Vincent-van-Gogh
Beloved Friends –
I may need to take a short sabbatical from these writings for the next week as I am doing a speech training with Kim Synder-Vine that will be overly intensive & I may not have internet access.
Please talk amongst yourselves. And of course our angels are ever communicating thru the ethers!
See you there
Until soon
~hag
26 June 2016, ASTRO-WEATHER Pluto passes just due south of the star Pi Sagittarii in northeastern Sagittarius.
363 – Julian the Apostate murdered. Rudolf Steiner speaks a lot about him as Tycho Brahe, astronomer, astrologer & alchemist & Herzeloyde, Percival’s mother, in Karmic Relationships Vol. 4 Lec. 5
405 – St. Vigilius murdered in Rendena Valley, Italy, where he had been preaching against the worship of the god Saturn. Vigilius said Mass & overturned a statue of the god into the River. As punishment, he was stoned to death. Ironically, a statue of the god Neptune stands in front of Vigilius’ shrine in Trent today.
699 – En no Ozuno, a Japanese mystic said to have supernatural powers, regarded as the founder of the folk religion Shugendō, is banished to Izu Ōshima.
1295 – Przemysł II crowned king of Poland. The white eagle is added to the Polish coat of arms.
1407 – Ulrich von Jungingen becomes Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights.
1409 – Western Schism: Three men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope. Driven by politics rather than any theological disagreement, the schism was ended by the Council of Constance.
1483 – Richard III becomes King of England
1510 – Michelangelo completes his painting of Jeremiah on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo once remarked that “In painting, the idea is an image that the intellect of the painter has to see with interior eyes in the greatest silence and secrecy”. That’s why the prophet Jeremiah has his mouth covered & finger extended in the ‘signum harpocraticum’, an ancient gesture of silence signifying profound esoteric knowledge.
Origen, Christianity’s first theologian, states that you will not understand the prophet’s wisdom “if you do not listen in a hidden manner”. Jeremiah’s books in the Old Testament, like all scripture & art, require an esoteric interpretation.
(For Fuji) 1927 – The Cyclone roller coaster opens on Coney Island
1945 – The United Nations Charter is signed by 5o nations
1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy gave his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erected the Berlin Wall
2000 – Pope John Paul II reveals the third secret of Fátima
2015 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage under the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution
***
Roxana Villa
Calendar Of The Soul, 14th Week [June 26, 2016 – July 02, 2016]
SUMMER
Surrendering to senses’ revelation
I lost the drive of my own being,
And dreamlike thinking seemed
To daze and rob me of myself.
Yet quickening there draws near
In sense appearance cosmic thinking.
***
Who is this John the Baptist? (continued)
Before JB baptizes Jesus, opening the way for the cosmic Christ, he brings about an opening for many people, preparing them for their roles as disciples of Christ. By baptizing with water, JB brought about an initiatory near death experience, loosening the etheric body, so they could remember their life as a spiritual being. Into this experience of the past, John spoke his mighty admonition: “Change your hearts and minds!”
After the dove descended on Jesus & He became the Christ, & John the Baptist said, “He must increase and I must decrease’” JB was in prison until his beheading. Then his role changed from that of the “voice of one calling in the wilderness“, to a more inward voice, heard in the stillness of the soul.
Herod who had made him prisoner is haunted by this inner voice. Herod’s wife is also affected & wants to silence this uncomfortable voice, so she has John the Baptist beheaded.
The spirit, or angel, of John the Baptist, becomes the guardian of the apostles, appearing especially in the “rich young man” -Lazarus, continuing his mighty task thru him. It is Lazarus, who undergoes the first initiation in the ‘New Mysteries’, accomplished thru Christ Jesus, achieving the name John. But Instead of being performed in the secret inner sanctum of the temple, as it was in the past, this new initiation was done as an example, out in plain sight. It is not coincidence that they both take on the name John, because Johannes E-O-Ah is a powerful title sounding a high stage of initiation.
Lazarus John, ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’, is the only one who is able to remain mindful thru the events of Passion Week. He is there in full consciousness on Golgotha at the “Turning Point of Time” with Mary the Mother. And, along with Mary Magdalene, he is able to behold the Risen Christ on Easter Sunday.
He becomes the writer of the Gospel of St. John, the most spiritual book in the New Testament. He lives a long life, taking Mother Mary with him to the island of Patmos in Greece, where he is able to receive the prophetic vision of the Book of Revelation, with help from John the Baptist & other heavenly sources, bringing us a vision of the future destiny of humankind.
And the voice of John the Baptist can still be heard today, reminding us to, ‘Make Straight the path’.
Tomorrow I will try to bring a synthesis to this theme
Until soon
Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
***
“For what lies inside the human being is the whole spiritual cosmos in condensed form. In our inner organism we have an image of the entire cosmos”.~ Rudolf Steiner
Come Join us for our St. John’s Festival – Sunday June 26th, 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
Hammer Dulcimer – Dr. Elaine Wagner
Guest Speaker Robert Karp Co-Director of the Biodynamic Association
Rudolf Steiner’s Summer Mantra, Read by Elisabeth Swisher
Labyrinth Walk with Hazel Archer Ginsberg
*PLEASE BRING YOUR JOURNAL, & eurythmy shoes if you have them*
From-The St. John Imagination: The Four Seasons and The Archangels Lecture IV:
“…Thus there arises an imagination of the Trinity, which is really the St. John Imagination. The background of it is Uriel…”
Schaue unser Weben
Das leuchtende Erregen
Das wärmende Leben } The Heights
Lebe irdisch Erhaltendes
Und atmend Gestaltetes –
Als wesenhaft Waltendes } The Depths
Fühle dein Menschengebeine
Mit himmlischen Scheine
Im waltenden Weltenvereine } The Midst, The inner being of Man
Es werden Stoffe verdichtet
Es werden Fehler gerichtet
Es werden Herzen gesichtet. } The Whole, sounding as song & trumpet
The Heights:
Behold our weaving, the kindling radiance, the warming life.
The Depths:
Live in the earth’s sustaining, and in the form-giving breathing,
with the power of true being.
The Midst, The inner being of humanity:
Feel your very bones suffused with heavenly glory
in the sovereign yoga of the worlds.
The Whole:
Substances are densified,
Faults are judged and rectified,
Hearts are sifted – Receive the light
~Rudolf Steiner, Dornach 1923
For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com
Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)
25 June 2016 – ASTRO WEATHER: Look high in the northwest after darkness falls & you’ll be greeted by the familiar sight of the Big Dipper. It forms the body & tail of Ursa Major the Great Bear. Use the Pointers, the two stars at the end of the Dipper’s bowl, to find Polaris, which lies due north. Polaris marks the end of the Little Dipper’s handle. On June evenings, the relatively faint stars of this dipper arc directly above Polaris.
1767 – Mexican Indians riot sending the Jesuit priests home
1767 – Deathday of Georg Philipp Telemann, a German Baroque composer & multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family’s wishes. Telemann one of the most prolific in history, was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time—he was compared favorably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather & namesake of his son & to George Frideric Handel. Telemann made an important link between the late Baroque & early Classical styles.
1822 – Deathday of E. T. A. Hoffmann, a Prussian Romantic author of fantasy & horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman & caricaturist. His stories form the basis of Jacques Offenbach’s famous opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He is also the author The Nutcracker of which the famous ballet is based.
1876 – Battle of the Little Bighorn & the death of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.
1900 – The Taoist monk Wang Yuanlu discovers the Dunhuang manuscripts, a cache of ancient texts that are of great historical & religious significance.
1910 – Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird is premiered in Paris
1924 – Beginning of the Curative Pedagogical Course by Rudolf Steiner in Dornach
1940 –France officially surrenders to Germany
1947 –The Diary of Anne Frank is published
1950 – The Korean War begins with the invasion of South Korea by North Korea
1978 – The rainbow flag representing gay pride is flown for the first time during the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade
1991 – Croatia & Slovenia declare independence from Yugoslavia
***
Carl Herpfer
~Weaving garlands of wort & hibiscus,
I am a thought made manifest
~hag
***
Who is this John the Baptist?
Studying Rudolf Steiner’s work on the Gospels, we gain profound insights that have the power to touch deep truths buried in the unconscious regions of our soul, regarding one of the most powerful personalities in the history of humankind. In the Gospel of St. John the Evangelist, right after the mighty description of the evolution of the cosmos, we read: “There came a man, send from God, his name was John.” (John 1.6.)
In the original Greek, Johannes, is made up of the vowels “E – O – Ah“, three very powerful Eurythmy gestures. The “E” represents the upright human being – one arm pointing toward heaven, the other grounding toward the earth; an admonition to be here now. The “O” is a round gesture of “inwardness”, an embracing of the soul. The “Ah” is an opening to heavenly revelation; both arms raised in a V, becoming a vessel that opens to heaven, a gesture of “vision”.
The Gospel of St. Luke describes the birth of John; how an angel appeared to the priest Zechariah, telling him, “your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, & you shall call him John.” (Luke 1.13.) The angel also foretells the task of this being John: “… even from his mother’s womb will he be filled with the Holy Spirit. And he will turn many sons of Israel to the Lord their God again. He will be his forerunner and will pave his way, bearing within him the spirit and power of Elijah, to change men’s hearts so that fathers shall rediscover the meaning of childhood, and those who have become alienated from God shall find the meaning of Good again. So shall he make a well-prepared people ready for the Lord “(Luke 1.15-17.)
The birth of John takes place just after the height of Summer, on June 24th, framed by the births of the two Jesus children. On the one hand, the birth of the Matthew Jesus child on January 6th, with the visitation of the ‘three wise men from the East’, taking place in Bethlehem. And months later, we hear of the other birth, of the Luke Jesus child, on December 24th, with the heavenly revelation to the shepherds.
In another mystery, we see the spiritual body or angel of Gautama Buddha, which appears in the etheric-astral realm, first, in the meeting between Elizabeth, (just before John the Baptist is born), with Mary, the mother of Jesus (Luke 1.39-56.) & then also at the revelation to the shepherds (Luke 11.8-15.).
Rudolf Steiner tells us that the Gospel of St. Luke brings us a new form of Christ-centered Buddhism, expressing the kind of love & compassion, that can be understood by even the simplest souls. The connection of the Buddha to JB & his mysterious influence on Christianity can be seen throughout the life of John the Baptist.
After his life as an ascetic, JB begins publicly preaching & baptizing. In the 5th Gospel, Steiner describes how JB was close to the community of the Essenes, as well as with his young cousin, Jesus of Nazareth. John the Baptist’s sermon at the river Jordan shows how the teachings of Buddha come forward in a new form. – Just like the Buddha declared certain truths & warnings in his famous sermon at Benares some five hundred years before, so too did JB speak in a similar way. Buddha says: “Do not think, because you are a Brahman, you are able to advance …“, John changes this admonition to fit his time, saying: “Do not think, because you are children of Abraham …” Buddha gave the teaching of love & compassion – JB gave the parable of the man who has two coats, how we must share with those that have none. And just as the monks came to Buddha with questions, now the tax collectors & soldiers come to John the Baptist.
Yep there’s more tomorrow
Until soon
Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
***
Join our community gathering:
Sunday June 26th, 2pm -4pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 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 if you have one***
Hammer Dulcimer by Dr. Elaine Wagner
Rudolf Steiner’s Summer Mantra, Read by Elisabeth Swisher
Labyrinth Walk with ~hag
For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com
24 June 2016 – Brilliant Jupiter appears high in the west as darkness falls & remains on display until around midnight. The giant planet shines against the backdrop of southern Leo the Lion.
Feast Day of John the Baptist. Rudolf Steiner revealed his other lives as Elijah, Raphael, Novalis in GA 120
1314 – First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn
1374 – A sudden outbreak of ‘St. John’s Dance’ causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations & begin to jump & twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion
1717 – The first Freemasonic Grand Lodge in the world is founded in London. Benjamin Franklin was a member.
1812 –Napoleon invades Russia
1916 – Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million-dollar contract
1922 – Assassination of Walther Rathenau, a German statesman who served as Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic.
1938 – A 450 metric ton meteor hits Chicora, Pennsylvania
1973 – The UpStairs Lounge arson attack takes place at a gay bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Thirty-two people die.
1976 – Deathday of Rudolf Kreutzer entrepreneur, anthropsopher
2002 – The Igandu train disaster in Tanzania kills 281, the worst train accident in African history.
2004 – In New York, capital punishment is declared unconstitutional
2012 – Lonesome George, the last subspecies of the Galápagos tortoise, dies
~ ~ ~
Sandra Wilson
~At dawn the thread of Time unfurls
Sunlight streams across Space
Time reaches in both directions
Knotted in the golden orb of the moment
The Eye opens, the Heart unlocks, the Navel yawns
& takes the World in its belly
~hag
~ ~ ~
Bartolomé Esteban Perez Murillo
St. John’s Tide starts on the fixed date of June 24, the birthday of John the Baptist
The name John is really a title, it represents the best of humanity, devoted to what is beyond the little self, alive to the revelation of the spirit brought by Christ. At the center of history, the summons of JB was to turn inward, & confront the lower self. St. John’s Day is a perfect time to re-assess & re-balance ourselves in this metanoia.
The Gospel of St. John the Evangelist emphasizes the divine spark in humanity & tells us that this divinity appeared in its supreme form as the Logos Himself.
The God who was buried in matter is born again in Jesus of Nazareth. And so it is for every individual human being – there is a mighty experience, which may be called the birth of the higher self – Just as the child is born of the mother, so too the divine Ego is born of the striving human being. Awakening to Initiation is possible, & when it is taken up, life as we know it takes on a new dimension.
When the human principle in Jesus of Nazareth had reached its highest development, & his body had become an expression of the spirit within him, he was ripe to receive the Christ in the Baptism by John. His body had unfolded its full power, as the radiant sun at midsummer.
This had been prophesied. The spirit was to be born out of the darkness, like the Sun which increases in power towards solstice, waxing strong until St. John’s day, & then begins to wane.
It was the Baptist’s mission to proclaim this: ‘He who was announced by the prophets of old, the Son of the spiritual realms, born of the spirit, behold, He hath appeared.’
John the Baptist was active up to this turning point of time. First, he lived a life of renunciation, then, preparing the way, thru baptism. And with the path made straight, the inner spirit-light could shine forth ever more brightly, reflecting the Christ light.
JB was able to behold the approach of Jesus of Nazareth, as the increase of the Sun, & say ‘I must decrease, as the Sun decreases after midsummer day.’ But The Christ as the spiritual Sun will increase, & ‘his Light will shine forth from out of the darkness.’
This is how the universal Ego of humanity is reborn, & the condition fulfilled for the rebirth of the individual higher self in every human being.
This is – the most vital event in the evolution of each individual human: the rebirth of the immortal being which can issue forth from the ordinary Ego. This is inseparable from the greatest of all events, the deed of Christ on Golgotha.
Until soon
Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
Join us for our St. John’s festival:
Sunday June 26th, 2pm -4pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 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 if you have one***
Hammer Dulcimer by Dr. Elaine Wagner
Rudolf Steiner’s Summer Mantra, Read by Elisabeth Swisher
Labyrinth Walk with ~hag
For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com
23 June 2016 “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ~George Orwell
Tonight is Saint John’s Eve
International Widows Day
“For Everyone: We aren’t satisfied with simple answers to complicated questions today as curious Mercury forms an irritable alignment with unrelenting Pluto. Embarking on a hero’s journey to uncover the original source of a sensitive issue is an admirable strategy unless our detective work turns compulsive. Thankfully, the emotionally detached Aquarius Moon enables us to approach our problems conceptually and increases our chances of finding the truth”. ~R.Levine
1456 – Birthday of Columbus
1868 –Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called the “Type-Writer.”
1887 – The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada creating the nation’s first national park, Banff National Park
1894 – The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris
1910- Birthday of Jean Anouilh. One of France’s most prolific writers after World War II, much of Anouilh’s work deals with themes of maintaining integrity in a world of moral compromise. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for Becket or Honour of God & his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles’ classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain’s Vichy government.
1942 –The first time the gas chamber at Auschwitz is used on a train full of Jews from Paris
1947 – The United States Senate overrides Harry Truman’s veto of the Taft–Hartley Act
1960 – The Food & Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first oral contraceptive pill in the world – recalled in the U.S. in 1988, along with other first-generation high-estrogen COCPs
1985 – A terrorist bomb aboard Air India Flight 182 brings the Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 aboard
2001 – The 8.4 Mw earthquake shakes coastal Peru. A tsunami followed, leaving at least 74 people dead, & 2,687 injured
2006 – Rene Querido, General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. Teacher, writer (The Golden Age of Chartres) pupil of W.J. Stein.
~ ~ ~
~The Spirits of Will flash code in the lightning
Love speaks
Truth in the deep rolling thunder
The Gnomes know its Midsummer
Fat Undines splash against the warm fecund earth
& steam up in a vital whiff
Of ozone wafting in the moist air
Filling my breath with purple sky
I walk home
~hag
~ ~ ~
So many forces interweaving in the imagination of St. John’s Eve, but I think I’d like to center on the idea that, in the new mysteries we strive at St. John’s Tide toward an enhanced awareness of our will forces – Rudolf Steiner speaks about how we are dreamy in our feeling & asleep in our willing, so we really have to make an effort to follow John the Baptist & ‘make straight the path’, an effort to enable the higher ego to come to expression ever more fully in the mysterious recesses of our personal priorities with respect to our will.
The summertime union between the sun & earth is actually a re-union between the spiritual beings of the sun & their human offspring. In the Summer-Tide, through ‘the great window of heaven’ we experience this interaction between humanity & the sun forces, which helps us develop an awareness of our ego. We can contemplate this dynamic & bring it to life in our soul most strongly at this time of year.
Rudolf Steiner tells us that at midsummer the Trinity reveals itself out of the heart of this cosmic activity. A sounding, like the music of the spheres, that calls us to explore our own inner harmony with the cosmos. To answer the echo that unites us to the eternity of the Trinity.
Also important: Can we learn, to be still & small enough to hear the voice of conscience?
At the fullness of Summer, the light is so bright that it leaves no room for the shadow to hide. High Noon is the hour of judgment – a good time to remember what John said “Then you will know the truth, & the truth will set you free.”
So as we lift up our hearts to meet ‘the heights & depths of the universe’, where we feel ‘Not I, but Christ in me’ – To say as John the Baptist said “He must increase, but I must decrease” we respond to the summertime call for a yearly reviewing of our deeds, looking with courage to the errors of the past, enduring all the pain self-knowledge brings, so that someday, with hearts lifted, we may say: Yes, I am, and Christ in me!
For the true power of our Ego will increase like Christ increases. And when our false ego decreases, we grow in Christ. Just as John the Baptist, after he was beheaded, concentrated his spirit self into the apostles, especially Lazarus John.
Until soon
Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
FESTIVAL GATHERING:
Sunday June 26th, 2pm -4pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 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 if you have one***
Dulcimer music by Dr. Elaine Wagner
Rudolf Steiner’s Summer Mantra, Read by Elisabeth Swisher
Labyrinth Walk with ~hag
More details coming soon. For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com
