Inspired by the disciplined methods of observation described by Goethe in his Metamorphosis of Plants and the insights of Rudolf Steiner, van Romunde explores the world of plants and their changing forms, bringing these into relationship with the characteristics and dynamic qualities of the 4 ranks of elemental beings as described by Steiner: gnomes – spirits of the mineral earth, undines – spirits of fluids and their movements, sylphs – spirits of the air, and salamanders – generative spirits of warmth, or fire spirits.

We live in an age where these subtle beings can no longer generally be perceived, and with the presumption of an all-embracing intelligence, the truly enlightened of our culture deny their existence outright and presume that any reference to them by earlier cultures was childish fantasy. On the other hand, in the face of such a vast and thriving, exquisitely interrelated panorama of nature, there are others who cannot subscribe to a dead, mechanistic, randomly organised and purposeless existence, all acknowledged tenets of materialist philosophy. For these, it is about as sensible to say that a rose accidentally came into existence through random mechanical changes as it is to say that Beethoven’s symphonies did likewise.

Dick van Romunde’s book was written for those who subscribe to the view that life is itself enlivened by something that the eye and the ear cannot quite detect, but with training and engagement in the observation of the ‘symphonies’ that nature expresses all around us, we can begin to sense the sources of life behind the elegant and often dramatic forms of the plant world.