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  • From: Hugh Lovel <uai AT alltel.net>
  • To: bdnow AT envirolink.org, Scottandshifra AT worldnet.att.net, ladyhawk AT lcia.com, lyleb AT mindspring.com, elizbegley AT hotmail.com, vickie_george AT yahoo.com, mtnhoney AT alltel.net, jkimbr777 AT mindspring.com, mollymccoy AT mail.com, habershamgardens AT mindspring.com, rlcyl AT msn.com, barneskad AT aol.com, e_strick AT yahoo.com, cornelia_cho AT atlmug.org, julia_ochs AT bigfoot.com, jarc2 AT alltel.net, jim.curran AT juno.com, bill_pleasants AT juno.com, michellegoss AT mindspring.com, J48231 AT aol.com, prhaynes AT hotmail.com, bone AT att.com, herugo AT earthlink.net, annvance AT mindspring.com, caroline_i_widmer AT atlmug.org, tanagildea AT mindspring.com, gaiaskids AT mediaone.net, lblogan AT mindspring.com, jdew AT eventureworks.com, mozartg AT yahoo.com, rgreen22 AT pop.mindspring.com, health4U AT mindspring.com, maloneyatl AT mindspring.com, max_garcia AT mindspring.com, rieter AT bellsouth.net, Bravoembroidery AT copperhill.com, pfollette AT mindspring.com, osprey AT abraxis.com, rachel AT ga.prestige.net, jdew AT hoteltools.com, galeboy AT alltel.net, nrpc AT mindspring.com
  • Cc: sanet-mg AT ces.ncsu.edu, market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: My Trip To NZ and Australia
  • Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 05:10:33 -0400


Dear List Readers,

As you might imagine, taking three weeks off to tour Australia and New
Zealand in the middle of my season leaves me behind in many respects. Plus
we have a biodynamic conference (see bottom) coming up in two weeks. The
following is a report on my tour. It may also raise questions which might
be answered by attending our conference on Labor Day weekend here.

I might add that when I got home we were short of rain. I've treated the
farm with BD preparations--so has my assistant, Lorraine Cahill--and it is
raining as I type this. Biodynamic applications are noted for bringing rain
into drought conditions.

Here is my newsletter to my CSA coop members.

Hugh Lovel



UAI COOP NEWSLETTER--For Delivery August 26, 2000
You might guess, this is the last newsletter for a couple weeks.
Our annual biodynamic conference is here at UAI the weekend of September 1,
2, and 3. We must spread this agriculture so we see food of this quality
become the standard. We are working ourselves out of a job. How can one get
on to the next job if one does not work oneself out of one's present job?
25 years ago I got into farming as a psychologist. As both
researcher and trainer got in--as so many do--because I knew I needed help
myself. But I found both I and the clients I worked with received less
benefit than potential because no one had nutritional support to optimize
gains. So I got into agriculture to supply such nutritional support. Now 25
years later I'm an authority in growing food that supports the level of
organization we can develop in our nervous systems. I don't think there is
anything more highly developed in our workaday world as the human nervous
system.
When we want to develop big muscles we have to exercise, which
makes us breathe hard. The organizing forces for building muscles come from
air. But when we sit and think like I am doing for this newsletter we don't
breathe hard at all. If anything we breathe less, but we get hungry. As any
diabetic knows, without sufficient blood sugar the brain does not function.
We lapse into a coma and can easily die. The liver, even more than the
pancreas, regulates the blood sugar level, kind of like the lungs regulate
the blood oxygen level. When we fast we usually have to drink lots of water
to assist the liver with this chemical mission, and such fasting really
reduces fat, toning up the whole body chemistry. But the bottom line? We
eat to maintain nervous function. If we want highly organized nervous
function we must eat highly organized food.
This was my message for Australia and New Zealand. I gave 5
different two day workshops and lecture presentations at widely separated
locations. The Australian countryside was similar as well as different to
the US. In Australia's Blue Mountains there was snow. My first morning I
walked out to experience the cookaburros, cockatoos, currawongs and
laurakeetes. What birds! As I saw more I realized how rich Australia was in
warmth and light--even though I was there in winter. It showed in the
birds. I'd heard of kangaroos and koala bears, but the birds made the
deepest impression. I went to workshops in the Hunter Valley and saw John
Priestly's wonderful citrus farm where he has used winter horn clay for 8
or 9 years--a great farm near the coast. It was like Blairsville but less
than 50 miles from the sea. Then to Telegraph Point to a Master Gardener's
workshop. This was an old volcanic cone region that rose out of
Florida-like surroundings. Then we went to Dorrigo which was rolling hills
of old volcanic soil like Idaho's Palouse country--great potatoes. Then on
to Towoomba in Queensland, which was like the high plains of western
Kansas--almost like Denver Colorado. Then down to Orange, which seemed like
south Georgia. New Zealand was a water country, with steep slopes rising up
from sea level. Much more temperate with souls more relaxed and temperate
also. If I moved downunder New Zealand would be my choice. I like water.
I showed my slides and talked about how nature is meant to work. In
my back field the corn makes sugar. Corn has tiny hairs on its leaves made
of silica which act as fiber optic guides for sunlight to go right into the
photosynthetic centers in the leaves--called chloroplasts--where sunlight
is converted into sugars. My slides showed corn roots coming from above
ground aiming for the soil which were leaking droplets of sugars. In the
soil plant sugars exuded from the roots nourish microbial activity in the
near root vicinity. Ever see how much more robust two or three corn plants
are in a cluster than if planted separately? Every think why the Native
Americans planted their corn in hills? By all accounts they got top quality
without chemical inputs, and that's what I get in my corn patches on the
farm. Using biodynamic preparations I innoculate the soil with nitrogen
fixing bacteria, as well as bacteria that release mineral forms of
phosphorous and potassium. With root sugars soil microbes give back all the
nourishment needed and plants grow to their highest development. By saving
seeds this development is enhanced from generation to generation, as my
slides of a 3 year biodynamic breed of corn alongside of a 13 year
biodynamic breed showed. The 13 year breed came up better and stayed about
a foot ahead of the other in the mid growth stage despite similarity of
breeds and the same conditons and timing of planting.
One of the chief things wrong with agriculture today is the way
nitrogen is handled. Nitrogen is the basis of sense and desire in our body
chemistry. It makes all the difference in the world how nitrogen gets into
our food. Once cheap nitrogen fertilization was discovered this became the
basis for chemical agriculture. Nitrogen was dumped on the soil as salt
fertilizers and had to be processed to become food. Mostly this was the
work of a class of soil bacteria called Nitrobacters. These included many
species, especially common in the river delta soils of the cradles of
civilizations, which could free fix ntrogen from the air into amino acids,
the building blocks of protein, as long as sugars were in the soil. This
meant that if one stimulated sugar production in the leaves and the
transport of sugars into the soil, a plant can feed sugar to the soil in
exchange for nitrogen as amino acids and the whole show gets cooking like a
symphony orchestra or a rich jazz ensemble getting into the rhythm and feel
of things, trading off between major and minor players in this dance of
life.
I know we are not into the corn meal season yet. But while I was
gone I'm sure everyone had a taste of sweet corn. I know it was sweet, but
did it make eyes bright and fingers tight? As my first chemistry professor
told us starting off his second lecture, we have two of the best methods of
chemical analysis ever developed that we carry around with us at all times.
Taste and smell. If our corn and other vegetables from taste and smell
really good you can bet it's their chemistry. The more organized our food
the more it supports our function, particularly our nervous function.
People get into good food to avoid commercial poisons. And maybe
they expect better vitality in the food. But let the flavor guide you. If
food from this farm tastes really good, just figure it is worth a lot more.
Agriculture today provides cheap food, probably worth no more than you pay
for it in the supermarket. Once in a while you may luck up and get
something really flavorful at a low price. But just figure how much herbs
cost in the supermarket--priced out the roof. You get a lot more for your
money from our coop in herbs. The supermarket charges big bucks for quality
flavor, which relates to quality nutrition. Cheap food is no bargain. You
pay for it in dull thought and activity. Never mind cancer and all those
illnesses. They are for when you don't learn this all important lesson the
easy way with taste and smell.

It's good to be back home for a farm meal. There's something about this stuff.

