A Healing Agriculture: Human Beings, Technology, and the Life of the Earth
July
29
to 2 Aug

A Healing Agriculture: Human Beings, Technology, and the Life of the Earth

  • An inperson event in Stephentown, NY USA (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Offered by the Biodynamic Demeter Alliance in partnership with EduCareDo, Sun Heart Farm, Hawthorne Valley Farm, Camphill Village Copake, and Churchtown Dairy.

See the full schedule in USA EDST here

Deepen your understanding of biodynamic agriculture

Over 3+ days working together we will explore the human being’s unique role in creating a healing agriculture in a context that is increasingly dominated by mechanical and digital technology. Biodynamics focuses on fostering healthy relationships in all aspects of our lives; with the natural world, within social life, and with ourselves. By developing our capacities to perceive and serve the life of the earth and humanity, we may help create and use ‘moral’ technologies with a potential to heal. 

Through presentations, conversation, exercises, artistic activities, practical work, and farm visits, we will strive to more fully know, experience, and participate co-creatively in agriculture. New approaches from biodynamic agriculture will be offered to help us bring forward the gifts of our plant, animal, soil, and human communities towards creating a nourishing and healthy community of life.

This course is designed for anyone participating in or interested in deepening their relationship to and understanding of agriculture: farmers, gardeners, and homesteaders, food system and non-profit workers, activists, parents, caregivers, community members, and eaters. The richness and diversity of views and experience can create a lively interplay that we encourage in our learning environments. No prior experience is needed, just an openness and willingness to engage together.

Throughout the days there will be ample social time to enjoy and get to know each other. Three simple organic and biodynamic daily meals and snacks will be provided and are included in the course tuition.

Accommodations and travel are the responsibility of each participant; we can help with housing and travel options – please contact anthony@biodynamics.com

Presenters include Anthony Mecca, Spencer Fenniman, Jess Brobst, Todd Newlin, Steffen Schneider, Jean-David Derremeuax, Lia Babitch, Marc Blachere, and Sam Mirkin.

Schedule Overview

Our home base will be Sun Heart Farm in Stephentown, NY.

We will gather together for introductions and initial sharings the evening of July 29th.

During our three full days together, July 30-Aug 2, each morning will focus on presentations, exercises, and conversation. We will then work with artistic experience to further explore and integrate the classroom experiences. We will share lunch and social time together. We will then visit a different farm each afternoon, speaking with the farmers about their experiences and questions working with biodynamics, seeing different types and sizes of farms and farming activities, and tasting some of what they have to offer:

After traveling back to Sun Heart Farm, we will enjoy dinner together.

There will be different evening activities that welcome in the broader community, and may include working with the night sky.

The morning of Friday August 2nd we will weave together our work and share reflections and next steps.

See the full schedule here.

 

Registration

Register on the Biodynamic Association website.

We wish for this course to be accessible to anyone interested in participating. There is a discounted rate as well as a standard and supporter rate to help cover our costs. You are also welcome to donate to help others attend even if you are not attending. If you are in need beyond the discounted rate to attend, please contact anthony@biodynamics.com.

Standard: $570 USD

Supporter: $750 USD — help someone else to attend

Discounted: $264 USD — support for equity, youth, and others to attend (email anthony@biodynamics.com for discount code)

Questions?

Email: biodynamics@educaredo.org

Register on the Biodynamic Association website.

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Inner and Outer Preparation for the Biodynamic Three King's Prep
Dec
4
4:30 am04:30

Inner and Outer Preparation for the Biodynamic Three King's Prep

  • This webinar takes place online! (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Register on the Biodynamic Association website.

All of the biodynamic preparations can be strengthened and fortified by understanding the esoteric wisdom that lives behind how they are made and why they are used. With winter fast approaching, we will seek to understand the healing offering of the biodynamic three kings prep and how we can support its work through both inner and outer preparation. We will explore living consciously with the spiritual year towards deeper care and understanding of the natural world.
While we celebrate the cycle of the year collectively, these celebrations also represent and relate to the individual's path of development. The mystery schools of the past brought outer festivals to present the community with the esoteric wisdom clothed in outer forms. Today this wisdom is not engaged with consciously by the chosen few but is now for the many. Deepening our understanding and ability to participate in the spiritual year supports us on the path of inner development and in relationship to the spiritual world and to our farms, gardens, and communities.

In this webinar, we will examine how developing inner capacities allows us to more clearly perceive and bring healing activities to the land and to our communities. From this viewpoint, we will explore foundational pictures out of anthroposophy relevant to biodynamics and the renewal of agriculture.

 This webinar will be part presentation, and part experiential exercises, drawing from the EduCareDo foundation year course, a self-directed, distance-learning course based on the principal ideas of Rudolf Steiner. Together we will orient towards the inner work and development of faculties of perception to support our relationship to our farms and our communities.

The  EduCareDo foundation year course is part of the curriculum for the Biodynamic Farmer Foundation Year.

The cost of the webinar is $20 for the general public and $10 for Biodynamic Association members. To receive your discount:

  • Current members: log in to the website at top right, then member discount will be included in the price below. Trouble logging in? Click here for more information.

  • New members: Become a member online before you register. Log out of your account, log back in, and then member discount will be included in the price below.

  • Renewing members: login and renew your membership online before you register. Log out of your account, log back in, and then member discount will be included in the price below.

To participate in this webinar, you will need to have a reliable internet connection and a computer, tablet, or smartphone with a camera and microphone. If you don’t have a device that will support this video technology, you may access the course via telephone. 

This webinar will be recorded, and all registered participants will have access to the video recording on the Biodynamic Association website for 6 months after the webinar. 

For questions about registration, email registrar@biodynamics.com(link sends e-mail) or call 262-649-9212 x2

Presenters:

Lisa Romero is an author of six books, a complementary health practitioner and an adult educator. For the last twelve years her primary focus has been on teaching inner development and anthroposophical meditation. Lisa offers lectures, courses and retreats for professional and personal development in communities and schools. Her books include 'The Inner Work Path’ focusing on meditation practice, 'Developing the Self’ written after years of working with Waldorf teachers to support their inner work and pedagogical understanding of child development, 'Living Inner Development’ offering an understanding of the inner experiences and results of various inner development exercises,'Sex Education and The Spirit' to help awaken an understanding of our communal responsibility for the healthy development of gender and sexuality within society, ‘Spirit-led Community’ on healing the effects of technology, and 'A Bridge to Spirit' on understanding conscious self-development and consciousness-altering substances. For many years, Lisa taught at Sydney Rudolf Steiner College on Health & Nutrition and Male/Female studies, where she continues to teach faculty courses in inner development. Lisa designed and facilitated EduCareDo 'Towards Health and Healing', which ran eight-year-long courses; she also co-authored two of the EduCareDo foundation year lessons, which are used as part of the curriculum for the Biodynamic Association of North America's Farmer Foundation Year. She was the 2019 keynote speaker at the Southeast Biodynamic Conference and offered multiple workshops at the North American Biodynamic Association Conference in 2018.

Lisa is a contributor, teacher and director for Inner Work PathEduCareDoDeveloping the Self Developing the World and the Y Project

Anthony Mecca Is Farmer Training Coordinator for the Biodynamic Association. Anthony began farming 15 years ago, in search of a place to wonder, explore, and serve. In farming, he found hot sun, hard physical work, and community to be potent medicine. After five years learning from a diversity of farms, Anthony was called to the Hudson Valley of New York to begin Great Song Farm, a diversified vegetable CSA farm, in 2010. Here he found his kin and began deepening his work with biodynamic farming, anthroposophy, inner work, and community life. In 2018, Anthony passed Great Song onto other farmers to focus on Farmer Training while milking at Churchtown Dairy, near Hudson, NY. Fostering direct and meaningful relationships between nature, agriculture, and community is central to his work. Anthony brings experiences as a student, WWOOFer, apprentice, farm-worker, farmer, and mentor to his work coordinating Farmer Training at the BDA.

Register on the Biodynamic Association website.

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Agriculture and Social Health: Empowering Each Other to Live Well in Our Tasks
Nov
13
to 14 Nov

Agriculture and Social Health: Empowering Each Other to Live Well in Our Tasks

  • Red Lion Hotel on the River - Jantzen Beach (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

EduCareDo tutors Lisa Romero and Anthony Mecca will be offering a workshop with Orland Bishop and Ronan O’Connor as part of the 2018 Biodynamic Association Conference.

The role of agriculture is central to healthy community life, and to helping new forms of community to grow. In the face of many challenges, we must find new ways of working together as colleagues and co-workers, mentors and apprentices, teachers and students. As we strive to meet each other as individuals, regardless of age, race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, culture, or social or economic status, a new exploration of social health is emerging.         

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