Pure Love

Festival, History, Quote, Upcoming Events

Video: ‘The Truth about Valentine’s Day’ starts at 9:24

A Love Storytelling on the ‘I Think Speech Podcast’

Beloved Heart-throb – Yep, here we are again on the eve of the ides of February – the time when St. Valentine’s Day is celebrated. Have you ever wondered where this hearts & flowers frivolity came from? Well it wasn’t always about chocolates & sappy hallmark cards. Let’s look back to the origins of this Holiday & set the record straight. For one thing, Valentinus was a very common Roman name meaning strong, effective fertility.

Please excuse me if I must commit a little history here, but basically the church fathers were trying to replace a very potent ancient Roman festival called Lupercalia with a Christian martyr named Valentinus, to usurp the power of this rite of great antiquity. Now don’t get me wrong, frivolity has its place, & so it was in the festival of Lupercalia, a ritual of purification & fertility, sacred to the Wolf-Goddess Rumina. Maybe you’ve heard of Her, the She-Wolf & founder of Rome?

Image result for lupercalia wolf

The festival of Lupercalia was celebrated on the ides of February (the 15th)…& the name ‘February’ comes from the Latin word ‘februare’, meaning tool of purification.

The rite began in the cave of the She-Wolf, where legend has it, the founders of the city, Romulus & Remus, were suckled by the Wolf-Goddess.

As fate would have it a sacred fig tree (symbol of the feminine sex) grew outside the cave & vestals would come, with cakes made from the corn of last year’s grain harvest, laying them beneath the fig tree as offerings.

Meanwhile Rumina’s priests would preside over the sacrifice of a goat. Now this was a pretty big deal since this was the only time of year a goat was used as a sacrifice. It was an offering given to the guardian angels associated with the crops, & the ancestral guardians, as well as the guardians of the city & community. The priests would  mark their foreheads with its blood, which was then ritualistically wiped clean with a ‘Februare’ or tool of purification, which was, in this case, wool, dipped in the milk of the goat which had just starting to flow around the Crossquarter time. The priests would then dress themselves in the skin of the sacrificial animal, & using strips of the hide they would fashion a scourge, another tool of purification. They would then jog around in their little loincloths, running up & down Rome’s seven hills, wielding their strips of hide, ‘purifying’ anything & anybody in their path.

Women seeking pregnancy & easy childbirth lined the streets, extending hands, or baring their bodies, to afford a better target, to be briefly & symbolically ‘purified’ as they passed by.

Fertility, of course, is worthless without sex, so as time passed, sex became the festival’s primary focus for the average Roman citizen, & the occasion took on a character much like carnival.

When the church tried to ban it, the people needless to say, stubbornly resisted. Hence the need for the substitute of St. Valentine’s Day emerged, with its more innocent version of love.

But let’s face it folks, the real Cupid was not the cute little cherub he is thought of today, but rather, a very randy Roman God responsible for a more tangible fertility.

So all the frivolous frivolity aside, let’s take ourselves back to the days when the Wolf Goddess Rumina, was at the heart of this time of celebration, as we purify & purge all of our afflictions & ills before we begin to plant the new seeds of creativity. For by the ancient calendars, Winter is ended by the ides of February, & Spring, a season of new beginnings, has arrived.

So on Valentine’s Day, let’s remember the potent powers of the Wolf, asking Her to spare the herds, taking only what She must, to keep us free & fertile & abundant, like the crops – as fruitful, & as wild as we want to be.

Peace & Blessed Bee…~hag

14 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

And so it is that today it has been 6 years since Richard Dancey died – & Valentine’s Day has forever taken on a deeper dimension. He comes up in my thoughts at all the obvious times, when I’m at the Christian Community where his picture graces the sacristy, & many times when I am writing my blog. He always encouraged me to write & inspired me so much over the years with his amazing storytelling. Here is one of my favorites, a short piece called: “The Crack in the Liberty Bell”

“In Philadelphia, birthplace of the constitution, home of Ben Franklin, there is the Liberty Bell, a cherished, close to holy relic of our story. In the Liberty Bell there is a crack, a large, long crack. It has its special significance. It speaks out a truth. It is a revelation. What does it reveal? One response can be this: it reveals we are very far from a perfect union. In fact, this land of liberty throughout its whole story has been and is riddled with flaws, contradictions, tragedies, and crimes against our striving to reach the promised land, the beloved community, a fair and vital society of free, healthy human beings, respecting and supporting one another, working together, inclusive of all the wide diversity of perspectives, backgrounds, and persuasions. At this moment in the story the crack in the Liberty Bell can feel like a deep wound, that is not healed, that is open and raw.

But the crack in the Liberty Bell could be revealing something more. In 2016 the songwriter, Leonard Cohen, died. In his song, ”Anthem,” the chorus sings:

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack, a crack, in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
That’s how the light gets in.

It is a trembling, astonsihing thought—that where there is a wound, a fracture, a broken heart; Where there is a trespass, violation, betrayal – There – is Christ!

May we be there too. We can forget our perfect offering. We can be who we are, with all our flaws and weaknesses. But just be there: present, conscious, standing, living, working, celebrating there. With Him. In the Light.” ~Richard Dancey

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to understand Aristotle’s gift to humanity – his Categories? Let us explore a path to an experience supported by Eurythmy.

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am – 12 noon CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

The Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Insights about Mary Magdalene with Faith DiVecchio, 

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT a hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate

You in Me

Biography, Calendar of the Soul, History, Upcoming Events

Dear friends – What is the essence of the New Mysteries of initiation? – Where do we meet the tasks & challenges on this modern path of evolution?

We often find our most profound trials in the Social Realm – It is with each other that we are tested – We must learn to work & grow together, creating safe sacred spaces where we can meet “I” to “I”.

There are of course conditions that depend on us doing our own personal inner work, & a selfless desire to met the other in good will. Our hearts & minds must be on fire with a balanced enthusiasm for a true creative becoming, which inspires us to mutually support, empower, awaken, & stimulate each other. This means that as participants in this fluid, independent, karmic school, we have to develop forces of love & trust, by 1st of all truly knowing ourselves, & then working to know each other, seeking to understand why destiny has brought us together.

We are meant to cultivate totally new kinds of spiritual forces that generate resolve, strengthening our thinking, because we will be tested daily – The adversarial powers work very hard to prick & divide us.

It is part of our task in this Michaelic school of life on earth where we meet our initiators in every relationship, to experience consciously the fact that especially in our anthroposophical communities where profound ideals have an opportunity to flourish, these adversarial forces are ever lurking – specifically in each of our soul forces – working to turn idealistic love into mutual hatred, trust into fractional mistrust – hope into despair.

Only thru a lifelong willingness to cross this deep abyss, together, in positivity, with a courageous vulnerability – to repeatedly create a new & robust kind of mutual love, trust, & abiding loyalty – uplifting sisterly-&-brotherly care, can we hope to make progress.

And this mutually suffered, joyfully harvested & actualized love shores up the Foundation Stone of our future orientated Independent School of Spiritual Science that we are meant to co-create.

I seek to hold this ideal even when I know I am not meeting it because of my feelings of pain & discomfort at my own moral failings which keep me separate. Sometimes I need boundaries. And so I do the work of weaving a tender fence of protection around the garden of my soul – So that I can ‘Awaken to Community’ in a more upright way…And so it is today…   

~hag

12 Friday 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Asteroid 2 Pallas reaches its stationary point amid the background stars in Canis Major, rising in the southeast at sunset. A few hours later, Pallas is high in the south, to the lower right of the blazing luminary Sirius, the Dog Star.

THE CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated – with added titles – by Roy Sadler
CARNIVAL Illuminate v45
In concert with the spirit’s birth
the mind grows firm;
it lifts the senses’ vague allure
to perfect clarity.
When soul abundance
would bond with springlife’s coming,
the mind must shine its light
on sense revealing.

Its mirror verse is at Pentecost (Whitsun, White Sunday) the octave of Easter,
as this week’s is the octave of Christmas, which is why I begin both verses
not simply as ‘United with’ but ‘In concert with’.

