View of the Goetheanum and surroundings from the Goetheanum Gardens (photo by Anthony Mecca)
Rudolf Steiner’s Seven Life Processes
International Biodynamic Agriculture Conference in Dornach, Switzerland, February 5 - 8, 2025
By Anthony Mecca, Biodynamic Association Co-Director
Photos by Goetheanum_Xue Li (unless otherwise noted)
What is your ideal of the agriculture of the future? How do we work and act from where we are now towards this ideal? How does developing biodynamic agriculture contribute to the agriculture of the future?
This was the work of over 700 participants from forty-seven countries around the world at this year’s International Biodynamic Agriculture Conference in Dornach, Switzerland, February 5-8, 2025. Coming from many different cultures and backgrounds, various perspectives, experiences, and needs from our roles in agriculture as well as with biodynamics and anthroposophy, we made the Goetheanum our home for four-plus days, bringing agricultural life and culture to bear upon it! In a joyous yet serious mood, we gathered our questions, experiences, and inspirations together to help take steps toward the future of biodynamic agriculture.
The three major themes of the future of biodynamic agriculture, the earth as a living being, and Rudolf Steiner’s seven life processes wove together beautifully. An underlying tone of understanding and participating in developmental processes of metamorphosis was created, of change and transformation towards higher potentials. With our ideals in hand, we trudged the path of challenging revelations and encounters with ourselves and the world through the carefully curated conference.
Seven life processes and seven learning processes
Our days began together in the Goetheanum Great Hall, our common gathering space. The Goetheanum itself, and the Great Hall particularly, is a wonder that exemplifies transformation and metamorphosis. The architecture, combined with engraved colored-glass windows and intricate ceiling paintings, brings to life the development of humanity thus far and looks towards the future and how we can participate more fully in it. Amongst all the festivities, one can recognize being in a modern-day cathedral of sorts, which makes for a supportive setting.
Each year, a Michael Letter from Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts frames the conference. Morning dialogues from experienced practitioners and newcomers to this work related the letter to the other themes and the work of biodynamic agriculture. This year's letter was "Michael’s Task in the Sphere of Ahriman." For the past 500 years, humanity has become more free from the natural world and from each other through the process of individuation. We have developed materialistic science and technology to high degrees, which has served us in innumerable ways. How can we use these faculties and freedom as individuals to come together out of spiritual activity to serve the life of the earth and humanity? It was inspiring to be among 700 others actively engaged with this content and these questions.
One of the workshops
A wide variety of workshops focused on Rudolf Steiner’s Seven Life Processes of breathing – warming – nourishing – secreting – maintaining – growing – reproducing, which were also translated into Seven Learning Processes of perceiving – relating – assimilating – Individualizing – practicing – growing – creating. I offered a workshop on “Nutrition for the Farm and Human Being” through the lens of these life processes, as well as an afternoon workshop on working with inner experience to “Experience the Life of the Earth'”, each of which included significant contributions from local eurhythmists. I am grateful to the eurhythmists for going out on a limb and saying yes, and also to the participants—I learned a lot! There were over fifty other workshops to deepen this aspect of working with the seven life processes in agriculture, as well as many artistic and meditative practices.
Panel of Regenerative Agriculture Initiatives
Our time together in the late afternoon in the Great Hall brought together individual sharings and panels from around the world on various themes. The first day showcased large and growing regenerative agricultural initiatives (gathering the support of tens and hundreds of thousands of farmers!) focused on empowering smallholder farmers. These included the biodynamic Economy of Love in Egypt, the Billion Agave Project in Mexico, and Andhra Pradesh’s Community-Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) movement in India. On the second day we heard from representatives of Indigenous communities in Indonesia, Mexico, and India about their impressive work and deep relationships to biodynamics. The final panel brought together people from agriculture, education, and medicine to share examples of creating farms for the future where community health is central. Tobias Hartkemeyer from Hof Pente, Berni Courts from Ruskin Mill Trust, Antoinette Simonart and Ruben Segers from De Kollebloem, and Martin Günther Sterner, a specialist in internal medicine and gastroenterology, spoke from their work on inspiring projects that transcend boundaries and reimagine the potential of farms, community, and health.
Panel of representatives from Indigenous communities connected to biodynamics
The impact of biodynamics worldwide in a variety of settings was clearly shown throughout each of these offerings. Though seeded from Steiner and others’ work in Europe, biodynamics is an impulse for the entire world. It has the potential to serve all places, cultures, scales, and other situational differences. It transcends, develops, and individualizes according to the practitioner and the need. Rather than a set recipe, biodynamics is a path of growing faculties and relationships to bring healing to humanity and the earth.
Miha Pogacnik offering a violin concert
One of the aspects that had the greatest impact on me was the feature of working artistically and being immersed in art. The arts, culture, and a celebration of life were on display throughout the conference. Experiences of music, eurhythmy, painting, sculpture, and more were on offer in the Great Hall, workshops, and surroundings. Working with an artistic perspective alongside our common technical outlook can harmonize our imbalances and help form more whole, healthy, living relationships between human beings and the earth.
Artistic expressions from a workshop
Prior to the conference, I also had the opportunity to participate in other events. One was the Circle of Representatives to the Agriculture Section at the Goetheanum. This is a longstanding group of sixty to eighty people that meets twice a year to support the dynamic interplay of the international biodynamic community and the work at the Goetheanum. We gathered to share from our work around the world, hear of the work of the Section this past year, and prepare for the conference as a “holding group” to collectively carry the themes and impulse of the conference. We also gathered afterward to reflect on the conference and look toward the coming year. There was a potency and gravitas that inspires me to continue working with this group, as well as to consider how to bring similar impulses to our work in the US.
There was also a pre-conference day for trainers and advisors, for the first time combined together, put on jointly by the Section for Agriculture and Biodynamic Federation-Demeter International (BFDI). Around eighty gathered to share our experiences. There were a number of offerings, including exploring our interests in working together and what that could look like, a perspective from working as an advisor in Germany to 120 farms concurrently and how to enrich working with the Agriculture Course, an overview and exercise on inner development in relationship to training and advising from myself, and smaller groups to delve into different offerings in training and advising. It was a rich start to this new impulse to bring trainers and advisors together.
Besides all of this, there were so many wonderful meetings of old and new friends! I thoroughly enjoyed connecting with people from near and far: people I’d just met, those who I’ve shared many conversations with via zoom and email, and those I’ve known for years to catch up and to create visions for future work together.
To conclude the conference, a group of younger people led all of us through Hallelujah in eurhythmy. Somehow we all managed to make it work from our seats in a beautiful rhymitized harmony.
Hallelujah in eurythmy
The conference was a transformative experience. I am grateful for the opportunity and hope to continue these relationships as well as bring some inspiring impulses to the work in the US. I highly encourage you to consider attending next year—it’s not as far as you’d think!
The theme of the year looking towards the 2026 conference, which will take place from February 4 to 7, 2026, is "You never farm alone. Living Communities for the future." The foundation for the conference will be the Michael Letter "Michael’s Experiences and Encounters during the Fulfillment of His Cosmic Mission" from Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, GA 26. Many people worldwide work with the letter and theme throughout the year, which—whether one attends or not—helps form a rich conference.
BFDI mission and vision (photo by Anthony Mecca)
Anthony Mecca is a farmer dedicated to healing the relationship between human beings and the earth through education, community building, research, and development. Over the past decade, he has developed and led training programs for the Biodynamic Association. As Co-Director, Anthony is responsible for programs and training, as well as working with the social arts towards building a more harmonious and vibrant biodynamic community. Anthony is also a director of EduCareDo where he offers a distance learning course on Biodynamic Agriculture and Nutrition and contributes to the Foundations in Anthroposophy course. Anthony works and lives on Sun Heart Farm, an educational and therapeutic community farm in the valley between the Berkshire and Taconic mountains in New York.