Walking in balance of soul
We are walking beings, establishing, as we walk upright, a delicate balance again and again. Wolfgang Rissmann looks at walking as a way of exploring one’s own inner freedom and balance of soul, both of which can be seen as a basis for community building.
In the second verse of the Foundation Stone Meditation it says, «Practise Spirit-Awareness in balance of soul». How do I achieve this balance of soul?
A simple exercise can help: I walk on even ground, straight on, in open countryside or on a quiet road. I walk evenly, without stopping, maybe for half an hour, not too fast and not too slowly. Then I accelerate and walk as fast as I can. After a while I slow down and again walk very leisurely.
Not too fast and not too slow
When I walk fast I become tense, feel my muscles, feel my accelerated breathing and heartbeat; I no longer perceive my surroundings clearly. When I walk slowly, I relax, lose myself in the world around me or in my own memories and dreams. The task therefore is to walk neither too fast nor to slowly.
How can this be achieved? By alternating a few times between fast and slow walking, I gradually find my own rhythm, where I feel balanced and can be aware of my surroundings and my own body at the same time. When I observe myself more closely I find my own rhythm increases my wellbeing and opens a space between being fixated on my own body and losing myself into the world around. I feel how, as if from outside, a sense of wellbeing arises in my middle. People who suffer from burnout or depressive moods often tell me about this experience, if they practise this way of walking regularly.
The ancient Babylonians had the following saying: «Behold a man walking. Walking not like a dotard, and not like a child. Walking like a healthy, not like a sick man. Walking not too fast and not too slowly. And you will behold the measure of the Sun’s passage.»
«Practise Spirit Awareness in the balance of soul» can mean to look not at one picture, but at two next to each other and to wander rhythmically between the two, or between two words, or between two different thoughts. This oscillating soul activity allows something new to arise in the alternating movement. The experience of balance acquired in the walking exercise can be transferred to the mind.
Encounters are a question of rhythm
We experience a similar process as we encounters others people. For a real meeting to take place, there needs to be a swinging to and fro between entering deeply into the other and returning to oneself. Encounters are a question of rhythm not of cleverness or moral appeals. As we rhythmically oscillate between I and You, a space is created for something else that can appear like a gift from outside. Something new emerges.
An archetypal image of this process can be found in the Gospel of St Luke, chapter 24, where two men are walking to Emmaus, talking about the riddles they have experienced. A third appears towards the end of their journey and joins them. As they sit together eating later, the two recognize in the third the resurrected Christ.
Another opportunity for practice is in spiritual community building. People of the most diverse backgrounds and temperaments come together because they have similar spiritual questions and concerns. Here it is even more obvious that the solution can be found neither in intellectual discussion nor in power impulses. What is required is the ability of each individual to form in his or her own consciousness an idea of the diversity of people gathered together, of their different ways of thinking and feeling, and their initiatives. Only then, in a second step, can the open space appear in which the talents, abilities and concerns of each individual can come to expression in a community. Rudolf Steiner expressed this in the famous verse he gave to Edith Maryon in 1920: «The healthy social life is found when in the mirror of each human soul the whole community finds its reflection and when in the community the virtue of each one is living.»
Christ-will
The spiritual community-building we strive for in the Anthroposophical Society and all its spheres of life is a question of rhythm. The spiritual power and essence that is effective behind and in all rhythmic processes is addressed in the second part of the second verse of the Foundation Stone Meditation: It is the Christ-will whose effectiveness is always both grace and gift.
Wolfgang Rissmann presented these thoughts at the Goetheanum during the Annual General Meeting of the General Anthroposophical Society on 14 April 2019.