Twelve Moods
GA 40
The Song of Initiation
Aries:
How brightly his eyes are blinking;
In his head there stumbles his thinking,
By pleasures of brooding consumed.
Mid storms his fine memories following,
In wonderful images wallowing
That on branches of knowledge once bloomed,
Through mystical fever-nights loomed.Taurus:
Soon spooks through his whirring brain,
In fooling somnambulem mood,
By heart-felt enjoyment pursued,
A ghostly and galloping train,
A vision, with clarity showing
How out of the cosmos, stridently crowing,
A chorus of spirits wail in refrain.Gemini:
The Ego resplendent is sailing away
From a thinking based on mere physical clay,
On spiritual wings upborne,
Is kicked by a greatly superior scorn
From the path of ennobled living,
And cosmic ethereal striving,—
Is ousted with little delay.Cancer:
Outside the mere body already unfolding,
By spiritual messengers properly led,
By spiritual love conveniently fed,
By wise tomfoolery starkly sped,
Is the tenebrous soul's beholding:
In the wide and infinite expanses
Of cosmical spirit it swims and dances.Leo:
What sounds so tremendously gripping,
So pregnant with spirit but void of ideas,
With love universal so splendidly dripping,
That keenly his high heart hears?
Advanced to the grade of the Lion,
There is fine new regalia to try on,
—Up the steep path of knowledge he's tripping.Virgo:
And now to receive he is really prepared,
From cosmical thinking worthily wise,
From cosmical love with the universe shared,
From zig-zag lightning of spirit skies,
From the region of the hierarchies,
The initiation of his soul,
Deep, undivided, whole.Libra:
He lives in harmony already,
The spheric music round him playing;
He feels within his heart unsteady
The world-truth wildly swaying;
He feels inside him cosmic Scales
On which the spirits well are weighing
World problems packed in bales.Scorpio:
Soon come the scissors snicker snack—
“My spirit's trial,” (so he thinks)
“Explains this pricking of my back.”
“These pricks attack the soul that stinks,”
Replies with smirk a quite non-wiseman,
A mystically undersize-man,
Who at the Mystery just winks.Sagittarius:
But he was in world-midnight seeing
How Homer, Socrates and Goethe too
Within his ego's deepest being
Their sharp soul-arrows shot—(at who?).
And their quite undiminished center
By karma into him did enter,
In him into still grander being grew.Capricorn:
“And so you feel old Homer's genius move
Most strongly in your conscious reach?"
"Oh, no! such things I do not love,"
Thus spake with pointed speech
The Initiate. "I never for Maya strove;
Old Homer in my present incarnation
Would rest his mind in mystic meditation."Aquarius:
“O mystic transformed Socrates, I seek
In vain a trace in you of that great Greek.
He was as wise as you are egoistic.”
“Cease slandering,” (replied the Mystic).
“That man knows most, who knows he naught doth know,”
Said Socrates. And I know nothing, so
I stand securely on Socratic peak.Pisces:
“And which of Goethe's sunbeams then doth lurk
Within you, is at present showing
Your soul the path to riper fruits of knowing?”
The Seer then grasps his sharpest quirk—
“No! Goethe's light, too bright, does but confuse!
Preferring then to dream his art, I choose
The depth of sleep in which to do my work!”
Das Leid von der Initiation
Widder:
Die Augen leuchten ihm helle,
Im Kopfe stolpert sein Denken,
Vom Glück des Sinnens ganz berauscht.
Im Sturme folgt es der Erinnerung
Des wunderbaren Traumes,
Der Blüte des Erkenntnisbaumes,
In mystisch schwüler Nacht erlebt.Stier:
Schon spukt im wirren Hirne,
Possierlich grüblerisch verträumt,
Vom Herzen aus mit Wohlgefühl begleitet
Im Traumgaloppe geisterwärts,
Gewichtig Schauen, kühn erspähend,
Wie aus dem Kosmos, deutlich krähend,
Ein Geisterchor sich offenbaret.Zwillinge:
Entrissen fühlt das helle Ich
Dem Denken sich, das physisch nur
Und drum vom hohen Geistestrieb
Mit einem Seelentritte mächtig
Vom Pfade edlen Strebens
Und kosmisch hohen Lebens
Wird kühnlich weggeschmissen.Krebs:
Ganz aus dem Leibe fühlt sich schon,
Durch Geistesboten recht geführt,
Durch Geistesliebe wohlgepflegt,
Von weiser Torheit stark gestossen,
Der Seele dunkles Schauen
In den weiten Geistesauen
Ganz kosmisch geistgenährt.Löwen:
Was wirkt so mächtig wundersam
Gedankenlos und geistesträchtig,
Von Weltenliebe prächtig triefe>
In kühnem Herzen ihm so ahnungsvoll?
Er ist zum Löwengrade
Auf dem steilen Wissenspfade
Ja klärlich nun schon vorgedrungen.Jungfrau:
Nun muss er auch empfangen
Aus Weltgedanken würdevoll,
Aus Weltenliebe gnadereich,
Mit zuckendem Geistesblitz,
Aus der hierarch sehen
Region Die hohe Seelen-Initiation,
Ganz ungeteilt und tief.Waage:
Erlebt nun schon in Harmonie
Mit aller Weltenklarheit.
Empfinden kann in seinem Herzen er
Die Schwungkraft aller Wahrheit.
In sich fühlt er die Weltenwaage,
Auf der des Daseins Rätselfrage
Von Geistern abgewogen steht.Skorpion:
Da zwickt und zwackt es ihn.
“Des Geistes Prüfung, ” findet er,
“Scheint mir dies Prickeln in dem Leibe.”
“Der Stich, der trifft ihn sicher!”
So grinst verständig jetzt ein Ungelehrter,
Ein ganzlich mystisch Unverkehrter—
Den Mysterien ganz frech entgegen.Schützen:
Er aber hat in Weltennacht erkannt,
Wie doch Homer und Sokrates, Goethe aush,
In seines Iches Wesensgründen
Die schärfsten Seelenpfeile schossen,—
Und ihre unverfälschte Menschenwesenheit
Verkörpert wie mit Selbstverständlichkeit
In ihm zu neuer Daseinsgrösse sich.Steinbock:
“Erfühlst du denn Homers Genie
In deinem Denken stark sich regen?”
“O, regt es sich, ich liebt es nicht,“
So sprach mit spitzer Rede
Der Eingeweihte, “ das wäre Maja-Streben.
Homer will in meinem gegenwärt'gen
Leben All sein Genie im Mystenschlafe pflegen!Wassermann:
Dir fehlt, o mystisch umgeformter Sokrates,
Vom klügsten Griechen jede Spur.
Dazu bist du so eitel, wie er weise war.
“ Erdrücke Lasterrede!”, sagt der Myste,
“ Nichts zu wissen, liebte ich als dieser Mann ...
Und da ich jetzo gar nichts weiss und kann,
Erfühl ich dieses Leben ganz sokratisch-mystisch.”Fischen:
Und welcher Sonnenstrahl von Goethe,
Als Bote führt er deine Seele
Zum Reifen hoher Wissenstriebe?”
Der Seher greift zum schärfsten Redepfeile.
“ Es schuf,” so sagt er, “Goethe viel zu helle.
Drum träum ich Goethes hohe Kunst, und wähle
Des Schlafes Tiefen mir zum Arbeitsfeld.”
The Song of Initiation
Aries:
His eyes shine brightly,
His thoughts stumble in his head,
Completely intoxicated by the joy of contemplation.
In a storm, he follows the memory
Of the wonderful dream,
The blossom of the tree of knowledge,
Experienced in a mystically sultry night.Taurus:
Already haunting his confused mind,
Piously brooding and dreamy,
Accompanied by a feeling of well-being from the heart
In a dream gallop toward the spirits,
Gazing weightily, boldly spying,
As if from the cosmos, crowing clearly,
A choir of spirits reveals itself.Gemini:
The bright self feels torn
From thinking, which is only physical
And therefore, with a mighty kick of the soul,
With a powerful kick of the soul
From the path of noble striving
And cosmically high life
Is boldly thrown away.Cancer:
Already feels completely out of the body,
Guided rightly by messengers of the spirit,
Well cared for by spiritual love,
Strongly driven by wise folly,
The soul's dark vision
In the vast spiritual meadows
Completely cosmically spiritually nourished.Leo:
What works so powerfully miraculously
Thoughtless and spirit-filled,
Magnificently imbued with love for the world
In his bold heart so full of premonitions?
He has now clearly advanced
To the degree of Leo
On the steep path of knowledge.Virgo:
Now he must also receive
From world thoughts dignified,
From world love gracious,
With flashing flashes of inspiration,
From the hierarchical
region The high soul initiation,
Completely undivided and deep.Libra:
Now experiences in harmony
With all the clarity of the world.
He can feel in his heart
The momentum of all truth.
Within himself he feels the scales of the world,
On which the riddle of existence
Is weighed by spirits.Scorpio:
It pinches and tweaks him.
“The test of the spirit,” he finds,
“Seems to me like this tingling in the body.”
“The sting that strikes him surely!”
So now an uneducated man grins knowingly,
A completely mystically uncorrupted man—
Facing the mysteries quite cheekily.Sagittarius:
But he has recognized in the night of the world,
Like Homer and Socrates, Goethe,
In the depths of his being
The sharpest arrows of the soul were shot,
And their unadulterated humanity
Embodied as a matter of course
In him to a new greatness of being.Capricorn:
“Do you feel Homer’s genius Stirring strongly in your mind?“
”Oh, it stirs, but I do not love it,“
So spoke with pointed words
The initiate, ”that would be maya's striving.
Homer wants in my present
Life To cultivate all his genius in mystical slumber!"Aquarius:
You lack, O mystically transformed Socrates,
Any trace of the wisest Greek.
Moreover, you are as vain as he was wise.
“Crush vice speech!” says the mystic,
“To know nothing, I loved as this man ...
And since I now know and can do nothing at all,
I feel this life in a completely Socratic-mystical way.”Fishing:
And which ray of sunshine from Goethe,
As a messenger, leads your soul
To the ripening of higher knowledge?“
The seer reaches for the sharpest arrow of speech.
”It created,“ he says, ”Goethe far too bright.
Therefore, I dream of Goethe's high art, and choose
The depths of sleep as my field of work."