Answering Our Own Wave

Chicago Event, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote

4 December 2017 – Astro-weather: The Geminid meteor shower gets underway this week. Although the shower doesn’t peak until the night of December 13/14, you should start to see some Geminids during the overnight hours. To tell a Geminid meteor from a random dust particle burning up in Earth’s atmosphere, trace the streak of light’s path backward. A shower meteor will appear to originate from the constellation Gemini the Twins.

The Moon reached perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, at 2:46 a.m. CST. That’s why yesterday Full moon was called a ‘super moon’.

Once Bella Luna is up in the east, look to Her right for Betelgeuse. The rest of Orion extends farther right.

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 Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Shelby McQuilkin

“If we give up ourselves to mutual help, through this giving up to the community a powerful strengthening of our organs takes place. If we then speak or act as a member of such a community there speaks or acts in us not the singular soul only but the spirit of the community. This is the secret of progress for the future of mankind: To work out of communities. “ ~Dr. Rudolf Steiner

1000 – Birthday of Anna Porphyrogenita ,  Grand Princess of Kiev; married to Grand Prince Vladimir the Great. Anna was the daughter of Byzantine Emperor Romanos II & the Empress Theophano,  born in the special purple chamber of the Byzantine Emperor’s Palace. Anna’s hand was considered such a prize that some theorize that Vladimir became Christian just to marry her. Anna did not wish to marry Vladimir & expressed deep distress on her way to her wedding. By marriage to Grand Prince Vladimir, she was referred to as Queen or Czarina. Anna participated actively in the Christianization of Russia, she acted as the religious adviser of Vladimir & founded convents & churches herself.

1642 – Deathday of Cardinal Richelieu, French cardinal & politician, Chief Minister to the French Monarch

1679 – Deathday of Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher &  theorist, writer of Leviathan

1795 – Birthday of Thomas Carlyle, Scottish-English historian, philosopher, & academic

1798 – Deathday of Luigi Galvani, Italian physician, physicist, & philosopher. Galvani’s report of his investigations were mentioned specifically by Mary Shelley as part of the summer reading list leading up to an ad hoc ghost story contest on a rainy day in Switzerland—& the resultant novel Frankenstein—with its construct of reanimation.  Galvani’s name also survives as a verb in everyday language  to galvanize. The crater Galvani on the Moon is named after him.

1875 – Birthday of Rainer Maria Rilke, Austrian-Swiss poet & author

1916 – Rudolf Steiner begins a series of 25 lectures called the ‘karma of Untruthfulness’ GA 173, 174, on the background that led to the World War.

1969 – Deathday of Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton & Mark Clark, shot and murdered in their sleep during a raid by 14 Chicago police officers. “We expected about 20 Panthers to be in the apartment when the police raided the place. Only two of those black niggers were killed, Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.”–FBI Special Agent Gregg York

Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were set up and murdered by the CHICAGO POLICE during a raid, orders for the murders came from the FBI. BOTH men were SLEEP during the raid, which the CPD KNEW they would be because an FBI INFORMANT drugged the two men earlier that night. All involved in the murders were: A tactical unit of the Cook County, Illinois State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO), in conjunction with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the FBI.

Hampton’s murder was chronicled in the 1971 documentary film The Murder of Fred Hampton as well as an episode of the critically acclaimed documentary series Eyes on the Prize. The FBI informant, William O’Neal, later committed suicide after admitting his involvement in setting up the raid.

1976 –Deathday of Hagen Biesantz, Vorstand member of the Anthroposophical Society; author of ‘The Goetheanum: Rudolf Steiner’s Architectural Impulse’

2005 – Tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong protest for democracy & call on the government to allow universal & equal suffrage.

***

A Pop Up Art Exhibition – Opening: Saturday December 9th 2017 – 2pm – 7pm

“Trees and Water” – NEW Paintings by  Lisa Villa Moser

Closing: Sunday December 10th Noon – 5pm

And then:

a Pop Up Christmas Mart – Sunday December 17th Noon till 9pm

Locally Hand-Crafted items, clothing, Art, Various Fair-Trade Wares, Health-Food Supplements, Baked Goods, Chili & HippocraTeas…(20 per cent of sales goes to help Elderberries at the Branch)

In the evening the seniors from CWS will do performances to raise $ for their 12th grade trip…

Would you like to be a vender? contact Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

***

Then join us for a ‘Star’ making workshop with Elizabeth Beunaiche (more details to follow) Wed. Dec. 20th 3 sessions 6 pm, 7pm, 8pm

***

Looking ahead to the Holy Nights at the Branch:

David Newbatt

The Dream Song of Olaf Asteson with Mary Tom & Debbie Barford on Lyre

Tuesday December 26th 7 pm

 Then: The Story of Being Human: Fairy-Tales for adults – a Journey thru the Holy Nights

December 27th– 30th at 7 pm $10

Shepherded by Joen Dealande & a series of guest artists, we will use Drama, Eurythmy, Painting, Needle-Felting, & Sculpting, to live into the gesture of our Human karma & Destiny.

