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.
TWENTY-FOURTH WEEK OF THE YEAR 24. Sich selbst erschaffend stets, wird seelensein sich selbst gewahr; der weltengeist, er strebet fort in selbsterkenntnis neu belebt und schafft aus seelenfinsternis des selbstsinns willensfrucht. ∇∆ IN self-creation never-ending the soul becomes self-comprehending, the world-spirit, striving onward for it, self-knowledge is a spring of ceaseless self-renewing; and as the soul’s light slowly dwindles: a spark of intimation kindles in the dying light, a spark wherefrom new fruits of sovereign action come