Dear friends and colleagues,

In this Circular we intend to discuss the transition from the old Theme of the year to the new one and to report on the Autumn Council meeting at the farm of Nicolas Joly in France.

Liesbeth Bisterbosch has written an article to cover the transition from the old Theme to the new one. Nikolai Fuchs takes a look at the new Theme and Stefan Mahlich gives a report of the Council Meeting in France.

On the form and content of the Circular

People may have realised from recent Circulars that we are still wrestling with the form and content of the Circular. Should the contributions consist of anthroposophy that we have digested and made our own, something familiar to us from Manfred Klett ((not everyone may be up to this), or should they be articles on the theme (which are also to be found, quite possibly, in a similar form in our biodynamic journals)? Or else, should they involve comprehensive references to recommended reading material as a stimulus to our own studies as in the Summer issue, or are different aspects, collected from several authors better as with the Autumn 2004 issue? Sometimes I muse whether the texts of the Circulars should rather have the quality of sayings or mantras, which encourage us to reflect or meditate? How is it for you as readers of the Circular? Will you please let us know!

We are looking forward to the coming time with the Council, the Sektionskreis and the Agricultural Conference along with all further opportunities for meeting that may arise.

We wish you a good and fruitful New Year!

Nikolai Fuchs Stefan O. Mahlich

On the current Theme of the Year - Karl Ebermann

A closer scrutiny of the Theme reveals it as having a wide compass and we run the risk of losing ourselves in its vastness. The starting-point appears simple at first, a perception which, however, turns out to be problematic and inappropriate. The following words of Rudolf Steiner are quoted to enable us to gain a better grasp of the Theme in its contextual framework:

The Stars spake once to Man.
It is World-destiny
That they are silent now.
To be aware of the silence
Can become pain for earthly Man.

But in the deepening silence
There grows and ripens
What Man speaks to the Stars.
To be aware of the speaking
Can become strength for Spirit-Man.

Rudolf Steiner, December 1923.

Through the silence of the cosmos man stands there alone, to begin with, without any connection to the world. The conscious realisation of this fact is the pre-requirement and basis for a dialogue; it is a dialogue, which originates with the individual person. The waking up, brought about by outer conditions, leaves it up to the individual person to move on to activity. Through this activity man is able to instil his relationship to the cosmos with some vigour and new life.

Yet, whereabouts is the cosmos? The question arises whether the cosmos is not actually closer to us than the stars in the firmament. However, where are the starting-points for us to enter into a relationship again with the cosmos, and where is the starting-point for the farmer himself? The whole point is not to get stuck with our limitations but to build bridges to the spiritual world and thus to build up the connection by means of the elements in nature. The farmer creates a new order through working with the elements. Through the act of ploughing he gets the solid earth to move and opens up the soil vis-à-vis the cosmos that surrounds it. In the same way, it is the solid element within us that lends us our uprightness and the airy element which surrounds our solidity. The moist air enables us to make headway with our thoughts, to develop them. In the watery element the Idea of the Divine is at work. Man follows creation and imitates it, just as it is described in the Prologue with the words, “In the beginning was the Word”. In the breathing process air and warmth are the agents actively at work. Through connecting our creative activity, through relating our own actions to what is happening outwardly the actual dialogue comes about as an inner conversation. In the Agricultural Course, Rudolf Steiner directed our attention to this inner conversation, to meditation; this is where the spiritual meaning of the world is imparted to man in conversation with the realm of spiritual beings. Thus, nurturing and caring for the elemental domain allows me to be raised up into higher worlds.

If we behold the human form and penetrate it with our gaze, we will become aware that the head with its spherical shape is something self-contained, being emancipated from its environment. The elements in nature are, in their very character, predisposed to work together to break down their surroundings. An illustration of this would be the pitching of the elemental forces of wind and earth against one another, or else, for that matter, of water and earth. The human being or, more precisely, the farmer who is actively shaping the environment in agriculture configures these forces and actively builds up his surroundings. By virtue of ploughing and thus opening the ground, which is a kind of preparation of the soil by man, he manages to enhance the effect of the cosmic powers streaming in. The cosmic forces stream into the earth as into a head that is turned inside out. With the cultivation of the soil we become immediately aware of cohesion in a spiritual sense, that is to say a connection between what is happening within me and what I do in the outer world. The earth is not a speck of dust, but rather the seedling for the future, and indeed for the plant-world more than for anything else.

The Transition from the old Theme to the new one Liesbeth Bisterbosch

The new Theme of the year ‘The Forming of Identity and Openness’ is, in my view, exactly what is meant by outer and inner planets in the Agricultural Course. The forming of identity and openness represent appropriate conceptual approaches, by means of which the concept of the cosmos can be unearthed and elaborated from the Agricultural Course in a sensible way. This approach stands in opposition to the simple connection, the cosmos = constellation research; this exhibits limitations in its method and sometimes even has something dead about it. As an astronomer you can be amazed how rigid and abstract people’s ideas of the events in the firmament often are.
We may wonder which is the right order to write these two concepts, the forming of identity and openness. Seen spiritually, the individuality, the identity of man is present first. After birth the person opens themselves up and develops further. From a sensory perspective, the human being develops through what he opens himself up to. Using this as a basis, the individual can realise his own potential further and further and continue shaping his own personality. Of course, what is at stake is integrating the two! That is just what is so exciting about this theme. Only by opening himself to the world can the human being get his identity really on the right track and further his own self-development.

Now, the same kind of thing can be said of a farm as well: how do you manage with the conditions of the surroundings, the possibilities and limitations? What do you allow to flow in and what not, and would you like to give new shape to in the immediate surroundings? How do you organise, for example, the cultivation from year to year so that the soil can develop further in a healthy way? For instance, you cannot refashion the way the sun behaves through the seasons, and yet you can consciously become creative in working with the sun; thus you can, in the course of cultivation, manage the various forces at work in spring and autumn more consciously as you proceed from year to year. Seen in this light, this would be progress, step by step, from a gesture of openness towards forming identity.

It is interesting what you can gauge from the movements and behaviour of the planets in the heavens. Characteristically, the inner planets have immediate reactions to tendencies in their surroundings. The important thing now is to highlight immediately what at this moment in time the most forceful condition in the surroundings is. There is no such thing as having an overview of the transformations. The future is not predictable and keeps coming up with surprises. It is only after the event that we can understand how the changes occurred and what they are connected with. The style of conduct of the inner planets is noted for being youthful, full of fresh reactions and having its high level of activity. However, it does not show any identity of its own – ‘it gets carried along’. The inner planets, Venus and Mercury are only able to vary a bit this way or that within the framework of the sun’s path through the course of the year. This is where we chiefly find the gesture of openness. They reflect the circumstances and no identity forming occurs.

In contrast to this, the outer planets, Saturn and Jupiter, are in a completely different relationship to the starry firmament and the sun. They move within a definite cosmic background in a subtle way in accordance with the sun in the course of the year. Here there is continual transformation: a planet is ‘born’ and its light becomes more intense and the duration of its shining increases till its opposition to the sun, whereafter its visibility decreases steadily. The planet “dies in the glow of the evening”. Every new step is embedded in a wider context; nothing unexpected ever happens. A certain style of transformation becomes apparent, which is accomplished through a subtle harmonious movement without any spontaneity. What is proper to the outer planets is organised change. We could say that the essential characteristics of the living planet emerge as it develops through metamorphosis. Saturn and Jupiter have a leading star to guide them while they are visible. In the following year, the same style of movement is once again there, but with a shift in cosmic direction. Another way of putting it would be, the characteristic behaviour is always present, just the themes vary from year to year.

In summary, the coming theme of the year calls upon us to view and consider developments, a whole variety of kinds of development. The crux of it is the interplay between the activity of opening up to the impact of the immediate surroundings and even farther afield ( the ego in the periphery’) and of emancipating ourselves in order to develop further in our own way. I find we need living pictures from our own experience, our own souls, in order to be able to get properly involved. We could, quite apart from doing an extended observation of a plant’s development (its development in its surroundings), we could also invite a teacher or other educator or else a social scientist so as to gain a wealth of impressions of the various ways in which people can open up and emancipate themselves, in which they can strengthen their identity.
This text is intended as a response to the invitation to stimulate discussion and thought on the theme of the year.

On the new Theme of the Year - Nikolai Fuchs

At the Council Meeting in autumn 2004 at Nicolas Joly’s farm in France we focused our attention (with regard to the new Theme of the year) on the relationship of the biodynamic movement to the public and the question of quality and of communicating the quality.
Careful consideration was given to the working provisional title for the Theme which runs thus,

“Identity and Openness – In search of a new culture of land work – discussing quality.”
The following contribution contains some initial thoughts on this.

Identity and Openness

The public is something I can experience as out there, confronting me. In a spirit of openness I want to allow what is other inside my domain and, as the circumstances require, to enter myself into this other, thus forming a kind of common bond. World-wide in the present time there are thousands of non-governmental organisations, a visible sign of a strong civic force in society. We have a corresponding situation to this current of modern life with our own organisations and we want to be connected to these other streams. This characteristic feature of contemporary life will stand for no isolation, neither socially nor individually. It is just this force, which is being summoned by the earth and the state democracies to enable them to further develop. This can be a living experience. People can feel issues such as the furthering of humanity as common ground; this can then motivate them to join forces more strongly with other civic or social initiatives. Only today, an Indian biodynamic farmer from Tamil Nadu in the South of India reported that in the aftermath of the tsunami all these social groups came much closer to one another.

No matter how natural it is for the biodynamic movement to co-operate with other non-governmental organisations like the other organic and environmental associations, (for instance, the International Federation of the Organic Agricultural Movement, Ifoam), no matter how much its business activities such as the pursuit of ecology, fair trade, etc. take the same direction as the activities of many other organisations, yet we still need to be mindful that this joint activity with greater scope obviously is a theme for discussion and therefore a question. The more the question of world-views and in our own case, anthroposophy takes up a key position, the less scope emerges for taking up a common yet distinct public position with others. This is where the questions arise which we will certainly touch on and treat in the course of the year.

Representative democracies as well as dictatorships, in any case, in league with globalisation have given rise to the current inescapable issues of our time concerning the individual, initiative and the free development of society in the way in which they find expression through non-governmental organisations. In precisely this way the question about our own identity arises in a new form: who am I, what do I want, what do I (or we) stand for? The efforts of institutions in recent years to establish themselves as models and their corporate identity (CI) bear eloquent witness to this process. Identity forming does not have to end up as a rigid model; for example, the ‘learning organisation’, can, nonetheless, be an expression of the process of self-identification.
In Search of a new farming culture
A longing for outside stimulation can also manifest itself through the openness for other influences. Do we feel more or less alone in our work realm, not sufficiently connected with the world? Are we spiritually capable of coping with being alone? How are things to move forward with the farming impulse, with ourselves and with those close to us? Searching with others can bring about unity of spirit, it is directed to something in the future. And what could com e towards us out of the future better than young people? And thus it is worthwhile asking what kind of questions young people bring with them; just what do they want to bring into their questions from us, from the movement and from themselves?
In this search we feel we have something in common with the whole of humanity, which nowadays needs to ask itself what kind of cultivation, what kind of farming culture it wants to create for the future.

Discussing Quality

Last but not least, we may find common ground with others with quality and the striving for quality, judging and discussing quality, exchange of as well as communication about quality products. The myriad definitions of the concept ‘quality’ maybe suggest the need for an overriding view-point to this end. Adopting the approach of Robert M. Pirsig*, we can pursue the thought that quality is not a characteristic of all things, but that everything has its origins in quality. Then perhaps, what is relevant to the aspect concerned, or, for that matter, anything that is at times attached to the concept of quality or else is more or less consciously attached to it, undergoes a transformation into something far more comprehensive. The question of ‘Where does it come from?’, or else, taken in a wider context, of the origins of things comes into view.
This question about quality can be an exciting area and theme for discussion with others.
We are all called upon to work upon and further elaborate the Theme of the year.

*In the book: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Report of the Council Meeting at La Coulee de Serrant, Savennieres from 28th- 31st October 2004
Stefan Mahlich