June 15, 2020

Dear Members & Friends,

Welcome to our new e-newsletter! Our plan is to share news with you every other week, usually on Saturday mornings. Along with a few paragraphs each time on essential anthroposophy, there will be notes and notices, and a topic or two. Submissions are welcome, space permitting; we will link to longer ones.

This “being more consciously human” implies that it’s a good thing to be human. Despite some powerful negative memes out there, we affirm humanity—and understand also our urgent need to keep growing.

In our present astonishing circumstances, we have shown great resilience and found new community. Much that is happening these days seems to be saying to us, unexpectedly, please, be more truly human. May we find the support we need, in anthroposophy and each other.

ESSENTIAL ANTHROPOSOPHY

What is essential about anthroposophy? So many thoughts, so many perspectives! Rudolf Steiner is a great holistic researcher, repeatedly inviting us to consider things from many sides in order to see them whole. Properly, anthroposophy helps free us from limited and limiting views. (And see the Craig Holdrege link below.)

The word anthroposophy “should be interpreted as the consciousness of one’s humanity,” said Steiner in 1923. What should we be conscious of in our humanity? All of it: what we are, how we are, why we are, who we are, where we are. Human existence has an immensity of meaning. Anthroposophy would like to help us see that.

To be human is itself a special, evolving condition of consciousness. Julien Huxley in 1957 called it “the cosmos becoming aware of itself,” adding that “Never was there a greater need for a large perspective, in which we might discern the outlines of a general and continuing belief beyond the disturbance and chaos of the present...” Anthroposophy? Huxley couldn’t see it, apparently, proposing instead transhumanism., which today implies improving ourselves technologically.

He believed, however, we could, must, grow further as humans:

“We are beginning to realize that even the most fortunate people are living far below capacity, and that most human beings develop not more than a small fraction of their potential mental and spiritual efficiency.”

Being human is a chance to grow. Animals are complete at sexual maturity; are humans ever complete, perfected, finished? There rises a silent prayer from all kinds of beings that we will grow: grow beyond the modern, “objective” view, that sees us as accidental, death-defined, specks of matter, into what Steiner reported: that we are cosmic citizens helping to advance creation.

REGIONS

In the Eastern Region Luigi Morelli is organizing a “newsletter digest of Eastern Region branches” in the steady process of building more-than-local consciousness. It lists contacts for getting on the mailing lists, summaries of recent content, and longer content which has so far included “Awakening to the Second Coming Through Branch Life” from David Schwartz, “What if the Virus is Medicine?” from Jonathan Hadas Edwards & Julia Hartsell, Luigi’s own interview with Beatrice Birch of Inner Fire, and “An Imagined Letter from Covid-19 to Humans” by Krisin Flyntz. There are websites for the northeast and southeast areas, and Luigi’s digest is linked on both.

The Central Region website has video recordings and other resources, under “The Karma Project: File Sharing,” for its Ascension and Holy Week offerings, as well as older programs with Drs. Roberta Nelson and David Tresemer, Ross Rentea MD, Linda Bergh, and Fred Amrine.

And in the Western Region, “the Western Regional Council had just taken up the study of Awakening to Community when the world changed. We were open to where it might take us, possibly engaging directly with groups and branches across the region. Then, as it became necessary to implement physical distancing, awakening to community raised new questions. What is my experience of others when we ‘meet’ virtually? What is my experience of myself as I see myself on the screen? What changes in my consciousness am I called upon to bring to this way of working in order that truly human interactions have the possibility to arise? What are the limits and what are the new possibilities of working together virtually? What clear understanding of technology do we need to work in this way?

At this writing, having raised these questions and others, the WRC has not yet determined its next steps. Are these questions also living with you? Is there interest in taking up this research together? (Email your thoughts.) For the WRC: Sebastian Heycke, Micky Leach, Kirk Mills, Rebecca Soloway and Sandra Stoner.

Peonies are the “Whitsun roses” of Central Europe. The flowers in this close-up, and the one above, were gracing the front garden of Rudolf Steiner House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, last week.

These remind me that Rudolf Steiner encouraged us to try to observe plants sometimes with the will—a dramatic suggestion for these fragrant and turbulent blossoms!

Thank you for reading, and for being part of our community. Your thoughts and suggestions are always welcome.

John Beck
Editor, being human
editor@anthroposophy.org
Anthroposophical Society in America

PS – Stay tuned for information on our annual fall conference in October—which will be online. Participants in the April Sacred Gateway conference experienced that even online it is possible to achieve much of the warmth and personal engagement we love in face-to-face meetings. You can share the whole recorded event.