Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget—I kept saying—that we are all children of the King.
For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago—
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef—they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
— Czesław Miłosz, “Late Ripeness”
New Release!
Elder Flowering
Lived Experiences of Growing Older
Signe Eklund Schaefer and Karen Gierlach
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The "social art" of biography work has grown from the insights of Rudolf Steiner's spiritual science—insights that have proved useful in identifying and exploring the archetypal rhythms and milestones of human life. The most well-known, even obvious, of these are the roughly seven-year rhythms of early childhood, childhood, and adolescence, culminating in the transition to adulthood around the age of twenty-one.
But this and other archetypal rhythms continue to unfold throughout life, perhaps more subtly and certainly in the most differentiated and individualized of ways. These have often been explored, especially as they pertain to the "active years" of adulthood. But less has been written about the so-called elder years. This volume seeks to remedy that.
Written and edited by longtime students and practitioners of anthroposophic biography work, all of whom have completed at least ten cycles of seven-years, this unique volume aims to address, first hand, the joys and sorrows, triumphs and realities, of these years, when the ripe fruits of a life truly lived swell with seeds for the future. READ MORE
Episode 4: manifestations of deeper forces w/ Daniel Polikoff
Episode 3: what's your story? w/ Signe Schaefer
Episode 2: universalistic possibilities w/ Douglas Sloan
Episode 1: the human-machine interface w/ Joe Allen
Now Available on Apple Podcasts
From The Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner
Dying Earth and Living Cosmo
The Living Gifts of Anthroposophy: The Need for New Forms of Consciousness
21 lectures, Berlin, January 22 – August 6, 1918 (CW 181)
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This is an important but largely overlooked collection consisting of not one but three important lecture courses:
“Dying Earth and Living Cosmos”;
"The Living Gifts of Anthroposophy”;
and "The Need for New Forms of Consciousness.”
Taken together or read singly, these lectures from the tumultuous year of 1918 are a thorough articulation of the need for anthroposophy in our time.
Steiner here freely touches on a wealth of absorbing themes, including the “discovery” of America, the contrast between East and West, the qualities of European “folk souls,” Darwinism, and much more; all the while, both explicating and demonstrating the kind of approach needed to actually “grasp reality,” not by way of abstract schematics or theorizing, but as conscious, fully human, knowers and doers. READ MORE
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