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cover art by Nathaniel Blachere

Symbol by Emily Fecsko

ContentsIntroduction 7Contributors 8Building the Future / story by Em Watson 10 Crossing the Domes / drawing by Adeline LyonsThe Great Flood: Noah’s Ark / painting by Eloise Avery 12Intuition / poem by James Kuhn 13The Light Between: A Biographical Sketch / prose by Ezra Sullivan 14Underwater Love / painting by Eloise Avery 16What is the light between? / quotes from Madison Shulkin & Iona Temple 17The Light Between / poem by James Kuhn 18The Sun Awakens / painting by Eloise Avery 20What is the Light Between? / quotes from Soren Dietzel & Gabel Cramer 21/ quotes from Farranika Barnum & Berenika Lehrman 22 / quotes from Luna Arteaga-Laak & Adeline Lyons 23I Eat the Little Sun at the Kitchen Table / poem by Eloise Avery 24What is the Light Between? / quote from Lucy Nordin 25 Bridge Print / print by Berenika Lehrman Context for The Light Between Conference 26The Light Between / prose by Ezra Sullivan 30Joan is Told her Destiny / painting by Eloise Avery 31Bridge Imagery / poem by Adeline Lyons 32East of Eden / painting by Emily Fecsko 33Web of Truth / painting by Eloise Avery 34 Poem Without Title / by Anders Pitman 35A Light B Tween / prose by Frank Aleph Agrama 36Becoming Dreams / poem by 953 39Breath of a Word / painting by Emily Fecsko 40Between This Just a 1950’s Chevy Impala / poem by Adeline Lyons 41All This Newness, It Won’t Change a Thing / essay by Dolan Polglaze 42The Lost Shepherd & Risen / poems by Adeline Lyons 45The Inner Ruler / painting by Emily Fecsko 46Between the Light / poem by Adeline Lyons 47Let Go / poem by 953 48Future Happenings 49Events 50Initiatives 52

Introduction This second issue of Futuring Now explores “the light between.” Over the past year, agroup of young individuals within the North American Youth Section has been preparingfor a young adult conference called The Light Between, which will take place in August.This theme has emerged from questions around polarity—how to live and grow in anincreasingly polarized world, where to find spaces between duality, and what we can do tobridge seemingly opposite sides so that they can transform into a entirely new, truthfulsubstance. As this publication primarily focuses on making available the creative work of youngadults in North America, the following pages present various artistic expressions of thismotif. You will find paintings, poems, visual art, and prose pieces that, each in their ownway, contribute to the unfolding of a larger impulse present among young adults today:the renewal and revitalization of existing structures, which, like a bridge, must maintaina certain standard of engineered efficiency but also pioneer their way from one shore toanother. Many, though not all, of the contributors this time around are part of theorganizing team for the upcoming conference.Lastly, I want to express what a serendipitous experience it has been to develop thisinitiative. Since March, when the inaugural issue was released, Futuring Now hasreceived a substantial amount of financial support through subscriptions and donations,enabling it to move forward in its goal to remain a print-only publication. With about 25subscribers to date, Futuring Now thanks you all and extends its hand for even moresupport! Subscription info and payment details can be found on the back cover.Through the future, into now! —Adeline Lyons, editoradelineroselyons@gmail.com 7

8Frank Aleph Agramais an artist, educator, and community builder focusing on therapeutic interdisciplinary approaches and social process. Frank serves as representative of the Youth Section for the North American Collegium of the School for Spiritual Science.HealAuRT@gmail.com Eloise Avery Is an artist living in Egremont, Massachusetts. Her work explores themes of human beings and nature, and the ways in which we perceive the spiritual and physical nature of life itself.e.avery.art@gmail.comNathaniel Blachereworks as a timber framer and a carpenter, and he enjoys sculpture, drawing, painting, and animation. He strives to depart from the industrial mindset that pervades much of our modern aesthetic and bring organic forms into his projects. Emily Fecskois a painter and mixed media artist based in NYC. Her creative process is a deeply personalvisual exploration of the human spirit's search for connection. She employs color, texture, and form to evoke familiar surfaces such as skin, plant matter, and folds of fabric melding them with the brilliance of dreamlike landscapes. This fusion serves as an invitation, a starting point rooted in our shared reality, from which a world is woven that reawakens connections between somewhat dissonant concepts.Website: emilyfecsko.com Contributors James Kuhnis an actor and poet who recently completed his first year at the Steiner School of Speech Arts in Chestnut Ridge, NY. He is currently preparing to play Johannes in Rudolf Steiner’sfirst Mystery Drama this October.james.kuhn.jk@gmail.com // 518 - 965 - 1892Berenika Lehrman is an aspiring performance artist, interested in and working with the Chekhov acting technique, dance, and clowning. She is an active organizer for the Light Between Youth Conference happening this summer.berenika@fund-balance.com // 518 - 965 - 2028

