The Rudolf Steiner Archive

27. Easter Hope, Easter Expectation, Easter Ideal

Ladies and gentlemen!

[ 1 ] In our time, we see in the outside world the festivals and celebrations to which we have been accustomed since time immemorial; we see, so to speak, old memories living on in these festivals and celebrations, and when we then ask: What do hearts feel today when they observe the festivals of the year? When we ask, in particular: What warmth of heart permeates the souls when the annual festivals are celebrated today?—then we will generally find that hearts have grown quite cold toward the customs, traditions, and habits associated with such festive days, and we will find, in particular, that a true and genuine understanding of such ancient customs has largely vanished in our time. When Spiritual Science once again finds its way into the souls and hearts of people, then the latter will once again be able to participate fully in what we call the annual festivals.

[ 2 ] Indeed, my esteemed audience, these are celebrations of remembrance; but they are also powerful and uplifting celebrations for the human heart and the human soul—above all, they are celebrations of hope, celebrations of anticipation, and celebrations of the ideal. And whoever truly understands what lies behind the Easter celebration, for example, can experience it as a celebration of anticipation, a celebration of hope, a celebration of ideals.

[ 3 ] First, one must know how to interpret the outward signs through which, so to speak, our understanding of humanity seeks to guide us in what Easter can mean for us. How did humanity celebrate Easter? Even in our time, how many still celebrate Easter without fully understanding the meaning behind this “how”? People celebrate Easter by waiting—waiting for the time when the blanket of snow, the earth’s winter garment, gradually melts away; we await the time when the plant seeds slumbered in the earth; for months on end, we hope for the time when the renewed, warming rays of the sun stir these seeds from the earth, and when our earth, instead of being covered with winter’s snow, is once again cloaked in the green of spring. Then our hearts and souls grow warm; then we feel nature sprouting and budding; then we carry hope and anticipation for the coming summer in our souls. For the first signs of plant seeds sprouting from the earth tell us that we will be surrounded by this earth, adorned with blossoms and the bounty of autumn, throughout the coming months. And it is the time of the spring equinox [...], it is March 21, which our soul thus awaits as the day that draws forth from our earth the sprouting, budding shoots that promise us so much for the summer and fall seasons. But even as we look up with gratitude toward the warming and illuminating sun, which draws the sleeping seeds from the earth, we do not yet celebrate our Easter with this spring solstice—if we understand Easter. From this spring solstice, from the day of March 21, we wait until the full moon shines brightly in the sky once more. When the full moon shines brightly in the sky and we look up at it, we can feel the light of the sun looking down upon us in a different form. The full moon sends us the light of the sun back from the night; it sends it back to us just as we, my dear friends, see it today when we look at the sprouting plants. The full moon sends us the sun’s light in such a way that, even as it is dimmed, we can see it directly as sunlight—and yet also see it shining through the night. And then, looking up at the spring full moon after March 21, we say to ourselves: We must direct our gaze away from the earth, out into the expanse of the heavens, toward another manifestation of the sun. And no matter how much we may admire the effects of the sun—the visible effects of the sun that promise us, with the spring solstice, a year ahead—we, as human beings, must be able to look up beyond what is taking place on our Earth; we must be able to behold a rising hope in higher realms through the sunlight. And as we look up at the full moon illuminating the spring night, we sense a little in our souls what we might express in these words: Oh, how beautiful is what is sprouting from the earth’s sleeping seed! How beautiful will be the blossoms and fruits that adorn the earth throughout the year! But the time will come in the year when what the spring sun gave us on the day of the solstice will wither away. Autumn will replace spring, and winter will replace summer.

[ 4 ] But we humans—we look up from this image of beauty, though it is a fleeting beauty, which presents itself to our eyes in its transience for such a brief time; we look up from this parable of transience toward higher worlds; we carry within us the hope that the sun has something else to reveal to us besides what we can perceive in the image of the year’s transience; we look away from the Earth toward the Son of the Earth, who once separated himself from the Earth, who once belonged to the substance of the Earth, who separated himself from it, and who now orbits it. We look up to him and, in the full moon after the spring equinox, seek the Son of the Earth, who reflects the light of the sun back to us so that, beyond the image of the Earth’s transience, we may form a picture of what the light of the sun can symbolize—the eternal, a hope that cannot be supplanted by an autumn so close at hand. And when we have thus looked up with full understanding at the parable that gazes back at us from outer space—at the full moon after the spring solstice— then, then we will keep this contrast between the eternal and the transitory in our hearts and wait until the next day that the human spirit has consecrated to the sunlight, and on the first Sunday after the spring full moon we will celebrate Easter Sunday and vow in our hearts that we have understood: O, even if we see only a reflection of the sunlight in the spirit today, even if we can see only a glimmer of the spirit of the world today, we will never let hope die in our hearts that something can emerge from within us, that something can be awakened within us that is eternal in the face of all transience. So let us gaze out from the earth into the heavens to gain an understanding of Easter Sunday.

