November/December 2018 CAMPHILL CORRESPONDENCE

“Rose“ circa 1947 by Shirley Seagren Schwartz (1929-2007)

Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says, "love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies—or else? The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. By Martin Luther King. From the Sermon, Loving Your Enemies, Christmas Day, 1957. Celebratory Birthdays November – December 2018 Contents

Becoming 93 Advent: This Season of the Refugee …………………………………………….. 3 Jean Surkamp, Ochil Tower November 24 Living with Asperger’s Syndrome……….. 4 Becoming 92 Prism of Peace …….……………………. 5 Report from ICEST ………………………. 7 Christiane Lauppe, Stroud, Glos. December 11 Book Review…..……..………………… 8 Barbara Kauffmann, Perceval December 27 Poem…..……..……………………….… 9 Becoming 91 In Memoriam…………….……………… 12

Elsbeth Groth, Camphill Schools December 7

Becoming 90

Marianne Schneider, Minnesota November 17 Spotlight

Becoming 85 Bryan Zecca lives at Camphill Communities Sonja Elmquist, Aberdeen November 30 California. Last summer, he won 2nd Becoming 80 place at the annual Santa Cruz County Heidi Byrde, Perceval December 7 Fair, with his weaving entry. Becoming 75

Brenda Patterson, Delrow November 1

Wilfrid Stitch, West Coast, SA November 29

Daphne Hancock, Newton Dee December 3

Maria Tonin, West Coast, SA December 16

Sylvia Gordon, Delrow December 28

Becoming 70

Ellen Baum, Tonsberg November 6

Danny Miller, Copake November 6

Nicholas Andrew Jennings, Oaklands December 8

Michael Schreiber, Brachenreuthe December 10 Spotlight will be a new regular column. The Correspondence invites our friends to contribute articles to share their stories: how Tom Leonard, Delrow December 28 they came to Camphill; what Camphill means to them. It can be in narrative form; a poem; a 4-panel photo collage with captions; or comics style. Explore your creativity and share your stories with the world. Please spread this invitation with your communities! 2 Advent: this Season of the Refugee

by Adam Hewitt, editor

As is well known in the Camphill Community, on December 14, 1833, right in the middle of the Advent Season, Kaspar Hauser, the homeless refugee, the “Child of Europe,” was attacked and stabbed in the Ansbach Court Garden, in Germany. He died three days later, on December 17.

Advent is the season of hope, looking forward to the birth of the Christ in the human soul, but it is also Arnovis Guidos Portillo the season of significant world events, even if obscure and frequently violent, as the death of Kaspar Hauser tells us. Without going into the In the Gospels an archetypal picture presents itself mysterious and dark circumstances of his death, or to us, which speaks to us today in ever more urgent his identity, we can say this: an innocent and poor and insistent tones. The mother of the Savior of the man, whose life was taken from him became an World rides a donkey, or, we can suppose, archetype of the innocent human soul under siege frequently walks, over a rocky and harsh terrain, by dark and malevolent powers. This is also the toward a purpose and destination of which she Advent story, to which we must awaken in our times. herself, we might imagine, is quite unsure. Her husband, with patience and grace, but also perhaps In the picture above, Arnovis Portillo was deported inner anxiety, walks beside her and tries to attend to back to the violence in El Salvador, while his six her needs as best he can. They walk often in silence, year old daughter was kept at a detention center in each with their own worries and anxieties. Where Texas. “All I hear is my daughter crying,” he says. He do they sleep? Do they have friends? Relatives? is just but one face of the millions of refugees facing Helpers? Do they sleep out in the open? Does Mary a dark and foreboding future in this year, 2018 years have helpers? A bed to sleep on at night? The after the first Advent. Gospels, with their spare accounting, are silent on all these points. They simply say that the Savior of How are we to respond? How are we to be the the World was born in a lowly stable, because there helpers, the healers? What is our answer to be in this was ‘no room for them at the Inn,’ and, as the Advent season as we light the first candles, and Shepherds’ Play says, “Thus he was born in such enjoy the glow of children, the adults and our lowly fashion that on us he might have revered elders in the light of Advent? compassion.” We can say that the plight of the refugee, and the At almost no time in the last 2000 years, certainly, homeless, stateless person is of deep concern to the have so many homeless, displaced people been on worldwide Camphill Community, because of our the move as there are today, in this Advent season. origins, because of our feeling of brotherhood, All over our globe displaced families, heavily because of our desire for the healing of the Earth pregnant mothers, children and weary fathers are and the healing of humanity, the now ever seeking, frequently desperately, a new life – increasingly tormented humanity. It’s my belief we somewhere, anywhere, just not back to the killing have a role to play now and in the future for the fields they have left behind. The Savior’s family was healing of what ails this suffering earth. Meanwhile, not even in such trouble or desperation as millions this Advent season, we watch and pray. are today, in this season of 2018. 3 Living With Asperger’s Syndrome

