Tree of Knowledge, No. 1 (1913)
by Hilma af Klint

Garnering Michaelic Courage and Resolve to Work Within the Space In-between
by Tracey Somers

[Human beings] must learn to keep the Michaelmas Festival by making it a festival for the conquest of anxiety and fear; a festival of inner strength and initiative; a festival for the commemoration of selfless self-consciousness.

– Rudolf Steiner: The Four Seasons and The Archangels (GA 229, I)

The Michael Imagination

As we move toward the Michaelmas season, we take time to notice the summer fruits from our recent outward energy. It is time to gather and begin to come in. To prepare for the winter months of an outwardly slower pace that provides us the atmosphere to shift inward. During Michaelmas, we glean the last of that summer sun and warmth to carry us through the darker and colder time. A time to reflect on the essential personal and worldly dragons we wish to transform...or not.

Now, especially given we are in the age of Michael, the energy and cycle of Michaelmas is happening all year round. Outward, inward; act, prepare. Many times over a year, we are being called to wake up to the worldly and our personal dark and cold, and to meet these places with Michaelic courage and resolve in striving to transform them; inward, outward. However, no longer will only courage and resolve serve us. Yes, these are precursors to bravely thinking, feeling, and acting in reformative ways or righting wrongdoings, but what also seems to be needed—now more than ever—is wisdom paired with love. Love, inextricably paired with wisdom, in thinking, feeling, and willing, will aid us in harnessing the power of selfless transforming. The wisdom can come from many places: our own experiences, those who went before us, and those especially in the spiritual world. Deep love, too, sometimes needs to be cultivated: love for ourselves and for our fellow human beings, through a surrender that allows us to develop true selflessness and the ability to act for the bigger, long-term picture. Any close, conscious relationship with another human being will help expand and deepen this wisdom and love as well, if we are open to being vulnerable with another and truly wish to understand the other and ourselves in relation to the other's thoughts, feelings, and actions.