By Heinz Grotzke
Man has learned to master the mineral realm in all its forms and aspects, possibly from the time when he first learned to capture the fire, to mold the clay and to turn the wheel. This mastery included the complete subjection of the hardest metals by blending and shaping them into tools which were then used for an even more forceful taming of the rest of the earth. The death, the lifeless mineral, was turned into a more highly concentrated deathfulness, to modernize—or to more efficiently destroy—the natural resources that seemed so utterly abundant to men whose vision was limited to their own brief but seemingly all-important earthly visit.
Today we can see the rewards of all this eagerness and thoroughness. The “creators” in physics and chemistry lean back in their swivelling, foam-padded chairs and marvel like children at their constructions, however feeble those constructions may be. In pride without conscience, satisfaction without depth, the individual’s idea of survival extends no further than that point when the final eulogy has passed the spheres of the star of death. Concern for future generations is as foreign to these minds as is respect and appreciation for any forms of life except their own. Their approach has been metallistic, mineralistic or–in more common terms–materialistic. A mind that gives birth solely to such thoughts is at best mechanistic, at worst in the process of dying.
And it is the realization of death and destruction around and within them that awakens some souls to the truth, even if it is only because their own lives may be at stake. Upcoming clouds blur not only the distant horizon, with the rising or setting sun, but also the former clarity of the life of thought. Accurate evaluation of objects far ahead in our path becomes much harder, and present and future developments become removed from our effective control. Gradually but steadily man will be forced to realize that the path out of the created labyrinth does not lead around the world or to the moon, but through the inner being of man himself.
The rewards of our material age have been mainly negative, defeating in most cases the humane and benefiting the forces of destruction and the enemies of life. We may be able to speed to our friends and escape our pursuers, yet we are unable either to abandon of to find ourselves. The comfortable bed may be luxurious and warm, but the experience of the dreaming sole may be a shivering nightmare. While we have been accumulating tangible possessions and material wealth, the divine peace has suddenly forsaken us. Now, at this crossroad, each soul must make the free decision either to re-kindle the flame of human warmth and love, thereby creating the conditions for a new growth of inner and outer peace, or to continue desperately grabbing from others until the burden becomes too heavy and crushes the bearer. And man, falling thus, will tear pieced off the earth that, in his terror, he clung to.
Poisoning of the atmosphere and water, pollution of soil and food–these are the rewards of the materialistic approach, the results of a scheme that almost appears to be the invention of an evil being whose long- range aim is to eradicate human life and all that supports it. For generations, a denial of anything but material substance has been the leading theme of those who have volunteered for service; weighing and measuring tools, counting gadgets and microscopes have become the criteria by which everything is judged. And the judges, self-appointed administrators of death, have established the modern half-truth and quarter-truth, calling the whole field of their activities “science”.
In spite of the darkness there is some light, however small the number of candles may be. Long before the full extent of the aberration became apparent, some human minds questioned the direction that material investigations were taking. Goethe, towards the end of the eighteenth century, had already witnessed the growing alienation of the so called sciences from the more intangible qualities of life, and in protest he began to develop an approach to nature which had, ad its basis, a reverence for life. It was he who through keen observation and intense study, formulated the concept that “the whole [organism] is more than the sum of its parts.” Even now, two centuries later, the minds of most men in power have not developed enough to comprehend this idea in its simplicity and depth, although many regrettable conditions point to the result of its neglect.
Emerson was familiar with Goethe’s studies of nature and brought these ideas into the American thought-life of his time, expanding their application to include even such things as the practical life and function of a farm. For both Goethe and Emerson, the visible objects in nature were manifestations of a spiritual power pervading the entire universe, and both saw a necessity of applying their insight to daily reality. It is deplorable that Emerson, in this country, was brushed off as a mere poet and Transcendentalist, and not accepted as a witness to the truth.
No one developed Goethe’s approach to nature further and established its validity more fully, than Rudolf Steiner who, through immense individual effort and accomplishment, was able to unite the spiritual with the practical, not only in the sciences, but also in the realms of education, art, medicine and agriculture. Here the idea of an organism takes form within the imaginative thinking man, not merely in the visualizing and describing of existing plant and animal species, but in the application of true creative power to a vast and complex conglomerate of single objects. As a result, these seemingly unrelated objects are suddenly realized, and deeply understood, to be a whole, connected to each other in a living interrelationship; each part becomes one of the many organs within a larger organism and its importance, seen now as having a function and meaning beyond itself, is increased thereby. The part can be truly appreciated only when viewed in relation to the whole.
Such an approach to the earth as a living organism is the only key to a deeper and life-respecting understanding of the world around us. When we can see all parts in nature as being interrelated–as in fact they are– we can also realize that no interference or act of man can be without influence upon the whole. The largest organism which we all know and experience, in its daily cycle, is the earth itself. Though a narrow- minded science still attempts to make us believe that our planet is the dead skeleton or residue of a once energy-transforming biochemical process in a cosmic space laboratory, growing evidence points to the fact that it is really an organism still in the process of maturing, having passed through childhood and adolescence but not having yet reached old age.
The earth is an organism. The rocks and minerals are the bones; the veins of water–rivers, lakes, oceans–are the blood; the mantle of soil is the skin; and the plant world in its diversity and totality is the hair, though in a much more living and active sense than we are accustomed to think of such things. The planet earth is a huge organism, intricate and complex, which sleeps and wakes at the same time, inhales and exhales simultaneously, is fiercely hot and icy cold each instant, and, above all, creates and destroys life with equal force–sometimes with cataclysmic power, sometimes with a gentle touch–while following its own destiny in space and time. The living earth follows universal laws and does not know or recognize the laws which man has established in his own mind and then put down on paper, assuming that this very act makes them valid. Even if all men were to abide by these rules, with total faith in their acclaimed measure of truth, the ruled would still remain mere abstractions, descriptions of exterior phenomena, and would not touch upon the matter of a living whole.
The earth is an organism. As such, it experiences birth and death, health and sickness, peace and pain. And beyond its call of duty it harbors and supports the tribes of men, because a higher order has destine this earth as the proving ground for human souls who, in order to reach their own spiritual destination and freedom, must be given the choice between the moral and the wicked, the selfish and the truly human, the eternal good and the existing evil. Human evolution is a development in time, and the earth, in the future as well as now, will have to remain the supplier of physical nourishment and drink, air to breath, light to live by. The responsibility of one generation for the next is to make proper and wise use of all the resources needed for the continued support of human life.
This responsibility includes a sincere recognition of the fact that the earth’s resources, due to their local distribution, are limited and cannot be wasted beyond a subsistence level for a limited population. Human behavior and industrial exploitation have not, however, shown any awareness of this responsibility; instead, especially during the last century, they have created, in a privileged society, an incalculable number of consumer products for which there is no honest need, while at the same time neglecting to consider the increased production and advanced distribution of food products desperately needed by a vast number of underprivileged populations. The resources of the planet earth are terribly misused and, all too often, actually manufactured into products which poison the people and pollute soil, water and air. The organism itself is wounded and suffers.
The earth is a living organism, and because it is living, its temper and patience can be overstrained–although the outbreak of anger or the convulsions of pain may be slow to come to expression, not immediately revealing a cause-and-effect relationship to man’s limited powers of comprehension. In the course of time, however, destructive results will bear unmistakable witness to this interrelatedness; we can only hope that this happens before it is to late for man to reverse his actions and transform deeds of destruction into efforts of healing.
Human consciousness must change and become attuned to surrounding realities, recognizing the principle of an organic whole in nature and abandoning the materialistic approach in favor of a fully human and living approach to all the realms of nature. In the field of agriculture, this will necessitate an entire reorganization of priorities and a broadening of definitions to include those spiritual realities without which an organism cannot be truly understood. Bio-dynamic farming ideas and practices have been, during the last half century, a pioneering attempt to give direction and meaning to a future generation of farmers whose utmost concern and responsibility will be to heal the earth and supply nourishment for both body and soul, that illness of mind may be cured and man become strong in his will to win the earth for the future.
Special thanks to the Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association, Inc., for permission to mirror this article from the Bio-Dynamics manual number 105, Winter 1973
into Volume 2 Issue 3 of The Amalgamated Web, in 1997, an free ezine I produced in the early days of the Internet. Vince Talkz
Homepage for the Bio-Dynamic Association of America
Leave a Reply