Category Archives: Autumn

Spirit-Light of Thought

September 29, 2017Autumn, Celestial Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering~hag

29 September 2017– Astro-Weather: As the stars come out in late twilight, look high above the Moon for Altai, the eagle.. Once the sky is dark, examine the sky upper left of Altair for dim little Delphinus, the Dolphin, about a fist at arm’s length from it. A little less far straight above Altair is the smaller, dimmer constellation Sagitta, the Arrow.

Although autumn arrived with the equinox a week ago, the Summer Triangle remains prominent in the evening sky. Look high in the west after darkness falls & your eyes will fall on the brilliant star Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp. Vega is the brightest member of the Triangle. The second-brightest star, Altair in Aquila the Eagle, lies southeast of Vega. The asterism’s dimmest member, Deneb in Cygnus the Swan, stands east-northeast of Vega.

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“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” ~Mark Twain

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

The Feast Day of St. Michael & All the Heavenly Hosts, also called MICHAELMAS

1227 – Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, is excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for his failure to participate in the Crusades. A man of extraordinary culture, energy, & ability Frederick II was called stupor mundi (the wonder of the world), by Nietzsche, also the first European, the first modern ruler – by many historians, Frederick established in Sicily & southern Italy a modern, centrally governed kingdom with an efficient bureaucracy.

He was a King of Germany, of Italy, & Burgundy. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage & his connection with the Sixth Crusade.

He was frequently at war with the Papacy, hemmed in between Frederick’s lands in northern Italy & his Kingdom of Sicily (the Regno) to the south. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to call him an Antichrist.

Speaking six languages (Latin, Sicilian, German, French, Greek & Arabic, Frederick was an avid patron of science & the arts. He played a major role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. His Sicilian royal court in Palermo, saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature & on what was to become the modern Italian language.

He was also the first king who explicitly outlawed trials by ordeal as they were considered irrational.

Caravaggio

1571 – Birthday of Caravaggio, Italian painter

1717 – An earthquake strikes Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city’s architecture & making authorities consider moving the capital to a different city

1812- Birthday of Caspar Hauser, grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Theories link him with the grand ducal House of BadenThese claims, & his subsequent death by stabbing, sparked much debate & controversy.

“…It was the case of that human being, so enigmatic for many people, who was once placed into this city in a mysterious way, and who in just as mysterious a way met his death in Ansbach. An author, in order to indicate the mystery of his life, wrote that as he was carried out to burial the sun was setting on the one horizon and the moon was rising on the other. I speak, as you know, of Caspar Hauser. If you disregard all the pros and cons that have been asserted, if you look only at what has been fully verified, you will know that this foundling — who was one day simply there in the street, and who since he did not know whence he came, was called the Child of Europe — could neither read nor write when he was found. At an age of twenty years he possessed nothing of what is gained through the intellect but he had a remarkable memory. As they began to instruct him, as logic entered his soul, his memory disappeared. This transition in consciousness was accompanied by something else. He possessed at first an incredible, an entirely inborn truthfulness and it was precisely in this truthfulness that he went more and more astray. The more he nibbled, so to say, at intellectuality, the more it vanished. There would be many things to study were we to enter deeply into this human soul which had been artificially held back. It is not difficult for the student of Spiritual Science to credit the popular tradition, so unacceptable to the learned people of to-day, which relates that while Caspar Hauser still knew nothing, while he still had no idea that there were beings besides himself of different form, he exercised a remarkable effect upon quite savage creatures. Savage animals humbled themselves and became mild, something streamed from him that made such beasts gentle, although they savagely attacked anyone else. We could in fact penetrate deeply into the soul of this remarkable personality, so enigmatic to many, and you would see how things that cannot be explained from ordinary life are led back through Spiritual Science to spiritual facts. Such facts cannot be learnt by speculation but only by spiritual observation, though they are comprehensible to an unbiased and logical thinking.

All this has only been said in order to show you that the modern consciousness has evolved from another, an age-old-state when man was not in direct touch with outer objects in the modern sense, but on the other hand was in connection with facts and beings of the spiritual world.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Apocalypse of St. John, Spiritual Science — The Gospel — The Future of Mankind

1885 – The first public electric tramway in the world is opened in Blackpool, England

1902 – Deathday of Émile Zola a French novelist, playwright, journalist, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, & an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France & in the exoneration of the falsely accused & convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J’accuse. Zola was nominated for the first & second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 & 1902. His death from carbon monoxide poisoning is suspected to have been murder

1924 – Ludwig Polzer holds his 1^st First Class Lesson

1954 – The convention establishing CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is signed

1957 – Twenty MCi of radioactive material is released in an explosion at the Soviet Mayak nuclear plant at Chelyabinsk

1981 – Deathday of Adolf Arenson, German composer & Anthroposopher. Arenson editied many of Rudolf Steiner’s works, & composed the music for many of the plays & productions. Steiner mentions him at the end of Wonders of the World lecture 1

2008 – Following the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers & Washington Mutual, The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in its history

2009 – The 8.1 Mw Samoa earthquake strikes with a maximum Mercalli intensity. A destructive tsunami follows, leaving 1189 dead & hundreds injured.

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

John Stolfo

As the Michaelmas Feast
Pulls the Afternoon Sun into a Blinding Shaft
– The Drawn Sword of Michael
Pierces Thru
On the Oblique Angle of the Sun
Casting a long Shadow
That Stretches to the Western Horizon
Yet Met
In Silent Admonition
Thru Strident Free Discernment
Revealing the Revelation
In the Spirit-Light of Thought
~hag

***

Liane Collot D ‘ herbois

Human consciousness is ever evolving. The Zeitgeist is flavored by the various attributes of the 7 Archangels who take turns ruling a portion of the epoch. In 1879 Michael became the Time Spirit of our age. When he was last up, he ruled the Hebrew folk as they were preparing the vessel for the Christ Being to enter a human form. Back then he held the countenance of Jehovah, the god of the Hebrew people.

At the ‘Turning point of Time’ Michael got a promotion to become an Archai & took on the countenance of The Christ.

In 1899 the Kali Yuga ended & the gates to the spiritual world were opened once again. Around that time, at the end of the 19^th century, the fixed date of September 29th came to be called: The Feast Day of St. Michael & All the Heavenly Hosts. The old legends would always preface the famous story of the battle against the dragon, with an enumeration of the 9 angelic realms, with Michael standing before us as the King & herald of all the hierarchies.

And so as we strive to create the festival of the future, which we call Michaelmas, we are invited to stand in balance between the light & the dark, around this time of the equinox, to look back to the fruits of the past, & to prepare by looking to what is coming toward us from the future.

To look where we have been & to where we are going. To contemplate the angelic choirs – that we may look to our future selves – that we may think, here & now, that step by step, we can courageously build our own strong & steady rung on the ladder of evolution, teaching us to count the human being as the 10th hierarchy. It is to this that the mighty sun-being Michael directs our gaze; which we must in turn direct to the world of nature – Replacing dead sense-bound thinking, represented by the Dragon, with Imaginative Cognition, (to reclaim the Cosmic intelligence) living heart-thinking, fostered by Michael, to reveal the Living Christ, as the fundamental force of the Universe.

May Michael fortify our “I” & strengthen our Will, giving us the courage to find the Spirit behind the living Cosmos.

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Michaelmas & the Horn of Plenty: Fall Festivals Ancient & New

Saturday September 30^th 10:30 am – 4:30pm at the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL. 60187 – Pre-registration (630) 668-1571

Come join our Experiential Workshop celebrating the Autumnal Equinox to prepare us for the journey into the dark of the year. We will look back to the fruits of the past, & prepare for what is coming toward us from the future. Our ancestors called this Sabbath – Harvest Home or Mabon. The Hebrew folk count this as part of the High Holy Days. In Greece & Rome it is dedicated to The Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter & Persephone. Today, we are invited to stand with the powerful Archangel Micha-el, in balance, between the light & the dark, as we create the ‘festival of the future’, which we call ‘Michaelmas’. Forging confidence through Heart-Thinking, Michael strengthens our Will & reinforces our higher “I” so that we have the Courage to find the Spirit behind the living cosmos.

