June 29, 2020

Dear Members & Friends,

Welcome to our second e-newsletter, “being more consciously human,” a thought based in Rudolf Steiner’s characterization of the word “anthroposophy” as “the consciousness of our humanity.”  Coming soon will be a page for comments and resources. Meanwhile, please write editor@anthroposophy.org

Social inclusion at a distance

It seems that face-to-face gatherings will be restricted for some time. The bad news is the limitation of full human contact; the good news is access to events and conversations without expensive travel and lodging. So we’re all making the best of it.

Let’s help everyone participate. Many people have no internet access or cannot manage computers; but they are perfectly comfortable on the phone. For Zoom meetings they just need to know the phone number to call, the meeting code to enter, and the fact that *6 on the phone keypad mutes and unmutes their phone.

In the spirit of “awakening to community,” anyone who gets email or online announcements could call a (typically older) friend or fellow member and share this information. Groups could take a few minutes to think of people who may not be connected, and arrange for someone to be in touch. In our experience, such a gesture would be very welcome!

Meanwhile there is a lot happening in addition to what we shared a month ago about established summer programs.

ESSENTIAL ANTHROPOSOPHY

The human form and constitution. How is it that we have come to understand ourselves only in the context of animals? “Humans are terrestrial animals.” Perhaps a clue is the use of the word species which properly means “external appearance.” Darwin’s The Origin of Species did not approach the inner, conscious experience of humans or any other beings. Ignoring the inner life, we are left with being the “naked apes.”

Humans (Homo sapiens) are highly intelligent primates that have become the dominant species on Earth... terrestrial animals, characterized by their erect posture and bipedal locomotion; high manual dexterity and heavy tool use compared to other animals; open-ended and complex language use compared to other animal communications; larger, more complex brains than other animals; and highly advanced and organized societies. — Wikipedia: Human

This dominant “scientific” but materialistic understanding of ourselves is a strange extract of what we all actually experience. No wonder that, as Kathy Donchak’s latest email for SteinerBooks quotes Prof. E.O. Wilson (Sociobiology; On Human Nature), “Homo sapiens is the only species to suffer psychological exile.”

Rudolf Steiner’s picture of the human shows a four-dimensional being (physical, etheric, astral, ego) we can actually experience all around us. This is a being woven into the world of nature and engaged with higher worlds of consciousness or spirit. 

We see our own four aspects in nature: the physical (minerals, crystalline forms), the living (plants, forming and growing), the conscious (animals, moving, acting and reacting), and ourselves: the self-aware and creative individual. From this we can start to imagine our deeper relationship to nature.

We can see a “four-fold human” in our lives: the corpse we leave behind, the coma or dreamless sleep, the dream state, and the awake and reasoning daytime life.

The concept of our four-dimensioned nature compares helpfully with Abraham Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs”: its physical needs and safety, living and health needs, feeling and relationship needs, and the goal of self-actualization. 

Steiner’s guidance opens up life patterns, educational needs, health and healing, memory, suffering, sleeping, near-death experiences and reincarnation.

The distinctly human element is always the ego, self, individuality, or ‘I’—and that is a huge topic for another time.

A Prayer is inspired from a text by Rudolf Steiner, from his conferences in Berlin in 1910 called “The essence of prayer” (CW/GA59). “This film was shot in the neigborhood I grew up in, in the seaside of Punta Ballena, Uruguay.” — A film by Horacio Reyes Páez on Vimeo.

A final note on recruitment for initiatives. The extreme dislocations of this moment are certainly affecting anthroposophical organizations. Our attention was drawn to this by a communication from Cadmus Lifesharing Association in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Their recent volunteers have come from Germany, Russia, and Spain, but these connections may be blocked for the near future. 

Recruitment of a new farmer for an established biodynamic farm and CSA may also be a large challenge. The thirty-year-old Community Farm of Ann Arbor in southeastern Michigan has been looking for someone to take on this big and many-faceted responsibility.

There are position listings at AWSNA and the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education and the Camphill Association and the Biodynamic Association , and you can check with local initiatives if you are looking for a highly fulfilling new direction in life.

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