13.11  The lowest plane of existence in this symbol symbolises the "plant kingdom". The integral organism appearing in this part of the symbol is that of the "plant being". Here we see that the body of the energy of instinct (the red colour) is in its greatest unfoldment or culmination. Then comes the body of the energy of gravity (the orange colour) in its second stage in increasing capacity towards its culmination. After this comes the body of the energy of feeling (the yellow colour). This body is in its first stage of increasing capacity towards its culmination. Then we see in the symbol the body of the energy of intelligence (the green colour). This body appears here in its latent unfoldment or its smallest capacity. Then comes the body of the energy of intuition (the blue colour). It is in its last stage of decreasing capacity towards its latent stage or smallest unfoldment. The next and last basic energy body is that of the energy of memory (the light indigo colour). It is in its first stage of decreasing capacity after its culmination. Thus it has here a very prominent capacity. With the special limited capacity of the five other bodies of the basic energies, in association with the culminating capacity of the body of instinct, we have here the plant being's special capacity of consciousness or unfoldment of life. The plant's greatest capacity of consciousness is thus the "faculty of instinct". It is so great that it quite automatically promotes the plant's outer functions of life in which the plant is unconscious, quite apart from its feeble incipient "faculty to have an inkling". It only has an instinctive feeling of pleasure and displeasure, for it cannot analyse things and make itself day-conscious in these experiences of pleasure and displeasure, because its faculty of intelligence is latent. As shown in the symbol, it has a fairly prominent body of gravity and also a body of feeling, and the tension triggered by these two bodies, by virtue of their organic connection, constitutes the life force or life power of the plant. It is through these two bodies that the plant being, because of its connection with the outer physical plane, creates its ability to grow and other developments of its own organism in this plane. These latter bodies, the body of the energy of gravity and the body of feeling, increase in development in the plant being, which means that it becomes more and more physical. Thousands of years of influences on the physical plane, such as cold and heat, rain and sunshine, the injury of the plant organisms by other living beings, not least by the human beings, contribute to developing the plant's physical organism, which is not to continue being vegetable but has to develop to become animal, and in this condition become a physical sensory organ for "animals" and "human beings". We see how divine it is that the plant being can experience only the outer physical world's destructive or damaging influences as "inklings of displeasure" and not as realistic conscious physical pain. No living beings' organisms become damaged or destroyed as much as those of the plant being. Flowers are picked, grass is cut, trees are cut down, roots, leaves and stalks are absorbed as nourishment in living being's organisms. All this the plant organism can, as previously mentioned, experience only as an "inkling of displeasure", even though these injuries create strong and measurable vibrations in the injured areas. In the animal organism in which this ability to react is fully developed, these vibrations are experienced as pain and suffering.
      But although the plant being has no physical day-consciousness except its faculty to have an inkling, it has rather a considerable spiritual day-consciousness. As the symbol indicates, the capacities of its bodies of the energies of memory and intuition are sizeable. We must remember that life is eternal, that it has never at any time begun and can never at any time cease. Therefore here the plant being has a very great amount of memory material from a previous spiral cycle, memory material that now governs its awake day-consciousness. Since this day-conscious function is solely an experience of memories, then it is exclusively of a spiritual nature. As stated above, the plant has physical day-conscious function only through its "faculty to have an inkling". The plant being is thus more a spiritual being than a physical one, and this is also emphasised by the fact that the capacity of the plant being's body of the energy of intuition, as shown, is still quite sizeable. It cooperates in the plant's connection with the highest fire which means: the functioning of the poles, the sexual state and the reproductive principle. Of this we will have more to say later. Since the "kingdom of bliss", in which the plant being has its awake day-consciousness, is the highest radiating and shining plane of light, in which all material of memory accomplished in one spiral cycle is relived by the being as the highest joy and happiness culminating in sheer delight, the vibrations of this joy and happiness cause a surplus of ecstasy energy that is transmitted to the material plane. Quite apart from the contribution that this energy makes to the creation of the physical region that we call the "mineral kingdom", it promotes – in the form of the creation of this kingdom's beautiful crystallisation flowers and the brilliantly coloured profusion of flowers shining in our forests, fields and meadows – a reflection of life's highest spheres of light in the regions of the Earth.