10:30am –The Eleusinian Mysteries, Art & Mythos

11 – Group Eurythmy with special guest Mary Ruud – ‘Song of Proserpine’ by Percy Shelley

11:20 – Break

11:40 – The High Holy Days – ‘Atonement’ & a Sweet New Year

12pm – Ho‘oponopono an artistic Forgiveness Exercise

12:30 – 1:30 Picnic Lunch

1:30 – ‘Mabon’ Harvest Home Fest

1:45 – Circle of Intuition: Questions as we go into the Dark of the Year

2:15 – Break

2:30 –Michaelmas, The festival of the future NOW, Art & Leading Thoughts

3:30 – Iron Rod Eurythmy with special guest Mary Ruud

4 – Open Conversation – 4:30 pm – Close

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – is a Spiritual Midwife, and Trans-denominational Minister, working in an eclectic style that inspires connections – initiating us into the magic, waiting to be revealed, in the cycle of the seasons. Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, and the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society. Founder of Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year

Scintillating

September 28, 2017Autumn, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

28 September 2017 – Astro-weather: Bella Luna waxing now shines above the Teapot’s handle at nightfall.

Susan Sorrell Hill

Uranus reaches opposition three weeks from today, but it already has become a tempting evening luminary. The ice giant world rises before twilight ends & climbs above the eastern horizon by 11 pm CDT in Pisces, northwest of Omicron Piscium

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Sharon Mcerlane

“God is an intelligible sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere”. ~Alanus ab Insulis

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

551 BC – Birthday of Confucius, Chinese teacher, editor, politician, & philosopher of the Spring &Autumn period of Chinese history

1203 – Deathday of Alanus ab Insulis, Theologian, poet, teacher at Chartres. Alan’s philosophy was a sort of mixture of Aristotelian logic and Neoplatonic philosophy. The Platonist seemed to outweigh the Aristotelian in Alan, but he felt strongly that the divine is all intelligibility and argued this notion through much Aristotelian logic combined with Pythagorean mathematic

“Do not hold as gold all that shines as gold”

In the Anticlaudianus he sums up as follows: Reason, guided by prudence, can unaided discover most of the truths of the physical order; for the apprehension of religious truths it must trust to faith. This rule is completed in his treatise, Ars catholicae fidei, as follows: Theology itself may be demonstrated by reason. Alainus even ventures an immediate application of this principle, & tries to prove geometrically the dogmas defined in the Creed

Giovanni Segantini, Bagpipers of Brianza

1899 – Deathday of Giovanni Segantini,an Italian painter known for his large pastoral landscapes of the Alps. He was one of the most famous artists in Europe in the late 19th century. In later life he combined a Divisionist painting style with Symbolist images of nature. He was active in Switzerland for most of his life.

1924 – Rudolf Steiner gave his Last Address in Dornach GA 238 The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis with the Michael Meditation:

Springing from Powers of the Sun,
Radiant Spirit-powers, blessing all Worlds!
For Michael’s garment of rays
Ye are predestined by Thought Divine.

He, the Christ-messenger, revealeth in you —
Bearing mankind aloft — the sacred Will of Worlds.
Ye, the radiant Beings of Aether-Worlds,
Bear the Christ-Word to Man.

Thus shall the Heralds of Christ appear
To the thirstily waiting souls,
To whom your Word of Light shines forth
In cosmic age of Spirit-Man.

Ye, the disciples of Spirit-Knowledge,
Take Michael’s Wisdom beckoning,
Take the Word of Love of the Will of Worlds
Into your soul’s aspiring, a c t i v e l y !

1978 – Deathday of Pope John Paul I, born Albino Luciani, served as Pope until his sudden suspicious death 33 days later. His reign is among the shortest in papal history.

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~Flowing from the living waters
The cosmic fount foams up
To moisten my mind’s eye with salt & sulphur,
Forming a mercurial lachrymation
Beading brilliant, Mixing & Pooling
The cosmic iron in my blood scintillating slowly
Within the shining spark of thinking
A way to read intrinsic meaning into being…
The writing is on the wall my friend
Add your etching to enhance
The conscious conversation & Be
Heard…
~hag

***

Carlo Crivelli

“Forge me with fire, a sword for my smiting
Fright to my foes and flames for my fighting
Shape me a shield forceful and fierce
Stalwart and shapely to fend against fears
Strike me a spear of speed as a shaft
Fearless to fly as a shot to the start
Staunch be my front against fury assailed
Strong be my soul where the feeble have failed”

***

Dear Friends –

“We come here
To embrace what is common in each one of us –
Our love for a higher knowledge
Which unites us in understanding.
Let this Light of Knowledge unite
Each and All of us
Making rise in each
The raising of the Other”.
~Rudolf Steiner

On the Autumn Equinox, September 22^nd 2017, The Elderberries Three-Fold Café Initiative surpassed their crowdfunding goal, raising $25,690, enabling them to pave the way for a 3-Fold Café in the Heart-land!

Daniel Evaeus came in from LA for the Michaelmas Festival on the 23^rd. He also visited CWS & got to know the city a bit.

On Sunday a group of over 35 folks from the various Steiner initiatives in the area including: The Chicago Waldorf School, & The Urban Prairie Waldorf School, The Chicago Christian Community, Arcturus, & the Rudolf Steiner Branch, gathered in the upper room at the branch.

John Bloom, the General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society, his associate Mark Herrera, from RSF, & Daniel Evaeus from Elderberries 3-Fold Café in LA, met at the Archer-Ginsberg home for a lunch meeting, then over to the branch for the ‘Open Conversation’, exploring how to best serve the ‘Being of Chicago’ at this time in history & talk about the future of anthroposophy.

Eurythmist Mary Ruud got everyone up to do eurythmy, as late comers were bringing in more chairs from downstairs, explaining that it was International Eurythmy Day!

I welcomed all & gave the imagination of The Archangel of Summer taking us to task to ‘make straight the path’ by holding us in 90 degree weather, before handing the seasonal chalice over to Michael. Powerful energies abound during these volatile times of transition; storms arise, as well as opportunities for growth & change. The 100 year anniversary of 3-folding was highlighted.

Branch Council Secretary Elisabeth Swisher recited the ‘Verse for America’*.

Christian Community Priest Ann Burfeind helped chair the meeting; she spoke about how the impetus for gathering was sparked by what was living in a young teacher from Urban Prairie.

Branch Council Treasurer Chuck Ginsberg shared his impressions from the ‘How We Will Forum’ put on by the Elderberries youth over labor day weekend in LA, where he was able to deepen his understanding of 3-Folding & was impressed by how they were able to put on such a successful event with a plethora of guest speakers, gathering over 150 attendees.

Mary Spalding from Urban Prairie spoke about how her 6^th grade class, while learning about business math, decided out of themselves to create a ‘3-Fold Café’!

Many folks, including Ultra-Violet Archer, a 12^th grader from CWS, spoke about how the youth were wanting to bring these kind of impulses into practice in the world. (see the attachment for the letter sent to the Branch Council from the seniors at CWS)

Eurythmist Johanna Rodhe, Kris Boshell, Educational Support teacher at CWS, & several other people told stories about feeling called to do their work here in the ‘Heart-Land’.

Many people asked Daniel to hold forth about the Elderberries mission. Mary Tom wondered if their social process was primarily geared toward underserved or at-risk youth. Daniel gave examples that featured Waldorf alum, International YIP participants, as well as helping those who were struggling; called as they all are to bring their ’pre-natal’ pictures into focus. Along with Gordon Edwards, Mary Tom questioned whether the branch was the best location. Daniel spoke about how in LA the branch was an hour away, in Pasadena, & that they felt cut off, & so for them it was attractive to be able to have the anthroposophical impulse so close; that many young people were wanting to be able to come to 1^st Class & participate in study groups & in the festival Life.

Sheila Donahue spoke about the need for good food, & hoped that perhaps Elderberries could provide a healthy school lunch?

Someone mentioned that Farmer John Peterson from Angelic Organics could be a supplier for the café. A parent from Urban Prairie, after hearing that the Café in LA was vegan & gluten free, jokingly asked if Elderberries would have sausage. And folks wondered if Zinniker, the oldest bio-dynamic farm in America, might be a resource?

Sylvie Desouches, music teacher at CWS, told the story of how her daughter was interested in the future of food, bio-dynamics & sustainability.

Handwork teacher & Renaissance woman Nancy Melvin brought up the fact that the kitchen is an important social gathering place; and also offered to host Lazure painting workshops to help bring in venue & an artistic, educational impulse.

Michael Holdrege, master teacher at CWS & beyond, told stories of holding powerful gatherings in the Cafés of Vienna.

Alex Boshell, the Athletic Director at CWS, spoke about the upcoming 100 year anniversary of the Waldorf School & the need to renew. He also expressed the hope that students could share their artistic offerings to the wider community, bringing their offerings to places like the branch.

Chuck Ginsberg agreed asking why the Branch building is so under used; except for the festivals & a few study groups, it stands empty. And Mary Ruud said because the building is always locked! Others agreed & talked about coming during public hours & that no one was there to let them in. Then Chuck gave an impassioned speech about how ‘institutions are failing us because of a lack of Brotherhood’; asking ‘how can we unlock the branch’ to rousing applause!

Branch Member & Engineer Mihi Rosu gave a succinct definition of how the 3-Fold Social Organism worked. John Bloom filled in the picture of how each sphere needed to mutually support the others, & how the economic realm must be worked in ‘Brotherhood’ not out of the old patterns of fear, scarcity & ‘power over’. He talked about how people sometimes get stuck when it comes to making agreements that serve the highest good. When asked if RSF could help with the lease agreements, he said yes. John talked about how people were waking up to the arrival of various 100 year anniversaries, & that the time for the 3-Fold Social Order is NOW.

Mark Herrera shared that he was a Waldorf graduate, with kids in the San Francisco Waldorf School. He has worked at RSF for over 19 years & is very excited that the Elderberries initiative is coming to Chicago.

Council Member Andrei Onegin said he would be willing to help build out the space with Elderberries, inviting his own crew of young people to help.

Kris Boshell hoped that we could make these kinds of meetings a more regular thing, & asked if we could convene again in a month?

Many were frustrated with the lack of communication between the Mother & Daughter initiatives, asking how they could become members of the branch.

Branch member Deborah Rogers closed the meeting with the ‘Verse for The Michaelic Age’.

Many folks stayed for snacks, social time & further conversation downstairs. Our family hosted Daniel Evaeus & branch member Nick Novak for dinner that night. And the next day Daniel met with Andrei in the branch space, before Chuck drove him to the airport. We now await the drafting of the agreements & the signing of the lease with the Branch Council. If this cannot happen in a timely matter, (they would like to make an official announcement at the AGM in Phoenix in mid-October) then Elderberries will take up residence at another location; options were scouted in Bucktown, East Rogers Park & Uptown.

May this initiative thrive & serve the highest good for all.

May we see past the ‘me’ to meet the ‘we’; rising in our thinking to work with the true Spirit of Chicago, healing the past, unlocking the now, to support the future, as we join our striving with the Being of Anthroposophia.

~yours in service Hazel Archer Ginsberg

THE “AMERICAN” or “THREEFOLD” VERSE by Rudolf Steiner given to Ralph Courtney, a pioneer of Anthroposophy in North America for the Threefold Group.

*May our feeling penetrate to the center of our hearts –
And seek, in love, to unite with those who share our goals,
And with the Spirits who look down benevolently on our hearts earnest strivings. Sending us strength from realms of light, to illuminate our love.

***

Michaelmas & the Horn of Plenty: Fall Festivals Ancient & New

Saturday September 30^th 10:30 am – 4:30pm at the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL. 60187 – Pre-registration (630) 668-1571

10:30am –The Eleusinian Mysteries, Art & Mythos

11 – Group Eurythmy with special guest Mary Ruud – ‘Song of Proserpine’ by Percy Shelley

11:20 – Break

11:40 – The High Holy Days – ‘Atonement’ & a Sweet New Year

12pm – Ho‘oponopono an artistic Forgiveness Exercise

12:30 – 1:30 Picnic Lunch

1:30 – ‘Mabon’ Harvest Home Fest

1:45 – Circle of Intuition: Questions as we go into the Dark of the Year

2:15 – Break

2:30 –Michaelmas, The festival of the future NOW, Art & Leading Thoughts

3:30 – Iron Rod Eurythmy with special guest Mary Ruud

4 – Open Conversation – 4:30 pm – Close

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Two Anthroposophical Events to which you are warmly invited!

The Central Regional Council invites all members in the central region to consider participating in the ASA’s Annual General Meeting and conference in October. The focus of the year’s event is on taking action, and working inwardly and outwardly to help humanity evolve. The work we have undergone in the central region has often been developed toward this aim of taking action and responding to the world in a meaningful way.

The AGM and conference in 2018 will be held in our region in New Orleans, LA. We hope all our regional members may be able to attend this year and begin planning for next year in the Big Easy!

Rise Up! Life as a Labor of Love

Anthroposophical Society in America
Annual General Meeting and Conference

Fri, Oct 13 at 1:00 pm to Sunday, Oct 15 at 1:00 pm
at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ

Pre-conference gathering at the Heard Museum Friday morning, October 13, from 9:30-11:30 am for members of theSchool for Spiritual Science. Bring your blue cards!

Please register online through www.anthroposophy.org!

All Souls Festival and Retreat
At the Minnesota Waldorf School in the Twin Cities, MN.

Week-end Retreat including Festival

Fri, Nov 3 at 7:00 pm to Sunday, Nov 5 at 11:00 am

Cost $75 (registration required, click here)

Journey of the Soul Festival

Saturday, Nov 4 at 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Suggested Donation $10 at the door – All are welcome

Walk the pathway of our beloved across the threshold, being present for them, and preparing for our own journey.

“Life after death
Life before birth
Only by knowing both
Do we know eternity”
~ Rudolf Steiner

Sponsored by: Central Regional Council (CRC) and Twin Cities Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

Questions: Dennis Dietzel dennis.dietzel@gmail.com, Marianne Dietzel mariannemdietzel@gmail.com, Linda Bergh hellolindabergh@gmail.com

Culmination of “The Bridging Project: Between Life and Death from Soul to Soul”

The laying of the Foundation Stone

September 20, 2017Autumn, Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars~hag

20 September 2017 – Astro-Weather: New Moon (exact at 12:30 am CDT) Tonight at sunset begins the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah.

With La Bella Luna hidden in the underworld in this time of the dark moon, I think of these words from Rudolf Steiner: ‘The Moon-mystery was one of the deepest secrets in the ancient Mysteries, for it is the primal wisdom that the Moon enshrines within itself. What the Moon is able to reflect from the whole universe forms the sum-total of the forces which sustain the animal world of the Earth, especially the forces that are connected with the sexual nature of animals; these forces also sustain the animal element in man and are connected with his sexual nature in its physical aspect. So the lower nature of man is a product of what radiates from the Moon, while the highest wisdom once possessed by the Earth lies concealed within the Moon fortress.’

***

Catrin Welz-Stein

Lectures by Rudolf Steiner on this date

Looking at the past to see the present, co-creating the future: “History, historical life, will only be seen in the right light when a true consciousness of the connection of the so-called living with the so-called dead can be developed” – The Living and the Dead by Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 5th February, 1918

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

622 – Muhammad & Abu Bakr arrived in Medina

1378 – Cardinal Robert of Geneva, called by some the “Butcher of Cesena“, is elected as Pope Clement VII, beginning the Papal schism. He was the 1^st antipope residing in Avignon, France

1498 – The Nankai earthquake generates a tsunami that washes away the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha at Kōtoku-in in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan. Over 10,000 die

1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe

1737 – The Walking Purchase– between the Penn family, the proprietors of Pennsylvania, & the Lenape Tribe (also known as the Delaware). This document may have been an unsigned, unratified treaty, or even an outright forgery (Encyclopædia Britannica refers to it as a “land swindle”. The Penns’ agents began selling land, an area of 1,200,000 acres, in the Lehigh Valley to colonists while the Lenape still inhabited the area

1893 – Charles Duryea road-tests the first American-made gasoline-powered automobile

1906 – Founding of the Paracelsus Branch, Basel Switzerland

1913 – The laying of the Foundation Stone of the 1^st Goetheanum

1913 – Founding of the Moscow Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

1933 – Deathday of Annie Besant. In 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky. She became a member of the Theosophical Society & a prominent lecturer. She established the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain. Over the next few years she established lodges in many parts of the British Empire. In 1907 she became president of the Theosophical Society, whose international headquarters were in Adyar, Madras. She also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress. When World War I broke out in 1914, she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India. This led to her election as president of the India National Congress. In the late 1920s, Besant travelled to the United States with her protégé & adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom she claimed was the new Messiah & incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929. She is thought to be the reincarnation of Giordano Bruno

1941 – Holocaust 403 Jews (128 men, 176 women & 99 children) were murdered by Einsatzkommando 3 in Nemencing, Latvia.

