posted February 18, 2008 11:34 AM            

quote:

---

Now, memory, come forth
From spirit depths, enkindling light;

---

posted February 25, 2008 01:35 AM            

Ephesians 1:16-20

16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in My prayers;
17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Him:
18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
19 And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power,
20 Which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places...

Ephesians 3:14-21

14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
16 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man;
17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

If reading to one's self, it might be helpful to change the point-of-view that the prayer is written in:

posted February 25, 2008 01:57 AM            

There will arise out of the world's great womb,
Quickening the sense's life, the joy of growth.
Now may it find my strength of thought
Well armed by powers divine
Which strongly live within my being.

posted February 25, 2008 09:24 PM            

The clue I was referring to last week was Steiner's linking of memory and Spirit. I can't help but wonder at how the poem beckons memory to come, from the depths of the spirit world. Memory, as we know it, is not always the exact, flawless recorder of events that we might think it to be. Oh, not at all. Our memories are always tinged with our own takes of what had happened. Perception is the key.

quote:

---

Which only by the strength of will
Is able to sustain itself.

---

That enkindling light of invigoration will not come shine on us as the guaranteed light of the Sun. No, no. Only through Will may that light shine and emanate.

posted March 05, 2008 01:02 PM            

Fourty-Eighth Week

Within the light that out of world-wide heights
Would stream with power toward the soul,
May certainty of cosmic thinking
Arise to solve the soul's enigmas -
And focusing its mighty rays,
Awaken love in human hearts.

posted March 17, 2008 12:33 AM              

Now that is something to be meditated upon.

posted March 17, 2008 04:47 PM            

I simply love the optimism of this poem and the light in which the relationship of the Ego and the joy of growth is displayed. In many respects, the Ego grows much like a cancerous tumor. There is no order or structure to it, save obsession and zealotry to its own selfish causes. But the growth of the Ego need not be this way. Steiner writes of the message that the "Joy of Growth", this other-worldly angel, gives unto the Ego. And the structure of this is most awesome, for how is it that the Ego grows? By our own doing. And it is by our own doing that we may grow our Ego righteously by listening to the Joy of Growth in Nature. It's fitting that EGO is also GEO, no? It seems quite EGO-logical that we become GEO-logical, by which I mean that it is in our best interest to re-learn the ways of the earth, its processes and the Nature within it. We all must heartfully listen to this beautiful language without and reflect it within, enriching the Ego to create a balanced state of comfort and insecurity where its presence becomes acutely functional in its environment.

At least that's what this Gemini muses to himself, anyway.

posted March 23, 2008 11:21 PM            

I'm going to post the poems for weeks 51 and 52 for anyone who would like to read them, but we are supposed to focus on the poem for week 1 according to the cycle.

Fifty-First Week

Into our Inner Being
The riches of the senses pour.
The Cosmic Spirit finds itself
Reflected in the human eye,
Whichever must renew its strength
From out that spirit source.

Fifty-Second Week

When from the depths of soul
The spirit turns to the life of worlds
And beauty wells from wide expanses,
Then out of heaven's distances
Streams life-strength into human bodies,
Uniting by its mighty energy
The spirit's being with our human life.

First Week

posted April 03, 2008 12:43 PM            

In this second week's poem I've noted a great theme at play. In the glory of the world of the sense's, the world of the material, the power of thought gives up its independence. What does this mean, exactly? For now, I can only muster this understanding:

Firstly, what exactly is the power of thought? Well, this is my bit of think. Thoughts are immaterial. We can think them, and even feel them in some respects, but they are of an immaterial nature. Their connection to the material realm is found within the confines of our experiences with thoughts. Thoughts widely range within a spectrum that can be witnessed from the intricacies of the right and left brain functions. They can range from the kinds of thoughts that are logical, rational, analytical, objective, and dissecting to the kinds of thoughts that are random, intuitive, synthesizing, subjective and macrocosmic.

When anything is created, it is first a thought, an idea, an inspiration. I reckon that this is likely the power of thought that the poem is indicating. The creative power of a thought, its ability to inspire, gives up its independence when its creation is expressed in the "sense-world's glory", for that power becomes its creation when it is materialized.

It is difficult to prove this idea when it comes to our own human experience of creating. If a sculptor is inspired with a thought and carves away at a slab of marble and makes a beautiful sculpture, that sculpture would not exist were it not for the power, or inspiration, that the thought bestowed upon the sculptor. The human body of the sculptor was an instrument, a sort of carrier of that power, to exercise the materialization of the thought's design. And when the sculpture is finished, there is that thought's power within the sculpture, no longer an independent thing that was strictly existent within the world from where thoughts come.

This seems to be such in nature. All around the Universe is found a seeming chaos that we are hard put to explain. Yet, within this tiny little planet of ours we find the structure of all Nature. The process that was undergone to get to where we are on this planet...My God! Can you even imagine? We have observed, through great lenses, what seems to be the formation of other solar systems within even larger galaxies. A great order of sorts seems to be at work. There is a path that can be traced, if one chooses to give credit to the suggestion, that portrays a narrative that stems from the "beginning" of all time to the very presence of our species on this planet. The problem is that most of our imaginations lack the intuitive power to see the full glory of this path. There are many gaps that we do not understand and can only guess about, at best. However, if we compare the experiences of our human capabilities of creating with the capabilities found in Nature’s creative power within the whole Universe, we might come to the idea that there is something beyond our material perception of the Universe and find that, perhaps, there is a form of thought, or at least some element that is similar to thought, that is the source for this material expression of Great Galaxies, Luminaries, planets, and everything here on Earth.

If we continue with the poem, we go on to read that "spirit worlds discover / again their human offspring". These "spirit worlds" must be within the realms of thought and composed of those elements involved with the materialization of the universe, in the same way that our creations are a materialization of some inspiring thought that courses through us and sets us into action. Furthermore, the poem goes on to express that our development...our growth...our progression takes place within these spirit worlds and not purely in this plane of materiality: "Who germinates in them..."

quote:

---

But in itself must find
The fruit of soul.

---

Here, the great mystery unfolds. There is no direct answer, though it leans towards an answer, to the question of humanity's purpose. To "find the fruit of soul" may be interpreted in so many ways and, indeed, it is the diversity and uniqueness of each possible answer that allows for the existence of just more than one solution. It does seem fitting that this should be so, being that part of humanity's character includes the individualization of each being’s personality and character. There is an essential/universal interpretation, however, that implies the presence of a template, or some sort of code, that explains the gamut by which each solution/answer to the question will be judged.
The soul is the sentient body that experiences the stimuli of each of our senses and interprets it. (Lately, I've begun to connect the ego with the soul.) The soul must interpret the environment and it does so with the help of the Mind. According to Steiner, the senses of the earliest peoples of our human species were immersed in the Spiritual Worlds. Their senses were not primarily anchored in the material qualities of their environment. For example, their vision was heavily focused on light and they could see light emanating from everything around them. They distinguished their environment by the quality of the light that they could perceive coming forth from each thing. I believe that this was the dawning of the intelligence of humanity and that, during this dawning, humans had a strong connection to the higher realms of thought and Spirit. I tend to connect the great prophets of Mythological literature with the gradual descent of the “dawning” of this condition of our intelligence towards the more common “dusk” of the more contemporary condition of the human mind. These great prophets still maintained a strong connection to these higher realms when the majority of their communities’ intelligence was “waning” and was why they were described as having the ability to “speak to God” or other higher beings. The path of our intelligence going from an open, uninhibited connection with the messengers of the higher worlds to the more “closed”, highly personalized experience of our current, individualized mind really fascinates me. It helps me to think of my mind as a sort of bubble that preserves my own individual power, but with the capability of grasping the transcendent qualities of thoughts that are not necessarily my own and, perhaps, coming from another dimension. By demystifying the mind into a window of sorts, it helps me to understand it better. I begin to use it less as a trophy or credential that will impress and win over the acceptance of others. Instead, it allows me an even deeper reason to adhere to the responsibility of my own proper thinking for the hope of progressing my understanding of the world, my own self, and other people. The idea that the Mind is a window into a universal realm that connects everyone and everything within its properties gives me a sense of security. A security that comforts me with the idea that right and wrong does exist, though not always in the simplest of contexts.

The soul, yes, the soul is the fruit and answer to the question of our existence. That just raises even deeper questions, doesn’t it? Luckily, they’re the good kinds of questions (if you catch my drift).

posted April 03, 2008 05:43 PM            

Thank you.

posted April 03, 2008 08:58 PM            

quote:

---

I'm a beginner Steiner student. And that's putting it mildly.

---

Your words seem to insinuate that you consider me to be past a novice's level of understanding of Steiner's works. That is a great compliment of which I am grateful, but I'm afraid I am too harsh on myself to accept it. I have read but two books completely (Rosicrucian Wisdom and The Fourth Dimension) and many different parts of others. I do own a lot of his other titles and I often fancy the thought that I may be absorbing their insights by osmosis. LOL

I could be making a great fool of myself since I might be reading way too far into your statement. (You could very well have made it without any implications whatsoever.)

You are most welcome for whatever you have learned!
I should confess, however, that they are not my musings. Rather, I am their messenger (i.e. servant/b!tch). LOL

I have no say over them. I know not when they come nor whence they leave.

posted April 03, 2008 09:07 PM            

quote:

---

I know not when they come nor whence they leave

---

Sorry, there's an error there.

I meant to write "I know not when they come nor when they leave."

I do know of whence they come and leave.

posted April 03, 2008 09:43 PM              

I should confess, however, that they are not my musings. Rather, I am their messenger (i.e. servant/b!tch). LOL

touche

Although, unless the filter is spotless (and who has a spotless filter?) the message is bound to absorb something of the messenger. But that's not always such a bad thing, I think.

posted April 06, 2008 01:14 PM            

But as you have mentioned, I also reckon that it's the "reader" that makes the difference. And thus the message lies pure and untainted, therein between the sounds and spaces of the words, for he or she who may ever be listening attentively. (Something I learned from How to Know Higher Worlds.)

Your words (and the in-between) have sparked a brilliant light in me. Thank you.