PRACTICE THE CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
Introduction by Rudolf Steiner
The year has its own cycle of life. The human soul can follow in feeling this life of the year. And if the soul opens herself to the influences that thus speak to her week by week, this life with the year will lead her to a real finding of herself. She will feel powers growing up within her, that lend her new strength from within. She will see that such latent powers in herself need to be aroused by the interest that she brings to the world into which she has been born.
In this Calendar there is set down for each week a verse, suited to awake in the soul a fellow-consciousness of what is going on during this particular week of the whole cycle of world-life. The verse is intended to express the note sounded in the soul when she puts herself in unison with this moving life of the world. A healthy feeling of "at oneness" with the course of nature, and, arising thence, a vigorous "finding of oneself," this is what is here intended, in the belief that, for the soul, some such inner accompaniment of the world's path, as pursued in these verses, is a thing for which she harbours the longing, if she but rightly understand herself.
—Translation of the Preface of The Calendar of the Soul, GA 40, by Mabel M. Cotterell, 1948
Compare English Translations & Verses
We have developed a automated COTS tool for both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Easter is Week 1 in the Northern Hemisphere and Week 27 in the Southern Hemisphere. Rather than combining some lessons to fit a 52 week cycle, we have calculated the number of days between each Easter and divided by 52 equal periods - one for each verse. This allowed us to automate the system. Feel free to navigate to the previous and next verses for comparison during the year. One can also compare several English translations with the original German text.Our COTS tool presents pairs of 26 "corresponding verses" for greater insight. The sum of the corresponding verses is always 53. Thus, the corresponding verse for week 52 (Holy Week) is verse 1 (Easter) as illustrated below. Traveling the path of a lemniscate, the spring and autumn equinoxes lie at the center where the corresponding verses cross at Easter and Michaelmas.
During the Summer and Winter Solstices (and then St. John's Tide and Christmas), the corresponding verses land farthest from each other. They reflect the opposing Luciferic impulses of summer, on one hand, and the Ahrimanic forces of winter, on the other. The Christ is centered in the middle, balancing these opposing forces as depicted in Rudolf Steiner's sculpture, The Representative of Man.
Like two dancing partners in mirrored polarity, the corresponding verses reflect two sides of an infinity pattern. The planetary influences shine through the lines of each verse revealing esoteric wisdom. Read more about corresponding verses here.
By meditating on The Calendar of the Soul verses throughout the year, we can attain higher consciousness and greater insight into our role in the universe.
Summary of Weekly Meditations
- In seeing, joy unites with light.
- The seed is above, the fruit is within.
- To free myself, I look into the world.
- Through feeling, I unite with the world.
- I rise above myself in the light that unites us.
- I and the world: mirror images.
- The world draws me out; intuition centers me.
- Yielding to the world, I dream in its creating.
- To find myself, I lose myself in light.
- In the Sun's light, a divine being touches me.
- Surrendered to nature's beauty, I find myself in her.
- Trusting, I seek myself in light and warmth.
- The senses teach me: one spirit relates all.
- Cosmic nature awakens me through my senses.
- The beauty of the world strengthens and empowers me.
- I shelter my spiritual gifts within me.
- I fill myself with nature's meaning to find her within me.
- I make myself a garment of the spirit.
- I remember what I have received.
- United with the world, I feel my being.
- I feel the seed of myself germinating within me.
- From world-self, the human self is bom: as gift and fruit.
- Expanding and contracting, my soul lives the year.
- Self-creating, soul and spirit come together in my will.
- Awakening within, I spread inner light abroad.
- Let me become who I am.
- I bear summer in me like a seed.
- My soul's radiant thought heals like the Sun.
- Consciousness lights the world, giving it meaning.
- Beginning to think: I feel certain I exist.
- Light from my heart flows into my senses.
- Destiny unfolds me — I grow strong.
- Without my experience, the world would be empty.
- What I nurse in my soul I can give to the world.
- By grace, I can become a true world citizen.
- My task: selflessness in the light of the Self.
- May I be a light-bearer in the world's wintry night.
- In the brightness of the heart, the divine child is born.
- Meditation frees me from myself.
- Drawing meaning from love's well, separation ceases.
- Right action proceeds from the heart in love and works.
- The soul shines in the darkness and gives it form.
- Despite the world's cold, my inner fire grows strong.
- May my thinking be creative, filling the world with light.
- The world shines with the light of my thinking.
- I remember myself — Memory strengthens vision.
- Thinking embraces the joy of becoming.
- Emptying myself, cosmic thinking enters, awakens love.
- I feel the strength of cosmic being.
- I and world: one love, one goal.
- Become strong from the senses' gifts of the spirit.
- Beauty unites spirit with my being.