Biodynamic Digest #4

Originally published 2025-08-17. By Lloyd Nelson, JPI Biodynamics.

Your weekly update on the Biodynamic Astronomical Calendar

Sharing our cosmic adventures through the biodynamic digest by keeping track of celestial opportunities and optimal timing for planting, biodynamic spraying, and more.

This week, let’s explore:

Curious opportunities with the Sun and Moon in Leo ☉☌☾ ♌

Friday, August 22-Sunday 24, 2025

Midsummer Leo season is in full swing out here in western Colorado. Leo's warmth forces radiate and shine down from the cosmos. Several wildfires burn near us. In fact, Colorado has just been declared in a state of emergency with historical fire activity including currently nine large wildfires and twenty four uncontained fires burning. Smoke settles in the valleys, obscures our mountain views, and turns the Sun into a red glow in the sky. We’ve experienced severe drought this summer, and the irrigation canals that supply the lifeblood of agricultural waters for our region are shutting off early. By law, California, New Mexico and Nevada are entitled to a large share of Colorado’s water. When we don’t get enough winter snow in the mountains or the monsoon rain season misses our region, drought protocols are enforced. We must shut off our irrigation canals so we can keep those downstream golf courses and alfalfa fields green! We are there, our irrigation was just turned off yesterday!

When working with Biodynamics, we do our best to look for opportunities to participate in life all around us. We have an excellent framework with the Biodynamic planting calendar and the nine Biodynamic preparations. We can use this solid framework, first outlined in Steiner’s agricultural lectures, to work with plants and trees, animals, soils, and even possibly the weather! Silica can be harnessed to increase the effectiveness of the light of the Sun for better fruit, while Equisetum tea can be sprayed to prevent fungal and disease issues after a heavy rain. Biodynamics is a science and an artform that allows us to engage our thoughts, feelings, and will for action to participate in the life all around us. We can practice Biodynamics as an artform rather than just a method. With an artistic perspective, we can free ourselves from normal limitations to be creative, to try something new, and experiment.

Opportunities abound in the Biodynamic calendar to engage life on our farms and gardens. Full moon, new moon, planetary conjunctions and oppositions, eclipses, and trines all offer unique potential opportunities to use biodynamics to work towards enhancing beneficial energies or hindering undesirable qualities in the garden. The choice is up to the individual, and freedom to experiment is one of the most important keys to further developing the biodynamic method. We can now look towards the constellation Leo to see how we might use lion-like qualities to work in two very different ways.

What powerful qualities of Leo can we work towards harnessing with biodynamics? We can use the biodynamics calendar to incarnate specific qualities to enhance medicinal remedies. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we can also use the warmth forces of Leo to suppress weeds.

The Courageous Lion Leo

The Sun travels its annual course through the twelve constellations of the zodiac. In peak summer, we are met with the Sun in the warmth of the constellation of Leo. The constellation Leo is ruled by the Sun, and is one of the three warmth constellations associated with the element of Fire, along with Sagittarius and Aries. In Biodynamics, Leo is associated with the qualities of warmth and fruit ripening. Rudolph Steiner tells us the Heart was formed by Leo the Lion.

In Anthroposophy, Leo is associated with qualities such as leadership, confidence, and the ability to inspire others. With Leo’s qualities of strength and warmth of enthusiasm, we can take our biodynamic practices to new levels and open opportunities to commune with the spiritual forces radiating from the zodiac. If we want to improve biodynamics, we would do well to attempt to harness the fiery forces of Leo. Warm courage is needed to grow the beautiful, heartfelt qualities of Love, and that could potentially be the very best fertilizer. I am convinced the golden heart of the biodynamic movement is an impulse radiating with the Sun-filled forces of Leo. Love and enthusiasm are two of the most essential qualities that have helped me improve Biodynamics, and I hope this enthusiasm is contagious. All of the great Biodynamic teachers I have known had one thing in common: heartfelt, courageous love for the powerful physical and spiritual work to bring Rudolf Steiner's agricultural impulse into the future, “So the Earth may be Healed.”

Warmth and Enthusiasm Radiating from the Heart

“Great things can be accomplished with enthusiasm.” RS Ag. pg 77

“When the act of giving the medicine takes place within this limited circle, the doctor brings to it a certain enthusiasm. Now, you will tell me that enthusiasm carries no weight. True it cannot be weighed. But it vibrates into the remedy. Light acts strongly upon these remedies. Why should not enthusiasm work upon them? The Ritter [book of herbal] remedies are particularly powerful in this way. Enthusiasm can do wonders. If, however, the thing is done merely then the effect will gradually wear off. This is the difference between what emanates from the human hand (and a very great deal emanates from the human hand) and what comes out of a machine.” https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA327/English/RSPC1938/19240612p02.html

Making remedies with the Zodiac

“The Heart was formed by Leo the Lion” - RS Spiritual Hierarchies April 17, 1909

One of the easiest, most efficient and least expensive ways to improve Biodynamic farming practices is to use the wisdom gained from the scientific research on the Astronomical planting calendar. If I want to harness Leo energies, such as courage, strength, noble pride, I can use the optimal calendar dates when these qualities are being expressed through the cosmos towards Earth.

Particular plants have dynamic qualities we like to harvest and harness for use. For instance, Steiner used Yarrow to harness the forces of Love emanating from Venus to restore health and vitality to overworked or abused land. Steiner asked us to use Valerian to capture the essence of Saturn’s warmth. Biodynamic practitioners use Valerian for frost protection and the warmth forces of the “light-bearing” phosphorus. Similarly, Stinging Nettles is traditionally associated with Mars in a warrior-like gesture of protection used to shield and fortify plants in our gardens.

If we were to look towards the qualities of Leo and want to harness that specific energy, we would look for a plant that has a powerful relationship with the Lion constellation. One plant that comes to mind that is full of heartfelt Leo energy is Motherwort–Leonurus cardiaca. Just look to the botanical name of this plant to see how our ancestors gave it its profound name- Lion heart!

In Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, first published in 1653, Motherwort's government and virtues are described: “Venus owns this herb, and it is under Leo. There is no better herb to take melancholy vapors from the heart.”

Harvesting Motherwort during the Sun and Moon in Leo is one potent way to capture the essence of the heart of the constellations Leo the lion's courageous essence. Medicinally, Motherwort is used for various heart-related ailments and much more. Known for centuries to calm and restore the nervous system, Motherwort is perhaps one of the more important herbs to be taken in this day and age. Most of all motherwort is excellent for promoting heart health. In general, we are seeing an overall rise in heart related issues such as an increase in heart attacks. Many people experience issues of the heart physically and spiritually. The herbalist Susan Weed says, “motherwort heals the heart. It is, in fact, one of the world's best heart tonics. Its name means "lion hearted" or "strong hearted." Daily use helps new blood vessels grow to the heart. I call it "a bypass in a bottle."

Supporting and enhancing the physical and spiritual qualities of plant medicine merits further research. One may contemplate how one’s own relationship is with the world of the stars, of the forces of the zodiac, and of the courageous heart of Leo.

The Sun and Moon in Leo ☉☌☾ ♌ on Friday, August 22-Sunday 24, 2025 will be an interesting opportunity to try making Leo-enhanced medicine.

Biodynamics is all about creating a healthy balance in our farms and gardens. While we can use Leo’s forces to enhance certain medicinal qualities, on the opposite end of the spectrum, Leo’s warmth forces can be used to hinder plant growth.

When both the Sun and Moon are in Leo, this is considered an astronomical conjunction. Go outside and take a look towards the Sun on Saturday, August 23rd, to experience this. The Sun, Moon, and Earth will all be lined up with the Moon in the middle between the Sun and Earth. The Sun and Moon conjunction in Leo only happens three short days out of the three hundred and sixty-five days in a year. This is an interesting moment to try another biodynamic experiment.

Pest peppers as microcosmic conjunctions/eclipses

A conjunction occurs when two planets are particularly close in the same constellation. You could almost say a conjunction is like a “near miss” eclipse. You get similar effects, but the planets just graze each other, so to speak. Nonetheless, the “confused” influence of both planets in close proximity means neither acts fully in its own power; instead, you have a “watered down” Sun when the moon is too close to it and a “blanched” Moon when the Sun is too close to it. In a way, this is similar to what happens in microcosm when there are “excessive moon forces” in seeds, where the fiery seeds are too saturated with watery qualities and tend to rot. When the Sun and Moon are in the same constellation, the Moon is invariably a new moon, dark from our perspective. This “confusion” is a distinct point where we can intervene with seeds, where we want to cause confusion. Alan Chadwick, who was trained directly by Steiner to make “seed compost” with a cold fire on an overcast drizzling day (what Chadwick calls an “Ahrimanic day”), when the sun is hidden by the clouds, but it’s still bright enough to see is an analogous effect as the conjunction of Sun and Moon in the sky above. This is a time to experiment with making weed seed peppers.

If you burn a fire with green wood – wood that hasn’t dried out enough – you get a smoldering, smoky fire that burns cold and never thoroughly warms up. That is what a conjunction ☌ with the Sun and Moon is like: the fire of the Sun is muted by the new moon up against it. When the Moon is full, it is always in the opposite sign from the Sun, forming an opposition ☍ at 180 degrees. When the Sun and Moon are opposite each other at the full moon, this is always an auspicious time to act because there is a polarity of the greatest planetary body and the smallest planetary body: both are fully themselves in their own distinct polarity.

Curious Opportunity

Conjunctions ☌ and occultations like eclipses are not negative times, but curious opportunities – times to intervene when we want to emphasize a particular comingling of forces. For making peppers, we want the con-fusion of Sun and Moon to proliferate precisely in order to inhibit the reproduction of weed seeds. What occurs here is not the beautiful contrast of a full moon but a sort of lukewarmness, stimulating the land to reject the weed seeds: “because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Rev 3:16)

Steiner says there is not really one Sun, because the Sun behaves differently in each sign. We should really speak of a Gemini-Sun, Cancer-Sun, and Leo-Sun because the angle of their light during the season and the qualities of each particular sign are so markedly different. Just try growing cabbage under the Leo-Sun! Even if it is unseasonably cool, it will behave strangely because of the long light hours. And if it is as if there are twelve “Suns,” then we should also imagine that there are twelve Moons.

Steiner paradoxically suggests that when the Moon is in a particular constellation, it “blocks” the influence of that specific sign. How then does the Moon in Leo, by blocking it, stimulate a fiery leonine effect? By blocking its particular sign, the Moon stimulates a hunger for the missing fire element, and plants therefore produce more of it out of their own hunger. By resisting things, we strengthen them. When the Moon is in any sign, it is a temporary repression of particular forces, having a stronger influence in the opposite direction: the plant feels what is withheld and overcompensates. By blocking Leo for a few days, the Moon stimulates more hunger for Fire in plants. It is almost as if this moment provokes a wish for perpetual summer like Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited: “If it could only be like this always – always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe, and Aloysius [AL oh ISH us] in a good temper.” Is there perhaps something here suitable for season extension?

As the Moon governs the process of reproduction and the Sun the power of secretion in Steiner’s seven life processes, both experience inhibition at this conjunction ☌ and stimulate a hunger by gently depriving plants of those particular influences. You could say that during this conjunction of Sun and Moon ☉☌ ☾, plants experience a Leo-like hunger both in their reproductive power and subsequent enhancement. By intervening at such a moment, by providing plants with forces they can then absorb with that cosmic hunger, we can guide plants in beneficial directions.

With Sun and Moon in Leo ☉☌☾ ♌ on Friday, August 22-Sunday 24, 2025, this would be an interesting time to try to harness Leo energies to slow the reproductive potential for weed seeds.

With a solid Biodynamic framework and an artistic viewpoint one can be creative in using the forces of Leo in whatever way works for you.

Go Biodynamic–for Life!