# Correspondence with Edith Maryon 1912–1924

## GA 263

### Verses and Notes for Edith Maryon 1918–1924

*In addition to the following verses given for Edith Maryon, Rudolf Steiner also gave her meditations from three esoteric hours: Dornach, May 27, 1923, October 23, 1923 and January 3, 1924. (See GA 265, p. 455 ff.)*

In the free human being  
The universe is gathered together.  
Therefore, grasp it with a free mind.  
And you will find the world.  
And through you will the spirit of the world.

You want to think “God”:  
This is the language of Goethe's soul;  
With this intention you plunge  
Yourself into contradictions and doubts.  
You should think “divinely”;  
and “God” works in you.  
Thus Goethe sensed as the solution  
to the riddle of God  
And so, for the solution,  
thought must be spiritual science.

E. M. on Nov. 30, 1918  
This book's author

I look into the universe that my  
senses perceive and that my mind thinks,  
which is bound to the brain-nervous system.  
What comes from this universe is mine  
body. It has its center in my  
limb system. Spiritually, there is only the  
will. But this will sleeps in me. I must  
awaken it.

2.) I imagine that behind the universe there is  
another one, which my senses do not perceive and  
which my brain-nervous system-bound  
mind cannot think. In this universe  
I was before I was born (conceived).  
In this universe I will be when I  
have died. From this universe  
come the forces that have built  
the heart-lung system in my body.

Spiritually, there is  
But this feeling dreams within me.  
I must understand what is dreaming in my feeling:

In every thing  
In all becoming  
Life dreams;  
I am in dreams,  
Thinking disturbs me.  
Dreams live,  
Live in me—  
In waking dreams, Conscious and clear: I live, Live in me, Life-filled Waking dream world.

The new reality, The dream-awakened one, I grasp With waking judgment. She carries on her waves  
The old reality,  
Which my eyes showed me,  
Which my ears revealed to me,  
Which my skin felt.  
The old reality  
She had her life  
Awakened from dreams by you  
You new reality.

3.) I think to myself:  
both  
the reality of the senses  
and the  
reality awakened by dreams  
are in a  
third  
completely supersensible, exalted, invisible,  
inconceivable.  
In this universe I am only  
asleep.  
From this universe come the forces that spiritually build my metabolic man. My intellect lives in it. In the human being there is, outside of the human body, a living spirit; I am in the spirit, but thinking disturbs me, perceiving disturbs me, Feeling disturbs me  
Wanting disturbs me  
Sleeping I live  
Live in me  
Spirit World  
World Spirit—  
So become conscious  
From  
Spirit World  
World Spirit  
Spirit-illuminated Consciousness  
Conscious spirit-light

The lofty reality  
The slumber-waking  
Do I grasp  
Waking judgment  
She bears on her waves  
The old reality,  
Which my eyes revealed  
And the new reality  
Which my dreams wove.  
O lofty reality  
Call my self  
To wakefulness  
Let it forget  
New reality  
And old reality.

Salutary is only when  
In the mirror of the human soul  
The whole community is formed;  
And in the community  
The power of the individual soul lives.

That is the motto of social ethics.

To put the active spirit  
in place of the thought  
means in this age  
to perceive the fundamental social demand.

For Edith Maryon  
on December 26, 1922

When man discovered how the world  
Is scattered into atoms without end,  
His knowledge combined  
With the death of nature;

He must now strive in the spirit  
To find what overcomes scattering  
And he will direct his knowledge  
to the world's evolution.

Rudolf Steiner

Edith Maryon, 9 February 1923:

Human powers are of two kinds.  
One stream of power goes inward:  
It gives shape and inner rootedness.  
Another stream of power goes outward:  
It gives wellbeing and brightens the light of life.  
Therefore, think of yourself as a light human being  
whom the formative forces of the heavy physical body afflict.

Rudolf Steiner

If the gods had  
consumed themselves in joy,  
how would the world have come into being;  
they would have scattered their own being  
into the world air:  
They became sad about it  
And, lamenting, they embraced  
Joy is the fire  
And from the lament  
The blessed Fiat arose  
The world-creating word.  
Their essence  
That shines  
When the lament  
Melts into ashes.