Over the last three years at the WECAN February Conference in Spring Valley, we have introduced participants to New Adult Learning, highlighting one of the three learning paths each year. New Adult Learning, developed by Coenraad van Houten and grounded in anthroposophy, is a professional development program for educators, mentors, facilitators, coaches, administrators, and leaders. It develops capacities for individual learning, ongoing transformation, and creative engagement. 

To embark on this approach to development, individuals are invited to further explore the three paths through three separate full-week in-person retreats to be held in Southern Ontario. 

Each will begin on a Friday evening and end the following Saturday, providing seven full days to focus on the seven-step processes. The seven-step process offers participants a renewed sense of meaning and purpose, courage to apply insights in life, and a deepened connection to both their work and themselves. This is not just a course—it is a lived, creative, and social practice that helps participants bring spirit into conscious form.

The focus of each week’s intensive is as follows: 

• Path 1 – Learning to Learn – July 31 – August 8, 2026
  Explore and practice the Seven-step Learning Process that moves from knowledge to wisdom and awakens creative forces for living and working. Sessions include watercolour painting exercises.
  
• Path 2 – Destiny Learning – March 6-14, 2027
  Engage with the paths of Destiny and Karma. Through artistic exercises, participants sense their past, understand how it may hinder or support them, and discover new paths forward. Sessions include pastel exercises.
  
• Path 3 – Creative Spiritual Research – July 30 – August 7, 2027
  Cultivate conscious connection with the spiritual world through your interests, intentions, and initiative. This path supports becoming a co-creator with spirit and living into your unique destiny. Sessions include clay exercises.

All art materials are provided, and no prior art experience is required; all artwork is experiential.

REGISTER NOW

Program Details

Facilitators: Otisistohkwi:yo Elliott, Wahsonti:io Hill, and Heather Church

Location: Gores Landing, Ontario, Canada

Fee:$1,200 USD. ($1,200 CAD for residents of Canada, contact Heather for payment) Art supplies and meals included (Meal plan will provide options for participants’ food restrictions such as GF, DF, Vegan, Vegetarian, etc.)

Accepted payment methods include credit card or check in advance of each session through WECAN, either online or by mailing a check to our WECAN office.

Some solidarity funds are available. We want everyone to be able to participate. If you need financial support, please contact Heather Church at hchurch@waldorfearlychildhood.org.

Each group will be limited to 12 participants.

Retreat Structure: Each of the three retreats begins Friday evening at 5 pm with dinner and concludes the following Saturday at lunch at 1 pm.

Daily Activities Include:

Mornings:

• Movement
• Presentation
• Group work and or individual exercises
• Observation skill-building activities

Afternoons:

• Time for reflection
• Art exercises
• Review of the day

Evening sessions vary and may include study and shared reflections.

NALA Certificate of Attendance:
Participants will receive a certificate for 17.5 hours of attendance from the New Adult Educators Association.

Proceeds from these events support WECAN’s work.

WECAN NEW ADULT LEARNING EVENT

Monday evenings, beginning February 23, 2026

We were once naturally in communication with the spiritual world. As humanity evolved, we lost this direct connection and now must consciously cultivate our relationship with spirit through our interests, intentions, and initiative. This course invites you to become a co-creator with spirit and live into your unique destiny. Choose to join us for weekly online meetings over seven weeks or monthly meetings over seven months.

Creative Spiritual Research (CSR) is about creating the new by working with the self and spirit. It encourages conscious engagement with the spiritual world through attention, intention, and initiative.

Join Otisistohkwi:yo Elliott, Wahsonti:io Hill, and Heather Church for a seven-session journey into CSR, a living path of self-discovery, artistic practice, and meaningful action in the world. Together, we will explore thinking, feeling, and willing as guides for inner transformation and insight.

Each session focuses on one step of CSR: finding your research question, developing a sense of warmth of spirit, meeting the self, encountering the being of your research, humanizing what arises, testing insights, and realizing results. Small-group and individual work is paired with hands-on clay practice and reflection, supporting both inner growth and creative expression.

By the end of the seven sessions, participants will emerge with a renewed sense of meaning and purpose, the courage to bring their insights into life, and a deepened connection to both community and self. CSR is not just a process—it is a lived, artistic, and social practice that helps you bring spirit into life and life into conscious form.

WEEKLY SESSIONS ALSO AVAILABLE HERE

REGISTER NOW

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Session Schedule & Times

Each session is 2.5 hours long.

Start time (all sessions):
8:00 pm Atlantic · 7:00 pm Eastern · 6:00 pm Central · 5:00 pm Mountain · 4:00 pm Pacific · 3:00 pm Alaska · 2:00 pm Hawaii

Monthly Sessions
Monday evenings, beginning February 23, 2026: February 23, March 30, April 27, May 25, June 29, July 27, and August 31.

NALA Certificate of Attendance:
Live participants will receive a certificate for 17.5 hours of attendance from New Adult Educators.

Please note: These sessions will not be recorded.

Registration Details

Fee: $400 USD ($400 CAD) (Please email Heather to arrange for payment)
Register online through the WECAN bookstore.

We want everyone to be able to participate. If you need financial support, please contact Heather Church at hchurch@waldorfearlychildhood.org.

Proceeds from these events support WECAN’s work.

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Important Notes

• Registration closes 24 hours before the first session.

WECAN NEW ADULT LEARNING EVENT

Tuesday evenings, beginning February 17, 2026

We were once naturally in communication with the spiritual world. As humanity evolved, we lost this direct connection and now must consciously cultivate our relationship with spirit through our interests, intentions, and initiative. This course invites you to become a co-creator with spirit and live into your unique destiny. Choose to join us for weekly online meetings over seven weeks or monthly meetings over seven months.

Creative Spiritual Research (CSR) is about creating the new by working with the self and spirit. It encourages conscious engagement with the spiritual world through attention, intention, and initiative.

Join Otisistohkwi:yo Elliott, Wahsonti:io Hill, and Heather Church for a seven-session journey into CSR, a living path of self-discovery, artistic practice, and meaningful action in the world. Together, we will explore thinking, feeling, and willing as guides for inner transformation and insight.

Each session focuses on one step of CSR: finding your research question, developing a sense of warmth of spirit, meeting the self, encountering the being of your research, humanizing what arises, testing insights, and realizing results. Small-group and individual work is paired with hands-on clay practice and reflection, supporting both inner growth and creative expression.

By the end of the seven sessions, participants will emerge with a renewed sense of meaning and purpose, the courage to bring their insights into life, and a deepened connection to both community and self. CSR is not just a process—it is a lived, artistic, and social practice that helps you bring spirit into life and life into conscious form.

SEVEN MONTHLY SESSIONS ALSO AVAILABLE HERE.

REGISTER NOW

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Session Schedule & Times

Each session is 2.5 hours long.

Start time (all sessions):
8:00 pm Atlantic · 7:00 pm Eastern · 6:00 pm Central · 5:00 pm Mountain · 4:00 pm Pacific · 3:00 pm Alaska · 2:00 pm Hawaii

Weekly Sessions
Tuesday evenings, beginning February 17, 2026, for seven consecutive weeks: February 17, 24, March 3, 10, 17, 24, 31.

NALA Certificate of Attendance:
Live participants will receive a certificate for 17.5 hours of attendance from New Adult Educators.

Please note: These sessions will not be recorded.

Registration Details

Fee: $400 USD and $400 CAD (email Heather to make payment in Canadian Funds)
Register online through the WECAN bookstore.

We want everyone to be able to participate. If you need financial support, please contact Heather Church at hchurch@waldorfearlychildhood.org.

Proceeds from these events support WECAN’s work.

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Important Notes

• Registration closes 24 hours before the first session.

