Biodynamic Agriculture: inquiry into food as spiritual medicine

[iamthatis]

Thanks for the video. I'm going to check out those books as well.

I can't comment as I have not read those but if I ever get the chance I'll try out a few things in the ole backyard. Perhaps a time lapse comparison of some BRIX measurements.

If your time permits I'm very interested to know how it works out for you.

Thanks.

What are BRIX measurements?

 

[ericw33]

A BRIX (Bx) meter is a 'refractometer'. It was used to measure the amount of dissolved sugars (glucose) in a fluid (the Bx). Back in the 1800s it was found that glucose would change certain properties which could be measured such as the specific gravity and the refractive index which the BRIX meter uses. A good quality meter is still low cost and very useful.

Note: These types of meters are used in many industries as well for many things, In agriculture there are variations I won't get into here like mid-inferred (MIR). IR is cool, it's for example often how animals can tell if a plant is GMO or not.

I'll post a picture (maybe another post) of the type I have but it's 25 years old and there are other types now available. I suggest the older ones rather then the newer digital units. There's no batteries in my unit, no circuit boards or electronics, and it's EMP proof!

Mine looks like a 6" telescope. One end you put up to your eye like a telescope. The other end is like a 'chisel', it's sloped about 40 degrees. There's a glass flap, you open it, put a drop of liquid on it, close the flap and then look through the eyepiece on the other end -- point the BRIX meter towards a bright light source like a window on the other end.

You'll see a meter 0-95 (or however that unit is setup, they vary). You'll see where the light refracts above will be clear and below will be blue.

You'd use a reference sheet or your own logs but certain plants/fruits will have certain ranges. For example an orange will have a Bx of in-between 4 to 14, you would want a reading as close to 14 (or higher) as possible. Readings close or at 4 or even below indicate huge issues and likley 'dead' soils.


If you use one be patient. If you measure a few times a day over a period of years you'll be able to determine a-lot. Keep a log, experiment, most of all have fun. I'll post a few but since I can't edit after 10-mins I won't be able to add others which come to mind later on - it's just a partial list.

While many sites will instruct that it measures glucose while factual incorrect it's a bit of a lie by commission. It gives a indication (not precise breakdown) of many things.

Glucose
Chlorophyll health (plant blood, based aground magnesium (Mg) rather then Iron (Fe) like out blood so it's green and ours is red.
Flavonoids
Minerals (Dissolved solids)
Amino acids
Oils
Proteins
.. and so on

If you measure once daily do it at the same time as plants will move things such as glucose/sugars to the root system as daylight wanes, So if you measure one day at noon and the next day at sunset the latter will have a low BRIX reading.

If the reading doesn't come up the next day while there can be several reasons one could be weather. The plants communicate with each other (exosomes, chemicals, energies..) and if they sense a storm coming in they will leave the glucose/sugars in the root system. I'd have to take more reading but I suspect they can alter according to many other factors such as in-bound ego-magnetic issues like large solar flares or the influences of the planets.
* Look into electro-culture, aether, paramagnetism, and also water programming/charging

Lets say the soils seem 'deadish' and the BRIX is low. Have if you can a small soil lab and examine. If, for example, boron levels are low the glucose won't get moved out of the root system. I won't get into this much but soils are super-complex - a handful of alive, healthy soil is way more complex IMO then the entire internet is.

There's exchanges taking place. For example, some trees eat meat. They basically 'pay-off' fungus to to do the dirty work! lol - The tree hires the Mob! Spring-tails in some areas of poor soil will go up to tree roots, the fungus will paralyze them and then grow into them and dissolve them. The tree 'pays' the fungus using 'glucose' or whatever it requires (tree-fungus currency) and the fungus pays the tree off with whatever it requires. The breakdown of rocks and minerals, transportation thereof to the roots is all done by many things - bacteria, fungus, molds, little critters like worms and so much more. So if you get low BRIX readings it could mean an unhealthy soil eco-system.

So a plant/tree or whatever will exchange 60% of it's glucose into the soil for this reason - and low boron levels stop this from happening.


A high BRIX levels means the plant will be highly resistant to early frosts. I'm near the equator so it's not an issue but when in Canada with (say) sprouts and grasses I had them growing when it was -10C and below as the soils very very healthy.
* Look into The Idea Soils (Michael Astera) as well as Agricola about using rock dust and how to measure soil minerals levels. Avoid nebulous terms like 'organic' which has been largely co-opted by industry and doesn't mean much, much less, address soil deficiencies. A soil in some places can be stripped of certain minerals in 1 or 2 growing seasons, if it's been utilized for 100s of years it's deficient. Additional, some soils may contain over-amounts of certain minerals and they need to be reduced, for example, natural Fluoride (Fl). Likely as well there are toxins to remove as well, weeds (like parasites in people) are an indication.
* One Straw Revolution is a good book.


Another things is shelf life. If you've ever seen a shriveled up tomatoes in an N. American grocery store, you'll find it will have a low BRIX level. With high BRIX levels you get very long shelf lives.

Taste - anything with a high BRIX reading will taste way, way better. Taste (unless tricked with things like MSG and Aspartame) is your body getting what it needs. A supermarket fruit may taste bland but a high BRIX fruit will literally explode in your mouth with taste.

Cloudy Day Growing - If the BRIX is low check into things like humus. Humus basically is like body fat to a person. If a person can't eat for a few days the energy storage is the fat. If a plant can photosynthesize for a few days it burns fulvic acid which is in humus. So if it's cloudy for a while a garden with sufficient humus levels (whcih will be part of a high Bx reading) will do fine and one without will not.

Less Eating Required - Many people eat more because they are starving. You can be obese and still starve for several reasons. One is simply that what you require is NOT in the plants/fruits/roots ... so if (say) mineral deficient a person will eat and eat and never be satisfied as the body is not getting what it requires. With a high BRIX, assuming they have a healthy GI tract which is NOT the case in much of the developed world, a little food well provide the bodies requirements.

Resilience - I named a few such as cold weather, frosts, storms but it includes many things like weeds and insects. Many weeds/insects are like parasites in people, they usually indicate an issue nature is attempting to address. For instance low BRIX, maybe the Calcium (Ca) levels or low or phosphorous (meaning certain types of weeds will move in to fix this). It might be mean high nitrates as well. Most soils are in bad shape - soil chelators like Round-Up, GMO crap like most US Corn (a fuel-chemical crop owned by Bayer/Monesanto with 0 nutrition) or fertilizer use all of which kills soil.


I hope this helps as a starting point should you wish to look into BRIX meters. I use it in my backyard (and front) and it's been handy.

 

[ericw33]

Here's a screenshot I did. Mine is 0-95, they have various versions, this one is 0-30. The top-left is the view looking through. This unit has a LED light source under he glass flap where you put the liquid to be tested, mine doesn't.

 

[iamthatis]

Okay, so Imma dive in and speculate over why the biodynamic preparations appear to improve crop yields by as much as 30% when compared to organic methods. What is up with these mystical German potions?

Here's my interpretation of what Steiner says in brief about BD 500, the manure-horn preparation:

There is actually a reason why cows have horns, the have a function that goes beyond the physical. In other words, a cow is a functional unity and every part matters or has consequence. As I have learned from Pierre's work, form and function are nearly inseparable - the easiest way for me to picture this is the notion that the health or functionality of a protein is dependent on its shape. This has ramifications for the host body. It's kinda funny to think that the same might be said for a cow, which could be seen as a large bovine 'enzyme' on the body of the earth.

An organism is not an isolated being, a 'ding-an-sich' or 'thing-in-itself'; it is a very complex arrangement of nested systems, which collects and disburses streams of many different kinds of forces, flowing inside and out; the forces in Steiner's focus are the ethereal, astral, Spiritual or life forces that supercede and interpenetrate the physical, and also our own sensory apparatus; holy cow!

Horns are a sheath of keratin and other proteins surrounding a protrusion of bone; so it's fascinating to consider not only the above picture of a cow, but also what the C's have said about how all protein antennae connect with the information field when thinking about horns in a very different way:

"What happens at the places where the horns grow and the hoofs? A locality is formed which sends the currents inward with more than usual intensity. In this locality the outer is strongly shut off; there is no communication through a permeable skin or hair. The openings which otherwise allow the currents to pass outward are completely closed. For this reason the horn-formation is connected with the entire shaping of the animal.

