Global perspective: Joan Sleigh review
This year’s AGM will decide on the Executive Council’s proposal to reconfirm their colleague Joan Sleigh for a further seven years in office. Joan Sleigh has been active around the world on behalf of the General Anthroposophical Society and is prepared to continue these activities in future.
Joining the Executive Council from South Africa seven years ago, I took on responsibilities within the Anthroposophical Studies in English and nurturing the links to anthroposophical developments in the English-speaking world. This has grown over the years to active engagement in numerous projects and responsibilities for the Anthroposophical Society, both in Dornach and worldwide with particular focus on social awareness and networking.
Biographical situation
My personal situation is currently in a process of change, as my husband Martin Herbert, an active researcher and practicing forestry consultant, has been called back to South Africa. His expertise, including research in the effects of global climate change, call him to take up a leadership capacity in a large future-orientated project in Africa.
This has led to the question of my role and place in Dornach from the perspective of the Executive Council at the Goetheanum. Being a mother-tongue English-speaker, as well as my upbringing in a Camphill Community in South Africa during the time of racial segregation, have sensitized my social awareness of diversity in peoples, cultures and approaches, and I therefore have a particular contribution to offer in the Executive Council. I have been asked by my colleagues in the Council and the Goetheanum Leadership, as well as by the Circle of the Country Representatives to be available for a further term of office. As this is fully aligned to my own intention, if this is also affirmed by the membership at the AGM, I would like to focus my work on the international growth and healthy development of the Anthroposophical Society worldwide, in the following ways:
Of particular interest, enhanced by the community and forestry project of my husband, is the opportunity to meet and research the awakening soul-spiritual impulses in Africa, through the capacity-building tool of Anthroposophy. In addition, I will continue to grow the relationships between the Goetheanum and the emerging Anthroposophical Societies in Asia, with the main focus on nurturing and cultivating the diverse approaches to the unfolding of individual and collective human potential. In addition, I intend to explore how the English language (and mindset) may contribute to the current and future enhancement of Anthroposophy in the world. This will be possible by building on the experiences of the last seven years at the Goetheanum, by taking up the impulse of Anthroposophy as a path of research and practice, a lens for understanding life in all its complexity, and through remaining based in Dornach and integrated in the active work of the Goetheanum Leadership Team and the School of Spiritual Science.
My proposed tasks and responsibilities:
In the context of widespread travels and the growing significance of the English-speaking world, I intend to consolidate my other projects through focussed research and deepening practice. I wish to continue coordinating a number of international initiatives which are based at the Goetheanum and have found their way to my desk. These include the following:
• Managing the Social Initiative Forum (sif) Project with a wonderful team of four young people. The SIF, originally inspired by Ute Craemer and Truus Geraets, is linked to the Social Sciences and General Anthroposophical Sections. It hosts and co-creates Social Forums in many places in the world, in which an international network of social initiatives meets to grow the awareness and practice of socially healthy individual and community development;
• Co-responsibility for the design and execution of Living Connections – what is Anthroposophical Meditation? This project has grown out of the Goetheanum Meditation Worldwide Initiative and builds a public platform for Meditation for Life in larger and smaller events. A Working Team of 18 practitioners meet regularly at the Goetheanum to inspire and deepen their own experiences in preparation for large international events.
• Co-responsibility for matters of the First Class in the English-speaking world. This includes working with the fast-changing developments of structures and practices, correspondence and meetings with Class Holders, the translations and updating of publications, as well as the organization of Class Conferences.
• Remaining the liaison person between the General Anthroposophical Section and the International Biography Trainers and Practitioners, enabling a growing visibility and impact of this growing field of work in the Anthroposophical Movement.
• Staying interconnected with the International Anthroposophical Studies at the Goetheanum. This multilingual programme offers students the possibility of getting to know themselves through the research and experience of Anthroposophy in dialogue and exchange with one another at the Goetheanum. A sense of co-learning and mutual agency is a unique characteristic of the programme.
• Continuing to support the re-enlivening of the culture of Branch and Group work on a worldwide scale.
True humanity
The current global situation appears to demand a more consciously intuitive approach to all matters of society, culture, economy and personal development than ever before. My intention is to serve the call to place what is truly human at the centre of global attention, using the unique insights and practices made available to all through Anthroposophy.