Where did you start with biodynamic farming? I'm very inspired by your writing on it and the little I know of Alan Chadwick -- interestingly enough, one of his last garden projects was right around New Market in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, not 20 minutes from where I live!
I had a couple of friends interested in BD and we started talking about what we could do. We did a study group of Steiner agriculture lectures. Then I started experimenting with BD methods, one thing led to another...the way things usually happen, I suppose
I was the first daughter (after two older brothers) in a Catholic family that ultimately had nine children. My experience assisting with parenting tasks both for my siblings and by "babysitting" for other families left me utterly devoid of desire to become a parent myself. My mother thought she had "perverted" me as she couldn't conceive of someone choosing to be without children. For all the detail you shared in this post, what really struck me is how on earth two adults can possibly provide everything needed to raise nine offspring without relying on outside helpers and/or expecting some of those offspring to take on caregiving roles.... regardless of how abundant nature is.
We all push against our families of origin in some ways, and our own offspring push against us to a greater or lesser degree. Comes with the territory. And, of course, we weren't made for the curse of modernity that condemns especially mothers to a brutal form of isolation. And modernity isn't too sweet on families either, especially babies. We had all kinds of support over the years from family and friends and our parish (when we had one). "It is not good that the man should be lone." And it's not healthy for families to be alone either. Western modernity has everything backward.
Although I'm deeply opposed to the WEF, Bill Gates, etc. types when they talk about "over-population" and use it to push their various anti-human agendas, I do think there is something to the idea in general that we are over-populated. This country had 209 million people when I was born. It's 340 million now, insane growth, and would anyone say the country is better off than it was? Are we more free? People like Musk and open borders types push the idea that we actually need more growth, need endless population expansion (some goofball even wrote a book a few years years back calling for US to strive for a population of a billion - apparently this is necessary to "take on China" and "compete globally," blah blah.), and claim "the economy" needs it. Bollocks.
I live within a mile of where we moved in 1988 (when I was 14) and had 5 acres and a new house may parents had built. Most people thought we lived in the "boonies," and it remained a very quiet, quasi-rural area even until c. 2000. (Long story to end up near same place I was, but I now live in a neighborhood built on land across the street from our old house, which was just vast woodland when we moved out this way in 1988 - never understood why my parents moved from that house either, another long story, and I purposely avoid driving past it because it makes me sad). Not only our immediate area, but even further out now is so overbuilt, so crowded and noisy compared to 35, or even still just 20 years ago, that I hate it. I never used to think about traffic at all any time of day around here. Now at certain times of day I refuse to bother going out because I can't stand the traffic and hassle. Where did all the people come from in all these new neighborhoods and McMansions, giant apartment complexes (now senior homes & patio homes too), etc (where'd the $$ come from?), and of course there are ugly strip malls & shopping centers to service them, etc. My mom comes from a family of 12 kids, but only 1 of them had more than 2 kids...hardly anyone has larger families any longer...and yet, once quiet, pleasant, quasi-rural areas of town are all overcrowded and annoying now. At some level I can't help think we do have too many people these days...or maybe they just need to be spread out better. I dunno, but I find it all very tiresome. Seems everything these days all just overbuilt, overcrowded, and in this country, usually ugly.
Well, I don't think the country is worse off because of population, but because of corporate capture of our government and all the devilry that goes with that. Not to mention the constant doom scenarios promoted in the media since I can remember (I was so looking forward to "The Coming Ice Age" lol!). I think the "Fear Not" verses in the Bible (whether or not it was written 365 times) are there foe a reason. I refuse to be afraid of fertility.
Michael, this is not a glib, dismissive question, but one that I'm seriously trying to think through myself, and I want to know your thoughts: If the land is not only abundant, but superabundant, why do you still need money? (I say this as someone rich in land, poor in money -- though my land is poor, too, as we are just now beginning to transform it from a post-clearcut wasteland of rotting, tangled aspen, into a garden. And especially because our home is years away from completion, and so it is expensive in terms of time, fossil fuels, and used-cars-breaking-down to drive up there and do anything. Meanwhile, I have three kids, not nine, but I live in someone else's basement, and the financial task of getting out of that basement seems more and more distant and impossible, and is a task the land -- which is an hour and a half away -- seems oblivious to, much less empathetic)
I had this really great answer, but my phone lost it. hahaha (fml)
Anyway...we have lived in precarious financial conditions for all of our 30+ years of marriage. So I feel that. But what you are describing is precisely how fucked up the existing system is: it's against both God and Nature and at the mercy of criminal bankers. It's been that way for a long time (as in the cases of Enclosure, real estate "laws," taxation etc--I seriously hate these fuckers). Nevertheless, Nature IS abundant--as God is--which shows how diabolical the system of the Archons is. But the Amish are able to stand against that tide--and become surprisingly financially successful in the process (Go, Team Christian Anarchism!).
