Truus Geraets & the Art of Living As if in letters of gold, there should always stand before the soul of the anthroposophist: “Initiative is part of your karma; much of what meets you in life will depend on whether you can bring this initiative to consciousness.” —Rudolf Steiner It seems that initiative good will filled the consciousness of Truus Geraets through her whole life ~ initiative, and the feeling for the world which was part of her Dutch heritage. In 2018, she decided to return to the Netherlands; she crossed the threshold of death in 2023. An extensive account of her remarkable life with many pictures is at www.truusgeraets.nl and includes a link to an international Zoom peace gathering in her honor on December 3, 2023. Her lifelong response to her sense of helplessness as a youth was the cultivation of “The Art of Living” across four continents. This art for Truus included witnessing, understanding, exploring, helping, healing; awareness of the human and cosmic spirit; the art of movement, eurythmy; and love. In the foreword to her book Love in Action, which grew out of her experiences in the US prison system, Truus asked, “To believe in the higher self of the other as much as of one’s own, isn’t that another expression of LOVE?” At the time of her leaving the USA, she shared the account which follows. — John Beck
A Life of Initiative: The Story Thus Far (2018), by Truus Geraets I was born in 1930 in Holland, youngest of four children, growing up without a father but with a terrific anthroposophist mother, and with love for music from both sides of the family. I lived most of my life far from Holland, still I had this soft spot for it. I often told people, “You know I have been born with this ‘social streak’”. Extreme tolerance is the mark of Holland. Around age sixteen, I came to the conclusion that the most important thing I could do with my life was to work with children “as they are the future.” I did a training for pharmacist assistant. I was mortified by the “immoral” practices of the pharmacist who declared to visitors that the little homeopathy cupboard carried only “nonsense stuff.” The next phase saw me join my brother and sisterin-law who had just started Christophorus, a home for children in need of special care. Erna van Deventer, one of the very first eurythmists, came to work with a fouryear-old very disturbed little girl in my group; what she did totally baffled me. I saw before my eyes the healing power of eurythmy at work. She was the reason I started the study of eurythmy at the Goetheanum, but not before
Truus in Altadena, California, with the eurythmy alphabet figures which she always wished to make more available.
taking one year at the Seminar for Curative Education in Eckwaelden near Stuttgart. Many of our teachers had known Rudolf Steiner personally: Dr. Ernst Lehrs, Frau Dr. Lehrs, Albrecht Strohschein, Dr. Hauschka and Margareta Hauschka. Also, in Eckwaelden was Else Sittel, a very impressive eurythmy therapist and pianist. My intention when going to Dornach was to study eurythmy as an art as well as a healing art. This was not allowed, but I was not put off. Through all the years I attended regular afternoon sessions with Ilse de Jaager and received much stimulation from her for my later work with eurythmy therapy. Also significant in my biography was the fact that in the last year in Dornach (1959) I had an operation with local anesthetics, resulting in a near-death experience. Coming to Holland in 1960, I made life-changing connections with a friend named Barbara with whom I lived four years, then moved with her to Scotland (Garvald School) before we started Haus Columban in Ueberlingen, Germany. Some of the 25 children were labeled “time-damaged” children, others severely handicapped. After three years and new rules, we found good places for all the children to go to, some to their parents and regular Waldorf schools. Two children went
spring | summer 2024
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