December News

December 2020

Monthly news & updates

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Greetings!

From the World Society

On Darkness’s Sun

Dear Members and Friends of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada,

With each new day we have come ever closer to the heart of winter. The rising light comes ever later; the approaching darkness comes sooner. This closing in of the darkness at first comes imperceptibly. Then with each day the advance comes with increasing rapidity. We become more conscious that the space given to us to experience the light is ever more measured.

This enveloping of the light by darkness has its inner accompaniment. This too, at first, is concealed for us. Gradually our souls become increasingly shrouded, enveloped, and we draw back from this inner experience, this approaching night in our souls. The familiarity, the safety, of our daily engagements abandon us. Our accustomed activities that keep our lives busy lose their immediacy. The structures of our accustomed lives lose their importance. What gives meaning to our daily lives recedes.

This seeming loss of purpose, accompanied by the withdrawal of outer light, is unsettling. We lose our bearings. What has given shape to our daily lives loses its form, and this loss has its inner soul reflection. This disconnection from what gives our daily lives their orientation becomes a loss of meaning for us. This time of outer darkness is also a time of inner loss: of sadness, even disorientation.

This annual experience of retreating light, both outer light and its accompanying inner reflection, has been heightened throughout this year. This advancing darkness, this impingement of darkness on that place where we feel safe, has taken hold of human society. Over these past months it has become ever more difficult to feel ourselves as ‘standing in the light’.

Rudolf Steiner reveals how this experience of being bound by darkness is a critical step on our path toward becoming truly human. Wonder can take hold of us as he describes how in the ancient mysteries the student was led into darkness, a deep sense of loss, even despair – and in this enveloping darkness comes the delicate, almost imperceptible presence of radiance, of light permeating the darkness. The coming of the Sun at night’s darkest point.

Each year we are given the possibility to not turn away from this gift of the darkness. We need not descend into holding fast the accustomed structures of life. We can open ourselves to where this withdrawing of the light would lead us. This unaccustomed place, this place where we are without our accustomed supports, is where we are allowed to become part of the narrative of king and shepherd. Here we are given the possibility, through them, to sense the first glimmers of the invisible inner light, this radiant sun presence shining through all substance.

Speaking to a circle of young people, Rudolf Steiner calls upon them to recognize that the perception of this inner light is an ever-present possibility. Its presence is concealed because we do not attend to it. This wondrous inner radiance illumines with such delicacy that the heaviness of our accustomed sense perceptions conceal it. But we do have the soul capacities with which to discern it. It is to this that Rudolf Steiner calls us. We have these experiences; he calls us to recognize them. To cultivate this recognition is profoundly important.

How do these spiritual intimations communicate themselves to us? What soul capacities convey the delicate illumination that shines through substance to light up within us?

In speaking of the ancient mysteries, Rudolf Steiner elaborates how the one prepared for initiation is guided into the darkness, and in this darkness is led to the reality of the sun at midnight.........Read on below

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From the Goetheanum

Dear members, dear friends,

The AGM on 31 October took place with special protective measures in place, because five days before, the canton of Solothurn, where the Goetheanum is located, decided that the maximum number of persons attending public assemblies was 30. The question then was whether the AGM should be held or cancelled. We decided to go ahead and to admit around 140 members. They were spread out across five rooms, with a maximum of 30 people in each, and connected via livestream so they could be aware of each other. Questions related to proceedings could be asked from all the rooms and a transparent and valid voting process was also possible. The meeting was also attended remotely by a few hundred members who were, however, unable to participate actively.

Facilitating the perception of Anthroposophy

The format of this meeting was new for everyone involved and illustrated once again what we have experienced many times in this extraordinary year of 2020: that the Anthroposophical Society is a public society and the Goetheanum a public building. Do we want this publicity? The answer of the Executive Council and the Goetheanum Leadership to this question is a clear ‘yes’ and they have embraced it actively since the lockdown in spring 2020. We want to keep the Goetheanum and Anthroposophy in the public domain – by applying Covid regulations responsibly and by keeping the building ‘physically’ as open as possible. We strive for Anthroposophy to be publicly perceived, for instance with the book Perspectives and Initiatives in the Times of Coronavirus, which was put together within four weeks and published at the end of May, with contributions from all the Sections; or with the lecture series The Signature of Our Time, which is publicly available on video. We want to make the Anthroposophical Society and the Goetheanum publicly accessible when we offer conferences, meetings and performances.

Our time, the earth and humanity are faced with challenges and we want to make contributions out of anthroposophy that can help develop ways of meeting these challenges.

Warm greetings,

Ueli Hurter, Goetheanum

Mediators For Initiates?

By Mark McAlister

Members should consciously make themselves mediators between what the questioning human soul feels as the problems of man and the universe, and what the Initiates have to recount.

This quote is from a Letter by Rudolf Steiner to members of the Anthroposophical Society, dated 13 July 1924. Elsewhere in this letter, he describes how the Initiate is able to discern moral laws of the soul which are intimately connected with the happenings of everyday life. Steiner challenges us to take this into account when we try to solve problems in the world.

