Evening lecture and half Day Seminar with Karsten Massei.
Friday evening July 17th - Noon July 18th
(photo: Katherine Deal)
Join the Institute for Mindful Agriculture for a tour of the invisible farm. As spring turns to summer, we'll use our senses to explore the -sometimes hidden- relationships between the soil, plants, animals, elements, seasons that make up the life of the farm.
Tentatively scheduled. Check back for details as public health awareness becomes clear.
Join the Institute for Mindful Agriculture for a tour of the invisible farm. As spring turns to summer, we'll use our senses to explore the -sometimes hidden- relationships between the soil, plants, animals, elements, seasons that make up the life of the farm.
This walk is part of a full day event with Y on Earth.
Tentatively scheduled. Check back for details as public health awareness becomes more clear.
Please check with Farmscape Ecology Program directly for program updates as public health awareness becomes clear.
Please join ecologists from the Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program for a leisurely walk to observe the spring flora in the floodplain forest of the Agawamuck Creek and along the forested slopes of Phudd Hill. Learn how to identify some of our common and not-so-common spring ephemerals, observe their insect visitors, and hear their lore. Participation is free, but space is limited. Please register with Claudia (fep@hawthornevalleyfarm.org or 518-672-7994). Plan to stay a while after the walk to watch the students dance around the may pole at the May Day Celebration of Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School.
Join the Institute for Mindful Agriculture for a tour of the invisible farm. As spring turns to summer, we'll use our senses to explore the -sometimes hidden- relationships between the soil, plants, animals, elements, seasons that make up the life of the farm.
Tentatively scheduled. Check in for details as public health awareness becomes clearer.
Gidon Eshel
AgroEcology and Feeding Ourselves: Tensions, Promises and Future Potential
Hawthorne Valley and the Institute for Mindful Agriculture presents a public talk by Gidon Eshel, Research Professor, Environmental and Urban Studies at Bard College. Agroecology offers examples of solutions to the related crises of climate, soil, food, and health in many localities, but can it offer solutions at the global scale? Considering planetary boundaries such as erosion, topsoil loss and land degradation, how do we scale up local, ecologically minded agriculture? How do we think about the basic conundrum of finite land with rising population and standards of living? Taking the Northeast as a case study, could we feed ourselves while tending to the resilience of climate, soil, food and our own health?
Respondent: Will Brinton, soil scientist and founder Woods End Laboratories
Location: Hawthorne Valley School, music room
Time: 7 pm
Cost: Donations Welcome
The answers to the crisis of climate change, food sovereignty, health, and well-being are all rooted in SOIL. The Institute for Mindful Agriculture presents a winter workshop with soil scientist Will Brinton of Woods End Laboratories and Gidon Eshel, Research Professor, Environmental and Urban Studies at Bard College. This interactive and experiential gathering at Hawthorne Valley Farm dives into the many different yet interconnected strands of soil health including physical, biological, and spiritual. What's soil got to do with it? Everything!
Friday, February 21 - Sunday, February 23, 2020
Fee: Sliding scale from $200 to $100 (contact us at ima@hawthornevalley.org for fee reduction if necessary)
Food: Fee includes Saturday dinner.
Lodging: Up to the participant.
Will Brinton
The Mirror Crack’d: Climate, Soil, Food, Health
Hawthorne Valley and the Institute for Mindful Agriculture present a public talk by Will Brinton, soil scientist and founder of Woods End Laboratories. The mirror is broken, how do we connect climate, soil, food, and health? Exploring the nature of soils through the 12 orders of soils, geology, geography, plant life, and agriculture, this talk considers what soil is, how we study it, and whether how we work with it as farmers, gardeners, scientists, and inhabitants of Earth connects with the health of our climate, food, and selves.
Respondent: Gidon Eshel, Research Professor, Environmental and Urban Studies at Bard College
Location: Hawthorne Valley School, music room
Time: 7 pm
Cost: Donations Welcome
Are you in search of new markets? Are you considering wholesale channels such as food hubs, grocery stores, schools, restaurants, and cooperatives?
Treat yourself to a holistic training that offers strategies and skill-building for successfully entering wholesale markets with special consideration toward participants’ overall comfort and well-being. Join the Cornell Small Farms Program’s Baskets to Pallets project in a warm, light-filled space for learning, feasting, fellowship, and a walk on the farm.
This training takes place on February 19, 2020, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at Hawthorne Valley Farm in Ghent, NY. At only $35.00, local-foods breakfast and lunch are included with the training. You can bring a second representative from your farm organization for free. We are able to welcome up to 40 participants.
NYS Military Veterans are eligible for up to a $100 reimbursement for this event to cover registration and travel expenses. Contact Dean Koyanagi at drk5@cornell.edu for details.
Learning throughout the day will include:
Food & Market Trends
Evaluating Market Channels
Relationships with Buyers
Communicating an Authentic Message
Sell Sheets
Cooperative and Collaborative Marketing
Value Chain Cooperative Panel
We also invite you to join up to 20 of your peers after the training, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. for a separate conversation hosted by the “Be Well Farming” project.
The project will treat you to a local foods appetizer banquet and social followed by a reflective conversation about how well-being, equity/fairness, and connection to community play out on your farm and in your life. In gratitude for your thoughts, we will offer a cash gift to each participant. To stay for the focus group, please register separately or contact Violet Stone at vws7@cornell.edu or 607-255-9227. For more info on the “Be Well Farming” project, read the project’s introductory blog post “Caring for Your Farm’s Greatest Asset.“
About Our Hosts
Hawthorne Valley Farm is a 900-acre Demeter-certified Biodynamic® farm. The farm produces 14 acres of vegetables and 60 acres of grain. They milk 65 cows and raise beef, pigs and broiler chickens. Their products supply the Waldorf School , their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and their Greenmarket and Farmers Market booths in New York City & the Hudson Valley. They operate an on-site creamery, bakery, and wholesale fermented and meat products through New York and western New England.
The Institute for Mindful Agriculture, based at Hawthorne Valley Farm, offers programs designed to repair the ecological, social, and spiritual disconnection in food and farming.
Menus, Catered by Simon’s Catering
Breakfast
Local Goat Cheese & Mushroom Quiche with flaky pie crust, local eggs, spinach, and caramelized onions
Freshly Baked Currant Scones
Local Pork Breakfast Sausage Links
Fruit Platter
Tierra Farm Coffee, Tea & Juice
Lunch
Chicken Marbella braised in white wine with prunes and green olives
Stuffed Delicata Squash with wild and basmati rice, local shiitake and oyster mushrooms
Wild Hive local white beans, onions, roasted garlic, and lots of fresh herbs
Quinoa and French Lentil Salad with roasted local sweet potatoes, pecans, and Samascott’s apples
Mixed Local Green Salad with shaved fennel, roasted local beets, and toasted pepitas with red wine vinaigrette on the side
Flourless Chocolate Cake with chocolate ganache and fresh whipped local cream
“Be Well Farming” Focus Group Appetizer & Social
Charcuterie Platter with local cured meats and cheeses, dried fruits, fresh fruit, olives, pickled veggies, house-made beer mustard, water crackers, and crostinis
Hawthorne Valley Plain and Maple Yogurt served with house-made granola
Violet is the coordinator of the Baskets to Pallets project, which seeks to prepare small and mid-sized farmers to enter intermediated market channels such as food hubs, groceries, schools and cooperatives. She also serves as the NY SARE Coordinator and can help farmers and educators navigate NESARE grant opportunities.
Our interactions with nature will become ever healthier, and support a productive co-evolution of humanity with the natural world, when they are based on a deeper understanding of nature. Can we truly see and experience nature as dynamic, interconnected and whole? That is an underlying question that will inform the week’s activities. The work will include careful sensory observation and just as careful attention to how we think about and judge the phenomena we are observing. Themes of the work will include:
Earth, water, air and warmth
Practical exercises and observations to understand these essential qualities that inform all life on earth.
Plant study
Metamorphosis; plant life forms—from annuals to perennials; domestication characteristics of food plants; assessing quality through our senses.
“…we want to begin a dialogue around agriculture in our region and discuss the opportunities and challenges we face as a group.”
Finding the Spirit in Agriculture There is a growing desire to find ways which expand the purely material approach to the world. The spiritual orientation of biodynamic agriculture arouses the interest of increasing numbers of people. At a first glance there seems to be little in common between a quest for the spiritual dimension and practical agriculture. However, when we are dealing with the real experience of the spiritual in the world, this always requires the whole human being. The conference will show how integrating the spiritual aspect is helpful in understanding our current situation and how it can assist us in our practical work. This spiritual approach can be particularly beneficial for the major challenges of our time. For instance, in understanding and getting to grips with the environmental changes (climate crises, loss of biodiversity, etc.), for the encounter with the virtual and digital world, and also for the difficulties in working together in the social setting. Biodynamic agriculture has developed into a global movement, bringing it into contact with different spiritual movements. The Agricultural Conference 2020 offers an opportunity to become receptive to others and develop a mutual understanding. Inspiring impulses and diverse spiritual exercise paths help us in a very practical way to act independently and responsibly in agriculture. The presentations will deal with different facets of a modern approach to spirituality in agriculture. The 3-day workshops offer the opportunity to discover new approaches and exercise paths and to deepen our knowledge of current topics. Music, artistic workshops, guided tours in and around the Goetheanum and an exhibition all help to bring the spiritual aspect alive. We invite all friends of the biodynamic movement to join us in “Finding the spirit in agriculture” and creating a special conference together!
Jean-Michel Florin & Ueli Hurter
This field day is hosted by the Institute for Mindful Agriculture as part of the 2019 Biodynamic Conference in Lake George, NY. Our focus will be on describing our efforts over the years of “social soil building” in conjunction with the direct agricultural work. The day will begin at Hawthorne Valley Farm. We will have a tour of the farm and campus and then describe in more detail the history of the CSA, our internal food value chain, and the evolution of our management structure. Before we’ll travel to Hudson, NY we’ll have lunch at our Farmstore. In Hudson, we will visit Farm Ferments (a pioneering fermented vegetable production at scale) and the Rolling Grocer 19 (a new and innovative food equity project to benefit farmers and consumers in Columbia County). Both projects are collaborations that originated with Hawthorne Valley and attempt to address two of the most important challenges facing Biodynamics today. How do we answer the calls for food justice and how can we bring Biodynamics to scale responsibly?
Join us for a tour of the invisible farm at Hawthorne Valley. Tuning into our senses, we'll explore soil, plants, animals, the seasons, and other -sometimes hidden- elements that make up a farm’s life.
This is a hands-on, in-the-muck walk. Dress for comfort in the outdoors.
Soil Saturdays are August 31, September 28, October 26 10 am - 1 pm at Hawthorne Valley Farm.
Each sessions stands on its own, but we welcome you to experience all three as summer turns to fall.
Soil Saturdays are free, but space is limited. Please register with Jill at jill.jakimetz@gmail.com.
See the full Register Star article on Rolling Grocer19’s new, stationary, location. For more news on this evolving prototype for good food access for all across Columbia County, stay tuned.
The project is a partnership with eaters and citizens of the City of Hudson and Columbia County, NY, Institute for Mindful Agriculture, Long Table Harvest, Hawthorne Valley, and the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation.
The root cause of environmental problems is human estrangement from nature—humans feeling that we are not part of nature. How do we experience belonging and not belonging on the land, in the market, at the table?
"Wie gross oder klein soll der landwirtschaftliche Betrieb sein? / How big or small should the farm be?”
Join IMA co-director, Steffen Schneider at the 2019 International Annual Conference of the Biodynamic Movement, Switzerland, for a workshop with Thomas Harttung exploring farm scale in the regenerative economy.
More about the conference below. For a full program and to register, click here.
Join IMA at the 2019 Northern Plains Food and Farming Conference in Fargo, North Dakota. January 24-26.
Rachel and Steffen Schneider, Co-Directors of the Institute for Mindful Agriculture, keynote along with Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns.
Join IMA at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York’s “Climate of Change” 2019 Winter Conference. January 18-20, 2019.
Join IMA at the 2018 Biodynamic Conference in Portland, Oregon. Transforming the Heart of Agriculture: Soil, Justice, Regeneration. November 14-17.
Can the Northeast feed itself? If so, should it? At what environmental or other costs/benefits? Join biodynamic farmer and IMA Director, Steffen Schneider for the discussion at the Montgomery Place 2018 Salon Series on Agriculture.
We make wholesome food available to everyone in Columbia County. Rolling Grocer 19 increases health and collective well-being by bringing a full-service grocery store directly to consumers.
Rolling Grocer 19 is a new and innovative food equity project to benefit farmers and consumers in Columbia County. It is a fair and convenient way to purchase a variety of food year-round that offers a range of minimally processed foods to meet the tastes and needs of all people living in the county.
45 Likes, 0 Comments - Rolling Grocer 19 (@rolling_grocer_19) on Instagram: "@perfecttenhudson showed up ❤️"
Join IMA at Hawthorne Valley's Farmscape Ecology Program (FEP) Spring Open House for a "soil tasting" party on Thursday, May 3, 6-8pm at the Creekhouse (1075 Harlemville Road, Ghent NY, just up the road from the Hawthorne Valley Farm Store).
Led by IMA researcher and local artist Jill Jakimetz, we’ll celebrate the soil that sustains our daily lives, and those of plants and animals around us, by taking a deep sensory dive into a banquet of 8 distinct soils collected here at Hawthorne Valley. Your soil tasting notes will also help inform FEP's habitat field guide project. Join us for a "soil tasting" banquet, real (finger) food dinner and conversation!
The Institute for Mindful Agriculture (IMA) will host The Next Step: Biodynamics as a Science of Initiation; The Evolution of Form with Enzo Nastati and Frank Chester, in collaboration with Steiner Books and the Biodynamic Association as part of the SteinerBooks Spiritual Research Seminar series.
“The stated primary aim of [Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on Agriculture] was to address three problems that had often been brought to [his] attention: the degeneration of plants; the diminishing nutritional value of food; the lowering fertility of farm animals. One can experience a certain wry amusement to think that these were pressing concerns in the 1920s, when we would now be happy to have those plants and their nutritional value. Evidently, however, there were already early signs of a situation that was destined to worsen dramatically to the point that, in our opinion, it is now no longer remediable with the methods of organic farming alone.”
Enzo Nastati, Commentary on Dr. Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course
As we approach the third decade of the twenty-first century, the call to Do Something to Save the Earth is more urgent now than ever before. That is, if we can even hear it. The distractions of twenty-first century life multiply, while the human tendency—admirable and necessary in some respects—to accept “the way things are” with equanimity is presenting humanity and the living Earth with the most serious crisis of action either has ever known.
To love the Earth and humanity is to recognize that “the way things are” has to be remedied; and, considered broadly, we are running late in so doing. But only fully-conscious human beings can affect the necessary remediation; can offer Mother Earth the proper medicine.
To begin, the first thing that has to change is our thinking.
What, then, comes next?
This year’s SteinerBooks Spiritual Research Seminar will present (in special collaboration with the Biodynamic Association and The Institute for Mindful Agriculture) two individuals who point the way forward with accomplishments born of their own research. Enzo Nastati and Frank Chester are exemplary not only for translating the insights of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science into fruitful, positive deeds in the world, but also in picking up and carrying those insights further. We hope and expect that this weekend will inspire others to do the same.
Speakers:
Enzo Nastati is the principle director of The Eureka Institute in Italy. He has been a biodynamic farmer for over forty years, and understands, from a deep and dedicated study of Rudolf Steiner’s work, that the biodynamic agricultural method was always intended to be developed and fortified to meet changing demands over time. Mr. Nastati’s work has been recognized around the world where he lectures, consults, and conducts continuing research. Thirty-two years ago, spurred by his observations of extreme decrease in plant vitality immediately following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in April 1986, he began researching and developing preparations and application techniques to further meet the demands of our time. His work addresses the difficulties presented by electromagnetic fields, radioactive pollution, industrial pollution, water quality deterioration, GMOs, and other harmful effects of modern technology.
Frank Chester is an artist, sculptor, and geometrician, who lives in San Francisco. He taught art for more than thirty years in high schools and colleges. Since encountering the work of Rudolf Steiner, Frank has been exploring the relation between form and spirit. In 2000, Frank discovered a new geometric form never seen before. Putting this form through the alchemical transformative process of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, many previously unknown geometric structures have emerged. This geometric form demonstrates a remarkable correlation to the form and functioning of the human heart. On the basis of experimentation with various related geometric forms and the movement of water in a vortex, Frank is uncovering indications concerning the relationship between etheric formative forces and the geometry, structure, and physiology of the human heart.
DATE: March 6 - March 8, 2018
Schedule:
Friday, March 16
6:15 pm On-site registration and check-ins
7:00 pm Opening greetings and introductions (Gene Gollogly)
7:15 pm The task of biodynamics in the evolution of the Earth (Enzo Nastati**)
Saturday, March 17
9:00 am How to develop the impulses given by Rudolf Steiner in Koberwitz (Enzo Nastati)
10:30 am (Break)
11:00 am How to stimulate new qualities and resistance in plants and animals I (Enzo Nastati)
12:30 pm (Lunch)
2:00 pm How to stimulate new qualities and resistance in plants and animals II (Enzo Nastati)
3:30 pm (Break)
4:00 pm New plants and new machines (Enzo Nastati)
5:30 pm (Dinner)
7:00 pm Evolution and form (Frank Chester)
Sunday, March 18
9:00 am How to grow plants in difficult environments (Enzo Nastati)
10:30 am (Break)
11:00 am Setting up an evolutionary agricultural organism (Enzo Nastati)
12:30 pm (Lunch)
2:00 pm Form and evolution: The science of the future (Frank Chester)
3:30 pm Biodynamics as the science of initiation (Enzo Nastati)
*Note 1: Monday Morning, March 19, participants are invited to join Enzo Nastati and Steffen Schneider (Director of the Institute for Mindful Agriculture and longtime farm manager of Hawthorne Valley Farm) for a walking tour of Hawthorne Valley Farm and a discussion afterward. (The exact time for the tour to be determined.)
**Note 2: Enzo Nastati will deliver his presentations in Italian; these will be translated in segments by a professional translator highly experienced in working in this manner with Mr. Nastati.
Cost: $200
Location: Hawthorne Valley Farm, a 500-acre biodynamic farm located at 327 County Route 21C Ghent, NY 12075. We will meet in the Community Hall of the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School, across the street from the farm.
Getting there: There is no public transportation to the farm so arrangements must be made privately. The closest airport is Albany International (ALB), approximately 45 minutes away by car; Hudson, NY (approximately 20 minutes by car) is serviced by Amtrak; MetroNorth commuter train service stops at Wassaic, NY (45 minutes by car).
Meals: The Hawthorne Valley Farm Store Cafe provides reasonably priced all-organic breakfast, lunch, and dinner (until 6:30 pm). The Farm Store is open from 7:30 am to 7 pm, seven days a week.
Lodging: A list of accommodations near Hawthorne Valley can be found here:https://hawthornevalley.org/contact/accommodations/
Registering: <https://steinerbooks.regfox.com/2018-spiritual-research-seminar>
Check by mail to:
SteinerBooks, “ATTN: Seminar”, 610 Main Street, Great Barrington, MA 01230
(please include your name, address, phone number, and email address)
Credit card over the phone:
413-528-8233, ext. 4, during regular business hours
In-person beginning at 6:15 pm on Friday, March 16
CONNECTING TO THE SOIL, SELF AND THE ECONOMY
The Institute for Mindful Agriculture invites you to the AUTUMN MODULE of its SEASONAL FOUNDATION PROGRAM October 27th/5pm through October 29th/1pm at Hawthorne Valley Farm
If we treated our friends the way we, as people, treat the Earth, our friends would never talk to us again. Across the globe we exploit our planet in the most destructive way on a daily basis- and still expect her to produce our food, give us nourishing spaces to explore, be our home.
If you think the time has come to make a difference, if you want to enhance your ability to be a change agent, if you want to learn something about yourself and work with others who are deeply committed to honoring the Earth and all that live there, please join us for a weekend at Hawthorne Valley Farm.
The Institute for Mindful Agriculture is committed to helping all of us improve our relationship with our home planet. By looking critically and deeply at ourselves and our relationship to the Earth through the lens of food and farming we can unlock our individual and collective capacities for transformational change.
During our Autumn Module we will dig deeper into the dynamic interdependence of Soil, Self and Economy through immersion in autumn's gestures of setting seed, anchoring the future life of the seed within the earth, and the dissolving of life above ground. Activities will include:
This workshop is part of a series of four, but can be taken individually as well. The costs for the weekend are on a sliding scale of $500-$250 including two dinners, one lunch and snacks. Further reduction of fees is possible upon request. Please contact Rachel Schneider to register or for more information: rachel@hawthornevalleyfarm.org
Hawthorne Valley Farm is a biodynamic farm and food business as well as our learning lab for examining the co-evolutionary relationship between human beings and our Earth. As a working farm it shows us how agriculture and the food system play an important role in restoring a healthy and mindful relationship to our planet.
REIGNITING THE RESONANCE BETWEEN HUMAN BEINGS AND THE EARTH
The Institute for Mindful Agriculture offers a place-based 15- day transformational program unfolding over 12 months throughout the 4 seasons within four 3- day workshops (Spring 2017 – Winter 2018) at Hawthorne Valley Farm. The program brings together stakeholders from all over the agriculture and food system, engaged eaters and others who consider themselves pilgrims and pioneers of a newly emerging narrative of agriculture and a caring food economy. The goal is to create opportunity for individual and collective spiritual and social development by looking deeply into the earth-rhythms of nature and presencing its implications for the renewal of the agricultural food system.
The IMA Foundation Course has a transformational intention: to facilitate re-connection to inner experience, life processes of the earth and the big challenges of our time towards re-imaging ourselves as human beings in our next evolutionary step and its implications for prosperity and right livelihood.
The full cycle of 4 workshops is based on the methodologies of Theory U ( Otto Scharmer), mindfulness and social engaged Buddhism (Thich Nhat Thanh), the anthroposophical cosmology of Rudolf Steiner, the nature work of Joanna Macy, the “Gross National Happiness” work of Bhutan, experiential learning approaches from Waldorf Education, Theory U, positive psychology, Goethean phenomenology and mindfulness practice. Knowledge on content themes will be derived from leading thinkers, researchers and practitioners.
The overall 1-year-process moves through the earth-to-earth cycle of nature as a master model for the renewal of the agriculture and food towards a collaborative earth-to-earth production, distribution and consumption organism.
Workshops Dates:
5/12/17 - 5/14/17
8/4/17 - 8/6/17
10/27/17 - 10/29/17
2/2/18 - 2/4/18
For more information and to register, contact Rachel@hawthornevalleyfarm.org
Animals and Humans, Evolution and Biodynamics
Lecture presented by Jean-Paul Courtens, Jack Algiere and Steffen Schneider as part of the 2016 Young Farmers Conference at Stone Barns.
Lecture presented by Steffen Schneider as part of the 2016 Young Farmers Conference at Stone Barns.
