~Pablo Picasso
Yesterday in After-Image 1 we explored how in working with complementary colors, the after-image gives us a sense of balance, a unity with everything around us. When we see yellow for instance, we can realize that red & blue are also working to bring us the after-image of violet.
We can take this further into the human realm of relationships – allowing us to sense the life of the community as a living organism. When we see a ‘bad’ trait in a fellow human being, what would it be like to visualize the complementary trait which is also there waiting to be recognized?
This is how we can consciously establish healthy social impulses to balance those anti-social tendencies which are so strong in us these days.
And this is what we need to work with to prepare for our future evolution which wants us to make every human encounter a sacrament.
This also opens us to receive a perception of what Steiner describes in EARTHLY DEATH AND COSMIC LIFE as “the ‘light’ which is thrown out beyond death into our evolution between death and rebirth, which we perceive and from which we build our karma”.
I guess for me the biggest “I” opener is the idea set forth by Steiner that what we take in thru our eyes becomes an objective process in that the after-image impresses itself thru us into the cosmic ethers!
We experience an imprint from our sense impressions which effects not only our personal reality but becomes an imprint on the world.
Our impressions take hold of our etheric body, retaining it as a memory picture. This is transmitted into the outer ether of the cosmos & is inscribed there. “What you remember you inscribe in the cosmic ether, & the cosmic ether summons it forth in you again like the impress of a seal when you call it to mind. Memory is no mere personal affair; through it you relate yourself to the entire universe.” ~Rudolf Steiner, 7 Dec. 1919, The Mission of Michael, the Revelation of the Secrets of Man’s Being
~Rita De Cassia Perez
The manifestation of Christ in the Etheric world is a meeting with humanity waiting to happen. In “From Jesus to Christ” Steiner suggests our empathic process advances the etheric light – that it is our own Christened etheric activity which lights up this realm in which the Christ in a Life-Body is present. Our eyes take in light; when we spiritualize it thru our moral heart-thinking, we shed light back into the etheric realm – revealing the Christ.
So the question & challenge becomes: How are we using our sense impressions? What are we imprinting into our own Life-Body AND into the Life-Body of the Universe we all share? Are we revealing the Christ in us – or are we letting the adversarial forces devour the light thru our unconsciousness..?
The assignment for night school was to take Steiner’s indications about gazing into a candle flame to contemplate the after-image, & applying this at the ‘Close of Day’, using the altar candles during the service, & to report back at our next session…
You can take on this assignment at home with any candle…What do you perceive?
~hag
12 July 2023 – Speaking with the Stars”: Behold the heavens on this my Natal Return! I was born at 4:57…xox
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
100 BC – Birthday of Julius Caesar, Roman politician & general
Feast Day of St. Veronica – According tradition, Veronica was moved with sympathy when she saw Jesus carrying his cross to Golgotha & gave him her veil that he might wipe his forehead. Jesus accepted the offering, held it to his face, & then handed it back to her—the image of his face miraculously impressed upon it.
This piece of cloth became known as the Veil of Veronica.The name “Veronica” itself is a Latinisation of Berenice (Greek: Βερενίκη, Berenikē, with a secondary form Beronike), a Macedonian name, meaning “bearer of victory”. The woman who offered her veil to Jesus was known by this name in the Byzantine East, but in the Latin West the name took a life of its own as a designation for a relic venerated in Rome as the true image of Jesus. Since the Latin word for “true” or “authentic” happens to be vera, the theory emerged that the name itself is derived from the Latin phrase “true image”, vera icon (one Latin word for image is icon, derived from Greek: εικόνα, eikona). In the 13th-century text & also in some later sources the term Veronica was used for the veil, not the person, but for centuries it has been better known as the name of the woman.
Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica (vii 18) tells how at Caesarea Philippi lived the woman whom Christ healed of an issue of blood (Matthew 9:20-22). Legend was not long in providing the woman of the Gospel with a name. In the West she was identified with Martha of Bethany; in the East she was called Berenike, or Beronike, the name appearing in as early a work as the “Acta Pilati”, the most ancient form of which goes back to the fourth century. The fanciful derivation of the name Veronica from the words Vera Icon (eikon) “true image” dates back to the “Otia Imperialia” (iii 25) of Gervase of Tilbury (fl. 1211), who says: “Est ergo Veronica pictura Domini vera” (translated: “The Veronica is, therefore, a true picture of the Lord.”)
1804 – Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies after being shot in a pistol duel by Vice President Aaron Burr
1865- the Theosophical Society General Secretary in Paris A.Sauerwein introdues Mabel Collins to Rudolf Steiner
1895 – Birthday of Buckminster Fuller, American architect & engineer, designed the Montreal Biosphère
1895 – Birthday of Oscar Hammerstein II, American director, producer, & songwriter
1904 – Birthday of Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet & diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate
1948 – Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion orders the expulsion of Palestinians from the towns of Lod and Ramla.
1967 – The ‘Newark riot’ was one of 159 race riots that swept cities in the United States during the “Long Hot Summer of 1967”. This riot occurred between July 12 & July 17, 1967. Over the four days of rioting, looting, & property destruction, 26 people died & hundreds were injured.
Virtue for July – Selflessness becomes catharsis
(June 21 to July 21)
Such true perseverance is selfless. True selflessness is equally far removed from hardening and dissolution. Adulating dependency is no less self-centered than rigid consistence on one’s own prejudices and interests. True selflessness defends neither the narrowness of the subjective personality nor loses itself in other people and things. It is rather the golden mean between these two deviations and temptations. Not obscured by the selfishness of fear or by that of greed, it is therefore pure. Purification is the path that overcomes fear through the truth that unites all beings and through an inner life that liberates one from the dependency of desire, accepts the twists and turns of fate. This selflessness that through considerateness and renunciation finds itself, is self-assured. With his idea of purification (catharsis) Aristotle denotes initiation into the path of destiny as being the task of the poet. This catharsis is achieved by overcoming and transforming the dangers that threaten the human center.
Selflessness, as the path to the human center, becomes catharsis.
A meditation on such selflessness is the saying: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”
I will be heading out for our next training 1-7 August 2023
Here is a newsletter with an article I wrote about my expereince working with Steiner’s Inner Realities of Evoultion
Maverick wrote:
“You can probably identify with the soul that was John the Baptist then, a voice crying out/pleading in the loneliness of the wilderness. I’d like to hear more about the higher Sun triad; am familiar with the Saturn cycle at 63, and the lower Sun triad, but not the higher Sun triad.”
I do identify with John being beheaded, which is an abomination of untold significance, and also, Lazarus eating the crumbs from the table while the dogs lick at his sores, ref. Luke 16. These are matters that have been resolved for the good of human evolution, and that is the good thing. With regard to the higher Sun triad, Steiner spoke of it here when he was in Arnhem, Holland, in July 1924. I cite the text because it is very relevant:
“At this point let me say the following. — There are certain secrets connected with the vision of world-existence which cannot be penetrated before a somewhat advanced age in life. Each particular period of life enables one who possesses Initiation-science to behold the individual secrets of existence. Thus between the twenty-first and forty-second years of life — not before — such a man is able to gaze into the Sun-existence; between the forty-second and forty-ninth years into the Mars secrets; between the forty-ninth and fifty-sixth years into the Jupiter secrets. But to behold the secrets of worlds in their interconnections, one must have passed the age of sixty-three. Therefore before I myself was in this position, I should not have been able to speak of certain things of which I now speak without any reserve. Before the vision can penetrate into anything related to the Michael Mysteries, to the influences working from the spiritual realm of the Sun, one must look upwards from the Earth through the Saturn existence into the secrets of worlds. One must be able to experience, to live within that twilight of the spiritual world which proceeds from the ruler of Saturn, from Oriphiel, who was the leading Archangelos at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and who will again assume the leadership when the Michael Age has run its course.”
The whole lecture is worth a view because it is part of volume III, The Karma of the Anthroposophical Movement, which pertains to right now.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA240/English/RSP1971/19240720p01.html
Now reading this quote again I see that perhaps one of the reasons I have struggled is that even though I was striving to penetrate the Michael Mysteries, working from the spiritual Sun, I wasn’t meant to share because the timing wasn’t right in my biography…
Delving into Steiner’s lectures ‘Inner realities of Evolution’ thru the AAP work, allowed me to “look upwards from the Earth through the Saturn existence into the secrets of worlds”.
And I have to say it is painful, yet highly enlightening “to live within that twilight of the spiritual world which proceeds from the ruler of Saturn, from Oriphiel, the leading Archangel at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and who will again assume the leadership when the Michael Age has run its course.”
So interesting that you too latched onto that phrase from the excerpt that Steve shared: “look upwards from the Earth through the Saturn existence into the secrets of worlds”. That phrase also caught hold of my mind. Thanks Steve for sharing that excerpt, and I hope to follow it up with reading those lectures from the series “Supersensible Man” (GA 231). Just looking at the Table of Contents shows me that it’s something I need to read.
The other phrase from that excerpt that caught my attention contained the word “interconnections”: “to behold the secrets of worlds in their interconnections, one must have passed the age of sixty-three”. This is why I think I need to read GA 231 – it looks like it’ll contain some insights into those interconnections. Something I learned from Cayce’s insights is that we human beings are a world unto ourselves, that we each have our own “planetary” system that orbits around a central “sun”, basically our own solar system. Our inner organs bear such a resemblance to our external world. This is the interconnections that it looks like Steiner addresses in this lecture cycle “Supersensible Man.”
YES! It’s all about those ‘interconnections’ isn’t it.
xox
Hazel, what you offer, all your insights, your learning, your love of life, I honor, and give thanks . . . especially on this mark of your 63rd year! Bless you!
Hi Rod – Thanks for joining the party!
And for your generous & loving support
Onward!
xox
Your main text today is brilliant; this is a lesson that all anthroposophists should take to heart. Of course, being the astrally-minded person I am, I took much of it, even the parts that spoke of our physical being, in a spiritual light. Rather than perceiving external colors, my mind went to the varying colors Steiner assigned to our inner organs (lotus flowers). We perceive these colors with spiritual eyes, but everything you said pertaining to external colors applies in like manner.
When you spoke of memory and its cosmic effects, I was reminded of the apostle Paul. I know Steve will have something to say on this as he sees Paul’s conversion experience as highly significant. That the part of Paul’s body affected was his eyes is meaningful – the symbolism in this to my mind is that all the experiences of this soul over many incarnations were to be erased; he was blinded so that he could no longer see anyone but Christ, and him crucified, the last image Paul saw. Paul even said as much in Philippians 3:13: ” I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing indeed: Forgetting the things behind and reaching forward to the things ahead.” Christ Jesus only asks of us now to remember one event, and that’s his death; there’s nothing else we’re asked to remember. When we participate in the Act of Consecration, or in any rite of communion, we re-member him, and proclaim his death, until he comes. This type of vision is a work in progress; I know I still waste my thoughts and energy on memories when I should, like Paul, forget what’s behind and press ahead, seeing only Christ crucified. The better I get at this process, the more my earthly body will be spiritualized, and the more fruitful of a branch in the vine I’ll become.
I used the physical colors since that is the best way to work in a large group with newbees & with just 2 sessions, but I also recognize how far we could go with working in terms of spiritual light & with the chakras etc…
Wow, Yes I brought up Paul & his blindness on the 2nd day, so interesting.
For me the whole picture of Christ’s deed must include not just death but the life, death & resurrection which then takes us into a picture of our future life-body shown in the Ascension & the Spirit-Self thru the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost…
I agree that the whole of the Christ-event is important – life, death and resurrection.
Color-wise, what would that look like? Red – life, the red blood. Blue – death, the blue blood. Violet – the resurrected Christ? The mixing of the two, as you mentioned in your post?
Have noticed that Steiner did use red & blue largely in his presentations, although not exclusively.
When we see the color red the after image is green which is a combo of blue & yellow.
With Blue the after-image is orange which is made up of red & yellow.
With Yellow the complementary color is violet = red & blue.
So the point is, what we ‘see’ is only part of the true reality – the wholeness includes the other colors as well.
As far as correspondences go, Steiner gave lectures about this which I have not studied.
Yes, Steiner used Blue & Red a lot – these are the colors of Mary.
Once Upon A Time There Was No Colors. Only A Blankness When All Was Inwardly Beheld.
Then, God said: “Let there be light, and there was light, and God saw that the light was good, and separated the light from the darkness.”
This Act began the process of Image-formation and further complexification into Likeness. I wonder, though, about presenting a seminar like this to newbies. It does prove its point, though. The takeaway is to appreciate the system from the ground up, and where light forms the Eye in order for the retina to form in order to perceive the colors of the spectrum.
Happy Natal Return Day, Hazel. Is this the one that has taken you through to the end of Saturn? If so, then there is another commencement in the offing. Congratulations.
Perfect to start at the beginning.
but sometimes we have to come in where we are. I know it has given them much to work with right away & hopfully the seeds are planted for a fruitful future in the finding of god in the details…
Today I started my 63rd spin around the Sun…And the dance is ever enriching
This begins the Higher Sun Triad, and you will see the details in closer scrutiny than ever before. It was only when Rudolf Steiner reached age 63 that he was compelled to give the Karmic Relationships series as an homage to the developing Michael faculty for Self-Remembering. This is the Saturn Oracle that goes with completing the 9th developmental life cycle.
You will begin to have Intuitions that take you to places never suspected until a Voice draws your attention to investigate. For example, why did Paul declare himself to having been “born out of due time”? How did he come to know this? It was because he was struck blind on the road to Damascus. He was to receive the Holy Spirit and remember the past with clarity, and live for the future with this remembrance as his objective. Yet, he was to be assigned as the major bond servant of Christ, based on his past infractions. Only Peter could come to help Paul. The old saying, “robbing Peter to pay Paul” comes in here, and that is to indicate that Paul has received high accolades over the centuries for his own sacrifices leading to death at the hands of Nero in Rome. Yet, what if it can be shown that another hand was involved here; an invisible one?
There are none so blind as those that will not see. Welcome to the Incommensurable, Hazel, which is a dimension that demonstrates that there is much more than meets the eye and ear of ordinary comprehension. The goal is to come to know what we don’t know, and then find a way to pass it on. This is where you find me. The challenge is great, and often lonely.
You can probably identify with the soul that was John the Baptist then, a voice crying out/pleading in the loneliness of the wilderness. I’d like to hear more about the higher Sun triad; am familiar with the Saturn cycle at 63, and the lower Sun triad, but not the higher Sun triad.
I wonder too, when Paul said he felt as though he were as “one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15:8), if he would have preferred to have been born at a slightly different time, either slightly earlier or later than he had entered; it might have resulted in him not becoming involved in persecuting the early church. I’m sure he regretted his earlier behavior, before he encountered Christ as he did. Kind of like saying, “if I had my choice in when to enter, I would have avoided those years when I persecuted believers in the Way.”