[ 5 ] It is meaningful and profound that Easter has been established to fall on the first Sunday after the full moon following March 21, the day of the spring equinox. And as long as humanity retains even a spark of understanding for what this Sunday is meant to awaken in our hearts, it will hardly allow itself to be deprived of this designation of Easter Sunday, which is drawn from the mysteries of the universe and which, if we understand it, can always carry us—with our hope, our expectation, and our ideal—from the temporal to the eternal.

[ 6 ] And then, once we have made this feeling our own—drawing it from the macrocosm, from the greater world, through its symbols—we can look back at human beings themselves; we observe these human beings as their lives unfold, day by day, repeating themselves day after day, so that, within this repetition, human beings do indeed progress, undergoing a development from the lower to the higher. When a person now looks at this development of his own, when he turns his gaze away, so to speak, and looks at himself with that feeling he has drawn from the universe, then he can say to himself—understanding his existence spiritually—he can say: It repeats itself in my life day after day, just as it repeats itself out there in the world year after year; every new morning brings me a renewal of strength for my daily work, so that I can work from morning until evening; every evening brings me a kind of autumn. The weariness of each evening compels me to return with my soul to regions of the universe, to process in sleep the forces I have absorbed during the waking hours, during the day’s work, so that I may awaken them again in the morning from the indefinite darkness of my soul. And our soul can say to itself: I experience, as it were, an image of spring, summer, fall, and winter within me every day. Just as the seed sleeps in the earth during winter, just as it is greeted by the spring sun to awaken, just as it unfolds into blossom and fruit in summer (and in fall) and falls asleep again during winter to awaken to new life—so, in essence, it is with our soul from day to day, and we live with true understanding only when we form a mental image of this life of our soul from day to day, so to speak, as an image, as a parable of the plant’s annual cycle. During our “daytime summer,” we assimilate those forces that are meant to carry us forward in the development of the world. We lay these evening forces into our slumbering consciousness. Just as the sleeping seed rests in the earth throughout the winter, so our thoughts, our feelings, and our impulses of will slumber in the depths of our soul during sleep. And just as the seed is awakened to new life in spring by the sun that greets it, so every new morning, every “springtime” of our soul, is awakened by the sun to new creation, to new work. And day after day, our life repeats itself.

[ 7 ] But we know that this life has its limits; we know that this repetition belongs to the realm of transience; and we also know—if we have allowed Spiritual Science to take root within us—that we may only look up from the transience of the day toward an Eternal that awakens within us in the morning, that works during the day and slumbers at night; we may only then look upward in our development toward such an Eternal One when we seek this Eternal One behind the transitory impressions, behind the transitory tasks of the day. As human beings, we look up from all that the day can bring us—the joys the day can bring, the pains the day can bring, the insights the day can bring, the errors the day can bring—from all of this we look up to something that, in essence, for many, many souls throughout long, long periods of development, is like a cast-out son of the soul’s life. Yes, my esteemed audience, like a prodigal son of the soul’s life! For there are long, long periods of development for the human soul, during which it lives on, enjoying the joys and sorrows of the day, taking in whatever the day brings. Content with what the day brings, this soul lives with the belief that it can acquire only insights and knowledge drawn from that very day. Even today, for many, many souls—even in the present—the present moment is still merely the occasion to look toward what arises with the morning and what passes with the evening. A brief glimpse into human life can teach us that when we look at the world in this way, we still see only a picture of transience before us—just as we would see a picture of transience if we could only rejoice at the time of the spring equinox on March 21. We ourselves can direct our souls toward the greatest joys, the greatest experiences, and the highest enthusiasms, which will come to us from what arises within our souls as the day unfolds.

