|
Ernst von Germar was born in 1892 and lived until 1965. He was
born in Weimar, Germany and spent some years as a writer in Vienna,
Austria. Albert Steffen is said to have read his works. They were
first presented to me here in Melbourne, by Ingrid Kinloch, a
Eurythmist originally from Vienna. Please contact me if you are
interested in more
details.
Katherine Rudolph
info@exploringtheword.com.au
BREAD AND FISH
Ernst von
Germar
From a handwritten text dating 1955
The Lord of Destiny is existent in all
realms of the heavens and at the same time on the earth. But to the
greatest extent, He also includes the spheres of the Holy Spirit in
the totality of his divine being. His actual field of activity is
destiny; the destiny of the whole world in the course of its
evolution (its coming into being), as well as the inner destiny of
each unique individuality, who does not close his heart to
Him.
The trinity of the Father of the
Worlds, the Son and the Holy Spirit with all its individuation,
also forms a higher unity within itself, in which the Father
carries the grounds of the world, and also holds the Holy Spirit in
His hands. The Holy Spirit is the highest and purest sphere of all
existence, which no darkness, no illness, no death, no error, no
guilt, and no denial can ever touch. It is like the pure white of
snow in a realm above all of the colours. This realm of the
divine Son and His activity lives between the sphere of existence
with it abyss and the spheres of the Holy Spirit, which were never
affected by the fall into matter.
Can there be anything more incredible than
the difference between the destiny of the divine Son of Worlds and
the destiny of the Holy Spirit. Imagine the degradation that the
divine being suffered on the night before Good Friday. Imagine the
cruel abuse, then the physical pain of death itself; all of which
came after the strain of the sleepless night before and the
unspeakable agony of crucifixion. All this He confronted in the
spirit of free will and endured in full consciousness to the very
last moment.
But greater than that, let us consider
the selfless attitude of this unique experience, living in the
heart of the Son, as He constantly carries the pain and the sins of
the world.
The Father sustains the existence; the Son
expiates the sin and the pain of fallen existence; but at the same
time, He brings the victorious light-forces of the resurrection,
which overcome all darkness and all pain…thus linking up to the
immaculate sphere of the Holy Spirit. Thus the human heart can be
replenished time and time again with unlimited holy
wonder
The being of the Holy Spirit belongs to
such an immeasurably divine sphere that it can only come into touch
with that which has become cleansed and purified by the strength
and the being of the Son of Worlds, and thus freed from the bonds
of individual destiny. So it is, that this experience can become
linked with divine communication. Nothing else can touch it, even
in the smallest way.
All sins and all blasphemy can be
forgiven, even if one takes the name of God in vain, or that of the
Son of God. However, he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit
cannot be forgiven.*
This is truly a deep and enigmatic
statement, which is almost terrible in its
relentlessness.
However, let us speak about the first
situation: that is- not about what cannot be forgiven, but how is
it that a blasphemy against God or the Son of God can be
forgiven?
This kind of transgression belongs to a sphere of
life in which the possibility of change, of becoming, of
purification still lives. In that soul region emotions have their
place : anger, outrage, human error, despair - as well as love,
bitterness, and lack of compassion. Here the inner language of
temporary soul conditions reigns, in all manner of tragic
circumstances. However there also prevails the victorious striving,
and ultimately, becoming uplifted into the higher worlds of an
eternal future.
It was in this realm that there once occurred
a blasphemy against the very being of the Holy Spirit. The one who
pronounced this blasphemy extinguished his spiritual being; by
doing so he made the path into the holy future inaccessible to
himself. So it can be said, that such a blasphemy cannot be
forgiven; or, better said, he cannot be ‘freed’ from it, as it is
written in the Greek text.
Contemplate the following experience, both inwardly and
outwardly:
The shining treetops of the beech trees are
glistening in the sunlight with their softest greens. At the same
time, there prevails in the whole circumference of these trees, the
most holy and intense silence. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is still
and quiet, in deep peace. The human being, inwardly awake, now
looks up to the heights of the treetops, so to speak; and out of
their golden-green he can ‘read’ all that he has to clarify and
speak forth.
Imagine that it is June, the time of
Gemini in the heavens; and yet, from the depths beyond the
planets, there glows softly ‘out of the midnight’, the circle of
destiny in the stars of the constellation Sagittarius. This
event is of no less conscious significance. For doesn’t there
sound a prophetic tone of the darkest time of year, (winter)
simultaneously, as the sun of St. John’s Day streams out the year’s
noonday tide? Don’t the heights of hierarchical light shine like
the sun in human hearts, while the humans themselves are gazing
reverently at the glowing candlelight of the green Christmas trees,
which they have brought out of nature’s vastness into the small
enclosures of their rooms.
When we add to our contemplation
of the heights and the depths in the course of the year ( with its
noonday and midnight hours) - also the late afternoon and the early
morning hours; we see in the heavens, the constellations of
Virgo (the virgin) in the east, and in the west the holy
spiritual regions of Pisces ( the fish). Thus we have now
been able to encompass in our heart’s striding, the bridges of the
starry cross of the divine Son .
‘Nature’ was experienced in medieval
times as something virginal, even sometimes seen in a vision as a
suprasensible image of a virgin. Remember that sunny future of the
destiny of worlds, which the treetops of the beech tree enabled us
to ‘read’ from its young gold-green leaves. Such a perception is in
its quality not at all different from that of the virgin. However,
the perishable leaves themselves cannot hold the mood of this
constellation (Virgo).
Only one ‘hour’ later than
Gemini in the year’s course, in July when the sign of
Cancer is reached, the leaves have become harden and darker,
and have already lost the virginal glow. Such a glow of the
truly virginal can also be viewed in the portrayal of the Son of
God of ‘The Last Supper’ as painted by Leonardo daVinci, who
was able to constantly ‘envisage’ this divine being in his
heart.
Let us finally turn in our
contemplation of the starry cross of divine Son of Worlds, to the
early morning hours (four o’clock to six a.m.). There we find
ourselves in the spiritual star sphere of Pisces ( the
fish). In the catacombs one can see countless depictions, where the
divine Son of Worlds has been brought into connection with this
constellation. The Greek the word ‘Ichthys’ denotes the initials of
His name. How does this come about? Is it only by chance that in
the starry cross of the divine Son, the horizontal bridge leads
eastwards to the sign of Virgo and westwards to the sign of
Pisces?
In what does the being of Pisces ( the
fish) consist? Don’t his scales clothe him in reflected
sunlight? Can there be a more impressive image of health than that
of a fish in the streams of clear water surrounded by the substance
of the element of the ‘waters of life’?
It is said that the divine Son of
Worlds, the ‘Ichthys’, came down from the star sign of
Pisces onto the ‘stage’ of the earth. In the supra- earthly
spiritual realm of Pisces one could envisage that part of
his being – that is his being as it was beyond the earth before his
birth as Jesus of Nazareth, where he was embodied in the mortal
confinement of a human body. The fish, as he swims in the
streams of light-filled water, carries the image in nature of a
being that has not yet attained to his full-blooded incarnation.
This level has only been attained (although accompanied by tragic
circumstances) with the becoming of the human being and the
presence of the ‘I am’.
Would the human soul alone ever
have been able to gain the enlightened knowledge, which is
proclaimed from viewing the sun-filled treetops of the beech tree?
It embodies a ‘text’, which can be ‘read’ at the entrance to the
sphere of that unutterable, immeasurable silence above the holy
realm of being in the universe and in the inner human being –
the sphere of the Holy Spirit. Is that enlightened knowledge
not based on the premise that the holy Son of Worlds came down, as
the Holy ‘Ichthys’, out of the realm of the universe to the ‘stage’
of the earthly realm in order to bring healing to the human
soul?
Let us gaze once more at the starry cross of
the divine Son in its entirety. It shines in the heavens and on the
earth through the signs of Gemini and of Sagittarius,
and through those of Virgo and of Pisces. What does
the significance of its deeper meaning and substance
entail?
It is dangerous to strive upwards in the
summer, the sun-drenched ‘noonday’ of the year. Rapture and longing
threaten to loosen the bonds, causing one to break away from the
pain and woe of earthly existence, and the stern fulfilment of
one’s duties in daily life. It is likewise dangerous in the autumn
to step over death’s threshold with nature and go down into the
cold, darkened depths of winter. Despair, stiffening and inner
hardening then threaten the soul. Life itself is dangerous in that
sense, for the soul is forever threatened to succumb to one of
these extremes: either a state of euphoria and rapture, or
lovelessness and materialism.
However he who, on this path upwards
into the noonday heights - and downwards into winter’s cold dark
depths, does not forget the true viaticum, (provisions for the
journey), which the starry heavens offer to selfless striving
souls, will not succumb to either of these dangers. In the early
evening, the wanderer will take the bread offered by the virgin
(Virgo); and the fish (Pisces), as he returns inthe
early morning hours from the realms of the universe to the ‘stage’
of earthly events, and again awakens to new deeds. Bread and fish
from the starry spheres of Virgo and Pisces, will
offer him the inner balance, so that he does not become loose
himself in the heights of life nor in the depths of
death.
There lies the deep bless-ed meaning
and substance of thought of the starry cross, which the Son of God
carries in his form of being and in his heart.
*
So let us now leave our resting place in the treetops of
the beech tree with the indescribable relief of its sunny greens,
and travel down through the ‘gorge or gap’ (trunk). - What a
richness of symbolism does nature offer to the human eye and the
human heart. What a moving drama it is now to travel down through
such a steep ‘gorge’ into the depths. –
Suddenly, the narrowly defined slope
moves back together, becoming vertical walls, and affording us a
passageway of barely one meter’s width. One can now
experience that ‘drop’ as a direct symbol: for just so close and
narrow does the inner path of destiny often seem, through critical
situations and difficult trials, so that it appears almost
impossible to withstand them.
The slender strip of sky high above now has a
comforting effect, as does the gold-green of the beech leaves in
the branches above that narrow opening.
Translated by Katherine Rudolph
* Matthew 12 – 31-33
© Copyright 2011 Katherine Rudolph Exploring The
Word in Colour and Speech
|
