Confined to her Pacific Northwest home in the winter of 2021, as was many during the pandemic, Marie-Laure Valandro was inspired to begin “the immense Journey,” “beyond my own capacity” of writing about Time and Space using the writings of Rudolf Steiner as her guide. Surprising news of a death of a dear friend and former traveling partner redirected her attention to the connection between the living and the dead. These readings and meditations enriched her and her writings about Time and Space were enlivened by this mystery that lies beyond each of our sensual lives-the mystery of death, birth, matter, spirit, evil, mortality, time and space. Here Marie-Laure presents us with her own narrative as well as the abundant writings of Dr. Steiner and other authors on this vast, mysterious subject.
“In the future, humanity will have to develop a new capacity to discover the spiritual world and to know it. The spiritual world is as much terra incognita for most people today as America was for the Greeks. We’re just beginning voyages of discovery, voyages to discover the America of the spirit. Spiritually, we stand right where the Europeans stood when the first ships set sail for America. Inwardly, we are on a voyage to discover the other half—the spiritual half—of human existence.
Suppose for a moment that America hadn’t been discovered and that Europeans were still living in ignorance of America. Is that conceivable? No, it’s totally inconceivable! In the same way a time will come when it will be inconceivable that human beings might not have been able to discover the spiritual world in the sense of anthroposophy. It will be utterly inconceivable…”. ~ Rudolph Steiner, Architecture as Peacework (GA287)
About the Author
Marie-Laure Valandro was born in 1948 and spent her childhood in Bourgogne, Morocco, Algeria, and Bretagne. At fifteen, she moved with her family to Boston, where she received a B.A. in modern literature, romance languages, and education and taught in the Boston public school system. Later, she moved to Vermont, and obtained an M.A. in literature. At twenty-three, Marie-Laure returned to Paris to study at The Sorbonne, to teach and to travel around Europe to various Christian Holy sites. She later moved to Tehran to teach technical English and to tour throughout the Eastern world, studying Sufism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism as seen through the eyes of its believers and through visits to holy sites. Marie-Laure returned to the United States to care for her son. She lived in the community of Wilton, New Hampshire, where she first encountered Anthroposophy. She ended her school teaching to care for her daughter, son, and husband, a medical doctor. Meanwhile, she continued to travel and trek in South America, both alone and with her children. Later, she moved to Wisconsin and began the Liane Collot d’Herbois training in painting. On her family farm in Wisconsin, Marie-Laure uses biodynamic methods and has developed master gardens, vegetable gardens, herb gardens, and an orchard. She has also established a painting studio, where she creates large veil paintings. Recently, she moved from Wisconsin to a post-and-beam house built by her son in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia. Her goal is to continue walking across this beautiful Earth, meeting people with love and sharing her journeys in meditative books, sprinkled with insights from Rudolf Steiner’s works and the many talented students of his teachings. She continues to make large veil paintings to “heal people and spaces.”
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