Emotions Obscure

52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 18  (This is part of a weekly serial started on Michaelmas 2023. To see the other entries, please see the post linked HERE and scroll down to the bottom for individual links)

Emotions obscure the spirit
And withdraw forces from the physical body.
The soul need peace.
The spirit needs to be uplifted in gratitude.
The body needs the calmness
Of trust in karmic forces.

Rudolf Steiner, 1924

I came across this verse in an article by Margret Meyerkort, Working With The Karma of the Young Child. This is an article that I have read frequently as part of my mentorship of foundations studies at Rudolf Steiner College Canada. But oddly enough, I have always passed over this verse, until just this last week when it jumped out of the page at me. This information adds nothing to my reflections other than to remind, sometimes we can read something many many times and expect to know its contents, but more often than not, something new is brought to light each and every time we read.

Moving right along, this was a verse I needed to hear. I’ve been really questioning my place within the world of Waldorf education and anthroposophy, wondering if these seeds of inspiration that are starting to spread roots are growing naturally or am I forcing things? Are the steps I’m taking to share this beautiful educational pedagogy with the world genuine, or are they shrouded with a need to prove the last 17 years of my life as a parent and homeschooling mother were “worthwhile” or “accumulated to something”. Obviously, they have accumulated to two children who, in their teens now, I can say are really wonderful human beings, which is MORE than enough from a parenting and educational standpoint.

BUT

As the homeschooling years near an end, I’m often asked what I will do once the journey is complete. As if the last years have been a pause in my real life, and now I can get back to it. As if once my children graduation from secondary, I’m done. I get to clock out.

In my heart, I know that these years have been more “real life” than I have ever experienced before. And in my heart I know that while yes, I will have a different level of free time available to myself, I will also be stepping into a different parenting role that will still require my presence in the lives of my children.

Also, with the current economic climate, no one will be leaving the nest any time soon, ha ha.

BUT

“Emotions obscure the spirit.”

These reactions I’m having, these sense impressions from the outside world are emotional responses and are clouding what I know to be true when I bring consciousness or clear thought into play. I have felt all the questioning of the last two weeks take a toll on my physical being, just as described above. I feel drained, I’m not sleeping well, I’ve got joint aches.

I know these emotions I have are separate from feeling.

One of my mentors once described feeling as a wordless thinking, a wordless understanding. And when I step out of the astral storm of polarities and instinct, out of the fog of emotion, and quiet the noise, I FEEL my path and journey. I feel the calm that gratitude brings and the trust in karmic forces.

The heart space acts as the mediator between our thinking and our doing. It doesn’t function without thinking and willing but in partnership. If we always ignore it, we will live in the polarities of thinking or doing, doing in reaction to thinking, thinking in reaction to doing, but not ever with a clear purpose. It is when we turn inward, when we step into consciousness and welcome our inner voice and our heart into the soiree, that is when we can shift from bouncing around, unsure, to deeply feeling connection with both our thoughts and actions.

So this week I’ll be a bit quieter, a bit more contemplative. I’ll step out of what can sometimes be a moody time of year, and turn to find the wisdom that comes from being still.

How can you step into the silence of feeling and the calmness of trust in karmic forces?

Until next time,
Marina