Lift the broom to conquer entropy

September 27, 2016Autumn, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

27 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: This is the time of year when, during the evening, the dim Little Dipper “pours milk” into the bowl of the Big Dipper

As dawn brightens Wednesday morning the 28th, spot the thin crescent Moon Regulus with Mercury below it

***

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think” ~ Martin Luther King

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1066 – William the Conqueror begins the Norman conquest of England

1322- Consecration of Cologne Cathedral

1722 – Birthday of Samuel Adams, statesman, political philosopher, & one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a politician in colonial Massachusetts, Adams was a leader of the American Revolution, & was one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States. He was a second cousin to President John Adams

1822 – Jean-François Champollion announces that he has deciphered the Rosetta Stone

1825 – The world’s first public railway to use steam locomotives, the Stockton & Darlington Railway, is ceremonially opened

1854 – The steamship SS Arctic sinks with 300 people on board. This marks the first great disaster in the Atlantic Ocean

1875 – The merchant sailing ship Ellen Southard is wrecked in a storm at Liverpool. 400 die

1896 Birthday of Sigismund Von Gleich, German Anthroposopher. While serving in the army he became ill with lung disease, & during convalescence was given a book by Rudolf Steiner. He was soon immersed in Steiner’s philosophy, & became one of the most prolific lecturers & writers in the early years of the anthroposophical movement. He fled Nazi Germany in 1936, after publishing The Transformation of Evil, And the Subterranean Spheres of the Earth

1905 – The physics journal Annalen der Physik received Albert Einstein’s paper, “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?“, introducing the equation E=mc²

1908 – The first production of the Ford Model T automobile was built at the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant in Detroit, Michigan

1917 – Deathday of Edgar Degas, French painter & sculptor

1940 – World War II: The Tripartite Pact is signed in Berlin by Germany, Japan & Italy

1959 – Typhoon Vera kills nearly 5,000 people in Japan

1962 – Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring is published, inspiring an environmental movement & the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

1993 – The Sukhumi massacre takes place in Abkhazia, violent ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by the separatists perpetrated against Georgian civilians by militia forces, North Caucasian & Russian allies. 50,000 were killed

1996 – The Julie N- a tanker ship, spills thousands of gallons of oil after crashing into the Million Dollar Bridge in Portland, Maine

1998 – Birthday of Google

***

MY POD (Poem Of The Day)

~Today I am…

A goatherd
In lions clothing…

An oracle
Whiffing the mists of Delphi

From the void…

A kernel cracking…

Feeling Platonic

in my Eros…

Polishing the Foundation Stone

With diamond dust…

‎Today I am…

lifting the broom

to conquer entropy…

~hag

***

So my dear friends, when the flowers fade in the autumn, we can choose not to turn away in antipathy from the decay, instead we can enter into right relationship by warming our mind with a loving heart, & with a sense of wonder, stimulate our soul’s imaginative power; knowing that we can succeeded thru our Heart-Thinking in contributing to the progress of spirit in the world, by enabling, thru our awaken consciousness, the elemental beings to slip out of their blossoms when they wither & become seed. We can lead the elemental beings up into the spirit for which it yearns, when we can permeate ourselves with the powerful strength of Michael.

Infusing thought with cosmic intelligence with you

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Michaelmas Festival: 7pm –9pm Friday 30 September, 2016

Optional Community Potluck Dinner 5pm – 6:45pm at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Heart-Thinking: Michael Beckoning

7pm – The Midwest Eurythmy Group will perform the Michaelmas Verse from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul

Activating Our ‘Gemut’: The mind warmed by a loving heart & stimulated by the soul’s imaginative power – Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Copper Rod Eurythmy: ALL

If I’m to be a valiant knight, Then there’s a battle I must fight , And I must choose right from the start, Not strength of arm But strength of heart, My sword shall of good steel be made, And love the keenness of the blade

Grimm’s Tale “The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs” by Laura Donkel

Verse for the Michaelic Age: ALL

We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what approaches us from the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future.

We must look forward with absolute equanimity to whatever may come. And we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a cosmic guidance full of wisdom.

It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live without any security in material existence and to live with pure trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world.

Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us. For this let us seek awakening to the reality of the spirit from within ourselves, every morning and every evening. ~Rudolf Steiner

Piano & Voice – Kristen Wray & David Wray performing Nacht und Träume + Ganymed – By Franz Schubert. Kristen Wray is a fiber and metal weaving artist, an energy healing practitioner, as well as a classically trained singer. David Wray is a classics professor at the University of Chicago specializing in ancient Roman poetry. Kristen and David regularly perform together in music student recitals on the university campus.

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. Contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

Fiery Prince of World Thoughts

September 26, 2016Autumn, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

26 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: Although autumn began a week ago & the stars of winter’s Orion now rule the morning sky, the Summer Triangle remains prominent on early October evenings. Look high in the west after darkness falls for the brilliant star Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp, the brightest member of the Triangle. The second-brightest star, Altair in Aquila the Eagle, lies southeast of Vega. The asterism’s dimmest member, Deneb in Cygnus the Swan, stands east-northeast of Vega

Jupiter passes behind the Sun from our perspective, a configuration astronomers call conjunction, at 2 am CDT. Needless to say, our star’s glare makes it impossible to see the planet. Jupiter will return to view in the morning sky in about two weeks.

Arcturus shines in the west these evenings as twilight fades out. Equally-bright Capella is rising in the north-northeast.

Watch for Moon, Regulus, & Mercury at dawn, Sept. 27-29, 2016

As dawn brightens in the east, the crescent Moon wanes & steps lower past Regulus & Mercury on successive mornings

***

‘We must not be mere visitor’s on the Earth, but transform the Earth, spiritualise everything material; we must work the spirit into the Earth. Everything that we do to the Earth we do to the Godhead — no matter what we accomplish. Everything is part of one great chain. We are the messengers of the Godhead, and the Earth must one day pass into a Golden Age, must become a Paradise. In free, creative activity men must transform the Earth.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, from his lectures on the Gospel of Saint John

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast day of Saints Cosmas & Damian twin brothers, physicians, & early Christian martyrs. They practiced their profession in the seaport of Aegeae, then in the Roman province of Syria

46 BC – Julius Caesar dedicates a temple to his mythical ancestor Venus Genetrix in accordance with a vow he made at the battle of Pharsalus

340 – Birthday of Justina, who converted the magician Cyprian, (she was the model for the character Gretchen in Goethe’s Faust)

1687 – The Parthenon in Athens is partially destroyed by an explosion caused by the bombing from Venetian forces led by Morosini who are besieging the Ottoman Turks stationed in Athens

1687 – The city council of Amsterdam votes to support William of Orange’s invasion of England, which became the Glorious Revolution

1774 – Birthday of John Chapman called Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer gardener who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, & West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, & the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for The New Church (Swedenborgian)& the inspiration for many museums & historical sites

1777 – American Revolution: British troops occupy Philadelphia

1789 – Thomas Jefferson is appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay is appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States, Samuel Osgood is appointed the first United States Postmaster General, & Edmund Randolph is appointed the first United States Attorney General

1868 – Deathday of August Ferdinand Möbius, German mathematician & astronomer

1870 – Christian X of Denmark, the King of Denmark & the only king of Iceland.

During the German Occupation of Denmark he did become a popular symbol of resistance to German occupation, particularly because of the symbolic value of the fact that he rode every day through the streets of Copenhagen unaccompanied by guards. He threatened to don the Star of David if this was forced upon Danish Jews.

When you look at the inhumane treatment of Jews, not only in Germany but occupied countries as well, you start worrying that such a demand might also be put on us, but we must clearly refuse such this due to their protection under the Danish constitution. I stated that I could not meet such a demand towards Danish citizens. If such a demand is made, we would best meet it by all wearing the Star of David.

In addition, he helped finance the transport of Danish Jews to unoccupied Sweden, where they would be safe from Nazi persecution.

