The spiritual Dimension of the Agriculture Course – the inner Path
Uli Johannes König
Everyone who concerns themselves with the Agriculture Course will be amazed at Rudolf Steiner’s numerous indications which he makes there for farming practice. This reaction will quite often be combined with astonishment or admiration at how Rudolf Steiner has insights into the complex interconnections of farming work, even though he was not an active farmer. However, he makes his source transparent for us time and again when he invites his listeners to connect with the farm and its background in nature through actively meditating themselves. The farmer would always be a meditant, even he or she is not conscious about being so. He does not speak explicitly about a schooling path in the lectures, but he presupposes that his listeners will know about the anthroposophical path in order to be allowed to participate in the Course. Who will be surprised that this path of schooling for the farmers lies tucked away discreetly in the Course itself? One such aspect will be described in this article. At this juncture it needs to be added that Rudolf Steiner in 1924 in answer to the question why, in his fundamental work
“How to attain Knowledge of higher Worlds”, he had not described a specific path which he described in lectures, said that there are many different paths within anthroposophy; to describe them all, however, he would have needed to write not merely a book but a whole library.
What now follows is an attempt to shed some light on the relationship between the Agriculture Course and the schooling path which Rudolf Steiner described in the Class Lessons. The readers may notice amazing parallels. With the question as to what all the things belonging to the farm are, we find out quickly that these actually appear to be without limits. The basis for plant growth is not only the soil, for, the soil continues to have an impact right down into greater depths: the geological layers underground, the different layers of rocks have an effect on plant growth, even when they are kilometres deep down. On the other hand, the farm extends right out into the cosmic regions, to the sun, the planets and the fixed star region. What is at stake is experiencing this infinitely extended polarity of forces in their dynamic working in the season, with an effect going concretely right into the individual plant as a formative force. How do we find access to this? How can we school ourselves for this? Here we may be struck with the first parallels to the schooling path: here the path begins with finding and feeling our way unconditio- nally into the various world qualities of the forces of the depths of the earth, which are at work in our limbs, of the peripheral forces of sun, moon and planets, moving in a constant dynamic; these work right into weather events and are related to our inner dynamic of the forces strea- ming in our body’s organisation; and finally the effects of the lofty cosmic forces of the fixed stars, which radiate their working into our head organisation. Just try it for once, stand up (if you like with closed eyes) and feel your way into the three regions described, of the depths of the earth, the peripheral forces around the earth and the forces of the stars high above; firstly with yourself in this three-fold relationship, then experiencing yourself spread out in three directions. Then, as a further enhancement try to perceive what this cosmic environment ‘speaks’ to me. These are life forces into which we dip in this man- ner, which we enter into a relationship with. This may serve as just a first indication of how we can direct our conscious awareness.
A further step is approaching the question how out of this world of life with its openness to the cosmos and the depths the farm is organised and shaped as an organism. An organism is closed, independent, organised internally, surrounded by a skin vis-à-vis the outside world. Here the farmer helps to shape it, creates organs and connects them up. But according to what criteria? In this connec- tion Rudolf Steiner speaks of the mutual interactions, nature’s own intimate secrets, between the trees and the field plants, between the soil and the livestock and among the landscape elements such as woodland, hedges and wetlands. The farmer needs to know how the concrete effect of each particular element is, how it works together with others and where it needs to have an ordering impact, if need be. Here too everything is in a living network of relationships, and we need to dip into the forces invol- ved in order to learn to recognise them. At this point we have the powerful picture which R. Steiner draws of the effect of the cow in ordering the forces: how it creates a cosmos of its own in this digestive activity in its rumen, in which everything flows together that it has taken in as feed and penetrates it with its bovine awareness. Thus the ‘right’ manure for the farm comes about, which creates the necessary basis of fertility for soil health and plant growth. Can we learn from the cow to dip into such a form of consciousness that permits us to recognise these relationships among all the various organs of the farm? Will we endeavour at all to dip into these many and varied relationships of forces? We will definitely quickly notice after the first tentative attempts how hard it is to get at all involved in the aspect of the forces of this powerful farm organism.
