# Applied Biodynamics — Issue 065 (Summer 2009) **By JPI Admin** · 2025-12-31 _Applied Biodynamics_ Issue 065 (Summer 2009) documents Sophia’s Garden’s three-year gopher-ashing case report alongside hands-on preparation making, Enzo Nastati’s Agriculture Course commentary, and JPI leadership succession. [**Download Issue 065 PDF**](https://go.jpibd.org/ab-065) ## Seasonal consciousness from St. John’s to Michaelmas Christy Korrow opens with the movement from midsummer’s expansive light toward autumn’s inward gesture. Festival days serve as anchor points within a larger living cycle. Following the weeks between St. John’s Day and Michaelmas helps the practitioner experience the earth’s breathing, the changing quality of light and warmth, and the corresponding movement from illumination toward active knowledge. This seasonal attention prepares the central practice of the issue: meeting an imbalance through observation, cosmic rhythm, clear intention, and repeated action. ## Sophia’s Garden and the farm individuality Monique Camp farmed the six-acre Sophia’s Garden organically for thirteen years, began biodynamic work in 2004, and achieved Demeter certification in 2006. The property lies in a valley with predominantly sandy soil and strong water limitations. Through meditation on the in-breath and out-breath of the land, Monique developed a picture of its physical, etheric, and cosmic centers and created a zodiacal garden as a place of cultivation, teaching, and sacred movement. Her biodynamic practice joins medicinal-herb production with attentive work in warmth, light, tone, life, and the elemental world. The farm’s gopher challenge was therefore approached as a relationship within the whole individuality of the place, not as an isolated pest event. ## The gopher-ashing protocol Development had reduced natural predator pressure, while sandy soil favored a very large gopher population. Monique used Steiner’s animal-ashing indication and Hugh Courtney’s guidance to prepare a gopher pepper: - Four gopher skins were stretched and dried in a protected place. - The skins were burned while Venus was midway through the constellation Scorpio. - The resulting ash, with a portion of wood ash, was ground for one full hour with a mortar and pestle. - Six tablespoons of the dynamized ash were potentized in 1:9 ash-to-water stages up to D8. - The D8 liquid was sprayed for three consecutive days. - A second three-day application followed several months later with the Moon in Taurus. - A three-day application was repeated in each of the next two years. The practice worked with the reproductive forces of the gophers, communicating where the land supported reproduction and where the gardens required a different balance. Prayer, clear intention, personal participation, and patience belonged to the method alongside timing, grinding, dilution, and application. ## Reported changes over three years Three years after the first ashing, Monique recorded a significant decrease in gopher activity. She also heard owls, saw bobcat and fox return, and observed a California ferret entering a gopher hole. In Camp’s account, fewer holes coincided with renewed predator sightings; because the report had no untreated control, it cannot by itself separate treatment effects from predator return, weather, or other changes. A repeatable field record can combine fixed-radius hole counts, mapped active burrows, dates and locations of D8 applications, predator sightings, crop damage, rainfall, soil moisture, and photographs from the same points. This preserves both the exact protocol and the wider response of the farm while making alternative explanations easier to evaluate. ## Conscious participation is part of the method Monique emphasizes that this is work the practitioner enters personally. The multi-year rhythm asks for commitment, active observation, and an ongoing question: “How can I serve?” In her experience, stirring and spraying the preparations invite order into the farm and allow harmony to radiate into the surrounding environment. The account offers a pattern for exploratory biodynamic inquiry: identify the imbalance, form a respectful intention, follow the preparation and cosmic-timing sequence precisely, repeat it through the required seasons, and observe the whole ecological community. ## Preparation making at JPI Maria Mihok’s reflection on JPI’s Fall 2008 workshop shows why hands-on making transforms understanding. Participants prepared dandelion, chamomile, oak bark, horn manure, and Biodynamic Compound Preparation; filled animal sheaths; turned manure for hours; and unearthed preparations made the previous year. The work made quality perceptible through touch, scent, texture, color, and