Rebuilding Our Inner Life (after a hard year of pandemic life)
“Want to learn about a different culture?—Go and live there for a year.” That’s the advice I heard as a college student preparing to do a year abroad. It proved true. You need that much time to really settle into a new experience. Part of it undoubtedly comes from experiencing all four seasons; part also surely comes from the subtle inner changes we make to accommodate to new surroundings. That said, we are now nearly a year into our pandemic experience. The idea that we would just need to “batten down the hatches” for a few months and then life would return back to normal, that idea has proven wrong. Life is different now and will continue to be. With fragmented social connections, disrupted rhythms, and so many streams of vastly different information, it is hard to know how to orient yourself.
Now is the time to start to rebuild. We have an opportunity to consciously (re)form parts of our life that have been neglected, or felt out of control, or need to change. Some examples:
We need to rebuild community–in whatever forms it can take.
We need to rebuild healthy thinking forces
We need to rebuild healthy feeling forces
We need to rebuild healthy willing forces.
And then bring them together so that we can be passionate and truthful and compassionate in the world.
MEDITATIVE PRACTICES FOR STRENGTH, EQUANIMITY, AND COURAGE
After a stressful pandemic year that has pulled at the fibers of our physical, social and moral well-being, Dr. Blanning will be leading a monthly group meditation practice.
Dates: Wednesdays, Jan. 6, Feb. 3, March 3, April 7, May 12, and June 9
Time: 7:30–9pm MST
Location: Online via Zoom
Cost: Free!
The webinars are hosted by the Denver Waldorf School, but are open to the whole community. Please reserve a seat for all six sessions.
You can register here (for FREE!)
More details…
EXPLORING RUDOLF STEINER’S SIX MEDITATIVE EXERCISES
We will be working through Stairway of Surprise, by Michael Lipson. This is an accessible guide to working with Rudolf Steiner’s six “basic” (or subsidiary) exercises, which build a foundation for healthy spiritual life.
Please order your own copy of the book (available at Steinerbooks.org or Amazon.)
Each session will include:
An introduction to a new meditative exercise, lead by Dr. Blanning
Break-out time for discussion in small groups (sometimes remarkable connections happen when you can share with someone you might otherwise never meet in daily life)
Sharing of experiences. We will see how best to do this, as we might be a group of 20 or 200.
The meditations build on each other, so we encourage you to join right at the beginning.
Be well, start your plans to rebuild,
Dr. Blanning