1888 – Birthday of T. S. Eliot, English poet, playwright, critic, Nobel Prize laureate

1889 – Birthday of Martin Heidegger, German philosopher & academic. “…widely acknowledged to be one of the most original and important philosophers of the 20th century.” Heidegger is best known for his contributions to Phenomenology & Existentialism. His best known book, Being and Time (1927), though unfinished, is one of the central philosophical works of the 20th century

1898 – Birthday of George Gershwin

self

1914 – Deathday (Killed in action) August Macke, painter, one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Macke integrated into his painting the elements of the avant-garde. Macke’s career was cut short by his early death at the front in Champagne in September 1914, the second month of World War I

1914 – The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act

1918 – World War I: The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the bloodiest single battle in American history, begins

1920 – Opening of the 1^st Esoteric High School Course at the Goetheanum, Dornach by Rudolf Steiner

1934 – Steamship RMS Queen Mary is launched

1950 – United Nations troops recapture Seoul from North Korean forces

1954 – Japanese rail ferry Tōya Maru sinks during a typhoon in the Tsugaru Strait, Japan, killing 1,172.

1959 – Typhoon Vera, the strongest typhoon to hit Japan in recorded history, makes landfall, killing 4,580 people & leaving nearly 1.6 million others homeless

1960 – In Chicago, the first televised debate takes place between presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon & John F. Kennedy.

1969 – Abbey Road, the last recorded album by The Beatles, is released.

1973 – Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time.

1980 – At the Oktoberfest terror attack in Munich 13 people die & 211 are injured

1997 – A Garuda Indonesia Airbus A300 crashes near Medan, Indonesia, airport, killing 234.

1997 – An earthquake strikes the Italian regions of Umbria & the Marche, causing part of the Basilica of St. Francis at Assisi to collapse

2000 – Anti-globalization protests in Prague (some 20,000 protesters) turn violent during the IMF & World Bank summits.

2000 – The MS Express Samina sinks off Paros in the Aegean Sea killing 80 passengers

2002 – An overcrowded Senegalese ferry, MV Le Joola, capsizes off the coast of the Gambia killing more than 1,000

2009 – Typhoon Ketsana hits the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos & Thailand, causing 700 fatalities

2014 – A mass kidnapping & murder occurs in Iguala, Mexico, 120 miles south of Mexico City, 43 student teachers were rounded up after a day of protests, then marched into the hills & massacred by local police, who prosecutors say control the city & its officials

***

The Hollow Men

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

~ T. S. Eliot

***

Rudolf Steiner tells us that: “Michael awakens a spiritual fire, in such a way, that the human soul is able to experience inspiration, not thru a mystic twilight, but from a thought-illuminated clarity of soul. Thoughts which strive to grasp the spiritual in our time must proceed from hearts that beat for Michael, as the fiery Prince of World Thoughts.”

In these words lives the essence of our modern initiation. If spiritual science is allowed to live in us and extend its transforming influence to our heart-space, what enters us as thoughts, is then changed into the substance of light, into the purest light of thought. And in the living enthusiasm of the heart, this light of thought then rays out from our hearts into the macrocosm, as light of the redeemed intelligence of Michael; as enlivened human thought, which can be re-united with the world-thoughts of the gods.

Heart-Thinking is the essence of Michaelmas, as the festival of Enlightenment; where we can learn to experience an unfolding of our inner initiative & a free, strong, courageous will, opposing our love of ease. It’s easy to want to get cozy on the couch, to snuggle up with the dragon, flipping thru the channels, fighting over the remote…We can win this battle, when we change our thinking, which will in turn change our actions.

As my friend Mary Louise would say: ONWARD

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

the Ripening of the human being

September 25, 2016Autumn, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

25 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: About a half hour after sunset time, look for Venus very low in the west-southwest through the twilight. It’s on its way to a grand apparition as the “Evening Star” high in the southwest this winter.

Titian

Saturn remains a gorgeous sight in the evening sky all week. It stands high in the southwest as twilight fades to darkness & doesn’t set until after 10 pm CDT. The ringed world resides among the background stars of southwestern Ophiuchus, north of Antares, the brightest star in neighboring Scorpius. The yellow-hued planet appears significantly brighter than the ruddy star.

***

When we look up to the wonder of the starry world, when we contemplate the whole process of the universe with its glories and marvels, then we are led at last to the feeling that all the glory that lies open to our view in the whole universe that surrounds us only has meaning when it is reflected in an admiring human soul. -Goethe

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on this day

Birthday of Cleophas, disciple on the road to Emmaus Luke 24:13-32. This occurs three days after the crucifixion, on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. The two have heard the tomb of Jesus was found empty earlier that day. They are discussing the events of the past few days when a stranger asks them what they are discussing. “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” He soon rebukes them for their unbelief & gives them a Bible study on prophecies about the Messiah. They ask the stranger to join them for the evening meal. When he breaks the bread “their eyes were opened” & they recognize him as the resurrected Christ, Who immediately vanishes.

