Spiritual work
While, due to government regulations, the Goetheanum remains closed to the public and people are expected to work from home, the spiritual work continues.
At the Goetheanum we are also subject to the regulations regarding the pandemic. In Switzerland or, to be more precise, in the canton of Solothurn where the Goetheanum is situated, all cultural venues must remain closed, including the Goetheanum. But is it really like that? No, it is not! The Goetheanum building is closed to the public and events and meetings are cancelled or can only happen virtually. And that is very painful. But we nevertheless continue to work, wherever that is possible. The members of the Executive Council, the Goetheanum Leadership, the Sections and the many departments continue with their work – some people work from home, others come to their work place if necessary.
But how is it with the mantric work of the School of Spiritual Science and with the regularly held Class Lessons? Do they have to stop? Even if the legal situation is unambiguous, it was also clear to us that, whatever happens, we cannot and will not stop the Class Lessons: this living stream of work must continue. The only question is how?
Cultivating the stream of the Class Lessons
Michaela Glöckler and I therefore decided, in agreement with the School leadership, to hold the Lessons in the period around Christmas and Epiphany as announced. The Lessons will therefore always be held at the Goetheanum, at the agreed time. Whoever wishes to attend can do this distantly, from where they are: we meet at the arranged time in the School of Spiritual Science as a spiritual meeting place.
It felt strange walking up alone at night to the closed, dark and empty Goetheanum, unlocking the door and locking it again, preparing everything and starting the Lesson. Because no one was there physically, I welcomed everyone with even more intensity than usual, and invited also the members who were spatially and temporally more distant, those alive and those who have passed away, and I reflected on the working stream of the Michael School that has been kept alive for decades, and on those who have kept it alive to this day.
What happened then I will not forget: as I started the Lesson, the room seemed to fill. Although, outwardly, I was giving the Lesson by myself, I inwardly felt carried by and connected with all those who have cultivated the stream of the Class Lessons for almost a century at the Goetheanum and who are doing this now, during this pandemic, with even greater consciousness.
Michaela Glöckler experienced her Lesson similarly. “It was not at all embarrassing,” she writes. She rather had “the impression of a multiple presence that was not visible to the eyes.”
New in every moment
The Goetheanum does not belong to us. In the widest sense it belongs to all of humanity. And it is the home of the School of Spiritual Science that Rudolf Steiner founded. This independent School is a cohesive global work place. It is kept alive and made effective, in every moment anew, by the will of those who are forming and nurturing this cohesion or, as Jörgen Smit called it, this ‘chalice’.