Fall 2022:
Creating Health Through Education and Community
Issue 13: October 2022
As the Season Turns
With the recent fall equinox, autumn has officially arrived here in the Northern hemisphere. There is a palpable crispness to the air, making the slanting, golden rays of sun even more appreciated as the days noticeably shorten.
After a summer of activity, inspiration, and exhalation, we may now find ourselves growing a bit quieter and more contemplative, perhaps beginning to turn inward, while at the same time, education and training activities may be pulling us into closer relationship with our communities. The Libra stars remind us of how valuable balance is, particularly at this time of year.
Looking back, the Creating Health Summit this past July brought forward some lovely insights into a broad range of topics, such as: the resiliency of intentional communities (see The Covid Crisis and Community Health in this issue); the potential of spatial dynamics to create wellbeing; and the paradigm shift that is possible when we reconsider how we relate to ourselves, each other, and the world. The Summit also invited an ongoing reflection on ideas related to the healing capacities found in nature (see A Garden of Life); to finding balance between self and community (see Egoism, Altruism and Immunity; and the ways our current health may be being shaped by those who came before us (see Ancestral Health).
Looking forward, we hope you will enjoy our newest feature, Health at Home. In this issue we offer several keys to healthy sleep. The return to a school rhythm can be challenging, and sufficient rest is important. We are also excited to share with you a short article on “Waldorf” school for doctors and nurses, in hopes you will consider sharing it with a doctor or nurse in your community. We look forward to seeing many of you at one of our upcoming educational webinars (see the Events listing in this newsletter), and in the meantime, we wish you a beautiful fall season and a fruitful Michaelmas!
Call to ACTION: The People’s Declaration calls for the respectful collaboration between traditional, complementary and biomedical practices with the aim of achieving a person-centred and holistic approach to health. The healthcare we want focuses on the whole person, is participative, respects individual choices as well as cultural diversity and integrates clinical experience and patient values with the best available research information. Full access to traditional, complementary and integrative healthcare should be part of the right to health.
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From the CALENDAR OF THE SOUL, by Rudolf Steiner
Week 26
Michaelmas and Autumn
O Nature, your maternal life
I bear within the essence of my will.
And my will’s fiery energy
Shall steel my spirit striving,
That sense of self springs forth from it
To hold me in myself.
Features of Interest
Reflections from the Creating Health Summit
by Dr. Steven Johnson, Dr. Carmen Hering, and Dr. Daciana Iancu
In July, FHC put on our first ever Creating Health Summit! We were joined by Charles Eisenstein, Jaimen Macmillan, and Dan McKanan to look at health, as it relates to the individual and in relationship to the whole. Our founding board members also gave a panel presentation covering topics from education, to the healing garden, to altruism, and ancestry. This was such a special event and we are grateful to our presenters, to all those who participated, and for the generosity and support of our sponsors. In the following pages, you will find reflections from each of our panelists on their presentations.
The Foundation for Health Creation Podcast
Join the Foundation for Health Creation on a journey to uncover new possibilities for personal, communal and planetary health. At FHC, we envision a holistic, regenerative approach to public health that acknowledges the interdependent nature of personal, communal, and environmental well-being. On this show, we will offer practical tools to enhance the healing process and reconnect us to the health that is already present in and around us. We will discuss healthcare, regenerative agriculture, self-development and how we can collectively generate health for all.
The COVID Crisis and Community Health
We invite you to sample this very interesting presentation by Dan McKannan about how Camphill communities fared during the Covid pandemic and how life in intentional communities can foster health.
Dan McKanan serves as the Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Senior Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School. He studies religious and spiritual movements for social transformation with particular emphasis on environmental activism, intentional communities, and socialism. Much of his research focuses on the anthroposophical movement and he has been studying Camphill communities for over 20 years.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of FHC
“A healthy social life is found when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living.”
-Rudolf Steiner