6/17/09 Report by Tatiane Andrade

The Day of Play

Every year the Alliance for Childhood in Brazil supports and funds the “Day of Play.” For the last 3 years I have participated in bringing about the Play Day in the south area of Sao Paulo. This year my experience was a bit different, not of the organization or the workshops that were offered, but in how I saw this world. Everything has changed since I’ve been in contact with a family whose situation is quite precarious, a family with six children whose eyes reflect a sea of dried roses.

Through Aramitan’s activities and part of the Preparacao Jovem program, work camps took place at the family‘s house, where we tried to build for these children (who live in extreme poverty, like millions in our country) a decent home to live in. We borrowed a car and had the opportunity to drive these curious children, juice and biscuits in hand, from Embu-Guaçu, the children’s hometown, to Jardim Vera Cruz, where the Monte-Azul nucleus Horizonte Azul was offering the Day of Play. Here we stayed for 3 and a half hours doing activities such as modeling clay, constructing kites, creating necklaces, dreamcatchers, and “Gira-gira” flags to be used for a circus performance. We also saw a wonderful theatre play with puppets (the story of Saint Elizabeth offered by the educators at Monte Azul).

I believe this tour has been quite remarkable for the children: leaving home and going to a place which wasn’t their school, interacting with other children, doing activities for which they didn’t need money, playing free and happy in an environment which is very different then their own. These are realities where much more light is needed.

We returned home with the kids, had lunch, and continued playing throughout the afternoon with the toys they had built on this Day of Play.

Tatiane Andrade


(I very much like this song World of Youth. The words are:

Worlds of Youth, Young World

The world is yours
Hey World of Youth
Young world, World of Youth
Free to live

How can man live and forget about the future?
knowing from what he plants today the young people will harvest the fruits.
Seek for power, fame, profit, and dirty money. It’s useless.
Wisdom is much better than all that. Our study.
For us to change the world it’s just necessary to be united. It is not asking for too much.
Just share a little bit, respect each other, love everyone, be fair.
In memory of childhood, the children’s innocence, and the hope.
It is time for change, confidence.

World of Youth ... [repeats the first verse]

Man, with little faith claim about this and that
Feel alone but never avoid making enemies.
Give an example to your children, This is live.
Teach them not to confront, but avoid conflicts.
Everyone has a bit of a hero, a bit of coward within himself
To apologize, it is needed a lot of courage
It’s never too late
Who has character and strength of will plays his part
Is not a coward.

World of Youth ... [repeat]

Who does not want to live the freedom of a Youth?
Who does not want to live without worrying about death?
So do not ignore
The world cries when it rains
Only you don’t see it
And insist in loosing your Youth
It is inside of you - your virtue is to be able to choose.
Then change through good, don’t be rude.
Change for good
Change

Hey World of Youth ... [repeat]

The world is already coming
Free to live ...)

6/17/09 Report on the work of Emily Hassell

"Blindness wields itself against the propeller of indignation

Of nations crumpled under their own forgetfulness,

Toys of the tycoons’ belt-

We under its knuckles,

Even as the sun sets, we turn again and

Breathe out into the universe as singing birds at dawn."

(EH)

Emily Hassell, recipient of the Art and Anthroposophy grant this year, has been working towards the completion of her presentation and is more than half way done with the works that are due to be exhibited at the end of summer. Although Hassell’s work little resembles Joseph Beuys and Ellsworth Kelly in outer form, Hassell has chosen to use a theme very close to both artists - ‘the space between matter’ - as the focus of her projects. Upon receiving the grant in January, the artist presented the first of her series - "1050˚ F" - a performance installation. Maneuvering through the cumbersome darkness of human atrocities, Hassell’s devastating and beautiful piece responded to politically and socially sensitive issue of the conflict on the Gaza Strip in December and January '09. Hassell says: "Although I knew I had to do this piece, it was not without moral and spiritual questioning. My question was whether or not I could do it in such a way that faced the gruesome nature of it, yet somehow said 'I see, I feel, I will remember, I am your witness.' The space 'in between' in this piece became surrounded by a feeling of immense gratitude, compassion, and love" says Hassell. "I think it worked. Does anything feel better in life than being passionately involved with something you love?" "I have been able to advance both my 'career' and inner state tremendously through this project, and to think, it’s only at the half way mark as we speak!" laughs Hassell.

6/15/09 Report from Tatiane Andrade

Dear Friends,
Some News!

What we’ve tried to do at our latest seminar (where we’ve explored the “Identity and Vision of Brazil” through the lens of Geography and History) is the following:

• characterize the historical building process of the Brazilian people
• reinforce the idea that Brazilians are multiethnic – that we’ve been created through the mixture, the transformation, of different ethnic groups
• reinforce this characteristic of a multicultural population and use it as a point of departure in thinking about our national and international politics
• build up the nation’s self-esteem out of this understanding of “nobodyness” – something which has been done in nations with a similar cultural history

We were 26 participants, including visitors and short-term students, coming from the southern suburbs of Sao Paulo and from Embu Guacu. Also, some of the Brazilians who participated in our work camps continued on with this course.

After the very first discussion time and artistic exercise we already knew each other and felt at home as a group. We drew profiles of our neighbors and later added colored paper and pieces of newspaper, making an individual “piece of art” of the positive and negative frames.

Afterwards we worked inside the house, painting the wooden walls and creating a smaller, enclosed study area within the big, unfinished building. Step by step we will manage to set up the other rooms. Next are the living room and library.

Now we are enthusiastically planning and looking forward to see how this pilot project will develop as the year goes on, with other work camps scheduled for later. We will report back to Aramitan and Credere as progress is made.

Thank you for your support and your interest.

With warm greetings from our team Preparacao Jovem 2009

6/5/09 Report from Jordan Walker and Lachlan Grey

announcing the Mercury in America research tour

What does it mean to be human and free?

To know love and truth

To serve the healthy evolution of humanity?

Mercury in America brings together a unique group of individuals for an epic journey exploring the terrain that lives within us and that we live within. This is a collaborative project and we are looking for others to contribute their questions and capacities for a heightened experience of what a thinking/feeling/doing community looks like in the late summer/early fall of 2009.

Practically, this takes the form of a traveling research project that will cross the country for six weeks (August 30 - October 5) aboard a biodiesel tour bus named "Mercury". We begin on the Pacific Ocean, experience a week in the desert at the Burning Man Arts Festival, explore sacred sites in the southwest and biodynamic farms in the mid-west. Then we head east to take part in an arts and science exhibition and Creating Living Connections, the national conference coinciding with the annual member's meeting of the Anthroposophical Society of North America.

Take a look at our tentative itinerary.

Our mobile laboratory will be staffed by a merry band of socially inspired artists, spiritual scientists, Waldorf teachers, biodynamic farmers, contemporary myth-makers and simple fools.

We would love to have you join us!

We will be attempting spiritual research. Attempting to place our ideals at the center of our time together. We will study the wisdom of the past, experience the broad spectrum awareness of the moment and actively presence a future fast approaching.

If you would like to receive updates about our plans and trip as they progress, respond to us and we'll keep you in the loop. Please pass this email along to whomever it might inspire. Likewise, feel free to put us in touch with people we need to meet and places we need to see. We'd love to hear about your efforts to transform passive consumption into active participation - tell us your stories and we'll tell you ours.

Updated details and more information at:

www.newformsproject.org/mercury-in-america

6/1/09 Report from Tatiane Andrade

Dear friends,

After a very successful first part of our youth program “Preparacao Jovem,” (Youth Preparation Year) containing the two international work camps, we will now initiate the second part beginning with the weekend seminars twice a month plus some study support days during the week.

Our first theme is Identity & Vision of Brazil. We will be working on this for two months and I am exited to do this with other interested young Brazilians of the suburbs of Sao Paulo and Embu Guacu.

There is personal news: I moved with a friend from Sao Paulo to Embu Guacu (close by the project Aramitan) and I am very proud and happy, seeing as this is the first time in my 22 years that I’m able to live on my own and not as before with my mom and other family members. This is not usual here in Brazil. So I feel more and more free to work and have new life experiences.

A big hug and see you!

(Here are some pictures from our last project)

Still without a proper structure we are improvising. Here a lecture with Odilo Guedes, a very busy civil society activist and economist in what will be our future cultural center.

Not just thinking of ourselves – we’re doing our work camps in areas with real need.

In this case we were building a family house. A family of eight lived here without a proper kitchen or any toilet.

Some people on a cultural event called Sarau/open stage, where everybody is invited to offer poems, music, dances...

5/24/09 Report from Luke Fischer

I was invited to contribute poems for the last two Think OutWord conferences. These have been wonderful occasions to share my poetry with the community and receive encouragement for my work. At the conference “Art is Movement” in Spring Valley and NYC, Lachlan Grey brought my poem, “Metamorphosis,” to life in creative speech. Marcus Macauley composed music for the poem which he taught the conference participants to sing. The interweaving of poetry, speech, and song was an enriching and enlivening experience for all.

For the conference “Social Forms to Embody the Future” I was invited to recite a selection of poems, and my poem “Snow” (see below) formed the starting point for a social sculpture. My poetry was very warmly received and many people expressed gratitude for my contribution and asked me to send them the poems. After the conference Laura Summer sent a report to the Social Sculpture USA website run by Rosemary McMullen. Rosemary also published a report on the social sculpture in the Pittsburgh paper, The New People, in which my poem was also published.

There are presently further plans in the works, to collaborate with artists connected to the Think OutWord community.

At the end of June I will be attending a course on Goethean Science at The Nature Institute. While Goethean Science, as a way of perceiving and thinking about nature, is already an inspiration for my poetry, I am sure the time at the Nature Institute will serve to deepen my understanding and perception.

I am seeking various avenues to publish my work. This is a necessary first step before finding a press to publish a book of my poems.

Snow

 

The clouds empty their pockets

of lint,

sending multitudes

of winged-parachutes

spiralling down,

joining hands

in diving-formations,

almost weightless

as air.

 

Aid-bringing

messengers,

radial symmetries, little universes

descending

one upon the other,

white seeds

sewing and laying

new ground.

 

After weeks of news of war

sky sheds its sleep,

a veil

 like forgetting

upon charred clay.

Guiltless

weaving baptismal cloth

and shroud,

unceasingly trustful

in amending possibility

even as it is muddied

and melting…