MINUTES of THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF
THE RUDOLF STEINER BRANCH (NC)
OF THE ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY IN AMERICA
MARCH, 25, 2023 2:00-5:00 pm
IN THE MAYS HOME
OPENING VERSE — The American Verse
May our feeling reach
To our heart’s inmost core,
And seek to unite in love
With human beings of like aims,
With those Spirits who, full of grace,
Look down on our earnest heartfelt striving,
Sending strength out of regions of light,
Bringing light into our love.
~ Rudolf Steiner
Welcome (Kathleen Wright, President)
Remembering recently deceased members:
Traute Page March 6, 2023
Verse for the Dead:
Feel how we gaze lovingly
Into heights that now
Call you to other work.
May your power reach out
From spirit-realms
To the friends you left behind.
Hear our souls’ request
Sent to you in confidence:
We need here, for our earthly work,
Strong power from spirit lands –
We thank our friends now dead for this.
Reports for the year 2022:
President’s Report for 2022 (Kathleen Wright)
We are finally free of all the COVID restrictions of the past few years that really put a damper on our activities. The world has really changed a lot during that time and we may never experience the old “normal” fully again. One of the mixed blessings that arose from the pandemic times was ZOOM meetings. I have been receiving and posting to our list-serve around three per week, sometimes more. The advantage of these is that they keep us in touch with what is happening all over the country and the world with regard to Anthroposophy. Now we can attend AGM’s in Dornach without needing to fly there. Of course it is better to attend events in person, but for those with limited income or health concerns it is a Godsend. It is also wonderful to see old friends on the Zoom meetings. TI has taken some of the pressure off our small Board for planning events because there is so much happening online. It has actually happened twice that things appeared on Zoom that I would like to have attended, but I was already committed to giving talks here! While we had no guest speakers or performances from a distance this past year, we were delighted to welcome Carolyn Rich who gave us two Speech presentations, one in August and one a week ago (March 13) , She is planning to give us another performance in May, which we are greatly looking forward to.
One very special gift we received this year was a Grant for Eurythmy work from Eurythmy Spring Valley which paid our local Eurythmists to give Eurythmy lessons and performances for us at our festivals. This was most appreciated. Bride Alona McWilliam has written an extensive report about her work here and abroad. and we will hear that later in our program.
Our dues-paying members for 2022 totaled 36 people. That number is a little mis-leading, as it includes people from China, Italy, Georgia and several people we have never seen. While we are grateful for their financial support, we would actually prefer that they would attend our events and become part of our spiritual family.
All Festivals were covered and it was especially wonderful to see so many people participating and taking turns leading the various celebrations. A special thanks goes out to Jenny Bingham who held many festival=planning groups in her home. In addition to the traditional seasonal festivals, this year was the second observance of an Unbornness Festival. We worked together with the Christian Community during the Holy Nights during their Retreat with Lenker Craig Wiggins and we presented two talks about the Burning of the Goetheanum. During Advent, our branch prepared for the Holy Nights by doing presentations about the First Goetheanum and the various Arts that went into its construction. A lot of work went into that. A number of Play readings were held with members taking parts. Another is being prepared for this coming Good Friday.
One goal that I would like to set for the coming year is for everyone, especially the Board, do all we can to reach out to the greater community to increase our membership, especially to encourage younger people to join, as they are the future. The final activity of our afternoon here will be to discuss other things you would like to see happen in our branch in the coming year.
Treasurer’s Report for 2022 (Robert Mays, Treasurer)
At year-end 2022, the Branch had $1,462 in checking and restricted funds of $27,483 in the Building Fund, $10,465 in the Linda Folsom Fund, and $5,035 in other restricted funds.
Income for 2022 was: $951 in Dues, $810 in Donations, $2,000 from a special Eurythmy grant, $1,045 for Lectures and Workshops, and $271 earned in interest, for a total of $5,217 in income.
Expenses for 2022 were: $2,000 in Grants for Eurythmy, $200 for scholarship, $1,648 for Event Food and Honorarium, Room Rentals, and Workshop expenses, and $1,120 for General Operations and Website Fees, for a total of $4,968 in income. The net profit for 2022 was $250.
Our plan for 2023 is to convert our existing Certificates of Deposit to high yield CDs to grow our Building and Folsom Funds further.
School of Spiritual Science (Judy Frey)
Rudolf Steiner gave esoteric lessons to certain members of the Theosophical Society before our Society was founded. These were stopped when the Anthroposophy Society was formed. He only began giving esoteric lessons again after he took on the leadership of the Society. These lessons are not the same as the lessons he gave the Theosophical Society. Like the Foundation Stone Meditation, he wanted to construct our lessons in such a way that they enter the listener’s hearts and only then the understanding of the head instead of trying to reach the heart through the intellect as one might experience in books and lectures.
The School of Spiritual Science in our area consists of 33 members most of whom are inactive due to relocating or other reasons. We meet monthly at Emerson Waldorf School except during the summer months. This School, often called the First Class, indicating that a Second Class was to be given at a later time, is intended for those who wish to make Anthroposophy the center of their lives in their daily strivings. They should be willing to “hold forth as an Anthroposophist.” That is they should indicate by their deeds and words that Anthroposophical undertakings are not mere hobbies, but serious endeavors. This is not to say that non Class members do not take the Society and its offerings seriously, but that this School is only offered to those who do.
If you wish to find out more about the School with an aim to possibly joining, please contact Ben Bingham, Suzanne Mays or Judy Frey.
Emerson Waldorf School (Viorica Comaniciu)
The school was reaccredited by both AWSNA and SAIS this year. The visiting teams were impressed and gave us an unqualified reaccreditation, which came with some good recommendations for our future growth.
Teachers continue to innovate within the curriculum and programming. We feel that this helps us to renew and deepen our connection to Anthroposophy and Waldorf pedagogy, as we have to continually dig deeper into both the intentions of the Waldorf School and the needs of children and the world of today. Examples include our expanded way of working with grades 6-8, new electives and blocks in the high school, a different approach to music education, and our outdoor kindergarten.
Combined 6-8 grade students participate weekly in Social Learning activities. One third of them is part of the Food Justice group. They raise money, buy, pack and deliver food for different organizations. The Environmental Justice group engages in cleaning up and learning more about water ways and water protection on the school campus and Brumley Nature Preserve. The other students work with the Indigenous group, Seven Directions, a group which honors Indigenous knowledge, cultivating innovation and collaboration. They are engaged in building a cob house on the kindergarten playground.
The sports program is back to normal. At this point the students are engaged in Ultimate Freebee. High school as well as middle school had their own evening dance events.
Our faculty is very involved and respected professionally in the Waldorf world. Teachers are doing evaluations, mentoring, guest teaching, accreditation visits, and are being published in Renewal Magazine. Several of our faculty are also giving trainings for Waldorf educators through the Center for Anthroposophy and other training centers.
The school established a small endowment for the first time. In terms of resources for independent schools, ours is very modest, but this is a big step for Emerson Waldorf School.
Biodynamic Group (Leni Covington)
The NC/TRIANGLE area Biodynamic group has adopted the name, THE MERRY PREPSTIRS. Several stirs were held in 2022, culminating in the New Year’s grinding of gold, frankincense and Myrrh at the home of Joy and Bob Kwapien and John Lyerly in Mebane. About 8 members were in attendance.
Many of the stirs are held at the homes of Mary Leonhardi in Cedar Grove and Sandy Demeree in downtown Durham. Members fill their containers to take home the goods for their gardens.
Dues are $30 for the 2023 year. This pays for the preps.
Because Jon Lyerly has moved to work in western NC, Ben Bingham has stepped forward to lead the group in 2023. Plans were made for dates and locations for April, May and June 2023 for the next 3 stirs.
Everyone is welcome and invited!! If you wish to be put on the mailing list, please contact Mary Leonhardi at mleonhardi@hotmail.com
Christian Community (Kathleen Wright)
During the Holy Nights, Lenker Craig Wiggins came to our community to give a 3-day workshop, at which the Burning of the Goetheanum was commemorated. Kathleen Wright gave two talks about it. Matthias Giles continues to serve as the priest for our affiliate. He visits 5 times a year. An average of 22 people attend the services. A funeral for Paul Jackson was held by Matthias in June and Matthias’s wife, Emma Heirman who is also a priest held a St. John’ service for us.
Study Groups:
READING FOR THE DEAD (Leni Covington)
Meetings were held weekly at the home of Joanna Carey in Durham from January-May 2022. Following a summer break, the meetings were reinstated at the home of Eve Olive on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month, from 4:00-5:30. Eve Olive, Allen Barenholtz, and Leni Covington are the holding group for this gathering.
The group is currently reading The Work of the Angels in Man’s Astral Body and will soon begin HOW CAN MANKIND FIND THE CHRIST AGAIN? No reservations are needed; come when you can, even if only once.
Individual Initiatives:
Eurythmy Offerings – (Bride Alona McWilliam)
In Chapel Hill, this past holiday season was filled with many festive gatherings, in which Eurythmy was an integral part. At the four-day Christmas Conference, “Promise, Prophecy and Path” (hosted by the Christian Community in collaboration with the local branch) an hour of daily group eurythmy was brought to all participants. We explored the breathing between self and world, giving, receiving, center, periphery, expansion, contraction, in space, and with rhythmic ball passing. There was much laughter and a mood of renewed vitality and social warmth which Eurythmy brings so well as a gift. For the rich filling of our work, we built up the EVOE: addressing earth, heaven and each other, each time bringing the O in the will realm, gazing straight forward.
Our last exploration was that of the letters KMB (which in the Christmas season at the Christian Community are posted above the altar, along with other words from the Luke Gospel). What do they stand for? Why are they there? We looked at the corresponding eurythmy figures, making note of their colors and gesture and then explored their sound qualities in movement. What does the K do? …a brightness, a splitting open, making space for something. The M? …a taking into the heart and mulling over. B? … an incorporating and protecting (See Luke 2:8-19 for more contemplation). Through embodiment, this work greatly supported the enlivening of thoughts and deepened the reality of our role in realizing “peace on earth” through our striving of veneration for all living things, transformed to “good will.”
Each evening had a different artistic sharing. First the three different Hallelujah’s given to Lori Maier-Smits, Tatiana Kisseleff and Ilona Schubert, the eurythmy solo “Birth,” and the last evening held by Melody Miller in an enlivening performance of speech recitation. Advent was no less eventful, with the exploration of the four Sunday’s corresponding art and its manifestation in the first Goetheanum: architecture, sculpture, painting, music. There was a mix of performance, demonstration, and group eurythmy to support this journey, alongside presentations given by different community members. Following her demonstration of musical intervals, Christina Beck’s performance of “Aria” from Bach’s Goldberg Variations was a deepening of breathing into musical beauty.
The new year has brought with it much budding of new growth and activity. Having returned to Spring Valley in January for a 6-week-long Eurythmy Therapy internship with Brigida Baldszun at Green Meadow Waldorf School, I found myself exposed to a whole other side of the community which I only occasionally got glimpses of before, while in my full-time Eurythmy Training. These new encounters in learning and work have been sources of great inspiration and strength for me as I begin this new path of Eurythmy Therapy. Reconnecting to my artistic roots I was able to share a speech solo, “Birth,” in the Eurythmy Spring Valley Winter Studio Program, a rich evening medley of 16 pieces from 12 eurythmists, hailing from Montreal, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Spring Valley. It was a healing, joyful and moving event!
I was then invited to share the same piece at the Spring Valley Festival for the Unborn a few weeks later. Inspired to share the riches of these experiences, I organized a Unborn Festival at the House of Peace in Ipswich, Massachusetts where I performed “Birth” once again as a opening and closing, read stories, and poems from Eve Olive’s book Cosmic Child, and led group Eurythmy with my fellow eurythmist Kathe Stepenuck-Johnson accompanied by Joan Tannheimer on the silver flute. The event was intimate and moving for all you were there.
Now really feeling like I was on tour, I returned to Chapel Hill for a week to prepare for the second Unborn Festival in our community. We were joined by Brigida Baldszun from Spring Valley in a festive afternoon of eurythmy, music, poetry recitation, contemplations of our own Unbornness and the ensuing journey each of us has been on since we decided to heed the call and take the plunge…
The next day Brigida and I returned to Spring Valley where I assisted in the Sunbridge teacher training for a week (before flying to England to continue my own studies). Though I was by then ready for a good hiatus, the invitation to introduce the Unborn Festival with stories and Eurythmy to the Sunbridge students proved too fertile a opportunity to miss… And so, as though the Eurythmy and the Unborn now have a momentous will of their own I continue to feel compelled to plant a seed for this festival where ever I go…
I carry all these experiences in my heart as I continue on my way with a growing focus on my three year Eurythmy Therapy Training, now entering my second year. My studies bring me twice a year, for a month at a time, overseas to Emerson College, UK. I am in England now, in the first week of the Spring block where we have been focusing on Psychiatry with doctors lectures and eurythmy exercises. The work is good! You can follow my journey further by going to my GoFundMe: Support Bride Alona’s Eurythmy Therapy Training.
With warm Spring greetings from wet and blustery England -Bride Alon
Leni Covington:
Kenyon Avenue Press is an independent publishing company dedicated to publishing fairy tales from many countries for readers in grades 2-3 to develop comprehension and vocabulary. The first book, THE SHOEMAKER AND THE ELVES, which I retold, was published in 2021. The book designer is a Waldorf parent whose 2 daughters attended the BOULDER Waldorf School from KDG- Grade 12.
In 2022, KAP published the Spanish translation of THE SHOEMAKER AND THE ELVES. In October, 2022, KOSNATI AND THE DRAGON, a fairy tale from South Africa, retold by Leni Covington and illustrated by Tessa Guze, a former EWS student, was published. Book Signings were held at THE RALEIGH DAY SCHOOL AND THE CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, WALDORF SCHOOL. All 3 books, along with Waldorf Teachers turned authors Eve Olive, Sharifa Oppenheimer and Olga Wierbicki (illustrated by Crystal Mays, a former EWS student,) books, were featured at the RALEIGH DAY SCHOOL CRAFT FAIR, THE CWS HOLIDAY BAZAAR AND THE EWS HOLIDAY BAZAAR THIS WINTER.
Waldorf-inspired Initiatives (Leni Covington)
The Unity School was renamed RALEIGH DAY SCHOOL in January 2023. It is a Waldorf®-inspired school located in SE Raleigh, and aspires to bring Waldorf® education to Wake County by becoming the county’s first AWSNA recognized Waldorf® School there. Currently, RDS offers Early Childhood, in 2 classrooms, with 11 students this year. Heather Power is fully trained and is the Faculty Chair. Jamie Kelly is in training. Bridget Liebold is the assistant to both classes. EC Faculty were evaluated by Charlotte Dukich, a WECAN site visitor, in April 2022. Jamie Kelly was observed and evaluated again for her training by Zoe Rothfuss for Sunbridge in December, 2022. WECAN ASSOCIATE status was given to the school in June 2022.
The school offers after-care until 4 p.m. The afterschool program is led by Jean Marie Whaley.
Grade 1 has 6 students and is taught by Rachel Caldwell, a trained EC teacher from Bend, Oregon. Rachel is mentored weekly by Leni Covington and will continue her training this summer. Trisha Minick teaches the 2nd grade with 3 students and will continue her training this summer. Leland Rayner, a fully trained grades teacher, is the third grade teacher with 8 students. Grades teachers were evaluated by Ingeborg Boesch in January, 2023.
A CHILD/CAREGIVER CLASS (CCC) was inaugurated weekly this school year for caregivers or parents and children, birth-4 years of age. Leni Covington is leading this, assisted by Kerrianne Studioso, a current parent at the school.
RALEIGH DAY SCHOOL is searching for a grades teacher for next year and has begun to interview. It plans to hire a part-time music teacher, handwork teacher and Spanish teacher for the 2023-24 school year.
BOARD ACTIVITIES of the Raleigh Day School: Board members include Lucy Chartier, Board Chair; Tommy Dalton, Lydia Johnson, Heather Power, Bridget Leibold, Rebecca Hendricks, and Leni Covington. Raleigh Day School has been searching for a permanent location–either property or a building. The desired spot would be in NE Raleigh. Any leads are greatly appreciated.
Raelee Peirce facilitated a half day of work with the Strategic Planning Committee on January 14. From this, several ideas were generated with the goal to help increase enrollment. These included changing the school name, revision of the website; providing more streamlined introductions to the school via tours and presentations to prospective parents about Waldorf education; and deepening new parents’ understanding about applying principles of Waldorf education in the home through a series of ‘onboarding’ meetings with a Simplicity Parenting expert.
SCHOOL SPONSORED ACTIVITIES OF RALEIGH DAY SCHOOL:
- School festivals celebrated include May Day 2022, Opening Day, Michaelmas, St. Martin’s, St Nicholas Day, St. Lucia and the Spiral of Lights.
- A puppet show of KOSNATI AND THE DRAGON was performed October 8, 2022 by Leni Covington. This was followed by an Open House and a book signing of KOSNATI.
- The school held its first Craft Festival November 18, 2022. Arts and crafts activities for children were offered along with THE SNOW MAIDEN, a puppet show presented by Marlene Joyce, Heather Power, Leni Covington and Rachel Caldwell.
- Open House was held on January 28, 2023.
- Raelee Peirce conducted a Simplicity Parenting workshop open to the public on February 11, 2023 as an offering for parent education and community outreach.
HISTORY
The school began in 2020 with outdoor classrooms in Raleigh and relocated last year by renting space from St Mark’s Episcopal Church, located at 1725 New Hope Road, Raleigh 27604. It continues to rent there this year and will stay at that location next year as well. Activities are posted on their website, RALEIGHDAYSCHOOL.ORG, and Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Voting:
Robert Mays and Viorica Comaniciu were both re-elected to the Board
A discussion about things we would like to see happen in the Branch was held.
Closing Verse: The Branch Ideal
From generous sources of the creative ones –
Lending aid to those who selflessly dedicate themselves
To the needs of the as yet quietly learning ones –
And where they meet with one another, there
Spiritually active individuals present and defend
The Anthroposophical substance received –
Higher Forces ministrate Light-Warmth-Devotion.
