General Secretary Page
Since 2023, Mary Stewart Adams has been general secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. She serves as a spokesperson for the society and country representative in the international movement. She is also a Star Lore Historian and independent contractor working out of the initiative to safeguard the human imagination by protecting our access to the night sky and its stories.
Below are postings, articles from being human magazine, and member responses from past general secretaries and leaders of the ASA.
The Easter Festival 2025 ~ Anthroposophy Ever Anew
Dear Members and Friends,
The Easter Festival finds its culmination in the Whitsun Mystery each year ~ April 20 to June 8 in 2025. Into this rhythm of 50 days, while the awe and gratitude are still resonant, I write to share about the Society’s opening of the festival season, celebrated in Spring Valley, New York, April 17-20, 2025.
The combination of people, weather, and spring blossoms was sublime, and I am certain that a similarly dynamic mood was present everywhere anthroposophists gathered throughout the world for this first Easter Festival following the 100th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s death.
On Easter Sunday, April 20th in 1924, the Foundation Stone Meditation, which Rudolf Steiner had laid into human hearts through ceremonial rite at the Christmas Conference just four months earlier, was then prepared by him through speech art and eurythmy for presenting not only to the community, but to the divine. As he described it on December 24th, 1923, The Anthroposophical Movement is not an act of service to the earth. This Anthroposophical Movement in its totality and in all its details is a service to the divine beings, a service to God.
When the Eurythmy Spring Valley Ensemble then performed the Foundation Stone Meditation as the finale of our Easter Festival, 101 years after it was first "offered to God" at Easter 1924, it was possible to sense the living form descending from where it had been inscribed into the cosmos by Rudolf Steiner a century earlier ~ an eternal fruit, ever renewing when human hearts turn together toward it, in meditation, in speech art, through eurythmy, in community. Together we entered, in one place of one accord, ennobled by one another through our participation, and strengthened for the good work.
The activity of the festival was imagined as the building of a chalice for the year’s festival cycle that unfolded in seven stages over three days, turning dramatically at the fourth stage when the only sound in the intentionally-darkened Threefold Auditorium was a single tone aligned to the sphere of the Moon as the opening call to the speech chorus for the first saying of the Christ from the Cross. Another instrument, another tone, followed ~ Mercury sphere, and the second saying from the Cross ~ until the 7th Saturn toning and the mighty culmination in speech with the words “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” The chorus stood at the back of the auditorium, their voices filling the space from behind and just above ~ an experience of the Word that will not soon be forgotten.
The lead up to this moment included a Maundy Thursday community meal in the festive tent pitched adjacent to the Threefold Café, which was its own stage for lively and engaged conversation, song, and blessing throughout the weekend.
Later that first evening, the Foundation Stone Meditation and the Michael Imagination were performed in speech and eurythmy, establishing the mighty ground upon which the festival unfolded.
Poet and artist Peter Bruckner led on Good Friday with a lively and deeply imaginative talk on The Arts and the Esoteric. Later that same evening Cliff Venho, translator, editor, and eurythmist, gave an insightful talk on the aligning of the Rosicrucian and Michaelic streams through Rudolf Steiner, in deed and activity, particularly in the final year of his life. Cliff noted the intersection of the Last Address and the Foundation Stone chronologically, specifically how the first three panels of the meditation were performed at Easter 1924, followed by the Michael Imagination during the Last Address, culminating with the fourth panel only at Christmas 1924, when Rudolf Steiner had already retreated from public presenting.
We closed this second evening with the Michael Imagination in eurythmy again, a celebration of the terrific ‘resource’ of speech artists and eurythmists in Spring Valley. The intent was to live into the reciprocal relationship between Easter and Michaelmas, as Rudolf Steiner indicated in both the 1923 and 1924 Easter cycles.
On Holy Saturday Dorothea Mier was masterful in directing a demonstration of the Michael Imagination, inviting us into a deeper experience of the word as fiery inspiration. Our days included workshops and conversation groups, the latter led by Tom O'Keefe and centered on Rudolf Steiner's Leading Thoughts #168-170. The insights in these thoughts draw attention to the light, and to the forming of Michaelic festivals.
Holy Saturday can be regarded each year as the eve of the spiritual New Year, and in honor of the turn from old to new that takes place here, we were treated to the eurythmy performance of the Calendar of the Soul verses 52 and 1 ~ from out the depths of soul to out of world-wide spaces. These verses and their aligning with the cycle of the year were a brief but beautiful prelude to one of several highlights of our festival weekend: The 12 Moods performed by 19 eurythmists on the stage at Rose Hall.
What follows will hardly do justice to the experience of this drama of the universe in its revelation of the creation of a planetary system, our own. The mightiness of the hierarchical beings in ever-present gesture of worldly becoming, further articulated by the planetary beings as they express their gifts according to mood and sound aligned to each of the 12 starry regions ~ a cosmos called forth from chaos as ordered spheres, aligned in intention as in appearance on the stage, from Saturn to Jupiter, Mars to Venus, Mercury and, at the center, the Moon, bearing an impression of holding greatest stillness, though observable as a ceaselessly moving body in our current cosmos. The Sun performed a freedom of movement throughout the drama, beautifully assuming the space between Mars and Venus where, once the creation is achieved through its mighty rounds, the Earth comes to be. The harmony of color, gesture, consonant, vowel, mood, and music shone forth brilliantly from the stage at Rose Hall to the thirstily waiting souls.
The food, the camaraderie, painting and singing, handcrafting, and conversation groups allowed for the forming of the most noble bonds of friendship.
On Easter Sunday, Venus appeared the world over as morning star in Pisces, exactly as described in Dante's Purgatorio 700 years earlier: "Love's own quickener, lit to laughter all the eastern sky, veiling the Fishes that attended her." Venus, the fishes, and all we who rise up for the Easter Sun, like the women gathering at the tomb, as also beautifully rendered by Ninetta Sombart in the cover image above, and which was exhibited at Threefold Auditorium for the festival. While we in Spring Valley faced east and sang, a calf was born in the cow barn behind us, new life springing forth to mark the moment in the most remarkable way.
As segue to the triumphant finale, eurythmist Virginia Hermann took the stage. As audience we had been witnessing her ~ in the Foundation Stone, as Michael, as the Sun. With radiant insight, she brought us to an experience that is best described by what Barbara Richardson shared with me later: At the opening of the festival, the Society created a chalice for eurythmy. At its closing, eurythmy created a chalice for the Society.
There are so many to be thanked, and at the risk of not naming each one, I cannot close without acknowledging Melissa Lyons, Jennifer Kleinbach, Beatrice Voigt, Saeko Cohn, Gregory Smirnov, Christina Porkert, Hans Schumm, Keith Sagal, Chris Marlow. The painters, crafters, chefs, singers, musicians, florists ~ artists, everyone! Such a deep and meaningful festival.
The gratitude is immense.
~Mary Stewart Adams
May 4, 2025
Fresh Beginnings, New Pathways
Mary Stewart Adams’ Inaugural Address as General Secretary October 9, 2023[1] [1] This is a transcript of a spoken address. Thank you, John, and the entire council. And thank you everyone here in the Ann Arbor, Michigan community and everyone…
Read MoreClosing Remarks from the AGM, October 9, 2023
Greetings Members, Colleagues, Friends, I am inwardly full from my recent days at the World Goetheanum Conference (1000 people, 50 countries) and my final meetings with General Secretaries and Country Representatives from around the world. These dear colleagues are present…
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary
Anthroposophy is a path of inquiry, a way of being in the world, and of service to the world. So, it matters how we form social foundations out of interest in matters of the world as well as the beings…
Read MoreReport from Dornach: Spring Meeting of the General Secretaries & Country Representatives, & the Annual General Meeting
March, 28-April 2, 2023, By John Bloom The spring meeting of the General Secretaries and Country Representatives of Anthroposophical Societies from around the world precedes the Annual General Meeting of the World Society. Such was the case again this year.…
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary
On the Matter of Matter and Spirit Our Annual Conference in Washington, DC, had a special mood. It was intimate in contrast to the political ethos of our nation’s capital, and reflective in the way of the pool stretching along…
Read MoreGeneral Secretary Search
The General Secretary Nominating Committee, on behalf of the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America, turns to you with a request to bring forth nominations of members who might be able to serve as the next General Secretary…
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary
It was very moving to hear first-hand reports from Country Representative colleagues from Slovenia and the Czech Republic at our spring gathering and Annual General Meeting at the Goetheanum.
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary
Rudolf Steiner intended for anthroposophy to be a source of spiritual insight and renewal for practical work in the world.
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary
November 2021 Dear Members & Friends, The mind thinks it loves; the heart loves before the thought. I cannot begin this letter without first recognizing the innovative efforts, good will, and inspired colleagues that made our Annual Conference in October, Building…
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary
With the grace of a broad enough shift in pandemic mood and practices, I was able to begin writing this post from the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, where I was participating in the postponed spring meeting of the General Secretaries and Country Representatives.
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary
Spring is an energizing time of year, a time of renewal in the natural world. Festivals celebrated during this time of year reflect the power of transformation, death, rebirth, and liberation of the spirit.
Read MoreThe Shadow Side of Gift
By Dorothy Hinkle-Uhlig, in response to “The Alchemy of Gift” by John Bloom. “Simply stated, the gift works healthily when it is recognized consciously, humbly, and consequentially as a gift.”
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary: “between self and community interest”
From the General Secretary April 12, 2020 Dear Members and Friends, I never imagined writing something to you in the midst of a global pandemic in which sheltering in place, spatial distancing, and fear of being infected or infecting others…
Read MoreLetter from Virginia Sease
Intro from John Bloom, General Secretary How wonderful, timely and surprising it was to receive a letter meant for all US Society members from Virginia Sease, emeritus member of the Executive Council of the Goetheanum in Dornach, former Council member…
Read MoreThe Alchemy of Gift
from being human – winter-spring 2020 by John Bloom What might an analysis of gift streams tell us about the development of human consciousness in the twenty-first century in the United States? The experience of giving and receiving makes it clear…
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary: “a cultural sea change afoot”
January 2020 Dear Members and Friends, Welcome to the new year, new decade, and what the future will certainly ask of us—awakening and deepening community. It is highly significant and worth celebrating that nearly 900 people participated in the Society’s…
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary: “working out of a Michaelic attitude”
December 2019 Dear Members and Friends, The fall has been a very full, a time of harvest and harmony, a time of protest and celebration, and a time of reconsidering our history. The Society’s October gathering in Atlanta, Georgia, Facing Each…
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary: “where has the sacred gone?”
August, 2019 Dear Members and Friends, The truth is that when any notion of the sacred is banished, it is impossible for humans to establish a hierarchy of values. Thus we can try to impose a few rules externally, but…
Read MoreThe Gift of a Life : Joan Almon (1944-2019)
Joan understood the work with children as an urgent necessity for humanity as a whole.
Read MoreThe Temple and the Treasury
from being human spring-fall 2019 by John Bloom How is it that high-profile banks have managed to perpetuate their mythic images as temples of finance? Despite the revelations of wrong-doing, ethical breaches, and market manipulation, banks are still keepers of our…
Read MoreFrom the General Secretary: from Goetheanum spring meetings
May 3, 2019A Brief Report from the Spring Meetings at the Goetheanum Dear Members and Friends,Spring greetings. As I did last year, I am writing this brief report following the spring meetings at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. Most public…
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