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Mid-Year Harvest...

Scenes from '360° Exploring Community' summer conference, Sweden. Photo: Silvia Zuur

 

Hello Friends!

In this issue of the eNews we gather together some of the bountiful harvest of the mid-year season. We hear from friends in Sweden, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Canada, the USA, Germany and Norway.

There is also a brief reminder of some of the many YouthSection events ahead – more information will come in the next eNews.

As usual, if you have any questions, comments, advice, stories or events you’d like share with us (and possibly see published in the YouthSection eNews or on our website), then send an email (preferably with picture) to: enews(at)youthsection.org

Please also feel free to forward this eNews to those who may have an interest in YouthSection activities worldwide. To subscribe to the YouthSection eNews, click here or on the word ‘subscribe’ above. If you are having problems viewing the eNews, or would prefer to read this issue or previous ones through our website, click here.

Warmest wishes from the YouthSection team in Dornach.
www.youthsection.org

 

 

360 Points of View

Amy Ilic. Photo: Stine Swensen

 

From a participant:

Community, insight, action, music, craft, inspiration, opportunity, play, laughter and discovery are only a handful of words to describe the 360° week-long conference that was organised by the Youth Initiative Program in June.

 

My friend Sarah and I took on the ‘green challenge’ that was proposed for the conference and decided to hitch hike from Emerson College, England to Ytterjärna in Sweden – 11 rides and 34 hours later we arrived. The sun was shining and there were groups of young, excited faces in the fields.

 

I started the days with a yoga class followed by breakfast outside. We would all gather in the Culture house at 8:30am and sing songs from around the world, followed by a different guest speaker every day. Orland Bishop and Jane Lorand were two of the five speakers. These two inspired me greatly. The lectures would be followed by ‘Fika’ – a Swedish tradition for tea / coffee and conversation. After Fika there was an open, more intimate circle for questions and further discussion with the lecturer for that day.

 

Lunch was served outside and consisted of the freshly picked vegetables that participants volunteered to pick in the early mornings. The food was delicious and buzzing with life!

 

After lunch there was some free time where you could either go and make an idea come true in the craft village – which was available from morning to dark – or join some activity or initiative that manifested from the open space board. Everyone chose one or two workshops they wanted to do during the week. My workshop was held in the pine forest in a clearing surrounded by blueberries with a view of the fjord, sitting around a fire…a picture of perfection. Workshops were followed by another lecture or a documentary. Every night there was different music playing which really gave the conference a festive feel.

 

This conference opened my eyes to all the opportunities and inspiring people out there, and I am now sitting writing this in Ytterjärna because I decided during the conference to be a participant in YIP…best decision I have made…

 

– Amy Ilic

 

 

Bill Beardslee

From a contributor:

Imagine 300 or so 18–20-something year olds,

all youth committed to seeking, living and being 

a more wholesome, just world.

 

All come together as the first International Youth Initiative Program,

all to maximise their abilities, intuition 

and practical skills for personal/global transformation

while living in community and being mentored

by teachers and leaders of the highest caliber,

all spreading out across the globe to incarnate what they are learning.

 

Imagine these YIP-ees imagining a conference,

actualising the presence of over 300 people 

who come together for one week

to live in and explore community, participate in countless

workshops, imagine, discuss, connect, 

eat real food, sing, dance, make music, 

craft, listen, speak,

be the community they seek. 

Then you have YIP, have “360°: Creating Community.” 

 

Now hope fills you and this aching world

fills you like a spring of fresh, living water

that rises from living, human flow-forms

and now seeps into the roots

of the soul-soil of the Earth.

The trees dance and the mountains sing.

 

Now we know a New Creation.

 

Thank you YIP.

 

Thank you YouthSection.

 

Thank you YIP-ees and 

All who did a 360°

To create Living Community!

 

– Bill Beardslee

 

 

Christianne & Jess. Photo: Silvia Zuur

From Organisers

Organising 360° and Exploring Community.

 

Why Community?

The process of organising a conference and being able to come to a common idea and understanding of what we could form, with 37 young people, was a crossing into and excursion of community.

 

As YIP started, the idea of organising a conference was given to us as an opportunity – as a way of ending the year. We had an empty vessel to fill. Being 37 people from 18 different countries with each one’s different ideas, this empty vessel became evidently hard to fill.

 

In the darkness of the Swedish winter our meetings began – a time where each individual was experiencing an inner process and a separation of our ‘community.’ Looking more at the naming of the conference and asking the questions ‘how’ and ‘what’ took us into a conference with only structure and concrete ideas, but was missing mood and a feeling. This initiative was coming from an idea from the outside into our minds, and it took us a long time before it sank into the element of feeling. When we got to this point we could work together as individuals and as a whole.

 

Without this outer and inner exploration, we could never have come to a point of being able to work together as a strong group. Through all of this we came to realise that we all had been living and exploring community.

 

The Conference

Knowing that this conference would also be the end of this YIP year, the feeling element became very strong. When it came to the point of putting on the conference we realised how exciting but hard it would be to share our experiences and our tight community.

 

Because we had such a big group, there were different roles to be played, and everyone held and supported each other to make this conference a unique and heart-loaded explosion.

 

This was a perfect ending for us in YIP because we could show and give everything that we had experienced in community. Our conference was a beautiful struggle with an amazing outcome.

 

 – Jessica Collins and Christianne Sinoo

 

 

Winter New Zealand Youth Conference

Photo: Rosa Henderson

 

This year, for the first time, there has been both a winter and summer anthroposophical conference directed towards fostering New Zealand’s youth impulse. This is the first year that such a winter event has been run for this generation of New Zealand youth, and as I will lay out, it ran splendidly. 

 

The main theme of the conference was ‘Rhythms as a key to Understanding,’ where we looked at physical rhythms – in nature/farming, human development and the body – in connection with Steiner’s ideas on biodynamic farming, Waldorf education and anthroposophical medicine.

 

After coming from an intense couple of days bringing to consciousness aspects of ‘knowing thyself’ at the Anthroposophical Society AGM, a relaxed few days in small company was much looked forward to. After a long Monday, we arrived around 11pm at the north Canterbury biodynamic farm ‘Milmore Downs,’ hoping for a cup of tea. On arrival our hope was greeted with the warmth of an open fireplace and pleasant company, before a restful night in country silence.       

 

The following day, the conference – with its 15 young and energetic kiwis and five older ones – began with a verse (in part): “matter is never without spirit, spirit never without matter,” reminding us that in the rhythm of our life we must not neglect to foster the practical we share with each other, as well as the spiritual in which we draw inspiration for living this life in light of the freedom of our moral imagination.

 

The first talk was given by John Ridout, an experienced scientist and biodynamic farmer. He showed us, deploying much style, the various rhythms that are displayed between earth and air, and how the plant – as member of both spheres – draws the physical components of life from both earth and air. 

 

After a delicious lunch of organic soup and home-baked bread, Warwick Sandler brought his understanding of the rhythms engaged in by the human child in coming to culture and awareness through the different incarnations of astral and spiritual bodies. Of particular interest was Steiner’s picture of the child’s first steps in life – being those in which breathing, sleeping and imagining are encouraged, are of primary concern – in opposition to a trend in the mainstream to bring children into a competitive concept-driven environment so as to fulfill the ends of adult ideas of what children need to become. Much discussion followed on into dinner time.        

 

The next day held morning rhythm in the form of eurythmy, taken by Sue Simpson, followed by a rich, farm lunch. This was followed by a talk on anthroposophical nursing by Shona Tupper. The focus of her talk was on the rhythms of the human body, and the means by which they could be regulated to their proper function. This was a very interesting talk in which a wealth of rhythmical functions were explained.            

 

The discussion was followed by lantern making. That evening of the conference was full moon, so a winter lantern feast coincided with the rhythm of mid-winter full moon. After each constructing a lantern to our own design, individuals became part of groups that went on to produce a component of the evening feast. The feast itself was lavish in taste and spirit, eaten under the warmth of candlelight. Once the meal had settled, we found our boots and explored the farm with lantern and moon-light; exploring the world with the practical light of our community.           

 

The following day featured a talk by Rosa Henderson on the relation of rhythms in colour influencing mood. A group exercise followed where each group choose two primary colours with which we were to, in groups, paint whatever came to mind. (See the photos of what we came up with.)

Photo: Rosa Henderson

 

We would very much like to thank the speakers who took time out of their days to give such wonderful talks; Gita Krenek and Rosa Henderson for the wonderful organisation and location; the participants of the AGM who voted with confidence for the youth by sharing funding with some of our initiatives; and the sponsors who made the wonderful food a reality.     

 

– Erik van Zwol

 

For everything that's happening in New Zealand, visit: www.anthroposophy.org.nz/~anthropo/node/89  For information on the upcoming New Zealand Summer Youth Gathering 'The World & I' in January, click here.

 

 

'Bridging the Gap' Idem Seminar

Photo: Pieter Ploeg

 

From July 20 – 26, about 60 people from different angles of the world gathered in Amsterdam for the International Idem Seminar. A challenging aspect of the meeting and of Idem meetings in general is the mix of 'new' and 'old' people in the network, which often creates space for radically new things to emerge in the network, and sometimes creates socially challenging situations. During this week we workshopped different themes, on both the practical and the more personal level. Connectivity Conference always brings fire into the group, and this week was an opportunity to update everyone on the different organic processes that have happened in the last few months.

 

Working together internationally in a network of striving young people is possibly one of the most inspiring and at the same time most difficult working situations, especially when there are different paces in both personal and global development. It is not easy to create a space for real, transparent, emerging creativity out of a common understanding if the common understanding is 'under constant development.’

 

During the Idem Seminar we all came to a better understanding of the importance of a healthy balance between the individual and the community – a struggle that the whole world is having as we are moving away from individualism. One of the most outstanding experiences we had was the common step to a more profound level of real, human-to-human communication between all people who were present. As everyone went out into the world again afterwards we could sense a 'blessed unrest,’ creating space for new ideas and initiatives.

 

– Pieter Ploeg

 

For more from Idem, visit: www.idem-network.org/

 

Thoughts on 'Connectivity'

Photo: Pieter Ploeg

In this working together I find my personal ambition: Connectivity. Strengthening the togetherness and collaboration of all people; finding inspiration in the leading pioneers of change; seeking empowering connections for grass-root initiatives and connecting engaged world-citizens with real work for a better world; facilitating a network of real people working from a radical optimism, ready to face the most difficult challenges with endless courage to bridge gaps in all layers of society.

 

Connectivity takes shape in many different ways – the most concrete way is a conference happening in 2011 in Cape Town, South Africa. The conference is really the celebration of the network, the ‘council meeting’ of the civic sector, the international gathering of the movement. A week of connecting, empowering, strengthening and inspiring.

 

– Pieter Ploeg

 

For more from Pieter on Connectivity, visit his blog at: pietradelmundo.nl/2009/08/29/connectivity-objectives/

 

For more from Idem, visit: www.idem-network.org/

 

 

'Engagement and Consciousness'

Matt Hardie

I don’t think words can truly do justice to the experience I had with Orland Bishop at the Engagement and Consciousness week in Stuttgart. But if I were to sum it up in one word it would be this: Inspiring.

 

I felt like, as a group, we went through a lot together, and through this we were able to create a space where we really could welcome each other into the experience. For me this was the foundation of the week; creating a space or being a host for each other so that we could fully come into the space and experience ourselves as active participants.

 

I experienced Orland as continually motivating and inspiring us to be ourselves, and by the end of the week I came more to the experience that I am free.

 

It was a gift, and I’m grateful to have participated in something that empowered us each to be ourselves.

 

– Matt Hardie

 

 

'Encircling Light – Expectant Silence'

Yukon, Canada. Photo: Martin Stenius

 

This summer, a group of people from various Nordic countries met in the northwest part of Canada – in Yukon – for the Encircling Light Conference on the North.

 

Several years ago, I was asked by the organiser, Philip Thatcher, to see if I was willing to bridge something between the younger and older generations of the participants for this event. He also wished that one evening be reserved for a youth presentation. And so the riddle began. What would we present that would provide a link with the theme and the youth voice of today? Which young people would actually come to Yukon? Were young people willing to work together and prepare an artistic evening, even though they were not professional artists?

 

For 18 months, along with Montreal colleague Eric Schneeberger, we began to imagine this evening ahead of us, and a stone was thrown into unknown waters. We had no real budget to work with, and only faith that at least 12 young people would show up. We set up a fund to give financial assistance for the conference fee, but primarily we decided on the structure of our evening: One short play (an Inuit tale of ‘Sedna’), an artistic cabaret, and the third part would open up into a free conversation.

 

For months we prepared by writing the script to the story with the help of Jocelyne Arseneau, making costumes (lent to us from Marjolein Dalinge, a Dutch costume designer from Cirque du Soleil), writing a theme song, and finally receiving names of young applicants. Like distant travelers, we were walking towards one another.

 

We met on the first day, coming from various places, with no expectations. With three days to practice, some of us were weary of the task ahead. But slowly our western world expectations began to fade, and our work, the story and rhythm gently gave form to our presentation. We found time in the busy schedule to meet each day for short rehearsals, learning lines, eurythmy choreographies, songs, costume preparations, and most of all, to move as one body with a feeling for the story.

 

When show night arrived, and lights were set up for our simple stage, we began with 18 participants all holding a candle: this was a gift to share. Our play was born into the space of complete silence, and a gentle blue light held the room. It was not a soft play, but a story of hatred, egoism, and revenge, where the characters set the stage of the human soul. We finished with a song, created that last day, and held the room with hope...

 

The evening then unfolded into a palette of personal essays, musical pieces, modern dance, songs, and humor. The ages of the participants varied from 15–40, and everyone had more wisdom than the other, with one thing in common: Trust in our modern epoch, and the strength to create with it. The silence and the sun of the North reminded us how to keep our inner voices alert and filled with light, and remain calm in the storms of our times. It was maybe this ripple in the waters that our stone began, but wherever we are now, if we had not been asked the question to try, to struggle, to believe, maybe we would never have felt it.

 

Although the evening opened into a light conversation, the message was hung and present throughout the week: There is no gap, just spaces we must fill.

 

– Noemi Glen, Montreal, Canada

 

 

'Inner Transformation and Social Renewal'

The many young people at the 'Inner Transformation and Social Renewal' conference.

Inner Transformation and Social Renewal, a conference I participated in August 8–11 in Chestnut Ridge/Spring Valley, New York, inspired and humbled me.

 

Clear thinking, and enthusiasm, Gerald Karnow held up as essential.

 

Healthy egoism Gary Lamb extolled – a virtue in free cultural activity, and not in economic life.

 

‘Angel consciousness’ – persistent but flexible intentionality – Laura Summer defined and depicted. Its application in the arts is obvious enough, I hope. And no social artist or activist can afford to neglect this skill.

 

'Loving the facts,' Heinrike Holdrege’s motto (or was it Goethe’s?), quietly revealed its adversary as my long-time friend: Loving the concepts.

 

The older anthroposophists embodied surprisingly much invaluable experience, wisdom, and openness (beside normal human imperfections): these facts illumined and gradually dispelled the fog of my negative preconceptions as I met one and another of these wonderful and unique individuals in conversation. More than one of them admitted to similar insights in meeting us younger individuals. I will have to rethink the need and place of Think OutWord and other youth-centric groups and networks I’m involved or sympathetic with.

 

If, as Michael Howard passionately believes, the arts and qualitative sciences can serve the schooling of our empathy and the development of inner capacities essential for positive social transformation, then I at least feel a powerful call to take up or deepen an individual artistic practice.

 

And if, in practicing, I pursue self-chosen aims with flexible persistence, I meet my subjects with care and discernment, I embody zest and clear thinking – then perhaps this activity will bear fruits of inner transformation and social renewal.

 

– Marcus Macauley

 

For more from Marcus, visit his blog at: www.ofmarc.us/2009/08/15/inner-transformation-social-renewal/

 

For more from ThinkOutword, visit: www.thinkoutword.org/

 

 

YIP Opens its Second Year

Photo: Nathan Heller

As I write this, we are three weeks into our YIP training. This is the second year running of the International Youth Initiative Program in Sweden, and I have joined the second intake of around 40 students from about 15 different nationalities.

 

“A year of making sense” are the words you’ll find on their website (www.yip.se), and I find this to be an apt description of what we have each undertaken this year. The course is aimed at students of 18–25 years as a training ground set to offer a range of skills development and knowledge acquisition, which is intended to equip potential social entrepreneurs with a dynamic set of tools for engaging in social change on both local and international levels in today’s dramatically globalised community.

 

On August 23 we were welcomed by the course leaders, local community and various supporters of this celebrated initiative, and were introduced to each other, much to our excitement. Can you imagine 40 or so inspired future change makers meeting for the first time to engage with one another in a co-creative, intensive and comprehensive year-long process, whilst simultaneously signing up for a committed year of community living that is at once close-knit, local and international? Seems like a recipe for incessant sparks of world-changing inspiration!

 

– Nathan Heller

 

For more from Nathan about YIP, see his blogs at: ndhct.wordpress.com/2009/09/14/yip-opening-09-10/ and  ndhct.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/the-only-constant/

 

To visit YIP's website, go to: www.yip.se

 

 

'Mercury in America' Research Tour

Photos: Mercury in America members

September 1, 2009

Bouncing and weaving aboard Mercury in flow, form finding form finding form amidst social constellations.

We come together in conscious orbits.

Sage brush and cloud sky big.

 

There is so much of us!

 

We wait for each other roadside – we’ll enter the mystery together. Together in this and this and this.

 

Hoping to encounter the moments of each other’s now.

 

THE  BURNING BECONS.

 

Chapter 2 September 11

Mercury in America travels through the south west – crossing through Arizona.

 

We spend an entire day outside of Flagstaff, moving our circle three times to remain in the shade. We share and share and share. We listen intently and struggle to listen intently. We all work hard to experience and honor the social form that is emerging. We lose faith and regain it in an afternoon.

 

The week at ‘Burning Man’ is almost still too close to know what to say about it. It’s there between us as a shared experience. Something that we lived through together. Like a storm or a disaster. Or a birth.

 

Getting the bus ready for the trip

On the approach to the next!

 

– 'Mercury in America' members

 

Travel with the Mercury Tour by keeping updated on their blog: mercuryinamerica.wordpress.com

 

 

The Alternative Festival 'The Other's Face'

Seven people, with their individual projects, gathered to share in the early hours of July 25. Before the day opened for public we were running around trying to finish the preparations. We were either in the forest rigging an art installation, preparing a live poem reading in the barn, or planning a five-rhythms dance workshop and natural clay sculpturing on the wall…to mention a few things.

'The Other's Face' began as a thought of doing something by our own initiative. I was getting tired of participating in other's projects. The time had come for realising something created by my own hands in my own country.

People came, but not too many. We had about 15 visitors during the day, partly family members. The local newspaper did, however, send a reporter and photographer who created an overall positive review the next day.

The foundation for an annual tradition is now prepared.

– Tarjei Tvedten

 

 

Notices (more info in the next eNews)


Applications for the Backpackers Workshop close Friday! Backpackers is a six-week ‘workshop’ with the YouthSection in Dornach. October 19 – November 30. Click here for more information and an application form.

 

This year's YouthSection Weekend will be held together with the 'Coming Into Conversation' Conference – a joint initiative between the YouthSection and the Section for Social Sciences. It will take place in Dornach, November 27–29. Click here for more information.

 

Announcing the Aotearoa (New Zealand) Summer Youth Gathering! You are invited to contribute to and participate in ‘The World & I: Meeting the World and Shaping the Future,’ to be held near Wellington, January 21–27. Click here for more information.

 

Formal applications for Focus: International Initiative Forum will open in January. But you can now register your expression of interest by sending an email to Elizabeth Wirsching: elizabeth(at)youthsection.org Focus will take place in Dornach, April 5–9, 2010. Click here for more information.

 

HeartChord Music Festival: An event to fill the Goetheanum with music of all colours and genres – a weekend jamboree. April 9–11, 2010. Organised by the YouthSection. Click here for more information. HeartChord immediately follows 'Focus.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

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