Monday, June 7, 2021

Youth Section 2020 News

 Youth Section Reflections Summer 2020

‘Journeying Onward the road is long, walking forward and this is my song. Inspiration will you walk along with me? I see you in every rock and tree.’ 


It’s a good thing to get completely exhausted by living life all the way.  Last summer gifted my 33rd year, with trials of becoming who I wish to become. 


We have been slowly building the warmth body in Chicago, as Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost and Threefold Cultural Hub builds a special landing place as a shining star for the future well being and social vitality of our cultural lives, and for the Youth Section.


Who could have imagined all that would be hoping to happen, to find a home to happen, for the well being of our dreams last summer. 


Young people are hitting a threshold as education systems short circuit and cities lose form. 


Who can we learn from? Where can we be? We must strive for life like air.


Summer 2020, Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago gave us a space to take on being brave, bold and to care about this land. I want to share a sense here of our strivings, with gratitude for the space to anchor and unfold our earnest heartfelt striving for the good during a time of severe destabilization. 


As an overview Elderberries found ourselves as the hub for three summer initiatives happening one after another throughout the month of August. First was a Classroom Alive Chicago, a journey through the Heartland, then came the Youth Section event Questions of Courage: Earth Alive, and lastly How We Will: Threefolding Our Cultural Revolution, Forming Curative Communities. 


These three events brought friends together from all over the country, creating productive inquiries into the living questions of how to strive right now for a New World trying to birth between us. 


People found and forged new futures amidst all these endeavors. Classroom Alive brought eight young people together, with a few supportive friends holding the periphery online, to walk a rural expedition from Madison Wisconsin towards Milwaukee, for 10 days. 


We walked together from the cosmic visionaries of the Social Justice Center toward one another through the marshes, creeks, abandoned railroads, eternities of corn and soy, and our personal creative research questions. 


This is one way to try and get grounded in the physical world and totally transcend everything at the same time. True as all things the land held us and cared for us all the way to the golden falling sun at Scuppernong in the Kettle Moraine Nature Reserve. 


The sufferings, healings, and insights that began to sprout there, continue to shine as living research. 


Found in the questions were now friends, coworkers, deeper collaborations, new songs and poems, family healing, volunteering, new jobs, people moving and new communities forming. 


We had just one day! between those backpacking days of Heartland wonder, and the start of Questions of Courage: Earth Alive. This gathering too had no place to incarnate in this whole country, except for the graces of having a space in Chicago to anchor. 


COVID led our previous location for this gathering to close the doors, and this little warmth body forming around the Elderberries community and the Branch provided the vital relationship with farmers and educators to ground the Youth Section’s annual gathering impulse. 


Friends from the Branch again cared for us, supported, hosted living spaces, fed and led us, a new group of young people from around the country: from the sunrise on Lake Michigan to a home made fire pit of ashes and sacred fire at a members home.


The theme for this year’s Questions of Courage: Earth Alive, was how to collaborate with the elemental realms of nature, through our perceptions and through one another toward a sense of co-creative prayer making. 


We rolled from the mineral-city, to the plant etheric at Farmer John’s Angelic Organics, the animal-astral at Alizur Farms Veterinarian Home, to the ego-human return back to the city, the Branch and Elderberries. Here again was the sense of thanks that young souls could unfold their growing selves, in relationship with Anthroposophy. 


So new directions have been able to gain momentum, new works, new jobs, even new families. Life finds a way to live in these times, thanks to miracles and goodwill. Imagine though, as well, how much life still wrestles to find the light of day in community? 


This question, of courage, leads us to our third summer miracle made possible by this Chicago community, as a real space for culture and work, this being our How We Will – Forming Curative Communities. 


While our first two events set sail and lighthouse from the Branch outwards, How We Will found us gathering and pioneering the new model of On-Line and In-Person gathering. 


Again, friends flew in, drove in, and logged in, as a hybrid of research sharing, cultural systems, and the hope to join together as a whole community, bring our strengths together, and grow social capacities. 


The spirit was weaving as presenters chimed in from beyond, on a tour-de-force pushing boundaries of our own ideas of what community actually is, and how far we have still to go to bring about a true loving social well being. 


There was warmth, intention, and a foundation laid for future work. ALIANT Alliance began here Detroit shore forth as the future of healing in the United States, staggering feats of bravery are needed for a  healthy world to emerge in all this we are in right now. 




I know many people have suffered in striving to build a space for free – culture to grow in safety. We are grateful for these new friendships and the trust that is growing between us all. Our lives, with Anthroposophy moving in our hearts, are fully invested in doing real work in the world, for a true community to rise. 


Chicago holds us, as the land does, and we are thankful to them and you all for supporting us in these miracles. 


May good become in all we strive for together for a more beautiful humanity.