Barbara M V Scott – Resume

 

“The mission of our Earth is the cultivation of the principle of love by the beings evolving upon it.”  –  Rudolf Steiner

Barbara M.V. Scott, MS
Email: barbara@soulmedicinejourney.com
Website: https://www.soulmedicinejourney.com

Life Experience

Barbara is a writer, a trained wildlife biologist and in her early 30’s chose to follow her heart as a farmer, gardener, educator and researcher in sacred agriculture (Rudolf Steiner’s legacy of biodynamic agriculture).

Brought up on a coastal homestead surrounded by the good, the true and the beautiful––gardens, fruit trees, animals, conscious compost and the wild to explore––she thought the whole world was a garden! She has lifelong experience with heirloom vegetables, salad greens, perennial and medicinal herbs, berries, fruit and nut trees, native landscapes, cover crops and an in-depth and practical knowledge of heirloom and biodynamically grown seeds. Long before the organic movement she knew that the foundation of any garden, farm and human being was conscious compost, which nurtures soil fertility and nutrient dense food and in turn nourishes the body, the mind and the spirit.

Barbara is passionate about teaching and mentoring the peasant wisdom of the earth, which she learned by perceiving the land as teacher. Listening to the subtle energies of the land via the cosmic creative energies and the landscape angels she assists others to align and attune their thinking, feeling and willing bodies with the rhythms and patterns of the seen and unseen forces of Nature. Barbara brings beauty, goodness, love and healing to the land, which affords the human residents an enlivened awareness of belonging.

Education and Entrepreneurship

She has a Bachelor of Science in Zoology, Master of Science in Wildlife Biology (U.B.C.) and a partial doctorate from the University of Victoria that was funded by a National Science and Engineering Research Grant. Barbara has taught ecology and biology as a teaching assistant and served as a temporary faculty member at Evergreen State College in Olympia in Washington State. She collaborated with other faculty members at Evergreen to bring the principles of biodynamic agriculture to the students at the organic farm and in the environmental studies curriculum.

Aurora Farm (founded in 1989) was a 31-acre diverse family farm with 3 acres in vegetables, herbs, grains, orchards, berries, culinary and medicinal herbs and animals. Cow manure was utilized for the compost operations. The produce and other farm products supplied resorts, restaurants, coops and health food stores as well as the residents of a local community. Aurora was certified organic and biodynamic. Two sons were raised on (by!) the farm with food that nourished them in body, mind and spirit. The early focus on production and marketing shifted to education and stewardship during a hot summer when many of the leafy greens bolted and the land was perceived to be ideal for seed cultivation.

At Aurora she taught herself the many facets of holistic stewardship knowing that this spiritual work served the land and grew her consciousness soul. The home economy of family was integrated with the economy of the land, giving rise to fertile soil and nutrient dense food—a true homeland security. Teas, herbal remedies, medicinal and culinary herbs and flower essences were also grown, produced and retailed from Aurora. For several years she researched and distributed light root (dioscorea batatas) remedies—a living medicine, which holds great promise as an intermediary food stream to nourish the human etheric body.

Barbara has guided hands-on workshops and consulted in conscious composting in South Africa, Canada, and the U.S. for 25 years in addition to the composting operations at Aurora Farm and the numerous gardens and farms where she has worked, played and stewarded.

She gained her business acumen through the entrepreneurship of the first North American biodynamic heirloom seed company, which involved a mail order company, marketing seeds to coops, health food stores, home gardeners, farmers and other venues throughout North America. Once the seed company was established the farm hosted an apprenticeship-training program modeled on the principles of Rudolf Steiner’s legacy in biodynamic agriculture. Apprentices came from diverse backgrounds, ethnic origins and were often from distant lands. The link between sustainable agriculture (soil fertility and nutrient dense food), social renewal and justice, personal growth and the desire to steward land was apparent for the apprentices. They often went on to establish their own farms and share new found agricultural knowledge with their culture and community through various social renewal initiatives.

Barbara is certified in Permaculture Design and is a Reiki Master in the Usui tradition. She is familiar with operating and maintaining tractors, rototillers, front-end loaders and power tools although her first choice is hand tools, which allow the heart’s love to flow freely through the hands. She has a private pilot’s license.

Personal Growth

Barbara lived at Esalen Institue for several years as the partner of a long-standing massage crewmember and worked in most of the departments while there. Some of the personal growth workshops/retreats that she has attended include Gestalt therapy, massage, Continuum with Emilie Conrad, Fourfold way/cross-cultural education with Angeles Arrien, sensory awareness with Charlotte Selver, systemic constellation work, Martin Prechtel’s Bolads Kitchen school, Terrain of Essence with Kim Lincoln, Rennie Davis’s and Kirsten Liegmann’s Foundation for a New Humanity work and ongoing meditation retreats at Self-Realization Fellowship.

Spiritual Practice

She is a kriyaban and devotee of Paramahansa Yogananda and follows the spiritual practices and the teachings of Self-Realization Fellowship taking to heart a daily meditation practice.

Vision, Goals and Objectives

Barbara’s vision is to leave a legacy of the perennial wisdom attained from working in, on and for the Earth. She aspires to pass this on to the young ones that will carry this work forward in their own ways. She strives to surrender personal will through devotion to the benevolent cosmic creative energies to serve Mother Earth through practical and spiritual work, which unites earthly substance and soul with their divine cosmic origins.

