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Notes from the Annual Conference
Hope was a leading word heard throughout this year's annual conference on Destiny~Reincarnation~Community, which was held over the weekend of October 10-12, 2025 at the beautiful Detroit Waldorf School. And, as pictured above, it rang out from the stage several times over the weekend, beginning with the land and water acknowledgment offered by Linda Williams Friday afternoon, followed by the Timbre Children's Chorus joyfully led by Kalyse Edmondson and Walter-Ray Hudson. Kalyse also led the "The Miss Mary Singers" in a powerful Detroit-style welcome with the song Hope Lingers Here that still moves in the heart these several weeks later. After the General Secretary and Treasurer's Reports, the Annual General Business Meeting concluded on Saturday afternoon with a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday to Virginia Sease, who celebrated her 90th birthday earlier this month. The conference was brought to a beautiful close Sunday morning with Richard Steel's inspiring talk, during which he observed that every Sunday is Easter Sunday. You can access Richard's talk here.
Our deepest thanks go to Bart Eddy, who, as lead presenter Friday evening, took us through an experience of the Community Building Spirit in his sharing how he answered a destiny call that resulted in decades of work with Detroit Community Schools. Bart co-founded the school with Candyce Sweda to address the under-served population in the Northwest Detroit neighborhood of Brightmoor. He also gave us a unique picture of the waters flowing to and from the Detroit River, noting the heart-role of Lake St. Clair in its form, location, and function.
The mysteries of destiny that lift individuals into community, especially when we come together with those seeking the same goals, was further expanded Saturday morning when Frank Ettawageshik took the stage. Frank is a tribal elder from the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa, and like Bart, he opened the space with song. With Bart standing for the under-served in Detroit and Frank for the peoples native to this land, the idea that we are one another's awakeners was palpable.1
We are grateful to Herbert Hagens for his years of work and research with karma and reincarnation as expressed through Rudolf Steiner's Mystery Dramas, as well as the poise and humor with which Herbert unlocked these weighty topics. His presentation was preceded by the resounding call of a trumpet that set the stage for Claudia Fontana's eurythmy performance set to words attributed to Karl König about the knighthood of the 21st century. Later Saturday evening we experienced moments from the Mystery Dramas with a dynamic troupe of players that further sounded this call.
To the singers, speech artists, eurythmists, biography workers, metal color light therapists, teachers, members and friends, to the initiative takers and vendors, thank you for making this a rich and nourishing festival, and for demonstrating what anthroposophy is in America today. Class holders, CAO members, the collegium ~ we, all of us, are continually in the good work of foundation building, crossing into the future together, as one another's awakeners.
To the staff at Detroit Waldorf School, our deepest, heartfelt thanks. Many can attest to the fact that something quite special took place that was a gift for us all, weaving in the open deeps with the spirit of Detroit, and the being of Anthroposophy.
~Mary Stewart Adams
Reflections from an online participant: I experienced Richard's talk last night (I say experienced, because I was drawn in from passively listening or watching to a living, deep experience) and found it to be very special (and I offer this as someone who's heard Richard speak many times). I believe the deep mood of presence I experienced was co-created by the souls who came together in this special conference, and how they came together.
So big thanks again to you and all who worked to bring about this good deed for earthly life!!!
1. Rudolf Steiner Awakening to Community lecture IX, March 3, 1923 (GA 257)
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Given Detroit's location in the Great Lakes Region, we gathered fresh water from the river that connects Lakes Huron and Erie through the heart of Lake St. Clair, while Venus looked on as morning star. This water cycled through a flow form throughout the conference, that our deeds, undertaken together, from the center of our heart, would be a healing speaking to the stars, ~ whose own deeds are carried in the waters of the Earth.
On the Memento Mori for the Season of Honoring the Dead
In light of this cross quarter time, here is the Memento Mori prayer that Rudolf Steiner shared in the lecture Forces ofKarmic Preparation in the Cosmos from the book Karmic Relationships Vol III, lecture 2 given on July 4, 1924, in which he resurrected ancient initiation wisdom with the exhortation that we are to “accompany theDead in their further Destinies!”
In the weaving of the ether, The human being’s web of destiny Is received by Angels, Archangels, Archai.
Into the astral world, The just consequences of a human being’s earthly life Die into Exousiai, Dynameis, Kyriotetes.
In the essence of their deeds The honest creations of a human being’s earthly life Are resurrected in Thrones, Cherubim, Seraphim.
"What the human being experiences as their destiny or karma takes place for him, within him, and about him, from earthly life to earthly life. But in the heavenly worlds the consequences of what the human being did and experienced on earth go working on and on~and they work on even into the historic shaping of this earthly life. For there are many things which are not grasped or controlled by the individual human being here upon earth. My drear friends, you must take this statement in its full weight and importance."
This prayer bears dynamic relationship to the Calendar of the Soul verses for this season of honoring our loved ones who have "walked on," as Frank Ettawageshik described during the Annual Conference in Detroit, especially verses 32, 33, and 34, which concern themselves with the weaving of life's destiny (v. 32), the karmic consequences in a world that lacks communion with my soul (v. 33), and the resurrection forces quickened by the new-risen sense of self (v. 34).
The Memento Mori and the Calendar of the Soul verses contemplated together, along with a study of Forces of Karmic Preparation in the Cosmos is a beautiful way to engage with this sacred season.
May it bring peace and harmony.
Join our Community Conversations this November!
The ASA is hosting a series of three online groups to dive into interesting topics and connect with kindred souls around the globe. Come together for focused learning, growth, and connection.
Encounter enlivened thoughts and bring your spirit-filled questions.
The Community Begins with Bruce Donehower
The Cosmic Ego Sheath with Laura Embrey
Exploring Destiny and Community through Storymaking with Lisa Doron
All meetings will be recorded so you can watch later if you cannot attend live.
If you do not see the reservation link, please include a note with your registration that you would like to attend the reception.
In this space each month we'll share information about the Lunar Cycle from November 12, 2025 Last Quarter Phase to August 12, 2026 New Moon Phase in the same degree of zodiac, the latter causing a Total Solar Eclipse. Mary Stewart Adams led a workshop at the Annual Conference on Creating Star Calendars to support our researching together the nature of this phenomenon, especially since the August 12, 2026 Total Solar Eclipse occurs during the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower, which Rudolf Steiner aligns to the activity of Michael (see The Michael Imagination October 5, 1923). The eclipse will not be visible from the US, but the meteor shower will, and the coincidence of these events (meteor shower, eclipse, activity of Michael) bears our consideration.
The nine-month rhythm begins on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, when the Moon reaches Last Quarter Phase at 240 Cancer in the sidereal zodiac. It will be the season of honoring loved ones who have died, verse 32 in the Calendar of the Soul:I feel my own force bearing fruit...
As noted in the original Calendar from 1912/13, November 12 is the Feast of Aemilianus, or Saint Aemilian of Cogolla, a 6th century saint widely revered throughout Spain. The monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla was built in his memory, and is the site where his bones are interred ~ and this is where it gets really fascinating:
The November 12 Last Quarter Moon on the Feast of Aemilian is at 24o Cancer, the exact place in the zodiac where the August 12, 2026 Total Solar Eclipse will occur nine months later. The Total Solar Eclipse path will pass directly over San Millán de la Cogolla, and the bones of St. Aemilian! One could argue that Aemilian is the "patron saint" of this eclipse, and further, that in taking up a consideration of the names and feasts included in the original Calendar, together with the weekly verses, we enter more deeply into engagement with the Being of the Year. In 2026, this Year Being expresses itself, in part, through the August 12 Total Lunar Eclipse at the peak of Michaelic activity through the Perseid Meteor Shower, which casts its shadow over Aemilian's bones.
When, in primeval words, the Human Being had to express the rich store of the divine in all its fullness, he uttered the letters of the alphabet. When he expressed the mystery of his own nature, in the way he learned about it in the Mysteries, then he voiced how he had descended through Saturn or Jupiter in their stellar relation to the Lion or the Virgin, in other words, how he had descended through the A or the I in their relation to the M or the L. The Human Being gave utterance to what he had then experienced of the music of the spheres, and that was one's cosmic name. And in those ancient days human beings were instinctively aware that they brought a name down with them from the cosmos to the Earth.
Since then Christian consciousness still preserves this primeval consciousness in an abstract way by consecrating individual days to the memory of saints, who, rightly understood, should give new life to the spiritual cosmos. By being born on a particular day of the year we should receive the name of the saint whose day it is on the calendar. What is meant to be expressed here in a more abstract way, was more concretely expressed in primeval times, when in the Mysteries the cosmic name of a person was found in accordance with what was experienced as he descended to earth, when with his being he created vowels with the planets and added them to the consonants of the Zodiac. The various groups of the human race had many names then, but these names were conceived in such a way that they harmonized with the universal all-embracing name.
