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.
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.
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.
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.
