Tom Grode
Tom Grode
Sep 6, 2018 · 5 min read

A FAIRY TALE

Webster’s: “a story with improbable events leading to a happy ending”.

Once upon a time I flew from Los Angeles to Chicago for How We Will — a four day gathering the end of summer at the Rudolph Steiner Branch.

Steiner lived and worked in Germany during the days following World War I. From Conscious Society: “Delivered in the context of post-war culture and chaos, these lectures form part of Rudolf Stenier’s energetic efforts to cultivate social understanding and renew culture through his innovative ideas based on “threefolding”. Steiner develops a subtle and discerning perception of how social dynamics could change and heal if they were founded on real insight into our threefold nature as individuals, social beings, and economic participants in the world. He doesn’t offer a programmatic agenda for change, but a real foundation from which change can organically grow.”

I flew to Chicago stressed and excited about the chaotic circumstances in my life. I flew to Chicago not really sure what I was walking into. I flew to Chicago anticipating something important would happen.

Around seventy people came to Chicago. Several of us came from Los Angeles. Several came from an artists community in rural upstate New York. Some guys came from Detroit. A sprinkling came from other parts of the country and many from Chicago.

Two young Storytelling ladies from Europe on the first day broke us into seven groups to take turns with a section of The Green Snake and Beautiful Lily fairy tale by Goethe. I never heard of The Green Snake and Beautiful Lily before. The different groups would perform their section of the story over the course of the next few days so by the end we presented the full story to one another.

We had just established Community Agreements, one of which was Trust The Process and so I suppose I broke the agreement because I quickly went to Google to read the whole story. The Green Snake and Beautiful Lily tells of a river separating two lands and a snake that sacrifices itself to become a bridge so people can freely walk over the river from land to land.

The Los Angeles folks were connected to Moral Mondays held by a vegan café Elderberries 3Fold on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. Moral Mondays is rooted in the work done by Rev. William Barber in North Carolina who launched Moral Mondays and later re-launched the Poor Peoples Campaign first launched by Martin Luther King now under the name Poor Peoples Campaign: a national call for moral revival. Some of the Moral Mondays folks are now major leaders in the Poor Peoples Campaign for California.

I flew to Chicago carrying three things:

1) My Native American name is Woorypot Moompet and much of the Poor Peoples Campaign foundation laid by Dr.King at the time of his assassination was his growing relationship with Native American leaders.

2) I’ve lived in Skid Row downtown Los Angeles since 2013 and the essence of Skid Row mirrors the essence of the Poor Peoples Campaign: a national call for moral revival.

3) A few years ago while staying in Pasadena I had a vision of two lines moving in outer space where they would eventually intersect. One line was called Martin Luther King and the other line was called William Seymour. When they intersected there was an explosion and inside the explosion appeared the word “justice”. Preacher Seymour, the son of slaves, was the leader of the Azusa Street Revival of 1906 in downtown Los Angles that birthed Pentecostal Christianity. Time-Life in 2001 put the Azusa Street Revival, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and Shekinah Glory, as #68 on their list of 100 Most Important Events of the Past One Thousand Years 1000–2000AD. Azusa is a Tongva word, Native indigenous people of Los Angeles, and is usually translated as Blessed Miracle or Healing. .

The threefolding process of Rudolf Steiner is based on a simple premise: human society used to be centralized courtesy of the Pharoah and the King. But the great wave has been away from centralization and this movement has resulted in three separate yet overlapping realms — Rights (government), Cultural, Economic. That premise then becomes the basis for systemic reformation and creating new systems.

Steiner developed Anthroposofy as a scientific form of Theosophy, a relationship with God and the spiritual realm based on mystical insights, and followers of Steiner weave Anthroposofy into Threefolding as part of exploring the Rights, Culture, and Economic realms for a healthier humanity.

In this fairy tale are many characters: a Ferryman, two Will O’ The Wisps, the Green Snake, a Weak Giant with a Strong Shadow, the Gold King, the Silver King, the Bronze King, a Fourth King (composite of the other three Kings), Old Man with Lamp, Wife of Old Man, Beautiful Lily, Young Man, Maiden, Mops the Dog, two Maiden Servants. As the seven groups rehearsed their turn to tell their section of the story, one wall was painted as a Green Snake and Beautiful Lily mural.

The rural New York artists sang folk songs wearing rural New York folk song clothing. The Detroit guys were led by an old white guy who kept spitting out rhymes. Words from Motor City mostly very pretty.

Meals were shared — every possible tasty variation of beans and rice. During one lunch I spoke to one of the rural New York artist folk singers and he told me how a Mohawk leader walked with them for counsel as they developed a Native theater piece featuring giant puppets, Excerpts of the Journey of the Peacemaker.

The Chicago folks were mostly older and over the days they wrestled with how to support a vegan café based on the one in Los Angeles about to be built in much of their Rudolf Steiner Branch building.

How We Will included expert threefolding teachers with Q and A plus group discussion. We also had panel discussions. One panel was Against All Odds and I spoke about the intense still to be finished roller coaster in City Hall for Skid Row to create a Skid Row Neighborhood Council as an official part of City government.

We closed our gathering in a circle where folks could step forward to announce some brand new practical effort as an invitation for others to support their journey. One of the Storytellers from England who helped lead our Green Snake theater process stepped into the circle bursting into tears as she shared her vision of how affordable housing can help bridge gaps between people, ending with her crying saying: “Why is this happening, I don’t even know how to do a mortgage”.

Tears can be a form of intercession. Intercession is a gap between what should never have been separated, and you step into that gap. Tears nurture the coming together.

The common aftermath of a mountaintop experience is folks return to normal life in the valley. This gathering could be different as everyone can follow online or in person the process to turn much of the Chicago Branch building into a threefolding vegan café based on the community-building momentum of How We Will.

“Finally, the crowd gradually dispersed, pursuing its own course; and the bridge, to this day, continues to swarm with travelers, and the temple is the most frequented one on the entire earth”.

    Tom Grode

    Written by

    Tom Grode