Waldorf Morning Verse

Burying the Nettles

Burying the Nettles: Beginning Biodynamics at Geer Crest Farm

"Five days prior to the summer solstice at Geer Crest Farm in Oregon, on a slope known by the farm family as “Nettle Hill,” about half of the population of the infamous stinging nettle plants has bland beginnings of flowers. The other half seems more reluctant to transition from their youthful spring form as, one-by-one, their lower leaves begin to fade to a yellowy pale-brown.

For biodynamic preparation 504, it was strongly recommended to us that we harvest stinging nettles in the early part of the day, between dawn and noon, when the earth’s energetics are comparable to the exhalation of breath and when the vitality of plants is most present in their aboveground parts while photosynthesis occurs. In addition, though, the issue of convenience in the context of busy farm-life was also discussed and, on this particular day, the task of harvesting stinging nettles did not occur until after dinner when time allowed for the harvesting and burying to be immediately sequential.

That being said, our participation in the process was anything but rushed. Before collecting the plants, we dug a hole which by our estimation was about 18 inches deep and 32 inches long perpendicular to the west-facing slope of Nettle Hill. It seemed right to bury the nettles close to their home in a spot along a fence separating a part of the farm along the stream bank that is intentionally kept unmanaged as a naturalized area for plants and wildlife. While digging, we kept the mood jovial, making jokes and admiring the dark brown, loose soil as the sun gradually slipped below the horizon. We pulled several medium-sized rocks from the hole, all of which we later used to make a ring around the site, finding each its right place in the circle.

With gloves and hand pruners, we harvested the plants at the base and made several small piles in the path that goes around a large oak tree as we thinned different sections of the hillside. Since we had been told to use the entire plant except for the roots, we did not pull any plants out of the ground. After some time we gathered our small piles together, brought them to the hole, and estimated that when compressed the big pile would equal the appropriate 12 inches in height.

As recommended, we stood two boards in the north and south ends of hole (each about as wide as the pile of stacked nettles) in order to simplify the matter of where to begin digging when we uncover the plants next June. At the bottom of the hole, we spread a layer of peat moss about half to one inch thick before laying down the nettles, and then covered them with a layer of about the same thickness before adding the displaced soil.

At Geer Crest Farm, we felt that that, if we were to use biodynamic preparations, it was most appropriate that they be made on the farm with plants and sheaths from the farm and immediate community. As the farm functions today, one cannot deny that there is already a true and healthy sense of “viewing the farm as an organism.” Within the 20 acres of the farm, there is a profound diversity of biological systems and communities, both wild and cultivated, which are already fairly well integrated with each other due to the approach and respect taken by the farmers.

The effort to transition to biodynamics at Geer Crest is being held with caution. For those involved, there are varying degrees of readiness and, at times, signs of healthy skepticism. The communal intention here is to grow into biodynamics, seeing how it finds its place on the farm, and to approach it with respect, but also with questions. Meanwhile, the nettles, the deep-rooted white oak trees, wild yarrow, and inevitable dandelions that were already here are being joined by timely gifts of valerian, cow horns, and a skull."

Bees Lecture One

"That the life of the hive is extraordinarily wisely organised no one who has ever observed it can deny. Naturally, no one can say that the bees have the same kind of intelligence that men have, for we certainly have the instrument of the brain, whereas the bees have nothing of the kind; thus the universal world wisdom cannot be drawn into their bodies in the same way. But influences coming from the whole surrounding universe do, none the less, work with immense power in the bee-hive. Indeed, one can only arrive at a right understanding of what the life of the bees truly is, when one takes into account that the whole environment of the earth has a very great influence upon the life of the colony. This life within the hive rests upon the fact that the bees, to a much greater extent than the ants and wasps, work so completely together, so arranging their whole activity that everything is in harmony.

If one would understand how this comes about, one must say: In the life of the bee everything that in other creatures expresses itself as sexual life is, in the case of the bees, suppressed, very remarkably suppressed; it is very much driven into the background. For you see, in the case of the bees, reproduction is limited to quite a few exceptional female individuals — the Queen bees — to a very few chosen individuals, for in the others the sexual life is more or less suppressed.

But it is love that is present in the life of sex, and love belongs to the realm of the soul; and further, through the fact that certain organs of the body are worked upon by forces of the soul, these organs become able to reveal, to express love. Thus, because all this is driven into the background in the nature of the bees, and reserved for the Queen bee alone, the whole otherwise sexual life of the colony is transformed into those activities which the bees develop among themselves.

It was for this reason that in olden times, wise men who had a knowledge of all this quite different from the knowledge of men today, that these wise men related the whole wonderful activity within the hive to the life of love, to that part of life which they connected with the planet Venus."

Rudolph Steiner

The Morning Roar

UN Defends Snowden, Lerner Emails Lead to NSA, and NSA Employees Pass Around Nude Photos

“Those who disclose human rights violations should be protected, we need them,” Pillay told a news conference.

“I see some of it here in the case of Snowden, because his revelations go to the core of what we are saying about the need for transparency, the need for consultation,” she said. “We owe a great deal to him for revealing this kind of information.”

“As a former judge I know that if he is facing judicial proceedings we should wait for that outcome,” she said. But she added that Snowden should be seen as a “human rights defender”.

“I am raising right here some very important arguments that could be raised on his behalf so that these criminal proceedings are averted,” she said.