L’anthropologue raconte l’expérience d’un stage au sein de l’équipe élevage d’une ferme biodynamique (Hautes-Pyrénées). Son récit présente l’apprentissage d’un ethos propre à la Biodynamie telle qu’elle est transmise au cœur de la paysannerie française. Il nous montre que l’enseignement de la maître de stage des techniques propres à l’élevage de vaches laitières impose parallèlement un travail relationnel. Ce travail prend la forme d’exercices ritualisés qui vont familiariser la stagiaire avec une nouvelle ontologie. La transmission des savoir-faire biodynamiques se transforme en initiation, reconfigurant les rapports de l’apprentie vis-à-vis des animaux, mais aussi de l’ensemble de la ferme.

Relationships between humans and non-human entities are at the heart of Biodynamic Agriculture, founded by Rudolf Steiner and inspired by the esoteric current he created, Anthroposophy. Biodynamic Agriculture’s spiritual origins have practical consequences. It is not about improving the productivity of the farm but is rather an agriculture of care, aiming to reach a symbiotic welfare for the individual and his environment through a process of ritualization of practices. This chapter, based on the ethnography of a peasant network involved in Biodynamic Agriculture living in Southwestern France (Occitanie), shows how ritual anthropology in its relational approach framed by Michael Houseman and Carlo Severi can give a special enlightenment to this peasant practice that is intertwined between agriculture and spirituality. Analysing the analogical way of thinking in order to understand the ontological recomposition that Biodynamic Agriculture proposes, this practice can be seen as an everyday life rituality through an anthropology of gestures. Biodynamicists develop gestures as techniques to understand and relate to the "Living", as much as for self-development.