Homesick

November 18, 2022Biography, Celestial Event, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars, Upcoming Event~hag

Dear friends – In many essays here on RR I am often called “to follow the path of humankind’s spiritual development” – Which Steiner explains is revealed in the Calendar of the Soul. And so I ask: How do our cosmic origins affect our lives today?

In order to transport ourselves into what went on spiritually in the ancient evolutionary phases, we have to raise our inner vision to a time when the human soul 1st aspires to comprehend the nature of the Spirits of Wisdom, & begins to prepare for a higher striving. This has its origin in what may be called: a “readiness to bestow,” a willingness to give, to give of oneself.

With this contemplation we encounter a soul-mood of “longing”. And what is this longing? Steiner describes it as a “Homesickness”.

It is a kind of willing; an unattainable yearning of the will.

We can characterize the mood of the Thrones, those Spirits of Will whose sacrifice was rejected, to be of this nature. What we may discover in the depths of our own soul-life as longing, is a heritage coming to us from these primeval times.

Just as we have inherited other qualities from these ancient stages of evolution – the sacrifice of Fire, the giving quality of air, & the renunciation that lives in water – we also inherit from ancient Moon, all kinds of longings, all kinds of repressed wishes impossible to fulfil – of will that is lamed.

Thru the rejection of the sacrifice there came into existence beings with a repressed, held back will.

We can picture the ones whose sacrifice was accepted, we can rejoice in how they were able to join their will with the Spirits of Harmony, the choir of Beings a step above them on the ladder of evolution. As human beings we can relate to their feelings of joy & unity.

We can also relate to those who were rejected – excluded from this union – those that remained behind with repressed longings & wishes.

These Spirits of Will who wanted to offer all that dwelt within them were compelled, because of the rejection of their sacrifice, to draw back into themselves.

From this, Steiner shares that “egoity flashed up”! Which we can see is a big part of our heritage today. From Spiritual Science we learn that a mild form of this egoity is longing.

In those primal times we see how these beings who were forced to focus only on themselves, on their egoity, would be condemned to a one-sided development, IF something else had not entered evolution to redress the balance.

On ancient Moon we see arriving on the scene – the Spirits of Movement – who “prevent the condemnation & exile into one-sidedness.“

Movement here can be compared to the fluid movement of our own thought. Thru the watery element of old moon – The Spirits of Movement guide the rejected Spirits of Will that had been driven back into themselves; moving them out into relation with all the other higher Beings, bridging the gap – creating a relationship between those Beings.

We can get an idea of what was going on in the Cosmos at this stage of evolution if we reflect upon our own corresponding disposition of soul: when we feel stuck! We all know the torment of this, how it drives our state of mind.

As a way to numb ourselves when things become too painful, we may dumb it down – which can be described as “a state of boredom” – a feeling of ennui – a paralyzed will, a malaise.

But really, this ‘boredom’, at its core, is longing.

And as we may have experienced, the torment of longing can often be overcome thru our relationships – pulling us out ourselves into the other.

From Lecture 4 of Steiner’s ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’: “Thus we see that while the earth was passing through her Moon-phase, the Spirits of Movement brought into the lives of those beings who were filled with longing, and would otherwise have been desolate — for boredom is also a kind of desolation — the change which is brought about by movement, a constantly renewed relation to ever new beings and new conditions…We can then overcome the one-sidedness of longing by means of variety, by change and the movement of the things experienced.”

As the Spirits of Movement introduce change & movement into the Universe, the Will that is a longing, is transformed within these Beings into “thought pictures.” We can relate this to the fluid pictures of our human dreaming.

But even with the help of the Dynamis there is not the ability to completely merge with the higher beings, because this new aspect of ‘egoism’ within the will, prevents it.

But they are able to take in a transitory picture of the other being, which lives in them like a dream-picture. At this phase of development we see the arising of “picture-consciousness“.

It’s mind-blowing to think how we ourselves, as rudimentary human beings, passed thru this phase of evolution, so, yessiree bob, we too are infused with these feelings of longing & this ability to live into “thought pictures.”

What’s interesting to me is how this gift of the Spirits of Movement has in our time become so debased. The constant use of screens – an overloading of images coming from sub-nature which actually exasperates our craving – turning it into an addiction – distracting us from cultivating our own picture-consciousness, which I believe we are meant to use to perceive the Etheric Christ.

If we take this to heart, it gives us both the spiritual basis of what developed during the moon-phase of our Earth, & how this has affected “the deep subsoil of our being“. – It’s like how a movement under the surface of the ocean drives up the waves – this sub-conscious stuff influences us, without us being aware of its ancient cause.

Again Steiner hits the nail on the head: “By the constant succession of pictures, arising one after the other, the yearning is satisfied and brought into harmony; but should the pictures remain any length of time the old longing begins to glimmer faintly up from the depths and the Spirits of Movement call up new pictures. And when these have been there for a little time the longing arises again, demanding fresh ones. Now with respect to a soul-life such as this the momentous sentence must be pronounced: if this longing can only be satisfied by a continual flow of pictures following one after the other, there would be no end to the infinite flow. The only thing that can supervene on this is what must come if the endless flow of pictures is to be replaced by something that is able to redeem it otherwise than by mere pictures — namely, by realities! In other words, the planetary embodiment of our earth through which we have passed, when pictures were brought to us by the activity of the Spirits of Movement, must be replaced by that planetary phase of the earth’s embodiment which we call the phase of redemption. We shall see presently that the earth is to be called the “Planet of Redemption,” just as her last embodiment — that of the Moon-existence — may be called the “Planet of Longing”; longing capable of satisfaction yet flowing on endlessly.

And while we live in the consciousness belonging to this earth, in which as we know redemption comes to us through the Mystery of Golgotha — there arises continually within us from the subsoil of our soul, a never-ceasing craving for redemption. It is as though, on the surface, we had the waves of our ordinary consciousness — while below, in the depths of the sea of our soul-life, lives longing, which is the ocean-bed of our soul. This strives continually to ascend to the One who accomplishes the sacrifice, the Universal Being, Who is able to satisfy the longing once and for all time — not in a never-ceasing succession of pictures.”

May we take this into our thinking, feeling & willing.

~hag

18 November 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: All month Jupiter shines below the Great Square of Pegasus, boxy emblem of the fall sky.

Orion clears the eastern horizon by around 8 pm CT. now. Upper left of Orion, bright Mars glares. Keep going upper left of Mars & there’s Capella.

High straighter above Orion are Aldebaran & higher still, the little Pleiades cluster, the size of your fingertip at arm’s length.

Down below Orion, Sirius rises around 10 pm. Sirius always follows two hours behind Orion.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1923 – The founding of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society. Willem Zeylmans van Emmichhoven becomes its General Secretary.

1961- Deathday of Willem Zeylmans van Emmichhoven, a Dutch psychiatrist and anthroposophist. From 1923 until his death in 1961 he was chairman of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society. He was a familiar figure in public life & had a considerable influence on the Anthroposophic movement, particularly through his numerous lectures & his work as an author, which included the first biography of Rudolf Steiner.

Zeylmans was the son of a Dutch chocolate manufacturer. His mother came from Germany. In childhood he was often troubled by visions of color & emotional turmoil that later stimulated his preoccupation with what would later be called synesthesia: a condition when you hear a sound & automatically see a color. After recovering from an attack of typhoid, he entered medical school at eighteen, specializing in psychiatry. His interest in color, inspired by the painter Jacoba van Heemskerck & her friend & patron Marie Tak van Poortvliet, led him to research more about the effects of colors. He continued his medical studies in Leipzig under Wilhelm Wundt in 1919, where he became a member of the Anthroposophical Society. After meeting with Rudolf Steiner, he was encouraged to continue his research into the effect of colors & in his dissertation he wrote on “The effect of colors on the life of feeling.’’ On 27 September 1921 he was married to Ingeborg Droogleever Fortuyn, whom he had met for the first time many years earlier. Their first son was born in 1926.

At the age of 28, Zeylmans began lecturing on Anthroposophy to an enthusiastic public, as well as academic colleagues. He helped establish the first Waldorf School in The Hague, where he also founded a small psychiatric hospital, which soon moved into its own building (now the Rudolf Steiner Zorg). When the Anthroposophical Society was founded in the Netherlands, Rudolf Steiner appointed him as its first General Secretary. In addition to his psychiatric work Zeylmans undertook worldwide lecture tours. He spoke often about the effect of color on humans & gave advice to paint manufacturers, architects, directors of museums & artists.

Zeylman’s primary concerns were the rapprochement & understanding between the different nations & peoples, as well as a furtherance of cosmopolitanism. His attempt to found the global schools association suggested by Rudolf Steiner (a ‘”Weltschulverein”), to promote the dissemination & funding for free school education, failed due to resistance from anthroposophic circles against fostering broader public awareness.

In the face of increasing political fanaticism, another initiative Zeylmans took was to further interest for anthroposophy in European youth. In the summer of 1930 he organized a youth camp on the Stakenberg near Nunspeet in the Veluwe. More than a thousand participants gathered in working groups & heard lectures by leading anthroposophists like Eugen Kolisko, Walter Johannes Stein, Elisabeth Vreede & Ita Wegman on their thoughts to the situation of the time.

His work, however, was increasingly restricted by political developments. His involvement with the administration of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach Switzerland also met with increasing disapproval. The internal disputes since the death of Rudolf Steiner & his close collaboration with the physician Ita Wegman in 1935 led to his exclusion & that of the majority of the Dutch members.

