7 minute read
Anthroposophical Views
from The Bare Issue
The bare bones
Dora Wagner
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Did it take long to find me? I asked the faithful light. / Did it take long to find me? And are you gonna stay the night? - Cat Stevens, Moonshadow,1970
Bent, straight, twisted, vertical, horizontal. Loadbearing, dancing, leaping, walking, standing, lying, bending, sitting, swinging. Still and yet always in motion. Isn't it fascinating what our skeletons can do?
The ability to stand upright and move on two feet is one thing that distinguishes humans from other living beings. Our bones enable us to carry ourselves. Standing upright is an expression of our willpower, our active ego. It not only affects our overall posture, but also the way we walk, talk, gesture, and our entire physical movement. We judge individual postures and gestures— resulting from the mobility of our bones —to reveal a person's character, their personal attitude, and thus their ego. Standing perfectly upright, for example, is seen as characteristic of sincerity, of personal integrity, of expressing one's inner convictions without pretence. On the other hand, the human skeleton— especially the skull —has become a symbol of poison or death. Yet our bones brim with life; bone marrow is the primary site for the production of new blood cells. Bones are highly differentiated supporting tissues, not only essential for movement, but storehouses of important micronutrients.
Osteocytes, comprising 90–95% of all bone cells, are the only truly permanent resident cell population. Their responsibility is to sense mechanical forces and loads acting on the skeleton, translating the lifting of weights or being exposed to gravity into biological perceptions, integrating these orchestral responses and signalling to other cells to modulate bone homeostasis. It is essential that our bodies are exposed to such forces and stresses. Being in bed for a long time, or unable to move for whatever reason, can cause bone loss and ossification (Shang, 2013). Thus, movement or exercise can be crucial when treating bone diseases caused by lack of motion, as well as metabolic diseases such as osteoporosis. It’s also important to maintain a healthy diet. A wide range of micronutrients are essential for bone metabolism; it’s not just a matter of sufficient calcium intake. Vitamin D, for example, is important for calcium balance and bone mineralisation. Our bodies can absorb the vitamin from food as well as produce up to 80 to 90% of our requirement, with the help of sunlight. In the dark season, when sufficient light is also an important requirement of our emotional condition, we should keep this in mind.
When the air gets cooler, the trees change colour and I switch on my sunlight-lamp while having breakfast or reading It always reminds me of my grandmother: "Oh, these dead months," she used to exclaim scornfully at this time of year, “these dead months, I can't stand them at all! The cold gets into my limbs, too much fog, too little light, too many festivities dedicated to mourning”. As the trees donned their dormant winter clothing, their branches stark against the grey sky, and many plants died away, we used to go into the forest to get cover for our garden beds. Granny was always heartened to spot some species still green and leafy. Amid the barrenness, they’d enliven us with their leaves, some species even bearing flowers and fruits, as if these plants wished to help us overcome the darkness. The Snow Rose (Helleborus niger) had a particularly mysterious aura, because it burst into bloom in the midst of ice and snow. This characteristic is probably caused by lowering the pressure in the cells, in order to osmotically draw water into the intercellular spaces. The leaves and flowers thus sometimes look wilted, but the plant is able to survive the cold, withstanding temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees and flowering through until March. My grandmother made them into oracle flowers on the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany, placing twelve buds in twelve glasses of water. Each represented one month of the coming year, and she would read fortunes in the behaviour of the buds. Open blossoms promised favourable weather, good harvests, and good luck; closed blossoms were bad weather, a poor harvest and bad luck. I was always amazed at the outrageous fortune my grandmother was due, until I learned that if the ends of the stems were carefully cut, pricked with a needle, and given fresh water every few days, one could make one’s own luck!
Amazingly, Wintergreen plants carry their leaves through the whole cold, dark season, not shedding them until the Spring, when they are replaced for another year. This is in marked contrast to most other vegetation, a principle that Rudolf Steiner considered as the basis of their effect on cancer (Steiner, 1999). The same is true of Mistletoe (Viscum album) and Black Hellebore (Helleborus niger), which take no notice of the freezing cold, greening, fruiting, and flowering when other plants are in dormancy. I admire this ‘unfreeziness’, this ability to withstand cold, snow, ice, sleet and wind. To me, the plants represent deceleration, vitality and an autonomy gained from inner strength.
Following the Doctrine of Signatures, the black root of Black Hellebore was held to pertain to maladies of melancholy, hopelessness, and despair. Ailments such as falling sickness, catalepsy, raving madness, obsession, insanity, leprosy, and gout were thought to be caused by black bile and thus called for an application of Black Hellebore. It was also prescribed as an emetic and laxative, and for urinary retention, dropsy, cough, and poisoning (Müller-Jahnke, 2005). The active constituents, found in all parts of this poisonous plant, are digitalis glycosides, saponins and protoanemonin, which cause dizziness and unconsciousness and can lead to cardiac arrest. Still today, the Christmas Rose (Helleborus niger) is used as homeopathic medicine in complementary anthroposophical therapy. Black Hellebore’s natural habitat is in Lower Austria and, since no cultivars are used for medicinal purposes, this is where it is harvested in both winter and summer. After gathering in accordance with Maria Thun's favourable cosmic influences, the plant parts are washed, separated into flowers, leaves and rhizome, and stored. Mother tinctures are then prepared, using special procedures for mixing, and potentised by hand. For application, ampoules of the homeopathic tinctures are diluted with saline solution and inhaled. The remedy is used in palliative therapy situations, given to people suffering from cancer to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life. In Germany, Helleborus niger preparations can even be prescribed through public health insurance. A therapy involving Helleborus might be helpful in restoring inner stability or support in hopeless or chronic situations. Corresponding remedies have proven effective in patients with anxiety and restlessness, and in patients with headaches and impaired consciousness, improving concentration and leaving awareness less clouded. Helleborus preparations are further recommended in rheumatological diseases— such as rheumatoid arthritis, activated arthrosis, collagenosis —and in dementia and anxietyrelated depression (Wilkens, 2014). According to Paracelsus, even Ancient Greek philosophers saw a relationship between the Christ Rose and consciousness since they used powdered Christ Rose leaves and equal parts sugar as a prophylactic to promote clear thinking.
I’d like to leave you with the lyrics of a popular German Christmas carol that dates back to the 15th Century. The author is unknown, but it is assumed a monk wrote it after finding a wild Christmas Rose in bloom in a winter forest. Whatever the case, the poem makes a connection between the magic of green leaves and flowers in the midst of cold winter, and the even greater miracle of light being rekindled in the time of greatest darkness. When I marvel at certain plants, I sometimes wonder what can be learned by letting them guide me. Perhaps it’s that we can still experience life even through a state of depression, that even in darkness, when everything seems frozen, we will be able to welcome light and warmth if we can only keep moving, keep standing, keep engaging with our environment, responding to challenges, creating back-up plans, being alive— like the Christmas Rose, at its most beautiful in the coldest and darkest season of the year. May you all experience light and warmth in abundance during this gloomy season, savour the winter solstice, have a blessed Christmas Eve, and see plenty of buds blossoming in the year to come.
(Baker, 1894)
References
Baker, T. (Trans.1894) ‘Es ist ein Ros entsprungen’; 15th Century German, traditional.
Müller-Jahnke, W-D. (2005) ‘Nieswurz’, in: W. E. Gerabek et al. Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte.
De Gruyter: Berlin. Shang, P. et al. (2013) ‘Bone Cells under Microgravity’, in Journal of Mechanics in Medicine and Biology, 13 (5)
Steiner, R. (1999) ‘Geisteswissenschaft und Medizin’, GA 312, 7. Auflage: Dornach
Wilkens, J. (2014) Die Heilkraft der Christrose (The healing power of the Christmas Rose). Self-published.
