Dear Friends – TODAY: Holy Wednesday March 23rd 2016, around the eclipse of the Vernal Full Moon in Libra, which sets up the rhythm for the movable feast of Easter every year, Mercury, ruler of Wednesday, & herald of the spiritual world, also stands in conjunction with Sun & Moon & Earth, gathering up the message humanity offers to the gods.
Then some 40 days later, during the ten days from Ascension to Pentecost,
Mercury will come to another conjunction to return the message from our vernal queries
in a rare configuration called a ‘transit‘- which only happens 13 or 14 times each century!
When Mercury Stood in Libra: ~from The Astronomical Letters of Elisabeth Vreede September, 1928, p. 121 “The approaching opening of the Goetheanum at Michaelmas brings before the soul that September evening when the foundation stone of the house dedicated to spiritual science was laid at nightfall by Dr. Steiner in a solemn ritual. With an invocation of the hierarchies, the foundation stone, the double dodecahedron,
“symbol in its twofold twelvefoldness of the striving human soul, was sunk as microcosm into the macrocosm, ” let down “into the condensed kingdom of the elements.” To this stone was added the document that contained the solemn vow of humankind toward the spiritual world. This document closed with the words: “Laid by the Johannes Building Association…on the twentieth day of September 1880, after the Mystery of Golgotha, that is, 1913 after the birth of Christ, when Mercury as evening star stood in Libra, the Balance.”
Mercury, in the same transit happening today on this Holy Wednesday 2016,
was a cosmic witness to the laying of the foundation stone, the only celestial body
mentioned in this sacred ceremony!
When the seed of individuality was planted into the astral body during the Old Moon phase, a possibility for humanity to become disconnected from the spiritual world was also implanted into the Mercury sphere.
By laying the foundation stone at the time of the Mercury transit, was Rudolf Steiner working to heal this possible rift?
(Read more from Willi Sucher on Mercury/Sun conjunctions in ‘Cosmic Christianity’ pp.92-98)
<< Wednesday, Mercury Day, is the turning point. Towards evening a scene stands out which, takes on a special significance on this middle day of balance. A presentment of the Last Supper hovers round the community at the table. The country town of Bethany, quiet as it is, has shortly before been the scene of the raising of Lazarus, the event which had given the signal for battle.
Two women also belong to the community at table, Martha and Mary Magdalene, whom the Gospel of St. John states to be the sisters of Lazarus. They have been led by the hand of Providence into this circle, which is more related by the spirit than by blood. The brother and sisters of Bethany became the intimate friends of Christ through healings of the spirit, the soul and the body.
As they all sit at the table with the disciples, Mary is recorded as having anointed the feet of Christ with precious spikenard ointment and wiped them with her hair. St John’s Gospel says that the whole house was filled with the perfume. But what was does her act of anointing signify? It is the type and symbol of a sacramental act. Therefore, when others declare her deed extravagant and become indignant, Christ can accept what this woman does as a sacrament of death, as a fulfillment of the Last Anointing. And one can feel how Mary has been able to deepen the natural forces of earthly love and transmute them into religious devotion, and the capacity for sacrifice.
Then the solemn stillness is suddenly broken by a figure who forms a complete contrast to
Mary Magdalene. It is one of the apostles and when he sees the deed of Mary he loses self-control. This is Judas. He says that the precious money which has just been squandered could have been given to the poor, and thus many social needs might have been relieved. St. John’s Gospel, however, makes it plain that his real motives are not the ostensible ones. The Gospel openly calls him a thief. It may well be that the anger which Judas felt at the deed of Mary Magdalene gave the final impetus to his act of betrayal. In uncontrolled irritation he goes out to those who lie in wait for the Christ. The second crucial event of the Wednesday is the betrayal by Judas.
Both Judas and Mary Magdalene are typical Mercury people; they are active and temperamental. One of the virtues of their nature is that they are never tedious; something is always happening round them. Mary Magdalene, however, subdues her restlessness and transforms it into devotion, peace and the capacity for love.
Judas is the type of the restless man who must always be outwardly active. He pretends to want something for the poor. However good and commendable social activity may be, it is often only self-deception. The underlying motive is not always a genuine social impulse, but very often one’s own inner restlessness. In Judas this kind of mercurial soul meets with a dark fate. His unrest springs from a deeply hidden fear, and it leads to his betrayal of Christ Jesus. Such a soul cannot show devotion; above all, it cannot love.
Thus, in the two figures, Mary Magdalene and Judas, two roads separate, as at a crossroads. One leads to the realization of the nearness of Christ; the other into the dark night, into tragedy and suicide.
Mercury, who for the Greco-Roman world was both the God of Healing and also the God of
merchants and of thieves, comes now into the orbit of the Christ Sun.
The scene in the house of Lazarus and her sisters at Bethany shows how Mercury, the God of Healing, can himself be healed by the Sun of Christ.» ~excerpt from “The Three Years” by Emil Bock
Easter-Tide Study throughout Holy Week
(Chapter 10 of “The Three Years” by Emil Bock)
at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
March 21-26th, 7pm-9pm
Including The 7-pointed Star in Eurythmy –
(Steiner called it the Heptagram of the Mystic Lamb)
If you would like a copy of the text contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com
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Easter Festival:
‘A Path to the Dawning’
4pm -6pm, Easter Sunday March 27th
at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
Midwest Eurythmy Group to Perform:
‘Hallelujah’ & the Easter Calendar of the Soul Verse by Rudolf Steiner
Lecture: Encountering the Inner Layers of the Earth as a Christian/Rosicrucian Initiation,
in relation to the Beatitudes and the 9-fold human being. by Hazel Archer Ginsberg
Live Music: Clark Remington – Prelude and Fugue by Bach
Group Eurythmy – Hallelujah
$10 donation goes to the Midwest Eurhythmy Group
A side-dish to Share Encouraged! (We will have our traditional Lamb Roast!)
For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com
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Member Initiative Event:
Beauty in Motion – Countering the Machine Civilization
with Kelly Calegar from Durham, NC
Easter Monday March 28th 12:45pm – 3pm
at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson Ave Chicago, Il 60625
Donation goes to the Christian Community
The Divine Will is revealed in movement. In this endeavor we will be moving together
in choreographed geometric forms for the integration of mindfulness and warmth of heart.
All of our actions are grounded in movement, including our speech, which involves
the movement of air through the larynx. The movements of the heavenly bodies are
intimately related with the beat of heart and lung. Aligning with the Divine Will
changes the way we move through space, and relate to each other.
It births Grace and Beauty in our ‘life body’, which we share with a human world
lacking in both Grace and Beauty – qualities of the Divine Feminine.
“Our purpose is to imitate, to absorb the movement of the world into ourselves
through our limbs. What do we do then? We dance. . .All true dancing has arisen from
imitating in the limbs the movement carried out by the planets, by other heavenly bodies
or by the earth itself. . .When the limbs carry out the harmonious cosmic movements
of the universe, …the soul… begins to sing.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Study of Man, p. 144
For more information contact Deborah Rogers: beewisdom33@yahoo.com
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Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society,
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618
Check out our Web site!
Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)http://www.anthroposophy.org/groups/chicago-il/
