The Art of Being courses and workshops are facilitated by Karen Rootenberg, whose biography is distinguished by a profound and early passion for spiritual understanding. With many years experience studying, teaching and counselling, her goal is to "encourage each person to find their destiny, their unique individuality, and their inner Holy Grail". Karen's work is deeply rooted in her studies of Eurythmy and Anthroposophy - the Study of the Human Being - and, as one participant put it, she "creates a space that allows for real insight and growth, supported and guided not only by herself, but also by the group and an invisible hand". Click here to read more about Karen. Other facilitator information here. Read one of the published articles about the course: The Art of Being (Odyssey magazine, Dec '06) Parenting the Psyche (Odyssey magazine, Oct '03) An Experiential Account (Renaissance magazine, Dec '03) The Art of Being (Odyssey magazine, Oct '02)

Contact Details Karen Rootenberg - Course Facilitator Tel: 021 797 7709 Fax: 021 797 7723 Cell: 072 194 6463 Email: artofbeing@metroweb.co.za   Back to Top

Facilitator Karen Rootenberg

Karen’s biography is distinguished by a profound and early passion for spiritual understanding. The question "Who am I?", and "What am I doing here on earth?" were resounding questions which ran like strong underground currents in her life. She completed a University degree with English as a major, planning to teach. But teaching would come in another form. At the age of 24 she joined a spiritual group - "The Emissaries". For eleven years she worked within this community, undergoing this particular spiritual training. Whilst living in this context, she worked "out in the world" in a corporate capacity. So she constantly had to bring her spiritual understanding into manifestation. It was while she was working for a computer company that she began to see that people were attracted to her for counselling. And it was here that she first began to work with people on a soul level, whilst continuing her own soul and spiritual development.

At the age of 36 returning back from a trip to the U.S. she knew that she had hit a ceiling with regards to her work in the Emissary community. "I felt I had the resources to make my spirituality practical, but deeper questions about karma and reincarnation lived in me". She embarked on a 5 year Eurythmy training which is a spiritual art form in the realm of movement. The foundation of eurythmy lives in the spiritual philosophy called "Anthroposophy" - The Study of the Human Being. "I found my spiritual home in eurythmy, and my life and destiny were deeply altered."

She was invited to lecture at the Centre for Creative education on completion of her training. It was here that her two primary loves and fields of direction could be integrated. As well as working with eurythmy, she began to work with personal development, initiating and facilitating a profound personal development course called "The Art of Being". At the same time she was constantly asked to do counselling and set up her own private practice. "All this work comes out of the basis of Art and its profound role in human development and healing."

In 2002 she knew that another landmark of destiny had come to meet her. "I teach personal self-empowerment, and the necessity of moving away from 'the tribe' toward individualisation. I felt it was time to work independently with different groups. I personally feel that my destiny calls me to move away from the insularity and the safety of organizations. I sense that those of us who feel called to work with people must find new and vital ways of doing this."

What is my goal? "To encourage each person to find their destiny, their unique individuality, and their inner Holy Grail. To honour and respect the individual response of each one toward his or her life, and to encourage each one to take conscious responsibility for their lives. This might seem like a tall order but as Ghandi said, ‘We must live the change we wish to see in the world’".

Here is what a course participant has said about Karen's facilitation: “Karen works very skillfully and subtly, knowing when to challenge and when to stand back. She creates a space that allows for real insight and growth, supported and guided not only by herself, but also by the group and an invisible hand. With her strong connection to the spiritual world she brings it closer to us. Our angels are right there supporting us in our processes - sometimes I imagine them standing in a circle just outside our human circle.”

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Other Facilitators

 

Karen's facilitation of the Art of Being course is supported by -

Norman Skillen: Norman has an extensive background in the performing arts, having been a performer, musician and clown. He currently teaches drama at a Waldorf School, and facilitates the communal story-telling of the Parcival study.

Gizelle Rush: Gizelle has many years experience in training and documentation, and - having completed the Art of Being course in 2008 - now assists Karen.

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The Art of Being

Written by Jeanne Viall and published in Odyssey magazine, December/January 2006

We are most alive when we are in a genuine relationship with others. This engagement with life is about being human. But nobody tells us how to be human. Jeanne Viall speaks to the facilitators of the Art of Being course Karen Rootenberg and Mirjam Macleod about the artistry in learning to be oneself.

We are all living, but are we truly alive? We know we are alive when we are in the present moment. We know it when we are creating with no concern for the end result. We know we are alive when we are playing, laughing, crying, aching – when we are honouring our deepest feelings.

'Becoming oneself is like taking up an art. It requires love, commitment, discipline and energy. Nobody comes with a talent for being human. We all have to learn what this is.' Karen and Mirjam know that this requires a core of open-heartedness as they accompany people on their journey to self-knowledge and transformation.

The nature of their work is the process of individuation – and that, as Karen says, is a journey that takes courage.

The course, briefly, is a year-long self-development process. Says Karen: 'While it is about being an individual, it is also about how we meet heart to heart with others.'

It's that meeting of hearts that makes this course unique. As it runs over an extended period, close bonds are formed; people trust each other and healing can happen. The first year engendered such enthusiasm that a second year Art of Being now runs for 6 months.

Karen and Mirjam work from the heart, in a way that's dynamic and innovative. One gains tools to access self-knowledge, and discovery of how to use these tools takes place through the artistic processes which weave like a thread throughout the course, which includes eurythmy, painting, body maps, story-telling, clay-modelling and clowning. It is like a laboratory where one can experiment and learn about this creative expression and one's responses to it. By so doing we discover who we are.

Karen lived in a spiritual community for 11 years where, she says, she learned a lot about community, what works and what doesn't. She studied eurythmy for five years, and mentored students at the Centre for Creative Education in Cape Town. Out of this work she developed the Art of Being course. She also does private counselling, which she describes as spiritual/soul counselling and facilitation.

'I work out of Rudolf Steiner's "The Wisdom of the Human Being",' she says, 'but each person is left free to come to their own understanding of humanity. Living authentically requires us to have the courage to write our own scripts. But we are so busy trying to be something out there, so busy being achievement and outcome-oriented that we are afraid to write our own script,' says Karen.

Their way of working is not teaching in the conventional sense; it's also not about emotional catharsis and it's not group therapy. 'The healing comes through coming into contact with one's inner activity which leads to self-mastery. We encourage self-development through process-oriented methods with no specific outcome in mind other than being true to oneself,' says Karen.

'We help people access their wisdom – we all know our own truth,' says Mirjam. 'It's about making a connection with yourself, rather than saying "we will teach you and now you are healed". That is an old form of development.'

'Humour and laughter are important elements – through humour we are disarmed, and find one another in new, joyful and fresh ways,' says Karen.

Mirjam has a nursery school teaching background, is an art teacher and has completed the 'Bridging Polarities Through Art' training which explores artistic process as a means to self knowledge.

'It is not product oriented, but rather uses the artistic medium as an opportunity to recover wisdom,' she says. 'We train people to practise self-observation, to observe the inner and outer landscape.'

Individuation, coming to your unique self, writing the story of yourself, rather than taking on others' stories about who you are, requires inner strength and resolve.

Do we not then come to earth with a script?

'Yes, we have encounters which are "destiny encounters", says Karen, 'but we are free to choose how to meet them. This is the power of inner attitude.

'Self-development can overly emphasise focus on the individual. Here we place emphasis on the individual as part of a group. In the world you find yourself alongside others, not in isolation,' says Mirjam. 'This means seeing yourself as part of a bigger humanity.'

'In any group process', says Karen, 'you press buttons.' But we discover that our 'buttons' are not that different from anyone else's, and that in witnessing the process of others, and in being witnessed, self-acceptance and change happen in a clear, safe context.

This work isn't about unleashing pent-up stuff. The unresolved stuff is allowed to surface so that we can move on. We do not encourage getting stuck in our traumas, or finding identification with the wounded parts of ourselves, but rather finding a place for these things in the greater picture of our life story.

'We're coming from a different place – even though we may be unpacking psychological stuff, we're not going into the dustbin of stuff,' says Karen.

The Art of Being uses many tools, including clowning, art work and exploring archetypes, which they do using the story of Parzifal.