Come join us for Passion Week and deepen your understanding of Parzival’s journey and your social biography. Parzival is the story of a young knight faced with many challenges in the process of becoming more self aware, collaborative, and wise. During this week-long course we will explore how social encounters shape our lives using art processes and conversation, inspired by this archetypal story of growth and transformation. Please register by April 10, 2025 to ensure your spot. 10 participant minimum, so please tell your friends!

Online
Sun. April 13th – Sat. April 19th, 6:00-8:00 p.m. EST, 2025
With Fiona Hughes and Walkyria Machado
Cost: $177.00

For more information and registration please email Fiona: hughes.fionam@gmail.com

The New Adult Educator (NAE) is a professional development program for educators, mentors, facilitators, coaches, administrators, therapists, and those in leadership and human resources. It develops the capacities of individual learning, ongoing transformation and creativity. 

The program is based on Anthroposophy, and the three-fold learning path developed by Coenraad van Houten and his colleagues. It is taught in three modules, each devoted to one of the learning paths and offered in 3 nine-day intensives.

See the interview here. Use passcode: c$3@j!GB

Michaelmas Greetings; 

The season of ‘knowledge’ has arrived and so too new offerings of New Adult Learning programs.  We begin the descent into the outer and inner darkness and yet within lives an impulse for learning and light.  Michael leads the way in the autumn with Michaelic knowledge of spirit, Michaelic courage of the heart and Michaelic will born out of certainty of one’s karma and destiny which ‘steels’ our spirit striving…  

“…For your own being the light of day fades into
Soul’s night and spirit-darkness;
With anxious seeking you turn your soul
To that light that takes its strength from darkness…”
1st Lesson from the Michael School of Spiritual Science.

From Connie and Carol;

The New Adult Learning (NAL) has been blessed with two fine facilitators who have offered the My Child Myself (MCMS) and other NAL programs in the London Waldorf School community for many years.   Here is an email from Connie White:

New Adult Learning – Autumn 2022* 

My Child Myself

FALL 2022  

Observing Your Child – Module 1 – Online
Experience a new way to be present with your child.  Increase your awareness of your child as a being of body, soul, and spirit.  Open the door to new understandings and insights about yourself and your child with the sevenfold path. Tuesday evenings –  7:30 – 9:30, October 18 – November 29, 2022 

My Child My Karma  – Module 4  – Online – with Marg Beard
To consider karma is to open to the idea of past lives and to how the past is still part of your life and your relationships.  Karma work challenges us to new levels of understanding, development, and healing. Through the seven weeks, you will awaken to your past and build capacities to meet your child in a new way. Thursday evenings – 7:30 – 9:30, October 20 – December 1, 2022 

My Home Family & Community

FALL 2022

Home for Body, Soul and Spirit – Module 1 – Online with Marg Beard
Enlivening our relationship with each part of our home. 4 Sheaths of Home, the 4 bodies, elements & ethers. Wednesday evenings, 7:30 – 9:30 EST – October 19 – November 30, 2022

Family, Foods and Festivals – Module 6 –  Online with Arlene Thorn
How can the cycle of the year and celebrating the seven festivals become a path of initiation?  We will explore the mysteries of the festivals in 7 sessions and paint each on a 12″ x 16″ canvas.  Friday afternoons, 4:00 – 6:00 EST – October 14 – November 25, 2022

My Child Myself Facilitator

FALL 2022

New Adult Educator, My Child Myself and My Home, Family and Community graduates are invited to participate in a training to learn to facilitate the My Child Myself curriculum.  Curriculums will be given. There are 6 modules to the My Child Myself program.  Participants are requested to be active offering or be willing to offer the My Child Myself programs.  We will begin with Observing My Child – Module 1 – Online with Arlene Thorn – Tuesday afternoons, 4-6 EST –  October 18 – November 29, 2022

New Adult Educator Research Week Intensive

SPRING 2023 

The Seven Planets and Seven Chakras – Online

What is the soul’s connection to the whole cosmos? The astral body is music. The etheric body works out of the rhythms of cosmic sculpture, with the astral body working out of cosmic melody. The seven planets living in our chakras are the bridge to the Music of the Spheres!.  We will follow a 7 day process with the planets and the chakras.  We will experience the planetary colours and chakras through veil painting.   As has been our practice in these weeks, we will each follow a Creative Spiritual Research question that is arising out of our life.  Sun., April 2 – Sat. April 8, 2023, 6:00-8:00 p.m. EST

