Applied Biodynamics — Issue 064 (Spring 2009)

Applied Biodynamics Issue 064 (Spring 2009) brings together Manfred Klett's spiritual-scientific account of living fertility, compost and the polarity of BD 500 and BD 501; the Viroqua group's practical preparation-making community; and Brigitte Armenier's meeting of music with biodynamic culture.

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Life fertilizes life

In Hunter Francis's continuing interview, Manfred Klett presents manuring as humanity's conscious return of fertility to the earth through animal manure, compost, the biodynamic preparations, and attentive farm work. His guiding principle is that life fertilizes life.

Plant roots nourish soil organisms through sugars, proteins, enzymes, acids, and living exchange. Animals contribute further qualities through manure, and Klett describes the cow's digestive and perceptive life as especially significant. Human beings contribute through thoughtful, devoted work that shapes the farm as an individual whole.

For Klett, the familiar phrase “feed the soil, not the plant” becomes a living farm practice. Fertility develops through relationships among roots, soil life, animals, compost, the preparations, the farmer, and the farm organism.

Four elemental processes in biodynamic composting

Klett describes compost formation through four interwoven processes:

• Heating: the warmth process awakens and intensifies transformation.
• Aeration: the air process carries steam and gases and opens the pile to breathing.
• Moistening: the water process releases cellular sap and supports living exchange.
• Turning to earth: stabilization and humification create a lasting soil-building substance.

Good composting guides organic matter through these processes into humus. Klett calls humus a long-lasting gift of nature: it supports soil life, holds nitrogen in living form, builds structure, and gives the earth a durable memory of plant and animal substance.

The biodynamic compost preparations stand at the heart of this work. They accompany decomposition and humification toward greater organization, helping the compost become an active bearer of fertility for the farm.

BD 500 and BD 501 as a living polarity

Klett reads the earth and plant in a threefold image. The root sphere below ground acts as a head pole, receiving cosmic forces reflected through the mineral world. The above-ground realm of growth, flowering, fruiting, and ripening acts as a metabolic pole. The soil surface forms the balancing rhythmic middle.

BD 500 Horn Manure is sprayed on the earth, preferably before sowing in the source account, and Klett interprets it as strengthening the underground root sphere. BD 501 Horn Silica is sprayed into the above-ground phase of vegetative growth and ripening, opening plants to light. In rhythm, the two preparations enliven complementary poles of the agricultural organism.

Klett connects this polarity with the contrasting materials, horn processes, burial seasons, and uses of the two preparations. Horn manure and horn silica meet through the balancing middle of soil, plant, season, and attentive practice.

One hour of hand stirring

Klett gives the one-hour hand stir a precise spiritual-scientific meaning. Hand-warm rainwater is moved into a full vortex, reversed through chaos, and formed anew. Different speeds create fine moving layers and an expanded plane of sensitivity, opening water toward air. The solid preparation enters the liquid and unfolds through warmth as droplets are sprayed.

In his interpretation, the hour corresponds to the rhythm of human will. Stillness and movement, inward thought and outward action, time and space meet in the stir. Personal participation builds a direct relationship with the preparations and the individuality of the farm.

Klett describes hand stirring as a path toward intuition: the practitioner develops sensitivity to rhythm, polarity, place, and the farm organism through repeated, conscious work.

The Viroqua Biodynamic Group

Marcia Halligan and Steven Adams recount a regional initiative that grew from personal questions into a durable preparation-making community. The work began in 1994 with guidance from experienced practitioners and a single horn of BD 501 placed in the ground. Winter study groups formed in 1995, and the Viroqua Biodynamic Group began making preparations together in 1998.

The group progressed from Biodynamic Compound Preparation and BD 500 to BD 502–507, BD 501, BD 508 Equisetum, and the Three Kings Preparation. Its annual rhythm includes spring and fall preparation-making days and a January regional gathering, with conferences and visiting teachers expanding the work.

A core Apical Meristem group meets through winter to plan and make decisions. Preparation days welcome newcomers, a shared notebook preserves the group's memory, experienced makers offer counsel, and members attend JPI training. Extra preparations and cow horns circulate to farmers and gardeners across the region.

Chromatographer Roland Ulrich prepared images of the group's 2007 preparations in spring 2008. These comparative pictures gave members another way to observe their work alongside preparation notes, seasonal experience, and field practice.

Music and biodynamic culture

Christy Korrow reviews pianist Brigitte Armenier's recording of Schubert and Brahms with the accompanying essay “Between Music and Biodynamic Agriculture.” Armenier joins music and agriculture through living time, qualitative transition, sacred geometry, the number nine, and Goethean perception.

Both arts invite attentive participation in pattern, rhythm, polarity, and becoming. The project reinforces the issue's central vision of biodynamics as a living art and spiritual science in which disciplined practice refines perception and the human being participates consciously in the evolution of the earth.

Key topics covered

• Living manure, plant roots, animals, human work, compost, and humus in Klett's account.
• Warmth, air, water, and earth processes in composting.
• Humus as a long-lasting gift that holds living fertility and soil memory.
• BD 500 and BD 501 as complementary spiritual-scientific poles.
• Vortex, reversal, rhythm, intuition, and the one-hour hand stir.
• Regional preparation making, shared records, training, distribution, and collaboration in southwestern Wisconsin.
• Music, qualitative time, and biodynamic culture.

Explore related resources

• BD 500 Horn Manure, guide, and current instructions
• BD 501 Horn Silica, guide, and current instructions
• BD 502–507 Compost Preparation Set and current instructions
• Biodynamic Compound Preparation, guide, and current instructions
• BD 508 Horsetail, guide, and current instructions
• Three Kings Preparation, practice guide, and current instructions
• Rudolf Steiner's Agriculture Course

Articles in this issue

• Working in the Midst of Polarity: Manfred Klett's Further Reflections on Biodynamics — Hunter Francis
• Viroqua Biodynamic Group: Preparation Making in Southwestern Wisconsin — Marcia Halligan and Steven Adams
• Schubert, Brahms and… Biodynamics, A New CD — reviewed by Christy Korrow

Citation

Source: Applied Biodynamics, Issue No. 64, Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Bio-Dynamics, Spring 2009.