Orion’s Club

Autumn, Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Chicago Event, Festival, Meditation, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote

20 October 2017 – Astro-Weather: The modest Orionid meteor shower continues in the early-morning hours for the next couple of nights. The radiant point is near Orion’s Club, low in the east after midnight & high in the south by the beginning of dawn. The morning sky is free of moonlight, since Bella Luna is having Her monthly time in the Underworld. The Orionid Meteors Max Out Sunday Morning.

Look for Capella sparkling low in the northeast after dinnertime this week. Then find the 7 sisters of Pleiades in a cluster to its right by about three fists at arm’s length. They rise higher as evening grows late, harbingers of the cold months to come.

Upper right of Capella, & upper left of the Pleiades, the stars of Perseus stand astride the Milky Way. To the upper left of Perseus, the Milky Way runs through Cassiopeia.

 Ashee Brunson

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day – One of the many for today is : Dornach, 20 October 1917 – Excerpt from: Fall of the Spirits of Darkness LECTURE 10 – The Influence of the Backward Angels

The masses of humanity go through life as if asleep, without thought; they are completely unaware of what is going on in groups, some of them quite large, which may be right next door. Today, more than ever, people are much given up to illusion. Just consider the way in which many people keep saying today: ‘lt is amazing how effective modern communications are and how this brings people together!

I have spoken of this to show that it is entirely possible today for the mass of people to know nothing of radically new developments which are right on their doorstep.

The ahrimanic powers will also thrive if people nurture the elements which they desire to spread among people today: prejudice, ignorance and fear of the life of the spirit. There is no better way of encouraging them.

Just think how many people there are today who actually make it their business to foster prejudice, ignorance and fear of the spiritual powers.

So you see, the people who consider themselves to be the most enlightened today are living with entirely unrealistic ideas.

Since 1879 the situation is like this: people go to school and acquire scientific attitudes and thinking; their philosophy of life is then based on this scientific approach and they believe only the things which can be perceived in the world around us to be real, whilst everything else is purely imaginary. When people think like this, and infinitely many people do so today, Ahriman has the upper hand in the game and the ahrimanic powers are doing well. Who are these ahrimanic powers which have established their fortresses in human minds since 1879? They are certainly not human. They are angels, but they are backward angels, angels who are not following their proper course of evolution and therefore no longer know how to perform their proper function in the spiritual world that is next to our own. If they still knew how to do it, they would not have been cast down in 1879. They now want to perform their function with the aid of human brains. They are one level lower in human brains than they should be. ‘Monistic’ thinking, as it is called today, is not really done by humans. People often speak of the science of economics today, a science in which it was said at the time when the war started that it would be over in four months — I mentioned this again yesterday. When these things are said by scientists — it does not matter so much if people merely repeat them — they are the thoughts of angels who have made themselves at home in human heads. Yes, the human intellect is to be taken over more and more by such powers; they want to use it to bring their own lives to fruition. We cannot stand up to this by putting our heads in the sand like ostriches, but only by consciously entering into the experience. We cannot deal with this by not knowing what monists think, for example, but only by knowing it; we must also know that it is Ahriman science, the science of backward angels who infest human heads, and we must know about the truth and the reality.

It is indeed true, and initiates have always said so: ‘When human beings are filled with spiritual wisdom, these are great horrors of darkness for the ahrimanic powers and a consuming fire. It feels good to the ahrimanic angels to dwell in heads filled with ahrimanic science; but heads filled with spiritual wisdom are like a consuming fire and the horrors of darkness to them.’ If we consider this in all seriousness we can feel: filled with spiritual wisdom we go through the world in a way which allows us to establish the right relationship with the ahrimanic powers; doing the things we do in the light of this, we build a place for the consuming fire of sacrifice for the salvation of the world, the place where the terror of darkness radiates out over the harmful ahrimanic element.

Let those ideas and feelings enter into you! You will then be awake and see the things that go on in the world. ~Rudolf Steiner

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ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1941 – Thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in German-occupied Serbia are murdered in the Kragujevac massacre

1944 – Liquefied natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland & then explodes; the explosion & resulting fire level 30 blocks & kill 130

1947 – The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years

1991 – A 6.8 Mw earthquake strikes the Uttarkashi region of India, killing more than 1,000 people

2011 – Libyan Civil War: National Transitional Council rebel forces capture ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte & kill him shortly thereafter

 ***

 

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Today: call me Janus
I am where
I begin & begin again…
To my left stands She
Who is my great grandmothers song
To my right is She, who will be,
The aroma of my great granddaughters bread...
~hag

***

Autumn: A Guided Meditation

You float…you feel a gentle breeze began to dance you through the air like a leaf in the fall. This is a very comforting feeling, like being carried in your mother’s arms. There is no fear. You spin through the sky, flying over fields & forests…

As the wind gently releases, you slowly begin to sink down toward a wilderness of trees. Gently, Gently…You reach the ground landing on a well-trodden path.

You begin, now, to walk the path heading in a familiar direction. As you walk, you notice the 1st hint of color changing the trees…& the silence, broken only by the gentle breeze…the song of birds & other animals. Ahead of you, the path opens up to a larger area. You arrive at this place, & know that it is a Sacred Place.

It may be a grove, or a shady spot under a large tree. It may be a clearing, or a meadow. It may be a stone-circle, or a temple. However it appears to you, you know this is a Sacred Place, it feels safe & powerful.

Enter this Sacred Place…You may wish to remove your shoes because the ground is holy…You may wish to make an offering, or sing a blessing…As you enter this place, you see the bright figure of a woman ahead of you. She looks very familiar. She calls your name, & asks you to come forward. You are unable to make out her face, as she is engulfed in a brilliant glow. She leans forward; you close your eyes, & embrace. As you stand in the arms of this bright woman, she whispers a truth to you. It is a well-reasoned, logical truth. It may be something you already know, but are unaware of. It may be something which makes wonderful sense to you, & makes your mind open with wonder. It may be a mystical teaching which will require further thought. Whatever it may be, you know you are blessed by this amazing teaching…

Then the bright woman braids a chain of flowers into your hair…you touch your fingers to your head knowing your mind has been forever changed, opened, to all the possibilities of positive thinking that will transform your thoughts into things…

You spin with joy, noticing all at once, that the bright woman has vanished & now, standing before you, is a dark figure, looking strangely familiar. Again, you are unable to make out her face. But you notice she is carrying a bundle over her shoulder. She lays her burden down on the ground at your feet. The dark woman speaks to you, with a voice that resonates in a similar way as the first figure; yet deeper, more mellow & mysterious…She calls you by name, & asks you to come forward. You do so. You close your eyes, & embrace this dark woman…Your embrace is a full of compassion & warmth.

