Growing up in Germany, not far from Stuttgart where the very first Waldorf school opened, Steiner education was not something I “found.” It was the world I was born into. I attended the local Steiner kindergarten and later the Steiner school, following a family line immersed in Anthroposophy for more than a century.

First Day of School

Class One

My great-grandfather, Rudolf Meyer, met Anthroposophy in the early 1900s and worked directly with Rudolf Steiner. His devotion led him to become a lecturer and later a founding priest of The Christian Community. My grandfather devoted his life to anthroposophical pharmacy at Weleda and WALA, my father to anthroposophical medicine, and my mother to Steiner early childhood education. My childhood was steeped in all these streams, the educational, the medical, the spiritual, and the biodynamic, nurtured further by childhood visits to my uncle’s biodynamic farm.

Yet I only fully understood the treasure of my Steiner schooling when, as a teenager, I tried to leave it behind. After a three-month exchange in Canada, I felt frustrated with what I perceived as the “artsy” and “not academic enough” nature of my school. I trialled three mainstream schools—and was deeply shocked. What I found lacking was not academics, but humanity: warmth, genuine interest, and the sense of being truly seen. I returned to my Steiner school with profound gratitude.

In my senior years, two verses our math teacher taught us, became inner guides. Each morning, our class recited: “Free is the human being when they are able, at every moment of life, to follow themselves.”A quote form Steiner’s ‘Philosophy of Freedom’ a reminder that true freedom means acting from one’s inner, eternal source.

Veronika's High School Class

This was paired with another of Steiners verses that shaped me just as deeply: “We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of the future… and learn to live out of pure trust, without security in existence, trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world."

Travelling the world after school, volunteering and visiting Steiner schools, biodynamic farms, and Christian Communities, I eventually found my way to Melbourne. There, reading Theosophy (one of Steiner’s early books), during my first ever Australian Christmas in Summer, I recognised something deeply true.

That moment led me to follow the most challenging and meaningful path I could imagine: to study for the priesthood in The Christian Community and to continue exploring how Steiner’s insights illuminate the evolving relationship between the human being and the spiritual world.

Joining Sophia Mundi

I am deeply grateful to every Steiner teacher, anthroposophical medical practitioner, biodynamic farmer and artist, such as our wonderful eurythmists, who takes up the lifelong wrestle to deepen their understanding of Anthroposophy and help create remarkable places like Sophia Mundi Steiner School, which my children love attending.

- Veronika

Parent to students in Class Five and Six