Rhythmic subsystem

The rhythmic subsystem is one of the three 'functional subsystems' in Man as a threefold being. The rhythmic subsystem consists of the rhythmic life pulses in man: breathing, blood circulation, and circulation of other fluids. It has a balancing nature between the other two subsystems (see Schema FMC00.007 below).

Most central to the rhythmic subsystem is the process of human breathing that inserts oxygen and fine substances into the human blood circulation, see Human breath.

Circulating fluids include not just blood but also lymphic fluid and chyle (see Schema FMC00.155 below):

the blood for Man's human 'I' - see The heart's two blood circuits and Ganganda Greida
the lymph maps to the astral body of Man - in the lymph circulate moon and mars beings influencing Man's character
the chyle maps to the etheric body of Man - in chyle circulate Venus beings, impacting in lower spiritland and Man's Human temperament

Aspects

rhythmic subsystem as the carrier for the life of feeling, with a dream consciousness
correspondence with the 'leaf' aspects of Man as an inverted plant (see Schema FMC00.111)
ratio of 4:1
- Y"ou experience yourself because your head runs four times slower than the rest of your organism. That is the inner sensing of one's self, the inner perception of one's self, the running after the tempo of the limb-metabolic organism with what is function of the head. "(1922-10-20-GA218)
- a certain measure of balance exists for every organism between four and one .. it never is exactly one to four, but there are all kinds of possible conditions; in this way people are individualized. Variants or structural deviations can cause certain illnesses (cramps, polio). (1922-10-20-GA218)
ratio between breathing and heart rhythm (blood circulation) in Man
- In our in-breathing the external world pulsates: we receive the moving waves of cosmic life into ourselves, and adjust them to our inner being. In our out-breathing our own blood pulsates: we impart to the rhythm of the breath something of the vibration of the pulse in the circulating blood (1922-09-22-GA216)
- hexameter in ancient Greece:
  - "The Greek hexameter is based upon the wonderful ratio of number existing between the rhythm of the breathing and the pulse in the human being .. Homer listens to those spiritual beings of the air who use the state of equilibrium between the inbreathing and the out-breathing of Man to create a rhythm between the breathing and the circulating blood. " (1922-09-23-GA216)
  - eight pulse beats in two breaths, as follows: three long syllables (pulse beats) with the caesura, which gives a breath, and three more pulse beats with the caesura, or with the end of the verse (1921-06-26-GA205) .. "the blood places the four syllable lengths into the breath .. this first half of an hexameter properly indicates how our blood meets, impinges on, the nervous system." (1923-05-18-GA276)
rhythms of Man compared to those of the Third Hierarchy (oa 1909-01-12-GA107), the spiritual hierarchies (see Spiritual hierarchies and their eigenperiods) and the cosmos (see: 25920)
for an overview of detailed topic pages of the rhythms in Man (breath, day, year, seven year periods, 18 years, life), see the Cosmic Breathing section on Man - the human being

Inspirational quotes

1918-10-12-GA184

If Man will only give up looking for anything coarsely material as the basis of nature — and this he will do before the fourth millennium — he will come to something quite different; he will discover rhythms, rhythmical orderings, everywhere in nature. These rhythmical orderings are there, but as a rule modern materialistic science makes fun of them. ... This rhythmical order is there in the whole of nature. In the plants one leaf follows another in rhythmical growth; the petals of the blossoms are ordered rhythmically, everything is rhythmically ordered. Fever takes a rhythmical course in sickness; the whole of life is rhythmical. The discerning of nature's rhythms — that will be true natural science.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.155 sketches how Man is traversed by spiritual beings from Moon, Mars, Venus in circulating lymph and chyle fluids, and how Saturn beings take their abode in Man's sensory perceptions. Chyle, lymph blood are also called the three bodily humors as it existed in ancient Greece and the cultures before, and that based itself on liquids for health treatment.

Schema FMC00.007 illustrates the three subsystems in Man, see also FMC00.282.

Schema FMC00.282 illustrates the three subsystems in Man, see also FMC00.007.

