Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul, Verse 19

Introduced by Walter Alexander

Translations by column:

original German by Rudolf Steiner, Daisy Aldan, Owen Barfield, John F. Gardner

Brigitte Knaak, Isabel Grieve, Ernst Lehrs, Ruth & Hans Pusch

The German word Geheimnisvoll as an adverb encompasses mysteriously, inexplicably, enigmatically, secretly, clandestinely, reticently.

Why the need for secrecy? What may be called to mind is Matthew 6:3: “But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.” To give purely is to deeply perceive another’s need and then to fulfill the need in loving response. The danger is in the aftermath. Will the lower self take credit? Bask in having done a worthwhile deed? Make a public show of it? Or will achieved self knowledge be sufficiently strong to evoke gratitude for a moment of elevating  and weaving oneself into the fabric of the world’s living need.

In Verse 19, there is no giving of alms, but rather a recognition that the summer has offered new gifts of a spirit-infused sense world that must be remembered (we can’t just pretend that it did not happen), while at the same time avoiding the fatal error of trying to put “new wine in old bottles.” How to remember a spirit-inspired experience when you don’t yet know its true and  emergent form? It does suggest that we have to build confidence in the spiritual world and our kinship with it. We need, as Fred Dennehy suggests, the patience of Mary, because the true self wills gradually to unfold in us.