earth matters december 2011

Hastings’ only retail outlet specialising in sourcing a wide range of

Demeter certifiedBio-dynamic products

Large selection of organic and Bio-dynamic flours, grains, nuts, beans, dried fruit, dairy products, bread, meat, tea, coffee, fruit juices and wines.

Plus gluten free products, Weleda remedies, organic skin care and cosmetics, (including Dr Hauschka), organic baby clothing and baby food, household cleaning products, organic seeds, seedlings and garden products and more.

A qualified Naturopath and Medical Herbalist available all day every day to assist.

We will always do our best to source items we do not have in stock. Come in and see us or phone.

221 Heretaunga Street East, HastingsTelephone (06) 876 6248

[email protected]

www.parisberlin.co.nz

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.sonett.co.nz

1 DECEMBER 2011 IssuE 6

2 Editorial

3 Seedlines

7 This body – my armchair. Rudolf Steiner.

9 From air comes the stuff of life. Dr J. W. Rohen

13 Making a difference – climate change from your backyard. E Alington.

16 Of Star … Aries the Ram

17 … and Flower. Silver Birch. Dr Johannes Wilkens.

19 Climate Change – a moral, political and legal issue.

20 Have horns – do no harm. Peter Bacchus.

21 The price of milk. Robert Consedine

22 Food Bill a challenge to Food Democracy.

24 Bees – Death by a thousand paper cuts.

25 Nicotine Bees – A documentary by Kevin Hansen.

26 Book Review: The Beekeeper’s Lament.

27 Book Review: Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit.

28 Luna Month. Acacia Smith.

29 Make the earth glad – A Christmas breakfast. Collette Leenman.

30 The Book of Nature. Margaret Colquhoun.

31 The sun shines today also. Arthur Zajonc.

Contents

Earth Matters is a New Zealand-based Journal for the Renewal of AgriCulture through science, art and spirituality. It is a not-for-profit publication and proceeds will be used to help fund The Land Trust, registered charity CC37781

Earth MattersPO Box 24-231 Royal Oak Auckland 1345

Editor:Elisabeth Alington

Assistant Editor:Mary Vander Ploeg

Administrator:Paula Kibblewhite

Australian Distributor:Heather Weiss

Layout:Karl Grant

Earth Matters is published three times a year; April, August and December. Subscriptions of $NZ 35.00 local / $NZ 45.00 overseas may be purchased on-line at www.earthmatters.co.nz or by direct credit to Earth Matters Kiwibank account 38 9010 0519122 00 or by sending a cheque to the above address. Please make sure you supply postal details and notification of payment to [email protected].

All material published in these pages is Copyright Earth Matters 2010. For permission to use material from this publication, in any form, please contact the editor [email protected]

Opinions and statements expressed in this journal are the responsibility of the contributing authors. The Journal accepts no responsibility for results arising from advice offered in good faith through its pages. Readers who wish to contribute articles or express views are invited to submit content for consideration to the postal address above or via Word document to:[email protected]

ISSN: 1179 - 5298

6 Food – A gift from Heaven. Dr Otto Wolff

13 Blowing in the wind – our silent global crisis. E Alington

4 Biodynamics and the dignity of the farmer.

Robert Karp

Front Cover: Growing broccoli.Photo: Optic Nerve Productions


Editorial

Pic:

J B

ruce

-Gor

don

Lis Alington

Eating, in Eastern Europe, has long been understood as a form of communion with the earth; food allows us to become intimate with the earth. The honey bees know it but we all too easily seem to forget it. This issue, Earth Matters spins a yarn about soil erosion and soil restoration; it

plies a fine line on the dignity of farmers and what they do for a living; it weaves threads between food production and making ailing bodies whole, and it embroiders our thinking with some food for thought.

What is the real reason for eating? Is it just a matter of consuming calories in order to get the energy we need to work hard and play hard? Or does it have to do with stimulating life as well? Earth Matters begins to explore this view; introducing what one doctor of philosophy has to say and hearing how two medical doctors approach the subject. Perhaps our understanding of food may be helped when we begin to think beyond the weighable, measurable quantities, into the life processes that have deposited the matter in the first place?

Then there’s the question of who’s paying to maintain Aotearoa as the land of milk and honey? What with the price of milk and the deployment of dubious free-trade agreements, in tandem with varroa mite and the potential for Colony Collapse Disorder, New Zealand seems to be getting its wires well and truly crossed. All that, without even getting into water quality… (or not, for half our freshwater lakes and more than two-hundred lowland rivers still aren’t fit to swim in).

Isn’t it amazing that humanity could be brought to its knees by the loss of a single insect species let alone a Wall St occupation, nuclear disasters, earthquakes, endless wars and the downgrading of our national economy? Bringing the small things that matter to mind is just as vital, if not more so, as the big political agenda. So Earth Matters will continue to remind us of the threat to the honey bees, as much for their sake as for ours.

Just when we’re all enthusiastically getting into our gumboots, we’re told about some new food laws that are poised to stop us from sharing freely of the abundance of our gardens. You can catch up on the government’s Food Bill, presently undergoing parliamentary scrutiny, in this issue.

I do think kiwis are on to it when they support farmers’ markets, urban gardening, surplus-sharing schemes and raw milk suppliers. It’s all serving to keep people aware of what they’re eating, of where food comes from, of who carries the responsibility for personal decisions as to what we put in our bodies. No one wants to be dietarily dictated to. After all most of us have, since childhood, practiced turning up our noses to brussels sprouts and pumpkin so why would any of us in our right minds allow political expediency to define what food is safe for us and what isn’t? Especially when ‘safety’ becomes little more than a thinly veiled excuse to render food more processed, less nutritious, more expensive and most likely to have been supplied by one of a handful of profit-driven corporations controlling the commodity markets. As has been done with tobacco, it would be sensible to push up the price of these foods that lead to ill health, costing the country millions in health care every year. Keep your gumboots on!

The simple elegance of biodynamic-organic gardening and farming is that it creates independence – independent farmers, largely independent farms, resilience and economic and cultural prosperity – and all of it sustainable. Which is why Earth Matters returns to biodynamics every issue for we think it’s important to do all we can to strengthen the connection between ethical thinking and congruent action. Food, based on the humus that makes us human, builds the bridge between the two. It’s the pivot on which our lives are held in balance.

On a more personal note, by the time you get to read this my husband and I will be away on our honeymoon – while there are still some bees around! Happy summer to you all wherever you are, be it the garden, the sea, the mountains.

P.S. This Christmas, do consider giving your friends and family a subscription to Earth Matters. You’ll receive a gift too – see our advertisement on page 32.


For the deep earth that cradles the seed

For the rain that brings forth the green leaves

For the stars that give form to the flowers

For the warm sun that ripens the fruit

For all this goodness and beauty

Great Spirit of Earth we thank thee.

Grace before meals.


Robert Karp

One of the most exciting things about the food movement right now is the awakening

that is taking place to the dignity and vocation of the farmer—an understanding of the farmer not simply as a producer of food, but also as an agent for social change and community revitalisation.

It struck me recently that this

Biodynamics and the Dignity of the Farmer

Cre

dit

ange

licor

gani

cs

recognition of the central importance of the farmer is something that has sometimes been overlooked, even in the sustainable agriculture world. We talk about the three legs of the stool of sustainability—the economic, the social, and the ecological. But sometimes we overlook the one who must build the stool in the first place: the farmer.

We rail against the corporations, but we often forget that industrialised agriculture has been able to take hold to the degree it has only by undermining farmers’ trust in their own ideas, perceptions, and creative capacities. We forget that, in truth, our movement has grown and developed through a kind of spiritual awakening among farmers and, from there, to consumers and their communities.

Industrialised agriculture has been able to take hold to the degree it has only by undermining farmers’ trust in their own ideas, perceptions, and creative capacities. Robert Karp explores how this is beginning to change as the local food

movement gathers momentum.

A farmer can be an agent for social change and community revitalisation as we saw in the documentary, Farmer John. Since 1993 his Illinois farm has become the hub of a

thriving Community Supported Agriculture movement.


farmer, a healthy, bio-diverse, farm-based ecosystem must be continually created and nurtured, day in and day out, by spiritually awake farmers who have the desire to learn ever again how to orchestrate soils, plants, animals, manures, and markets into a dynamic community of life.

Biodynamics is not simply a movement that advocates a set of practices, standards, techniques, or even products that we think are the solution to the ecological crisis. Rather, we are a movement that, in the first place, seeks to awaken and nourish the inner freedom, fire, and creativity—and therefore the true dignity, the true vocation—of the farmer.

This awakening is the foundation of the food movement and is the wellspring, I would suggest, of a truly sustainable agriculture.

Robert Karp is the Executive Director of the US Biodynamic Association and has been a leader in the local food and sustainable agriculture movement for over thirteen years. Article originally published in the Summer 2011 issue of Biodynamics (No. 276) by the U.S. Biodynamic Association (www.biodynamics.com).

How do we nourish this awakening?

In biodynamics, we recognise that the farmers’ inner, creative fire—their deeper instincts, insights, ideas, perceptions, and imaginations—are what give shape to the farm. These are, therefore, what we must awaken and nurture.

This is why the USA Biodynamic Association’s apprenticeship programme includes activities like the keeping of a daily journal. This is why we offer workshops and courses for farmers that teach deep and careful observation of soils, plants, and animals followed by quiet, meditative reflection on what has been observed. This is why we are trying to build learning communities where farmers can share ideas, insights, best practices, and moral support with one another. The farmer is on a path of development, and, as a movement, we must understand, nurture, celebrate, and support this developmental path, this spiritual journey of the farmer.

Most importantly, biodynamics illuminates the interweaving of the spiritual and material dimensions within ourselves and within soils, plants, animals, farms, and landscapes. This knowledge helps farmers see their work within a larger context; awakens their inner freedom and creativity; and nourishes wonder, responsibility, and self-confidence. It also calls forth the desire to create farms that are a source of health and healing as a deed of service to the world.

