Advent Week 3
Week Three – the astral body
The third light of Advent is the light of beasts–
All await the birth, from the greatest and in least. R. Steiner
During the week ahead we contemplate our astral body, the body of consciousness. It is the vehicle of pleasure and pain, urges, desires and passions, terror and amazement. These are our emotional responses to sense impressions. This place in our being is our interface with the world. How aware are we of all the activities of our being? Without this awareness we cannot give birth to higher ways of expressing ourselves. This is particularly relevant to our astral body because it has animal tendencies.
There is much to know and understand about our astral body which is why there is a lot of confusion about what it is and what it does. For instance, people will say that we think with our astral body. We, in fact, think with our etheric body and we become conscious of our thoughts through our astral body. Then, when our I-being gains strength it transforms part of our astral body into our sentient soul. Experiencing this for ourselves is our task.
Our animal tendencies await the birth of Jesus who represents the human I-being. As we contemplate these ideas through the coming week we ignite the third Advent light.
Art: Angel of Hope by Iris Sullivan
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