Reading the Timeless Inscriptions

By Mary Stewart Adams

The Calendar of the Soul was just one of many impulses that rose out of the Stiftung of 1911, which Rudolf Steiner later described as the second of three calls from the spiritual world.1 At the time, the response to this second call was referred to as the inauguration of a renewed Theosophical Art and Style, which found its expression in the Mystery Dramas, the development of speech art and eurythmy, in painting and architecture.

Further, the original Calendar could rightly be described as a study guide for learning how to live with the being of the year, through color, form, initiative, and contemplation. The course of the year has its own life, Rudolf Steiner wrote in the preface to the second edition (1918). With this life the human soul can unfold a feeling-unison . 2

The color came through the new images of the zodiac, which served this idea of unfolding a sense for the waking and sleeping of spiritual beings and forces in the course of the year. These images were meant to be an expression of formative forces , albeit made static on the page, and were not meant as symbols.

Initiative was demonstrated through the feast days and names days that were included for every day of the year. Not only the sounding together of consonants and vowels combined in the naming of those that were born or died on each day, but the deeds of individuals, both saints and notable, historical figures that were aligned in the calendar to certain days and, by default, to specific degrees of the zodiac ~ as though these earthly deeds were shored up in zodiacal seed beds, to be made use of by those aware of this “secret garden.” Each life makes a cosmic inscription, and the whole Calendar was designed to foster an ability to read the resulting script, this writing of the stars, (which) by our own deeds (is) inscribed into the cosmic spaces 3

Contemplation was furthered through the weekly verses, meant to support the awakening soul’s ability to partake in the meaningful course of the world as it comes to life in the rhythms of time.

Though most of us experience the Calendar solely through the verses, the information included below is gathered out of consideration for just a few of the corresponding feast days, together with some celestial phenomena of 2025, as complement to the verses for the summer months.

June 1, 2025 the planet Venus (astronomically the second planet away from the Sun) reaches its greatest elongation, furthest away from the Sun. Due to the late date of Easter in 2025, verse 7 aligns to June 1st, the “Luciferic temptation” verse.4

June 8 is Whitsunday in 2025, and on this day Mercury and Jupiter come closest to one another, in the region of Gemini stars. Gemini is referred to as the Twins and is the region of sky where the path of the planets in our solar system crosses the path of the Milky Way. The virtue here is faithfulness , which is beautifully indicated in both verses 8 and 9 of the Calendar

The Summer Solstice occurs on June 20 this year, when the Sun reaches its “high hour” as described in verse 11. Here a cosmic fructification takes place in anticipation of the St. John’s mood of trust that I may find myself in cosmic light and cosmic warmth (verse 12).

At the Feast of St. John, Jupiter will be exactly conjunct the Sun, which has about it a lovely gesture of expansiveness that aligns to the mood of chapter 3 of the John Gospel “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Here John is speaking of the ancient Moon-based mysteries, which give way to the new light of the Christ as a Sun being, now descended to and uniting with the Earth, which mystery can be experienced in the cycle of the year as well.

The day after the Feast of St. John, on June 25, 2025 the Moon will come to New Phase, and while the Moon plays a significant role in determining the date for Easter each year, thereby supporting us in finding our way to harmonize the verses with the weeks of the year from one Easter to the next, the Moon is not so easy to discern in the verses this many weeks later.

From the season of St. John’s until the middle of

August, an interesting sequence of feminine feast days unfolds in the traditional Christian calendar, reaching a crescendo at the time of the Feast of Transfiguration on August 6 and then on through the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower.

In the verse that corresponds to July 2nd, the original date of the Feast of the Visitation of Mary and Elisabeth as established in the 14th century, we read of spirit kinship. Mary and Elisabeth are cousins, and sisters in the respective roles they play in the Turning Point of Time. They spend three months together (end of March to end of June) which becomes the period of time 33 years later when the great mysteries of the Raising of Lazarus, the Resurrection, Ascension, and Whitsunday take place.

The Feast of Mary Magdalene is observed on July 22nd each year, aligning to verse 16. The mood of bearing in inward keeping spirit bounty can well be imagined as the gesture of the Magdalene, who anoints both the head and the feet of the Christ leading up to the trials of the Holy Week. The maturation of divine gifts in her soul (as described in the verse) prepare her to be the one who first encounters the Risen Christ, when she receives ultimate affirmation of her own true nature (That ripened gifts divine, maturing in the depths of soul, may bring their fruits of selfhood ).

The Feast of the Magdalene’s sister, Martha, is observed on July 29th, which corresponds to verse 17. It can be illuminating to read verses 16 and 17 side by side while considering the different soul moods of these two women. Verse 16 seems very much to address the inner task of the individual (…to bear in inward keeping spirit bounty), whereas verse 17 directs the attention outward, to what is received from the world (… that I by grace through senses’ portals have led into my soul …). Verse 17 also aligns with time in the year of the Feeding of the Multitude with five loaves and two fishes, if the date is calculated based on the Feast of Transfiguration (observed August 6).5

The following verses 18, 19, and 20, in addition to aligning with the Transfiguration scene described in the

Luke Gospel, are also wonderfully depicted in Raphael’s painting of the Transfiguration, which was his last work and which was at the foot of his bed when he died in 1520. Verse 18 includes the reference to the raiment for the spirit, which is commensurate with what is described in Luke 9:29 And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. The warning of verse 19 suggests the moment after the Christ is transfigured with its opening line In secret to encompass now, akin to Luke 9:36 And they kept it close, and told no man in those days any of those things which they had seen . Chapter nine of the Luke Gospel continues on to a description of the boy with epilepsy (lower right in Raphael’s painting), who is the first to be healed by the transfigured Christ, an event that seems to stand behind verse 20 I feel at last my life’s reality…Conscience begins with this verse, and at this point in the cycle of the year, when the Perseid Meteor Shower has peaked and strength of will is called for, to encounter again the earth forces now we are awakening from the summer’s dream. 

1 First Rudolf Steiner spoke about such future tasks to a very small circle of his students, trying to guide their souls to the meaning of those more distant tasks which must grow from a human will which has become free of selfishness. He repeated these words to a larger circle on the occasion of the General Meeting on December 15, 1911. This was not done as part of the General Meeting itself; he clarified that it was outside the program. He began the talk in an especially solemn and impressive manner. This is perhaps the reason for the first part of the talk being noted down, but not in his words. He stressed that the content of this lecture be completely independent of all those he had previously given. It was, so to speak, a direct message from the spiritual world. It was a call delivered to humanity – followed by waiting to see what echo resulted .~Marie Steiner The Stiftung of 1911~An Impulse for the Future Given Through Rudolf Steiner, and What at First Became of It , 1948

2 The Cycle of the Year as a Breathing Process of the Earth Rudolf Steiner GA 233, Lecture 2, April 1, 1923

3 Man’s Life on Earth and in Spiritual Worlds GA 218 Lecture 6, November 19, 192 2

4 See Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy, and Philosophy GA 137, lecture 10, from June 12, 1912 for Rudolf Steiner’s description of how Lucifer is related to the realm of Venus.

5 See Luke Gospel chapter 9