Dear John,

Normally when I read Steiner and he says something about the "source" of outer form, I think of the peripheral sculpting forces of the ethereal.  At the "growing point" of a plant, for example, matter "appears" just where the sculpting forces create a cone (this cone is created by the weaving of ethereal planes).  The cone is actually invisible and double (two cones points touching like an hourglass).  The growing point of the plant expands into the cone which is just above it in physical space, but which point (the intersection of the double cone) is the "connection" of ethereal space and physical space (see Adam's "Physical and Ethereal Spaces").

The plant is sucked upward into growth, as it were, by the suctional forces of the cosmic life streaming around the material in the forms of planes of light (true light being invisible, while color is what we see as the visible consequence of the "deeds" of light).

Another significant example would be the difference between the physcial material liver, and the ethereal liver.  Compared to the physical organ, the ethereal organ is much much larger, never actually being disconnected from its relationship to the cosmic periphery.

Now when we move (whether in dance or just walking), all our gestures have a corresponding movement in the ethereal at the cosmic periphery. 

The same processes appears to happen also when we think.  That is, there is an unbroken correspondence between the will gesture in thinking and the cosmic periphery.  We don't actually notice this (not being clairvoyant), but can intuit its being there by examining carefully very simple thinking gestures.  We can follow a train of thought by our concentrated activity, and experience its "growth" as we follow it like a trail in a landscape of the living ethereal world of thought. (an important nuance here is Tomberg's formulation from Meditations of the Tarot, which describes the gesture of the will here as: concentration without effort.  The attention is present, the intention gives direction, but the gesture of the will is more like play.  In Tarot the symbolism is that of the Juggler.

Now my guess would be (not being an eurythmist), that at some point in the practice what you do as you move is a bit like "concentration without effort" or the rhythmic movements of a Juggler.  Were you to concentrate too hard, something essential would be lost.  Eurythmy seems to me in this sense to involve moving and being moved at the same time.  You move with something that is also moving you.

Oddly enough, in the Tarol symbolism, the first major Arcanum ("the Magician" or initiation - the Juggler) could be described by one word: Play.  While the 22nd Arcanum, where after the journey one returns to "the World" (or partipation), that could be described by another single word: Dance.

Now what I have no familiarity with (at least apparently) is what the eurthymist does inwardly while moving.  I would assume the inner experience is not entirely different from what I do when I do contemplative thinking, just that in my case what is "dancing" is pure concepts, while in your case your whole body takes up the co-participated movement (contemplative thinking is also moving and being moved - the "wind" (the Holy Spirit) blows through the soul, and moves thereby the own spirit's activity).

So my suggestion is that the word "source" in this quote refers to the ethereal.

If we add to this a consideration of the throat chakra (the larynx) and the idea that eurthymy is "visible" speech, we find a different trail in thought to perhaps come to the same conclusion.

Consider for the moment discursive thought.  We (spirit) inwardly speak (sub-vocalize) and inwardly hear (soul).  In depth meditation, where the shadow driven urge to constant discursive thinking has been overcome (silenced), the "silent" throat chakra can be experienced in a different way,  It is still in movement, but its movement is now involved in our thinking perception (or beholding) as that arises in contemplative meditation.  The silenced throat chakra sounds and resounds with the "wind".  It may seem curious to write this way, of silence also being movement, but I suspect that the meditative element of eurythmy has such a quality.

Somehow the union of moving and being moved, whether in dance or meditation, is the same experience.  Modern dance, I would guess, fails to quite get this because it might tend to have too much I in it.  Whereas the eurythmist (again a guess), especially since so much of this involves being in movement with others (even if all the others are for a moment still), has far less I in it.  The holding back of I-ness in both meditation and eurythmy would seem to have a quite positive consequence for both arts.

I hope this has been of service, and not been too far off base.

joel

Hi Joel, question: you said:

We don't actually notice this (not being clairvoyant), but can intuit its being there by examining carefully very simple thinking gestures.

I'd like to read a description of your experience of the difference between "intuiting its being there" and " not noticing" it....(i'm not sure the " not noticing" would be a description because it sounds like it might not be an experience as much as a pointing)

The following will probably be answered in your response to the above question:  also in what way do you know about the "noticing" ....is it an inference based on what you are calling the intution?  Or do you know about the clairvoyant noticing in a different manner? 

thanks,

Jeff

Many thanks to both for offering such strong momentum to these questions. I am sure you are not off the rails, Joel. Despite claiming that you are no eurythmist, you show you have potential…
 
How does this question look if we accept experience as just another kind of form? The experience of a gesture in eurythmy carries its own verification in the way one can feel that a current of movement is entered as the gesture is carried out. Joel has looked into this. Well educated eurythmists will point to Steiner’s assertion that consonantal gestures relate to the zodiac, and vowel gestures to the planetary spheres. That is all very cosy, but it can remain merely an abstraction if we cannot link to such ideas through felt experience.
 
It can appear as a Good Thing to use feeling experiences to judge eurythmical ideas. But it is arguably not the best judge. When I began exploring eurythmy after the training, I felt that a gesture was empty lies and falsehood without the sensed experience of entering a flowing current. I was taught that the expression of the gesture ought to blossom from inner experiences, inner before outer, and that felt right. It still feels right. 
 
After some experience of directing eurythmy presentations and being directed by others, a new perspective surfaced. I found that often a truly revealing movement was felt to be quite empty, even awkward, by a rehearsing eurythmist, even though it was obviously full of revealed meaning to the observer. That taught me that the outer appearance cannot only be judged by the active eurythmist’s inner experience. The position of the director out front reveals something that is not available to the enactor, only to the audience. If trust is sufficient, it is possible for a directed eurythmist to work into an experience that was not initially sensed, and then the awkwardness vanishes. It can be argued that this is merely accomodation to external conditioning. Do we consider the experience of the active eurythmist and the experience of the audience separately? Do these different earth-bound experiences have a single cosmic source that enters by differing routes?  I would like to think so, but as of writing I can only take this idea on trust and work into it. 
 
So being able to outwardly identify a source may only be half of this story. What is the so-called etheric zodiac anyway? Is it the source of form and perceived experience in eurythmy? 
 
 

I recognise that this is a good lead, Joel. Projective geometry is a marvellous exploration for eurythmists.

The questions that I have not found a means to answer are: What does inversion feel like?  Where does a movement such as inversion originate? There is a whole ropeful of similar ones. If I could convincingly locate as an experience that I recognise in eurythmy, what I can draw using projective geometry methods, then I could proceed further. It must be possible - I have not worked on this for a few years now.

What I have overlooked so far is that I can trace a choreographed form through inner experience, a lemniscate for example. Either I move through the form and my feet follow on, or the form moves through me while my feet stay planted. Thus the lemniscate can be inwardly travelled and experienced, and in that way form and experience are integrated. The real **** is to move a path that passes through infinity as my body cannot flype across from one part to the other, or convincingly pass through infinity to continue the whole line... In imagination I think I can but it gets very vague and the one who starts becomes changed at infinity.  It could be that the plane at infinity relates to the etheric zodiac, but this feels like guesswork in a one horse race. I cannot track a reasoned path.

PS - a day after writing the above I notice that one can see correspondences:
 1) between the moving round a form and animals
 2) between the form moving through and plants.
I hope this is self-explanatory... It adds conviction to the idea that experience is another kind of form.

Great posts!

John, maybe another name for inversion may be spiritualisation.  Studying Rudolf Steiner’s work we see this inversion happens when we go to sleep, between death and rebirth and also happens to our planet on a larger scale. 

We may say the Zodiac is spiritualised and lives in the etheric realms; the etheric realms being within us.  At the same time as living within us the Zodiacal Hierarchy lives beyond time and space. We can understand this by studying our physical body; for each part of our physical body we have an etheric counterpart, for example – our head which took eons to unify in the realms of Aries through to our feet which took eons of time to unify in the realms of Pisces – therefore our the make-up of our physical and etheric body is twelve membered unified in our Astral body together with our permanent Ego.

It is our Ego which re-embodies in new physical, etheric and astral bodies in progressing Earth lives.  The Physical body would fall apart if the ether body did not hold it together.  The Ether body would sink into unconsciousness if the Astral body did not illumine it.  Likewise the Astral body would repeatedly forget the past if the I did not rescue this past and carry it over into the present.

Joel, that is a great statement - there is an unbroken correspondence between the will gesture in thinking and the cosmic periphery.  Rudolf states in Philosophy of Spiritual Activity ‘We can then say: The world is given to us as a duality, and knowledge transforms it into a unity.’

Looking at time and space Rudolf Steiner explains it as such (Polarities in Evolution)  When we leave our house and travel on holiday our house is still there it has not disappeared it just happens to be further away from where we are on holiday.  Supersensible perception is the ability to see this house while being away from it – it can either be very far away or it can be very close in perception.

Looking at Geometry in Eurythmy 
Pythagoras (580 bc) laid the basis for the idea of planetary ratio when he showed that intervals of the scale could be expressed in simple ratios: applying these ratios to the supposed distances of the planets.  And later Robert Fludd (15th century) believed that the music is produced from the impinging of the moving Sun upon the paths of the planets.

Johannes Kepler in 1619 made an equation between the celestial motions of the solar system and musical intervals and is as follows; Saturn is connected with the major third, with the twelve tones and the minor third.  Jupiter is connected with the octave, the three octaves and the perfect fifth.  Mars is connected with the minor third (plus two octaves and plus one octave). The earth itself is connected with the diatonic semitone, the perfect fifth and the major sixth.  Venus is connected with the chromatic semitone, the minor sixth and the double octave.  Mercury is connected with the minor third (plus one octave) and the major sixth.

Thanks John for your writings - I can see how astonishment may be experienced as an inversion also an awakening maybe!  I have not come across the consonant F linked to Cancer and L to Capricorn - very interesting.  Thanks John I will be studying this further and possibly link the letters with numbers?