In contrast, human freedom and dignity are an illusion in the materialistic worldview, which sees us as impelled to act the way we do by forces outside of us and processes beyond our control. It is thus no surprise that industrialised agriculture undermines farmers’ innate common

sense and creativity and places them under the yoke of outside experts, banks, and corporations. It is ironic that these materialistic ideas and technologies are also imbued with the hubris of total human power and control over nature. These two principles—one-sided power over the world and one-sided powerlessness in the face of the world—go hand in hand in the soul of modern materialism.

The local, organic, and biodynamic farmers that I have been privileged to work with, on the other hand, are neither imposing their wills aggressively onto the world nor accepting passively what the world gives. They work more like artists in a continual process of give and take with the world. They listen deeply to the speaking of nature, cosmos, and social and economic conditions, and out of this listening they form creative pictures, moral imaginations, and inspired visions for their lives and their farms. Through this process they create the farm organism as a gift to the wider community.

While an agribusiness focused on one or two commodities can be run more or less mechanically by an operator or contractor or part-time

Industrialised agriculture undermines farmers’

innate common sense and creativity.

Phot

o M

Arie

s.

An agribusiness focused on one or two commodities can be run more or less mechanically – wheat growing in Western Australia where it is not uncommon for a farm to occupy 25,000 acres. A farm worker may sit all day or all night – this photo taken at dawn

– in an air-conditioned cab while operating a machine with the aid of GPS.


In general terms, we can say of modern dietary habits that:

– we eat too much; – our meals generally contain

too much fat and protein; – many foods are grown and

processed in the wrong way; – meals tend to be unbalanced; – methods of preparing and

cooking food are often inappropriate.

Prosperity has brought diseases that were formerly unknown and which affect above all the liver, gall-bladder and stomach, that is, the metabolic system; another group is made up of diseases where crystalline deposits are formed. The old rules, ‘Don’t eat unless you’re hungry’ and ‘Stop eating when you’re enjoying it most’ are still valid for our health today. Continuing to eat when we are no longer hungry is a form of self-indulgence that can of course be enhanced by all kinds of culinary refinements. The healthy approach is not to forgo all enjoyment but to eat in moderation.

In the past, ‘good’ food meant ‘rich’ food. Meals with a high fat content do indeed keep us feeling satisfied for longer. ‘Rich’ people are ‘satisfied’ people. The poor, especially in times of need, traditionally lacked adequate fat in their diet. Today, fats are cheap and freely available, and because of this our diet tends to contain too much fat, most of it in the form of margarine and similar products that are much cheaper than butter. Most margarines contain oil and chemically hardened fats and therefore lack organic wholeness. Butter on the other hand comes from a living organism, and can be shown to have the universal character that a growing organism needs right down to its chemical structure.

Food – A Gift of HeavenDr. Otto Wolff

The value of protein is overrated nowadays, and egg and meat consumption has steadily increased in recent decades. The consequence for many people is that the metabolism is overburdened, particularly on the acid side, which leads to chronic inflammation or increased toxic waste products in the body. Pork presents particular problems; those with rheumatic conditions will often note aggravation the day after they have eaten pork or pork products. Ancient Jewish and Muslim culture had a natural feeling for this, and eating pork was forbidden. In recent years, pork production has steadily increased and the consequences for general health, particularly for those with metabolic problems, cannot be foreseen. For most people, a change

to a low-meat or vegetarian diet will reduce the burden on the organism and improve health.

It is important to differentiate between types of fat or protein. Olive oil, butter, and so on, are quite different kinds of fat; eggs, cheese and chicken are different sources of protein; and so on. Equally, we cannot look upon all carbohydrates as the same; we must distinguish between vegetables, potatoes, rice, sugar, and so on, all of which have quite different effects on the human being.

The closer that foods are to life, the fresher and less processed they are, the more ‘life’ they contain, which is what really matters. Refined foods such as white sugar and flour and products made with these are practically dead. Their ‘life’ has been removed, which makes them keep longer and offers other practical ‘advantages’; biologically, however, that is, in terms of real value to life, they are almost worthless. They are of course easily digestible and provide instant ‘energy’ (glucose,

for example), but that is not life. Quite the contrary, ‘empty’ carbohydrates of this kind — having practically no vitamins or minerals — actually deprive us of vitality, though this is not immediately apparent. One cannot deny that these products tend to taste delicious, as taste not only relates to quality but also provides enjoyment. But enjoyment does not equate with quality. Of course, we should enjoy the things that life has to offer, but if enjoyment comes to be seen as the only purpose of taking food we are headed for disaster: excessive weight or some common metabolic disorder will be the price we have to pay.

For most people, a change to a low-meat or vegetarian diet will

reduce the burden on the organism and improve

health.

Photo: Public Domain


Food production is nowadays largely governed by the profit motive, with little regard for the biological needs of plants and animals. It goes without saying that the meat of chickens who have never seen natural light, a grain of corn or even a blade of grass, cannot be of good biological quality. The same applies to calves fed on dried milk and kept in the dark in order to produce white veal. Apples and vegetables can owe their perfect appearance to applications of chemical sprays. The risk to health comes not only from residues of these far-from-safe chemicals but also from the poor biological quality that those treatments hide. Tinned and bottled foods and preserves are more for emergencies or occasional convenience; they are not fit to make up a whole diet or for long-term use. Really fresh food has lots of vitality and should be a constituent of every meal. Raw food diets are best reserved for therapeutic purposes.

Apart from general rules for healthy eating, individual needs also have to be taken into account. Meat

or salt may be right for one person and wrong for another. Many people do not tolerate certain foods, which may indicate either organic weakness or that foods have been wrongly combined. In some cases, the problem can be quite narrowly specified. This is where the professional skills of a trained dietitian are needed.

Another factor is the time of the main meal, and skipping lunch. Research has shown that the same nutrients work differently in the morning from the evening. A sweet breakfast goes against the natural rhythm of the liver. Furthermore experiments on volunteers have

We must not forget the real reason why we need

food. It is not just a matter of taking in calories

equivalent to a certain amount of heat energy, but of stimulating life

which only ‘living’ food can do.

shown that a large breakfast has little effect on body weight, while a large evening meal does.

We must not forget the real reason why we need food. It is not just a matter of taking in calories equivalent to a certain amount of heat energy, but of stimulating life, which only ‘living’ food can do. The right food is therefore a real life support, provided it retains a high degree of vitality and as little of this as possible is lost in preparation. In past times, food was felt to be the gift of heaven or of a divine world; grace at meals was a way of expressing gratitude for this gift. Even today, people cannot really live healthy lives unless they develop the right attitude to their food.

Dr. Otto Wolff has practised medicine in Germany for over thirty years. Extract from his book Home Remedies, Herbal and homeopathic treatments for use at home, Floris Books 2000 used with kind permission of the publishers. Available from Humanity Books, see advertisement inside back cover.

You might say: the situation is such that we live completely from matter! And yet that is

not true. We human beings have a new body about every seven years. It is constantly renewing itself. What we had as matter in our body eight or ten years ago is no longer there.1 It has gone. We have cut it away with our nails, cut it off with the hair, it has gone as sweat. It has left. Some of it goes quite fast, some of it slowly, but it all goes.

Now, people are constantly shedding matter and are constantly

This body, my armchairRudolf Steiner

taking in new matter. As a result, people think: matter enters through the mouth and leaves again through your rear and urine, making us rather like a tube. The matter is taken in through eating, it is kept for a while and ejected again. That is approximately how people see the human being.

But in fact nothing of earthly matter enters the real human being, nothing.2 The situation is this, that when we eat potatoes for example, then we are not assimilating something from the potato, but the

potato is merely something that stimulates our jaw and throat and so on. That is where the potato acts. And then the strength arises in us to expel the potato again and while we are expelling it we receive from the etheric,3 not from solid matter, what builds us up in the course of seven years. We do not actually build ourselves up from earthly matter. We only eat what we eat to stimulate us. In reality we are built up by what is up above.4 So that the whole thing which people imagine, that food goes in and that food goes out

1 cells in the body undergo continual renewal, at differing rates depending on the organ.2 the ‘real’ human being, the I, is understood as spirit.3 The etheric or life body. When we die our immaterial etheric body of formative forces withdraws from the physical body leaving behind a

material corpse. This difference between material substances and etheric forces is something that science, by viewing living organisms from a materialistic mindset, has barely begun to appreciate.

4 ‘above’ being to do with the light-irradiated air. Air contains 87% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, carbon, hydrogen and trace elements in lesser quantities. Sulphur has been found in outer space. All are the principal components of proteins.


you feel the pressure when you sit down in an armchair. And so you feel your body which continuously presses on what you have built from the cosmos.

When you sleep you don’t feel it because you are outside yourself. You feel your body like a kind of recliner made for you, harder in some if they are bony, softer in others. [The body is] like a kind of recliner on which the human being sits, and we do, after all, feel the difference between a soft bed and a wooden bench! Similarly human beings feel the difference between what is hard and soft within them. But that is not the real human being; the real human being is what sits in him.

Extract from R.Steiner, Nutrition, food, health and spiritual development. Rudolf Steiner Press 2008. Available from Humanity Books – see inside back cover.

again and that in between something is left inside is not true; it only provides the stimulus. A reciprocal force comes from the etheric sphere and we build up the whole of our body from that realm. Nothing of which we are made up is built from earthly matter. You see, if there is a movement followed by a counter-movement you must not confuse the counter-movement with the movement. You must not confuse the fact that we need food to keep us active in building up our body with the fact that we consume food.

Now it is the case that irregularities can occur. Because if we take in too much food, then the food remains in us for too long. Then we collect more matter than necessary in us, become portly, fat and so on. If we take in too little, we have too little stimulation and take too little of what we need from the spiritual world, from the etheric world.

It is something of great importance that we do not build ourselves up from the earth and its substances, but that we construct ourselves from that which is outside the earth. If it is the

Pict

ure:

Ear

th M

atte

rs

All our organs are constructed from the light-imbued

environment. We eat and consume nourishment in order to provide the

stimulus.

case that the whole body is renewed in seven years, the heart is also renewed. You no longer have in you the heart which you bore within you eight years ago but it has been renewed, renewed not from the substance of the earth but renewed from what surrounds the earth in the light. Your heart is compacted light! You have indeed compacted your heart from the sunlight. And what you consumed as food only stimulated you to compact the sunlight to such an extent. All your organs are constructed from the light-imbued environment and we eat and consume nourishment to provide the stimulus.

You see, the only thing which food gives us is something like an inner armchair. We feel ourselves, experience ourselves as an ego in ordinary life, because we have physical matter in us. We feel ourselves in the same way as when

Turnips. Food keeps us active in building up our bodies by serving as stimulus for the etheric forces that promote life.

I came to love my beans. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength.

Henry David Thoreau

http://www.culinate.com/author/Henry+David_Thoreau


Because the respiratory system separates from the digestive tract in the course

of development, it is often seen as belonging exclusively to the metabolic system. In fact, however…the respiratory system’s connection to the digestive tract makes sense when we take a closer look at the processes of gaseous exchange. Although the lungs are the primary organ of gaseous exchange (oxygen absorption and carbon dioxide elimination), in a much more comprehensive sense this function is incorporated into the entire organism and pervades all of its life processes. Each individual cell ‘breathes’; in other words, it needs oxygen to do its job, and it gives off carbon dioxide as a waste product. Just as the pulse wave moves from the heart to the body’s periphery, respiration also pervades the entire organism. As a result, we must distinguish between ‘internal’ respiration in cells and tissues and ‘external’ respiration – ventilation and gaseous exchange in the lungs.

Together, external and internal respiration ensure that we are able to survive on Earth. Death sets in when respiration ceases, and earthly life begins at birth with an infant’s first breath, which is soon followed by the ingestion of food, energy transfers, and internal tissue respiration. Oxygen absorbed from the air is the body’s very stuff of life.

Cells acquire [energy] by breaking down the three basic types of nutrients – proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.The body does not simply ‘burn’ these compounds with the help of oxygen in order to produce energy. It is astonishing to discover that the breakdown of these different basic nutrients always results in

Dr. J W Rohen

Oxygen absorbed from the air is the body’s very

stuff of life.

the same substance, acetyl-CoA, which then supplies H2 ions via the citric acid cycle. With the help of respiratory enzymes (cytochromes) in the cells, these ions combine with the oxygen supplied by respiration to form water: 2 H+ + 1 O2 = 2 H2O. This multistep process, known as biological oxidation, releases energy and makes it available to cells.

Thus the primary purpose of the oxygen we inhale is not to oxidise ingested nutrients (‘combustion’) but rather to drive the cytochrome cycle in the cells and to ensure that the transport of H2 ions (protons) in cellular respiration does not come to a halt. The energy produced when water is formed is not released immediately but is stored in the form of ATP, to be released later when ATP is split into ADP. This energy is utilised not only for intracellular functions but also to reconstruct proteins, fats, etc., for use throughout the body. In the body’s cells, therefore, a cycle of breakdown and synthesis develops in which substances are recycled and energy transfers occur. This cycle would persist in a balanced state (‘perpetual motion’) were it not for the fact that a certain amount of energy is always lost in the form of heat. Nutrients must be ingested to compensate for this loss. Ultimately, therefore, the purpose of the oxygen that reaches the tissues via the blood is to ensure that hydrogen can be bound up in the form of water, thus making energy available to the cells. All cellular activity is powered by oxygen, which is supplied by respiration. Ultimately, not only specific organ functions but also the maintenance of the body’s structures depends on respiration. But for oxygen to enter the body, we need an organ that is open to the air, namely, the lungs.

[Let’s take a brief look] at the major digestive glands and their important contributions to digestion. To prepare for the absorption of basic building blocks, these glands secrete

enzymes that dissolve and break down complex nutrients (proteins, fats, carbohydrates) and eliminate their source-specific attributes. The secretions from these glands flow into the intestines; together with the activity of the intestines themselves, they liquefy foods, releasing them from the spatial context of their origins and preparing them to cross the ‘threshold’ of the intestinal wall to be incorporated into a new spatial entity, the human body.

To implement the reentry of digested substances into space, however, respiration is required. In this context, it is interesting to note that the chief organ of respiration is a ‘negative gland’—it develops like a gland but becomes hollow. The lungs and the bronchial tree can be compared to a hollow digestive gland that eliminates space-filling matter in its interior in order to admit air from the outside world. Normally, the human body scrupulously avoids air bubbles or gases in its tissues, but in the chest it generates an organ that consists largely of hollow spaces. This organ empties itself of space-filling matter in order to take in the outside world’s gaseous element. Through tissue respiration and with the help of blood circulation, the ‘negative space’ of the lungs makes possible the synthesis of space-filling compounds.

Dr. Johannes Rohen spent most of his scientific career studying the physiology of the eye. Until his retirement in 1989 he lectured in anatomy and embryology at the Universities of Marburg/Lahn and Erlangen/Nurnberg. He is author of many textbooks which reflect his standing as one of the founders of functional anatomy. This article from his book Functional Morphology, The Dynamic Wholeness of the Human Organism, Adonis Press 2007 used with kind permission of the publishers. Available from Humanity Books, see inside back cover.

From Air comes the Stuff of Life


Once rare, Saharan dust storms have increased10-fold in the last 50 years. All over the globe from Australia to Zambia, soil fertility has been declining

at an alarming rate, accompanied by falling water tables, extensive de-vegetation and widespread erosion driven by water and wind. Loss of topsoil has become one of the major reasons that countries lose the ability to feed themselves.

Living, productive soil is one of the earth’s scarcest resources. It makes up less than three percent of the earth’s surface. The topsoil that grows our food has taken anywhere from tens to thousands of years to form, primarily from the weathering of rock. As long as soil erosion matches new soil formation, all is well. But once erosion exceeds formation; we are in trouble.

Although soil erosion is as old as the earth itself the rate this erosion occurs has accelerated since the advent of industrial agriculture and rapidly increasing world population. It is estimated that we are losing topsoil from over one third of the world’s most productive croplands at rates that exceed renewal. As soil disappears, food productivity drops; with the earth’s population having reached seven billion, it is clear this is a trend that cannot continue.

Dust storm over Griffith New South Wales, Australia.

Cre

dit

ksu

.edu

.com

Blowing in the wind – our silent global crisis

E AlingtonIn 1993 a sandstorm in Gansu Province in China’s

northwest reduced visibility to zero. The daytime sky was ‘dark as a winter night’ as the storm destroyed 430,000 acres of standing crops, damaged 40,000 trees, killed 67,000 cattle and sheep, blew away 67,000 acres of plastic greenhouse, injured 278 people and killed 49 others. Severe dust storms have become annual events in China, affecting more than 250 million people at a time. Typically air quality is hazardous and people are urged not to leave their homes, medical clinics are overrun with people having trouble breathing, schools and businesses close, airlines can’t fly and normal daily life stops. Meanwhile farmers and herders stand and watch helplessly as their livelihoods blow away.

In 2001, the western United States from Arizona all the way to the Canadian border was blanketed with dust from a storm that originated in Mongolia and China.

North Korea frequently receives China’s dust exports. China is exporting topsoil at a time when as a major global food exporter, it needs all the productive soil it has. A single dust storm represents millions of tonnes of topsoil that will take centuries to replace. it is also the beginning of desertification which, as the United Nations


announced in August 2010, now affects 25% of the earth’s land area and threatens the livelihoods of more than one billion people- primarily families of small farmers and herders throughout the world. No wonder the Chinese government is looking for land and agricultural opportunities in our backyard.

Much of China’s erosion problem is driven by the intensive farming of sheep and goats with the accompanying overgrazing of grasslands. As the animals strip the land of vegetation they make it highly susceptible to wind erosion. What was previously rangeland becomes less and less capable of supporting life, soon becoming desert. China faces a serious problem with soil loss as old deserts grow and merge while de-vegetation leads to new ones forming. These giant deserts of the Asian heartland in northern and western China, western Mongolia and central Asia are massive in scale, dwarfing anything the world has seen before.

Russia, Afghanistan and Iraq all are losing valuable soils to water and wind erosion after forests have been cut down and over-ploughing leaves arable land increasingly vulnerable. Once the cradle of civilisation, Iraq’s Fertile Crescent may now be turning into a dust bowl; in July 2009 a dust storm that raged for several days was described as the worst in history.

There have also been changes in the great Sahara where dust storms have increased ten fold in the last 50 years over a growing portion of the heart of Africa. In the Sahel, a savannah-like ecosystem that stretches across Africa separating the Sahara Desert from the tropical rainforest to the south, the landscape is now taking on desert-like characteristics as overgrazing, over-ploughing and deforestation destabilise and degrade its fragile soils.

This land degradation is also the driver of climate change. When productive topsoil is lost to erosion by wind and water it’s not just that organic matter disappears as well as vegetation, but also that carbon is released into the atmosphere. Although it’s great to go out and plant trees to compensate for this loss; 80% of the world’s carbon is stored in the soil so it really makes more sense to learn how to grow this.

When countries lose their topsoil they lost the capacity to feed themselves. Becoming dependent on food imports has led to crippling debt and increasing social crises. In India, where one fourth of the land is gradually turning into desert, biodynamic farming has made a substantial difference for many small farmers. Unlike industrial

methods that require the purchase of high performance seeds dependent on costly fertilisers and pesticides – for which the resulting debt has driven many thousands of Indian farmers to suicide – biodynamics offers farmers a rare form of independence at the same time as protecting and even building their soils.

Food security depends on topsoil. The thin layer of fertile earth that covers much of the world’s land surface is our life-support. Yet few of us give it a passing thought. If New Zealanders had to live with the dust storms that cause severe discomfort and loss of livelihood to hundreds of thousands of people every year, perhaps we too would be more aware of this growing threat to world food production. Then we might place more importance on taking steps to protect our own soil resources from the threats they face through our growing population, industrialisation of agricultural systems, as well as changing land use through ‘development’. Councils could then choose to zone productive soils for food production and concentrate on building resilience and reserves into our agri-systems.

Economic wealth depends on the soil; human health likewise. The health and wellbeing of people cannot be separated from the health and wellbeing of the land itself.SOURCE: World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, by Lester R. Brown 2011 Earth Policy Institute

80% of the world’s carbon is stored in the soil so it really makes sense to learn

how to grow soil.

European field trials evaluating soil structure and performance attributed to conventional and biodynamic farming methods.

Phot

o: U

Nig

gli.


E Alington

All that doom and gloom about climate change – it’s enough to drive many people to despair.

Yet there is something simple we can do which will make this world of difference we’re aspiring for; compost your organic waste. Composting is easy as pie. Simpler (for some) than changing all the light bulbs; cheaper than installing solar panels.

Of course, if we minimised what we cart home each week from the supermarket we’d be doing an enormous amount to save the

Making a difference – climate change from your backyard

plastic bin

You don’t have to build a traditional compost heap; you don’t even have to have a series of timber-slat ‘bins’ at the bottom of your garden. If you have a worm farm that eats kitchen scraps, a plastic compost bin that takes lawn clippings as well, or a barrel of rainwater ‘brewing’ weeds for liquid manure – all of these methods will benefit from the addition of the biodynamic compost preparations.

planet. A lot of environmental and economic costs are attributed to the packaging and transporting of food around the world. Some years ago a UK group calculated that for every $240.00 spent on food in the supermarket, $40.00 is for packaging. So you lug all that load home – lots of corn, wheat and soyabean-derived commodities that have been cunningly modified, at great cost to yourself, to resemble an immense variety of ‘food’ – only to toss forty bucks into the rubbish bin.

Every bit as bad though, is what we do with our stale bread, limp lettuce and apple cores. Sending this lot off to the landfill in wheelie bins makes for one of the worst contributions to global warming. When organic waste decomposes it gives off methane gas which is far more serious than carbon dioxide in terms of its global warming effect. Landfills are the second-largest source of methane emissions attributable to human activity. And rotting food is responsible for much of it.

compost heap slat bin

liquid brewworm farm

Phot

o: m

yope

ra.c

om


So what can we do with our food scraps? Compost them aerobically and create soil.1 You’ll

not only reduce methane emissions but you’ll also rejuvenate and restore the soil, especially if you add the biodynamic compost preparations to your compost. These special herbal preparations ‘inoculate’ the compost pile – stimulating breakdown, enhancing ripening and maintaining temperature while the carbon and nitrogen that are so important for plant and soil formation are integrated as stable compounds rather than emitted as carbon dioxide and methane gases.2

It’s a bit like making bread. You can either leave the dough lying around and take your chance on local yeasts doing the job of raising it or you can inoculate it with yeast or sourdough starter and guarantee a satisfactory outcome. The effect of the biodynamic compost preparations is to give direction to the fermenting process in a way that could be compared with a wise way of baking bread.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Bokashi anaerobic fermentation is good for dealing with meat and fish scraps.2. Koepf, H H. The Biodynamic Farm. Anthroposophic Press, New York, 1989.3. Compost preparations can be obtained from Earth Matters by emailing [email protected] or through your national biodynamic

association

1. Obtain a set of compost preparations.3 They won’t look quite like this – they’ll be in single-serve packages, but you get the idea.

2. (below) Form a ‘golf ball’ out of mature compost or damp topsoil – five balls, one for each solid prep.

3. and 4. Press a hole and put in a pinch of the preparation. Repeat for the other 4 solid preps.5. Close the hole up so the prep is snugly inside the ball.



plants and an exceptional amendment for depleted soils. What’s more, this is also a really good way to produce food of the highest quality.

And if you don’t own a patch of earth? Then use your compost and vermicast in planter boxes or flower pots. Or give it away to a keen gardener – they’ll welcome it with open arms and fill yours with silver beet and scarlet runners in exchange.

The is the most elegant solution to an ailing planet…all at once you’re restoring soil, sequestering carbon and producing food of the highest quality.

Provided you’ve got the balance of ingredients right, the end result is a pile of humus-rich soil with the fragrance of cool forest. It’s the very best food for

6. Using a stout stick or rake handle, make 5 holes in the top or sides of the heap – one towards each corner and one in the middle.

7, 8, 9 and 10. Put one prepped ball into each hole and back-fill the hole from nearby material. Do the same for the compost pile, the plastic bin, the worm farm and the brew barrel.

11, 12 and 13. Take ¼ bucket of rain water, add the liquid valerian preparation, stir vigorously by hand for 5 mins, reversing direction each time a vortex forms. Transfer to a watering can and sprinkle over the lot, including the sides if a free-standing heap.

Lis Alington holds a degree in Agri.Sci. and has been involved in the study and practice of biodynamics for 30 years. The editor of Earth Matters, she lives in Auckland and periodically offers workshops in the theory and practice of biodynamics.


as objective and individual spiritual beings. Thus in classical times, they witnessed the great impulse and unceasing power which inspired their thinking and philosophy as a divine being. Zeus was the divine power innate in man which enabled him to grasp the beauty and grandeur of the universe through his senses and that enabled him to perfect the art of Greek sculpture.

The ram’s horns are a picture or imagination of the development of the brain, of its refinement, its curvatures. This became the basis for the development of thinking and reasoning among the peoples of Ancient Greece; they began to form living perceptions of the light-filled world that entered into man through his senses. The development of these new, intellectual brain faculties set in gradually during the Greek age [this from a Eurocentric perspective; presumably there were parallel trends among Eastern civilizations. Ed.] and Zeus represented the experience of that personified divine power which initiated and guided those processes.

This December, look for the full moon when it appears standing in the constellation of Taurus. You might just be able to see the constellation of Aries a little to the west of the stars of Taurus.

SOURCE W Sucher, Isis Sophia, an outline of new star wisdom. Floris Books 1974

Blos

sfel

dt

Of Star…

To the Greeks, the sky was seen as a harmonious and organic structure revealing the ancient vision of the heavens as a coordinating link

between Divine Will and human evolution. Rather than merely an invention of a more ‘primitive mind’ it provided a coherent description of the profoundest spiritual truths of human evolution. Modern astrology has lost the capacity to provide satisfactory explanations for the traditional rules which have become the basis of its prognostications. It is unable to give convincing answers as to why the starry realm should have an influence at all on the human being. For the Greeks however, this wasn’t a problem; they looked ‘through’ the visible starry world into the realm of creating and moving Divinity itself.

The leader of the zodiacal constellations is the Ram. In ancient times the ram was called the ‘Prince of the Zodiac’ and in medieval star maps, he is depicted turning his head backwards so as to keep an eye on the flock of constellations following behind. The Greeks experienced in this constellation the mighty figure of Zeus, the head and father of the Olympian gods.

Who was Zeus? The Greek people still had capacities of cognition very different from ours. They did not and could not speak of ideas as abstract thoughts, existing only in people’s brains. Rather they experienced them

Aries – the Ram

The first of the zodiac constellations is known as Aries, the Ram. Zodiac Atlas Celeste De Strabov.


Blos

sfel

dt

…and Flower

Phot

o: P

ublic

dom

ain

The word ‘birch’ comes from the Indo-Germanic ‘bak’ or ‘berk’ (light,

white). Because of the thin, drooping branches the white birch is also known as ‘hair birch.’

The birch is connected like no other tree with northern Europe and Siberia. The white birch symboliszes the world tree for the Siberian Tartars, as the ash does for the Germans. For the Shamans it was the tree of life, which opens the gate to heaven.

Originally the birch represented the divine rebirth of the light. Since the fifth century the birch has had a special relationship to St Bridget of Ireland, who was seen as the Virgin beneath the trees. Purity and beauty are wonderfully combined in this unusual tree. The feast of St Bridget on February 1, the eve of Candlemas, symbolises the inner and outer purification of the human being (linked to the Latin word februare, meaning to cleanse, to atone). The Christian festival of the Candlemas of the Purification of the Virgin has existed since the fifth or sixth century.

The birch has a slender, pliant trunk. While it lives to around eighty years old, its growth in height slows down perceptibly after twenty years. Birches, along with poplars, belong to those pioneer plants that brought nature back again after the ice age — no other leaf tree is so resistant to winter. The birch needs plenty of water, and as was previously mentioned, it needs light: it thrives poorly in forests. It has a flat root system and absorbs much nutritive material

Silver BirchDr Johannes Wilkens

from the ground surface, leaving little for other plants.

Birch is hardly ever used for building. Its wood was and is still valued for the production of poles, clogs, barrel hoops, ladders, tables, chairs and clothes pins. The pitch which prevents wagon wheels from squeaking was also obtained from birch wood.

Brooms and switches were made from its branches, with which people whipped their bodies in Scandinavian saunas — as part of their inner cleansing routine.

People like to collect birch sap from older trees, and it’s very popular as firewood because of the high content of essential oils and resins. The bark, which is used as an underlay for steep roofs and beams, also contains an important constituent – tannin – which was formerly used for tanning animal hides. In those days the bark was also used as a paper substitute.

In medicine, birch sap was once used to prevent the formation of kidney stones and jaundice. It was considered an effective remedy for oedema (dropsy) as well as gout, scurvy, depression, cancer and skin problems. Birch foliage was a proven remedy for rheumatism, gout and painful swollen joints.

The excellent effect of the birch for regulating water retention and for the treatment of people suffering from depression has always been highly valued in traditional folk medicine. According to arboreal medical practice, the birch brings light and joy into the soul and returns movement to a life marked

by lethargy and rigidity. It can light up the soul after many bitter disappointments and bring back new courage and cheerfulness.

In homeopathy birch charcoal is used above all else, especially for older patients suffering from chronic ailments of the respiratory tract. However, when a person’s life forces are dwindling, the active substances in the birch (carbo vegetabilis) also help to ease the dying process.

Continues page 18

Above: Birch leaf; below: Birch bark

Phot

o: P

ublic

dom

ain


The birch personThe birch type, like the bark

itself, is marked by the polarity of black and white, as well as by the strong relationship to light, which symbolises purification. They are human beings who can deal with life and with death. Mostly they appear as light, bright people of slight bone structure; lively, cheerful people with a sanguine temperament. They can quickly become enthusiastic about tasks and other people, but after the initial burst of flame they often lack the physical strength to bring ideas to realisation. Work comes easily to birch people and because of their good communication skills they bring joy and light into the dullest of company.

Skin cancer has often been found in the light-skinned birch type. In women, carcinoma of the ovaries predominates, and there is a notable tendency for allergies. Birch medications are especially appropriate for patients who have lost their youthful buoyancy and feeling for charm and beauty in their life. When people can no longer feel happy and relaxed in a child-like way, are frozen within themselves and their life energy no longer flows, the doctor must consider birch mistletoe, usually combined with a copper compound. Birch is also the chief remedy for bladder or kidney carcinoma in women.

Dr. Wilkens is a doctor at the Alexander von Humboldt Clinic in Bad Steben, Germany, where he specialises in classical homeopathy and anthroposophical medicine, including differentiated mistletoe therapy.

From page 17

Phot

o: P

ublic

dom

ain

Birch Betula pendula

So far we know that mistletoe preparations affect tumours in two ways: they directly destroy tumour cells or restrict their growth, and at the same time they stimulate defensive cells in the immune system, allowing the body to tame the carcinoma with its own strength and restore order and normal development.

In an as yet inexplicable process, mistletoe substances induce apoptosis in the cancer cells, thereby promoting their genetically programmed self-destruction. Cancer arises when apoptotic regulation becomes derailed and cells that would previously have been separated out remain in the body and continue to grow.

Today mistletoe therapy ranks almost as a classic supplement to the conventional treatment of cancer. Although it’s still criticised by many physicians, who cast doubt on the numerous scientific studies now available, other scientists and physicians – in ever increasing numbers – accept mistletoe therapy because it has proven to be successful. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland more than half of all cancer patients are already being treated with mistletoe preparations, and confidence in this gentle method is growing.

© Floris Books, Edinburgh 2010. Reproduced with kind permission from Mistletoe Therapy for Cancer: Prevention, Treatment and Healing by Dr Johannes Wilkens and Gert Böhm. Available from Humanity Books, see advertisement inside back cover.


An ice-sculpture of a polar bear has been appearing in cities throughout the world since

2009 when it was first launched by British artist Mark Coreth. Designed to raise awareness about global warming and the plight of these endangered animals, this one was whittled into shape in the pre-dawn hours after a giant crane dropped the ice beside Sydney harbour.

Standing four metres high and 2.2 metres wide, the bear was carved from a ten-tonne block of ice. As the ice melted over three to four days,

Climate Change – a moral, political and legal issue

“[Climate Change is] the biggest moral issue of the century. It’s extremely serious for our children and grandchildren and a large number of species

on the planet.” J Hansen

a bronze sculpture of the bear’s skeleton revealed itself. Passers-by paid to touch the creature. Feeling ice melting beneath the warmth of their hands sent a message to their heads about the human impact on global warming; once the bears are gone there will still be a bear but a very different one – a skeleton, a pool of water and a powerful message.

Dr James Hansen is one of the world’s eminent climate scientists. Adjunct professor at the University of Columbia’s Earth Institute, and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Hansen believes that climate change is a moral, political and legal issue;

“Human-made climate change is a moral issue. It pits the rich and the powerful against the young and Pi

ctur

e: p

oliti

ken.

dk

Phot

o: s

ydne

y-ci

ty.b

logs

pot.

com

the unborn, against the defenseless and against nature. Climate change is a political issue, but politics fails when there is a revolving door between government and the fossil fuel-industrial complex. Climate change is a legal issue. The judiciary provides the possibility of holding our governments accountable for their duty is to protect the public interest.”

Hansen’s research in the field of climatology and his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in 1988 helped raise widespread awareness of global warming. In recent years, Hansen has become an activist for action to mitigate the effects of climate change. That has, on several occasions, led to his arrest. In 2009 he published his first book, Storms of my Grandchildren.

Hansen is the mind behind the figure 350; being 350ppm of atmospheric carbon we are advised is the planet’s limit. During his visit to New Zealand in May this year, Hansen opined that “A nation like New Zealand should not be talking about mining this ‘dirty’ or low-grade coal. We’re going to have to leave that stuff lying in the ground.”Dr James Hansen


A Bio-Gro certified organic farm has been experimenting with using biodynamic preparations

in homoeopathic form. Yvonne and James Killalea have a mix of flat land, steep gullies and higher rolling pasture at Ohinewai, just south of Auckland.

As soon as cuttings become available, the tree breaks and steeper paddocks are planted out in poplar while the swampy gullies get willows as well as poplars. Flax is being planted along fence lines with a variety of fruit trees also included. Perhaps, in the future, fruit production may become a complimentary enterprise on some dairy farms. A large stream flows through the flatter part of the land near the house and sheds. Owing to the way the upper catchment is being farmed and its lack of trees, the Killalea’s property receives hefty floods several times each season.

We visited the calves, not quite one year old. They were thriving and healthy despite never having been drenched. Very friendly, they came up to us for a scratch and a rub. None have been dehorned as it is the intention to allow them to keep their horns. James and Yvonne have noticed that animals are quieter when run on pasture treated with biodynamic preparations. They’re hoping they’ll also be quiet enough1 in the milking herd to be able to keep their horns, thereby giving the milk another edge to its quality.2

We walked from where the calves had been grazing on recently re-sown pasture to older pasture that had not long been sprayed with a homoeopathic preparation called Photomax, designed to increase plant photosynthesis. The soil and the grass appeared significantly firmer and dryer. When parted, the grass showed good worm casting which is helping to create fertile soil. It’s

said that for every millimetre of worm castings there are 10 cubic meters of new soil being produced. Another feature we noticed on this farm was the ease with which a soil probe can be inserted – another indicator of good biological activity resulting in lack of compaction.

The milking cows, due to start calving in ten days, were up the hill in a fairly step paddock. They were happy and full and treated us to a cow dance; a bovine version of the Can-Can. In my experience it is unusual to see heavily pregnant cows kicking up their heels at this time of the year, especially on a sloping paddock. This demonstrates how well they are being cared for. We also noted how little mess they made of the very wet soil – another sign of the biologically active or dynamic soil.

On the way back to the house we passed the hay barn with its constructed feeding racks where half the herd can be fed at one time. We saw hay made this season and some left over from the previous year. Both lots had very good aroma. We were told how much easier it was to make hay now that the biodynamic preparation sprays were being used; based on the experience of previous years, this year’s crop matured 3 weeks earlier than expected.

Back at the house we were able to

Horned heifers on the Killalea’s farm at Ohinewai.

Have horns – do no harmPeter Bacchus

1 They weren’t! The young horned heifers terrorised the older cows so had to be de-horned. This coming year’s replacements have been handled from birth which the farmers hope will make a difference.

2 Milk quality may be compromised by the practice of de-horning. It is known that some children who suffer milk allergies are able to tolerate milk from horned cows.

taste milk from the winter milkers. My experience was that it tasted light and fresh – ‘light’ as in not heavy or fatty and as a sense of sunlight also. This is very good at any time of the year but in the middle of winter, when the days are at their shortest and are often cloudy, it is excellent. Dairy factory managers usually consider milk from this time of year to be unsuitable for making cheese owing to the lack of light. Happy and enthusiastic about their work, James and Yvonne are proud of how their farm is developing. In my opinion they have every right to be. It would certainly be wonderful if all New Zealanders could have access to milk of the quality produced on this farm.

Peter Bacchus is a biodynamic farm consultant based in Paeroa. He can be contacted at [email protected]

Phot

o: E

arth

Mat

ters


On 1 April 1823 my ancestor Thomas Sweeney was sentenced to hang in Tipperary

for being active in a guerrilla group engaged in a struggle against the payments of tithes by poor farmers through striking at landlords or their agents. His execution was subsequently commuted to transportation for life.

Ireland is known historically as the cradle of colonisation. Absentee English landlords colonised Ireland, imposed vicious taxes and ruthlessly stole the land from the common people.

By the 1840s, despite a history of uprisings, Ireland was controlled by the English colonisers who regulated every aspect of Irish life. The Irish had no rights and were about to experience one of the greatest man-made humanitarian crimes in history – the Irish potato famine.

While the people starved in the name of political economy, Ireland exported massive amounts of grain, pork, bacon, butter, ham, sheep, wheat and oats to England. Ships full of food for export were leaving Ireland under armed guard alongside ships full of starving refugees. Free trade was sacrosanct. The British Government refused to intervene.

Charles Trevelyan, Permanent Secretary of the British Treasury in 1846, stated: ‘Even limited interference by the Government would disturb the natural balance of supply and demand.

The Price of MilkRobert Consedine

The natural adjustments which take place under a system of perfectly free trade are always more than sufficient to counteract any inconvenience arising from such a system.’

Ireland lost about 2.8 million people over 15 years through starvation or emigration. Over one million starved to death.

The very same economic system which condemned millions of Irish to

death by starvation in the 19th century was inflicted on New Zealanders by a Labour Government from 1984.

The price of the food we produce and purchase in New Zealand, including milk, cheese, fruit and vegetables is set by the world market. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders can no longer afford the basic produce grown in this country while it is

exported to the dinner tables of the elite around the world.

In the last 20 years the growth of inequality in New Zealand has been greater than in any other developed country. A recent OECD report shows that New Zealand is one of the most unequal nations in the OECD with an income gap wider than 21 of the 30 developed countries. The social consequences are horrendous.

The business and political elites are clearly not interested. Governments no longer act on behalf of the people who elect them. The price of milk symbolises this indifference.

Fonterra Chief Executive Andrew Ferrier, echoing Trevelyan says “Government intervention would be an astonishing back-step for New Zealand. Every aspect of our international trade policies is around free markets. It would be a massive step back to the dark ages.” He is in no danger. The National Government and Labour opposition are wedded to this inequitable system.

These dysfunctional free markets have been a disaster for the world. Millions have lost their jobs and life savings and many starve as benefits are cut while taxpayers bail out banks, finance companies and the corporate world.

Yet all is well with the business elite and their political friends who have kept their religious belief in the ‘free market’ intact. Poverty is not on their radar, nor do they take personal responsibility for the consequences of their policies.

We ignore the lessons of history at our peril. Yet the only thing we appear to learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.

Phot

o M

Bie

nert

h


As it stands at present, the Food Bill effectively means that home gardeners, people who barter or swap food, sell food directly to consumers, and small growers would all be captured under the new regulations. In its present form the Bill would require people who trade or barter food to operate under a registered food control plan or a national programme.

The Food Bill is a Government Bill introduced to Parliament in May 2010, which has passed its first reading and been through a Select Committee review. Due to have its second reading when the new Parliament reconvenes, it proposes a change to New Zealand’s existing food law (the Food Act 1981) by requiring food operators - and food importers - to take primary responsibility for providing safe and suitable food.

In response to public outcry, Green MP Sue Kedgley and the Minister for Food Safety Kate Wilkinson say the bill has inadvertently captured activities it should not have. Wilkinson says she is seeking advice on amendments to ensure seed banks and Wwoofers (ie) Willing Workers on Organic Farms, an employment system used by organic food producers, are not disrupted.

“It is certainly not my intention to impose food safety regulatory requirements on those hosting Wwoofers or those who provide food to boarders or guests in exchange for money, work or assistance,” she wrote in response to Kedgley’s questions.

However Kedgley says we need to be vigilant “For economic and health reasons we should be supporting community gardens, farmers’ markets, community supported agriculture, bartering and food swapping, and any other system of local food production that helps improve the country’s food security and resilience.”

The key factor in the bill seems to

Food Bill a challenge to Food Democracy“Already we are not allowed to take home-grown fruit and vegetables to share at kindy. Apparently it might be dangerous to

our children’s health…” NZ kindergarten parent.

be seeds.All seed foods – rice, barley, quinoa, potatoes will be explicitly controlled as well as seeds not normally consumed as foods. By controlling seeds, the bill takes away from the public the power to grow food and puts it in the hands of seed companies. Seed banks and seed-sharing networks could be shut down if they fail to obtain authorisation. Home-grown food and seed could not be bartered on a scale or frequency necessary to feed people in communities where commercially available food has become unaffordable or unavailable. Restrictions on the trade of food and seed would quickly lead to the permanent loss of heirloom strains, as well as to a general lowering of plant diversity in agriculture.

The Bill aims to keep NZ in line with its World Trade Organisation obligations under an international scheme called Codex Alimentarius (‘Food Book’). Our government has to pass this bill in one form or another. However there are problems with conceding our food sovereignty to Codex.

Each year 48 million Americans get sick from food-borne diseases. About 3,000 people die. Despite all the regulations embodied in Codex Alimentarius, the US government is unable to protect consumers. The latest problem has been cantaloupe. Over 80 people have become ill and 17 died

after eating the tainted melon shipped to 24 states.

“I trust my local farmer monumentally more than the government to provide healthy, nutrient dense, uncontaminated, real, unmanufactured food. This is my choice to make; the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are very clear on that.” says Gayle Loiselle, one of the Plaintiffs in a string of astonishing court proceedings focusing on the rights of consumers and small businesses to own a dairy cow, enter into a contract agreement with a farmer, and consume unpasteurised milk.

It appears that Government agencies and members of the judicial system are increasingly emboldened to rule as they see fit, regardless of the law, the Constitution, the will of the people, or common sense. Last month, a Wisconsin judge ruled that Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd; they do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow; they do not have a fundamental right to board their cow at the farm of a farmer; and their private contract does not fall outside the scope of the State’s police power. In short, “Plaintiffs do not have the fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice.”

“US citizens have the right to smoke cigarettes, get drunk, carry a gun, and blow their brains out after taking prescription antidepressants. Clearly, this issue is not about protecting the health of consumers. It is rather about control of the production, distribution, and sale of all milk and milk products” said Loiselle.

Pict

ure:

nz

food

secu

rity.

com

SOURCES: Green Party 11.10.11 nzfoodsecurity.orgSunday Star Times 11.9.11www.biodynamics.com. The Wisconsin judgement can be found here - http://www.thecompletepatient.com/storage/WIorder-clarification9-11.pdf

http://www.thecompletepatient.com/storage/WIorder-clarification9-11.pdf

http://www.thecompletepatient.com/storage/WIorder-clarification9-11.pdf


Flowers are big noses, breathing light-irradiated air and all that comes their way on the

wind. Any chemical sprayed in the floral atmosphere will be picked up and concentrated by the bees while they’re out foraging for nectar and pollen.

Penn State University entomologists have found as many as 48 different pesticides in 108 samples of pollen. They found 17 different chemicals within a single colony, including residues of DDT, banned more than 25 years ago. That seems an unjustifiable residue load for any living creature to have to contend with, let alone a tiny insect possessing next to no systemic defense against neuro-toxins.

According to The Beekeepers Lament, most researchers agree that pesticides don’t seem to be the sole cause of CCD. Although pesticide load is worryingly high in all the CCD hives tested, no single

Death by a Thousand Paper CutsPi

ctur

e: W

ikim

edia

.org

contaminant occurs more frequently than any other. Rather, it appears that CCD bees carry increased viral loads, attributable to a suite of retro-viruses not unlike HIV which leaves humans vulnerable to immune system collapse.

But aren’t pesticide residues implicated in immune-system deficiencies of both people and bees?

Beekeeper John Miller thinks the bees’ demise is the result of “death by a thousand paper cuts” namely a combination of stress, pathogens, chemicals, overstimulation and nutritional deficiency.

Just as modern farms are fertiliser-dependent so are today’s beekeepers forced to walk a treadmill of medication resistance, carnage and requeening. Yet it’s precisely here that the principle of survival of the fittest really has validity. There is only one surefire way to create a better bee and that is to breed from

survivors. Were there a law passed, says a leading entomologist, that prohibited the application to hives of chemicals against varroa, then this would be the best way of evolving a defense against the mite. Bee populations would crash by some 80 – 90% for awhile which would be economic disaster for commercial apiarists and all those who depend on bees to pollinate their crops. It would also be distressing for people on diets other than just oats and porridge. But eventually resistant bees would develop from which a strong national ‘herd’ could be bred.

Some beekeepers in Great Britain are already working with the principle by not treating hives with miticides and by breeding from resistant stock. But as far as breeding for resistance against crop chemicals, that’s another story – if there are any bees left to breed from…

Compiled by the editor from The Beekeepers Lament and other sources.


Following the lead set by France and Germany, the Italian Agriculture Ministry

last year suspended the use of a class of pesticides, nicotine-based neonicotinoids, as a ‘precautionary measure.’ The compelling results - restored bee populations - prompted the government to uphold the ban. Copies of the film ‘Nicotine Bees’ have been delivered to the US Congress explaining the pesticide’s connection to Colony Collapse Disorder. Despite the evidence, why does CCD remain such a ‘mystery’ in the US?

In 2005-2006, bee ‘colony collapse’ occurred simultaneously in dozens of countries. This was unlike anything seen before, even by the oldest beekeepers in the US, Canada and Europe. And contrary to popular belief, the jury is not out on what happened. After years of research, studies hve consistently pointed to neonicotinoids, a group of pesticides widely-used used on food crops. It seems that bees are now being bombarded by pesticides made of synthetic nicotine that is bonded with cyanide. This new material hit the market in 1995. In 2005, when the patents expired, many companies around the globe released their versions of the same chemicals. Ever since, bees and other insects have been paying the price for this new class of poison. And since these systemic pesticides spread throughout the whole plant (pollen, nectar, leaf, etc.), there is no escape for honey bees or the hundreds of other native bee species that plants depend on for pollination.

Filmed on three continents, Nicotine Bees sets out to uncover why the

A documentary by Kevin Hansen – 2010honeybees of the world are in big trouble, and why our food supply is in trouble with them. The answers have been right in front of us: the worldwide, simultaneous die-off of honeybees – together with a strange set of behavior seen everywhere. With the continuing bee collapse, one third of our food supply is at risk. Yet despite clear-cut scientific data, in news reports the issue is still called ‘mysterious.’

Evidence gathered from Europe, Canada and India, and from dozens of states across the USA, points in one direction. The film systematically rules-out the other possible causes of this massive die-off to find the one underlying explanation that really stacks up – all over the world, at the same time, with the same bizarre behavior, bees simply leave their precious honey and brood behind. They don’t come home. And Nicotine Bees is ready to show what has been happening.

“The producers did their homework - spending two years researching, interviewing an impressive group of individuals and splicing together an extraordinary story on the CCD problem. Nicotine Bees exposes issues that other bee documentaries missed, with clear evidence of causal links and firm statements from experts who have not previously spoken out. Every school and library should have a copy of Nicotine Bees!” Neil Carman, Ph.D.

Bee losses in QueenslandPoisonings and accidental crop

sprayings are affecting bee numbers in Queensland, according to Australian Government officials. Some bees are

even being deliberately killed to the point where sabotage is becoming a problem for the industry. Beekeepers are advised to keep very closely in touch with growers so they know who is going to spray with what and when.

Source: ABC Rural 27.10.11

Sweet Taste of VictorySomewhat in the manner of David

and Goliath, the honey bee has managed to sting even Monsanto. The European Court has recently upheld a case brought against Monsanto by the Association of Ecological Beekeepers, Mellifera eV.

Beekeepers can now claim reparation from Monsanto if they are forced to destroy their entire honey harvest on account of it being contaminated by prohibited material. Until now, they have had no protection from gene technology. Because the smallest trace of genetically modified material in honey renders it subject to European gene technology law, without special permits and a barrage of expensive tests it cannot be sold to consumers. Consequently, many apiarists have been forced out of business.

With this judgement the European Court has shown itself to be on the side of consumers. “The little bee has shown that when push comes to shove it can sting even a giant of agro-technology. The consumer can rejoice with us about this visionary judgement.” Thomas Radetzki of Mellifera e.V.

SOURCE: Translated from Das Goetheanum nr 37, 17.9.11

http://nicotinebees.com/

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/04/bee-colony-collapse-disorder-potential-cause-and-cure-discovered.php


Bees have long been overlooked; likewise the colourful characters looking

after them. In this lively and fast-paced book, author Hannah Nordhaus introduces us to John Miller, a migratory beekeeper who chases nectar across the USA accompanied by thousands of hives and millions of bees. Through the life of one man devoted to their existence, The Beekeepers Lament offers a glimpse into the strange world of itinerant bees. It’s a tale of diminishing returns, high stakes, fragility and raw stoicism.

Bees are in Miller’s blood (he gets stung every day to the accompaniment of ‘cowboy words’). His grandfather pioneered migratory beekeeping; every winter shipping hives from the clover fields of Utah to the orange groves of California. Miller’s own bees spend winter hibernating in potato cellars in Idaho. In Spring they’re trucked to California where Miller roams vast distances placing beehives in almond orchards. After the almonds are done, the king and his queens head to Washington to pollinate apples. Then it’s off to North Dakota for the alfalfa and clover honey season. Finally, in late summer, when the honey season is over, Miller robs the hives of their sweet bounty and by autumn equinox, the first lot is on its way back to the potato cellars.

In February every year, nearly 750,000 Californian acres of almond trees have to be pollinated simultaneously. Almond pollen is too heavy for the wind to carry so it must be air-lifted by bees. It takes a bee to build an almond. Central Valley growers apparently overlooked this detail when planting their patch of paradise; almond monocultures provide not a skerrick of bee fodder after the three-week long pollinating

The Beekeeper’s LamentHow one man and half a billion honey bees help feed the world.Hannah NordhausHarper Collins 2010 • ISBN 9780061873256Reviewed by E Alington

orgy is over. As a result, bees have to be brought in every year to do a job that once happened for free but now costs growers as much as $200 per hive. At four hives to the acre its sweet money even without the honey. In fact there’s not much money in honey anymore – these days most commercial beekeepers focus on keeping bees alive just so they can reap the profits of pollination.

Capturing the lifestyle, risks and rewards of an extreme business operation, the book runs the gamut of hive infections, dying queens, droughts, jack-knifed semis, equipment failures, unscrupulous competitors, vandals, bears and skunks! It chronicles the emergence and devastating effect of varroa mite on practically all the world’s hives except for Australia’s. Further chapters cover Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), queen rearing, honey production and what Miller calls the ‘too much mistake’ wrought by human greed. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the USA where the almond monoculture has accelerated the bees’ demise.

This hasn’t happened overnight. For decades beekeepers have lived in the shadows; invisible to most of us and left on their own to deal with all manner of bee pathogens and parasites. But now beekeepers matter; they’re as much our lifeline as are the bees. As Miller wryly notes, it seems there are some advantages to losing half the nation’s bee herd in less than two decades;

‘Bee guys always knew they were important, but nobody else did. Now that bees are dying, almond guys – and cherry guys, apple guys, watermelon guys, canola guys, blueberry guys, cantaloupe guys, and all the other pollination-dependent farm guys – have also come to realise that bee guys are important.’ p82

Farmers depend on honey bees to pollinate $15 billion worth of crops every year – at least 90 different fruits and vegetables. Forget GE as the panacea for a hungry world - the single factor limiting the amount of food we can grow is the number of bees available to pollinate the crops. Millions of acres planted in monocrops cannot yield a single plate of food without the help of honeybees.

CCD was different from anything beekeepers had ever seen before. In the USA, more than a third of hives collapsed. At the same time losses were being reported in Europe, India and Brazil. What was odd about CCD was that hives didn’t appear to be outwardly diseased. Although fully stocked with pollen, honey and larvae, the entire adult populations simply disappeared, leaving only the queen with a few ragged attendants in tow. No one – beekeepers, entomologists, geneticists – had ever seen anything like it.

So next time you fill up a bag with imported almonds at the supermarket bulk-bin, how about offering a karakia for the bees? They’ve endured so much: the largest managed pollination event in the world; between 130 and 150 trees packed onto every acre across a 400 mile swatch of Central Valley; loads of nitrogen and phosphate fertilisers dumped into the soil; the ground beneath the canopy soaked in

Continues page 30


What the Publisher Says

Supermarket produce sections bulging with a year-round supply of perfectly round,

bright red-orange tomatoes have become all but a national birthright. But in Tomatoland, which is based on his James Beard Award–winning article, “The Price of Tomatoes,” investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook reveals the huge human and environmental cost of the $5 billion fresh tomato industry. Fields are sprayed with more than 100 different herbicides and pesticides. Tomatoes are picked hard and green and artificially gassed until their skins acquire a marketable hue. Modern plant breeding has tripled yields, but produces fruits with a fraction of the calcium, Vitamin A, and Vitamin C, and fourteen times as much sodium as the tomatoes our parents enjoyed. The relentless drive for low costs has fostered a thriving modern-day slave trade in the United States. How have we come to this point?

Estabrook traces the supermarket tomato from its birthplace in the deserts of Peru to the impoverished town of Immokalee, Florida, a.k.a. the tomato capital of the United States. He visits the laboratories of seedsmen trying to develop varieties that can withstand the rigors of agribusiness and still taste like a garden tomato, and then moves on to commercial growers who operate on tens of thousands of acres, and eventually to a hillside field in Pennsylvania, where he meets an obsessed farmer who produces delectable tomatoes for the nation’s top restaurants.

Throughout Tomatoland, Estabrook presents a Who’s Who

Tomatoland:How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring FruitAndrews McMeel PublishingHardcover: 240 pages • ISBN-13: 978-1449401092

cast of characters in the tomato industry: the avuncular octogenarian whose conglomerate grows one out of every eight tomatoes eaten in the United States; the ex-marine who heads the group that dictates the size, colour, and shape of every tomato shipped out of Florida; the United States attorney who has doggedly prosecuted human traffickers for the past decade; the Guatemalan peasant who came north to earn money for his parents’ medical bills and found himself enslaved for two years.

Tomatoland reads like a suspenseful whodunit and an exposé of today’s agribusiness systems and the price we pay as a society when we take taste and thought out of our food purchases.

“With great skill and compassion, Estabrook explores the science, ingenuity and human misery behind the modern American tomato. Once again, the true cost is too high to pay.”

– Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation

“In my ten years as editor of Gourmet Magazine, the article I am proudest to have published was Barry Estabrook’s “The Price of Tomatoes.” Now he’s expanded that into this astonishingly moving and important book. If you have ever eaten a tomato – or ever plan to – you must read Tomatoland. It will change the way you think about America’s most popular ‘vegetable.’ More importantly, it will give you new insight into the way America farms.”

–Ruth Reichl, author of Garlic and Saphires

“If you worry, as I do, about the sad and sorry state of the tomato today and want to know what a tomato used to be like and what it could hopefully become again, read Barry Estabrook’s Tomatoland. A fascinating history of the peregrination of the tomato throughout the centuries.”

–Jacques Pepin, author of Essential Pepin

“Yikes. Industrial beef and industrial chicken we know about. But it turns out the tomato is just as gross. Read it before your next B.L.T.

–Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Eaarth: Making a Life

on a Tough New Planet

In fast-moving, tautly narrated scenes, Barry Estabrook tells the startling story of labour conditions that should not exist in this country or this century, and makes sure you won’t look at a supermarket or fast-food tomato the same way again. But he also gives hope for a better future–and a better tomato. Anyone who cares about social justice should read Tomatoland. Also anyone who cares about finding a good tomato you can feel good about eating.

–Corby Kummer, senior editor The Atlantic and author of The Pleasures

of Slow Food


found myself completely comfortable around what is potentially a dangerous animal. In my mind she shrank to the size of a house cat. I began to enjoy my time with her, no longer associating her presence with my feeling of fear.

By the end of the month, I felt a very strong, protective love for her - something I could not have foreseen. Also I felt this trusting relationship was mutual; if upset or unsure, Luna turned to me for reassurance – for a pat or to lick my arm. Purring happily while walking through the jungle, she would often turn back to check we were still there. She hated it when we left in the evening and our arrival in the morning was always special as she would be all purrs and licking. We became very trusting in each other. Luna trusted us to look out for her; we trusted her not to hurt us. Really, we were learning to trust in our own abilities and ultimately, to trust in the world.

Acacia Smith completed four years in Environmental and Development studies at Victoria University, Wellington. She has since been travelling and volunteering in South America where her interest in the conservation vs. development debate has been rekindled. She plans to continue her studies in Europe in the field of Environmental Economics.

The newest of 3 Bolivian-run parks, Parque Jacj Cuisi opened in 2008 under the

organisation of Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi (CIWY). CIWY was established in response to the dilemma of what to do with wild animals who cannot survive in the wild.

Many animals, ranging from monkeys to birds to wild cats, cannot be reintroduced into the wild as they have become wholly dependent on human care. To some extent, they lose their instincts to survive. The puma I worked with, Luna, had been in captivity for most of her life after her mother was poached. Luna was sold on the black market and has been with humans ever since. She would find it both difficult and disorientating to be left to her own devices in the wild. Hence, the aim of CIWY is to try and give these animals as normal an existence as possible. In the case of the pumas, each animal has its own cage, trails and territory. The job of the volunteers is to walk and feed the pumas. There are always two volunteers with a cat, one attached on a rope and the other as a support person. By these means, we would try and encourage the pumas to walk as much as possible and keep a normal daily routine. We also spent hours sitting waiting while they napped.

Living an hour away from the nearest town, with no electricity, eating simply, sleeping on straw and bathing in the stream; it’s a simplistic way of life at Jacj Cuisi. We wake at dawn to a misty haze of light and the far-off groans of howler monkeys. We brush our teeth beneath the brilliance of stars with fireflies illuminating the jungle. Seldom did I miss the luxuries of modernity. After a hard day in the jungle, everything was a luxury.

There is pleasureIn aching bones

Luna MonthA month spent working with a puma

Acacia Smith

In the lick from an animalIn floating in a streamIn living from nothingAnd doing nothing but live.

Working with a wild cat must seem like something only those addicted to the extremes in life would consider. I am anything but. After an amicable but nevertheless life-shaking relationship break-up while travelling, I felt compelled to re-evaluate and re-establish who I was. My way of doing this was to throw myself into situations with little thought for the consequences. Some may call this reckless but I rejoiced in the frame of mind that allowed me to accomplish things I would never have attempted had fear and a reality-check come into the equation. Throwing myself into the Bolivian Amazon to work with pumas seemed about the most challenging thing I could come up with to prove to myself, and to others, my worth.

I despised it. Absolutely petrified for the first week I was angry at myself for so blindly committing to it. I was terrified of Luna. I couldn´t stop my mind from concocting scenarios of fatal, puma-induced accidents. I couldn´t relax; every moment expecting Luna to jump on me which became a real barrier to getting to know her. After one week however, the senior volunteer left and I was thrown into her position. It’s quite something, being completely responsible for the life of such an animal. Luna tested me hard that week. She sulked, took the wrong paths and jumped me daily.

This latter became the turning point for me. As soon as I came to terms with the fact that she did not intend to hurt me but wanted solely to play, my fear dissipated. I came to know how to handle her jumps. Before long, she grew disinterested in using me as a toy and stopped. From then on, things improved. I suddenly Acacia walking Luna.

http://estoesparamisamigos.blogspot.com/2011/08/month-with-luna-my-experience-of.html


tree), or perhaps a star shape made from shells like the little white spirals I often find on the beach near home. It doesn’t take too much to make a setting which is special and raises the day above the ordinary.

Later in the afternoon it might be good to get a bit of exercise by going on a family ‘Christmas walk.’ Where you go will depend on what area you live in. I like to head for the shade of the nearby bush and stream. There is an old legend that tells how on Christmas Eve the animals are able to talk. I often bring something of that

It would make a good start to Christmas day if the family could sit around the table to have

breakfast together and if the breakfast could be something a little special. One family I know enjoy croissants, cream cheese and berries every year as their special Christmas breakfast.

I like to make my family fresh fruit muesli with yogurt and chopped fruit and add something we don’t often have, like blueberries. On top of each person’s portion of muesli a five pointed Christmas star could be added. You could cut this out of fruit, for example from a slice of banana, but I’m all for keeping the workload as minimal as possible on the day, so I suggest cutting the stars out of fruit leather which you can do several days in advance and hiding them away until Christmas day.

The night before, once the children are in bed, you might want to lay a little centre-piece for the breakfast table. It could be something quite simple such as a large gold star surrounded by a ring of red rose petals, a vase of suitable native flowers such as the red blooms of the pohutukawa (New Zealand Christmas

Make the Earth GladA Christmas Breakfast

Collette Leenmanquality into the

Christmas walk, by assuming that every noise from an animal which we encounter is a Christmas greeting. If you start this

off, the children will soon be imitating you. For

example, I might hear the song of a native Tui

and exclaim ‘and a happy Christmas to you too Tui.’

Collette Leenman has written several books on celebrating seasonal festivals with children. They may be ordered direct from the author [email protected]

And so we might go on exchanging Christmas greetings with dogs, birds, sheep and whoever we come across including people.


well away from industrial crops coated in pesticides. The dietary reprieve seems to strengthen them – “They’re the best bees we’ve had in we don’t know how long”.

Bees really do tend the future. Their ‘kiss of love’ ensures that flowers continue to bloom, that the earth fills with life and that we have plenty to eat. The Beekeepers Lament draws what is possibly the last line in the sand. For is it not possible that bees are the canaries in the ecosystem-mine?

herbicides so nuts don’t disappear in the undergrowth before harvest; trees periodically sprayed with a cocktail of pesticides and fungicides. To cap it off they’re force-fed solely on almond blossom for 22 days, without any other flower to clear the palate.

Most people’s radars haven’t got the message that honey bees have disappeared in the wild. Their survival now depends entirely on the life-support delivered by determined beekeepers like Miller who, despite losing 40% of his operation – some

4000 hives – to CCD in 2005, has managed to hang on to his business, albeit much reduced. So look out. For although our technological wizardry furnishes us with a sense of sophisticated ease, our gastrointestinal comfort, indeed life, still depends on a small winged insect.

The Beekeepers Lament furnishes a good read. Nordhaus’ tone is upbeat without diminishing any of the problems and she manages to end on a hopeful note; some beekeepers have begun placing hives in woodlands,

From page 26 The Beekeepers Lament

You may like to do the following: draw a bud, from observation, before it begins to

open in early spring. Then try imagining how it will be tomorrow out of what you have observed so far.

You can try drawing a rough sketch of your prediction and then look the next day to check if you were right. Let the plant correct you and then draw it again as it really is. This is not a test but an exercise in perceiving truth!

The Book of NatureMargaret Colquhoun

Make a sketch of your prediction for the next stage of development. Then observe your bud again and make another sketch from observation. Let this be followed by your prediction of the next stage of opening and, again, by a drawing from observation.

In the end you will have two drawing sequences: one drawn from observation as in Fig. 1 and the other one representing your predictions (not shown) of the successive stages.

Lay them out next to each other and compare them.

From New Eyes for Plants by Margaret Colquhoun 1996 used with kind permission of Hawthorn Press www.hawthornpress.com Available from Humanity Books, see advertisement inside back cover.

Fig 1 Beech bud unfurling in Spring [pencil]

An exercise such as this will enable you to slowly develop and train your faculty of imaginative thinking as an organ of perception for experiencing the processes of living beings. You will find that you start to be able to ‘turn on an inner light’. This will light up developmental processes in your understanding just as the light within the physical eye, enabling us to make mental pictures, is an organ of perception for those objects lit up by the sun in the world around us.

http://www.hawthornpress.com

http://www.hawthornpress.com


Meditation is a schooling for experiencing life from the inside. As important as the exterior aspects of life are, an equally

important but largely silent component of reality resides behind the easy exteriority of things. Most of our lives are relentlessly committed to the external necessities and pleasures of life. Our jobs and families, our travel and entertainment, figure prominently in the turn of the seasons and the hours of the day. These diverse aspects are automatically experienced from the outside; it takes conscious effort to experience life from the inside. Every outside has an inside, but that inside goes largely unobserved.

Imagine that half the world is hidden from you. Half of the person sitting across from you has never been appreciated, half of the garden has never been seen or smelled, half of your own life has never been truly witnessed and appraised. If we fail to attend to the interior of self and world then, indeed, half the world is missed. When we turn toward contemplation we are turning to the forgotten half, toward that half of the world which modestly and patiently awaits our freely given attention. While the rest of the world is on red alert, shouting for every minute of our conscious life, the equally important interior dimensions of existence wait quietly. When it seems impossible to find the time to meditate, we can remind ourselves of these facts. We give so much time to the demands of the world; isn’t it proper and even essential to give time to the silent half of the world that patiently awaits us? Shouldn’t we give as much time to the inner as we do to the outer?

With such thoughts we recall that the good we do has a source. Are we not profoundly nourished and guided

The Sun shines today alsoby the inner dimensions of existence? Can we really know and do good if we are cut off from the gentle interior source of renewal and wisdom? We can be guided by outer tradition, but aren’t the great wisdom traditions themselves grounded in that same interior realm? As our world increases in complexity I grow more and more convinced that it has become imperative for us to find our own original relationship to that luminous well and not to rely on tradition alone.

Every time I read the opening lines of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1836 essay Nature, I hear the voice of one pleading for us to attend to the deepest aspects of the world, and not rely only on reports from our forefathers, no matter how wise. Emerson is not admonishing us to turn away from the world or to forget the past, but rather to see reality for ourselves and to see it whole.

“Why should we not also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?...The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields.”1

Arthur Zajonc is professor of physics at Amherst College, Massachusetts, where he has taught since 1978. Since 1997 he’s served as scientific coordinator for the Mind and Life dialogue with H.H. the Dalai Lama whose meetings have been published as The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama (Oxford 2004) and The Dalai Lama at MIT (Harvard UP, 2006). He currently directs the Center for Contemplative Mind, an organisation of 1500 academics, which supports appropriate inclusion of contemplative practice in higher education.Extract from Prof Zajonc’s book, Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry; When Knowing Becomes Love, Lindisfarne Books, 2009. Used with the author’s kind permission.

1 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836), Selected Essays, edited by Larzer Ziff (New York Penguin Books, 1982,) p 35.

Arthur Zajonc


AVAILABLE AT $12.00 EA (inci p&p)

Send orders with name and postal address to –[email protected]

Eating is anagri-cultural act….

your health, economic and cultural wealth start with seeds

sown in the field, the ‘ager’

3 issues a year. Subscribe on-line atwww.earthmatters.co.nz for $NZ 35.00

[$45.00 o’seas] or by direct credit Kiwibank account 38 9010 0519122 00 or by

cheque to P O Box 24-231, Royal Oak, Auckland 1345.

Available from [email protected]

and receive a FREE set ofbiodynamic compost preps for

your garden.

Subscribe a friend tol l l l

www.earthmatters.co.nz

www.astro-calendar.com

A New Renaissance Transforming Science, Spirit & SocietyEdited by David Lorimer & Oliver Robinson311 pages, paperback

$54.95email: [email protected]

Humanity Books & Fine Arts

[email protected]

www.vortexcentre.blogspot.com

www.hungrybin.co.nz

http://www.astro-calendar.com



http://www.vortexcentre.blogspot.com

http://www.hungrybin.co.nz

www.weleda.co.nz

http://www.weleda.co.nz

earth matters december 2011

Documents

baby food

contents earth matters

copyright earth matters

organic seeds

dairy products

garden products

food democracy

book review