Earth Alchemy 101

Earth Alchemy is a microcosm of the Earth’s relationship to the cosmos, a terrarium where new energy can be folded into a small space, facilitating accelerated development. In alchemy, entropy decreases.

A living farm organism isn’t just a metaphor. It is that the farm is a microcosm of the Earth itself. The earth in relation to the sun receives ever-new influx of energy, which is its very life-potential. There’s nothing particularly revolutionary about this idea. But to realize that rain is distillation and condensation on a massive scale shifts one’s perspective. The process of distillation and condensation can be enclosed, alchemically, within what is known as a “closed alembic.” This can be as simple as two mason jars conjoined in such a way that one is exposed to the light of the Sun and the other is shaded. The constant reflux stimulates evolution — it’s really almost a terrarium. The sustainability of terrariums, like the Earth or the garden itself, is based on this new influx of energy every day. But how do we make plants more receptive to light? This is a tricky question, one that is not as simple as planting them in full sun. Many plants placed in the sun will wither and die if they are lacking the necessary vitality to transform the light.

This is something you can learn to do yourself, making remedies out of the worst weeds on your farm. This is what we offer gardeners, farmers, and businesses: practical tools to generate value from your own limited resources. Once enough experience accumulates in one spot, it can become, so to speak, an etheric star. We offer tools to save more money than we cost as consultants, which should be the task of anyone offering advice.

Learning from a Mentor

Hugh J. Courtney examining “horn manure” preparation samples in 2015

Energy only flows from high concentration to low concentration. This principle is expressed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that order tends to decrease over time. A more accessible way to understand this principle is that useful energy decreases as it is spent. Over time, there isn’t enough of a differential for energy to flow. But this is only given a closed system. Yes, the universe as a whole tends towards disorder but that same tendency allows for pockets of what appears to be negative entropy, where order seems to increase. Cases like this include the Earth in relation to the Sun. The Sun is always losing energy, but because the Earth always has less energy than the Sun. Because of this, the Earth continues to receive a new influx of energy. This is the possibility of evolution and the possibility of soil development. If there weren’t new energy flowing into the garden every year, there would be no possibility of soil development.

The same is true of knowledge. A mentor can only instruct you in what he knows. And you can only learn if you admit that you do not yet know. If we pretend to know that which we do not know, we block ourselves off from development and from the possibility of acquiring true knowledge. In an era opposed to hierarchies, we’ve lost sight of the hierarchy of experience. Respect for elders doesn’t come from any innate authority, but from years of experience. A good grape year doesn’t immediately make a great wine. Good grapes only become good wine after many years of aging and developing. The student comes to the teacher to learn what is not known, not because the teacher is necessarily morally or spiritually superior but because the teacher possesses knowledge someone else does not possess.

My personal mentor was Hugh J. Courtney, founder of the Josephine Porter Institute for Applied Biodynamics. Shortly before he crossed the threshold, he told me that the next generation would have to take up the work of carrying on biodynamics. That is my work today. I do not just instruct people. I guide clients to realizing their goals and to saving them more time, energy, and money than the mentorship costs. It is the duty of everyone with spiritual knowledge to shine like a star, not hide it under a bushel. It is, of course, possible to go to the “school of hard knocks” and spend years on false-starts and blind alleys, or you can follow the footsteps of someone else who’s already tripped over a lot of the problems along the way. It’s not that the person you follow is superior, they’ve just fallen enough times to warn you about what to avoid. If you want to save yourself endless headaches, enlist the help of someone who has been foolish longer than you in your field of interest.

It's always busiest in spring

It’s always busiest preparing in spring. The workload is almost three times what it is almost any other time of the year. The winter “break” is welcome, assuming you aren’t preoccupied with small repairs, building infrastructure, and catching up on paperwork. But by the time spring approaches, who’s really had time to balance their soils properly? This is an entirely separate skillset and can seem daunting for backyard gardeners and farmers alike. But if you want to get the best yield for your time and you want to get the best flavor (as well as nutrient-density) you want to have balanced soils. Ehrenfried Pfeiffer liked to say that what we see produced in the garden today is not really the effect of what we did this year but rather the effect of what we did last year. Though it may seem early, farmers and gardeners should already been thinking of next year even as we get started in spring.

For those of us with busy lives but still with an active desire to get the best out of our gardens, we offer consultations to be a helping hand through the year. For the smallholder or the commercial grower, we offer decades of collective experience and can customize a program just for you.

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Asking "Why?"

It’s a lot to ask to know why something happens. Most of us have to be content with the results of what happens without knowing the inner workings. Whether we’re too busy or it’s just beyond our grasp, most of us deal with concrete results. Asking “why” my plant is failing or “why” winter benefits the soil are questions often above our pay grade. This is why we reach to people who have some degree of knowledge about the whys of the world. If someone knows the source of a phenomenon, it is much easier to direct that phenomenon towards our own goals. In biodynamics, we can all use the preparations, but if we do not know the conceptual framework from which they emerged, we are limited to the external results rather than their living inner logic. If you knew that you could earn $500 more in produce every month, a $100/mo. fee for consulting already pays for itself. You don’t necessarily have to comprehend the secrets of the book of nature, but if you learn from someone who can read the script of Nature, you will produce better yields sooner whether or not you fathom the unmoved mover, the why of the world.