Vitvan for Wimps

Periodically I am inspired to make further commentary upon the charade that is Home Farm and School of the Natural Order, as presented by School Arbiter Marj Coffman, and coming-soon-to-theaters near you, Lynne Hoffman. These are the chief resident “scholars” who assume their filtered version of Vitvan is an accurate representation of what he was actually after.

How appropriate that Marj leads a class called Yoga For Wimps. This really nails the level of instruction she provides in her guise as school marm. In looking back at what must be the focal point of infection that lead to this current decline, it always comes back to Marj Coffman. The envious and sour Marj.

When I first returned to SNO in 2000 I worked hard to be on the team. Marj would happily sneer at the memory of her ex-husband Fred Hess (whom Vitvan considered a possible successor); she mocked John Gozzi (whom Vitvan considered a possible successor); she had bad things to say about Anita, who actually was the successor. And then Jim Dalton "who edited the frequency out of Vitvan's words." She was insulting towards John Sheppard who for more than 30 years had lived at Home Farm, quietly working in the background. All Marj could remember was a distorted view of him as a young man who seduced girls in his orchard trailer. Oh Marj, who so wished to be hip she painted her house in day glow colors, but couldn't get past the fact that young girls and boys just wanted to have some fun twenty years earlier. Here it was two decades later and still these Calvinist uptight judgments gnawed at her mind. Do you know that twice Vitvan send her away from his school, but she crept back in to get her revenge at last. To be the one who controlled the Message of Vitvan.

The core of Vitvan's work is the inner work of what he calls the First Crossing, defined as "bringing up the entire content of the subconscious into conscious awareness." What SNO offers now is NO help in this process because the leaders will not seriously undertake it in themselves. They think that continuously repeating Vitvan's EXOteric work, words, words and more words, is actually carrying out his mission. It's not.

One woman who suffered lifelong depression from repeated childhood abuse finally found relief through sessions with an African shaman using Iboga, the ancient sacred medicine of the Pygmies. When she told Marj that her depression was cured, that she no longer needed bio-identical hormones for menopause, and other remarkable turn-arounds, and wanted to share her story at class, Marj said "No one here would be interested in that."

Can you believe the ignorance of this woman Marj Coffman? What does she think Vitvan's work is really about? It's certainly not about Marj's watered down elementary school marm version. The lack of empathy and understanding of what the entire First Crossing is about is monumental on the part of this poseur.

It was Marj who went along with every bad decision the Board made, while complaining that "they" were too strong for her. It was Marj who said SNO couldn't survive without Susan Wetmore, the girl-woman who has offended more students and residents than anyone else.

Perhaps even Vitvan needed his Judas to steer the ship onto the rocks, so that possibly it might be rebuilt anew one day. But how? Enough students who have lived there and know the inside story have seen the shit they dealt. Susan Wetmore perjured herself in court at an eviction hearing which was in itself an insult to Due Process. The current Board has no scruples when they want to bully to protect their little cult.

Lame duck president of SNO Pat Murray is making a quick exit. He and the Diva of Despondency his spouse Jane are leaving. Why would they give up their plush home they sunk so much money into? Could it be that No Hurry Murray can't take all the physical chores that devolve on him now that SNO has lost its best contractor builders? Or could it be he's aware that SNO has been turned into the Dept. of Ag. for their fraudulent application for a Water Grant; a probe which is not yet closed?

Another insider student repeated to me recently his observations and theory that the real focal infection has been Jane Murray all along. Jane doesn't like Vitvan, she even says she is NOT a student of him. She and her Pollyanna friends tried to edit the Vitvan tapes and remove his occasionally mild salty language. Fortunately this assault on historical verity by the PC police failed.  But as long as she lived there, she would inject her neurotic bile into the stream. When she leaves her lapdog Wetmore will be directionless.  

Next up is the ambitious Lynne Hoffman, the new president. Lynne is so proud and vain she never asks for help. She always says "she can do it all." I guess that's why she still can't resize images or make the SNO website look like anything other than an Excel spreadsheet with boxes. Luckily the majority of the work done by this author still remains.

