Reading in the Book of Nature

We can learn to imagine how in Greek times nature still revealed its living activity to man, whenever he made observations in nature. The stronger we try to imagine this process, the more clearly we experience how we are in a apparently mindless and soulless nature in our time. The longing for the perception of the genuine life in nature becomes very strong in such imaginations. This does not mean that you are insensitive to the beauty and the power of nature, but you realize that you do not perceive the veritable beauty and power anyway.

Now the human being is a thoroughly lazy being, especially when it concerns the inner processes. He thinks he can dream completely passively and then come into contact with the very being of nature. But that is not like reading a book... Just think about the difference between dreaming away and reading. But It is not immediately clear how we should learn to read in the book of nature. First we need to get to know certain letters, get to know their meaning, and then we need to learn how the combinations of these letters form words, which then form meaning. But we don't even know these letters, maybe we think that it concerns the names of minerals and plants, or that it concerns a perception of certain phenomena which we then combine. All these opinions originate from the inner laziness, a reluctance to become active in thinking, a conviction that thinking takes us away from nature instead of into it.

Just take half an hour and sit in the garden, or if you don't have one you can sit on your balcony between the flower pots, or on a bench in a quiet place in the park... Focus your attention on one plant among all the plants you have around you. Read that plant! There is so much to discover when you can do it systematically. You won't immediately see any elementary beings or growing forces or auras around the plant, you certainly shouldn't expect that. Reading means becoming active, the only purpose is to find meaning in what you read. I'll describe exactly how you should do that next week. I'll give an example how to read a plant, but you can also look at a mineral like this or at your cat... at the thunderstorm after a hot day or at the sparkling stars in the night sky.

Reading in the Book of Nature by Mieke Mosmuller