Council
Council
The primary function of the Council, along with the General Secretary, is to strengthen the relationship between members and branches and groups in Canada. It also works with initiatives that may arise within the membership of the Society. As well, it seeks to intensify the connection between the Canadian Society and the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland.
Councillors are chosen by their facility to work actively and collegially out of anthroposophy. Ideally, each area of the country is represented by a Councillor who serves for a term of seven years.
President
president@anthroposophy.ca
Rubeena has been a dedicated Waldorf class teacher, administrator, and board member for almost twenty years. Her journey began with the founding of the Okanagan Waldorf School, a farm and forest school where animal husbandry, gardening, and wildcrafting rhythms were woven into everyday life. From this beginning, Rubeena has been guided by the living principles of Anthroposophy. Over the past several years, she has served as an adult educator within the movement, including as a faculty member and grades program director for the West Coast Institute of Anthroposophy. She is a certified New Adult Educator, a program based on the 7-fold learning processes developed by Coenraad van Houten. Since 2020, Rubeena has volunteered as the Northwest Pacific Leader for the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America. As a member of the General Section, Rubeena views Anthroposophy as a lifelong, embodied quest to understand human nature in relation to the world and spirit, and to live guided by that understanding. She looks forward to her new role as president of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada.
Treasurer
sebastian@anthroposophy.ca
I became a member of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada in 2011 and shortly thereafter joined the Economics Conference at the Goetheanum to work with colleagues from around the world. I arrived in Canada in 2005, lived in Vancouver and Toronto, and now live in Montreal. I accepted to join the Council and role of Treasurer to fulfill my passion to serve Rudolf Steiner’s World Economy Course and find ways to bring about the healing benefits of the Threefold Social Organism.
General Secretary
catarinaburisch@anthroposophy.ca
Catarina became the council member representative for Ontario in 2019. Anthroposophy has always been intrinsically woven into the fabric of both her personal and professional life, as she values the strength and breadth it provides. Catarina was born in Montreal, educated in French, English and German and attended a Waldorf kindergarten. She has lived in various Canadian metropolises including Montreal, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Ottawa and Toronto and worked in all of the aforementioned cities. Her passion for languages led her to a career in education as a public-school teacher, Waldorf class teacher, school guidance counsellor, school principal and therapeutic counsellor. Catarina has been a member of the Anthroposophical Society since 1985, joined the First Class in 2005 and IFAPA in 2021. Exploring Anthroposophy’s many facets, enables her to apply its wisdom, thereby making it current and relevant to those she meets. She enjoys discovering the many different ways Anthroposophy can be accessed by each individual and then applied to enrich their lives.
corinnasons@anthroposophy.ca
Corinna was born and grew up in Germany. She did not attend the nearby Waldorf school but visited it several times, and the colours and forms of the building made her curious about anthroposophy. After graduating high school she enrolled in Foundation Studies on a bio-dynamic farm in Wuppertal. Her life path then took her to Eastern Germany, later to Russia, and finally to Canada where she completed her Waldorf teacher training. Having immersed herself in the vibrant anthroposophical communities around the Waldorf schools in Montreal and Toronto, she decided to become a member of the Anthroposophical Society in 2017. Corinna now lives in London ON, and teaches French at the London Waldorf School. She loves her local community where she is active in anthroposophical study groups, and the Christian Community. She has also joined the First Class. Corinna has been working with the Council since April 2024 and was confirmed as a full member at the 2025 AGM.
admin@anthroposophy.ca
I emigrated to Canada in 1976 to be the Grade One teacher at the Toronto Waldorf School. I had joined the Anthroposophical Society in America a few years earlier when I was teaching in Pennsylvania.
I taught for many years at the Toronto Waldorf School, mostly as a class teacher, but also as a French and music teacher. I currently substitute in local public schools. My husband Richard and I have three children who all live in Montreal.
Richard and I live at Hesperus Village, across the field from the Toronto Waldorf School. We enjoy the many anthroposophically inspired activities in this area. I joined the First Class in 2009 and am active in the Christian Community. I am very interested in Social Threefolding.
When I was growing up, I moved frequently. My family and I lived in Switzerland, Sweden and the US.
I am pleased to be the Membership Administrator and appreciate being able to connect with members from across Canada.
Candidate
barbarahnicoll@anthroposophy.ca
In the course of my life I have continuously been involved and devoted to research, learning, human development and community engagement. I have started and supported the development of schools, businesses, cooperatives, not for profit organizations, TEDx Talks, international youth exchanges, graduate program development and mentored adult learning at the Masters level since 2013. My current membership in the EdD in Educational & Professional Practice, Waldorf Education program, Antioch University is a continuation of my formal studies.
My background includes a Master of Integrated Arts, Waldorf High School Teacher certification, BA General Studies, Liberating Structures training and practice, Expressive Arts certification, Youth Development diploma from Grant MacEwan College, Improvisation for the Classroom – Paul Sills and The Art of Facilitation Training with Caroline Estes of the Alpha Institute.
communications@
anthroposophy.ca
I have been a teacher most of my life, living and working at times in Nicaragua, Japan, Dubai and Toronto.
In 2002 I graduated from the Rudolf Steiner College Canada as a class teacher and taught middle grades for 6 years in Nelson BC. More recently I have been write online courses, editing and working with Waldorf teachers in training. I published a book with Steiner books in 2024, Tolkien’s Hidden Pictures: Anthroposophy and the Enchantment in Middle Earth.
I am the director of communications for the society.
kaitlinbrown@anthroposophy.ca
I was first introduced to anthroposophy while volunteering at a small Waldorf school initiative, Sisonke School in the village of Port St. John’s, in the Transkei region of South Africa when I was 19 years old. The agricultural lectures were my first Steiner readings as at 19 years’ old after growing up in Northern Alberta in a very mainstream atheist home I had the
sudden realization that as a human being I was a part of nature and not something foreign. Out of that realization I dedicated my life to being a naturalist. I travelled around to many different farms gathering skills such as organic gardening, biodynamic animal husbandry,
natural dying, hand crafting my own clothing, natural building, herbalism,
among many other practical self-sustaining skills. In 2009, I met my soon to be
husband and had my first child In December 2010. With the blessing of expecting a baby I turned my study to the incarnating human being. I read and re-read education of a child, among many other Steiner books on the topic of
incarnation and Waldorf education. In 2011, I visited my first Waldorf school
in Durban, South Africa. I can clearly remember the impression it had on me.
Firstly, it was strikingly different from the mainstream schools in South
Africa which are mostly large cement buildings with bars over the windows and
electric fences all around them. This school I saw as “rolling hills and bunny
cages.” At that first Waldorf school site I decided I wanted to be a Waldorf
kindergarden teacher.
In March of 2019, I took the position of senior kindergarten teacher at the South Shore Waldorf School in Blockhouse Nova Scotia and am still the kindergarten teacher this present day. I have grown a lot from the
experience of working in a Waldorf school. My kindergarten children are very
dear to my heart and I consider them angels. Those children are surrounded by
love and warmth. We share such a caring love in which their beings are
nourished and are met with a deep welcoming gesture. The Waldorf kindergarten
is a safe and loving place. I joined the anthroposophical society after being
introduced to it by Micah Edelstein, a council member who devotionally built a
new addition to the South Shore Waldorf school in 2018.
jacques.racine@anthroposophy.ca
Born: September 25, 1949.
Only child, modest family, virtuous parents. Enchanted by the stories and life of Jesus, I want to become a priest. I enter the seminary as a boarder. Two shocks: The first is to go from a room of your own to sharing a dormitory with 125 young people. The second is to realize that priests have faults and that everything becomes ritual instead of life. The subject of my master’s thesis in Philosophy at the University of Sherbrooke was Education, according to Bertrand Russell. It was the same era as Montessori, Free Children of Summerhill and Waldorf. I found nothing about Waldorf Education!
It was only in 1982 that I came across Waldorf Education and as I was a stay-at-home dad I quickly got involved as a volunteer. It was with the John the Baptist Branch in Montreal that I was introduced to Rudolf Steiner and felt that a new world was opening up to me. I later became a member of the Anthroposophical Society in Canada.
In 1985 I founded Mandragore, which imported Steiner and Waldorf books and products. I served all schools and branches in Canada.
I started teaching physical education at the Steiner School in Montreal, then at the Toronto Waldorf School and completed my training in Spatial Dynamics (Bothmer Gymnastics) with Jaimen MacMillan. Then I taught at the École Les Enfants de la Terre.
I have participated in numerous congresses and conferences both at the Goetheanum, and in Europe, the United States and Canada. I was co-founder of the publishing house Perceval with Arie Van Ameringen, I retired after a few years.
I was President of the Parents’ Board of the École Les Enfants de la Terre and I obtained a loan of $650,000 US for the construction of the building that houses the Kindergarten.
In Waterville, the Boutique Café has hosted several lectures, book launches, and workshops, both Anthroposophical and Waldorf.
In January 2025 I joined the board of directors of The Anthroposophical Society of Canada and also founded the Althea spiritual school whose activities take place at Mandragore.