The Eightfold Path

Current Lesson
Course Content
Course Content

The helpers from beyond: L and M

25:55 Video (66 MB) HD Video (230 MB) Audio (24 MB)
L and M. And I've already told you that Steina says the consonants describe in a way the energies of the world, of the outer surrounding systems. Later on he was teaching a lot about the Urhythmia figures and how it, and I do a lot, how you find it in the body. But in the very beginning, 1912, when he taught eurythmics to Rory Meyer Smith for the very first time, he described all consonants as phenomena of nature.
And in the L, I must just look something up. You know. Great. And if you want we can experiment a little bit with the L and M now and the invitation is that's different because the L, if you work with the valves, I do them. Create the streaming together. I go out and I care for that it touches me here. And through me watching it, something comes into existence.
And the other world is just there And we just try to make contact with it by feeling similar processes in us. So we are not, if you read these texts, the temptation is you think, I do what I read there. I find the L in the mountains, in the water and everywhere is the L and then I'm just, yeah, I disappear in there. But that's not wrong, you do everything right. The only thing what you should have in mind is you only can feel it because it happens in yourself.
And we have only to make us aware that we produce it in a way in ourselves or we just have them in ourselves and through this we find them out there. Okay, let's try a few things about the L and the M. And now it's very important that you realize that you do not have to do it perfectly. You can do studies weeks and months or over longer periods of time to go deeper and deeper into these forces and how do they relate to this part of the body of fat and what do they do in my digestion. But it's about touching it.
These worlds are so happy to respond to our attempts. Yeah, that's all what is needed, starting a dialogue. You are allowed to be shy. And then you do the L again, just start at yourself.
And then remember the Oh stands behind it. And so reactivate the Oo in your body and notice the Oo makes me standing. And then let go and dive into another word, spread your arms out. Yeah, as if you could touch the surface of the earth. And now practice to let go in your body that the arms follow, everything becomes soft.
But by becoming soft you give a strength. And then use your legs, the power of your thighs to bring these energies up. And they fill your heart. And then the heart can transform it and from there it becomes and free it, it becomes a different energy.
And then out of darkness comes light. I enter world of light. And just practice a little bit to move between those two worlds, the world of darkness. The world of light. One last time like this, just feel I enter an inner world. But there there's force, strength.
I awaken into another world. And then let go. And for a moment be aware that yes, one was down, the other one was up, I have both in me. Make a step. Okay, darkness, light. You can also have birth and death, not in a brutal way but if you are a plant and then you are spread out but in the autumn or after a while or your seeds, they just everything sinks down.
Only the seeds survive. And then they recollect their forces. And out of this something else comes about which in the heart gives birth to what's their coming out growth. And then slowly disappearing again.
And here you arrive and here it needs another letting go. Yeah, now I let go. I give up. But I come back and again I arrive and a new impulse comes. Yes!
I unfold. Get out. Stillness, letting go. Collecting this energy and again now in the heart stillness.
And let go. And now just have the feeling, okay, you can also do it very briefly just to a third aspect, we do it more because it's also important that if we start again here now you feel more it's a three-dimensional space, you've become a ball. Yeah? And this three-dimensional space comes back to your center and up here, use your hands, use your finger, it's a two dimensional space. Three-dimensional space, roots, they are in all directions. And the plant lives in a two dimensional space. The light forces create two dimensional spaces, leaves.
Last time Okay, that's how you can practice L for example. Examples for how to practice L and please be aware that the legs are not stiff. When you do what we did the whole body moves.
Yeah? Now we were busy with the L in ourselves. And I suggest to not forget this, when now you have the imagination of you use your hands and there are clouds out there and you feel how under the clouds the air streams up and then the cloud forms and then after a while the cloud disappears again. Yeah, it sinks down again. But there are new currents carrying water up there, it's becoming colder and then at a certain height the water condenses and this cloud comes about. Yeah, and then you do it again. And then you let go.
And my invitation was that when you did it there, you also experienced what we did a little bit in yourself. That when you do this, you know, I can feel it because it's it's happening in me. Or use one hand and have the imagination of there's a water, nice warm water maybe in a river and you dive the hands in there and you love this water and you bring it up and then slowly you turn your hands and let the water rinse down again and then the water has gone and then you feel that the hands become cold because the wind touches the hands. And then you go in the water again.
You feel the resistance and you bring energy to lift your hands, bring the you must carry it up. You see it. Notice it's difficult to hold it in my hands and it go. So out of free will, if you go anywhere I can also pull you out and again. And now, I'm not too aware that you do it inwardly, but just have it down there, out there, but it's what you have just experienced in yourself. And then let go.
And when you have done this, how does the space around yourself feel now? And now we have done it in our fantasy and I invite you also to do it in true nature that you are out there and you play with the clouds as if you could dive with your ill into their ill because it's their ill which takes place in you, in you you ill. And then, that's another discovery of the last weeks I made. It changes how you perceive your surroundings. And the invitation is to have this liveliness, filledness of this to take it along.
And you know I'm practicing pay attention to your ideas, think about what is essential on the thinking level, be aware that you do it on the feeling level and also that this thinking, the value system, it has a lot to do with your will system, look into that. Yeah, you are busy with it, I try to do it, it's impossible to achieve all this what we have spoken about but it's my theme And do it being encompassed by this enlivened surroundings. Enlivened because you have practiced this a little bit and you can recollect how it felt and enlivened because you play with it and again feel it's there.
And that was the L. And it's pretty too, you can read it on the page where the replays are, what Steiner said, it's pretty close to how Steiner suggested to practice it. And with the M, he said the M is like being in something or more exactly moving in something. So you'll be there and then you walk and you feel you move in something. And the example is that you feel the air through which you move.
Or maybe water, the resistance of water. Yeah, when you do this. Or just warmth. You walk and feel the warmth around you. It's not zero degrees centigrade around you. It's depending on where you are, more probably. Yeah.
And then arrive again and breathe. And again try not to feel your own energy when you move. We can do it maybe a few steps that you imagine you are standing in water, hip high perhaps, and it's really an effort to walk quicker and then walk and notice how much effort it is to come forward. If you even try to jump because just walking is so hard, even try to get a little bit out of the water normally, but you stay in the water and you really push yourself through this.
But as I understand it, you can do this for a while, but he says try to feel moving in something. So do not feel the effort of your muscles, but extend your perceptiveness to an imagination of there is something. And you need this effort but try to perceive the water next to you. Try to feel the warmth around you and you move in it.
Yeah, so you feel it on your skin. Yeah. Try to feel the air passing your arms. But it's the surface, it's just something is walking there. So you can use your hands and now we are more close to the traditional way of doing the M, that you have the M down here and you slowly push your hands backwards and this dream makes you moving back. And then you turn your hands and now it's again the ways, not the arms push you but the arms create a stream and the stream brings you along.
And you do it again backwards. So the legs follow what they feel happening around. So, and when the L was being in something, so being surrounded by this energy, the M is moving, yeah, walking and feeling surrounded by the energy of the M. You are walking through some something.
And the invitation is that you recall a few times a day this feeling of the L around you, of the M in which you move, in which you move. And one example he gave even that the aim to experience that it is in something, that you should only to stand here and you only bend the hands. And Steiner once in his very first lessons to a 17 year old young woman that you feel something happening moving up here, above your head he says. So you are here, you can start creating a movement and this movement affects what's happening above your head. Then you turn your hands, you bend them slowly down and this brings something down here. You can read it up. It's pretty nice how he puts it.
And this can make you aware I am in something and when I move, I move in something and this something also moves. To finish we do the L two times in whatever way. So this collecting energy, formative forces, expanding forces. We experience it out there in the mountains. There's rock, hard rock, but there are surfaces on the mountain, there's snow on top of it, there's sunshine around it and there's water creating canyons and there are caves.
On the other side, yes, cows and birds are flying, sailing along and yeah, finding currents which bring them up because they are these mountains, descending the water and air currents along the mountains which have to rise in order to pass them and clouds on top because of that. Then let go, feel it around yourself and move a little bit, having it around yourself. It's there, just stand there. And move backward a little bit, just feel this feeling of the currents.
Backwards and forwards and it takes you long. And the last time backwards. And then let go and feel this M in nature where the air pushes the cloud somewhere. Yeah. And maybe a wind is blowing the leaves along and the stronger wind is bending a tree.
And somebody is putting on wooden sticks that the tree does not fall but stays upright and lifts the tree up again. Yeah. And then children play and one child pushes the other one gently. Yes.
And in nature there are maybe, yeah, the glaciers slowly come down, yeah, from the mountains 2 m per year. And then let go and have these impressions around yourself. And try when you do a few steps or if you stand having these impressions alive. How close is this? How far away is this sensation? Leave it open, sit down, relax.
How do you feel now? Pay attention to your ideas, thoughts. Think only significant thoughts. Gradually learn to separate the essential from the unessential, the eternal from the transient, the truth from the mere opinion.
How is the surrounding listening? When listening to the speech of fellow human beings try to become truly silent inwardly and refrain from all consent, especially all derogatory judgments, criticism or rejection. Also in thoughts and in feelings. This is the so called right opinion.

Bookmarks

00:03
Consonants describe world energies
02:29
Guided L practice begins
07:54
L as three-dimensional space
09:13
Imagining L with outer clouds
11:53
Take L practice into nature
14:04
M is moving in something
15:16
M practice walking in water
16:44
Traditional M arm movements
19:42
Final L practice with mountains
21:43
M in nature with air and clouds
24:19
Right opinion and inner silence
Show more Show less

In 1912, in his very first eurythmy lessons, Rudolf Steiner describes the consonants as a reaction to external influence in contrast to the vowels that weave within and reveal this inner being.

L and M

With the L, one should try to become aware of the freedom of development everywhere in nature, to experience it and to try to express this feeling through a movement of the arm and hand.

Of course, it can be seen most clearly in what is similar to plants. The grasping and gathering strength in the region of the roots, the carrying up of the juices through the stem, the gradual unfolding of the leaves, the lighting up of the flowers and finally also a sinking back to the earth in the withering. "You should be able to express an entire year in this movement."

But also in the watery, in the airy, even in the formations of the earth, in the piling up of the mountains, in the gentle waves of the hills one should learn to feel this free expandability. "But you must never want to express this sound with your feet."

With the M, one should, stepping forward, direct all of his attention, all of his groping sensation, towards feeling the Something in which one is moving. In warmth or cold, in humidity or freshness, in rain or fog. Feel how the wind blows past your body, or how water has to be displaced when you are perhaps walking through a stream. How differently you walk on a level path than through tall grass, differently over sand than on stony ground.

Yes, at first the hands should only be bent up and down so that you can feel the space above your own head. «Feeling yourself in something».

Lory Maier Smits from her lessons with Rudolf Steiner, September 1912, GA 277a

Pfad Gruppenkurs 2021 L-M

 

Get access to all lessons