New Adult Educator

SPRING 2023 
New Adult Educator, Path 2
The New Adult Educator is a professional development program for educators, mentors, facilitators, coaches, administrators, therapists and those in leadership and the human resource fields. It develops capacities of individual learning, ongoing transformation and creativity.  The program is offered in 3 eight day intensives. – Saturday, March 11 – Sunday, March 19, 2023, Cowichan, B.C.

In December of 2020, New Adult Learning Program Leader and health consultant, Fiona Hughes, was featured in an interview with the Rev. Jonah Evans on “The Light in Everything” podcast which is produced by the Seminary of the Christian Community in North America. The following is from the Seminary’s Patreon blog post about this interview:

Who is Fiona Hughes?

“Today, we share with you a conversation between Jonah and Fiona Hughes, a health coach and consultant in the greater Toronto area.  Fiona has been working with Hesperus, our neighbor community which is an Anthroposophically inspired home for aging adults,  on developing a “Curriculum for Aging”.

Fiona Hughes is a health coach and consultant who works with individuals to improve wellbeing, with groups running workshops, and with organizations developing strategies to deliver health and care. With a degree in medicine from the University of Witten/Herdecke, a cultural studies degree from Trent University, and training in anthroposophical medicine and new adult learning, Fiona is passionate about healing, karma, and creating the new.

Our thanks to Elliott Chamberlin, who composed the opening music, “On the Road” and the closing music, “Seeking Together”.  You can find more of his music here.”

Download Fiona’s Interview Here

While you do need to become a member through Patreon to access most of “The Light in Everything” podcasts, the Seminary has kindly made it possible for us to share Fiona’s interview with you, without having to subscribe to their podcast first. Here is the link to download the podcast as an MP3 file.

Warm Greetings

We are pleased to present the New Adult Learning 2021 programs. Although Zoom is a trial, it’s also a blessing and programs that have been inaccessible for many, are now possible. Looking forward to you joining us in one of the upcoming programs.  Scholarships are available upon request to newadultlearning@gmail.com. Times in our programs are EST or EDT.  – Arlene Thorn

“After doing 7 paintings, a co-worker said she has never experienced self-development like this. The New Adult Learning brings spirit which none of the other methods she has experienced have: therapy, Landmark programs, Pursuit of Excellence. Demartini. etc. She says this is the breakthrough for which humanity is searching.” – Kathleen Thompson, Edmonton, April 2020

“I am so grateful for all that you have shared this past year.  It’s such a privilege to experience you as a teacher/facilitator/healer, to be part of your modern mystery school, and to witness your passion and dedication to NAL/your work in the world.”  – Fiona Hughes, NAE Graduate 2019/20 (with Arlene Thorn)

Spring 2021  

New Adult Learning Conference – Zoom
Easter Intensive – Development of ‘I’ Consciousness – for New Adult Educator Graduates – Zoom 
My Home Myself –  The New Culture of Home – Zoom 
Connections for Men – Week Intensive – Cottage in S. Ontario  – On-site

Summer 2021

Leading Learning Communities – Rudolf Steiner Centre Summer Festival – Zoom
Connections – Week Intensive – Cowichan Valley, B.C. – On-site
Connections East – Path 1 – Ontario – On-site
New Adult Educator West – Path 3 – Creative Spiritual Research – Cowichan Valley, B.C. – On-site
New Adult Educator – Path 1 – Cottage in Southern Ontario – On-site

Fall 2021

My Child Myself – Observing Your Child – Tuesday evenings for teacher and parent development.  Zoom 
Connections – 10 Weekends – On-Line – Friday night, Saturday and Sunday til 2. 
My Home, Family and Community – Module 4 – In the Shelter of Each Other