The Sun: the flame in which freedom becomes a luminous reality

 

"We can grasp the nature of the Sun only when we know something of its nature of spirit and soul. In that realm it is the power that imbues with warmth the element of necessity in destiny, resolves destiny into freedom in its flame and, if freedom is misused, condenses it once more into its own active substance. The Sun is, as it were, the flame in which freedom becomes a luminous reality in the universe. And at the same time the Sun is the substance in which, as condensed ashes, misused freedom is molded into destiny--until destiny itself can become luminous and pass over into the flame of freedom."

--Rudolf Steiner, from "The Spiritual Individualities of the Planets," lecture of July 27, 1923. From Astronomy and Astrology, pp. 127-28