Christmas Conference 2019

This year’s Christmas Conference at the Goetheanum will be about the spiritual forces of the starry world in our life and in community building.

Our relationship with the world of the stars and planets is abstract, and our relationship with the sun is not healthy, given that it is determined by our yearning for its light and an unreflecting fear of its effects. Our spatial understanding of the macrocosm is informed by space research; we need to rediscover the great riddles of its spiritual essence and its relationship to us, and deepen our relationship with the sun.

The sound of the world soul

The rhythms of the starry world have a musical order. This music of the spheres sounds different in every moment and every festival season. Its spiritual resonance is conveyed to the earth’s life as the sound of the world soul. We find its rhythms again in our biographies and in many of the organic processes that occur in nature and in us: in biology, for instance, in agriculture and medicine. The arch extends from the starry world of the Christmas sky, to the planetary music of the spheres, to the sun’s essence and to their effect on our life and that of the earth.

The Foundation Stone Meditation brings the world’s macrocosmic being and our microcosmic being together. From the human soul’s practising and contemplation of the Christmas event arises a prayer for the Christ Sun’s light and warmth to imbue life’s activities. This is related to Rudolf Steiner’s request at the end of the Christmas Conference of 1923/1924, to «follow this good star», a request that becomes ever more relevant. (GA 260, lecture of 1 January 1924).

The 2019 Christmas Conference is organized by the General Anthroposophical Section, the Section for Mathematics and Astronomy, the Visual Arts Section and the Medical Section. As part of it, the Goetheanum Eurythmy Ensemble’s new programme will be presented. If we have clear night skies, we will conclude the days with guided star gazing from the Goetheanum terrace.