Dear friends – I have been in a state of dis-ease as of late…Interesting that instead of reading ‘Fall of the Spirits of Darkness’ which I was routing for, our Wednesday Study Group has decided, (from Rosemary McMullen’s recommendation) to take up Steiner’s lectures on Pastoral Medicine (found these days under the title ‘Broken Vessels’) So yes, perhaps there’s hope for me yet, a chance for a rescue from those adversarial demons I am always wrestling with.

So now, today I have been thinking about how Illness always seems to appear at the intersection where the astral meets the physical. We are healthy when the etheric & physical fully express the spirit at work within us. If the spirit is interfering too much – or too little – we take on a dis-ease…

Underlying the ailment is the way our various levels of being interact, & these are most certainly affected by the many societal influences. Our current historic, karma-induced situation becomes our individual challenge. And it’s an open mystery why one person gets sick while another doesn’t, even though their living conditions are the same.

The relationship between individual illness & the destiny of humanity is addressed by Rudolf Steiner in his lecture to physicians of 18 April 1921. (Illness and Therapy: Spiritual-Scientific Aspects of Healing: Nine Lectures Given to Physicians and Medical Students in Dornach Between 11 and 18 April 1921) There he also describes a future situation, arising from materialism, where the cosmic forces will no longer automatically be available to the physical human form. A variety of epidemics & deformities appear as a consequence.

Yet, & here’s where the hope comes in, Rudolf Steiner points to the objective forces of imagination, inspiration & intuition as practiced in the 6 Basic Exercises, The 8-Fold Path, & eurythmy therapy for instance, which has a way of balancing out this deforming quality seeking to overtake our formative forces.

Steiner also calls attention to the freedom we each have when it comes to developing our individual well-being…

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
ALL HALLOWTIDE III
World Nemesis? Or Resurrection…
v33 (the Ahrimanic deception)
And so I come to feel the world,
which left without my soul’s communion
would be just frosty, empty life
and powerless to resurrect in souls,
wherein it could arise anew in self-creation,
would in itself alone find only death.

This is one of the 4 transition verses in the Soul Calendar’s square quartet.
Each one is a challenge, facing us with a new step we must take as we transition
into a new season.

This is a quote from Eloise Krivosheia in anthroposophyla.org. (with inspiration from her sister in the spiritual world).
‘The creation of the world by the gods is complete.
Future world creation/transformation requires the conscious participation
of human beings. We want to undersdtand how human soul destiny is united
with the destiny of the world. Christ gave us the power to build ourselves
and in this we can save Earth from death. We can build what we have taken in
in the summer, but without our consciousness and our soul forces creating new
self substance (as in verse 32) Earth is bereft, unable to rebuild/transform itself.
In line 5 we intuit how Earth will feel life anew in human souls who creating self
anew are what will bring resurrection for Earth itself. Without such human work
on the self, death can only result.’