'When we work with a story, we connect with our own imagination, which allows archetypes to live as forces in us,' says Karen. Parzifal is the story of an archetypal journey. 'We always think our journey is different. But the journey of becoming human is the same for all of us – we are all looking for our deeper selves, our Holy Grail, as well as finding connections with community.

'Creativity is central to the course, and Mirjam is eloquent about this wonderful gift that is given to us all.

'It's our birthright. When we experience our creative selves we are truly whole and well. In creativity, something happens, you meet each moment in a fresh new way. It's like a meditation, a space where you're truly free, where you're not busy with yesterday and tomorrow, but come into the present. Creativity does not focus on an end result – it's a form of being, a heart thing. Truth creatively experienced is a high substance. When we come into a place of being, we can have a real encounter with ourselves. And in being you, you are at your most true and beautiful.

'The art is not about free expression – it works with focused observation.

'Your relationship with the medium highlights different things and can bring to consciousness different aspects of yourself. Part of the value is seeing what we reveal to ourselves in a non-verbal way.'

'The Art of Being is not about comparison – you have to really stay engaged with self and the gift of what is happening. This is not always comfortable.

'Why is it so difficult to be ourselves?

'We are frightened not only of our dark, difficult aspects, but also of our own magnificence,' says Karen.

The Art of Being is a long course, and is not for 'spiritual shoppers'. It's invaluable, though, if you want to engage your self in a clear genuine way. People often say that a year-long course is self-indulgent, they don't have time for it.

'It takes nine months to grow a baby and for the process of growth to be assimilated – yet we all want quick fixes in a weekend workshop,' says Karen.

It's sobering to stop and think how much time you take for yourself, and how few things you do without having an outcome in mind. How many of us experience the art of being?

In their work I get the feeling that there's a new way of interacting being explored here, a new way of relating to others and self.

'This is not about stimulating from the outside – we don't do that, you have to be with yourself. This is not easy today in our world of entertainment and excessive external stimulus.'

Says Karen: 'Relationship, with ourselves and with others, happens in the now, and we ask: Can we bring something brand new to the now in order to take up our real task, whatever that is, on earth?'

This is life work, and these are life-workers.

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Parenting the Psyche

Written by Karen Rootenberg and published in Odyssey magazine, October 2003

"What sort of parents would you have liked?" This is not a simple question, although on the surface it might seem to be. In the course that I facilitate, when I ask this question, the answers which emerge are profound, complex and even contradictory. Yet somehow all the answers seem to point in this direction - the thing which affects a child the most is the unlived life of a parent.

What does it mean to live ones life? Joseph Campbell calls it "following ones bliss". I call it "becoming an authentic human being through soul and spiritual development". It sounds so simple! So how come most of us do not live our lives authentically and powerfully? Imagine a picture of a cross with its two intersecting beams - a vertical and a horizontal beam.

If you stand upright with arms outstretched you will see that we too form a cross in space, and that we carry these two intersecting energies within us. The horizontal beam, one could say, represents our path in the world. The vertical beam represents our spiritual path. When these two intersect, noteably in the realm of the heart, there is the possibility for "the Self" to realise itself through the integration of the two dynamics.

In my experience as a facilitator and counselor, difficulties arise because we do not make the dynamics of the horizontal path conscious. These are primarily the hereditary and karmic issues of this lifetime. If you are compulsively recreating the same situations over and over again in your life, you are not transforming these unconscious patterns, and disorder results. However, this work requires deep self-observation, and honesty which is often painful and uncomfortable.

There is a beautiful myth called "Psyche" in which the heroine is called to the path of self-development. Her first task is "to sort the seeds". In other words, she has to sort out what belongs to her hereditary patterning, (including societal conditioning), and what is uniquely her own. Only by sifting and sorting can one gain clarity and then choose what one wishes to retain, or to let go of.