“From his Hebrew initiation Paul knew that if the Christ-Spirit had been in a human body and if that human body were dead, Christ must be present in the aura of the Earth. Then it would be possible for one who could behold the aura of the Earth with spiritual eyes, to behold Christ. This was known to Paul. Hitherto, however, he had been incapable of insight into the Earth-aura. He was, it is true, an initiate as far as wisdom was concerned, but not a seer. Yet he possessed, as he himself mentions, one of the first requisites to become a seer in an abnormal way. He alludes to it as an act of ‘grace’, bestowed upon him from above. He tells us that he was born prematurely or ‘out of due time’, as it is usually rendered. He was not borne the full term within the maternal organism. He had descended from the spiritual into the physical world before fully immersing himself in all the elements of earthly existence. He had entered the world before the unconscious ties, which unite us to the spiritual powers, are broken. Thus the vision of Damascus became possible for one whose spiritual eye was opened in consequence of his entry into the world out of due time. By his premature birth Paul was predisposed to spiritual vision. He gazed into the Earth-aura and there beheld the Christ. The time, therefore, when Christ had trod the Earth in a human body must already have been! Here was the proof that Christ had died on the Cross! For He, of whom Paul knew that He should conquer death upon Earth, had appeared to him as the Living Christ. The meaning of the death on Golgotha was now clear to him. He knew that Christ had risen from the dead. For he whom he had now seen could never before have been beheld in the aura of the Earth. Paul now understood the words: ‘It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks!’
What is meant by the ‘pricks’? Paul himself has told us: ‘O death, where is thy sting? In vain wouldst thou kick against the pricks; for didst thou do this thou wouldst only recognize death. But thou canst no longer kick against death; for thou hast seen Him who has vanquished death!’
In consequence of this experience, Paul became that apostle of Christianity who proclaimed above all things the living, the spiritually living Christ.”
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA112/English/PLH1933/19090707p01.html
Perfect sharing!
Thank you
And I never knew the explanation of the old saying, “robbing Peter to pay Paul”
so many pieces of the puzzle coming together…with more to come
Indeed. We are getting close to Lammas, where more of this puzzle can possibly be revealed. You see, when WWI began Steiner had to suspend the ES in the midst of the Christological phase, and invoke Michael as the Time Spirit, thus beginning a third phase of the anthroposophical movement. Life in wartime. Thus, what was planned as further revelations of the Apostles went unrevealed, and little to nothing of Acts of the Apostles was treated. There is a reason that Acts is divided in two; the first half to Peter, and the second half to Paul. Much of the Esoteric School is here to be revealed again. The current phase is appropriate after 98 years.
I believe the missing piece is the unveiling of the mystery of the Apostle to the Apostles – The one who anointed the Anointed One – The Companion of Christ – Mary Magdalene – who had the 1st Etheric vision & was the 1st to see the Risen Christ.
At Lammas I will be immersed in: The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia.
In the summer of 1923 in Penmaenmawr, Wales, Ita Wegman asked Rudolf Steiner if there could be a path for the mysteries to come into medicine again in our age.
In the summer of 2023 in Glenmoore, Pennsylvania, the AHA will hold a conference to find renewal on this path with one another.
We will deepen the topics in singing, therapeutic artistic activity, and an interactive threefolding workshop – “AnthropoSophia: Connecting Social and Individual Health” to connect us with our ideal intentions to work with solidarity, freedom and equality.
I am not referring to a missing piece, but what the Event of Pentecost meant for the future of Christianity in the wold. Thus, Acts describes the progressive coming together of two individuals who were meant to meet in concordance after many years of divisive separation. These were Peter and Paul. Mary Magdalene plays her part as the go to person that Peter seeks after his miraculous escape with the help of an Angel of the Lord. We have gone over this before, and in this very season. So, please allow me to refer to it again in your latest post, and with the aid of Baruch Luke Urieli’s words from his book.
I go there now. Kind regards,
Ita Wegman is also known for having encouraged Rudolf Steiner to refound the Anthroposophical Society in 1923. That is also a centennial event. As the story goes, Steiner was in Holland in November, and founding the anthroposophical branch there, ref. GA 231. He was also musing about retiring, and this caused Wegman to plead with him to refound the Society on a global scale. Since he was not one to dismiss a request, or even a wish, he looked within and asked himself if he could do it. He decided to do it and set the wheels in motion. He went back to Dornach in order to prepare, and sent Marie to Berlin to arrange the packing and crating of several thousand volumes of dusty theosophy books. They communicated about it in GA 262, which is the letter correspondence between RS and MS over the years.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA231/English/APC1961/SupMan_index.html