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.

Cow manure is permeated with an astral and ethereal content as it passes through the digestive system; for Steiner, astral forces are associated with nitrogen, and ethereal with oxygen; these forces are carried outside from within. I still don't really know if this rings true, but I'm tempted to associate the astral with 5D, and the ethereal with 4D.

My speculation is that even without the biodynamic preparation methods, these 'holy manure' forces may be a factor in contributing to the 'enlivening' effects of spreading manure on the soil. I'd say that this doesn't have to erase or disprove the purely materialist understanding of soil amendments, but can be added to it as another layer of understanding, in the same way we have come to learn that our pituitary gland isn't just a little nub in our head squirting out juices, it is our 'cosmic uplink', and our hormones can be seen as an expression of the interplay of higher forces

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'm not sure what to make of this above quote - could be interpreted as a purely Spiritualist rejection of all materialist phenomena. Or maybe he's just over-emphasizing the higher realms in response to a tendency towards materialism? My own view is that the latter would be more correct, in line with the idea that 3D is but a pale reflection of the 4D realm.

Another way of thinking about it is the well-known debate between germ theory and terrain theory in the medical field. Germ theory holds that bacteria, viruses and parasites cause disease, whereas terrain theory states that these critters show up as a result of an underlying disease. So Steiner could be said to be emphasizing a sort of cosmic terrain theory here in terms of soil health.

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.

So that's it in a nutshell - if the horn is an object that concentrates cosmic forces, then filling it with poop and burying it over the winter will suffuse the poop with cosmic forces. Astounding.

I don't get why the earth is 'most alive in winter', but he writes about it:

The mineral substances must emancipate themselves from what is working immediately above the surface of the Earth, if they wish to be exposed to the most distant cosmic forces. And in our cosmic age they can most easily do so — they can most easily emancipate themselves from the Earth's immediate neighbourhood and come under the influence of the most distant cosmic forces down inside the Earth —in the time between the 15th January and the 15th February; in this winter season. The time will come when such things are recognised as exact indications. This is the season when the strongest formative-forces of crystallisation, the strongest forces of form, can be developed for the mineral substances within the Earth. It is in the middle of the winter. The interior of the Earth then has the property of being least dependent on itself — on its own mineral masses; it comes under the influence of the crystal-forming forces that are there in the wide spaces of the Cosmos.

He then gives instructions to dig up the manure after winter is over and mix it in water, as detailed in my previous post with all the nice photos. Steiner makes it clear that there is a good deal of effort that should be engaged in this (not to mention hinting at personal connection and familial involvement). Once the correct amount of BD 500 is in the water:

That is to say, you must set to work and stir. Stir quickly, at the very edge of the pail, so that a crater is formed reaching very nearly to the bottom of the pail, and the entire contents are rapidly rotating. Then quickly reverse the direction, so that it now seethes round in the opposite direction.

Do this for an hour and you will get a thorough penetration. Think, how little work it involves. The burden of work will really not be very great. Moreover, I can well image that — at any rate in the early stages — the otherwise idle members of a farming household will take pleasure in stirring the manure in this way. Get the sons and daughters of the house to do it and it will no doubt be wonderfully done.

It is a very pleasant feeling to discover how there arises after all, from what was altogether scentless to begin with, a rather delicately sustained aroma. This personal relationship to the matter (and you can well develop it) is extraordinarily beneficial — at any rate for one who likes to see Nature as a whole and not only as in the Baedeker guide-books.

How could a little bit of BD 500 stirred in water be able to treat an entire acre of land? One potential answer comes in terms of homeopathy, which we've come to suspect is not quackery, but a specific technique that makes use of an understanding of water, geometry (form and function) and the information field to create viable medicines. From the C's session about homeopathy:

(Andromeda) What's your theory about the homeopathic dilution?

(Pierre) Given the fractal dimension of the electromagnetic connection between informational field and human beings, we think that homeopathic solutions gain potency when the succussion and dilution increase because each time you do succussion and dilution, you replicate at a different scale the same geometric signature that IS the connection to this or that part of the information field, hence increasing the potency that is fundamentally just an informational signature that you replicate and amplify at a different scale. You see what I mean? (“Succussion” is when you hit the vial. The energy provided helps to replicate the geometric signature at a different scale.)

(Joe) So start with little... Say they're like hexagons. When you succuss it, you break that one hexagon into five or six smaller versions. And you do it again and again, and eventually you saturate it with the signature of the information…

(Pierre) And since it's a fractal antenna, you receive at each frequency range, you see?

A: Not only that, but also the division is less material and more pure information field "friendly".

And from Steiner:

Therefore we need to treat our manure not only as I indicated yesterday; we should also subject it to a further treatment. And the point is not merely to add substances to it, with the idea that it needs such and such substances so as to give them to the plants. No, the point is that we should add living forces to it. The living forces are far more important for the plant than the mere substance-forces or substances. Though we might gradually get our soil ever so rich in this or that substance, it would still be of no use for plant-growth, unless by a proper manuring process we endowed the plant itself which the power to receive into its body the influences which the soil contains. This is the point.

The men of our time are altogether unaware how the minutest quantities will often work with great intensity, precisely where living things are concerned. Now, however, we have the brilliant investigations of Frau Dr. Kolisko on the effects of “smallest entities.” What hitherto, in homeopathy, was a blind groping in the dark, has here been placed on a sound scientific footing, and as an outcome of her work I think we may take it as proved that in the minute entities, in the minute quantities, the radiant forces we need in the organic world are really set free — provided only that we use these entities in the proper way. And in manuring it is not at all difficult for us to use the minute quantities in the proper way.

You will remember how we prepare the forces in the cow's horns, and how we add the preparations, as the case may be, before or after manuring. These forces and influences then assist the working of the manure itself. We add these forces, so as to assist the working of the manure, which, apart front these homeopathic doses, is used in the proper way, as heretofore. But in other ways, too, we must still try to give the manure the right living property. We must give it such a consistency that it will retain of its own accord as much of nitrogen and other substances as it requires. For we shall thereby impart to the manure a tendency to that living vitality which will enable it to bring the right vitality into the Earth itself.

So all this amounts to the basic skeleton of why I think biodynamic preparations seem to work so well as to increase crop yields by up to 30%.

There is another angle, which has to do with the mental and emotional state of the farmers who engage in this process - states which Emoto has shown will have an effect on the structuring (or geometry, and therefore function) of water. There is also the discussion in the C's sessions of mineral material such stones and crystals as receivers and transmitters of frequency. And finally, there is the fascinating discussion of sentience in Charles Hapgood's Voices of Spirit.

An American scientist, Cleve Backster, has made some remarkable discoveries through the use of the polygraph. Hie is a well-known authority on the design and use of the lie detector, and has worked in close association with various )police forces throughout the country and with the military. His work required him to design polygraphs to detect emotion through its effects on the minute electrical currents of the body. He accidentally found that when his electrodes were attached to various plants, he got reactions similar to those from people.

Backster's first discovery, like many great discoveries, was wholly unexpected. He attached the polygraph to a plant in his laboratory to see whether it would register the rise of liquid in the stem when he watered the roots. He was astonished to observe that the plant seemed to register the same way that people did when taking the lie- detector test.

Backster did not let the matter rest, as a less curious person might have. Instead, he immediately launched a comprehensive program of research into the emotional life of plants. After years of research he reported his findings in an article in the International Journal of Parapsychology (5). This article inspire d one in National Wildlife and another in Main Currents in Modern Thought (27).

Dr. F. L. Kunz, the editor of Main Currents, summarizing Backster's discoveries, said:

Mr. Backster' s experiments have shown that house plants, such as the Dracena Massangeana or Philodendron, register apprehension when a dog passes by, react violently when live shrimps are dumped into boiling water, and receive signals from dying cells in the drying blood of an accidentally cut finger. They appear to respond to distress signals issued in response to threats against any member of the living community. What is more, they in some way are able to receive signals over a considerable distance, for they have registered Mr. Backster's intent to return to his office when he was fifteen miles away. All this has convinced him of a "possible existence of some undefined perception in the plant." He calls this perception "primary" in the sense that "this perception applies to all cells we have monitored, without regard to their assigned biological function. . . . We have found this same phenomenon in the amoeba, the paramecium, and other single-celled organisms, in fact in every kind of cell we have tested: fresh fruits and vegetables, mold cultures, yeasts, scrapings from the roof of the mouth of a human, blood samples, even spermatozoa."

