I would like to begin my reflections on the climate issue by looking back at the 100th anniversary of the Agriculture Course. It has been exactly 100 years. Today is June 15. The Agriculture Course took place from June 7 to June 16, 1924. If we look at the dates, it was 100 years ago today that the seventh lecture was delivered. We do not have the time here to delve into the course's content in detail. However, in general terms, it was concerned with the condition of the soil at the time. The situation was such that synthetic nitrogen compounds, which had been industrially developed as explosives for the war economy—the war had only recently ended—were being repurposed for agriculture. These highly soluble mineral nitrogen fertilizers, synthetically produced in industry, were now being used on farms. But this was a shock therapy for the soil and plants. No one was prepared for the intense stimulus that could be given to plants, and this led to significant problems with product quality, even affecting livestock in the barns. This was one of the reasons why farmers turned to Rudolf Steiner with concerns about the future of agriculture: Were these new fertilizers the way forward, or was there another path? This course emerged, in part, out of a concern for quality. This situation must be understood historically in a narrow sense.

Rudolf Steiner’s response—and this is what has shaped us in the 100 years since—was that it is not about the short-circuiting between a watery solution and the plant root, which must absorb this through osmotic pressure, as if in a form of forced feeding. Instead, we must strive to foster soil fertility. It is about generating soil fertility where the relationship between the plant and the soil is harmonious. Where the root, when receiving assimilates from above, positions itself within the living soil context, so that active nutrient mobilization occurs. Over the past 100 years, the work on soil fertility has been our guiding star. The enlivening of the soil itself is our mantra. Compared to this, the issue of climate received little attention. The Agriculture Course is primarily a course about the soil—and the other pole is the stars. Thus, for 100 years, we have learned to deeply connect with the soil and simultaneously gaze at the stars. But there is no lecture in the course that could be considered a lecture on climate. Therefore, when it comes to climate, we need to be adaptable and develop the connections ourselves. We must attempt to make what we have learned about the soil and the Earth, and what lies beyond the climate—namely, the cosmic situation—so flexible within us that we can learn to understand the climate as a phenomenon between the earthly and the cosmic, and become capable of engaging with it in conversation and action.

This raises the question: Can we, being farmers, also become climate farmers? I believe we can. But what would that mean? I will attempt to make a start on this. We need to take what we know about the soil and make it a little more cosmic, and take what we know about the cosmos and make it a little more earthly. If the two come closer together, then we would be in the realm of the climate. Starting from the soil, from soil fertility, I want to illustrate this with a short example. In the soil, we sow the seed, which then begins to grow. For example, wheat—or even better, rye—is sown in October. It germinates, small plants emerge, they go through the winter, develop strong roots, and form a deep connection with the Earth. In March/April, they begin to tiller, then they shoot upwards. One to one and a half meters above the ground, ears develop and fill with grain. Through this, what was once mineral in the soil, something I could not eat, has now transformed into grain kernels, materialized one and a half meters above the soil. I now have about four tons of yield, even though I only sowed 200 kilograms. These four tons are now available for nourishment—this is a result of soil fertility! Something that was below, something I could not eat, has now risen to a higher level after a year and has become four tons of edible material. This becomes flour, our bread. I only need to keep back 200 kilograms to sow again; I can sell 3,800 kilograms. That is soil fertility—that is the prime expression of agricultural productivity.

Thus, we learn from many places within the Agriculture Course about the horizontal dimension and how it can move. There are horizons that are flexible, and depending on where such a horizon is, I have healthy conditions, yield, and fertility. Or it can become problematic if a line develops, for example, that becomes a new soil for parasites. Then I have a fungal situation there. In the Agriculture Course, we learn that the layering actually occurs between Heaven and Earth, a dimension with which we continuously engage in research. This is not foreign to us. That is to say, the vertical axis between the Sun’s center and the Earth’s center, into which every plant places itself—speaking ideally—is characterized by various layers. Now let us try to step into this layering. For when we speak of the climate, we have the image—speaking now from the perspective of atmospheric physics—that in the stratosphere above, there is a phenomenon of blockage, where what should actually leave the atmosphere is radiated back due to the accumulation of CO2 equivalents, leading to the warming of the Earth and, consequently, the chaos in the climate, also known as climate disruption.

The question today is: Can we grasp and comprehend this connection? Let us together ascend to this place, which we can still conceptually reach in our material thinking. There is a disturbance in the exchange between what still belongs to the Earth and what already belongs to the cosmos. However, if we simply catapult ourselves up there, we only arrive abstractly. So, let us try to ascend step by step a little more slowly, following this internally. Starting from the Earth’s surface, if we take the first step upwards, we find ourselves at the level of the ears of grain. We just heard that this is already far from the Earth. Although it seems to us to be a small distance, qualitatively, it is already very significant. A stalk one to one and a half meters high, carrying ears at the top—that is already enormous. Now, if we lift our gaze from the grain field to the hedges, raising our consciousness to the height of the trees standing in the surroundings. Some of us were working in the fields this morning, and you may remember the landscape. To imagine ourselves at the height of the crown of such a tree at the field’s edge already requires an inner movement. We would now be like a bird on this tree. It is already a significantly different view, no longer the near-Earth perspective. The many thistles in the field, which we pulled out this morning, are already relativized here—fortunately. Our gaze continues to ascend; we reach the surrounding hills and the more distant mountains. The horizon line comes into view, and we go further up. Then we look into Switzerland, and we see the high Alps, their peaks, four thousand meters and higher, already white with eternal snow. And then the clouds come, brushing the peaks of the high mountains.

But the cloud is a phenomenon of the air, of the atmosphere. So now I must lift myself from my last attachment to the soil and rise to the level of the clouds, moving further upwards. Perhaps one can imagine passing beyond the rainbow, which spans between Heaven and Earth. And then I would be in the stratospheric layer, where we encounter this phenomenon of blockage, of breathing between Earth and Heaven. If I proceed through this expansion step by step and arrive up there, I am no longer a point with my I-consciousness. I have now become atmospheric myself. I have a peripheral consciousness, and the great challenge is whether I can still retain my I-consciousness. Can I avoid dissolving into everything, or remaining as just a point, as I normally am in my I-consciousness? Can I retain my I-consciousness while also being atmospheric and peripheral? There are small moments when this succeeds. It happens, and it also disappears quickly again. But in those moments, I can consciously experience myself as this periphery.

At such a moment, I can experience the expanded Earth and the atmosphere of the Earth from within. And I can also think of myself from the outside, from the cosmic perspective, approaching this periphery where the inside and the outside meet. Then, I experience myself in the lowest layer of the cosmos and in the highest layer of the Earthly. The strange thing is that when I succeed in retaining my I-consciousness, I simultaneously also have the I-consciousness of others. In this peripheral state, it is no longer that where I am, the other cannot be. It is that where I am, the other also is. And there we have an experience that the climate problem concerns us all equally, even though we cannot do without individual effort to restore the whole. If we delve even further into this sphere, we encounter not only those with whom we are currently together. There are also those who are departing, those who have just died and are detaching themselves from the Earth, moving into the cosmos. And there are incoming companions in this sphere, those who are preparing to incarnate and become the next generation on Earth.

This expanded social situation can be experienced: those of us who are here, those who were here, and those who will be here. One can enter this experience and try to develop a consciousness that the self, in its peripheral form, does not need to separate itself from others but instead derives its sense of individuality by being connected with others. "I am because you are," as the African Ubuntu philosophy says. "I am because you are." This can be experienced in this sphere.

And when we return from this peripheral consciousness, where we have tried to place ourselves in the context of the whole Earth, and look at the Earth again, we realize: within this peripheral self-consciousness, the Earth is present. It is not insignificant. This Earth that we share together is a part of myself. We can also say: the Earth is the substance of our destiny. This is what we need to discover in connection with the climate issue.

Now, as we gradually descend again and approach this place here, the Dottenfelderhof, where we currently are, we see that it is not just the Dottenfelderhof with its 200 hectares, bordered to the left and right. This is the Earth in the form of the Dottenfelderhof. The entire Earth is represented in it, and as an agricultural organism, as an agricultural individuality, it represents the whole Earth at this one point. This is the basis for action and inspiration that we have from the Agriculture Course, which we can now rediscover in this way in the context of the climate situation.

None of us can act on a global scale. We can only act locally, as far as our hands reach, to pull out the thistles here or to sow the wheat. But I would say that from this small experience of expanding consciousness, of going up and coming down again, we can reconnect with a place in a new and complete way. We can connect ourselves in such a way that we try to enliven the soil to form a living organism that is on its way to becoming an individuality. This would be the appropriate way of interacting with the Earth anew, so that it receives new attention and care in its climate quality, rather than us being paralyzed and crippled by thinking that individuals cannot make a difference. We do not need to feel frustrated or limited by believing that we can hardly make a meaningful impact at our particular place. It is precisely this active engagement, this work at my specific place, that is the proper connection with peripheral consciousness, where I carry the entire Earth within myself. The agricultural individuality as a realization that we are all collectively, but each in our own place, responsible for this Earth and its climate. In this, I see the connection between 100 years of the Agriculture Course and the climate challenge of today.