January/February 2016

Mingle your joys sometimes with your more earnest occupations.

Linnaeus

Two birds and worm, George McCutcheon (see George’s obituary on page 10)

Keeping in touch

Please let Sandra Stoddard know of any additions or changes: sandrastoddard@gmail.com +44(0)1224 733415

ContentsCelebrating with light Nick Blitz .......................1The messages of Herrnhut John and Penny Baring ....2Research and the Camphill movement

Maria Lyons ..................................................4Listening from the heart Harel Gafni and Runa

Sophia Evensen Gafni ...................................6A contemplation on economics Baruch Urieli ..8Proposal for new projects in London

Ingrid Hermansen .........................................9Obituaries:

George McCutcheon 10 / Toby Seex 12 News from the movement:

World Wide Weave diary: England and Wales Peter Bateson 15

Reviews ..........................................................17

A big warm thank you to you if you replied to my edito-rial in the last issue of the Camphill Correspondence,

in which we were asking for your help with subscrip-tions or donations. It was heart-warming to those that responded. If you forgot but were planning to, please do! We need to build up the subscription base again to ensure future financial viability, or alternatively to rely on donations to help keep the magazine running smoothly. Please ensure everyone in your community or household who would like a subscription, has one. Is there anyone else you can think of who would like to keep in touch with the Camphill world through Camp-hill Correspondence?

Keep your articles and announcements and adverts coming too! We so appreciate your involvement.

Your Editor, Maria.

Becoming 97Jack Knight, Simeon Houses ................. 9 September

Becoming 96Hazel Straker, Stroud ......................................6 April

Becoming 95, Marianne Gorge, Simeon Houses ................. 16 June

Becoming 94Monica Dorrington, Ringwood ..................... 20 June

Becoming 92Elizabeth Patrzich, Simeon Houses ...........30 January

Becoming 91Wera Levin, Überlingen.................................. 8 JuneGrizel Davidson, Newton Dee ..................... 29 JuneMarta Frey, Botton Village ....................29 SeptemberJean Surkamp, Ochil Tower..................24 NovemberBrigitte Köber, Rüttihubelbad .................7 DecemberTamar Urieli, Simeon Houses ..............25 December

Becoming 90Sophia Kunz, Triform .................................... 14 MayLisa Steuk, Mourne Grange .............................. 7 JulyReidunn Hedeotoft, Hogganvik ...................8 AugustBarbara Thom, Ochil Tower .................... 22 OctoberCaryl Smales, Botton Village ................12 NovemberChristiane Lauppe, William Morris ......11 DecemberBarbara Kauffmann, Percival ................27 December

Becoming 85Mark Gartner, Stourbridge ..............................3 AprilLeslie Gibbs, West Coast, S. Africa .................. 3 MayBarbara Roos, Ringwood ............................... 31 JulyAlwin Schwabe, Gempen Dornach ......28 December

Becoming 80Christel Wienberger, Nuremberg ..............2 FebruaryGiselheid Schmidt, Föhrenbühl ..............11 FebruaryChristel Schorre, Föhrenbühl ..................14 FebruaryBill Chambers, West Coast, S. Africa .......29 FebruaryFlo Huntly, Stourbridge ................................ 3 MarchJanet Coggin, Dunshane .................................3 AprilRudolf Ostertag, Brachenreuthe ....................12 AprilAndrew Hoy, Copake, USA ..........................23 AprilIngeburg Grundmann, Poland.......................25 AprilChristina Bould, Copake, USA ........................ 3 MayHerbert Wolf, Kimberton Hills ...................... 14 May

Piet Blok, Gannicox, Stroud .......................... 16 JuneAudrey Warren, The Grange ......................... 23 JuneBrigitte Valentien, Lehenhof ............................ 31JulyRosemarie Mende, Ringwood ....................11 AugustArdie Thieme, Hapstead ............................24 AugustDerek Jamson, Botton Village ..............16 SeptemberFrancisca Schilder, Hermanus Farm, S.A. .......25 SeptUte Schroeter, Newton Dee .................29 SeptemberCarl Wolff, Copake, USA ........................ 21 OctoberMelville Segal, Cape Town ...................... 30 OctoberKlaus-Dieter Schubert, Brachenreuthe ...8 NovemberAsbjorn Clausen, Hagartorp .................10 NovemberHanne Drexel, Milton Keynes ................2 DecemberSusanne Elsholtz, Kyle Village ................4 DecemberValerie Werthmann, Newton Dee ........16 DecemberBecoming 75Donald McRae, Newton Dee ......................... 7 JunePhyllis Jack, Newton Dee .............................. 23 JulyRosemary Simpson, Newton Dee ................9 AugustGrace Ann Peysson, Kimberton Hills .....7 SeptemberDavid Wolfe, Newton Dee ..................12 SeptemberDavid Humphriss, Botton Village ............ 26 OctoberRuth Polack, Botton Village ..................14 DecemberErnst Nef, Botton Village ......................24 DecemberBecoming 70Nils Langeland, Rotvol, Norway ................ 14 MarchSidsel Skalhold, Norway .................................7 AprilJane Balls, Frome, Somerset, ret. Botton ........ 19 MayJohn Nixon, Ballytobin ................................. 31 MayMichael Luxford, Delrow .............................. 17 JuneJames Stronge, Clanabogan ........................... 17 JulyBernhard Kern, Lehenhof ............................... 30 JulyJudith Jones, Simeon Houses .......................2 AugustGerd Stuttmann, Lehenhof .........................17 AugustMichael Babitch, Kimberton Hills ..............23 AugustEva Toresen, Norway .................................24 AugustEric de Haan, Jossasen Landsby .................27 AugustSteve Lyons, Tigh a’Chomainn....................27 AugustPauline Lewry, Botton ..........................13 SeptemberDianne Melsom, Newton Dee .............17 SeptemberPhilip Page, Botton ..............................23 SeptemberBente Gyde Christensen, Vidarasen .....25 SeptemberFrancoise Marcade, Perceval .................... 4 OctoberSimon Cautherley, Botton ....................... 25 OctoberHolly Bicking, Kimberton Hills ............17 NovemberRigmor Skalhold, Norway ....................11 December

Celebratory Birthdays 2016

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Celebrating with light Nick Blitz .......................1The messages of Herrnhut John and Penny Baring ....2Research and the Camphill movement

Maria Lyons ..................................................4Listening from the heart Harel Gafni and Runa

Sophia Evensen Gafni ...................................6A contemplation on economics Baruch Urieli ..8Proposal for new projects in London

Ingrid Hermansen .........................................9Obituaries:

George McCutcheon 10 / Toby Seex 12 News from the movement:

World Wide Weave diary: England and Wales Peter Bateson 15

Reviews ..........................................................17

Celebrating with lightNick Blitz, Camphill Kyle, Ireland

All life on earth depends on light either directly or indirectly and, with the combination of natural

light and artificial light being constantly available most of us tend to take it for granted, anytime and anyplace. However, if one were to reflect on the phenomenon of light scientifically, culturally and spiritually, one can become aware of its paradoxes and even of its mystery.

As a start, did you ever imagine there might be a con-nection between the so called Big Bang and the candle on the dining room table? This unlikely scenario is some-thing I would like to explore with you, particularly at this time of year following Advent and Christmas, when, in the northern hemisphere, the light of the sun was wan-ing and outer darkness encroached increasingly on our lives. But at the same time, as we journeyed through Advent, we turned increasingly to the light within, often supported by the light of candles.

Now Candlemas approaches, when traditionally, the western term ‘Candlemas’ (or Candle Mass) referred to the practice whereby on February 2 a priest blessed beeswax candles for use throughout the year. The earth, though still cold, is active through the forces of stellar light it receives, hence the biodynamic-Camphill tradi-tion of earth candles; and, at the same time the outer light is growing with the onset of spring.

What then of the scientific paradoxes? Arthur Zajonc, in his beautiful book Catching the Light: the entwined history of light and mind describes how although light lightens the world, it is invisible. When one looks into a specially constructed black box into which a beam of light is projected, what does one see? Nothing, just darkness! Only if an object is inserted into the box, in the pathway of the light, does that object become visible through the light that is reflected from it.

Moreover, it has been demonstrated that light mani-fests simultaneously both as wave (electromagnetic radiation) and discrete ‘particles’ (photons, which lack mass); that it travels in straight lines, but that its trajec-tory is curved by the mass of the sun; that the speed of light is finite (299,792,458 meters per second) but that it is infinite too, as time slows and distances con-tract relative to the speed of light. And finally, it has recently been experimentally demonstrated that two photons can be fused to form an electron plus a positron which together have mass; i.e. matter has been formed where none previously existed. The mind boggles at these microcosmic and macrocos-mic threshold phenomena, which is perhaps what Einstein had in mind when, in 1951, he wrote: ‘All the 50 years of conscious brooding have brought me no closer to the answer to the question, ‘what is light’? Of course, today every rascal thinks he knows the answer, but he is deluding himself.’

Surely, however, the icing on the cake has to be the so-called Big Bang, when all things supposedly began. At that point the universe is said to have been infinitely small and infinitely dense and, not surpris-ingly, all physical and mathematical laws break down! And then what?

I would like to suggest that we dare to continue this mystery narrative with a meditation given by Rudolf

Steiner (Verses and Meditations), starting with the first verse, the macrocosmic source of Light, the Big Bang:

In the very Beginning the Light shone forth;And the Light came from the Spirit;And a Spirit was the Light.

Now, what about the candle? Candles are widely used in Camphill and elsewhere throughout the world when people turn, in celebration, to the threshold in all its manifoldness. Think of the morning and evening candle; birthday and funeral candles; candles at mealtimes at meditation and many different forms of religious and cultural celebrations.

But why this connection? Having grown up in Camphill I never thought twice about it – it was custom. Certainly candlelight has a special quality of warmth and perhaps peace. And I can heartily recommend you take time to gaze into the halo of a burning candle, especially if the room is dark, to appreciate its delicate, translucent beauty. And yet, perhaps there is more to it than that, which is revealed in the second part of the meditation, the microcosm:

And the Light will become Spirit,When I perceive the LightThrough God’s presenceWorking in my Soul.

Perhaps if we can truly perceive the light, then through God’s presence and His grace, one might also experience the Spirit. Light is a threshold phenomenon, between the macrocosmic periphery, and the microcosmic within us. It can be experienced as an intrinsic part of the point and circle meditation, familiar to many of those working in curative education and social therapy. It is a bridge between the physical and the spiritual worlds. Hence its special place in the threshold celebrations mentioned above, going right back to ancient times.

Nick worked for many years as Medical Advisor to the Camphill Communities in Scotland and then the Irish Republic. Now retired from clinical medicine, he still

does some teaching, supervision and lecturing.

The Advent Star at Cairnlee House this year

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The messages of HerrnhutJohn and Penny Baring, United States

In a recent issue of the Camphill Correspondence Robin Jackson wrote of Karl König’s deep connection with the

Moravian Brethren and of their influence on Camphill. This article is in some ways a continuation of that theme.

This past summer we traveled to Lower Saxony and Herrnhut on a kind of pilgrimage. We were seeking traces of the Middle European impulse and felt that this might be a place to begin. After all, as Robin Jackson wrote Camphill’s very culture of healing, harmony and humanity are strongly based on the type of life practiced by the Moravian Brethren. We found some very interest-ing things.

Herrnhut, meaning ‘the Lord’s hat’ or ‘the Lord’s cover-ing, shelter or protection’, lies deep in the rolling land-scape of Lower Saxony, far from any big city or town, but close to the Polish border. We arrived by bus from the next town since there is not even a working train station in Herrnhut any longer. The population of about six thousand is about one third Moravians and the town is very much coloured by their presence. This is due to its history. Herrnhut was founded in 1722 on land that had been bought for Reichsgraf Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf by his aunt. Zinzendorf was a high noble and obliged to serve at the Court in Dresden, despite his leanings towards a life of piety. He granted some of his land to refugees from Moravia fleeing from the ongoing Protestant persecution there. These followers of Amos Comenius, the last bishop of the Unity of the Brethren, settled in Saxony and became the Moravian Brethren or (eventually) Church. In time Zinzendorf left the Court and became the spiritual leader of the settle-ment. Many of the practices and attitudes instituted in the following decades under his guidance continue to this day. They are as inspiring in the 21st century as they were two hundred and fifty years ago.

On the first day of our visit, as we wandered the few streets of the town with its grey stone houses and cobbled

walks, we began to notice an unusually high number of people with disabilities who were obviously residents. The next day, on a guided tour with Rev. Erdmuthe Frank, one of the leaders of the Brethren in the town, we heard that during the Communist occupation of Eastern Germany, one of the mainstays of their culture had been denied. They were not allowed to have their own schools (it should be remembered that Comenius had been an educator, later called the father of modern education) as only state schools were allowed. However the Brethren were allowed to educate handicapped children. The large school for special children, the Diakonie, still exists and many who are now adults live in nearby homes. There is also a modern facility for the care of the elderly.

From early on in the 18th century the Moravian Brethren did not feel that they were a church; their aim was to be good Christians and to spread the message of Christ to members of all churches and indeed to the world. Very soon they began to send members to far-off parts of the world to be of help. Their aim was not to convert, but to help and to heal in the name of Christ. These missions took them first to the sugar plantations of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean where they lived in the same conditions as the slaves themselves. Soon they were going all over the world, to the Arctic with the Inuit, to Africa with the Bantu, to South America with the Miskito in Nicaragua and the Arawak and Carib in Suriname, to Asia with the Kalmyks-Mongols and around present day Lahoul in Northern India and to Australia with the Aborigines. At any given time 75% of their adult population was on mission overseas. They did not want to change the cultures they found, but instead were fascinated by them. Because they wrote very detailed reports from the field, the writings of these early missionaries have become invaluable re-sources to later anthropologists. The Völkerkundemuseum (Ethnographic Museum) in Herrnhut is a treasure house of ethnic cultural artifacts.

Even now conferences and meetings draw brethren from all continents to this tiny out-of-the-way village. We heard that at such times the streets are lined with flags from for-eign nations in celebration of the world’s humanity. This is not a movement that is turned in on itself!

One of the features of the Moravian Brethren is the Daily Watchword. This is a set of Bible texts, one for every day, which is put to-gether anew and different each year. It is printed in doz-ens of languages and, around the world, members turn to the same text every day all year long. When we heard of this we shared about Camp-hill’s practice of the Bible Evening and that Zinzendorf

The bell tower – one of the only structures that remained standing after the Russians set fire to the town in 1945

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had inspired it! We explained that it is a weekly event, prepared also by Bible texts that are read all round the world in every Camphill place. What a surprise for our guide to learn about the Bible Evening, begun back in the darkest times of Middle Europe’s history, like a new seed born from the same plant.

Reverend Frank took us for a short walk along a path that led up a gentle slope just above the town to the graveyard. This is called ‘God’s Acre.’ Just as below there used to be, and still are to a lesser extent, separate houses for men and other houses for women (now it is for widows) so also in God’s Acre. The graveyard is divided into spaces or ‘rooms’ bordered by rows of tall linden trees. On one side are the women and on the other the men, buried in rows with large, plain, flat stones marking their graves, each one the same, as we are before God. From the top of the graveyard we could look down over the red roofs of the town and truly feel that these spaces were extensions of the earthly habitations below and that those who had passed away were just as much part of the community as are the living. They are just in another room, close by.

At the top of God’s Acre we came to a memorial. This was designed as a ‘memorial of regret’. It is a fractured image of the dates 1933–1945 bordered with the words ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive the trespasses of others’. This is to express a humble regret for allowing Hitler to come to power and for hosting the Nazis during the Third Reich. There are photos of Herrnhut draped in swastika banners during this time. During that time many Moravian citizens simply left, but others, the old and the weak were left behind.

Then, on the night of May 8, 1945, as the German sur-render was announced, Russian troops who had been billeted in the town set fire to the town destroying 80%

of the old Moravian buildings in the centre and much of their archival history. One of the only original structures that remained standing was the bell tower outside the churchyard. The bells had been sent early in the war to be melted down for armaments.

Some months later, one of the original three bells was discovered intact in northern Germany and returned to Herrnhut. The inscription on it was: ‘Herrnhut should only continue as long as the purposes of God go forth unhindered.’ This seemed like a message from God. The bell had returned and with it a message of hope and encouragement. These thoughts also gave the Herrnhut residents the ability to forgive the Russian soldiers for what had happened; that the fire had been a kind of admonishment for their moral weakness. For an un-happy period the original piety and humanity had been shadowed.

Image of the bell towerPerhaps Camphill can take this more recent Moravian history to heart as a message from the heart of Middle Europe. The Moravian community at Gnadenfrei was in some way Karl König’s inner homeland, his ideal of Christian living and daily devotion. These are the ide-als that helped give birth to Camphill and to nourish it over decades. However even the highest of purposes can be forgotten. It is up to us to discover their modern, contemporary relevance and honour them.

Penelope and John Baring have retired from working within Camphill – mainly in Camphill Copake and Camphill Ghent. They now live close to Camphill California, and teach within the Camphill Academy both there and with Camphill Vancouver.

Memorial of regret

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Research and the Camphill movement: An overview of developments in the English-speaking worldAn excerpt (full document is available on www.camphillresearch.com)

Maria Lyons, London, England

No man is an island entire of itself; every manis a piece of the continent, a part of the main. John Donne, Meditations XVII

Introductory thoughtsResearch is one of those words that is often used but not always well-defined. Within the social and educational movements inspired by anthroposophy the call for ‘more research’ is increasingly loud and frequent. But what is meant by this? We could say that anthroposophy is itself research; a manner of seeking out or searching closely for the truths about man and nature. Yet throughout its history there have been complicated – perhaps uneasy – attitudes within the movement towards the concepts, practices and value of research. Perhaps this is mostly explained by the fact that in the twentieth century the Western world’s understanding of research has been shaped by the mechanistic and materialistic epistemolo-gies of earlier centuries. These have resulted in the strict exclusion of all but measurable knowledge from the field of scientific enquiry, providing the benchmark for what is deemed objectively meaningful and thus socially useful learning. With its focus on qualities rather than quantities as the substance of knowledge, the anthroposophical interpretation of what it means to learn has long been the antithesis of the forms of learning promoted in established educational and research institutions.

This context, however, is changing. The new millennium is seeing the effects of a loosening of the classical grip on the concept of knowledge, a re-kindled interest in the qualities of existence, and a growing appreciation for the importance of considering the whole spectrum of human experience in any efforts to comprehend and improve our world. The change reflects the popularity and influence of paradigm-shifting critical, post-modern and phenomeno-logical philosophies; in more and more places academic curricula are opening up space for visual and perform-ing arts and other types of creative expression; there is a growing emphasis on the need for research that cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries and attempts to bring theory and practice into more meaningful relation-ship. In this environment social enterprises which have been informed and sustained by anthroposophy have a great potential – perhaps a renewed opportunity – to contribute to a huge variety of fields of study.

It is precisely because anthroposophy has given birth to such a range of practical movements – each constitut-ing a living presence in the world, carried by individuals steeped in the day-to-day realities and challenges of their profession or vocation – that it has the power to be transformative in an intellectual world suffering so desperately from a lack of connection to both human experience and our natural surroundings.

Some challenges associated with doing researchIt can be argued that the biggest obstacle to Camphill communities engaging in research is not related to practi-

cal or financial considerations, but rather involves more complex issues of culture and historical attitudes. Before looking at ways to promote research, therefore, it is worth spending some time on the questions of the general value and purpose of research. Although responses to these two questions can only be sketched here, if communities can initiate and sustain a genuine discussion about the underlying aims of research, and come to some collec-tive conclusions, they will be much better placed to start developing plans for research in the future.

There are multiple and diverse reasons for doing re-search. It is possible, however, to outline three broad themes or driving impulses into which individual pro-jects can be grouped. The first reason usually given for doing research is as a response to external demands for justification. Many communities have felt the pressure to prove their legitimacy and viability in the face of new regulations or a less than sympathetic policy and finan-cial context. This is research which has the purpose of evidencing the value of Camphill methods in the field of care for people with intellectual disabilities. It can be described as ‘defensive’ or ‘self-preservational’ research and in the author’s experience when people talk about the need for research this is what they have in mind.

Although this kind of research might seem the most immediately and directly useful for Camphill today, a long-term view of the possible consequences of such a research agenda does suggest the need for caution. De-veloping an evidence-base tends to demand the produc-tion of objective data based on measurable outcomes, and these on their own are unavoidably reductive. Like Waldorf Schools, Camphill communities are increasingly finding it expedient to define themselves according to externally given values and give account of themselves in accordance with externally specified standards. The risk is that demonstrating these values and achieving these standards become not merely necessary but suf-ficient goals in themselves, and communities gradually lose the will and/or ability to cultivate, articulate and practice their own vision of what it means to care for and support one another.

A second and somewhat different rationale for doing research in a sense goes back to the core mission and vision of König and his founding colleagues. That mission was to study the deeper needs of individuals, of commu-nities and of our environment and to share that learning with wider society and local communities (Costa 2008). In other words, this takes a view of research as part of a broader social task and responsibility to the world and to the future. It implies the possibility for transforma-tion not only in the lives of people within community boundaries but beyond those boundaries. Research is one way that the experience and learning of Camphill can be communicated to the benefit of people who have never set foot in it.

Finally, a third and closely related rationale for doing research is connected to self-reflection and self-devel-

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opment. This is research as improvement rather than proof. Communities engaging in research processes to further their own organisational and personal learning is the most important form of research; it should be the first priority precisely because it encompasses the other two impulses behind research outlined above. A com-munity, like any organisation, which carries out its own self-reflective investigations and makes its processes and findings freely available, is not only improving it-self but demonstrating transparency, a willingness to be self-critical, a willingness to learn and grow and a will-ingness to engage in other ways of doing things. This in itself does an enormous amount to increase knowledge and understanding and generate legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Research by its very nature encourages a two way flow of information and learning; communities can take in new ideas and practices, and share their own ideas and practices with others. In short, research that is undertaken for the primary purpose of learning will also serve the aims of better communication and increased public legitimacy and accountability.

Even if one or more of these broad arguments in favour of research are accepted, there are always more prosaic difficulties to overcome. There are often objections to investing in research on the grounds that it is too time-consuming, too expensive and/or requires specific expertise which is unavailable. An even more common objection is that research tends to be a waste of time and money because it seldom goes anywhere. These are all valid points, but they highlight a set of organisational issues rather than arguments against research per se. The last point is the key: research is futile unless something is accomplished through either its process or its results. Time, energy and money are indeed wasted when re-search takes place in a vacuum.

Addressing Camphill’s research needsResearch so far in Camphill has been largely ad hoc, uncoordinated, commissioned as and when different individuals, communities or regional associations have a particular need or interest, with scant reference to either past projects or future intentions. The result is a collec-tion of one-off projects which are not disseminated, meaning that communities across the movement are largely unaware of each other’s work, and thus unable to learn from each other or pool resources. Projects tend not to be followed up in any way, i.e. through formal publication, by being replicated or expanded on, or by being adapted into formats suitable for a variety of different audiences (such as people living and working in communities, their relatives, health care profession-als or policy-makers). Finally, the lack of collation and cataloguing of existing research means researchers both within and from outside Camphill face considerable difficulties in finding and accessing the resources and material which would enable them to develop this work.

This picture immediately presents a number of clear steps that can be taken to establish a framework which will not only encourage and facilitate research, but turn it into a more rewarding endeavour for Camphill commu-nities. The first of these steps is to start with and make the most of what already exists: to create a platform where all the research on or relevant to Camphill is gathered in one place and easily accessible to anyone. Research requires research, and it also begets research. Interested

parties are more likely to embark on new projects if they have something on which to build. It is this which has inspired the creation of the Camphill Research Network (www.camphillresearch.com), an online resource de-signed to host a library of projects and publications as well as provide a forum for the exchange of information and ideas related to researching Camphill.

A second step is to enhance communication and coordination between different groups or communities conducting research, nationally and internationally. This could extend beyond information-sharing to pooling resources when it comes to research questions or objec-tives which are common to more than one community or even region. Not only might there be financial incen-tives for such collaboration, but research outputs tend to have greater validity where the sample is greater and therefore more generalisable.

A third step is to ensure that no research is embarked upon without a clearly articulated purpose and a long-term plan for how it will be used. Needless to say, this assumes that the resources are in place to follow through with that plan.

This brings us, finally, to matters of expertise and fi-nance. On the one hand, as mentioned above, there are many different types of research and not all are hugely expensive. Small-scale, self-reflective, action research projects, for instance, need not break the bank for individual communities. Moreover, also as mentioned above, engaging in research does not necessarily mean conducting or commissioning one’s own project. There is a great deal of scope for Camphill communities to participate in large projects or consultations conducted by external parties.

On the other hand, when it comes to commissioning projects and hiring professional researchers, there are large pots of funding (both government and private foun-dations) specifically designated for charitable service- providing enterprises like Camphill to carry out research and development. It cannot simply be assumed that Camphill bodies will be unable to attract research fund-ing before they have made concerted, well-organised efforts to do so.

Looking to the future: A Camphill Research Council?

In developing a strategic approach to research, Camp-hill bodies can look to other professional spheres in the anthroposophical world for inspiration, particularly Wal-dorf education. The Waldorf movement has organised itself in a number of ways to promote and disseminate research: one example in North America is the Waldorf Research Institute; in Europe the European Waldorf Council has created the Waldorf Research Educators Network. As a working model of collaborative enterprise, perhaps the most interesting and potentially instructive initiative is the Nordic Research Network in Steiner Edu-cation (NORENSE). NORENSE is a partnership presently between three Waldorf teacher training institutions in Norway, Sweden and Finland.

While by no means suggesting an exact replica of this model, there is certainly a strong case to be made for Camphill associations to explore the possibilities for setting up a body specifically mandated to design and implement a long-term research and development strategy. A series of regional or national working groups,

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made up of both professional researchers and commu-nity representatives, could lay the groundwork for such an initiative. A research council would be in a position to directly address many of the difficulties surrounding research described here: tasks might include offering support and expert advice to communities wishing to engage in research; consulting with stakeholders on research needs; raising and allocating funds for research projects; building partnerships with universities and other external organisations; and finally, disseminating information about research and publications across the Camphill movement. It is possible to foresee that in such an endeavour the greatest challenge will not be attracting external or internal supporters – there are many voices urging Camphill in this direction – but rather engaging the attention and commitment of formal Camphill bodies.

Concluding thoughtsIn discussing research on Camphill in the English-speaking world and raising some connected questions, this article is an attempt to provoke discussion on both the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of research. Beyond discussion, it is hoped that the arguments presented will encourage action. Rather than addressing specific types or topics of research, the focus has been on the context within which research takes place; the culture which will make it most fruitful and the structures which can facilitate it practically. What are the research questions most press-ing for Camphill today? It is extremely important for individual communities to answer this for themselves.

Yet the answers can best be turned into effective strate-gies when communities work associatively rather than in isolation from each other.

In summarising, it is actually difficult to say whether the existing amount of research on Camphill is surpris-ingly small or surprisingly large. It depends really on the perspective one takes on what Camphill is: a spiritually-inspired intentional community movement, which in general tend to be defined by their insularity and efforts to sustain a lifestyle and value system deliberately dif-ferentiated from the mainstream; an intentional com-munity movement dedicated to addressing a particular and universally recognised social need, distinguishable from but firmly interconnected with mainstream society; or, a community movement whose social striving is both broader and deeper, encompassing spiritual, political and economic transformation. Camphill is undoubtedly a combination of all three, and the matter of research is clearly bound up in the wider debate about Camp-hill’s identity, purpose and future. Research, however, is a significant element in that debate and its potential usefulness should not be ignored.

Maria is a self-employed researcher and teacher living in London. She is a founder of the Camphill Research Network, which

collates, disseminates and promotes research related to Camphill and other intentional

communities. For further details, please visit www.camphillresearch.com or contact

maria.lyons@camphillresearch.com.

Listening from the heart – biographical work in communitiesHarel Gafni and Runa Sophia Evensen Gafni, Vidaråsen, Norway

A flame is an ever-changing source of warmth, a quality that cannot be preserved and therefore asks to be formed ever anew.

Reading Andrew Plant’s articles on ‘Developmental dilemmas’ in three earlier issues of Camphill Cor-

respondence this year inspired us to respond by sharing some thoughts about the theme of relationship between individual and community.

In search of the secrets of working and living together some life questions for us have been how to find bal-ance between giving and developing, between learning, experiencing and sharing. In and as a community, what does it take to create healthy relationships to ourselves and to each other? Community is not merely a physical place but a circulation of life substance which flows between the people who live and work within it like a beating heart. What does the community need that I can give and what do I need that the community can offer? How can the one nourish the other? How can we tune into listening to what life tells us? Living many years in communities we find ourselves continuously in dialogue with these themes.

In part three of ‘Developmental dilemmas’ (Septem-ber/October 2015 Camphill Correspondence, p. 6), Andrew writes:

The question is […] about how to keep the flame of community – the spontaneity, the celebration, the community-building practices, the mutual interest and support, the trust and the intimacy that both are the prerequisites and benefits of a communal lifestyle. It becomes a question of re-imagining, re-inventing and re-creating community in changed circumstances.

The question of ‘how to keep the flame in community’ is a question about re-creating ways of understanding what nourishes this flame. An inspiring aspect of Camp-hill is to see the healthy core in every human being, to give and get support for our strengths and possibilities to grow and expand, to shed our special light into the community from where it is reflected back to us. This is a continuous process that may enable flexibility as well as endurance when in movement. Individuals’ needs seem closely interwoven with community needs.

Living so close to each other, as we do in Camphill, is challenging. We share houses, work, meals and celebra-tions, greeting each other several times a day, sitting in numerous meetings, sharing the same landscapes and rooms, breathing the same air; though the world moves at an accelerating speed in an increasingly individual-ized self-focused direction and these tendencies are becoming more and more visible in Camphill as well. We find ourselves dealing with questions concerning pri-

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vate space, personal rewards, free time and on the other hand longing to be seen, to be part of and contribute to the larger community. In times where in-dividuality and self-awareness play an important role, by choosing life and work within a community, we also search for growth and acknowledgment of the uniqueness of the human spirit. How then do I engage in the community life as a co-worker/individual? Can trust and intimacy, mutual interest and support between individu-als enliven and strengthen the source of a healthy community? And, as Julia Wolfson put it: “Who is taking care of the care-takers?” How can we connect to the source of inspiration, motivation and joy to work and live together as well as tak-ing care of ourselves? The intensity of life in Camphill involves challenges on many different levels. We find ourselves in a gesture of giving, serving and supporting. But who takes care of the care-takers? Can we find a key to answer this question in the power of working and creating together? Working together isn’t easy, especially when we live so close together. One possible direction to go is designing life with more space and time for the individual. Is that enough? Is that our solution to adjust to the changed circumstances of our time? How can we re-invent the conditions to live and work together in a supportive environment? What are we to do here together? What gifts are waiting for us if we truly get to know ourselves and each other?

As an attempt to approach these questions we chose to look into developing workshops of biographical work for groups of long-term co-workers. Biographical counselling (in a nutshell) is a therapy method which combines tra-ditional counselling methods with the anthroposophical holistic view of the human being. The approach of this method is to support and assist the individual on their path to achieve understanding, insights, balance and healing in their biog-raphy, through the biography itself. The aim is to ‘own’ our biography with respect and love. Using the substance of the individual’s life story as the main tool, entering a dialogue with one’s own biography we can strengthen the ‘I’ and reach possibilities for creatively meeting our future. ‘When we share our stories with one another that is when we truly connect and rec-ognize ourselves and the universe in one another. We move beyond separation and opposition and into partnership and power and pos-sibility.’ (Jean Huosten)

One year ago we embarked on a journey which turned out to be an invitation for others to come along. The vehicle of the journey was biographical seminars and the destination: coming closer to each other. The bio-graphical workshops were born out of experiencing a longing for building trust and a wish to contribute to the community with something that inspires us. If we wish to creatively be able to meet the possibilities and chal-lenges the future holds for us, we need to find new ways to focus on what is connecting us within the community.

It appears important to ask ourselves what we have to do with each other here and now. We all have a biogra-phy which is unique and by sharing our story with each other we can anticipate that there are wondrous threads connecting us and that every one of us has something unique to contribute to the whole and to each other. We come to a feeling of harmony through wonder and acceptance. Working with our own biography in the

presence of others strengthens our ability of listening and encour-ages us to rediscover ourselves. It supports us in creating a freer relationship to our past and tuning our present attention for our future calling. The secret here, as one of the participants put it, is to do in-ner work together with others. The workshops themselves are built with a safe frame, focusing on the different life phases, life themes and life questions with short talks, individual-, couple- and group-work as well as artistic exercises.

Biographical work can awaken our interest in others, in where we are coming from, interest in our own development as well as in the world around us.

Through these biography work-shops we have experienced that this way of meeting each other

It felt loveHowDid the roseEver open its heart?

And give to this worldAll itsBeauty?

It felt the encouragement of lightAgainst itsBeing,

Otherwise,We all remain

Too

FrightenedHafiz

A centrepiece for our conversations

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is re-creating a foundation for trust, enhancing the will to dialogue, openness and gratefulness. It is important to underline that what we created here is not intended as therapy, but rather as a heart-space where each one of us can connect to our inner wisdom. How we see each other in everyday life changes during the work-shops after witnessing the greatness and depth of every individual and the uniqueness of every path. Learning together who we are, with our challenges, questions and inspirations nourishes our relationships. Something new and authentic, enlivening and sustainable is born in the relationships to each other, something which we can take with us into everyday life. The workshops can be a way of allowing the inner flame to become visible, sensible and alive.

The exciting part of the work is discovering that all the resources we need lie within oneself: here we can find the tools, keys, wisdom. The strength and trust to shine and let others shine their special light into the commu-nity is closer than we might imagine. We all know that conscious and thriving individuals make conscious and thriving communities.

It seems that it becomes ever more important that we allow ourselves, forgivingly and trustingly, to speak and listen from the heart, helping each other to grow more freely in the presence of each other. Can it be that what it takes to keep a community alive is being really in touch with each other? If so, how do we ‘touch’ the lives of those around us, in a way that both supports the individual and nourishes the light of our communities? In every one of so far eight workshops we have experi-enced that the flame comes alive between us and that, by letting others be witnesses of our life stories, we can find the strength to embrace ourselves and others. A candle can be many years old, yet the flame can only shine in present time.

Some feedback on the workshops:

By knowing our respective and separate pasts we ignite our present. Nataniel Wolfson, house co-ordinator

This has been a very important weekend for me and I think also for the others in the group. To build trust to our destiny helps build trust to each other. It is a blessing for the village that you’re doing this [workshops] and I experience that you are talented for it. The warmth streaming from you throughout the weekend was beautiful to experience. This interest and wonder of the greatness in everyone’s life is the most important starting point for what we are trying to do at Vidaråsen.

Will Browne, Management Group of Vidaråsen

I felt that this weekend helped me to find words which otherwise can be hard to find. It was safe to let our inside become visible. The variation between conver-sations, individual exercises and artistic activity was fantastic. I got a better insight and understanding of my life and person. Kiki, caretaker in Ita Wegmann Hus

You have created a frame where great things can happen. I still have a long way to go but I feel I’ve come closer to the core. B.E., former co-worker

Thank you for a very rewarding weekend, where we could come closer to each other, this is of incredible importance for our time and our society.

Rolf Kåre Holand, Management Group of Vidaråsen

Runa Gafni (35) is a visual artist and house parent. Harel Gafni (39) is a biodynamic gardener and biographical counsellor. Together they run the

young adults house in Vidaråsen Camphill, Norway. runa_phia@yahoo.no, harelgafni@gmail.com

If you’d like to know more feel free to contact them.

A contemplation on economicsBaruch Urieli

This article by Baruch Urieli (1923-2014) was printed in the Glencraig Broadsheet on 29 August 1981.Contributed by Crispian Villeneuve, Glencraig, Northern Ireland

The present world-wide economic crisis has built up for a very long time. Early in this [twentieth] century,

the basis of competition lay in the quality of goods and the efficiency of production. However, growing use of technology led to saturation of the market. In order to augment the market, advertising was intensified. Thereby ever new needs – not actual ones, but psychological ones – were created. At the same time, production of cheap but shoddy goods was increased. During the Second World War, the art of the production of substi-tutes was widely developed out of the necessities of a war economy. After the war, however, this know-how was utilised for gain. Business practice became ever sharper. The middle man was increasingly cut out. The small business was destroyed by price-cutting practices of the larger business, which could afford temporary

losses. Production was moved to under-developed areas of countries. This widened the profit margin and avoided clashes with trades unions, who would ask for their cut of the gains. Calculation of profit margin ever more lost its link to production costs, and was increasingly based on the psychology of the buyer.

In spite of the growth of all these practices, economy has been grinding to a halt. The trouble is that not only good example but also bad example finds its pupils. As the practices mentioned above spread over wider areas, they were copied. And gradually further areas of gain were eradicated. The result of this development is the decline of the small custom-orientated business and the rise of large profit-orientated combines. The ideas of free enterprise, losing ever more their moral backbone, have deteriorated into a social Darwinism. The hunt-

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ing ground has become ever smaller, and the battle for survival ever grimmer.

Monetarist policies practised in some countries are a continuation of the same line. They present an economic horse-cure, which attempts to cure the patient by severe blood-letting. Many businesses collapse, many people who are less able, skilled, determined, or accepted, lose their livelihood. Some problems – such as restrictive working practices or over-manning – can be resolved by the way. But untold social and cultural destruction is wrought. Those who survive this horse-cure will no doubt be rewarded by a new period of growth and profit. But for how long? How long will it take till the herd of profit hunters gets again too large for the hunting grounds available?

This situation must necessarily continue repeating itself as long as economists, politicians and educators pursue their schizophrenic attitude towards men, tempting them on the one hand with more and more goods and facilities, demanding of them on the other hand to be content with less. Social Darwinism in the realm of man

is a contradiction in terms. Though the animal is ruled by its instincts and drives, these will always maintain or re-establish the ecological balance. Man, if ruled by his drives, knows no such limits. The senses of man can be taught, and have to be taught – by men. Every mother knows that a child unless restrained is unable to find its own limits.

Many years ago Dr König, when asked what he would do to remedy the economic chaos of our time, answered: “I would forbid advertisement.” This is an extremely simple, perhaps simplistic answer. But it points to the root of the matter. Unless the senses are taught out of a moral conception of the mission of man on earth, there can be no end to the chaos. However, any government which would try to forbid advertisement without lengthy preparatory process would be brought down by indus-trial pressure. It would need a total reform of education as well as far-spread efforts to reach a conscious balance between the need of the consumer and the producer, in order that such a law would be workable. We have still a long way to go.

Proposal for new medical and social rehabilitation projects in LondonIngrid Hermansen, London, England

A clinical and social rehabilitation project is being planned in response to a request from the Pain

Management Department at the Royal National Or-thopaedic Hospital (RNOH) in Stanmore, London. RNOH have seen positive change in some patients who underwent anthroposophically oriented rehabilita-tion methods developed at Blackthorn Medical Centre (www.blackthorn.org.uk) in Maidstone and Kairos Rehabilitation Trust (www.kairosrehabilitation.org.uk) in Greenwich, London. A charitable foundation has expressed interest in backing the pilot.

Developing a pain management programme for pa-tients who have not been able to benefit from existing modalities offers a chance to demonstrate a relevance of anthroposophic medicine to the wider medical world and to integrate these approaches. RNOH sees the pro-ject as helping ‘de-medicalise suffering’.

A lesson learned from the programmes so far is that social and work-related rehabilitation are important components to the process.

The aims will be to:

•Reducesymptoms:pain,insomnia,exhaustion,anxiety and depression

•Improvepersonalconfidence,self-esteemandasense of purpose

•Tacklesocialdifficulties,lonelinessandisolation;encouraging re-integration within the family and community

•Assistwithworkandfinancialproblems,jobloss,debt and benefits

•Reducedependenceonmedication.

Benefits to the National Health Service are expected to include a reduction in the use of secondary and tertiary

care services and also a reduction in costs of prescribed analgesic and psychotropic drugs. New premises for the anthroposophic medical and therapy activities will be purpose-built adjacent to the existing ward.

A social project is envisaged on the hospital site. It will primarily serve to embed the tertiary hospital in the local community and could take the form of a pro-tected work place for adults with learning disabilities, mental health concerns, a care-provision for the elderly, a cultural venture. The possibilities are great in the spa-cious grounds of the site with a derelict pig farm, walled garden, orchards and lake. The social programme will need to serve RNOH patients too, including those with complex pain.

A fully evaluated 18 month pilot beginning in 2016 is now being planned and costed. Expressions of inter-est are invited from anyone with appropriate medical, social rehabilitation or biodynamic experience who could see themselves helping to shape and pioneer the two projects.

Ingrid Hermansen or Dr David McGavinKairos Rehabilitation Trust,The Forum at Greenwich, Trafalgar Road, Greenwich,London SE10 9EQ

info@kairosrehabilitation.org.uk

Kairos Rehabilitation Trust aims to develop and make the case for the relevance of anthroposophic medicine to society. Ingrid works alongside a community pain management clinic in

London offering anthroposophic medicine to patients for whom other treatment has not been successful.

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Obituaries

George McCutcheon5 March 1958 – 2 October 2015

George (Georgie) McCutch-eon, a much loved member

of Camphill Community Callan in Ireland was an early pioneer in opening the field of artistic expression to people with learn-ing disabilities. Beginning with an irrepressible energy and a consistent drive to create images and objects of great originality, Georgie became a prolific artist whose example created oppor-tunities for many others in the ever-widening development of inclusion in and understanding of contemporary art.

Born on 5 March 1958, he was the youngest son of a family of three boys but was placed in a Church of Ireland home before he was one year old. He had no further contact with his family. Georgie first came to Camphill Duffcarrig for holidays when he was a lively 15 year old, keen on climbing trees, up to lively antics and fun.

At 18 when he left school he moved to live in Duffcarrig and there he enjoyed living in house communities and strongly identified with families and especially doted on small children. He was a great worker in the kitchen and garden and he loved the cultural and social life of the community.

At the age of 24, an energetic, fully engaged and de-termined young man, George joined the pioneering days of Camphill Ballytobin. Life was teeming with children, festivals and activity. Georgie fit right in!

We Lydons were fortunate to live with him for 19 years in Gabriel house, a large household for children, some adults, many co-workers and our family. He was like an uncle to our four children, two of whom he accompanied from newborn years. His presence brought a quality of love and companionship to the children’s lives, which they surely treasured. A deeply moving example of this was when our eight year old son, Dominic, was given the school assignment of writing an essay titled ‘My hero’. He wrote it about Georgie! In direct contrast to the current climate of compliance and contra-indication to combining family life with adults with a disability, Geor-gie’s contribution to many families gives testimony to the positive influence and mutual benefit of life sharing.

Being born with Down’s Syndrome was a relatively minor matter in a forcible, gregarious and adventurous personality. Georgie was a real contributor; an active citizen. As his housemother I want to pay tribute to his extreme helpfulness to me personally, both as a mother and in my role as housemother. He was my veritable ‘right hand man’, offering unconditional loyalty and help. All the while, however, he could be seen in the

evenings, crossed legged on his bed, creating art work, cutting cardboard, following his fantasy in creating objects or figures, usu-ally destined to be given away as birthday or christening gifts.

A critical point came at the age of 38 when the out-going and always sociable George became a much quieter person following a disappointment in love. Luckily he retained his immense enthu-siasm for art and in his artwork he remained imaginative and prolific. Through the inspiration of his dedicated love for art and creativity, KCAT (Kilkenny Collec-tive for Arts Talent) was founded in Callan in 1999 when he was 41; he was with several others one of the pioneer studio artists. He is known as ‘The Father of KCAT’.

George then moved from Bal-lytobin to Camphill Callan to be near his beloved KCAT. He was

able to independently walk up and down town in Cal-lan, greeting many local people – usually nice older ladies – on the way!

In KCAT he developed his drawing and painting, sculptural casting, stone sculpting, stained glass and mosaic. He also became a spontaneous performer and later joined the Equinox Theatre Company and had several impressive acting roles. When he was 50 he finally achieved a dream of some years to bring all his special friends together and get them to act in a play that celebrated his own life. This was done and great it was!

Around that time in 2008 he made a lasting connection to Valti Rozendaal, the partner of our son Colum. When their first child Fionn was born Georgie again bonded to a family. As he grew older, Georgie felt more at home in a quieter context and he chose to move to live with them, now with a second baby, in a home sharing situation.

In the last years George struggled with the onset of de-mentia. It was a joy that he could nonetheless appreciate a major retrospective exhibition in June 2014, a tribute to his remarkable artistic achievements. We were fortunate that the community could provide all his care in the context of his home. His gentle loving nature won the hearts of all who cared so beautifully for him in the last months.

Unexpectedly, in the early morning of Friday 2 Octo-ber, George chose to leave us, quietly and peacefully, no fuss, no hospitals, just a dignified ending to a life well lived. His legacy lives on.

George has a book published by KCAT: George McCutcheon – A Retrospective 46 page full colour including text. 10€ at KCAT Art and Study Centre, email anja@kcat.iePatrick and Gladys Lydon, Camphill Callan, Ireland

George with Fionn

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Birthday poem

The world is beautifulThe world is fine.Look at the sun, so bright!The flowers are growing.

Look at the moon,So bright!Shines around usSo beautiful.

People are laughingAround us.People are looking at the sun,So bright.People are laughing.Why are they laughing?

Why are they laughing?I don’t know why they are laughing.I hear their voices around us.They move away from their laughing.

Look at the stars,So beautiful, so brightIn the clouds!Look at the colours,So beautiful, shiningAround us.

I hear the sound of singing.Where are the voices singing?The sun is hot and brightAround us.

Look at the birds!The birds are singing.Look at them flying,Flying around in the air.

The people are looking At the flowersGrowing.

So happyThe people are looking at the colours,So beautiful and bright.

George McCutcheon

Thank you George McCutcheon

George McCutcheon deeply touched the lives and hearts of many people in Camphill, KCAT and be-

yond in a very meaningful way, too many to mention here. What I want to say most of all is ‘Thank you, thank you for everything you have given us’, so all I am going to try is to briefly talk about what you have meant to us, your colleagues and friends in KCAT.

I am sorry I never knew George as the chatty, mis-chievous and energetic young man he must have been. I first met him at a St. Nicholas celebration in 1994. It is a festival of giving and popular with children, that George strongly connected with. Over the years he was an uncle figure to a number of families, much loved by a lot of young children, including my own. In KCAT he was that same giving person sharing his talents, ideas, vision and art generously in pioneering the studio and art and inclusion in Ireland.

George had a talent for gathering people around him to get things off the ground. That is how KCAT started some twenty years ago, and that is really the legacy that George has given us. Hundreds of people have since enjoyed access to the arts, not because of his lobby-ing, but because of his desire to create. He has led by example and drawn people along in his passion and the joy that it gave him.

At some stage George identified himself as an artist. It wasn’t so much about the abstract idea of being an artist but much more about the process of making art becoming an integral part of his life. In following that vision he was genuine, sincere, modest and extremely hardworking. To witness some of that focussed urge to create was pure inspiration. George was so keen to continue working even during the KCAT holidays that he would often quietly slip out of the house in the early morning to check if anybody had left the studio door open by accident.

Georgie sometimes changed his painting smocks for a suit to be an ambassador for inclusive arts. He spoke on radio and TV and at conferences and seminars around Europe and in the United States about his work and that of KCAT. It was a moving experience to see George ad-dress an assembly of a thousand students at Patrick’s old college in Exeter and receive a standing ovation. We all enjoyed these journeys with him, exploring new cities, meeting new people and going out for a meal or watch-ing a game of American football on television from the comfort of a hotel bed.

When the KCAT theatre impulse started, George was again one of its pioneers and in response to his passing, one of his tutors posted a quote from Hamlet: ‘Now cracks a noble heart – Good night sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest’. George loved playing archetypal royalty, and many will remember his beautiful role in The Lost Prince.

But his best work as an actor probably happened in workshops and not on stage in front of an audience. Sometimes he would take the wind out of the tutor’s sails with the simple perfection of his improvisations, the aptness of a gesture or the complexity of his building an entire small world on stage with mime.

In the last few years George became more quiet and selective, but there were still moments when he would get enthusiastic about meeting new visitors and some-times, with the right piece of music playing, he would

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take us by surprise by breaking out into a wonderful dance or even on occasion, a somersault. And even after officially retiring from the studio last year, once in a while he would still make an appearance at the centre with one or two of the carers who looked after him so wonderfully in the last two years.

We are grateful to have shared the unique participative theatrical celebration of George’s fiftieth birthday that he initiated himself and last year’s beautiful retrospec-tive exhibition of his work. He was fully there that afternoon enjoying the occasion and connecting with all his friends.

George’s output as a visual artist is prolific and impressive. From his early cardboard constructions to his mosaics, carvings, drawings and paintings he carried through his own unique lively style. His visual lan-guage and a powerful vital richness and sincerity in his work are an inspiration to us all.

Thank you George, it was an honour and a privilege to have worked alongside you and we will miss you very much. I will miss the inspiration of a fellow artist. I will miss the warm-hearted presence of a colleague in the studio; I will miss the soft touch of the hands of a friend.

Paul Bokslag, Callan, Ireland

Toby Seex 4 January 1955 – 29 September 2015

When I think of Toby, particular images arise in my mind – the quiet, concentrated Toby spending hours sorting cupboards in the kitchen, stacking shelves in our com-munity store with immaculate precision, standing bent over the end of the dining room table for long periods of time, checking that the candle and tablecloth are perfectly aligned; spending days and months and years planning and building cardboard houses which grew bigger and more elaborate as time went by.

Then there was the more outgoing and mischievous Toby who had a wonderful sense of humour and fun. He would perform ‘Singing in the rain‘ at any given opportunity (umbrella included), happily spend hours entertaining children with a characteristic goofy grin on his face, spontaneously contribute to social events with song and dance and he always enjoyed the company and attention of ladies of all ages.

Toby joined Loch Arthur at the age of 32 in 1987. He was born in England but grew up in Ayrshire in Scotland, the oldest of three siblings – his sister a teacher and his brother a neurosurgeon who lives in Australia. After his school years he went to a residential farm-based home and then came to Loch Arthur after his mother heard about Camphill from a friend.

His brother spoke very movingly about his early years at his funeral:

A long and happy life, I am sure that’s what my parents wished for Toby, having been told early on that he was likely to die young. I know our childhood was happy and that our house was full of love. Toby was my big brother; I was fortunate as not everyone’s big brothers were as good as mine. Toby was seven years older than me, but my memory is that when I was little, Toby was always happy to play, my constant playmate.

High CrossGeorge worked on this in the early 1990s under the guidance of local stone sculptor, David Lambert, in Black Stone Studios, Kells, Co Kilkenny. It was exhibited in three towns in Germany in 1994 in an exhibition. It is permanently placed outside Castalia Hall in Ballytobin. It is a marvelous piece of work!

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I never under-stood when people said they were sor-ry when I said my brother had Downs Syndrome. What was there to be sorry about? I was never bullied or bashed or made fun of. I was never made to feel inferior. My experi-ence with having a big brother was totally positive.

My sister and I were lucky to have Toby as a brother, we also learned about living with disability as a normal part of life. Toby was a calm and gentle boy and man, full of affection and humor. His presence enriched the love in our family.

I shared a home with Toby for 22 years – he watched my four children grow into adults and accompanied us through all the ups and downs of community and family life in a shared household. We were born in the same year, 1955, and we had a deep respect and affection for each other. We supported each other in different ways – he maintaining order in our busy household and me seeing to those aspects of his life which he found difficult or confusing.

Toby was such an upright human being – what in Yid-dish you would call a ‘mensch’. He was a very private person who could suddenly become the life and soul of the party. He had a deep sense of responsibility towards the house and the community, and could always be found at the end of an event clearing away the last bits and pieces, sweeping the floor and making sure that all was done before he went to bed.

Although his speech was often hard to understand he had no trouble making quite clear what he wanted – he was a man with a mission and carved out a rather unique life for himself within the routines of the house and the community.

In his quiet but very particular way Toby had a deep effect on all who encountered him. He was loved and respected by the very many people who came into con-

Robert Patterson (born September 27, 1931), a resident at Camphill Ghent, USA crossed the threshold on Monday Oc-tober 26 at 12.50pm. Robert served as a priest in The Christian Community for many years and had in recent years retired to the Ghent community together with his wife Barbara.

Gry Brudvik

It is with great sadness that we share with you that Ella van der Stok passed away at home in the afternoon of November 26. She was a dignified, warm-hearted and respected member of Camphill Communities Thornbury and an integral part of the Sheiling School. Her passing comes as a shock for us all and we wish those closest to her our sincerest condolences. Dr James Dyson writes: ‘The medical circumstances were complex but her death – cardiac arrest – followed suddenly from a seizure, just as she received a visit from a district nurse. I was here in Thornbury ‘by chance’ to supervise a clinic. She had been fully alert and in exceptionally good spirits literally

up to the very instant before her seizure. Gathering around her bedside, she was radiant and peaceful and looked years younger. We together did the Hallelujah in eurythmy, read a verse for her, and shared some intimate feelings and memo-ries. The atmosphere was filled with rejoicing light that others could sense as well. During these last ten or so years Ella had come to live through her heart and radiated integrity and utter gratitude for being in Thornbury; friends experi-enced her as being a source of strength. Human relationships

Other friends who have died

Toby, around 42, showing the clay pot he made

Toby and friends

tact with him in Loch Arthur (and beyond) and in his final years as he grew frail and confused he still managed to be at the centre of the house in which he lived and where he was cared for with great love and devotion.

He died in the morning of Michaelmas Day – a day of blue skies, sunshine and birdsong. He was surrounded by four of the ladies who had been closest to him over the years – he would have been happy with that.

Toby’s funeral and the evening of memories and stories about his life were full of laughter, joy and respect for a life well lived.

One last reflection; it was striking to me in reading the last Camphill Correspondence that Toby and George Mc-Cutcheon (page 10) seemed to share so many similarities in their stories. They were born three years apart, died three days apart and both spent the last three years of their lives aging rapidly and then came to the end of their lives rather suddenly after succumbing to an infection. They also joined Camphill within a few years of each other and helped to pioneer fledgling communities. They never met in their lives on earth but maybe they will do so as they journey onward.

Lana Chanarin, Loch Arthur, Scotland

Ella

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and friendships, which were actively maintained, had become central to her life. Her final communication to Claudia was to the effect that relationships were everything.’

Claudia and Nico Sialelli

We have just heard that our dear friend Frank Manson died suddenly on Sunday 25 October. Frank has been a friend and close associate of Loch Arthur Community since its beginning. Very early on he became a member of our Local Manage-ment Committee. He was for many years our accountant and financial advisor, and then became the appointee for most of those in a supported tenancy here, which led him to be a regular attender of the meeting for those in tenancies. When Loch Arthur became a stand-alone charity, Frank was one of our first Trustees, a position from which he retired earlier this year. Frank was also a founding Trustee of the Camphill Family Trust, through his friendship with Iris Baxter, and has continued as a trustee till now. Frank had had major surgery a few weeks ago, but had seemed to be recovering from this. It seems that he had a heart attack at home, and could not be revived. He will be very sadly missed by all of us at Loch Arthur, where he has always been there for us as a friend and advisor. He leaves his wife June, his son Graham and his daughter Jane and two grandchildren. Fran Clay

We would like to let you know that Sunday morning 4:45am October 25, Lenie Seyfert passed away in Springlawn Nurs-ing Home on Omagh. She had become frailer over the year, was close to the threshold several times and during the past ten days her life forces withdrew. Many people from the community visited her in her last week. Lenie had still looked forward to see her niece Janneke, who arrived the day before Lenie died.

Lenie was 95 years old. She was born on 8 July 1920 in Was-senaar, in The Netherlands. She was a very long term Camphill co-worker in various places: Camphill Schools, Glencraig and Clanabogan. She had moved to in Springlawn Nursing Home four years ago, one year after the death of her husband Manfred Seyfert. Springlawn is very close to Clanabogan; this made it possible that nearly daily contact with Clanabogan could continue all these years. Hetty van Brandenburg

Margaret Richmond died peacefully Wednesday, 18 Novem-ber following a long illness. She was surrounded by love and light in her passing. As the seasons of Advent and Christmas were her favourite time of year, in the last few days her visi-tors had been singing carols for her. She smiled many times during the singing. Miriam Power, Duffcarrig

Janette (Nettie) Monro passed away Tuesday November 10 at 8.45am at the age of 77 years. Nettie was born in Ayrshire on 30 July 1938 to Elizabeth and George. George was a music teacher and subsequently left Nettie and her mother when Nettie was about nine years old. Nettie was a child in Camphill School, Aberdeen from the age of six and she left the school for Thornbury in 1958. She came to Botton in 1960 as one of the first Botton villagers.

Nettie worked in houses and in the Doll Shop in Botton, but her true vocation was as a nanny to Botton children, who she adored and called ‘my children.’ Many Botton house parents appreciated her dedication and how capable and responsible she was. She was happy and fulfilled in Botton and had many friends, and was especially close to Roy Read (died 1983) and Joan Smith (died 2015).

Nettie’s health became increasingly poor over the last two years, as Nettie struggled with various health conditions and changes to her living situation. On 18 September, Net-tie moved to Thomas Weihs House after a stay in hospital. The staff of the house were unstintingly dedicated to Nettie, despite her reluctance to be treated. After not being able to swallow her medicine, Nettie again had to have a stay in hospital and it was at this time that her health severely de-clined. She was given the last anointing by Jens-Peter Linde, resident priest at Botton.

About two weeks ago, Nettie returned to TWH for end of life care and during this time she did not eat or drink. On her return to Thomas Weihs House, Nettie was clearly relieved to be home, sinking back into the bed and sleeping soundly. It is testament, I think, to Nettie’s strong will and determina-tion to see old friends before she died that she managed to go on for this period of days, during which time she did not speak but was often responsive. Alma (former house mother for a long period of Nettie’s life in Botton), Lydia and Aidan (former house parents in Martin House from 2012–2015), Pam, Gaynor, Colette, Daniel and Chisato (friends and support workers at Thomas Weihs House) were often by her side dur-ing this time as she slowly slipped away; singing, reminiscing about Nettie’s wonderful history in Camphill and telling fairy tales. Nettie even had her own private concert in her room, from Chris (on piano accordion) and Peter (on violin). It was wonderful that Doris (Nettie’s former house mother for ten years) managed to make the trip from Duffcarrig in Ireland to be by Nettie’s side in the last two days. We all had the feeling Nettie had been waiting for her.

Nettie crossed the threshold this morning, as her breathing simply died away.

Nettie leaves behind Jean, her cousin and nearest living rela-tive, her large number of friends in Botton, Camphill and further afield, and all those children of Camphill that Nettie was nanny to in her days at Botton. Those children will remember her kindness, her love, her singing and her playfulness, as well as the scarves she knitted and the pom-poms she made for them.

She will be missed, but will surely be watching over Camp-hill children for as long as there are children in Camphill.

Lydia Frances

It is with great sadness that we send news of Fiona Master-ton’s passing in the early hours of Saturday December 5 at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Fiona has been in Camphill since childhood, passing through Camphill School and into adult life in various Camphill communities. Upon ‘retirement’ she moved from Camphill Stourbridge to Simeon in 2007 where she continued to live life to the full in spite of increasing frail-ties. Fiona was born in Turiff, Aberdeenshire in 1934, and she was pleased to return to her Scottish roots. She will be sadly missed by the many people she met over the years.

Our condolences to Fiona’s faithful cousins Gavin Masterton and Morag Meyers who played a significant part in Fiona’s life.

Jeannie Carlson, Simeon Care for the Elderly

We heard today that Ann Richmond died peacefully on Oc-tober 28 at 6.30am with her friend Ashleigh by her side. Ann had been very unwell for the past couple of weeks and quietly slipped away. She was a great support over the years with her many admin skills in the Botton General Office until her retire-ment. She moved to a nursing home nearby since leaving Botton in 2013 when it became evident that she could no longer cope on her own. She had been in a nursing home ever since sup-ported by Ashleigh with whom she had built a close friendship.

Margaret Griffiths

Alison Turnbull, a villager living in Newton Dee, died early in the morning of Thursday 12 November 2015, in a hospice in Aberdeen. Kristina Christiansen, from Newton Dee, was with her through the night to accompany her through her last hours. Friends from Newton Dee had visited her in hospital in the weeks leading up to her death.

Alison was born in Sunderland on 15 July 1953 and when she was one year old she went with her family to live in Uganda where her father worked. She returned to the UK and went to live in Templehill, south of Aberdeen, in May 1973 and moved to Newton Dee in October that year which has been her home since then.

Alison was one of the young group of people that joined Newton Dee in the 1970s and helped us develop into the community that we are today. Her enjoyment of all the ele-ments of community life was very apparent over the years and her humour brightened the days of many. Alan Brown

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News from the Movement…and beyond

World Wide Weave diary: England and Wales December 2014 – July 2015

Peter Bateson, Exhibition Curator, Oldbury-on-Severn, England

Camphill Foundation’s World Wide Weave Exhibition continues to impress, move and inspire visitors wher-

ever it goes. They are deeply impressed by the artistic achievements of the exhibits’ creators and moved and inspired by the quality of community building in Camp-hill that they perceive through the textile art, photos and text. Visitors are astonished by the richness and variety of colours and techniques on display. One lady said to me in Wales, “Isn’t it amazing what you can do with a bit of wool!” Everyone comments on how completely different all the exhibits are. The only common factor is conforming (in the main) to the same dimensions of 60 x 80 cm and starting with the same working theme of ‘our community’s relationship to its physical and social environment’. Hundreds of Camphill people spread far and wide across the globe have contributed to this wonderful exhibition.

Nearly all visitors say they have never heard of Camp-hill, and are amazed that it has 61 communities in the UK and Ireland alone, another 60 worldwide, and has been around for 75 years! A few people say they have heard of Camphill but had no idea how widespread and international it was. The warmth, richness and satisfaction of shared lives and community belonging communicate themselves to the viewers through the text and photographs that accompany all the exhibits. People often say “Everyone seems so happy!”

The first stage of the exhibition tour lasted for over sev-en months, covering eight venues in England and Wales. The exhibition opened in the Old Town Hall in Stroud,

Gloucestershire, a historically fitting venue in that the upper floor had once been the peaceful workplace of spinners and weavers in the late eighteenth century.

Because of its location in Stroud the exhibition at-tracted huge numbers of visitors, not only from the local public but also many people with connections to Camphill and the Rudolf Steiner movement in general. In the run-up to Christmas the whole setting was extremely festive and atmospheric and lots of greetings cards, cal-endars, books, DVDs and other items were purchased. Some people said they would have been glad of a little more space to stand back and appreciate the works on show, but the overwhelming experience was a positive one, with the dazzling array of colours, the incredible variety and complexity of techniques and the unique individuality of each exhibit being high on the list of strong impressions.

Perhaps the most important aspect of all, however, was a warm appreciation for the element of cooperation and collaboration through which the pieces had been created, and what many visitors described as a joyful, uplifting and life-affirming quality shining through the photos and text from the groups of people involved.

The second venue was very different, at The Island Gallery in the busy city centre of Bristol, in a building which had once been the police headquarters. The gal-lery space was in the former communications centre, a single huge white space with arched glass ceiling and wooden parquet floor. Many exhibits could be hung on the walls which gave lots of extra space for walking

Visitors to the National Wool Museum in West Wales enjoy the World Wide Weave in a glass-roofed courtyard gallery

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about and standing back to view the pieces, a table for sales of cards, catalogues and calendars and also space in the centre for a large round table for people to sit and browse at leisure through books, journals, leaflets and other related materials. One key feature of the exhibition in Bristol was the number of younger people who visited, including many young co-workers and residents from nearby Camphill places, and from Bristol itself which is very much a university city. During the time in Bristol the exhibition space played host to a meeting of the Camphill Association PR Group.

After Bristol came another huge contrast, this time for a month in the hallowed precincts of Winchester Cathedral, dating from 1079. As the area had to be kept relatively free for people coming and going, despite the vastness of the building the exhibition footprint was somewhat restricted, and for the only time we had to employ angled spotlights. The result was that the exhibition had a quite magical quality, appearing like a colourful bejewelled island in the midst of the vast austere forest of medieval stonework.

At a special evening event with about 70 guests the exhibition was declared open by the Vice-Dean of the cathedral, whose wife Sophie was our special contact and helper, and the Dean and Chapter and all the cathedral staff and volunteers (about 650 people) really took the exhibition to heart. One senior Canon even used it as the springboard for his sermon at a special Sun-day service and it was fascinating to observe how well the tour guides could explain to their groups what the exhibition was all about. It was amazing how much they had absorbed in a short time through our personal conversations. A special glory of the exhibition in Winchester was that it was often bathed in the sublime sound-world of the cathedral choir, other visiting choirs or the organ alone.

From ancient to modern was the keynote of the next move, some distance north to Oxford, at the very lively North Wall Arts Centre. The exhibition gallery was in a very modern spa-cious foyer and a landing on the floor above, with all the pieces beautifully presented, hanging on the white walls, and all the staff of the arts centre were extremely helpful and supportive.

Next came a move to the far west of Wales, to the National Wool Museum of Wales (Amgueddfa Wlan Cymru), a quiet vil-lage in the beautiful Teifi Valley near Cardigan, an area of out-standing natural beauty famous for its river fishing, rolling hills and meadows, filled with sheep and lambs in springtime, its dark woods and rushing clear waters. At the height of the woollen industry in West Wales there were an incredible twenty-seven mills in the immediate vicinity of Drefach Felindre and over a hundred in the wider area. The Cambrian Mill was later preserved as part of the National Museum of Wales.

As well as its history, the museum demonstrates the complete process ‘From Fleece to Fabric’ through the stages of willowing, carding, spinning, weaving and finishing (washing, fulling, raising and trimming). Against this background of nature, history and technology, the World Wide Weave presented an extra special quality of artistic imagination and a shining example of creative collaboration. It really touched people’s hearts and minds and they went away enthused and uplifted by what they had seen. On a couple of occasions Camphill people from Glasallt Fawr and Victoria House at Llangadog came with their looms and gave practical demonstrations which were very much welcomed and appreciated by visitors and museum staff alike.

Following Wales it was back east again, for three weeks at the Central Library in Cambridge. This was the best of two worlds: the library was at the centre of a crowded modern shopping mall but situated within the historic heart of Cambridge. Like Bristol and Oxford, Cambridge is clearly a university city and consequently a large number of exhibition visitors were young

Awakening to Community

A person who has become an independ-ent, distinct individual in the age of

consciousness wants to wake up in the en-counter with the soul and spirit of his fellow man. He wants to awaken to his soul and spirit, to approach him in a way that startles his own soul awake in the same sense that light and sound and other such environmen-tal elements startle one out of dreaming.

This has been felt as an absolutely basic need since the beginning of the twentieth century, and it will grow increasingly urgent. It is a need that will be apparent throughout the twentieth century, despite the time’s chaotic, tumultuous nature, which will affect every phase of life and civilization. Human beings will feel this need – the need to be brought to wake up more fully in the encounter with the other person than one can wake up in regard to the merely natu-ral surroundings. Dream life wakes up into wakeful day consciousness in the encounter with the natural environment. Wakeful day consciousness wakes up to a higher con-sciousness in the encounter with the soul and spirit of our fellow man. Man must be-come more to his fellow man than he used to be: he must become his awakener. People must come closer to one another than they used to do, each becoming an awakener of everyone he meets. Modern human beings entering life today have stored up far too much karma not to feel a destined connec-tion with every individual they encounter. In earlier ages, souls were younger and had not formed so many karmic ties. Now it has become necessary to be awakened not just by nature but by the human beings with whom we are karmically connected and whom we want to seek.

Rudolf SteinerDornach, March 3, 1923

You are invited to write a few (or more) words about books you come across that you love – they don’t need to have anything to do with Camphill or anthroposophy! Send it to us for including in the magazine so other readers can read about the book you so enjoyed. We would love to include any interesting books in the review section that can expand our horizons.

Also if you feel inspired to write a re-sponse to articles, even just a line or two, please do! We love to have dialogue within the magazine. Let’s create a safe open space for all views to be aired and shared from the heart.

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ReviewsListen to the MoonMichael Morpurgo448 pages Harper Collins Children’sBooks ISBN 978-0007339655 Review by Vivian Griffiths Graythwaite, England This review is dedicated to Terry Boardman

There is a legendry story of one of the few survivors of The Lusitiana, about a girl who clung to the ship’s

grand piano floating on the rough Atlantic seas. This story marks the 100th birthday of the sinking of the ship on a voyage from New York, torpedoed by German submarines in May 1915 south of Ireland.

In the Michaelmas New View Terry Boardman referred to this disaster of the sinking of the ship and the contro-versy surrounding a supposedly neutral passenger ship.

people. On this occasion we had the advantage of being outside the entrance to the café, so everyone almost had to pass through the exhibition to get there!

In every venue, children who come with their families to the exhibition are captivated by many of the details of the exhibits, especially the animals, birds and even foodstuffs! The very first child who visited in Stroud exclaimed loudly for all to hear, “I LOVE those rabbits!” They eagerly take up the challenge to find, for example, a hidden pirate, peas in a pod, some real sea-shells, a black kitten, a ginger cat, a complete lunch with knife and fork, some white chickens, a book that opens (several of these), a brown owl, a white owl, a Christmas tree with presents, a duck with real feathers, a humming bird, a birthday cake, an ice-cream cone and, best of all, a snake in a tree!

Going up north for the first time, Leeds was next, again in an iconic and historic building, the Victorian Corn Exchange, in a prominent location right in the very busy heart of the city. The exhibition rooms here were particularly attractive; three white rooms with glass fronts and partitions reached through arched doorways in a red-brick façade, with space for exhibits to hang on both walls and standing screens. The location gave the opportunity for visitors to come from the communities in the north: Pennine, The Croft, Larchfield and Botton. Once again, the Corn Exchange staff were extremely welcoming, friendly and supportive, and many visitors expressed their appreciation of the exhibition. Even the tough security men were captivated, one of them, wishing to remain anonymous, being moved to write ‘Wonderful talent (Comment by Corn Exchange security)’ in the bottom corner of a page in the visitors’ book.

Last, but not least, the exhibition arrived in central London, at Conway Hall, Holborn, just a short walk from

the British Museum. In this very square William Mor-ris, Edward Burne-Jones and partners opened their first showroom in 1861. In the 1960’s and 70’s in particular Conway Hall was well known as a hotbed of radical left-wing thinking and activism, not least in connection with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The current management team welcomed the exhibition to the premises for five weeks, free of charge.

The exhibition was widely publicized by Conway Hall on its own networks and many people came specially for that but it was also seen and appreciated by hundreds of participants in the many events taking place during the day and evenings, for example various corporate and professional conference days, a huge international piano auction, a full orchestra rehearsing Berlioz’s Sym-phonie Fantastique, a talk by the popular scientist and TV presenter Brian Cox and a meeting of the London Charles Dickens Society.

Please look out for further pictures and information about the venues coming up through the following channels:

www.camphillfoundation.net facebook/camphill-foundation-uk-ireland (it’s an open page and most photos appear here)twitter@camphillfd

Wherever you are, I hope you might get a chance to see the exhibition. It’s an unforgettable experience and a great celebration of the true essence of Camphill at its 75th anniversary!

Peter and his wife Etta lived and worked in Camphill Thornbury for 33 years.

They left seven years ago and Peter has continued to work for Camphill, currently as Development

Co-ordinator for Camphill Foundation UK & Ireland.

It blew up and sank in 15 minutes, taking passengers and cargo to the bottom of the sea. This suggested to many that the ship was carrying a huge amount of explosives for the Allies. It is this event that forms the background and the horror of the loss of so many lives of Morpurgo’s remarkable story Listen to The Moon. This also involves a family hoping to be reunited in war-torn Europe and surprisingly, the island community of Bryher on The Scilly Isles.

Michael Morpurgo has, it has been observed, two recurring themes in his mainly for children stories, the importance of forgiveness between nations after con-flict (as in the special relationship between the British and German people and their destiny together) and the importance between young people who have through a sort of destiny formed a meaningful relationship together.

In War Horse, the story of the compulsory purchase of horses from farms in the First World War, and in Private Peaceful, the futility of war and the stories of individu-als caught up in the conflict comes to the fore. Another more recent story is about a German ex-soldier who has attended the 1966 World Cup, the famous football match where England beat Germany which is described in a warm and admiring way from the German point of view. Afterwards he goes to a Devon beach where as a prisoner of war he had been taken from the farm where

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he worked and where he made a treasured wooden toy for the farmer’s little daughter. The meeting on the beach of this German person and the now 22 year older woman is almost overwhelming in its poignancy, far beyond the conflict of the Second World War.

Indeed the concept present in ethics that when the conflict is over you put your weapon down and shake hands. Finding ways of reconciliation is something Morpurgo explores in a valuable contribution to peace-making.

Morpurgo is also fascinated with this question of young peoples’ destiny and how the individuals are involved in meeting each other. In the saving of an elephant from The Dresden Zoo in 1945 a story brings together a Canadian airman shot down near the city and the daughter of the zoo keeper. It is poignant how the elephant protects these vulnerable people on their journey across a war ravaged very dangerous Germany, who despite all the barriers grow together and eventually marry.

In Listen to The Moon the story involves a young person known only as Lucy as that is all she can say, being rescued from the piano by the master and crew of a German submarine. The master is certainly not al-lowed to rescue ‎her but he risks his life to do so. She is put down on St Helen’s, an uninhabited island on The Scilly Isles off the English Cornish coast. Due to the heroic action in the 1870s of the islanders, many Germans were saved when a German ship sunk on the rocks, so Germany didn’t allow any bombing or straf-ing of The Scillies. Lucy nearly starves to death, but she is rescued deep in shock and is taken in by a fishing/farming family who make a great deed of love and sacrifice in doing so. The suspicions of her mysterious appearance especially with her German jumper from the submarine causes huge problems for her and the host family but the healing power of her surroundings, her humanity, her musical ability and the search for her father who is a Canadian wounded in a hospital in England is the stuff of a good story that Morpurgo tells so well; as he does with the developing friendship with the eldest son Alfie that leads eventually to marriage and a family farm on Bryher.

‎Quite challenging stuff for aspirational middle class people to assimilate, many of whom would prefer not to go near these concepts of a pacifist approach and childhood sweetheart marriage! Yet Morpurgo makes it perfectly acceptable, you hardly know you have ac-cepted these radical approaches to life!

‎As we progress through the centenary of First World War events, we will have the harrowing marking of The Battle of The Somme in 2016. We can find Michael Morpurgo’s stories about the conflict particularly help-ful, trying to make sense of the struggles and challenges just as the war poets from Brooke to Thomas managed to strike a chord for the horror of the carnage in their particular poet and prose way. Morpurgo is in a different way through his storytelling showing the reality of this ‘war to end all wars’.

‎Listen to the Moon is a very worthwhile book.

Vivian has lived in a number of Camphill communities including

Botton, Larchfield, and Stourbridge. He and his wife Lesley currently live in the Lake District in England

and welcome visitors and holiday-makers.

Speed Limits: Where Time Went and Why We Have So Little LeftMark C. TaylorYale University Press 408 pp, £18.99 ISBN: 978-0-300-20647-0

Review by Francis Hutchinson

Reprinted from The Social Artist

magazine

The message of this aptly titled book is ‘Slow Down NOW!’ Philosopher Mark Taylor has undertaken

to research the interplay between economic growth, extreme competition and ever accelerating technologi-cal innovation. He shows how the speed of change is inexorably resulting in environmental degradation, as ‘choice, waste and debt’ have become the sole deter-minants of social, economic and political policy.

This groundbreaking text analyses the motives of the human agents using the stream of information flowing from technological developments to participate in a vast financial casino, demonstrating that the world economy is governed by an artificial intelligence driven by greed, impervious to moral and ethical considera-tions, and beyond conscious control. Taylor describes as toxic the very speed of change. The globally wired financial markets ‘represent postmodernism on ster-oids’, as ‘signs that are grounded in nothing beyond themselves’ circulate in global networks ‘at the speed of light’.

‘Rather than being established by its relation to a real commodity, product or asset like inventory, a fac-tory or real estate, the value of the monetary sign in financial capitalism is determined by its relationship to other financial signs like currencies, options, futures, derivatives, swaps, collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), Bitcoins, or countless so-called financial in-novations… Financial markets have become almost completely detached from the real economy.’ (p. 236)

In this descriptive masterpiece, the author documents developments in religion, philosophy, art, fashion and finance dictated by the uncritical obsession with speed generated by blind faith in the market of global finance capital.

‘Speed has become the measure of success – faster chips, faster computers, faster networks, faster con-nectivity, faster news, faster communications, faster transactions, faster delivery, faster product cycles, faster brains, faster kids, faster lives. According to the gospel of speed, the quick inherit the earth.’ (p. 1)

Why is this happening? What are the effects upon the real lives of real people and the planet which supports all life on earth? And what can be done to forestall the otherwise inevitable ‘social, political, economic, financial, physical, psychological and ecological melt-downs’ predicted by a host of thoroughly on-the-ball authors cited in this work?

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Once upon a time, time was grounded in the seasons which changed as the earth revolved. As day followed night there was a time to sow and a time to reap, a time to work and a time to rest. God was in heaven and all was well on earth. Now it is the market that knows best. Blind faith in God has been replaced by blind faith in the market: ‘greed is good because the omniscient, om-nipotent, and omnipresent market always creates profit out of self-interest.’ (p. 56) Following the teachings of Milton Freedman and Frederick Hayek, time is ritually sacrificed for money. However, the financial assets which are circulating in global networks at the speed of light are grounded in nothing real.

The technologies of the industrial revolution created the mass production of goods, necessitating mass con-sumption through the mass marketing of goods, neces-sitating the mass advertising, mass wholesale and mass transportation of goods designed to become obsolescent. The shift is now to mass customization, made possible by four technological innovations: ‘super high-speed, low-cost computing, super high-speed algorithmic data-processing capabilities; the cloud for storage of massive amounts of information; and what is widely labelled ‘big data’.’ (p. 192) Every second more data now crosses the internet than were stored in the entire internet just two decades ago. These developments make it possible to track and target consumers with products designed for their individual interests and tastes. In short, individu-als are skilfully processed into a virtual world which has them buying more and more consumer goods in a frantic effort to achieve an ever-more elusive satisfaction. The result is literally mind-numbing. ‘The faster we go, the more we forget, and the more we forget, the less we know who we are or where we are going.’ (p. 345)

As an academic late in his career, Taylor draws upon his lifetime experience of the teaching and study of phi-losophy. He illustrates the mind-numbing effects of the substitution of Google, Wikipedia and other on-line tools for sustained, though time-consuming, study of demand-ing texts in their original format. Having learned Danish in order to study Kierkegaard in the original, the author is well placed to demonstrate the present-day relevance of the teachings of the philosopher born two centuries ago. In a key chapter entitled ‘Reprogramming Life – Deprogramming Minds’ Taylor argues that individuals must accept personal responsibility for the person they become through their own decisions. It is not enough to respond like Pavlovian dogs to the stimuli of mass market culture, or to absorb unthinkingly the outdated institutional framework of their upbringing. The time has come for individuals to take fully conscious personal responsibility for whatever hand life has dealt them. With Kierkegaard, the author argues that: ‘Individuals … are radically free and completely responsible for their lives: ‘While people are conditioned by their natural abilities; the circumstances of their birth; and the social, politi-cal and economic conditions of their time, they must, nonetheless, self-consciously acknowledge who they are and take full responsibility for the person they become through their own decisions.’ (p. 296)

Speed Limits cannot be dismissed as a quick and easy read. This erudite volume is the product of years of research, not only by the writer himself but also, as he documents, by key authorities in philosophy, econom-ics, technology, theology, fashion and finance. A tension

runs throughout the book – and it is one echoed by so many over the past decades – that speed is essential if financial, ecological and social meltdown are to be avoided. The message of this reviewer, to all who read this review, is: take time out NOW from whatever seems pressingly urgent and read the book itself. This review can only serve as an introduction to a major contribu-tion to the ability of humanity to forestall meltdown in the not-so-distant future.

Frances is the Editor of The Social Artist, a quarterly journal dedicated to breaking the

boundaries between Christian Social teaching, anthroposophical social renewal, and the

institutional analysis of money as presented by the Social Credit movement.

www.douglassocialcredit.com

20

Self Catering Holiday HouseThe White House Killin

Set within the beautiful Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, The White House is in

an ideal location to explore the natural beauty of Highland Perthshire, Scotland.

Situated in a secluded setting near the shores of Loch Tay, this area offers outstanding opportunities for touring, walking, cycling, bird

watching and ca-noeing. Comprises 5 bedrooms with accommodation for up to 12 persons

sharing. Please contact:ueli@ochiltowerschool.org

for a brochure and availability

Camphill Village USA is a unique community of 100 volunteers and 100 adults with developmental disabilities in rural upstate New York who live and work together to build a community life in which the spiritual integrity and valued contribution of every individual is recognized, upheld and nourished. Join us for a year, a decade or a lifetime of service.

Opportunities for people with diverse backgrounds at Camphill Village USA.

For more information visit our website at camphillvillage.org.A loving home.Meaningful work.A vibrant life.Caring for each other and the earth.

House LeadersWorkshop LeadersService VolunteersAmeriCorps MembersStudents of Social Therapy in the Camphill Academy

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Christmas 2015

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Team LeaderWe are inviting applications for the positions of Team Leader for Delrow House and St Johns House to join our existing team of staff providing support for peo-ple with learning disabilities, mental health problems and other support needs at the Delrow Camphill Community in a beautiful semi-rural location near Wat-ford. This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a Camphill community which forms part of a worldwide movement inspired by the ideas of Rudolf Steiner.

The successful candidate will have substantial experience of being responsible for the individual support needs of people with learning disabilities and man-aging a team of support workers. Ideally you would have previous experience of working in Camphill or in a similar setting.

Applicants are expected to have at least a Level 3 Social Care Qualification to support their relevant experience. The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate that they have a person centred approach focussed on individual needs and a facilitative way of working. Good interpersonal, administrative and recording skills and a solid understanding of professional and personal boundaries are essential. Work will involve evenings and weekends. You will also undertake some sleep in night cover on a rota basis with other staff.

Ideally the successful candidate will wish to live in the community in available accommodation and be part of the social life of the household and the com-munity.

For more information about the charity please look at our website www.cvt.org.uk or contact the general manager Sue Green at sue.green@cvt.org.uk. A posted information pack and application form is available from trustoffice@cvt.org.uk.

Garvald West Linton is an established provider of residential and day care services for adults with learning disabilities. Care is provided in five houses and there are eight workshop areas as well as further education and individual therapies. Our work is based on the principles of Rudolf Steiner. We are situated 20 miles south of Edinburgh in beautiful sur-roundings. We have a vacancy for a

HOUSE MANAGER – Residential (House Co-ordinator)

who will manage a house providing support for eight people. Main responsibilities include developing and maintaining the smooth running of the house and to meet the needs of each individual as well as promot-ing a healthy social atmosphere. This is a full-time post (40 hours per week). Living in is a requirement of the post and a three-bedroom flat is provided.

The ideal candidate will be educated to degree level or equivalent and will have at least five years’ expe-rience in working with adults with a learning disability. We are particularly interested in candidates who have a B.A. in Curative Education or a B.A in Social Pedagogy, but will consider applicants who hold a qualification that would allow them to register with the Scottish Social Services Council at the supervisory level, or can demonstrate their willingness to work towards a relevant qualification.

For more information and/or an informal discussion or visit, please email

robertcrichton@btconnect.com or telephone the number below

Garvald,West LintonScottish Borders EH46 7HJ

Tel: +44(0)1968 682211 Fax: +44(0)1968 682611

email: garvaldwest@btconnect.com

Delrow Camphill Community

Camphill Correspondence Ltd, registered in England 6460482Lay-up by Christoph Hänni, Produced by www.roomfordesign.co.uk

The Dove Logo of the Camphill movement is a symbol of the pure, spiritual principle which underlies the physical human form.Uniting soon after conception with the hereditary body, it lives on unimpaired in each human individual.

It is the aim of the Camphill movement to stand for this ‘Image of the Human Being’ as expounded in Rudolf Steiner’s work,so that contemporary knowledge of the human being may be enflamed by the power of love.

Camphill Correspondence tries to facilitate this work through free exchange within and beyond the Camphill movement.Therefore, the Staff of Mercury, the sign of communication which binds the parts of the organism into the whole,

is combined with the Dove in the logo of Camphill Correspondence.

Editors: Maria Mountain (Editor and Adverts) 10 Shrubbery Hill, Cookley, Kidderminster, Worcs. DY10 3UW, UK

Email: campcorresp@gmail.comDeborah Ravetz, 11 Upper Close, Forest Row, RH18 5DS, UK

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Email: campcosubs@gmail.comAdvertisements:

Suggested contribution of £25–£45 per small announcement/advert. Visa/Mastercard details or cheques can be sent to Bianca (address above), made out to Camphill Correspondence.

Subscriptions: £22.80 per annum for six issues, or £3.80 for copies or single issues.

Please make your cheque payable to Camphill Correspondence and send with your address to Bianca Hugel (address above), or you can pay by Visa or MasterCard, stating the exact name as printed on the card, the card number, and expiry date.

Back Copies: are available from Christoph Hanni (backcopies4campcorr@gmail.com) and from Camphill Bookshop, Aberdeen

Deadlines: Camphill Correspondence appears bi-monthly in January, March, May, July, September and November.

Deadlines for ARTICLES are: Jan 30th, Mar 30th, May 30th, July 30th, Sept 30th and Nov 25th.ADVERTISEMENTS and SHORT ITEMS can come up to seven days later than this.

Camphill Correspondence Ltd, registered in England 6460482Lay-up by Christoph Hänni, Produced by www.roomfordesign.co.uk

The Dove Logo of the Camphill movement is a symbol of the pure, spiritual principle which underlies the physical human form.Uniting soon after conception with the hereditary body, it lives on unimpaired in each human individual.

It is the aim of the Camphill movement to stand for this ‘Image of the Human Being’ as expounded in Rudolf Steiner’s work,so that contemporary knowledge of the human being may be enflamed by the power of love.

Camphill Correspondence tries to facilitate this work through free exchange within and beyond the Camphill movement.Therefore, the Staff of Mercury, the sign of communication which binds the parts of the organism into the whole,

is combined with the Dove in the logo of Camphill Correspondence.

Editors: Maria Mountain (Editor and Adverts) Bettena Cottage, Hill Farm, Northwood Lane, Bewdley, Worcs. DY12 1AA, UK

Email: campcorresp@gmail.comDeborah Ravetz, 11 Upper Close, Forest Row, RH18 5DS, UK

Subscriptions:Bianca Hugel, Rock Cottage, Oreton, Nr. Kidderminster, Shropshire, DY14 8RT, UK

Email: campcosubs@gmail.comAdvertisements:

Suggested contribution of £25–£45 per small announcement/advert. Visa/Mastercard details or cheques can be sent to Bianca (address above), made out to Camphill Correspondence.

Subscriptions: £24.00 per annum for six issues, or £4.00 for copies or single issues.

Please make your cheque payable to Camphill Correspondence and send with your address to Bianca Hugel (address above), or you can pay by Visa or MasterCard, stating the exact name as printed on the card, the card number, and expiry date.

Back Copies: are available from Christoph Hanni (backcopies4campcorr@gmail.com) and from Camphill Bookshop, Aberdeen

Deadlines: Camphill Correspondence appears bi-monthly in January, March, May, July, September and November.

Deadlines for ARTICLES are: Jan 30th, Mar 30th, May 30th, July 30th, Sept 30th and Nov 25th.ADVERTISEMENTS and SHORT ITEMS can come up to seven days later than this.

Birds with artist George McCutcheon