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.
FOURTH WEEK OF THE YEAR
Ich fühle Wesen meines Wesens:
So spricht Empfindung,
Die in der sonnerhellten Welt
Mit Lichtesfluten sich vereint;
Sie will dem Denken
Zur Klarheit Wärme schenken.
Und Mensch und Welt
In Einheit fest verbinden.
∇∆
I feel my heart of hearts:
so speaks the sentient soul
and streaming through the sunlit world
she sallies forth on floods of Light
resolved in her that thought should lend
warmth to clarity of sight and then
in high communion, bind
the World-Soul and Humankind.
another beautiful rendition. thank you.