Our life's journey is influenced by various things. One of these things, for all Waldorf students, is the morning verse. An article by Albrecht Schad.
At Easter 1924, on 7 April, the first class 12 graduated from the Stuttgart Uhlandshöhe Waldorf School which had been founded barely five years earlier. A member of that first class 12, presumably Valdo Bossi (see: Ruths-Hoffmann, K., 1980), had the idea to ask Rudolf Steiner for a meeting before they left school. The idea was accepted and the conversation took place on 10 April 1924 at midday (Lindenberg 1988) in the teachers’ room that still now, 107 years on, continues to be used for college meetings. The teachers sat along the walls and the graduating students formed an inner circle.
Rudolf Steiner, accompanied by Dr Ita Wegman, took his seat at the head of the room and began by addressing them in more general terms. “He said that when we faced important decisions in life, we would find that the spirit of the Waldorf School would stand behind us and whisper the right decisions into our ears. ‘The conversations with your friends will later be the most important memories for you; keep coming back to them’ ” (Ruths-Hoffman, K., 1980). During this meeting the students were given a verse that was read to them and that they could each later collect from Rudolf Steiner in writing. He strongly advised them to “meditate earnestly” on the verse and they would soon notice its effect.
Morning Verse
I look into the world,
Wherein the sun is shining,
Wherein the stars are gleaming,
Wherein the stones are resting.
The plants they live and grow
The creatures feel and live,
And we to spirit give
A dwelling in our souls.
I look into the soul
That living dwells in me.
God’s spirit lives and weaves
In light of sun and soul,
In heights of worlds without,
In depths of soul within.
To you, o spirit of God,
I seeking turn myself
That strength and grace and skill
For learning and for work
In me may live and grow.
On Graduating
May those things shine again
On the path through life
That in the time of youth
Were planted in the heart
As the seal of true humanity.
May those things be strong
In the depth of memory
Which the soul discovered
Through the heart
Under the spirit guidance
Of the powers that teach for life.1
1: One of different translations
On 29 July 2026 this verse was given to students for the 95th time at the Uhlandshöhe Waldorfschule. 2025/2026 was its 100th school year, since it had been forced to close at the end of March 1938 because the school founder, Emil Molt, refused to comply with the demands made by the National Socialists. Soon after the end of the war, in October 1945, the school reopened.
The morning verse 1,600 times
Every morning from Class 5 up to and including Class 12, pupils at Waldorf schools worldwide recite a morning verse. As this verse is recited every day in eighty countries across all inhabited continents, the recitation travels once around the world every day. Assuming that there are around two hundred school days per year, students recite the morning verse approximately 1,600 times over the eight years from Class 5 to Class 12, excluding days when they were late or off sick.
The handing over of a verse at the end of Class 12 is unique, a conscious rounding off of the time spent at the Waldorf school. It also offers young people, as they prepare to go out into the world, something that can support them in challenging times, should they wish to use it. It is not known how many Waldorf schools practise this handing over of a verse at the end of Class 12. With my small contribution I would like to encourage this practice.
At the Uhlandshöhe Waldorf School both classes 12 and any colleagues who wish to attend take part in the brief ceremony when the verse is presented after its content has briefly been explained. Since a different colleague takes on this task every year, one has over the years many different experiences of how to engage with the verse.
Path through life and true humanity
Below, I would like to focus from a biologist’s perspective on two aspects addressed in the verse: “the path through life” and “true humanity”.
Our path through life naturally begins with conception and ends with death. During fertilization, an egg cell is fertilized by a sperm cell. An egg cell – the fertilized egg – as well as the earliest multicellular embryonic stages are very physical. They can be frozen, for instance, which is not usually possible with living organisms. The rules of life are not yet dominant. During the subsequent cleavage the cells divide again and again. What is astonishing is that this is possible without genetics. Removing the cell nuclei from sea urchin eggs does not prevent the cells from dividing. It is only with the onset of gastrulation – the further physical differentiation of the embryo – that genetic information is required in order to prevent the embryo from dying. This means that soul qualities are required for further development. And it is not determined until the twelfth day of pregnancy whether there will be one child or two children. Until then, there is no individual development. The individual aspect, the quality of the ‘I’, is only added on the twelfth day.
During these first two weeks, when we cannot even know yet if there is a pregnancy, all four levels of existence that make us human – the physical level, the level of life, the soul level and the spiritual level – gradually manifest. But what is the essence of our humanity? What makes us human? Will we be able to reliably distinguish human beings from machines in the future? The further path through life can be outlined on the basis of the following key concepts:
Conception, birth, pregnancy,
early childhood, kindergarten, school, adulthood, ageing, death
3 6 18 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
On this journey through life we are constantly changing, from day to day. We each have different abilities and possibilities. In human beings everything is in constant development. For this development to be possible, many different kinds of layers are needed to protect and support the evolving human being.
At the beginning of pregnancy the developing child forms its own protective layer, the amniotic sac with its appendages, which is embedded within the mother’s protective layers. During this time the child is totally dependent on this protective environment.
After birth and throughout early childhood, children are enveloped and protected by their family, their social environment and their kindergarten. Waldorf kindergartens in particular are deliberately designed to offer children protection. Kindergarten children are still very dependent. They require a considerable amount of support from other people – to an extent that is unknown in animals.
Between the ages of around 6 and 18, the child, or later young person, lives within the protective environment of school. This protective layer becomes increasingly permeable over the years, as the child, who arrives at school still quite dependent on others, gains increasing independence.
Other layers are added to the social ones mentioned because, throughout life, we are embedded in and enveloped by the living sphere of the earth. And both we and the earth are surrounded by the cosmos that envelops everything and that influences us in many ways. Only think of the sun or the moon. The influence of the planets is more subtle. And the world of the stars surrounds us as a spiritual sphere.
We can summarize as follows:
protective layers formed by the child | the amniotic sac with appendages |
protective layers of the mother social protective layers | the mother’s womb and body parents, kindergarten, school |
| the earth’s protective layers | atmosphere life sphere hydrosphere |
| cosmic layers | planetary system sphere of the fixed stars |
Lifelong learning ability
We leave behind the physical layers at birth. From the protective social layers we emancipate ourselves gradually. As we grow increasingly independent, we take more and more responsibility for ourselves. This does not make coping with difficult situations in life easier, but we may find support from people we know from school, as they often remain lifelong friends. Maybe a verse as the one described can offer us guidance. What was imprinted into our hearts while we were at school can be helpful and can be reflected in the paths we take in life. As it enlightens our paths, it can provide the strength and orientation we need for going through life.
The protective layers of the earth and the cosmos surround us throughout our whole life. We are influenced and protected by them. However, we now also have an impact on these protective layers, particularly those of the earth. This means that we are emancipating beings who constantly interact with the layers around us. As we grow older, we often gradually lose our external independence again and may once again require help and care.
We are capable of learning throughout life, even during pregnancy. The capacity for lifelong learning is a distinctive human one that we only share with a few animals, such as elephants and dolphins. We are therefore beings capable of developing throughout life, capable of learning throughout life. Our paths through unfold between the forming of and the need for protective layers.
This means that we are constantly changing and yet, we always remain the same. Isn’t it remarkable that, although there is a gap in our consciousness when we wake up in the morning, we know that we are ourselves? It shows that, while sleep creates a gap in my consciousness, the existence of my individuality is constant. I can take this thought of the continuity of my ‘I’ further. Sleep is only death’s little brother. If I extend the continuity of my individuality beyond death, we are looking at a spiral of development between earthly life and the return to the cosmos from which we have come.
Our paths through life and our humanity are influenced by various factors: by the genes we have inherited from the past and by the different protective layers described earlier. When we make plans we try to anticipate the future. This anticipated future has an influence on our present life. But there is a moment of freedom – the tiny moment when the future becomes the past. We call this the present. In that moment it is possible that we are not influenced by what comes to us from the past and the future. It is the moment when we have the chance to make independent decisions out of freedom. It is due to this chance, which is unique to human beings, that our path through life is not predetermined and that our development is open.
Albrecht Schad
Translated from German by Margot M. Saar