NYE Sunday December 31st (The 13th Hidden Holy Night) 8pm – 1am Our annual Community Gathering with music by Jutta & the High Dukes, Lead Casting, Eurythmy, Crafting, Games & more TBA $20

January 2018, 1st – 4th at 7pm – The Fairy-Tale Trail Continues

Friday January 5th Eve of Epiphany (3 Kings) 7pm – 9 pm – A special 12th Night gathering, Eurythmy with Mary Ruud, more TBA $10

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Lazure Workshop with Nancy Melvin –  

January 20-21st 2018 – 9am-5pm  

$100 for the weekend (1/2 the proceeds go toward a new heating & cooling system for the branch)

Learn the secrets of the Lazure painting method from an expert, while helping to beautify the Elderberries 3-Fold Cafe!

for more info. contact  Nancy Melvin

***

What are your ideas? What gifts can you share with the community? Who needs a meeting space, or a party room, or wants to exhibit their art? or, or, or…

Advent Blessings & peace

~hag

Elderberries in Chicago – Ceremony of the Desire of Birth

Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars

1st December 2017 – Astro-Weather: You can still catch Saturn & Mercury deep in the bright afterglow of sunset.

The waxing gibbous Moon shines in the east this evening. Look upper right of Bella Luna for the two brightest stars of Aries, left of Her for the little Pleiades cluster, & below the Pleiades for orange Aldebaran.

Mars meets Spica by Johnathon Hilton of the Astrosophy Center

***

 Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1834 – Slavery is abolished in the Cape Colony in accordance with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

1862 – In his State of the Union Address President Abraham Lincoln reaffirms the necessity of ending slavery as ordered ten weeks earlier in the Emancipation Proclamation.

1865 – Shaw University, the first historically black university in the southern United States, is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1913 – The Buenos Aires Metro, the first underground railway system in the Southern Hemisphere and in Latin America, begins operation.

1913 – Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving assembly line.

1919 – Lady Astor becomes the first female Member of Parliament to take her seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom

1947 – Deathday of Aleister Crowley, an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, & mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. A prolific writer, he published widely over the course of his life.

1952 – The New York Daily News reports the news of Christine Jorgensen, the first notable case of sex reassignment surgery.

1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man & is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to that city’s bus boycott.

1958 – The Our Lady of the Angels School fire in Chicago kills 192 children & 23 nuns

1964 –President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top-ranking advisers meet to discuss plans to bomb North Vietnam.

1969 –The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.

1974 – TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport, killing all 92 people on board.

1974 – Northwest Airlines Flight 6231, another Boeing 727, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing 92 people!

1981 – Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308, a McDonnell Douglas MD-80, crashes in Corsica, killing all 180 people on board.

1984 – NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, where an airliner is deliberately crashed in order to test technologies & gather data to ‘help improve survivability of crashes’.

***

Sonya Treever

POD (Poem Of the day)

~Doves nest in my hair & spit fire from my head…
My heart beats like a bee tongue among the withered roses
As the Avatar winds of Sophia speak Wisdom into our bones…
~hag

***

 

When the Sun Moves Northward: Being a Treatise on the Six Sacred Months  ~Mabel Collins (edited with revised pronouns by hag)

In honor of the official signing of the lease with Elderberries Three-Fold Cafe in Chicago!

 

December: The Birth Month

December 1st: The Ceremony of Desire of Birth

 Karen Venter

The aspirant is aware that the human being is a part of Nature, & that the mysteries are revealed to us when we enter into the secret & sacred life of the heavens & the earth. For us the yearly season of material birth is preceded by the spiritual state of desire of birth. The ancients knew, what we must remember, that the sun must will to die, or lose his fertilizing energy, in the autumn & early winter, so that all Nature can begin life anew; & the month of December is devoted to the preparation for this fresh life.

The sun being is depicted at that period of the year as a little child. Humanity’s spiritual being is indissolubly associated with this little child, this light-bringer; & as the disciple attains consciousness they become aware of the mystic recurrence of that miracle which is described in the religions as birth, death, & resurrection. As they move up the steps of consciousness, they learn that the spiritual light-bearer must endure the martyrdom of crucifixion in time & space, & must descend into the tomb of matter. And as the Great Ones in their bright succession endure this, so must their followers.

Timothy Michael Foley

The yearly initiations begin with that desire of rebirth into matter which brings the human spirit into the condition of suffering under the rule of the pairs of opposites; heat & cold, pleasure & pain, love & hate, male & female – these opposing conditions assail us continually. It was the work of the Christ to show the meaning of the Cross, & to teach the great lesson of sacrifice which means that none shall seek Freedom till all are saved. He promised to remain with us always, renouncing His Nirvana until the end of the world, & dwelling with His beloved children – the publican & the sinner – in the mysterious inner places of consciousness.

 Annael A. Pavlova

And those who follow Him must do likewise, & must enter into the state of the desire of birth each year with a yearly increase of the will to help the world. Thus the desire changes its character by degrees, & becomes selfless instead of selfish. The soul of the human being & the soul of the world, the soul of Nature & of sub-Nature, all pass alike through the birth-throes.

Salvador Dali

In December, the birth month, there are seven great & vital Ceremonies, filling the whole month with their observances. The first is the Desire of Birth, the commencement of the mystic story. It is so remote from human & material life that it is impossible to describe it in human language. It is witnessed consciously only by the spiritual being before its descent into matter. The disciple who seeks to take part in it while living in the body, must endeavour to recall to their psychic memory the litany which they heard chanted in the spiritual sphere from which they came when they sought the experience of human life.

 Roku Sasaki

The Ceremony of the Desire of Birth lasts for four days & nights, beginning on 1st of December. During this time it is necessary for the disciple to contemplate all that is implied in its litany. At each midnight, & at the hour of dawn, we should meditate upon the words of the litany, endeavouring to obtain understanding in respect to them. They are very difficult & obscure, so much so as to seem meaningless in material life if tested only by the light of the intellect. But the disciple who desires to become a conscious part of the Divine whole, must enter into the life of the world at this sacred season, & apprehend from year to year more & more of the mystery of the divine life within our self, in union with the material.

LITANY for the Ceremony of the Desire of Birth:

  1. I desire birth.
  2. I am ready to be burned and consumed; for that is what birth is.
  3.  I am ready to be naked and unprotected, and to suffer from my nakedness; for that is what life is.
  4. I am ready to make the pilgrimage through matter in darkness and in fire,  so that the circle of the uncreated shall  become one with the circle of the created.

James Christensen

The ordeal of fire which comes upon the soul immediately that the desire for birth is experienced, & continues while the human being remains human, is the burning out & consuming of all alloy in the nature. When this is accomplished, the ego can effect the miracle of resurrection & rebirth into a higher state, & can begin to form a regenerated shape which shall be worthy of immortality.

The instinct of the animal nature is to avoid suffering & to seek protection from it. But the Spirit of Humaity has sought birth in matter with the object of obtaining purification, & wishes, therefore, not only to enter the ordeal of fire but to enter it unprotected. Therefore does it utter these two stanzas of the litany which follow the expression of desire of birth.

Walter Crane

The mystic union is expressed in the last stanza; it is beyond the understanding of the human intellect. We can only dimly apprehend it by degrees as we follow the occult ceremonies, & obtain more & more illumination in respect to them. Autumn, winter, spring, & summer repeat themselves duly every year, because the Divine Spirit of Nature descends continually upon Nature, & passing through matter returns to itself. The drama is enacted afresh every year. The story of the pilgrimage of the spirit of humanity is contained within this yearly drama, & is the basis of the legends which form the groundwork of the great religions.

Kari Marie Olson

Desire, marriage, birth, these bring us hither: love, death, resurrection, these carry us hence; just as the green leaves come with every springtide, so does the inner meaning of the green leaves reveal itself to the disciple in perpetual recurrence.

The ancient Egyptians were the first to institute a sacred calendar, in which every day had its special religious ceremony. The Egyptian initiate, who gave fragments of the Birthday Litany & the Resurrection Litany from the ancient Ritual to the author of the Story of the Year, has now outlined the rites & vigils of the months between Christmas & Easter. The sacred months are those in which the sun moves northwards.

