March is abundant with ‘Holy Days’, finding voice through many cultural expressions.

March 4th is the Deathday of Dr. Ita Wegman close collaborator in many lifetimes with Rudolf Steiner

On the 6th – Purim begins at sunset. The Festival commemorates when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved by Esther. It is customary to hold carnival-like celebrations on Purim – a kind of Jewish Mardi Gras.

The 7th is the Full Moon, called The Sap Moon, The Worm Moon, The Crow Moon, or The Lenten Moon.

On the 12th we ‘Spring Forward’ for the dubious ‘Daylight Saving Time’.

Sunday the 12th is also the start of Passion-Tide in the Christian Community.

14 March is Marie Steiner von Sivers Birthday

The 15th is the famous Ides of March; which we all know is the day Julius Caesar was warned by the soothsayers to beware; the day he was assassinated. But did you know that according to the ancient Roman calendar, the Ides of March was considered New Year’s Day, & marked the 1st day of Spring?

March 17, brings us the ‘wearing of the green’ for St. Patrick’s Day. The shamrock shows us the Trinity.

We celebrate the Spring or Vernal Equinox, on 20 March this year, also known as: Alban Eilir, Eostar, Lady Day, Ostara, & the Rites of Spring – when the Sun, because of the ‘precession of the equinoxes’, enters the sign of Pisces.

Day & night are equal, poised & balanced, but about to tip over to the side of light. It is sacred to the twilight time of dawn, youth, the morning star & the East. The Saxon goddess, Eostre (from whose name we get the direction East & the name of the Holiday Easter) is a dawn goddess, like Aurora & Eos. Just as the dawn is the time of new light, so the Vernal Equinox is the time of new life.

The Equinox is all about harmony & balance – that brief yet eternal time of equilibrium, when day & night are of equal length.

On the 21st begins the Iranian New Year celebration, Norooz, or ‘New Day’. In 622 AD, Mohammed led his followers from Mecca to Medina to escape assassination. According to the story, when his pursuers reached the cave where Mohammed & his followers had taken shelter for the night, they found a dove nesting in front of it & the entrance covered by a spider’s web. So the pursuers passed on, leaving them in peace. Mohammed continued on to Medina, where he & his followers were able to worship freely. Muslims consider this flight — or Hijrah — to be the beginning of their calendar year. People worship quietly on this day, which begins with the 1st sighting of the crescent moon, & in keeping with the rebirth of nature is also considered the 1st day of Spring.

March 25th is called the ‘Annunciation of Mary.’ – the day that the Angel Gabriel announced that the Luke Mary, was pregnant with the son of god ; who is born 9 months later, on Dec. 25th. How’s that for a nice little spring fertility symbol.

30 March is Rudolf Steiner’s Deathday in 1925

It’s interesting to note that March is the month that both Rudolf Steiner & Ita Wegman die & Marie Steiner von Sivers is born

It is also fitting that March is International Women’s month, since this is the time of the rebirth of nature. It’s a reminder that we have to break the bias of gender inequality to give birth to the future. The future is in our hands, the hands of the midwife, the lap of the mother, & the hands of the Peacemaker. Equity Now!

So let’s honor ourselves & thank the powers of the growing light, knowing that March may come in like a lion, but it goes out like a lamb – As we re-conceive of ourselves in alignment with the powers of Spring…

Peace & Blessed Bee…

~hag

2 March 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Now Jupiter & Venus (occult Mercury) separate. Venus moves above at dusk. Then as night deepens, waxing Bella Luna shines a couple degrees from Pollux. Castor looks on from nearby.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1963 – Deathday of Gunther Wachsmuth, founding member & Secretary of the original Vorstand

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 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.

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 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