Springtime in the YouthSection

: Photo by: Natālija Škļarova

Welcome to another edition of the YouthSection enews. This one is full of events and other interesting activities going on in the network. Since Focus and HeartChord, lots of energy has gone out all over the world. Here at the YouthSection house things have been quieter for sure-- but not that quiet. Nata and Anna have been caring for the building and the grounds, and even more importantly, the space and place of the YouthSection. They've made the teestube squeaky clean and comfy to be in, weeded the gardens, and started a wee one of their own. The conference room has become a temporary greenhouse, where little seedlings are poking their heads up, getting ready to go out into the big outdoors. We're grateful to have these wonderful people taking such great care, and looking forward to the warmer, sunnier months of Dornach. Enjoy!

: Photo by: Johannes Bauer

'Come to the edge,' we said.

And they said 'No, it's too high.'

'Come to the edge,' we said.

And they said 'No, we will fall.'

'Come to the edge,' we said.

And they very reluctantly came.

And we pushed.

And they flew.

-We don't know who wrote this - please let us know if you do!

The Reality and I Conference on Anthroposophical Meditation

Copenhagen, Denmark: May 21-24, 2010

An independent follow-up on the 2009 Whitsun meeting, this conference will focus on the alignment of spiritual practice with the content of our everyday lives. We believe that a genuine esoteric practice arises from an understanding of the psychological nature of our everyday experience. Nagging thoughts, lack of will or concentration, desires, frustration, fear, indicators of inner conditions, and gateways to truly understanding ourselves.

Our 4 speakers will teach, inspire and talk on the subject - sharing from their rich experience - and let the participants develop their own understanding through practical meditative exercises. In an open, warm and focused atmosphere, we welcome you all to participate in this work in progress.

Please visit the YouthSection website for more information.

Sense Festival

Sense Festival is about bringing people together to celebrate community.

Ytterjärna, Sweden: June 15-20, 2010

Participants of the Youth Initiative Program (YIP) in Ytterjärna, Sweden, are holding a space for the growing international community to meet with this inspiring local community in action, this June 15-20. These 5 days of summer celebrations will be all about thinking globally and acting locally. It is hosted at YIP, in the beautiful and natural home of this inspired new form of education, which is effectively providing a platform for the empowerment of youth initiative.

With this area being known for its innovative culture of sustainability and community living, the opportunity is to co-create an event whereby both spheres of community can engage in grounded action through consciously designed and meaningful learning spaces and activities, in celebration of this One Year of Making Sense.

This is a festival of learning, a new form of meeting that allows you to share in the essence of YIP and its network, and really meet your hosts – 38 emerging change-makers who embody a unique quality of youth empowerment. Being immersed in an intensive training of how to make positive social change in the world, they are inspired to share their learning with you, and to open the space of Sense Festival to your dreams and aspirations.

We aim to provide you with a powerful source of connection and celebration this summer.

The PURPOSE of Sense Festival is:

to inspire you towards a new cultural movement, where diversity, wholeness, consciousness and empowerment come alive in community.

The OPPORTUNITY of Sense Festival is:

to connect and engage with you in a collaborative learning environment, providing inspiration and encouragement through collective community action.

Registrations for Sense Festival are now open!

For more info please visit sensefestival.se

: The YIP crew celebrating community.

You are the Mystery Drama! Mysteriendrama bist Du!

Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland
You are the Mystery Drama!
Karma Consciousness arises through the new mysteries in daily life
Workshop Conference
24th to 28th July 2010

Rudolf Steiner
Mystery Drama Plays
(Simultaneous reading in English and French) 29th July to 1st August 2010

Mysteriendrama bist Du!
Karma Bewusstsein entsteht durch die neuen Mysterien im täglichen Leben
Werkstatt-Tagung
24. bis 28. Juli 2010

Rudolf Steiner
Mysteriendramen Aufführungen
(Simultan gelesen in Englisch und Französisch)
29. Juli bis 1. August 2010

The Mystery Dramas by Rudolf Steiner are a way of living and understanding the modern path of initiation and perception of higher worlds. Every person that honestly works on the Mystery Dramas receives a great understanding on the human being and its relationship with the whole world. We can read many books from the anthroposophical bibliography and learn much about man and the higher worlds, but in the Mystery Dramas we have a concrete image of life itself for the disciple to initiation in modern times. If we take this image into our daily life we can have a deeper understanding of the forces that we meet at every step we make.

This summer you have the opportunity to experience the Mystery Dramas of Rudolf Steiner as they will be explored through a modern and personal interpretation. Those involved are hoping to share an experience of the karma consciousness that arises out of working with the dramas. During the four days preceding the summer performances, actors, philosophers, artists, teachers, the young, the old and all those interested in the mysteries, will join together to study the dramas as they relate to each one’s life in a personal and unique way.