Let us take an example. John is born into a family where the father is an authoritarian. He sets strict boundaries of behaviour, and is focused on achievement. He is cautious when it comes to spending money. This father is also liable to making statements which John, as a child is then led to believe are facts. On the other hand John's mother is more lenient, she tends to give in, and give up, and isn't very sure of her boundaries. She loves spending money. These two different energies and belief patterns would set up very powerful conflicting messages in the psyche of the child. The soul of this being would probably become an unconscious battlefield between these two opposing world views. Unless he begins to face his conflict, as he gets older, John's outer circumstances will mirror his internal dilemmas. Through self-development he begins to see that these so-called facts, emotional attitudes and belief patterns are but ingrained patterns which belong to the parent. At this point John might discard these at an intellectual level, but the emotional layers still remain.

How does one heal these emotional layers? The role of creative, artistic expression, imagination, gesture and sound are powerful tools for accessing emotions in a way which bypasses the intellect. The wonderful thing about healing emotional wounds in this way is that the generation of creativity happens simultaneously. Creative expression is a most wonderful healing mechanism. People, generally, are comfortable with a narrow range of artistic expression, painting, for example. But by accessing a whole range of artistic activities, we "de-crystallize" old, stagnant forms of behaviour and expression, and set new soul processes in motion. But because we do not individually deal with these internal conflicts they are played out on the battlefields of the world.

Controversial director Michael Moore's latest movie "Bowling for Colombine", is a brilliant exposition of how a nation's fear has manifested a gun culture, which then justifies its fear by going to war! In order to protect oneself, so the message goes, one must fight! So the victim, as we see in the case of the Palestinians and Israelis, inevitably becomes the aggressor, and so the cycle of violence and fear continues.

Until we becomes aware of the internal power struggles, the internal abuse, the addictive "patterns", we cannot and do not live our lives in strength and love. In other words, we are not free. If we are not free we remain puppets who are jerked unconsciously from one action to another. Being free means owning the aspects of fear, doubt, prejudice and hatred which live in all of us. These are spiritual liabilities which each of us has to deal with. As they come to focus in a certain hereditary dynamic, so each of us has to face them in our specific and peculiar circumstances. Only by doing this specific work can we begin to foster the true authentic beings who we long to be.

We are all involved in the process of re-education and re-parenting ourselves. I would also suggest that until parents do this work, their children are going to play out their, the parents' patterns. Fortunately, there are many avenues today through which this work may happen. But, this work takes time. Through consistency, commitment, love and discipline these deep patterns begin to be transformed. The question is, "Do we love ourselves enough to do this work?" This love of Self is not egotism. It is love for the Divine Beings which we are as the children of the Creator of everything.

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An Experiential Account

Written by Tammy Dent and published in Renaissance magazine, December/January 2003.

WHAT MAKES THE WORLD GO 'ROUND?

Love

This would always be the reply to my grandfather, who would ask this question every time I saw him. As a young child, I saw this force working outside of myself. I didn't realise it all started from within. We've all heard that you can't love others if you don't love yourself. But how do you begin if you don't know the depths of your own being?

At the end of last year, I was desperately weighing up the pros and cons of the two ideas I had for my 30th birthday gift to myself. I could either save up for a wild holiday in Greece, or I could commit to a year's part time course: The Art of Being. Yikes, just the word "commitment" scared me. What if I want to up and off should an opportunity arise overseas? And the time - two nights a week for a whole year! My life is already so full with all the reading I should be doing, the meditating I should be doing, the exercise I should be doing... when will I see my family and friends? May've I'm just curious about all the creative activities - working with clay, painting, eurythmy, form drawing, singing, and drama. How can I justify spending all that money having fun? What if the course isn't what I'm searching for...?

Have you ever stopped to think about what it is that you are searching for? Since arriving in Cape Town from the advertising industry in Jo'burg, I've been bombarded by an array of workshops, lectures, reading material, audio aids etc. etc. etc. Like a greedy little girl, I've gobbled it all down paying no attention to actually digesting what I have taken in. I have notes from a number of courses that I haven't even looked at since. So, what is it that I've been searching for?

