Rudolf Steiner's Vision for the Future - Anthroposophical Society in ...

upon which the city was built. We fashioned a
‘fire’ being out of sandstone, and the African
drummers beat out their rhythms into a powerful
earth opening that sent healing forces into
the community. From this experience we knew
that our young people could become completely
engaged in the act of transforming their
community and, consequently, themselves. As
we began our work during the summer of
2010, we became aware of the emergence of
a different gesture, a sense that ‘somethings’
or ‘someones’ were gathered around us, above
us. When it also became evident that our
sandstone sculpture was to become an expression
for the ‘seed of renewal’, a certain spirit
recollection arose to a time of nearly twentyfive
years ago when Janet McGavin had taken
the “Candle on the Hill” and had moved from
Camphill to Detroit to take up her work with the
Barnabas Project and plant her garden. At her
funeral a couple of years later, Janet was
recognized for the etheric seed (life force) that
she had planted and by which the city could
begin its process of healing. A process that is
fundamental to curative education: Healing
Through The Sheaths.
But what of the heart, what of the soul of
the community? Where in this process of healing
will communities of diverse backgrounds
and interests come together? Will our young
ever be able to ‘see through the eyes of the
other’? Can we build a home for our new
consciousness, a ‘light house’ to nurture the
future star child? And where will we find the
new pathways of work in order to fulfill our
calling?
These are the next set of questions as we
move towards a phase of our work that will
touch into the soul of the city. And so for the
summer of 2011, we have set our sights on
an abandoned house over whose boarded
windows we have painted a deep blue and
wrote poetry inspired by our youth. We are
proposing to purchase the house and turn it
into a pre-school/neighborhood center for
children and parents in the community. At the
same time, we are envisioning a national/international
youth conference that will bring
young people together from different countries
and all walks of life and pair them up with city
youth who will be employed in our summer
projects which will include land clearing and
house demolition, urban gardening, home
repair and weatherization and the social and
community arts. We are working on an
imagination that will explore ‘a new rites of
passage’ for young people in their navigation
through our culture, an imagination that is
designed and inspired by the deepest ideals
and yet confronts and does something about
the practical realities of daily life as we deal
with a dying culture. Detroit is a threshold city
whose moment is at hand. It is a place that is
ripe for the new work/new culture as described
by Frithjof Bergmann and others. No
one wants to miss that moment, because the
time is now.
[Forwarded by Leslie Loy from WeStrive.org]
Bart Eddy
first issue 2011 • 91