liturgy of the seasons (2)

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 to awakening and sensitizing the soul to each season’s unique quality, mood, and inherent gesture.

Below is Dr. Steiner’s original Seelenkalender, or “Calendar of the Soul” verse 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.

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SECOND WEEK OF THE YEAR

Ins Äussre des Sinnesalls
Verliert Gedankenmacht ihr Eigensein;
Es finden Geisteswelten
Den Menschensprossen wieder
Der seinen Keim in ihnen,
Doch seine Seelenfrucht
In sich muss finden.

∇∆

IN the festival of senses
the power of thought risks self-oblivion.
in myriad realms of cosmic mind
the human germ will ever sprout anew
but the soul’s own ripening fruit
the soul, within herself, must find.