Experiencing Nature and the Christ Principle
If we look back at the way in which souls celebrated the summer solstice festival before the Mystery of Golgotha – what we now call around St. John's Day – and at how they felt and experienced that time, we arrive at very different feelings from those which the souls of the present experience at this moment of the year. In the past, the souls – and these are, after all, our own souls – lived with nature as a reality. The falling of snowflakes, the whispering of the wind in the forest, the light that flashes from lightning, the rolling of thunder, the patter of rain, all this was the speech of the gods for the souls of that time; and they understood that language and lived the life of the gods. When the sun barely showed itself during the winter around Christmas time, it also became lonely and dark inside them, and with the falling snowflakes they felt how they were cut off from the activities of the gods. And when spring came and everything began to sprout and sprout, the souls themselves came to life again, and it became warm in the souls. And in proportion as the sun sent its rays to the earth, they could again listen to the conversation of the gods; then they felt at one with nature and with everything that spoke from it. But the same souls can no longer hear the same, no longer experience it. The gods are becoming more and more silent, and we see the seasons changing without feeling more connected to them. Why is that?
Cite:
GA 265a/1913-05-11/p005 · edition English