1942 – Holocaust in Letychiv, Ukraine. In the course of two days the German SS murders at least 3,000 Jews

1973 – Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~TONIGHT:
dipping apples in honey
casting crumbs into the River
singing happy birth-day dear Earth
“L’shanah tovah tikatevi v’taihatemi”
~hag

***

Liane Collo D herbois

Greetings Friends – On this New Moon signaling the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah. Interesting also to think that TODAY in 1913 was the laying of the Foundation Stone of the 1st Goetheanum.

Come join us for these upcoming programs seeking to activate the Foundation Stone in our hearts:

Michaelmas & the Horn of Plenty – Fall Festivals Ancient and New

Saturday September 23rd 2017 – 4 pm – 6 pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch, 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL.

The Eleusinian Mysteries – Art & Mythos by Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Song of Proserpine by Percy Shelley – Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

Michaelmas ‘The Festival of the Future’ – Art & Leading Thoughts by Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Copper Rod Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

Singing with Elisabeth Swisher

$10 Donation* & Snacks to Share Encouraged * goes to support eurythmist Mary Ruud

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Please join us for An Open Conversation with John Bloom & Daniel Evaeus

Sunday September 24th, 1 pm – 2:30 pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

This is a call to All: & especially those working out of the various the Steiner initiatives: The Chicago Waldorf, City Garden & The Urban Prairie Waldorf School, The Christian Community, Arcturus, & the Rudolf Steiner Branch…to have a conversation about the future of anthroposophy in Chicago.

All are Welcome to meet John Bloom, our new General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America & Daniel Evaeus from The Elderberries 3-Fold Café in LA, as we explore how we can best serve the ‘Being of Chicago’ at this time in history.

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Michaelmas & the Horn of Plenty – Fall Festivals Ancient and New

Saturday September 30^th, 10:30 am – 4:30pm at the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL. Registration (630) 668-1571 BYO Veg. Picnic Lunch

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg –Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, and the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society. Founder of ReverseRitual.com

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

10:30am –The Eleusinian Mysteries, Art & Mythos

11 – Group Eurythmy with special guest Mary Ruud – ‘Song of Proserpine’ by Percy Shelley

11:20 – Break

11:40 – The High Holy Days – ‘Atonement’ & a Sweet New Year

12pm – Ho‘oponopono an artistic Forgiveness Exercise

12:30 – 1:30 Picnic Lunch

1:30 – ‘Mabon’ Harvest Home Fest

1:45 – Circle of Intuition: Questions as we go into the Dark of the Year

2:15 – Break

2:30 –Michaelmas, The festival of the future NOW, Art & Leading Thoughts

3:30 – Iron Rod Eurythmy with special guest Mary Ruud

4 – Open Conversation – 4:30 pm – Close

question authority

September 11, 2017Autumn, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight~hag

11 September 2016 –

Astro-Weather: Although Neptune appeared at its best at opposition seven days ago, its visibility hardly suffers this week. The outermost major planet lies low in the southeast as darkness falls & climbs highest in the south around midnight.

Tomorrow morning the 12th, the last-quarter Moon approaches Aldebaran and then occults it for much of North America: before or during dawn in the West, and after sunrise in a (hopefully) blue sky farther east. The star disappears on the Moon’s bright limb (as shown here) and reappears from behind the dark limb

***

The Three Sisters: Corn, Beans and Squash (an ancient imagination inspired by Angela Foster to apply to the Elderberries 3-Fold Initiative)

The Iroquois creation myth tells that the earth began when “Sky Woman”, who lived in the upper world, peered through a hole in the sky and fell through to an endless sea. The animals saw her coming, so they took the soil from the bottom of the sea and spread it onto the back of a giant turtle to provide a safe place for her to land. This “Turtle Island” is now what we call North America.

Sky woman had become pregnant before she fell. When she landed, she gave birth to twin daughters. Sky Woman planted her daughters next to her in the “new earth.” From this place grew three sacred plants—corn, beans, and squash. These plants provide food for all of humanity.

