Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

All along the watchtower, princes kept the viewWhile all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.In Dylan’s poetic language, ”women” and the female gender ingeneral symbolize the soul, while the male gender symbolizes the ego. Thissymbology, it may be noted, has a long history in lyric poetry, reaching backat least as far as the troubadours of medieval times, as well as the Sufi poetswho were their predecessors.The ”princes” who keep the view are egos who have been crownedwith spiritual vision. Looking down upon the world from their ethereal andeternal vantage point, they watch the souls coming and going, even thosewithout shoes—which is to say, those without anything to cushion the shocksof their walk upon the path, those who must meet the rude earth with theirnaked ”soles.” Down below, however, the inner reality experienced by thesoul whose ego has not yet been crowned is that outside, somewhere, a beastis growling, and that inside the wind (the spirit) is howling. All the while,there are two riders relentlessly approaching.This is precisely our situation: Caught between the certain confusionthat torments the uncrowned ego and the dark uncertainties of the soul, wesee two riders advancing on us. To go with the ego, the joker, is to reducelife to a joke. But to go with the thief means opening up to the unknown, arealm which, being beyond the capacity of the ordinary ego, requires faith.The choice is always and ever ours to make, but the moment of decision ismade difficult by the ever-present growling of the beast and the howlingwind.How much time do we have? Individually, three score years andten, seventy years on the average. Some a little more, some less. It is verylittle compared to the millions of years humans have inhabited the earth. Itis nothing within the vast stretches of time encompassing the stars. If ourexistence were limited to three score years and ten, we could hardly say weexist at all. Such a paltry existence would be meaningless except within thecontext of some larger spiritual life.Standing here, we look to the future: death. When we consider thatmysterious black hole in the future, we are naturally afraid for ourselves. Outof this fearful egotism, many become religious in the hope of immortality.But eternal life is beyond time—there before birth as well as after death (andlike the blind spot in the eye, present with every passing moment). If we242