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Summer Updates
from the
Youth Section in North America 🌻
Dear Conrad,
Thank you so much for your time and interest in the activities of the Youth Section. We are glad to have this moment to share updates and invite you into relationship with some of the things we are up to.
In this message you will find: Updates from gatherings and projects in this country as well as global initiatives. We will also share some of our philosophical intentions for co-working. Enjoy!
UPCOMING EVENTS AND COURSES: Opening to the Future
We are just a few days away from our in-person summer gathering Opening The Future: Questions of Community on July 11-14. We are collaborating with local Spring Valley friends at Threefold Community, in the spirit of renewing the goodness that brought Anthroposophy to this continent! We will host one another in sharing study insights, research questions, cultural initiatives, intergenerational biography dialogues and even a Saturday night Soiree. For those near NY, come on down to the Threefold Cafe on Saturday night (7/13)!
Pre-Gathering Meet-up on Zoom This weekend, before the gathering takes off we are having a “pre-game” online meet up, for participants to orient to the content, and offer to host anything during the open-space sessions.
On the East Coast in New York, a part-time course is starting which will focus on dialogue, lectures, and hands-on artistic experience. This training is for anyone seeking a greater understanding of the threefold nature of the human being: body, soul and spirit.
On the west coast, a full-time training is beginning in the mountains near Santa Cruz!
INITIATIVES AND MUSINGS
2024 International Co-Workers Gathering Report Soren Dietzel
The Co-workers Gathering for the International Youth Section organized by the Goetheanum was held at the Warmonderhof, a biodynamic training center, near Lelystad in The Netherlands. A host of us representing the North American Youth Section presented updates on our projects and heard from sections from friends from across Europe, Argentina, Tanzania and many more countries.
As a group, we studied the life and works of Maria Roeschl-Lehrs, the woman first tasked with starting and leading the Section for the Spiritual Striving of the Youth. Her writing from “The Second Man in Us” encompasses pictorial thinking arising in humanity, humans' relationship to nature, and the power of the word.
“Though one man alone cannot as yet command the life-forces by the power of his word, two certainly can build together through theirs, they can awaken life..” -Maria Roeschl-Lehrs
The forty or so of us present at the conference brainstormed about how we can stay connected as a way to support and inspire one another in our initiatives and how to expand the scope of work as a section. We set forth a number of goals regarding the support of youth work, including: fundraising, education and mentorship programs, outreach, and spiritual research. We made strong connections and built relationships that will forge the future.
True Search: Open Source
One of the fruits of last year’s summer gathering Hands In, was the birth of an open-source search engine, seeking to cultivate 3Folding practices in the realm of data privacy, technology, and AI. We are looking forward to inviting our Anthroposophical community further into supporting and engaging with these questions. Please take a moment to read more and join our “True Search”!
Detroit! Sunbridge Community Healing Park
Another returning thread we are deepening this summer is activating the Sunbridge Community Healing Park (not far from the Steiner House in Ann Arbor). Some of us will be working here beginning from Opening the Future until mid-August in Brightmoor, with Bart Eddy and the Brightmoor Makers.
We look forward to hosting a neighborhood and city-wide gathering on August 10th, to celebrate the learning journey of Earth Stream Tiny Houses in Detroit, as Martin Summer steps into sharing his craft with the Makers! We’ll be getting dirty in the D, preparing the park for performing arts in dialogue with Nature, conversations on Health and Community and hopefully even a Flow-Form water feature!
Come out and join us if you are hoping to get involved!
Frank will be driving from Spring Valley after Opening the Future!
Thank You.
Youth Section Practices #111 The Open Door of Initiative Frank Aleph Agrama
Anthroposophy as a verb, how does one awaken into it, through a doing. The will of each soul seeks its unfoldment, as seeds are laced into the sheathes of each. Like a landscape each person is rich with potential to unfold, and like a flower needs, certain aspects of our wills must be awoken by others, to be activated by the outer world, or the outer call.
The Youth Section can seek to be a pollinator of will, if there lives in its center, an ear and eye for those seeking to unfold their own will. “Where can an invitation be made?” Can we carry an impulse that is active and actively inviting from the field of open will, that which seeks to unfold in others? Can we always balance with the question of “who could join us in this endeavor?” and “who’s will lives to unfold this emerging aspect?”
In this flow-form of will, a current can form through the necessary tasks, where each individual unfolds themselves through access to willing in a larger context, in a meaningful whole.
What are our values? Can we find and define them?
How does this value offer a counter pole, or demand a counter pole for health, that of commitment and the tides of change. Balancing openness and invitation with a steadfast carrying core.
Free Columbia is offering self-directed, community supported, three-month music and art residencies!
Art and music created consciously and shared with the world will change the world. This is at the core of Free Columbia’s mission. It is out of that impulse that a new residency program is being developed. Residents will propose a project which they will work to complete over a three month period, supported by and shared with the Free Columbia staff, community, and other resident artists. This will culminate in a final presentation of the work completed. This is a transformational process with a focus on the continual dialogue between artist and community, fostering a meaningful exchange not only for the artist but for Free Columbia and, we believe, for the world.
We have spent the last month crowdfunding to help launch this fledgling program. We raised an amazing $11,000 out of our $20,000 dollar goal! We are exceptionally grateful for this show of support and know that it will certainly go to good use as we have welcomed our first resident and yet more have signed up to start imminently.
