The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] At a time when the great festivals of the year touch our souls, it is good to draw upon our understanding of the spiritual connections within the world to continually bring the meaning of the festival year into focus, and today I would like to do so by explaining to you how the entire constitution of the Earth can help us understand what, under the influence of spiritual insights, has come to be established over the course of long ages as the festive year. When we speak of the Earth and its realities in such a context, we must simply be clear that we must not view the Earth as a mere collection of minerals and rocks—as it is regarded by mineralogical and geological science—but rather we must regard the Earth as a living, animated organism that, through its inner forces, brings forth the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, the physical-human. Thus, when we speak of the Earth from a certain point of view—as we will do today—we wish to include the totality of all living things, all animated physical beings found on Earth, within the essence of the Earth; and then what I am about to explain applies.

[ 2 ] As you know, the Earth—with all the beings that belong to it—just look at the Earth’s vegetation—completely changes its appearance over the course of a year, transforming everything with which it, so to speak, projects its physiognomy out into outer space. After each year, the Earth has once again reached roughly the same point at which it stood in terms of its appearance a year earlier. You need only consider how, in terms of weather conditions, the emergence of plants, the appearance of animal beings—in terms of all these things—the Earth, at the end of March 1923, has once again reached roughly the same point in its development as it was at the end of March 1922.

[ 3 ] Today, let us consider this cycle of the Earth as a kind of great breathing that the Earth performs in relation to its cosmic environment. We can also view other processes taking place on and around the Earth as a kind of breathing. We can even speak of the Earth’s daily breathing. But today, let us focus on the annual cycle as a vast, powerful breathing process of the Earth—though it is not air that is inhaled and exhaled by the Earth, but rather the forces that act, for example, within the plant kingdom: the forces that drive plants up from the Earth in spring and, in turn, withdraw back into the Earth in fall, causing the green parts of the plants to wither and ultimately bringing plant growth to a halt. So, as I said, it is not the breathing of air that we are speaking of, but the breathing—the inhalation and exhalation—of forces, of which one can gain a partial understanding by observing plant growth over the course of a year. Today, let us bring this annual breathing process of the Earth to mind.

[ 4 ] Let us first consider the time when the Earth is at the so-called winter solstice, in the last third of December according to our current calendar. During this time, with regard to this breathing process, we must view the Earth in the same way we view a human being during lung respiration—when the person has inhaled, when the breath is within them and being processed, that is, when they are holding their breath. Thus, the Earth holds within itself those forces to which I am now referring as exhalation and inhalation. It holds these forces within itself until the end of December. And I can schematically illustrate what happens to the Earth at that time as follows. Let us imagine that this (see diagram on page 13, in red) represents the Earth. With regard to this breathing process, we can only ever consider a part of the Earth. We consider the part that we ourselves inhabit; on the opposite side of the Earth, the conditions are, after all, exactly the opposite. We must imagine the Earth’s breathing in such a way that at one point on Earth there is exhalation, and at the opposite point inhalation, but we need not take that into account today.

[ 5 ] Let us imagine the month of December. Let us imagine what I have marked here in yellow as the very breath held in our region. The earth has inhaled fully; it holds within itself the forces I have just spoken of. At this moment of the year, the earth is such that one can say it holds its soul within itself. It has drawn its soul completely into itself, for the forces I have spoken of are the soul of the earth. Thus, by the end of December, the earth holds its soul entirely within itself. It has absorbed it completely, just as a human being, having inhaled, holds the air entirely within. This is the time to which the birth of Jesus is rightly assigned, because at that time the Earth is, so to speak, in inner possession of its entire soul force. And by being born at this moment, Jesus is born out of an Earth force that carries within itself all that is soul-related on Earth. And during the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, the initiates—who, I might say, were still worthy of the ancient initiation—attributed a profound meaning to the fact that the birth of Jesus occurred at this moment of the Earth’s inhalation, of the Earth’s holding its breath. These initiates said something along the following lines. In ancient times, when our places of initiation were situated within the Chaldean and Egyptian cultures, whenever people spoke of the Being who represents the High Solar Being and sought to know what this High Solar Being had to say to earthly human beings, they formed a view of this language of the High Solar Being in the following way. One did not observe the sunlight directly in its spiritual nature; rather, one observed the sunlight as it was reflected back by the Moon. By turning one’s gaze upward toward the Moon, one saw—with the aid of the ancient clairvoyant gaze of the soul—the revelation of the Spirit of the Universe as the Moonlight flowed in. And in a more external way, the meaning of this revelation became apparent by observing the Moon’s constellation in relation to the fixed star constellations and in relation to the planets.

[ 6 ] Thus, in the Chaldean and, in particular, the Egyptian mysteries, the positions of the stars were observed at night, especially in relation to the rising moonlight. And just as a person uses the letters on a sheet of paper to make sense of what they want to read, so too did they observe how Aries and Taurus were positioned in relation to the flooding moonlight, how Venus, the Sun itself, and so on were positioned in relation to the flooding moonlight. And from the relationship of the constellations and stars to one another—particularly how they were oriented by the flooding moonlight—one could discern what the heavens had to say to the Earth. This was put into words. And the ancient initiates sought the meaning of what had been put into words. They sought what that Being—who was later called the Christ—had to say to earthly humanity. The ancient initiates looked to what the stars, in relation to the moon, could tell earthly life.

[ 7 ] But now, as the Mystery of Golgotha drew near, a great spiritual and soul-level metamorphosis, I might say, took place throughout the entire mystery tradition. Then the elders of these initiates said to their disciples: “A time is now coming when, from now on, the constellations may no longer be related to the flooding moonlight. In the future, the universe will speak differently to earthly human beings. The light of the sun must be observed directly. We must turn our spiritual, discerning gaze from the revelations of the moon to the revelations of the sun.”

[ 8 ] What was first taught in the Mysteries at that time made a profound impression on those people who were still among the initiates of the earlier times during the epoch of the Mystery of Golgotha. And it was from this perspective that these initiates assessed the Mystery of Golgotha. But they said: Something must occur on Earth that can bring about this transition from the lunar to the solar. And so they arrived at the cosmic significance of the birth of Jesus. They regarded the birth of Jesus as something that, from the Earth, provided the impulse to henceforth no longer make the Moon the universal ruler of celestial phenomena, but rather the Sun itself. But the event that intervenes must be of a special nature—so they told themselves. And this special nature became clear to them through the following. They began to understand the inner meaning of this earthly event in the last third of December. They began to understand the meaning of the earthly event at the time we now call the Christmas season. They said to themselves: Everything must be related to the Sun. But the sun can exert power over the Earth only when the Earth has exhaled its forces. During the Christmas season, the Earth has inhaled them and holds its breath within itself. If Jesus is born then, he is born at a time when the Earth, so to speak, does not speak to the heavens, when the Earth, in its very being, is entirely withdrawn into itself. Thus Jesus is born at a time when the Earth rolls lonely through cosmic space, without sending forth its breath, so that this breath might be permeated by the sun’s power, by the sun’s light. In a sense, the Earth has not offered its soul to the cosmos during this time; it has withdrawn its soul into itself, it has absorbed it within itself. Jesus is born on Earth at a time when the Earth stands alone with itself in relation to the cosmos. — Do you sense this—I would say—cosmic feeling that underlies such a calculation!

[ 9 ] Let’s now continue to follow the Earth’s course through the year. Let’s follow the Earth up to the time we are currently in. Let us follow the Earth roughly up to the time of the spring equinox, toward the end of March. There we must sketch the situation schematically as follows: The Earth (see diagram on page 17, red) has just exhaled; the soul is still half within the Earth, but the Earth has exhaled the soul, and the Earth’s surging soul forces pour out into the cosmos. If the power of the Christ impulse has been intimately connected with the Earth—with the Earth’s soul—since December, then we now see how this Christ impulse begins to radiate around the Earth along with the outflowing soul forces (arrows). But what is now flowing out into the spiritual cosmic space as the Christ-pervaded soul of the Earth must now be met by the power of sunlight itself. And the image arises: Now Christ, who in December withdrew with the Earth’s soul into the Earth’s interior to be isolated from cosmic influences, begins to breathe out his forces with the Earth’s own exhalation, extending them to receive the solar essence that shines toward him. And we obtain an accurate schematic diagram when we now depict the solar essence—as that which unites with the Christ force radiating from the Earth—in this way (yellow):

[ 10 ] Christ begins to interact with the solar principle during the Easter season. The Easter season therefore coincides with the Earth’s exhalation. But what happens there must not be related to the receding moonlight, but rather to the solar principle.

[ 11 ] This is the origin of the tradition of setting the Easter season on the first Sunday after the spring full moon—the full moon that follows the spring solstice. And, sensing this, a person should say of the Easter season: If I have united myself with the power of Christ, then my soul, too, will flow out with the exhaling power of the Earth’s soul into the cosmic expanses and receive the solar power that Christ now channels from the Earth to human souls, just as he channeled it to these human souls from the cosmos before the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 12 ] But this also brings about something else. In those times when the most important events on Earth were tied to the flooding moonlight, festivals were set purely according to what could be observed in the heavens: the moon’s position relative to the stars. People deciphered the meaning that the Logos had inscribed into space in order to set the dates for festivals. If you look at how Easter is determined today, you will see that the spatial determination extends to a certain point—the point at which one can say: It is the full moon after the beginning of spring. — Up to this point, everything is spatial. But now one steps out of space: the Sunday after the spring full moon—a Sunday that is not determined spatially, but rather within the cycle of the annual calendar, just as the days of the week always follow one another in a cycle: Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and so on, always in a cycle. Now one steps out of space by moving from the spatial determination of the lunar constellation to the purely temporal progression within the annual cycle of Sundays.

