Biodynamic Digest

Originally published 2025-10-05. By Lloyd Nelson, Stewart Kahn Lundy, JPI Biodynamics, Max Leyf.

Making October preparations II.2

With your friends Lloyd Nelson and Stewart Lundy

TWENTY-SIXTH WEEK OF THE YEAR
by

26. Natur, dein mütterliches Sein,
Ich trage es in meinem Willenswesen;
Und meines Willens Feuermacht,
Sie stählet meines Geistes Triebe,
Daß sie gebären Selbstgefühl
Zu tragen mich in mir.

∇∆

NATURE! thy maternal kind
I bear within, as substance of my will—
my will, that’s true like fire bright
shall sear away all frailties of my mind
and, resolved like newly-tempered steel,
I will bear myself aright.

“King David, the musician, was also a shepherd. Thus Scripture says: ‘From the corners of the earth we have heard singing!” (Is. 24:16). These are the songs and melodies that come out of the ground. The music is formed through the grasses that grow there. By knowing that melody, the shepherd can put into the grasses the proper powers, so that the herds will have what they need to eat. This is also the meaning of ‘The blossoms appear in the earth: the time of singing is come’ (Cant. 2:12) each blossom appears in the earth by means of that melody which belongs to it.....” - Rabbi Nahman of Bratzlav, Liqqutim II 63.

This Biodynamic Digest chronicles the ongoing effort of producing the nine biodynamic preparations for use on farms across America and beyond. This week, we are very busy making several of the biodynamic preparations, including stinging nettle, oak bark, dandelion, horn manure, and the lovely chamomile remedy, so thank you for tuning in to hear about this special time. As we’re tied up with this good work, this is where our heads are at! The best thing to do this time of year, beyond putting your garden to sleep, applying field sprays, and adding biodynamic compost preparations to your compost pile, is… making biodynamic preparations!

In his agriculture course, Rudolf Steiner delineates the healing benefits of yarrow for healing “the unavoidable exploitation of the land that comes about through raising crops.” Immediately after the yarrow remedy is detailed, Steiner launches into a description of a new approach to using the flowers of the medicinal herb Chamomile as a remedy for the Earth.

If we were to look towards the heavens for the best time to apply chamomile preparation, we would be wise to harness the forces of the planet Mercury during a beneficial time. An auspicious occurrence is scheduled to take place on October 24th and 25th, 2025. On the 24th, Mercury will trine Jupiter, followed by Mercury trine Saturn. The trines in biodynamic astronomy are considered particularly beneficial, making this an ideal time to apply chamomile preparations for enhancing soil health.

Chamomile is among the most common known medicinal herbs on the planet and has a long documented history of use. Chamomile has such commonly known uses that even in Culpepper's herbal from 1652, he says, “it is so well known everywhere, that it is but lost time and labor to describe it.” This herb was well known and widely used by the Egyptians and Romans, and has been in use ever since. When questioned, Steiner says the correct type of chamomile to use is the one growing by the roadsides and railroad tracks. The uses are many for internal and external health. Did you know that you can even cure meat by packing it in chamomile instead of salt or sugar? Its anti-putrefaction power is phenomenal. We know a great deal about this herb for addressing digestive health issues. Let us explore a few lesser-known uses of our plant allies and how we can be better stewards of the land by harnessing the healing powers of Chamomile.

This herb of the Sun and Mercury grows well on disturbed soils. “Though the camomile, the more it is trodden on, the faster it grows, [yet] youth, the more it is wasted, the sooner it wears.”1

The digestive herb

Have you ever had a tummy ache and then sipped some warm, freshly prepared chamomile tea for relief?

The action of chamomile is remarkable in helping to relieve an upset stomach. The calming and settling of the digestion is one of the actions of this plant. Chamomile helps heal and strengthen the small intestine.

W.T. Fernie recommends a specific remedy in his Herbal Simples that helps against flatulence, namely, “it has been found eminently beneficial to employ Chamomile flowers boiled in tripe broth,” which is remarkably like the chamomile preparation. These ideas have established precedent, even if they have largely been forgotten. The point here is that Steiner didn’t invent these correspondences. He observed them, but so had many others before him. Whether or not we can see the correlation between a particular plant and an organ does not depend on belief, but on pattern recognition. The real biodynamic work involves developing this inner capacity to see correspondences and create new, creative combinations with them.

Mama’s tummy

In the biodynamic universe, we view the Earth as a living sentient being. She is known as Mother Earth. Living on the Earth are all of her inhabitants. Across the vast lands, we find the cultivators, those agrarian souls who toil in the soil. Those who grow food to feed the masses. The Earth experiences a multitude of human beings in constant work tilling and plowing, ripping and disturbing. Some use poisons to kill off life to make way for new life. Others burn to the ground to clear a way for new beginnings. There are still more who do what is common and pay a good, fair market price to have this work done for them, so they can have the convenience of beautiful produce. In conventional agriculture, we may look towards what Steiner describes as “mere stomach fillers.”

Through cultivation, we open the soil to many influences. Gandalf tells us, “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.” Proper tillage can improve soil health, while the opposite is also true. Plowing, tilling, and ripping can also harm the soil structure and the life in it.

The more the soil is disturbed, the more the land may have a “stomach ache.” That is to say, the soil’s digestive system may need help! We do our best to pay much attention to good and proper cultivation practices in Biodynamics. The digestive system, or “stomach” of the Earth or of the individual farm, may need a little digestive support. Think about the living “soil food web” and all the immense amount of action and reactions from bacteria and fungi, from cosmic to microscopic. We can do many things to improve soil health, and consequently, we can also quickly disrupt the delicate balance and destroy soil structure and life. Cultivating when the soil is too wet, or a drought can disrupt the soil for years to come. The biodynamic chamomile remedy can help remedy many digestive issues in the soil. What we add to the soil as amendments may also need digestion.

In organic agriculture, naturally occurring mineral fertilizers such as rock phosphate or gypsum can be applied directly to the soil. In biodynamics, we want those minerals “digested” before using them on our soils. The common practice in Biodynamics is to put mineral inputs into the compost heap that will be applied to the fields in the future—that way, all of the minerals have been digested through the composting process.

Chamomile, with its delicate form of calcium that is not neutralized by stomach acid but smuggles itself into the intestines, helps improve the assimilation process of minerals and makes minerals more bioavailable for plants to assimilate. If you have to apply mineral fertilizers directly to the field, an application of BD 500 and Chamomile preparation will help incorporate and digest those minerals in a more balanced and rapid way.

Chamomile the digestif

Just as one may drink a bitter aperitif before a meal, or a stimulating digestif after a meal, chamomile can be applied to stimulate the soil ahead or after a spray, or as an addition to other sprays. This is a particularly beneficial remedy on acidic soils, one that gives plants a bit more “greediness” to take from the soil what they need for themselves.

Chamomile is an excellent spray to use to help plants assimilate nutrients in the field and to settle down any overactive fermentation in a compost pile at the end of the season. Every biodynamic garden should be sprayed with Chamomile in the Autumn to help the soil digest and assimilate all that happened in the summer and prepare for winter. If you have tight soils (as acidic soils often become) or ones that are compacted by animals or machinery, Chamomile helps loosen things up. If you have excess unincorporated stubble left over from your gardens, such as corn stalks, you can spray chamomile to help expedite, digest, and break them down into stable humus. Chamomile, prepared biodynamically, can help heal many issues in the soil resulting from cultivation. If we understand the Earth to be a living being, chamomile might be the best remedy for improving the soil’s digestive capabilities and the soil food web.

Chamomile - a plant near the Sun

In Culpepper’s Complete Herbal, he states that the virtues of the herb chamomile are all too well known, that it would be a waste of time to describe them. He instead launches into a dissertation on ancient Egypt and the importance of chamomile.

Some speculation has been postulated about the origins of biodynamics. One of the herbs used in biodynamics today was also important and commonly used by the ancient Egyptians millennia ago. Did Steiner take up and renew ancient practices? In ancient Egypt, they largely relied on the miraculous backflow of water along the river Nile, which would supply sediment and nutrients every year with spontaneous self-fertility. But as Steiner suggests, Nature does not usually produce perfectly balanced soils — we usually have to intervene in a particular way in each location to see the best performance in the garden.

It is no mystery that the Egyptians revered the Sun. An entire culture dedicated to loving the Sun — and why wouldn’t they? Here is the great land of the origin of monotheism, the recognition of the Sun as a perpetual symbol of changelessness and reliability, a constant source of the influx of energy that feeds all life. Chamomile was associated with the sun, and so it is no wonder they collected and utilized this medicine.

Chamomile - an herb of Egypt

Where does the best chamomile grow on the planet? While we know chamomile grows worldwide, some of the very best and most potent varieties come directly from the sun-drenched fields of Egypt.

Of interest is commercially grown chamomile. Have you drunk a lovely herbal chamomile tea in recent years? Did you know that, most likely, the country of origin of good organic chamomile tea is Egypt? Recently, I was searching the internet for organic chamomile flowers grown in the United States. They are available! Cost? $170 per pound. A similar search for certified organic chamomile flowers yielded a much more economically friendly alternative: Certified Organic Egyptian-grown chamomile is available in bulk quantities for $17 per pound! Some of the highest-quality chamomile grown anywhere in the world comes from the fertile Nile River delta in Egypt. Do we use Egyptian chamomile to make preparations here in the US? Of course we do! Is it ideal to grow your own flowers for making your Biodynamic preparations? Of course, that is also true. Global economics may require a financial moral compass to find more affordable solutions.

The Egyptians have a storied historical uses of a wide variety of medicinal herbs. George Dunea, MD, shares, “The Egyptians understood that certain herbs, minerals, and animal products had healing properties.” From crocodile dung to hyena bile, the Egyptians’ medicinal apothecary was vast.

The fertile Nile valley has grown chamomile for millennia. Culpepper describes an ancient remedy made by the Egyptians from chamomile. He calls it Nechessor, an Egyptian Medicine. This chamomile medicine was used as an anointing oil. “A decoction made of camomile, taketh away all pains and stitches in the side: the flowers of camomile beaten and made up into balls with oil, drive away all sorts of agues if the part grieved be anointed with that taken from the flowers, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, and afterward laid to sweat in bed, and he sweats well; this is Nechessor, an Egyptian’s medicine.”

It should be noted that Egyptian tombs do not show the “evil” god of the belly, usually depicted as a crocodile or a hippopotamus (the most deadly animal in Africa). Unlike various parts of the body that were carefully preserved, the intestines were not retained. The soul of the departed, untethered from the lower organism (“animal impulses”), would be free to soar without the weight of the lower organism and its attachments. This symbolic approach has medical relevance:

“[T]he origin of internal illnesses—not those caused by external injury—must always be looked for in the metabolic system. Anyone, therefore, who wishes to put forward a rational observation of illness must start with the metabolic system.”2

Chamomile is good for “babies of all ages.” Fussiness in adults and children often arises from being colicky — something fermenting incorrectly — so chamomile helps settle down one of the primary sources of illness, namely by calming the metabolic system.

The Philokalia speaks of the primal human error as being gluttony, giving the example of Adam and Eve as an example: the first sin being eating what we shouldn’t have consumed. In Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, gluttony is among the seven deadly sins. One of the primary ways to improve health is by reducing caloric intake, something glimpsed in the reduction of unnecessary foods in virtually all spiritual paths and a tendency towards a more Edenic diet. In Steiner’s view, similar to that of Swami Yukteswar (Paramahansa Yogananda’s guru), we do not have carnivore teeth, but the same teeth as a fruit monkey. Steiner says the reason we cook is to make things more fruitlike. Fruits need minimal cooking, leaves usually little more than blanching, stems need a bit more time, and roots need the longest. Cooking “ripens” the aspects of a plant into something more fruitlike, so you cook from the root up: onions and garlic first, stems next, then leafy greens, and only finally something fruity. If someone decides to become a “raw food crank,” as Steiner puts it, they force their organism to do all the “cooking” of their food, which depletes the will of energy to accomplish work. What does this have to do with chamomile?

Chamomile helps mitigate the “negative byproducts of fructification.” An ideal compost pile wouldn’t have any excesses: it would simply be perfectly balanced from the get-go. But we live in reality, and often the compost isn’t perfectly mixed or there’s too much protein (nitrogen). Chamomile helps prevent offgassing in the compost in the same way it mitigates flatulence in the human organism.

