Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/1107/en

The heap, built up to roughly one metre in height, will within a short time become a lively, surging chaos. It needs a bounding sheath, a protecting, breathing skin. This function is best served by a thin earth covering with a layer of straw, old hay or peat over it. In this condition the compost heap fulfils all the requirements that characterize a self-contained organism. With the help of oxygen — the bearer of the etheric forces — it develops a life of its own, and in connection with nitrogen — the bearer of the astral forces — an inner life. The plastic fleece used as the sole covering is, to be sure, rain-repelling and air-permeable, but still only a surrogate. The outer skin has the function of holding back the radiating forces and directing them back into the interior of the heap. From outside, the heap is surrounded by the forces and rhythms of elemental working in wind and weather. Independent of this outer activity, the compost heap unfolds a rhythm and dynamic of its own in the lawful traversal of the states of the four elements — warmth, air, water, and earth — and the life-creating etheric forces working together with these: the warmth ether, light ether, chemical ether, and life ether.