At the 2014 seminar, Lynne was asked if she understood that it was important to repair the rift with the students who have distanced themselves from SNO, and she said she did. But since Lynne is one of the chief rift-makers, how is this possible? The vanity, insularity, and arrogance of these people is such that they refused to meet in mediation, or discuss any issue. They would surely loose an open discussion if their actions and justifications were compared to Vitvan's instructions for community. No, I cannot see them apologizing, or admitting that they started this war., And so, a smiley face will continue in denial.

In despair over the injustice that has overtaken Vitvan's school, I once threw the I Ching for advice. The oracle reported

SPLITTING APART. IT does not further one 
 To go anywhere.

Inferior people are on the rise and stealthily begin their destructive 
burrowing from below in order to undermine the place where the superior 
man rests. Those followers of the ruler who remain loyal are destroyed by 
slander and intrigue. The situation bodes disaster, yet there is nothing to do 
but wait.

And so, those who have left this sinking ship can best support the Spirit of Vitvan by further inner work upon themselves. I'm sure the intelligent reader will not miss the irony that if Susan or Lynne of Marj were to throw such an I Ching, they would be sure that the "inferior" peoples are the ones they have bullied and harassed and driven out of the school! 

Now in the 2014 “Seminar” I see “students” will be treated to stories about the Dweller on the Threshold, armchair tales with pretty pictures to sooth them into thinking they have actually learned something beyond the psychic symbolism of roadmap pabulum.

What is then the Dweller on the Threshold? When one embraces the Level II of Vitvan’s teaching, the Purificatory Process where one actually cultivates bringing up material from the subconscious, rather than SNO-ozing as goes on in Sunday tape class, they begin to encounter what Vitvan calls the “jackasses and peacocks” of the hidden psyche, the dirty laundry, the embarrassing sexual thoughts, in fact, the feeling that one is too often a puppet jerked around by the “formative forces.” When the Fire of the Cathartic Process in kindled, there will be dark and scary shadows projected from the psyche. How many embrace this Process?

This mask or persona we wear and defend increasingly is seen as programmed behavior, or as St. Paul says “...I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” [Romans 7:24]

In this part of the Process we see more and more that we have had less and less “control” all along, that we did “A” when the Power-to-be-Conscious (P2BC) said “jump to A” and then “B” when IT commanded “now you grow into B.” All along our egos thought it was our practice, our “raising of the forces,” our insights, our plans to co-operate with “evolution” that were bringing about the changes. Oh foolish students, small eddies sidetracked in the Torrent of the Tao, teeny leaves on Giant Trees in a Cosmic Forest, how unimportant your efforts.

As Vitvan once said about the relationship of our Higher Selves and this little private world bubble of the personality, “It’s not that your Higher Self doesn’t care about your private world, It doesn’t even know it exists.”

 And so, what I have to say about the Dweller, or any approach to it, this zone of dissolution in which the proud ego not only lays down and dies, but is pummeled down until it shuts the fuck up, is that these encounters are often of FEAR. Fear of losing control, of your extinction, that there is no future for you, no future for you to design and hold visions of. 

And you can count on the fact that part of the pummeling will be at the hands of those Sweetness & Lighters who now denounce you and your efforts to see clear and cross the Wilderness.  . http://www.vitvan.com/dedication.htm

There is a reason it is said one should “fear the Lord.” Those who have glimpses of this Greater Power are “full of awe,” and it is because that Power is AWE-FUL. It will bring no comfort to your vanity; in fact IT will make you miserable as you are defeated, deflated and delaminated layer by layer.

Our earth cultures are at the historical crossroads where we are increasingly away that we, semi-conscious that we are, are being PENETRATED by an Alien Mind. Perhaps we always have been. Whether we call this a "higher Self" or "the Elders," the hallmark of such is that IT is of a level of consciousness on a more cohesive level of Field awareness which demands that we surrender to IT. Phrases like "God moves in mysterious ways," or "It is the Will of God" acknowledge that unfolding events often do not support our little self-serving purposes.

