Category Archives: 10:10

Cahokia Eclipse

~Jane Hudson

Greetings Friends – Today on this anniversary of the Founding of the Esoteric Youth Circle by Rudolf Steiner, I am slowly emerging like the waxing crescent after the New Moon from 3 days in the Underworld. I seek to reflect a sliver of illumination around our Michaelmas 2023 Speaking with the Stars Retreat at ‘Sun City’ – the ancient Native American settlement 5 hours south of Chicago on the Cahokia Mounds state historic site.

We packed up ‘The Beast’ a van gifted to us, & set off down I-55 on Friday the 13th. The sky was muted with a mantle of fog as we traveled, diffusing the fall colors in an Atlantean – ‘Mists of Avalon’ blur. Soon the clouds burst into a pelting torrential downpour that came & went as we hydroplaned down the highway. The farms & wild prairie grass of the Heartland pulsing golden in the silver rain. CG held the wheel, meeting the rainfall with humor & grace, as I pointed out the scenic inspirations along the way & DJ’d the ride with world music.

As we neared Joliet IL. the sky lifted & we pulled off looking for a place to run our dog Winnie (Winifred J. Rabbit) who was also attending the vigil. We weren’t using our devices, just the trusty Rand McNally. We were looking for The National Shrine & Museum of St. Thérèse of Lisieux – the Little Flower – a Carmelite Nun & Doctor of the Church, just off the highway. I always loved the Carmelites who follow the ‘Most Pure Heart of Mary, Christ Jesus & the prophet Elijah to live in God’s presence’.

The “Little Way” of St. Thérèse is a simple approach to a spiritual life that seeks to find holiness thru everyday life – to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. It’s about trust – living a life where ‘small daily sacrifices’ make life a great deed.

I made the mistake of turning on my phone to help us find it, & that allowed Ahriman to send us on a wild goose chase. Well, we got lost. But inadvertently, as the adversarial beings are meant to do, we were led right where we needed to go – granting us the opportunity to put Trust to the test.

And somehow we ended up at ‘Waterfall Glen’, a nature wildlife preserve with trails, & fishing, famous for its glacial lake. It was perfect. The rain stopped just as we pulled up. Ah, such majesty. We took a thoughtful, refreshing hike around the primordial lake with Winnie in the lead.

Without much more ado we arrived in Springfield, IL. home of Honest Abe & settled into the Bungalow house that would be our retreat center for the next nights.

~hag

I picked this place because it is across the street from Oak Ridge Cemetery – a State Historic Site – home of Lincoln’s Tomb. Working with the dead has led me to visit many Burial Grounds – a favorite past time of mine. Our pilgrimage there amongst the rolling hills dotted with founding families & civil war heroes was peaceful & reverent. We extended our inner vision to connect to the Spirit of Place, not just of the Cemetery, but of the larger whole – The Genius Loci of Springfield IL. & the Heartland in general, which helped form the Genius of a great man like Abraham Lincoln.

We shared a delicious meal & prepared for the Michaelmas 2023 annular solar eclipse & our trip to Cahokia. Using the black & white of charcoal drawing how do we live into the qualities of Light & Dark? Tying the eurythmy gestures for “I Think Speech”, & working with various prayers, verses & mantras like: The Lord’s Prayer, The Foundation Stone Meditation, The Verse for the Michaelic Age, The 1010 Thought-Seed mantras, etc, we embody our Speaking with the Stars.  Toning & improvisational singing, as well as harmonizing our favorite Michaelmas Songs is a powerful way to bring unity to community.

~Nancy Melvin

I was thinking to apportion out parts & do a reading together of ‘From Light Through Darkness Into New Light’ a Mystery Drama type Pageant I wrote for the ‘Great American Eclipse’ of 21 August 2017, which the Central Regional Council of the ASA enacted as part of our retreat in St. Louis, but I decided to save it for the big gathering we will have during the solar eclipse on the octave of Easter 8 April 2024.

The next morning 14 Oct. 2023, after bagels & homemade biscuit sandwiches we made our way to the sacred Cahokia Mounds near Horseshoe Lake State Park, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.

The atmosphere still had that Watery ‘Mists of Avalon’/ Atlantean quality with occasional cloud bursts. The hanging waves made the fall colors more vibrant, the etheric essence of the plant world more evident, spread out; deeper, richer.

As we drove the mists lifted. We arrived an hour before the eclipse began to get a lay of the vast landscape, tuning-in to the Genius Loci of this place, so different from where we had just come from.

The site was practically deserted. There were only a few folks around the main areas. The overview of the region with its 94 Ceremonial Mounds rising up out of the prairie, which was once productive farmland, deeply stirs the soul.

