Community, Compassion and Passion: Retreat for Farm-Based Educators, November 13, 2009

At the first annual Farm Based Educators Retreat in East Troy, Wisconsin, like-minded folks came together to be able to serve one another and thus, ultimately serve the anthroposophical community with deep support in the realm of child and adult farming and gardening education.
After a rather tortuous drive to East Troy, having to navigate my way through Chicago's traffic jams, wrong turns provided by mapquest, and washed-out bridges, I at last arrived at my destination in the dark of a cold night. As soon as I walked through the door, a bearded man greeted me in a lighted portal and warmly said, "finally we meet, my friend." I had the sense that he wasn't just referring to this lifetime. Any anxieties I had about my time together with relative strangers melted away instantly. The rest was uphill from there.
by Jake Ciofalo (Lavender Lane Biodynamic Farm)
The variety of members (25 in all) and their relationship to farming and gardening education at the retreat was remarkable. Among the notables present as guests or as participants were:
    •  Ruth Zinniker, the daughter of one of the farmers who had attended Rudolf Steiner's agriculture lectures in 1924 in what             was then Silesia, Germany, from which sprang the biodynamic movement. She now resides on Zinniker Farm, the oldest             working biodynamic farm in the United States.
    •  Robert Karp, Executive Director of the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association.
    •  Farmer John, founder of Angelics Organics and eccentric protagonist of the moving film The Real Dirt on Farmer John.
    •  Lori Barian, the editor of Correspondence from the Central Region of the
        Anthroposophical Society.
Like myself, there were biodynamic farmers and gardeners who serve the community with CSAs (community supported agriculture) and education. In attendance were also Waldorf teachers who had farms and gardens. The group was surprisingly diverse, but each in attendance was impassioned about the land, educating children and adults and about simply being together.
The central question of the retreat revolved around the significance of farm and garden education for the community and how to best support that endeavor both materially and spiritually. Robert Karp did an amazing job with leading our efforts in this direction. I must share some of what he did because the process was so fascinating and effective.
There was a fair amount of journaling to help tap into sources of inspiration regarding our farms, and their roles – both through struggles and successes - in educating the community. We focused on how we can improve our methods to meet the educational demands of the present and achieve better results in the future. There were dialogue walks in the woods with small groups.
Robert also gave us an opportunity to work with case clinics that have been designed by Otto Scharmer, author of Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges. Living in the "U" is the process of achieveing an open mind, open heart, and open will. One person in a group of four presented a challenge he or she faces as a farm or garden-based educator. The process lasts about 70 minutes and involves penetrating questions, thoughtful reactions, and a lengthy period of silence for visualization. The latter, according to Scharmer and derived from Rudolf Steiner, is very important when working through life's difficulties. Confidentiality prevents me from revealing specifics, but I will share the fact that I was a listener/questioner in a group. I was delighted to be part of a process wherein a very sensitive problem was handled in a respectful, thoughtful, and inspirational manner with real solutions provided as a result of this case clinic model.
In the end, we all felt very well rested, very well fed, and deeply motivated to go back home to our farms, gardens and schools to continue our work. Our strong desire for the coming year is to find ways to convey to the community the significance of farm and garden education. One of the ways we felt we could do this, is by revealing stories of how working with plants and animals on our farms or in our gardens touched someone in a significant way. Our winter source of inward reflection is to read Rudolf Steiner's Awakening to Community. We also felt compelled as a group to convene on an annual basis. Lastly, the majority of us felt that it was paramount to continue to energize and educate Waldorf schools and their communities on two fronts. The first one is to keep reiterating Rudolf Steiner's reasons for why it is vital to consume biodynamic food to awaken all of the senses. The second is to continue to inform the adult world about the precious opportunities provided in a garden or on a farm for children of all ages to meaningfully develop their minds, hearts, and hands.
As a closing exercise, we all had to arrive at a distillation of three words to describe our experience at the retreat. For me they were community, compassion, and passion. When we parted, it felt like we had known one another for aeons. Recalling how I was greeted with such remarkable assurance, perhaps we had.