Lecture coverage and references

Overview coverage

For a starter, Rudolf Steiner have two lectures in GA107 called 'Rhythm in the Bodies of Man'

Reference extracts

1908-12-21-GA107

Rhythm in the Bodies of Man (1 of 2)

covers oa:

the bodily principles by waking/sleeping
changes in the I in 24h as related to the Earth rotation
changes in the astral body in seven days in relation to the four Moon phases
changes in the etheric body every 10x7x4 days and relation to Old Saturn and Earth's orbit
rhythm and freedom, becoming independant of rhythms

1909-01-12-GA107

Rhythm in the Bodies of Man (1 of 2)

covers oa:

rhythms of I, astral body, etheric body and physical body in relation 1 : 7 :(4x7) : (10x4x7)
relationships between
- the various rhythms of astral and etheric bodies to eachother
- the human bodily principles and the movements of the heavenly bodies
- rhythms of Man and those of the beings of the Third Hierarchy
growing independence of ancient outer rhythms and the development of a new inner rhythm
relationships between human bodily principles and incarnations in ratio 4:7

1922-10-20-GA218

It is not as coarse as one generally presents it; instead it is so that the arteries of the blood have their own course and the veins join in again (diagram red), so that not one also loins the other. In the eye especially, the artery runs so that the blood flows out so to say, and is there only then absorbed in turn by the vein, so that a slight flowing off and a reabsorbtion comes about in the eye.
It is an entirely false and coarse view, if one believes that arterial blood immediately goes over there into the veinous blood. It is not so. A fine flowing out and again an absorbtion takes place. In what takes place as the outflowing vibrates the rhythm of circulation and in the nerve adjacent to it, the rhythm of the respiration vibrates really in these two rhythms which hit into each other. Imagine these two rhythms were alike, then we would not see.
Imagine you run along next to a wagon. If you run just as fast as the wagon, you will not notice the wagon. But when you walk four times slower and yet hold the wagon, then you will notice the pull. The wagon will go on and you will have to hold back if you want to slow it down. And so it is inside the eye. That is the function of the optic nerve which wants to hold back the rhythm which is four times faster. In the arresting is formed what then is perception, which appears as perception of sight, just as you notice the wagon if you run times slower; if you run in the same speed you will not feel it.
And you yourself, how do you experience yourself as an I?
You experience yourself because your head runs four times slower than the rest of your organism. That is the inner sensing of one's self, the inner perception of one's self, the running after the tempo of the limb-metabolic organism with what is function of the head.
Numberless cases of illnesses in people are based on the following; a certain measure of balance exists for every organism between four and one. One can always say: according to the way a person is organized a certain measure of balance is there.
Of course, it never is exactly one to four, but there are all kinds of possible conditions; in this way people are individualized. But for every human individuality a certain relationship exists.
[illness]
If that is disturbed and if conditions would arise, by which the relation is then not one to four, but one to 4 1/7 the dissolving force then works too strongly, then the person cannot become a statue sufficiently. You only have to remember certain forms of illness, where Man dissolves too much in himself, and you have the type of such kind of illness.
The other condition can come about just as well. Then those phenomena appear, which present cramp-like conditions. When the astral forces vibrate too fast through the etheric and physical organism, when the astral forces quiver through too fast and do not approach slowly enough, the cramp-like phenomena come about.
For example, take the ordinary children's cramps. These common cramps are based on nothing else than on the necessity that with the child the astral organism and the I have to permeate first the etheric and physical organism in the right way. Now imagine, the astral organism and the I which vibrate then into the limb-metabolic Man, are vibrating too fast. The other part of Man cannot take that right away. If it vibrates in the right way then you have, for example a part of physical and etheric man, which have to be permeated by astral and Io-man so that it gets slowly permeated. I would like to say: every current of the astral force seizes always in the right way a droplet of living water, through which the etheric flows. It adapts to each other, if the right tempo is in it. But if that vibrates in too fast (see drawing 6, red, light), then the astral bursts through the etheric and with that also through the living water, cramp-like conditions come about as can especially appear in children's cramps, because here the right rhythm must assert itself first in the entering of this streaming in. (red, blue drawing 7)
This has a far reaching meaning. It has for example, the meaning that a very bad form of illness, which causes much headache today, finds its explanation here at least: namely that the right beat together is disturbed in a special way. Such an illness for example, is the bitterly bad illness of polio, which can be explained this way, though the healing is not found at the same time, because conditions lying farther back have caused that things are not tuned in together.

Hexameter

1920-10-06-GA281

Let us look first at something which has been frequently mentioned during the lectures of the last few days: the human rhythmic system. The human being is organized into the system of nerves and senses – the instrument for the thought-world, for the world of sense-representations, and so on; the rhythmic system – the instrument for the development of the feeling world, and for all that is mirrored from the feeling-world and plays into the world of mental representations; and the metabolic system – through which the will pulsates, and in which the will finds its actual physical instrument.
First, let us look at the rhythmic system.
[two rhythms]
In this rhythmic system, two rhythms interpenetrate each other in a remarkable way.

In the first place, we have the breathing-rhythm. This is essentially regular – though everything living is different in this respect, and it varies from individual to individual – so that in the case of healthy people, we are able to observe 16-19 breaths per minute.

Secondly, we have the pulse-rhythm, directly connected with the heart. Naturally, when we take into account that in this rhythm we are dealing with functions of a living being, again we cannot cite any pedantic number; but, generally speaking, we may say that the number of pulse-beats per minute, in a healthy human organism, is approximately 72 pulse-beats per minute.

Hence we can say that the number of pulse-beats is about four times the number of respirations. We can thus represent the course of the breath in the human organism, and how while we take one breath, the pulse intervenes four times.
[hexameter]
Now let us devote our minds for a moment to this interaction of the pulse-rhythm and the rhythm of the breath to this inner, living piano (if I may so express myself) where we experience the pulse rhythm as it strikes into the course of the breathing-rhythm.
Let us picture the following: one breath inhaled and exhaled; and a second inhaled and exhaled; and, striking into this, the rhythm of the heart. Let us picture this in such a way that we can see that in the pulse-rhythm, which is essentially connected with the metabolism, which touches on the metabolic system, the will strikes, as it were, upwards; thus we have the will-pulses striking into the feeling-manifestations of the breath-rhythm. And let us suppose that we articulate these will-pulses, in such a way that we follow the will-pulses in the words, inwardly articulating the words to ourselves. Thus we have, for instance: long, short, short; long, short, short; long, short, short – one breath-stream; then we make a pause, a kind of caesura, we hold back; then, accompanying the next drawing of the breath, we have the heart-rhythm striking into it: long, short, short; long, short, short; long, short, short.
¾ È È ¾ È È ¾ È È || ¾ È È ¾ È È ¾ È È ||
Then, when we allow two breaths to be accompanied by the corresponding pulse-beats, and between them we make a pause, a pause for breath – we have the hexameter.
We can ask: what is the origin of this ancient Greek verse metre? It originated from the harmony between blood-circulation and breathing. The Greek wished to turn his speech inward, so that, having suppressed his “I”, he orientated the words according to the pulse-beats, allowing these to play upon the stream of breath. Thus he brought his whole inner organization, his rhythmic organization, to expression in his speech: it was the harmony between heart-rhythm and breath-rhythm that resounded in his speech. To the Greek, this was more musical – as if it resounded up from the will, resounded up from the pulse-beats into the rhythm of the breath.
[Alp]
You know that what remained as the last, atavistic remnant of the old clairvoyant images – the Alp, the nightmare – found expression in pictures, and is connected with the breathing-process: and there is still a connection between the pathological form of the Alpdruck and breathing.
Now let us assume – for me it is more than an assumption – that in those primaeval times when his experience was more closely connected with the internal processes, Man went out more with the breath; the movement was more from above downwards. And then he put into one breath:
¤ ¤ ¤
‘To us in olden maeren'
Again, three high-tones: three times the perception of how the pulse beats into the breathing, and how this brings to expression an experience that is more visual, finding expression in the light and shade of the language, in the high and low tones. In the Greek we have something metrical long, short, short; long, short, short; long, short, short; whereas in the Nordic verses we have something with more declamatory impetus – high-tone and low-tone:
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
‘To us in olden maeren is many a marvel told
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Of praise-deserving heroes, of labours manifold ...'
It is the interaction of the breathing-rhythm and the rhythm of the heart, the rhythm of the pulse. Just as the Greek experienced a musical element and expressed this in metre, so the Nordic Man experienced a pictorial element, which he expressed in the light and shade of the words, in the high-tones and low-tones. But there was always the knowledge that one was submerged in a state of consciousness where the “I” yielded itself up to the divine-spiritual being which reveals itself through the human organism – which forms this human organism so that it may be played upon as an instrument through the pulsation of the heart, through the breathing-process, through the stream of exhaled and inhaled breath:
È ¾ È ¾ È ¾ È || ¾ È ¾ È ¾
You know that many breathing-techniques have been discovered, and much thought given to methods of treating the human body to facilitate correct singing or recitation. It is much more to the point, however, to penetrate the real mysteries of poetry and recitation and declamation: for both of these will proceed from the actual, sensible-super-sensible perception of the harmony between the pulse, which is connected with the heart, and the breathing-process. As we shall see next time, each single verse-form, each single poetic form including rhyme, alliteration, and assonance, may be understood when we start from a living perception of the human organism, and what it does when it employs speech artistically. This is why it was quite justified when people who understood such things spoke, more or less figuratively, of poetry as a language of the gods: for this language of the gods does not speak the mysteries of the transient human “I”; it speaks in human consciousness, speaks musically and plastically the cosmic mysteries – it speaks when the super-sensible worlds play, through the human heart, upon the human breath.

1921-04-06-GA281

Speaking about the art of reciting in our course last autumn, I drew your attention to the universal, cosmic rhythm which is expressed in the rhythmic system of Man. Furthermore, I showed how this comes to find expression in poetry – and thence, of course, in recitation as the manifestation of poetic art. We may say that an element with a more spiritual tendency (since the spirit manifests itself in everything physical) unfolds in the tempo of the human pulse-beat; while something more psychic, we may also say, something that takes its course in the soul, unfolds in the rhythm of breathing. A greater part of what is expressed in poetic form depends on the interplay between the rhythms of the pulse and breathing and the ratio of one to the other. And it is in the hexameter that the primary and most self-evident ratio between pulse-rhythm and breathing-rhythm is displayed. Fundamentally the hexameter involves two breaths, with four pulse-beats to each breath and this, of course, is the natural ratio between human breathing and the pulse. In this way, what wells up in poetry comes to actual corporeal utterance. And conversely, the poetic must come to expression through recitation and declamation out of the human being as a whole. It is as if the pulse-rhythm were playing upon the breathing-rhythm – rhythm on rhythm. And what lives in rhythm is expressed again in the musicality of speech, in lyrical poetry. All the prose content of a poem must be led back to this inner rhythmic treatment of metre and tempo. Everything that lies in the what of the content must also lie in the how of the performance, so that in discovering the one in the other there is really an experience of the whole.

1921-06-26-GA205

If one grasps with Imagination what I described two days ago as the weaving and being of the plant world and, parallel with this, the weaving and being of the human etheric body, then one remains still within the world in which one normally resides. One must think of oneself as being transported from the Earth, so to speak, and poured out into the entire cosmos.
Then, however, in passing into the airy element, one must remove oneself from space. Then there must be the possibility of knowing oneself in a world that is no longer spatial but that exists only in time, a world in which only the time element holds a certain significance. In the times in which such things were still livingly perceived, it was seen that what belonged to such worlds could really be observed in the way that the spiritual played into human activity through rhythm.
I pointed out to you how the ancient Greek formulated the hexameter:

three pulse beats with the caesura, which gives a breath,

and three more pulse beats with the caesura, or with the end of the verse, which gives the full hexameter.

In two breaths one has the corresponding eight pulse beats.
The harmonious resounding of the pulse beats with the breathing was shaped artistically in the recitation of the Greek hexameter.
The way in which the spiritual, super-sensible world permeates the human being, how it permeates the blood circulation, the blood rhythm, synthesizes four pulse beats, four pulse rhythms, to one breathing rhythm — all this was reflected in every speech formation that is in the hexameter. All original strivings to build verse derive from this rhythmic organization of the human being.

1922-05-27-GA212

Later this path underwent modifications. In very ancient times the Yogi felt how in the transformed breathing his thoughts were submerged in the currents of breath, running through them like little snakes. He felt himself to be part of a weaving cosmic life and this feeling expressed itself in certain words and sayings. It was noticeable that one spoke differently when these experiences were revealed through speech. What I have described was gradually felt less intensely within the breath; it no longer remained within the breathing process itself. Rather were the words breathed out and formed of themselves rhythmic speech. Thus, the changed breathing led, through the words carried by the breath, to the creation of mantras; whereas, formerly, the process and experience of breathing was the most essential, now these poetic sayings assumed primary importance. They passed over into tradition, into the historical consciousness of man and subsequently gave birth later to rhythm, meter, and so on, in poetry.
The basic laws of speech which are to be seen, for instance, in the pentameter and hexameter as used in ancient Greece, point back to what had once long before been an experience of the breathing process. An experience which transported man from the world in which he was living between birth and death into a world of spirit and soul.
This is not the path modern man should seek into the spiritual world. He must rise into higher worlds, not by the detour of the breath, but along the more inward path of thinking itself. The right path for man today is to transform, in meditation and concentration, the otherwise merely logical connection between thoughts into something of a musical nature. Meditation today is to begin always with an experience in thought, an experience of the transition from one thought into another, from one mental picture into another.
While the Yogi in Ancient India passed from one kind of breathing into another, man today must attempt to project himself into a living experience of, for example, the color red. Thus, he remains within the realm of thought. He must then do the same with blue and experience the rhythm: red- blue; blue-red; red-blue and so on, which is a thought- rhythm. But it is not a rhythm which can be found in a logical thought sequence; it is a thinking that is much more alive.

1922-09-22-GA216

Once upon a time the mummies were the homes of Gods, dwelling places of Moon-Beings who were now Luciferic Beings.
In the Greco-Roman age, the fourth Post-Atlantean age, conditions were somewhat different. The process of inbreathing now ceased to play the predominating part. In-breathing retained its significance, certainly, but it was no longer as important as it had once been. Inbreathing and out-breathing were now of equal significance for the human being.
The Greek Initiates were well aware of this fact and the wonderful balance between inbreathing and out-breathing, which was characteristic of the Greeks, enabled their art to become the model to which history always points. It would not have been in keeping with the nature of the Greeks to receive the Moon Beings specifically by way of the inbreathing. Through the work of their Initiates, the Greek people were able to make effective those Beings who hovered—half flying, half floating in the air, and who liked best to be cradled in the condition of balance between inbreathing and out-breathing.
Looking back to those ancient times of Greek development when the real inspiration was given for what manifested, later on, in a more external form—looking back to the times when forms of primitive grandeur were the source and wellspring of plastic art, of the Greek art of tragedy and of philosophy, we find that the Priest-Initiates of the Mysteries in their guidance of humanity, were able to make use primarily of those beings who cradled themselves in the condition of balance between man's inbreathing and out-breathing. We can have no real knowledge of the Apollonian art, or of Orphic wisdom, unless we realise that their inspiration came from dæmonic beings moving within this condition of balance between inbreathing and out-breathing.
The strings of Apollo's lyre were tuned in accordance with what could be observed of those Beings who lived between the moon-sphere and the earth-sphere, who liked best to hover, to dance, as it were, on the strings of the cosmos which had been woven into the balance between inbreathing and out-breathing. The dance of the daemons of the air - this was mirrored in the tuning of the strings of Apollo's lyre.
Thus we must look into the spiritual world if we would gain knowledge of what has come to pass in external history. Think of what I said some time ago, namely, that scansion, the development of the art of ancient recitative, of the hexameter, is based on the relation between the rhythms of breathing and blood-circulation in Man. Remind yourselves of what I once said in a series of lectures about the development of the hexameter. The study that led to the creation of the hexameter was, for the Greek Initiates, full of concrete realities.

As we breathe in, we receive the moving waves of cosmic life into ourselves, and adjust them to our inner being.

As we breathe out we impart to the rhythm of the breath something of the vibration of the pulse in the circulating blood.

Thus we can say:

The external world pulsates into our inbreathing.

In our out-breathing our own blood pulsates.

And so a Greek Initiate who was schooled in these things was able to observe how in and around the human being, in his ether-body and astral body, cosmic rhythm and the rhythm of the blood were meeting and intermingling and how denizens of the air were moving and dancing in these rhythms.
Such was the study to which Homer applied himself when he was developing the hexameter, in particular, to its highest perfection of form — for the hexameter is born from the connection between the human being and the world.
Many things become clear for the first time when we study history with the eye of knowledge permeated by art, and with the eye of art permeated by knowledge. I have no desire to speak about the materialistic mentality of today, which instead of pondering deeply about the origin of, let us say, the “Songs of Homer” finds a way out by saying that Homer never existed. That is the simplest way out of the difficulty, from the standpoint of modern materialism. It is not possible for materialistic science to understand Homer, and according to a mentality that has become so vain and self-glorious in our times, anything that is incomprehensible cannot possibly exist. Things that cannot be explained by the academic mind do not exist! Homer is incomprehensible — therefore he never existed. He cannot be explained, so he doesn't exist ... but after all, surely there is it more sensible explanation than this!
In museums everywhere you will find sculptured heads of Homer. I am not saying that the likeness is particularly good, but when we look at this blind Homer, whose eyes, in spite of blindness, have such a mysterious expression and whose head has a striking pose, the portrayal is good enough to make us feel perhaps he blinded himself voluntarily — I am, of course, speaking metaphorically — perhaps he deliberately made himself blind in order that sight should not disturb a certain kind of listening; for Homer listens. Without the distraction of sight, he experiences the interplay between the pulsation of the cosmos and the pulsing of human blood, the pulsing of the human ether body, where the beings of the air carry out their dance of harmony and melody. In a kind of whirring ... as when one listens to the whirring of a swarm of flies ... Homer heard the hexameter and, undisturbed by sight or the ordinary clear light of day, it is as if his ears were touching at the same time as hearing.
Look at the heads of Homer from this point of view. The form of marble or plaster gives the impression of hearing that is also touching, touching that is also hearing; life of a very special kind is present here. The head-nature seems to flash from within through the blinded eyes. There is something that seems not only to hear, but actually to touch the sounds, to detain them, in order to lead over into scansion by the human voice what was drawn in from the cosmos. So it was, in days when the predominating factor was not the inbreathing or the out-breathing, but the interplay between them. Contemplation of the head of Homer should give rise to the eager question: How did he breathe? This head is undisturbed by external light, is wholly given up to the mysteries of the breathing. To have this feeling about the sculptured heads that can be seen in many places would be more intelligent than to argue away the existence of Homer. The reasons produced by scholars when they argued away the existence of Homer were so subtle and deceptive that even Goethe was a little disturbed. The German philologist Wolf was the first to argue away the existence of Homer and even Goethe could not entirely put aside his subtle, plausible contentions. And although Goethe always had a feeling of horror at the thought that Homer had been demolished by Wolf, he was nevertheless a little shaken by the extremely astute arguments put forward.

1923-05-18-GA276

If we now enter man's inner nature, we find something set against the external world-configuration: a marvelous harmony between the breath rhythm and blood rhythm.
The rhythm of breathing - a normal human being breathes eighteen times per minute - is transferred to man's nerves, becomes motion. Physiology knows very little about this process. The rhythm of breathing is contained, in a delicate psycho-spiritual manner, in the nerve system.
As for the blood rhythm, it originates in the metabolic system. In a normal adult, four pulse beats correspond to one breath rhythm; seventy-two pulse beats per minute. What lives in the blood, that is, the ego, the sunlike nature in man, plays upon the breathing system and, through it, upon the nervous system. If one looks into the human eye, one finds there some extremely fine ramifications of blood vessels. Here the blood pulsation meets the currents of the visual nerve spread through the eye. A marvelously artistic process takes place when the blood circulation plays upon a visual nerve that moves four times more slowly.
Now look at the spinal cord, its nerves extending in all directions, observe the blood vessels, and become aware of an inward playing of the whole sun-implanted blood system upon the earth-given nervous system. The Greeks with their artistic natures were aware of this interrelation. They saw the sun-like in man, the playing of the blood system upon the nervous system, as the God Apollo; and the spinal cord with its wonderful ramification of strings, upon which the sun principle plays, as Apollo's lyre.
Just as we meet architecture, sculpture, the art of costuming and painting when we approach man from the external world, so we meet music, rhythm, beat, when we approach the inner man and trace the marvelous artistic forming and stirring which take place between blood and nerve system.
Compared to external music, that performed between blood and nerve system in the human organism is of far greater sublimity. And when it is metamorphosed into poetry, one can feel how, in the word, this inward music is again released outward. Take the Greek hexameter with its initial three long syllables followed by a caesura, and how the blood places the four syllable lengths into the breath. To scan the first half of an hexameter line properly is to indicate how our blood meets, impinges on, the nervous system.

1923-05-20-GA276

I make a distinction between declamation and recitation: two separate arts. Declamation has its home in the north; and is effective primarily through the weight of its syllables: chief stress, secondary stress. In contrast, the reciting artist has always lived in the south. In recitation man takes into account not the weight but the measure of the syllables: long syllable, short syllable. Greek reciters, presenting their texts concisely, experienced the hexameter and pentameter as mirrors of the relationship between breathing and blood circulation. There are approximately eighteen breaths and seventy-two pulse-beats per minute. Breath and pulse-beat chime together. The hexameter has three long syllables, the fourth is the caesura. One breath measures four pulse beats. This one-to-four relation appearing in the measure and scanning of the hexameter brings to expression the innermost nature of man, the secret of the relation of breath and blood circulation. This reality cannot be perceived with our intellect; it is an instinctive, intuitive-artistic experience. And beautifully illustrated by the two versions of Goethe's Iphigenie when spoken one after the other.

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

Rudolf Steiner: 'Ritmes in de mens' (2012 NL translation of ' Über den Rhythmus der menschlichen Leiber, en Rhythmen in der Menschennatur' 1988) - see GA107 in Lecture coverage above
Gunther Hildebrandt
- Biologische Rhythmen und Arbeit: Bausteine zur Chronobiologie und Chronohygiene der Arbeitsgestaltung (1976)
- Chronobiology & Chronomedicine- Basic Research and Applications: Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the European Society for Chronobiology (1986)
- as editor: 'Chronobiology & Chronomedicine: Basic Research and Applications- Proceedings of the 7th Annual Meeting of the European Society for Chronobiology' (Marburg 1991)
- Need for Rhythm Studies in Anthroposophic and Goethean Science
- with Yuko Agishi: 'Chronologische Gesichtspunkte zur Physikalischen Therapie und Kurortbehandlung' (1997)
Wilhelm Hoerner: 'Zeit und Rhythmus: die Ordnungsgesetze der Erde und des Menschen' (1978, 1991)
Thale Bout: 'Oefenen met tijd en ritme: een practicum naar aanleiding van Wilhelm Hoerners boek; Zeit und Rhythmus ; een proeve tot een practicum' (1980)
Gunther Hildebrandt, Maximilian Moser, Michael Lehofer: 'Chronobiology and Chronomedicine: Biological Rhythms, Medical Consequences' (2021)
- original in DE as 'Chronobiologie und Chronomedizin. Biologische Rythmen - Medizinische Konsequenzen' (1998); also in ES as 'Cronobiología y Cronomedicina: ritmos biológicos - consecuencias médicas'; in IT as 'Cronobiologia e Cronomedicina: ritmi biologici, conseguenze mediche'
Wolfgang Held: 'Der siebenfache Flügelschlag der Seele: Leben mit dem Rhythmus der Woche' (2004)