23 March 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Mars continues to put on a nice show these March evenings. It appears in the west once twilight fades to darkness & doesn’t set until after 10 pm CDT. The Red Planet crosses the border from Aries the Ram into Taurus the Bull today, setting up a dramatic conjunction with the beautiful Pleiades star cluster.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1775 – American Revolutionary War: Patrick Henry delivers his speech – “Give me liberty, or give me death!” – at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia

1919 – In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement

1933 – The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany

1938 – Deathday of Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a Protestant German minister, & theologian; friend of Rudolf Steiner; co-founder & driving force of The Christian Community. Growing up in Frankish Schweinfurt – his father was a Lutheran minister – it was already clear to him as a child that he wanted to go into a religious profession. From 1890 Rittelmeyer studied philosophy & Protestant theology. His teacher Oswald Külpe, encouraged him to write his dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche.

He also went on a study trip to meet theologians & socially-engaged ministers of the time, as well as members of the Moravian Church. From 1895 to 1902 he was at the Stadtvikar in Würzburg. In 1903 he took up the preachership of Heilig-Geist-Kirche in Nuremberg. There he married Julie Kerler on 5 April 1904. Rittelmeyer worked & closely collaborated with Christian Geyer, the head preacher of the Sebalduskirche, together they produced two joint volumes of sermons. Around 1910 they both led discussions with the Bavarian church council on a liberal interpretation of the Bible.

Also in 1910 the Nuremberg school teacher Michael Bauer enabled Rittelmeyer to have his first encounter with Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. Rittelmeyer described the encounter & discussed Steiner’s personality & work in his book ‘Rudolf Steiner Enters my Life’:

“In earlier ages, the fact alone that such an all-embracing genius gave witness to Christ as being the greatest reality in earthly history, would have had a profound effect. But in Rudolf Steiner much more was present. One could put it like this: he comprehended all branches of learning so spiritually and so deeply, and he recognized Christ in such big and broad dimensions that eventually Christ shines forth as the true light in all spheres of life. He observed strictly the necessity for each sphere to form its own method according to its intrinsic laws. He never carried religion into anything from without. But he illuminated all realms of knowledge with such powerful light, that Christ became visible in it. A Christ, it is true, far greater than the Christ of the Churches; but a Christ related to the Bible and to the Christ of the early Christians.”

“Thus, he advanced the science of language to the point where it could understand why Christ is called ‘the Word’. Thus, he carried medicine to the point where medicine could understand again ‘the body of Christ’. Thus, he carried astronomy to the point where Christ became visible as the true ‘Light’…he taught how science could again become reverent and devout. He built a temple for all sciences, so high and so broad, that their servants could work in it without sacrificing an iota of their personal freedom or of the special characteristics of their province.  He united the learning of the age with Christ, and Christ with the learning of the age.”

In 1916 Rittelmeyer was sent to the Neue Kirche in Berlin, working as preacher there. He soon came to oppose the First World War & with 4 other Berlin theologians signed a proclamation of peace & understanding on the occasion of Reformation Day (October 1917).

In September 1922 he established the “Movement for Religious Revival” (Christengemeinschaft) Rittelmeyer acted as its first “Erzoberlenker” or Head Preiest, & from its base in Stuttgart was the leading envoy right up to his death.

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Dear Friends –

Because of the Easter Paradox  there is a DATE CHANGE!  

For Fred Janney’s weekend: ‘ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY: WHAT AILS THEE!

Sat. 6 April 2019, 7 pm – 9 pm: Biographies of the original Vorstand members

& Sun. 7 April 2019, 1 pm – 4 pm: Identifying your spiritual stream – bringing cohesion and direction for members on both sides of the threshold.

Contribution $25-$50 or pay what you can afford, ALL proceeds donated to APO.

***

TONIGHT: 7 – 9pm, Our Holy Saturday study of Kaspar Hauser (which we will continue during the Ecclesiastical Holy Week 14-20 April 2019) Deborah Rogers has offered to order more of the fascinating book by Peter Tradowsky. If you would like to order this, or any other Anthroposophical books, & receive a substantial discount, please contact Deborah.

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Sunday 24 March 2019 Our 1^st Easter Paradox Festival 2 pm – 4 pm

‘Preparation, Illumination & Initiation’- ‘The Rose Cross Meditation’.

