14 March 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: First-quarter Moon; exact at 5:27 am. After dark you’ll see Bella Luna in the feet of Gemini, high over Orion & just above the top of Orion’s very dim club.

Mercury reaches inferior conjunction, passing between the Sun & Earth, at 9 pm CDT. Since The Messenger of the gods is so much smaller, we will not experience an eclipse, but it has the same energy, blocking a portion of the Sun’s mediating rays to affect communications. The innermost planet will return to view before dawn at the end of March.

 “If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful flowers, what might not the heart become in the long journey towards the stars?”~ G K Chesterton

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Looking at the past to see the present, co-creating the future: “History, historical life, will only be seen in the right light when a true consciousness of the connection of the so-called living with the so-called dead can be developed” – The Living & the Dead by Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 5th February, 1918

Feast Day of Abigail (Hebrew “my father’s joy”) in 2 Samuel 17:25 She became a wife of David after Nabal’s death, & the mother of Daniel, one of David’s sons. Abigail is also listed as one of the seven Jewish women prophets.

44 BC – Casca & Cassius decide, on the night before the Assassination of Julius Caesar, that Mark Antony should live

1489 – The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice

1592 – Ultimate Pi Day: the largest correspondence between calendar dates & significant digits of pi since the introduction of the Julian calendar

1794 – Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin

1879 – Birthday of Albert Einstein! (1879 the year Michael became the Time-Spirit)

1900 – The Gold Standard Act is ratified, placing United States currency on the gold standard.

1903 – The Hay–Herrán Treaty, granting the United States the right to build the Panama Canal, is ratified by the United States Senate. The Colombian Senate would later reject the treaty

1943 – World War II: The Kraków Ghetto is “liquidated”

1978 – The Israel Defense Forces invade & occupies southern Lebanon, in Operation Litani

1980 – In Poland, LOT Flight 7 crashes during final approach near Warsaw, killing 187 people, including a 14-man American boxing team

1681 – Birthday of Georg Philipp Telemann, a German Baroque composer & multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family’s wishes. He held important positions in Leipzig, Sorau, Eisenach,& Frankfurt before settling in Hamburg in 1721, where he became musical director of the city’s five main churches. While Telemann’s career prospered, his personal life was always troubled: his first wife died only a few months after their marriage, & his second wife had extramarital affairs & accumulated a large gambling debt before leaving Telemann.

Telemann was one of the most prolific composers in history & was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time—he was compared favorably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather & namesake of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, & to George Frideric Handel, whom Telemann also knew personally. He remained at the forefront of all new musical tendencies & his music is an important link between the late Baroque & early Classical styles

1790 – Birthday of Ludwig Emil Grimm, a German painter, art professor, etcher & copper engraver. His brothers were the well-known folklorists Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm

1804 – Birthday of Johann Strauss I, an Austrian Romantic composer. He was famous for his waltzes, & he popularized them alongside Joseph Lanner, thereby setting the foundations for his sons to carry on his musical dynasty. His most famous piece is the Radetzky March

1867 – Birthday of Marie Steiner von Sivers – born into an aristocratic family in Włocławek, Poland, then part of Russia. She was well-educated, fluent in Russian, German, English, French & Italian. She studied theater & recitation with several teachers in Europe.

Marie von Sivers “appeared one day” at one of Rudolf Steiner’s early lectures in 1900. In the autumn of 1901, she posed the question to Steiner, “Would it be possible to create a spiritual movement based on European tradition and the impetus of Christ?” Rudolf Steiner later reported: With this, I was given the opportunity to act in a way that I had only previously imagined. The question had been put to me, and now, according to spiritual laws, I could begin to answer it.

Marie Steiner-von Sivers & Rudolf Steiner were married on Christmas eve 1914, & she was one of his closest colleagues. Marie von Sivers collaborated with Steiner for the rest of his life & carried his work beyond his death in 1925 until her own death in 1948. She accompanied him & helped him as secretary, translator, editor, & organizer of his lecture tours & other public activities. She assisted Steiner’s work with her own resources & in 1908 founded the Philosophical-Theosophical Press (later Philosophical-Anthroposophical) to publish Steiner’s work

She made a great contribution to the development of anthroposophy, particularly in her work on the renewal of the performing arts (eurythmy, speech & drama), & the editing & publishing of Rudolf Steiner’s literary estate.

Starting in 1912, the art of eurythmy was developed by Rudolf Steiner. Under Marie Steiner-von Sivers’ guidance, it developed in three directions, as a stage art, as an integral part of Waldorf pedagogy, & as a therapeutic method. Under her tutelage, two schools of eurythmy were founded, in Berlin & in Dornach, Switzerland.

Marie von Sivers was trained in recitation & elocution & made a study of purely artistic speaking. She gave introductory poetry recitals at Steiner’s lectures & assisted him in the development of the 4 Mystery Dramas (1910–1913). With her help, Steiner conducted several speech & drama courses with the aim of raising these forms to the level of true art. Ms Steiner died on December 27th 1948

1883 – Deathday of Karl Marx. Rudolf Steiner revealed that Marx was a landowner in Northern France in the early 9th century, & that one day his property was seized by a rival. Marx was then forced to work under the new owner of his former property. The new owner reincarnated as Friedrich Engels, who embarked on a compensatory cooperation with his former rival. So it is that old impulses of destiny may work on in a new incarnation. No wonder that Marx became a fierce enemy of all private property, having himself experienced in a previous life how insecure the private ownership of property can become. Those seeking deeper insight into this historic-karmic background of Marx & Engels & their activities are referred to Steiner’s lecture of 6 April 1924. GA 236.

