​​Annual Passive Member’s Meeting
Semjase-Silver-Star-Center
May 2014 – Catherine Mossman

This year, two of us from the FIGU-Landesgruppe Canada attended the Semjase Silver Star Center. Marcel went for a week before the meeting, which was on May 31st. My stay began a few days before and lasted a week after the meeting. The meeting was held a week later than it usually is due to the unavailability of our meeting hall in Bichelsee. Next year we are back to the fourth Saturday of May, i.e. May 23rd.

As usual the verdant, clean views of the rolling forests and meadows of the topography surrounding the SSSC are striking. In the distance the jutting lines of the grey and white of the Alps hover. 

The air is clean and scented with spring blossoms, cedar and fresh cut grass. The temperature is generally pleasant though it can dip into the single digits at night. I heard that it had hailed early in May, as it had last year. If one is planning to camp, then preparation for the cold and wet is essential. This is the first year that I did not camp. I luckily was able to secure a room at the Freihoff, which is a little guest- house that is a five-minute walk down a tree-shaded dirt road from the center.  Other than that, there are inexpensive hotels, down the hills, in the little villages in the vicinity of Schmidrüti. The buses run like clockwork so it is possible to stay off-site and yet still get to the center to work without renting a car.

The friendliness and kinship of most of the members of the centre is always warm and receptive. After many years going there the core-group members, and the returning passive members from around the world, give to one the sense of having an extended family. And to that end the annual core-group/passive-member dinner out is always fun. This year it was again at a nice restaurant in Bichelsee (next door to the school where we have our meeting)… this year featured a sumptuous Indian buffet. This dinner usually falls on the Thursday, two days before the Saturday meeting.

Some of the little news tidbits:

The Goblet of the Truth (online) has had 437,000 downloads since going back up on the figu.org site.
FIGU Australia is now working on the translation of Die Art zu Leben (The Art of Living).
It looks like there will soon be a new core group member.
There is a new Canadian passive member out in BC!

If you haven’t been there before here is what the average volunteer working schedule is: we start at 10:00a.m. and go till noon. The lunch break is from noon until 1:30. Then from 1:30 till about 3:00 for a 15 minute coffee/tea/ juice break and then from 3:15 until 5:00. At 5:00 is dinnertime.  When you work there one meal is included. Otherwise it is asked that you contribute 7chfs per meal. That is a very modest request given the cost of living and the cost of food in Switzerland! I went out for a cappuccino in Zurich once and that alone was 7chfs!!

I spent a lot of time working in the gardens, especially weeding in Eva’s Raspberry Garden: 

Catherine in Eva’s Himbeeren Garten



Also, Jakobus has added a new tenting site, which is to be found carved out of the sheep hill/meadow, above the original tenting site.

New Camping Spot

 

One of the other, surprise, highlights of our time there was a new, and we hope to be ongoing, Geistes Lehre (Spiritual Teaching) session hosted by Christian Frehner for the English Speaking passive members. 

Christian Frehner at the Geisteslehre presentation


Christian did an excellent PowerPoint presentation on the concept of Erziehen, or to instruct. He drew from a couple of books of Billy’s: Die Art zu leben  (The Art of Living) and from Erziehung der Kinder, Jugendlichen und Erwachsen (The Instructing of Children, Youth and Adults). It dealt with the importance of children being given a good and correct start in life via his/her parents. And the importance that adults can teach themselves also! By being set on the right course then the ongoing self-education will steer a person to make correct choices, etc. Here is a picture Christian drew denoting a play on the word Erziehen whereby Er (he) and ziehen (pulled) shows the many influences that shape us, eg, adults, beliefs, religion, etc.

​Er (He) ziehen (getting pulled)

The whole presentation was interactive and we all had a chance to reflect, to give our input and to ask questions throughout. We have a copy of this presentation and in the near future we will have the time to get it transformed into a word document and up on our site for all to see/ read.  In the end it is up to each and everyone of us to ‘pull ourselves up’, i.e. to take self-responsibility for our own instruction and character development.

Er (he/she) ziehen (pulls) [himself/ herself up]

And so that is it for my little report for this year…. And now let’s all take a page from this guy’s book and get busy!

Salome, Catherine

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