Here is the part we should like to talk about:
"Do you see yonder large tree?" said the witch, pointing to a tree that stood close by the wayside. "It is quite hollow. Climb up to the top, and you will find a hole large enough for you to creep through, and thus you will get down into the tree. I will tie a rope round your waist, so that I can pull you up again when you call me."
"But what am I to do down in the tree?" asked the soldier.
"What are you to do?" repeated the witch; "why, fetch money, to be sure! As soon as you get to the bottom, you will find yourself in a wide passage; it is quite light, more than a hundred lamps are burning there. Then you will see three doors; you can open them, the keys are in the locks. On opening the first door you will enter a room. In the middle of it, on the floor, lies a large chest. A dog is seated on it, his eyes are as large as tea-cups; but never you mind, don't trouble yourself about him! I will lend you my blue apron; you must spread it out on the floor, then go briskly up to the dog, seize him, and set him down on it. When that is done, you can open the chest, and take as much money out of it as you please. That chest contains none but copper coins. If you like silver better, you have only to go into the next room; there you will find a dog with eyes as large as mill-wheels. Don't be afraid of him; you have only to set him down on my apron, and then rifle the chest at your leisure. But if you would rather have gold than either silver or copper, that is to be had too, and as much of it as you can carry, if you pass on into the third chamber. The dog that sits on this third money chest has eyes as large as the Round Tower. But don't be alarmed; if you set him down on my apron, he will do you no harm, and you can take as much golden treasure from the chest as you like.
"Not a bad plan that, upon my word!" said the soldier. "But how much of the money am I to give you, old woman?"
"Not a penny will I have," returned the witch. "The only thing I want you to bring me is an old tinder-box which my grandmother left there by mistake last time she was down in the tree."
"Well, then, give me the rope and I'll be gone," said the soldier.
"Here it is," said the witch, "and here is my blue apron."
So the soldier climbed the tree, let himself down through the hole in the trunk, and suddenly found himself in the wide passage, lighted up by many hundred lamps, as the witch had described.
And so, in the hollow of a deceased tree the soldier ventures down - down into a realm which is lit by many hundreds of lamps. Do you recall in previous lessons how it has been discussed that this journey inward may often be confused with a journey outward into the Cosmos at large?
The word 'lamps' is actually far more accurate than to say 'stars', because even though one might very much confuse the lamps for stars in a starry space, they are not. This is what one is first met with however, venturing into the realms within. They signify also the starry points of conjuncture within one's own astral body that are 'alight' with activity.
The witch in this story personifies the corrupted condition which is taking the soldier into these depths he is about to encounter. He is secured to the upper world by a "rope tied to the waist"” - his astral chord intact - and he ventures into the realm of death.
The first dog is sitting, guarding the chest of copper pieces. What may appear contrary to some, is that there is a correspondence between Venus and the etheric world. The goodness in the etheric world is supremely affectionate - the principles of propagation and of life, are verily of Love actively manifesting continually, and the forces which have imbibed it in the past are of this domain.
The second dog is sitting guarding the chest which holds the pieces of silver. This connects us with the Moon and the realm of the astrality - the second sphere encountered on our journey in.
The third dog is sitting guarding the chest with the disks of gold … the metal of the Sun - this denotes the final treasure to be uncovered - hoarded and stored by the dog.
The dog is obedient to the protection of all three realms. He has no will in this matter, and when later placed upon the blue apron of the witch's own egoic willing, he does not resist, but dutifully sits where put, without cunning or reaction or offering a threat to the soldier.
He is a soldier of Christ that can move about these three chambers without interference or fear. Interestingly the witch herself could not go to these places as she might instruct another.
Of the first realm come to we find a dog whose eyes are smaller than the other two. His appearance by contrast would be gentle. This Venus condition here pertains to the singularity we first spoke of in the soulic consciousness as experienced in the world before the egoic condition predominated.
There is a divine cooperation here, and yet it is also quite an automatic cooperative … and when Paradise overwhelms men to become witless and will-less, it then becomes the realm of Lucifer. You can often find it difficult to find the differences between descriptions of the true paradisiacal state and Lucifer's paradise ad perpetua. However we can remember here that these inner realms now spoken of are the contrary adjuncts to the conditions which preceded them, that live on today in the current etheric and pure astral as it still is. Also, that the ancient Sun still imbibes the old etheric world, as it does the New.
Armies of dark spirits have long campaigned the lower realms of the Earth. Hell was ever depicted traditionally as 'below' the earth and not as part of the Heavens above.
The second sphere come to, that of the ancient Moon, is of the time in which the senses were awakened and the stars began to resonate in Man. Forces outside of himself entered in, compelling and sometimes dividing forces, sparring tensions, which now may be known as desires, and later to thoughts. The ancient Moon did not reflect back the Sun when it was not-so-old as to be living. For it was, in part, just as our Earth is now - the Sun itself, in the making.
This ancient Sun, the kernel to the Globe, is of the first ego but not of the ego today. It was the feminine ego, a womb of knowing; not adventurous, but receptive - a very different type of "I". Even today the form of the ego is as a containing womb and its action is retentive rather than advancing.
-B.Hive
on The Tinder Box by Hans Christian Andersen
According to the priest Rudolf Meyer the following statement was made by Rudolf Steiner long before his illness: “The Christmas Conference is not being taken up. There is still time. But if it is not taken up by the autumn, the Ahrimanic powers will launch their attack”.
The Stuttgart state attorney Dr. Bruno Kruger has testified that as early as June 1924 Rudolf Steiner said to him personally with firm insistence: “This impulse has failed. Come back to Dornach in October. Then everything will be arranged differently – including the situation in Stuttgart”.
A member who wishes to remain anonymous received from Rudolf Steiner, in response to a question about the Christmas Conference and its effects within the Society, the answer: the spiritual world allows nine months to see whether an echo comes from the members. If no echo comes, the impulses of the Christmas Conference have come to an end. When the nine months had passed, this member asked Rudolf Steiner about it again. He replied: “No echo has come. The Society has not taken up the Christmas Conference”.
The eurythmist Ina Schuurman testifies to having received personally from Rudolf Steiner the following statement, which she reports thus: “It was during a eurythmy dress rehearsal in the course of the Christmas Conference…. That Rudolf Steiner was walking past on his way from the auditorium, stopped in front of me and said: ‘Now let us hope that things can continue in this way for ten years’. In September 1924 there was again a dress rehearsal in Dornach…. When Rudolf Steiner came by and stopped in front of me. He said with great emphasis: ‘the Christmas Conference has failed’, and walked on into the auditorium.
There is also a communication said to have been received by Countess Keyserlingk after Rudolf Steiner’s death. Countess Keyserlingk had attained certain degrees in occult training. She writes as follows: “It was on the morning of Rudolf Steiner’s cremation, which I did not attend. The earthly body of the great Teacher was still laid out near to where I stood in the room of the carpentry shop, when close to me the aura of the beloved Teacher appeared.
"From this aura the instruction came that I should write. I took paper and pencil and from his presence came the following words – often I could not write quickly enough, then he stopped and waited until I had caught up with writing, as Rudolf Steiner had done on earlier occasions when he was dictating something to me: ‘My mission is ended. What I was able to give human beings at their present level of maturity, I have given them. I go away, because I found no ears able to hear the spirit-word behind the word. I go away, because I found no eyes able to behold the spirit-pictures behind the earthly pictures – I go away, because I found no human beings able to bring my will to realization. The Mysteries remain veiled or hidden until I come again. I will come again and unveil the Mysteries when I have succeeded in establishing in spirit-worlds an altar, a place of worship, for human souls. Then I will come again, then I will continue to reveal the Mysteries. Responsibility for my death is borne by those who have suppressed the culture of the heart. If human beings had gone through their hearts and penetrated into the depths they would have found the strength to fulfil the tasks of the present age’."
-Excerpts from General Renewal– or Illusion – of the Anthroposophical Society by Harald Giersch
A lecture held in Villingen–Schwenningen, Germany, on 19.01.2005
Giersch lecture
Like new-born Thoughts that glow and burn, suspended
In the vast pantheon of an Angel's mind,
All thought with love, all love with wonder blended,
We rest, and lo ! with vision unconfined,
See a DIVINELY HUMAN FORM who stands
Upon the sun, and holds a diamond rod.
It is a shadow from the face of God,
In-formed in quivering light.
Seraphic bands
Rise from the sun like many-colored rays,
Chanting around it melodies of praise.
"Know ye that Angel standing on the sun?"
A ministering spirit asks.
That look
The very look, the great, yet Crucified One,
Divine with love that Evil could not brook,
But turned with all its alien hosts and fled
Into the dark dominions of the dead
That look, whose light o'er darkened Calvary shone,
In-streams on me I know it know it well.
Not in man's heart doth thy dear likeness dwell,
O Lord ! alone.
'Tis imaged o'er the dome
That spans the sun, the bright imperial home
Of angel-nations, and forever shines,
Filling with seven-fold light those vast and tranquil
climes
Forever beaming there, the Day of day,
Whose glory clothes the orb with Love's perennial May.
Thou Sun, rejoice !
Ye goodly company
That round it throng, and fill with harmony
Of planetary life, the stellar space
Ye too rejoice, run brightening on your race !
Not from the sun alone ye draw your light :
The great Creator's image stands thereon,
Outpouring from your system's inner height
Such floods of glory, that the horizon
Rolls back an evening splendor on the morning.
Cease, cease, oh, mortal man, the idle scorning
Of the high mystery God in Christ ; for lo,
Yon sun His image to the stars doth show,
And all the stars from God in Christ derive
Their light, and from His life their nations live.
The origin of Beauty, Love, and Truth
Of light, life, motion, and immortal youth
Of form, of music, sweetness, and delight,
Flashes from God's own Image on my sight.
I feel the pulses of the Eternal Soul
In all my veins.
My thoughts within me roll
Like newborn planets, flushed with happy life.
My nature is at rest.
There is no strife,
No battle of contending forms above
Earth and its spheres.
-T.L. Harris, An Epic of the Starry Heaven
Do you remember the story of the shoemaker and the elves? How it came to be that master shoemaker had so much work to do that the little people would come to his aid, and as night fell the pieces would be cut and stitched and there were perfect shoes as ordered?
Quite so it happens that before we are born we have much assistance in the cutting and the piecing and the stitching of our many substances which will then unfurl; and for the main part it then becomes out of the angel's domain once the 'shoes' have been sent out into the care of the governing soul. There were a very special pair ordered for a princess as one story goes, that they were to be just so.
As remarked, the evolution of the body is not something that we have had a full hand in, but that rather, over many periods of change, we have gathered and equipped to ourselves the means to have the angels build with properties which are still to be refined and adapted and made perfect.
We may then know also that the question of disease and of weakness can be addressed in this way; that is to understand that our bodies as we have them today in the common world are belonging very much to a corporate whole, one which manifests illness from that whole, rather than in the particular.
The question as to whether or not we may relate specific physical problems to psychological and spiritual origin is perhaps best answered thus: of the many spokes there are to this wheel, one can choose any to begin from and attribute cause to such. If Man is held to be the central being (with Father God being most central and whole to him also) and out from Man we draw spokes which imply all that he has to his makeover, we can place them in part and in any order and turn the wheel, viewing the relationship one has upon another. It can be proven because of the fundamental principle of origin itself. That which is, is because is was, and that which was, is no more.
-B.Hive
We begin with the picture of the hearth, as it was the sweet Cinders’ title to attend to the space in which the fires would burn heartily. Let this space be now her heart, which is given over to the household and to the world. She does clear away the ashes that she may prepare for the fires to burn again. In this there is truth that the soul’s love which inflames our inner spaces, graced by spirit and the life of the spirit, becomes choked with residue and the impulses subside, ever needing prompting back to life; for love and love’s passion, does ebb and flow in rhythmic obedience. There is the time in which we contain the fire, and the time in which we clean the hearth and prepare for its coming again.
Cinders had two sisters which dominated this story: Slovenliness and Wickedness. These sisters were unlike her in nature, bearing little or no resemblance to the child of the heart/hearth.
There was to be an occasion. A prince of the district was to hold a gala party that he may choose a wife to couple with. The sisters were eager to try their chances. The prince resembled all that a stately soul should be, in upright virtue, in strength and in capability. Therefore the acquaintance and subsequent mingling was desirable. For it can be said too, that when an individual truly meets in soul with another friend, then the qualities are shared. This is why we seek our Christ in combining, as best influence upon our humble natures.
Returning to the story: The haughty sisters mocked Cinders that she would wish to go to the Prince’s party. This party was the community host of all his invited confederates. This other soul has opened himself to the world at large, that he may seek out true commune in spirit, and so by inviting all of those who would accept the invitation (and others who would not) he has gone through the necessary obligations of being openhearted as well as openminded. For we must remember that all men are unknown to us, unless we truly know them. Should we really come to know them, then there is much love and affinity thereby. However, at the stage he was at, the Prince was seeking for his soul’s commune (that being the theme of this story) and so he was open to all, that he may find that which was especial.
The sisters are attributed to be quite ugly, but did do the best they could, dressing themselves in common finery, pretending that the outer appearance could conceal their sinful and lazy natures. In the outer world this does happen, that a man may feel uplifted, almost morally, by such clothes which are stately- however, it may be but a good guise and little more; particularly if the individual wears pride as well. And proud these two were, as they did strut with self admiration.
Here now, our picture of sweet Cinders is of rags, and she is overcome with the soot-black of ash upon her white skin. Why then should it be this way, that the pure of heart is portrayed so forlorn? This is because the soul is wanting and is not fulfilled. The closer to God that a soul does become, the more it suffers the world. It does also come to great happiness accordingly, however.
When the sisters had departed, Cinders fell into great upset at her self’s condition. If we are to review ourselves by comparison, we shall always find disparity; and so it is that the sadness came, but was answered in the appearance of an Angel. The Angel appeared to Cinders in beauty and in radiance, saying "You shall go to the party tonight, and I have come to help you."
That Cinders was to attend was ordained by her right to do so. The assistance that she was given is one that we all have. Although our angel’s presence goes unrecognized (for they are forbidden to make themselves known), in this special story our Cinders catches the vision of her intervening Angel and hears her speak.
Our physical presence which carries us through a lifetime in the world, is comprised of the service of both the animal and plant kingdoms. The transformation of pumpkin into coach was an example of this; as quite so, our physical bodies are just such an issue, wherein the dear contributory kingdoms serve to bear our souls by their constant reformation.
Cinders herself was clothed anew in the most beautiful of wraps, with also two crystal shoes upon her feet. In her case the outfit bore the resemblance of her inner nature, inasmuch as she was worthy to wear the finery. It was produced from the Angel herself, and of much better material than could be purchased within the world.
The crystal shoes are significant, for they are the connection she has within the world, and they represent the very clarity of being, true to the world in perceiving how it is for what it is. Shoes are our protection, and they may be of fashion as well as practical, however they are worn to soften our relationship with the world, and do cordon our selves from the immediate reality. By the wearing of crystal slippers, Cinders is still quite separate and protected from the tearing and scratching and skinning of coarse grounds, but is connected in the most refined way possible, as her perceptions of the world are nonetheless accurate – therefore she meets with the world in a consciousness of purity. Only she was entitled to wear them; and this was so because there was no selfishness to mark and mar the clarity.
The Angel made warning that there was but a definite time for which Cinders could make use of her equipment; that she must indeed return home before midnight, for then it should happen that all would return to how it was.
When Cinders made her entrance she appeared exquisite and quite obviously beautiful. The Prince immediately recognized this, and had come to see the quenching of his longings; for there was this other soul which was in likeness to his, and with space waiting there to fill; for she had gone in faith and with open expectation.
The love became a rapture and they danced together for the length of the night. But as the late hours did filter into the new morning’s day, Cinderella (Cinders now made beautiful), lost her strength in magic glamor as she remembered the Angel’s warning of returning back. She fled the court lest he catch her great indignity - leaving behind one of two crystal shoes.
That which the Prince had retained was rightfully now his to keep. For this is the way of soul commune, that there is always the remaining evidence and shared qualities; so one of the shoes became of his belonging. It is significant also because they both shared now a same connection with the world, and that he would come to know this to seek it further.
The Prince had no immediate way of finding his love directly. The powers of soul are illusive, and perhaps better understood to say that our comprehensions are many, with not one being so constant as to prevail over all. Continuance is always assured - that we pick up and return to this and that understanding, situation or soul. But change occurs in lively fashion, for without change, there becomes inertia leading to subsequent expiration; which necessitates a different change regardless. So he took charge to find his beloved, in whom he experienced a mutual knowing - but he knew not enough to simply recognize her by sight alone!
How often Christ has appeared to those who knew Him, but knew Him not! The way in which they could come to Him, once again, was not by this the visual appearance, and not by expectation born of themselves, but in being true to the spiritual reality, in meeting with crystal clear connection (the other half recollected), knowing that the love between you both verily made two sets of keys. You may go into the space of faith, into the heart, to find Him.
The noble search continued until the Prince happened upon the cottage in which Cinders took rest. Pushing their way before her, the sisters were determined to press their feet into the shoe - bleeding and crushing, bones cracked and toes looped off. But even so, there was no fit, and their false proof of soul-hood came to no real description. It was then that Cinderella was given the opportunity and so placed her foot in his half of the pair. Of course, the fit was perfect! It could not have been otherwise, and he knew her to be the one that he longed for.
Without the shoe he may have well bypassed this individual and kept up the lonely search. By appearance only we are ill-informed. Her costume given to her from the Angel, was one which showed only substance of soul; but it could not survive as visible within the outer world for long – it had to withdraw.
As it is said, the heart sees what the eyes do not; and contrariwise, the heart is a gentle informant. We can be peaceful in the proposition that others rarely see us as we are in truth. Although there most certainly will come the day when aspects are shared openly and obviously, for the time being there is a self protection for immature egos, that they develop a sense of self firstly; and then may go on to such sharing amongst selves in the greater outreach.
If we are aware of this, then we shall immediately lessen our penetrating influences upon others: those that impinge or dominate, or devastate the less developed individual. Once again it is a matter of understanding and attitude that people shall come to understandings with us and by us at the time when we cease to force ourselves upon them.
Our cloaks of humility are apparent when we are relaxed in our selves (and no, this does not mean inebriated or casual, or inconsiderate or sleepy). In spiritual definition it means that the inner tensions of want and will are divorced from our interest in another, and our love for their being prevails over personal desire. Our desire here of course, is that of being seen for who we are etc., and so we may forgo even that in order to meet them with love. This is not to say that we wear a cloak of falsehood or deception, for that kind brings sadness to both souls and no real convening.
Expressions of love from men and women, bring the gods their great happiness. We can only give love where it is chosen to be received; and if the space is not there for us to go into, there is no reality thus given it. And the space shall not be made if there is no faith there within that heart – as so cried Christ, for us to believe in Him.
The Prince did find his sweetheart and delivered her from the service of the sisters. The three were truly the one – our sweet souls are mocked thus by our own laziness and wickedness, which pretend to be beauteous and worthy of another soul’s consideration. When we have departed from these two undesirables, when we listen to our Angel’s counsel and pursue our heart’s destiny with clarity within the world, then it shall happen accordingly that we will find our destiny through faith, in believing of the greater love that shall one day come to reclaim us.
-B.Hive
