Earthing: A Biodynamic Gardening Novel

By Kaye Groves

This easy read book will delight readers of all ages with gardening insights and a basic understanding of biodynamic agriculture.

When Kali escapes abusive situations to find herself in a contemporary Australian coastal town, she meets an elderly woman, Ada. As the mystery around her evolves both women find support and inspiration to endure and transcend depressive problems typical of their age. Ada’s grief is compounded by an ecological accident to her bush regeneration efforts. A cast of interesting characters assist the development of the plot as they grow to understand their own relationship issues.

This is a book of inspiring humanity and practical advice for growing nutritious food from organic and biodynamic perspectives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Jul 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781504318464

Kaye Groves

Kaye Groves is a first time author. After experiencing five decades of organic home food production, two decades of participating in a local biodynamic group and one decade involved with a local community garden she felt that writing this story could empower aspiring and experienced gardeners with a holistic appreciation of both food production and elemental influences. Kaye attributes her love of the land to time spent as a child living on a farm in country Victoria, to bush regeneration efforts and to the growing understanding of her connection with nature. [e-mail]

Book preview

Chapter 1

42428.png I n a time between autumn and winter and in a state somewhere between acceptance and despair, Ada watched the early morning light silhouette the branches of a liquidambar tree. Raindrops shone silver like distant stars on the outer twigs. Magenta, orange and brown leaves flagged the sky, remembering summer. With a cup of hot water warming her time worn hands she sat at her kitchen table, sipping slowly. Tea towels hung drying with bunches of basil, oregano, sage, nettle and thyme. An old style combustion oven crackled and puffed smoke as the fire warmed.

Life had changed radically for Ada and her husband Rollo after the global financial disaster of 2008. His acceptance of an early retirement package helped equip their house with sustainable power and water systems. A new lifetime of working together in the garden and orchard soon brought health and happiness. Those years had been some of the happiest of their long life together, blissfully happy until the most radical change of all; Rollo’s death.

She smiled as tiny blue wrens splashed and played in the overflow from last night’s rain. Winter in the subtropics of Australia’s eastern seaboard was often troubled by water shortages but here at ‘Happy Hill’ huge storage tanks nourished luxurious gardens and filled many baths for tired bodies.

As her morning coffee began to simmer on the hot plate, she remembered Rollo struggling to put ‘the monster,’ as he called it, into place. If it hadn’t been for the help of the young people living in the old farm house next door he never would have managed to install it. Now they were gone, the classic farm house demolished and what remained of Rollo’s wood heap was being used very carefully. She closed the flu to conserve fuel and moved the percolator aside. The cruel irony of life being somehow similar but yet so astoundingly different since his death was striking painfully.

Oh how she missed his warm body, his smiling eyes, the stoop of his back and perhaps most of all, his contagious laughter. The past two years had been a slow and sad recovery to accepting reality. Rollo’s cancer struck hard and fast, relentless to the end. Who could have guessed that within six months he would be gone from the physical world and his body contained in a small ceramic jar.

Ah my darling, she spoke with passion. How is your astral world today? Is it cold in winter without your body or do you lie around on cosmic carpets of sun and starlight? Do you travel through time or are you nowhere or everywhere at once? Will you wait two or three decades if it takes me that long to get where you’ve gone or are you where you want to be, completely gone from this world? I still feel you so close, especially in autumn and winter. Am I a part of your world or is it just that you are a part of mine? Attempting to suppress her reverie and the reality of her loneliness she rose and made coffee. Suddenly another possibility flashed to consciousness and she asked aloud, Is this suffering because of my loss or is it sadness for you no longer enjoying life?

Returning to the table she collapsed, resting her head on folded arms. Lately it had seemed in this child-like surrendered position as if there was someone there to care for her and somehow it felt safe to let her feelings flow free. Minutes passed until whimpering and scratching at the back door meant the pup was back. Ada rose to let him in.

You crazy little pup! What manner of madness was it that inspired Annie to burden me with a bundle of trouble like you? The pup’s big brown eyes looked quizzically at her for a moment before wagging its tail and prancing around her feet. Ada commanded him to sit and when he did she lovingly cradled him into her arms. I think I’ll call you Pup. I’m the boss around here and you are just going to have to watch me eat this pawpaw for breakfast before I feed you. She released him from his morning cuddle and he pounced on his op shop teddy bear.

Ada took a pawpaw from the shelf where it sat with several unripe fruits. Hungry bats made sure that tree-ripened fruit disappeared quickly. Choosing the best fruit and leaving others as a sacrificial offering seemed a more harmonious existence than the random gun pellet firing one of her neighbours used to claim his kiwi fruit crop. He had brought her a bag of fruit last year when he called by to announce that now the noise disturbance would be used to replace poison used previously. Ada replied that perhaps she could compensate the disturbance to her peace with the knowledge that little pollinating creatures were no longer being cruelly poisoned. Wealthy and used to throwing his weight around he had shrugged his shoulders implying that it was his personal right to manage his crop however it suited him. For the sake of being a peaceful neighbour Ada restrained herself from insisting that a crop without heart wasn’t much good at all. He left uncertain that the noise of his random gun fire would not be publicly objected to by the eccentric elderly lady who lived in the hippie house over the hill. She had remained sitting at the table wondering if sharing or netting or sensor lighting or electronic frequency modulation might deter the bats, until the myriad of possible reactions to her new neighbour swamped her reality completely and she decided for the sake of peace to let go of judgement, to be patient and to accept the reality of things being the way they were.

Now more than a year later she sat and slowly enjoyed the fruit from her own home-grown tree. When the plate was empty she straightened her back and breathed gently until a flood of gratitude washed away the painful state of wanting life to be different. A gasp of relief escaped and Pup responded, prancing about her legs.

All right! Let’s go and have some fun. If we don’t pick the peas no one else will. That’s for sure. Pulling on her denim jacket and once fashionable felt hat they left the kitchen and did not hear the phone ringing a few minutes later.

Chapter 2

42428.png N ot far down the road an angry outburst caused a small flock of wrens to seek refuge in a nearby lilly-pilly bush.

Curses, where is that woman! The coffee was still too hot and burnt his mouth before it splashed onto the marble bench top. He had meant to phone days ago. He tried again but there was no answer. Future events would have him wishing he had at least left a message but he banged down the receiver in exasperation and dialled the local hotel.

Hi Bob, James here. Would you tell Jake, the young man in room eight that I agree. As predicted conditions seem good enough. I would like to get the job done today. Thank you.

Chapter 3

42428.png B ees buzzed around marigold and nasturtium flowers as Ada and Pup ambled along the paths of fallowing summer garden beds. She stopped to admire her winter flowering magnolia tree and noticed many bees laden with pollen. Their buzzing harmony elevated her mood and she walked on happily to the snow pea beds. It was here as her feeling of peace became sublime that she put down her basket and sat on the grass path.

Fairies of gardens and forests, gnomes of the earth, sylphs of the air, sprites and undines of water and salamanders of fire had visited her childhood world with their magical beings, but now she was beginning to understand them in an inter-connected elemental way and their magic breathed life into everyday reality. The biodynamic philosophy of gardening with its perception of plant germination, growth, fertilisation, fruition, seed formation and decay involving nature beings from the elements of water, earth, fire and air were deeply fascinating to a soul that felt Spirit profoundly but was unable to surrender to religious belief.

A bee landed on a purple pea flower, its leg sacks full of golden pollen. Perhaps it was the intensity of colour in contrast to the surrounding many shades of green or perhaps it was an intensity sharpened by the contrast of being absolutely minuscule in a panoramic setting but those tiny leg sacks shone brightly, spotlighted and centre-stage.

Little buzzy bee being, said Ada as she sat on the soft grass path, do you know that each particle of pollen you carry could be an airship enabling fire spirits to carry enlivening warmth to the ovule? The male gametes you bring to the stigma on top of the pistil which extends from the ovary of the flower, somehow gets to meet up with female gametes and the seeds within the ovary become fertile.

Ada stretched her legs, absentmindedly did a few ankle rotations, picked a pea then continued her monologue.