I don't have any words of wisdom to offer, other than to say "It somehow works out." I know that sounds trite, but it seems to be the case. It's enormously difficult to live a sane life in an insane world--and even more difficult when you're trying to raise children in such conditions.
A long time ago, a priest told me, "Radical faith produces radical consequences." I know he was right. The hard part, for me, has been putting that into practice. It's an ongoing project, to be sure.
I know this probably wasn't helpful, but there is a Real out there.
This is definitely helpful -- thank you. "Nature IS abundant--as God is--which shows how diabolical the system of the Archons is" and "Radical faith produces radical consequences" -- YES. And, apropos of that, I somehow had the ending of "Oblivion" flash through my mind, where the AI Sally--a fitting symbol of this Archontic system you, we, hate -- she says, "I created you, Jack. I am your god." And Jack says: "Fuck you, Sally."
I wonder if electroculture only applies to agriculture and not ecological restoration?After all, ecological restoration is the flip-side of biodynamic ag. However, we want insects to come and eat and make homes in our plants (not to eradicate them, of course) because that draws insectivores, which in turn draw larger predators to have a fully spun food web. So maybe not? What do you think?
In a garden, insects only attack weak or stressed plants. On the other hand, I think trees--especially ancient ones--are a kind of electro-culture all on their own. The idea is to bring things into balance. This year, for example, we've had an explosion of rabbits--but also of weasels and hawks. So Nature works itself out. I think in forest situation, electro-culture might be useful in combatting 5G or other electromagnetic weirdness, but that's just a guess. On the other hand, I think if we have healthy, regenerative farms, the wild places around them will also be regenerated. And electro-culture is a whole lot healthier than insecticides and fungicides.
Your thoughts on this topic have really changed my understanding of Nature for the better.
A question, though: what would you say to people who feel qualms about the sheer violence in Nature? Another way to put it might be: will people still hunt deer in Heaven, or will the lion lay down with the lamb? And what about the literal parasites in Nature? (David Bentley Hart would seem to be among those who are completely horrified by some of what happens in that regard.) I guess the issue has to do with whether Nature in her current state is fallen, or whether this is just how she always is, and we need to learn to love the cycle of sacrifice.
Also, your video at the end appears to not be displaying on my end, but I'm gonna assume it's Kate Bush.
Well, I'd say that, yes, Nature is fallen. But I think something changes when we our disposition towards Nature changes. It's hard to explain, but when we respond differently to Nature/The Cosmos, it responds differently to us. Not all the time, of course (not for me anyway), but you definitely start to feel more a part of Nature rather than a disinterested observer (screw you, Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes!).
When I was a kid, I asked my dad what heaven was like. He told me it was like hunting--which is what Native Americans thought the afterlife was like. I make no claims to such insight, or about the lion lying down with the lamb. But I do know that, in this reality, life exists because of death--my compost pile (which includes animals as well as plants and minerals) attests to that. And even vegetarians and vegans have blood on their hands--how many animals gave their lives so they could eat a soy burger? Tons. But out of sight, out of mind.
I think there has been a lot of wisdom through history pointing to our relationship to Nature (and the Nature that sustains us in terms of nourishment) and its sacredness. But it certainly qualifies as a kind of mystery, even though most of us like to avoid thinking about it or outsource the killing that makes our lives possible.
One thing is true though: no farmer I know, no hunter I know, is callous about killing, since they acknowledge their participation in it--and that goes for plants as well as animals.
The task now, as I see it, is to (re)discover the sacredness of our participation as part of Nature.
Well, I didn't think it would be tough for you; I just wanted to know. Haha.
And that ethos makes sense to me. I do often think about all the killing that makes our lives possible, and how there is no possible innocence here in this realm, if by that we mean keeping our hands clean of blood. And yes, it also makes sense to consider the task now, from our phenomenological standpoint, instead of attempting to abstractly imagine what we cannot know.
As for Bacon, well, when I read that passage where he gleefully describes science as the rape of Nature, let's just say I knew all I needed to know about the guy. (You can tell so much about a man by how he speaks of women, can't you?) And as for Descartes, I think his schizoid thought has a lot to do with the fact that he lost his mother when he was one year old.
Where did you start with biodynamic farming? I'm very inspired by your writing on it and the little I know of Alan Chadwick -- interestingly enough, one of his last garden projects was right around New Market in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, not 20 minutes from where I live!