[ 8 ] And when we look at the greatest of human beings—at what their powers of development might have become in the course of a single day—it gives us only a picture of transience. Certainly, we humans can have hopes, expectations, and ideals when we look up to what, so to speak, people who have ascended to a higher level of existence have achieved. Let us look at what such people have created for the development of the spiritual realm! Let us look, for example, at what—let us say—a Raphael, a Michelangelo, a Leonardo da Vinci, or other great figures of humanity have created with the means of transience! Then we will be able to say to ourselves: Countless souls have been enchanted and will continue to be enchanted by what these people have created with the forces they drew from the realm of the transitory. Oh, how many people delight in the paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci! They look with gratitude upon what these great figures of humanity have given them! But the moment will come when our soul will say to itself: These great figures have given us so much; but a time will come—surely a time will come—when everything that Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci—all that has been conjured into the realm of transience; all that delights and uplifts human souls from the walls of the galleries—all of that will have crumbled to dust, and nothing will any longer delight us from the walls, from the works of these figures.

[ 9 ] Then, when we look with a certain wistfulness upon the transience even of those works that are so often called “immortal” in everyday life, when we look with wistfulness upon the transience of existence in this realm, then we surely feel compelled to look toward something else, then we feel compelled to look at the soul that was embodied in Raphael, at the soul that was embodied in Michelangelo, at the soul that was embodied in Leonardo da Vinci, and at the souls that were embodied in the other personalities, right down to the smallest human personality. And we then say to ourselves: What these souls have conjured into the realm of the individual—it will most certainly pass away, most certainly be reduced to dust one day—but what these individuals have created is not limited to what they have given to the earthly realm. What Raphael, what Leonardo da Vinci, and what Michelangelo conjured onto the canvas—that, too, sent a ray back into the very souls of these people—and the souls of these people were greater after they had created these works than they had been before. The souls of these people attained a higher state of being afterward. And when we look at what Raphael’s soul sent forth onto the canvas—even as it delights us so deeply—we are looking, in a sense, toward Raphael’s own soul, toward what was poured into that soul from the realm of transience. And when we then look with understanding at what has poured from his paintings into Raphael himself, we can feel the expectation sprouting in our own souls that what has entered this soul will not only endure but will shine forth as something eternal in contrast to what he was able to conjure onto the canvas. On the canvas is the transitory; in Raphael’s soul is the eternal, which endures beyond the transitory.

[ 10 ] Thus we rise above all that can be attained in human life during the spring of the day, the summer of the day, the autumn of the day, in the morning, at noon, in the evening—and from all that slumbers like a plant in the winter of the day, at night, in the state of sleep—we rise to that which awakens within us a sense, a hope, and an expectation that from every day something awakens within our very soul that leads us beyond all that is temporal, beyond all that is transitory. When we feel this, my esteemed audience, in our souls, then we have accomplished something in relation to humanity that is akin to the sight of the first luminous full moon shining through the spring night from the spring solstice. First we have looked upon that which human beings place before us in temporality, in transience; but then the transience of this creation in time has dawned upon us; but then we turn our gaze to the infinite soul itself, to that which has hitherto eluded us, just as the moon eludes us before it sends us the sunlight of its own accord: then we turn our gaze to that within the human being which sends us something eternal, just as the radiant full moon sends us the light of the sun through the spring night. And a reflection of the Eternal, of the spiritual sunlight, appears to us from the human soul.

[ 11 ] So when we look at what this soul preserves from the temporal realm, we see a reflection of the eternal, the spiritual—the spiritual sun itself. Out of the darkness of human existence, as if from a spring night, something shines toward us that we may compare to the image of the full moon after the spring equinox. When we take delight in the works of human beings in the realm of the transitory, then we can wait, wait, until our soul says: All that in which we take delight here belongs to the transitory. And when we wait like this, wait, but now interpreting the signs of the soul with understanding—with the same understanding with which we strove to interpret the signs of the heavens—then we say to ourselves every time we look up from what human beings can create in the realm of transience: Let us look upon something in the human being that appears to us as an outcast son of human life—an outcast son of human life, because human consciousness, as a rule, does not even turn its gaze toward him at first. As long as a person can only dwell in the joy of the transitory, or is carried away by the pain that the transitory causes him, he remains numbed and cannot look upon the reflection of the eternal arising from within the human soul itself. This is why it may happen that many people, who are wholly absorbed in what the day brings, deny this eternal aspect within the human soul—that they do not see how the light is reflected back by the outcast son of human life, by that which lies deeply hidden in the night of human life, which we can reach only if we find the means look toward that which, from within the human soul, reflects back to us the radiance of the eternal light. And then we are ready to behold this human soul itself, like the full moon of spring, and say: In this life, you are such that without light, you are like the moon without light; you are dependent, just as the moon is dependent on sunlight, on that which can bring you radiance, luminosity, and warming power from without. But when you receive this warming and this luminous power, then you may hope that a day will come for your soul that is different from all other days over which the sun rises and sets. A day must come for the soul when something awakens within you that tells you directly from your consciousness: There is something in every human soul that is of a higher, eternal nature!—A day must come when the sun rises in such a way that you know in your soul: You carry within you something eternal that outlasts all transience.

[ 12 ] And so, every year, we celebrate Easter—Easter as a reminder to our souls, as a festival of anticipation, as a festival of hope, as a festival of ideals. We celebrate it by impressing upon our souls on this day: Yes, it will come! Day after day passes for you, day after day, with the sun rising and setting over them, and in your undeveloped consciousness you see only the transitory and know nothing yet of the direct gaze toward the eternal; but a day will come that is different from all other days. In the fullness of the days that will follow, there will be an Easter Day for your soul! But that Easter Day for your soul will be the day when you no longer merely look forward in hope to the eternal, to the imperishable within yourself, but when, beholding this eternal, imperishable reality, you become aware of it within yourself. And so that we may never forget that this expectation of an Easter Day of the soul, this hope for an Easter Day of the soul, this ideal of the resurrected, eternal human being within the transitory and temporal human being—that this is to be our highest, our most beautiful, and our wisest in the world—so that we may never forget this, to this end, we should renew our remembrance of this hope, of this expectation, of this ideal every year, when we are prompted to look up from the image of the temporal to the image of the eternal, the enduring, when nature tells us: The temporal brings forth from its womb the slumbering seed; it is called forth to a temporal flowering and bearing of fruit; but when, in contrast to the joy of spring, melancholy takes hold of us, telling us: “Over all that springs forth from the earth, destruction and decay will spread”—when we then say: But in the parables of the earth, in the realities of the earth, does not rest that which humanity can strive for as the highest. The day that says: In our present time, not only that which we need for our lives is yet alive; we wait—after the spring solstice has poured into our souls an image of rapture in transience—we wait for the full moon night, we wait until, out of the darkness and gloom, the reflected radiance of sunlight appears to us—(the sun) that endures with its light in the face of all transience, that will rise above all years, that is enduring in the face of the transience of the years. And we then remember that we initially have no image of this—(of) what the sun can tell us about the eternal, about the enduring—no image in the outer world; yet we do gain an image of this eternal that pulses through and weaves through space, when we take into our soul the act of looking up from the earthly realm on the spring-summer solstice, when we take into our soul the act of looking out into the vastness of the cosmos, and wait until the day that the human spirit itself has consecrated to the sun, and on that day renew within ourselves the memory that within us must rest the hope, the expectation, and the ideal of the eternal. Then we understand—when we fill our souls with this full feeling, with this full sensation—then we understand such monumental words as those spoken, for example, by the great Zarathustra to those who were able to understand him.

[ 13 ] Zarathustra, Zoroaster, spoke to his congregation of a sun that does not appear in outer space, of which the sun in outer space is merely an image and a parable; he spoke of a sun that is to shine as a spiritual sun upon all human souls in a future that we await, that we hope for, that we envision as an ideal; and he pointed his faithful congregation toward this spiritual sun with these beautiful words: “I will speak! Now come and listen to me, you who yearn for this from afar, you who yearn for this from near! I will speak of what is the highest in the world; of what He has revealed to me, the great Ahura Mazdao—that is, the Spirit of the Sun—and of what alone can bring to humankind that day when the Eternal in their souls conquers all that is temporal.” - When we thus divert our feelings from nature to the spiritual, when we stir ourselves and say: Nature surrounds us; we look upon it, and we do not merely look upon it, we, as human beings, are called to coax from it its secrets, which it reveals to us when we look up from the temporal toward the eternal; we are called, by looking up toward the eternal, to awaken the eternal within ourselves: Then we have celebrated Easter in our hearts.

[ 14 ] Such things, my esteemed audience, will once again awaken to a certain understanding within the human soul when Spiritual Science sheds light on what ordinary science—the ordinary knowledge of humanity’s present age—has brought about in such abundance. Certainly, we look today upon a wealth of human knowledge, upon a wealth of human insight, upon the rich achievements that humanity has attained over time with regard to all that the day can bring; but when a person turns inward even just a little, in the face of all that external knowledge and understanding—all that reason and external culture have brought to humanity—he will say to himself: All of this is, after all, merely the stuff of transience; all of this is only something fleeting. But there lives—there lives within humanity itself—a prodigal son, a son who is particularly outcast even today; there lives within the human soul something of which many people today say: “Oh, here come a few dreamers, a few fantasists, telling us all sorts of secrets about the spiritual worlds; but those don’t even exist.” We want to live in what our magnificent, external, material culture has created over the centuries.

[ 15 ] There are probably others as well who are deeply devoted to this material culture and who cannot even perceive that there is such a thing as an eternal element slumbering within the human soul. There we see people who spend their days focusing solely on what the day has to offer them; there we may also see those who look with scorn and derision upon what, as a message from the eternal, is once again making its way into our time in the form of Spiritual Science or theosophy. But those who have absorbed even a little of the sense of the wisdom and truth contained in this Spiritual Science or theosophy will look upon all those who, with their external knowledge and external culture, either speak of the eternal without a clue or shower it with scorn and mockery. Those who have sensed the truth and wisdom of the new proclamation will also be able to perceive how something within this new proclamation has been placed into the darkness of our present-day, purely external, material culture.

[ 16 ] Oh, we can also celebrate a kind of spring in our time. We can look into our own time in such a way that, if we have even a little feeling for the spiritual, we say to ourselves: Out there is a magnificent material culture, a culture that is proud of itself and of which people are proud; out there is an external science that is proud of its achievements in terms of what it can perceive with physical organs and comprehend with the physical mind. But then, then we look into our own soul with our understanding of the spiritual and wait to see what this gaze, as we walk within the soul, reveals to us. This gaze, as we wander within the soul, reveals to us that which spreads forth from darkness and blackness; for we know that transience is the fate of everything that human beings attain through their external knowledge, through their external culture. We know this. And then, in contrast to this external culture, we look inward into something like a night; but then, perhaps, as we look into this night, we may also awaken within ourselves a sensation, a feeling for what Spiritual Science or theosophy is meant to be for us today in our spirit-poor present. How do we feel then? Then we find ourselves saying: Certainly, we look with full appreciation at all that the human spirit and the human soul have created for the day; we look upon the great works of external culture and the higher works of external science, and we can take delight in them, just as we can take delight in the awakening seed that leaves the earth to blossom and bear fruit. We are not indifferent to what external art and science offer us; we readily embrace all of this. We should not be alienated from the world; as Theosophists, we must not forget that for us, too, “World March 21” is the spring solstice, a day meant to bring joy to our souls in all that human beings have created in external life. We have an appreciation for all that external culture has to offer, for all that external science has to offer, just as we have an appreciation for the spring plants sprouting forth. But this understanding is like the one we feel on the spring solstice, when we simultaneously realize: transience is poured out over the spring plants. Thus, transience is poured out over all that constitutes external culture and science.

[ 17 ] But then we wait, wait until our soul yearns for and is drawn to that which emerges from the night—from that which, above all else, is perceived as night by those who have an understanding of the eternal and the imperishable—that which shines forth from this night: For there—from within this night—if we wait with true understanding, shines forth what we perceive as the reflection of a spiritual light. We can certainly have these feelings when we are fully aware of our human dignity. For what sensitive human soul would not have at least one day when it says to itself: Yes, I can rejoice in all that external culture and science have brought about; I can be satisfied in a certain way with what external culture and science offer. But then, when I look at the higher needs of my soul, then—despite this culture, despite the telegraph, despite the hopes for airships, and despite everything else that modern researchers can tell me—then, despite all of that, the outer world becomes dark and gloomy to me.

[ 18 ] I will wait. But I do not wait in vain; I do not need to wait and work in vain in the present: something is emerging into the present that is the proclamation of a spiritual world. And from this presence that steps into the here and now, from this message about a spiritual world, something shines out at me like the spiritual light itself. There I experience Spiritual Science as the light of the full moon—which is the reflection of the sun—shining through the spring night. There I cherish this impression in my soul. And when I preserve this impression in my soul, then what I call Spiritual Science is transformed for me into a feeling, a sensation, a hope, an expectation, an ideal. And then, from Spiritual Science—as it reveals itself as a reflection of spiritual life in the night of present consciousness—then from it will develop for me that which is to emerge from the human soul toward the spring full moon following the spring equinox; then the Easter Day of my life will arise from it; then from this Spiritual Science or theosophy itself will spring Easter hope, Easter anticipation, and an Easter ideal. Then I know: There is an outer world; transience has been poured out over it. There is still a proclamation that even today speaks to people as if through the darkness of night. But I am beginning to sense what this proclamation is. I am beginning to sense that it is the reflection of spiritual life, of the Spirit-Sun itself, which will one day spread over all that is human, shining and warming eternally.

[ 19 ] Thus, when properly understood, the Easter celebration reminds a person who has entered the realm of Spiritual Science of their own inner feelings. And it can be a renewal of the Easter celebration for us if, on this Easter Day of the year, we vow: We will place ourselves within the outer world in such a way that outer reality, with all its beauty, is for us a spring solstice day; that the spiritual proclamation is for us a reflection of spiritual life shining into the darkness of life; and that we kindle within our souls the hope, the expectation, and the ideal of this spiritual sun itself.

[ 20 ] But then too, my dear friends here present, if we perceive theosophy or Spiritual Science as something that can kindle the spirit of Easter within our souls, then we feel at one with all those who have drawn such Easter hopes from the finest aspects of their spiritual experience. Later, we will hear a few words from a German poet, from which resounds something like a call fueled by such Easter hope, such Easter anticipation, and such an Easter ideal for humanity. The greatest among us have always sensed that above the clouds of the outer world the sun rises and sets, but that the Earth, together with humanity, lives toward a spiritual life in which that which works its way up within our own souls—as something imperishable, as something eternal—from the darkness of the soul’s night toward the light of the spiritual day will be preserved. Then, when we feel this way, then we may also, my esteemed audience, see in Spiritual Science or theosophy (something) like an Easter spirit; an Easter spirit that, through the Spiritual Science, can bring to life for us what a great son of humanity spoke to this same humanity millennia ago in the Far East: Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, spoke of the light of the sun—the spiritual sun—which must come to human beings when they turn earnestly toward it.

[ 21 ] So today, too, we may say of what shines forth to us in Spiritual Science as if in a reflection: It will appear to humanity; the eternal nature of the human soul will dawn upon them. Indeed! Spiritual Science speaks to us just as the great Zarathustra once spoke to humanity in prophecy; Spiritual Science speaks to us thus: I will proclaim to you—you who have come from afar, you who have come from near—what is highest in the world, what He can reveal to us, the God of the world, the Spirit of the world, who appears as the Eternal One in true wisdom, and what human souls are to hear, feel, and will when they seek to unite the deepest part of their soul with the ever-advancing Eternal, and do not wish for the best part of their soul to unite solely with that which is consecrated to transience.

[ 22 ] Thus the spirit of Easter itself spreads as an atmosphere throughout the entire spiritual wisdom, throughout Spiritual Science. Easter is truly a festival of Spiritual Science; it is a celebration of that human soul which seeks to experience what Spiritual Science can offer us as the light of wisdom—and thus as a reflection of the Spirit itself—and what can become for us the ideal of a life in which the human being is conscious of standing in their eternal, imperishable self. From a perspective of Spiritual Science, we thus perceive Easter once again as a festival in which a person can infuse what has come down to them from ancient traditions and memories with their own sensations, feelings, and impulses of the will.

[ 23 ] And there is a possibility, my esteemed audience, that on Easter Sunday we may once again step out into the world and sense, through the passage of time, how the Easter festival has taken root. Indeed, there is an awakening of the human soul, just as there is an awakening of nature in spring. But such an awakening is, at first, overshadowed by transience. If we turn our gaze from the transitory to the reflection of the eternal, then the eternal itself shines into our lives; then we become partakers of a life that can embrace us in our deepest inner being, so that we walk with the awareness: In our development, we do not merely belong to the day over which the sun rises and sets; we belong in spirit to this very sun itself, which rises and sets and thereby reveals itself as the enduring, the imperishable, within the temporal. The Spring Festival, the Spring Solstice Festival—we experience it as a preparation for Easter, so that, in the true sense, we do not become alienated from the world (but rather?) feel connected to all that is sprouting and living in the realm of transience. We wait from the Spring Solstice to Easter, so that, in addition to the festival of temporal joy, we may have a festival that pours a spirit of eternity into our souls.