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Calendar of the Soul
In 1912 Rudolf Steiner provided a “Calendar of the Soul” in the form of weekly verses that express how the changing seasons in the natural world and in our own inner lives are helping our consciousness evolve.
Portland Branch Future Events
Next Events
- Shepherds’ Play, December 16, 5 pm
- Observances of the 100th Anniversary of the Laying of the Foundation Stone, December 26, January 1 & 6
Details below
To sign up for an event or to contact us with questions email us at portlandanthroposophy@gmail.com
The Shepherds’ Play will be performed at 5 pm on Saturday, December 16 at Bothmer Hall, 5915 SE Division St.
The Oberufer Shepherd’s play is a unique community Christmas event being performed one night only. It has been performed every year since Medieval times by people around the world. It takes the Christmas story from the point of view of the Shepherds in a unique, humorous and warm-hearted way, with amateur local actors and musicians.
This traditional religious story can serve to kindle in any of us the soul-light that can awaken in the depths of winter. (description from the Santa Cruz Shepherds’ Play group.)
For more information contact Wes at 503-568-5009 or reply by email to boltedupsteel@gmail.com
Why Celebrate The 100th Anniversary of the Christmas Conference, and the Laying of the Foundation Stone?
We will come together on three afternoons during the Holy Nights to deepen our experience of what Rudolf Steiner accomplished on Christmas and during those Holy Nights in 1922/23, and what its importance is for our continued development, both individual and community, today.
Please contact Miriam at miriamhcosentino@gmail.com to let her know you’ll be coming, and with any offers of help.
Refreshments will be served. You are invited to bring your favorite holiday treat.
Planning is underway, with contributions from the Foundation Stone group, which has been working for more than 3 1/2 years with the Foundation Stone Meditation and its relationship to the being Anthroposophia; and the dodecahedron of love that Rudolf Steiner created and placed in the hearts of some 800 members present amid the charred ruins and the cold at the Christmas Conference of 2022-23.
Among the aspects that group members will bring:
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An account of what was accomplished at the Christmas Conference, and why it was not merely an esoteric lesson, but was in fact a mystery deed
- The importance of welcoming the ‘supersensible being…who walks amongst visible people’, Anthroposophia, into our hearts
- The part that the spiritual Foundation Stone plays in our development, and the all-important development of community
- An exploration of the Foundation Stone meditation
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For those who wish to participate, an exercise, ‘Practice Spirit Awareness’ (or, depending on the translation, Practice Spirit sensing, meditation, communing, or contemplation.)
Jannebeth Röell will lead us in working together each afternoon to construct a model dodecahedron, which will remain in the library. It is hoped that at least twelve people will participate, and if possible bring scissors.
This presentation by Stewart Lundy of the Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics can inspire us to be helpful to the nature spirits, whether we have a big garden or a few plants in pots.
“Explore some of the fundamentals of the spiritual renewal of agriculture as we approach the centennial of the birth of biodynamics. The Josephine Porter Institute has been leading biodynamic preparation-making for nearly 40 years and continues our work for the renewal of the Earth. This talk is suitable for gardeners, farmers, and anyone cultivating their inner garden.”
Stewart Lundy is an amateur alchemist, esotericist, and avid reader. As of 2023 Stewart is the Creative Director at the non-profit Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics. He helps curate the JPI Applied Biodynamics quarterly which is now migrating to the digital world on substack. He has been farming since 2010 at his own biodynamic operation, Perennial Roots Farm, where he and his wife raise cattle, sheep, and hogs, as well as run a market garden and CSA. Stewart is a regular contributor at the national Biodynamic Association conference. He offers book clubs on esoteric themes and can be contacted for consultations via stewart@jpibiodynamics.org.
All Souls Observance
November 2, 7 pm
Branch Library
5415 SE Powell, 2nd Floor
Entrance off parking lot in back of the church
Join us for a remembrance of those you have known who are across the Threshold, and for reminders of why our connection with them is so important for them and for us. You may bring pictures or other items associated with those you would like to remember. They can be placed on the tables with candles that will be provided.
Greetings dear friends and colleagues.
Hopefully many of you have seen the flyer for the work in Portland over Michaelmas this year. Nine months after the 100th anniversary of the burning of the First Goetheanum, we have chosen to meet with deep courage and humility toward our tasks as anthroposophists.
We can imagine 100 years ago Steiner gathering up the courage to bring together the anthroposophical movement and the anthroposophical society with the esoteric schooling – and to take up the leadership and responsibility for the new mysteries. He looked this unending challenge clear in the eyes and took it on personally.
We stand in the “Long Now” of Anthroposophy’s becoming. A long now is defined by the birth of the oldest person we come to know and the death of the youngest person we will meet in this lifetime – for most people that is about 200 years. We have a chance to look at ourselves and our working together similarly both in the Now of these 100-year anniversaries, and its bridging function between 100 years ago and 100 years hence.
Thank you for all you do,
Timothy Kennedy, workshop organizer
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Hope – Springs – Eternal Even In the Fall |
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100 years on, can we find the courage to take up the insights of Rudolf Steiner and build toward a strong and healthy Anthroposophical Society in service to the challenges of our times and for the next 100 years? A Workshop with Christopher Houghton Budd* (Fly all the way to Dornach – or spend a weekend in Portland!) Begins 6:30 PM, Friday, September 29 – Ends1 pm Sunday October 1, 2023 (Full Program Below) $100, no one turned away because of finances Venue: Portland Branch Library, 5415 SE Powell Blvd, Second Floor Entrance off Parking Lot Behind the Church |
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Fly all the way to Dornach, or spend a weekend in Portland! Not everyone can afford the time and expense of going to Dornach to converse with an anthroposphical economist about the many issues facing anthroposophists – and society at large – in our time. One hundred years ago, in the run up to Christmas, Rudolf Steiner encouraged the formation of the country societies out of which the General Society was born. As prompted by Peter Selg, this is the centenary event we should first be celebrating – the establishment of the General Society out of the country Societies. Not only celebrating, but reiterating, starting over in terms of current realities, especially as regards the outer skin of karma – our finances. How do we stand now relative to Steiner’s picture of a three-fold social order? |
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The Anthroposophical Society in America, out of its own unique character, has a role to play in the health and wholeness of the worldwide society. What is our unique character and possibly our unique task? Looking back on the 100 years since the founding of the Society, how do things stand? What, do we think, would he make of our efforts? And how do we see things going forward? Are we able to look him in the eyes? Especially if we look at our finances – as they are an expression of our will and strength of initiative – is the Goetheanum a distant place, or something we create on our own doorsteps? And what of our finances as a Society? Do we meet them only in simple earthly terms (i.e., pay our dues on time and in full) or is there something more at work? How can we understand the role and tasks of ‘the Far West’ ? And how can we get to work for the next 100 years?
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Program Schedule
Friday 29th
6:30-7:30 Welcome, introductions, preview of weekend
7:30-7:45 Break
7:45-9:30 The First One Hundred Years – Two Bodies That A Third May Be
Saturday 30th
9:30 am-11:00 am The Anthroposophical Society and the School of Spiritual Science – Their Nature and Purpose
11:00 am–11:15 am Break
12:30 pm-1:30 pm Lunch Break
1:30 pm-3:30 pm Country Groups and the Anthroposophical Society in America
3:30 pm-3:45 pm Break
3:45 pm-5:15 pm The Wild, Willed West! What, Where and Why is That?
5:15 pm-6:45 pm Dinner Break
6:45 pm-9:00pm Rudolf Steiner’s Financial Genius and Milton Friedman’s ‘Own Lights’ Theory
Sunday, 10-1
9:30 am-11:00 am Financing ‘The Goetheanum’, Rebooting Our Finances
11:00 am-11:15 am Break
11:15am-12 pm 2023-2223 – Will We Drive Our Denial of Spirit Out of Economic Life?
12:00-1 pm Closing and Reflections
Christopher Houghton-Budd is an economic and monetary historian with a doctorate in banking and finance from Cass Business School, London. Though trying to go ‘emeritus’, he continues to work independently in many contexts around the world, ranging from mainstream to ‘alternative’, central banking to organic farming, lay to academia. Born in England in 1948, he left school at 16 then spent his youth traveling, working on private yachts and learning the film business in California.
In Berkeley in 1968, he developed a strong interest in Marxist ideas, but became convinced that Marx had failed to interpret his vision accurately. Prior to this time Houghton Budd had also met the work of Rudolf Steiner, whose contributions to sociology and economics have been of special interest to him ever since.
During his 50 year career, he has initiated or participated in a variety of small, mostly ‘green’, businesses in fields as varied as farming, housing, food distribution, retailing and investment, and served for seven years as a local councillor and four as a state school governor. His particular interest is the development of associative economics, an approach to economics that combines financial discipline with active social responsibility on the part of people generally. On this basis, he especially focuses on youth financial literacy and the associated need to fund their aims and initiatives through ‘Youth Bonds’.
For more information: http://christopherhoughtonbudd.com/welcome/
Some of the colleagues in the Economics Conference of the Goetheanum see that today’s world conditions can be both described and understood, even framed hopefully, through the lens of financial literacy. For many years now, colleagues of the Economics Conference of the Goetheanum have been developing a practical understanding of associative financial literacy at a general level and as informed by Rudolf Steiner’s ideas concerning economic, business and finance. This has resulted in a substantial literature on central themes – such as The Hibernian Mysteries and Modern Finance / Money as Bookkeeping / Revisiting US Financial History / Associative Financial Literacy and Adolescence / Finance at the Threshold – which can be found on these two related websites:
www.economics.goetheanum.org www.associative-financial-literacy.com
Rudolf Steiner used a blackboard drawing to describe the dominion of the Archangel Uriel during high summer, and St. Johns as an imagination of the Trinity. So much more is represented in this drawing, and the painting based on it by Margarita Woloschina, as he describes in The Four Seasons and the Archangels.
In The St. Johns Imagination Dr. Steiner describes how, at St. Johns, the earth is at its zenith, having breathed its soul out into the cosmos with the Christ, the elementals and other spiritual beings. From this point on they will begin their descent back to the earth, bringing with them the all-important cosmic/sun influences they have taken in.
As noted in an address given on Sunday 23rd June 2019 at Emerson College, “Rudolf Steiner, in a lecture given on 12th October 1923, said that the great archangel most associated with this time of year is Uriel: and that Uriel directs his countenance and clear piercing gaze down towards the Earth and perceives disturbing shapes which continually gather and dissolve, gather and dissolve again. These shapes, Steiner says, are ‘human errors upon which Uriel directs his earnest gaze. Here during the height of summer, the imperfections of mankind are searchingly surveyed and contrasted with the morality implicit in the natural world. Now we see how at midsummer human errors are woven into the regular crystals which are formed in the normal course of Nature. On the other hand, all that is human virtue and human excellence rises up with silver-gleaming lines and is seen as the clouds that envelop Uriel’ So Midsummer is a time when, under the gaze of Uriel, the spiritual world looks with especial closeness at our human actions and motivations. This is a good time of year for us to do the same and look closely at what we humans are doing in the world…”
Come Learn About Biodynamic Gardening
Help Heal the Earth – As You Grow More Nutritious Food!
Over the course of 2023 the Portland Branch will sponsor a series of events to help Portlanders learn how you can apply Biodynamic practices in your yards, gardens, and farms. Not only do these practices help to produce food that is more nutritious, they help to heal the earth, and can lead to a healthier overall environment in our dear city. Imagine a group forming to support one another for your home, your community, and beyond. See events below. The April 30 event with Lynn Madsen has been postponed.
First and Second Goetheanum by Mirko Luccini
Opportunities Over The Year Ahead:
Further explorations of the First Goetheanum leading to the Foundation Stone Meditation in 2023
Many of those who attended the gatherings exploring the First Goetheanum and the fire during the Holy Nights have signed up for further explorations over the coming year. The First Goetheanum has a presence in the etheric that can be helpful. Anna Samweber, who was present at the fire, describes being overwhelmed by a spiritual experience when the domes crashed down and huge flames shot up. “I saw the ‘Bau’ high above the burning place, shining brilliantly white, and I felt with certainty that something stupendous was happening here…”
There are many revealing and thought provoking presentations which have recently been made that are available as videos. In addition to ‘movie dates’, we can explore what Dr. Steiner said about ‘The Purpose of the Goetheanum’, and other aspects of the building that he describes.
If you would like to be informed of these gatherings, please email us at portlandanthroposophy@gmail.com. Include your name, email, phone #, and what your best times for meeting are.
Embryo in Us & Embryo in Motion
2017 &
2010 Workshops
Recorded live in Portland, Oregon
These two seminars explore human prenatal development and show how biology is expressing the essence of human spiritual enfoldment.
The two DVD sets are available only here.
Jaap van der Wal, PhD, MD is an associate professor for anatomy and embryology at the University of Maastricht, Holland.
Our Purpose
The members of the Portland Branch of the Anthroposophical Society freely come together out of their commitment to the Spiritual Science of Anthroposophy as founded by Rudolf Steiner. The branch will strive to further the life of the soul both in the individual and human society by basing its activities on anthroposophical ideals, with all that results from them for warmth in human relationship, and the spiritual, moral, artistic and cultural life of humanity.