She gently whispers a truth in your ear. It is a truth which you feel is right. The truth touches your heart & frees your soul. You feel like a bird, soaring through the skies, singing a song of joy. When you open your eyes you become aware that the dark woman has vanished, & the bundle she was carrying & left at your feet has transformed into a large piece of rich honey-colored amber. You pick it up & hold it in your hand…the sun calls you to lift the amber up…bring it up into the light…let the sunshine merge with this solid symbol of your vitality…breathe in the pranic life-force emanating from your true purpose made manifest…

Put this treasure in your pocket, as you leave the Sacred Place…forever knowing that the sacred place goes where your intention flows…Knowing that union is possible between the many parts of our beings…walk in confidence… balanced in the light & dark of your most authentic self…walk the path toward the wilderness.

You pass the trees, & notice that the colors of their leaves are becoming more pronounced. You see the squirrels busy collecting nuts, & the birds beginning their southward journey. You pass the point where you began walking on this path.

You begin ascending a large hill. You walk upward…upward…up the hill, until you reach the top. There you find that you can see the surrounding countryside all around you. You have an amazing view of your Sacred Place. As you stand there in the sun, you feel your mind & body as it begins to change. Knowing in every cell of your being that we all sink into the earth like a seed in its season, released into the fertile earth. Feel the last wave of the Summer heat vanish, you are in a warm blanket of earth, waiting, listening, waiting…feeling the loving arms of Mother Earth transforming you…

Put on the colors of autumn, & feel the breezes washing you. A glad gust takes hold of you, & floating in the air, you dance away from the wilderness…away from the Sacred Place…Back to yourself. As the wind loosens its grip…you land, back into yourself, grounded, renewed & ready to walk the talk…Ready to Be…Ready to Begin, the labor of love, called your life…

See you there

xox

 ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Gustav Klimt

an All Souls Festival & A Lecture by Andrei Onegin on occasion of The 100th Anniversary of The October Bolshevik Revolution

Sunday October 29th 2017 – Doors open at 1:30 pm – Program begins promptly at 2 pm

Hallelujah in Eurythmy for Cynthia Trevillion & all our Beloved across the Threshold 

Overcoming Human Instincts with the Help of Spiritual Science by Andrei Onegin

3 pm – break

3:30pm – a Bridging Between Life & Death from Soul to Soul

~ Group Eurythmy with Elena Baba

~ Circle of Remembrance

~ Artistic rendering of the Calendar of the Soul Verse #30

~ Questions to the Universe – A Social Exercise

~ Open Community Conversation – The idea was shared at our 1st ‘Open Conversation’ in Sept. to meet once a month, to share biographies of great Chicagoans & to further our connection the Elderberries Initiative.

Close – 5 pm, Snacks & Social Time

To Add Your Dearly Departed to the list of those to be Remembered, Please contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged – Feel free to bring pictures & memories to share

***

All Souls Festival and Retreat
At the Minnesota Waldorf School in the Twin Cities, MN. 

Week-end Retreat including Festival
Fri, Nov 3 at 7:00 pm to Sunday, Nov 5 at 11:00 am

Cost $75 (registration required, click here)

Journey of the Soul Festival – Saturday, Nov 4 at 7:00 to 9:00 pm -Suggested Donation $10 at the door – All are welcome

Walk the pathway of our beloved across the threshold, being present for them, and preparing for our own journey.

“Life after death
Life before birth
Only by knowing both
Do we know eternity”
~ Rudolf Steiner

Culmination of “The Bridging Project: Between Life and Death from Soul to Sou

Sponsored by: Central Regional Council (CRC) and Twin Cities Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

Questions: Dennis Dietzel dennis.dietzel@gmail.com, Marianne Dietzel mariannemdietzel@gmail.com, Linda Bergh hellolindabergh@gmail.com

 

 

“The Gate is Opened”

Autumn, Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Remembering, Soul to Soul

19 October 2017 – Astro-Weather: Exact at 2:12 p.m. CDT –  New Moon

Dan Matutina

The modest Orionid meteor shower is active for the next few nights in the early-morning hours. The shower’s radiant is near Orion’s Club, low in the east after midnight & high in the south by the beginning of dawn. Bella Luna is exploring the underworld, so the sky will be free of moonlight.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1512 – Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology

1781 – At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis’ sword & formally surrendered to George Washington & the comte de Rochambeau. The Revolutionary War Ends

1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grande Armée of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Ulm. 30,000 prisoners are captured & 10,000 casualties inflicted on the losers

1812 – Napoleon Bonaparte retreats from Moscow

1813 – The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats

1893 – Deathday of Lucy Stone, a prominent American orator, abolitionist, & suffragist, & a vocal advocate & organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women’s rights & against slavery at a time when women were discouraged & prevented from public speaking. Stone was known for using her maiden name after marriage.

Stone’s organizational activities for the cause of women’s rights yielded tangible gains in the difficult political environment of the 19th century. Stone helped initiate the first National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts & she supported & sustained it annually, along with a number of other local, state & regional activist conventions. She assisted in establishing the Woman’s National Loyal League to help pass the Thirteenth Amendment & thereby abolish slavery, after which she helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association AWSA, which built support for a woman suffrage Constitutional amendment by winning woman suffrage at the state & local levels.

In the long-running & influential Woman’s Journal, a weekly periodical that she founded & promoted, Stone aired both her own & differing views about women’s rights. Called “the orator”, the “morning star” & the “heart & soul” of the women’s rights movement, Stone influenced Susan B. Anthony to take up the cause of women’s suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that “Lucy Stone was the first person by whom the heart of the American public was deeply stirred on the woman question.”