WHITSUN
Dream
v8
In concert with the gods’ creating
the senses’ power grows;
it presses thinking down
to dimness of a dream.
When Holy Being
would bond with soul
the mind must rest,
in dreamlike presence satisfied.

~Sea Cooke

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1804 – Death day of Immanuel Kant, German anthropologist, philosopher, & academic. “…all that the Critique of Pure Reason attempts to show can be summed up as follows: Mathematics and pure natural science are a priori sciences; from this it follows that the form of all experiences must be inherent in the subject itself. Therefore, the only thing left that is empirically given is the material of sensations. This is built up into a system of experiences, the form of which is inherent in the subject. The formal truths of a priori theories have meaning and significance only as principles which regulate the material of sensation; they make experience possible, but do not go further than experience. However, these formal truths are the synthetical judgment a priori, and they must — as condition necessary for experience — extend as far as experience itself. The Critique of Pure Reason does not at all prove that mathematics and pure science are a priori sciences but only establishes their sphere of validity, pre-supposing that their truths are acquired independently of experience. Kant, in fact, avoids discussing the question of proof of the a priori sciences in that he simply excludes that section of mathematics where even in his own opinion the a priori nature is open to doubt; and he limits himself to that section where he believes proof can be inferred from the concepts alone.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Truth and Knowledge: Kant’s Basic Epistemological Question

1809 – Birthday of Charles Darwin, English geologist & theorist. “…Arabism spreads abroad in the spiritual life. And along this undercurrent of history, Tarik bears what he originally bore into Spain on the fierce wings of war. The aim of the Arabians in their campaigns was most certainly not that of mere slaughter; no, their aim was really the spread of Arabism. Their tasks were connected with culture. And what a Tarik had carried into Spain at the beginning of the 8th century, he now bears with him through the gate of death, experiencing how as far as external history is concerned it runs dry in Western Europe. And he appears again in the 19th century, bringing Arabism to expression in modern form, as Charles Darwin.

Suddenly we shall find a light shed upon something that seems to come like a bolt from the blue — we find a light shed upon it when we follow what has here been carried over from an earlier into a later time, appearing in an entirely different form.

It may at first seem like a paradox, but the paradox will disappear the more deeply we look into the concrete facts. Read Darwin’s writings again with perception sharpened by what has been said and you will feel: Darwin writes about things which Tarik might have been able to see on his way to Europe! — In such details you will perceive how the one life reaches over into the next.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume I, lecture 10

1809 – Birthday of Abraham Lincoln, American lawyer & politician, 16th President of the United States

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to understand Aristotle’s gift to humanity – his Categories? Let us explore a path to an experience supported by Eurythmy.

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am – 12 noon CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

The Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Insights about Mary Magdalene with Faith DiVecchio, 

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT a hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate

Harken

Celestial Event, History, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Upcoming Events
Vankessel allegory of air

~Hail breath of Wisdom
Humming forth from
The throat of my beloved
You thrill me
Like a seed bell calling spring
Bidding me
To harken to
The secrets of the ethers
Pulsing thru the bossy wind
Striving to awaken & reveal
Our task
Will you listen?
~hag

Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

11 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Today, we can see waning Bella Luna near Spica, the brightest star of Virgo the Maiden.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Image result for St. Gobnait

Feast Day of St. Gobnait, Irish patron Saint of BeeKeepers. She was born in County Clare in the 5th or 6th Century, & is said to have been the sister of Saint Abban. She fled a family feud, taking refuge in the Aran Islands. Here an angel appeared & told her that this was “not the place of her resurrection” & that she should look for a place where she would find nine white deer grazing. She found the deer at the place now known as St. Gobnet’s Wood.

Celtic lore held bees in high esteem, believing the soul left the body as a bee or a butterfly. Gobnait is said to have added beekeeping to her life’s work, developing a lifelong affinity with them. She started a religious order & dedicated her days to helping the sick. She used honey as a healing aid. She is credited with saving the people at Ballyvourney from the plague.

One story tells of how she drove off a brigand by sending a swarm of bees after him and making him restore the cattle he had stolen.

St Gobnait’s well is situated to the North of Ballyagran. It is said that a white stag can sometimes be seen at the well.

660 BC – Traditional date for the founding of Japan by Emperor Jimmu

AD 55 – Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman emperor-ship, dies under mysterious circumstances in Rome. This clears the way for Nero to become Emperor

1534 – Henry VIII of England is recognized as supreme head of the Church of England

1650 – Deathday of René Descartes, French mathematician & philosopher

1790 – The Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitions U.S. Congress for the abolition of slavery.

1847 – Birthday of Thomas Edison, American engineer and businessman, developed the light bulb and phonograph.

1858 – Bernadette Soubirous’s first vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France. Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, & we celebrate her message of peace, & healing. In 1858, a 14-year-old peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, was gathering firewood in the countryside when a beautiful woman, standing on a rock in a natural grotto, appeared to her. This began a series of 18 apparitions in which Bernadette spoke & prayed with the woman. On one visit, the mysterious woman instructed Bernadette to dig into the dry ground & drink from the spring that flowed there. Although no spring was visible, Bernatdette scratched at the ground & a spring began to bubble up. To this day, the waters continue to flow, which have a miraculous healing property. Lourdes is well-known for the many miracles of healing that have taken place there over the years

On 11 February 1858, Bernadette went with her sister Toinette & neighbor Jeanne Abadie to collect some firewood.

“…I came back towards the grotto and started taking off my stockings. I had hardly taken off the first stocking when I heard a sound like a gust of wind. Then I turned my head towards the meadow. I saw the trees quite still: I went on taking off my stockings. I heard the same sound again. As I raised my head to look at the grotto, I saw a lady dressed in white, wearing a white dress, a blue girdle and a yellow rose on each foot, the same color as the chain of her rosary; the beads of the rosary were white….From the niche, or rather the dark alcove behind it, came a dazzling light…”.

Bernadette tried to make the sign of the Cross but she could not, because her hands were trembling. The lady smiled, & invited Soubirous to pray the rosary with her. Soubirous tried to keep this a secret, but Toinette told her mother. After parental cross-examination, she & her sister received a spanking for their story.

Three days later, 14 February, Bernadette returned to the Grotto. She had brought holy water as a test that the apparition was not of evil origin/provenance: “The second time was the following Sunday…Then I started to throw holy water in her direction, and at the same time I said that if she came from God she was to stay, but if not, she must go. She started to smile, and bowed … This was the second time.”

Bernadette’s companions are said to have become afraid when they saw her in ecstasy. She remained ecstatic even as they returned to the village. On 18 February, she spoke of being told by the Lady to return to the Grotto over a period of two weeks. She quoted the apparition: “The Lady spoke to me the third time..She told me also that she did not promise to make me happy in this world, but in the next.”

Bernadette was ordered by her parents to never go there again. She went anyway, & on 24 February, She related that the apparition asked for prayer & penitence for the conversion of sinners.

Bernadette described the apparition as uo petito damizelo (“a tiny maiden“) of about twelve years old. Bernadette insisted that the apparition was no taller than herself. Bernadette was very small even by the standards of other poorly nourished children.

Bernadette described the apparition as dressed in a flowing white robe, with a blue sash around her waist. This was the uniform of a religious group called the Children of Mary, which, on account of her poverty, Bernadette was not permitted to join (although she was admitted after the apparitions). Her Aunt Bernarde was a long-time member.

The next day, she said the apparition asked her to dig in the ground & drink from the spring she found there, that soon became a focal point for pilgrimages. Although it was muddy at first, the stream became increasingly clean.

As word spread, this water was given to medical patients of all kinds, & many reports of miraculous cures followed. Seven of these cures were confirmed. The first person with a “certified miracle” was a woman whose right hand had been deformed as a consequence of an accident.

The government fenced off the Grotto & issued stiff penalties for anybody trying to get near the off-limits area. In the process, Lourdes became a national issue in France, resulting in the intervention of Emperor Napoleon III with an order to reopen the grotto on 4 October 1858. The Church had decided to stay away from the controversy altogether.

Bernadette, knowing the local area well, managed to visit the barricaded grotto under cover of darkness. There, on 25 March, she said she was told: “I am the Immaculate Conception” (“que soy era immaculada concepciou”).

On Easter Sunday, 7 April, her examining doctor stated that Bernadette, in ecstasy, was observed to have held her hands over a lit candle without sustaining harm.

On 16 July, Bernadette went for the last time to the Grotto. “I have never seen her so beautiful before,” she reported.

The Church, faced with nationwide questions, decided to institute an investigative commission on 17 November 1858. On 18 January 1860, the local bishop finally declared that: “The Virgin Mary did appear indeed to Bernadette Soubirous” These events established the Marian veneration in Lourdes, which together with Fátima & the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the most frequented Marian shrines in the world, & to which between 4-6 million pilgrims travel annually.

In the early sixteenth century, a twelve-year-old shepherdess called Anglèze de Sagazan received a vision of the Virgin Mary near the spring at Garaison (part of the commune of Monléon-Magnoac), somewhat further away. Anglèze’s story is strikingly similar to that of Bernadette: she was a pious but illiterate & poorly educated girl, extremely impoverished, who spoke only in the local language, but successfully convinced authorities that her vision was genuine & persuaded them to obey the instructions of her apparitions. Like Bernadette, she was the only one who could see the apparition (others could apparently hear it); however, the apparition at Garaison’s supernatural powers tended toward the miraculous provision of abundant food, rather than healing the sick & injured.

The Apocalypsis according to St. Bernadette Subirous

“Pray for the poor sinners, pray for a sick world”, the lady told Bernadette and started to heal people who drank from the water.

Bernadette died in 1879. Her body remained uncorrupted. She was beatified in 1925 and canonized in 1933. The text of the “Secrets” was never revealed.

According to the “Schwarzer Brief”, The five prophecies imparted to Lourdes visionary Saint Bernadette Soubirous by the Blessed Mother, were written down before she died & given to Pope Leo XIII. The letters were never revealed by Leo, nor his successor Pope Saint Pius X. In fact, shortly before the turn of the century the letters were ‘misplaced’ & the Vatican ‘lost track’ of them. Bernadette´s letter remained in the Vatican Archives until 1997, when it was discovered by the French Father Antoine LaGrande who searched for material & correspondence on Lourdes. According to LaGrande, the letter consisted of five sheets, which were found in a metal box in the vaults of the Archives. On each sheet, a revelation was written down.

1. Described the development of the Lourdes sanctuary & predicted that it would become an important place of pilgrimage after Bernadette´s death. Many people would be healed by the water from the spring.

2. Mentioned important scientific discoveries including “the use of electric energy” & the invention of several types of machines.

3. Predicted the rise of an evil dictator in Germany which would cause “something horribly evil”. His rule of terror would end in a war in which “nearly all nations participate”.

4. Announced that man would fly into outer space & eventually land on the moon in or around 1970.

5. Was the most detailed text: “Your Holiness, the Holy Virgin told me that with the end of the 20th Century the end of the age of science would follow. A new era of the Faith will begin everywhere on Earth. Eventually the evidence is found that it was God who created the Earth and Man. This will be the beginning of the end of the sciences; the people will not believe in them any longer. Millions will turn back to Christ…” The Church, Bernadette said, would play a new, important role. The loss of trust in the Sciences, said the seer, was caused by the “haughtiness of the physicians who used their knowledge to create a monster, a creature which is neither man nor beast.” This would cause a public scandal. The people would realize that the scientists went too far – & “chase them like you chase a rapacious wolf.”

Furthermore, Bernadette warns that a new, big war could break out at the turn of the Millennium. “After the year 2000 a final clash between nations will happen. In a horrible battle, 5.650.451 soldiers will loose their life & a bomb with great impact will be thrown onto a city in Persia.”

If the original text indeed says “thrown onto”, it would be a remarkable prediction; only since World War 2, bombs were thrown on cities. Air raids were completely unknown in Bernadette´s time. (Afganistan became independent only in 1919 – until 1751 it was a part of Persia, during the 19th century it was under both, Persian & British/Indian influence)

“At the end”, Bernadette continued, “The Lord will pour out His blessings. Poverty, disease & hunger have an end, every tenth person will have the power to heal. There will be a Second Golden Age of mankind”, the seer concluded.

