Monthly Archives: July 2023

The Palladium

Biography, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote

(part 6 -the final bit of the series)

Greetings friends on this Eve of the Full Thunder-Buck Moon – The Eve of the Cross-Quarter often called Lammas or Loaf-Mass in honor of the grain harvest.

I am leaving tomorrow for my next session of AAP Training, so I wanted to wrap up this series of reflections from “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing Anthroposophia” Conference. Here are the links to the earlier essays part 1 – part 2 – part 3 – part 4 – part 5

To further the emphasis on the healing task of the Arts, the perfect capper to ‘Realizing Anthroposophia’ came in the form of a spoken word performance by Richard Ramsbotham, with captivating music by Godlind Gadeke – “In Search of the Hidden Sources of Healing” – Through the death-forces in our culture to the rebirth of the spirit! Taken directly from the diaries of Countess Johanna von Keyserlingk written up in her book: “The Journey to Byzantium – The Palladium of Victory”, where she poetically describes her super-sensible experiences in Constantinople in 1926.

Yes, it’s the same Countess von Keyserlingk who together with her husband Count Carl von Keyserlingk hosted Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course at their estate in the obscure village of Koberwitz near Breslau, Germany (now Kobierzyce, near Wrocław, Poland).

Her highly developed clairvoyant ability, verified by Rudolf Steiner, opens her to the dread deed of 869 – the banishment of the Spirit – which plunges humanity into materialism. Facing this darkness, she also experiences the full potential to overcome this pronouncement – bringing a rebirth of Spirit – a healing of the sickness prevailing in our culture.

Perhaps you attended the amazing zoom series: “Shining a Light into the Darkness” initiated by Dr. Melissa Greer of Carah Medical Arts, for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Branch? Richard Ramsbotham gave the first two talks on the Academy of Gondishapur.  Melissa asked him to contribute something for the Conference & this is what he felt called to bring! She sent him my essay on the Countess: Johanna von Keyserlingk: Vessel for the Etheric Christ for art & background.

Countess Johanna von Keyserlingk was deeply affected by Rudolf Steiner’s death, feeling it as blow to humanity. The only hope she thought, must come thru the aid of the Spiritual World, which she was very much in-touch with. This launched her on a quest to re-discover the lost “Palladium – The Sun-Jewel of Pallas Athena”.

~Nike (Victory) offers an egg to a snake entwined around a column surmounted by the Trojan Palladium

Many tales speak of the Palladium (like the Spear of Destiny) – as conferring spiritual rulership of the world for whoever holds it.

~Odysseus and Diomedes steal the Palladium from Troy

Steiner described the search for the Palladium as a quest for human freedom.  “Legends tell of the removal of The Palladium, the Treasure of Wisdom, from Troy to Rome, from Rome to Constantinople, when Roman Christianity was secularized. They tell of its future removal to the East…& they tell of the necessity for this Sun-Treasure to receive new light from the West…How it must wait until it is redeemed spiritually in the West, released from the dark shadows of a purely external knowledge…

The Sun-Mystery has disappeared into the nether regions of human existence. Through spiritual-scientific development we must find it again…

Today people are looking expectantly towards – Washington! Not those “Washingtons” having conferences looking for an open door for trade to China -but those that speak with the tones of the spiritual world –  conferences conducted in the West that will bring salvation – which develop in such a way that the Palladium can be kindled once again to light. For like a fluorescent body, the Palladium, in itself, is dark; if it is suffused with light, then it becomes radiant. And so it is with the wisdom of the East: dark in itself, but it will light up when it is permeated by the spiritual light, The Sun-Wisdom of the West.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Cosmosophy, GA 208, 6 Nov. 1921

The journey the Countess takes is not about finding a physical object, but of striving to understand the spiritual causes for the sickness of society – & for the spiritual healing of it all. This brought her first into contact with the dark powers involved with the Council of Constantinople in 869.

From Rudolf Steiner: “…At the Council of Constantinople (in 869) it was decreed that the spirit did not exist; it was dogmatically stated that the human being consisted only of body and soul, and it was heresy to speak of a human spirit. In the same way attempts will be made to decree the soul, the inner life, as nonexistent.

The time will come — and it may not be far off — when quite different tendencies will come up at a congress like the one held in 1912 (involving the start of WW1) and people will say: It is pathological for people to even think in terms of spirit and soul. ‘Sound’ people will speak of nothing but the body. It will be considered a sign of illness for anyone to arrive at the idea of any such thing as a spirit or a soul. People who think like that will be considered to be sick and — you can be quite sure of it — a medicine will be found for this.

