The next morning 11/14/19, I woke before dawn, my usual morning headache, worse than most days. Was I feeling the weight of the ‘Trail of Tears’, a constant underlying strain in the symphony of living waters – a true counterpoise to the joyful music of the likes of Etta James & the Swampers?
Was that my mother Betty Mae hanging at the edge of my dreamscape, or maybe it was Columbia, the Spirit of America, calling from the heights & the depths? I can’t quite remember. I got up & did my eurythmy, Chi Gong & morning meditation with the waning moon shining in the west.
~hag
In the light of day, Deb went out for a morning walk with the aim of finding the water’s edge. She returned having triumphantly reached her goal, hungry as an hawk. After coffee Angela set up an altar with her potent ‘Soul Soil’- potentized samples from various sacred sites that she has collected since 2013. (read about her adventures here) We circled up, did a check-in, invoked the Spirit of place, the Being of Columbia, & Anthroposophia; said the Foundation Stone Meditation & did the Hallelujah in eurythmy.
~hag
Then we packed up, drove out of the Liberty Bell, & made our way, 1st to Ivy Green, the birthplace of Helen Keller, not far, in Tuscumbia, Alabama.
~hag
The stories from the docent, & the feeling of being in the home of this amazing human being & the women who dedicated their lives working with her, was uplifting & humbly awe inspiring.
~hag
Standing at the water pump where Helen had her break thru in understanding language was very powerful – This connection with the spirit of water speaking clearly & living strongly in us.
~hag
I was fascinated by what they called the ‘Moon Tree’ stretching up to the slow moving clouds, throwing a blanket of pine needles on the hallowed grounds. Was it really grown from a seed that went into outerspace?
Also on the property is the Lions Club of America, a sort of Masonic lodge. In 1925, Helen attended the Lions Club International convention & challenged the organization to “become the knights to the blind in the crusade against darkness.” Ever since, they have played a key role in service to the visually impaired.They commissioned this statue carved from the local white marble. We marveled at this image of Helen’s open throat chakra!
~hag
From there it was a hop skip & a jump to the famous ‘Fame Studios’ in Muscle Shoals, where music runs through the hills, the river, & the spirit of the people. It is a place where, even before the Civil Rights Movement really took shape, the color of your skin didn’t matter inside the studio.
~Photo by Angela Foster, a nod to EB’s General Store!
Angela & Deb had lunch in a local eatery where the helpful inn keepers name was ‘Groovy’. I took a walk, feeling the need to listen for the song of the river.
~hag
Together we walked the banks of the Tennessee River, giving homage to the spirit of the water.
~hag
Next to the Singing River we did the Hallelujah in a stunning pine grove before we made our way to Memphis…
Tomorrow we explore our meeting with the Kings of Memphis…
***
~William Blake
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~And then 1 day it happens
The pattern breaks
A healing happens
Just when you think
The pain is fathomless, swallowing all the light
A crack in the sheen of obsidian
Opens the hollow inside
Allowing a trace of fresh born stars
To trail over tears
& apply hope to the color palate of the future
~hag
The Journey – Part 4 Auburn & Sheffield Alabama – (part 1, part 2,part 3)
`hag
11/13/19: With dawn’s first blush, & the ‘just past Full’ Moon pointing us West; the 3 sisters loaded up the truck which belonged to Patrick Foster’s big daddy Howell when he was alive. Stuffed with our abundant food coolers, luggage, the art projector, drawing materials & all the presentation & ritual supplies – we hit the road for Auburn Alabama.
~photo by Angela Foster outside Helene Burkart’s home in Auburn Alabama, Daddy Howell’s truck in the background
Helene Burkart welcomed us “to the deep South” & her handsome home, where 19 of her friends, & fellow long time Anthroposophers gathered. The living room was set up theatre style, & the dining room beautifully adored for our luncheon after.
The thoughtful interest & intimate sharing of the participants during the program was profoundly moving. The questions & comments, the stories & artistic explorations created a sacred chalice, allowing the veil between the worlds to open in grace.
At the repast, Helene asked me to share about the Elderberries Initiative, so I talked about the shift that was born over our Michaelmas weekend, when we connected with the biodynamic farmers in a gathering at Angelic Organics. The idea came then to bring the city folk & country folk together for the healing of the earth & the mutual benefit of all, by creating EB’s General Store in Chicago!
After our lovely meal & much conversation, Helene gifted the 3 sisters with bags full of local cotton & the famous white marble of the area – A Blessed memento that I will cherish.
Deb got behind the wheel & we made our way to Sheffield Alabama, where Angela had arranged for us to stay the night in a house situated in a neighborhood configured in the shape of the liberty Bell. (Angela, have I told you lately how amazing you are!)
On Angela’s suggestion, & Deb’s dime, we watched the documentary MUSCLE SHOALS, which we were called to visit the next day. What a thrill! We danced & sang along, laughed & cried as we learned about a place filled with magic & music, legend & folklore, where the river is inhabited by a Native American Spirit who has enticed some of the greatest Rock & Roll & Soul legends of all time, & has drawn from them some of the most uplifting, defiant, & important music ever created. The ups & downs in the story of Rich Hall, who brought black & white folks together in a cauldron of racial equality to create music for the generations, was compelling.
Kinuko Y. Craft
We went to bed tired, with a sigh of gratitude & a joyful
prayer for the work done, knowing that the blessing of all worlds was carrying our
work into the night.
Tomorrow, more adventures abound…
Until soon
~hag
***
Jim Leasure
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~I have come to answer the call
Witch no one wants to hear
My hands cling like hopeful ancestors
To the task.
‘Open thou my lips’
Red as ox blood
‘So that I may show forth thy praise’
& speak charms that drive snakes back into the rocks & Cause
The violets to flower.
Stars fall into my heart, a pool of fire
I stand with She so
I am blame, ignited into flame
Purpose full & lost
In translation…
~hag
***
Leah Hicks
25 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: VENUS-JUPITER CONJUNCTION AT SUNSET: When the sun goes down tonight, step outside and look southwest. Venus and Jupiter are in conjunction little more than a degree apart. Try to catch them before the sky fades to black. The sight of the two brightest planets, side-by-side, surrounded by twilight blue is out of this world.
Whenever Fomalhaut is “southing” (crossing the meridian due south, which it does soon after dark this week), the first stars of Orion are just about to rise above the east horizon. And, the Pointers ofthe Big Dipper stand upright low due north, straight below Polaris.
Feast Day of St. Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Catherine of the Wheel, a Christian virgin saint, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a princess & a noted scholar, who became a Christian around the age of 14, converted hundreds of people to Christianity, & was martyred around the age of 18. More than 1,100 years after Catherine’s martyrdom, Joan of Arc identified her as one of the saints who appeared to & counselled her.
Hypatia ~Alfred Siefer
Some modern scholars consider that the legend of St. Catherine of Alexandriawas probably based on the life & murder of the Greek philosopher Hypatia, with reversed roles of Christians & pagans.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
(OK so what is it about this day which has brought so many ‘natural’
disasters…?)
1667 – A deadly earthquake rocks Shemakha in the
Caucasus, killing over 80,000 people.
1759 – An earthquake hits the Mediterranean
destroying Beirut & Damascus & killing
over 40,000 people.
1783 – American
Revolutionary War: The last British
troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of
Paris.
1839 – A cyclone slams into south-eastern India, with high winds & a 40-foot storm surge destroying the port city of Coringa (which has never been completely rebuilt). The storm wave swept inland, taking with it 20,000 ships & thousands of people. An estimated 300,000 deaths resulted from the disaster.
1915 – Albert Einstein presents the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
1915 – Albert Einstein presents the field equations of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
1947 – Red Scare: The “Hollywood Ten” are
blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios.
1950 – The Great Appalachian Storm of November 1950 impacts 22 American states, killing 1353 people, injuring over 160,000
1960 – The Mirabal sisters of the Dominican
Republic are assassinated, turning them
into “symbols of both popular and feminist resistance”. In 1999, in
the sisters’ honor, 25 November is the International Day for the Elimination of
Violence against Women.
1987 – Typhoon Nina pummels the Philippines
with category 5 winds of 165 mph &a surge that destroys entire villages. At
least 1,036 deaths are attributed to
the storm.
1996 – An ice storm strikes the central U.S., killing 126 people. A powerful windstorm affects Florida & winds gust over 90 mph, toppling trees & flipping trailers.
2000 – The Baku earthquake, with a Richter
magnitude of 7.0, leaves 1,226 people
dead in Azerbaijan.
2008 – Cyclone Nisha strikes northern Sri
Lanka, killing 1,500 people &
displacing 90,000 others while dealing the region the highest rainfall in nine
decades.
2009 – Jeddah floods: Freak rains swamp the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during an ongoing Hajj pilgrimage. Three thousand cars are swept away & 1,222 people perish in the torrents.
***
13 – 14 December 2019
Rudiger Janisch
“The Spiritual Goetheanum, the threefold human being and the threefold social impulse”
Friday 13 December , 7 – 9 pm
Saturday 14 December, 9 am – noon
Rüdiger has been working in Curative Education and teaching in professional training programs in Germany and the United States for over 40 years. A long-time student of anthroposophy, he serves on the Collegium of the School for Spiritual Science in North America. His contributions to adult education methods were recognized in the context of an international research project sponsored by the European Union. He has been a member of the core faculty of a joint ‘Training for Trainers’ program supporting Curative Education and Social Therapy in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan. He has also taught as an adjunct faculty member of the M.S. Ed program in Waldorf Remedial Education at Antioch University N.H. Having taught many different aspects of anthroposophy and Curative Education, he currently is focused on action research and the development of artistic and experiential approaches to the spiritual scientific study of the human being.
The plan was to bring the All Souls Festival 1st to Atlanta, so I contacted Jolie Luba, leader of the Death Care Community, who had taken us on a moving song trail in the cemetery during the AGM. We grappled with dates & it became clear that instead, we were to have a gathering exploring the connections on 11:11 with the Mercury Transit. (Read about it here) Angela Foster suggested I come into Atlanta on the evening of November 9th(the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall) to be there for 1st Class on the 10th. This was special, since I had been in town last year doing a presentation when Atlanta had their inaugural 1st Class gathering. The power of Lesson 10 spoke right to the heart of our impending journey, giving insights that enlightened our understanding, which we lived into & brought into the work.
~photo by Angela Foster
That evening Angela & I sat together cutting out the planetary seals. We had a deep conversation where I shared stories of old karmic patterns & some hard truths about my striving to be human. When she left & I was alone at The ARC (Anthroposophical Resource Center), I was spent, so I took a shower with the intention of going to bed early. I was reading Prokofieff’s book about the Sculptural Group ‘A revelation of the Spiritual Purpose of Humanity and the Earth’ – When all of a sudden both my legs started cramping up, a horrible contorting ‘charlie horse’. I kept getting out of bed to try & walk it off. I went over to a high stair to stretch my calves, when both legs seized up & I took a tumble down the stairs. My left arm broke my fall & was sorely bruised.
~close up of ‘The Group’ by Rudolf Steiner
The image of Ahriman came before
me as I looked at my feet, painfully contorted & unable to straighten. It was
a long hard night.
When I did sleep, I dreamt that my brothers, who I haven’t seen or spoken to for years, were my children. They were literly bouncing off the walls spider man style & I was wringing my hands in worry over what to do. (This dream brought up a lot, since my own childhood was turbulent & complicated. I graduated from HS early & left home when I was 16 to get away from my incestuous father)
~photo by Bill & Bonnie Rogers, 11:11:19 Sunrise in Knoxville TN
I got finally just up at 4:44 am to do some eurythmy, meditate & watch the sunrise on 11:11.
Deb arrived that morning, & had a work call. The branch council was meeting there as well. So I went out for to hike in the Clyde Shephard nature preserve. It was a cold day & I had that sacred spot to myself. While walking I came upon a platform which looked out over an open circular prairie-like area. I climbed up to observe. Why had they put this platform here? What was I to look for? Nothing was apparent, so I decided to go & walk in that place. The ground was super soft with huge cracks in the sandy soil so that my feet sunk in deeply. It was a very unnerving feeling. I had the thought that I should quickly leave or the ground would swallow me up.
~hag, Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve
After I was out, a huge great horned owl swooped past me, so that I could feel the whoosh of air from her wings on my face. And when I was leaving I meet these beautiful sheep.
Photo by one of the Hancock daughter’s
That afternoon on 11:11 at 4:11 pm – 6:11 pm we gathered at the Martin Clinic. I gave some leading thoughts, Enid Hancock gave us the story of St. Martin of Tours, Angela Foster lead us in Decoupaging candles, Mark Hancock spoke about the inspiration for his ‘Humanizing Medicine’ Martin Clinic, Jolie Luba lead us in some potent biography questions, & we sang songs like ‘This Little Heart of Mine’…An amazing program.
~hag
Angela & Patrick Foster, & their girls, Sophie & Penelope, took us out for great sushi dinner. It was a powerful, Blessed day.
~hag
Deb & I spent a great time talking into the night at the ARC. And then the next day went out for our various & sundry food supplies for the trip -Scoring also at a great consignment shop that Margret Runyon had recommended.
~hag, Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve
The journey commences in earnest
tomorrow…
***
Carrie Ann Baade
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Yes, it’s true My tone is often sharp, never flat A briny argot crusted With cutting honesty I push into fathomless oceans Reaching out to the ancient Mother who is all gristle Salty Trusting in nothing but death Scoured by grace & danger My single solace, the fate That defines the map Of a star dream terrain Speaking in pure tones Of too bright a light. ~hag
***
~Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Venus supplicating Jupiter
23 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: At twilight tonight & tomorrow evening, Venus & Jupiter are just 1½° apart, low in the southwest. Around 7 pm CST the Great Square of Pegasus floats in very high toward the south. Its right (western) edge points down toward Fomalhaut. Its eastern edge points less directly toward Beta Ceti less far down. Near where the third corner is Alpha Phoenicis, or Ankaa, in the constellation Phoenix. In early dawn Sunday, look low in the east-southeast for the thin crescent Moon, a true chalice in the heavens. Bella Luna is there above Mercury & next to fainter Mars.
“People will have to
learn through the idea of karma that they may not repudiate their earlier deeds
with their later deeds. A certain consequentiality in life, a readiness to take
on the consequences of what one has done, will have to emerge in human
evolution. When one looks more closely, one sees how far removed from this
people still are. A greater feeling of responsibility for one’s actions, a
greater awareness of karma, that is what a study of this sort might yield.” ~Rudolf Steiner
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Feast day St. Columban, Stories claim that as he walked in the woods, it was not uncommon for birds to land on his shoulders to be caressed, or for squirrels to run down from the trees & nestle in the folds of his cowl. He was a strong defender of Irish traditions. The following are the principal miracles attributed to his intercession:
Procuring food for a sick monk and curing the wife of his benefactor
Escaping injury while surrounded by wolves
Causing a bear to evacuate a cave at his biddings
Producing a spring of water near his cave
Replenishing the Luxeuil granary
Multiplying bread and beer for his community
Curing sick monks, who rose from their beds at his request to reap the harvest
Giving sight to a blind man at Orleans
Destroying with his breath a cauldron of beer prepared for a pagan festival
Taming a bear and yoking it to a plough.
1644 – John Milton publishes Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship.
1889 – The first jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco.
1924
– Edwin Hubble‘s discovery, that the
Andromeda “nebula” is
actually another island galaxy far outside of our own Milky Way, is first
published in The New York Times.
1978 – Cyclone kills about 10,000 people in eastern Sri Lanka.
1978 – The Geneva Frequency Plan goes
into effect, realigning many of Europe’s longwave & mediumwave broadcasting
frequencies.
1981 – Iran–Contra affair: Ronald Reagan signs the top secret National Security Decision Directive 17 (NSDD-17), giving the Central Intelligence Agency the authority to recruit & support Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
1992 – The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, is introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada.
***
13 December 2019 Rudiger Janisch:
The 3 fold human being , the Foundation Stone & the 3 fold social organism 7 pm – 9 pm
14 December 2019- 9 am – noon
Rüdiger has been working in Curative Education and teaching in professional training programs in Germany and the United States for over 40 years. A long-time student of anthroposophy, he serves on the Collegium of the School for Spiritual Science in North America. His contributions to adult education methods were recognized in the context of an international research project sponsored by the European Union. He has been a member of the core faculty of a joint ‘Training for Trainers’ program supporting Curative Education and Social Therapy in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan. He has also taught as an adjunct faculty member of the M.S. Ed program in Waldorf Remedial Education at Antioch University N.H. Having taught many different aspects of anthroposophy and Curative Education, he currently is focused on action research and the development of artistic and experiential approaches to the spiritual scientific study of the human being.
some of the Nashville Group Whitsunday 9 June 2019
The last time I was in the Nashville/Knoxville area was on the ecclesiastical Whitsun weekend 2019. My dear friend Elisabeth Swisher went with me to bring her gifts of music, & to be the primary driver. We left Chicago on June 5th, made our way to Fox Hollow farm & the botanic gardens near Louisville Kentucky, & then brought my Rose Cross program to Nashville.
Elisabeth Swisher at the Botanic Gardens outside Louisville June 2019
While we were doing eurythmy during the festival, I felt the presence of Don Brakebill, who was born on a ranch in the Rockford/Maryville area, our next stop on the tour. I spoke it out to the group that Don was smiling, close to the Threshold, but with us. Later, we heard from Charlotte that Don her husband was not doing well. We arrived in Knoxville to do the Festival on ecclesiastical Whitsunday June 9th 2019. Early that morning Don Crossed the Threshold. We dedicated the program to him, & carried Charlotte & his spirit strongly as a group on that auspicious day.
~hag,AGM 2019 Atlanta Facing Each Other
After the AGM in Atlanta in October this year, I brought my All Souls workshop to Asheville NC; which was a wild ride, opening my psyche to some intense encounters with the Spirit of that Place. I knew it was important to also take it to my friends in Nashville & Knoxville in the light of Don’s passing, especially as Charlotte & I were in conversation around research into the life between death & rebirth.
~hag,CG & UVA Knoxville 2018
I could not find a local friend to be my co-pilot on the journey. My husband & daughter had come with me on a previous occasion, but the timing was off – Was I to travel alone this time?
~hag, Angela Foster Host of the Groups & Branches pre-conference in Atlanta 2019
Then Angela Foster, our amazing host for the recent AGM in Atlanta, contacted me saying ‘I feel we were working together in the night’, she shared an image of a blue circle.
~hag, the red mountains of Asheville Oct. 2019
I shared a dream I had that same night inspired by my time in the mountains of Asheville: ‘A circle of women were on the mountain. So many shooting stars. We watched a meteor – a burning streak – hit the ground in the center where were standing, creating a steaming ditch in the red earth.
The sun rose, & I was alone. I walked over to the ditch & something pushed me in. I stepped on the still hot cosmic iron with my bare feet & my left foot starting bleeding; but then the red blood turned into clear fresh water & I knew it was feeding the earth. I awoke to wild winds, & went to the lake to watch the sun rise.
Marta Such
This mixing of the blue & the red was something that has lived in Angela & me since I talked about it in my ‘Cain & Abel’ presentation on the 2 streams for the AGM in New Orleans.
Angela said, why don’t you fly into Atlanta & I will be the driver for the tour!
She was pondering the question & idea that MLK was born & did so much of his work in Atlanta, but he chose to die in Memphis. This needed to be a stop on the road-trip.
We took the idea into our sleep for 3 nights, & it became clear –
Ivy Green birth place of Helen Keller photo by Deb Abrahams-Dematte
YES, we must take this journey, stopping also at the birthplace of Helen Keller, & offering the program in Auburn Alabama for Helena Burkart & her many friends, as well as exploring Muscle Shoals, located alongside the Tennessee River, the unlikely sacred ground for some of America’s most creative & defiant music, born under the spiritual influence of the ‘Singing River‘ as Native Americans called it.
sorry i can’t get it to turn, selfie by Deb
Feeling the call to out-picture the ‘3 sisters’ which resonates so strongly for us, Angela suggested we reach out to our dear friend Deb Abrahams-Dematte, Director of Development for the Anthroposophical Society in America, who was so present at the recent AGM. And so the ball was rolling for our All Souls Southern Tour…
stay tuned as the journey continues…
***
POD (Poem Of the Day)
Carrie Ann Baade
~ I meet the angel guarding the gate The broken bulk of her wing I bear across my shoulders Hot is the searing of her sigil in my brow I roam in my vigil breathing darkly Annealed in sacred light Seeking the seal of her cloak ~hag
***
22 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Venus & Jupiter meet low in the southwest during twilight. On Saturday & Sunday evenings they’ll appear even closer. Right after it’s fully dark, Vega is the brightest star, higher in the west. Its little constellation Lyra extends to its left or lower left. Farther in the same direction, about a fist and a half at arm’s length from Vega, is Albireo, the beak of Cygnus. Farther on in the same direction are Tarazed, & just past it, Altair.
November 22 is the 326th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. 39 days remain until the end of the year. In the ancient astrology, it is the cusp day between Scorpio & Sagittarius. In some years it is Sagittarius, but others Scorpio.
Feast Day of Saint Cecilia patroness of musicians.
1744 – Birthday of Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, 2nd First Lady of the United States
1819 – Birthday of Mary Ann Evans known by her pen name George Eliot, an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator & one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Throughout her career, Eliot wrote with a politically astute pen, presenting the cases of social outsiders, small-town persecution & depictions of rural society. Much of the material for her prose was drawn from her own experience. She shared with Wordsworth the belief that there was much value & beauty to be found in the mundane details of ordinary country life.
1963 – Deathday of President John F. Kennedy, assassinated by the CIA.
1963 – Birthday of C. S. Lewis, British writer, critic & Christian apologist – one of the ‘Inklings’, some of whom were academics at Oxford University: Owen Barfield, J. A. W. Bennett, J. R. R. Tolkien, Percy Bates…
1968 – The Beatles release The White Album.
1999 – Birthday ofUltra-Violet Archer, born 11.22.99 butt 1st on the Full Moon 9:44 pm.
A Poem for your 20th natal return:
You, who is making the withered tracery sing Ensouling tress with your haloed heart Golden in the choral glow. Linger dear one Over the calyx of a rose & listen. Then ask. Watch your fingers creasing the lucent strings of rain The graceful vibrato condensing in a modern mist of sound A lacework stroking & cloaking your senses Do you see how the soaked lily inclines So reverently in the grist of your holy ground? ~hag
Greetings friends – The question for me is always, where do I start? For this 1st installment of the write-up for the ‘All Souls Southern Tour’, what came was to just be real, to be vulnerable, to start with the genesis of my own All Souls healing journey. And so it is:
~photo by Angela Foster
Verse for Our Beloved Dead by Rudolf Steiner:
May my heart-love reach to soul-love. May my love’s warmth shine to spirit light. Thus, I draw near to you. Thinking spiritual thoughts with you, Feeling cosmic love in you, Willing in spirit through you – Weaving with you One in experience.
~hag
I have always had an ‘Ancestor Shrine’. A kind of altar table layered with pictures, Mass cards, candles, crystals, bells, art offerings & the letters I written to the dead over the years. My Strega Nona taught me to place a fresh glass of water there every morning with a greeting. Starting with the Michaelmas season I often feel a pull to consciously tune in more. Sometimes I awake with the idea to bring a favorite food or an urge to sit there in meditation, or offer my research or reading; this ‘altar’ is after all, right next to my computer in my study where I do all my spiritual scientific work. Last year I began to know that I could recite the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ with my parents in mind. For many years it was difficult for me to engage with them, as the karmic knot was too tight, too painful. But my angel insisted, & so I push thru, & little by little the forgiveness & healing expands into all worlds.
~hag
As fate would have it a few years ago I was asked to come out to Nashville & Knoxville TN. to bring various anthroposophical programs, & I knew it was another opportunity for me to do some ancestral healing.
~hag
I have spoken about how my mother’s people came to the Knoxville/Milan/Skullbone TN area from Ireland. They raped & pillaged into the Chickasaw tribe, intermarrying, but then proceeding to become founders of the KKK in that area. Feeling the shame of the ‘sins of the father’s’, I had avoided the South all my life, going only once before when I was in a band, stopping in while on tour, for a family reunion after my mother had died.
~hag
I often imagine that my parents are still in the Kamaloca phase in their life between death & rebirth. Our dear Dr. Steiner shares with us that the human soul spends the beginning of this journey in what he refers to as the ‘Region of Burning Desires’ (in Hindu it is called Kamaloca, or in Christian verbiage-purgatory). On average we spend 1/3 of our lives in sleep, the little death, & so it is that we spend this same ratio purifying our passions, coming to terms with & reviewing our recent life on earth. This is a crucial time to reach across the threshold to help those on the other side in this phase closest to earth, especially since they are experiencing our time together. And so I offer them this Steiner Prayer:
I look to you in the spirit world In which you are. May my love mitigate your heat. May my love mitigate you’re cold. May it come through to you and help you To find the way From the spirit’s darkness To the spirit’s light.
Tomorrow my girl turns 20. & I know the work that I do on healing the ancestral line will reverberate into the future for all my relations…
~photo by Angela Foster
I am so grateful to my Southern friends, who have allowed me to meet this part of myself, thru the work that I share, to do some deep healing; welcoming me into their communities, which I see as my chosen family.
~hag
Coming this time for our ‘All Souls Southern Tour’, there was a big shift,
which I will go into tomorrow.
Thanks for walking with me on the path…
~hag
***
~Barbara Mckernan
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~The clouds cut A formless form Into the heavy throne of some kind of queen Only never my mother. & yet a clue unfolds & holds The encoded map Star clusters speaking the scope Of the stream, sunk In the occlusion of tears & corals Pried away from glistening birds Weaving treasures into stinging prayers & future symphonies. ~hag
***
21 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Look for Bella Luna waning in the east next to Regulus the next few mornings.
A very obscure meteor shower known as the Alpha Monocerotids is currently plowing streams of dusty particles that sputter off comet nuclei when they approach the Sun. The peak occurs TONIGHTstarting around 10:50 pm CST. The shower’s radiant is in the obscure constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn, not far from the bright star Procyon, the easternmost star in the Great Winter Circle. Procyon will be low in the eastern sky at 10 pm.
164 BCE – Judas Maccabeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restores the Temple in Jerusalem. This event is commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.
1676 – The Danish astronomer Ole Rømer presents the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light.
1694 – Birthday of Voltaire, a French Enlightenment writer, historian, & philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile & prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, & historical & scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters & more than 2,000 books & pamphlets. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. He adopted the name Voltaire in 1718, following his incarceration at the Bastille. It is an anagram of AROVET LI, the Latinized spelling of his surname, Arouet, & the initial letters of le jeune (“the young”). According to a family tradition he was known as le petit volontaire (“determined little thing”) as a child, & he resurrected a variant of the name in his adult life. The name also reverses the syllables of Airvault, his family’s home town in the Poitou region. Voltaire perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the Church as a static and oppressive force useful only on occasion as a counterbalance to the rapacity of kings, although all too often, even more rapacious itself. Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma, & the French institutions of his day.
1783
– In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de
Rozier & François Laurent d’Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air
balloon flight.
1789 – North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution & is admitted as the 12th U.S. state.
1811 – Death day of Heinrich von Kleist, German poet & author, spoken about by Rudolf Steiner in THE INNER ASPECT OF THE MOON-EMBODIMENT OF THE EARTH.How can we fail to recognise that this man’s spirit in its entirety as he stands before us, is an actual living embodiment of that which dwells in the depths of the Soul, which we must trace back to something other than the life of earth if we wish to recognise it? Has not Heinrich Von Kleist described in the most significant manner what may live within a man (a description of which you will find at the very beginning of The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Mankind), as something transcending him and driving him, and which he will only understand later on if he does not snap the threads of his life before! Think of his ‘Penthesilea’; how much more there is in her than she can span with her earthly consciousness! We should not be able to describe her at all, did we not take for granted that her Soul was immeasurably further advanced than the narrow little soul (although it was a great one) which she could span with her earthly consciousness. Hence a situation must arise which artistically introduces the whole process of the Drama. Indeed, it was necessary to prevent the whole transaction — which Kleist introduces with Achilles — from being grasped with the higher consciousness; otherwise the whole tragedy could not be perceived. Hence Achilles is called ‘her’ Achilles. What lies in the higher consciousness must be plunged into the non-conscious. Again, what part does this subconsciousness play in Katchen Von Heilbronn, especially in the remarkable relation between her and Wetter Von Strahl, which plays no part in the higher consciousness, but in the deeper strata of the Soul where dwells the forces of which man knows nothing, which pass from one to another. When we have this before us we can trace the spiritual nature of the world’s forces of gravity and attraction. For instance, in the scene where Katchen stands before her admirers, do we not feel what lives in the subconsciousness, and how it is related to what is outside in the world which has been dryly called the forces of our planet’s attractions? Yet only 100 years ago a truly penetrating and striving mind was not able to find his way into that subconsciousness. But it must be done to-day. And the tragedy of a Prince of Homburg strikes us in a very different way now. I should like to know how an abstract thinker, one who accounts for everything by reason alone, could account for a figure such as the Prince of Homburg, who carried out all his great deeds in a kind of dream-state, even those leading finally to victory. Kleist indicates very clearly that he could not possibly gain the victory by means of his higher consciousness, for as far as that was concerned he was not a particularly great man, for he whines and whimpers over everything he has to do. Only when by a special effort of the will, he brings up what dwells in the depths of his Soul, does he play the man.
1877 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.
1905 – Albert Einstein’s paper that leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula, E = mc², is published in the journal Annalen der Physik.
The Emperor of Austria, who now belongs to the deposed royalty, before he was chased out carried around along with his other titles a most unusual one: Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slovenia, Galizia, Lodomeria, Illyia and so on. Among all these titles was also “King of Jerusalem!” The Austrian Emperor also carried, until he was no longer emperor, the title “King of Jerusalem.” It came from the crusades. It would be impossible to give a better example of meaninglessness than this. And such meaninglessness plays a much greater role than you imagine. It is a question of whether we can arise to a recognition of the present-day platitudes. It is made difficult because those who live in platitudes are the verbal representatives of the old concepts that stagger around in their brains imitating thoughts. But one can only achieve real thinking again when the inner soul-life is filled with substance and that can only come from knowledge of the spiritual world, of spiritual life. Only by being relieved by the spirit can one become a complete person, after having been constipated with platitudes. What I described yesterday as a feeling of shame will result in the call for the spirit. And the propagation of the spirit will only be possible if the spiritual/cultural sector is allowed to develop independently.
1927
– Columbine Mine massacre: Striking
coal miners are attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police
dressed in civilian clothes.
***
13 December 2019 Rudiger Janisch:
The 3 fold human being , the Foundation Stone & the 3 fold social organism 7 pm – 9 pm &
14 December 2019- 9 am – noon
Rüdiger has been working in Curative Education and teaching in professional training programs in Germany and the United States for over 40 years. A long-time student of anthroposophy, he serves on the Collegium of the School for Spiritual Science in North America. His contributions to adult education methods were recognized in the context of an international research project sponsored by the European Union. He has been a member of the core faculty of a joint ‘Training for Trainers’ program supporting Curative Education and Social Therapy in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan. He has also taught as an adjunct faculty member of the M.S. Ed program in Waldorf Remedial Education at Antioch University N.H. Having taught many different aspects of anthroposophy and Curative Education, he currently is focused on action research and the development of artistic and experiential approaches to the spiritual scientific study of the human being.
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