Warmth Is Balance
In nature and throughout the Earth organism, we find balancing processes expressed in the image and substance of warmth. The physical, soul, and spiritual aspects of human beings also require balancing, but we must maintain this balance ourselves. Warmth is the goal.
We are surrounded by warmth. The organism of the Earth, which we’re a part of, has a differentiated, living, and mobile warmth-body that is organized in a similar way to the human organism: a cold nerve-sense pole at the northern and southern extremes, a warm metabolic pole around the equator, and a balancing rhythmic system where we experience four distinct seasons in the temperate zones. However, everywhere on Earth, in each distinct climate zone, there is a unique warmth cycle of the year, with specific fluctuations and specific rhythms in the changes of temperature.
Life on Earth has developed within certain boundaries, as has life in relation to the whole cosmos. If the Earth were just 5 percent closer to the Sun, all the water would evaporate and life would cease. If, on the other hand, the Earth were just 1 percent further away, all the water would freeze. If, say, the Earth were as small as the Moon, it couldn’t sustain an atmosphere—the gravitational field would be too weak. The Earth would then have no protection from the destructive radiation coming from the cosmos. The speed of the Earth’s rotation and the tilt of its axis also contribute to the unfolding of life in all its diversity and dynamism. So, life on Earth follows cosmic-terrestrial rhythms and takes place within certain boundary conditions—one of which involves warmth.
The Thermal Envelope
Plants, animals, and humans are embedded in the thermal envelope of the Earth. In considering the evolution of living beings, we can detect a gradual internalization of external warmth. The world of plants is still almost entirely open to the cosmos and the Earth. Only the most highly developed plants, the angiosperms, have internalized ovules in their ovaries. Plants germinate, grow, flower, bear fruit, and die completely in accord with external rhythms, including those related to temperature. However, perennial plants are able to overwinter, and there are even plants in which metabolic processes cause an increase in warmth above that of the external environment. Some, such as the jack-in-the-pulpit (Arum maculatum), can achieve an increase of several degrees above the external temperature. This occurs through secondary metabolic processes in the plant, not via photosynthesis and the upbuilding processes. The Christmas rose (Helleborus niger), for example, pushes its flower bud-bearing stems through the snow and blooms in winter. These secondary metabolic processes are actually conversion and decomposition processes which lead to the formation of various healing substances (essential oils, tannins, saponins, mucilage, etc.). Additional warmth generation is accompanied by the formation of specific plant toxins, such as alkaloids and special toxic glycosides. In these cases, we can recognize a kind of approximation of an outer soul aspect to the plant, a kind of attempt to internalize the astral in the still innocent green plant being.
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