Daily Archives: March 19, 2023

Breaking Bread

Greetings friends – Thanks to everyone who reached out to ask where I’ve been – Well besides dealing with some teeth issues (yep working out some heavy family karma) – I have been deep into an artistic rendering of my work with Mary Magdalene in preparation for our annual Easter Festival, which will begin on the eve of Lazarus Saturday; & then on the last day of Holy Week we will gather to explore the mystery of Mary Magdalene = She who anoints the ‘Anointed One’ in the holding of sacred space during the Harrowing of Hell on Holy Saturday. (Details on the Festivals below)

Sophie Takata

I tore myself away from the art making integration this morning since I had the honor of serving at the altar with Rev.Gisela Wielki who came in from NYC. Her sermon brought in the picture of how at this time of year – during Passion-Tide – the seeds buried in the darkness of the earth are breaking apart, dissolving their seed form, selflessly offering themselves up to a disintegration, a death – so that in their season, thru the power of the warmth of the Sun & the other elements, they can be reborn.

If we kept the seed in the palm of our hand simply admiring it’s wholeness it would never feed us. Wholeness has the quality of completeness, a kind of ending. Going into the darkness willingly, with intention & purpose to allow the disintegration is how we evolve – how we grow – reintegrating at a higher octave.  

Lenny Fosterling

She connected this picture to the feeding of the 5000 from the Gospel of John – How Christ had to break up the loaves of bread to be able to nourish the people. The breaking up also allows the comic forces to enter, that is actually what feeds us Body, Soul & Spirit – When we break bread together to becomes the healing medicine that activates a new Wholeness.

This breaking apart reminds me of what happens when we stir a biodynamic preparation – we create the vortex in the prep & then it disintegrates thru the chaos when we reverse the stirring – allowing the cosmic forces to enter into the chaos to inform the vortex. The chaos opens us to the right divine order…

Tomorrow on the Vernal Equinox CG & I will join Petra & Mark Zinniker on their amazing biodynamic farm in WI to do a seasonal prep stir – blessing the land & the animals, & honoring the elementals. The mighty band of Merry Prep-stirs are encouraging everyone to do a stir on the Equinox so that the collective energy may cover the Earth with a glorifying intention. See you in the balance between dark & light.

~hag

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

PASSIONTIDE 1I, Mothering Sunday
The World’s Fulfilment
v50
Earth’s Mother speaks…
her joy of growth in every bud’s unfurling,
revealing the inherent forces of her being,
is speaking to the human I:
‘In bringing you my life
released from its enchantment,
I reach my true fulfilment’.

It is Mothering Sunday in England this Sunday. It is an old Christian tradition in contrast to the American holiday of Mothers Day on the 2nd Sunday of May. There is no mention of the Earth in the original but to me it fits here. My translations are free expressions, adhering to its iambic meditative rhythm. Unlike other versions I quite often change the line order, which I recognise might be a problem for eurythmists following Steiner’s choreography. This is a literal version of the 1st 4 lines:
There speaks to human selfhood,
in mighty revelation
and liberating its inherent forces,
the joy-in-growth of world existence:

I’d be pleased to read comments from any of you meditating the verses.
This is the mirror verse
EASTERTIDE III
Foundation of the Self
v3
The human spirit speaks…
the growing I, in self-forgetfulness
and conscious of its origin,
is speaking to the whole enwoven world:
‘In you, releasing chains
that bind me to myself,
I root my inborn truth’.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

George de la Tour

Feast Day of Joseph the Carpenter, husband of Mary the Mother of the Matthew Jesus.

1797 – Death Day of Christiane Wilhelmine Sophie von Kühn (March 17, 1782 – March 19, 1797) the love interest & eventual fiancée of the German Romantic poet & philosopher Friedrich von Hardenberg, known to many simply as Novalis. Her image famously appears in Novalis’ Hymns to the Night, a foundational text of the literary movement known as German Romanticism.

Over I journey
And for each pain
A pleasant sting only
Shall one day remain.
Yet in a few moments
Then free am I,
And intoxicated
In Love’s lap lie.
Life everlasting
Lifts, wave-like, at me,
I gaze from its summit
Down after thee.
Your lustre must vanish
Yon mound underneath —
A shadow will bring thee
Thy cooling wreath.
Oh draw at my heart, love,
Draw till I’m gone,
That, fallen asleep, I
Still may love on.
I feel the flow of
Death’s youth-giving flood
To balsam and ether
Transform my blood —
I live all the daytime
In faith and in might
And in holy fire
I die every night
”.

Although Novalis’s love for Sophie has assumed mythic proportions, their time together was short . The two met on November 17, 1794 when Novalis was twenty-two & Sophie was only twelve. They became engaged on Sophie’s thirteenth birthday March 17, 1795. Sophie became sick in November 1795, & her sickness continued until her death at the age of 15 in March 1797. The loss of Sophie brought about a deep period of mourning & suffering in Novalis’ life.

Ludwig Tieck’s biography of Novalis describes Sophie, saying: “Even as a child, she gave an impression which–because it was so gracious and spiritually lovely–we must call superearthly or heavenly, while through this radiant and almost transparent countenance of hers we would be struck with the fear that it was too tender and delicately woven for this life, that it was death or immortality which looked at us so penetratingly from those shining eyes; and only too often a rapid withering motion turned our fear into an actual reality”.

1911 – Death day of Anna Eunike, Rudolf Steiner’s 1st wife. To supplement his income while working in Weimar, Steiner became tutor to the Eunike family. The father Eugen Friedrich Eunike had just died, & Anna was left behind as a widow with four daughters & a son. Rudolf Steiner had a deep connection with the deceased, following his after-death journey into the spiritual world. These insights helped Steiner form his seminal work “The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity”.

When the family moved to Berlin the friendship with Anna soon turned into a civil marriage, which Steiner kept very private. But we may see some clues into this relationship in the Mystery Dramas. During that time he was an instructor for the workers institute, of which Anna was very involved. The two separated when Steiner got involved with Theosophy; & in 1911 Anna Eunike dies at the fairly young age of 58. I often wonder if she selflessly sacrificed her unused etheric forces to help Rudolf Steiner in his mission.

1918 – The U.S. Congress establishes time zones & approves daylight saving time.

1945 –Adolf Hitler issues his “Nero Decree” ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany to be destroyed.

2018 – The last male northern white rhinoceros, Sudan, dies.

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

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.

Juan de Flandes

“Lazarus – Come Forth” – Through The Word & Eurythmy

w/ Rev. Jeana Lee, Mary Ruud & Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Starting at Sundown Friday 31 March 2023
7 pm – 8:30 pm CT at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson

Leading Thoughts & Close of Day with Rev. Jeana Lee

Continuing on Lazarus Saturday 1 April 2023
10 am – 12 noon CT
at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago 4249 N. Lincoln Ave

Night School Check-in w/ Hazel Archer – Eurythmy w/ Mary Ruud

$10 more or less or pay what you will
Please bring a potluck dish to share for the luncheon after the Festival

For more info. contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hag@rschicago.org

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

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