Facilitators
click on any name or scroll down to view a full profile
ANNIE BARRETT - Counsellor & Writer, Aus
ANTHONY MECCA - Biodynamic Farmer, Adult Educator, US
BRIGITTE CHOURA RYAN - Early Childhood Teacher, Adult Educator, Artist, US
FIONA MACKENZIE - Nature Studies, Aus
FIONA MAUNDER- Astrosopher, Aus
GERALDINE DEVAS - Counsellor, Aus
JAMES DEEFHOLTS - Teacher, Aus
JEN ZIMBERG - Artist, US
KAMALA HAZELL - Artist, US
KATHERINA KISS - Adult Educator & Health Practitioner, Aus
LISA BONO - Early Childhood Teacher and Adult Educator, US
LISA ROMERO - Adult Educator, Health Practitioner & Author, Aus
LOUISE STEWART - Homeopath and Oil Dispersion Bath Therapist, Aus
LYNETTE CLIFTON - Community Health Social Worker, Aus
MARILYN MYRES - Therapeutic Eurythmist, Aus
MEAGHAN WITRI - Educator, Child Development and Family Support, Artist, US
MELANIE DEEFHOLTS - Child Development and Family Support, Aus
ROBERT SUTHERLAND - Teacher, Aus
SANDRA KIMBALL - Counsellor, Aus
SARAH MECCA - Health Practitioner & Adult Educator, US
SÉAMUS MAYNARD - Artist, US
SIMONE WEIHERMANN - Teacher & Painting Therapist, Aus
Other contributors
Ellen Kelly, Jodie Whetter, Katrina Stowe, Maggie Andrews, Miche Hodgetts, Pamela Shera, Paulina Heart, Pollyanna Kingsley, Robyn Smith, Sarah Monahan, Tiffany Gee
Annie Barrett
Annie (B.A. M.Ed) is a qualified counsellor, writer and writing for wellbeing facilitator. Annie has been privileged to sit with people in quiet rooms listening to their stories, and following their intimate narrative threads as they discover hope and meaning in their path through life. She has worked in health services, disability services and Steiner education. Now she is focussing on facilitating writing for wellbeing sessions for individuals and groups, and her own writing projects. Annie’s interest in Anthroposophy was sparked at university through lectures on Steiner Education and questions arising from her personal life and death experiences. She has explored Anthroposophy for many years and studied at the Centre for Social Development in England, Sydney Rudolf Steiner College, Inner Work Path courses and EduCareDo. Her soul/spiritual exploration is an ongoing journey.
Anthony Mecca
Anthony has been farming for 20 years, the last several of which have been at Great Song Farm, the biodynamic community-supported-agriculture farm he started in 2010, growing a diversity of vegetables and caring for a small cow herd, and working with biodynamics. Anthony is a mentor and adult educator working out of anthroposophy, and works managing farmer training, education, and programs for the Biodynamic Demeter Alliance in the US, which runs a farmer foundation year as well as a farmer development year for farm apprentices and others interested in learning about biodynamics. Fostering direct and meaningful connections between nature, agriculture, and community is central to his work. Currently, he is teaching and writing on the themes of biodynamic agriculture, developing new faculties of perception, the nature of substance, and an understanding of nutrition based on Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course to support soil, plant, animal, and human health. He consults and offers mentorship in biodynamic agriculture for all ages, and is the author of the EduCareDo year-long distance learning subject course Biodynamic Agriculture and Nutrition.
Brigitte Choura Ryan
Brigitte Choura Ryan's work in Waldorf Education began in New York City at New Amsterdam, a Waldorf initiative in the lower east side of Manhattan. There she taught in the Aftercare program, led Parent Child classes, and supported the Nursery and Bridge programs at various times. Currently she teaches a three day Nursery class at the Waldorf School of Pittsburgh. She completed her year long, “Birth to Three” training program at Sophia’s Hearth Family Center, a Waldorf and Emmi Pickler inspired daycare, in Keene, New Hampshire. She has attended births as a labor doula, has worked in hospice care in a volunteer capacity, and artistically collaborates with adults with disabilities through Brooklyn based DreamStreet Theatre company and the Center for Theater Arts of Pittsburgh. She is a co-founder of Third Wheel Collective (a collaboration-based theatre company). As a teaching artist, she has taught with McCarter Theater in Princeton, NJ, NYU Langone's Initiative for Women with Disabilities, and Muhlenberg College's Performance Workshop and Camp Imagine. She graduated from Muhlenberg College with a degree in English and Theatre.
Fiona Mackenzie
Fiona has applied anthroposophy to complementary health for 18 years. Over this time she has delivered talks and workshops on health and child development to communities and schools. Fiona’s studies have also included Goethean science and practices that support and further the perception of and communion with Nature. She facilitates pathways for others to deepen their experience of the living world and the wholeness of Nature.
Fiona Maunder
Fiona has been an Astrologer for 20 years, extending into working with the Sidereal Zodiac and Astrosophy in recent years, training in The New Astrology, Sidereal Star Wisdom. Fiona came to Astrosophy whilst practising as a Naturopath for 29 years, where she met Anthroposophy, training through Educare Do, The Prescribers Course and The Inner Work Path. Fiona also holds a Masters in Indigenous Studies Trauma and Healing (Wellbeing).
Geraldine Devas
Geraldine has worked with aspects of wellbeing in several Steiner School communities over the last 30 years. Supporting students, parents and staff as school Counsellor and Creative arts therapist. She facilitates individual and group biography work in private practice. The work supports recognising and meeting what needs to be overcome for future development – using dialogue combined with creative arts as tools of transformation.
In the context of the retreat, exploring biographical questions gives the opportunity to deepen self knowledge. Depending on the time frame and retreat theme, the participant may request to examine one or more significant events in their life cycles or explore the threads weaving patterns with universal cosmology. There may be a request to gain insight into times of transition for strengthening future outcomes. Exploring these inner landscapes using dialogue and artistic representation of water colour painting and clay modelling, supports and embodies the lived experience.
Geraldine has a B.Education and M.A. Counselling with creative arts. A Member of Australian Counselling Association.
James Deefholts
James is a qualified primary school teacher with over 15 years experience, specialising in Rudolf Steiner Education. He holds a Bachelor of Education and completed his Steiner teacher training at Parsifal College in Sydney in 2002. James has completed three cycles of class teaching at Chrysalis Steiner School and Cape Byron Rudolf Steiner School. Throughout this time he has been involved with school management serving as Chair of the College Of Teachers and on the Board of Directors. James currently tutors teacher trainees at Sydney Rudolf Steiner College and works with homeschooling parents and children. He is a contributor and co-editor of the EduCareDo course "Spirit-Led Education for a Spirit-Led Life".
Jen Zimberg
Jen Zimberg is a singer, composer and leader of choral singing. In addition, she supports and contributes to Developing the Self’s school and community programs including local festivals, study groups and events, and offers singing through Developing the Self Developing the World and as part of Inner Work Path events.
Jen offers Songs of Joan of Arc for performance. This is an original cycle of songs about the journey of Joan of Arc interwoven with a telling of Joan’s life story. Jen also works alongside educators to compose songs and pieces for class plays, puppet shows, and stories from the curriculum throughout the grades. When Jen is not engaged in these artistic compositions you’ll find her in the early childhood program at Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School in Harlemville, NY.
Jen’s recorded music is available at https://jenzimberg.bandcamp.com/music.
Kamala Hazell
Kamala is painting therapist with two decades of experience teaching craft to Class 1 - 7. She visits schools to support with care and renewal and contributes to the year-long course Spirit-led Education for a Spirit-led Life.
Katherina Kiss
Katherina has been an adult educator and health practitioner since 1992. After working in clinical practice in Sydney for 5 years, she moved to the Northern Rivers region of NSW where she completed a Bachelors degree in Communications after which she worked in Japan for 5 years in a variety of education settings.
She has worked out of anthroposophy since 2004 after undertaking the EduCareDo Foundations in Anthroposophy training and Anthroposophic Prescriber's training.
Her work for the last 15 years has been divided between administration and support for Inner Work Path, facilitation of its face to face and online study groups, support on courses and retreats and support with founding Developing the Self Developing the World. She is currently the Student Support Coordinator at a not-for profit Community College in Northern NSW where she advocates on behalf of students undertaking Vocational Education &Training who require mental health support and access to external community service providers.
Katherina is a director of EduCareDo and Developing the Self Developing the World and contributes to community education courses through a focus on supporting community caregivers.
Lisa Bono
Lisa began working with young children and families in 2000. After meeting Anthroposophy and discovering Waldorf Education in 2003, she along with her husband received their M.S.Ed in Waldorf Education from Sunbridge College.
Lisa is the founding teacher of the New Amsterdam School a Waldorf School in NYC, where she Directed and taught Early Childhood, birth to seven for ten years. After supporting the growth of three Waldorf School initiatives through working with young children, teachers and families in the greater NYC Metro area, Lisa and her husband moved to Kathmandu, Nepal . Lisa is the co - founder of Sano Taraharu (“ Little Stars of Nepal” ) www.sanotaraharu.org, an organization working in orphanages and children’s homes in Kathmandu.
The inner work path informs and guides Lisa’s work.
Other current projects has Lisa contributing to EduCareDo, Abiding - Heart teacher training, and designing for Burning Heart Clothing www.burningheartclothing.com. Lisa currently lives with her husband and daughter in Portland, Oregon.
Lisa Romero
Lisa Romero is an author of inner development books, a complementary health practitioner and an adult educator who has been offering healthcare and education enriched with anthroposophy since 1993. From 2006 the primary focus of her work has been on teaching inner development and anthroposophical meditation.
Through Inner Work Path Lisa offers lectures, courses and retreats for personal and professional development. Lisa's most recent initiative is the Astral-Arc, a YouTube channel offering a place to hear from young people asking questions on the path, practicing the work of love through awakening the mystery centre of the heart, and hearing various artistic expressions of both.
Through Inner Work Books Lisa has published 'The Inner Work Path’ focusing on meditation practice, 'Developing the Self’ written after many years of working with Waldorf teachers to support their inner work and pedagogical understanding of child development, 'Living Inner Development’ offering an understanding of the inner experiences and results of various inner development exercises, 'Sex Education and The Spirit' to help awaken an understanding of our communal responsibility for the healthy development of gender and sexuality within society, "Spirit-led Community" which introduces spiritually healthy guidelines for lessening the negative influence of technology on the inner life, and "A Bridge to Spirit - Understanding conscious self-development and consciousness-altering substances".
Through EduCareDo Lisa has authored and tutors a year-long course - Inner Development for World Development and contributed to a number of the other EduCareDo courses.
For several years Lisa was the lecturer of Health & Nutrition and Gender studies at Sydney Rudolf Steiner College and for many more years delivered inner development training to College Tutors. Since 1999 she has been presenting on the subject of gender, sexuality and spiritual life. She has been working with Waldorf schools as a part of their health and wellbeing curriculum, working directly with the students, teachers and parents on this theme. Lisa has contributed to and is an adviser on Health and Personal Development for the Australian Steiner Curriculum Framework. She has developed training courses, and facilitates professional development on this subject for teachers and health professionals. Lisa designed and facilitated EduCareDo ‘Towards Health and Healing’ which has offered 8 year-long courses focused on working with therapists from all modalities, as well as Waldorf teachers, toward cultivating the depth of anthroposophical insight through practical applications of therapeutic and pedagogical methods. Lisa is a contributor, tutor and director of Inner Work Path, EduCareDo, Developing the Self Developing the World and the Y Project.
Developing the Self Developing the World delivers community education, and the Y Project supports the bridging of young people into healthy community life. Lisa’s capacity to deliver esoteric wisdom with insight and understanding allows her to meet the diverse needs of a range of communities and professions. Essentially, her work springs from the inner work, meditation and exercises, together with a dedication to the path of unfolding consciousness.
Louise Stewart
Louise works in private practice as a homeopath using anthroposophic remedies and she is also an oil dispersion bath therapist. Louise’s practice is based in Northern NSW where she treats all ages for developmental, acute and chronic conditions affecting the physical body and mind. She regularly visits the school environment to provide observational feedback and workshops that can help parents and teachers with their understanding of health according to the vast body of knowledge given by Rudolf Steiner.
Louise has been a complementary health practitioner since 1993 and extended into the area of anthroposophical medicine by studying EduCareDo and the complementary Towards Health and Healing course. In the same period Louise founded the Milkwood Steiner School in Darwin where she participated in diverse roles including board secretary, school manager and parent educator. She was also employed as the Northern Territory Health Educator for Arthritis and Osteoporosis Australia and for many years continued to keep active within the health and disability sector through consumer education, advocacy and support.
Louise is currently the board secretary for EduCareDo Ltd and is part of the administration and facilitation team for Developing the Self Developing the World. She is the contact for individualised retreats at Myocum.
For more about Louise’s work visit https://www.seasalthomeopathy.com.au
Lynette Clifton
Lyn is a Community Health Social Worker who combines her anthroposophic wholistic healthcare training to bring home healthcare simply and practically to the daily life of children, parents, carers and teachers.
In the 1980’s Lyn worked with communities and schools across Greater Sydney to provide a range of early childhood formal childcare and support services to families of diverse backgrounds. Lyn was President of the NSW Occasional Child Care Association and an advocate, representative and educator for children’s services policy development and quality Australia wide.
