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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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The Calendar of the Soul
GA 40

The Calendar of the Soul verses begin with Easter Week (Week 1) and form the shape of a lemniscate, as shown below. The polar opposite verse for each week is also included. Choose the week you wish to see from the choices below. (Dates refer to the dates between Easter 1999 and Holy Saturday 2000.)

If you start at #1 and draw a line to #6, continue to #12, until you get to #52, you will have drawn a lemniscate or figure 8. Notice the relationship between the polar verses. They always add up to 53. Now imagine that you are standing on #1. You will now walk the figure 8, but with your left arm extended outward. Thus when you arrive at #26, you will have completed the top loop of the lemniscate, and your left arm is always pointing OUTWARDS. But when you cross the middle and go from #27 to #52, your extended left arm is now opointing INWARDS toward the inside of the lower loop of the lemniscate. This is the basic out-breathing and in-breathing of the cosmic year.

(For you mates and sheilas down under, subtract 26 from the current week's verse and walk the same way we up here would walk the lemniscate. That would make Week Number 26 in the Northern Hemisphere Week Number 52 for you in the Southern Hemisphere (with your polar verse being #1.)

—Introduction and translation by Tom Mellett

lemniscate

Eastertide


Current Verse

Week 1 Spring

When the sun,
from all around the universe,
speaks to my human senses—
And joy, from the depths of my soul,
unites with light in a vision—
Then thoughts
from the confines of myself
move ever outward
into the vast expanse of space—
And they unite, however dimly,
the essence of my being
with the being of the Spirit.

Polar Verse

Week 52

When the Spirit
from the depths of my soul.
turns to face the being of the universe—
And beauty bursts forth
from the far reaches of space—
Then the force for life,
from the vastness of heaven,
moves into human bodies,
And powerfully unites
the being of the Spirit
with my own human being.

Week 2

Into the outer realms of the senses
the power of thinking loses its individuality.
Spirit worlds rediscover their human progeny,
as seeds within them.
But I must find within my self
the fruit of my own soul.

Week 51

Into my own inner being
Pour the riches of the senses.
The cosmic spirit finds itself
the mirror image of my eyes.
And these eyes
must recreate their forces
from that same spirit source.

Week 3

To the universe there speaks
the evolving human ego—
forgetting itself—
aware of its original state:
As I liberate myself
from the chains
of my own subjectivity,
I fathom my true being
in you.

Week 50

The joy of cosmic genesis,
revealing itself so powerfully,
speaks to my human ego,
unleashing forces
of its own cosmic essence:
Releasing my life
from its chains of enchantment,
and giving it to you—
I reach my true goal.

Week 4

Sensation speaks!
I feel the essence of my being!—
swirling through torrents of light
in the sun-brightened world.
How sensation yearns
to bestow upon thinking
the gift of warmth
that leads to clarity—
and fuses into unity
the human being and the world.

Week 49

Thus speaks the brightness of my thinking:
I feel the force of Cosmic Being!—
remembering the growth of its own spirit
during dark cosmic nights.
How it anticipates
the coming cosmic day
with rays of inner light!

Week 5

How the gods create
from the depths of the spirit
reveals itself in the Light
weaving prolifically in space.
In this Light appears
the being of my Soul—
as wide now as the universe—
even resurrected
from the inward power
of my narrow self.

Week 48

Let the certainty of cosmic thinking appear
in the Light!—
that longs to flow
forcefully into my soul:
solving riddles of the soul,
focusing the force of its rays,
awakening love in human hearts.

Week 6

My self is resurrected
from its subjectivity,
and discovers itself
as a cosmic revelation
within the forces
of Space and Time.
Everywhere the world
shows me the truth
of my own image
as the image of God.

Week 47

Joy of genesis!
How it yearns to rise
out of its cosmic womb
to animate sense appearance!
May it find the force
of my thinking
prepared by God's forces,
that live robust
within my inner being.

Week 7

My Self!—
It threatens to flee—
Intensely attracted by cosmic light.
My Intuition!
Come in now with confidence!
Take your rightful place!
Replenish the power of my Thinking,
which craves to lose itself
in the glorious illusions
of the senses.

Week 46

The World!
It threatens to stupefy
the innate power of my soul.
Memory!—
Illuminating out of
the depths of the spirit,—
Come forward now!!
Strengthen my vision,
which can only be sustained
by the forces of my will.

Week 8

The power of the senses,
entwined with gods' creating,
now begins to grow—
and thus reduces the force of thinking
to the dullness of a dream.
If a divine being would unite
with my soul—
then human thinking must resign itself
to this dull dream existence.

Week 45

The power of thought secures itself
in a bond with spirit birth—
and exposes in full brilliance
the stupefying seductions of the senses.
If this soul's profusion
would fuse itself
with the universe evolving,
then is sense revelation
obliged to admit
the light of thinking.

Week 9

As I now forget my own will,
cosmic warmth fills my spirit and soul—
announcing: summer is come!
Spirit vision pleads with me
to lose myself in light,
and a premonition warns me loudly:
Lose yourself to find yourself!

Week 44

Stirring new sensual magic,
recalling its own spirit birth,
the clarity of my soul
now fills
the bewildering, teeming,
evolving universe
with the creative willing
of my own thinking.

Week 10

High in the summer heights,
the illuminating Sun-being rises
and carries my human feeling
into the far reaches of space.
Deep within me
a foreboding sensation occurs—
faintly it tells me:
One day you will realize
that today, a divine being felt you.

Week 43

Down in the wintry depths,
the true essence of spirit is seething—
it is endowing cosmic appearance
with powers of existing
through forces of the heart.
The fire within the human being,
now growing strong,
defies cosmic cold.

Week 11

In this, the 'Hour of the Sun,'
it is up to you to realize
the tidings of wisdom.
Surrendered to the world's beauty,
feeling yourself within yourself,
you are to experience this:
the human *I* can lose itself—
then find itself in the cosmic *I*.

Week 42

In this gloom of winter,
my soul's own strength is revealed
in its yearning urge to pass through
darkness and oblivion—
to feel its way forward—
anticipating the dawn
of sense revelation
through the warmth
of my heart.

Week 12

The splendor of Nature's beauty
Lures me out of my soul depths
To liberate for cosmic flight
The divine forces
Of my own existence.—
To abandon myself,
Yet trusting
And seeking myself alone
In cosmic light,
And cosmic warmth.

Week 41

My soul's creative power!—
Yearning from the bottom of my heart—
Ignites in human life
Divine forces,
Shapes itself in human love and deed
For the purpose of right action.

Week 13

I am now in my senses' heights!
Yet flaring in the depths of my soul—
from worlds of fire in the Spirit—
the gods speak this truth:
At the Fountainhead of Spirit,
seek and you will find
your affinity to the Spirit!

Week 40 Winter

I am now in the depths of the Spirit!
And in the foundations of my soul,
the empty illusion of my self-image
is filled with the fiery force
of the Cosmic Word—
flowing out of worlds of love
within my heart.


St. John's Tide


Current Verse

Week 14 Summer

Surrendered to my senses' revelation,
I lose the urging of my own being.
The dream of thinking!
It appears—
dazzling me—
to rob my own self from me!
But in that sense appearance,
already fast approaching,
awakening me,
is—
cosmic thinking.

Polar Verse

Week 39

Surrendered to the spirit's revelation,
I win back the light of cosmic being.
It grows and grows,
enlightening me,
to give my self back to me.
And this feeling of my self—
awakening—
unravels itself
out of my strength
as a thinker.

Week 15

I feel as if enchanted
in the glory of the weaving Spirit.
It has nested my own being
inside the dullness of my senses—
to grant me the power
that I cannot give myself—
for my Ego lives
within its limitations.

Week 38

I feel as if the Spirit Child
in the womb of my own soul
has awakened from an enchantment.
In the radiance of my heart
the Holy Cosmic Word
has given birth to
the heavenly fruit of hope,
which grows, rejoicing,
into the vast universe,
growing out of God's ground
within my being.

Week 16

My intuition firmly commands me:
Bury the spirit's treasures within you
so that these ripening gifts of God,
growing in the soil of your soul,
may bring forth the very fruits
of your own selfhood.

Week 37

This is the blissful striving of my heart's desire:
To carry the light of the spirit
into the cosmic winter night,
so that sparkling seeds of my soul
may take root in cosmic soil—
and that the Word of God may resound
through the darkness of my senses,
transfiguring my entire existence.

Week 17

I may now lead the Cosmic Word
through the gateways of my senses
into the foundations of my soul.
It speaks:
Let my cosmic majesty
fill the depths of your spirit
so that one day soon
you may discover
myself in you.

Week 36

In the depths of my being,
full of mystery,
surging toward revelation,
the Cosmic Word speaks:
Fulfill the goals of your work
with my spirit light
to sacrifice yourself through me.

Week 18

Can I expand my soul
to unite
with the Cosmic Word
now conceived
as seed?
I sense that
I must find the force
to fashion my own soul
as a worthy garment
for the spirit.

Week 35

Can I become so conscious
of my being—
that I may find myself again
in the urge of my soul
to create?
I feel that I have
borrowed strength
to fit my own self
into the self of the universe—
with humility.

Week 19

Mysteriously, my memory is encompassed
by everything new I have received.
May all of it now become
the greater meaning of my striving—
Awakening in my inner being
my own ever-strengthening forces
which, ever-evolving,
give my own self
back to me.

Week 34

Mysteriously, my being is resurrected.
And I feel within myself
all that I have preserved
from the past—alive again!
Awakening cosmic forces
shall pour into my life's
outer deeds!
And, evolving,
these forces shall stamp me
onto existence.

Week 20

I finally feel my being
far removed from cosmic life.
And by itself, my being must decay—
and building only upon
its own foundation
deep within itself—
must always bring upon itself—
death.

Week 33

With only my soul to experience it,
I finally feel the world—
but by itself, its life is:
frozen, empty, powerless.
The world reveals itself in our souls.
It re-creates itself—
yet all it can find within itself is—
death.

Week 21

I feel a foreign power bearing fruit—
ever-strengthening—
to lead my self back to me.
I have perceived that ripening seed,
and now my intuition, full of light,
weaves within me
the power of my own self.

Week 32

I feel my own force is bearing fruit—
strengthening me as a gift to the world.
I feel my own being
filled with forces,
turning me toward enlightenment,
in the weaving destiny of life.

Week 22

The light from all around the universe
Powerfully survives within me.
It will become the light of my soul
And shine into the spirit depths—
To liberate fruits from the cosmic self
and let them ripen—
within the course of time—
Into my own human self.

Week 31

The light from the depths of the spirit—
Striving outward like the sun—
Becomes the force of life and will,
And shines on the senses' dullness—
In order to liberate
Powers of creativity
From the urges of the soul,
And so to let them ripen as the deeds
Of women and of men.

Week 23

Autumn now subdues
My senses' strivings for enchantment.
A stifling, hazy mist swirls
Within the revelation of the light.
I myself look into the wide expanse of space,
And see the winter-sleep of fall.
Summer has surrendered itself
entirely to me.

Week 30

In the sunlight of my soul
The ripe fruits of thinking
Are springing forth.
In the certainty of self-consciousness
All feeling transforms itself.
Filled with joy!
I am now able
To feel the fall spirit awaken
within me:
Winter will awaken
The summer of my soul.

Week 24

By constantly creating itself,
My soul becomes aware of itself.
The cosmic spirit strives on—
In newly animated self-realization—
And creates out of soul darkness
the fruit of my will—
The sense of myself.

Week 29

To ignite the light of thinking
so forcefully within me—
To live within the meaning
of the cosmic spirit's source of power—
This is for me:
The heritage of summer,
The tranquillity of fall,
The hope of winter.

