There have always been dark times in human history. There has never been only peace, love, and joy on earth. And at the same time, in difficult times, human souls have always been drawn by a small light and sometimes by a large shining star to overcome obstacles and move towards a better future. What can be a shining star for us in this time?
I remember a lecture given to our Slovenian audience many years ago by a great anthroposophical doctor, Dr. Ratimir Šimetin from Zagreb. He said that everyone needs at least one person in their life, especially when they are young, who really loves them in order to be able to develop healthily. It can be their mother or father, or another person, or even someone who is not related to them.
The way he expressed this touched me deeply at the time. Can you imagine? Our development in life depends on whether we are loved, whether at least one person really appreciates that we are in the world. We have an enormous responsibility towards other people. In this age of the conscious soul, it seems that all beautiful concepts like hope are closely related to this responsibility. We can ask ourselves: do I really love at least one person? Is everyone I know loved by at least one person, so that everyone around the globe can shake hands and hearts?
How many people are lonely and in difficult life situations? In the worst of situations, we can sometimes experience that the necessary strength can be found in our own soul as a Christ flame. But not everyone finds it.
Our Slovenian poet Tone Pavček (1928-2011) wrote:
You are in the world to look at the sun.
You are in the world to follow the sun.
You are in the world to be the sun
and to banish shadows from the world.1
Hope seems mysterious, not self-evident. If we look at nature today, creatures and landscapes are threatened, and the entire earth as an organism is threatened. If we continue our current lifestyle, humanity is headed towards a catastrophe. Who loves the earth?
In the Goethean view of nature, we often talk about keen interest in another being as a gateway to true love—love is interest in another being. In this sense, I would describe hope “mathematically” as a sum of individual true, non-egoistic interests in the development of other beings. In this sense, hope should be a call for all of us to develop even more interest in our fellow human beings, in other beings, and in the spiritual world.
Another Slovenian poet, Ivan Minatti (1924-2012), wrote:
You must love someone,
be it grass, river, tree or stone
You must put your hand on someone’s shoulder
so that it—hungry—can be nourished with closeness
You must, you must,
it is like bread, like a sip of water
You must give your white clouds,
your bold bird’s dream,
your shy bird’s helplessness
—there must be for it
a nest of peace and tenderness somewhere
You must love someone,
be it grass, river, tree or stone
Because trees and grass know loneliness
—footsteps always keep going,
even if they stop for a moment
Because the river knows sadness
if it only meanders over its depth
Because the stone knows pain
—so many heavy feet
have already passed over its silent heart
You must love someone,
you must love someone, keep up with someone,
in the same footsteps—
Oh grass, river, stone, tree,
silent companions of loners and weirdos,
good, great creatures that only speak when people are silent.
Translation Laura Liska
Illustration Gilda Bartel
