Dornach, Switzerland, April 5–9, 2010

There is a community of individuals who have agreed to re-imagine the world. Some have taken up their tools as craftsmen, sculpting and forming the substance of the earth. Some are grappling with the thought forms that hold us to the present image of the world, and are attempting to free these thoughts from their entrapment. Some are searching on hidden pathways for the heartland’s language. They are all artists and all have different tasks. They recognise each other as essential for the activity of re-constituting existence. All argument has ceased, and the roles played are recognised. This is a new sister-brother-hood. It seeks to bring the imagination of the future beyond the narrowness of the present picture by breathing heart heat into the ice of today to create the water of tomorrow…

 

Over the last 10 years, the YouthSection has been holding regular International Initiative Meetings. During this time, various individuals and numerous initiatives around the world have contributed to the expansion of a nameless network.

In 2010, a slightly different kind of initiative meeting will take place at the Goetheanum. It will be born out of the meetings of the past, but will aim to make space for what is streaming towards us from the future.

It feels full and ripe and ready. Like we are pregnant midwives. Like there has been so much work in the garden of this place. Like we've learned enough that we can be a community without a place. Like we've learned to grow our own food where we need to be. Like there is an uncertainty of course, but maybe it's a healthy amount of uncertainty, and a healthy amount of self-reliance…we are professionals…

This network crosses borders – it goes beyond the YouthSection, beyond youth. It rings out in the world like a bell. It shines on all, for all, without favouritism, like the Sun. Like many suns. Like the word “Yes.” It unites and includes everyone.

Next year, therefore, the initiative meeting will seek to expand in accordance with the expansion of the network as a whole. It will open its doors to all – youth, as well as ‘older’ people – who feel a connection to this no-name network.  

This meeting will attempt to consolidate, strengthen and celebrate the existing active network. It will also make space for others who feel connected to this work. We welcome, therefore, everyone who has been to previous initiative meetings, as well as those who’ll be attending for the first time – all present and future initiative takers.

Focus: International Initiative Forum hopes to strengthen the space between all those who are, or who are seeking to be, active in the world out of this force – who strive with responsibility, and with trust. It aims to build up the substance between all human beings who feel a connection to this ‘invisible’ network.  

A tree has been growing gradually over the years, forming deeper roots, a stronger trunk, and higher branches…

We hope to recognise and work with that which already exists, as well as create together, as active co-responsible participants, a space for that which is ‘not yet,’ including new initiatives.  

Focus will be a festival of the world which poses the questions: What is being asked of us now? How can we support each other – as individuals, as well as initiatives? And, How can we bring about a more focused co-working for the future – for the world?

In addition, it asks: Can we find questions that transcend our specific work and life situations, and carry our co-learning back into our daily lives? In a time of so-called crisis, there are many themes that affect us all. Whether your interests are money or meditation, can we meet at a place where what affects us all can move towards a common activity which is strengthened by acknowledging our differences? Are there ways to work that move beyond these differences to a culture of care and support which can be carried into our individual life and work?  

Below is a personal invitation from Elizabeth Wirsching. For more information, contact Elizabeth: elizabeth(at)youthsection.org Registrations open September 9. To register, please send an email to Elizabeth after this date.

If you know of anyone else – young or old – who has been (or who is searching for the possibility of) working out of this network and actively ‘ringing this bell,’ then please pass this information on to them.  
 

There is a new mood walking the earth. It rides on the back of a flaming golden horse from the future, bearing a shield of meteoric iron and a lance of pure light. It strikes down upon the carnival of the world, and of our selves. It strikes down upon the death of our thinking and our will. It strikes down upon the illusions that keep us from our true names. And it is made up of each one of us searching and working for freedom, for truth, for reality, in love. A new union, a new art. A new community of individuals. The time has come. The fruit is so ripe. We ride with the rider in the strength of the Sun through the dawn of the age of light…
 

(Focus will be immediately followed by the Music Festival at the Goetheanum, which is also being organised by the YouthSection.)

Dear Friends of the YouthSection. 

Welcome to FOCUS: INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVE FORUM 2010!

At Easter 2010 the YouthSection is celebrating a 10-year anniversary since I took over in 2000. Many things have happened in this time, and we are still growing, with human connections in many countries. Over the last few months we have asked ourselves, What is typical for the YouthSection network? It must be that it consists of individuals with their own initiatives, with their own attitude and with their own way of working.  

Over these 10 years we have tried to include everybody, meaning that we have many colours, polarities and points of view. I think that is a healthy sign for a spiritual movement for young people. “The more diversity, the better!” We see ourselves as a platform where this diversity can develop, grow, evolve and meet each other.

In our meeting after Easter 2010 this will be our FOCUS: To live this platform of diversity. The FOCUS will be each one of you as a human being on the one hand, and on the other hand the forces of the network we all belong to. To connect freedom, trust and responsibility can be words spoken, yet hard to realise. I think that is what we have tried to do without planning it.

My wish is to celebrate the network with old and new friends – to make 'something visible' that has grown in an organic way, connecting us throughout the world. IT IS A BIT MAGIC!

Please find your way to Dornach between April 5–9, 2010.  

For more information, contact me at elizabeth(at)youthsection.org Registrations open September 9. To register, please send me an email after this date.
 

Best wishes!
Elizabeth Wirsching

Melbourne, Australia, July 5–10

'Searching for Reality!' This will be our theme for these five days – to get together and discuss, celebrate and experience what this means. At our conference we want to ‘jump’ right into questions – looking at them from the inside out – and we want to create lots of spaces where people from all around the world can share their realities, their stories. More than 80 people have registered so far – from Australia, America, Austria, Germany, Holland, New Zealand …10 or more nationalities will be represented.

If you would like to join our mailing list to receive updates regularly, please email southerncrossyouth(at)gmail.com

Visit www.southerncrossyouth.com for more information.

Amsterdam, July 20–26

A seminar for all young and active people interested in Idem – Identity through Initiative and the Connectivity Conference. Idem Netherlands will be hosting this meeting, and invites everyone who knows about Idem and everyone who does not know about Idem to come and join us in Amsterdam!

Topics of the seminar will be:
- Connectivity 2011
- International Collaboration
- Idem Visioning

Sub-themes we will be working with are: sustainability, co-creation, inspiration, collaboration, initiatives, NGO's, internet, young people, global community, globalisation, workcamps, and much more!

For more information click here or email netherlands(at)idem-network.org

Potsdam, Germany, August 3–8

Only four more weeks until undjetzt?! undjetz?! is a conference for German volunteers who have completed a volunteer service (six months or longer) in developing countries who are now back in Germany asking themselves the question "and now?" – for those wondering how to continue with the impulse of doing social service. The program is filling up day by day. There are 50 workshops and speeches with a wide variety of themes, including: environmental challenges in developing countries; social and cultural questions; the potential of civil society; as well as practical topics like fundraising, project management, and web 2.0 for NGO's and youth projects. After the first days of the conference we are opening the space for you to develop your own projects and initiatives that are inspired by your own volunteer work. Having returned from volunteer projects it is now time work together and build a network with the other undjetzt?! participants.

For more information go to www.undjetzt-konferenz.de (the conference language is German).

Plus Art & Science Exhibition. Chestnut Ridge, New York, August 8–11

What spiritual capacities must we develop to address today’s crises, and create a renewed political, economic, and cultural life for the future? How can a spiritualised art and science help to develop these capacities and create a community life that fosters peace and prosperity?

Social change that draws on conventional ways of thinking never seems to get to the root of our problems. In this conference, artists, researchers, doctors, and farmers who work from a spiritual scientific foundation will identify inner capacities we will need to effect meaningful social renewal – and how to develop them.

Click here for more information.  Click here for a printable registration form and detailed schedule.

USA, August 30 – October 5

A bus named Mercury, acting as a mobile laboratory for researching consciousness and community, will travel the width of North America. Stopping at the Burning Man Arts Festival and exploring sites from the Earthship communities in Taos, New Mexico to Organic and Biodynamic farms across the country, we are investigating new forms of living thinking, artivism and conscious action. 

Visit our website to learn more about who and what and why. Onward!

www.newformsproject.org

Dornach, Switzerland, September 14–18

The Open Study Week 'Anthroposophy and the Idea of the Goetheanum' is an opportunity to get to know anthroposophy as well as the Goetheanum. With this week, the Board of the Goetheanum invites you to explore the diversity of this unique place, as well as learn more about its history, about the many different ways in which anthroposophy is alive today, and about current research projects related to anthroposophy.

Goetheanum co-workers from different departments will give an introduction to their daily activities and relevant research questions, including the basic ideas of anthroposophic medicine, Waldorf education and bio-dynamic agriculture. In artistic workshops you will have the opportunity to practice eurythmy, speech formation and sculpting. Some of Rudolf Steiner’s introductory texts about anthroposophy can be studied in the seminars. The guided tours will be a possibility to get to know the interior of the Goetheanum, and the whole building in relation to its surrounding landscape.

We would like to warmly invite you to explore for yourself the meaning of 'Anthroposophy and the Idea of the Goetheanum' in our time.

Welcome to the Goetheanum!

Download the full program, including German text.pdf

Dornach, October 19 – November 30, 2009

A six-week ‘workshop’ with the YouthSection in Dornach.

GUY: I imagine transformed, the questioning of the school of Athens, the activity of a craftsman’s work-village, an open university where a community of individuals allows a process of metamorphoses to reveal the roles and skills that each unique person carries. We all have something to offer to this workbench, this artwork, this science called life. I imagine a school where the content is people, where learning is a two-way street, where the world can be re-formed, where a fairy tale can become true mystery. I imagine...


Read what the rest of the team has to say…

(You need to register if you wish to secure a place. Download the registration form here [Word Doc].)