Week 25

I may now belong to myself.
I am luminous—
I spread my inner light
over the darknesses of space and time—
While all of Nature falls asleep.
But the depths of my soul shall awaken—
And, in awakening, shall carry
the sun's fire glowing
into the cold winter's surging.

Week 28

Newly revived within myself,
I can now experience the vastness of my own being.
Newly filled with forces
From the sun's power in my soul,
I can now release rays of thinking—
Solving riddles of existence.
I can now fulfill many a wish
whose wings before
had been crippled by hope.

Week 26

Nature! I hold your motherly essence
in the being of my will.
And the fiery power of my will
tempers my spiritual urges,
so that they may give birth
to the feeling of myself—
to hold my self within me.

Week 27Autumn

A yearning,
filled with anticipation,
stirs within me—
so that I will find myself
by observing myself
as the gift of the summer sun,
which, as a seed,
incubating in the mood of autumn,
lives on as the impulse
of my soul forces.


Michaelmas


Current Verse

Week 27Autumn

A yearning,
filled with anticipation,
stirs within me—
so that I will find myself
by observing myself
as the gift of the summer sun,
which, as a seed,
incubating in the mood of autumn,
lives on as the impulse
of my soul forces.

Polar Verse

Week 26

Nature! I hold your motherly essence
in the being of my will.
And the fiery power of my will
tempers my spiritual urges,
so that they may give birth
to the feeling of myself—
to hold my self within me.

Week 28

Newly revived within myself,
I can now experience the vastness of my own being.
Newly filled with forces
From the sun's power in my soul,
I can now release rays of thinking—
Solving riddles of existence.
I can now fulfill many a wish
whose wings before
had been crippled by hope.

Week 25

I may now belong to myself.
I am luminous—
I spread my inner light
over the darknesses of space and time—
While all of Nature falls asleep.
But the depths of my soul shall awaken—
And, in awakening, shall carry
the sun's fire glowing
into the cold winter's surging.

Week 29

To ignite the light of thinking
so forcefully within me—
To live within the meaning
of the cosmic spirit's source of power—
This is for me:
The heritage of summer,
The tranquillity of fall,
The hope of winter.

Week 24

By constantly creating itself,
My soul becomes aware of itself.
The cosmic spirit strives on—
In newly animated self-realization—
And creates out of soul darkness
the fruit of my will—
The sense of myself.

Week 30

In the sunlight of my soul
The ripe fruits of thinking
Are springing forth.
In the certainty of self-consciousness
All feeling transforms itself.
Filled with joy!
I am now able
To feel the fall spirit awaken
within me:
Winter will awaken
The summer of my soul.

Week 23

Autumn now subdues
My senses' strivings for enchantment.
A stifling, hazy mist swirls
Within the revelation of the light.
I myself look into the wide expanse of space,
And see the winter-sleep of fall.
Summer has surrendered itself
entirely to me.

Week 31

The light from the depths of the spirit—
Striving outward like the sun—
Becomes the force of life and will,
And shines on the senses' dullness—
In order to liberate
Powers of creativity
From the urges of the soul,
And so to let them ripen as the deeds
Of women and of men.

Week 22

The light from all around the universe
Powerfully survives within me.
It will become the light of my soul
And shine into the spirit depths—
To liberate fruits from the cosmic self
and let them ripen—
within the course of time—
Into my own human self.

Week 32

I feel my own force is bearing fruit—
strengthening me as a gift to the world.
I feel my own being
filled with forces,
turning me toward enlightenment,
in the weaving destiny of life.

Week 21

I feel a foreign power bearing fruit—
ever-strengthening—
to lead my self back to me.
I have perceived that ripening seed,
and now my intuition, full of light,
weaves within me
the power of my own self.

Week 33

With only my soul to experience it,
I finally feel the world—
but by itself, its life is:
frozen, empty, powerless.
The world reveals itself in our souls.
It re-creates itself—
yet all it can find within itself is—
death.

Week 20

I finally feel my being
far removed from cosmic life.
And by itself, my being must decay—
and building only upon
its own foundation
deep within itself—
must always bring upon itself—
death.

Week 34

Mysteriously, my being is resurrected.
And I feel within myself
all that I have preserved
from the past—alive again!
Awakening cosmic forces
shall pour into my life's
outer deeds!
And, evolving,
these forces shall stamp me
onto existence.

Week 19

Mysteriously, my memory is encompassed
by everything new I have received.
May all of it now become
the greater meaning of my striving—
Awakening in my inner being
my own ever-strengthening forces
which, ever-evolving,
give my own self
back to me.

Week 35

Can I become so conscious
of my being—
that I may find myself again
in the urge of my soul
to create?
I feel that I have
borrowed strength
to fit my own self
into the self of the universe—
with humility.

Week 18

Can I expand my soul
to unite
with the Cosmic Word
now conceived
as seed?
I sense that
I must find the force
to fashion my own soul
as a worthy garment
for the spirit.

Week 36

In the depths of my being,
full of mystery,
surging toward revelation,
the Cosmic Word speaks:
Fulfill the goals of your work
with my spirit light
to sacrifice yourself through me.

Week 17

I may now lead the Cosmic Word
through the gateways of my senses
into the foundations of my soul.
It speaks:
Let my cosmic majesty
fill the depths of your spirit
so that one day soon
you may discover
myself in you.

Week 37

This is the blissful striving of my heart's desire:
To carry the light of the spirit
into the cosmic winter night,
so that sparkling seeds of my soul
may take root in cosmic soil—
and that the Word of God may resound
through the darkness of my senses,
transfiguring my entire existence.

Week 16

My intuition firmly commands me:
Bury the spirit's treasures within you
so that these ripening gifts of God,
growing in the soil of your soul,
may bring forth the very fruits
of your own selfhood.

Week 38

I feel as if the Spirit Child
in the womb of my own soul
has awakened from an enchantment.
In the radiance of my heart
the Holy Cosmic Word
has given birth to
the heavenly fruit of hope,
which grows, rejoicing,
into the vast universe,
growing out of God's ground
within my being.

Week 15

I feel as if enchanted
in the glory of the weaving Spirit.
It has nested my own being
inside the dullness of my senses—
to grant me the power
that I cannot give myself—
for my Ego lives
within its limitations.

Week 39

Surrendered to the spirit's revelation,
I win back the light of cosmic being.
It grows and grows,
enlightening me,
to give my self back to me.
And this feeling of my self—
awakening—
unravels itself
out of my strength
as a thinker.

Week 14 Summer

Surrendered to my senses' revelation,
I lose the urging of my own being.
The dream of thinking!
It appears—
dazzling me—
to rob my own self from me!
But in that sense appearance,
already fast approaching,
awakening me,
is—
cosmic thinking.


Christmas Tide


Current Verse

Week 41

My soul's creative power!—
Yearning from the bottom of my heart—
Ignites in human life
Divine forces,
Shapes itself in human love and deed
For the purpose of right action.

Polar Verse

Week 12

The splendor of Nature's beauty
Lures me out of my soul depths
To liberate for cosmic flight
The divine forces
Of my own existence.—
To abandon myself,
Yet trusting
And seeking myself alone
In cosmic light,
And cosmic warmth.

Week 42

In this gloom of winter,
my soul's own strength is revealed
in its yearning urge to pass through
darkness and oblivion—
to feel its way forward—
anticipating the dawn
of sense revelation
through the warmth
of my heart.

Week 11

In this, the 'Hour of the Sun,'
it is up to you to realize
the tidings of wisdom.
Surrendered to the world's beauty,
feeling yourself within yourself,
you are to experience this:
the human *I* can lose itself—
then find itself in the cosmic *I*.

Week 43

Down in the wintry depths,
the true essence of spirit is seething—
it is endowing cosmic appearance
with powers of existing
through forces of the heart.
The fire within the human being,
now growing strong,
defies cosmic cold.

Week 10

High in the summer heights,
the illuminating Sun-being rises
and carries my human feeling
into the far reaches of space.
Deep within me
a foreboding sensation occurs—
faintly it tells me:
One day you will realize
that today, a divine being felt you.

Week 44

Stirring new sensual magic,
recalling its own spirit birth,
the clarity of my soul
now fills
the bewildering, teeming,
evolving universe
with the creative willing
of my own thinking.

Week 9

As I now forget my own will,
cosmic warmth fills my spirit and soul—
announcing: summer is come!
Spirit vision pleads with me
to lose myself in light,
and a premonition warns me loudly:
Lose yourself to find yourself!

Week 45

The power of thought secures itself
in a bond with spirit birth—
and exposes in full brilliance
the stupefying seductions of the senses.
If this soul's profusion
would fuse itself
with the universe evolving,
then is sense revelation
obliged to admit
the light of thinking.

Week 8

The power of the senses,
entwined with gods' creating,
now begins to grow—
and thus reduces the force of thinking
to the dullness of a dream.
If a divine being would unite
with my soul—
then human thinking must resign itself
to this dull dream existence.

Week 46

The World!
It threatens to stupefy
the innate power of my soul.
Memory!—
Illuminating out of
the depths of the spirit,—
Come forward now!!
Strengthen my vision,
which can only be sustained
by the forces of my will.

Week 7

My Self!—
It threatens to flee—
Intensely attracted by cosmic light.
My Intuition!
Come in now with confidence!
Take your rightful place!
Replenish the power of my Thinking,
which craves to lose itself
in the glorious illusions
of the senses.

Week 47

Joy of genesis!
How it yearns to rise
out of its cosmic womb
to animate sense appearance!
May it find the force
of my thinking
prepared by God's forces,
that live robust
within my inner being.

Week 6

My self is resurrected
from its subjectivity,
and discovers itself
as a cosmic revelation
within the forces
of Space and Time.
Everywhere the world
shows me the truth
of my own image
as the image of God.

Week 48

Let the certainty of cosmic thinking appear
in the Light!—
that longs to flow
forcefully into my soul:
solving riddles of the soul,
focusing the force of its rays,
awakening love in human hearts.

Week 5

How the gods create
from the depths of the spirit
reveals itself in the Light
weaving prolifically in space.
In this Light appears
the being of my Soul—
as wide now as the universe—
even resurrected
from the inward power
of my narrow self.

Week 49

Thus speaks the brightness of my thinking:
I feel the force of Cosmic Being!—
remembering the growth of its own spirit
during dark cosmic nights.
How it anticipates
the coming cosmic day
with rays of inner light!

Week 4

Sensation speaks!
I feel the essence of my being!—
swirling through torrents of light
in the sun-brightened world.
How sensation yearns
to bestow upon thinking
the gift of warmth
that leads to clarity—
and fuses into unity
the human being and the world.

Week 50

The joy of cosmic genesis,
revealing itself so powerfully,
speaks to my human ego,
unleashing forces
of its own cosmic essence:
Releasing my life
from its chains of enchantment,
and giving it to you—
I reach my true goal.

Week 3

To the universe there speaks
the evolving human ego—
forgetting itself—
aware of its original state:
As I liberate myself
from the chains
of my own subjectivity,
I fathom my true being
in you.

Week 51

Into my own inner being
Pour the riches of the senses.
The cosmic spirit finds itself
the mirror image of my eyes.
And these eyes
must recreate their forces
from that same spirit source.

Week 2

Into the outer realms of the senses
the power of thinking loses its individuality.
Spirit worlds rediscover their human progeny,
as seeds within them.
But I must find within my self
the fruit of my own soul.

Week 52

When the Spirit
from the depths of my soul.
turns to face the being of the universe—
And beauty bursts forth
from the far reaches of space—
Then the force for life,
from the vastness of heaven,
moves into human bodies,
And powerfully unites
the being of the Spirit
with my own human being.

Week 1 Spring

When the sun,
from all around the universe,
speaks to my human senses—
And joy, from the depths of my soul,
unites with light in a vision—
Then thoughts
from the confines of myself
move ever outward
into the vast expanse of space—
And they unite, however dimly,
the essence of my being
with the being of the Spirit.