Backster's work gives us a measure for judging the real significance of the work of Bose. Bose measured physical reactions that implied but did not directly prove consciousness and emotion in plants and metals. Backster has shown, at least as far as plants are concerned, that the implication of consciousness is correct: plants do have consciousness, they do have emotion; and since Bose showed that metals register the same reactions, we cannot reasonably exclude consciousness even in metals. It may follow from this that the very stones we walk on have some sort of consciousness. Obviously it must differ from that of an animal, because stones are not organized entities. In his laboratory one day I saw Mr. Backster obtain a life reaction from a piece of rubber.

So here's the simplified hypothesis... if one sees the land - the plants, water and the soil - as nothing but dead matter, this seeing amounts to a personal frequency emission that shapes the surrounding reality as per the observer effect. However, with a different view, such as active participation in a living cosmos full of mystery and potential, a different experience and different results become possible. It is my hunch that this is how Steiner developed his potions.

 

[Olivierlejardinier]

Hi, thanks iamthatis, I'm with you, conveying steiner's ideas ain't a cake walk.

Horns are a sheath of keratin and other proteins

To illustrate this,

Alpha-keratin, or α-keratin, is a type of keratin found in vertebrates. This protein is the primary component in hairs, horns, mammalian claws, nails and the epidermis layer of the skin. α-keratin is a fibrous structural protein, meaning it is made up of amino acids that form a repeating secondary structure. The secondary structure of α-keratin is very similar to that of a traditional protein α-helix and forms a coiled coil.[1] Due to its tightly wound structure, it can function as one of the strongest biological materials and has various functions in mammals, from predatory claws to hair for warmth. α-keratin is synthesized through protein biosynthesis, utilizing transcription and translation, but as the cell matures and is full of α-keratin, it dies, creating a strong non-vascular unit of keratinized tissue.[2]

Cow manure is permeated with an astral and ethereal content as it passes through the digestive system; for Steiner, astral forces are associated with nitrogen, and ethereal with oxygen; these forces are carried outside from within. I still don't really know if this rings true, but I'm tempted to associate the astral with 5D, and the ethereal with 4D.

Here, my version is that ethereal would rather be 2D forces, as it's them wich make the difference between inanimate mineral matter 1D (what chemistry see through his instruments) and more evoluted living organisms.
Then, astral forces would be those wich differenciate vegetal (with no real sensory system of its own) and animal realms.
So, considering the soil (where plants grow) is a mix of mineral and living organisms (bacteria,fungi...) , horn manure act on these two levels via the soil to reach and "enhance" plants' growth.

I don't get why the earth is 'most alive in winter', but he writes about it:

In other texts, Steiner describe earth's "bodies" (sorry can't remember the title), talk about earth's etheric body having "tides" during the year and changing "shape", expanding from winter solstice to summer and contracting itself from summer to winter.
Winter solstice being the climax of its strengh/action in earth's physical body hence the burial of the horns from fall to spring.

How could a little bit of BD 500 stirred in water be able to treat an entire acre of land? One potential answer comes in terms of homeopathy

That's a great way to put it !!

There is another angle, which has to do with the mental and emotional state of the farmers who engage in this process -

Here I would emphasize that an STO "state of being", e.g. not anticipating might be a "bonus" to effectivity of said process.
The one hour long dynamization is maybe only the "human part of the work" that must be done...

There is also the discussion in the C's sessions of mineral material such stones and crystals as receivers and transmitters of frequency.

FWIW, I use a little pure quartz crystal placed under the stiring/dynamization container when operating.

 

[Honzap]

Well I was looking for an inspiration what to do this year with the farm, thinking about the new direction and here come this thread as a great inspiration!

Books mentioned in this thread are ordered and on the way.

I will be dry-planting corn in a newly cleared small area 10 by 20 feet which is pretty much 1-2 feet of dirt on top of slate (mountain rock) underneath. Hopi`s might have been onto something. There is nothing to lose. If it works, there will be an extra food for live stock.

I am not entirely dismissing the cow horn manure and silica, but it is an awful amount of extra work.
The horn manure thing sounds like fermenting fresh manure for a period of time. Since the horn is natural product and somewhat porous, I am wondering if it works as a catalyst between the manure and the soil and either speeding up/slowing down or even strengthening natural chemical reactions in the final product.
Horn silica gets me puzzled. Quartz, SiO2 is natural glass right? So when is gets ground to a dust then mixed with water and burried inside that horn, it may again thru this media "attract" soil nutrients otherwise hard obtainable? This will be an interesting project to see thru.

Regenerative grazing sounds like something we are already doing, but with our heard growing, I am always on the lookout to do things better in the long run. Back in the day we started with 4 sheep and a ram and later this year if all goes well we are looking at close to 30 animals. Since we cannot "extend" our land without significant expense, learning how to make things more self-sufficient is one of our top priorities.

Will be reporting progress based on the ideas expressed.

 

[iamthatis]

You’d have to cite specific examples for me here, ultimately I’ve seen significant improvements in people’s health from shifting toward this diet. Just yesterday I watched a video of a woman who lost 100 pounds in 9 months by changing to an all meat diet. Sure there’s nutcases who promote anything but by and large plants damage human health in many ways.



The Hopi are rather explicit that they see their origins tied to the farming of maize, that’s their human-cosmic connection as I see it, which is unhealthy. Why it morphed into that is perhaps worth understanding I suppose so you could see the slow programming that STS guys use, however it’s certainly not a healthy connection for the long term viability of their people unless they’re looking to remain under the heel of cosmic forces that are deceiving them.

I honestly don’t know if the principal of some food is better than no food…. If you know that humans are designed to run on meats and animal fats, it makes sense to me to raise those and if you understand the principles of animal impact, things can scale rather quickly. In Australia they increased stocking density on land from 20,000 to 80,000 cows in less than 10 years. I can’t see that happening growing vegetables, especially if you consider the extra labor. There’s not much extra time involved moving livestock at scale. The butchering sure and with livestock there’s all kinds of nonlinear benefits that simply can’t be produced with vegetables.

Of course principals involved with growing crops can be used, a guy on Youtube called Bakers Green Acres raises pigs that way, plant the crops and let the pigs eat them, then lightly till the soil to incorporate manure and replant. The Regenerative ranchers are by far getting the most out of the land and are able to still produce food in adverse conditions.

If you're not careful, grass fed beef could become your sacred cow. Pun intended!

Here's a few videos from Keyhole's YouTube channel that discuss some very important issues with diet fundamentalism, including a discussion of specific examples.

 

[benkostka]

If you're not careful, grass fed beef could become your sacred cow. Pun intended!

I don’t have any “sacred cows” about grass fed beef. I just find people goofy who pretend that burying cow manure or ground quartz crystals in cow horns over winter produces some sort of magical results when the same can be seen with Elaine Ingham’s work. That’s my main contention with the Steiner types. By all means bury cow horns! If I had a farm I’d willingly supply them for you. You’d of course have to grind the quartz yourself as I don’t wish to give myself silicosis.

I can find all I need in the grounded science of regenerative ag, so I’m not in search of magic.

 

[iamthatis]

I don’t have any “sacred cows” about grass fed beef.

When another forumite raises an issue like this, it's generally a good idea to take it on board as a serious possibility at the very least. I'm not sure if you're fully familiar with the dynamics surrounding sacred cows, but one of the key aspects of a sacred cow is that you yourself can't see it. It's too close to home. In my case, I was so horribly convinced that I was right - it formed a huge part of my self-image. When it was brought to light, that self-image was threatened, and internal considering and other reactions from the lower emotional centre was the response.

One difficulty is that the sacred cow effect can also occur when the bovine in question is actually based on the best factual information available. The key to recognizing it as a sacred cow is one's emotional attachment to that information. In your case, I see dismissiveness and the attempt to mock other ideas into submission without any actual engagement in the subject matter.

I just find people goofy who pretend that burying cow manure or ground quartz crystals in cow horns over winter produces some sort of magical results

Did you see the academic lit review I posted above, that demonstrated up to 30% crop yield increase, plus an increase in things like anti-oxidants in crops?

In my current view, there's no pretending or magic happening here. I read Steiner's work (which I still don't fully understand), then thought 'whoa, that's crazy - but is it real?', then looked for evidence, found some, and attempted to formulate a hypothesis it using the knowledge gathered in the forum. Which, by the way, regularly tunes in to read transmissions from 6th density light beings, so in my estimation, there's no reason why the paranormal or hyperdimensional understandings doesn't apply to food, the land itself, and our agricultural practices as humans in relation to same. If you can see a reason why, I'm all ears.

when the same can be seen with Elaine Ingham’s work.

Have you seen a side-by-side comparison between Elaine Ingham's compost tea method and biodynamic principles? If not, how can you say that the result is the same?

I actually have a bunch of notes that I'm going to type up discussing her method, which also looks quite promising.

That’s my main contention with the Steiner types.

You still haven't responded to my question above about your 'Steiner types' comment. Reading critical information about a profuse and complex author like Steiner from a data set of only one other author, then taking that fully on board and developing a story in your head about him that justifies your narrative - that kinda thing doesn't fly around here. This forum spent years discussing Gurdjieff. There was no point-blank 'yes-or-no'.

By all means bury cow horns! If I had a farm I’d willingly supply them for you. You’d of course have to grind the quartz yourself as I don’t wish to give myself silicosis.

I can find all I need in the grounded science of regenerative ag, so I’m not in search of magic.

Just to be clear, I do agree with you that regenerative agriculture is great and that grass fed beef is excellent stuff. It's your self-important attitude towards this information that is not excellent. In general, I think your conversation skills and emotional development could use some work. Not too long ago I was in a similar state before I was given some good advice that gave me a chance to take step back and check my self-importance.

 

[benkostka]

I really wasn’t asking you for feedback about myself and don’t find much common ground with your viewpoints, nor do I care to hear your advice. What qualifies you to give it? What makes you an elder? And where did I ask for it?

Typically conversations can degrade with you. I posted in the Jordan Peterson thread that life creates life and you gave me a long dissertation on the dark mother along with an absurd video where Peterson stated things about chimps going to war. My first thought being chimps can’t go to war, only humans can but I refrained from posting because I figured we don’t have common ground. Why continue to engage and push my point? It’s pathological if I do when there’s little receptivity on your part, so I bow out. Now I could have made things personal like you did here, but I also refrained from that because of manners.

I won’t be posting anymore in this thread, there’s no point as I’ve read all I care to about Steiner and his system and watched enough videos about them to not be interested. I attempted reading the articles you posted but didn’t find much after 10 pages or so and figured why comment and bring the conversation down, better to let whoever wants to discuss the subject do so in peace.

I don’t see myself in the same state as you and since you haven’t asked me for feedback, it would be inappropriate for me to comment. Can you see this interaction in any way as some way of attacking me when I had decided to leave the conversation long ago?

All that being said, typically it’s easier to settle differences between men behind closed doors, obviously this forum doesn’t have that opportunity which is why beyond a certain point I don’t post, people can infer whatever they may about these things as it’s difficult to express yourself fully through text.

 

[Michael B-C]

I thought I would add some anecdotal personal experience to the debate.

For about 7 years I experienced first hand the effect of both a Steiner school and the three medium to large scale bio-dynamic farms - both livestock and arable - that surround it.

1. The Steiner school consistently produced near mind-bending, uniform across class, right brain to left brain learning one could dare to imagine witnessing first hand. The integrated learning results - particularly in the field of creativity, polymathic ability and ability to develop nuanced thinking - left the entire mainstream approach to schooling in the very distant shade. Year in year out, the school in question has one of the highest intakes to Oxford and Cambridge of any school in the country.

2. The food from the bio-dynamic farms - be it meat or plant based in origin - grew stronger, healthier, with higher yields and tasted like food is acutually meant to taste without any form of appliance of modern fertilizers or antibiotics etc. A friend of ours who was a PHD molecular biologist with specialization in soil health. She spent many years documenting the extremely high nutritional, self regulating, complexity of the soil on these farms and the relationship between this and the health of both animals and plants raised on them. Eventually in disgust she left her senior position in the biology department she worked at because of the kick back and institutional resistance to her findings.

FWIW.

 

[ericw33]

Okay, so Imma dive in and speculate over why the biodynamic preparations appear to improve crop yields by as much as 30% when compared to organic methods. What is up with these mystical German potions?

I'd say it much more then 30%. Nutrient density with various other methods increases over 300%, perhaps, 400%. Many obese people in developed nations are actually slowly dying of starvation. By having such high nutrient levels it's effectively increasing 'output' by that much.

.. so far less food is required. Keep in mind, that in some cases certain minerals can be depleted after just 1/one or 2/two crops (organic growing methods of course do nothing to correct this). The soils need to be replenished after measurements are taken (too see what there is not enough of and what there is too much of). That requires healthy soil - trees and plants cannot absorb minerals by themselves, it requires a complex web of fungi, molds, bacteria, small critters and more to break them down and to transport them to the root systems.

.. and there's so much more: water energy levels which from deep water srouces are 100,000x higher then most places (and pretty much 0 in cities due to 90 degree pipe bends), electo-culture/paramagnetism, and so forth --- all working with subtle energies most can't see, feel or detect.


Question: What are you doing or planning to do with R. Steiner's information? What has worked/not-worked?, or are you still in the developmental stages?

Thanks.

 

[Maya]

I will not go into other Steiner's work, there are too many books on too many different topics, as Tauriel said.
And probably, like in every other source there is a mix of everything

But, from my not so detailed and long experience (15 years) - farming according to Maria Thun's calendar and aplying biodinamic preparations whenever we can makes perfect sense.

I was still a kid when my fathers uncle who was biology teacher started his experimental biodinamic practise on his land.
Back then we all thought he was crazy when he started to teach how to make preparations.
But he claimed that biodinamic farming was essential for humans and natures health.
I trusted him back then and still now, especially after Cass cleared up for us so many related topics.

Also, Rudolf Steiner was born in Medjimurje county where I live and we personaly know some long years
biodinamic farmers here, some of them tested their veggies few times and levels of nutrients were much dense comparing to convencional agriculture. Also the results were better comparing to basic organic products.

I'm not opssesed with the method because besides my work I don't have time for every aspect of it,
but results speaks for itself and especially fact they all shared from their travelling and meetings to other countries
- most of biodinamic product are booked in advance and bought by elites.
Well known politicians etc. We all know they only want the best for them, right ?

So, besides regenerative farming it's definitelly worth to try

 

[ericw33]

Thanks!, I'll be passing this along back home. Very useful information they may be able to use.

 

[Joe]

I really wasn’t asking you for feedback about myself and don’t find much common ground with your viewpoints, nor do I care to hear your advice. What qualifies you to give it? What makes you an elder? And where did I ask for it?

Typically conversations can degrade with you. I posted in the Jordan Peterson thread that life creates life and you gave me a long dissertation on the dark mother along with an absurd video where Peterson stated things about chimps going to war. My first thought being chimps can’t go to war, only humans can but I refrained from posting because I figured we don’t have common ground. Why continue to engage and push my point? It’s pathological if I do when there’s little receptivity on your part, so I bow out. Now I could have made things personal like you did here, but I also refrained from that because of manners.

I won’t be posting anymore in this thread, there’s no point as I’ve read all I care to about Steiner and his system and watched enough videos about them to not be interested. I attempted reading the articles you posted but didn’t find much after 10 pages or so and figured why comment and bring the conversation down, better to let whoever wants to discuss the subject do so in peace.

I don’t see myself in the same state as you and since you haven’t asked me for feedback, it would be inappropriate for me to comment. Can you see this interaction in any way as some way of attacking me when I had decided to leave the conversation long ago?

All that being said, typically it’s easier to settle differences between men behind closed doors, obviously this forum doesn’t have that opportunity which is why beyond a certain point I don’t post, people can infer whatever they may about these things as it’s difficult to express yourself fully through text.

Little exercise suggestion for @benkostka and @iamthatis. In your recent exchanges on this topic, reread through each others' and your own contentious posts, make an effort to understand what the other was trying to convey and where you misinterpreted it, and then summarize the others' central point.