About Us

Everyone is perfect in their essential being and everyone is handicapped in bringing that perfect essence to expression.

Our Cadmus Mission is to support each other in our efforts to improve ourselves. The personal relationships we build among the members of our households, and within Cadmus as a whole, are based on a commitment to recognize and further our individual paths and foster a dynamic community in which it is no handicap to be "handicapped." We share an explicit agreement to recognize and lovingly further each other's initiatives and compensate for and forgive our mistakes and disabilities.

Motto of the Social Ethic by Rudolf Steiner:

Social life will be healthy when in the mirror of each human soul the community finds itself reflected, and when in the community the virtues of each one are living.

Paraphrase of the Fundamental Social Law by Rudolf Steiner:

A spiritually productive community arises the more the individual members give the proceeds of the work they do to their community and the less they claim those proceeds for themselves. That is, the more the community recognizes and provides for the needs of its members and the less the members must satisfy their needs out of their own work. In such a community the individual members will want to say. "The community is as it should be and I will it to be so!"

As Cadmus Lifesharing Association, we value:

• Autonomy, so that persons or entities in Cadmus strive to act or respond out of their experience of their desire to seek the best in themselves and others.
• Interdependence, so that we honor the true dynamic of community by living by mutual support of each other.
• Independence, so that we build a foundation for participating in interdependence by developing independence.
• Responsibility, so that we live as custodians of each other and the Earth.
• Trust, so that we all undertake to do our best with what we have been given to work with.
• Relationships, so that learning to know ourselves and live by the Golden Rule are two of the most important things in life.
• Listening/hearing, so that the most important thing is to assure that one understands what the other one is communicating.
• Freedom, so that we respect everyone’s freedom to choose their path through life.
• Integrity, so that we do what we say we will do.
• Accepting needs of self and others, so that we honor the choices others make.
• Respect, so that we treat others with respect and honor their rights. With regard to rights we make specific reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations on December 10th, 1948.
• To view the full text of the Declaration please visit: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html.
• Peace, so that we will seek a win-win solution to every conflict and believe that the time spent to get there is better spent that way than fighting over the differences.
• Loose (flexibility) / Tight (structure), so that we can go with the flow while still respecting the value of structure and timeliness.
• Brotherliness/Sisterliness, so that we are more successful when we help each other than when we stick too closely to our own beliefs and roles.
• Celebration, so that we respond best when our growth, gains and achievements are celebrated publicly.
• Appreciation, so that - you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
• Interest, so that we can reconnect with someone by taking an interest in their life or biography.
• Humor, so that a soft, indirect approach often gets your point across better.
• Honesty, so that being true to oneself, ones values and speaking and acting truthfully create a foundation of trust.
• Acceptance, so that starting from where the other is at creates a feeling of security on which to build a relationship.
• Forgiveness, so that acceptance includes acceptance of the errors of the other and that expressing that acceptance without expectation of recompense or retribution creates the space for a new beginning.
• Tolerance, so that acceptance includes all differences.
• Love, so that we believe that love is a verb and that it is also the fuel that keeps the other values running.
• Patience, so that we can always give the other more time if we can experience their commitment.
• Recognition of Spirit, so that the Spirit World is the true reality behind the Physical/Material and that our task is to reunite the two.

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Principles Spiritual:

Each person is a divine magnificent creation of God, endowed with a divine spiritual essence that is inviolable, eternal and perfect.

As we incarnate into a physical body there is always a diminution of the ability and possibility for that divine essence to manifest in life. In other words we are all, to a greater or lesser extent, handicapped. When this lessening of our potential reaches a recognizable threshold we are deemed to have a handicapping condition, which makes it necessary for us to be supported to live safely and productively.

Our handicaps do not obscure the spirit; on the contrary it is often through our handicaps and idiosyncrasies that we are most spiritually transparent to others. Recognizing the presence of the spirit in the other requires our active and educated interest and leads to furthering the destiny of each person. This is another way of stating the Mission of the Cadmus Lifesharing Association. This applies to all of the members of Cadmus and allows for significant role reversals. Each of us, in our own way, asks the questions: “What is the significance for both of us of our relationship? What do I have to do with this person? What may I learn from them and what may I give to them?” Back to the Top

Social:

We believe that the most important thing in life is relationships. Everything else is how we give substance, value, and life to those relationships.

There are three fundamental ways we relate:

1. Dependent
2. Independent
3. Interdependent

Life often progresses through these ways of relating. For the labeled person the possibility of independence and interdependence, may seem remote, however, to increase independence and foster interdependence, for example, to learn to receive, value, and appreciate the help offered by others and ultimately to discover the ways in which one can be helpful to others is the substance and life and relationships. Back to the Top

Economic Life and Work:

We share an explicit agreement to recognize and lovingly further each other's initiatives and compensate for and forgive our mistakes and disabilities.

We believe that our most essential work is to develop so that our divine essence can shine through our physical manifestation. Thus, we build relationships in our households, and within Cadmus as a whole, based on a commitment to recognize and further our individual destinies. Each of us is committed, at whatever level is comfortable for us, to work on self-improvement and self-knowledge. As a community it is our goal to foster a dynamic community life where it is no handicap to be "handicapped." That is, where we recognize that the real work each of us has to do is increasing our self-awareness and our efforts to help each other on this path. These values and principles lead, in turn, to a desire to help those in need of soul care into life situations that optimize their experience of their self worth through work that is seen to have value for others. Back to the Top

The quality of life that the practice of the above values and principles gives rise to is not easily quantified. It is best experienced first hand. Anyone with an interest in our community is welcome to come and visit. We are happy to accommodate spontaneous visits and extended stays. Back to the Top