21 June 2016 – International Yoga Day

1002 – Birthday of Pope Leo IX, a German aristocrat & a powerful ruler of central Italy while holding the papacy. His citing of the Donation of Constantine in a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople brought about the Great Schism between the Catholic & Orthodox churches.

1205 – Deathday of Enrico Dandolo, Duke of Venice, infamous for his role in the Fourth Crusade & the Sack of Constantinople in which he, at age ninety & blind, led the Venetian contingent. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as being possessed by an Ahrimanic spirit (today there is a popular video game named after him)

1667 – Dutch surrender New Amsterdam to the British – it’s renamed it New York

1898 – The United States captures Guam from Spain

1900 – Boxer Rebellion. China formally declares war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France & Japan, as an edict issued from the Empress Dowager Cixi

1914 – Deathday of Bertha von Suttner a Czech-Austrian pacifist & novelist. In 1905 she was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1930 – Deathday of a Ludwig Noll, German physician & friend of Rudolf Steiner. Noll was a pioneer of Anthroposophic medicine. He was head of the German section of the Theosophical Society in 1911, then became medical advisor with Rudolf Steiner in 1914, applying his esoteric training to homeopathy. The  Kassel Ludwig Noll Hospital is named for him.

1942 – World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens.

1964 – Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney & Mickey Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan

1970 – Penn Central Transportation Company declares bankruptcy, largest ever US corporate bankruptcy up to this date

2004 – SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight

2006 – Pluto‘s newly discovered moons are officially named Nix & Hydra.

2009 – Greenland assumes self-rule.

2012 – A boat carrying more than 200 refugees capsized in the Indian Ocean between the Indonesian island of Java & Christmas Island, killing 187 people

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Dear Faireyland Friends –

The Solstice Doorway of Light will stand open for 3 days  – So we have time & space to celebrate the Sun, giver of life – So we can think, how, each second, the Sun transforms four million tons of itself into light – Giving itself over, to become energy, that we take in with every meal. All life, has been feasting on the Sun’s energy stored in the form of wheat or reindeer, as each day the Sun dies & is reborn as the vitality of Earth.

Every child needs to learn this simple truth: She is the energy of the Sun! And it’s our job to organize life on earth so that every face shines with the same radiant de-light.

Can we as human beings learn that generosity is not only possible, but required? Look to the center of the solar system for our role model, a magnificent stellar bounteousness, pouring forth free energy, every day, without stop – without complaint, or the slightest hesitation. This is the way of the universe. This is the way of life. And this is the way in which each of us joins the cosmological lineage, accepting the Sun’s gift of energy, & transforming it into creative action that will enable society & all life on earth to flourish.

Throughout time, the Solstices have been honored as power points. Twice each year we move into a window in space-time when the Sun & Earth communicate in their extremes, & energy is exchanged in a dance of light & dark – a Tipping Point in consciousness, in the service of evolution…(Unlike the Equinoxes -which are all about perfect balance-the Solstices are a Tipping Point – toward or away from The Light)

The Summer & Winter Solstices are key reference points in our solar year, marking the changing light. What would it be like to pay attention to where the light comes in to your room everyday, so bright & early now, & then watching its changing position thru-out the year? Where do the rays glance at Michaelmas time? At the Winter Solstice…?

So dearly beloved – take a moment in the next few days to Stop…with the Sun…Close your eyes…& Look Up… consciously absorbing the photonic energy generously generated by the loving heart of our central star – Tiny rays of intelligence from the Mind of the Divine, translated thru the Sun – Spiritual Beings beaming all around us, especially now…

At our current point in the long cycles of Earth-time, the Summer Solstice aligns
with THE GALACTIC EDGE…of our known world…it is a time when we can tune into information ‘from a galaxy far, far away’… Could this Edge be the source of new ideas for changing the game on earth…? Here we can pause, with the Sun, to open the door to this expanded consciousness…

Will you walk thru this door with me…?

The Turning of the Ages in this sense is not just the movement from epoch to epoch, a 2,500 year cycle, it is a much longer round – a 26,000 year cycle, associated with the Precession of the Equinoxes.

Why am I bringing this up? Because the power of this shift from one 26,000 year cycle to another is most profoundly felt at the Solstices…

Does anyone else hear this strange music?

~Sun your number is 1

Multiplied by Billions

I am 1 too

With a thousand longings for unity

Before the after

An exaltation of now

In the timelessness of 1

Where I walk without flinching

Thru the burning cathedral of the Summer-Tide –

My bank of wild grass

Ever majestic & full of music

An eternal fire of renewal, pressing life

Against my skin & lips & soul

…See you there…

~hag
Blessings Beloved Ones – You are my Sunshine…

Xox

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Come join us:

Sunday June 26^th, 2pm – 4pm

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch  4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP 

He Must Increase but I Must Decrease– Exploring the Mysteries of Midsummer  with special guest Robert Karp – Co-Director of the Biodynamic Association. 

How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of Summer and St. John’s tide?  

Who is the mysterious archangel of Midsummer described by Rudolf Steiner, and what is his relationship to John the Baptist? 

Can we trace his influence in modern culture, in modern America? What transformation does he seek to bring into our souls and into our communities?

These are some of the questions we will explore in this talk and, in a series of social-artistic exercises that will be incorporated into the talk.  

Please Bring your Journal & Eurythmy shoes if you have them

Dulcimer music by Dr. Elaine Wagner 

Rudolf Steiner’s Summer Mantra – read by Elisabeth Swisher

Labyrinth Dance with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com 

“In the Summer the Earth is more given up to the atmosphere surrounding it. Humanity too is given up to the wide cosmic expanse. In the Summer he feels himself united with the Upper Gods. Man waited for the Midsummer season — the time when the Sun is at the zenith of its power — in order, at this season, and in certain places he regarded as sacred, to establish contact. He availed himself of his natural connection in Summer with the whole etheric environment, in order out of his deepest feelings, to make an offering:  the thoughts that had been revealed by the Upper Gods to man were now offered back up to them in upward-streaming feelings.” ~Rudolf Steiner

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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)