We chose to make a pilgrimage on the Blue Nature/Cultural trail, a 5 1/2-mile hike that often intersected with the 10 mile Red trail, & the Yellow shorter Tour trail. We started by walking the periphery thru the forest & marsh areas. At 1st the wildlife was abundant & bounding.

Then as the eclipse began – The shift was palpable. Everything stilled. The trees hushed, with not a squirrel or bird to be seen or heard. Even Winnie stayed with us on the path.

When we came to a Mound or a particularly beautiful tree or other striking feature in the landscape we would organically stop & linger – to contemplate, pray, make a gesture, or sing as the spirit moved us.

CG & Winifred J. Rabbit = Bros. of Christ Woodhenge in the background

Around the max time at the height of the eclipse we quite naturally found ourselves at ‘Woodhenge’. We were the only ones there in that vast circle, which once held 3 interconnecting circles of 5, 7, & 12 posts marking out the measure of the human being, the Wandering Planets & the Fixed Stars of the zodiac. We walked to the center post & sat down facing in the direction of the tallest & largest Ceremonial ‘Monks Mound’, where the Sun rises at the Spring Equinox. At this still point during the greatest darkness we held a silent vigil.

We felt called to ascend ‘Monks Mound’ where there is a panoramic view that includes the St. Louis Arch across the mighty Mississippi. Amazing to ponder that this site marking the stars of Ursa Major, was made without the use of the wheel, beasts of burden, or metallurgy, the mound technology was highly refined, taking hundreds of years of dedication. This agri-culture fostered widespread commerce, artistic expression, & monumental architecture. The model for this urban world was nothing less than the cosmos itself. The epitome of their ritual center was a four-tiered pyramid covering fourteen acres, rising a hundred feet into the sky—the tallest structure in the United States until 1867.

~Andis Kaulins

We decided we wouldn’t eat any food until the eclipse ended. We continued our journey passed the ‘Twin Mounds’ thru the ‘Stockade areas’ where we were attracted to ‘Mound 72’ which had a unique quality about it. We could see that it was laid out differently than the other mounds – its long axis is on a Northwest-Southeast orientation.

We discovered it is the only burial mound! More than 250 skeletons were recovered in various states of preservation there. And one burial spot separate from the rest consisted of a young man & woman in their early 20’s resting on a platform of shell beads that was laid out in the shape of a falcon. The residents of Cahokia were buried in cemeteries around the perimeter of the grounds. So some conclude this was a special ritual burial site. We spent a commanding time of contemplation there.

Later as we were walking out of a forested area, there was a murmuration of Starlings undulating over ‘Fox Mound.’ Then we realized that the eclipse had just ended!

When hiking to a picnic bench, Winnie scared 2 wild animals out of the bush. Yes, the deer were coming back into sight, but these looked like fat wooly sheep!?!

And then all the rest of that day & the next we must have seen at least 8 different bird murmurations on our travels speaking in the mysterious language of the air & sky! Video of murmuration

I won’t go into all the details about our digestion time the rest of that day & the next, except to say we had some intense discussions, great meals, artistic sharings, & more cultural explorations around Springfield before heading home – The landscape completely transformed in the sunshine, hung with low holographic clouds that wanted in on the conversation which is always more priceless than gold!

~Betsy

And friends, we can remember that the effects of this solar eclipse series are still reverberating – this energy has repercussions that reach into every kingdom of Nature, penetrating into the Spiritual Worlds where our Beloved Dead & the Unborn- our Descendants dwell in their life between death & new birth – Working, as we must – to heal the Earth. We don’t have to be in the ‘eclipse path’ – We don’t have to ‘see it’ thru cardboard glasses or a device – to do the work of holding the light.

The Battle of the Soul continues…

Shine on dear Michaelic Souls…

~hag

~Lydia Celmer

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler

MICHAELMAS 111
Soul Sunpower’s Awakening
v28
I can, revived within,
now feel my own wide breadth of being,
my strength of sun-empowered soul
whose radiance of thinking solves life’s riddles
and lifts the wish-fulfilling wings
left lame by hope.

The COTS verses can also be imagined in a 24 hour rhythm.
The summer is the soul’s sleeptime in drowsiness of senses.
This verse, the first mention of active human thought,
can be a meditation every morning on awakening,
in an inner light that dawned in the mirror verse.

AUTUMN EQUINOX
Dawning Soul Light
v25
I may, belonging to myself now,
begin to shine a dawning inner light
across the darkening of space and time.
To sleep is nature’s urge;
the depths of soul shall wake
and bear the sun’s warm glow
through winter storms and snow.

October 28–29, 2023 Partial Lunar Eclipse

~Alex Gray

All Souls Festival – Election Day 7 November 2023

Community Prep-Stir / Bon-fire

Celebrating: The Festival of the Dead, & Martinmas

7 – 9 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

The reprise of the 2017 Great American Eclipse Monday, April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse

Stay tuned for details about a Retreat for this Solar Eclipse Event in Fort Worth, Texas

Begins: Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 12:22 pm
Maximum: Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 1:41 pm 1.005 Magnitude
Ends: Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 3:01 pm
Duration: 2 hours, 39 minutes
Totality: 2 minutes, 34 seconds

Lunar Eclipse Sep 18, 2024

Days of Awe

Listen to today’s podcast on ‘I Think Speech’

~Morris Hirshfield

~I carry into the clouds
the life of earth,
the breath of my body
a pulse of prose
gained from pain
the twists of fate
given into with pleasure
an opening to moisture
an opportunity seized & released…
~hag

Pin on Anna and Quincy Chairs

Greetings friends – Here we are: Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, (רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה‎, literally “head of the year“) the first of the High Holy Days or Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe), a two-day celebration that starts tonight at sunset, as the New Moon makes her way into the light. It weds seriousness with celebration & begins the 10 days of repentance that culminate in Yom Kippur. This festival is believed to be the anniversary of the creation of Adam & Eve, acknowledging their first actions toward the realization of humanity’s role in the world.

Rosh Hashanah Art | Fine Art America
Ben Heloc

The 1st panel of the Foundation Stone Meditation askes us to ‘Practice Spirit Recalling.” Recognizing ancient traditions, we can renewal time honored themes that still apply today:

The New Year focuses our attention on themes of discernment, repentance, memory & the Divine presence in the world (The Shekinah). At the same time, Rosh Hashanah invites us to celebrate birth & creation on many levels. The liturgy suggests that Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of the world.

Still Life With Apples, Pomegranates, Fish, Challah And Honey.. Stock  Photo, Picture And Royalty Free Image. Image 17729412.

Family-oriented services often include a birthday cake for the world. Customs include sounding the shofar (a hollowed-out ram’s horn) & eating symbolic foods such as apples dipped in honey to emphasize the sweetness of starting the cycle of seasons once again; & round challah to remind us of the cycles of life.

Rosh Hashanah Unwrapped - High Holidays

What is your birthday wish for the world? Are you willing to personally practice themes like forgiveness, as you recall that the Divine essence is in all that lives?

How can you bring sweetness into life – making everyday a ‘Day of Awe’ – pulsing with reverence & wonder?

How are YOUR thoughts, words, deeds, adding to the re-creation of the world?

Marc Chagall "Shofar"
Marc Chagall

La Shanah Tovah – In Oneness with each other & the Universe –

~hag

15 September 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Venus will climb higher each morning to reach its greatest elongation on October 23. Mercury is just now coming into view, rising in the east shortly before sunup – in the bright morning twilight near Regulus far below brilliant Venus. Mercury will brighten during the rest of this month.

Lectures by Rudolf Steiner on this date

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Peter Murphy

The feast of Our Lady of Sorrows  (Latin: Mater Dolorosa) The Seven Sorrows (or Dolors) are events in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

  1. The Prophecy of Simeon. (Luke2:34–35)
  2. The escape and Flight into Egypt. (Matthew2:13)
  3. The Loss of the Child Jesusin the Temple of Jerusalem. (Luke 2:43–45)
  4. The Meeting of Mary and Jesus on the Via Dolorosa.
  5. The Crucifixion of Jesuson Mount Calvary. (John 19:25)
  6. The Piercing of the Side of Jesus, and His Descent from the Cross. (Matthew 27)
  7. The Burial of Jesusby Joseph of Arimathea. (John 19:40–42)

921 – At Tetin, Saint Ludmila, a Czech saint, the grandmother of Saint Wenceslaus, widely referred to as Good King Wenceslaus, is murdered at the command of her daughter-in-law, Drahomíra, who was jealous of Ludmila’s influence over Wenceslaus. Antonín Dvořák composed his oratorio Svatá Ludmila for her

1254 – Birthday of Marco Polo, Italian merchant & explorer

1616 – The first non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy

1821 – Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, & Costa Rica jointly declare independence from Spain

1916 –Tanks are used for the first time in battle, at the Battle of the Somme World War I

1935 – The Nuremberg Laws deprive German Jews of citizenship

1935 – Nazi Germany adopts a new national flag bearing the swastika

1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt & Winston Churchill meet in Quebec as part of the World War II Octagon Conference to discuss strategy.

