DEVOTION BECOMES SACRIFICE

 

VIRTUES OF THE MONTH

Rudolf Steiner’s “Calendar of Virtues” is a monthly practice. The virtue of the month changes on the 21^st of each month so that the power of regularity helps with maintaining the practice over the months and years. Each month a new virtue transition will be offered for participants to consider.  While considering a Virtue transition, one is also asked to consider the opposite.  

Take time to observe the Virtue each month in nature, your community or yourself. Then journal your experience in 100 – 150 words about what you observe – outer and inner.

https://calendarofvirtues.blogspot.com/

 

MARCH 21 - APRIL 20

 

VIRTUE OF THE MONTH: DEVOTION BECOMES SACRIFICE

THE OPPOSITE: Not caring.

 

Here is an example which I wrote in 2014.

 

WHO AM I?

     I am the Seed. I am all about Devotion. In me I have bound together all of the genetic matter required to reproduce my species. This has been gathered over successive generations of plants. Some qualities have stayed, others have fallen away over time. And, I can protect this special cargo for a very long time. Because I am a plant seed, I have enclosed the germplasm in a very hard seed-case.

   NOTE:  Human Devotion is a virtue and gains strength when one spends time with something or someone important to you- including your future plans and dreams.  Like the seed, a practice of Devotion is an active gathering together all the knowledge, insight and experience possible within yourself – and this can take time, lots of it.

 

WHY AM I HERE?

    Sacrifice. The Seed is all about Devotion AND Sacrifice. When the time is right, I have got to be able to transform myself – to sacrifice one form - the form I am at the moment most comfortable with, have spent so much time perfecting -  to become another form – sacrifice my beautiful hard-shell to become re-born, transformed as a plant. I'm gonna need some help. When I’m planted in the dark earth and broken down by water, warmth, and life in the soil, that to which I have been devoted – will be released. Without Sacrifice the "new and improved me" cannot be re-born.

    NOTE: Self-sacrifice is terribly uncomfortable. Sometimes if you are in the midst of personal change it can actually feel as if something within you is dissolving, something hard or fixed is breaking down.

 

THE OPPOSITE: Not Caring

    The Virtues of Devotion and Sacrifice depend upon Care. There is a risk that they can draw you in to a type of hyper-devotion such as dogmatism or fanaticism. To guard against these excesses, many may develop an negative virtue of distancing themselves by not caring or cynicism. The soul question is how to stay objective but devoted and engaged. How to come close without merging.

 

WHAT DO I WANT?

    The questions I ask myself are: Has Devotion been easy? Hard? Has it gotten stuck? And, how is it going with your self-transformation? Is it time to practice the Virtue of Sacrifice and give up that to which we are devoted so that something new can come into the world, and into yourself?

 

© Copyright 2014, Jean W. Yeager

All Rights Reserved

 

AUTHOR SITE – www.th3simplequestions.com

AMAZON AUTHOR SITE: http://tinyurl.com/jk9a6e7