Just as the dove is the image of peace, the dragon is considered a creature of war, emblazoned on coats of arms and war equipment. Its breath doesn’t bring life but doom. But, oh, how the stories about the beast of war have changed! At first, it was a matter of fleeing from the dragon, as Leto once did when, pregnant with Apollo, she fled from the beast across the globe. It’s no different for the Virgin in the Apocalypse of John. She also flees with her child across the whole cosmos. Then, Apollo himself does things differently. He turns from the hunted into the hunter. He lures the dragon Python out of his cave with dancing and curses, and shoots his golden arrows at him. The fire-being surrenders into the gulf and is banished. Here, the dragon is chased and driven away. Next comes the angel. He confronts the dragon with his sword. Fleeing and chasing become fighting and encounter.
And what about us today? As shown in the Red Window of the Goetheanum, we acknowledge that the dragon grows out of us, ourselves. Thus, we cannot flee from it like Leto, drive it away like Apollo, or wield a sword against it like the angel. If we carry the beast within ourselves, we have to tame it, to transform it. Just as we once brought the wolf to us and turned it into a dog, the predator into a companion, today, it is the dragon’s turn to come home. Then, the raging will be over.
Translation Joshua Kelberman
Illustration Fabian Roschka, Untitled, 2023
This is a very meaningful and historic view on the direction that anthroposophy might or must take in the present time.