Daily Archives: October 16, 2021

Sol Set

Mandy Feller

Satisfaction Becomes Serenity” or Contentment becomes self-composure

Every morning the Sun rises a little later, & every evening our Sol sets ever earlier. Darkness takes the light, slowly into its somber realm. As we move from the Virgin who helps us with our spiritual harvest into

the sign of the scales, Libra, we can think how it is the only constellation that is not a living creature; it owes its origin to the realm of created things, of mechanics. According to Rudolf Steiner it was only incorporated into the imagery of the Zodiac later in order to delineate the world of light in the upper signs more clearly from the 5 lower “nightly” signs. It is entirely dependent on the outer world, best expressed in its function of “deliberation”.

In ancient Greece the descent of the Sun into the autumn region of the dark zodiac signs was seen in the image of the abduction of Persephone, stole away from her mother Demeter, by Pluto, lord of the underworld. The Greeks hid their faces in fear from the powers of darkness & waited longingly for the return of Persephone who would awaken to new life in the Spring.

But since Christ’s descent into the shadow realm of death, in order to reconquer it for the realm of light, human beings have looked at the descent into the realm of darkness in a different way – thru the image of the mighty Archangel Michael standing next to the Virgin, with her staff of life, & in former times, bearing the balance of the world in his hands – carrying the resurrection into the dark in order to realize our true human potential in the confrontation with the forces of evil. This individuation process can only be fulfilled in the realm of earth & death – Here the human being of the present time is threatened with the danger of giving in to the lower driving forces which powerfully press in from our unconscious sense perceptions. Here the scale, as the sign of the representative of humanity, appears before our soul pointing the way forward, to balance us between levity & gravity.

In the Zodiac it is between the grain-bearing Virgin & the death-dealing Scorpion. There is a separation of the “wheat from the chaff’ – the weighing, in the “Scales of Judgement.” Will the being of Michael which we must enliven within ourselves, be able to maintain the balance of the world? That is the most earnest question which is spoken by his gaze. In the realm of the spirit his victory is assured, But on earth???

This question touches on our human contribution to the Michael Imagination – it has to do with the crisis of the “I”, which exists for everyone today. Is the average human being awake to this aspect? -Ready & able to work to overcome this crisis of humankind on earth? If we take this into our soul-life we can feel called to take up this struggle, knowing that the outcome depends on our behavior, with even the smallest matters, as well as the great tests of our times. Thru this commitment we can rise to become a spiritual comrade, a co-shaper & co-creator of the divine world. We are called in the Age of Michael to rise from being a ‘servant of God’ to being a ‘friend & brother/sister of Christ’ as promised in the Gospel of St. John 15:15.

In looking up to this world destiny of the human being in the dark time of the year which is now setting in, we find the inner emphasis that is so easily lost today, because we lose our balance to the swings of the pendulum in our soul-life. The approaching winter can invoke (in some) the hum-bug that is open to greed, like an old man seeking to dispel the fear of death thru selfish pleasure or grabby possession. The balance of the soul swings back & forth between melancholy & self-satisfied control, until it can find its center in the true “I”.

The image of the scales can become for us the means to orient our soul & spirit at this turning point in the year.

~hag

Gray Crawford

16 October 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Venus harmonizes with Chiron and retrograde Mercury today. There are two days left in the Mercury retrograde cycle, and the Mercury-Venus sextile helps ease this sometimes rocky transition.

Today, we may get an opportunity to heal our relationships through openness to learning from one another. We more readily see the beauty in human imperfection. It’s a vital time for building trust in relationships and seeing potential in one another. We recognize the value of the people, relationships, and pleasures in our lives more clearly. We can benefit from interacting with others in fresh ways, with more authenticity and sincerity.

Retrograde Mercury periods tend to send us looking to the past for further or previously hidden information. It’s a good time to see an issue in a new light. We feel the most challenging side of Mercury retrograde around the time it changes direction, which happens on the 18th, so we might want to avoid complicated decision-making for the time being. There may be too much happening now to think clearly.

However, today’s Mercury-Venus sextile stimulates a desire to cooperate, compliment, encourage, and express our affections. We’re also inclined to analyze our relationships, particularly past ones, as well as our preferences and feelings. Connecting with people from our past is also possible.

A Mars-Neptune quincunx transit is also active now, and we can feel a little stuck — uncertain what we truly want and where to head — until we get in touch with the spiritual or emotional needs we may have been overlooking. The Moon spends the day in Pisces. ~astrology cafe

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

We understand only the very smallest part of human history and of our own life if we consider it in its external aspect, I mean in that aspect which we see from the limited view-point of our earthly life between birth and death. It is impossible to comprehend the inner motives of history and life unless we turn our gaze to that spiritual background which underlies the outer, physical happenings“.  ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture III

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1311 – The beginning of the Council of Vienne by Pope Clement V against the Templar order

1793 – Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution

1827 – Birthday of Arnold Bocklin , a Swiss symbolist painter portraying mythological, fantastical figures along classical architecture constructions creating a strange, fantasy world. Böcklin is best known for his five versions of the Isle of the Dead, which partly evokes the Cemetery close to his studio where his baby daughter Maria had been buried.

Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as an Arthurian Knight: Thus even in the 9th century, in the paganism of Europe, there still lived much of the pre-Christian Christianity. That is the remarkable fact. Moreover even in that time the belated followers of European paganism understood the Cosmic Christ far more worthily and truly than those who received the Christ in the Christianity that was spread officially under that name. Strangely we can see the life around King Arthur radiate into the present time, continued even into our time, placed into the immediate present by the sudden power of destiny. Thus I beheld in seership a member of the Round Table of King Arthur, who lived the life of the Round Table in a very deep and intense way, though he stood a little aside from the others who were given more to the adventures of their knighthood. This was a knight who lived a rather contemplative life, though it was not like the Knighthood of the Grail, for this did not exist in Arthur’s circle. What the knights did in the fulfilment of their tasks, which in accordance with that age were for the most part warlike campaigns, was called by the name ‘Adventure’ (Aventure). But there was one who stood out from among the others as I saw him, revealing a life truly wonderful in its inspiration. For we must imagine the knights going out on to the spur of land, seeing the wonderful play of clouds above, the waves beneath, the surging interplay of the one and the other, which gives a mighty and majestic impression to this very day. In all this they saw the Spiritual and were inspired with it, and this gave them their strength. But there was one among them who penetrated most deeply into this surging and foaming of the waves, with the spiritual beings wildly rising in the foam with their figures grotesque to earthly sight. He had a wonderful perception of the way in which the marvellously pure sun-influence played into the rest of nature, living and weaving in the spiritual life and movement of the surface of the ocean. He saw what lived in the light nature of the sun, borne up as it were by the watery atmosphere as we can see to this day, the sunlight approaching the trees and the spaces between the trees quite differently than in other regions, glittering back from between the trees, and playing often as in rainbow colours. Such a knight there was among them, one who had a peculiarly penetrating vision of these things. I was much concerned to follow his life into later time to see the individuality again. For just in this case something would needs enter into a later incarnation of a Christian life that was almost primitive and pagan, that was Christian only to the extent that I have just described. And this in fact was what appeared, for that Knight of the Round Table of King Arthur was born again as Arnold Böcklin. This riddle which had followed me for an immensely long time, can only be solved in connection with the Round Table of King Arthur. Thus you see that we have a Christianity tangible with spiritual touch to this very day, a Christianity before the Mystery of Golgotha which shed its light even into the time that I have just outlined ~Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture III

Wikimedia Commons

1834 – Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster in London burns to the ground

1846 – William T. G. Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Ether Dome

1854 – Birthday of Oscar Wilde, Irish author, poet, & playwright

1922 – The founding of the Esoteric Youth Circle by Rudolf Steiner. Notes from the various preparatory discussions for the founding of the Group:

If I am to go into what I understand with the term “esoteric group” then let me say that if you want to take the esoteric earnestly, you must say to yourself that it is an action out of the impulses from the spiritual world. One can strive toward this. Anthroposophy is a path to this end. To build such a community would constitute a decision to set upon this path.

The spiritual is a living element & so such a group must not be something dead. The group must be a force-group. The health of each part is the health of the whole. It is the mutual taking on of karma that is created in such a community. There is then mutual suffering to live through, but also mutual joy. People must be treated like fellow human beings, with all their imperfections.

What you seek is to find a friend in the spiritual world. The important thing is to remain spiritually true to the friend once found. Therefore, the 1st requirement is that you learn quite precisely what spiritual loyalty is.

Your community will have in it something of the primordial mystery of all human community. This mystery is that, what we ourselves do within the community bears no fruit for us ourselves, but for others, & that the fruits for us come from others.

We must work for the progress of humanity – Just as the physical social life consists of deeds done together, so too we strive for common deeds in the spirit – thus actually, for a social working in the suprasensible.

We must endeavor to carry spirit into the furthest consequences of our actions. This alone – that we bring spirit & love into our will – can make it possible to stand firmly against being overrun by the cultural machine. Too few people today develop real initiative. There is a lot of willfulness, but little will.

The true meditation is a fulfilling of the spiritual will that the Time Spirit bears with itself. Where such meditation is practiced, a spiritual force is able to work into the earthly events. Spiritual worlds want to work in to earthly events today, but they can do this only when, through human meditation, space is created for it. Through meditation, something like an empty space comes about. Into this space, the spiritual beings can enter with their effects. And the power of meditating such a meditation in common increases by potentization.

When we do this community-meditation, it will bring about a deeper connection of the core of our being with our sheaths.

These meditations, when used correctly, could become something like windows into the spiritual world. The words & pictures given, form only half of what is to be entrusted to us. The other half we are to find ourselves through spiritual activity.

Each of you must feel joy for the success of the other. You must avoid every feeling of rivalry & have the awareness that what each of you accomplishes, you accomplish through the power of all of the others.

Uniting yourself through a mutual promise to strive toward a common spiritual goal – & leaving one another completely free in actions & judgements in life – such a community based on this is something completely new in the evolution of humanity. And it is what is most necessary today.

For someone who comes to specific results on the esoteric path, there is always the danger of delusions of grandeur. Such a community as yours can be a protection against this. For in it, you strive together to cross the threshold of the spiritual world. And there each of you has to say that you have the efforts of all the others to thank for what you have achieved personally.

Effects will arise in the destiny between human beings who are connected with us in the community physically & spiritually. The community will never die out. With the 1st community members who reincarnate, the community returns to Earth.

By persevering with the exercises we have a chance to stand up to Ahrimanic powers that no one person can withstand.

Through the reading of the oath given by Rudolf Steiner on 16 October 1922, in the presence of the others, the admittance into the community was effected.

And now consider your community as having been founded by the spiritual world itself…Now get to know each other well.

This gave us the idea to tell each other our biography at the mutual acceptance into membership.

What has taken place now is a 1st in the post-Christian era: human beings themselves chose, out of freedom before the spiritual world, to join together esoterically’.

The 12 founding members:

Daniel van Bemmelen, co-founder of the 1st Dutch Waldorf School

Georg Groot MD, 3-fold social order, co-worker in the Berlin Group of the College Association

Herbert Hahn, called by Steiner to teach at the Independent Waldorf School in Stuttgart

Ernst Lehrs, teacher at the Waldorf school in Stuttgart, served on the committee for the Independent Anthroposophical Society founded for the youth. Later taught in The Hague, London, & Aberdeen. Also taught with his wife Maria Roeschl in the Rudolf Steiner Seminar.

Rene Maikowski, business manager of the Association for Anthroposophical College Studies, also a Waldorf teacher.

Wilhelm Rath, bookseller, man of letters, farmer, was on the committee of the Independent Anthroposophical Society.

Wilhelm Selling, mechanical engineer, colonial officer in Africa, in charge of the Theosophical library, mentor of the youth work in Berlin

Karin Selling, part of the Scandinavian Theosophical Society, teacher at the Waldorf School in Stockholm

Emma Smit, teacher & organizer of the Independent school in The Hague

Maria Spira, came from the Zionist Youth Movement, married Wilhelm Rath

Albrecht Strohschein,Walter Johannes Stein, Karl König

Albrecht Strohschein, business man, 1st co-worker in the Der Kommenden (The Coming Day) in Stuttgart, student of psychology in Jena, co-founder of the therapeutic pedagogical movement

Kurt Walther, postal officer, lecturer, & leader of many courses, the successor of Marie Steiner in the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Socety, married Wilhelm Selling’s sister Clara Selling, who was part of Steiner’s household

Others that came in after the founding, in the transition of the Association for the Three-fold Social Organism as it moved into the Association for Independent Spiritual Life, included: Ernst Uehli, Rector Moritz, Michael Bauer, Hermann Beck, Eugen & Lily Kolisko, Emil Leinhas, Emil Molt, Rudolf Meyer, Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz, Fredrich Rittelmeyer, Walter Johannes Stein, Carl Unger, Ludwig Webeck, H. Wohlbold

1946 – Nuremberg trials: Execution of the convicted Nazi leaders of the Main Trial

1964 – China detonates its first nuclear weapon

1968 – United States athletes Tommie Smith & John Carlos are kicked off the US team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute

1984 – Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

Readers: Katherine Thivierge, Hazel Archer, Marianne Fieber, Haidy Peterson, Farmer John, Zuri Burns, Morgan Vallat, Ultra-Violet Archer, Lisa Dalton, Lucien Dante Lazar, Elizabeth Kelly, Portland Hosts, Folks from the 6 HUBS, Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

Dear friends – The Pageant ‘Building the Temple of the Heart: The Royal Art: A Social Pilgrimage of the Soul’ that I wrote for the ASA Conference has been made into a booklet (Thanks John Beck!) If you would like to receive a copy contact ‘Deb Abrahams-Dematte’ deb@anthroposophy.org; or Cynthia Chelius cynthia@anthroposophy.org. All proceeds go to support the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America.