liturgy of the seasons (49)

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.

FORTY-NINTH WEEK OF THE YEAR

49. Ich fühle Kraft des Weltenseins:
So spricht Gedankenklarheit,
Gedenkend eignen Geistes Wachsen
In finstern Weltennächten,
Und neigt dem nahen Weltentage
Des Innern Hoffnungsstrahlen.

∇∆

I FEEL within a cosmic power
feel him raise his voice and in me speak:
“thy heart is tending in its deepest bower
a light wherefore the sleeping world doth seek
behold now at the seasons’ darkest hour,
the golden glow that glints on yonder hills and peaks.”