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Editorial

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the St John’s Tide issue of New View. As the balance between light and darkness hovered, opening one of those cardinal spaces in the year when one can somehow feel closer to the source of these great rhythms into which we are embedded here on Earth, I was busy finalising this issue; on Midsummer’s day itself. I suppose if we did not take time to reflect at whatever festival moments that the seasons and our spiritual life bring towards us, we would be the poorer for it. Life can otherwise appear rather abstract, one day like another, if we do not make a space in ourselves to observe the finer moments of the passage of time and link that to something greater than our everyday temporal concerns, if only for a moment. I can imagine that so many people have such busy lives it is not always so easy to pause for a moment, really pause. Like catching the moment between a heart-beat. And perhaps that is where life is truly lived, in those precious intervals; this may be why we are all granted the example of the hovering of light and darkness for three days and nights beginning at each solstice.

With this issue it is my pleasure to share with you the work of Frank Chester. A Californian, embarking on his eighth decade, Frank has been engaged with something truly remarkable these last ten years. I had the opportunity to meet and speak with him when he was in England recently and The Fifth Chamber of the Heart: the art and science of Frank Chester is one fruit of that time together. This article opens out quite a vista, leading to deep connection with indications that Rudolf Steiner gave about the human heart. It is the kind of research, combining art and science, that points to a different way with things in the future. If you read between the lines, there is a great hope at work in what Frank is doing. He also provided the picture on the front cover; it is a heart-picture in every sense.

Hannah Townsend is in between nature and technology at this time in her life and she shares her experiences of working the land biodynamically and exposing herself to technology in Discovering a ‘New Leaf’. Building on the theme with The Inhuman in Our Midst: Reflections on the Origins and Development of the Computer, Jeremy Naydler, one of the contributors at the recent Technology conference New View held in London, sets out important background. Another conference contributor, the Waldorf educationalist Eugene Schwartz ,writing from the USA, joins the theme in Talking About iGeneration.

Film director Jonathan Stedall is fundraisng for a documentary entitled Rudolf Steiner: his life and legacy and speaks about this in an interview with the editor.

Teach in Pictures, by Brien Masters, opens out insights on Waldorf education and that is followed by a moving essay from a young teenage pupil, Nina Mega, from Scotland with Living with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Sandra Williams writes from the USA an insightful reflection on the word in Poems and Prayers. Matthew Barton follows with a poem for St. John’s Tide which leads into the interesting research and insights by Margaret Jonas in John the Baptist, Aquarius and The Knights Templar. NNA News for New View compiled by Christian von Arnim gives news of events in other countries. Then it is back home in the wake of our General Election with Terry Boardman’s The ‘Third Way’ of 1998 and the ‘New Politics’ of Today – Some observations. This is aptly followed by Democracy and “we, the people” by Paul Carline. Much food for thought in this issue as a whole.

Finally, I received a letter which I am printing below; it says everything I should say, so I will let it speak for itself.

As ever, I am grateful for all the support that comes the way of New View; we certainly need it to keep going.

Wishing you well, wherever you are,

Tom Raines – Editor

Dear Editor, We are writing anonymously to urge you to found a ‘Fighting Fund’ for New View magazine, and we enclose £100 as a starter donation to the fund. As long-standing New View readers with enormous admiration for the way in which New View brings matters of urgent spiritual concern to the world, we feel most frustrated that the wider anthroposophical movement does not support your wonderful magazine in the way that many of us believe it should. Given this highly unfortunate situation, we want to propose that you start a New View Fighting Fund, to which those who love the magazine can contribute to ensure its continued existence and longevity. Can we also urge your dedicated readership to support this fund according to their means, so that we can all help to ensure that this unique magazine has the sustainable and flourishing future that it so richly deserves – and that our troubled times so desperately need.

With our best regards,

‘R’ and ‘S’

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