Each day we will consider how a different biographical theme from the dramas is carried through the characters and scenes. From this ground we will seek to discover the relevance of these themes in our own lives by working with questions like: How do the themes in the dramas speak to my particular journey through life, in the past and in the daily moment, as a new mystery experience? Through what process do I observe such themes in my daily life? “How” am I uniquely becoming conscious of them? Can I develop this process so that it becomes a free and loving path of inner development and transformation?

The program includes plenums with actors, character presentations, performances of scene fragments played around the Goetheanum, and workshops: modern initiation, consciousness of nature and elemental beings, biographical study groups, art, philosophy, eurythmy and open spaces for new initiatives.

More information at www.mysterydrama.org.
Contact and questions: Martin Stenius martin(at)youthsection.org

Third International English Conference at the Goetheanum Switzerland

Entering into the 21st Century Spiritually

August 2-7, 2010

The step from the 20th into the 21st century heralded a new millennium. It also triggered countless fears and other responses that have since mostly faded from memory. But have they really disappeared? Are we in western civilization able to compare the mood during the change of the first millennium to the second with our general mood today as we enter the third millennium?

More information here .

Focus Updates

: Photo by: Liene Straupe

An excerpt from Silvia Zuur's Focus Journal

My Focus journal….

My Focus journal is filled with scribbles, ideas and initiatives

My Focus journal says Focus in Latin means FIREPLACE

My Focus journal asks me – what gesture can I hold so that others can find their true potential? What is my potential?

My Focus journal reminds me that in order to live my work in the world, I just need to start practising

My Focus journal holds reverence

My Focus journal reminds me that I can be comfortable with uncertainty

My Focus journal asks me what can I do for societal wholeness??

My Focus journal talks of BALANCE!

My Focus journal identifies the possibility of possibility and the potential of potential

My Focus journal talks of next steps… people, place, work...

My Focus journal tells me to listen to my feet!

: Photo by: Glen Howey

Elizabeth Wirsching – A sailor with an extraordinary leaderSHIP

By Silvia Zuur

On Wednesday in the middle of Focus, Elizabeth Wirsching stood in the middle of our focus. It is not something she does very often, but something that for me was a powerful experience. We were celebrating her work, her life, and her 10-year role as leader of the Youthsection in Dornach. I witnessed her stand and speak as a co-worker, as a mentor, but most importantly as Elizabeth. She spoke to us of her story in a series of pictures, to give us an insight into the path she journeyed from Norway as a child, to now be ‘ringing the bell’ for young people to hear, all over the world.

: Photo by: Bob Zuur

Elizabeth sailed when she was a young girl, and as a sailor myself this was a picture I could really connect with: the feeling of going into the wind, tacking in an instant, enjoying the sea fresh salt spray and hiking out during strong gusts in order to hold the balance.

: Photo by: Bob Zuur

She described her voyage from Norway to the Dornach hill as being full of ‘right moments,’ - moments of rediscovering new worlds, moments when she felt part of a bigger picture, moments of form and moments of freedom. She described moments where her life task became clearer, even though she experienced so often that her theme was not to have a theme. Instead she practised the art of truly listening, and created a warm, held space for people and initiatives, where she worked with what wanted to emerge.

: Photo by: Bob Zuur

Elizabeth has sailed an interesting time in the last ten years as leader of the YouthSection. She has been captain of the leaderSHIP through holding the overview, through being the calm in the storm, knowing where the rocks are but also where the wind and where the energy is. She captained an open ship, a ship with many entrances and exits, many tasks and responsibilities, and lots of team work. On Wednesday she described to us how she had to hold her gaze true and direct even though distractions were plenty, but at the same time she had to hold fast to a direction even if the compass point and destination were unsure.

Elizabeth will be finding a new ship next year, as she leaves Dornach for her next project and I hold the certainty that whatever ship she sails will have the winds of energy, a steady compass when needed, and plenty of horizons to be explored.

: Photos above and below by: Glen Howey

The Focus Ning

It’s very tricky for one individual to record an event that so many people experienced! Therefore we ask all of you who came to spend 10 minutes or so on the Focus ning website at http://focusforum.ning.com and help us record it together. For those of you who could not be here with us, please browse through the Ning and post questions when you’re curious!

Here are some of the things you could do on the ning today:

You -

Create yourself a page – connect with people

Photos -

Check out the photos on the ning or on the picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/105485007784282194677

Groups –

First check the groups. What initiatives and meetings did you join in the different neighbourhoods? Can you add them under the specific group?

Share your reflections of all the things that happened during the ‘reimaging the world space’ under that ‘group.’

Forum –

Create a forum – what general discussion do you still want to continue?

What is life like after Focus? Share your thoughts in the ‘Life after coming into Focus’ discussion forum.

Triskel in Argentina

Connect Conference - Ligaçãojovem - TRISKEL - and then?

In April 2009 Mailen De La Maria and Tobias Bonfiglio from Argentina came to the Connect Conference in Dornach along with 500 other young people from all over the world. From this cultural youth event they took home the wish to do something in their hometown, to bring the spirit of Connect to the people back home and to carry on working for this movement of young active people that had become important to them.

In November 2009 a team from the Brazilian Youthsection put on the youthgathering Ligaçãojovem in Sao Paulo. This brought another impulse to Mailen and Tobias, who joined the Brasilian youth for those days, and left after having agreed upon working together from now on in South America, across Brasilian and Argentinian borders. Mailen made the decision there to organize a youth conference in her school as her end of school project. She asked Tobias for help, he gladly joined in, and Triskel - Crecimiento y Evolucion (growth and development) was born.

From April 15th to 18th around 90 young people from Argentina, Brasil, Switzerland, Belgium and the United States came together at the Colegio Clara de Asis, a beautiful little Waldorf school in development in Ingeniero Maschwitz, just some 40 km outside of the city of Buenos Aires, set below huge eucalyptus trees on clay earth and surrounded by high reeds and green grass. The design of the conference showed that the organizers tried to make space for all needs: deepening thoughts in the opening lecture help by the local Christian community Priest, conversation groups and artisitc workshops held by a young artist from Buenos Aires on the first day, typical activities for South America such as Macrame, the crafting of wristbands and necklaces by tying tiny knots into strings and creating patterns this way, or drawing classes, movement or bio-dynamc agriculture. Themes of conversation groups included: „how to change the world,“ „the Maya Calendar“ and more. What struck me most here was the local importance of the chosen topics. „How to change the world“ is a question that is asked on bigger scales but more importantly should be worked on with local examples. The discussion revolved a lot around the history of Argentina, political events and figures such as Che Guevara.

Click here to read more.

: Photos by: Mailen de la Maria

Emerge!

The birth of new Culture and the rise of Civil Society to its rightful place.
International Training for Cultural Creatives
April 25 – May 1, 2010
Manila, Philippines

Check out the blog at http://emerge2010.ning.com/

A peer-led intensive training for young Cultural Creatives (artists, educators, activists and leaders within business, politics and civil society); a forum for global collaboration; an opportunity to meet each other, share ideas, learn the tools of cultural power (the Lemniscate Process, Social Sculpture, Theory U, World Café and many others) and create the future that is waiting to emerge.

Sunday, April 25 ‐ Sunday, May 2
(the training will culminate in a cultural happening in downtown Manila)

Click to visit the EMERGE WEBSITE

Initiative Space

: Photo: Bob Zuur

Questions of the Will

by Silvia Zuur

There is plenty of research stating the problem of an action gap (the difference between intention and actual behaviour), and describing the causes of this gap within the organic food context (eg convenience or price as a problem). Yet there is a real action gap in the literature in terms of suggestions on how to overcome outer and inner gaps! Literature results show a discrepancy between intentions/attitudes and behaviour, but then there are few suggestions on how to bring these two aspects together – how to 'walk our talk.'

Scientific literature does not tend to ask WHY or HOW in terms of 'inner' questions – Why do people act from an internal cause? What changes need to occur within someone to start acting from a wider appreciation of the world? How does one overcome an inner action gap? For example Otto Scharmer refers to it as our blind spot – the inner place from which we operate “We know a great deal about what leaders do and how they do it. But we know very little about the inner place, the source form which they operate.”

And this is where I need your help...... Can you help bridge an action gap by answering 12 questions in a survey? This survey has been created to look at food choices, to find a common understanding of the aspects which influence purchase behaviour. Specifically this survey begins to address the action gap between intent and actual purpose through identifying various internal and external causes and influences.

To take the survey click here

To read more on the question of the will and other aspects of this research click here

A Workcamp in Romania

For the last two years now we've had regular meetings of the KarmaGroup during YouthSection events and other times as well. Those meetings have been filled with conversations, discussions, workgroups, sharing, art, and warmth.

We want to make you an offer, an invitation, to go further, to make a new step. A simple one. It’s towards a workcamp in Romania and three weeks of crafting, laughing, engaging, working hard, having fun, and enjoying together. And it’s a step to support Mihai in his impressive initiative of buildung a house for the cultural and spiritual movement in Craiova and Romania.

If you have any questions, please write to us:

Sebastian Wittstock booklet2000(at)gmx.de

Mona Carmen monacarmen25(at)gmail.com

If you want to read more, check out the Idem Website:

english:
http://workcamps.idem-network.org/en/workcamps-2010/details/6

deutsch:
http://workcamps.idem-network.org/de/workcamps-2010/details/6

Websites We're Checking Out

SharedEarth.com

Our mission is to build a broad and trusting community of land owners and gardeners that yields the efficient use of land and a greener planet.

and...

rosascarlette.co.nz

I was born in North Canterbury on 800 acres, and from an early age developed a close relationship with my surroundings, the way I defined the world through them and the way it defined Me. Photography was part of my childhood as both my parents were keen amateur photographers. My own photography started at 16 when I discovered a way to express myself through black and white film and had access to darkrooms and enlargers.