by Friedwart Husemann
Fostering the feeling life is part of the path of inner development. It leads to clarity, order and the forming of organs of clairvoyance. Bringing the verses in Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophical Calendar of the Soul together with his Rose Cross Meditation can cast light on the qualities of «bliss» and «earnestness».
In his preface to the Anthroposophical Calendar of the Soul (in GA 40) Rudolf Steiner writes that the weekly verses are about self-knowledge through feeling. Feelings are at the centre of the soul and it is from them that the organs of clairvoyance are formed. For self-education we are asked to consciously produce negative feelings, such as anger and wrath, and noble feelings like reverence and gratitude.
Here is an example: «The winter will arouse in me the summer of the soul» (verse 30, tr. Ruth Pusch). Summer is meant here in relation to the soul, inwardly, while winter is external, in nature. The feelings that correspond to summer in nature are joy, devotion to nature’s beauty, serenity, happiness – feelings of bliss in other words. When it is winter outside other feelings prevail: reflection on whether we are prepared for the winter, on what is essential, a sense of responsibility and other feelings of earnestness. Are there archetypes of our feelings?
In order to find an answer to this question we will contemplate the chapter on the path of inner development and the meditation in Esoteric Science (GA 13). Preparation comes first, proceeding from the plant’s green juices to the red human blood. I can feel «blissful» when I imagine a plant, how it produces leaf after leaf and then opens itself without passion to the chaste rays of the sun. While we are more advanced than plants we have had to pay for our advancement by developing drives, desires, and passions. This can transform sentiment into -«earnest» feeling.
Image of purified drives
Another step follows, however. We are able to evolve. We can transform the lower nature of our passions and birth them again at a higher level. With their consciously acquired purity, such chastened drives correspond to the plant’s unconscious purity. The red of the blood then resembles the red of a rose blossom imbued with the pure laws of growth. My soul can transform this into a feeling of ‹liberating› happiness. Now I imagine a black cross: this can be an image of obliterated lower drives and passions. Where the bars cross over, I imagine a circle of seven radiantly red rose blossoms. They are an expression of the purified and chastened drives and passions.
I stay with this image for as long as possible, not allowing it to be interrupted by any other image. I am asked to let the sensation I have acquired in the preparation «resonate along». What resonates as I meditate is therefore the feeling of «liberating happiness» that has passed through earnestness and been born out of bliss.
In this way the symbol of the rose cross becomes a sign that emerges along with the sentient experience. The effectiveness of this meditation is due to the soul’s resting in this experience. It seems to me that the feeling of liberating happiness is fundamental to any meditation; all other feelings can grow from this.
The art of holding the middle
We can transfer these three archetypal feelings of the Rose Cross Meditation to the Calendar of the Soul. The journey through summer becomes a path up into the heights of the cosmos, engendering feelings of bliss. The journey through winter becomes a path into our own self and into the depths of the earth; it transforms our sentiments into feelings of earnestness. The journey through the whole year, that is, the art of holding the middle between above and below, between bliss and earnestness, becomes for us a journey with Christ who, throughout the year, can instill in us a feeling of liberating happiness. As He said Himself, «My yoke is easy and my burden is light.» (Matthew 11:30).
Picture: Painting by Gabriela Henke, Hebrew 41, Verse 41, 2015 (detail), www.gabrielahenke.com.
Friedwart Husemann
Born 1945, worked as a physician and in leading positions within the Anthroposophical Society in Munich (DE) and the German Association of Anthroposophic Physicians. He is a journalist and writer of books.
In his preface to the Anthroposophical Calendar of the Soul (in GA 40) Rudolf Steiner writes that the weekly verses are about self-knowledge through feeling. Feelings are at the centre of the soul and it is from them that the organs of clairvoyance are formed. For self-education we are asked to consciously produce negative feelings, such as anger and wrath, and noble feelings like reverence and gratitude.
Here is an example: «The winter will arouse in me the summer of the soul» (verse 30, tr. Ruth Pusch). Summer is meant here in relation to the soul, inwardly, while winter is external, in nature. The feelings that correspond to summer in nature are joy, devotion to nature’s beauty, serenity, happiness – feelings of bliss in other words. When it is winter outside other feelings prevail: reflection on whether we are prepared for the winter, on what is essential, a sense of responsibility and other feelings of earnestness. Are there archetypes of our feelings?
In order to find an answer to this question we will contemplate the chapter on the path of inner development and the meditation in Esoteric Science (GA 13). Preparation comes first, proceeding from the plant’s green juices to the red human blood. I can feel «blissful» when I imagine a plant, how it produces leaf after leaf and then opens itself without passion to the chaste rays of the sun. While we are more advanced than plants we have had to pay for our advancement by developing drives, desires, and passions. This can transform sentiment into -«earnest» feeling.
Image of purified drives
Another step follows, however. We are able to evolve. We can transform the lower nature of our passions and birth them again at a higher level. With their consciously acquired purity, such chastened drives correspond to the plant’s unconscious purity. The red of the blood then resembles the red of a rose blossom imbued with the pure laws of growth. My soul can transform this into a feeling of ‹liberating› happiness. Now I imagine a black cross: this can be an image of obliterated lower drives and passions. Where the bars cross over, I imagine a circle of seven radiantly red rose blossoms. They are an expression of the purified and chastened drives and passions.
I stay with this image for as long as possible, not allowing it to be interrupted by any other image. I am asked to let the sensation I have acquired in the preparation «resonate along». What resonates as I meditate is therefore the feeling of «liberating happiness» that has passed through earnestness and been born out of bliss.
In this way the symbol of the rose cross becomes a sign that emerges along with the sentient experience. The effectiveness of this meditation is due to the soul’s resting in this experience. It seems to me that the feeling of liberating happiness is fundamental to any meditation; all other feelings can grow from this.
The art of holding the middle
We can transfer these three archetypal feelings of the Rose Cross Meditation to the Calendar of the Soul. The journey through summer becomes a path up into the heights of the cosmos, engendering feelings of bliss. The journey through winter becomes a path into our own self and into the depths of the earth; it transforms our sentiments into feelings of earnestness. The journey through the whole year, that is, the art of holding the middle between above and below, between bliss and earnestness, becomes for us a journey with Christ who, throughout the year, can instill in us a feeling of liberating happiness. As He said Himself, «My yoke is easy and my burden is light.» (Matthew 11:30).
Picture: Painting by Gabriela Henke, Hebrew 41, Verse 41, 2015 (detail), www.gabrielahenke.com.
Friedwart Husemann
Born 1945, worked as a physician and in leading positions within the Anthroposophical Society in Munich (DE) and the German Association of Anthroposophic Physicians. He is a journalist and writer of books.
