Falling apart – holding the Centre
How do we create Our Future?
Dates: 4-7 October 2018
Venue: Christchurch Rudolf Steiner School
Keynote speaker: Luigi Morelli from the USA
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world“
From “The Second Coming”. W.B. Yeats, 1865-1939.
In Christchurch, almost eight years ago now, a series of major earthquakes began. Everything fell apart – the ground itself split open, buildings collapsed, many lives were lost; many more were shattered. Out of the physical and soul chaos, came tender growth. Initiatives to nurture, heal and beautify began the process of “greening the rubble”.
On a geo-political scale the world has also been shaken as nations and alliances disintegrate. The divide between rich and poor widens. Displacement is huge and refugee crises give a painful other side to the term “global citizen”.
Old social forms have fallen apart. Recent technologies purported to connect individuals can also bring loneliness. Where we need and want to work with others conflicts can arise, often over the very things that bring us together and should unite us.
Over and against this backdrop we are witnessing new evolutionary trends. Groups, communities and organizations are learning to work in more holistic ways, which involve the whole human being (Open Mind, Open Heart, Open Will and presencing in the terminology used by Otto Scharmer). Those that Steiner calls the “new group souls”—spiritual beings that inspire and support the endeavors of human groups—allow us to experience deeper dimensions of connection, while affirming true individuality. This amounts to listening to what the future wants of us and actively co-creating in collaboration with the spiritual world.