Monthly Archives: August 2020

‘The Time is at Hand’

Beloved friends – I am floating up from a deep submersion in How We Will 2020 to share the Zoom link with those who want to experience with me: ‘Wisdom Redeemed: Lifting the Veil of Isis-Sophia’ live in Chicago, & online – Sunday 30 August 2020 at 2:45 pm CDT

Regenerative Symbolism and the Ouroboros in Goethe's Märchen – Sir Knight  Jedediah French
Jeremiah French

As Goethe’s Fairy tale says: ‘The Time is at Hand‘! This is true for many initiatives started a 100 years ago by Rudolf Steiner, including the 3-folding of the Social Realm.

From the Spiritual-Educational-Cultural Sphere, I feel a strong calling that this applies most pointedly also to the sharing of The ‘New Isis Myth’.

The Truth & Power of ‘The Word’ must be Resurrected thru our striving to Activate the Wisdom of Anthropo-Sophia within each of us, bringing Light to Love.

ARE YOU READY TO LIFT THE VEIL?

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29 August 2020 – Jupiter this evening shines just a couple degrees above the gibbous Moon. To their left, Saturn waits his turn.

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The Green Snake and The Beatiful Lily - David Newbatt | Zeichnen, Karten  basteln, Bilder
David Newbatt

History, historical life, will only be seen in the right light when a true consciousness of the connection of the so-called living with the so-called dead can be developed” – The Living and the Dead by Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 5th February, 1918

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast day in remembrance of the Beheading of John The Baptist

The Invention of Christianity: The First 500 Years by Tom Lee – What did  Jesus think?

John the Baptist, truly the greatest of all Men – Still human, He hovers as an Eagle in the realm of the Angels. After his beheading He became the protector of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ & especially of John the Evangelist.

John the Baptist - Wikipedia
Raphael

Did the Eagle land in the beginning of the 20th century on the shoulder of Rudolf Steiner to guide him towards the Second Coming?

The Prophet Elijah | Petit Palais

 “Elijah was destined to be one of the ruling figures in the régime inaugurated by Moses. There had to be Individualities who were not wholly contained in the human personality; one part of their being was in the earthly personality and the other in the spiritual world. Elijah was an Individuality of this nature. Only part of his being was present in his personality on the physical plane; the Ego-hood of Elijah could not penetrate fully into his physical body. He must therefore be called a personality ‘filled with the Spirit’. A figure such as Elijah could not possibly be brought into existence through the normal forces by which other men are placed in the world. In the normal way the human being develops in the mother’s body in such a way that through physical processes the Individuality who has been incarnated previously simply unites with the physical embryo. This could not be so in the case of an Individuality such as Elijah. Other forces had to intervene, concerned with the part of the Individuality that reached into the spiritual world. His development was necessarily attended by influences working upon him from outside. Hence when such Individualities are incarnated they appear as men who are ‘inspired’, ‘impelled by the Spirit’. They appear as ecstatic personalities whose utterances far surpass anything that might issue from their normal intelligence.

The man who lived as ‘Elijah’ was an outstanding example of this. The words uttered by his mouth and the actions performed by his hands did not proceed only from the part of his being actually present in his personality; they were manifestations of divine-spiritual Beings in the background.

When this Individuality was born again he was to unite with the body of the child born to Zacharias and Elisabeth. We know from the Gospel itself that John the Baptist is to be regarded as the reborn Elijah. But in him we have to do with an Individuality who in his earlier incarnations had not habitually developed or brought fully into operation all the forces present in the normal course of life. In the normal course of life the inner power or force of the Ego becomes active while the physical body of the human being is developing in the mother’s womb. The Elijah-Individuality in earlier times had not descended deeply enough to be involved in the inner processes operating here. The Ego had not, as in normal circumstances, been stirred into activity by its own forces, but from outside. This was now to happen again. But the Ego was now farther from the spiritual world and nearer to the Earth, much more closely connected with the Earth than the Beings who had formerly guided Elijah. The transition leading to the amalgamation of the Buddha-stream with the Zarathustra-stream was now to be brought about.

Everything was to be rejuvenated. Thus it was the Nirmanakaya of Buddha which now stirred the Ego-force of John into activity, having the same effect as spiritual forces that had formerly worked upon Elijah. At certain times the being known as Elijah had been rapt in states of ecstasy; then the God spoke, filling his Ego with a force which could be communicated to the outer world. Now again a spiritual force was present — the Nirmanakaya of Buddha hovering above the head of the Nathan Jesus; this force worked upon Elisabeth when John was to be born, stimulated within her the embryo of John in the sixth month of pregnancy, and wakened the Ego. But being nearer to the Earth this force now worked as more than an inspiration; it had an actual formative effect upon the Ego of John. Under the influence of the visit of her who is there called ‘Mary’, the Ego of John the Baptist awoke into activity. The Nirmanakaya of Buddha was here working upon the Ego of the former Elijah — now the Ego of John the Baptist — wakening it and penetrating right into the physical substance.” ~Rudolf Steiner, from The Gospel of St. Luke

ustave Moreau

“If we pass on to the sixth chapter of Mark we hear fully described how King Herod had John the Baptist beheaded. The tortured conscience of Herod arouses a strange foreboding in him. When he hears all that has occurred through Christ Jesus he says, “John, whom I beheaded, has been restored to life!” Herod feels that, though the physical personality of John had gone away, he is now all the more present! He feels that his atmosphere, his spirituality — which was none other than the spirituality of Elijah, is still there. His tormented conscience causes him to be aware that John the Baptist, that is, Elijah, is still there.

But then something strange happens. We are shown how, after John the Baptist had met his physical death, Christ Jesus came to the very neighborhood where John had worked. I want you to take particular notice of a remarkable passage and not to skim over it lightly, for the words of the Gospels are not written for rhetorical effect, nor journalistically. Something very significant is said here. Jesus Christ appears among the throng of followers and disciples of John the Baptist, and this fact is expressed in a sentence to which we must give careful attention: “And as Jesus came out He saw a great crowd,” by which could be meant only the disciples of John, “and He had compassion on them …” (Mark 6:34.) Why compassion? Because they had lost their master, they were there without John, whose headless corpse we are told had been carried to his grave. But even more precisely is it said, “for they were like sheep who had lost their shepherd. And He began to teach them many things.” It cannot be indicated any more clearly how He teaches John’s disciples. He teaches them because the spirit of Elijah, which is at the same time the spirit of John the Baptist, is still active among them. Thus it is again indicated with dramatic power in these significant passages of the Mark Gospel how the spirit of Christ Jesus entered into what had been prepared by the spirit of Elijah-John. Even so this is only one of the main points, around which many other significant things are grouped.

File:Saint Jean-Baptiste au désert, Raphaël (Louvre INV 606) 01.jpg -  Wikimedia Commons
Raphael

I will now call your attention to one thing more. I have several times pointed out how this spirit of Elijah or John continued to act in such a way as to impress its impulses into world history. I have often mentioned that the soul of Elijah-John appeared again in the painter Raphael. This is one of those facts that call attention to the metamorphoses of souls that take place under the impetus given by the Mystery of Golgotha. Because it was also necessary that in the post-Christian era such a soul should work in Raphael through the medium of a single personality; what in ancient times was so comprehensive and world encompassing now appears in such a different personality as that of Raphael. Can we not feel that the aura that hovered round Elijah-John is also present in Raphael? That in Raphael there were such similarities to these two others that we could even say that this element was too great to be able to enter into a single personality but hovered round it, so that the revelations received by this personality seemed like an illumination? Such was indeed the case with Raphael!” ~Rudolf Steiner, Gospel of Mark: Lecture 3

Portrait of a Young Man (Raphael) - Wikipedia
self portrait of Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino known as  Raphael

“The truth is, my dear friends, this earthly personality of Raphael was completely yielded up and was only present through what Lazarus-John gave to this soul to be poured out into colour and line for all mankind.

Such was the life of this being. And it was so, that this Raphael life could only be, as it were, absolved in another life of thirty years — in Novalis. And so we see Raphael die young, Novalis die young — one being, who came forth from Elijah-John, appearing before mankind in two different forms, preparing through art and through poetry the true Michael mood of soul, sent down by the Michael stream as messenger to men on Earth.

And now we behold the wonderful artistic power of Raphael come to life again in Novalis in poetry that stirs and enraptures the hearts of men. All that through Raphael was given to human eyes to see, — of this could human hearts drink deep, when it came again in self portrait of Novalis.

Novalis - Wikipedia

When we consider the life of Novalis, what an echo we find there of the Raphael life for which Hermann Grimm had so fine an understanding! His beloved dies in her youth. He is himself still young. What is he going to do with his life now that she has died? He tells us himself. He says that his life on Earth will be henceforth to “die after her”, to follow her on the way of death. He wants to pass over already now into the super-sensible, to lead again the Raphael life, not touching the Earth, but living out in poetry his magic idealism. He would fain not let himself be touched by Earth life.

When we read the “Fragments” of Novalis, and give ourselves up to the life that flows so abundantly in them, we can discover the secret of the deep impression they make on us. Whatever we have before us in immediate sense-reality, whatever the eye can see and recognise as beautiful — all this, through the magic idealism that lives in the soul of Novalis, appears in his poetry with a well-nigh heavenly splendour. The meanest and simplest material thing — with the magic idealism of his poetry he can make it live again in all its spiritual light and glory.

And so we see in Novalis a radiant and splendid forerunner of that Michael stream which is now to lead you all, my dear friends, while you live; and then, after you have gone through the gate of death, you will find in the spiritual super-sensible worlds all those others — among them also the being of whom I have been speaking to you today — all those with whom you are to prepare the work that shall be accomplished at the end of the century, and that shall lead mankind past the great crisis in which it is involved”. The Last Address given by Rudolf Steiner The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis, Dornach, Michaelmas Eve, 1924

PIERRE PUVIS DE CHAVANNES (1824 - 1898) - The Barber Institute of Fine Arts
PIERRE PUVIS DE CHAVANNES

Pietà

How We Will 2020 NEW Revised Schedule

Online and In Person

Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost & 3fold Cultural Hub: 4251 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago IL 60618 Co-Sponsored by the Rudolf Steiner Branch

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Presenter bio’s

My presentation: ‘Wisdom Redeemed: Lifting the Veil of Isis-Sophia’ is on Sunday 30 August 2020 at 2:45 pm CDT

I want to share that the ‘New Isis Myth’ comes from Rudolf Steiner 102 years ago. These 100 year milestones are an important Rosicrucian mystery; & when they are reached, the impulse set forth a century before, having ripened like a seed in the grave, can now be reborn, renewed & lived into now, to create a future where the New Isis can be unveiled by humanity in full consciousness.

The truth & power of ‘The Word’ must be Resurrected thru our striving to Activate the Wisdom of Anthropo-Sophia within each of us, to Bring Love to Light.

Rudolf Steiner told this tale on Epiphany, the last of the Holy Nights, in his 1918 lecture ‘Ancient Myths & the New Isis Mystery: Their Meaning & Connection with Evolution’.

I have adapted it for HWW, adding some of my art collages, since for me the intentional 3folding of art, science & spirituality, which I hope will be revealed in this presentation, must come forth in our time. Are you ready to add to the story?

(I will be offline until next week. I hope to ‘see’ you in the How We Will ethers!)

Blog | Reverse Ritual | Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of  the Year | Page 5

26 August 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: This evening right after dusk, the Saturn-Jupiter line points straight at Bella Luna to their left. Lower left of the Moon is Antares.

Scorpio

And look down below the Moon, for the star pair known as the Cat’s Eyes: Lambda & Upsilon Scorpii in the Scorpion’s tail.

The Creation of Adam - Wikipedia
Michelangelo The Creation of Adam

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

To truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world.” Rudolf Steiner

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast day of Samuel, literally meaning “Name of God” in Hebrew, is a leader & Judge of ancient Israel. He is also known as a prophet & is mentioned in the second chapter of the Qur’an.  Aa a seer, Samuel is associated with the bands of musical ecstatic roaming prophets.

Feast Day of Melchizedek, (“God most high”) Priest & king of Salem mentioned in the 14th chapter of the Book of Genesis. He brings out bread and wine & blesses Abram. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, he is depicted as being “Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” Jesus Christ is identified as “a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek

“Even when some individual was to be the leader of a particular people he would be required to develop a measure of understanding for every human soul. This is indicated magnificently in the Old Testament in the passage describing the meeting between Abraham and Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High. Those who understand this passage know that Abraham, who was destined to become the leader of his people, underwent an Initiation at this time — even if not in full consciousness as is the case in later Initiations. Abraham’s Initiation was connected with realisation of the Divine element that can flow into all human souls. The passage which tells of the meeting of Abraham with Melchizedek contains a deep secret connected with the evolution of humanity. “~Rudolf Steiner, Between Death & Rebirth, Lecture 2

Feast Day of The Black Madonna of Częstochowa, The Virgin Mary is shown as the “Hodegetria” (“One Who Shows the Way“)The icon has been intimately associated with Poland for the past 600 years.

Its history prior to its arrival in Poland is shrouded in numerous legends which trace the icon’s origin to St. Luke who painted it on a cedar table top from the house of the Holy Family.

The same legend holds that the painting was discovered in Jerusalem in 326 by St. Helena, who brought it back to Constantinople & presented it to her son, Constantine the Great.

The legend concerning the two scars on the Black Madonna’s right cheek is that the Hussites stormed the Pauline monastery in 1430, plundering the sanctuary. Among the items stolen was the icon. After putting it in their wagon, the Hussites tried to get away but their horses refused to move. They threw the portrait down to the ground, as the robber struck the painting twice, the face of the Virgin Mary started to bleed; in a panic, the scared Hussites retreated & left the painting

Women’s Equality Day

1498 – Michelangelo is commissioned to carve the Pietà

1789 – The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is approved- directly influenced by Thomas Jefferson, working with General Lafayette. Also by the doctrine of “natural right“, held to be universal: valid at all times & in every place, pertaining to human nature itself. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by law. Inspired in part by the American Revolution, & also by the Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution & had a major impact on the development of freedom & democracy in Europe & worldwide

1791 – John Fitch is granted a United States patent for the steamboat

1795 – Deathday of Cagliostro, the alias of the occultist Giuseppe Balsamo, an Italian adventurer & self-styled magician. He became a glamorous figure associated with the royal courts of Europe where he pursued various occult arts, including psychic healing, alchemy & scrying. His reputation lingered for many decades after his death. Steiner called him an initiate.

1883 – Eruption of Krakatoa

1910 – Birthday of Mother Teresa

1914 – Rudolf Steiner meets Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff, near Koblenz

1920 – The 19th amendment to United States Constitution takes effect, giving women the right to vote

1942 – The Holocaust in Chortkiv, western Ukraine, over 4000 die

1970 – The feminist movement, led by Betty Friedan, leads a nationwide Women’s Strike for Equality

1995 – Deathday of Daskalos, the Greek word for teacher, a Greek Cypriot mystic & healer. He set up the circle, “The Researchers of Truth.”

1999 – Russia begins the Second Chechen War

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The Sower | Infinite Windows
Van Gogh

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~will you
sow the seeds of premonition
into a fruitful action
to ignite the weave
in radiant expectation…?
~hag


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Michelangelo

“In Michelangelo we have a spirit who helped human evolution on its way because he had a maturity of soul which enabled him to imprint on the world of space and matter significant facts from the spiritual world. He stood wholly in the great current of his times yet his own inmost quality was not fully understood. A friend once wrote to him that even the Pope feared him; and yet in his soul there lived all the greatness of Christian impulses which flowed into his work. While he felt himself at one with the great Christian impulses he yet lived at the dawn of a later epoch — closely though it was still connected with earlier ages. The content of older Christian impulses still affected his soul and out of that he created something which in its form and artistic method was already part of the ties in which we ourselves live. Hence comes the mood of the poem which he wrote — probably during his last days as he looked back over his life — and which makes it clear what our relation is to him, and how we should allow his influence over us to work:

Now hath my life across a stormy sea like a frail barque reached that wide port, where all are hidden, ere the final reckoning fall of good and evil for eternity.

Now know I well how that fond phantasy, which made my soul the worshipper and thrall of earthly art, is vain; how criminal is that which all men seek unwillingly.

Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed, what are they when the double death is nigh?

The one I know for sure, the other dread. 

Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest my soul that turns to His great Love on high Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread. ~ Michelangelo

Michelangelo was a great poet also, and the poems of his which survive show the same spirit which we have found in his sculpture and painting. The last three lines of this sonnet make it clear that he could never be at ease in the world, and that was fundamentally true of him all his life. He was a sort of hybrid, still part of the old but already living within the new. This is particularly evident in that work which he carried out at the instigation of one of the Popes: the tombs of Giuliani and Lorenzo dei Medici.

Dusk and Dawn by MICHELANGELO Buonarroti
 Dawn & Dusk 

In this chapel: the four allegorical figures, arranged two and two: Day and Night, Dawn and Dusk. I have often gazed at them; in fact they are one of the things which by a sort of spiritual compulsion I always look at longest when I have had the privilege of being in Florence. These figures are not mere allegories without force and without vitality. Use every means that Spiritual Science gives you to look at them and think about them; then if we remember that what anthroposophy calls the ego and the astral body leave the physical and etheric bodies at night, and if we ask ourselves what qualities and gesture of the etheric body we should select to represent plastically the truth which Spiritual Science tells us — how, that is, we should picture the physical body of the sleeping human being if we really feel him to be what Spiritual Science describes him as being — we know that he should be represented in the form which Michelangelo has given to “Night”. It is not just a symbol of night but the true spiritual reality of man as he really is in sleep which we have before us in this female figure. Thus Michelangelo, who knew so well how to set the figures in his works within the same space in which we ourselves stand, was also well aware what it means if the soul and spirit leaves man’s physical body but leave it with life still within it. If we also study the other individual members of the human being and then look at the other figures in the tomb, we shall see how closely they run parallel with what I once called spiritual chemistry.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Michelangelo, Berlin, 8th January, 1914

Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici Sculpture by Michelangelo | HowStuffWorks

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Fighter for Freedom

birds. cage. girl. dress. ashley emailed this to me and I love it ...
Ashley Dawn

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~i shepherd the birds in flowering branches
wet
with steaming fragrance…
~hag

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zarathustra-nietzsche-friedrich-9780140441185

“In Zarathustra Nietzsche sketches the world for which he had searched in vain in Wagner, separated from all reality…The disappointment which his idealism had caused him, drove him into a hostile mood toward all idealism. During the time following his separation from Wagner, his works become accusations against ideals. “One error after another is placed upon ice; the ideal is not refuted — it freezes to death.”

 After this Nietzsche looks for refuge in reality; he deepens himself in the more recent natural science, in order that through it he can gain a true guide to reality. All worlds beyond this world, which lead human beings away from reality, now become abominable, remote worlds for him, conceived out of the fantasy of weak human beings, who do not have sufficient strength to find their satisfaction in immediate, fresh existence. Natural science has placed the human being at the end of a purely natural evolution. Through the fact that the latter has conceived the human being out of itself, all that is below him has taken on a higher meaning. Therefore, man should not deny its significance and wish to make himself an image of something beyond this world. He should understand that he is not the meaning of a super-earthly power, but the “meaning of this earth.” What he wishes to attain above what exists, he should not strive for in enmity against what exists.

Nietzsche looks within reality itself for the germ of the higher, which is to make reality bearable…Humanity has the possibility to become superhumanity. Evolution has always been. The human being should also work at evolution. The laws of evolution are greater, more comprehensive than all that has already been developed. One should not only look upon that which exists, but one must go back to primeval forces which have engendered the real.

An ancient world conception questioned how “good and evil” came into the world. It believed that it had to go behind existence in order to discover “in the eternal” the reasons for “good and evil.” But with the “eternal,” with the “beyond,” Nietzsche had also to reject the “eternal” evaluation of “good and evil.” Man has come into existence through the natural; and “good and evil” have come into existence with him. The creation of mankind is “good and evil.” And deeper than the created is the creator. The “human being” stands “beyond good and evil.” He has made the one thing to be good, the other to be evil. He may not let himself be chained through his former “good and evil.” He can follow further the path of evolution which he has taken till now. From the worm he has become a human being; from man he can develop to the superman. He can create a new good and evil. He may “reevaluate” present day values.

Nietzsche was torn through his spiritual darkness. The evolution of the worm to the human being was the idea which he had gained from the more recent natural science. He himself did not become a scientist; he had adopted the idea of evolution from others. For them it was a matter of the intellect; for him it became a matter of the heart. The others waged a spiritual battle against all old prejudices. Nietzsche asked himself how he could live with the new idea. His battle took place entirely within his own soul. He needed the further development to the superman in order to be able to bear mankind.

Thus, by itself, in lonely heights, his sensitive spirit had to overcome the natural science which he had taken into himself. During his last creative period, Nietzsche tried to attain from reality itself what earlier he thought he could gain in illusion, in an ideal realm. Life is assigned a task which is firmly rooted in life, and yet leads over and above this life. In this immediate existence one cannot remain standing in real life, or in the life illuminated by natural science. In this life there also must be suffering. This remained Nietzsche’s opinion. The “superman” is also a means to make life bearable. All this points to the fact that Nietzsche was born to “suffer from existence.” His genius consisted in the searching for bases for consolation.

The struggle for world conceptions has often engendered martyrs. Nietzsche has produced no new ideas for a world conception. One will always recognize that his genius does not lie in the production of new ideas. But he suffered deeply because of the thoughts surrounding him. In compensation for this suffering he found the enraptured tones of his Zarathustra. He became the poet of the new world conception; the hymns in praise of the “superman” are the personal, the poetic reply to the problems and results of the more recent natural science.

All that the nineteenth century produced in ideas, would also have been produced without Nietzsche. In the eyes of the future he will not be considered an original philosopher, a founder of religions, or a prophet; for the future he will be a martyr of knowledge, who in poetry found words with which to express his suffering”.

~Rudolf Steiner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom, Part 4: The Personality of Friedrich Nietzsche, A Memorial Address

Librarians of the Twitterverse | by James Gleick | The New York ...

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” ~H.G. Wells

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The First Quarter Moon Skims Past Saturn | The Astronomical Year

25 August 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: First-quarter Moon. Come nightfall, Bella Luna shines just above Antares & the head of Scorpius.

TOP 25 QUOTES BY PLINY THE ELDER (of 131) | A-Z Quotes

79 – Deathday of Pliny the Elder, Roman commander & philosopher – died while attempting to rescue a friend from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Stabiae that had just destroyed the cities of Pompeii & Herculaneum. The prevailing wind caused by the sixth & largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption overcame his ship

Saint Louis (Louis IX) King of France - by El Greco | Alte kunst ...
El Greco

1270 – Deathday of Louis IX of France, the Crusader King, devoted to his people, founding hospitals, visiting the sick like his patron St. Francis, even caring for people with leprosy. Louis united France. Every day he invited 13 guests from among the poor to eat with him.

Ivan the Terrible: the story of Russia's expansion - Liden & Denz

1530 – Birthday of Ivan the Terrible

scinexx | Galileo Galilei führt Leonardo Donato sein Teleskop vor ...

1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers

TOP 25 QUOTES BY JOHANN GOTTFRIED HERDER | A-Z Quotes

1744 – Birthday of Johann Gottfried Herder, German poet, philosopher, friend of Goethe

“…Herder looks upon the sunrise as a symbol of all waking life — not only in Nature, but also in the human soul, in the human heart. The feeling of dawn within the human soul itself, as though the sun were rising from inner depths — this was wonderfully portrayed by Herder when he tried to show how the poetic mood entered into human evolution, and how this poetic feeling had once upon a time been quickened by all that man could experience when he looked at the rising sun.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Human Questions and Cosmic Answers

Online Exhibition - Out of the Ashes: A New Library for Congress ...

1814 – The U.S. Library of Congress was destroyed by British forces

Faraday_and_Daniell_

1867 – Deathday of Michael Faraday, English physicist & chemist, who contributed to the study of electromagnetism.  Albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his study wall, alongside pictures of Isaac Newton & James Clerk Physicist Ernest Rutherford stated, “When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and of industry, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Faraday, one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time”.

Friedrich nietzsche Painting by Richio Galvez | Saatchi Art
Richio Galvez

1900 – Deathday of Friedrich Nietzsche. Rudolf Steiner mentioned that in a previous life he was a Franciscan monk. Steiner also wrote: Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom GA5. The enigmatic Friedrich Nietzsche was seen by Steiner, but was lying in a coma near death. Nietzsche’s philosophy receives a scholarly & critical treatment & is then related to Nietzsche, the man.

At one point in his life, Rudolf Steiner brought out an edition of some of Nietzsche’s writings. In seeing that Nietzsche’s ideas received a public exposure, Steiner was not identifying himself as one of Nietzsche’s disciples, but rather assuring philosophical readers that this important link in the spiritual development of occidental thought should not be ignored.

Here is Steiner’s Memorial Address The Personality of Friedrich Nietzsche

1914 – World War I: The library of the Catholic University of Leuven is deliberately destroyed by the German Army. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes Gothic & Renaissance manuscripts are lost

National Park Service Organic Act - Wikipedia

1916 – The United States National Park Service is created

1933 – The Diexi earthquake strikes Sichuan, China & kills 9,000 people

1944 – World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies

1948 – The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: “Confrontation Day” between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss.

1950 – President Harry Truman orders the U.S. Army to seize control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike

1981 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn

1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune

2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space becoming the first man-made object to do so

***

August 27-30 How We Will 2020: 3-Folding our Cultural Revolution is continuing its journey of transforming our ideals into action. The theme this year is Forming Curative Communities: actively uniting with one another in the emerging economic, political/rights and social/cultural/spiritual forms seeking to reshape the ills plaguing humanity into a healthy social organism for our time. 

How We Will 2020 – RegistrationPresenter bio’s

Online and In Person

Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost & Cultural Hub: 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago 60618

Co-Sponsored by the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Schedule

Thursday August 27
9:00 Joan Jaeckel and Rosemary McMullen:   Welcome:  Forming Curative Communities of Responsibility
9:30 Nana Woo and Truus Gareats:  Eurythmy
9:45 Stan Padilla:  New Fire
10:30 Break 15 minutes
11:00 Naim Edwards:  Edible Landscapes
12:15 Lunch
1:30 Dottie Zold & Joan Jaeckel:  Threefold Activism – 1919-1921 & Research Fellowship
2:15 Kait Ziegler:  Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival – On the Front Lines
3:30 Break 30 minutes
4:00 Akil Bell:  WILLING MOVEMENT:  Three questions could support the inspiring of the formation of curative communities. 
5:15 Dinner
6:30 Monika:  Myriad Village – Co-creating Intentional Communities
7:15 Angela Foster:  Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
End 8 pm

Friday August 28
9:00 Truus Gareats & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy
9:15 Stan Padilla:  New Fire
9:45 Frank & Patrice:  Unbreakable Agreement & ALIANT
10:20 Break 10 minutes
10:30 Michaela Gloeckler:  Archetypal Pictures – Ita Wegman and the Young Doctors
Noon Lunch
1:15 Bart Eddy:  Brightmoor Makers Rocking Hearts for Detroit
2:15 Melody Brink:  stART international trauma pedagogy – Lesbos – On the Front Lines
3:00 John Bloom:  Toward Justice Through Freedom
4:45 Dinner
6:00 Daniel Collett:  Seeds
6:10 Kim Sherobbi:  To Nurture Community Leadership – Birwood Community House & The James and  Grace Lee Boggs Center
7:00 Angela Foster:  Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
Goethe’s Day of Birth
8:00 End

Saturday August 29
9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy
9:15 Stan Padilla:  New Fire
9:30 Laura Summer:  Art Dispersal – Art for 100% of the People
10:00 Michaela Gloeckler:  Forward Together
11:30 Break 15 minutes
11:45 Melody Brink:  The Birdhunters of Antropocenia in story-form, written by Nathaniel Williams and   with original music by Aldo Lavaggi
12:20 Lunch
1:15 Bart Eddy:  Ideas to Action
2:15 John Bloom:  Capital, Money, Spirit and Matter
3:45 Break 30 minutes
4:15 Patrice Maynard:  Prototyping ALIANT Alliance
5:30 Dinner
7:00 Brandon & Lucien:  Song Offering & Painting
7:15 Community-led conversation:  A Christian/Buddhist/Spirit Conversation:  Money –what does love got to do with it?
8:15 End

Sunday August 30
9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy
9:15 Nicanor Perlas:  The Future is What We Fight For
10:45 Break
11:00 Hazel Archer-Ginsberg:  The New Isis Myth
11:30 Laura Summer:  Art Dispersal
1:00 Lunch
2:00 Patrice Maynard:  Prototyping ALIANT Alliance
3:15 Lucien:  Tone, Words, Trees
3:45 Janna, Elizabeth & Frank:  Standing Under the Sign of Michael
4:15 Stan & Robbi:  Closing the Sacred Fire Community
5:00 End

EXTRA DAY FOR THOSE WISHING TO JOIN ON Monday, August 31st 

9:00 Mutual Aid Networks (MANS):  Kait Ziegler of the Poor People’s Campaign:  A National Call for Moral Revival will share how she and GroundGamesLA raised $100,000 in a week’s time to support unprotected families during the Covid 19 early days by using the MANS format created by Stephanie Rearick of Madison, Wisconsin.

10:15 Next Steps ALIANT: Patrice, Frank, Dottie together with friends will lead a conversation on next steps…

Afternoon Field Trip! A Visit to Sweet Water Foundation

How We Will 2020

***

New Music by Ultra-Violet Archer PILOT put together during the Corona-Crisis when she had to leave Oberlin College. She is now at YIP. Bandcamp is good to artists, most of the proceeds go to the musicians – Support young artists!

‘of knots from threads that karma spun in world becoming’

Today in 1912 was the 1st performance of Rudolf Steiner’s 3rd Mystery Drama: “The Guardian of the Threshold”

The Mystery Dramas strike a deep chord within, bringing notes of destiny Wisdom to sound within our individual life circumstances. They contain extremely concentrated karmic wisdom. A clue to the reason why, appears in the following writings of Rudolf Steiner about his Mystery Dramas:

And actually, one must understand that if some trouble were to be taken to read the things that lie within this drama—not reading between the lines, but if one were to take the trouble to read what lies in the words themselves spiritually—if one were to take the trouble to grasp the Rosicrucian Mystery in just such a way, seeking for these things in the next few years, then it would not be necessary for me to give so many lectures about this or that in the time to come.’

Our theme for the last few years on the Central Regional Council has been ‘Reincarnation & Destiny’. Our attunement to this subject matter is meant to open & awaken individual destiny, as well as the collective karma of the Society, & guide us onto paths of karmic retribution. In relation to the Mystery Dramas, Hans Pusch states the following:

It is a clear sign of genuine relationship to Anthroposophy, if the forces of destiny become more and more active, even though they may be disturbing and uncomfortable. The spirit of our time is an awakener, a conscious troublemaker, and a dis-illusioner. Anyone who feels inner turmoil as a necessary tribute to the forces of progress will be prepared to enjoy the seemingly long speeches in the dramas. In their composition, he will sense inner laws and rhythms that will bring order to his own soul. The dramatic events in the spirit scenes become as real as any physical happenings.’

Our trials help us to understand & have compassion for one another. As Hans says, sometimes it is indeed a daily, almost hourly inner battle with our self to say ‘Yes’ to what destiny throws in our path.

Human's Scribbles: The cult of Steiner

As the scenes of the Mystery Dramas unfold, we become aware of the various interactions between individuals in the course of time.

In the lecture series  ‘The Secrets of the Threshold’ Steiner speaks often of the Mystery Dramas. They give us an objective overview, ‘of knots from threads that karma spun in world becoming’ in the words of Benedictus. (in the Temple Scene of the first Mystery Drama.) In these threads, human lives are interwoven.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is mystery-drama-guardian-seal-1024x768.jpg

In the Temple Scenes of the Mystery Dramas, we experience the manifestation of karmic configurations & their progression in the spiritual development of individuals.

Within our present incarnation, there are deeds to perform to help rectify misdeeds, before we cross the threshold into the life between death & rebirth. We all have knots to loosen & unbind in our individual destiny. By recognizing the characters & situations in the plays, which are similar to our own life, unexpected karmic understandings may be glimpsed.

Full publicity shot of Reginald Owen as Ebenezer Scrooge, seated ...

We can think about the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, well known in Charles Dicken’s story, ‘A Christmas Carol’.  Was it destiny that Scrooge was confronted by the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’? How was his individual retrospect similar from those in the Mystery Dramas?

Dickens’ story is a Michaelic-kamaloca experience. Seeing the pain of the people he was hurting, Scrooge felt the need to make amends for his miserly misdeeds, thereby changing his future destiny & that of others, as well. This striving for atonement is to be developed at every turn on the wheel of the year. May we take stock of what we have reaped & sown as we move toward the harvest season.

In daily life, our trials along the path appear less objective to see & not so beautifully expressed as the poetry we find in The Mystery Dramas. It is, however, the suffering in destiny situations, which leads to soul-growth. Our present state of mind may hold clues to understanding past misdeeds. Likewise does heightened consciousness assist in planting seeds of service for the future of mankind.

from Hans Pusch – ‘Working together on Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery dramas

The Guardian of the Threshold – Scene 10

The Temple of the Mystic League. Here Benedictus, Torquatus, and Trustworthy have the robes and insignia of their office of Hierophant as described in the ‘Portal of Initiation.’ The Eastern altar supports a golden sphere; a blue sphere rests upon the Southern altar; whilst the sphere upon the altar of the West is red. As the scene opens Benedictus and Hilary are standing at the altar in the East; Bellicosus and Torquatus at the altar in the South; Trustworthy at the altar in the West; then enter Thomasius, Capesius, Strader then Maria, Felix Balde, and Dame Balde, and later on the Soul of Theodora; and last of all the four Soul-Forces. (East is stage right & West stage left.)

Benedictus:
The souls of all my pupils have received
The spirit-light, each in that special form
Which was appointed for him by his fate.
What they have now achieved each for himself
Each now must render fruitful for the other.
But this can only happen, if their powers
According unto number’s rhythmic law
Desire to join within the holy place
To form the higher unity, which first
Can waken to true life what otherwise
Could only stay in solitary state.
They stand upon the threshold of the shrine,
Whose souls must first unite, and then shall sound
In unison according to the rules
Imprinted in the cosmic book of fate:
That harmony of spirits may achieve
What each alone could never bring to pass.
‘Twill bring fresh inspiration to the old
Which here hath nobly reigned since Time was not.
To you, ye brethren, I these pupils bring
Who found their way here through the spirit-worlds
And through the strictest proving of their souls.
The holy customs will they treat with awe,
And treasure ancient sacred mystic ways
Which here are seen as powers of spirit-light.
Ye too, who have fulfilled in truest wise
Your lofty spirit-service for so long,
Henceforth will be entrusted with new tasks.
The cosmic plan loth call the sons of men
But for a time unto the sacred shrine,
And when in service they exhaust their strength
It guideth them to other fields of work.
Even this temple had to stand its trial;
And one man’s error had to guard it once,
The guardian of the light — from darkness deep,
One cosmic hour big with the fate of worlds.
Thomasius perceived through inward light
Which rules unconscious in the souls of men,
That o’er its threshold he must not pursue
His way unto the holy mystic shrine
Ere he had crossed that other threshold o’er,
Of which this only is the outward sign.
So of himself he shut the door again
Which you would fain have opened wide in love.
He now will as another come again
Worthy of your initiation’s gift.

***

Star chart showing Venus, Sirius and Orion.

24 August 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Venus shines in the East before the Sun comes up. scintillating Sirius is to the south of Venus, so it’s to the right of Venus as you stand facing east.

History painting – Art Term | Tate
Joshua Renolds

We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost’ ~ Gaston Bachelard

Paintings by Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

01A6AFEQ; Herculaneum is destroyed by  the eruption of Vesuvius
F Matania

79 – Mount Vesuvius erupts. The cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum,& Stabiae are buried in volcanic ash

410 –Sack of Rome by The Visigoths

1185 – Sack of Thessalonica by the Normans.

Gilles Li Muisis | Malerei, Bücher

1349 – Six thousand Jews are killed in Mainz after being blamed for the bubonic plague.

1391 – Jews are massacred in Palma de Mallorca

Amazon.com: Gutenberg Bible Na Page Of Johann GutenbergS 42-Line ...

1456 – The printing of the Gutenberg Bible is completed

The British Burn Washington, D.C., 200 Years Ago - HISTORY

1814 – British troops invade Washington, D.C. burning down the White House, the Capitol & many other buildings

treaty_of_chicago

1816 – The Treaty of St. Louis is signed by the Council of Three Fires (united tribes of Ottawa, Ojibwa, & Potawatomi) residing on the Illinois and Milwaukee rivers. By signing the treaty, they relinquished all right, claim, & title to their land, also a 20-mile strip that connected Chicago & Lake Michigan with the Illinois River. In exchange the tribes were to be paid $1,000 in merchandise over 12 years. Today, Indian Boundary Park in West Ridge, Chicago commemorates this Treaty.

File:The War of Wealth by C.T. Dazey, Broadway poster, 1895.jpg ...

1857 – The Panic of 1857 begins, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in United States history. Since the years immediately preceding the Panic were prosperous, many banks, had seized the opportunity to take risks with their investments & as soon as market prices began to fall, they quickly began to experience the effects of financial panic (will we ever learn?)

The Healing Power of Sunlight: Jakob Lorber: 9781885928108: Amazon ...

1864 – Deathday of Jakob Lorber “scribe of God” a Christian mystic &visionary. Lorber’s prose, an ‘inner voice’ from the region of his heart, has been compared with writings by other mystics such as Emanuel Swedenborg, Jakob Boehme & Rudolf Steiner

Documentary: The Story Of Thomas Alva Edison

1891 – Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera

Mystery Drama Summer School at Threefold [August 8-18, Chestnut ...

1912 – 1st performance of Rudolf Steiner’s 3rd Mystery Drama: “The Guardian of the Threshold”

Amelia Earhart

1932 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the United States non-stop (from Los Angeles to New Jersey)

1944 – World War II: Allied troops begin the attack on Paris

1954 – The Communist Control Act goes into effect, outlawing the American Communist Party

abbie hoffman

1967 – Led by Abbie Hoffman, the Youth International Party temporarily disrupts trading at the New York Stock Exchange by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing trading to cease as brokers scramble to grab them

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1991 – Ukraine declares itself independent from the Soviet Union

RFID/NFC Implants for Bitcoin Transactions — Katina Michael

1998 – First radio-frequency identification (RFID) human implantation tested in the United Kingdom

The Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Archive has found a home at Stanford ...

2004 – Deathday of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss-American psychiatrist & death advocate

Tim Rogerson inspired Pluto painting by Danielle Hobby | Disney ...

2006 – The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines Pluto as a dwarf planet

***

August 27-30 How We Will 2020: 3-Folding our Cultural Revolution is continuing its journey of transforming our ideals into action. The theme this year is Forming Curative Communities: actively uniting with one another in the emerging economic, political/rights and social/cultural/spiritual forms seeking to reshape the ills plaguing humanity into a healthy social organism for our time. Please join us if you’d like to hear from, and collaborate with those on the front lines inspired out of the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s work: can your own hopes for the world find a way to connect with others striving to do the good as our friend Bernard Lievegoed was wont to say? Our own hero Ella Baker shares: ‘we must not stop until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make the struggle for freedom and human dignity everyday, in the year, every year, until they win it.’

Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020

Schedule

Thursday August 27

9:00 Dottie and Frank:   Welcome:  Forming Curative Communities of Responsibility

9:30 Nana Woo and Truus Gareats:  Eurythmy

9:45 Stan Padilla:  New Fire

10:30 Break 15 minutes

11:00 Naim Edwards:  Edible Landscapes

12:15 Lunch

1:30 Dottie Zold & Joan Jaeckel:  Threefold Activism – 1919-1921 & Research Fellowship

2:15 Kait Ziegler:  Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival – On the Front Lines

3:30 Break 30 minutes

4:00 Akil Bell:  WILLING MOVEMENT:  Three questions could support the inspiring of the formation of      curative communities. 

5:15 Dinner

6:30 Monika:  Myriad Village – Co-creating Intentional Communities

7:15 Angela Foster:  Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily

End 8 pm

Friday August 28

9:00 Truus Gareats & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy

9:15 Stan Padilla:  New Fire

9:45 Frank & Patrice:  Unbreakable Agreement & ALIANT

10:20 Break 10 minutes

10:30 Michaela Gloeckler:  Archetypal Pictures – Ita Wegman and the Young Doctors

Noon Lunch

1:15 Bart Eddy:  Brightmoor Makers Rocking Hearts for Detroit

2:15 Melody Brink:  stART international trauma pedagogy – Lesbos – On the Front Lines

3:00 John Bloom:  Toward Justice Through Freedom

4:45 Dinner

6:00 Daniel Collett:  Seeds

6:10 Kim Sherobbi:  To Nurture Community Leadership – Birwood Community House & The James and  Grace Lee Boggs Center

7:00 Angela Foster:  Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily

  Goethe’s Day of Birth

8:00 End

Saturday August 29

9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy

9:15 Stan Padilla:  New Fire

9:30 Laura Summer:  Art Dispersal – Art for 100% of the People

10:00 Michaela Gloeckler:  Forward Together

11:30 Break 15 minutes

11:45 Melody Brink:  The Birdhunters of Antropocenia in story-form, written by Nathaniel Williams and   with original music by Aldo Lavaggi

12:20 Lunch

1:15 Bart Eddy:  Ideas to Action

2:15 John Bloom:  Capital, Money, Spirit and Matter

3:45 Break 30 minutes

4:15 Patrice Maynard:  Prototyping ALIANT Alliance

5:30 Dinner

7:00 Brandon & Lucien:  Song Offering & Painting

7:15 Community-led conversation:  A Christian/Buddhist/Spirit Conversation:  Money –what does love got to do with it?

8:15 End

Sunday August 30

9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy

9:15 Nicanor Perlas:  The Future is What We Fight For

10:45 Break

11:00 Hazel Archer-Ginsberg:  The New Isis Myth

11:30 Laura Summer:  Art Dispersal

1:00 Lunch

2:00 Patrice Maynard:  Prototyping ALIANT Alliance

3:15 Lucien:  Tone, Words, Trees

3:45 Janna, Elizabeth & Frank:  Standing Under the Sign of Michael

4:15 Stan & Robbi:  Closing the Sacred Fire Community

5:00 End

EXTRA DAY FOR THOSE WISHING TO JOIN ON Monday, August 31st 

9:00 Next Steps ALIANT:  Patrice, Frank, Dottie together with friends will lead a conversation on next steps.

11:00 Mutual Aid Networks (MANS):  Kait Ziegler of the Poor People’s Campaign:  A National Call for Moral Revival will share how she and GroundGamesLA raised $100,000 in a week’s time to support unprotected families during the Covid 19 early days by using the MANS format created by Stephanie Rearick of Madison Wisconsin.

Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020

***

***

Umbra Perchiazzi

The Central Regional Council Invite all to our Michaelmas Festival:

‘Courage born of Wisdom’

Wednesday 23 September 2020 – The Autumnal Equinox – 7:15 pm CDT – 8:30 pm

CRC performs a telling of a tale from ancient Chaldea where EA gives birth to Marduk, precursor to Michael.

Wisdom, Proverbs 9:1-6
Proverbs 24: 1-9

then “Wisdom Build herself a house*”…7 members of the various sections of the Anthroposophical Society will stand as Wisdom’s 7 Pillars to share how Courage was born from Wisdom leading to their work in the world.

St. Michael Archangel | Archangel michael, Jesus christ images ...

with a closing about the connection between Michael, The Christ & Anthroposophia!

FREE – Zoom details to follow

***

Joan d’Arc – The power behind the Will Michaelmas Festival 26-27 Sept. 2020

Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel

Save the Date for Our Michaelmas Festival & Youth Gathering Saturday 26 September 2 pm – 4 pm, Sunday 27 Sept. 2 pm – 4 pm

This years theme will be an exploration of Joan d’Arc…

Including a performance of ‘The Passage” by Lucian Dante Lazar

In person & online presentations on the theme of Joan of Arc

Details TBA

Sponsored by: The Rudolf Steiner Branch, Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost & 3-Fold Cultural Hub

for more info. contact Festivals coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

***

The Great Riddle of Life

Sphinx Painting by Olga Zelinskaya | Saatchi Art
Olga Zelinskaya

Every day, if we are awake to it, we can come across numerous clues about the Great Riddle of Life — you know, the brain-teasing, heart-stretching enigmas that tap on our shoulder, with Messages from our higher “I”.

So be alert! Revelations may arrive from unexpected sources & inadvertent teachers. Even seemingly insignificant events may be pregnant with pithy hints.

To cultivate the right kind of receptivity, be on the lookout not only for crisp answers, but also for ideas about how to formulate the Great Riddle more clearly.

detective story | Tumblr

Imagine that your life is a detective story.  The goal is not to solve a crime, but to solve the mystery of why we’re here on earth, so we can carry out the special mission we’ve come to accomplish.

Puzzle Painting by Andrew Judd
Andrew Judd

Admit it, sometimes you go for months without even looking for clues; sleepwalking through the world, reacting blindly to the tricks that the  gods use to try to wake us up.

Then there are those phases when hot leads & fresh evidence pop up all over the place, convincing you beyond a  shadow of a doubt that magic is one of the fundamental properties of reality. This, my friend, is one of *those* times.

How to paint Rocks DVD - YouTube
T. Savagrik

For years now, I’ve been trying to cultivate a more mature relationship with ‘obstacles’. I work to see them less as punishments doled out by evil adversaries, & more as interesting, growth-inducing challenges provided by my higher Self & a generous universe – Opportunities to practice equanimity, & pour love onto those that I bump up against in my striving to balance karma.

Best Friends Forever Paintings | Fine Art America

Throughout the day I strive to live into the meditations of my ideals: to Be – in Love – to give – selflessly with no expectation, or worldly reward.

Singing: I am opening up in sweet surrender to the luminous love light of the One, I am opening, I am opening…

Hand of God Painting by Elizabeth Kenney | Saatchi Art
Elizabeth Kenny

I am saying YES – Today I am ready for the next big breakthrough in my noble struggle to refine how I struggle.

~hag

God 104 Painting by Sam Del Russi
Barry Dean

Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner, Translated by Roy Sadler

v21
I feel a strange new strengthening,
fruit bearing power with a maturing seed
of who I am, and on a starlit loom in me
a dawning vision weaving
my pathway to my real being.

In the Heart of the Things Painting by Kamille Saabre | Saatchi Art
Kamile Saabre

and it’s mirror in the 2nd week of November,
v32
I feel my own fruit-bearing power
present me to the world,
and strengthen my innate intent
to turn towards and find the clarity
within life’s weaving of its destiny

Night Sky with Gemini Constellation vector image on | Gemini ...

23 August 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Picture the constellation Gemini as two stick figures, whose heads are the bright stars Castor and Pollux, with their bodies stretching out to the southwest.

Venus with the signs of Libra and Taurus - The Collection - Museo ...

An hour before sunrise, the Twins are lying on their side in the east, with Pollux closer to the horizon than Castor. Halfway between Pollux’s head and toes you’ll find bright Venus!

Make Way for the Wintermaker - Sky & Telescope - Sky & Telescope

Just past the Twins’ toes is the easily recognizable constellation of Orion the Hunter, whose belt is nearly perpendicular to the horizon. Orion’s right shoulder is marked by the famous red giant Betelgeuse, which recently underwent a strange dimming episode that caused it to fade noticeably. Astronomers now ascribe the episode to a “stellar sneeze,” during which it blew out a cloud of dust that blocked some of the star’s light from reaching Earth, making it appear to dim. hmmm, what’s that trying to tell us?

Sunrise: 6:20 A.M.
Sunset: 7:45 P.M.
Moonrise: 11:33 A.M.

***

The Cycle of the Seasons - Hildegard of Bingen - WikiArt.org
Hildegard of Bingen

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Vulcan and Fire Painting by Peter Paul Rubens
Paul Rubens

The festival of Vulcan, the god of fire, including volcanoes, deserts, metalworking and the forge in ancient Roman religion and myth. The Vulcanalia was the annual festival held August 23 in his honor, when the summer heat placed crops & granaries most at risk of burning. During the festival bonfires were created in honor of the god so he wouldn’t take the harvest. He is often depicted with a blacksmith’s hammer. His Greek counterpart is Hephaestus.

23 August – Feast Day of Santa Rosa de Lima | All the Saints of ...
Lily Blackett

Feast Day of Rose of Lima. ‘Saint Rose’ is the patroness of the Americas, sacred to the indigenous people,  in Lima, Peru.

Born Isabel Flores y de Oliva in Lima, the capital city of Peru, her nickname, “Rose,” came from a childhood incident in which a household servant attested to having seen the child’s face turn into a mystical rose. She took the name formally as her own, at her confirmation in 1597.

Sta Rosa de Lima por Claudio Coello.jpg

As a young girl, in emulation of St. Catherine of Siena, she began to fast three times a week and performed severe penances in secret. When she was admired for her beauty, Rose cut off her hair and burned her face, upset that men were beginning to take notice of her. She rejected all suitors against the objections of her friends and her family. Despite the censure of her parents, she spent many hours contemplating the Blessed Sacrament, which she received daily, an extremely rare practice in that period. She was determined to take a vow of virginity, which was opposed by her parents who wished her to marry.

After daily fasting, she took to permanently abstaining from eating meat. She helped the sick and hungry around her community, bringing them to her room and taking care of them. Rose sold her fine needlework, and took flowers that she grew to market, to help her family. She made and sold lace and embroidery to care for the poor, and she prayed and did penance in a little grotto that she had built. Otherwise, she became a recluse, leaving her room only for her visits to church.

Santa Rosa de Lima — Dominican Nuns of Summit, NJ

She attracted the attention of the friars of the Dominican Order. She wanted to become a nun, but her father forbade it, so she instead entered the Third Order of St. Dominic while living in her parents’ home. In her twentieth year she donned the habit of a tertiary and took a vow of perpetual virginity. She only allowed herself to sleep two hours a night at most, so that she had more hours to devote to prayer. She donned a heavy crown made of silver, with small spikes on the inside, in emulation of the Crown of Thorns worn by Christ.

St. Rose of Lima: Patroness of the Americas – Dominican Friars ...

For eleven years she lived this way, with intervals of ecstasy, and eventually died on 23 August 1617, at the young age of 31. It is said that she prophesied the date of her death. Her funeral was held in the cathedral, attended by all the public authorities of Lima.

She was the first American-born saint.

Black Ribbon Day | FINROSFORUM

Black Ribbon Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism & Nazism

International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade & its Abolition

Mount Vesuvius in Eruption Painting by Joseph Mallord William Turner
JMW Turner

79 – Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire

1989 – Singing Revolution: Two million people from Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania stand on the Vilnius–Tallinn road, holding hands for restoration of independence

File:Enclosed in Scaffolding - Washington Monument - National Mall ...

2011 – A magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurs in Virginia as a result of ‘Fracking’. Damage occurs to monuments & structures in Washington D.C. with damage estimated at 300 million

***

August 27-30 How We Will 2020: 3-Folding our Cultural Revolution is continuing its journey of transforming our ideals into action. The theme this year is Forming Curative Communities: actively uniting with one another in the emerging economic, political/rights and social/cultural/spiritual forms seeking to reshape the ills plaguing humanity into a healthy social organism for our time. Please join us if you’d like to hear from, and collaborate with those on the front lines inspired out of the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s work: can your own hopes for the world find a way to connect with others striving to do the good as our friend Bernard Lievegoed was wont to say? Our own hero Ella Baker shares: ‘we must not stop until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make the struggle for freedom and human dignity everyday, in the year, every year, until they win it.’

Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020

Schedule

Thursday August 27

9:00 Dottie and Frank:   Welcome:  Forming Curative Communities of Responsibility

9:30 Nana Woo and Truus Gareats:  Eurythmy

9:45 Stan Padilla:  New Fire

10:30 Break 15 minutes

11:00 Naim Edwards:  Edible Landscapes

12:15 Lunch

1:30 Dottie Zold & Joan Jaeckel:  Threefold Activism – 1919-1921 & Research Fellowship

2:15 Kait Ziegler:  Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival – On the Front Lines

3:30 Break 30 minutes

4:00 Akil Bell:  WILLING MOVEMENT:  Three questions could support the inspiring of the formation of      curative communities. 

5:15 Dinner

6:30 Monika:  Myriad Village – Co-creating Intentional Communities

7:15 Angela Foster:  Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily

End 8 pm

Friday August 28

9:00 Truus Gareats & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy

9:15 Stan Padilla:  New Fire

9:45 Frank & Patrice:  Unbreakable Agreement & ALIANT

10:20 Break 10 minutes

10:30 Michaela Gloeckler:  Archetypal Pictures – Ita Wegman and the Young Doctors

Noon Lunch

1:15 Bart Eddy:  Brightmoor Makers Rocking Hearts for Detroit

2:15 Melody Brink:  stART international trauma pedagogy – Lesbos – On the Front Lines

3:00 John Bloom:  Toward Justice Through Freedom

4:45 Dinner

6:00 Daniel Collett:  Seeds

6:10 Kim Sherobbi:  To Nurture Community Leadership – Birwood Community House & The James and  Grace Lee Boggs Center

7:00 Angela Foster:  Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily

  Goethe’s Day of Birth

8:00 End

Saturday August 29

9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy

9:15 Stan Padilla:  New Fire

9:30 Laura Summer:  Art Dispersal – Art for 100% of the People

10:00 Michaela Gloeckler:  Forward Together

11:30 Break 15 minutes

11:45 Melody Brink:  The Birdhunters of Antropocenia in story-form, written by Nathaniel Williams and   with original music by Aldo Lavaggi

12:20 Lunch

1:15 Bart Eddy:  Ideas to Action

2:15 John Bloom:  Capital, Money, Spirit and Matter

3:45 Break 30 minutes

4:15 Patrice Maynard:  Prototyping ALIANT Alliance

5:30 Dinner

7:00 Brandon & Lucien:  Song Offering & Painting

7:15 Community-led conversation:  A Christian/Buddhist/Spirit Conversation:  Money –what does love got to do with it?

8:15 End

Sunday August 30

9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy

9:15 Nicanor Perlas:  The Future is What We Fight For

10:45 Break

11:00 Hazel Archer-Ginsberg:  The New Isis Myth

11:30 Laura Summer:  Art Dispersal

1:00 Lunch

2:00 Patrice Maynard:  Prototyping ALIANT Alliance

3:15 Lucien:  Tone, Words, Trees

3:45 Janna, Elizabeth & Frank:  Standing Under the Sign of Michael

4:15 Stan & Robbi:  Closing the Sacred Fire Community

5:00 End

EXTRA DAY FOR THOSE WISHING TO JOIN ON Monday, August 31st 

9:00 Next Steps ALIANT:  Patrice, Frank, Dottie together with friends will lead a conversation on next steps.

11:00 Mutual Aid Networks (MANS):  Kait Ziegler of the Poor People’s Campaign:  A National Call for Moral Revival will share how she and GroundGamesLA raised $100,000 in a week’s time to support unprotected families during the Covid 19 early days by using the MANS format created by Stephanie Rearick of Madison Wisconsin.

Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020

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Joan d’Arc – The power behind the Will Michaelmas Festival 26-27 Sept. 2020

Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel

Save the Date for Our Michaelmas Festival & Youth Gathering Saturday 26 September 2 pm – 4 pm, Sunday 27 Sept. 2 pm – 4 pm

This years theme will be an exploration of Joan d’Arc…

Including a performance of ‘The Passage” by Lucian Dante Lazar

In person & online presentations on the theme of Joan of Arc

Details TBA

Sponsored by: The Rudolf Steiner Branch, Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost & 3-Fold Cultural Hub

for more info. contact Festivals coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

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