Our Whitsun Adventure

June 12, 2022Biography, Calendar of the Soul~hag

We hit the road well before dawn on Whitsunday, & made our way to Viroqua WI in the heart of the “Driftless” Region. This term, I was told, denotes the absence of ‘glacial drift’ – This distinctive terrain, branded by its steep rugged landscape, is part of the Kickapoo River Valley. A local friend mentioned that it has the largest concentration of cold water streams in the world, which comes from having been bypassed by the last continental glacier, giving the rivers time to carve deeply into the ancient bedrock creating the unique landforms characterized by limestone, dolomite, & gypsum caves, springs & crazy cool sinkholes.

This small town of less than 5000 people is an oasis of Spiritual Science. We drove straight to the Viroqua Co-op to get our bearings. Then off to “The Turning Place” an Anthroposophical library in the Pleasant Ridge Waldorf School, part of the Landmark Center, home of the Youth Initiative High School. The Central Regional Council had one of our annual retreats here when our theme was ‘Speaking with the Stars’, so the space holds fond memories for me.

Coming up the steps we literally ran into Kyle J & his beloved Ashley who drove in from Minneapolis! Those that take the time to read the comments at the bottom of these posts will often see his contributions. We have been corresponding like this for a good while, but Whitsunday 2022 was the 1^st time we actually met in person. Kyle mentioned that the driftless region had come up recently in several conversations; so when he heard I was coming in, he decided to follow the synchronicities & make the trip with Ashley.

What an honor to share a Pentecost experience with all the striving souls who hold sacred space in the region – entrepreneurs, fiber artists, kindergarten teachers, eurythmists, folks working with biodynamics, 3-folding, homeopathy, bio-geometry, Waldorf Education…etc… long time anthroposophers & newbies alike, sitting in community.

We broke bread with KJ & Ashley afterwards & got a chance to really commune. They feel like family.

We settled into our cozy digs at the homestead of long time Waldorf Kindergarten teacher Shannon Landis. I stayed with Shannon back in 2009 when I 1^st came to Viroqua to do a 10 day puppetry training with Suzanne Down. Every day I did my meditations in her amazing garden. One afternoon she was doing a prep stir & invited me to join her. It was my very 1^st time, & I have been hooked ever since.

Then CG & I started the maiden journey of what became our many nature adventures by hiking in Sidie Hollow, recommended by the local rock shop owner.

Early each morning, after meditation, breakfast & conversation we hit the trails. Kickapoo Valley Reserve was perfect for a misty walk by the river.

After taking in the overlook at Wildcat Mountain State Park, we found Hemlock Trail (my absolute fav.) a fairy land of soft red pine nettles next to caves carved out by the Kickapoo River, winding up the mountain side.

Jacob Hundt founder of Thoreau College invited Velsum – Voices of Ancient Futurism, with singers Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer to perform as part of their capstone events, so Lucien, who was a guest teacher at the College, & Ultra-Violet were also in town.

We gathered them up after a rehearsal & drove a short distance thru the rolling hills of pastoral farm land to The Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse WI, which Angela Foster told me about years ago.

at the shrine, nestled in a staue of a child & an angel protecting the unborn, was a mama Robin & 2 chicks

The grounds feature a half mile meditation trail that winds up a luscious hill dotted with art & sculptures representing aspects of Our Lady. To experience this with Lucien & Ultra made it even more special. On the way back we stopped in Coon Valley to explore the quaint town. We spotted fields of lovely wild flowers on the sides of the road, which Lucien & Ultra went back to harvest the next day, as thank yous for the friends that hosted them.

CG & I found the Hillboro Hill Trail right down the street from Shannon’s place. The winding topography almost got us lost. We eventually followed the laughter of the kids in a little summer camp, & made it back with tired feet.

Outside of town at the Tractor Supply I found a good pair of hiking boots. While making our way we discovered a marvelous local cheese shop – when in Wisconsin this is a must, but we are picky & only wanted raw. They came thru with amazing raw local sheep, goat & buffalo cheese.

In our wanderings we found a charity thrift shop where we got a full set of vintage dishes for $8. Yep, we hit every thrift in the area looking specifically for Gnome statuary. I love a treasure hunt. No Gnomes to be found, but I managed to come home with a few unique gifts.

Breakfast at the mountain home of Mary Christenson was a delight. So interesting to learn more about her practice of homeopathy, & the bio-geometry taught by Dr. Ibrahim Karim, which a local group has been studying together thruout this time of world crisis.

Then the night of the Velsum show was upon us. A good crowd arrived in joyful anticipation. Mary Spading & Mark Lazar made the trip from Chicago with our professional camera’s to capture the magic. Lucien & Ultra created a numinous atmosphere thru subtle colored lighting & a stage glittering with votives.

Velsum = Triumphant Wholeness – Their offering: New Nightingale, New Rose (which received its inception spark at the ‘Building the Temple of the Heart’ ASA Conference – incubated & hatched at Angelic Organics Farm)was tailored to align with what was living in that Whitsun moment. Fresh Eurythmic inspired choreography – their voices ever dynamic & power full – a glorious alchemical weaving – bending space/time into a sublime octave of eternal resonance – Opening the portal to the Spiritual World for All to enter – Removing the veil to the New Mysteries, allowing us to trust that a Christic future is possible – & is indeed ever birthing thru The Word that vibrates a Divine Essence in their Speech & Song – Inviting every soul in attendance to join in a dance with their Higher Self – Every heart pulsing with agape – Every larynx vibrating in sympathy. Many wept salutary tears of Joy – The gifts of the Holy Spirit descended, & all rose up to receive what they needed.

Everyone stayed for the Q&A after the show. It’s always interesting to hear what is living in people, what touched them. There is a longing to honor & participate in the sacred, to be cracked open by the truth of spirit radiating out to them thru these young people. And when they share their insights, the ebb & flow, the interleavening in their artistic process, to receive a glimpse of the inspirations they cultivate, feels like a benediction.

At the Ice cream social afterward, all were aglow – numerous diverse conversations & sharings flowered forth. I learned from Toby Grotz & Kate Bradley, who hosted Velsum, that they want to create a co-op to build their own power plant off the grid for the whole of Viroqua. Many young people from the College were there, imagining their next steps out in the world. Dr. Paul Grenier, a beautiful human being & amazing chiropractor, invited Ultra to come for an adjustment -So many talented folk engaging their gifts to serve community.

When we were making our way home, on one of the charming farm roads, we found our Gnome – a version of Gandalf if he was the King of the Gnomes. We were also called to find a statue of Christ with the Sacred Heart that also came home with us – the perfect ending to our Whitsun adventure.

May the Whitsun Spirit prevail for us all

~hag

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
After a late Easter there has to be 2 verses this week as we move from the Easter lunar calendar to the ordinary solar one.
I choose to always let v38 be the Christmas verse.

TRINITY – Corpus Christi
Lose Yourself In Light
v9
And when I let my own will go
the coming of the summer’s warmth
will fill my soul and spirit being;
my spirit vision is commanding me
to lose myself in light and ardently
my foresight’s calling: ‘lose yourself
to find your Self’.
TRINITY II
Soul Consecration
v10
To summer’s heights
the sun’s majestic being rises;
it takes my human feeling far and wide
and into the sublime, the cosmic harmony
wherein a dawning vision’s intimating faintly,
‘in future you will know:
a holy being felt you now’

Out of opinion into Wisdom

June 5, 2022Celestial Event, Community, Festival, video recording~hag

HERE IS THE RECORDING of Vitae Sophia~ A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg. Guest Speakers Lisa Dalton & Geoff Norris, Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire

The Festival of Whitsun or Pentecost (50 Days after Easter)

Rudolf Steiner calls it: Festival of the Holy Spirit

Festival of Flowers

Festival of United Soul Endeavor and Spirit Community

Festival of the Higher Self and the Universal Human Being

Festival of the human unbound from materialism

Festival of the purified astral body

– the lifting out of one’s egotism into universal caring

– out of opinion into truth

– out of opinion into wisdom

The heart of the human being as it opens to warmth & light is like the flower aligning itself to the Sun. And what pours down from the Sun, giving the flower the potency it needs, is like the tongues of fire descending upon the heads of the disciples. Human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the Sophia, the source of wisdom.

Spiritual Science is a Whitsun gift. But we must grow ripe to withstand the surging of the Spirit. Whitsun is the festival of our true higher self, which as yet only hovers above us like a dove. Promoting us to ask: What are my gifts? How can I place them in right relationship within the social realm? How can I hone them to strengthen and enhance the world?

Our work is to take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” a path leading from ‘Sprit Recollection’, to ‘Sprit Sensing’, to ‘Sprit Beholding’.

The Being of Anthroposophia lives within every striving individual who works in the world to continue this work of evolution. Our Sophia inspired Michaelic community can be seen as a vessel in which the Christ Being can unite with humanity. Warming the “I”, to open the heart, in support of healthy community, we will endeavor to strengthen our individual soul forces to collectively open the portal into the Spirit worlds to co-create a “World Whitsun” – Where separate egos are united by a common truth. “Where the senses can know no more”, the higher group-soul can descend.

Schiller once said “Take the divine into your will & it descends from its cosmic throne.”

In the East, Whitsun or Pentecost is called Trinity Sunday, since with the completion of the 3 parts of the moveable feasts of Easter-Tide, we have been brought into contact with the 3 persons of the godhead.

Today begins: Shavuot, an ancient Jewish Festival that celebrates the giving of the Torah, the first harvest, & the ripening of the first fruits. In the bible, Shavuot is called by various other names: Feast of Weeks, Feast of The First Fruits & Feast of the Giving of the Law.

I will be hiking in the driftless region of WI so dear friends I will be offline until 11 June 2022

Until soon

~hag

5 June 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Saturn stands stationary against the background stars of Capricornus at 9 am CDT. The ringed planet of memory is currently prominent in the predawn sky, shining to the upper leftof Deneb Algedi.

THE CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated – with added titles – by Roy Sadler
WHITSUN
Dream
v8
In concert with the gods’ creating
the senses’ power grows;
it presses thinking down
to dimness of a dream.
When Holy Spirit
would bond with soul
the mind must rest,
in dreamlike presence.

I’ve translated ‘gottlich Wesen’ not literally as ‘godly being’ but as ‘Holy Spirit’; and begun with ‘In concert with’ instead of ‘united with’ in recognition that this is the octave of Easter. Each Soul Calendar verse is a kind of key to the next seven, reaching a specific relationship with the octave. The octave of v8 is v15, fulfilment of the Whitsun offering.
SAINT JOHNSTIDE IV
The Spirit’s Gift
v15
I feel, as if enchanted in the glory of the world,
the weaving of the spirit in appearance;
it’s veiled my own life
in drowsiness of sense
to give to me the strength
that in my narrow bounds
I’m powerless to give myself.

The soul becomes pregnant & gives birth at Christmas, v15’s mirror, with a reversed ‘World Whitsun’ spirit flame spread out from the heart.
CHRISTMAS
The Spirit Child
v38
I feel the spirit child set free
from spell in womb of soul;
in heart’s bright radiance
from seed of holy Cosmic Word
the heaven’s fruit of hope
is growing into farthest worlds,
rejoicing from my being’s ground of God.

The Christmas octave is v45, Whitsun’s mirror!
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.

So, besides the quartet of the mirror verses and their opposites in the other hemisphere, there is also a quartet with the current verse relating to its forthcoming octave, octive’s mirror and further octave, whose mirror is a reflection of the current one. The verses have an extraordinary musical relationship, which connects Whitsun with Christmas as well as Easter.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day(RSarchives)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, Wikipedia Commons)

World Environment Day – raising global awareness to take positive environmental action to protect nature & the planet Earth.

70 – Titus and his Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem in the Siege of Jerusalem.

1752 – Benjamin Franklin flew a kite for the first time to demonstrate that lightning was a form of electricity

1827 – Athens fell to the Ottomans.