1945 – A hurricane strikes southern Florida & the Bahamas, destroying 366 airplanes & 25 blimps at Naval Air Station Richmond, 230 die

1947 – Typhoon Kathleen hit the Kanto Region in Japan killing 1,077

1961 – Hurricane Carla strikes Texas with winds of 175 miles per hour, kills 23

1963 – 16th Street Baptist Church bombing , an act of white supremacist terrorism, in Birmingham, Alabama, occurred when four members of the Ku Klux Klan planted at least 15 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the front steps of the church.Described by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as “one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity”. The explosion killed four girls & injured 22 others.

No prosecutions ensued of the Klan members involved until 1977, when Robert Chambliss was tried & convicted of the first degree murder of one of the victims, 11-year-old Carol Denise McNair. Thomas Blanton & Bobby Cherry were each convicted of four counts of murder & sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 & 2002, but Herman Cash, was never charged .

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement & contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to a sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin, writes a letter to Congress urging the enactment of gun control legislation

1968 – The Soviet Zond 5 spaceship is launched, becoming the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere

1971 – The first Greenpeace ship sets sail to protest against nuclear testing on Amchitka Island

1972 – A Scandinavian Airlines System domestic flight is hijacked

1974 – Air Vietnam Flight 706 is hijacked, then crashes while attempting to land with 75 on board

2008 – Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history

Free Money Day is an annual, global event held since 2011 as a social experiment to promote sharing & alternative economic ideas. The day is held annually on September 15, the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers’ 2008 filing for bankruptcy. Participants offer their own money to passing strangers at public places, two coins or notes at a time. Recipients are asked to pass on one of the notes or coins to someone else

International Day of Democracy …’democracy is a universal value based on the freely-expressed will of people to determine their own political, economic, social and cultural systems, and their full participation in all aspects of life’

30 September 2023 – Our Annual Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day

Biodynamic preparation making and Michaelmas 2023 – Food for Thought

The time for biodynamic preparation making is come up again very soon.
We will be making and burying the chamomile, yarrow and dandelion compost preparations. This offers hands on activity. We will be walking through grass and work in soil. Please dress accordingly and be ready to get dirty.

After the potluck join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg in an experiential activity at the bon-fire called: Food for Thought –

Bounty: What spiritual gifts have you harvested in your life so far this year?
Farewells: What no longer serves? What is over? Say good-bye and thank you.
Preserves: What will you keep as seed for the future?

Date: September 30th, 2023 at the Zinniker Farm
Time: 1:30pm, potluck dinner
Please bring a dish to share
Suggested donation: $15-25 for more info.

Affect Change

Greetings friends on this Eve of the New Moon – I am striving, like you, thru Spiritual Science, in the continual digestion of past, present & future world events, to not only uncover the supersensible reality behind the various physically manifested phenomenon – naming the forces working in what we see out-pictured in our collective reality – but also to ask questions?

And one of the main questions many of us are asking is: How can we affect positive change?

We know that as individuals we are tasked with consistently practicing the inner development work described in Rudolf Steiner’s basic book: ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’. This first step is a life-long process, not a theory – but a conscious Initiatory practice… – Then with a firm moral foundation that allows us to build new spiritual organs, we are meant to join our gifts together to build the Temple of the New Mysteries – A Michaelic Oasis/Fortress that enables us to counteract the adversarial forces thru our collective endeavor – which involves rising in our thinking to meet the spiritual beings who are willing to work as our allies for the highest evolution of humanity.

Here on RR we have brought forth the intention to co-create change thru what I call: Project Thought-Seed (Egregore 10:10 )

Do you feel as I do that we must become spiritual warriors? We cannot realistically hope to affect change by physical means alone. The 3-fold Social Organism is in deep dis-ease. The Economic & Political realms are thoroughly corrupt, so in re-awakening the moral civil center of the Spiritual/Educational/Cultural realm in freedom, we can endeavor to take up the practice of building up affirmative imaginations on the inner planes as a counterforce to the adversarial powers working in the world.

This kind of willed-visualization becomes a “key-call” to the Spiritual Powers aligned with love & light, to enlist their aid.

Our collective Good Will can form a cosmic energy field for healing – planting what Dion Fortune called “Seed ideas in the group mind of humanity” to co-create intentions for our Highest human evolution – that the Earth may become a Sacred Planet – a Sun – & every Human Being a Star. What is sown in our highest thought will grow and bear seed.” It only takes the square root of any number of people to create true change.

To further explain ‘the working’, we can do together, let’s look at what this positive group energy can be, from a spiritual scientific point of view:

An egregore is a positive group thought-form, & when intentionally created, becomes a kind of ‘entity’ with the power to help & influence.

Whenever we meditate, pray, study a sacred image, or create an inspiring work of science, art, or literature, we radiate into time & space positive thoughts & emotions which benefit the all. Thru concentration exercises we can build Thought-Forms in the astral where we can meet in spirit.