I had a couple of friends interested in BD and we started talking about what we could do. We did a study group of Steiner agriculture lectures. Then I started experimenting with BD methods, one thing led to another...the way things usually happen, I suppose
Beautiful article. Feeling this on a smaller scale with my little herb garden which produces endless mint and spring onions.
I was the first daughter (after two older brothers) in a Catholic family that ultimately had nine children. My experience assisting with parenting tasks both for my siblings and by "babysitting" for other families left me utterly devoid of desire to become a parent myself. My mother thought she had "perverted" me as she couldn't conceive of someone choosing to be without children. For all the detail you shared in this post, what really struck me is how on earth two adults can possibly provide everything needed to raise nine offspring without relying on outside helpers and/or expecting some of those offspring to take on caregiving roles.... regardless of how abundant nature is.
We all push against our families of origin in some ways, and our own offspring push against us to a greater or lesser degree. Comes with the territory. And, of course, we weren't made for the curse of modernity that condemns especially mothers to a brutal form of isolation. And modernity isn't too sweet on families either, especially babies. We had all kinds of support over the years from family and friends and our parish (when we had one). "It is not good that the man should be lone." And it's not healthy for families to be alone either. Western modernity has everything backward.
Although I'm deeply opposed to the WEF, Bill Gates, etc. types when they talk about "over-population" and use it to push their various anti-human agendas, I do think there is something to the idea in general that we are over-populated. This country had 209 million people when I was born. It's 340 million now, insane growth, and would anyone say the country is better off than it was? Are we more free? People like Musk and open borders types push the idea that we actually need more growth, need endless population expansion (some goofball even wrote a book a few years years back calling for US to strive for a population of a billion - apparently this is necessary to "take on China" and "compete globally," blah blah.), and claim "the economy" needs it. Bollocks.
I live within a mile of where we moved in 1988 (when I was 14) and had 5 acres and a new house may parents had built. Most people thought we lived in the "boonies," and it remained a very quiet, quasi-rural area even until c. 2000. (Long story to end up near same place I was, but I now live in a neighborhood built on land across the street from our old house, which was just vast woodland when we moved out this way in 1988 - never understood why my parents moved from that house either, another long story, and I purposely avoid driving past it because it makes me sad). Not only our immediate area, but even further out now is so overbuilt, so crowded and noisy compared to 35, or even still just 20 years ago, that I hate it. I never used to think about traffic at all any time of day around here. Now at certain times of day I refuse to bother going out because I can't stand the traffic and hassle. Where did all the people come from in all these new neighborhoods and McMansions, giant apartment complexes (now senior homes & patio homes too), etc (where'd the $$ come from?), and of course there are ugly strip malls & shopping centers to service them, etc. My mom comes from a family of 12 kids, but only 1 of them had more than 2 kids...hardly anyone has larger families any longer...and yet, once quiet, pleasant, quasi-rural areas of town are all overcrowded and annoying now. At some level I can't help think we do have too many people these days...or maybe they just need to be spread out better. I dunno, but I find it all very tiresome. Seems everything these days all just overbuilt, overcrowded, and in this country, usually ugly.
Well, I don't think the country is worse off because of population, but because of corporate capture of our government and all the devilry that goes with that. Not to mention the constant doom scenarios promoted in the media since I can remember (I was so looking forward to "The Coming Ice Age" lol!). I think the "Fear Not" verses in the Bible (whether or not it was written 365 times) are there foe a reason. I refuse to be afraid of fertility.
Great article, as always. But that's not like any hawthorn I've ever seen!
This is what's called a cockspur hawthorn. Different leaf from a whitethorn--and the thorns are huge!
Many thanks - I never knew hawthorn was such a large genus! Here in the UK we've only got the one.
Amen. “The only wealth is life.” -John Ruskin
You’re a rich man.
Bonnie always says, "We poor, but we're rich in children and we eat like kings."
Michael, this is not a glib, dismissive question, but one that I'm seriously trying to think through myself, and I want to know your thoughts: If the land is not only abundant, but superabundant, why do you still need money? (I say this as someone rich in land, poor in money -- though my land is poor, too, as we are just now beginning to transform it from a post-clearcut wasteland of rotting, tangled aspen, into a garden. And especially because our home is years away from completion, and so it is expensive in terms of time, fossil fuels, and used-cars-breaking-down to drive up there and do anything. Meanwhile, I have three kids, not nine, but I live in someone else's basement, and the financial task of getting out of that basement seems more and more distant and impossible, and is a task the land -- which is an hour and a half away -- seems oblivious to, much less empathetic)
Meaning, maybe: Nature is superabundant, but only if you've already secured a perch within the ecosystem of the Machine...
I had this really great answer, but my phone lost it. hahaha (fml)
Anyway...we have lived in precarious financial conditions for all of our 30+ years of marriage. So I feel that. But what you are describing is precisely how fucked up the existing system is: it's against both God and Nature and at the mercy of criminal bankers. It's been that way for a long time (as in the cases of Enclosure, real estate "laws," taxation etc--I seriously hate these fuckers). Nevertheless, Nature IS abundant--as God is--which shows how diabolical the system of the Archons is. But the Amish are able to stand against that tide--and become surprisingly financially successful in the process (Go, Team Christian Anarchism!).
I don't have any words of wisdom to offer, other than to say "It somehow works out." I know that sounds trite, but it seems to be the case. It's enormously difficult to live a sane life in an insane world--and even more difficult when you're trying to raise children in such conditions.
A long time ago, a priest told me, "Radical faith produces radical consequences." I know he was right. The hard part, for me, has been putting that into practice. It's an ongoing project, to be sure.
I know this probably wasn't helpful, but there is a Real out there.
This is definitely helpful -- thank you. "Nature IS abundant--as God is--which shows how diabolical the system of the Archons is" and "Radical faith produces radical consequences" -- YES. And, apropos of that, I somehow had the ending of "Oblivion" flash through my mind, where the AI Sally--a fitting symbol of this Archontic system you, we, hate -- she says, "I created you, Jack. I am your god." And Jack says: "Fuck you, Sally."
I wonder if electroculture only applies to agriculture and not ecological restoration?After all, ecological restoration is the flip-side of biodynamic ag. However, we want insects to come and eat and make homes in our plants (not to eradicate them, of course) because that draws insectivores, which in turn draw larger predators to have a fully spun food web. So maybe not? What do you think?
In a garden, insects only attack weak or stressed plants. On the other hand, I think trees--especially ancient ones--are a kind of electro-culture all on their own. The idea is to bring things into balance. This year, for example, we've had an explosion of rabbits--but also of weasels and hawks. So Nature works itself out. I think in forest situation, electro-culture might be useful in combatting 5G or other electromagnetic weirdness, but that's just a guess. On the other hand, I think if we have healthy, regenerative farms, the wild places around them will also be regenerated. And electro-culture is a whole lot healthier than insecticides and fungicides.
Your thoughts on this topic have really changed my understanding of Nature for the better.
A question, though: what would you say to people who feel qualms about the sheer violence in Nature? Another way to put it might be: will people still hunt deer in Heaven, or will the lion lay down with the lamb? And what about the literal parasites in Nature? (David Bentley Hart would seem to be among those who are completely horrified by some of what happens in that regard.) I guess the issue has to do with whether Nature in her current state is fallen, or whether this is just how she always is, and we need to learn to love the cycle of sacrifice.
Also, your video at the end appears to not be displaying on my end, but I'm gonna assume it's Kate Bush.
That's not a tough question. LOL
Well, I'd say that, yes, Nature is fallen. But I think something changes when we our disposition towards Nature changes. It's hard to explain, but when we respond differently to Nature/The Cosmos, it responds differently to us. Not all the time, of course (not for me anyway), but you definitely start to feel more a part of Nature rather than a disinterested observer (screw you, Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes!).
When I was a kid, I asked my dad what heaven was like. He told me it was like hunting--which is what Native Americans thought the afterlife was like. I make no claims to such insight, or about the lion lying down with the lamb. But I do know that, in this reality, life exists because of death--my compost pile (which includes animals as well as plants and minerals) attests to that. And even vegetarians and vegans have blood on their hands--how many animals gave their lives so they could eat a soy burger? Tons. But out of sight, out of mind.
I think there has been a lot of wisdom through history pointing to our relationship to Nature (and the Nature that sustains us in terms of nourishment) and its sacredness. But it certainly qualifies as a kind of mystery, even though most of us like to avoid thinking about it or outsource the killing that makes our lives possible.
One thing is true though: no farmer I know, no hunter I know, is callous about killing, since they acknowledge their participation in it--and that goes for plants as well as animals.
The task now, as I see it, is to (re)discover the sacredness of our participation as part of Nature.
Well, I didn't think it would be tough for you; I just wanted to know. Haha.
And that ethos makes sense to me. I do often think about all the killing that makes our lives possible, and how there is no possible innocence here in this realm, if by that we mean keeping our hands clean of blood. And yes, it also makes sense to consider the task now, from our phenomenological standpoint, instead of attempting to abstractly imagine what we cannot know.
As for Bacon, well, when I read that passage where he gleefully describes science as the rape of Nature, let's just say I knew all I needed to know about the guy. (You can tell so much about a man by how he speaks of women, can't you?) And as for Descartes, I think his schizoid thought has a lot to do with the fact that he lost his mother when he was one year old.
I always love to hear your thoughts.