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This is a great list which I love reading- but I just can't keep up with all the messages right now! Please unsubscribe me; I can enjoy the archives online keep up with all your good work. Strength Wisdom, Micah Al-Qemi- Alchemical Spagyric products for healing body, spirit soul. Visit us on the web at: www.al-qemi.com http://www.al-qemi.com
Dinshah colours
Hugh, Your recent post about rain the various techniques instruments you use to help it form was interesting, I am wondering if you use the Dinshah work for other ends in your farming? I have an old Dinshah projector which I direct to the alchemical herbal extracts we make, and I have often felt that some plants might benefit from its coloured light as well, seeing as plants eat light. Any ideas? Strength Wisdom, Micah Al-Qemi- Alchemical Spagyric products for healing body, spirit soul. Visit us on the web at: www.al-qemi.com
RE: Dinshah colours
Hugh, We do a lot of dowsing in our work to narrow down all kinds of approaches we use. We've looked at the official Dinshah guide some, but mostly we just do it intuitively; that is, change the colour aimed at the extraction process until it responds on the subtle levels. Frequently, the right colour changes at different time of the process, and probably in response to external conditions as well. What I was wondering about your work was if you use the Dinshah light directly on any plants, to boost growth, combat disease, etc. It seems like that would be an interesting study, whether you were growing food or medicine plants, since they all operate by the same natural principles. Strength Wisdom, Micah Al-Qemi- Alchemical Spagyric products for healing body, spirit soul. Visit us on the web at: www.al-qemi.com
Vinegar
Greetings all, Just another note on vinegar here- at the organic garden center I work at, we just opened up a bottle of some of the weed-killer vinegar we carry for employees to try. We tried it on some weeds in the parking lot, some dandelions wild lettuce. Just a few sprays on the plant, some at the leaves, and some at the base. Within 3 hours, the plants were brown and shriveling up; later that day, they were pretty much all dried out. Of course, this is a small test in the beginning phases, so we don't know if they will come back, etc. But so far, it seems to be working. The kind we are using is Bradfield brand, which is 20% vinegar with Yucca root to make it stick. Their website is at: http://www.bradfieldind.com/ I will be trying some on tougher weeds at home, and will let everyone know how that goes, too. Strength Wisdom, Micah Al-Qemi- Alchemical Spagyric products for healing body, spirit soul. Visit us on the web at: www.al-qemi.com
RE: RoundUp alternative
Perry Virginia, Thanks for the reports on vinegar as a weed killer! I work part time at an organic garden center, and we carry a 20% horticultural vinegar for weeds, but no one I know has tried it, so I did not want to suggest it in these recent discussions. It is good to know that it does show good results; both for this forum and for the many customers I deal with who are trying to switch to organic and need guidance. It is cheap, which is also a good thing. I, too, would rather touch lots of nasty natural things than man-made poisons like Roundup. Strength Wisdom, Micah Al-Qemi- Alchemical Spagyric products for healing body, spirit soul. Visit us on the web at: www.al-qemi.com
RoundUp
Greetings all, I have to say I am a little alarmed by the recent discussions about Roundup- am I understanding correctly that Roundup is used by some on this list? Some of the posts seem to defend it a bit, unless I am confused here. Also, I suggest that folks look into another weed killer I have heard some about, called Finale. As I understand it (do more deep research on this to be sure) it is a chemical related to Roundup, but in a form which more quickly breaks down in the soil, and which does not profit Monsanto. Strength Wisdom, Micah Al-Qemi- Alchemical Spagyric products for healing body, spirit soul. Visit us on the web at: www.al-qemi.com http://www.al-qemi.com
Laura's Mystery Flower
Laura, What you've got there is Salsify, or Oyster Plant, Tragopogon porrifolius. It also comes in yellow, which is more common than the lovely purple-blue one you have. It is caled Oyster Plant because the root has a seafood flavour, with hints of artichoke, and it is an old edible wild plant, cultivated in the Mediterranean for thousands of years. As a child, I had an elderly German neighbour who used to grow it make a sort of pie with it, with a tart-type crust, sort of like French onion pie, with cheese, etc. It was really good. Like dandelion many others of its relatives, Salsify gives a milky sap when you break its stem, especially near the flower bud. I don't know much about what it means in your field, I know it grows in a lot of diverse places is a tough little plant. Strength Wisdom, Micah Al-Qemi- Alchemical Spagyric products for healing body, spirit soul. Visit us on the web at: www.al-qemi.com
RE: Help with Glycyrrhiza glabra when to plant?
Jane writes: Should I have gotten the Chinese variety for medicinal use? Jane, I can't tell you too much about when to plant this guy, there are better experts here than I, but I can give my two cents about the plant medicinally. Generally, I favour using the herbs from where you are, so American Licorice (glabra) if you are over here. But, in this case, one point to consider is that in some people, Licorice can aggravate hypertension by causing sodium retention, and the Chinese Licorice (uralensis) has less of a tendency to do this than the American you have. I am not of the mindset that there are any inherently dangerous plants, and I don't want to be seen as being on the anti-Licorice (or Comfrey, or Chaparral, or whatever else suddenly becomes dangerous according to FDA) bandwagon. Unless your hypertension is severe, most of American Licorice's effects can be balanced out by extra water, potassium (i.e. take it with Dandelion), and moderation of use. But, just so you know, the Chinese does seem to act in a more balanced way at least regarding this issue. I do know that both are really easy to grow, and lovely in their rambling pea-vetchy way, I am quite fond of their wood candy roots. Both types contain amazing healing properties wrapped up in beautifully complex chemistries, I hope you get to know them well! Strength Wisdom, Micah Al-Qemi- Alchemical Spagyric products for healing body, spirit soul. Visit us on the web at: www.al-qemi.com http://www.al-qemi.com
BSE Feedlots (was Mixing Politics, but on-topic now!)
Allan wrote:snip the big chicken companies...are pushing for illegalizing outdoor chicken flocks...There is a similar movement underfoot to present barned beef as the only protection from BSE. (Making Pastured Beef a health hazard.) snip I found this really scary, as I am sure many others on this list do, but it particularly made me think of a really interesting interview on NPR I heard a few weeks back. The interview was with Michael Pollan (author of the Botany of Desire, which I loved) and it was about his article for the New York Times Magazine, in which he learned about the standard American feedlot-raised beef by buying a calf himself being involved in its short life in that system. Links to the article interview are at the end of this message, I am not sure how much I can excerpt here without getting into trouble with NYT, but here's some of what he wrote that relates to the grass-pasture question. Corn is a mainstay of livestock diets because there is no other feed quite as cheap or plentiful: thanks to federal subsidies and ever-growing surpluses, the price of corn ($2.25 a bushel) is 50 cents less than the cost of growing it. The rise of the modern factory farm is a direct result of these surpluses A corn diet can also give a cow acidosis. Unlike that in our own highly acidic stomachs, the normal pH of a rumen is neutral. Corn makes it unnaturally acidic, ...which in some cases can kill the animal but usually just makes it sickThe condition can lead to...a general weakening of the immune system that leaves the animal vulnerable to everythingWhat keeps a feedlot animal healthy -- or healthy enough -- are antibioticsMost of the antibiotics sold in America end up in animal feed [on the radio, he said as much as 60%] -- a practice that, it is now generally acknowledged, leads directly to the evolution of new antibiotic-resistant ''superbugs.''... Escherichia coli 0157 is a relatively new strain of a common intestinal bacteria (it was first isolated in the 1980's) that is common in feedlot cattle, more than half of whom carry it in their guts. Ingesting as few as 10 of these microbes can cause a fatal infection. Most of the microbes that reside in the gut of a cow and find their way into our food get killed off by the acids in our stomachs, since they originally adapted to live in a neutral-pH environment. But the digestive tract of the modern feedlot cow is closer in acidity to our own, and in this new, manmade environment acid-resistant strains of E. coli have developed that can survive our stomach acids -- and go on to kill us. By acidifying a cow's gut with corn, we have broken down one of our food chain's barriers to infection. Yet this process can be reversed: James Russell, a U.S.D.A. microbiologist, has discovered that switching a cow's diet from corn to hay in the final days before slaughter reduces the population of E. coli 0157 in its manure by as much as 70 percent. Such a change, however, is considered wildly impractical by the cattle industry. I know the pressure Allan spoke of on organic farmers is being hung on the BSE problem; I don't know if E. Coli works the same way, but it seems that if switching cattle back to their natural way of life for as short as a few days makes them freer from E. Coli, then that says something to us about how they should be raised to protect from all diseases. At the very least, it says that for their arguments against pasture feeding, the opposite, actually, is true! There was a lot more that was interesting in this article about modern feedlot cattle, regarding the nutrition (or lack of!) in their meat, the pollution involved in raising so much corn for cattle, the 284 gallons of oil needed to produce every calf this way, and on and on. You can hear the interview on NPR's website at: http://freshair.npr.org/dayFA.cfm?display=daytodayDate=04%2F03%2F2002 You can read the full article online at the NYT site, but it requires a very intrusive registration process first. Anyway, the link for that is: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/magazine/31BEEF.html Strength Wisdom, Micah Al-Qemi- Alchemical Spagyric products for healing body, spirit soul. Visit us on the web at: www.al-qemi.com
RE: Elementals (was Dandelions)
Wayne says: did you do a battle energy release, ... soil balancing request...ask if there were negative energy lines affecting that area?... etc. Wayne, I never did anything that specific, I go more by gut feeling. After looking at more mundane characteristics like sun drainage, I go to the more etheric stuff. I dowse some, too, but mostly I just wait for the inner voice- like, to mark out the rows, I lay string down think here? voice says - no, over some, here? ok and like that. Maybe not even that formal a process, I find that I usually just know. Perhaps more deliberately specifically contacting various beings might help, nothing against that, I just never tried it. Since I am renting here, and not a farmer for a living, and I moved my growing area to one which worked great, I am not all that invested in needing to grow in the other spot. I am always willing to try to help Nature, though, so I am fortunately free to try all kinds of approaches not worry about the outcome back there. Maybe that's what I'm supposed to do, I'm puzzled by it but not upset. Thanks for your ideas! Strength Wisdom, Micah Al-Qemi- Alchemical Spagyric products for healing body, spirit soul. Visit us on the web at: www.al-qemi.com
RE: Elementals (was Dandelions)
Deborah says It crossed my mind after reading your post to wonder whether you were being asked to help heal that spot in some way, as a prelude to growing there... I never thought of this- maybe I am working on this garden for someone else, yet to come. This also made me think that I might be fixing something past as well, since the plot is against a fence where a trellis was built, likely something was grown there before. When I turned over the ground, it did not seem as if it had ever been cultivated, but the trellis had to have been for something. My neighbourhood my landlord are all big on chemicals, so I'm sure there is much to fix. I haven't allowed any chemicals on the property in the almost 3 years we've been here, and my yard is a lively haven for all kinds of critters! Anyway, I still go back there to see what's going on, also because a big patch of geraniums, cleavers, dandelion, henbit heal-all has come up, so I collect them from there. Before, it was solid crabgrass, so maybe I created a niche for those plants to come in do the fixing. Who knows? Thanks for your ideas, I will try some more communication back there see what happens. Strength Wisdom, Micah
RE: Elementals (was Re: Dandelions)
Nelson, I have wondered about this, too, bad elementals (I know nothing natural is bad, maybe just destructive). Anyway, that happened to me, here, too. The first year I was here, I picked a garden site with the usual methods. I looked where the sun was, drainage, where the weeds were tallest, etc. Then, when I went to lay it out, I asked for more etheric guidance. I dowsed some, and also just waited for inspiration for each line, corner, arrangement of rows. It all felt very good, like I was doing it the proper way. I even tested them- stuck my shovel in past the line they gave me. Inside the line- great black soil. Outside the line- gravel. It was weird. But as the season went on, nothing would grow there! We began to joke that it was cursed! I am only a beginner with BD, but I am a very good organic gardener, and