Table of Contents

/ Daddy / Cut /Metaphors/ The Thin People / I Am Vertical / Bee Poems / November Graveyard / Mirror / Apprehensions / Eyemote / Guestbook / Lady Lazarus / Links/ In Plaster / Mirror / Black Rook in Rainy Weather / Mary's Song / Getting There / Ariel / Fever 103 / Elm / The Moon and the Yew Tree / The Bee Keeper's Daughter / Firesong / Lorelei / Stings / The Bee Meeting / Burning the Letters / Words/Balloons/The Queen's Complaint/Moonrise/Sonnet to Satan/Thalidomide

Links /Guestbook

"Now plant, animal and man, as they stand before us today, are only the germ of what they are to become. The plant of today is only a symbolical indication of something which is to appear in the next human evolutionary cycle in greater glory and clarity."

-- R.Steiner from The Lost Temple and Its Restoration

¹

I Am Vertical

But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.

Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them--
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.

--Sylvia Plath from The Collected Works

"Only when the lowest Kingdom has become the Human Kingdom, where there are no more lower beings, when all beings have been redeemed by humans through the force of human life, then will we have arrived at the Seventh evolutionary cycle where God rests because humans themselves create."

R.Steiner

The Formative Force

In Outline of Occult Science Steiner makes the very reasonable assertion that the physical part of the human has the same nature as the mineral kingdom and therefore that which differentiates the human from the mineral kingdom cannot be considered as part of the physical body. Only the human corpse is of the same nature as the mineral kingdom; the living human uses the mineral for higher purposes. Even the form of the body is a non-material force because at death the removal of the form-giving force results in decay where the physical can no longer maintain form.

So there is a non-material force that gives form to our bodies and, although we cannot directly perceive it, our thinking can grasp the necessity of its existence by simply observing physical effects. By observing forms of living things, life processes, and metamorphic growth in time we can get a feel for the formative force. In our imaginations the movements and processes of things can take on an existence independent of our concepts of matter revealing the creative processes behind the veil.

If we manage to think away matter completely, then the most substantive part of our existence is comprised of the formative forces. Our emotions, intellect, and new order of non-material sensations are embedded in the swirl of creative formation and not in a mineral body.

Presently, the body of formative forces is the higher member of the plant kingdom. When we wear this body as our lowest garment, then the human will integrate with plant kingdom and redeem it. The idea archetypes of the trees and flowers will no longer be objects that exist outside of us. Instead they will live within us and their processes will become our anatomy. Imaginative thinking about our respiration and plants reveal that plants and humans are part of the same organism, hence the perfect symmetry between the human respiratory system and the branching of trees.

"But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed "

The poet reexperiences the division of the human and the plant kingdom. The ego or "I am" of the human recognizes what it has thrust out and lost in evolution By imaginatively merging with the life processes of the plant she begins the reintegration into the plant world! She is now living imaginatively into the future of human evolution and creating the archetypal spiritual thought forms that will guide us in the future as we lose the mineral body and merge with the plant processes.

"Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring. "

Immortality and eternal creativity-the poet's will pushes into the plant world and seeds the plant life processes with her human imagination.

"Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them--
Thoughts gone dim. "

The poet observes the relationship between the far reaches of the cosmos and the flowers and their fragrances and startlingly states a constant theme of Steiner when she observes that the part of the human being we observe sleeping in bed is the physical and form giving body divorced of sensation, emotion, intellect, and ego. Where have these important parts gone? Have thoughts simply gone dim or do they reside with the ego in a pure thought sphere of which we cannot form any memory upon awakening?

"It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
Then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me."

She realizes that the perfection of the human-plant relationship can only occur when she lays aside the physical body and through the merger of life processes humans and plants become one in the next epoch of evolution.

Rudolf Steiner in his Philosophy of Freedom pointed out how the plant and human are interwoven in the process of thinking:

"The reason why we generally overlook thinking in our consideration of things has already been given. It lies in the fact that our attention is concentrated only on the object we are thinking about, but not at the same time on the thinking itself. The naïve consciousness, therefore, treats thinking as something which has nothing to do with things, but stands altogether aloof from them and contemplates them. The picture which the thinker makes of the phenomena of the world is regarded not as something belonging to the things but as existing only in the human head. The world is complete in itself without this picture. It is finished and complete with all its substances and forces, and of this ready-made world man makes a picture.

" Whoever thinks thus need only be asked one question. What right have you to declare the world to be complete without thinking? Does not the world produce thinking in the heads of men with the same necessity as it produces the blossom on a plant? Plant a seed in the earth. It puts forth root and stem, it unfolds into leaves and blossoms. Set the plant before yourself. It connects itself, in your mind, with a definite concept. Why should this concept belong any less to the whole plant than leaf and blossom? You say the leaves and blossoms exist quite apart from a perceiving subject, but the concept appears only when a human being confronts the plant. Quite so. But leaves and blossoms also appear on the plant only if there is soil in which the seed can be planted, and light and air in which the leaves and blossoms can unfold. Just so the concept of a plant arises when a thinking consciousness approaches the plant."

"It is quite arbitrary to regard the sum of what we experience of a thing through bare perception as a totality, as the whole thing, while that which reveals itself through thoughtful contemplation is regarded as a mere accretion which has nothing to do with the thing itself. If I am given a rosebud today, the picture that offers itself to my perception is complete only for the moment. If I put the bud into water, I shall tomorrow get a very different picture of my object. If I watch the rosebud without interruption, I shall see today's state change continuously into tomorrow's through an infinite number of intermediate stages. The picture which presents itself to me at any one moment is only a chance cross-section of an object which is in a continual process of development. If I do not put the bud into water, a whole series of states which lay as possibilities within the bud will not develop. Similarly I may be prevented tomorrow from observing the blossom further, and will thereby have an incomplete picture of it."

"It would be a quite unobjective and fortuitous kind of opinion that declared of the purely momentary appearance of a thing: this is the thing."

N. Turner: Marsh Painting 2003

The poet's deep feeling, thinking, and interaction with the plant creates the future of the human and plant relationship-a new synthesis of the forces of growth, procreation, metamorphoses, and pure thought which will elevate both human and plant to "..greater glory and clarity"; furthermore, we the readers, when we experience these poems as expressions of spiritual reality and not just clinical case studies in psychology, participate in this world evolutionary process and begin to complete the process that the poet set in motion.

Plath fuses the plant world with human thinking, feeling and willing at the stage of human evolution where the ego is considerably alienated from the natural world. Her reflection upon her own death is the alchemical catalyst that can reunite her with the forces of nature.

Goethe, one hundred and fifty years earlier in The Metamorphosis of Plants, recognized that the forces inherent in plant growth are identical to the forces of feeling within the human heart. Where Plath seeks mystical union in death, Goethe finds that same vision in human love:

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS

Goethe--(translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring)

THOU art confused, my beloved, at, seeing the thousandfold union

Shown in this flowery troop, over the garden dispers'd;
any a name dost thou hear assign'd; one after another

Falls on thy list'ning ear, with a barbarian sound.
None resembleth another, yet all their forms have a likeness;

Therefore, a mystical law is by the chorus proclaim'd;
Yes, a sacred enigma! Oh, dearest friend, could I only

Happily teach thee the word, which may the mystery solve!
Closely observe how the plant, by little and little progressing,

Step by step guided on, changeth to blossom and fruit!
First from the seed it unravels itself, as soon as the silent

Fruit-bearing womb of the earth kindly allows Its escape,
And to the charms of the light, the holy, the ever-in-motion,

Trusteth the delicate leaves, feebly beginning to shoot.
Simply slumber'd the force in the seed; a germ of the future,

Peacefully lock'd in itself, 'neath the integument lay,
Leaf and root, and bud, still void of colour, and shapeless;

Thus doth the kernel, while dry, cover that motionless life.
Upward then strives it to swell, in gentle moisture confiding,

And, from the night where it dwelt, straightway ascendeth to light.
Yet still simple remaineth its figure, when first it appeareth;

And 'tis a token like this, points out the child 'mid the plants.
Soon a shoot, succeeding it, riseth on high, and reneweth,

Piling-up node upon node, ever the primitive form;
Yet not ever alike: for the following leaf, as thou seest,

Ever produceth itself, fashioned in manifold ways.
Longer, more indented, in points and in parts more divided,

Which. all-deform'd until now, slept in the organ below,
So at length it attaineth the noble and destined perfection,

Which, in full many a tribe, fills thee with wondering awe.
Many ribb'd and tooth'd, on a surface juicy and swelling,

Free and unending the shoot seemeth in fullness to be;
Yet here Nature restraineth, with powerful hands, the formation,

And to a perfecter end, guideth with softness its growth,
Less abundantly yielding the sap, contracting the vessels,

So that the figure ere long gentler effects doth disclose.
Soon and in silence is check'd the growth of the vigorous branches,

And the rib of the stalk fuller becometh in form.
Leafless, however, and quick the tenderer stem then up-springeth,

And a miraculous sight doth the observer enchant.
Ranged in a circle, in numbers that now are small, and now countless,

Gather the smaller-sized leaves, close by the side of their like.
Round the axis compress'd the sheltering calyx unfoldeth,

