Reading this book sparked a favorite memory: while climbing In the Teton range in Wyoming, the sense of warmth as I leaned on the granite wall was bliss—it felt like being immersed in love. Also immersed in nature and joy while climbing up a mountain on a perfect summer day and feeling strong. . .was this warmth and love my imagination?
In contrast, on another Teton mountain, Mt. Moran, our climbing route included scaling “The Black Dike.” As it happens, that vein of dark material is basalt (which I looked up after reading this book). I loved that climb, but not because of spending time with the basalt. No, that sense of warmth from granite—if I visit that part of the country again, I will make a beeline to those granite slopes. I will play music and resonate with its presence.
This book confirms my memory, what my senses detected.
Let’s start with the title: How Can Granite Arise from Basalt? I have little knowledge of geology, which makes me a perfect foil to attempt this review. First off, I could not explain the difference between granite and basalt, and second, besides a passing knowledge of shifting tectonic plates, I have no idea how would granite arise otherwise. Below the title on the book cover is a world map placed in the middle of a granite slab that I also cannot explain—turns out to be a map of Pangea....All this before even reading the first chapter.
The author, Dankmar Bosse, has spent much of his life pursuing this question with great passion and has written a much thicker volume about it, familiar to some serious geologists. This book is deceptively thin, because it packs a distilled form of Bosse’s life work in the most concise read I’ve ever come across.
The first read-through included a constant dictionary search of many geologic terms so that I could at least superficially understand the content. The second read-through was like a connect-the-dots puzzle to perceive the big picture that slowly but dramatically reveals itself. In Bosse’s clear, methodical, sometimes blunt and sometimes poetic descriptions, this story, like a well-written epic novel, unfolds. Each chapter is a building block to reveal the picture at the end of the book; as a result, even a novice reader like me can answer the title’s question.
Bosse begins the book by describing the many facets of granite—coal, peat, varieties of granite, and various sedimentary layers. Note that granite is not just the granite of the rock slopes I was climbing; it takes many forms, and the evolution of the various forms of granite arise from living forms.
The second section is about the formation of our solar system and Earth. Here is where the map of Pangea takes its place. His three-page description of the seven planets is so packed with information, I have redrawn his illustration for my own use.
Integral to the formation of our solar system and its planets, Bosse then presents basalt. We begin to discern a fundamental difference between basalt and granite.
This section ends with chapters about the nature of time. Once more, I will revisit these few pages from now on; sense of time now goes far beyond my scientific training about radioisotopes.
The formation of the solar system—space, and time. Granite and its relation to living substance versus basalt, which covers the ocean floors and lies beneath granite on the continents....Bosse has set the stage for the third section of the book that he has titled, “The Separation of the Nature Kingdoms from the Human Being.”
I was able to follow section three with the help of Bosse’s time charts; chapters set out the Earth’s history in chronological order, beginning with the Polarian epoch of Old Saturn and on through to the present. Starting with mere suggestion of any form, on into gelatinous, albumen- like, watery-air-light-filled environments and the myriad variations of transformations from liquid and gaseous forms of elemental fire, air, water, and earth to the more solid form of today’s Earth. . . .In contrast, basalt holds no direct history with living beings. With this ever-increasing density that took aeons to evolve into the solid planets as we know them now, Bosse’s premise that granite formed within the etheric realm—as did all living things—surrounding the earth, and then eventually came to rest on its surface. In contrast, basalt makes up the planet that it fell to.
This third section, chronologically organized by epochs, encompasses the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms including various combinations of these kingdoms. Bosse illuminates how their origins and evolutions relate to this magnificent comprehension of granite and how completely different its origin is from basalt.
The book’s vast majority of photos are from Bosse, and he created his own charts. In addition, interspersed throughout the book are quotes, paintings, and drawings from Steiner that increase in number as Bosse’s story progresses. Bosse has created a reiteration Steiner’s cosmology embedded in his geological knowledge and insights. In particular, he includes Steiner’s paintings of the earlier epochs that are also found in the book by Hilda Raske about the First Goetheanum. Synchronously, I was reading Raske’s book while reviewing this one—a bonus geologic perspective that deepens study of the Hierarchies....
Bosse ends the book with a concise and useful summary of Goethean observation. This ending holds the eloquence of a seemingly simple yet deeply wise suggestion—that I can observe our world with Goethean methods and experience a true education, different from what I recall memorizing by rote in a physical sciences course. True wealth.
Thank you, Dankmar Bosse, for this gift.
Every month it is our intention to bring to you a piece of art by a local artist from our community. Artists in our community, using any medium, who would like to share their art are encouraged to email Pablo Feliz at felizpablo@gmail.com We are immensely grateful to Pablo for organizing this.