At Constantinople the spirit was made non-existent. The soul will be made non-existent with the aid of a drug. Taking a ‘sound point of view’, people will invent a vaccine to influence the organism as early as possible, preferably as soon as it is born, so that this human body never even gets the idea that there is a soul and a spirit.

The two philosophies of life will be in complete opposition. One movement will need to reflect how concepts and ideas may be developed to meet the reality of soul and spirit. The others, the heirs of modern materialism, will look for the vaccine to make the body ‘healthy’, that is, makes its constitution such that this body no longer talks of such rubbish as soul and spirit, but takes a ‘sound’ view of the forces which live in engines and in chemistry and let planets and suns arise from nebulae in the cosmos. Materialistic physicians will be asked to drive the souls out of humanity.

People who think that playful ideas will help them to look ahead to the future are very much mistaken. We need serious, profound ideas to look ahead to the future. Anthroposophy is not a game, nor just a theory; it is a task that must be faced for the sake of human evolution.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, THE FALL OF THE SPIRITS OF DARKNESS, GA 177, 5. Changes in Humanity’s Spiritual Make-up, 7 October 1917, Dornach

Dear friends – As we meet each of the many 100 year milestones that ask us to transform & renew what was wrought in Steiner’s time, we can see many parallels. Ramsbotham’s question to us thru this artistic work is: As we stand against the abyss of the ‘4th Industrial Revolution in which ‘biological & digital identities would be merged’ How can we uncover the hidden mysteries of Healing? What is asked of us today?

As Countess Johanna von Keyserlingk says:

“We were aware that humanity had struck against something in front of which we were powerless. So If we are not to go under, Spiritual Powers need to come to humanity’s aid.”

Thank you Dear Richard for this moving piece. The voice of the Countess rings forth today with light filled hope thru your work.

May we quest together for the renewed Sun-Jewel of AnthropoSophia – that every human soul become a Star & the Earth a New Sun…

To finalize: Here is what I put on the Ideas for the future card:

Conference or workshop theme ideas: Preventative ‘Medicine’ / Social Health 

In the spirit of the ‘Cosmic Communion’ in the New Mysteries of Healing, does anyone else feel a calling to bring a Renewal to Pastoral Medicine, in the light of the Reverse Cultus, co-creating Rites of Passage to help folks meet the milestone moments marking the 7 year cycles, perhaps in conjunction with Waldorf Teachers, as a preventative measure  – a psycho/spiritual medicine that may allow a healing catharsis, so that perhaps the soul doesn’t have to resort to becoming ill to have a threshold experience…?  

May we ennoble the Cultural Realm in Freedom thru Love… 

I will be off-line until 9 Aug. 2023 – I will try to send out remotely a few inspirations for Lammas tomorrow

May the bread of life nurture the Christ in you

~hag

“Love is…(part 5)

Biography, Calendar of the Soul, Celestial Event, Community, History, Rudolf Steiner Quote

“Love is the result of Wisdom that has been reborn in the I”

This shimmering Steiner Quote is one of my guiding lights. When I saw it included in the promo for  “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing Anthroposophia” Conference, It was one more reason I knew I had to go.

Here are my reflections so far: part 1 – part 2 – part 3 – part 4

As I mentioned yesterday The Arts have a very enlivening, community building, therapeutic effect. Every day we had group singing. The evolutionary piece entitled ‘Ahura Mazdao’ given by Diane Barnes was a treasure to work with. (Diane gave me a copy of the music to work with, so excited, thank you)  

From Rudolf Steiner: “…Let us try to condense into simple language the doctrines which Zarathustra tried to inculcate into his disciples. He spoke thus: “Man, as we perceive him, is not merely composed of a physical body, for this physical body is but the outer manifestation of the Spirit. Just as the physical body is nothing but the manifested crystallisation of the Spiritual in man, so the Sun, in so far as it is a body of luminous matter, is nothing but the external body of a spiritual Sun.” The spiritual part of man is spoken of as the “Aura” — or “Ahura,” to use the old expression — in distinction to his physical body and in the same sense the spiritual part of the physical Sun may be called the “Great Aura,” for it is all-embracing. Zarathustra called that which lies behind the physical Sun, Aura Mazda or Ahura Mazdao — the Great Aura. With this spiritual essence behind the Sun, all spiritual experiences and conditions are bound up, just as the existence and well-being of plants, animals and all that lives on Earth are bound up with the physical Sun. Behind the physical Sun lives the spiritual Lord and Creator, Ahura Mazdao. This is the derivation of the name “Ormuzd,” Spirit of Light. While the Indians searched mystically in the inner self to find Brahma, the Eternal, shining like a luminous centre in man, Zarathustra pointed his disciples to the great periphery, showing them that the mighty Spirit of the Sun, Ahura Mazdao, the Spirit of Light, dwelt in the physical body of the Sun. Ahura Mazdao has to face his enemy — Ahriman, the Spirit of Darkness — just as man, who bears within himself the enemies of his good impulses, strives to raise his real spiritual being to perfection and has to battle against his lower passions, desires, and the delusive images of lying and falsehood.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, GA 60 ZARATHUSTRA