And, as the perfectest type, brilliant-hued coronals forms.
Thus doth Nature bloom, in glory still nobler and fuller,

Showing, in order arranged, member on member uprear'd.
Wonderment fresh dost thou feel, as soon as the stem rears the flower

Over the scaffolding frail of the alternating leaves.
But this glory is only the new creation's foreteller,

Yes, the leaf with its hues feeleth the hand all divine,
And on a sudden contracteth itself; the tenderest figures

Twofold as yet, hasten on, destined to blend into one.
Lovingly now the beauteous pairs are standing together,

Gather'd in countless array, there where the altar is raised.
Hymen hovereth o'er them, and scents delicious and mighty

Stream forth their fragrance so sweet, all things enliv'ning around.
Presently, parcell'd out, unnumber'd germs are seen swelling,

Sweetly conceald in the womb, where is made perfect the fruit.
Here doth Nature close the ring of her forces eternal;

Yet doth a new one, at once, cling to the one gone before,
So that the chain be prolonged for ever through all generations,

And that the whole may have life, e'en as enjoy'd by each part.
Now, my beloved one, turn thy gaze on the many-hued thousands

Which, confusing no more, gladden the mind as they wave.
Every plant unto thee proclaimeth the laws everlasting,

Every flowered speaks louder and louder to thee;
But if thou here canst decipher the mystic words of the goddess,

Everywhere will they be seen, e'en though the features are changed.
Creeping insects may linger, the eager butterfly hasten,--

Plastic and forming, may man change e'en the figure decreed!
Oh, then, bethink thee, as well, how out of the germ of acquaintance,

Kindly intercourse sprang, slowly unfolding its leaves;
Soon how friendship with might unveil'd itself in our bosoms,

And how Amor, at length, brought forth blossom and fruit
Think of the manifold ways wherein Nature hath lent to our feelings,

Silently giving them birth, either the first or the last!
Yes, and rejoice in the present day! For love that is holy

Seeketh the noblest of fruits,--that where the thoughts are the same,
Where the opinions agree,--that the pair may, in rapt contemplation,

Lovingly blend into one,--find the more excellent world.

1797.

Goethe recognizes nature within. The metamorphoses that we observe outside fructifies human feelings and relationships. The new unity between the human and the plant world operates concurrently with the unity achieved by free individuals. Plath's alienated autonomy is a necessary condition to a new unity, a human unity based on complete individual freedom.

Comparisons

On nature, night, and sleep:

Plath--"The trees and the flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them-"

Goethe-- "WHEN the moist and balmy gale

Round the verdant meadow sighs,
Odors sweet in misty veil

At the twilight-hour arise.
Murmurings soft of calm repose

Rock the heart to child-like rest,
And the day's bright portals close

On the eyes with toil oppress'd."

Goethe--"Night already reigns o'er all,

Strangely star is link'd to star;
Planets mighty, sparkling small,

Glitter near and gleam afar.
Gleam above in clearer night,

Glitter in the glassy sea;
Pledging pure and calm delight,

Rules the moon in majesty."

Shady nooks the bushes yield,
And with waving, silvery gleam,

Rocks the harvest in the field.

Wouldst thou wish for wish obtain,

Look upon yon glittering ray!
Lightly on thee lies the chain,

Cast the shell of sleep away!
Tarry not, but be thou bold,

When the many loiter still;
All with ease may be controll'd

By the man of daring will. "

Plath's Ariel:
Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.

God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees!--The furrow

Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,

Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks----

Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else

Hauls me through air----
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.

White
Godiva, I unpeel----
Dead hands, dead stringencies.

And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child's cry

Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,

The dew that flies,
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red

Eye, the cauldron of morning.

Both poets unite with the stars and plants during the night and both anticipate the rising Sun at dawn. The rising Sun elicits an ecstatic boldness and unites with the poets' Will. Goethe's Sun is the "newborn eye of day". Plath's is "the red eye, the cauldron of morning." Although possessing similar visions, Goethe remains angelically detached from his reports. He recognizes the unity of Human and Nature but doesn't ecstatically unite with the elements as does Plath in her suicidal solar plunge.

Table of Contents

Daddy / Cut /Metaphors/ The Thin People / I Am Vertical / Bee Poems / November Graveyard / Mirror / Apprehensions / Eyemote / Guestbook / Lady Lazarus / Links/ In Plaster / Mirror / Black Rook in Rainy Weather / Mary's Song / Getting There / Ariel / Fever 103 / Elm / The Moon and the Yew Tree / The Bee Keeper's Daughter / Firesong / Lorelei / Stings / The Bee Meeting / Burning the Letters / Words/Balloons/The Queen's Complaint/Moonrise/Sonnet to Satan/Thalidomide

Links /Guestbook

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