I tried everything. I tried etheric stuff, too- appeasements, attunements, communication, etc. Fortunately, the disaster became obvious in the middle of the Spring crops, so I only lost a few low-investment things like lettuces. I put the tomatoes the later crops in a different spot, nearer the house, mostly in containers since I rent this house. That worked out great, this is my third year with that I am very pleased with my beautiful garden, but I still wonder about the cursed spot in the back! I would like to call it a learning experience, but I have yet to figure out the lesson! Any ideas? The only thing I can think of is that it was too wild back there, too far from the house. I have run into a lot of less-than-friendly energies like that worse in the woods, and that never surprises me. Some places, man belongs; some places he doesn't. Maybe part of my yard is one of those places, too. Strength Wisdom, Micah
elementals (pictures)
Dave, Do you mean the May 5 meeting? If so, I won't be there, unfortunately- I will be in Berkeley at an Ayurvedic conference selling my Spagyric/alchemical herbal extracts. I look forward to going to later meetings when possible. I am just starting with the BD, but I really want to see the preps made be around them, move my knowledge into the experiential. As for pictures, it was a long time ago, I never got any of my friend's pictures I haven't seen him in years. I will try to track him down, I would like some of the pix, too. They were beautiful, I'm sorry I never got any! Strength Wisdom, Micah
RE: Elementals (was Re: Dandelions)
snipMy vision is not deteriorating but I believe that I'm still developing spiritually. Tony N-S.snip That made me smile, because over the past 3 years or so, I was in real denial about needing glasses. I had been in the desert, then moved to the Pacific NW, and the lower light higher humidity combined with age made things start to get a bit fuzzy in the vision department! The forests here are obviosly more lush than the desert, so rich and green (where it hasn't been clearcut) and I would see lots more etheric critters hiking here than I ever did before. Days when my real vision was worse, I would see more of them; and I was worried about getting glasses ruining it all! Safety won out, I had to get specs to drive, but the other vision seems just fine, I still see my subtle friends everywhere in the garden forest. I just think maybe I needed that time of letting the real vision fuzz out a bit, maybe it allowed my mind to let go be more open to other ways of seeing; once I was more open, the subtle vision stayed even with the glasses on. I had a friend who used to photograph the etheric creatures, he would focus his camera out, so the rocks, trees, whatever, were out of focus, and take the picture. When they were developed, they would be full of life, it was amazing. I went out hiking with him once, and I would see something, and he would shoot it, and develop it, and it would be just exactly what I saw. No trick except the focus change, and the rocks would have rock people, undines in rivers, it was wild! So far, I only have one picture like that, I took it near my house, a big tree and some Devil's Club, a spiny plant that has a forest-defender type energy In the background is this character I can only describe as cranky-looking! Just his face, peeking around a tree. I still have to work on interacting with them more in my garden. In the forest, they lead me to great stuff; plants I'm looking for, hidden springs, mushroom patches, etc. But in the garden, I am still building a rapport I guess. I just try to be open garden as spirit moves me, as it were, see what happens. Strength Wisdom, Micah
mmmmMorels!
Monte, Glad to hear you are having a good crop down there. Up here in the Willamette valley, we had sort of fits starts to the Spring. It got wet, then warm, then wet some more, and I could just feel those spongy little guys out there, then it got really cold. A collector I know said that the patches she was watching that had been springing up seem to have aborted, and so there might not be many this year. I haven't been out yet, but I will go on the morel hunt with the mushroom club in a couple of weeks, anyway, because, hey, it's a hike in the woods, how bad can it be? I like to make stuffing, like for turkey, but softer, and squish it into the inner hollows of the big ones, then bake 'em, maybe with a little wine in the pan, and a little wine in me, and that's a great dinner! Strength Wisdom, Micah
