Extraordinary Plant Qualities for Biodynamics

Biodynamics is an agricultural system developed by Rudolf Steiner and which is now widely practised in Europe. The book presents much more than the title immediately suggests. The first chapter, for instance, explains how the world of the senses can become transparent to experiences in soul and spirit. This moves on to our capacity for awakening a sense for landscape of moods. The authors write that 'each expression of a plant is in effect of what was in the general experience of life processes', implying that individual expression is simultaneously connectivity of the unity of nature. Careful emphasis is placed on the experience of formative life processes, whose effects are manifest in the dynamic development of plants. The fourth chapter describes how the year and its seasons are an archetype of human soul activity, drawing parallels between plant life and our own experience. These operate according to their own rhythms, to which we can be more or less sensitive. In this sense, the day is a microcosm of the year, but the whole process requires a balance between inward and outward orientation, when our culture is so emphatically turned towards the outer. In short, there are many general principles about nature that can be learned from this book, even if readers are less interested in some more technical aspects. This biodynamic approach is part of a new science of working with nature.