Monthly Archives: April 2018

Walpurgis Night

Central Regional Council, Chicago Event, Festival, Rudolf Steiner Quote

30 April 2017 – Astro-Weather: Now Jupiter shines to the right of bright Bella Luna after nightfall. Jupiter stands out among the background stars of central Libra from the time it rises around 8:30 pm CST until morning twilight is well underway. The giant planet is near its best for the year right now, reaching opposition & peak visibility next week (on May 8). Jupiter is brightest point of light in the evening sky once Venus sets around 10 pm.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Walpurgis Night, In Germanic folklore Walpurgisnacht, also called Hexennacht, literally “Witches’ Night” – the eve of the feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess in Francia.  In Goethe’s Faust we see 2 scenes: ‘Romantic Walpurgis Night’ the night of a witches’ meeting on the Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz Mountains, a range of wooded hills in central Germany; and later in Part 2 a ‘Classical Walpurgis Night’ is featured.

Death Of Seneca by Manuel Dominguez

65 – Seneca, teacher of Nero, murdered

1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States

1812 – Birthday of the enigmatic Kaspar Hauser: From Rudolf Steiner: An author, in order to indicate the mystery of his life, wrote that as he was carried out to burial the sun was setting on the one horizon and the moon was rising on the other. I speak, as you know, of Caspar Hauser. If you disregard all the pros and cons that have been asserted, if you look only at what has been fully verified, you will know that this foundling — who was one day simply there in the street, and who since he did not know whence he came, was called the Child of Europe — could neither read nor write when he was found. At an age of twenty years he possessed nothing of what is gained through the intellect but he had a remarkable memory. As they began to instruct him, as logic entered his soul, his memory disappeared. This transition in consciousness was accompanied by something else. He possessed at first an incredible, an entirely inborn truthfulness and it was precisely in this truthfulness that he went more and more astray. The more he nibbled, so to say, at intellectuality, the more it vanished. There would be many things to study were we to enter deeply into this human soul which had been artificially held back. It is not difficult for the student of Spiritual Science to credit the popular tradition, so unacceptable to the learned people of to-day, which relates that while Caspar Hauser still knew nothing, while he still had no idea that there were beings besides himself of different form, he exercised a remarkable effect upon quite savage creatures. Savage animals humbled themselves and became mild, something streamed from him that made such beasts gentle, although they savagely attacked anyone else. We could in fact penetrate deeply into the soul of this remarkable personality, so enigmatic to many, and you would see how things that cannot be explained from ordinary life are led back through Spiritual Science to spiritual facts. Such facts cannot be learnt by speculation but only by spiritual observation, though they are comprehensible to an unbiased and logical thinking.

1877 – Birthday of Alice B. Toklas, an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century. Life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein

1885 – The Niagara Reservation becomes New York’s first state park, ensuring that Niagara Falls will not be devoted solely to industrial & commercial use

1939 – The 1939-40 New York World’s Fair opens

1945 – Adolf Hitler commits suicide

1963 – The Bristol Bus Boycott is held to protest the Company’s refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom

***

Kirsty Mitchell

POD for Flora on Beltane:
May Day Maya
Pleiadian Goddess
Bright light of the 7 Sisters
Mountain Nymph transformed,
We ascend your beacon mound
& kindle there
The oakwood of the Bel-Fire
To rival the Sun
& call the Summer heat.
Zeus’s lover
Hermes Mother
Inspire processions
Of chimney sweeps & milkmaids
To leap the healing flames
& sky-clad singing:
“Ride a cock horse to Banburry Cross
To see a fine lady on a white horse”
Walk the circuit
& beat the bounds
With the young Summer King
& the Queen of the May
For the feast of flowers
Is calling forth the consort
Come, come, come unto me
& celebrate with the orders of Elementals.
Bold maidens bathing in the dew of May morn
Sword dancing & singing
In deep forest frivolity
Striking open ancient ley lines in bulls-eye archery
Marking the unrestrained tryst,
A Maypole in Holy-Rood-Mass
Wrapped & weaved in ribbons & ivy
For the May-Eve rites.
Robin Hood makes ready the hunt,
Maid Marian has gone-a-Maying.
~Lady Hazel

***

Laila Breker

This is the Eve of Beltane or May Day. Beltane, the old Celtic name for May Day, means bright fire or fire of Bel, the name of the Solar force, whose feast marks the beginning of the 2nd half of the year.

Wood from 9 sacred trees is gathered, & the great Bel-fire is built & ritualistically ignited by the High priestess or Arch-Druid. People would jump these ‘need-fires’ for fertility, healing & protection.

Torches lit from it were carried home to re-light the hearth fires. The folk would walk their animals in-between them to ensure a productive season – this is the mating season after all for man & beast.

There were other May Day customs, like walking the circuit of one’s property, repairing fences & boundary markers, processions of all kinds, archery tournaments, Morris dances, sword play, & of course making merry with music & drinking.

May morning is a time when the veil between the worlds can easily be pushed aside; but instead of the spirits coming into our realm from the other side, which is the case with Halloween, the polar opposite of Mayday on the wheel of the year -the fairies can enchant us over into their mystical realms.

This is a magical time, perfect for gathering ‘wild’ water, especially the May morning dew, or water from hidden wells & springs. These wild waters were collected & used to bath in for beauty, or to drink for health.

