Anthroposophy Weekly

07/09/2025

Benno Otter has spent half his life tending the park and gardens around the Goetheanum. Now he gives courses in nature appreciation. Wolfgang Held sat down with him for a conversation about how he brings nature closer to people.

Wolfgang Held: Do you remember one of your first experiences in nature?

Benno Otter: I grew up in northern Holland. I recall looking at the carnations we grew in our garden when I was six or seven years old and thinking they were beautiful. My second experience came during my school days. We had a wonderful biology teacher who gave us the task of creating a herbarium. So, I rode around on my bike and got to know nature properly for the first time. We had to collect a hundred different plants.

A hundred? And you learned all their names?

Yes, we had to dry the plants and identify them in the traditional way, with an identification book. It wasn’t a Waldorf school, but later, when I met my teacher again in high school, it turned out that he was an anthroposophist. He eventually introduced me to anthroposophy, and that’s how I ended up doing a biodynamic training in the Netherlands.

Do you have a favorite plant?

Goethe’s archetypal plant!

https://dasgoetheanum.com/en/how-nature-finds-a-home-within-us/

07/09/2025

Benno Otter has spent half his life tending the park and gardens around the Goetheanum. Now, he gives courses in nature appreciation. Wolfgang Held sat down with him for a conversation about how he brings nature closer to people.

Benno Otter has spent half his life tending the park and gardens around the Goetheanum. Now he gives courses in nature appreciation. Wolfgang Held sat down

07/09/2025

The Inherent Good

Lucy Nordin is an active member of the North American Youth Section. Here, she talks about what working for the section means to her.

Being part of the Youth Section gives me a lot: peace of mind, hope, shared ambition. I hear and feel so much criticism of people today, from older and younger generations alike. I appreciate being a part of the Youth Section because I think the overall sense is one of hope and capability, an interest in acknowledging the innate good within people, and nurturing it.

In our branch of the Youth Section, there is such a powerful emphasis on craft, similar to the culture of traditional craft I grew up in. I don’t remember the exact moment I began to see it, but at some point, I started to notice a craving for work, or creation, or craft, handwork, whatever you want to call it, in the world, and I haven’t been able to unsee it since. I think it’s representative of more than just the desire to create, though, perhaps a capacity that’s deeply human, and just not taught to flourish within societal norms today.

I think my peers in the Youth Section are asking for something similar to the world around us. We’re asking people to come back into contact with those human gifts, to give attention to the community and nourishment that grows alongside them. We, as a Youth Section, are trying to hopefully create the environment that allows people to do just that. I don’t think there’s anyone more qualified to lead that charge than the young people of today, and I feel ever so grateful to be able to be a part of it.

https://dasgoetheanum.com/en/the-inherent-good/

06/09/2025

Threads of Potential
Voices of the North American Youth Section: Berenika Lehrman.

My name is Berenika Lehrman, and I’m 24 years old. I’ve spent the last two years creating and teaching at a small homeschool program called Chrysalis. It was born out of the desire to discover what a new education model could be, to take up the question that led to the formation of the first Waldorf school, and find its newness in this time. I’ve worked as a welder, actor, and craftsperson since I graduated high school, educating myself and being educated in the school of life and lived experience. I am currently creating an actors’ ensemble and am the house manager at Free Columbia, an arts initiative in Upstate New York. I am an organizer with the North American Youth Section and have been involved in the section for three years. I am continually searching for how to build and discover meaningful encounters. I have struggled (and still do) with the question of how to participate in the bigness of the world as a “professional” of any kind and maintain a genuine connection to spirituality; the significance of the small moments that provide powerful opportunities for depth, insight, and the feeling of the universal. The Youth Section has reminded me and given me a sense that, though I have encountered much apathy and materialism, there are many young people looking for a connection to the spirit, and through this, are full of enthusiasm and passion to engage with the difficulties facing our generation. I have felt the threads of potential and solidarity that extend across continents and experienced the blossoming that can happen when they weave together.
https://dasgoetheanum.com/en/threads-of-potential/

06/09/2025

New Anthropological Perspectives to Extend Science - Jean-Michel Florin

A study by Jürgen Fritz on the two biodynamic spray preparations takes an important step toward explaining their effects scientifically. New analytical techniques show that the preps have the same effect as soil inoculants, which promote the growth of microorganisms and thereby support plant growth. But this is not enough for the critics of biodynamics. How can we bridge the gap between these different worldviews?

Despite serious scientific studies, critics of biodynamics continue to mock it and label it pseudoscience, especially in France. The “materialistic paradigm” cannot find an approach to characterize such practices. But a new trend in natural anthropology may offer a bridge. It has emerged in recent years in various countries: in the US and Canada with Donna Haraway and Eduardo Kohn, in Colombia with Arturo Escobar, in Brazil with Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, in Belgium with Vinciane Despret, and in France with Bruno Latour and Philippe Descola.

https://dasgoetheanum.com/en/new-anthropological-perspectives-to-extend-science/

05/09/2025

True Search: an open-source project of the North American Youth Section.

At the annual conference of the North American Youth Section in the summer of 2024, the idea was born to create a non-profit internet search engine that supports social threefolding in the spirit of anthroposophy on a global level. Thus, True Search was founded, an alternative to large, less transparently operated search engines such as Google or Yahoo. True Search is powered by open-source software and can be used free of charge. It has the advantage of collecting results from other search engines, but does not store any information about the user. This means that the search results are less personalized, but personal data is not used or shared with third parties. If the search engine is used regularly by only 300 people, it can finance itself through advertising revenue; all surplus revenue is passed on to various anthroposophical initiatives.
https://dasgoetheanum.com/en/charitable-searching/

05/09/2025

Dreaming the Future
Voices of the North American Youth Section: Lucy Nordin

My name is Lucy Nordin, I’m 25, and I live in Philmont, New York, a small rural village about two and a half hours outside New York City. When I left my hometown in Michigan five years ago, my intention was to visit New York for a gap year program at Free Columbia and then return to Michigan to join the family business. My visit soon turned into the making of a new home. Following a season of learning, I turned towards agriculture in an attempt to become more engaged with the Earth’s seasons and became fully captivated by farming. In the time since, I have begun to form a career here, first being introduced to organic and biodynamic vegetable farming, and then finding my way to and settling into livestock farming for my 5th season.

I’ve cultivated and been blessed with a lovely situation here. I have a safe and beautiful apartment that I share with a dear friend and two cats. I’m free to garden on the property as I please. Once a week, I work at a local farm store, stocking out produce, both local and specialty products, for creative people who are just as captivated by the art of food as I am. All of this is happening within a 20-minute radius of a very large concentration of North American Youth Section members.

Our branch of the Youth Section has been dedicating a lot of time towards planning our 2025 conference, The Light Between. Within that, it’s hard to define a specific ‘role’ …. I think our team is quite fluid in terms of people moving in and out of different tasks depending upon what they’re able to offer, both in skill and practical availability. I’m often drawn to more practical tasks, I find myself doing a lot of marketing and outreach, and I enjoy logistical work that involves puzzling, things like creating schedules or plans. I enjoy most of all dreaming of the future, the conversations about what our world contains, and what we want to do to bring it to the surface.

https://dasgoetheanum.com/en/dreaming-the-future/

29/08/2025

Every Autumn, the Goetheanum receives a new cohort of students for the three-trimester Anthroposophy Studies on Campus.

Every Autumn, the Goetheanum receives a new cohort of students for the three-trimester Anthroposophy Studies on Campus. Central to the learning experience are

28/08/2025

Since anthroposophy is neither a system nor a doctrine but a special kind of science, the question of how it is taught is particularly interesting.

Since anthroposophy is neither a system nor a doctrine but a special kind of science, the question of how it is taught is particularly interesting. Louis

28/08/2025

The etheric body learns through repetition. You could keep practicing eurythmy’s threefold stepping, lift-carry-place, for a lifetime. The astral body, on the other hand, learns by realizing something once.

Georg Unger, former head of the Mathematical-Astronomical Section, was a mathematician with a choleric temperament. This combination made him quite good with

25/08/2025

From October 10 to 12, 2025, the second international Sekem Festival will take place in Graz, Austria.

Graz, Austria. The second Sekem Festival in Austria.

24/08/2025

2025 is the 100th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s death. How does he live on in particular individuals? Eduardo Rincón, co-leader of the Section for Agriculture at the Goetheanum, gives his answers.

Dornach, Switzerland. 2025 is the 100th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner's death. How does he live on in particular individuals? Eduardo Rincón, co-leader of the