Introducing our New Council Members

MARY MERTZ

The Anthroposophical Society is pleased to welcome Mary Mertz to the General Council, serving as Secretary. Mary grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, in an old stone house with a pond and woods and wild black raspberries. She attended the Kimberton Waldorf School, where her class teacher was Ed Hill, a wonderful teller and reader of stories.

After college and a few years as a book editor, Mary entered the Waldorf teacher training program at Sunbridge College. She taught at the Philadelphia Waldorf School, then the Susquehanna Waldorf School in south-central Pennsylvania. That’s where she met Tom Mertz (originally from Kansas), and her destiny took her to the Midwest.

Mary and Tom moved to Salina, Kansas in 2002 in the modern version of a Conestoga wagon: a 26foot U-Haul truck. She practiced anthroposophy on her own for many years, until she heard about the monthly online study group sponsored by the Central Regional Council. In 2022 she was invited to join the CRC, and now she’s been appointed to represent the Central Region on the General Council.

Mary works at a small local-and-organic-foods market and leads a children’s gardening program at the Food Bank. Her favorite Steiner book? How to Know Higher Worlds.

EZRA SULLIVAN

The Anthroposophical Society also welcomes Ezra Sullivan, currently serving as Chair for the General Council. After completing high school with a focus on humanities in 2010, Ezra Sullivan moved to South America to pursue martial arts and service projects. He immediately, quite literally, found himself absorbed in a spiritual path, initially through Buddhism and indigenous shamanism, as well as a passion for agrarian life. Through agriculture, Ezra soon discovered Biodynamic farming, which later led him to Anthroposophy in 2014 when he attended a conference at Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, CA (thank you Dennis Klocek!). Anthroposophy, as a modern path of initiation, is exactly what he was seeking.

Back in the USA, after three years in South America, Ezra engaged in the intentional community and principled non-violence movements as head farmer at Full Bloom Community in Southern Oregon and as a seasonal resident at The Possibility Alliance in Northeast Missouri. He then moved into the nonprofit sector, co-directing Sunfield Biodynamic Farm and Waldorf School on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State for five years. After studying for one year at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, Ezra moved to Threefold Educational Foundation in New York State to engage as a social entrepreneur in the sectors of (young) adult education programming, event planning, and organizational transformation.

At Threefold Foundation, Ezra directs a part-time foundation year in Anthroposophy (threefold.org/ introcourse), consulted for Threefold Community Farm on strategic planning, and is creating a Youth Section affiliated residency program (September 2025, threefold.org/youth). In addition to his activities at Threefold, Ezra supports the NYC Branch in lower Manhattan, the North American Youth Section, the Youth Section at the Goetheanum, the Anthroposophical Society in Ireland, the Chadwick Library Edition, and ongoing research and activities within the Michael School (Research Colloquium August 17-19 Chestnut Ridge, NY).

EDUARDO YI

Eduardo Yi, who joins the General Council as a member-at-large, was born in Lima Peru. Throughout his childhood and adolescence he experienced an unstable cultural and political environment: dictatorship, socialism, communism and democracy. These experiences awakened in him a number of questions pertaining to social issues, the most encompassing being the human being in relation to society.

His family owned a Shoe Factory, and in the mid seventies, Eduardo came to the US to study Business Administration. He returned to Lima when his father became ill and helped to run the factory while finishing his degree at the School of Business ESAN in Lima, Peru.

In the late seventies Eduardo met anthroposophy, and during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s he became involved in the San Juan Anthroposophical Branch. He helped to start the Lima Waldorf School (1982), became Member of the Anthroposophical Society (1987), a member of the School of Michael (1989) helped to found the Christian Community (1990) and helped to found the Anthroposophical Society in Peru (1992).

In the mid ‘90s Eduardo became the administrator of the Lima Waldorf School. It was a tumultuous time. Terrorism and the economic situation were uncontrollable. Hyperinflation of the early ‘90s subsided but inflation still hovered around 20 percent, causing economic hardship that forced the closing of the shoe factory. This again brought social questions to Eduardo’s consciousness, in a living experience through the relationship of the company to termination of all its employees.

In 1998 after the death of his father, Eduardo enrolled in the Teacher Training at Sunbridge College in NY. He then spent a year teaching Spanish at the Summerfield Waldorf School in CA. Once again he had to return to Peru to close out all business and personal obligations. During this time he also taught in the the Schiller Goethe teacher training program in Lima. At this time, he made the decision to live and work in the United States and began actively seeking for a teaching position which he found at the Santa Fe Waldorf School. Eduardo returned to the US in the late fall of 2002.

From that time on Eduardo lived and worked in Santa Fe, NM. He taught Spanish in the early years and showed his art work at the 78th Street Art Gallery until it closed. Over the years Eduardo has been involved on the local level in the Anthroposophical Society, hosting and leading study groups, giving lectures, supporting the Christian Community, and serving as a treasurer for the Sangre de Cristo Group.

In 2014 Eduardo became a US citizen. 