liturgy of the seasons (20)
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.
TWENTIETH WEEK OF THE YEAR 20. So fühl ich erst mein Sein, Das fern vom Welten-Dasein In sich, sich selbst erlöschen Und bauend nur auf eignem Grunde In sich, sich selbst ertöten müsste. ∇∆ AT ONCE, I feel a power in my self which, like a flower severed from the world’s ground, cut off, could only pine & wither, and in ceaseless striving to create itself, would have spent itself to death.
This verse translated seems to indicate that humanity reaches a crossroads at the point of Lammas, which is the third cross-quarter day of the year. Thus, it seems to invite a new incentive for soul strength needed in the quest. Just look at its corollary for the winter season (week 33):
I feel at last the world's reality
Which, lacking the communion of my soul,
Would in itself be frosty, empty life,
And showing itself powerless
To recreate itself in souls,
Would in itself find only death.