As part of FIWS (Free International Wandering School for Biodynamic Agricultural Culture) training program, Arzu Duran from DEMETER Turkey organised the second course on her farm west of Istanbul.
Photo gallery Workshop Turkey
Biodynamic farming in Turkey
There Arzu has built a beautiful hall with some side rooms, even a tower-room, from where you have a great view over the whole farm. There are also accommodations and sleeping facilities. A real conference and training centre has been created here!
The first deepening course was in April 2019, when we worked on the first lecture of the Agricultural Course. Now the 2nd lecture was the main topic of this workshop. So we want to work through the whole Agricultural Course in the coming years.
About 16 people participated in the first course. Now more than 75 people came from all over Turkey, including two participants from Iran and Natàlia from Spain. There were practising DEMETER farmers, organic farmers and employees of larger companies like RAPUNZEL and ISIK. Then also many members of different Turkish inspection bodies. Also people who are working in Agricultural Administrations and at Universities. The very most participants had little previous knowledge about Biodynamic Agriculture and Anthroposophy. But this was no hindrance to participate actively and to get into deeper contents.
For the two workshops, Arzu translated the first and now the second lecture into Turkish language, so that all participants had the opportunity to read and study the text themselves. I think this is a great help to digest the difficult contents much better. This gave us the opportunity to read extracts of specific passages and to exchange directly about them and to discuss questions and themes.
The course was held under the motto of Nikos Kazantzakis: “Is it not the purpose of the earth to turn it into joy?” (So Lisa Geyer painted it on her MANI olive oil canisters)
At the beginning we introduced the Agricultural Course and its history in the Anthroposophical context and repeated the contents of the first lecture.
Then we worked on the following topics:
• Agriculture as a self-contained Individuality
• Consider everything coming from outside as a remedy
• The soil as diaphragm organ of the organism
• Viewing Agricultural Individuality as upside down
• Living interaction of above-ground and below-ground
• The impact of the planets on plant growth
• About siliceous rock, limestone and clay
• About seed formation and seed chaos
• About humus formation
We could even do different meditations together, so one wit a handful of earth, with limestone and finally Rudolf Steiner’s seed meditation. The perceptions, we made during these meditations, were deeply impressing and moving. It was
astonishing with which interest these very personal experiences were shared and communicated. It was important that we also had a practical part together. So we made BD preparations on Saturday afternoon. We filled cow horns and buried them together, as well as camomile sausages and dandelion packages. Then we also buried the stag bladder, which was hanging on the preparation house during the summer. And last but not least, we dug the silica horns with BD501 out of the ground. A big festival for everyone!
Special thanks go to Arzu Duran and her staff who made this event possible. Everything was prepared by them in an incredible way and then also carried out, right down to the common meals! Arzu also translated all of my contributions into Turkish! In March 2020 the course will continue. From 27-29 March we will work on the third lecture of the Agricultural Course.
St. Ilgen, 5th of January, 2020
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