Why does it make sense to strengthen relationships with nature and community right now?
 

In times of crisis, instability and upheaval, the following applies:

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- Dare to do something new

- Do what seems important now

- Follow your bliss

 

All external securities are pseudo-securities, now it is time to foster personal change.

Therefore experience:

- connection with the earth (soil)
- Inner deepening (soul)
- A community (society)

Essential Skills for Today
 

Satish Kumar's trinity: “Soil, Soul, Society” includes everything that counts today: connection with nature and becoming earth firm; Cultivate inner life and enrich it with essentials, deepen sensitivity and establish a meditative life that enriches and invigorates; Experience and live real community, as fraternal help, as protection, as a safe place to communicate and to grow.

Sense of nature, earthly piety, healing will - these are words that Rudolf Steiner coined to name what the new generations need to develop to bring about something new. Something that society urgently needs to get out of today's crisis, which is a crisis originating in the loss of relationships and a deep connection with nature.

These words indicate the basic qualities that have to be developed today: relationship to nature, relationship to oneself and to others. Instead of abstract thinking, living notions. Recognizing the essence from nature, from moods, from faces, attitudes and gestures is developing a new science out of a sense of nature. Letting the head be touched by the heart is the new religion or is, to become nature pious as it was, for example, Goethe. Training intuitive action from this in order to be able to do the right thing at the right moment is the new art or the spark to heal. This refers to a renewal of all areas of life (and science, religion, art) where these three capacities can be fruitfully applied.

- Live in a developing community
- Close to nature
- Daily studies
- Own project

 

Who is it for?

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This offer is open to students and people who have developed essential questions through a certain training or a life situation. It does not matter whether it is a study of medicine, the natural sciences or the humanities, a eurythmy or an agricultural training. Whoever learns to perceive the soul and spirit in nature and is able to invigorate this as a source of life, right into everyday life and work, can independently and truthfully take up his or her subject. The basis is the authentic experience! This training is about transformation, about thinking with the heart, about being able to experience in a deeper way.

The course offered leads from the head into the heart and into the will. The point is not to accumulate more "knowledge", but rather to develop an attitude towards "nature-intimate" relationships. In this training you learn to read nature and to gaining motivation and intuition from it for your personal and professional life.

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Methods we use

The training takes place in the wild and romantic nature of the Scottish Hebrides near the holy island of Iona, an ancient mystery place. We connect to this tradition in a new way, rooted in anthroposophy and modern open spirituality, deep ecology and Goethean science and the community building ideals of Scott Peck and Rudolf Steiner's "Reverse Cultus". Inspirational hikes (according to Dirk Kruse) are carried out regularly as presencing methods. Part of the training is a 10-day trip to Ireland and an excursion to other Hebridean islands, such as Lewis to the Calanish Stone Circle.
 

The premises

- Simple accommodation closed to nature, from single room, twin bell-tents with a wood burner, a shared holiday cottage and other options.
- Large communal kitchen where you can eat and which serves as a lounge.
- Our seminar room is a spacious and comfortably warm yurt.
- The breathtakingly beautiful setting of Leob Croft and the surrounding area is the extended classroom, with a connection to the sea, near the islands of Iona and Staffa, mountains, moors, heather and a magical vegetable and flower garden.

The weekly and daily schedule

- The week spans between community building and group dynamics council circle talks.
- On Mondays we start the week together with the whole community.

- On Sunday evenings we sit together and discuss openly and honestly how we are doing.
- Every day for about 1 to 2 hours we help out and co-work on the small farm (croft) or in the garden.
- Nature studies and excursions, later also own (but guided) projects.

 

- In the mornings we do a nature study and singing and some eurhythmy .
- Seminar and observation regarding the topic of he week.

- work on the land, the garden, the kitchen.

- lunch together.

- Excursions, observations, further studies, deepening the topic.

- Free late afternoon.
- Dinner together.
- Evening seminar for meditative deepening of what has been experienced, singing.

When, how, where?

- Half a year from Easter to Michaelmas (24 weeks)
- A minimum of 6 and a maximum of 12 participants.
- Languages: German and English.
- £ 10,000 including accommodation and organic meals (50% to be payed upon registration, 50% by the start of your studies).
- @ Leob Croft, Isle of Mull, Scotland, an island of the inner Hebrides in the far west of Europe on the Atlantic Ocean on the site of a small farm with a lot of unspoiled, wild nature.
 

Course facilitators are:

Renatus Derbidge. You will spend most of your time with me, from morning to evening, except in weeks when guest lecturers complement the process, or you are on projects. I studied biology, geography and philosophy in Berlin and later did my doctorate in medicine at the University of Witten / Herdecke with a thesis on mistletoe. In between I worked for a few years as a teacher at Waldorf schools and for ten years in the natural science section at the Goetheanum in Switzerland, most recently as a research assistant in research and teaching. There I dealt intensively with natural history topics in a Goethean way - for example with the knowledge of medicinal plants, climate change, landscape aesthetics, the genius loci and the seasons and cycle of the year.
Another research concern is community building, process support and the spiritual background of Goetheanism in the so-called Western Mysteries. The guiding star for me here is an insight based on Goethe: "If you want to know nature, look inside yourself, if you want to understand yourself, study nature". World renewal begin with oneself, in the spirit of Ghandi: "Be the change you want to see in the world." For me, this perspective goes further to the point that the external change, which begins with one's own shadow work, not only affects the social, but also affects nature. If the interior of nature is the interior of man (Steiner), this means that world and man existentially belong together. My own condition and its change are not solely my own concern. Your own transformation is easier, more efficient and more nourishing in a supportive community. World peace, coexistence, diversity of life, mental and physical health and individual self-awareness work belong together directly. I am still at the beginning, too, but I have started. I want to work to create learning communities to enable positive change. Leob Croft, where I live with my wife Charlot and young daughters Fiona and Marie in a small community on the west coast of Scotland, wants to be such a place.

Charlot Buschgens. I will accompany the course with eurhythmy and as a eurhythmy therapist. In addition to the eurhythmy together in the mornings, I support every student as a process companion - from hygienic, small aids to therapeutic measures to facilitate processes or to become aware of your own health issues.

Dirk Kruse. I am co-leading the Ireland trip with Renatus. My focus is on the spiritual observation of nature as a training path to learn to perceive the spirit. I am a coach for personal and spiritual development and work as a consultant in spiritual organizational development, for which I also offer a training. Since I have become clairvoyant in the area of ​​spiritual beings by exercising Steiners meditations, I lead people in courses to use the higher levels of perception imagination, inspiration and intuition and to make their own experiences in these areas.

Miek Zwamborn and Rutger Emmelcamp. We are artists, also settled on Mull. Miek, concentrates on her career as an author in the intersection of fiction and nature studies and Rutger is an visual artist and lecturer in the area where nature, philosophy and visual arts meet, whereby he also turns everyday things into art projects, for example currently new hives for natural beekeeping. We run an art studio (Knockvologan Studies) where we work with topics like seaweed and offer retreats for guest artists.

Apply now!

If you are looking for intensive community experience, personal development and a deeper, intimate relationship with nature, you will fit perfectly into the program. We look forward to a 2-page letter of motivation in which you describe your life situation, questions, needs and hopes and why we should choose you.

Applications please to: info@beetroot.family

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