The New Star Wisdom and Eurythmy Part II

The New Star Wisdom and Eurythmy Part 2
In my public eurythmy classes this month, we are continuing to explore the sacred relationship between the human being (the microcosm) and the starry world (the macrocosm).

    In my last blog post (The New Star Wisdom and Eurythmy), I wrote of how the planets and the constellations are the home of mighty spiritual beings, heavenly hierarchies. These ancient Beings are to be understood as more than mere “energies:” they are Consciousnesses with awarenesses and powers that extend far beyond what we as human beings can as yet attain. All that they do is in service of God the Creator.
These Beings are more than mere individuals: they express themselves in concert with other beings of the same level of consciousness to serve as the archetypes of God on all levels of existence. Their have been honored and worshipped in spiritual traditions around the world. Not until our present round of earth evolution, when spirit became solidified into matter, did the Spiritual Beings retreat behind the veil of illusion, and the starry circle of the constellations appear.
Through physical science we describe the stars as balls of burning gases. Through spiritual science, however, we can understand that these balls of heat are the manifestations of lofty beings. Perhaps we would do better to ask of them not “What are you?” but rather “Who are you?”
As we try to understand “God” with our human mind, we work our way “upwards” through the dimensions of these beings. We see sun, moon and stars: we perceive fire, and light and air: we know wisdom, will and love. Of each of these we ask, “Is this God?” Each of these is a level of Beings, a hierarchy, a consciousness of God—-and God is all of it. And more. God is Source and Goal. God is the great expanse of all, and the most infinitely small point.
And we as human beings live our lives of growing awareness in created world, woven of the concerted activities of all these beings. Through all time and space they are creating and weaving, but we, in un-enlightened states of mind, hypothesize a purely mechanical world created, perhaps, out of a cosmic accident.
Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy and Eurythmy, spoke of these beings on many occasions, and generally used the terminology developed by Dionysos the Areopagite, a Greek philosopher in the first Christian century. Nowhere has any modern spiritual teacher described the workings in as much loving detail as Rudolf Steiner does in the mighty fourth chapter of his book “An Outline of Esoteric Science” (1909). In some 150 pages, Rudolf Steiner describes the evolution of the universe from the beginning of time and space until the present age of the Consciousness Soul in concise but lofty terms.
In further writings, he describes the correspondences of the hierarchies to the twelve signs of the zodiac. The effects of these Hierarchies are in fact to be found everywhere, but the twelve signs represent “lenses,” focal points from which their concentrated activity radiates.

            “God the Father” is the unified Being who encompasses all of Creation, the I-Am, the I-Was, the I-Will-Be. The entire circle of the zodiac is contained in his Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent Being.
            The individual signs of the zodiac all mark different levels of the heavenly hierarchies. Through their working, different powers stream into creation.

ARIES ——THE SON GOD  (THE CHRIST)
           The Christ creates out of the heart of the One, God, out of eternity into time and space.
            In our body, this is expressed in the head, whose spherical shape and starry neuron nets reflect the dome of heaven and the stars.
           The voice of Aries speaks through V and W, which bear the World Word into existence.
TAURUS —–THE HOLY SPIRIT
         The Holy Spirit gives us grace to awaken to our true God-nature.                    
         Taurus gathers the forces of the head and creates the Larynx, the miraculous organ of speech.
         The voice of Taurus speaks through the R, which carries Revival, Rebirth, Resurrection, Redemption.
GEMINI—– SERAPHIM, BEINGS OF HARMONY who manifest the music of the symphony of God          
          Gemini expresses the division of the world into manifest /un-manifest, light/dark, yin/yang, heaven/earth.
           In our body, this is expressed in the bilateral symmetry of our shape below the neck, our right and left sides.                    
          The voice of Gemini speaks through H, which vigorously breathes spirit air in and out.
CANCER—– CHERUBIM, BEINGS OF LOVE, through whose nature all of creation is thoroughly permeated with love
           Cancer overcomes the duality of Gemini, reuniting the yin and yang into the circle of the TAO.
           In our body, Cancer is expressed in the ribcage, which encloses the breathing lungs.                   
          The voice of Cancer speaks through F, a forceful wind that carries the force of fire onto the flow of air.
LEO——THRONES, BEINGS OF WILL, whose sacrificial gift of will is the foundation for the entire substantial world
           The Thrones willingly gave the gift of their own Being, Power and Will, and upon that foundation God’s Creation became manifest.
            Leo is made manifest in the mighty human heart, which burns with the spiritual fire of creation.
             The voice of Leo speaks through T and D, which connect us with spiritual Truth and Transformation.
VIRGO—–KYRIOTETES, BEINGS OF WISDOM, whose understanding illumines the world with light.
            Kyriotetes internalize and thereby understand all things, granting us wisdom.
            In our body, Libra is expressed in the wisdom of the organs of our inner metabolism, which absorb the created substances of the world and transform them into the molecules that we need to be human.
            The voice of Virgo speaks through B and P, which embrace the inner world with safe Boundaries.
LIBRA —–DYNAMEIS, BEINGS OF MOVEMENT, whose activity is motion
             Dynameis allow the relationships of the create world to express their relationships through dynamic movements
             In our body, this is expressed in the hips, that constantly create and enable a dynamic balance between our statice upper body and the moving lower body, our right and left sides, levity and gravity.
             The voice of Libra speaks in Ts, ascending upwards like sacrificial smoke, returning from matter to source.
SCORPIO—–EXUSIAI, BEINGS OF FORM, who arrest the movement and create fixed form.
           Exusiai deliver the “sting of death” to the dynamic spiritual world, creating the world of Maya                   In our body, this is expressed in our reproductive organs, which overcome the death of matter and carry the power of creating right into the physical world.
             The voice of Scorpio speaks through S, mastering the staff and subduing the snake.
SAGITTARIUS—–ARCHAI, BEINGS OF PERSONALITY
            Archai carry the individualizing power of the I-Am into the world of Time. They led us into matter at the beginning of time.
             In our body, this is expressed in the power of the thighs that allow us to work in gravity and matter.
            The voice of Sagittarius speaks in G and K, marking the clear contours of the created world.
CAPRICORN—–ARCHANGELS, BEINGS OF FIRE
            Archangels carry the effects of our human deeds upwards, out of the world of matter, and offer it to the higher gods.
            In our body, this is expressed through the knees and all joints, that enable us to overcome gravity and connect to light
             The voice of Capricorn speaks through L, transforming dark into light, hate into love, death into life.
AQUARIUS—–ANGELS
             Angels have a level of consciousness a step greater than ours. They guard us and hold us from life to life.
              They live in the etheric currents of life, and in our body, this is expressed in our shins .
              The voice of Aquarius speaks in M, moving through warm currents of enlivened air.
PISCES—–HUMANS, THE TENTH HIERARCHY
              Humans will evolve by choosing love out of their own free will
              In the body, this is expressed in the hands and feet, which bear us through the world of matter
              The voice of Pisces speaks through N, which enters into matter and retreats to harvest self-knowledge.

   In eurythmy we can draw even closer to understanding ourselves and the hierarchies by learning how to embody them in sacred gestures and positions. Each of the signs of the zodiac comes to life through a particular eurythmy gesture and its corresponding sound. We can understand these as the imprints these great beings made on the archetypal human form as they “spoke” our being into existence.
Surely we are more than accidents of creation. We are the blessed offspring of great spiritual beings. Our errors and actions against our fellow beings and our earth cause pains that reverberate through all the octaves of creations.
Our awakening, however, will bring all of creation one step further in its evolution. I consider it to be my mandate that, at the end of time, I can give the back to the Creators a better world than I received from them, a world worthy of the gift I have been given.
And it is in that spirit that I practice and I teach eurythmy, enlivening the spaces I live in and giving my students and patients the tools to do the same. Through this, we begin to understand the deepest mysteries of creation, namely, how to understand ourselves and the universe as the holy word of creation. We enter into new paths of understanding of our connection to the forces of nature, and how to use the spiritual correspondences for health and healing. We learn to honor the temple of the body, in which we dwell for the decades of our life on earth.
   In our eurythmy classes we are plunging into rich studies of these formative forces. If you would like to learn more, please contact me!