about "
the soul-life, and of the inner nature of the conditions under which they lived"
. This article focuses on the physical attributes of Atlantis and Lemuria, a necessary prerequisite to examining the inhabitants,Atlanteans and Lemurians.
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In Memory of D'Arcy McKenzie.
...in future time must come,
when we exist for one another,
and not the one, by means of others.
So shall the goal of earth be gained,
when each at rest within our selves,
can gladly give to others,
what neither would demand.
RS
From Christopher Houghton Budd:
Speaking I'm sure for his other colleagues in the Economics Conference work, I would like to share a memory of D'Arcy, whose presence and contributions to our work will be greatly missed.
I first met D'Arcy through the late Tamara Slayton on the occasion of a 'Colours of Money' seminar in Toronto. I was very happy to have a 'real' accountant in the mix and one experienced in the field of pensions and financial markets. With a paternal pedigree in these areas to boot!
I learned much from D'Arcy through talks, emails, and one-on-one discussions. Sometimes it was a strain to get through his often-poor diction (says the copper to the kettle), but listen carefully and one could witness an active and original mind when it came to finance and the struggles humanity faces in this field. Too often in our movement those who otherwise take Rudolf Steiner very seriously, stop at his ideas about finance. Or, without any training in that world, condemn it without ground or insight. Not so, D'Arcy. Not only in his understanding, but also in his walking, he sought a different talk.
D'Arcy was also active in parent-teacher affairs and the travails of running a Waldorf school. Here again I learned a lot from him. Sometimes he would bike out in his shorts at dawn to meet me at Pearson Airport on a lay-over en route to or from Chile. In those chats he had the better of me, as I was usually jet- lagged.
Towards the end of his all-too-short life, he took up with renewed earnestness Steiner's economics lectures and especially the role accounting can play not only in interpreting what Steiner said and meant, but also in bridging from his ideas to today's realities.
It is very sad to see D'Arcy go, except that I sense he will make relatively short work of his passing, and turn as soon as he can, if he hasn't already, to encourage us still here to press forward.
I say this because he has left us at a crucial moment. The work of the Economics Conference, if I may say so, brought him, and indeed all of us, to the brink of seeing that money is bookkeeping and that bookkeeping is money. We have been able to articulate this without wrapping it up in anthroposophical terminology. Instead, it can now live as raw soul experience through which the one knows oneself in spiritual fact - the true empiricism of finance.
When one comes to that point, the threshold moves from in front to behind and the question arises: Now where am I? And, for accountants and economists, at least, does this mean 'job done', time to move on?
The question I find myself asking is this: What in their next life becomes of those who steep themselves in money and numbers? Whence comes that kind of biography and whither does it lead one?
As we watch D'Arcy fade into his future, I fancy that if we are attentive enough we will see him turn and look back and with his ever-ready smile intimate that he has already glimpsed the answer to that question.
Christopher Houghton Budd
Convenor, Economics Conference of the Goetheanum
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An Introduction to Anthroposophical Meditation - May 5th, St. Barnabas Church, Calgary
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Eurythmy:
May 5th- Jupiter - Toronto Waldorf School
with Reg Down
Saturday,May 5th/ 1:30pm to 3:30pm
The philosopher and educator, Rudolf Steiner, drew seven fascinating planetary seals. They are like a harmonic resonance of each 'planet' and can be moved in eurythmy. Reg Down will be guiding a group through the Jupiter seal in the eurythmy room at the Toronto Waldorf School. Everyone welcome.
Cost: $20 / students and seniors $15.
Location: Toronto Waldorf School,
TWS from 1:30 to 3:30 pm this Saturday, May 5th.
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Toronto Area, ON May 2018
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The Eurythmy Spring Valley Post-Graduate Class of 2018 will be performing in Toronto area!
Our program
Splinters of the Sun weaves together music by Beethoven, Kodaly, Sculthorpe and sibelius with poetry by Kathleen Raine, William Everson, David Wagoner and others, and includes the Grimm's fairy tale
The Queen Bee.
Monday, May 14th 2:30pm
Novalis Hall
Camphill Communities Ontario
Tuesday, May 15th 7:00
pm
Waldorf Academy
250 Madison Avenue, Toronto
Wednesday, May 16th 7:30pm
Toronto Waldorf School
9100 Bathurst Street, Thornhill
Thursday, May 17th 7:00pm
Halton Waldorf School
2193 Orchard Road, Burlington
We are a group of 8 eurythmists from 5 countries with diverse professional backgrounds. Over the past 8 months, we have been engaged in a post-graduate eurythmy stage-training course at the Spring Valley School of Eurythmy, in New York. Our performance program Splinters of the Sun
is the culmination of our work together, which we are bringing on tour in May 2018, to Toronto, as well as to Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York and Pennsylvania. Our program explores the theme of our human capacity to find and create light in the darkness.
For more information about the performances in the Toronto area, please contact the venues directly. For U.S. venue information, please contact Olivia Hanna: olivia.d.hanna@gmail.com
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Inner Work Path - with Lisa Romero, June 5th, 7:00pm at the Christian Community
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Recognizing the Christ Impulse - with Lisa Romero, June 8 - 10, at the Christian Community
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The Planets in Movement and Color
A Summer Festival in Barrie at
Natura Medical Arts Centre
July 6,7,8, 2018 (Friday-Sunday)
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Encountering Nature and the Nature of Things
Practicing a Science of Phenomena - New one year course
Two 2-week intensives at The Nature Institute: July 9-21, 2018 and July 8-20, 2019
Guided study and practice during the year in between
Core Faculty: Craig Holdrege, Henrike Holdrege, Jon McAlice, John Gouldthorpe
To learn more about the program,
click here. We have also attached a
flyer.
Please pass the word on about the program to anyone you think may be interested.
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Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas Around the World
Human beings discover themselves through others.
Rudolf Steiner expands on this simple yet remarkable sentence by Martin Buber in his four mystery dramas.
It is therefore not surprising that staging these works of art again and again in a whole variety of ways, in order to secure the depth of our working and being together, is one of the most magical and memorable traditions found in anthroposophy. The more we rely on each other in today's differentiated world, experiencing how our confusion often distorts this depth, the more relevant it seems to me today to both perform and to see these plays.
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The Spirit of English: London, UK August 2018
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In Search of the Future -
A Tour of Discovery in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria
July 28 to August 20, 2018
Anthroposophy was planted in these Eastern European countries early in the last century. Communism kept it underground prompting
it to grow strong roots. At the end of that era, it grew strong and rm
above ground and blossomed with joy that it could now be free.We have known none of that in the West.
We will carry the awareness that the Slavs will lead the way in heart- thinking consciousness in the future. On this tour we will explore what has been happening anthroposophically in Eastern Europe in the last 25 years and, in Bulgaria, meet some of those on a similar yet different spiritual path acknowledged by Rudolf Steiner.
Registration closing soon
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Anthroposophy Worldwide - # 4, 2018
If you would like to see the archive of past issues, go to:
then enter password AWE-2018
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