Painting by Gerard Wagner
For This Michaelic Age. According to Rudolf Steiner the Kali Yuga lasted from about 3000 BC until 1899 AD. The term derives from Hinduism. During this era humankind gradually lost contact with the spiritual world. This was necessary to allow a sense of separate individuality and self-reliance to evolve. The Michael Age commenced in 1879 and Steiner spoke of this age in the following way: “In the last third of the nineteenth century, the Spiritual Being we call Michael became the ruler, as it were, of everything of a spiritual character in human events on earth. … Michael is the active being, the being who, as it were, pulses through our breath, our veins, our nerves, to the end that we may actively develop all that belongs to our full humanity in connection with the cosmos. What stands before us as a challenge from Michael is that we become active in our very thoughts, working out our view of the world through our own inner activity. We belong truly to the Michael Age only when we do not sit down inactively and seek to let enlightenment come to us from within and from without. We must cooperate actively in what the world offers us by way of experiences and opportunities for observation.”
For This Michaelic Age
We must eradicate from the soul
All fear and terror of what comes towards man out of the future.
We must acquire serenity
In all feelings and sensations about the future.
We must look forward with absolute equanimity
To everything that may come.
And we must think only that whatever comes
Is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom.
It is part of what we must learn in this age,
namely, to live out of pure trust,
Without any security in existence.
Trust in the ever present help
Of the spiritual world.
Truly, nothing else will do
If our courage is not to fail us.
And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves
Every morning and every evening.
Morning:
O Michael, under your protection I place myself;
With your guidance I connect myself
Wholeheartedly, so that this day may become
An image of your destiny-ordering Will.
Evening:
I carry my sorrow into the setting sun,
Place all my worries into her radiating womb.
Purified in love, transformed in light,
They return as helping thoughts,
As strength for self-sacrificing deeds
- attributed to Rudolf Steiner
We must eradicate from the soul
All fear and terror of what comes towards man out of the future.
We must acquire serenity
In all feelings and sensations about the future.
We must look forward with absolute equanimity
To everything that may come.
And we must think only that whatever comes
Is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom.
It is part of what we must learn in this age,
namely, to live out of pure trust,
Without any security in existence.
Trust in the ever present help
Of the spiritual world.
Truly, nothing else will do
If our courage is not to fail us.
And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves
Every morning and every evening.
Morning:
O Michael, under your protection I place myself;
With your guidance I connect myself
Wholeheartedly, so that this day may become
An image of your destiny-ordering Will.
Evening:
I carry my sorrow into the setting sun,
Place all my worries into her radiating womb.
Purified in love, transformed in light,
They return as helping thoughts,
As strength for self-sacrificing deeds
- attributed to Rudolf Steiner