When a compost pile heats up, it is being ripened into something closer to the mild, sweet, and bioavailable quality of fruits.

The growth pattern of chamomile, if you trace it, forms something like the undulating folds of the intestines. As the process between the kidneys and bladder resembles yarrow, so a similar formative gesture occurs in chamomile and the intestines.

Rudolph Steiner tells us that the “cow is the ultimate beast of digestion.” The cow with its four stomachs has the longest digestive tract of all the mammals. Hugo Erbe tells us, “The quadruple stomach of the cow is the site of the most comprehensive cosmic alchemy on Earth.” It is not a far stretch of the imagination to understand why Steiner describes making “chamomile sausages” with the small intestines of a cow for a correspondingly healing effect.

There is no living animal or plant that does not have all the planetary processes at work within them. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be a living organism! To be a living organism, we require a complete microcosmic image of the solar system. Nonetheless, specific plants have more of a particular “planetary” energy than others, which is sometimes called their “governor” or “ruler,” which indicates which particular quality predominates over the others. The “doctrine of signatures” and planetary “rulers” is a form of taxonomy, a way of organizing phenomena in the universe in terms of the universe itself.

When we look at chamomile, we see Mercury spiraling around the Sun, and the branching growth almost entirely obscures any central solar shaft. We see the whorl of feathery branches chasing these solar bubbles that reveal themselves in the architecture of the flowers. It is with the flowering that the rest of the plant “makes sense” in a way that it didn’t before it had blossomed. It is almost impossible to predict what the flower will be from familiarity with the leaves of the plant, but knowing the flower explains the leaves.

How different people “classify” various plants according to their planetary taxonomy depends greatly on how those planets are understood. It makes no sense to argue what plant belongs to what planet if we do not have clear concepts about the living processes of each respective planet in the first place. For example, one can say that Mercury is solar because of its proximity to the Sun, but one cannot say as easily that the Sun is mercurial. The question we must ask ourselves is: what characteristics am I looking for in a plant? By what criteria do I classify it as one thing or another? One can imagine the protective qualities of Mars like a shield, but then there is the geometry of the orbits of each planet. Do we see how these patterns are also at work here on earth?

Mercury is the planet that — excluding the Moon’s proximity to the Earth, of course — on average, is the closest planet to each individual planet. This gives it a special role in communicating between all aspects of a living organism. The digestive tract, after all, extends through the entire organism from the head to the rear, and there is nowhere in the organism that is far from this mercurial, radiant influence.

The (quickening) Mercury connection

Chamomile is influenced by the Sun, as the planet closest to the Sun is Mercury. It is challenging to say that Mercury isn’t “solar” — its entire activity is bound closely with the orbit of the Sun. Imagine the central trajectory of the Sun with Mercury spiraling around it. We see this in plants with the central upward growth of the trunk of a tree or the stem of yarrow, while we see the spiraling of branches off the central trunk as the mercurial activity. The light of all the planets is reflected sunlight, so the planet closest to the Sun will naturally also demonstrate more pronounced solar qualities.

After hay is cut and out of the field, we regularly use a combination of biodynamic preparations to stimulate new growth. Here is the connection with the assimilation of soluble nutrients and growth. Steiner warns that merely applying soluble fertilizers creates agitated watery growth, but when we really need better growth, we want it balanced in the form of Chamomile, which can dissolve with sulfur and assimilate with calcium.

The simplest of the combinations to stimulate regrowth in pastures is an application of BD 500 and BD 503 — horn manure and chamomile. We have had fantastic results in stimulating regrowth in hay fields using this combination of Biodynamic preparations. Even Dr. Karl Koenig, when people seemed to be finding their horn manure not to be transforming well, would mix whole chamomile flowers in with the manure before burial. Just think of that!

Chamomile has the ability to quicken and multiply the soil’s beneficial microbial populations. Chamomile can stimulate and activate the soil’s digestive activities. Chamomile has been used for thousands of years to heal an ailing organism. The standard way to give its benefits to the entire garden is to add it to your compost pile, and from there, share the improved compost with all your garden plants.

Remember that every plant has its source and star, and when we bring them into the soil, we are actively weaving an estranged earth back into the living whole of the cosmos.

May we always bring more starlight to the earth and patient love into the world!