Celebrating the Year in the Day & The Silence Beyond the Silence, Selections by Martha Keltz

Celebrating the Year in the Day & The Silence Beyond the Silence, Selections

James Gillen Mark Haberstroh 1

Celebrating the Year in the Day & The Silence Beyond the Silence, Selections

Contents

The Michael Age

A Profound Vision ~ James Gillen

Celebrating the Year in the Day By James Gillen ~

6 ~ 10

The Silence Beyond the Silence By Mark Haberstroh ~ Approaching Morning

Reverie

12 ~ 14

The Artist

15 ~ 16

A Brief Description of a Moment

17 ~ 18

Dark Matter

19 ~ 23

The Michael Age

Eradicate from the soul All fear and terror of what comes toward man Out of the future Acquire serenity In all feelings and sensations about the future Look forward With absolute equanimity to everything that may come Thinking only that whatever comes Is given to us by a world directive full of wisdom It is part of what we learn in this age Namely to live out of pure trust Without any security in existence Trust in that ever-present help from the spiritual world Truly, nothing else will do If our courage is not to fail us We seek this awakening within ourselves Every morning and every evening (Attributed to Rudolf Steiner; edited by M. Haberstroh) 4

A Profound Vision ~ James Gillen

I had a profound vision in 1991 in the early morning mists arising in a lay by the Druidic shaping of the landscape through choral singing that resolved into an Imagination that guided the elementals. In my vision I saw that the opening Chorus of St. Matthew Passion could resolve into such an elemental influencing Imagination in its silent seventh phrase – if and only if it was at A = 432. A = 432 penetrates to the realm of the Mother below and to the Father realm above. Breath and heart. Tempo is derived from finding the balance point in breath-pulse that creates this channel. Ahriman moves the pitch just off this channel and rushes the tempo to overwhelm the I that would otherwise grow Sun-like in the tuned musical field-flow. I think this was the true Orpheus experience and the only one that could be associated with a Bodhisattva-Buddha. From: The Writing of the Heart, Issuu PDF series, page 17

James Gillen, 1946 ~ 2013

Celebrating the Year in the Day James Gillen Imagine yourself in the experience of awaking – arising to greet the azure marvels of dawn and meet and embrace the day. The newborn day struggles to course through us with the freshness of spring, directed by the sun which has recalled us to being. This sun force orchestrates the ‘score’ that we have composed in our soul during the night. We find an intimate and sensitive accord between a recalling of self-conscious awareness in awaking and the general morning call to all of nature from the sun’s rising. The veil of sleep is lifted to reveal an evanescent wholeness – a momentary oneness between self and nature, between dawning and becoming – in the recollection of our selves. As we begin to recognize the choral harmony of self and nature in the joint process of dawning, we can lengthen the precious interval of awaking and devote our attention to delicate gestures of sowing that are stirred within. We can perceive that we are transplanting soul seeds gathered in the flower meadow fields of the night into the fertile, virginal ground of the morning, in which we momentarily participate, in intimate union. As the day unfolds, we feel more distance between our individuated selves and the progressively more objective qualities of events. Yet from time to time we may be able to recall 6

the balancing union of self and sun in the dawn, as we meet the impulses we transplanted from the night, as blossoms of the day. At deeper levels of self-observation, we may discover that when we draw the natural surround through our senses – we recapitulate the process of waking up. We subconsciously replay in rapid time the slow motion of our arising – each time we come to our senses. Our self-consciousness is an awaking. Our consciousness of nature is an awaking. They are both rooted in the process of awakening itself. Awakening and unfoldment are two polarities we can experience as the determining nature of the organism of time. We awaken in order to unfold. In unfolding we need ever and again to awaken, so that new unfolding can begin. The great drama of awaking and unfolding on the stage of the day is composed of cycles of little awaken-unfold plays. Looking at the structure of these cycles we can read the time organism of the day itself. The time of new beginnings – the spring equinox; the squaring with the challenges of the day at high noon – the summer solstice; the harvest of our creative involvement with the day in sunset – the autumn equinox; the approach and entry into the holy mysteries of night – the winter solstice. We enter the newborn spring of day from the womb of the night, like the plant whose archetype must enliven the seed. During the 7

summer of day, when we take our tasks in hand and reveal and reflect the intelligence in our initiatives, the heritage of the night then blossoms. At the autumn of the day, we release ourselves to the dance of events and receive our self as the fruit and wage of our work. In the winter of the day, we enter the realm of Cinderella, where we have the evil sisters of our thinking, feeling, and willing. These must be overcome if we are to take our fairy carriage to meet the bridegroom. Using our artistic imagination to recognize, sincerely appreciate and creatively grasp the organism of time co-revealed in the cycle of the year and the course of the day – we come closer to singing the song of our being, we begin to synchronize with the pulse and breath of the process of becoming – the Tao, in which we, and Nature, jointly participate. From observation of the greater and lesser rhythms of awaken – unfold, we turn our attention to the clock of the day that reveals in full miniature the cycle of seasons in the course of the year. We felt ourselves to be in tune with and attuned to these cycles. We saw ourselves as kin with the Tao. If we were, however, merely one with the flow of the clock, the cycle of the seasons in the day, we would continuously swim in an ocean of inevitability and remain creatures of process, bound to the necessity of chance for the illusion of free action. The human being must counterpose each season (stage) in process with its opposite, in order to strike a position of equilibrium – a space for creative involvement. If the world swings us into new 8

beginnings – into the sprouting, budding growth in the spring stage of process, we must counterpose with an autumnal mood of balance between full participation and inner reflection. If we are fully drawn out into relationships and activities that squelch our sense of self in the heights of midsummer, we must counterpose with cradling the spiritual birth of our higher self in the depths of midwinter – fireflies melding with the snowflakes. Seasonal polarization takes place on the earth only in space – when the season of one hemisphere is opposed by the counter season in the other hemisphere. Seasonal polarization in man takes place in time, when the external season (stage of process, clock of the cycle of the day) is opposed by its counter season. Only through this dynamic polarization can the field of action for our thinking, feeling and willing be effective for our breath of awaken and pulse of unfold. We can fathom this dynamic polarization in the world/soul relationship that builds a field for free action, by working with the antipodal verses in Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul. For any verse in the cycle of 52 verses, its antipode is formed by moving 26 weeks forward. In the spring of the day we can counter with the outer draw of the morning, as in Verse 3 of Eastertide: “The growing I forgetting self … speaks to all the world …” with an inner, autumnal mood of soul, as represented in the antipodal Verse 29 of Michaelmas: “To fire thinking’s radiance with inmost force

and draw the meaning of experience from the World’s Spirit’s well of forces …” In the midsummer of the day – when the pull of events dominates, as Verse 12 of St. John’s tells: “The glistening beauty of the world from depths of soul compels me to liberate my life’s god given forces into worldwide flight …”, we can move in deep and intimate stillness to permeate ourselves with the light that shone for Shepherds and Magi resounding in the antipodal Verse 38: “I feel the Spirit Child within me freed as if released from spell in womb of soul …” As the course of a year frames the natural period for life processes of Nature and our physical body, so the span of a day provides full compass for our I to find its equilibrium in the balance of the polarized field of outer/inner experience. Working with the antipodal verses in the Calendar strengthens our sensitive awareness of this ‘field.’ As we deepen our recognition of participation in the cycle of the year, we can transfer this process awareness to the course of each day and celebrate its rhythms as a Festival of Consciousness and Life. What was first bound to the seasons and globe, is now free to support the orientation and growth of the human I, each day.

Footnote: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA040/CoTS/GA040_index.html

The Silence Beyond the Silence Five Selections by Mark Haberstroh

Approaching Morning I saw a picture of myself as a young man, with long blond hair, red shirt, and jeans, having descended from the starry indigo firmament. Like a large bird, I landed with arms as wings spread wide in an illuminated field of many brightly blossoming flowers. Almost waist high, the flowers were a carpet of reds, yellows, purples, blues, and whites floating and rustling on their sea of green. While briskly walking through the field I breathed fully the cool and nourishing deep-night air, stopping at moments to pick flowers and all the while aware of the intense sparkling beauty streaming down from the stars above. It was as if, in gazing downward, both stars and flowers became visible at once, each reflected in the other. I felt alive and happy in this field between above and below. Flowers by starlight evoked unusual and unfamiliar feelings, large and expansive feelings about planets and the living space within and between them. I knew that I had soon to descend through the field, flowers in hand, and greet the new day. 11

Reverie

There ought to be a mathematical relation between every breath we take and an increased measure of gratefulness. Perhaps it can be quantified by B2 = 2G, where G, with few exceptions, is ever greater than B. However, having made the point, the point is thereby missed. No moral perception can or should be quantified, thank Goodness, although we often take the simplest things for granted and miss their moral lesson. From the other side those simple things are our miracles in the everyday. The linearity of logic clears a singular and straight path to the goal yet excludes Life through its passage. This is the sacrifice for freedom. The taproot draws directly the earth’s cool water, yet the root system increasingly differentiates and refines its branching into a smallness so delicate and minute as to approach the invisible. Here, Life flows through the root tips in waves that cannot be touched or measured on a dial. This, the secret place of incipient transformation, is where matter leaves matter behind and so loses itself, leaving an echo that allows the impress of spirit, of receptivity to the divine. The shadow of what was becomes filled with the New. Somewhere a distant trumpet sounds in the depths of worlds, not heard by outer ears but by the devoted heart, marshalling elementals in that first movement

of life in rivers of spirit flowing toward physical manifestation. Growth becomes musical experience. Of like nature are those ever-so-quiet whispers of thoughts into the mind, hardly heard … as if in a dream where the reticent unicorn flees from the periphery of vision. Having barely touched with silver hoof our dream’s soft edge, he leaves us with longing for pure and noble deeds. Those whispers are the shy voices of Angels who await our opening, who await our efforts to raise ourselves into a shared resonance, a crescendo of soul and spirit gliding into more light-filled spaces, born aloft by the breath of a gratefulness that builds wings bearing us to higher things. This might be Grace. It is a miracle that I can place one foot in front of the other while breathing in the cool night air, lovely Sylphs and all. Their interpenetration can be felt as a gentle shock, yet setting fear aside, the message becomes clear through mutually conscious assent, and in unison we chime, “We are one, yet know we are not. Thank you.” Striding forth in consciousness overcomes the Maya of separateness and aloneness, which is the beneficent darkness that must be endured to know who we are. This welcoming darkness is of the earth, our Mother, and the healing bosom of sleep. We work toward the light of the Father that irradiates and activates … and with the help of the Son we bind ourselves in freedom, bearing Witness as the three cast their healing shadows in the human soul and through the world, giving us the rose, the 13

honeybee, or hummingbird as well as Piety, Truth, and Virtue. And along this path of cognitive metamorphosis the soul’s heart becomes inwardly lit, and the dark is not so dark anymore.

The Artist

As Intuitive cognition can view the distant akashic past, so may it also glimpse the actual ramifications of our deeds on the various planes of existence, either following with or foreknowing. Faith becomes knowing becomes faith in an ascending cycle of inner growth that expands the ability to do more effectively, efficiently, and powerfully for the Good. We live in the Light that brings Color and Life. We retrieve Wisdom from this Light. And it is ours to direct this Life, the force of Being, according to what we discover and know to be True. Through our struggles, we weave the dark into the light. We become a living rainbow … color streaming from the fingertips, raying forth from the eyes and all points on the body, flowing over and out into the world, bringing Beauty. Through our deeds we form a center. Spiritual Beings swirl around and through us, softly bidding us to awake. From within these our “I” finds its place, and creates:

Long for the Good, Strive after the True, Create in Beauty.

How many times … have thoughts in the heart turned toward Christ, have we witnessed the rise of his bright Sun down through the ages, standing before its warmth in the morning, empowered in spirit, straight and strong in body, enlivened in the perceiving of his manifestation, visualizing all things made by him, rejoicing in gratefulness for his gift of grace, conscious existence in … this body, this life, this vision, this Word, this power, this beauty, this love?

A Brief Description of a Moment

The interior mind became increasingly clear until it could visually perceive a source from within, where the most intimate thought seemed to appear. The vision did not yield folds and lobes of grey matter, nor electrical pulses synaptically triggered and conveyed like shafts of lightning across a dark, stormy, planetary expanse. Nor could be perceived the specific kinds of thoughts gently disgorged by the light fountain, for that is what it was, a fountain issuing forth points of light or luminous seeds of thoughts which would then merge with the inner environment like a light rain sprinkling a still pond. That central source was at the same time two transparent cones, with one inverted and both placed point to point, the whole being an hourglass shape. And from that juncture the soft light emanated, slowly brightening the space with a clear golden-lavender glow that gradually revealed the back of the mind as a faraway firmament riddled with the twinkle of stars. Observed from slightly above a process transpired where a felt, but unseen substance began to fill the upper cone and change into visibly transparent crystals. All was in movement, glinting and scintillating, appearing, and disappearing, flowing in an ethereal pool, a slow swirl of semi-liquid crystal where sparkling light reflected off the edges of things. In this rapt state of inner 17

clarity awareness grew that this vision might picture the pineal activity centered in the head, and that the perceived flux came from an archetypal source that continually manifests new forms out of an unseen, unfathomed, far deeper and higher interior world; that there was present and sensed a hidden Something which is ever creative, ever renewing, immeasurably fertile, eternally issuing forth from a fount of spirit life, which is also an abyss … an abyss that is an ocean of spirit revealing the starry cosmos, the planets, the Earth’s Spirit, which is Christ, and the Earth’s golden center, where resides the Mother. From that central place, the All, those points of light seek entrance to the mind and heart, there to prompt the ensuing transformation that changes within to without. Light becomes thought as man gives it form and substance through long eons of time and, in so doing, embarks upon the long journey to change what is without to within … returning to the source, which is also the true Self, the high entelechy present from the beginning, ever embedded in the All, ever aligned with Christ. Man’s passage through matter, through the delights, sufferings, and attainments of many repeated earthly lives, leads him home to the spiritual world. This journey creates and presses into Creation a new Element. That new element is Love.