After the war Zeylmans took up once again his international lecturing work. In 1954 he embarked on a global tour for nine months. Encouraged by Bernard Lievegoed, in 1960 he sought a mandate from the members of the Anthroposophical Society in the Netherlands to reunite it once more, after 25 years of separation, with the General Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Switzerland. He undertook a second journey through South Africa in 1961, visiting the newly established Waldorf schools & other institutions to give advice & hold lectures. During this trip, he died unexpectedly in Cape Town.

Resurrection of the Temple (The first Goetheanum) by Rita de Cassia Perez, Adriana’s mother

The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’

Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.

To register & receive the Zoom code Contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.

This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social. Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.

During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’

Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing. She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.

Cain’s Sacrifice

November 17, 2022Biography, Celestial Event, History, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars~hag

As we dive ever deeper into Steiner’s ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’ we see that by adding the concept of resignation to those of sacrifice & the virtue of bestowing, we take another step into the birthright of our authentic humanness – we unfold the spiritual fact that thru this act of resignation, of renunciation, of forgoing or refraining, the gods created evolution out of eternity.

This abstinence also opened the way to resistance – embodied by the Luciferic beings.

The gods allowed ‘evil’ to come into the world for the sake of human freedom, which can only be achieved by acquiring the strength thru resistance to lead evil back to good. And this capacity can only come about as a consequence of renunciation & resignation.

We are called to take this concept of refraining into our thinking, feeling & willing, so that meditative images can arise, & inspire us to apply this principle in our lives, in our karmic relationships, & to the world karma we all share, to heal the social sphere – to enact progress in our evolution & fulfill the Divine Christic plan.

This cosmic act of giving up the opportunity to receive a sacrifice of will substance performed on ancient Sun by the Cherubim is the essence behind fasting or ‘giving something up’ for Lent…This makes sense, it all feels right & purposeful – An eternal teaching moment.

And yet when we live into the experience of The Thrones – those beings of Will who devoutly surrendered their innermost being, who sacrificed their very substance; when we imagine their pure gift being declined – that they were not allowed to give it, that it was thrown back at them; the bond that could have been forged with the higher choir of the Cherubim left unmade – we feel the reverberations in the cosmos of these rejected will forces.

The biblical picture of Cain & Abel gives us much to contemplate in this regard. For Cain’s inner experience & the symbolic historical reaction personifies this ‘rejected sacrifice’‘, in an heightened way.

It’s easy into fall into blaming Cain. But if we view his actions from the perspective of the inner realities of evolution, we see Cain & Abel out-picturing a cosmic act of surrender & resignation – as well as what was within those Spirits of Will whose sacrifice was refused – which gave rise to a mood of opposition toward those higher beings.

In Lecture 4 Steiner tells us: “Coming nearer and nearer to the earthly life of the human being, we find this mood in ourselves — everyone knows it — as uncertainty, and at the same time as torment, in the hidden depths of soul-life. This feeling with which we are all acquainted holds sway in the secret depth of our soul-life, and sometimes pushes its way up to the surface; and then perhaps its torment is lessened. We often go about with these feelings without being aware of them in our superficial consciousness; yet there they are within us.

We might recall the words of the Goethe’s ‘Wilhelm Meister’, if we wish to convey an idea of the tormenting nature of this soul-mood with which is connected a certain degree of pain: “Only one who knows longing knows, knows what I suffer.” This longing lives continuously in the human being as a mood of soul.”

We will explore this feeling of Longing in the next essay.

Until soon

~hag

17 November 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Leonid meteor shower peaks, but the waning Moon will make spotting showers during the early morning predawn hours, when Leo is highest in the sky, the best bet for viewing.

Although the Leonids technically peaked late last night, the radiant in Leo the Lion is highest in the hours before dawn this morning. Look southeast in the hour or two before sunrise to again find bright Regulus. The Leonids’ radiant sits north of this star.

The Leonids come from dust left behind by passes of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle through the inner solar system.

Sunrise: 6:49 A.M.
Sunset: 4:41 P.M.
Moonrise: 12:50 A.M.
Moonset: 2:09 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waning crescent (29%)

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

According to T.H. Meyer & Johannes Hemleben, in his book “Rudolf Steiner: A documentary biography”: Today 17 NOVEMBER in 1901 Marie von Sivers asks THE question of Rudolf Steiner –Marie von Sivers “appeared one day” at one of Rudolf Steiner’s early lectures in 1900. In the autumn of 1901, she posed the question to Steiner, “Would it be possible to create a spiritual movement based on European tradition and the impetus of Christ?” Rudolf Steiner later reported:

With this, I was given the opportunity to act in a way that I had only previously imagined. The question had been put to me, and now, according to spiritual laws, I could begin to answer it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1907 – Birthday of Israel Regardie, English occultist & author

The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’

Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.

To register & receive the Zoom code Contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

better than Sci-Fi

November 15, 2022Biography, Celestial Event, History, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars~hag

To live into the pictures that can arise in our souls from the causal stages of our cosmic & earthly evolution – to experience inwardly what the choirs of the great hierarchies give forth of themselves thru their interaction as they went thru their human stage & beyond, opens us to the root of our soul life.

It’s better than Sci-Fi folks, you can’t make these things up, & it explains so much…

We can contemplate that thru the resignation made by the Cherubim during the Sun-evolution, eternity was gained. So when we look into our own soul, we can find the call to exhibit these qualities of renunciation which brings us into the eternal now. We can imagine how eternity & immortality were acquired, but only thru the renouncing of the sacrifice – the letting go of the gifts from the virtue of bestowal.

This reminds me of the vow that Maria makes in the Mystery Dramas to renounce all personal gain so that her achievements, instead of giving her individual power, can foster the spiritual development of others – especially those connected with her in a karmic knot, specifically Johannes.

In this artistic representation by Steiner we see an example of the significance of the renunciation made by the gods during ancient Sun.

From Lecture 3 of ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’ Steiner continues the picture: “From Occult Science we know that the evolution of ancient Moon followed that of ancient Sun, that at the close of the Sun-age all the existing conditions were immersed in a kind of twilight, in a sort of cosmic chaos, & then emerged again as “Moon.”

And we see the sacrifice reissuing in the form of heat. All that remained as heat on ancient Sun reappears as heat on ancient Moon; we see the virtue of bestowal reappearing as gas, or air. And the resignation of the sacrifice also continues…It is actually the case, that what we can ourselves experience as resignation we must think of in everything on ancient Moon, carried over from ancient Sun…

That which had been sacrifice reappears in Maya as Heat; and that which has the virtue of bestowing appears in Maya as gas or air. Resignation as it has now become appears in external Maya as Fluidity, as “Water.”

“Water” is Maya and would not be in the world at all were it not that its spiritual foundation is renunciation, or resignation. Wherever water is to be found in the world there is divine-renunciation.

Just as heat is an illusion behind which is sacrifice, and gas or air an illusion behind which is the virtue of bestowal, so is water as a substance, as an external reality, nothing but an illusion of the senses, a reflection; the only reality existing in it, is resignation…It might be said, water could only flow in the world because resignation underlies it.“

WOW…This insight is really changing how I interact with these earthly elements. Even though it’s still hard for me to see them as maya…

Ok so, we have been picturing how since some of the Cherubim refrained from the sacrifice, they passed from mortality to immortality – from a transitory state into a State of Duration. In this we see the 1^st polarity.

What does this engender? And what becomes of the substance of the sacrifice not received?

The consequence of the polarity created by the renunciation of the Cherubim made the presence of what we call Luciferic beings who we can say “remained behind” possible. These beings take possession of the sacrifice to use for their own separate desires, outside of progressive evolution.

But it’s Important to note that if those Cherubim had accepted the proffered sacrifice, the Luciferic beings could not have remained behind; they would have had no opportunity of becoming independent & embodying themselves in that substance.

So friends, as Steiner reveals we can see that in cosmic evolution the gods themselves called their ‘opponents’ into being. If the gods had not renounced the sacrifice, these beings would not have been able to oppose them.

We may picture the gods forseeing this. Steiner translates for us what they may have said: “If we purely go on creating as we have done from Saturn to Sun there would never be any free beings, capable of acting from their own initiative. In order that beings of this nature might come into existence, the possibility must be given for opponents to arise against us in the Universe, so that we should meet with resistance in that which is subject to time. If we ourselves ordain everything we shall meet with no such resistance. We could make everything very easy for ourselves by accepting the sacrifice offered to us; then would the whole of evolution be subject unto us. But this will not do, we want beings able to become strong through resistance. We will therefore not accept the sacrifice; so that through our resignation, and because they accept the sacrifice, they become our opponents!”

This explains how in the example I shared of Maria’s sacrifice in the Mystery Dramas, that her renunciation gives rise to Luciferic tendencies in Johannes! And turns the love she gives to her foster child into indifference. Up until now I had never understood why that had to happen.

And so dear striving humans, we have begun to try to understand the origins of what becomes a “Sacred Wound” in our soul life – which we will continue to unfold as we go deeper into the ancient moon stage of evolution in the next installments…

Standing in wonder & awe with you

~hag

15 November 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: With moonrise coming late conditions are perfect for observing Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) shortly after sunset. The comet is making a slow curve through Serpens Caput this month, just south of Corona Borealis. Tonight, ZTF is just due south of Coronae Borealis in the Northern Crown. The comet is essentially at the turning point in its curve and will now start moving slowly north and slightly east as November continues.

Sunrise: 6:45 A.M.
Sunset: 4:43 P.M.
Moonrise: 10:45 P.M.
Moonset: 12:53 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (58%)

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1280 – Death & Feast Day of Albertus Magnus, a German Catholic Dominican friar & bishop, theologian, & philosopher, one of the founders of Scholasticism. Canonized as a saint, one of the 36 Doctors of the Catholic Church. He was known during his lifetime as Doctor Universalis & Doctor Expertus.

Albertus was the first to comment on virtually all of the writings of Aristotle, making them accessible to wider academic debate. The study of Aristotle brought him to take an interest in the teachings of Muslim academics, notably Avicenna & Averroes.

Albertus took part in the General Chapter of the Dominicans at Valenciennes together with Thomas Aquinas establishing a program for the Dominicans that featured the study of philosophy. This innovation initiated the tradition of Dominican scholastic philosophy put into practice, for example at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the “Angelicum”

Albert’s writings went to 38 volumes, displaying his prolific habits & encyclopedic knowledge of topics such as logic, theology, botany, geography, astronomy, astrology, mineralogy, alchemy, zoology, physiology, phrenology, justice, law, friendship, & love. He digested, interpreted, & systematized the whole of Aristotle’s works, gleaned from the Latin translations & notes of the Arabian commentators. Most modern knowledge of Aristotle was preserved and presented by Albertus.

According to legend, Albertus is said to have discovered the philosopher’s stone & passed it on to his pupil Thomas Aquinas, shortly before his death.

Among the last of his labors was the defense of the orthodoxy of his former pupil, Thomas Aquinas, whose death grieved him deeply.

Albertus is known for his commentary on the musical practice of his times. Most of his written musical observations are found in his commentary on Aristotle’s Poetics

“Essentially speaking, the task of the time which lies between the fourth and the fifteenth century was, therefore, the development of a technique of thinking. This thinking activity has now adopted a definite attitude in regard to man’s cognitive faculty towards the contents of the world. We may say: Spirits such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas have set forth the position of man’s thinking activity towards the contents of the world in a manner which was, at that time, quite incontestable.

How do their descriptions appear to us?

Thinkers such as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas had dogmatically preserved truths which originated from old traditions, but their meaning could no longer be grasped. To begin with, these truths had to be protected as contents of a supernatural revelation, which at that time was more or less equivalent to a super-sensible revelation. The Church preserved these revelations through its authority and teachings, and people thought that the dogmas of the Church contained the revelations connected with the super-sensible worlds. They were to accept what was offered in these dogmas, they were to accept it as a revelation which could not be touched by human reason, that is to say, by the human intellect. The Dual Form of Cognition During the Middle Ages and the Development of Knowledge in Modern Times” ~ A Lecture By Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, August 5, 1921, GA 206

1630 – Deathday of Johannes Kepler, German astronomer & mathematician

“Johannes Kepler was as much a natural scientist of an earlier time as of a later one. He drew his thoughts from external observation, but in his inner experience he had an absolute feeling that spiritual Beings are there when man is receiving his thoughts from Nature. Kepler felt himself to be partly an Initiate, and for him it was a matter of course that he experienced his abstract building up of the universe artistically”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Younger generation

“It cannot be denied that such spirits formerly imparted their oracular sayings to men through idols and oak-trees, out of groves and grottoes, through animals and so on; and sooth-saying from the flight of birds was not merely an art of deceiving the weak. Those spirits were active in guiding the birds through the air, and by this means, with God’s permission, much was intimated to men in former times. Even today we hear stories of fateful birds, such as owls, vultures, eagles, ravens, but the more such stories are despised, the rarer they become. For these spirits cannot bear being despised, as according to the law of God and Christian teaching, they certainly deserve to be: they prefer to fly away and keep silent. From the beginning the lying Tempter was allowed to speak through animals: he spoke to Eve through the serpent and thus he led the human race astray. That was always the way of these spirits from then onwards: whenever they could speak to men through the bodies and movements of animals, through voices or portents, they misused this power, appropriating for themselves the reverence due to God and misleading unhappy men. And now, although Christ came to destroy the work of the Devil, and imposed silence on these spirits, and although they lost their temple-statues, their groves and their caves and the earth they had so long possessed, yet they are always here still in the empty air, and with God’s permission they utter their scattered cries. Often they are God’s scourges; often he allows certain things to be announced through them to men.”

The author of these words gives a gentle indication of how the spiritual revelations come to be permeated by Christ, for he writes in a frame of mind that can truly be called Christ-filled. In 1607 he spoke thus of the changes that had come about in the spiritual world. Who is this man? Is he someone who has no right to speak, someone we can leave unheard? No, for without him we should have no modern Astronomy or Physics: he is Johannes Kepler. And one would like to advise those who call themselves materialists or monists and look to Kepler as their idol — one would like to advise them to consider carefully, just for once, this passage in Kepler’s writings. The greatest astronomical laws, the three Kepler laws, which dominate present-day Astronomy, are his. Yet you have heard how he speaks of the new influence which gradually enters into Earth evolution with the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. We must all again get accustomed by degrees — having thoroughly absorbed the new influence — to recognise something of the spiritual activities connected with the stars. ~Rudolf Steiner, Christ and the Spiritual World: The Search for the Holy Grail

On February 4, 1600, Kepler met Tycho Brahe, he stayed as a guest in his observatory, analyzing some of Tycho’s observations of Mars; Tycho guarded his data closely, but was impressed by Kepler’s theoretical ideas & soon allowed him more access. Through most of 1601, he was supported directly by Tycho, who assigned him to analyzing planetary observations . Tycho secured him a commission as a collaborator on the new project he had proposed to the emperor. Two days after Tycho’s unexpected death on October 24, 1601, Kepler was appointed his successor as imperial mathematician with the responsibility to complete his unfinished work. The next 11 years as imperial mathematician would be the most productive of his life.

Kepler slowly continued analyzing Tycho’s Mars observations—now available to him in their entirety—& began the slow process of tabulating the Rudolphine Table.

In October 1604, a bright new evening star appeared, but Kepler did not believe the rumors until he saw it himself. Kepler began systematically observing the nova. Astrologically, the end of 1603 marked the beginning of a fiery trigon, the start of the about 800-year cycle of great conjunctions; astrologers associated the two previous such periods with the rise of Charlemagne (c. 800 years earlier) & the birth of Christ (c. 1600 years earlier), & so expected events of great portent, especially regarding the emperor. It was in this context, as the imperial mathematician & astrologer to the emperor, that Kepler described the new star two years later in his De Stella Nova. The birth of a new star implied the variability of the heavens. In an appendix, Kepler also discussed the recent chronology work of the Polish historian Laurentius Suslyga; he calculated that, if Suslyga was correct that accepted timelines were four years behind, then the Star of Bethlehem—analogous to the present new star—would have coincided with the first great conjunction of the earlier 800-year cycle

In 1611, the growing political-religious tension in Prague came to a head. Emperor Rudolph—whose health was failing—was forced to abdicate as King of Bohemia by his brother Matthias. However, it was clear that Kepler’s future prospects in the court of Matthias were dim.

In 1615, Kepler’s mother Katharina was accused of witchcraft.

Kepler’s laws of planetary motion were not immediately accepted. Several major figures such as Galileo and René Descartes completely ignored Kepler’s Astronomia nova. Epitome of Copernican Astronomy was read by astronomers throughout Europe, & following Kepler’s death it was the main vehicle for spreading Kepler’s ideas. In the period 1630 – 1650, this book was the most widely used astronomy textbook, winning many converts to ellipse-based astronomy. This culminated in Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687), in which Newton derived Kepler’s laws of planetary motion from a force-based theory of universal gravitation.

Kepler’s self-authored poetic epitaph: “I measured the skies, now the shadows I measure – Skybound was the mind, earthbound the body rests”

1670 – Deathday of John Amos Comenius, Czech bishop, philosopher, & educator.

“Our task is to appeal to those forces which we have as a replacement for the ancient way of grasping the spiritual. There are two ways of doing this. One way is to continue to propagate tradition and many secret societies arose from being satisfied with the propagation of what the ancient said through tradition. However, there were people who attempted to reckon with the new soul forces which came in as replacements for it. They attempted to translate that which came in from the ancient way in the form of pictures, of direct perception into the form of intellectual power, this intellect which is bound to the physical body of our 5th post-Atlantean period. One of the people who tried to do this was Amos Comenius.

Very few people today know that Amos Comenius was the actual founder of the modern pedagogy and that he founded the primer in the 16th, 17th century…The whole way of writing children’s books rests upon Amos Comenius. He was connected with many secret brotherhoods all over Europe and he wanted to establish what he called his “Pan Sophia”. In the beginning of our period, in the 16th, 17th century, we have in Amos Comenius a human being who knew that now is the time for a sudden change, that one must transmute all the knowledge from earlier times into the form of external intellect. You do not simply continue it in the form of the ancient tradition. This tradition rests upon that which was the Temple architecture. Amos Comenius had as his task translating in his “Pan Sophia” everything which worked in the 5th post-Atlantean period and he says the following: “Why should the Temple of Pan Sophia be erected according to the ideas, directions and laws of the higher architect Himself? Because we have to follow the primal picture of the totality; measure, number, position and the goal of the paths according to the wisdom of God, Himself, when, indeed, He instructed Moses to erect the Tabernacle, then Solomon to erect the Temple and finally Ezekial to reestablish the Temple. The structure materials of Solomon’s Temple were very precious stones, metals, marble and sappy, good smelling trees like spruce and cedar.” And so we want to establish a school of wisdom, a universal wisdom, a “Pan Sophia” wisdom so that one can say that that which is in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, which was represented in the Wander Years, is a continuation of what Amos Comenius wanted.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Things in Past and Present in the Spirit of Man

1738 – Birthday of William Herschel, German-born British astronomer, the founder of sidereal astronomy for the systematic observation of the heavens. He discovered the planet Uranus, hypothesized that nebulae are composed of stars, & developed a theory of stellar evolution. He was knighted in 1816.

1741 – Birthday of Johann Kaspar Lavater, a Swiss poet, writer, philosopher, physiognomist & theologian. Goethe was a dear friend for many years, but later had a falling out with him, accusing Lavater of superstition & hypocrisy.

1887 – Birthday of Georgia O’Keeffe, American painter & educator

1893 – Rudolf Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom (Spiritual Activity) 1^st appears

The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’

Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.

To register & receive the Zoom code Contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

Renunciation

November 13, 2022Biography, Calendar of the Soul, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

Dear friends, first we met Sacrifice, then Bestowing, now we explore Renunciation. Living into the ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’ it’s been interesting to experience the idea that the 4 elements which are the foundation of life on here on Earth are a mirror reflecting the essential deeds of great spiritual beings. I have always related to nature spirits, the elemental beings, but this is a whole new perspective.

The reality behind Fire is sacrifice: the supreme offering of the Spirits of Will.

The Air we breathe, the wind – is ever whispering: the virtue of bestowing, a weaving reverence granted by the Spirits of Wisdom.

So now every time I encounter or work with these elements my entire mood of Soul shifts….And before we get to the last 2 elements, developed in the further Earth embodiments, I’d like to take us deeper into the quintessence of Will & Wisdom.

Being a person of initiative I have always prided myself in being able to get things done. My childhood was taken from me, so I learned early on to use my will to get what I wanted. But what I am learning now is that deeds connected with the spiritual world require a different kind of will – the will of resignation – of renunciation. This is triggering for me since my mother was very passive, renouncing herself to death, so I was determined to never be like that.

But more & more I know that what worked for me in the past does not apply to my life now. I see that to achieve spiritual results it is not effective to make my personal desires top priority. By consciously subduing my wishes, restraining my self-motivated intentions, & forgoing result orientated satisfaction, I can work my resolve to serve the higher will.

It’s powerfully interesting to explore our will force thru the lens of Spiritual Science which gives us 7 stages of Will:

Instinct
Impulse/Drive
Desire
Motive
Wish/Aspiration
Intention
Resolve for the Good

In lecture 3 Steiner gives the most interesting advice, which was hard for me to hear at first: “The greatest spiritual, magical effects, always require preparation connected with the renunciation of wishes, desires, and impulses of will which may appear within us. The less we “will,” the more we say: We will allow life to flow over us, not longing for this or that, but accepting everything just as Karma sends it to us, the more we are able to accept Karma and its workings in this way, keeping quietly ready to renounce all that we should otherwise wish to choose for this life, the more vigorous we become as regards the activity of our thinking.”

Being fully conscious of the various phases of evolution, guides us on the path of initiation. The Saturn experience can be seen in the fire trial, & on ancient Sun we meet the air trial.

To face the water trial as experienced on old Moon we have to be able to recognize the Luciferic beings who remained behind in their course of development, enabling them to invade our astral body during this phase of earthly evolution.

On the one hand it is because of these Luciferic beings that we have desires, drives & passions. And on the other hand our will to overcome their resistance gives us the impulse toward free will.

Also mysteriously attached to these backward beings is the seed of resignation or renunciation on the part of the Cherubim – Because while some of the choir receives the warmth that flows from the sacrifice of the Spirits of Will into themselves, others renounce the sacrifice – they return what comes toward them – they do not participate in it – they hold themselves back.

So now besides the sacrifice that ascends & is reflected back as light in Time, we have renounced clouds of sacrifice that descend, that return back – to become a separate layer between the outer & inner expanse of ancient Sun. And thru this diverting back, a ring of clouds comes into being, a division in the Sun substance, like a globe that has a divergent outer ring.

This is the origin of all divisions, what can be called the ‘Sacred Wound’ which some of us carry more than others.

But why did a portion of these Cherubim, these Spirits of Harmony renounce this willing sacrifice?

Well if they had not, everything would have been subject to Time – the coming into being & the passing away – But since some rejected the sacrifice they were able to hold onto eternity. These Cherubim move beyond Time, so that eternity – permanence – may also exist – And we will be able to fully receive this eternity in the New Jerusalem!

One of the questions I hold is: Do these refraining Cherubim move up the ladder – graduate to the realm of the Seraphim, the Spirits of Love? Interestingly enough these highest of the Hierarchical beings – the closest to the godhead, are not mentioned at all in the course of evolution so far. That leads me to imagine that Love, The Spirits of Love, are directing it all – preparing us in all ages to come for the incarnation of The Christ on Earth – the ‘Being of Love’ born into a human body at the Turning point in Time…

A recapitulation occurs within this process before the Old Moon embodiment & in our next installment we will further explore this ‘Sacred Wound’ – how it affected those that were rejected & how that manifests in the human soul today…

Until then remember: Love is who you are…

~hag

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
ALL HALLOWTIDE III
The Gift Of Destiny
v32
I feel my own fruit-bearing power
present me to the world
and strengthen my innate intent
to turn towards the clarity
within life’s web of destiny.

