Giving Gifts to the Elemental World

Contemplating the Three Kings

With the arrival of advent in the northern hemisphere, we focus strongly inward. Leaves fall, their vitality drained. They leave behind colorful signatures of their mineral composition. The sun continues to rise a little lower every day, appearing as if it might slip away forever. 

Original block carving and print by Stewart Lundy, Copyright 2022.

This is the evening of the year—or rather the evening of each day is a microcosm of the celestial autumn. How do we know? It is not enough to say something is a microcosm of something else. We must be able to show how a celestial event is analogous to a terrestrial phenomenon. What we celebrate in spring as Easter was originally celebrated in autumn as a promise of resurrection. 

In autumn, our eyes and mind can’t perceive that the sun will rise again and be restored to its strength, but the original Easter festival celebrating the drowning and resurrection of Adonis promised new life even in the midst of withering autumnal leaves. During these festival days, celebrants assembled an image of the god Adonis that they submerged in a nearby body of water, then “raised” from the dead on the third day. 

The conviction that the Sun would rise again is itself an intuitive realization: we recognize the pattern of rising and descending again, realizing that external appearances may be inconsistent with the truth. This recognition is faith—the conviction that what is not sense-perceptible is, nonetheless, solidly true. It is not a mere belief that the Sun will rise again but an objective truth disclosed by intuitive thinking. 

Not without reason, the ancient Greeks considered astronomy to be a prerequisite to philosophy. Our actions are limited by the strength of our devotion to our convictions, and that devotion will invariably waver if our convictions are unclear. If we do not believe justice exists, we certainly won’t strive to bring it to others.

There is nothing in our empirical experience that tells us that we only live once. In fact, everything in nature declares the opposite: everything that passes away also rises again. Only those completely detached from cycles of nature would declare otherwise. However, the principle of reincarnation leads to the concept of development. The meadow “reincarnates” season after season, each year having experienced a little more of the world and adapting to changes slowly. This endless process of reproduction is the basis of evolution, which few would contest these days. 

So how does this add to our understanding of the three kings, and who are they to us? If we consider the human organism, we are a threefold being. We have a nervous system centered in the head and spine, a metabolic-limb system centered in the gut and muscles, and a rhythmic system centered at the heart. It seems to me as if the entire human organism is depicted symbolically by these three kings who must give of their achievements and surrender what they consider precious to a greater King. 

The “star in the east” is an image full of nuanced meanings. The star is what we now call Venus, but the ancients called it light bearer, or Lucifer. Yet, this star is not the true light-bringer anymore than a rooster causes the sun to rise. Certainly, Lucifer and the cock crowing both believe they bring the light, but, of course, they do not.¹ Lucifer is a figure of muddy light—of old facts illuminated by wishful thinking. In this sense, Ahriman, who is virtually completely devoid of imagination, is somewhat more reliable. Pedantic loyalty to external facts may be shallow, but it is accurate as far as it goes. 

Lucifer’s twilight, claiming to be the Sun, can lead in any direction you imagine, but all of them will be false. These figures of one’s wishful thinking and habitual instincts embody the inner “father and mother” we must hate, which is to say, the illusory wisdom of wishful thinking and the deceptive finality of the accumulation of mere facts from the past.² The aspirations of Lucifer are more lively than those of Ahriman, but they are only light by contrast to utter darkness. Neither of these beings are the true light bringer, which is the Christ. As Jesus says in the Apocalypse of St. John, “I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” Considered esoterically, the east of the human body is the front, which faces the future. In particular, the star in the east of the human organism is the heart center between the eyebrows.³

It is not without significance that the saints in divine communion gaze upward. When we are full of self-pity, we rarely look up. Generally, our gaze is down—navel-gazing as it is called. Posture is strongly emphasized in eastern traditions, but in the west we are all familiar with the notion of keeping your chin up. A slouching posture collapses the physical organism around the heart, which is the center of our inner solar system. Slouching is akin to a solar eclipse of the heart.

St. Teresa of Avila

As we contemplate the three kings, we might note that one comes from the North, one from the East, and one from the South.⁴ They journey to Palestine. So if we study the map as they might have done, we notice that Palestine resembles a human being, with tributaries feeding into the northernmost lake as the head, the river Jordan as the spinal column (with tributaries flowing inward primarily from the head and from the east), and the Dead Sea into which everything empties as akin to the belly. The term Jordan means “to flow down” or to “descend,” which corresponds rather nicely. 

To the west is the Mediterranean Sea, which symbolized chaos and death in the ancient Judaic imagination. Consider how the western side of an island (or a continent) tends to be arid. Disregarding mountains and other features altering climate, the western Americas are generally far more arid than the eastern side of the same continent. Compare western Spain and Portugal to the rest of Europe. Compare Palestine (which is westernmost Asia) to the east. Compare western China to the rest of the country. Consider also the bone severity of Capela dos Ossos in Spain. Consider the ornate skulls of the indigenous southwestern culture descending down through Mexico. And, not least of all, the mystery of Golgotha (the place of the skull) in Palestine.⁵ A concrete reason for this is the rotation of the Earth: as our sphere spins, the air moves westward at night. On eastern coasts, humidity moves inland; on western coasts, humidity moves out to sea—a major reason why viticulture is often more auspicious in California than in Virginia.

The flight of the Holy Family to Egypt following the birth of Jesus represents the descent to the metaphysical south, which is not to vilify Egypt but to be considered a symbol of the egotistical King Herod ruling in the soul. When the ego rules in the soul, this is Pharaoh in Egypt, Herod in Palestine, or Nero in Rome. The ego-king seeks to kill any possible emergence of a rival king, because the ego always demands that it be its own center of gravity. During the rule of the ego-king, the dark allure of the sub-sensible realm dominates Judea (the soul) but the Christ child is preserved, miraculously unharmed. 

Within this world, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So if we prepare to give the gift of the three kings now, we cast out a mixture of gold, frankincense, and myrrh towards the horizon. As we do this, we should really see the line we project reaching the stars. When we travel to Rome, in the spiritual world, it is as if Rome itself approaches us. Consider that learning is a form of drawing near.⁶

Thus, in our souls, we become whatever we imagine. If we have feral thoughts, then we have a bestial astral form. If we imagine only that which belongs to celestial spheres, our astral form becomes more angelic. No one needs to be clairvoyant to see the habits of astral expressions in the lines of a stranger’s face. 

Imagine you are fly fishing. You cast your line far, while envisioning that, in the spiritual world, something offers a reciprocal action toward you. Thus, when we spray outward, we anoint the periphery of the farm. Anointing always happens on the outside of an organism, while intending to draw something inward. Outwardly, we spray out precious substances and their forces. Inwardly, our sacrifice draws in beings from the periphery. 

If our sacrifice costs us nothing, then the gains are paltry. This is the inner logic of karma, and the idea behind selling one’s possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor. The material goods we give away become treasures in heaven. Karmically, all we give away (good and bad!) returns to us in exacting reciprocity. 

I find it useful to view everything that happens to me as my own character returning to me through others. Consider how different you are in each of your relationships. You might almost say you are a different person in each case. If you were to separate out all these aspects of your “I,” you would find yourself to be a host of people who each act very differently. You might treat your mother differently than you treat your brother. You might not get along with your neighbor, but you are extremely kind to children and small animals. If each of these different modes of relating to others were separated out as a distinct personality, you might have a good picture of how karma returns to us—these different personas we adopt return to us as others. The individuals who bring our karma back to us should not be resented since they merely deliver back to us what we brought upon ourselves. Any arrow we fire out into the world is an arrow that returns to us in another life. Any kindness we show another person in this life is a kindness that returns to us, not in this life, but the next. If we wish to be surrounded by people who are generous and understanding, we must offer impartial generosity and understanding to others. If this were easy, everyone would do it. But again, it must be costly for there to be gain. It is our effort that completes this equation. If we simply “follow our bliss” and disregard others, we will tend to find ourselves in a life surrounded by others who ignore our plight and meanwhile follow their own sense of private pleasure. 

Therefore, the Three Kings preparation is not merely sprayed out to benefit myself. Nor is it merely offered for this farm organism. It is for the future—as if we were anointing the farm as a gesture of prayer for the next incarnation of the farm organism, the coming resurrection of the farm. It is a hard awareness to stomach, but every farm we work will one day not be a farm. This event may arrive sooner or later, but change is inevitable. However, the organizing principle of a living farm organism, like an individuality, may one day find a new and more developed form. 

Every farm has an expiration date. When a farm is abandoned, the re-wilding period is like the period of death when we are buried in the ground. But new life always arises from such rest, just as we always wake in the morning after we go to sleep. The farm serves an essential role during its birth, a second during its life, and a third during its death.⁷

In biodynamics, when we strive to produce fertility from within the farm, we are sowing seeds for the future, a gesture towards the kind of world in which we wish to live—a world where farms are able to provide for themselves and for the world, where scarcity wars are unnecessary, and where peace may reign supreme. In practical life, this is messier, but it is the motive that matters most. We can never be perfectly self-sufficient—the farm will always depend on the sun and the cosmos, as it should be. But we can strive towards relative independence as living farm organisms. If the human being were totally self-sufficient, our essence would be that of a rock. In the human soul, this would be a process of depersonalization, which is not something we aspire to in biodynamics.⁸

It is not merely the annual rebirth of the sun we welcome with the Three Kings preparation, though it does not exclude that. We are preparing for the new life of this year—yes, too—but also for the eventual death of our own bodies and that of the farm. The gifts of the Three Kings are those used in embalming. In India, they also are used in votives offered at the time of special births.⁹

We should remember, as Alan Chadwick reminds us, that the sun has a sun. The sun has an orbit and a source of its own existence, and the center of its orbit also has a source and an orbit of its own. Though a difficult way of phrasing it, one could say that the “Sun’s Sun’s Sun”¹⁰ is the Christ. As Meister Eckhart suggests, what good does it do me if the Christ is born in history if the Christ is not born in my own soul?

1. Christus verus Luciferus. Christ is the true light bringer.

2. “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14:26, 

3. “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Psalm 121:1 KJV

4. “One of the Three Kings — Caspar — is portrayed as a Moor, an inhabitant of Africa; one as a white man, a European — Melchior; and one — Balthasar — as an Asiatic; the colour of his skin is that of an inhabitant of India. They bring Myrrh, Gold and Frankincense as offerings to the Child Jesus in Bethlehem.” - R. Steiner, The Festivals and Their Meaning I: Christmas (30 December 1904, Berlin)

5. Perhaps the arrangement had not planned in this light, but when I first visited JPI’s farm, I noticed that a circle of skulls had been arranged on the western side of the barn, which is admirably relevant. 

6. Upanisad roughly means “sitting down near.”

7. Ex Deo nascimur. In Christo morimur. Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

8. Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot

9. Yogananda speaks of traditional gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh in The Second Coming

10. Alan Chadwick, Fellowship Consecration Festival 02 Sep 1978 - Carmel-in-the-Valley, VA