“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story.” ~Homer
The classical Greeks describe the Muse, as ‘She Who Knows All That Is, Ever Was or Will Be’. Mousa is the ancient Greek word for the Muse, the archetypal goddess of the mind, representing the forces of intuition, inspiration, & creative imagination, that leads to wisdom & self-realization.
She is also the power of language in all of its many forms — the power of communication at its most exalted & divine manifestation thru words, song, music, dance & art.
“Happy is he whom the Muses love: sweet flows speech from his mouth.” ~Hesiod
In the seventh century B.C.E. Hesiod sang of Nine Muses, the Mousai: Kalliopeia, muse of epic poetry & the oldest of the nine Muses; Euterpe, muse of music & lyric poetry; Melpomene, muse of singing & tragedy (interesting compo); Erato, muse of mystical & erotic love; Terpsikhore, muse of whirling & ecstatic dance; Urania, muse of astronomy & prophecy; Kleio, muse of history & heroic poetry; Thaleia, muse of comedy & idyllic poetry; & Polyhymnia, muse of sacred hymns and meditation.
The Nine Muses are the daughters of Mnemosyne, the goddess of Memory, & Zeus, the god of the lightning-like flash of inspiration. Sudden & powerful moments of intuition combined with the power of memory give piercing insights into the mysteries of the universe.
Mnemosyne, the power of remembrance, is one of the three elder Muses, along with Melete, the power of practice, study, & meditation, & Aoide, the power of song, chant, & mantra. These Muses are the ancient Divine Muse of the threefold goddess, the symbolic teacher & guide of the Pythian Priestess at the Delphic Oracle. This prophetic priestess, a channel for the Muse, was the most powerful religious & political authority in the Hellenic world for more than two thousand years.
The Pythia’s greatest law sent from the Divine Muse was: ‘Know Thyself’.
Know thyself through meditation, mantra, & memory – the tools of the 3 elder Muses who are the daughters of the goddess Gaia -the Earth, & the god Uranus – the Heavens. This knowing is the connecting principle between heaven &earth. Through meditation, mantra, & memory, we can connect the power of heaven’s creativity with the grounded, sustaining energy of the earth within our own being.
The Divine Muse taught the use of intuition & prophecy as a way to inner development. They fused prophesy & poetry with inspiration — the creative energy welling up from deep within the mind. The word inspiration means breathing into, inhalation, the breath of life, to be filled with the breath of life, to be inspired, to show genius.
The Divine Muse is inspiration — the sacred breath, the life force in the etheric – the formative power that makes consciousness possible. The Muse breathed into Hesiod, “a divine voice to celebrate the things that were and shall be.”
“This draught of flowing nectar, the Muse’s gift, the sweet fruit of the mind,” ~Pindar
Thru the Muse we are taught that vibration & music are the gateways to knowledge of the universe, of reality, & of ourselves. The Pythagoreans structured their colleges as temples dedicated to the powers of the Muse.
Both Aristotle & Plato created shrines to the Muse in their colleges of philosophy.
The word museum originally meant the shrine or temple of the Muse, designating a place of transformation of consciousness, a place of research, scholarship, & learning, a place where sculpture, painting, art, & sacred texts were kept.
“Musikos,” the Greek word for music, meant, “relating to the Muses.”
Plato used musikos to refer to the quality of being, “well educated and versed in things of the mind.” Plato taught that the concept of music encompassed all that relates to the mind. He believed in revealed knowledge as a path to knowing ultimate truth, describing the channel of flowing creativity between the human & divine as the Muse herself.
Within our thinking there are unused areas of potential energy & psychic awareness. The power to awaken these dormant regions is within us. We can open the gate to wisdom & consciousness through study, meditation, singing, & dancing — the rituals of the Muse who lies hidden in our memory, waiting to lead us to the highest states of knowledge, blessedness, & being. Once the Muse reveals the truths within us, we understand who we are & what we are supposed to do.
“[The Muses] are all of one mind, their hearts are set upon song,
and their spirit is free from care.” ~Hesiod
The Muse is not a mythological figment of the ancient past, she is the inner source of wisdom & the force of creativity within our own minds. Rise in your thinking to meet the Muse within & she will come. ~hag
16 Febrauary 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1834 – Birthday of Ernst Haeckel, a promoter of scientific racism who embraced the idea of Social Darwinism. Haeckel was also a German zoologist, naturalist, eugenicist, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biologist, & artist who discovered, described & named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, & coined many terms in biology, including ecology. Haeckel promoted & popularized Charles Darwin’s work in Germany. The published artwork of Haeckel includes over 100 detailed, multi-color illustrations of animals & sea creatures. See Haeckel, the Riddles of the World and Theosophy, by Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 5th October 1905
1924 – Rudolf Steiner began the Karmic Relationships lecture today in Dornach GA 235-240 – KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS I, GA 235, Lecture I, 16 February 1924, Dornach
“I now wish to begin to speak to you of the laws and conditions of human destiny, which, as you know, it has become customary to describe as karma. Karma, however, cannot be seen clearly unless we are prepared to learn to know the different kinds of universal law and universal activity…Both when we try to comprehend the World’s phenomena and when we wish to understand the phenomena of human life, we are wont to speak of “causes and effects.” Especially in science nowadays, people are accustomed to speak quite generally of “causes and effects.” Yet it is precisely this habit which leads into the greatest difficulties, in face of the true reality. For if we speak in this way, we are leaving out of account the variety of forms in which “cause and effect” actually occur in the universe…”
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 Aristotle: A 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.
The Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection
with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,
Insights about Mary Magdalene with Faith DiVecchio,
Song-Circle with Velsum,
Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session
Holy Saturday 8 April 2023
1 pm – 3pm CT a 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
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
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.
~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 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate
