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.
FOURTEENTH WEEK OF THE YEAR 14. An Sinnesoffenbarung hingegeben Verlor ich Eigenwesens trieb, Gedankentraum, er schien Betäubend mir das Selbst zu rauben, Doch weckend nahet schon Im Sinnenschein mir Weltendenken. ∇∆ SURRENDERED to the senses’ revelation I had forfeit my own being’s aim and dreamlike weavings seemed to rend me from my self-experience; but when we dream we dream, then are we near awakening to the dawn of cosmic meaning.