Fanning the Flame of Life with Biodynamics
Valerian, Silica, and the Accelerating Life
“You resting, luminous glow,
Engender warmth of life,
Enwarm the life of soul
To meet with vigor each test
And permeate itself with spirit
In quiet, light-outstreaming.
You luminous glow, gain strength!”
Rudolf Steiner, Twelve Moods1
Plants emerge from what once was inside the sun and return the same energy back to the cosmos. Their leaves unfold like etheric flames and culminate in seeds, which fly off like sparks and have the power to spread their green flames out of the hidden life within the soil. If we want our plants to burn brightly, we must nourish that inner fire correctly. Biodynamics offers a way to resurrect dead soil.
Biodynamics offers a way to resurrect dead soil.
It’s not easy to light a log with a single spark, but a single spark can build into a great blaze if coaxed step by step. When making a fire, we start with the initial spark, but it must find its way onto dry kindling. If you wish to develop a great blaze, it is expedient to begin with the initial spark and to use an oil (or something like lighter fluid) to accelerate the kindling to ignite, and then the logs can generate a lovely fire.2
By analogy, the soil, too, has a biological “fire” -- but what do we do if that fire has gone out? Or if it is smoldering? Is it wet and sputtering? Is it not burning hot enough? Is there not enough air? Does it produce a lot of smoke? Here biodynamics offers a key. It is not enough to add a mere spark to logs. Nor is kindling itself enough because it cannot sustain a fire. A fire made of paper burns out too quickly to give sustained warmth. As such, we need a bit of everything. We need kindling (fine humus) and logs (coarser woody materials), and we undoubtedly rely on the spark of life to initiate the fire.
In sandy soil, the ripening impulse tends to be held within the earth. Steiner says, “in silicious soil the cosmic is held back; it is actually ‘caught.’”3 As a leaf requires carbon dioxide to breathe, the root requires oxygen. Sandy soil is light and airy, permeated with oxygen. This allows roots to grow freely, which is part of why Alex Podolinsky can say “Bio-Dynamics works quickest on sandy soils.”4 The presence of air both accelerates the decomposition of organic matter, as fanning a flame makes the fire burn faster. As Steiner says, “oxygen is from its birth the bearer of life, of the etheric element.”5 Steiner describes humus as “substances in course [sic] of decomposition, bear etheric life within.”6 By this, he does not mean that humus is alive because it contains oxygen, but rather that oxygen is a primary means by which matter containing energy is broken down, the means by which the vitality within matter is liberated. Heat without oxygen pyrolizes organic matter, which is how biochar is produced.
Warmth and organic matter without oxygen produces a buildup of anaerobic organic matter in the soil, which has a tendency to give too much growth forces (which Steiner refers to as “Moon forces”) the excess of which results in fungal problems. The Zohar refers to the Moon as the power of the recipient. Paradoxically, to receive energy itself requires energy, but too much receiving energy leads to overaccumulation. By contrast, a dead mineralized soil in a desert quickly warms up but also quickly cools, retaining little energy in any useful form. We neither want an overrich anaerobic soil, nor do we want dead soils. As such, it is not simply the aim of biodynamics to maximize organic matter, but to use up and create new organic matter each year. To do this, we must continuously draw on this year’s sunlight again and again.
To build a nourishing blaze, we need to use good kindling, but if we really want to “fire up” the release of ethericity, we must accelerate the decomposition of what is stored in the soil. To do so, we must look for the biodynamic analog for lighter fluid–we introduce something volatile, easily combustible, and rich with etheric life potential–the special juice of pressed flowers of Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), which is especially rich in essential oil. Aromatic oils naturally tend to diffuse upwards and outwards, not downward or inwards. The introduction of essential oils and aromatic floral elements is not something that Nature by herself tends to do. This process is a special human way of participating in Nature. It is not without mistake that in many plants, the flower is the warmest part.
What is at work within flowers producing essential oils is what Steiner calls a “devitalizing” effect. John Ruskin offers a parallel of this idea in Proserpina, “A flower is to the vegetable substance what a crystal is to the mineral.”7 As the dynamic living plasticity of the mineral world “dies” into concretized crystalline form in the case of quartz silica, the dynamics at work within the flower “die” out of the plant and are offered up to the cosmos. Consider how much etheric vitality must be drawn up out of the plant to bring the oils to the surface. The impulse at work in flowers is “devitalizing” in the sense that stored potential energy is discharged as kinetic energy, ethericity released back to the cosmos by way of completed growth forms. Horn silica (501) helps release the potential energy stored in the soil and direct it into fruitful forms. Horn silica enhances photosynthesis and thereby sweetens fruits and improves carbon sequestration. Horn silica 501 should always be used in conjunction with 500 horn manure. As such, JPI is offering a 30% discount on 501 horn silica. ordered together with 500 horn manure.
Horn silica enhances photosynthesis and thereby sweetens fruits and improves carbon sequestration.
In the flower, the plant acts as a sort of completed etheric “circuit” reconnected to its spiritual source; it releases nectar and vitality to the world. Steiner says, “In flower-petals which contain strong ethereal oils, we have an expression of the most powerful devitalising process of all.”8 When we take these “etheric oils” as Steiner calls them, and introduce them to the soil, what occurs here? The oils stimulate the auspicious and fruitful use of the horn manure. It quickens the soil to life. For those who wish to see the greatest effect with their biodynamic preparations, horn manure should be used together with valerian. If you want to see the best productivity in the garden or in cover crops, the use of horn manure and valerian together have remarkable effects. To promote this, JPI offers a 30% discount when ordering valerian with horn manure.
If you want to see the best productivity in the garden or in cover crops, the use of horn manure and valerian together have remarkable effects.
Various biodynamic growers9 have suggested that Valerian is meant to be used together with good finished compost, not on a compost pile (or not only in compost, at least). If we liken the horn manure to kindling, valerian is its lighter fluid. If we want “high octane” gardens, we need to use the right fuel grade and proper fuel treatment. The main fuel of life itself in the soil is the compost, but the stimulants of the biodynamic preparations enhance the fires of life to burn consistently throughout the garden. It is worth noting that Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, whose proximity to the wellspring of biodynamics lends some credence to his approach, shifted to including Valerian within the compost pile. Some, including Harvey Lisle, thought that the addition of Valerian in the compost pile would waste the effects of the carefully settled-down impulses of the compost preparations. After all, we are not trying to consume organic matter when we are building the compost pile: we wish to save up as much humus as possible and have the decomposition fuel plants in the field.
Plants emerge like etheric flames from the hidden dark vital burning in the soil. Though he means no insult to plants, Steiner says, “all plant growth is slightly parasitic in character; it grows like a parasite on the living earth.”10 That is to say: plants depend on preexisting vitality within the soil to thrive. It is insufficient to drop plants into dead dirt and expect them to flourish properly. As such, this mild “parasitism” is fundamental to all life, not exclusively to plants. As plants grow, they discharge what they accumulate from the soil as energy. What remains of their growth, the debris of this year, becomes the stored residual energy for next year’s crop.
Each plant, as such, represents a distinct way of “burning,” its leaves like flames showing you how its inner activities work. And below, the root develops like the coals under a fire, left behind as organic matter for next year’s etheric flames. Steiner explains the inherited dynamics of previous years:
“[The] dynamics taken from the soil can be traced as far as the ovary, as far as seed development. We therefore only have a genuine botany that is in accord with the whole physiology if we take into account not only the dynamics of warmth and light and of light conditions in the year when the plant is growing, but starting from the root base ourselves on the dynamics of light and warmth at least in the year before…. If on the other hand you study the foliage, and even more the sepals and petals, you will in the leaves find a compromise, I’d say, between the dynamics of the year before and the dynamics of the current year. The leaves have in them the element pushing up from the soil and the influences of the environment. In petals the current year finally shows itself in its purest form. The colours and so on in the petals are not something old—they are of this year.”11
The root is hungry for the residual accumulated forces of previous years. The flower expresses the light of the current year. The leaves represent an affinity divided between the two. Though Steiner doesn’t expound on this specifically, we can see with relative ease how the broader leaves towards the base of the plant tend to show an affinity more for the previous year than the current, whereas the leaves closer to the flower have more love for the present than for the past.
If we consider the distinct tendencies of Valerian, it has a strong tendency to move oils not merely to the flower (as in many plants) but down into the root itself. Here we have an image of the entire biodynamic impulse: we take the floral quality that would typically radiate back to the cosmos, contain it within a suitable sheath, and introduce it to the root of the plant.12
The radiating floral impulse of each herb is taken to the plant’s root in the case of most of the biodynamic preparations, but in the case of Valerian (the folk etymology of which associates it with Baldrian, the god of light), the entire plant is infused with essential oils. As such, there is a powerful vitalizing effect offered by Valerian, even growing in proximity to other plants. As Steiner says, “the earthly soil [is] rather more dead in the environment of the tree than it would be in the environment of a herbaceous plant.”13
If we were to wish to enliven the deadened soil around a tree, establishing Valerian in that spot would do so. Anyone who has dug up Valerian, which is cherished primarily for its roots, will know how much its aroma affects the surrounding soil. Plants radiating etheric oils into the soil serve as perennial biostimulants. In proximity to trees, which deaden the soil around them, Valerian feeds the hunger the tree has to absorb vitality from the soil. As Podolinsky writes, “If you study carefully what Rudolf Steiner says in the Agriculture course (which is post-graduate study material and in relationship to which we advise beginners to study Lily Kolisko’s Agriculture of Tomorrow) about individual preparations, he doesn’t actually say they add a particular chemical element to the soil, but they stimulate a process. A process dealing with phosphate, say, in regard to Valerian.”14 As phosphorus deficiency is one of the most limiting aspects of agriculture, particularly for young plants and root development, to get the best results, it is essential to stimulate this light-bearing process along with the application of horn manure.
Steiner says, “The root is rich in salts, the flower in light. People knew much more of this in the past. This is why they called the principle to be found in the flower ‘phosphorus’.... But the flower is the true bearer of light. The flower is phosphorus.”15 This is confirmed by Paracelsus who says, “That which burns is sulphur, that which evaporates is mercurius, and that which remains in the ash is salt.”16 The Paracelsian alchemist and father of agricultural chemist, Wallerius, spent time distilling types of manures to find the amount of combustible oil contained within each. Wallerius confirms that this is close to the heart of fertilizing: “Manuring (pinguefaction) is that operation by which land receives substances that nourish plants. Since neither earths nor salts supply homogeneous nutrients to plants it follows that the benefit of manure consists in supplying land with a sufficient amount of fatness and humidity.”17 With the use of Valerian, we ignite the vital fires of the soil. When we fail to use Valerian as a soil spray, biodynamics does not reach its full potential.
When we fail to use Valerian as a soil spray, biodynamics does not reach its full potential.
What is more vivifying than what Steiner refers to as etheric oils? After all, as Steiner says, “manuring consists in a vivifying of the soil.”18 This is not accomplished by soluble fertilizers, but by materials containing within them etheric life potential. Steiner says, “The soil must be vitalised directly. This cannot be done with mineral substances, but only with organic substances which have been suitably prepared so as to organise and quicken the solid earth element.”19 To initiate the unfolding of sculpted forms, “the spirit moistens its fingers”20—lubricates its fingers—to perform its creative work. Perhaps not incidentally, the rough hands of a farmer, moistened with Valerian, move all the more gracefully through water when stirring horn manure.
As Maria Thun drew from young pullet eggs to create Barrel Compound (BC, aka Cow Pat Pit CPP) as “new” calcium, our reliance in biodynamics is primarily on the recent past and the present, maintaining our openness to the future. In nuclear fallout conditions, plants assimilated radioactive elements instead of calcium, but when nourished with “new” calcium, the plants refused the radioactive elements. It is as if plants have an inborn affinity for what is new. Why would they not? As plants continue to adapt year by year, the quality of their vitality changes and evolution unfolds. You could almost say that there is a terroir influence, and every subsequent generation of plants is a vintage.
We must participate in our own times with remedies born out of plants evolving under all the pressures of life today.
If we wish to see the most time-sensitive responses, we should draw on Valerian produced recently, so that it corresponds with our changing climate. Ancient limestone introduces an anachronistic element from the prehistoric past, whereas new wood ash produced today belongs to our epoch. We must participate in our own times with remedies born out of plants evolving under all the pressures of life today. As Alex Podolinsky suggests, we need “new answers to new problems.”21 One might imagine the difference between Old English and our current form of English. Both are technically English, but the two cannot properly understand each other. Biodynamics lives in the grammar of the Now. So we use contemporary preparations to meet the changing requirements of this world.
In this way, we are fanning the flame of life.
R. Steiner, Twelve Moods, (GA40, August 29, 1915, Dornach)
In agnihotra, butter ghee is used to begin the fiery incantation over burning cow manure. Similarly, ghee is used in the foundational Rishi-Krishi Deshpande fertilizer recipe together with cow manure, among other key ingredients.
R. Steiner, Agriculture Course, Lecture II (GA327, 10 June 1924, Koberwitz)
Alex Podolinsky, Biodynamic Introductory Lectures, vol. 2, pg. 121.
R. Steiner, Agriculture Course, Lecture II (GA327, 10 June 1924, Koberwitz)
R. Steiner, Agriculture Course, Lecture IV, (GA327 12 June 1924, Koberwitz)
John Ruskin, Works of John Ruskin, Proserpina, (University of California, 1885) pg. 49.
R. Steiner, Anthroposophical Approach to Medicine, Lecture IV (GA314, Stuttgart, 28 October, 1922)
Corey Eichman and Joe Stevens, among others
R. Steiner, Agriculture Course, (GA327, 12 June 1924, Koberwitz)
Rudolf Steiner, Physiology and Healing, pp. 85-86 CW314.
Though much surrounding the term “kundalini” is misleading and even treacherous, there is a simple principle at work in what is called kundalini: sublimation of the energy of the reproductive impulses which would normally disperse and instead redirecting those forces to the head. Biodynamics follows this sublimation process by taking the libidinous floral impulse, concentrating it and calming it down, and then offering it to the “head” of the plant in the form of compost preparations.
R. Steiner, Agriculture, Lecture VII (GA327, 15 June 1924, Koberwitz)
Alex Podolinsky, Biodynamic Agriculture Introductory Lectures, vol 2., pg. 83
R. Steiner, From Elephants to Einstein, February 9, 1924, GA325, pp. 84-85.
Paracelsus, Von der Bergsucht; Sudhoff, Paracelsus Werke, I/9:476.
Johan Gottschalk Wallerius, unattributed, translated into English by John Mills from the Latin translation Swedish by Count Gustavus Adolphus Gyllenborg from the original Swedish, 1770, A Natural and Chymical Treatise of Agriculture from the Works of Count Gustavus Adolphus Gyllenborg, Chapter 15. The Manuring of Land (pp. 252-274)
R. Steiner, Agriculture, Lecture IV (GA327, 12 June 1924, Koberwitz)
R. Steiner, Agriculture, Lecture V (GA327, 13 June 1924, Koberwitz)
R. Steiner, Agriculture, Lecture V (GA327, 13 June 1924, Koberwitz)
Alex Podolinsky, Living Agriculture pg. 1
I was trying to remember which article was super great related to valerian and this is it! There’s so many awesome posts on here but I remember this one really helping me understand 507 🔥🔥
Thank you for teaching me so much.