Dear Friends – It’s Interesting how rhythms ebb & flow. It’s powerful to discern the patterns.
Thru living into the energies of Ascension my work with The ‘10:10 Thought-Seed’ imagination has been strengthened.
It’s been awhile since we offically checked in around ‘Our ProjectEgregore’ – our collective ‘Thought-Form’ of Good Will – our “key-call” to the Spiritual powers on the Inner Planes, to enlist their aidin the graceful unfolding of our highest human destiny.
Kari Frid
Through our continued, & consistent intention to visualize the Human Being as a Star & the Earth as a Sun, our positive egregore grows between the material & spiritual worlds, & is connected to both.
This impulse extends beyond the usual limits of space/time, connecting the eternal with the temporal.
Our goal is to co-create a new ‘Group-Soul United in Christ’ thru our daily 10:10 contemplation.
Here is the Meditative Thought-Seed I love to work with:
For Thinking: “When I think light, my soul shines, When my soul shines, the Earth is a star, When the Earth is a star, I am, a true human being”. ~Herbert Hahn In Reverse: I am, a true human being The Earth is a Star My soul Shines I think Light
For Feeling: When I feel warmth, my heart sings When my heart sings, the Earth resounds When the Earth resounds, I am, a true I AM In Reverse: I am, a True I Am The Earth Resounds My Heart Sings I Feel Warmth
For Willing: When I will life, my hands help When my hands help, the Earth heals When the Earth heals, I am, a free human being In Reverse: I Am, a Free Human Being The Earth Heals My Hands Help I Will Life
~ Mary Lynn Channer & hag
Here’s a Steiner quote that supports our work: “Had the Event of Golgotha not occurred, the earth and the sun would never be able to reunite. For through the Event of Golgotha, which bound the force of the Elohim in the sun to the earth — in other words the force of the Logos — the impulse was given which will again eventually impel one Logos-force toward the other, and finally once more unite them — sun and earth — in one body. Since the Event of Golgotha, the earth, spiritually observed, is possessed of the force to draw the sun again into a unity with it.
Therefore it can be said that through this great Event, the force of the Logos, which formerly radiated down upon the earth from without, was now taken up into its spiritual being. The question may be asked, what existed previously within the body of the earth? It was that force which streamed down upon it from the sun. But since that time, what exists there within the earth? – The Logos itself which through Golgotha has become the spirit of the earth. As truly as your soul and spirit dwell within your physical body, do also the soul and spirit of the earth dwell within the body of the earth. This soul and spirit, this earth spirit is the Christ.” ~ The Gospel of St. John, Lecture 7 –THE MYSTERY OF GOLGOTHA
Heliocentric view of solar system, May 2023. Chart via Guy Ottewell
19 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Bella Luna reaches her New phase at 10:53 A.M. CDT
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (resourses include The original Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner, Wikipedia, Skyandtelescope.org)
1895 – Birthday of Emil Bock, Priest & co-founder of the Christian Community, anthroposophist and writer. In 1914 he began a study of languages at the University of Bonn . However, the same year he enlisted as a volunteer in the First World War and was sent to the front in Flanders , where he was wounded. In 1916, he met the theologian Friedrich Rittelmeyer , and from 1918 he studied Protestant theology in Berlin, and graduated in 1921. In June of the same year Bock met Rudolf Steiner and became one of the founders of the Christian Community in Switzerland.
Right at the moment of the rise of one of the most destructive, anti-human powers the world has ever seen, the Seminary of The Christian Community opened the doors of its first building dedicated to the training of priests in the movement for religious renewal. As Adolf Hitler proclaimed himself the “Führer”students gathered daily to hear words spoken in the sanctuary, from the altar, from the true “helfende Führer” (helping guide). Banned by the Nazi’s in 1941, Emil Bock – one of the founding priests and main teachers at the seminary – worked on a whole new translation of the New Testament while in the prison camp in Welzheim, including Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians and the Letter to the Hebrews. This spiritual work, completed under the pressures of a time of terrible catastrophe and real evil, became a powerful force that emerged above-ground at the end of the war in 1945. Bock was released from the concentration camp in 1942, but was under surveillance for the rest of the war. After the war, Bock was instrumental in the rebuilding of the community.
On November 1, 1950, Pius XII proclaimed the Dogma of the Assumption–Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven–which sent shock waves throughout the Christian world. C.G. Jung, for example, wrote his Answer to Job in response. Emil Bock’s response was the ‘Threefold Mary’ lectures, which answer some of the issues and broaden the scope to include not only the Mary-Sophia mystery in human history, but also the meaning of the feminine element in the evolution of consciousness. ~anthrowiki, christiancommunity
This precious little book contains three lectures — “The Mystery of the Virgin Mary in Body, Soul, and Spirit” — presented during the Christmas Holy Nights of 1950/51.
