Evolution of Consciousness Week 5

The Beginning of the Earth from the Perspective of Cosmic Evolution

I often feel that this week's class is the most wonderful and the most challenging class in this series cto teach. I began by mentioning how highly Rudolf Steiner valued Haeckel, the father of the Theory of Evolution, but how he felt that Haeckel's conclusions were all faulty! For from the perspective of spiritual science, the Human Being as a vision, as an ideal, was primary in the intentions of the creator spirits, and animals descended from human.
From there, we went on to consider Polaris and Hyperborea, early stages of Earth evolution, and then embarked on a deep study of the third stage, known as Lemuria. During that Earth period, early human beings became upright, were divided into two distinct sexes, and were lured into the "fall from Paradise." These thoughts then give us the foundation we need to move forward into observing how the human being gradually, step by step, became what we are now, separated from direct experience of the spiritual world and tasked with the invitation to wake up, re-affirm our divinity out of our own effort, and become the rightful tenth hierarchy, beings of love born out of freedom.

Click here for the link to Week 5

Click here for the link to Week 4

Click here for the link to Week 3

Click here for the link to Week 2

Click here for the link to Week 1

Eurythmy Studies of the Calendar of the Soul verses

The Calendar of the Soul verses describe the dynamic relationships of the Sun and the Earth, sources of Outer Light and Inner Light. Rudolf Steiner wrote these 52 verses in 1912. Each is 6-8 lines long and experienced as an artistic meditation. He later drew Eurythmy forms for each verse, to be performed by 2 to 7 performers. And although we will not attempt to learn these very complicated forms, we will still be able to enter deeply into the soul-spiritual experience of the poems.

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The Mystery of Lent and the Sacred Seasons of the Year

There is a profound beauty to be experienced in the journey through the seasons of the year. Again and again, we pass from the darkness of winter to the bright joy of summer, with all the variations of tempestuous storms and sweet evenings and mild winds in between.
Or perhaps I must acknowledge that these archetypal experiences are more native to those of us who live in temperate climates, and those who live closer to the equator may only imagine them through stories they have heard.
We, though, who live in these climates may look back upon the decades of our lives and experience how the seasons served always as an ever-present background music, as a stage setting for all of our personal dramas. And we can understand how, as a terrestrial biography far greater than our personal stories, the earth lives and “dies,” again and again, through the cycles of the seasons.

And indeed, this dance is played out between the soul of the earth and the spirit of the sun. In winter, the life forces, the vitality of the earth withdraws into the cave of its own depths as it turns away from the sun. In the places of archetypal winter, the earth will be covered with a blanket of snow, as if to fall into a deep sleep. Spiritually, however, another reality holds sway. The soul of the earth is more vividly awake in winter than at any other time, as it tenderly holds, nurtures and cares for the seeds that it holds, receiving through them the messages of the summer sun, and creating a safe haven for the star-forces that they carry.
Even so may we in the cold of winter become more inwardly awake, using our hours of inwardness to read, study, and muse about the great mysteries of the universe and of the inner depths of the soul

In summer, the life-giving sun floods the earth with light, engendering a veritable festival of joyous flowering amongst the plants, delicious fruits for the harvest, a rich outpouring of essential oils and fragrances to treat the nose, and a festival of activity amongst the birds and the insects, who fill the air with color and sound. Rudolf Steiner offers the picture that in this season the soul of the earth has been completely drawn forth from itself. What had been waiting during the winter underground as spiritual “seed-thoughts” has been raised from out of the darkness, and woven through the magic of spirit sun-light into material form . The soul of the earth then, having opened itself wide to the light, now falls into what is known as a cosmic sleep.
And we? Matching the energy of the season, we too are drawn out of our inner caves. The sense world lavishly nourishes us with its splendor, and we may easily lose ourselves in its glory, and with it, in our own enjoyment of the beauty of the earth.

And in the times of transition?
As the year begins to wane, the fruits and the petals fall from the plants, and the seeds are formed in preparation for the coming year. The seeds that are formed have been formed not of the forces of the earth, but of the instreaming forces from the stars. They will be laid into the earth, silent messengers and carriers of cosmic wisdom.
But if we are sensitive and subtle enough, we can experience how now, in the spring, a veritable chaos of change and movement, of becoming, is silently thundering below our feet. Unimaginable power is being unleashed, as the seeds hear the call of the springtime and respond by unfolding their star-power and allowing their content to be unfolded into matter, into materialized sunlight.

What, then, is this transitional season, the season known as “Lent”?
All Christian faiths call upon us to pause in these last weeks of winter, before the celebration of Easter is held days after the spring equinox.
Why? Why should the faithful of the Catholic church put ash on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday and practice some kind of renunciation for the next 40 days?
Why do we take a step back from the exultation of the season, and, for a few weeks, willingly take up a practice of self-sacrifice and mindfulness?
In the Christian Community church, which I attend, the season of Lent is shortened to only four weeks. In this time, the altar and the vestments will be clothed in black. The words of the priest speak of how this is the season to cultivate a consciousness in deep levels of our soul of the earnestness of life, and even of its tragedy. We must look at what is know as the “Fall” of the human being. For even as we fully embrace a deep love for the earth and its glory, we also know of the utter earnestness of our mandate as human beings. In poetic language, we may imagine how we wear bodies that were originally starlight and are now spun out of matter. We live now in a world in which the powers of death hold sway. Our spirits unfold their destinies by being woven into this web of matter, embracing it, and yet always looking for and finding the essence of spirit in all.
In our Tuesday morning eurythmy webinars, we are working with selected verses from the “Calendar of the Soul, Rudolf Steiner’s collection of 52 short verses for each week of the year. We read how, at Christmas, the “spirit child” comes to birth in the “womb” of the soul.
Then, in the following weeks of winter, we read how we must cultivate the power of memory, to remember what we have experienced at midwinter and keep it with us always.
And then, again and again in the following weeks, we read how we must awaken our power of thinking. We are astounded and challenged as we learn that we must allow our own thinking to unite itself with cosmic thinking, so that we may find our way to stay faithful to the spirit birth of winter and let it serve us well in the glorious unfolding of the outer light.

And what does this have to do with the mystery of Easter?
Through these practices, we remember the how the son of God, Christ, united himself with Jesus, a human being, through the baptism. He freely chose to experience human-ness in all its glory and pain, and finally he allowed himself to die a horrible death at the hands of humanity. He was the first spiritual being to penetrate into this world, a distant “outpost” of the created world, where the power of death consumes everything that does not choose the path of life in the spirit.
And the great mystery of Christ’s life, the reason He is remembered and worshiped, is that He overcame the annihilating forces of death. He found new life not only for His own being, but, as God-become-Human, He redeemed the very essence of all humanity, so that we will be able to die with the confidence that we will continue to BE. In His Resurrection body, death is overcome.
To be aware of this most sacred mystery is to understand the true meaning of Lent. For in this season we cultivate a consciousness of the reality of the dark forces of death. In doing so, we will be ready to live more deeply into the mysteries of Resurrection at Easter.

Click here to register for Tuesday morning Eurythmy Webinars, focusing on the Calendar of the Soul.

Eurythmy Studies of the Calendar of the Soul verses

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