Festivals and their Meaning

A course that was held in collaboration with Rev Jonah Evans of the Christian community in Canada. This weekend course was to bring clarity and depth to the meaning of the festivals and their effect on inner development and community development. The mystery schools and religious teachings have both held the festivals as an important passage through the year. As we penetrate their meaning we can each discover how we can enter freely into our own relationship with the spiritual year.

Lisa and Jonah have both been working individually for many years with the meaning of festivals and how they effect the inner and outer life of individuals that participate in them. Together they shared the various ways in which we can all participate in the mystery and meaning of the festivals that deepen our experience of our spiritual life.

March 2016, Toronto Christian Community

Supporting Elementals Through Outer Festivals and Inner Practices

Through the course of the year, elemental beings have a changing, dynamic relationship to the earth and its seasons. The festivals are a coming together of elemental beings, human beings, and spiritual beings, and we acknowledge the intimately woven relationship we share. Festivals help us to recognise the connection of the earth’s being with our own being, and to deepen reverence, awe, and responsibility for the life of the earth and for our individual and shared journey.

May 2021, Online with the Anthroposophical Society in America

Easter Mysteries

Through the inner work path we become aware of the living spiritual year and its reflection in the stages of inner development. The Easter picture is full of insights and guidance to the students of the path whether they are just beginning on the first step of the inner journey or have taken many. As it is the pinnacle of the spiritual year the Easter mysteries speaks of deep soul and spiritual transformation. Through the inner work exercises and meditations we develop the soul capacities and our own unfolding relationship to the divine spiritual world. This strengthens us in our daily lives and our ability to support the conscious evolution of ourselves and the community. The more we understand and live the inner path the greater we can serve the outer life. As we celebrate the collective spiritual year we can find our individual inner year and our next step onwards.

Our Inner and Outer Biography and The Easter Mysteries

Through understanding the nature of both inner and outer growth we can more readily take the next step in our lives. The inner life is not a room or space but a living, growingworld that has its reflection in the outer sense world. Like the outer sense world there are developmental stages and steps that need to be lived through. In both biographies we can learn what is being asked and what is being cultivated in ourselves and in others. We learn to recognize the next step and how each individual can work towards personal and collective evolution. We will be including the mysteries of the human biography and karma along with how to be in a living relationship to our inner and outer worlds.

Through the inner work path we become aware of the living spiritual year and its reflection in the stages of inner development. The Easter picture is full of insights and guidance to the students of the path whether they are just beginning on the first step of the inner journey or have taken many. As it is the pinnacle of the spiritual year the Easter mysteries speaks of deep soul and spiritual transformation. Through the inner work exercises and meditations we develop the soul capacities and our own unfolding relationship to the divine spiritual world. This strengthens us in our daily lives and our ability to support the conscious evolution of ourselves and the community. The more we understand and live the inner path the greater we can serve the outer life. As we celebrate the collective spiritual year we can find our individual inner year and our next step onwards.

March 2015, Camphill Copake

The Inner and Outer Biography of Development and How Easter Reflects Stages of Inner Growth

The inner biography and how meditative practice can help evolve us forward. Perceiving our outer biography from an esoteric point of view allows us to utilize the events of our lives to work more deeply towards self-transformation. We will also seek to understand how the seasons and cycle of the year reflect stages of inner development, focusing on how the Easter mysteries are reflected in our inner life. Practices will be given that support growth and development in both our inner and outer lives. This workshop is open to all, bringing together individuals with varying experience in meditation, inner development and years of life,

April 2015, Anthroposophy NYC

Biography of Development and How Easter Reflects Stages of Inner Growth

This course presents aspects of the inner biography and how meditative practice can help evolve us forward. Perceiving our outer biography from an esoteric point of view allows us to utilize the events of our lives to work more deeply towards self-transformation. We also seek to understand how the seasons and cycle of the year reflect stages of inner development, focusing on how the Easter mysteries are reflected in our inner life. Practices are given that support growth and development in both our inner and outer lives.

The Easter Mysteries

Through the inner work path we become aware of the living spiritual year and its reflection in the stages of inner development. The Easter picture is full of insights and guidance to the students of the path whether they are just beginning on the first step of the inner journey or have taken many. As it is the pinnacle of the spiritual year the Easter mysteries speaks of deep soul and spiritual transformation. Through the inner work exercises and meditations we develop the soul capacities and our own unfolding relationship to the divine spiritual world. This strengthens us in our daily lives and our ability to support the conscious evolution of ourselves and the community. The more we understand and live the inner path the greater we can serve the outer life. As we celebrate the collective spiritual year we can find our individual inner year and our next step onwards.