Adeline Lyonsis from Chestnut Ridge, NY, and currently works on various projects in the realms of writing, editing, organizing, and theater/film. She is also dedicated to reimagining ways in which young people can encounter anthroposophy.adelineroselyons@gmail.com // 845 - 587 - 3100Lucy Nordingrew up right outside Detroit, Michigan, where she attended the Ann Arbor Waldorf school. She now spends her time in Philmont, New York, where she has been farming for the past 4 years, both with vegetables and currently with livestock. She is an active organizer for the Light Between Conference.Anders Pitmanlives in Philmont, NY, where he has been a teacher at the Chrysalis Homeschooling Initiative.Dolan Polglazeis a writer and biodynamic farmer currently working and living near Ithaca, New York.Before farming, he studied philosophy and the history of mathematics and science. Hiscurrent writing centers on how the person of Christ can be met through engagement withthe land.Ezra Sullivanis based at Threefold Educational Foundation and School in Chestnut Ridge, NY, wherein he works in the realms of education, events, and organizational structure. Some of his initiatives can be found here:threefold.org/introcoursethreefold.org/youthEm Watsonis a storyteller and media maker from Philmont, NY.Professionally, she works in arts marketing and administration, and she has been involved in YouthSection organizing since 2021. 953born and raised in Los Angeles, 953 isthe product of two Salvadoranimmigrants and the environment ofminority urban life. He began writing lyrics and poems in 2001. Also features quotes from conference organizers:Also features quotes from conference organizers:Luna Arteaga-Laak * Farranika Barnum * Gabel Cramer * Soren Dietzel * Madison Shulkin * Iona Temple

A Story by Em Watson There once was a young man who wanted to build a bridge over a great,rushing river. The community around him whispered that it couldn't be done—it was too great, too complicated, too foolish. The man began to build, one stone at a time. The work came easily at first, but as time went on and he got further, he feltthat each day he was pushing through the dark, warding off the enemy, orwaging war. He began to change into someone he didn't recognize, and thecommunity whispered that he might have gone mad. One night, the young man dreamed of himself building, reaching, acting,fighting—but soon realized that he was on the other bank of the river in thedream. This self he saw was working towards him from the other direction. BUI L D IN G TH E FU TU RE 10Crossing the Domes

11And all who walked across carried that light within them, wherever theywent. Those who had whispered that it was too great, too complicated, and toofoolish rejoiced in the building of the bridge. There was something strange andbeautiful about the structure—it seemed to all who walked that way that,within the keystone, a golden light flowed through the veins of the rock. The young man and the old man looked each other in the eyes and shookhands, as their halves of the bridge wove together beneath their feet. When the young man looked up, he saw himself standing on the other half ofthe bridge, which had been built from the opposite side. But the self he sawwas very, very old—the oldest he would ever be—and seemed to glow with thelight of a fire's embers or the very center of a star. When he awoke from the dream, he knew that he could trust that the bridgewould be built. He laughed and sang as he created. He no longer waged war butnow moved through the process with ease, dedication, and grace, until one dayhe'd built to the center of the river. by Adeline Lyons

12The Great Flood: Noah’s Ark oil on panel 24x24by Eloise Avery

By James Kuhn The floating faculty of Spirit That the waiting vessel on a calm sea invites To inhabit the wind’s fulfilling of the sail’s Readiness to pull The whole ship’s heart-strong hull⎯Splits throughThe persuasive wind-spread wave’s pullThat pulling, pulls us up the accumulationOf its ever-rising back, until, cresting its height,Falls to a dispersal through the surface of itself INTUITION We are the whole journey of the ship⎯Ever steadying to gain sturdiness of will As we inscribe intentions In the manner of our Soul’s adventuring⎯This matter of the soul and Spirit’s mystery Mutates the manner of its gazes’ Gradual, up-sliding grasp of horizon: Our own Sun, cresting radiant upon The ether of our atmosphere, Grows stronger in its guidance, The more awareness we give to it. Its increasing rays dissipate the doubt shrouding As mirage-laden mists mourn The loss of their substantive influence. The shining orb emerges from our chest, And leads to a clarity coursing, That once listened to, there can be no unlistening. 13

TH E L I GH T B E TW E EN : A B IO G RA P HI C AL SK E TC H BY EZR A S U LL I VAN maize. process of radical change. Sacred Valley of the Incas. over to the side of the road. exist between two individuals. consciousness. I had no intention of returning to the United States, as I felt thatgovernments in developed countries were far too limiting to foster free initiative. working with it, breathing with it, dissolving it, but it persisted. I finally stopped, withoutmental participation or any conscious decision-making. My body pulled the bike rock wall that comes up to my waist. On the other side, I am looking over a field ofrecently harvested maize in which a group of folks are working through the piles. I endup spending the day with them as we all sit around together chucking and grading the trip, just a day or so from Cusco, and my knee developed an incredible pain. I tried had at that time of melting into the landscape through transcendent experiments in there, I had an interaction with an elderly Quechua woman for which I am eternallygrateful. Her action changed me as if a chemical reaction had taken place, an alchemical and befriending and begging became my only options for food and shelter. Then mybicycle brakes broke, and I was relying on only my front brakes, which was another testof courage as I navigated the many hills. I was coming towards the end of my ten-day is a story that I feel compelled to tell from my life, as an example of the light that can In a sense, at this period in my life, I was blissfully directionless. My main aim Paz, Bolivia, to Cusco, Peru, after training for a few weeks up some pretty treacherousmountain paths outside of Cochabamba, Bolivia. Much of this trip was at high elevation(12,000 feet or so) through the Altiplano region, around Lake Titicaca, and then up the was to walk the path in front of me as it was being presented. I was following a vision I And there I am, in a rural village in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, standing by a To give some context, it was 2013, and I had embarked on a bicycle trip from La Humans can enter the “light between” in mysterious and unexpected ways. Here During my trip, I made many connections and friends after my wallet was stolen, From 18 to 21 years old, I lived in South America, and towards the end of my time 14

others in Quechua. and onto my bicycle. family is, and where my place is. business, consumed in the running of the house. I assumed that she didn’t speakSpanish, which is common for that area, as she never addressed me but spoke with the and I the Son. We became elevated into a mythological realm, or even beyond themythological, into a superconscious realm. It was a crossing of the threshold, beyondpersonalities, beyond her and I, or cause and effect. It was magic. I can’t recall sayinganything but “gracias” over and over again in response. Then I stumble out of the house The two men leave for work and school, I finish my breakfast alone with the that year and reconstituted my life in North America, where my home is, where my With tears in her eyes, she reaches her hands up onto my shoulders. I was in I get invited to dinner at a house next to the field and end up sleeping with the am eating and talking with the father and son, the mother is kind of minding her own Instantly, I knew: homeward bound. I returned to Los Angeles, California, later thatched roof house around an open fire. I am served a warming soup for dinner and abreakfast of light chicken broth, yerba buena, fava beans, and quinoa. The whole time I woman. I get up, and bid her farewell, readying myself to hop on the bicycle again. Ihad planned to somehow get access to my bank account in Cusco, fix up the bicycle,and continue north up the Andes Mountain Range to Ecuador. As I raise my hand infarewell to the woman, she approaches me. Slowly, she walks across the room with hereyes dead centered on mine, and her hands in front of her heart, palm to palm, inprayer. She says, “Vaya a tu casa, a tu familia, a tu tierra. Regresa a tu casa, a tufamilia, a tu tierra…” (return to your home, to your family, to your place…) over andover again like a mantra. to protect it from thieves. The family is very warm and we speak of many things in their shock. It was as if a Sun came into the room, or maybe it was as if she was Mother Mary patriarch in a little hut meant for honoring the spirits, and for watching over the harvest 15

16Underwater LoveThe light between is also the light aroundand inside. This light is a force of the heartthat sees beyond differences and emphasizesthe essence of human connection and unity.It is not something we invent, but ratherwhat flows through us. —Madison Shulkin

17oil on wood, 12 x 20, by Eloise AveryThe light between is about encountering the other anddiscovering what lives in the space between people.What can we discover when we are truly open to seeingone another as human beings with unique gifts to offer?How can we relate to differences while still sincerelymeeting each other? Who are our future collaborators?How can we support one another in our work anddoing in the world? —Iona Temple

THE LIG H T BE T WEE N By James Kuhn The light between Your eyes and your heart Your mind and the start Of inspiration springProfuse outspreading Through the ground swell-rising— To bloom forth forms When from earthen depths Water meets warmth And Sun draws out and speaks To yearning needs of new life— The light between Is the story still moving The heart’s blooming As it outspire’s To reach the sun Whose light clarifies The new image daring forth.This stalk of Self that (a)rose is In the I of the Self That beholds the whole world The heart’s blooming Is the story falling and rising Every day and evening The pulse of the depths In Life’s breath between Holds us within and without The earth’s heart of hearts And it’s inversion in the sky The Cosmos spread across With their manifold stars In which forces flow Greater than our individual livesResounding with a beat through our beingsMoving through our hearts as we hear it 18

Drawn by the waves of this cosmic ocean— Our longing to know into-it Will connect intuition’s inner sea To the rain’s fall of pictures Coursing through our minds And radiate round through our limbs That carry these cares away And hearts to places We could never find on our own The pulse of the depths In Life’s breath between Is the story’s will unfolding 19

20The Sun Awakensoil on linen20x20by Eloise Avery

The theme for The Light Between Youth Conference is really about thespecial gifts that we each hold and the intentional inner activity it takesto enact the spirit in our work and in meeting each other. Even the mostmundane tasks can be artistic. By realizing love in myself, I see truth in others and the world around me.From this place of gratitude for community, what can we create in theworld for the future? This is a time to find ourselves, explore what our work in the world is, and meet our future collaborators. There is also an aspect to this theme of answering the shadows ofdisparity and difference in a challenging world climate. So many issuesplague us all and so many suffer greatly. The “light between” does notexist without the darkness. It is an acknowledgment of the work we allmust do to not be an obstruction to that light but actually be carriers offuture possibility. We will explore the practices that develop thatcarrying capacity. —Soren Dietzel 21In the keystone of a great bridge between two lands foreign to each other, alight begins to radiate. Though the bridge has been forgotten for a long time,as the light brightens, the whole structure becomes illuminated, drawingattention to its purpose—crossing to what is “other,” to the unknown part ofthe whole that aches for union. A brave few begin to cross, and following theirlead, many see it is the way to go. As each crosses the keystone from eitherside, they carry with them its light, wherever they may go. —Gabel Cramer

A balancing point. The tender feeling that expands the heart to envelope awhole world in one beingness. A reaching across to the inexplicableexperience, sometimes felt, of being with, being held, flowing in the stream ofthe world. Together. It slips through my fingers as I try to grasp it, anintangible reality so real it permeates everything. The light between awaitsand yet arises ever new. Attentiveness teaches the new unfolding of possiblenows. People as worlds in themselves: honor them as the miracle of intricatelife asks to be honored. Remember, we have so much to uncover in wonder. —Berenika Lehrman 22In the current social paradigm dominant in the West, social disagreements are profoundlypresent and pervasive on a political, cultural, and even interpersonal scale. Our societalframeworks are brittle and fragile; prejudice and fear of the other are propagated. Thespaces between us are fraught with distrust, uncertainty, resentment, and fear. The light between seeks to address these monumental issues at play. We must build a newparadigm of connection, mutual understanding, and trust, while acknowledging andrecognizing what unites us—what we share—and also honoring our differences, whichbring us to a deeper level of trust in one another. The light between is about the spacesbetween us—the light representative of what is good and beautiful in relationship on botha personal and societal level, in the context of the whole and of the individual. Changestarts within ourselves and in the spaces between us, and we must allow our lights to shinetherein. —Farranika Barnum

23There is always something becoming between people, inmeeting, and in staying in a meeting. We are constantlycreating—bringing impulse into reality. What is the sparkbetween us when open curiosity meets conversation? —LUNA ARTEAGA-LAAK With our creative will, we can find in every polarity a third polethat is not merely the “middle” but something entirely new. Thisbetween-space requires opposing forces to cross through oneanother to form a truly new substance. In this sense, the “lightbetween” is merely a metaphor, in that it is not light but anelement created out of the polarity of light and dark. Moreover,it cannot live only as a concept, but asks for real acts of etheric-will to transubstantiate habit into epiphany, machination intocreation, like or dislike into equanimity. Practically, this canmanifest in conversation, as our spoken words abide in theliminality between the Word, or the Logos, and the given worldaround us. Doing the light between is a threshold activity. —Adeline Lyons

24I EAT THE LITTLE SUN AT THE KITCHEN TABLEBy Eloise Avery The orange picture of my dream permeates my wakefulnessI walk and run and fly through wordsas they echo in my cavernous mouthQuestions are askedand questions respondBetween my teeth they dance and play in the sunbeams as I swallowThey are obscure and laden with doubt— happy and opaque they fill my stomachI eat the little sun at the kitchen tableI eat my fill of Mystery

25Questions. Craft. CommunityTHE LIGHT BETWEENNON PHYSICAL, LIMINAL, SPIRITUAL, COMING INTO CONTACT withEMOTIONAL INNER EXPERIENCES, CONTEMPLATION, RICHNESS, DEPTH, OUR RELATIONSHIP TOAN EXPERIENCE OR A PERSON,BECOMING COMFORTABLE IN THAT SPACE,I understand the theme as creatinga spaceto facilitate and encourage young people toencounter the polarities in the social experienceand offer tools and inspirationtowards accepting and respecting the other and seeking collaboration.⎯Lucy NordinBridge PrintbyBerenikaLehrman

The Light Between Conference will traverse a 5-day range of exploration into the nature of humanness. Theorganizing team has worked on reflecting this journey in the programmatic elements,as well as practical and experiential aspects of the day. We have also chosen fivepoems to accompany the days, each of which interprets the theme in a way unique tothe initiatory development of the human being. ––Iona Temple“Wonder” Day 1, Wednesday, August 6 How can I observe newness with wonder? Eagle Poem 26By Joy Harjo To pray you open your whole selfTo sky, to earth, to sun, to moonTo one whole voice that is you.And know there is moreThat you can’t see, can’t hear;Can’t know except in momentsSteadily growing, and in languagesThat aren’t always sound but otherCircles of motion.Like eagle that Sunday morningOver Salt River. Circled in blue skyIn wind, swept our hearts cleanWith sacred wings.We see you, see ourselves and knowThat we must take the utmost careAnd kindness in all things.Breathe in, knowing we are made ofAll this, and breathe, knowingWe are truly blessed because weWere born, and die soon within aTrue circle of motion,Like eagle rounding out the morningInside us.We pray that it will be doneIn beauty.In beauty.

“Meeting the Other”How can we truly inspire one another? Day 3, Friday August 8 “Encountering the Self”Do I know myself? Day 2, Thursday, August 7 or else alone. as it goes into action, and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times when something is coming near, I want to be with those who know secret things shrewd and secretive. I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will, to make every minute holy. I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough to lie before you like a thing, —Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough Let’s go walk on some water I mean what are you doing today besides Putting aside all this living and dying 27Laundry and what’s for supper Let’s take our small boat far out On the freezing and choppy lakeDespite that dark cloud comingToward us let’s do some fishing For the health of our spiritual selves Let’s indulge in some eternity —Peter Rennick, “Both Of Us Valentine”

the cycles of the moon within the circles of the seasons,the circles of our reasons within the cycles of the moon.Again, again we come and go,changed, changing. Hands join,unjoin in love and fear, grief and joy. The circles turn,each giving into each, into all,Only music keeps us here, each by all the others held. In the hold of hands and eyes we turn in pairs, that joiningjoining each to all again. And then we turn aside, alone,out of the sunlight gone The circles of the seasonswithin the circles of the years, Within the circles of our lives we dance the circles of the years, Day 4, Saturday August 9 “Relating to Community” What can we create together?28into the darker circles of return. —Wendell Berry, “Song (4)”

“Taking our Work Into the World”How can what happened at the conference become asustained reality in less ideal realms of life?Day 5, Sunday August 10 The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever. which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.Here the clam deep in the speckled sand. Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let mekeep my mind on what matters, – Mary Oliver, “Messenger” My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird— 29

The Light Between Ezra Sullivan What is the light between? Here I would like to assess the differentiation between the intellectual and spiritual aspects of the human soul as an essential step in findingthe light between. The intellect often hosts a critique, a separation, focusing on what is less than perfect or simply left undone. This prevents me from truly meeting my colleagues.Here is where the adversaries infiltrate human society, inhabiting the spacebetween us when we cast each other away. Inquiring beyond the intellect, to a knowing beyond the mind, I find an activity which does justice to who I really am, and is in fact a liberation of the “I am.” Inthis field of consciousness, perception and cognition are identical and experiencehas meaning again; it is radiant, flexible and alive. This level of attention is a birthof the true self, a baptism through the water-mysteries of living thinking. Here in this transition, we find an essential rite of passage from the intellect to the spiritual soul, enacting the sacrament of forgiveness. I can no longer castjudgements onto others, informed by mere corpses of knowledge. I discover thatself-knowledge is not self-interest, and is for service, not power. It putrefies unlesswe give ourselves to others. To be clear we are not asked to give the knowledge, butrather ourselves—that which is enriched by the knowledge—to others. This is an actof love. To prepare ourselves to stand in front of another and be open to what wedon’t know. The Logos inhabits the weakest part of the other human being, and theadversaries want us to mistake it as an inconvenience to our own motives. Distracted by the betrayal, we say “but this happened and it hurts me.” So why forgive? That is like asking why you should be you. You’re here, so why not dowhat you know to be true, and forgive? Not for outcome, but in freedom with thesuperconscious forces of light and love. If there is a why, it is not forgiveness. How do we do it? I think that if the how could be given, it would have already been given. So we prepare and practice, which requires discipline, faith and acertain degree of improvisation. It is time. It is time to take a risk and move from content and information to capacities and experience; from culture and all the other inheritances to cosmicwisdom. We could come together in such a way that it becomes a speaking that setsthe world free. Free for what? Free to host a beginning that resolves our separaterealities. 30To truly become a human being is to know love, and not the kind of love that we give only to those we like. The individualistic stream of intention must becultivated and then surrendered to host the other with receptivity. The love ofChrist is such.

31Joan is Told her Destinyoil on linen, 35x50by Eloise Avery

B R I D G EI M A G E R Y By Adeline Lyons I’m used to it. Rebellions often have ill intentions in headlines. Those who thrive on normalcy get scared so we’re asked to hide. Mostly I am a camerawoman poised to eternalize striving. I lock in lenses made for catchingsweat and watch for interludes of glare and kids winnowing in mockery of the alarm. My kitchen table glints empty flutesfor future flash mobs. Mirror shreds tinkle in vasesharbored for murals. Long exposuresnakes escapists into streaks so when I exhibit people say did you intend beauty and I gather lace for laterexplanations. Above the water civilians have learned to flyand the bridge has split into an archetype. 32

33East of Eden by Emily Fecsko

34Web of Truth, oil on linen, 18x24, by Eloise Avery

Poem Without Title By Anders Pitman Soft belly syllable— footfalls as intervals modeled by heartbeats, sojourn rhythm, mimicking the thump thump of drum and slow down of rain drop— Increase the crescendo but never does the heart stop. Love big and love hard but never was it not an option— never muster small talk in place of jaw drop— Revel at the world and stop not— assemble yourself in silence with tree being and stone ancients, solace in the simple tones— Dance around the dimples of the earth with bare feet and bear teeth at damp morals and fraught faces— Feign not to friction— Soak seed and sprout stars—spiral up. And do not shiver when asked to be simple. Root down and molt often, move around in your soft shell and shed shyness— Let that crude crust erode, transmute— emulsify symbolic tough skin—turn to the wind Shan’t be nimble when you “shucks” and “shoulda woulda coulda”— Never gonna dance in all that heavy armor— those chains self-invented. Never let a dull thought turn sour— Living in a shed doesn’t make you poor, living in a castle doesn’t empower— 35Change, change, change in the air—Change in my pockets—spend a cent onchild-like wishes and well, well, well,where’d that whimsy go—could you be akid again? Hop on that imagination and fly to that big green glass beanstalk all the way to parnassus— Roll on ground, laugh til weak, and when you remember that well, well, well—roll on and ramble but remember to listen deep.

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Becoming Dreams By 953 Do you not think that dreams are a means toreality?Do you not think that weeds dream of becoming trees? Do you not think that ants dream of becoming bees orbees dream of becoming birds? Do you not think that the mice in the fields dream ofbecoming lions? Do you not think that plants dream of becoming mobilelike animals? Do you not think that animals dream of becomingupright and intelligent like humans? Do you not think that humans dream of becomingGods? Do you not think that Gods dream of seeing theircreations fulfilled?Do you not think that stones dream of germinating andgrowing upward like plants? 39

40Breath of a Word by Emily Fecsko

Between This Just a 1950’s Chevy Impala By Adeline Lyons At midnight two in the window.Transplanted, I am as if here by candlelight, wavering for them to see me. The old peoplethrow shadow on the sill . . . Between us a parking lot which tackles itsfence with upheavals of cement and an unruly heap of scrapped metal. An engine starts. The two deep in sharing, are at the brink of a late night handshake, when it finally gets awkward being the only window lit and worth watching. A look at my select face on the glass blots the window out: why wait elsewhere? I’m not noticed, at all, because I’m new. The old two have turned stiff because I watchedand angry that I lit them up. That engine though, starts it all, quick like alarms, orchestrated; its call an obvious protest, a revving that resolves fixation by brilliantly, but simply,tearing away the eyes. The reality of a far-off window? It is nightshade. I’ve tasted too many and still don’t know how to spit.Good night. For two generations they were called unhappy and classy but they’re lifting now, shadow slanted. 41The car goes. A young person lights something inside, at last giving some party to the sight. And I’ve decided to write new scraps: her muskrat coat wrapping thin boozy shoulders, and his wide stance and their not-touching torsos side-by-side out of pride. The window demands I save it, but she and he, the enclosed, unfreed, ask for shatters.

ALL THIS NEWNESS, IT WON’T CHANGE A THING By Dolan Polglaze “Hoard and praise the verity of gravel. Gems for the undeluded. Milt of earth.” —Seamus HeaneyAnother calf dead today and this one felt different from the last. She died out in the field. Her eyes were already gone by the time we found her, I imagine by somehovering bird in whose stomach the eyes are already being turned into somenecessary organ. “In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora,” Ovid wrote: Ihave it now in mind to speak of bodies changed into new forms. That lucid Romanpoet wrote of Daphne and how she was changed into the bay laurel tree. I want towrite of things not so different; like how a calf’s eye becomes the color in a vulture’swing. Her death did not come as a shock exactly, nor did it quite feel like a death. I have been around enough dying animals in the past few months to know that each death is areinvention from scratch, a new and unrepeatable answer to what it means to die. Oursmall one, the one we found today gangly and damp from yesterday’s rain, must havebeen marked for death even from the day of her birth. She was born in an out-of-the-way place, covered in mud and slick with rain. When I first set eyes on her on the nightshe was born, I remember being struck by a small dread, a dim knell in the hollow ofmy stomach. “This one may not make it,” I thought to myself, inexplicably. I had noreason to believe she would be anything but healthy and yet something in her form—perhaps her too long legs or her roving darkened eyes—alerted my sense that shewasn’t quite made for this earthly place. Her desires were tentative; she couldn’t hold ithere. So we buried our little Cain-calf, the one marked for death by God, in thecompost pile next to the other calf who died on Palm Sunday. For each I made a crossfrom sticks and over each little mound I said my favorite prayer, “Lord, you now haveset your servant free to go in peace as you have promised, for these eyes of mine haveseen the savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see…” It has always feltstrange to pray a human prayer over an animal body. I wish I could pray for the cowsthe same way the cows pray for us: with my whole silent body and glistening eyes. I am convinced that every animal in our herd is born knowing exactly when their time will come. And yet unlike us, they do not grieve that they possess this knowledge—for them it must be as straightforward as their intuition that tomorrow they will feaston the same good grass that they have feasted on for every other day of their lives. Asthey eat, so do they die. Unlike human beings, cows have no hierarchy into which theyarrange the justice or injustice of biological processes. Eating is death is birth is sleep.A cow will never despair or sin or offend, for animals are completely perfect withintheir nature. They cannot not be what they are. (I implore you to contemplate this; it isa marvel and from it we have much to learn.) 42

We marvel because we cannot fully understand this and perhaps we never will. Why? Because our nature is a stratified one. We eat, reproduce, and invent calculus.We are Saint Francis of Assisi and we sin. Light from on high hits us and it bends,breaks, and refracts. We are a shattered Imago Dei whose very shattering in itselfreveals a new aspect of God. We weep for a dead calf who would never considerweeping for herself and then we chant our prayers over an animal who has alreadyachieved union with God to the degree that she has been granted. Perhaps that calfwill not sit at the right hand of the Throne but that is because she will not be raisedfor judgement. And why should she when she has already fulfilled what she wasdestined to be? We, on the other hand, are not what we are destined to be—we holdour future as a prayer. But I am grieved by this, I must confess. I wish that all my selves—the lower, higher, and the mundane—could exist as one and that my life would not be acollection of contradictions. I wish that like the animals, I could live perfectly withinmy nature. Ay, there’s the rub. The great Thomas Aquinas riddled over this problemand came to the conclusion that our actual human nature (or final end) lies not withinany of the things we know about ourselves, but rather in God. It’s a clean thoughtand one that brings reassurance. Theology is beautiful in that way. But we must not lose sight of the immovable fact that for every movement we make towards the actualization of the true self, we will inevitably stumble and rip ourskin on the briar patch of our own crude nature. For every movement we maketowards God, we feel the umbilical cord of our corporeality. The tug in the naval thatsays: you are a child of the kingdom of earth. You have a form as hardened as it issoft. The soft parts of ourselves—that are viscous and childlike enough to receiverevelation—are so often deaf or willfully oblivious to the stony, fixed side of ournature. Herein lies the pain of trying to live our lives without contradiction: the self towhom God speaks is very bad at communicating with the self that is selfish, moody,and blind. We are all greedy for the voice of God but frighteningly inexperienced atmaking good use of it. When revelation does come, we turn it over in our handsadmiringly until it slips silently through our fingers and is gone. Days pass and thepersistent self returns. The revelation goes limp and we are devastated. In truth, we all know ourselves very well. My moodiness, selfishness, andblindness: they are my closest companions. I know their approaching forms, theirscent, their touch. But I cannot accept them. I want to cling to that future self, theself that God speaks to me in revelation. I want the self that feeds on peace. And so,when the gratuitous influx of self-knowledge does come, the temptation is always toquickly throw off any of my darknesses in favor of the precious possibility of achanged self, a self truly new. The problem is not that our fallen nature prevents usfrom transforming into something new, but rather that we think we must first doaway with sin in order to become godly. But how can the healer heal if we pretendthat we are not ill? I have lived most of my life this way and I have slowly realized thatit is a reckless way to live. My nature will always persist; I will likely die kickingagainst the same sins I struggle with now. Christ said that you cannot pour new wine 43

C.S. Lewis wrote that Christ was “the only complete realist” because he is the only human being who has experienced the full weight of temptation and yet did not yieldto it. In not yielding, he saw the entire depth of human darkness without relief. In thissense, we should all attain to be realists as Christ was. When we hide from ourdarkness in order to make ourselves falsely and prematurely divine, we are at leastbeing unrealistic and at worse being anti-Christic. The only genuine Christ gesture isthe one that is able to hold God’s revelation within the sickly earth body. Last week I was sitting on a bucket outside the milking barn thinking about all this. What does it mean to hold revelation in accord with reality? How does truenewness actually enter into the earth, into me? I was waiting for an answer to come,hopefully in the form of a sentence. My eyes drifted down to a puddle formed in thepacked gravel driveway. It had been raining for three weeks without surcease. Nothingabout the terrain of the puddle would otherwise have caught my eye except that therewas a tiny two-pronged leaflet growing up out of the gravel. It was an island all of itsown. I suppose it struck me because of its gaiety and utter singularity. It seemed to belaughing because it could grow where nothing else dared to. As I was looking at theinfant plant, something made sense to me. Oh, I thought, this plant is like revelation.My nature is this gravel, my sin is this water. And the green thing is impervious. Thereis no contradiction here. The Word grows in gravel. So no, this newness won’t change a thing. Revelation won’t change a thing about what you already know to be true about yourself. But in those parts of you where anythingelse would be flooded and strangled, the green thing is already growing. 44into old skins. And yet, there is a part of us that will always be composed like the old,brittle wine skins. The body which receives the medicine of revelation must by definitionbe a sick body. And so the question has never been, “how do I transcend?” but rather,“how ought I hold the transcendent within this body created for death?”

The Lost Shepherd By Adeline Lyons With famine comes, not absentee but absented, an arrival.It is worthwhile to be here. I relocate only to undo movement, not stagnated, a settling. I belittle you to undo having once chosen you. Be it not for unfreeness, I’d undo this, too. This beingtrue. Being true for who? What’re we getting at here? I didn’t become sheepish for the sake of sheeping myself into the flock. I took a stick and struck the earth and whistled in the noontime sun. I sheared the best-looking to clothe you. I wish. Really I am an escapist of bliss.Willingly trudging. Willingly loving but unknown. Strippingwool, revealing unfed bone—unadorned moans. Come feed. Grind the conformed dust of contemporary seed. Belittleme as farmers do their dozens, squalching hoven middles against frozen rails, railing in pits that beget sustenance /consequence/interference:fed. We are all 45RisenBy Adeline LyonsAll pacifying fronts obstructedwe can’t see into risened fieldswhere immaculate sheep resound.But we can grow ball-fistedand vigilant with an immaculatelyprovocative punch.What’s risenin some waysis unoriginal.Our white-knuckled fistednessreveals new sheep not-frolickingbut passing at the torn ground.

46The Inner Ruler by Emily Fecsko

Between the Light By Adeline Lyons What takes form takes light—Around us, night, sculpting our limbs,gives a lightless image of lightmistaken as void—O dark embodiment— you are within our hollows:affect of matter, condensed as flesh, til death, o nightless light, retrieves your source. And frees 47

48Let GoBy 953Holding on to dear lifeI was on the threshold Fear was pulling me awayBut faith was a fastenerPrayers went upPrayers went higherMiracles came forthFeelings were a torchFor every fire feeling is a stapleEvery bad feeling is enabledBy feelings of uncertainty Yes certainty’s unstableIf it wasn’t would I truly be safe?Would I grow? Would I be great?But the gifts could only come forth If I decided to let goThis was the cruxThis was the flummoxThere I lay for several hours, tho maybe just twoBut then it happened, then it dawnedDirection was clear: only one way inI had to let goSo I didI saw little green beings and etheric plants of sorts The rest is historyAnd history became futureTime travel is possibleWe do it every time we let goBut letting go is not letting so n soLetting go is loosening body from egoSo there you go The world is not watching The world is your hammockCan’t swing unless you LET GO

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Events 50Summer Eurythmy Week Color inMovement9amWednesday,August 20 -9pm Sunday,August 24How do colors move through the human being,and how can we listen and become thismovement? Please join us for an explorationinto the world of color in tone eurythmy withSea-Anna Vasilas, speech eurythmy withCameron MacArthur and painting with KeithSagal. www.eurythmy.org/workshops-events/summer-eurythmy-week-2025

A Global Youth Invitation for rethinkingeducation and freedom, together. Fromthe Youth Section at the Goetheanumand around the world, this initiativeinvites young people everywhere, to joina shared journey of questioning,creating, and reimagining the structuresthat shape our learning and becoming.Due to limited spaces available, thisin person event will be invitationonly. If you are interested, pleasereach out to sff@youthsection.org A symposium of water educators, researchers, and those engaged in working withthis element from multiple streams. Focused on the perspectives of Goetheanscience, indigenous wisdom, scientific research, and a utilitarian approach, thisconfluence will stimulate dialogue and provide an opportunity to showcaseintriguing research and wisdom on water. This confluence will feature: a scienceand art fair with posters and demonstrations; water presentations andworkshops; conversation circles; and artistic performances. Reach out toinfo@cressetcenter.org if you would like to participate. 51

Beginning September 2025, Threefold Foundation invites young adults to participate ina transformative residential experience in the Lower Hudson Valley of New York State.The Youth Co-Lab radically rethinks how society could reflect the nobility of the humansoul. The program is structured around three interconnected pillars:Study: Developing an inner capacity for meaningInitiative: Creating projects that address contemporary challengesService: Grounding wisdom in practical community engagementInitiatives Free Columbia Artist Residency 52YIP provides a platformfor young people todevelop their fullestpotential, expand theirunderstanding and findtheir authentic task insociety and the world.a self-designed, community-supported, sliding-scale artistresidency initiative based inPhilmont, New York, with thegoal of offering spaces foryoung people to explore andexpand their creative andartistic impulses. Hosting emerging artists that workwith many types of mediums suchas ceramics, painting, dance,storytelling, and music, theresidency program has become apillar of community andconnecting force that extends farbeyond the village that holds it.

53Becoming Free is a full time in-person Foundation Year in Anthroposophyfrom September through May located in Santa Cruz, CA. Participants workto discover and bring to full consciousness the true nature of the youthful,future-orientated forces that are demanded by the objective needs ofongoing evolution. Our aim is to actively develop a new thinking and newwilling by means of innovative community experiences through study, art,and practical work.FreeBodySoulSpirit@protonmail.com(831) 946 8321The first week of the program (August 30 through September 6) is open toall who are interested in exploring the program. We begin with a 3-daystudy intensive and end with a 4-day backpacking trip in the SierraWilderness.

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