Friends, this morning I awoke with the thought of ‘we must take ourselves in hand! We are at a pivotal time for mankind right now….. and so on. I wrote it down and then headed out to Canter’s which was once owned by my mentor Trudy Marks. Pretty dismayed I was when I looked at the clock in the car and it said 3am! At least it was 5:30 or so in my mind and was enough to almost have me hit the hay once more but something was upon me and to the diner I went. When we began this journey for me it was about meeting our friends from on line whom we had never met and also about a healing taking place in our Society/Movement/Vorstand as I understood through the many years of online debates and experiencing it up close and personal differences that were always big enough to swallow all of Montana it seemed to me. Upon arriving in Dornach at the Schreinerei for our first planning committee meeting face to face with those we had been working with on line I noticed on the wall a photo of Rudolf Steiner and then one also of I. Wegman. I realized with the next breath that no way did I wish to begin the meeting without Marie Steiner’s photo also on the wall and off I went in search of a photo that also could be put on the wall. I found one from her archives down the hill, although a bit smaller than the other two, perfect for me to now enter into the meeting. So when I could not sleep this morning and brought the I. Wegman book by Willem Zeylman’s son, the second volume, I opened up to a page in the back versus continuing where I was originally earlier in the evening: her last years. All that I had written upon waking up was right here in the book and so I am going to set that to the side and share a portion here in regarding the status of I. Wegman’s thoughts regarding the split between she and Marie in hopes that we can take a look at what she herself experienced and move powerfully forward in brotherhood towards the next one hundred years. Marie Steiner Christmas 1942 News Sheet for members: ‘What is to be done if a community, that bears a sacred duty that it assumed on behalf of world history, which has a task and work that it must safeguard and cultivate, without which humanity must fall into decline, entangles itself in insoluble problems? It has the will to fulfill the duty destiny laid upon it – and nevertheless it is unable to free itself from the chains and burdens that bind it, because the individuals upon whom this depends are unable to overcome themselves. Yet blind allegiance solves no problems. What is to be done? Then the community should take the conscious decision to overcome itself. Clearly and willingly. As a Society we face the question of ‘To be or not to be’. The catastrophes that have broken over us as a result of the world war, the closing of borders, the impoverishment and so forth, make it seem almost impossible for us to preserve ourselves as outward organization. Yet miracles can still happen. They happen when moral substance is so strong that it justifies a miracle. What can we do to save our moral substance? We can forgive! Each one can forgive what he is responsible for forgiving. We can forget what is worth forgetting, rather than rummaging about in the wrongs that have been done to us. We can draw a line under the old histories that wear us down, and whose depths, inasmuch as we are young or live removed from it all, we are no longer able to plumb. We can adhere to the phrase: ‘Only what bears fruit is true’. We must be able to work together again, in harmony and without excluding people we dislike, not refusing collaboration to any who are true to the cause and Rudolf Steiner; not closing ourselves off and barricading ourselves against those who seek spiritual knowledge as only Rudolf Steiner can give it; not rejecting the seeking souls for the sake of whom he consciously chose the path of martyrdom: out of love to mankind, the whole of straying mankind. In him love became knowledge – and can do so one day in us if we set out on this path. We are close to the twentieth anniversary of the fire disaster that robbed him of earthly life, despite the fact that, for almost two years, it glowed as bright sacrificial fire and brought us undreamed of spiritual treasures. In view of this sacrifice and this death, which we are certainly guilty all of, as individuals and as Society – for he took our karma upon himself – can we not forget, be reconciled and open our gates wide to those who are seeking? It seems to me that this is the only possibility for our purification – as Society and as individuals. I say this in full consciousness of the weight of these words, in awareness of the fact that I will soon have to step before Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual form. Let us save his work and human culture, by overcoming ourselves and being reconciled to one another, by opening our gates wide to those who are seeking. Van Deventer tells us: ‘Dr. Wegman spoke frequently to us about this, and she intended to respond. We knew that this appeal related to acute difficulties between Marie Steiner and Albert Steffen, in connection with a few particular Swiss members, who were to be expelled from the Society. When we warned Ita Wegman and asked her not to put herself in an embarrassing position, she replied: ‘You with your skepticism spoil everything for me. It is unimportant what Frau Dr. Steiner means in her conscious mind. But from her words a hand is reaching out to me, and if I do not grasp this I am in the wrong. ‘ After consulting with a Christian Community priest friend and also receiving a note from a young woman regarding the split I. Wegman decided to write a note to Marie Steiner and told no one. ‘Dear Frau Dr. Steiner, Ascona. 15 February 1943 Please forgive me for writing to you. I read your article to the members, which you wrote shortly before Christmas 1942, in the supplement to the Goetheanum. Your article is interpreted in many different ways, and I do not allow myself to form a judgment about it. I merely have a great wish, with these lines, to express the fact that your words made a deep impression on me: they are great and full of future. Dear Frau Dr. Steiner, I thank you for this. Yours most sincerely, Ita Wegman’ Ita Wegman died a few weeks later. Chapter 15 The Last Years
Posted on: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 15:44:47 +0000
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