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p.89

So far we have dealt only with the primitive energies of form creation. These are formational and at once articulating.

At the primary level, they were highly economical actions, initial movements communicating themselves to the hand. Their primitive character also arises from their close propinquaty to the original formal idea. In this connection, I should like to cite the example of a seed. Despite its primitive smallness, a seed is an energy centre charged to the highest degree. It comprises ineluctable impulses that will give rise to entirely different and highly characteristic forms. One seed will grow into a violet, another into a sunflower— not in the least fortuitously, but by its very nature — the one always a violet, the other always a sunflower. (So reliable is this that seeds may be sorted, packed, labelled and marketed.) Each seed is the spin-off of a certain species and a talisman for the regeneration of that species.

 A certain impetus from without, the relation to earth and atmosphere, begets the capacity to grow. The slumbering tendency towards form and articulation awakens in predetermined precision, determined with reference to the underlying idea to the logos, or, as the translation runs: the word, which was in the beginning. The word as a premise, as the idea required for the genesis of a work. In abstract terms, what we have here is the irritated point as latent energy.

At the slightest impetus, the point is about to emerge from a state in which its mobility was concealed, to move onwards, to take on one or more directions. It is about to become linear.

 In concrete pictorial terms: The seed strikes root, initially the fine is directed earthwards, though notto dwellthere, onlyto draw energythencefor reaching up into the air.

The next effect of contact with the soil is that the seed rises, and this is often followed by

a kind of split (dicotyfedonsl). This division becomes the beginning of further upward motion. The spirit of this form-creation is linear.

In order to spread and gain power over large areas of space, the linear unit branches. In order to irrigate, the stream divides. The dynamic force is space hunger— space hunger as juice hunger underneath the ground, space hunger as air and light hunger in the atmosphere [1].

 Extensions in the air space and within the soil are interdependent, just as in developed organisms the functions of nutrition and respiration are interdependent. A broader nutritional base may give rise to large respiratory organs, while greater breathing-space may enlarge the nutritional organs (mutuality, reciprocity) [2].

creatures, or the struggle for existence, to use a more dramatic term, provides the impulse for the enhancement of energy production. As far as light requirements are concerned, altitude plays a certain role [3].

The point of origin between soil and atmosphere stretches out, and the generalised plant image becomes tree, root, trunk, crown.

The trunk is the medium for the rising of the sap from the soil to the lofty crown.

[NOTE: SAMTEN: DYNAMIC - of motive force, of force in actual operation - active - potent - energetic.