[ 13 ] This was the further insight gained in the ancient mysteries: that the ancient observations were thus related to cosmic space, and that with the Mystery of Golgotha, humanity stepped out of cosmic space and into time, which itself was no longer related to cosmic space. In a sense, what was related to the spirit was torn away from the purely spatial. It was a tremendous leap by humanity toward the spirit.

[ 14 ] And as we move through the course of the year—I would say, through the Earth’s breathing—we find that in June the Earth is in its third state. At the point we are now observing, the Earth has exhaled completely. The entire soul-life of the Earth has poured out into cosmic space; the entire soul-life of the Earth has been surrendered to cosmic space. The soul-life of the Earth is imbued with the power of the Sun and the power of the stars. Christ, who is connected to this soul-life of the Earth, also unites His power with the power of the stars and the power of the Sun, which are flowing into the Earth’s soul-life that has been surrendered to the cosmic universe. It is St. John’s Day; it is the time of St. John. The Earth has exhaled completely. In its outer appearance, with which it gazes out toward the cosmos, the Earth does not reveal its own power, as it did within itself at the winter solstice; rather, the Earth reflects on its surface the radiant power of the stars, the Sun, and all that exists cosmically beyond itself.

[ 15 ] The ancient initiates felt the inner meaning and spirit of this era—our June era—particularly vividly, especially in the northern regions of Europe. They felt their own soul, united with the soul of the Earth during this time, surrendering to the cosmic expanses. They felt alive not within the earthly realm, but in the cosmic expanses. And above all, they said to themselves something like this: We live with our soul in the cosmic expanses. We live with the sun; we live with the stars. And when we turn our gaze back to the Earth, which has filled itself with sprouting, budding plants and has brought forth all manner of animals, then we see in the sprouting, budding plants, in the flowers unfolding their colors and shimmering with brilliance, in the insects moving back and forth, in the birds soaring through the air with their manifold, colorful plumage—we see, as if reflected back from the Earth, that which we take into our souls when we momentarily leave the Earth and connect with the Earth’s outflowing breath in order to live cosmically, not earthly. But what appears there in a thousandfold variety of colors—sprouting, sprouting forth, growing out from the earth into the cosmos—is of the same nature. It is simply the reflection, the radiating force, whereas we carry the direct force within our human souls. — This was the inner experience of those people who were inspired by the places of initiation, which understood the summer solstice festival in particular. Thus we see the Feast of St. John set within the great breath of the earthly realm in relation to the cosmos.

[ 16 ] If we follow this breath even further, we finally arrive at the stage that begins in late September. The exhaled forces begin to flow back in, and the Earth begins to inhale once more. The Earth soul, which had poured out into the cosmos, withdraws once more into the Earth’s interior. Human souls perceive this inhalation of the Earth soul in their subconscious or through their clairvoyant impressions as processes of their own soul. Those who were inspired by the initiatory knowledge of such things could then say to themselves at the end of September: “What the cosmos has given us, and what has been united with our own soul power through the Christ impulse—we now allow this to flow back into the earthly realm, into that earthly realm which throughout the entire summer has served only as a reflection, which has thus behaved like a mirror in relation to the cosmos, the extraterrestrial cosmos.”

[ 17 ] A mirror, however, does not allow anything in front of it to pass through. Because the Earth is a mirror of the cosmic in summer, it is, in a sense, also opaque at its core—impermeable to the cosmic, and therefore impermeable to the Christ impulse during the summer months. Thus the Christ impulse must, so to speak, live in the outbreath; the Earth proves itself to be impervious to the Christ impulse. The Ahrimanic forces take root in this Earth, which is impervious to the Christ impulse. And when the human being returns once more with the forces absorbed into his own soul through the exhalation of the Earth’s forces—including the Christ forces—he plunges into the Ahrimanized Earth. But it is the case that in the present phase of the Earth’s development, since the last third of the 19th century, the power of Michael comes to the aid of the submerging human soul from spiritual heights, combating the dragon Ahriman as the Earth’s exhalation flows back into the Earth itself.

[ 18 ] Those who, even in the ancient mysteries, had spiritually understood the course of the year had prophetically foreseen this. They knew that, in their time, this mystery had not yet come to pass: that the power of Michael comes to the aid of the human soul as it descends into the underworld. But they knew that, as souls are born again and again, this Michael power would come into play—this Michael power would come to the aid of human souls on Earth. It was in this sense that they viewed the cycle of the year. That is why, inscribed in the calendar from ancient wisdom, they find Michaelmas on September 29, a few days after the autumnal equinox. And Michaelmas is an extraordinarily important time, especially for the simple people in the countryside.

[ 19 ] But because of its place in the annual cycle, Michaelmas is also an important time of year for those who are able to understand the full meaning of our present earthly epoch. For if one wishes to enter into the present time with the right consciousness, one must understand how, in the last third of the 19th century, the Michaelic force took up the struggle against the dragon—the struggle against the Ahrimanic forces—in the manner that is appropriate for our time. One must, after all, align oneself with the meaning of Earth’s and humanity’s development by participating in this cosmic-spiritual struggle in the right way with one’s own consciousness.

[ 20 ] Until now, Michaelmas has been a peasant holiday. You know what meaning I attach to it: a holiday for ordinary people. It is destined, through an understanding of the full significance of the earthly-cosmic annual cycle, to increasingly become the complementary festival to Easter. For this is how humanity—which will in turn come to understand earthly life in a spiritual sense as well—will one day have to think.

[ 21 ] As the summer exhalation took place, the Earth became Ahrimanized. Woe if the birth of Jesus were to occur within this Ahrimanized Earth! Before the cycle is complete once more and December approaches—the month in which the Christ impulse is born into the spiritualized Earth—the Earth must be purified by spiritual forces of the dragon and the Ahrimanic forces. And the Michael force must unite with what flows in as the Earth’s breath from September through December, the purifying Michael force—which overcomes the evil Ahrimanic forces—must unite with it, so that the Christmas festival may approach in the proper way and the birth of the Christ impulse may take place in the proper way, which then continues to mature until the beginning of the outbreath, until Easter.

[ 22 ] Thus we see that we can say: During the Christmas season, the Earth has taken in its soul element; the Earth has taken in its soul element within the great breath of the year. The Christ impulse is born within the Earth, within the Earth’s soul element that the Earth has taken in. It flows out into the cosmos with the Earth’s exhalation as spring approaches. It encounters what is star-like and interacts with it, but in such a way that it no longer relates merely in space, but in time, so that the temporal is removed from the spatial.

[ 23 ] Easter falls on the first Sunday after the spring full moon. Through the full exhalation, the human being rises with his soul into the cosmic realm, becomes imbued with and permeated by the stellar, takes in the breath of the world along with the breath of the earth itself, and becomes permeated by the essence of Easter. And with that which they have begun to imbibe since the Easter season, they are most deeply immersed in it by the time of St. John’s Day; they must then return to the earth with the soul of the earth and at the same time with their own soul, but they depend on Michael standing by their side so that they may enter the earthly realm in the proper way after the forces of Michael have vanquished the Ahrimanic forces.

[ 24 ] More and more, the soul of the Earth, together with the inhaled breath force, withdraws into the earthly realm itself until the Christmas season arrives; and today, the one who says to himself: Michael has purified the Earth so that the birth of the Christ impulse can take place in the proper way during the Christmas season. — Then the outflow into the cosmic takes place once more. As this outflow occurs, Christ takes Michael with Him so that Michael can once again draw from the cosmic the forces he has expended in his struggle against the Earthly-Ahrimanic. With Easter, Michael also begins once more to immerse himself in the cosmos, becoming most deeply interwoven with the cosmos during the time of St. John. And a person who, in the true sense, grasps in the present what connects him as a human being to the earthly realm, says to himself: For us, the age is beginning in which we see the Christ impulse correctly, when we know it to be accompanied in the proper way by the power of Michael within the annual cycle, when we see, as it were, the Christ moving, flowing down into the earthly realm and up into the cosmic, accompanied in the appropriate manner by Michael, who is fighting within the Earth, and by Michael, who is conquering the power of struggle in the vastness of the worlds (see Lemniscate).

[ 25 ] Thus, the true meaning of Easter will be grasped in our time when people come to understand that, to that most magnificent image which is set within it, bringing enlightenment to earthly existence—to the image of Christ rising from the grave and conquering death—by adding today the essence of Michael, at the right hand of Christ Jesus, as the breath force of the Earth is interwoven with the Christ force during the annual cycle of the Earth’s breathing.

[ 26 ] If one understands how to bring the Christ-idea to life within oneself during each of the four major festival seasons of the year—including the Easter season—then one brings it to life today in the sense that it must come to life when, as an earthly human being, one is able to place oneself correctly in His presence with full understanding. The hope for the coming of the Michael force in the service of the Christ force inspired those who have correctly understood the Christ impulse right up to our own time.

[ 27 ] The obligation to imbue ourselves with the Christ impulse in the spirit of the Michael idea arises for us especially in the present day. We imbue ourselves in the right way when we know how to combine the thought of the Resurrection with the active Michael thought, as it has been introduced into human development in the manner I have often discussed.