Rather than revive one of the old threads such as this one, it may be best to make a fresh start.
For those interested in aspects of biodynamic agriculture/gardening, lunar and astral influences etc I offer this link to Rudolph Steiner's eight "Agricultural Course" lectures of 1924.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Agri19 ... index.html
I think that it is always best to return to the source before accepting fragments of ideas at second or third hand.
Each of these lectures makes interesting reading.
The origins of biodynamics
Moderators: KG Steve, Chantal, Tigger, peter
-
alan refail
- KG Regular
- Posts: 7252
- Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2005 7:00 am
- Location: Chwilog Gogledd Orllewin Cymru Northwest Wales
- Been thanked: 5 times
-
Nature's Babe
- KG Regular
- Posts: 2468
- Joined: Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:02 pm
- Location: East Sussex
Thank you for the links Alan, at a quick glance this does look interesting, at the moment I am very busy but as soon as time allows I will read these with due care. 
i was sorry to see the Yalding organic garden change hands and wish Rhyton was nearer.
i was sorry to see the Yalding organic garden change hands and wish Rhyton was nearer.
Sit down before a fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconcieved notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.
By Thomas Huxley
http://www.wildrye.info/reserve/
By Thomas Huxley
http://www.wildrye.info/reserve/
-
poppingjay
- KG Regular
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2009 7:17 am
- Location: sunny scunthorpe
Excellent, I will look forward to reading this 
Thanks for posting.
Thanks for posting.
-
alan refail
- KG Regular
- Posts: 7252
- Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2005 7:00 am
- Location: Chwilog Gogledd Orllewin Cymru Northwest Wales
- Been thanked: 5 times
From Lecture 4
The cow has horns in order to send into itself the astral-ethereal formative powers, which, pressing inward, are meant to penetrate right into the digestive organism. Precisely through the radiation that proceeds from horns and hoofs, much work arises in the digestive organism itself. Anyone who wishes to understand foot-and-mouth disease — that is, the reaction of the periphery on the digestive tract — must clearly perceive this relationship. Our remedy for foot-and-mouth disease is founded on this perception.
Thus in the horn you have something well adapted by its inherent nature, to ray back the living and astral properties into the inner life. In the horn you have something radiating life — nay, even radiating astrality. It is so indeed: if you could crawl about inside the living body of a cow — if you were there inside the belly of the cow you — would smell how the astral life and the living vitality pours inward from the horns. And so it is also with the hoofs.
This is an indication, pointing to such measures as we on our part may recommend for the purpose of still further enhancing the effectiveness of what is used as ordinary farm-yard-manure. What is farm-yard-manure? It is what entered as outer food into the animal, and was received and assimilated by the organism up to a certain point. It gave occasion for the development of dynamic forces and influences in the organism, but it was not primarily used to enrich the organism with material substance. On the contrary, it was excreted. Nevertheless, it has been inside the organism and has thus been permeated with an astral and ethereal content. In the astral it has been permeated with the nitrogen-carrying forces, and in the ethereal with oxygen-carrying forces. The mass that emerges as dung is permeated with all this.
Imagine now: we take this mass and give it over to the earth, in one form or another (we shall go into the details presently). What we are actually doing is to give the earth something ethereal and astral which has its existence by rights, inside the belly of the animal and there engenders forces of a plant-like nature. For the forces we engender in our digestive tract are of a plant-like nature. We ought to be very thankful that the dung remains over at all; for it carries astral and ethereal contents from the interior of the organs, out into the open. The astral and ethereal adheres to it. We only have to preserve it and use it in the proper way.
In the dung, therefore, we have before us something ethereal and astral. For this reason it has a life-giving and also astralising influence upon the soil, and, what is more, in the earth-element itself; not only in the watery; but notably in the earthy element. It has the force to overcome what is inorganic in the earthy element.
What we thus give over to the earth must of course have lost its original form, i.e., the form it had before it was consumed as food. For it has passed through an organic process in the animal's digestive, metabolic system. In some sense it will be in process of dissolution and disintegration. But it is best of all if it is just at the point of dissolution by virtue of its own inherent ethereal and astral forces. Then come the little parasites — the minutest of living creatures — and find in it a good nutritive soil. These parasitic creatures are therefore generally supposed to have something to do with the goodness of the manure. In reality they are only indicators of the fact that the manure itself is in such and such a condition. As indicators of this they may well be of great importance; but we are under an illusion if we suppose that the manure can be fundamentally improved by inoculation with bacteria or the like. It may be so to outer appearance, but it is not so in reality. (I shall go into the matter at a later stage. Meanwhile, let us proceed).
We take manure, such as we have available. We stuff it into the horn of a cow, and bury the horn a certain depth into the earth — say about 18 in. to 2 ft. 6 in., provided the soil below is not too clayey or too sandy. (We can choose a good soil for the purpose. It should not be too sandy). You see, by burying the horn with its filling of manure, we preserve in the horn the forces it was accustomed to exert within the cow itself, namely the property of raying back whatever is life-giving and astral. Through the fact that it is outwardly surrounded by the earth, all the radiations that tend to etherealise and astralise are poured into the inner hollow of the horn. And the manure inside the horn is inwardly quickened with these forces, which thus gather up and attract from the surrounding earth all that is ethereal and life-giving.
And so, throughout the winter — in the season when the Earth is most alive — the entire content of the horn becomes inwardly alive. For the Earth is most inwardly alive in winter-time. All that is living is stored up in this manure. Thus in the content of the horn we get a highly concentrated, life-giving manuring force. Thereafter we can dig out the horn. We take out the manure it contains.
The cow has horns in order to send into itself the astral-ethereal formative powers, which, pressing inward, are meant to penetrate right into the digestive organism. Precisely through the radiation that proceeds from horns and hoofs, much work arises in the digestive organism itself. Anyone who wishes to understand foot-and-mouth disease — that is, the reaction of the periphery on the digestive tract — must clearly perceive this relationship. Our remedy for foot-and-mouth disease is founded on this perception.
Thus in the horn you have something well adapted by its inherent nature, to ray back the living and astral properties into the inner life. In the horn you have something radiating life — nay, even radiating astrality. It is so indeed: if you could crawl about inside the living body of a cow — if you were there inside the belly of the cow you — would smell how the astral life and the living vitality pours inward from the horns. And so it is also with the hoofs.
This is an indication, pointing to such measures as we on our part may recommend for the purpose of still further enhancing the effectiveness of what is used as ordinary farm-yard-manure. What is farm-yard-manure? It is what entered as outer food into the animal, and was received and assimilated by the organism up to a certain point. It gave occasion for the development of dynamic forces and influences in the organism, but it was not primarily used to enrich the organism with material substance. On the contrary, it was excreted. Nevertheless, it has been inside the organism and has thus been permeated with an astral and ethereal content. In the astral it has been permeated with the nitrogen-carrying forces, and in the ethereal with oxygen-carrying forces. The mass that emerges as dung is permeated with all this.
Imagine now: we take this mass and give it over to the earth, in one form or another (we shall go into the details presently). What we are actually doing is to give the earth something ethereal and astral which has its existence by rights, inside the belly of the animal and there engenders forces of a plant-like nature. For the forces we engender in our digestive tract are of a plant-like nature. We ought to be very thankful that the dung remains over at all; for it carries astral and ethereal contents from the interior of the organs, out into the open. The astral and ethereal adheres to it. We only have to preserve it and use it in the proper way.
In the dung, therefore, we have before us something ethereal and astral. For this reason it has a life-giving and also astralising influence upon the soil, and, what is more, in the earth-element itself; not only in the watery; but notably in the earthy element. It has the force to overcome what is inorganic in the earthy element.
What we thus give over to the earth must of course have lost its original form, i.e., the form it had before it was consumed as food. For it has passed through an organic process in the animal's digestive, metabolic system. In some sense it will be in process of dissolution and disintegration. But it is best of all if it is just at the point of dissolution by virtue of its own inherent ethereal and astral forces. Then come the little parasites — the minutest of living creatures — and find in it a good nutritive soil. These parasitic creatures are therefore generally supposed to have something to do with the goodness of the manure. In reality they are only indicators of the fact that the manure itself is in such and such a condition. As indicators of this they may well be of great importance; but we are under an illusion if we suppose that the manure can be fundamentally improved by inoculation with bacteria or the like. It may be so to outer appearance, but it is not so in reality. (I shall go into the matter at a later stage. Meanwhile, let us proceed).