And do you know that the famous clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner together with his poet hero Goethe, believed plant fertilisation actually occurs deep within mother earth and not in fact in the ovary of the flower? If this is true, the plant receives the fertilisation impulse from the pollen of the flowering process and sends the message down to its roots below and it is there the actual consummation takes place, before the impulse is sent to the ovary. Amazing aye!

After thoughtfully chewing the pea and enjoying the illusion of timelessness, she picked another and continued.

Of course there are many different types of fertilisation, just as there are many different types of plants. When the wind, birds, insects or animals transport the pollen this is known as cross fertilisation but some plants can reproduce asexually simply by runners, tubers or root-stock.

Suddenly she laughed, spluttering and spitting a half chewed snow pea in an effort not to choke. Somehow she seemed to have slipped from reality. The sparkling trees, plants and grass were acknowledging that they too shared her consciousness and that beyond the myriad shapes of form bound in time they were all part of the one energy. Ada knelt then rolled into a foetal position in an effort to follow a compulsive sensibility.

Lying on the sun warmed mulch of the garden path she became aware not only of the supportive quality of the earth but of the vast expanse below. Random thoughts concerning its complexity flashed through her mind. Remembering Rudolf Steiner’s concept of the gnome earth elemental beings ingesting the quality of warmth from above ground by signals emanating from the roots of plants, it seemed possible this process might be a determining factor in the impulse of flower or fruit to form as well as influencing the quality of seed. It seemed to Ada the fairy tales of gnomes below the ground fashioning treasures to return to the world above was somehow analogous. She laughed as she imagined a gnome offering her a huge purple amethyst jewel.

Strangely her outburst of amusement seemed profane. Shocked into a different sensibility she sought again the vision, feeling simultaneously apologetic, curious and thankful. There he was, with his arms outstretched, large brown gnarled hands dwarfed by the size and splendour of magnificent sparkling crystals. That is so beautiful! she found herself murmuring. Feelings of gratitude swept her into an ocean of love and she sobbed involuntarily as she felt herself washed by wave after wave of resonating ecstasy. It was almost too much. Somehow she sensed that if she did not reclaim her consciousness it would move off into the astral region and her body would be left to rot back into the earth. It was sobering and saddening to choose to leave. She reached back into the dream-like state; or was she drawn? There, seeming to anchor her soul, were gnomes, huge, hooded and compelling her with infinitely compassionate eyes. They were turning from her, their crystal teardrops unmistakably signalling sorrow. A myriad of glittering crystals swirled in a vortex around her. Seconds or minutes later Ada realised she had rolled onto her back, that the morning sun was now blinding her and this was no place for an elderly lady who wanted to retain her sensibilities.

Still consumed by ecstasy she again rolled to a feotal position telling herself that it was okay, that there was no pain, that she was not dying; it was just that something was knocking on her doors of perception and if she could remain still for a few more minutes she would be able to focus and open the door to see what it was.

Who could say how long it was before she half murmured, half thought, Heck Hecate, this is not getting the peas picked. Just a few more deep breaths and I’ll open my eyes.

Feeling relaxed and strangely amused by her eccentricity she slowly opened her eyes and looked across the thinly spread mulch to the base of a pea vine. It was then, just as she felt she was waking to consciousness that her grasp on reality really began to lose its grip. The earth was moving and a piece of straw right in front of her nose was wobbling. Slowly and with the stealthy determination of a cat about to leap, she sat upright, intently focused on the moving patch of earth. Peripheral vision revealed all as normal. In the cold logical reductionist scientific reality of everyday life a huge shiny beetle was emerging from its earthly hibernation.

To the awe struck wonderment of a mature woman having an epiphany, the joy of the confirmation of the inclusive oneness of life was thrilling. As she watched the beetle’s magnificent jewelled body enter the sunlight she sobbed, she laughed and she gasped as a deep knowing coursed through her veins. It wasn’t as if cosmic answers were flooding into deep gaps of uncertainty, it was more a profound confirmation of the connectivity of life and consciousness that moved her so deeply. Two minutes later the beetle was fully emerged, shining rainbow colours iridescent in the sunlight and for one fleeting instant Ada thought it looked directly at her.

Blessed little beetle, she sighed. Are you the jewel of the gnome? Are you bearing confirmation of Earth’s mysteries? It’s amazing how much love and admiration I feel for you. I feel like you have just been born into the world and I’ve just been born into the consciousness of the Earth. In fact I feel wonderful, full of wonder, my being strangely solid and at the same time full of light. Is this like reclaiming my instinctive clairvoyance, the lost human quality Steiner spoke of? Ah who cares, she mumbled as she nimbly rose to her feet. Life feels so precious! Gratitude rules! Thank you little beetle. Bless You!

A wave of love coursed through her being. The vision of the gnome raising a crystal as an offering, the emergence of the beetle and the lightness of her body as she rose, combined with the levity of her spirit suddenly wove into another astounding epiphany.

Why not! she gasped. Nothing really exists without its opposite. Those grumpy, fairy-tale gnomes, as guardians of underground treasures might have a reasonable reason for being unhappy about treasures being taken from the earth. If in the river of time down there they decide what goes up and what stays down, it’s quite possible that the elemental force we have at times referred to as gnomes, has the power to levitate energy back to the surface. In this context, Steiner’s concept that fertilisation happens within the womb of mother earth also seems possible. After the pollen contacts the stigma an energetic or a chemical signal could go underground. The more masculine energies of air and warmth would help the energy descend to where the meeting of the more feminine water and earth elements would complete the fertilisation and assist it to ascend. And, she said as she replaced her hat back on her head, there is also the daily rhythm of Earth’s in and out breathing to carry these ascending and descending rhythms as well."

The sun had now evaporated the morning dew and Ada realised she needed to finish picking the peas before they lost their morning fresh crispness. As she moved along the rows harvesting and noticing every new tendril and flower, the idea of life being an interconnected energetic web was totally thrilling. Certainly the flower might attract the insect to bring in the pollen capsule, but that didn’t have to be the actual place for the fertilisation impulse to happen. Life was so complex and meaningful anything seemed possible. The peas were picked in what seemed to be no time at all.

Ada spent the rest of the day in quiet contemplation.

Chapter 4

42428.png T he following day dawned bright and sunny. Rain was forecast by mid-afternoon and so Ada took the opportunity to weed and mulch an area that had remained fallow over summer. By now the peas planted in February were blossoming and in the fullness of their abundance. Peas planted more recently would be producing as these plants were finishing their life cycle.

It took only half an hour to harvest a large bag of fresh pods. An hour later they were being driven to a local shop where Ada was able to sell her produce. As usual she shopped for a week’s supplies, shared a few brief conversations and bought two large slices of chocolate cake to share with a friend she often visited on the way home.

A surprising sight greeted her as she returned to the ute. Pup was jumping around a young woman who was lying flat on her back on the mostly dirt nature strip beside the car park. Panicked, she whistled then called. Little ears pricked up and Pup ran, bounding into Ada’s arms.

The girl sat up, blinking and squinting. Ada took the opportunity to put Pup safely back into the car. Returning to the young woman she realised she was eclipsed by the setting sun and so moved closer.

Why did you take my pup out of the car? It wasn’t like the windows were up or it was hot or anything!

I know, I’m sorry. I just wanted to cuddle her. She’s so cute.

Was she drunk or drugged, Ada wondered. The girl was beginning to lie down again and as she turned her back a hellfire tattoo showed above her jeans. Bits of leaf and grass were caught up in her dread-locked hair and a large bruise on her upper arm shone purple and yellow.

With Pup’s head happily panting out of the car window and with her fright settling, Ada saw how useless anger would be. She turned to the girl who was now tucking a jumper under her head and curling into a feotal position.

Listen, I’ll drive you home.

My heart’s here and here I am, said the girl distractedly.

Looks like you need some menstrual gear, replied Ada as she noticed a large flow of blood staining the crutch of her jeans.

That’s just what’s left of my baby, was the strained reply. After a few seconds Ada knelt down beside the now sobbing body.

Look maybe you should go to hospital. I’ll drive you there, or I’ll drive you home. Where can I take you?

Is there a refuge around here?