Best,
Hugh

UAI COOP, 8475 Dockery Rd. , Blairsville, GA 30512 Ph. 706 745 6056
e-mail uai AT alltel.net
Order Form: Value Quantity
Salad Mix 3.00
Bag
Endive 2.50
Bag
Escarole
2.50 Bag
Mustard Greens (Southern Giant Curled) 2.50 Bag
Sweet Corn 3.00
1/2 dozen
Green Soybeans 5.00 Lb.
Beets 2.50
Bunch
New Red Potatoes 2.50
Lb.
New White Potatoes 2.00 Lb.
Garlic Braid 15.00 Braid
Loose Garlic 3.00
Quarter Pound
Rhubarb 2.50
Bag
Lamb's Quarters 2.50 Bag
Parsley (moss curled) 2.50 Bag
Herbs (Sage, Anise, Lovage, Chives) 3.00 Bag
Fresh Dill 2.50
Bag
Chives 2.50
Bag
Peppermint 2.50
Bag
Sage 2.50
Bag
Pickled Eggs 7.50
Quart 4.00 Pint
Eggs 3.00
Dozen 1.50 1/2 Dozen
Frozen Chicken 3.00 Lb.
Honey 3.50
1#, 6.00 2#, 20.00 Gal.
Raw Cream Cultured Butter 2.50 8
0z. Tub
Ranch Cheese 5.00 Lb.
Unrefined Salt 3.00 Lb.
(powdered. You must break this up.)




BIODYNAMIC CONFERENCE INFO:

13th Southeast Biodynamic Conference
The
Metamorphosis of Biodynamic Agriculture

Crawl like a Caterpillar
Break out like a Butterfly

Presenters will include but not be limited to

JOEY KORN, GREG WILLIS, MAZEBAH TAAHN, ADAMA MAWEJA, KARL MARET, HUGH
LOVEL, LORRAINE CAHILL

SEPTEMBER 1, 2 AND 3
YEAR 2000!

ADVANCE REGISTRATION $200 (INCLUDES MEALS)

ADDITIONAL ALL DAY WORKSHOPS:

8/31 GREG WILLIS: BD VITICULTURE
Greg LOVES insect and disease problems as they reveal our errors. When we
correct these we get truly superior results, and particularly in wine
superior results pay. Greg insists biodynamics yields more and better
production at lower cost. One of the things behind this conference is
Greg's introduction of BD horn clay. It changes everything, awakening
biodynamics from its long slumber.
9/4 JOEY KORN: IN DEPTH DOWSING
Joey works with people to access their inner spiritual guidance more fully.
This is a good starting point for putting what one learns at this
conference into practice in everyday life. Many growers use dowsing in
their work. Some have gone beyond dowsing into open-eyed clear knowing. But
no one is better to help folks step onto the path than Joey. What a way to
round out the program!

ABOUT OUR PRESENTERS

HUGH LOVEL went from a career in psychology into agriculture and sought out
biodynamics--even though he didn't know it existed--because he felt
something was missing in his practice. This was nutritional support for the
nervous system, food with integrity and strength of character.
LORRAINE CAHILL's study of energy medicine led her to agriculture. It
proved an ideal area for her development and she has pioneered working with
pattern energies, the holistic, receptive, resonant, organizational fields
around us that usually are ignored or neglected in the prevailing view of
nature and energy.
MAZEBAH TAAHN got into agriculture as a result of his studies in alchemy
and personal clarity. He takes introducing master patterns to new levels
and opens new vistas of working with our wills into what Steiner called the
"objective feeling of the world." This high level agricultural alchemy
completely changes what we think of as practical.
ADAMA MAWEJA long president of Union Agricultural Institute with her own
public radio talk show out of Atlanta, has some serious thoughts for us
about Conscious Cosmic Citizenship. Are you thinking globally while acting
locally? How could you be so pedestrian, especially in this age of
metamorphosis? It is time to think more seriously about where we are going
with all this.
KARL MARET is a scientist and an anthroposophical doctor whose interests
range from our problems in economics and agriculture to the philosophical
foundations of how we know what we know. He has a presentation that leads
us step by step into acknowledging the inherent, integral, self-reinforcing
quantum nature of living organisms and their dynamic, resonant energy
patterns. Good visuals.
JOEY KORN left an entreprenurial career in the auto parts industry and
cashed in his investments for a new career leading people up the ladder of
perceiving spiritual truths. After raising the kids he and his wife, Jill,
are able to travel and teach. You think you aren't clear seeing and you
aren't clear knowing and you can't find out anything beyond your five
senses? Joey will teach you how to dowse. He'll help you get in touch with
that silent voice within that is so faint you've long ignored, invalidated
and suppressed its knowing.
GREG WILLIS with a masters in business administration and a career in
hospital administration, turned his passionate hobby of growing things into
a career as an agricultural consultant of an entirely new breed--someone
with a healthy, positive approach to every agricultural problem of whatever
kind. Greg's introduction of BD horn clay changes everything, awakening
biodynamics from its long slumber.
ABOUT OUR CONFERENCE

This is our 13th Southeast Biodynamic Conference at UAI in the lush
Appalachian Mountains of North Georgia. Our market garden provides food
along with other BD farms, making this a wonderful food experience. There
is something about the number thirteen. As a Fibonacci Series number it
relates to organic growth and is particularly good for transformation.
Those who have been here previously will appreciate our metamorphosis.
About
Union
Agricultural
Institute

Union Agricultural Institute is a bio-dynamic research and training
farm in the Southern Appalachain Mountains of North Georgia, founded in the
mid '70s.
In the '70s and '80s biodydnamic methods and varieties were not
developed for our region. This we have done and must pass on. We emphasize
balance, diversity, with production and marketing so regeneration pays.
One of our fundamental tenets is we find out the most and prove the
worth of our methods best by relying on production rather than grants to
pay the bills.
Conventional research often ignores the value of investing in
overall environmental wholesomeness. Experiments are piecemeal and not
integrated with production.
Yet wholesome food production is as fundamental to a healthy
agriculture as it is to creating a healthy society. When food production
pays for research and environmental repair, the viability of one's methods
is assured.

Acknowledgments
This conference is sponsored jointly by Union Agricultural
Institute (UAI) and the American Biodynamic Association (ABA) with
additional support from the Josephine Porter Institute of Applied
Biodynamics (JPI).
Union Agricultural Institute Presents Its
13th Southeast Biodynamic Conference
The Metamorphosis of Biodynamic Agriculture
Crawl like a Caterpillar, Break out like a Butterfly
Labor Day Weekend, SEPTEMBER 1st, 2nd AND 3rd, YEAR 2000. $200 Advance
Reg. (Includes Meals)
Also: AUGUST 31st All Day Special Workshop with GREG WILLIS: BIODYNAMIC
VITICULTURE Advance Reg. $175.
SEPTEMBER 4th All Day Special Workshop with JOEY KORN: DOWSING and THE TREE
OF LIFE Advance Reg. $75

Conference Registration Information:
Make Checks Payable to UAI

Name________________________________________________Phone_______________________
________________________

Address_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________




City__________________________________________________State__________________Zip
__________________________

Phone________________________________________________E-mail_____________________
_________________________

Fees for Conference____________Greg Willis Workshop____________Joey Korn
Workshop____________Total____________

CAMPING AND ACCOMODATIONS:

Free primative campsites are available on a first come first served basis.
There also are places one may park an RV without hookups. If you would
prefer to stay at a motel or a bed and breakfast here are a few choices
within 15 miles or so:

El-Joe Lodge, Murphy Highway, Blairsville,
Georgia.........................................................................
.........(706) 745-6991
Milton Inn, Blue Ridge Street, Blairsville,
Georgia.........................................................................
............(706) 745-6995
1880 Victorian Inn, Town Creek Road, Blairsville,
Georgia.........................................................................
(706) 745-4786
Holiday Inn (Express), Blairsville,
Georgia.........................................................................
......................(706) 745-1560
Day's Inn, 4970 Appalachian Highway, Blue Ridge,
Georgia.......................................................................(7
06) 632-2100
Best Western, 588 Andrews Road, Murphy, North
Carolina........................................................................
(828) 837-3060
Season's Inn, Court Square, Blairsville,
Georgia.........................................................................
..............(706) 745-1631
Nottley Dam Bed & Breakfast, (across the
road)...........................................................................
...........(706) 745 7939
The Bird's Nest Bed & Breakfast, (up the
hill)...........................................................................
...............(706) 745 8202







  • My Trip To NZ and Australia, Hugh Lovel, 08/18/2000

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