Palaeos website (to which many links on these pages point to anyway. More info here Palaeos website (to which many links on these pages point to anyway. More info here
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In the evolution of birds, the sequence from protodinosaur to bird is only one half of the evolutionary picture; the aspect that is most apparent. But there is another half as well, which, although equally visible, is not so apparent. This is the counterpole, the other half of the evolutionary process.
In a sense, the Bird-kingdom constitutes the assimilation of the etheric (or "Greek") element of "air". The bird, in aquiring the power of flight, had to become extremely light (with hollow bones, internal air-sacs, etc), so that they could fly. They took on the characteristics of the element Air, or what, following Anthroposophist Ernst Lehrs (in his book "Man or Matter"), we could call the polarity of Levity.
Now, the opposite of Air is Earth; the opposite of Levity is Gravity. And, at the same time that the pre-bird theropods were evolving into lighter and smaller bird-like forms, other dinosaurs were becoming larger, heavier, and more massive; gigantic in fact. These were the sauropods.
So we could say that the sauropods, in becoming exceedingly large and heavy - massive elephantine bodies and limbs, and weights of upto 50 or even 80 tons - took on the characteristics of the element Earth, or the polarity of Gravity.
So the sauropods were the earthly, gravitational shadow or couterpole of the birds; and the birds the aerial levitational shadow or counterpole of the sauropods. I am talking here not in physical terms, but in terms of Etheric Formative Forces, for Earth and Air, or Gravity and Levity, are Etheric polarities, not physical polarities. Yet it is these etheric forces, equivalent to Rupert Sheldrake's "Morphogenetic Fields", that are the matrixes behind the outer organic physical form. And the diverse forms of organic life are the physical or material symphony of the etheric and spiritual worlds.
