{"id":4864,"date":"2019-01-23T20:41:19","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T01:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/?p=4864"},"modified":"2025-01-19T17:08:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T22:08:45","slug":"meeting-a-descendant-of-novalis-by-susan-koppersmith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/meeting-a-descendant-of-novalis-by-susan-koppersmith\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting a Descendant of Novalis by Susan Koppersmith"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Vancouver we had several events over the past Holy Nights. <\/span><\/p>\n

One of them was held at my apartment in the downtown core. Before the event the group was asked to read a Steiner lecture: The Christmas Mystery and Novalis the Seer <\/i>(22 December, 1908). The plan was that we would look at some of Novalis\u2019 poetry as well as share thoughts about the reading. <\/span><\/p>\n

Novalis was the pen name of Friedrich von Hardenberg (1772-1802); he was a philosopher and scientist as well as a poet. In the lecture of Dec. 22 1908, Steiner says that, through a life shattering event (the death of his <\/span>fianc<\/span>\u00e9, Sophie von Kuhn, at the tender age of 14), Novalis\u2019 spirit eyes were opened and he could experience a great vista of past cosmic and earthly events. He experienced the Christ as the power by which the Earth\u2019s body will be transformed into the Body of Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span>As luck would have it, a friend discovered during these Holy Nights that Novalis\u2019 great-great-great-great nephew, Klaus von Hardenberg, lives with his wife Betty in nearby Maple Ridge. The couple makes beeswax candles which Klaus sells at a local farmers\u2019 market. My friend visited his stall and mentioned the Novalis event at my place and Klaus seemed interested. An invitation followed and he arrived at my gathering bringing many stories of his famous ancestor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Klaus showed us photos of the birthplace home of Novalis at<\/span>Oberwiederstedt located40 kilometres north-west of Halle in Germany. Klaus\u2019 family gave up all claim to the birthplace home, leaving it to those who would restore it. The homestead was in dire need of repair but money was found and now Oberwiederstedt is a Novalis museum as well as a world-renowned centre for the study of Early German<\/span>Romanticism<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Klaus also told us that a miniature of Sophie von Kuhn remained in the family for generations, recently in the possession of his brother who kept it hidden in a drawer. Klaus thought that the miniature belonged at Oberwiederstedt and explored with his brother the possibility that it could be sent to the museum so that others could enjoy it. After seven years his brother agreed and the miniature was sent back to Germany.<\/span><\/p>\n

Initially, some people find Novalis\u2019 poetry child-like and simple. Klaus maintains that the poems need to be read in German; he says many translations seem flat to him. When he reads them in the original German with its particular metre and diction, the images are much more fresh and alive.<\/span><\/p>\n

The death of Sophie von Kuhn was a turning point in Novalis\u2019 life. In a lecture: Novalis and His Hymns to the Night<\/i>(26 October, 1908), Steiner says that after her death, Sophie\u2019s spirit wrestled with Novalis\u2019 inner life, awakening his spiritual faculties. Novalis kept a diary between April 18 and July 6, 1797. He, himself, made deliberate efforts to remember Sophie in vivid detail; in his diary he recorded:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>I held quite sharply an image of \u201cSoffchen\u201d before me \u2014 in profile, next to me on the sofa \u2014 in the green scarf \u2014 in characteristic situations does she appear to me most readily. In the evening I thought of her generally quite ardently<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Novalis believed he could be united with Sophie even though she had crossed the threshold. In the third Hymn to the Night, <\/i>after visiting her grave, he writes: <\/span><\/p>\n

the hillock became a cloud of dust, and through the cloud I saw the glorified face of my Beloved. In her eyes eternity reposed. I laid hold of her hands, and the tears became a sparkling bond that could not be broken. In to the distance swept by, like a tempest, thousands of years. On her neck I welcomed the new life with ecstatic tears. Never was such another dream; then first and ever since I hold fast an eternal, unchangeable faith in the heaven of the Night and its Light, the Beloved.(tans. George MacDonald) <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Novalis went home filled with joy.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the weeks following Sophie\u2019s death he suffered bouts of intense grief and loneliness. He believed that the brute and unalterable fact of her death must be used to ignite his imagination, rather than his emotions, and he went on to compose the sublime Hymns to the Night<\/i>and then the more intimate and personal Sacred Songs:<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Over I journey<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And for each pain<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

A pleasant sting only<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Shall one day remain.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Yet in a few moments<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Then free am I,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And intoxicated<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In Love’s lap lie.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Life everlasting<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Lifts, wave-like, at me,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I gaze from its summit<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Down after thee.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Your lustre must vanish<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Yon mound underneath —<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

A shadow will bring thee<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Thy cooling wreath.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Oh draw at my heart, love,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Draw till I’m gone,<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

That, fallen asleep, I<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Still may love on.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I feel the flow of<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Death’s youth-giving flood<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

To balsam and ether<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Transform my blood —<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I live all the daytime<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In faith and in might<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And in holy fire<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I die every night<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

(Fourth Hymn; trans. George MacDonald)<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>In his lecture, Novalis and His Hymns to the Night<\/i>, Steiner says, \u201cWe can see that Novalis understood how the human being’s soul can be lifted up into a higher world. For Novalis it gave the possibility to see that waking everyday awareness is only a fragment in a current human life, and how the soul who in the evening leaves the daily awareness and sinks into unconsciousness, in actual fact sinks into the spiritual world. He was able to experience deeply and to know, that in these spiritual worlds which are entered by the soul at night, lived a higher spiritual reality, that the day with all its impressions, even the impression of sun and light, only formed a fragment of the entire spiritual worlds. The stars, surreptitiously sending away the light of day during the night, appeared to him only in a weak glow, while in him spiritual truths rose up in his consciousness, which for the clairvoyant appears illuminated in a dazzling bright astral light when during the night he shifts himself spiritually into this state. During the night the actual spiritual worlds appeared to Novalis and thus the night from this perspective became valuable.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Meeting Klaus was a special gift from the Holy Nights. He shared with our group some experiences which he has had which transcend our ordinary space and time. He told us that he had printed Steiner\u2019s lecture and had read it earlier in the day before our gathering. He had never heard of Rudolf Steiner and but said that Steiner\u2019s words made sense to him on many levels.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Klaus comes every week to a local farmer\u2019s market; the plan is to visit him to buy his candles and also keep a connection.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Novalis Museum at Oberwiederstedt<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Susan Koppersmith<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Vancouver we had several events over the past Holy Nights. One of them was held at my apartment in the downtown core. Before the event the group was asked to read a Steiner lecture: The Christmas Mystery and Novalis the Seer (22 December, 1908)….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-public-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4864"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4866,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4864\/revisions\/4866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}