We take manure, such as we have available. We stuff it into the horn of a cow, and bury the horn a certain depth into the earth — say about 18 in. to 2 ft. 6 in., provided the soil below is not too clayey or too sandy. (We can choose a good soil for the purpose. It should not be too sandy). You see, by burying the horn with its filling of manure, we preserve in the horn the forces it was accustomed to exert within the cow itself, namely the property of raying back whatever is life-giving and astral. Through the fact that it is outwardly surrounded by the earth, all the radiations that tend to etherealise and astralise are poured into the inner hollow of the horn. And the manure inside the horn is inwardly quickened with these forces, which thus gather up and attract from the surrounding earth all that is ethereal and life-giving.
And so, throughout the winter — in the season when the Earth is most alive — the entire content of the horn becomes inwardly alive. For the Earth is most inwardly alive in winter-time. All that is living is stored up in this manure. Thus in the content of the horn we get a highly concentrated, life-giving manuring force. Thereafter we can dig out the horn. We take out the manure it contains.
-
WestHamRon
- KG Regular
- Posts: 376
- Joined: Mon Oct 16, 2006 6:46 pm
- Location: Grays, Essex
On my West Ham United forum, that would be cosidered "a load of old pony". 
Good morning Alan,
What I find incredible is the fact that there are actually people who think that by publishing the ramblings of a raving lunatic are doing a service to the growers of this world! It's free! I would be more than bloody miffed if I had paid good money and in return received such absolute out and out nonsense.
I have said several times in the past that the Soil Association of the 1950's were an absolute load of freaks. They spoke of cosmic this, and radiations that, and they were not very popular with normal gardening folk.
For anybody to actually understand Rudolf Steiner's ramblings and to actually put them into practice and try and tell us all that they have worked wonderfully is simply a step too far for me.
Quite honestly I become exceedingly angry when I read anything he has written. He is an insult to the intelligence of mankind.
I know that there is a little man up in North Wales (not you Alan) who will be tut-tutting at my comments, but hey who cares.
JB.
What I find incredible is the fact that there are actually people who think that by publishing the ramblings of a raving lunatic are doing a service to the growers of this world! It's free! I would be more than bloody miffed if I had paid good money and in return received such absolute out and out nonsense.
I have said several times in the past that the Soil Association of the 1950's were an absolute load of freaks. They spoke of cosmic this, and radiations that, and they were not very popular with normal gardening folk.
For anybody to actually understand Rudolf Steiner's ramblings and to actually put them into practice and try and tell us all that they have worked wonderfully is simply a step too far for me.
Quite honestly I become exceedingly angry when I read anything he has written. He is an insult to the intelligence of mankind.
I know that there is a little man up in North Wales (not you Alan) who will be tut-tutting at my comments, but hey who cares.
JB.
-
alan refail
- KG Regular
- Posts: 7252
- Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2005 7:00 am
- Location: Chwilog Gogledd Orllewin Cymru Northwest Wales
- Been thanked: 5 times
Morning Johnboy
I must admit there was an element of "naughtiness" is my posting of the link to Steiner's lectures. However, I do feel strongly that those who bang on about the superior virtues of biodynamic produce should be made to read Steiner word for word and then tell us what they think! Strangely, surfing round the net, American and Australian wine-producers figure disproportionately large. Maybe they are too drunk on their own produce to realise the silliness behind claims such as:
The land is farmed biodynamically; using Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic principles, because we believe it is the best way to achieve optimum fruit quality that best expresses its terroir. (from an Australian site.
I must admit there was an element of "naughtiness" is my posting of the link to Steiner's lectures. However, I do feel strongly that those who bang on about the superior virtues of biodynamic produce should be made to read Steiner word for word and then tell us what they think! Strangely, surfing round the net, American and Australian wine-producers figure disproportionately large. Maybe they are too drunk on their own produce to realise the silliness behind claims such as:
The land is farmed biodynamically; using Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic principles, because we believe it is the best way to achieve optimum fruit quality that best expresses its terroir. (from an Australian site.
Hi Alan,
Because the vineyard is Organic the use of Rudolf Steiner's name is being used to pull in a few more mugs!
It would be rather good if contact was made with the vineyard and post Lecture 4 on to them. I wonder what sort of reply you would get from a blunt Aussie!
JB.
Because the vineyard is Organic the use of Rudolf Steiner's name is being used to pull in a few more mugs!
It would be rather good if contact was made with the vineyard and post Lecture 4 on to them. I wonder what sort of reply you would get from a blunt Aussie!
JB.