March 2016, The Nature Institute NY

The Resurrection of Spiritual Life

Through the inner work path we become aware of the living spiritual year and its reflection in the stages of inner development. Esoterically Christmas and Easter represent the most transformative of all the stages of inner development and so each year we can gain a new view into these great mysteries and look again at their ability to instruct us on the path. Easter is the pinnacle of the spiritual year, and the Easter mysteries speak of deep soul and spiritual transformative effects upon the world. This year we will enter anew into what it schools us towards, regardless of the stage we stand on in our individual development we can collectively contribute to the Easter promise.

April 2017, The Nature Institute NY

Easter Mysteries Renewed

Through the inner work path we become aware of the living spiritual year and its reflection in the stages of inner development. The Easter picture is full of insights and guidance to the students of the path both for living rightly and for dying well. As it is the pinnacle of the spiritual year the Easter mysteries speak of deep soul and spiritual transformation. Each year at Easter we explore a different aspect of the easter mysteries. This year’s workshop will explore the different pathways to understanding death, dying and surrender of body, soul and spirit. 

Nature Institute NY, March 2018

Easter Mysteries – Meditation Course

Through the exploration of the initiation path in the 21st century we come to recognise that it is out of our freedom that we work on the progressive path of human development, and how we evolve ourselves is in our hands. In freely choosing the path of higher development, we may develop a direct living connection with our deepest spiritual life.

“One enters the mystery centre of one’s own heart and a divine being emerges from this place” Rudolf Steiner

By reading the signs revealed in the understanding of past initiation rites and ritual, we are able to see how the present inner development path awakens us through self transformation. This now allows us to find the living spiritual realities that stream into the world but are hidden today without our own efforts revealing them.

“In the temple of the human body is the holy of holies. Many people live in the temple without knowing anything about it.” Rudolf Steiner

February 2019, Byron Shire NSW

The Esoteric Understanding of Lent in the Spiritual Year

We look at the habits and addictions that create unfreedom in our own and others’ lives, and see how in the overcoming of them in ourselves and the meeting of them in others we strengthen our capacity to enter deeply into the mysteries of transformation. The workshop content is accessible and relevant to both returning participants and newcomers alike. With 25% of people confronting addiction in the US, as individuals and as a community, deepening our understanding is becoming a necessity.

Outer festivals are celebrated collectively and yet they are also representations of an individual’s initiation path. The mystery schools of the past presented outer festivals to present the community with the esoteric wisdom clothed in outer forms. Today this wisdom is not engaged with consciously by the chosen few but is now for the many. Deepening our understanding and ability to participate in the spiritual year serves a relationship between ourselves and the spiritual world as well as between ourselves and the community.

February 2020, Harlemville NY

Nature Spirits and Elementals; our task and theirs in the elemental world

Understanding the living beings behind matter is a step from the world of senses into the elemental world. In the elemental world we know that everything has a being-ness or consciousness. As we gain an understanding or experience of the elemental world, our daily life is enriched and our responsible participation in the earth’s journey is deepened.

Elementals are deeply united to changes in climate and biodiversity. The balance of our world is their task as well as ours.

February 2021, Online

Nature Spirits, Cosmic Spirits and the Easter Mysteries

As we enter consciously into the aspects of the mysteries that focus on renewal through death to resurrection, we are mindful of the materialistic forces attempting to penetrate beyond the material world to gain ground at the gates of the spiritual world. The elemental world requires our help to hold back and repair the disharmony gaining ground in the world. It is at Easter that we are reminded of our joint and unified task with the nature spirits and the cosmic spirits.

The Easter Mysteries are full of the wisdom and strength to overcome the sickness and death arising from materialistic forces that are growing in their capacity to affect the human soul as well as the world in which we live.

March 2021, Online

From Death to Life: The resurrection mystery in the individual soul

In the three weeks leading up to Easter we will be exploring living morality and the capacities of creative renewal that transform the world towards the good. Each of us participates in the world’s becoming through all we are. Through recognising how spiritual development efforts contribute towards bringing about a better world for all, we can find our individual ways of giving more to the cause of the good spirit at these pivotal times.

In times of change we may feel uncertain, disempowered or impotent. But in the light of the Easter festival we awaken to the knowledge that can unite with the healing spirit that offers greater potency to true world health and development.

Easter opens our awareness to the more loving possibilities we are stepping towards, and the new that will develop if we are willing to surrender the old and allow in the spiritual renewal.

March 2022, Online

The Work of Love

An invitation to deepen our world’s living relationship to the esoteric Easter Mysteries through the three portals of transformation; death, love and freedom and what they are revealing to us today. The mysteries need our participation to enliven them in the collective consciousness. In these preparation for Easter sessions, we will work with seeing how we develop our individual capacity for love, how love grows in our soul, and how it works with us in the spirit.

As we befriend the change that’s upon us all, death of the body as one of the greatest mysteries of the human journey is recognised in the soul not as an ending, but as an important transformative force of renewal. As we traverse the realms of consciousness available to us, we may see how we must let go of the past forms before we can proceed to future ones. Only one force remains in all realms and that is love. Love, the most human and divine force, is a capacity we can develop on all planes of being and during these three sessions we shall meet the esoteric exercises that illuminate the various ways to develop love.

March 2023, Online

Preparing for the Easter Mysteries

The Easter initiation provides us with the power of transformation. As part of the inner development path and our work in the world we are called to deepen and grow our understanding of love as well as transform that which has been diverted or corrupted from love.

What do we do that brings about love in the world? What do we do that advances the diversions of love?

The more we understand true love, the more we recognise that which is diverting us from love. We must not only see the clever diversions but also understand how to transform the diversions in our own lives and the world around us.

The Easter Mysteries awakens in us the power of transformation. Please join us for this deep work that will strengthen us.

March 2024, Online

Elements of the Easter Mysteries that help cultivate new spiritual capacities

March 2025, Online

Saint John calls for metanoia in the human soul, a complete change of heart towards receiving the new impulses from the spiritual world and each year we give our collective attention to this individual journey. In this yearly festival we may look at our human part and responsibility in the evolution of the world, it allows us to develop and express the different elements of our change of heart that we and our community may need as we celebrate humanity’s path together. We ask how those traditions that have gone before us may inform our way forward and how those that are present can bring a living change to the festival itself as a commitment to bettering the world in which we live

Preparation for the Michaelmas festival and deepening our relationship with Michael, the spiritual being that supports our freedom

Michael is probably the most well-known archangel and is celebrated and acknowledged through many traditions. This consciousness is a protector of our human freedom and when we stand in the light of the Michaelalic stream we serve alongside this task. Although we have different roles and sometimes seemingly opposing streams in which we work into the world, it is Michael that unites us in the task of serving the greater good of humanity.

Diverting forces that wish to bring into humanity ways of being, feeling and perceiving intended to subvert the course of our free and healthy development, push their way forward to gain more ground through opportune events. We are presently facing another wave of these diverting efforts. It is Michael that stands as the counterforce through all those who are willing to prevent the loss of our human purpose.

The true and good purpose of humanity, our community, and our individual life is known to us before we enter into the earthly world. Michaelmas is a time to re-enliven the purpose and find the fire of the spirit to overcome the anaesthetising forces that dull our knowing and the diverting forces that harvest our energy for false and misleading goals.

The impingements to human freedom and the ever increasing deceptions cause many of us to encounter the fear behind the prevailing images of humanity’s future. Michael stands with all our strivings towards creating a better world that supports freedom, equality and sibling-hood and unites us with the wisdom, courage, and strength to meet what challenges humanity’s true purpose.

The Initiation of the “I” and The Christmas Mysteries

Once the body has grown, the soul begins to develop, either in relationship to the physical body which is limited and transient, or within its own capacities whereby the soul develops through sentient experience into intellectual reasoning and finally towards full consciousness. It is during this development of the capacities which occur through individual effort, that the I may begin its initiation.

The path of initiation leads us towards transformation of the soul’s capacities into organs of spiritual perception and a living relationship with the spiritual world. The participation in the truth that is traced out in the spiritual world becomes the source of our giving towards the outer life and transforms the outer world in which we all participate.

Even before we are called onto the path of initiation we can prepare ourselves by understanding the way and the truth of the unfolding schooling we shall take.

Through the inner work path we become aware of the living spiritual year and its reflection in the stages of inner development. The Christmas picture is full of insights and guidance to students of the path; in the yearly opportunity given to us in The Holy Nights, we can experience a time in which the spiritual world becomes more accessible and the preparation and effort we make supports the birth of our Higher Self and the journey towards initiation. The more we understand and live the inner path, the greater we can serve the outer life. As we celebrate the collective spiritual year we can find our individual inner year and our next step onwards.

Byron Shire NSW, December 2015

The Initiation of the ‘I’ and the Christmas Mysteries

Once the body has grown, the soul begins to develop, either in relationship to the physical body which is limited and transient, or within its own capacities whereby the soul develops through sentient experience into intellectual reasoning and finally towards full consciousness. It is during this development of the capacities which occur through individual effort, that the I may begin its initiation.
The path of initiation leads us towards transformation of the soul’s capacities into organs of spiritual perception and a living relationship with the spiritual world. The participation in the truth that is traced out in the spiritual world becomes the source of our giving towards the outer life and transforms the outer world in which we all participate.
As we celebrate the collective spiritual year we can find our individual inner year and our next step onwards. We can experience a time in which the spiritual world becomes accessible and the preparation and effort we make supports the birth of our Higher Self and the journey towards initiation.

Byron Shire NSW, December 2016

Health, Advent and its Trials

As humanity evolves so does our relationship to working with health and healing. As we continue into the consciousness soul age we are challenged by greater difficulties arising between people. Through the lens of the inner work, we will enter into the study of the healing conversation; looking at what we can do and what role we may hold in the healing path of another. When we understand our task we may also understand the activity of the healing forces working towards wholeness through the life transitions, crises or illness processes.

Anthroposophy places human freedom as the guiding principle in all its healing modalities, therefore we must also understand what brings un-freedom and how to meet the other in a way that supports freedom when working with either body or soul.

This course is highly valuable for health professionals, Waldorf teachers and those with a living interest in health and healing.

November 2017, Byron Shire NSW

The Initiation of The ‘I’ and The Christmas Mysteries Renewed

Once the body has grown, the soul begins to develop, either in relationship to the physical body which is limited and transient, or within its own capacities whereby the soul develops through sentient experience into intellectual reasoning and finally towards full consciousness. It is during this development of the capacities which occur through individual effort, that the I may begin its initiation.
The path of initiation leads us towards transformation of the soul’s capacities into organs of spiritual perception and a living relationship with the spiritual world. The participation in the truth that is traced out in the spiritual world becomes the source of our giving towards the outer life and transforms the outer world in which we all participate.
As we celebrate the collective spiritual year we can find our individual inner year and our next step onwards. We can experience a time in which the spiritual world becomes accessible and the preparation and effort we make supports the birth of our Higher Self and the journey towards initiation.

Byron Shire, NSW, 2017

The Christmas Mysteries

The Christmas Mystery is among other expressions a ‘celebration’ of the higher ‘I’ awakening of the individual within the collective spiritual year.

It is a time in which the spiritual world becomes more accessible. The preparation and effort we make helps to support the spiritual births and the unfolding steps towards deepening our spiritual life, and allows us to manifest the resulting capacities in daily life.

Byron Shire NSW, December 2019

Advent

Advent can be seen as a picture that is able to support our understanding of the helps and hindrances on the path that leads us towards the transformation of the soul’s capacities to enable a living relationship with the spiritual world.  Through our conscious relationship to the kingdoms of nature, the weeks of advent teach us how to grow in greater harmony with these kingdoms and overcome the blocks that prevent harmony with others. This is an essential preparation for new spiritual births to take place.

December 2019, Byron Shire NSW

Advent and the Spiritual Beings of Love

The Christmas festival is not only a time to enter into the mysteries of the returning, strengthening light, but also the mysteries of awakening, growing love. During Advent we honour and connect with the elemental beings as we begin preparing towards entering into the school of love that opens its doors in this season. Through meeting weekly with each of the four spiritual forces of love in the Christmas preparation, we can develop a greater relationship towards love in life and set the ground for growing love in the coming year. Within the human heart the physical, spiritual human being unites in the deepest way.

November/ December 2020, Online

Understanding the Christmas Mysteries and Preparing for the Christmas Festival

Through humanity’s evolving we are called to change our relationship to the initiation mysteries so that they reflect the needs of the age and help lead the way forward in the direction of the spirit. This Christmas the necessary theme of good will is central. The more we recognise the ill will in the world, the more our becoming people of good will becomes essential to grasp.

We may be able to achieve ‘spiritual experiences’ through various methods but the higher ‘I’ awakens through our good will and moral capacity. Christmas is in initiation language the externalised image of the birth of the higher ‘I’. It is a time to be grateful to the many individuals that have awoken this potential that lives in us all, and to come closer to the being of Love that bestowed this possibility upon humanity.

December 2021, Online

The Gifts of the New Mysteries

The path of the old mysteries is represented in the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gold to seek God, frankincense to develop virtue and myrrh to awaken to the eternal being. In this course we will see how the new mysteries bring these gifts of the path in a new way.

Whilst festivals are connected to the seasons and in this way have everything to do with outer life and community life, in the esoteric schooling we are engaged primarily with following the festivals as they connect to our inner life and the soul and spiritual development path.

Growing in our understanding through the awareness of the esoteric Christ helps us understand the complete meaning of the spiritual year in our present day initiation. As we approach the newness of the birth pictures we open a door for the coming year and at the same time bring a close to the year that’s been.

December 2022, Online

How do the Christmas Mysteries Help us to  Birth the New?

Anthroposophy (wisdom of the human being or being human) offers an initiation path to everyone regardless of gender, race or social standing. It is a schooling that we choose today, but it is also a schooling that leads into the future because the future initiations are moving towards being inclusive to all people who seek it. Sophia is a wisdom that is whole and not a “masculine or feminine” wisdom. Rather, it is a wholeness that develops and heals the soul, helping to make whole our life and the life around us.

