Monthly Archives: April 2018

Cracked Open

Chicago Event, Festival

8 April 2018 – Astro-Weather: Last Quarter Moon occurs at 2:18 am CDT. You can find the half-lit orb rising in the east with the background stars of Sagittarius, She hangs relatively low in the southeast as twilight begins. Bella Luna also reaches apogee today, when Her orbit carries Her farthest from Earth for the month- 251,123 miles from us.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Those who work with the original indications in the Calendar of the Soul know that Rudolf Steiner lists the birth & death days, as well as other significant occurrences of various individualities, along with the Full & New Moons in the calendar.  He said of this: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of humanity’s spiritual development” ~Rudolf Steiner

1820 – The Venus de Milo is discovered on the Aegean island of Milos. Created sometime between 130 & 100 BCE, it depicts Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love & beauty (Venus to the Romans). From an inscription that was on its plinth, it is thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch

1835 – Death Day of Wilhelm von Humbolt  Prussian philosopher, diplomat, founded University of Belin.

According to T.H. Meyer, on this day in 1928, Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz had an experience that brought to the surface one of his past incarnations as Hadrian, 76 AD – 10 July, 138 AD, who was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He is known for building Hadrian’s Wall, which marked the northern limit of Britannia. He also rebuilt the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. He is considered to have been a humanist, & he is regarded as one of the ‘Five Good Emperors’.

Hadrian was born into a Hispano-Roman family. During his reign, he traveled to nearly every province of the Empire. An ardent admirer of Greece, he sought to make Athens the cultural capital of the Empire and ordered the construction of many opulent temples in the city. He used his relationship with his Greek lover Antinous to underline his love of Greek culture leading to the creation of one of the most popular cults of ancient times. He spent extensive amounts of time with the military; he usually wore military attire and even dined and slept amongst the soldiers. Late in his reign he suppressed the Bar Kokhba revolt in Judaea, renaming the province Syria Palaestina.

Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz, who we know as being one of Rudolf Steiner’s most valued & independent-minded colleagues. He was born in Prague to an aristocratic family with royal connections. Leaving behind his background traditions, he became a key player in Steiner’s regenerative threefold social impulses, working tirelessly for a genuinely unified, free Europe.

1952 – U.S. President Harry Truman calls for the seizure of all domestic steel mills to prevent a nationwide strike

1973 – Deathday of Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter & sculptor

~   ~   ~

Tomasz Alen Kopera

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Cracked open
Will the seed
Laid into the void
Progress & grow?
The gods circle round
Hunting for ideas that lie dormant
Thoughts unexpressed
Seeds that remain uncultivated
These they plant in the clay of another life
Better able to fill the void
With fertile fruit
~hag

~   ~   ~

Put on your Wedding garment:

Greetings friends on this 1st Sunday after Easter –

Today we gather to tap into this potent esoteric time before Ascension, to ask:

Who is this mysterious individuality who founded Rosicrucianism?

What is his mission? How does it relate to Rudolf Steiner & Anthroposophy…?

You dear friend are invited to the Chymical Wedding.

Are you prepared to walk this modern path of initiation?

Sunday April 8th 2 pm – 4 pm

At our Easter-Tide Festival we will begin downstairs doing group Eurythmy from the 1st Mystery Drama: The Portal of Initiation, by Rudolf Steiner with Mary Ruud:

“The light of the sun is flooding

The realms of space;

The song of birds resounds

Through fields of air;

The tender plants spring forth

From Mother Earth,

And human souls rise up

With grateful hearts

To all the spirits of the world”

Then in the upper room: The Chymical Wedding: Christian Rosenkreutz: ‘Granum Pectori Jesu Insitum’ Interactive Art Projections & Lecture with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Social Art – Exploring the relationship between Christian Rosenkreutz & Rudolf Steiner + Alchemy & the “I”

We end downstairs with a recapitulation of the verse from the Portal of Initiation in Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

$10 Donation to support Eurythmy & Art Supplies

Potluck to Share Encouraged – Hazel will bring the Pascal Lamb & Curry Veggies

For more info. contact festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) Check out our Web site! Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)

The Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, e

 

Slow mo

Chicago Event, Festival

6 April 2018 – Astro-Weather:  Right after dark, Orion remains up in the southwest in his spring orientation: striding down to the right, with his belt roughly horizontal. The belt points left toward Sirius, & to the right toward Aldebaran &, farther on, the Pleiades.