I don’t know of one, replied the older woman as she stood aside for several school children to pass. Feeling uncomfortably helpless and realising the young woman had no home to go to, she was surprised to hear herself make an impulsive offer. Would you come home with me for a night or two?

Their eyes met for the first time and Ada had the impression of being a life-buoy in a heaving ocean.

Thank you, was the simple response, and with weak unsteady movements she rose to her feet trying at the same time to stuff the jumper into her cloth shoulder bag. Thank you, that would be very helpful.

Ada was stunned. She opened the door, reached behind the seat and pulled out an old hessian grain sack.

Here, sit on this, and Pup, over there!

Ada realised she would not be visiting her friend. Life seemed to be entering another zone as the car carefully entered the late afternoon shopping traffic. It was a relief to see the girl had the presence of mind to have buckled her seat belt, but her jumper had fallen to the floor and her head seemed to be riding separately to her body. A wave of worry washed over Ada.

Look, the local hospital is quite good. I’d be happy to pay for a day or so. It’s not far from here.

You are kind, but please no! I just need to rest. I won’t be any trouble.

Bangles clacked and tinkled as her long slender arm reached down and retrieved the fallen item. Ada felt reassured. Decisions could be made in the morning and for now at least the girl was not coming to any more harm.

I’m Ada, she offered.

I’m Kali, answered the girl, and I’m thankful.

Twenty minutes passed in silence and Ada sensed her passenger pass in and out of consciousness. It was a relief when as they turned into the driveway Kali exclaimed, Oh what a beautiful tree! A smile cracked across Ada’s weather-beaten face for she and the tree knew each other well. Over the years and especially since Rollo had gone from her daily life, the great Moreton-Bay fig tree had been the bearer of many secrets and a great source of inspiration and strength.

I love this tree too and I’ll tell you a secret. If you hug it, it returns your love in great waves and if you sit on its great buttress roots for even just five minutes, birds flit, swoop and hop around.

Kali was still looking up into the tree when Ada opened the door for her. The birds that had silenced their evening choir, watched as the sprightly old lady and the young girl almost bent double, walked slowly up the path. When the door closed and the petrol fumes cleared, magpies poured song into the reddening western glow, wrens twittered and a few minutes later a kookaburra family had the final say; their raucous laughter seeming to fill a crack between day and night.

Chapter 5

42428.png T he coffee was brewed to perfection, the stock market report reassuring and the early morning sunshine warm on his back as James sat out on his eastern deck. It had taken many years of high powered shaky and sometimes shady business arrangements to negotiate himself into his tree-change. Two marriage burnouts had added a hefty handicap financially, emotionally and geographically. It was a huge relief to be able to salvage enough assets from his marriage settlement and early retirement package to buy a run-down dairy farm previously occupied for nearly ten years by local hippies and surfers. The first thing he did on the property was hire an excavator to push over the old farm house, the cow bales, sheds and the pig sty. Two weeks and many litres of fuel later there remained only a charred heap of ash and twisted roofing iron. A week later the same driver returned to push it down into a lantana weed infested gully. Rebuilding with the help of a ‘mate’ who needed to park some of his money, was a satisfying and empowering way to enter a new community. Life was pleasantly simple now employing just one farm worker. Sipping his second cup of coffee and waiting for young Pete to turn up was an enjoyable way to start the day.

Frenetic salsa tones and the mobile set on vibrator now twisting around the glass topped table were not a welcome interruption.

Yes, was the curt greeting followed by What! followed a few seconds later in a loud and furious voice by, Well why did you let the bloody load go? Idiot! I can hardly believe anyone could do something as blatantly careless and stupid as that. What strength was it? Where exactly?

Swear words spat vehemently from a reddening face. There was no goodbye. James picked up his coffee cup and threw it. The curses that followed startled the birds into silence. The morning tranquillity was now replaced by anxious pacing up and down the deck accompanied by loud swearing.

Ten minutes later a slightly battered white ute, with a surf board occy-strapped over a folded towel on the tailgate, crunched up the driveway. Out jumped a tall, muscular young man. His hair was still wet from the morning surf.

Hey! What’s up old man?

More swearing was the answer he heard as he leapt up onto the deck.

