Awaken the Sleepers

31 August 2017– Astro-Weather: The Aurigid meteor shower peaks tonight, with the best views coming when the radiant (which lies in the constellation Auriga) climbs high before dawn.

Image result for Aurigid meteor shower 2017

 

The wide W pattern of Cassiopeia is tilting up in the northeast after dark. Look below the W’s last segment on the lower left, for the Perseus Double Cluster.

Just before the first light of dawn on Friday morning spot Venus shining brightly low in the east-northeast, with the Beehive star cluster to Her left.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

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 dates in the calendar.  He said of this: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of mankind’s spiritual development” ~Rudolf Steiner

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast Day of Joseph of Arimathea & Nicodemus. Rudolf Steiner speaks about these individualities as initiates many times. Here are a few examples: http://www.rsarchive.org/Search.phphttp://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA103/English/AP1962/19080525p01.html

12 – Birthday of Caligula

Self Portrait

1528 – Deathday of  Matthias Grünewald a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century. Only ten paintings—several consisting of many panels—& thirty-five drawings survive, all religious, although many others were lost at sea in the Baltic on their way to Sweden as war booty. His largest and most famous work is the Isenheim Altarpiece

1740 – Birthday of Johann Friedrich Oberlin, mystic, philanthropist, social Christian. Rudolf Steiner spoke about him in his lectures on Occult History http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0126/19101227p01.html

1803 – Meriwether Lewis & William Clark start their expedition to the west

1869 – Deathday of Mary Ward, Irish astronomer & entomologist, killed when she fell under the wheels of an experimental steam car built by her cousins. She was the world’s first person known to be killed by a motor vehicle

1886 – The 7.0 Charleston earthquake hits South Carolina. Sixty people were killed & damage is estimated at $5–6 million

1888 – Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper’s confirmed victims

1895 – German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his Navigable Balloon

1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector

1907 – The Anglo-Russian Convention between the United Kingdom & Russia. The agreement led to the formation of the Triple Entente, linking the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, & the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland – igniting the Great War.

1939 – Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day thus starting World War II in Europe

1943 – Deathday of Elisabeth Vreede, a Dutch mathematician, astronomer & Anthroposophist – one of Rudolf Steiner’s closest co-workers, part of the the original Vorstand in Dornach (see more below)

1957 –Malaysia gains its independence from the United Kingdom

1980 – Flood in Ibadan after 12 hours of heavy downpour, killed over 300 people & properties worth millions destroyed

1986 – Aeroméxico Flight 498 collides with a Piper PA-28 Cherokee over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air & 15 on the ground

1986 – The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 423.

1987 – Thai Airways Flight 365 crashes into the ocean near Ko Phuket, Thailand, killing all 83 aboard

1997 – Deathday of Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Fayed & driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris

1999 – A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including two on the ground

2005 – The 2005 Al-Aaimmah bridge stampede in Baghdad kills 1,199 people

2012 – A 7.6-magnitude earthquake strikes the Philippine province of Eastern Samar

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Larry Young

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~My hands are pillows of power

Awakening the sleepers…

For the Rhythm is a restless tide

***

Elisabeth Vreede was born in Holland, at The Hague, on 16 July 1879. She was the second child of her father, who was a lawyer, & her mother, who was devoted to charitable work. She was a sensitive person, & later on in her life she played an important part in the Anthroposophical life in Holland.

Elisabeth Vreede came into contact with Theosophy in her home growing up. She was interested early on in the starry sky, & while learning French, she read the works of Camille Flammarion, a French astronomer & author. Because of his scientific background, he approached spiritism & reincarnation from the viewpoint of the scientific method, writing, “It is by the scientific method alone that we may make progress in the search for truth. Religious belief must not take the place of impartial analysis. We must be constantly on our guard against illusions.”

At the University of Leyden she studied mathematics, astronomy, Sanskrit, & philosophy (especially Hegel). She was also actively involved in student life, founding a boat club & was a council member of the students’ union.

The first meeting with Rudolf Steiner took place early on at the Theosophical Congress in London in 1903. Her parents were theosophists & she as well. Rudolf Steiner made a huge impression on her. A year later at the Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society at Amsterdam in 1904, she heard a lecture on ‘Mathematics & Occultism’ that Steiner gave. The next European Congresswas in 1906, where Steiner held a cycle of 18 lectures.

After receiving her diploma in 1906, she gave instruction at a higher girl’s school in mathematics until 1910. From 1910, she lived in Berlin, worked on her dissertation, & occasionally worked as a secretary for Rudolf Steiner. In April 1914, she moved to Dornach to help in the building of the first Goetheanum & was often found there carving wood.

During the War years (1916/17) Elisabeth Vreede broke off from her residence in Dornach in order to work in Berlin as a coworker of Elisabeth Rotten, a Quaker, peace activist & educational progressive, looking after prisoners of war. She was very much aware of the life & sufferings of her contemporaries.

After the War, Rudolf Steiner developed his idea of the threefold social order & she too had an intense interest in this initiative & work. She was the first to bring this idea of a threefold social order to England.

Around 1918, Dr. Vreede began to construct the library & archive at the Goetheanum. Using her own means, she purchased the expensive lecture transcripts as soon as they were typed from notes. In 1920 she moved to Arlesheim, Switzerland, where she had built a little house for herself. It was the second house for which Steiner had given the model in 1919.

In 1924, Steiner appointed her to head the Mathematical-Astronomical Section of the School of Spiritual Science of the recently reestablished Anthroposophical Society, & she belonged to the board of directors of the general Anthroposophical Society from 1925 to 1935.

Rudolf Steiner saw her in connection with the Platonic stream, & had indicated that she had incarnated earlier than planned in order to meet him on Earth.

Dr. Vreede gave a lecture on 3 January 1926, which was first publish in the Anthroposophical Movement in Vol. 6, Nos. 42 to 46, called The World of the Stars and Human Destiny. In it she addressed the appropriate use of Astrology in our time:

You will now understand to what purpose we have a horoscope, and that it is not there in the first instance for our own sake. You will understand that when a horoscope is made for a person’s satisfaction, there is always a certain amount of egoism connected with it; for he does not possess it for this purpose! And if you take the passages in our literature where Dr. Steiner speaks about Astrology (there are passages in many of the cycles and lectures) you will find how he emphasizes again and again that Astrology must be something social, which pays no attention to the individual but has social aims. In a true Astrology only what is universally human is considered and not the satisfaction of the egoism of the human being. By considering it egoistically, that deed of Michael is undone whereby other beings ought to be saved from plunging into the abyss.

When Dr. Steiner asked the position of the stars at the moment of a birth, it was always with reference to children who lacked one or other of the forces just described. It was then possible to learn from it which of these forces was not there in the right sense; thus it could be gathered what this human soul lacked before birth. And then it might be possible under certain circumstances to find a cure. Here we see how the matter is carried away from what is egoistic and into the social, when such abnormal children may in this way find a cure, which otherwise might perhaps not be possible. But in those children in whom certain forces were not brought in at birth these influences remain present. …Thus we see how Astrology can be used when it is kept in Michael’s sense, and not in the sense in which it is so often practiced today.”

In 1928 she invited Willi Sucher to come to Dornach & collaborated with him in working out the death asterograms of historical personalities, which was part of his substantial historic research, & which he further worked out in the late 30’s & 40’s, doing the charts & therapeutic research of special needs children in England & Scotland.

In 1935 the separation within the Anthroposophical Society took place & she was expelled from the executive council, her section passed to other leadership. She was excluded, along with her long-time friend & co-member, Dr. Ita Wegman, from the board of directors. She was also cut off from the observatory & archives that she herself helped assemble.

Rudolf Steiner is reputed to have said that Dr. Vreede understood his work more deeply than anyone else.

On the anniversary, in 1943, of Rudolf Steiner’s death, she spoke to the circle of friends & co-workers at the Ida Wegman clinic. They wanted to commemorate not just Rudolf Steiner but the many others who were leading Anthroposophists but were no longer known to most. She spoke in a devoted way about Edith Maryon, who also died in 1924, & Alice Sauerwein. She portrayed Count Keyserlingk & Louis Werbeck, Caroline von Heydebrand & Eugen Kolisko.

At the beginning of May 1943 she spoke once more on the 400th anniversary of the death of Copernicus. At the lecture it was noticed that only by exceptional exertion could she keep herself upright. Just a few days later on 6 May, she had to take to her bed. She had never been ill nor depended on people until that point. Thanks to the devoted care of Frau Schunemann, she was treated at home until her passing on 31 August 1943 in Ascona.

“The stars bear for us the traces of the Deeds of the Gods which lead through the Beings of the hierarchies to the frontiers of Divinity Itself.” ~Elisabeth Vreede

http://www.rsarchive.org/RelAuthors/VreedeElizabeth/Anthro_Astro.php 

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Dear Friends – The Elderberries Three-Fold Café has been on Sunset Blvd. in the heart of Hollywood for over 9 years. They provide not only good healthy food, but nutrition for the soul – Rudolf Steiner’s Weekday Exercises are even on the back of the menu! The café is a hub for youth, hosting anthroposophical study groups, music, alternative film screenings etc – providing support for inner practices, meaningful work to those in need, & platforms for individual creative expression -imbuing all they do with a love for the future of our world.

Our 3-fold friends, Dottie ZoldDaniel Evaeus & Frank Agrama, came in from Los Angeles in March to speak with the Branch Council & have an open conversation with members & friends, about the possibility of opening a second Elderberries 3-fold Café in the unrented space at the branch*. It has long been the vision of Elderberries to create a “Michael Grail-Road” establishing 3-fold Café’s around the world where youth can come to find themselves thru anthroposophy.

Here are a few words about the Initiative from Dottie Hazel   Daniel Frank  Here are a few ‘testimonies

Please help us pave the way for a 3-fold Cafe in the heartland!

Go to this link to find out more & donate if you will https://igg.me/at/michaelgrailroad/x/17233652

Thanks for supporting the future!

If you prefer to give a donation by check, or would like a receipt for tax purposes contact Chuck@ChuckGinsberg.com

*The good will of the Branch council & the membership at large shall determine whether this initiative will reside at the Branch. (Stay tuned for a ‘Special Members Meeting’ TBA) If it is not wanted here, Elderberries may take up root near a Waldorf School or other Chicago location.

You can get your donation back upon request if it doesn’t come thru, or you can choose to support the mission in LA, or other future hubs in the Michael-Grail Road around the country.

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Michaelmas & the Horn of Plenty – Fall Festivals Ancient and New

Saturday September 23rd, 2017 – 4 pm – 6 pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch,4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL.

Saturday September 30th 10:30 am – 4:30pm at the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL. 60187 – Pre-registration (630) 668-1571 

Come join our Experiential Workshop celebrating the Autumnal Equinox to prepare us for the journey into the dark of the year. We will look back to the fruits of the past, and prepare for what is coming toward us from the future. Our ancestors called this Sabbath – Harvest Home or Mabon. The Hebrew folk count this as part of the High Holy Days. In Greece and Rome it is dedicated to Dionysus, or Persephone and Demeter.  Today, we are invited to stand with the powerful Archangel Micha-el, in balance, between the light and the dark, as we create the ‘festival of the future’, which we call ‘Michaelmas’. Forging confidence thru Heart-Thinking, Michael strengthens our Will & reinforces our higher “I” so that we have the Courage to find the Spirit behind the living cosmos.

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – is a Spiritual Midwife, and Trans-denominational Minister, working in an eclectic style that inspires connections – initiating us into the magic, waiting to be revealed, in the cycle of the seasons.   Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, and the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society. Founder of Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year

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