Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.
One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.
And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.
I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget—I kept saying—that we are all children of the King.
For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.
We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.
Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago—
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef—they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.
I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.
— Czesław Miłosz, “Late Ripeness”
Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night
To be cut down by the sharp axe of light,—
Out of the night, two cocks together crow,
Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow:
And bright before my eyes twin trumpeters stand,
Heralds of splendour, one at either hand,
Each facing each as in a coat of arms:
The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.
— Edward Thomas, “Cock-Crow”
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Music, when soft voices die”
These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies put on
The old, old sophistries of June, –
A blue and gold mistake.
Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,
Till ranks of seed their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!
Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,
Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!
— Emily Dickinson, “Indian Summer”
In my Autumn garden I was fain
To mourn among my scattered roses;
Alas for that last rosebud which uncloses
To Autumn’s languid sun and rain
When all the world is on the wane!
Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June,
Nor heard the nightingale in tune.
Broad-faced asters by my garden walk,
You are but coarse compared with roses:
More choice, more dear that rosebud which uncloses,
Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk,
That least and last which cold winds balk;
A rose it is though least and last of all,
A rose to me though at the fall.
— Christina Rossetti, “October Garden”
Frail the white rose and frail are
Her hands that gave,
Whose soul is sere and paler
Than time's wan wave.
Rose-frail and fair—yet frailest
A wonder wild
In gentle eyes thou veilest,
My blue-veined child.
—James Joyce, “A Flower Given to My Daughter”
***
Wishing good cheer and steadfastness to all the fathers and sons and daughters of fathers. In thankfulness, John-Scott
Like the stamen inside a flower
The steeple stands in lovely blue
And the day unfolds around its needle;
The flock of swallows that circles the steeple
Flies there each day through the same blue air
That carries their cries from me to you;
We know how high the sun is now
As long as the roof of the steeple glows,
The roof that’s covered with sheets of tin;
Up there in the wind, where the wind is not
Turning the vane of the weathercock,
The weathercock silently crows in the wind.
—Friedrich Hölderlin, from “In Lovely Blue” (trans. George Kalogeris)
***
Tied as it is to the moveable feast of Easter, Whitsun (or Pentecost) is thus also a moveable feast, though, it seems, one that is increasingly less prominent in the collective consciousness of Christendom (a "place" that is also, it seems, increasingly less conscious of itself).
Whitsun, of course, is a festival of the Spirit, and of community, of communal (spiritual) understanding that even transcends language.
In considering the life's work of Rudolf Steiner, it's not hard to understand why some have remarked on its overall Whitsun-like or Pentecostal nature. This is something, perhaps, to reflect on from time to time.
It can also be interesting to read, with this in mind (or not), the lecture courses given by Rudolf Steiner right at Whitsun, such as, for instance, the Study in the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas given in May 1920, The Redemption of Thinking (CW 72), as well as the Spiritual Foundations for the Renewal of Agriculture (CW 327) lectures given exactly 100 years ago (June 7-20, 1924), which were the original inspiration of what became the worldwide organic movement, and, more consciously, the biodynamic movement.
And speaking of Whitsun (which was three weeks ago, on May 19), the short earthly biography of Kaspar Hauser is also linked with the Whitsun festival, appearing as he did, seemingly out of nowhere, on the Monday after Whitsun, in Nuremberg, in 1828. (That was on May 20, 1828, meaning Whitsun fell on May 19 that year as well.) Five years later, on the Monday before Whitsun, he was confirmed at The Chapel of the Knights of the Swan in Ansbach.
We're pleased to announce this week the publication in English of Peter Selg's monograph study, The Confirmation of Kaspar Hauser, where you can read more about the significance of that event, and other things besides.
With warm greetings from all of us at SteinerBooks,
—John-Scott
© SteinerBooks 2024
