To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour …
It is right it should be so
Man was made for Joy and Woe
And when this we rightly know
Thro the world we safely go
Joy and Woe are woven fine
A clothing for the soul divine
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
Fom Auguries of Innocence by William Blake.
Imagine all the joyful occasions like weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, and so on without any flowers. Or, on the other side, the difficult occasions like funerals or hospital visits that would seem so barren without the beauty of flowers to offer hope.
In our day to day lives, flowers decorate our homes and yards, and cities with parks and botanical gardens are considered more desirable. And lest we forget, without flowers, we would have no fruits and far fewer vegetables. Flowers fulfill physical needs and psychological needs; what an amazing breadth of service flowers perform.
For our part, we make sure the plants for which we are responsible have all the earth, water, air and sunlight they need to thrive, but do they need anything else from us? We might wonder since everything physical has its spiritual counterpart—something invisible—what lies behind the flowers and plants we see. We might wonder if that spiritual part requires something besides the four elements.
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
One who simply grows up into our modern civilization observes the things of the outer world: he perceives them, forms abstract thoughts about them, possibly derives real pleasure from a lovely blossom or a majestic plant; and if he is at all imaginative, he may even achieve an inner picture of these. Yet he remains completely unaware of his deeper relation to that world of which the plant, for example, is a part. To talk incessantly about spirit, spirit, and again spirit is utterly inadequate for spiritual perception. Instead, what is needed is that we should become conscious of our true spiritual relations to the things around us. When we observe a plant in the usual way, we do not in the least sense the presence of an elemental being dwelling in it, of something spiritual; we do not dream that every such plant harbors something which is not satisfied by having us look at it and form such abstract mental pictures as we commonly do of plants today. For in every plant there is concealed—under a spell, as it were—an elemental spiritual being; and really only he observes a plant in the right way who realizes that this loveliness is the sheath of a spiritual being enchanted in it—a relatively insignificant being, to be sure, in the great scale of cosmic interrelationships, but still a being intimately related to man.
The human being is really so closely linked to the world that he cannot take a step in the realm of nature without coming under the intense influence exercised upon him by his intimate relations to the world. And when we see the lily in the field, growing from the seed to the blossom, we must vividly imagine—though not personified—that this lily is awaiting something…
All about us are these elemental spirits begging us, in effect, Do not look at the flowers so abstractly, nor form such abstract mental pictures of them: let rather your heart and your Gemüt (heart, mind, soul) enter into what lives, as soul and spirit, in the flowers, for it is imploring you to break the spell.
Excerpt from: Michaelmas and the Soul-Forces of Man, Lecture 2, by Rudolf Steiner, September 28, 1923.
Steiner says quite specifically that the elemental beings of flowers are released to advance their spiritual lives when we human beings perceive them fully. It’s hard to imagine, right? It’s hard to believe that we are so connected to all that exists, right? And even harder to believe how deeply runs our responsibility to all of earth, of nature.
If we think about the help we receive from our guardian angel and other spiritual beings, we may get a sense of the relationship we are considering today between us and these elemental beings of flowers. We, too, are instruments of divine forces. Maybe we will look differently at the flowers attending our feelings of joy and woe knowing that when we do, we help to free them.
As we work in this our third year of the blog, we will continue to uncover specific spiritual realities such as this one… even though it won’t be “easy” to believe them. But if, additionally, we take up the work of acquiring spiritual sight, none of this will seem so fantastic; we will see all of it for ourselves.
