Episode 11: Tales from the Cosmic Bathtub - Advent and the Human Being
This week on Tales from the Cosmic Bathtub, my co host Matthew and our producer Andy discuss Advent, especially looking at the different parts of the human being and the way that each of these weeks that progress toward Christmas explore a different facet of the human makeup. Enjoy.
Matthew:We realize that we are just 2 individuals who are part of this global educational movement, and we want to be very clear that we are only speaking from our own experiences and from our own impressions. We do not presume to speak for the Waldorf movement as a whole. I wanted to start by, reading, just from the first chapter of Theosophy, quotation a quotation from from Goethe. So, Steiner starts chapter 1 by saying, the following words by Goethe beautifully characterize the starting point of one of the paths that lead to being able to recognize the true nature of the human being. So this is from Goethe.
Matthew:As soon as we become aware of the objects around us, we start to consider them in relationship to ourselves, and rightly so, because our fate depends entirely on whether they please or displease, attract or repel, help or harm us. This very natural way of looking at and assessing things appears to be as easy as it is necessary, yet it exposes us to a thousands to thousands of errors that often put us to shame and make our lives miserable.
Andy:We undertake a much harder task when, in our keen desire for knowledge, we strive to observe natural objects in and for themselves and in their relationship to one another. For we soon feel the lack of the standard of liking and disliking, attraction and repulsion, usefulness and harmfulness that came to our aid when we were considering objects in relationship to our human selves. We are forced to renounce the standard totally and, as dispassionate and quasi divine beings, to seek out and examine what is and not what pleases us. This means that neither the beauty nor the usefulness of any plant should move true botanists who should rather study its morphology and its relationship to the rest of the plant kingdom, Just as the sun shines equally on all plants and entices them forth, so too should botanists observe and survey them all impartiality and survey them all impartially, and take the data and standards for their assessment, not from the human domain, but from the domain of the things under observation.
Matthew:In this episode, episode 2 of Tales from the Cosmic Bathtub, I have Andy Smith here with me in the studio.
Andy:Hello, everybody. Thank you.
Matthew:Yeah. And we wanted to do a couple of things today. We wanted to talk about the festival of Advent, and, we wanted to talk about the 3 fold and the 4 fold human being in relationship to the to the festival of Advent. And then I wanna just continue by what Steiner says about this quotation from Goethe. Doctor Steiner says, Goethe's thoughts draw our attention to 3 different kinds of things.
Matthew:First, the objects we constantly receive information about through the gateways of our senses, the things we touch, taste, smell, hear, and see. 2nd, the impressions they make on us, which assume the character of liking or disliking, desire or disgust, by virtue of the fact that we react sympathetically to one thing or are repelled by another or find one thing useful and another harmful. And third, the knowledge we, quote, quasi divine beings, quote unquote, acquire about the objects as they tell us the secrets of what they are and how they work.
Andy:This always reminds me of compost.
Matthew:You know, as a
Andy:as a child, you think, what is that disgusting pile of stuff you're keeping in the kitchen? It's got coffee grounds in it and lemons and may may may be not depending on where you are with citrus in there. But once you have, you know, once you have knowledge that this is actually very healthy stuff you're gonna feed the soil with, you have a different relationship with it. Yeah. You no longer smell that, like, with disgust.
Andy:You almost kinda wanna open that lid of that compost pile and smell the goodness, you know, that pungent Yeah. Goodness.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. That's an exact, example of something that that repels us. I also often think about dog poop in in in this kind of situation because we have an immediate repulsion from from, you know, interacting with it usually.
Andy:Right. You gotta pick that up.
Matthew:Yeah. Really? Yeah. Exactly.
Andy:And the impression, yes, I have to pick this up now and take it and put it in the trash, you know.
Matthew:Yeah. So so Steiner talks about, you know, these three different ways of linking to the world and he directly talks about that in terms of our physical body, our soul body, and then our spirit body. And and and so our physical body is, you know, the our, you know, our organs, our skin, our bones, our musk muscle systems, you know, all of our bodily systems. So, you know, we're assuming that we are fully functioning human beings. You know, we have eyes that work.
Matthew:Right? Otherwise, we would be blind. So you we we have sensations and our physical body is what allows us to experience the world around us. Is those are my words. And by the way, of course, talking about my own limited, understanding of what of what all this is.
Andy:Yes. Please note the disclaimer at
Matthew:the beginning of the episode. Yeah.
Andy:These are just words. These are harmless words.
Matthew:Right. And so then once we have the ability and our organs and and our processes are are normal, are are operating normally, so the for this in the sake of we can hear sounds, we can see, light and and, well, you can't really see light, but, that's my science background. But you we we were stimulated by by,
Andy:Colorful flowers. Exactly. Right. And we smell them.
Matthew:And we smell them and everything works. So then we get to the second layer, this what Steiner talks about as the the the soul body of the human being, and this is the realm where we relate things to ourselves. So we have impressions, of of the information that we gather through the gateway of our senses. So we have what he what he talks about as sympathetic reactions and anti pathetic or or, antipathy or he also calls it as, kind of a rejection or a a a being repelled by by that. And, again, that's example of seeing smelling a flower that you like or seeing something that is good or smelling the compost or the dog poop or something.
Matthew:That's an example of something that's usually a repulsion, but also can have deeper meaning. Because we have then this third body. Right? So we have the ability then to think about our impressions. So this we've gone from the world of the physical senses, and then we have our sensations about those and our our personal reaction to our sensations.
Matthew:And then we also then have, in the spirit body, that's where the thinking comes in. Right? So the it's the thinking then that makes us realize that there are laws beyond ourselves. And so, Steiner talks about looking up at a starry sky, and we can admire the stars on on a dark night and and think, wow, those are that's really a beautiful, you know, starscape, and I'm feeling very uplifted by that. And at the same time, our thinking, we can say, okay, but the laws of of, you know, of cosmology and, you know, how the stars move and what's going on, that is a process above above or beyond myself.
Matthew:Right. I think that's how I would characterize Absolutely.
Andy:Yeah. For sure.
Matthew:Yeah. So, the other interesting thing and I just want to point it this out is that, we use our spirit body to acquire information or as as for the objects for them, for the objects or the processes or beings of the world as they tell us the secrets of what they are. So we also use our thinking, our spiritual body to uncover secrets that that what we're studying wants to reveal to us. So there's a dynamic in play where and it's hard to describe, but I'm imagining if you're researching something for a long time or you're work wrestling with a problem, I've seen this in math, for example. You you're working on a problem and you're working on a problem and something will then reveal itself either through your sleep or something and, you know so it's like that there's a a communication happening that the that what you're focusing on will speak to you, of itself if you're listening.
Andy:Well, I always think of this as the experience that, you know, agricultural communities had. Mhmm. That vegetal experience of having those plants come back every year and return.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So okay. So that's the threefold human being, the the physical, the soul, and the spirit bodies.
Matthew:And then when we talk about Advent in this time, before Christmas, we're actually looking then at the human beings from a different perspective in which is often called like a fourfold view of the human beings. So what do you remember, Andy, from your studies about the fourfold human being?
Andy:Oh, about the fourfold. Well, you know, again, I just in preparation, I kind of brushed up on my, reading of Theosophy last night. But, yeah. So the 4 fold human being, this is the the physical body of our that we have, our etheric or life body, our astral or feeling body, and then our ego.
Matthew:Right. Right. And so it's hard sometimes, I think, as a I've taught science and to try to reconcile a modern scientific understanding from what Steiner doctor Steiner was talking about, you know, a 100 years ago.
Andy:Even as he talks about, that kinda actually gets in the way.
Matthew:Yeah. And then also, I think what gets in the way is just the way our our vocabulary itself. It's hard to talk about things when even our language is so material. So we are talking about a spiritual body. It's not an actual body.
Matthew:It's more like sometimes people have said cheese or, you know, I mean,
Andy:I Cheese.
Matthew:You know, you'd it's it's we have an a language problem when we're dealing with spiritual topics and then yet we have a materialistic basis for a language. So, anyway but to go back to this, so in thinking about, like, is there examples of each of these bodies? And I think, really, when you talk about the physical body, that's your corpse. That's what's left
Andy:Right. After you die. After life processes stop
Matthew:Yeah.
Andy:Your body returns to
Matthew:you
Andy:know, and where it was. It begins to decompose and decay. And something was there that's now gone.
Matthew:Right. And so that is literally your corpse. And and I've I've understood that when you die, you know, like, your fingernails will grow for about 3 days before it stops and stuff like that, which is, you know so there's the the the life force is very, very strong, but the the corpse is just kind of the the stuff, the bones. It's yeah. It's it's it's really just the stuff that's left over at at in in corpse form after the life body and the other bodies have departed.
Matthew:And
Andy:Is that the mineral body?
Matthew:Yeah. That's the mineral body. So to to to link this back to this festival advent because this is actually a hopeful time not Well, yes. But this is the first layer. This is the mineral kingdom.
Matthew:We're talking bones and stones and,
Andy:And that's the 1st week of
Matthew:The 1st week of advent. Right. And and, you know, when things go wrong with the physical body, the best often the cure is to go to sleep and to allow your life body to do the repairs. Okay.
Andy:Yes. Okay.
Matthew:So This
Andy:is what a lot of modern day healers, you know, believe where the the the body has its inherent ability to heal itself. Exactly. It's not the body has its ability to heal itself. It's actually when you're resting that invites the life body to come and do its restorative work. Right.
Matthew:The life
Andy:body is many things, but one of them is
Matthew:restorative. And so the life body is very rhythmical. It's it it it it bases itself on rhythm. It has patterns. It you know, you have cycles, sleep cycles, all kinds of of rhythms and cycles.
Matthew:And then so when we talk about the life body, it is everything that keeps yourself alive. And most of this stuff is completely unconscious. Right? We're talking about digestion. We're talking about breathing and your blood pumping through your body.
Matthew:Like, we don't have a a consciousness of how that all works. It just happens kind of below the threshold of consciousness and thank goodness because who would really wanna be thinking about, you know, if they're digesting their last meal. Right? It's And
Andy:again, my favorite, you know, again, playing into this, you know, interplay between, Steiner and and and Carl Jung. Yeah. Right? That, you know, Carl Jung described consciousness as a circle. And that, you know, you you have you draw yourself a circle and then you draw yourself a line that's maybe 10% from the top of the circle.
Andy:So just this little bit of crest and that's actually your weight in consciousness and everything below that line is your subconscious processes. Right. How much bile is your gallbladder gonna secrete into your, you know, if you think about all that stuff, we would jeez, you know, we never learn how to spell.
Matthew:Right. And so, because it's rhythmical and very strong and unconscious, we usually don't really get a sense of it until there's something really wrong. Right?
Andy:Right.
Matthew:I mean, you have a stomachache or you wake up in the morning and you're like, ugh, that I just don't feel well. That's You've
Andy:broken an arm. You can tell something's
Matthew:wrong. Yeah. But that's kind of another, pointer towards towards your life body, also called the etheric body. Nothing to do with ether, as Steiner doctor Steiner talks about. It's just a name.
Matthew:Right?
Andy:Just another word. Yes.
Matthew:Yeah. So, okay. So and it's really interesting with the life body is a formative force. It it it actually helps to create, you know, our organs and our bodies. And in in terms of education, it goes quite deep.
Matthew:But, we'll be coming to that. But anyway, so the 2nd week of Advent after the the minerals, are the plants. And the plants, all plant life is, part of the life body, of the etheric, forces. So, really, it's growth, it's upright growth, seeking the sun.
Andy:Sun seeking. Yeah.
Matthew:Sun seeking. Yeah. And and so then, we come to the 3rd of the 4, bodies in the human being and that is the astral or the feeling life or the life body, also called astral body. There's lots of different names. And this is represented, represented in the animals.
Matthew:So the 3rd week of Advent is the celebration of the animals, and it's it's the it's, you know so we're talking about the world of sensation. So we share a lot of common sensations and feelings with animals. And and yet, just to distinguish, there's no I don't think any animal that worries about, you know, their birthday or, you know, what you know, maybe they're worried about what's for lunch, but they don't have a choice between, you know, Chick Fil A and, you know, whatever, Chipotle, you know. There's no that kind of consciousness. Right?
Matthew:It's not that kind of, you know, feelings and and thought.
Andy:I might wanna defer a little bit on this this idea of the the world of sensation and, the the the week of the animals. We have this very interesting relationship in anthroposophy with the the form of the human body.
Matthew:Yeah.
Andy:Right? There's this idea that the the human body is actually the least differentiated. Right? Birds to make the decision to fly, for example, they had to choose to, you know, do away with a lot of their, intestinal tract, so they'd be light enough to fly and also have hollow bones.
Matthew:Right.
Andy:And then there's this other animal that's relied on a lot, the the beaver. Uh-huh. Has this innate sense, this drive or sensation to do what it does. Right. And it does its thing very well and doesn't actually think about it very much.
Andy:Right? Is that is that what we're talking about? Or I
Matthew:mean, I think so. I think, you know, in I remember in in my early grades, there was different animals, you know, like head animals. There's animals that are like trunk animals. There's animals that are like limb animals. And so but I think what what you're saying is, you know, there's there's instinct and then so, like, no one teaches the beaver doesn't learn how to be a beaver.
Matthew:It just knows instinctively how to be a beaver.
Andy:We don't know how to be a beaver. We actually have to go to engineering school and learn and learn a lot. Yeah. We actually have to learn something to do what it is that beavers do Right. Naturally
Matthew:Right.
Andy:Or or like birds fly.
Matthew:Right. Right. So in in that sense, I think that just from our physical the way we're made, our hands are very, undeveloped. They're not they're unspecialized because it's like
Andy:They're not feathers.
Matthew:They don't need
Andy:to be used to fly. They yes.
Matthew:Right. But the human being has been the form of the human being allows us to be multiple things because of the the our hands being what they are, we can create, you know, we can create wings in in an airplane and fly.
Andy:Or you look at how we build a building. Right? There are some humans that are really good like diggers. They take the stuff out. And other ones that are very good at, you know, building the structure and being the upright form and
Matthew:those sorts of things. Yeah. I think I think so in in in general terms, for sure. Yeah.
Andy:But I think I'm getting as far afield. So week 3 of Advent Animals and the world of sensation, how it relates to our feeling body and the world of sensation.
Matthew:And I think this is often a a ending point. This can be a potential dangerous ending point for for human beings, right, to be trapped in the world of in the astral storms of of adolescence. And, you know, in and then what what in a Waldorf school is comes next. And I think in life general, but we have we don't often get formal schooling is is then the development of the ego body, the the eye, the the consciousness, soul of the of the human being or the consciousness of the human being. And this is where you have, again, self directed, sensations or or or or thoughts.
Matthew:I mean, but it's where thinking comes in. So you you have the ability to sense things, but then it's not just, oh, I like it. I don't like it. Okay. Let me go over here.
Matthew:You know, it's not a base basic level of, you know, survival. It's more like, what would I like for lunch today? You know? And and, you know, so there's a there's a there's a level of of of thinking that gets added in and then you the the the ego body is kind of the newest member of the human, constitution.
Andy:Well, this is what your arrhythmia invites
Matthew:Mhmm.
Andy:The students to.
Matthew:Yeah.
Andy:Right? Rise above this world of sensation and this wildness that you're feeling and the the the yes, the wildness of the time.
Matthew:Absolutely. Let's
Andy:just say. And, the choice, Right? I'm gonna set aside my body's desire to just run around and
Matthew:Yeah.
Andy:And I'm gonna do this very intentional thing, you know. I'm it it begins as I'm being forced to do this very intentional thing. But, you know, I I ideally, we move towards this choice.
Matthew:Yeah. Exactly. Well, and I think that is it. I mean, it's it's it's how do you concentrate. Right?
Matthew:Because thinking, you actually have to get a grab a hold of thinking and train it. Otherwise, you lose it. It's easy not to think about things. And lots of lots of companies want you not to think about things. Just buy my product and everything will be okay.
Andy:Right. Well, especially, you know, products like alcohol. And again, this is where, you know, addiction happens when people are kinda stuck in the world of sensation. This my my direct experience with this was with cigarettes. Mhmm.
Andy:You know, I actually had an experience where suddenly I made this connection that this thing that seemed very cool didn't make me feel very good. Mhmm. And then I actually had a choice to, you know, have a cigarette or not.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so I think a lot of your arrhythmia, the lessons that I remember, I mean, especially my 7th grade arrhythmia teacher, bless her heart, spent all year with us trying to do one eurythmy exercise. And now it wasn't every time, but we we practiced every week.
Matthew:We try to do it and it was this, arrhythmia form where we were all work walking in a circle and then spiraling in and then making a smaller circle on the inside and then spiraling back out again. And we had a a rod in our hand as we were spiraling in and and then and she the goal was to do it perfectly. And it literally took all year. And and as as it as the school year got towards the end of the year, she we would practice it 2 or 3 times in a lesson and then we move on and you could tell she was too. Right?
Matthew:Yeah. I mean, just like every week, we had, like, 5 minutes, like, trying to do this form and then we'd move on and then and then you could tell she was they were like it got to the point where we were all starting to realize, like, oh, our teacher really wants this to happen. And, you know, it was always like it was like at the beginning of the year, there was, like, 10 people who couldn't figure out what we're doing and then it got less and less. And by the end of the year, it was like 1 or 2 people would, you know, mess something up and and and and it was a complicated for 7th grade, it's complicated because we were moving. We were also moving our arms and the 7 I think it was a 7 fold exercise.
Matthew:And, no, we weren't passing rods, I don't think, but we were we were walking and
Andy:We were passing rods. It wasn't that complicated. It's probably complicated though.
Matthew:It was super complicated but you but the point was we all had to be in tune with each other. And I remember we got to, like, 1 or 2 people and then all of us students were starting to get upset with the people who weren't tuning in and then and then it happened. It was like, I think it was in April and we we did the exercise and it we did it perfectly. And I kid you not, our urethral teacher, she, like, shed some tears because it was
Andy:What's that feel like? What did that feel like for you?
Matthew:Well, we had finally tuned into each other and finally everybody was on board and it was, like, so precious. And then, of course, we all just went back to, you know, being 7th graders. But Right. It was that one moment. It was like it was like that ping, you know, like, it just happened.
Matthew:It just worked. And it was felt really good. Yeah.
Andy:Yeah. I think that was yeah. Felt really good. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, wow. That was a tangent. Yeah.
Andy:When when when we do get to having a bigger conversation on your rhythm, I'd like to be part of that just because of my martial arts background. You know, it's such a such a big part. But, yes, this this Oh,
Matthew:okay. Concentration shoes. Yeah. And concentration and thinking and and and I mean, there's so there's such a vast literature on the exercises that Steiner gave in terms of training our thinking. Because so it's it's not very well taught and and there's just an amazing amount of BS that goes through our minds that is when we're untrained, when we we're not conscious of
Andy:Undisciplined.
Matthew:And we're undisciplined and we're untrained and, you know, it's even you know, for me, I often think about, like, earworms, you know, like, they drive me crazy, you know. And I find myself singing it and I sing it again and it's like, oh, I'm, you know, how do I I have to be like more I've realized I'm not conscious of my thinking because these earworms can come in.
Andy:Yeah. And not being, you know, that that that's why I love travel so much is, the things that you I do in the morning Yeah. That are usually very that should be rhythmic, that suddenly I have to think about. Yeah. And I always hear people, you know, who who don't like to think like, oh, gosh.
Andy:I hate traveling because I can't find this. I can't
Matthew:find that. Right.
Andy:Because because it's hard to think. Yeah. And if you have to do that constantly, you know, starting with, you know, what are you gonna eat in the morning? Yeah. You're pretty you're you're more tired.
Andy:And our culture kinda caters to that you don't need to think.
Matthew:Right. It's not an easy. There's no easy outs. Right.
Andy:Yeah. Our modern culture definitely pulls us to the world of sensation.
Matthew:Yeah. And definitely definitely emphasizes that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I I mean, there's a lot of I think there's a lot of strategies to when the goal is to make money.
Matthew:Right? Like, how the there's very smart people doing a lot of thinking about how to take away those kinds of markers that would allow us to wake up and to be more conscious. I I think of an example of, like, a casino that takes all the clocks out of the gambling room.
Andy:So you don't
Matthew:oh my god. It's 3 in the morning, you know, or 4. Right. Yeah.
Andy:There's this invitation for us to rise to Mhmm. What is the 4th week of Advent or
Matthew:Yeah. The the the the ego body, you know, so the consciousness, the seed of consciousness in the human being. And so in Advent, we we celebrate those 4 weeks. In the Waldorf School, we had songs, we had verses. In my personally, my family had a little Advent garden and so we placed, you know, different minerals and rocks and seashells for the 1st week and then dried plants and wooden animals and and then had, you know, really the shepherds and and then, you know, Mary and Joseph.
Matthew:You know, we had a little, needle felted figurines that came into the scene and, the 3 kings, actually, by end 3 kings day and stuff like that. And for me, when I think of this festival time, it was really advent and then the shepherd's play that really was the heart of of this season for me personally. And, and really, yeah, just colored the whole this whole time in school.
Andy:And I guess when we talk about these dirty words, you know, you know, the the coming of the Christ, you know, oh, you know, that sounds kind of that sounds kind of religious, you know. It's, people have these, especially today, have these relationship with words, which again pulls them back from the world of sensation. It seems to discourage them from actually, well, think about this for a minute. Yeah. You know, what what do you what do you think we mean Mhmm.
Andy:When we say we're preparing for the Christ, we're inviting the like, what what is that, Matthew?
Matthew:Well, I mean, for me personally, I think I I really resonate with what Steiner talked about as Christ being the representative of the of humanity. And I know that's a western tradition, coming out of a western spiritual stream and I'm
Andy:I'm a part of that stream. We will forgive you because you can withdraw attention to our very carefully crafted disclaimer at the beginning of every heartbeat of this podcast. I
Matthew:Right. But I I think, you know, I personally look at at Jesus as the representative of the human being in this spiritual world. And, there's there's a sculpture that Steiner, was working on that, you know, Christ as the representative of humanity. We had gesture going up and a gesture his arms going down and representing This
Andy:is where we need a true arrhythmus. What what gesture is that? And he said, oh, that's the
Matthew:The yeah. And so that's, you know, looking at these 2 forces. This. Yes. Yeah.
Matthew:These 2 other spiritual I mean, there's when we look at the spiritual world, it was kind of eye opening to me to realize that, you know, there's there's beneficial spiritual beings in the world and and and adversarial, spiritual beings in the world.
Andy:Well, so is this where we're talking about Arman and Lucifer? Arman and Lucifer, particularly. Well, also what's confusing is they both have benefits. Exactly. They both if if you have too much of 1, you know, it's un Yeah.
Andy:Not unhealthy but unhygienic, you know.
Matthew:Yeah. And so and it's all all it's very Aristotelian in the sense that there always has to be a balance between the 2. And so
Andy:Well, no. There has to be a balance. I I think he did refer like the the the this is a this isn't a static thing.
Matthew:No. It's not a static thing for sure.
Andy:Any of us who have lived human lives for sure.
Matthew:Yeah. But you you have in in the astral body, you have this ability to, go way overboard. Right? And that's for an anthroposophist that would be or that that would be, you know, kind of going towards the Luciferic I'm sorry. Yes.
Matthew:Luciferic. Lucifer. You know, the the stream. Like, the the let me just delight you delight your your senses to death, you know. Yeah.
Matthew:Everything is everything is so great and, you know, so much glitz and glamour and and you've just lost yourself. And then on the other hand, I often think, of well, actually, I I think of Batman. But anyway, we can go we can go into the philosophical backgrounds of of Batman and some other time. But you have this Aramonic figure which is a it's it's as equally a a an adversarial spiritual force, but it's it's the opposite. It's it's cold and calculating and, very rigid.
Matthew:And it's it's like you when you take form into complete chaos. It's it's but chaos in this, like, you know, Aruman never wants to be seen. You never want he never wants his name to be said.
Andy:This is the uncle who at at thanksgiving who's not happy unless everyone else is miserable.
Matthew:Yeah. Exactly. And and then you have but so you have this kind of calcification, kind of this kind of, almost digitization or mechanization of of a human being, at totally absent of human emotion.
Andy:Right. Over mechanization.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. And so that's kind of so that's Arman. So then, you know, you have people who who really like that because of its clarity. Right?
Matthew:There's no messy emotions. I don't actually know what you're saying. Are you smiling at me? Are you upset with me? Just, you know, just give me
Andy:Insert Matthew's famous eye roll. Yes. It's nice little little little tell. He likes to flutter his eyes and roll his eyes sometimes.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. People like to
Andy:get people like to get upset
Matthew:at him. Oh, very much so. Very much so. So anyway, so those are the 2 there's many, there's others obviously, but that those are the 2 that, I work with I guess. I mean, we all work with them in different ways, but, you know, are we being too cold in calculating?
Matthew:Are we being too emotionally flying off the handle kind of thing? And, and then being in the center of that is a process of of becoming conscious, raising consciousness, you know, being aware of what you're feeling and thinking, you know, in the moment.
Andy:Right. This this tool gives you what, you know, what is my body wanting? Mhmm. And is that Mhmm. Is that good for me?
Andy:You know, my body's hungry, you know. I'm I'm getting ready to go for a hike or I've gone on a big hike and like my body's depleted.
Matthew:Right. Right. And and then in in but more than just so in those senses and in those sensations, Steiner actually talks about having 12 senses of this body. My
Andy:favorite. Yes. I love the 12 senses.
Matthew:And so there's there's the 4 foundational ones and then there's 4 kind of middle ground ones. And then there's the 4 highest ones. And in those senses, sound being one of them, but then there's also these senses What
Andy:is it like the sense of the word?
Matthew:Of the words and the thought.
Andy:Because there's a glad,
Matthew:glad, glad. Yeah. That sound. The the the sense of word, sense of word for the word and the sense for the thought. So it's also being conscious, I think, is is an act of listening.
Matthew:Like, how if I'm in a group or I'm just here with you, am I am I conscious enough to understand myself? But I'm also conscious enough to start to understand who you are and where you, Andy, are thinking and feeling and, you know, you mentioned my eye roll just recently. But, like, you know, you were aware enough that I that I was doing that. And and we we, as human beings, can develop these higher senses and start to, I think, bridge a lot of differences, that way.
Andy:Well, something else to touch on here is, the the astral or the the feeling body isn't something well, there are hints to it, but you can't necessarily tell how someone else is feeling in their feeling body. I mean, you you can tell in their life body like that person is not doing too well.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Andy:But that that that feeling body is something that's very personal to me. Right. And I have, humans have this ability to kinda share that. The ability to share what can't be seen.
Matthew:Right. Right. And so, if I may, then And that's
Andy:the act of the ego body. Right? Kinda bring us back to the classroom.
Matthew:Exactly. And and then Which again
Andy:is the 4th week of
Matthew:the 4th week. Right. And then and then
Andy:Or the week of what is it? Is it I what is the I know it's the the
Matthew:The the ego body. I mean, ego or the human being. Right. It's a celebration of the human being.
Andy:Okay. Very good.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. But but also at that time is is this this the Shepherd's Play.
Andy:And
Matthew:I think Which
Andy:was a real gift for me. I got to play be in the Shepherd's Play with Yeah. You. And again, yeah. It was it changed my relationship with with Christmas in such a beautiful way Right.
Andy:Really, having participated in that.
Matthew:Yeah. I I acted in the Shepherd's Play for for, I think, almost 18 years. Wow. 1 year I was the star singer, but that role didn't fit me. And actually in the history of of of the Shepherds play, the roles would be passed down through families.
Andy:Right. I remember this.
Matthew:So I played this I played all the Shepherds at least once but multiple times. But what's interesting and I think the connection here is that, you know, the and it's the shepherds become archetypes. I mean, everybody in that play are archetypes. Mary and Joseph, obviously, and and and Jesus and and the innkeepers and and everybody. But when you look at the shepherd specifically in the shepherd's play, it's very interesting, what each shepherd focuses on and what they experience.
Matthew:Just as a short example, when the shepherds are lying on the ground and the archangel sings to them, one shepherd says, what is that ghost doing? And then and then, you know, only one of the shepherds says, oh, I hear the singing of an angel. And so it's very interesting when you dive into the what the shepherds say and and and, you know, what is what's said about them. How the shepherds are kind of a model for for a humble human existence.
Andy:Right. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing. It really is.
Matthew:I'm not sure if you know, Dennis Klotschek, but he he talked about the 4 foot 4 bodies, of a river. He he talked a little bit about the physical, the etheric, the astral, and the ego of a river. And if you're interested, I could go through that. No.
Andy:I think that'd be a great example of, you know, another kind of tool to use to kind of explain what what exactly are you talking about, Matthew?
Matthew:Yeah. Okay. So I'm doing this from memory. So, yeah.
Andy:So we're imagining a river. So it's a river. And and and there's a body of water.
Matthew:I mean, you can think of the Mississippi. You could think of the Colorado. Colorado.
Andy:Going through the Grand Canyon.
Matthew:Yep. Exactly. Okay. So the physical body of the river, and this is according to Dennis Klotchick, is not the water, it's the the land. It's it's it's the earth.
Matthew:It's the shape of the earth that the That carries the water. That carries the water. So the
Andy:The channel.
Matthew:The channel. Yeah. And Trench? Exactly. Yeah.
Matthew:And and the Pesachia perhaps? Right. And the the could be a little yeah. It's a sakia for sure. And it's it's the strength of the stones.
Matthew:It's the geometry, literally the geometry but the, you know, are the stones that the water is flowing over tough or is it is it, you know, does it erode easily?
Andy:This is fascinating because, again, you look at river rock from different rivers and they they they interact with the rock of the area differently.
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah. And and it's that those are the things that if the river were to, quote unquote, die or, you know, dry up, that's what that's what stays there.
Andy:Right? That's the corpse. The dry riverbed.
Matthew:The dry riverbed. So the riverbed is the physical body. An arroyo. Yeah. An arroyo.
Matthew:And so then you have what gives the river life is the water itself. So the flowing chemistry of the river Something happens upstream
Andy:Right. And there's a destination downstream and you're it's somewhere in the middle Right. And this thing's gonna come and move Right. Through it.
Matthew:And and that movement is a gesture of the etheric. So that's that's when we say cycles and rhythms and when that you that's all that happens through the movement of the water. So the water, while it has a physical physicality, I mean, h two o, I'm not saying that it doesn't have that.
Andy:This is where science gets in the way. You're like water water has a body. It's, it's like you're you're missing the metaphor. You're being too literal.
Matthew:But but you again, it's like it's like it's the water that gives life to everything. So that's the etheric body. And then the astral body,
Andy:the feeling. Right? Yeah.
Matthew:Well, I should say that it's also all the chemistry. I mean, there's thousands of chemical reactions that happen in a river. You're talking about mud and I mean, all kinds of stuff. Silt. And and the life forms and, you know, the decomposition and and all that stuff.
Matthew:You water erodes the minerals and the minerals are carried. I mean, everything.
Andy:We're just gonna glance over that complicated stuff for the time being. Just Yeah.
Matthew:But the point is is that that mineral the that that that mineral load, the the the sediment load is being carried by the water. And then the astral body, is equivalent to, like, the depositions when you go to a river bend. So when you when the river turns in its channel There are deposits. There's deposits because the water moves down. Speeds.
Matthew:Yes. And so the water that's flowing faster around the outside of the curve, it doesn't deposit. It gets deeper.
Andy:It stays deeper. Right?
Matthew:Yeah. Yeah.
Andy:Towards the inside of curve, it's shallow where they're slower and silt is deposited. Right.
Matthew:The water slows down and deposits what it's carrying. So then you start to build up these deposits and those are equivalent to your emotional life.
Andy:Matthew's eyes are going crazy.
Matthew:That's because I'm using my imagination in it.
Andy:So there there you go. That's what that is.
Matthew:So, it makes me a little embarrassed, but okay. So, so so you get these deposits and then you have in your feeling life, you know, the deposits can get really quite big and to the point where even in a river you start to, you know, you start to actually form a blockage. Wow. You can walk on this. Yeah.
Matthew:Yeah. And this is a really funny part that, that Dennis he he this is a really he's a master storyteller in this, but he he talks about these these deposits becoming overbearing and that's when we have emotional, you know, we need emotional breakthroughs. Sclerosis. Yeah. Well, we need emotional breakthroughs.
Matthew:Like, literally, like, it could be like a midlife crisis.
Andy:Right.
Matthew:And then to to go to get over to get through that, to open up the flow again, you have to have, you know, a major intervention or or major event happen.
Andy:You need to have some heavy etheric.
Matthew:You need to have yeah. I mean, it's it's, you know, a midlife crisis stuff or or it's something that that blows out, you know, that blockage and allows the flow to happen again.
Andy:Right. Which again, sometimes can actually be a bad experience. Something bad can happen which can propel you to, you know, consciousness Right. And to realizing you have a choice. Right.
Matthew:And, and so I'm sure then we're wondering how we get to the consciousness part and, In the river. Yeah. Yeah. In the river. So I know that so the deposits in the river and then the ego body is the ability to think through the entire watershed.
Matthew:And say, okay, a river is is the whole thing. Right.
Andy:It's not just the bank I'm standing on. Yeah. It's not
Matthew:the course.
Andy:I've just banned my vision.
Matthew:It's not the it's not the riverbed. It's not just the water. It's not the deposits. It's not all the life. It's not the fact that, you know, water moves from mountains to ocean or anything but it's it's encompassing the whole.
Matthew:I think that's where, Dennis left it in in that example. But that also could've I could've just made that because It sounds good. It sounds good.
Andy:Because at least it brings it back together as the whole. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a very anthroposophical thought, you know, thought. Yeah.
Andy:As it were. So there we go. That's how the 4 fold human body relates to advent. Yeah. We have a physical body, an etheric life body, an astral feeling body, and then this ego thinking thing.
Matthew:Mhmm.
Andy:And again, this is there's an evolution towards this as as as as we age. And again, this is what we're celebrating during Advent. The 1st week we're celebrating minerals, rhythms that we celebrate. 2nd week plants, the life body. 3rd week, the world of sensation and again again kinda inviting ourselves up to this this penultimate challenge of Mhmm.
Andy:Really thinking about these things
Matthew:Yeah.
Andy:In the 4th week of Advent. And also our choice to do this during the the how do you call it? Not the you know, you can't say it the longest nights but the
Matthew:Well, I mean, the winter solstice. Right? Yeah. Yeah. The longest the longest nights of the year, the most darkness.
Andy:Yeah. The rhythm of most darkness.
Matthew:Well, I think what really what we're saying is is that this is the moment when we could be most overcome in physical darkness. And so what we celebrate And give into our lower natures but what we celebrate is the hope that that the light comes back.
Andy:In 3 more months. Yeah. We have this experience that the plants will start coming back. Yeah. If we're hunters, the animals might start
Matthew:coming back. Yeah. And and the sunlight being also I mean, whether it's, you know, Uhura Mazda or or Christ being,
Andy:I mean,
Matthew:whatever divine being we're talking about. But there's so many of them that's connected to the sun. And so
Andy:Again, the the the for example, the rhythm of, night to day. Yeah. Right? Gives hint to that. Right?
Andy:And we can use that experience to talk about Right. Something beyond that, which again, isn't something we know that animals do.
Matthew:Yeah. Well, not self consciously probably. Yeah. Well, great.
Andy:Well, thank you for having me, Matthew
Matthew:Thank you.
Andy:On this very special cosmic bathtub. Yeah. You'll get a little bit more of my biography in a future episode. Great. And, yeah.
Andy:Thanks for having me. Thank you.
Taylor:This concludes another episode of hard beeswax. Thanks for listening.
Matthew:For episodes and more, much more, visit our website at hard beeswax.transistor.fm.
Taylor:Find us on Facebook and Instagram, or you can always email us at hard beeswax atgmail.com.
Matthew:Hard beeswax would not be possible without the expertise and time of Andy Smith, our producer and sound whisperer, who has been our hype man from the beginning.
Taylor:And lastly, thanks to you, our listeners, for tuning in with us and sharing in the absolute magic brought by our guests. Your support means the world to us. You have our utmost gratitude.
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