Monthly Archives: December 2018

Every Ending is a New Beginning

Toni Carmine Salerno

On New Year’s Eve our folk soul briefly releases us & consequently what we then think is perceived by the highest hierarchies & has the power in it to be brought into reality” ~Rudolf Steiner in conversation with H. Hahn, reported in Das Goetheanum, # 3, Jan 4, 1990

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~hag

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day: New years Eve address 1922: “What we have before us is especially important”

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1335 – DeathDay of Pope Sylvester

1979 – Deathday of Ernst Lehrs – Writer, (Man & Matter) teacher, original Esoteric Circle Member, & Co-worker with Rudolf Steiner

Image result for 1600 - East India Company Founded

1600 – East India Company Founded

1922- Burning of the First Goetheanum

“It is really the case that what was taught the Mystery-pupils at Ephesus concerning the primeval Word lies in the opening sentences of the John Gospel. It is indeed very fitting for Anthroposophists to turn their attention today, on this Cosmic New Year’s Eve, to these secrets which rest in the lap of time; for in a certain sense, that which stood here on the Dornach hill as the Goetheanum had become the centre of anthroposophical activity. The pain we feel today must continue to be pain, and will do so in everyone who was able to feel what the Goetheanum was intended to be. But to one who is striving upwards in his knowledge towards the spiritual all that takes place in the physical world must be for him an external manifestation, a picture of the spiritual which lies behind it. We as human beings striving after spiritual knowledge must be able to turn what has caused this pain into an opportunity for looking spiritually into a revelation which leads us into greater and greater depths. This Goetheanum was to have been a place in which one hoped to have spoken, and in which we have spoken again and again of those things which are connected with the opening words of the John Gospel:

In the Primal Beginning was the Word — the Logos — and the Word was with God, and a god was the Word.”

Then the Goetheanum was destroyed by fire. This terrible picture of the burning Goetheanum arises before us. The pain may give birth to the summons to look ever more deeply into that which lives in the power of our thought, into this burning Goetheanum of New Year’s Eve. That is an experience, painful though it is, which leads us into greater and greater depths. That which we wished to have founded in this Goetheanum, which is connected with the John Gospel, these already form an enclosure within these burning consuming flames. And it is an important impulse which we may grasp: Let these flames be for us the occasion to look through them to other flames, those flames which once long ago consumed the Temple of Ephesus. Let us look upon them as a summons to us to try and fathom that which stands at the beginning of the John Gospel. Urged by this painfully sacred impulse, let us look back from the John Gospel to the Temple of Ephesus — which once was also burned down — and then in the Goetheanum flames, which speak indeed so painfully we shall receive a monition from that which streams into the Akasha with the burning flames of the Ephesian Temple.

Herostratus burns  the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus

Even today, if we look back on that night of misfortune, to those fierce flames of the Goetheanum conflagration, do we not still find in them the molten metals of the musical instruments which speak a language so pure and holy? Do we not find in these molten metals those musical instruments which conjured into the flames those wonderful colours — variously speaking colours — colours closely connected with the metals? Through connection with the metals something arises like memory in the earth-substance. This memory we have of that which was consumed with the Temple at Ephesus. And just as these two conflagrations may be connected, so the longing to investigate the meaning of “In the Primal Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and a god was the Word” may be connected somewhat with the words which again and again were made clear to the pupil at Ephesus: “Study the mystery of man in the small word, in the micrologos; thereby thou shalt make thyself ripe to experience in thyself the mystery of the macrologos.”

Saat Chion

Man is the microcosm as contrasted with the world which is the macrocosm, but he also bears within him the mysteries of the cosmos, and we can decipher the cosmic mystery contained in the first three verses of the John Gospel if we bear in mind in the right sense that into which, as into many other things also, the flames of the Goetheanum condensed, as if in written characters:

Behold the Logos
In the burning fire
Seek the solution
In the house of Diana.”

The Akashic Record of the fire of last New Year’s Eve speaks these words very clearly, together with many others; and they make on us the demand to establish in the microcosm the micrologos, so that man may gain the understanding of that out of which his whole being has been formed — the macrocosmos — through the macrologos. ~Rudolf Steiner, Mystery Centres, Lecture IV, Dornach, December 1923

Jean Mignon

The Christmas Conference: World History in the light of Anthroposophy, Lecture VIII: The Burning of the Ephesian Temple and the Goetheanum, Dornach 31st December 1923 Morning The Envy of the Gods — The Envy of Human Beings

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Van James

Dear Friends – Come join our Conscious NYE!

“On New Year’s Eve our folk soul briefly releases us & consequently what we then think is perceived by the highest hierarchies & has the power in it to be brought into reality” ~Rudolf Steiner in conversation with H. Hahn, reported in Das Goetheanum, # 3, Jan 4, 1990

Doors Open 7:30 pm 

at Our Family Friendly Gathering!Elderberries 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Please Bring Food & Drink to Share.

We are also seeking donations of: Hand Soap, Dish soap, Toilet Paper, Paper towel, Herbal Tea, Coffee

Storefront Room:

Libations / Victuals

Social Space

Sign in / Suggested Donation $20 – $10 or more for the Band – $10 or more for the Branch

Pay your Membership Dues or Become a Member…*

Elderberries Middle Room:

8pm – 9:30pm Folk Dancing with Jutta & The High-Dukes (ALL AGES)

10:30pm Spacial Dynamics with Alex Boshell

Flex Space (Back Room):

Signs & Symbols on the Christmas Tree/ ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ Display

9:30 pm – 10:30pm ‘Biography Work’ with Paulette Arnold

11:15 pm  ‘Out with the Old’  – ‘Lead’ Casting to meet the Future & Bring in the New

MIDNIGHT: Labyrinth Walk with ~hag

*Anthroposophy is…

“Anthroposophy opens its wellsprings, and the human will, carried by love, may draw from the waters. It brings to life love for humankind and thereby works creatively in impulses for moral action and true social interaction.” — Rudolf Steiner

EXPLORE HUMANITY’S PATH AND YOUR OWN.

 Become a member of the Anthroposophical Society in America, then you are invited to Become a  member of the Rudolf Steiner Branch 

Membership is $50 (or pay what you can afford) per year – 

Dear friends that is less than 14 cents a day!

Please consider offering your support. 

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Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)

Check out our Web site!  (Anthroposophical Society in America)The Elderberries 3-Fold Space & the Flex Space are available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…

 ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

a mistletoe waiting

30 December (the 364th day of 2018) – “Speaking with the Stars”: Orion shines in the east-southeast after dark, higher every week, but in early evening his three-star Belt is still nearly vertical. The Belt points up toward Aldebaran &, even higher, the Pleiades. In the other direction, the Belt points down to where bright Sirius will rise around 8 pm CST.

Deeply embedded in our cultural tradition of ‘Ringing out the old & Ringing in the new’ on the eve of the New Year, lives many celestial synchronicities, which change every year, but for the last 70 years, with 30 more to go – at Midnight, we are directly ‘downstream’ from the star Sirius.

Because Sirius is the brightest star in our sky, next to the Sun, in antiquity it was known as ‘The Shining One’. The ancient Egyptians called Sirius ‘Isis’ (Sothis) & built their calendar around the rising & setting of this magnificent star. It is interesting to note that our time now is a recapitulation of ancient Egypt (the 3rd cultural epoch) What can we take from that time & make it new?

The Egyptians believed that Sirius had a tremendous effect upon life on our planet. In particular, they felt that Sirius could open a portal into the spiritual world, so they oriented the pyramid at Giza to the Sirius light.

The Sirius system is directly “upstream” of our solar system within the galactic arm of our Milky Way Galaxy (the Orion arm). And of all the stars in our skies, only Sirius exactly matches the length of our solar year, 365.25 days. This exact correlation has led some to surmise that Sirius is related to our Sun as a binary star. Sirius imprints upon us, like the Sun, a realignment of our own vibrational patterns, touched by the perfection of this Golden Proportion

Our magical midnight of New Beginnings marks the moment when the energies of Sirius, directly overhead, & the forces of the Sun shining thru the earth from the other side, bring transformational re-alignment. The Golden mean holds the codes of perfection which are eternal. To be in conscious attendance of the positional relationship of the Sun & the star Sirius in the mid-heaven at midnight -visualizing the Earth – & all life – in its ultimate perfection – enables us to receive the empowerment of the Spiritual world directly into our consciousness. ~hag

Behold the Sun
At the midnight hour;
Build with stones in the lifeless ground,
Thus in decay and in the night of Death
Find the Creation’s new beginning,
Young morning’s strength;
Glory in the heights the eternal Word of Gods;
Shelter in the depths the Powers of Peace.
In darkness dwelling, create a Sun.
In matter weaving, know the joy of Spirit
”! ~Rudolf Steiner Schmidt Number: S-1456

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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According to Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul, TODAY is the birthday of King David

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1419 – Hundred Years’ War: Battle of La Rochelle

1460 – War of the Roses: Lancastrians kill the 3rd Duke of York & win the Battle of Wakefield.

Image result for Queen Anne's War: James Moore, Governor of the Province of Carolina, abandons the Siege of St. Augustine.

1702 – Queen Anne’s War: James Moore, Governor of the Province of Carolina, abandons the Siege of St. Augustine.

1813 – War of 1812: British soldiers burn Buffalo, New York.7

1816 – The Treaty of St. Louis signed between the United States the Council of Three Fires (united tribes of Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi) living on the Illinois & Milwaukee rivers. The tribes, their chiefs, & their warriors had to relinquish all right, claim, & title to land which connected Chicago & Lake Michigan with the Illinois River.Today, Indian Boundary Park in West Ridge, Chicago commemorates this Treaty. In exchange the tribes were to be paid $1,000 in merchandise over 12 years

1825 – The Treaty of St. Louis between the United States & the Shawnee Nation. In this treaty, the Shawnee gave up their lands to the United States near Cape Geredeau. In return for Cape Geredeau, the United States government gave the Shawnee a sum of 11,000 dollars & leased to them a blacksmith shop for five years providing all tools & 300 pounds of iron annually

1853 – Gadsden Purchase: The United States buys land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building over  a 29,670-square-mile region of present-day southern Arizona & southwestern New Mexico

1903 – A fire at the Iroquois Theater in Chicago, Illinois kills at least 655

1916 – This is the 101 year anniversary of the deathday of Grigori Rasputin, the Russian mystic, spiritual healer & monk, whose name became proverbial for the intrusion of occult influence on politics – murdered in the midst of the WW1. Rasputin was the spiritual & medical adviser to Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, the last Russian Emperor, his wife Alexandra, & their daughter Anastasia. He called himself the “secretary of the Tsar’s soul”. He prophesied that his death would lead to the demise of the Tsardom. And so it was, that 2 months after his death, in the February Revolution of 1917, the monarchy was abolished, & the Bolsheviks took power in Russia. The royal couple was murdered & only Anastasia survived exiled in the West, never recognized as the true heir.  Rasputin’s murder was initiated by the British secret service at a decisive phase of the war to prevent a peace treaty. His reputation became fraught with accusations of decadence, so it’s interesting to read some statements about him from Rudolf Steiner. Even more intriguing are the after-death messages from Helmuth von Moltke’s soul that Steiner transmitted to Eliza Moltke his widow, which speak to Molke’s encounter with Rasputin’s soul in the after-life.

When the Russian Tsar & Tarina used the inner experiences of Rasputin for the purposes of government, the people had a right to be afraid of that, because revelations from the spiritual world should only have a role in spiritual life, not in the political field. In this field only what has become our sound reason by way of the spiritual revelations should intrude. Rasputin had not developed sound reasoning, although he had revelations”. ~Rudolf Steiner 14 Feb. 1920 Dornach

Rasputin worked directly on the will. That should not be. But people want that. He really is an unrestrained man, the ‘Rasputin’ (Russian: one without a path) Everything said about him is true, but he is nevertheless a God-Seer, that is an occult term for a grade of initiation. It is only thru him that the spiritual world, the Russian Folk-Spirit, can now take effect in Russia, thru nobody else.” ~Rudolf Steiner according to Assya Turgeneva in the early years of WWW1, recorded in her book Erinnerugen an Rudolf Steiner

Image result for 1936 – The United Auto Workers union in the Flint, Michigan, stages its first sit-down strike.

1936 – The United Auto Workers union in the Flint, Michigan, stages its first sit-down strike. Workers occupied several General Motors plants for more than forty days, & repelled the efforts of the police & National Guard to retake them.  A wave of strikes followed, but were put-down by the end of the decade, as the courts & the National Labor Relations Board ruled that sit-down strikes were illegal & that strikers would be fired

Image result for 2009 – A segment of the Lanzhou–Zhengzhou–Changsha pipeline ruptures in Shaanxi,

2009 – A segment of the Lanzhou–Zhengzhou–Changsha pipeline ruptures in Shaanxi, China, and approximately 40,000 US gal. of diesel oil flows down the Wei River before finally reaching the Yellow River

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~laser stare pulsing
from the lemon-yellow crystals
of my pineal pyramid
into the circle squared…
a mistletoe waiting…
~hag

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On New Year’s Eve it is always fitting to remember how past and future are linked together in life and in the existence of the world, how past and future are linked in the whole life of the Cosmos of which man is a part, how past and future are linked in every fraction of that life with which our own individual existence is connected, is interwoven through all that we were able to do and to think during the past year, and through all that we are able to plan for the coming year

What we are striving for in Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is this: To receive with goodwill all that is seeking to enter through spiritual revelation from another world — from a world, however, which bears within it this world of ours — and to clothe these revelations in terms by which they can be communicated to humanity. These revelations are nothing less than that which definitely (in a certain respect) guarantees the future of mankind.

As long as questions of this kind are not considered with due earnestness, we have not arrived at the right understanding of the Cosmic New Year’s Eve. At the present moment, it is essential to reach this right understanding. It is essential for us to extend our sympathies — alas, our sympathies often arise from egoistic sources — to the great human relations, and to feel for the whole of mankind that human sympathy which impels us to make a spiritual movement like this effectively fruitful for the evolution of mankind.

May you experience, my dear friends, at this very time, that it is the Spirit of the Cosmos itself, which has been seeking entrance. May you experience during the coming night, that this Spirit which seeks to enter humanity, shall here so be served that the souls of those, who will to feel with and who will to think with Anthroposophical Spiritual Science, may feel their union with this new Spirit which wills to enter the world — the Spirit which alone can bring to the earthly world, the world that is destroying itself — the new upbuilding impulse out of Heaven. In this hour, a symbolic hour every year, demanding that we experience it as the decisive hour between past and future — in this hour may you unite your souls with the new Spirit; may you so experience in your souls the contact of the past year with the coming year, that the Cosmic Year which is passing away, may contact itself with the dawning Cosmic Year.

But the passing Cosmic Year will still send many an after-effect into the future; destructive forces into the spheres of Spirit, of Equity, of Economics. Therefore it is all the more needful, that as many men as possible shall be seized in the innermost depths of their souls by the New Year of the Spiritual Future, and shall develop a Will which may be the foundation of a new spiritual world, a world to be built into the future evolution of mankind”.

~Rudolf Steiner The Cosmic New Year, lecture 4, 31st December, 1919

May we all meet in consciousness the spiritual powers that avail themselves to us on this Cosmic New Year’s Eve ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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* Monday 31 Dec. Our Annual NYE Gathering 7:30 pm – 1 am In Elderberries 4251 N. Lincoln Ave.

Please bring food & drink to Share.

$20 or pay what you can (½ goes to the band ½ to the artists)

8 pm – 9:30 pm – Jutta & the Hi-Dukes Folk Dancing

9:30 pm – ‘Biography Work’ with Paulette Arnold

10:30 pm – Spacial Dynamics with Alex Boshell

11:15 pm – ‘Out with the Old’ Ceremony, with ~hag,

Lead Casting to meet the Future

MIDNIGHT: Labyrinth Walk, Singing

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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* Tuesday 1, Wednesday 2, Thursday 3 January 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm – Group Study: ‘According to Luke’ by Rudolf Steiner Hosted by Deborah Rogers. Copies available to members in the library or online

* Friday 4 January 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm

“…When the Two Become One…” The Mystery of Christmas & Epiphany

Holy Night Social Discourse – Renaissance Art, & Storytelling with Hazel Archer Ginsberg,

Beeswax Candle Dipping! with Nancy Melvin

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

$15 for supplies & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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* Sunday 6 Jan. Epiphany 2 pm – 4 pm – 

The Baptism / 3 Kings/ 12th Night – Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Storytelling with Ann Burfiend

Social Art with Nancy Melvin

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

$10 & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map

Check out our Web site!  (Anthroposophical Society in America)

The Elderberries 3-Fold Space & the Flex Space are available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc..

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Adam & Eve’s Day

24 December 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”: This is the time of year when Orion shines in the east-southeast after dinnertime. He’s pretty high now, but his three-star Belt is still nearly vertical. The Belt points up toward Aldebaran &, even higher, the Pleiades. In the other direction, it points down to where bright Sirius will rise twinkling furiously around 8pm CST.

The solar system’s two outer planets both have close encounters with stars this evening. Look for Uranus above the southern horizon around 6:30 pm CST, in southeastern Pisces. Neptune appears high in the southwest at 8 pm

The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, 224,353 miles away from us.

Christmas Eve = Adam & Eve’s Day – The start of the 13 Holy Nights which are especially fruitful for mystical deepening.

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Feast of the Seven Fishes (Italian Americans)

Juleaften (Denmark)/Julaften (Norway)/Julafton (Sweden)

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Nittel Nacht (certain Orthodox Jewish denominations)

Nochebuena (Spain and Spanish-speaking countries)

Image result for 1818 – The first performance of "Silent Night" takes place in the church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria

1818 – The first performance of “Silent Night” takes place in the church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria

1851 – The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., burns.

1865 – Jonathan Shank and Barry Ownby form The Ku Klux Klan.

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1905 –Birthday of Howard Hughes, American businessman, engineer, and pilot

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1914 – Deathday of John Muir, Scottish-American geologist, botanist, and author, founded Sierra Club

1914 – the Wedding of Rudolf Steiner to Maria Von Shivers

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Christmas Mood
I feel as from enchantment freed
The spirit-child within the womb of soul,
In clear serenity of heart
The holy Cosmic Word has now begotten
The heavenly Fruit of Hope,
Which grows rejoicing into worlds afar
Out of my being’s Godly ground.
~Rudolf Steiner

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The 12 days of Christmas or Holy Nights fall between Adam & Eve’s Day & 3 Kings Day, exemplifying 2 paths, one of a god towards manhood & the other, of a man toward godhood.

The Paradise Play, the Shepherds’ Play & the 3 Kings’ Play are known as the Oberufer Christmas Plays, ancient tales 1st collected by Rudolf Steiner’s teacher Karl Julius Schroer, named after the Austrian village of Oberufer, an island in the Upper Danube. This river’s source begins in the Black Forest of Germany & flows through Bavaria & Austria. It was from this magical region that these powerfully symbolic plays came.

The first, called The Paradise Play, tells the story in the book of Genesis of the creation of the world, & of Adam & Eve’s expulsion from the garden of Eden after they succumbed to the temptation to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge too soon, the tree of Good & Evil. It is from this primordial tree that we get the modern tradition of the Christmas tree; in the olden days they called it the Paradise Tree. And Christmas Eve, used to be referred to as the Feast of Adam & Eve. Since the fall from paradise represents that point in human evolution, which precipitated the necessity for the incarnation of Christ. 

The Shepherds’ Play, tells the story of the proclamation of the Birth of Nathan Jesus to the shepherds in the field. This is the nativity story told in the Gospel According to Luke.

The third of the Oberufer Plays is the Kings Play, which tells of the visit of the 3 wise men, the Magi, to the birthplace of the Zarathustra Jesus child, & of the murderous atrocities of Herod in his attempt to destroy the New born King. This is the nativity story told in the Gospel According to St Matthew, usually performed on the 5th or 6th of January, 12th night, the feast of Epiphany, or 3 Kings day.

The knowledge of these 2 Jesus Children given to us to consider by Rudolf Steiner as early as 1909, is also revealed in many examples of Renaissance art. This open secret is supported in many of the apocryphal gospels, in Gnostic texts & especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in a cave by the Essene enclave near Nazareth, some 40 years after Steiner spoke about these mysteries.

The Theme for this year’s Holy Nights here at the Rudolf Steiner branch in Chicago was specifically inspired by the so called ‘Gospel of the Egyptians’ which tells us that the Kingdom of the New Jerusalem will be able to come into the world when “The Two Become One, & the Outer Becomes as the Inner’. This quote expresses the occult reality of the coming together of the 2 Jesus children to create the perfect human vessel for the Christ.  And so it came to be that the prophesy was fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth.

& Now my friends, the rest is up to us.

Blessings in this sacred Time Out of Time

& Peace ~hag

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HOLY NIGHTS at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago 2018-19

The Mystery of Christmas & Epiphany

“…When the Two Become One…”

 * Christmas Eve 24 December 2018, 7 pm – 9 pm

 Ave Maria on Classical Guitar – Philip Armetta

 “The Greatest Story Ever Told”- 

Renaissance Art, & Storytelling with Hazel Archer Ginsberg,

Group Art project: ‘Turning the inside out, & the outside in’ 

Form Drawing & Movement

Carols with Ultra-Violet Archer   & CG on Didgeridoo

 Love Donation

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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 * Thursday 27 Dec. 7 pm – 9 pm – 

The Dream Song of Olaf Asteson 

with Debra Barford & Mary Tom

 $10 or pay what you can

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 * Friday 28 & Sunday 30 Dec. 7 pm – 9 pm – Group Study

According to Luke’ by Rudolf Steiner

Hosted by Deborah Rogers. 

Copies available to members in the library or online

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 * Monday 31 Dec. Our Annual NYE Gathering 

7:30 pm – 1 am 

In Elderberries 4251 N. Lincoln Ave.

 Please bring food & drink to Share.

$20 or pay what you can (½ goes to the band ½ to the artists)

 8 pm – 9:30 pm – Jutta & the Hi-Dukes Folk Dancing

 9:30 pm – ‘Biography Work’ with Paulette Arnold

 10:30 pm – Spacial Dynamics with Alex Boshell

 11:15 pm – ‘Out with the Old’ Ceremony, with ~hag, 

Lead Casting to meet the Future

 MIDNIGHT: Labyrinth Walk, Singing

 For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

 ***

 * Tuesday 1, Wednesday 2, Thursday 3 January 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm

Group Study: ‘According to Luke’ by Rudolf Steiner

Hosted by Deborah Rogers. 

Copies available to members in the library or online

 ***

 * Friday4 January 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm

 “…When the Two Become One…” 

 Holy Night Social Discourse – 

Renaissance Art, & Storytelling with Hazel Archer Ginsberg,

 Beeswax Candle Dipping! with Nancy Melvin

 Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

 $15 for supplies & Snacks to Share Encouraged

 For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

 ***

 * Sunday 6 Jan. Epiphany DAY 2 pm – 4 pm

 The Baptism / 3 Kings Day / 12th Night

 Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

 Storytelling with Ann Burfiend

 Social Art with Nancy Melvin

 Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

 $10 & Snacks to Share Encouraged

 For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

 ***

 Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)

Check out our Web site!  (Anthroposophical Society in America)

The Elderberries 3-Fold Space & the Flex Space are available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc..

A Become

21 December 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”: 

By mid-evening Bella Luna, on the eve of coming into fullness as the ‘Long Nights Moon’full, forms an almost-isosceles triangle with Aldebaran to her upper right & Betelgeuse to her lower right.

Tonight is the longest night of the year for the Northern Hemisphere; the longest day for the Southern Hemisphere. The solstice occurs at 6:23 p.m. CST, when the Sun reaches its farthest point south & begins its six-month return northward. That’s when winter begins in the Northern Hemisphere, summer in the Southern.

Moon and Aldebaran Dec 21, 2018

Entering into the Longest Night
Entering into the Birth of Light
Consecrating the expected Nativity
Of a New Solar Year
In Yule-Tide Exultation
In the light of Transformation…

The battle between old & new – Dark & Light…The winter solstice is the dark before the dawn, a time of renewal, giving us the most primordial myths of humankind: In Old Norse mythology, the Sun goddess was swallowed up by the wolf of darkness, but was reborn as her daughter, the maiden goddess of the underworld, who rose again to illumine the world. In Greece & Rome, midwinter marked the birth of gods, such as Mithras & Dionysus, who died & journeyed into the underworld, winning gifts for humankind before their miraculous rebirth. We must honor the dark before calling in the light.

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The esoteric meaning of this time of year can be gleaned from the ancient mystery schools. In the Hellenistic world, initiates into the Mysteries of Isis had to undergo a ceremony of death & rebirth in which they entered the underworld to gaze upon the “sun at midnight.” This ceremony, which had its origins in ancient Egypt, speaks of the journey of the soul into the fecund depths of the subconscious mind, where we meet the Guardian at the gate, which opens to the dark sea of spirit from which all creation comes forth, purified & born anew.

To this day people gather at sacred sites as far apart as Newgrange in Ireland & the temple of Karnak in Egypt, to celebrate the miracle of the sun’s return at the darkest time of the year – In the pitch-black sanctuaries of caves & earth chambers, to wait for the birth of new light & life.

Of course when we strive to walk the modern path of initiation, working the 6 basic exercises every day, we don’t wait for the outward sun to shine, we must labor to give birth to the light within, for ourselves.

At a time when the fate of our planet & all her creatures hangs in the balance, let each of us journey down into the cave of the soul to drink from the secret well of wisdom & find the hidden flame within the dark — then return bearing our own unique gift of Light for the world.

The gift of the light (Gesture: Both hands scoop up light & bring it to your heart)
We thankfully take, But nothing may be, Just alone for our sake.
The more we give light (Hands move outward) The one to the other
It shines & spreads life (Arms move out horizontally, spreading light)
Growing still further, 
Till every spark is set aflame. (Right hand in front of chest shows the proof of a flame.)
Till every heart, Joy shall proclaim. (Eurythmy Ah — arms up, palms upward)

May the cave of your heart be ever bright –

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg



When we look up to the wonder of the starry world, when we contemplate the whole process of the universe with its glories and marvels, then we are led at last to the feeling that all the glory that lies open to our view in the whole universe that surrounds us only has meaning when it is reflected in an admiring human soul.” ~Goethe

***

John Stolfo

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

Triumphant in man’s deepest soul
Lives the Spirit of the Sun;
Quickened forces, set astir,
Awake the feelings to His presence
In the inner winter life.
Hope, impulse of the heart,
Beholds the Spirit victory of the Sun
In the blessed Light of Christmas,
The sign of highest life
In the winter’s deepest night. ~Rudolf Steiner

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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” December, 1917

Winter Solstice or Yule

Blue Christmas, also called the Longest Night in the Western Christian tradition, is a day in the Advent season marking the longest night of the year. On this day, some churches hold a church service that honors people who have lost loved ones in that year. There is an interesting convergence for this day as it is also the traditional feast day for Saint Thomas the Apostle. This linkage invites making some connections between Thomas’s struggle to believe the tale of Jesus’ resurrection, the long nights just before Christmas, & the struggle with darkness & grief faced by those living with loss

72 – Deathday of Thomas the Apostle, called Didymus which means “the twin” one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, according to the New Testament. He is informally called doubting Thomas because he doubted Jesus’ resurrection when first told (in the Gospel of John account), followed later by his confession of faith, “My Lord and my God“, on seeing Jesus’ wounds.

Traditional legend written centuries later claim he travelled outside the Roman Empire to preach the Gospel, travelling as far as Tamil Nadu & Kerala in present-day India. According to tradition, he baptized many people, founding what today is known as Saint Thomas Christians or Nasranis. After his death, the relics of Saint Thomas the Apostle were enshrined as far as Mesopotamia in the 3rd century. In 1258, some of the relics were brought to Abruzzo in Ortona, Italy, where they have been held in the Church of Saint Thomas the Apostle. He is often regarded as the Patron Saint of India, & the name Thoma remains quite popular among Christians in India

1804 – Birthday of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

1907 – The Chilean Army commits a massacre of at least 2,000 striking saltpeter miners in Iquique, Chile.

1910 – An underground explosion at the Hulton Bank Colliery No. 3 Pit in Over Hulton, Westhoughton, England, kills 344 miners.

1913 – Arthur Wynne’s “word-cross“, the first crossword puzzle, is published

1919 – American anarchist Emma Goldman is deported to Russia

1940 – Deathday of F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist & short story writer

1945 – Deathday of George S. Patton, American general

1946 – An 8.1 Mw earthquake & subsequent tsunami in Nankaidō, Japan, kills over 1,300 people & destroys over 38,000 homes

1963 –”Bloody Christmas” begins in Cyprus, resulting in the displacement of 25,000-30,000 Turkish Cypriots & destruction of more than 100 villages

1967 – Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a heart transplantdies in Cape Town, South Africa, having lived for 18 days after the transplant

1968 –Apollo 8 is launched placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans

1973 – The Geneva Conference on the Arab–Israeli conflict opens

1988 – A bomb explodes on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270

1992 – A Dutch DC-10, flight Martinair MP 495, crashes at Faro Airport, killing 156

1994 – Mexican volcano Popocatépetl, dormant for 47 years, erupts

2004 – Iraq War: A suicide bomber killed 22 at the base next to the main U.S. military airfield, the single deadliest suicide attack on American soldiers

***

Baron Arild Rosenkrantz.

~you & i are
pure as dream
lasting as music
opulent as the Goddess…
We are
given the gift
of becoming…

~hag

A Guided Meditation for the Winter Solstice: Let each of us journey down into the cave of the soul to drink from the secret well of wisdom & find the hidden flame within the dark & when we return we will bear our own unique gift of Light for the world. But 1st – Wrap this darkness gently about you like a comfortable blanket. Float gently now in its depths. Grow here, nourished by an invisible cord that connects you to the Source of all life. Floating gently in the dark…Softly rocking in the dark…And though it is dark, we realize that what surrounds us is not empty, but — like the womb — full of life. Take a moment now to sense the swirling, nurturing energy of the dark.

And now, as the energy increases, it gives birth to the smallest spark imaginable, the spark of new life. See that spark now as it glows, watch that spark now, watch it as it grows. Glowing brighter & brighter, it grows into a flame. And as you look at this flame, its light fills you with warmth, with love. And as you feel increased love & warmth within you, the visible intensity of the flame slowly diminishes & as it does, in its place, slowly becoming visible, is the outline of a present. This gift becomes more solid, until you can see its form clearly & see that it is wrapped in a glistening filament of light. / This gift has your name on it, inscribed in the glistening material. Is your name written in a special color? Is the inscription special in any other way? Approach your wrapped present now more closely. What shape is it? How big is it? What color is its wrapping? Pick it up: is it light? heavy?

And now unwrap your gift. / How easy or difficult is it to unwrap? You finish opening it now & you receive your gift. What is it? Look at it carefully. Experience it fully. Accept it. Accept your gift with joy. Feel your heart warm with the love with which this gift is given to you.

And now, from your heart, send out gratitude for this gift, send out thanks for this gift, send it out like light, like a beacon back to the to the Universe: both the dark & the light. Send out your thanks for this gift. & Now, if you wish, find a place to keep this gift, a place to put this gift, so you can use in the New year.

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Dear Friends, Come explore with us The Mystery of Christmas & Epiphany 

HOLY NIGHTS at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago 2018-19

“…When the Two Become One…”

* Christmas Eve 24 December 2018, 7 pm – 9 pm

Ave Maria on Classical Guitar – Philip Armetta

The Greatest Story Ever Told”- Renaissance Art, & Storytelling with Hazel Archer Ginsberg,

Group Art project: Turning the inside out, & the outside in

Carols with Ultra-Violet Archer   

Love Donation

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Image result for dream song of olaf asteson

* Thursday 27 Dec. 7 pm – 9 pm – The Dream Song of Olaf Asteson with Debra Barford & Mary Tom

$10 or pay what you can

Image result for According to Luke by Rudolf Steiner

* Friday 28 & Sunday 30 Dec. 7 pm – 9 pm – Group Study: ‘According to Luke’ by Rudolf Steiner Hosted by Deborah Rogers. Copies available to members in the library or online

Image result for jutta & the hidukes

* Monday 31 Dec. Our Annual NYE Gathering 7:30 pm – 1 am In Elderberries 4251 N. Lincoln Ave.

Please bring food & drink to Share.

$20 or pay what you can (½ goes to the band ½ to the artists)

8 pm – 9:30 pm – Jutta & the Hi-Dukes Folk Dancing

9:30 pm – ‘Biography Work’ with Paulette Arnold

10:30 pm – Spacial Dynamics with Alex Boshell

11:15 pm – ‘Out with the Old’ Ceremony, with ~hag,

Lead Casting to meet the Future

MIDNIGHT: Labyrinth Walk, Singing

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Image result for According to Luke by Rudolf Steiner

* Tuesday 1, Wednesday 2, Thursday 3 January 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm – Group Study: ‘According to Luke’ by Rudolf Steiner Hosted by Deborah Rogers. Copies available to members in the library or online

* Friday 4 January 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm

“…When the Two Become One…” The Mystery of Christmas & Epiphany

Holy Night Social Discourse – Renaissance Art, & Storytelling with Hazel Archer Ginsberg,

Beeswax Candle Dipping! with Nancy Melvin

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

$15 for supplies & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Image result for 3 kings bring gifts renaissance art

* Sunday 6 Jan. Epiphany 2 pm – 4 pm – 

The Baptism / 3 Kings/ 12th Night – Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Storytelling with Ann Burfiend

Social Art with Nancy Melvin

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

$10 & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map

Check out our Web site!  (Anthroposophical Society in America)

The Elderberries 3-Fold Space & the Flex Space are available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc..

Let us co-create the heart

19 December 2018 “Speaking with the Stars”: 

Venus appears brilliant from the time it rises around 2:30 am CST until sunrise more than 4 hours later. She stands above the southeastern horizon an hour before the Sun comes up. Gleaming brighter than any other celestial being in the predawn sky. 

***


Odilon Redon

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Looking at the past to see the present, co-creating the future: “History, historical life, will only be seen in the right light when a true consciousness of the connection of the so-called living with the so-called dead can be developed” ~Rudolf Steiner – The Living and the Dead


Rembrandt
Abraham and the Three Angels, c. 1630s – early 1640s

According to Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual research in the original Calendar of the Soul today is the Birthday of Abraham interestingly regarded as the father of the faithful by all 3 monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, & Islam


Abraham and Lot by Wenceslaus Hollar

Birthday of Lot, nephew of Abraham

Also celebrated today: O Radix Jesse

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,
super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quem Gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

Isaiah had prophesied: “A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Isaiah 11:1 “On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.” Isaiah 11:10 Jesse was the father of King David, & Micah had prophesied that the Messiah would be of the house and lineage of David & be born in David’s city, Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). see Also: Isaiah 45:14, Isaiah 52:15 & Romans 15:12

150 – Deathday of Clement of Alexandria. His parents were educated pagans, having rejected paganism as a young man due to its perceived moral corruption, he travelled in Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine & Egypt. In his Protrepticus he displays an extensive knowledge of Greek mythology & mystery religions, which could only have arisen from the practice of his family’s religion. In Greece, he encountered the Ionian theologian, Athenagoras of Athens; while in the east, he was taught by the Assyrian, Tatian, & a Jew, Theophilus of Caesarea. In around 180, Clement reached Alexandria, where he met Pantaenus, who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement studied under Pantaenus, & was ordained to the priesthood by Pope Julian before 189.

As his three major works demonstrate, Clement was influenced by Hellenistic philosophy to a greater extent than any other Christian thinker of his time, & in particular by Plato & the Stoics. His secret works, which exist only in fragments, suggest that he was also familiar with pre-Christian Jewish esotericism & Gnosticism. In one of his works he argued that Greek philosophy had its origin among non-Greeks, claiming that both Plato & Pythagoras were taught by Egyptian scholars. Among his pupils were Origen & Alexander of Jerusalem. Clement is regarded as a Church Father & is venerated as a saint in Coptic Christianity, Ethiopian Christianity & Anglicanism

1776 – Thomas Paine publishes a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled “The American Crisis“. The first was released during a time when the Revolution was still viewed as an unsteady prospect. The opening lines are as follows: “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman”.

The pamphlet, read aloud to the Continental Army on December 23, 1776, three days before the Battle of Trenton, attempted to bolster morale as well as shame neutrals & loyalists toward the cause: “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph”.

Along with the patriotic nature of The American Crisis, it displayed Paine’s strong deist beliefs, inciting the laity with suggestions that the British are trying to assume powers that only God should have. Paine states that he believes God supports the American people, “that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent“.

Paine believes that Britain is essentially trying to enslave America. See The American Crisis – Common Sense pamphlet – The Age of Reason

1848 – Deathday of Emily Brontë, English novelist & poet

1907 – 239 coal miners die in the Darr Mine Disaster in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania

1915 – Birthday of Édith Piaf, French singer-songwriter & actress

1927 – Three Indian revolutionaries, Ram Prasad Bismil, Roshan Singh & Ashfaqulla Khan are executed by the British Empire

1932 – BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service

1941 –Adolf Hitler appoints himself as head of the Oberkommando des Heeres

1972 –The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, & Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth

1974 – Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford under the provisions of the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution

2012 – Park Geun-hye is elected the first female president of South Korea

***

Clavis Artis

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I have come
To this dark world
Like a satellite streaking —
I am the open eye gleaming —
A laser, sculpting, reality
With precise rays of promise 
Sparking eternity —
Come Beloved, bring forth your art 
& let us co-create the heart…
~hag

***

We swiftly sidle toward the midnight hour of the year. All of Creation is holding its breath at this deep time, anticipating the birth, within each human heart, of wonder, & a willingness to cooperate in a living way with everything & everyone.

May we kindle the warm glow of good will to transform our emotional default setting to one of peace & kindness. Each moment awaits our imaginative dedication.

So let’s toss all that is neither beautiful nor useful into the roiling cauldron of re-birth, that Time is so kindly providing us. Let us compost all past-patterns of self-sabotage, personal & collective. And let us humbly bow at the threshold of this New Year, to release & redeem all that we do not wish to take with us through the new door of Epiphany (20 KMB 19).

Remorse is said to be the highest of the negative states – that sinking feeling that can grip us when we fall for the compelling illusion of separateness, & forgot that we are all in one large, pulsing, shape-shifting-according-to-collaborative-intent-reality-dream. How will your thoughts add to this picture?

The Sufi say: “Estafirahlah”  “forgiveness of self and others.” And part of what “to forgive” means is “to give energy for change.”

The protoplasm of reality is particularly susceptible to imprint now, by the power of word, story & metaphor – Allowing ourselves one true hyperbole: Never before has the power of human story-telling been so essential in determining what dies & what lives.

Let us dedicate ourselves to animating a truly desirable story –  A love story.

We are here to re-dedicate ourselves to the responsibility of manifesting the highest qualities of the human being.

So, wherever we are, at this time of the Solstice, let us visualize & dedicate our unique & absolutely necessary Medicine, into the collective cauldron, to ladle ourselves up a big heaping cup of All-Heal.

‘The Medicine that makes whole’, brings into bubbling accord the elixir of Divine, Dynamic, Reverent, Integrity & Ingenuity.

See you there

Xox ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

 “…What must never be forgotten is that the proclamations to the Shepherds and to the Kings contained a message for all humankind — for the earth is common to all. In that the revelation to the shepherds was from the earth, it was a revelation that may not be differentiated according to nationality. And in that the Magi received the proclamation of the sun and the heavens, this too was a revelation destined for all humankind. For when the sun has shone upon the territory of one people, it shines upon the territory of another. The heavens are common to all; the earth is common to all. The impulse of the ‘human universal’ is in very truth quickened by Christianity. Such is the aspect of Christmas revealed by the twofold proclamation…” ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Proclamations to the Magi and the Shepherds, Stuttgart, 1921

Dear Friends, Come explore with us 

The Mystery of Christmas & Epiphany 

HOLY NIGHTS at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago 2018-19

“…When the Two Become One…”

* Christmas Eve 24 December 2018, 7 pm – 9 pm  

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Renaissance Art, & Storytelling with Hazel Archer Ginsberg,

Group Art project: Turning the inside out, & the outside in

Love Donation

* 27 Thursday Dec. 7 pm – 9 pmThe Dream Song of Olaf Asteson

with Debra Barford & Mary Tom

* Friday 28 & Sunday 30 Dec. 7 pm – 9 pmGroup Study:

According to Luke’ by Rudolf Steiner Hosted by Deborah Rogers

Copies available to members in the library or online

* Monday 31 Dec. Our Annual NYE Gathering 7:30 pm – 1 am

In Elderberries 4251 N. Lincoln Ave.

Please bring food & drink to Share.

$20 or pay what you can (½ goes to the band ½ to the artists)

8 pm – 9:30 pm – Jutta & the Hi-Dukes Folk Dancing

9:30 pm – ‘Biography Work’ with Paulette Arnold

10:30 pm – Spacial Dynamics with Alex Boshell

11:15 pm – ‘Out with the Old’ Ceremony, with ~hag,

Lead Casting to meet the Future

MIDNIGHT: Labyrinth Walk, Singing

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

* Tuesday 1, Wednesday 2, Thursday 3 January 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm – 

Group Study: ‘According to Luke’ by Rudolf Steiner 

Hosted by Deborah Rogers 

Copies available to members in the library or online

* Friday 4 January 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm

“…When the Two Become One…”

The Mystery of Christmas & Epiphany

Holy Night Social Discourse

Renaissance Art, & Storytelling with Hazel Archer Ginsberg,

Beeswax Candle Dipping! with Nancy Melvin –

$15 for supplies & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

* Saturday 5 January 2019, 7 pm – 9 pmGroup Study:

According to Luke’ by Rudolf Steiner.

Copies available to members in the library or online

* 6 Jan. Epiphany 2 pm – 4 pm

Storytelling with Ann Burfiend

Social Art with Nancy Melvin

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

$10 & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map

Check out our new updated Web site!  (Anthroposophical Society in America) The Elderberries 3-Fold Space & the Flex Space are available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…