14 Jun Members’ Conference 2016 – by Denis Schneider
MEMBERS’ CONFERENCE 2016
The Annual General Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada was held in Montreal on Saturday, May 21st, 2016. The AGM was preceded by a members’ conference beginning on Friday evening and continuing throughout the morning on Saturday.
On Friday evening, Arie van Ameringen shared the recent results of his research into the Foundation Stone Meditation. He also offered a brief survey of the challenges of our times – forces that are there to wake us up to what is happening in the world and to incite us to evolve. He underlined how the people of the younger generations bring hope with them; though we may not have the answers, we nevertheless can muster the courage to face the challenges of the present time and to move forward.
INITIATIVE
In our Anthroposophical Society, everything is a question of initiative; individuals or groups of individuals are called upon to develop new forms for creating events or artistic and social projects.
Two years ago, Arie van Ameringen, with the support of Marie-Claire Roset-Joubert, suggested that a gathering be organized to work with Soloviev’s story of the Antichrist. When this gathering came to a close, all those involved agreed that they wished to continue this work by meeting twice a year. The group’s founding members, and other participants from the Eastern Townships region of Quebec, who had come together at the outset to study the challenges of our times with reference to works by Soloviev and Dostoyevsky, were eventually joined by members from other regions of the province. Their gatherings evolved and subsequently came to include works by Rudolf Steiner and Prokofieff. Arie then brought up the idea of presenting the results of this work to the members at the Annual General Meeting.
When it was suggested that there might not be a members’ conference at this year’s AGM because of the upcoming week-long Encountering Our Humanity conference in Ottawa, the Montreal members spontaneously voiced their collective will to keep the Montreal tradition of artistically-based members’ conferences alive. An informal committee was quickly created, and the firm decision was made to hold a conference.
Following this second initiative, the Cowansville group offered to take on developing the content and the form for the conference.
AN ARTISTIC APPROACH
Saturday morning opened with an artistic presentation of our work on the signs of the times. This offering took the form of spatial movement and sentences recited individually and as a group; this derived its inspiration from the 12 signs of the times as expressed by Rudolf Steiner and quoted by Isabelle Val de Flor during a meeting in 2015.
These are the Times
Two old friends!
Refusal to cultivate a free spiritual life.
A centralized state blind to threefolding.
Men subdivided into smaller and smaller groups.
Satisfaction provided by material goods only.
Everything is measured in terms of benefit.
A mechanical conceptualization of the universe.
Everything is measured quantitatively and not qualitatively.
Wisdom is set aside in storage boxes.
The Gospels are interpreted historically only.
Prevalence of the ego and of selfishness.
A state of numbness causing a loss of interest for the world.
Mystery schools where magic is cultivated.
A group of 12 participants worked together to determine the wording that would lend itself to an artistic recitation. The group, as a response to the challenges of our times, spoke the words of Rudolf Steiner’s verse Spirit Triumphant.
Victorious Spirit
Flame through the impotence
of irresolute souls
Burn out the egoism
Ignite the compassion
That selflessness
The lifestream of humankind
Wells up as the source of spirit rebirth
Jean Balekian then guided us through an artistic exercise inspired by the Representative of Man sculpture. 
This then led to several stages of graphic research culminating in a black-and-white drawing exercise depicting the struggle between light and darkness. This step was designed to encourage the participants to find the balance between light and shadow. The conclusion of the conference presented the results of the group’s research in artistic form. This consisted of an exhibition of poems, which had been initiated by Denis Schneider, and of drawings. The exhibit had been installed beforehand by Jean and Denis. The entire group of those present then formed one large circle, which allowed each one to have the opportunity to be a part of the group research.
Andrée Lanthier led the group in a eurythmy exercise which echoed the imagination Jean had described when he opened the morning’s presentation: an ancient procession with garlands of flowers opening upwards towards the cosmos and other flowers pointing downwards towards earth. Andrée led us through movements pointing upwards (“Light flows towards the heights”) and downwards (“Gravity works in the depths”) and urged us to meet in the middle sphere, the social realm. We experienced this rhythm, which joins the inner world (as active searching) to the periphery (the universe answers), by turning towards our neighbour to receive his or her offering. We went away from this exercise having been enriched by the experience.
RESEARCHING TOGETHER
At the end of the morning, Denis Schneider, based on work he had done in the Social Science Section, proposed a World Café exercise designed to allow everyone to truly share in the research process. Four or more people sat at one of the many small tables in the room and were asked to work together to find answers to two questions: a) where can we find hope in the world? and, b) where can we find hope in the Anthroposophical Society? One person from each table was responsible for gathering the answers and then sharing the results with the group (in English and in French). It is impo
rtant to note that the effort to make all the answers available in both languages was carried throughout and led to admirable results, to be published in a later issue of eNews. The conference ended in a mood of beauty and inwardness with a violin and piano recital offered by two Russian musicians, Larissa (violin) and Nathalia (piano).
All the while during the preparation for this conference, and up until the very last minutes of the adventure, three major fields of exploration appeared to me as holding promise for working towards the future within the Anthroposophical Society. And in my conversation with Dorothy LeBaron, as we said our goodbyes, we both agreed that there were three elements that truly inspired us for our future work: having the courage to take initiative; working artistically; and being able to do research together.
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