Blog – The Josephine Porter Institute

Jul 11, 2024

Dead Warmth & Living Warmth (Part 2)

“I change my mind a lot… I don’t usually agree with what I say very much.” - David Bowie “Even the seemingly most u...

Jul 11, 2024

Equisetum and Fungus: Good and Bad

In a prehistoric epoch, the earth was too hot for water to condense into rivers, lakes, or oceans. Instead, other co...

Jul 11, 2024

Discovering Spiritual Concepts in Nature

What we experience in the world always begins as the outermost surface of things. If it is a flower, we see the ligh...

Jul 11, 2024

The Reality of the Zodiac

On our farm, we raise sheep, hogs, cattle, geese, and a variety of other animals. One thing you’ll notice is that e...

Jul 11, 2024

How To Balance Biodynamic Soils: a Comprehensive Guide

“Life is a universal omnipresent principle, and nothing is without life. In some forms life acts slowly—for instanc...

Jul 11, 2024

When Should I Spray Biodynamic Preparations

One question I’ve frequently encountered is: when should we spray out the biodynamic preparations? I do not think i...

Jul 11, 2024

JPI Book Announcement!

We are releasing a new title with SteinerBooks, Biodynamics for Beginners: Principles and Practice, in which the “b...

Jul 11, 2024

I know this doesn’t do justice to the enjoyment we all shared. The closest I can describe it is like the feeling of summer camp — but for grownups dedicated to healing the earth. What a joy such gatherings are for the inner child born within the soul. I mean this for you, dear reader: I hope you will be able to join us next time.

Jul 29, 2023

Mice: A Farmer's Best Friend

When we consider Steiner's indications on "pest peppers" (remedies made to combat pests and weeds), you take the weed seed and destroy them either by fire or by rotting. Consider the rodent: the rodent lives primarily off seeds and yet, due to its incredibly inefficient digestive system, the rodent must consume its own feces to extract nourishment. What this really means is that rodents leave behind much of the vital potential of seeds when they eat them. The manure of rodents in the garden are nature's pest peppers.

Jul 3, 2023

Secondary Objectivity

If biodynamics is used as a "magic potion" to fix all of a farmer's problems, the farmer is likely to judge biodynamics as "not working" even though biodynamic preparations never claimed to be such a panacea. If, on the other hand, biodynamics is used as a further expression of a farmer's love for the land and for fellow human beings, it can only improve the farm.

Jun 26, 2023

The Return-Gift of Gratitude

We must remember we owe more than we can give and embrace gratefully the bounty the Earth gladly surrenders to us.

Jun 26, 2023

Fungus & Threefolding

When Jesus drives the moneylenders and animals out of the temple, this is analogous to using Equisetum arvense to bring a healthy asceticism to plants, to starve out (so to speak) excessive inner planetary forces or lower animal impulses.