From Transformation to Metamorphosis with The Nature Institute

Goethean Practice 
Chrysalis Group Series Two

 Rudolf Steiner pointed out that his writings on Goethe’s natural scientific work are “the point of departure” for his spiritual scientific teachings, for anthroposophy. What is Goethean Science? In this course we want to approach the question by engaging in Goethean practice, through observations that we can carry out at home and through additional demonstrations during our zoom meetings. The burning candle and the growing plant will be our focus. We will place them into the context of the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire. The course is led by Henrike Holdrege (Oct 30/Nov 6/Nov 13) and Jon McAlice (Nov 27) who both work at The Nature Institute in Ghent, NY. 

What: A Fall Chrysalis Group, four 75-min-long weekly sessions of deepening together 

When: October 30, November 6, 13, 27
Mondays at 4 pm ET/ 1 pm PT for 75 min via Zoom.
Not able to attend?  This program will be recorded and distributed to all registrants.

Contribution: You can register and pay for this Chrysalis Group as a stand alone course. However, if you would like to do more than one course, save money by registering for the Chrysalis Group Series Two, a bundle of six courses! 
Learn more and register for Series Two Chrysalis Groups here.
Stay updated on all fall offerings here.

Course Costs:
Suggested: $60
Supporter: $80
Youth and Equity: $45

REGISTER HERE
Not able to attend? 
This program will be recorded and distributed to all registrants.

Chrysalis Group Series Two Bundle Costs: $250 
Learn more and register for Series Two Chrysalis Groups here.

Stay updated on all fall offerings here.

Schedule
Oct 30, Nov 6, Nov 13 with Hennrike Holdrege
November 27 with Jon McAlice

Meet Your Presenters

Henrike Holdrege is co-founder and senior researcher at The Nature Institute in Harlemville, NY. Trained as a biologist, mathematician and science teacher, she strives to work with people in a way that lets them experience deeper dimensions of the world — both in nature and the inner life of the human being. Having felt the stark lack of deeper meaning in her own university studies in the way academics were taught, she makes every effort to ground her teaching in human experience and to break through abstractions to what can truly touch us in the world through careful, perceptive, and thoughtful inquiry.

Henrike has taught in the Nature Institute’s adult education programs since 2002, and also gives courses and workshops locally, nationally and internationally. She has two main areas of focus: phenomenological studies of nature, and mathematics as a training of inner awareness and wakeful dynamic thinking.

In her workshops and courses on phenomenological science she strives to help participants deepen their qualitative experience of nature. For developing a growing openness to sense experience, it is necessary to become aware of and overcome habits of thought within modern natural science, theories and models that are preconceptions. We often place them between us and a richer meeting with the world. They can blind us to the spiritual essence of the natural world we are part of. Goethe’s approach to science and its expansion through Rudolf Steiner inspire and inform her efforts. She currently researches and teaches in the areas of optics and color, astronomy, and the phenomenology of solids, fluids, gases, and warmth (the “four elements”).

Henrike is the mother of three adult children. In her spare time she gardens and paints.

Click HERE to learn more about The Nature Institute
 

Jon McAlice began teaching in 1976 at East Hill Farm School in southern Vermont. He brought to this work skills in boatbuilding and carpentry and a love of exploratory inquiry that stood him in good stead for his work with adolescents in the classroom, in the workshop, and on the school’s organic farm. During this time, he was involved in various forms of social activism, especially with the Catholic Worker Movement and the Movement for a New Community working with the homeless and with street children on Manhattan’s lower east side. The death of a close friend living at the Camphill community in Copake, NY, brought him to a decisive encounter with the work of Rudolf Steiner.

He left America in 1984 and moved to Dornach, Switzerland, to study at the Rudolf Steiner Lehrerseminar. He earned his Waldorf teaching diploma studying nights, while heading up the woodworking shop at the Goetheanum. In 1989, he joined Heinz Zimmermann in the Educational Section of the Goetheanum and spent the next 11 years working for the international Waldorf schools movement. His primary responsibilities included the international aspects of the Section’s work and coordinating research projects on topics such as curriculum development, school governance and the relation between school culture and the evolving nature of work. During this period he founded and edited the Educational Section Journal, a bi-lingual journal for Waldorf educators, co-founded and became one of the first executive co-directors of the International Association for Waldorf Education East, supporting the growth of the Waldorf school movements in the Eastern European countries, and worked closely with the Freunde der Erziehungskunst to further the growth of Waldorf education in developing countries. Meanwhile he continued to teach, organize conferences, lecture and conduct workshops.

In 2000, he returned to the U.S., initially to the Bay area. From 2001 to 2004 he was High School coordinator for the Summerfield Waldorf School, responsible for teacher and program development. He also initiated and led regional high school teachers’ workshops and initiated and co-led Young Teachers Conferences and the Advanced Studies Initiative. In 2008, Jon co-founded the Center for Contextual Studies, a decentralized research collaborative formed to engage in and support action-based research that can lead beyond the current boundaries of conventional knowledge to a quality of understanding that enables human consciousness to participate fully in the spiritual reality of our world and the forces shaping it.

In 2006, Jon and his family returned to the Northeast, settling in Ghent, N.Y., where he continues his work as a designer, researcher, teacher, and consultant. Between 2008 and 2012 he was a core faculty member in The Nature Institute’s summer intensives for science teachers. He helped develop the Institute’s Foundation Course, “Encountering Nature and the Nature of Things,” which began in 2018. Jon joined the staff as Senior Researcher and Educator in 2020.

Other Chrysalis Groups

Learn more and register for all Chrysalis Groups HERE.

In Memoriam with Jolie Hanna Luba
Sundays, 3pm ET/12 pm PT for 75 min 
Oct 29, Nov 5, 12 and 26
Learn more & register here

The Readiness is All with The Hummingbird Principle
Mondays at 1 pm ET/10 am PT for 75 min
October 30, November 6, 13, 27
Learn more & Register here

AstroGaiaSophia with Brian Gray
Mondays at 6 pm ET/3 pm PT for 75 min 
October 30, November 6, 13, 27
Learn more & register here

Wisdom Working with Jordan Walker
Thursdays at 10 am ET/7 am PT for 75 min
November 9, 16, 30, and December 7
Learn more & register here

Facing Contradictions with Cory Eichman
Thursdays at 1 pm ET/10 am PT for 75 min
November 9, 16, 30, and December 7
Learn more & register here

Stay updated on all fall offerings here.