China: A Whitsun Experience

20 Nov China: A Whitsun Experience

For three weeks in October 2018 Shanghai and Guangzhou were my homes in China. I felt embraced throughout the entire time by a world of love, comfort, creativity, and every day anew there was a surprise. As an Art Therapist my aim was to give an introduction to Anthroposophy through the wisdom that can be discovered in children’s drawings and paintings.

I began by talking very cautiously about the beginning of our planetary stages of the Earth: Ancient Saturn, ancient Sun and ancient Moon. I explained that Saturn can be imagined as the Father, the God of the Sun as his Son and the God of the Moon as the God of wisdom.

Sun God

Museum

In the evening, the private guide in Guangzhou led us through the ancestral hall in a museum and showed us, as the very first example, a sculptured image of the God of the Sun, and then she led us to the God of the Moon! We could not believe it and our organizer was speechless. How did the guide know of my careful approach to the Trinity? It did not take very long before the participants of the three-day workshop realized that, no matter which culture we live in, it always leads us back to the Trinity.

The themes of discussion and lecturing seemed to evolve by themselves through questions and rapid discoveries of the participants. Children’s paintings taught us the meaning of the house. Every participant made a drawing of the house. Where do the body, the etheric, the astral and the spirit live in the house? Where do we find thinking, feeling and willing, spirit self, life spirit and spirit man? How do they connect to imagination, inspiration and intuition? (Drawing above)

What is more revealing than children’s drawings of houses and the problems that meet them through our developing technology, through stress at public schools and from family quarrels? The house is their body! It all revealed itself through case studies that I was asked to do in my spare time. And then: the discovery of the Lord’s Prayer in the house!

Lord’s Prayer

The study of Lemuria and Atlantis, including Lucifer and Ahriman, allowed us to place ourselves right into our time, our customs and our habits. The narrowly placed flat stones on garden walkways allowed only very small steps – steps as the women were able to make when their feet were bound during historic times. It reminded me of the incarnation of Lucifer because today it is difficult to make these small, almost child-like, steps. These conditions are sometimes reproduced in Chinese opera. It makes an energetic step going into the future hard to imagine.

The development of the writing of words, from the past until today, and how its changes evolved, is interesting. This can be followed on the example of the word mouth, represented now by a square; the mouth from which should flow wisdom. The readiness to accept the fact that we all, around the world, are making the same evolutionary steps, was a new experience for the groups of people I spoke to and there was much, much gratitude and love for the discovery of Anthroposophy.

Zhen Li, the organizer, sent me an email: By the way, Monica, after the feedback from the students of the workshop we changed the name of our group from “We-Chat Group” into “A team for the study of the evolution of our human consciousness”. No need to tell that I was very touched. They have begun to prepare a play about the world of the elemental beings for my return next year.

Monica Gold