1832 – The ‘June Rebellion’ breaks out in Paris in an attempt to overthrow the monarchy of Louis Philippe

1883 – The first regularly scheduled Orient Express departs Paris

1915 – Denmark amends its constitution to allow women’s suffrage

1917 – American men began registering for the World War I draft

1924 – Ernst F. W. Alexanderson transmitted the first facsimile message across the Atlantic Ocean

1933 – President Roosevelt signed the bill that took the U.S. off of the gold standard

1967 – The Six Day War between Israel and Egypt, Syria and Jordan began today

Forty-five years ago, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles | Kennedy jr, Kennedy, Ambassador hotel

1968 – Robert F. Kennedy, is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

1981 – The first recognized cases of what later became known as AIDS

Public viewing of Venus' transit of the sun is today | Nebraska Today | University of Nebraska–Lincoln

2012 – The last transit of Venus of the 21st century begins

~Into my Inner Essence
Gushes the riches
Of the sense world…
The Wisdom of The Logos finds Herself
In the mirror-image of my Eye,
That Her Power out of me
May shape anew the eternal resurrection…
~hag

Ecclesia

June 4, 2022Biography, Community, Festival, History, Speaking with the Stars~hag

Dear freinds – I greet you on this eve of Pentecost. I will be celebrating Whitsun in Viroqua WI. at the ‘Turning Place’ this year so I wanted to touch in before the trip.

Working with the Whitsun imagination empowers us to creatively explore how we can engage in the lifting out of the ‘me’ into the ‘we’, out of opinion into wisdom; warming the “I”, to open the heart, in support of healthy community. Can we endeavor to strengthen our individual soul forces, to collectively open the portal into the Spirit worlds?

As Steiner’s Whitsun verse states: “This portal’s key the Soul may fashion If she herself grow strong within the strife” …

We can create an Ecclesia, a vessel, a chalice, a sheath for the Spirit. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas conference, where the reversed Whitsun, was born, the idea of moving the spirit that has flowed thru the head – into the heart, transforming it into wisdom to redeem our intelligence, & then back out as a gift to humanity – transforming the larynx along the way.

Our work is to take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” – a path leading from ‘Sprit Recollection’, to ‘Sprit Sensing’, to ‘Sprit Beholding’.

In this sense the Christmas Conference, in all its spiritual reality reveals itself as the true Whitsun for anthroposophers – Those who strive to take into their souls the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit concerning the human being – Anthropos-Sophia, which is the knowledge of the grail held aloft by Michael in this present age of the consciousness soul.

Let’s think about it. The foundation stone was formed by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas conference out of the Father-forces rising from the depths – gravity, unconscious will; as well as the Son-forces working in the periphery-warmth, creative love; with the Spirit-forces descending from the heights- consciousness, wisdom.

Thru Steiner’s profound mystery deed, an altogether new relationship of the macrocosmic forces working within the human being = the thoughts of the Spirit revealed in the human head- Christ working in the heart- & the will of the Father fulfilled in the deeds of the limbs, was made openly manifest.

When Steiner took on the karma of the society he gave the Michaelic impulse the possibility of flowing directly into the earth sphere & into those active in the Anthroposophical society.

Here we see a direct relationship with the original Pentecost, which was the 3rd & final stage of Christ the Sun Being’s union with the stream of Earthly Being, & the mission of Anthroposophy, as the Proclamation of World Pentecost.

Yes, we live in a potent time, when divergent karmic streams have the possibility of coming together-‘That Good May Become,’ a time when, some say, the Platonists of the School of Chartres & the Aristotelian-Dominicans, The Arthur & Grail streams with true Rosicrucianism, meet the new Michaelic Grail imagination arising in the human soul. A renewed chalice whose substance is Love, whose form is Imagination & whose light of thought which radiates, is redeemed Michaelic Intelligence.

This transforms the stone of the wise, into the dodecahedral foundation stone of love. For Michael frees thoughts from the realm of the head, opening a path to the heart, bringing forth that shining, raying-out of the divine chalice, that celestial light of redeemed intelligence, which like the radiance of the Spiritual Sun, can unite into a single whole the Spiritual substance of Divine love & human love, in the Holy Grail that was set into our souls at the Christmas conference. Calling ever & again for a renewal of the spiritual quest.

See you at the ‘Turning Place’

~hag

4 June 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day(RSarchives)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, Anthrowiki, Wikipedia Commons)

1647 – Deathday of Canonicus, Grand Chief Sachem of the Narragansett Indian Tribe at the time of the Pilgrims landing in Plymouth.

1896 – Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, & gives it a successful test run

1913 – Emily Davison, a suffragette protesting for women’s rights is trampled by King George V’s horse.

1919 – Women’s rights: The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, & sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.

1939 – The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.

1975 – The Governor of California Jerry Brown signs the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law, the first law in the U.S. giving farmworkers collective bargaining rights

1989 – The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People’s Liberation Army, with at least 241 dead.

my heart is a furrowed field
that the Sun rolls over
beating out the fallowness
with never-ending beams
infusing my will to receive…
~hag

Alone Together

June 3, 2022Biography, Community, Festival, History~hag

In the 10 Days…

Dear friends, as seekers on the path, have you ever felt utterly alone, overwhelmed, or even a bit lost? Rudolf Steiner speaks of this in ‘How to know Higher Worlds’ & in the ‘5^th Gospel’.

We have an opportunity, especially at this time of year, to recognize & acknowledge that uncomfortable feeling of isolation that can come from our striving; a mirroring of the experience of the disciples those 10 days between Ascension & Whitsun, when waiting feels like wrestling.

Since the time of Christ’s Ascension, humanity can now follow in the expansion of the one who has ascended to heaven. A path up to the heights has been prepared for us to tread. There, we grow wings. For this to happen we must let the ground of our soul become warm. Just as air only rises when it becomes warm, so it is with our inner being. If our soul does not become warm with enthusiasm, it does not rise to meet the heights.

Meditation & prayer are ways of warming our “I” so that our soul can carry out its own ascension.

Not the type of prayer consisting of mere words recited by rote from the head—which does not warm the soul’s ground—& not the kind of prayer into which all sorts of wishes & desires make an appeal ‘for something.’

But a meditation, like the Foundation Stone, spoken from the heart, from the human feeling nature, which not only warms the soul of the individual, but adds light to the community of other souls who are also working to build the ‘Dodecahedron of Love’ in service to the All. This allows our soul to ascend to where our True Self exists.

The soul’s union with the spirit then comes to be; & only in this way does the human being become complete. Our “I”, which until it is cultivated, merely hovers above us, but with this kind of warmth, we then become filled with the Higher Self. In this way during the 10 days, we can do our part to approach that sphere out of which the flames of Whitsun descend.

On the one hand, the Whitsun flames have warmth, & on the other hand, they possess light. Warmth must arise first out of human hearts like a fire. Then the Spirit responds out of the sphere of the Father, where The Christ & the Father are One. The light flame of the Spirit sinks down, joining the warmth flame of the praying heart. The light flame from above answers to the warmth flame from below. Only when we actively strive, with sufficient patience & endurance, working to become warm, may we hope for illumination. Becoming warm is our task, then illumination is the answer from heaven.

As the gifts of light from a higher realm come towards us, Whitsun expands into the world – But only if our thinking can change into heart-thinking; which will have an effect on the whole activity of human life, softening the prevailing intellectual forces which are so rigid & dark, with a cold hard cleverness.

Once the human being begins to truly think with warmth, then the Holy Spirit enters our heart-thinking, for then our True Higher Self thinks in us.

Let us sit in the loneliness together during these days, feeling the blessing of Christ’s Grace bestowed on us thru the Ascension. Knowing that in the future, which we are creating in each moment even now, a new thinking, a new culture, can finally come into being from the breath that touches us out of the Spirit of the coming Pentecost.

Move will be revealed…

Until soon ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, Wikipedia Commons)

“Greek philosophy beautifully compared the human soul with a bee. The world of colour and light offers the soul honey which it brings with it into the higher world. The soul must spiritualize sense experience and carry it up into higher worlds.” ~Rudolf Steiner 1906

545 – Deathday of Saint Clotilde – patron saint of Les Andelys, Normandy. Wife of the Frankish king Clovis I, & princess of the kingdom of Burgundy. In 511, the Queen founded a convent for young girls. The natural spring there is known for healing skin diseases.Queen Clotilde’s cult made her the patron of queens, widows, brides & even those in exile. In Normandy she was venerated as guarding the lame & those who suffered violent death from ill-tempered husbands.

1924 – Deathday of Franz Kafka a German novelist & short story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism & the fantastic, typically features isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments & incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, & has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, & absurdity. His best known works include “Die Verwandlung” (“The Metamorphosis”), Der Process (The Trial), & Das Schloss (The Castle). The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those in his writing. Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today part of the Czech Republic. He trained as a lawyer, & after completing his legal education he was employed with an insurance company, forcing him to relegate writing to his spare time. Over the course of his life, Kafka wrote hundreds of letters to family & close friends, including his father, with whom he had a strained & formal relationship. He became engaged to several women but never married. He died in 1924 at the age of 40 from tuberculosis.

1943 – The founding of the Nachlassverein by Marie Steiner

1989 – Deathday of Ayatollah Khomeini, Iranian religious leader & politician

2013 – The trial of United States Army private Chelsea Manning for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks begins in Fort Meade, Maryland

Image result for wArmth & light painting — Jenn Nelson

POD (Poem Of the day)

~Look, I have light
In my eyes
& on my skin…
The star is warming…
And everything alive is turning
Into something else
Deep in the alchemical Heart
Of some annihilating
Ever creative fire
That is burning unnoticed
Waiting to touch
Me & you…
~hag

Holding Space

June 2, 2022Biography, Community, Festival~hag

I am living into the approaching mood of Pentecost – The festival of the Word, a new Language of the Sophia-Logos, holding the ideal of Free Speech! Our day star Sun is speaking thru the stars of the Bull at this time, that region of the Zodiac connected to the human Larynx, giving us the capacity for self-expression.

The current World events must be given voice. Pentecost is the festival of NOW, highlighting the challenging relationships of self & community – Offering us an opportunity to transcend polarities.

Giving us a chance to ask: How do we work as individuals to transform our ingrained sympathies & antipathies? How do we purify our astral nature in order to make ourselves into a vessel worthy to receive the Holy Spirit, giving us the possibility of manifesting the ‘Spirit Self’, the True Self which will provide the capacity to create new social forms..?

Right now I am deep in what Rudolf Steiner defines as a time of profound sadness that comes with the 10 days between Ascension & Pentecost, an echo of the grief & loss expereinced by the disciples. He describes it as ‘a sorrow such as cannot be compared with any other sorrow on earth’ –A kind of death experience on a spiritual level. And just like in the old mystery traditions, after the time of catharsis & preparation, there is a mystical death; so here too there is a kind of loss & experience of death. The #10 is the number of completion.

Steiner points out: ‘All real knowledge, all knowledge that can truly be called great is born from pain, from inner travail…And out of this pain, out of this infinite sorrow, there sprang what we call the Mystery of Pentecost…Having lost sight of the Christ in external clairvoyant vision (the 40 days with the Resurrected Christ), the disciples found it again in their inmost being…found it through sorrow, through pain. (May 17, 1923, Christiana)

Here we have a great reversal. In ancient times the human being experienced the True Self, the Higher I AM, in the cosmos outside of them, in the Sun sphere, thru initiation, by leaving the body.

Even with Lazarus, the first Christian initiation performed on Earth, in public, by the Christ, Lazarus was “called forth” by Christ as the hierophant from without.

Pentecost inaugurates a new age, when human beings thru a personal path of self-guided catharsis comes to an awakening of the Higher I AM in “their inmost being” as a force of transformative power, which is the force of love.

The Greek word for grace is, “charis”, which means the free love from God. In ancient Greek, there are several words for love: eros – romantic love; philia – brotherly/family love; agape – divine love, or love of the human for the divine.

Charis is higher than agape, because it is the love of the Divine for the human being. This is the highest form of love.

Thinking of Pentecost as being 50 days after Easter, & in looking at the # 5, we see the 4 bodies of the human being: physical, etheric, astral & “I” – given a 5^th dimension – a new spiritual aspect is added: The Spirit-Self, the Higher Ego.

The pentagram is the symbol of the true human being. The numbers 4 & 5 raised to the 10^th power, indicate a process taking place at a higher spiritual level, which is how the events described in 40 days = Ascension – & 50 days = Pentecost, are meant to be understood, both as historical events of Christ’s union with the earth, but also as initiatory events taking place on a higher plane for humanity.

In the 12^th of Steiner’s lectures on the ‘Gospel of John’, which he describes as the most spiritual perspective given by the writers of the gospels, he speaks of how John never uses the name Mary, but always says: “the mother of Jesus”. He equates this with the ‘Virgin Sophia’ – the purified astral body. It is this Virgin Sophia = the Mother of Jesus, who is “in their midst” at Pentecost.

