To most, Christmas Eve represents billions of people celebrating the birth of Christ.
The living room is decorated with electric lights, sugar coursing through our veins, children unable to sleep fixated on what present Santa left for them under the tree.
Now picture what Rudolph Steiner described During the 12 days between Christmas and epiphany. The Earth holds its spiritual breath completely. The veil between human consciousness and the highest spiritual hierarchy becomes the thinnest. Angels actively transmit impulses to awaken humanity.
The Christ force is more accessible than at any point in the entire year. What’s worth considering is much of what modern culture gives us about Christmas may work in the opposite direction of what we assume...
The lights, gifts, sugar, celebrations...
There’s a case to be made that they abstract the one thing Christmas was designed to deliver.
What if the greatest spiritual opportunity has been buried under tradition to prevent us from receiving it and like everything else ever explored, once you see the pattern, you can never un-see it.
Steiner gave humanity something in 1923 that was largely overlooked.
In his lectures, the cycle of the year is the breathing process of the Earth.
He articulated what the ancient mystery schools understood.
That the Earth undergoes a rhythmic breathing process throughout the year.
Earth with all the beings belonging to it, completely changes its aspect in the course of the year.
We must rather regard it as a living and souled organism which brings forth the plants, animals, and the physical being of man out of its own inner forces.
During summer, the Earth exhales, its soul element disperses outward into the cosmos.
During winter, particularly at the solstice it fully inhales.
At the end of December, the Earth is holding these forces. She is entirely sucked in her soul element. She is drawn completely in just as a man who inhales, holds the air entirely in himself.
In more practical terms, according to Steiner, at Christmas the Earth's entire soul spiritual element is held within the Earth itself.
He describes the Earth as rolling along through cosmic space quite alone. Isolated from cosmic influences. Containing everything spiritual within itself.
This creates a particular inner condition during this season. Steiner suggest that this is why Jesus was born at this particular time. This is a time at which, with good reason, the birth of Jesus has been set because Jesus is thus born out of an earth force which contains the entire element of the Earth soul within it.
Ancient initiates understood this - to receive the Christ impulse one must align with the Earth when it holds its spiritual breath most fully.
The 12 holy nights between Christmas Eve and epiphany (January 6) or what Sergei Prokofiev termed the "mighty cosmic ladder" - 12 ascending steps of universal consciousness which write humanity to the sphere of the highest cosmic spirituality.
Each night corresponds with one zodiac sign, one month of the coming year and specific spiritual hierarchies.
The inner work during these nights is always attended by the very beings that gave birth to the human being.
This is what appears to be available every Christmas and this tradition begs the question whether modern celebration might inadvertently work against our capacity to receive it.
What the 12 holy nights actually represent according to these traditions
Each night serves as a seed for the corresponding month of the coming year. Dreams, insights, and inner experiences each night are said to preview and influence what the coming month will bring.
THE 1ST NIGHT - December 24/25, corresponds to Capricorn and the month of January. This is the night of the Christ birth and created by the hierarchy of the Seraphim. This night sets the tone for how you will begin the new year. It’s associated with discipline, structure, and earthly manifestation
THE 2ND NIGHT - December 25/26th corresponds to Aquarius and the month of February. It’s associated with the hierarchy of the cherubim, and has themes of community, innovation, and humanitarian impulses.
What appears in dreams may relate to your social connections and ideals.
THE 3RD NIGHT - December 26/27 corresponds to Pisces and the month of March and is associated with the thrones. The mystical of the signs - with themes of surrender, compassion, spiritual dissolution of ego boundaries.
THE 4TH NIGHT - December 27/28 corresponds to Aries and the month of April and is associated with the Kyriotetes. With themes of new beginnings, initiative, and the Spark of action.
THE 5TH NIGHT - December 28/29 corresponds to Taurus and the month of May and is associated with the Dynamis or “mytes”, and has themes of material security, embodiment, and what you truly value.
THE 6TH NIGHT - December 29/30 corresponds with Gemini and the month of June and is associated with the Exusiai and has themes of communication, duality, and the thinking mind.
How will information or ideas flow in your life?
THE 7TH NIGHT - December 30/31 corresponds with cancer and the month of July and is associated with the Archai and the principalities, with themes of home, family, emotional foundations.
This night, bridges into New Year’s Eve
THE 8TH NIGHT - December 31 to January 1 corresponds with Leo and the month of August. Known as the hidden holy night. It’s associated with the archangels and considered the most powerful night when the folk soul releases us and what we think is perceived by the highest hierarchy. It’s associated with themes of creative self expression, the heart, and authentic power.
THE 9TH NIGHT - January 1/2 corresponds with Virgo and the month of September and is associated with the ANGELS. With themes of service, discernment, purification, and practical application of spiritual insights.
THE 10TH NIGHT - January 2/3 corresponds with Libra and the month of October, with themes of balance, relationships and harmony.
What’s to come into equilibrium in your life?
THE 11TH NIGHT - January 3/4 is associated with Scorpio in the month of November, with themes of transformation, death & rebirth, and hidden depths.
What needs to die so something new can emerge?
THE 12TH NIGHT - January 4/5 is associated with Sagittarius and the month of December. This is the final night before epiphany and has themes of meaning, philosophy, expansion, and higher truth.
This night looks ahead following December.
The epiphany which happens on January 6 marks the arrival of the Magai.
The integration of all 12 nights. It represents the revelation or manifestation of what’s been seeded.
The tradition holds that keeping a dream journal during these nights and reviewing it through throughout the year reveals remarkable correspondence between each night’s inner experience and what unfolds in its corresponding month.
There’s a line in Mark that most Christians read as general advice, but when you understand what the 12 holy nights actually offer, it reads more like an operational warning.
Mark 13 versus 35 - 37 “therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back. Whether in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows or at dawn. Verse 36 - if he comes suddenly do not let him find you sleeping. Verse 37 - what I say to you, I say to everyone “ watch.”
Steiners 1819 lecture “The Work Of The Angels In Man’s Astral Body” documents what happens when spiritual transmissions arrive when humans are sleeping. Even when they are awake, they actually sleep through the most important concerns in life. Anyone who goes through life with a wide awake mind, will find numbers and numbers of people who are really asleep. They let events happen without taking the slightest interest in them, without troubling their heads over them, or connecting them with them in any way.”
He continues with a warning “the progress of the human race towards freedom has already reached a point that it will depend on human beings themselves whether they are going to sleep through this event or face it in wide awake consciousness”
The esoteric schools identified four levels of receiving spiritual impulses.
Understanding these helps clarify what awake and sleeping actually mean in practice.
Level one- super conscious
-Full awareness of the spiritual being and what’s being transmitted
-Might experience direct knowing and sent something being communicated to you through your ordinary mind
-Ancient prophets operated here
Level two- awake /conscious
-Awareness of thought, forms, conceived, and varying degrees of knowing the source
-Might wake from dreams with profound insight
-You receive Messages, even if the sender isn’t fully clear
Level three- dreams/subconscious
-Experiencing the impulse at an emotional level without clarity
-This is where most experience Christmas= a vague warmth or nostalgia or sense that something important is happening, but no conscious reception of what’s actually offered
Level four- sleeping/deep subconscious
-Experiencing the impulse only at Will level
-Taking action without knowing why
-Manifests as compulsive behaviour
-Must buy gifts, attend parties, maintain traditions
-The impulse moves through you, but you’re completely unconscious to it
Do any of these levels resonate with you and your personal experiences with consciousness?
Drop a comment i'd love to hear from you.
In memory of the great Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner, Australian Philosopher
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