In Christo Morimur

March 26, 2016Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Quote~hag

In the New Mysteries we follow the path of Rosicrucian/Christian initiation through Holy Week. With every step, from the recognition of the old atavistic Sun on Palm Sunday, through to the meeting of the Saturn-Spirit and The Harrowing of Hell, we sow healing seeds, sprouted in the blood of Christ, that spark the rising of the New Sun of Easter, within ourselves and in the Universe. Each of these steps through the planetary spheres leads to a conquest of a corresponding layer in the interior of the earth. The Beatitudes are the spiritual weapon we must wield to fortify the development of self-determination in the human ego led by Christ, giving us the strength to make the darkness transparent. Like Christ, we must descend to ascend.

Every year we have a chance to recapitulate the original Easter event. We rest on the Sabbath, Saturn-day – In Christo morimur – This is the Mystic-death or temple sleep of the initiate; remembering that In the Garden of Gethsemane – the midpoint of the earth – the epicenter of the cosmos – between the rocky hill of Golgotha, part of the lunar Mount Moriah, and it’s polar opposite the Solar Mount Zion, there was a New Tomb where the body of Christ rested, and yet it was the Oldest Tomb, for it was formerly a primal fissure, a gorge splitting Jerusalem in two, called by some Adam’s Grave –known as the gate to the underworld. The earthquakes of Good Friday and Holy Saturday tore open the original fissure. The veil of the Temple “was rent in twain”. Vistas were opened into the interior of the earth.

“He was lowered into the grave of the earth’, and so it was, that The Christ went into the Earth’s Interior, His blood becoming the medicine for our continued evolution. The darkness of Saturn is lit up from within by the Resurrected Sun. The Easter garden begins to bloom, so that our soul can behold, like the Magdalana before us, The Risen One as the gardener of the New Jerusalem.

In ‘The Birth of a New Agriculture: Koberwitz 1924’ , we learn that the earth underwent a change through the deed of redemption on Golgotha, a transformation of the unruly Mars powers of rusty iron into the silvery light of Mercury. This transforming of iron thru the sacred mystery of the Christ-blood is a determining factor in the transformation of earthly substance, which will later be carried over into the transubstantiation of the earth. The spirit radiates from the heights and yet is also carried to us by the eternal divine world of the depths. ‘May there ascend from the Depths the prayer that is heard in the Heights’. We can send our prayer to the Christ-heart in the earth’s depths, to help overcome and redeem the adversarial powers that hold sway in the nine layers of the earth’s interior. The agricultural course was a stepping stone to this ultimate aim.

Spiritual science tells us that when the blood flowed into the earth from the cross on Golgotha, a new Sun-globe was born in the interior of the earth. This golden earth-center is the legendary land of Shambhalla, hidden away, yet waiting to be re-discovered by the seeking, Christ-guided human soul.

The Tomb becomes the altar, a sacred place to commune with the gods – with the souls of the departed as our intermediaries. The tomb becomes the Round table, and the Parsifal question leads us to find Christ in the etheric.

Also working with us from the time of the Vernal Equinox is the Archangel Raphael, who holds the staff of Mercury, offering us the healing power of the Caduceus through the grace of the living Christ, who stands as the middle pillar within us all.

Before the mystery of Golgotha, the task of evolution was that the cosmos would become human, after this turning point, the human becomes cosmos –The New Sun -The imperishable resurrection-body uniting with the Cosmic- Sophia.

We now have the opportunity to stand as Michaelic warriors holding the light, sending our shining heart-thinking into the heights and the depths. Remembering all the while what was written on the urn that holds the ashes of Rudolf Steiner: “To create centres of peace & love in which the Christ can resurrect.”

Blessings dear friends on this Holy Saturday 2016

~hag

Easter Festival: ‘A Path to the Dawning’
4pm -6pm, Easter Sunday March 27th
at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Midwest Eurythmy Group to Perform:
‘Hallelujah’ & the Easter Calendar of the Soul Verse by Rudolf Steiner

Lecture: Encountering the Inner Layers of the Earth as a Christian/Rosicrucian Initiation,
in relation to the Beatitudes and the 9-fold human being. by Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Live Music: Clark Remington – Prelude and Fugue by Bach

Group Eurythmy – Hallelujah

$10 donation goes to the Midwest Eurhythmy Group
A side-dish to Share Encouraged! (We will have our traditional Lamb Roast!)

For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

Leading Thoughts for Good Friday

March 25, 2016Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Quote~hag

<<When between midnight and sunrise the soldiers lay hands upon Him
Whom Judas has kissed, Jesus does not oppose them. Rather, he opposes Peter
who wants to fight for Him. The fight which was waged on the human level
on the previous days is now carried on in a higher sphere, and so takes on
still more powerful dimensions. He fights against the Luciferic powers,
the glittering beings of deceptive light, who want to estrange man from the earth,
and likewise against the Ahrimanic powers who want to harden and fetter man to death matter. In humanity’s evolution up to the “turning-point of time”, death which had
formerly been a friend of man had taken on more and more the features of Ahriman.
During earthly life it binds him to the world of matter; it makes all sorts of promises
of earthly fulfillment, which are no longer kept after death. After death we have only
as much spiritual command over matter as we have gained upon Earth.

In the quiet grove of the Mount of Olives, where He has so often been with His disciples
for intimate teaching, He must now withstand the most dangerous attack of the enemy
in utmost loneliness. The consciousness of the disciples is absorbed in the twilight of sleep
in Gethsemane, out of which Peter will deny Christ.

One could not misunderstand the Passion of Christ by thinking that Jesus prayed
to be spared from death. Not fear of death, but death itself assails Him.
The Destroying Angel wants to possess Him. The secret of the conflict in Gethsemane
lies in the fact that death wants to outwit Jesus. It wants to wrest Him away too soon,
before He has ended His work and filled the last vestige of the earthly vessel with His spirit.

For three years the Fire of divine Ego-hood has burned in the body and soul of Jesus.
The human vessel – from within outwards – has already been consumed almost to ashes. What still has to be suffered and completed demands so much strength from the earthly sheaths that there is a real danger of premature death. Ahriman lies in wait and hopes to
make use of this moment.But Christ is victorious and death is repulsed.
It is an echo of this fight when He speaks on the Cross the words that seem to betray a weakness: “I thirst”. It is not His will to pass into the spiritual world simply through dying.
It is His will to remain united with the Earth when He goes through death.
He wrestles to enter still more deeply into the earthly world of matter which He bears in Himself through His physical body. There is still a last remnant to be ensouled.

On the morning of Good Friday Christ confronts the whole of humanity,
as represented by the three figures of Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod.

When the sun is darkened during the sultry midday hours of Good Friday,
it is as though the demon of the sun were straining to the utmost against
the God of the sun. And when the earth is shaken by the earthquake,
all the demons of the earth seem to storm forward to help the satanic death-power
to victory. However, death can strip nothing from the sovereignty of Christ’s spirit,
from His authority over all earth existence.

Christ, in dying, goes directly to the Earth. The blood streams from His wounds;
His soul goes with it into the body of the Earth. Later the Earth opens in an earthquake
and takes into itself the body of Christ. The Earth receives the body and the blood of Christ, the great Communion, and so the medicine for the spiritualizing of all material existence is incorporated into Earth existence – “The medicine that makes us whole”.>>
~excerpt from “The Three Years” by Emil Bock

Easter-Tide Study throughout Holy Week
(Chapter 10 of “The Three Years” by Emil Bock)
at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Good Friday & Holy Saturday March 25-26, 7pm-9pm

Including Eurythmy – The 7-pointed Star
(Steiner called it the Heptagram of the Lamb)

If you would like a copy of the text contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

~ ~ ~

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

a New Sacrament

March 24, 2016Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Quote~hag

Welcome to Maundy Thursday Dear Friends –

«… shortly before the deep red sun has sunk in the west, faced by the silver disc of the rising full moon, the trumpets sound from the Temple and give the signal for the beginning of the eve of the Passover.

Jesus and His disciples withdraw to the room in the house of the Order of the Essenes to celebrate the Passover. Here, on Mount Zion, a sanctuary of humanity has existed from times immemorial.

Immediately opposite, also on a traditional spot, stands the house of Caiaphas, the ancestral home of the Sadducean Order. A circle has gathered there, also, yet they can scarcely give thought to the coming Feast, for they are actively concerned with a plan of hatred and enmity. The words of the 23rd Psalm are fulfilled: ”Thou prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

The divine Being has now Himself entered this world; therefore the
old blood-sacrifice has become superfluous. On the table of the Holy Meal, instead there is bread and wine. Christ takes, to the astonishment of the disciples, these other representatives of food and drink and adds a new meal to that ordained by the Old Testament.

The divine Sun-Spirit is present in Christ, and as He distributes the bread He can say: “This is my body”, and in handing the disciples the chalice: “This is my blood”. His soul surrenders itself and streams into the bread and wine, they become body and blood of the Sun-Spirit himself. All the Sun-Mysteries of antiquity were but prophecy; at this moment they grow into fulfillment. In the transition from the blood offerings of the past to the bloodless offering of bread and wine, the whole idea of sacrifice changed. Now the sacrifice of the soul is founded, and there begins the true tradition of inner sacrifice. The lunar sacrifices of antiquity are at an end; the solar sacrifice of Christianity comes into being. Christianity, the true Sun Religion, dawns in this evening hour.

Before the Meal He follows the custom observed in the Order of the Essenes and washes the feet of each of the disciples, even of Judas. The Washing of the Feet sums up in a pictorial act the essence of Christ’s teaching: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another.”

When the Passover has been eaten, the head of the family begins to recite from the Haggadah, the history of People from ancient times set down in legendary form. With Christ, too, the meal is followed by a discourse. This is recorded and gathered together by St. John in the wonderful “Farewell Discourses” culminating in the High Priestly Prayer (St. John, Chapters 14-17). Only John, who lies at the breast of Jesus, and listens to the speaking heart of Christ is able in his Gospel to preserve for mankind a reflection of this moment.

It is a strict regulation of the Passover that on this night no one may leave the protection of the house. If he does so, he meets the Destroying Angel. In spite of this, at a certain moment, Judas does go out. St. John’s Gospel says: “It was night”. It was also night within Judas; at this moment an Ahrimanic displacing of the ego, a possession, entered into him. Judas goes to the house opposite, where Caiaphas and his circle are keeping the Passover. They are ready and eager for the business that Judas wants to transact.

The Passover is broken. Jesus rises from the table and beckons to the astonished disciples. They follow him out into the night, where the light of the full moon had for some time been almost extinguished. It is passing through an eclipse. The frosty chills of winter giving place to spring begin to be felt as Jesus goes with His disciples to Gethsemane.» ~ excerpt from “The Three Years” by Emil Bock

Easter-Tide Study throughout Holy Week
(Chapter 10 of “The Three Years” by Emil Bock)
at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

March 21-26th, 7pm-9pm

Including Eurythmy – The 7-pointed Star
(Steiner called it the Heptagram of the Lamb)

If you would like a copy of the text contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

~ ~ ~

Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society,
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618
Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)http://www.anthroposophy.org/groups/chicago-il/

Recapitulation of the Laying of the Foundation Stone?

March 23, 2016Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Quote, Speaking with the Stars~hag

Dear Friends – TODAY: Holy Wednesday March 23rd 2016, around the eclipse of the Vernal Full Moon in Libra, which sets up the rhythm for the movable feast of Easter every year, Mercury, ruler of Wednesday, & herald of the spiritual world, also stands in conjunction with Sun & Moon & Earth, gathering up the message humanity offers to the gods.

Then some 40 days later, during the ten days from Ascension to Pentecost,
Mercury will come to another conjunction to return the message from our vernal queries
in a rare configuration called a ‘transit‘- which only happens 13 or 14 times each century!

When Mercury Stood in Libra: ~from The Astronomical Letters of Elisabeth Vreede September, 1928, p. 121 “The approaching opening of the Goetheanum at Michaelmas brings before the soul that September evening when the foundation stone of the house dedicated to spiritual science was laid at nightfall by Dr. Steiner in a solemn ritual. With an invocation of the hierarchies, the foundation stone, the double dodecahedron,
“symbol in its twofold twelvefoldness of the striving human soul, was sunk as microcosm into the macrocosm, ” let down “into the condensed kingdom of the elements.” To this stone was added the document that contained the solemn vow of humankind toward the spiritual world. This document closed with the words: “Laid by the Johannes Building Association…on the twentieth day of September 1880, after the Mystery of Golgotha, that is, 1913 after the birth of Christ, when Mercury as evening star stood in Libra, the Balance.”

Mercury, in the same transit happening today on this Holy Wednesday 2016,
was a cosmic witness to the laying of the foundation stone, the only celestial body
mentioned in this sacred ceremony!

When the seed of individuality was planted into the astral body during the Old Moon phase, a possibility for humanity to become disconnected from the spiritual world was also implanted into the Mercury sphere.

By laying the foundation stone at the time of the Mercury transit, was Rudolf Steiner working to heal this possible rift?

(Read more from Willi Sucher on Mercury/Sun conjunctions in ‘Cosmic Christianity’ pp.92-98)

<< Wednesday, Mercury Day, is the turning point. Towards evening a scene stands out which, takes on a special significance on this middle day of balance. A presentment of the Last Supper hovers round the community at the table. The country town of Bethany, quiet as it is, has shortly before been the scene of the raising of Lazarus, the event which had given the signal for battle.

Two women also belong to the community at table, Martha and Mary Magdalene, whom the Gospel of St. John states to be the sisters of Lazarus. They have been led by the hand of Providence into this circle, which is more related by the spirit than by blood. The brother and sisters of Bethany became the intimate friends of Christ through healings of the spirit, the soul and the body.

As they all sit at the table with the disciples, Mary is recorded as having anointed the feet of Christ with precious spikenard ointment and wiped them with her hair. St John’s Gospel says that the whole house was filled with the perfume. But what was does her act of anointing signify? It is the type and symbol of a sacramental act. Therefore, when others declare her deed extravagant and become indignant, Christ can accept what this woman does as a sacrament of death, as a fulfillment of the Last Anointing. And one can feel how Mary has been able to deepen the natural forces of earthly love and transmute them into religious devotion, and the capacity for sacrifice.

Then the solemn stillness is suddenly broken by a figure who forms a complete contrast to
Mary Magdalene. It is one of the apostles and when he sees the deed of Mary he loses self-control. This is Judas. He says that the precious money which has just been squandered could have been given to the poor, and thus many social needs might have been relieved. St. John’s Gospel, however, makes it plain that his real motives are not the ostensible ones. The Gospel openly calls him a thief. It may well be that the anger which Judas felt at the deed of Mary Magdalene gave the final impetus to his act of betrayal. In uncontrolled irritation he goes out to those who lie in wait for the Christ. The second crucial event of the Wednesday is the betrayal by Judas.

Both Judas and Mary Magdalene are typical Mercury people; they are active and temperamental. One of the virtues of their nature is that they are never tedious; something is always happening round them. Mary Magdalene, however, subdues her restlessness and transforms it into devotion, peace and the capacity for love.

Judas is the type of the restless man who must always be outwardly active. He pretends to want something for the poor. However good and commendable social activity may be, it is often only self-deception. The underlying motive is not always a genuine social impulse, but very often one’s own inner restlessness. In Judas this kind of mercurial soul meets with a dark fate. His unrest springs from a deeply hidden fear, and it leads to his betrayal of Christ Jesus. Such a soul cannot show devotion; above all, it cannot love.

Thus, in the two figures, Mary Magdalene and Judas, two roads separate, as at a crossroads. One leads to the realization of the nearness of Christ; the other into the dark night, into tragedy and suicide.

Mercury, who for the Greco-Roman world was both the God of Healing and also the God of
merchants and of thieves, comes now into the orbit of the Christ Sun.
The scene in the house of Lazarus and her sisters at Bethany shows how Mercury, the God of Healing, can himself be healed by the Sun of Christ.» ~excerpt from “The Three Years” by Emil Bock

Easter-Tide Study throughout Holy Week
(Chapter 10 of “The Three Years” by Emil Bock)
at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

March 21-26th, 7pm-9pm

Including The 7-pointed Star in Eurythmy –
(Steiner called it the Heptagram of the Mystic Lamb)

If you would like a copy of the text contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

~ ~ ~

Easter Festival:
‘A Path to the Dawning’
4pm -6pm, Easter Sunday March 27th
at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Midwest Eurythmy Group to Perform:
‘Hallelujah’ & the Easter Calendar of the Soul Verse by Rudolf Steiner

Lecture: Encountering the Inner Layers of the Earth as a Christian/Rosicrucian Initiation,
in relation to the Beatitudes and the 9-fold human being. by Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Live Music: Clark Remington – Prelude and Fugue by Bach

Group Eurythmy – Hallelujah

$10 donation goes to the Midwest Eurhythmy Group

A side-dish to Share Encouraged! (We will have our traditional Lamb Roast!)

