Monthly Archives: April 2019

Walpurgisnacht

Celestial Event, Festival, History, Poetry, Remembering, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars, Spring

30 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Arcturus is the brightest star high in the east these evenings. Spica shines lower right of it by about three fists. To the right of Spica by half that distance is the distinctive four-star constellation of Corvus, the Crow of Spring.

Lynnette Shelley

As Mars marches eastward across Taurus this week, it approaches the two stars that represent the Bull’s horns: Beta & Zeta Tauri. This evening, the Red Planet forms an isosceles triangle with the pair.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Fritz Roeber

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.

65 – Seneca, teacher of Nero, murdered

Image result for 1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office

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.

Image result for 1812 – Birthday of the enigmatic Kaspar Hauser

1812 – Birthday of the enigmatic Kaspar Hauser

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

Image result for 1885 – The Niagara Reservation becomes New York's first state park

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

Image result for 1939 – The 1939-40 New York World's Fair opens

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

Image result for hitler suicide

1945 – Adolf Hitler commits suicide

Image result for 1963 – The Bristol Bus Boycott

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

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Arthur Rackham

POD (Poem Of the Day) 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

***

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

***

Tuesday 7 May 2019 in Ann Arbor Michigan

& also

Sat. 25 May 2019 –  7 pm – 9 pm in Chicago

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Celebrating the Feast of Ascension

Leading Thoughts & original art-collage projections with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

Social Art with Nancy Melvin

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

***

Sunday 19 May 2019, 2 pm – 4 pm- Social Sculpture Workshop around the ‘URPFLANZE’ with Victoria Martin. More details to follow

$20 for art supplies + Snacks to Share Encouraged 

for more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

***

Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Sunday 2 June 2019 at the Branch 2 pm – 4 pm

also

10 am – 1 pm Saturday 8 June 2019 -4804 Sewanee Road, Nashville, TN 37220. for more info. contact Cathy Green cgreen@grasslandaquatics.com

also

12 Noon Potluck, Program 1 pm -4 pm Whitsunday 9 June 2019, In Knoxville, TN. for more info. contact William Rogers wmerogers@gmail.com

also

7 pm – 10 pm 11 June 2019, Ashville, TN. for more info. contact Marnie Muller 

Eurythmy: AUM = A – I stand for myself, U- I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life

Social Sculpture: Steiner’s ‘Blue Dot Exercise’: Through Art, the bridge between science & spirit, we warm the ‘I’, to open the heart, in support of healthy community.

Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg*

What are my gifts-What are my tools? How can I place them in right relationship within the social realm? How can I hone them to strengthen and enhance the world?

Enter the Labyrinth of Vitae Sophia: Human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the source of wisdom, like flowers turning toward the sun.

Living into the Foundation Stone of Love: How can we take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” a path leading from ‘Sprit Recollection’, to ‘Sprit Sensing’, to ‘Sprit Beholding’?

*Hazel Archer-Ginsberg is the founder of the website and blog Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year (www.reverseritual.com). She is an Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, and “Anthroposopher.” She works as the Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch as well as with the Traveling Speakers Program, and she serves on the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

In the 40 Days

History, Insight, Lecture, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars, Spring, , ,

29 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Just after dark, the Sickle of Leo stands vertical, high in the south. Its bottom star is Regulus, the brightest of Leo. In second place is yellow Algieba above it. The Lion is walking horizontally westward. The Sickle forms his front leg, chest, mane, & part of his head. Denebola, in the tip of the Lion’s tail, which was featured in connection with the Vernal Full Moon, is once more revealed for our contemplation…

Related image

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Image result for joan of arc with Michael

“Appearance of St.. Catherine and Michael to Joan of Arc,” by Hermann Stilke (Left-hand panel of his Joan of Arc triptych)

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Image result for St Endelienta

Feast Day of Saint Endelienta, a Cornish saint of the 5th century. She is believed to be a daughter of the Welsh King Brychan, & legend says that she was a goddaughter of King Arthur. She lived as a hermit at Trentinney where she subsisted on the milk of a cow.

Giovanni-di-Paolo

1380 – Death Day of Catherine of Siena, Italian mystic, philosopher, a Scholastic philosopher & theologian & saint. She is believed to have had miraculous visions & felt herself to be united in marriage with Jesus.

Born as the Black Death-ravaged in Siena, Italy, to Lapa Piagenti, the daughter of a local poet, & Giacomo di Benincasa, a cloth dyer who ran his enterprise with the help of his sons. Lapa was about forty years old when she gave premature birth to twin daughters Catherine & Giovanna. She had already borne 22 children, but half of them had died. Giovanna was handed over to a wet-nurse & died soon after. Catherine was nursed by her mother & developed into a healthy child. She was two years old when Lapa had her 25th child, another daughter named Giovanna. As a child Catherine was so merry that the family gave her the pet name of “Euphrosyne”, which is Greek for “joy” & the name of an early Christian saint.

Catherine had her first vision of Christ when she was five or six years old: She & a brother were on the way home from visiting a married sister when she is said to have experienced a vision of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, & JohnAt age seven, Catherine vowed to give her whole life to God.

When Catherine was sixteen, her older sister Bonaventura died in childbirth; already anguished by this, Catherine soon learned that her parents wanted her to marry Bonaventura’s widower. She was absolutely opposed & started a massive fast, & cut off her long hair as a protest.

“Build a cell inside your mind, from which you can never flee.” In this inner cell she made her father into a representation of Christ, her mother into the Blessed Virgin Mary, & her brothers into the apostles. Serving them humbly became an opportunity for spiritual growth. She chose to live an active & prayerful life outside a convent’s walls following the model of the Dominicans. Eventually her father gave up & permitted her to live as she pleased.

Her custom of giving away clothing &food without asking anyone’s permission cost her family significantly, but she demanded nothing for herself.

In about 1368, age twenty-one, Catherine experienced what she described in her letters as a “Mystical Marriage” with Jesus. Catherine received, not the ring of gold & jewels that her biographer reports in his version, but the ring of Christ’s foreskin.” Catherine herself mentions the foreskin-as-wedding ring motif in one of her letters, equating the wedding ring of a virgin with a foreskin; she typically claimed that her own wedding ring to Christ was simply invisible

As social & political tensions mounted in Siena, Catherine found herself drawn to intervene in wider politics. She began travelling with her followers throughout northern & central Italy advocating reform of the clergy & advising people that repentance &renewal could be done through “the total love for God.” In Pisa, in 1375, she used what influence she had to sway that city & Lucca away from alliance with the anti-papal league whose force was gaining momentum & strength. It was in Pisa that she received the stigmata.

She received the Holy Eucharist almost daily. This extreme fasting appeared unhealthy in the eyes of the clergy & her own sisterhood. Her confessor ordered her to eat properly. But Catherine claimed that she was unable to, describing her inability to eat as an infermità (illness). From the beginning of 1380, Catherine could neither eat nor swallow water. On February 26 she lost the use of her legs. St Catherine died in Rome, on 29 April 1380, at the age of thirty-three, having suffered a stroke eight days earlier.

Image result for 1429 – Joan of Arc - the Maid of Orléans, defeats the English

1429 – Joan of Arc – the Maid of Orléans, defeats the English which begins the process that ended with England’s complete expulsion from the continent.

“It was necessary that the Maid of Orleans went through a kind of unaware initiation to fulfill her historical mission.It concerned an initiation that could take place in the time of the thirteen nights between the 25th December and 6th January.In the last time before birth the human being is especially accessible to unaware influences from the spiritual world.

On the 6th January the Maid of Orleans was born, to whom the Christ Impulse was implanted just before she saw the physical sunlight.The Maid of Orleans intervened in the course of history in such a way that everything that happened later was determined through it.

The whole map of Europe would be different, also the spiritual life if the English had won.

The Maid was a servant of St. Michael. She was a warrior of his Will and brought this spiritual will to Earth by her determination and actions.In the Central European civilisation were the springs for the whole spiritual culture of the future, the foundation of the ego-culture.

The human ego had to enkindle itself in the outside world, to be awake and realised internally. Thus the ego-culture of Central Europe was aroused from the objective events, the heroic sacrifices, that have brought the changes into etheric bodies and continue to do so, through the recorded memory.

It is necessary that, there would be souls, who send thoughts into the spiritual world like extending arms and bring down the consciousness from the spiritual world, souls conscious of spirit.The proper purpose of all our endevours is to gain a living connection between the physical and spiritual worlds.

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the grief of the bereaved,
From the nation’s sacrifices
Will grow up the fruits of spirit
If souls aware of spirit turn
Their senses to the spirit land.”

~Rudolf Steiner, Spiritual Science, a Necessity for the Present Time, The Relation of Man to his Folk Soul – Nuremberg, March 13, 1915, GA 159

“In order to throw a little light on the occult understanding of history, we may ask the question: What would the development of modern Europe have been if at the beginning of the 15th century the Maid of Orleans had not entered the arena of events? Anyone who thinks, even from an entirely external point of view, of the development that took place during this period, must say to himself: Suppose the deeds of the Maid of Orleans were erased from history … then, according to the knowledge obtainable from purely external historical research, one cannot but realise that without the working of higher, super-sensible Powers through the Maid of Orleans, the whole of France, indeed the whole of Europe in the 15th century, would have taken on an altogether different form. Everything in the impulses of will, in the physical brains of those times, was directed towards flooding all Europe with a general conception of the State which would have extinguished the folk-individualities and under this influence a very great deal of what has developed in Europe during the last centuries through the interplay of these folk-individualities would quite certainly have been impossible.

Imagine the deed of the Maid of Orleans blotted out from history, France abandoned to her fate without this intervention, and then ask: Without this deed, what would have become of France? And then think of the role played by France in the whole cultural life of humanity during the centuries following! Add to this the facts which cannot be refuted and are confirmed by actual documents concerning the mission of the Maid of Orleans. This young girl, certainly not highly educated even by the standards of her time, suddenly, before she is twenty years old, feels in the autumn of 1428 that spiritual Powers of the super-sensible worlds are speaking to her. True, she clothes these Powers in forms that are familiar to her, so that she is seeing them through the medium of her own mental images; but that does not do away with the reality of these Powers. Picture to yourselves that she knows that super-sensible Powers are guiding her will towards a definite point — I am speaking to begin with, not of what can be told about these facts from the Akasha Chronicle, but only of what is confirmed by documentary evidence.

We know that the Maid of Orleans confided her vision first of all to a relative who — one would almost say, by chance-happened to understand her; that after many vicissitudes and difficulties she was introduced to the Court of King Charles who, together with the whole French Army, had come to his wit’s end, as the saying goes. We know too, how after every conceivable obstacle had been put in her way, she finally recognised and went straight to the King, who was standing among such a crowd of people that no physical eye could have distinguished him. It is also known that at that moment she confided to him something— he wanted to test her by it — of which it can be said that it was known only to him and to the super-sensible worlds. You also know from ordinary history that it was she who, under the unceasing impulse and urge of her intense faith — it would be better to say, through her actual vision — and in face of the greatest difficulties, led the armies to victory and the King to his crowning.

Who intervened at that time in the course of history? — None other than Beings of higher Hierarchies! The Maid of Orleans was an outer Instrument of these Beings, and it was they who guided the deeds of history”.

~Rudolf Steiner, Occult History, Lecture 2, Stuttgart, 28th December 1910

Image result for 1862 –The Capture of New Orleans by Union forces

1862 –The Capture of New Orleans by Union forces in the American Civil War.

1899 – Birthday of Duke Ellington, American pianist, composer, & bandleader

1901 – Birthday of Hirohito, Japanese emperor

Image result for 1910 people budget

1910 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the People’s Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public

1945 –The German army in Italy unconditionally surrenders to the Allies.

Related image

1945 – Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker they both commit suicide the following day

Image result for 1945 – Dachau concentration camp is liberated

1945 – Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops

1991 – A cyclone strikes the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 miles per hour killing at least 238,000 people &leaving as many as 10 million homeless

1991 – The 7.0 Mw earthquake affects Georgia with a maximum intensity killing 370 people

Image result for 11992 –Riots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King.

1992 –Riots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 53 people are killed & hundreds of buildings are destroyed

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Circle song:

~What mystery is unfolding
In the heart-fires we are holding
In our hand we our molding
A new destiny…
~hag

***

Thought of the day:

Michael supports us with the courage to die into Christ, while still living in the world. Can we come to understand & live into the principle of Resurrection that continues to grow within & around us, even if all we can see is the death process?

Just as the April showers swell the seed in a gradual surrender to life. I find I must continuously, & conscientiously choose to let go, & open to the greening, allowing my whole being to become a vessel for the fulfillment of the Resurrection, allowing The Risen Christ to teach me – thru Nature, thru other human beings, & thru my Higher-Self.

And always my question is: What does this look like as a lifestyle, as a right livelihood, as a Shared festival?…As a community experience, honoring & furthering the Resurrection, by aligning our will with the Divine Will – Learning to serve from a place of wholehearted listening…& a practice of, not I, but Christ in me…

***

Tuesday 7 May 2019 in Ann Arbor Michigan

& also

Sat. 25 May 2019 –  7 pm – 9 pm in Chicago

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Celebrating the Feast of Ascension

Leading Thoughts & original art-collage projections with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

Social Art with Nancy Melvin

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

***

Sunday 19 May 2019, 2 pm – 4 pm- Social Sculpture Workshop around the ‘URPFLANZE’ with Victoria Martin. More details to follow

$20 for art supplies + Snacks to Share Encouraged 

for more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

***

Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Sunday 2 June 2019 at the Branch 2 pm – 4 pm

also

10 am – 1 pm Saturday 8 June 2019 -4804 Sewanee Road, Nashville, TN 37220. for more info. contact Cathy Green cgreen@grasslandaquatics.com

also

12 Noon Potluck, Program 1 pm -4 pm Whitsunday 9 June 2019, In Knoxville, TN. for more info. contact William Rogers wmerogers@gmail.com

also

7 pm – 10 pm 11 June 2019, Ashville, TN. for more info. contact Marnie Muller 

Eurythmy: AUM = A – I stand for myself, U- I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life

Social Sculpture: Steiner’s ‘Blue Dot Exercise’: Through Art, the bridge between science & spirit, we warm the ‘I’, to open the heart, in support of healthy community.

Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg*

What are my gifts-What are my tools? How can I place them in right relationship within the social realm? How can I hone them to strengthen and enhance the world?

Enter the Labyrinth of Vitae Sophia: Human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the source of wisdom, like flowers turning toward the sun.

Living into the Foundation Stone of Love: How can we take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” a path leading from ‘Sprit Recollection’, to ‘Sprit Sensing’, to ‘Sprit Beholding’?

*Hazel Archer-Ginsberg is the founder of the website and blog Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year (www.reverseritual.com). She is an Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, and “Anthroposopher.” She works as the Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch as well as with the Traveling Speakers Program, and she serves on the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

*** 

Turning poison into medicine

History, Quote, Speaking with the Stars, Uncategorized

26 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Last-quarter Moon – exact at 5:18 pm CDT. Bella Luna rises very late tonight, around 2 am, in the center of the dim, boat-shape pattern of Capricornus. High above the Moon is Altair. The brightest “stars” far to Her right are Saturn, then brighter Jupiter.

Image result for moon saturn jupiter april 2019

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Image result for earth

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.

Image result for 1803 – Thousands of meteors fall from the skies in L’Aigle, France;

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.  

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

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.

Image result for 11986 – Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Ukraine

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

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Image result for painting snake 3rd eye
Brenda Beck

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~No fear is here
As I gather the serpents to my breast
Speaking their names I take their venom…
Burning with holy fire
Wrought with a kiss
I vomit the evil
Turning poison into medicine
Smelting my words into gold
I twine the snakes into my DNA –
Now death lives on my forehead
Side by side with light
~hag

***

“According to Rudolf Steiner we prepare our souls most effectively for the meeting with the Etheric Christ if we live meditatively through the yearly cycle…

The calendar was an essential Rosicrucian impulse that is related to the events at Golgotha and furthered inner development.

It continued the work carried out by Rosicrucians for centuries on the more subtle processes in nature and in the course of the year:

‘Sacrifice” as ‘Sacred natural science.’

The Calendar and Soul Calendar constituted the metamorphosis of that work for use in modern times. It could offer support to ‘any person’ in ‘any situation,’ and could enhance human inner development in preparation for the experience of the reappearance in the etheric of the Christ being..”

~Rudolf Steiner and Christian Rosenkreutz By  Peter Selg  

***

Tuesday 7 May 2019 in Ann Arbor Michigan

& also

Sat. 25 May 2019 –  7 pm – 9 pm in Chicago

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Celebrating the Feast of Ascension

Leading Thoughts & original art-collage projections with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

Social Art with Nancy Melvin

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

***

Sunday 19 May 2019, 2 pm – 4 pm- Social Sculpture Workshop around the ‘URPFLANZE’ with Victoria Martin. More details to follow

$20 for art supplies + Snacks to Share Encouraged 

for more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

***

Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Sunday 2 June 2019 at the Branch 2 pm – 4 pm

also

10 am – 1 pm Saturday 8 June 2019 -4804 Sewanee Road, Nashville, TN 37220. for more info. contact Cathy Green cgreen@grasslandaquatics.com

also

12 Noon Potluck, Program 1 pm -4 pm Whitsunday 9 June 2019, In Knoxville, TN. for more info. contact William Rogers wmerogers@gmail.com

also

7 pm – 10 pm 11 June 2019, Ashville, TN. for more info. contact Marnie Muller 

Eurythmy: AUM = A – I stand for myself, U- I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life

Social Sculpture: Steiner’s ‘Blue Dot Exercise’: Through Art, the bridge between science & spirit, we warm the ‘I’, to open the heart, in support of healthy community.

Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg*

What are my gifts-What are my tools? How can I place them in right relationship within the social realm? How can I hone them to strengthen and enhance the world?

Enter the Labyrinth of Vitae Sophia: Human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the source of wisdom, like flowers turning toward the sun.

Living into the Foundation Stone of Love: How can we take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” a path leading from ‘Sprit Recollection’, to ‘Sprit Sensing’, to ‘Sprit Beholding’?

*Hazel Archer-Ginsberg is the founder of the website and blog Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year  (www.reverseritual.com) She is an Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, and “Anthroposopher.” She works as the Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch as well as with the Traveling Speakers Program, and she serves on the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

*** 

Ignite the Weave

History, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Spring

22 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars“: The Lyrid meteor shower, usually weak to begin with, will mostly be blocked by bright Bella Luna during the shower’s early-morning active hours tonight & tomorrow night. So look for Jupiter close to the waning gibbous Moon.

Moon, Jupiter, Antares April 22-23, 2019

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Music is the expression of the will of nature while all other arts are expressions of the idea of nature. ~Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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254 – Deathday of Origen (which means *child of Horus* -his nickname was  Adamantios which means *unconquerable*, *diamond*) – Church father considered a heretic because of his belief in reincarnation.

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1145 – the 19th recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet

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1451 – Birthday of Isabella I, of Castile, Queen of Spain

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1724 – Birthday of philosopher Immanuel Kant

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1840 – Birthday of painter Odilon Redon

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1904 – Birthday of physicist J.R. Oppenheimer

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1915 – The use of poison gas in World War I escalates when chlorine gas is released as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres

1945 –Prisoners at the Jasenovac concentration camp revolt. 520 are killed & around 80 escape

1945 –Führerbunker: After learning that Soviet forces have taken Eberswalde without a fight, Adolf Hitler admits defeat in his underground bunker & states that suicide is his only recourse

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1954 – Red Scare: Witnesses begin testifying and live television coverage of the Army–McCarthy hearings begins

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1970- 1st Earth Day  “There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” ~Marshall McLuhan

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“We can speak of Karma not only in the case of individual persons, for man should not consider himself as a single being. If the individual were to rise even a few miles above the earth, the result would be the same as if the finger severed itself from the body.

If we penetrate into spiritual science we are literally forced to admit through this knowledge that we should not delude ourselves to the extent of insisting that we are single beings. This applies to the physical world and even more to the spiritual world. Man belongs to the whole world and his destiny is involved with that of the entire world. Karma touches not only the individual, but also the life of whole nations.”

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 100 – Theosophy and Rosicrucianism: Lecture VII: The Law of Karma – Kassel, 22nd June 1907

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Will you
Sow the seeds of premonition
Into a fruitful action
To ignite the weave
In radiant expectation…?
~hag

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John Muir is remembered on Earthday (his birthday was April 21st1838 ) also known as “John of the Mountains”, an American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, glaciologist & early advocate for the preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, & books describing his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada, have been read by millions. His activism has helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park & many other wilderness areas.

The Sierra Club, which he founded, is a prominent American conservation organization. The 211-mile John Muir hiking trail in the Sierra Nevada, was named in his honor, along with  Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, John Muir College, Mount Muir, Camp Muir & Muir Glacier.

Muir was noted for being an ecological thinker, political spokesman, & religious prophet, whose writings became a personal guide into nature for countless individuals, making his name “almost ubiquitous” in the modern environmental consciousness.

During his lifetime John Muir published over 300 articles & 12 books. Muir has been called the “patron saint of the American wilderness” & its “archetypal free spirit.” As a dreamer & activist, his eloquent words changed the way Americans saw their mountains, forests, seashores,& deserts.

Muir exalted wild nature over human culture and civilization, believing that all life was sacred. He moved beyond the Transcendentalism of Emerson to a “biocentric perspective on the world”. He did so by describing the natural world as “a conductor of divinity,” & his writings often made nature synonymous with God.

My dear sisters & brothers, let’s make every day Earth day!

XOX ~hag

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hag Easter bonnet 2019

Easter Bells

Celestial Event, Festival, Insight, Spring

And so the Sun has risen on this glorious Easter morn.

And as I stood at the dawning, holding the middle pillar between the Moon in the South-West & the New Sun on the Eastern Horizon, in my soul again I heard: ‘The Easter Bells are Ringing’, in ‘Jubilating Delight’; for the grave, & my heart are full, of light.

The Easter Paradox of 2019 has given us an extended opportunity to listen to this sounding, to become ever more attuned; to let go of judgement, petty polarities, & preconceived ideas; to learn & grow & move out of our comfort zone, to go on the Hero’s Journey, ready to meet the Lion & the Virgin, ready, when the time is right, to ask the Parsifal question…Ready to seek, as well as protect, the Grail…Ready & willing to fully participate, in the Cosmic & Earthly Resurrection – which stands as an open question to our Higher-Selves at the dawning of everyday.

And as the light spread blessings of warmth onto the Earth, the Water, the Air – John F. Kennedy’s famous inaugural address kept ringing in my mind: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” – Except instead of the nationalistic reference, the quote transformed into a calling from the spiritual world – an appeal to humanity as a whole – asking us to become a bridge for the Christ-Will – asking us to step up – asking: “What are WE meant to do for the spiritual world”?

Can we stand in our “I” & ask: What wants to come through? What is needed?
Can we give what we want ? In true freedom?

We have received so much. Isn’t it time that we worked to manifest a co-creation between Spiritual & Human Beings, which can help us to help ourselves?

The Easter Bells are ever calling us to attend the service. Can we heed, & live into, the Revelations given? Can we receive the ‘warmth that changes the beat of our heart, weaving in our blood a true fulfillment’?

‘Christ is Risen to you as the meaning of the Earth’!

If we align our will with the Divine Will, then we too can ‘Come Rise’!

Easter Blessings, dear friends – thank you for taking this journey into the heart of our Easter Paradox – but remember, we aren’t done yet…The Easter-Tide continues as we explore the esoteric teachings of Christ during the 40 days leading to Ascension, (May 2 & May 30) & then, after 50 days when we arrive at Pentecost, (May 12 & June 9) to receive the Holy Spirit!!!

Read all my spiritual research about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

And here is a link to the podcast ‘The Anthroposopher‘ where I talk about the history of “Easter” being celebrated long before Christianity. A time of rebirth & resurrection for both the Earth & the ancient Human Being, whose essence still speaks to us today in a story at the end given by Steiner & filled out by WJ Stein called: Can you see the Hare in the Moon?

See you on the road to Damascus

Happy Easter!

xox~hag

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Lyrid Radiant Diagram

21 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Lyrid meteor shower is set to peak starting tonight April 21–22. But since Bella Luna was just full a few days ago her brilliance will hide the subtle showers. Even so, it’s worth scanning the skies for meteors. The radiant is on the border between Hercules & Lyra, low onthe northeastern horizon at dusk, continuing to rise throughout the night.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Ecclesiastic Easter

According to Rudolf Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul. today is the Birthday of Simeon, who recognized the Buddha in the Luke Jesus as he was the reincarnation of Asita see GA 114/16.9.09

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Also according to Steiner today is the Birthday in 570 of Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam.

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753 BC – Romulus founds Rome

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1109 – Feast day of Saint Anselm of Canterbury, Benedictine monk, abbot, Doctor of the Church,  philosopher & theologian who held the office of archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Anselm composed dialogues & treatises causing him to be credited as one of the founders of Scholasticism. He was famed as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God & of the satisfaction theory of atonement.

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1142 – Peter Abelard, a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian, &  preeminent logician. His love affair with, Héloïse d’Argenteuil has become legendary. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as “the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century”.

1506 – The three-day Lisbon Massacre comes to an end with the slaughter of over 1,900 Jews by Portuguese Catholics.

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1910 – Deathday of Mark Twain, American novelist, humorist, & critic

1989 – Tiananmen Square protests. In Beijing, around 100,000 students gather in Tiananmen Square

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2014 – The city of Flint, Michigan switches its water source to the Flint River, beginning the ongoing Flint water crisis which has caused lead poisoning in up to 12,000 people, & at least 15 deaths from Legionnaires disease, ultimately leading to criminal indictments against 15 people, five of whom have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.