“It is the anomalies in nature that reveal the principles of life.” –Goethe
My experience over the last 25 years shows it is possible to restore order to the atmosphere, a pre-requisite for rain. This could be an important part of returning farmers to self-sufficiency, and the methods— biodynamic sequential spraying, and/or radionic treatments with biodynamic reagents in combinations with color, sound and intents—are cheap and within the ability of most farmers to accomplish with relatively simple equipment. Only the know-how is lacking.
Weather is always changing, though it follows a pattern that oscillates back and forth within limits. Whenever it gets too hot and/or too dry it self-corrects to become cooler or wetter or both. However, this oscillation has obscure trigger points. MIT mathematician Edward Lorentz made this discovery in the mid ‘50s, giving rise to Chaos Theory. Chaos is a fact, but theory seeks to explain how it gives rise to order. Water evaporates, chaotically into the atmosphere. What makes it concentrate in clouds so dense they drop rain in certain places and at certain times—but not others?
The Stewardship of Rain
Often there is plenty of moisture in the air but no rain. Particularly in the southeastern USA the humidity can be 95% along with 95℉ without a cloud in the sky. In such conditions I can’t seem to draw much vitality from the atmosphere because it has so little. It is significantly worse in urban areas such as Atlanta, Georgia where summer thundershowers move across from western Douglas County, break up, go around urban Fulton and DeKalb counties, and resume their rain pattern in eastern Rockdale County. The traffic and industrial fumes that repel moisture and fuel the urban haze only abate on the weekends where weather statistics show 20% greater chances of rain on the family barbecue than on the weekday commute. What are we doing?
Global weather is a complicated self-correcting system. There is debate about the causes of global warming, but one thing is certain—global temperatures have risen. Polar icecaps show accelerated melting, especially in the northern hemisphere, and many glaciers world-wide are disappearing. Most importantly the temperatures of equatorial oceans show gains of roughly half a degree Celsius over the last 50 or so years, and heat drives the world’s weather because evaporation from the equatorial oceans puts the moisture into the atmosphere that fuels storms.
Roughly 89.5 billion acres of the earth’s surface is covered by water, and an acre-inch of water is 193,460 gallons. This means if evaporation was constant at merely an inch a year, rather than an inch or so a month, this would amount to 17.3 quadrillion gallons of water per year. That is 17.3 million billion gallons of water. Even a slight rise in the temperature of equatorial oceans means millions upon millions more gallons of water rise into the atmosphere. No one is sure exactly how much, but it all has to fall somewhere. Wherever moderate rainfall becomes scarcer and scarcer because ground cover is lost or pollution increases, floods become more common a few hundred miles away. Droughts in Chad, Sudan and Somalia correspond with floods in Mozambique and Tanzania. Droughts in Siberia are related to floods in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Alternatively, droughts in the Indus and Ganges watersheds produce floods along the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. Drought in North America is accompanied by floods from the UK to Russia. If we reversed the conditions that lead to drought—such as bare soil and pollution—we would restore order to the atmosphere and return to normal rainfall while preventing floods. This would be an act of environmental responsibility.
Background
As earth and sky interact, we cannot revitalize the atmosphere without revitalizing the soil—in which case we should consider how wrongly most soils are fertilized. According to Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary a fertilizer is any substance that when applied to the soil makes it more fertile. However, the Fertilizer Institute and the industries behind them have secured the passage of laws requiring fertilizers to be soluble. Though the industry’s agenda is transparent, good sense says we don’t want our nutrients to be soluble, we want them to be insoluble but available—which is what occurs when the nutrients are stored and retained by the life of the soil. Then, by the teeming symbiosis characteristic of healthy soil, sufficient nutrients for robust crop production will be steadily available and the soil will be truly fertile.
Under present laws lime and other rock dusts must be advertised as soil amendments rather than fertilizers. Balanced, well-humified compost, which is even more crucial to building soil fertility, also is classified as an amendment rather than a fertilizer, as most of its nutrients are insoluble though available. On the other hand the massive use of soluble nitrogen ‘fertilizers’ such as anhydrous ammonia, urea or nitrates is like intoxicating oneself on a diet of amphetamines and ignoring healthy, balanced nutrition. Then everything goes like the clappers—until at some point it doesn’t go very well at all. Resting strong soils may return them to productivity, but eventually the collapse will be fatal if irresponsible soil practices don’t change. Obviously building soil biology and eliminating reliance on poisons would help the atmosphere immeasurably. There is a science to this. It can be done, but given the inertia of the present system it won’t be done soon. It may take massive losses in the agricultural sector for these changes to occur. In the interim what can we—who want to protect ourselves and moderate the damage—do?
