Living with Ourselves and Together:
1. Pictures from Anthroposophy
2. Gender in Relationships
3. The Necessity of Sleep
4. The 4 Temperaments
5. The 4 Emotions
6. What Vocation?
7. The 12 Senses
8. Action Therapy
9. Facing Fears
10. The Healing Power of Illness
11. Art for the Heart: Colour & Clay
1. Key Pictures from Anthroposophy
“ Anthroposophy does not seek to impart knowledge:
it seeks to awaken life. ”| Rudolf Steiner
The 6 Pictures
1. The ‘7 Learning Blockages’ & their overcoming
It is a struggle to learn when we have blockages (conscious or unconscious) that inhibit our learning in various ways.
Based upon an Anthroposophically-inspired understanding of Learning processes.
Also relevant to those teaching children (including parents) or adults.
2. ‘Presence’: the underlying paradigm of this work
Artbeat’s inspiration is drawn from a specific understanding of a ‘healthy’ and ‘successful’ life. This in turn inspires Artbeat’s approach to ‘education’ and ‘healing’.
3. The ‘Human Being’: Threefold & Fourfold
Threefold…. Thinking Fourfold…. Physical / Material
Feeling Life-Body / Etheric
Willing Astral
I AM
4. The Lifespan in 7-Year Cycles (Developmental Psychology)
An introduction to the basic pictures of how we develop throughout childhood, adolescence & adulthood, particularly in terms of learning and consciousness….evolving through ‘7 year phases’.
These pictures are a foundation for the later, advanced course ‘Biography Work’.
These pictures are the basis of all of Artbeat’s courses / workshops related to working with all age groups and oneself.
5. The 7 Aspects of Will
How the development of one’s Will evolves throughout
life and is contingent upon certain protection & nourishment.
6. The Relationship of Artistic Practice to the above pictures
Art in education and therapeutic work.
These 6 Pictures are recommended for a deeper understanding of each of the other courses and workshops offered by Artbeat, however registration in other courses and workshops may still be possible without this first workshop. Each registration is considered individually.
2. Gender in Relationships
“ The opposite point of view is the other side of truth. ”
| Aristotle
Why do women/men act like they do?
Why can’t women be more like men and visa versa?
How can I best parent a child of the opposite gender to myself?
How do the concerns of women differ from those of men?
Why can’t women understand men’s sexuality better?
I am so sick of all the disagreeing?
Pictures to inspire understanding of the challenges and potentiality of gender in the dynamics of our relationships.
The scientist, philosopher and educator Rudolf Steiner offers a picture of the reality of gender that is invisible to ordinary sight.
These pictures reveal the fundamental forces at work in our responses or reactions to the opposite gender, and to our own as well..
The Anthroposophist W. Gädeke, in his book on relationships, concludes that there are “five general problems in marriages, of which four are related to misconceptions about gender. For example, he suggests that the first cause for marriage conflict is that there is “no systematic knowledge of the different sexes in regard to the different configuration of the ‘subtle bodies’ of women and men”.
Some contemporary writers on relationships are coming to the same conclusions: that it is often not the apparent content of our conflicts in relationships but the gender-window that we are looking through, that leads to disenchantment and even despair.
By studying the forces at work within our gender and the opposite gender we can develop empathy for the opposite gender.
We can build bridges between others and ourselves while also developing our own inner life beyond the limitations of our gender polarity.
3. The Necessity of Sleep
“ We take into the night all of our open or unanswered questions…..
The night-time then provides answers to questions,
lets things grow or corrects them. ”| Coenraad van Houten, Practicing Destiny
Why am I so tired? I sleep 6 hours a night, even if it after midnight before I get to bed.
Real men/women don’t need sleep!
What’s so special about sleep? I rest here and there and that should be enough?
Do children really need to get so much sleep?
Is there any significant meaning of sleep other than physical rest?
Sleep is one of the most important activities of life, and yet insomnia is now declared to be epidemic throughout the so-called developed world. What some people see as a complete waste of precious work or entertainment time is, according to transpersonal insights such as Anthroposophy, not only a foundation for a healthy daily life but also a pathway to spiritual development.
Certainly, some people who practice certain forms of meditation might require less sleep, since the needs of sleep are taken care of in other ways, but for the average human sleep is a necessity for certain vital inner processes to occur, particularly the learning processes, including those involved in learning about one’s destiny in this life upon earth.
Steiner’s picture of the primacy of the need to sleep, distinguishes between two kinds of learning available to humans.
One is ‘day-time learning’
and the other is ‘night-time learning’ ('sleeping on it’).
What is the difference?
4. The 4 Temperaments
“ these patterns are not arbitrary creations of the human intellect, but seem to be
reflections of larger patterns which exist in the universal structure, and can be
recognized in the design of a solar system or an atom, as well as a human being.”| Lawrence Williams
Spoken about as far back as the Greek philosopher and healer Hypocrites (460c-375B.C.) and then given fresh relevance in Waldorf education, the ‘4 Temperaments’ can offer insight into learning tendencies within children (over 7 years of age mostly) and adults.
Choleric, Sanguine, Phlegmatic, Melancholic
Steiner educators also have another framework that offers a picture of ‘6 Temperaments’.
1. Extroverted – Physical
2. Extroverted - Emotional
3. Extroverted – Mental
4. Introverted – Physical
5. Introverted – Emotional
6. Introverted – Mental
What are these Temperaments?
How can I work with the Temperaments to enhance my child’s learning experience, but without ‘labelling’?
How can I understand how my Temperamental tendencies have affected my life to date?
How can I evolve beyond the limitations of one-sidedness to be more balanced?
5. The 4 Emotions
“ When we find ourselves in either an inner or outer situation for
which we have no reasonable answer or rational understanding,
emotions will arise. They give the answer and act on our behalf.”| Karl König (founder of Camphill Curative Communities)
What is the difference between a feeling and an emotion and a reaction?
Are emotions always bad in that they are often volatile and disturbing?
What can I do to live more skillfully with my emotions?
What are laughter and crying? Are they emotions too?
Anthroposophy offers a picture of the emotions that facilitates our ability to live constructively with them, so that we neither need to avoid them nor indulge them.
In this picture 4 emotions only are identified:
Anger, Anxiety, Fear, Shame
This workshop outlines the main differences between emotions, reactions and feelings, and also looks at the value of laughter and tears in our well being.
It explores the life-lessons that the ‘4 Emotions’ teach us that we would otherwise not learn.
6. What Vocation?
“ What I do is me, for this I came.”
| G.M Hopkins (Poet)
Wondering what you will be when you ‘grow up’?
Still wondering what you will be when you ‘grow up’, even though you have a career?
I know what I want to do but I don’t have the will power!
How can I overcome the social pressures to follow a vocation?
Once upon a time people more often spoke of a ‘vocation’ or ‘calling’. Nowadays the words are more associated with becoming a priest or monk. We tend to speak now of our ‘jobs’, our ‘profession’, our ‘employment, or our ‘carer’.
But the sense of a missed or potential ‘calling’ may not be satisfied by any of these terms or these activities, especially as our priorities in life change in response to our own life span biography, as well as in response to the urgency that is upon us in the global situation of this time.
This workshop considers some starting points for considering one’s vocation, inspired out of Steiner’s picture of ‘destiny learning’.
• There are 3 Vocational Questions that can awaken insight.
• There are 7 Aspects of Will that may need healing for vocation to be activated.
7. The 12 Senses
“ Refining the soul together with what Rudolf Steiner called a yoga of the
senses can begin to fill a gigantic spiritual vacuum with colossal
resources of human genius that as yet remain untapped.”| Robert Sardello
(author, founder of The School of Spiritual Psychology)
We have 12 senses in all, of which only 5 are apparent, due to having related organs.
Sight -------- Taste -------- Warmth
Hearing -------- Balance -------- Life
Smell -------- Movement -------- Thought
Touch -------- Speech -------- Ego-sense
As the only bridge between a human being’s inner and outer worlds they are what wake us up to the daily life and give us all of our experiences.
Healthy development of the sense in childhood has great impact upon learning development as well as later-life health at all levels.
The 12 senses are also a path of spiritual evolution if we choose to see the deeper lessons that they offer and transcend being a slave to their pleasures or pains.
E.g. what is simply ‘eye sight’ can later develop into the ability of ‘inner vision’, to ‘see the truth of something’. Ultimately ‘sight’ can become the ability to see the wisdom and justice of events of destiny.
In this way the physical aspects of our 12 senses become spiritual attributes.
8. Action Therapy
“We ourselves are the books.”
“We have become too unique for generalisations, and the vacuum of
knowledge around us cannot be filled from the outside any more. Can it be
filled from the inside?For that to happen, new faculties of self-knowledge must be available for
us.They cannot be made of new theories, or new religion, or expertise, or set
of answers or techniques in any field. They must be made out of
our own embryonic ability to know for ourselves.What we urgently need are new ways of Knowing. ”
| Yehuda Tagar
(Founder/Trainer of Philophonetics* & Psychophonetics Counselling)
How can we come to know from within, for ourselves?
How can we learn to read the wisdom that is uniquely our own and independent of the influence of outside pressures and opinions and theories?
How can we relate to our bodies at a deeper level than the physical?
How can we awaken to consciousness the extraordinary abilities of our bodies: for sensing, moving, gesturing, feeling, reacting, visualizing, and sounding.
How can we access our inner wisdom for empowerment, nourishment and wisdom?
This workshop introduces participants to simple but profound abilities in each of us, to know for ourselves, through listening to our bodies.
The exercises require no prior experience.
The workshop will demonstrate therapeutic methods but is not a therapy session as such and the participants will work within an environment that respects freedom of choice every step of the way.
The topic may be quite serious but the ‘exercises’ themselves can be most lighthearted and enjoyable.
* Note
Philophonetics-Counselling, now called Psychophonetics is a creative modality of counselling and psychotherapy, expressive & artistic therapy that embraces the whole human being as body, soul and spirit. It was developed in the early 1990's by Yehuda Tagar with its theoretical and methodological roots based in the spiritual work of Rudolf Steiner in Anthroposophy and psychosophy, Humanistic psychology and the Expressive Arts.
Psychophonetics is a methodology of experience awareness that applies Body awareness, Movement/Gesture, Visualisation and Sounds as extensions of the conversational counselling by utilizing these non- verbal tools for accessing, exploring, expressing and for the communication of human experience, from the individual's own point of view. Psychophonetics psychotherapy is a phenomenological approach to human experience.
Linda is a trained and practicing Psychophonetics counsellor.
For more information, visit www.psychophonetics.com.au
9. Facing Fears
Fear is the mind killer, the little death.
It brings obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will let it pass over me, and through me,
And when it has passed
I will turn my inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone I will remain.|(source unknown)
How can I even begin to face my fears when the whole world is filled with more and more reasons to be fearful every minute?
Other people seem to be getting on fine with their lives, so how come I seem to be falling apart with anxiety? What’s wrong with me?
I am trying harder and harder to get on with life and be positive but my fears just won’t go away. In fact they seem to be getting even bigger!
This workshop is inspired by the work of Robert Sardello, a student of Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophical Psychology, and the founder of The School of Spiritual Psychology. Sardello, a peer of the transpersonal psychologist/authors James Hillman and Thomas Moore, approaches the phenomenon of fear from a very creative and constructive perspective. He offers stories and practical exercises for strengthening the soul’s resources against fear’s destructive forces and becoming fully present in our lives.
This workshop introduces the paradigm and the exercises developed by Sardello and other soul-practitioners, such as Eckhart Tolle.
“ Fear is our dark companion, accompanying us from the moment of
waking to the depths of dreaming …we seek comforts….distraction in
shopping, entertainment or vacations….but such measures only
momentarily dull the presence of fear….there can be no escape….
We can, however, develop inner resources to help us face fear.”| Robert Sardello, Freeing the Soul from Fear
Find out more about Robert Sardello’s work:
The School of Spiritual Psychology
Sophia, journal of the School of Spiritual Psychology
10. The Healing Power of Illness
“ Illness is not some accidental, and therefore disagreeable upset along the
way, but the very way itself along which people can progress towards
wholeness……Our purpose is not to resist illness but to use it.”| Thorwald Dethlefsen & Rűdiger Dahlke MD, The Healing Power of Illness
How can I be responsible for being sick?
Even if I do have some responsibility for being sick, what am I supposed to do about it?
How can I change a condition that I am unconscious about?
If I am somewhat (or entirely) responsible for my illness in some way, is it ok to get medical treatment for it, or is that cheating?
Holistic medicine begins from the premise that there is an underlying connection between the organic and the psychological processes. This concept has at times been all too glibly quoted at someone who is ill, in a blame-the-victim kind of way that leads to understandable defensiveness, but the misuse of the concept does not invalidate the concept.
This workshop will introduce the approach of two researchers, Dethlefsen and Dahlke, who have taken this premise to a very comprehensive level in their book.
“ Illness is in our nature. Disease is an expression of our incompleteness and is unavoidable
in the context of polarity…..illness embodies itself in symptoms. Symptoms are parts of
our consciousness’s shadow that have been precipitated into physical form….once we have
discovered what we are lacking [that was hidden], the symptoms become superfluous….
illness is a path to perfection. ”
11. Art for the Heart: Colour & Clay
“ Paintings were more to him than art; they were a sort of celebration of a
mission, which was to find meaning and one’s own inner path.”| Bella Meyer
(the grand daughter of the painter Chagall)I’d just like to be able to play with art materials without worrying
about how it looks to others!I have never been any good at art, nor done much, so is there any
point in starting now?I thought I wasn’t any good at art but I don’t want my child to grow up
with the same hang up!So what’s the point of playing with colour and clay anyway, unless it
looks like something at the end?I’m interested in ‘art therapy’ but have no real idea what it is about.
What’s the difference between Steiner art therapy and other art therapy?
An introductory workshop of very simple but powerful exercises for absolute beginners, or anyone wanting to refresh their relationship with colour and clay… just for the love of it!…and for learning about a Steiner approach to artistic activity.
If one uses colours, or clay, only for self-expression, one never steps outside the magic circle of one's own inner life. But if one tries to enter selflessly into the language of colour or clay, new and unlimited horizons open up. One's inner life is changed and enriched.
In learning to know colours and clay, there is no point in beginning by trying to study and copy an external scene. If we do this, form takes precedent over colour. The better course is to start with the colours and the clay themselves by doing colour and clay exercises.
NOTE:
Small groups and individuals may request private classes to be held at Artbeat, or another venue.
“ We have the colour in front of us not merely as something that works upon us, but
as something wherein we ourselves are, with which we are one.”| Rudolf Steiner
