FROM THE GOETHEANUM

Dear readers,

Our concern about the earth’s health moves us and inspires us to worldwide activities. The climate question is linked to our thinking and to our actions. The one-sided pursuit of personal interests and egocentric needs damages the climate on earth.

It is similar with the climate between us human beings: our natural needs can easily lead to isolation and separation, while spiritual considerations unite and integrate. Rudolf Steiner therefore speaks of the true human ‘I’ as the “unifying ‘I’”.

The theme of the Christmas Conference in 2019 at the Goetheanum relates to these questions: How do we build communities? How do we keep in contact? And how can brotherliness arise as a ground on we keep in contact? And how can brotherliness arise as a ground on which anthroposophy can grow? These questions touch on the “We” and point to the fourth verse of the Foundation Stone Meditation.

Human community-building has a more or less conscious past from which essential forces and impulses can arise for our work. It makes sense, therefore, to remember these spiritual goals or, in other words, to “practise Spirit Recalling.” Communities and collaboration are effective in the present and they need us to reflect on their spiritual foundations. However, a community is also future-oriented: together we look ahead to the ideals and objectives it stands for. Goals one works towards are always future-oriented since otherwise they would already have been achieved and maybe even belong to the past. In the spiritual goals and the working of communities lives a “becoming” and a plea: “that good may become”. This is about following the good star of which Rudolf Steiner spoke at the Christmas Conference of 1923/1924. The spiritual substance of the community points beyond individuals and their angel to the communal spiritual activities of the archangels and the impulses of the spirits of time. The fourth verse of the Foundation Stone Mediation speaks of the underlying Sun forces that will unfold when two or three are gathered “in his name”.

We warmly invite you to this year’s Christmas Conference and to work with us on the mysteries of community. Questions of working together are more acute than ever. As the anthroposophical movement and Society we need to practise community-building in order to develop cultural impulses that can bring health to the earth and enhance human coexistence and cooperation.

We are looking forward to working together on this in the spirit of Christmas!

Warm greetings,

Matthias Girke, Goetheanum