Epiphany preparation
The Epiphany preparation is a special application of the biodynamic tradition, spread at Epiphany (6 January). It combines horn manure with frankincense ash and a gold salt — the three kings’ gifts in symbol — and serves as an impulse for the farm organism at the turn of the year.
What is the Epiphany preparation?
The Epiphany preparation is a special preparation of the biodynamic tradition, spread on the day of the three kings (6 January). It goes back to an initiative within the Central European biodynamic movement in the second half of the last century and is not part of Steiner’s original canon (500–508). Farms and biodynamic schools follow slightly differing recipes; the shared idea is an impulse for the farm organism at the turning point of winter, linked in symbol with the three kings’ gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Origin and context
In the biodynamic year, 6 January — Epiphany, the old feast of Christ’s birth in the Julian calendar — carries a particular meaning. It falls at the end of the Twelve Nights, the span between Christmas and Epiphany, which the biodynamic tradition holds to be a turning time in which the year is set up anew. Various farms keep particular stocktakings, blessings of seed and symbolic applications during this period.
The Epiphany preparation is one of these practices. The recipe rests on the three kings’ gifts from the Gospel of Matthew: gold, frankincense, myrrh. In biodynamic use, these three substances are added to a batch of horn manure or compost preparations, either directly in the finest distribution or as traces (a gold salt solution, frankincense ash, powdered myrrh), and then spread.
Making it and applying it
There is no canonical recipe. Variants in use:
- horn manure as the base, with small amounts of frankincense ash, myrrh and a gold salt solution added during the stirring
- a batch of the six compost preparations, enriched with the kings’ gifts and set into a symbolic compost heap on the farm
- gold in the form of homoeopathic aurum potencies (D6 to D30), frankincense as charred boswellia ash, myrrh as a powder
The batch is usually spread after the Twelve Nights — on 6 January or shortly after, often in a ceremonial walk that takes in the farm and its fields.
Its place in the biodynamic canon
The Epiphany preparation is an extended tradition, not a directive of Steiner’s and not a Demeter requirement. It is kept up on individual farms, above all in the Swabian and South German biodynamic school and in communities anchored in anthroposophy. It does not appear in the Demeter standard; Demeter certification does not call for the preparation.
An impulse for the year
More than most other biodynamic preparations, the Epiphany preparation stands in the realm of the symbolic and the ritual. It works with references from the Christian and anthroposophical tradition (gold, frankincense and myrrh, the Twelve Nights, the turn of the year) and understands itself not primarily as an agronomic measure but as a conscious impulse for the year for the farm organism.
Anyone wishing to live the biodynamic year consciously finds in the Epiphany preparation a ritual anchor at the year’s beginning.