Tag Archives: Spring Equinox

The Festival Life: Practical Journeys into the New Mysteries

Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year

“To celebrate a festival really means to unite oneself in spirit with the cosmic spirit”.  ~Rudolf Steiner

Our festival life is structured to include activities that stimulate head, hands and heart. We engage our thinking through lectures on Spiritual Science, learning, as Goethe did, what lives behind the laws of nature, engaging in creative thinking outside the box, like Einstein demonstrated, opening to insight and intuition to better solve the problems of the world. Movement and artistic endeavors motivate our will forces, creating balance and beauty, channeling creativity in a purposeful way that deepens our thoughts through action. Activities like storytelling, biography sharing, and singing consciously involve our feeling life, reducing stress, stimulating our imagination, creating connections and goodwill.

By strengthening our thinking, feeling and willing we lead more conscious lives, better able to serve the greater community -involved parents, good neighbors, mindful citizens, purposeful workers in our chosen fields of work in the world.

The Greek meaning of the word festival is “Shining Day”.

The festivals not only commemorate great historical events, cosmic truths and traditions; they are in themselves spiritual events that manifest in seasonal rhythms, and carry a significance that grows and deepens with the development of human evolution. The celebration of the festivals let us practice what Steiner calls ‘the Reverse-Ritual’ – The idea of ‘Openness to Above’.  Instead of invoking Spirit down, as in days of old, we rise to the spirit, in our thinking. We study and celebrate these ‘Shining Days’ to sustain and renew ourselves and the world.

A festival has the quality of lifting us out of the ordinary and into the mysteries and magic of the rhythm of the seasons. Throughout history, festivals have emerged from people’s connection with their spiritual life and their search for the meaning of human existence.

“Through various festivals and rituals we acknowledge and celebrate our connection to and our responsibility toward each other and the world.” Celebrating festivals can bring us consciously to what we all experience instinctively in our daily lives, the changing cycles of the seasons and of life itself.  ~excerpted from Festivals by Marilyn Pelryme.

“Celebrating festivals illuminates our life on earth with spiritual meaning and shows us the significance of our human existence in the universe. We human beings stand between the two worlds uniting them in ourselves. We are the crossing point where the upper circle representing the heavens flows into the lower one belonging to the earth.”  ~Evelyn Frances Derry

Some Upcoming Festivals at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, Il. 60618 

Michaelmas 2015: Sept. 27, 6:30pm – 11:30pm

All Souls:  Nov. 8, 2015, 2pm – 4pm

Holy Nights 2015 -2106: Sunday Dec. 27- Wed. Dec. 30, 7pm – 9pm…Thursday Dec. 31 – NYE – 7pm – 1am…Jan. 1-5 7pm – 9pm

Holy Week 2016: March 20th – Palm Sunday 2pm – 4pm…March 21-26th – 7pm – 9pm…March 27th Easter Sunday – 2pm – 4pm

Pentecost: Sunday May 15, 2pm – 4pm

St. John’s: Sunday June 19, 2016 – 2pm – 4pm

Michaelmas 2016: Sunday Sept. 25th – 2pm – 4pm

I look forward to exploring these cycles with you

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Celestial Event – March 2015 – Spring Equinox, New Moon, Total Solar Eclipse

 

It’s time to marvel at the cosmic dance of Sun, Moon and Earth during the SPRING EQUINOX.

On March 20, 2015 the plane of Earth’s Equator passes the center of the Sun.

At that instant, the tilt of Earth’s axis doesn’t slant away from, or towards the Sun.

You could say the cosmos stands in equipoise.

 

The two annual equinoxes (Spring and Autumn) are the only times when the subsolar point—

the place on Earth’s surface where the center of the Sun is exactly overhead—is on the Equator, and, consequently, the Sun is at zenith over the Equator. The subsolar point crosses the equator, moving northward at the March equinox and southward at the September equinox.

 

To make this celestial event even more powerful, it is also a NEW MOON, aligning into a TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE! On this day, when the Center of the Sun and the Earth’s equator align, the New Moon will be in-between, blocking the Sun. The last time we had a solar eclipse on the Spring Equinox was 1662!

This unique occurrence is the beginning of a series of four March Equinox/Solar Eclipse occurrences that will happen at 19-year intervals this century, for the first time since the 1600s.

2015, 2034, 2053 and 2072 — each one of these years will see a solar eclipse — a process where our moon temporarily blocks the light of the mighty sun — coinciding with the first day of spring,

the day when the sun evenly distributes its light across the planet’s hemispheres.

Could it be an enhancement of the 4-fold Human Being?

And then dear friends on HOLY SATURDAY, the Full Moon after the Equinox we will experience a LUNAR ECLIPSE – 4 APRIL, 2015! -The 3rd in a series of 4 lunar eclipses (a Tetrad).

NASA research showed that this century, eclipses have a definite pattern – occurring four times every six months during definite periods. From 1600-1900, lunar eclipses didn’t have this pattern.

This pattern of lunar and solar eclipses – unique to our century- seems to be saying that we are defining the next 300 years NOW.

For insights on the spiritual significance of Eclipses from Rudolf Steiner, clink link:

http://www.anthroposophy.org/fileadmin/regions/central/Speaking_of_Eclipses_FINAL.pdf

 

 

Friday 20 March 2015 – New Moon Spring Equinox

We gather to hold the light as Michaelic Warriors during the Solar Eclipse

4am – 6am at the Branch as part of the

Central Regional Council’s “Speaking with the Stars” Initiative.

Activities include:

Co-creating the Sun Seal in sun-flower seeds

Verse from Rudolf Steiner’s lecture on St John’s Gospel: “In the Primal Beginning was the Word

A Vernal Imagination Meditation

Group Eurythmy: Hallelujah – 7-pointed Star withJohanna Rohde  

For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel ArcherGinsberg 773-549-3026