Cleopas & his friend hasten back to Jerusalem to carry the news to the other disciples, & learn that The Christ has also appeared to them. The same event is recorded in Mark 16:12-16:13

810 – Birthday of John Scotus Eriugena, Christian mystic philosopher, translator, theologian & poet. John “of Ireland” (Eriugena means “Irish-born,” where the Scotti were an ancient & extensive tribe) is a major figure in the development of mystical spirituality in western European Christianity. He served as the primary translator-conduit for ideas from the great Greek Christian minds of the Middle-East & Near-East to come into Europe. ‘God is both immanently within and transcendentally beyond all beings’ Expanding richly on the idea of the apokatastasis or “universal salvation” of all souls in God’s all-saving Divine Love. Eriugena also wrote of the conscious Return (reditus) & merging of all beings into God. No souls (including the souls of animals & the demon-souls) would be left out of this grand return, no one would be damned to suffer forever in hell or wither away into oblivion. Eriugena’s enlightened view reveals an astonishingly positive scenario of a triumphantly compassionate, ever-loving God who is the Heart, Source & Substance of everyone.

“…we come across wonderful characters such as Scotus Erigena, a monk from Scotland called the Scottish St. John, who later lived at the court of Charles the Bald. He did not get on well with the Church, and it is told that the brothers of his order tortured him to death with pins. Of course, this is not to be taken literally, but it is true that he was tortured to death. A splendid book was written by him, On the Divisions in Nature which reveals a great profundity of thought… “. ~Rudolf Steiner, Occult Signs and Symbols, lecture 3, GA 101

1789 – The United States Congress passes the Bill of Rights

1849 – Deathday of Johann Strauss I, Austrian composer

1930 – Birthday of Shel Silverstein, American author, poet, illustrator, & songwriter

1970 – Erich Maria Remarque, a German novelist who created many works about the terror of war. His best known novel is All Quiet on the Western Front (1928). This made him an enemy of the Nazis, who burned many of his works

1978 – PSA Flight 182, a Boeing 727, collides in mid-air with a Cessna 172 & crashes in San Diego, killing 144 people

***

“Once I spoke the language of the flowers,
Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,
Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,
And shared a conversation with the housefly
in my bed.
Once I heard and answered all the questions
of the crickets,
And joined the crying of each falling dying
flake of snow,
Once I spoke the language of the flowers. . . .
How did it go?
How did it go?”
~Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

***

Virtue of the month: Contentment Becomes Equanimity

At this time, the flowers wither, fruit & nuts fall from the trees & decompose, leaving their empty husks on the ground; grains are sorted or stored before being sown, to ensure a new cycle of growth. This process of decomposition & sorting also concerns the human being. Just as the fruit is separated from the tree & the seed from the fruit, so is the soul separated from the body, in sleep, in meditation, in death…The body is the envelope -the wrapping – & the soul is the seed that is planted in the soil of the spiritual world.

The human being is a fruit…& when we are ripe, we must not fall to the ground like the fruits & seeds of the earth, we must journey with consciousness into the spiritual world.

Autumn is the season for that separation of which Hermes Trismegistus speaks: ‘You shall separate the subtle from the gross, gently and with great skill.’ To separate the subtle from the gross is to separate the spiritual from the material, & the whole of nature undergoes this process of alchemy at autumn-tide, in preparation for the coming of new life. And yet most people have no idea what to cut out or re-cycle: they swallow everything whole, & yet are rarely content.

And so this is what we have to learn from Michael: Discernment! – How to choose, & what to choose, how to separate the pure from the impure, the useful from the useless, the harmful from the beneficial. The absence of judgment in this respect is the cause of many misfortunes. Michaelmas is resplendently rich in meaning for those who understand that it can bring them the courage to cultivate true freedom & liberation. So put the sword of Michael to use, to bless & bestow, as well as to cut away what does not serve – To separate the wheat from the chaff -To sharpen the mind & protect the heart.

And Stand as a peaceful warrior for change

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Michaelmas Festival: 7pm –9pm Friday 30 September, 2016

Optional Community Potluck Dinner 5pm – 6:45pm at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Heart-Thinking: Michael Beckoning

7pm – The Midwest Eurythmy Group will perform the Michaelmas Verse from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul

Activating Our ‘Gemut’: The mind warmed by a loving heart & stimulated by the soul’s imaginative power – Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Copper Rod Eurythmy: ALL

Grimm’s Tale “The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs” by Laura Donkel

Verse for the Michaelic Age: ALL

We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what approaches us from the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future.

We must look forward with absolute equanimity to whatever may come. And we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a cosmic guidance full of wisdom.

It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live without any security in material existence and to live with pure trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world.

Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us. For this let us seek awakening to the reality of the spirit from within ourselves, every morning and every evening. ~Rudolf Steiner

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. Contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer GinsbergHazel@ReverseRitual.com

***

Saturday 15 October 2016 Opening (Closing event 12 November 2016)

Calaj.com Artists Matthew Schaefer and Janet Trierweiler Schaefer present:

“Silent Lecture” Art Exhibit & Discussion

1pm – 4pm Paintings on view (in the un-rented space next to the Branch)

2:30 Artist Discussion – topics may include:

Setting limits to hold the limitless.

Human systems at work.

The fallible element, how it works in art.

The steps or ritual.

The visible/invisible origin.

Finding the spiritual in art through a primitive gesture.

A cognitive transformation, instinct to intuition.

Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. Contact Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Van der Pals/ Kirchner-Bockholt Tone Eurythmy Therapy Course with Jan Ranck –

October 21 – 30, 2016

LOCATION: 2135 West Wilson Avenue, Chicago IL. 60625

The course is warmly recommended for: Trained Eurythmists, Eurythmy Therapists, Medical Doctors, Music Therapists, and Students in these fields, as well as lay persons with interest.

Inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s indication that tone eurythmy therapy should be developed in addition to speech eurythmy therapy, the eurythmist Lea van der Pals and the medical doctor Margarete Kirchner-Bockholt worked together in the early 1970s to develop a sequence of exercises in connection with the diseases discussed in Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman’s book “Extending Practical Medicine”.

Some free accommodation available on a first-come, first serve basis. Information and Registration: abdalma (at) gmail.com

Lea van der Pals’ book “The Human Being as Music” (Robinswood Press 1992), published in German in 1969 as “Der Mensch Musik”, is highly recommended as background reading for the course.

Jan Ranck is currently the founding director of the Jerusalem Eurythmy Ensemble (1990) and the Jerusalem Academy of Eurythmy (1992). She is also an instructor in the Jerusalem Waldorf Teacher Bachelor Program in David Yellin Academic College, and a guest teacher in various venues worldwide, including the Goetheanum and the MA Program in Eurythmy held in Emerson College and Spring Valley. She is the representative for Israel in the International Department of Eurythmy Therapy (“Eurythmy Therapy Forum”)

Like a Candle Calling to the Sun

September 24, 2016Insight, Lecture, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul~hag

24 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: Uranus reaches opposition three weeks from today, but it is already showing its face. The ice giant world rises before twilight ends & climbs above the eastern horizon by 11 pm CDT. The planet lies in Pisces, north-northwest of Piscium.

This is the time of year when the rich Cygnus Milky Way crosses the zenith in the hour after nightfall is complete. The Milky Way rises straight up from the southwest horizon, passed overhead, & runs straight down to the northeast.

***

Those who work with the Original indications in the Calendar of the Soul know that Rudolf Steiner lists the birth & death days, as well as other significant occurrences of various individualities, along with the dates in the calendar. He said of this: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of mankind’s spiritual development” ~Rudolf Steiner

Proserpine 1874 Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828-1882 Presented by W. Graham Robertson 1940 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N05064 — Dante Gabriel Rossetti

According to the Calendar of the Soul today is the Festival of Persephone, part of The Eleusinian Mysteries, held annually in honor of Demeter & Persephone. The most sacred & revered of all the ritual celebrations of ancient Greece. They were instituted in the city of Eleusis, just west of Athens, possibly as far back as the early Mycenaean period, & continued for almost two thousand years. Large crowds of worshippers from all over Greece (& later, from throughout the Roman empire) would gather to make the holy pilgrimage between the two cities & participate in the secret rites, generally regarded as the high point of Greek life.