Our goal is to co-create a new ‘Group-Soul United in Christ’ – which has the power to affect the ultimate positive change we want to see in the world.

As a psychic ‘entity’, the egregore exists between the material & spiritual worlds, & is connected to both. It is a living creation of our highest intentions.

We have the power to manifest thought-forms of good will together – to collectively build a cognitive imagination of Michael-Christ-Sophia, protecting & embracing us with love & light.

The forces built up thru our collective egregore fortifies & sustains us. The intentional visualization of the Earth as a Sun, increases thru our efforts over time – becoming more & more realized thru our repeated affirmational actions.

Here is the Meditative Thought-Seed I have been working with:

For Thinking: “When I think light, my soul shines,
When my soul shines, the Earth is a Star,
When the Earth is a Star, I am, a true human being”.
~Herbert Hahn

I love to reverse the verses:
I Am
A True Human Being
The Earth is a Star
My Soul Shines
I think Light

For Feeling: When I feel Love, my heart sings
When my heart sings, the Earth resounds
When the Earth resounds, I am a true I AM

I Am
A True I am
The earth Resounds
My Heart Sings
I Feel Love

For Willing: When I will life, my hands help
When my hands help, the Earth heals
When the Earth heals, I am a free human being

I Am
A Free Human Being
The Earth Heals
My Hands Help
I Will Life

~ hag

Of course just a simple moment of sending your good will out into the ethers is potent too.

If you are interested you can read about the origins for this Thought-Experiment which came about during the start of the Corona Crisis.

This brainstorm also became the reason I started doing the ‘I Think Speech’ podcast. The very first episodes beginning on 24 November 2020 describe the 1010 Project Thought-Seed Egregore.

So dear friends, here is something we can actually do to counteract evil – to make our world a better place.

I hope to see you in the ethers every day 10:10 AM, (&/or PM) (but please don’t worry if you can’t tune in at 10:10, just do it whenever you think of it, which may be many times a day, or perhaps only occasionally, don’t stress it, just do what you can with a loving heart-mind)

~hag

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler

AUTUMN PRELUDE III
The Yield Of Summer
v23
In autumn haze
the senses’ lure fades;
a mist arising veils
the light’s revealing.
In widths of space I see
the autumn landscape fall asleep;
the summer’s yielded me her being
for me to reap

This week’s octave is its mirror verse:
the Celtic Wise Woman festival of Samhain
[‘Summer’s End’] when the summer’s being
begins to shine as the summer of the soul,
the cosmic light living on with inner power.

SAMHAIN – HALLOWEEN
The Summer Of The Soul
v30
In sunlight of my soul
the fruit of thinking ripens;
all feeling turns to sureness
of self-awareness.
I joy to sense
the autumn’s rousing of the spirit;
within me will the winter wake
the summer of the soul.

PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE: Due to the farm day at Angelic Organics we are changing our Chicago Festival to: FRIDAY 22 September 2023

Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire Celebrating

*Autumnal Equinox

*Yom Kippur

*Michaelmas Festival

6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

30 September 2023 – Our Annual Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day

Biodynamic preparation making and Michaelmas 2023 – Food for Thought

The time for biodynamic preparation making is come up again very soon.
We will be making and burying the chamomile, yarrow and dandelion compost preparations. This offers hands on activity. We will be walking through grass and work in soil. Please dress accordingly and be ready to get dirty.

After the potluck join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg in an experiential activity at the bon-fire called: Food for Thought –

Bounty: What spiritual gifts have you harvested in your life so far this year?
Farewells: What no longer serves? What is over? Say good-bye and thank you.
Preserves: What will you keep as seed for the future?

Date: September 30th, 2023 at the Zinniker Farm
Time: 1:30pm, potluck dinner
Please bring a dish to share
Suggested donation: $15-25 for more info.

Virgin’s Virtue

The maiden, the wheat, and the threshing moon | Wandering Arrow

Greetings freinds – Here is today’s essay on the ‘I Think Speech’ Podcast

The Virtue associated with Virgo is: Courtesy becomes Steadiness of Feeling.

In taking up the work of understanding Mary Magdalene in her overcoming of the 7 demons, to become ‘She who anoints the Anointed One’ – I have been working with the 12 virtues as the antidote – turning those vices into virtues.

Being a double Cancer with a Pisces Moon, this virtue of Equanimity or steadiness of Feeling has never been my strong suit – too much water! But the other day it also dawned on me that perhaps it’s partly because I have always looked on ‘courtesy’ as a false societal mask, a convention that my – ‘Say it like it is’ attitude didn’t allow me to fully appreciate; especially since my dear mother, who always very courteous, another Cancer native, was often martyred. So, I thought I had to be tough – I didn’t want to be walked on like she was. But I know that because of this need to adjust to my childhood experiences, I have often let my hard crabby shell be too heavy an armor. And it hurts that some can see me as aloof, thinking my need to protect my overly sensitive feeling life is a conceit.  And yet it woke me up to seek to understand & deal with my own vulnerability.

And I see that to practice this virtue I must also deal with my impatience. I must learn to see that tolerance, & patient interest, is the real form of courtesy. It shows me that to be kind, to be truly courteous, I have to practice a real ‘steadfastness of feeling’ the virtue seen in the 6 basic exercises as Equinimity. – It can’t come from a rule outside me, an unconscious convention, a dutiful patent ‘please & thank you’, or an overt inconsiderateness  – but from a tactful heart, centered in equanimity, bringing a calm sobriety & the resolve to cultivate & harvest right relationship.

Virgo Constellation Painting by Erdal Bölükbaşı | Artmajeur
Erdal Bölükbaşı

We are in the season cycle when the contemplative Virgin of the heavens holds the Sun forces, sparking wholeness, to gather us up in her blue mantle, like ears of corn. We are brought home from the far fields of Summer.

The constellation of the Virgin has always been regarded since the ancient mysteries, as the bearer of the bread of life – Full-filled at the ‘Turning Point of Time’ in the ‘miracle of the loaves & the fishes’, as well as the ‘Last Supper’ & in the birth of the Sun into humanity.

Pisces - Virgo Axis - Soul Bridging

If cosmic provisions are to become nourishment for the Higher Self – The “I”, we must make a connection with the powers of the depths, which lie opposite the Virgin along the axis of the Zodiac, in the constellation of Pisces, the sign of the Fishes. With this balance of Above & Below we can truly feed the “I” – & say as St. John The Divine did: “I am the Bread of Life”!

This begs the question, which our current culture has to answer: How can the food of life, which is so often taken in unconsciously, in greedy gulps -instead, be taken up & internalized with a wakeful & reverent consciousness?

Madonna of the Wheat, Addressing Sacred Feminine Imagery in Art, Statuary,  and Textiles - Attraversando in il Rinascimento Italiano

If the Bread of Life is to be fully digested by the “I”, then what is required is the destruction of our selfish desires, making us ‘virgin’ again, Whole – that we may give birth to the ‘Christ in me’, to preserve & focus the activity of the will, freeing the “I” from outdated husks, to feed the Christ self.

Virgo, Earth, Mutable, 6th House, "I Analyze" | Zodiac art, Esoteric art,  Art

In the social realm, the royal virtue of courtesy brings the giddiness of summer’s unconscious expansion back into a steadfast feeling of thoughtful care. A soul hygiene that brings the pendulum into right relationship, just as every out-breath is followed by an in-breath –The austerity of the Virgin leading us into the balanced scales of Libra in preparation for Michaelmas.

This must be developed in the practice of our social life. If we practice this high ideal of courtesy, not just a surface, conventional politeness, we can acquire the right heart-felt feeling, which awakens an inner organ that can reveal to us the true being of the other person, as well as opening our connection to the elemental beings, that look to us to release them from the withering blooms.

~hag

“If the sheath-bearing Virgin, who draws near with golden rays of autumn sun, in the blue firmament, is to nourish you with what she provides, you must take up this food that is the Bread of Life in your innermost being.

That you can only do, when you develop not only your senses, but with them, open up the spirit of your soul to the world around you, & deepen in your heart the fruits of your life, that you gather, shape & organize. Only the right heartfelt tact gives you the possibility of recognizing the human being in others & of becoming aware of your own human nobility!” ~Rudolf Steiner

~Petr Horalek, Slovakia 09/09/2023 – 04:00 am – Comet C/2023 P1 Nishimura, discovered on 12 August by Hideo Nishimura from Japan, next to Venus (Occult Mercury).

10 September 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

720 – Death/Feast Day of Aubert of Avranches According to legend, in 708 he had a vision in which the Archangel Michael instructed him to build an oratory on the rocky tidal island at the mouth of the Couesnon. Aubert did not pay attention to this vision at first, until in exasperation Michael appeared to him again, this time driving his finger into Aubert’s skull & ordering him to complete the task again. Michael is said to have appeared to him a total of three times. After this the oratory was built.

Mont-Saint-Michel, an island fortress, medieval abbey, and UNESCO world  heritage site, is one of France's major and most stunning tourist  attractions.
msm10-crane-saint-aubert_maxi.png

The relic of Aubert’s skull, complete with hole where the archangel’s finger pierced it, can still be seen at the Saint-Gervais Basilica in Avranches.

The Blessed Guillaume de Toulouse Tormented by Demons — Ambroise Frédeau –  Biblioklept

1305 – Death/Feast Day of Nicholas of Tolentino, known as the Patron of Holy Souls, was an Italian saint &mystic. There are many tales & legends which relate to Nicholas. One says the devil once beat him with a stick, which was then displayed for years in his church. In another, Nicholas, a vegetarian, was served a roasted fowl, for which he made the sign of the cross, & it flew out a window. Nine passengers on a ship going down at sea once asked Nicholas’ aid, & he appeared in the sky, wearing the black Augustinian habit, radiating golden light, holding a lily in his left hand, & with his right hand, he quelled the storm. An apparition of the saint, it is said, once saved the burning palace of the Doge of Venice by throwing a piece of blessed bread on the flames. He was also reported to have resurrected over one hundred dead children, including several who had drowned together.

1509 – An earthquake known as “The Lesser Judgment Day” hits Constantinople killing over 2,000

Europe after the Treaties of Utrecht and Nystad, 1721. | Historical maps,  German history, European history

1721 – The Treaty of Nystad was signed ending the twenty-one year Great Northern War between Russia & Sweden. Rudolf Steiner speaks about the significance of this in GA 119 Macrocosm/Microcosm: Lecture 6: Experiences of Initiation in the Northern Mysteries

Empress Elisabeth of Austria - Wikipedia

1898 – Deathday of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I, Queen of Hungary & Queen consort of Croatia and Bohemia. While travelling in Geneva in she was stabbed to death by an Italian anarchist named Luigi Lucheni who selected her because he had missed his chance to assassinate Prince Philippe, Duke of Orléans, & wanted to kill the next member of royalty that he saw. Elisabeth was the longest serving Empress-consort of Austria, at 44 years. Rudolf Steiner gives us much to think about concerning her destiny in this lecture – BEHIND THE SCENES OF EXTERNAL HAPPENINGS, GA 178, Lecture I, Zürick, 6th November, 1917

Treaty of St. Germain - IB History

1919 – Austria & the Allies sign the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye recognizing the independence of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia & Yugoslavia

1933 – Deathday of A.W. Sellin, Anthroposopher & Fremason

1935 – Birthday of Mary Oliver, poet & author

1943 – World War II: German forces begin their occupation of Rome

2008 – The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, described as the biggest scientific experiment in history, is powered up in Geneva, Switzerland

Stay: Suicide Prevention Campaign | Baltimore-Washington Conference UMC

World Suicide Prevention Day

Saturday 23 September 2023

Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire Celebrating

*Autumnal Equinox

*Yom Kippur

*Michaelmas Festival

6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

30 September 2023 – Our Annual Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day

Biodynamic preparation making and Michaelmas 2023 – Food for Thought

The time for biodynamic preparation making is come up again very soon.
We will be making and burying the chamomile, yarrow and dandelion compost preparations. This offers hands on activity. We will be walking through grass and work in soil. Please dress accordingly and be ready to get dirty.

After the potluck join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg in an experiential activity at the bon-fire called: Food for Thought –

Bounty: What spiritual gifts have you harvested in your life so far this year?
Farewells: What no longer serves? What is over? Say good-bye and thank you.
Preserves: What will you keep as seed for the future?

Date: September 30th, 2023 at the Zinniker Farm
Time: 1:30pm, potluck dinner
Please bring a dish to share
Suggested donation: $15-25 for more info.

Cosmic Cognition Earth Activated

“The Cosmic Christ” by Ullrrich Javier Lemus

Today’s essay is inspired by Tom Mellett’s new motto: “I think about thinking; therefore, I am here now.”

Esoteric, or as I like to call it, Cosmic Christianity continues to be misunderstood, denied, maligned, & persecuted, these crazy hazy daze. Its disciples vilified as heretics, even in pre-Christian times, when the ancient Mystery Schools were prefiguring & preparing humanity for the incarnation of the Logos. These onslaughts fed partly by the necessity of the evolution of human consciousness, & also in part by the adversarial forces of jealousy – led to the burning of the Temple of Artemis; the ‘Arabianizing of Aristotelianism; the systematic destruction of the ancient mysteries by the Roman empire; the abrogation of the Gnostics at the Council of Nicaea; the living spirit all but abolished when doubts of the Trinity arose, infiltrating the Catholic Church at the Ecumenical Council of 869; the obliteration of Celtic Christianity in Britain at the Council of Whitby in 664; the rising of  the Academy of Gondishapur in 666; the genocide of the Albigensian Crusade; the arrest, torture & murder of the Knights Templar; the suppression of the Rosicrucian’s in the 17th century; & the burning of the 1st Goetheanum, the Johannes Bau – Temple of the Word – bringing on the early death of the great Christian Initiate Rudolf Steiner in the 20th Century.

It is time now to innovate Cosmic Christianity. What has been inscribed into the Comic ethers must be retrieved & implemented here on Earth.

~Matilda Wentzell

The Consciousness Soul age of which we are tasked with unfolding, has to do with awakening the eternal cosmic core of our being – an activation of our human individuality – Our Higer “I” – to transform our various sheaths, especially the astral body, so that it can become an effective tool for reversing the retarding effects of the ‘Fall’.

The mission of modern Rosicrucianism ie. Spiritual Science – the Cognitive Ritual – the Science of Anthroposophia, is to foster the development of our human individuality in the physical world without losing the spiritual substance, which is our cosmic birthright – to find the spirit thru the senses…

All knowledge begins with the elaboration of thoughts about our perceptions. (We can call this Imaginative Cognition)

~Andre Masson

Goethe describes how life unfolds its being according to a rhythmical principle of expansion & contraction, thru a modulated interweaving between polarities.

Rudolf Steiner gives a descriptive account of human cognition avowing that intuitive thinking is central to any understanding of the Human being: “In thinking we take hold of a corner of the world process where we must be present if anything is to come about… ~The Philosophy of Freedom

The material aspects of the brain must withdraw to make room for true thinking – which allows the activity of thinking to be impressed upon material substance

The nervous system – the basis of human cognition – is composed of hardened matter that is less alive than say our tissues or our blood. But the life force – the etheric formative forces work into the liberated structure of the nervous system to form the substance of cognition – an imprint that opens the portal to the cosmic realms. This is the work that Vidar has come to foster in us, in concert with Michael.

~hag

In re-founding a new Cosmic Christianity – a modern Rosicrucianism, Steiner outlined a practical path of spiritual development that aims to regenerate the ‘thinking process into the living world.

Awakening the inner potential of human cognition, we find higher states of consciousness already present in a seed form within daily consciousness. The Festival Life helps us cultivate these seeds.

As we strive to consciously evolve & perfect our moral & cognitive facilities, the realities of the world of Life-Processes – the Etheric Realm – are made more directly available to us.

This gives us access to the ‘Grail Castle’ – & then lays a firm foundation for Anthroposophia – & the applied ‘Science of the Grail’ to manifest – the goal of which is to heal karma – as we co-create the Earth as a New Sun…

~hag

~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky

25 August 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: the waxing gibbous moon stands in the constellation Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer, between the more well–known constellations Scorpius the Scorpion and Sagittarius the Archer…hmmm…

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” ~H.G. Wells

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

79 – Deathday of Pliny the Elder, Roman commander & philosopher – died while attempting to rescue a friend from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Stabiae that had just destroyed the cities of Pompeii & Herculaneum. The prevailing wind caused by the sixth & largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption overcame his ship

El Greco

1270 – Deathday of Louis IX of France, the Crusader King, devoted to his people, founding hospitals, visiting the sick like his patron St. Francis, even caring for people with leprosy. Louis united France. Every day he invited 13 guests from among the poor to eat with him.

1530 – Birthday of Ivan the Terrible

1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers

1744 – Birthday of Johann Gottfried Herder, German poet, philosopher, friend of Goethe

1814 – The U.S. Library of Congress was destroyed by British forces

Faraday_and_Daniell_

1867 – Deathday of Michael Faraday, English physicist & chemist, who contributed to the study of electromagnetism.  Albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his study wall, alongside pictures of Isaac Newton & James Clerk Physicist Ernest Rutherford stated, “When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and of industry, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Faraday, one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time”.

Friedrich Nietzsche | Biography, Books, & Facts | Britannica

1900 – Deathday of Friedrich Nietzsche. Rudolf Steiner mentioned that in a previous life he was a Franciscan monk. Steiner also wrote: Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom GA5. The enigmatic Friedrich Nietzsche was seen by Steiner, but was lying in a coma near death. Nietzsche’s philosophy receives a scholarly & critical treatment & is then related to Nietzsche, the man.

At one point in his life, Rudolf Steiner brought out an edition of some of Nietzsche’s writings. In seeing that Nietzsche’s ideas received a public exposure, Steiner was not identifying himself as one of Nietzsche’s disciples, but rather assuring philosophical readers that this important link in the spiritual development of occidental thought should not be ignored.

Here is Steiner’s Memorial Address The Personality of Friedrich Nietzsche

1914 – World War I: The library of the Catholic University of Leuven is deliberately destroyed by the German Army. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes Gothic & Renaissance manuscripts are lost

1916 – The United States National Park Service is created

1933 – The Diexi earthquake strikes Sichuan, China & kills 9,000 people

1944 – World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies

1948 – The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: “Confrontation Day” between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss.

1950 – President Harry Truman orders the U.S. Army to seize control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike