INTRODUCTION TO THE CALENDAR OF THE SOUL

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) wrote a verse for each week of the year and in 1912 published his collection of verses as The Calendar of the Soul. Of the uses for this calendar, Steiner says: "Let the soul be influenced by the life of the year as it changes week by week and it will rightly be able to find itself... [The calendar's verses] were designed with the thought in mind that, from a healthy feeling of unity with nature, a strong sense of one's being can arise, and also with the belief that, when the soul truly understands itself, it longs to experience the workings of the world through the means of such mantrams."[1]

I first became aware of the calendar in 2003, as a result of a translation of the calendar from Steiner's German by Ben Bingham, who was, at the time, an investment adviser with Legg Mason. Aware that Steiner challenges all comers to test the truth of his claims, and considering myself to be one who had occasionally had, in his past, when writing poems, a "healthy feeling of unity with nature", I determined to organize my first twenty eight years of poetry (1975-2003) by week to see if my moods and themes track the moods and themes of the Calendar. To that organization, I added poems of the English poet, Philip Larkin from Anthony Thwaite’s edition of Larkin’s Collected Poems (Farrer, Straus and Giroux, NY, copyright 1983). Eric McHenry, writing in Slate Magazine (http://www.slate.com/id/2078368, posted 2/10/03), wrote: “Larkin was known to spend months, sometimes years, on individual poems, taking them through dozens of drafts. He was also a meticulous keeper of notebooks, recording the dates on which poems were begun, abandoned, returned to and completed.” My poems always reflect something of my soul life in the week commenced, but do not feel finished unless they reflect something of my soul life in the week completed. Thus, for the sake of diversity, it seemed appropriate that instead of researching and using commencement dates for Larkin’s poems, as I had done for my own, I organized Larkin’s poems by week of completion (Thwaite's edition lists the final composition dates for many of Larkin's poems). Then, using The Calendar as a guide, I looked at Larkin’s soul life as evidenced by his poems for the week that the poems were completed, and compared his experience to my own.

There are weeks of the year during which Larkin appears to have completed no poems. These inconclusive weeks include 4/14-20 (post Easter), 4/28-5/4 (St. John’s), 6/30-7/6, 7/17-7/13, 7/21-7/27, 9/1-9/7, 11/10-11/16, 1/26-2/1, and 2/2-2/8. His most conclusive weeks appear to be in Fall and Winter (mine tend to be in late Summer).

If feelings do have a discovered rhythm--if we can objectify our souls’ experiences[2] in cycles--then we should be able to see more clearly, standing as constant as the stars, above those cycles, that part of us that endures beyond the death of our brains and beyond the death of our life of feelings[3]. When I look at the book-jacket photograph of Larkin’s face, with vertical lines of concern between his eyebrows, above his thick eyeglasses, intersecting the horizontal lines of attentiveness on his forehead, forming a cross on his balding head, and when I read his poems, I think of him as a man who longed for, and could have benefitted from, that insight.

The reader's objectivity in considering the validity of the Calendar will be prejudiced if the reader assumes a Kantian world-view (e.g., if the reader is closed to the possibility that feelings and spirit can be studied as a science[4]). For these readers, though, there is still the possibility that they "long", as Steiner says, "to experience the workings of the world", and will respond to the Calendar verses, the poetry, the bible verses, or the whole amalgam in a creative way. Once one gives one's greatest gift--one's attention--to anything, even if one is looking through a peephole in a wall of doubt and prejudice, everything is possible. To add to that possibility, before proceeding to the Calendar and testing thereof, I offer the following argument in favor of keeping an open mind in the reading of poetry and works of art like the Calendar.

INCARNATION & ATTENTION

Georg Kuhlewind[5] contends that "attention" is the essence of the human being. Giving attention is the key, because "having" is unknown in the spiritual world, so giving and receiving is all that happens there--a swirling nightmare for the uninitiated, because there is no compass of materiality to orient us. It's like God's breath--the seed of the Logos and of our attention...never finished...writing on water...YHWH (he creates). He goes on to say that one becomes what one perceives, and the more elevated the quality of perceiving, the more one assimilates oneself. Thus, he says, our task is to cultivate the word in two directions: through perceiving the created world, in which the Logos appears, attentively; and through perceiving the primal revelations in new ideas, attentively. Finally, he notes that the perceiving of archetypal phenomena doesn't require intellectual interpretation, because the interpretation is within itself, like the arts (where you install concepts into percepts created for others).

By proper attention to poetic form as the creator incarnates the poem, the poet demonstrates the poet's interest in securing the reader's attention. Awareness of form is a kind of benchmark for artistic performance, and discerning critics and editors apply those benchmarks to winnow the productions of inattentive writers. But attention to form is like the color and scent of the flower; imagination is the honey.

IMAGINATION & LIFE

According to Christy Barnes, the first capacity that makes a poet "is the ability to open oneself to the world...with that gentle opening of the soul which we call wonder." Wonder is to the heart as curiosity is to the intellect. Wonder is a desire, marked by "warmth, an inner brooding, a humming musical world," to explore the "essences and origins." Wonder leads to pondering the world's beginning, she continues, how something came of nothing, and how we can tell about it. Men chose words, for which he had physical gifts. Men chose vowels (the musical) held in place by consonants, and these are the sources of poetry's power.[6]

Imagination is the point at which we go back in memory to the beginning. Out of the spiritual powers by which we were created, we create images harnessed, through the use of sounds, to concepts--the body and wings of Pegasus--that impress the reader. It is then the reader's turn to respond--to remember and to create.

Unlike the laborious, Western-oriented criticism of poetic form, the evaluation of imagination is often impressionistic--Eastern. What pictures--what ideas--does the poet present, and is the presentation thereof effective? Do they make you feel? Do they motivate you? The level of imagination is not the realm for restrictive, moralistic criticism. Once imagination is in play, it's too late for judgment. As Jane Hirshfield says: "The writer turns toward the things of the world…and these seem to give off meaning like a radiant heat. But that heat of connection is in us, as well as in the things. In the moment of writing, the eyes of ordinary seeing close down and the poem rushes forward into the world on a mysterious inner impulsion that underlies seeing, underlies hearing, underlies even words…The condition is akin to the sexual…All writers recognize this surge of striking, in its energies the substance of the outer, actual world are made new..."[7]

Through imagination, poets can convey experiences as powerful as that of crucifixion in a world that denies that spirit and things are one reality, and can convey resurrection experiences in a way meant to inspire action in readers similarly suffering. Also through imagination, pseudo-poets can convey experiences with a desire to motivate readers to crucify themselves. This may not be a concern for people who do not consider poetry to be of any significance. Consider, though, what Vaclav Havel says: "I am interested in language as something that fashions destinies and worlds." Havel is not the only person for whom this has been true. Ideas and pictures have been introduced within the past century that have led entire peoples to destruction. This happened because these images (e.g., state propoganda) were worshipped as idols, in the sense described by Owen Barfield in his 1957 book, Saving the Appearances, without full awareness of what stood behind them. Modernity makes taking such a position easy by positing that nothing knowable ever stands behind anything, so that we should not even try to gain objective knowledge of what an images may mean. Steiner disagrees with that position, and suggests that we go beyond the level of imagination into a more conscious study of what stands behind images. In the case of literature, it is the writer who created the image, and we can ask what inspired the writer to create the image.

INSPIRATION & INFLUENCE

At the level of inspiration, one can consider what motivates the poet. Whatever motivates the poet may, after the inspired poet applies imagination to the creation of images, emerge as a motivation for the reader, so that the reader's sense of the poet's themes can be explored in considering the question of the poet's motivation. However, in seeking an answer to the question of inspiration, we can proceed beyond the poem and the reader to consider the poet and the age in which the poet lives. From these perspectives, we can consider what inspires the poet.

Some poets are motivated by the muse. By "the muse", a poet may mean inspiration generally. That's okay. But many people seem to think of "the muse" as a controlling influence. For instance, John Dewey, writing in the early twentieth century, says: "...human experience is made human through the existence of associations and recollections, which are strained through the mesh of imagination so as to suit the demands of the emotions... It is in this sense that poetry preceded prose in human experience..."[8] Dewey here presumes that the emotions control poets (at least in pre-prosaic ages). If, to take Dewey to the extreme, the muse is seen as a kind of spiritual dominatrix who requires a poet to engage in obsessive-compulsive behaviors, then the poet who allows inspiration from that source (or the reader who is influenced to follow that model) goes wrong. Michael Howard says: "To be passionately driven by creative impulses, however exciting or even spiritual they may seem, is inherently unfree." [9] Steiner calls the "art is my life" approach Luciferic (to him, evil had two poles--Luciferic, which is the overly spiritualized approach that results in intellectual strangulation by doubt--and Ahrimanic, which is the materialistic approach that sucks out our life forces). Steiner is advocating that we become aware of how Lucifer works (in concepts, when we perceive concepts in fantasy) and how Ahriman works (in percepts--when we perceive something[10] without conceptualizing it, and how we unconsciously mash the two together when we perceive, and suggests that we be more conscious about how we think if we are to free ourselves from the influence of Ahriman and Lucifer. "Mad artists", whether painters, poets, or composers, who sacrifice themselves for their art, are often admired and may be an inspiration for those current cultural icons who project an image of themselves as possessed. This is not to say that their work should be shunned. It is to say that readers should approach such artwork (particularly when the artwork is the artist's persona) in full consciousness.

Some poets say they are motivated by the pleasure that writing gives to them. Pleasure may be fleeting, but the "architectural pleasure" of obscurity, the sense of accomplishment in completing a demanding form, or just the loveliness of combining certain sounds and rhythms, may be motivation enough for some. I suspect, though, in the case of W.H. Auden, Frost and some other old foxes, averring pleasure in words to be the primary motivation was a convenient maneuver intended to throw the pack off the trail that continues below.

To the extent that poets do not write out of compulsion or for kicks, poets may be motivated to write by some sense that through writing, they can accomplish something. Havel alludes to this in his earlier-mentioned quote about fashioning of worlds. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) is more specific. "It is not rhyming and versing that maketh poetry," he says, though he lauds rhyming and versifying as "polishing" speech, which he regards, next to reason, as "the greatest gift bestowed upon mortality." What "maketh poetry", Sidney says, is poetry's power to inspire to action. He is not saying that the poem must contain action, as Aristotle would say; Sidney is saying that the poem should produce action. While poets like Sidney and Havel want to produce action, we have to look at the images that they produced and at their lives for evidence of their motivation--to see the kind of action they want to produce. The philosopher,William Barrett, writing toward the end of the twentieth century, having had some time to digest how people were inspired by language to engage in horrific crimes and banal consumption, says: "In the technical era, when everything becomes an instrument at the service of the will, language is manipulated as a calculus. Poetry resists this will and thereby reveals a more fundamental dimension of language. Before the poem one must lay down one's self-assertion; one has to surrender oneself and enter the same circle of Being where poem and poet dwell." Barrett sees that poetry resists the will of those who manipulate language for selfish purposes. But he does not seem to see that poets always make language an instrument of their will. What Barrett sees, when he sees poetry resisting the will of the manipulators who concern him, is what the poets want him to see. It's not a question of manipulation: it's a question of motivation. And motivation, ideals, the spirit, are all concepts that we moderns have trouble accepting as objective. Only poets who have developed themselves spiritually, and who are not writing out of selfish compulsions, but from the selflessness that freedom affords, will be able to resist the will of those who manipulate language for selfish purposes, and fortunately, since poetry is invisible to selfish people, there will be a lot of such poets. Barrett ends his book with: "We have only to be open to the world, and it will pour its riches at our feet. Before this winter I had not known that the bark of a tree, caught in yellow sunlight, could be enough to restore a life."[11] Owen Barfield might respond that it's not the job of the tree to restore us (i.e., he says that that kind of association between us and the tree would be idolatry); rather, Barfield says, poetry's key function is to enliven our world through strangeness and change.[12] This enlivening comes from a growth spurt in consciousness. Barfield would say that it is our job, being sons of God--having the Christ in us[13]--to "make" the tree. He mentions Novalis, who said: We are the Messiah of Nature. In making the tree--connecting our mental picture of the tree brought to us by the poet with our concept of trees--unifying spirit and thing into the only reality we know--we experience refreshment and find ourselves motivated to look anew at trees. I think it is that experience, rather than beholding the image of the tree, which produces the "restoration of life" sensed by Barrett. In the arts, we are like angels, giving, breathing out only, as when we speak. After death, we'll have plenty of time to breathe in. We'll breathe in, Georg Kuhlewind says, to speak as we inhale the Logos.

For Christian poets, poetry can work like the prayer that goes "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". This is a prayer to the Creator to inspire creation. But only an inspired supplicant--one who can make the old prayer new--inspires creation. The Jewish founder of Christianity, on the cross, in agony, invoked poetry. "Why hast thou forsaken me?" is the beginning of David's psalm that ends with "It is finished!" (i.e., "He has done it!"). I remember, my mentor in the practice of law, when I visited him while he was dying, declaiming the beginning lines of Byron's “Destruction of Sennacherib” (another “He has done it!” poem!) that he had likely read as a student more than a half century before. And I remember writing a poem (May 1, 1989) as my father was dying, then my praying for him as he was passing--praying to Jesus on the cross who knew what it was like to suffer in this world. And never will I forget our experience of the Christ: my father's experience, as he passed through his fears at the threshold; and my experience, blessed not just to feel, but to see Christ's white-winged Being there, accompanying my father. The writing of poetry can be a kind of prayer, and empathetic hearing of the writer is the way to experience the writer's inspiration.

When we think about inspiration, we are already standing above inspiration and looking down upon it[14] Steiner calls intuition. With intuition, we can see the part of inspiration that is free (i.e., arising from intuition itself) and the part of inspiration that is compulsory (i..e., arising from physical needs or obsessions). Beyond its role in the production and understanding of inspiration, intuition can play a part in every aspect of human life. It is the faculty through which we behold ideas. Like those who speak in tongues, artists and others who do this kind of beholding bring these ideas back into their work at the "lower" levels of imagination and form, and like interpreters of tongues, those who appreciate the work of intuitors[15] can participate in the act of artistic creation. Many people who appreciate the arts have heard at least one quote from Keats's poems or letters regarding art and beauty. Turning our attention back to poetry, intuition is the level at which beauty enters into poetry and into the interpretation and criticism of poetry. More importantly, though, it is the level at which poetry ceases to be speculative and offers meaning to philosophers, who as we shall see, can sometimes use a hand from the poets. This is not to say that poetry is the best, the only, or even the easiest way to find meaning. For that, you might try Steiner's 1894 book, Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path, which supplies the framework for this essay.

INTUITION AND IDEAS

If you think too exuberantly of words like "intuiting the spirit", the words become too big a deal, and it will be hard to grasp what is meant by such a phrase. It would be better to think of that phrase, "intuiting the spirit", as no more demanding than the phrase, "seeing the tree". Not that you can see the spirit in the same way that you see a tree, but it's just as easy and common sensible as seeing a tree, if you break certain habits. Those habits, and how they were developed, are what I'm about to describe in the following survey of our Western philosophy's 2350-year detour into irrelevance. Then, I'll return to the question of how to participate in a poem, which is the same question as what, in addition to form, imagination, and inspiration, makes a poem great, and gives meaning to our lives and world.

Plato (427?-347BC) depicted things as imperfect copies of ideas. Philosophy would discover and evaluate the original ideas. Poetry, painting etc described trees, oceans that are physical copies of the idea-trees, idea-oceans. So the imitative arts are a copy of a copy: spiritual hearsay. Aristotle stretched Plato--allowed that poets can copy the idea directly. For Aristotle, though, the copy is incorporated into action--he considers only poems that have some dramatic element and how these poems reflect the idea-world. Aristotle's successors further loosened Plato, until, by the time of the Romantics (i.e., poets who elevated the role of the imagination, beginning with Goethe, 1749-1832 and continuing with Wordsworth, 1770-1850, through Whitman 1819-1882), ideas came to be seen not as "copies" from the spiritual world, but as exclusively human creations.

As the Romantics were just getting started, Kant (1724-1804) provided the controlling framework for modern science and for modern spiritual life. If you accept his premise that faith (the spirit) stands on the one side, and science (nature) on the other, and that neither is capable of proof or disproof by the other, then you are modern. Sir Philip Sidney, 1554-1586, may have been the first modern, theorizing that poets never claim to tell the truth, so poets (unlike astronomers, physicians and historians) never lie. A more recent example of the modern thinker would be I. A. Richards (1893-1979), the literary critic. Richards distinguishes between words that speak truth in the ordinary strict scientific sense ("statements"), and words that appeal to the heart ("symbolic" words). Richards says: "A poem--or a religion...has no concern with limited and directed reference. It tells us, or should tell us, nothing."[16] Richards says: determine the nature of the words (statements being provable by materialistic science; symbols standing as an appeal to feelings) and then judge the statement words on their truth and the symbolic words on their effectiveness as an appeal to emotion. These distinctions--these ways of judging--form the basis for the movement known as positivism, in which thinkers "posit" (i.e., spell out) their assumptions in systems of relative truths, rather than leaning on science or God to justify their standards and values. The key value is full disclosure. Pragmatists value trial and error; Existentialists, living for the moment; Freudians and Marxists, a kind of awareness. But you'll fall asleep reading the fine print.

Kant and some of his descendents maintain a kind of balance with one foot on each side of the gap between science and spirit, but not everyone is comfortable with that position. Modernity has rendered spirituality irrelevant to materialists (Marx, 1818-1883) and science irrelevant to spiritualists (Nietzsche 1844-1900). Everyone is asked to choose sides, and many who make their choice feel alienated from themselves. Sometimes it's hard to tell on which side of the split the unbalanced person stands. The Beat poets obsessed enough about materialism to have become more judgmental in economic and political matters than the corporate executives they disdain. The Muslim "fundamentalist" theologian is as materialistic, in his racist, nationalistic defense of Middle Eastern land as the American politician is spiritualistic in his determination to establish democracy there. Both would inspire others to die for their cause. And uncertain multitudes straddle the widening abyss, anxiously awaiting the Fall.

In contrast to one-sided spiritualism, one-sided materialism, and Kant's dualism (which is an excuse for both sides), poetry somehow seems to provide fresh vistas from which to view the world (and I mean the one world, which is both physical and spiritual as we can come to see it) in satisfying, believable ways. Consider the way that philosophers and poets talk about poetry's task. Robert Hillyer, in In Pursuit of Poetry, says: "The single idea of the poet is to create from disharmony, harmony; from formlessness, form, and to be glad in the work of his hands for its own sake..." John Keats says: "...Poetry...should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a Remembrance"[17] and "The genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man..."[18] For Owen Barfield, writing poetry is the equivalent of awakening to self-hood: a way of initiation, of finding your ego by stripping away all that obscures that ego, splitting the ego from what is not the ego (i.e., splitting the ego from mental habits). He says, "...realize the gap [between matter and spirit] and live in it not as a creature caught in a trap [of isolation], but as the rainbow [of imagination][19] that spans it. Then, within the rainbow...of imagination we shall find ourselves free to move...to turn either outward towards what we perceive or inward toward what we are."

Rudolf Steiner, author of The Calendar of the Soul (which Barfield also translated) and founder of Anthroposophy (of which Barfield was an exponent), may not be in agreement with Barfield on either the existence of the gap between matter and spirit (as Steiner considers it to be illusory) or in the turning inward/outward (Steiner seems to say something like: look outside yourself to see yourself; look inside yourself to see the world). Steiner says that thinking about thinking is the best way to develop a benchmark for experiencing things. He suggests that by consciously reconnecting our concepts and percepts, we recognize ourselves in the world and can re-create ourselves and the world. I look at a diamond and "see" the earth and stars from far away. Blake can do this with a grain of sand. But a good place to start is to look at the world and know it is real, and to find a poem that is as real to you as that--a poem that means the world to you. We can do this because, at the turning point of time, the "I Am" became identified with each of us, so that each of us is no longer just a "child of man", but also can recognize ourselves as a "child of God". Steiner's independence from dualistic practices allowed him to experience the ideas that motivated him to lead others in seeking a threefold separation of cultural activities (this includes religious activities, education and the arts), state (the main purpose for which he saw as ensuring that no one starved or was deprived, for instance, of clean water and other essentials), and economy (which he experienced as the realm of brotherhood). Of art, Steiner said: "Artists do not bring the divine onto the earth by letting it flow into the world; they raise the world into the sphere of the divine." Through poetry, people with vision are inspired to lead others, inspiring to action through beauty. "Beauty", says Michael Howard, "is another name for the spiritual within the physical."[20] It was in that spirit that Steiner wrote such pieces as the "Foundation Stone Meditation" and The Calendar of the Soul, through which we may begin to see how one participates in creation through poetry, and what makes a poet and reader, and the poem that stands between them, inviting each of them to communion, great.

SUMMARY AND CRITICAL CONSEQUENCES (OPEN CRITICISM)

The Calendar of the Soul purports to tell us how our feelings can reflect the seasons each year, and such a tool could help us to see what is always with us (i.e., our spirit). A reader should be able to test Steiner's Calendar by studying the feelings, expressed in writing, of two people unfamiliar with his work who kept a record of the dates when their writings were done. The reader's objectivity in considering the validity of the Calendar will be prejudiced if the reader is stuck in a Kantian world-view that avers that one can understand neither the spirit nor the world because they are irremediably split. But a reader may be able to overcome prejudice and become sufficiently realistic to compare the inspiration and resulting images of the poetry to the inspiration and resulting images of the Calendar for each week to see if there is a correlation. A reader who gives attention to this study may even thereafter experience the turning point, and exercising the creativity that gives meaning to life, help others do the same.

The criticism of poetry, when using the approach set forth in this essay, could be called Open Criticism, in contrast to exclusive schools of criticism based on the text itself (e.g., New Criticism) or on the writer's life and times (e.g., Marxist Criticism). Open Criticism is holistic, allowing for consideration of disparate elements. This openness arises from a recognition of the following contributors to poetry's mission.

1. Vision: the poet sees (intuits) how the world is (note: "sees" includes, here, more than seeing through one's eyes; "sees" includes seeing the concepts and relationships at work in the world). Criticize what the poet knows. Is the knowledge personal and transient (subjective), or is the insight more universal and eternal (objective)? This is the realm of the head: thinking and foreseeing as in the third verse of Rudolf Steiner's Foundation Stone Meditation ("FSM").

2. Motivation: the poet desires (is inspired) to affect (change or petrify) the world, or to enjoy, or to worship, or otherwise. Criticize what the poet feels. Is the desire free and selfless, or coming from selfishness? This is the realm that encompasses both action and the religious life: it finds sustenance and expression in the heart and lungs, their rhythmic beating and stretching, as in the second verse of the FSM.

3. Transformation: the poet re-creates (imagines) what is seen into sounds that translate into concepts or mental pictures. Criticize what the poem presents--are the pictures beautiful (e.g., Aesthetic Criticism)? This is the realm of the Limbs and metabolism: remembering back to the time of creation, as in the first verse of the FSM.

4. Incarnation: the poet brings the poem to the page to influence (motivate) readers. Criticize the poetic techniques (do the techniques secure the reader's attention?) and impressions (does the poem have an effect?). Fourth verse of FSM.

For practical reasons, though writing poetry proceeds (consciously or otherwise) from top (1. Vision) to bottom (4. Incarnation), criticism should probably proceed from the bottom to the top, as did the preceding essay. If a poet has not bothered to master the simple techniques of item 4, which can be evaluated even through the use of spirit-denying, positivistic approaches, then there is likely no reason to ascend to a consideration of the poet's vision.

[1] The Essential Steiner, Robert A. McDermott, p.371.

[2] I use "soul" and "heart" interchangeably in my poems to refer to the seat of my emotions--as distinguished from spirit, which I think of as all that survives death.

[3] Another way of saying this is that even one who has spent a lifetime immersed in the whirl of feelings, can, at any time, begin to observe these feelings, and come to recognize that if feelings can be evaluated, then there must be a part of us that stands above those feelings and can study those feelings as if they belonged to another person. Steiner says that one who studies one's own feelings can transform one's feelings into spiritual eyes and ears through which we can perceive the motivational forces (Steiner calls them spiritual beings) that would otherwise control us without our being conscious of them, and can come to be conscious of others' feelings and their motivational forces, as well.

[4] This is what happens when the definition of science is left to scientists; it’s almost as stupefying as the defining of poetry by poets!

[5] "The Force of the Logos and the Force of the 'I'" The Journal for Anthroposophy, Spring, 1991.

[6] "Poetry, Music and Imagination", The Journal for Anthroposophy, Fall, 1991

[7] From an article on Gerard Manley Hopkins, American Poetry Review, 1999

[8] Reconstruction in Philosophy

[9] "Art as Spiritual Activity: The Three Faces of Beauty", The Journal for Anthroposophy, Spring 1997

[10] Even concepts, formed in childhood, can become percepts through habit. You may have a habit of looking at trees and seeing the same old trees you've always seen--never getting to the level of concept, staying at the level of habit. You can look at almost everything that way, with a yawn, flipping channels. Poetry is one way to change habits--to look anew at things and concepts--to evolve with truth. Form assists this function by compelling poets to stretch ways of viewing things to fit the way we say things--you look for a rhyme and think, can I look at the world the way this rhyming word suggests I look at the world? The poet speaks; thereafter, the world is.

[11] The Illusion of Technique

[12] Poetic Diction

[13] Saving the Appearances

[14] The words "standing above" and "looking down upon" are not meant to imply that intuition is more important than inspiration. What is meant is that intuition can see inspiration, as the gardener sees a plant.

[15] I hereby award intuitor (not previously in the OED) word-hood.

[16] The Meaning of Meaning

[17] 2/27/1818 letter to John Taylor

[18] 10/9/1818 letter to James August Hessey

[19] In History, Guilt and Habit, Barfield describes the imagination as "thinking with a bit of will in it"

[20] "Art as Spiritual Activity: The Three Faces of Beauty", The Journal for Anthroposophy, Spring 1997

No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of George Reitnour.