January/February 2015

As long as one atom is there which the human be-ing has not worked through with his forces, the human task on earth is not yet completed. ... His task is to transform the inanimate into a great work of art.

Rudolf Steiner. Origin and Goal of the Human Being, Lecture XVIII

And the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not. Lisa Steuck

Any additions or changes, please let Sandra Stoddard know: sandrastoddard@gmail.com +44(0)1224 733415

Becoming 98Mary Hobson, Simeon Houses ............................ 18 April

Becoming 96Jack Knight, Simeon Houses ......................... 9 September

Becoming 95Hazel Straker, Stroud` ............................................ 6 AprilLenie Seyfert-Landgraff, Clanabogan ........................ 8 July

Becoming 94Margit Engel, Öschelbronn .............................. 19 JanuaryMarianne Gorge, Simeon Houses ......................... 16 June

Becoming 93Monica Dorrington, Ringwood ............................. 20 JuneEleanor Shartle, Kimberton Hills .....................10 October

Becoming 92Irma Roehling, Camphill Farm, Hermanus ............. 27 April

Becoming 91Elizabeth Patrzich, Simeon Houses .................. 30 JanuaryGeoffrey Bell, Simeon Houses .....................22 December

Becoming 90Grizel Davidson, Newton Dee ............................. 29 JuneSabine Bertsche, Kimberton Hills ...................... 19 AugustMuriel Valentien, Winterbach ........................... 30 AugustMarta Frey, Botton Village ........................... 29 SeptemberJean Surkamp, Ochil Tower......................... 24 NovemberBrigitte Köber, Rütihubelbad near Berne ........7 DecemberTamar Urieli, Camphill Kyle.........................25 December

Becoming 85Marianne Sander, Stourbridge .......................... 25 JanuaryFransiska Steinruck, Kimberton Hills .............. 15 FebruaryMichael Schmundt, Markus Gemeinschaft ............ 10 JuneGerda Holbek, Camphill Schools ......................... 18 JuneElla van der Stok, Thornbury .................................. 24 JulyBettie Edwards, Hapstead, Devon ................. 4 SeptemberErika Nauck, Newton Dee .......................... 11 SeptemberRenate Sleigh, West Coast Village, S.Africa ............. 3 Dec.

Becoming 80Berna Bosch, Hermanus .................................... 6 JanuaryWalter Barbour, West Coast Village .................. 3 FebruaryFreddy Dorflinger, Basel ................................ 18 FebruaryEva Maria Rascher, Lake District, England ..........13 MarchMichael Steinke, Berlin ......................................28 MarchPat Schofield, Thornbury ....................................31 MarchEdelgard Übelacker, Weinstein ............................. 28 May

Ita Bay, Heiligenberg .............................................. 1 JuneWera Levin, Überlingen.......................................... 8 JuneSaila Roihu, Sylvia Koti, Finland .......................7 OctoberAlexander Krafft, West Coast Village ...................... 21 JulyIlse Jackson, Hapstead, Devon ............................... 23 JulyAira Tirron, Sylvia Koti ........................................... 27 JulyHerta Hoy, Kimberton Hills .......................... 8 SeptemberAlma Stroud, Botton Village ........................ 29 SeptemberSaila Roihu, Sylvia Koti, Finland .......................7 OctoberEllen Klockner, Milton Keynes .................... 13 November

Becoming 75Jean Vaughn, Kimberton Hills .......................... 19 JanuaryMichael Woods, Grange ................................ 19 FebruaryAnn Richmond, Botton Village ............................... 4 AprilGabriele Macke, Lehenhof ................................... 22 MayIlsabe Muller, Lehenhof .......................................... 1 JuneHeide Hoffmann, Ringwood .............................7 OctoberSigrid Fulgosi, c/o St.Prex ................................. 12 AugustGillian Brand, The Mount ................................. 15 August

Becoming 70Gordon King, Newton Dee .............................. 12 JanuaryRobert Hughes, Botton Village ......................... 21 JanuaryArnkjell Ruud, Vidaråsen ................................. 4 FebruaryUrsula Treiber, Lehenhof .................................. 5 FebruaryFrank Arø, Vidaråsen ........................................ 6 FebruaryKarin Medboe, Edinburgh .............................. 15 FebruaryPaivi Lappalainen, Dornach .................................5 MarchLieselotte Liebeck, Sellen ...................................10 MarchDorothee Bakowski, Lehenhof ............................. 22 AprilChris Everard, Lehenhof ....................................... 23 AprilGay van der Westhuizen, Hermanus Farm ............ 24 MayAstrid Åkerholm, Vallersund Gård ........................ 13 JuneVreni Glur, Glencraig ........................................... 16 JuneJilly Mary Robinson, Newton Dee ......................... 11 JulyAngelika Monteux, Camphill Schools ................. 2 AugustLynn Schatzberg, Kimberton Hills ....................... 9 AugustSibylle Schumann, Berlin .................................. 10 AugustRosa Spichiger, Mourne Grange........................ 19 AugustHeide Haase, Hausenhof .................................. 21 AugustJohn Baum, Hogganvik ..................................... 24 AugustAnne Knudsen, Vallersund Gård ................. 14 SeptemberTessa Morris, Botton Village ........................ 18 SeptemberBjørg Jensen, Hogganvik .................................10 OctoberMarie Ashley, Stourbridge ...............................27 OctoberSila Penttonen, Tapola, Finland ..................... 6 NovemberAlan Severance, Stroud ............................... 24 NovemberJohn Henry Wilson, Botton Village ...............26 December

Congratulations to Scottie Smith of Clanabogan who celebrated his 70th birthday on 3 September 2014.

Celebratory Birthdays 2015

ContentsDevelopmental dilemmas Andrew Plant .........2The phoenix Richard Shaw .............................2A typical meeting at the North Regional

Forum Mark Dexter ....................................3Three months at the Peaceful Bamboo Family

in Vietnam Jacqueline Grüner ....................3Carefulness and beauty

Jacqueline and Andreas Tirler ......................6Coming home – at last: from Ithaca to Hué,

a journey with Ulysses to Vietnam Andres Pappe ..............................................7

Our trip to the heart of Vietnam Nadja Jiquet ..9Obituary: Paula Alona Lindenberg .................10News from the Movement:

Camphill Foundation’s World Wide Weave is on the road! Peter Bateson .......................12News from the West Midlands Eurythmy Association Maren Stott and Rita Kort ..........13Camphill Dialogue 2014 Hedda Smith-Hald .......................................14Tinh Truc Gia (the Peaceful Bamboo Family): the second phase of building Alain Grüner ..15

Review ..........................................................17

Dear friends of Camphill,Udo and I feel so honoured to be allowed to ap-pear in the Camphill Correspondence. We both felt it would be wonderful to share a few thoughts about our sixty-year long married life.

Three wonderful stars have guided us through these years: grace, love and gratefulness. Grace came from the spiritual world, arranging our meeting each other. Love: that was given to us from surrounding friends and especially from the children in our care. Thankfulness for the richness of our life.

Camphill has been and still is for us a school of life. It has not always been easy: illness, even near-death situations have come towards us. But through the strong inner flame and the inner core of the community, difficulties were overcome, and help was at hand.

Our wedding preparations started with a shock. Donald Perkins, our dear friend and priest, had arranged a dress rehearsal the day before the wedding. All went well until he suddenly asked: “You have been to the registrar by now, haven’t you? You must have the civil wedding certificate before the church ceremony.” Dumbfounded, we looked at each other. Where and how could this still be done? By now it was afternoon, a snowy-wet-dark afternoon.

Anne Trier became the saving angel. She had a car into which we all jumped: Udo, Lisa and Bernhard Lipsker, who was the one witness. Susanne Müller-Wiedemann should have been the other, but it was too late to contact her. We just had to leave, so off we went. In the little village would be a person who would act as registrar, we were told. Anne drove the car to a small farmhouse, where floors, stools, and chairs were covered with news-papers. Well, it was muddy weather outside! But no, he was not the right registrar. We had to go to Aberdeen. Knowing the office there would close at 6pm we rushed into the office just shortly before closing time. We were

by now very nervous. However, we were met by a very kind elderly gentleman, the registrar. Sure, he would perform the ceremony which I do not remember at all. At the end he opened his great book to enter our and our witnesses’ names. Earlier on we had asked Anne to stand in for Susanne.

When the registrar heard Bernhard’s name his face lit up: “Oh, I remember you and your wife Barbara some years ago!” We all laughed. A friendly, very social atmosphere surrounded us. We were relived. We got our certificate and could go back to Heathcot House. The next day we had a beautiful wedding in Heathcot Chapel, where no other couple has ever married – we were the first and only ones.

