Sun and Moon
As described in the readings for the section Saturn works in warmth, the forces of the sun, moon and earth were originally united in a single planetary body, which due to evolutionary processes that separated first the sun and then the moon from the earth, work now as a triad. The ever-unfolding forces of the sun work at continually enlivening and spiritualising, while the forces of the moon retard the exuberant life forces of the sun by working towards fixing form and weight, slowing the etheric sun-life processes down until they are manifest through matter in space and time.
We can think how the sun in the sky shines continuously, eternally, as a source of life, while the moon’s appearance waxes and wanes, grows and then declines, reflecting and modulating the sun’s constant light into a formative process that becomes in time. Between the influences of these two polar tendencies stand the processes of the living earth. The exercise described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds of alternately observing processes of budding and growing, with processes of fading and decay, can lead to an inner sun experience and an inner moon experience.
In the growth points of plants, such as the localised region of cell division at the apex of every shoot, the apical meristem, we have a picture of the ever-unfolding forces of sun-life, which ceaselessly divide and multiply like a veritable fountain of life. Behind this advancing frontier of open and generalised cell division and growth, the newly created cells enlarge and then differentiate into cells with specific forms and functions. From the previous reading, what tends toward the imponderable and light as the effects of the Saturn-Sun evolution can be designated as Sun, and that which works towards the ponderable and weight is due to the effects of the Moon-Earth period of evolution can be designated as Moon.
The following readings characterize the working of the forces of the Sun and Moon, in the human being and the plant.