General Secretary's Letter
From the World Society
On A Culture of Agreement
Dear Members and Friends of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada,
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Beginnings...
Witnessing the miracle of development that takes place with the newborn infant reaches deeply into our being, touching the essence of our own humanity. We cannot help but marvel at the extraordinary processes of adaptation that the child goes through in order to form a relationship with its fundamentally transformed reality. The process is lengthy, extending far beyond the initial months into years of maturation. Yet, at its core, all of the stages of growth arise out of the deepest inner longing rising from the spiritual core of the incarnating individuality to enter into a true relationship with its new reality.
We can have a sense for the immensity of this impulse when we consider how fundamentally different every aspect of its pre-birth existence is. We need only reflect on life suspended in a liquid universe to have a sense for the complete transformation that occurs at birth’s threshold. Processes of sustenance, all the bodily functions, sensory activities, all take place within the context of this ‘water world’. Inwardly, following these days before birth and then trying to imagine the threshold processes leading into a completely new reality, draws us close to the heart of becoming a true human being.
Though monumental, archetypal in its nature, this mighty transition from one state of being into another is central to human evolution. We are continuously going through thresholds, leaving behind states of existence that have served their purpose, and moving into new conditions of existence. These transitions are inevitably unconscious unless they create pain or suffering. We dream through these critical points of transformation and in our dreaming lose the possibility for consciously connecting with these ‘miracle points’ on our human journey.
Just as our individual journeys go through these thresholding processes, so too does humanity as a whole. Rudolf Steiner makes clear that humanity is in such a fundamental threshold toward the beginning of a fundamentally new reality. In many ways he reveals how deep the transformation must be for us to move through this new birth. The larger context for this transition is that we are at the beginning of a new age in our human journey. The previous age, the Age of Darkness, has ended. We know this as a thought, but it is far more challenging to allow the thought to become experience. How do we begin the process, or assist in the process, of encouraging each other to awaken to the steps we must take as individuals and as communities to become active in this monumental cultural transformation?
We can put this into context when we consider that in the long stream of human development this is only the fourth time that a transition of such magnitude has occurred. This is truly a ‘turning point in time’. We can approach the immensity of this reality first as a concept, but for it to become an active living process requires consciousness and attention. We are called as students of Rudolf Steiner to become active participants in this process. How do we do this? What can guide us in this task?
Each autumn, as the Dornach hills are washed in the soft gray light of an approaching winter, a unique organ of our anthroposophical life gathers at the Goetheanum. Meeting in the Schreinerei, Class holders from around the world gather where Rudolf Steiner gave birth to an earthly form for the cosmic Michael School – the School of Spiritual Science. Over many years, the question of how we live the reality of entering a new age has formed the framework for these conclaves. How can we observe the fruits, but also the hindrances, of the age that lies behind us in such a way that we can begin to make active a life in anthroposophy that orients itself to what needs to arise in the future?
As we consider the gifts and challenges of the Age of Darkness what confronts us is the tension that has been developed between the individual and the community. We might say that at the heart of Kali Yuga is the becoming of the ‘free individual’ - the individual no longer defined by its community. But this ‘free individual’ only has meaning in relationship to a new, freely chosen, community. Recognizing this reality is, for many of our contemporaries, for many of us in the anthroposophical movement, extremely uncomfortable. This discomfort, even pain,.....................
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Please take a moment to listen to this recording of Dark Island with its haunting background and performed by Nova Scotia member Duncan Keppie.
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AGM ANNOUNCEMENT
AGM & CONFERENCE, MAY 15 - 17, 2020
Because of Covid-19 concerns, our AGM/Conference this year will take place in the virtual world using Zoom technology. On Wednesday, May 13th there will be a session for those unfamiliar with using Zoom to check in to see if their computer link is working.
Our Conference will start on Friday May 15 with a welcome by Bert Chase, our General Secretary, and a presentation: “The Second Panel of the Foundation Stone Meditation” by Robert McKay of Toronto. Robert, a longtime member of the Toronto Branch, has taught courses on meditation at the Rudolf Steiner Centre.
On Saturday May 16th there will be a keynote panel by longtime Camphill members, Adola McWilliam and David Adams entitled: “Recent Thoughts in the Realm of Heart and Lung”. The AGM proper (only members with paid-up status or have made arrangements with the Administrator for 2020 can vote) will take place on May 16th at 3 pm EST.
On Sunday John Bach, a BD farmer and beekeeper, will give a webinar: “A Spiritual Understanding of the Honeybee”. Afterwards we will take a few minutes to wrap up the Conference and Bert Chase will lead us with some thoughts as we look forward to the 100th anniversary of the re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society in 2023.
An email with details for joining all events of the virtual AGM/Conference will be sent to members closer to the date. We hope you will be able to attend!
We are happy to have the expertise of Mark McGivern and Barba
rah Nicoll to help us set
up and host the meetings online.
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Compostela
Three Friends Walk the Way of the Stars (part two) by Michel Dongois
Maria is a massage therapist. Her true calling is that of offering massages to pilgrims, and only to pilgrims. She works in the Jacques de Molay hostel located in the small village of Terradillos. Chantal Lamothe, who was able to take advantage of Maria’s skills in treating her injured Achilles heel, explained that Maria has a unique view of the work she does.
“This woman, who I call the Guardian of the Camino, gives massages to those travelling on
The Arrival in Compostela
foot, explaining to them that they are experiencing their bodies in a completely new way. She says that she is there to soothe bodies subjected to constant movement.” Chantal learned much about the spirit of Compostela as she somehow managed to communicate with Maria in a mixture of broken Spanish and English.
Maria pointed out that some pilgrims choose to walk the Camino even though they are ill. Many who suffer from cancer hold out hope that the Camino will heal them. And it even happens that some die along the way. Maria wondered at the fact that many people undertake this adventure even though they are too advanced in age. And various pilgrims who were well aware of this fact confided to Maria that they saw this as being their last chance; that if they were to die on the road to Compostela they would consider themselves to have died in a state of grace!
Maria explained that our body is our vehicle, our home, and also our tool. “And indeed, Maria massaged us as if she were tuning a musical instrument.” The pilgrim does not simply endure his body, he is not satisfied with merely enduring it as best he can. No, he takes hold of it consciously with a view to experiencing the Camino to the fullest. By walking long distances, with a gentle gait, the pilgrim discovers a privileged, intimate relationship with his own body that also sheds light on its frailties.
The Wisdom of the Road
But Chantal went on to say that the real lesson she learned from Maria was something else. It resided in the wisdom this woman had gained through her contact with the hundreds and hundreds of pilgrims she had helped along their way. Maria acknowledges that there are four preconditions needed to ensure a successful pilgrimage: first, one must have the necessary time; second, it requires sufficient funds; thirdly, one must have the will to continue on day by day; and fourthly, and most importantly, it requires a commitment to activating one’s moral responsibility, to have a sense that one is treading the path for the sake of those who cannot do so.
Chantal went on to say that “Maria instilled in me an awareness of walking for something much greater than myself. It was as if I had been touched by a magic wand! I saw how this activity of transcending the self could be a healing experience. From that moment on, I dedicated my pains and sufferings to all those individuals who could not actively take on the journey. And that encouraged me to not give up!”
One of the rituals of the Camino was highly intriguing for our three lady pilgrims, and one they subjected themselves to: taking a picture of one’s shadow. Many “jacquets” (Compostela pilgrims) photograph their own shadow during the journey. “It is our companion, the mirror of what we are, a constant reminder that we are always in the company of our own selves. It gives us the feeling of being more complete while walking,” said Suzie Couture.
Chantal Lamothe pointed out something else the journey revealed. She referred to Rudolf Steiner’s indication that when discussing a conflict or problem at school with a child’s parents, it is a good idea to do so while walking, being in motion when trying to come to a decision concerning the child. She added that walking makes thinking more fluid, connecting the head with the feet and activating the rhythmic system. Thoughts find their rightful place, thinking becomes clearer.
Deciding to take on a quest like Compostela also means living with one’s own questions (“quest” and “question” have the same etymology). Chantal Lamothe explained this in the following way: “The fact that a physical journey corresponds to an inner path of development is something archetypal. Seeing a journey on foot as a means of self development seems rather naïve. But must we not look ahead of us if we are to move forward on the path of life?” Suzie Couture added that walking for an extended period of time activates circulation throughout our whole being – thinking, feeling, willing. “Can we not say that sickness is due to mental and physical circulation being blocked somehow?”
Arrival
After weeks of dealing with the elements, threatening skies, fog, sun, wind and rain, they finally reached Compostela. Mission accomplished! How proud they were! But also, how disappointed not to be able to enter the cathedral to............
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Interview with Paul Hodgkins
with Geraldine Snowden and Robert McKay
December 2019
Paul Hodgkins was born in the Midlands in England on January 31, 1947. He immigrated to Canada in the mid-1960’s. He married twice, once in 1971 and a second time in 1990 to his wife Susan Richard. He has five children (Philip, born September 26, 1979; Will born August 12, 1984; Evelyn born August 3, 1984; Charlotte born April 7, 1992 and Beatrice born on July 20, 1995). After several different occupations, he began teaching in a Waldorf School in 1985 and later focused on anthroposophical adult education. Paul was the Program Director of the Rudolf Steiner Centre Toronto’s Foundation Studies Encounter Course for many years, stepping back in the 2019/20 year due to his current illness. The following interview was conducted at Paul’s home in Toronto.