Leading Thoughts, Social Art & Discourse with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg 

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

Together we will enact this powerful Rosicrucian tool given to us by Rudolf Steiner, as a soul path of initiation, using imaginative cognition to build spiritual etheric forces; a Metamorphoses of Self & of World evolution.

A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The True Date of Easter 2019

$10 & Pot Luck Feast to Share Encouraged (Hazel will bring the Pascal Lamb)

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Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society of America, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) Check out our Web site!  Calendar of Events

At the bird sanctuary, aptly named the ‘Magic Hedge’ near my home at the edge of the ‘Great Inland Sea of Chicago’, the sky lightened when the sun rose on this Vernal Equinox morning, but the clouds & persistent drizzle did not reveal its glory. I had to watch for other signs of Spring – the sweet earthy scent rising up from the mud, a patch of purple crocus pushing up from the dead grass, the activity of the animal kingdom, robins, starlings, a coyote family by the red dogwood tree, the song of the wind in the still bare branches, the way the water grabbed at the shore, the wet rocks gleaning in the grey. Yes, magic is abounding thru the elements, waiting to be seen & blessed by human hearts, held with awe & wonder.

As I stroll along the shore, open in reverence, I contemplate our Holy Week study of Kaspar Hauser, & I am deeply struck by the profoundness of the celestial association that was given as an imagination at his death by professor Daumer, his teacher & care giver, who Rudolf Steiner called “The last Rosicrucian”.  Steiner often repeated this when speaking of Kaspar Hauser as a ‘stray Atlantean’, that when he died the ‘Sun was setting in the West & the Moon was rising in the East’ – a true Easter image. And so fitting for this year’s Easter Paradox, where the 1^st Full Moon after the Spring Equinox (tonight at 8:43 CDT) is, according to Astrosopher Johnathan Hilton, in Denebola, the tail of Leo the Lion, which in ancient Arabian astrology was said to portend misfortune & disgrace, which can certainly be related to the outward aspect of Kaspar Hauser’s destiny. And yet according to the Kabbalists, it is associated with the Hebrew letter Kaph & holds the image of Strength, which points up his spiritual task.  

It’s easy to want to turn away from pain & suffering; but by doing so we miss the opportunity to heal & redeem evil during this 1^st cycle in the ‘Easter Paradox’ of 2019.

I am new to this study of Kaspar Hauser, but I am not new to pain & suffering, & the ever-clear calling of karmic healing.  From the beginning I was struck by what seems an important relationship between Kaspar Hauser, Christian Rosenkreutz, Rudolf Steiner & The Christ.

We know that Rudolf Steiner was bound by the occult rule prohibiting him to speak about a Rosicrucian initiate directly, but it is important to note that it was in Malsch, near Karlsruhe, where Kaspar Hauser was born on Michaelmas Day in 1812, that Rudolf Steiner laid the foundation stone of the first anthroposophical building, known as ‘Francis of Assisi’, which he referred to as a ‘Rosicrucian temple’, on the night of the Pascal Full Moon of 1909.

At this event he spoke about the Full Moon as the spiritual sphere of birth & death, & how humanity moved from a state of innocence into the evolution of consciousness through the encounter with evil, which brought in death; & he called us to work to spiritualize matter. 

This seems to reflect not only humankind’s journey as a whole, but also the life of Kaspar Hauser in particular. 

Rudolf Steiner gave many groundbreaking lectures in Karlsruhe, including speaking for the 1^st time about the ‘Second Coming of Christ’. It was there that he also revealed the nature of the human ‘Phantom’, & the ‘Resurrection body’. And then at Michaelmas, 99 years after Kaspar’s birth, Steiner compared for the 1^st time the methods of the Rosicrucians with those of the Jesuits, a direct clue to the workings behind Kaspar Hauser’s mystery. Some say the Church began their attacks on Rudolf Steiner’s because of these powerful Karlsruhe lectures.

When asked about Kaspar Hauser’s previous lives, Steiner said he could not find an earlier incarnation; that he was a higher being who had a special mission on the Earth, working from an impulse coming from Rosicrucian origins.  

Could it be that this individuality is a sort of Angelic Being, like the Nathan Soul, held back in the Spiritual World to fulfill a special mission? Coming, in the latter case, to give physical expression to the Cosmic Christ; & in Kaspar Hauser’s case, come to reveal the Etheric Christ, appearing in the realm of the Angels working from the Moon to the Earth?

The counterforce to this etheric appearance came in 1933, when Hitler & the Nazi Party held sway in Nuremberg, where ‘ the Child of Europe’ was murdered in 1833 a hundred years before.  

It reminds me of how Steiner described a ‘Second Crucifixion’, in the 1840s, of the consciousness of the Angelic Being that was bearing Christ in the etheric realm, a kind of ‘suffocation’ brought on by materialistic thinking, which formed a sort of black cloud in the supersensible sphere between the Earth & Moon.

But as Steiner tells us, this sacrifice by this Angelic Being – has made it possible for us to renew & deepen our understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, which brought the possibility for the redemption of our physical bodies, & which, because of this ‘Second Crucifixion’, could now be experienced on the level of our formative forces, helping us develop a new clairvoyance in the etheric realm.

These thoughts lead us to Steiner’s statement that:  “If Kaspar Hauser had not lived and died as he did, the contact between the Earth and the Cosmos would have been completely severed.”  

So, my friends, to see Kaspar Hauser’s sacrificial life in this light, so intimately connected to this ‘Second Crucifixion’ & the ‘Second Coming of Christ’, so reflective of our 2 modern Rosicrucian Initiates, in alignment with the life of Christ, it seems to make sense to build this consciousness during this sacred Easter-Tide.

I look forward to continuing the hero’s journey throughout this Easter Paradox, exploring both dates, listening to the Elemental world, working with our friends & fellows, & with the ‘ever present help of the Spiritual World’, on this side of the Threshold & beyond, to ask the Parsifal Question, in the search of the Holy Grail & the Dawning of the New Sun.

In Vernal Balance Be –

~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

19 March 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Eve of the Full  Storm Moon & the Eve of the Vernal Equinox. Bella Luna, almost full, shines in the hind feet of Leo. After dark we see her at the upper right of Regulus.

The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, at 2:48 pm CDT -223,307 miles away from us.

Left of La Bella by about half that distance is Denebola, the tip of Leo’s tail.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast Day of Joseph the Carpenter, husband of Mary the Mother of the Matthew Jesus.

Annual Return of the Swallows: The American cliff swallow is a migratory bird that spends its winters in Goya, Argentina, but makes the 6,000-mile trek north to the warmer climes of the American Southwest in springtime. According to legend, the birds, who have visited the San Juan Capistrano area every summer for centuries, first took refuge at the Mission when an irate innkeeper began destroying their mud nests. The Mission’s location near two rivers made it an ideal location for the swallows to nest, as there was a constant supply of the insects on which they feed, & the young birds are well-protected inside the ruins of the old stone church.

Each year the Fiesta de las Golondrinas is held in the City of San Juan Capistrano. Presented by the San Juan Capistrano Fiesta Association, the Fiesta de las Golondrinas is a week-long celebration of this auspicious event culminated by the Swallows Day Parade & Mercado, street fair. Tradition has it that the main flock arrives on March 19 (Saint Joseph’s Day), & flies south on Saint John’s Day, October 23.

In recent years, the swallows have failed to return in large flocks to the Mission. The reduction has been connected to increased development of the area, including many more choices of nesting place & fewer insects to eat.

1797 – Death Day of Christiane Wilhelmine Sophie von Kühn (March 17, 1782 – March 19, 1797) the love interest & eventual fiancée of the German Romantic poet a& philosopher Friedrich von Hardenberg, known to many simply as Novalis. Her image famously appears in Novalis’ Hymns to the Night, a foundational text of the literary movement known as German Romanticism.

“Over I journey
And for each pain
A pleasant sting only
Shall one day remain.
Yet in a few moments
Then free am I,
And intoxicated
In Love’s lap lie.
Life everlasting
Lifts, wave-like, at me,
I gaze from its summit
Down after thee.
Your lustre must vanish
Yon mound underneath —
A shadow will bring thee
Thy cooling wreath.
Oh draw at my heart, love,
Draw till I’m gone,
That, fallen asleep, I
Still may love on.
I feel the flow of
Death’s youth-giving flood
To balsam and ether
Transform my blood —
I live all the daytime
In faith and in might
And in holy fire
I die every night”.

Although Novalis’s love for Sophie has assumed mythic proportions, their time together was short . The two met on November 17, 1794 when Novalis was twenty-two &Sophie was only twelve. They became engaged on Sophie’s thirteenth birthday March 17, 1795. Sophie became sick in November 1795, & her sickness continued until her death at the age of 15 in March 1797. The loss of Sophie brought about a deep period of mourning & suffering in Novalis’ life.

Ludwig Tieck’s biography of Novalis describes Sophie, saying: “Even as a child, she gave an impression which–because it was so gracious and spiritually lovely–we must call superearthly or heavenly, while through this radiant and almost transparent countenance of hers we would be struck with the fear that it was too tender and delicately woven for this life, that it was death or immortality which looked at us so penetratingly from those shining eyes; and only too often a rapid withering motion turned our fear into an actual reality”.

1918 – The U.S. Congress establishes time zones & approves daylight saving time.

1945 –Adolf Hitler issues his “Nero Decree” ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany to be destroyed.

2018 – The last male northern white rhinoceros, Sudan, dies.

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“Uplifted is the stone —
And all mankind is risen —
We all remain thine own.
And vanished is our prison.
All troubles flee away
Thy golden bowl before,
For Earth and Life give way
At the last and final supper.

To the marriage Death doth call —
The virgins standeth back —
The lamps burn lustrous all —
Of oil there is no lack —
If the distance would only fill
With the sound of you walking alone
And that the stars would call
Us all with human tongues and tone.

Unto thee, O Mary
A thousand hearts aspire.
In this life of shadows
Thee only they desire.
In thee they hope for delivery
With visionary expectation —
If only thou, O holy being
Could clasp them to thy breast.

With bitter torment burning,
So many who are consumed
At last from this world turning
To thee have looked and fled,
Helpful thou hast appeared
To so many in pain.
Now to them we come,
To never go out again.

At no grave can weep
Any who love and pray.
The gift of Love they keep,
From none can it be taken away.
To soothe and quiet his longing,
Night comes and inspires —
Heaven’s children round him thronging
Watch and guard his heart.

Have courage, for life is striding
To endless life along;
Stretched by inner fire,
Our sense becomes transfigured.
One day the stars above
Shall flow in golden wine,
We will enjoy it all,
And as stars we will shine.

The love is given freely,
And Separation is no more.
The whole life heaves and surges
Like a sea without a shore.
Just one night of bliss —
One everlasting poem —
And the sun we all share
Is the face of God.”

~Novalis, Hymn’s to the Night section 5

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Our Chicago community has taken on the mystery of the Being known as Kaspar Hauser this year. We will read thruout this Cosmic Holy Week, recognizing that confronting challenging cosmic alignments is part of humanities calling, to face, name & work to redeem evil.  

We will continue this Study during the Ecclesiastical Easter-Tide, so that like Rudolf Steiner, who gave lectures during the ‘Easter Paradox of 1924’, on BOTH the Cosmic & Ecclesiastical dates, we will be working to bridge the 2 streams.

Interesting to note that the lectures to the workers (Southern Stream) “Star Wisdom, Moon Religion, Sun Religion” & “Easter as a Chapter in the Mystery Wisdom of Man” centered around bringing the wisdom of the Magi (Northern Stream) to the Shepherds (Southern Stream).

And the lectures to the members of the Anthroposophical Society (Northern Stream)  “The Easter Festival in relation to the Mysteries” gave the Magi a profound look into ancient mysteries of Adonis & Ephesus, the distinct worldview of the Shepherds.

And in the Young Doctors Easter Course given at that same time, by Dr. Steiner & Dr. Ita Wegman (Southern Stream) they are given these verses to meditate on:
“Behold what is joined in the cosmos,
And you will feel the forming of the human being
Schau, was kosmisch sich fügt
Behold all that moves you in Air
And you will experience the ensoulment of the human being.
Schau, was luftig dich bewegt
Behold what is changed in the Earthly
And you will discern the spiritualizing of the human being.

The whole planetary system is connected with substances that are remedial:
Saturn = Lead
Jupiter = Tin
Mars = Iron
Sun = Gold
Venus = Copper
Mercury = Quicksilver
Moon = Silver.

(see Lili Kolisko’s experiments done during the Easter Paradox of 1943)

If you think about these lines again and again they will help you to realize what is built into the human being out of the cosmos, out of the earth’s periphery, and by earthly forces. If you will meditate on these questions in the light of the following lines, you will learn to look into the real nature of the human being:

Behold, what is joined in the cosmos:
You feel the forming of man.
(that in connection with Moon)
Behold, all that moves you in Air:
(for example, in breath or in blood circulation)
You will live man’s ensoulment.
(that in connection with Sun)
Behold, what is changed in the Earthly:
(especially what also brings death to the human being)
You will discern the spiritualizing of man.
(that in connection with Saturn)”

What a powerful opportunity for all of us to practice the Science of the Spirit.

~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Click below to read more research into this Easter Paradox 2019: A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The True Date of Easter 2019

18 March 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The bright waxing gibbous Moon traverses the sky in company with Regulus tonight. They’re only a couple of degrees apart in early evening. Watch them pull farther apart hour by hour.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1068 – An earthquake in the Arabian Peninsula, leaves up to 20,000 dead.

1229 – Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, declares himself King of Jerusalem in the Sixth Crusade.

1314 – Jacques de Molay, the 23rd & final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, is burned at the stake.

1944 – Mount Vesuvius in Naples, Italy erupts killing 2,600 people & causing thousands to flee their homes.

1953 – An earthquake hits western Turkey, killing 2,600 people.

1968 – Gold standard: The U.S. Congress repeals the requirement for a gold reserve to back US currency.

An Easter-Tide Exploration of Kaspar Hauser:

In Rudolf Steiner’s lecture: ‘The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric’, he says that because of dark powers working against human evolution, Kasper Hauser was unable to fulfill his true mission: which was to prepare the way for a new cultural, political & economic world view, a new 3-fold social organism that could have redeemed the destiny of Central Europe, & changed our evolutionary trajectory. This did not happen because of the adversarial powers, but amazingly, thru Kasper Hauser’s imprisonment, he was able to attain a capacity for pure sense perception untainted by an education stuffed with materialistic concepts. He was able to unite his pure innocence, much like the Nathan soul, with the power of thinking purified by the deepest suffering, enabling him to see the etheric light in the form of the ‘after-image’. So even though he was not able to achieve his highest destiny, he was able to set the stage for the rest of us to begin to see the Christ in the etheric realm.

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Contemplations for Holy Week: (excerpts from “The Three Years” by Emil Bock)

Palm SundayMatthew 21: 1-11

«Christ enters the Holy City on the first day of Holy Week. It is at first an unpretentious sight. He rides through the gate of the city upon an ass, followed by His faithful believers. But suddenly, as though he were the God of Spring himself, His entry creates frenzy in the souls of the people. It is as though the crowd were seized with the ecstasy of a pagan Spring Festival. Primitive rites are revived when the people cast down palm branches from the trees. The palm has always ranked as the tree-symbol of the sun which shines in the Spring sky with renewed strength. The crowd spread His path with the symbol of the sun.

Is He in fact perhaps the Friend and Lord of the Sun who has been promised to man as the great King of the Light? Is the original spiritual significance of the city of Jerusalem to be released from enchantment, the city which sheltered on Mount Zion one of the oldest sun-sanctuaries of mankind, before it was overshadowed by Mount Moriah, the Mount of the Moon, with the Temple of Solomon? Has the time of Melchisededek, the great Sun-Initiate, come back?

It would appear as though the Christ had now really found entrance into humanity. The high Sun- Spirit has already lived for three years in a human body and undergone earthly destiny. He held back and kept silence; and whenever He stepped forward He was met with hostility and lack of understanding. Is all this now to take a new direction? Is destiny to find a solution in an ecstatic jubilation?

No, this is the beginning of the most solemn week in human history. The same men who strew palms and break forth into fervid Hosannas will shriek with fanatical hatred a few days later: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” The Cross on Golgotha, the symbol of death, will companion the palm branch, the symbol of life. It is the Christ Himself who brings about the sudden reversal of feeling. He passes through the ecstatic crowd in silence, with grave countenance. He sees through the acclamations; they are merely superficial, and He aims at deeper levels. His will is directed to something very different.»

Holy MondayMark 11: 12-25

«Christ approaches the fig tree at Bethphage and wishes to show the disciples how little value should be attached to the “Hosanna” of the previous day. All that it represented was the last fruits of the old visionary clairvoyance, given by nature, and bound to the body. The words He addresses to the fig tree are, as it were, a challenge to the whole realm of ancient ecstatic vision. Here a momentous decision is made in the history of mankind. Jesus rejects the Hosannas of the people, and Himself brings about the transition to their cry, “Crucify Him”. He has the courage Himself to summon the spiritual blindness through which the people will fanatically demand His death. Humanity must act out of a consciousness that leads to freedom, even if it means tragedy; even if men in their spiritual blindness nail Him on the cross.

On that Monday in Holy Week Christ rejects a temptation. Had He allied Himself with the ancient clairvoyant forces, He might have found public recognition. Not only people would have cried “Hosanna”; they would have crowned Him King. But a final pronouncement is made: Christ will find no link with the ancient forces. His sole aim is that mankind should find the way to awakening and freedom. It is no unloving curse that He utters on the fig trees of those who had lent him the ass and its colt. He acts purely from the nature of his own being. He is the Sun and when the Sun rises, the Moon perforce goes pale. So the moon-forces of the old vision fade away.

The Christ appears before the Temple. Many hundreds of pilgrims have assembled, and around the Temple buying and selling, trading and bargaining are being carried on. In the Temple itself a feverish activity prevails; sacrificial beasts are needed for the Festival, the Passover lamb must be slaughtered. This is a source of business; for the animals have to be brought before they are sacrificed. Old Annas, the notorious miser of world history, knows how to make a profit. He has already made a vast fortune from this market. He has been the wire-puller in the political compromise with the Romans which is the basis of the Temple business. The pilgrims must change their local currency into the official currency which is valid in the Temple. This is Roman currency. Thus the Temple comprises also a Roman Exchange market. The Roman fiscal officers have been admitted to the Temple, although they were representatives of the Cult of Caesar, because it was hoped by this compromise to keep them at least out of the Holy of Holies.

Now Christ comes on the scene. He is coming to fulfil the custom of the feast. But the fire of His burning will has its effect. There is no need for Him to say much. The people are immediately seized with panic. Terror-stricken, they realize into what decadence they have fallen. Something similar had taken place at the feast of the Passover, three years before. At that time the terrifying effect came from the divine nature of the Christ, despite the conscious restraint which was still exercised by Jesus.

But now the divinity is entirely transformed into humanity; it has become intensity of will. He has the right to tear down the mask of decadence of the Temple.

The sun of Christ shines, and the glimmer of the Moon must fade away on the moon-hill of Mount Moriah. The spectres of the night flee from the sun. In place of a magnificent Temple appears a simple room on Mount Zion. There, in the Last Supper, the seed of a new ritual and worship, a Sun-like Sacrament, will be sown. The moon-religion of antiquity will be superseded on the evening of Maundy Thursday, when on the sun-hill of Mount Zion, Christ gives Bread and Wine to His disciples.»

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I move thru my back space
In a Lemniscate full of flare…
That which is, follows
In stride…
& that which is not yet
Flows in a current
Under my wings, a song
shifting at high tide…

~hag

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HOLY WEEK 2019

A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The True Date of Easter 2019

Begins 17 March Palm Sunday 2 pm – 4 pm

Then every evening 7 pm – 9 pm

& 24 March – the TRUE Easter Sunday 2 pm – 4 pm

For our study this year, we will take up the Mystery of Kaspar Hauser

In the New Mysteries we follow the path of the Christian initiation thru the Holy Week before Easter – With every step, from the recognition of the old Sun on Palm Sunday, thru to the meeting of the Saturn-Spirit and The Harrowing of Hell, which sparks the rising of the New Sun of Easter.

For our study we will take up: ‘Kaspar Hauser: The Struggle for the Spirit’ byAnthroposophical researcher Peter Tradowsky

I have ordered 5 copies to be given out on a 1st come basis at cost: $23

Come to any or all of the gatherings:

17 March Palm Sunday, 2pm – 4pm

18-23 March 2019 Holy Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Good Friday & Holy Saturday, 7pm – 9pm

The TRUE Easter Sunday 24 March 2019, 2 pm – 4 pm

A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The True Date of Easter 2019

The Golden Legend – The Rose Cross Meditation Leading Thoughts, Social Art & Discourse with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Using our head, hands & heart we will enact this powerful Rosicrucian tool given to us by Rudolf Steiner, as a soul path of initiation, using imaginative cognition to build spiritual etheric forces; a Metamorphoses of Self & of World evolution.

$10 for Art Supplies & Snacks to Share Encouraged

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16 March 2019 – The eve of the ‘True’ Holy Week. “Speaking with the Stars”: Very high after dark, Castor & Pollux point at the waxing gibbous Moon.

The Big Dipper glitters softly high in the northeast these evenings, standing on its handle. You probably know that the two stars forming the front of the Dipper’s bowl are the Pointers; they point to Polaris. And, you may know that if you follow the curve of the Dipper’s handle out & around by a little more than a Dipper length, you’ll arc to Arcturus, rising in the east. But did you know that if you follow the Pointers backward the opposite way, you’ll land in Leo? Draw a line diagonally across the Dipper’s bowl from where the handle is attached, continue far on, & you’ll go to Gemini. And look at the 2 stars forming the open top of the Dipper’s bowl. Follow this line past the bowl’s lip far across the sky, & you crash into Capella.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1244 – Over 200 Cathars who refuse to recant are burned to death after the Fall of Montségur.

***

POD (Poem Of the Day)

An old gnarled tree near the shore,
Roots swallowing the sand & rock
Pecked by the high-tide & the wild wind…
A 1000 fledglings have nested in my boughs
& beneath, I give shelter to all…
How do you see me?
As firewood or freedom…?
~hag

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The Northern & Southern Mystery Streams as they relate to the ‘Easter Paradox’

Rudolf Steiner connects the Northern path to the Sun Mysteries, an initiation thru the outer world of nature & the cosmos, enacted at the time of the Autumn Equinox. The Adonis Mysteries revealed the experience of the human soul after death; the ascent into the macrocosm, to unite with the Spirit of the Sun. The threat to the pupils on this path was Ahriman, who seeks to keep humanity bound to outer material phenomena.

In the Southern Mysteries, the initiatory path of the Moon, led the pupil into the inner nature of their own being. This revealed the experience of existence before birth, the descent into the microcosm. These rites were enacted at the nearest Full Moon to the Spring Equinox, where the pupil gazing up thru the sphere of the Moon was able to see into the Soul of the Sun-sphere. Their main opponent or tempter was Lucifer.

Both paths, although completely different, arrived at the same goal – the union with the cosmic Christ in the sphere of the Sun.

These 2 paths were developed prior to the Mystery of Golgotha, in strict separation from each other. Thru Christ’s Deed, the possibility was created for every human being to receive the fruits of both mystery streams thru the actual awareness & experience of His Being in the sphere of the Earth.

These 2 paths must become united. Every human being is now being asked to make a connection to the outer, into nature & the cosmos, as well as, to the inner, into our own beings.

Otherwise, if the 2 streams continue to develop separately they fall prey to the adversarial forces mentioned above.

Many folks have been quoting from Steiner’s lectures given at the ‘Easter Paradox of 1924’, where he speaks about the Northern Adonis Mysteries, as a justification for celebrating Easter-tide according to the fixed date.

But we must also take into account that in March 1924 at the time of the Astrological Easter, Steiner also gave lectures to the workers from the perspective of the Southern Mysteries.  

Dear friends, we are being asked thru the ‘Easter Paradox of 2019’ to cultivate a new experience of Christ, which is connected to our willingness to encounter evil; an ‘As above so Below’ experience, beyond a creed, or the events in Palestine 2000 years ago; we are called to bridge the 2 streams within ourselves, which will foster a true spiritual experience in the life-realm of the Earth.

Rudolf Steiner’s core mission was to bring an understanding of Karma & Reincarnation to the West. Perhaps by looking into our propensity toward 1 or the other of the Streams we can find a clue to our own karma, & thru this year’s ‘Easter Paradox’ find a way to open to the opposite stream to bring the Christ path to bear within us.

If we are to live into: ‘Christ in me’, we must take up this task of integration, for the future evolution of humanity & the Universe.

~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

(see Sergei Prokoffief’s book: ‘Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries’, Chap. 2, pg 35-36)

Below is a link for a compilation of my research so far on the ‘Easter Paradox of 2019’

A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The True Date of Easter 2019