That stupid idiot young pilot assured me he knew what he was doing and now he’s dropped half the bloody load on the health resort and the other bloody half on the old hippie witch’s place.

Half each?

Any amount is as good as a downpour to them! They have been nothing but trouble since they dumped that eyesore of a building in the middle of the best grazing paddock around here.

Pete was a man of few words, not because he didn’t think about things but mostly because he saw so many different points of view he was never sure where to begin. At this moment he was amused by James’ noble pretence of caring about the loss of good grazing country. He knew he was merely repeating the words of his pub mates; the elderly dairy and cattle farmers who sat at the end of the bar clasping their amber ales in calloused hands.

And, continued James, add to that all the greeny idiots they’ve sucked up to for their land care grants. Regeneration, my arse! And now Ada the only neighbour I haven’t had issues with! Now I’ll have to deal with her greeny hippie intellectual bullshit.

A loud outburst of James’ favourite oaths startled the rosellas out of the grevillea shrubs. Their raucous screeching seemed to put him back into sensibility.

Well at least he didn’t have the cheek to ask for the rest of the payment. He laughed ironically. Hey I’ll brew another coffee before we start work.

Pete sat back on the sun warmed cushions of a teak deck chair and looked to the distant ocean. He genuinely liked James and over the past two years they had shared many laughs together. It was disturbing to see him so troubled. Suddenly another disturbing realisation surged like sewerage into reality. Claudie, his girlfriend was employed by the resort. She loved her job and would definitely be angry about the weedicide pollution. So too would many of their friends who had gathered a few months ago to protest a coastal land development. Pete remembered James’ angry condemnation of the event and knew that he would again be ridiculed as a greeny if he sympathised with the offended neighbours.

Loyalties equated to social capital locally, and with the subdivision developer disease of the past decade Pete had learned the art of silence. It was silently therefore that he recalled meeting the young agricultural pilot in the pub a few weeks ago. Young and not being a local he had been eager to impress. As they quickly became new, best drinking mates he let it be known he had a contract in the area that would only take a day or so, that he was needing more flying hours for a more permanent job he was applying for and that he was offering half price rates for weed control. Pete was impressed by the generosity of the offer and also by the prospect of not having to carry the heavy backpack of weedicide chemicals along the steep banana hillsides. Not only was this exhausting but the early work starts, to avoid the heat of the day, meant there was less time for a morning surf. He had encouraged James to go for the one-off discounted expense which would give the weeds a thorough knock back. When James agreed to the pilot’s arrangements Pete was obviously very happy.

The morning’s contentment began to ebb away as a cold slime of guilt slowly surged into consciousness. There was no doubt about it; he was partly responsible for the mess his boss was in.

This isn’t a bloody restaurant y’know, yelled James.

I’m there boss! was the reply as he sprang to his feet.

Inside the huge kitchen opening out onto the deck, the marble topped bench was littered with fast food packaging and the rest of the room was a matching mess. They carried their mugs of coffee back outside. James lit a cigarette and Pete adjusted his chair not to be downwind.

Don’t tell me you’re going chemically sensitive on me, was the gruff response.

No boss it’s just since I gave up the bad smoke I hate the smell of it in the morning. By mid-morning I’m okay.

I don’t think that girlfriend of yours is much good for you. He was about to continue his manly advice when several loud swear words spoken with much angst, stopped him in his tracks. What’s up? he asked, genuinely concerned.

Claudie, oh Claudie! Just when we were getting back together it’s going to be war again.

She’s high maintenance that one and you haven’t got her trained at all.

Ignoring James’ chauvinism Pete continued, It’s not only that all her favourite people work at the resort, she’s in the land care group with your old neighbour and both of them object to the way the group uses weedicide chemicals. They’re the greenies of the greenies mate.

You never told me she was friends with the old witch, was James’ indignant reply.

Well she’s not friends. They just both believe that using poisons creates more problems than its worth.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. James stubbed his cigarette, picked up his mug and announced, I’ll give the old witch a call later. Our boundary fence needs work. Maybe I could offer it as compensation.

That might get you off the hook. I’ll try taking Claudie out for dinner, but that will only be the start of it.

"Good luck! My first wife would have demanded a