Letter from the President

July 2025

Dear Friends,

It has been a while since we have shared a cup of tea together, and I have missed talking with you. I hope your summer is unfolding in a healthy and rejuvenating way. There is so much to be grateful for. I hope you don’t mind, but since it's so hot here, I've switched us to glasses of iced tea (I've poured you one).

I am at home, gazing out my windows upon my garden, and the sheet of rain pouring out of the sky onto our parched Texas landscape. With our land cracked and hot, the violent downpour of rain is a mixed blessing. We have been sweltering with intense heat and humidity since the beginning of May. There have been days when it felt like we were either going to drown in our own sweat or we were going to burst into flames from the heat. We have been praying for rain to break the drought and provide relief for the land. In Texas, we call a downpour like this a “frog-strangler”. It’s when the rainstorm comes on fast and just dumps its load of water. The ground doesn’t have time to absorb it. There is a powerful force that water carries in its own momentum, and anything in its path can get swept up and carried away.

It reminds us that Nature, in all her expressions (rivers, forests, hills, canyons, plains, wind, snow, oceans, mountains, glaciers, backyards, gardens, farms, etc.), is a living being with needs and reactions to what humanity has been doing to the environment for centuries. We have stretched her to the limit for so many years. It seems she can no longer keep her forces in check, and her boundaries are weakening from our constant assaults.

As any good farmer or gardener has learned, finding a balance between the elements on your farm, ranch, or in your gardens is paramount. In biodynamics, we are always observing and working from a perspective of the whole. Balance is not static; it is constantly changing. If something isn't thriving, we step back and look. Not just at the soil at the base of the plant, not just at the one cow that is struggling, not just at the hay in the one field, not just at the one fruit tree that is dying. We look at the whole farm or garden. What did I miss? What is this one “messenger” trying to tell me? How can I help? What do I need to do?

After this much rain and humidity, I will sit gazing upon my land for a long time, slowly sipping my iced tea and thinking about a sequential spray with BD #501 Silica, BD #508 Equisetum Arvense, BD #500 Horn Manure, and Barrel Compound. I will continue observing from different angles and distances until I have walked and observed the whole of my land. That is why they say the best fertilizer for the land is the farmers' footsteps.

BD #501 Silica used in the application of sequential sprays quickens the atmosphere with a request for drying out an overly wet environment. It works well with BD #508 Equisetum Arvense, sometimes called “horsetail” plant. BD #508 is silica-rich, so it balances the watery influences by introducing a drying balancing effect.

I think of Equisetum Arvense as a kind of equalizer or balancer for my land, my gardens, and for me. Let’s be honest, whatever farmers do to their land, it affects them. I am a part of my land; we are deeply connected. My actions and feelings affect my land, and all the beings who call this home. I also believe that whatever you and I do affects our earth and all the beings who call it home. And right now, in this world climate, I would like to do a worldwide sequential spray of Equisetum Arvense!

I have noted that whenever I use Equisetum Arvense, I feel more balanced. As I walk around spraying the biodynamic preparation, I start to breathe more slowly and deeply. I can even smell the promise of moisture in the air. I can come back into myself more easily and look around without as strong a fight or flight edge to all the stimuli around me. By the time my bucket is empty, I am quiet, grateful, and open again.

Sounds like something the world could use right now. A reminder that every small act of kindness or healing reverberates and ripples out far beyond where it happened. We are part of this land we call Earth; we are deeply connected. Our actions and feelings affect our Earth and all the beings who call her home.

JPI continues to actively work with St. Michael and the living Spirit of JPI. We are still committed to a threefold approach to our mission and to our work. We just completed our late spring / early summer workshop on June 13-15 in Accomac, VA. It was an amazing workshop with Michael Judge and his presentation on “Human Evolution and Biodynamics”! Michael helped us to find the correlation between the foundations of biodynamics and how it is reflected, albeit in a different vocabulary, in natural science. We had some lively questions and discussions during his presentation and in smaller groups after dinner. During each of Michael’s talks we kept our hands busy with prepping handpicked nettle, chamomile, and yarrow for hanging and burial.

In the end, we made new friends, strengthened our connections with old friends, feasted on delicious biodynamic meals, stuffed stag bladders with yarrow and sausages with chamomile, made large mesentery sacks of dandelions, buried the nettles, hung the bladders and sausages to ripen in the summer sun, and created watercolor paintings with Martha Loving. All this amidst laughter, stories, learning, physical activities, and reverence for what we were doing.

We invite you to join us for our upcoming JPI workshop. It is listed on our website. We are very excited to be hosting:

• Fall Preparation Workshop, October 17-20, 2025, location Accomac, Virginia

If you are able, please consider helping someone attend who cannot afford it. Any amount, big or small, will go a long way in helping others to discover biodynamics.

JPI is moving forward with the image of St. John’s Tide in our hearts. We are striving for the strength and courage to stay true to our mission to heal the earth one acre at a time and make biodynamic preparations available to our world community.

I think of you often, and hope that you are well, and stirring up some biodynamic preparations. You are our community. We ask that you continue to support us through prayers, thoughts, deeds, patience, and love.

Steeped in summer now, we are looking forward to the Fall and our time with each of you. Thank you for sharing a glass of iced tea with me.

With deep gratitude,

Please hold all the people in Texas who have suffered the loss of a loved one, their home, their land, their hope. My heart is standing next to their hearts.