By Joan Hill I attended the recent presentation at the hall “My when I think someone is mad at me) I have what is Life on the Spectrum: A Tuneful Rally” by Dane called a meltdown. I start crying because of an Brandt-Lubart. It has inspired me to write about my emotional turmoil that’s churning inside of me at own autism experience. that moment. I also tend to repeat myself when I am upset. And you know what’s ironic about having Let me start off by saying that autistic people are like autism? Although we have difficulty relating to our snowflakes: no two people are exactly the same, fellow humans we have no difficulty relating to because everyone experiences autism a little bit animals. I think that’s because animals’ emotions are differently. As autism is a spectrum disorder, there not as complex. You can always tell if they like you are many other disabilities under the Autism without them having to say it out loud. I can Spectrum Disorder (ASD) umbrella. I have definitely feel the love from animals. Especially my Asperger’s Syndrome, which is a mild form of favorites such as horses, cats, dogs, even dolphins! autism. Like all forms of autism, Asperger’s is a neurological disability, meaning that it affects the I could tell you more about Asperger’s but I’ll leave brain. But, by no means are we considered brain it here for now. If you are interested in learning more damaged! Our brains are just wired up differently about autism I have loads of books on the subject, from a neurotypical (the Autism Community’s word both fiction and non-fiction. All you have to do is for a normal person) brain. Scientists are still trying ask! - written by Joan Hill, who lives at Camphill to find out what causes autism. Children with Village Copake, USA. Joan can be reached at Asperger’s usually have no delay in language or [email protected]. communication skills. I, for example, could speak when I was seven months old and I taught myself to read when I was three. People with Asperger’s can be very bright and can have excellent memories. We can also memorize lots of trivia and facts about things that we enjoy, but other people may find uninteresting.

When I was little, my Mom would often take me to flower shows and I would identify all the flowers ... by their scientific names! We also love to talk (and talk and talk) about our narrow but happily intense obsessions. These obsessions are not bad ones, in the sense that they make us feel happy! You all know that I love Japanese pop culture. My other Did you know? obsessions include: animation history, Pokémon, ASD is the USA’s fastest growing developmental stories about World War II, the Titanic and anything disability. It occurs in 1 out of every 68 births and a new to do with Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” or “Lord of the case is diagnosed every 20 minutes. Rings”. Source: ejautismfoundation.org I’ve read that many people on the spectrum feel like aliens on another planet. I can understand why. We often have trouble reading people’s facial expressions and emotions. I often misread anger and annoyance as the same thing. When I get upset (or

4 The Prism of Peace

By J. Patrick Doyle A rainbow of nationalistic imperatives sending them Patrick Doyle is a former Camphill co-worker. He lives in through this gate with the deed we will call the “Will to Columbia County, New York, an area that hosts four Kill”. Camphill communities and many other anthroposophical initiatives. Patrick is an artist active in the cultural life of It is time to re-connect with this Will. In a Manichaean Columbia County. He composed this “poem” for the All gesture of embrace we need to understand the reality of Souls Day celebration of the local branch of the the existence of this thought object of the Will to Kill. to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the The underlying vibration of this resonates as a tremor fighting in World War I that was celebrated this year on constantly quaking in our society in this country and in November 11, 2018. In the poem he addresses the the world. violent history of the Twentieth Century, a history that is intimately part of the story of the Camphill Community. - In order to counter balance this fault line of seismic Will David Andrew Schwartz Power we have need to gather together to make a Prism of Peace.

The dead are here always with us, the living. The millions of souls who were and are passing through the gates of The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. death are present in our existence right now. One hundred years ago. In the fabric of the gown of the Deity … The sensual nature of destruction, the act of killing … Let us form a prism of refracting light from the source of merging one into the over whelming horror of eliminating the living and the dead: the ‘enemy’. A Prism of Peace. The will to kill one hundred years ago was doused with the waters of peace but not quenched. If you will … take your hands in front of you ... palms up. Work with this as a chalice of light … hold it and create a The blue of the Prussians and the red of the French Prism of Peace. became a purple haze that drifted around the borders of France, Poland, Austria, the world, becoming a gateway While holding this object of light … this thought image again to the Will to Kill . … allow your prism to expand.

The source of killing again as another Great War was Allow the back of your hands to touch the person next to funded by capitalistic greed, gulped by fascism in un- you on both sides. chewed hunks of hate meat and spewed out as a projectile vomit of killing. Now as we touch the living next to us and feel our living being … take into your heart an image of a person who The machinery of massive killing and destruction. has crossed the threshold. The War to End all wars. Then the next Great War. In the floods of life, in the storm of deeds An entire world of technology and economy were Up and down I well, harnessed again and created by this Will to Kill … Back and forth I weave! endless war. Birth and grave, An eternal sea, Millions of human beings were sent out of this world in a A changing weaving, collective murder, spewed through the gate of death, A glowing living, ripped from life with a combined destiny creating an I weave at the buzzing loom of time army of the dead. And work at God’s living garment sublime. (Faust I)

5 This is what lives in the earth as the spirit of the Earth, just Shimmering, freed beyond the dimension of physical as our spirit lives in us. () reality. Carrying the garment of the Deity through our deeds, We try to achieve a connection to this spirit within their deeds. ourselves, in this lifetime upon and in this Earth. In a sublime weaving etched in the stars.

Hold this Prism of Peace in your imagination, bring your The Will to Kill is a thought that is an object, a thought hands together and fold them upon your heart. and deed. This deed is fully funded by us, the living. What can we do? The wisdom in this moment is working. So many of us are graced with the perception of nature and of our The prism of peace as an object of thought, an object of colleagues. This touch, this perception, needs to be pure. word and deed is here. We hold it within ourselves, our The purification of our touch is a way to achieve a families, our friends and the dead … thinking freely … our possibility of attaining freedom. A possibility of stardust as sand transmuted through This freedom requires an expansion of this touch to the action and deeds … cast as a spiritual prism: Cosmos and most particularly the planets, the moon and the sun. The dead are keys to the A silica woven from dust to dust, possibility of thought purified formed by the dead and dying, beyond our skin-bound idea of forged by the living … ourselves. For the dead have no skin Cradled from the newly birthed … but are the stuff of the Sun expanded Wisdomed from the elders … as a spiraling with the planets and Warmed by the presence of the out to the stars. living with the dead ... fired by the living deed … So if we offer ourselves to share in All a process of the cross the stuff of the stars, the constellation pollination of dead and living ... that gathers and weaves through the Star dust and Earth billions of living upon this earth and Shinning and shimmering through weaves through all the human lives the thought, that have gone before us … A real thought and real object:

We are the seed of the future. The dead are the pollinators connecting We can create: T h e P r i s m o f the past . Peace They hold our deed pollen to create the sweetness of the living. Our The 11th Hour of the 11th day of living deeds are sweetened by the the 11th month ….1918 presence of the dead. It was not the war to end all wars. This is the revelation of our existence that we are the spirit beings who in this lifetime, at this drop of moment, The will to kill lingers on in our spiritual evolution. are bound by our skin, yet free to expand in thought and Let us evolve together -- the dead and the living. touch each other, our living colleagues with our skin… and reach our skinless beings who are our dead. We can create a thought object, a substance, that is real, A counter balance to the Will to Kill. This act of weaving the spirit and the living, as a thought of Will, is a fundamentally essential revealed goodness. The Prism of Peace by J. Patrick Doyle Painting by J. Patrick Doyle. Title: World War I The presence of the star pollinators those of us without body and skin:

We acknowledge your presence, Weaving in the buzz of the time loom. Not with the shuttle physically punching the weft through the continuum of time, But rather the expansive quality of stardust, 6 Report from the International Conference and Delegate’s Meeting, Dornach October 2018

Something fresh and new is in the air! In a nutshell, my Much more could, and perhaps should, be said about the thoughts when reflecting on this year’s conference, which conference itself, the wonderful keynote speakers: Jan, carried a theme of Social Play Space: Making Room for Daniel McKanan (Havard Divinity), Gerald Hafter (Social Fulfilling Biographies, are enthusiasm, openness and true Science Section), Ha Vinh Tho (Gross National meeting of the other. My image is something like open- Happiness Center in Bhutan), Joan Sleigh (Society space balls in front of and through the hearts of all Executive Council), the fabulous, interactive music participants - room for the other. This space, this joyful woven throughout each day, the ‘Panorama’ each day in mood, does not just come - place, form, time and which new initiatives, inspirers and visionaries could thoughtful planning must create the fertile soil. The soil share about their work, the social evening activities, and was rich and fertile for this conference, and we, the the rich workshops but I will leave this for now to look at participants, were like thirsty plants who responded by the organization behind the conference and then to the perking up and reaching out. And if you can imagine a delegate’s meeting. very diverse group of more than 600 perky people, with rosy cheeks and smiling eyes, reaching out across many As has previously been shared, less than 2 years ago language barriers with open warmth toward each other leadership was passed to Jan Goeschel, Bart and the world, then you will have imagined this Vanmechelen (Belgium), and Sonja Zausch (Germany) – conference. a group of three rather than a single leader. This group has inspired enthusiasm among the Council, The conference was three-fold. Time and space were courageously looked at who we are and what is striving given for arts, for encountering the other and for to become, and engaged world-wide delegates in participating together rather than exclusively listening to looking for how to best express our tasks in the world. a speaker. The focus was inclusive. While themes within This work over the course of the year has produced some the workshops gave plenty of opportunity for deepening exciting fruits. our daily work, the overarching focus was in the context of world-becoming and development of all human We have a new name! The International Council for beings, both individually and socially, and the nurturing Anthroposophic Curative Education and Social Therapy of the earth. (ICEST) or Konferenz fuer Heilpaedagogik and Sozialtherapie is now the Anthroposophic Council for The opening lecture, given by Jan Goeschel, was titled, Inclusive Social Development (tagline: Education, Embodied Resonance: The I-to-I Encounter as Foundation Wellbeing, Community). In this author’s opinion the new Stone of the Social Organism. I believe as curative n a m e s h a r e s c l e a r l y w h a t w e w o r k o u t o f educators or social therapists we are clear in our task to () and what we do (Social Development support the other in becoming most fully his/her own with the further defining Education, Wellbeing, Self. We practice and exercise to develop our ability to Community) while using words that have relevance, truly meet the I of the other. It is an obvious truth but openness and appeal toward newcomers and a broader one that merits the light of focus that this practice is also audience (Inclusive Social Development). Additionally, it a joy-bringer and salve to human relationship and makes room for the diversity, multiple disciplines, and development in the broadest sense. An overarching varied professional titles within our field. It also rolls question was: How can we create and shape these social more easily off the tongue! contexts, so that everyone can have a good life and unfold their biography in freedom? This seems an We have a new, interactive website and quarterly extremely relevant question for our time. Newsletter! The new website’s address is

7 inclusivesocial.org. For now the website is in English out more about this work. For now, to whet your and German. I encourage you to visit the site and to link appetite, you can go online and find a copy of a your organization to it. Additionally, a quarterly d o c u m e n t o u t l i n i n g p r i n c i p l e s u n d e r l y i n g Newsletter will be produced and published through the Anthroposophical social therapy, which was put together website. The goal is for this to be in many languages. To by the Working Group for Social Therapy (simultaneously receive the newsletter please sign-up on the website. The released in about 10 languages!). Link: http:// website promises to offer us a place to share our inclusivesocial.org/pdf/ discoveries, questions, insights and research. It will be Thesenpapier%20englisch%20(neu).pdf. just as relevant as we, through our participation, make it. The Anthroposophic Council for Inclusive Social In my reports each year I have tried to share aspects of Development is Us, whether we live and work in what the annual delegate’s meeting is. Clearly it is a Argentina, South Africa, Norway or North America. Our coming together of ‘Us’ but such a diverse Us! Finding door into this Earth-wide sharing is the North American each other, sharing, and deeply listening to tend and Council. I urge you to become or continue being a part grow the circle of warmth around our work remains of this world-wide weaving. center. Bringing that calling into willing action and forward, inclusive and relevant movement is coming to Kimberly Dorn lives at Plowshare, North Hampshire, MA. the fore. Working groups have been formed around 8 She is the North American co-delegate to the key themes: Strengthening the Inner core, the Next International Council of Curative Education and Social Generation, Resources and Publications, Networking, Therapy. Training, Public Impact, and Research and Development. Each of these groups is working to bring their theme forward. I encourage you to look to the website to find

The reader is made familiar with the highly developed Book Review soul -spirits living and working in a purely spiritual atmosphere. Trusting in Spirit - The Challenge Bob introduces eight spirit guides, each of these guides by Bod Woodward have assumed a particular role which can be of greatest enlightenment and assistance to human beings who are Format: softcover searching for a spiritual understanding and support in Publisher: AuthorHouse their daily life. 168 pages Published April 2018 One thing is fundamental by meeting the various characters of six of these spirit guides, namely, the absolute certainty of each of them having spent a former life in a leading capacity. They thereby gathered their life - experiences in different times and locations of the earth, and through these former lives they have gained the ability to share insights into human nature. Book Review by Johannes M. Surkamp MBE, (Long- standing Camphill Coworker) It is fascinating to realize how much help such shared insights have for our present existence. I have been invited by Dr. Bob Woodward to review his latest book, 'Trusting in Spirit - The Challenge'. Let me conclude by saying that I consider this book an important gift to our present age. Everything is presented It will be difficult to do justice to this book which is more with an excellent style and clarity. t h a n a s e q u e l t o h i s p r e v i o u s o n e ( S p i r i t Communications).

8 process in the old mysteries and the structure of the Book Review Catholic Mass with the Act of Consecration. In one chapter he describes how all the senses can be engaged Sources of Religious through the rituals of the Act of Consecration and how Worship this can give us the potential to develop. Apparently, the by Bastian Baan word “hear” appears almost 600 times in the Bible! He tells us how the offering of bread and wine developed Format: paperback through the ages and he raises the question of whether Christ can actually be present during the sacrament or if it Publisher: Floris Books just a symbolic act. He describes that in our time it is very 288 pages important that individuals form communities in complete Published June 22, 2018 freedom. Spiritual beings can connect themselves with such communities and this will help planet Earth to become spiritual. Finally, he speaks about the importance of the unborn and the dead in ritual acts and how the Book Review by Marjan Sikkel Mass can be just as well an offering to the devil as an Bastiaan Baan is a Christian Community priest from offering to God. the Netherlands, who is currently director of the priests’ seminary in Spring Valley, NY. He has written many When I first came to Camphill (Christophorus in Holland) books, including “Lord of the Elements”, “Ways into in 1987, I was part of a generation which wanted to do Christian Meditation” and “Old and New Mysteries”. away with rituals. During my time in Camphill, I have In this book, he explores ritual from the Stone Age to grown to appreciate rituals more and more. Rituals the present day. According to Steiner “the potential to address the whole human being, not just our thinking. gain knowledge ceases when there is no more ritual on This is obvious when working with children, but from my earth” and “if we want to renew culture we need to begin own experience, I can say that it is important for adults with ritual”. In our day and age, we have done away with too. Like many other adults, I needed quite a long time to many rituals or they have become hollow shells with the 'grow into' rituals and to overcome my initial antipathy. original content lost. Baan describes how ritual originates Now I am grateful that I had to attend events that I would in the spiritual world: the hierarchies bring offerings and not have chosen to go to otherwise because this has worship God day and night. People have worshipped opened a whole new world for me! This interesting through the ages either outside, leading to nature and the book, which contains copies of many beautiful pictures, cosmos, or inside, leading inward. Through ritual, we can helped me to understand more about the importance of re-connect with the spiritual world and eventually ritual and how I can connect to ritual acts. become one with the Godhead. This is how we create the Review written by Marjan Sikkel, September 2018 future, the New Jerusalem, where there is no longer a difference between heaven and earth. In this book, he Since leaving Christophorus in 1996, Marjan has been a gives examples of rituals in the Old Testament, Jewish co-worker in Newton Dee Village Community, Scotland. culture and Mithraism. He compares the initiation

POEM

by Fergus Elliott from Camphill Ringwood, England

The leaves with living light Over the land to form Glimmered and winked to me all night, A golden light fell in the dirt I was tired, fit for sleep In leaves of Autumn over darkened earth but a funny thing was told to me so deep, To bear us through a winter night Between the sun and leaves so green To remind us of the summer light Transformed with love to gold has been, I think that this is true you know I could not turn away this time How God entrusts his love to grow To move to sleep to rhythm and rhyme I fell asleep before the dawn It spoke of a coat so light and warm Listening to birds in gentle song.

9 In Memoriam

learn to feel compassion. Once she saw a beggar walking on ice with bare feet and she wept.

She remembered sitting on a lawn as a young woman asking herself: what is reality?

A voice answered: Active love and wakeful striving – this will be reality in your life.

After Marianne had arrived in London 1940/41 she was working as a waitress and had an experience of degradation and the death forces all around.

She had a waking dream of a huge figure of light. Next to it was a diseased arm in which the life forces had gone and only the skeleton could be seen. The light figure said powerfully: “I am the Life” and life flowed back to the skeleton arm and the light figure himself took on the forces of death.

Marianne Gorge Another London experience was when she was in a bus June 16, 1921, Vienna in Oxford Street: everything around her disappeared and October 13, 2018, Aberdeen she was a knight in armour.

I began to get to know Marianne in 1977 and as our Most of us would be happy to have had just one of these friendship developed over the years she shared many of experiences. the deep spiritual experiences she had had in her life. Marianne referred again and again to two lectures of She had a dream in which she was a boy walking along Rudolf Steiner in From Symptom to Reality in Modern the lake shore. She got into a rowing boat and a figure of History. light came across the lake to be her guide. Rudolf Steiner speaks of how in the future human beings She always had knowledge of and trust in the world will have to learn to relate to each other in four different beyond death. ways: • through warmth A favourite teacher died and she told the others: You are • through listening to language to get a sensation only sad for yourselves, not her. of colour After her father died he soon came to her in a dream and • to experience the emotional reactions of others said: I will be with you and help you and you can help in ones breathing me. • through “digesting” each other when freely belonging to a community It took her many years to understand the second part of what he said. Marianne felt that these experiences were like a social sacrament. She said that from a young age she had had two strivings in her life. These activities lead to an enhanced interest of person to person, the quality which was so characteristic of She asked for a wish: to have “wisdom of life”. Marianne.

And she used to imagine the suffering in the world and In a letter she copied out the sentence: Only a genuine 10 concern of each man for his neighbour can bring salvation to mankind in the future – I mean to his community life …….. (Rudolf Steiner).

I saw Marianne for the last time in May. As I tried to leave she clutched my arm: “the world is beautiful – look at the view, the blue in the sky ………”

Cherry How Camphill Clanabogan

Address at the funeral in Aberdeen Every doll or puppet is a pupa. We put our soul-life into by Rev Luke Barr (abridged). it, and a wonderful new butterfly-existence can arise out of it. The doll is an image of the loyal, faithful, trusted In Russia, in central Europe, and in Britain, there are friend; the friend who can listen; our soul-friend. hundreds of dolls that have been made, or whose making was guided by Marianne. Some of these dolls and Marianne was such a friend - to many. She listened puppets are perhaps being held now lovingly in the arms because she was so genuinely interested in you. Not out of children. For puppets and dolls are the most special of curiosity, but out of a deep love for 'all the ways of our play-thing: they are an image of the human being and human soul'. There was no judgement in her listening, they are made for love, and they are made from love - just unending awe before the mystery of the human heart. just as human beings are. The space she created elevated one to a place where one could peel away the layers of self-deception, until there Dolls help us seek our own identity. They listen quietly to was nothing left but the truth - the beautiful truth. us. And so they can help us find and express our dreams. In a way, Marianne helped leave behind her, a legion of It was as if the angels listened through her. As she angelic helpers - her dolls and puppets - who would help listened, her gaze would drift, as if looking into those listen to the children who needed someone to listen to depths, taking in each word as if it was nourishment, them; who would play with them when they needed food and drink which she gave on in supplication to the someone to play with (for play is life-blood to a child); gods. and who would help those children express their dreams, And her listening could be like the critical pupal stage of their embryonic pictures of what their task will be here the larva, leading to transformation in oneself. It was an on earth. initiation; and she was the hierophant again and again. In German, the word for doll is 'Puppe' - and it is also the She listened your soul into eternity: it brought you back word for the English word 'Pupa'. The pupa is the stage into the flow of your life; you felt witnessed; and as if of the cocoon between the larva and the adult. It is a washed in the purifying waters of a ritual. stage of intense transformation. Only creatures which For in Russia, central Europe, and Britain, there are not undergo complete metamorphosis, undergo the pupal only hundreds of dolls whose making was guided by stage. Marianne, but hundreds, even thousands of human souls

11 whose making has been How did she become who she was? In the year of her first guided by Marianne. For Moon Node, she found her way to Sunfield, the home she loved the encounter inspired by , to work with children with with the stranger. Each special needs. In this she found her task. But there was stranger was a cosmos in something far more important which happened to her themselves. And she soon afterwards which she looked upon as the turning loved to journey into the point in her young life. Soon after the War's outbreak, she n e w u n f a m i l i a r was sent to Holloway prison as an 'enemy alien', because landscape of their soul. she was Austrian. For her, prison was her initiation In meeting strangers, and chamber. It was a strangely holy experience. And in the infamously hitching rides following 'open arrest' on the Isle of Man, she found with anyone, well into perhaps a picture of earthly life: earth was an open a d v a n c e d a g e , h e r prison, an exile from the heavens. But it only becomes a conversation brought out hell if one allows it to. We have the divine power to in them long hidden determine whether it will or not. It was a responsibility aspects of themselves which she took completely seriously. She spent 9 months t h r o u g h h e r o w n interned. Prison was the strange womb in her destiny uniqueness. What was this uniqueness? She beheld the which delivered forth the Marianne we knew. world in a way that perhaps all humanity has before we She was a wanderer - like the Son of Man who has no come to the earth - as, one might say, in our unborn state. home. And so the world became her home. She had no It was with unceasing positivity and love. There lived in family of her own, any stranger became her family for the her soul, a huge affirmation and 'yes' to life. She loved duration of the encounter. She wandered over Europe the earth, she loved nature, she loved people. She loved and Russia; she wandered in awe through the soul- these things for themselves, not because of the joy they landscapes of those whom she encountered, never bored; gave to her. and she wandered through the pantries of Camphill, Her openness to strangers attracted generosity in others nibbling at whatever took her fancy. For Marianne, life who would feel impelled in their brief encounter, to take was not like a big meal to be devoured in one go. It was care of whatever she needed. Her capacity to gain entry to be nibbled at here, and there, tasting all possible to any sold-out concert or cultural event was legendary. delights. She loved the unending variety of life's larder! Marianne simply started speaking to people and the She was a free spirit. Young people loved her, because magic of the encounter took care of the details! Her they sensed that simple authenticity in her, which they openness, her lack of boundaries, could upset some. She otherwise find so lacking in the adult world. There was overstepped the boundaries of others and hurt them; but something eternally youthful in her, childlike. It could she suffered from the hurt she may have caused. exasperate some.

Later in life, on her numerous visits to Russia, her unique All her life, she worked with children. She consecrated personality would prompt in people the question as to her task on earth to protecting the sacred space of 'who she was?' Which one of the famous Camphillers childhood. It was the primal pupa for human becoming. was she? Her eyes would twinkle, and she would tell She cultivated in herself childlike perception - like a them, 'Ich bin der grosse Unbekannte' - I am the great virgin soul, and nurtured this in others. With it, she unknown One, and she would laugh. developed an appreciation for everything - as if one experienced it for the first time. She lived mindfulness as Who was this 'unknown one'? Marianne had lived a matter of course, decades before it was invented as a through the most extraordinary period of time in modern therapeutic technique. European history. The spirit of the times in her youth had been apocalyptic. As a young Jew in Vienna when the She did not look backwards. She did not relive the past, Nazis entered Austria, she saw the swift transformation of or talk of past glories, or complain about the state of normal bourgeois society into a death trap. Her things today - but always lived in the moment, and immediate family escaped just in time. Was it despite embracing the future. She always wished to welcome the this, or because of this that she became who she was? new into life. Even at 97 years old, she could hardly believe that death could happen to her, because she had 12 such a joyful, insatiable appetite for life. She knew that seriously enough. she ought to go, but she simply couldn't leave this place Marianne first arrived in Aberdeen, a place whose light of such infinite beauty. For her, nothing was jaded, and air she loved, in the Autumn of 1942. Exactly four nothing was tainted. Everything could be born new again, Moon Nodes later, she takes her leave of this earth, again if one let it. She held no grudges, there was no one with in Aberdeen, again in the crisp autumnal air of whom she still had to make her peace. She looked Michaelmas, and the dying colours of the trees. Who was forward to each new day, as special as if it were this 'great unknown One'? Once, I teased her and told Christmas. her that I had little idea what a Christian actually was. But she was not afraid of death. For one who loved life so Unfazed, she replied immediately: "One who can make much, she was able and ready to relinquish it when the others aware of the Christ." time came. She always saw death as a friend, as a Marianne, this gift of making others aware of the Christ- transition, as a passage home. Death had no dominion in-them, lived in your genius. over her. Neither did fear. Her only fear was that life would become ugly if we did not take our responsibilities

Music and spirituality were around her in her childhood. Both parents were violinists by profession. Her father was injured in the Great War and died when she was two. Born on the solstice as the second of three girls, she grew up surrounded by women, including aunts and a grandmother in London. Her mother was a very spiritual person who did ‘automatic writing’. Monica had a strong connection to her. She attended St. Christophers School, founded by theosophists, a progressive, vegetarian school. Monica was a vegetarian all her life.

Just after leaving school, war intervened and Monica became a ‘land girl’. There she embraced the world outdoors, nature, the seasons, the elements. Fresh air, the sea, the snow, the sun; until the end of her life she needed to feel them, in a brisk walk, and how joyful they made her! The Hebridean Isle of Muck was her beloved holiday destination. She liked to garden and felt sorry for MONICA DORRINGTON flowers in a vase. In her last months, walking around the 20 June 1922 - 21 June 2018 block looking at the wonder of nature’s forms, CO-FOUNDER OF THE RINGWOOD - BOTTON movements and colours sustained her. She loved working SCHOOL with the cows. And having a dog! I think, animals were her favourite people. She was their staunch advocate. But Monica Dorrington felt a great responsibility towards the never in a sentimental way. spiritual world and the future of the earth. She devoted her life to this, through the art of eurythmy. How did she Becoming a teacher in the Waldorf school was what come to the art of eurythmy? Once she saw teachers Monica chose to do. Through her mother’s great friend doing eurythmy in the newly founded Wynstones School , who founded Wynstones School, she [Gloucester]. She felt immediately “as though I had come met the Waldorf school impulse. In she home, and as though I had known and done eurythmy all started the teacher training, just after the war. Yet, she my life.” was not well and on photos she looks utterly drained. It was who took a great interest in her,

13 thought she was too over-conscientious for her age and Maria Rascher, who had recently moved to Camphill and felt “that she is a most valuable person and can make a who was also interested in a new eurythmy school. Dr, great contribution to life.” He sent her to Ascona in Koenig, the founder of Camphill, had, before he died, Switzerland to recuperate, the clinic where Ita Wegman hoped that one day a eurythmy school could be had worked and lived. There she did eurythmy with Frau incorporated in the work of Camphill. These three von Baditz and Margarethe Bockholt. “It was while living impulses seemed to come together, and so the Eurythmy there that I had a profound experience, which is hard to School came about.” speak or write about, but which had to do with eurythmy and education. I think the Eurythmy School was born Camphill provided the place and means for this new there, but it had to wait for a number of years.” Eurythmy School. Monica was 48 years old, exactly halfway through her life, when she was invited by Alex And eurythmy was what she was going to study. With Baum and the Sheiling Community in Ringwood to , whom she had met in London and with whom found, together with Eva Maria Rascher, the much longed she felt a strong connection. Near , not long after for Eurythmy School. It would be embedded in the the war, in a devastated Germany, she lived with Else and community. The students would live and work in the her partner. She spent the weekends with the Mayor of houses with the children, then attend their courses in the Stuttgart. Allegedly he paid for her training as a gesture of afternoons. Monica taught eurythmy to many students thanks to her family who had supported his refugee from all over the world for over four decades. As well as Jewish wife. The German language suited Monica. She the training, an artistic group performed regularly for the liked to speak it also later in life and spoke it to me often children and adults with special needs and their co- in the nursing home. She was never a person of many workers. The yearly ‘Evening for Those who have Died’ words and struggled to express herself clearly. Possibly in was a very special occasion, held dear by all in the German it was easier for her. It was especially the poet community, and was naturally very important to Monica. and seer Novalis who became her guiding star. He wrote As students we always read the lecture: ‘The Dead are about the world she had drawn as a 7-year-old which with us’. Monica was also active as a service holder and was so close to her heart, the world of those who have a Christian Community member. died. His portrait hung in the Eurythmy school hall. It still hangs there. It was tone eurythmy she mainly taught us. She was married to music - she said once not long ago; she was so Monica went back to England and was asked to teach light, quick and nimble in her movements that at the age eurythmy in Elmfield School. And could she also please of 70 we students could hardly keep up with her. Bach’s take on Class 1? She did, with joy. She loved the class ‘Air’ became her signature piece. In her nineties she still teaching. This period she mentioned as having been the performed it, in light and lightness. In concerts her arms best time in her life. Artistic eurythmy she did in Sunfield regularly ‘eurythmicised’ of their own accord. But her in Clent. There George and Mary Adams became very eurythmy movements could also be fierce, and strong as dear friends. Her colleague Molly von Heider also iron in eurythmy. Hers was a powerful presence. The became a close friend. She took another class for 8 years. healing power of eurythmy was certainly active in her. I “It is the most wonderful thing to be a class teacher! …I have never seen somebody heal so quickly from some can truly say that my real came about nasty wounds. Though slightly built, Monica was graceful while teaching the children, and it confirmed my opinion and beautiful with a natural upright bearing well into her that Waldorf education with eurythmy at its heart, is one nineties. She stayed fit, nimble and steady on her feet, of the greatest gifts given to humanity.” climbing fence when she found herself locked out and couldn’t remember the code for the padlock! Then “I felt with ever more urgency the need of a Eurythmy School in a different setting, one in which a Socially Monica was a private person. She had some very complete artistic training is embedded in a stream of close friendships. Her nieces and sisters were important healing education. I then met my future colleague, Eva to her. Some relationships with people around her did

14 not go easy. She could be critical when disagreeing with Written by Margreet Heupers, Monica’s eurythmy student others and perceiving weaknesses around her. A lack of in 1992 and later a co-worker in Ringwood Camphill, awareness, so much needed in this age of the doing artistic eurythmy with Monica and accompanying consciousness soul, could deeply frustrate her. But she her in her last years. The quotes are from a short could be a good listener, and when the community went biography she once wrote and a letter from Cecil through conflicts, several Camphill ‘scape goats’ felt Harwood to her mother. supported by her with her moral uprightness. She had an innovative mind, open to new healing impulses, as long Monica came to live with us in Folly Farm Cottage in as they were true to the spirit. 1974 where, at the invitation of the Sheiling School, Ringwood, I had just moved with my two young Monica’s last years were troublesome for her by a slowly daughters. We were invited to help found a little school increasing forgetfulness, which she could not perceive which was to begin with just 6 pupils and, small as it herself. It was hard for her to accept the decline, stop was, the cottage had rooms to spare and Monica pleaded being a service holder, not drive anymore. The Lantern with me to be allowed to have one of these. To reach the Community supported her for several cottage from the Sheiling one had to years. Eventually she was moved into a d e s c e n d t h e w o o d e d s l o p e o f dementia home, still physically fairly fit. Sticklebirch, then cross a stream (not She was shocked by this experience and unlike a little moat) over a narrow suffered intensely during the last half wooden bridge. These barriers, however year. She could see what dementia modest, were the attraction for Monica. patients really would need instead of She wanted to live in community but ‘being entertained’ as they were. She alone. She spent six years living with us, was so aware of the need of the soul in but so silently, almost invisibly, that we the world around her, and what could be barely noticed her presence at all. My done with eurythmy, art and nature. O, little girls experienced the full privilege to start a farm where all these people of being invited into her room: there was could meet a healing impulse, with a white carpet, a white bed, a harp and animals! Though grateful for the care she Monica’s gracious person standing in a received, Monica found her situation creamy white cloud of mohair and silk. unbearable. Her health declined. The No sound ever came from her room, no day before she died, she said: “Here I am music, reciting of poetry or friendly shut up and there is so much to do in the chatter and she came and went like a world. I have so many new ideas for gentle breeze. For her part she must have eurythmy, very different ideas.” And she been sorely tried by the mounting added: “But not to do myself anymore.” merriment of the growing numbers of children who joined the school as they On 20th June, friends and family gathered round Monica dashed in and out of the cottage and leapt about in the to celebrate her 96th birthday; it was a joyful day filled garden. But there was never a word of complaint and she with warmth and sunshine and for a few hours she could told me in later years how much she had loved her room experience herself once again living in freedom at the – indeed her existence in the cottage in the early years of heart of a loving community. Shortly after midnight her what grew to be Ringwood Waldorf School. Monica had angel said: “Come, you have suffered enough.” Her heart a little car (white, of course) and loved the independence gave up and she crossed quickly. She had ‘let go’. As she this gave her. In all the order and perfection she created had told us often: “Eurythmy is all about letting go.” in her small space, she loved nothing more than to announce that she was setting off on her annual holiday According to Monica the world needs the healing to the Isle of Muck! …and she laughed heartily…and impulse of eurythmy more than ever. returned tanned, rested and radiant.

15 As her friends and colleagues sat together sharing romance set on Exmoor). We enjoyed the story of how memories after the funeral, we heard a number of her one year, during the Shepherds’ Play, just as the former students describe the high standards she set for shepherds were kneeling in greatest reverence before the herself and for everyone she worked with which could, at crib under the holy gaze of Mother Mary, the fluffy head moments, be disheartening, but that they all appreciated, of Lorna Doone emerged from the crib. Her astonishment admired and, without exception, loved her. We had could hardly have been greater than that of the audience! messages from god-children and from former pupils in her classes at Elmfield School. They too loved and Monica was an intensely shy and private person with a respected her – my brother Lucas was one of them. rich meditative life, a being of lightness and air who Monica had an adored and pampered cat, long-haired sought to create beauty and healing in the world but who and pure white of course, which she had named Lorna trod something of a lonely path to maintain her freedom.

Doone (after the heroine in a dramatic 17th century Contributed by Christine Weihs Polyblank Ringwood Waldorf School

The Camphill Correspondence prints six issues per year. Please submit written contributions to [email protected]. We accept written articles, announcements, photographs - or personal ads. Deadline: Nov 25th, Jan 25th, Mar 25th, May 25th, July 25th, Sept 25th Annual Subscriptions: $48 Please make checks payable to Camphill Correspondence. Payments can also be made online via: https://camphillcorrespondence.net/subscribeordonate Office: 2542 Route 66, Chatham, NY 12037 (Camphill Ghent) Phone: (518) 751-0354 (US only). Editor: Adam Hewitt Design: Ralf Homberg Publisher: Nathan McLaughlin Subscriptions: Onat Sanchez-Schwartz Adviser: David Andrew Schwartz

The Dove Logo of the is a symbol of the pure, spiritual principle which underlies the physical human form. Uniting soon after conception with the hereditary body, it lives on unimpaired in each human individual. It is the aim of the Camphill movement to stand for this ‘Image of the Human Being’ as expounded in Rudolf Steiner’s work, so that contemporary knowledge of the human being may be enflamed by the power of love. Camphill Correspondence tries to facilitate this work through free exchange within and beyond the Camphill movement. Therefore, the Staff of Mercury, the sign of communication which binds the parts of the organism into the whole, is combined with the Dove in the logo of Camphill Correspondence.