Dear friends, What if these Marian Apparitions are working to advance our etheric vision?

1861 – American Civil War: The United States House of Representatives unanimously passes a resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state

1937 – A sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers

1971 – Eighty-seven countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, & Soviet Union, sign the Seabed Arms Control Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons on the ocean floor in international waters

1978 – China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare & Charles Dickens

1979 – The Iranian Revolution establishes an Islamic theocracy under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

1981 – Around 100,000 US gallons of radioactive coolant leak into the containment building of TVA Sequoyah 1 nuclear plant in Tennessee, contaminating 108 workers

1990 – Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa after 27 years as a political prisoner

2011 – The first wave of the Egyptian revolution culminates in the resignation of Hosni Mubarak & the transfer of power to the Supreme Military Council after 18 days of protests

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to understand Aristotle’s gift to humanity – his Categories? Let us explore a path to an experience supported by Eurythmy.

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am – 12 noon CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

The Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Insights about Mary Magdalene with Faith DiVecchio, 

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT a hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate

Tap in

Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars, Upcoming Events
Padro Cardona

POD (Poem Of the day)

Come celebrate the unseen powers that sustain the world…
Pay reverence to what’s underneath:
The Holy column of support
The liminal benediction from above
The christened periphery
An awakened still-point within
Elusive, uncanny & darkly delicious…
Harken to inner vitality peaking
with thinking as smart as it gets
acting as if
every move is a tap dance…
~hag

10 February 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Sirius the Dog Star blazes in the southeast after dinnertime, below Orion. It’s the brightest star of Canis Major. Comet ZTF passes Mars this evening and tomorrow evening. Right after the end of twilight, face south and look very high, almost overhead. The comet is upper left of Mars. Tomorrow evening, Saturday, the comet will be below Mars.

Image result for etheric heart

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

547 – Death day of St. Scholastica, foundress of the women’s branch of Benedictine Monasticism. The patron saint of nuns, & convulsive children. She is invoked against storms & rain. The most commonly told story about her is that she would go & visit her twin brother Benedict of Nursia near his abbey once a year, They would spend the day praying & discussing sacred texts. Sensing the time of her death was drawing near, Scholastica asked him to stay with her for the evening so they could continue their discussions. Not wishing to break his Rule, Benedict refused, insisting that he needed to return to his cell. At that point, Scholastica closed her hands in prayer, & after a moment, a wild storm started outside. Benedict asked, “What have you done?”, to which she replied, “I asked you & you would not listen; so I asked my God & he did listen. So now go off, if you can, leave me & return to your monastery.” Benedict was unable to return to his monastery, & they spent the night in discussion. Three days later, from his cell, her twin saw her soul leaving the earth & ascending to heaven in the form of a shining white dove

Image result for St. Austrebertha.

630 – Feast Day of St. Austrebertha. A popular legend states that one day, while looking for the donkey whose task it was to carry the laundry of the monks to the convent, she came across a wolf. The wolf admitted to killing the donkey & begged for forgiveness. Austrebertha forgave the wolf but commanded him to carry the laundry himself, a task that the wolf performed for the rest of its life

1909 – Deathday of Felix Koguzki – a peasant herb collector – a simple man of the land who had deep insights into the spiritual world . Rudolf Steiner got to know him during his student days in 1880, when he regularly took the train from Inzersdorf to Vienna, where they exchanged ideas about the spiritual world. Steiner says that he was endowed with a totally elemental & creative wisdom. With the herb gatherer he finds a spiritual friend & does not feel so alone. Thru Félix Koguski, he comes into contact with a very high spiritual master who initiates him. ‘Master M’ shows him the Rosicrucian connection between modern & occult science, religion & the spiritual forces that weave the threads of history. The master led Steiner to read Fichte which aided in strengthening his thoughts so that young Steiner came to a decisive awakening of his soul forces. From this the germs of his book Occult Science were born. The masters main guideline was: “You can only defeat the dragon if you wear its skin” an awakening to the Micaelic Impulse. Felix Koguzki was the living model of Felix Balde from Steiner’s Mystery Dramas & is regarded as the messenger of the secret master as reported in GA 262 (pp. 30-31 ). There it says: “I did not meet M. ( Master) right away, but first of all a messenger from him who was fully initiated into the secrets of the effectiveness of all plants and their connection with the cosmos and with human nature. “( GA 262 , p. 16). Steiner writes about his encounter with Koguzki in “My Course of Life”:

…as if he as a personality were only the organ of speech for a spiritual content that wanted to speak from hidden worlds. When you were with him you could look deep into the secrets of nature. He carried his bundle of medicinal herbs on his back; but in his heart he carried the results which he had gained from the spirituality of nature in his gathering. I have seen some people smile, who at times joined them as a third party when I walked through Wiener Alleegasse with this “initiated” person. It was no wonder. Because its expression was not understandable from the start. In a sense, you first had to learn your “intellectual dialect”. At first I couldn’t understand him either. But from the first time I met him, I had the deepest sympathy for him. And so it gradually became to me.

Image result for rudolf stiener 1880

If one takes the usual concept of “learning”, one can say: “Learning” could not be done from this man. But if you yourself had the view of a spiritual world, you could gain deep insights into it through someone else, which was completely fixed in it.

And at the same time everything that was enthusiasm was far removed from this personality. When you came into your home, you found yourself in the midst of the most sober, simple country family. Above the door of his house were the words: “In God’s blessing everything lies.” One was entertained, as with other villagers. I always had to drink coffee, not from a cup, but from a “mug” that held almost a liter; in addition I had to eat a piece of bread that was huge. But the villagers didn’t look at the man for a fanatic either. The way he behaved in his hometown made every ridicule bounce off. He also had a healthy sense of humor and knew how to talk to young and old at every meeting in the village in such a way that people enjoyed his words.

This man remained close to my soul, even when life had led me away from him again. You can find him in my Mystery Dramas in the figure of Felix Balde. “( GA 28)

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to understand Aristotle’s gift to humanity – his Categories? Let us explore a path to an experience supported by Eurythmy.

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am – 12 noon CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

The Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Insights about Mary Magdalene with Faith DiVecchio, 

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT a hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate

The Word is Love

History, Poetry, Quote, Speaking with the Stars, Upcoming Events

‘When no longer numbers and figures
Are keys to all creatures;
When those who sing or kiss
Know more than all the learned scholars;
When the world returns to itself
In a life of freedom;
When once again the light and shadow wed,
And thus united give the real clarity;
When man can know the true world story
In myths and in the form of poems,
Then will the whole deformed being
Vanish before one single secret word.’
~Novalis

9 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Go out late the next few evenings to catch the waning gibbous Moon near Spica.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1872 – Birthday of Edith Maryon. She studied sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London & exhibited her work at the Royal Academy. When she met Rudolf Steiner & Anthroposophy she discovered her raison d’être. Maryon wrote to Steiner that “for some years I have always felt there is something for me to do, and that sometime I shall meet the Master who will tell me what it is and explain some of the things that have puzzled me so much. For a long time I searched…and when I saw you in Berlin I knew at last I was right about the Master…is there really any definite thing for me to do… if there is may I know now what it is?” (1 Jan 1913). Months later, from Munich, Maryon wrote to Steiner: “I must find some definite work to do, or be forced to return to England. There is a feeling that perhaps there may be something for me to do here, so I will not go back unless absolutely obliged. You will see that it is necessary for me to come to a conclusion about the kind of work I will do during the rest of my life, and I do want some advice…Your pupil, L Edith C Maryon” (10 Jun 1913).

Sculpture by Edith Maryon

Maryon arrived at Dornach, Switzerland, in January 1914. These were very early days for the project of relocating Anthroposophy headquarters to Switzerland. It was propitious timing since six months later the Great War would begin & engulf Europe & the world in catastrophe. Maryon was a trailblazer: “There was hardly any other artist coming to work in Dornach before her, capable in the way Edith Maryon was, of sacrificing – that is, largely giving up her own deeply rooted style, born out of the aesthetics of Greece, in favour of a new Mystery art”.

