Monthly Archives: July 2021

Roadtrippers Return

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Greetings friends – I am just now returning from a family road-trip – a kind of second honeymoon. CG & I, with UVA, who was 1 & a half & still nursing, eloped to Berkley Springs, West Virginia 20 years ago. This time for our anniversary, on the way, we stopped off for a 2 day hike in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The forest was teeming with life forces, its ravines, & waterfalls breath-giving.

Working with the biodynamic preps over the years I ‘met’ Abby Porter online years ago, & wonder of wonders, Abby happens to live in Berkeley Springs – an  art-filled oasis nestled in the West Virginia mountains. She was the one who actually suggested we come back for our 20th anniversary. So we finally got to meet in person. Abby knows everyone; she acted as our personal tour guide, taking us to all the highlights in the sweet historic spa town.

A fountainhead of warm mineral waters frequented by Native Americans long before Europeans arrived in the New World, are at the heart of the mountain spa community. The waters flow at a constant 74°F from the base of Warm Springs Ridge. You can still drink freely & fill your jugs at the public tap; & everyone – young & old, rich & poor, comes to wade in the ancient stone pools.

Berkeley Spring, West Virginia | West virginia mountains, Travel spot,  Berkeley springs

In the little museum next to the bath house you can see a map of the ‘Medicine Springs’ drawn by Thomas Jefferson’s father in 1747.

George Washington first visited in 1748 when he was 16, & made the area his favorite getaway. 

We also hiked in Cacapon State Park down the road, sitting in the shadows of the highest peak in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle. Cacapon is a Shawnee Indian word meaning – you guessed it – ‘medicine waters’.

In the evenings we would make sure to be somewhere so I could participate in the rehearsals lead by Barbara Renold for the reading of the Russian Epic initiated by our Elderberries friends in honor of Sergei O. Prokofieff’s birthday.

The Best Travel Guide to Sandusky, Ohio

On the way home we spent some time exploring Sandusky Ohio, with its river famous for trout fishing, & the beautiful bay next to Lake Erie. Sandusky is derived from the Wyandot word saundustee, meaning ‘cold water’.

What a glorious land America is – So diverse & beautiful – Mother Nature in all her variations, there to remind us of the spirit behind all life.

We were on the road traveling home on Sergei’s birthday anniversary so sadly I couldn’t be in Chicago for the amazing tribute that our Elderberries friends created. The wifi was iffy in the mountains – I was in a panic – but at a truck stop I was able to get a good signal & since I played the part of ‘Dark Night’ – a Spiritual Being seeking to lure Ilya to sleep, it was reasonable to be a disembodied voice that wafted in during the reading. I thought I had found the perfect spot in the busy food court, but just as I was speaking my lines 2 guys came by talking loudly & another fellow wheeling a bin created some strange sound effects…O well…I did what I could…I was just grateful to be part of the effort, since the work of Sergei Olegovitch Prokofieff has played a significant part on my Anthroposophical path.

I have written about Sergei often, he was the 1st to confirm my connection with the New Isis.

His dedication to the School of Spiritual Science birthed in me a true knowing. A group of us meets every Friday to study ‘The Esoteric Path through the 19 Class Lessons.’ This work is a key that unlocks the mystery of the Michael School, bringing into focus the connection between the 2 streams in the life of Christ, & of the sacrifice that opens us to the Etheric Christ now.

Sergei’s work has deepened for me the living reality of the ‘New Mysteries’, illuminating the relationship of the Christ-Sophia in this Michael age, with Rudolf Steiner & Christian Rosenkreutz, which we as human beings are called to explore & develop. “The Cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation – A Esoteric Study of the Festivals” is my vademecum – my calling, my life’s work.

“The Occult Significance of Forgiveness” changed my life (I am of course still striving here) And the massive work “May Human Beings Hear It” which convinced me to dedicate myself to the Foundation Stone Meditation, has kept me involved in the Anthroposophical Society, when the human failings & karmic knots would have driven me away; pointing up the living reality of the Christmas Conference, which I feel a personal & collective responsibility to fulfill.

My heart spills over with gratitude for this true initiate, this true anthroposopher, this true human being, who continues to be my mentor from across the Threshold.

“Anthroposophia seeks to become a new group-soul for that part of humankind which is united within the General Anthroposophical Society founded by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference of 1923-24, thereby representing a kind of archetype for the whole of future evolution & at the same time initiating that universally human process which Rudolf Steiner described in the following words: ‘When people gather together in voluntary associations, they group themselves around focal points. The feelings that stream together at such a focal point now gives Beings the opportunity to work as a kind of group-soul, though in a completely different sense from the former unconscious group-souls. All previous group-souls were beings who made man unfree. These New Beings, however, are wholly compatible with the freedom & preservation of human individuality’.

Anthroposophia would seek to become the 1st of these Beings in our time. However, whether this is possible depends not on this Being alone, but also on human beings.

Thus by uniting with one another in the General Anthroposophical Society out of a love for Anthroposophia & a wish to serve her as a real, living Being, anthroposophist’s throughout the world have the task of together creating on Earth something akin to an all embracing soul-chalice into which this supersensible Being, the youngest member of the heavenly Sophia, can descend. And this means none other than the beginning of the incarnation of the heavenly Sophia on Earth. (This will come about in the 7th epoch, but of which we must prepare now)

Only from this grandiose perspective can we really understand the inner significance of the deed wrought by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference, a deed which represents the high-point & culmination of the entire 21 year development of the anthroposophical movement (1902-23) – a ‘Turning Point of Time’ – For it signified the birth on Earth of her ego in the sheaths of the General Anthroposophical Society. In this way the foundation was laid, or-one could say-the possibility created, for the further working of Anthroposophia in the midst as a New Group-Soul.” ~Sergei O. Prokofieff, “The Heavenly Sophia and the Being Anthroposophia”

May we take up this task to give birth to Anthroposophia, this Being of Human Wisdom, within ourselves, to serve the highest good in all worlds.

Thank you dear Sergei for your continued inspiration. 

~hag

29 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: On this evening of the Jupiter – Mars opposition, Mars passes Regulus in conjunction in the northwest after sunset.  Venus is to their upper left.

also: The Southern Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capracornids are both lighting up the night sky this week.

Bellene McSullen

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
THE ENTHUSIASM OF THE YEAR
(Last week, on July 22nd, the sun entered the sign of Leo
whose eurythmy gesture is Enthusiasm)
The Soul Ground’s Fruit
v16
My foresight is commanding me
to harbour inwardly the spirit’s gift
that its divine fruit, ripening
in ground of soul, bring who I am
the heaven’s harvest.

I date the verses so that Christmas is always verse 38,
which means that v17 is always in the week of July 31st,
including Lammas, August 1st, in 6 years out of 7,
but not when July 31st is on a Saturday as in this year
and Lammas Day is the Sunday of the following week;
but it is also celebrated for 3 days from July 31st to
August 2nd and this can still be the Lammas verse.
LAMMAS
The Bread
v17
The Cosmic Word
I’ve had the grace to lead
through senses’ gates to soul ground speaks:
Imagine in your spirit depths my world expanse
to find in future Me in you.

the mirror verse
ADVENT III
The Wine
v36
The Cosmic Word,
mysteriously urging to be heard,
is speaking in my depths of being:
Inspire your life’s endeavour
with spirit light of mine
to sacrifice yourself through Me.

The myth of Bylina

Freedom & Love

Benny Leptesone

Greetings friends – To consciously live up to the task of being human – to embody in this life the Christic qualities of Love – in Freedom – to keep the focus on the goal of achieving the next rung on the ladder of evolution – to become the 10th Hierarchy – these thoughts are with me daily.

I struggle staying in Love – especially when I am experiencing pain – pain in all its myriad manifestations. It seems that for me having pain in my physical body unbalances the other subtle bodies & it’s harder to hold up Love as the selfless ideal, let alone live it relationally.

I am trying to sit with this pain today. It helped that I attended the ‘Consecration of Man’ at the Christian Community this morning instead of struggling to write for 8 hours straight like most days. To let the ‘medicine that makes whole’ enter the wounds – to awaken again the love that lives in the godhood of my soul – this got me thinking about the other most precious human attribute – Freedom.

I have made choices, worked hard & am blessed to live a life that is, for the most part, not bound by outer necessity.  I am graced with a karma that allows me to serve Anthroposophia full time. But today while sitting in the dull throb of pain which clouds my ability to do my chosen work, it hit me that I am not really free if I let my inner perfectionism, or my own enforcement of expectation bind me. Yes it’s true each day I wake with a seed idea or am sparked by a theme or milestone from history. But today I began questioning am I really free? I realize now as I am writing this that today is Thursday & on the 8-Fold path Steiner tells us:

THURSDAY is Right Striving
One should do nothing which lies outside one’s capacities, but one should do everything which is within one’s powers. One should place above everyday life, and that which happens at the moment, goals and ideals, which are in connection with the greatest duties a human being can have. For instance, to develop oneself, by making a habit of these exercises, in order to help one’s fellow human being all the more, to advise them, although perhaps not in the immediate future. What has been said can be summed up in: ‘Make a habit of these exercises.’

Spending hours on the computer, doing research, writing essays which I publish almost every day is begging the question: am I over reaching my capacities? Is all this ‘productivity’ really a call from the spiritual world, or is it just a way of justifying my existence; or perhaps even a convoluted way of procrastinating? It’s true that lately I find it difficult to work on my other projects, especially after spending such long hours in the realm of sub-nature. There is no doubt that the computer time exasperates my health problems.

The ironic thing is most folks tell me they don’t even have time to read everything I offer – so why am I killing myself? Chill hag. Go on your family vacation next week & just live. And then spend all that time & energy writing the pageant for the ASA AGM ‘Building the Temple of the Heart’ conference, instead of getting nervous that it won’t be done or good enough…etc…

Phew, ok, thanks for letting me get that off my chest, attempting to put all that into perspective – to let the ‘pain become crystalized wisdom’. I’m just going to post this without any proof reading or crafting so I can get on to a more balanced healing place…

I will drop in every now & then, So until soon…

Blessings & peace

~hag  

15 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Now Mars moves away lower right of Venus, while brighter Regulus hones in from the upper left. Regulus will pass 1° from Venus on the evening of the 21st.

***

There is no other way towards a world history in light of anthroposophy than to engage with concrete karmic facts” ~Rudolf Steiner

484 BC – Dedication of the Temple of Castor & Pollux in ancient Rome

1099 –Christian soldiers take the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem lead by Godfrey of Bouillon who became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He refused the title of King, however, as he believed that the true King of Jerusalem was Christ, preferring the title of Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre. He is also known as the “Baron of the Holy Sepulchre” & the “Crusader King”

1149 – The reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre is consecrated in Jerusalem

1274 – Feast Day of Bonaventure, Italian bishop & saint called the “Seraphic Doctor”

1381 – English Priest John Ball, a leader in the Peasants’ Revolt, is hanged, drawn & quartered in the presence of King Richard II of England whose posthumous reputation was shaped by Shakespeare, in the play Richard II

Rembrandt - De Poolse ruiter, c.1655 (Frick Collection).jpg
The Polish Rider CR

1606 – Birthday of Rembrandt

1741 –Aleksei Chirikov a Russian navigator & captain sights land in Southeast Alaska. He sends men ashore in a longboat, making them the first Europeans to visit Alaska

1799 – The Rosetta Stone is found in the Egyptian village of Rosetta by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign

1815 –Napoleon Bonaparte surrenders aboard HMS Bellerophon

1823 – A fire destroys the ancient Basilica of Saint Paul

1834 – The Spanish Inquisition is officially disbanded after nearly 356 years

1904 – Deathday of Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright & short story writer

1929 – Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Austrian author, poet, and playwright

1955 – Eighteen Nobel laureates sign the Mainau Declaration against nuclear weapons, later co-signed by thirty-four others

1971 – The United Red Army is founded in Japan

Glennis Siverson

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Mine is
A heart of ruby-red
Crimson hot
& dark as murder on a Holy Day…
Mine is a heart of emerald,
The gnarled roots
Of a rosewood bursting with thorns
& bright blossoms in the Sun…
~hag

Parallels

Van James

Dear friends – This week has been one of looking back. I realize that it’s been 7 years since I began a modern study in the unveiling of true history thru karmic relationships, & if you have read my essays you know that Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul is my biggest inspiration.

The calendar is an active relational meditative path that shows how the individual soul’s journey is affected by the unfolding of the seasons realized at their deepest esoteric level. This is how Steiner described it:

I have tried to draw up verses for meditation, the effect of which will enable the soul gradually to discover in itself and in its own experiences the connection with the great cosmic constellations. These formulae for meditation do in all reality lead the soul out of its narrow confines to experience of the heavens. These fifty-two verses will enable the soul to find access to happenings in the great universe, and thereby to experience the Spirits working in the onward flow of Time. But if you ponder on the texts of the verses in the Calendar, you will discern an element of Timelessness, in rhythmic alternation; an element that is experienced inwardly by the human being, the laws of which run parallel to those of Time in the outer world.”

The calendar’s history is itself fascinating. It started on Easter Sunday, in the week from April 7 to 13, 1912. The shift from January to April was made in honor of the idea that the first year was 33 AD – the Resurrection, not year 1 of the birth of Jesus.

The Calendar was the first place Steiner referred to the Mystery of Golgotha as the birth of the “I.” This is why on the cover the characters “J C H” (Jesus Christ) appear, which also stand for the German Ich; which means ‘I’, & below them is the inscription Geburt (born). It reads “The year 1879 after the birth of the ‘I.’” In effect, the year 1912 equals 1879 plus 33.” Steiner wrote this at a time in which he could not yet speak openly of the Archangel Michael & the new Michael age.

The date of 33 AD as the birth of the “I” is crucial, because it reveals an important relationship between microcosm & macrocosm, in which Easter plays a central role. After that time it was possible for the human being to awake to the possibility of the “I” within, because the Christ had united with the Earth.

The preface to the first calendar was entitled “What is Intended,” & it was followed by a weekly calendar with drawings of the zodiac signs, which Imma von Eckhardstein had created, following Steiner’s sketches. These new signs were not meant to represent the classical zodiacal constellations, but rather the spiritual forces active in the cosmos. In addition to the twelve zodiacal images, were five images appearing at different times of the calendar year, representing the five great epochs of Earth evolution; a lunar calendar following the ephemeris; & a daily calendar with commemoration of historical events & memorial days of great individualities – Birthdays & Deathdays.

Among the individualities commemorated are Christian saints; biblical individuals (Enoch, Gaspar, Melchior, Balthasar, Abel, Seth); historical figures (Byron, Lessing, Galileo, Michelangelo, artists, philosophers, thinkers, & so forth). It was interesting that individuals that Steiner did not exalt (for example, Roger Bacon & Charles Darwin) were also listed.

The first calendar was met, in Steiner’s words, with “mockery and derision.” The major unease lay in the fact that the year would have been variable & of unequal length. To that objection, Steiner responded that for anthroposophists, it would be important to observe the year from Easter to Easter. He commented in a lecture specifically about the calendar, “In what is unequal there is life; in what is uniform and fixed, here is the impress of death.”

Great importance was placed by Steiner in publishing new calendars yearly, as well as working artistically with them. The 1918 edition appeared in the “Colorful Waldorf Astoria Booklets” – tiny books packaged with the cigarettes & intended for soldiers in the trenches. It also appeared in a series of books edited by Herman Hesse for Prisoners of war, in a text by Steiner called “The Real Experience of the Human Riddle through the Spirit.”

Karl König, who wrote much about the Calendar, made drawings for the weeks. Laura Summer, Sophie Takata, Ella Lapointe & many others have worked artistically with the Calendar, & we can too. As part of the festival life we have often painted our impressions from the Soul Verses.

I also think it’s a powerful act for us to add events such as milestones from the life of Rudolf Steiner to the calendar – for instance today 14 July in 1914 was the last of the 250 ‘Esoteric Lessons‘ given by Steiner in Norrkoping. These kinds of events along side modern happenings help us follow the treads & find the parallels.  

And so the work continues…

~hag

14 July 2021 “Speaking with the Stars”: The ever-waxing Moon is now lower left of Denebola, Leo’s tail tip. They’re less than a fist at arm’s length apart. The brighter star way off three fists left of the Moon is Spica. ~skyandtelescope.org

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul; The Present Age, Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia)

Vive la France: What Is Bastille Day and Why Should You Celebrate It?

Bastille Day

1789 – French Revolution began with Parisians stormed the Bastille prison & released the seven prisoners inside

1798 – The Sedition Act becomes law in the United States making it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the United States government

1853 – Opening of the first major US world’s fair, the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City

1862 – Birthday of Gustav Klimt an Austrian symbolist painter, one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement

His work was the subject of controversy that culminated when the paintings he completed around 1900 for the ceiling of the Great Hall of the University of Vienna were criticized as pornographic. He subsequently accepted no more public commissions, but achieved a new success with the paintings of his “golden phase,” many of which include gold leaf.

Prof Frank McDonough on Twitter: "14 July 1874. The Chicago Fire of 1874  burned down 47 acres of the city, destroyed 812 building & killed 20  people.… "

1874 – The Chicago Fire burns down 47 acres of the city, destroying 812 buildings, killing 20

1877 – The Great Railroad Strike begins in Martinsburg, West Virginia, US, when Baltimore & Ohio Railroad workers have their wages cut for the second time in a year

1896 –  Birthday of José Buenaventura Durruti Dumange who played an influential role during the Spanish Revolution & is remembered as a hero in the Anarchist movement. “It is we [the workers] who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. […] That world is growing in this minute.” — Buenaventura Durruti

Over a half million people filled the streets at his funeral. It was the last large-scale public demonstration of anarchist strength of numbers during the bitter & bloody civil war

1912 – Birthday of Woody Guthrie, singer-songwriter & guitarist

1933 – Gleichschaltung: In Germany, all political parties are outlawed except the Nazi Party.

1933 – The Nazi eugenics begins

1960 – Jane Goodall arrives at the Gombe Stream Reserve in Tanzania to begin her famous study of chimpanzees in the wild

1976 – Capital punishment is abolished in Canada

1986 – Deathday of Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges, an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet & translator, a key figure in Spanish-language literature. His compilations of short stories were interconnected by common themes, including dreams, labyrinths, libraries, mirrors, fictional writers, philosophy, & religion.

Borges’ works have contributed to philosophical literature & the fantasy genre -The first to use the term magical realism. His late poems dialogue with such cultural figures as Spinoza, Camões, & Virgil.

He became completely blind by the age of 55; as he never learned braille, he became unable to read. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination

2003 – In an effort to discredit U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who had written an article critical of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Washington Post columnist Robert Novak reveals that Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame is a CIA “operative”

Bella Dark

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~What small matters i remember-
things – & their histories – shall be found in books by others…
but the greater knowledge, of love, will flourish in my children’s children…
the sun will weave gold threads about them, truth embodied…
They will call this mantle: Life…
~hag

War & Peace

Dear friends – Even though I focus a lot of my study & research on the Being of Anthroposophia, I was never one to pay much heed to the Marian Apparitions – until I started to examine the connections with the reappearance of the etheric Christ. I have begun to think of these apparitions as precursors setting the stage for this powerful opportunity available to humanity today.  

Working with Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul, which shows along with the Holy Days, the birth & death days, & many great historical events, I take to heart what Steiner says: ‘What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of humankind’s spiritual development’. So I work to make connections & find patterns, with what happened in the past, & how it effects the present, & informs the future that we are ever co-creating.

Today is the Anniversary of the third apparition of Our Lady of Fatima on 13 July 1917 – an interesting time in world events…

1916-17 were crucial years in the evolution of humanity; the repercussions of which, 105 years later, must become conscious for the modern world.

Rudolf Steiner gave us The Occult Background of the War’ under the title: ‘The Karma of Untruthfulness‘, Vol. 1 & Vol 2 – in 1916 at the vital point in the war when there was the best hope for peace. But the Western Allies rejected all offers, & on 6 April 1917 President Woodrow Wilson took the US into war.

A month before, the Russian Revolution ended the 300 year-old rule of the Romanovs. The 1st American troops arrived in June, & from May to October 1917 ‘visions’ of the Blessed Virgin Mary were seen at Fatima.

Dali

On the same day that the Third Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima occured – Friday the 13th of July in 1917, Rudolf Steiner had a meeting with Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz where they talked about the Three-Fold Social order.

Let’s remember what message The Lady gave on that same day – The three secrets involving Hell, World War I & World War II.

Our Lady told the children that to save the sinners from hell, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to Her Immaculate Heart. She asked for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart, & the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

From the Fourth Memoir: The Story of the Apparitions by Lucia Santos the oldest of the 3 children:

‘A few moments after arriving at the Cova da Iria, near the holmoak, where a large number of people were praying the Rosary, we saw the flash of light once more, and a moment later Our Lady appeared on the holmoak.

— Your Grace, what do you want of me? — I asked.

— I want you to come here on the 13th of next month, to continue to pray the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you.

— I would like to ask you to tell us who you are, and to work a miracle so that everybody will believe that you are appearing to us.

— Continue to come here every month. In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle for all to see and believe.

I then made some requests, but I cannot recall now just what they were. What I do remember is that Our Lady said it was necessary for such people to pray the Rosary in order to obtain these graces during the year. And she continued:

— Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially whenever you make some sacrifice: O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation (порт. reparação) for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

As Our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. Terrified and as if to plead for succour, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly:

— You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion (port. a devoção) to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.

— To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation (port. a Comunhão reparadora) on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved; etc… Do not tell this to anybody. Francisco, yes, you may tell him.

— When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: O my Jesus, forgive us, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need.

After this, there was a moment of silence, and then I asked:

— Your Grace, is there anything more that you want of me?

— No, I do not want anything more of you today.

Then, as before Our Lady began to ascend towards the east, until she finally disappeared in the immense distance of the firmament’.

On 7 November 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power – at the same time Steiner began his 7 lectures on the ‘Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double’ given in St. Gallen Zurich & Dornach between 6 & 25 November 1917.

2 days later the British Government’s Balfour Declaration to Lord Rothschild was published, which promised a national home in Palestine for the Jewish people.

On the Western Front, 6 Nov. 1917, was the appalling slaughter of the Third Battle of Ypres – 600,000 dead – which Steiner attributed to ‘the karma of materialism’ – the direct result of too many people being asleep to world events & to the ways in which spiritual realties play into these events.

In these lectures Steiner shows the relationship of the ‘Fall of the Spirits of darkness’ cast out of the spiritual world & draws attention to the actions of elite power groups serving these beings: ‘Awareness alone…clear recognition and understanding of spiritual realties together with willingness to recognize the objective evil forces at work in the world and their purpose in the scheme of things – these are the only means that can be of real help in modern humanity’s predicament.’  

Can we see a parallel today?

~yours in service

~hag

13 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul; The Present Age, Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia)

100 BC – Gaius Julius Caesar – “The Gallic Wars”

1298 – Deathday of Blessed Jacobus de Varagine, an Italian chronicler & archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, of Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, a collection of hagiographies of the legendary lives of saints of the Middle Ages. The Golden Legend is the source of the Rose Cross Meditation that Rudolf Steiner often quoted.

1527 – Birthday of John Dee, English-Welsh mathematician, astronomer, & astrologer & occultist

1727 – The founding of The Herrnhuter Brotherhood, The Moravian Church – Unitas Fratrum – Unity of the Brethren – predating the Protestant Reformation by a century, it was really the 1st  Protestant Church, with its heritage dating back to the Bohemian Reformation in the fifteenth century. It places a high value on ecumenism, personal piety, music -communio sub utraque specie, married priests, & eliminating indulgences & the idea of Purgatory. The Church’s emblem is the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei) with the flag of victory, surrounded by the Latin inscription: Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur “Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow Him”

1863 – New York City draft riots: violent demonstrations that were the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots remain the largest civil & racial insurrection in American history, aside from the Civil War itself

1878 – Treaty of Berlin: The European powers redraw the map of the Balkans. Serbia, Montenegro & Romania become completely independent of the Ottoman Empire

Jugend Bennderling

1889 – Deathday of Robert Hamerling an Austrian poet. Rudolf Steiner gave his funeral address.  http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA154/English/AP1990/19140426p01.html The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica characterizes Hamerling as one of the most remarkable poets of the modern Austrian school, describing his imagination as rich & his poems as full of life & color. In his most popular poem, Ahasver in Rom (1866), the emperor Nero is the central figure. Among his other works, Venus im Exil (1858); Der König von Sion (1869), characterized as a masterpiece; Die sieben Todsünden (1872) Blätter im Winde (1887); Homunculus (1888); Amor und Psyche (1882). His novel, Aspasia (1876), a finely-drawn description of the Periclean age, & his tragedy Danton und Robespierre (1870), showed Hamerling’s genius. In Karmic Relationships Vol. 2, lecture 6, Steiner describes him as a pupil of Plato in an earlier incarnation.

1923 – The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated. It originally reads “Hollywoodland ” but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949

1943 – Battle of Kursk was the final defeat of the German army. With the Soviet line at Kursk protruding into enemy territory, the Germans attempted to attack from different directions. Given time to reposition their defenses, the Soviets held off the offensive before launching a counterattack. Facing the American invasion of Sicily & the threat of an Italian collapse, Hitler decided to call off operations at Kursk, its failure shifting the balance of power.

1963 – Deathday of Albert Steffen a poet, painter, dramatist, essayist,& novelist. He joined the Anthroposophical Society in 1912 & became its president after the death of its founder, Rudolf Steiner, in 1925. Steffen was chief editor of the society’s journal, Das Goetheanum, from 1921-1963. His earliest works, predating his encounter with anthroposophy, already manifest a spiritual awareness. His later works, which reflect a vision of the world permeated by metaphysical powers of good & evil, draw on a wide range of esoteric European & Asian traditions

1973 – Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the “Nixon tapes” to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in.

2013 – George Zimmerman is found not guilty in the shooting of Trayvon Martin

Thomas Lensky

The Lion and the Rose by Robert Hamerling

On a deep red rose
The angry lion trod
His paw caught fast the thorn
Of this delicate bud.

His paw swelled large;
In angry pain he died.
Refreshed, the red rose drank
The early morning dew.

Be the delicate ever so delicate,
The rough ever so rough,
That which is fragile, gentle, pure —
Beauty, triumphs over all.
~ Letzte Grüsse aus Stiftinghaus, vol. 15 in Hamerling’s Collected Works

Beings in Conjunction

Kalley Xentl

My gifts to you ‘I think Speech’ podcast & the collection of Recordings of past presentations

(June 21 to July 21)Selflessness Becomes Catharsis

The fullness of the resplendent Summer with its lush, colorful gardens & flowering meadows, undulating like heat waves in a dream over the earth, embraced in a mantle of warmth. I give myself up to the fullness of the motherly Sun, in order to become, a sun myself. My soul a flaming glow blazing full of yearning for the open stillness of the wide starry sky.

Lose yourself to find yourself

Today too on my natal return, these words sound out to me from those heavenly heights. But how, after the ‘I’ has made its way into us, can we lose ourselves in order to find ourselves again in the ‘I’ of the World?

Perhaps it’s by sacrificing our intellectual knowledge to the spirit of the world! This is the secret of the Summer mysteries: the transformation of the intellectual knowledge of the head, into the warmth-bearing substance of the will!

Seen from the aspect of biography, this turning point, is mirrored after the middle of life, where the downward curve of life sets in – understood in July’s glyph of the crab, symbol of the constellation Cancer. (here is an amazing video for the constellation Cancer in Eurythmy)

We are called to give up the armoring of materialism, which is a danger that lucks in the summer feeling. Only when the crab reveals its spiritual secret can it bestow its wisdom to us.

This secret is transformation. The old & worn out reaches its completion, which is expressed in the involving spiral of the shell. – This narrowing passage of the spiral leads to an end, from which there is no escape – And then we see that the new beginning of the evolving spiral is separated from the involving spiral by an abyss.

How can we cross this abyss? Only by a courageous leap over the void! This archetypal motif always appears when what is old & exhausted reaches its end, & the new approaches, which can only be achieved thru new soul forces.

Christopher Clark

Today too this turning point, not only in the wheel of the year, but of world events before us -This stream of the past, that carries the seed of death within it – This stream of materialistic understanding & formation of time, armored within a rigid structure, can only be overcome by a courageous leap. For from that rigid structure no new seeds of the future can emerge. These seeds must be developed by a completely new set of soul forces, into which streams the light of true spiritual knowledge.

The time of summer is especially appropriate for cultivating within us, with warmth, these new concept-seeds of thought, in order to shape new imaginations with which we can approach the metamorphic processes of nature. Thinking in pictures means following intuitively this cosmic transformation processes of nature, for She Herself, the great World Mother, is woven out of cosmic imaginations. Thru this we form in our souls what we see in nature right now: the ripening of fruits, the fruitification of involution, in order to bear the seeds of summer thru the winter.

Catharsis by Melissa Basmayor

This turning point of the year can stand before us a guiding motif:

Take into your soul, in Selfless-Devotion, the rich pictorial language of outer nature, & through it, try to solve the riddle of the world pictures of cosmic happenings. Through this you walk the path of alchemical transformation which leads to catharsis (purification). For catharsis means to be ready to humbly lay aside the proud thinking which has hardened & encrusted itself in modern intellectuality, in order to sacrifice it on the altar of the world spirit, so that it can transform itself into warming forces of will & imaginative world pictures. In doing this, we accomplish the demand of our age, which requires this sacrifice of us. And at the same time we accomplish the inner purification of our souls, which only in breaking through the rigid armour of intellectual thought can experience resurrection in the realm of creative world thoughts!”

We cultivate thinking & make it mature through developing qualities which seem not to be related at all to thinking – through devotion & insight – not so much through logical exercises, but when we observe this & that, & use processes in nature to penetrate into hidden mysteries. It is through devotion to questions of nature & humanity, through the attempt to understand complicated people, through an intensification of attention, that we make our thinking astute.

Little cultivation of insight & devotion makes us grumpy hypochondriacs. What is so very necessary for thinking does not at all depend on thinking. All self-will, all self-seeking, has a destructive effect on thinking…Devotion, willingness for sacrifice with respect to the most insignificant objects & occurrences, has a favorable effect on one’s thinking & one’s mood.” ~Rudolf Steiner GA 130, lecture 2

12 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Venus (occult Mercury) and Mars orbit the Sun on either side of Earth. But, in the July evening sky, Venus outshines Mars. Look west after sunset now to see these Beings in conjunction.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

100 BC – Birthday of Julius Caesar, Roman politician & general

Feast Day of St. Veronica – According tradition, Veronica was moved with sympathy when she saw Jesus carrying his cross to Golgotha & gave him her veil that he might wipe his forehead. Jesus accepted the offering, held it to his face, & then handed it back to her—the image of his face miraculously impressed upon it.

This piece of cloth became known as the Veil of Veronica.The name “Veronica” itself is a Latinisation of Berenice (Greek: Βερενίκη, Berenikē, with a secondary form Beronike), a Macedonian name, meaning “bearer of victory”. The woman who offered her veil to Jesus was known by this name in the Byzantine East, but in the Latin West the name took a life of its own as a designation for a relic venerated in Rome as the true image of Jesus. Since the Latin word for “true” or “authentic” happens to be vera, the theory emerged that the name itself is derived from the Latin phrase “true image”, vera icon (one Latin word for image is icon, derived from Greek: εικόνα, eikona). In the 13th-century text & also in some later sources the term Veronica was used for the veil, not the person, but for centuries it has been better known as the name of the woman.

Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica (vii 18) tells how at Caesarea Philippi lived the woman whom Christ healed of an issue of blood (Matthew 9:20-22). Legend was not long in providing the woman of the Gospel with a name. In the West she was identified with Martha of Bethany; in the East she was called Berenike, or Beronike, the name appearing in as early a work as the “Acta Pilati”, the most ancient form of which goes back to the fourth century. The fanciful derivation of the name Veronica from the words Vera Icon (eikon) “true image” dates back to the “Otia Imperialia” (iii 25) of Gervase of Tilbury (fl. 1211), who says: “Est ergo Veronica pictura Domini vera” (translated: “The Veronica is, therefore, a true picture of the Lord.”)

1804 – Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies after being shot in a pistol duel by Vice President Aaron Burr

1895 – Birthday of Buckminster Fuller, American architect & engineer, designed the Montreal Biosphère

1895 – Birthday of Oscar Hammerstein II, American director, producer, & songwriter

1904 – Birthday of Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet & diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate

1948 – Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion orders the expulsion of Palestinians from the towns of Lod and Ramla.

1967 – The ‘Newark riot’ was one of 159 race riots that swept cities in the United States during the “Long Hot Summer of 1967”. This riot occurred between July 12 & July 17, 1967. Over the four days of rioting, looting, & property destruction, 26 people died & hundreds were injured.

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Vicky Neptem

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~My Lips
Red as etherized blood
Speak charms into the mantrams.
Iron words
Hot from the cosmic forge
Speak the intellect of the Sun
Into the green of the earth.
Stars fall into my heart
A pool of fire
Giving light.
Come share my thoughts expanding
In the Summer-tide dream –
Beauty dancing in the thunder Clouds
Meets Love where He waits.
~hag