Greetings dear friends on this Good Friday 2020 –
Do you remember in 2003-04 when we had that powerful tetrad of solar & lunar eclipses that came during the Easter & Michaelmas seasons? I was prompted at that time to research the Spiritual Significance of Eclipses & the inner layers of the earth. I presented a program called: ‘The Interior of the Earth as Christian / Rosicrucian Initiation’, giving the beatitudes as the antidote to the sub-nature of these realms.
With all that is happening at this Easter-Tide I was thinking of delving back into that ‘Harrowing of Hell’ with the hopes of bringing healing into the spiritual causes of the pandemic, making it the theme for this year’s Easter Festival.
But of course since we cannot gather I reached out to my dear friend Laura Scappaticci, program director of the ASA to see what could be done online. She suggested I use the Central Regional Councils Zoom connection. When I spoke with my colleges there was a great enthusiasm to offer something. We brainstormed together & “The Three days” was born. I love how working with others can bring fresh impulses.
As is often the case, when sitting down to ‘write’ something, the spiritual world guides my pen. And so it was that the present offerings came forth, very different then my original idea.
I offer up The Good Friday ‘script’ for your contemplation, with the hopes that you will join us online for the next ‘Three Days’.
“The Three Days” Good Friday 10 April 2020 by Hazel Archer Ginsberg
‘When from the depths of soul
The Spirit turns to the life of worlds
And beauty wells from wide expanses,
Then out of heaven’s distances
Streams life-strength into human bodies,
Uniting by its mighty energy
The spirit’s being with our human life.
~Rudolf Steiner
(Overview introduction to Open the Gathering)
In the New Mysteries we follow the path of the Christian initiation thru the Holy Week before Easter – With every step, from the recognition of the old Sun on Palm Sunday, thru the Death that brings New Life, to the meeting of the Saturn-Spirit and The Harrowing of Hell, which sparks the rising of the New Sun of Easter, we are led deeper into an inner initiation. Each of these steps, seen through the lens of the planetary spheres, leads to a conquest of a corresponding layer in the interior of the earth.
We rest on Good Friday, the stillness of Sabbath, ‘In Christo morimur’ – This is the Mystic-death or temple sleep of the initiate. The Tomb becomes the altar, a sacred place to commune with the gods – with the souls of the departed as our intermediaries.
In the garden, at the center of the earth, between the rocky hill of Golgotha, part of the lunar Mount Moriah, and its polar opposite the Solar Mount Zion – the center of the cosmos – there is a new tomb where the body of Christ rests, and yet it is the oldest tomb, for it was formerly a primal fissure, a gorge splitting Jerusalem in two, called by some Adam’s grave – Known as the gate to the underworld.
The earthquakes tear open the original fissure. The veil of the Temple is “rent in twain”. Vistas are opened into the interior of the world. He is “lowered into the grave of the earth,” and so it is, that The Christ went into the Earth’s Interior, becoming the seed for our continued evolution.
Even there the darkness of Saturn is warmed and lit up from within by the Cosmic Sun. The Easter garden begins to bloom, for those who have lost their divine nature in the dungeons of Hell. Releasing the light so that our soul can behold, like the Magdalene before us, The Risen One as the gardener of the New Jerusalem.
The spirit radiates from the heights and yet is also carried to us by the eternal divine world of the depths. ‘Let from the depths be entreated, What in the heights will be heard’. We can send our prayer to the Christ-heart in the earth’s depths, to help overcome and redeem the adversarial powers that hold sway in the 9 layers of the earth’s interior. The agricultural course is a stepping stone to this ultimate aim.
Spiritual science tells us that when the blood flowed into the earth from the cross on Golgotha, a new Sun-globe was born in the interior of the earth. This golden earth-center is the legendary land of Shambhala, hidden away, yet waiting to be re-discovered by the seeking, Christ-guided human soul.
Before the mystery of Golgotha, the task of evolution was that the cosmos would become human. After this ‘Turning Point’, the human becomes cosmos -The New Sun -The imperishable resurrection-body uniting with the Cosmic- Sophia.
The tomb becomes the Round table, and the Parsifal question leads us to find Christ in the etheric.
Also working with us from the time of the Vernal Equinox is the Archangel Raphael, who holds the staff of Mercury, offering us the healing power of the Caduceus through the grace of the living Christ, who stands as the middle pillar within us all.
May we take up this healing, that ‘Good May Become’ for human & cosmic evolution.
On the urn that holds the ashes of Rudolf Steiner, we read: “To create centres of peace & love in which the Christ can resurrect.”
Musical Interlude
Activity: Break out karmic groups with leading thought: What is your personal experience with the world situation, in the light of the Good Friday experience, overlaid with the reality that in 1925 when Rudolf Steiner died, the starry world at Holy Week was the same as this year in 2020…?
Chimes
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Love’s Sacrifice: The Good Friday Contemplation by ~hag
And so it was that there was a great convocation in the spiritual world after humanity fell to the temptation of eating an unripen fruit. The Father Ground of the World shook His head:
“Babies are always putting things in their mouths. And yet this will surly alter my Divine plan. This premature action sows the seeds of death. We must send an emissary to reset this shift & bring balance to the blueprint once again”.
The mighty choirs of angels were ready to serve, but really, they couldn’t go, as they had their work to do to keep the harmony of the spheres.
The Holy Spirit volunteered, but it was thought She should wait until they were ready for Her Wisdom. So Love stepped forward.
“Father I will be the emissary. I will go in your name, and by dying I will conquer death. I will sow a new garden that the earth shall become a Sun. And I will bring the mystery of death back as a gift to our eternal world. I will say “Who so ever believes in me, believes in the Father who sent me. I will come into the world as light, so that who so ever believes in me may not remain in darkness”.
And so it was that Love made the journey from the eternal, through the zodiac & down into every planet, making a special home in the Sun.
The Holy Spiritsent Wisdom, Her own avatar tolight the way. Awakening some wise initiates who began preparing for Love to come, hoping it would be soon, for the earth was rapidly dying. When the stars were right, Love became human, which took about 30 years. And as with all Love’s actions on earth, when the cosmic alignment was in harmony, the earthly being received the Cosmic Being from the Sun, at the Baptism by John, and began the mission. Showing how Love could live on earth.
And when Love had taken 33 and a third turns around the Sun, the “Three Days” came that he should enact the trial to conquer death.
In the Garden of Gethsemane the fight against the power of death enters a decisive phase. Here in the quiet grove of the Mount of Olives, where Love has so often been with His disciples for intimate training, The Son of God must now withstand the most dangerous attack of the enemy in utmost loneliness.
Death, already apprehensive of losing control over Him, appears, in order to lay hold of Him. The Destroying Angel wants to possess Him.
The secret of the conflict in Gethsemane lies in the fact that death wants to outwit Love. It wants to wrest Him away too soon, before He has ended His work and filled the last vestige of His earthly vessel with His Spirit.
The Cosmic part of Love’s Being wrestles to enter still more deeply into the earthly world of matter through the physical body. There is still a last remnant to be ensouled. The very bones.
For three years, the Fire of divine Ego-hood has burned in the body and soul of Love. For this reason the human vessel – from within outwards – has already almost been consumed to ashes.
What still has to be suffered and completed demands so much strength from the earthly sheaths that there is a real danger of premature death. Death lies in wait and hopes to make use of this moment.
But Love is victorious and death is repulsed.
It is not the will of Love to pass into the spiritual world simply through dying. It is the will of Love to remain united with the Earth, so that when the sacrifice is made, Love can conquer over death.
Through the medicine of bitter pain, the inmost Being of Love has gained the ultimate power of spirit over matter, so that Death can no longer hold sway.
The death-powers realize this, and appear for their last effort, furious that their might has been of no avail. When the sun is darkened during the sultry midday hours of Good Friday, it is as though the demon of the sun were straining to the utmost against the God of the Sun.
And when the earth is shaken by the earthquake, all the demons of the earth seem to storm forward and endeavor to help the death-power to victory.
Scorn of Love disturbs the earthly elements and even shakes the heavens. However, death can strip nothing from the sovereignty of Love.
And from the Cross a mysterious brilliance breaks through the dreadful noonday light. The Son of God reveals itself at the same time as the physical sun suffered eclipse. A ray of Easter is already weaving itself into the darkness of Good Friday.
In the willing sacrifice, Love goes directly into the Earth. The body, like a seed, is planted; and the Earth opens in an earthquake that takes into itself the body of Love. Death becomes life, for the whole of earth-existence. A cosmic and earthly Communion.
The medicine for the spiritualizing of all material existence is incorporated into Earth existence – “the medicine that makes whole”.
Sound interlude
Hygienic Eurythmy Exercise
‘When from the depths of soul
The Spirit turns to the life of worlds
And beauty wells from wide expanses,
Then out of heaven’s distances
Streams life-strength into human bodies,
Uniting by its mighty energy
The spirit’s being with our human life. ~Rudolf Steiner
***
“The Three Days” – An online Easter Festival with the Central Regional Council
Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, All three days: April 10 -12, 2020 from 3 pm – 4:15 pm CDT (4 pm – 5:15 pm EDT)
We will apply Spiritual Research, taking inspiration from the ancient Mysteries, indications from Rudolf Steiner, Emil Bock, and personal vision, to artistically follow the Cosmic Sun on the ultimate path of human initiation, from the Free-Will Sacrifice, through the Harrowing of Hell, to Conquer Death – into the Resurrection of the New Sun.
Please have paper & colored pencils on hand.
Artistic activities include: Speech Work with the Calendar of the Soul, Musical interludes, Drawing exercise, Conscious conversation,
Hygienic Eurythmy,and a Performance with Mary Ruud of the Easter Verse from the Calendar of the Soul.
Special Guest Rev. Craig Wiggins, Lanker for the Christian Community, will join us in the pageant readings. And Dr. David Tressemer of the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology (AAP) will also join us in the readings, as our dear David Howerton is ill. (please send prayers!)
How can we as human beings in community bring a practical understanding to these mysteries?
Join us as we strive to gain the forces needed to do our part in furthering this impulse in world evolution.
FREE – ALL are Welcome – find below Zoom Call details and link to reading materials.
The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our on-line Easter Festival, which replaces the original festival with the AAP which has been postponed to a TBD date due to pandemic precautions.
This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer). To connect to the audio/video-conference:
Option 1. Click link below if you wish to connect through your computer (a headset is recommended)
https://zoom.us/j/9900117223
The PASSWORD is: 679832
Option 2. Call in using your telephone.
United States: +1 669 900 6833 or +1 312 626 6799
Access Code: 990-011-7223
The PASSWORD is: 679832
Option 3. You can use a combination of Options 1 and 2 (computer and phone). If you use the phone, please turn off the audio on your computer to prevent audio feedback.
For more info. contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@peoplepc.com
May Hope Spring Eternal – The CRC – Marianne Fieber, Alberto Loya, Hazel Archer Ginsberg, David Howerton, Lisa Dalton
‘When out of world-wide spaces
The sun speaks to the human mind,
And gladness from the depths of soul
Becomes, in seeing, one with light,
Then rising from the sheath of self,
Thoughts soar to distances of space
And dimly bind
The human being to the spirit’s life.‘
~Rudolf Steiner, Calendar of the Soul – Spring Verse
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Calling all Merry Prep-Stirs!!!
We will have a Spring Stir at Sunrise on Easter morning 6:12 am.
Please contact Hazel for dets
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The Sacred Gateway: Conscious Living, Conscious Dying, and the Journey Beyond ONLINE CONFERENCE APRIL 17-19, 2020
The Connection between Epidemics, the souls of the Dead, and the Spiritual World on Saturday & on Sunday: Festivals for the Dead, the Unborn and the Evolution of Earth -Then and Now with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
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