Some say the Alien Mind has always been with us; that we are hybrids. Or, that aspects of cosmos called the Archons, seemingly unempathic and antipathetic to human emotions, have invaded us like an infection. Are the mounting blunders of human civilization that have led us to the crises we face now worldwide the outcome of intrinsic flaws in our characters, magnified over time? Or have we left the "natural order" because our innate "goodness" has been corrupted by these invaders? 

Can we even hope to step outside the bubble of our conditioned personalities thru ecstatic means, to hopefully get a glimpse and to find guidance?

It seems to me also a hallmark of the "enlightened states" that they are more detached from personal emotion, compassion being a caring for a larger state of identity, the welfare of humanity. Is there really such an abstraction? Isn't this kind of surrender also capable of becoming on the Dark Side, an "obedience to the State," fascism by way of spirituality? A hive mind? It may not be such a bad thing if we lose some of our "humanity" which needs to mature beyond the "it's-all-about-me" stage. If the time has come for earthlings to join a larger galactic community of the "higher Selves," we may have little choice indeed as to the outcome of being penetrated by the Alien Mind.  Something has to mature in humanity or get fixed for us to move to the next level.

Who in their right mind would embrace this Process? We will all go kicking and screaming when the time comes, but no man knows at what time the Lord will come in. But once this has started its transition in you, then you will know Fear again and again as your private world is undone. And you will slowly learn to embrace it, reluctantly trusting it as there is no turning back once the flame is kindled. It came not to warm you in comfort, but to tear down your house of flim-flam navel-gazing over MY sports team, my religion, my partisan political beliefs, my garden, my book edits, "our" [MY-- Marj Coffman says] School.

For those who sit in classes watching pretty pictures of this upcoming trainwreck, enjoy your Dick and Jane level roadmap for now, your astral mummery and feel-good nursery school stories. If you have not felt the fear of yourself slipping away, the fake foundation being broken and razed to expose the Bedrock of Ages beneath, then you are where you belong: 

Sitting at any version of an Home Farm looking at a reflection of the Moon pointed towards by the Alien Mind Level of one who has found the "Vitvan" within.

Meaning What

The search for “meaning” is the essence of the standard Quest-ions, WHO am I, WHERE did I come from, WHERE am I going?

I see that the underlying anatomy of this Quest is the exploration of the relationship between the part and the whole. None of us are separate from the Process but are corpuscles in the multi-verse, we receive energy/information, and pass it on as it flows through. We may transform or alter it, but any and all of our functions fall within patterns worked out by Nature and refined over the Ages.

In the past 100 years as the Old Cycle drew to a close we’ve seen consciousness tipped towards awareness of our being integrated into an ecology bigger than our own little pedantic search for gratification.

War has always had the side-effect of making  civilizations more aware of other cultures, leading to the exchange of ideas, memes, and genetic matériel. With Industrialization the forces of Empire building were enhanced, and this churned up the world dividing lines faster. It became harder and harder to cling to pet perceptions and acculturation.

Then came psychology with its liberating and threatening ideas that “just because you think and feel it doesn’t mean it’s ‘right’.”  Perhaps we are programmed? By culture, religion, genetics, sensory limitations? Is there then really a “you” who is the perceiver, who can stand separate from its accumulated identities? Is the “you” simply an artifact of a collection of gunas, skhambas, aggregates, astrological influences....?

Then came ecology, systems analysis, and a growing awareness that no-thing is an island. This motion continues to grow while simultaneously undermining the meme of being separate in any manner.

You see it also in cosmology: the Old Cycle idea that space is empty and its associated idea of gravitation being the causal force, is collapsing. On the quantum level we have heard that the vacuum is actually a concentrate of energy extraordinary in potential.  But on the macro level, the old meme that planets  and solar systems float in emptiness, with little going on out there... this meme is utterly failing now.

The empty space model (and its sister, the expanding Universe) is collapsing. It has patched itself up again and again with the Big Bang religion, and when gravity couldn’t explain the forces seen, then unseen forces such as Dark Matter, and then in another patch, Dark Energy were postulated. Then came Black Holes, which cannot be observed by definition. This is classic deus-ex-machina Wizard of Oz behind the curtain trickery.

Space is not empty at all. It is full and teeming with electrical energy and plasma. We live in a dynamic flowing Tao of streaming particles and their created magnetic fields. The enhanced perception now from Hubble, Chandra, and many other satellites that explore the invisible forces filling “empty” space now show us clouds of electrical fields stretching between galaxies, and that we live in a cosmic circulatory system. Not only does our Sun radiate out energy, but it equally receives it and as a transformer circulates it back through the planets into the galaxy. (See the Electric Universe model www.thunderbolts.info) 

Everywhere, the meme of separation within emptiness is falling.

As to our sense of self, is Nature in its internal motion for economy of forces and maximal flow refining the interrelationship of these patterns into self-awareness of Its patterns? Is there a Self emerging within the Process much as an organism produces at end cycle a fruit, a miniature of its self which contains all the information needed to repeat creating more such selves? This is a self-referential process, expressed as a miniature self within a larger self, and is the basic definition of something that is “hyper-dimensional.”

This is a self-rolling wheel within a wheel. And is not that tree that produces the fruit itself inside a larger “wheel” as part of an interlocking ecology of consciousness (information pattern)?

This brings us to the esoteric section: that when the Plenum, or Whole, observed Its Wholeness, this internal act of observation reflected self within Self, like a bubble appearing in the Foundation of Cosmos.

This is the first appearance of Self and Other, the root of duality and polarity. Symbol geeks might like to show this as O represents Wholeness or the Plenum, while (o) represents the bubble, that self within Self where the Wholeness contemplates an IMAGE or Eidolon of Itself, within Its field of consciousness. Hyperdimensional.  The “part” is contained within the Whole. (man I love capital letters! This drives Old sour Cycle schoolmarms like Marj Coffman crazy! Heh heh!) .

But there is a 3^rd player: the interface between the two which is the membrane shown as
(   ).   This now sets the stage in our Play. We have a Trinity, and here is the root of the philosophical discussion on whether there is “two” or “three.”

I want to say that this membrane is where we find Meaning in our existence.  “Mean” implies that which is between the two, “that which is in the middle (OED).”

As long as we live in sense of separateness we don’t grow in awareness of our relationship to the Whole we are part of. But when a being begins to be attracted to understanding its relation to the Whole, and that there is more than survival and gratification of little self, then we say the spiritual Work is begun.

Acceptance of our part as a corpuscle in the Process leads to surrender, meaning cooperation with the Process; and to sacrifice, meaning sacri “sacred” and fice from Latin facere “to make,” so, to “make sacred.” To support the Process of the Whole more than the gratification of the self.

A new part or body or vehicle grows in the field of our self. When we examine the interface or membrane  (  )  this begins to develop what some call “soul.” This is an idea held by many of the ancients, and let’s call them “gnostics,” meaning those who sought knowledge through their own inner direct experience instead of repeating someone else’s ideas as belief.

Among some of the gnostic traditions we find humanity divided into three classes:

1. The Pneumatics, or those who attain such inner gnosis or revealing of Meaning
2. The  Psychics, those who hear of the possibility of gnosis, study and read all about it like someone collecting a library of travel brochures and books, but who still sits in the easy chair mentalizing, and not hitting the road to take the Journey. Perhaps we can liken them to buds that MAY develop into ripe fruit
3. The Hylics, those who may hear that there is more than their little sense of self survival and gratification, but it doesn’t grab them. WHY they ask, if they ask at all, should “I” care about anything  besides my little world? I am great as I am being me, unexamined; I am “right” about things, however I feel is justified.

In this viewpoint  we see that not everyone will develop a “soul” or intermediate body because they don’t contemplate how the part relates to the Whole, how the self is a corpuscle within Self. They who do not ripen to create the seed within will be recycled back into the pool, their matériel made available for new configurations.  This is simply Nature working  Her economy, nothing is wasted. A thousand fruits and a million seeds fall upon the earth every yearly cycle. Only a few take root. 

[interestingly, I have read there is evidence that even the millions of human sperm who have made it past the first hymenic veil of Isis and now swim for the Egg of the Inner Sanctum, actually act in group cooperation, for their combined desire field prepares the entrance to the Beloved, and the one Hero admitted to the Marriage Chamber acts on behalf of all]

Humans in their vanity (or ignorance) want to believe that their little persona and self is special, that we all get a magic “soul” and thus we get to carry on and survive death. This doesn’t accord with how we see Nature operate. Oh dear, how un-PC to say that many who pride themselves on being normal, nice, and fitting in, and thus rewarded in some way for taking pains to NOT stand out from the crowd, will simply fade back into the general storehouse of Akashic memory, into a sort of Oversoul of morphic resonance. Well, ....tough!

There is another Quest-ion: do Hylics simply lack something? Is the seed of Self not there and thus they are recycled?  Are they part of the Armies of the Night who leave no imprint?

It is said that before one can have gnosis, one has to hear the message, the “Good News” that there is such a possibility to be had, and so start off operating on Belief. Belief will become actuated into Gnosis if one keeps focused on it. Still, how do we know that those who can sustain belief do so only because the seed is in them, and thus it is their dharma?

This seems unfair, but that’s probably a side-effect in the consciousness of those living in separation, and who would resent being recycled.  In those whom the soul is developing, we see that the Whole is running the show anyway, and we always have been part of the Whole, so what’s the rub? Who cares if this present configuration I call “me” fades away? Seems to bother some, but not me. I’m kinda tired of the story and history of “me.”

As the intermediate self or soul vehicle develops, then self-consciousness begins to shift into another body or informational matrix. As this happens, we begin to see that our earthly personality was a part in a Play, a construct, and even a ripple wave pattern upon the Great Water, destined to re-merge.  What we have been calling “me” is a hologram, an image or Eidolon projected from the Mind of Self.

We are not afraid to die; in fact, our curiosity is whetted for more adventure. And thus:

“And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself—

Yea, all which it inherit—shall dissolve,

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.”

                                                            The Tempest by Bacon and friends

Mini Yugas at School of the Natural Order (SNO)

"As Above, So Below"

The Yugas are patterns of growth and decline on a cosmic timeline. If you don’t know much about them, do a little homework. Try Sri Yukteswar’s The Holy Science, The Yugas by Selbie & Steinmetz, and also Walter Cruttenden’s work on our sun as part of  a binary system (“the dual”) Lost Star of Myth and Time.

The thought struck me today to apply this cyclical pattern to what we have seen at Home Farm.

The Yugas (or Ages) proceed thru the Golden to Silver to Bronze to Iron, or in Sanskrit  Satya to Treta to Dwapara to Kali; from highest level when humanity communed with the Divine (or its expression through a messenger, and exemplar), to the lowest, a time of separation, decay, and darkness.

At SNO, the Yugas proceeded as follows:

During the Founder Vitvan’s tenure: Golden. Not only did he have the wisdom from personal experience in higher states, but he could write and articulate about them, and teach by pointing at these unfolding states through his words. He taught by the Fire of his presence, or Darshan. Experience + Words.

Under his successor and close student Anita: Silver. While she had the Knowing, she did not have the words to further the articulation. She taught by Air, an attenuated Fire of Darshan. Experience but no Words.

Under her successor and protégé Jim Dalton: Bronze. He did not have the Gnosis from direct experience, but he was good with words, a literary man and editor. Eventually he moved away and took up Buddhism as a path because Vitvan’s words (and techniques) were not enough to actually produce the breakthrough result. Words but no Experience.  But at least there was still Water, a sense of community through mutual emotional aspiration.

And finally, we come to the Nadir, the bottom of the Cycle, the Age of Darkness that now prevails at Home Farm under Marj Coffman and her clones (also pronounced clowns). Black   NO Experience, NO gnosis, and a scribe’s petty fixation on the punctuation and capitalization of Words.  A time of Winter when the Spirit sleeps waiting for a new Springtime, when coldness (of heart) and old forms and ways decay in the frozen Earth that suffocates like the grave. A time of dogma and oppression.

So this then is actually still an expression of  Natural Order. I often wonder if Anita saw this inevitable cycle of decline, accepted it and co-operated with it. Seeing this future and what it would eventually take to break through the obdurate darkness that would swallow up Home Farm, she appointed Susan Wetmore to the Board. Susan has persisted on the Board until she believes she is Home Farm aristocracy. The seeds of petulant virulence and non-understanding that fester in Susan’s childish psyche would one day be too much for the Spirit to endure, and the struggle to rise into the Light again would break out into an open struggle. To be sure such Winter oppression occurred, Nature added in the self-serving Murrays, and topped it off with the stubborn arrogance of Marj Coffman, the Great Objectifier. The final burden (literally) in this unpalatable  meal is Jabba the Hoffman.

Those are the main players in this Kali Yuga drama being played out at Home Farm. Footnotes and barnacles like Bubba “me too” Morrison, or Dan Halfawake may be noted in passing, as they are symptoms of the decline like the gas passing from such a soul-starving and indigestible repast.

We await the Spring and honor the flame that Vitvan left us, protecting it against the cold desiccating winds that blow from Home Farm at this time.

Thanksgiving 2013 at Home Farm ??
NO THANKS

 

Budhist SNOoze

In all the time we have been satirizing the semi-competent Board who have ruined Home Farm for the rest of us, we've left Val Taylor alone. We had hope for her that her feistyness might drive her to act for Principle, instead of always settling for not confronting the dysfunctional family within which she likes to act out the role of perennial rebel. But in the end she never manages to "come out and be separate," instead allows abuse to go on before her eyes and turns away.

Today's Guest Post is dedicated to Val who claims we live in a "pig pen," while she seems to miss the cosmic irony that she continues to support the pig pen at Home Farm that has driven out so many experienced students who simply cannot take any longer the phoney swill served up there.

Measuring Results

How can we compare the purposes of ISNO v. SNO?

SNO was the vehicle for Vitvan as Ralph, a giant who capitulated the wisdom of the Past Cycle. His job was to do a write-up of the wisdom of his Cycle and bequeath it to those who followed. His day job was lecturer, and he made his living running a school, selling books, etc. He anticipated the New Cycle, and tried building a bridge into it, but like Moses, he did not pass over into the Promised Land.

What was his Valuable Final Product (VFP)?, the goal of his methodology?

Answer: after a period of sanctuary, recuperation, and mental instruction, to rev things up until SOME students broke consciously into the First Crossing, and embraced this process actively, instead of passively waiting for “life to be their teacher.” For such students to touch upon the root of their being, that Field in which their personality bubble floats, the I AM of Mind level, and now know that the Master is already in them, not outside; and henceforth to listen and follow that inner Teaching given just to them.

How many did he get to this point? He said only 5 or so made it thru the First Crossing to a birth upon Mind level. We don’t know how many developed practices wherein they actively could step outside the egoic personality state into that space of Grace attained again and again in Level 2 First Crossing, but it won’t have been too many. He estimated only 2% had what it takes to persist.

How did he find students? He let the Field find them. He advised against advertisement in publications for the normals. He followed the “cattle-guard rule,” i.e., if someone finds their way to him, they are welcome until the Field moves them away.

ISNO obviously is not an SNO, and does not wish to reach a broad audience in order to make a living. None of us are “Ralphs” either, but simply students working our way through Level 2, who now are capable of mentoring others by sharing what we have learned so far, letting down our hair, being honest about the ups and downs to encourage those who think they struggle alone.

The Sufis have a saying “when you feel the urge to teach,... don’t.” Also, make your living independently of giving teachings. The Spirit is not a product that can be delivered on demand. We serve It, we don’t serve It up. As soon as one depends on “teaching” for a living they will compromise their integrity cranking out new product to pay the bills.

I prefer to follow the “cattle guard” rule. If the Field cannot bring those to us who can use what we have to share, then this whole Process doesn’t work.

It is quite likely that in the end those working behind the scenes may help as many through the First Crossing as Vitvan did looking for that 2% amidst the throng of Old Cycle people who came and went looking for a quick fix, a gold star, or cool initiatory bling. It’s not about numbers anyway, but rather serving the Plan as it comes, rather than making effort to conceive a plan from the little self.

When Feel-Good replaces Feel-Know

ORGANIC FARM ADVISORY

For repeated violations of standard accepted practices of Organic Gardening, the following are De-listed:

Home Farm Garden Club

Susan Wetmore

Dan Hathaway

Jane Murray

Pat Murray

History: Home Farm, headquarters for Vitvan’s School of the Natural Order, included in its Articles of Incorporation, the purpose of pursuing Biodynamic and Organic gardening.

a)      Biodynamic is a form of Organic gardening that takes into account etheric and/or spiritual forces of the plant growth cycle, and strengthens them with special preparations to be added to the compost or soil.

b)      Organic in common understanding means the non-use and avoidance of exposure to synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. There is no such thing as being semi-organic just as one cannot be semi-pregnant.

Home Farm does not practice Biodynamic gardening, even though some members such as Dan Hathaway, self-promoted compost expert, understand the principles.

Recently Home Farm again voluntarily called in Tri-County Weed to spray the grounds, including resident areas inhabited by children and pets, with commercial toxic herbicides as part of an annual eradication program for “thistle.” Note that co-operation with this program is voluntary.

Susan Wetmore is a member of a cooperative weed management group and using her position as SNO Board member promotes the use of toxic herbicides all around the Home Farm property, while dismissing the complaints and concerns of other residents who have repeatedly objected over the past years.

Thistles are a problem for commercial agribusiness monocroppers. Home Farm does not grow crops. Thistles are a problem if grazing animals eat them. Home Farm does not graze animals.

Even though Susan received notification more than 12 hours before the day for the spraying, she did not send out warning to the residents until 5 a.m. one hour before the sprayer would arrive at 6 a.m. This left no time for those who are concerned about the side-effects of toxic herbicides, to remove children’s toys or animal feed from areas of possible exposure, or to leave the property before you might be surprised to find a strange man in protective gear walking around your house and yard area spraying unknown chemicals.

According to the representative Brandon at Tri-County Weed, these are the chemicals that were loaded onto the truck going to Home Farm:

1. Telar
2. Milestone
3. Weedestroy AM-40
4. Spreader 90
5. Detonate
6. Escort

It is up to the man doing the spraying to choose and mix whatever cocktail he decides based on the conditions he finds.

Tri-County is full of assurances that there will be no wind drift of herbicides onto gardening areas due to the skill of the sprayer; that warnings about contaminating streams, springs, ponds, and other aqueous areas will not be a problem. He says if one is worried about a exposure around your residence, one needs to “take precautions.” WHAT does that mean?

Persistent toxicity by Milestone has previously contaminated compost and caused thousands to lose their garden crops and organic farmers relying on outside compost to lose their certification. See

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/milestone-herbicide-contamination-creates-dangerous-toxic-compost.aspx#axzz2aLLWUlcZ

If you come to Home Farm hoping to harvest organic vegetables, are you willing to trust a commercially motivated company, or the judgment of Susan, Pat and Jane? Would you be concerned if the compost Dan has applied to the garden was prepared from herbicide contaminated grasses?

Those who have repeatedly heard for decades the assurances of for-profit chemical companies like Dow with Agent Orange, Monsanto with Round-up, and the list goes on, are not convinced.

Therefore for ongoing Failure of Stewardship Home Farm must receive the Toxic label.