Blog – Tagged "2023"– The Josephine Porter Institute

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.

Jun 24, 2023

Cows Create Meadows

In Karl König's fascinating work Earth and Man he proposes that specific animals create landscapes like themselves. In particular, one that stands out for biodynamic practitioners is the cow, which, König suggests, creates meadows.

Jun 12, 2023

First Rule of Intitiation

If we don't first accept there's a problem we also can't fix it. So the first step is not hiding in denial but accepting the exact conditions as they are and looking within those for hidden possibilities. This is the very basis of fertility for the farm organism and even the emergence of the biodynamic preparations from latent potential in manure and humble weeds.

Jun 2, 2023

Buddhist Biodynamics

Steiner suggests that Jesus symbolically curses the fig tree because it was under the bodhi tree (ficus religiosa) that the Buddha attained his enlightenment. Incidentally, the bodhi tree is a a fig tree. What is suggested here is that the wellspring that had been the Buddha was now to give way to a newer and fuller expression in Christianity.

May 29, 2023

Grace & Gratituity

Biodynamics embodies a return-gift to the Earth, without which we cannot survive. The Earth will undoubtedly persist in its own way if we were not here, but what happens if we undermine our own conditions for survival here? The Earth asks so little -- merely a gesture of thanks such as the biodynamic preparations. The Earth needs so little.

May 22, 2023

Fertility is a Marriage

Even Steiner says in the Agriculture Course that it is virtually "inconceivable" to consider farming these days -- in 1924 -- without a tractor. He was not recommending a return to draft power or doing away with technology but rather making sure that technology must serve LIFE.

May 17, 2023

What is Biodynamic Wine?

Biodynamic wine is an all-natural approach to viticulture that emphasizes the unique character of each individual farm's soil and climate. In the wine world, the distinctness of each different soil is called terroir (related to the Latin word terra, "earth"). Often wines are Demeter Certified, guaranteeing that they not only meet an organic standard of avoiding synthetic fertilizers and avoiding synthetic pesticides but also including specific regenerative and biodynamic elements.

May 8, 2023

Alchemy & Crucifixion

In alchemy, this mirrors the process of distillation. Alchemical mercury and sulfur (oil and alcohol) both distill readily when heated. This is Christ and the Good Thief. But the bad thief is the "mark" -- the leftover plant materials after extracting the distillate. The leftovers must be burned at high temperatures called "calcination" (from the word chalk).