Wear the Change you want to see: Fashion, Fabric, Fibre, and Biodynamics

by Arizona Muse and Davina Muse

Austian philosoper and scientist Rudolf Steiner gave 6 exercises to help us strengthen and develop our soul-life. Our inner worlds of thinking , feelling and willing. The first “control of thinking” asks us to keep our thinking focused on one thing for about 5 minutes. That takes practice. Let’s try now. Give yourself some time for this!

Are you wearing an item of clothing with a button on it? Or a scarf, vest, shoe lace…choose something simple. Now begin imagining how that item came into being…What physical materials is it composed of. where did they come from,? who grew the fibre or leather. how are they processed? By whom, where? Who invented it? who designed it? How did it find its way to you? how many people were involved and in how many countries? What about costs, in money, wages, and to the earth? What is the history of the item, how has it developed over time? Often (when you have once again patientley persuagded your atttneiton back from its wanderings in East Cupcake) you might find yourself under the starry sky that energized a field of cotton, in sitting by the tagua nut tree that provided the button on your shirt.

Doing this exercise may help you feel more deeply connected to what you are wearing and its effects or people, animals and place all over the world. Doing this exercise also leads us to tracking supply chains for clothing and fiber, asking”Are they healthy for people, planet and place?” very often, the answer is “I don’t really know, probably not healthy at all.”

If you’d like to know more about supply chains for fashion see Arizona muse’s TEDx talks on YouTube. Far from the rythymic circulatory of biodynamic practice, most supply chains end in the dump. Uncounted tons of clothing, unworn go to waste each year.

Recently there has been a lot of news about the damaging effects of the demands and unaccountability of the fashion industry on human, animal and soil health. It can take an effort to stay hopeful and pro-active in the face of what seem overwhelming odds, operating on a monstrous scale in a complex global economy.

We hear many people saying, “we need a new culture! Slow fashion! Responsible sustainable fashion! Less is enough! how can we grow fiber through regenerative agriculture, renewing not destroying Earth’s soil? Out of esoteric science we can also ask “How do we access, enhance, and make conscious the resurrection forces that are now in and around the earth since 33 AD?

Here we will let you know about some of the many changes small and great, that are emerging. Having this information can help us make more informed choices and value-driven decisions about how we farm and garden, what we farm and what we wear while we are at it.

In our research into media repeats on regenerative agriculture an fiber growing, we have noticed an absence in many statistics, which focus quantitatively on economics. There are few metrics for the connection between fiber production and soil quality, soil use, soil health. This disconnect is dangerous. It creates a blind spot which can only acquire insight though a renewal of thinking and questioning that privileges place and people over profit. as farmers and gardeners interested in biodynamics, we can reverse this disconnect by educating ourselves and expanding our values and perspectives.

Most of the biodynamically-farmed acreage world-wide is currently farmed for foods, as consumers demand ethically and sustainably produced fibers we can imagine that will change to reflect the global reality that enormously more land is used for growing fiber than for food with the support of organizations are already creating certification standards for fiber, leather and already creating certification standards for fiber, leather and dye cultivation, processing, and decomposition in a healthy way that allows biodynamics to come into the fashion usually chain and guide a new sector on earth and human care.

It can be a shock to see the prices of new, ethical and sustainable fiber and clothing. Especially if your wardrobe is carefully souced from Good will or local garage sales. Many people now are saying “Quality over quantity, durability and ethical production over onsolescence and waste less IS enough.”

So why is this trend to regeneratively grown fiber important? because it is a beginning! We can support it with our consciousness and in small local ways. It’s a way to live more fully our values if they include health communit and loving compassion for all beings and our Earth.

To the original three R’s - Reduce, Re-use recycle, we are adding a fourth Re=generate.

Thinking about the connection between your garden or farm and the fashion industry may lead you to make new decisions about what you grow. It might be interesting this year to grow one new fibre plant.(mamaki? hemp? and try making fiber: spinning, weaving and plant dyeing