Light and Weight
The plant lives between gravity and light. In botanical terms, geotropism describes the root’s tendency to follow gravity and grow downwards, while negative geptropism and phototropism describe the tendency of the upper pole of the plant to grow up and out towards the light. Gravity has already been described as the remnants of forces of the moon’s embodiment left in the body of the earth that bring about the experience of ponderable substances and weight, while light draws the plant out towards the imponderable ether and the infinite periphery. Gravity and light are another way of pointing toward the forces of the sun and moon at work in all the phenomena of the earth. In eurythmy we have the standing exercise “light streams upwards, weight bears downwards”, based upon a Rosicrucian meditation, as a way of experiencing the polarity of upward rising light and downward bearing weight within ourselves.
With this picture of the plant between gravity and light we can begin to find our way toward an understanding of the biodynamic preparations 500 and 501 (See Contemplating 500 and 501). Preparation 500, sprayed onto the soil in the afternoon when atmospheric moisture is cooling and descending, works of the soil life and root pole of the plant, while 501 sprayed into the air in the morning when the warmth and light are ascending works on the sprouting leafy upper pole of the plant. 500 works at strengthening the vigour/substance pole, while 501 works at “sharpening” the qualitative image of the plant as a pure incarnation of the light of its archetypal idea.