The roof of autumn
There they are, a few dusk-drunk swallows
Up at five o'clock from their eaves and awnings—
—See, these born-again impresarios
Of smokestack and steeple still dip and swing,
And we, if we watch their upgathering, still
Disappear into the veil of things just
Out of eye-shot. Is it too naive, too simple
To think if they're here, then you, too, must
Be on wing above the buildings and traffic,
Dryad of light-poles and trees? What a view—
—And how not to swoon in this arithmetic
Of flaring branches, this sensorium
Of twitterings? How not to believe that you
Peer now—don't you?—down through
The leaves—the claret-colored roof of autumn?
—James Kimbrell, "To Keats in October"
New Release
New Daoism
A Fresh Look at Laozi
Kwan-Yuk Claire Sit
New Daoism analyzes the old Daoist classic Laozi (also called Daodejing) through the prism of the modern anthroposophic teaching of Rudolf Steiner. Kwan-Yuk Claire Sit, has spent more than twenty years diligently studying these two subjects. Such resolute research has enabled her to bring refreshingly new perspectives to both Daoism and Anthroposophy. Sit provides practical advice on matters such as how to manifest one’s wishes. She presents a so-called persist-resist principle—what one persists in wanting will resist appearing—illustrating how calmness and quietude of the mind are conducive to the fulfillment of one’s goals. The author’s simple and plain language explores deep and subtle aspects of Dao, incorporating numerous anecdotes to illustrate this path of self-realization.
READ MORE | CONTENTS | SAMPLE CHAPTER
Also by Kwan-Yuk Claire Sit
The Luciferic Verses
The Daodejing and the Chinese Roots of Esoteric History
Eric Cunningham
In the West today, Laozi—who lived sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BC—is perhaps the best-known (along with Confucius) ancient Chinese philosopher, owing to numerous modern renderings of his Daodejing (or Tao Te Ching). Eric Cunningham relates the substance of Laozi’s classic work to modern philosophers and thinkers—especially Rudolf Steiner and his esoteric cosmology and philosophy, drawing significant and surprising parallels and contrasts with regard to Steiner’s modern path of inner development and to aspects of popular culture.
From the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner
Polarities in the Evolution of Humanity
West and East – Materialism and Mysticism – Knowledge and Belief
11 lectures, Stuttgart, March 5–Nov. 22, 1920 (CW 197)
Translated by Matthew Barton
We shall never understand spiritual science by merely thinking it; we shall only come to understand it if every one of its concepts makes us suffer and rejoice, when we feel lifted up and cast down, when we feel despair at a word, or think a word will redeem us, when we see destiny at work in what normally appears as shadowy theory as vividly as we see it at work in things that are done in the outer world, when what anthroposophically oriented spiritual science has to say goes beyond being mere words and becomes reality. When the inner impulse alive in this spiritual science is understood and felt, it will be rightly seen why things that for a time were propounded as mere theory, because people first had to come to know about them, must now become reality, why we have to be serious about the reality that lives in the words of anthroposophically-oriented spiritual science. It will become evident in our era that we need to make the substantial essence of these words become reality . . .
—Rudolf Steiner, from the lecture of July 30, 1920, in Polarities in the Evolution of Humanity (CW 197)