Overview of Seminar by Enzo Nastati in Kentucky
Starting on October 18, 2013, Enzo Nastati presented a five-day seminar on Homeodynamics at Foxhollow Farm in Kentucky. This program was one of two given by Nastati in the United States that month. As a researcher, practitioner and teacher, Nastati’s mission was to introduce a few key aspects of his agricultural work to North American biodynamic farmers and educators. Paul Salanki from Loon Song on Manitoulin Island attended the Kentucky seminar. On January 18 and March 12, 2014, Salanki delivered presentations summarizing Nastati’s discourse to two groups of biodynamic farmers here in Ontario. The following is a brief overview of key points from Salanki’s talks.
Daily Format of the Nastati Seminar
After decades of learning and research, Enzo Nastati brought a wealth of experience and understanding to these lectures in North America. With a strong background in esoteric sciences, sacred architecture, homeopathy and agriculture, as well as many years of study of the works of Rudolf Steiner, Nastati was eager to share his thinking on many levels.
Salanki and other participants had been invited to bring questions to this seminar. The focus of the talks was based partially on these queries. Daily lectures went from 9 to noon, followed by lunch with the formal program resuming at 1:30 and running until supper at 5. Evening discussions were of a spiritual nature.
Being non-conversant in English, Nastati spoke through an interpreter. Accordingly, the discourse proceeded at a slower pace; however, given the complexity and newness of these teachings, these delays facilitated the assimilation process on the part of the participants.
Moving Forward from 1924
When Rudolf Steiner was first asked to give a course on agriculture, he had envisioned giving three sets of lectures. Unfortunately, he only completed the first set of eight lectures before his health declined and he crossed over to the other side in 1925. Based on his extensive study of Steiner’s Occult Science and many other lecture series, Enzo Nastati has attempted to take Steiner’s work further and develop what these missing lectures might have contained.
Moreover, critical influences such as electromagnetic frequencies, radioactive pollution, genetically modified organisms, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer runoff, industrial waste, significant variations in weather patterns and increased susceptibility to invading species and diseases were not as present in 1924 to the degree that they are with us today. Nastati feels that this post-industrial shift calls for greater resiliency and protection of plant, animal and human beings and a consequent shift in biodynamic agricultural techniques.
The Cosmic-Earth Connection
 Nastati follows Steiner’s emphasis that the cosmos and the Earth are mediated by the role of the individual. Our goal as humans is to increase this capacity to know, to understand and to create a greater sense of harmony and balance.
The Egyptian goddess, Nut, goddess of the stars and the cosmos, is the root of the words “nutrition” and “nutrients.” The current use of these words is focused mainly on the physical; we have lost focus of their deeper meaning. Both Nastati and Steiner emphasize that nutrition means something coming not from us, but from the cosmos.
Biodynamic farmers look out to the cosmos as a source of nutrition. In Nastati’s words, “We look beyond the physical limitations. Some might say this is impossible. Yet working with preparations, making preps enables us to connect to higher powers.”
Preparation Making
Lecture seven in Steiner’s Agricultural Course gives details about making Horn Manure and Horn Silica preparations, which according to Nastati, are a form of spiritual science. Horn Manure (BD500) aids the Earthbound energies, that is, it can be used just before planting seed in the ground to help strengthen these formative forces. Horn Silica (BD501) assists the cosmic or skybound energies.
In Kentucky, Nastati gave specific directions when making up these two preparations into liquid sprays. This information is clearly presented in his book, Growing in Drylands with the Homeopathic Method.
For best results, those living in the Northern Hemisphere were advised to first stir the Horn Manure preparation counterclockwise to add increased vigour and growth to the plants, while the Horn Silica preparation should be first stirred clockwise. For practitioners living in the Southern Hemisphere, the initial stirring is reversed: the Horn Manure preparation is first stirred clockwise while the Horn Silica is first stirred counterclockwise. Thus, the directional instruction for making the Horn Silica preparation spray coincides with the direction that the planets and stars appear to move in the sky based upon one’s position on Earth.
Homeodynamic Preparations
Given the challenges in modern farming compared to how things were in Steiner’s time some 90 years ago, stronger, more highly energized preparations are needed to deter these forces. Nastati and his research colleagues have introduced methods that transform the preparations into more highly energized ones. In particular, they have spent many years testing the efficacy of further diluting the standard biodynamic preparations before spraying them on the land and on the plants.
This dilution schedule is based on homeopathic principles found in alternative medicine. One basic principle in homeopathy is “The more dilute, the more powerful.”
These tools developed by Nastati have produced remarkable results, including better quality, enhanced flavour, increased storage life and nutritional value. In terms of quantity, Nastati notes that there are increased yields due among other things to a better adaptation of these plants to unfavourable climactic conditions.
In summary, Enzo Nastati believes that the agricultural teachings by Rudolf Steiner are preliminary steps. We must go beyond what we already know and seek new ways to bring greater harmony and balance to the land, the plants and the animals. Further reading of books and lectures by Enzo Nastati are available on the Mark Moodie Publications website.
“The Earth must be considered to be much more than a base on which to grow crops, a substratum that often hinders our work, hosting various weeds and pests. The Earth is a living being, a mother that fondly and generously grants us her fruits, a creature that must maintain a proper equilibrium in order to survive―one that we are destabilising through chemical agriculture and pollution.” — Excerpt from the Foreward of Homeodynamic Cultivation Handbook by Enzo Nastati
Article written by Rosemary Tayler, 2015
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The ancients selected the division of 360 degrees for a specific reason. (Observe the outer ring of this complex Ying-Yang Chart having specifically 360 divisions). The factors of the number 36 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 18, 36 indicating that it has an unusually large range of divisors and therefore more friends with other numbers. All these numbers divide neatly into 36 and compared to other numbers upon examination, it is high on the scale of divisibility.