1923 – Birthday of Diane Arbus, American photographer & writer noted for photographs of marginalized people—dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, circus performers—& others whose normality was perceived by the general populace as ugly or surreal. In 1972, a year after she committed suicide, Arbus became the first American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale.  Millions viewed traveling exhibitions of her work in 1972–1979. The book accompanying the exhibition, Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph, is the bestselling photography monograph ever, still being reprinted today

1932 – Deathday of George Eastman, American inventor & businessman, founded Eastman Kodak

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~When I have visions – ravens come from my eyes – to eat them…
The breath of life escapes…When I have no words –
Worms crawl thru my teeth – to clean my palate…
I am more than bone & blood –
I am more than the deeds I have done –
I am more than I remember…
I am
In Surrender…
~hag

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The Anthroposophic Movement FOREWORD BY MARIE STEINER

“…It behoves us to come to self-recollection. Let us make ourselves out no better than we are. There is no need for shame-faced concealment of our faults; on the contrary; out of their darkness we must evoke the light that brings self-knowledge. Communal consciousness is hard to be won. The common ‘I’ can only grow up strong and firm amongst us on a soil of vigorous wakefulness, of will to active knowledge, of courage for truth. These things are not to be achieved in solitude and secrecy; they must be fought for and won in community. Honest mutual struggles will do us no harm, will gain us the respect of all well-wishers. And ill-wishers may look back and reflect what the Church went through and displayed in its communal life, notwithstanding all the strict discipline imposed from without; and what imperfections, what contradictions to its own ideals had there to be worked out in life! It will then be seen, that it is not the leader, not he who gives the impulse to a movement, who must be held responsible for the faults in the disciples of his doctrine, but the Species Homo, which needs many round-about roads and much rising and falling and oft-renewed climbing, before it can attain at last to its goal.

Anthroposophy is a way of education. The Anthroposophical Society certainly presents no model institute for the living demonstration of anthroposophic ideals. One might even say that in many respects it is a nursing-home; as is of course very natural in an age of sick and sorry humanity. There flock to it the halt and maimed of life, those crippled under the burden of the age. May we only have nursing-homes for the physically diseased? Is it not right, that there should be places, where human-beings may spiritually get upon their feet again? And this came to pass here in abundance. Letters there were in more than plenty and words of overflowing gratitude from people testifying, that through Anthroposophy and its Teacher they first had learnt to find life again worth living. — For people to find Anthroposophy, however, there had to be a society, where the work was carried on.

And so the Anthroposophical Society was a workshop; and a vast amount of work was done in it. Anthroposophy found means to bring fruit into all the branches of life, artistic, scientific, and practical, too. During the worst times of economic crisis, anthroposophists were very largely unsuccessful in carrying out what they had as an ideal in sight; but they had doubly strong obstacles to contend with. One must remember, that the people who flocked into the Society, and started working outwardly when the Society already had a name and stood for something in the world, were people as the modern age has made them, not as the ideal of Anthroposophy would have them be; and so there were many, unquestionably, who succumbed again to the temptations and the practices of the day.

The young people who had been disappointed with their experiences in the organized ‘Youth-Movements’ and by what they failed to find there, not Only found here an answer to the problems that perplexed them, and not only sought to satisfy their aspirations in this new community Anthroposophy, but they also brought their own habits into the Society, — including much that they might have left behind them, to start in Anthroposophy afresh.

And so the Anthroposophical Society cannot yet be a model institute; it remains a place of education. — But does not mankind need places of education too, in the wider human sense, if it is to move onwards to a better future?

Turn the question then which way we will, the Society is a necessity. It must educate itself; and it must afford the possibility of being a place of education for humankind. The life-forces that have been laid in it, have strength to perform this work, if people come together in it who are strong and capable and devoted, — people who know, that they must join together to work as a community for humankind in a larger sense, not to shut themselves off and indulge only in self-culture, — who know, that it would be but a thankless return to take what is given as a saving anchor for oneself alone; who know, that one takes with it also the obligation to pass this anchor on to others whose life’s ship is in distress.”

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Dear Friends –

The ‘Easter Paradox’ conversation is stirring up a lot of powerful Goethean conversation. 

The Rudolf Steiner Archive & e.Lib is doing a survey that you can participate in. 

Also, Here is more from my spiritual scientific research on this important topic.

We will begin our Holy Week Study, exploring Kaspar Hauser, on the ‘True’ Palm Sunday 17 March 2019, 2 pm – 4 pm,  We will be working with Anthroposophical researcher Peter Tradowsky’s book: ‘The Struggle for the Spirit, a contribution towards an understanding of the 19^th & 20^th centuries’. I have ordered copies to be given out on a 1st come basis at cost: $23

We continue Holy Monday thru Holy Saturday, 18-23 March, 7 pm – 9 pm,

& on the ‘True’ Easter Sunday 24 March 2019, from 2 pm – 4 pm. 

Our Festival will revolve around ‘Preparation, Illumination & Initiation’- Incorporating ‘The Golden Legend’, & a look into the Plant & Human Kingdoms,  to enliven our work with ‘The Rose Cross Meditation’.  $10 & snacks to Share Encouraged

Every year, humanity has a responsibility to consciously participate in the Resurrection of our Thinking, Feeling & Willing. This year we have an opportunity to celebrate BOTH the Cosmic & the Ecclesiastical Easter.

May we be the bridge between the above & the below…

~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

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Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society of America, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) Check out our Web site!  Calendar of Events