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Goetheanum
Dear Friends,
At the very beginning of the COVID crisis, Novalis entered our North American Section work. Much to my surprise! During the first year of COVID, a very dedicated group of Section members and friends met weekly on Zoom for more than a year (almost two) to read and discuss this important poet whom Rudolf Steiner repeatedly and emphatically recommended to our attention. The work flowed into the Festival of Initiative in Manitoba in 2023, and now to Dornach.
Strangely enough, even though I did my doctoral work on Novalis and wrote a very well received book on Novalis published by SUNY Press in 2007, Novalis was never mentioned or studied at all in our Section work prior to the COVID crisis at the beginning of this decade.
Novalis appeared in 2020. And Novalis has remained! Indeed, one might argue that his influence has grown stronger!
As mentioned, our North American Section work with Novalis extended itself recently to Dornach, where I gave two lectures on the novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen. It was an honor to speak about Novalis and his writings and his karmic biography in the Rudolf Steiner Halde! Section meeting stalwarts will remember that Heinrich von Ofterdingen is one of the texts that we studied intensively in our weekly Section Zoom meetings — and stalwarts will also recall that Section artists collaborated to make two inter-sectional video performances of Novalis fairytales, including the fairytale Atlantis that we find as chapter three in Heinrich von Ofterdingen. (A live inter-sectional performance offering of one of these fairytales was in fact a foreground offering at the Festival of Initiative in Manitoba in 2023.)
As time permits, and if conditions prove favorable, I will make available the text of my two German lectures given in October in Dornach. These lectures touched on themes not yet discussed in our Section meetings. In the meantime, curious persons can find out more about Novalis on the Novalis Section page of this website. There’s probably more than you want to know! This Novalis Section page exists to help answer the question: “Why Should I Care About Novalis??” — the poet whom Rudolf Steiner hailed as the Herald of Anthroposophy and whom Rudolf Steiner recommended repeatedly as a key individuality for spiritual science as we move forward into our 21st century. Indeed, Rudolf Steiner’s very last words in his last public lecture were about . . . Novalis.
12.11.24