transformation. Mihok noticed the marked change in manure before and after turning and experienced how animal, plant, tree, mineral, and human activity unite in a new healing substance. The workshop gave her practical confidence as well as a lasting relationship with every future preparation she would buy, stir, apply, or discuss. ## Enzo Nastati’s Agriculture Course commentary Hugh Courtney presents Enzo Nastati’s commentary as a rich study companion for serious biodynamic practitioners. Nastati relates the Agriculture Course lectures to successive cultural epochs and gives close attention to [planetary motion](https://go.jpibd.org/guide-cosmos), including whether a planet is above or below the Sun’s path and whether its motion appears direct or retrograde. The book also introduces homeodynamic preparations and a horn-clay practice associated with the twelve days of Christmas. For clear field learning, practitioners can name each preparation by ingredients and method, record the astronomical timing exactly, and keep Nastati-inspired applications alongside comparison areas and seasonal observations. This allows proposed qualities to be compared through disciplined practice without treating astronomical or spiritual-scientific interpretation as scientific consensus. ## JPI continuity The issue records Hugh J. Courtney’s planned transition from executive leadership after twenty-five years of building JPI as a major preparation supplier and educational center. The Board’s staged process—applications, interviews, selection, and extended orientation—shows responsible succession in service of preparation quality, organizational stability, and the future of the work. ## Key Topics Covered Seasonal attention from St. John’s Day to Michaelmas Sophia’s Garden and its practitioner-defined farm individuality Gopher-skin ashing timed within a biodynamic astronomical framework One-hour grinding and D8 potentization Three-day applications repeated over three years Reported gopher activity and predator observations Hands-on preparation making at JPI Enzo Nastati’s spiritual-scientific Agriculture Course commentary JPI leadership transition and organizational continuity ## Repeatable Practice 1. Map active burrows and crop damage before treatment, then establish untreated or standard-practice comparison areas where feasible. 2. Record the skins, ash, grinding, dilution stages, dates, astronomical timing, spray locations, weather, soil moisture, and all other pest-management actions. 3. Repeat fixed-radius burrow counts, crop-damage measurements, photographs, and predator observations on the same schedule; avoid changing measures after results are known. 4. Report null and adverse findings as well as apparent changes, and treat a single-farm case report as a hypothesis for replication rather than controlled proof. ## Explore Related Resources - [Biodynamic Pest Pepper Video Recording](https://go.jpibd.org/hAUzNS) - [Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course](https://go.jpibd.org/book-agriculture-course) - [BD 500 Horn Manure](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-500), [guide](https://go.jpibd.org/guide-bd-500), and [instructions](https://go.jpibd.org/instructions-bd-500) - [BD 501 Horn Silica](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-501), [guide](https://go.jpibd.org/guide-bd-501), and [instructions](https://go.jpibd.org/instructions-bd-501) - [BD 502–507 Compost Preparation Set](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-502-507-set) and [instructions](https://go.jpibd.org/instructions-bd-502-507) - [Biodynamic Compound Preparation](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bc), [guide](https://go.jpibd.org/guide-bc), and [instructions](https://go.jpibd.org/instructions-bc) - [BD 508 Horsetail](https://go.jpibd.org/product-bd-508), [guide](https://go.jpibd.org/guide-bd-508), and [instructions](https://go.jpibd.org/instructions-bd-508) ## Articles - Biodynamic Ashing at Sophia’s Garden: Weaving Together Biodynamics, Healing Medicinal Herbs, the Zodiac and Cosmic Dance (C. Korrow)  - Commentary on Dr. Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course by Enzo Nastati (reviewed by H. J. Courtney)  - Reflections on the Fall 2008 JPI Preparation Making Workshop (M. Mihok)  - JPI To Accept Applications for Executive Director (G. Nonini)  ## Citation Source: _Applied Biodynamics_, Issue No. 65, Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Bio-Dynamics, Summer 2009. **Tags:** Applied Biodynamics Archive, Crop and Garden Practice, Pests and Diseases --- > Source: [The Josephine Porter Institute](https://www.jpibiodynamics.org/blogs/applied-biodynamics/applied-biodynamics-issue-065-summer-2009)