1897 – Deathday of George Pullman, an American engineer & industrialist. He designed & manufactured the Pullman sleeping car & founded a enslaving ‘company town’ for the workers who manufactured it.

During an 1894 downturn in manufacturing demand, he lowered wages & required workers to spend longer hours at the plant, but did not lower prices of rents & goods in his company town. He gained presidential support by Grover Cleveland for the use of federal military troops which left 30 strikers dead in the violent suppression of workers there to end the Pullman Strike of 1894. A national commission was appointed to investigate the strike, which included assessment of operations of the company town. In 1898 the Supreme Court of Illinois ordered the Pullman Company to divest itself of the town which became a neighborhood of the city of Chicago

Image result for Founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society in Belin with Rudolf Steiner as the General Secretary

1902 – Founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society in Belin with Rudolf Steiner as the General Secretary

1915 – J.P. Morgan arranges the biggest foreign loan in history – a $500 million war loan to Britain & France – passing global financial control from the UK to the US

1936 – Deathday of Lu Xun, a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. Writing in Vernacular Chinese as well as Classical Chinese, Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist, & poet. After the May Fourth Movement, Lu Xun’s writing began to exert a substantial influence on Chinese literature & popular culture. Though sympathetic to socialist ideas, Lu Xun never joined the Communist Party of China

1937 – Deathday of Ernest Rutherford, a New Zealand physicist & Nobel Prize laureate, who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday

He conducted research that led to the first “splitting” of the atom in 1917 in a nuclear reaction between nitrogen & alpha particles, in which he also discovered & named the proton

1950 – Deathday of Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet & playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, & was also known for her feminist activism. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work

1950 – Iran becomes the first country to accept technical assistance from the United States under the Point Four Program, a technical assistance program for “developing countries” announced by President Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address

1984 – Roman Catholic priest from Poland, Jerzy Popiełuszko, associated with the Solidarity Union, was murdered by three agents of the Polish communist internal intelligence agency

***

MY POD (Poem Of the Day)

~O the beauty & terror of it all…
The crying of the gods & Her children
The red flowers withered in the last golden light…
The names of all the Powers shout out
From the bent blades of yellow grass,
By clouds, by rocks underwater, by the darkness in the mouths
Of caves, by dead boys & teachers slain
Under the chilled asphalt,
& in the swirling sands of eternity…
~hag

***

Rise Up! Life As A Labor Of Love

The call 1st came in as the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America was being introduced on the opening night of the AGM in Phoenix.

The date was Friday October 13th 2017. We were wishing John Bloom, our beloved General Secretary a joyful Happy Birthday.  I remarked that this date was highly charged, since it was also the 710th anniversary of the arrest & torture of the Templars. *  I later came to realize that it was also exactly 100 years ago in 1917, when over 100,000 people in Fátima, Portugal witnessed The “Miracle of the Sun”.  *

All through the dinner reception my phone was ‘blowing up’ with reports. But it was during the Prison Outreach Poetry & Open Mic Art Session that it was confirmed: Cynthia Trevillion, long time teacher at the Chicago Waldorf School, had been killed – shot in the head & neck by a stray bullet.

She was walking with her husband John, also a teacher at CWS, to meet friends for dinner. The Trevillion’s were always hosting AWSNA colleagues coming in from Detroit or elsewhere to do evaluations, since they live around the corner from the Chicago Waldorf School. They were only four blocks from home when they were caught in gang crossfire. Someone in a black SUV opened fire on two young men standing on the street near the CTA’s Morse & Glenwood Red Line station.

Just 30 minutes before Cynthia Trevillion’s death, a 15-year-old boy was also shot a few blocks away.

To announce this news after hearing the poetry from the Anthroposophical Prison Outreach Program, some on death-row for murder, was significant. Together we did the eurythmy Hallelujah, which we continued to offer throughout the conference.

We pondered the hidden karma of this ‘perfect storm’: the ‘auspicious’ date; the connection between these seemingly unrelated individualities; was Cynthia helping these young men in death as she had helped her students in life? Why the head & neck? What could this mean for her next life? And what of her death stars? – The particular cosmic configuration at the time of her passing held the dramatic picture of a pre-dawn alignment of Regulus, the ‘Kingly Star’ at the heart of Leo the Lion, sitting in the upturned chalice of the waning crescent moon; with Venus & Mars on the horizon!

This is the “Grail Moon” which Rudolf Steiner references: “…the name of the Grail is found in the stellar script…in the gold-gleaming sickle of the moon…the dark part of the moon emerges…and there, in occult writing…is to be found the name of Parsifal.“

“…what we see at rest in the golden vessel of the moon is actually the spiritual power of the Sun…it appears to us as the bearer of the Sun-Spirit…within the moon’s vessel in the form of the wafer-like disc.” *

So much to contemplate, as we send Cynthia our love in her journey now in the life between death & a new birth; for this is a big part of the practical work of Anthroposophy, to connect the living with the ‘so-called-dead’ – to Enter the Spiritual World consciously – To take to heart the words we heard on the morning of Friday the 13th from of the Guardian at the Threshold; “The Gate is Opened”.

Back home in Chicago, there have been various memorials at the beach & a local restaurant. The vigil & wake were conducted at the Christian Community Church. The school canceled classes so students, teachers & staff could attend the service. CWS will also host a ‘Celebration of Cynthia’ where we will be sure to have plenty of wholesome food, as Cynthia was a proponent of the Weston A. Price, Wise Traditions Diet. I will miss exploring the alchemy of a good bone-broth, the merits of cultured butter & trading batches of sauerkraut with this dear friend. But I will stay connected with her through my Thresholds work. The Central Regional Council has been working with this theme for the last year in our “Bridging Project: Between Life & Death – From Soul to Soul”.

Through Spiritual Science I am consoled by the thought that a death in the physical world is a birth in the Spiritual World.  Cynthia is strongly held by many communities around the world, as she was at this year’s AGM, giving a deeper dimension to the title: “Rise Up! Life as a Labor of Love”.

View the gallery of photos from the AGM

~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year

Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago and the Central Regional Council of The Anthroposophical Society

  • October 13th 1307 – Hundreds of Templars in France are simultaneously arrested by agents of Phillip the Fair, to be later tortured into a “confession” of heresy. Once freed of the Inquisitors’ torture, many Templars recanted their confessions. Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but in 1310 Philip blocked this attempt, using the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris. With Philip threatening military action unless the pope complied with his wishes, Pope Clement finally agreed to disband the Order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, which officially dissolved the Order. As for the leaders of the Order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his confession & insisted on his innocence. But he was declared guilty of being a relapsed heretic & was sentenced to be burnt at the stake in Paris on 18 March 1314. De Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, calling out from the flames that both Pope Clement & King Philip would soon meet their end. Pope Clement died only a month later, & King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year
  • October 13th 1917 – The “Miracle of the Sun” is witnessed by an estimated 100,000 people in the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal. The people had gathered because the 3 shepherd children, who originally claimed to have seen Our Lady of Fátim, had predicted that at high noon the lady who had appeared to them several times would perform a great miracle. According to many witnesses, after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke & the sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky. It was said to be significantly duller than normal, & to cast multicolored lights across the landscape, the people, & the surrounding clouds. The sun was then reported to have careened towards the earth before zig-zagging back to its normal position. Witnesses reported that their previously wet clothes became “suddenly & completely dry, as well as the wet & muddy ground that had been previously soaked because of the rain that had been falling.” According to reports, a panorama of visions, including those of Jesus, Our Lady of Sorrows, & of Saint Joseph blessed the people. The event lasted approximately ten minutes
  • from: Christ and the Spiritual World, The Search for the Holy Grail By Rudolf Steiner

***

Gustav Klimt

An All Souls Festival & a Lecture by Andrei Onegin on occasion of The 100th Anniversary of The October Bolshevik Revolution

Sunday October 29th 2017 Doors open at 1:30 pm – Program begins promptly at 2 pm

Hallelujah in Eurythmy for Cynthia Trevillion & all our Beloved across the Threshold

Overcoming Human Instincts with the Help of Spiritual Science by Andrei Onegin

3 pm – break

3:30pm – a Bridging Between Life & Death from Soul to Soul

~ Group Eurythmy with Elena Baba

~ Circle of Remembrance

~ Artistic rendering of the Calendar of the Soul Verse #30

~ Questions to the Universe – A Social Exercise

~ Open Community Conversation – The idea was shared at our 1st ‘Open Conversation’ in Sept. to meet once a month to share biographies of great Chicagoans & to further our connection the Elderberries Initiative.

Close – 5 pm, Snacks & Social Time

To Add Your Dearly Departed to the list of those to be Remembered, Please contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged – Feel free to bring pictures & memories to share

***

All Souls Festival and Retreat
At the Minnesota Waldorf School in the Twin Cities, MN. 

Week-end Retreat including Festival
Fri, Nov 3 at 7:00 pm to Sunday, Nov 5 at 11:00 am

Cost $75 (registration required, click here)

Journey of the Soul Festival – Saturday, Nov 4 at 7:00 to 9:00 pm -Suggested Donation $10 at the door – All are welcome

Walk the pathway of our beloved across the threshold, being present for them, and preparing for our own journey.

“Life after death
Life before birth
Only by knowing both
Do we know eternity”
~ Rudolf Steiner

Culmination of “The Bridging Project: Between Life and Death from Soul to Sou

Sponsored by: Central Regional Council (CRC) and Twin Cities Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

Questions: Dennis Dietzel dennis.dietzel@gmail.com, Marianne Dietzel mariannemdietzel@gmail.com, Linda Bergh hellolindabergh@gmail.com

Life as a Labor of Love

Autumn, Chicago Event, Festival, Lecture, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote

11 October 2017 – Astro-Weather: The last-quarter Moon rises around midnight tonight. When La Bella Luna is well up, you’ll see that She’s in Gemini, with Castor & Pollux shining to Her left. Farther to Her right you’ll get an early look at Orion.

Evelyn de Morgan

***

“What is to be the starting force & impulse for events in social & ethical life must come out of the spiritual world.” ~Rudolf Steiner, New Spiritual Impulses in History” Dornach 16 December, 1917

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1138 – A massive earthquake strikes Aleppo, Syria. The third deadliest earthquake in history with over 230,000 killed

1582 – Because of the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain

1634 – The Burchardi flood: killed around 15,000 in North Friesland, Denmark & Germany

1809 – Along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances at an inn called Grinder’s Stand

1890 – The Daughters of the American Revolution is founded

1906 – San Francisco public school board sparks a diplomatic crisis between the United States & Japan by ordering Japanese students to be taught in racially segregated schools

1918 – The Puerto Rico earthquake shakes the island with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing 1116 people

1958 –NASA launches the lunar probe Pioneer 1 which falls back to Earth & burns up

1962 – Second Vatican Council: Pope John XXIII convenes the first ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church in 92 years

1968 –NASA launches Apollo 7, the first successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele & Walter Cunningham aboard

1972 – A race riot occurs on the United States Navy aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk off the coast of Vietnam during Operation Linebacker

1984 – Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a spacewalk

2000 – NASA launches STS-92, the 100th Space Shuttle mission, using Space Shuttle Discovery

***

Sarah Lupe

My POD (Poem Of The Day)

~I travel the back of a snake 
An unbroken seal on the book of myself
Giving my mind the pleasure of creation
My heart thinks 
& love opens the way…

~hag

***

max wolfhugel

“For in the past, festivals used to bind human beings strongly together. Just think, for instance, of all that has been done and said and thought in connection with festivals for the whole of civilisation. In our epoch, Western man’s development has again reached a point where he is confronted with the necessity of bringing forth new forms of the venerable, sacred ideals of religion, art and science. This is what can enter physical life through the establishment of festivals directly out of the spirit –to do something that connects the earth with the heavens, that reconnects physical with spiritual conditions.

If to-day one could see the working of the whole universe when autumn approaches, if one could decipher the whole face of the universe, and acquire creative force out of it, then the establishment of such a festival would reveal, not only the will of human beings, but also the will of Gods and Spirits. Then the Spirit would again be among mankind!”

~Rudolf Steiner – Michaelmas VII: The Creation of A Michael Festival Out Of The Spirit

For this we strive & for this we have served –

Blessings & thanks to all who made our Cosmic Michaelmas Brilliant!

And NOW I’m off to:

Rise Up! Life as a Labor of Love – Anthroposophical Society in America
Annual General Meeting and Conference – Fri, Oct 13 at 1:00 pm to Sunday, Oct 15 at 1:00 pm at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ

Wednesday and Thursday ‘How We Will Rise Up! Youth and Youthful Gathering’ at Desert Marigold. Email for more information. 

Also: at the Heard Museum Friday morning, October 13, from 9:30-11:30 am for members of the School for Spiritual Science. Bring your blue cards!

Please register online through www.anthroposophy.org!

***

Sunday October 29, 2017, doors open at 1:30 pm – Program begins promptly at 2 pm

A Lecture by Andrei Onegin & an All Souls Festival: on occasion of The 100th Anniversary of the October Bolshevik Revolution

The Threefold Social Organism: Overcoming Human Instincts with the Help of Spiritual Science Presentation by Andrei Onegin

3 pm – break

Gustav Klimt

3:30pm – a Bridging Between Life & Death from Soul to Soul

~ Group Eurythmy with Elena Baba

~ Circle of Remembrance

~ Artistic rendering of the Calendar of the Soul Verse #30

~ Questions to the Universe – A Social Exercise

~ Open Community Conversation –

Close – 5 pm, Snacks & Social Time 

To Add Your Dearly Departed to the list of those to be Remembered, Please contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged – Feel free to bring pictures & memories to share

***

All Souls Festival and Retreat
At the Minnesota Waldorf School in the Twin Cities, MN. 

Week-end Retreat including Festival
Fri, Nov 3 at 7:00 pm to Sunday, Nov 5 at 11:00 am

Cost $75 (registration required, click here)

Journey of the Soul Festival – Saturday, Nov 4 at 7:00 to 9:00 pm -Suggested Donation $10 at the door – All are welcome

Walk the pathway of our beloved across the threshold, being present for them, and preparing for our own journey.

“Life after death
Life before birth
Only by knowing both
Do we know eternity”
~ Rudolf Steiner

Culmination of “The Bridging Project: Between Life and Death from Soul to Sou

Sponsored by: Central Regional Council (CRC) and Twin Cities Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

Questions: Dennis Dietzel dennis.dietzel@gmail.com, Marianne Dietzel mariannemdietzel@gmail.com, Linda Bergh hellolindabergh@gmail.com

Remembering Friedrich Rittelmeyer

Quote, Remembering

5 October 1872 – the Birthday of Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a Protestant German minister, & theologian; friend of Rudolf Steiner; co-founder & driving force of The Christian Community.

Growing up in Frankish Schweinfurt – his father was a Lutheran minister – it was already clear to him as a child that he wanted to go into a religious profession. From 1890 Rittelmeyer studied philosophy & Protestant theology. His teacher Oswald Külpe, encouraged him to write his dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche.

He also went on a study trip to meet theologians & socially-engaged ministers of the time, as well as members of the Moravian Church. From 1895 to 1902 he was at the Stadtvikar in Würzburg. In 1903 he took up the preachership of Heilig-Geist-Kirche in Nuremberg. There he married Julie Kerler on 5 April 1904. Rittelmeyer worked & closely collaborated with Christian Geyer, the head preacher of the Sebalduskirche, together they produced two joint volumes of sermons. Around 1910 they both led discussions with the Bavarian church council on a liberal interpretation of the Bible.

Also inn 1910 the Nuremberg school teacher Michael Bauer enabled Rittelmeyer to have his first encounter with Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. Rittelmeyer described the encounter & discussed Steiner’s personality & work in his book ‘Rudolf Steiner Enters my Life’.

In 1916 Rittelmeyer was sent to the Neue Kirche in Berlin, working as preacher there. He  opposed the First World War, & with 4 other Berlin theologians signed a proclamation of peace & understanding on the occasion of Reformation Day (October 1917).

In September 1922 he established the “Movement for Religious Revival” (Christengemeinschaft) Rittelmeyer acted as its first “Erzoberlenker” or Head Priest, & from its base in Stuttgart was the leading envoy right up to his death.

 

***

The Birth of The Christian Community by Patrick Kennedy

In September of 1922, a group of 45 courageous, devoted and enthusiastic men and women were gathered together in Dornach, Switzerland. There, with the help of Rudolf Steiner, the inaugurator of modern spiritual science or Anthroposophy, the events took place which led to the founding of what we have come to know as The Christian Community.

For a year and a half they had been meeting, planning and seeking for a way to renew the religious life. It was poignantly felt that one could not authentically pray and experience the Spirit in the traditional forms anymore. Many of them had been through the trench-warfare and destruction of the First World War and come home to a spiritual life that was bankrupt in the face of such horrors.

Emil Bock

Although the vast majority of them were under 30 (Emil Bock was 28, Rudolf Frieling was 21) all of them, young and old, had come to recognize the spiritual giant who could lead them to the wellspring and source of religious renewal: Rudolf Steiner.

Alfred Heidenreich, who pioneered the work of The Christian Community in England, North America and South Africa, tried to express what Rudolf Steiner meant to the movement in his moving and personal book on the events surrounding the founding entitled Growing Point:

“The significance of Rudolf Steiner for Christianity is not confined to the foundation of The Christian Community. He was himself, simply as a being, an event in the history of Christianity. In the memorial article which Dr. Friedrich Rittelmeyer [first leader of the movement and one of the most well known Lutheran ministers in his day] wrote after Rudolf Steiner’s passing…:

Rudolf Steiner

“In earlier ages, the fact alone that such an all-embracing genius gave witness to Christ as being the greatest reality in earthly history, would have had a profound effect. But in Rudolf Steiner much more was present. One could put it like this: he comprehended all branches of learning so spiritually and so deeply, and he recognized Christ in such big and broad dimensions that eventually Christ shines forth as the true light in all spheres of life. He observed strictly the necessity for each sphere to form its own method according to its intrinsic laws. He never carried religion into anything from without. But he illuminated all realms of knowledge with such powerful light, that Christ became visible in it. A Christ, it is true, far greater than the Christ of the Churches; but a Christ related to the Bible and to the Christ of the early Christians.”

