HERE IS THE RECORDING of Vitae Sophia~ A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, with Guest Speakers Lisa Dalton & Geoff Norris
Online Whitsunday, 31 May 2020 Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire
Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
“The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.”
~T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
George Floyd, a 46 year old black man, is handcuffed on his stomach as a Minneapolis police officer presses his knee into his neck. Floyd lies immobilized, groaning on the pavement as cars rush by, police radios beep & bystanders gather, yelling that his nose is bleeding, entreating the officers. “Hey, let him breathe, man!”
“Please, man!” Floyd begs as he is ground into the pavement. His cries mix with the ambient noises around him. They are the disjointed sounds from the clash of belief systems & competing visions of sovereignty, of ownership, of authority over black bodies compressed into the narrow frame of Floyd’s last moments.
“Momma!” the black man calls out. “Momma! I’m through,” the dying man says.
A call to your mother is a special prayer, a sacred invocation. George Floyd’s mother died two years ago, but he called her now, in his darkest hour of need.
“He is a human being!” comes an anguished plea from someone in a desperate attempt to engage the officers’ reason, or compassion, or oath of office. But in that moment, those officers are beyond the reach of their own humanity.
I didn’t want to click on the video. I didn’t want to see another police snuff film. I didn’t want to watch whatever it is that compels someone to put his knee into a man’s neck, until he can no longer draw breath. But I heard this black man had called out to his momma as he lay dying – A prayer since time immemorial, a sacred call. And we are asked to bear witness.
Dying soldiers called out for their mothers, according to Civil War battlefield reports. Last year, an article from The Atlantic cited a hospice nurse. “Almost everyone is calling for ‘Mommy’ or ‘Mama’ with the last breath.”
The Mother is the anchor – A way for those who are close to the edge to find their way back, or to find their way home.
As bystanders scream at Minneapolis officers, “He’s dying. You’re f—ing killing him,” Floyd is no longer moving, he is perhaps already dead.
To call out to his mother is to be seen by his creator – The one who gave him life.
Will we see him?
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
31 May 2020 – WHITSUNDAY
‘The Feast of the Visitation’ – The visible actors (see Luke 1:39-45) are Mary & Elizabeth, 2 MOTHERS TO BE, although Jesus & John the Baptist steal the scene. John leaps with joy in the womb of Elizabeth, who in turn, is filled with the Holy Spirit & addresses words of praise to Mary—words that echo down through the ages. Then comes the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55).
One of the invocations in Mary’s litany is “Ark of the Covenant.” Like the Ark of the Covenant of old, Mary brings God’s presence into the lives of other people. As David danced before the Ark, John the Baptist leaps for joy. As the Ark helped to unite the 12 tribes of Israel by being placed in David’s capital, so Mary has the power to unite all in her Son.
1809 – Deathday of Austrian composer Franz Haydn
1819 – Birthday of Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist, & journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism & realism, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene.
1875 – Birthday of occultist Eliphas Levi. Steiner refers to his Mexican incarnation in the Karma lectures Vol. 2
1916 – Battle of Jutland, beginning of the end of British sea power
1942 – Deathday of Reinhard Heydrich, assassinated in Prague. A high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, one of the main architects of the Holocaust. Many historians regard him as the darkest figure in the Nazi elite; Adolf Hitler described him as “the man with the iron heart”.
1962 – Deathday of Adolf Eichman, a German Nazi SS, one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was working with Reinhard Heydrich facilitating & managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to extermination camps. In 1960, he was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Following a widely publicized trial in Israel, he was found guilty of war crimes & hanged on this day in 1962.
~ ~ ~
~I bring offerings to She who is & Them that are not:
Moly & frankincense & visions of peace unending…
I bring turquoise & silver & carnelian, the stone of earth’s joyful singing…
I bring the earth, ground deep into the pores of my skin…
I bring yesterday & today & the Sun & the waning crescent Moon
Rising at midnight between them
I come with the roar of wind & time – like 2 lions mating in my mind’s eye
To give birth to my breath…
~hag
***
Friday 19 June 2020 – Front Range Anthroposophical Café presents:
The New Mysteries of St. Johns-Tide with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
To pass the test of Summer we will explore many questions:
- How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of the Summer-Tide, to consciously embody ‘the spiritual wisdom of the gods’?
- Who is the mysterious Archangel of Summer?
- Who is John the Baptist? What do his sayings “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” And “He must increase, but I must decrease.” really mean?
- What is the secret to healing the ‘soul-fever’ so prevalent in society today?
- What is the mystery of the Dragon-fly, & other elemental beings?
- How can we understand the ‘Cycle of the Year as Breathing Process of the Earth’?
Together we will work to strengthen our true “I”, enlivening our will forces.
We look forward to seeing you on Friday 19 June 2020 shortly before 7 PM (Mountain time.) Here is the link to our Anthroposophical Café and all you need to do to join us is click on it: https://zoom.us/j/294724669.
Warmly, Karen vann Vuuren, Tom Altgelt, Jamie York, and our growing circle of Café Friends – It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
