Lecture by Alan Chadwick in New Market, Virginia, 1979
Lecture 1: Philosophy of Gardening, Part 4
An Introduction to Alan Chadwick's Lectures and a Glossary of Terms
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The plant world, under the rulership of the four seasons, gives us everything we have -- and it is all free. The clock and the calendar are paltry imitations of the planetary cycles. Nature is forgiving. Revolutionibus, the cycle of the seasons and the cycles. Luceferic and Ahrimanic elements. The four archangels as the progression of the seasons. Tension and relaxation. We separate ourselves from the essential connection to nature. The moment you stop trying to understand in words, you begin to perceive. If the more subtle senses are not used, they will atrophy. (9:19)
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New Market, Virginia, 1979, Lecture 1
Philosophy of Gardening, Part 4
It always has been, it’s never been anything else. It always will be, of course, for this. Who and what supplies everything that we have? I am including all the banks of the world. I am even including all the damn factories. But who is it, what is it that gives us every single thing that we have? And I’m not only talking about things. I’m talking about the imagination of things, that which creates, the re-flection of. What gives us a ceiling, because the original cave, and getting under tree boughs to hide from the elements, for our fear. What gives us everything connected with food? The four Archangels of the four Seasons. Their entire involvement gives us every thing in food that we can ever have, and there is no other source. And every bit of it that it gives, every bit of it, is free. It is a gift. And it could not be bought or sold by Nature or by God. Could not, and is not. It is free. There is no clothing. There is no seat. There is no piano. Even the clock is an incredible monstrosity of a view of the revolutionibus, and the calendar. And it’s completely incorrect.
The whole of that gift today is looked upon with utter insult. It’s like being given an enormous present, that is holy, and immediately saying, “How much can I sell it for?” Because I want to possess what I want to possess, utterly. Not only is the whole of the plant world, which I am referring to in this, not only is it the giver of every single thing connected to our lives and every animal and every insect and bird, but it is also the forgiver. It goes on ad infinitum, every instant immediately it has been insulted, forgiving. It takes in all the insult, eschews it and gives it back, fresh. Fresh air, fresh water, and, fresh thought.
And so it is on the revolutionibus, the revolvement of the four seasons which are connected with the whole cosmic revolutionibus. It is those four Archangels: Michael, now descending, followed by Gabriel, growth out of darkness, into Raphael, into ascension and rebirth, and into Uriel, the total period that goes into the ludicrosity of the Luciferic. The Luciferic is the other half connected to the stars. And the whole of the Ahrimanic from the middle region down below, connected with the earth. All of this we are going to survey this week in our studies, quickly and see the performance of this revolutionibus. But it is the performance of those four Archangels, handing the goblet from one to the other, that out of the middle of Summer, Winter is born. And out of the middle of Spring, the whole depth of sleep and death is born out of birth.
And that that is the cycle which is the whole ritual that governs our lives. It’s the whole ritual that happens every day. That every dawn comes and an awakening, and an opening out until noon. And at noon the whole of that opening and waking up ceases, stops. And it goes into a complete change of relaxation. This was into tension, and now it is into relaxation, and into later, evening-out, and dying. And this is the whole ritual that governs our lives. And what do we do? We turn on all the lights. We turn on all the machines. We turn on all the electricity. And we know nothing, nothing. We don’t join into anything that goes on, nothing whatever. It’s all like one insane, continuous nothing. Like going around in the motor car.
So how can we know anything? How do we understand the relationships and dis-relationships in the garden when the only thing we can refer to is “yes, yes, no sir, repeat, yes, yes, no sir," "right, you’ll graduate"? It’s all a mystery. The grass, it’s grass. It’s a secret and it’s a mystery. You can’t know it, and you can’t understand it. And you mustn’t try, because the moment you try, you can’t perceive it. But when you stop trying to understand it in words, you will begin to perceive it, you do begin to perceive it. It is... All the color comes from the planets. The whole of music, Pythagoras, comes from the planets, the stars into this world. How incredible was the statement of Paracelsus.
Within our forms, already going out of tangibilities, are all the glands and the nerves connected with the vertebrae. And you must in some way comprehend that within those glands and nerves are connected the movement of a snake, the opening of a petal to a certain light, the interval there is between two leaves. There is a relationship. All of those are maneuverable, they are [higher] senses. The moment that you start thinking, they can’t be used. If you do not use them, if you do not remain aware of them, they must become atrophied. They must, like an athlete’s muscles, become absent, even deformed and almost non-esse. One presumes that they couldn’t become non-esse, but they must become intangible. But the whole relationship of that which I am referring to are already becoming invisible, in fact they are invisible. But they are tangible invisibles. And they cooperate in the whole sense of this maneuverment of perception and comprehension in the invisible world. Therefore we must perceive that when as a destiny, as a gardener, as a horticulturalist, you are putting your hand into Paradise and taking the secrets…