Carbono, nitrogênio e oxigênio em Steiner (2007)

Thus, spiritually speaking we have the astral placed between the oxygen and the carbon, and this astral impresses itself upon the physical by making use of nitrogen. Nitrogen enables it to work physically. Wherever nitrogen is, thither the astral extends. The ethereal principle of life would flow away everywhere like a cloud, it would take no account of the carbon-framework were it not for the nitrogen. The nitrogen has an immense power of attraction for the carbon-framework. Wherever the lines are traced and the paths mapped out in the carbon, thither the nitrogen carries the oxygen — thither the astral in the nitrogen drags the ethereal. (Steiner 2007:25)

Now you can see into the human breathing process. Through it man receives into himself the oxygen — that is, the ethereal life. Then comes the internal nitrogen, and carries the oxygen everywhere — wherever there is carbon, i.e., wherever there is something formed and figured, albeit in everlasting change and movement. Thither the nitrogen carries the oxygen, so that it may fetch the carbon and get rid of it. Nitrogen is the real mediator, for the oxygen to be turned into carbonic acid and so to be breathed out. (Steiner 2007:25)

You have seen how there is a living interplay. On the one hand there is that which works out of the Spirit in the carbon-principle, taking an forms as of a scaffolding or framework. This is in constant interplay with what works out of the astral in the nitrogen-principle, permeating the framework with inner life, making it sentient. And in all this, life itself is working through the oxygen-principle. But these things can only work together in the earthly realm inasmuch as it is permeated by yet another principle, which for our physical world establishes the connection with the wide spaces of the Cosmos. (Steiner 2007:25)

To begin with, we have what I sketched before in blue (Diagram 6), the carbon-framework. Then there is that which you see here the green—the ethereal, oxygen principle. And then — everywhere emerging from the oxygen, carried by nitrogen to all these lines there is that which develops as the astral, as the transition between the carbonaceous and the oxygen principle. I could show you everywhere, how the nitrogen carries into these blue lines what is indicated diagrammatically in the green. (Steiner 2007:26)

STEINER, Rudolf. 2007. The Agriculture Course. (Trans.: George Adams) Shrewsbury: Wilding & Son Ltd.