Copyright Alan Whitehead & Earthschooling: No Part of this book, post, URL, or book excerpt may be shared with anyone who has not paid for these materials.
Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss…
EXTINCTION IS NOT FOREVER!
Australia’s Unique Fauna
“As a Maritime (Astral) Initiate of the 3rd degree, I have, certainly since passing into the spiritual world in 1814, had more than my share of contact with the wonderful group souls of animals. For a start, my best pal on my long voyages over the world oceans was my cat!”
This was Matthew Flinders speaking to a young Spiritual Scientist.
In her higher seeking to penetrate the faunal mysteries of this mysterious continent, Australia (which Flinders officially named), she had contacted a very agreeable spirit indeed. She had fed the baby and was in a pleasant state of soul serenity. A late moon was rising, lightly brushing verandah, tropical plants, and the earnest spiritual seeker’s brown-blonde hair with silver dust.
“Not only did you name it,” she replied to her disembodied but hyper-real companion “but you were the very first to circumnavigate this continent; Australia being the first – the Physical Body member – of the Seven Terra Brothers. Hence you were the first to really know it, as an integral entity that is – as a Being.”
“Indeed; and since then, I’ve journeyed from its 15,000-mile coastline periphery to the very core of its spirituality; especially in relation to its animal life: I was an astral initiate, remember?
Australia, as you know, has a unique animal community; the most special, if you like, of any other comparable region on earth. When Lemuria sunk beneath the waves in conflagration those tens of thousands of years ago, Australia, directly to the east, arose from the depths. As such, a land bridge was formed, for a time at least, between the two continents. Not so between Lemuria and Africa (the Third – Astral – Terra Brother) to the west, which hadn’t even been born then.
So, the three Lemurian (Mesozoic) animals, the birds, monotremes and marsupials, migrated with the aborigines eastward to inhabit this new, welcoming land. Birds, being highly mobile, spread right across the earth over the ensuing eons. While the monotremes, the precious two left, the echidna, and the platypus (through there is a separate species of echidna in New Guinea), are exclusive to the Australasian Faunal Region. However, in the eyes of the world, Australia is the land of the marsupial. Though another bridge, via an erstwhile less hostile Antarctica (the Seventh – Spirit Man – Terra Brother) once existed between Australia and South America (the Second – Etheric – Terra Brother), over which a scattering of fairly primitive marsupials crossed. This fact accounts for the opossums and so on that today populate the Western Hemisphere, right up to the Mississippi Valley in North America (the Fourth – Ego – Terra Brother).
However, the apogee of marsupial evolution occurred in Australia.
These animals are not as advanced as the later placental mammals of Atlantis. For a start they’re not as intelligent, lacking a corpus callosum as they do. Nor have they developed a wide range of vocal communication, as have the higher animals.
Marsupials have not even evolved a proper social organization, or definitive hierarchy: just compare a ‘mob’ (a revealing term for a group of kangaroos) with the complex and extended family life of a herd of elephants or a pride of lions.”
The moon rose higher as a pair of ringtail possums made noisy but inelegant love in the silky oak down in the garden. Spiritual Scientist’s mind wandered; her hazel eyes puzzled over a problem with which many ‘straight’ zoologists eternally wrestle – Convergent Evolution.
“It just stretches credulity to imagine that the amazing similarity of form and behavior between the totally isolated marsupials and the world-wide placental mammals is merely a series of improbable coincidences. Take the favorite ‘convergent’ case study, the mole.
The golden mole of Africa, a desert-dwelling placental mammals, is identical in almost every way with the marsupial mole of Central Australia. Except they’re eons apart in evolution, evidenced by the most significant ‘difference’ of all, genetics. One, the African, has a highly developed internal womb, the other a primitive pouch.
Yet, the two charming little animals are the same size, color, form – and they’re both blind. They also have the same habitat, hence habits, moving through the soft, dry sand seeking small invertebrates in the same improbably way. With the limitless varietal potential of evolving animals, this set of similarities is surely million-to-one odds.
To a varying lesser degree, we also see convergent evolution in native cat, Asian cat; possum, monkey; tree kangaroo, lemur; marsupial mouse, house mouse; bilby, rabbit; numbat, squirrel; echidna, hedgehog; Tasmanian devil, wolverine; koala, sloth – et al!”
Matthew frowned in spirit “Yes, it puzzled me too for a time; there were just too many uncanny similarities. Then I began to socialize with the animal group souls up here in Terra Astrality, who provided a very different picture. Even though animals are – geographically – widely separated on the earthly plane, they are not necessarily so in the astral.
In fact, there are quite animated exchanges up here between the various group souls. For instance, your case-history marsupial mole may have, over a long period of time, informed the group soul of the much later golden mole (and others) about its successful survival strategems. So over time, the Spirits of Form, armed with this experiential data, created similar body shapes, proportions and physiology for the new moles. This too happened with another classic example of convergent evolution, the wholly unlikely parallel gliding adaptation of the flying phalanger a marsupial, and the flying squirrel, a placental mammal. The possibility of both totally disparate animals adopting, through legion ‘accidents’ of selectivity, exactly the same obscure mechanism, that of stretched skin between back and front legs as a gliding wing, beggars’ belief!” The great ex-mariner sighed.
Spiritual Scientist smiled in sympathy at his divine bafflement.
“Another thing that bothers me is my collective culpability as a human being in the annihilation of many animal species. As they say, extinction is forever.”
Matthew glanced round sharply at this, seemingly oblivious to the musical call to the moon of a distant plover. “Actually, extinction is not forever; in the wider destiny sense that is. Every animal species has a specific mission on earth. When this is completed, they all sadly die in body – to be born in soul! And eventually in body once more; but this time, of a higher animal form. Take your good self – after all, an individual person is equivalent to an entire animal species.
When you die you do not become extinct; you simply move into another dimension, and in time to another life on earth. Again, hopefully, this is in a more advanced bodily form. A person in one life of humble peasant stock may well incarnate in a thousand years or so as, say, an artist. Then again, maybe not!
But back to animals. The dodo was a degenerate bird; as such, if the brutal sailors visiting its Mauritius home hadn’t killed every one of them, the species would probably still have perished in a relatively short time (in zoological terms) anyway. If the great gods of karma will and animal to flourish, then it will – no matter how devilish man’s attempts to extinguish it. Look at rattus rattus! Obviously mankind still needs the lowly rat to divest him of some, er, insalubrious traits!
No doubt there was a “Save the Dinosaur” protest in the ancient Cretaceous age, just prior to each and every one of the great and small saurian mysteriously perishing. But do we regret their passing today?
After all, who wants to lice out a timorous existence in the shadow of tyrannosaurus rex! Esoteric insight tells us that these monsters are today’s cuddly marsupials. This is soul progress, yes?”
“Hmmm, that makes me feel a bit better, thank you. Actually, I’ve always looked forward to meeting you, due especially to your early 19th Century circum-navigational talents. What impressions did you receive of the Being of Terra Australis when you sailed right around her, say from a form point of view?”
“Ah, at last I’ve been asked that question! When I left Sydney Harbor in the good ship Investigator in 1802, I gradually became aware that Australia was, similar to the other continents, beautifully curved on its east coast. This is the result of astral formative forces streaming from east to west. However, the continent, or it continental shelf at least, was semi-circle in the north, the circle being the classic form of the physical body. Then I explored the ego square along the western coast: and the southward pointing triangles of Tasmania and Albany of course are an expression of the etheric.
These four forms represent the body of the continent; and of course, body influences form. Hence animals subject to the primal formative force on the east coast are similarly curved, like lyrebirds, humpback whales and native cats. Roundness is rather a feature of far-north fauna, like the cus cus, frill-necked lizard, and palm cockatoo.
The less frequent western creatures, like the sperm whale and quakka, are squarer formed. In fact, red kangaroos become squarer the more westward they’re found, unlike the graciously curved grey kangaroos in the east. Finally, many southern animals are triangular, like the numbat, Tasmanian tiger, and fairy penguin.
Snakes also curiously mirror this 4-fold form or ‘body’ phenomenon. Snakes more common in the south, like the death adder, tend to triangulation; those in the east, such as the red-bellied back snake, being more serpentine, as it were. Northern snakes seem to curl up in a circular manner, like the swamp-dwelling file snake. And there are few snakes at all in the square-form west – not exactly a geometry with which they would be comfortable -ha, ha.”
“Fancy that!” exclaimed the eager neophant, almost missing the soft whirr of a hawk moth as it sipped nectar at the night jasmine. “Fish are so formed as well: in the south they are heavily triangulated, like the barracuda; along the east coast they are more pleasantly curved, as is the hairtail. And in the warm tropic seas many fish are disc-like.
The best crayfish areas in Australia are along the west coast; through not of at he scaled variety of sea dwellers, these tasty crustaceans are more squarish than anything else. But so much for the body, what about the life or etheric principle of the continent? How does this affect the creation of animal form?”
“At first I couldn’t believe it when I sailed around the continent to discover that the life forces of Australia, based on climatic principles as they are, are not north-south as one would expect, but north-west, south-east. I could clearly see that the temperature axis of the continent stretches between … I’m sorry, I don’t know the earthly names!”
“North-west Marble bar and south-east Perisher Valley.”
“Thank you – great names, incidentally; very imaginative: then that’s what you’d expect from Australia, which is, like any integral land area on earth, a living being. And like them all, its life force is expressed through a head, chest, and stomach as is yours.
The head is the heat band in the north (north-west actually); just as your head, the ‘north’ of the human body, is your heat center.
Australia’s chest is rather of air’ the great wind-generating central desert region. Here hot summer sun creates massive uplift, hence a deep low-pressure zone. This sucks on-shore winds onto the continent – a summer inhalation if you like. Following an Autumn hiatus, cold, heavy stratospheric air in Winder sinks, especially in the often-sub-zero nights, like an invisible blanket over the continent to create an equally massive high-pressure zone. This pushes the prevailing winds off-shore this time – an exhalation. Then the pressure-wind chaos of hiatus again in Spring before the whole cycle begins again. You breathe (with exactly the same low-high pressure dynamics incidentally) every few seconds – Australia has a single breath cycle per year!
The ‘stomach’ of the continent is not influenced so strongly by heat, as in the north, or by the gaseous air cycles of the center, but by water. This band is in the south-east mainly, the breadbasket of the nation, a region of rivers, forests, temperate climate, and decent rainfall. Metabolism, the function of the stomach in both humans and continents, is dependent upon, above all, the liquid element. The living nature of the country expresses, not through form, but movement. How animals move is determined, at this primal level at least, in this heat-air-water elemental power. Northern fauna, especially in the north-west, tend to align their kinetic patterns, habits – and migrations even – with the circle form of heat itself. The ‘death roll’ of the crocodile with its prey is an example of this as is the circular crush of the great python. Dugong feed and breathe in a circular motion: then there’s the beautiful circle dance of the brolga; curiously a mirror of their north-west ‘fire people’ companions, the aborigines.”
“Maybe that’s why this tall, elegant grey crane with the aptly! – red had-band has the common name ‘native companion’. Are the tribal people of the north ‘brolga companions?” asked Spiritual Scientist.
Matthew Flinders reflected on this before continuing. “I’ll ask!”
Anyway, these various movement patterns are different for the light-air dwelling creatures of the central band. Here the desert denizens move more in air forms, like angles. For instance, dingoes both survive and hunt by endlessly trotting around in an erratic series of angular, unpredictable paths. This way they cross and re-cross their own tracks – a good method to see if you’re being followed!
Other variations are the movements of desert reptiles and even small marsupials. The filigree pattern of their collective spore in the fine, red sand dunes after a busy night foraging is like a complex mosaic.
Actually, this darting about is, like the dingo, a survival mechanism, the small animals being so unpredictable. Even the above-mentioned but lowly marsupial mole moves through the sand like a wedge: and many desert birds, like budgerigars and pigeons, fly in zig-zag light paths in search of see and water. This is similar to the search-patterns used by the military to effectively canvass large areas of land.
Animals in the south-east ‘stomach’ of Australia rather assume a more sinuous movement habit, like eels and seals. Even mountain kangaroos and wallabies travel along the serpentine contours of their more rugged topography – rather then up or down. This is the path of least resistance, the primary principle of the liquid element. Water birds tend to fly in spirals; while the south-east dwelling platypus in its sparkling river home swims in quick but elegant snaking curves.”
The moon was overhead now, as it was quite late. A flying fox fed noisily in a banana tree nearby. This arrested Spiritual Scientist’s attention from the ultra-reality she had been enjoying back to the ordinary kind. The beautiful rust-colored creature was a puzzle as was its a-tonal chuckling as it flapped away to vanish into the dark hillside forest. She returned to her meditations.
“Matthew, so far you’ve given me golden keys to both the body-form and life-movement principles of this wonderful land; but what about color and – and call even? These seem to be higher expressions than the other two. How does a continent reflect this? Does Australia have a soul?”
“Indeed, it does!” her numinous friend asserted “This expresses – world-wide, actually – on a north-south axis. Soul is universally a three-fold entity, one of will, feeling, and thought. Of course, we are considering these things on a continental scale here, not a mere human.
Divine thought expresses through the sentient inhabitants of a country through, as you were asking about color, the blue palette, or all the dun colors really, grey especially. Animals in the south, below, say, the Sydney-Geraldton line, become greyer and more black-white; examples being the Cape Barren geese and the mutton birds. This even applies to fish – and insects even!
In contrast, to leap to the north, from about the Brisbane-Shark Bay line up, is to enter a world of often shimmering, ineluctable color.
Here the country’s will, is nominal color being red this time, invigorates living things in a way almost impossible in the deep south, with tropical fish, birds and butterflies all reflecting the presence and activity of the cosmic rainbow. You should see it from up here!”
The central or ‘feeling’ region is always one of transition. This is even seen, or heard really, in the calls (a specific soul expression) of the animal world. Animals voice increases in richness, texture, and projection the further toward the tropics one travels not the ringing tones of the New Guinea birds of paradise compared with the muted squawks of the south-loving albatross. The more musical birds, like the thrush, seem to be happier in the ‘transition, temperate climes.
The latitudinal color change can even be seen in a single species: the brushtail possum is blue-black in Tasmania, silver-grey in New South Wales to the north, chocolate brown even further north near Brisbane, extending to a rich coppery bronze in far north Queensland. A change from blue through yellow to red, you might notice.”
“Gosh, how unconscious most of us are!” exclaimed Spiritual Scientist, smoothing her bright floral skirt. “Even we humans fall into this same color progression. The thinking ‘heads’ of Melbourne in the south more often than not clothe themselves in serge, blue suits, tweed, and other dun hues. Whereas Sydney-siders brighten up somewhat, in so many ways expressing a ‘feeling’ outlook on the world. Eating out in Sydney is mostly an excuse to socialize; a ‘feeling’ activity; while for cuisine-conscious Melburnians, dining out is a conceptual exercise; the food being an end in itself. These things are of course only generalizations.
But back to attire: in the north the human environment is, like its animal counterparts, a riot of color. Hawaiian shirts have never lost their appeal I will-dominant Cairns! This similarity almost seems to prove that human beings are, indeed, as pseudo-science asserts, merely higher animals?” she concluded.
“Almost, but not quite” corrected Matthew “People function on a higher – and different – soul level than animals. With us … er, you, it is not simply a matter of a generic kind of ‘thinking’ in the south, rather its higher expression sentient soul. Likewise, the mid-band is not mere ‘feeling’, but its divine equivalent, rational soul. In the north, cosmic ‘will’ is extended to its sublime manifestation, consciousness soul.
Actually, the arid center of the continent is a vast almost soul-less region – ‘stick insect country’ we call it. That’s why many folks feel a sense of psychic liberation when traveling inland. The soul with its often-turbulent roller-coaster emotions and passions can drive its owner to yearn to escape. It’s hard to commit suicide in Central Australia!
Anyway, in these three higher soul expressions, the classic blue, yellow, and red of thinking, feeling, and will respectively are tinctured with the grey of the ego. It is this ego-grey principle that is the facilitator of the elevation, the ‘semi-transformation’, from lower to higher soul, as in astral body being semi-transformed (Steiner’s term) to sentient soul, for instance. As such, sentient soul (semi-transformed – blue – astral body) is turned from clear blue to the color of, say, clouds, a delicate blue-grey. This is the palette that most infuses the cultural life of the south. Grey into yellow expresses rather rational soul (semi-transformed – yellow – etheric body), with a kind of soft brown found in many seashells. This is also the toning of lots of mid-latitude animals.
Grey over red, the color of consciousness soul (simi-transformed – red -physical body), is the color of the present. This is something like the maroon of many apples, aptly a sacred symbol of contemporary spiritual life. The central deserts are just grey, psychically at lea…”
“But what about …?” Spiritual Scientist interjected; she had so many questions still to ask. Alas, as the moon tenderly kissed the distant ranges before sinking into their dark embrace, The Great Mariner retired to wherever ex-third-degree initiates go.
She felt very tired, but strangely serene, as she turned to face the east, where a blush of shell pink promised yet another lovely sub-tropic day. Perhaps she would just sit there and wait for the sun to rise, meditating on all that she had learnt throughout the silken, indigo night…
Then she heard the baby stir!
FROM: Sacred Fauna: Zoology in Light of Steiner’s Spiritual Science
Four Kingdoms Companion volume to: Sacred Places Minerals & Land; Sacred Fauna Botany; Sacred Faces A Study of Man
Important Earthschooling Notes
Copyright Alan Whitehead & Earthschooling: No Part of this book, post, URL, or book excerpt may be shared with anyone who has not paid for these materials.
Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss.
END NOTE
Alan has presented dialogue in his writings in an expressive form, where he tries to capture the accent of the person he was with to give his writing more authenticity and to allow the reader to “be with him” in his experience. In no place in his writings is he using expressive language to make fun of or demean the speaker. So, as a person with a linguistics and anthropology degree I find this enriching and informative to me as the reader. Thus, we have made the decision to leave all expressive writing in its original form.
Leave a Reply