Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

world until the arrival of the first white settlers, as distilled by EdwardWarren. David Mitchell then considers one of the Americas’ primary myths,“Huitzilopochtli,” the feathered serpent, as a key to understanding Americanconsciousness. An old American folktale “The Ramapo Salamander,” witha strange blend of Native American and European settlers, geology, andRosicrucianism yields an esoteric glimpse at America, with the help of DavidAdams.What does the “body” of America suggest? Four articles look atAmerica geographically. David Mitchell presents an expanded version ofhis talk at Wilton in 1997, “The Etheric Geography of North America,” abroad view culminating with exercises one can do to better understandone’s particular geographic region. Philip Thatcher pays attention to thegeographical influence of western Canada in “North of the Border.” JoeGlosemeyer explores the geological, geographical, and cultural dimensionsof Oklahoma. Then Hilmar Moore sets a geographical background for wavesof interaction between Native and European, Mexican and Anglo, Catholicand Protestant in neighboring Texas.How do the music and the art of America reveal some of its character?Michael Winship notices specific qualities of “Early Sacred Music of NewEngland,” as they reflect traits of soul of the early American settlers. TomDews characterizes America’s improvisational music, particularly blue- grassand jazz. J. Leonard Benson, through attention to the Hudson River School’sLuminist Movement, 1850–1875, considers the possibility of a particularly“American Light” in painting. Then David Adams explores “What IsAmerican in American Art?” in an arcing spread from that Hudson RiverSchool through architecture, sculpture, and abstract expressionism to popart and minimalism, with illuminating perspective.A series of seven articles explores the emerging American mind asrevealed and evolved through its literature. John Wulsin first articulatesColeridge’s influence on two preacher-predecessors who stir the pot; then hefocuses on essential polarities and developments in Ralph Waldo Emerson’sthinking as reflected in both his public essays and private journals. GertrudeReif Hughes looks at Emerson’s epistemology, especially in relation to RudolfSteiner’s. Thornton Wilder illumines the process of forming an Americanlanguage in three articles, focusing first on Herman Melville, then on HenryDavid Thoreau, and finally on Emily Dickinson. Christy MacKaye Barnestouches on particular linguistic traits of a number of our writers, from WaltWhitman through Carl Sandburg. Michael Miller contemplates the art andmystery in the lyrics of the song, “All Along the Watchtower” by Bob Dylan,xii