Dr Unger asked about order in thinking.
Dr Steiner: That would be something more ambitious. It would be good if you would develop how the first chapters of The Philosophy of Freedom could be understood, if you could work out a eurythmical consonantal study; where the chapters go on to “moral imagination”, you arrive at the vowel element. Lead everything to eurythmy.
From the “Faculty Meeting at the Eurythmeum, Stuttgart, 30th April 1924” (in R. Steiner, Eurythmy: Its birth and development. GA 277a. Anastasi, Weobley 2002. P.142)
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Eurythmy and ...
Hi John,
‘PoF and Eurythmy’ - it is a wonderful step in studying PoF ( and Eurythmy :).
This year, in our medical training, we tried to find the connections between eurythmy and the first chapter of ‘Fundamentals of Therapy’. Perhaps the best way to achieve that is to work in a group..
What about your experiences?
My best regards :)
Olga
say what?
Did Steiner elaborate further on what he meant by connecting Eurythmy and POF? I love both - If I could find some way of fusing the two that would be most beneficial...
But I'm not really sure how that's possible - did he mean to eurythmically spell out the words used in part 1 and 2? That would not seem to be very helpful.
OR did he give specific eurythmy movements which correspond to the different concepts?
What did he mean by 'lead everything to eurythmy'?
Fascinating comment.
How do we do this?
You have asked the essential question, taxmanatx. This Steiner snippet is from a discussion group. There was noone present who asked the how question. We will have to use our own creativity and action research this.
We do not have to start from scratch, however. We have the givens of our own experience with PoF and eurythmy to build on. I do not believe that working the text into eurythmy is the answer. Probably the ideas that inform the text are what we can focus our efforts on. Tom has promoted the idea that a study group creates images from the PoF text. So why not eurythmy consonants and vowels?
It is possible to tell a story through eurythmy gestures without text. I suggest that this is something to try out.
Eurythmy video
Each chapter in The Philosophy of Freedom is a mood and view-point of life which can be individually expressed in a unique and truthful way. So of course a eurythmist could express each chapter in some way. Today we have video to capture movement so it would be possible to create several videos which could be compared with each other to see the different expression from chapter to chapter. I think many people would find this interesting, informative, and stimulating.
hypothesis
Thanks for your responses and ideas. I wonder if what Steiner was talking about was the possibility of noting that certain portions of the text can generate certain feelings in the reader, and that these feelings are the same ones as one can notice when doing eurythmy.
If that is the case it is easy to see how a close reading of POF could lead to a eurythmy presentation.
This is the only thing I can come up with right now to explain Steiner's strange comment and it is one which I had never thought of before - so thanks
the tax man
Can eurythmists do this?
I have some experiences that lead me to conclude that some trained eurythmists are disadvantaged in such work proposed here, as we have been through a rigorous experiential training. Eurythmy training often includes being informed that this gesture goes with that experience. This can make it difficult to perceive clearly when asking what is this introspective experience telling me?
This is even more complex when the philosophies are ordered by Steiner into zodiac signs, which are in turn associated by him elsewhere with eurythmy gestures. It seems too trite to suggest that one can jump from a philosophy to a given gesture in the eurythmy repertoire. Such exploration may, however, prove to be fruitful. I have not tried it.
An inner language of trained experiences can make it feel awkward to improvise gestures from the subtleties of personal inner experiences. See Eugene Gendlin's work on getting to the core expression of inner experience, for example. I encountered this discomfort in a group yesterday. Is this gestured expression truthful, or imposed by intellect based on memory, as I do not experience it in a familiar manner?
It is of course possible to climb out of the box of eurythmical givens, but it appears to be easier to explore experience through gesture if you have never been put into such a box. I experience that working as a eurythmist together with open-minded folk makes for a good combination to reach through to mutual clarity. An empathic dialogue can reveal more than is possible on one's own, so I would heartily recommend a social field for such exploration of PoF through eurythmy gestures. Maybe one does not need a eurythmy training as a prerequisite to make heart-way rather than head-way here.
Contraire monfraire
I would have to say that my experience has indeed been the opposite - the clarification that I have recieved from being trained by eurythmists has been astounding - when I have been told 'this movement is an 'a' (as in 'ah') I have generally been able to confim what I was told through my own experience. I never had the feeling that I was being indoctrinated or 'placed into a box'. On the contrary, I don't see how a eurythmist can be accused of that - for they simply show people the movements, and say 'according to Steiner this is the movement for this sound - does that make sense to you?'
pas contraire
I am glad to hear of your good experiences, Anonymous.
My experiences as a eurythmist with interested folk have also been positive. My experiences with other eurythmists have been mixed, and this was the reason for my question about trained experience.