Cosmos the Bull

By Arty Mangan

One of my earliest contacts with Biodynamic farming was a visit to Hugh Lovel’s farm in Blairsville, Georgia in the late 1990’s. Hugh had been working his twenty acres biodynamically for twenty years. What gets Hugh hopping mad is that no one is talking about the ether.  The etheric forces, the counterpart of matter, are carried by oxygen and are the opposite of gravity. Swooping birds bathe in its energy at dusk and dawn.

 While walking around his vibrant farm Hugh said, “Biodynamic is spiritual farming plain and simple.”  He then told me the story of Cosmos the bull. A while back Hugh went to purchase a cow. She was a real beauty. So beautiful, Hugh couldn’t help but ask the woman who was selling her why the cow was so cheap. The woman replied, “She is like a member of the family and I just want to make sure she has a good home.”

Photo credit Jan Mangan

 “Ever try to breed her?” Hugh asked. “ Yeah, once” she replied. So Hugh loaded up the cow into his truck, paid the woman and returned to his farm. About a week later he called the breeder. The breeder came to the farm, pulled on his plastic glove, and inserted his arm up to his shoulder entering the cow’s innards through her rectum. His purpose was to locate the exact position of the ovaries so the injection of bull sperm would be on target to maximize successful fertilization. In the process, the breeder discovered an ovarian cyst, a potentially serious problem that would prevent conception. Later Hugh found out that the former owner had attempted many times to breed the cow without success.

 Hugh put his cow out to graze in his fields of Biodynamically grown grasses: alfalfa, rye, and clover, which he takes justifiable pride in. At that point in telling the story, Hugh pulls up a hank of rye grass, careful to pick a spot that has not been insulted by goat urine. He hands it to me. I chew it and I’m rewarded with its rich, green, sweet juice and chewy fiber. It’s absolutely delicious.  Throughout the afternoon Hugh regularly pulls up four-leaf clovers, as evidence of the Biodynamic influence and spiritual quality of his cover crop.

After six weeks of the cow grazing on these grasses, Hugh calls the breeder back. The cyst is gone and the breeder is able to do his job, and the cow eventually gives birth to a reddish brown bull. Hugh names the bull Cosmos, but soon afterwards, the mother died. The baby bull has to be bottle feed and cared for. At first he appears to be weak from the lack of maternal nourishment. He has trouble standing up, but eventually gets strong and surprisingly grows to be the stud of the farm.

When Cosmos is fully grown he takes to jumping fences, and visiting neighbors. At one neighbor’s mobile home, he hooks his horns on the corner of the building and shakes it like an earthquake.  As a result, Cosmos’ reputation grows in the Northwest corner of Georgia. Often times on his journeys, the female bovines follow their main man and Hugh has to retrieve the entire herd.

Then finally the day came that Cosmos would fulfill his ultimate destiny and become nourishment for Hugh, so it’s off to the slaughterhouse. Hugh loaded Cosmos on the truck, but on the way out, the trailer began to tip. In fact it felt like the truck was going to roll over. Cosmos had put his front legs up on the six-foot high sides of the truck putting all his weight to one side. Then in a flash the bull vaulted over the truck sides and in one leap landed in the grass fields and casually began to graze. The truck snapped upright just before reaching the tipping point.

Hugh decided he better call the slaughterhouse and have them come with a bigger truck. They were scheduled to come Monday but they showed up three days early, while Hugh was away tending to the bees. Elaine, Hugh’s partner ugh’s partner,warned the driver from the slaughterhouse that he had better come back Monday when Hugh would be around to help.  Not to worry, the driver was a fearless cowboy who could rope any steer, didn’t need any help, and wasn’t about to come back. Elaine tried to warn him again, but the cowboy undaunted and with no attempt to create any rapport with Cosmos, proceeded to rope the bull around the horns, confident in his ability to overpower any bull.

 As it turns out Cosmos wasn’t just any bull and wasn’t about to go easily. He whipped his head back and with it the cowboy, whose hands were wrapped around the rope, went flying over the bull landing on the ground. Cosmos took off through the wet fields of red rice, marinating the cowboy in the mud. Elaine came running, screaming at the top of her lungs, but to no avail. Cosmos was in full gear and nothing could slow him down. Finally, the cowboy was able to disengage himself from his captor. Bruised, scrapped, muddy and ego substantially deflated, he got in his truck and drove away empty-handed. 

When Hugh returned home he decided to have a chat with Cosmos. He thanked the bull for his work, asked forgiveness for what was to come and asked him to go along peacefully. The next day Hugh attempted to load Cosmos onto his truck again. This time he nailed some heavy wire mesh on top to prevent escape. At first Cosmos seemed agreeable and walked slowly toward the truck, then suddenly bolted, with Hugh close behind in pursuit.

Cosmos proceeded to make the rounds of all the neighboring farms, his old stomping grounds. At one point he stood at the ridge above the farm gazing down below. Elaine saw him and said an image of a defiant Geronimo came to mind. When Cosmos completed the rounds, he came back to the farm of his own free will and boarded the truck with no coaxing. Hugh hopped in the truck and headed to the slaughterhouse. At one point he heard a rumbling, looked back and saw that Cosmos had pried loose one corner of the wire mesh and was working on the other. Hugh accelerated and prayed. He made it to the slaughterhouse and unloaded Cosmos. He scratched the bull affectionately, told him once more that he loved him and not to be afraid.

Cosmos was brought inside the slaughterhouse through a narrow corral.  The gun was loaded to complete the kill. The slaughterhouse worker drew the trigger back and fired squarely between the bull’s eyes. Everyone was still. Cosmos barely blinked and was seemingly unfazed. They all stood in shock. Cosmos wouldn’t go down. He stood there with a bullet in his head.  Finally a second shot was fired and Cosmos fell.

Hugh was telling this story as we were standing in the middle of the farm, a beautiful narrow valley, bordered by wooded hills, and to the north a large mountain. He looked at me and asked if I would like to see Cosmos’ head. “Sure”, I said, uncertain what I was getting into. We walked to a running creek off the hillside. Hugh began to explain the egoic aspects of the farm as an entity.  He described ego in the sense of awareness and the sense of surrounding, and as being dependent on formative force; ego as the vigor that empowers a person. He said, “Carbon is the carrier of formative force. Nitrogen is the carrier of astral forces and awareness. Plants have egoic force to greater or lesser extent, making them vigorous, though they are not aware and do not have ego. Animals are unaware of being aware and do not have egoic bodies. Domestication of animals begins to bridge that difference of awareness between animal and humans.”

Somewhat bewildered I ask, “But what does that have to do with Cosmos’ head?”        

Hugh continued, “Biodynamic preparation 505, the fourth compost prep, is made by packing finely ground oak bark into the cranial cavity of a domestic animal, placed in a running stream from fall to spring. 505 brings carbon into combination with calcium and relates to the development of egoic vitality associated with the moon. 505 with its calcium content establishes the skeletal framework of the farm organism and goes beyond that. It firmly fixes the egoic force-the individuality of the farm, giving it inner strength and outward form.  505 develops the farms immune system and provides what is necessary for plants to be upright and well formed. Biodynamic preparation 505 is made up of the outermost skin of a highly evolved plant and the cranial housing for the innermost activities of a highly evolved animal. It includes both the outermost and innermost formative/transformative forces, the skin and brains, so to speak, of the farm organism.”

At that point we were standing by the side of the creek. Hugh reached down moved a rock to one side, and in the cool running water the skull of a bull packed with oak bark was revealed.  Cosmos lives.