This verse can be regarded as the last autumn verse
and its mirror the first one, with an unknown power
that can now become one’s own creativity for the world
as one’s soul turns towards the clarity of her destiny.

AUTUMN PRELUDE I
My Future’s Power
v21
I feel a strange new strengthening
fruit-bearing power of becoming;
I sense the seed maturing
and on a starlit loom in me
a dawning vision weaving
my pathway to my real being.

The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’

Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.

To register & receive the Zoom code Contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

Bestowing

November 12, 2022Biography, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

We continue from yesterday’s Martinmas insights gleaned from the AAP seminar working with ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’.

With the sacrifice –
A joyful self-surrendering –
Transformed into a deed,
From the Spirits of Will –
Rising like incense to the Cherubim,
In the ebb & flow of warmth,
The beginnings of our element of fire
On ancient Saturn – The ‘realm of space-less eternity’ –
Time
The offspring
Of the Thrones & the Spirits of Harmony
Is born.

After a recapitulation of this spiritual activity, in the Ancient Sun stage, there is an atmosphere of enlivening bliss & devotion, as the Spirits of Wisdom witness the willing sacrifice of the Thrones.

This inspires the Kyriotetes to give or bestow their Wisdom into the mix, which becomes the essence behind what we know of as air; enhancing the warmth. This gift is preserved in Time. The birth of bestowing in the universe by the Spirits of Wisdom on ancient Sun in turn gave birth to the Archangels who are the receivers of the giving. But they don’t keep what they receive for themselves, they reflect it back – this becomes light.

We can remember that whenever wind or light occurs, the gifts of the Spirits of Wisdom are whirling out to us. And wherever light appears, hidden behind it are the Archangels; but they are only able to ray forth light because they reflect back the bestowing virtue of the Spirits of Wisdom which has streamed out to them.

Steiner asks us to: “Imagine the Spirits of Wisdom situated at the centre of the Sun absorbed in contemplation of the vision of the sacrificing Thrones; and by reason of this vision, radiating forth their own being; and receiving back their radiating being which they sent forth, receiving it reflected back from the surface, so that they receive it back as light. Everything is illuminated…Their own being meets them coming back from outside. They see their own inner being outspread in the Cosmos — and reflected back as light, as the reflection of their own being.

The inner and the outer are the two opposites which we now meet. The earlier and the later are transformed into the inner and the outer; and “Space” is born! Space comes into existence through the bestowing virtue of the Spirits of Wisdom on ancient Sun.”

We can now picture a globe of inner space. In the center, Saturn is recapitulated, we see the Thrones kneeling before the winged Cherubim, sacrificing their own being.

Then we witness The Spirits of Wisdom surrendering in devotion to this vision at the center of this globe. Their reverence coalesces into an image of sacrificial incense, as air ascending, which streams outward & condenses into clouds at the periphery. The Archangels are born of these clouds of smoke. The gift of the incense is radiated back from them in the form of light. Their essence of light illuminates the interior, creating space. The bestowing of the Spirits of Wisdom are taken back in, becoming the sphere of ancient Sun, consisting of: glowing warmth or heat, the air of sacrificial incense, & light.

What a glorious picture, inspiring a heightened mood that invites us to joyfully give of ourselves too, in imitation of these Higher Beings.

And what a blessing to have that essence fully received, so the a gesture in kind comes back – transformed – A gift that keeps on giving – A bestowing that engenders a reciprocation that shows us to ourself.

We can think about how without receiving, giving is incomplete. In a way they are one & the same. Receiving differentiates itself from giving only in terms of time. Receiving occurs in response to giving.

But what happens when something is given – that is not received?

We will explore what has been called ‘The Sacred Wound’ in the next installment when we enter the ancient Moon embodiment of Earth…

Until then

I leave you with this thought: May we give of ourselves unselfishly; for as Steiner lays out in this lecture: “a person who is unable to create a spirit of self-surrender cannot achieve higher knowledge. What is the opposite of this attitude of self-surrender? It is self-will, the assertion of one’s own will. These are 2 poles in the souls’ life: loss of self in what one is contemplating, & self-willed assertion of what lies within the self. These are 2 great opposites. If you wish to attain real knowledge & permeate yourself with wisdom, self-will is lethal.

In ordinary life, we know self-will only as prejudice – & prejudices always destroy higher insight.”

So much to ponder as we strive for true becoming

~hag

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Homesick

Cain’s Sacrifice

better than Sci-Fi

Renunciation

Bestowing

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