Developmental Life-span / Biography Work

“ Seldom nowadays do we find people with gray hair and wrinkles
welcoming with joy the dawn of each year because each year
brings new possibilities of development to the organism, and
new knowledge unattainable before is within reach…….

We should actually retain the possibility, all through life, of
rejoicing in the coming year, because each year charms forth the
divine-spiritual content of our own inner being in ever new
forms……..

We enter earthly life with the prenatal will to carry out our
destiny and to garner new fruits as life unfolds, cycle after cycle,
year after year. If we work diligently toward our self-perfecting,
without self-seeking, not only do we leave a richer legacy on the
earth, but the more do we promote the entire cosmic evolution of
mankind, as conscious and conscientious citizens of the cosmos.”

| B. Jocelyn

Biography Work can liberate us from our confinement in the present, and can strengthen our sense of continuity.

Biography can give us a sense of pattern and a sense of an underlying orderly process…..no longer ordered by tradition but by our own path….the light of our consciousness and interior wisdom.

Along with many other theorists of Life-span psychology, Rudolf Steiner had his own pictures to offer.

This module will introduce Steiner’s picture of the 7-Year life-span phases that take us from conception to death, illuminating the key destiny themes for each phase.

Each phase, experienced uniquely by each individual, within the cosmic themes, contains potential for crisis, ‘death’ and ‘resurrection’.

We may suffer within the unfolding story of our lives, and even suffer cynicism and a sense of meaningless at times, but Life-span / Biography Work has the potential to reveal themes of destiny that go deeper than superficial materialistic psychology.

These themes can reveal the gifts of crises, illuminate the frustrations of relationships and connect one to one’s vocational path.

This course will

• Overview the Anthroposophical approach to Biography Work, considered alongside other theoretical paradigms.

• overview the main themes of the 7-Year Phases

• provide artistic opportunities for participants to begin to explore their own biographies

• provide opportunities for the (voluntary) sharing of biographical themes between the participants so as to reduce the illusion of individual isolation and pathology in regard to one’s biography.