GS:
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your biography?
PH:
Well…I was born at a very early age but I can’t remember a thing about that…General biography stuff? Where I grew up and stuff like that?
GS:
(laughing and nodding)
PH:
I grew up in a working class family in England. I was kind of a dreamy kid. I was raised as a Catholic and went to Catholic schools but I didn’t do too well with that. In my adolescence I had a quarrel with the church. I didn’t like what was coming in the religion lessons. I didn’t like the prejudices. I didn’t like the—I don’t know how to put it—the lack of friendship I felt from the teachers. Not that I wanted to be friends so much but there was no attempt get the teachers and students together. It was just a job for them.
So I left school not having done very well. To get myself out of that situation, I had to eventually write an exam to join the British civil service which I did. I became a clerk where everything was written with a fountain pen. I had to leave home for that. I left at about age 17.
It was during that time that one of my friends told me about a man who owned a fish and chips shop. This man had gotten the money to buy his shop through working in a gold mine in Canada. My friend and I met with him and he convinced us to go to Canada to make our fortune. So at 19 we set off to Canada to make our fortune. We worked in a gold mine in Red Lake, northwest Ontario, for about two years. We did make a lot of money but we spent it all. It took us less time to spend it than it took to make it.
Is this interesting?
GS:
(laughing) Yes, please go on.
PH:
Really? Okay. Well, at that point we decided to go to B.C. to work on fishing boats because we had heard we could make more money on fishing boats. We left Red Lake and came down through Toronto, intending to head west.
In Toronto, as luck would have it, my friend fell in love with a girl. Then I too met a girl and fell in love. My girlfriend was much more cultured than I was. She began to bring me out of my working class background and educated me culturally. She wasn’t stuck up or anything but she appreciated life’s finer things.
While I was dating her I joined IBM. I also had to write an exam to get into IBM. It was like an intelligence test and was about three hours long. At that time, IBM wasn’t really interested in qualifications. They were interested in intelligence quotient and that sort of thing. I started as an operator in the IBM test centre helping IBM customers to work out their program needs before they actually purchased their computer. In those days – in the late 1960’s – a computer was between one and three million dollars. You only bought one and it would fill a room. This was a third generation computer; we all felt we were working at the cutting edge of technology.
I then moved into the education department of IBM and found that I had knack for teaching. Still, I found the work soul destroying – something about computers – I did that for about four years and then I quit. I did not have another job to go to, I just quit. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I don’t know if I would have put it in those terms back then: “I am quitting because this is soul destroying”. I knew it made me miserable.
By this time I was in my mid-twenties. I knew I could always earn money. I took on a job cleaning: mopping floors, cleaning windows, and things like that. It was just something interim but I quite liked that work. It was easy and I was cleaning a trio of bookstores in Toronto which gave me the chance to take up some serious reading. I had started reading at IBM. Someone had put me on to Plato’s dialogues. I read some philosophy in a kind of haphazard way and I didn’t find it entirely satisfying. I asked myself, “If philosophy is so great, why does it change from one generation to the next? Is there any permanency in this?” It might not have been the right question, but that was my question. I was an atheist and moved on to mathematics and science, reading at about a high school level. Then someone told me there are Eastern philosophies that can raise your consciousness. In reading this material, I had to get over the spiritual connotations. I was looking for things that were evidential or materially sound but I kept reading and investigated Daoism, Yoga, and Buddhism. I became particularly interested in Zen Buddhism which seemed to me the best of both worlds. It was very straightforward and only to do with one’s own consciousness.
By the time I was in my late 20s, I was far removed from IBM or the need to make money. I had come into the alternative world. By now I had lost all interest in money or a career. I read a book about vegetarianism, met a vegetarian, and became a vegetarian. I began to shop at my local health food store and the guy that owned the store offered me a job. That store eventually became the biggest natural food store in Toronto with 300 bulk bins. This was long before the Big Carrot. It is long since closed down. During the next few years, I tried all sorts of diets: macrobiotics, veganism, dairy free, juice fasting, water fasting, brown rice fasting and so on. When customers came in to the store I was able to speak their language regardless of which group they were in. So I became something of a go-to person in the store. Not that I really knew anything but I knew which book to point them to. I could say, “Here, read this book!”
Then I had an experience - a kind of wake up - that art was to play a role in my life; that this had always been intended. The experience was caused by a television program about Alex Colville. So, I took myself off to university in..............
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Global Activation of Intention and Action by Emmanuel Vucovich
Recently
The Presencing Institute
at MIT launched the
Global Activation of Intention and Action
forum: an international community. Over 10,000 people from around the world registered for this forum and the community is growing exponentially as people are connecting to
presencing & collaborative leadership
work from all corners of the globe, and from all disciplines and walks of life.
In this forum, the Presencing Institute's co-founder Otto Scharmer shared his perspective of the opportunity for potential learning from this global disruption in the following way:
1. We are all connected
2. You change the system
3. When we face disruption, we have to be awake
4. In this moment we have a choice : to turn away, or turn towards change
5. The future depends upon the inner place from which we make this choice, from which we choose to change.
The three areas of change:
Open mind - change learning
Open heart - change democracy
Open will - change economy
Most importantly, the
GAIA Journey
involves the dynamic interaction between connecting globally and acting locally in place and interest specific communities. I am very pleased to announce that
The Parcival Project
is now officially a Presencing Institute/GAIA Journey 'interest hub' serving the exploration of collaborative leadership in the arts: "The universal musical trinity of
rhythm, melody,
and
harmony
can be transposed into the language of
Theory U
as
willing, thinking,
and
feeling.
Furthermore, the current emerging concept of
"
timbre"
- the
quality
or
colour
of a sound and the
intention
of a performance - is dependent not only on the
inner state
of the
performer
but also that of the
listener
."
There is probably also a Toronto hub ... not sure yet.
It is with great hope that I invite you to consider joining the GAIA Journey and becoming a member of The Parcival Project or any other hub in this international community working towards global transformation.
Emmanuel Vucovich
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The Australian in the Room by Dale Irving
New Adult Educator Path I and II (August 2019 and Feb/March 2020).
hands receive and give
warmly held community
- now I sit alone
Outside my small apartment in Highgate, near the Perth Central Business District, Western Australia, birds sing. I was woken by the guffawing laugh of kookaburras and now listen for the sweeter song of doves and wattle birds. I am in self-isolation.
I arrived a few days ago from Cleveland, Ohio after staying with dear friends in Erie PA for nearly two weeks. And I travelled there from Toronto after Path II of the NAE Training with Arlene Thorn at Bonnieview Farm near Meaford, Ontario from 28 February-8 March, 2020.
My journey was planned months ago. I returned to Australia on 24 March, just hours before the Western Australian borders were closed - thus my fourteen day self-isolation.
This preamble invites you to my story of discovery. Since my partner’s death in 2014 and my retirement from 45 years of teaching and Arts’ education in the public system in Western Australia, I have spent short and delightful periods of time with his sister and her partner in Erie, PA. Last June I enticed my two good friends to meet me in Toronto and to spend a few days exploring together.
Always interested in conferences when I travel, I investigated the possibility of Anthroposophical events in Toronto.
I discovered that there was to be a weekend conference
Moving Towards the Future
8-9 June, 2019, presented by the New Adult Learning Movement (NALM). I was immediately interested. I had been opened to ‘destiny learning’ and Coenraad van Houten’s work when training in Biography Work with Karl-Heinz Finke in Sydney, Australia from 2014-2016.
So I leapt in and found myself dog paddling as the mermaids and porpoise dived around me!
Everyone had either attended New Adult Learning workshops or had, or were, actually presenting various linked classes. The Australian was the only one ...............
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Viral Economics
A challenge to egotism?
Christopher Houghton-Budd
Whatever one makes of the virus crisis from a medical or political point of view, clearly it is having a major impact on global economic life. This impact ranges from tumbling stock markets to closing cafes; falling job prospects to airlines and others seeking government assistance, as if governments have a source of money other than borrowing against future (dwindling) tax resources. This makes visible the frailty of just-in-time production and delivery systems if, for whatever reason, the music stops. Likewise, businesses running on thin margins rely on the music keeping playing; they literally cannot afford to stop. Not to make a sale is to make a negative sale, as it were. Loss of retail sales is bringing property rents down to where their real economic rents are (what retailers can afford to pay without loss of profitability), down from their speculatively high levels, on which pension funds, and all dependent on them, rely. But the pension funds, too, are on thin margins. And which pensioner can afford not to receive his or her pension? As also which person can afford a drop or cessation of income, without in the same moment defaulting on a mortgage or other piece of financing?
But interesting in this is the sense, albeit possibly transient, that somehow, we need to overcome our self-centeredness and begin to share resources – beginning with toilet rolls, no less. (Or else, heaven forbid, adopt non-first world toilet habits.) Self-interest is not so easily overcome, however. We have been taught that this is a virtue of socio-economic life ever since Adam Smith was (misleadingly) named ‘father of economics’ – a title he himself said belongs to Aristotle. As his aptronymic name says, Adam Smith’s legacy is to be the first one to smith the economics of egoism. Indeed, modern financial and economic policies and techniques might well be named the science of egoism – more precisely, egotism – at its apogee.
And so, we should heed well Rudolf Steiner’s injunction that what we need to do above all else is remove egoism root and branch from economic life. Not to be replaced by some soulful or moralic altruism, but altruism in its technical, even clinical sense of producing for others. Of entering into economic life in order to use one’s skills and talents to meet the needs of other people, not oneself. One does not need to cite Steiner’s various mottos to this effect. One cannot consume for others; one cannot produce for oneself. These are facts of economic and social life that Adam Smith misread. As would anyone thinking in Smith’s times, in awe of the Enlightenment and caught in the spirit of rationalism – even if acting in opposition to it. For how is it rational to rest economic life on something one cannot see, namely, an invisible hand?
But taking the egotism out of economic life is not in the first place an economic act. It is a spiritual act, meaning by that, one has to manage everything in one’s life that relies on one’s economic egotism. The values by which one lives,.................
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IN THESE TIMES
In these times we weave
The fabric of love
With phone calls far and near;
In smiles for strangers
As we pass, keeping
And staying six feet apart —
We weave the design of love
In prayers and thoughts
For all those in distress;
For the many souls who cross,
Alone, through the gate of death…
Is this what the virus wants?
In these times we have the chance
To strengthen our souls
To take advantage of quiet time,
Break that habit of touching the face;
Stepping back to evaluate –
What exactly is it that I, alone,
Can bring to this world?
Is this what the virus wants?
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In these times I’d say,
Rather, it’s what the angels and archangels,
All the company of heaven,
Want, as they work and strive and toil to turn
Our pain and suffering towards the Good,
Towards right evolution of our
Damaged, threatened earth?
In these day we recognize
The rightness of rhythm;
How we can be helped and carried
By differentiating the days
Of the week,
Connect with the colour,
The grain, the stone,
The task of the 8-fold path.
Thus we learn to survive
To live more consciously, more morally
Again and again and again
In these times.
Brenda Hammond
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Society for Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening in Ontario
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As the changing of the season, and the folly that is the dance between humanity and nature takes a turn, that hopefully serves to remind you why you came to biodynamics in the first place, I on behalf of the board would like to wish you, your families and your farms and gardens well. With the constant chatter of how things have changed, are uncertain and will never be the same again, we as farmers and gardeners know that there are greater rhythms at play that transcend the temporary inconveniences and even hardships that many of us are being asked to shoulder.
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General Information and Upcoming Events
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Branches & Groups
Calgary Branch
Contact: Christine at
*******
Cantons de l'Est
*******
Confluence of Three Rivers (Ottawa)
*******
Duncan
Contact:
*******
Edmonton
*******
Huronia Branch (Barrie)
Contact Janine at
705-728-1443
*******
London
*******
Montréal (Français)
Institute Rudolf Steiner Quebec
*******
Montreal Branch (English)
*******
Nelson, BC
*******
Nova Scotia
*******
Polaris Branch (Thornhill)
*******
Saugeen Cedar Branch
(Durham)
*******
Sherbrooke (Français)
*******
Sunshine Coast (BC)
********
Thornhill Group
*******
Toronto Branch
*******
Vancouver
*******
Val David (Français)
*******
Victoria
******
Membership Update
New M
embe
rs
Mia Kalef. BC
Kaitlin Brown, Nova Scotia
Welcome!
******
Resignation
Trinh Huynh, Toronto
Editorial Notes
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
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
Membership Administrator
Christine Tansley
416-892-3656
877-892-3656
Communication Administrator
Jef Saunders
Members website
please note you will need to use the password
ASC
to access the members only page
Council
President
Treasurer
Secretary
General Secretary
School For Spiritual Science
For list of Class Holders,
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BANCROFT, ONTARIO - July 30 - August1
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The geology of Bancroft region will be the general theme of this conference, including hands-on geological field activities, lectures and discussions about Goethean observation, spiritual-scientific insights into the earth’s geology and related topics observation exercises, plus a visit to the RockHound Gemboree.
An artistic activity will enhance the experience.For information and to register for the conference, please contact: Dr Sandy Musclow in Bancroft, ON at
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Anthroposophy Worldwide - 2020
If you would like to see the archive of past issues, go to:
Archiv
e
then enter password AWE-2018
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