Alongside her own growing family (more than 20 years ago), Lyn took up studies in early childhood at Parsifal College (Sydney Rudolf Steiner College). From this work grew home-based child / parent groups to support young families, and was recognised as complementary to Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner School in Sydney. Lyn also studied EduCareDo’s Foundation Year in Anthroposophy and the complementary Towards Health and Healing workshop series with Lisa Romero, which fortified her individual development and directed her towards Inner Work Path. Lyn’s home healthcare practices were refined through studies with the nurses at Taruna College New Zealand’s course Certificate of Holistic Healthcare.
Over these past two to three decades Lyn has been a founding member of numerous initiatives including Anthroposophic Care for the Young Child Association in Sydney, Glenaeon Rudolf Steiner Preschool and Developing the Self Developing the World.
Lyn now specialises in what she names the Mantle of Care, to bring home health care to individuals, families and class groups.
Marilyn Myres
Marilyn is a practising eurythmist specialising in health and therapeutic work. She has been involved with Steiner education since 1981 through the Gabriel Health Centre in Melbourne, the Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School where her children were educated, and involvement with the establishment of the Melbourne Therapy Centre. During this period she was a director in the not-for-profit organisation establishing Canticle Bakery / Café, which promoted biodynamic food and products, and offered work opportunities for young people. It was also over this time that Marilyn completed a six year Eurythmy training at Aurora Australis in Melbourne and went on to teach Eurythmy in Rudolf Steiner schools ( K to 8 ) throughout Melbourne and New South Wales.
Marilyn has performed Eurythmy in the Wings of Sound productions in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney, and with colleagues continues to provide performances for Waldorf Schools.
In 2000 Marilyn completed a 3-year Diploma in Therapeutic Eurythmy at Peredur Centre in East Grinstead England and has continued her professional development through attending six IPMT (International Post Medical Training) courses as well as Tone Eurythmy Therapy Training in the UK and Australia. She provides one-on-one therapeutic eurythmy to adults and children of all ages in her private home based studio, as well as at Inner Work Path retreats. She also provides all eurythmy components that may be within Inner Work Path courses, EduCareDo courses and Developing the Self Developing the World retreats.
Meaghan Witri
Meaghan is one of the Developing the Self Developing the World facilitators of in-school and community programs. She has worked with parents and families in a variety of capacities for over twenty years, including as an early childhood and parent-child educator and currently as the founder, lead teacher and mentor of a spirit-led education initiative for 1-3rd homeschoolers. The Phoenix Initiative is dedicated to freedom in education. Meaghan also works directly with parents in the home-setting offering practical support and understanding of child development from birth through adolescence, in the light of anthroposophy. As an artist with a degree in theater, performance, and English Studies, Meaghan’s work explores how music and story support inner and outer striving in the human being. Meaghan has led singing, performance, and movement workshops in various contexts for children, teenagers, and adults. She is also the co-author of the EduCareDo subject course Speech and Drama as Living Arts and a contributing author of the Spirit-led Education for a Spirit-led Life subject course.
Melanie Deefholts
Melanie Deefholts has been supporting parents and teachers in various schools through adult education for the past 12 years. She specialises in understanding child development through observations of daily life and how to work with this in a living way within the home and the classroom. Melanie works with parents as well as teachers in private and group education and also works directly with young adults as a facilitator of the Healthy Relationships with Self and Others: Social Understanding Gender and Sexuality Program for Developing the Self Developing the World. Melanie regularly works in various Waldorf Schools in NSW, Vic, Tas, Qld, SA and WA.
Pamela Shera
Pamela has worked within Anthroposophy and with Rhythmical Etheric Massage for over 20 years and currently practices from Suffolk Park NSW.
Pollyanna Kingsley
Anthroposophy has brought a deeper meaning to Pollyanna's life. Through the Inner Work Path she has been dedicated to her family's health and wellbeing. This inspiration has led her to develop a biodynamic-organic-food-forest home and business. She now works as a teacher's support at a Steiner School, supports Inner Work Path courses, and study groups, and the Y Project.
Robert Sutherland
Robert is a Steiner /Waldorf teacher, whose formative years were spent among the mountains and waterfalls of Te Wai Pounamu, Aoteoroa, NZ and after experiencing the geography and cultures of the Southern Americas and Asia settled into Anthroposophical Education four decades ago.