Chronological Details and Publications

Education:

University of Victoria, Partial Ph.D. program 1981-83, on a National Science and Engineering Research Council Fellowship

University of British Columbia, MS Wildlife Biology 1979; BS Zoology 1976

Publications:

Scott, Barbara M.V. The Light Root (Dioscorea batatas, or Chinese yam): Human Consciousness and Health. Applied Biodynamics, Spring 2015

Scott, Barbara M.V. A Meditation on Conscious Composting and Christ Consciousness: Earth’s Future. Biodynamics Journal, Spring 2014

Scott, Barbara M.V. 2013. Transmissions from the Canid Nation: A Memoir of Wolves and Humans. Porthill, ID: Aurora Farm Press pending.

Scott, Barbara M.V. 2013. The Joy of Biodynamic Agriculture: Living with the Unseen Forces Behind Nature. Porthill, ID: Aurora Farm Press pending.

Scott, Barbara M.V. Dioscorea Batatas (Chinese Yam) Biodynamics Journal, Spring 2011

Scott, Barbara M.V. Bessie’s Teachings at Aurora Farm, Biodynamics Journal, Spring 2002

Scott, Barbara M.V. 1979. The Vancouver Island Wolf, MS Thesis. The University of British Columbia

Scott, Barbara M.V. and D.M. Shackleton. 1980. Food Habits of Two Vancouver Island Wolf Packs: A Preliminary Study. Canadian Journal of Zoology

Professional Background:

Land Stewardship Consultations, Conscious Composting Workshops, Cultivation of Heirloom Seeds, Homeopathic Flower Essence and Reiki Practitioner. This has been my work in the world since founding Aurora Farm in the Kootenay River Valley of British Columbia in 1989.

2013 – 2015. Temporary faculty at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington integrating principles of biodynamic agriculture with the organic farm and the environmental studies curriculum. Ongoing stewardship, land development, writing, mentoring individuals in sacred agriculture and research on light root (dioscorea batatas). Rudolf Steiner in 1924 stated that the light root would be indispensable in the times to come.

2011 – 2013. Developing a homestead in the Kootenay River Valley while writing and stewarding a local farm.

2010 Kaslo People’s Garden. This is an ongoing village garden in Kaslo, B.C. The People’s Garden was initiated in collaboration with Selkirk College where students learned to garden and to cultivate herbs, flowers, vegetables and grains utilizing biodynamic, organic and permaculture principles. The teaching garden was located on a spare lot in the center of the village, co-created with the nature spirits for all to enjoy—a village treasure that lives on.

Permaculture Design Certificate, Skalitude Retreat Center with Michael Pilarski and other permaculture instructors.

2005-2009 gardener and teacher at several initiatives in the U.S., The Azores and South Africa (see below)

May–July 2009 The Spiritual School for Psychology, Benson, N.C. Gardener/Grounds keeper

Halloween 2008 – February 2009 The Azores — Writing

May – October 2008 — Meadowsweet Farm, Antrim, N.H. Developing gardens and fields for a potential School for Conscious Agriculture along the lines of Steiner’s Threefold: The Social Order

January 2007 – May 2008. Talent, Oregon. Writing/spiritual practice.

January-March 2006. South Africa where I taught Reiki and biodynamic composting

September, 2005-November, 2006 – Garden Project Director, Mentor and Teacher, The Mountain School, Bellevue, ID: a Waldorf-inspired school where my late husband Woody Wodraska and I co-created a biodynamic mini-farm, taught biodynamic methods and skills to the head of the school, made and applied biodynamic compost with the biodynamic preparations, set up small scale animal husbandry, soil preparation and irrigation with high altitude and dry country challenges, built a small Growingspaces greenhouse, intensive seed saving and began an anthroposophical reading group for the local community.

May 1989 – August 2005 – Founder and steward of Aurora Farm, initiated the first biodynamic heirloom seed company in North America and an apprenticeship program in biodynamic agriculture. Here students learned the daily and seasonal rhythms of working with the plant, animal and mineral kingdoms, cultivation of herbs, flowers and vegetables, fruit and nut trees, heirloom seeds, herbal remedies, tending cows, goats, sheep, pigs and poultry. The farm began by providing nutritious and wholesome food to resorts, restaurants, coops and health food stores and the residents of a local community.

1996 Certificate in Ayurvedic Medicine with Robert Svoboda

2002–2003. Reiki Initiations I, II, and III Usui Tradition

1983-2001. Service at Esalen Institute in the gardens, kitchen, grounds, laundry and housekeeping

1983 Victoria College of Art and Design

1980 Private Pilot’s License

1977-1980 – B.C. Fish and Wildlife Branch, Nanaimo, B. C. Fieldwork for Master’s thesis Social Organization and Food Habits of Vancouver Island Wolves. This involved live capture and subsequent tracking, via telemetry and intuition, wolves in the Adam and Eve River watersheds. Here I learned wilderness skills—animal tracking and extensive knowledge of flora and fauna—that led me home to my true nature.

1972 – University of Rhodesia, Research Assistant in the Biochemistry Department.

—Schooled in Vedanta by Swami Nisreyasananda.

Life Experience:

Trained as a scientist and wildlife biologist, self-educated as a biodynamic practitioner, gardener, farmer and land steward. Focus on right livelihood, a healthy legacy for the Planet and future generations.

Journeys to England, Scotland, Rhodesia and South Africa to teach composting and Reiki, a four year stint into the culture as earth steward—the Azores, Idaho, Oregon, New Hampshire, Ohio, Washington State, North Carolina, British Columbia and South Africa. Noted above in professional background.

Mother, Planetary Steward and Devotee of Paramahansa Yogananda—Self-Realization Fellowship.

Interests:

Consciousness, Self-Realization, Gardens and Wilderness