An Invitation to Incarnate

a meditation on the arrival of spring

Greetings Friends,

As we reach the Spring Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere it becomes more difficult to ignore the many macro and microcosmic changes in motion in and around us. Outside as we begin to work in our fields in preparation for the growing season ahead, we are gifted by the warmth and light of sunshine which awakens the Earthly world, while sometimes the following day we are greeted again by the reminders of Winter with cold bitter wind, rain and snow.

Inside our minds, the responsibilities and tasks ahead of us as farmers grow, with our hopes kept in limbo, since often the work we plan to accomplish each day depends on the climatic conditions of the outer world. A few months ago, as we crossed the threshold into Winter, we began to plant seeds, our own dreams and aspirations for what this next season would hold, making a personal commitment again with the land we steward and the communities we are members of.

Based upon our lived experiences of the previous year, we worked through the reflective period of the Holy Nights, taking time during the darkest period of Winter to review our past actions, coming to a deeper understanding of ourselves, as well as the many Beings we have the privilege to interact with. For this yearly evolution to continue, we prepared ourselves and our families through Advent, celebrating the Earthly births of Jesus, and welcoming the cosmic blessings of karmic purity and vast spiritual wisdom into our lives.

In the most contracted moments of the year, we forged our own inner openness, celebrating Epiphany on January 6th, giving recognition to the important moment when the Christ Spirit descended into the body of Jesus, a marriage between the Earth and Heavens - a capacity that lives within each of us ever since. Carrying the impulse of Love forward into the New Year, we could feel the coldness of our material world grow stronger through January and February, a force that is not only tangible in the environment we live in, but one that lives deep inside each of us as Humans and as an entire civilization displayed through our often immoral daily choices amongst each other, the Earth and all Beings.

With the support and guidance of Archangel Michael, we continued to foster the warmth of compassion within ourselves in these morally cold moments, choosing to find the courage to stand upward, countering the strong, anti-life forces that are more active than ever in our world.

Like the seeds of intention we sowed for this New Year, this year's succession of Plant Kingdom seeds is now also beginning to come to life as the Sun shines on the Northern Hemisphere more and more each day. These seeds have been cared for through their Winter journey by the Gnomes and brought into physical lifeform by the Undines who begin to stir in the increased Springtime light. Now in March and April, this fluctuation between Earth and Heaven, contraction and expansion, cold and warm, awakens these Spirits for our eyes to see, beginning to paint the greyish landscapes around us with hues of green and blue.

Along the forest edges, the currants, brambles, and elderberries begin to show signs of life, the buds on our fruit trees start to swell and the trickling flow of water breaks the silence of Winter as the ice covering the Earth melts away. Underneath us, as we walk through our gardens, the ground itself begins to loosen, almost becoming fluid during this transition as the Sun moves from the great constellation of Aquarius into Pisces.

Diving deeper into this transition, we can begin to understand that Aquarius is the Cosmic source of Oxygen in our physical world, in which the countless bodies of water here on Earth serve as the reservoir for this life-giving element. “As carbon would make our bodies firm and stiff like a palm tree, the breathing process wrenches it out of its stiffness, unites it with oxygen and drives it outwards. Thus, we gain a mobility which as human beings we must have.” As described by anthroposophist and chemist Rudolf Hauschka over 75 years ago in The Nature of Substance, “Oxygen enlivens every Earthly organism. It is the expression of that life-force which presses into material embodiment when, in the burgeoning of Spring, the sap rises and all manner of leaves, grasses and weeds burst forth.”¹

Through this Springtime awakening, the idea of a plant incarnates, beginning to come into living form, eventually reaching full fruition later on in the Summer and Fall, evolving and creating seeds for its next incarnation. Alan Chadwick would paraphrase Goethe saying, “the seed is utmost idée and least metamorphosis.”²

During this time as our Sun moves into Pisces (starting on March 11th), we are invited to bring the elemental family of Halogens (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine) to our attention which in balance with Alkalis (most notability sodium and potassium, connected to Virgo, the constellation dominate at the Autumn Equinox) produce salt - sodium carbonate, potassium carbonate and more. In this relationship, the Alkalis form Earthly sheaths that serve to enclose, making up the colloidal fluids (chyle, lymph, and blood serum) in our bodies and the sap life-blood of plants. In the Fall, the seed becomes the pure idea and its discharge of potential energy is now seen in the Springtime as growth, the metamorphosis of this idea into physical beingness.

“In ancient times, when no one doubted that the terrestrial is always a housing for the Spirit, this truth was felt to be pictured in the constellation of Virgo, the Virgin. Here could be experienced the sheath-forming power, whence forces of fertility and ripening rayed down to Earth.”³

In contrast to the seed ripening and oil concentrating process of the Fall, a point where life is sheathed by the forces of Virgo, the Springtime essence of Halogens can be described as “thin and runny, and in their pure form even gaseous.” Furthermore, the Halogen “acids are dry, contractive and… have a close bond with Hydrogen,” making these elements very active and decisive, brutal in many ways to life and growth.⁴ While at first glance we might feel somewhat repulsed by the strong influence that Pisces brings to the Earth, a force that is currently present in March and April, the Cosmic activity of the Halogen acids help to press the urgency of conclusion, pushing the world into action.

Rudolf Hauschka continues to explain, “the ancients saw these processes proceeding from the constellation of Pisces, the fish… a symbol of the feet, and so of traveling… moving toward conclusions, the fulfillment of destiny.”

This process of evolution, a great journey for us to discover the truth of what it means to be Human, is central to our Spiritual work here on Earth and with anthroposophical guidance, we can unpack the importance of Pisces as it relates to our own becoming. As described in depth in Occult Science and numerous other books/lectures by Rudolf Steiner, we can begin to understand that the physical Human Being began to form long ago, after the Sun had separated from the Earth-Moon, during the ancient time of Lemuria. This early point of densification was guided by the Fishes and brought the lowest part of our bodies into material existence, a moment that eventually was followed by the separation of the Earth and Moon in Scorpio bringing forth sexual reproductivity and the early division of Male/Female sexes.

As the Sun continued its many cycles through the Zodiac through time, we as Humans became more and more material, eventually forming our trunk, the central part of our body, under the guidance of Virgo, followed by the higher stages of Human evolution later on (the formation of the heart, lungs, and larynx in cooperation with the etheric, astral and ego bodies).

As noted in The Nature of Substance,

“Just as Virgo symbolizes the selfless offering of an enclosing sheath within which other life develops, Pisces pictures an active coming to grips with the world and destiny. And like the Alkalis and Halogens which they create, Virgo and Pisces [Fall and Spring] are antipodes confronting each other from opposite sides of the Cosmos… Receptive love and ego-like activity pour through the heavenly and earthly spheres from these two macrocosmic points… but their interaction engenders a third force: the salt of the Earth, which in the realm of life stands for the balanced organism; in the realm of Spirit, cosmic evolution.⁵

Now in the present day, we are given an opportunity for further evolution here in the material world through the guidance of the Stars above. Like our ancestors of the past, we can connect with the Springtime grass and wet Earth below our feet, making choices each day as to where our journey will take us as each of us finds the ability to become the ‘salt of the Earth.’ As we work outside, or patiently wait for the Springtime storms to pass, we give thanks to the life brought forth by Oxygen through Aquarius and the Elemental Kingdoms that steward the yearly processes of incarnation, taking this as inner inspiration to help us also become who we aspire to be this year.

Through this, we renew our commitments to the Earth and to Humanity through the action-oriented force of Pisces that is alive in and around us during the Equinox. “What we seek we shall find; what we flee from flees from us; as Goethe said, 'what we wish for in youth, comes in heaps on us in old age,' too often cursed with the granting of our prayer: and hence the high caution, that since we are sure of having what we wish, we beware to ask only for high things.”⁶ Check in with your personal promises that were formed in the depths of Winter gestation, bringing forth the influence of Christ into our daily actions - finding many ways to support the incarnation of Love, Light, Beauty and Compassion throughout our lives as we continue forward into the year.

Wishing you all the best this Spring - Russell

1. Hauskha, The Nature of Substance, pg 41.

2. Alan Chadwick, “Seed: Utmost Idee and Least Metamorphosis,” Green Gulch Farm, CA 11 Feb 1980, https://chadwickarchive.org/ca-0302/

3. Hauschka, pg 145.

4. Hauschka, pg 146.

5. Hauschka, pg 148.

6. Emerson, R. W. (2003). Nature and Selected Essays. United Kingdom: Penguin Publishing Group, pg. 389