The recording of ‘Archangel Raphael: The Cosmic Physican’ from the Front Range Anthroposophical Cafe’ is up for viewing
This is the seed time…when the chains of death are broken & life bursts forth from the earth. Each day another minute of light triumphs over the darkness. The elementals arise, & wait for us to work with them in good will. The Sun stretches out its hand to the child within us all, bidding us to return from the land of the dead, to be cloaked in the fresh rain. Enlivened with the sweet scent of aspiration on our breath, we can joyfully step forth. As the wild flowers send their pastel shoots up from the brown compost, our souls dance in delight. Despair turns to hope, sorrow to joy, want to abundance…
If we do not spring forward, we will surly slip back. Within our own minds many detailed explanations may exist – excuses? -that keep us from moving forward. To put them in perspective we can see them in relation to the 4 basic elements…
1st choose the area of your life you want to focus on, such as relationship, health, career, clarity around direction, spiritual growth…etc…
Then begin in the East: Air – What thoughts bind you? Are you too scattered in your thinking, can’t make up your mind? Too dogmatic? Suffer from monkey mind? Inner critic on overdrive? What do you need so that you can create a positive thought pattern? What does a free mind look like?
South: Fire – What binds your will? Are you too impulsive? Too willful, or perhaps your will is unfocused? Not able to take action? Feel fearful-unsafe? What do you need to empower your will force so you are free to take action?
West: Water – What emotions bind you? Are you too sensitive? Do you hold on to old feelings? Or are you rigid, not able to be empathic? Can’t go with the flow? How can you reclaim your creative fertility & be compassionate to yourself?
North: Earth – Does necessity bind you? Are you stuck in the mud? A perfectionist? Is nothing ever good enough? Perhaps you find it hard to complete things? What would it look like to be grounded, productive, prosperous & steadfast in your determination to create & manifest?
Perhaps this Spring season will call you to re-dedicate yourself to the 6 Basic / fundamental/ Essential Exercises…
From Rudolf Steiner: A meditant should do these six exercises:
1. Control of Thought: Think about a simple object for at least five minutes. Hold it fast in thoughts without going over to other things. This exercise arouses a feeling of firmness in the pupil as it activates the chakra between the eyebrows. One should send this feeling through the brain & down the backbone.
2. Control of will (acting on your own initiative): Do an unimportant thing every day at a certain time. This exercise also gives firmness.
3. Develop equanimity, that is, one shouldn’t fluctuate between rejoicing to heaven & despairing to death. A joke can be enjoyed just as much if we don’t laugh uncontrollably. We can bear a pain better if we don’t wallow in it too much. This gives us a feeling of quiet calm that we can let stream from the heart to the arms, & out through the hands.
4. Positivity: See the beautiful & true elements in all things. Christ Jesus admired the beautiful teeth in a rotting dog, where his disciples only saw ugliness. We can discover at least a small kernel of truth & something beautiful in everything. If we do this exercise for some time it gives us a feeling of great joy.
5. Open mindedness: Always be open to new things. We should never say: I never heard of that, that can’t be, or I don’t believe that. We should always leave the possibility open that we can learn something from everything that people say. We can learn from children, animals & everything else. This gives us the feeling that we could also perceive things while we are outside the body.
6. Inner Harmony: This exercise is a combination of the preceding ones, so that we can combine two & two or any way one wants. By doing this, we get the feeling that we have grown beyond the limits of our skin.
By practicing these basic exercises we develop our soul forces of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, creating new spiritual organs of perception. May we all take up the work of transformation which will lead us into the Resurrection.
Blessings of becoming dear friends
~hag
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1827 – Death-Day of Ludwig van Beethoven, German pianist & composer
1856 – Birthday of Fritz Lemmermayer, an Austrian writer, journalist & closest childhood friend of Rudolf Steiner in Vienna. Fritz was a passionate anti-materialist, he wanted to devote his life to the creation & maintenance of spiritual values. In 1883 he completed his novel “The Alchemist”. Rudolf Steiner met Lemmermayer again in 1886 in the circle of the poet Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. An extensive correspondence attests to the close friendship between the two (see GA 38).
Steiner says: Fritz Lemmermayer, with whom I was later on terms of intimate friendship, I came to know at one of delle Grazie’s afternoons. A highly noteworthy man. Whatever interested him he expressed with inwardly measured dignity. In his outward appearance he resembled equally the musician Rubinstein and the actor Lewinsky. With Hebbel he developed almost a cult. He had definite views on art and life born out of the sagacious understanding of the heart, and these were unusually fixed. He had written the interesting and profound romance, Der Alchemist(3), and much besides that was characterized by beauty and depth. He knew how to consider the least things in life from the view-point of the most vital. I recall how I once saw him in his charming little room in a side-street in Vienna together with other friends. He had planned his meal: two soft-boiled eggs, to be cooked in an instantaneous boiler, together with bread. He remarked with much emphasis while the water was heating to boil the eggs for us: “This will be delicious!” In a later phase of my life I shall again have occasion to speak of him ~Rudolf Steiner, The Story of My Life, Chapter VII Lemmermayer & Steiner joined the ranks of the Viennese artist circle in the house of the protestant priest Alfred Formey. In 1891 Lemmermayer was vice president of Schrifstellerbundes Iduna , named after Iduna , the Norse goddess of youth & immortality a counterweight against the currents of naturalism. Lemmermayer became a member of the Anthroposophical Society in 1920. He Steiner on many trips through Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland & England. This led to his 1929 published memories, where he spoke about Rudolf Steiner, Robert Hamerling & other personalities of the Austrian intellectual life of the 80s. In addition, Lemmermayer published in the weekly ” Das Goetheanum “.
1874 – Birthday of Robert Frost, American poet & playwright
1892 – Deathday of Walt Whitman
1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin & Jimmy Carter sign the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C
***
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~from my own
body I give
birth to all time.
look now
with new eyes
& stir the season within…
~hag
The 8-Fold Path to Easter
Holy Week 2021 (March 28 – April 4): Starting on Palm Sunday & every morning of Holy Week, at8 am PT / 9 am MT/ 10 am CT / 11 am ET / 3 pm UT / 4 pm CET
for 30 minutes, including Easter Sunday, we will gather on zoom
& endeavor 1st of all, to take turns sharing indications from Holy Week,
the 7 rhythms of the Foundation Stone Meditation
& Rudolf Steiner/The Buddha’s 8 –fold Path, known as the ‘Weekday Exercises’
(15-20 min) HOLY WEEK CHART
Zoom Host Lisa Dalton (President of the National Michael Chekhov Association)
28 March Palm SUNDAY – with Festivals Coordnator Hazel Archer
Resolves or ‘RIGHT JUDGMENT.’ having been formed independently of sympathies and antipathies.
29 March Holy MONDAY – with Speech Artist Christine Burke
Talking – ‘RIGHT WORD.’
30 March Holy TUESDAY – Rudolf Steiner’s Deathday – with Deborah Rogers
External actions- ‘RIGHT DEED.’
Also on 30 March 2021 at 12pm PT/1 pm MT/ 2pm CT/ 3pm ET / 7 pm UT / 8 pm CET
All are invited to join a 30 minute Festive Vigil for Rudolf Steiner
In honor of the anniversary of his Birth into the Spiritual World 30 March 1925
(This is a separate zoom link from the one for Holy Week) Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81463338523?pwd=UUdBUVBJeFh6eitoWURibzNIREVwQT09
Meeting ID: 814 6333 8523 – Passcode: FSM (More details on the 3 day vigil below)
31 March Holy WEDNESDAY – with Founder of the ARC Atlanta Angela Foster
The ordering of life. – ‘RIGHT STANDPOINT.’
1 April Maundy THURSDAY – with Lelan Harris of Wise Cosmos
Human Endeavour. – ‘TO LET ALL THE EXERCISES BECOME A HABIT.’
2 April Good FRIDAY – with Sally Greenberg
The endeavor to learn as much as possible from life. – ‘RIGHT MEMORY.’ (Remembering what has been learned from experiences).
3 March Holy SATURDAY – with Nancy Poer of White Feather Ranch
To pay attention to one’s ideas. – ‘RIGHT OPINION.’
The octave of the New Sun
4 April EASTER SUNDAY – with Luicien Dante Lazar
To turn one’s gaze inwards – ‘RIGHT EXAMINATION.’
Whoever is holding the leading thoughts for that day will tie it into some artistic exercise based on the indications (15-20 min)
Group sharing (5 min)
Then we will co-create a Thought–Seed with Hazel Archer –
A group Thought-Form, a positive egregore, created by our Willed Visualization.
We will use this Herbert Hahn verse as an anchor:
“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”
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 my soul shines
My soul shines
When I think light
So it’s a Short & Sweet – 30 minute Holy Week touch in.
*Dear friends, we will open the zoom room at 9:50 am for social time
& to give everyone a chance to get settled in so we can begin promptly at 10 am
Topic: The 8-Fold Path thru Holy Week 2021
Time: Starting on Palm Sunday Mar 28 – thru Easter Morning, 2021 10 AM Central Time (US and Canada)
Every day, 8 occurrence(s)
Mar 28, 2021 10AM
Mar 29, 2021 10AM
Mar 30, 2021 10AM
Mar 31, 2021 10AM
Apr 1, 2021 10AM
Apr 2, 2021 10M
Apr 3, 2021 10AM
Apr 4, 2021 10AM
Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/95633444828?pwd=Wk56K08vK2dNQUhhK0Q2S09zQWJrQT09 Meeting ID: 956 3344 4828 – Passcode: bee
Dial by your location Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/aX8X3nrr3 Meeting ID: 956 3344 4828 – Passcode: 425730
“Human Bee-ing at Easter Time”
Easter Sunday 4 April 2021, at12 pm PT/1 pm MT/ 2 pm CT/ 3pm ET / 8 pm CET
in person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online
What can the bees teach us about consciously engaging with the Earth and deepening our inner festival life? And how does this inner festival life affect the beings all around us?
Let us discover the tasks of our time and journey with the Bee into her connection to the Earth, the Cosmos, and the Human Soul…during the Easter expansion.
This small ceremony will include artistic and meditative activity. Please have ready: some real honey and a spoon, a beeswax candle and matches, paper and colored pencils.
Zoom Host – Lisa Dalton
Group Eurythmy with Mary Ruud
Dottie Zold – On the Buddha’s 8-Fold Path
Keynote with Ines Katharina Kinchen who makes her home at the , a small biodynamic initiative nestled in the in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee, surrounded by the Cherokee National Forest. Here she lives with her son Marquise, tends to the bees, the animals and the land, and facilitates workshops.
Ines is a Resonance Medicine practitioner, a kindergarten teacher at the Asheville Waldorf School, and the founder of the Honeybee Habitat Project.
We close with singing with Lucien Dante Lazar & Eurythmy with Mary Ruud
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)
Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/7052931041?pwd=Z0ZmT05FdDZIclE4RFBLZWNwWXJ5QT09
Meeting ID: 705 293 1041 – Passcode: Easter
Dial by your location – Meeting ID: 705 293 1041 – Passcode: 776400 – Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/a961qZZhF
For more info. contact coordinator Hazel Archer
Committee for Festivals, Art & Cultural Events of the Rudolf Steiner Branch
of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://donate.rschicago.org/
Invitation to join in a 3 day Festive Vigil for Rudolf Steiner In honor of the anniversary of his Birth into the Spiritual World
As a reflection back to the 3 day group exercise we created for Rudolf Steiner’s birthday during February 25-27, 2021, you are invited to co-create a vigil in honor of the anniversary of his death in the physical world. We are meditating with the Bridge verse (below) and the image of the Representative of Humanity sculpture. To picture inwardly the sculpture and consider how Rudolf Steiner has impacted one’s life might be a powerful way to celebrate together.
Everyone is invited to participate. Join us as you are willing and able, for any or all aspects of the vigil.
Day 1: 29 March 2021
* Begin with the Bridge verse (below) upon waking in the morning.
* You might create a physical altar for these 3 days – a portal, or crossing point. Light a candle, place flowers, or other sacred actions.
Day 2: 30 March 2021
* Pay attention to reflections from the night. Begin the day with the Bridge verse
* Join together on Zoom (link below) at 12pm PT/1 pm MT/ 2pm CT/ 3pm ET for a 30 minute Celebration of Life for Dr. Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925)
During the call:
* Welcome by Angela Foster. Bring a candle to light together if you will.
* Hazel Archer Ginsberg: Recollections from Wilhem Zeylmans van Emmichoven and Thoughts on The Representative of Humanity
* Timothy Kennedy: “Some of the Gifts of Rudolf Steiner’s Death”
* Closing verse by Angela Foster
Day 3: March 31 2021
* Reflections from the night. Begin the day with the Bridge Verse. What is rising up from the vigil we created together – what after-images have come?
* You are invited to share reflections at this link: https://padlet.com/angelaARC/1vcgls2eujjed4cz
* In the evening, before sleep, repurpose your altar. Give an offering to the earth.
We are a bridge
Between what is past
And future existence;
The present is an instant:
Is momentary bridge.
Spirit become soul
In enfolding matter
Is from the past;
Soul becoming spirit
In germinal vessels
Is on the path to the future.
Grasp what is to come
Through what is past;
Have hope of what is growing
Through what has emerged.
And so apprehend
Existence in growing;
And so apprehend
What is growing in what is. ~ Given to Ita Wegman at the opening of the clinic in Arlesheim Christmas 1920 by Rudolf Steiner
The ARC is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: March 30 Celebration for Rudolf Steiner Time: Tues March 30, 12pm PT/1 pm MT/ 2pm CT/ 3pm ET
Join Zoom Meeting – https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81463338523?pwd=UUdBUVBJeFh6eitoWURibzNIREVwQT09 – Meeting ID: 814 6333 8523 – Passcode: FSM
One tap mobile – Meeting ID: 814 6333 8523 – Passcode: 286512 – Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kctvcCLHg3