The next decade was a period of intense industry & creativity for the English sculptor, a period in which she found her life’s purpose. “Edith Maryon…was helping him [Steiner] with the Goetheanum building and above all with the great wooden sculpture The ‘Representative of Humanity’…Miss Maryon throughout those years was one of his closest collaborators…the studio in which the work was going on became his study for a great part of the day. Here he received his visitors, and she was acting very largely as his secretary” (George Kaufmann Adams, 1958). Adams related a visit to Dornach after the war: “We were received in the most friendly way by the Dornach members and above all by Miss Maryon herself. She gave us mallet and chisel and let us help with parts of the sculpture where there was much superfluous wood and our unskilled hands could do no harm”.

Adams reported that Steiner was “anxious for an English edition of the book [on the Threefold Social Order], and as no one else was at hand, Miss Maryon had undertaken to translate it. In style – like many of the attempted translations of Dr Steiner’s works in those days – it was impossible…and we said so frankly. We were then invited to Dornach to go into the whole question”. (Adams went on to extemporaneously translate many of Steiner’s lectures, for example at Oxford & Torquay, as well as books, for example Steiner’s Agriculture Course)

by EM

Edith Maryon & Rudolf Steiner carried on an extensive exchange of correspondence beginning in 1912, when Maryon wrote to Steiner on 16 October from London. Steiner wrote to Maryon from his travels including from Ilkley, Penmaenmawr, London, Stuttgart, Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Mannheim, Vienna, Prague, Amsterdam, Kristiania (Oslo), and & The Hague. Steiner’s salutation to Maryon progressed in the course of 1919 to 1920 from “Mein liebes Fraulein E. Maryon” (My dear Miss E Maryon) to “Mein liebes Fraulein Edith Maryon!” (My dear Miss Edith Maryon) to “Meine liebe Edith Maryon!)“ (My love Edith Maryon!)

Theirs was an artistic partnership: “Rudolf Steiner stood, day after day, beside his colleague in the high ceilinged sculpture studio. During this time they not only worked with their hands, but also conversed intensively on every imaginable subject – from art, through politics to things of the deepest concern. Over & above this his studio had become for Rudolf Steiner a refuge of inner peace in which – well protected from visitors by Edith Maryon – he could both do a lot of esoteric work & also relax”. Maryon worked tirelessly with Steiner to create the ‘The Representative of Humanity’. She was “one of the closest colleagues and pupils of Rudolf Steiner”.

Maryon was appointed by Steiner as the leader of the Section for Sculptural Arts at the Christmas Conference of the Anthroposophy Society at Dornach in December 1923, & was unanimously elected as the vice-president of the Anthroposophy Society at the General Assembly on 21 January 1924.

Edith Maryon died on 2 May 1924 reportedly of tuberculosis, & many say from a broken heart (a depletion of her etheric forces  which were tied up in the burning of the Goetheanum.) In his memorial tribute, Steiner stated of Edith Maryon that: “When we began to build the Goetheanum, she was one of the first to devote herself to the work…With a perfect control of her technique, her special gift was to give spirituality to stately form. This artistic skill she devoted entirely to the service of the Goetheanum…earnestness showed itself in her appearance. One could see a person who had not been spoiled by the amenities of life, though she had been sorely tried by the hand of fate…She participated most actively in all that went on at the Goetheanum. The spiritual contents of the Christmas Assembly and the Class lectures…up to the last days of her life she pondered on how this Section [Sculptural Arts] should develop its activity in the right way…Her work for the this Society will always be remembered as being most earnest and devoted”.

1881 – Deathday of Russian novelist Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky – Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in GA157 – The Destinies of Individuals and of Nations – 14 lectures Berlin

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to understand Aristotle’s gift to humanity – his Categories? Let us explore a path to an experience supported by Eurythmy.

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am – 12 noon CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

The Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Insights about Mary Magdalene with Faith DiVecchio, 

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT a hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate