Concerning ego potentiality
Benno Otter
The idea of 'ego potentiality' was introduced by Rudolf Steiner in the eighth lecture of the Agriculture Course. He said that human excrement is something very different from animal manure. Human excrement is of little use since all that is nutritious in the food has been extracted by the human I forces. What we excrete is therefore of little value, it has no constructive quality. The activity of our I uses up all the forces contained in the food. With animals it is different.
Rudolf Steiner describes how the animal does not develop much of an I and refers to the animal as having an 'ego potentiality. The forces of this 'ego potentiality' then remain in the manure. There is of course the question as to how the cow comes by this ego potentiality. It can only enter it through the food, that is through the plants which the animal eats. Plants have this 'ego potentiality' within them. With a plant, this 'ego potentiality' can be more easily understood.
When the plant begins to grow, its shoot goes upwards and its root down. The plant has no incarnated I and so the I of the plant world is not in the plant itself, but in the centre of the earth - we can imagine it as being there. It is easy to think of the plant's Higher Self being down there because after all the roots of every plant are orientated towards the centre of the earth. If we imagine the earth as a sphere with plants growing everywhere upon it, then all these plants ray inward with their roots and outward with their stems. The forces of 'ego potentiality' come to expression in the plant world through the unbelievably strong vertical growth impulse.
If we then turn to the preparation plants and try to imagine how this 'ego potentiality' expresses itself, we come to the family of grasses. These are the main food plants for cattle.
For me these are also preparation plants. They provide the initial substances for the cow pats and therefore the horn manure preparation. The grasses express this vertical gesture in a very powerful way. They even want to retain this verticality when flowering. The ears of grain are also in the vertical though sometimes bent a little to left and right and move in the wind. We need the grass in a digested form to make the horn manure preparation.
We can then ask ourselves how it is with the other preparation plants. What is the special characteristic of the valerian plant in the
verticality of its stem? It is simply air. The valerian plant has an amazing air-filled stem and this air even penetrates into the roots. If we cut through the roots, we will find air chambers in them. The special quality of the valerian is that air is contained in its stem, the realm where its 'ego potentiality' is expressed. The dandelion really has no stem at all, it is all condensed into the rosette of leaves.
There is only the flower stem and this flower stem is also filled with air. The stinging nettle plant cannot remain up. right for long when it is fresh and full of sap. If I cut and try to put it in a vase; if I want to make a beautiful bunch of flowers from nettles, I cannot do so because they will immediately wilt. As soon as the plant is mature however it develops a very lasting structure. If it hasn't all been mown down in the
summer, these fibrous nettle sterns will still be standing in winter. The yarrow plant is also quite special.
Yarrow has a very perfectly formed stem and the horsetail is actually nothing else but stem, stem and more stem. And even under the earth the stems of the horsetail continue.
If we look at the roots, we find that the dandelion has a root full of vitality that descends vertically down. Chamomile has a strongly developed taproot. The oak is a very special plant. It has of course a very powerful taproot, but the oak continually struggles to be upright. It tries every year, but never succeeds. It grows upward for a bit, but is then forced to grow sideways, because its bud has been chewed off. It has a cluster of buds on top and can grow out to left or right.
It tries again and again to grow upwards but somehow never manages it and this produces the oak's gnarled characteristic. I think this also demonstrates an incredibly strong 'ego potentiality'.
This 'ego potentiality' is also found in the animals. The organs used for making the preparations are mainly taken from the cow and we can ask ourselves how this 'ego potentiality' can be strengthened through our approach to management, breeding and feeding. When we then make the preparations, the animal element is brought together with the plant element and a whole new organ is formed for the farm organism. Let us take as an example the dandelion package.
It is separated from its surroundings and inside it there are a great many dandelion flowers - it is a newly formed organ with a skin around it. It is a skin that is always connected with what is going on inside and with what happens outside.
These preparations help to strengthen the farm individuality and enhance it with the power of the 'ego potentiality. This does not happen in one year. It happens from year to year to year. There is a wonderful statement in the Agriculture Course by Rudolf Steiner: It happens continuously, the individuality develops step by step, it needs time.
Benno Otter, Co-worker of the Goetheanum Garden Park since 1982, contact person, coordinator, offers courses and advice. Garden park management, com-posting, preparation making and training apprentices.