Posted on Jun 20, 2017
By Robert Karp Every bioregion needs a vital biodynamic farm and educational center that anchors the creative light of the sun, moon, and stars deep into the body and soul of the local geography and community. If Daphne Kingsley and Cameron Genter have their way, the Front Range of Colorado will soon have such a center. I had the great pleasure recently of visiting and touring their aptly named Light Root Community Farm in the scenic foothills of the Rocky Mountains just outside Boulder, Colorado. On a modest 40 acres of rented land, Daphne and Cameron have indeed put down a powerful tap root for this vision.
While visiting in their milk house and member pick-up center, Daphne told me how she and Cameron met at Live Power farm in Covelo, California, nearly 20 years ago, and fell in love there with biodynamics, draft horses, and one another. They have been...
Posted on Jun 14, 2017
By Stone Hunter When I arrived at Sustainable Settings in Carbondale, Colorado, in March 2015 for the continuation of my North American Biodynamic Apprenticeship (NABDAP) training, I landed into a world of shifting perspectives and practices in respect to biodynamics. Just two months prior to my arrival, there was a five-day intensive seminar in the neighboring town of Paonia, titled “Spiritual Agriculture I,” with Enzo Nastati. My mentor, Brook Levan, attended the seminar after first hearing Enzo speak a year earlier in Paonia and then in Kentucky. Enzo then visited Sustainable Settings to consult with Brook regarding the farm as a whole organism and the Homeodynamic* approach to farm stewardship.
I began to hear stories about the seminar and other farm consultations with Enzo, and could feel how these brief encounters had shifted something in Brook and...
Posted on Jun 7, 2017
By Karen Davis-Brown
Reprinted from the newsletter of the Biodynamic Association of Northern California
You know that biodynamic agriculture lives in you, when you see or smell manure — particularly cow manure — and a deep appreciation and joy wells up within you. I sometimes refer to it as having the value of “gold” for a farm; I am not the only one.
Rudolf Steiner talks about the importance of manure throughout the Agriculture lectures, as an important source of regeneration for the soils from which we extract nutrients for our crops and livestock. But he takes his indications far beyond the recommendation of regular spreading of manure and application of slurries. He presents the possibility of transforming this already valuable resource — with the collaboration of all four kingdoms, the planets, and stars — for the life and...
Posted on Apr 27, 2017
By Paul Haygood
A small, untended garden-space Is dug, turned, fed And planted... I in my old holey-blue sweater And green-net hat Feeling quite pagan and quite priestly, Gently setting tiny plants Into the Earth, Giving thanks For sun, water and worms... She seems receptive, this tiny patch Of newly re-cared for earth, And I need her love.......
Posted on Apr 5, 2017
By Coree Entwistle
With photos by Sarah Weber
When we crossed the Canadian border into Sarnia, the sky was light, and there were sparkles of snow in the air. The effect was tropical, to my southern eyes. We don't get partly cloudy snow down in our part of the world. I was enchanted. My Canadian husband was less impressed and directed us to a store to pick up some anti-freeze windshield wiper fluid. It was a cold weekend, and we were poorly prepared, but the snow that day, and into the night, was magical.
I knew when we walked in the door, nearly at the end of Friday's opening day session of the annual Fellowship of the Preparation Makers Conference (March 2-5, 2017), that we were in a good place. The conference was held in a historic community meeting hall. It was a singular spacious room, with a small kitchen curtained...
Posted on Mar 15, 2017
By Richard Chomko Village Market Manager, Thornhill, ON
Originally published in the Village Market and S ociety for Biodynamic Farming and Gardening in Ontario newsletters
In December of last year, the Grade Seven class at the Toronto Waldorf School was raising funds for their Grade Eight trip by selling cookie mixes at the Village Market . There was some debate among the parents as to whether to continue to use organic ingredients in these mixes, due to cost. One of the parents in the class asked me write something about why I thought it was important to use organic ingredients. This is what I wrote (with some subsequent editing, specifically for publication in the Ontario Biodynamic newsletter):
People often find their way to organic food because of personal health challenges. That was the case for me. As a child...
Posted on Feb 8, 2017
By Jessie Crow Mermel
Originally posted on the Angelic Organics Learning Center Blog (Jan. 18, 2017)
“Farms are the places where we negotiate our relationship with nature,” explained Tom Spaulding, Angelic Organics Learning Center ’s co-founder and Executive Director at the Midwestern Ecology Symposium at the Janesville Muslim Dawa Circle. Tom accompanied other distinguished speakers at the symposium, including his wife and Learning Center co-founder, Dr. Neddy Astudillo. Tom addressed the topic of biodynamic farming at the symposium.
Biodynamic agriculture found its genesis in a series of agriculture lectures by the Austrian spiritual scientist Rudolf Steiner, who also founded Waldorf education. The lectures were addressing farmers lamenting that food had lost quality with the more...
