liturgy of the seasons (14)

a weekly translation of Rudolf Steiner’s Seelenkalender verse

IN 1912-1913, 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 have forfeit my own being’s aim
and dreamlike weavings seem
to rend me from my self-experience;
but when we dream we dream,
then are we near awakening
to the dawn of cosmic thought