The story goes on to say that they were all together in one place, using the word which is often translated as house, but in Greek it means “a shared, common place” – in this case: The Upper Room where they experienced the Last Supper. Into this community space, with the Virgin Sophia in their midst, came the Holy Spirit, the Universal Ego, the true I AM, which can then speak out of this purified astral body.

This Holy Spirit came with a rushing of wind & flames that individualized onto each of the disciples, & “stayed upon each of them”(this is the same term used at the Baptism of Jesus) They then began to speak a new language “as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance.” This was a speaking, which transcended earthly languages, for everyone understood & were amazed.

In this same lecture from the Gospel of John cycle, Steiner addresses this question: ‘a person thus illuminated, who has received the Holy Spirit into himself, speaks in a different manner. How does he speak? …he is not expressing ‘his’ own opinion. His views do not come into consideration. His personal (earthly) ego has been eclipsed which means that…it has become impersonal and it is the Cosmic Universal Ego’.

He continues this Pentecostal theme in a lecture on Whitsunday, 1910: ‘This Holy Spirit enables us to become free human souls. As the Spirit of Freedom, it streamed out through the first disciples…in the first Pentecostal festival….We can become free only when we find ourselves again in spirit and out of the spirit become master over the spirit within ourselves. Our true spirit is the universal human spirit, which we recognize as the Pentecostal power of the Holy Spirit.. which we must bring to birth in ourselves and allow to become manifest…This will bring to life in our souls something which overleaps all boundaries separating the different parts of humanity’.

This brings us back to the great call of our current time of Pentecost – which is the great social question of our time: the individual in relation to the whole, the community.

Today we face immense questions about the future of humanity, with division, polarization, lack of understanding & failed communication, creating the social problems of our time.

Only by a social & personal catharsis which can allow for the true spirit of freedom, the true I AM, to eclipse our small personal egotism & the lower impulses of our nature, can a new community & new language of universal sister/brotherhood be created.

Only out of the spiritual recognition of the universal Human Being, will the ideas & applications of a new approach to fraternity in economics; equality in human rights; & freedom in the cultural/spiritual life, be accomplished.

May we strive to serve this goal out of the spirit of The Sophia.

~hag

2 June 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Spot Bella Luna in the west after sunset. As twilight fades, you can make out Pollux above the Moon, then Castor to the right of Pollux.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, Wikipedia Commons)

455 – Sack of Rome

1098 – First Crusade: The first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city; the second siege began five days later.

1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts; she was found guilty and later hanged

1743 – Birthday of Alessandro Cagliostro, Italian occultist and explorer. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe relates in his Italian Journey, that during the trial of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace*, Cagliostro said that he had been born of noble birth but abandoned as an orphan upon the island of Malta. He claimed to have traveled as a child to Medina, Mecca, & Cairo, & was then admitted to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, where he studied alchemy, the Kabbalah, & magic. (*The Affair of the Diamond Necklace – an incident in 1781 at the court of Louis XVI of France involving his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The reputation of the Queen, which was already tarnished by gossip, was ruined by the implication that she had participated in a crime to defraud the crown jewelers of the cost of a very expensive diamond necklace. The Affair was historically significant as one of the events that led to the French populace’s disillusionment with the monarchy, which, among other causes, eventually culminated in the French Revolution)

1793 – French Revolution: François Hanriot, leader of the Parisian National Guard, arrests 22 Girondists selected by Jean-Paul Marat, setting the stage for the Reign of Terror.

1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States

1882 – Deathday of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian general & politician. Spoken of as a high initiate in the Hibernian Mysteries in ‘Karmic Relationships’ Vol 1, lec. 11 by Rudolf Steiner (June 2^nd is also Festa della Repubblica -The Italian National Republic Day)

1922 – Start of the West-East Congress in Vienna, opened by Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz. At this conference Rudolf Steiner gave his last lecture on Threefolding (1917 – 1922)

a collection of my Anthroposophical videos for your free viewing

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Our Whitsun Adventure

Out of opinion into Wisdom

Ecclesia

Alone Together

Holding Space

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