The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Memorial Services

[ 1 ] I. On May 3, I had to speak at the Goetheanum about the passing of loyal colleagues of the anthroposophical movement. Mrs. Ferreri, the long-time leader of the branch in Milan, died recently. Her soul was completely devoted to the spiritual insights that anthroposophy brings to human beings. With perfect, sensitive certainty, her inner being, which was turned toward all that is noble, lived in the truths of this insight. We often had the privilege of welcoming Mrs. Ferreri as a dear visitor to places where anthroposophical events were held. The Goetheanum welcomed Ms. Ferreri as a participant in such events on all important occasions. — She was wholeheartedly involved in everything within the movement that required self-sacrificing devotion. Much was only possible because she developed this beautiful sense of sacrifice. She had been suffering for a long time, but the burden of her physical illness did not hinder the uplifting of her spirit. The suffering that took her away from physical existence prompted her to send a message to the director of the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute, Dr. Ita Wegman, a few days before her passing: she had to come to this institute, because only there, in the circle of the Goetheanum, could she find the strength to recover. She was no longer able to make the journey. In Goethe's time, people who expressed the spiritual in their lives in a noble way through the direct revelation of their hearts were called “beautiful souls.” In this sense, Mrs. Ferreri can be described as a “beautiful soul.” She did an immeasurable amount for the anthroposophical view of life through her quiet, faithful work. The work in Milan was entirely inspired by her efforts. The branch in Honolulu was her work, and she was its most loving caretaker. Mrs. Ferreri will live on in the anthroposophical movement as a soul who was connected to it in an exemplary way.

[ 2 ] II. On May 1, death took Edith Maryon, a faithful colleague at the Goetheanum and within the Anthroposophical Society, from the physical world. A person who had worked with us for years with complete self-sacrifice has been snatched from us for physical existence.

[ 3 ] Edith Maryon came to us more than ten years ago. She came as a personality who was already fully committed to esoteric pursuits. Her inner life was completely filled with this pursuit. She sought further development of this pursuit in the anthroposophical movement. With decisive inner certainty, she connected herself with this movement. She later often said that she felt her joining was a natural step on her path through life.

[ 4 ] When we began building the Goetheanum, she was one of the first people to devote her energy to this work with the most loving dedication. She was a sculptor. An accomplished artist in her own right, she had achieved many successes. Her particular field was expressing spiritual content in measured, beautiful forms. She had mastered the technical aspects of her art to perfection.

[ 5 ] She placed this artistic work entirely at the service of the Goetheanum. In the last decade of her life, she devoted herself entirely to this work. She understood the sense in which this devotion alone is possible. The artistic impulses that are to be given through the Goetheanum can only be effective if they are not opposed by the artistic self-will of those who approach the work with genuine skill. Maryon never asserted this self-will. I had to allow the impulses emanating from anthroposophy to flow into the work. In doing so, it is often difficult to overcome the contradictions that arise when the artistically familiar and the newly desired collide. With Maryon, I was able to collaborate sculpturally without this collision having any significance. For above all artistic opinions that might arise, she felt a freely felt necessity that the work had to be done. And carried by this feeling, Maryon let everything she was accustomed to artistically flow into the new impulses in a quiet, energetic way.

[ 6 ] My collaboration with her in the field of fine art was initiated by a clear karmic symptom. I was working with her in the front sculpture studio on the scaffolding erected around the large plasticine model when the central sculpture group for the Goetheanum was still in its infancy. I slipped through a gap in the scaffolding and would have fallen onto a sharp pillar if Maryon had not caught me. If I was able to achieve anything for the anthroposophical cause in the years that followed, it is because Maryon saved me from serious injury at that time.

[ 7 ] Maryon's artistic work was imbued with her search for the spiritual development of the soul. Esoteric contemplation was a natural element of this soul's life. Seriousness in this contemplation was the signature of her inner being. And she stood before many a significant experience in the spiritual realm.

[ 8 ] This seriousness was also expressed in her outward appearance. Her whole being revealed a person who was not spoiled by the joys of life, but who had been severely tested by fate in many ways.

[ 9 ] Edith Maryon had two characteristics that permeated her entire being. A reliability in speech and work that gave those who worked with her a feeling of complete security; and a practical sense that was inclined to tackle everything in her work and succeeded in what she set out to do because it unfolded the inner flexibility of creativity. For many idealists whose intentions falter in the face of reality, Maryon's approach could be exemplary, as her beautiful idealism always overcame the resistance of reality because her desires always took shape as will.

[ 10 ] Maryon's work was not limited to the artistic sphere. In her quiet way, she contributed to many areas of anthroposophical work. It is thanks to her efforts that, through her friend Prof. Mackenzie, a large number of teachers from England gathered at the Goetheanum at Christmas 1921, to whom I was able to give a series of educational lectures. And the lectures and eurythmy performances that took place in Stratford and Oxford were a continuation of her work. She was the source of the inspiration that led to the eurythmic movements being captured in painted wooden figures. She worked on these figures with her own hands until she was confined to her sickbed.

[ 11 ] The night of the fire that took the Goetheanum from us planted the seed in her body, weakened by previous illnesses, that developed into more than a year of suffering. At the end of January 1923, Maryon was confined to her sickbed; she was able to leave it only for very short breaks during the previous summer, but not at all since the fall of 1923. She suffered unspeakably, especially in the last period of her life. The inner energy of her spiritual life remained undiminished even on her sickbed. She also participated very actively in everything that was happening at the Goetheanum. The spiritual content of the Christmas Conference and the class lessons of the Goetheanum School of Spiritual Science, which could be brought to her, formed the content of her last weeks on earth against the backdrop of her severe suffering. At the Christmas Conference, she was appointed to head the Section for Fine Arts at the Goetheanum. Until her last days, she devoted many thoughts to the goal of how this section should one day become effective in the right way.

[ 12 ] Maryon endured her severe suffering with admirable gentleness. During the night of May 1 to 2, accompanied by her friend Dr. Ita Wegman, who had faithfully cared for her, she passed through the gate of death into the spiritual world with complete clarity of mind.

[ 13 ] The members of the Anthroposophical Society look back on her with the deepest gratitude. Maryon's work for this society will always be remembered as sincere and devoted.

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society

[ 14 ] 35. We understand the physical nature of man only if we regard it as a picture of the soul and spirit. Taken by itself, the physical corporality of man is unintelligible. But it is a picture of the soul and spirit in different ways in its several members. The head is the most perfect and complete symbolic picture of the soul and spirit. All that pertains to the system of the metabolism and the limbs is like a picture that has not yet assumed its finished forms, but is still being worked upon. Lastly, in all that belongs to the rhythmic Organisation of man, the relation of the soul and spirit to the body is intermediate between these opposites.

[ 15 ] 36. If we contemplate the human head from this spiritual point of view, we shall find in it a help to the understanding of spiritual Imaginations. For in the forms of the head, Imaginative forms are as it were coagulated to the point of physical density.

[ 16 ] 37. Similarly, if we contemplate the rhythmic part of man's Organisation it will help us to understand Inspirations. The physical appearance of the rhythms of life bears even in the sense-perceptible picture the character of Inspiration. Lastly, in the system of the metabolism and the limbs—if we observe it in full action, in the exercise of its necessary or possible functions—we have a picture, supersensible yet sensible, of pure supersensible Intuitions.