“Thus, he advanced the science of language to the point where it could understand why Christ is called ‘the Word’. Thus, he carried medicine to the point where medicine could understand again ‘the body of Christ’. Thus, he carried astronomy to the point where Christ became visible as the true ‘Light’…he taught how science could again become reverent and devout. He built a temple for all sciences, so high and so broad, that their servants could work in it without sacrificing an iota of their personal freedom or of the special characteristics of their province.  He united the learning of the age with Christ, and Christ with the learning of the age.”

Alfred Heidenreich wrote, “Rittlemeyer’s description opens up a vista for the future. The condition of the Middle Ages when Church and civilization were identical is not likely to be repeated. If it were, it would be a relapse into a past phase of evolution. We must move towards a future where Christianity and civilization become identical; where the very methods of scientific research will be Christian, and where it will be felt that what is not Christian is not scientific.

In this civilization, the ‘Church’ will have its special place. Like the mother whose children have grown up and become independent, the Christian Church of the future will be able to concentrate on its particular task. It will practice the personal meeting with Christ as a Being.”

Alfred Heidenreich

Heidenreich reveals the most important aspect of this founding in this last sentence. It was not a startling new teaching or religious philosophy that was formulated. If that were the case, our movement would long have faded away. No, at the beginning of a new Christian priesthood and sacramental stream stands an event: on September 16th, 1922, the first Act of Consecration of Man was celebrated by Friedrich Rittlemeyer, and in that moment the movement was granted the grace to work in Christ.  “…The event was astounding. But the reality was as plain as a sunrise. You do not dispute the sun. You bow to its rays” ~Heidenreich  This experience became the bedrock of the founders’ ability to proclaim Christ, for they had experienced him. It was not an abstract theology but an experience of the divine in the ritual that became the foundation for their and all future work in The Christian Community.

***

What is the Christian Community?

The Christian Community (German: Die Christengemeinschaft) is a Christian denomination founded in 1922 in Switzerland by a group of mainly Lutheran theologians & ministers led by Friedrich Rittelmeyer, inspired by Rudolf Steiner, the Austrian philosopher & founder of anthroposophy. Christian Community congregations exist as financially independent groups with regional & international administrative bodies overseeing their work. There are approximately 350 worldwide. The international headquarters are in Berlin, Germany.

The Christian Community is led by the “circle of priests,” with leaders known as coordinators appointed within the circle. A first coordinator (Erzoberlenker) is consulted by two second coordinators (Oberlenkers). There are also third coordinators (Lenkers) on the regional level & a synod of priests. There is no additional ordination for the leadership. The priesthood of the Christian Community has always been open to women.

The Christian Community does not require its members to conform to any specific teaching or behavior.  Seven sacraments are celebrated within the Community: the Eucharist, generally called the Act of Consecration of Man, & six other sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, The Last Anointing, Sacramental Consultation (replacing Confession), &Ordination. There is also a special Sunday service for children of school age.

Rituals & sacraments are the same wherever they are celebrated. Services are generally celebrated in the language of the country in which they celebrated. The Act of Consecration of Man lasts approximately one hour. Sunday services are longer than weekday services because they contain a sermon in addition to Holy Communion. For the sacramental wine used in communion non-fermented grape juice is used rather than alcoholic wine. Three Christmas services are celebrated, one on December 24 (at midnight) & two on December 25. There are also added prayers for different liturgical seasons of the year.

Some chapels have an organ, & occasionally the organ has quarter tones in addition to the conventional (equal temperament) tuning.

The Christian Community practices a complete freedom of teaching. The Priests may exert this freedom of teaching, provided that they do not contradict the sacraments which they celebrate. There is no official theology, nor articles of belief. Whatever is taught or written is a personal view.

Basic tenets of some priests of the Christian Community are 1) free will, 2) reincarnation & 3) focus on Christ. For example, Jesus of Nazareth is seen as a physical vessel that enabled the spiritual being called Christ to influence the world.

The ideology of some priests of the Christian Community could be summarized with the following points:

The modern human being requires a renewed religious movement

The Soul is immortal via re-incarnation

Jesus & Christ are separate entities, focus is on The Christ

Christ is both, external & internal reality (Christ is not only ‘out there’ but at the same time ‘in here’) “Christ in me”

The New Testament has priority over other documents in Christianity

No missionary work or public marketing is done because finding this religion is based on free will.

~ compiled by hag

We are twilight & dawn

Autumn, Central Regional Council, Insight, Meditation, Quote, Remembering

4 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: Venus & Mars are in conjunction in early dawn tomorrow, forming a tight pair. Look low in the east to distinguish the dazzle of Venus from the dimmer lights of Mars & nearby Sigma Leonis.

The night sky’s most conspicuous harbinger of winter now rises in the east around midnight. The constellation Orion the Hunter appears on its side as it rises, with ruddy Betelgeuse to the left of the three-star belt & blue-white Rigel to the belt’s right. As Orion climbs high in the south before dawn, the figure rotates so that Betelgeuse lies at the upper left & Rigel at the lower right of the constellation pattern.

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“To truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world.” Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

Feast Day of Crispus & Gaius, Martyrs baptized by St. Paul at Corinth, Greece. Crispin headed the local Jewish synagogue. Gaius served as St. Paul’s host & was praised by St. John. Before being martyred, Crispin served as the bishop of the Aegean Islands, & Gaius served as bishop of Thessalonica, Greece.

1 Corinthians 1:14 – I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius

Acts 10:48 – So he ordered that Crispus and Gaius be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay for a few days.

Acts 18:8 – Crispus, the synagogue leader, and his whole household believed in the Lord. And many of the Corinthians who heard the message believed and were baptized.

Romans 16:23 – Gaius, who has hosted me and all the church, sends you greetings. Erastus, the city treasurer, sends you greetings, as does our brother Quartus.

3 John 1:1 – The elder, To the beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth

Lucas Cranach the Younger

1515 Birthday of Lucas Cranach the Younger, He is known for portraits & mythical scenes

1582 – Deathday of Saint Teresa of Ávila, a prominent Spanish mystic, saint, Carmelite nun, theologian of contemplative life through mental prayer & author during the Counter Reformation.

Her books, which include her autobiography (The Life of Teresa of Jesus) & her seminal work El Castillo Interior (The Interior Castle), are an integral part of Spanish Renaissance literature as well as Christian mysticism & Christian meditation practices. She also wrote Camino de Perfección (The Way of Perfection).

Teresa of Avila was born in 1515. Her paternal grandfather, was a marrano (Jewish convert to Christianity) & was condemned by the Spanish Inquisition for allegedly returning to the Jewish faith. Her father, bought a knighthood & successfully assimilated into Christian society. Teresa’s mother, was especially keen to raise her daughter as a pious Christian. Teresa was fascinated by accounts of the lives of the saints, & ran away from home at age seven with her brother Rodrigo to find martyrdom among the Moors.

When Teresa was 14 her mother died; this resulted in Teresa becoming grief-stricken. This prompted her to embrace a deeper devotion to the Virgin Mary as her spiritual mother. Along with this good resolution, however, she also developed immoderate interests in reading popular fiction (consisting, at that time, mostly of medieval tales of knighthood) & caring for her own appearance. Teresa was sent for her education to the Augustinian nuns at Ávila.

In the monastery she suffered greatly from illness. Early in her sickness, she experienced periods of religious ecstasy through the use of the devotional book the Third Spiritual Alphabet. This work, consisted of directions for examinations of conscience & for spiritual self-concentration (known in mystical nomenclature as oratio recollectionis). She also employed other mystical ascetic works.

She claimed that during her illness she rose from the lowest stage, “recollection”, to the “devotions of silence” or even to the “devotions of ecstasy”, which was one of perfect union with God. During this final stage, she said she frequently experienced a rich “blessing of tears.”

The kernel of Teresa’s mystical thought throughout all her writings is the ascent of the soul in four stages (The Autobiography Chs. 10-22):

The 1st Devotion of Heart, is mental prayer of devout concentration or contemplation. It is the withdrawal of the soul from without & especially the devout observance of the passion of Christ & penitence

The 2nd Devotion of Peace, is where human will is surrendered to God. This is by virtue of a charismatic, supernatural state given by God, while the other faculties, such as memory, reason, & imagination, are not yet secure from worldly distraction. While a partial distraction is due to outer performances such as repetition of prayers & writing down spiritual things, yet the prevailing state is one of quietude

The 3rd Devotion of Union, is absorption in God. It is not only a supernatural but an essentially ecstatic state. Here there is also an absorption of the reason in God, & only the memory & imagination are left to roam. This state is characterized by a blissful peace, a sweet slumber of at least the higher soul faculties, or a conscious rapture in the love of God

The 4th Devotion of Ecstasy, is where the consciousness of being in the body disappears. Sense activity ceases; memory & imagination are also absorbed in God or intoxicated. Body & spirit are in the throes of a sweet, happy pain, alternating between a fearful fiery glow, a complete impotence & unconsciousness, & a spell of strangulation, sometimes by such an ecstatic flight that the body is literally lifted into space. This after half an hour is followed by a reactionary relaxation of a few hours in a swoon-like weakness, attended by a negation of all the faculties in the union with God. The subject awakens from this in tears; it is the climax of mystical experience, producing a trance. Indeed, she was said to have been observed levitating during Mass on more than one occasion.

Teresa is one of the foremost writers on mental prayer, & her position among writers on mystical theology is unique. In all her writings on this subject she deals with her personal experiences. Her deep insight & analytical gifts helped her to explain them clearly. Her definition was used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “Contemplative prayer in my opinion is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us.” She used a metaphor of mystic prayer as watering a garden throughout her writings.

Around 1556, various friends suggested that her newfound knowledge was diabolical, not divine. She began to inflict various tortures & mortifications of the flesh upon herself. But her confessor, the Jesuit Saint Francis Borgia, reassured her of the divine inspiration of her thoughts. On St. Peter’s Day in 1559, Teresa became firmly convinced that Jesus Christ presented himself to her in bodily form, though invisible. These visions lasted almost uninterrupted for more than two years. In another vision, a seraph drove the fiery point of a golden lance repeatedly through her heart, causing an ineffable spiritual-bodily pain.

I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it…

This vision was the inspiration for one of Bernini’s most famous works, the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa at Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.

The memory of this episode served as an inspiration throughout the rest of her life, & motivated her lifelong imitation of the life & suffering of Jesus, epitomized in the motto usually associated with her: Lord, either let me suffer or let me die.

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
~Teresa of Ávila

1582 – Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, & Spain, October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15

1669 – Deathday of Rembrandt

1927 – Gutzon Borglum begins sculpting Mount Rushmore

1957 – Space Race: Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth

1960 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 375, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, crashes after a bird strike on takeoff from Boston’s Logan International Airport, killing 62 people (out of 72 onboard).

1963 – Hurricane Flora kills 6,000 in Cuba & Haiti

1970 – Deathday of Janis Joplin

1992 – El Al Flight 1862: An El Al Boeing 747-258F crashes into two apartment buildings in Amsterdam, killing 43 including 39 on the ground

2001 – Siberia Airlines Flight 1812: A Sibir Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian S-200 missile. Seventy-eight people are killed

2004 – SpaceShipOne wins Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight, by being the first private craft to fly into space

2006 – Wikileaks is launched by Julian Assange

2010 – The Ajka plant accident in western Hungary releases 35 million cubic feet of liquid alumina sludge. Nine people are killed & 122 injured, & the Marcal & Danube rivers are severely contaminated

***

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~We are beastly
Forms made beautiful in the growing moonlight
Beheld by the Goddess –
Healed by Her many eyes – Held up
By the air streaming from Her full lips – Together
We are twilight & dawn –
I am the left eye – She is the right…
Beneath the old man’s eyebrows we make a fine sight...
~hag

***

Meditation as antidote to the madness

Clear your mind of what fills it now & hear my words…Make yourself comfortable, as we share the air…taking a deep breath…filling your belly…Thrilling your lungs…Let your body sink deep & Relax…set the rhythm with your breath…/& as your awareness is internalized, fully connected with the Breath of Life, gently moving through you…Make all your senses alert to this life force…Enjoy its power & perfect simplicity…feel the sustaining energy behind every molecule of oxygen in every breath… Feel the life force coursing through your cells & thoughts…& when you are ready, become a channel open to the abundant potency pouring into this planet from the Heart of the Sun that we all share…feel the honey-gold radiance of the sun infusing your will with the power to manifest love…Reach out with your heart-self & let your thoughts attract & connect with the radiant-golden healing energy of our Day Star, as its power merges with your ripening heart…

Feeling balanced in this loving energy, let your feet sprout thick strong roots that pull this pure illuminated Love deep into the core of this planet, infusing all life with the brilliance of connective intelligence, healing all hate…oxidizing all dis-ease in the root rays of the solar power harmonizing with our planet made sacred…/

Remember that you are unique in the light that fuels your gifts…& when we all add our divine sparks together, we fuel the fires of transformation to create positive change…/as we find ourselves intertwined in this circle of life, forming the wholeness in the sun-heart beating in rhythm with the pulse of our Mother Earth…we know we are all beacons of this vivid starburst of evolution…Look around this amazing world, with your minds eye, & see the fields, ripe with the end of summer’s abundance…

Find yourself in the center of this abundance holding a large willow basket, eager to begin your autumn harvest…Step first into an expanse of sweet corn…See the tall, regal, green stalks…

Observe a ripe golden ear which seems to be reaching out to you…Under its wispy silk, kernels sparkle like precious gold shining through…Let it remind you of your own riches, both tangible & intangible…Reach out and pick this ear of corn and put it into your basket…/

Leave the corn field, & enter an apple orchard…See the beauty of these trees…these majestic symbols of the Great Goddess Herself…Feel the fullness of her boughs…the ripeness of her ruby red apples, the fruit of knowledge…Reach up, way up, & pick two…Put one in your basket & eat the other…Taste & enjoy this perfect fruit…For in this gracious garden, tasting the fruit of knowledge is never forbidden…

Now move toward an onion field, which beckons to you…Once green, now browning spikes, point up to you, tempting you to dig below…Pull gently & the ground gives birth to an iridescent, opal bulb, full of body & character & strength…A vegetable with the power to make you feel the beauty of your tears of joy…Add this to your growing harvest…/

Notice ahead thick bushes of ripened raspberries, Sharp brambles protecting their precious, succulent garnets…The juicy nectar of these berries reminds you of your own sensuality, your own ability to feel, express, extend all that is sweet & loving & honest to others…Take your time here, & pick plenty of these supple jewels for your basket…/

Step away now & look around you, Find a patch of fruit or vegetables that appeals to you…Enter it, admire its offerings, select a precious jewel of your own to harvest…Choose a resource that will sustain you in the upcoming time of cold & darkness…glean some warmth & light & savor its presence…/

With your arms now laden with this basket of bountiful treasures, it is time to rest…Take your harvest to a clover covered knoll in the still warm sun, just beyond, to sit & bask in the glory of its healing heat…Rest in contentment knowing you have gathered in all that you need, to give you strength & balance, peace & nourishment in the winter days to come… /

Put yourself back in the sky now…Become the sun once again…Shine down upon yourself & your hardy harvest…Absorb the energy of the fruits of your labors, bless the seeds you planted in the Spring & nurtured to fruition through the summer…

Be the sun…Shine down upon all that is good & giving…spread the light of hope & peace, love & understanding, to all you shine upon…/Everything you have touched with your luminous rays is vibrating in harmony, in the eternal truth of our authentic selves…/& as we begin to integrate & Cultivate these blessings received…opening to the vision of our Divine-self, in the wholeness of our heart soul, we can Resolve to act on our own unique life-purpose & make it ever more real…ever more whole…/

Gradually bring your experience to the present once again, to the here and now…Feel your body refreshed & renewed, here & now, in your room, in your sacred space…know you are sacred…know you are here for a reason…

& Gently, joyfully, when you are ready, open your senses…to see the unity of your community… know in your heart of hearts that the journey we have taken together, wheather near or far in the flesh, is full of effulgent effective power which we manifest within ourselves & for the planet, a healing harvest of love’s light…remember to  give peace a dance everyday as we live our lives, in balance & joy…blessed be…

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

***

Two Anthroposophical Events to which you are warmly invited!

The Central Regional Council invites all members in the central region to consider participating in the ASA’s Annual General Meeting and conference in October. The focus of the year’s event is on taking action, and working inwardly and outwardly to help humanity evolve. The work we have undergone in the central region has often been developed toward this aim of taking action and responding to the world in a meaningful way.

Rise Up! Life as a Labor of Love – Anthroposophical Society in America
Annual General Meeting and Conference – Fri, Oct 13 at 1:00 pm to Sunday, Oct 15 at 1:00 pm at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ

Wednesday and Thursday ‘How We Will Rise Up! Youth and Youthful Gathering’ at Desert Marigold. Email for more information. 

Also: at the Heard Museum Friday morning, October 13, from 9:30-11:30 am for members of the School for Spiritual Science. Bring your blue cards!

Please register online through www.anthroposophy.org!

***

All Souls Festival and Retreat
At the Minnesota Waldorf School in the Twin Cities, MN. 

Week-end Retreat including Festival
Fri, Nov 3 at 7:00 pm to Sunday, Nov 5 at 11:00 am

Cost $75 (registration required, click here)

Journey of the Soul Festival – Saturday, Nov 4 at 7:00 to 9:00 pm -Suggested Donation $10 at the door – All are welcome

Walk the pathway of our beloved across the threshold, being present for them, and preparing for our own journey.

“Life after death
Life before birth
Only by knowing both
Do we know eternity”
~ Rudolf Steiner

Culmination of “The Bridging Project: Between Life and Death from Soul to Sou

Sponsored by: Central Regional Council (CRC) and Twin Cities Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

Questions: Dennis Dietzel dennis.dietzel@gmail.com, Marianne Dietzel mariannemdietzel@gmail.com, Linda Bergh hellolindabergh@gmail.com