622 – Muhammad & his followers completed their Hijra from Mecca to Medina to escape religious persecution. Rudolf Steiner tells us Muhammad was able to see into the etheric realm. Legend has it that the enemy was just seconds from capturing them when they ducted into a cave, where they surly would been found, except a spider wove a giant web & a dove made a nest at the entrance, so when the enemy come to the cave they thought – they can’t be here, since the web was so intricate & the nest so well established.

787 – Second Council of Nicaea: The council assembled at the church of Hagia Sophia

1046 – Deathday(drowned) /Feast of St. Gellert

1541 – Deathday (murdered) Theophrastus Paracelsus, a Swiss German philosopher, physician, botanist, astrologer, & occultist. He is credited as the founder of toxicology. He is also a famous revolutionary for utilizing observations of nature, rather than referring to ancient texts, something of radical defiance during his time. He is credited as the first to note that some diseases are rooted in psychological conditions.

Paracelsus’ most important legacy is his critique of the scholastic methods in medicine, science & theology. As a physician of the early 16th century, Paracelsus held a natural affinity with the Hermetic, Neoplatonic, & Pythagorean philosophies central to the Renaissance. Paracelsus rejected the magic theories of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa & Nicolas Flamel in his Archidoxes of Magic.

Astrology was a very important part of Paracelsus’ medicine & he was a practicing astrologer. Paracelsus devoted several sections in his writings to the construction of astrological talismans for curing disease. He also invented an alphabet called the Alphabet of the Magi, for engraving angelic names upon talismans.

1916 – Rudolf Steiner’s 2^nd lecture on the Mexican Mysteries

1789 – The United States Congress passes the Judiciary Act which creates the office of the United States Attorney General & the federal judiciary system, & orders the composition of the Supreme Court of the United States

1869 – “Black Friday“: Gold prices plummet after Ulysses S. Grant orders the Treasury to sell large quantities of gold after Jay Gould & James Fisk plot to control the market

1896 – Birthday of F. Scott Fitzgerald, novelist & short story writer

1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower in Wyoming as the nation’s first National Monument

1914 – World War I: The Siege of Poland begins

1948 – The Honda Motor Company is founded

1950 – Forest fires black out the sun over portions of Canada & New England. A blue moon is seen as far away as Europe

1957 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends 101st Airborne Division troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation

1960 – USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is launched

1996 – Representatives of 71 nations sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at the United Nations.

2005 – Hurricane Rita makes landfall in the United States, devastating portions of southwestern Louisiana & southeastern Texas

2007 –100,000 people take part in anti-government protests in Yangon, Burma

2009 – The G20 summit begins in Pittsburgh with 30 global leaders in attendance. It marks the first use of Long-Range Acoustic Devices in U.S. history

2013 – A 7.7-magnitude earthquake strikes southern Pakistan, killing more than 1327 people

2015 – At least 1,100 people are killed & another 934 wounded after a stampede during the Hajj in Saudi Arabia

***

Mirach Ravaia

~Like a candle calling to the sun

I strive…

My flame guttering in the wind

Lashes the wet branches of sleep tossed trees

My resolve wavers

But my bones carry star stuff

Unconcerned

~hag

***

MICHAELMAS AND THE SOUL-FORCES OF MAN by RUDOLF STEINER

Summary by Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Lecture 4. The far-reaching social significance of a Michael Festival. Earth spirit and human spirit. The cosmic breathing process. Nature-consciousness, self-consciousness, and spirit-consciousness. “

In the Gemüt, through anthroposophical endeavor — we learn to distinguish between nature-consciousness, engendered during the spring and summer, and self-consciousness proper which thrives in the fall and winter.

“When the human Gemüt receives into itself spirit-consciousness — the spirit-consciousness engendered by the transition from nature-consciousness (spring-summer) to self-consciousness (autumn-winter) — then will the solution to our social problems of the moment comes clear.”

A Michael Festival calls for us to feel in our souls everything that can activate spirit-consciousness.

“…What does Easter represent in the year’s festivals? First death, then resurrection: that is the outer aspect of the Mystery of Golgotha. One who understands the Mystery of Golgotha in this sense sees death and resurrection in this way of redemption; and can feel in their soul that we must unite in our Gemüt with Christ, the victor over death, in order to find resurrection in death.”

But Christianity does not end with the traditions associated with the Mystery of Golgotha: it must advance. The human Gemüt turns inward and deepens more and more as time goes on; and in addition to this festival that brings alive the Death and Resurrection of Christ, humanity needs that other one which reveals the course of the year as having its counterpart within us, so that we can find in the round of the seasons, first of all the resurrection of the soul — in fact, the necessity for achieving this resurrection — in order that the soul may then pass through the portal of death in a worthy way.

Easter: death, then resurrection; Michaelmas: resurrection of the soul, then death. This makes of the Michael Festival a reversed Easter Festival. Easter commemorates for us the Resurrection of Christ from death; but in the Michael Festival we must feel with all the intensity of our soul: In order not to sleep in a half-dead state that will dim our self-consciousness between death and a new birth, but rather, to be able to pass through the portal of death in full alertness, we must rouse the soul through our inner forces before we die. First, resurrection of the soul — then death, so that in death that resurrection can be achieved which the human being celebrates within.

In Spiritual Science Death must Become

A Resurrection

For this we strive

In gratitude ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Tie the Key onto the Kite

September 23, 2016Autumn, Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Lecture, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

23 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: The starry W of Cassiopeia stands high in the northeast after dark. The right-hand side of the W (the brightest side) is tilted up. Look along the second segment of the W counting down from the top. Notice the dim naked-eye stars along there- The one on the right is Eta Cassiopeiae. The “one” on the left, fainter pair: Upsilon1 & Upsilon2 Cassiopeiae.

Last-quarter Moon (exact at 4:56 am CDT). The Moon rises around midnight. Once it’s fairly well up you’ll see that it’s in Gemini, with Castor & Pollux to its left. Orion is much farther to its right, north of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse.

***

“A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.” ~Robert A. Heinlein

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

63 BC – Birthday of Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire & its first Emperor. Augustus’ reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted for nearly fifteen hundred years through the ultimate decline of the Western Roman Empire & until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Both his adoptive surname, Caesar, & his title Augustus became the permanent titles of the rulers of the Roman Empire for fourteen centuries after his death. The cult of Divus Augustus continued until the state religion of the Empire was changed to Christianity in 391

1193 – Deathday of Robert de Sablé, French knight, the eleventh Grand Master of the Knights Templar & Lord of Cyprus

1338 – The Battle of Arnemuiden was the first naval battle of the Hundred Years’ War & the first naval battle using artillery, as the English ship Christopher had three cannon & one hand gun.

1409 – Battle of Kherlen, the second significant victory over Ming dynasty China by the Mongols since 1368.

1459 – Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the English War of the Roses, takes place.

1641 – The Merchant Royal, carrying a treasure of over 100,000 pounds of gold (worth over £1 billion today), is lost at sea off Land’s End.

1779 – American Revolution: John Paul Jones on board the USS Bonhomme Richard wins the Battle of Flamborough Head.

1846 – Astronomers Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, John Couch Adams & Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune

1909 – The Phantom of the Opera (original title: Le Fantôme de l’Opéra), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, is first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois.

1911 – Pilot Earle Ovington makes the first official airmail delivery in America under the authority of the United States Post Office Department

1913 – Roland Garros of France becomes the first to fly in an airplane across the Mediterranean (from St. Raphael France to Bizerte, Tunisia)

1930 – Birthday of Ray Charles, American singer-songwriter, pianist, (d. 2004)

1939 – Deathday of Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist & psychiatrist

1943 – World War II: The Nazi puppet state known as the Italian Social Republic is founded.

caccioppoli

1968 – Deathday of Padre Pio, a Franciscan friar, priest, stigmatist, & mystic. On September 20, 1918, while hearing confessions, Padre Pio had his first occurrence of the stigmata. This phenomenon continued for fifty years, until the end of his life. The blood flowing from the stigmata smelled of perfume or flowers: the odour of sanctity.

People who had started rebuilding their lives after World War I, began to see in Padre Pio a symbol of hope. Those close to him attest that he began to manifest several spiritual gifts, including the gifts of healing, bilocation, levitation, prophecy, miracles, extraordinary abstinence from both sleep & nourishment, the ability to read hearts, the gift of tongues, the gift of conversions.

