The verses in ‘The Calendar of the Soul’ were written by Rudolf Steiner for each week of the year (original in German), reflecting the soul experiences we can feel and through which we can inwardly grow in relationship to the time of the year. Through such reflections and meditations on the changing soul experiences through the year, one can develop a deep inner soul connection to the cycle of the seasons. They can be a soul-full companion and inner help in trials as well as joys through the year.*
(*Regarding the dates for each verse, see the explanatory note at the end of the verses.)
Below you will find the verses listed in sequence, with the approximate date given for each. Scroll up or down to find the time you are looking for. We have used various translations – the rhythm and flow of the verses, as with any attempted translations of poetry, is best in the original, in this case German: if you can understand German, click on the link here or at the bottom of the page for the originals. (Note: the editor of this page has chosen mostly from translations in the link above, but also from additional print sources, e.g. the Daisy Alden translation. For some, being fluent in German, he has re-translated himself. Editor for this page is R. Brinton)
Note for the start of each new Calendar of the Soul year: The Easter Sunday date varies from year to year, depending on how the Spring Equinox falls in relation to the first full moon of spring. Easter 2019 was very late, for instance: on 21st April, which means two steps having to be taken: between March and early April two verses have to be used for two weeks each to adjust for the start with Verse 1 on Easter Sunday. And after Easter, at some point between then and midsummer and St John’s day the timing has to be shortened. In years where Easter is very early, e.g. last week of March, the opposite happens: the weeks’ verses are shortened before Easter, whereas after Easter for a period a couple may need to be extended. For further explanations and notes, see *Note on the dates in the Calendar of the Soul at the end of the verses below.
When from the realms of space
The sun speaks to human beholding,
And gladness from the depths of soul
Unites with light in seeing,
Then rising from the sheath of self,
Thoughts soar to distances of space
And gently link
The human essence to the Spirit’s Being.
When from the depths of soul
The Spirit turns toward world existence
And beauty swells from space expanses,
Then streams from farthest heavens
The life force into human bodies,
And unites with mighty action
The spirit’s essence with our human life.
Week 51 (fourth week of March)
Into our inner being
The riches of the senses pour.
The Cosmic Spirit finds itself
Reflected in the human eye,
Which ever must renew its strength
From out that spirit source.
Week 50 (third week of March)
To the human ‘I’ there speaks
In mighty revelation
And releasing forces of its being,
The joy-in-growth of world existence:
My life to you transporting,
Released from its enchantment,
I now may reach my truest goal.
Week 49 (second week of March)
I feel the force of cosmic being:
Thus speaks clarity of thought,
Recalling its own spirit growth
In nights of cosmic darkness,
And to the approach of cosmic day
It turns its inner rays of hope.
Week 48 (first week of March)
In light, which out of cosmic heights
Would flow with might into my soul,
Let world-thought certainty appear,
Resolving riddles of the soul,
And rallying its mighty rays,
In human hearts awaken love.
Week 47 (last week of February)
There will arise out of the world’s great womb,
Quickening the senses’ life, the joy of growth.
Now may it find my strength of thought
Well armed by powers divine
Which strongly live within my being.
The world is threatening to benumb
The inborn forces of my soul;
Now, memory, come forth
From spirit depths, enkindling light;
Invigorate my inward sight
Which only by the strength of will
Is able to sustain itself.
The might of thought grows firm
In union with the Spirit’s birth,
It rays on senses’ dull enticements
A shining clarity.
If soul abundance
Would be united with evolving worlds,
Then senses’ revelation must
Receive the light of thinking.
Week 44 (first week of February)
In grasping ever new sense stirrings,
Recalling Spirit birth achieved,
Soul clarity now fills
Confounding, teeming life of worlds
With my own thinking’s shaping will.
Week 43 (end of January – into February)
Within the depths of winter
True nature of the Spirit waxes warm;
It grants to cosmic sheen
Through force of heart, the weight of presence;
Defying cosmic cold the flame of soul
Grows strong in the human core.
Week 42 (fourth week of January)
It is, within this winter gloom,
The strong endeavour of the soul
To manifest her innate power;
To lead it into darknesses
And feel a premonition
Through warmth of heart,
of senses revelation.
Week 41 (third week of January)
The soul’s creative power
Out of the core of heart is striving
To kindle in the human life
For righteous acts, the godly forces,
So it may mold itself
In human love and also human deeds.
Week 40 (second week of January)
And when I am in spirit depths,
Then in the very soil of soul
From heart’s own worlds of love,
The vain delusions of my self
Are filled with fire of the cosmic Word.
Week 39 (New Year ~ first week of January)
Surrendered to the Spirit revelation,
I gain the light of cosmic essence.
The strength of thinking grows
And clarifying, grants me to myself,
And waking there arises
From thinker’s power the sense of self.
Week 38 (Christmas week)
I feel the Spirit-Child
Set free from spell in womb of soul;
The holy cosmic Word has conceived
In clarity of heart
The heaven-fruit of hope,
Which joyous grows toward farthest worlds
Out of my being’s godly ground.
Week 37 (third week of December and begin of Winter)
To bear the light of Spirit into world-winter-night
Aspires blissfully my heart’s desire,
That soul-seeds luminous
In cosmic grounds be rooted,
And that God’s Word in senses darkness
Resounds, transfiguring all life.
Week 36 (second week of December)
Now deep within my being there speaks,
With urge to revelation,
In mystery the cosmic Word:
Fulfill the goals of your life’s work
With Spirit light from Me,
To offer up yourself through Me.
Week 35 (first week of December)
Can I conceive true being
So it may find itself anew
In soul’s creative urge?
I feel that strength is lent to me
To integrate my self as member
of cosmic Self, with modesty.
Week 34 (last week of November)
In mystery, the bygone treasure
To feel with newly risen selfhood
Revived within my inner life:
Into my life’s external deeds,
In sparking cosmic forces, it shall pour;
Evolving, grave me in existence.
Week 33 (3rd week November)
Now first I feel the world,
Which shorn from the experience of my soul,
As but a frozen empty waste
Devoid of might, unfold itself;
In souls creating self anew,
In self alone can find but death.
Week 32 (early-mid November)
I feel my forces bearing fruit
Gain strength to give me to the world;
I feel my inner being gain strength
To turn towards clarity
In weaving destiny of life.
Week 31 (early November)
The light from Spirit depths
Strives outward like the sun itself:
It becomes life’s will force
And shines into the senses’ dullness
To liberate the forces
Whereby creative powers ripen
From soul incentives in the works of Man.
Week 30 (end of October, beginning November)
In sunlight of the soul spring up
The ripened fruits of thinking;
To certainty of Self-awareness
All feeling is transformed;
Joyfully I can perceive
The autumn’s Spirit wakening.
The winter will waken in me
The summer of the soul.
Week 29 (fourth week of October)
To fire thinking’s radiance
Forcefully within myself,
Find meaning in experience,
From World-Spirit’s fount of strength —
For me is summer’s heritage
Is autumn’s calm and winter’s hope.
I can, revived within myself,
Experience my being’s breadth
And filled with strength, spend rays of thought
From sun-might of the soul,
Resolving enigmas of life,
Fulfillment grant to many a wish
Whose wings before, by hope, were lamed.
Week 27 (second week of October)
To penetrate my being’s depths:
A longing filled with boding stirs,
That I in self-beholding find myself
As sun-gift of the summer which as seed
In mood of autumn, warming lives
As driving forces of my soul.
Week 26 (Michaelmas and 1st week October)
Nature, your essence motherly,
I bear within the being of my will;
And my will’s fire-force,
It steels impulses of the spirit,
So they may bear a sense of self
To bear myself in me.
Week 25 (fourth week of September)
Now I may belong to myself
And luminous, spread inner light
Into the darknesses of time and space.
All Nature-being tends towards sleep;
The depths of soul shall now awaken
And waking bear the warm sun-glowing
To freezing winter-flowing.
Week 24 (third week of September)
In constant self creating,
Soul-being becomes self aware;
The cosmic Spirit forward strides
Through self-cognition new enlivened
And shapes from darkness of the soul
Will-fruit of sense of self.
Week 23 (second week of September)
Autumnnally is dimmed
The sense drive to enticements;
In light unfoldings mingle
The misty veilings of the fogs.
I can behold in space expances
The winter sleep of Fall.
The summer has surrendered
Its very self to me.
Week 22 (first week of September)
The light from world expanses
Lives on within me forcefully:
It transforms to light of soul
And shines into the Spirit depths,
To liberate the fruit
That may let ripen human self
In course of time from cosmic self.
Week 21 (last week of August)
I feel an unknown force that ripens,
Which gaining strength, grants me myself;
I sense the seed maturing,
And light-filled anticipation weaving
Within me for my selfhood’s strength.
Week 20 (third week of August)
And now I feel that my existence,
Remote from the world’s reality,
Alone might cease to be,
And if building only on its own foundation
Alone, would bring death upon itself.
Week 19 (mid August)
In mystery to encompass now
With memory what I’ve newly got
Shall be my striving’s further aim:
Thus, ever strengthening, selfhood’s forces
Shall be awakened from within
And growing, give me to myself.
Week 18 (2nd week August)
Can I expand my soul
That it unites itself
With cosmic Word received as seed?
I sense that I must find the strength
To fashion worthily my soul
As fitting raiment for the spirit.
Week 17 (beginning of August)
Thus speaks the cosmic Word,
Which I through gates of senses
Might lead into the depths of soul:
Fill full your depth of spirit
From out my width of worlds,
To find in future Me in you.
Week 16 (last week of July)
To shelter spirit grace within
Is stern command of my prophetic feeling,
That ripening godly gifts
Maturing in the depths of soul
To selfhood their fruits may bring.
Week 15 (3rd week of July)
I feel enchanted weaving
Of spirit within outer glory.
In dullness of the senses
It has enwrapt my being
In order to bestow the strength
Which in its narrow bounds my I
Is powerless to give itself.
Week 14 (2nd week of July)
Surrendered to senses’ revelation
I lost the drive of self existence,
And dream of thought, bewildering,
It seemed to rob me of myself,
But waking, now comes near
In senses’ shine, cosmic thinking.
Week 13 (first week of July)
And when I live in senses’ heights,
There flames up deep within my soul
Out of the spirit’s fiery worlds
The gods’ own word of truth:
In spirit sources seek divining
To find your spirit kinship.
The radiant beauty of the world
Compels my inmost soul to free
God-given powers of my nature
That they may soar into the cosmos,
To leave myself below,
And trustingly to seek myself
In cosmic light and cosmic warmth.
Week 11 (3rd week of June, up to summer solstice time)
It is your task in this Sun-hour
The tidings, wisdom-filled, to recognise:
Surrendered now to cosmic beauty,
To feel yourself in self, experience this:
The human “I” can lose itself
And find itself in cosmic “I”.
Week 10 (second week of June)
To lofty summer heights
The gleaming being of the Sun ascends;
It takes my human feeling
Along with it to space expanses.
In boding, stirs within my being
Sensation, dimly heralding,
One day you will discern:
A godly being senses in you.
Week 9 (first week of June)
Forgetting now my personal self-will,
The cosmic warmth, the harbinger of summer,
Fills full my soul and spirit;
To lose myself in light
Entreats my spirit-vision now,
And forcefully foreboding tells me:
First lose yourself, to find yourself.
Week 8 (last week of May)
The might of senses grows
In covenant with God’s creative work;
It suppresses thinking’s force
Into the dimness of a dream.
When godly being
Will with my soul unite,
Must human thinking
To dream existence humbly yield.
Week 7 (4th week of May, from Whitsun*)
My self is threatening to fly forth,
Lured strongly by the world’s enticing light.
Come forth, prophetic feeling,
Take up with strength your rightful task:
Replace in me the power of thought
Which in the senses’ glory
Would gladly lose itself.
(*See explanatory note before Week 1)
There has arisen from my egohood
My Self, and finds itself
As cosmic revelation
In pulse of time and space;
The world shows everywhere to me
As godly archetype
The truth of my own image.
Week 5 (2nd week of May)
In light, which out of spirit depths
In space fruit-bearing weaving,
Reveals the gods’ creating:
The essence of the soul appears
Expanded to the universe
And resurrected
From narrow selfhood’s inner might.
Week 4 (4th week after Easter* – ca. first week of May)
I sense the essence of my being:
Thus does feeling speak
Which in the sunlit universe
Unites itself with floods of light.
It would bring warmth
To thinking’s clarity,
And Human Being and World
In oneness firmly weld.
(*See explanatory note before Week 1)
Week 3 (3rd week after Easter*)
To cosmic All there speaks,
Forgetting self
And mindful of its primal state,
The waxing human “I”:
In you, in liberating myself
From my subjective fetters,
I fathom essence of my being.
Week 2 (2nd week after Easter*)
To outer universe of sense
The force of thinking loses its own impress;
The worlds of Spirit find
Once more the human offspring,
Whose seed must be in them,
But then whose fruit of soul
In self must find.
When from the realms of space
The sun speaks to human beholding,
And gladness from the depths of soul
Unites with light in seeing,
Then rising from the sheath of self,
Thoughts soar to distances of space
And gently link
The human essence to the Spirit’s Being.
In the Soul Calendar, the verses begin with Easter week as week 1.
As the date of Easter varies from year to year, this means that, at some point in the first weeks or months, the period for reading the verses has to be shortened or lengthened. As the solstice and equinox verses along with a few others are specified, this adjustment needs to take place before June. Steiner as author commented on this, noting that each set of three verses generally carries a similar mood, so one can shift by one or two verses and still be living within the soul mood of the time. How this is done specifically, he left to the discretion of the reader. Some feel the verse for Week 7 very much fits the mood for Whitsun, thus the adjustment for them would be after the 7th week. Others adjust already in the first weeks after Easter. Likewise, many users begin a new verse on Sunday, as was with the dates when originally given. In your own meditative contemplation, you can find what has meaning for you.