Curriculum

4 Books and some short lectures
Term I - Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment - R.Steiner; Anthroposophy in Everyday Life - R.Steiner
Term II - Theosophy - R.Steiner; Karma & Reincarnation - R.Steiner
Term III - Philosophy of Freedom - R.Steiner; Human and Cosmic Thought - R.Steiner
Term IV - Occult Science - R.Steiner; The Cycle of the Year - R.Steiner

shared path, acrylic on canvas, 10 x 15 cm - Malcolm Glover 2010

4 terms
Term I: July - September

Term II: October - December

Term III: January - March

Term IV: April - June

4 Festival Gatherings
Throughout time and across world culture there are celebrations reflecting the natural rhythms of nature, and these are often linked to human life transitions and significant events in and of a culture. For modern people, who can live disconnected and distracted from the natural world of light and dark, planting and harvesting, birth and death, the celebration of festivals offers a portal of real experience, a touchstone connected to the cycles of nature which can offer nourishment to the human soul on its journey through life on earth.
In our Seasonal Festival Gatherings we are exploring, through an anthroposophical perspective, the ecumenical space of co-creating meaningful and relevant festival celebrations that welcome myth, traditions of many cultures and emergent elements that meet the needs of our times. Movement through eurythmy, explorations in the arts, conversation and biography, food and song, all play some part in these new festivals. We warmly welcome you to join us, all cultures, all people.
Anyone can join the Festival Gatherings 1, 2, 3 or 4 times a year without participating in the rest of the program. Please click this link for more information on the Festival Gatherings as individual workshops.

Fall Equinox Gathering:
A 3-day weekend working of Wet on Wet Watercolour Painting, Dynamic Drawing, Eurythmy to Poetry, and Conversation.

...If we understand what is going on in the universe and in man, then the cosmos itself will paint from out of its own forces. Then one does not lay on this or that colour according to human ideas, but one paints, in harmony with divine powers, the world which expresses their being, the whole being of Michael and the Dragon, as it can hover before one. A renewal of the old pictures comes about if one can paint out of direct contemplation of the cosmos...
From: The Four Seasons and the Archangels, Lecture 1 - by R.Steiner (Five Lectures given in Dornach, 5 to 13 October 1923)

Fall, acrylic on cotton 70 x 150 cm, Malcolm Glover 2010

Mid-Winter Solstice Gathering:
A 3-day weekend of exploring the Sculpture, the sculptural element of language in Eurythmy, and Conversation

colourscape 4, acrylic on cotton 70 x 150 cm, Malcolm Glover 2010

...When the harvest had been gathered in, however, and his limbs were rested, then a need stirred in them for some other form of activity, and his limbs took on a longing to knead. Then people derived a special satisfaction from all kinds of plastic, moulding activity. We might say that just as an intensive urge had arisen at the time of the St. John's festival for dancing and music, so toward Christmas time an intensive urge arose to knead, to mould, to create, using any kind of pliant substance available in nature. People had an especially sensitive feeling, for example, for the way water begins to freeze. This gave them the specific impulse to push it in one direction and another, so that the ice-forms appearing in the water took on certain shapes. Indeed people went so far as to keep their hands in the water while the shapes developed and their hands grew numb! In this way, when the water froze under the waves their hands cast up, it assumed the most remarkable artistic shapes, which of course again melted away...
From: The Cycle of the Year, Lecture 4 - by R.Steiner (Five Lectures given in Dornach, 31 March to 8 April 1923)

Spring Equinox Gathering:
A 3-day weekend to experience dramatic Gestures, Mask making, Soul Gestures in Eurythmy, and Conversation

...Within this architecture, and in the presence of the sculpture, there would have to be enacted a kind of Mystery Play, with man and Raphael as chief characters — Raphael with the staff of Mercury and all that belongs to it. In living artistic work everything is a challenge, and fundamentally there is no sculpture and no architecture which — if it is to be inwardly in accord with cosmic truth — does not call for a presentation in the space surrounding it of the artistic action it embodies. At Easter this architecture and sculpture would call for a Mystery Play, showing man taught by Raphael to see how far the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces make him ill, and how through the power of Raphael he can be led to perceive and recognise the healing principle, the great world-therapy...
From: The Four Seasons and the Archangels, Lecture 1 - by R.Steiner (Five Lectures given in Dornach, 5 to 13 October 1923)

Spring, acrylic on cotton 70 x 150 cm, Malcolm Glover 2010

Mid-Summer Solstice Gathering:
A 3-day weekend of Singing, Music, Recitation, Eurythmy to Music and Conversation

colourscape 2, acrylic on cotton 70 x 150 cm, Malcolm Glover 2010

...the participants were led to unfold a musical-poetic element in round dances having a strong rhythmic quality and accompanied by song. Certain presentations and performances were filled with distinctive musical recitative accompanied by primitive instruments. Such a festival was completely immersed in the musical-poetic element. What man had in his dream-consciousness he poured out into the cosmos, as it were, in the form of music, in song and dance...
From: The Cycle of the Year, Lecture 4 - by R.Steiner (Five Lectures given in Dornach, 31 March to 8 April 1923)