Monthly Archives: February 2023

Baptism of a Modern Initiate

Greetings dear friends on this anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s Baptism on 27 February in 1861 –

I have been pondering the mysterious Birth of Rudolf Steiner for quite a while. Last year a group of us held a 3 day vigil from 25-27 February to live into this mystery. Many folks argue that we should celebrate Steiner’s birthday on the 27th of February, his Baptism day. Steiner himself names the 27th as his date of birth in his autobiography.

When we think of the connection with the Christ impulse, we can compare the powerful working that happens in the 3 day vigil between Good Friday & Easter Sunday, with the birth of Steiner who was given up for dead at his birth – We can also see a link with how the Cosmic Christ entered into the vessel of Jesus of Nazareth at the Baptism –

Maybe Steiner’s entelechy needed the Baptism rite to fully commit to incarnation…?

On a mundane level, I have also thought, well maybe Steiner simply names his birth date as 27 February because that is what his official papers say – Or then again, perhaps it’s because by not divulging his true birth date he thought it might afford him protection against the adversarial agencies that could use the cosmic information in his natal chart to thwart his mission..?

Those who can read a person’s destiny written in the stars, are able to use those impulses for their own purposes – for or againist that person…

But then this year, because I work deeply with Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul, where we can see the connections between cosmic & earthly historical events, as well as birth & death dates of influential human beings who have shaped our evolution – last night it occurred to me:

27 February is a very auspicious day – perhaps Steiner uses this date for his birthday as a pointer & to a great mystery:

27 February is the death day of Mani (277) – the highest initiate; who “According to Rudolf Steiner, the Young Man of Nain, the son of a widow, whom Christ Jesus raised from the dead, became Mani, the founder of Manicheism, in his following incarnation, and will become the Maitreya Buddha in time to come…” to guide humanity thru Christic love to redeem evil… (from a recorded conversation with Christian Community priests Walter Klein and Emil Bock in 1924)

AND today is also the death day of Comte de St. Germain (1784), an incarnation of Christian Rosenkreuz, whose ‘tomb is opened every 100 years’ allowing the secret teachings of our highest evolution to be revealed so that they can become manifest in the world…

Could Steiner be revealing to us his profound connection with these 2 great servants of humanity?

It is true that those whose death day is the same as our birthday become our co-workers & mentors during that life.

Is that why he put 27 February as his birth date in his autobiography…?

Ever pondering

~hag

27 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Waxing Bella Luna shines just a degree or two from Mars tonight, as shown above. Watch their separation change hour by hour. The Moon occults Mars for parts of the Arctic. Spot the big, bright, equilateral Winter Triangle in the south-southeast. Sirius is its brightest and lowest star. Betelgeuse is above Sirius by about two fists at arm’s length. Left of them shines Procyon.

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated with added titles by Roy Sadler

LENT II
Joy Will Arise
v47
From worldwide womb
will rise the joy of growth,
enlivening the senses’ glory:
and may it find my strength of thought
defended by the strength of God,
the living bedrock of my being.

It was Steiner’s birthday last Saturday, but his birthday verse was not last week’s or this one. In 1861 Easter was early on March 31st. He was born on the day of the full moon in the week of v48, a very special birthday verse as I shall explain next week.
This is a quote from Eleanor Merry in her Calendar of the Soul Commentary, relevant to both v47 & 48, “When our thinking can unite with the light of the Sun, it becomes creative for the future. And when we can be quickened within by the same powers that quicken the outer world into life, then will joy infill our deeds, and they will be in harmony with the deeds of Cosmic Beings.

This is this week’s mirror verse.
ASCENSION
The Risen Self
v6
Arisen from my own persona
my real self appears
as revelation of the spheres
that in the powers of time and space
the world is showing me as paradigm
that is divine and everywhere portrays
the image in whose mirror I come true.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

(Interesting to note those who share a birthday with Steiner’s Baptism day: Constantine the Great, St. John Chrysostom, Mozart, Friedrich Schelling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Giuseppe Verdi – see below)

Constantine from BL Royal 19 E VI, f. 202 - PICRYL Public Domain Image

272 – Birthday of Constantine the Great, Roman emperor

File:John Chrysostom, St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church, Dayton,  Ohio.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

407 – Deathday of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his preaching & public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical & political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, & his ascetic sensibilities. The epithet Χρυσόστομος (Chrysostomos, anglicized as Chrysostom) means “golden-mouthed” in Greek & denotes his celebrated eloquence. Chrysostom was among the most prolific authors in the early Christian Church exceeded only by Augustine in the quantity of his surviving writings. John was born in Antioch in 349 to Greco-Syrian parents. His mother Anthusa as a pagan & his father was a high-ranking military officer. John’s father died soon after his birth & he was raised by his mother. As a result of his mother’s influential connections in the city, John began his education under the pagan teacher Libanius. From Libanius, John acquired the skills for a career in rhetoric, as well as a love of the Greek language & literature.

A late medieval legend relates that, when John Chrysostom was a hermit in the desert, he was approached by a royal princess in distress. The Saint, thinking she was a demon, at first refused to help her, but the princess convinced him that she was a Christian & would be devoured by wild beasts if she were not allowed to enter his cave. He therefore admitted her, carefully dividing the cave in two parts, one for each of them. In the morning she had given birth to a child she claimed was his. He then went to Rome to beg absolution, which was refused. Chrysostom made a vow that he would never rise from the ground until his sins were expiated, & for years he lived like a beast, crawling on all fours & feeding on wild grasses & roots. One day the princess reappeared, suckling the saint’s baby, who miraculously pronounced his sins forgiven. This last scene was very popular from the late 15th century onwards as a subject for engravers & artists.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1777 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 177… | Flickr

1756 – Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in full Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. A prolific & influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard & violin, he composed from the age of 5 & performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless & traveled in search of a better position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security.

Mozart’s physical appearance described him as “a remarkably small man, very thin and pale, with a profusion of fine, fair hair of which he was rather vain, except for his large intense eyes, he gave no signs of his genius.” His facial complexion was pitted, a reminder of his childhood case of smallpox. He loved elegant clothing. Of his voice his wife later wrote that it “was a tenor, rather soft in speaking and delicate in singing, but when anything excited him, or it became necessary to exert it, it was both powerful and energetic”.

Mozart usually worked long & hard, finishing compositions at a tremendous pace as deadlines approached. He often made sketches & drafts; unlike Beethoven’s these are mostly not preserved, as his wife sought to destroy them after his death.

Mozart lived at the center of the Viennese musical world, & knew a great number & variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, & aristocrats, including some acquaintance with the Emperor Joseph II. He enjoyed billiards & dancing, & kept pets: a canary, a starling, a dog, & a horse for recreational riding. He had a startling fondness for scatological humor, which is preserved in his surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, & in his correspondence with his sister & parents. Mozart also wrote scatological music, a series of canons that he sang with his friends.

During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, & operas, & portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze & two sons. He composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, & choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, & his influence is profound on subsequent Western art music.

Friedrich von Schelling – Store norske leksikon

1775 – Birthday of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him between Johann Gottlieb Fichte, his mentor in his early years, & Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, his former university roommate, early friend, & later rival. Some later philosophers such as Martin Heidegger & Slavoj Žižek have shown interest in re-examining Schelling’s body of work. Quotes:

“Nature is visible Spirit; Spirit is invisible Nature.” (Ideen, “Introduction”)

“History as a whole is a progressive, gradually self-disclosing revelation of the Absolute.” (System of Transcendental Idealism, 1800)

“Has creation a final goal? And if so, why was it not reached at once? Why was the consummation not realized from the beginning? To these questions there is but one answer: Because God is Life, and not merely Being.” (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)

“Only he who has tasted freedom can feel the desire to make over everything in its image, to spread it throughout the whole universe.” (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)

“As there is nothing before or outside of God he must contain within himself the ground of his existence. All philosophies say this, but they speak of this ground as a mere concept without making it something real and actual.” (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)

“God then has no beginning only insofar as there is no beginning of his beginning. The beginning in God is eternal beginning, that is, such a one as was beginning from all eternity, and still is, and also never ceases to be beginning.” (Quoted in Hartshorne & Reese, Philosophers Speak of God, Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1953, p. 237.)

A Scientist's Mind, a Poet's Soul — The New Atlantis

1807 – Birthday of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

File:Rudolf Steiner. .jpg - Wikimedia Commons

1861 – The emergency Baptism of Rudolf Steiner

Happy 200th, Giuseppe Verdi | Chicago Public Library

1901 – Deathday of Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi an Italian opera composer. Verdi was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, & developed a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera . In his early operas Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. An intensely private person, Verdi however did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements & as he became professionally successful was able to reduce his operatic workload & sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), & the operas Otello (1887) &Falstaff (1893). His operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his ‘middle period’: Rigoletto, Il trovatore & La traviata.

1922 – A challenge to the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court

1939 – United States labor law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes violate property owners’ rights & are therefore illegal

2004 – The initial version of the John Jay Report, with details about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in the United States, is released. The report determined that, during the period from 1950 to 2002, a total of 10,667 individuals had made allegations of child sexual abuse. Of these, the dioceses had been able to identify 6,700 unique accusations against 4,392 clergy over that period in the USA, which is about 4% of all 109,694 ordained clergy i.e. priests or deacons or members of religious orders, active in the USA during the time covered by the study. Roughly 4% of them were accused. However, of these 4392 accused, only 252 (5.7% of those accused or less than 0.1% of total clergy) were convicted. The number of alleged abuses increased in the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, declined in the 1980s, & by the 1990s had returned to the levels of the 1950s. In summary, over a 50-year period, out of more than 100,000 priests deacons & religious order clergy, 4,392 (~4.4%) were accused of sexual abuse, 252 (<0.26%) were convicted & 100 (<0.1%) sentenced to prison

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE

A True Anthropos

Poem  for Rudolf Steiner’s Natal Return

Standing on the cornerstone
Stretched out on the Rose Cross
I feel the Presence
Of the Trinity
Pouring in
Thru the Architect of Freedom –
The Good Doctor Steiner –
Bringing the healing medicine –
A radiant dose of Sophianic Wisdom –
Fortified with Cosmic Iron –
Held with Love
In the Christic Matrix…
Ready…
To reveal the Divine Plan
Thru my whetted willing
That I may co-create
The true Anthropos.
~hag

Greetings friends on this 162st Birthday of Dr. Rudolf Steiner.

Last year in my Applied Anthroposophy Chrysalis Group: ‘The Cycle of the Year as Path of Initiation’ I gave a little overview of Rudolf Steiner’s biography, & we all shared how Rudolf Steiner came into our lives. Here is the video.

And here is My humble attempt to create a more extensive Biography

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (his Birthday!!!)

File:Dr. Rudolf Steiner, by Emil Orlik.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
Emil Orlik

Here’s an example: After long years of studying the social question it has come to me that the basic question, which is considered today as a uniform abstract formulation, should be seen in a threefold way: the first, being like a spiritual question, the second, like a question of law and the third as an economic question. What has arisen out of the modern capitalist economic life has developed from the basis of technology and this has hypnotised people’s focus in recent times only on to economic life, and have quite drawn away the awareness of the social question beside the economic question to above all also a spiritual question and a question of rights.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Social Question, given at Zurich, 25 February 1919

Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

25 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waxing crescent moon visits the constellation Taurus the Bull, shining near the glittering Pleiades star cluster, Today on Rudolf Steiner’s b-day – February 25, 2023. Then, on the following evening, Bella Luna is within a triangle formed by the Pleiades, the fiery red star Aldebaran, and even-brighter Mars.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

777 – Deathday of Saint Walpurga The earliest representation of Walpurga, in the early 11th-century Hitda Codex, made in Cologne, depicts her holding stylized stalks of grain. The grain attribute represents the older pagan concept of the Grain Mother. Peasant farmers fashioned her replica in a corn dolly at harvest time & told tales to explain Saint Walpurga’s presence in the grain sheaf. St. Richard, when starting with his two sons on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, entrusted Walburga, then 11 years old, to the abbess of Wimborne. Walpurga was educated by the nuns of Wimborne Abbey, Dorset, where she spent 26 years as a member of the community. She then travelled with her brothers, Willibald & Winebald, to Francia to assist Saint Boniface, her mother’s brother, in evangelizing among the still-pagan Germans. Because of her rigorous training, she was able to write her brother Winibald’s vita & an account in Latin of his travels in Palestine. As a result, she is often called the first female author of both England & Germany. Walpurga became a nun in the double monastery of Heidenheim am Hahnenkamm, which was founded by her other brother, Willibald, who appointed her as his successor. Following his death in 751, she became the abbess

1841 – Birthday of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French painter & sculptor

~hag

1861 – Birthday of Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

Some say the Midwife gave him up for dead when he was born – he was so small & sickly; so his parents arranged for a quick baptism which occurred on February 27th. He hung on against all odds, & the Church record became the document for his ‘Official’ Birthday. Steiner himself did not try to set the record straight, & so to this day there is a dispute as to when his actual natal return is – But the Stars Know!

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE

Path to Easter

Greetings Beloved Ones on this Ash Wednesday 2023 – The start of the Lenten-Tide Season.

My father’s people, the Italian side, were Catholic.  I attended many wonderful incense filled, pageant-like Masses with my Grandmother, (who was a not so secret ‘Strega’) dedicated to The Blessed Virgin Mary & all the Saints, in an practical ‘peasant = of the land’, kind of way.

My mother’s folks from Ireland ‘wore the orange’ = Protestant/unionist’, but called themselves Baptist after becoming farmers in Tennessee. My mother had to convert to Catholicism in order to marry my father, as that was the way in those days. As children my siblings & I, who were baptized in the Catholic Church, were never-the-less bussed off to ‘Baptist Bible School’ for the simple reason that the bus came to our corner every Sunday – which conveniently afforded our hard working parent’s a day off from us 4 kids.

I did not have a good experience there. On the outside they preached a sexist totalitarian ‘morality’ (no dancing-really?) & yet behind closed doors the pastor molested certain ‘chosen ones’- myself included. So as you might imagine I swore off organized religion; & related more to my Strega Nona’s more practical way of worshipping, with Mary = The Divine Feminine at the center.

Thru karmic circumstances I started working the path of the modern Rosicrucian, at a very young age, which is, I would say, an Esoteric or Cosmic Christian path. Since discovering Rudolf Steiner in college I have lived deeply into the truth of being an Anthroposopher –

After meeting Rev. Gisela Wielki when the Christian Community Seminary was here in Chicago & thru the love of Rev. Richard Dancey, I became an active member of the Christian Community Church, part of an international movement for religious renewal, founded in 1922 with the help of Rudolf Steiner, which has a kind of Lent – a shorter Passion-tide.

And yet this year I feel the need to use the opportunity afforded by the 40 days of Lent to deepen my inner work.

There is something powerful about the rhythm of 40 days – which shows up often in the Bible.

Since the number 40 appears so often in contexts dealing with judgment or testing, many understand it to be the number of “probation” or “trial.” For instance:

In the Old Testament, when God destroyed the earth with water – He caused it to rain 40 days & 40 nights (Genesis 7:12).

After Moses killed the Egyptian, he fled to Midian, where he spent 40 years in the desert tending flocks (Acts 7:30).

Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days & 40 nights (Exodus 24:18).

Moses interceded on Israel’s behalf for 40 days & 40 nights (Deuteronomy 9:18, 25).

Three kings reigned for 40 years each: Saul, David & Solomon – That’s no coincidence. Forty years is considered a generation in the Bible (i.e.  a new group of Israelites that rises up, sustains itself, then dies off). For the three kings of antiquity, this measurement of time also contains a warning—20 years of their rule was marked by prosperity & 20 years by ruin

The Law specified a maximum number of lashes a man could receive for a crime, setting the limit at 40 (Deuteronomy 25:3).

The Israelite spies took 40 days to spy out Canaan (Numbers 13:25).

The Israelites wandered for 40 years (Deuteronomy 8:2-5).

Before Samson’s deliverance, Israel served the Philistines for 40 years (Judges 13:1).

Osmar Schindler

Goliath taunted Saul’s army for 40 days before David arrived to slay him (1 Samuel 17:16).

When Elijah fled from Jezebel, he traveled 40 days & 40 nights to Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:8).

The number 40 also appears in the prophecies of Ezekiel (4:6; 29:11-13) Ezekiel laid on his right side for 40 days to “bear the iniquity” of Judea’s sins & Jonah (3:4).

In the New Testament, Jesus fasted for 40 days (Matthew 4:2). (So did Moses & Elijah)

There are 40 days between The Resurrection & The Ascension (Acts 1:3), When the disciple received the esoteric teachings of the Risen Christ.

According to Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul 23 February was the day Lazarus was raised from the dead, being that Good Friday & Easter came on 3/5 April.

The normal gestation of a human Pregnancy usually last 40 weeks

And so dear friends, I will be taking this 40 day journey a Path to the Resurrection – asking myself: When I stand at the dawning of the New Sun on Easter Sunday, how do I want to be different?

22 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”
Image result for spirits working with us painting
Georgiana Houghton

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1632 – Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published.

1732 – Birthday of George Washington, American general & politician, 1st President of the United States

1788 – Birthday of Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher & author

1876 – Birthday of Ita Wegman, founder of Anthroposophical medicine & close collaborator of Rudolf Steiner. She also developed a special form of massage therapy, called rhythmical massage, & other therapeutic treatments.

Ita Wegman, as she was known throughout her life, was born as Maria Ita Wegman in Indonesia, the first child of a Dutch colonial family. Around the turn of the century, she returned to Europe (she had visited before) & studied therapeutic gymnastics & massage. In 1902, when she was 26, she met Rudolf Steiner for the first time. Five years later she began medical school at the University of Zurich, where women were not discriminated to study medicine. She was granted a diploma as a medical doctor in 1911 with a specialization in women’s medicine & joined an existing medical practice.

In 1917, having opened an independent practice, she developed a cancer treatment using an extract of mistletoe following indications from Steiner. This first remedy, which she called Iscar, was later developed into Iscador & has become an approved cancer treatment in Germany & a number of other countries.

By 1919 she had a joint practice together with two other doctors, also women. In 1920 she purchased land in Arlesheim, where she opened her own clinic, the Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut, the first center for anthroposophical medicine. In 1922 she founded a therapeutic home for mentally handicapped children, Haus Sonnenhof, also in Arlesheim, & co-founded a pharmaceutical laboratory, Weleda, that has since grown into a significant producer of medicines & health-care products.

In the following year, Rudolf Steiner asked Wegman to join the Executive Council of the newly reformed Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. She also directed the Medical Section of the research center at the Goetheanum. Together, Wegman & Steiner wrote what was to be Steiner’s last book, Extending Practical Medicine, which gave a theoretical basis to the new medicine they were developing. The book was partly written while Wegman cared for Steiner, who was already terminally ill. Wegman founded a new medical journal, Natura, the following year.

In 1936, the clinic opened a second home in Ascona, Switzerland. Shortly thereafter, difficulties between Wegman & the rest of the Executive Council flared up, & Wegman was asked to leave the Council; in addition, she & a number of supporters had their membership in the Anthroposophical Society itself withdrawn. The medical work flourished, however, & Wegman travelled extensively in support of the rapidly growing movement to extend medicine’s limits; she was especially active in the Netherlands & England during this time. Wegman died in Arlesheim in 1943, at the age of 67.

Ita Wegman is a close collaborator with Rudolf Steiner thruout many incarnations:

Eabani – Gilgamesh
Cratylus – Artemisia in the era of Heraclitus of Ephesus
Aristotle – Alexander the Great
Schionatulander – Sigune
St Thomas
Aquino – Reginald of Piperno confessor to Aquino
Dr. Rudolf Steiner – Dr. Ita Wegman

On the Work of the Archangel Michael by Ita Wegman

1943 – Deathday of 1943 – Hans & Sophie Scholl, German activists. Sophie a German student along with her brother Hans were anti-Nazi political activists, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. They were convicted of high treason after distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich (LMU).

In the early summer of 1942, Scholl, his sister Sophie, Willi Graf, Kurt Huber, Christoph Probst, & Alexander Schmorell, co-authored 6 anti-Nazi Third Reich political resistance leaflets. Calling themselves the White Rose, they instructed Germans to practice nonviolent resistance against the Nazis. The group had been horrified by the behavior of some German soldiers on the Eastern Front, where they had witnessed cruelty towards Jews in Poland & Russia.

Hans & Sophie Scholl & Christopher Probst were beheaded by Johann Reichhart in Munich’s Stadelheim Prison. The execution was supervised by Dr. Walter Roemer, the enforcement chief of the Munich district court. Scholl’s last words were “Es lebe die Freiheit!” (“Long live freedom!”). Shortly thereafter, most of the other students involved were arrested & executed as well.

1932 – Birthday of Ted Kennedy, an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts for over forty years from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died & is the fourth-longest-continuously-serving senator in United States history, having served there for almost 47 years.

For many years, Ted Kennedy was the most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, & he was also the last surviving, longest-living, & youngest son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. & Rose Kennedy. He was the youngest brother of John F. Kennedy—the 35th President of the United States—& Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassination, & the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE

Shriven

In honor of Ita Wegman’s Birthday which this year falls tomorrow on Ash Wednesday: THE ADMISSION RITUAL FOR LEADERSHIP IN THE MICHAEL SCHOOL ~ Peter Selg

When Ita Wegman wrote to Albert Steffen on August 21, 1925, five months after Rudolf Steiner’s death, about her relationship with the First Class of the School for Spiritual Science, she mentions a Rose Cross given to her by Rudolf Steiner: ‘Before his illness the Doctor gave me a Cross with small rubies set in roses, which he used to wear on a red ribbon around his neck. He put it on me with his own hands after we had performed a ritual act‘. Rudolf Steiner’s Rose Cross can be found as part of Ita Wegman’s estate. A few years later, on April 25, 1930, Ita Wegman spoke about the circumstances of the handing over of the cross, the preceding ‘ritual act’, and their connection with the First Class during the Executive Council meeting with the general secretaries and delegates of the General Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum: ‘I also received his cross directly. He took it from his neck and put it on me with his own hands, saying: ‘From this moment we will be there together for the Michael School’.

This meant that Rudolf Steiner, after performing the ritual act, and through the ritual of handing over the cross, admitted Ita Wegman to the Michael School as co – leader with joint responsibility. There is sufficient reason to believe that Rudolf Steiner performed the ritual act and the passing on of the cross at the beginning of September 1924 (after his return from England) in his studio.

In all the Class Lessons Steiner held from September 6 onward, he emphasized Ita Wegman’s special co-responsibility for the mantras of the ritual lessons and for the esoteric school.

People who were admitted to the First Class in September 1924 were ritually introduced by Steiner and Wegman together: ‘Admissions took place in the studio. I had to stand next to the Doctor; members were shown into the studio by Dr. Wachsmuth. Dr. Steiner would ask applicants a few questions, and if they were to be admitted, Dr. Steiner would speak the following words: ‘If you are willing to remain faithful to the Michael School, take my hand. Take also Frau Dr. Wegman’s hand, who will lead the Michael School together with me‘. (Ita Wegman )

Among the class members who were admitted in September 1924 was Wolfgang Moldenhauer, who described the admission procedure in exactly the same way in a letter to Kurt Franz David‘On November 5, 1924, I was admitted to the First Class by R. St. After the handshake and troth, he asked me to take the hand of Frau Dr. Wegman who sat next to him as co – leader of the class’.

In notes she took of an internal lecture, Ita Wegman wrote a brief summary about the changes in the affairs of the First Class in the late Sumner of 1924‘To me, he {Rudolf Steiner} said that the people should know now that the class was the Michael School in spiritual world. Of that school he was the leader and I was his assistant. It was my task to guard the mantras. Any member who wanted to pass a mantra on to another member had to consult me or him. This was an esoteric act, the beginning of a newly – to – be – introduced esotericism. At the same time it was arranged that during the admission procedure, applicants would hear the words: ‘This is the Michael School, which is led by me and Frau Wegman’.

Since from that time the first ritual elements (the ‘signs and seal of Michael‘) were introduced into the lessons.

The unpublished minutes of an Executive Council meeting of November 29, 1930, reveal that a document about the performed ritual act was in Ita Wegman’s possession. During the crisis of the Executive Council and the Society, Ita Wegman was forced again to confirm to her colleagues that Rudolf Steiner had indeed conferred joint responsibility for the class (nobody apart from Elizabeth Vreede believed her).

The ‘papers’ recording the ritual act, or aspects of that act, form part of a comprehensive collection of mantras and esoteric exercises in Rudolf Steiner’s handwriting, which she had received from him. The collection was preserved in full by the priest Emanuel Zeylmans van Emmichoven, and was published in 2009. It includes a text in Rudolf Steiner’s and Ita Wegman’s handwriting, covering several sheets. The text focuses on the Rose Cross and its transfer, culminating in the actual handing over: and contains ritual elements of a ritual antiphony between two people. Emmanuel van Emmichoven wrote: “Because Ita Wegman wrote down Rudolf Steiner’s oral instructions, it is possible for us to place the text, right into its individual images and personal statements before our souls‘. The text includes an evening and a morning meditation for Ita Wegman, both culminating in the meeting with a ‘priest figure’ and the handing over of a Rose Cross. The mantric verses are associated with the esoteric training of the First Class, and end with a blessing on the meditating person who receives the Rose Cross from the priest figure — the ‘spirit guide’.

The evening meditation exercise for Ita Wegman begins with the review of the experiences of the day. (‘imagine an experience of the day in reverse order’ ) This is followed by exact instructions given by Rudolf Steiner, taken down in her handwriting: a breathing exercise that is to be repeated seven times; an IAO exercise: and then the Rose Cross imagination. The imagination was linked to a mantra referring to the spiritual human form, and was to be meditated in relation to that form (focusing on heart and limb organization)

Primal Powers hold me
Spirits of fire free me
Spirits of light illumine me
So that I reach toward spirit life
So that I feel beings of soul
So that I traverse uncertainties
So that I stand above the abyss.”

In meditating accordingly, the Rose Cross imagination will convey strength and support to the human being from the third hierarchy (in the region of the heart), so that inner certainly can be gained for meeting the tasks and dangers of humanity with confidence.

The process of strengthening, affirmation, and empowerment (or encouragement) was to be followed by further deepened concentration — full inner immersion into the Christ Mystery with the mantra:

In me let Christ live
And change my breath
And warm the course of my blood
And shine into my soul being.”

Rudolf Steiner’s transcript of the evening meditation ends with the instructions: ‘Maintain inner poise’In the margin of the page Steiner had added a square bracket: ‘White robe. Red belt and pendant. Red headband. I: Ave frater {Hale thee, brother}. He: rosae et aureae {of the rosy and golden}. I: crucis {cross}. He: Benedictus deus qui dedit nobis signum {Blessed be God who gave us the sign}’.

What Steiner had written down and passed on to Ita Wegman was obviously a summary, which served as a reminder. He would have specified the inner process to her verbally in much more detail. According to Wegman’s notes, the ‘Rose Cross’ had to be retrieved from the heart of the meditating person, where it had previously been ‘placed‘ after the Christ meditation. The Rose Cross had to be created, or reproduced, mantrically and internalized during the exercise. After the Rose Cross had been ‘retrieved” from the heart, it had to be carried imaginatively up a mountain, ‘step by step’. On the mountain peak an encounter should take place in the imagination with a figure {‘person‘} in priestly ritual vestment (with white robe, red stole, red band around the neck, and red belt: the colours of Christian Rosenkreutz, white and red, in the “Chymical Wedding’).

Ita Wegman wrote about that meeting: “One has to hand the Rose Cross over to that person with the words: Ave frater and sense the others response: Rosae and aureae. With devotion one answers: Crucis. The other speaks: Benedictus deus qui dedit nobis signum’. After the imaginative experience of such a meeting; that is, the joint, antiphonal speaking of the words: ‘Hail thee, Brother of the Rosy and Golden Cross’: The blessing of God through the priestly figure; and the handing over to that figure of the Rose Cross that has been carried up, the meditating person turns back. Then the imagination that one leaves the other again. After that, allow a sense of calm to enter into the soul. Empty the mind“. The Rose Cross remains on the mountain.

As a reminder for the morning meditation Rudolf Steiner wrote simply:

Imagination on the mountain. Being received. Holding up the Rose Cross.
‘May my head condense the spirit of worlds
Extracting for me the living light of thoughts
May my throat parch the breath of soul
Infusing it with spirit word meaning
Live in my heart, you, my spirit guide
There to unite me with you
That I move live weave in spirit soul life.

Ita Wegman added more details to her notes: Imagine in the morning: That one has climbed up the mountain again; that one meets the same person in the same robe; that the figure gives back the Rose Cross given to him {her} on the previous evening. Imagination to be meditated, kneeling down:

  1. May my head condense the spirit of worlds
    Extracting for me the living light of thoughts
  2. May my throat parch the breath of soul
    Infusing it with spirit word meaning.
  3. Live in my heart, you, my spirit guide
    There to unite with me with you
    That I move live weave in spirit soul life!
  4. Feel the head — the thinking — like a stone
  5. The throat like a parched plant
  6. Concentration on the heart while meditating the above.
    Now meditate that the person gives back the Rose Cross and places the right hand on top of the left; then both hands on the forehead, speaking the words:
    ‘Benedictus deus qui dedit nobis signum’
    Empty the mind again.

The meditation of the pupil climbing the mountain again, which is carried out while kneeling, culminates in the spiritual union with the priestly figure in the heart, the human organ of destiny. (‘Live in my heart, you, my spirit guide, there to unite me with you‘) After that, as Ita Wegman’s notes suggest, the ‘spirit guide‘ returns the Rose Cross to the pupil, with a blessing and laying of hands on the pupils forehead.

~hag

The same motif of assistance and union appeared at the end of another mantric verse that Rudolf Steiner had already given to Ita Wegman in September 1923, a year before the ritual of the First Class, asking her to meditate it every evening:

Ever shining supreme light;
To you I entrust my soul.
May the light of my soul weave
With the weaving light of worlds.
As light I feel,
Light in the smallest point;
Light that widens boundlessly.
Pure transparent light am I.
I seize hold of the spirit world
At the end of my soul of light,
I hold the spirit world
With my arms of light;
I sense your presence,
You want to carry me
To worlds of light and spirit.”
~’Rudolf Steiner and Christian Rosenkreutz’

21 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY 

TODAY is Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day, Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Carnival, .

The word shrove is a past-tense form of shrive “to take confession.” 

The day before Ash Wednesday is the last day to use up rich ingredients that should be avoided during the Lenten season, including sugar, eggs, and fats. Throw in a bit of flour, and what’ve you got? Pancakes! It has become a tradition in many places, especially in Europe, to make pancakes on the day before Ash Wednesday. In fact, in some communities, the people are called to confession by the ringing of a bell which some people call “the pancake bell.”

Fat Tuesday, which in French is Mardi Gras, a last chance for overindulgence.

The word carnival — comes from the Latin caro “flesh, meat” and levare “to remove, to raise.”

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE

“Eternal Verities”

True, the Beautiful, the Good – GA 220 – A lecture given by Rudolf Steiner 100 years ago today 19 January 1923, in Dornach – showing that the primary function of education & evolution is to exercise soul faculties of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, as the “eternal verities” of Truth, Beauty & Goodness – outpictured in Science, Art & Spirituality.

“…A genuine feeling for beauty forges a link that connects us here, in earthly life once again with our pre-earthly existence

A civilization that is filled with ugly machines, with chimneys and smoke, and dispenses with beauty, tears humanity asunder…it is a fitting abode for the demonic beings who would like to make the human being forget pre-earthly existence in the realm of spirit…

How can a human being develop an actual power that will lead directly into the spiritual world left when descending to the earth from pre-earthly existence? The answer is, when the person is filled with Goodnessa goodness that flows to others, and is not confined to self-interest…

Such goodness can lead to qualities, and experiences of innumerable forces of soul, that actually instill into the human being elements with which they were permeated with in pre-earthly existence.

Through the sense of Beauty the human being is linked, by means of a picture, to the spirit.

If they are truly good, this links their earthly life to pre-earthly existence. A good person is one who can bear their own soul over into the soul of another. Upon this all true morality depends. Without morality no true social order among earthly humanity can be maintained.

When this true morality develops into momentous impulses of will which then become moral acts, it begins to be a quickening- all-pervading impulse in the soul, inasmuch as a person can then be moved to real sympathy at the sight of care on the face of another — their own astral body feels pain at the sight of suffering in others.

For just as the sense of truth manifests in the human being’s right relation to the physical body; just as a warm enthusiasm for Beauty expresses itself in the etheric body — so does Goodness live in the astral body.

The astral body cannot be healthy, or maintain its true position in the world, if a person is not able to pour through it the forces proceeding from Goodness.

Here we have the concrete reality of the three ideals of Truth, Beauty, Goodness. Truth, is related to the physical body, Beauty to the etheric body, Goodness to the astral body.

These ideals show up, to begin with, in the physical body, when the person is filled with a real sense of truth instead of conventional opinions.

A worthy existence can quicken the etheric body into life through a feeling for beauty.

A person may do good because of some convention, or because punishment is in store for a wrong-doing — or because other people will respect them less if they do wrong. A person can, however, also do good from a sheer love of goodness, I spoke about this in my book, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. Such an experience of goodness will always lead to a recognition of the reality of the astral body.

Now to realize the good is not, as in the experience of beauty, merely to create a link with pre-earthly existence. To experience goodness is, to unite oneself with the world, which is ever present. We have but to stretch out towards it. Experience of goodness is a link, leading directly to the world the human soul enters after death.

Forces that endure beyond the gate of death are present in actions done here on earth, if a person lives a life of goodness.

The sense of truth is a heritage from pre-earthly existence. The sense of beauty will create an image, of pre-earthly connection with spirit. And the impulse exists within us not to cut ourselves off from spirit, but rather to maintain the bond intact by the goodness we develop as inner power.

To be true is to be rightly united with our spiritual past. To sense beauty means that in the physical world we do not disown our connection with spirit. To be good is to build a living seed for a spiritual world in the future.

Past, present, future — these three concepts, as they play their part in human life, assume far-reaching significance when we understand the concrete reality of the other three concepts — Truth, Beauty, Goodness.

The person who is untruthful denies his spiritual past; the liar severs the threads between himself and his spiritual past. He who disregards beauty is building an abode on earth where the sun of spirit never shines, where he wanders in spiritless shadow. The human being who belies the good renounces their spiritual future.

It was, indeed, out of a profound drive that Truth, Beauty and Goodness were held to be the greatest ideals of human striving. Yet they have faded away into shadowy words, and it is up to our present age to bestow concrete reality upon them once again”

THE CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated – with added titles – by Roy SadlerLENT – Memory, Arise

v46
The world is threatening to numb,
my soul’s own inborn force.
Now memory, companion me,
and in my sight enhance
the penetration of my glance
vitality of will alone sustains.

This is part of the square quartet, the only one where the 4 related verses form a perfect square in the Soul Calendar’s lemniscate pattern. They correspond to the middle of each quarter in the year. It’s not mentioned elsewhere but I think these verses can be regarded as transitions between the seasons. They are a kind of crossing over the threshold to a new soul mood. When a new spring comes without proper clarity of thought it can numb our consciousness. For thoughtful perception the power of memory is needed, in contrast to foresight for a new summer union with spirit in the mirror verse. 

ASCENSIONTIDE
Come, Foresight
v7

My Self is threatening to flee,
drawn strongly to the world’s inviting light.
Now foresight, dawn in me, your star arise
and my divining, firmly as of right,
replace the power of thought
that in the senses’ glory leaves me.

19 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Watch them draw closer together twilight after twilight

Alexander mark

1473 – Birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish mathematician & astronomer

1807 – Former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr is arrested for treason in Wakefield, Alabama and confined to Fort Stoddert. Aaron Burr was an American politician & lawyer. He served as the third vice president of the United States during President Thomas Jefferson’s first term from 1801 to 1805. During his last year as vice president, Burr engaged in the duel in which he fatally shot Hamilton, his political rival. Although dueling was illegal, Burr was never tried, and all charges against him eventually were dropped. Nevertheless, Hamilton’s death ended Burr’s political career.

Burr traveled west to the American frontier, seeking new economic & political opportunities. His secretive activities led to his 1807 arrest in Alabama on charges of treason. He was brought to trial more than once for what became known as the Burr conspiracy, but was acquitted each time. Nevertheless, with large debts & few influential friends, Burr left the United States to live as an expatriate in Europe. Handicapped by a stroke and financially ruined, Burr died at a boarding house in 1836.

Thomas Alva Edison

1878 – Thomas Edison patents the phonograph.

1899 – End of the Kali Yuga according to Elisabeth Vreeda, which began in 3001 BC.

Ehrenfried Pfeiffer.png

1899 – Birthday of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, a German scientist, soil scientist, leading advocate of biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophist and student of Rudolf Steiner.

Pfeiffer grew up in Nuremberg. He studied chemistry in Basel and came into contact with anthroposophy there. At the age of 21 he installed stage lighting in the carpenter’s workshop at the first Goetheanum, so that it was suitable for eurythmy performances (now on display in the Salzburg Museum for Stage Technology). He lit the eurythmy performances until Rudolf Steiner’s death in 1925 and recorded many of the performance director’s details on the use of light for posterity. At times he also Steiner’s driver.

In 1925, together with Erica Sabarth, he developed the copper chloride crystallisation method, which is one of the image-creating methods of anthroposophy. On a cold winter’s day he is said to have observed how the steam from a hot coffee cup and a hot tea cup at the window produced different ice crystals. With the method one can prove to what degree food has vitality (by examining the images that the crystals form when they come together with plant juices or blood preparations).

In 1938-40, Pfeiffer emigrated to the USA via France. In 1939, he received an honorary doctorate of medicine for his cancer research. In the USA, he developed a method for composting urban waste and conducted research in the field of organic farming and maintained a biodynamic model and research farm. In 1956 he became professor of biochemistry. He died on 30 November 1961 in Spring Valley, NY.

Image result for Franklin D. Roosevelt signs executive order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese Americans to internment camps. painting

1942 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs executive order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese Americans to internment camps.

1953 – Book censorship in the United States: The Georgia Literature Commission is established

1963 – The publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique reawakens the feminist movement in the United States as women’s organizations and consciousness raising groups spread.

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE