The birth of a community

When did Kimberton Hills really begin? Was it when the Myrins wanted to teach biodynamics here in the 1930s and 40s? Was it when Dr. Karl Konig visited Alaric Myrin in the 1960s? Was it when Karin Myrin realized Camphill was the movement to which part of her family’s beautiful estate would best be given? Was it when the intrepid Camphill pioneers witnessed the deed being signed— when the first villager arrived?

The birth of this place was clearly in the to–be-written-destinies of many people. Some have had their lives detour through Kimberton Hills, most have recognized it as life changing, and many have remained, creating their lives directly in the heart of this work, this place, this community.

Community everywhere is at risk in the world. As individualism rises strongly, and distrust and polarities seem the order of the day, many wonder whether a place that so values connectedness and mutual help can survive.

At the same time, it is those connections that give us our sense of who we are, that orient us in the world with ballast and meaning. It is by knowing each other, and often by collaborating, that we can make the world a better place. Sometimes it takes the will of millions and sometimes it takes only a few or even one inspired individual who will act.

Many of us heard the call of Karl and Tilla Konig and/or Rudolf Steiner. The values Steiner brought to our lives inclined us toward Kimberton Hills: biodynamic agriculture that seeks to work with the ecology of health to bring good food from the earth, recognition of the rightness of our basic economic interdependence,
understanding that each person is a sovereign individuality with spiritual wholeness beyond so-called handicapping conditions, and of course, the strength that comes when we help each other, whether we are helping in the moment or being helped.

Some came to help and some came to be helped, and yet in life, the roles blur and reverse, the capacities of each of us are challenged and enhanced. That is the other value we hold—that each person (I, you, he and she) can continue on a lifelong journey of becoming. We can continue to direct the arc of our lives, opening new doorways that lead to a new future.

Kimberton Hills continues to work to serve these values in daily life. We “stand on the shoulders of the ones who have gone before” as the Chartres masters have said.  Whether it is the communitarian movements of the past, those who worked with Rudolf Steiner’s ideas to bring healing, or individuals and families whose hopes and needs encouraged the spirit of Kimberton Hills to rise from agricultural land in Chester County, we have many to remember and thank!

- Diedra Heitzman, Executive Director