Celebrating the Life of Stephan Harding, Gaian Scientist and Friend of Local Futures, 1953-2024
The much-loved and respected Gaian scientist and Head of Holistic Science at Schumacher College, Stephan Harding, passed away on September 2nd at the age of 71. Stephan was a cherished friend and a close collaborator over three decades.
I met Stephan when I was teaching at Schumacher College just after it opened in 1990. We immediately became friends. We shared a taste in music, art, and above all a passionate love of nature. He shared that love with his students – with all of us – in a profoundly infectious, exuberant way. And he had a brilliant mind – a mind which was able to see the broader connections, masterfully weaving diverse concepts together.
We didn’t always see eye to eye: for me, he had rather too much faith in conventional science and was a little wary of acknowledging the degree to which science had been co-opted by corporate interests. However, Stephan was always an intelligent presence and a valuable contributor to many Local Futures’ activities. Over the years, we often discussed ideas with him as we worked on written pieces, books and films. He also spoke at numerous of our conferences and workshops in the UK, Spain and Australia.
Stephan helped us sponsor several Ladakhi community leaders to attend courses at Schumacher College. He also worked with us in Ladakh as a “counter expert”, helping us to put across the vital message that life in the urban consumer culture was not all it was cracked up to be, and that many wise Westerners were turning away from consumerism towards Nature and a respect for indigenous cultures. His authoritative voice lent much-needed credence to our warnings about the toxicity of the various chemicals and industrial materials that were being introduced to Ladakh by so-called “experts” under the banner of progress.
Stephan was also a born clown and entertainer! So he was in his element on stage in Ladakh, playing the role of the ruthless corporate CEO in satirical plays we wrote with a local monk that questioned the whole concept of modernization.
Music made our trips and experiences truly joyful. Some of my fondest memories are singing along with Stephan as he and my husband John and so many friends and colleagues from around the world jammed together. In the bars of Andalucia, Stephan would regale the locals with his wonderful cuatro and his flawless Spanish singing – gifts from his Venezuelan childhood.
In my international work, I was always singing the praises of Schumacher College. Stephan and I talked a lot about the possibility of establishing ‘sister’ institutions elsewhere in the world, and I organised for him to meet with a number of groups and individuals in Australia that had similar ideas.
Sadly, Schumacher College has been struggling financially for many years, and just a few days after Stephan’s death, the College was forced to close its doors – at least for the time being.
So many thousands of people around the world have been inspired – many of them transformed – by the College that we all feel it must still have a future. Stephan has been at its very heart over all these years, along with its wise and charismatic founder, Satish Kumar, and Julia Ponsonby, Stephan’s infinitely kind and caring wife, who is acclaimed for her Gaian kitchen but responsible for so much more. This is a heart we will all want to keep beating.
I hope, dear Stephan, wherever you are now, that you know how deeply loved and appreciated you were from every corner of the world. We will miss you, but you will not be forgotten.
With all my love and with endless gratitude for your friendship,
Helena
Photo credit: Julia Ponsonby
Author: Helena Norberg-Hodge
I first met Stephan when he gave a talk and workshop at Gaunts House in Dorset.His love for nature and the inspirational way that he communicated it, have always remained with me.
He had such an entertaining and joyful way of engaging with people.
I first met Stephan in 2007, in a 3-week residential course at Schumacher called “Earth and the Sacred,” by Stephan, Alastair McIntosh, Rupert Sheldrake, and Marianne Williamson, with a drop-in by Fritjof Capra. This was a life-changing experience that led to a close 17-year friendship with Stephan, and led to my residence at Schumacher in 2010 as Visiting Fellow in Earth Jurisprudence, after taking all the Earth Jurisprudence courses offered there from 2008-2010, including the original course by Cormac Cullinan and Ian Mason. My 2010 residency was anchored by an amazing course by Stephan, Sean Kelly and Rupert Sheldrake called “Gaia and the Evolution of Consciousness,” which led to me teaching my own course at Schumacher in 2017 with Stephan, Sean, and Isabel Carlisle, called “The Great Work: Science, Consciousness, Jurisprudence and Ethics. ” As Helena noted, Stephan and I also didn’t alway see eye to eye. Sean and I would tease him about his skepticism toward human adventures in outer space, as Sean and I saw Gaia as more of a zygote or a dandelion (as in Carl Sagan’s Cosmos), and Stephan did admit that the space program was the catalyst for James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis. But mostly our friendship was about love and connection, to each other, to our amazing, to our family, friends and colleagues, and to Schumacher College. I wish I had even half the ability exhibited by Stephan himself in the moving tribute upon the passing of Brian Goodwin. But for all of us who knew and loved him, his memory is tribute enough.