rne oocneN BLAOe Work an^ Worklessriess Japan cund ifie Wesi The Golden Blade THIRTY-SIXTH (1984) ISSUE CONTENTS E d i t o r i a l N o t e s A . B . 3 Elemental Beings and Human Destinies Rudolf Sieiner 20 WORK AND WORKLESSNESS The Meaning of Work Marjo van Boescholen 33 W o r k & D e s t i n y P e t e r R o t h 40 A New Vocation: Eurythmy Glenda Monasch 44 The Actor Alan Poolman 50 What is a Research Worker? Michael Wilson 55 A Dustman Speaks Greg Richey 62 Tinker, Tailor, Banker, Teacher William Forward 66 A D o c t o r s A p p r o a c h J e n n y J o s e p h s o n 75 The Satisfactions of Computer Programming .... Gail Kahovic 79 I Am a Plumber Jon Humbertstone 83 A C o o k ' s D e l i g h t W e n d y C o o k 86 Counselling & Priesthood Adam Bittleston 90 J A P A N A N D T H E W E S T Twenty-seven Haiku translated by R. H. Blyth 95 Individuality & Community in Japan TomieAndo and Terry Boardman 98 Japan and the World Economy Daniel T. Jones 117 Kotodama: The Speech Formation of Japan Tadahiro Ohnuma 129 Notes on Japanese Painting John Meeks 135 MESSENGERS OF THE LIGHT W e l l e s l e y T u d o r P o l e C h a r l e s D a v y 140 Alan Cottrell's "Goethe's View of Evil" reviewed by Owen Barfield 149 Edited by Adam Bittleston and Daniel T. Jones EDITORIAL NOTES This "Ooldenhuman experience Blade" is concernedof work, and with of unemployment two main themes; — and the the relation of Japanese culture to the West. An evident connection of the two themes is that Japan, of the great capitalist industrial nations, has the lowest rate of unemployment (though a grave one), and has a reputation for a positive attitude to work, which claims the attention of the West. But connections can be found on many levels. We print a lecture by Rudolf Steiner which deals with the carrying over, in Karmic Anthroposophy springs from the work and teaching of Rudolf Steiner metamorphosis, of the experiences contained in a human life from one (1861-1925). He spoke of it as "a path of knowledge, to guide the spiritual seven-year period to the next by the elemental beings closely related to in the human being to the spiritual in the universe*'. human feeling. This has little evident connection with either theme. But we hope to show that both Japanese culture and human feelings about work can be better understood if we bring into the picture the life of the The aim of this Annual is to being the outlook on Anthroposophy to elemental beings — who are indeed excluded by intellectual, purely bear on questions and activities which have relevance to the present time. It quantitative thinking, but are always present and active in deeper levels was founded in 1949 by Charles Davy and Arnold Freeman, who were its of our consciousness. As Rudolf Steiner describes here, and often elsewhere, Man is first editors. ordinarily quite awake only in his thinking, but dreams his feelings, and is asleep in the activity of his will. Thus a great part of human work he The title derives from a reference by Rudolf Steiner to an old Persian sleeps away, unless conditions are exceptional; for instance, when he is legend. "Djemjdid was a king who led his people from the north towards consciously learning a new skill, or asking himself questions about what Iran, and who received from the God, whom he called Ahura Mazdao, a he is doing, or suffering from a sense of injustice or unfreedom. Until quite recently, the great majority of men and women have done golden dagger, by means of which he was to fulfil his mission on earth... It represents a force given to man whereby he can act upon and transform their work as a matter of course, something into which they were born. external nature". And every kind of work was hallowed by the presence of gods and spirits watching over its fulfilment. The earth was a kind mother, and every spring and tree and wind had its in-dwelling spirit. If such contacts were in some way broken, work grew burdensome. The German word Rudolf Steiner Press for "work", "Arbeit", goes back to an ancient stem meaning London "orphaned"; it is the orphan who is compelled to work, and feels it as suffering. In Grimm's Fairy Stories senseless work is often imposed by a step-mother; in the ancient world the slave is generally a stranger, one The cover design is by Martha Claire Rowse. It represents the poet Bashd who has lost his of her mother country, having been taken captive in war. riding a sagacious horse lent to him by a farmer for part of one of his In different parts of the world awareness of Mother Nature and her journeys. host of elemental beings has been lost at different times and in different ways — though always because of the self-assertion of the intellect in the head. Philosophers and theologians do not cause such changes — but Printed in England by Charles Clarke (Haywards Heath) Ltd. they may give them clearer expression, and through their followers 4 EDITORIAL NOTES EDITORIAL NOTES 5 reinforce them. Calvin, to take an extreme example, gave Christian never heard of Christianity, be condemned to hell for their failure to theology a radically systematic, intellectual, unimaginative form, become Christians? concerned almost exclusively with the polarity of God and Man, in The military rulers, the Shoguns, decided to keep the foreigners out. effect leaving aside the great ladder of the Hierarchies and their work. From 1641 to 1853 communication with the West, on all levels, was This often made its followers furious opponents of ways of life and reduced to a trickle, of which ordinary people knew almost nothing. thought open to the elemental worlds, as in Western Scotland. Locke in Thus no intellectual system in science or religion altered the old the 17th century could dismiss the qualities of colour, sound, smell, and relationship to nature; though in the rapidly developing towns the taste as entirely subjective, enthroning Measure, Number, and Weight merchant class began to change the old pattern of society. Thus during as the sole realities — categories which the elemental beings experience the period when Japan slept through the tremendous changes in quite differently from the human intellect. consciousness coming about in the West, there could be a flowering in In Japanese history we find the first great encouter with a faith the arts, and particularly in poetry. Poetry in Japan was already nearly coming from outside when Buddhism, brought from Korea and China, as old as the introduction of Buddhism; Japan had its equivalent of met the indigenous Shinto religion about the middle of the 6th century. Sidney's "Apology for Poetry" as early as the beginning of the 10th (Buddhism, already a thousand years old, had divided about the time of century, in Ki Tsurayuki's preface to the Kokinshu, the first Imperial Christ into two streams, the Theravada, with its austerer teaching, and anthology. He says: the Mahayana, proclaiming the compassionate work for humanity of "Poetry has its seeds in man's heart . Man's activities are various many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. It was the second stream which came and whatever they see or hear touches their hearts and is expressed in to Japan.) Ever since, the two religions have been able to live together poetry. When we hear the notes of the nightingale among the blossoms, without basic conflict, and outstanding personalities, from Prince when we hear the frog in the water, we know that every living being is Shdtoku (572-622) who greatly encouraged in Japan the influence of capable of song. Poetry, without effort, can move heaven and earth, can Chinese architecture, sculpture, and painting, to the poet Issa (1763- touch the gods and spirits ... it turns the hearts of man and woman to 1827), have been able to draw deeply upon both of them. Shinto was each other and it soothes the soul of the fierce warrior."^ intensely aware of the elemental beings; Buddhism taught those moods This passage has by no means been forgotten; a late 18th century of soul, in which human beings can best open their hearts to them. poet, Yadoya Meshimori, makes fun of it: Among the several Buddhist schools which took root in Japan there Our poets had best was often intensive competition, sometimes even armed conflict. The Be rather weak: period from 1051 to 1477 was in many respects chaotic in Japan; the If heaven and earth military caste, the Samurai, with fervent loyalty to their overlords and Began to move — often with deep Buddhist, mainly Zen, convictions, fought savage What a terrible mess! battles from end to end of the country. And yet it was the general Since the 17th century one special form of verse, the haiku, has been conviction, expressed in the No drama round the middle of the 15th greatly valued and extraordinarily popular. It is as if in England after century, that the warrior was condemned to fight on and on, under a Shakespeare the sonnet had become and remained the most favoured tragic fate, after death.