3 April 2018 – Astro-Weather: The waning gibbous Moon points the way to Jupiter. They appear more prominent as they climb higher & edge closer after midnight. Jupiter, the benevolent King, is easy to find all week because he shines so brightly, against the faint backdrop of Libra.
Jeremiah Briggs
Capella is the bright star high in the west-northwest during & after dusk. Its pale-yellow color matches that of our Sun, meaning they’re both about the same temperature. But otherwise Capella is very different. It consists of two yellow stars orbiting each other rather closely every 104 days
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
3 April 33 – The death day of Jesus Christ. At the same time in Mexico Vitzliputzli crucified a powerful black magician. “Now at a certain time a being was born in Central America who set himself a definite task within this culture. The old, original inhabitants of Mexico linked the existence of this being with a definite idea or picture. They said he had entered the world as the son of a virgin who had conceived him through super earthly powers, inasmuch as it was a feathered being from the heavens who impregnated her. When one makes researches with the occult powers at one’s disposal, one finds that the being to whom the ancient Mexicans ascribed a virgin birth was born in the year 1 A.D. and lived to be thirty-three years old. These facts emerge when, as stated, one examines the matter with occult means. This being set himself a quite specific task.
At this same time in Central America another man was born who was destined by birth to become a high initiate of Taotl. This man had in his previous earthly incarnations been initiated as described above and through the fact that he had many, many times repeated the procedure involving the excision of the stomach, which has been described to you and which there is no need to recapitulate, he had been gradually equipped with a lofty earthly and super-earthly knowledge. This was one of the greatest black magicians, if not the greatest ever to tread the earth; he possessed the greatest secrets that are to be acquired on this path. He was faced directly with a momentous decision as the year 30 A.D. approached, namely whether or not, as a single human individual, to become so powerful through continuous initiation that he would come to know a certain basic secret. Through knowledge of this secret he would have then been able to give such a shock and impetus to the coming evolution of man on earth that humanity in the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean epochs would have been thrown into terrible darkness, with the result that what the ahrimanic powers had striven for in these epochs could have come into existence.
Then a conflict began between this super-magician and the being to whom a virgin birth was ascribed, and one finds from one’s research that it lasted for three years. The being of the virgin birth bore a name that, when we try to transpose it into our speech approximates Vitzliputzli. He is a human person who, among all these beings who otherwise only moved about in spirit form and could only be perceived through atavistic clairvoyance, in actual fact became man, so the story goes, through his virgin birth. The three year conflict ended when Vitzliputzli was able to have the great magician crucified, and not only through the crucifixion to annihilate his body but also to place his soul under a ban, by this means rendering its activities powerless as well as its knowledge. Thus the knowledge assimilated by the great magician of Taotl was killed. In this way Vitzliputzli was able to win again for earthly life all those souls who, as indicated, had already received the urge to follow Lucifer and leave the earth. Through the mighty victory he had gained over the powerful black magician, Vitzliputzli was able to imbue men again with the desire for earthly existence and successive incarnations.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Mexican Mysteries and the Knights Templar Inner Impulses of Evolution lecture 3
José de Ribera
Feast Day of Mary of Egypt. In Goethe’s Faust Mary of Egypt is one of the three penitent saints who pray to the Virgin Mary for forgiveness for Faust. Her words are set by Mahler in his 8th Symphony, as the final saint’s appeal to the Mater Gloriosa.
Feast Day of Saints Agape, Chionia, & Irene (Greek: Αγάπη, Χιονία και Ειρήνη meaning Love, Purity, & Peace, born in Thessaloniki) 3 virgin sisters who, were martyred for their faith in the year 304 AD. The story of their martyrdom is the subject of Dulcitius, a 10th-century medieval Latin drama by the secular canoness, Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim, the first known female playwright.
1897 – Death day of Johannes Brahms, German pianist & composer
1922 – Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1925 – The Cremation of Rudolf Steiner at the Horburg cemetery in Basel
1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech. He was assassinated the next day
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Spring breaks thru
The diaphanous weave of Her dress
Nipples hard against the cold stone…
I am concealed
In the shimmering curtain
Of her fragrant hair –
In a spell of my own casting
Entwined in arms of splendor
About to blossom
Engendered on the in-breath of Her dreaming
Born in magic made manifest
Whirling in love outpouring
Peace & Noise…
~hag
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“Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green”.
Our beloved Rudolf Steiner speaks about Easter as a spiritual event that takes place on the stage of humanity. The physical body of Jesus of Nazareth was the mediator through which the powers of the cosmos were united with the Earth aura. With the sacrifice on Golgotha, when the life-blood of the Cosmic Heart penetrated the Earth and its forces flowed down, even to the very core, the Earth became illuminated from within. The Resurrection took place, 1st at the gates of the underworld for the souls of the dead who had lost their divine nature. And with the dawn on Easter Sunday, the opportunity was then given to every single human individuality to experience this light within the self. And the seed was planted for the reunion of Sun and Earth.
The Mystery of Golgotha is the pivotal event of the whole divine process of creation, of the whole process of human evolution from its beginnings in the womb of the Spirit, to its consummation in humanity as the 10th hierarchy.
The Christian Festivals were never meant to be merely the commemoration of great historical events or simply truths of the Christian revelation, as great as these are. The Festivals in themselves, are, each year, spiritual events, carrying a significance that grows and deepens with the developing phases of human evolution, ever evolving as we do. This is especially true of the Easter Festival, with its answer to humanity’s deepest needs, its quickening of our highest hopes; with its message of the victory of good over evil, of light over darkness, of life over death.
Again and again, from all points of view, Rudolf Steiner spoke about the deep meaning of the Easter Festival in the eternal working of the divine worlds upon humankind, in the prefiguring myths and symbols of the ancient Mystery religions, in its relation to the world of nature and the cosmic universe, in which the date of this moveable feast contains a unique mystery. For it is determined by a cosmic alignment. Right, So, as many of you know, 1st the sun must enter into the sign of Spring, then it waits, for the moon to come into its vernal fullness…then the planetary beings whose names correspond with the days of the week come into play. Holy Week.
We are invited to connect to the Solar forces, so when the first Sun-day after the full moon of spring arrives, then it is time to celebrate the Easter festival.
And there is deeper meaning still in this alignment. It indicates how through the Christ Impulse, humanity is to be set free from the forces of earth-evolution, pure and simple.
It contains a call to humanity to lift ourselves up to the worlds beyond the earth; to once again speak with the stars. It contains a promise, that in the course of world-history,
it will be possible, through the working of the Christ Impulse, for humanity to once again be united with the cosmos, in the New Jerusalem. It is for this that we strive when we celebrate the Easter Fest.
Its consequence, must be looked for in all human history, in the arts, in human thinking, in all social relationships, and even in the materialistic triumphs of modern science.
~hag
“Anthroposophy itself must become like an inner festival of Resurrection for the human soul. It must bring an Easter mood into man’s world-conception.” – Rudolf Steiner, The Easter Festival in relation to the Mysteries.
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Christian Rosenkreutz: ‘Granum Pectori Jesu Insitum’ Interactive Art Projections & Lecture with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Social Art, Group Eurythmy with Mary Ruud & Singing
$10 Donation to support Eurythmy & Art Supplies,
Snacks to Share Encouraged – Hazel will bring the Pascal Lamb
For more info. contact festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg
