A BIT ABOUT WHO WE ARE
'Everyone Scrambled to a Place'
' Oh . . . how late it's getting!'
' Oh . . . how late it's getting!'
Cindy Sas worked as a pharmacist for 40+ years before recently retiring. As a survivor of childhood trauma, a major focus of her life has been pursuing a path of healing to alleviate the effects of trauma. In 1997, a library book that fell off the shelf at her feet led her to anthroposophy. She has been a devoted student ever since and
Cindy Sas worked as a pharmacist for 40+ years before recently retiring. As a survivor of childhood trauma, a major focus of her life has been pursuing a path of healing to alleviate the effects of trauma. In 1997, a library book that fell off the shelf at her feet led her to anthroposophy. She has been a devoted student ever since and has experienced much healing and comfort within its teachings. She completed the Center for Biography and Social Art’s three-year Certificate Program and has been actively engaged in biography & social art (BSA) Circles, including the formation and co-leadership of new Circles.
A particular focus of her work is the use of BSA to support individuals who have suffered trauma and find it difficult to move beyond its lasting effects. She has special interest in “Baggage Claim” – recognizing, owning, transforming and letting go of the baggage that unnecessarily weighs us down.
She is a passionate researcher, hoping to bring new Spirit insights to manifestation for her favorite research subjects including self-transformation, support for the growth and development of biography and social art to meet the future needs of humanity, and Christology.
Her hobbies include observation of nature and invasive weeding – clearing invasive plants (including garlic mustard, Japanese stiltgrass, houtuynnia, Japanese honeysuckle, bush honeysuckle, Autumn olive, and multiflora rose) – on her four-acre wooded property. Clearing invasive plants allows native plants to thrive and increases biodiversity. This hobby is clearly a projection of her Baggage Claim and trauma work that aims to clear away invasive thoughts, feelings, and actions in order to promote soul and spiritual growth, and to become increasingly aware of the diverse ways in which Spirit is always available to help and support us as we navigate the challenges of life.
Cindy lives in Columbus, Indiana.
' Oh . . . how late it's getting!'
' Oh . . . how late it's getting!'
' Oh . . . how late it's getting!'
Leah Walker has a deep interest in human development and earth evolution, particularly as described by Rudolf Steiner. She is a biography worker, licensed professional counselor, and certified homeopath, currently in private practice.
Early on, Leah took a traditional route, acquiring a master’s degree in educational psychology from the Un
Leah Walker has a deep interest in human development and earth evolution, particularly as described by Rudolf Steiner. She is a biography worker, licensed professional counselor, and certified homeopath, currently in private practice.
Early on, Leah took a traditional route, acquiring a master’s degree in educational psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and, after earning her license, working for many years with those recovering from addiction and then with incarcerated teens. She met Rudolf Steiner’s work as a young parent at the Austin Waldorf School and began training in biography and social art (then biography and adult learning) at age 37.
As a biography worker, Leah feels extraordinarily fortunate to have learned from Maria de Zwaan, an art therapist who lived in Zeist, Holland. Maria’s wisdom shared so many years ago still guides Leah, nearly daily. In 2011, Leah began to teach in the program offered by the Center for Biography and Social Art, initially following in Maria’s footsteps, leading a study of the “life trees.” Leah soon became part of the Center’s faculty and enjoyed growing in that role for many years.
Leah lives in area once known to be oak meadow – open stretches of transitional grass (short to tall) watched over by sprawling red and white oaks. This landscape was changed dramatically when the oaks were traded for field crops. Leah, on her modest three acres, now tends more than 200 baby oaks, ranging from a few inches to nearly five feet. Leah loves this: “I want to be a person who plants trees knowing I’ll never sit under their shade.” And yes, Leah loves imagining a better future for those whom she'll never know – one full of life, beauty, and strength in every realm of human existence – and to that end she spends a good deal of her time thinking about how to nurture - and nurturing - new growth toward its realization.
Leah lives in Wayne, Illinois.
AN INTRODUCTION TO BIOGRAPHY WORK
Biography work was developed in the 1970s in Europe and in Brazil, and later in the Northeastern United States, inspired by a picture of human development given by Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). Steiner described physical, soul, and spiritual development from birth to death in great detail and included further spiritual growth after death as a significant aspect of the whole human being.
Steiner knew that in our time there would be tremendous need for social renewal and that the study of human development would provide an essential foundation. He stressed the necessity of awakening consciousness and following “a path of attention to one’s own experience.” Biography work is therefore not analytical but rather phenomenological. In fostering a new way of seeing ourselves, each other, and the world around us there lies the possibility of health and well-being, for individual and community.
When the science of the spirit grows more and more away from abstractions into concrete life, there will appear among circles which occupy themselves with this science of the spirit a special kind of human social understanding, a way of awakening human interest.. . . A practical study of the soul and of life will be cultivated and a true social understanding of human evolution will evolve.[1]
We know that Steiner intended to give to humanity the teaching that would make perceiving and harmonizing karma possible. He found that he first had to lay a path of knowledge—anthroposophy or spiritual science—as the necessary foundation for real work with karma. His premature death cut short his karma teaching. Now it is up to us to take up this task. Meaningful work with karma is something anthroposophists have been preparing for, for decades. Now we must not only continue to prepare but also begin to practice the skills belonging to the task of perceiving and harmonizing karma.
It is time to recognize the central role of relationship and social activity among human beings and to begin to work with this element with greater maturity. This means that serious anthroposophists will need to devote time and energy to building social (outer) understanding and skill equal to that which has been steadfastly addressed for decades toward individual (inner) development. Biography work is given to meet this task. Biography work paradoxically leads toward learning to perceive and know others. Biography work develops social understanding.
The home of biography work is found within the School of Spiritual Science in the General Anthroposophical Section (or Section Common to All), as its study and practice belong to all human beings engaged in any discipline, and includes all other areas of study and practice belonging to the General Section: karma and reincarnation, evolution of consciousness, and Christology. Biography work—remembering the human being, researching the human life, and renewing our understanding and relationship to humanness—is necessarily and rightfully comprehensive.
In the US, it is increasingly understood that in practice biography work is threefold: spiritual science, social art, and discipline.
Anthroposophy at every point begins with science, enlivens its mental images artistically, and ends with deep inward reverence; begins, that is, with what the head can grasp, moves on to what over the widest field the Word can form, and finishes with what fills the heart with warmth, with what leads it to certainty, so that the human soul can find itself at all times in its real home, in the spiritual realm. Along the way of anthroposophy, we are to learn to take our start from knowledge, raise ourselves up to art, and come to rest in deep inner feeling.[2]
[1]Rudolf Steiner, How Can the Destitution of Soul in Modern Times Be Overcome, GA 168; 10 Oct 1916, Zurich.
[2]Rudolf Steiner, Awakening to Community, GA 257, Lecture 2; 30 Jan 1923, Stuttgart.
