Light and soul

How much do our natural surroundings affect us? Are we aware of how light interacts with our souls in a concrete way?

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I only started asking myself these questions when I left Peru and moved back to Europe. Growing up in Lima I was never aware of the seasons, because, being close to the Equator, the changes of light from winter to summer are virtually unnoticeable, and there is no spring nor fall as such. In Lima, I only experienced mild weather, roughly 12 hours of light everyday throughout the year and only summer and winter, the latter being basically damp misty weather, not even coming close to freezing. When I finally experienced the yearly rhythm in Europe again, I felt a great joy. This came first as an immediate interest in the outer world, a sense of amazement for the changes of light and weather and how they felt.

It was not until I encountered Anthroposophy, and specifically when I started working with the Calendar of the Soul, that I became clearly conscious of the profound connection between my soul life and my surroundings. I think that light and its seasons, its moods —rhythms, colors, sounds— affect the soul deeply, not in an obvious way, but in a subtle and silent way, which we mostly fail to notice in day-to-day life. I truly believe that thoughts about this or that experience one might have had —life experiences in general, or rather biographically significant events—, and the insights gained therewith, are not just externally enveloped by the yearly process of light but have an internal relationship to it. By this I mean that the seasons and the soul are never indifferent
to one another. Certain experiences are possible in the summer which are impossible in winter and vice versa. There is a connection between the clear thinking “I” and the winter, the fruitful power of the will and the summer, and a “pouring over” of the one into the other. Now I have a clearer sense of how my soul faculties and dispositions are related to the cyclical rhythm of the year, to the quality of light as it outpours through the different seasons.

It is worthwhile to gain a deeper insight into these things, for they are not superfluous for self and world knowledge.

Such insight might also shed light into the true meaning of festivals. We know through abstraction that festivals represent festivities connected to the different times of year and the latter’s significance for the people that celebrated them. Can we truly understand the specific qualities of these festivals? If we did, then we could transform them through true thoughtful-spiritual insight into festivities that are adequate to our present spiritual constitution.

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