Ecofluency

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

After completing my PhD in plant pathology (2013), I held two collaborative postdoctoral fellowships with Stellenbosch University, South Africa, and with Coventry University, UK, from 2014-2020. I investigated quantum-based or subtle agricultural techniques and technologies that use sound, electromagnetics, catalytic substances and human intuitive abilities in farm management decision making.

After 12 years of experience in teaching and facilitating in various forms, and presenting my work in various ways on numerous international platforms, I finally founded Ecofluency in 2021, and am its lead consultant. I am also a facilitator, educator, researcher, and activist in this field.

I offer consultations in Nature communication for individuals and groups/ organisations, facilitate Family and Nature Constellations, and teach others to communicate with Nature in person and online. Part of my work and passion is also supporting other voices in this critical field.

Ecofluency is growing into an organization to promote the science, art and practical magic of Nature communication worldwide, for individual and collective transformation.

EXTENDED BIOgraphy

If you want a more in-depth read about my professional development, as well as my personal background, please keep reading below.

PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND & DEVELOPMENT

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH

In my first postdoctoral fellowship at Stellenbosch University, South Africa from 2014-2017, I investigated the use of interspecies communication in food growing, with Prof. Michael Samways as my host. This post was largely thanks to the help of Prof. Eugene Cloete, Vice Rector: Research and Innovation at Stellenbosch University, with his encouraging words: “The only way to tell where the line ends of what is possible, is to venture as far as we can into the impossible.”

I also investigated other quantum-based or subtle agricultural techniques and technologies that use sound, electromagnetics, catalytic substances and human intuitive abilities in management decision making. My main collaborator was ir. Henk Kieft, who founded Gaia Campus and has since written a book on this field of research and practice entitled ‘Quantum Leaps in Agriculture’.

My passion for knowledge extension inspired me to bring various international experts, including Henk, to host workshops in South Africa, and to help build an international network of farmers, technical advisors and researchers for this emerging field of research.

From 2018-2020, I held a second, collaborative postdoctoral research post to further explore intuitive farming. This project was between the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST) and the Department of Conservation Ecology and Entomology at Stellenbosch University, and the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) at Coventry University in the UK.

This was thanks to Prof. Mark Swilling at CST, and Dr Julia Wright at CAWR. Julia nucleates the network for research and practice in quantum thinking in agroecology, and her work is crucial for pioneering subtle agroecologies in the world of academia. She has edited an academic book on Subtle Agroecologies: Farming With the Hidden Half of Nature, published June 2021.

Some of my outputs from my postdoctoral research (and my PhD) can be found under Resources, including a link to the chapter ’Intuitive Farming: Heart-based decisions for harmony in agricultural ecosystems’, Chapter 21 in Subtle Agroecologies.

more knowledge vs deeper knowing

During my postdoctoral years, I also attended various workshops in regenerative agricultural practices that are not taught in conventional university and college agriculture, such as Biodynamic agriculture, Quantum Agriculture, radionics, plant alchemy, and ORMUS. I also did other courses, workshops and trainings in geomancy, ritual, plant and nature spirit communication, ancestral healing, family constellations, Reiki and many more, to further develop my own communication and facilitation skills (many of the people and organisations with whom I trained can be found under Resources).

By the end of 2020, I realised that I’m not only interested in expanding human knowledge; my true passion is expanding how we gain knowledge, by exploring and using different ways of knowing.

Thanks to the last 7 years of my postdoctoral research, I now understand that our relationship with the inner landscape and with other humans is as important to our relationship with the outer food landscape.

It is encouraging that this has been emphasized in some of the agricultural conferences in the last few years, as well as in some of the recent publications (see Resources for more). But highlighted at these conferences and in many international reports is the fact that the changes we’re seeing are not happening fast enough.

Food-growers of all kinds, especially small-scale and subsistence farmers, are still overworked, underpaid, and undervalued. Meanwhile, western agricultural science is progressing at a pace that is too frustratingly slowly for me. This is mainly because of its underlying ontology (view of reality) that still sidelines the human healing needed for collective and environmental repair and well-being. And I don’t feel anymore that I can do enough as a researcher to help accelerate the necessary changes.

realising my vocation

I realised I can help people in a more effective way than the role I held as researcher - I can offer people a way of experiencing a different way of relating with Nature, which could more quickly and effectively change their behaviour in many important ways.

I have gained a wide range of experience in teaching, facilitation and leadership skills over the past 12 years. In the past 7 years, I have been partially or fully responsible for organising and facilitating dozens of events and workshops, in various forms in person and online, with nearly 500 participants in total. Feedback from all of these has been overwhelmingly positive, and they have also brought me great insight and joy.

So now I feel called to shift my focus from academic research to practicing what I’ve learned. I want to help other humans remember how to communicate and commune with Nature, as a source of information for professional and personal decisions, and as a resource for healing in all kinds of relating.

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

I was born during Spring Equinox in September 1986, in Johannesburg, South Africa, pre-colonial homeland of the diverse Tswana people.

I am a mixed-race child of a German, Protestant-raised father, and a South African Indian, Muslim-raised mother. Despite their vast personal, cultural and educational differences, my parents were devoted and hard-working, doing the best with what they had.

I now understand that the difficult experiences in our childhood were the result of my parents’ own unresolved past traumas, as well as inherited trauma, of which they had neither clear knowledge, nor the resources to appropriately address and heal.

As the firstborn of three children, I often feel responsible for healing as much as I can in my generation. Thankfully, I have the privilege of being able-bodied, with (relatively) sound mind, a silly sense of humour, and a stubbornly strong will. These have helped make me resilient against my fierce inner critic, who has been a nemesis of mine.

Born during apartheid, I was ‘born a crime’ (like Trevor Noah). But most people assume that I am white if they don’t know my background, and so I acknowledge that I have the added privilege of everything that is brought with being identified as white.

And yet I have experienced racism (from all angles) and sexism in myself, against myself, and within and against my family. I now understand that this has made me committed to healing the internal, ancestral and socio-cultural damage that privilege (white or class-based), sexism and racism causes in the world.

I’ve found that (re)learning and practicing healthy relating is a long and arduous journey, but it is deeply rewarding. And I believe it is simply the duty of everyone who wants to see the change they desire in this world.

Direct communication with Nature can be a compass in navigating this journey. It can also be instrumental in finding and fulfilling each of our rightful place in our very large family with and on our Earth’s ecosystem.

And perhaps, most importantly, this will help reignite the tender magic of awe, wonder and enchantment in the human soul.