Recent Events

The Warmth Mantle of the Earth: Two Perspectives
With Matthias Rang and Meinhard Simon

Thursday, December 18, 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

We invite you to join us for a special evening presentation by two visiting researchers and long-time friends of The Nature Institute.

Meinhard Simon will speak on the evolution of Earth’s warmth mantle as a suitable habitat for human beings, while Matthias Rang will consider the warmth mantle as interiority in the inorganic realm.

For more info on our presenters, please visit our events page.

New Companion Podcast Episodes: “The Trouble with ‘Factors’”

Listen to two new companion episodes from our podcast, In Dialogue With Nature: a reading of Craig Holdrege’s article, “The Trouble with ‘Factors’” and a conversation between Craig and John Gouldthorpe, where they delve deeper into the content of the essay and its wider ramifications.

Latest Publications

In Context: Fall 2025 Issue

The fall 2025 issue (#54) of our biannual publication, In Context, is now available in print and online. New writings include a chapter from Stephen Talbott’s new book, Organisms and Their Evolution: Agency and Meaning in the Drama of Life, “Is the Earth Alive” - a feature article of Craig’s unfolding work, new publication announcements, plus news of our many activities, including highlights from this summer’s foundation course intensive.

About the work of The Nature Institute — In a rare interview, recorded in Brazil, Henrike and Craig Holdrege speak of their transformative work and the Goethean perspective that has long inspired it. This Q & A followed a two-week course, “Seeing Nature Whole,” that the Holdrege’s have frequently taught each December in Florianópolis.

New Foundation Course

Encountering Nature
and the Nature of Things: Foundation Course in Goethean Science

Next Foundation Course Begins March 2026

Learn More

Application Deadline February 1, 2026 

New Online Offering

Cultivating an Experiential Understanding of Self and World: An Introduction to a Goethean Way of Science

Please join us for a totally online introduction to a Goethean way of science through readings and discussion with John Gouldthorpe. Full course description, with readings and meeting dates for each series, available here. This class is full.

Featured Article

Sympoiesis: From Thinking About to Being With

Separate entities can either compete or develop strategies to cooperate. In either case, the starting point is separation. This is a foundational assumption of modern biology. But what if relatedness is more fundamental? How would we behold living beings and what we call their environment? A consideration of oak trees guides this exploration of sympoiesis — creating together.

News From The Institute

Read here about recent staff activities at the institute and abroad including lectures and workshops with the North American summer youth section conference, artists, and philosophers, and collaborative trainings in climate science, mathematics, and Goethean practice with teachers and visiting scholars. Also see highlights from the final summer intensive of our previous foundation course cohort, and look ahead to welcoming our newest cohort beginning this winter.

Our Online Bookstore

Our online Bookstore offers titles from our faculty and other Goethean authors whose work we value. We encourage you to browse or contact us with any questions.

Other Research and Resources

In addition to publishing our staff’s work relating to Goethean Science and Phenomenology on this site, we also periodically showcase the work of others in the field. A new such addition to our Writings By Author section is the work of Mark Riegner PhD, who taught Ecology and Evolution for 35 years at Prescott College in Arizona, and has authored four insightful articles that you can link to from here.