26 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The near first quarter moon will glow above the star Regulus in Leo the Lion this evening, & near the asterism known as the Sickle. You can catch the moon and the Sickle until around 1 am CDT.
1293 – An earthquake strikes Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan, killing about 30,000
Called for the burning of his books and called for his arrest. Frederick the Wise of Saxony protected Luther by hiding him in Wartburg Castle. Luther worked tirelessly on a complete translation of the Bible into German. Luther answering charges of heresy before the Diet of Worms in 1521.
1521 – Luther outlawed. Called for the burning of his books and called for his arrest. Frederick the Wise of Saxony protected Luther by hiding him in Wartburg Castle. Luther worked tirelessly on a complete translation of the Bible into German. Luther answering charges of heresy before the Diet of Worms in 1521.
1805 – Napoléon Bonaparte assumes the title of King of Italy and is crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in Milan Cathedral, the gothic cathedral in Milan.
1828 – Kasper Hauser appears in Nuremberg on Whit Monday “The Child Of Europe”
1830 – The Indian Removal Act is passed by the U.S. Congress; it is signed into law by President Andrew Jackson two days later.
1896 – Nicholas II becomes the last Tsar of Imperial Russia.
1976 – Deathday of German Philosopher Martin Heidegger
50 Days after The Resurrection = Our Community Pentecost Gathering –
Bonfire, Pot-Luck, & Prep Stir – Leading thoughts with Rev. Jeana Lee
Cloud Gazing Thoughts: Understanding the Ascension as we move toward Whitsun
When we attune ourselves to beings such as Raphael, Archangel of Spring, we can awaken to the way spiritual entities constantly interact with earth thru the elements.
The messengers of cosmic warmth in the rays of the sun activate the ascension of the element of water. Through its union with air, clouds are born. In the cloud, which is between the depths of earth & the heavenly heights, in the sphere of the etheric realm – a mobile balance manifests. – We see it in the blue sky, dancing with the ever changing clouds. It is the primal image of metamorphosis, of organic forming & transforming, the never-resting developing, blessed by the heights. For this reason, blossoms & fruits are in reality not just products of earth but heavenly forms filled with earthly substance, like us.
Michael Torevell
And so for 40 days after the Resurrection, amidst this seasonal activity, the apostles received from The Risen Christ His esoteric teachings; essentially the contents of the 5th Gospel given to us by Rudolf Steiner.
Benvenuto Tisi
Then they witnessed The Christ, being received into the clouds, moving out of their sight – an expansion of His being – like the unfolding of a lotus flower into the universe. Rudolf Steiner tells us, that at the same time, the vivid spiritual reality of what would have happened to earth existence if the mystery of Golgotha had not occurred; came into their consciousness. It was revealed to them that human physical bodies would have so deteriorated that all of humanity would have perished.
Edvard Munch
Our physical bodies have earth-gravity, but our etheric bodies have sun levity, so if the Christ deed we call The Ascension had not taken place, our etheric bodies would have left the physical for good as well, & the existence of humankind would have come to an end, having no formative forces to give them life.
We know that until the Mystery of Golgotha, the Sun was the dwelling place of the Christ. The human etheric body, which was in danger of being drawn out towards the Sun, like clouds, & dispersed –is held together, contained thru this cosmic deed, so that we are not dispersed, but can remain as individuals.
Christ remains in union with the earth, which rescues for the earth the sunward-striving etheric body. –But to be able to take effect in a human being’s spirit & soul nature, the Christ impulse must also be consciously recognized. The spiritual effect can only proceed from a true recognition of its content.
The mystery here is that in the festival of Ascension opens us to the forces proceeding from the sphere of the Father. This is big folks, the gospel of Mark tells us: ‘Then the Lord, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into the heavenly spheres & sat down at the right hand of the World-Father as the fulfiller of His deeds’.
As a result of the conversations over the 40 days with The Risen Christ, the apostles were able to receive the primal sources of a new imaginative clairvoyance, removing the veil hiding the true image of death, which is really a facet of the Father-God in the aspect of Creator. – What is born must die, but thru Christ death becomes life. This revelation of the apostles’ higher imagination brings the true content of death with its connection to the kingdom of the Divine Father into perceptive.
At the moment of the Ascension the mystery of death was made manifest not only to the immortal spiritual beings who, being eternal have no experience of death, but also to the apostles, for they beheld it with their own eyes to be a process of union with the world of the Divine.
From that turning point of time onward, Rudolf Steiner tells us that, one of the 1st experiences of every human being after death is a contemplation of Christ’s Ascension; which can reveal to the person’s soul, the true picture of death & its connection with the highest sphere of the Father.
As the Christ has ascended, so too, in the fullness of time will humanity be transfigured. The company of the hierarchies wait, for us, their younger siblings to ascend in our thinking to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while at our sides.
And another thing to contemplate:
Just as the experience of the Ascension lies between Easter & Whitsun, so between Good Friday & Easter lies the event known as Christ’s Descent into Hell. Both hold the image of Christ disappearing from sight.
By His death Christ opened up the paths of the higher spheres for those exhausted souls trapped in Kamaloca, so they could ascend into the upper planetary realms & be renewed.
The Descent into Hell rescued the physical forces for humanity; the Ascension rescued the formative forces.
Kristena West
At the Baptism, The Christ Being united with the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth & was therefore united with earthly evolution as a whole.
David Taulbee Anderson
At the TransfigurationChrist permeates the etheric body of Jesus. In the scene of the transfiguration, Christ reveals his higher Sun nature, to the 3 chosen disciples, a visionary manifestation of the fully transformed etheric body, which radiates light like a Sun.
These events are mirrored, & transformed by the mystery of Golgotha, Ascension relates to the Transfiguration & Whitsun to the Baptism.
In the Ascension, Christ showed the connection to the spiritual Sun forces which became manifest in the Transfiguration, with the etheric bodies of all human beings.
When Christ entered into Jesus at the Baptism, His Sun-Being took over the ego of Jesus, the Zarathustra soul had to leave the body or be completely overpowered.
After the resurrection the Christ impulse can live within mankind without taking over the ego-consciousness. But in order for this to happen, Christ had to Ascend.
Peter Brindle
“Then after 10 days He sent the Holy Spirit- that divine Being of the Trinity that does not overpower, but enhances the individual ego of human beings“. ~Rudolf Steiner.
So now the Christ impulse can enter human souls thru the mediation of the Holy Spirit, so that we can retain our “I” in freedom.
Sören Emil Carlsen
My friends, The Christ-Revelation ‘coming in the clouds’ is here- Showing us the bridge that brings a harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.
At the Ascension, Christ becomes “Lord of the heavenly forces upon earth”.
The fulfillment of the secret promise of the Ascension, is the Second Coming.
It was said to the apostles, “He will come again, in like manner, as you have seen Him go up into the clouds of heaven.”
The Ascension is the seed of this Second Coming, & the Second Coming is the fulfillment of the Ascension.
“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?” Cicero, Orator (46 BCE)
240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet.
1085 – Death-day of Pope Gregory VII – One of the great reforming popes, best known for the ‘Investiture Controversy’, attacking the practice of simony (trafficking for money in “spiritual things”- named after Simon Magus, who is described in Acts 8:9–24 as offering Peter & John, payment in exchange for their empowering him to impart the Holy Spirit to anyone he laid hands on) & his dispute with Henry IV. In Rudolf Steiner’s Karma Lectures Vol. I/12 he was revealed as Haeckel in a previous life.
“…We will take another very well-known personality, Ernst Haeckel. Ernst Haeckel is famous as an enthusiastic adherent of a certain materialistic Monism — enthusiastic, one may say, to the point of fanaticism. He is well enough known to you; I need not give you any description of Haeckel. Now when we are led back from this personality to a former incarnation, we come to Pope Gregory VII, the monk Hildebrand, who afterwards became Pope Gregory VII.
I have chosen this instance so that you may see how differently the same individuality may express himself externally, in accordance with the cultural “climate” of the period. One would certainly not expect to look for the reincarnation of Pope Gregory VII in the 19th century representative of materialistic Monism.
The things that a man brings to manifestation on the physical plane, with the means afforded by external civilisation, are far less important to the spiritual world than one is inclined to suppose. Behind the personalities of the monk Hildebrand and Haeckel lies something wherein they are alike and this is of much greater account than the differences between them. One of them fights to the utmost to enhance the power of Roman Catholicism, and the other fights to the utmost against Roman Catholicism, but for the spiritual world it makes little difference. These things, fundamentally speaking, are important for the physical world only; they are quite different from the underlying elements in human nature which count in the spiritual world…”
1803 – Birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson an American essayist, lecturer, & poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism.
1803- Birthday of Edward Bulwer Lytton an English novelist, poet, playwright, & politician. Theosophists Annie Besant & especially Helena Blavatsky incorporated his thoughts & ideas, from: ‘The Last Days of Pompeii’, ‘Vril’, ‘The Power of the Coming Race’ & my fav. ‘Zanoni’, in her own books. He coined the phrases “the great unwashed”,”pursuit of the almighty dollar”, “the pen is mightier than the sword”, “dweller on the threshold”, as well as the well-known opening line “It was a dark and stormy night”.
1904 – Birthday of Wilhelm Jordan a German writer & politician, seen as “a precursor of Nietzsche and pioneer of Darwin in Germany”; Known for his books ‘Mysterium Demiurgos’ & his translation of the Edda.
Anthroposophia & the Redemption of Lucifer – A Pentecost Festival for 2023
Greetings Friends – Here are a few thoughts that I probably won’t get to in my Pentecost presentation on Saturday so I thought to share them today:
In our time now, the Being of Anthroposophia working as the youngest member of the Divine Sophia, is guiding us on the path that leads to the true activity of thinking, feeling & willing, out of which arises the possibility of free human action, in anticipation of the age of the Spirit-Self.
Also Leading humanity in our journey thru the modern path of initiation, made available to humanity thru the work of 2 exalted servants of the Divine Sophia: Christian Rosenkreutz & Rudolf Steiner.
Steiner once characterized their relationship thru this supersensible picture:
We are asked to see ourselves in front of an altar in the spiritual world- on the left stands Christian Rosenkreutz in a blue stola – on the right, Rudolf Steiner in a red stola. Between them is Michael; & above our mighty Time Spirit, is the Being of Love, the Christos, holding the center between the eye of god the Father & the dove of wisdom – the Holy Sophia, flowing down to us thru the teachings of these great Christian Initiates. Available to those who gather at the altar, ready & willing to take up the indications offered & put them into action in the world.
Friends, we can remember: Red & blue are the colors of Mary-Sophia. Many great artists depict the Virgin Sophia in a cloak of red & blue.
This is also the pictorial reality seen in the 2 Columns of the Rosicrucian Temple – Joachim & Boaz.
This spiritual imagination points to our present, & future task: to cultivate the Etherization of our blood – What does that mean? How do we spiritualize the substance of our blood? – Thru the practice of heart-thinking – which is a result of the mystic marriage of: thinking (blue) & feeling (red) – a transformation of the physical blood into a higher vibration, where the formative forces can spiritualize the life force of our blood…
This Wedding is initiated thru the warmth of the Holy Spirit.
When the light of wisdom & revelation is able to fully penetrate the astral body of the human being, we reach the stage of Spirit-Self – where we can consciously act from our Higher ‘I’.
This is also the goal of the Rose Cross meditation – the cultivation of the Philosophers Stone – topic for another session.
For human beings to experience this we must purify our astral body–thru selfless renunciation which cultivates a higher desire, to serve with love.
And what’s so interesting – when we practice this – it will have a direct effect, not only in us as individual human beings, but it will light up the sphere of the Angels too; & then it has a ripple effect on up thru all the hierarchies –& also down into the elemental realms.
Lucifer who lost his connection to the Holy Spirit when he willed to rise before the time was ripe, becoming a tough-love-tool for the higher gods in our evolution, will, thru our human intervention as Anthroposophia, be able to regain this re-connection to the Healing Spirit working from the godhead – which will lead to the full redemption of Lucifer. It has already begun…
See you in the ethers
~hag
Anthroposophia & the Redemption of Lucifer – A Pentecost Festival for 2023
24 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Tonight Bella Luna as a waxing crescent will speak with Mars & the Beehive star cluster. And of course you can’t miss bright Venus with Gemini the Twins, Castor & Pollux.
Dear Friends – After serving in the Act of Consecration of the Human Being this morning during Ascension-Tide, as I am circumambulating around my little piece of bottom land here in the ‘City by the Lake’, I am imagining how our work on Earth began – Today it feels like a pulsating – a push & a pull – a painful, laborious, Glorious, process of ‘Spirit becoming matter’.
I stand in my aging female body feeling the warmth of the Sun in my bones, as the birds pipe & chitter, contemplating – that since the ‘Turning Point of Time’ we are called to make the equally labor-some return – to spiritualize matter.
This flesh will become dust – compost to feed the Earth. Will my soul & spirit survive the threshing floor? Will my spirit be a fit food for the gods?
I think about how since the advent of the current age of Michael as Time Spirit – our awakening to the work of the Archangel Vidar – & the mysterious helper beings from the future – called the Vulcan Beings – our mission now is to redeem the adversarial forces. In particular (in the last 3 & 1/2 years & counting) we are to wake-up to that side of ‘modern science’ that wants to keep us stuck in matter.
I make it a point to strive to recognize & name the forces working in & around me – the progressive beings, as well as the hindering beings. I am hyperaware of the call to conscience & my personal responsibility for our world karma.
During our Pentecost Festival this year we will explore the connection between Divine Wisdom & Anthroposophia in the redemption of the fallen Light-Bearer – Lucifer. And you are welcome to join us in this endeavour. (see invite below)
We are called, dear friends, to transform the grave of our soul, the social sphere, the desk, the podium, as well as the kitchen & laboratory table, into an altar. (Dare we add screen? Yes, the list goes on…)
The moment we work from a place of open-mindedness – of Reverence, & Wonder – we are building the foundation for transformation – where intent & interest can become the portal to Love. This is the 1st step in the alchemy of consecration.
We can Practice Recalling, Sensing & Beholding the Spirit in our human nature within, & out in the social & sense world, to manifest a true ‘Spiritual Science.’
With Heart-Thinking, the Christ Impulse will permeate the “I” of the scientist, the worker, the student – Then Science, & Art, in the light of Spirit, will radiate out as a healing force in the Universe.
That’s what I am thinking about today, as I walk in this time between Ascension & Whitsun.
What is it you are you thinking?
~hag
Marilyn Wilson
POD
…I have fallen down upon the earth, to gain the wisdom of the stars…~hag
~John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.
23 May 2023 – Speaking with the Stars”: The waxing crescent moon was near Venus shortly after sunset on May 22, 2023. This evening, it will lie between Venus and the twin stars of Gemini, Castor and Pollux. Also nearby will be the steady red light of Mars.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY ( From Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul, The Present Age Mag., Wikipedia, RSarchive.org)
1430 – Joan of Arc is captured at the Siege of Compiègne by troops from the Burgundian faction
~Fra Bartolomeo
1498 –Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in Florence, Italy. Savonarola was an Italian Dominican friar. He was known for his prophecies & his calls for Christian renewal. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule & the exploitation of the poor. The Florentines expelled the ruling Medici &, at the friar’s urging, established a “popular” republic. Declaring that Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the world center of Christianity & “richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever”, enlisting the active help of Florentine youth.
In 1495 when Florence refused to join Pope Alexander VI’s Holy League against the French, the Vatican summoned Savonarola to Rome. He disobeyed & defied the pope by preaching under a ban, highlighting his campaign for reform with processions, bonfires & pious theatricals. In retaliation, the Pope excommunicated him.
A trial by fire proposed by a rival Florentine preacher to test Savonarola’s divine mandate turned into a fiasco. On May 23, 1498, they condemned, hanged, & burned him in the main square of Florence.
1618 – Beginning of the Thirty Years’ War.
1886 – Death-Day of Leopold von Ranke, German historian and academic – In Rudolf Steiner’s Karmic Relationships lecture Vol 2 Lecture 14 – We hear how he was an ‘after death pupil of Frances Bacon’.
1906 – Death-day of Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian director, playwright, and poet
1934 – The American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.
1945 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Schutzstaffel, commits suicide while in Allied custody.
2021 – Deathday of Johnna Rhode on Pentecost – Eurythmist & dear friend
Anthroposophia & the Redemption of Lucifer – A Pentecost Festival for 2023
Greetings dear friends – Can you feel it? The expansion experienced during Ascension gives way to a kind of constriction of the soul, as we abide in the upper room of our consciousness. In open anticipation, we prepare for the revelation of the Spirit of Wisdom – The Paraclete – The Mediator -between the ‘Above & Below’ that connects us to our highest human destiny – modeled in the original Pentecost mystery, 50 days after Easter Sunday.
The Merry month of May, when all of nature is reborn, belongs to the 3-Fold Easter-Tide Season, which is traditionally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
As we know the 3rd Sunday in May is Mother’s Day. And every year our family has a practice of beautifying our wild garden – planting flowers, herbs & our vegetables for the year. We have the annual Plant Parade – All the house plants go outside where they receive some of Angie’s gold compost.
Besides tuning into the plant world, I have an ever-growing collection of rocks & crystals that I have gathered over the years from various excursions, & every Mother’s Day I clean & rearrange them around the plants. I touch each one, connecting to its essence, often recalling the story of where they came from & why I chose them.
I receive so much from the treasure’s of Natrura’s.
We are shifting now at the end of May to the virtue: ‘Perseverance Becomes Faithfulness’.
In my work to understand the initiation of Mary Magdalene I have taken up a practice of working with the 12 virtues as a way of transforming ‘the 7 demons’.
After Whitsunday I will share some of my experiences in seeking to live into this ‘Apostle to the Apostles‘ – This woman who was chosen to anoint the ‘Anointed One’.
Until then I will abide (John 15:4-7 – Thanks CG)
~hag
Here are some pics from Our Spring Farm Day at Zinniker. It was a glorious Saturday with many friends. We stuffed stag bladders with yarrow, Stirred 500, & barrel, nettle, & equisetum, infused gold into horn silica, made tree paste, visited the animals, including their new puppy, & shared a delicious repast…CG & I were on delivery duty for the Chicago egg group, so we had to leave before folks did the spray on the land. I look forward to gathering again for St. John’s…God Bless the Zinniker’s.
Eddie Calz
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated with added titles by Roy Sadler ASCENSIONTIDE Transition verse from Spring to Summer Come, Foresight v7 My Self is threatening to flee, lured stromgly by the cosmic light. Now you, my foresight, dawn your star and my divining, firmly as of right, replace the power of thought that in the senses’ glory leaves me.
This is part of the square quartet, the verses at the centre of each quarter of the year, each of them presenting a challenge to the soul: to proceed in her development something must wake up. This week’s verse is a luciferic temptation; the mirror verse an ahrimanic one. I think they can be imagined as transition verses between the seasons of the year.
LENT 1 Transition verse from Winter to Spring 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
~John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.
21 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars: Look west shortly after sunset this evening for the young moon. It’s edging toward the brightest planet, dazzling Venus (occult Mercury) look for the pale glow – called earthshine – on the unlit side of the moon.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY ( From Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul, The Present Age Mag., Wikipedia, RSarchive.org)
429 BC -Birthday of Plato (According to Dunlop’s ‘Path’ Calendar)
1265 – Birthday of Dante – according to Rudolf Steiner “…Dante became a seer at the age of thirty-five”. “…All leaders of mankind, who were aware of how the higher spiritual life of man arises out of his lower nature, have comprehended the significance of Easter. Dante therefore described his awakening — in his Divine Comedia — as taking place on Good Friday.”
“…Dante had a friend and teacher Brunetto Latini, who, as I think you will recognise from what we shall presently say, may be described as an Initiate in the true sense of the word.”
“…When you follow the teaching of the Templars, there at the heart of it is a kind of reverence for something of a feminine nature. This femininity was known as the Divine Sophia, the Heavenly Wisdom. Manas is the fifth principle. the spiritual self of man, that must be developed, for which a temple must be built. And, just as the pentagon at the entrance to Solomon’s Temple characterises the fivefold human being, this female principle similarly typifies the wisdom of the Middle Ages, This wisdom is exactly what Dante sought to personify in his Beatrice. Only from this viewpoint can Dante’s Divine Comedy be understood. Hence you find Dante, too, using the same symbols as those which find expression in the Templars, the Christian knights, the Knights of the Grail, and so on. Everything which is to happen [in the future] was indeed long since prepared for by the great initiates, who foretell future events, in the same way as in the Apocalypse, so that souls will be prepared for these events.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Temple Legend
1471 – Birthday of Albrecht Dürer, German painter, engraver, & mathematician
1639 – Death Day of Tommaso Campanella, an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, theologian, astrologer, and poet. Campanella was prosecuted by the Roman Inquisition for heresy in 1594 and was confined to house arrest for two years. Accused of conspiring against the Spanish rulers of Calabria in 1599, he was tortured and sent to prison, where he spent 27 years. He wrote his most significant works during this time, including The City of the Sun, a utopia describing an egalitarian theocratic society where property is held in common.
Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as reincarnating in the brilliant but tragic individuality of Otto Weininger
1860 – Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian unification. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him qite a bit in his Karmic Relationships series.
“…many Initiates of bygone days appear again as personalities who with the concepts and notions prevailing to-day cannot be recognised as former Initiates because they are obliged to use the body which their epoch provides. Garibaldi is just such an example…In Hibernia, in Ireland, there were deep and penetrating Mysteries whose influences still made their way across to Europe in the early centuries of the spread of Christianity. And there one finds an Initiate whose path in the 8th to 9th centuries after the founding of Christianity led him from Ireland to the region corresponding approximately to modern Alsace. Under the stormy conditions then prevailing, this Initiate achieved much for the cause of true Christianity. To this Initiate came three pupils from different quarters of the world — three pupils who entrusted themselves to him. These three pupils came to him — one from far away, another from nearer at hand. But in the Irish Mysteries there was an inviolable decree that an Initiate to whom pupils had entrusted themselves must not abandon them in the later incarnation but must accomplish in earthly life something that will hold them to him, something that establishes a bond between him and these pupils. The Initiate of whom I am speaking was born again as Joseph Garibaldi, with that visionary quality of will which in olden times had been able to express itself in a quite different form from that possible in a body belonging to the 19th century. Garibaldi received only a very inferior education, quite unlike the education that was typical of the 19th century. The three others I have named were the pupils who in the past had come to him from different parts of the world. But the impulse working from the one incarnation over into the other was far deeper and more potent than external principles of action…And so in spite of the radical difference in sentiment and conviction, Garibaldi could not abandon, for example, Victor Emanuel...” ~Rudolf Steiner