As dawn approaches on Saturday the 7th, you’ll find the waning Moon bunching up with Mars & Saturn.

One of the spring sky’s finest deep-sky objects, the Beehive star cluster in the constellation Cancer the Crab, sits high in the south after darkness falls.

***

“What is to be the starting force & impulse for events in social & ethical life must come out of the spiritual world.” ~Rudolf Steiner, New Spiritual Impulses in History” Dornach 16 December, 1917

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

582- Death & Feast Day of Eutychius of Constantinople, Toward the end of his life, Eutychius maintained an opinion that after the resurrection the body will be “more subtle than air” & no longer a tangible thing. This was considered heretical, because it was taken as a denial of the doctrine of physical, corporeal resurrection

1483  – Good Friday – Birthday of Raphael, an Italian painter & architect of the High Renaissance. Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop &, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace. From 1517 until his death, Raphael lived in the Palazzo Caprini in the Borgo, in rather grand style in a palace designed by Bramante. He never married, & was thought to be bi-sexual. He is said to have had many affairs, but a permanent fixture in his life in Rome was “La Fornarina”, Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker (fornaro) named Francesco Luti from Siena

Raphael’s premature death on Good Friday (April 6, 1520), which was also his 37th birthday, was caused by a night of excessive sex with Luti, after which he fell into a fever &, not telling his doctors that this was its cause, was given the wrong cure, which killed him. At his request, Raphael was buried in the Pantheon.

His funeral was extremely grand, attended by large crowds. The inscription in his marble sarcophagus, an elegiac distich written by Pietro Bembo, reads: “Ille hic est Raffael, timuit quo sospite vinci, rerum magna parens et moriente mori”, meaning: “Here lies that famous Raphael by whom Nature feared to be conquered while he lived, and when he was dying, feared herself to die.”

Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in his various incarnations, in ‘The Last Address’ – The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis. Dornach, Michaelmas Eve, 1924, GA 238

Phyllis & Aristotle by LC the Elder

1472 – Birthday of Lucas Cranach the Elder, a German Renaissance painter & printmaker

1520 – Good Friday – Deathday of Raphael

1869 – Celluloid is patented

1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman emperor Theodosius I

1930 – Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire,” beginning the Salt Satyagraha

1965 – Launch of Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit

1971 – Deathday of Igor Stravinsky, Russian-American pianist, composer, & conductor

Image result for isaac asimov quotes

1992 – Deathday of Isaac Asimov, American science fiction writer

2008 – The 2008 Egyptian general strike starts led by Egyptian workers later to be adopted by April 6 Youth Movement & Egyptian activists

2015 – Deathday of Ray Charles

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 Vladamir Kush

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~O Tree of Life 
Now is not your Winter
The red-rose-vine will entwine 
The ever greening bough
In a slow motion rapture
~hag

***

Sunday April 8th 2 pm – 4 pm

At our Easter-Tide Festival we will begin downstairs doing group Eurythmy with Mary Ruud: “The light of the sun is flooding The realms of space; The song of birds resounds Through fields of air; The tender plants spring forth From Mother Earth, And human souls rise up With grateful hearts To all the spirits of the world” ~ from the 1st Mystery Drama: The Portal of Initiation, by Rudolf Steiner.

Then in the upper room:The Chymical Wedding: Christian Rosenkreutz: ‘Granum Pectori Jesu Insitum’ Interactive Art Projections & Lecture with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Social Art – Exploring the relationship between Christian Rosenkreutz & Rudolf Steiner + Alchemy & Me

We end downstairs with a recapitulation of the verse from the Portal of Initiation in Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

$10 Donation to support Eurythmy & Art Supplies

Potluck to Share Encouraged – Hazel will bring the Pascal Lamb

For more info. contact festivals coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Born in magic made manifest

Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote

3 April 2018 – Astro-Weather: The waning gibbous Moon points the way to Jupiter. They appear more prominent as they climb higher & edge closer after midnight. Jupiter, the benevolent King, is easy to find all week because he shines so brightly, against the faint backdrop of Libra.

Jeremiah Briggs

Capella is the bright star high in the west-northwest during & after dusk. Its pale-yellow color matches that of our Sun, meaning they’re both about the same temperature. But otherwise Capella is very different. It consists of two yellow stars orbiting each other rather closely every 104 days

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

3 April 33 – The death day of Jesus Christ. At the same time in Mexico Vitzliputzli crucified a powerful black magician. “Now at a certain time a being was born in Central America who set himself a definite task within this culture. The old, original inhabitants of Mexico linked the existence of this being with a definite idea or picture. They said he had entered the world as the son of a virgin who had conceived him through super earthly powers, inasmuch as it was a feathered being from the heavens who impregnated her. When one makes researches with the occult powers at one’s disposal, one finds that the being to whom the ancient Mexicans ascribed a virgin birth was born in the year 1 A.D. and lived to be thirty-three years old. These facts emerge when, as stated, one examines the matter with occult means. This being set himself a quite specific task.

At this same time in Central America another man was born who was destined by birth to become a high initiate of Taotl. This man had in his previous earthly incarnations been initiated as described above and through the fact that he had many, many times repeated the procedure involving the excision of the stomach, which has been described to you and which there is no need to recapitulate, he had been gradually equipped with a lofty earthly and super-earthly knowledge. This was one of the greatest black magicians, if not the greatest ever to tread the earth; he possessed the greatest secrets that are to be acquired on this path. He was faced directly with a momentous decision as the year 30 A.D. approached, namely whether or not, as a single human individual, to become so powerful through continuous initiation that he would come to know a certain basic secret. Through knowledge of this secret he would have then been able to give such a shock and impetus to the coming evolution of man on earth that humanity in the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean epochs would have been thrown into terrible darkness, with the result that what the ahrimanic powers had striven for in these epochs could have come into existence.

Then a conflict began between this super-magician and the being to whom a virgin birth was ascribed, and one finds from one’s research that it lasted for three years. The being of the virgin birth bore a name that, when we try to transpose it into our speech approximates Vitzliputzli. He is a human person who, among all these beings who otherwise only moved about in spirit form and could only be perceived through atavistic clairvoyance, in actual fact became man, so the story goes, through his virgin birth. The three year conflict ended when Vitzliputzli was able to have the great magician crucified, and not only through the crucifixion to annihilate his body but also to place his soul under a ban, by this means rendering its activities powerless as well as its knowledge. Thus the knowledge assimilated by the great magician of Taotl was killed. In this way Vitzliputzli was able to win again for earthly life all those souls who, as indicated, had already received the urge to follow Lucifer and leave the earth. Through the mighty victory he had gained over the powerful black magician, Vitzliputzli was able to imbue men again with the desire for earthly existence and successive incarnations.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Mexican Mysteries and the Knights Templar Inner Impulses of Evolution lecture 3

José de Ribera

Feast Day of Mary of Egypt. In Goethe’s Faust Mary of Egypt is one of the three penitent saints who pray to the Virgin Mary for forgiveness for Faust. Her words are set by Mahler in his 8th Symphony, as the final saint’s appeal to the Mater Gloriosa.

Feast Day of Saints Agape, Chionia, & Irene (Greek: Αγάπη, Χιονία και Ειρήνη meaning Love, Purity, & Peace, born in Thessaloniki) 3 virgin sisters who, were martyred for their faith in the year 304 AD. The story of their martyrdom is the subject of Dulcitius, a 10th-century medieval Latin drama by the secular canoness, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, the first known female playwright.

