I have been attending WAPASA's Summer Conferences since 2021, online since I live in Finland. Those sharings have always been very inspirational and delightful making me wish to attend the conference in person one day. This summer it came true! I was able to travel to the beautiful Hawthorn Valley to attend The Creative Spirit Within Puppetry Arts Conference. Still, after one and half weeks after the conference I'm warming myself up in loving memories of those days.

On Thursday, a pre-conference plant dying day was led by Janine in her garden. During this well prepared and guided dying day we dived into the fascinating, secret world of dying silk, cotton and wool. The garden was full of action, wonder, surprise, co-operation, learning and enthusiasm. This was a great way to get together and start the conference!

In the evening Micael Lipson led us into some social practices of encounter and giving/receiving love. This was becoming aware of yourself not by brains but through action. The night ended with Jennifer's puppet show with her gorgeous story apron. The children in us pointed eagerly to the pockets of the story apron to get the next story!

Following days we started the mornings singing together, which is always a great way to start the day. In an eurythmy class our voices joined together in a beautiful way, I'm still humming and singing those peaceful songs... After a brief morning talk we worked intensively in our artistic workshops throughout the day. I had chosen the color shadow theater workshop led by Cindy Sydow. Cindy offered us an inspirational color shadow show and gave us good instructions to start our own projects. We had space to work in peace and also to share our problems, tips, good stories and jokes, help and inspire one another. To see all others work with dedication made me feel at home and nourishing.

On Friday evening in a Puppetry Cabaret led by Brian and Mary Hull we saw and heard each other's projects they had done or were working on. How inspiring!

The last day all workshops presented their works. It was nice to see what others had been working on. We saw lovely shared stories presented by Jennifer's and Mindy's groups and individual stories of our color shadow theatre workshop. I was happy to have a start with my own work of a story I'm going to present at Michaelmas here in Finland.

I'm deeply grateful for having had this experience. The conference was very well organized, we were all taken such a good care of and felt being home there in Hawthorne Valley. 

I'm back home in Finland and got my computer working. So after a good time sleeping and doing laundry, the very first thing is to send you my regards and warm wishes and share the story I'll be working on, The Most Beautiful Story in The World by Max Bollinger, which I share below.

Meeting with other puppetry enthusiasts in this Waldorf field was very supportive and inspiring. Since we live in all over the world it is so delightful to meet in person one another, have a real contact and sharing. The awareness of you all working with this same vision, bringing this enlivining art form to alive in different contexts gives me a sense of connection that carries us through times. I'm so thankful to have met you and that WAPASA is there to make it possible!

With warm wishes,

Suvi-Maaria