We had a session of Eurythmy with Linda Larson. And Therapeutic Speech with Molly McIntire, who right away announced: ‘Clear speaking forms the organs’, & I could feel myself standing more upright.

We worked to harmonize our breathing, realizing that Rhythmic Speaking has an ordering effect. Long short, or short, long – the heartbeat.

Dynamic Speaking – Frees & strengthens – Alliteration helps us breathe the stars down to the earth. This is the Nordic Stream.

Stylistic Speaking has an awakening effect. There are different styles, Lyric, Epic, Dramatic. So much fun.

And Gesture-Filled Speaking has a purifying effect.

  1. Active – Straight line, quick to the point
  2. Thoughtful – Self-Centered, rounder tones
  3. Seeking – Asking/Begging
  4. Standing your ground – Holding off Blocking
  5. Antipathy – Flying away
  6. Sympathy – Reaching out, Gentle

We did lip sounds relating to the “I” to free the Feeling life, P,B,F,M,W

Tongue & Teeth Sounds to enliven Astral Thinking T,D,N,S,F,TH,L,

Plate -Back of the Mouth Sounds for the Etheric will, Cg,Ng, eRRR

How powerful Steiner’s Speech & Drama Course of 1924, must have been, where he describes the revelation of speech as relating to the Greek Gymnastics. Every time we speak, the words run, leap off the diaphragm, wrestle off the vocal cords, hit the discus of the tongue, to fly like the javelin out the mouth with intention toward the goal, landing the target like a shot-put.

I loved working with Molly, I look forward to collaborating with her in the future.

Everyday I am feeling better. Thanks for all your well wishes

xox

~hag

30 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower peaks today, although the brightening Moon will make spotting shower meteors a challenge. Fortunately, the Moon sets about three hours before sunrise, providing a short but effective window for trying to catch early-morning meteors. An hour before sunrise, the radiant is above the southwestern horizon. The Southern Delta Aquariids’ radiant lies in Aquarius, about halfway between the star 3rd-magnitude Skat and the similarly bright star Deneb Algedi in eastern Capricornus. This year, however, there’s another landmark to help you find it: Saturn is above (northeast of) the radiant. So, you can find Saturn in the sky and drop down a little to locate the point from which shower meteors will appear to radiate.

However, once you’ve found this point, look a little south or west of it — this is where you’re likely to spot the best meteors with the longest trains, rather than at the radiant itself. The Southern Delta Aquariids are expected to produce roughly 25 meteors per hour around the peak, so while it’s not going to be a stunning show, you can expect to catch at least a few bright shooting stars.

Sunrise: 5:57 A.M.
Sunset: 8:16 P.M.
Moonrise: 7:08 P.M.
Moonset: 2:54 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous (94%) ~astronomy.com

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

Karl König described the Soul Calendar’s 4 quarters as 4 voices:
1 – the Tenor, with sense perception conceiving spirit;
2 – the Baritone, with imaginative insight incarnating spirit;
3 – the Soprano, with inspiration for the spirit’s Christmas birth;
4 – the Alto, with intuitive love for a new spring world.
And in these pivotal, mirror verses of the Cosmic Word
I’ve put in the words, not present in the original,
of imagine & inspire (& intuit in v43, v17’s opposite)

LAMMAS
The Bread
v17
The Cosmic Word,
I’ve had the grace to lead
through senses’ gates to soul ground, speaks:
‘Imagine in your spirit’s depths my world expanse
to find in future Me in you’.

ADVENT III
The Wine
v36
The Cosmic Word,
mysteriously urging to be heard,
is speaking in my depths of being:
‘Inspire your life’s endeavour with my spirit light
to sacrifice yourself through Me’.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

TODAY 30 July in 1894- Birthday of Ernst Lehrs a German anthroposophist, science teacher in the 1st Waldorf School in Stuttgart, lecturer & writer. Having fought in World War I, he then studied science & graduated with a PhD in 1923. In 1935 he moved to The Netherlands, where he worked as a teacher, before moving to Britain as a Jewish refugee from the Nazis. In 1952 he returned to Germany & worked as a lecturer at the newly established course in anthroposophic special education in Eckwälden, where he remained until his death.

In his important work “Man and Matter”, Ernst Lehrs talks about how today’s researcher is an uninvolved spectator, he reveals not only how science has led inescapably to the illusions it believes in today, but more important how we may correct in ourselves the misconceptions science brings into our views through today’s education, giving us a spiritual understanding of nature based on the work of Goethe; which requires an activation of the cognitive consciousness, leading the true researcher back to themselves.

Ernst Lehrs was a personal pupil of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, one of the 12 founding members of the Esoteric Youth Circle, which celebrated its 100 year anniversary on 16 October 2022.

Written by Ernst Lehrs  a few days after the burning of the 1st Goetheanum: “His (Rudolf Steiner’s) open criticism in various directions concerning the Society & the various activities within it in the weeks leading up to the fateful Christmas-New Year’s time, made one clear about the fact that it was due to the failure on the part of the Society that the necessary spiritual protection was missing from the building. Yet, it was out of an experience of this failure that the impulse for the Youth Course arose, as well as what led to the coming about of our specific endeavor. Thus the idea arose among us that we should ask Rudolf Steiner if, & how we could contribute to the Anthroposophical Society ‘consolidating’ itself again – as one of us put it. With this in mind, we asked to be allowed to speak with him. In the Glass House, on January 3, 1923, we asked about our helping toward consolidation of the Society, Rudolf Steiner answered in a calm tone with emphatic earnestness; “Just keep yourselves consolidated, & the Society will be consolidated.” Then he gave the advice that we should sit together on a regular basis & in symposium-like conversations, reflect again & again upon the foundational impulse of our group.”

“How can I do the Good?” part 4

Biography, Community, Quote

~Kinjal Gorakh

Greetings friends, Thank you for being part of this journey of reflection from “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia” Conference

Here is part 1 – part 2 – part 3

Today (& most everyday) I am asking: What is the role of karma in healing?

We have explored this question many times throughout the Corona Crisis which is still gripping the world, steething underground in the deep places where we hold fear, hatred & doubt –  Right now it feels like a low grade fever, not enough heat to burn away what does not serve – a simmering fire that breeds anxiety without the power of transformation.

I think about how when I was a child we were given ‘baby aspirin’ whenever our temps rose. Remember that stuff – tastes like a chalky creamsicle. We loved it. But I wonder if because of this suppression of fever we created generations of people who are now suffering chronic illnesses because they were not able to burn off the hereditary overlay, the ‘sins of the fathers’, during the appropriate phase in childhood.

Dr. Ursula Flatters mentioned that we can’t just treat the symptoms, because sometimes they signal disease – & sometimes they are a sign of a healing response.

We must practice living thinking – the living thinking of the Angels. To think away the physical. The foundation is based on concentration, a building up of the imagination, inspiration & intuition, unselfish study, communing with nature, & to be able to see life as it is, not only as we want it to be – To enter the field of karma consciously takes uprightness & morality. The best self-knowledge is to know yourself in relation to others.

From Sergei Prokofieff: “…The encounter with the living being AnthropoSophia in the spiritual world stands in the most intimate inner connection to the threefold path of study. For on this path, we try to develop faculties of thinking, feeling and will that are not bound to the senses and which we can take with us into the spiritual world into which we enter every night. By this means we were enabled to awaken in this world and perceive the living being AnthropoSophia. Thus, these two things belong together: what manifests itself exoterically as study has its esoteric counterpart in one’s gradual approach in the spiritual world to the being AnthropoSophia and to one’s direct encounter with her. In this way, study becomes the first stage of initiation. For, like all subsequent stages, it leads to a supersensible encounter with a spiritual being.

The next step will be that we try to open up what has been experienced in the night to the light of day, so as to raise this spiritual encounter to our waking consciousness. This can, however, be achieved only by dint of extensive meditation. The endeavor to become a true representative of the supersensible being AnthropoSophia on the Earth must always be felt to be an important condition for such an encounter. Thus, we may be sure that sooner or later we shall also experience this being with full consciousness, and this will be for us like a real meeting with a spiritual teacher here on Earth. From this moment onwards the being AnthropoSophia will herself be our guide in the spiritual world; and in every question pertaining to our life and actions we shall be able to seek her advice. In the following words Rudolf Steiner describes this direct and personal relationship which then becomes possible with this being who stands so close to humanity: ‘AnthropoSophia is in herself an invisible human being, who goes amongst visible human beings, and towards whom we have the greatest conceivable responsibility…, who must indeed be regarded as an invisible human being, as someone with a real existence, who should be consulted in all life’s individual actions,… to whom we are responsible in every moment of our lives… It is absolutely necessary that everything that happens is to be viewed in consultation with the human being AnthropoSophia… as a living being… So that is what is necessary: true seriousness in our following of that invisible human being, of whom I have just spoken.’

If we have established such a relationship to the living being AnthropoSophia, we shall soon notice that our whole life changes, because we have found our spiritual teacher. The wonderful thing is that the being AnthropoSophia leaves us absolutely free in everything. But if it is our will to follow this being, she leads us on the path described of above to the knowledge of esoteric Christianity. For her most important task today is to lead human beings in the sense of the Time-Spirit to becoming conscious of the great cosmic-earthly mysteries of the living Christ.” ~The Heavenly Sophia, and The Being AnthropoSophia ~Sergei Prokofieff – Steiner quotes: Feb 3, 1913. The Essence of Anthroposophy; Dec 25, 1923 Dornach

This passage by S.O.P. & R.S. is my fav.

I related to many of Dr. Ursula Flatters’s stories of how she has come to be able to do her work in the world. She spoke of being a new doctor joining a clinic with a new group of colleagues – She saw them sitting together & knew she ‘recognized them’ & felt that surley they would ‘see’ her too…but they didn’t.  They weren’t able to meet her as she would have liked –

And so I ask: Is it a matter of the time not being right? Or a clue pointing to our own weakness getting in the way? How can we objectively map our relationships?

To become free – to be worthy of answering the call of the Manichean future, we have to sacrifice the unconscious demands we place on others.

It was interesting to hear Dr. Marion Debus remind us that if we wish for things to be different, then we cannot be co-creators with the creator gods. But if we say YES, to all we are facing, we conquer fear! – Then courage & trust bring healing, & understanding will come in time.

Each illness is an experience at the Threshold – it is our task to make this experience conscious. Health of soul & body work together but must be treated separately. Often an illness is the result of the soul getting stuck in the body – The diagnosis looks at how they mix – how is the levity – & how is the gravity – working?

The arts often reveal this, giving a living picture. More on this soon.

Healer Know Thy Self – Not “I” but Christ in me…

~hag

29 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waxing gibbous moon is passing in front of the Teapot, an asterism in the constellation of Sagittarius the Archer. ~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“We understand only the very smallest part of human history and of our own life if we consider it in its external aspect, I mean in that aspect which we see from the limited view-point of our earthly life between birth and death. It is impossible to comprehend the inner motives of history and life unless we turn our gaze to that spiritual background which underlies the outer, physical happenings“.  ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture III

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Today os the Feast Day of St. Martha, sister to mary Magdalene & Lazurus – “Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). Saint Martha is mentioned in three Gospel passages: Luke 10:38-42, John 11:1-53, and John 12:1-9, and the type of friendship between her and her siblings, Mary and Lazarus, with the Lord Jesus is evident in these passages. In the gospel of Luke, Martha receives Jesus into her home and worries herself with serving Him, a worry that her sister Mary, who sat beside the Lord’s feet “listening to Him speak,” doesn’t share. Her complaint that her sister is not helping her serve draws a reply from the Lord who says to her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” The overanxiousness she displays in serving is put into the right context by Jesus who emphasizes the importance of contemplating the Divine before all things.

Yet she is seen next in John, outside the tomb of her brother Lazarus who had died four days earlier, as the one who receives the Revelation from the Lord that “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

When asked by the Lord if she believed this she said to Him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world,” displaying her great faith which is confirmed by Jesus’ subsequent raising of her brother Lazarus from the grave.

In the third and last instance, we see Martha, again in John, at a house in Bethany where Jesus was reclining at table with her brother Lazarus after he had raised him from the dead. During dinner, John’s Gospel tells us, “Martha served.” She is revealed here performing the same task as when we first saw her, but now her service is infused with her faith, and the brevity of the description suggests the silence and peace in which she serves as opposed to the nervous anxiety she displayed earlier. Martha, whom we have seen serving, in Luke, and then believing, earlier in John, is now seen expressing her belief in the action of serving the Lord.

Saint Martha is the patron of housewives, servants, waiters and cooks.

Legend relates that Martha then went to Tarascon, France, where a monster, the Tarasque, was a constant threat to the population. The Golden Legend describes it as a beast from Galatia; a great dragon, half beast and half fish, greater than an ox, longer than a horse, having teeth sharp as a sword, and horned on either side, head like a lion, tail like a serpent, that dwelt in a certain wood between Arles and Avignon. Holding a cross in her hand, Martha sprinkled the beast with holy water. Placing her sash around its neck, she led the tamed dragon through the village.

“How can I do the Good?” part 3

Biography, Rudolf Steiner Quote

Well dear ones – I guess I couldn’t just talk about health & illness without having a personal experience. Yep, a very painful chronic condition involving a spinal stenosis flared up –Exasperated no doubt by all the sitting during the conference…grrr…While I am concentrating on my various health protocols, I will attempt to share a few more thoughts from “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia” Conference. Here is part 1 & part 2.

Over our time together we worked with 3 case studies, breaking our large group of 85 participants into smaller circles named after the Planets. I was in ‘Earth’ facilitated by Dr. Adam Blanning, with many practitioners specializing in modalities like Acupuncture, Astrosophy (Jonathan Hilton:) Dramatic arts (Sir Richard Ramsbotham:), Biography (Douglas Garrett:), Nurses, Teachers (Sarah Diechmann:), etc…I was the only Inter-Faith Minister.

We got to experience luscious anthroposophical remedies from Weleda: cloths swirled in Spruce, or Rose to place on our face, neck or wrists, & a liver & heart compress-Rose Cooper & Rose Aurum. Warmth is one of the secrets of healing that we got to share 1st hand.

~Jennifer Thomson

What was interesting to me was that the cases were 3 females – each at a crucial Rubicon age, 14, 22, 71. Which had me pondering the idea that if we are to truly renew the mysteries of healing, besides looking at remedies, we need to take a prophylactic approach, employing the powerful therapeutic effect that can come from ‘Rites of Passage’ to help people meet these milestone events with the support of community.  

Dr. James Dyson in speaking about redeeming Persephone thru our connection to Natura, & thru Sophia to bring the Star World into the fluids of our our ether body, & into the earth, mentioned that this search for Sophia is the Science of the Grail – The will to help another by taking on their karma.

He asked how many know the 1st sentence of KNOWLEDGE OF HIGHER WORLDS AND ITS ATTAINMENT – which many of us did…

“There slumbers in every human being faculties by means of which he can acquire for himself a knowledge of higher worlds.”

But then he tested us further: Ok, how many can site the last paragraph…No One:

“The instructions of true esoteric teachers lead to the good, or they lead to nothing. To guide us to egotistic salvation and mere existence in the supersensible world is not their task. On the contrary, their task, from the start, is to keep us at a distance from the supra-earthly world until we can enter it with a will dedicated to full and selfless collaboration.”

We must cure narcissism. The individual must awaken from their slumber to re-order the karma disrupted by the deeds of 869, to serve the Cosmic Communion & bring it to the community – then Initiation can become Civilization.  

Everyone who would do this work is invited to work with KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS III, GA 237, 10. Evolution of the Michael Principle Throughout the Ages, The Split of Cosmic Intelligence, 4 August 1924, Dornach

Healing Blessings one & all

~hag

“How can I do the Good?” part 2

Biography, Birth / Death Days, History, Insight, Poetry

Greetings friends & welcome to this attempt to digest & explore my experiences at “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia” Conference. Here is part 1 – an overview around ‘the summer of 1923 in Penmaenmawr, when Ita Wegman asked Rudolf Steiner if there could be a path for the mysteries to come into medicine again in our age’.

Please remember these reflections are only my personal impressions, a mixture of considerations gleaned from our esteemed speakers:  Dr.’s Ursula Flatters, James Dyson, & Marion Debus. I am sure every participant takes in what they uniquely need to hear, & hopefully comes away with a new perspective that can be put into practice. So please feel free to add your thoughts as well!

In this incarnation, I have always felt a dis-comfort with being in the body, a sense of well being is not often present. My ‘Life Sense’ is perhaps overly acute, but this has allowed me to experience the Ego Sense – The “I” of the Other – more strongly as well. 

Dis-ease comes from the past –

Something was lost or knocked out of balance within the soul-forces & is seeking a recalibration – It is often a karmic wake- up call – an opportunity for growth thru catharsis.

We can Will to reconnect to our Pre-personal “I” – The “I” of our unborn-ness; & to the original primal forces of the Zodiac living in our physical organs, & the Planetary Beings who formed us.

Many Anthroposophical remedies employ the 7 metals (mineral world) representing the Planets, or treatments using the animal & plant kingdoms potentized to the degree that the physical matter becomes spiritualized, to help us realign with our Divine Blueprint…

Healing comes from the future –

We meet a dis-ease so we can experience transformation & healing. We must let go – to let come. We build up a health plan, an imagination of wholeness, & then release all expectation of the out-come. Patience is needed. Yet it is not a passive waiting, it is an Active, Faith & Trust filled Doing –  Building a Foundation of Study – Biography & Psycho-Spiritual work to Know Thy-Self, an ordered consistent Meditation & daily Practice with Esoteric Exercises…etc…A Cultivation of silent stillness – A sacred space for the light of the Holy Spirit to enter with healing in her wings.

We listen – to receive inspiration. This cultivates that middle, ever present Christic space, between the 2 streams of Time, allowing us to anchor our Higher Self, so that it can receive Intuition for the co-creation of wholeness. This is the mystery of healing – Karma is freed –

The 2 streams of Time meet in the present creating a transcendent 3rd space for Social Relationship – ‘when 2 or 3 are gathered…’

We can imagine our time in the Michael School, & our practicum thru the Cosmic Cultus – & then we must apply this Wisdom in the “I” to “I” Encounter‘ in our time together now.

Are we unconsciously using power over others? Or are we consciously cultivating power with others – supporting & sharing our gifts in communion?

How do we resurrect the ‘Temple Legend’ to redeem the sword of Cain in the future stream of rightful willing – Bestowing a blessing – a unified restoration of the spiritual essence within the Priestly Abel stream…

Do we Will to become our Brother’s Keeper – in the Freedom of Love…?

~hag

~Pamela Matthews

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~My song raps itself around
The belly of the New Sophia
Pulsing in union with The Logos
In rhythm with the Sun streaming
In the All-Space of the Fixed Stars
Forming fresh consonants
Into the aura of imaginations
That inform my soul thru rolling vowels
Of planetary bodies
That sing their echo into my open ear…
~hag

Sergei Olegovitch Prokofieff
16 January 1954 – † 26 July 2014

Today 26 July is the deathday of Sergei O. Prokofieff – the 1st to confirm my connection with the New Isis. And his dedication to the 1st Class Lessons birthed in me a true knowing. He opened the living reality of the ‘New Mysteries’, revealing the relationship of the Christ-Sophia in this Michaelic age, with Rudolf Steiner & Christian Rosenkreutz, which we as human beings are called to explore & develop. “The Cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation – A Esoteric Study of the Festivals” is my Bible – my calling, my life’s work. “The Occult Significance of Forgiveness” changed my life (I am of course still striving here) And the massive work “May Human Beings Hear It” which convinced me to dedicate myself to the Foundation Stone Meditation, pointing up the living reality of the Christmas Conference, which I feel a personal & collective responsibility to fulfill.

My heart spills over with gratitude for this true initiate, this real anthroposopher, this true human being, who continues to be my mentor from across the Threshold.

“Anthroposophia seeks to become a new group-soul for that part of humankind which is united within the General Anthroposophical Society founded by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference of 1923-24, thereby representing a kind of archetype for the whole of future evolution & at the same time initiating that universally human process which Rudolf Steiner described in the following words: ‘When people gather together in voluntary associations, they group themselves around focal points. The feelings that stream together at such a focal point now gives Beings the opportunity to work as a kind of group-soul, though in a completely different sense from the former unconscious group-souls. All previous group-souls were beings who made man unfree. These New Beings, however, are wholly compatible with the freedom & preservation of human individuality’.

Anthroposophia would seek to become the 1st of these Beings in our time. However, whether this is possible depends not on this Being alone, but also on human beings.

Thus by uniting with one another in the General Anthroposophical Society out of a love for Anthroposophia & a wish to serve her as a real, living Being, anthroposophist’s throughout the world have the task of together creating on Earth something akin to an all embracing soul-chalice into which this supersensible Being, the youngest member of the heavenly Sophia, can descend. And this means none other than the beginning of the incarnation of the heavenly Sophia on Earth. (this will come about in the 7th epoch, but of which we must prepare now)

Only from this grandiose perspective can we really understand the inner significance of the deed wrought by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference, a deed which represents the high-point & culmination of the entire 21 year development of the anthroposophical movement (1902-23) – a ‘Turning Point of Time’ – For it signified the birth on Earth of her ego in the sheaths of the General Anthroposophical Society. In this way the foundation was laid, or-one could say-the possibility created, for the further working of Anthroposophia in the midst as a New Group-Soul.” ~Sergei O. Prokofieff, “The Heavenly Sophia and the Being Anthroposophia”

May we take up this task to give birth to Anthroposophia, this Being of Human Wisdom, within ourselves, to serve the world.

~hag

Sergei Olegovitch was the grandson of the composer Sergei Prokofiev. Born in Moscow, he studied fine arts & painting at the Moscow School of Art. He encountered anthroposophy in his youth, & soon made the decision to devote his life to it. Prokofieff, wrote his first book, Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries, while living in Soviet Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was a co-founder of the Anthroposophical Society in Russia. At Easter 2001, he became a member of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland. Prokofieff was a prolific author; at the core of his work is an attempt to develop a deepened understanding for Christianity on the basis of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific research. Prokofieff left us a treasure trove of Works

Thank you dear Sergei for your continued inspiration.  

~hag

26 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Tonight the bright waxing gibbous moon will pass the star with the strange sounding name Zubenelgenubi – the alpha star in Libra the Scales ~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast of Saint Anne, mother of Mary, & grandmother of Jesus according to apocryphal Christian & Islamic tradition.

1856 – Birthday of George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright & critic, Nobel Prize laureate.

1875 – Birthday of Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist & psychotherapist. Jung was also an artist, craftsman & builder as well as a prolific writer. Many of his works were not published until after his death & some are still awaiting publication.

Among the central concepts of analytical psychology is individuation—the lifelong psychological process of differentiation of the self out of each individual’s conscious & unconscious elements. Jung considered it to be the main task of human development. He created some of the best known psychological concepts, including synchronicity, archetypal phenomena, the collective unconscious, the psychological complex, & extraversion / introversion.

When Jung was six months old, tension between his parents was growing. Emilie Jung, his mother was an eccentric & depressed woman; she spent considerable time in her bedroom where she said that spirits visited her at night. Although she was normal during the day, Jung recalled that at night his mother became strange & mysterious. He reported that one night he saw a faintly luminous & indefinite figure coming from her room with a head detached from the neck, floating in the air in front of the body. Jung was a solitary, introverted child.

From childhood, he believed that, like his mother, he had 2 personalities—a modern Swiss citizen & a personality more suited to the 18th century. Personality Number 1″, as he termed it, was a typical schoolboy living in the era of the time. “Personality Number 2” was a dignified, authoritative & influential man from the past. A number of childhood memories made lifelong impressions on him. As a boy, he carved a tiny mannequin into the end of the wooden ruler from his pencil case & placed it inside the case. He added a stone, which he had painted into upper & lower halves, & hid the case in the attic. Periodically, he would return to the mannequin, often bringing tiny sheets of paper with messages inscribed on them in his own secret language. He later reflected that this ceremonial act brought him a feeling of inner peace &security. Years later, he discovered similarities between his personal experience & the practices associated with totems in indigenous cultures, such as the collection of soul-stones near Arlesheim or the tjurungas of Australia. He concluded that his intuitive ceremonial act was an unconscious ritual, which he had practiced in a way that was strikingly similar to those in distant locations which he, as a young boy, knew nothing about. His observations about symbols, archetypes, & the collective unconscious were inspired, in part, by these early experiences combined with his later research.

At the age of 12, shortly before the end of his first year at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Basel, Jung was pushed to the ground by another boy so hard that he momentarily lost consciousness. A thought then came to him—”now you won’t have to go to school anymore.” From then on, whenever he walked to school or began homework, he fainted. He remained at home for the next 6 months until he overheard his father speaking hurriedly to a visitor about the boy’s future ability to support himself. They suspected he had epilepsy. Confronted with the reality of his family’s poverty, he realized the need for academic excellence. He went into his father’s study & began pouring over Latin grammar. He eventually overcame the urge & did not faint again. This event, Jung later recalled, “was when I learned what a neurosis is.”

Jung did not plan to study psychiatry since it was not considered prestigious at the time. But, when looking at a psychiatric textbook, his interest was immediately captured—it combined the biological & the spiritual, exactly what he was searching for.

In 1895 Jung began to study medicine at the University of Basel. Barely a year later in 1896, his father Paul died & left the family near destitute. They were helped out by relatives who also contributed to Jung’s studies.

During his student days, he entertained his contemporaries with the family legend, that his paternal grandfather was the illegitimate son of Wolfgang Goethe & his German great-grandmother, Sophie Ziegler. In later life, he pulled back from this tale, saying only that Sophie was a friend of Goethe’s niece.

I will be away 1-8 August 2023