May News from the Youth Section at the Goetheanum

"THE SUN WILL ALWAYS RISE"

"There are certain delicate qualities that both the sun and trust share; both reveal and shed light on everything they touch. Both encourage growth, and both—with no doubt at all, will always come out. Just like the sun, trust rises and sets. And as it does, it carries with it different degrees of intimacy and weight." ISC21 "Trust" team member

Dear friends of the Youth Section Worldwide,

As we approach St. John's tide, we greet you "warmly" from a cold spring in Dornach. It has almost been two months since we gathered online at the first-ever digital International Students Conference. Over 200 students and young people "met" to explore and develop trust together. Since then, the Youth Section at the Goetheanum's team has had a chance to reflect on this unique experience and to create a full report including our thoughts, feedback and reflections from the organising team.

This newsletter is dedicated to all the young people who participated, especially the thirteen young people who so valiantly and responsibly carried the huge task of delivering this event in full online. Every day during the conference, they rose full of enthusiasm —just like the sun!— to begin the day's work and try, really try, to connect with all of you who were participating from afar. Their efforts are a testimony of young people's will to connect, something that by now we know is an unstoppable force, regardless of the circumstances that surround us.

In particular, we would like to thank our dear team members Tim Bauer and Vincent Eichholz, who joined us back in October and now are moving on to their next adventures. They were the main carriers of "Trust", and none of what took place would have been possible without them! Thank you, Tim! We wish you much joy in your architecture studies. And thank you, Vincent! We are lucky to keep you close a while longer as you continue your work in the Agriculture Section.

Whether you find yourself in the northern or southern hemisphere, a special time is approaching in connection to the rising and setting sun - the solstice and St. John's celebrations. Many around the world will light fires on this day, and we invite you in preparation for this moment to experience every day, again and again, the warmth of the trust we can place in the sun's love for the Earth. If you want, you can accompany us in the study of "Youth and the Etheric Heart" (GA 217a), Rudolf Steiner's addresses to the younger generations. A text that manages to fire our enthusiasm every time.

Constanza Kaliks, Andrea de la Cruz, Gaia Termopoli, Ioana Viscrianu and Johannes Kronenberg with Tim Bauer and Vincent Eichholz

The Youth Section at the Goetheanum Team

Beyond all difficulties, beyond the fact that there is disruption and fear, beyond the fact that things happened differently as expected and wanted, beyond all uncertainty, we all know: there can be trust. It is trust that leads us into the earth: trust that there would be a surrounding for each one to be, a surrounding that would enable us to learn to live and be together in the world.

Trust was the theme of these four days conference – but also the theme for months of preparation, for meetings, conversations, for questioning and also not knowing if it would be possible to make it happen. It was a real journey from courage to trust: from the courage to affirm the will to enable the gathering in the conditions given, to the trust that it would be good, that the aim of finding sources for our own trust would be fulfilled.

Being in so many different places of our earth, during the conference we had sunrises happening all the time – so the gathering occurred in the presence of the constant gift to rely on the certainty that there will be a sunrise, again, every day, for all. Maybe this is one of the deepest certainties that we share in our life.

And then the question arises: Can we learn to trust ourselves, others and the world in similar completeness as we have regarding the rising sun?

[1] Steiner, Rudolf. Pädagogischer Jugendkurs. GA 217. Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1988, pp. 94, 95. 6. Conference, 8.10.1922.

When did things begin to shift? When we look around us as young people wanting to understand our present times, we cannot help but draw our attention to the years 2018 and 2019, when a kind of restlessness began to arise amongst youth on a global scale...

2019 marked a turning point in time for young people worldwide, whose voices began to take centre-stage in global events, perhaps even for the first time in history, becoming protagonists with powerful voices and not only spectators of the larger world drama. And even if many could not identify with the dominant-popular ways of expressing unrest, it was clear that there was a universal deeper longing that lived within the younger generations, sensing that things were reaching a tipping point and that all of us would have to play a part.

Within the Youth Section, a question began to arise: regardless of individual standpoint, whichever challenge one might be experiencing in one’s own biographical journey - what can be grounding for those who sense this need for being awake and prepared? The answer came from the ISC preparation group, which chose Courage to be the key theme for young people in 2019. Through Courage, one can experience an expression of one’s own agency because to be courageous in the face of such challenges means to assert that “I”, that “we” are present in world events as participants who co-shape reality.

Uncertainty awakens us to the realisation that we need to ground ourselves in something deeper than what external events offer us; that we need to learn from experiences that one can —at any given moment— develop actions out of knowledge of ourselves and the world "in becoming". And thus, from the realisation of courage to deal with uncertainty, trust arises - trust in the potential that human beings can again and again “renew the life of the world from its foundations up”.

YOUTH SECTION WORLDWIDE
NEW LATIN AMERICAN YOUTH SECTIONS!

In the past few months, three new Youth Sections have been established in Central and Latin America. The movement is full of energy and enthusiasm and we are so happy to welcome Chile, Colombia and Mexico to the larger Youth Section Worldwide Network! Below you can extracts from Mexico's YS founding event online (in Spanish).

By now there are groups in more than 20 countries spread across the planet, all working locally with the spiritual striving of youth grounded on Anthroposophy. If you want to contact a Youth Section in your local area, take a look here, or write us an email. We will happily put you in touch! To strengthen our work, we have begun meeting regularly via Zoom until we can gather in person again. If you are part of a local Youth Section and want to know more about these monthly gatherings, please get in touch.

Alma Humana is a conference organised by Latin and Romance language regions' representatives connected with the Goetheanum. In preparation for the 2022 conference in Dornach, an online event will take place this summer to begin thinking the following on this conference's them "Human Dignity":

What is human dignity?

Where and how is it forgotten, misunderstood and violated?

What can communities contribute to the cultivation of human dignity, even when external circumstances make it very difficult?

What are the concrete and specific realities and tasks of the various Romance- speaking countries in relation to this, including the rights of women, children, the elderly, the right to education, to health care, to healthy food, to work, and much more?

The (Re)Search Summer School is a week-long experience for young researchers to share in the awe-inspiring task of setting ourselves afoot in the path of knowledge. Through theory and practice, individual and collective work, we will seek those questions that can get us started in a journey of discovery, where learning in wonder gives way to questions of morality in research. The all-encompassing theme of the pilot summer school will thus be, “Research as Participation in the Process of Knowledge”.

The Youth Section would like to invite young people and organisations to take part in Frage! Begegne! Spiel!. The programme will take place from the 11th till the 17th of October, 2021 at the Goetheanum, Switzerland. The event is aimed at young people (age group of 16 to 28 years old) from different countries and cultural backgrounds who have questions about identity and an interest in co-creating artistically. Throughout the one week-programme, a theatre performance will be developed gradually through the collective work of the group in accumulating biographical stories and reflections on questions of diversity, one's own identity and encounters and challenges that we sometimes face as young people. We will work with drama, music and stage design.

In the course of the “Questions of Belonging” event, we would like to dive in with you to explore the questions about human identity under the theme of “Belonging”. We are all unique spiritual beings. Each of us shares the experience of belonging to a particular human condition. A condition that might seem restricting to our self-driven potential but could ultimately support us in shaping our individual destinies on Earth. How we encounter our physical, earthly attributes —such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, cultural and national backgrounds— informs our path of self-knowledge and becoming. This colloquium attempts to give an open space for young people to embark on a journey to explore questions about the many facets of human identity. Together we will create a space to explore the possibilities that these questions might hold for us, individually and collectively.

Do you want to organise a local event with your friends and peers? Send us an email!