Elementary Beings @ 11 7
"Even if they do assume it from time to time, they forsake it immedi-
ately in order to metamorphose."
Plants, says Steiner, cannot be understood so long as human beings
insist on ignoring the existence of the elemental nature spirits whirling
and weaving around them as they grow: plants would wither if it
weren't for undines who approach them from all sides, showing them-
selves as they weave around the plants "in their dream-like existence,"
bringing about a mysterious combination and separation of the sub-
stances that emanate from the leaf. Truly protean, Steiner's undines
change their shape at every moment. "One can only catch a particular
instant of their being.They dream continuously. As they dream of stars
and sunlight and warmth, undines carry the plant further along in its
formation, into the domain of the sylphs, spirits which live in the airy-
light element."
Steiner's sylphs, whose bodies consist of spiritual light-ether, carry the
effect of light-ether into the plants: "Their task is to bring light to plants
in a loving way." And because the air is everywhere imbued with light,
says Steiner, sylphs press toward the light and relate to it. Through the
sylph-borne light something remarkable is brought about in the plant;
according to Steiner, the power of the sylphs works upon the chemical
forces where they have been induced into the plant by the undines, and
there occurs an intenvorlung of sylph light, an undine chemistry. "With
the help of the upstreaming substances which are worked on by the
undnes, the sylphs weave out of the light an ideal plant form.They ac-
tually weave what amounts to Goethe's Archetypal Plant with their light
and the chemical worhng of the undines."
By the rules of spiritual science, sylphs unfold and develop their
being within this sound of music, finding their life-space in the mov-
ing current of modulated air. "In this spiritually-sounding element of
motion," says Steiner, "they are at home, and absorb what the power
of light sends into this vibrating air, feeling most in their element
where birds are winging through it." In spring or autumn when a flock
of swallows produces vibrations as the birds fly in a body of air, causing
currents with their flight, this vibrating air, says Steiner, is as audible to
the sylphs as it is to the birds. "To the sylphs it is cosmic music."