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Editorial

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the Michaelmas issue of New View. Finding a front cover image for the magazine can be quite a challenge. Whilst individual taste means not everyone will necessarily like the chosen image, none-the-less it should at least have a resonance with the festival time of the year (be that Easter, Midsummer/St. John’s Tide, Michaelmas or Christmas) and the content of the magazine. In preparing this issue I became drawn to a painting by Greg Tricker: St. Paul – Shipwrecked on Malta (oil, acrylic, gouache on wood, 2011), a detail of which appears on this issue’s front cover.

The bible tells that in 60 AD Paul was under arrest and travelling by boat to Italy when it was shipwrecked and all aboard were washed up on Melita, or the island of Malta as it is now called. There, the local inhabitants built a fire on the beach to warm the survivors and a venomous snake was disturbed and attached itself to Paul’s arm, biting him. He shook it off into the fire and the islanders expected him to die, but he showed no ill effects, not even a swelling on his arm. In some ways what Jesus Christ says in the Mark Gospel to his disciples some years earlier is prescient, that believers “shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them”. So Paul, (who became a believer in around 37 AD on the road to Damascus when, as Saul, Jesus Christ spoke to him) offered something of a confirmation of Christ’s words to the disciples. I did not know the details of this story when I first saw the painting. I had been drawn by its colour and activity. Then I saw the snake on the arm of this man and they seemed to be looking into each other’s eyes. If I allow myself to take this as a metaphor and stretch and open it out somewhat, I can well imagine that most of us have a ‘snake on the arm’, something that life is challenging us very deeply with. Can we look it in the eye, deal with it and shake it into the fire of transformation? Now, that is a motif of Michaelmas; finding the courage to face difficult things and steadfastly deal with and transform them. So the picture on the cover is also my offering to that endeavour, for us all.

Steiner made mention of the importance of finding courage for the truth. Paul Carline, a regular contributor to New View, wrote to me the following words:

“Steiner warned us that humanity would not get through the difficult times ahead without a “complete commitment to the truth”. Such a commitment demands that we place a question mark over our beliefs and prejudices, subjecting them regularly (perhaps even on a daily basis) to a re-thinking process (the real meaning of repentance) in which we look afresh at their factual basis. This was the process Steiner said was essential to acquiring what he called (in his great work The Philosophy of Freedom) moral intuition.”.

It is with this in mind that I ask readers to carefully consider the lead-in article: Ten Years On – Making Sense of 9/11 by Richard Ramsbotham.

This is followed by 2011: Utøya – The Cross and the Roses by Terry Boardman, where he explores astrological rhythms and influences in connection with Islam, the West and the recent tragic events in Norway.

England suffered an outbreak of riots, looting and arson in August by young (some very young indeed) people. England in Flames by Felix Padel is the first of three articles offering insights, from different perspectives, as to why this happened. Bolted Door or Bolted Horse? The Riots: Viewed from the Perspective of Life by Brien Masters and The Meggid and the Riots by Terence Davies complete this trilogy.

What happens for young people growing up in our society today? Do they have a sense of meaning, a reverence for life itself? Reflections on some early childhood questions by Jill Tina Taplin should help stimulate us to think through these and other questions about the growing child. This leads appositely into Festschrift for Brien Masters: Celebrating his first 80 years, an appreciation compiled by Richard House, where the immense and wonderful work of Brien Masters in fostering the skills and understanding required for teachers in the Steiner Waldorf movement is rightly celebrated.

NNA news for New View, compiled by Christian von Arnim, also has a strong education theme concerning new developments in certification for Steiner/Waldorf students, together with a report on an economic conference in Toronto, Canada.

The Christ Journey: The Art of Greg Tricker by Rosemary Usselman is both a review of the book by that name and a glimpse at an exhibition of Tricker’s works.

And so to nature and the elemental world with an introduction to Steiner’s agricultural impulse in How and why do plants grow? by Hannah Townsend. This is complemented by Why cows need their horns by Bernard Jarman. This leads into The Field Centre – A New University for the Human Being and the Earth, which explores the background to an exciting new building being constructed that intends to become a university offering opportunities for research in three separate disciplines: Biodynamic Agriculture, Therapeutic Education and Consciousness Studies, to PhD level.

Hartmut Warm then takes us to the stars, their beauty and rhythmic order in Signature of the Celestial Spheres. We then come down to Earth for a not so beautiful picture but something that will increasingly affect us: Synthetic Biology: The Assault on the Realm of Life by Jeremy Naydler.

Finally, prompted by a letter I received from a reader, in a section titled Inner Life we feature Rudolf Steiner: Six Essential Exercises, offering further encouragement for inner work. I would be very pleased to receive comments from readers about their experiences.

The ‘snake of lack of sufficient funding to keep New View going’ is wound firmly around my arm; I am looking at it with as much courage as I can muster, but I do very much need help to shake it into the fire and transform it!

Wishing you well, wherever you are,

Tom Raines – Editor

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