Co-Creating with the Living World

Week Two: July 14 to 18, 2025

with Elyse Pomeranz and Laurie Harper-Burgess

This one-week course at Rudolf Steiner College Canada left a lasting impression on the ten participants and the environments, landscapes, water, rocks and trees that we worked with. Through movement and artistic practices, through meditation and biography, through sharing our dream life and waking life, through singing and eurythmy, through storytelling and marionette puppetry, we far surpassed our goal of connecting, communicating and co-creating with the elemental beings in nature. It was a joyful, playful and inspiring week that transformed the participants. We were likened by some who observed us to the hobbits as we headed off on our expeditions and adventures each day, sometimes both morning and afternoon. We, too, visited fairy folk and went amongst elemental and mythological characters whom we met with brave and open hearts. Carrying our art supplies, chairs, backpacks and water bottles, while singing and exuding joy, we sometimes also carried bins of puppets, or handmade gifts to be left in gratitude where we travelled. Without a doubt, we all felt that we had experienced an awakening and transforming in our thinking, feeling and willing. Words like “Commit” “Joy” “Courage” “Confidence” Trust” and “Freedom” expressed the lasting effects from the course. “It will be forever a special time for me.” “It was summer camp for my soul!” “My camping trips are now a deeper experience.”

My particular skill that I brought to the week was a fluency in working with marionettes and storytelling. How that was to weave into the week of work with elemental beings remained a mystery pretty much until it happened...in the ravine on the Wednesday afternoon of our five full-day course. To quote one of the students, “the vibe off of everyone present, the people, the puppets and the space welcomed us to jump into each other’s story and made possible a fun, even hilarious and spontaneous puppet play. It was pure joy!” There was no script, no props, no set, no rehearsals. It was all dialogue and movement. A truly improv time where all of the earnest work that preceded this moment with each other and the spaces and elements came together. For some it was a moment of bliss, surprising and affirming that we were onto something big and new. Even the puppets broke their mold, as they had the opportunity to be freed from their previous characters. As did we, and thus we were both transformed into something new, a rebirth. Co-creation! “There was a magical moment when the puppet began to speak for himself, the story unfolded from within him, not me.” “It was like time stood still, I felt connected to the puppets and the forest.”

What has been incorporated into our daily practice?

“It never occurred to me before to ask permission to approach a tree, now I have incorporated the intention, the gestures and a new approach into my practice.”
“I have found a deeper place of listening.”

“I feel freer and more playful than I have since childhood.”
"It was an open door to exploration.”
“I am coming into nature with a new presence and I notice things and rejoice in their existence.”
“It was an adventure, opening and enlivening.”
“I am trying to find a way to integrate my experience with another group in my life. Coming from a naturalist background, the activities of singing, poetry, storytelling, making and giving gifts to nature resonated with me.”
“I finally was able to put aside my rational mind and open to the word that came from my painting exercise: Commit! It was simple but profound for one who doubts. The visceral experience with my chosen tree on the last day confirmed the word. This is real. Commit!”

One further thought that came from our group:
Imagine those puppets who were brought out of their zippered bags in the church basement where they live and into our course at RSCC for the week. Most, if not all, having the chance to be out in the forest, feeling the wind in their silken selves. And being called to develop an entirely different role and character than before. Now what happens as they are returned, some together in their zippered bags being from the same story, but some relegated to their previous character and story line? Was there much whispering amongst themselves, curiosity and wishing to be chosen next time? To break out of the mold? I wonder....