At the time of Padre Pio’s death, his body appeared unwounded, with no sign of scarring. Doctors who examined his body found it empty of all blood.

1973 – Deathday of Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet & diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate

1983 – Gulf Air Flight 771 is destroyed by a bomb, killing all 117 people on board.

2004 – Over 3,000 people die in Haiti after Hurricane Jeanne produces massive flooding & mudslides.

***

~I Am

A book without a cover

The Queen of Chaos on tippy-toes…

Dreaming of procrastination

I tie

The key onto the kite…

To gather

Earth crammed with heaven

My 4 winds fold-in

Mountain dwellers from far & wide

Grass weavers, potters, & music makers…

I watch

Black earth & red earth join in a buckle of sky

As Hermes teaches me to be

Direct…

~hag

***

MICHAELMAS AND THE SOUL-FORCES OF MAN by RUDOLF STEINER

Summary by Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Lecture 3. The sun circles – The Druid and the Mithras Mysteries; Observation of the sun yielded knowledge of the connection between heaven and earth. The great language of the heavens was deciphered, and then applied to earthly things.

Through the heart organization the course of nature was perceived within the human being, and through the heart science the spirit of the sun’s annual passage through the zodiac was studied. In this way initiates read in the heavens what was to be done on earth.

“…the human heart is really a subconscious sense organ.”

This was taught in the Mithras Cult.

“…The disciple was taught to perceive the course of the seasons within himself by means of his heart organization.

the heart-science of the old Mithras pupils; what they really studied when they looked at themselves through their heart was the spirit of the sun’s annual passage through the zodiac. In this way the human being experienced themself as a higher being, riding on his lower nature; (the Bull) and therefore it was fitting that the cosmos should be arranged in a circle around him; in this manner cosmic spirituality was experienced.

“…A spirit of reverence for the ancient cultures pervades us when we see deeper into them and work to rediscover, how to apply this heart-science now.

Steiner talks in lecture 3 about the relationship between the various phases of the moon and the weather. “…looked at in a spiritual-scientific way the moon presents itself as a sort of fortress in the cosmos. From the outside, not only the light-rays of the sun but all the external effects of the universe are reflected by the moon down to the earth; but in the interior of the moon there is a complete world that nowadays can be reached only by ascending, to the spirit world.”

“…higher beings who occupied etheric bodies only, and whose instruction was imparted to human beings as though inoculating the etheric body with higher wisdom.”

“…it was simply a case of his having to breathe and of his blood circulating in him; and it was in his circulation that he willed.”

We know now that what the individual planets tell us provides the vowels of the world-script; and all that forms around the vowels when the planets pass the constellations of the zodiac gives us the consonants.

This kind of Cosmic experience leads us to participation in the cosmos; in this way we can achieve a spiritualized instinct for the meaning of the seasons with which our organic life as well as our social life is interwoven — an instinct for the different ways in which the earth stands to the cosmos while on its way from spring to summer, and again from summer through autumn into winter. Celebrating festivals that have social significance, in the same way that the forces of nature, through our physical organization, make us one with our breathing & circulation.

“…As the blood circulation inside us is essential for our existence, the circulation of the elemental beings between earth and the heavens is indispensable for us as well.”

We dig deeper, with more Michaelmas tomorrow

Until soon ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Michaelmas Festival: 7pm –9pm Friday, 30 September, 2016 – Optional Potluck Dinner 5:30pm at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Heart-Thinking: Michael Beckoning

7pm – The Midwest Eurythmy Group will perform the Michaelmas Verse from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul

Activating Our ‘Gemut’: The mind warmed by a loving heart & stimulated by the soul’s imaginative power – Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Copper Rod Eurythmy: ALL

Grimm’s Tale “The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs” by Laura Donkel

Verse for the Michaelic Age: ALL

We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what approaches us from the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future.

We must look forward with absolute equanimity to whatever may come. And we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a cosmic guidance full of wisdom.

It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live without any security in material existence and to live with pure trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world.

Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us. For this let us seek awakening to the reality of the spirit from within ourselves, every morning and every evening. ~Rudolf Steiner

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. Contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer GinsbergHazel@ReverseRitual.com

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Lift the broom to conquer entropy

Fiery Prince of World Thoughts

the Ripening of the human being

Like a Candle Calling to the Sun

Tie the Key onto the Kite

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: