Where I Find Rudolf Steiner

By Mary Stewart Adams

I find Rudolf Steiner in the world of everyday awareness, which is not just to say that I think of Rudolf Steiner every day (I do), but that I find Rudolf Steiner in the way I understand what a day can be over the course of time. This comes to life for me in several of his statements, including the closing words spoken December 31, 1922, that, “The first beginning of what must come to pass if anthroposophy is to fulfill its mission in the world is that the human being’s whole relationship to the world must be recognized to be one of cosmic ritual.” And again, those spoken four months later, at Easter, 1923, that when it is understood how to, “Think with the course of the year, then forces will intermingle with the thoughts that will let us again hold a dialogue with the divine spiritual powers revealing themselves from the stars.”

It is not so much identifying what cosmic ritual is, or even how to know whether I am in dialogue with the spiritual powers revealing themselves from the stars, but to know that such things are possible. In the lived experience of striving to understand this, I come to encounter with Rudolf Steiner, as a force living in my thinking.

It began for me with developing a sense for the rhythms of time as a way to discern when ceremony or “starrelated” activity is appropriate, and this together with living spatially, through the inner picture of what I imagine a year is, of how the days of the week unfold, and what shape or form the months have in relation to one another ~ how do they align? While this may seem an odd approach, it allows an inner landscape to arise that is rooted in the rhythmic movements and harmonious relationships of Sun, Moon, planets, and stars.

Through spiritual scie nce I have learn ed to know the destinyforming and liberating planets, of those below the Sun (Moon, Mercury, Venus) and those above the Sun (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), and of how the soul moves through these spheres between death and rebirth. It is curious that the days of the week are not aligned in the same order as these spheres, neither geocentrically nor heliocentrically. It took time to realize that the days of the week are arranged in a pattern that weaves between those below and those above the Sun, from destiny to liberation and back ~ as though mimicking both the separation and intermingling of physical and etheric with astral and egoic forces in waking and sleeping of the human being. The gratifying realization of this weaving, this is a place where I “meet” Rudolf Steiner ~ a companion force at work in my thinking, attendant to the development that follows on from first being introduced to an idea. This is thinking engaged in the current moment and with the current cosmos, not merely a recollection or application of past ideas. This is a beginning that may ultimately lead to encounter with the being of the year visible to the naked eye. It was given the name Atlas, an acronym for the telescope array used in its discovery, the Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert system. Its name intentionally calls to mind the Titan God of ancient Greek culture, who bore the pillars of the heavens on his shoulders. In Homer’s “O dyssey” Atlas w as described as “deadlyminded,” as knowing the depths of all the seas, bearing the pillars far out in the Atlantic Ocean in order to keep the heavens and earth apart. Atlas was given this task as punishment from Zeus for leading the Titans in their battle with the Olympian Gods for control of the heavens.

Simultaneous to this d iscovery of Come t Atlas, the star Betelgeuse dimmed unusually quickly. Betelgeuse marks the shoulder of the giant Orion, with his glittering belt and sword, gilded since time has been, while time shall be.

These two images, of Atlas becoming “active” while the shoulder of the giant went dim, bears an interesting resemblance to the Greek myth of Herakles. During his 11th Labor to get the golden apples of the Hesperides, Herakles encountered Atlas, and in return for asking the god’s assistance in retrieving the apples, he was given the pillars of the heavens to bear on his own shoulders for a time. While Atlas was away, Herakles realized he could not bear the pillars for long, and in a significant moment of heroic and clever humanness, he was able to relieve himself of the burden and give the pillars back to the god.

An imagination on the 2020 star picture makes a ready example. A deep-space comet was discovered late in 2019 that had the promise of becoming a great comet,

This is an ancient myth of preparation, of anticipating the time in human history when the star wisdom borne on the shoulders of divine spiritual beings would fall to mortal human beings to bear ~ and this was active in the star picture at the outset of 2020. When we look back at that time, it is possible to see that there was no great authority holding things up, there was nowhere to turn but to one another, we had to bear it together. We can ask ourselves now: How did we do? And have we realized, like Herakles, that we have the opportunity, and the need, to engage the spiritual world once again to make our way forward.

How do I find Rudolf Steiner in such a picture? In the idea that access to this dialog with the divine can mean traveling first through the realm of imaginative cognition. To support healthy imaginations that are not just make-believe, but that actually result in an ability to discern a spiritual reality, there are daily exercises, weekly verses, monthly virtues, seasonal festival contemplations, all informing this relationship. For me what is paramount in this is the striving to understand the being of the year, its unique and changing character from one year to the next ~ here the task becomes more personal, and the engagement more intimate, because one’s own life and experience, when viewed objectively, becomes the subject-matter, and is the place where the dialogue is taking place.

In the 1912/13 Calendar of the Soul , in addition to images that depicted the waking and sleeping of spiritual forces streaming toward us from the cosmos as the Sun moves in front of each region of stars, there were names listed on each day, names that are connected not only to the “sound” of each day, but that were meant to reveal the spiritual life of each day as it is informed by the deeds of human beings, oftentimes saints. These deeds are as spiritual substance surrounding the earth, and this is something we can experience in our daily lives. Further, as a soul descends to birth through this spiritual environment, the cosmic name sounds forth, in accordance with what the soul experiences as it descends, especially around the date of one’s birth.

I will use Rudolf Steiner as an example, because here concepts and ideas come to life about what it means to live with the being of the year, and to act in harmony with the cosmos, in dialogue with divine spiritual beings in a life that is one of cosmic ritual. He was the eldest child of Johann and Franciska (née Blie) Steiner. Johann Steiner was born on June 23, 1829, the eve of the Feast of John, and he was named “Johann Baptist,” which is in accord with this idea that he descended to the Earth at a time when the spiritual force of the mystery of John was active. Franciska was born May 8, 1834. May 8 in 1834 was Ascension Day. Already we have the beginning of a unique narrative, just by considering the festival days on which the parents of Rudolf Steiner were born.

Johann and Franciska married on May 16, 1860, which was the eve of Ascension Day in 1860. Rudolf Steiner was born nine months later, in late February, which means he was conceived sometime during the days between Ascension and Pentecost. His birthday nine months later fell very close to the Feast of Matthias, who is intimately connected with the Pentecost and is the only Apostle to be chosen by his fellow Apostles, not called by the Christ. This is a potent “signature” inscribed into the cosmos at the time of his feast day, which is February 24 or 25, depending on whether it was a leap year. Rudolf Steiner descended through the spiritual environment of the earth at a time inscribed by the mystery and majesty of Matthias, who completed the community of Apostles such that the rushing winds and flaming tongues of the Pentecost were released, indicating the descent of the Holy Spirit.

To develop a living imagination out of this picture one could say, then, that Rudolf Steiner was conceived on these rushing winds and flaming tongues, and that the majesty of this is revealed in his life deed of laying a foundation for a spiritual community of humanity, a place for an association of people whose will it is to nurture the life of the soul, both in individuals and in human society, on the basis of a true knowledge of the spiritual world. This, for me, is a dramatic example of understanding what lives in each day and how it opens the possibility for dialogue with the divine. Concepts and ideas are enlivened through such considerations.

This is also a cosmic signature that lives in the mystery of incarnation, and looking back at the deeds of Rudolf Steiner, one can see that here we have an individuality living in complete harmony with the cosmos. The dates we observe in relation to his life’s events and to his lectures are not just memorials, but portals through which we come to encounter.

The honest creations of Rudolf Steiner’s earthly life are resurrected as spiritual substance surrounding the earth with which we can engage nearly every day, as a cosmic ritual, which strengthens the capacity to know, with him, that we are in dialogue with the divine spiritual beings revealing themselves from the stars.

In 2025, we move beyond the “sheath” of the first 100-years since Rudolf Steiner’s death. What will it mean when this 100-year framing is complete, where will we look for the mood or theme or living nature of the anthroposophical year then? 

This article originally appeared in the Literary Arts Section Magazine STIL from the Goetheanum, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s death.

St. Medardus Feast Day, June 8th

St. Medardus was born around 456 at Salency, Oise, in Picardy. He was ordained at the age of 33. His piety and knowledge, considerable for that time, caused Bishop Alomer of Vermand to confer on him Holy Orders. He was one of the most honored bishops of his time, often depicted laughing, with his mouth wide open.