Being human, briefly noted Love in Action - Truus Geraets This small, important book by healing eurythmist Truus Geraets and her soul mate Dawud (David Anglin) is a painful, truthful, intimately human look at the enormous and disastrous US correctional system. It gathers real symptoms for thoughtful students of societal failure, and it is a lifeline to those inside and out, an affirmation that “we are all on a path of development.” We received it shortly before a close friend was to be released on parole, after five “bids,” from the NY state prison system, and quickly sent it to him. Its authenticity moved and reassured him. How important that someone knows and cares to write about the terrible stress inflicted hourly on almost every inmate! And about the catch-22’s and prejudgments which fill life on parole with anxiety and frustration. “To believe in the higher self of the other as much as of one’s own, isn’t that another expression of LOVE?” asks Truus in the Foreword. She found that belief unexpectedly with Dawud while giving eurythmy lessons in a Michigan prison over thirty years ago. We learn of her strength, Dawud’s unforseen capacities, and then how caring for someone in prison pulls at and expands one’s horizons. Marriage, release, divorce, new charges—all unfold against the background of Truus’ work across the USA and in Africa and Dawud’s struggle to endure the system. Love in Action is a tough handbook for how to hold onto hope inside, and to sustain another person with belief, from outside, in their true being. — Available online at www.trafford.com and other major book sites.
Most Excellent Dying - Nancy Jewel Poer The Most Excellent Dying of Theodore Jack Heckelman is a new, award-winning film by Nancy Jewel Poer. It was a gift from big brother Jack to his sister, Nancy, who after many other important efforts over decades now works to help individuals and families “live into dying.” Finding himself faced with an aggressive cancer early in his eighties, Jack decides to give his dying to his community: family, friends, fellow social activists. He becomes in the process a real elder in the traditional sense: someone whose conscious, purposeful approach to birth into the next life becomes a sacred exercise of the capacity to love, for himself and all his people. The contents of this film are almost too perfect; as fiction it might have been over-reaching. In fact it is all the most genuine home video, real folks speaking and singing not perfectly but from the heart, while Jack’s high ideals, spoken beautifully from a lifetime of social activism, are edged by the emotional strain of letting go and approaching the unknown. And along with sister Nancy there is Jack’s younger second wife Linda Bergh, who had already experienced and learned to work with the devastating death in a car accident of her daughter and a close friend. Through these and many other threads a web of destiny is revealed, which Nancy as filmmaker explores with great artistry. — Available at www.nancyjewelpoer.com, along with the book Living Into Dying. 4 •
being human
Anthroposophy Social Forum Truus Geraets is also working with Ute Craemer, Aban Bana and Ben Cherry towards the realization of an Anthroposophical World Social Forum which would highlight the many social projects and initiatives which have arisen on anthroposophical foundations and the thousands of people in inhumane conditions touched by them, in medicine, education, agriculture or other fields. A first social forum was planned for April 2011, leading into the Asian-Pacific Conference in Hyderabad, to meet others who carry this initiative and learn from them. Truus Geraets will be celebrating her 80th birthday. (From Thomas Stöckli in Anthroposophy Worldwide.)
Waldorf WOW Day For sixteen years European Waldorf schools have devoted a day each year to raising funds for educational projects in developing and emerging countries worldwide. Organizers hope for this to spread to the USA. In 2011 WOW (Waldorf One World) day is set for September 29th. To learn more visit www.wowday.eu (and click on the little British flag), email na.wowday@gmail.com or contact Truus Geraets (949-646-6392) or Leslie Loy (503-819-3399).
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