PAAM Medical Letter Vol. 7(4), December 7, 2020
Dear PAAM Colleagues!
Here is the last issue for the year of the PAAM Medical Letter. Thank you for your support of PAAM and this medical letter. Please renew your subscription to the PAAM Medical Letter or membership in PAAM for next year. Thank you! We have now celebrated the 100th year anniversary of the birth of Anthroposophic Medicine!
Please note: This Letter is for your thoughtful consideration and personal research and is not to be taken as something dogmatic to believe in nor promote as something official from PAAM or the international anthroposophic medical movement.
Meditation
The Bridge Mantra
The human being is a bridge
Between the past
And future existence.
The present is momentary;
The moment as bridge.
Spirit turned to the soul
In matter's shell,
It comes from the past;
The soul turned to spirit
In seed encased,
It is future bound.
Grasp the future
Through what has been,
Hope for what will become
Through what is complete.
So seize what is
In what will be;
So seize what will be
In what is.
- Rudolf Steiner, for Ita Wegman, on 12.24.1920
Complementary Meditation
I carry within me events of the past,
I feel within me all that arises,
I carry both into the future - in willing.
Faith looks back on past events,
It is grounded in truth,
Trust looks to all that arises,
It is grounded in the future,
Love embraces every moment
What eternally happened
What eternally is.
- Rudolf Steiner, from CW 268. Translation by Astrid Schmitt-Stegmann
Meditating on these two mantric verses and reading the associated 1920 "Bridge Lectures", The Bridge Between Spirituality and the Physical Constitution of Man (CW 202), one can come to the following descriptive statements:
Warmth is a bridge between the body, soul and spirit.
The soul is a bridge - a mediator - between body and spirit.
Love and the present moment - as experienced in the soul - are bridges between past and future.
The four ethers (warmth, light, tone/chemical and life) form a bridge or stairway between the spiritual and the physical.
The four elements (earth, water, air and fire) form vessels for the four human members (physical body, etheric body, astral body and "I"-organization) to live in and work.
Virtue of the Month - December
Control of speech becomes a feeling for Truth
Calendar of the Soul, Verse #36
(Week of December 6-12)
In my being's depths speaks,
Towards revelation yearning,
Mysteriously, the cosmic Word of Worlds:
Imbue your life-work's aims
With my spirit light,
To offer yourself up through me.
Calendar of the Soul, Counter Verse #17
Thus speaks the cosmic Word of Worlds,
That I, through doors of the senses,
Guide into the ground of my soul:
Imbue your spirit depths
With my cosmic breadth
To find in time me in you.
Links to open access articles referenced