Arizona Muse

CURRENT WORK: Founder, DIRT Greenpeace’s Oceans Ambassador Aveda’s Global Advocate for Sustainability The Sustainable Angle’s Advisory Board Member Model

What was your experience both personally and academically after Waldorf?

I arrived in Santa Fe in 1998, when I was 10 years old. My family moved from Tucson and the Tucson Waldorf School to the Santa Fe Waldorf School where I started fourth grade. I left when I was 16 in Grade 10 and went to Santa Fe Prep for two years, graduating from there, which is a decision that I regret. I really wish that I had just finished up at Waldorf. Part of the reason that I left was that I made a silly decision, like young people make sometimes. I left Waldorf because there was no off-campus privilege for teenagers, and I was a teenager who really wanted an off-campus privilege at lunchtime. That meant so much to me that I changed schools.

It was an adjustment, but I don't remember Prep being particularly difficult. I was behind in computer skills, but Prep also didn't really teach me those skills either. So as a 32-year-old activist, learning and developing computer skills has been a steep learning curve for me.

I didn't go to university because I went straight into modeling. Many models find time for university, but I never went, which now I'm okay with. But for a while I really regretted missing the whole experience of dormitories, and being a young person with thousands of other young people in the same environment. It would have been so much fun.

How did you choose your previous and current occupations?

I got into modeling as most models do, just because I kind of fit the bill, I was a certain height and looked a certain way. My godmother was a model and she helped me start right after high school. We went to Los Angeles together and got started, which, to be honest, wasn't a great experience. Many models find that it's not. Young women and their parents need to know a much more transparent picture of what modeling might be for their daughters, and the fact that for most people, you never succeed. You end up feeling like you failed at something and you didn't even really know what it was. [Modeling] leaves most people in a very confusing place. And although for me, I succeeded and it supported me financially for a long time—even then, it's not like it's easy and fun and it doesn’t make you feel good.

There's a common misconception that models feel amazing about themselves, because they look amazing all the time. That is not true. I think models probably have the lowest self esteem and the lowest body confidence of anyone, because the opposite happens. When you see loads of pictures of yourself, you actually find all the faults, and you don't see how pretty you look at all. You just think about what could be better and you compare yourself to everyone else.

Later I moved to New York and got pregnant (with son Nikko, now 12). I went to stay with my mom (former SFWS Board Member Davina Muse, 2003-2009), and thought to myself, "I won't model anymore, I'll probably go live on a farm." At the time, I was in Massachusetts near upstate New York where there are amazing biodynamic farms. But I thought I should try modeling once more because if I hadn't tried again, I would have always wondered if it could have been a career. I had a very structured plan for six months and it did work. I'm still a model, but six years ago, in London, I started my journey into sustainability, sustainable fashion, and climate change. I am now a very happy climate activist.

I realized that although I was a model and selling clothes, I didn't know anything about the materials that they're made from. I didn't really know much about cotton, or where it came from, or who had sewed these clothes together. I went on this learning journey, which I call the sustainability journey, and anyone who's on it knows how fascinating it is because you learn so much about the world, about global trade, about different industries, about different ways of life. It's just a never ending source of inspiration and stimulation. I first started out really quietly, reading books, watching documentaries, and speaking to people in sustainable fashion, science, and climate change. Then I walked with [the climate activism organization] Extinction Rebellion. Until then, I'd not thought of myself as an activist at all. In fact, I was a very shy child and never thought that I could possibly ever be an activist. But with Extinction Rebellion, I felt so moved. It was just so beautiful to walk in a street with other people who I knew were walking there for the same reason as me, because we all cared about the earth, right? It was that simple. And after that moment, I was like, "Yeah, I'm an activist." I love being called an activist, I identify with that. Activism is just the most exciting form of living. Try it out, start small and just dip your toes into it, find something that means something to you.

I started to advocate for organizations like the Sustainable Angle, Fashion Revolution, and Client Earth. In 2019, I was invited to speak at the Biodynamic Association’s annual conference, which was a real turning point for me. Now, [former BDA Executive Director] Thea Maria Carlson is one of my Dirt trustees and I really owe to her my deep awakening of how social issues are connected to environmental issues. We will never solve the climate crisis until we solve social crises as well.

Now I'm making a charity to support farming. It was always there in me, but I didn't know what it was going to turn into. I started Dirt because I was asking myself, "What is the real solution to climate change?" There are so many out there, some of them contradicting each other, and who really knows what the right one is, but I kept coming back to soil. Soil is so degraded right now, it should have trillions of microorganisms living in every teaspoon, trillions of bacteria, fungi, lots of earthworms, but it doesn’t.

Right now, clay is essentially what all fields are made up of. This is from years of farming with heavy duty machinery and with herbicides sprayed multiple times a year on fields of genetically modified crops. It's convenient for farmers whose goal for a long time in the normal agricultural world has been to reduce labor. It's easier to spray [the herbicide] glyphosate on a field to kill all the weeds than it is to pay lots of people to come in and pull out the weeds. But those chemicals are washing off fields and entering all the water systems, which eventually end up in the seas and oceans. And this is one of the major reasons why life in the oceans is dying. It’s nuts that that is how we grow our food.

Dirt is also placing a strong emphasis on things that are grown in farms that are not food, because all of our fashion, all of the wood for our furniture, all of the wool for our rugs, and our upholstery, are grown on farms with chemicals. We need to start really appreciating that every single thing we need in life that's not derived from the fossil fuel industry comes from farms.

How did Waldorf benefit your life?

My Waldorf education benefits my life immensely. I didn't always feel this way. When I was younger, I really had a rebellion against Waldorf. I was annoyed that I wasn't prepared in certain ways for the world. I think I was mostly annoyed that the environment of the Waldorf schools was very sheltered, so then I felt like the outer world was scary. Then I grew up, went into the normal world and was like, "Oh, this is really fun. Everyone's really nice. I don't get it. Why was I sheltered from this?"

Now I've come full circle and am really grateful that I went to a Waldorf school. My environmental activism has brought me to read a lot about things like regenerative economics, social change, community organization, which are really, really intense continued on page 9

Dirt is an international organization that sources projects from the biodynamic farming movement from anywhere in the world. We invite any farmers who are biodynamic farmers to submit projects to us. All we really need to know is what the project is, how much it is going to cost and how long it's going to take. The only criteria is that it's a biodynamic project. Then we will look for funding and support the project management. Funding for each project will come from one donor which will be a business because we want to connect businesses with soil reparations. Businesses have been profiting for such a long time off the degradation of soil, so it's really time to turn that around and pour corporate money into the reparation of soil and the regeneration of soil.

I picked biodynamic farming for two reasons. One is simply that it has a certification that protects it called the International Demeter Biodynamic Standard. That’s important because of what happened with the word sustainable. The word sustainable no longer means anything; it's an unregulated word, and there's no certification for it, anyone can use it, and it's being greenwashed as a result.

The other reason is that biodynamics uses lots of normal regenerative agricultural practices like crop rotation, for instance. It sees the plant as a physical body, but also sees there's something inside the plant that keeps it alive that is not physical. Biodynamic farming works on balancing all the non-physical elements of the farm: the plants, animals, people, and the earth as well. This is why it's so special and has such a grand potential in the face of climate change. Learn more at www.dirt.charity.