WINTER MUSINGS Comes the cold’s gentle silent call Winter is waking, the earth’s in its thrall. Cradle me cold in your deepest night, Teach me to know the inner light. Archangel Gabriel come to me now, Help me to see this journey through. Song by J.A. Clingan The sunshine, though externally at its weakest at this time of year, has a special quality as it pierces the morning mist. We must brace for two cold months following on from the winter solstice, but the light will be steadily increasing from now on. In the Winter Imagination from ‘The Four Seasons and the Archangels’, Rudolf Steiner speaks about the strong salt process of mid winter, which attracts a multitude of elemental beings; in the springtime the roots of the plants rely on the salt formations in the soil as they form themselves out of the seeds. Now in the depths of winter, mercurial or quicksilver processes are active, and they bring life forces into play. Ash deposits have fallen to the earth after the combustion processes of seed formation took place in summer and autumn, and they ensure that the life forces will support mainly progressive earth forces and plant growth, rather than fallen moon forces. That moon forces are strongly present can be seen in the profusion of mushrooms popping up in field and garden. The sun working in the atmosphere brings light and warmth, and makes the connection between the earthly processes and those of the planetary and starry realm. Our sleep life at this midwinter time can be deeply significant, as our guardian angels facilitate a yearly meeting with the Earth Spirit. The following poem Shadows by D. H. Lawrence speaks about the human soul’s connection to the seasonal and planetary rhythms of nature. And if tonight my soul may find her peace in sleep, and sink in good oblivion, and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created. And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom pervades my movements and my thoughts and words then I shall know that I am walking still with God, we are close together now the moon’s in shadow. And if, as autumn deepens and darkens I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms and trouble and dissolution and distress and then the softness of deep shadows folding, folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow, then I shall know that my life is moving still with the dark earth, and drenched with the deep oblivion of earth’s lapse-and-renewal. And if, in the changing phases of man’s life I fall in sickness and in misery my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead and strength is gone, and my life is only the leavings of a life. And still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me. Then I must know that still I am in the hands of the unknown God, he is breaking me down to his own oblivion to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 12:28:04 +0000
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