The Farmer's Almanac of the Spirit

Steiner's Calendar of the Soul

During the Fall prepmaking workshop at JPI, Stewart and Ben led us into some deep areas of natural science and alchemy as we tried to picture the earthly and cosmic forces at work in the earth, in the cowhorns, in the preparation herbs and in the sheaths. In addition, we celebrated the season in its present hour by considering the locations of the heavenly bodies--the Sun, Moon and Planets--in relation to the zodiac, that belt of starry constellations through which all the heavenly bodies circle in their own time. Fortunately, we had Rudolf Steiner's The Calendar of the Soul as a guide to our further understanding of the connections between the cosmos and the human soul.

On Saturday we considered the following verse:

26. Michaelmas

Nature, your maternal life
I bear within the essence of my will.
And my will's fiery energy
Shall steel my spirit striving,
That sense of self springs forth from it
To hold me in myself.

This verse, simple as it may seem, carries within it the history of our relationship to the year, and our current position in it, from the soul's point of view. It reveals a mood of accomplishment and a prophetic energy toward the coming Winter. Without diving too deeply into it, let us pass on to the following verse, which we read on Sunday (the day the new weekly verse begins--note that the dates are approximate, not fixed):

27. Twenty-seventh Week [October 6-12]

Autumn

When to my being's depths I penetrate,
There stirs expectant longing
That self-observing, I may find myself
As gift of summer sun, a seed
That warming lives in autumn mood
As germinating force of soul.

As farmers and gardeners--as growers of plants and herders of animals--we are well positioned to understand the relation of the material world to the world of soul and spirit, for we have the natural world in plain sight all day every day, and can see spiritual processes working in and through our companions, the plants and animals. We feel deeply in our souls what "gift of summer sun" means, because we witness that gift. We encounter seeds that, warming, live in autumn mood in our winter squash fields as they ripen and sweeten in the last heat of sun, so close to frost. Observing the world in our fields, we ask, "Do we, too, participate in the cosmic forces we see unfolding before us? How can we draw closer to the Spirit?"

One approach to this question is to initiate a simple study of the cosmos, the life outside our skin as displayed in the skies. For example, we at Against the Grain Farm find that by keeping our attention on the cosmos as described in the biodynamic calendars on a daily basis, and at the same time referring to the seasonal moods in our soul as suggested by The Calendar of the Soul, we can begin to integrate ourselves into the world of Spirit through the cycle of the seasons. So, for example, when we know that we are in the Virgin Sun, as we are through the end of October, we can observe what a Virgin Sun means to our fields of crops and animal herds and flocks. At the same time, we can look to The Calendar of the Soul to see what Rudolf Steiner reveals to us of his researches into the relationship of soul mood to cosmic aspects.

So in the Virgin Sun, we realize that the elementals which emerged from the soil in spring and then expanded explosively into the summer heights are now returning to a virgin earth at the very time the seeds begin to fall, a virgin earth into which the seed can be welcomed in an environment made perfect and whole by that outward seasonal movement. Correspondingly, when we read The Calendar of the Soul, we find that same virginal mood of soul in the perfect reintegration of our beings which has expanded into the heights along with the elemental beings on our farm, and returned to our Mother earth.

In order to help us keep track of the cosmos, we made a gadget suggested by Dennis Klocek: a felt board on which we track the movement of the heavenly bodies through the zodiac. We refer to one of the biodynamic calendars (Stella Natura or Maria Thun's Calendar). It looks like this (the date depicted on the board is random):

Now, more than a week after the JPI prepmaking festival, The Calendar of the Soul reads as follows:

28. Twenty-eighth Week [October 13-19]

I can, in newly quickened inner life,
Sense wide horizons in myself.
The force and radiance of my thought--
Coming from soul's sun power--
Can solve the mysteries of life,
And grant fulfillment now to wishes
Whose wings have long been lamed by hope.

As a grower, can you feel within yourself the processes you witness in your crops and herds? Can you feel that the "wide horizons" once spread across the June, July, August, and September skies have entered you by the sun's power just as they have entered your farm or garden, your plants and animals? Are your muscles firm in response to that summer work, ready to rest, to be strengthened again in the spring? And has your soul and spirit been strengthened? By feeling in your soul the forces and processes revealed to you in your farm or garden, you have made a close approach to Spirit. May the winter bless you with an even closer union!