- Editor: Stephen Crimi
- Available in: Paperback | 270 Pages
- ISBN: 9780981575735
Alan Chadwick’s Alchemical Horticulture
English-born Alan Chadwick was considered by E. F. Schumacher to be the greatest gardener in America. Chadwick was an early force in the reintroduction of organics into horticulture, creating gardens of exquisite beauty and fertility in the 60’s and 70’s. He restored ancient methods of fully conscious gardening, which were originally alchemical.
Through his deep connection to Nature, coupled with his tutorship under Rudolf Steiner and studies in some of the great gardens of Europe, Chadwick developed what he called the ‘biodynamic French intensive system’. In these lyrical talks, transcribed from taped lectures given to his students, the practical aspects of gardening, such as composting, irrigation, seeds, raised beds and bloom, are shown to have a spiritual substratum.
Chadwick was a practicing Shakespearian actor, a painter, a musician, a mythologist and a storyteller, and brought all these parts of himself into the creation of what he considered the greatest art: becoming a simple gardener. These inspired transmissions from Alan Chadwick bring the reader closer to the living presence of Nature.
Talks on the Biodynamic French Intensive System
“Gardening, for Chadwick, is first and foremost an arena for transformations. Transformation is the dream and the duty of the alchemist. The alchemist is servant of the coming dawn who labors to hasten the day when man ends his sojourn of folly and returns to Paradise renewed. It is a noble theoria that Chadwick has and it is perfectly wed to his extraordinary command of horticultural technique. The horticulture of Alan Chadwick speaks for itself. It is an eminently rational, logical, clean system of high yielding optimum organic gardening of unsurpassed simplicity and productivity. It is also an expression of a sublime vision coming out of a deep and ancient tradition of which this man of the soil was an unlikely representative.”
-From the Introduction by Dr. Rodney Blackhirst
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction by Dr. Rodney Blackhirst
The Proscenium Arch by Stephen Crimi
Nature’s Medicine Chest
Everything is Governed by an Invisible Law
Bloom and Area of Discontinuity
Intellect, Reason and Idée
Seed: The Utmost Idée/The Least Metamorphosis
Composting
Energies and Elements
The King of the Golden River
Ley Crops
Irrigation
Raised Beds
Fertility/Merchant and Seer
Art
The Garden as the Mirror of Man
History of Herbs
Energy, Color, Herbs
Annotated Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Praise for Reverence, Obedience and the Invisible in the Garden:
I feel sad when I think how I could have met this beautiful wizard of plants, but didn’t know Alan Chadwick was there to meet. But at least these years later, it’s as if he’s sitting right here addressing this crazy lost time, his implacable hopeful blast of the do-ability of peace as a thing of living through plants sprouting inside us as a great medicine.
If you are already a plant person you probably know Alan Chadwick and will love this book.If you aren’t you’d better read Reverence, Obedience and the Invisible in the Garden.
— Martín Prechtel, author of The Unlikely Peace at Cuchumaquic: The Parallel Lives of People as Plants: Keeping the Seeds Alive
A magnificent work from one of the plant geniuses of our time. Essential reading for all who want to deepen their relationship with plants and the Earth.
— Stephen Harrod Buhner, author of The Secret Teachings of Plants and Ensouling Language
Alan Chadwick demands rigorous thinking while, at the same time, offering to his readers and students an invitation to enter a world that we might call fanciful but which is real enough to result in the most inspiring gardens imaginable. Reverence, Obedience and the Invisible in the Garden is an essential book for the gardener and plant person of any stripe, to be read, savored, and read again.
— Deborah Madison, author of Kitchen Literacy and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
We can be inspired even now, upon reading these lectures, by the work of this great man. And in some small way, we may bring his inspiration into our own lives, so that we live not merely for our temporal selves. We can become in tune with the infinite, and bring the blessings of Eternity into earth existence. In so doing we bless and uplift the Earth planet, and ensure its future.
— Dan McGuire, Retired Horticulturalist and Beekeeper