Renewal Courses 2017 update
Renewal Courses 2017 in Wilton, NH Week One: June 25-30 Week Two: July 2-7 We are looking forward to another exciting summer of Renewal Courses on the beautiful campus of High Mowing School in Wilton, New Hampshire. Renewal Courses are created with you in mind, offering a special time for renewal and an opportunity to deepen your connection to Anthroposophy. Should finances be an issue, please remember that we offer: special rates for practicing Waldorf teachers payment plans group discount of $125/person if 2 or more from a community sign up at the same time. early registration $50 tuition discount through March 30 We hope to see you this summer! Please help us spread the word by forwarding this flyer to your friends and colleagues. View the Renewal Brochure. Questions? Contact renewal@centerforanthroposophy.org or phone (603) 654-2566. Good Wishes for a beautiful Spring! Lisl Hofer, Renewal Courses Manager Karine Munk Finser, Renewal Courses Coordinator
Renewal Brochure 2017!
We are excited to announce our 2017 Renewal Courses, with an international line-up of stellar instructors from around the world.
CfA Co-sponsoring Eurythmy Spring Valley performance
The Center is proud to co-sponsor with the Association of Waldorf schools of North America the unique Eurythmy Spring Valley performances on March 24th, 2017 at the Redfern Arts Center in Keene, NH. Please see the posters below for more details… We hope you can come join us!
2019 Worldwide Celebrations of the 100th Anniversary of the Waldorf Movement are under way
PLEASE JOIN US IN PREPARATIONS FOR THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION! The Waldorf100 initiative was launched in autumn 2014 at a conference of the International Conference of the Waldorf Education Movement in Israel. In the meantime, many friendly institutions have joined the idea. For a brief history of the Waldorf Movement please click here. The forthcoming 100th anniversary offers a unique opportunity to further develop pedagogy for our century in a global exchange. In order to strengthen mutual perception and networking, a wide range of projects and actions are to take place, in schools and kindergardens, regionally and across borders. These projects will make visible how the Waldorf education cross cultural, ideological, economic and social boundaries. The impulses from the institutions around the world are a key element here. We look forward to exciting project ideas – nothing is too small, nothing is too big, nothing too simple and nothing too complex. Break with us in the second century Waldorf school. Join us and make Waldorf100 a world-wide experience. http://www.waldorf-100.org/
Newsletter Winter 2017
“Renewal” is an ongoing theme at the Center for Anthroposophy, and it means many things to us -especially so this year. For readers familiar with our work, “Renewal” is well known as the name of the popular one-week courses we offer each summer. This year we will be honoring Karine Munk Finser, founding Coordinator of this signature program, with a new scholarship fund in her name-plus a recently announced challenge gift-as part of this year year’s annual appeal. Other gestures of “renewal” are described in connection with the Center’s other programs, including Foundation Studies and the Waldorf High School Teacher Education Program. Finally, we cast our eye over the health and livelihood of the Waldorf high school movement worldwide. Read – and be renewed! Douglas Gerwin, Director Center for Anthroposophy Dateline Goungzhou, China: Tuning in to Social Consciousness Torin Finser, freshly returned from his latest visit to China, reports on his work with a new group of prospective and practicing Waldorf teachers. Express yourself completely, then keep quiet. Be like the forces of nature: when it rains, there is only rain; when the clouds pass, the sun shines through. If you open yourself to the Tao, you are at one with the Tao and you can embody it completely. If you open yourself to insight, you are at one with insight and you can use it completely. If you open yourself to loss, you are at one with loss and you can accept it completely. Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place. — from the Tao Te Ching Traveling in a foreign country always affords opportunities to open oneself to new experiences, as was the case during my week in Goungzhou in early January. Of the many sights and sounds of southern China, I have just time to share two regarding the leadership training I did for representatives of the 26 Waldorf schools and teacher education centers. One arises from sense impressions, one from insight into the people I had the honor to work with that week. 1. In trainings I do in the USA there is always much to do in terms of developing a sense for group dynamics and collective responsibility. Not so in China. When at a meal, the food is served in common, and while those more capable with chop sticks get more opportunities, there is as much attention to the “other” as to oneself. One rarely orders a personal plate of food, and if one does, it is immediately shared. Likewise, I asked for social eurythmy to begin and end each day as we do in organizational courses at Renewal. They apologized that all they could find was a “regular” school eurythmist. Well, I had no need to worry — she grasped the few suggestions I made with alacrity, and the 76 people in the large circle were soon moving with grace and charm. Bean bags were passed out and collected without any direction, space was made for a late entrant without comment, and there was an unusual sense of moving at the same tempo, even though many had not done any of the exercises before! (And my gifted new colleague was anything but regular in terms of schools in the USA; she is a eurythmy teacher in a 1-8 grade school with 900 students.) 