Anthroposophy NYC

Advent Sundays 2020

2nd Advent Sunday: December 6, 2020

 “Within my being’s depths there speaks,
Intent on revelation,
The cosmic Word mysteriously:
Imbue your labor’s aims
With my bright spirit light
To sacrifice yourself through me.”

~ Rudolf Steiner’s Verse 36 for 2nd Advent Sunday from the Calendar of the Soul (trans. Ruth and Hans Pusch)

“The second light of Advent is the light of plants, plants that reach up to the sun and in the breezes dance,” says the verse for Advent Sundays. It’s the week to ponder the etheric forces, the flow of waters.

The movement art of eurythmy works with etheric forces in and around the human body. When I first saw the video of Else Klink’s eurythmy choreography on Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture I was in awe. Yes, it’s an old recording and the image is blurred, but it’s powerful nonetheless. The blurriness in a way helps to feel the etheric movement, even on a screen. See it for yourself, by clicking here or on the image below. I wish I could see it live at least once, performed by the Stuttgart Eurythmy Ensemble.

And then there is music! Hebrides Overture “Fingal’s Cave” by Felix Mendelssohn is a truly inspired composition. Listen to the recording by clicking on the link below.

Did you know that Steiner gave a talk about this piece by Mendelssohn? It was an address he gave following a concert where Overture of the Hebrides was played in Berlin on March 3, 1911. See the front page of this archival transcript below. You can read the lecture at rsarchive.org by clicking here or on the archival transcript image below.

This address is also published in Fingal’s Cave, the Poems of Ossian, and Celtic Christianity by anthroposophists Paul M. Allen and Joan deRis Allen. This book is available at our Rudolf Steiner Bookstore.

Listen to the music, watch eurythmy, read Steiner’s words. Enjoy the soothing and inspiring flow of the etheric world captured in these works of art and mind.

Marta Stemberger