Teddy Kennedy, R.I.P.

"People will have to learn through the idea of karma that they may not repudiate their earlier deeds with their later deeds. A certain consequentiality in life, a readiness to take on the consequences of what one has done, will have to emerge in human evolution. When one looks more closely, one sees how far removed from this people still are. Although it is well known that personal development depends on the deeds one does, once the consequence of a deed is no longer apparent, people still do what they would in fact only be allowed to do if they had not done the first deed. A greater feeling of responsibility for one's actions, a greater awareness of karma, that is what a study of this sort might yield."--Rudolf Steiner, from a lecture given May 30, 1912

A Meditative Verse for 9/11

When Darkness Enshrouds Us

We look outward
With our world-engendered eyes,
And what we see thus binds us
To world delight and world despair.
It binds us unto all
That springs to life there, but not less
To all that plunges there
Into the dark abyss.

But we also behold
With our spirit-entrusted eye.
What we thus behold binds us
To spirit hope and spirit’s upholding power.
It binds us unto all
That roots within eternity
And bears within eternity its fruits.

Yet we can only then behold
When we feel the inner eye
Itself as God-given spirit organ,
Which at the focus of the soul,
Within the temple of our body,
Fulfills the deed of gods.

Humankind is in forgetfulness
Of the Godhead’s innermost.
We, though, will raise it and take it
Into our consciousness, flood it with light
And then bear it over dust and ashes—
The divine flame in the human heart.

So may the lightning shatter into dust
Our sense-built houses.
We will erect instead soul houses
Built on knowledge,
Upon its iron-firm, light-woven web.
And downfall of the outer
Shall become uprise
Of the soul’s own innermost.

For pain passes upon us
From powers of material force,
But hope illumines
Even when darkness enshrouds us,
And it will one day
Emerge within our memory
When at length, after the darkness,
We may live again in light.
We do not want this clear illumining
To be in future brightnesses denied us
Because we have not now,
In pain, implanted it within our souls.

—Rudolf Steiner