Monthly Archives: January 2021

Citizens Oath

History, Insight, Poetry
Flags by Travis Henry

Here is the spoken version of today‘s post on ‘I Think Speech‘

Dear friends, as I have mentioned before, coming from a place of striving to live into the social organism as outlined by Rudolf Steiner, I don’t usually pay much heed to what I have seen as the empty pageantry of things like the presidential inauguration.  But this year because of the world situation which feels so untenable, it has come into my consciousness that We as Citizens of Earth are being called to really look at the idea of taking personal & collective responsibility for our world. What do you feel your personal duty is to the collective? What can you give, what gifts can you offer? Are we willing to faithfully execute our unique role in healing, reimagining, & rebuilding our country, to work to the best of our ability, to preserve, protect, & defend dignity, to stand for truth & justice for all, motivated by an unselfish love that promotes peace & truth…Are we willing to take an oath, to solemnly vow? What would that look like for you?

Making a Vow | Ajah Dharma
Dara Dharma

Have you ever taken a made a vow? I love the phrase solemnly swear, it is solemn – a sacred promise. Perhaps when you got married? Did you take vows? What were they? Are you remembering to live into them? Every once in a while people decide to renew their vows. How empowering it is to stand up in the company of friends & family to affirm a wedding, an agreement, a partnership – by taking an oath, to love & to cherish…

Swearing In Paintings | Fine Art America

What would it be like to see this ‘swearing in’ & the symbolic transition of power as an opportunity to get beyond the spectacle, & also in this case the fear of unrest, & imbue it with the power of ‘We the People’ – by participating – by personally & collectively opting in – not for the candidate or party affiliation, but for the divine sovereignty of the office itself. To call in the true Spirit of America, the beneficent folk soul of this sacred land who was once called Columbia, the embodiment of peace, to guide & protect our inalienable rights -To bring healing to this land, stolen from the native peoples, polluted by corporate greed, which engenders poverty & division amongst the people.

Joan of Arc - Maid of Heaven - Charles VII First Meeting

I think of Joan of Arc who fought for the sovereignty of her king, who on a personal level had many failings, but because of her purity of purpose she was able to bring the will of the spiritual world into manifestation, even thru the weak human vessels, to create change on the earth, & further the development of the consciousness soul age.

Ekaterina Abramova — New York Ekaterina Abramova — New York
Ekaterina Abramova

Our time now calls for individuals to join together to create the chalice for the ever present help of the spiritual world to pour into. We are not alone, but we must take a stand in uprightness – we must vow to do our duty as true human beings, or else the cup will not hold, & then thru the crack, or the lack, corruption is allowed to enter in.  

A history on the tradition of gift-giving around the world
Jen Pellington

And so I ask you dear friends on this eve of the presidential inauguration to contemplate what you are willing to vow to do, what actions, what inner workings, what thoughts can you offer, not just to uphold the American Constitution, but to unfold the highest destiny of human evolution?

Please join us as we explore these themes on what is becoming quite a co-creation (still continuing to morph) in bringing Anthroposophia to the world:

Sunday 24 January 2021 – Reclaiming the Wisdom of America –

2 – 4 pm CST – An interactive Zoom Presentation with 

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Rosemary McMullen, Anne Nicholson, Sally Greenberg, Anne Dale, Stewart Lundy in conjunction with ‘The People’s Inauguration’

Anne Nicholson:  Social Scientist & tech guru is our Host

Sally Greenberg – Opening Verse: Walt Whitman-Leaves of Grass

Hazel Archer will explore the concept of Columbia as the Folk Spirit of America & what that means in this age of the consciousness soul.

Mary Maruca & Stewart Lundy of Perennial Roots Farm brings the connection to Bio-dynamics

Rosemary McMullen sets the scene for the ancestors-Land Acknowledgement, as a way for each participant to look at their current placement in America. The 3 Realms of Culture, Rights, Economy, becomes 4-fold when we bring in the element of Ecology.

Artistic gesture: The Spirit of Place

Sally Greenberg & Anne Dale: a contemplation of the expression of our Civil Responsibility that recommits us to our core values, to one another, & to the Spirit of Place & Time.

Breakout Groups: Social Sharing – What do you see is wanting to come into being in America? How will you contribute to it? Each will share their artistic creation in relation to these questions to see if something new arises.

Anne Nicholson: Plenary- Closing

Sally Greenberg–Ending Verse: Alice Walker-America

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https://skyandtelescope.org/

19 January 2021 – “speaking with the Stars”: In early evening, to the right of waxing Bella Luna is the Great Square of Pegasus, balancing on one corner.

African Women Multicolor Mixed Media Painting 'Duty Line' - Road Scholar World Bazaar
Negriti Moobu

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Rethinking James Watt: Birmingham... - ERIH - European Route of Industrial Heritage | Facebook

1736 – Birthday of James Watt, Scottish-English chemist & engineer, inventor of the steam engine.

Edgar Allan Poe Quotes - iPerceptive

1809 – Birthday of Edgar Allan Poe

19 | January | 2019 | Reverse Ritual

1829 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy receives its premiere performance

1853 – Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Il trovatore receives its premiere performance in Rome.

Inside Edison's Pearl Street elecric power plant, showing here the large DC generators.

1883 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey

1938 – Deathday of Rosa Mayreder – an Austrian freethinker, author, painter, musician & feminist -The daughter of a wealthy Viennese innkeeper who was able to work as a painter & writer from her youth. She loved science & turned against the prevailing state of affairs that generally only allowed a higher education to men. She loved  anthropology & physics, but soon came across the special meaning of language . Together with Hugo Wolf, she published the opera “The Corregidor“, she composed the libretto & was one of Wolf’s sponsors.

In 1881 she married her childhood friend, the architect & later rector of the Vienna University of Technology Karl Mayreder . In the women’s movement she worked with activist Marie Lang & Marianne Hainisch in the early 1890s. In 1893 she founded the General Austrian Women’s Association. From 1899 she published together with Marie Lang & Auguste Fickert the magazine “Documents of Women“.

Her books “The Critique of Femininity ” as well as ” Gender and Culture “ & also in conversations that she held in her diaries, she described to the ‘culture-makers’, that it was important  for an equal ratio of the sexes. She gained recognition & approval in literary circles. The opposition was found especially in the field of medicine , which was perceived by her to falsely stress the ‘mental weakness of women’ as a haven of arbitrariness, but also the degradation of women as a sexual object. She turned against the discrimination of their gender & the existing double standards. Her works were widely distributed &translated into English.

Mayreder, who first worked as a painter also founded the “Art School for Women & Girls” in the years before the First World War with Olga Prager & Kurt Federn.

Before & during the war, she was involved with Bertha von Suttner in the peace movement, & in 1919 became the chairman of the “International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom” (IFFF).

Rosa Mayreder met Rudolf Steiner (with whom she entered into a long& extensive correspondence) through women’s rights campaigner Marie Lang. Mayreder wrote many passages in her diaries which describe how enlightening Rudolf Steiner was for her thinking. Steiner spent time with Mayreder & her husband at their villa discussing Goethe & politics over the years & right up until Stiner’s death.

***

Heart of a garden Painting by E Buchanan
E. Bucheaum

POD (Poem Of the day)

~My heart is a furrowed field
That the Sun rolls over
Bating out the fallowness
With never-ending beams
Infusing my will to receive…
~hag

Testify

Insight, Quote
The Rainbow Light Body and the Rose Merkaba: Emerging into Infinity | Earth Hive on WordPress.com | New earth, Spirituality, Earth

10:10 Testament:

From Henry Jamison: Following Steiner in his discussion of the caterpillar turning to liquid light in the chrysalis before transforming into the butterfly, we can consider color to be “compressed light”. Meanwhile, electricity/radiation is “decayed light”, very dangerous to the forces of love and ever-increasing here….

it seems that the pineal gland is a kind of third eye and a producer of bows of color (which is borne out I think in yoga and also in experiments with DMT, which the pineal gland produces). It’s the sixth chakra, I believe. And even pretty conventional science corroborates the idea that fluoride calcifies the pineal gland and limits its function…so I’m trying to strengthen my back (straighten my spine), drink reverse osmosis water, wake up early and generally move toward cleaning house. In addition, I’m doing the rose cross and trying to live in the bow of color. Can’t hurt! I’ll be contributing my rose cross to the thought-seed now.

Earth n d Milky Way ✨✨ | Painted earth, Spray paint art, Painting

From Rev. Gisela Wielki: Ours is a starry country. We have the star-spangled banner. Our language is rich in star metaphors. We can be starry eyed. We know of stardust and stardom, of super stars and starlets, of Star Wars and Star Trek. We applaud Dancing with the Stars. We feel as people empowered to reach for the stars. We even shoot for the stars. We are the biggest pop star exporter around the globe, and we like to stargaze into the lives of our celebrities.

Some of our presidents, investors, Hollywood stars and others have had their private astrologers just to be sure the stars aligned in their favor, before making decisions.

But take heart, if being a star is not in your chart, be the sky. How would anyone even notice the stars without the night sky providing the much needed background for any star to appear and rise.

Still, the human desire for stardom has a deeper origin. The prophet Daniel in the Old Testament gives us an imagination of human beings shining like stars in the infinite Heavens.

Anyone who has ever seen the earth covered with freshly fallen snow on a full moon night, will not forget the brilliant display of a vast community of snow-stars covering the ground, making it look as if the starry heavens had come down to display on earth Daniel’s imagination of a future constellation of humanity. 

To become star radiant as a human being here on earth is not about self-radiance. To become star-radiant is about finding the Star of Wonder, the Star of Grace and about joining forces with its light. It is about radiating heart’s love and about forming human constellations with other people. It is about living and relating in harmony with all members of humanity. “They who tie their destiny to a star, do not turn back.” (Leonardo da Vinci)

Humanity has a long way to go to manifest such an ideal. But when we allow such an ideal, such an imagination to kindle our enthusiasm, it will show the way to insightful action.

***

Fire Star Painting by Cameron Wiskerson | Saatchi Art
Cameron Whiskerson

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I see
How hard we strive for truth,
& once attained how easily we forget it…
I hold the fire as long as i can…
M nose fills with the smell of smoke & incense
I remember how it is to die & come again
Radiant as light walking on sand…
& then I live for today…
~hag

18 January 2021 – Martin Luther King jr. Day

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Zanoni: Bulwer Lytton, Edward: 9788850243945: Amazon.com: Books

1873 – the Deathday of Edward Bulwer-Lytton who I discovered thru a book that was influential to me as a young woman: Zanoi, A Rosicrucian Tale. He was an English aristocrat, a member of Parliament, 1st Baron of Lytton & Earl of Knebsworth. He was an enormously popular novelist, & a member of the English Rosicrucian Society, founded in 1867 by Robert Wenworth Little. He wrote Paul Clifford, published in three volumes on April 30, 1830, a story of a man who leads a dual life as both a gentleman and a criminal. The first edition was the largest printing of any modern novel up to that time, & it sold out on the first day. It was Bulwer-Lytton’s fifth novel, written when he was twenty-eight. The Last Days of Pompeii, published in 1934, was a very popular work that inspired at least 10 films, plays, and operas. Zanoni was published in 1842. Among its themes are Rosicrucianism, divine madness, love, the elixir of life, & immortality. The Dweller on the Threshold figures prominently. The Coming Race, published in 1871, was a work of science fiction later republished as Vril, the Power of the Coming Race. Several of Bulwer-Lytton’s phrases have become common usage, such as “the great unwashed” from the novel Paul Clifford, “pursuit of the almighty dollar” from his novel The Coming Race, and “the pen is mightier than the sword” from the play Richelieu.

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Reclaiming the Wisdom of America

Sunday 24 January 2021

2 pm – 4 pm CST –

An interactive Zoom Presentation  with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Rosemary McMullen, Anne Nicholson, Anne Dale, in conjunction with ‘The People’s Inauguration’

Hazel will explore the concept of the Folk Soul of America & what that means in this age of the consciousness soul, leading to a picture of the 3-fold Social Organism.

Rosemary McMullen will set the scene for ancestors (Land Acknowledgement) as a way for each participant to look at their current placement in America: culture, rights, economy, & ecology & assess spiritual social healing needed.

Anne Nicholson & Anne Dale will host to make this an interactive presentation with break-out groups & conversation.

Time: Jan 24, 2021 02:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/7052931041?pwd=Q1RNcDliYS9QK3JDV1hNQ1pxUmwwZz09 

Meeting ID: 705 293 1041 – Passcode: dove

One tap mobile – Dial by your location – Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/a961qZZhF

Meeting ID: 705 293 1041 – Passcode: 664936

Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/a961qZZhF

Freedom & Justice for All

Festival, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote
Hail, Columbia! | hecatedemeter

Dear friends –

I put out a call to see if anyone was interested in being part of a presentation around the True Spirit of America, & I thank you for your responses!

Sharleen Leonard encouraged us to join “The People’s Inauguration Jan. 21 -31 and then continue the conversation from the spiritual science perspective and Steiner’s Threefold Community insights”.

Anyone who knows me or has read my sharing’s knows I don’t endorse either one of the political parties here in America. I believe the 2-party-system is fundamentally flawed.

I am a 3-fold champion thru & thru. For me it’s about freedom of choice, so if anything, I vote Green Party. And I don’t mix politics with Anthroposophy, I work from the Cultural Life of the 3-fold social order.  That being said, I decided to partner up with The People’s Inauguration because of their positive attitude about empowering the people to stand up & take responsibility as citizens of this world.

The People's Inauguration

On the web site it says: Only we can bring our communities together, tend our wounds, and begin the labor of reckoning, reimagining and remaking our nation block-by-block, heart-to-heart.

We need healing, justice, and renewal. Let’s create a moral vision for the America we could be.

January 21st kicks off 10 days of virtual conversations, artistic expressions, music performances, teach-ins, vigils and around-the-table family ceremonies. Some events will focus on grief and healing; others on justice and reckoning, others on joy and rising. All of them will have one thing in common: the expression of a “people’s oath” that recommits us to our core values and to one another.

Will you join us?

Now I am not someone who likes to repeat after someone else. Nor would I ask anyone to take a vow outside of what they create for themselves. But I do think it is a good idea to think about what it is that we as individuals feel is important to stand for. I see what they have proposed as a template, a way to get us started in thinking about what we want our world to be like, & what We the People are going to personally do to go about making it happen.

 “I, ___________
do solemnly vow
that I will faithfully execute my role
in healing, reimagining, and rebuilding
our country,
and will to the best of my ability,
preserve, protect, and defend
dignity, justice, and joy
for myself and for all around me,
and that I will do so with love.”

The idea of joining together with the greater community, & bringing Anthroposophy out into the world, seems vital. So I agreed to share my presentation with this wider audience:

Reclaiming the Wisdom of America an interactive Zoom Presentation with 

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg in conjunction with ‘The People’s Inauguration’ (more details TBA)

Sunday 24 January 2021 2 pm – 4 pm CST

Friends, the Folk Spirit of America known to the Original Native Peoples, as Columbia, perceived also by the American Revolutionaries as an Indian goddess, has been usurped by Uncle Sam, her opposite in every way. Our destiny, if ‘We the People’ will it, is to take back her divine power, to manifest a true Land of the Dove.

Time: Jan 24, 2021 02:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/7052931041?pwd=Q1RNcDliYS9QK3JDV1hNQ1pxUmwwZz09 

Meeting ID: 705 293 1041 – Passcode: dove

One tap mobile – Dial by your location – Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/a961qZZhF Meeting ID: 705 293 1041 – Passcode: 664936 Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/a961qZZhF

HUSHED UP HISTORY — Miss(ing) Columbia: America's Forgotten Warrior...



I then got a phone call from a long time nemis who does not on the whole attend my presentations, who has his own very definite political views, who proceeded to tell me that this was an unholy match; that politics don’t belong in the Anthroposophical Society, & that the organization I am affiliating myself with espouses beliefs that he finds offensive.

I thanked him for his feedback, but was quite shaken. And then I remembered that when I 1st came to the Chicago Branch many years ago, I brought forth the idea of doing a July 4th Festival, with the theme of Columbia as the Spirit of America, & I was told no, it could not be done, & it never was.  

I took it out to Hyde Park where there is a Statue of the Republic from the The World’s Columbian Exposition -a world’s fair held in Chicago in 1893

Daniel Chester French's original statue The Republic at the World's Columbian Exposition of… | World's columbian exposition, Columbian exposition 1893, World's fair

And then out of the blue I found this quote from Rudolf Steiner: ‘There are still many Anthroposophists who think that something may be reached by argument with the opponent. Nothing can do us more harm than success in setting forth our truths in the form of argument; for people do not hate us because we say something that is not true, but because we say the truth. And the more we succeed in proving that we say the truth, the more they will hate us. Of course this cannot prevent us from stating the truth. But it can prevent us from being so naïve as to think that it is possible to progress by argument.

Only positive work enables us to progress; and of course truth should be represented as strongly as possible, so as to attract as many pre-destined souls as possible, for these are far more numerous in the present time than is generally assumed. These souls will find the spiritual nourishment needed for the time when no destructive, but constructive work will have to be done, if human development is to follow an ascending, not a descending curve.’ ~ Rudolf Steiner – GA 221 – Knowledge Pervaded with the Experience of Love – Dornach, February 18, 1923

the art of living in integrity Painting by Danvy Pham | Saatchi Art
Davy Phame

Friends, I will proceed with the presentation, & I am open to your thoughts about the idea of bringing in this connection to The People’s Inauguration. If I am in error I want to adjust so as to be in moral integrity.

Thank you for your kind attention.

(I am still looking for someone to assist with the hosting, so contact me if you want to be part of the team)

~hag

***

The Calendar of the Soul - Compilation - Anthroposophy, By Rudolf Steiner, Inner Work, Waldorf Books - The BEarth Institute

The Caldendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner this week’s verse & its mirror, translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler, & with quotes from American authors in ‘metro.co.uk’ re. ‘blue Monday, saddest day of the year’ tomorrow…’In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.’ Abraham Lincoln
‘Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations.’ Zig Ziglar
‘In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.’ Robert Frost
‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.’ Martin Luther King Jr
‘Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.’ Henry Thoreau

Russian winter Painting by Anna Kasso | Saatchi Art
Beli Gofolski

v42,
WINTER AND ONWARD
The soul in gloom of winter moved
to bring to light her life’s own force
her impulse is to guide it far
and in the dark forefeel
through warmth of heart
the life the senses will reveal.
v11,
MIDSUMMER WISDOM
It rests this sun’s high hour with you
to recognise the call of wisdom:
In you, absorbed in worlds where beauty lies,
through all your feeling realise:
the human I can lose itself
and find itself within the Cosmic I.

Catch Fire

History, Insight, Poetry
Three Worlds: Heaven, Earth & Hell – Chris Cook Artist
Chris Cook

Listen to the Catch Fire musings on the ‘I Think Speech‘ Podcast

Dear friends, Our painful blessings are cracking open holes in the sour & puckered mass hallucination mistakenly called reality. News of the soul’s true home is pouring in, infiltrating our increasingly lucid waking life. Wild ripe juicy eternity is flooding in. Our allies from the other side of the veil are lining up, awaiting our awakening. And as Heaven & Earth come together, as the dreamtime & daytime merge, as paradise & the underworld overlap, we register the exhilarating fact that we are actually the ones in charge  –you & I are in charge–  of making a brand new world. Not in some distant time or faraway place, but right here & right now.

Shamanism / ritual magic / sacred tree / heaven and hell / | Etsy
Shakte Mazepel

In the coming months, we’ll encounter events that require us to revise our understandings about the very nature of reality. Our imaginations will have to be ingenious & our hearts alert in order to keep up with the outlandish changes. To locate truth amidst relentless waves of propaganda, we’ll have to be fiercely disciplined & tenderly hate-free. To avoid being infected by popular delusions, we’ll have to cultivate compassionate lucidity, humble courage, & a determination to rouse our will.

The Sun at His Eastern Gate, 1820 Painting by William Blake
William Blake

We are primed to commune much more intimately with the hidden source of power that fuels life. We are close to meeting the requirements defined by visionary poet William Blake who wrote: “Unless the eye catch fire, God will not be seen. Unless the ear catch fire, God will not be heard. Unless the tongue catch fire, God will not be named. Unless the heart catch fire, God will not be loved. Unless the mind catch fire, God will not be known.”

Watch Me Catch Fire" by Marie Enger - Hero Complex Gallery
Marie Enger

Friends – Let’s catch fire, to enkindle a passion to know god in all her forms. And to nurture our home fires that we must keep ever burning, as well as the communal fire that we must gather around & feed with our very breath.

~hag

***

10:10 Testament by Sally Greenberg from “A living physiology” by Karl Konig – ‘The Light of thinking shining like a star’ – I will use this as part of my Thought Seed during the 10:10 Meditation. Thanks Sally! And friends, please feel free to share your inspirations. Blessings – See you in the light.

Young moon and Mercury adorn January evening twilight

16 January 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Maybe you saw the Mercury (Occult Venus) last week, near Jupiter &Saturn, when these three worlds formed a planetary trio? Now Jupiter & Saturn are difficult to see in the glare of twilight. And Mercury has ascended higher in the western twilight& will be near the waxing crescent which is just returning to the evening sky after new moon on January 12-13. Find the horizon in the direction of sunset, & look for baby Bella Luna & Mercury to pop out into the evening twilight as dusk ebbs into darkness. The nearby bright star will be Fomalhaut in Piscis Austrinus the Southern Fish. Fomalhaut is sometimes called the Loneliest Star, but it’s not so lonely now!

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Symposium Between heaven and hell. Religious and spiritual experiences in the context of mental health care | Calendar | University of Groningen
Benny Forest

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The Royal Calendar: January 16, 2012

1412 – The Medici family is appointed official banker of the Papacy

Johannes Schöner - Wikipedia

1477 – Birthday & Deathday (1547 ) of Johannes Schöner, a renowned German polymath. He was a priest, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, cosmographer, cartographer, mathematician, globe &scientific instrument maker & editor/ publisher of scientific tests. He published of Copernicus’ “De revolutionibus” in Nürnberg in 1543. He enjoyed a European wide reputation as an innovative & influential globe maker & cosmographer- as one of the continent’s leading & most authoritative astrologers.

Portrait of Ivan The Terrible painted by Viktor Vasnetsov in “1897”. Ivan IV was the first Tsar of Russia, giving h… | Russian history, Russian art, Modern history
Victor Vanasnetov

1547 – Ivan the Terrible becomes Czar of Russia

FRANZ BRENTANO watercolor portrait" Canvas Print by lautir | Redbubble
Tyler Cantell

1838 – Birthday of Franz Brentano an influential German philosopher, psychologist, & priest whose work strongly influenced not only students Edmund Husserl, Sigmund Freud, Kazimierz Twardowski, Alexius Meinong, Carl Stumpf, Anton Marty, Christian von Ehrenfels, and Tomáš Masaryk, but many others whose work would follow &make use of his original ideas & concepts. Rudolf Steiner recalls the obituary he gave of Brentano as part of his lecture The Case for Anthroposophy where he also speaks about the Separation of the ‘Psychological from the Non-Psychological’ in Franz Brentano.

Arnold Böcklin - 123 artworks - painting

1901 – Deathday of Arnold Böcklin a Swiss symbolist painter. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in an incarnation as an Arthurian Knight

After the Fall: Photos of Hitler's Bunker and the Ruins of Berlin | TIME

1945 – Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker

Society Anthroposophy Worldwide 9/14

1954 – Birthday of Sergei O. Prokofieff – a Russian anthroposophist. He was the grandson of the composer Sergei Prokofiev. Born in Moscow, he studied fine arts & painting at the Moscow School of Art. He encountered anthroposophy in his youth, & soon made the decision to devote his life to it. Prokofieff, wrote his first book, Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries, while living in Soviet Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was a co-founder of the Anthroposophical Society in Russia. At Easter 2001, he became a member of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland. Prokofieff was a prolific author; at the core of his work is an attempt to develop a deepened understanding for Christianity on the basis of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific research. Prokofieff was a prolific writer leaving us a treasure trove of Works.

The Great Man That Was Toscanini - Terry Teachout, Commentary Magazine

1957 – Deathday of Arturo Toscanini an Italian conductor, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail & sonority, & his photographic memory.] He was at various times the music director of La Scala Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, & the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Later in his career he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–54), & this led to his becoming a household name through his radio & television broadcasts & many recordings.

ON THIS DAY: January 16, 2018 | Flowers For Socrates

1970 – Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects

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Liberty; In the Form of The Goddess of Youth; Giving Support To The bald Eagle / Edward Savage - Gilcrease Museum

Friends I’m feeling called to offer a presentation on the ‘Spirit of America’. Anyone want to work with me to bring it to your community & share it on zoom world wide?

Wake the Sleeping Giant

History, Insight, Quote
Sleeping Giant Art | Fine Art America

Today’s ‘I Think Speech’ Podcast is Dedicated to MLK jr.

We are the sleeping giant – The buried god – Wake up in the dream. Practice lucid tolerance to banish intolerance. Read between the lies. To question is to answer. Friends, there are no innocent by-standers. There is no us & them. The dragon & the frontlines are in us all. And truth is a triple-edged sword that we must fashion. From Equity, comes Solidarity, which forges Freedom.

When the deepest & most grounded spiritual practice becomes vision & is married to a pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic & social institutions, a Holy force—the power of Wisdom & Love in action—is born – a Sacred Activism.

9 ways Covid-19 may forever upend the U.S. health care industry - STAT
Nelly Canter

We are living through the greatest crisis in the history of humanity; & this global turning point has its apex here in North America – a corporate nation that has made a contagious fetish out of world domination. We are called to align with the true course of evolution. To create even a sacred moment is to hold all of eternity – to receive & to share – serves. Hand-crafted our sacred weapons must include prayer, contemplation, & meditation, with the aim of practicing Spiritual Science to land the ultimate target.

Amazon.com: CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT: H.E. SACRBOROUGH: Home & Kitchen
Edward Sacrobourg

Conception never ends. Change is the only constant. Everything must become a verb. The goal is in the doing. The way in, is the way out. ‘Matter into Spirit, Spirit into Matter’. Embrace the chaos in the stirring. All effects connect in the cause – which ripples in from the past to call in the forthcoming.

And Beloved – Today is, today is, today is the Day! So what is the one thing that YOU will do today?

~hag, with you on the frontlines

MLK Mural Project - Virtual Painting Workshop - FestivALL
Mount Brenden School mural

Inspirations from MLK jr.on what would have been his 92nd Birthday:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

“But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

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15 January 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Once full night has fallen, trace out the winter Milky Way arching across the sky. In early evening it extends up from the northwest horizon along the vertical Northern Cross of Cygnus, up & over to the right past dim Cepheus & through Cassiopeia high in the north, then to the right through Perseus & Auriga, down between the feet of Gemini & Orion’s Club, & on down to the east-southeast horizon between Procyon & Sirius. Even farther down in the same direction, can you still pick out Jupiter – makes its way to opposite side of the Sun.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Google Doodle Honors MLK With Illustration By Dr. Fahamu Pecou
Bobby Brown

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Roman History on Twitter: "Today 69AD Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor, only rules for three months before committing suicide.… https://t.co/pi9TWGarPN"

AD 69 – Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, but rules for only three months before committing suicide, in order to steer his country from the path to civil war. A member of a noble Etruscan family, Otho was initially a friend & courtier of the young emperor Nero until he was effectively banished to the governorship of the remote province of Lusitania following his wife Poppaea Sabina’s affair with Nero. He allied himself with Galba, the governor of neighboring Hispania. Accompanying Galba on his march to Rome, he aspired to succeed the aged emperor, but revolted & murdered Galba on being passed over for the succession. He is said to have been of moderate height, splay-footed & bandy-legged, but almost feminine in his care of his person. He had the hair of his body plucked out, & because of the thinness of his locks wore a wig so carefully fashioned that no one suspected it. He used to shave every day & smear his face with moist bread to “better his looks”.

Elizabeth I (r.1558-1603) | The Royal Family

1559 – Elizabeth I is crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey, London, England.

The British Museum Opened | History Today

1759 – The British Museum opens.

Political & Historical Figures Canvas Wall Art | iCanvas

1929 – Birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. – Born Michael King Jr. January 15, assassinated on Holy Thursday April 4, 1968

1934 – The Nepal–Bihar earthquake strikes killing an estimated 20,700 people.

1943 – The Pentagon is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.

The Derveni Papyrus: The Most Ancient Book in Europe - Mysterious Greece ‐ The Insider's Travel Guide

1962 – The Derveni papyrus, Europe’s oldest surviving manuscript dating to 340 BC, is found in northern Greece; a philosophical treatise that is an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem, concerning the birth of the gods, produced in the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras. It was composed near the end of the 5th century BC, “in the fields of Greek religion, the sophistic movement, early philosophy, and the origins of literary criticism it is unquestionably the most important textual discovery of the 20th century.” The roll itself dates to around 340 BC, during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, making it Europe’s oldest.

1969 – Deathday of Maria Röschl-Lehrs – Member of the Esoteric Youth Circle. Maria Röschl was the daughter of a financial officer from Vienna. Her mother was a native of the Polish landed gentry, so she grew up multilingual. The family moved to Vienna in 1895. From a very young age she was a very serious, & reserved.

After leaving school, Röschl took painting lessons & planned an artistic career, but finally decided to study at the University of Vienna to teach German philology, classical philology, art history & philosophy. Since she was interested in the importance of sleep for the human soul, she wrote her dissertation on the ‘Dream of Goethe’. In the course of her research she was found Rudolf Steiner’s Work “How to know higher worlds”, & was deeply impressed.

After completing her studies, Röschl initially gave private lessons & then taught German, Latin & Greek for five years at a Viennese girls’ grammar school.

In 1918 she met Karl Schubert, who introduced her to the Anthroposophical Society in Vienna & in 1920 she became a member. Through Schubert’s mediation, she discovered the Waldorf School in Stuttgart & began teaching Latin, Greek & took over the free religious education there from 1922. In March 1923, together with Herbert Hahn & Karl Schubert, she was able to hold Rudolf Steiner’s “sacrificial ceremony” for senior high school students & became Steiner’s personal student. After the Christmas Conference in 1924, she was appointed director of the youth section of the newly founded Free School of Spiritual Science & held this position until the spring of 1931.

Following the death of Rudolf Steiner in 1926, Röschl organized a two-year introductory course in anthroposophy together with young doctors & scientists in Dornach. Increasingly, however, their work was hampered by the ever-increasing crisis within the General Anthroposophical Society. Therefore, she decided in 1931 to return as a teacher to the Stuttgart Waldorf School. In 1935 she took over the management of the teacher training.

However, since the circumstances in Germany became unacceptable for her after the seizure of power by the National Socialists in 1933, she emigrated to Clent, a village in the English county of Worcestershire. In the Summer of 1933, Röschl & her husband traveled to Spring Valley NY in America as keynote speakers for the 1st Summer school at the Threefold Center.

In 1935 she accepted a job as private tutor in Costa Rica. After a stopover in Arlesheim, Röschl returned to England, where she married Ernst Lehrs another Waldorf teacher & anthroposopher, who had also emigrated to England. In 1940 she took the anthroposophic work to Scottish Aberdeen along with her husband, & Charles King. At that time she also worked with Ita Wegman as editor of the First Class School of Spiritual Science.

After the Second World War, Röschl worked in teacher training in Gloucester. In 1952 she finally returned to Germany with her husband & worked until her death in 1969 as a lecturer at the curative education seminar in Eckwälden.

1970 – Muammar Gaddafi is proclaimed premier of Libya

2001 – Wikipedia, a free wiki content encyclopedia, goes online

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