To some, this may sound dogmatic — Herr Doktor hat gesagt (The Doctor has said) — but here is another way of looking at it. Acknowledging the existence of factors that will always be beyond our control is the first step in any decision-making process. (Management consultant Peter Senge writes about this extensively in his landmark book, The Fifth Discipline.)

In other words, Steiner is asking us to be mediators. This requires a high level of critical thinking, and the ability to take multiple — often conflicting — points of view into account. Gradually, we can then learn to form imaginations which allow spiritual forces to stream into our initiatives.

Each of us will take up Steiner’s challenge in different ways, according to our vocation. In my career as a business communications consultant, I kept coming back to a central theme: Understand your audience and engage with them — and pay attention to the new social forms that emerge. In this article, I will share some of my stories.

My first full-time job was at Rudolf Steiner Press in London in the late 1970s. We had an ambitious plan to create a catalogue of trade editions, and to promote its sale in the public book trade. We were all very excited — but one day at a team meeting, I found myself saying, This is all very good, but who’s going to do the selling? There was an awkward silence in the room, and perhaps you can guess what happened next!

Yes, I became the Trade Rep, and spent my days traipsing around London trying to place our books in stores. Needless to say, this was pretty challenging, and the business results were modest. However, the encounters with booksellers were often quite stimulating. Excuse me, Ma’m. I see you have some Waldorf books on the Witchcraft shelves. Might I suggest that you also stock them in your Education and Parenting section? I also remember visiting the Bookshop in the Tate Gallery, and showing (with some trepidation) a copy of Steiner’s Colour lectures to the Buyer. To my astonishment, he ordered a stack of copies without even opening the sample. He just loved the Geissberger watercolour on the cover!

During those three years, I spoke with dozens of booksellers as well as customers at book fairs. Listening to them, and learning about their perspectives on the needs of the reading public, my own relation to Steiner’s work began to shift and evolve ...............read on below

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Introducing Our New Administrator

Claudette Leblanc

Dear members of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada,

We are pleased to announce that Claudette Leblanc has accepted the position of Administrator. She will be replacing Christine Tansley who has been filling in for Jeffrey Saunders for the past year.

Claudette has been involved with the Society for many years. Prior to joining the council as representative for Quebec in 2018 she was very involved as Registration Co-ordinator for the 2016 Ottawa conference.

As Administrator she brings a wealth of experience directing and managing a company, shared, with her late husband for many years. She is also the steward for the Montreal Branch and head of a study group in Montreal.

Claudette is committed to serving the Anthroposophical Society in Canada and its members to the best of her ability and invites you to contact her for any administrative problem or question.

Council for the Anthroposophical Society in Canada

Anthroposophical Prison Outreach in Canada

APOC: Torch thrown; torch caught.

APOC is the Anthroposophical Prison Outreach in Canada. APOC sends semi-annual mailings to thirty-one federal prisons with this invitation to prisoners: “Find out about anthroposophy and how it can benefit your life. Upon your request, receive a packet of introductory anthroposophical materials, a book, or a correspondence course, all free of charge.”

Inspired by Fred Janney, founder of the American anthroposophical prison outreach, Tim Nadelle initiated APOC in 2017. Over the past three years, Tim established a set of practices for prison contact and evolved the content for mailings. Tim says, “If we reach even one prisoner, we will have made a difference.”

Now it’s time to pass the initiative on. Raun Griffiths will take over as of January 2021. Raun was also motivated by Fred Janney’s Ottawa talk in 2016. She says, “Prisoners are far less likely to bump into anthroposophy than those of us with freedom. APOC may be the only opportunity a prisoner will have to meet the work of Rudolf Steiner.”

For more information or to offer help, contact directly Raun.Griffiths@gmail.com or via the ASC office.

For more about American Prison Outreach, see www.anthroposophyforprisoners.org

A Holy Nights Initiative and Invitation: The Cosmos on Earth

In response to a call from our Council for Society members to take initiative and also in response to questions in our community, we are offering the following process for you to participate in.

For many years, Regine Kurek, Arscura School for Living Art, has led groups in the community in Thornhill working with the Holy Nights. This year we would like to extend the invitation to the wider community across the country. Our hope and wish is that engaging in a process together in this current time, will strengthen our Anthroposophical community and help us feel connected as well as inspire our work in the world.

We will begin with one introductory session on Zoom to introduce the work and allow us to meet each other on

Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 8:00 pm EST.

We will have time to share our insights and experiences in a second Zoom on

Thursday, January 7, 2021 at 8:00 pm EST.

We would ask that those who wish to participate consider making a donation to the Anthroposophical Society in Canada (suggested donation between $20.00 and $100.00).

Everyone registered by December 20, 2020 will receive instructions describing our daily activities throughout the Holy Nights. The daily time required can be as short as 10 minutes in the morning and evening, or be extended if you choose to add an artistic exercise.

Daily tasks:

Reviewing the given month of the year that has been

Contemplating an image and text

Placing a seed into the month for the year to come

Creating an artistic expression

These will be some of our daily tasks for yourselves, as well as for the World in 2021!

Warmly and with eager anticipation, Dorothy LeBaron and Regine Kurek

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Contact: Christine at

403-242-7175 or email

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