Home

Editorial

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the St. John’s Tide issue of New View. In the northern hemisphere we celebrate midsummer whilst south of the equator the midwinter moment is passed. What happens on the equator must be a subtle balance between the two.

Light and dark, day and night, play across the surface of the Earth, presenting us with experiences of shifting polarities; outwardly measurable; inwardly immeasurable as we seek to understand the very nature of the world around us and ourselves. That seeking is a journey, which brings me to the picture on the front cover.

I lived near this driftwood sculpture for some months, always struck by its form as I often walked past it following the river’s meandering, away from the sea. It looks like a boat; and that is what it stands for as its sculptor confirmed; a young man, whom I happened upon during one of my own riverside meanderings. The sculpture on the banks of the river is some two years old, having survived all winds and weathers through the cycle of the seasons and narrowly missing being swept away in the recent winter/spring floods. What it conjured up for me was the archetype of boat.

Boats carry people to places; a change of scene, circumstances, new experiences. A boat itself is always carried on water, that beautiful, life-enhancing, life underpinning substance which is so common to each of us and yet, on contemplation, becomes a mystery. Water, like air, flows. A boat flows, not always gently, through time and space; a temporal shelter for a journey to another place. Living as we do in a world of polarities, it is incumbent upon us to travel to other points of view, both outwardly and inwardly. What shelters us on an inward journey? Do we have a boat, not of driftwood, but of something essential in its ability to hold us; that we can be carried on through our inner journeying as we discover what lies between the polarities of life? The questions, the choices, the knowing, one day. In some ways I could liken what Steiner opened out through spiritual science, anthroposophy, as the substance of an inner boat, which, if we are willing to embark on it, may carry us to come to know, in time, won for ourselves, the meaning of life’s mysteries. A long journey, of course.

My hope is that New View offers some substance to prepare and inform such inner sailings out into the wide Ocean.

Maarten Ekama was going to take us on a further journey to Atlantis, but he is still on the wide Ocean; we hope to hear from him in the next issue.

This issue of New View found itself forming around a number of themes: Drama, art, education, science, society and politics and work and money. We begin with When The Will Awakens: A Mystery Drama that follows on from the FOUR MYSTERY DRAMAS written by Rudolf Steiner, where Michael Burton tells us a little of the importance and coming into being of this play. (To do with that inner vessel I was just writing about…)

Children, Screen-Time and Nature by George K. Russell writing form America; Laurel Farm Kindergarten: An Appeal by Kelly Harries; NNA – News around the World Compiled by Christian von Arnim and The Case for the Educational Policy Committee (EPC) by Panayotis Ferendinos form a whole section on education.

This is followed by From Natural Science to Spiritual Science, a public Lecture by Charles Kovacs and The Water Cycle: How high does it reach? Does it reach the ether? by John Marking, where the boundaries between matter and spirit are explored. This is complemented by a poem of water and the spirit from Theresa Roach Melia.

Losing Yourself to Find Yourself: 1968 and 2018 finds Terry Boardman offering broad and deep insights into resonances between our times and the 1960’s.

David Newbatt’s Midsummer and St. John’s Tide pictures in the magazine’s centre pages offers the reader a moment to contemplate the inner meaning of these events, whatever season the Earth is bringing you just now where you are.

And so to money and finances and the world we are living in. Frances Hutchinson has written two pieces; The Machine Stops and The Economics of Sin as a way to comprehend what is happening in our society and human culture.

Finally we return to the Arts with Art as Potential; The Potential of Art by Johannes Steuck and The Eternal Diogenes Knocking at the Gate of Transcendence where Wolf Forsthofer writes about some inspiring encounters he made in the company of an artist.

Seeing how many initiatives struggle for the financial means to go forward (we are one ourselves and there are two such initiatives directly spoken about in this issue) I felt it might be a help to offer readers some free space on a ‘notice board’, in each issue of New View, solely for those initiatives that seek funding. I would offer a space of around 450 words to tell the magazine readership of your initiative and its basic need with some contact details; no images or photographs, just words.

In the meantime, I wish you the reader well, wherever you may be on your journey,
Tom Raines

Contents

Back to Top