Steffen Schneider
Reflections on IMA's 2019 Winter Workshop: ...

…an understanding of and feeling for belonging and right relationship to our Earth, to each other and to ourselves are at the heart of any path towards a future that brings well-being for all…

Reflections on IMA's 2019 Winter Workshop: “Belonging – Agriculture as the heart of Environmentalism”
Steffen Schneider
Soils(3) - The Soils of Place, Our Inner ...

“Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.” 
– Edward O. Wilson, 2012

Soils(3) - The Soils of Place, Our Inner Landscapes, Our Social Fields
Steffen Schneider
The “Koberwitz Impulse”—Biodynamics and the ...

Six “windows” onto the “being of agriculture” place it into the current context of time and place, and ground it ecologically, socio-economically, and spiritually. 

The “Koberwitz Impulse”—Biodynamics and the Institute for Mindful Agriculture, Part 2
Steffen Schneider
The “Koberwitz Impulse”—Biodynamics and the ...

The Internet, journals, papers, twitter and the blogosphere are overflowing with talk and conversations on agriculture and food. Since the publication of Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2006 our awareness and consciousness on food issues has reached new and amazing heights. Already in the early 2000s when the USDA invited public comments on its “Organic Rule” it received more comments than on any issue ever!  What is going on here? Why is this happening, and can we detect some underlying patterns? These questions and a few more are at the root of a new initiative: The Institute for Mindful Agriculture.

The “Koberwitz Impulse”—Biodynamics and the Institute for Mindful Agriculture, Part 1
Steffen Schneider
The 2016 Biodynamic Winter Intensive

The 2016 “Biodynamic Winter Intensive” brought 45 participants (young farmers, food activists, food distributors, landowners and other stakeholders of the agriculture-food system) from North America, Canada and the UK to Hawthorne Valley to explore how agricultural practice can become more mindful of the beautifully coordinated larger rhythms of our celestial universe – its effects on the life of plants and soils, and its earthly reflection through humans caring about food and agriculture.

The 2016 Biodynamic Winter Intensive

biodynamic

Soil Saturdays and “Encounter”

Thanks to everyone who joined us for last weekend’s Soil Saturday walk at Hawthorne Valley Farm! We’re so grateful for each person’s unique presence and what we all shared through the walk as a group. We’re looking forward to reflecting on the walk series here on the blog in November.

Soil Saturdays with the Institute for Mindful Agriculture at Hawthorne Valley Farm are immersive experiences in the sometimes hidden elements of a living farm. Soil is something that is the basis of all our food, clothing and shelter, yet many of us aren’t aware of the incredible, lively set of relationships that it is. Healthy soil sticks together. It’s a place for exchange and transformation; a medium for discovery and expression. As a society we have a fatal disconnect from the actual soil beneath our feet. We also share troubling disconnects from one another- there’s a social soil among us that we rarely see or intentionally cultivate as such. Many of us also experience disconnection from ourselves. Meditation, prayer, ceremony, celebration are designed to cultivate these connections. Soil Saturday walks are 3 hour-tours of how these three soils are interdependent and can be cultivated through holistic experience and observation.

The walks blend 3 lenses on soil and the life of the farm: biodynamic farming, exploring and observing directly through the senses, and participatory art-science projects.

These past saturdays have brought blue skys where one participant noted that the morning had the chill and aroma of fall, but summer’s intense heat still bloomed and burned by midday. Once gathered and acquainted with one another, we’re ready for a tour of the farmscape, living soil, and the many beings that make up the farm “super organism”.

One way to describe what can happen during a Soil Saturday walking tour of the farm is what David Fleming calls “encounter,” the act of recognizing the being-ness of another.

Dr. Stephan Harding, Resident Ecologist at Schumacher College shares a moment of magic in describing the idea of 'encounter'. This is a segment of the forthcoming film about the radical economist and ecologist, David Fleming, 'The Seed Beneath the Snow'.

Encountering another being in the farmscape is an opportunity to hook into a wider sense of how the lives of the farm fit together- as a “whole farm organism” and as part of the larger socio-ecological web of being.

Mindfulness as a Quality of Associative Economics

Mindfulness as a Quality of Associative Economics

...the incredible importance of “how” we choose to listen and to speak to one another...

Reflections on IMA's 2019 Winter Workshop: “Belonging – Agriculture as the heart of Environmentalism”

Reflections on IMA's 2019 Winter Workshop: “Belonging – Agriculture as the heart of Environmentalism”

…an understanding of and feeling for belonging and right relationship to our Earth, to each other and to ourselves are at the heart of any path towards a future that brings well-being for all…

Soils(3) - The Soils of Place, Our Inner Landscapes, Our Social Fields

Soils(3) - The Soils of Place, Our Inner Landscapes, Our Social Fields

“Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.” 
– Edward O. Wilson, 2012

The “Koberwitz Impulse”—Biodynamics and the Institute for Mindful Agriculture, Part 1

The “Koberwitz Impulse”—Biodynamics and the Institute for Mindful Agriculture, Part 1

The Internet, journals, papers, twitter and the blogosphere are overflowing with talk and conversations on agriculture and food. Since the publication of Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2006 our awareness and consciousness on food issues has reached new and amazing heights. Already in the early 2000s when the USDA invited public comments on its “Organic Rule” it received more comments than on any issue ever!  What is going on here? Why is this happening, and can we detect some underlying patterns? These questions and a few more are at the root of a new initiative: The Institute for Mindful Agriculture.

The 2016 Biodynamic Winter Intensive

The 2016 Biodynamic Winter Intensive

The 2016 “Biodynamic Winter Intensive” brought 45 participants (young farmers, food activists, food distributors, landowners and other stakeholders of the agriculture-food system) from North America, Canada and the UK to Hawthorne Valley to explore how agricultural practice can become more mindful of the beautifully coordinated larger rhythms of our celestial universe – its effects on the life of plants and soils, and its earthly reflection through humans caring about food and agriculture.

Uncovering a New Narrative for Agriculture: Wendell Berry and Rudolf Steiner

Uncovering a New Narrative for Agriculture: Wendell Berry and Rudolf Steiner

The basis of this article is a workshop that the authors offered at the 2014 National Biodynamic Conference, which took place in Louisville, Kentucky. The workshop was titled “The Resettling of America”. It seemed appropriate to focus on the work of Wendell Berry, whose farm is located less than 50 miles from Louisville, and whose seminal work carried the prophetic title “The Unsettling of America”. The article follows the workshop in that it compares and contrasts Rudolf Steiner and Wendell Berry who through their writings and practice have presciently postulated a similar viewpoint decades ago. Steiner and Berry’s views foresaw many of today’s individual, socio-cultural, and ecological ills particularly in their relationship to agriculture.

Growing the Next Generation of Farmers in the Hudson Valley

Growing the Next Generation of Farmers in the Hudson Valley

“The dirty secret of the food movement is that the much-celebrated small-scale farmer isn’t making a living. After the tools are put away, we head out to second and third jobs to keep our farms afloat. Ninety-one percent of all farm households rely on multiple sources of income... health care, paying for our kids’ college, preparing for retirement? Not happening...” (Sunday Review, NY Times: “Don’t Let Your Children Grow Up to Be Farmers”)

Agriculture 3.0

Agriculture 3.0

Quite some time has passed, about 15 months to be exact, since the scenario of “Agri-culture 3.0” first presented itself to me. It was then—and still is now—an on-going attempt at imagining and formulating a new narrative for agriculture. I deem such a narrative absolutely necessary in order to transform our practice and approach to agriculture in a way that it can be ready to meet the demands and the reality of the emerging future.

Impressions and Reflections of an Amazing Trip to New Zealand

Impressions and Reflections of an Amazing Trip to New Zealand

Much gratitude and many thanks for the warm welcome and the amazing and generous hospitality we experienced everywhere Rachel and I went. A resounding thanks to all of you that made this trip possible! So many memories and reflections still reverberate, it will take some time to fully “digest” and internalize them. But let me offer a few thoughts that keep coming up now that we have returned to Hawthorne Valley Farm.

Mindful Agriculture

Mindful Agriculture

Why “Mindful Agriculture”? Do we really need another designation for agriculture, you might ask yourself? That is a fair question to arise after encountering the website of this new initiative at Hawthorne Valley Farm. Especially after you see we already have a confusing plethora of descriptive adjectives to distinguish various forms of farming and agriculture. 

The Haber-Bosch Process

The Haber-Bosch Process

Michael Pollan in his seminal book on the current food and agriculture system in the United States, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, paraphrases Vaclav Smil in describing the roles of nitrogen and carbon in the natural world. He states, “nitrogen is supplying life’s quality, while carbon provides the quantity” (Pollan, 2006).