(Rudolf Steiner brought this work into the age of the Conscious Soul in relation to the modern human being, in his Calendar of the Soul, which begins at Easter)

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Pop Up Christmas Mart

Sunday December 17th Noon till 9pm at the Elderberries Three-Fold Chicago space 4251 N. Lincoln Ave.

Locally Hand-Crafted items, Various Fair-Trade Wares, Health-Food Supplements, Baked Goods, Chili & HippocraTeas…

20 per cent of sales goes to help Elderberries at the Branch

In the evening the seniors from CWS will do performances to raise $ for their 12th grade trip…

Would you like to be a vender? contact Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

***

Catherine Molland

Holy Nights Gatherings 2017-2018  

December 27th– 30th – 7 pm – 9 pm  $10

The Story of Being Human: Fairy-Tales for adults – a Journey thru the Holy Nights

The Fairy-tale leads us to our true humanity, where great kingdoms preside within, filled with ancient forests, remote castles, giants, witches, lovers, dreams & visions of Star Beings & of the Earth Herself. Shepherded by Joen Dealande & a series of guest artists, we will use Drama, Eurythmy, Painting, Needle-Felting, & Sculpting, to live into the gesture of our Human karma & Destiny.

NYE Sunday December 31st (The 13th Hidden Holy Night) 8pm – 1am – Our annual Community NYE party with music by Jutta & the High Dukes, Lead Casting, Eurythmy, Crafting, Games & more TBA $20

 Ludwig Emil Grimm

January 2018, 1st – 4th from 7pm – 9 pm – The Fairy-Tale Trail Continues $10

Friday January 5th Eve of Epiphany (3 Kings) 7pm – 9 pm – A special 12th Night gathering, Performances & Eurythmy with Mary Rudd more TBA $10

All events at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

For more info. contact Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

Another day

Poetry, Remembering

27 November 2017 – Astro-Weather:  Bella Luna lays below the Great Square of Pegasus, to form a big triangle with Fomalhaut on the lower right, & orange Beta Ceti to the left

 Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast day of Barlaam & Josaphat two legendary Christian martyrs & saints, based on the life of the Gautama Buddha. The tale tells how an Indian king persecuted the Christian Church in his realm. When astrologers predicted that his own son would become Christian, the king imprisoned the young prince Josaphat, who nevertheless met the hermit Saint Barlaam & converted to Christianity. After much tribulation the young prince’s father accepted the true faith, turned over his throne to Josaphat, & retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated & went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam. The tale derives from a second to fourth century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, via a Manichaean version, the Arabic Kitab Bilawhar wa-Yudasaf (Book of Bilawhar and Yudasaf).

8 BC – Deathday of Horace, the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus; who crafted elegant hexameter verses & caustic iambic poetry. His career coincided with Rome’s momentous change from a republic to an empire. An officer in the republican army, he was befriended by Octavian’s right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas, & became a spokesman for the new regime.

511 – Feast Day of Clovis, the first king of the Franks to unite all of the tribes under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of royal chieftains to rule by a single king, ensuring that the kingship was passed down to his heirs. He is considered to have been the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the Frankish kingdom for the next two centuries. His name is Germanic, composed of the elements hlod (“fame”) & wig (“combat”), & is the origin of the later French given name Louis, borne by 18 kings of France. Clovis is also significant due to his conversion to Christianity in 496, largely at the behest of his wife, Clotilde, who would later be venerated as a saint for this act, celebrated today in both the Roman Catholic Church & Eastern Orthodox Church. The adoption by Clovis of Catholicism led to widespread conversion among the Frankish peoples, to religious unification across what is now modern-day France, Belgium & Germany, & three centuries later to Charlemagne’s alliance with the Bishop of Rome & in the middle of the 10th century under Otto I the Great to the consequent birth of the early Holy Roman Empire.

784 – Deathday of Vergilius of Salzburg an Irish Bishop & early astronomer.

1830 – Saint Catherine Labouré reported that the Blessed Mother appeared to her during evening meditations. She displayed herself inside an oval frame, standing upon a globe. She wore many rings set with gems that shone rays of light over the globe. Around the margin of the frame appeared the words Ô Marie, conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous (“O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee”). As Catherine watched, the frame seemed to rotate, showing a circle of twelve stars, a large letter M surmounted by a cross, & the stylized Sacred Heart of Jesus crowned with thorns & Immaculate Heart of Mary pierced with a sword. Asked why some of the gems did not shed light, Mary reportedly replied, “Those are the graces for which people forget to ask.” Sister Catherine then heard the Virgin Mary ask her to take these images to her confessor, telling him that they should be put on medallions, & saying “All who wear them will receive great graces.”

The chapel in which Saint Catherine experienced her visions is located at the mother house of the Daughters of Charity in Rue du Bac, Paris. Her incorrupt body is interred in the chapel, which continues to receive daily visits from Catholic pilgrims today.

***

 

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Where priests murmur in crumbling churches I fly
Dropping feathers
Thru sacred fires…
In my mouth I hold the poison
That brings night mares to unbelievers
& healing to the wise…
~hag

***

 

Open Community Conversation

Monday November 27th- 7 pm – 9 pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

We meet once a month to discuss how to best the various Steiner initiatives in Chicago.

For this November meeting, Biography Worker, Paulette Arnold, will offer up some research into the Chicago personality, Studs Terkel, & lead us in a biography exercise.

We will also share the latest developments about Elderberries Chicago – From Dottie Zold who is coming in from LA with Dana Erickson to start building out the space

Ann Burfeind will chair the meeting. And as always, the floor will be open for a community conversation.
All are welcome

The Elderberries Three-Fold Café has been on Sunset Blvd. in the heart of Hollywood for over 9 years.

They provide not only good healthy food, but nutrition for the soul – The café is a hub for youth, hosting study groups, music, alternative film screenings etc – providing support for inner practices, meaningful work for those in need, & platforms for individual creative expression – imbuing all they do with a love for the future of our world. Their motto: KINDNESS, CARE & CONSIDERATION

It has long been the vision of Elderberries to create a “Michael Grail-Road” establishing 3-fold Café’s around the world where youth could come to find themselves in a safe, substance free space.

They will open another Elderberries Café in the Lincoln Sq. neighborhood, close to the CWS early childhood satellite, at 4251 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago, adjacent to the Rudolf Steiner Branch, in March 2018.

We are putting out the call for students & everyone in the community to help build-out the space with Dottie Zold, the founder of Elderberries, Nov. 28th thru Dec 1st from 8:30am – 4pm, with special opportunities for the HS to earn service hours on Tuesday & Thursday November 28th & 30th after school 4pm – 8pm.

Besides construction work, there is an opportunity to create a logo or scene on the storefront window for those interested in sharing their artistic talents.

 We could use some volunteers to help provide food for the student/workers.

If you can bring food please contact Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

I take the sword I was given & winnow well

Autumn, Lecture, Meditation, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote

20 November 2019 – 

Beloved One – I have just returned from the ‘Southern Tour’ my heart full, my head dancing & my hands open. The many miracles of the journey are churning, about to be born into the Logos shared. But 1st, I feel I must touch down here in the ‘City of Big Shoulder’s’ to bring all my revelations home to this spirit of place, with this seasonal story: 
Once upon an autumn day, cut thru with the thought of Winter, a little leaf was heard to sigh, as leaves often do when a blustery wind is swirling about. A nearby twig asked: “What is the matter, little leaf?” And the leaf said, “The wind just told me that one day it would pull me off & throw me down to die!”
 
The twig told this to the branch & the trunk told it to the bark, & when the roots heard it, the tall tree rustled all over, & sent back word to the leaf, “Do not be afraid, you shall not go until you want to.”
 
And so the leaf stopped sighing, but went on nestling & singing. Every time the wind spoke, the tree shook itself & stirred up all its leaves, the branches bobbed, the thin twig twittered, & the little leaf danced merrily up & down, as if nothing could ever pull it off. And so it was all thru the month of October. And then November came, & it grew colder still.
 
And as the outer light faded, the little leaf noticed that all the leaves around it became brighter. Some were yellow & some scarlet, & some striped with gold or curled with brown. The little leaf asked the tree what this change meant. And the tree said, “All these leaves are getting ready to fly away, & they have put on these beautiful colors to celebrate.”
 
Then the little leaf began to want to go, too, & grew very beautiful in thinking of it, & when it was bright orange, like the wings of a butterfly, it noticed that the branches that held it to the tree, had no color in them at all; & so the leaf said, “O branches, why are you so leaden-colored & we so golden?”
 
And the tree answered:“I must keep on my work-clothes, for my time has not yet come – but your clothes are for holiday, since your task is almost complete.”
 
