Monthly Archives: March 2020

“Matter is woven light, the soul is cultured love”.

Friday the 13th March 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Right after dark at this time of year, 5 carnivore constellations stand upright in a row (emerging from hibernation?), from the northeast to south. They’re all seen in profile with their noses pointed up & their feet to the right. They are Ursa Major the Big Bear in the northeast (with the Big Dipper as its brightest part), Leo the Lion in the east, Hydra the Sea Serpent in the southeast, Canis Minor the Little Dog higher in the south-southeast, & bright Canis Major the Big Dog in the south.

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A few days ago on 3/11 (interesting date) it was the anniversary of The 1918 influenza pandemic, known as the ‘Spanish Flu. Analysis of medical journals from the period of the pandemic found that the viral infection was no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. Instead, malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps, hospitals, & poor hygiene promoted bacterial superinfection. This superinfection killed most of the victims, typically after a somewhat prolonged death bed.

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Considering this historic fact it is interesting to note that on this date 3/11/2020, it was ‘officially’ announced that the corona virus is a ‘pandemic’.

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Nutshell compiled from resources below: Viruses come from from the animal kingdom, when the human astral realm is imbalance. “We are currently inflicting unspeakable suffering on animals: from mass slaughter, to experiments with laboratory animals, which leads to pain. Can this suffering lead to consequences that change viruses that are native to the animal organism to the human being?”

Whenever humanity brings an imbalance, illness arises; but nature can always provide a remedy. Our beloved ones in the spiritual world can help us find these remedies.

What else can we do? Avoid alcohol, moderate sugar & maintain a rhythm of life with sufficient sleep & an active relationship with the sun. Potentized phosphorus & potentiated meteor iron in the morning can also support the immune system as light substances.

What weakens the lungs? Two things: lack of relationship with the earth and the sun & social tensions. We must not run away from the other, we must balance social tensions.

Medicine has promoted the belief that vaccinations can protect us against all types of infection. That is a mistake. Vaccination only offers a protection rate of 10 to 30 percent. Careful hand washing & hygiene when blowing your nose & coughing are also effective – without possible side effects. It’s also an important step to let go of a fearful, defensive picture of the environment & your own body & ask what you can do, trusting your own immune system. Sending the light of hope to the world.

All life is One Being. Matter is woven Light. Soul is cultured Love. When there is imbalance humanity is called to bring light to darkness & love to fear, hatred & doubt.

From the Goetheanum except: “…where do these obviously new viruses come from and why did they arise? Interestingly, many of the viruses come from the animal kingdom. The Corona virus probably from the Javanese bat. Why are viruses from the animal kingdom becoming dangerous for humans? We are currently inflicting unspeakable suffering on animals: mass slaughter right up to experiments with laboratory animals lead to pain to which the animal world is helplessly at the mercy. Can this suffering lead to consequences that change viruses that are native to the animal organism? We are used to looking only at the physical level and mostly seeing it separately from the mental level. Research on the intestinal flora, the microbiome, which includes not only bacteria but also viruses, proves the opposite. This raises not only the microbiological question about the origin of the virus, but also the moral question of how to deal with the animal world. Rudolf Steiner pointed out these connections more than 100 years ago. Today it is up to us to investigate these relationships and to ask deeper questions in addition to scientific analysis.

What can we do?

There are now a number of measures in personal behavior that support the organism in coping with the disease. This includes avoiding alcohol, moderate sugar consumption and maintaining a rhythm of life with sufficient sleep and an active relationship with the sun. What our immune system often suffers from is the lack of sunlight, a deficiency that has the greatest impact in March. This is due to the lack of sun over the winter months and reminds us that it is extremely worthwhile to go outside every day and in winter if possible, and thus to connect with the periphery, elementarily with the cosmos. Rudolf Steiner went into the foundation of anthroposophic medicine, Even before vitamin D was discovered, tuberculosis described it in detail. It applies to the immune system that vitamin D tablets can only replace the absorption of sunlight to a limited extent. Potentized phosphorus and correspondingly potentiated meteor iron in the morning can also support the immune system as light substances. For those who are older and perhaps have to do with cardiovascular diseases, anthroposophical basic means for the cardiovascular system, regular walking and adequate sleep are also recommended. Those who sleep less than six hours are much more susceptible to such infections.

A healthy breath to fellow human beings

If there is an illness, then the patient is now kept in quarantine, although minor cases can now also be treated at home. What seems important to me is the fact that anthroposophic medicine has decades of experience in treating viral and bacterial pneumonia without antibiotics with anthroposophic medicines and external applications that can be extremely effective. The medical section of the medical section has developed a corresponding therapy scheme and made it available to international medical colleagues.

What weakens the lungs Two things: lack of relationship with the earth and the sun and social tensions. It is therefore advisable to protect your own lungs, this respiratory organ, from the inside and outside by trying to balance social tensions. In my view, those who are in unresolved social conflicts are at greater risk here. Medicine has promoted the belief that vaccinations can protect you against all types of infection. That is a mistake. Even flu vaccination only offers a protection rate of 10 to 30 percent; Careful hand washing and hygiene when blowing your nose and coughing are also effective – without possible side effects. So it’s an important step to let go of this fearful, defensive picture of the environment and your own body and ask what you can do yourself.

From Rudolf Steiner: “…nature which causes us to rejoice has within it at the same time the mighty healer for all the damage man can cause himself. Somewhere in nature the remedy is concealed. It is a question, not only of understanding the language of the healer, but also of obeying it and really carrying it out. Today it is in most cases impossible for us to hear the voice of healing nature because our misunderstanding of light, and the darkness which has penetrated into knowledge has in many respects brought about conditions preventing us from hearing.

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Here again we see a remarkable connection which allows us to perceive the whole great world, inclusive of mankind, as One Being. In the sayings: ‘Matter is woven light,’ and ‘the soul is in some way or other diluted love,’ are to be found the keys of innumerable secrets of earth existence. Thus we have shown nothing less than that we, if in any way we alter the direction of karma, unite ourselves in one or the other case with the elements composing our earth existence: on the one side with light which has become matter — and on the other side with love which has become soul. We either draw the remedies out of our surroundings, out of the condensed light, or out of our own soul by the healing loving act, the sacrificial act, and we then heal with the soul-forces obtained from love. We unite ourselves with what is most deeply justified upon the earth, when, on the one hand, we unite ourselves with light and on the other with love. All earth conditions are in some way conditions of balance between light and love and everything unhealthy is a disturbance of that balance. If the disturbance is in love, we can then help by unfolding the forces of love; and if the disturbance is in light, we can then help by somehow providing for ourselves, out of the universe, that light which is able to dissolve the darkness within us.

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These are the fundamental ways of help, and we see again how everything depends upon the balance of opposites. Light and love are polar opposites and on their being interwoven depend ultimately all the psychic and material processes of our life.

In this connection I should like to note that just in such times as our own, a characteristic in many people is that they completely forget, and pay no attention to, that which one may call ‘the consciousness of a super-sensible world.’ They pay no attention whatever to the fact that there is a spiritual world, and they therefore turn away their thoughts from it. In such an age — or in all such ages — there is always in certain respects a counterpart to be found. I should like to show you this in a very simple manner.

When there are people upon the physical plane who are so absorbed in the physical that they completely forget the spiritual, then a contrary tendency appears among those souls who are living in the spiritual world between death and a new birth — a tendency which works over from the physical into the spiritual plane — impelling them to occupy themselves with the influences which act out of the spiritual world into the physical. It is this which brings about in the physical world the intervention by souls who are still in that state before birth. These souls work down into the physical world according to the means which offer and they are able to work indirectly through persons who are more sensitive to such influence from the spiritual world.

hag

The dead are anxious show in a palpable manner that there is indeed a spiritual world.

This is intended to illustrate how in the world and in world affairs we see continual disturbances of the balance, and then again the efforts for the restoring of the balance.

This continual disturbance and restoration of the balance between the two elements of light and love is fundamental for us; and in human karma, from incarnation to incarnation, both work to restore the disturbed condition. Karma, working its serpentine way through incarnations is just such a disturbed balance, until man, after all his incarnations, shall at last create the final balance which can be reached upon earth. Having fulfilled his mission on earth, he evolves then into a new planetary form.

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Hima af Klint

I have not shrunk from touching to-day upon those mysteries for which our modern science will not for a long time be ripe: Matter is in reality woven light, and that which belongs to the soul is in some way or other refined love. These are ancient occult sayings, but they are sayings which will for all time remain true and will prove fruitful for human evolution, not only for knowledge, but also for human work and action. ~ Manifestations of Karma, LECTURE 10, FREE WILL AND KARMA IN THE FUTURE OF HUMAN EVOLUTION by Rudolf Steiner

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Petey Bond

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Even now in the long pause of possibility
Rumbling beneath its shell
There rises a wild honking
That awakens the calling of Light
& the will to Love

~hag

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Friday the 13th

What is at the root of “triskadekaphobia” (the fear of the number 13)?

Well it could be because all numbers have their own cosmic vibration, & “13” is considered an unstable number. From the time when humans first used numbers to measure things, the number 12 has represented a common cosmic standard. There are 12 months of the year, 12 hours on the clock, 12 signs of the Zodiac, 12 Tribes of Israel, 12 Apostles, 12 Knights of the Round Table & so on. The number 13 represents disruption to the established order.

The modern basis for the aura that surrounds Friday the 13th stems from Friday October the 13th, 1307. On this date, the Pope of the church in Rome, in Conjunction with the King of France, carried out a secret death warrant against “the Knights Templar”. The Templars were terminated as heretics, never again to hold the power & riches that they had stewarded for so long. Their Grand Master, Jacques DeMolay, was arrested & killed on that Friday the 13th.

But In pre-Christian societies, reliance on a lunar calendar meant that Friday the 13th would coincide with the Full Moon or New Moon. It was a day to honor the goddesses & planet Venus in a day-long love-fest! Friday the 13th symbolized a day for everyone to let go, party, & sacrifice routine. Such breaks in the usual order allowed for the restoration of balance & harmony.

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The Scandinavian belief that the number 13 signified bad luck sprang from their mythological 12 demigods, who were joined by a 13th demigod, Loki, a cruel trickster who brought upon humans great misfortune. 

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The number 13, in the Christian faith, is the number of people at the Last Supper, with the 13th guest at the table being the traitor, Judas. 

Whether or not a person considers Friday the 13th as unlucky, belief in superstitions offers a sense of control in stressful situations. Today’s beliefs may very well be tomorrows superstitions.

Take a cue from our forebears. They saw the number 13 as a lucky omen, a time to make a fresh beginning, seeking new roads to success & satisfaction, as we open our heart & mind to new opportunities, luck & love!But just to be safe, don’t step on a crack!

~hag

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KNOW THYSELF – Karma and Anthroposophic Psychology

Postponed until Autumn

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Sacred Gateway: Conscious Living, Conscious Dying, and the Journey Beyond

THIS EVENT WILL NOW BE HELD ONLINE APRIL 17-19.  STAY TUNED FOR NEW REGISTRATION INFORMATION! 

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~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Saturday, 30 May, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm Groh Farm, 135 Temple Rd, Wilton, NH

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.

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?

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’?

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.  

$30 suggested donation at the door, with potluck lunch to follow
(please bring a dish to share) RSVP deb@anthroposophy.org Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year.Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, ‘Anthroposopher’, working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

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Our dear Dr. Steiner said: ‘It is not the Christ we lack, but the knowledge of Christ, the Sophia of Christ, the Isis of Christ we are lacking.’ In ‘Ancient Myths and the New Isis Mystery: Their Meaning and Connection with Evolution’ Lecture 3; given in Dornach, 6 January 1918, by Rudolf Steiner; we hear how the power of ‘The Word, the power of The Logos’, must be resurrected through our striving to activate the Wisdom of Anthroposophia within each of us. Join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg for a powerful presentation Lifting the Veil of the New Isis-Sophia, to bring Light to Love.

Crowning

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Beloved Michaelites, polish your shield until it shines like the Sun, & sharpen the sword of your clear thinking, so that together, we may redeem the Cosmic Intelligence to bring right perspective to our world thoughts today.  

We are called to see the true image of ‘corona’: a circling wreath, an auric rainbow of light revealing the realm of formative forces, the etheric glow of the human being wearing the crown of our divine birthright.

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Our role-model for this crowning can be seen up in the starry sky. Have you ever noticed this circle of light around the Sun on a cloudy day, or embracing Bella Luna when she is Full? (Look for this tonight – it is the Full Worm Moon)

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Amy Harderer

This ‘Crowning’ is a powerful image of childbirth.

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Will we make it our intention to attend humanities Coronation? Or will we participate in the fear-based counter-image of the Corona – a piercing crown of thorns, eclipsing our true nature, a panicked rush toward the war-of-all-against-all, come too soon…?

Jovel Mazzen

Is this another attempt to darken & obscure our vision of the etheric Christ – a continued coup, usurping the Crown of Isis-Sophia – a corporate weapon of terror, gone viral, by the bought & sold media, employed by the lethal beasts of fear, hatred, & doubt…?

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For some time now the world appears to have fallen under the spell of these 3 beasts. And their contagion is like a fast spreading virus –constricting the human heart, creating a shrouding corona of darkness around Mother Earth. These dark spikes of dis-ease drive us apart, dismember us, pin us in isolation.

Whether the concern about this virus is justified, whether it is concocted by the dark brotherhoods, connected with 5G, propagated by corrupt politics, big pharma, & corporate greed; for many people it is a real & present danger.

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Pinkie Laywood

Of course it is always good to be reminded to practice Common Sense, which encourages us to take necessary precautions, like washing our hands & keeping our physical body healthy, by eating well, & exercising; Our mental body strong by practicing the 6 basic exercises, meditating…etc…; Our etheric body agile, with good rhythmic habits; And, purifying our astral body, by letting go of negative emotions & building healing imaginations. Because we know that when we are living in fear, propagating hatred, or fostering doubt, we are not only more susceptible to illness, but we close ourselves off from our fellow human beings – we put up a wall, so that instead of the power of a true Democracy where the people can work together to find solutions & find safety in numbers, we are fighting against each other.

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Marek Jorotta

Is this manufactured (or karmic?) pandemic meant to trigger the negative side of the consciousness soul age, that anti-social part of us – that keeps us from unifying – from developing compassion, interest & love of the other – keeps us under mandatory quarantine, or under house arrest for our own good – a justification for the imposition of global martial law…?

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Sure it’s easy to get caught up in trying to find the narrative, but we must not let the 3 beasts of fear, hatred & doubt creep in & set-up a breeding ground in our thinking, multiplying in our feeling life, infecting our willing – so that we act out, or become frozen – paralyzed.  These beasts certainly create a cold environment, freezing-up the immune system, tightening tensions, giving rise to anxiety.

In the coming years, humanity is expected to face many global crises in various forms. Fear, hatred & doubt will not be good resources for solutions or collaborations.

How can we call out the adversarial powers without getting infected by them? Rudolf Steiner tells us we must recognize, & name these materialistic counter-powers, which foster lies, gossip, suspicion, racism, & hypocrisy. These are the counter-images of the healthy human qualities of warmth, enthusiasm, & reverence – Faith, Hope, Charity & Love – which we must strive to cultivate.

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We can work to redeem these traits in ourselves; this will have its reflection in the world.  Will we take this opportunity to build our courage? This builds the health of our Soul-forces of Thinking, Feeling, & Willing, & makes straight the path of our highest evolution.

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Aristotle ~Rembrandt

Aristotle taught us that courage can be trained. Today, more than ever, dear Michaelites we are being called to take up this training, & put it into action in our every thought, word & deed.  There are many opportunities to do this work together. Come join us in Conscious Community.

~hag

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KNOW THYSELF – Karma and Anthroposophic Psychology — an Easter-Tide Retreat 9 -12 April 2020,

Registration is now open for the Easter-Tide Retreat: “Karma and Anthroposophic Psychology” presented by the Central Regional Council and the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology 

Maundy Thursday 9 April 2020 Noon through Easter Sunday at 3 pm
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL

AAP:James A. Dyson, M.D., Roberta Nelson, Ph.D., and David Tresemer, Ph.D. with Susan Overhauser, Ph.D.

CRC:Marianne Fieber, Alberto Loya, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, David Howerton, Lisa Dalton

Eurythmist: Mary Ruud

Activities:

  • Art-Acts
  • Star Wisdom
  • The Karma Exercises
  • Experiential PAGEANT on Holy Saturday: ‘Sophia-Christos- ‘Know Thyself’
  • Easter Sunrise Songtrail
  • Optional service at the Christian Community
  • Communal meals and time for Conversation

Lectures:

  • ‘Living into Karma through the Senses’
  • ‘How to find the Self in a Sea of Karma’
  • ‘Unfolding the Enigma of the Saturn Path’
  • ‘The Gesture of Karma’
  • ‘Christ as Lord of Karma — how do I access this in terms of my personal psychology?’

Conference Fees (includes 1 meal per day & art supplies):

  • $190 Supporter Level
  • $140 Standard Rate
  • $60 Youth Rate (Age 35 and under)

Limited scholarships available. Click here to apply.

You are welcome to join us for individual lectures or activites $20 or $50 per day

Click here for program information and to register

We are looking for folks in Chicago who can offer Home Stays. Please contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@peoplepc.com

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Sacred Gateway: Conscious Living, Conscious Dying, and the Journey Beyond April 16-19, 2020 in Detroit, MI.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER! 

  • Bring a new consciousness to your own life and death
  • Support those who are crossing and who have crossed over 
  • Expand your practice and knowledge of working with the dying

Through interactive workshops, triad sharing, keynote discussions with Rev. Patrick Kennedy, Sandra LaGrega and Jennifer Fox, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,  Dr. Melinda Toney, and more, as well as experiential and artistic activities, we will consciously explore the spiritual and practical aspect of human life and death. 

Conference Fees:

  • $280 Supporter Level
  • $195 Standard ASA Member Rate
  • $215 Non-Member Rate 
  • $60 Youth Rate (Age 35 and under)

Pre-conference Activities: 

Thursday, April 16  

2 pm Tour of Brightmoor Maker’s Space  

4 pm  Screening of short film The Art of Natural Death Care  Detroit Waldorf School Auditorium- By Donation  

7pm Screening of a Will For The Woods Detroit Waldorf School Auditorium- Open to the public!  $10 Suggested Donation 

Friday, April 17

10:00-1:00p Registration Opens 
10:00-12:00p Choose from two pre-conference activities at the Detroit Waldorf School 

  • Exploring the Beauty of home funerals and green burial: Photo essay and Q&A with Merilynne Rush, MS, End-of-Life Doula Trainer and Home Funeral Guide (Open to the public. Donation accepted at the door) 
  • The Story of Detroit: A Walking Songtrail (Meet in the school playground. Approx. two mile walk)

12:00p Bag Lunch (For Purchase) 
1:00p  Conference Opening 
1:45-3:00p  Keynote Discussion with Rev. Patrick Kennedy: Befriending Death 
3:00-3:30p Break
3:30-5:00p  Festivals for the Dead, the Unborn, and the evolution of Earth – Then and Now. with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg.- – Explore the ancient origins of the many cultural expressions that work with, celebrate, & honor our beloved dead. Prepare the way for the Unborn, and for the future of humanity. Become inspired to Renew or Create your own Tradition. Through Spiritual Science learn to find your destiny, and meet your karma. Prepare for your own conscious crossing into the journey between death and rebirth, by asking questions like: Who have I been? Who am I now? Where am I going…? Who do I want to become?

ALL WORKSHOPS CHOSEN ON SITE  
Fuller descriptions coming soon! 

  • From Loss to Connection Through the Arts: Reading, Writing and Drawing with Marianne Dietzel and Maureen Flannery
    Together we will invite our loved ones across the threshold to join us in experiencing practices thet connect and heal. We will read to the dead, write prose and poetry, and draw from gestures of nature.
  • BIOGRAPHY: GIFTS OF REVIEWING LIFE AND CONNECTING TO LIFE AFTER DEATH     Sandra LaGrega and Jennifer Fox
  • A HOME DEATH CARE STORY: CONSCIOUS DYING AND THE HOME VIGIL~BASED ON DYING OF WAYNE TONEY    Dr. Melinda Toney, Carole Schoaf, and Katherine Blackburn 
  • MULTI-CULTURAL APPROACHES: ANCIENT AND MODERN/ SACRED AND ESOTERIC: FESTIVALS FOR THE DEAD. THEN AND NOW. RENEW OR CREATE YOUR OWN TRADITION  Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Julia Torres and Guests 

5:30-6:30 Choose: Eurythmy (Movement), Singing, or Poetry 
6:30 Evening Appetizer Reception (Included in registration fee) 
7:30-9:00 Evening Performance 

Saturday April 18 – All workshops chosen on site/Saturday Lunch and Dinner for purchase 

8:00 Coffee/Tea/Breakfast Snacks (Included in Regisration Fee) 
8:30-9:15 Choose: Eurythmy (Movement), Singing, or Poetry 
9:30-11:00 Three-Day Themed Workshops   
11:00-11:30 Break
11:30-12:30 Vigil Room Experience  
12:30 – 2:00  Lunch and Table Conversations 

2:15 – 3:45 Topic Workshops
    Workshop Choices Coming Soon! 

3:45-4:15 Break

4:15-5:45 Story Space: Death & Healing 

5:45-7:00 Dinner With Your Dinner Table Groups 

7:30-9:00 Evening Performance with Sarah Putnam: Little Gidding by TS Elliot followed by Memento Mori Ritual 
 

Sunday, April 19 – All workshops chosen on site

8:00 Coffee/Tea/Breakfast Snacks (Included in Registration Fee) 

8:30-9:15 Choose: Eurythmy (Movement), Singing, or Poetry 

9:30 – 11:00 Three Day Themed Workshops 

11:30-1:00 Green Burial Ceremony and Closing 

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Image result for the divine sophia painting

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Saturday, 30 May, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm Groh Farm, 135 Temple Rd, Wilton, NH

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.

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?

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’?

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.  

$30 suggested donation at the door, with potluck lunch to follow
(please bring a dish to share) RSVP deb@anthroposophy.org Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year.Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, ‘Anthroposopher’, working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

***

Our dear Dr. Steiner said: ‘It is not the Christ we lack, but the knowledge of Christ, the Sophia of Christ, the Isis of Christ we are lacking.’ In ‘Ancient Myths and the New Isis Mystery: Their Meaning and Connection with Evolution’ Lecture 3; given in Dornach, 6 January 1918, by Rudolf Steiner; we hear how the power of ‘The Word, the power of The Logos’, must be resurrected through our striving to activate the Wisdom of Anthroposophia within each of us. Join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg for a powerful presentation Lifting the Veil of the New Isis-Sophia, to bring Light to Love.


“Beware the man of one book”

Moon passing Leo, March 6-8, 2020

7 March 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Regulus shines below the nearly full Moon after dark. As the gibbous Moon waxes toward full on the 9th, it crosses Leo.

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Thomas Aquinas by Fra Bartolommeo

How is it they live in such harmony, the billions of stars, when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds?” ~Thomas Aquinas

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

161 – Deathday of Emperor Antoninus Pius, who is succeeded by his adoptive son Marcus Aurelius

321 – Emperor Constantine I decrees that the dies Solis Invicti (sun-day) is the day of rest in the Empire

Carlo Crivelli

1274 – Deathday of Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican Friar & Theologian, “The prince of Scholastics”. Nickname in school=The ‘dumb ox’. Also known as the ‘Angelic Doctor’. “It must be realized that Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th Century, attained the concepts and ideas he elaborated in his writings in a completely different way from the way ideas are acquired today. One must think of his books as being inspired by a spirit from the Hierarchy of the Angeloi and that he recorded what came from a higher consciousness” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Karma of Materialism

Aquinas, who is most renowned for his Five Ways of Proving the Existence of God, believed that both faith and reason discover truth, a conflict between them being impossible since they both originate in God.

Believing that reason can, in principle, lead the mind to God, Aquinas defended reason’s legitimacy, especially in the works of Aristotle. The philosophy of Aquinas continues to offer insights into many lingering problems in Metaphysics, the Philosophy of Mind, & the Philosophy of Religion & Ethics.

Albertus Magnus by Tommaso da Modena

In Rudolf Steiner’s historic sketch of the life of thought in the Middle Ages, he shows how Albertus Magnus ( an earlier incarnation  of Marie Steiner) & Thomas Aquinas ( an earlier incarnation of Aristotle & Rudolf Steiner himself) & the Scholastics of the 12th century gave an impetus towards what in the twentieth century has come to be known as Spiritual Science, or Anthroposophy.

The Middle Ages would not have produced what is called Scholasticism — the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus and the other Scholastics — if this philosophy, this world conception, with all its social consequences, had not been inspired by the most important thought of the Church, by the Easter thought. In the vision of the descending Christ, Who lives for a time in man on Earth and then goes through the Resurrection, that soul impulse was given which led to the particular relation between faith and science, between knowledge and revelation which was agreed upon by the Scholastics. That out of man himself, only knowledge of the sensible world can be acquired, whereas everything connected with the super-sensible world has to be gained through revelation — this was determined basically by the way the Easter thought followed upon the Christmas thought.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Cycle of the Year as Breathing-Process of the Earth

Aristotle by Raphael

Thomas Aquinas made himself thoroughly familiar with the world conception of Aristotle, who becomes, as it were, his master in the life of thought…For centuries, he is il maestro di color che sanno, the master of those who know, as Dante expresses the veneration for Aristotle in the Middle Ages.

Thomas Aquinas had intended on the one hand to investigate the world through physical research and intellectual knowledge but, on the other hand, that he had wanted to supplement this intellectual knowledge with the truths of revelation. But he had done that precisely to gain access to the unifying principle of the world.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, 12 June 1923

Of the great Dominicans, St. Thomas Aquinas is especially noteworthy because in him the influence of the astral body of Christ was manifest to a high degree.”

St. Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas had copies of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into their souls, and it is this fact that allowed them to be such dynamic teachers. They worked from a sphere in which Christ had once lived.

In some cases external events such as natural catastrophes or similar things enhance this weaving of spiritual bodies into the soul of the recipient. It is said of St. Thomas Aquinas that lightning struck and killed his little sister in the room where he happened to be standing, but spared him. He interpreted this lightning bolt next to him to the effect that elemental forces were necessary to help him take up the copy of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth. Elisabeth of Thüringen also had an imprint of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth in her soul”. ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Principle of Spiritual Economy, Rome, March 28, 1909

During the Feast of Saint Nicolas in 1273, Saint Thomas Aquinas had a mystical vision that made writing seem unimportant to him. At mass, he reportedly heard a voice coming from a crucifix that said, “Thou hast written well of me, Thomas; what reward wilt thou have?” to which Saint Thomas Aquinas replied, “None other than thyself, Lord.”

When Saint Thomas Aquinas’s confessor, Father Reginald of Piperno (an earlier incarnation of Ita Wegman) urged him to keep writing, he replied, “I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be like straw” Thomas Aquinas never wrote again.

1792 – Birthday of English astronomer Sir John Frederick William Herschel. In 1864, he published the General Catalogue of Nebulae & Clusters, which astronomers still use today

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell is granted a patent for an invention he calls the “telephone

1913 – The Berlin chapter of the Theosophical Society, of which Rudolf Steiner was president & Marie von Sivers secretary, is officially annulled.

1965 – Bloody Sunday: A group of 600 civil rights marchers is brutally attacked by state and local police in Selma, Alabama

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Susan Breakwood

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Taking the low road
I climb the highest hill
Where the wind whips me
Awake I await the radiation
A flare that tears & makes bright
The night, a bed for the worm moon

~hag

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The term “Anthroposophy” should really be understood as synonymous with “Sophia,” meaning the content of consciousness, the soul attitude and experience that make a man a full-fledged human being. The right interpretation of “Anthroposophy” is not “the wisdom of man,” but rather “the consciousness of one’s humanity.” In other words, the reversing of the will, the experiencing of knowledge, and one’s participation in the time’s destiny, should all aim at giving the soul a certain direction of consciousness, a “Sophia.” ~Rudolf Steiner GA127

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KNOW THYSELF – Karma and Anthroposophic Psychology — an Easter-Tide Retreat 9 -12 April 2020,

Registration is now open for the Easter-Tide Retreat: “Karma and Anthroposophic Psychology” presented by the Central Regional Council and the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology 

Maundy Thursday 9 April 2020 Noon through Easter Sunday at 3 pm
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL

AAP:James A. Dyson, M.D., Roberta Nelson, Ph.D., and David Tresemer, Ph.D. with Susan Overhauser, Ph.D.

CRC:Marianne Fieber, Alberto Loya, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, David Howerton, Lisa Dalton

Eurythmist: Mary Ruud

Activities:

  • Art-Acts
  • Star Wisdom
  • The Karma Exercises
  • Experiential PAGEANT on Holy Saturday: ‘Sophia-Christos- ‘Know Thyself’
  • Easter Sunrise Songtrail
  • Optional service at the Christian Community
  • Communal meals and time for Conversation

Lectures:

  • ‘Living into Karma through the Senses’
  • ‘How to find the Self in a Sea of Karma’
  • ‘Unfolding the Enigma of the Saturn Path’
  • ‘The Gesture of Karma’
  • ‘Christ as Lord of Karma — how do I access this in terms of my personal psychology?’

Conference Fees (includes 1 meal per day & art supplies):

  • $190 Supporter Level
  • $140 Standard Rate
  • $60 Youth Rate (Age 35 and under)

Limited scholarships available. Click here to apply.

You are welcome to join us for individual lectures or activites $20 or $50 per day

Click here for program information and to register

We are looking for folks in Chicago who can offer Home Stays. Please contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@peoplepc.com

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Sacred Gateway: Conscious Living, Conscious Dying, and the Journey Beyond April 16-19, 2020 in Detroit, MI.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER! 

  • Bring a new consciousness to your own life and death
  • Support those who are crossing and who have crossed over 
  • Expand your practice and knowledge of working with the dying

Through interactive workshops, triad sharing, keynote discussions with Rev. Patrick Kennedy, Sandra LaGrega and Jennifer Fox, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,  Dr. Melinda Toney, and more, as well as experiential and artistic activities, we will consciously explore the spiritual and practical aspect of human life and death. 

Conference Fees:

  • $280 Supporter Level
  • $195 Standard ASA Member Rate
  • $215 Non-Member Rate 
  • $60 Youth Rate (Age 35 and under)

Pre-conference Activities: 

Thursday, April 16  

2 pm Tour of Brightmoor Maker’s Space  

4 pm  Screening of short film The Art of Natural Death Care  Detroit Waldorf School Auditorium- By Donation  

7pm Screening of a Will For The Woods Detroit Waldorf School Auditorium- Open to the public!  $10 Suggested Donation 

Friday, April 17

10:00-1:00p Registration Opens 
10:00-12:00p Choose from two pre-conference activities at the Detroit Waldorf School 

  • Exploring the Beauty of home funerals and green burial: Photo essay and Q&A with Merilynne Rush, MS, End-of-Life Doula Trainer and Home Funeral Guide (Open to the public. Donation accepted at the door) 
  • The Story of Detroit: A Walking Songtrail (Meet in the school playground. Approx. two mile walk)

12:00p Bag Lunch (For Purchase) 
1:00p  Conference Opening 
1:45-3:00p  Keynote Discussion with Rev. Patrick Kennedy: Befriending Death 
3:00-3:30p Break
3:30-5:00p  Festivals for the Dead, the Unborn, and the evolution of Earth – Then and Now. with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg.- – Explore the ancient origins of the many cultural expressions that work with, celebrate, & honor our beloved dead. Prepare the way for the Unborn, and for the future of humanity. Become inspired to Renew or Create your own Tradition. Through Spiritual Science learn to find your destiny, and meet your karma. Prepare for your own conscious crossing into the journey between death and rebirth, by asking questions like: Who have I been? Who am I now? Where am I going…? Who do I want to become?

ALL WORKSHOPS CHOSEN ON SITE  
Fuller descriptions coming soon! 

  • From Loss to Connection Through the Arts: Reading, Writing and Drawing with Marianne Dietzel and Maureen Flannery
    Together we will invite our loved ones across the threshold to join us in experiencing practices thet connect and heal. We will read to the dead, write prose and poetry, and draw from gestures of nature.
  • BIOGRAPHY: GIFTS OF REVIEWING LIFE AND CONNECTING TO LIFE AFTER DEATH     Sandra LaGrega and Jennifer Fox
  • A HOME DEATH CARE STORY: CONSCIOUS DYING AND THE HOME VIGIL~BASED ON DYING OF WAYNE TONEY    Dr. Melinda Toney, Carole Schoaf, and Katherine Blackburn 
  • MULTI-CULTURAL APPROACHES: ANCIENT AND MODERN/ SACRED AND ESOTERIC: FESTIVALS FOR THE DEAD. THEN AND NOW. RENEW OR CREATE YOUR OWN TRADITION  Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Julia Torres and Guests 

5:30-6:30 Choose: Eurythmy (Movement), Singing, or Poetry 
6:30 Evening Appetizer Reception (Included in registration fee) 
7:30-9:00 Evening Performance 

Saturday April 18 – All workshops chosen on site/Saturday Lunch and Dinner for purchase 

8:00 Coffee/Tea/Breakfast Snacks (Included in Regisration Fee) 
8:30-9:15 Choose: Eurythmy (Movement), Singing, or Poetry 
9:30-11:00 Three-Day Themed Workshops   
11:00-11:30 Break
11:30-12:30 Vigil Room Experience  
12:30 – 2:00  Lunch and Table Conversations 

2:15 – 3:45 Topic Workshops
    Workshop Choices Coming Soon! 

3:45-4:15 Break

4:15-5:45 Story Space: Death & Healing 

5:45-7:00 Dinner With Your Dinner Table Groups 

7:30-9:00 Evening Performance with Sarah Putnam: Little Gidding by TS Elliot followed by Memento Mori Ritual 
 

Sunday, April 19 – All workshops chosen on site

8:00 Coffee/Tea/Breakfast Snacks (Included in Registration Fee) 

8:30-9:15 Choose: Eurythmy (Movement), Singing, or Poetry 

9:30 – 11:00 Three Day Themed Workshops 

11:30-1:00 Green Burial Ceremony and Closing 

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~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Saturday, 30 May, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm Groh Farm, 135 Temple Rd, Wilton, NH

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.

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?

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’?

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.  

$30 suggested donation at the door, with potluck lunch to follow
(please bring a dish to share) RSVP deb@anthroposophy.org Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year. Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, ‘Anthroposopher’, working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

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Our dear Dr. Steiner said: ‘It is not the Christ we lack, but the knowledge of Christ, the Sophia of Christ, the Isis of Christ we are lacking.’ In ‘Ancient Myths and the New Isis Mystery: Their Meaning and Connection with Evolution’ Lecture 3; given in Dornach, 6 January 1918, by Rudolf Steiner; we hear how the power of ‘The Word, the power of The Logos’, must be resurrected through our striving to activate the Wisdom of Anthroposophia within each of us. Join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg for a powerful presentation Lifting the Veil of the New Isis-Sophia, to bring Light to Love.

Thought Finds Form

4 March 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: At nightfall, Bella Luna forms a nearly equilateral triangle with Procyon to her lower left & Betelgeuse to her lower right. Those are the top two stars of the Winter Triangle; the third is brighter Sirius below them.

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Thought finds form
All that is forgotten returns
Transformed in the doing
This moment marks a time
Like a black obsidian
Reflecting sunlight
Into my mind’s eye

~hag

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Meditation given to Ita Wegman from Rudolf Steiner

On this anniversary of Ita Wegman’s Crossing of the Threshold into the spiritual world, in 1943, here is a memory picture of Dr. Wegman by Dr. Norbet Glas, the founder of the Lucas Clinic, next to the Wegman Clinic in Arlesheim (shared by Dottie Zold)

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‘The request to write about Dr. Wegman has moved me deeply and given me such cause for thought. I have come to the conclusion that there must be very few people whose personality is so difficult to describe as hers. For example, to write a personal account of Dr. Wegman, one must have the gift to create a real and vivid life picture in any description of her. For such she always was : full of a natural, unquenchable source of life – a complete human being, with all the truly human qualities. And such people are admired by many, loved by many, but also misunderstood and even hated by many. Who, then, is right?

Like an answer to this question a memory-picture arises of Dr. Wegman in a room with Rudolf Steiner. Her figure was erect; she was wearing a brightly colored dress. With shining eyes she watched a little group of doctor-friends who had gathered together there. I observe Rudolf Steiner keenly. Never had I seen him like this. He looked at her with an infinitely loving expression. He seemed to me like a father who, with admiration and respect was watching his grown up daughter, and at the same time was very proud of her.

With this picture in mind, one knows for certain, that as long as confidence in Rudolf Steiner remains, one must think of Dr. Wegman too, with admiration and thankfulness.

Simpler pictures ruse up in my memory: the breakfast table in the early days of the Arlesheim Clinic. There of us often sat there together. She was generally first, and waited for us. She did not like one to come late, though I hardly ever heard a direct remark about it. She often read the morning newspaper with the greatest interests, and I know that this rather surprised me. It had been my opinion that Anthroposophists concerned themselves very little with newspapers! But it was characteristic of her, that she had the greatest interest in everything that was happening in the world. It seemed to her just as important to read the Basler Nachrichten as to hear the reports about the patients from us or from the nurses. At times, indeed, something like indignation came over me that she seemed to be more interested in an article in the newspaper than in the report of the night nurse. She did not pay attention to the report, but read and read, and only when she had finished, asked the nurse to repeat it.

Her absolute unwearied activity in those days could only be marveled at. She organized the new Clinic, and saw the patients who were living in; she visited those outside; she held regular consultations in Basle at that time, in the afternoons. She concerned herself with the production of medicines and evolved plans for making them widely known. Her head was full of ideas for the Curative Education Institutes just being established. She sought for connections with many people, and developed these. And with the ingenuousness of someone who is herself unassuming, and asks for nothing for herself personally, she often convinced people how they could put their money to the right use, as she indeed hoped it was. No one can be surprised that many such undertakings went wrong. But she never grew weary of beginning again to discover fresh ways.

In the evenings she often went to Rudolf Steiner, told him of her experiences, asked his advice and listened to what he wished of her. She was late in coming back and we waited for her. Often she told us then what she wished and what Rudolf Steiner had advised.

Her great sense of humour was one of her delightful qualities and hardly anyone in the Clinic could laugh as heartily as she. And as a keen observer, she found very many opportunities for laughter. I can still almost hear her hearty laughter when she once heard me trying awkwardly to say something in Swiss-German dialect to a patient from the village.

If she had a plan in her mind, she tried every way to bring her thoughts to realization. She wanted to try it with everybody, expecting from each the capabilities that were necessary. She was eager to carry it through, and she had confidence in people. If they did not go with her, she soon let the matter drop, without being annoyed with them for long. The proposal was suddenly made to me once (I was then quite young) to become the director of a business. I felt neither the inclination nor had I the slightest ability to fill such a post. (At that time I had only contempt for everything in the business world.) she described to me in glowing colors how well I could do it. I did not wish to undertake it and she realized this at once. I spent a sleepless night. What should I do? The next morning I saw Dr. Wegman again. She was friendly and interested, as always – but nothing more was said about the ‘directorship’ – never a word more. And here let another quality of hers be called to mind which I have hardly ever seen so wonderfully developed in anyone else: if people did not do what she asked, or behaved unfairly towards her, she never held it against them for long. She could be overpoweringly angry, so angry that one could only be astonished at it, but in a short time it was all over, and she was always ready to hold out the hand of reconciliation.

She was so untiringly active that she never gave herself time really to feel seriously hurt. She was filled with a glowing will-power which communicated itself to others. Her one great wish was that the scientific world should recognize the significance of Anthroposophy. She thought that by far the best way would be to let the scientists make direct contact with Rudolf Steiner. In the last years of Rudolf Steiner’s life he came to Vienna. In the morning, Dr. Wegman talked over with us the possibility of arranging a meeting with the greatest scientists of Vienna. That was her plan. And we were so delighted, and so fired with her impulse that we let everything else stand aside, and did nothing but go in search of people who seemed to us important. We invited them, and tried to convince them that they would be missing a rare opportunity if they did not come to our meeting that evening. We succeeded, and Rudolf Steiner came together in the evening with the most eminent doctors and scientists of Vienna; he gave an address, followed by a discussion until late into the night which none of those present will ever have forgotten.

She was so untiring in her efforts to carry Rudolf Steiner’s teaching far out into the world, because she felt the menacing approach of world catastrophes. Rudolf Steiner himself had given enough warning of it, and consciousness of the threatening evils would not let her rest.

Women as active as she often begin to display a certain hardness, and pride themselves on their virility. This was never so with Dr. Wegman; one was always aware of great womanhood. She never tried to imitate men, either, in her broad minded thinking. In fact, she lived entirely in certain plans for the future, as to how a great medical and pedagogical movement, on the basis of Rudolf Steiner’s ideas, might be brought to realization. In the realizing of these ideas, she would allow nothing to disturb her. And the many ‘clever’ men, who so often wanted to show her, by rigid logic, how impossible everything would be or what mistakes she had made – all these she really disliked, and was bored by them. People were offended by this trait in her, for they did not understand it. She would not allow her ardour to be quenched or her untiring zeal to make good use of the time as long as it was still possible to do something. If she had spoken her mind, however, to the person concerned, and he had been very vexed, she was truly sorry. But she would bear with no narrowness, and therefore could not endure certain qualities, such as egoism, vanity, and – most of all – stupidity. If she had been very angry and had spoken in a temperamental way, she would suddenly stop, begin to laugh, and say: ‘But really, it is so stupid!’ And usually it was very stupid. She simply hated that kind of logic by which the spirit is restricted. She had in her something of a power with which she could make the impossible possible. This is needed in true medical work and she had this will to heal as no one else. This fire in her nature stimulated the doctors who were round her, and for that we shall be eternally thankful to her. She was ready to help at any moment. If she was not immediately ready with the advice she wanted to give, she went to Rudolf Steiner, asked him and at once brought the answer. In Vienna I often received word from her within twenty four hours from Basle as to what to do in this or that case.

Like all magnanimous people, she was full of praise and appreciation for good work. I remember how she came once to one of the Homes which indeed had been founded at her suggestion, but had not yet been seen in full working order. In the morning – having arrived the night before – she looked all round, and said, with warm admiration: ‘I could not have believed that Rudolf Steiner would be so alive here!’ And she praised everything. We even felt that it was more than we deserved. But it was such a joy for her when something succeeded, that she found no limits to her praise. Those who accompanied her were not always too pleased about this! But if she noticed it – and she generally did notice – then she made a point of expressing her appreciation all the more!

The last time I was able to see her – shortly before the outbreak of war – she seemed to have greatly changed. One felt a great power of peace flowing from her. But it was no longer the earthly, warrior-nature which used formerly to show itself: now it was deep pain and wisdom. She wanted to help everyone for whom there was something she could do. More people from Germany and Austria asked help from her than she could undertake. How moved she was when one day I brought to her a doctor from Vienna who had fled and waded through a stream in the night, so as to be able to cross the border at an unguarded spot! He possessed nothing but his soaked clothes, and he was quite destitute. She had never seen the man before. All her warmheartedness broke through at such a moment and she did everything that was possible at that time. Long afterwards this doctor wrote with admiration of our ‘Colleague’ at Arlesheim.

If these few pictures from her life help to indicated something of the character of Dr. Wegman, the aim and intention of the writer is achieved. Their purpose has been to bring to remembrance those great human qualities which made her want to lead us towards lofty goals.’

Gloucester, England

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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AD 51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth)

1678 – Birthday of Antonio Vivaldi, an Italian, Baroque musical composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher, & priest. Born in Venice, the capital of the Venetian Republic, he is regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, & his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He composed many instrumental concertos, as well as sacred choral works & more than forty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as the Four Seasons.

Many of his compositions were written for the all-female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children. Vivaldi had worked there as a Catholic priest.

After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, hoping for royal support. However, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldi’s arrival, & Vivaldi himself died, in poverty, less than a year later.

1868 – Birthday of Harry Collison, the 1st General Secretary of the British Anthroposophical Society. In his early days Collison was a Freemason & Theosophist, he founded a group called the ‘Myrdhin’ Group, which was then renamed the ‘Zarathustra’ Group, at the suggestion of Rudolf Steiner.

Collison translated many of Steiner’s works into English, & was involved with the arrangements for many summer conferences held at Oxford, feathering ‘eurhythmy’ in the hall of Keble College.I n 1914 Collison arranged for several performers from Dornach to visit the UK & demonstrate the art to the study groups. The performers were Lori Maier-Smits, her younger sister Ada, Elisabeth Dollfus & Flossy von Sonklar. His exposure to eurhythmy had begun the previous year, when he had participated in the premier of f Steiner’s mystery play, The Soul’s Awakening, put on in Munich. Collison was one of the gnomes.

Even with his heavy involvement with Anthroposophy from 1910, Collison did not give up his artistic interest; in fact he described his subsequent career as “fairly successful”

Due to its continued loud support for Wegman & Vreede, the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain was expelled from the General Anthroposophical Society in 1935. The British Society finally rejoined the General Anthroposophical Society in 1963.

He was variously described by those who knew him as charming, humorous, whimsical & genial, a delightful companion with whom to take a walk in the country or a tour of an art gallery, a provider of wise advice & counsel. He could also be excitable in conversation, authoritarian in his approach to dealing with issues & curt in manner if he lost patience. As Marie Steiner von Sivers, wrote, he enjoyed a rich life.

1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect. The United States Bill of Rights is written and proposed to Congress

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1797 – John Adams is inaugurated as the 2nd President of the United States of America

1852 – Deathday of Nikolai Gogol, Ukrainian-Russian short story writer, novelist, (the Government Inspector) & playwright

1916 – Deathday Franz Marc, killed in action, German painter, one of the key figures of German Expressionism. He was a founding member of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a journal whose name later became synonymous with the circle of artists collaborating in it.

1943 – Death day of Dr. Ita Wegman, co-founder of Anthroposophical Medicine with Rudolf Steiner. In 1921, she founded the first anthroposophical medical clinic in Arlesheim, Switzerland.

Ita Wegman, was born in Karawang, West Java, the first child of a Dutch colonial family. Around the turn of the century, she went to Europe & studied therapeutic gymnastics & massage. In 1902, when she was 26, she met Rudolf Steiner, who encouraged her to become a medical doctor. She began at the University of Zurich, where women were allowed to study medicine.

She developed a special form of massage therapy, called rhythmical massage, & other therapeutic treatments. In 1917, having opened an independent practice, she developed a cancer treatment using an extract of mistletoe following indications from Steiner. This first remedy, which she called Iscar, was later developed into Iscador & has become an important cancer treatment

By 1919 she had a joint practice together with two other doctors, also women. In 1920 she purchased land in Arlesheim, where she opened her own clinic, the Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut, or Clinical-Therapeutic Institute, the next year. A number of other doctors joined the institute, which grew steadily over the next years as a first center for anthroposophical medicine. In 1922 she founded a therapeutic home for mentally handicapped children, Haus Sonnenhof, also in Arlesheim, & co-founded a pharmaceutical laboratory, Weleda, that has since grown into a significant producer of medicines & health-care products.

In the following year, Rudolf Steiner asked Wegman to join the Executive Council of the newly reformed Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. Steiner also named her as the head of the First Class of the School of Spiritual Science. She also directed the Medical Section of the research center at the Goetheanum.

Together, Wegman & Steiner wrote what was to be Steiner’s last book, Extending Practical Medicine (earlier editions were published as Fundamentals of Therapy), which gave a theoretical basis to the new medicine they were developing. The book was partly written while Wegman cared for Steiner, who was already terminally ill. Wegman founded a new medical journal, Natura, the following year.

In 1936, the clinic opened a second home in Ascona, Switzerland. Shortly thereafter, difficulties between Wegman & the rest of the Executive Council flared up,& Wegman was asked to leave the Council; in addition, she& a number of supporters had their membership in the Anthroposophical Society itself withdrawn.

Her medical work & personal inner development flourished, however, & Wegman travelled extensively in support of the rapidly growing movement to extend medicine’s limits; she was especially active in the Netherlands & England during this time.

Dr. Ita Wegman died in Arlesheim in 1943, at the age of 67.

1977 – The 1977 Vrancea earthquake in eastern and southern Europe kills more than 2,500, mostly in Bucharest, Romania.

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Collage by Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

KNOW THYSELF – Karma and Anthroposophic Psychology — an Easter-Tide Retreat 9 -12 April 2020

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Sacred Gateway: Conscious Living, Conscious Dying, and the Journey Beyond April 16-19, 2020 in Detroit, MI.

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~Vitae Sophia~

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

Saturday, 30 May, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm

$30 suggested donation, with potluck lunch to follow.

Groh Farm, 135 Temple Rd, Wilton, NH

RSVP deb@anthroposophy.org

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.

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 – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year. Essayist, Lecturer, Poet,  Trans-denominational Minister,  ‘Anthroposopher’, working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.