Sequential Spraying
In the late 80s Hugh Courtney of the Josephine Porter Institute in Woolwine, VA was experimenting with applying the entire array of biodynamic preparations in close conjunction with each other. At a biodynamic conference on my farm we followed a sequence of evening barrel compound (BC), morning horsetail decoction (BD 508), evening horn manure (BD 500) and morning horn silica (BD 501), —thus applying all the preps Rudolf Steiner introduced in his Agriculture Course over a two day period. Courtney called it an energy balancing procedure, which he tested on his farm in Woolwine, Virginia and introduced at workshops in various parts of the country.
Hugh Courtney also suggested following up the prep sequence with milk and honey. Having a land flowing with milk and honey is a Biblical idea that implies a countryside rich in nourishment for the whole human being, both physically and spiritually. Since milk is related to calcium and the soil, the milk potency should be sprayed in the evening on the soil. As for honey, it is related to the silica activities of the daytime and should be sprayed in the air in the morning.
Further Experiments
During the late 80s, 90s and early 00s there were repeated summer droughts in the American Southeast, but wherever this sequence was employed at least technical precipitation if not outright rain followed within 72 hours. Hugh Courtney explained this as the ability of the BD preps to attract whatever was needed, and his experiments indicated that best success with making rain was likely if the sequence began in a water constellation and was completed just prior to full moon when watery forces were strongest.
Early on in the development of this procedure I started using radionics as an application of the axiom of fluid dynamics—often called the butterfly effect—that a microscopic change at a point can effect large scale changes in the medium. With an aerial map of my farm as my witness, I used my double-dial Hieronymus variable capacitance instrument with vials of the various preps as reagents along with double-dial rates that I obtained by cold scanning. I alternated applications while I fixed supper with applications when I fixed breakfast, dowsing for the duration of each application and using a timer in the circuit that would shut off the instrument while I was out at work on the farm or elsewhere. For the most part I was successful in getting timely rainfall even when the rest of Georgia was experiencing drought. On challenging occasions I learned to use color beamed into the instrument’s witness well, along with herbal and mineral reagents, and I even used pictures and played recordings of rain—and whale songs, such exuberance!—along with my radionic programs. I became so confident of getting rain when I needed it that I gave my irrigation equipment away.
I also learned to use Malcolm Rae type equipment with cards for the biodynamic preparation patterns along with an interrupter in the circuit that turned the instrument on and off hundreds of times a minute to create the effect of myriad butterflys flapping their infinitessimal corrections rather than creating a single one off event. In 2005 I purchased a Power Radionic program for my computer from a dealer in HSCTI products in Woodstock, Georgia, ( http://www.hscti.net/index.html ) and with that I ran radionic programs on my computer—which opened up even further options.
In November, 2011 my wife, Shabari, and I flew in from Australia for the Weston A. Price convention in Dallas, TX and were shocked to see the devastation of the previous 10 months of drought. We organised a series of workshops in the Austin area focusing on sequential spraying and within the week most of the participants were rewarded by rain. But we know how much enthusiasm and diligence it takes to keep something like this going, and how easy it can be to lose confidence in the beginning. The tricks of the trade are myriad, and we share many of these on our RAIN CD, available from our website at www.quantumagriculture.com . We expect to be at the ACRES Convention in December.
Hugh Lovel and his wife, Shabari Bird Lovel live in Australia though they spend their northern winter months in Blairsville, Georgia where they hold a six day advanced course in Quantum Agriculture in early February. Shabari can be contacted at shabaribird@gmail.com and Hugh at hugh.lovel9@bigpond.com .
Sequential Spraying—adapted from Issue #6 of “Applied Biodynamics” (Winter 1993).
In advance of each stirring draw 3 gallons of water in a 5 gallon bucket. If the water is chlorinated, leave overnight or stir for 30 minutes to outgas as much of the chlorine as possible. The water ideally should be warm, i.e. in the vicinity of 65 – 72℉. It may be warmed with sunlight, wood or gas, though electricity is not so ideal.
1st Evening: Barrel Compound (BC)—The first afternoon, add a one acre unit of barrel compound (⅓ cup) to three gallons of water and stir as below for 20 minutes. This preparation should soak into the soil in large droplets.
Stirring: With arm or stirring stick, stir round and round to create a strong vortex. The water will become organized into laminar layers so that the cooler, denser layers move to the middle and sink while the warmer layers seek the edges and rise. The appearance is one of a spinning funnel and the water is organized. At this point reverse the direction of stirring. The water will churn and froth in chaos until a new vortex organizes. Once the new vortex is mature the direction is reversed again, and again, back and forth, 20 minutes each for BC and 508 and 1 hour each for 500 and 501. Every time a new vortex is established a new generation of organization is created. Organization is the basis of life, as living organisms are organized. By creating generation after generation of order, an evolution of order results. This charges up the remedy with life force while imparting the intentions and vibrations of the stirrer to the water. Then what one thinks, one grows.
Spraying: This spray should soak into the soil, much as does the dew, and should be sprinkled in the late afternoon in large droplets. Each drop radiates up to 6 feet, so there is no need for uniform coverage. Since life force flows from lower to higher concentration, spraying in this fashion will draw life force from the surrounding cosmos to the location sprayed. A pail and a wallpaper brush or whiskbroom is sufficient for applying this remedy.
1st Morning: Horsetail Decoction (508)—Prior to stirring, make a decoction, which is a brew simmered for 20 minutes, from 8 ounces of dried horsetail herb in ¾ gallon of water. In the early morning, dilute the pre-made decoction to 3 gallons with warm water and stir as above for 20 minutes. Apply this preparation to evaporate upward.
1st Evening: Horn Manure (500)—Add a one acre unit (¼ cup) of horn manure to three gallons of warm water and stir for 1 hour. Spray on the soil in large droplets.
2nd Morning: Horn Silica (501)— Add a one acre unit of horn silica (1 gram) to three gallons of water and stir as before for an hour. In summer, spray this remedy as a mist so it radiates upward into the lower atmosphere as a fine mist over the leaf canopy, perhaps chest or head high in the early morning. It may settle before evaporating, which is good. In winter, when warmth and light have receded into the earth, this should be misted directly onto the soil.
3rd Evening: Milk—In the evening, dilute a pint of milk in 3 gallons of warm water and stir for 20 minutes. This preparation should soak into the soil in large droplets.
3rd Morning: Honey—In the early morning, dilute an ounce of honey in 3 gallons of water and stir for 20 minutes. Apply as a fine mist that evaporates upward.
4th Evening: Repeat Sequence from beginning starting with barrel compost.
Biodynamic preparations can be obtained at a modest cost from The Josephine Porter Institute (JPI), P. O. Box 133, Woolwine, Virginia 24185-0133. Tel: (276)930 – 2463 (Mon-Fri 8am-5pm).www.jpibiodynamics.org/
El Niño/La Niña
The Pacific Ocean is the world’s largest driver of evaporation and weather. Scientists have long studied something called the Southern Oscillation or the irregular but periodic shift of tropical warmth between the western Pacific and eastern Pacific Oceans.
With an El Niño the eastern Pacific Ocean becomes noticeably warmer off the coast of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, generally around Christmas. The resulting evaporation of moisture rises into the upper atmosphere, accelerated by the Andes Mountains. This charges up the upper atmosphere with moisture which tends to shift precipitation toward the polar latitudes. This generally means droughts for large parts of the world. However, this can only go on so long before evaporation brings in cold currents in the lower ocean to replenish what evaporated. This cools off the El Niño cycle and shifts the balance of warmth back toward the western Pacific.
La Niña, on the other hand, is a condition of elevated warmth in the western Pacific where there is no wall of high mountains. This sends moisture up into the lower atmosphere driving monsoons.
Until the age of Chaos Theory the trend in science was to study things by reducing them to extreme simplicity. Scientists struggling to use a systems approach that included as many variables as possible were relegated to the fringes and sometimes ridiculed. However, with weather—as with agriculture—single factor analysis is the apex of absurdity. Fortunately the age of computing has provided the tools for modeling complex systems involving many variables.
Taken as a whole, our stable global weather cycles have been going on since the dawn of history, fed and driven by warmth and other organizational factors—though recent global warming seems to have raised our weather intensity a bit. From a longer perspective, however, the world has alternated between long glacial periods and brief inter-glacials, and the tipping points are obscure. There seem to have been periods, occasionally, where the poles melted and ocean levels were considerably higher. Presently we seem on the cusp of change, but whether that will be to a warmer cycle or an ice age is uncertain.
Chaos theory scientists acknowledge the obscurity of organizational factors by giving them such names as the “strange attractor” and the “butterfly effect”. Modeling organizational factors has been a challenge, especially for scientists who previously believed everything simply degenerated into chaos. How to describe the rise of order out of chaos?
At least we can study warmth. Obviously the earth is warmest around the equator and coolest near the poles. This means the atmosphere heats up and expands near the equator and shrinks at the poles, which is what drives weather. Around the equator the portion of the earth’s atmosphere where weather occurs—known as the troposphere—is roughly 10 miles deep, while near the poles it is only about 5 miles deep. This means that air warms and rises around the equator, and as it cools it slides off on a downhill path known as a thermocline towards the poles where it funnels down one or the other polar vortex driving winter storms. The stronger the evaporation around the equator the more strongly this drives winter storms—and the occurrence of more powerful winter storms is one of the signs of global warming.
The oceans do something similar with the Gulf Stream and the Japan Current sliding down thermoclines toward Norway and Alaska. However, the melting of the northern polar icecap may shut down the Gulf Stream’s thermocline, which has weather scientists wondering whether that means a new ice age for northern Europe and Siberia. Could global warming be the trigger for an ice age? Alas, there are many unknowns, but most notably, the oscillation of surface temperatures between the eastern and western Pacific has a pronounced effect on evaporation and thus on rainfall, with the tilt of the earth’s axis as a major factor in causing oscillations. The fact that Pacific warming trends are strongest around Christmas when the sun is furthest south earns this cycle the title of the Southern Oscillation.
As stated previously, the periodic effect of the Southern Oscillation is irregular, and the key to its better management would be identifying and understanding such organizational factors as the strange attractor and the butterfly effect. Familiarity with the biodynamic preparations as organizational factors used in agriculture is a logical starting point for such research.
From Issue #6 of “Applied Biodynamics” (Winter 1993). –By Hugh Courtney
First of all, the sequential spraying technique was developed by myself, almost accidentally, in the early summer of 1988 when it appeared that we were about to face a third year of blistering drought. Frustrated by that possibility, I reasoned that surely there had to be something in biodynamic agriculture that could relieve or at least ameliorate the damage to our pastures, hayfields and gardens, after all, had not Steiner himself in the Agriculture course, (see Lecture #5, especially page 89), suggested that the preparations could help the plant attract to itself from its environment what was needed for its best growth? I thought surely, if one knew precisely what preparations to use, then relief should be available somehow. That is if one assumes that biodynamics really is valid and truly works. In my case, however, I did not have the wisdom to know the precise preparation to use.
At this point in my work with the preparations, I was convinced that it would be fairly difficult to cause harm with them, even if one used them in a situation that did not seem appropriate.
The worst thing in such a case would be that their effects could be reduced or negligible. So, I chose to use all nine of them. The six compost preparations were applied in the form of Barrel Compost (Thun recipe) along with BD #500, BD #501, and BD #508. I reasoned that I should commence in the evening with Barrel Compost, since the generally accepted biodynamic practice is to begin with the compost preparations. I followed the next morning with BD #508, and since I had been very much impressed with the work of Lilly Kolisko, and since I already had some on hand, I chose to use the fermented version of BD #508 as detailed in her work, Agriculture of Tomorrow. In the evening of the second day I applied the BD #500. On the morning of the third day, I sprayed the BD #501(c) which is a crystal silica material found in a matrix of rectorite, a clay-like substance. I had been experimenting with this form of #501 and had been very pleased with the results to this point, so it was an obvious choice for me.
Since I was treating hayfields, and was very interested in the water element anyway, I chose to apply the sequence in a leaf period, which turned out to be just before the full moon, on the 26th, 27th and 28th of June 1988. Sometime within the following night, we received a nice, lengthy , soaking rain which totaled around .9 of an inch.
