Spring Gathering 2026
April 25-26, 2026
The BDANC Spring Gathering this year will return to Heartwood Farms in Linden, CA. Save the date!
April 25-26, 2026
The BDANC Spring Gathering this year will return to Heartwood Farms in Linden, CA. Save the date!
BDANC Summer Gathering
June 20-21
Summerfield Waldorf School Farm
Save the date!
BDANC Autumn Gathering
September 26-27
Location TBD
We are currently open to suggestions on where to hold this event! Please let us know if your are a farm or location that would be interested in hosting!
You are warmly invited to our annual Winter Gathering where we’ll connect with community and engage in research aimed to support the coming 2026 growing season and the future of Biodynamic agriculture in Northern California. We are delighted to return to Ridgewood Ranch, home of Golden Rule Community Gardens.
When: Saturday January 10 and Sunday January 11, 2026
Where: Ridgewood Ranch, 16200 N Hwy 101, Willits, CA 95490
See below the schedule for written directions.
Winter BDANC Gathering
Cultivating Ground for a New Agriculture / January 10 &11, 2026
Schedule Saturday
7:30 Breakfast
8:30 Welcome & Introductions
Why Biodynamic Agriculture? – Through the eyes of a farmer’s biography
9:15 Listening to the Whole: Tone Eurythmy Activity
10:15 Break
10:30 Ground for a New Agriculture: Presentation, Inner Work
12:00 Farm Tour of Golden Rule Gardens
1:00 Potluck
2:30 The Farmer and The Farm Organism: Conversation, Q&A
4:00 Coffee & Tea Break
4:30 Word Seed, Farming the Logos: Artistic Speech Activity
6:00 Dinner
7:30 Eurythmy Performance
Schedule Sunday
8:00 Breakfast
9-10:30 Lending a hand to the Farm
10:30-11:15 Biodynamics in Biography -Conversation
11:15-12:30 Closing Circle
We have a limited number of Stella Natura Planting Calendars still available for purchase and pick up at the meeting!
DRIVING DIRECTIONS:
Heading north on Highway 101, pass through Willits and Calpella. North of Calpella, West Road crosses Hwy 101. Your turn will be a little more than 7 miles after West Road. As the highway climbs steeply, watch for a left turn sign, (and a business sign set back from the road and up hill on the left that advertises an RV park.) Get into the left lane immediately, and then the left turning lane to turn into a winding road, heading downhill. Cross your first cattle guard. At the first fork turn right. Cross another cattle guard and up a little hill to the main building of Ridgewood Ranch. Park in the large parking lot in front of the building. Here is a Maps Pin Drop for exact building and parking lot: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1metEJBX6VtXSHRc6?g_st=ipc
An opportunity to learn about biodynamic agriculture and build community. Click to REGISTER.
Let us gather and return again to Summerfield School and Farm for the BDANC Summer Solstice Meeting! As the Sun reaches its zenith in the sky, we will come together to share and celebrate another year of Biodynamic Agriculture. Come join us as we look closely at the Valerian plant through Geothean observation with Dr. Daciana Iancu, and in pastel drawing with Denise Sacks.
Through social exercises with Luke Frey, and Eurythmy with Lilith and Sebastien Dupuis, we will explore the qualities of warmth, both in the plant world and with each other. Together we will be making the valerian and stinging nettle preparations. Farmers and interns will lead us as we talk together about our deepest farming questions. This gathering is appropriate for parents, teachers, farmers, doctors, interns and anyone interested in exploration of the healing properties of Biodynamic Agriculture.
Join us for this year's Spring 2025 BDANC gathering exploring Light: What is light? What is the relationship of light to darkness? How do we work with the phenomena of light in our agricultural practice? How does light transform into fruit? Ehrenfreid Pfeiffer, bearer of Biodynamics to North America, recounts that the word “biodynamic” was chosen by the initial group of experimenting farmers 100 years ago as meaning, “a working with the energies which maintain life.” He goes on to point out that the biological aspect began to reveal itself in science in the first half of the 20th century, yet, “Despite recognition of the importance of the biological conditions of ecological relationships…all of this still gives no answer to the question of energy, to its source…the dynamic side still waits understanding to which Rudolph Steiner pointed the way.”
This weekend offers sense perception and experience based inquiry into the role of light in human capacities and Biodynamic farming practices. Particular attention will be brought to the use of the Horn Silica and Horn Manure preparations, their polarities and how they complement one another. Practical work will include making Horn Silica and applying it to the land. Horn Manure and other winter buried preparations will be dug up and observed. The weekend's work together will be participatory and accessible to all levels of experience.
We are excited to return for the second year to Heartwood Farms' cherry and walnut orchards for the Spring Meeting 2025. Program Lead by Franz Eilers, Emma Wade, Sebastian Dupuis, Lilith Dupuis, and Harald Hoven.