To follow along word for word, click on "Transcript" in the video (automatically generated).
To read the preparation script, scroll down.

Today we come to the eighth note of the scale, the octave. In it we find a relationship to the soul gesture of solemnity.

The Soul Gesture of Solemnity

The eurythmy figure associated with the octave, "Solemnity", has a gesture that appears very strict and almost shaped from the outside. Or does it arise from something entirely different?

The color designation is very distinctive:

• Blue-violet, posture: Highly geometric: many right angles, vertical and horizontal lines, and entirely laid into the plane.
• Dark red, temperament: More spatial and forming a surrounding mantle.
• Light red, impulse of feeling: Penetrating, directing, and stretching the limbs from within.

Viewed externally, the figure of the soul gesture of solemnity almost resembles a traffic officer standing at an intersection:

• Legs strictly parallel, thin and elongated,
• Left upper arm horizontal to the side, left forearm vertical, hand extended and pointing outward,
• Right upper arm vertical close to the body, right forearm horizontal, hand extended and pointing upward,
• The entire form strongly oriented within the plane, with the feet opened to the right and left.

But what happens if we allow this figure to arise out of the octave itself?

Preparation

I take time to arrive within myself. I invite this presence into my hands as though it were a substance and guide it to my heart.
I use my senses to perceive the inner life: the weaving of the breath, the rhythms of the heart, the space of the chest extending to the shoulder blades.
Until the inner being feels perceived, responds, expands, lightens the chest, and lifts it.
I allow this lightness and its warmth to overflow and stream downward, guiding it deep into the earth.
I feel how this straightens me and makes me tall all by itself. And how my heels become light.

The Prime and Reverence (Review)

The opening exercise recalls the first interval of the scale, the prime:

• The heart space, the collarbones, the shoulder girdle fill and lift themselves; they are like the roof of a house. DO
• The body beneath is the house—narrow and upright—protected by its roof and carried through time. DO
• The prime is like a slow H formed by the collarbones and shoulders (DO) and a U formed by the body (DO).

Corresponding to this, we found the soul gesture of reverence:

• A gentle, light-blue widening of the shoulders into the light,
• A return with the arms in intimate violet,
• Forming a U between the hands,
• And feeling it from the heart.

The Octave

With the octave, the prime returns as the eighth note on a new level. At the end of the journey, I meet myself again—renewed.

DO-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA-SI-DO

The octave is the elevation of the prime. The yearning and listening quality of the seventh transforms into a mysterious receiving:

DO – SI – DO

For the octave gesture, take both hands as though you were moving them around a beautiful sphere. Mysterious, weightless, transparent—and feel it with your heart. In this way you receive the octave.

Move once more through the intervals with your arms, segment by segment, and remember what each part represents. Where do they lead us?

DO: My house

RE: I set out on my journey.

MI: I delight in the garden of nature.

FA: From the boundary I look back.

SOL: I open the gate; there is light.

LA: I can move within the free space of light.

SI: Longing expands; the ears open.

DO: What is it that we receive? What is happening?

The Octave Has Roots

To rise freely into this height, we do in eurythmy what singers also do. We move downward exactly as far as the octave rises upward.

Stream downward from the heart, ever deeper. Do you notice that this lifts you and can even bring you onto your toes? Use your fingertips to descend even further with your body awareness. Deeper still. Allow the countercurrent to lift you!

DO-DO

Do you notice how the height remains when you return to the heart?

DO-DO-DO

Can you do the same while allowing your hands to rise upward in the countercurrent and form the receptive octave gesture there?

DO-DO-DO

Can you also feel how, after receiving, the octave gesture seeks contact with the space behind, our inner realm of light?

DO-DO-DO

And how afterward the entire surrounding sphere begins to resound?

DO-DO-DO

J-H-W-H: As Above, So Below

There is a Hebrew word that tradition says should not actually be spoken aloud. It consists of four letters: J-H-W-H.

In Hebrew, all letters are names with meanings:

The Yod is an "I" arising from the whole body.
Yod means: the divine spark. "J." This is the human being.

The H is called Heh and means: a window into the divine. "H."

In eurythmy we experience W as sustaining, wave-like forces. In Hebrew it is called Waw and means: a hook that holds things together, creating a connection where something is separated.

These four letters form the name of the Hebrew God, Yahweh:

J — the divine spark

H — a window

W — the sustaining wave

H — another window

This may remind us of something:

J-H — the triangle of light

W-H — the triangle of gravity

Or, in temple language: "As above, so below."

J-H — As above...

W-H — ...so below.

Exactly as in the octave!

DO-DO-DO

The Octave and Solemnity

First form the octave throughout your whole being by sensing the fullness beneath you through movement and thereby experiencing the height.

We begin with the left arm: enter the octave in such a way that you first sense the depth with the right arm (DO) and then rise with the left, allowing the receptive octave gesture to emerge (DO).

• Connect your upper left arm with the space behind you.
• Feel into the outer space with the palm of your hand.
• Allow the forearm, quietly listening, to descend very slowly from vertical to horizontal.
• Feel the right angle.

Now we turn to the right arm: sense the depth with the right arm (DO) and once again form the octave with the left (DO).

• Connect your lower arm with the fullness of the depth.
• Feel with its palm into its inner space.
• Allow the forearm to rise slowly and attentively in an arc until it reaches the horizontal.
• Feel what it brings with it—and the right angle.

Can you let the left arm descend so slowly that it arrives at the horizontal together with the rising arm?

• Descending very slowly, connected with the light on the left,
• Rising very quietly out of the fullness of depth within you.

DO – DO – DO

Can you also do this while forming the octave with both hands above? That is, guiding the left hand downward even more slowly, millimeter by millimeter, while the right first sinks in a large circular arc into the depth before rising from there?

DO – DO – DO

Let us move once more through the entire scale until we experience imagination with the fifth, pass through inspiration with the sixth, sense intuition with the seventh, and ask ourselves: What comes next?

DO–RE–MI–FA – the boundary of the world is reached.

SOL – Let there be light – Imagination,

LA – Wings – Inspiration,

SI – Listening – Intuition.

DO – What comes now?

SOLEMNITY

How do you now experience the red mantle of the soul gesture of solemnity?

DO-RE-MI-FA-SOL-LA-SI-DO – SOLEMNITY

Conclusion

Sit down slowly and listen to the aftertone.

Appendix (not included in the video)

On the Difference Between Left and Right

First, become aware once again of the different sensations in your right and left columns.

Take a small step to the right, bring the hip and shoulder over the leg, then sense your right column while relaxing the left side. The right side is the archetypal column that might be described as masculine, the top-down column.

Return to the center.

Take a small step to the left, bring the hip over the left leg and the shoulder above it, then sense your left column. How does this column feel, the one that could archetypally be described as feminine: intuitive, receptive, and oriented toward inner experience?

Then return once more to the center.

Can you find a connection and take this into account when allowing the soul gesture of solemnity to emerge out of the octave?