‡ Anthroposofie ‡ Anhang 2
[Bernard Lievegoed]
The Working of the Planets and Life
Processes in Man and Earth/the Planetary Processes in Cosmos and in Man
In describing the following seven planetary processes it will be assumed
that the reader is familiar with the fundamental works on the connections
between planets and metal, especially with the work of L. Kolisko.
Planet In the sphere of Metals
1. Saturn ) Lead
2. Jupiter) Planets beyond the Sun Tin
3. Mars ) Iron
4.
Sun
Gold
5. Venus ) Copper
6. Mercury) Planets nearer to the Sun Quicksilver
7. Moon ) Silver
This sequence has been chosen because when studying the inner effects we
can resolve it into three polarities, with the Sun as the harmonizing middle.
1st Polarity:
1-7 Saturn-Moon
Sun as
middle
2nd Polarity:
2-6 Jupiter-Mercury
Sun as
middle
3rd Polarity:
3-5 Mars-Venus
Sun as middle
4th Process
The Sun as Middle by Itself
These seven planetary processes are seven qualitative worlds, seven
qualities, seven principles of activity. To understand them we must enter their
life, must live inwardly with their impulses of movement, must get to
know them by something like the sense of touch.
------------
Saturn.x
We begin with Saturn, the most distant planet from the Earth, just as the
Moon is the nearest one. Both these planets are like gateways: from the
planetary Astrality Saturn leads in the world of Spiritually active stars, the
Moon into the Ether spheres close to the earth - Where the Spirit wants to
impress its seal right into substance, Saturn must bestow the direction and the
strength to incarnate. Out of the heights, Saturn accompanies every process of
incarnation, from the cosmic midnight hour through the gateway of birth as far
as the first thirty years of human life. This is
a sublime process, because with the help of the Saturn forces the Spirit
reveals itself even as far as dead matter.
In man the Saturn process work in such a way that it enters the hair
vortex at the back of the head, radiating into the dead material of his body,
wanting to make man a picture of his individual, Spiritual Ego. From above and
behind downwards it radiates through the body, terminating in the skeleton
which thus becomes a lifeless image of the Ego. The skeleton is so sublime
because
it shows us this picture of the Ego. If Saturn were to work by itself,
the whole human body would calcify and within thirty years man’s body would
have turned into a beautiful stalactite.
Saturn, at work already throughout the whole embryonic development,
places us as a Spiritual being toward the world of space. After the cosmic
midnight hour, the human Ego turns towards
the Earth with the help of the Saturn forces and while completing the
painful path towards incarnation, all the time becomes denser. During the
embryonic life and in early childhood Saturn crystallizes the skeleton out of
the watery organism.
Saturn work as a differentiating force within warmth, the most spiritual
of the elements. Where Saturn rarifies warmth, crystallized substance (bone)
comes into existence. Where it densifies, the carrier of the element of warmth,
the blood (bone marrow) can be formed. The blood is born in the red marrow of
the bones, in the center of the physical, almost lifeless skeleton. Having
lived for about three weeks it disappears in the spleen.
Thus we may call the spleen the consummation of the Saturn process, and
in that sense a Saturn organ in which the Saturn process dies.
There are two Saturn
processes in Man:
1. The incarnating Saturn
process, leading to the dead image in space. We can say: through this first
Saturn process man (his Ego) dies in space.
2. The resurrecting
Saturn process which enable the Ego, in the blood, to fullfill his karma in the
course of time.
Saturn is the planet of death and resurrection. The Ego appears twice in
Saturn process, once as image in space, as skeleton, once as image living in
time, in the blood, manifesting as biography.
To summarize: Saturn leads the Spiritual to the Physical, but in doing
so brings death to appearance in the rigid image. Saturn leads the Spiritual
out of the Physical in the course of human karma; thereby kindling
resurrection, the overcoming of matter through the Spirit. In the plant world
we shall meet first and foremost the Primary process, i.e. that of incarnation.
Saturn brings to manifestation in the plant the Spiritual archetype of the
species. Saturn, the outermost planet, surrounding the whole solar system,
is active as carrier of the Spirit, working from the furthest distances,
from the circumference. Saturn can be effective, where it can work from all
sides ‘comprehensively’ but now when working
from a center. It is active in the Valerian Preparation 507 which
envelops the compost heap; fetching the Spiritual inwards. Such compost can be
a healing factor in the soil, because it bestows the faculty of bringing to
full expression the Spiritual form of the plant species.
As inner spiritual light, phosphor relates to the alchemical dark light,
the sol niger = Saturn, for which valerian has particular affinity (Steiner).
Saturn represents a psychic process in which we endure painful
experiences and feelings, resulting, Goddess willing! in inner spiritual and
psychological growth
(Liz Green, Saturn). It is that moment in suffering when everything
feels alive, the pain, a dark teacher. In alchemy, the base material of
transformation, the alchemist himself, was called Saturn. Saturn rules
Capricorn, represented by a mountain goat. In meeting the challenges of Saturn,
we can scale the mountain of spiritual development with the sure-footedness of
a goat.
It is this transformative function that we invite to the compost pile
through the valerian tincture, and the warming, brooding it provides. The
compost pile is an alchemical alembic, like the analytic container in analysis,
in which base material can be transformed.
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Moon.x
Next we must describe the Moon process, standing in opposition to Saturn
and manifesting wherever certain qualities continue through a sequence of
generations.
Moon processes are active in propagation and the stream of heredity, in
reproduction, where a new a new organism rises from an old one, where cell is
formed from cell, where cell is linked to cell
in steady growth. The Moon is associated with the ever recurring
repetition of the same, with the memory of something which has been created
before, the ideal of heredity. She is concerned with
the sequence of generations streaming horizontally across the Earth,
continuing its existence in time. Moon forces are active wherever we meet
swelling growth: in the individual organism through
cell division, in separate organisms through propagation.
If Moon forces alone were active in Man, he would roll through the world
like a soft sphere of albumen and the growth forces would continue without end.
But in Man this Moon process finds its limit in the skin, outside of which is
ceases to be effective. In front, below, in the region of the bladder, the Moon
forces radiate into the reproductive organs and permeate the whole organism
from within outwards, as far as the skin.
Whereas the Saturn process is the bearer of the individual Spiritual
forces and manifests in the skeleton, the Moon process is bearer of the type
principle, of heredity, and becomes visible in the skin. (It is significant how
heredity expresses itself just in the color of the skin). Human beings with
strong Moon forces have a beautiful skin and strong sexual attraction. The film
star is the ideal of the Moon type of mankind. The skin as ‘Moon skeleton’ is
the image of Heredity-Man.
The Moon processes express themselves as the differentiating factors
within the processes of Life, as those of Saturn in Warmth. During embryonic
life, out of the skin the nervous system is differentiated, which is like a
skin, place within as an island. This ‘inner skin’ is the bearer of a second
process: the outer world reflected inwardly through the nervous system, reaches
the level of man’s consciousness. The ‘lifeless reflection’ can only take
place, when the life processes are dimmed. The brain (a ‘skin’ island within
man) thus becomes a Moon organ, where the Moon forces come to rest.
Physiologically this force which can hold back the processes of mere life and
cell division expresses itself as one of tissue differentiation. The nervous
system is the most differentiated tissue - the organism becomes an image of its
Spiritual archetype through the potentialities of differentiation. Goethe called
this force in the plant intensification.
The Moon also shows two aspects:
1st In the plant world
the Moon effects manifest in the processes of cell division and growth.
Limestone acts within the watery element as mediator of the Inner planetary
forces. The Oak Bark Preparation
505, consisting almost entirely of organic limestone and prepared in the animal
skull (the seat of the brain) and kept under water, is the
representative of the Moon
processes. R.S.: Preparation 505 counteracts plant diseases by suppressing the
rampant ethereal element. One could also say, be setting a limit
to the Moon forces (forming a skin).
A deeper study of these processes, of Saturn and Moon weaving one into
the other, shows Saturn as the image of the Ego, of what is individualized,
placed into space, and how this becoming an image means death from which the
human Ego resurrects by inscribing its image into time in its biography. The
Moon, on the other hand, places into the stream of time what is not individualized,
the principle of heredity. The human Ego overcomes this sequence of
generations by repressing the life processes, and, in reflecting the outer
world, awakens.
Saturn I
Incarnation as far as the Skeleton
Thus Death as Image in Space
Saturn II
Excarnation - Overcoming of Death through Resurrection in Time
(Biography)
Moon I
Reproduction - Repetition Flowing on in Time
Moon II
Repression of Reproduction Process
Differentiation in Tissues, Intensification
Image Consciousness in Space
Saturn - Moon: together they weave through the mysteries of space and
time, of death and resurrection, of ‘swimming along’ in the stream of time and
awakening in consciousness.
Jupiter.x
Jupiter is, in the first place, the great molder of the world. When Saturn in the sublime forms of the
skeleton has created the bare image of the Spirit, Jupiter plastically moulds
around this skeleton the semisolid forms in flowing beauty. It is the soul of
man which is expressed by these Jupiter forms. The plastic Jupiter forms work
from above downwards, rounding, recreating the celestial sphere in the
roundness of the brow. All internal organs are rounded above, sometimes
hollowed out below, because
the roundness of the organ below presses into it. The balls of joints
are placed at the top end of the bone, the sockets at the lower. The Jupiter
forces radiate from the brow into the organism, modelling in childhood the
beautiful architecture of the brain, forming later on the thoughts, and
especially those concerned with bringing order into the great universal
connections. Then again working more deeply into the body, they give shape to
the organs and muscles.
Jupiter moulds internal organs and surfaces of the body in beauty, but
at the same time with super-human gestures. If he alone were at work, at
fourteen years of age we would be like beautiful Greek statues, expressing in
bearing and gesture purely and simply the forces of the soul. We would all be Apollo
statues, because the plastic force of Jupiter is the bearer of a sublime and
harmonizing wisdom. This finds expression in the way in which our organs are
formed out of the watery element. But this plastic force in all its wisdom, on
reaching consummation, would lead to a general rigidity.
From this rigidity the human Ego frees itself in movement, in features
and in gesture. The gesture is plastic soul expression in the element of
movement, which is based upon the muscles and they in turn bestow beauty to the
surface of the body. In their alternation between hardening and softening,
swelling and contracting, they perform a play which in its chemistry is deeply
connected with the liver. The muscular contraction is due to chemical changes
in surface tension, and wherever these occur, in the plant too, Jupiter forces
are at work. The Jupiter activity comes to an end in the liver, the only human
organ not permeated by the plastic wisdom-filled Jupiter forces, neither in
outer form nor in its chaotic structure within. But precisely on account of
this it can be so active chemically.
In the plant the modelling Jupiter forces above are all at work, and
only secondarily the changes in surface tension, where Jupiter and Mercury
together regulate the stream of the sap.
Among the preparations Jupiter is represented by the Dandelion
Preparation 506. Jupiter’s molding forces are handed on in the plant by the
silica, the mineral bearer of the cosmic planetary forces from beyond the Sun.
Rudolf Steiner characterizes Preparation 506 as the mediator between the silica
forces in the cosmos and those surrounding the plant, bestowing health and
stability.
Mercury.x
Opposite to Jupiter stand the Mercury forces. Where Jupiter gives rise
to harmony and order, Mercury creates chaos, though not an ordinary one, but
one which we might call a ‘sensitive chaos’: movement without direction, but
ready to flow into anything which might be suggested from outside. Mercury is
streaming movement, adapting itself to any resistance it may find, flowing
around it to the left or right, just as may be possible and with no inclination
of its own, but always in remaining in movement. The one this Mercury never
abandons is movement, in this streaming and flowing. What kind of movement
results, which direction it takes, that will depend on outer circumstances.
Mercury adapts itself but it always streams. In Man it becomes effective and
active in the sphere of streaming where there are no definite and fixed paths:
in the lymphatic system. The blood vessels have their fixed paths, but the
lymphatic streams move where it happens to be possible, as long as they reach
their next goal: the lymph glands.
Jupiter is active symmetrically, following sublime cosmic laws, Mercury
has a tendency to asymmetry. What is oblique or crooked in the human face, or
in the plant, is due to Mercury’s interference with Jupiter’s intentions.
Mercury has a sense of humor, is always ready for a joke, and is pleased if the
divine intentions do not always quite come off. Thus the Gods never finish
their work, they must go on working, and all remains in a state of flux.
A friend once told me that Jupiter and Mercury reveal their nature in
the picture of the king and his jester, the king on his throne orders everything
with wisdom, his clothes are draped symmetrically. But at his feet sits the
jester, with asymmetric clothes, half yellow, half red, just as it happens, and
he comments on the kingly words and shows that at times the best laid plans can
go astray. Mercury is the great realist and can put up with heat and cold, with
sun and shade, but, under all circumstances, is concerned that life continues,
that the plant grows further. If need be, he can even become dishonest and lead
the plant into parasitism. The Greeks made Mercury the God of merchants - and
thieves. Both make sure that earthly goods do not remain at one place, but
change hands.
But this faculty for adaptation would ultimately lead to utter loss of
character; and the Ego avoids this by meeting movement with movement. What
happens when 2 streams meet and mingle? Whirlpools are created and empty
spaces, which in the river form sandbanks. Thus we see in the confluence of
Mercury forces a 2nd, organ forming principle. The organs taking shape as a result
of these meeting, flowing movements are different from those resulting form
divine images being impressed upon the Earth.
The plant world reveals most clearly this interplay of these two form
principles. If we compare a beech leaf and an oak leaf, we can tell them apart
quite easily. But if we pick some hundred leaves from one beech tree, we shall
not find two of them quite alike. This tremendous variability of form is an
expression of Mercury forces. Every meeting of two active forces is a healing process.
But true healing is possible only when the one force (be it the human body, be
it the plant) can receive into itself the other force, and something new can
result from the meeting.
Mercury is active in the Chamomile Preparation 503 which stimulates
plant growth through potassium and calcium.
The treatment with the intestines intensifies the Mercury activity.
(With this we shall deal more fully later on).
Here too Jupiter and Mercury weave one into the other: the preordained
and wise form of the organs, on meeting with the confluence of Mercury forces,
suffers change according to the particular circumstances. The chemical
expansion and contraction give direction to the streaming movement of Mercury
(by means of surface tensions).
In this interplay we find the key to all the problems of turgor, the
state of tension within the tissues.
Jupiter in all his plastic activity comes to rest in the ‘muscle-man’;
then the activity changes into chemistry and overcomes the plastic rigidity in
movement.
In wisdom-filled chemical activity the movement of the muscles sucks at
the liver where Jupiter comes to rest chemically. (This is in opposition to the
usual concept that the liver sends substances to the muscles. From the aspect
of this description it can be understood that the muscles fetch the substances
from the liver.) Mercury streaming through the tissues in fluidity and without
regularity, arrives finally at a certain contraction in the lymphatic vessels,
coming to rest in the glandular activity. The glands (as terminal points of
streaming fluidity) are the place where this fluid stream leaves the organism.
Fluids stream through the whole body, excepting the inverted air sack which we
call the lung. The lung is a gland, but a negative one, it is a hollowing out
within the fluid man.
Liver and lung as consummation of Jupiter and Mercury activity, are
Jupiter and Mercury organs.
Jupiter I
Rounding Plasticity
Leading to Rigid Soul Forms
Jupiter II
Movement as Gesture
Formed Movement through Chemical
Surface Activity
Mercury I
Streaming Movement
Leading to Obliteration of Individual Forms
Mercury II
Movement as Healing Principle
Plastic Form Due to the Confluence of Movements
Mars.x
Let us now describe the activities of Mars and Venus. Mars, the last of
the planets beyond the Sun, is the carrier of movement which is creative but
directed towards a goal. Mars represents the force by means of which the
Spiritual archetype of the plant pierces through to, penetrates into the Physical,
and which also pushes it out again into the world. We see Mars at work wherever
the plant in its growing point pushes into space, and in so doing conquers
space. Through Mars an inner activity is brought into the world, conquering the
world with determination and a sense of direction, revealing its own true
nature. Without Mars no plant would exist. Mars forces are at work in the
shooting and sprouting of every spring, with all its conquest of space. To get
a true imagination of these Mars forces we should picture to ourselves a
javelin thrower at the moment in which he is about the throw the javelin and is
letting go. The strength concentrated upon the target, that is pure Mars force.
The Mars forces radiate into Man between his shoulder blades and
permeate him in the iron process of the blood. They radiate downwards into the
blood, but they also radiate upwards into the speech process. It is Mars force
which is being formed in the word streaming from the human mouth. The Mars
type, is a man in whom Mars forces predominate, is outwardly active all the
time, but spends himself and it unable to preserve what he has created, because
he cannot bear that something should be finished. Rather than care and cultivate, the Mars type
destroys what has been created and rebuilds anew. He is carried by a continuous
creative urge, and where he meets an obstacle he is consumed by wrath.
The Ego, when wishing to oppose being carried away by all this activity,
must summon strong resistance, because Mars does not yield to soft measures.
This process of opposition results in the damming up of the directed force, and
now something happens which may come a s a surprise at first: Where Mars forces
is dammed up the world beings to sound.
The sting of an instrument shows the same phenomenon. The force with
which the bow is used, is dammed up by the resistance of the taut string. Force
and resistance struggle with each other, and the string begins to sound. Or we
take a metal plate covered with fine sand; we strike it with a bow and sound
figures appear indicating that matter arranges itself according to the
principles of sound. We meet this harmonizing principle again in chemistry,
where the order in chemical and organic compounds follows musical laws. Every
tone has its own sound figure. The Higher Hierarchies speak into the Ether
world, and out of these cosmic harmonies here on Earth substances come into
existence according to the order of the chemical elements. This cosmic music
starts form the Mars sphere and is passed on to the Earth through the Chemical
or Sound Ether. Within the animal and human organism, Mars orders and forms the
substances, working from within in the Astral Body. In the plant organism the
cosmic Mars brings this about.
The iron forces, active in the haemoglobin of the blood, come to their
end in the liver, where out of the red haemoglobin the iron-free
green-yellowish gall is formed.
The bilirubin is identical with the iron-free haemoglobin and in its
formation the iron is held back, it does not enter the gall. Out of this
holding back, this damming up,
the albumen forming forces, essential for the building up of the human
body, are born in the liver like ‘sounds figures’. This process of protein
building in the liver is sounding tone, in which the substances C - H - O - N -
S - P are arranged in sound figures. The driving force bringing this about is
the activity of Mars being dammed up. In the plant this process is more hidden,
but here too Mars plays a part, once in the growing outward, again in the forming
of protein.
The force of Mars manifests especially in the Stinging Nettle
Preparation 504 (BD504 or Stinging Nettle Preparation has enormous healing
potential. Working in conjunction with Mars, BD504 plays a huge role in resolving
soils with an imbalance of iron, magnesium and sulphur. Excess iron can cause
many problems and often presents itself in the form of very tight soil with a
hard pan or crust. This tightness locks in the iron and other trace minerals,
which in turn exacerbates the problem. BD504 preparation loosens the soil
texture allowing the nutrients to release, disperse and be absorbed by plants)
which harmonizes the iron forces in the soil, bestowing true nutritive value on
the plant. This in turn is connected with a healthy protein building process,
but also with starch formation, inasmuch as every starch granule is surrounded
by a delicate protein sheath.
Venus.x
In contrast to the active Mars processes, the Venus processes are
hidden, and we shall truly understand them only by being quite still and
listening inwardly. Venus is connected with the deeper nutrition (of the cell),
with the deepest building forces of the organism, where the offered substances
are received into the life processes to unfold their activities by being taken
up by higher principles. Venus is connected with the creation of a ‘milieu’,
with the clearing of space for something else to unfold. We may think of the
home of a quiet and modest woman with a significant soul. Here people meet one
another in the exchange of ideas and all shyness is cast aside. And if we ask
why such social life, so stimulating and fertile, occurs just in this home we must
admit that it is due precisely to the quiet personality in the background who
perhaps does nothing else but brings coffee just at the right moment and
disappears again. Venus has this ability to make room for something else to
manifest. As Mars is associated with speaking, so Venus with listening. Goethe
call conversation more precious than light, because conversation is the harmony
between Mars and Venus, in which the one partner is the speaking Mars, the
other the listening Venus, changing parts after a while. Where Mars and Venus
truly meet, a third element comes into existence, something new can
be made manifest.
Entirely to become Venus, to make oneself into a vessel to receive
something higher, would lead to complete renunciation of self. The Ego could no
longer exist in an absolute Venus attitude. The process must revert into its
opposite: the Ego overcomes the building up process by ‘sucking away’ that
which has passed through the life processes, and does so by means of the
kidney-bladder system. The destructive and excretory processes exert their
sucking forces from kidney and bladder reaching right into the last living
cell. The Venus process comes to an end in the kidney, the Venus organ. When in
the kidney Ether force and substance are separated, the dead matter is excreted
and the Ether forces radiate upwards into the eye, bestowing the force of going
forth into the world in the act of seeing. Pathology knows well this secret
connection between the kidney and eye.
Most beautiful is the co-operation between Mars and Venus in the living
organism. Protein, formed through the Mars force, nourishes the cells along the
Venus path.
The Venus process, coming to an end in the kidney, there produces
radiations. These ray upwards and unite with the Mars force with all its
determination and direction, to appear again in the eye’s force of vision. The
force with which the eye faces the world originates in the kidney radiation.
The striking picture of Mars and Venus is such a musical instrument as the violin.
The bow is movement full of aim and purpose, the string stays this movement and
begins to sound. But quality is added to the tone only by the resonance of the
instrument which creates a milieu in which the sounding tone can live, only now
being born as living tone quality.
It is similar to the growing plant where especially the first two
activities of Mars and Venus come into play. The force of the growing point,
directed outwards, is surrounded and filled by the nourishing Venus force; only
through both these processes together can the plant grow. Creation and
congestion, building up and excretion closely and intimately co-operate; the
dammed up force
of the growing shoot makes possible the protein formation, while the
force of excretion lives in the bark and its deposits.
Venus forces manifest especially in the Yarrow Preparation 502. The
Yarrow is prepared with the Stag’s Bladder, the end of the kidney sucking
process, and thus, strengthened in its connection with the Venus region, it can
receive cosmic substances which enliven, refresh the soil, and balance
exploitation. Especially the potassium processes in the plants are activated.
Mars I
Directed Movement
Growing into Space
Mars II
Tone Due to Staying of Movement
Protein Forming Force
Substance Forming
Venus I
Nurturing Nutrition.
Milieu Forming Receptacle for
Something Higher
Venus II
Excretion
Separation of Substance from Ether Forces
THE WORKING OF THE SUN.x
In the center of these three polar processes stands the Sun process.
Wherever there is a state of balance, not just a dead equilibrium, but a living
interplay, between Saturn and Moon, Jupiter and Mercury, Mars and Venus, there
the Sun is already at work. The archetype of Sun activity is diastole and
systole, the expanding, spreading out into space, and the contracting into a
point.
But expansion and contraction do not follow a straight line, but are
spiral processes. The striving and tending away from the center to the
circumference takes place in ever widening arcs, orientated right from the
beginning to the infinite periphery. On the other hand, the contraction form
the circumference towards the center takes place in ever decreasing arcs, with
the center as point of orientation right from the start. Those readers who have
done some Eurythmy will understand what is here meant by orientation.
Thus the Sun manifests in two activities:
1st contracting, leading everything
to the center
2 st drawing it out into the
infinite distances.
We can call this contrast also ‘Winter Sun’ and ‘Summer Sun’, or ‘night
Sun’ and Day Sun’. In the making of the Preparations it is of great importance
whether a process is exposed to the ‘Winter Sun’ or to the ‘Summer Sun’. Without
a proper understanding of this twofold Sun activity, our measures will remain
automatic. The great breathing and pulsating of the Sun goes through all the
planets, both those beyond and those nearer the Sun, causing an external and
rhythmic interplay between them. It is the task or the farmer working with the
bio-dynamic Principles, to live with these rhythms and to adjust his actions to
these rhythms and life processes of the plant.
In the most beautiful way this Sun rhythm is revealed in the human circulation
when the blood disperses form the heart into the infinite periphery of the
smallest vessels. In a great arc it leaves the heart, streaming towards the
periphery. On its return journey towards the heart, it flows but slowly to
begin with, gathering speed and finally rushing in a vortex into the right
Atrium of the heart.
At one time the Sun rhythm condenses the cosmos into substance, then
again it transforms the substance into cosmic quality. The two Preparations by
means of which we can handle these two Sun activities, as the need may be, are
the Cowhorn Preparations 500 and 501. In the one case it is the Horn-Manure,
exposed to the ‘Winter Sun’. Both preparations are stirred before use, i.e. a
rhythmic stirring inwards and outwards takes place, the vortex each time
reaching the bottom of the vessel. With this stirring we subject these
Sun-Preparations to a rhythmic, spiral Sun-breathing movement, releasing into
activity, the ‘Summer’ and ‘Winter’ Sun forces bound and preserved in the
Horns.
The plant really is a Sun-Earth-Being, and for this reason the
Preparations 500 and 501 are so important. After the Earth has received the
compost in which the planetary forces are harmoniously active, the
Sun-breathing process brings al this into movement; and it is for this reason
that the Preparations 500 and 501 are applied in the last minute before sowing
and during growth respectively, and in such a way that, in the one case the
forces concentrate towards the Earth, thus leading to germination and growth, and
in the other case the substances and forces open towards the cosmos and can
thus produce quality and aroma.
The Four Elements
Steiner systematized Goethe's poetic vision. He defined the organic
processes of growth, healing, and disease in relationship to the four elements
and the three alchemical substances more clearly than did Goethe. He drew upon
the traditional literature of alchemy and philosophy which had long been used
to define energetic relationships. Steiner particularly used the four elements
and the three alchemical substances to explain patterns of growth and the
resulting signatures.
Steiner adopted Goethe's vision of the urpflanze or primordial plant
(leaf/stem) but drew and association between it and the four elements. As
Goethe observed, the leaf/stem is the primal unit of the plant. It keeps on
replicating unit after unit, unstoppable, until the plant begins to feel the
need to reproduce. Then the leaf/stem units start to grow smaller, pull
together, and eventually metamorphose into flower parts. First is the corona,
or wreath around the flower, then the petals, and then the sexual parts. As
Steiner pointed out, the creation of the flower represents a force operating
against the leaf/stem replication, slowing it and morphing it into something
new and different. In turn, the flower is superceded by the seed or fruit,
which carries the genetic foundation for another plant to grow. Meanwhile,
there is a downwards reflection of the leaf/stem unit in the root. This
provides four basic plant parts that Steiner associated with the four elements.
Steiner associated the 'leaf/stem' with water, but a later anthroposophist,
Maria Thun, has shown that the stem is truly associated with the air element
(and thus with the nervous system); the leaf remains with water. This agrees
with Harris, above, who associates viney growth with the nervous system. The
place of the flower, with its relationship to sexual reproduction, should also
be associated with air. Thus:
Fire Fruit
or Seed
Air Stem and Flower
Water Leaf
Earth Root
The relationship between these different plant parts is further
explained by Steiner's correspondence of the four elements with the four
kingdoms:
Human Fire
Animal Air
Plant Water
Mineral Earth
Steiner also showed that here are processes within the body which are
mineral, plant-like, animal-like, or fully human.
The Earth element represents the completely dense level of consolidation
and physical structure without movement, and therefore without life. Earthly
processes are slow and grounded. They provide the primal bedrock on which life
is to be built. Thus, the Indian people called the Stone nation the
'grandfathers' and 'grandmothers.' The root is the Earth element part of the
plant because it goes downwards, into the ground, and it interacts with the
mineral realm. Thus, plants that have large roots, heavy, thick barks, and
powerful structure are Earth plants, like the oak tree. The oak sends down a
huge root system which is usually about twice the circumference of the
above-ground canopy of the plant. Above the earth it produces powerful, thick,
strong wood covered with a heavy, strong bark. Barks are usually associated
with tannins, the puckering agents that provide our astringents in herbalism.
Hence, oak is a powerful astringent. It is puckering, contracting,
strengthening, and consolidating like the Earth element.
The Water element provided the primordial swamp or urschleim out of
which life arose in the beginning of time, when the spirit blew like a wind
over the waters. Thus, simple cellular life, plant life, and organisms which do
not have a nervous system are associated with the Water element. Their
functions are simple, with a basic emphasis on sustenance and reproduction. The
leaf is the organ of feeding for the plant and it is reproduced again and again
to create the bigger plant. Consequently, plants with large leaves that grow
without discipline in abundance, like comfrey, are Water plants. Yet, comfrey
also has powerful, large roots and has Earthy qualities as well. What it does
not have is Airy or Fiery qualities -- the flowers are little, hard to
pollinate, and seldom bear viable seed. Comfrey grows largely by asexual
reproduction: a root cut off and stuck in the ground will grow a new plant.
Another Water plant would be plantain, which indeed appears to be nothing but a
leaf/stem through much of the summer.
Earth and Water are heavy elements with a downward or stationary
tendency, while Air and Fire are light, with a stationary to outward movement.
Thus, they represent energies which are quite contrary to Earth and Water.
The Air element represents a force that opposes and brings to an end the
constant replication and reproduction of the leaves of the plant. Thus, Steiner
associated it with the nervous system in animals, the next development beyond
the plant level. The nervous system allows for movement, which is associated
with animals, not plants. The root of the word animal means that which moves.
It also allows for intellectual movement, for animals do think. According to
the Greek and Arabic philosophers, animals think but they cannot reflect on
what they are thinking. That property belongs
only to humanity.
A plant family in which the Air element is evident, and which has a powerful
influence on the nervous system is the Lamiaceae (mint). They contain numerous
nervines (melissa, skullcap, lycopus, rosemary, lavender, wild bergamot,
peppermint, spearmint, etc.) They also
have beautiful, billowy, well-developed flowers. Thus, they represent Air
through their flowers. Another family that represents the Air element in a
slightly different way is the carrot or Apiaceae. They also produce some
billowy flowers, but not many. Their Airiness is apparent in the 'stemishness.'
Numerous
long stems form to give these plants an Airy, windblown look. And
indeed, many of them contain volatile oils which relax the nervous system,
especially of the digestive tract.
Steiner went on to observe that in certain plants the non-plant like
animal qualities inherent in the Air element not only stopped the development
of the leaf/stem unit of the plant, the Watery vegetative part, but actually
invaded that area of the plant. This resulted in the production of powerful
drugs and poisons that act on the nervous system, particularly the
alkaloids.
The Fire element is associated with upward movement towards the heavens,
and therefore with the spiritual aspirations within people for the heavenly
realms. Thus, the Fire element is associated specifically with people, as
opposed to animals, plants, or minerals. In the plant world it appears in the
seed and fruit. The rose family, with its innumerable fruits such as
strawberry, raspberry, apple, peach, pear, rosehip, etc., is a perfect
representative of the Fire element. Interestingly, it provides some of the best
cooling remedies in the herbal material medica; plants that cool and control
fire.
The rose is a symbol of higher love -- with specially human thoughts.
But we would also have to include under the Fire element the hot, warming
plants like cayenne, sassafras, and turmeric. Fire stimulates the nerves and
awakens consciousness.
One analogy Steiner did not make, which I would like to introduce, is
that between the elements and the four psychological functions of Dr. Carl G.
Jung.
These would be:
Fire Intuition
Air Thinking
Water Feeling
Earth Physical Sensation
Earth corresponds to the physical body, and thus to physical sensation.
Some people perceive the world through physical experience largely, learning
form observation and experience. Water corresponds to the emotional realm, to
connections with others, to feeling connected and a part of something greater
than oneself. Some people analyze the world through their feeling primarily.
Air is associated with cutting (as in the growth patterns mentioned
above) and limiting, in fact, cutting off from the greater world without, so
that the individual can have his or her boundaries.
Thus, it is associated with the faculty that is cutting, separating, and
reductionistic, thinking. Fire corresponds to the searching, reaching out
faculty of the mind, which search for new terrain
and meanings. This faculty jumps ahead, intuitively grasping new
concepts and situations -- the intuition.
The four elements also correspond to the four qualities. Plato taught
the following correspondences:
Fire Hot
Air Dry
Water Damp
Earth Cold
These correspondences were perpetuated by Antiochus, who wrote the first
comprehensive guide to astrology in Greek. It is possible that he was identical
to Antiochus of Ascalon, an important Middle Platonist who reviewed the
intuitive approach of Plato. (This identification was made by Roman authors,
later by Francis Cumont, and recently strengthened by Robert Schmidt, of
Project Hindsight, Cumberland, MD).
This is the way the elements are still interpreted in astrology.
However, medicine followed Aristotle, who had a different interpretation. He
associated the qualities with the elements as follows: Fire (hot and dry), Air
(hot and damp), Water (cold and damp), Earth (cold and dry). Nine hundred years
later, Proclus, the second to the last Archon of the Academy founded by Plato
(the first Archon), showed that Aristotle had misunderstood Plato's discussion
of elements and qualities, and that in fact Aristotle's logic was wrong. So the
Platonists and the Aristotelians had different interpretations -- I adhere to
the former group.
Using Steiner's model of the four elements we can learn to see and
detect underlying relationships between plants and the body and psyche of
humanity. Thus, for instance, the mint and parsley family are airy and billowy,
but the former is more warming (rosemary, thyme, marjoram, wild bergamot),
while the latter is more moist and earthy (lovage, carrot, parsley). There are
of course exceptions within families, but these often prove the rules because
the plant so longer looks like the fiery or earthy prototype of the entire
clan, but strikes out on a path of its own.
Steiner also introduces a threefold system of correspondence. His
presentation is rather wordy. I would simplify matters by explaining that he is
talking about what we would today call the three embryological tissues and the
constitutions related to each. These are dealt with elsewhere in our studies.
For more information about Steiner's approach, developed in great detail
by a remarkable author, see Wilhelm Pelikan, Healing Plants, Insights Through
Spiritual Science (1997).
Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum