Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

middle. All ofthese resourceshave allowedthe area aroundDetroit to becomean industrialcenter of theUnited States andCanada, the resourcesplacedthere as a kind ofgeographic gift.The predominantetheric gesturesexpressedin the MidwestFive-hundred-acre cornfield in Nebraskaare wide openspaces, vast proportions, intense light, rhythmically circulating water, andaccessible, welcoming, deep topsoil.As we go over the Rocky Mountains, the gateway to the West, weencounter high altitude plateaus, scrubby, parched deserts, and finallythe two coastal ranges. In the West, the mountains are more rhythmicallypatterned, but are rough, pointed, crumbly, and younger than the Easternmountains. The orientation is upward. Everything seems to point to theheavens—the pointed pines, the upthrusted sandstone, and the sparse, sharp,snowy peaks of the 14,000-foot mountains. Rabindranath Tagore capturedthis heliotropic surge when he said, “Trees are the earth’s endless effort tospeak to the listening heavens.” The horizon seems to stretch forever andthe dome of massive azure sky and the billowing white clouds that gallopby give one a feeling of humility and awe.Because of the moving air masses traveling from west to east, wehave collision points east of the Rockies, where the lighter, quicker, warmerair masses meet the heavier, slower, colder air, creating swirling vorticesthat evolve into cyclones and tornadoes that wreak havoc in Kansas andneighboring states. The West Coast has mud slides caused by torrential rains,and the East Coast has its late summer/early autumn hurricanes.The Rockies herald the beginning of the West. They begin in Alaskalike a hand raised to a teacher with three fingers up, then contract into a wristat the Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta. They expand again throughMontana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona and31