Anthroposophy in Hawkes Bay          

Calendar of Coming Events
-- Diary Dates

In the Rudolf Steiner Centre, 401 Whitehead Road, Hastings
unless stated otherwise.

• Tuesday 6 May at 10:30am.  Michelle Vette will speak about her recent visit to Dornach and Europe. 
• Friday 9 to Sunday 11 May in Auckland. A Workshop on anthroposophical finances with experienced UK speaker Christopher H Budd.
• Saturday 7 June. 7 pm. Festival for the Dead.
• Saturday 28 June.  Winter Festival

The Committee ask that visitors to events in the Centre pay a contribution to the Koha box in the Foyer, as we have regular bills for electric power, city rates, insurance, and maintenance for an ageing building.

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ADULT EURYTHMY

A talk by Michelle Vette
General Secretary | Anthroposophical Society NZ

"Please join me at the Centre, on Tuesday 6^th at 10.30,  where I would like to share some updates and experiences from my recent visit to Dornach. I will be talking about attending the 100 year Commemoration of Rudolf Steiners Death Day and our week of work at the General Secretaries meetings at the Goetheanum, touching briefly on the GAS AGM. 
I look forward to seeing you then."

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-- Current Study Groups

• Fridays fortnightly at 7 pm in the Foyer. Topic: Rudolf Steiner's Michael Letters and the accompanying Leading Thoughts in GA26.  The Group is open: if you wish to join come early at 6:50 pm and we will help you borrow the book from the Library.

Leaders of Study Groups - you are invited to list what you are doing, when and where and how those interested can join you.  Details to info@anthrohb.nz

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New Committee

Since the AGM we have a new Committee which met for the first time on 1 May.
If you need to contact a Committee Member, here are the details:

• Chair
  Gerrit Raichle
  chair@anthrohb.nz  022-1988143
  
  
• Secretary
  Angela Hair
  angela@concordia.co.nz  027-4436737
  
  
• Treasurer  
  Robin Bacchus
  treas@anthrohb.nz  022-3982805
  
  
• John Jackson
  jacksonj33@yahoo.co.nz  022-1228002
  
  
• Michael Caris
  mgcaris47@gmail.com  021-1538720

Future Committee Meetings: Monthly, second Thursday from 5:30 pm allowing up to 2 hours.

Next meeting Thursday 12 June 5.30pm

Over the next weeks the members of the Committee will introduce themselves with a brief Bio in the Newsletter.  We start this week with Gerrit.

^^^^^^^^^ 

Gerrit Raichle

I was born in 1960 in Stuttgart, Germany, as third child with two older sisters.

After obtaining my Abitur (UE), I had a gap year and then began my tertiary studies, graduating with a degree in Social Work (Dipl. Soz. Päd.), after which I worked in Germany with disadvantaged children and youth.

Later I crossed paths with a colleague who had just returned from a trip to Australia and New Zealand.

He told me about an Anthroposophical Adult Education Institute in Havelock North, New Zealand (Taruna) which, at the time, was offering a one-year, full time Waldorf Teacher Preparatory Course.

After months of investigating and in preparation, we decided to apply for this Course.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I ended up going to New Zealand on my own and I spent the year 1985 fully immersed at Taruna.

Early in the year, not long after arriving in New Zealand, I also met my future wife Bernie and her three children.

The following year I returned to Germany having had to leave New Zealand due to visa restrictions.

My partner followed five months later to attend the Wynstone’s one-year full time Waldorf Kindergarten Training in Gloucester, England.

We were married in Germany and later returned to New Zealand and reunited with the children, who had been living with their father for the year.

Two weeks after our return, I joined Hohepa Homes, an Anthroposophical Community for children and adults with disabilities, working in the adult community in various roles for over 16 years.

From 1990 to 1992 I attended the 3-year Hohepa in-house ‘Curative Education and Social Therapy Training Diploma Course’.

In the following years I worked with the multi-disciplinary medical team as Social Therapist developing therapeutic indications for individuals in the adult community.

Towards the end of 2003 I decided to finish my work with Hohepa, taking over the role of Managing Director of Awhina Day Nursery and Kindergarten, the first anthroposophical day nursery in New Zealand for children from 6 months of age, which Bernie had founded in 1995.

This transition allowed my wife to concentrate on the increasing requests for training courses based on the Awhina model, Nursery and Kindergarten Centre visits and consultations, predominantly overseas.

I continued my work until December 2020 when we sadly had to prematurely bring the Awhina journey to an end due to financial pressure brought on by the New Zealand Government’s decision to impose unnecessary and restrictive lockdowns.

I joined the Anthroposophical Society in New Zealand in December 1993.

I look forward to serving on the ASHB Committee on your behalf.

Gerrit

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Art in the Foyer

We have a young artist's work on display for the next month or more.

Danielle Bascombe-Foss writes:
“I want to give a new look to art.  Just like life, it’s not just to look nice.  It can be uneven, messy; it has character.
I show my emotions through my art pieces.  They show how I felt vin that week or that month.
I enjoy experimenting with all the different colours: bright, dark and metallic.  These pieces have been created using acrylic paint, applied with a brush, sponge, stamps and fingers.  I let my hands do the work.”

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HAPPINESS

"The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less."
== Socrates
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"Hospital"   Reflections attributed to Pope Francis who died at Easter:

"The walls of hospitals have heard more honest prayers than churches... 
They have witnessed far more sincere kisses than those in airports...
It is in hospitals that you see a homophobe being saved by a gay doctor.
A privileged doctor saving the life of a beggar...
In intensive care, you see a Jew taking care of a racist...
A police officer and a prisoner in the same room receiving the same care...
A wealthy patient waiting for a liver transplant, ready to receive the organ from a poor donor...
It is in these moments, when the hospital touches the wounds of people, that different worlds intersect according to a divine design. And in this communion of destinies, we realize that alone, we are nothing. 
The absolute truth of people, most of the time, only reveals itself in moments of pain or in the real threat of an irreversible loss.
A hospital is a place where human beings remove their masks and show themselves as they truly are, in their purest essence.
This life will pass quickly, so do not waste it fighting with people.
Do not criticize your body too much.
Do not complain excessively.
Do not lose sleep over bills.
Make sure to hug your loved ones.
Do not worry too much about keeping the house spotless.
Material goods must be earned by each person—do not dedicate yourself to accumulating an inheritance."

....
"You are waiting for too much: Christmas, Friday, next year, when you have money, when love arrives, when everything is perfect...
Listen, perfection does not exist.
A human being cannot attain it because we are simply not made to be fulfilled here.
Here, we are given an opportunity to learn.
So, make the most of this trial of life—and do it now.
Respect yourself, respect others. Walk your own path, and let go of the path others have chosen for you.
Respect: do not comment, do not judge, do not interfere.
Love more, forgive more, embrace more, live more intensely!
And leave the rest in the hands of the Creator."

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COMMUNITY NOTICEBOARD:

Requests; Exchange; Wanted; For sale

Notices to info@anthrohb.nz ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE CHARACTER OF NUMBERS

Numbers are ideas, thus they are ‘spiritual’.

In Arithmetic they relate in different ways to willing, feeling and thinking.

WILL: counting actively by taking items, say an apple, (rhythmically) from a basket and putting them elsewhere and speaking the number in the process.

FEELING: seeking a relationship between numbers, also in a 3fold way – smaller than <, equal to =, bigger than >.

THINKING: each number has a different, individual characteristic form or shape or principle(sometimes several) whether written or in some other aspect or way of ordering.  Such numbers can help us see structure the world around us.

ONE: Unity. Primary. undivided or undifferentiated.  Universe.

TWO: Duality.  Binary. Secondary.  Polarity of opposites: male-female; up-down; left-right; in-out; concentrated-expanded; heaven-earth.

THREE: Trinity. Tertiary. Having a middle term that links two outer terms, which may be a polarity. 

• Solid, liquid, gas. (Ice, water, steam/vapour). 
• Stationary, oscillating, moving. 
• Inside, boundary, outside.
• Front, centre, back. 
• Right, middle, left.  
• Measurement: Distance [length], duration [time], mass [matter]
• Length, breadth, width. 
• Point, line, plane.  

And so on … write down some more for yourself.

But there is a further set where the items are very similar, such as in a Triangle:  3 points, 3 lines, 3 angles.  Sometimes it is just in the observer’s mind that 3 things are linked by some similarity:  e.g. three items in a row – items that have no intrinsic link.

FOUR: Quadrinity. Tetrary.  Can be a double polarity: Spring Summer Autumn Winter.
Sometimes an extension of three as:
Solid, Liquid, Gas, Energy. [energy permeates the first three]
[after Einstein gave us E = m.C², which relates energy to mass.]

Physical Body, Etheric Body, Astral Body, Ego.  [Ego permeates all 3 bodies]

Mineral {form}, Plant {process}, Animal {consciousness}, Human {self-awareness}.

THREENESS THREE-WAY TRIPLING

The human body abounds and echoes with 3foldness
 – made in the image of the Trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

In the following I am using words to convey pictures – for this you need to use your imagination.

• BODY, SOUL, SPIRIT.
• Heredity, Karma, Reincarnation.
• In the Physical Body: Head, chest, limbs.
• Enclosing protecting spherical skull;  moveable, cylindrical ribcage; mobile, articulated long-bones of the limbs.
• Soul Forces: Thinking, feeling, willing. 
• Or: Knowledge, emotion, action.
• Journey of scientific knowledge: Percept, mental picture, concept.
• Consciousness: waking, dreaming, sleeping
• Brain, heart/lungs, muscles.
• Form, pulse, strength.
• Cavities in the head: cranial, nasal, oral
• Related senses: Eyes – sight/colour, nose – smell, mouth/tongue – taste.
• Range of these senses: sees very distant stars; smells odours in local environment; tastes inside the mouth.

You can find many more triples – and one realises what a marvel it is that everyone of us expresses these in a universal but also unique way.

Next week I will explore the similar multitude of 3foldnesses in human social life that lies behind Rudolf Steiner’s Threefold Social Order.