Dear Will, et. al., Yes the planting of trees, bushes, vines, etc. in the same north-south orientation is a key to good transplanting. Lorraine Cahill, who works with me, has also showed me the effectiveness of using homeopathics in the water used to "mud" the transplants in and give them a good reunion with the earth. She uses both rescue remedy and the Bach Flower Remedy, Walnut. This seems very successful even with transplanting such annuals as pepper, tomato and basil. We run our beds north-south so we know without thinking what that orientation is. Tiny seedlings no more than a foot tall tend to put their roots out to either side of the tap root, rather like an inverted, flat Christmas tree, so how do I determine from looking at the plant which way to orient the roots so their original orientation is preserved. Actually I haven't paid attention to that yet, so I will start looking more closely at this. Possibly the roots allign north-south to begin with. That would make their original orientation very easy to see and transplanting must proceed apace. Formerly I transplanted my summer crops without concern for this. It is true that some plants did poorly with no clear reason why, and some plants did outstandingly well. Since we don't hype them up on speed and steroids like the chemical growers who often seem to have a near uniform field all going at the same rate, I ought to be able to tell when I hit the nail on the head. I feel sure there is something to this from my experience transplanting trees and shrubs.
Also there are nature spirits acting in union with plants. Call some of them elementals if you will. These are Salamanders (fire) and Sylphs (air) in the atmosphere, and Undines (water) and Gnomes (earth) in the soil. Plus there are more complex beings that associate themselves with certain trees or groups of trees, cultivars, crops, fields, special locations, homes and even people such as artists, craftsmen, surgeons, you name it. These seem to generally be beneficial, though that's not necessarily true. But the hidden world of unseen energies is far and away more highly organized and ordered than our science and culture currently acknowledges. We apprehend only a small segment of the spectrum with our five senses, and we have to learn to use our nervous system as the antenna it was designed to be if we are to tune in to these beings and the organization of things which we cannot see with our eyes but can only see with our mind's eye. Dowsing is one route to doing this, of course. It's pretty easy to dowse. To fast, pray and meditate requires a lot more discipline and dedication. And just read a biography of Rasputin. I think you'll see that the rules for attaining adept status are not necessarily what we may be told or may believe. Asceticism isn't key, though the discipline that usually goes along with it is. But what is discipline? Certainly it is not punishment or denial. It is something far more profound. Actually asceticism commonly involves judging others, rejection, pride, etc. all of which are hindrances. In any event to work with unseen forces so that their joyful, exuberant assistance is enlisted in the transplanting of something so important as a tree or a field of peppers or wheat might require paying a lot more attention to what is really going on beyond the visible, in-the-moment phenomena. One might start by dowsing, but some people just do this sort of thing intuitively and subconsciously, so you might keep an eye open for such folks and see if you can tune in to what they are doing. There's no telling what you may find out. Green thumb? If you don't have one, don't despair, you could develop one. As for the astrologically best dates, this is quite complex, though it was a good question that has been avoided in the responses I've read. First you need to consider what kind of a plant a pear is. It is a fruit, of course. Often the trees are grafted, and we chould ask why? To get good fruit there have been centuries of emphasis on the fruiting characteristics of the plant while the roots were neglected. We can do a lot for a fruit tree if we bring together the fruiting and root sides of the tree to a fuller union. The best excample I've seen of doing this was in Mark Fulford's nursery and orchard in Maine, where he sprayed compost tea with some kaolin every two or three weeks. Another effort in this direction was Peter Escher's biodynamic tree paste, which incorporated such things as lime and clay along with horn manure and was painted on the trunks. There are better formulas now than in Peter's time, but he pioneered the concept. In any event I'm pointing this out because we cannot think simply of planting the tree in the most powerful fire sign in order to accentuate the fruiting aspect of the tree. It won't do to set a crop of luscious pears that rot or are unsound internally. However, since the pear is an above ground crop you want to have the Moon in a fire constellation while it is waxing. Second quarter is probably preferable. But you have to consider all the other aspects to every planet, what the planet signifies, what constellation it is in, is it ascending or descending, what the aspect is, and so forth. With the silica pole and the swelling of the pears the outer planets are important, but with the lime pole and the fecundity of the pear you need to consider the inner planets. If you enlisted the aid of a good astrologer like Glen Atkinson, he could pick you out some dates and times, and you could go from there. It is a time consuming and technical endeavor and I assume there would have to be recompense. Of course, using all the other tips you've gotten and should apply will help raise the event from moderately successful to outstanding and amazing. Best, Hugh Lovel > >I found the information from Gil to be very insightful and helpful. I >especially like the idea of tagging North on the trees to insure the proper >orientation. I wish I had done that with all of my transplants in the past. > >Best wishes, > >Will Winter, Tree Hugger Visit our website at: www.unionag.org
