Today, I welcome Dale Brunsvold, creator of http://www.rudolfsteineraudio.com to share on how he came to find Steiner’s work and decided to create a space where we can access Steiner’s works in an audio format.
As a Waldorf homeschooling mom and someone who is deeply interested in Anthroposophy and esoteric Christianity, I am very grateful to have found the audio versions of the written works and lectures. I listen to something regularly and have been for years. I can listen while I cook, clean, or go out for a walk. It is a great way for me to take care of my spiritual self and plan out my homeschooling lessons and I hope that others who are into the work of Steiner or are simple using the Waldorf homeschooling philosophy will enjoy taking a look at this wonderful site and find many treasures.
Thanks Tiffany for giving me this opportunity to share my admiration for the work of Rudolf Steiner. I had had a tendency from puberty I guess to try and figure things out as best I could. Some of the first work that took me aback and began to unsettle the orthodoxy of my upbringing were: Casteneda, Jung, Gurdjieff; as well as my attempt to understand philosophers such as Kant.
I ended up going to college to study philosophy and, while sitting at a seminar desk in 1978 at Moorhead state university (as it was called then), in a graduate course on Ludwig Wittgenstein, a man there kept asking questions around concepts and percepts and I just didn’t understand him. So I asked him where he was coming from and he slid the philosophy of freedom across the table. It is a very remembered, singular experience of my life.
In the end, I was doubly fortunate to have met a very articulate, riveting personality (Hank Passafero was his name and he is now called Eliah Rael) who could paint powerful, historical imaginations of Steiner’s ideas and was my sponsor into the Anthroposophical Society. Aa well, he had owned a bookstore and now had a complete beautiful collection of Steiner that I could get my hands on! I ended up rooming with him for a semester.
There was a study group in Fargo ND as well as the chair of the psychology department at Concordia college (James Ullness) that also gave me enormous opportunities to study and grasp this life changing work.
Having been a manager of a stereo store at a somewhat young age, I had access to recording equipment and so it was a natural step to record the basic books of Steiner onto cassettes in order to listen and learn in the car.
So we are talking about 1980 here! No internet, barely even computers to some extent. And I had the books recorded and every so often would have to transfer the recordings to new cassettes as they wore out.
I think it was the wearing out aspect that stayed with me as the internet and then the mp3 (Napster) phenomenon occurred.
So I thought: “what the heck, I can make these mp3 files!” And I did so, and with a walkman, I could record about 24 hours of Steiner on one CD! This caused me to renew this reading activity around 1990 or so and I had a number of the christian cycles done as well.
Still, it wasn’t until webdesign became something that was not so new for me, to then think of the idea of an actual website. So in 2004, around November, I wrote the publishing houses here in America (Steinerbooks.org) and in England (rudolfsteinerpress.com) to ask for permission to begin such an initiative. Steinerbooks said yes about 2 months later to my utter delight. England declined so I wrote them a letter every 3 years or so and renewed my request and they finally said yes around 2014 I think.
It (www.rudolfsteineraudio.com; www.rudolfsteiner.podbean.com,) has become an unlooked for blessing, a rich source of connection with other people around the world, and a humbling, hopefully significant presence in the anthroposophical world.
I truly think that the ideas and initiatives of Rudolf Steiner are fundamental to the healing of humanity and the world – which, actually, are the same thing from an anthroposophical point of view! Of course, because I approach this from the point of view of the scientist, I could be wrong!! ha.
Wishing you and your readers all blessings,
Dale
Live. Learn. Love. Eat. 