III. The Relation of the Human Being to Nature

Only by looking at the issue in this way, and not stopping at mere concepts, does it come to life. Only then we will have grasped it in the right way. Because then we know that what we do to a plant is having a similar effect as if we did the same to a human being. If we are hitting a person, then this will hurt him because he has an astral body. The etheric body is unable to experience joy or pain. The individual plant doesn’t feel hurt if we squeeze it, as not all individual plants possess an astral body. But the jointly shared astral body of the plants belongs to the Earth, and what is done to a plant hurts it. In the centre of the Earth are the plant-Egos and it is there that consciousness originates about what one does to a plant. Once we grasp this teaching with all the strength of our soul, we will walk differently upon the surface of the Earth. Thus, every step we take in life becomes a communication with the Earth as a conscious being, and we know that this Earth as a whole experiences pleasure and pain and joy and sorrow. But we have to experience this in the right way. One could believe that if we cut a plant, the Earth would feel pain. This is not the case. Detailed information can only be given by a clairvoyant able to see the way the Earth’s astral body functions. If you pick a blossom, this creates a feeling as if a calf is suckling milk from its mother, which creates a kind of well-being sensation for the cow. Plants that the Earth lets sprout up, can be compared to the milk that spurts out of an animal, so that when you pick flowers, a feeling of pleasure for the Earth is provided. But if you rip these out with the roots, the Earth experiences pain, as if you were cutting into flesh. If you take this vividly, you will notice what kind of spiritual relationship with the Earth you will gain. Once the sickle slices through the stalks, the clairvoyant sees blissful sensations move across the Earth, across the fields. By mowing a field, a flood of well-being moves across the Earth. Our relationship to the world is deepening in a wonderful way when we begin to settle into these truths, and feel how we are hurting Earth when we rip out her plants, like someone would rip out a hair from us.