Kairos Institute
Healing in a World of Need
Summer Residency with Bernd Ruf
July 7-12, 2024
Come join us to explore the relationship between trauma and spirit. All are welcome.
- About The Residency
- About Bernd Ruf
- Emergency Pedagogy with Bernd Ruf: Traumatology and Spirituality
- Trauma as Wound
- Trauma as Borderline Experience
- Trauma as Threshold/Near Death Experience
- Encounter with the "shadow" (Jung) and the "shadow" as Trauma experience
- The Paradoxical Feelings of Guilt and Shame after Trauma Experience
- Trauma and Karma
- Forgiveness in Trauma Reconciliation and Forgiveness as Liberation
- Post-Traumatic Growth and Healing
- The Red Cross and the Rosicrucian Cross
- Christian Rosenkreutz and the Dimensions of Spirituality
- Afternoon faculty: Laura Geilen (Clowning), Karin Meadows (Spacial Dynamics®), Monica Talaya (Music Therapy), Martha Loving (Painting Therapy), Michaelann Murphy (Animal Therapy), Carsten Callesen (Eurythmy), Elizabeth Sustick, RN ("Einreibung"), Maria Ver Eecke (Soul Care and Healing Eurythmy)
- Opening Night Keynote Address with Bernd Ruf on July 7th: "Parzival Center Karlsruhe: A Model Sets a Precedent - How Anthroposophical trauma education helps children and young people to process their traumas"
- Public Lecture with Bernd Ruf on July 10th: "Pedagogy on the Edge: Aspects of Emergency Educational Interventions in War and Crisis Regions"
- Participants and Kairos students will receive a Certificate of Completion
- Training model is recognized by the Emergency Pedagogical Center in Karlsruhe for volunteer work in international and domestic crisis interventions
- Fee: $995
Bernd Ruf is a teacher and Waldorf educator as well as co-founder of the Free Waldorf School and the Parzival Center in Karlsruhe, which he has also managed since 2003. As part of his work as executive director of the “Friends of Waldorf Education” in 2006, he founded the emergency educational crisis interventions in war and disaster regions. In addition to the numerous international operations management, there are also speaker activities at home and abroad.
“Traumas are extreme borderline experiences on the border of life and death. A wound is an opening through which heaven and hell can reveal themselves. It is a standing on a threshold that is often described as a near-death experience. This threshold can be overcome through meditative practice approach. Then the threshold experiences occur self-selected, voluntary and prepared. In trauma, the break-in of new dimensions of perception into consciousness occurs involuntarily and unprepared. A primal fear of destruction arises. The previous self-image and worldview are shattered.
Traumas can destroy a person, but if dealt with appropriately they can also lead to personal development. They cannot be understood without the dimension of spirituality.
With anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner described scientific methods of expanding consciousness that can expand psychotraumatology to include the dimension of spirituality.”
What is the spiritual secret of the wound? Why is trauma a near-death threshold experience?
What is the relationship between trauma and karma?
When is trauma truly overcome spiritually?
- Trauma as Wound
- Trauma as Borderline Experience
- Trauma as Threshold/Near Death Experience
- Encounter with the "shadow" (Jung) and the "shadow" as Trauma experience
- The Paradoxical Feelings of Guilt and Shame after Trauma Experience
- Trauma and Karma
- Forgiveness in Trauma Reconciliation and Forgiveness as Liberation
- Post-Traumatic Growth and Healing
- The Red Cross and the Rosicrucian Cross
- Christian Rosenkreutz and the Dimensions of Spirituality
- Afternoon faculty: Laura Geilen (Clowning), Karin Meadows (Spacial Dynamics®), Monica Talaya (Music Therapy), Martha Loving (Painting Therapy), Michaelann Murphy (Animal Therapy), Carsten Callesen (Eurythmy), Elizabeth Sustick, RN ("Einreibung"), Maria Ver Eecke (Soul Care and Healing Eurythmy)
- Opening Night Keynote Address with Bernd Ruf on July 7th: "Parzival Center Karlsruhe: A Model Sets a Precedent - How Anthroposophical trauma education helps children and young people to process their traumas"
- Public Lecture with Bernd Ruf on July 10th: "Pedagogy on the Edge: Aspects of Emergency Educational Interventions in War and Crisis Regions"
- Participants and Kairos students will receive a Certificate of Completion
- Training model is recognized by the Emergency Pedagogical Center in Karlsruhe for volunteer work in international and domestic crisis interventions
- Fee: $995
Afternoon Workshops
You will select one of these when you register.
With Laura Geilen
“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct.” -Carl Jung
While puppetry, circus arts and clowning by themselves are not therapy, the benefits they bring can be deeply therapeutic and transformative. Through these playful arts children can be empowered, finding new ground, resilience and joy with which to meet the world.
Puppets - Puppets offer a safe place to start when exploring ways to reach young children with trauma and emotional issues. Children will often engage with puppets with abandon. They will speak to (or for) the puppets candidly, offering us a way into the child’s interior life.
Circus Arts - Circus arts, in their full range, increase and support many important developmental movement, sensory and social needs: bilateral coordination, muscle and core strength, midline crossing abilities, brain and body balancing, courage, flexibility, focus, self esteem and communication skills. Building on small, incremental successes children can learn to set realistic goals and achieve them!
Clowning - Clowns have big emotions, big hearts and great empathy. They mess up, make mistakes, but are eternally optimistic. They remind us of what it is to be human. Clowns are simple, vulnerable and naive. Because we recognize ourselves in clowns we continually forgive their transgressions (and thereby our own). Encouraging one’s own failings and playing with them joyfully is the basis of clowning. Healing through the acceptance of who we are is what drives this art - an art that encourages us to be present to our own shadows and the shadows of life. As teachers, parents and therapists, we can fortify ourselves tremendously by accessing our inner clown and the clown’s outlook.
In this class we will lightly dabble in these 3 healing realms so naturally disguised as fun. You will leave with new tools for your classroom or practice.
Please wear comfortable clothing for moving and bring a pair of socks, a bandana or a hanky for making a simple puppet.
Laura Geilen
Laura Geilen studied dance at the Boston Conservatory of Music, started a family and took a degree in Human Development from Leslie University. She completed the Curative Education and Social Therapy course while living in a Camphill community. She has training certificates in childbirth education, Spacial Dynamics, CircusYoga and clowning. She has taught movement education and circus arts in Waldorf schools and therapeutic movement in Camphill for 20 years. She runs a number of circus arts summer programs and leads clowning workshops in many settings as a member of the team of Nose to Nose of North America. In all her work she enjoys bringing people of all ages and abilities a renewed experience of their creativity, authenticity and aliveness through the transformative power of play.
We will be working with cultivating the courage to care through an introduction to the rhythmical application of therapeutic oils (Einreibung), requiring a relaxed warm hand that can "breathe".
Students are asked to bring: 2 bath towels, a Hot Water Bottle and cover, clean wool socks, and a 'practice" jacket to use over the clothes when we are working with the Einreibung and other care measures.
Elizabeth Sustick
KAIROS II
MUSICAL IMPROVISATION AS A THERAPEUTIC MEANS TO WORK THROUGH TRAUMA
We will explore improvisation in melody, harmony, rhythm and the voice as a pathway to freeing trapped trauma in the three soul-forces of thinking, feeling and willing.
With simple, easily playable, beautifully sounding instruments, we seek expression of different soul states, moods, and emotions, to bring about inner movement, release and harmonization.
With the most intimate instrument, our voice, we finally allow the vibrations of sound to stream through and out of the body.
Monica Talaya
Monica Talaya completed the Dorion School of Anthroposophical Music Therapy (AMT) in 2005, after her training as a Certified Music Practitioner. Since then, she has worked as an AMT with different populations, age groups and in varied settings, most consistently in the Camphill Communities. She also teaches the lyre to children (from 5 years old onward) and adults in groups and individually.
Monica has given presentations about AMT and has lead courses and workshops for early childhood teachers and parents of young children about the importance of the ‘mood of the fifth’, providing an in-depth experience and understanding of the different stages of a child’s musical development and needs. She wishes to inspire parents for and teaches the singing of lullabies.
Earlier in her life she trained to be a kindergarten- and later a special education teacher and raised her own five children.
More Course Information Coming Soon
Karin Meadows
Working with the Universal Laws of Light and Darkness in drawing and painting as developed by Liane Collot d’Herbois facilitates healing from trauma, bringing balance and harmony to the soul.
In this medical therapeutic method, our focus will be on balancing the upper pole of Light, our Nerve/Sense system, with the lower pole of Darkness, our Metabolic/Digestive system using charcoal drawing.
Martha Loving
Martha Loving, an Artist, Educator, and Astrologer, trained in The Netherlands with Liane Collot d’Herbois in Light, Darkness and Color in Painting Therapy. She teaches art and has been doing painting therapy in Waldorf Schools, Camphill, and private practice in the USA for 30 years and is adjunct faculty at Kairos. Martha is a weaver of many things, an image maker using watercolor, photography, printmaking, and collage. She creates Star Chart Talismans™ by commission incorporating astrological natal charts in 2D, or in jewelry using gemstones and
sacred number.
Curative agriculture-the healing capacities of the animal/human relationship:
In this course you will begin to understand the healing capacities of the animal/human relationship. We will observe and work with a variety of farm animals and explore how the group soul of the animal relates to the temperament and needs of the children.
All people, especially those who have experienced trauma, benefit from forming safe trusting relationships with animals while they increase confidence, self worth, and a sense of purpose.
We will engage in simple and practical ways to incorporate meaningful work surrounding animal care. We will focus on the rhythm of nature as a healing force and the life of the animal in the context of the cycle of the seasons. Discussions will include how to integrate animals as healers in the realms of thinking, feeling and willing life. We will focus on the healing effects of biodynamic agriculture and the senses, particularly, the sense of well being, touch, balance, and self movement. We will also consider how domestic pets and wild animals can positively influence the healing process of the traumatized child. We will visit the therapeutic animals on Earth and Sky Farm Community and Temple Wilton Community Farm (both locations are within 2 miles from High Mowing and transportation will be coordinated)
Participants should come dressed appropriately for the weather and farm conditions.
Michaelann Murphy
Michaelann Murphy is a biodynamic farmer, Waldorf educator, and founder of Earth and Sky Farm Community. She holds a masters degree in Waldorf Education, and her teaching certification encompasses early childhood through high school. She is an experienced educator, having taught nursery, kindergarten, and grades children in a number of Waldorf and private schools. She is the prior director of several early childhood centers and farm based education programs. In addition to teaching, Michaelann has served in Waldorf schools as pedagogical chair, a member of governance groups, and as an early education mentor. Michaelann has long held educational circles and studies for the benefit of adults in community, through movement, parent education, therapeutic agricultural activities, and teacher enrichment. As a trained and experienced biodynamic farmer, she is passionate about creating and guiding programs for the healing of the earth and the therapeutic effects of agriculture and nature in both children’s and adult’s lives.
The Art of Movement - inspired remedial and therapeutic practices.
Trauma has a polarizing effect on a person(s) ability to feel safe in themselves and the world at large. One polarity (but there are many), goes towards a gesture of condensing, that of hardening, where the soul/physical becomes fixed and entrapped. The other polarity goes towards a gesture of dispersing, of loosening, and becoming lost from the world.
The aim of this workshop is to explore, discover and practice movement inspired therapeutic modalities, with the intent to support the individual who has experienced trauma in the past, the present and (the future).
To provide a supportive protective gesture, so that the individual may find the place or rather the space ‘in-between’ the polarities encountered.
The practical skill activities, practices and applications presentenced in this workshop are primarily inspired out of the research and practice of the art of eurythmy/eurythmy therapy, and Curative and Remedial Educational approaches.
Carsten H Callesen
Over the course of the last 35 years, Carsten has lived and worked with children, youth, and adults with developmental disabilities in Camphill communities in Scotland, England, and the United States. In true Camphill style, he has tried his hand at almost everything. He has carried responsibilities as a houseparent, workshop leader, teacher, administrator, counselor and therapist. Carsten holds a Bachelor of Arts in the Art of Eurythmy and holds a diploma in Eurythmy Therapy.
He currently lives at Camphill Special School where his overall responsibility and focus over the past ten years has become more directed towards the medical and therapeutic field. He serves the community as Director of Medical and Therapeutic Services, is a licensed EMT.
Carsten is a faculty member in the Camphill Academy (Curative Education) and adjunct faculty member of Transdisciplinary Healing Education Program, Antioch University. A motto he lives by is that in life we find a true path of learning and he continues to be a therapist at heart, where the listening ear is at the core.
