Rhythm of a year

The yearly rhythm in the relationship between the Earth and the Sun is reflected in the cycle of nature's seasons on Earth. The human calendar is also calibrated to this cycle of 365 days of 12 moon cycles and 12 extra days and 'holy' nights.

Nature's kingdoms oscillate between high expression in summer, with a maximum at midsummer or St John's day on 20th June, and the opposite in winter, with a minimum at the winter solstice on 21th December. This corresponds to an outbreathing and inbreathing of the Earth as a living organism. The process in nature can be described as an alchemical process, behind which spiritual beings are at work.

The process of in- and outbreathing of the Earth can be seen not just in the nature but it also affects Man, the 'experience of the year' consists in living this connection consciously and becoming susceptible to the forces of nature at work.

As the Sun moves through the twelve constellations of the zodiac belt, it modules different spiritual influences on Man and Earth.

Aspects

The yearly process in nature

Man lives closely interconnected with the process of nature in the four seasons, the sprouting in spring, nature at its height in summer, the dying off in autumn, and the withdrawal back into winter. Note Man, as one of the four kingdoms on Earth, takes part in the whole and the alchemy described below also takes place in Man. What happens in nature is an alchemical process at a grand scale, consisting of and executed or 'lived' by spiritual entities of the elementals of nature on Earth that consititute or make up the living physical plant kingdom, and the archangels 'steering them'.
To picture how this grand scheme is composed one can proceed as follows: The left side of schema FMC00.106 (below) and 1923-10-13-GA229 (read online) is explained in key extract 1916-04-13-GA167 (extract below), and illustrated in schema FMC00.104 (below). Schema FMC00.142D shows at a conceptual level how the different spiritual entities at work, hang together.

The twelve nights (see Thirteen holy nights) and twelve months are a symbol for the great 12.000 Earth-year-cycle also called the 'Cosmic year of Zarathustra (1915-12-31-GA165)
Sun (and Moon) pass(es) through the constellations of the zodiac on it's journey through the heavens, which makes these constellations and their corresponding zodiacal spiritual influences special, because their influence is sometimes there and sometimes not. This modulates the effect of specific spiritual influences on Man and the kingdoms of nature with certain rhythms related to Sun (and Moon). (1924-05-17-GA353, see Zodiac#1924-05-17-GA353).

The yearly process in Man

just like the eyes look outside, the liver looks inwards (subconsciously); it's activity varies in the course of the year: culminating in activity in the winter (Christmas and New Year) and in a kind of soul sleep only carrying our physical activities in the summer with a slower digestive system (1922-09-13-GA347)
Schema FMC00.294 makes the link between microcosmos Man and macrocosmos Earth and the yearly rhythm of winter and summer corresponding to the threefold Man as a warmth mechanism.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.107 shows the yearly cycle as an in and out breathing with the solstices and equinoxes as turning points. This lemniscatory view is also used in Rudolf Steiner's Calendar of the Soul, see 'Further reading' section on Christ Module 17 - The experience of the year

Schema FMC00.108 - The solar analemma does not map to the above conceptual picture, as it depicts the changing apparent position of the Sun from a given location over a year, but it does give us a beautiful reality-version for 'feeling ourselves into' the pathway of the Sun between the two solstices. This cycle was important in ancient cultures who lived closely with the yearly cycle of the Sun and the seasons.

Schema FMC00.559 describes the annual cycle of the Sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac.

Compare with Schema FMC00.042; and Schema FMC00.256 (three groups of four).

Illustration by Jean Dubuis from 'Fundamentals of Esoteric Knowledge' (Lesson 6).

Schema FMC00.559A combines the schema by Jean Dubuis with Rudolf Steiner lecture references, highlighting the opposing forces denoted by Gemini and Sagittarius, and an illustration of the positive active 'day' forces and the negative passive 'night' forces.

The yearly process in nature

Schema FMC00.249 provides a summary overview of the Alchemy of nature in the yearly cycle of the seasons. This can be contemplated together with Schemas FMC00.009A and FMC00.142D (below).

Schema FMC00.249A illustrates the flow of the yearly process of the four seasons through the alchemical process base chart FMC00.249.

Compare with FMC00.107 above to see how the process goes between the two extremes of the summer and winter solstices, and imagine nature's in and out breathing on this schema.