Dark Matter (A Whitsun Tale)

He lifted a large flat rock and found beneath a small, perfectly round black stone slightly smaller than a golf ball. It was of dull sheen and mostly buried in the dirt amongst leaves and twigs, other smaller rocks, and various centipedes and spiders. The stone was neither unduly heavy nor light, but possessed an outer surface perfect, smooth and, as he later discovered, impervious to damage. But at this point it seemed relatively ordinary apart from its spherical appearance. He dusted it off and noticed it cold to the touch, but very soon it became warm in his hand. The rapidity with which it drew warmth to itself was his first observation of the object’s qualities which soon outgrew the ordinary and began to reveal attributes most extraordinary, if not remarkable. In the ensuing days, weeks, months, and years, he often pondered on the stone’s origin. He concluded at the end of his life that it was made of darkness, simply darkness, and that it was given to him for many reasons, the most important of which was to help him find the light, the spiritual light that is. The dull black stone became for him a chameleon of sorts, not that it assumed different shapes and colors, but that it both absorbed and conveyed to him thoughts and feelings of people in whom he held an interest, assuming he also held the stone 19

firmly in hand while thinking about the person in question. For him to accurately read another’s inner life he required strict silence in his own. But the new ability acquired, he decided not to continue, as access to another’s thoughts and feelings seemed an intrusion, an inappropriate boundary crossing. Besides, he did not lack for work with respect to his own inner life as the stone revealed to him plenty he did not wish to see. While walking through the woods one day near a trickling brook with thick, exposed tree roots tumbling down over the bank into the streambed below, his dark stone began to imperceptibly vibrate and to emit an almost inaudible hum. He heard, as others would not, due to the already advanced progress of attunement between the stone’s matter and his own personal resonant vibration. Placing hand in pocket, he grasped the stone and heard at once a voice cold and sharp say, “Come, come away. Ancient roots descend into the nether world, where light is eternally fractured into dark. Follow and you will discover the secret wisdom of dark Will, which is power. Rule with him, the Master that cometh.” He responded with an alert, “No thank you,” and walked on briskly. Soon thereafter he emerged from the dense forest cover into a small moss-covered glade enclosed by trees and dotted with flowers yellow, blue, and white, all blossoming brightly in the shafts of the sun’s rays filtering through still and silent leaves above. Something bade him grasp the stone, and his mind filled 20

with thoughts of wonder, beauty, and gratefulness. Immediately he felt flames of colors issuing from the orb in his pocket and encircling his hand. In a moment, many multi-colored tongues of cool fire began climbing his arm, spreading rapidly over his torso and down his legs to the earth. In that same moment, his entire body became engulfed in a pillar of fire and color. He could still see and feel and think, quite conscious in the impending transformation, yet into what he did not know. He felt the coolness of those flames but also knew a painful burning, that part of his soul was burning away. The flames intensified until the tips of the tongues of fire began to scintillate as they dissolved upwards into the Sun’s rays. As the fire was sourced in the dark stone, the ensuing transmutation of darkness through color into light was dominated by levity, by that which was sunlike. He lived within the fire. He died within the flames. He awoke within the color. And then a voice as of light, both warm and welcoming, spoke with quiet emphasis. “Rise up. Rise up. It is Whitsun. He has done his deed. It is time you do yours. With Spirit Wisdom we will help you transform the matter of Earth into Sun. Rise up, Rise up. It is Whitsun!” The flaming pillar of fire slowly subsided, leaving him renewed where he stood in the small glade. He felt quiet, centered, and strong in his new purified skin. He realized that the stone’s power could be directed up or down, in or out, for good or for ill, as was his intent. Sensing his freedom in the use of this power, he then noticed that the tendency of the black stone, precisely because it was made of matter, was to inherently exert a 21

downward pull toward darkness and the chthonic powers that live therein. He had come to know his stone as a portal or mechanism through which he could transmute light into darkness or darkness into light and realized that it was composed of dark matter, the archetypal atom … the black hole through which matter again disperses into the universe to reappear elsewhere condensed in another form, another time. He felt it was also the darker part of his Self, meaning the primordial matter from which he was made and for which transmutation he was responsible. And he now knew that his spiritual and earthly Self housed the identical capacity for transmutation and transformation somehow magically enclosed within the holy stone. Upon finding that he carried the stone’s gift within his own heart, he then held the stone slightly aloft in his open palm as offering to the Sun and witnessed … as it vaporized into the air and light.

Celebrating the Year in the Day & The Silence Beyond the Silence, Selections

A Studio Editions Publication Paintings and Illustrations by Martha Keltz November 2021 https://www.studioeditions.com