Associated Germinal Moments from the May 2015 AGM in
Toronto
by Richard Chomko
As a member who hasn’t been to many AGMs lately but
used to go to them 20 years ago, I felt called to this last one partly because
it was happening in my own backyard. However, as I still needed to attend to
the Village Market Friday night and Saturday (where I am the manager), I joined
the proceedings only at 4 pm Saturday.
Reflecting on the weekend, my first intimation of the
conference was seeing strange anthroposophists (i.e. not from around here)
wandering the halls of Hesperus. These arrivals from afar, this convergence,
awoke in me a certain feeling.
Unlike the centrifugal, radiating process of death and
dissolution, this coming together of so many from so far, in a centripetal
gesture, brought a feeling of engendering, of coming into being, that augured
well for the days to follow.
Jumping in at the Jump Gate
For me, the conference proper began with Bert Chase’s
time travel retrospective of mankind’s journey, from the eons of spiritual
antiquity to the post-modern day. All that and a discussion of the being of
Christian Rosenkreutz and his relationship with Rudolf Steiner, over the past
ages of human development. Although Bert’s presentation echoed much that I knew
already, I found it refreshing in its breadth and majesty.
From the Head to the Heart
Then followed Jonah Evans’ talk about practical
Christianity in social life. How do we regard and think about those with whom
we disagree or are in conflict? Do we inwardly dismiss them and separate
ourselves from them? Or can we be willing to stay with the pain of the conflict
and strive to love the person in spite of our disagreement?
Jonah has been the Christian Community priest here in
Toronto now for nearly two years. As a regular participant in one of his study
groups I find that he has a unique ability to bring these first principles of
Christianity down to a personal level.
Art-ography
Further underlining the theme of “making it personal”
was the series of artistic biography exercises, interspersed with the talks.
These involved working in groups of three to identify difficult situations each
of us had experienced in our relationship with others in the society and
distilling those into descriptions, key words, and finally, “sentences”.
Another part of this was a process of two people
working together to draw a visual image inspired by what they saw in the soul
gesture of the third person, as illuminated by the biographical experience he
or she had chosen to explore. A selection of the resulting images accompany
this report. And the prose and poetic distillations (the "sentences")
of some of the participants follow at the end.
I can't comment on the experience of the collaborative
art since I was in the only group with two instead of three people. But I felt
the willingness to deal with these relationship shadows was appropriate,
bracing and lent a certain gravitas to the conference.
At the conclusion of the process, Regine Kurek asked
us to combine our selected key words into “a sentence”; I joked that, like in a
court, the “sentencing” comes at the end.
You’re With Me
Saturday night’s Eurythmy gave me a new appreciation
of the colour-fringing effect of after-image colours which appeared to my gaze
at the edges of the strongly coloured Eurythmists moving against a dark
background. Somehow I’d never noticed that before. And of course I also enjoyed
the Eurythmy, as Eurythmy.
I was glad to be able to add this observation about
colour fringing to my (never before published) General Theory of Veil Eurythmy.
According to this theory, one of the ways in which Eurythmy works is by by
overloading what I’ll call the world constructing engine of the mind, leading
to a glitch in the matrix — a partial,
momentary, breakdown of maya, of the illusory world of appearances.
It’s like I’m looking, I’m watching, I’m trying to
follow all the movements, all the changes — the moving Eurythmists, the flowing
veils, but I just can’t keep with it all and it doesn’t fall into any pattern
that I can call up placeholders for from my mental library. There comes a
moment in what I’ll call “good Eurthymy” when I become aware that the mental
picture I construct of the world that’s “out there”, is fraying a little at the
edges. And the awareness of the fraying reminds me that the world I “see” is a
mental construct. Am I the only one who experiences this?
The digital video analogy of this effect I’m
describing would be a too-low bit rate (not enough data space) resulting in
“macro blocking”, or the inability of the system to resolve detail in a scene
in which a lot is changing and moving.
The Sentencing
So, in conclusion, here are some of the “sentences”
from the biography sessions:
“You are brave — let go of your constricting self —
connect with energetic compassion and patience to your radiant self which is
revealed in the world.”
“It is astonishing! To be intimately human is being
one in and with the world.”
“Awakening to insight through embracing coherence,
leads to overarching understanding.”
“Each heart’s darkness and light brings freedom for
love.”
“Be brave in time to love one another.”
“May the other enliven and awaken me to perception and
insight.”
“By openness we resolve karma where light in darkness
meets all human in one world”
“I live in the stream of time
I live in the present
Relating to another feeling
Express yourself
Is there judging
Remembering self to behold the others
New light in my darkness”
“Friends in high places the key to interpersonal
conflict with friends.”
“Let the mood
breathe
Release the intricate
journey to now.
Open now out,
way out.
Behold the other.”
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