1897 – Death day of Johannes Brahms, German pianist & composer

1922 – Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1925 – The Cremation of Rudolf Steiner at the Horburg cemetery in Basel

1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech. He was assassinated the next day

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Spring breaks thru
The diaphanous weave of Her dress
Nipples hard against the cold stone…
I am concealed
In the shimmering curtain
Of her fragrant hair –
In a spell of my own casting
Entwined in arms of splendor
About to blossom
Engendered on the in-breath of Her dreaming
Born in magic made manifest
Whirling in love outpouring
Peace & Noise…
~hag

***

“Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green”.

Our beloved Rudolf Steiner speaks about Easter as a spiritual event that takes place on the stage of humanity. The physical body of Jesus of Nazareth was the mediator through which the powers of the cosmos were united with the Earth aura. With the sacrifice on Golgotha, when the life-blood of the Cosmic Heart penetrated the Earth and its forces flowed down, even to the very core, the Earth became illuminated from within. The Resurrection took place, 1st at the gates of the underworld for the souls of the dead who had lost their divine nature. And with the dawn on Easter Sunday, the opportunity was then given to every single human individuality to experience this light within the self. And the seed was planted for the reunion of Sun and Earth.

The Mystery of Golgotha is the pivotal event of the whole divine process of creation, of the whole process of human evolution from its beginnings in the womb of the Spirit, to its consummation in humanity as the 10th hierarchy.

The Christian Festivals were never meant to be merely the commemoration of great historical events or simply truths of the Christian revelation, as great as these are. The Festivals in themselves, are, each year, spiritual events, carrying a significance that grows and deepens with the developing phases of human evolution, ever evolving as we do.  This is especially true of the Easter Festival, with its answer to humanity’s deepest needs, its quickening of our highest hopes; with its message of the victory of good over evil, of light over darkness, of life over death.

Again and again, from all points of view, Rudolf Steiner spoke about the deep meaning of the Easter Festival in the eternal working of the divine worlds upon humankind, in the prefiguring myths and symbols of the ancient Mystery religions, in its relation to the world of nature and the cosmic universe, in which the date of this moveable feast contains a unique mystery. For it is determined by a cosmic alignment. Right, So, as many of you know, 1st the sun must enter into the sign of Spring, then it waits, for the moon to come into its vernal fullness…then the planetary beings whose names correspond with the days of the week come into play. Holy Week.

We are invited to connect to the Solar forces, so when the first Sun-day after the full moon of spring arrives, then it is time to celebrate the Easter festival.

And there is deeper meaning still in this alignment. It indicates how through the Christ Impulse, humanity is to be set free from the forces of earth-evolution, pure and simple.

It contains a call to humanity to lift ourselves up to the worlds beyond the earth; to once again speak with the stars. It contains a promise, that in the course of world-history,

it will be possible, through the working of the Christ Impulse, for humanity to once again be united with the cosmos, in the New Jerusalem. It is for this that we strive when we celebrate the Easter Fest.

Its consequence, must be looked for in all human history, in the arts, in human thinking, in all social relationships, and even in the materialistic triumphs of modern science.

~hag

“Anthroposophy itself must become like an inner festival of Resurrection for the human soul. It must bring an Easter mood into man’s world-conception.” – Rudolf Steiner, The Easter Festival in relation to the Mysteries.

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Christian Rosenkreutz: ‘Granum Pectori Jesu Insitum’ Interactive Art Projections & Lecture with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Social Art, Group Eurythmy with Mary Ruud & Singing 

$10 Donation to support Eurythmy & Art Supplies,

Snacks to Share Encouraged – Hazel will bring the Pascal Lamb

For more info. contact festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

 

 

 

The Tomb Becomes a Round Table

Celestial Event

1 April 2018 – Astro-Weather: Easter Sunday – Mercury, which is currently in retrograde, reaches inferior conjunction, passing between the Sun & Earth, exact at 1 p.m. CDT. The imagination I am holding today is this messenger of the gods acting as psycho-pomp, guiding humanity into the mysteries of the Easter Resurrection.

In the New Mysteries we follow the path of the Christian initiation thru the Holy Week before Easter – With every step, from the recognition of the old Sun on Palm Sunday, thru to the meeting of the Saturn-Spirit and The Harrowing of Hell, which sparks the rising of the New Sun of Easter.  Each of these steps thru the planetary spheres leads to a conquest of a corresponding layer in the interior of the earth.

We rest on the Sabbath, In Christo morimur –  This is the Mystic-death or temple sleep of the initiate. The Tomb becomes the altar, a sacred place to commune with the gods – with the souls of the departed as our intermediaries. There in the garden, at the center of the earth, between the rocky hill of Golgotha, part of the lunar Mount Moriah, and it’s polar opposite the Solar Mount Zion – the center of the cosmos – there was a new tomb where the body of Christ rested, and yet it was the oldest tomb, for it was formerly a primal fissure, a gorge splitting Jerusalem in two, called by some Adam’s grave – Known as the gate to the underworld.  The earthquakes tore open the original fissure.  The veil of the Temple “was rent in twain”. Vistas were opened into the interior of the world. “He was lowered into the grave of the earth’, and so it was, that The Christ went into the Earth’s Interior, becoming the medicine for our continued evolution. The darkness of Saturn is lit up from within by the Resurrected Sun. The Easter garden begins to bloom, so that our soul can behold, like the Magdalana before us, The Risen One as the gardener of the New Jerusalem.

The earth underwent a change thru the deed of redemption on Golgotha, a transformation of the unruly Mars powers of iron into the silvery light of Mercury. This transforming of iron thru the sacred mystery of the Christ-blood is a determining factor in the transformation of earthly substance, which will later be carried over into the transubstantiation of the earth.

The spirit radiates from the heights and yet is also carried to us by the eternal divine world of the depths. ‘May there ascend from the Depths the prayer that is heard in the Heights’.  We can send our prayer to the Christ-heart in the earth’s depths, to help overcome and redeem the adversarial powers that hold sway in the 9 layers of the earth’s interior. The agricultural course was a stepping stone to this ultimate aim. (The Birth of a New Agriculture: Koberwitz 1924 and the Introduction of biodynamic -Adalbert Grof Von Keyserlingk)

On the urn that holds the ashes of Rudolf Steiner: “To create centres of peace & love in which the Christ can resurrect.”

Spiritual science tells us that when the blood flowed to the earth from the cross on Golgotha, a new Sun-globe was born in the interior of the earth. This golden earth-center is the legendary land of Shambhalla, hidden away, yet waiting to be re-discovered by the seeking, Christ-guided human soul.

Before the mystery of Golgotha, the task of evolution was that the cosmos would become human, After this turning point, the human becomes cosmos -The New Sun -The imperishable resurrection-body uniting with the Cosmic- Sophia.

The tomb becomes the Round table, and the Parsifal question leads us to find Christ in the etheric.

Also working with us from the time of the Vernal Equinox is the Archangel Raphael, who holds the staff of Mercury, offering us the healing power of the Caduceus thru the grace of the living Christ, who stands as the middle pillar within us all. ~hag

“We will never be able to grasp the true thought of Easter unless we realise that in speaking of the Christ we must look upwards from what is merely earthly to what is cosmic….Christ came down among men in order to unite the souls of men with the Cosmic Spirit. Only a true expounder of the Gospel of Christ points out that what we see in the physical sun is the outward expression of the Spirit of our universe — the resurrecting Spirit of our universe.” ~Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

 

Feast Day of Isis, the Divine Sophia, consort of the Sun God Osiris

1204 – Death Day of Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of France & England,one of the most powerful & wealthiest women in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. She was patron of literary figures such as Wace, Benoît de Sainte-Maure, & Bernart de Ventadorn. She led armies several times in her life & was a leader of the Second Crusade. As Duchess of Aquitaine, Eleanor was the most eligible bride in Europe. Three months after becoming duchess upon the death of her father, William X, she married King Louis VII of France, son of her guardian, King Louis VI. Soon afterwards, Eleanor sought an annulment of her marriage, but her request was rejected by Pope Eugene III. However, after the birth of her second daughter Alix, Louis agreed to an annulment, as fifteen years of marriage had not produced a son. As soon as the annulment was granted, Eleanor became engaged to the Duke of Normandy, who became King Henry II of England in 1154. Henry was her third cousin and eleven years younger. The couple married on Whitsun, 18 May 1152, eight weeks after the annulment of Eleanor’s first marriage, in Poitiers Cathedral. Over the next thirteen years, she bore eight children: five sons, three of whom became kings; & three daughters. However, Henry & Eleanor eventually became estranged. Henry imprisoned her in 1173 for supporting their son Henry’s revolt against him. She was not released until 6 July 1189, when Henry died & their second son, Richard the Lionheart, ascended the throne. As Queen dowager, Eleanor acted as regent while Richard went on the Third Crusade; on his return Richard was captured & held prisoner. Eleanor lived well into the reign of her youngest son, John. She outlived all her children.

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John Stolfo

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~O trembling star in the bright memory of morning
Am I just a grain of sand blowing East to West?
NO! The world is more than bright metal.
On my lips live the promise of ripening wheat
& prayers of peace…
~hag

(This Easter morning at the great Inland Sea of Chicago it was 27 degrees when I went to watch the Sun Rise in the East, with Bella Luna brightly reflecting in the West…)

***

Ostara & The April Fool Meditation:

You are walking in a dense forest. The sky is overcast, and the woods are gloomy, although occasionally, a feeble ray of sunlight makes its way through the clouds and the trees. The branches of the trees are bare, although the tips are just beginning to bud. Old leaves from last year’s fall scurry about your feet as an occasional gust of wind blows them about. The ground is, for the most part bare, with occasional patches of snow in the shade. Hints of new green life make their way up through the snow and dead leaves.

As you walk, you notice a grove of beautiful white birches, the pale glint of their trunks and branches a pleasant contrast in the otherwise dark woods. You walk towards the birch grove and then deep into it. When you are surrounded by the birches, you notice a large tree that looks as if it has been struck by lightning. It’s upper trunk has been split in two, the inner wood has been exposed to the air, dead leaves have blown their way into the nooks of the tree, in every way this tree looks as dead as it can be.

Suddenly you hear a whimsical whistle from behind the fallen lightning struck branches…out pops “THE FOOL” in his colorful patch work coat, holding his knapsack up on a stick, a white rose in his hand, with a wolf cub snapping at his heels…

“OH DON’T MIND THE WOLF FAWNING ABOUT, HE KEEPS ME HONEST…I SEE YOU WERE LAMENTING ABOUT THE TREE…DO YOU REALLY THINK IT’S DEAD

(He laughs) REMEMBER EVERY ENDING IS BUT A NEW BEGINNING…IT’S ABOUT TRUST…BELIEF IN THE ULTIMATE GOODNESS OF CREATION, THAT LIFE HAS A POINT…THAT DEATH IS TRANSFORMATION…THAT SUFFERING CAN BE STOPPED, WHEN WE BEGIN LIVING THE IDEALS…IN THE HOPE OF A BRIGHT ETERNAL NOW…

OK, I KNOW, AT FIRST GLANCE THINGS SEEM DARK, & YES, IF YOU LOOK AT THE EVIL OF GREED & WAR IN THE WORLD, AT THE LOSS OF YOUNG LIVES, THE FAILURE OF PRINCIPLE…BELIEVING IN PEACE, HAVING HOPE & TRUSTING, CAN LOOK PRETTY (clears his throat) FOOLISH…BUT BELIEVE ANYWAY!!!

THAT’S MY MOTTO…SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO RISK, TO JUMP INTO THE ABYSS OF BELIEF, TO GO AGAINST EVERYTHING SOCIETY SAYS IS SENSELESS…IT MEANS TRUSTING THE HIGHER GOOD…THE INNER FORCES… WHICH ARE AT THE HEART OF GREAT EVOLUTIONARY ENDEAVORS…RISK LOOKING LIKE A FOOL …LIVE IN THE MOMENT, OF HOPE FULFILLED…BE PEACE & PEACE WILL PREVAIL…HEY WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE…(laughs,) MADE YOU LOOK

& with that “THE FOOL” is gone…make sure your shoe laces aren’t tied together as you walk closer to the tree. You are surprised to see a bright light outlining the figure of a woman. She is clad all in brilliant yellows & greens, and holds a covered basket. Her gaze is steady, her eyes make you think of clear streams running in the middle of old forests, her skin reminds you of the first fair flower of spring, and her hair is long and unbound. At her feet sits a small brown rabbit nuzzling the hem of her skirt…She gestures, indicating that you should come forward, you walk towards her… She points at her basket, and lifts the cloth. Inside, you see an astounding array of pastel eggs, all colors, all patterns. You can think of nothing better than to pick one of these beautiful eggs, and have it for your very own…Your hand reaches out, and she shakes her head…You realize that while she wants you to have an egg, she wants you to pick it sight unseen. So, you close your eyes, reach out your hand, and reach into the basket. Eyes still closed, you draw your hand back, holding an egg. You open your eyes, and look upon your egg. What does it look like?

Think to yourself what the decoration on the egg means, and why Ostara, The Goddess of The Spring Resurrection wants you to have this particular gift for the coming season…

After you have looked at your egg, you raise your head to thank the Goddess, and she is gone. You look about for her in vain. You wonder if it has all been a dream. The reality of your heart tells you otherwise, and you know you have received the blessing of the Green Goddess…As your attention moves from yourself to the forest, you realize that the trees now have tiny, but beautifully formed green leaves at the end of their branches. And you notice that the birch tree struck by lighting, the one that looked dead, now has green shoots rising from its split trunk. As you make your way out of the birch grove, it seems that the clouds have lightened, and even as you think this, the sun comes out. Small, barely formed flowers lightly scent the forest floor, birds are singing, and the rich smell of moist earth fills your nose.

Softly at 1st you hear that care-free whistling coming from what seems like everywhere…as you mount the crest, you see “THE FOOL” once again…he’s playing catch with the wolf, precariously close to the edge of the precipice…he calls out to you…

“A MONK WAS OUT WALKING IN THE MOUNTAINS OF ANCIENT JAPAN…HE ENCOUNTERS A WILD TIGER…& AS HE IS FLEEING, HE SLIPS OVER A CLIFF, BUT MANAGES TO GRAB HOLD OF A GNARLED ROOT AT THE EDGE…HE LOOKS DOWN, & SEES SHARDS OF BROKEN ROCKS FAR BELOW…HE LOOKS UP & SEES THE WILD CAT, SNARLING AT HIM IN HUNGER…AS HE LOOKS AROUND, HE ALSO SEES BESIDE HIM A BUSH WITH A SINGLE BRIGHT, SUCCULENT BERRY ON IT…HE LOOKS UP…HE LOOKS DOWN…HE SMILES, & PLUCKS THE BERRY, & POPS IT INTO HIS MOUTH…HOW SWEET IT TASTES!”

(He begins to whistle…letting it swell & then fade out)

This is the way of the wise fool who knows that a life lived in trust is sweet…take this Zen teaching into your heart, into your mind, into your body…As you make your way out of the forest…you wonder how you could have found this growing place gloomy, it seems so alive, and pleasant to walk through…full of hope & positive forces, which you can call on to influence your choices, as you take the leap, into peace…as we all sing together…

Be Peace & Peace Will Prevail…Blessed Be…

Happy Easter

Xox

~hag

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Sunday April 8th 2 pm – 4 pm

Christian Rosenkreutz: ‘Granum Pectori Jesu Insitum’ Interactive Art Projections & Lecture with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Social Art, Group Eurythmy & Singing 

$10 Donation to support Eurythmy & Art Supplies,

Snacks to Share Encouraged – Hazel will bring the Pascal Lamb

For more info. contact festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg