There comes a moment when a community, an organization, or even an individual turns outward. In a biography, there comes a moment when what has become is now made available to the world. This is a turning-inside-out, an inversion, and then the unfolding of a new effect can begin. Helmy Abouleish outlines how Sekem has passed through this moment.
If we examine the steps of organizational development in Bernhard Lievegoed’s ideas, we find a step called the “associative phase.” Thirty years ago, when I first read about this, I didn’t understand it. The whole story didn’t seem very practical to me. But years later, I read it again and realized what Lievegoed was indicating: when we start looking outward as an organization, as a community, we actually develop and evolve more than when we look inward. I’ve observed myself over the last seven or eight years. And I’ve observed Sekem. For eight years now, we’ve been exclusively concerned with spreading our “model” of the Economy of Love. So, our primary interest is no longer tea bags or more farms, and yet we’ve never experienced stronger, faster, or better growth than in the last seven or eight years. Nothing is the same as it was eight years ago; nothing is even the same as it was last year. The Economy of Love continually rethinks the circular economy. If you visit one of our companies today, you will hear that we are the masters of the circular economy. I do think we are, but that’s not all there is. When you look at the circular economy as a whole, we could do things much better. We have to rethink everything we do—our buildings, our clothes, our cosmetics, our food, our furniture, our energy.
Responsible consumption means developing consciousness. That is our main goal. In Europe, people seem to have a higher level of consciousness but very poor consumption habits. I do know people who only wear organic clothing, eat organic food, have organic furniture, and live in rammed-earth houses. But apart from them, there are many people who don’t. So what can we do? How can we challenge this, every day? What do we dare to do realistically, not only in food processing but also in agriculture? We even try to reinvent biodynamic agriculture, the basis of all our work, every year. Many questions arise when we start to expand and scale our approach and to question it every day. We try to navigate through this with the focus on enabling each individual to develop further. We’re approaching 40,000 associated farmers in the agricultural sector—how can we continue to nurture and develop a holistic view as our partnerships grow? That’s what we’re trying to do, and in doing so, we face major challenges. Imagine what it means to obtain 40,000 horns for preparations. At the same time, we’re moving towards new developments, for example, agroforestry. We have to see how we can integrate these, how we can learn from them, and how we can incorporate them into our research.
Everything Changes with Every Step
“When you start to walk the path, the path appears,” said Rumi. I think this verse is right. You have to have courage and a vision of what things could look like. We have a vision for Egypt and for the world. When we start working toward this vision, everything changes with every step. Our own feet and hands are probably smarter than our brains. We can’t and won’t think it through to the end. We have to work at it to learn. We remain open, listen to people, and learn their language. We can’t stay at home, speaking our own language, and wait to be understood. We have to go out and learn the languages of others. We actively do this so that we can say—in their language—what we want to achieve. I remember, at the first graduation ceremony at Heliopolis University nine years ago, Ueli Hurter spoke about the two different qualities of the future: Futurum, the part of the future that’s shaped from the past, where we prepare ourselves for something; and Adventus, the part of the future that arrives from the future to the present and surprises us. We try to work with this second part of the future.
Since we started in Sekem, it has always been about striving for these coming adventures, being open, allowing them to happen, and welcoming them. We must not close ourselves off and only believe in a future that proceeds from thinking about the past. It’s about seeing this future together with people. That’s why we look each other in the eye. Because only then can we see if something is working. That’s the only performance indicator: the eyes of our people. If we no longer see people’s eyes, we’ve lost everything. Because it’s not about tea bags, it’s not about hectares of biodynamic agriculture—it’s about people. This development must also be accompanied by joy and happiness.
More World Goetheanum Forum 2025
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Image Helmy Abouleish at the WGA Forum 2025. Photo: Samuel Knaus
