Monthly Archives: September 2015

Michaelmas 2015- Meeting the Dragon Within –

Chicago Event,

Sunday September 27, 2015 During the Eclipse of the Harvest Moon 6:30pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch

The Dragon is not found in the sense world. So where is he? The dragon lives within the human being. “…the outer cosmic conflict of Michael and the Dragon was transferred to the inner human being, because only in human nature could the Dragon now find his sphere of action.”

Steiner gives a picture of the dragon; on the one hand, writhing around in us, even coiling around the heart; but then — behind us, at the back of the head — the outer cosmic figure of Michael, radiant, towering, retaining his cosmic nature but reflecting it into our higher human nature, so that our etheric body reflects etherically the cosmic figure of Michael.

Then visible in the human head — but working down into the heart — we can feel the power of Michael, crushing the Dragon and causing our blood to flow down from the heart into the limbs. So we can put our will into action through heart-thinking. This is Gemüt – described as: ‘the mind warmed by a loving heart and stimulated by the soul’s imaginative power’.

This activated heart-thinking allows us to enter into a living relationship with the whole cosmos. Then, Steiner tells us, we will be able to find solutions to our social problems!

 Doors open at 6:30pm – with an Exhibition of Paintings on the theme bySophie
7pm – Upstairs: Welcome – Hazel Archer Ginsberg

‘Michaelmas Mood’ a Performance by theMidwest Eurythmy Group
‘Finding our Sun Task in an Age of Shadows’ – Robert Karp Co-Director of the Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association

8:07pm – Eclipse Begins

The Well-Tempered Klavien by J.S. Bach played by Clark 

8:30pm – a tour by Sophie  of herMichaelmas Paintings

8:45pm – Break – Doors Re-Open for Eclipse Activities- Holding the Light as Michaelites

9pm – Doors Close – Upstairs: Group Eurythmy with Tish

Downstairs: Cosmic Harvest: The Michaelmas Eclipse – Hazel Archer Ginsberg

An Artistic Exploration of the Sun & Moon Seals with Sophie

Upstairs: Circles, Singing & Spirals with Nancy

 Small Group Exercise with Robert Karp

Verse for the Michaelic Age, ‘In the Primal Beginning’ Verse, The Foundation Stone Meditation  

11:27pm – Eclipse Ends

Refreshments – Your Donation goes to the Midwest Eurythmy Group – Snacks to Share Encouraged!

 This event is part of the Central Regional Council’s ‘Speaking with the Stars’ project, striving to empower us to ripen our speech, so we can work in a Michaelic way with the Spiritual Beings of the Stars.

Want to help with refreshments or clean up? For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator, Hazel Archer Ginsberg

 

Michaelmas Festival – Preparing to meet the Dragon Within

Festival, ,

Dear Friends – I greet you on this International Day of Peace.

In preparing for our Michaelmas Festival, during the Eclipse of the Harvest Moon on Sunday,  you may like to know that tomorrow, Wednesday Sept. 23rd2015, is the Autumnal Equinox, a milestone in the season of the harvest, when the Sun enters Libra, the sign of harmony & balance. Equinoxes are times of equilibrium, when the hours of daylight are equal to the hours of darkness. 

The 23rd is also Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which falls ten days after Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It is the dramatic culmination of the season of repentance which seeks to bring its own equilibrium. In the age of the Sentient Soul, when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, the High Priest effected atonement for the people through an elaborate ritual. Today, in our current age of the Consciousness Soul, each of us stands, alone, yet together, in a conscious community, working to be awake to our shared karma.

In the Autumn we rise in our thinking to meet Michael that we might have the courage to face ourselves in the coming dark.

Please Join us in Meeting the Dragon Within – Michaelmas 2015

Sunday September 27, 2015 During the Eclipse of the Harvest Moon Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln, Chicago, IL.  

 6:30pm – Exhibition of paintings on the theme by Sophie 

7pm -Performance by the Midwest Eurythmy Group: ‘Michaelmas Mood’

‘Finding our Sun Task in an Age of Shadows’ –

Guest Speaker: Robert Karp, Co-Director of the Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association

The Well-Tempered Klavien by J.S. Bach played by Clark

8:30pm – a tour by Sophie of herMichaelmas Paintings

Doors Re-Open for Eclipse Activities: Holding the Light as Michaelites:

9pm – The Michaelmas Eclipse, a Cosmic Harvest – Hazel Archer Ginsberg

 Group Eurythmy with Tish Pierce

 An Artistic Exploration of the Sun & Moon Seals with Sophie

Circles, Singing & Spirals with Nancy

 11pm – Eclipse Ends as we speak The Foundation Stone Meditation  

 $10 Donation goes to the Midwest Eurythmy Group

Snacks to Share Encouraged!

This event is part of the Central Regional Council’s ‘Speaking with the Stars’ project, striving to empower us to ripen our speech, so we can work in a Michaelic way with the Spiritual Beings of the Stars. For more info. Contact Festivals Coordinator – Hazel Archer Ginsberg

The Festival Life: Practical Journeys into the New Mysteries

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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

As Above so Below

Chicago Event,

Greetings Friends –

The Final Chapter, of the Tetrad Series http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/27mar_tetrad/ which the Central Region of the Anthroposophical Society has been working with in our ‘Speaking with the Stars Project’ begins September 12-13, and ends at our Michaelmas Festival Sept. 27-28, 2015.

Join us at the Branch for our last Solar Eclipse Gathering Sunday September 13th 5:30am – 7am This New Moon Solar Eclipse in Virgo, is on the eve of Rosh Hashanah.

Together as we greet the Sunrise, with:

*The Hallelujah in Eurythmy, and other group eurythmy with Tish Pierce

*We will review parts of Steiner’s lecture “Human Questions and Cosmic Answers”, so that we can rise in our thinking to meet the spiritual significance of an eclipse

*We will work with the Foundation Stone Meditation, and other Verses.

 *Michaelmas Songs

*Paper Sculpting: Cutting out forms in paper is an astral activity, which relates to the starry realm, as opposed to the flowing out processes which could be called etheric. It is the process our body uses to shape itself.

Doing this form of art, can help us take hold of this development with consciousness, an especially important endeavor to do during the eclipse time.

Shared Potluck Breakfast to Follow.

For more info. Contact Hazel. For a brief summary of some leading thoughts on eclipses, here’s a link:  http://www.anthroposophy.org/fileadmin/regions/central/CRC_last_phase_of_the_tetrad_series.pdf

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YOU are invited to our upcoming Central Region conference: “Speaking with the Stars: ~Festive Resounding~” 

http://www.anthroposophy.org/fileadmin/branches/CRC_Festive_RESOUNDING_iNVITE_3.pdf Before the Anthroposophical Society’s Annual General Meeting in St. Louis, MO October 7-8, 2015 – On the exquisite grounds of the Sisters of Carondelet Motherhouse https://www.csjsl.org/motherhouse-services/take-a-tour.php

Dear CRC friends! This is a reminder that we need to provide the sisters of Carondelet with a final count of rooms and meals bySeptember 25.We have the opportunity to stay at The Carondelet Motherhouse through Sunday, for those planning to attend the national AGM, at great rates and unparalleled architecture.

The CRC Festive Resounding will include:

* A Journey through the Planetary Spheres

* Artistic Explorations

* Eurythmy with Raven Garland

* Storytelling and Singing

* An Overview and Sharing of Highlights from our Speaking

* Culminating on Thursday evening with a Showcase including:

Eurythmy, offerings from the Youth Initiative, and a Special Performance by Laurie Portocarrero!

Please submit your registration form ASAP (lodging is on a first-register basis). 

http://www.anthroposophy.org/fileadmin/regions/central/registration-SWTS_2015.pdf

Please call Alberto Loya at 734-395-0151, or any CRC representative, if you have any questions.

Link to the AGM: Engage! Meeting the Events of our Time (Anthroposophical Society in America)
As usual, we request your help in getting the word out!

See you in St. Louis!

The Central Regional Council: Dennis Dietzel, Marianne Fieber, Mary Louise Hershberger, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg and Alberto Loya, with Raven Garland

Speaking with the Stars – Holding the light during the Solar Eclipse

Speaking with the Stars

Dear Friends –

This Sunday September 13th 2015, we experience a solar eclipse, which falls on the Jewish New Year.

Rosh Hashanah literally means “Head of the Year.” It is the first of the ‘High Holy Days’ or ‘Days of Awe’; a celebration that starts on the new moon and is believed to be the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve.

It weds seriousness with festivity and begins the 10 days of repentance that culminates in Yom Kippur.

The New Year focuses our attention on themes of judgment, repentance, memory and the Divine Presence in the world. It invites us to celebrate birth and creation on many levels.

Family-oriented services often include a birthday cake for the world. Customs include sounding the shofar (a hollowed-out ram’s horn) and eating symbolic foods such as apples dipped in honey to emphasize the sweetness of starting the cycle of seasons once again, and round challah to remind us of the cycles of life.

This partial solar eclipse in Virgo, begins at 11:40 pm CDT on Sept. 12th, but we won’t be able to see it in our part of the world.

It will only be visible in South Africa, Antarctica and locations in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. But even though we can’t see the eclipse, through Anthroposophy, we know that when the sunlight is blocked by the moon in a solar eclipse, the will forces of humanity, unmediated by the sun, are discharged out into the darkness, and in that time, these unpurified forces of human will flow out into universal space, in what Rudolf Steiner calls, ‘an abnormal, malevolent way’.

And so it is my friends that we are called to hold the light as Michaelites.

 Sunday September 13th 5:30am – 7am– Solar Eclipse Gathering –

This New Moon solar eclipse in Virgo, is on “The Feast of Trumpets” – the eve of Rosh Hashanah. Together as we greet the Sunrise, with:

The Hallelujah in Eurythmy, and other group eurythmy with Tish Pierce, we will review parts of Steiner’s lecture “Human Questions and Cosmic Answers”,  so that we can rise in our thinking to meet the spiritual significance of an eclipse; and work with the Foundation Stone Meditation, and other Verses.

Singing and artistic endeavors will round out the morning.

 

Shared potluck Breakfast to follow.

For a brief summary of some leading thoughts on eclipses, here’s a link:

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

Speaking_of_Eclipses_FINAL