Now we are both in our late eighties. We have two children and their partners, six grandchildren, one granddaughter-in-law and two great-grandchildren. Aren’t we blessed? We think so.

Udo and Lisa Steuck

Camphill Research Network (CRN)

The CRN website has the potential to become a valu-able resource for Camphill co-workers and employ-

ees, for trustees, for families and friends, for students and academics, for the general public, for anyone who seeks impartial information about the Camphill movement. It cannot reach this potential unless it is well advertised. I humbly ask you, therefore, if you are a member of a Camphill community or connected to one, to request that a link to the CRN website www.camphillresearch.com be added to your community or organisation's website. It would also be extremely helpful if a note about the website were published in your newsletter or other lit-erature. Please help us spread the word.

I'm pleased to let you know that a discussion about research in Camphill is now underway on the website blog. Visit www.camphillresearch.com/forum/ to add your own comments. Another new feature of the website is the Gallery, which currently has a fantastic collection of Hermann Gross paintings, sketches and sculptures, digitally available for the first time.

Maria Lyons

Udo and Lisa on their wedding day, sixty years ago

2

Developmental dilemmasAndrew Plant, Milltown, Scotland

Over recent years Camphill communities have had to come to terms with a great variety of challenges and

to find ways of dealing with change. This should not have been a great surprise since the literature of the wider in-tentional community movement shows that all intentional communities, at some point in their development, have had to face the uncomfortable dilemma associated with change - whether to resist or to adapt; whether to hold fast to the purity of the community ideology and practices and risk becoming controlling and insular or whether to move with the times, tolerate diversity, compromise on the community ideals and end up little different from any other social grouping in the wider society.

Just because this is a process common to all com-munities I thought that it would be useful to see how other intentional communities have responded to this developmental dilemma. In writing this paper I began with a quick look at three of the most well-known of the Scottish communities - Findhorn, Iona and Laurieston Hall and then moved on to a more in-depth appraisal of six other intentional communities, five of them in the USA. These are Oneida, the Kibbutzim, The Farm, The Old Order Anabaptists, the Shakers and Harmony. Between them these six are a combination of historical and contemporary, religious and secular communities. Three of these communities decided to compromise in the face of change and three decided to hold fast. If you wish to know how successful each strategy was you will first have to come to a clear definition of what you mean by ‘success’ in terms of community development, and then you will have to read the whole paper.

However, I can say that any lessons that Camphill communities can hope to learn from the experiences of these nine communities are neither obvious nor straight-forward. It becomes clear that there is no right or wrong

answer to this dilemma - each community has had to work it out for themselves and both strategies are prob-lematic - neither carries any guarantee of community success and sustainability. Different choices work for different communities depending on their ideology, their history, their leadership, their socio-economic context, their purpose and their priorities. So, while this paper does not allow Camphill communities to come to any definitive answers about how best to respond to change, it nonetheless allows them to reflect on the experiences of other people in similar situations throughout the long history of intentional communities.

If you wish to read this paper – ‘Developmental Dilem-mas’ – you can find it on the website of the Camphill Re-search Network at www.camphillresearch.com under the Tab ‘Discussion’, then open ‘Articles and Discussion Papers’ from the drop down menu. Alternatively, it will be presented in Camphill Correspondence in instalments later this year.

andrew.milltownmail@btconnect.com

A footnoteI began to write this paper some years ago – before the present situation in the Camphill Village Trust (CVT) communities came to a head. This paper was meant to be read in the context of general developments in Camphill communities over the last twenty years or so and in no way is meant to be taken to refer to the specific predicaments faced by the CVT communities in dealing with change.

Andrew has a keen interest in gaining insights into the developmental processes at work in the Camphill

communities and is a founder member of the Camphill Scotland Research Group.

I was going to write a longer follow-up to my ‘spirit and letter’ analogy in the November/December 2014

Camphill Correspondence but it just would not come or it would only come in wild torrents frequently seeking to burst their banks. So I haven’t done.

In terms of the essence of Camphill and its elabora-tion in and articulation through all its forms, visible and invisible, tangible and intangible, we are witnessing a conflagration. The question now is what can be saved from the fire or more accurately still, perhaps, what can arise, Phoenix like, from the ashes? It would have to be a completely new initiative.

I am reminded of the Goetheanum fire: the burning of the first Goetheanum with all its riches of anthroposophi-cal expression accumulated up to that point.

In the year following the fire, 1923, Steiner gave the lectures on ‘Awakening to Community’ including the seminal lecture of 27th February, 1923 looking at the particular features of anthroposophical community building efforts which seek to raise the earthly conditions

in which we find ourselves up to the gods via Michael - stern, taciturn yet responsive in terms of the evolutionary stage at which mankind now stands.

This is further characterised in the Michael lecture given on the 13th January, 1924 and headed simply ‘A Michael lecture’ in The Festivals and their Meaning. Steiner emphasised that the time when human beings could be inspired by hierarchical prompts without their corresponding (and initiating) efforts here in the earthly reality as a point of departure had passed. From now on our earnest contemplation of current events has to be raised to Michael before the new inspiration can find an awakening place in our hearts.

Where are the heart forces in the current conditions? Where is the unity? Where is the growth point from which all can proceed?

I fear the current undertaking has to be abandoned in these terms. It cannot fulfil its demands or meet its own preconditions. A totem issue is that of support workers versus co-workers. To experience the fullness of their

The phoenixRichard Shaw, Ilkeston, England

3

possibilities as dedicated life sharers or developmental companions of those ‘in their care’ (to use this some-what crude phrase) the support workers would have to aspire to become co-workers. And that aspiration has now been capped. A flat roof has been put on the building that seeks an apex, a loft in which to hold mankind aloft from the roots of his striving. So how can the apex of the roof space be achieved, one which reflects the solidity and integrity of the foundations? Neither is fully apparent in the organisational forms now open to view.

The giving of the lecture referred to in 1923 was fol-lowed, as we know, by the Christmas Foundation Meet-ing at the end of that year: a completely new impulse. Maybe something of that character, and that magnitude, is what has to arise now.

After a Rudolf Steiner education and a brief spell in curative education as a house parent, Richard pur-sued a career in the law before returning to working

with adults with special needs in 2008. He worked as a support worker in two homes run on conventional lines

before a short spell in Camphill in 2011/12.

We all arrived at ten o’clock on the day and Larch-field welcomed us. Then we had at ten o five the

Diversity Hearts (ice breaker). It was eventful, it worked out, and was very good thinking. Then we had commu-nity presentations, like we did for the last forum. Larch-field went first, then it was Botton second, and we were last of all, The Croft Community. We all had tea break and looked around the workshops and Daffodil House.

A typical meeting at the North Regional Forum, EnglandMark Dexter, The Croft Community, England

When we came back we talked about money, and how the CVT works for us. Then we talked about the sixty years celebration and we had some ideas for the community and regional events as well. We had a talk about the role of a trustee. It was very good. Then we had the sharing progress updates from the other regions.

Mark moved to The Croft from Botton. He has lived in Camphill for many years.

Three months at the Peaceful Bamboo Family in VietnamJacqueline Grüner, Perceval, Switzerland

5am. The air is suffused with a rosy light, a pleasant breath blows in through the open windows, leaves

rustle, cocks crow, and the crickets begin their vibrant song. Schlipp, schlapp, schlipp, schlapp across the courtyard. Ah! Tien’s step: he must be watering the trees and plants. Soon I hear hosepipes running, then the swish of the long rice broom starts, sweeping the whole courtyard. It is early morning in Tinh Truc Gia (TTG), the Peaceful Bamboo Family on the hilly outskirts of Hué, Vietnam. Despite the unusually hot summer (38 to 40 degrees every day) I feel so privileged and grateful to be here for nearly three months. Here my white and grey hair grants me many rights and endless forgiveness for my mistakes in pronouncing names, in understanding manners, in respecting customs – in everything. I am here for me, for them, for Perceval, here for being here, and all this is full of joy. Joys, of course should be shared. So I am sharing them here with the wider Camphill.