A further level is touched upon by the question of the “farm individuality”. Indeed the Agriculture Course describes the birth path of a completely new being: the individuality of the farm. What is an individuality? In biology an individual is described as a single clover plant or an animal, but what distinguishes an individuality? To be precise we only find it with the human being, when they speak of themselves in terms of their I. Where do you point, when you say “I”? Your hand moves to the heart region, to your centre. Or you experience your uprightness as a kind of ego-axis that runs through you, from far over your head right down into the earth. A relationship to our being can be experienced, which stretches over and beyond our body: I am incarnated and am trying to be better incar- nated, that is, to be conscious. Yet how is it with the farm, is there also something there like this ego-being? On this question I would like to insert a little piece from Rudolf Steiner’s other portrayals. In the Agriculture Course the term of emancipation from the workings of nature crops up; thereby the human is free. How does this emancipa- tion happen? In various places Rudolf Steiner describes what the ‘biological’ conditions for this are: for one thing, it is necessary to liberate oneself from the effects of na- ture in the times of day and the seasons, by joining them together in their effects. Thus, the summer working and winter working, the day working and the night working must happen simultaneously. This phenomenon cannot be gone into any more deeply here. It should simply be taken as a stimulating idea for the following account in connection with the question of the levels at which the biodynamic preparations are at work. A further aspect is mentioned in the so-called “Astronomy” lectures (GA 323). Among other things, the question here is about the further evolution of nature, the progress of evolution. This can only take place, if the human being, out of their own initiative, introduces something into nature that it does not have itself, something out of the freedom of the hu- man organisation. Apart from the above-mentioned time aspect, here the new ordering of the realms of nature is spoken about. Minerals, plants and animals have reached a cul-de-sac in their specialisations, they cannot develop any further. If they are taken back to their common place of origin, a new development will become possible. Doing this is the task of human beings. Taking the example of the farm, we can see ordering the living conditions alone within the framework of the agricultural organism is not sufficient, it remains a working of nature. However, if with the preparation work the realms of nature can be put into a new mutual relationship with one another, which is the case in the production of the preparations, where we encase the plant and mineral substances with envelopes of animal substance and plant them as new organs in the agricultural organism, then a new substance arises which is endowed to nature by the human forces of freedom in order to transform it. Everything about the preparation work bears the hallmark of freedom, even their application, if I may add these new forces individually to the complex networking of nature. Of course, I do not mean by freedom any arbitrary actions!
Now we can observe something surprising. The agricultural individuality can be experienced and recognised as a being that is incarnating more and more strongly. Thus, it can be observed that after the first application of the preparations on a farm in conversion it got a kind of ‘skin’, an evident form of protection on the inside. Already a year later a certain clarity of consciousness arose over the individual fields, or even wakefulness for the sense of belonging to the farm. Thus, the individuality of the farm became accessible to experience in an incipient way. So far I have been unable to experience this phenomenon on any farm that works without the preparations. Well, how can one describe this agricultural individuality? It is a spiritual being which, from one place stretched out over the whole farm, is in connection with the individual fields, animals etc. This place often lies to one side of the farm building or of the cowshed. Here too in such a brief sketch it cannot be gone into any more deeply. Nevertheless, we enter into the field of encounter with the beings with this level of contemplation, which for its part is extremely multi-layered. Anyone who wants to find more clarity about this, will find a variety of forms of assistance once again in the path given in the class lessons. If Rudolf Steiner speaks in the first Lessons as in the Agriculture Course itself merely about forces (see above), then their origin in the divine world of beings and ways to experience them are given in the later Lessons. Everything that we do in our daily work and lives is being observed and taken in by the world of spirits. The expe- rience of freedom which the human being can have during their earthly life is a new quality for the spiritual world, especially with the fruits of freedom. These fruits, as the creation of human beings, transform the spirit beings in such a way that they may be fitted into the overarching world of creation. Thus, they can be at work as creative forces in nature again. We just need to have trust in the spiritual world that it will help us in our endeavours. Then, we hardly need to be astonished, when preparations, applied in the tiniest quantities, can have considerable effects, when biodynamically bred cultivated plants can acquire completely new qualities; this may perhaps even apply in particular to extraordinary treatments such as eurythmy, sound, speech or even meditation. Even after 100 years, in relation to this kind of biodynamic work we stand really at the beginning of a completely new chapter of development.