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
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