Our Dead

GA 261 — 14 December 1915, Berlin

Eulogy for Anna Riebensahm

My dear friends!

Before we begin our reflections, I have to tell you that our dear friend, Miss Anna Riebensahm, passed through the gateway of death last night.

You almost all know Miss Riebensahm, who was such a lovable personality. You have participated in our intellectual endeavors here with her. And there were certainly many among you who sympathetically shared the dear, heartfelt spiritual striving of Miss Riebensahm, for we may say that in terms of the quiet, heartfelt interweaving with the spiritual world that we seek, Miss Riebensahm's soul was one of those who truly spiritual striving.

In this incarnation, Miss Riebensahm had to struggle with a physical body that not only put severe obstacles in the way of her outer life, but often also of her striving soul. With an inwardly brave soul of patience, this personality has made her way through the world. With a strong spirit, she found her way to the spiritual current that we are seeking, and with the warmest intimacy she was connected to the impulses that we are trying to grasp within our spiritual current, and which she grasped with us in her quiet but no less energetic way.

She has become dear and precious to us, as she has sought in recent years to follow the paths we have laid out, at the side of one of our oldest members, our dear Ms. Motzkus, who has shared with her joy and sorrow, but also the purpose of her endeavors.

For those privileged to witness it, it was a wonderful, exemplary spiritual communion between these two members of our community, between the one who has been connected with our spiritual life for a long time and knows everything that is striven for within our spiritual life, who knows this our spiritual life as the own powers of her soul – and it was beautiful and glorious to behold how the one who came into this spiritual life later joined her, and how the two souls then walked the path together.

And now we stand with pain at the gate of death, as the soul of our dear Miss Riebensahm has prepared herself for a different form of human existence. We think with sadness of how she had to end her earthly life due to an external accident. But we also think of how such an earthly life, which had many difficulties due to the external embodiment here between birth and death, will have changed these difficulties on the path of spiritual striving, which now continues for her. And we remember the soul of our Miss Riebensahm as a soul that continues to strive with us, to which we always want to look up in love and loyalty.

I only have to say, my dear friends, that on Friday at 11 o'clock in the local crematorium the cremation will be.

In Memoriam Anna Riebensahm

Still-earnest soul, you step
From a difficult earthly path
Into a bright spiritual path;
From the loyal hearts of friends
Take the farewell greeting of life,
Which the souls speak to you,
who in their musings were allowed to call you theirs.

Noble and strong soul, you created
in your firm earthly will
light for your eternal spiritual being;
accept the morning greeting of life
that the souls speak to you,
Who, in the new spiritual being, Through gentle strength of soul.

So may your strong gentleness of soul
Weave the powerful spiritual bond
That unites our souls with Thine,
As in spiritual lands afar
We seek Thee, thinking,
Thou still, earnest human soul,
Thou noble, strong human spirit.