arts & ideas IN THIS SECTION: Dan McKanan, from a prestigious post at Harvard, likes what he sees in the breadth and care of anthroposophic initiatives. Tess Parker reports on the latest Biodynamic Conference and its commitment to a worthy and inclusive future. Ninetta Sombart, one of the very best known “anthroposophic” artists, leaves a dramatic legacy of color and inspiration. What does “biography and social art” have to offer a busy conference? To gather together and experience the depth of inspired ritual is the heart of ASK2020ATLANTA. The strong embrace of a powerful meditation proved to be a source of health for a teacher.
28 • being human
The Water Is Wide Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism, by Dan McKanan; University of California Press, 2017; 306 pages
an appreciation by David Gershan Dan McKanan’s 2018 study of environmentalism, Eco-Alchemy, explores the wide water of the ecology and environmental movements with its many streams with great coherence. It is possible to lose the way in these crowded waters, but McKanan keeps the boat afloat and admirably steers us to a wide shore. One great theme of the book is, to quote him: “Students of Steiner’s spiritual science, also known as anthroposophy…are active in every corner of the environmental movement...” McKanan explores, more thoroughly than this reviewer has ever encountered, how anthroposophy connects to and has created paths of influence and inspiration in amazingly disparate ways. He is remarkably successful. How was Rachel Carson touched by anthroposophy? Gardens at the San Francisco Zen Center? Bhutan’s “Gross National Happiness” project? Israeli kibbutzim? Intentional communities in Ireland and Norway? The Water Research Institute in Maine? And there are more connections, many more! Anthroposophy’s centrality is not a surprise to McKanan because environmentalism, as he states, “is a movement that seeks to restore harmony between humanity and nature by helping humans model our behavior on the rhythms of natural systems.” The reverence and deeply spiritual orientation gained from anthroposophy reflects this description of environmentalism, and it is shared by biodynamic farmers and Native American and many other rural agricultural communities that preserve ritual and acknowledgement of Mother Earth. He states: “Steiner taught that our planet is a single organism with a spiritual personality….is a holistic worldview that seeks to achieve harmony through creative work with the polarities of human and nature, matter and spirit, macrocosm and microcosm…..” We come to see how McKanan understands environmentalism in its widest contexts through explorations of agriculture, education, social reform and renewal, and the natural world. It is at the end of the book however that McKanan reaches another shore—and that is explored in the section: “Anthroposophy’s Gifts.” We will discuss this at the end of the review. McKanan’s own path to anthroposophy and its founder Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), begins in 1995 with his membership as a contributing share-holder in the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) initiative of the famous Angelica Organics farm in Caledonia, Illinois. Anyone who has not seen the 2005 documentary film The Real Dirt on Farmer John will want to get acquainted with the great operator of Angelica, John Peterson. From Illinois, McKanan spent parts of summers in Minnesota at a Camphill Village—one of many anthroposophically-inspired villages dedicated to the care and enhancement of adults and children gifted and also challenged with a variety of developmental conditions. His first book, Touching The World: Christian Communities Transforming Society, included research done there. He is a professor and Emerson Senior Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School. He