For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

~ ~ ~

Member Initiative Event:

Beauty in Motion – Countering the Machine Civilization
with Kelly Calegar from Durham, NC

Easter Monday March 28th 12:45pm – 3pm
at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson Ave Chicago, Il 60625
Donation goes to the Christian Community

The Divine Will is revealed in movement. In this endeavor we will be moving together
in choreographed geometric forms for the integration of mindfulness and warmth of heart.
All of our actions are grounded in movement, including our speech, which involves
the movement of air through the larynx. The movements of the heavenly bodies are
intimately related with the beat of heart and lung. Aligning with the Divine Will
changes the way we move through space, and relate to each other.
It births Grace and Beauty in our ‘life body’, which we share with a human world
lacking in both Grace and Beauty – qualities of the Divine Feminine.

“Our purpose is to imitate, to absorb the movement of the world into ourselves
through our limbs. What do we do then? We dance. . .All true dancing has arisen from
imitating in the limbs the movement carried out by the planets, by other heavenly bodies
or by the earth itself. . .When the limbs carry out the harmonious cosmic movements
of the universe, …the soul… begins to sing.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Study of Man, p. 144

For more information contact Deborah Rogers: beewisdom33@yahoo.com

~ ~ ~

Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society,
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618
Check out our Web site!
Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)http://www.anthroposophy.org/groups/chicago-il/

Mars Day of Holy Week

March 22, 2016Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Quote~hag

Leading thoughts for Holy Tuesday –

« Now the day of Mars has been reached and the conflict flares up in earnest. The crowd is silent; their leaders are full of anxiety; their fears produced the hatred which leads to the attack. Every hostile group sends out assailants. One after the other they accost Him with their crafty questions. What would otherwise be a blow in the face or a dagger-thrust takes the guise of questioning.

First of all the members of the Jewish Sanhedrin approach, i.e. the High Priests, Scribes and Elders, ask Jesus what authority He has for His actions; He is required to legalize Himself. Then come the others, the Pharisees and the Herodians, and put the insidious question: “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar?” The Sadducees follow. They ask Jesus’ opinion concerning the resurrection of the dead. Finally, a single question, intending to expose Him before all the people, asks which commandment He considers the most important of all. These attacks, marking the outbreak of hostilities, are the proof of how strongly the Being of Christ was making itself felt. Just as dogs bark and bite only when they are afraid, so these ostensible questions, which are arrows of hate, are the outcome of fear…

Jesus answers each of the four questions. He is not satisfied, however, with parrying the blows aimed at Him; He accepts battle and fights back with weapons of the spirit. He uses powerful pictures…

The words of the Tuesday on Holy Week, taken together, are wonderfully relevant to every battle of light and darkness. Goethe’s statement that world history is nothing else than a continuous fight of belief against unbelief touches the truth. All opposition to Christ and hostility to the Spirit has its root in unbelief, in deeply hidden weakness and fear. Discipleship of Christ means courage and strength. The battle is not necessarily fought by one group of men against another. It must be carried on within ourselves. In each human soul fear and courage, opposition to Christ and discipleship of Christ are mingled.» ~excerpt from “The Three Years” by Emil Bock

Easter-Tide Study throughout Holy Week
(Chapter 10 of “The Three Years” by Emil Bock)
at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

March 21-26th, 7pm-9pm

Including The 7-pointed Star in Eurythmy –
(Steiner called it the Heptagram of the Mystic Lamb)

If you would like a copy of the text contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

~ ~ ~

Easter Festival:
‘A Path to the Dawning’
4pm -6pm, Easter Sunday March 27th
at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Midwest Eurythmy Group to Perform:
‘Hallelujah’ & the Easter Calendar of the Soul Verse by Rudolf Steiner

Lecture: Encountering the Inner Layers of the Earth as a Christian/Rosicrucian Initiation,
in relation to the Beatitudes and the 9-fold human being. by Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Live Music: Clark Remington – Prelude and Fugue by Bach

Group Eurythmy – Hallelujah

$10 donation goes to the Midwest Eurhythmy Group

A side-dish to Share Encouraged! (We will have our traditional Lamb Roast!)

For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

~ ~ ~

Member Initiative Event:

Beauty in Motion – Countering the Machine Civilization
with Kelly Calegar from Durham, NC

Easter Monday March 28th 12:45pm – 3pm
at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson Ave Chicago, Il 60625
Donation goes to the Christian Community

For more information contact Deborah Rogers: beewisdom33@yahoo.com

~ ~ ~

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

In Christo Morimur

Leading Thoughts for Good Friday

a New Sacrament

Recapitulation of the Laying of the Foundation Stone?

Mars Day of Holy Week

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