Just then a stiff gust of wind came, & the leaf let go, without worry, & the wind took it up & turned it over & over, & whirled it like a spark of fire in the air…
 
& then it dropped gently down under the edge of the tree, among hundreds of other brightly colored leaves. There the little leaf lay dreaming of the sun & stars.
 
And when the child picked it up & held it to the light, it flew out again
& became the light.
 
~hag, adapted from a children’s story of old

Sir John Everett Millais

Dear friends, YES! I plan to share insights from the ‘Southern Tour’ as soon as the ongoing digestion process allows & I have time to  get all the images together… so stay tuned…xox 

product_title] - Orenco Originals LLC Counted Cross Stitch

The Dove & Scythe by Charles Demuth

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I take the sword I was given & winnow well…~hag

“Speaking with the Stars”: Orion the Hunter clears the eastern horizon by about 7 pm CST. High above Orion shines orange Aldebaran. Above Aldebaran is the little Pleiades cluster, the size of your fingertip at arm’s length. Far left of Aldebaran and the Pleiades shines bright Capella.

***

Laura Summer

 Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

“The best Anthroposophists are those who take what is said as a stimulus in the first place, and then place it at the service of life, so as to prove it by life itself.” ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Mission of the Folk Souls’ lecture 11

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1805 – Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, premieres in Vienna.

1945 –Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg

1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation

1910 – Deathday of Leo Tolstoy, Russian author & playwright

“In 1828, Leo Tolstoy is born in a family of Russian counts about which he himself says that the family immigrated originally from Germany. Then we see Tolstoy losing certain higher goods of life. Hardly he is one and a half years old, he loses the mother, the father in the ninth year. Then he grows up under the care of a relative who is, so to speak, the embodied love, and from her spiritual condition, the marvellous soul condition had to flow in his soul like by itself. However, on the other side, another relative who wants to build up him out of the viewpoints of her circles, out of the conditions of time as they formed in certain circles influences him. She is a person who is completely merged in the outward world activity which later became very odious to Tolstoy and against which he fought so hard. We see this personality striving from the outset to make Tolstoy a person “comme il faut,” a person who could treat his farmers in such a way, as it was necessary in those days, who should receive title, rank, dignity, and medals and should play a suitable role in the society.

Then we see Tolstoy coming to the university; he is a bad student as he absolutely thinks that everything that the professors say at the University of Kazan is nothing worth knowing. Only oriental languages can occupy him. In all other matters, he was not interested. Against it the comparison of a certain chapter of the code of Catherine the Great (1729–1796) with The Spirit of the Laws (1748) by Montesquieu (Charles de Secondat, Baron de M., 1689–1755) attracted him. Then he tries repeatedly to manage his estate, and we see him almost getting around to diving head first into the life of luxury of a man of his circles, diving head first into all possible vices and vanities of life. We see him becoming a gambler, gambling big sums away. However, he has hours within this life over and over again when his own activities disgust him, actually. We see him meeting peers as well as men of letters and leading a life, which he calls a worthless, even perishable one at moments of reflection. However, we also see — and this is important to him who looks with pleasure at the development of the soul where this development manifests in especially typical signs — particular peculiarities appearing with him in the development of his soul which can disclose us already in the earliest youth what is, actually, in this soul.

Thus, it is of immense significance, what a deep impression a certain event makes on Tolstoy at the age of eleven years. A friendly boy once told him that one has made an important discovery, a new invention. One has found — and a teacher has spoken in particular of the fact — that there is no God that this God is only an empty invention of many human beings, an empty picture of thought. Everything that one can know about the impression that this boy’s experience made on Tolstoy shows already how he absorbed it that in him a soul struggled striving for the highest summits of human existence.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, Where and How Does One Find the Spirit? Tolstoy and Carnegie, Berlin, 28th January, 1909

see also Origin and Goal of the Human Being, Lecture V, Theosophy and Tolstoy  

1976 – Deathday of Lili Kolisko, remembered for her pioneer work in anthroposophy, attending lectures by founder Rudolf Steiner starting in 1914. She developed the Capillary Dynamolisis method (Steigbildmethode), testing the idea that not only the moon, but the other planets as well, have an influence over earthly fluids. To test this, she dissolved metals classically associated to each planet & observed the pictures left by their absorption over a filter paper. She noticed consistent differences of the patterns according to the position of the planets in relation to sun & earth. Lilly Kolisko also worked on the development of a remedy for foot and mouth disease & methods for assessment of food quality from an anthroposophic standpoint. She was married to Dr. Eugen Kolisko.

Lily Kolisko: Workings Of The Stars In Earthly Substances by Allan Balliett

Hilma af Klint

May we all answer to our highest calling…

Blessings dear friends

until soon

ask

Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote

17 November 2017 – Astro-Weather: This morning marks the peak of the annual Leonid meteor shower. Astronomical conditions should be nearly perfect because the Moon remains out of the sky all night. (It reaches its New phase tomorrow morning.) An observer under a clear, dark sky can expect to see up to 10 “shooting stars” per hour. The meteors appear to radiate from a point in the Sickle asterism of Leo the Lion, a region that rises in late evening & climbs high in the southeast before dawn. Prime viewing occurs between approximately 2 CST & the start of twilight some two hours later.

As the evening twilight fades, look low in the southwest for Saturn & Mercury. They’re about a fist at arm’s length apart.

With Bella Luna not yet back from her monthly journey into the Underworld; take advantage of the dark nights to explore the galaxies inside the top right corner of the Great Square of Pegasus.

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 Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“Art is a continuous setting free of the human spirit; it also educates humanity about how to act out of love. ” ~Rudolf Steiner

1624 – Birthday of Jakob Böhme, a shoemaker in Görlitz, Silesia, is regarded to be one of the most profound mystics in Germany.

“Jakob Böhme’s thoroughly healthy way of knowledge — his original deeper heart’s knowledge, so in accordance with the feeling of the people — beheld freedom as weaving and working through everything necessitated, working even through natural necessity. And Schelling, ascending from a view of nature in accordance with the spirit to a beholding of the spirit, felt himself in harmony with Jakob Böhme…

Hegel‘s world view has its place in the course of mankind’s spiritual evolution through the fact that in it the radiant power of thoughts lifts itself up out of the mystical depths of the soul, and through the fact that in Hegel’s seeking, mystical power wants to reveal itself with the power of the light of thought. And this is also how he sees his place in the course of this evolution. Therefore he looked back upon Jakob Böhme in the way expressed in these words (to be found in his History of Philosophy): “This Jakob Böhme, long forgotten and decried as a pietistic visionary, has regained his rightful esteem only in recent times; Leibniz revered him. His public has been greatly reduced by the Age of Enlightenment; in recent times his profundity has been recognized again. … To declare him a visionary means nothing. For if one wants to, one can call every philosopher so, even Epicurus and Bacon. … But as to the high esteem to which Böhme has been raised, he owes this particularly to the form of his contemplation and feeling; for, contemplation and inner feeling … and the pictorial nature of one’s thoughts the allegories and so on — are partly considered to be the essential form of philosophy. But it is only the concept, thinking, in which philosophy can have its truth, in which the absolute can be expressed and also is as it is in and for itself.” And Hegel finds these further words for Böhme: “Jakob Böhme is the first German philosopher; the content of his philosophizing is truly German. What distinguishes Böhme and makes him remarkable is … that he set the intellectual world into his own inner life (Gemüt), and within his own consciousness of himself he beheld, knew, and felt everything that used to be in the beyond. This general idea of Böhme proves on the one hand to be profound and basic; on the other hand, however, he does not achieve clarity and order in all his need and struggle for definition and discrimination in developing his divine views about the universe.”

Such words are spoken by Hegel, after all, only from the feeling: In the simple heart of Jakob Böhme there lived the deepest impulse of the human soul to sink itself with its own experience into world experience — the true mystical impulse — but the pictorial view, the parable, the symbol must lift themselves to the light of clear ideas in order to attain what they want. In Hegel’s world view Jakob Böhme’s world pictures are meant to arise again as ideas of human reason. Thus the enthusiast of thoughts, Hegel, stands beside the deep mystic, Jakob Böhme, within the evolution of German idealism”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Riddle of Man

John Cranch

1858 – Deathday of Robert Owen, Welsh manufacturer turned reformer, one of the most influential early 19th-century advocates of utopian socialism. His New Lanark mills in Lanarkshire, Scotland, with their social & industrial welfare programs, became a place of pilgrimage for statesmen & social reformers. He also sponsored or encouraged many experimental “utopian” communities, including one in New Harmony, Indiana, U.S.

1869 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is opened

1901 –October 1901 to April 1902, Rudolf Steiner delivered a series of lectures in the Theosophical Library leading from the ancient mysteries up to the mystery of Golgotha which provided a comprehensive expansion of the subject treated in the previous year on mysticism. These lectures were published as Christianity As Mystical Fact

According to T.H. Meyer & Johannes Hemleben, in his book “Rudolf Steiner: A documentary biography”: Today in 1901 Marie von Sivers asks THE question of Rudolf Steiner –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.

From Rudolf Steiner’s The Story of My Life, Chapter 30: “The Brockdorffs were leaders of a branch of the Theosophical Society founded by Blavatsky. What I had said in connection with Goethe’s fairy-tale led to my being invited by the Brockdorffs to deliver lectures regularly before those members of the Theosophical Society who were associated with them. I explained, however, that I could speak only about that which I vitally experienced within me as spiritual knowledge.

In truth, I could speak of nothing else. For very little of the literature issued by the Theosophical Society was known to me. I had known theosophists while living in Vienna, and I later became acquainted with others. These acquaintance ships led me to write in the Magazine the adverse review dealing with the theosophists in connection with the appearance of a publication of Franz Hartmann. What I knew otherwise of the literature was for the most part entirely uncongenial to me in method and approach; I could not by any possibility have linked my discussions with this literature.

So I then gave the lectures in which I established a connection with the mysticism of the Middle Ages. By means of the ideas of the mystics from Master Eckhard to Jakob Böhme, I found expression for the spiritual conceptions which in reality I had determined beforehand to set forth. I published the series of lectures in the book Die Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens(2). At these lectures there appeared one day in the audience Marie von Sievers, who was chosen by destiny at that time to take into strong hands the German section of the Theosophical Society, founded soon after the beginning of my lecturing. Within this section I was then able to develop my anthroposophic activity before a constantly increasing audience.

No one was left in uncertainty of the fact that I would bring forward in the Theosophical Society only the results of my own research through perception…

My object was to set forth the evolution from the ancient mysteries to the mystery of Golgotha in such a way that in this evolution there should be seen to be active, not merely earthly historic forces, but spiritual supramundane influences. And I wished to show that in the ancient mysteries cult-pictures were given of cosmic events, which were then fulfilled in the mystery of Golgotha as facts transferred from the cosmos to the earth of the historic plane.

This was by no means taught in the Theosophical Society. In this view I was in direct opposition to the theosophical dogmatics of the time, before I was invited to work in the Theosophical Society. For this invitation followed immediately after the cycle of lectures on Christ here described.

Between the two cycles of lectures that I gave before the Theosophical Society, Marie von Sievers was in Italy, at Bologna, working on behalf of the Theosophical Society in the branch established there.

Thus the thing evolved up to the time of my first attendance at a theosophical congress, in London, in the year 1902. At this congress, in which Marie von Sievers also took part, it was already a foregone conclusion that a German section of the Society would be founded with myself – shortly before invited to become a member – as the general secretary.

The visit to London was of great interest to me. I there became acquainted with important leaders of the Theosophical Society. I had the privilege of staying at the home of Mr. Bertram Keightley, one of these leaders. We became great friends. I became acquainted with Mr. Mead, the very diligent secretary of the Theosophical Movement. The most interesting conversations imaginable took place at the home of Mr. Keightley in regard to the forms of spiritual knowledge alive within the Theosophical Society.

Especially intimate were these conversations with Bertram Keightley himself. H. P. Blavatsky seemed to live again in these conversations. Her whole personality, with its wealth of spiritual content, was described with the utmost vividness before me and Marie von Sievers by my dear host, who had been so long associated with her.

I became slightly acquainted with Annie Besant and also Sinnett, author of Esoteric Buddhism. Mr. Leadbeater I did not meet, but only heard him speak from the platform. He made no special impression on me.

All that was interesting in what I heard stirred me deeply, but it had no influence upon the content of my own views.

1907 – Birthday of Israel Regardie, English occultist & author

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 Karlyn Holman

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~a dusky grape
ripening in the oblique rays
of a westering daystar…
~hag

 

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 Shelby McQuilkin

Monday November 27th– 7 pm – 9 pm Open Community Conversation

After our gathering in September with General Secretary John Bloom, & Daniel Evaeus, from Elderberries, many folks made it known that they would like to continue to meet once a month to discuss how to best serve Anthroposophia & the various Steiner initiatives in Chicago.

For this November meeting, Biography Worker, Paulette Arnold, will offer up some research into the Chicago personality, Studs Terkel, & lead us in a biography exercise. 

We will also share the latest developments about Elderberries Chicago!

And as always, the floor will be open for a community conversation.

All are welcome. Snacks to share encouraged.

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 Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) calendar of events Check out our Web site! Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)