Annual Conference Program
Conference Lectures, Workshops and Performances

Welcome to our program page! We are excited to tell you more about our Annual Conference keynotes, workshops, and preformances.

Stay tuned for updates!

Learn more about our conference presenters and performers
Return to our in person registration page
Return to our online registration page

Download a conference schedule

PRESENTATIONS AND KEYNOTES
Pre Conference Zoom Sessions
The Great Peacemaker: The Spiritual Impulse behind the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and its Relationship to the First Continental Congress* 
with Micky Leach of the Western Regional Council 
This session will address these key conference questions:
How do things stand with anthroposophy in the world? And especially, here and now, how does anthroposophy live in the United States? How would we like it to live? 
This will be held in consideration for what these questions give rise to in the soul: What was already living on the North American continent that received the European influence coming from the East? What were the spiritual impulses that lived in the West that over time integrated what flowed in from the East?

Anthroposophy in Portland*
with Valerie Hope and Walter Rice of the Portland Branch
Valerie Hope and Walter Rice of the Portland Branch will lead us on October 1 into a lived sense of the place where our conference will take place, to give ground for our meetings as building stones towards a further realization of anthroposophy in the United States. 

Conference Keynotes and Presentations
Aligning the Stars and the Stripes: Unsheathing America, why now?* 
with Mary Stewart Adams 
A banner of stars and stripes might well imply that here a culture will arise that balances individual freedom with community, safeguarding  agency (one’s star) while celebrating harmonious relationships (alternating stripes). Such an imagination belongs to the deepest mystery of World Whitsun, with its archetype of a band of individuals recognizing their task together, in spite of betrayal, matured in sorrow, and realized in self-directing forces. Their hearts penetrated with feelings that encouraged unity with those seeking the same goals, combining earnest striving wth the light of spirit beings.

What has this to do with America today? And what signposts can we discern in the current landscape when, as anthroposophists in the US, we find ourselves between the two centennials of Rudolf Steiner’s Last Address with a waxing the Michaelmas Moon and the moment of his death adjacent to the Lazarus Moon of Easter 2025? And all this while the planet Uranus returns to the place of its discovery at the time of the American Revolutionary War.  

Annual General Meeting (AGM Business Meeting) of the ASA*
with the General Council of the ASA 
As we transition from the first 100 years of anthroposophy in the world, the Annual General Meeting portion of our Conference allows for Society members to meet the General Council and hear how the Council is working to fulfill the tasks set before us as members of the Anthroposophical Society in the United States. This includes the treasurer's report, highlights of the year's programs and events, and consideration of membership activity and support through publications and communications. The AGM also allows for welcoming new Council members and for saying goodbye to those whose terms have completed. This year we will also hear an update on the Rudolf Steiner House strategic review.

Other Conference Keynotes
The Anthroposophical Society and Today’s Riddle of the Threshold** with Marc Desaules
America’s Contribution as Healing Response to the World Crises of our Time** with Marc Desaules
Opening Remarks and Welcome** with Timothy Kennedy and Friends  
The Country Societies and the Contribution of the West with panel with Country Representatives from the US, Canada, Hawaii, & Switzerland 

Post Conference 
Reflections and Leading Thoughts from the Conference with the General Council of the ASA
Join General Council members online for a review of leading thoughts arising from the Annual Conference, and an exchange of ideas about how these thoughts might inform the Society in America as it continues its journey to provide both home and context for the work done out of spiritual science. This will be a moderated panel discussion.

* This event will be livestreamed and recorded to in-person and online event participants
** This event will be recorded and shared with in-person and online event participants after the conference

WORKSHOPS 
Three Session Workshops 
Threefold the Social Organism: We Can Start Here and Now! with a look at L’Aubier and other initiatives with Marc Desaules 
Metal Colored Light Therapy and the After Image with Helena Hurrell 

Single Session Workshops 
The Death and Entry of Christ into the Element/Ether World with Micky Leach of The Western Regional Council
Sessions offered by Sections of the School of Spiritual Science 

• The Task of the School of Spiritual Science and its Section for General Anthroposophy with Herbert Hagens. Contributions from Rüdiger Janisch
• The Performing Arts Section with Helen Lubin 
•  Sleep Research with The Pedagogical Section with Michael Holdrege
• The North American Youth Section with Frank Agrama, Ezra Sullivan and others
• The Medical Section with Branko Furst
• The Visual Arts Section with Patricia Dickson and Bert Chase 
• The Social Science Section with Robert Karp and....

DISCUSSION GROUPS
You will be assigned a group at registration. Each group will have a designated peer facilitator. These groups will be consistent on both Saturday and Sunday

PERFORMANCES

Earth: This Being Human with the Portland Eurythmy Ensemble
The Foundation Stone Meditation in Eurythmy with the Portland Eurythmy Ensemble
The Michael Imagination with The Bay Area Eurythmy Ensemble
The Sacred Drama of Eleusis with speech artists Christine Burke, Beatrice Voigt, and Marke Levene 

EXHIBITS
The Foundation Stone, beautifully handcrafted by Rik ten Cate in honor of the centenary of the Christmas Conference. This copper double dodecahedron is on a world tour and we are pleased to announce that it will be on display at our annual conference in Portland, OR. 

An Art Dispersal, offered by Patricia Lynch, and Laura Summer from Free Columbia, is an event where we hang up original works of art and invite people to become their stewards. They can take a piece home, keep it for as long as they like, as well as return it to the artist if they no longer want to keep it. Stewards are offered an opportunity to make a contribution to Free Columbia. Contributions support the artists as well as Free Columbia.
Free Columbia has run 20 Art Dispersals over the past 10 years, with over 800 paintings (as well as other works of art) dispersed to stewards in Hudson, Philmont, Spring Valley, and Manhattan, NY; Eugene and Portland, OR; Los Angeles, CA; New Orleans, LA; and Jarna, Sweden. In 2020 we held our first online art dispersal in collaboration with the Anthroposophical Society in North America. 

Helena Hurrell will bring Metal Color Light Therapy panels to the conference. Learn more about her work HERE.
Pictured: Marianne Altmaier, the founder of this form of therapy, with glass panels.