liturgy of the seasons (37)

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.

THIRTY-SEVENTH WEEK OF THE YEAR

37. Zu tragen Geisteslicht in Weltenwinternacht
Erstrebet selig meines Herzens Trieb,
Daß leuchtend Seelenkeime
In Weltengründen wurzeln,
Und Gotteswort im Sinnesdunkel
Verklärend alles Sein durchtönt.

∇∆

TO bear the light of mind 
into the night of world-winter, 
my beating heart impels my soul,
impels her to impart and sow
a shining kernel from herself
into the world’s fertile ground 
from whence it then may come to spring, 
in course of time and dark of sense, 
the sacred Word resound
and draw all beings to transfiguration