Schema FMC00.106 provides an overview of the seasons and the connection between the work of the archangels, how we can see that work in nature in the cycle of the seasons, the alchemical process in Man (middle), and what it means for the experience of Man (right).

Schema FMC00.104 gives a image for contemplation of 'the golden buckets interchanging' (see Goethe's Faust and the Golden Chain) and the work of the archangels and nature's four seasons as per 1923-10-13-GA229

Schema FMC00.445 represents the mid-summer Saint-John's imagination described in 1923-10-12-GA229 as one of the four great imaginations for the cycle of the year. The description from the lecture in the middle, and the blackboard drawing on the right, are linked to the 'Druid Stones' painting by Rudolf Steiner made after his visit to Ilkley Valley in Yorkshire (UK). On the right, picture from the book by Frank Teichmann who describes this correlation between the painting, the landscape of Ilkley, and the Saint-John's imagination in context of the importance of Rudolf Steiner's visits to the Druidic mystery sites in the UK (2002 in DE, 2020 in EN).

Schema FMC00.142D is a variant of master schema FMC00.142 also used for the Golden Chain. It shows the physical body of plants as we see it around us in nature, and the plant consciousness: the Group soul of plants, lying just as the second Elementary Kingdom in the lower spirit world. The schema does not show the plant kingdom's astral body, which is spread out across Earth.

Schema FMC00.294 makes the link between microcosmos Man and macrocosmos Earth and the yearly rhythm of winter and summer corresponding to the threefold Man as a warmth mechanism. Compare with Schema FMC00.107 above.

Lecture coverage and references

Overview coverage

In the cycle GA229 the alchemical process in nature is described in a number of lectures, eg 1923-10-06-GA229 (see Schema FMC00.249) covers the different seasons but the other lectures complement this.

Source extracts

1911-01-29-GA130

This is connected with the change in the position of the Earth's axis around 1250. The Earth describes a cone movement in the course of millennia, a dancing movement. Since the fifth or sixth millennium BC, the Earth's axis has turned more and more. Scientifically, this is called the advance of the vernal point, the equinox. The distribution of spring, summer, autumn and winter was also different in the past, more even.

1915-12-31-GA165

1916-04-11-GA167

covers the yearly process in nature, an extended extract is given from an essential and explicit passage (SWCC)

.. the world around us is not only spread out in the way today's sense knowledge speaks of it, but there is a so-called elemental world at the basis of this nature, world which, if we go back into ancient mythologies we find descriptions of these elemental beings. The elementals that lie at the base of the mineral kingdom are called gnomes, those at the base of the water plant kingdom are known as undines, those aeroform elementals as sylphs and the warmth elementals as salamanders.
The beings we just described have a special task in the world .. External materialistic science says that everything makes itself of itself, but this is not true. Things do not make themselves of themselves. The person whose eyes are open to the elemental world sees how these elementals go through a kind of cycle of the year, how there are beings working down from the spiritual world upon these elementals. They work differently in each season.
.. we have an elemental kingdom spread out around us which lies at the basis of the nature kingdom and there streams down, one cannot say an instruction, but can say forces pour down in order that these elemental beings receive the power in spring to form the plant covering for the Earth.
The forces of certain spiritual beings are carried down, which impart themselves to these elemental beings so that a new world of form can sprout forth in the spring. And as summer approaches, they receive, as it were, a later course of instruction, forces are poured down upon them so that they can effect that which has to come about in summer.
An interworking between the spirits of the higher hierarchies and the elemental beings who weave and live in the nature which surrounds us performs itself in the cycle of the year.
This means we are continuously concerned with an up and down pouring, an up and down streaming of spiritual beings of the hierarchies whose students are the elemental beings who provide the enlivening forces for all that which has to sprout and germinate in the course of the year. All that which arises and fades away in the course of the year does not simply grow out of the Earth, but stands in a direct interworking with the divine spiritual. That that which germinates and sprouts in the course of the year stands in direct interworking with the beings who permit their forces to stream up and down and they pour these forces into the elemental world.
.. just as today sylphs, gnomes, undines and salamanders receive their influence from the beings of the hierarchies who stream up and down according to the course of the year, so when Man did not have such a solid physical body in ancient times, he also received instructions from the higher hierarchies who streamed up and down. .. sagas and myths tell us that in ancient times man received such instruction from beings who themselves had descended out of the spiritual worlds, and these myths absolutely rest upon a truth. Man found himself with those spirits among whom the gnomes, sylphs, undines, and salamanders exist today, and whereas these elementals receive those forces through which they are able to effect the forms which sprout out of the Earth during the course of the year, so Man in ancient times received his instructions from hierarchies who streamed up and down. And that which he received in ancient time remains as a residue in writings which have still been preserved and from which an unprejudiced person can prove that once upon a time such 'primal revelation' did exist.

same section again, edited full extract from rsarchive translation

We know that the world around us is not only spread out in the way today's sense knowledge speaks of it, but there is a so-called elemental world at the basis of this nature, world which, if we go back into ancient mythologies we find descriptions of these elemental beings. These elemental beings that lie at the base of the mineral kingdom are called gnomes, those at the base of the water plant kingdom are known as undines, those aeroform elementals as sylphs and the warmth elementals as salamanders. These beings which we just described have their special task in the world; they have a great deal to do.
External materialistic science says that everything makes itself of itself, but this is not true. Things do not make themselves of themselves. The person whose eyes are open to the elementary [editor: check original elementary or elemental?] world sees how these elementals actually go through a kind of cycle of the year, how there are beings working down from the spiritual world upon these elementals, they work differently in spring, differently in summer, differently in autumn and differently in winter.
This means that we have an elemental kingdom spread out around us which lies at the basis of the nature kingdom and there streams down, one cannot say an instruction, but one can say that forces pour down in order that these elemental beings can receive the power in the spring in order to form the plant covering for the Earth. The forces of certain spiritual beings are carried down which impart themselves to these elemental beings so that a new world of form can sprout forth in the spring. And as summer approaches, they receive, as it were, a later course of instruction, forces are poured down upon them so that they can effect that which has to come about in summer.
An interworking between the spirits of the higher hierarchies and the elemental beings who weave and live in the nature which surrounds us performs itself in the cycle of the year. This means we are continuously concerned with an up and down pouring, with an up and down streaming of spiritual beings of the hierarchies whose students are the elemental beings who provide the enlivening forces for all that which has to sprout and germinate in the course of the year. All that which arises and fades away in the course of the year, that does not simply grow out of the earth, but stands in a direct interworking with the divine spiritual. And it was said that that which germinates and sprouts in the course of the year stands in direct interworking with the beings who permit their forces to stream up and down and they pour these forces into the elementary world.
But, my dear friends just as today sylphs, gnomes, undines and salamanders receive their influence from the beings of the hierarchies who stream up and down according to the course of the year, so when Man did not have such a solid physical body in those ancient times, he received instructions from the higher hierarchies who streamed up and down. All the sagas and myths that remain tell us that in ancient times man received such instruction from beings who themselves had descended out of the spiritual worlds. These myths absolutely rest upon a truth. Man found himself with those spirits among whom the gnomes, sylphs, undines, and salamanders exist today, and whereas these elemental beings receive those forces through which they are able to effect the forms which sprout out of the Earth during the course of the year, so Man in ancient times received his instructions from hierarchies who streamed up and down.
And that which he received in ancient time remains as a residue in writings which have still been preserved and from which an unprejudiced person can prove — as we said — that once upon a time such a primal revelation did exist. Thus we see that such a primal revelation really did exist and in those periods which preceded the eighth century B.C. you have the last residue flowing down to mankind from this primal revelation. Actually we can put the year 747 B.C. as the year which mankind, a result of the further development of his physical nature, was excluded from a direct participation in such instruction. Naturally such an exclusion occurs very gradually, step by step. All that which was contained in ancient science flowed down in this way as a direct knowledge from the spiritual worlds into mankind and has been transmitted by tradition, but is no longer understood today.

1921-10-05-GA343A

describes the meaning of water, salt, ash and the alchemical processes in Man and Earth (no extract here yet).

1923-03-31-GA223

describes the cycle of the year as a breathing process of the earth.

1923-10-06-GA229

1923-10-12-GA229

describes the mid-summer Saint-John's imagination

Hence we can say: In summer man is bound up with Nature, but, if he has the right feeling and perception for it, objective spirituality comes towards him from out of Nature's interweaving life. And so, to find the essential human being during the St. John's time, at midsummer, we must turn to the objective spirituality in the outer world, and this is present everywhere in Nature. Only in outward appearance is Nature the sprouting, budding — one might say the sleeping — being which calls forth from the powers of sleep the forces of vegetative growth, in which a kind of sleeping Nature-life is given form. But in this sleeping Nature, if only man has the perception for it, the spiritual which animates and weaves through everything in Nature is revealed.
[Below, deep blue - crystallizing forces of rocks and minerals]
So it is that if we follow Nature in high summer with deepened spiritual insight and with perceptive eyes, we find our gaze directed to the depths of the Earth itself. We find that the [rocks and] minerals down there send their inner crystal-forming process towards us more vividly than at any other time of the year. If we look with imaginative perception into the depths of the Earth at St. John's-tide, we really have the impression that down there are the crystalline forms in which the hard Earth consolidates itself — the very crystalline forms which gain their full beauty at the height of summer. At midsummer everything down below the earth shapes itself into lines, angles and surfaces. If we are to have an impression of it as a whole, we must picture this crystallising process as an interweaving activity, coloured throughout with deep blue.
[..with silver sparkling white crystallising process]
I will try to show it on the blackboard, though of course I can do so only in a quite sketchy way. So we can say: On looking downwards, we have an impression of line-like forms, suffused with blue, and everywhere the blue is shot through with lines which sparkle like silver, so that everywhere within the silver-sparkling blue the crystallising process (white) can be discerned. It is as though Nature wishes to present her formative power in a wonderful plastic design, but a design that cannot be seen in the way we see with ordinary eyes. It is seen in such a way that one really feels oneself dissolved into the plastic design, and feels every silver-gleaming line down there to be within oneself, part of oneself. One feels that as a human form one has grown out of the blue depths of the earth's crust, and one feels oneself inwardly permeated with force by the silver-gleaming crystal lines.
All this one feels as part of one's own being. And if one comes to oneself and asks: How is it that these silver-sparkling crystal lines and waves are working within myself? What is it that lives and works there, silver-gleaming in the blue of the Earth? .. then one knows: That is cosmic Will. And one has the feeling of standing upon cosmic Will.
[Above, yellow - out-spreading and illuminating cosmic intelligence]
And if one looks up to the heights, how is it then? The impression one has is of out-spreading cosmic Intelligence. Human intelligence — as I have often said — is not of much value at its present stage. But the heavens at midsummer give one the feeling that cosmic Intelligence is alive everywhere — the intelligence not of single beings but of many beings who live together and within one another. Thus we have up there the out-spreading Intelligence woven through with light; the living Intelligence shining forth (yellow) as the polaric opposite of the Will. And while down below we feel — in that blue darkness everything is experienced only as forces, up above we feel — everything is such that in perceiving it we are illumined, permeated, with a feeling of intelligence.
[red, earnest countenance of Uriel]
And now within this radiant activity there appears — I cannot put it otherwise — a Form. ... for the St. John's time, there comes before us — to describe it in human terms, which are of course bound to be only approximate — an extraordinarily earnest countenance, which arises glowing warmly out of the pervading radiant Intelligence (red head in the yellow). We have the impression that this figure forms its body of light out of the radiant Intelligence.
And for this to happen at the height of summer, something I have already described must come in: the elemental spirits of the Earth must soar upwards. As they do so, they weave themselves into the shining Intelligence up above, and the shining Intelligence receives them into itself. And out of that gleaming radiance the figure I have just mentioned takes form.
It is with great earnestness that this representative of the weaving cosmic forces, seeking to embody himself in a vesture of light, appears in the time of summer. There are further things we can observe as the deeds accomplished by Uriel in the radiant light — Uriel, whose own intelligence arises fundamentally from the working together of the planetary forces of our planetary system, supported by the working of the fixed stars of the Zodiac; Uriel, who in his thoughts preserves the thoughts of the cosmos. And so, quite directly, the feeling comes: You clouds of summer, radiant with Intelligence, in which are reflected up above the blue crystal-formations of the Earth below, just as these blue crystal-formations mirror in turn the shining Intelligence of the summer clouds — out of your shining there appears in high summer, with earnest countenance, a concentrated Imagination of Cosmic Understanding.
Now the deeds of this embodied cosmic Understanding, this cosmic Intelligence, are woven in light. Through the power of attraction residing in the concentrated cosmic Intelligence of Uriel, the silver forces (white) are drawn upwards, and in the light of this inwardly shining Intelligence, as seen from the Earth, they appear as radiant sunlight, densifying into a glory of gold. One has the immediate feeling that the gleaming silver, streaming up from below, is received by the sunlit radiance above.
And the earth-silver — the phrase is quite correct — is changed by cosmic alchemy into the cosmic gold which lives and weaves in the heights.
[parenthesis]
If we follow these happenings further, on through August, we gain an impression of something that completes the form of Michael, already described. I told you what the sword of Michael is made of, and whence the dragon draws his coiling life. But now, in the radiant beauty which appears spiritually out of the cosmic weaving at the height of summer, we ask ourselves: Whence does Michael, who leads us over to the autumn time of Michaelmas, derive his characteristic raiment — the raiment which first lights up in golden sunshine and then shines forth inwardly as a silver-sparkling radiance within the golden folds? Where does Michael acquire this gold-woven, silver-sparkling raiment? It comes from that which is formed in the heights through the upward-raying silver and the gold that flows to meet it; from the transmutation by the sun's power of the silver sparkling up from the Earth. As autumn approaches we see how the silver given by the Earth to the cosmos returns as gold, and the power of this transmuted silver is the source of that which goes on in the Earth during winter, as I have described. The Sun-gold, formed in the heights, in the dominion of Uriel, during high summer, passes down to weave and flow through the depths of the Earth, where it animates the elements that in the midst of winter are seeking to become the living growth of the following year.
So you see that when we come to the time of sprouting, springing life, we can no longer speak of matter permeated by spirit, as we speak of the Earth in winter. We have to speak of spirit woven through with matter — that is, with silver and gold.
Of course you must not take all this in a crude sense; you must think of the silver and gold as diluted beyond human measure. Then you will come to feel that all this is a kind of background for the cosmic, light-filled deeds of Uriel, and a clear impression of the countenance and gaze of Uriel will come before you.
We feel a deep longing to understand this remarkable gaze, directed downwards, and we have the impression that we must look around to find out what it signifies. Its meaning first dawns upon the mind when as human beings we learn to look with spiritual eyes still more deeply into the blue, silver-gleaming depths of the Earth in summer. And we see that weaving around these silver-gleaming crystalline rays are shapes — disturbing shapes, I might almost call them — which continually gather and dissolve, gather and dissolve again.
Then we come to perceive — the vision will be different for everyone — that these shapes are human errors which stand out against the natural order of regular crystals here below. And it is on this contrast that Uriel directs his earnest gaze. Here during the height of summer the imperfections of mankind, in contrast to the regularity of the growing crystal forms, are searchingly surveyed. Here it is that from the earnest gaze of Uriel we gain the impression of how the moral is interwoven with the natural.
Here the moral world-order does not exist only in ourselves as abstract impulses. For whereas we habitually look at the realms of Nature and do not ask — is there morality in the growth of plants, or in the process of crystallisation? — now we see how at midsummer human errors are woven into the regular crystals which are formed in the normal course of Nature.
On the other hand, all that is in human virtue and human excellence rises up with the silver-gleaming lines and is seen as the clouds that envelop Uriel (red). It enters into the radiant Intelligence, transmuted into cloud-shaped works of art.
It is impossible to look towards the increasingly earnest gaze of Uriel, directed towards the depths of the Earth, without also seeing there something like wing-like arms, or arm-like wings, raised in earnest admonition, and this gesture by Uriel has the effect of imparting to mankind what I might call the historic conscience. Here at high summer appears the historic conscience, which at the present time has become uncommonly feeble. It appears, as it were, in Uriel's warning gesture.
Of course, you must picture all this as an Imagination. These things are quite real, but I cannot speak of them in the way a physicist speaks of positive and negative, of potential energy and so on. I have to speak in pictures that will come to life in your souls. But everything expressed in these living pictures is reality; it is there.
And now if we have gained the impression of the connection of human morality with the crystalline element below and of human virtues with the shining beauty above, and if we take these connections into our inward experience, the real St. John Imagination will come to meet us. For the St. John Imagination is there, just as we have the Michael Imagination, the Christmas Imagination, the Easter Imagination.
So to spiritual observation there appears, as a kind of culmination, this picture:

Above, illuminated as it were by the power of Uriel's eyes, the Dove (white).

The silver-sparkling blue below, arising from the depths of the Earth and bound up with human weaknesses and error, is gathered into a picture of the Earth-Mother (blue). Whether she is called Demeter or Mary, the picture is of the Earth-Mother. So it is that in directing our gaze downwards, we cannot do otherwise than bring together in Imagination all those secrets of the depths which go to make up the material Mother of all existence; while in all that is concentrated in the flowing form above we feel and experience the Spirit-Father of everything around us.

[Middle, Son]
And now we behold the outcome of the working together of Spirit-Father with Earth-Mother, bearing so beautifully within itself the harmony of the earthly silver and the gold of the heights. Between the Father and the Mother we behold the Son. Thus arises this Imagination of the Trinity, which is really the St. John Imagination. The background of it is Uriel, the creative, admonishing Uriel.
That which the Trinity truly represents should not be placed dogmatically before the soul, for then an impression is given that such an idea, or picture, of the Trinity can be separated from the weaving of cosmic life. This is not so. At midsummer the Trinity reveals itself out of the midst of cosmic life, cosmic activity. It stands forth with inwardly convincing power, if — I might say — one has first penetrated into the mysteries of Uriel.
If we were to present St. John's-tide in this way, there would have to be an arched or vaulted background, with the figure of Uriel and his gesture in the manner I have described. And against this background a living picture of the Imagination of the Trinity would have to emerge. Special arrangements would be necessary; the effect would have to be that of painting done instantly, perhaps by making artistic use of vaporous substances or the like. And if the true Imagination of these things is to be called up for people to witness, it must be at St. John's time. At Easter we have the complete picture only when we bring it into dramatic form, with Raphael present as a teacher in the Mystery Play that would have then to be presented; Raphael who leads man into the secrets of healing nature, of the healing cosmos. In a similar way, at St. John's time, all that can then be seen in weaving pictures would have to be transposed into powerful music, so that the cosmic Mystery, as it can be experienced by man at this season of St. John, would speak to our hearts.
We must imagine how all that I have described should find artistic expression, on the one hand, in pictorial and plastic art. But what is experienced in this way must be given life by the musical tones that embody the poetic motif which plays through our souls when we feel our way into great Uriel, active in the light, who calls up in us a powerful impression of the triune, the Trinity. The silver-shining that rays up from below, and is revealed in the form-giving beauty of the light above, must be expressed at St. John's-tide through appropriate musical instruments. Thus we should find, through these musical harmonies, our own inner harmony with the cosmos, for in them the secret of man's living together with the cosmos at St. John's tide would have to sound forth. All this would have to be given voice in the music, so that

in looking up to the heights we would be looking at the weaving gold of the cosmos, and would see the glowing form of Uriel emerging from the light-filled gold and directing his gaze and his gesture down to the Earth, as I have described it. All this would have to be not in any fixed form, but in living movement. That would be one motif, a heavenly motif through which a man can feel himself united, on one side, with the shining Cosmic Intelligence.

On the other side, down below, he feels himself united with the tendency to fixed form; with that which is immersed in the bluish darkness from out of which the silvery radiance streams forth. Down there he feels the material foundation of active spiritual being.

The Heights become Mysteries, the Depths become Mysteries, and Man himself becomes a Mystery within the Mysteries of the Cosmos.

Right into his bony system he feels the crystal-forming power.

But he feels also how this same power is in cosmic union with the living power of light in the heavens above. He feels how all that comes about through mankind as morality in these Mysteries of the Heights lives and weaves in these Mysteries of the Depths, and in the conjunction between the two. He feels himself no longer sundered from the world around him, but placed within it, united
above with the shining Intelligence, in which he experiences, as in the womb of worlds, his own best thoughts.

He feels himself united below, right into his bony system, with the cosmic crystallising force —

and again the two united with one another. He feels his death united with the spirit-life of the universe; and he feels how this spirit-life craves to awaken the crystal forces and the silver-gleaming life in the midst of earthly death.

All this, too, would have to sound forth in musical tones — tones which carry these motifs on their wings and make them part of human experience. For these motifs are there. They do not have to be sought out; they can be read from the cosmic activity of Uriel. Here it is that Imagination passes over into Inspiration.
Man, however, lives in a certain sense as an embodied Inspiration, as a being brought into existence by Inspiration, in the Mysteries of the heights and depths and in the Mysteries of their conjunction. He lives in the Mysteries to which the Spirit-Father points upward; the Mysteries to which the Spirit-Mother points downwards, the Mysteries which are united by the fact that the Christ, though the working together of the Spirit-Father and the Spirit-Mother, stands directly before the human soul as the sustaining Cosmic Spirit.

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

Walther Cloos: 'Das Jahr der erde - Von der Alchemie der Jahreszeiten'