In our preparation for the Christmas mysteries we will deepen how with the help of Sophia we can birth the new into our lives and the life of the world. We will also explore working with the holy nights towards supporting the year ahead. As the material world rapidly brings into being more and more ways of mechanising our lives,  increasingly drawing humanity away from the spirit, we can helpfully participate in bringing the beacon of divine spiritual light into the life sphere. No matter how dark it gets, the beacon of light needs to be present so that all may have awareness that there is a choice, there is hope!

December 2023, Online

Preparing for Christmas – Experiencing the Etheric Christ, Elementals and Divine Spiritual Beings

We can help unfold and awaken consciousness of the etheric realm through an understanding of our relationship to the elemental beings and the divine participation in our lives. 

Working with the elementals and supporting forces is also a protection during the Christmas preparation for it allows the Christmas initiation forces to stream with less hindrance into both ourselves and the world.

As we participate in our relationships with the spiritual help and the “gifts” of this festival, we help them to work more deeply into the collective consciousness at this ‘feast for all’ of the Christmas mystery.

November/ December 2024, Online bring

The Art of Educating

In community life we learn consciously and unconsciously from each other. Rudolf Steiner stated that to be an educator in the Consciousness-soul Age we need to be able to elicit the individuality from the other. This professional development talk on The Art of The Educator includes the relationship between the educator’s task of working with the individuality whilst working in groups and communities. From an esoteric perspective that gives rise to an exoteric practice, we can find what is needed for healthy educational forms.

The Developing Child’s Body and Soul Relationship

Through the esoteric understanding of child development we will explore what is needed to support a child’s growth at various stages of their school life. This brings harmony between the evolving body and soul which sets the ground for healthy adult experience. The course also addresses gender differences and similarities that can both limit or free us.

As adults much of what we struggle with today can be traced to our own developmental stages. By understanding deeply the foundations laid down in childhood we can recognise the healing steps we and others need to take. Through inner development exercises we overcome our past and in doing so we begin to see the potential gifts in it.
Various locations including
Hawthorn Valley Waldorf School, Jan 20 2015
New Amsterdam School, Jan 14 2015

Development Health and Education

A 3 day course. As we grow into life the needs of our health and education change. Through understanding the esoteric wisdom behind Waldorf Education we understand why teachers are also seen as preventative health carers. This wisdom leads us to gain knowledge of our own capacity to prevent or correct imbalances in body and soul.

Looking at the individual expression of a child’s being, we begin to see their individual needs. At the same time we recognise the collective journey of childhood and the inevitable path of growth and change so that we can guide their unfolding stages in the most healthy way possible. Doing so brings insights into our own growth and development needs as adults and the inner exercises support our own strengthening enabling us to perceive and meet the needs of the child.

August 2015, Gleneaon NSW; September 2015 Chrysalis NSW; October 2015, Mount Barker SA

College Imagination, The Hierarchies and Meditation

How can we relate to the Idea of a Spiritual World?

The Teacher’s Path of Inner Development in Teaching

Addiction, Technology and Evolving Consciousness

Addiction to processes and substance and the growing impact on health, sensory development and inner development. 

September 2019, Emerson College

January 14 – 18 2019, Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School

Understanding and Supporting Autonomy and Freedom in the Light of Steiner Education

Towards Health and Healing

A series of 7 weekend workshops across a year, held each year for 7 years for parents and caregivers and another for health practitioners. Alongside and extending EduCareDo’s Foundations in Anthroposophy Course. 

2003 – 2010 in Sydney and Northern Rivers of NSW and Adelaide.

Towards Health and Healing; Helping Others Forward

Through the lens of the inner work, we will enter into the study of the healing conversation; looking at what we can do and what role we may hold in the healing path of another. When we understand our task we may also understand the activity of the healing forces working towards wholeness through the life transitions, crises or illness processes. Anthroposophy places human freedom as the guiding principle in all its healing modalities, therefore we must also understand what brings un-freedom and how to meet this as health practitioners of either body or soul.

This course is highly valuable for health practitioners, Waldorf teachers and those with a living interest in health and healing.

Healing and the Holy Spirit

As humanity evolves so does our relationship to working with health and healing. What is healing today? How can we develop the connection inwardly that supports healing in community and relationships? As we continue into the Consciousness Soul Age we are asked to re-meet these questions, being challenged by our times that causes greater difficulties between people.

October 2018, Christian Community LA

Health and Healing in the Consciousness Soul Age

As humanity evolves so does our relationship to working with health and healing. As we continue into the consciousness soul age we are challenged by greater difficulties arising between people. Through the lens of the inner work, we will enter into the study of the healing conversation; looking at what we can do and what role we may hold in the healing path of another. When we understand our task we may also understand the activity of the healing forces working towards wholeness through the life transitions, crises or illness processes.

Anthroposophy places human freedom as the guiding principle in all its healing modalities, therefore we must also understand what brings un-freedom and how to meet the other in a way that supports freedom when working with either body or soul.

