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 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.
THIRD WEEK OF THE YEAR
Es spricht zum Weltenall,
Sich selbst vergessend
Und seines Urstands eingedenk,
Des Menschen wachsend Ich:
In dir, befreiend mich
Aus meiner Eigenheiten Fessel,
Ergründe ich mein echtes Wesen.
∇∆
addressed to the world expanse
in forgetfulness of self
yet as an echo from the origin
speaks the evolving human I:
“you unfetter me
from the clutches of myself
and I discover my true being.”