May Day is considered the start of summer – the time of milk & honey. This sensuous fertile energy is totally universal, & can be applied on many different levels. When we acknowledge these creative forces in the dance of our lives, it takes us to our own personal, modern-day version of dancing around the maypole, where we weave & combine the opposing energies within ourselves, blending them into one balanced source.

So yes, whether you know it or not, there will be at least one song that plays in your sub-conscious head on this eve of the 1st day of May, when you become perhaps, the Queen of the May, or Jack-in the Green. Our body like the body of the earth instinctively knows its Beltane, the time of vitality & passion & new growth. And the wisdom of our spirit seeks the natural union of polarities that occur at this time, giving us the opportunity for integration, in the alchemical dance of our souls…

Because under all the sexual innuendo & frivolity, it’s really all about the inner mystic marriage, the union of fire & water -opposites complimenting each other, to become one, bringing all the elements into balance.

You’ll just have to go dancing naked in the forest preserve on your own time…

For now, let’s work to unify the polarities of our being, by sparking the new fire of creative fertility & passion, & marrying it with the beautiful, healing waters of compassion & pure love. So we can truly celebrate the marriage feast of our lives, with a grounded, mindful joy.

So if it is your will – light your Bel-fire, marry it to the water, by floating it in the chalice of your choice. Take the time you need there…To do or not, what you will…Whisper your marriage vows into the water…or dance the 1st dance…or smash the glass…whatever your ceremony calls for…short simple or silent…it doesn’t matter…a 3 day bacchanal, with dancing puppets…it’s all good…cause it’s all about what’s inside…

Peace & Love

~Lady Hazel 

***

May 2nd 2018, 7 pm – 9 pm – John Bloom,  Vice President, Organizational Culture, RSF Social Finance, and General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America

Organic Money –  An evening exploring the work with money in new social forms.

How do we find a way to perceive money as a reflection of not only who we are but also how we work through relationships? With the idea of Rudolf Steiner’s threefold commonwealth as a back drop we will explore the connection between money and spirit. There will be ample time for dialogue, so come with your questions.

$10 suggested donation

Ayse Domeniconi

The Karma Project – A Western Approach to Reincarnation & Karma May 2, 2018 – 7:15 pm CST (8:15 pm EST)
https://mailchi.mp/…/central-region-may-3-audio-conference-…The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to our conversation with special guest Linda Bergh.

Linda Bergh is Psychologist Emeritus, a former Waldorf teacher, is currently a Biography Facilitator in Minneapolis (Novalis Institute), nationally and internationally. She is passionate about bringing Biography and Social Art to individuals, teacher trainings, and communities. She also works with Conscious Dying both locally (Minnesota Threshold Network) and nationally to bring awareness to the sacred threshold of death.

ON THE MAY 2 PHONE CONFERENCE CALL WE WILL HAVE A BIOGRAPHY FOCUS RELATING TO OUR THEME OF KARMA AND REINCARNATION.

Here is the suggestion for preparation from Linda Bergh who will be leading the call :

One of the ways we can be aware of the movement of karma/destiny is to do an exercise where we begin to notice with our attention and intention the surprises and changes that come in our day.

Plan to do this for a minimum of three evenings and days before our call on May 2. Write down the plan for the next day or think it through in as much detail as you can. People, places, time alone. work/home. Then the next day, notice what things were not on your plan. Notice the smallest details.

Examples:
* Who did you meet at a coffee shop that you were surprised by?
* Was there a phone call you didn’t expect, something to shift your thinking?
* Did you see something in nature you have never noticed and that awakened you?
* What event or meeting was cancelled or changed; or one you decided not to go to?
* Was there someone you began to think about decided to call or contact?
* Was there a book that you noticed on your shelf that has always been there but drew you today?

As you are able, jot these down during the day or at the end of the day, or think through the unexpected changes in as much detail as possible. And then that second night, write down or think through your plan for the next day again. Before you go to sleep, as you do a daily review, notice the surprises again, and take them into your sleep.

Do this process for three days. You could start this when you get this email, or you can wait to try it the three days before our call on May 2. Whatever is right for you.

There are no expectations, just noticing. This is a practice, like noticing the changes in a flower as it grows. During our call we will do another kind of destiny exercise that can help us get in touch with the way that Karma moves as Steiner describes.

From Theosophy:
“As the keeper of the past, the soul is continually collecting treasures for the spirit. We can be sure that not a single experience goes to waste, since the soul preserves each one as a memory, and the spirit extracts from each one whatever it can use to enhance its abilities and enrich its life. The human spirit grows as these experiences are worked over and assimilated.”

Audioconference Details

Option 1. Click link below if you wish to connect through your computer (a headset is recommended): https://zoom.us/j/535966270

Option 2. Call in using your telephone.
United States: (646) 558-8656 or: (669) 900-6833
Access Code: 535-966-270

Please join us!

Saturday 5 May 2018 – SPECIAL EVENT – Our Branch is hosting The General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America

6 pm – Community PotLuck – Let’s show these 12 guests from around the country some good hospitality from the Heart-Land – Please bring a dish to share.

7:30 pm – Open Community Conversation with John Bloom & the GC of the ASA

***

Dali

Thursday 10 May 2018 – 7 pm – 9 pm

A Special Study for Ascension Thursday– “Easter, Ascension, Whitsun and the Essntial Nature of the Foundation Stone of the Christmas Conference” by Sergi O. Prokofieff from his book “The cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation”

***

Stephen B Whatley

Friday 18 May 2018, 7 pm – 9 pm, –

Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul-Endeavor,

Art Projections & Lecture with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg.

Experiential Social Art with special guest TBA

***

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)

The newly renovated (& lazured) Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…

 

Waxing Mystery

Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Chicago Event, Festival, Lecture, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote

27 April 2018 – Astro-Weather: Keep an eye on the changing pattern of Venus, Aldebaran, & the Pleiades in late twilight. Every day the stars slide a little farther to the lower right, while Venus stays at nearly the same altitude.

On the opposite side of the sky, look below waxing Bella Luna for Spica. Jupiter rises far to their lower left.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast day of Our Lady of Montserrat – One of the Black Madonnas of Europe, (“the little dark-skinned one” or “the little dark one”)- Believed by some to have been carved in Jerusalem in the early days of the Church. The Patron Saint of Catalonia, an honor she shares with Saint George. The famed image once bore the inscription ”Negra Sum Sed Formosa” (Latin: I am Black, but Beautiful).

The hymn to the Virgin of Montserrat, known as “el Virolai” is sung at noon on her feast day & begins with the words: “Rosa d’abril, Morena de la serra…” (April rose, dark-skinned lady of the mountain…). Therefore, this virgin is sometimes also known as the “Rosa d’abril”

Feast Day of St. Zita, the Italian patron saint of maids, often appealed to in order to help find lost keys. Born in Tuscany in the village of Monsagrati, not far from Lucca. At the age of 12, she became a servant in the Fatinelli household. For a long time, she was unjustly despised, overburdened, reviled, & often beaten by her employers & fellow servants for her hard work & obvious goodness. The abuse did not deprive her of her inward peace, & her love of those who wronged her. Her faith gradually moved the family to a religious awakening.

Zita often said to others that devotion is false if slothful. She considered her work assigned to her by God. She always rose several hours before the rest of the family to pray.

One anecdote relates a story of Zita giving her own food to the poor. One morning, Zita left her chore of baking bread to tend to someone in need. Some of the other servants told on her & when they went to investigate, they claimed to have found angels in the kitchen, baking the bread for her.

St. Zita died peacefully in her sleep & a star appeared above the attic where she lay. After 150 miracles were proven, she was canonized in 1696.

Her body was exhumed in 1580, discovered to be incorrupt, but has since become mummified. St. Zita’s body is currently on display for public veneration in the Basilica di San Frediano in Lucca.

On her feast day families bake a loaf of bread in her honor.

470 – Birthday of Socrates – teacher of Plato. “Socrates gathers his pupils around himself, but how does he feel in relation to them? His manner of treating these pupils has been called the art of a spiritual midwife because he wished to draw out from the souls of his pupils what they themselves knew, and what they were to learn. He put his questions in such a manner that the fundamental inner mood of the souls of his pupils was stirred to movement. He transmitted nothing from himself to his pupils, but elicited everything from them. The somewhat dry and prosaic aspect of Socrates’ view of the world and the way he presented it comes from the fact that Socrates actually appealed to the independence and to the innate reasoning power of every pupil.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Gospel of Mark: Lecture 4

399 BC – Deathday of Socrates 

711 – Tarik ibn Ziyad, (who according to the spiritual scientific research of Rudolf Steiner in Karmic relationships Vol. 1 Chapter 10, reincarnated as Darwin) leads his army into Gibraltar

1667 – John Milton, blind & impoverished, sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for 10 pounds

1882 – Deathday of R.W.Emerson essayist, lecturer, & poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism & a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, & he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays & more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

Emerson gradually moved away from the religious & social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating & expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay “Nature”. Following this work, he gave a speech entitled “The American Scholar” in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America’s “intellectual Declaration of Independence”.

Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first & then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) & Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays “Self-Reliance”, “The Over-Soul”, “Circles”, “The Poet” &”Experience”. Together with “Nature”, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson’s most fertile period.

Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, & the relationship between the soul & the surrounding world. Emerson’s “nature” was more philosophical than naturalistic: “Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul”. Emerson is one of several figures who “took a more pantheist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world.”

He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, & his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers & poets that followed him. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was “the infinitude of the private man.” Emerson is also well known as a mentor & friend of Henry David Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist.

(Spoken of by Rudolf Steiner as Tacitus in Vol 2 lecture 5, of Karmic Relationships. Tacitus was considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians. He lived in what has been called the Silver Age of Latin literature, & is known for the brevity & compactness of his Latin prose, as well as for his penetrating insights into the psychology of power politics )

***

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~The Moon gate is freshly oiled
A waxing mystery
Reverberating in my swelling heart
With high notes of intention
& the will toward freedoms mind…
~hag

***

William Blake

My Leading Thought in Preparing for Ascension:

Ascension comes when the season of blossoming is reaching fullness. Trees & plants, stirring upwards in growth, have been touched by the warmth & light from above & show forth the blessing of the heavens in color & scent. The whole of nature reaches upwards towards the heights.

The longing of the human soul strives also, upward, in unison with nature, seeking the touch of world-warmth from the sun. This mood of ascension attunes all of life to the cosmic expanses.

However closely heaven & earth are aligned, their relationship is not always the same. In this we see the miracle of the seasons –the breathing-in, & the breathing-out, of the earth soul.

At the time of the Ascension of Christ, nature celebrates the ascension of the soul of the earth. – It is not by chance that the 40 days between Easter & Ascension coincide with this season.

Every year, when the earth breathes out in the springtime, the mystery of the Ascension of Christ, Who is the Spirit of the Earth, is renewed.

~hag

To be continued…

***

May 2nd 2018, 7 pm – 9 pm – John Bloom, the General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America: The Financial sphere in Threefold Social Organism.

Ayse Domeniconi

ON THE MAY 2 PHONE CONFERENCE CALL WE WILL HAVE A BIOGRAPHY FOCUS RELATING TO OUR THEME OF KARMA AND REINCARNATION. Here is the suggestion for preparation from Linda Bergh who will be leading the call : One of the ways we can be aware of the movement of karma/destiny is to do an exercise where we begin to notice with our attention and intention the surprises and changes that come in our day.

Plan to do this for a minimum of three evenings and days before our call on May 2. Write down the plan for the next day or think it through in as much detail as you can.  People, places, time alone. work/home. Then the next day, notice what things were not on your plan.  Notice the smallest details. 

Examples: 

* Who did you meet at a coffee shop that you were surprised by?
* Was there a phone call you didn’t expect, something to shift your thinking?
* Did you see something in nature you have never noticed and that awakened you?
* What event or meeting was cancelled or changed; or one you decided not to go to?
* Was there someone you began to think about decided to call or contact?
* Was there a book that you noticed on your shelf that has always been there but drew you today?

As you are able, jot these down during the day or at the end of the day, or think through the unexpected changes in as much detail as possible. And then that second night, write down or think through your plan for the next day again. Before you go to sleep, as you do a daily review, notice the surprises again, and take them into your sleep.  

Do this process for three days. You could start this when you get this email, or you can wait to try it the three days before our call on May 2.  Whatever is right for you.   

There are no expectations, just noticing.  This is a practice, like noticing the changes in a flower as it grows.  During our call we will do another kind of destiny exercise that can help us get in touch with the way that Karma moves as Steiner describes.

From Theosophy: “As the keeper of the past, the soul is continually collecting treasures for the spirit.  We can be sure that not a single experience goes to waste, since the soul preserves each one as a memory, and the spirit extracts from each one whatever it can use to enhance its abilities and enrich its life.  The human spirit grows as these experiences are worked over and assimilated.”

Larry Young

Audioconference Details: May 2, 2018 at 7:15 CST

Option 1.  Click link below if you wish to connect through your computer (a headset is recommended): https://zoom.us/j/535966270

Option 2.  Call in using your telephone.
United States: (646) 558-8656 or: (669) 900-6833
Access Code: 535-966-270

Saturday 5 May 2018 – SPECIAL EVENT – Our Branch is hosting The General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America

6 pm – Community PotLuck – Let’s show these 12 guests from around the country some good hospitality from the Heart-Land – Please bring a dish to share.

7:30 pm – Open Community Conversation with John Bloom & the GC of the ASA

Liane Collot d’Herbois

Friday 18 May 2018, 7 pm – 9 pm, –

Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul-Endeavor,

Art Projections & Lecture with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg.

Experiential Social Art with special guest TBA

***

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)

The newly renovated (& lazured) Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…

 

 

Standing in the obvious

Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Chicago Event, Festival

26 April 2018– Astro-Weather: Face north just after nightfall, look very high, & you’ll find the Pointers, the end stars of the Big Dipper’s bowl, on the meridian pointing toward Polaris straight down below. From the Pointers to Polaris is about three fists at arm’s length.

Saturn rises before 1 am CST & climbs some  high in the south as morning twilight starts to paint the sky. The ringed planet shines against the backdrop of northern Sagittarius the Archer, west of Mars.

Look below waxing Bella Luna this evening for Spica. Jupiter rises far to their lower left around the end of twilight.

For an enlightening view into Astrosophy see Johnathan Hilton’s latest post from the Astrology center

***

Aries head silica David Taulbee Anderson

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1721 – A massive earthquake devastates the Iranian city of Tabriz. Many prominent mosques & schools in the city were destroyed, resulting in the deaths of over 250,000 people.  At the time that it occurred, the earthquake was popularly interpreted as an omen of misfortune, or a demonstration of godly wrath. The destruction that the earthquake caused was a significant factor in the successful Ottoman takeover of Tabriz in 1722, as well as contributing to Tabriz’s economic difficulties during that period.  It also caused the destruction of some of the city’s significant historical monuments

1803 – Thousands of meteors fall from the skies in L’Aigle, France; the event convinces European scientists that meteors exist. In the early afternoon a meteorite shower of more than 3000 fragments fell. Upon hearing of this event the French Academy of Sciences sent the young scientist Jean-Baptiste Biot to investigate that spectacular fall of stones. After painstaking work in the field he reported how these stones must undoubtedly be of extraterrestrial origin effectively gave birth to the science of meteoritics. The L’Aigle event was a real milestone in the understanding of meteorites & their origins because at that time the mere existence of meteorites was harshly debated, if they were recognized their origin was controversial.

1933 – The Gestapo, the secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established

1966 – The magnitude 5.1 earthquake affects the largest city in Soviet Central Asia. Tashkent is destroyed & over 300 people are killed.

1986 – Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Ukraine

1989 – The deadliest tornado in world history strikes Central Bangladesh, killing upwards of 2,300, injuring 22,000, & leaving as many as 180,000 homeless

***

Karen Sleigh

POD (Poem Of the Day)

 

‎~Standing in the obvious
Plunging my hands
Into the oblique angles
Of the obscure…
I return,
With a hot springs
For a Heart…

~hag

***

May 2nd 2018, at the RSB 7 pm – 9 pm – John Bloom, the General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America: The Financial sphere in Threefold Social Organism.

Ayse Domeniconi

ON THE MAY 2 PHONE CONFERENCE CALL WE WILL HAVE A BIOGRAPHY FOCUS RELATING TO OUR THEME OF KARMA AND REINCARNATION. Here is the suggestion for preparation from Linda Bergh who will be leading the call : One of the ways we can be aware of the movement of karma/destiny is to do an exercise where we begin to notice with our attention and intention the surprises and changes that come in our day.

Plan to do this for a minimum of three evenings and days before our call on May 2. Write down the plan for the next day or think it through in as much detail as you can.  People, places, time alone. work/home. Then the next day, notice what things were not on your plan.  Notice the smallest details. 

Examples: 

* Who did you meet at a coffee shop that you were surprised by?
* Was there a phone call you didn’t expect, something to shift your thinking?
* Did you see something in nature you have never noticed and that awakened you?
* What event or meeting was cancelled or changed; or one you decided not to go to?
* Was there someone you began to think about decided to call or contact?
* Was there a book that you noticed on your shelf that has always been there but drew you today?

As you are able, jot these down during the day or at the end of the day, or think through the unexpected changes in as much detail as possible. And then that second night, write down or think through your plan for the next day again. Before you go to sleep, as you do a daily review, notice the surprises again, and take them into your sleep.  

Do this process for three days. You could start this when you get this email, or you can wait to try it the three days before our call on May 2.  Whatever is right for you.   

There are no expectations, just noticing.  This is a practice, like noticing the changes in a flower as it grows.  During our call we will do another kind of destiny exercise that can help us get in touch with the way that Karma moves as Steiner describes.

From Theosophy: “As the keeper of the past, the soul is continually collecting treasures for the spirit.  We can be sure that not a single experience goes to waste, since the soul preserves each one as a memory, and the spirit extracts from each one whatever it can use to enhance its abilities and enrich its life.  The human spirit grows as these experiences are worked over and assimilated.”
 
Audioconference Details: May 2, 2018 at 7:15 CST

Option 1.  Click link below if you wish to connect through your computer (a headset is recommended): https://zoom.us/j/535966270

Option 2.  Call in using your telephone.
United States: (646) 558-8656 or: (669) 900-6833
Access Code: 535-966-270

***

Saturday 5 May 2018 – SPECIAL EVENT – Our Branch is hosting The General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America

6 pm – Community Pot-Luck – Let’s show these 12 guests from around the country some good hospitality from the Heart-Land – Please bring a dish to share.

7:30 pm – Open Community Conversation with the GC of the ASA

For those interested in following in the current study with the General Council: 2018 April-May ASA Council Study – Transforming the Soul.Vol1.docx

***

Stephen B Whatley

Friday 18 May 2018, 7 pm – 9 pm, –

Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul-Endeavor,

Art Projections & Lecture with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg.

Experiential Social Art with special guest TBA

***

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)

The newly renovated (& lazured) Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…

In the Blood

Insight, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote

14 April 2018 – Astro-Weather: After dark, Leo walks horizontally across the meridian high in the south. His brightest star is Regulus, the bottom star of Leo’s Sickle. The Sickle forms his front leg, chest, mane, & part of his head.

Not far from Regulus, the red long-period variable star R Leonis this week should still be near its maximum brightness,

There’s also the tiny Frosty Leo Nebula nearby to hunt out, & galaxy groups to explore.

Saat Chion

“Everybody should be reminded by the Easter festival, that there will be the resurrection of the spirit out of the present darkened nature of the human being”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Riddles of the World and Anthroposophy

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

Barbara Lea

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

215 – Birthday of Mani the prophet & founder of Manichaeism – see Rudolf Steiner’s lectures GA 104 & 113

Rudolf Steiner: “…Mani was the founder of a spiritual movement which although at first only a small sect, became a mighty spiritual current. The Albigenses, Waldenses and Cathars (Note 5) of the Middle Ages are the continuation of this current, to which also belong the Knights Templar, of whom we shall speak separately, (Note 6) and also — by a remarkable chain of circumstances — the Freemasons. Freemasonry really belongs to this stream, though it is connected with others, for instance with Rosicrucianism. (Note 7)

What outer history has to say about Mani is very simple. (Note 8)

It is said that there once lived a merchant in the Near East who was very learned. He compiled four important works: first, Mysteria, secondly, Capitola, thirdly, Evangelium, and lastly Thesaurus. It is further related that at his death he left these writings to his widow who was a Persian. This widow, on her part, left them to a slave whose freedom she had bought and whom she had liberated. That was the said Mani, who then drew his wisdom out of these writings, though he was also initiated into the Mithraic mysteries. (Note 9) Mani is called the ‘Son of the Widow’, and his followers are called the ‘Sons of the Widow.’ However, Mani described himself as the ‘Paraclete’. (Note 10) the Holy Spirit promised to mankind by Christ. We should understand by this that he saw himself as one incarnation of the Holy Spirit; he did not mean that he was the only one. He explained that the Holy Spirit reincarnated, and that he was one such reincarnation. ~The Temple Legend 

1126 – Averroes, a medieval Spanish polymath. He wrote on logic, Aristotelian & Islamic philosophy, theology, the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence, psychology, political & Andalusian classical music theory, geography, mathematics, & the mediæval sciences of medicine, astronomy, physics, & celestial mechanics. Averroes was a defender of Aristotelian philosophy against Ash’ari theologians led by Al-Ghazali.

Rudolf Steiner:  “Through Avicenna and Averroes, something was introduced that was to enter human civilization with the beginning of the fifteenth century, namely, the struggle for the consciousness soul.”~Materialism and the Task of Anthroposophy

“…In Spain it was taught by the Moorish scholars and above all by such an individuality as Averroes, that the Intelligence holds sway everywhere. The whole world, the whole cosmos is filled with the all-pervading Intelligence. Human beings down here on earth have many different properties, but they do not possess a personal intelligence of their own. On the contrary, every time a human being is active on the earth, a drop of Intelligence, a ray of Intelligence proceeds from the universal Intelligence, and descends as it were into the head, into the body of the single human being. So that the human being as he walks about on earth, shares in the universal Cosmic Intelligence which is common to all. And when he dies, when he passes through the gate of death, the Intelligence that was his returns to the universal Intelligence, flows back again. Thus all the thoughts, conceptions and ideas which man possesses in the life between birth and death flow back into the common reservoir of the universal Intelligence. One cannot therefore say that the thing of outstanding value in man’s soul, namely his Intelligence, is subject to personal immortality. Indeed it was actually taught by the Spanish, Moorish scholars that man does not possess personal immortality. True, he lives on, but, said these scholars, the most important thing about him during his life is the fact that he can unfold intelligent knowledge, and this does not remain with his own being” ~Karmic Relationships, Volume III: Lecture XI: Evolution of the Michael Principle Throughout the Ages. The Split in the Cosmic Intelligence

 

On this day in 1561 it was Good Friday, Around dawn there was a mass sighting of celestial phenomena over Nuremberg, residents of Nuremberg saw what they described as an aerial battle, followed by the appearance of a large black triangular object & then a large crash outside of the city. According to witnesses, there were hundreds of spheres, cylinders & other odd-shaped objects that moved erratically overhead.

A broadsheet news article was printed later that month, describes objects of various shapes including crosses, globes, two lunar crescents, a black spear & tubular objects from which several smaller, round objects emerged & darted around the sky at dawn.

“In the morning of April 14, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country – by many men and women. At first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semi-circular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter. And in the sun, above and below and on both sides, the color was blood, there stood a round ball of partly dull, partly black ferrous color. Likewise there stood on both sides and as a torus about the sun such blood-red ones and other balls in large number, about three in a line and four in a square, also some alone. In between these globes there were visible a few blood-red crosses, between which there were blood-red strips, becoming thicker to the rear and in the front malleable like the rods of reed-grass, which were intermingled, among them two big rods, one on the right, the other to the left, and within the small and big rods there were three, also four and more globes. These all started to fight among themselves, so that the globes, which were first in the sun, flew out to the ones standing on both sides, thereafter, the globes standing outside the sun, in the small and large rods, flew into the sun. Besides the globes flew back and forth among themselves and fought vehemently with each other for over an hour. And when the conflict in and again out of the sun was most intense, they became fatigued to such an extent that they all, as said above, fell from the sun down upon the earth ‘as if they all burned’ and they then wasted away on the earth with immense smoke. After all this there was something like a black spear, very long and thick, sighted; the shaft pointed to the east, the point pointed west. Whatever such signs mean, God alone knows. Although we have seen, shortly one after another, many kinds of signs on the heaven, which are sent to us by the almighty God, to bring us to repentance, we still are, unfortunately, so ungrateful that we despise such high signs and miracles of God. Or we speak of them with ridicule and discard them to the wind, in order that God may send us a frightening punishment on account of our ungratefulness. After all, the God-fearing will by no means discard these signs, but will take it to heart as a warning of their merciful Father in heaven, will mend their lives and faithfully beg God, that He may avert His wrath, including the well-deserved punishment, on us, so that we may temporarily here and perpetually there, live as his children. For it, may God grant us his help, Amen”. Art by Hanns Glaser, letter-painter of Nurnberg

 

1759 – Deathday of G.F. Handel – composer

1865 Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth; Lincoln died the next day

1900 – The Exposition Universelle – a world’s fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century & to accelerate development into the next. The fair, visited by nearly 50 million, displayed many machines, inventions, & architecture that are now nearly universally known, including the Grande Roue de Paris Ferris wheel, Russian nesting dolls, diesel engines, talking films, escalators, & the telegraphone (the first magnetic audio recorder)

1912 – The sinking of the Titanic

1935 – Exclusion from the General Anthroposophical Society of Ita Wegman, Elisabeth Vreed & other members also 2 national societies

1939 – The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck is first published

2010 – Over 2,700 are killed in a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

2014 – 276 schoolgirls are abducted by Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria 

***

Agostino Arrivabene

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~The combustion 
Becomes ash
& the seed is cooked in salt
As our bones grow roots
In the Earth-Womb…
~hag

***

Agostino Arrivabene

I don’t know about you…but I have a powerful hunger…A spiritual hunger…that rattles my bones, stirs my loins, tugs at my belly, pounds in my heart, gets caught in my throat, burns in my eyes, & taps on the top of my head…

A hunger for roots, that go back before zero…A hunger to re-member, that life is a divine dance…pulsing in the bloodlines of a billion stars…connecting us all…A knowing that goes beyond heredity…A truth, in the blood of the I Am, earned & then shared…A striving for the living proof that Love is our mother tongue…A hunger to embrace the Goddess & the God within…A hunger for respect, & adoration…for acknowledgment, of our spirit…& so much more, that has been buried in the forgotten beat…burned at the stake…& bought & sold by the media…A hunger to heal…& reclaim the true expression of our essence…A hunger to undertake the hero’s journey that re-awakens our destiny, replacing the hunger, with a taste of our divine spiritual heritage…Calling the beat back into our cosmopolitan hearts…

& so if this rings true for you, let us make this our communal intention…along with each of our personal aspirations for this growing season of Spring, which we have an opportunity to program right here, right now…We can create sacred space most any time, most anywhere, with our intention…by connecting to the soft steady unified rhythm of our collective heartbeat…This is the cosmic rhythm of the eternal made manifest in the now…Let it awaken us…Let it harmonize us…Let it transform us…As we Become, Our Highest Self…As we begin…To balance our bones, Fulfill our selfless desire, Feed our belly with gratitude, Open the heart, Vibrate the throat, Expose our eyes, & Transcend our heads…in the many rhythms of our divine birthright…The circle is complete, yet forever open & always changing…Expand it now…To let the healing begin…

~hag

The Rose & the Lily

Lecture, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote

10 April 2018 – Astro-Weather: Vega, the bright “Summer Star,” rises in the northeast around 10 pm CDT these evenings. Where should you watch for it? Spot the Big Dipper very high in the northeast. Look at Mizar at the bend of its handle. If you can see Mizar’s tiny, close companion Alcor follow a line from Mizar through Alcor all the way down to the horizon. That’s where Vega will make its appearance.

Estella Runn

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“Where do the Dead come from? The Living. Where do the Living come from? The Dead.” ~ Plato

The Feast Day of St. Magdalen of Canossa. Born in northern Italy in 1774, Magdalen knew her mind—and spoke it. At age 15 she announced she wished to become a nun. After trying out her vocation with the cloistered Carmelites, she realized her desire was to serve the needy without restriction. For years she worked among the poor & sick, & with delinquent or abandoned girls. In her mid-twenties Magdalen began offering lodging to poor girls in her own home. In time she opened a school, which offered practical training & religious instruction. As other women joined her in the work, the new Congregation of the Daughters of Charity emerged. Over time, houses were opened throughout Italy. They focused on the educational & spiritual needs of women, which continues to this day.

Feast Day of Fulbert of Chartres, Bishop of Chartres from 1006 to 1028. A highly esteemed teacher – his pupils called him “venerable Socrates”. He was a strong opponent of the rationalistic tendencies which had infected some dialecticians of his time. Letters he wrote from 1004–1028 gave much insight into life in his day. He also wrote poetry & many sermons on the Blessed Virgin Mary. He was responsible for the advancement of the Nativity of the Virgin’s feast day on September 8. When, in about 1020, the cathedral of Chartres burned down, Fulbert at once began to rebuild it in greater splendor.

According to Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul, this is the Birth Day of the prophets Daniel & Ezekiel. As well as the day Wagner received the inspiration for Parsifal in Zurich, 1857.

Anne Cameron

Daniel – Hebrew “God is my Judge” hero of the Book of Daniel who interprets dreams & receives apocalyptic visions. Daniel & his friends Hananiah, Mishael, & Azariah were among the young Jewish nobility carried off to Babylon following the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. The four are chosen for their intellect & beauty to be trained in the Babylonian court, & are given new names. Daniel is given the Babylonian name Belteshazzar, while his companions are given the Babylonian names Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego. Daniel & his friends refuse the food & wine provided by the king of Babylon to avoid becoming defiled. They receive wisdom from God & surpass “all the magicians & enchanters of the kingdom.” Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a giant statue made of four metals with feet of mingled iron & clay, smashed by a stone from heaven. Only Daniel is able to interpret it: the dream signifies four kingdoms, of which Babylon is the first, but God will destroy them & replace them with his own kingdom. Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a great tree that shelters all the world & of a heavenly figure who decrees that the tree will be destroyed; again, only Daniel can interpret the dream, which concerns the sovereignty of God over the kings of the earth.

When Nebuchadnezzar’s son King Belshazzar uses the vessels from the Jewish temple for his feast, a hand appears & writes a mysterious message on the wall, which only Daniel can interpret; it tells the king that his kingdom will be given to the Medes & Persians, because Belshazzar, unlike Nebuchadnezzar, has not acknowledged the sovereignty of the God of Daniel. They overthrow Nebuchadnezzar & the new king, Darius the Mede, appoints Daniel to high authority. Jealous rivals attempt to destroy Daniel with an accusation that he worships God instead of the king, & Daniel is thrown into a den of lions, but an angel saves him, his accusers are destroyed, & Daniel is restored to his position.

In the third year of Darius, Daniel has a series of visions. In the first, four beasts come out of the sea, the last with ten horns, & an eleventh horn grows & achieves dominion over the Earth & the “Ancient of Days” (God) gives dominion to “one like a son of man”. An angel interprets the vision.

In the second, a ram with two horns is attacked by a goat with one horn; the one horn breaks & is replaced by four. A little horn arises & attacks the people of God & the temple, & Daniel is informed how long the little horn’s dominion will endure.

In the third, Daniel is troubled to read in holy scripture (the book is not named but appears to be Jeremiah) that Jerusalem would be desolate for 70 years. Daniel repents on behalf of the Jews & requests that Jerusalem & its people be restored. An angel refers to a period of 70 sevens (or weeks) of years.

In the final vision, Daniel sees a period of history culminating in a struggle between the “king of the north” & the “king of the south” in which God’s people suffer terribly; an angel explains that in the end the righteous will be vindicated & God’s kingdom will be established on Earth.

William Blake

The Prophet Ezekiel describes his calling to be a prophet by going into great detail about his encounter with God & 4 living creatures or Cherubim with four wheels that stayed beside the creatures. For the next five years he incessantly prophesied & acted out the destruction of Jerusalem & its temple, which was met with opposition.

According to the midrash Canticles Rabbah, Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego asked for his advice as to whether they should resist Nebuchadnezzar’s command & choose death by fire rather than worship his idol. At first God revealed to the prophet that they could not hope for a miraculous rescue; whereupon the prophet was greatly grieved, since these 3 men constituted the “remnant of Judah”. But after they had left the house of the prophet, fully determined to sacrifice their lives to God, Ezekiel received this revelation: “Thou dost believe indeed that I will abandon them. That shall not happen; but do thou let them carry out their intention according to their pious dictates, & tell them nothing”

Ezekiel’s statement about the “closed gate” (Ezekiel 44:2–3) is understood  as another prophecy of the coming Incarnation of Christ : the “gate” signifying the Virgin Mary & the “prince” referring to Jesus. This is one of the readings at Vespers on Great Feasts of the Theotokos in the Eastern Orthodox & Byzantine Catholic Churches. “No one can enter Heaven unless by Mary, as though through a door.” The imagery provides the basis for the concept that God gave Mary to mankind as the “Gate of Heaven” (thence the dedication of churches & convents to the Porta Coeli), an idea also laid out in the Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen) prayer.

 

837 – Halley’s Comet makes its closest approach to Earth

***

Sandra Duran Wilson

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~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

***

In my Easter-Tide lecture on The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, I made reference to the tale of Floris & Blancheflour. This tale originally dates to around 1230 or 1250, & re-worked into a collection of mythic poetry, composed using 7-stringed & 12-stringed lyres, which we talked about as representing the union of Time & Space, which also occurs in Wagner’s opera of Parsifal when he enters the Grail castle for the 1st time.

Here is a synopsis of the tale: King Felix, the Muslim King of Spain, on one of his ventures attacks a band of Christian pilgrims. The wife of 1 of the slain knights is taken prisoner, & is made lady-in-waiting to Felix’s wife. Both women are pregnant, & the children are born on the same day, Palm Sunday: Floris, means “belonging to the red Rose”, son of the Muslim Queen & Blanchefleur – “white flower or lily”, born to her lady-in-waiting. (The Rose & the Lily represent 2 polar soul types, explored by Goethe in his tale “The Green Snake & the Beautiful Lily”)

The 2 are raised together at the court & grow close. King Felix fears his son may marry the “pagan” girl so he decides that she must be killed. But he can’t bring himself to do it so instead he sends his son Floris away to school, & sells Blanchefleur to merchants who take her to Babylon, & sell her to the emir. Felix constructs an elaborate tomb for Blanchefleur & tells Floris she has died. His reaction is so severe that Felix tells him the truth. Distraught, but encouraged she is still alive, Floris sets out to find her.

He eventually arrives outside Babylon where he meets the bridge warden who tells him about the emir’s tower of maidens. Each year the emir selects a new bride from his tower & kills his old wife. Rumor has it that Blanchefleur is soon to be chosen as his next bride. To gain access to the tower, Floris outplays the watchmen in chess & so he is able to be smuggled into the tower in a basket of flowers, but is mistakenly placed in the room of Blanchefleur’s friend Claris (translated as: Shining), who arranges a reunion between the two, but still they are discovered by the emir.

The emir holds off killing them on the spot until he holds a council of advisers. So impressed are the advisers at the willingness of the young lovers to die for one another that they persuade the emir to spare their lives. Floris is then knighted, he & Blanchefleur are married, & Claris marries the emir, who promises she will be his last & only wife, forever. Floris & Blanchefleur depart for home where they inherit the kingdom, & embrace Christianity.

Steiner speaks of Floris & Blanchefleur as being together before in other lives. The rose & lily are two contrasts which must find unity. In Floris or the red rose, we see a soul whose higher “I” is able to penetrate into the blood. The lily soul remains spiritual because the “I” inspires it from outside. The rose has the self-consciousness completely in itself, the lily completely outside itself. The union of the soul that is within, with the soul that is able to embrace the world spirit brings a balance of inner & outer together to serve the all.

Steiner refers to them as the grandparents of Charlemagne who connected the inner esoteric Christianity with the exoteric. Floris & Blanchefleur express the mystic marriage in the human soul, where the conscious human “I” can then work with the world soul, or world “I”, represented by the concept of ‘Christ in me’. In the union of the lily soul & the rose soul, we find a connection with the Mystery of Golgotha.

This tale is a precursor to what happens later in the legend of the Holy Grail, which has no exterior couple. In the circles of initiates, it was known that the same soul which was in Floris appeared later as the founder of the new mystery school, of Rosicrucianism.

At the Easter Festival we discussed who the lily soul might be. We remembered that in the Chemical Wedding CR has a “companion” who Steiner reveals as “The Master Jesus” or the reincarnated Zarathustra soul. Some thought perhaps the lily soul could be Rudolf Steiner as he was the public voice inspired by CR as Master M…?

And then we ended with an imagination, knowing that in the spiritual world everything is reversed we pictured: RS on the right in a red stole & CR on the right in a blue stole. Inspiring them from behind is the Time Spirit Michael, holding the countenance of Christ behind him…

I will be posting my lecture with the projected images soon.

Until then…

Blessings as we move into this highly potent time of the esoteric teaching of the Risen Christ.

~hag