The Foundation Stone Meditation as a Wellspring of Life

by Miriam Ward Cosentino

Speaking out of the spirit

And unfolding the spirit

In the way we speak Is more significant

Then merely talking about the spirit. Spirit presence in the spoken word Should become the stroke of lightning That fires our dead culture

To new life.

Rudolf Steiner, October 1922

Speaking the Foundation Stone Meditation for eurythmy surely belongs to the most honorable tasks in a speech artist’s life. While I am hardly aware of the many stepping stones leading to this highlight on my life’s journey, a few easily come to mind.

I was introduced to Sprachgestaltung (sometimes translated as the art of “creative speech”) during my first weeks as a student at the Hannover Waldorf School in Germany. Having recently arrived from Colorado at the age of 16, my command of the German language was still nascent. The speech artist I experienced during an assembly at the school seemed very serious and strangely poised. While I shared this impression with my classmates, who were restlessly suppressing their reactions to her strong and articulated voice that was carried by a sing-song kind of warble, I was experiencing something not related to sympathy or antipathy. I guess I was just amazed. This initial experience awakened and moved something in me to seek out the Marie Steiner School for Speech and Drama ten years later.

During the first year of my training in Switzerland, I traveled home to the United States for a visit and attended one of the “Re-think Conferences.” The Else Klink Ensemble of Eurythmeum Stuttgart was offering an evening performance with texts translated into English, but they had not brought anyone with them from Europe to speak! I eagerly volunteered and was allowed to read a fairytale out of one of Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas. It was my first time speaking for eurythmy, and after this experience, I knew that I did not want it to be my last.

Speaking has much to do with breathing, and there is nothing more enjoyable than breathing together with the art form of eurythmy. This breathing movement, while carrying a pulse of weaving rhythm, makes visible qualities that can be experienced as belonging to the living word as it transcends into silence. Through weeks of practice, the speaker and the eurythmist become united in a shared breath stream, to the extent that the speaker should not even look at the eurythmist. Rather, both should feel each other in a shared etheric stream.

Eventually, during my speech training, I was introduced to the Foundation Stone Meditation published in the book Truth Wrought Words by Rudolf Steiner. The guidance that I received was that these words needed to be spoken with a golden tone, while being carried by a cosmic, lyrical quality. With this, a seed had been planted. Its future would depend on how the soil would be tended; the soil, of course, being anthroposophy.

Another ten years passed, and I found myself back in the United States in the early ‘90s meeting my American speech colleagues. Speaking the Foundation Stone Meditation as a chorus supported a communitybuilding experience, as we prepared to bring it to various anthroposophical events. Changes were made to the English translation and published by the Anthroposophical Society in America. I experienced the Foundation Stone Meditation being performed in eurythmy for the first time in the United States by the Eurythmy Spring Valley Ensemble under the direction of Dorothea Mier. During the Holy Nights of 2023/24 a celebration was created for the 100th Anniversary of the re-founding of the Anthroposophical Society. The Foundation Stone Meditation was performed in four languages on the Goetheanum Stage. Each recipient at the conference was given a book in which the Foundation Stone mantra appears in 39 languages as they are sounding around the world.

The number of eurythmists working as a group to make this text visible is growing. This impulse was taken up by the Portland Eurythmy Group in response to being asked. I don’t think it has been any less than lifechanging for all of us who have been working with this sacred text. Rudolf Steiner’s gift to humanity, sculpted from the spiritual realities living in the word, can reveal itself to us only in as far as we are able to receive it. Receiving this gift is a process of a lifetime, fostering a relationship that can evoke profound gratitude.

The Foundation Stone Meditation given by Rudolf Steiner as the Foundation Stone of Love is what is being carried by the living being of Anthroposophia. The first three panels each close with the words: This is heard by the spirits of the elements in East, West, North, South. May human beings hear it. These words live on as hope, that what has been given to us out of the spiritual research of Rudolf Steiner can reflect in our hearts and shine forth carrying humankind into the future for free and active willing.

Miriam Cosentino Ward studied nursing at the first anthroposophical hospital in Germany to offer a nursing degree and then went on to study speech and drama in Switzerland. Returning to the United States she worked at Raphael Association in California for four years before moving to Camphill School in Pennsylvania, where she was part of the community for 20 years. Having obtained her BSN she worked as a school nurse in the public school system for over a decade. She is presently retired and lives outside of Portland, Oregon.