Lenten-Tide Day #2:
From Lisa Bennett: ‘Also, for your consideration: 40 is the value of the Hebrew Letter Mem – Water. Water is the “water that will not wet the hands” as opposed to the Fire that Moses saw that did not consume the Bush. John said that One would come after him Baptizing in Fire and the Holy Spirit. Also, in the Wilderness when Jesus was tempted he was tempted 3 times, and each of these temptations has a significant character to it, a specific aspect of fall that can only be remedied through what Jesus referred to in Matthew 28 “baptizing ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit’. Jesus was born of the waters of his mothers’ womb, his first miracle was at a wedding and involved water. I will dive deep into the depths with you these 40 days as we await taking a breath on the other side with the Breath of Life fully filling us.’
From Steve Hale: The Gospel of John – The Healing at Bethesda: “Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, waiting for the moving of the waters; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, “Do you wish to get well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.”
Wade in the water, wade in the water children
Wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water
Who’s that yonder dressed in red
Wade in water
Must be the children that Moses led
God’s gonna trouble the water
Wade in the water, wade in the water children
Wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water
Who’s that yonder dressed in white
Wade in the water
Must be the children of the Israelite
God’s gonna trouble the water
Wade in the water, wade in the water children
Wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water
Who’s that yonder dressed in blue
Wade in water
Must be the Children that’s comin’ through
God’s gonna trouble the water
God’s gonna trouble the water
Wade in the water, wade in the water children
Wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water
If you don’t believe I’ve been redeemed
Wade in the water
Just see the holy ghost looking for me
God’s gonna trouble the water
Wade in the water, wade in the water children
Wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water
My question for Day 2 of Lent 2021:
2. What habits in my life are preventing me from loving with my whole heart, & my neighbor as myself? How will I address those issues before Easter?
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
18 February 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover lands today!?!
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (4 interesting Deathdays)
1535 – Deathday of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, German magician, astrologer, & theologian. “ In Agrippa’s time one found, it is true, little comprehension of the “natural magic” which he advocated, and which seeks in nature the natural, and the spiritual only in the spirit; men clung to the “supernatural magic” which seeks the spiritual in the realm of the sensory, and against which Agrippa fought. This is why the Abbot Trithemius of Sponheim advised him to communicate his views as a secret doctrine only to a few chosen ones, who were able to rise to a similar conception of nature and spirit, for “one gives only hay to oxen and not sugar, as to songbirds.” It is perhaps to this abbot that Agrippa himself owes the right point of view.” ~ Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age, by Rudolf Steiner
1546 – Deathday of Martin Luther, German priest & theologian, leader of the Protestant Reformation. A piece of paper was later found on which Luther had written his last statement. The statement was in Latin, apart from “We are beggars,” which was in German. The statement reads:
No one can understand Virgil’s Bucolics unless he has been a shepherd for five years. No one can understand Virgil’s Georgics, unless he has been a farmer for five years.
No one can understand Cicero’s Letters (or so I teach), unless he has busied himself in the affairs of some prominent state for twenty years.
Know that no one can have indulged in the Holy Writers sufficiently, unless he has governed churches for a hundred years with the prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles.
Do not assail this divine Aeneid; nay, rather prostrate revere the ground that it treads.
We are beggars: this is true.
1564 – Deathday of Michelangelo, Italian sculptor & painter. “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.” ~ from ‘Michelangelo’, A Lecture given by Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 8th January, 1914, GA 63
1967 – Deathday of J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist & academic. “Father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. The first atomic bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico. Oppenheimer later remarked that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” In August 1945, the weapons were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
After the war ended, Oppenheimer became chairman of the influential General Advisory Committee of the newly created United States Atomic Energy Commission. He used that position to lobby for international control of nuclear power to avert nuclear proliferation and a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. He opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb during a 1949–50 governmental debate on the question & subsequently took stances on defense-related issues that provoked the ire of some factions in the U.S. government & military. During the Second Red Scare, those stances, led to him suffering the revocation of his security clearance in a much-written-about hearing in 1954. Effectively stripped of his direct political influence, he continued to lecture, write & work in physics.
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Thought finds form
All that is forgotten returns
Transformed in the doing
This moment marks a time
Like a black obsidian
Reflecting sunlight
Into my mind’s eye
~hag
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Weaving a non-gendered Feminist Reality with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg*
Friday 5 March 2021 – 6:30 am – 8 am Central Time as part of the The International Youth Initiative Program Initiative Forum
What are the qualities of the Divine Feminine? How can we use them to empower an innovative way of thinking, feeling & willing, to create a new world, where the human being is free?
Have paper & colored pencils at the ready for this hands-on workshop.
*Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual: Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year & the ‘I Think Speech’ Podcast. Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Anthroposopher – working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society. Past Video Recordings
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The 8-Fold Path to the Easter Elementals
Holy Week 2021 (March 28 – April 4): Starting on Palm Sunday then thru-out Holy Week including Easter Morning, we will meet every day on Zoom at 10:10 am (Central Time) to create together a Thought-Seed Egregore based on the Herbert Hahn Verse
“When I think light, my soul shines,
When my soul shines, the earth is a star,
When the earth is a star, then I am, a true human being”
& then we will take turns sharing the indications for that day from Rudolf Steiner / The Buddha’s 8 –fold Path, known as the ‘Weekday Exercises’ (let me know if you would like to lead one of the days? (5 min) Holy Week chart
Palm SUNDAY
Resolves or ‘RIGHT JUDGMENT.’ having been formed independently of sympathies and antipathies.
Holy MONDAY
Talking – ‘RIGHT WORD.’
Holy TUESDAY
External actions- ‘RIGHT DEED.’
Holy WEDNESDAY
The ordering of life. – ‘RIGHT STANDPOINT.’
Maundy THURSDAY
Human Endeavour. – ‘TO LET ALL THE EXERCISES BECOME A HABIT.’
Good FRIDAY
The endeavor to learn as much as possible from life. – ‘RIGHT MEMORY.’ (Remembering what has been learned from experiences).
Holy SATURDAY
To pay attention to one’s ideas. – ‘RIGHT OPINION.’
The octave of the New Sun
EASTER SUNDAY
To turn one’s gaze inwards –
‘RIGHT EXAMINATION.’
Whoever is holding the leading thoughts for that day will tie it into some 5-10 min. artistic exercise based on the indications
Group sharing (5 min)
We close with the ‘reversed’ Hahn verse.
I am a True Human Being
For the Earth is a Star
The Earth is a Star
When I Think Light
When I think Light
My Soul Shines
Easter Sunday – 4 April 2021, in person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online 2 pm – 4 pm Central Time.
Group Eurythmy with Mary Ruud
Hazel Archer – The octave of the New Sun
Keynote with Ines Katharina (Bee Keeper, Founder of the Biodynamic Emerald Honeybee Sanctuary, Waldorf Teacher) Ines will connect the Easter Thought with the Elemental Beings & the flight of the Queen Bee.
Mary Ruud will give us a performance of ‘Rock Spring Wonder’
We close with singing ‘Now the green Blade Riseth’
Potluck Social Time in the Schreinerei – Please bring food & drink to share
$10 Suggested Donation (can’t make it? or joining us online? please consider supporting this event, Thank you)
*Dear friends, please join the call at 10:05 am to get settled in so we can begin the Thought-Seed promptly at 10:10 am
Topic: The 8-Fold Path thru Holy Week 2021
Time: Starting on Palm Sunday Mar 28 – thru Easter Morning, 2021 10:10 AM Central Time (US and Canada)
Every day, 8 occurrence(s)
Mar 28, 2021 10:10 AM
Mar 29, 2021 10:10 AM
Mar 30, 2021 10:10 AM
Mar 31, 2021 10:10 AM
Apr 1, 2021 10:10 AM
Apr 2, 2021 10:10 AM
Apr 3, 2021 10:10 AM
Apr 4, 2021 10:10 AM
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