Fall 2016, Issue #85: Editor’s Note

Dear Readers,

By the time you read this, the 2016 presidential election will be over and I am sure we will all be breathing a sigh of relief.

Politics crept its way into our last issue, and we know we lost at least one subscriber who took the time to write to us and let us know she was not happy that we seemed to be taking a political side. Of course our editorial team did not take an official position on the election, and I don’t think we need to pretend that our little magazine could influence things on that level. But it’s good to be clear that virtually no topic, including politics, is off the editorial table. As part of our work to change ourselves and our communities, we often need to name names and take sides. After twenty years of publishing on holistic health, organic and biodynamic farming, independent and creativity-based Waldorf schools, community activism, free culture, and the arts, I will let you be the judge as to which political party we fit. We often look to Rudolf Steiner’s threefold social order as an ideal to strive for; and we would love to engage with more authors who have thought through this theory in a serious way, and who could speak to it on our pages in the context of what we face politically today, especially in the United States. Remember that the first Waldorf school was started as a part of an effort to effect social change.

Don’t underestimate the political value of strengthening community by gathering together with friends and colleagues to study, learn, volunteer, or even practice art. Social forms are venues for interaction and self-expression where ideas catalyze. Creative exchange and connectedness gives rise to new ideas and social activism that can affect political change.  The more engaged we are in our local community, the more we have the chance to shape it. I often wish all of us who read LILIPOH could all gather together in person to read, study, and debate the ideas and articles that our authors bring forward. Until we can figure out how to make that happen, we can continue to find community through these pages and through our shared interest in anthroposophy, social change, family, and ecology.

Autumn greetings,

Christy Korrow, Editor