“The Mary mystery has meaning for all humankind, and a renewed Christian understanding of the human being in the fullest sense will be able to fathom it“. ~Emil Bock
Wendy Bazster
Tune into the Ascsension – thru these video recordings:
Greetings freinds – Well we made it – to the 2nd phase in the 3-fold Festival of Easter-tide. Our journey began with the spiritual reality that from death comes new life – fulfilling the human longing for Resurrection – & this gives an opportunity for the dawning of the New Sun. The deed of Christ takes the ancient mysteries further, to meet us where we are now, & to lead us into a glorious future.
Yes, the Easter-Tide flows on, it goes further – 40 days after the mysteries of death & resurrection we receive the second aspect – a new archetype thru the Festival of Ascension. There is an esoteric significance of the 40 days – 1st of all, the symbolism of the # 40, which BTW: is mentioned 149 times in the Bible, is important to contemplate, it represents an initiation process, some sort of trial, a period of testing, which we must endure to become more spiritually aware, to achieve a triumph of the spirit – a chance for advancement.
Friends, we can all tune into together, & even though the date changes from year to year due to the nature of the ‘Moveable Feast’ aspect, it’s always a Thursday – Now isn’t that interesting. Thor’s day – representing the planet Jupiter, the archetype of growth & expansion – model of the beneficent Ruler, an impulse we can take advantage of & tune into.
Then 10 days later comes the 3rd aspect – the Festival of Pentecost – which means 50 days after the Resurrection, when the inspiration of the Holy Spirit pours in.
10:10 Testament: Since the original Ascension, thru the effects of the expansion of the Christ light, the possibility exists in the etheric body of human beings for something new to appear, something that breathes in life eternal. And these ultimate formative forces which do not participate in death, & which humanity will gradually attain thru the influence of the Christ Impulse, is ever streaming back to us – a contraction & expansion into-&-out-of cosmic & earthly space.
Ethel Mann
It generates a force that will in turn create a sphere around our Earth that is in the process of becoming a Sun – A spiritual sphere – a Corona – is forming around the Earth composed of the etheric forces that have come alive with the essence of Love & Light. Just as the Christ Love issues from the Earth, & the light of the New Isis-Mary-Sophia radiates from cosmic space, there is also a kind of reflection of it that encircles the Earth thru us – embodied as the enlivening fire of the Holy Spirit. And so it is & ever shall be that the Earth thru our purified soul forces begins to be creative, surrounding itself with this Spiritual Corona which will ripen the seed into a Sun…
~hag
18 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: After nightfall and in the early evening, you’ll see Arcturus fairly high in the east, noticeable for its brightness and yellow-orange color. Next, look for Vega rather low in the northeast. It’s a bright blue-white star. Then look for the Northern Crown between these 2 bright stars – closer to Arcturus.
Anthroposophia & the Redemption of Lucifer – A Pentecost Festival for 2023
~i was in-between when i 1st felt its glace i lived in its fire & never knew i was asleep, dreaming blue dreams in the egg of the world the eye opened & closed, blinking once perhaps as it does every million years & i came from unknowing into knowing… i left my place yawning i was naked in a bed of light then i opened like a purple flower & am still growing… ~hag
17 May 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Jupiter & the Moon rose together this morning around 5:30 am even as the sky was growing brighter with the impending sunrise. Bella Luna passes in front of Jupiter at 10 am CDT – this occultation is an event visible from much of North America, Canada, & Greenland. Continuing on its journey, the Moon passes north of Mercury at 9 pm CDT.
1510 – Death-day of Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter of the “golden age” of the Early Renaissance. He belonged to the Florentine School under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Among Botticelli’s best-known works are The Birth of Venus & Primavera.
Grigory Valuyev
1606 – Murder of False Dmitriy I, the only Tsar ever raised to the throne by means of a military campaign. He was the first, & most successful, of three “impostors” who claimed, during the Time of Troubles, to be the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible.
Dmitriy married polish priestess Marina Mniszech. It was the usual practice that when a Russian Tsar married a woman of another faith, she would convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but she didn’t because Dmitriy had obtained the support of Polish King Sigismund III Vasa & Pope Paul V by promising to reunite the Russian Orthodox Church & the Holy See.
This was considered a betrayal. Ten days after his marriage, commoners stormed the Kremlin & killed Dmitriy. The body was put on display & then cremated, the ashes shot from a cannon towards Poland.
He was the primary character in the opera Boris Godunov, & Modest Mussorgsky’s opera of the same name. His story is also told by Schiller in Demetrius, by Antonín Dvořák in his opera Dimitrij, & Rainer Maria Rilke recounts the overthrow of the False Dimitriy in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge; Rilke’s only longer prose work. Harold Lamb fictionalizes the demise of the False Dimitriy in “The Wolf Master”.
1792 – New York Stock Exchange founded
1922 – Riot at a Rudolf Steiner lecture in Munich on 15 May 1922, reported in the New York Times on 17 May.
REVIEW | Rudolf Steiner’s „blockbuster“ lecture tours in 1922 have been documented for the first time in Archivmagazin, including the attack on him by Nazis in Munich.