2. The second experience had to do with insights and “keeping quiet”. I have worked with translators in Korea, India, Nepal, and many European countries, but this time I was especially aware of the spaces in between my thoughts. Something seemed to grow as I repeatedly listened to words I had uttered moments before that were now incomprehensible. What had I really said, and what were the participants actually hearing? In those spaces, I learned I had to lose my ideas and find them again on a new basis, express myself and then be utterly quiet. Often, something entirely new came to me out of that place of Nothingness. But then there was a gift that met me each day after a talk: within minutes of finishing, and then throughout the workshops and the rest of each day, the participants used the new concepts, phrases, and insights as if they had been “wearing” them for years. They stepped into the new concepts with lightning speed, assimilated the essence, and put it all to work in practical situations. In this and many other ways, I was astounded at the inner flexibility and receptivity to Waldorf education and Anthroposophy in China. Some have commented with concern on the rapid growth of biodynamic agriculture and Waldorf education throughout the country, but I was reminded that all things grow in proportion to “readiness”. If the soul is prepared (sometimes in the most curious ways through deprivation), all things are possible. Images from Torin Finser’s latest visit to China, including an impressive school assembly space, the high rise where Waldorf education is taught, and the author relaxing with his local host. Dateline Wilton, NH: Renewal Course Listings for Summer 2017 The new line-up for this summer’s Renewal program is out! Karine Munk Finser, Coordinator of this series of week-long courses, invites you to sign up early for this popular program. Dear Friends, In our striving to recognize one another, we are sometimes granted a glimpse of the divine shining through the others’ presence in ways as simple as the way they tread the earth. This recognition calls upon our deepest ability to love, in which what was previously hidden in others becomes visible, what was inner becomes outer. Such moments of recognition constitute, too, the basis for healing. As we welcome you to our 18th year of Renewal Courses, it is our hope that you will find not only great teachers but also destiny friends and even healing encounters. The times we live in demand nothing less than the opportunity to meet one another and allow ourselves to recognize the passion in our own
Donations to CFA Renewal Scholarship Fund Will Be Matched
We are thrilled to report that a generous donor has agreed to match up to $20,000 of all donations made this year to our Karine Munk Finser Renewal Scholarship Fund.
Introducing Renewal 2017!
Renewal Courses 2017 in Wilton, NH Week I: Sunday, June 25th to Friday, June 30th Week II: Sunday, July 2nd to Friday, July 7th Dear Friends, Welcome to Renewal Courses 2017! With an international line-up of stellar instructors from around the world, these two weeks of five-day retreats are for Waldorf teachers, administrators, and those seeking personal rejuvenation and social renewal through anthroposophical study, artistic immersion, good food, and good fun. Please sign up early to secure a bed on campus. In addition to single and double rooms on campus, local community homes support our housing needs with quiet rooms nearby. Detailed course descriptions, registration, financial aid, housing, and meal plan information are available here. Please share this information with your friends, colleagues, mailing lists, and social media pages. Thank you! Download the Renewal 2017 poster. Questions? Contact renewal@centerforanthroposophy.org or phone (603) 654-2566. On behalf of the Center for Anthroposophy, Lisl Hofer, Renewal Courses Manager Karine Munk Finser, Renewal Courses Coordinator
Newsletter Autumn 2016
With the launch of a new school year, the Center for Anthroposophy begins a year-long self-study in preparation for the renewal of its membership
Newsletter Spring/Summer 2016
In our culture, it is customary to think of the 21 years landmark as coming of age — a time beyond which one focuses on life more as a full adult. As an institution dedicated to the education of adults, the Center for Anthroposophy, along with its affiliated program at Antioch University New England, is celebrating several landmarks of full adulthood this year. In this issue we focus on three of them
Newsletter Winter 2016
Waldorf education acts as antidote to many ailments of our times: anxiety and depression in children, stress and exhaustion of adults, perhaps even extremism and violence among young fanatics.
In this issue of Center & Periphery we explore some of the healing powers inherent in this education, as well as offering updates on programs run by the Center for Anthroposophy intended to remedy some of these ailments.
