Trust – the essence of our common existence
Trust – the essence of our common existence

Trust – the essence of our common existence

28 May 2021 966 views

by Dr. Constanza Kaliks

Just as love will fire the human hand, the human arm, so that it has the strength for action from within, so the atmosphere of trust will have to flow into us from outside, so that action will find its way from one person to another. […]. For if human individuality is to meet human individuality in morality, this atmosphere of trust will be necessary above all.”[1

Beyond all difficulties, beyond the fact that there is disruption and fear, beyond the fact that things happened differently as expected and wanted, beyond all uncertainty, we all know: there can be trust. It is trust that leads us into the earth: trust that there would be a surrounding for each one to be, a surrounding that would enable us to learn to live and be together in the world.

Trust was the theme of these four days conference – but also the theme for months of preparation, for meetings, conversations, for questioning and also not knowing if it would be possible to make it happen. It was a real journey from courage to trust: from the courage to affirm the will to enable the gathering in the conditions given, to the trust that it would be good, that the aim of finding sources for our own trust would be fulfilled.

Being in so many different places of our earth, during the conference we had sunrises happening all the time – so the gathering occurred in the presence of the constant gift to relay on the certainty that there will be a sunrise, again, every day, for all. Maybe this is one of the deepest certainties that we share in our life.

And then the question arises: Can we learn to trust ourselves, others and the world in similar completeness to the one we have regarding the rising sun?

There are enormous fields for this learning:

  • Learning the trust in the capacity to understand the world, know the world, and trust that knowing the world is also participation in the world’s reality.
  • Learning the trust in the own destiny, the deep trust that we will find and shape ours owns life path.
  • Learning the trust in our hands, our feet, our deeds. The world is waiting for our active creation.
  • And finally learning to trust the other. The trust we give to each other builds the substance of our common life.

During the whole conference, in the shared daily beginnings, the “questions of the day”, the lectures, the workshops, all presentations and meetings, and how the whole gathering was thoroughly carried we could experience these learnings. Also, in the trust the participants gave to us: in difficult times of excessive being in front of the screen, you trusted it could be a moment of experiencing warmth and connection.

With great gratitude, I look back to this year of common work and especially to the conference days: due to the circumstances, we could all experience that there is trust. And that this trust is and can become more and more an essence of our existence in a shared world.

Constanza Kaliks

[1] Steiner, Rudolf. Pädagogischer Jugendkurs. GA 217. Dornach: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1988, pp. 94, 95. 6. Conference, 8.10.1922.