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…
PATH OF THE PUMA
Zoology of the Americas – A Spiritual Perspective
The two American continents are known as The New World; in contrast, of course, to Europe, Asia and Africa being The Old World.
What then of Australia? The Older World perhaps, in geological terms at least; or The Newer World in its global discovery sequence.
In terms of the latter, Antarctica would then be The Newest World!
The Americas, as an integrated Being, are strangely fish-like in form; the spine of the Andes/Rockies cordillera terminating in the massive ‘head’ of Canada. Rudolf Steiner describes this might mountain chain as the vertical spirit-ego axis of the World Cross; the horizontal bar being the Himalayas. Naturally, one has to imagine a transparent globe to perceive this profound crucifix.
Steiner also refers to the lugubrious fish as Saturn animals; North America being the nominal Saturn continent. How contrasting to South America, El Dorado, Continent of the Sun. In fact the physiognomy of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of South America are distinctly fish-like, as their temple reliefs and murals confirm.
In another esoteric context, North and South America express, of ‘The Seven Bodies’, world Ego and Ether.
The doctor also refers to the three cosmic soul forces girding the globe; with Feeling Europe/Africa flanked on the east by Will Asia, and on the west by the Thinking Americas. The downside of a thought or intellectual emphasis of course is potential materialism; the ego forces, as taught by Steiner, living in the mineral world as they do.
In fact (to digress from animals) many plants, in one way or another, that are associated by spiritual science with this ego-thought-materialism package derive from the Americas, such as corn, potatoes, tomatoes, tobacco, peanuts, quinine – and more.
This eternal will-feeling-thought verity is confirmed by the nature of the formative forces engaged in higher faunal creation. Europe/Africa is dominated by ‘chest-feeling’ animals, the iconic member being the lion; those of Asia are more ‘stomach-will’, like the ever-sacred cow; with American fauna being ‘head-thinking’ in emphasis. This can be seen in the twin symbols of the golden eagle in the north and the stratospheric condor in the south; the raptor being the universal St. John-thought symbol. Expressions of this American ‘head’ factor can also be observed culturally; as in the totem poles of the Canadian Indians; as well as in the elaborate feathered head-dresses of Indian Americans from both north and south. Steiner describes the feather as a materialized, independent thought. The bison and the moose are exemplary top-story creatures. Then there is the obsession of the northern indigenes with the taking of scalps!
The word continent means, significantly, ‘hold together’; this being truest in a soul-spiritual sense even more than a material. The two Americas seen to actually ‘hold together’ the two hemispheres.
They do this my – uniquely – spanning all climates, from their 70 degrees latitude north in the Arctic Circle, across the equatorial tropics, right down to 55 degrees south into the antipodean frigid zone; blustery Cape Horn being, as it were, the coccyx of the world spine.
The two 23.5-degree tropic lines of latitude, those, in the contemporary sense (since 1413, see earlier chapter), of Gemini and Sagittarius that delineate the annual path of the sun north and south, are located just south of La Paz, right at the head of the Gulf of California, and in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The Equator is smack-bang on the nighty mouth of the Amazon River! Along the America’s great hemispheric line of longitude, all climate types are embraced, resulting in every conceivable animal community being represented – alpine, savannah, desert, jungle, tundra, temperate woodland …!
A lesser-known phenomenon is that the two continents are extremes also in the precious fresh water they embody. North America’s Lake Superior is the largest freshwater reservoir on earth; itself just one of thousands of the greatest lake system on the planet. On the flip side of the continental coin, the amazing Amazon has easily created the largest river system in the world. Occult curiosity must surely be aroused by the fact of two adjacent land-masses containing between them a very large proportion of the planet’s fresh (non-ice) water.
Though there is an important distinction between the north and south: this is that the lakes are relatively still, while the rivers are rather an ever-flowing bloodstream. Ever-still Saturn and dynamic Sun forces, perhaps? Whatever, water is the physical element of the astrality of a region. Hence still and moving water are two distinct kinds of astral influences. The first cultivates a meditative inner state of soul, the second rather an external life stimulant, richly vitalizing the land through which it flows. This naturally includes the animals, moving water being, in the literal sense, animated.
But before one gets too soul-excited, the Americas also are home to the astral bankruptcy of both the hottest and driest deserts on earth – in north and south respectively; not to mention their twin frigid zones.
The three geological-era influences on the Americas of special importance are: Polaria from the south, with its Archeozoic-invertebrate creation influences; Hyperborea from the north, the Paleozoic age of cold-blooded vertebrates; and Atlanta from the eponymous Atlantic in the east, with its Cenozoic-placental mammals.
As mentioned in a precious chapter, in zoological terms the two American continents represent two distinct faunal regions, most of North America being known as the Nearctic, South America the Neotropical. Curiously even in the absence of sea barriers, the two faunal zones share few higher vertebrate species: the Nearctic being a sentient expression of Jupiter, the Neotropical rather of Mars.
As also earlier described, many animals travel along ‘soul paths’, whether in annual or evolutionary migration. The creature with the greatest range, hence the longest soul path, throughout the Americans is oddly also one of the rarest – the majestic puma. These large, graceful cats strike fear into the hearts of llamas as far south as Patagonia, all the way up the fleet-footed deer in British Columbia in the far north.
As such, the mountain lion is the true faunal emblem of the collective New World – The Path of the Pumaindeed! The sinuous backbone and long curved tail of the cougar (another name for this proud predator) would seem to be a microcosmic image of the limitless serpentine soul path of the Andes/Rockies ‘spine of the world’.
Any habitable region on earth has three distinct animal communities. The first comprise those creatures that were actually created there, and never really moved anywhere else. The second are those that evolved in an area then extended their habitat a great deal further.
Finally, we have their opposite, animals that evolved somewhere else and arrived later. Yet again there is a mysterious thinking-feeling-will expression of cosmic faunal soul in this three-fold phenomenon – in the same order, actually. Examples of purely indigenous –‘thinking’ – North American fauna are the turkey (earliest known fossil found in Texas), white tailed deer, bald eagle, beaver, and cottontail rabbit.
Some of South America’s stay-at-homes are the chinchilla, sloth, llama, and vampire bat. Immigrant – ‘feeling’ – North Americans, some from a very long time ago indeed, are pronghorn antelope, musk ox, bison, bighorn sheep, Rocky Mountain goat, timber wolf and wolverine. South America’s equivalents are jaguar, peccary, rhea, opossum, spider monkey, condor, and manatee.
The idea that some of these beloved locals are so-called ‘new arrivals’ comes as a surprise to some folk; with animals like the jaguar identifying so strongly with the country , as they do.
In terms of the ‘balance of nature’, in its soul aspects especially, the overall mission of the migrants – both in and out of the country – is to compensate or even complement the indigenous.
In effect, the Spirit of Place literally calls them in!
Another clue to the soul nature of a region is prevalence (or lack of) any particular animal or type of animal. For instance, staying with the 12 Mammal Orders, both America has a plenitude of Libra rodents’ South America has more, indeed most, edentata species, the Leo animals; the north has more Scorpio lagomorphs (Arctic and snowshoe hares, cottontail, swamp, jack and pygmy rabbits).
Curiously, only South America is blessed with Piscean primates: and with one exception, all six American bears are only found in the north.
Both continents have many Capricorn artiodactyls, from alpacas in the south to Alaskan sheep. But it is in the Aquarius carnivores that both Americas really shine; tooth and claw being well represented all the way from the frigid to the torrid zones.
Just to demonstrate your author’s sleuthing diligence, the following is a list (sadly incomplete) of well and lesser-known mammalian meat-eaters of the New World; beginning with those that inhabit both continents. The leader of course is the aforementioned puma; then we have the various seals; river otter and skunk. Carnivores exclusive to North America (and some in other Northern Hemisphere regions) are badger; sea otter; polar, grizzly, Kodiak, brown and black bears; red, grey, arctic, kit and swift foxes; grey and red wolves; coyote; marten; mink; raccoon; weasel; stoat; wolverine; bobcat and lynx.
South American indigenous carnivores – most, due to geographical isolation, not found anywhere else – are spectacled bear; jaguar, jaguarundi; ocelot; margay; colocolo; pampas cat; cacomistles; coat and bush dog – they also once had the saber-toothed tiger.
In spite of the great range of vertebrates, and especially mammals, in the Americas, most are fairly typical of their equivalents on other continents, a Russian bear being much like an American (bear that is!).
As one Amero-Indian sage once observed, “In the silence of pathless forests, talk to the sacred stones”. I would like to add “and commune with the sacred animals”; as these are a divine manifestation of the living soul of a continent, ca country, a region, an area – of one’s own backyard even!
Or as Christ put it in an appeal to humanity to comprehend the mystery and miracle of the natural world through his – etheric – Second Coming: “Once more behold me on earth.”
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.
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