The Rudolf Steiner Archive

25. On the Nature of Plants and the Relationship Between Humans and the Plant Kingdom

My dear friends!

[ 1 ] Human beings have a particularly intimate relationship with the plant kingdom. The plant kingdom is now the most important of the natural kingdoms for human beings.

[ 2 ] What the day is to human beings—waking up and falling asleep—that is what the year is to the spirit of the Earth—waking up and falling asleep. The Spirit of the Earth actually withdraws from the Earth—with its astral nature and its “I”—to those places where winter is, where winter covers the Earth, and allows greenery to sprout in other parts of the Earth.

[ 3 ] The seeds that are sown into the earth are the condensed memories of the deeds performed by the Earth Spirit the previous year, and the Earth Spirit finds these deeds again when it returns to these places on earth in the spring, entering the earth with its astral body and its I. It is just as when a human being returns in the morning with his astral body and his I into his etheric body. There he finds the memories, sensations, feelings, and experiences of the past day when he submerges once more in the morning with his astral body and his I into the etheric body. In falling asleep and waking up throughout the day, human beings mirror the life of the Earth Spirit over the course of a year; the difference is that human beings do so individually, whereas the Earth Spirit does so in the same way throughout the millennia.

[ 4 ] Human life consists of periods of ascent and descent; the principle of the plant kingdom runs through one's entire life.

[ 5 ] [Since we are gathered here in this small circle, I would like you] to take everything that is said here today to heart and feel it more deeply than you grasp it with your mind.

[ 6 ] The principle of the etheric body is the Christ principle; it encompasses growth, life, and the power of the sun.

[ 7 ] Its ascending line (from the human) reveals the animal kingdom in a distorted form; that is, the characteristics that are supposed to develop in the first half of life can also go awry, and this is reflected in the animal kingdom. In all its forms, the animal kingdom reveals human traits that have gone awry. Example: The monkey—its upright gait—is a botched attempt.

[ 8 ] In a descending sequence, the mineral kingdom shows what a human being would become if he were not permeated by the life principle, by the etheric body. A human being must die physically in order to develop spiritually.

[ 9 ] People must once again develop an intimate relationship with the plant world through their physical surroundings. These will help them achieve this, provided they so desire.

[ 10 ] The Earth was a being that had lived in the deepest longing ever since the time when, during the separation from the Sun, something had departed from it—something that belonged to the Earth and was kindred to it—and which is as dear to the Earth as a son is to his mother. That had to depart from the Earth and develop on the Sun for a time. But this belongs to the Earth, and that is why nothing is as closely related to the Christ as the Earth’s plant kingdom and that which lives in human beings as the ethereal or plant principle. The return of the Christ in the etheric body—this is what human beings must understand on Earth.

[ 11 ] The mystery of Golgotha culminates in our being able to say: That which had been separated from the earth for so long is now reunited with it. In the plant kingdom lives [the] solar principle, [the] Christ spirit!

[ 12 ] Once humanity has come to understand the Christ spirit, it will also rediscover the proper relationship with the plant world.

[ 13 ] Humanity has increasingly lost its connection to plants during this dark age, the Kali Yuga. The good that the spirits of nature bestow upon humanity cannot be destroyed so quickly. It is only in their grandchildren that the harmful effects of city life become apparent among those who have moved from the countryside to the city.

[ 14 ] The plant world is the expression of the Christ Spirit. (In earlier lectures, it was stated that what is spiritually created by human beings today—for example, Cologne Cathedral—grows on Jupiter as a plant or like a plant. Note by Alice Kinkel.)

[ 15 ] The entire plant kingdom is part of the Earth’s organism, just as human hair and nails are part of the human body. Nor should we consider a single plant in isolation, but rather in such a way that we say to ourselves: It is inconceivable that lilies could exist without autumn crocuses, or that linden trees could exist without ash trees, and so on.

[ 16 ] The Symbol of the Rose Cross. For us, it means: We must transcend what becomes wood and what becomes decaying mineral matter in the plant, and develop a feeling and awareness of life, of the bloom; from this will flow an understanding of our etheric body and of the Christ spirit.

[ 17 ] Wonderfully beautiful things were said about the leaves of plants, about [their life, growth, and transformation from green throughout the summer to their] colors in the fall. Dr. Steiner explained how a restrained astral element expresses itself in the fiery red of the autumn leaves, the absorbed sunlight in their radiant gold, and so on (unfortunately, this has not been preserved).