IN the 1920s, Rudolf Steiner created a sort of liturgy of the natural and spiritual year in the form of fifty-two short verses. Experience—my own and others—testifies to the powerful effect that a short meditation on the relevant verse throughout the course of the year can have in respect to awakening and sensitizing the soul to each season’s unique quality and gesture.
Below is Dr. Steiner’s original Seelenkalender, or “Calendar of the Soul” verse for this week followed by my translation into English. I have opted to follow, whenever a conflict arose, the spirit over the letter in my translation efforts, attempting to convey the “mood” before the propositional content.
THIRTEENTH WEEK OF THE YEAR
13. Und bin ich in den Sinneshöhen,
So flammt in meinen Seelentiefen
Aus Geistes Feuerwelten
Der Götter Wahrheitswort:
In Geistesgründen suche ahnend
Dich geistverwandt zu finden.
∇∆
AND I am poised, with senses heightened,
when from the world of spirit, a fiery sign
within my dreaming soul
flames forth
and sequent, words of truth unfold:
“from wells of spirit, draw thy soul’s design
and of thine divine kinship be enlightened.”