This course is highly valuable for health professionals, Waldorf teachers and those with a living interest in health and healing.

The Evolving Consciousness, Gender and Sexuality

“Without sense-born love, nothing material would exist in the world; without spiritual love, nothing spiritual can arise in evolution.”  – Rudolf Steiner

The human being has the possibility of continually evolving in consciousness. We will look at the stage of development we are at now, where we have been and where we are headed. We will explore how this reflects on the experience of being a man or a woman and the effect it has on sexuality in our times. This workshop is for individuals and couples who are interested in understanding how gender differences and similarities work in childhood development, human relationships and spiritual development. Looking at the gifts, the struggles and the purpose of these on the inner path. When working out of anthroposophy we are asked not to judge the other by gender and to teach in a unisexual way. Only through a deep understanding of the un-freedom of being man or woman can we contribute to the education and development of others in freedom. By understanding sexuality through the inner work we transform its capacity into higher activity of serving the spiritual world.

Various locations including:
Philadelphia Waldorf School, Jan 20 2015

Sexuality and Self Development; Towards Community of Life in a World of Power and Eroticism

Experiencing the Etheric Christ, Elementals and Divine Spiritual Beings

We live in a sex-saturated world. Sex is everywhere – on our billboards, buses, magazines, computer screens, and in newspaper headlines. We also experience it in our communities and in ourselves. And yet sex is almost nowhere in terms of open dialogue between us. Outer social mores have largely fallen away and there is little guidance as to how to meet the sexual forces at work in each of us, in our relationships, and in society. This conference is an opportunity to bring greater consciousness to the theme of sexuality. We will explore new ways of understanding and working with it — individually, by developing inner work and soul strength; in relationship, by recognizing its true purpose and possibility; and collectively, by creating new social forms that can support healthy community life. The world is asking us to take up this work. Will you join us?

Think OutWorld, Chestnut Ridge, Jan 2- 4 2015, 

Building Foundations for Healthy Relationships

Even though the dynamics in human relationships cannot be fully explained by modern science, we still can learn to understand how it works. Everyone can learn to develop self awareness and to perceive — how we can become more comprehensive beings integrating manifold aspects of ourselves through relationships.

In this course, we invite Lisa to share the significance of human relationships, how to build healthy relationships and how to heal unhealthy ones.

February 2022, Online Three Fold Living Studio in Taiwan and translated to Mandarin.

Understanding and Developing the Masculine and Feminine Forces Towards Harmony

From an esoteric view of the human being, it can be understood that within the individual there are masculine and feminine forces that are necessary for deeper soul development. This course will explore the evolving of these masculine and feminine forces within the individual from childhood to adulthood, what occurs when there are hindrances in this process and how these may be expressed in adolescent and adult sexuality and social behaviors. Using these insights we can support the balance of these primary forces throughout childhood to adolescence as well as discover how to rebalance ourselves through inner development exercises that support both the masculine and feminine forces required for the awakening of inner capacities.

September 2018, Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School

Biodynamic Agriculture Three Kings Preparation: Our Outer Preparation

All of the biodynamic preparations can be strengthened and fortified by understanding the esoteric wisdom that lives behind how they are made and why they are used. With winter fast approaching, we will seek to understand the healing offering of the biodynamic three kings prep and how we can support its work through both inner and outer preparation. We will explore living consciously with the spiritual year towards deeper care and understanding of the natural world.
While we celebrate the cycle of the year collectively, these celebrations also represent and relate to the individual’s path of development. The mystery schools of the past brought outer festivals to present the community with the esoteric wisdom clothed in outer forms. Today this wisdom is not engaged with consciously by the chosen few but is now for the many. Deepening our understanding and ability to participate in the spiritual year supports us on the path of inner development and in relationship to the spiritual world and to our farms, gardens, and communities.

We will examine how developing inner capacities allows us to more clearly perceive and bring healing activities to the land and to our communities. From this viewpoint, we will explore foundational pictures out of anthroposophy relevant to biodynamics and the renewal of agriculture.

Deepening our Relationship to Elemental Beings and their Task in Harmonizing the World’s Climate and Biodiversity

The course is part presentation, and part experiential exercises, drawing from the EduCareDo Foundations in Anthroposophy course. Together we will orient towards the inner work and development of faculties of perception to support our relationship to our farms and our communities.

October 2019 Red Boiling Springs; December 2019, BdA conference

The inner work path, meditation and crossing the threshold

The inner work leads to crossing the threshold. Certain stages and preparations are an essential for a healthy relationship with the spiritual world. This is essential if we wish to clearly see the path of evolution and connect with the spirits of progression that support humanity.

Esoteric Understanding of Death, Dying and Surrender

Through the inner work and the meditative life one has to understand the process of conscious surrender and letting go of attachments to the transitory life – “to die before we die”. This can be the hardest aspect of meditative practice and also the hardest aspect of life. With the esoteric understanding of death, dying and surrender we can actively take the steps that lead to the seeds of transformation and a new stage of growth, preparing us for the letting go of the body and the journey into the spiritual world.

A Bridge To Spirit; Understanding Conscious Self Development And Consciousness Altering Substances

A course to assist teachers, therapists, parents and anyone working with supporting others, as well as those wanting to understand their own relationship to addiction in its various forms. It will look at what’s behind addiction and what is needed to overcome its grasp. Through helping to understand the draw to consciousness altering substance, and the effects of substance use and process addiction on development, we are more equipped to help. It relates and extends upon the Substance Program delivered by Developing the Self, Developing the World.

Guardians of the Threshold and Our Experience of Them in Daily Life

A workshop to assist the understanding of the different experiences that unfold on the path towards the Macrocosm and the Microcosm and the gifts that support us in our unfolding soul development. We look at the importance of preparation for these experiences and the difficulties some meet when not prepared. This includes transforming the double (the shadow) which allows us to have an understanding not only of our own stages of development but also the stages of others. This brings insight into Rudolf Steiner’s indications of ‘crossing the threshold’ in these times.

Where are we, what can we do to step forward with clarity and how may we help?

Connecting with the Dead

February 2019, Online with Anthroposophy NYC

“Without sense-born love, nothing material would exist in the world; without spiritual love, nothing spiritual can arise in evolution. When we practice love, cultivate love, creative forces pour into the world.” Rudolf Steiner.

There is an esoteric saying that states all paths to the spiritual world go through the heart. Throughout this course we look at the place of the heart in the inner work and the meditative life and how we need to understand the activity of spiritual love and its effects on the human soul and the outer sense world.

Developing Inner Capacities

Working out of Consciousness Soul is working with the most progressive part of our being. For the spiritual hierarchies to support progression, developing humanity must also be working progressively. And if we are to help others progress, we have to work with the most progressive part of ourselves. This course is therefore particularly useful for those working with others in a teaching, health related or developmental way.

The subtle changes that are perceived in the finer sheaths of the human being are significant transformations in our inner development. In order to keep developing Consciousness Soul, we need to understand what it is developing into. Through understanding the inner path we can gain insight into our individual relationship to the various steps that are asked of us and recognise how to utilise the inner exercises that both develop and support the progressive forces within ourselves. This allows the progressive beings to work with us.

Every soul capacity is a modification of Love. Our true being is the eternal I and the eternal Soul. All that is transient in us must be identified so that the Eternal can be evolved.

In our onward journey some experiences are likely to make us question if we have taken a wrong turn. By seeing the path that all must take, we can objectively evaluate our next step and learn how to work healthily from each stage.

This is a useful course for both those beginning with an inner practice and those who have taken one or many steps on this transforming path.

Developing the Self; meditations and exercises for our inner and outer growth

What leads our lives? Is it our desires, our intellect – or the most aware part of us? Each of us already has certain capacities but we need to develop them in order to be able to make use of them. Developing ourselves affects not only our own lives and the decisions we make but also effects the lives of others around us. This course will include several exercises and meditations that will help cultivate and understand the fruits of the inner work.

Through understanding the inner path we can gain insight into our individual relationship to the various steps that are asked of us and recognise how to utilise the inner exercises that both develop and support our onward journey. By seeing the path that all must take we can objectively evaluate our next step and learn how to work healthily from each stage.

Whenever we impart knowledge in its manifold forms to another, we impart more than the thoughts in words and actions; we stream out into the world the foundational meaning behind all that we bring. Inner work helps us to penetrate behind the material representation of what is conveyed to its deeper meaning and purpose for growth and development. By deepening our own experience and understanding, what we can convey will be richer, healthier, and strengthening for others as well as for ourselves. 

This course continues on from where the Foundation Course leaves off.  It addresses the needs of those new to a meditative practice as well as long-term meditants. It focuses on understanding the different experiences that unfold through meditative practice and the gifts that support us in our evolving soul development. We will look at the challenges and obstacles that affect the inner work both from within and outside of ourselves. These hindrances can block the progressing levels of soul experience and even prevent us from carrying out our meditative practice whereas the progressing forces help us on the path.

Through understanding the nature of both inner and outer growth we can more readily take the next step in our lives. The inner life is not a room or space but a living, growing world that has its reflection in the outer sense world.

Like the outer sense world there are developmental stages and steps that need to be lived through. In both biographies we can learn what is being asked and what is being cultivated in ourselves and in others. We learn to recognise the next step and how each individual can work towards personal and collective evolution.

The course includes the mysteries of the human biography and karma along with how to be in a living relationship to our inner and outer worlds.

Anthroposophy NYC, Jan 15 2015

This lecture is an excellent introduction to meditative courses. It outlines the meditative form and the realms of consciousness that are being prepared for by engaging with the inner exercises.

Various locations including
The Monadnock Waldorf School (Jan 27 2015)
Christian Community, Brookline (Jan 25 2015)

The inner work provides accessible insights into the workings of the human soul, outlines its relationship to the spiritual life, and shows the way to develop and strengthen our inner capacities through practical exercises, experience, and deep understanding. By building a bridge between the spiritual and the earthly, the unfolding of these soul capacities awakens the consciousness with which to engage and transform our outer lives.

Through a meditative life inner changes take place that evolve our inner capacities and transform our way of being. This workshop will support the various stages of inner development by applying the most useful inner exercise for each step along the path.

“Every step an individual takes affects the collective development of humanity. The world we experience now is a result of the inner work of past generations. By consciously working to understand and experience our connection to the higher worlds we are more able to fully realise and contribute to the higher unfolding of humankind” – Lisa Romero

As we walk on the inner work path that is outlined in Anthroposophy we are encouraged to meet the world around us and not flee from difficulties. The responsibility of this requires having the courage to meet even the lowest expressions of the human Soul. By understanding the struggles of our times we also shed light on the change that is necessary for progress. How do the beings of progress support change and the beings of digression distort and prevent healthy change?
Dec 20 2014, Anthroposophy NYC

Entering the inner work of the Eurythmy Meditation brings insight and strength to meet the challenges and awaken the joy of the task.

Marilyn Myres is a therapeutic eurythmist and is often a part of many and varied workshops.
Threefold Education Center Spring Valley, January 11 2015

What leads our lives? Is it our desires, our intellect – or the most aware part of us? Each of us already has certain capacities but we need to develop them in order to be able to make use of them. Developing ourselves affects not only our own lives and the decisions we make but also effects the lives of others around us. This course includes several exercises and meditations that will help cultivate and understand the fruits of the inner work.

Through understanding the inner path we can gain insight into our individual relationship to the various steps that are asked of us and recognise how to utilise the inner exercises that both develop and support our onward journey. By seeing the path that all must take we can objectively evaluate our next step and learn how to work healthily from each stage.

How and why do various meditations and exercises work to strengthen the soul and its relationship to the spiritual world.

Rudolf Steiner gave many exercises and meditations to strengthen the human being through its journey of developing consciousness. Together we will explore the inner work, the birth of the higher self, the spiritual year and how exercises can bring us closer to our own experience of these processes. This will enable us to both hold and further our daily practices.

Those wishing to establish a meditative life and long­-term meditants have found this work invaluable in deepening their relationship to the path.

Various locations including:
Camphill, Glenmore PA, Jan 18 2015
Camphill Kimberton Hills PA  (for Anthroposophical Society), Jan 19 2015 – Meditation and Inner Development, the Changing Needs of Our Times

In community life we learn consciously and unconsciously from each other. Rudolf Steiner stated that to be an educator in the Consciousness-soul Age we need to be able to elicit the individuality. This course focuses on how to perceive support and elicit the true nature of the individual human being from childhood to adulthood. We will explore the changing role and the need for new community responsibility, that can provide young people with what is needed in the growing self-consciousness and separation that they are facing. We look at how young people can be supported within a community that respects, encourages and expands each individual’s qualities as the basis for the modern rites of passage into adulthood.

Once the body has grown, the soul begins to develop, either in relationship to the physical body which is limited and transient, or within its own capacities whereby the soul develops through sentient experience into intellectual reasoning and finally towards full consciousness. It is during this development of the souls capacities, which occur through individual effort, that the I may begin its initiation.

Inner schooling exercises and meditation leads us towards transformation of the soul’s capacities into organs of spiritual perception and a living relationship with the spiritual world. The participation in the truth that is traced out in the spiritual world becomes the source of our giving towards the outer life and transforms the outer world in which we all participate.

Even before we are called onto the path of initiation we can prepare ourselves by understanding the way and the truth of the unfolding schooling we shall take.

We grow to understand where we are on the path of development, and how working with certain exercises can help us take the next step.

March 2016, Hebdon Bridge UK

A Community Contemplation During the Holy Nights

Together we will seek understanding and experience through Rudolf Steiner’s An Outline of Esoteric Science. Lectures by Lisa Romero and Douglas Sloan will guide our contemplations on the creation and evolution of humanity, and the capacities and practices needed to carry inner work in our times. Artistic explorations, presentations, dialogue and space for quiet reflection will deepen and enrich our work together during this potent time of year. Other contributors include: Marilyn Myres, Laura Summer, David Anderson, Nathaniel Williams, Séamus Maynard, Meaghan Witri, Sarah Hearn, and Seth Jordan.

Dec 27 – 31 2014, Harlemville