The famous concert agency Wolff & Sachs, organised two lecture tours by Steiner through several German cities. On the first tour in January 1922, Steiner spoke in front of about twenty thousand people. But this roll ended unexpectedly when during the second tour in May militant opponents from nationalistic populist (voelkisch) circles organised trouble in Munich and Elberfeld so that Steiner decided against a third tour.
What had happened? In Munich, Steiner had been “physically threatened and put in danger of his life by hooligans at the instigation of a newspaper,” as Friedrich Rittelmeyer wrote in Rudolf Steiner Enters My Life. Had the conspirators really planned to remove Steiner in an assassination attempt?
A lengthy introduction to the period shows that democracy in the young Weimar Republic was by no means secure. Right-wing terrorist organisations tried to assassinate leading politicians. Growing inflation brought about a feeling of insecurity among broad sections of the population.
The practical solutions promoted by anthroposophy in various fields of knowledge and life, primarily the movement for the threefold order of the social organism, made it a target for nationalistic and antisemitic forces. They saw Steiner as a stooge of the victorious powers and the agent of a global Jewish and Masonic conspiracy. Hitler’s mentor, Dietrich Eckart, had published a long article about Steiner in 1919 in which he mocked Steiner’s social impulse as “threefolding puppet”. Hitler himself decidedly rejected threefolding as early as 1920. According to police intelligence reports, when after his speech at the Munich Hofbräuhaus on 11 May 1920 one person recommended the threefolding idea as a possible solution to the social question, Hitler replied: “We don’t want any new ideas but to defend the old ones which have been seen to be correct.”
The reaction of nationalistic populist (voelkisch) groups to Rudolf Steiner is set out in detail. This is followed by chapters on the progress of the tour, the correspondence, business documents, an index of the papers relating to the Wolff & Sachs tours in the Rudolf Steiner Archive, a list of press reports, press reports and reminiscences of eye-witnesses. All texts have been provided with explanatory notes.
The dramatic occurence, which took place on the evening of 15 May 1922 in Munich’s premier hotel “Vier Jahreszeiten”, was even reported as a “riot” in the New York Times. The headline says: “RIOT AT MUNICH LECTURE. Reactionaries Storm Platform When Steiner Discusses Theosophy”.
It becomes clear from eye-witness reports that many people decided specifically as a result of the lectures on this tour to engage more deeply with anthroposophy.
“Thus Heinrich Liedvogel wrote how grateful he was that his father had taken him along to the lecture as a recalcitrant eighteen-year-old and that Rudolf Steiner had at the time made an ‘indelible impression’ on him which stayed with him for the rest of his life. He was impressed how Rudolf Steiner silenced the hecklers which were, however, subsequently to seize power. Fifteen year later (1933) he experienced in the same hall how the ‘clique of those earlier hecklers’ had ‘grown into a dragon which had, at least outwardly, destroyed the intellectual life of Germany’.” (p. 48)
Hans Büchenbacher, who in Munich had become aware at an early stage that Steiner was on a death list and that an attack was planned, organised his own protection force since the police had refused to take the appropriate measures.
Steiner, too, aware of the threat to his life, had asked Büchenbacher whether he should give the lecture at all. “It will probably reach the point that I can only speak any longer in the occupied Rhineland.” (The Rhineland was occupied by the Allies from 1918 to 1930.)
All the memoires agree in their description that after the lecture, while the audience was still applauding, attackers stormed the platform as the speaker was just about to leave the hall. He only just succeeded in closing the door behind him. Meanwhile the anthroposophists pushed the attackers down from the platform. There followed a scuffle, other reports refer to a general brawl. The attackers had worn swastikas. They were equipped with sticks, knives and firearms. Newspaper reports from Munich document the brutal actions of the Nazis against individuals and events by dissenters.
Shortly before the incident, the Munich weekly Heimatland (edited by the subsequent editor-in-chief of the Völkische Beobachter, the organ of the Nazi Party) wrote: “Are there no longer any men in Munich who feel themselves to be German and who will prevent the arrival of such a scoundrel? Above all, will our battle-hardened youth with its patriotic ethos tolerate this provocation? If ever there is a target worthy of rotten eggs and apples, there is none more worthy for this kind of projectile of contempt than the anthroposophical Cagliostro and betrayer of the homeland.”
For the Nazis, Steiner was a parasitic “enemy of the people”. The Völkische Beobachter wrote: “Our pencil bristles at seriously engaging with such a charlatan and enemy of the German people. He has millions at his disposal to pollute our nation with his teachings and through his influence on the widest circles he has turned into a danger to our present and our future.” (p. 211).
Steiner’s Dornach collaborator Edith Maryon, who had been worried about Steiner beforehand already, received a telegram: “Survived Munich. Steiner”.
This documentation makes clear once again the incompatibility of anthroposophy and nationalistic racist thinking.
There will be few people today inclined to present Steiner as a martyr. Yet many details have to be overlooked to reach the opinion that the Munich incident was a harmless interruption by some boisterous students. Steiner, against whom the press had agitated beforehand, was in danger of being beaten up and, if possible, “eliminated”. That this did not happen is due to the clever defensive measures of the anthroposophists.
The extraordinary courage with which Steiner exposed himself to the ever more brutal actions of his opponents to present his ideas must be admired. He finished the tours, which he admitted exhausted him, with unshakeable equanimity and his familiar self-discipline.
The lectures given on the tours which have now been published as GA 80a in the complete works. They form an extraordinary bundle within Steiner’s public lectures. They are individual lectures – the speaker was only able to present briefly things he set out in greater detail in lecture cycles – yet they have the appeal of precision. They are an introduction to the nature of his worldview from the mature perspective of the 60-year-old.
It is not evident from the tone of the lectures that they were held in a sometimes tense atmosphere. A large part of the audience appears willing to follow the speaker in his for them unusual and demanding lines of thought. The great applause, which even the newspaper reporters experienced as being unusual, certainly did not come just from anthroposophists since they only formed an insignificant minority among the more than thousand people in the audience on each occasion.
In almost every lecture Steiner fought against misunderstandings and the caricatures of his teachings. He differentiated his epistemological method sharply from experimental parapsychology, eastern yoga, and emotive mysticism and kept attempting to make the scientific nature of his research method clear from ever new perspectives. He also referred to the way in which anthroposophy could be productive in education, medicine, the religious life, etc.
The lectures give an insight into what an introduction to the nature of anthroposophy looked like almost 100 years ago. The notes explain the location and audience numbers. Entries from Steiner’s notebooks, press reviews and two recollections of the incident in Munich are included.
Rudolf Steiner: Das Wesen der Anthroposophie. Dreizehn von der Konzertagentur Wolff & Sachs organisierte öffentliche Vorträge, gehalten in Berlin, München, Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main, Mannheim, Köln, Elberfeld und Breslau zwischen dem 19. November 1921 und dem 18. Mai 1922, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Basel 2019
1973 – Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate
Anthroposophia & the Redemption of Lucifer – A Pentecost Festival for 2023
Happy Mother’s Day to all motherers – Motherhood is a soul quality – If you have cradled, fed, held, hugged, nurtured, counselled, driven around, stayed up late for, cleaned up after, shared joys, shared heartaches, nursed late at night, helped out, cheered on, fought for, worried about, taken pride in, stood behind, defended, believed in, & loved with all your heart above & beyond what is asked for in any other situation, unconditionally & respectfully…If you are a place called ‘home’ to someone – a refuge from the world, an embrace full of warmth & understanding – then you are a mother.
And we can remember & honor the fact that we all have life & the continuity of life, growth & change on our planet because of the Mother-line. The Mothers have gifted all with the pulse & rhythm of life – the heart of the Mother ! The Mother-Line connects all of Humanity. Happy Mother’s Day to Grandmothers, Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Aunties, Girlfriends, all Kindred & Mother Gaia who sustains us all !
Belinda Grey
The Her-Story of MOTHER’S DAY- The earliest mother’s day celebrations, can be traced back to the Spring Festivals of the ancients, honoring the Mother of the gods…& the Queen Bee…
Much later…in the 1600’s, England celebrated a day called ‘Mothering Sunday’, honoring the matriarchy…the Queens of England…
As Christianity spread thruout Europe the celebration changed to honor the ‘Mother Church’…
Here in the US, in 1870, Julia Ward Howe – the woman that actually wrote the words to the battle hymn of the republic, knowing all too well the horrors of war, called for women to rise up & oppose war in all its forms. She wanted women to come together across national lines, to recognize what we hold in common above what divides us, & to commit to finding peaceful resolutions to conflicts. She called it “Mother’s Day For Peace”
Her idea was influenced by Anna Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker, who had attempted starting in 1858, to improve sanitation thru what she called Mothers’ Work Days. She organized women thru-out the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, & in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union & Confederate neighbors.
Anna Jarvis’ daughter, also named Anna Jarvis, would of course have known of her mother’s work, & the work of Julia Ward Howe. Much later, when her mother died, this second Anna Jarvis started her own crusade to found a ‘Memorial Day for Women’.
The first ‘Mother’s Day’ was celebrated in West Virginia in 1907 in the church where the elder Anna Jarvis had taught Sunday School. So to pay homage to her ancestor, she began a campaign to establish a national Mother’s Day on the 2nd Sunday of May…the anniversary of her mother’s death…which just happened to be 40 days after Easter…as a day dedicated to peace.
And from there the custom caught on – spreading eventually to 45 states. Finally the holiday was declared officially by states beginning in 1912.
And in 1914, hoping to get the female vote & also as a distraction from his declaration of the 1st World War, President Woodrow Wilson, confirmed the first national Mother’s Day. So ironic as the original impulse was all about working to prevent war.
But what does it mean to us today…? You know I’m not taking about the commercialized happy-faced take-your-mother-to-brunch-cliché’s. Hallmark may not be talking…but this is heavy stuff…the concept of ‘mother’ is highly charged for most of us…we all have, or had, a mother…good or bad or in-between…We may be a mother ourselves…what does that bring up…plenty…right…there’s a lot there I know…
So maybe today we can try & access some of these impressions & feelings & memories…to pound out the pain…rattle the wonder…to sing our story…to dance in the healing process…to mother ourselves…
So choose your weapon of peace…your surgical tool…your pruning shears, or hammer, or monkey wrench…A drum or shaker…these will do…as we explore & experience our Mother’s Day anthem ponding in the heart-beat we all share…
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Indications from the orignal Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner + Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
~John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.
14 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: On the mornings of May 12-14, 2023, look for the waning last quarter crescent moon near Saturn. Its closest approach to Saturn will be on the morning of May 13. You can catch the moon and Saturn for a few hours before dawn. Saturn is getting easier to see as it’s climbing away from the sun in the morning sky.
Feast Day of Matthias – According to the Acts of the Apostles, Matthias was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot following the betrayal of Jesus & his subsequent suicide. This calling as an apostle is unique, since his appointment was not made personally by Jesus, since it was after the Ascension, but made before the descent of the Holy Spirit at Whitsun.
1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois & begins its historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.
1947 – Winston Churchill‘s speech in London declares a “United States of Europe“‘ is “indispensable” for “an authoritative, all-powerful world order”.
1948 – Founding of the State of Israel
1912 – Death-Day of Johan August Strindberg, something of a polymath, Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist & painter, Strindberg was also a telegrapher, theosophist, painter, photographer & alchemist. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture II:
“…Thus I made the acquaintance of this doctor, a man of our own day. When I met him I was in the company of another person whom I had known very well for a long time. This other person had always made, I will not say a deep, but a very thorough impression on me. He was exceedingly fond of the society of men who were interested in occultism in the widest possible range, though an occultism somewhat externally conceived. He was fond of relating the views of his many acquaintances on all kinds of occult matters, and especially on the occult connections of what the modern artist should strive for, as a lyric and epic poet, or as a dramatist. Around this person there was what I might call a kind of moral, ethical aura. I am applying the word ‘moral’ to all that is connected with the soul-qualities under the command of the will.
I was paying a visit to him, and in his company I found the other man first mentioned, whom I knew by reputation and respected very highly for his literary and medical career. Everything that took place during this visit made a deep impression on me and impelled me to receive the whole experience into the realm of spiritual research.
Then a very remarkable thing happened. By witnessing the two persons in the company of one another, and by the impression which my new acquaintance made on me — (I had known him for a long time as an eminent literary and medical man and had a great regard for him, but this was the first time that I saw him in the flesh) — by these impressions I gained certain perceptions. To begin with however, it enabled me, not to investigate in any way the connections in life and destiny of my new acquaintance. On the contrary, my seeing them together shed light as it were upon the other one, whom I had long known. And the result was this. — He had lived in ancient Egypt, not in his last, but in one of his former lives on earth. And (this is the peculiar thing) he had been mummified, embalmed as a mummy. Soon afterwards I discovered that the mummy was still in existence. Indeed a long time afterwards I saw the actual mummy. This, then, was the starting-point. But once the line of research had been kindled in connection with the person whom I had long known, it shed its light still farther, and eventually I was enabled to investigate the karmic connections of the other man, my new acquaintance, the doctor. And the following was the result.
As a general rule one is led from one earthly life of a human being to the preceding one. But in this case intuition led far back into ancient Egypt, to a kind of chieftain in ancient Egypt. It was a chieftain who in a certain sense, indeed in a very interesting way, possessed the ancient
Egyptian Initiation, but had become somewhat decadent as an Initiate. In the further course of his life, he began to take his Initiation not very seriously, indeed he even treated it with a certain scorn. Now this man had a servant, who in his turn was extremely serious. This servant was of course not initiated; but both of them together were given the task of embalming mummies and procuring the substances for this purpose, which was no easy matter.
Now especially in the more ancient periods of Egypt, the process of embalming mummies was very complicated and demanded an intimate knowledge of the human being, of the human body. Nay more, of those who had to do the embalming — if they did it legitimately — deep knowledge of the human soul was required. The chieftain of whom I spoke had been initiated for this very work, but he gradually became, in a manner of speaking, frivolous in relation to this, his proper calling. So it came about that in the course of time he betrayed (so they would have put it in the language of the Mysteries) the knowledge he had received through his Initiation to his servant, and the latter gradually proved to be a man who understood the content of Initiation better than the Initiate himself. Thus the servant became the embalmer of mummies, and at length his master did not even trouble to supervise the work, though of course he still took advantage of the social position, etc., which this honourable task involved. But at length his character became such that he no longer enjoyed great respect, and he thus came into various conflicts of life. The servant, on the other hand, worked his way up by degrees to a very, very earnest conception of life, and was thus taken hold of, in a remarkably congenial way, by a kind of Initiation. It was no real Initiation, but it lived within him instinctively. Thus a large number of mummies were mummified under the supervision and co-operation of these two people.
Time went on. The two men passed through the gate of death and underwent the experiences of which I shall speak next time — the experiences in the super-sensible which are connected with the development of karma or destiny. And in the Roman epoch they both of them came back to earthly life. They came back at the very time when the dominion of the Roman Emperors was founded, in the time of Augustus — not exactly, but approximately, in the time of Augustus himself.
The chieftain, who had gradually become a really frivolous Initiate, and who, when he had passed through the gate of death, had felt this as an extraordinarily bitter trial of earthly life, experiencing it in all the bitterness of its effects — we find him again as Julia, the daughter of Augustus. She married Tiberius, the step-son of Augustus, and led a life which to herself seemed justified but was considered, in the Roman society of that time, so immoral that at length both she and Tiberius were banished.
The other man — the servant who had worked his way from the bottom upwards nearly to the grade of an Initiate — was born again at the same time, as the Roman historian Titus Livius, or Livy.
It is most interesting how Livy came to be an historian. In the ancient Egyptian times he had embalmed a large number of mummies. The souls who had lived in the bodies of these mummies — very many of them — were reincarnated as Romans. And certain ones among them were actually reincarnated as the seven Kings of Rome. For the Seven Kings were no mere legendary figures. Going back into the time when the chieftain and his servant had lived in Egypt, we come into a very old Egyptian epoch. Now through a certain law which applies especially to the reincarnation of souls whose bodies have been mummified, these souls were called back again to earth comparatively soon. And the karmic connection of the servant of the chieftain with the souls whose bodies he had embalmed was so intimate, that he had to write the history of the very same human being whom in a previous life he had embalmed, though naturally, he also included the history of many others whom he had not embalmed. Thus Titus Livius became an historian. Now I would like some, indeed as many of you as possible, to take Livy’s Roman History, and, with the knowledge that results from these karmic connections, to receive a real impression of his style. You will see that his peculiar penetration into the human being and his tendency at the same time towards the style of the myth, is akin to that intimate knowledge of man which an embalmer could attain.
We do not perceive such connections until the corresponding researches have been made. But once this has been done, a great light is shed on many things. It is difficult to understand the origin of the peculiar style of Titus Livius, who as it were embalms the human beings whom he describes. For such is his style. Real light is thrown upon it when we point to these connections.
Thus we have the same two people again as Julia and Titus Livius. Then Julia and Livy passed once more through the gate of death. The one soul had had the experience of being an Initiate to a considerable degree, and having then distorted his Initiation by frivolous conduct. He had discovered all the bitterness of the after-effects of this in the life between death and a new birth. He had then undergone a peculiar destiny in his new life on earth as Julia, of which life you may read in history. The result was, that in his next life between death and a new birth (following on the life as Julia) he conceived a strong antipathy to this his incarnation as Julia. And in a curious way this antipathy of his was universalised. For spiritual intuition shows this individuality in his life between death and a new birth as though perpetually crying out: “Would that I had never become a woman! It was the evil that I did in yonder life in ancient Egypt which led me thus to become a woman.”
We can now trace the life of these two individualities still farther. We come into the Middle Ages. We find Livy again as the glad poet and minstrel in the very centre of the Middle Ages. We are astonished to find him thus, for there is no connection between the external callings. But the greatest possible surprises that a human being can possibly have are those that result from a real study of successive lives on earth. The Roman historian, with his style that proceeded from a knowledge of man acquired in embalming mummies, with his style so wonderfully light — we find him again as the poet Walther von der Vogelweide. His style is carried upwards, as it were, upon the wings of lyric poetry.
Walther von der Vogelweide lived in the Tyrol. He had many patrons; and among his many patrons there was one very peculiar man, who was on familiar terms with alchemists of every kind, for there were scores of alchemists at that time, in the Tyrol. This man was himself the owner of a castle, but he frequented all manner of alchemists’ dens and hovels. In so doing he learned extraordinarily much, and (as happened in the case of Paracelsus too) by spending his time in the dens of alchemists he was impelled to study all occult matters very intensely, and gained an unusually intense feeling for occult things. He thus came into the position of rediscovering in the Tyrol what was then only known as a legend, namely, the Castle in the Mountain — the Castle in the Rocks — (which indeed no one would have recognised as such, for it consisted of rocks, it was hollowed out of the rocks) — I mean, the Castle of the Dwarf King Laurin. The daemonic nature in the district of the Castle of the Dwarf King Laurin made a profound impression on him. Thus there was a remarkable combination in this soul — Initiation which he had carried into frivolity, annoyance at having been a woman and having thus been drawn into the sphere of Roman immorality and, at the same time, Roman cant and hypocrisy about morals; and lastly, an intimate knowledge, though still only external, of all manner of alchemical matters, which knowledge he had extended to a clear feeling of the nature-daemons and of other spiritual agencies in nature.
These two men — though it is not recorded in the biography of Walther, nevertheless it is the case — Walther von der Vogelweide and this other man often came together, and Walther received many an influence and impulse from him.
Here we have an instance of what is really a kind of karmic law. We see the same people drawn together again and again, called to the earth again and again simultaneously, complementing one another, living in a kind of mutual contrast. It is interesting once more, to enter into the peculiar lyrical style of Walther. It is as though at last he had grown thoroughly sick of embalming dead mummies and had turned to an entirely different aspect of life. He will no longer have anything to do with dead things, but only with the fullness and joy of life. And yet again, there is a certain undercurrent of pessimism in his work. Feel the style of Walther von der Yogelweide, feel in his style the two preceding earthly lives: feel too, his restless life. It is extraordinarily reminiscent of that life which dawns upon one who spends much of his time with the dead, when many destinies are unburdened in the soul. For such indeed was the case with an embalmer of mummies.
Now we go on. — My further researches into this karmic chain led me at length into the same room where I had visited my old acquaintance, whom I had recognised as an Egyptian mummy. And now I perceived that this very mummy had been embalmed by the other man whom I now met in his room. The whole line of research led me back to this same room. In effect, I found the soul who had passed through the servant of the old Egyptian embalmer, through Titus Livius, through Walther von der Vogelweide (the most celebrated of the Middle High German lyric poets) — I found him again in the doctor of our time, in Ludwig Schleich.(a German surgeon,writer philosopher, poet & painter)
Thus astonishingly do the connections in life appear. Who, with the ordinary consciousness alone, can understand an earthly life? It can only be understood when we know what is there in the foundations of a soul. Theoretically, many people know that deep in the foundations of the soul there are the layers of successive earthly lives. But it becomes real and concrete only when we behold it in a specific instance.
Then inner vision was directed out of this room once more. (For in the case of the other man, who had been mummified by this one, I was led to no more clues — at any rate to no important ones.) On the other hand I now perceived the further soul-pilgrimage of the old chieftain, of Julia, of the discoverer of Laurin’s Castle. For he came back to earth as August Strindberg.
Now I would like you to take the whole life and literary work of August Strindberg and set it against the background which I have just described. See the peculiar misogyny of Strindberg, which is no true misogyny, but proceeds from quite different foundations. Look, too, at all the strange daemonic elements that occur in his works. See his peculiar attraction to all manner of alchemistic and occult arts and artifices. And at length, look at the adventurous life of August Strindberg. You will find how well it stands out against the background which I have described.
Then read the Memoirs of Ludwig Schleich, his relations to August Strindberg, and you will see how all this arises once more against the background of their former earthly lives. Indeed, from the Memoirs of Ludwig Schleich a very remarkable light may suddenly arise, a light truly astonishing. For the man in whose company I first met Ludwig Schleich — the man of whom I said that in his ancient Egyptian life he was mummified by Schleich — it is he of whom Schleich himself tells in his Memoirs that he led him to Strindberg. In a past life, Strindberg and Schleich had worked together upon the corpse. And the soul who dwelt in that body, led them together again.
Thus, all that we have to explain to begin with about repeated earthly lives and the karmic connections in general, becomes real and concrete. Only then do the facts that appear in earthly life become transparent. A single human life on earth is an entire mystery. What else can it be, until seen against the background of the former lives on earth?” ~ Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture IIhttp://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA238/English/APC1957/19240907p01.html#sthash.phuf3nNA.dpuf
~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor
1 – 2:30 pm Central Time Saturday 27 May 2023 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.
Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Pentecost Festival Time: May 27, 2023 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Rooted in nature Bound for boundless sky Yes, I will, Be, blown by the wind I will be, here In the center of the storm I will sing its praises thru change – As I let grace roll down my head Like rain from the stars of mystery… ~hag
13 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waning Moon helps identify Saturn in the early dawns of May 12 – 15.
“…Now you know that one day the moon will reunite with the earth. The point in time when this reunion of moon and earth will occur is placed by astronomers and geologists who live in abstractions, many, many thousands of years in the future; that, however, is an illusion. In reality, we are not so very far away from that point in time. As you know, humanity as such is becoming younger and younger. It is becoming more and more the case that the development of body and soul only continues up to a certain point in life. At the time of the death of the Christ when the event of Golgotha took place, mankind in general was capable of physical and soul development until age thirty-three. Today, people are able to develop only until age twenty-seven. In the fourth millennium A.D., a time will come when human beings will be capable of development only until age twenty-one. Again, in the seventh millennium, a time will come when their bodily nature will be capable of development only until the fourteenth year of life. Then, women will cease to be fertile; an entirely different form of living on earth will come about. That will be the time when the moon will again approach the earth and will be incorporated into it.
You see, my dear friends, human beings must now begin to pay attention to such extraterrestrial events. They must not go on dreaming, vaguely and abstractly, of something divine. They must begin to focus on the events connected with their evolution. They must know: The moon once separated from the earth; the moon will reunite with the earth again. And just as this moon separation had a tremendous impact, so will the moon’s reentry. It is true that we will still be inhabiting the earth then as human beings, but we shall no longer be born in the ordinary way. We shall be connected with the earth in a way other than through birth. We shall have evolved in a certain manner by the time this point is reached. We must now learn to connect what is happening today — the increasing shadowiness of the intellect — with what will occur one day in earth evolution as an incisive event, namely, the moon’s whirling back into earth’s matter...” ~ Rudolf Steiner, MATERIALISM AND THE TASK OF ANTHROPOSOPHY, GA 204, Lecture XIV, 13 May 1921, Dornach
The Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima: Beginning May 13 thru October 13, 1917, three Portuguese children received apparitions of Our Lady at Cova da Iria, near Fatima, in Portugal.
Mary asked the children to pray the rosary for world peace, for the end of World War I, for sinners & for the conversion of Russia. The third visionary, Lucia dos Santos, became a Carmelite nun & died in 2005 at the age of 97.
Mary gave the children three secrets. Since Francisco died in 1919 & Jacinta the following year, both of the Spanish flu, Lucia revealed the first secret in 1927, concerning devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The second secret was a vision of hell.
Pope John Paul II was supposed to reveal the third secret in 2000; but we only received a part which spoke of a “bishop in white” who was shot by a group of soldiers who fired bullets & arrows into him. Many people linked this to the assassination attempt against Saint John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square on May 13, 1981.
Yesterday, Pope Francis headed to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in northern Portugal to celebrate the centenary of the first appearances of the Virgin Mary as described by three shepherd children on May 13, 1917.
Fatima is a small city in central Portugal where the landscape is dry & rocky. For centuries, people made their living raising sheep & other animals Some people wonder about a connection to Islam because the village has the same name as the Prophet Muhammad’s favorite daughter.
In May 1917, three shepherd children — two girls & a boy — claimed they saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary. The children described Mary as “a lady dressed all in white, more brilliant than the sun.” Mary told the children that praying the rosary would end what was then called The Great War — World War I— which left 17 million dead.
According to the children, Mary appeared to them six times that year. In one appearance, Mary said a miracle would occur on Oct. 13, 1917. Initially the children were scolded & even threatened with death for spreading what were considered baseless stories. But pilgrims from all over the world gathered in Fatima on that date & awaited Mary’s appearance. In what came to be called the “Miracle of the Sun,” many reported seeing visions in the sky while others reported miracles of healing. A newspaper of the day reported, “Before their dazzled eyes the sun trembled, the sun made unusual & brusque movements, defying all the laws of the cosmos, & according to the typical expression of the peasants, ‘the sun danced.’”
In 1930, the Catholic Church declared the events at Fatima “worthy of belief,” & chapels, sanctuaries, shrines & other memorials to the events popped up.
Fatima attracts between 5 – 6 million pilgrims a year, making it one of the most popular shrines in the world. The largest numbers come on May 13 — the anniversary of the first apparitions.
Pope Francis will be the fourth pontiff to visit Fatima; Pope Paul VI marked the 50th anniversary in 1967, John Paul II went three times & Benedict XVI visited once.
While there, Pope Francis will canonize the shepherd children — Jacinta & Francisco, & Lucia dos Santos.
Lucia dos Santos became a Carmelite nun &, in 1941, wrote her memoirs. In them, she said Mary gave the children three secrets, or prophecies, two of which she revealed at that time. The first secret was a vision of hell that Mary showed to the children, full of lakes of fire with screaming souls in torment. The second was that World War I would end — it did, a little more than a year after the children saw their first apparition — & that another great war would come if the people of Russia were not converted to Catholicism. They weren’t, & World War II began in 1939. There was also a prediction that Russia would “spread her errors throughout the world,” which many believe is a reference to Soviet communism.
Sister Lucia wasn’t eager to share the third prophecy, but was compelled to write it down in the case of her untimely death. She told Rome the secret could be revealed in 1960, but the Vatican decided to keep it sealed to avoid inflaming the wild speculation that was already connected with the so-called Third Secret of Fatima. Sister Lucia died in 2005 at age 97.
In 2000, then-Pope John Paul II — now St. John Paul — ordered the secret published. The prophecy is said to be an apocalyptic vision of a terrible persecution. The publication hardly dampened the fervor over the Third Secret since the assassination attempt against John Paul took place on May 13, 1981 — the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima — as he rode around St. Peter’s Square wearing his white cassock, the traditional vestment of the Bishop of Rome. It seemed like a near-fulfillment of the prophecy & John Paul said that he believed the Virgin Mary saved his life by guiding the bullet past a major artery. He later sent the bullet to Fatima where it was placed in the crown of the original image of Our Lady of Fatima, fitting perfectly into the only empty space left available when the crown was made 40 years earlier.
But all of the Third Secret has not been published in full. And it is thought that people like Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — later Pope Benedict XVI — have worked to actively suppress it.
~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor
1 – 2:30 pm Central Time Saturday 27 May 2023 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.
Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Pentecost Festival Time: May 27, 2023 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