Tho Ha Vinh presented the birth of the Peaceful Bam-boo Family, a training place for youngsters with dis-abilities, in Camphill Correspondence five years ago, and with a beautiful chapter in the book Discovering Camphill. My first meeting with Tinh Truc Gia was in April 2009, when I came with a group of Perceval co-workers and friends to the inauguration. A feeling of great familiarity led to immediately becoming friends with two or three co-workers. Together with my husband Alain I took on sponsorship for one of the youngsters and waited, longing to be able to return for longer than a few days. We always received news of Tinh Truc Gia through Eurasia’s bi-annual letters, and also through friends from Perceval who came faithfully to give courses and enjoy festivals. Perceval was also the lucky host to

the Eurasia open days and annual meetings, when many Vietnamese families came for the day to cook, decorate, sell, and enjoy concerts in honour of Eurasia. Then two years ago Perceval hosted a regional conference on the theme of ‘Wonder’, and officially admitted Tinh Truc Gia into the Camphill movement. It was Ascension time, 18 May 2012, and of course the mood was Kaspar Hauser filled. Mme Trinh and Mr Tu, the founders, received our words of welcome and our best wishes with the freshness which characterizes them and the happiness of those who have found companions with whom to strive towards their ideals. Lisi Ha Vinh, who smilingly guides Eurasia and all its projects, but who is also Tinh Truc Gia’s (fairy) godmother was also there. That even-ing it was clear for me that I, and that we in Camphill, had something new to learn from those who were five hours into their day when the sun rose here! More per-sonally I remembered that my student days in the 1960s had opened my heart to Vietnam, and that the country somehow ‘concerns’ me.

But now that I am here what does that all mean? It means that I meet a young and surprising community of twenty seven youngsters who work with astonishing energy and rhythm alongside a group of twelve to sixteen people depending on the number of local and German volunteers. Why a surprising community? Because noth-ing is frozen, there is room for change, for adaptation, for the new and the unexpected; because everyone learns to do everything, and can jump in to replace another where necessary. Because the duties of the new, the first accountant include sometimes staying for supper, engaging in activities until it is time for bed, and enjoy-ing it! And then joining in the sessions we give to the

4

future kindergarten teachers, because he actually might be gifted for that! And most of all because of the way in which everyone is present to their work, and to the needs. On Sundays I see them all come in for an hour, or half a day, the time they need to be there, whether they have to be present or just feel like coming in. Although all have a family and a home ‘outside’, it feels as though it is home for many. Friday evenings when a large number of youngsters go home, there is a feeling of lightness, and people stay on to talk, to share the evening meal or just to feel night falling, and all will be back early next morning for the weekly co-worker meeting!

Is there anyone over forty five years old here? I ask myself – oh yes Mr. Han who works in the garden, and is father of one of the youngsters; he is one of the quietest people present, but he sees when the gardeners need a drink, or shade, or a break, he sees what I need and finds ways of expressing himself perfectly clearly without a word. Yes, he feels old in the sense of knowing, wise. But all the others are in their twenties or thirties, and know that they are embarked for an adventure in com-munity building with all its dangers, and its wonders. Mr. Tu’s smiling “how are you?” as he looks in through the workshop windows, and his wife, Mrs Trinh’s long conversations with new co-workers to explain, train and help them are casual but fundamental tools.

The name Tinh Truc Gia means the Peaceful Bamboo Family, but sometimes I catch myself saying the Happy Bamboo Family or the Smiling Bamboo Family. Over the entrance which leads to the Tea House is a board saying ‘There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way’, which underlies daily life as an attitude, an exercise and a striving, into which flows all that the youngsters bring with them. They are as varied a group of youngsters as I have seen anywhere in Camphill and as happy to be there. The stories of development and change, the parents who told how their son was happy to return after holidays, the recently arrived young woman who

had to be encouraged to keep up contact with her parents, all this spoke of the gratitude and joy of these youngsters in finding such a home. One day a twelve year old girl arrived with her mother asking to be able to spend her summer holidays in TTG. She was far from having difficulties or disabilities and when I asked her why she wanted to come, she answered simply: “Because it is so beautiful here”.

Of course it is beautiful: a lot of time and care (and water!) go into the gardens, and into the maintenance of the houses. The youngsters clean at least three times a day and have an after-noon for all the extras like win-dows, door frames, metal work. The first days it surprised and amused me but I soon saw how extreme the conditions are with high temperatures, dust, termites, sudden downpours and a high level of humidity. I also saw how

independently the youngsters worked and how proud they were of it. Of course singing, whistling, joking all belong to the chores as well!

Lisi asked me to take on a few tasks while I was there: thinking out a new way to keep in touch with the spon-sors, talking to the team about Camphill, being a refer-ence for the kindergarten project.

I was distressed to discover how few sponsors there are for the twenty seven young people. There seems to be little difficulty in finding funds for projects, but covering the basic running costs is not so easy. The state cannot afford funding, the parents have to give what they can, but that is very little; the products from the workshops sell quite well, jams to Hanoi, incense to the parents, lacquer work to tourists, vegetables to lovers of biody-namic food, and the most delicious fruit juices and ice creams in the Tea House, but the brunt of the running costs are covered by individual sponsorships, and more sponsors are needed!

There is a ceramic plaque at the entrance with the Eurasia ying and yang motif under a wide roof, a smile appearing in the darker half. For me it came to represent the roof which Camphill strives to build worldwide to answer the needs of those whose destiny does not allow them live unprotected, and the roof which covers the worldwide impulse to build and share community. TTG’s Camphill ‘friends’ come mainly from Le Béal, Copake and Perceval, an example of the various forms our striv-ing takes, and the moment you set foot in TTG you know that you are under the same roof, in the same house.

However I spent most of my time working with the group who will soon open an integrated kindergarten for three to six year olds in TTG itself. We were working to create a group with this new aim within the community, including painting, modelling, playing, telling stories and also talking about child development. Two teachers are well trained already, but they won’t necessarily be present at the same time during the day, as one has a

The Tea House

5

special class in Thuân Thanh School and will share her day between them (Mrs Hoa is a very gifted teacher), and the other has a baby born in July. So they will need helpers who have other tasks in the community, but have no idea of Waldorf education or of an anthroposophi-cal approach to child development. On the other hand all have young brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces at home, love to be with them and recognise what I am talking about. We worked in English, translating into Vietnamese, which helped me to rethink whatever was wishy-washy in my thinking and wording. We listened a lot to each other, took time to understand each other, to understand what is different and difficult and we also took time to bring to life the songs and games that they played when they were children.

We also translated typically Waldorf round and finger games into Vietnamese! It was demanding and delightful for me as they slowly dropped the unquestioning good pupil attitude and revealed themselves day by day. Once Andres Pappé had arrived to work on songs with them, and my husband Alain to go into movement (eurythmi-cal and miming) they were ready to let their creativity flow! While I write this they are painting the beautiful building which houses the kindergarten.

I was going to call it a ‘new adventure’ for TTG, but it is not the only one. There is new land for creating a herb garden, the increasing activity of the Tea House, a continuous surge forward which the state follows with deep interest. TTG and Eurasia offer models which the government encourages as much as it can, from special classes integrated in normal schools to biodynamic gardening.

Next to all this forward movement I need to tell about an inward going movement, which came about in the last two years with the help of Nadja and Marc Blachère

from Copake, with Lisi and Tho Ha Vinh. It is called ‘heart sharing’. Thursday evening after work we all got into our best clothes and a special supper was prepared which we ate partially in silence and in thankfulness for the cooks, the gardeners, and the earth. Then we put all the benches in the courtyard around the high rimmed pool with the flowering water lilies. It was dark (night always falls around 18.30), and small candles were put on the rim of the pool and the leaves of the water lilies. TTG’s light incense was waved at the gates and round the courtyard in preparation. Once we were all present there was silence, an attitude of meditation, a common song, the reading of the same text as was read in the morning circle, and then anyone who had something to share could speak. Over the weeks I have heard reminders, worries, joyous expectations, happiness, regrets, praise, thankfulness expressed (and translated), many a time. I was touched to tears and laughter by what was said and the way it was received. All this below a star lit sky.

What more can be said? Thank you to the Peaceful Bamboo Family for this hope-filled experience of Camp-hill. Do, please, dear readers look up the blog, do con-tact Lisi if you intend to go to Vietnam, and if you feel concerned please contact me for sponsoring either the food for a youngster 40SF (about £28/US$44) a month, their accommodation, 40SF for training, or all three!

In gratefulness to Camphill Correspondence because how else could I have shared all this joy?

Jacqueline’s email address: ajgruener@bluewin.chFor information about Eurasia:

www.eurasia.org. and www.tinhtrucgia.ch

Jacqueline is a retired co-worker from Perceval.

The Peaceful Bamboo family

6

Imagine Karl König writing a letter today: ‘Dear friends, I wish to share with you some impressions, because I

see on earth a lot of suffering, much effort and struggling, but I see as well a lot of hope. I wish to call your atten-tion to a little place in far away Asia, in a country where invaders and war have done a lot of damage. Because of this forces of forgiveness and resilience developed in its people. History shows us a society now attempting to bring to reality their great ideals, keeping at a distance very powerful neighboring countries. It is in the town of Hué, the former capital of Vietnam, where emperor dynasties lived for hundreds of years.

What do I see? My eyes are wandering in this crowded country with many motorbikes, where on a green place there stands a big house. This stunning building hosts many young people. Very early in the morning, before the sun starts to burn, people meet for a common silence where meditation and yoga opens the day. High bamboos move in the wind. I see companions cleaning the floor a few times a day, going back and forth to the garden with wheelbarrows and preparing beautiful meals. Wherever I look, there is working and learning. Motorbikes and bicy-cles appear, a little dog barks, I hear different languages.

Every so often, they stop their activities. In the main courtyard, the heart of the community, offerings are

Carefulness and beautyA common dream from Jacqueline and Andreas Tirler, Le Béal, France

prepared to the ancestors. From the flowery table with food, fruits and incense good thoughts and prayers take wings. Then movement and action again take their course, lacquered paintings have to be sanded, the last incense stick production has to dry in the sun, the food-processing workshop has to be cleaned, and the piles of clothes have to be washed by hand.

After school, children and friends of the educators arrive to spend the evening together with the ‘bamboo family’ before most of them return to town, home to their traditional Vietnamese way of life where different generations live under the same roof.

Dear friends, isn’t it wonderful that so far east the values of our movement appear and develop in such a beautiful way? Who could have known that the vision of a few people inspired ten years ago could take shape like I see today? Who is this bunch of young people led by Lisi and Tho? Mrs Trinh and Mr Tu, Mrs Nhi, Mrs Hoa, Mr Khan, Mr Quang, and so many others.

I see today a community, a group of people, who work in trust with each other, built up on striving towards faithfulness, where weakness is shared and carried to-gether. Care for the other, careful love. How is it that far away from our movement we find people volunteering for such a spiritual, social and professional endeavor? Is the desire of community universal?

Through meeting Tho and Lisi Ha Vinh, who were at one time very active co-workers in Perceval, our Viet-namese friends had the opportunity to meet Camphill. The number of their friends grew from around the world. Oh, they were so inspired by their experience and able to perceive the essence of our intentions in Camphill. They used their intelligence to adapt these ideals to the conditions of a communist country, which is really a challenge, still today! However, with time, the regular and careful contact with the authorities grew to a respectful partnership.

Today I see students walking on this ground, sent by their university as well as Buddhist nuns from the pa-goda Long Tho. They take part in training courses given by qualified people from around the world. Today I see friends meeting for breakfast in the tearoom, discussing the choice of mango jam on rolls or homemade ice cream. It is not important to speak Vietnamese as the waiter cannot hear. He speaks with his hands – sign language. Behind the counter, another companion prepares the order.

I smile and rejoice. So dear friends, that’s what I wanted to tell you …’

Jacqueline and Andreas Tirler are long-term co-workers.

There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.

Plaque at the Peaceful Bamboo Family, Hué, Vietnam

The youngest of the youngsters

7

Coming home – at last: A journey with Ulysses to Vietnam

Andres Pappe, Perceval, Switzerland

How does one bring to life for Vietnamese people an epic as closely linked to the becoming of Europe

as Homer’s Odyssey? I had to ask myself that question after deciding quite spontaneously to stage some of Ulysses’ adventures with the youngsters of the Peaceful Bamboo Family. I was already fully in Greek waters as I had given my fifth class a period on ancient Greece, and had been working on the theme of Ulysses with a group of villagers from Perceval. Indeed we will be staging extracts from the Odyssey during the conference for French speaking villagers which will take place in October in Perceval. But how can this story be told in Vietnam, in a culture which is so different from ours?

I have already produced four fairy tales in Hué with the pupils and teachers of the schools created by the Eurasia Association: Sleeping Beauty, the Bremen Town Musicians by the Brothers Grimm and two Vietnamese tales. I had realised that cultural differences disappear when you enter the world of fairy tales. Everyone can understand them, both the naïve child and the enlight-ened adult. Some Vietnamese tales, by the way, have themes well known to us in the west; for example Tam and Cam which we staged in 2002 is strangely like the Grimm Brothers’ Cinderella.

I learnt to improvise during these experiences. In 2007 I prepared the production of another Vietnamese tale. I communicated the title of the tale which I had chosen and of which I had a copy in Vietnamese. However when I arrived, on the evening before beginning to work on it, we realised that we were not talking about the same tale at all. My Vietnamese friends had never heard about the tale which I had prepared. Apparently there had been a problem of communication, some badly placed accents or something: the Vietnamese language always has surprises in store for us. So, we improvised and it was fine.

This time I left for Vietnam with no clear idea of how to put on the journeys of Ulysses on the shores of the sea of China. Providence was with me because Jacque-line and Alain were in Hué at the same time, and they were ready to help me with the project. Alain was a little irritated when I told him that I would have no idea how I would produce this play before arriving in Hué, because he produces plays with more consciousness and anticipation than I do. But we are both great friends of Peter Brook, so we were always able to complete each other. I have no doubt that without Jacqueline (who had prepared the ground) and Alain, I would have been a little overwhelmed by the Homeric adventures in Hué.

So I shall write all that follows also in the name of those dear friends who set themselves to serve our challenge with patience and willingness to help.

On Saturday 12th July we three Swiss met with Tinh Truc Gia’s co-workers to see how we could work dur-ing the two short weeks that would lead to the small performance on Friday 25th July in the afternoon. First of all we realised that nobody knew the story, although our text had already been distributed in Vietnamese. Luckily TTG’s accountant who had studied Greek my-

thology proposed to read a section every day in the morning circle.

By the way I rarely saw him behind his computer, rather helping the youngsters in the mornings, or learn-ing songs with the kindergarten teachers. Yes, we soon observed how the Peaceful Bamboo Family functions like a family where everyone does what is needed, not only the job for which he is engaged. It takes us back to the times when the different Camphill centres were still in a dynamics of pioneering and community. Difficult to imagine in today’s Perceval with its three hundred co-workers! Working with such a group is sheer delight, as everyone gives a helping hand whatever their age. And they do so with an enthusiasm and joy which we have difficulty in finding at home nowadays.

Are we not all blasé, spoilt children? Who among us is still thrilled with pink pig masks or a giant hand, which Alain made for the Cyclops? And I don’t mean only the youngsters, but also the workshop masters. The Cyclops must pass his huge hand over the backs of the sheep which are leaving his cave. But there is a problem: Vietnamese people do not know sheep! So they were transformed into water buffalos, which they know very well. If you go to Vietnam, you will see at each street corner the picture of a boy playing his flute on a buffalo’s back.

We were therefore obliged to take into account certain cultural references, but that does not remove anything from the universal value of the Odyssey. It relates, for example, the path of a man who wants to go home. He

The suitors insult the disguised Odysseus. Hans Erni

8

wants to find his beloved Penelope after ten years of war against Troy, where he was one of the heroes (the wooden horse was his idea). But this return journey will take him ten more years, during which he comes up against every possible danger.

If he were sensible, his journey might go well. But Ul-ysses is not sensible. Instead of fleeing with his compan-ions from the Cyclops whose only eye they have blinded, letting him believe that his name is Nobody, Ulysses calls out his real name. Polyphemus, the Cyclops, then asks Poseidon of the blue hair to seek revenge. When you sail on the seas it is not an advantage to have Poseidon as enemy. The journey can be long and perilous.

Ulysses is curious and loves to provoke danger. Who knows what we can learn from him. Maybe he is the first explorer and as such a truly modern man. That is why he can speak to youngsters living 10,000 km from Greece.

We saw it: TTG’s young people took to this story as though they had always known it.

While I think about Ulysses, who, after losing all his companions, finally reaches Ithaca his home, a strange feeling wakes in me. I remember how I arrived in Camp-hill thirty five years ago, and how I was in wonder before everything that I met there. All was not easy at that time for a young person, but it was all new, different. It was not the boring world which was (already!) becoming more and more standardised, but a world which I felt like discovering. I sometimes think with nostalgia of those ‘good old days’, although I know deep down that I would not want to return to them. Times have changed, Camphill has changed, but I too, have changed.

Yet each time I return to TTG after a long and trying journey I get the impression that I am coming home. This place does not look anything like what I met in my youth. But I find the ideals there which guided me to-wards Camphill. These ideals are carried by people who

have lived their lives in a land and culture very different from those in which Camphill has taken root until now. But these people have found a way of bringing these ideals to life, a way which is sometimes strange for me, but which I recognise immediately: I am in Camphill.

When Ulysses finally reaches Ithaca, the land of which he was king has changed. Apart from his old swine herds-man and a dying dog, no one recognises him. Ulysses arrives home, but his torments are not over. He must first defeat all the suitors who have made life so difficult for Penelope and their son, Telemachus. His return is one of all dangers, filled with perils.

Arriving in Vietnam is not so dangerous. It is even said to be one of the safest countries in the world for tourists! Yet every day can have surprises in store for us: maybe we misunderstood something or made ourselves misun-derstood, maybe we put our foot in it, saying something that made another lose face…or we get run over by a scooter! Although I have been going there for fourteen years and feel welcomed as an old friend, it is still a land full of mysteries to me. But when I arrive at the Peaceful Bamboo Family, I feel as though I have arrived home at last! I find once again all that I believed I had lost - no, not once again; what I find is new, never seen before, but something for which I had felt a tremendous longing. When Ulysses returned to Ithaca, nothing was as it had been before; he had to create a new life for himself. Yet he was home, and he knew it because, despite every-thing, he recognised all that he saw. And as the tale is almost like a fairy tale, we can hope that his new life was happy right up to his death.

When I arrive in this new Camphill which is TTG, nothing is like was I was used to in Camphill. But I know immediately. I am in Camphill. I don’t know how this tale will finish, but whatever happens I am deeply grateful to have travelled with Ulysses to Hué.

Andres Pappe is a long time co-worker, at present a teacher.

Odysseus revealed Hans Erni

The King and Queen re-united Hans Erni

9

We can all experience those moments in life when destiny opens a new door, a path never before

walked. Our trips to Vietnam were a new road filled with wonder and inner harmony. It began on the first of January 2011; eleven days after my father had crossed the threshold. It was such a blessing to be able to spend five weeks in a country where the dead are a living, weaving presence in people’s lives. I remember all those small fires on the sides of roadways lit by people for the comfort of the dead: paper shaped like clothes burnt to send them warmth.

Our second trip began in April 2012, four months before the birth of my daughter. This time, the blessing was to be pregnant in a country where so many people I met at the market and in the street had a welcoming word for her. It was the dragon year – a powerful sign and thus a very significant year in Chinese astrology – and this made it even more special to have a child coming.

But now to the heart of our travel: thousands of kilom-eters east of Copake, New York, in the center of Vietnam stands the magnificent city of Hué with its citadel and the famous River of Perfume – and there lives the Peaceful Bamboo Family.

The paved roads lead to a brown gate, opening into a courtyard. This courtyard is a very special place: held between two L-shaped buildings, swept every morning and crossed so many times all day long. It is the space which holds the morning gathering and the meeting space after lunch. In the center, a huge basin with purple water lilies; and around this courtyard, activity unfolds and evolves. Here, my family had the privilege to involve itself in a dynamic and vibrant work life. Hiram participated in the jam workshop; upstairs, Nathanaël discovered the art of lacquer; up above or down below, Marc was with the garden crew; my joy was to spend mornings with Than Thao and Thao Ngan sewing dolls or bird figurines, en-countering their beau-tiful smiles with each creation. Around the courtyard is also the place where every day we had such de-licious food prepared with care. Here was nourishment, and on so many levels.

Then one day, one very hot day as we sat with Tu and Trinh in this courtyard shar-ing about aspects of our life in Copake,

Our trip to the heart of VietnamNadja Jiquet, Copake, United States

they asked us about the Bible Evening: these Saturday evenings that are so essential for the health of our com-munity and the health of our home, for so often in the space of the Bible Evening, aspects of the eightfold path can unfold. What a joy it was to be asked! There are certain parts of life that have such an essential quality that one can hardly share them without being asked.

The following Thursday evening marked the begin-ning of the gathering of the community which is now called ‘the sharing from the heart’. We gathered in the courtyard around the water lilies under the starry sky; everyone is dressed up and some candles are lit. It is so beautiful, so peaceful. Everything has been prepared thoughtfully and with grace. After a moment of silence, some people shared gratitude…forgiveness…humanity is weaving here.

At the end of the sharing, words by Thich Nhat Hanh were read:

Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking and in my way of life.

Going to bed that evening, I fell asleep feeling: this is not so far away from home… I am home. With gratitude to everyone in the Peaceful Bamboo Family for having integrated our family with such warmth.

Nadja has been a homemaker for fourteen years in Copake.

She comes from France and trained in Perceval.

The courtyard after the rain

10

It is nearly two years ago since Paula joined the throng of Camp-

hill co-workers who have been bearers of the flame of the Camp-hill impulse and are now at the other side of the threshold. I have been looking forward to the obitu-ary of this remarkable person who did so much for Camphill, but it did not come! Paula has been one of the strong pillars of Camphill for about sixty two years. She took on the light of the founders and carried it forward faithfully until her frail body could not do this any more.

Alona (Paula) was born in one of the most beautiful parts of the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. From the chalet in the village St. Beatenberg one could see the Lake of Thun below and beyond it the most spectacular view of the high mountains with eternal snow – the most famous of them, the Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger.

The van der Stok family lived with Hans’s parents, Paul and Dieuwke Bay, and their children in a lovely wooden house. It was a large household, where many guests came to recuperate in the healthy mountain air. Shortly after her birth her uncle Taco Bay was born in the same house, so the two children shared their early years of childhood. After Alona a brother and two sisters were born in Beatenberg: Ulaf, Roswita and Johanna. From Switzerland the v.d. Stok Family moved to Hol-land, where Hans took on a class in the Waldorf School in Amsterdam. That is where Alona and I met for the first time. She was a class above me, but as the school was not very big, the pupils all knew each other. (Also Marianne Sander, Ilse Jackson and Adola McWil-liam Lubiensky were at that school.)

Shortly after the v.d. Stok family had arrived in Holland (1948) they went for an outing to the North Sea. Coming from the high mountains in Switzerland this was a special treat – it was the first time the children saw the sea! Alona and her thirteen-year-old brother Ulaf went into the water to swim, but after a while Alona got cold and went to her father on the beach. This was the last she saw of her brother. He was drawn into the water by a strong current and drowned. For many years Alona lived with the question: why did I not stay with him? She was just short of fifteen

Obituaries

Paula Alona Lindenberg9 August 1933 – 20 April 2013

years old at the time, young to be confronted with death so closely.

Her father Hans was invited to come and work in Camphill. So the family went to Deeside, where the parents took up work in St. John’s School, Murtle. There an-other sister was born, Raymonde. Alona and I had many an intense conversation and enjoyed the seminar in Camphill and the work with the handicapped children. That is the time when she got to know Christof-Andreas Linden-berg, and I got to know Taco. One day we were walking together from Newton Dee to Murtle when it struck me that if I married Taco – I would become Alona’s aunt! Being younger and seeing the special relationship we had this was a very odd thought, about which we both heartily laughed. I did become her aunt, but it made no difference to our friendship.

A few years later Christof-Andreas and Alona married. At that time her parents Hans and Elisabeth got divorced. It hit Alona hard and she suffered greatly. She knew about the special strength of faithfulness and what it could mean for people, as Rudolf Steiner had said that through faithfulness human beings could be like guardian angels for each other (my wording).

Alona and Christof-Andreas arrived together with Carlo and Ursel Pietzner and Sophia and Rudolph Walliser

to found the Camphill Community in Glencraig near Belfast. A week later they were joined by Henning and Sigrid Hansmann. It was a very busy but enjoy-able time with a lot of pioneering work, but it was also hard because the work took so much time that there was little or no time left to care for their marriage, as Dr König had advised them to do in his speech after their wedding. During these full years in Ireland four children came to join them: Soleira, Ita, Janet and Joan.

In 1963 Dr König asked the Lin-denbergs to come back to Camphill Scotland in order to help with music – composing – for the Christmas festival plays that Dr König had written for the co-workers of Camphill. Christof-An-dreas and Alona also arranged festival celebrations together for the school’s community. It was a productive, creative time where they could work together

Paula Lindenberg, Easter 2011

Alona van der Stok at Birrenfluh August 1941

11

and complement each other in creating artistic seasonal festivals. Two more children were born to them during that time – Andrea and Colum.

Another decisive event hap-pened during the nearly twenty years they were in Camphill Scotland. In July 1981 their third daughter, Janet, married and only a few weeks after their wedding she and her husband died in a car accident on their way to an interview near Park Attwood. Al-though Alona’s attitude to death and to those on the other side of the threshold was strong, it shook her deeply. Her brother who had died as a child and now one of her own children had gone. She knew that unused forces of young people can be used by angelic powers for the good of mankind. All the same it needed a lot of inward adjustment to cope with this situation.

In 1982 Christof-Andreas was asked by Carlo, who had founded Camphill in the USA, to come and join the work in America. After Alona had gone to see Copake they decided to move to the States and help with the Camphill impulse there. After a few years Christof-Andreas decided to go his own way. Alona was devastated, but knew that she had to accept this. When in 1986 she attended the fu-neral of her father Hans van der Stok in Thornbury she finally broke down and was ill for quite a time. Rev Julian Sleigh, who heard of her plight, invited Alona to come to Alpha, South Africa, to recuperate. In many talks with Julian she came to the point where she decided to start anew, so much so that she even decided to change her name and wanted to be called Paula. From this lonely situation in which she had found herself she took up the ‘Paul impulse’, who had written to the Corinthians about hope, faith and love, ‘of which love is the greatest’ (1 Corinthians 13). Paula, who had always been very interested in eurythmy and done eurythmy wherever and whenever she could, made a turnabout and started anew. She served selflessly whereever there was a need.

When the call came from Ire-land that her mother Elisabeth van der Stok needed her in Duff-carrig she went, and this was a blessing for all in Duffcarrig: for the co-workers, the seminarists, the villagers and her mother. She took Sunday Services, read Class Lessons and gave seminar courses. She who had known so much pain could genuinely be a support to many who had come to obstacles in their lives, because she had learned how to cope with obstacles herself.

When Paula’s age started to tell on her she was invited to Botton Village, where she could live with her daughter Soleira and her family, but destiny had another trial for her in store. Paula became seriously ill and had to be hospitalized for three months. When she was dis-charged she had to be nursed and came back to the Thomas Weihs House in Botton. From then on she was bound to go about in a wheelchair. Slowly her physical strength dimin-

ished, but mentally she was alert and very much inter-ested in her surroundings. Not long before she died all her children managed to come to Botton, so that they could have a family gathering, where they did a lot of singing together. Paula loved singing and sang often. In the last year she would hum a lot. One would get the impression that through humming she could better cope with her pain.

In the night from the 19th to the 20th April 2013 the nurse had noticed that Paula sang almost all night. Then in the early morning the singing stopped and when the nurse went in, she found that Paula had quietly died.

What a special way to open the door to yonder world – through singing! But Paula was also a special person. I am sure that Paula was received on the other side of the threshold by a large choir of Camphillers – children, staff and friends who had gone before her and were pleased to have her with them to join them in their work for Kaspar Hauser. Ita Bay, Stuttgart, Germany

Nan Boyd passed away Monday 24 November at 9.35 am in the Thomas Weihs House, Botton Village. Nan has been in Botton for over forty years as a long term carrying co-worker and house mother. Through her connections with the Edinburgh Steiner School Nan found her way to Camphill, first at The Grange and then for the past forty plus years in Botton. Latterly she has been preparing for her final crossing by gradually letting go of her grasp on daily life; for the past year she has been cared for in the Thomas Weihs House.

Margaret Griffiths

Other friends who have died

To our great shock and with very deep sadness we have to inform you of the sudden death of our dear friend Philip How, Sunday 9 November 2014, around lunchtime. Philip and Cherry were in Scotland this weekend, to see friends; and Cherry was also working at the Camphill Archive.

During a walk in the Scottish mountains with a friend Philip suffered a heart attack. He was airlifted to Falkirk Hospital, but attempts to revive him were not successful. He was just a few days before his sixty second birthday.

Hetty van BrandenburgCamphill Community Clanabogan

September 1981

12

After more than a year of preparation, Camphill Foundation’s World Wide Weave Exhibition has at

last become a reality and in fact, by the time you read this, it will already have completed its first three-week residency in Stroud, England, and moved on to Bristol city centre.

The project has involved hundreds of people all over the Camphill movement in nineteen distinct nations and regions, with contributions created in sixty one communities, some places doing more than one, and also a number of special individual pieces too. My wife Etta and I have had the joy and privilege of opening all the many parcels that have started to arrive. We have become good friends with the parcel delivery man who is fascinated by the whole idea, not least because he has twin sons with learning disabilities.

Every single one of the seventy five pieces of textile art in the exhibition is utterly unique and each one has its own story to tell. The themes which are expressed in-clude Unity in Diversity, Our Community’s Relationship to its Physical and Social Environment, Artists Producing Together, Living and Working Together in Community, Recycling and Environmental Responsibility, to name but a few. Many people who were involved remarked par-ticularly on how the project has given them a renewed experience of and enthusiasm for community life – a new feeling of togetherness.

They also had a real sense, often for the first time, of belonging to the great brother- and sisterhood of Camp-

Camphill Foundation’s World Wide Weave is on the road!Peter Bateson, Oldbury on Severn, England

hill worldwide, and see it as something to celebrate that Camphill is not only seventy five years old this year but that it now spans the globe and unites in spirit people of many different languages and cultures, from California and Vancouver to Russia, India and Vietnam and from Northern Europe to Southern Africa.

Denis-Pascal Donnet, of the Atelier de Tissage in Per-ceval, Switzerland, put it beautifully when he wrote, ‘We hope this exhibition will carry a message of unity in diversity, of the gift of creativity and peace among people so different around the world. May our World Wide Weave touch the hearts of visitors and speak to them of the ideal that we all share.’

Just to pick out a few examples, there is the absolutely stunning felting of the Russian landscape from the Camp-hill day centre Turmalin in Moscow, where at first they were not sure they could do anything at all and then completed and delivered a masterpiece in record time, the first one of all the pieces to be finished. There is the enchanting tapestry of Tapola in Finland, brimful of col-ourful but also accurate details of the village and its life, and a similar brilliantly coloured creation from Kyle in Ireland. There is a matching pair of spring and autumn feltings from Corbenic in Scotland, truly breathtaking in their artistry, colour and detail.

From Camphill School Aberdeen comes panel num-ber 1 (quite rightly), which incorporates a wealth of archetypal Camphill imagery and symbolism in one richly coloured and textured composition. In some

News from the Movement…and beyond

Larchfield textile group

13

pieces, for example from Mountshannon (Ireland), Rotvoll (Norway), Oaklands Park (England) and Loch Arthur (Scotland) it is the actual woven texture which is paramount, as the background to a symphony of colour which constitutes a whole world of experience in itself. From California come two complementary semi-abstract pieces representing the wide panorama of the ocean and the majestic verticality of the redwood forest.

I could go on at great length waxing lyrical about all the panels, and could probably actually write a book about them (maybe later), but I look forward to more than a year of being able to welcome visitors to the exhibition and to share in their experience of the art pieces and the unique qualities, background and stories that go with them.

The exhibition tour takes in the whole of the UK and Ireland in 2015 and plans are being made to allow it then to move on to Switzerland, Finland and North America

in 2016. Starting on 13 December in Stroud Old Town Hall, the itinerary includes Bristol, Winchester Cathe-dral, Birmingham, Oxford, National Wool Museum of Wales, Cambridge, Leeds, London, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Omagh, Bangor, Belfast, Newry, Dublin, Ballytobin and back to Stroud Museum in the Park in January 2016, followed by Perceval, Switzerland, Lahti and Helsinki in Finland and then to the USA, to New York City, Hudson NY, Philadelphia and Chester County PA, and possibly other venues.

All necessary details and information will be posted on the website www.camphillfoundation.net.

Any questions can also be directed to me by email to peter@camphillfoundation.net.

Peter and his wife Etta have been Camphillers for thirty eight years. He is currently Development

Coordinator for Camphill Foundation UK & Ireland.

We are delighted to announce the creation of a new eurythmy constellation at The Glasshouse,

Stourbridge, in the heart of England, one of a number of sites in the UK operated by Ruskin Mill Trust. This followed the decision by Camphill Village Trust that, after forty four years, the Camphill Eurythmy School was no longer viable. Although the decision to close the Camphill Eurythmy School was not unexpected, the decision was sudden and final. We welcome col-leagues and students into the West Midlands Eurythmy Association which is based at The Glasshouse.

Over several years Eurythmy West Midlands and the Camphill Eurythmy School have been working together (sharing the curriculum, teaching exchange, and so on) looking towards a possible ‘Eurythmy UK’. As it works out, the idea came to pass at The Glasshouse at the beginning of term in September 2014.

Most of the students in Botton Village were happy to be able to continue or, as applicants, to start their training at The Glasshouse. Eurythmy West Midlands and former Camphill Eurythmy training can now of-fer a full four-year training in Eurythmy in Education and Eurythmy as a Performing Art, an accredited BA equivalent, Pearson Assured by Crossfields Institute, based at The Glasshouse Arts Centre. We have started with all four classes.

Rita Kort from Camphill Eurythmy has moved to Stourbridge to join eurythmists Maren Stott and Shaina Stoehr, with Brenda Ratcliffe (speech), Alan Stott, Bob and Anita Davey (music); and Jonathan Reid and Karla Prates will teach eurythmy in blocks.

It is most encouraging to experience how the man-agement, staff and students at Glasshouse College (a specialist Further Education College for young people with special learning needs) have embraced this expan-sion of West Midlands Eurythmy with warmth, interest and real assistance. At The Glasshouse, eurythmy has the use of four spaces in which to move, including the Furnace Theatre. We feel well integrated, and are look-ing forward, in particular, to further drama productions with college students.

News from the West Midlands Eurythmy Association

For more information visit our website at www.eurythmy-wm.org

Or contact Maren: eurythmywm@gmail.com

Maren Stott and Rita KortFor West Midlands Eurythmy Association

14

The Camphill Dialogue, an international conference for board members, co-workers and friends of the

Camphill movement, takes place every three years at different locations in the Camphill world. The 2014 Dialogue took place at Soltane, set in the beautiful countryside of eastern Pennsylvania.

I attended as one of the fortunate delegates represent-ing the board of the Camphill Village Trust of Norway. We were some hundred persons from fourteen different countries and all of these people – many of whom met for the first time – set about attempting to live up to and support the mission statement of the Dialogue:

Camphill Dialogue aims to promote co-operation and cohesion between the Camphill communities worldwide, with the active participation of the Board Members, enabling them to respond to views, recom-mendations and advice, and to cultivate shared aims and ideals in the spirit of association.

Our days were filled with panel discussions, working groups, individual contributions, and artistic activities as well as individual meetings and conversations. Gradu-ally it became clear that we shared concepts, ideals and understanding despite our many different approaches and life circumstances.

The theme of the Dialogue was ‘Developing and growing community in a changing world’. Each morn-ing we were presented with different aspects of this theme through some very able panelists, followed by discussions in smaller groups. Obviously it would not be possible to recount in detail what was contributed by the panelists, but I shall try to render some key words.

Theme for day 1: Camphill and person centered sup-ports• Theindividualistheheartofthecommunity• Theroleofcreativity–wehavetospendenough

time furthering the how of living and working in Camphill

• Questions:whatarethepossibilitieswhen/ifwechange to shiftwork?

• Camphill inAustria is a service provider – anextended arm of the government

• Frominternallifesharingtopaidco-workers.InCanada nobody lives in. The Camphill values – what happens to them? Attempt to be relevant (in ‘the world’) without losing sight of our values

• How can person centered approach and com-munity life sharing co-exist? They are mutually dependent on one another

• Important: sense of trust and openness to oneanother.

Theme for day 2: Fundraising and sustainability• Conceptofalignmentbetweenmoneyandwhat

it is used for • Theevolutionofmoney–frompreciousstones,

spices, gold/silver to paper money and now elec-tronics

• Thepathofmoney:fromthevisibletotheinvisible• Theinvisiblepartweseethruthesoul

Camphill Dialogue 2014: Developing and growing community in a changing world

Hedda Smith-Hald, Sor-Fron, Norway

• Moneycanalsobecomeanactofwill– ithaslife, consciousness and forms. Not an object or commodity, and not a number, but energy. When treated as a commodity it becomes a commodity

• Fundraising – a gift to nonprofit organizationsthrough the American tax laws. A considerable motivation for wealthy people. The budget of Co-pake is for instance only about 58 % government funded – some 1.8 million dollars are raised every year. 5 persons work full time with fundraising and foundation

• PartoftheresponsibilityofaboardintheCamphillcommunity is to bring to alignment the finances of the community

• Thevalues in thecommunity– thedaily life–create an etheric sheath and it is incumbent that board members find this and try to connect to it.

Theme for day 3: Camphill’s dialog with the world today

• TothequestionofwhatCamphillcanoffer theyoung people of today there were several thoughts

• Camphilloffersaholisticwayoflivingandwork-ing which builds social bonds

• Ourchallenge:todescribeourworkandwayoflife in words and terms which young people can relate to

• Youngpeoplechallengeustoformulatewhywedo what we do

• Alllivingformshaveanouterandaninnerdimen-sion. The inner and outer work on each other, it is dynamic, not static

• Regardingthethirtythreeyearperiodsinthelifeof the community: in the years 1940 – 1973 ex-ternal conditions were harsh whilst the inner life was rich and real. The period from 1973–2005 was the building years. We are now in the third face which is the ‘face of stewardship’.

• Theworldtodayisbinary(yesorno).Weneedto find the middle, but all the spheres need our attention (threefold social order).

Many things, many themes and many events have not been mentioned, but this is a small attempt to share some of the highlights which I felt to be important. I trust the reader will get an idea of some of the contents and maybe other participants would like to share their impressions from this great and important conference.

Hedda was a Camphill co-worker from 1959 to 1980, mainly in the United States

(where she was known as Hedda Ljovshin). She moved back to Norway

and works in the public health area as an administrator. She tries to keep in close touch with the community and the Camphill world.

15

Thank goodness, there’s more than one life to live!

J. Michael SurkampNew revised edition: January 2014 ISBN: 978-0-956966-0-9 Anastasia ltd. £9.50. Also available as an e-copy; contact publisher direct at sales@anastasiltd.co.uk

Review by Anna Phillips, Aberdeen, Scotland

Johannes Surkamp from Camphill Ochil Tower School in Scotland, wrote Thank goodness, there’s more than

one life to live! to show that the idea that human life on earth spanning repeated incarnations is a valid and well proven one. This volume is a collection of witness statements and researcher’s reports of personal experi-ences with karma and reincarnation. Surkamp defines these concepts as follows: ‘the re-embodiment of the spirit, and the acceptance of the lawful consequences of deeds done in former lives’. He has researched this subject for fifty years and has previously published two other works on it.

The first section of the book examines work by psychia-trists who pioneered the use of hypnosis and regression

Reviewtherapy. They discovered reincarnation almost by chance while trying to help patients heal from trauma or illness and found that sometimes the cause lay beyond the present life. The conscious step to empirically research the state of ‘Bardo’, Tibetan for the phase between death and rebirth, was taken in the 1980s. It was mainly the community of doctors and psychiatrists who pushed for-ward in this field of interest and published their findings. Understanding the influence of repeated lives on karma has increased as a result of their research. No longer is it seen as a system of punishment and retribution but rather as one for making compensation and improve-ments. The time between lives is one of re-evaluation, making ‘karma…that which individuals set in motion for themselves from lifetime to lifetime by their motivations, attitude and behaviour’, thus superseding the eye-for-an-eye way of thinking.

The second section contains biographical sketches with written testimonies of people who actively witnessed past lives, like Edgar Cayce. As research and stories were published and became more widely available, the volume of these accounts also multiplied, making the subjects increasingly acceptable. Through these ac-counts we gain a better understanding of the difference between the here-and-now personality and the hidden eternal individuality.

A third section focuses on experiences of young chil-dren surprising their parents by recounting past lives, like Barbro Karlen, or knowing their mother is expecting an-other child before she does. This is followed by a section of messages from beyond life, including the well-known

Snow-flakesOut of the bosom of the AirOut of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,Over the woodlands brown and bare,Over the harvest-fields forsaken,Silent, and soft, and slowDescends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies takeSuddenly shape in some divine expression,Even as the troubled heart doth makeIn the white countenance confessionThe troubled sky revealsThe grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,Slowly in silent syllables recorded;This is the secret of despair,Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,Now whispered and revealedTo wood and field.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

16

account of George Ritchie’s near death experience, as well as direct communications between the living and the dead. Surkamp finally engages with the idea of re-incarnation and how it is presented in Christianity and also explores the phenomenon of living on a diet of light nourishment. Throughout, the authors and the quotations used seem to have been chosen for their transformative content. Sceptics become knowers through personal experience or personal experience becomes validated through increased knowledge. Overall the book is a tribute to freedom; freedom of the individual to choose their own steps in this life or the next.

Interwoven with the accounts is the study of Rudolf Steiner’s teachings of Spiritual Science which provides a further dimension to the sense-based medical research presented. His knowledge was gained through direct perception of the realm of spiritual life while alive and awake and as such transcends the personal accounts and scientific data. Thus Surkamp’s chosen authors are also used as a springboard to uphold Steiner’s teachings. At the same time it serves to point out the shortcomings of a purely materialistic world view. Tying everything in with Spiritual Science serves to support Steiner’s mission to increase knowledge and understanding of the working of karma and reincarnation. To this end an appendix of part of his lecture cycle: Riddles of the Soul is included.

Steiner brought attention to karma and reincarnation long before there was any scientific evidence to back it up. Even now, a hundred years after he talked on these subjects and in spite of the available material, they are still considered more a matter of personal belief, religious, philosophical or otherwise, than a proven sci-entific fact. It is therefore interesting that the new 2014 edition of Thank goodness, there’s more than one life to live! includes an added appendix on a recent publica-tion called Soul Survivor. This contemporary story of a boy who vividly recalls his past life which his parents are able to verify provides the missing link, according

to Surkamp, between past life recollections remaining possibly just stories and proof of the actual continuation of consciousness beyond death and rebirth.

This book is not aimed to progress the scientific re-search into these subjects. Surkamp did not conduct any first hand interviews with people reporting past life experience and for this reason the method of making a case for karma and reincarnation based on other people’s work may not stand up to academic scrutiny. He simply chronicles the journey these concepts have made from being unknown and unspoken about to being sceptically received and eventually becoming the topic of major bestsellers, taking us on a journey of the development of human consciousness at the same time. Thus what Surkamp says of one of the authors could also apply to himself: ‘[he] add[ed] his voice unequivocally in con-firmation and acceptance of reincarnation and karma as a truth and fact of life’. Thank goodness, there’s more than one life to live! will in its own way contribute to acceptance of the fact that we do return to life on earth again and again.

The book can almost be seen as a collection of book reviews as well as being an extensive bibliography for those interested to delve deeper into the subject. It would also be of interest to anyone who may still need proof about the validity and truth regarding karma and reincarnation. It is easy to read, well laid out and logi-cally divided in sections following a clear progression in time as well as content. Thank goodness, there’s more than one life to live! provides a wonderful overview of the gathered evidence regarding karma and reincarna-tion. It is deep and substantial enough to engage while stimulating further investigation of one’s own. It kindles a desire to fully read the works covered in this book, giving us the places to look on a silver platter.

Anna has a BA in English Literature and works as an activities organiser at a care home in Aberdeen.

Are you interested in living a vibrant, culture-filled life, in a busy Camphill Community?

We are looking for long-term co-workers and a live-in farmer to join us here at Camphill Community Ballytobin, Ireland.

We are seeking experienced co-workers to join the teams who run our house communities. Co-workers would ideally join us as long- term life-sharing volunteers. We are also open to applicants wishing to live outside and join us as employed co-workers (subject to an application and interview process). Ballytobin is also looking for a live-in farmer with experience of farming (bio-dynamic and/or organic) with people with special needs.

Applicants wishing to join us as live-in volunteers should send all enquiries to: cdwan.ballytobin@camphill.ieApplicants wishing to apply for an employed position should send enquiries to: infoballytobin@gmail.com

The magazine for anthroposophical curative

education and social therapy throughout the world.

We would be glad to send you a subscription (£18.00 for four issues a year including postage) or an individual copy (£4.50 + postage) so you can see for yourself why this magazine has been so well received.

Thank you for your support and interest – it helps to keep the anthroposophical world

of curative education and social therapy informed, focussed, engaged, and listening!

Please contact: Bianca Hugel (Subscriptions) at pandcsubs@gmail.com

or at: Flat 5, College Street, Lampeter,

Ceredigion, Wales, SA48 7DY

pointandcircleMagazine for Curative Education and Social Therapy

Easter 2013

Deepam Festival of Light

Point&Circle Winter 2013-06.indd 1 08/03/2013 16:41:25

pointandcircle

In the UK outside Wales books can be ordered at trade terms from Central Books Ltd: 99 Wallis Road, London E9 5LN Tel 44 (0)845 458 9911 Fax 44(0)845 458 9912 Email: contactus@centralbooks.com International trade customers please send an enquiry to info@cinnamonpress.com

In this book-length collection of prose poems that weave a multitude of voices around the theme of the garden, Rebecca Hubbard gives a sense of someone being picked up by their material and genuinely surprised by what they find themselves writing – a remarkable find, in its parts and as a whole. Philip Gross, winner of TS Eliot Prize 2009

Aspire to the plum tree’s purple generosity. Everywhere fruit, waste and wasps; bowed down with plenty, and giving carelessly.

Meditative, but accessible, The Garden of Shadow and Delight is an accomplished sequence of prose poetry offers the garden as a locus of art, rhythm, healing, vision and remembrance, moving between light and shadow, but always with the promise of ‘the scent of azaleas gusting in like honey.

Rebecca Hubbard’s family roots are Welsh and English. She grew up on the Kent coast and now lives in a small Hertfordshire village. She worked as a freelance feature writer, contributing to The Guardian, Sunday Times, Sunday Times Magazine and other titles including Country Living and Kent Life. Her articles spanned food culture, education, travel, craft, reviews and profiles. Her poetry appears in magazines including Acumen, Smiths Knoll and Weyfarers. Rebecca worked for the poetry organisations Apples & Snakes and for the Blue Nose Poets.

She studied art history and has an MA with distinction in Creative & Professional Writing from Brunel University. Rebecca currently combines being head gardener at a Camphill Community for adults with special needs with teaching creative writing. She is inspired by words, images, gardens and landscape.

The Garden of Shadow and Delight ISBN 978-1-909077-37-9 £8.99

“In this book-length collection of prose-poems that weave a multitude of voices around the theme of the garden, Rebecca Hubbard gives a sense of someone being picked up by their material and genuinely surprised by what they find themselves writing – a remarkable find, in its arts and as a whole.” (Philip Gross, winner of the TS Eliot Prize, 2009)

House Manager and House Co-ordinatorTorphin House, Tiphereth, Camphill in Edinburgh

We are seeking two house parents to facilitate a “life sharing” opportunity in one of our three houses using the “vocational co-worker - trust money” model. (Please note this model may be changed to a salaried life sharing position depending on a national Camphill review). The post would be suitable for a couple and children can be accommodated.

The posts are in a growing and busy community with a large Day Service and social enterprises employing people with special needs. Tiphereth is expanding with the recent pur-chase of more land and buildings and the intention to open a new social enterprise café. Edinburgh is a small thriving city with a Rudolf Steiner school and Christian Community. Our website www.tiphereth.org.uk gives more information on the community and a job description and personal quali-ties can be downloaded.

The successful applicants will be supporting four residents and the applicants will preferably have some experience of life sharing and Camphill. A full Disclosure Scotland is required and both applicants require SVQ 3 and/or SVQ 4.

To apply for these posts please send a CV and letter of motivation to admin@tiphereth.org.uk. A short list will be drawn up in March 2015 and all applicants will be contacted at that point. Informal introductory visits can be arranged in the lead up to this period.

Self Catering Holiday House:

The White House Killin

Set within the beautiful Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, The White House is in an ideal location to explore the natural

beauty of Highland Perthshire, Scotland. Situated in a secluded setting near the shores of Loch Tay, this area offers outstanding op-portunities for touring, walking, cycling, bird watching and

canoeing. Comprises 5 bedrooms with accommodation for up to 12

persons sharing. contact ueli@ochiltowerschool.org

for a brochure and availability

Camphill Correspondence Ltd, registered in England 6460482Lay-up by Christoph Hänni, Produced by www.roomfordesign.co.uk

The Dove Logo of the Camphill movement is a symbol of the pure, spiritual principle which underlies the physical human form.Uniting soon after conception with the hereditary body, it lives on unimpaired in each human individual.

It is the aim of the Camphill movement to stand for this ‘Image of the Human Being’ as expounded in Rudolf Steiner’s work,so that contemporary knowledge of the human being may be enflamed by the power of love.

Camphill Correspondence tries to facilitate this work through free exchange within and beyond the Camphill movement.Therefore, the Staff of Mercury, the sign of communication which binds the parts of the organism into the whole,

is combined with the Dove in the logo of Camphill Correspondence.

Editors: Maria Mountain (Editor and Adverts) 10 Shrubbery Hill, Cookley, Kidderminster, Worcs. DY10 3UW, UK

Email: campcorresp@gmail.comDeborah Ravetz, 11 Upper Close, Forest Row, RH18 5DS, UK

Subscriptions:Bianca Hugel, Flat 5, College Street, Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales, SA48 7DY

Email: campcosubs@gmail.comAdvertisements:

Suggested contribution of £25–£45 per small announcement/advert. Visa/Mastercard details or cheques can be sent to Bianca (address above), made out to Camphill Correspondence.

Subscriptions: £22.80 per annum for six issues, or £3.80 for copies or single issues.

Please make your cheque payable to Camphill Correspondence and send with your address to Bianca Hugel (address above), or you can pay by Visa or MasterCard, stating the exact name as printed on the card, the card number, and expiry date.

Back Copies: are available from Christoph Hanni (backcopies4campcorr@gmail.com) and from Camphill Bookshop, Aberdeen

Deadlines: Camphill Correspondence appears bi-monthly in January, March, May, July, September and November.

Deadlines for ARTICLES are: Jan 30th, Mar 30th, May 30th, July 30th, Sept 30th and Nov 25th.ADVERTISEMENTS and SHORT ITEMS can come up to seven days later than this.

Sunset at the sea, Northern Ireland Lisa Steuck