I decided to commit to The Art of Being. For the first time since beginning my spiritual journey, I was presented with a solid foundation on what it means to be a spiritual being. I was so thankful that, hey, finally somebody was taking me step by step through the basics. We grappled with the concept of soul and ego, experienced the thinking, feeling and willing realms, and slowly the image of myself started to emerge. With the study of the temperaments and the 12 senses, slowly, slowly, I began to uncover the many layers of my being. Then came our biography work - WOW!! Intense sessions of sharing and coming to terms with the childhood we had chosen, the lessons that resulted, and looking to the future at how best we could express our unique gifts. The journey is not yet complete, as we are now doing work at a deep spiritual level, working with the inner child and for many of us, learning for the first time, how to parent ourselves correctly.

It has been an interesting year. The commitment to personal growth and transformation has brought with it some of the toughest challenges and life lessons I have yet to face. But committing to change has also allowed me to share deeper truths with others. As a Body Alignment practitioner, I have been able to facilitate healing at a far deeper level. This is not a fly-by-night course, or a quick-fix course, nor will it add yet another qualification to the list on your CV. It requires courage, commitment and energy.

The reward? An intimate understanding of oneself as a unique individual.

When you are natural, when you don't pretend, then you are very close to the divine.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

If I had read this quote a year ago, it certainly wouldn't have struck the same chord as it does today. The Art of Being can bring you to a closer understanding of your essence, but whether you choose to take up your power and honour your true self is an ongoing choice, which requires one to be conscious. It truly is an art to BE. But expressing our true nature in an authentic manner is the only way in which we can connect with others in a meaningful way.

Eleven other brave souls were guided to do the course with me. Each a unique individual reflecting back to me aspects of myself I have acknowledged and grown to love - even the much suppressed shadow side! Perhaps this is what I was searching for; guidance on how to go about loving myself unconditionally. If I strive towards this objective, then I can learn to receive others in the same way. And isn't that what we are being called to do in this day and age? Isn't it the high frequency energy of love that is needed to ensure the earth continues to revolve?

My wish is that each one of you reading this article give some deep thought as to whether you are ready to take up the challenge of doing this course. Not only for yourselves, but for the world at large. After all...

We need to be the change we wish to see in the world.
Mohandas Ghandi

Please feel free to give me a call on (021) 790-5950 or 083-299-9816. I'll be happy to share my experience, as well as refer you to other students who have benefited from the course in their unique way.

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The Art of Being

Written by Karen Rootenberg and published in slighly modified form in
Odyssey magazine October/November 2002

What is personal development?

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?", asked Alice.
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland)

It is the year 2002. Where do we go to from here? More technology, vaster scientific horizons, faster journeying, BIG BROTHER (!) more bits and bytes!? The world of technology and scientific discovery is truly amazing and necessary, but not at the expense of our souls and spirits, and more particularly, not at the expense of our humanity. We seem "hell-bent" on a voyage of destruction in this desire for knowledge and discovery. But this might just be the road to hell, and as Marcel Proust said, "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes". And developing new eyes or new awareness, is an artistic, open-hearted and conscious activity, facilitated through personal development.

There seem to be two different kinds of awareness. The awareness so prevalent and dominant in our technological age is "focused awareness". This is necessary to bring direction and result in the pursuit of achievement. It works with penetration and sharpness – the straight line, one might say. Its gesture implies control over the environment. This type of awareness is strongly manifested in the West. However focused awareness in excess has its dangers … its shadow-side. When used as a way of mastering oneself, this cold, focused sharpness is very necessary. But when used as a tool of power over others or the environment, it lacks compassion and heart. The world of focused achievement can become linear, hard and rigid in its expression. In this awareness, life can become grey and grim, and a place to be feared.

The other kind of awareness could be called "diffuse awareness"or "expanded awareness." This is the realm of awareness which is concerned with relationship and connection. It is receptive rather than directed – the curve or rounded form. One could say that this awareness brings perception of the soul/spiritual realm. This gesture speaks more of a feminine culture. Taking drugs has become a way of connecting with this world of diffuse awareness – a world of light and beauty. And without this world we can become lost souls without purpose. It is vital to nourish our soul/spiritual development. But it too has its dangers! In its extreme, it tends toward illusion rather than reality. It tends to give the message which says that the spiritual world is "better" than the earthly world. It can lead to escapism, egotism and "new-age" spiritual posturing.

So there seems to be a chasm between the world of materialism with its focused awareness, and the world of spirituality with its diffuse or expanded awareness. And we possibly find ourselves trying to make a living at the expense of our soul development. Or we have gone alternative, without electricity, in our wish to escape the world of technology.

Between these two opposites lies the realm of Art and its expression. This is the realm where balance and integration can be achieved. Art finds its wellspring in the realm of the rhythmic system - where physiologically speaking we find the heart and the lungs. It is here in the rhythmic system that we find harmony – in, out, in, out. Here, in the most beautiful, basic and elegantly simple aspect of our beings we find the key to balance. We need both aspects of awareness – contracted focused awareness, (in) and expanded diffuse awareness (out). When we work out of this rhythm, the work of personal integration becomes an art form.

There is however no art without law. These laws must be sought out by a true artist – and each of us is an artist holding the brush of consciousness. In the realm of Justice, the Goddess Themis holds the scales of balance. She is blindfolded because she must develop new eyes for judgement. She must use her capacity of "in-sight" to perceive that in some instances, "a stone might be lighter than a feather." It is said that "Themis looseth and gathereth the meetings of men" (Odyssey, Book 11) In other words, we must all develop conscious penetrative awakeness, but also inspirational, imaginative and intuitional awareness. This is working artistically with oneself and with the world around one. We are all being asked to use our capacities of soulfuness to receive the world of spiritual understanding of light and beauty. But then we are asked to bring the sharpness of clear and focused thinking to the specific situation and to bring lawfulness and clarity. "Truth is Beauty" and "Beauty is Truth" to quote the poet Keats. Learning to become oneself is an Art. It is the Art of Being.

The Art of Being is a voyage of personal development which develops "new eyes" by revealing new "insights," both in mental understanding but also through emotional, artistic and experiential exploration. It is a journey which treads the path of heart. It is a journey with, and out of soul. Usually it is in childhood that we receive or are denied heart. Throughout the Art of Being we work with patterns and beliefs that were developed in childhood. These "unconscious" behaviour patterns continue to be present in adult life and can cause either constriction in expression, or lack of boundaries in behaviour. As we work creatively, artistically and thoughtfully from many facets we develop "diffuse awareness" taking us to creative, imaginative and inspirational places. But we are also asked to know the other side of Beauty - to be in balance. Truthfulness has to do with being consciously awake to the light and dark aspects of ourselves and being willing to take moral responsibility for our lives. Being truly human is finding the balance and integrating the light and the dark.

This is a 9 month voyage of discovery. Spiritual and soul growth come on soft wings, not on the blast of a trumpet. So this period of growth is vital for deep and lasting change. A cathartic experience over one weekend might bring quick results, but true change takes time. One needs courage, commitment, energy and a sense of humour to bring these new insights to birth. Any labour has its pain and it joys. And although it is a birthing of individuation, one also walks the path with others which allows one to have true encounters – being to being. (Is this person a stone or a feather?) We have to learn to "see" the reality behind the appearances. This depth of encounter brings a quality of the sacred back into community.

Here are some of the subjects explored on this profound journey:

THE 3-FOLD HUMAN BEING – We explore the nature of the soul as it relates to thinking and doing and the mediating aspect – feeling.

THE FOUR TEMPERAMENTS AND THE STUDY OF THE 4 BODIES OR SHEATHS – This is intimately connected to the dramatic world of the four elements.

THE 12 SENSES – The senses are our window to the external but also internal world.

PARZIVAL – This important story of the search for the Holy Grail as a mirror of our path of individuation, lies at the heart of the journey.

BIOGRAPHY WORK: We claim our own unique life journeys and work toward transformation.

AN EXPLORATION OF MATERIALISM VS. SPIRITUALITY Both are necessary- but what does it really mean?

PATTERNS: An experiential exploration of childhood and adolescent patterns. What happened to your energy?

The course is structured so that one study builds on the next to form a whole.

A vital aspect of the course is the complementary aspect of artistic and experiential work – painting, clay modeling, eurythmy, story-telling, drama, ritual and clowning bring depth, colour and added vision to all the studies.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
R.W.Emerson

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