Open letter - from Noël Norbron
Dear Youth Section,
Dear People of the Goetheanum,
What I am writing now may seem a little incoherent, it is a kind of stream of thoughts about the things that are very important to me at the moment. It is so important right now, in our present situation, that we do not allow ourselves to be petrified! With all the habits that are becoming established and the prosperity that has become normal, it happens quickly to fall asleep and - Corona also contributes to this on the one hand - to fall into waiting inactivity.On the other hand, the virus awakens an energy that makes itself felt in the most diverse momentary movements and creates space for itself. It is up to all of us to place and direct the created energy into the right impulses. Actually I am concerned with mobility. About the power of life, about constant renewal!With the simple aim of preserving life, nature is - as so often - the best role model. For the simple reason that nature has been alive for millions and millions of years; and that life lived and was already alive before nature - by human, momentary definition. And it constantly renewed and renews itself! In its ups and downs, in its rhythm. Old makes room for new, old becomes new. Rudolf Steiner also constantly renewed himself. And was sometimes even amazed himself at the new horizon and the new colours that the new being gave him. This is true life for me in the moment, because he took in what he was given. An open gate of the spiritual world to you, through a conscious opening from top to bottom, when the gatekeepers / the thoughts that comb through everything, clear the way to the heart: intuition!Today, on the other hand, we suffer from a kind of rust in our comfortable existence. When we find a spark of truthfulness, we cling to it until we rust - and the spark is crushed. One could say that for fear of losing it, we do not really absorb this spark for an indefinite period of time in order to be with it, but try to keep it "physically" forever. A nice picture for this is: standing in the shower with an umbrella. For fear of being washed, renewed. For fear of something new, of a change in colour and character, we do not let the "water" in us - just don't change anything - but we calm ourselves down by standing in the shower.What is missing is the TRUST. Trust in what comes and works. It's as if we are writing down Steiner's lecture convulsively in order to use what is said in the future, spurning - and losing - the changing words that are effective and valuable at the moment. What we practice when we take notes under the umbrella is "learning to teach". But it is time to "learn to live". No longer just to absorb and pass on theoretical contents, but to actually realize these contents here and now in our own lives, to put them into practice.I believe that only through an inner change that starts at the origin, a change of the world will be possible.Another symbol for this is swimming. We float. New waves come incessantly, a constant movement, because otherwise the water would rot. If you cling to an old buoy, you will be flooded and you will not learn to swim because you don't even try. If you tense up for fear of exchange and loss, you will sink. Carried on the seam, between water and air, you will, when you become a unifying element. Water is the system of life that has become an image! With the acceptance to be carried and the resulting trust, you are able to swim. And choose your own direction. And each wave will renew you. Steiner said that this youthful strength is important for change to occur and be accepted, just as the first Goetheanum was through and through. Organic, breathing, living. A model that has become form. It was precisely these strengths of the building that made it possible to destroy it. From another point of view, the strength was seen as a weakness. The next one, the outwardly new Goetheanum, was built of stone. The strengths of the last one accepted as weaknesses, transformed into a stable fortress. But it is all the more important that young people live in hard shell! So it is all the more important to let this spirit of constant renewal flare up and to live old concepts young!We are all ourselves like houses, which are pushed by external circumstances to replace the soft wooden shell with walls. And each of us has to struggle not to harden ourselves, externally and internally, ahrimanically and to regard immobility as protection, because rigidity is alien to life. This "Ahrimanic" hardness, rationality (strictly speaking, only the good is rational) and rigidity is also what I see digitalization as alien to life.It is time to learn to live, time to apply what we have learned, because it may be our last chance! For a hundred years we have been preparing for it and developing ourselves further. The concept is up-to-date, only we often do not behave in a contemporary way! Contemporary would be to solve the difficulties and tasks that our present time brings with it as well as possible. Under Steiner's guidance, we have actually been preparing for this for 100 years. He has equipped us with the most important knowledge, values and abilities to be able to develop as humanity. We only have to apply them. The task of humanity now is to take responsibility. For its own mistakes, for its own actions.Whether people can do it the way they are? Who knows. But we should see people less as they are and more as they can be! Futurus. I find the thought interesting that the impulses from the future could be stronger at the moment than those from the past, because it seems as if everything is at stake right now, and as if the spiritual world is more intensely than ever trying and willing to make us pay attention. It could be an important help. I think it is time that we are there for the world, no longer just the world for us!When I presented myself and my goals as a candidate for the election of the board of directors at the last federal students' conference, I spoke of the fact that we must bring into the world the possible key to current problems that we, the anthroposophical community, have been given as a gift by anthroposophy!
I simply became very aware of this during this Corona time and I hope that we can see this time of momentary standstill and on the other hand of seething energies as an opportunity.Best wishes,Noël Norbron (16 years, Germany)