Patti Berg wrote: >Hello, > >Over the summer, I have been trying to learn what biodynamics is. At >first I thought it was a method of farming, but I read evidence that it >may possibly be a religion. > >I have read on the list that some believe there are fairies in the >forest helping them in their endeavors. Others practice the craft of >making a "brew" to heal the land. > >I like the science aspect of this forum in studying the causes and >effects of various methods of farming on the surrounding environment. I >do not believe, however, that my plants grow because I connect with some >sort of "inner self" or some universal power source. > >Is this a part of what biodynamics is? >
One day a man went into a supermarket and bought 50 packets of vegetable seeds which were on special. He planted them in his garden according to the instructions on the packets. Between planting and the time for harvest it rained but little and all he got for his efforts were half a dozen wizened plants and one good lettuce which he ate for dinner. The next morning he went to the house of a woman in the street who he knew supplied local restaurants with vegetables she grew herself. He found her in the front garden among her many flowers. He told her the story and then asked her how it was that her vegies and her flowers grew so well. "I'm a little busy just now," Mary said with a smile, "Come back at 2.15 pm." At the appointed time he returned to find her clipping the heads of flowers which were past their bloom. "Hold this open," she instructed and handed him a large brown paper bag. He did as he was told, watching as she dropped the heads into the bag. What, he asked, was she doing? "Collecting the seeds so I may grow the flowers again next year," she answered. "When the flower heads are dry, the seeds will separate from the rest and I shall sift them out and put them away in a cool dry place for they are better than the ones they sell in the supermarket The rest of the flowers I shall put in the compost heap so all their goodness will go back into the soil." "You don't know much about gardening, do you?" she asked. He shook his head. Looking at his threadbare clothes and thinking of her reputation with the restaurants, she thought she knew why he had bought the seeds. "About your question," she continued. "It is a matter of acceptance. Some would call it belief. For instance, I accept that there is a rhythm to all things and that I am a part of it, not in control. Also that there is only so much printing that will fit on the back of a packet of seeds, no matter how much it costs. Also that there is more to all this" she gestured broadly "than meets the eye. Including us." For a moment she paused as though deep in thought and then she nodded. "Follow me," she said and took him round the back of the house. As he followed her through the plot his eyes goggled at the teeming growth around him, the irrigation pipes and sprays. Mary stopped at a pile of what he took, from its smell, to be manure of some kind. She bent and picked something up off the ground, gave it to him. It was a cowhorn. "Hold it with the point down, " she instructed. He did so, gaping as she picked up a handful of manure and stuffed it into the horn, packing it down tight. When it was full she stopped the end with earth, took the horn from his hand and placed it in a hole in the ground which she had dug for that purpose an hour before. He saw she angled the horn slightly, point uppermost. "Almost a hundred years ago," she said, apropos of nothing, "A European man called Rudolf Steiner with off-world help gathered together the wisdom of the ages as it relates to the four elements and the growing of plants. With insights born of a keen brain, study, research, experimentation and personal sacrifice, he developed a system of natural agriculture which we call 'biodynamics' or BD. "Part of my acceptance includes burying the cowhorn in that hole on the night of the winter solstice and digging it up about five and a half months later. When I do so, this is what I shall find." Mary picked up another cowhorn, unstoppered it and tipped the contents on to a board. Without speaking, she took a spade, dug into the ground, unearthed a small wooden box, placed it next to the small pile and removed the lid. "Now I know why I buried that there last winter." The woman grinned at his look of mystification. "Look at the two substances. This from the cowhorn is granular; this in the box resembles petrified cowdung. Which it is, in fact. If I take a minute portion of the first, liquidise it, add my own energy to the energy it already contains, and spray it on my garden, everything will grow in abundance. Are you a Christian?" A little taken aback at the change of direction, he nodded abruptly. She smiled again. "It is said that Jesus of Nazareth turned water into wine, a few loaves and fishes into enough food to feed a multitude, and performed other miracles. Do you know how he did that?" Her eyes searched his face as though looking for something.. "He . . . asked his Father?" Patiently, she tried again. "When you put a seed into good soil and water it, give it some sunshine, it will develop, burst open and grow a shoot. The shoot pops up above the ground and as long as you care for it continues to grow until it may be very large. How does it do that?" "Heat from the sun?" The man looked round at the irrigation pipes. "Moisture from the ground . . rainwater?" She said nothing. Without warning, he picked up some of the granular material, felt it, let it trickle through his fingers. "Energy!" he said softly but forcefully. "That's it, isn't it? Energy from the soil, from the sun, from the rain, from the very air itself. And from me, from within me. That's important, isn't it?" Her smile was like a burst of golden light. "Yes. Oh, the plant would grow without you but not as well as it could. Or should. Energy is everywhere around us; in the morning when the earth is putting out its own, the leaves sparkle and the air vibrates; in the afternoon, one can feel the rhythm of life sinking back into the soil as flowers close and leaves curl up. When you work with the soil, digging and composting, you are putting your own energy into it. Plant your seeds in late afternoon or early evening and water them well; harvest the fruit in the morning or early afternoon to obtain the best taste or fragrance. "You are the key, the driver, of it all. The garden is yours, you are its Custodian, its Carer. Without you it is directionless, plants will grow to suit themselves. In the same way as a farm without a farmer is driverless, and the different parts - stock, buildings, machinery, paddocks, soil - are just components existing separately instead of operating as a whole, supporting and nourishing each other, so it is with your garden." ************* When the man reached home, he went into his study, lit the oil lamp and took from its crowded shelves a manuscript which he laid on the desk open at the next blank page. Plucking the quill pen from its holder, he dipped it into an inkwell, shook it to clear a drop from the end, wrote a few words on the page, blotted it carefully and left the room. The words sparkled in the beam from the lamp. "Today I learned about BD500." Below them a small r entwined with an s. ******************** roger