Robert has worked in both Primary and Secondary Steiner education, at Chrysalis Rudolf Steiner School in the Bellinger Valley, The Armidale Waldorf School on the New England Tablelands and Shearwater the Mullumbimby Steiner School in northern NSW as well as assisting schools transitioning into the middle years in Alice Springs and Darwin in the Northern Territory and Kuranda in Queensland.
Robert has developed many outdoor student experiences where cross curriculum threads were woven together creating new areas of study, enriched by development of the senses and capacities of students through the many and varied archetypal activities experienced out of the classroom. Whilst carrying the research question of the healing qualities of Nature on youth and the not so youthful.
Semi-retired from four decades of teaching and now consulting and assisting on camps in Nature for educators, whether they be teachers, parents or anyone involved in seeking the Spirit in Nature, whether they be involved with school institutions or any of the new initiatives springing up in these times.
Sandra Kimball
Sandra (B.A, Dip Counselling, MACA Level 4) works as a therapist, writer and adult educator in mental health. She had formal anthroposophical counselling training in biography work and painting and clay therapy from Sophia College. Sandra works in private practice with individuals and groups to explore their life stories to unearth emerging themes and patterns to illuminate one’s purpose and direction for the future. She has been on the support team at several Inner Work Path retreats and workshops and has been a study group holder for the Inner and Outer Biography study groups.
Sarah Mecca
Sarah is a complementary health practitioner working out of anthroposophy. She sees both children and adult clients in Stephentown, NY, Brooklyn, NY and Great Barrington, MA, as well as remotely. Sarah trained as a classical homeopath and completed additional training and mentorship in prescribing anthroposophic medicine. She also offers therapeutic external applications to her clients such as compresses and baths.
Sarah faciliates workshops as part of the health and well-being school programs for 4-12th grades. She is also the New York administrator of the Y Project, supporting young people in her community ages 16-26.
In addition, Sarah facilitates EduCareDo Foundation Course study groups and workshops, and supports the administration of Inner Work Path and EduCareDo workshops and events. Sarah has a background and interest in initiatives working for social health; she co-founded Think OutWord, a peer-led training in social threefolding for young people, which ran conferences and intensives for seven years, and has taught in middle school, high school, adult education, and community settings. With Gary Lamb, Sarah edited Steinerian Economics, a resource guide. She also manages community events and activities at Sun Heart Farm, the biodynamic farm where she lives and maintains her health practice.
Click here for more about Sarah’s health practice.
Séamus Maynard
Séamus completed his degree in acting at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. While there, he studied speech, classical acting and Shakespeare with Patsy Rodenburg. Prior to that he trained intensively in the Michael Chekhov Technique for several years studying and performing with Ted Pugh and Fern Sloan who founded the Actor’s Ensemble based in Hudson NY. Séamus studied speech formation with renowned speech artist Christy MacKaye Barnes. He then attended Artemis School of Speech and Drama in West Sussex England where he studied speech formation with Christopher Garvey. Currently, Séamus teaches the art of speech at Inner Work Path workshops and retreats (www.innerworkpath.com). Séamus also supports and facilitates the arts program on behalf of Developing the Self Developing The World (www.developingtheself.org).
He is a co-author of Speech and Drama as Living Arts, a long distance course of learning through EducareDo and is a supporting author for Spirit Led Education, also through EducareDo. In addition to course writing, he is author of the book Parzival - A Journey of Initiation.
Séamus has taught acting, speech and movement at Emerson College in England, Stephens College Missouri, California State University’s Summer Arts program, The New School NYC, Saint John’s College in Istanbul Turkey, Camphill Academy and is a faculty member for The Michael Chekhov School Hudson, as well as MICHA (the Michael Chekhov Association).
As an actor and musician Séamus has worked with Improbable Theatre (London), The Belgian National Theater, Triple Shadow (La Mama NYC), Heads Theater Company (NYC) and The Actors Ensemble (NYC & Hudson NY). Séamus is a co-founding member of Third Wheel Collective – a collaboration based theater company. As a musician, Séamus studied classical guitar and composition with classical guitarist and composer Ed Flower. Séamus composes for and co-founded Quiet In The Head, a music group that composes original, instrumental music for violin and classical guitar.
Simone Weihermann
Simone is a qualified art teacher (BA Ed., BA Vis Arts) and has been a class teacher from 2006 to 2021 taking two classes from class 1-6 and teaching art in the middle school years. Having completed an introduction course to anthroposophical painting therapy in 2010 Simone continued on to complete the Anthroposophical Art Therapy training between 2016 and 2020. Simone is currently working therapeutically with children and adults and supporting retreats at Myocum. Simone has been participating in the Inner Work Path courses and EduCareDo for many years.