About 30 folks met over the weekend for a fabulous Farm Day at the Zinniker’s. After much chill & rain it was a glorious afternoon. We noticed a big change when we arrived because Ruby the old mean farm dog didn’t come barking.  Petra said she had just recently gone into the group soul; & even though she only loved Mark & scorned the rest of us, she was sorely missed. The Zinnikers have a new 4 month old blue healer named Pepper, who has the opposite temperament, all sweetness – totally laid back for a puppy.

Many friends that I haven’t seen since the last farm day came & it was great to catch up. Amy Grau, is a wise heart-force in action. Connecting over the state of the world was affirming & brought a true Christic outlook to life for me. Angie Curtes came out from her farm in West Bend where she manages her family’s 80- acre Organic Certified farm, featuring a heat-controlled biodynamic compost system which lies at the heart of the farm, resulting in her business Grounded LLC where she grows medicinal crops for animal & human well-being, including Alfalfa-Grass Hay, Echinacea purpurea (Purple Cone Flower), & cannabidiol (CBD)-rich Industrial Cannabis Sativa Hemp.  GROUNDED also sells compost & offers large & small scale compost workshops.  We are going to have her come out with a truck load of compost that we can sell thru the Branch & the Christian Community as a fund raiser. There is something about Angie that lights up my heart. Every time I see her, which isn’t often enough, I feel a deep love & connection, which is rare for me.

Walter Goldstein of the Mandaamin Institute lives around the corner with his wife Benta. “Mandaamin” means Corn Spirit, in the native Algonquian language. Walter has been breeding corn in Wisconsin since 2011. This name is perfect since he uses ancient varieties of grain to enhance the quality & sustainability of modern corn crops.

To start, as folks trickled in, they found us picking the oak bark prep 505 out of the cow skulls. Oak bark is placed in the skull & left in water over winter. It helps pull the earthly forces back into the soil, when the water activity is working too strongly, like after too much rain, or at Full Moon.  It also helps protect against fungal diseases.  It helps the vegetation maintain its true archetypal form.  It adds calcium & phosphorus into the soil in a living form. The transformed plant material was lighter in color than usual; Mark thinks it’s because it has been a dry year.

Then we made our way thru the fields to that magic spot on the land where the cow horns are buried. Many shovels gingerly dug in, to unearth the 60 or so horns. This year they had a reddish color. The 500 Horn manure prep works on root development, giving vitality to the formative forces of the plants, promoting growth. The micro-life in the soil is activated, boosting the Ego component of the plants.

Next we made a parade thru the fields to another magic spot where we buried the 503 last September – the cow intestines filled with chamomile. This prep helps retain the nitrogen & calcium in the soil. It strengthens the plant’s regenerative life. It also stimulates manganese & boron, & acts on bringing in the good bacteria for nitrogen fixation in the soil.

The march continued to the 3^rd spot where the 506 prep is buried – the mesentery (a huge the piece that joins part of the small intestine to the back wall of the abdomen of the cow) stuffed with dandelion flowers. (Petra said the only way they could get the butcher to save the mesentery for them was to call it by its culinary name ‘lace fat’. It is used especially in French cooking to wrap around a roast to let the fat in it baste the meat.) This prep stimulates the potassium & silica bacteria in the soil to enable it to work more effectively with the growth forces.  Silica makes the plants more sensitive.  It can help increase flowering & the filling out of the fruit. It brings nourishing qualities & also stimulates the magnesium, boron & selenium in the soil.

We took all these treasures back, & then emptied the cow horns. The kids loved tapping the horns & pulling out the rich substance. After this joyful labor we laid out the potluck feast – a little bit of everything, including, of course, Zinniker pot roast, homemade bread & fresh rhubarb crisp.

Tim Zinniker always makes the perfect bonfire. And this time instead of drums we brought the Maypole that Elizabeth & David Dorn gave us, & Elizabeth Kelly led us in a wonderful weaving Maypole dance, while Ultra-Violet & Lucien sang.

As twilight was coloring up the sky many families bid farewell. But I won’t leave until I go sing for the cows. So some of us took a hike to the back pastures where the herd was gathered for the night. This is my favorite part of being on the farm, communing with these majestic animals. As soon as they see us they come over to say hello. They especially loved when Lucien played his beautiful wood flute; they all stopped & starred. It was astonishing to observe their rapt attention & calm reverent stillness.

Pepper the new blue healer was running after the cows, barking & trying to nip a few that were curious & wanted to make friends. He played with one of the young bulls nose to nose for a long time. Mark shaking his head saying the pup has a lot to learn about herding & being a farm dog.

The twilight lingered & the painted sky was a thrilling display revealing the essence of the Ascension. What a blessing to be on that sacred land to experience this seasonal energy. We all lingered, hugging goodbye many times before we actually hit the road, making our way back to the city…

We’ll be back next week for the egg run. God Bless the Zinnikers & all the creatures big & small that they support.

xox

~hag

Here’s the link to last nights ALL REGIONS WHITSUN offering

30 May 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Tau Herculid meteor shower is expected to peak tonight & tomorrow morning. This brings to mind the labors of Hercules who is upside down in the heavens right now. Today is also New Moon stationed at the knee of Hercules.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) The Gospel of St. John, Lecture 10, THE EFFECT OF THE CHRIST IMPULSE WITHIN HUMANKIND. Lecture 11, The Christian Initiation 30 May 1908

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, The Present Age magazine, Wikipedia Commons)

1431 – Deathday of Joan of Arc, French martyr & saint, burnt at the stake by the British under Duke of Bedford.

1593 – Deathday of Christopher Marlowe, English poet & playwright

1672 – Birthday of Peter the Great Czar of Russia.  He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist & medieval political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, based on The Enlightenment.

1778 – Deathday of Voltaire, French philosopher & author. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as being a former pupil of the mysteries in Karmic Relationships Vol. 2.

1806 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel

1935 – Deathday of Daniel Nicol Dunlop , a Scottish entrepreneur, founder of the World Power Conference & other associations, a theosophist-turned-anthroposophist. Thought to have been a Templar in a former life. Dunlop saw Rudolf Steiner for the first time when he was still General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, both of them expressed their intimate spiritual connection &respect for one another.  Dunlop started the anthroposophical “Human Freedom Group & anthroposophical Summer Schools. In 1928 he organized the first & only World Conference on Anthroposophy & in 1929 he was elected General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain. He had a deep friendship with Eleanor Merry, who supported his work, especially after the death of his own wife, Eleanor in 1932. As a result of conflicts & power struggles within the General Anthroposophical Society, leading to its splintering in April 1935, Dunlop was expelled together with a number of other leading members. He died shortly afterwards of an appendicitis. Dunlop enlisted the help of fellow anthroposophist Walter Johannes Stein in the hope of founding a World Economic Organization, but his death prevented this.

1936 – Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz resigns from the General Anthroposophical Society on the 1 year anniversary of his friend D.N. Dunlop’s death, in protest after many of his contemporizes were expelled from the Society.

1937 – Memorial Day massacre: Chicago police shoot & kill 10 labor demonstrators

1989 –The 33-foot high “Goddess of Democracy” statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators