(Elizabeth in South Africa at the Kgotla Conference 2004)

Dear friends!

First of all,  a special warm wish to all of you for the year 2011. I hope it started good and that you will gain the effort you need for this coming year.

I was so privileged to spend the month of January in Norway. My aim was to reflect on my soon 11 years of working in the Youth Section. I decided to not have any plan but to let events and people from the past live in me and then see what crystals would come out of it. Many of you have been part of this and I was very inspired by not only memories but also small sentences and images I put down in my notebook. First I read all my notes over these years. Then all the conferences with the themes and people involved. Important was also events in the world.

Well the result was 32 images. I wrote them to you as a THANK YOU for all that you brought into life and for you “being there”. How I will publish it, I do not know yet. I let you know in the next eNEWS. In this eNEWS I publish 2 images.

A special thing happened when I was in Norway. This winter it has been really cold over a long period. So the ocean was covered with thick ice. Then for a short time it was warm again and the ice started to melt. In melting the ice changed into small pieces. Then it got colder and the small pieces were for some days like hard ice crystals swimming in the ocean.

The waves of the passing ships made the ice crystals sing like a choir, as they touched each other in the rhythm of the waves. The music sang with the rolling waves. After a while I could hardly hear it until the waves reached the other shore: An island with a steep cliff. The echo of the singing waves once again gave it last crescendo before it went quiet. This happened every time a ship passed by.

I have never experienced this before, although I grew up on an island by the sea and know a lot about snow, ice, rain, water and changing temperatures.

Small wonders in daily life.

You hear more from me in the next issue.

Warm greetings, Elizabeth

The social and the environmental... the people and the planet... the world and I... My study questions have revolved around these two areas for a long time. Therefore, co-hosting the ULab - a peer-led training that focused on social process - and helping create the Agricultural Conference – an event that looked at the future of agriculture using social technologies – was a brilliant culmination of my time at the Goetheanum and in the YouthSection.

ULab

The ULab brought together 22 people from all over the world for a four-day learning marathon. The focus of our process was the U process itself (even when you work with these words, it’s still a bit dizzying). It wasn’t easy but everyone stepped up to the task and we sure did run! 

Four days later, and we had all learnt and taught something about this archetypal initiation, or “dying and becoming” process for groups. We had met each other and struggled together, and we came out with a better understanding of how to bring the U process into our personal and shared paths.

YouLabLunch

Without so much as a space for a new breath, we launched into the next conference. Previously, the YouthSection had helped the Agricultural Section by hosting the social activity after their conference, but this time we began things by creating a space for food and conversation. The “YouLabLunch,” which was also attended by Vandana Shiva, was a great beginning and warmed up the space for fruitful conversations.

Agriculture Conference

The Agriculture Conference, which was organised by the Agriculture Section with support from the YouthSection, was titled “Future Workshop – from burning issues to beckons of light.”

After having worked with Otto Scharmer's texts for so long it was brilliant to finally see him in action. Together with Nicanor Perlas, he guided 600 farmers and other “stakeholders” through the U Process. Spaces around and in the Goetheanum were turned around: instead of one person giving a lecture on the main stage, 300 people work-shopped around small tables in groups of five; instead of eating in the Schreinerei, 300 people created clay sculptures about their future in groups of two.

Off I go...

I will say goodbye to the hill on the 15^th of March and start my journey home, back to New Zealand. It has been a wonderful privilege to have my intended one week at the Goetheanum end up as almost three years. I look forward to seeing and experiencing how things will change here in Dornach – in the Goetheanum, but also in the YouthSection. I wish the people, place, and activities all the best and look forward to future work and collaboration from New Zealand.

Silvia Zuur

Holding Your Own in Mass Culture

Dear all,

It was the anthropologist Margaret Mead who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Having reminded myself of these optimistic words and following on from two youth gatherings in 2010 - “The Reality of Anthroposophy” (with Elizabeth Wirsching) and “Becoming Human” (with Simon Reakes) – I was happy to start 2011 at Rudolf Steiner House with guest speaker Sevak Gulbekian and yet another big theme, “Holding Your Own in Mass Culture.” 

As a publisher and editor, Sevak is well aware of the changing trends in culture. The question, then, was how do you work with such changes? Need it be quite so black and white as either resisting social change or else being swept along and subsumed by the mainstream? Refreshingly, no quick-fix was provided. Instead, drawing on his own work In the Belly of the Beast (2004), as well as Rudolf Steiner’s insights on the social question, Sevak presented us with a loose framework to consider current affairs. I can't do this justice here but only note some areas we touched on.

First we identified three key social phenomena (i.e. culture, politics, economics), then discussed in what way they differ from one another. For instance, culture was seen to comprise of science, religion, and the arts. Politics concerned with law, ideally with human rights. Economics was associated with the production and purchasing of goods and services. 

After thinking about how these three social forces have interacted elsewhere in the world, past and present (e.g. Islamic states, Communist states, and China), we explored how the social threesome express their dynamic relationship in the UK today. Crudely, economics plays the ‘dominant’ role and culture is really quite ‘submissive’. Meanwhile, the political realm might not be so active with respect to human rights but does seem willing to turn a blind eye for big business in order to protect its own neck. However, rather than focus on today’s materialistic culture along the marmite-axis of “love or hate”, Sevak turned our attention to why things are as they are. The result was engagement. The effect was to leave me feeling less overwhelmed by it all. Furthermore, discussing as a group, face to face, was an antidote to the alienation that I sometimes experience when faced with mass media and culture. 

Another medicinal booster came toward the end of the day with some 'Bothmer Gym' facilitated by the brilliant Lucia Baumann. Seriously fun, if that’s not too paradoxical. It was great to get the blood flowing from the head back into the limbs. But more than this, the movement exercises echoed, at least for me, what seemed to run throughout the day as a whole – a greater awareness of oneself and others, developing a responsive (as opposed to reactive) relationship to social change. Perhaps the beginnings to an answer for the question of how to hold your own in mass culture. 

A very many thanks to all who participated! The next gathering will be April 16th but more about that another time…

Warmest, 

Sam et al.

Der Grund für mein Individualstudium liegt darin das ich seit Jahren selbstständig mit Anthroposophie lebe und ringe. Dabei ist gerade die individuelle Suche und Anfrage an Lehrerpersönlichkeiten, Menschen für die ich mich aus mir heraus entscheide, äußerst fruchtbar. Ausserdem ist es eines der wenigen universitären Angebote bei dem das Ichhafte vor dem Fachlichen steht. Das Vertrauen das sich eine berufliche Lebensaufgabe erst im Prozess freilegt das scheint mir hier möglich. Lieber auf lebensgeprüfte Fähigkeitsbildung zu setzten anstatt auf Menschenbewertung durch abstrakte Zahlen auf Papier.

Mein Name ist Jonas von der Gathen. Ich wurde 1983 im Zigeunerwagen in der Künstlersiedlung Weissenseifen in Deutschland geboren. Der Besuch eines privat-katholischen Gymnasiums und überhaupt von staatlichen Schulen wurde abgebrochen. Es folgten Jahre der Wanderschaft in denen Erfahrungen auf Biohöfen und im Handwerklichen und Künstlerischen gesammelt wurden. Mit 19 Jahren die erste Tramp-tour zum Goetheanum, wodurch die Auseinandersetzung mit Steiners Werk begann. Anstelle des Zivildienstes folgte ein einjähriger Friedensdienst im ostafrikanischen Tanzania. Dort unterrichtete ich in einem Entwicklungshilfsprojekt Gartenbau und durchlebte eine intensive Begegnung mit dem einheimischen Stamm der Masaikrieger. Anschließend beteiligte ich mich für drei Jahre in Neusseland an dem Aufbauversuch einer therapeutischen Lebensgemeinschaft, in welcher ich für die biologisch-dynamischen Gärten verantwortlich war. Paralell war ich am Aufbau der dortigen Jugendsektion beteiligt und lud zu Tagungen und Jahresfesten ein. 2008, zurück in Deutschland, lebte ich vorwiegend in Stuttgart, wo ich durch die Freistellung der anthroposophischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland ein freie Jugendarbeit aufbaute. Daraus entstanden diverse Projekte wie Studiengruppen, Initiativen mit dem freien Jugendseminar, dem Rudolf Steiner Haus, der Jugendsektion in Dornach und ein selbstgestaltetes Individualstudium in Bothmergymnastik. Dabei mitwirkend in verschiedensten Veranstaltungen (festival.forum, Flame to Flame, Midnightsun, An der Zeit) und freier Mitarbeiter der projekt.zeitung. Im Mai vollendete ich eine Ausbildung als Erlebnispädagoge bei EOS in Freiburg und sammele erste Erfahrungen auf diesem Felde. Seit 2009 wohne ich im Anblick des Goetheanum, und studiere individuell Bewegung, Sprache, Mysteriendramen, Marionettentheater, Kunstgeschichte, Literatur, Geld, die Seelen meiner Mitmenschen und arbeite anfänglich in der Kunst des Wortes (Journalismus).

~ Gabriel Dürr from Switzerland reports about his visit in the Peruvian Amazon:

14 days in Iquitos

During my winter vacations in South America, I spent 2 weeks in the peruvian amazon region, mostly in Iquitos. Iquitos is populated by a super friendly, peaceful and harmonious people. Apart from that, it’s a quite noisy city with a polluted air due to motorized traffic (badly combusting motors or smoke due to carburant additives). But the most eye-sticking is the fact that most of Iquitos' roads aren't at all, or just partially, paved with asphalt with one hole after another. The second thing, that really disturbed me here is the fact that, wherever I walked, I found that the city had no canalisation system: the water used for washing, charged with detergents, goes directly into little streams that run into the dirty swamps. The third thing I didn't like, about Peru in general, is the common disposal of plastic bags and even bottles onto the roads and right into the rivers. 

After having spent a day in the noisy and quite busy city of Iquitos, I was happy to arrive to a clean, and vibrating peaceful place:

RAL (Red Ambiental Loretana), headquarter of resistance against the violations of the indigenous' rights and illegal wood logging/mining etc., situated on the land belonging to Paul McAuley's catholic brotherhood. The same one-floor house gives place not only to the office of "hermano Paul" (president of RAL), but also to the (tightly collaborating) office of the "Asociación Curuinsi", coordinated by Rubén Medina Robledo, descendant of the amazonian Huitoto Murui tribe. When Paul McAuley came to Iquitos and founded the RAL headquarter here in 2005, a collaboration with the Asociación Curuinsi started, and a good part of the bushland behind the main building turned into a "village" of some 8 wooden houses to herberge some two dozens of students originating from 10 different indigenous tribes. At the same time the huts were built, a small traditional assembly house (Maloca) was built, where traditional rites such as the Sapo purification ceremony (with the medicinal secretion of the Kambô frog), or Ayahuasca intake ceremony, started to take place.

The big disadvantage of the roundhouse is its small size. Maximum 15 people, crowded, would fit into it. I was happy enough to live both the Sapo ceremony in the old Maloca (which gave me great energy and well-feeling!) and the preparations to the building of a new, huge, assembly Maloca. Therefore I joined a small group of leading Curuinsi crew members on a trip down the Amazon to a village called Pebas/Pemba, a place where there are still living clan's oldest men who teach their clan members their ancestral nature wisdom.

Here, after a night sitting in the village's huge Maloca together with the young people and the oldest of the Bora clan, we bought half of the material for a new Maloca: poles and 0.5m x 3.0m, pre-assembled palm leaf "tiles". I was still able to witness the caving of the holes for the 5 to 9 m long bearing poles before I had to leave Iquitos.

What amazed me the most during our stay in the indigenous village of Pebas is that the clan’s oldest chief, 80 years old, claims to still know how to induce rainfall during extreme draught. It’s for such wisdom that my friend Rubén, whom I am supporting financing his study of the laws, decided to collaborate with this distant community in Pebas rather than with people who had lost their traditions and wisdom closer to Iquitos.

I admire Rubén’s newest initiative to build a new big (12 x 12 m) Maloca !

If you want to join or know how to finance, or would like to help yourself supplying the missing maximum 3.000 US-$, please contact me at gabrielduerr55@hotmail.com see also http://www.curuinsi.org

The thing I’m hoping the most is the fruitful persecution of their new plans to collect all their PET bottles and used paper for recycling programs at the RAL/Curuinsi center itself as well as the project of promoting recycling practices in schools, universities and office complexes…

To the readers:  thank you for supporting the New Big Maloca!!

Yours truthfully, Gabriel T. Dürr