Many Native American People traditionally plant corn, beans & squash together. The Corn grows tall to provide the Beans a stalk to reach toward the Sun. Beans bring nitrogen to the soil which becomes fertilizer to feed the land. The Squash covers the ground to prevent erosion and is shaded some by the Corn & Beans. This is known as “Companion Planting”

This ancient Native American technique of growing Corn, Beans, and Squash together in an arrangement called the Three Sisters is the ultimate in companion planting and helps increase harvests, naturally!

After cooperating beautifully in the garden, corn and beans form a complete protein when eaten together! How’s that for a mutually beneficial relationship?

Dear friends this is what is needed now in the world. Elderberries Chicago the Michael Grailroad Begins. The spiritual world needs our head & hands & hearts. Elderberries holds the seeds of Brother & Sisterhood in the Economic Realm. The Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society in America – Chicago stands in Freedom in the Cultural Realm. Then on to our sister city Atlanta. No matter where you are on the planet, this 3-Fold work benefits everyone. Please help support the future NOW https://igg.me/at/michaelgrailroad/x/17233652

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”~Benjamin Franklin

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Rembrandt

Birthday of Abraham, ancestor of the Semitic Hebrews & Arabs

354 – Deathday of Saints Protus & Hyacinth mentioned in “Depositio Martyrum”

Image result for Captain William Morgan,

1826 – Captain William Morgan, an ex-freemason is arrested in Batavia, New York for ‘debt’ after declaring that he would publish The Mysteries of Free Masonry. This sets into motion the events that led to his mysterious disappearance

1830 – Anti-Masonic Party convention; one of the first American political party conventions

1851 – Christiana Resistance: Escaped slaves stand against their former owner in armed resistance in Christiana, Pennsylvania, creating a rallying cry for the abolitionist movement

1893 – Parliament of the World’s Religions opens in Chicago, where Swami Vivekananda delivers his speech on fanaticism, tolerance & the truth inherent in all religions

1897 –Menelik II of Ethiopia captures Gaki Sherocho, the last king of Kaffa, bringing an end to that ancient kingdom

1919 – U.S. Marines invade Honduras

1921 – Nahalal, the first Jewish settlement in Palestine, as part of a Zionist plan to colonize Palestine creating a Jewish state, later to be called Israel

1932 – Deathday of Fritz Lemmermayer an Austrian writer, journalist & closest childhood friend of Rudolf Steiner in Vienna. Fritz was a passionate anti-materialist, he wanted to devote his life to the creation & maintenance of spiritual values.

In 1883 he completed his novel “The Alchemist”. Rudolf Steiner met Lemmermayer again in 1886 in the circle of the poet Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. An extensive correspondence attests to the close friendship between the two (see GA 38 ).

In ” My Life ” Steiner says: Fritz Lemmermayer, with whom I was later on terms of intimate friendship, I came to know at one of delle Grazie’s afternoons. A highly noteworthy man. Whatever interested him he expressed with inwardly measured dignity. In his outward appearance he resembled equally the musician Rubinstein and the actor Lewinsky. With Hebbel he developed almost a cult. He had definite views on art and life born out of the sagacious understanding of the heart, and these were unusually fixed. He had written the interesting and profound romance, Der Alchemist(3), and much besides that was characterized by beauty and depth. He knew how to consider the least things in life from the view-point of the most vital. I recall how I once saw him in his charming little room in a side-street in Vienna together with other friends. He had planned his meal: two soft-boiled eggs, to be cooked in an instantaneous boiler, together with bread. He remarked with much emphasis while the water was heating to boil the eggs for us: “This will be delicious!” In a later phase of my life I shall again have occasion to speak of him (see GA 028, p 141f )

Lemmermayer & Steiner joined the ranks of the Viennese artist circle in the house of the protestant priest Alfred Formey. In 1891 Lemmermayer was vice president of Schrifstellerbundes Iduna , named after Iduna , the Norse goddess of youth & immortality a counterweight against the currents of naturalism.

Lemmermayer became a member of the Anthroposophical Society in 1920. He Steiner on many trips through Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland & England. This led to his 1929 published memories, where he spoke about Rudolf Steiner, Robert Hamerling & other personalities of the Austrian intellectual life of the 80s. In addition, Lemmermayer published in the weekly ” Das Goetheanum “.

1940 – George Stibitz performs the first remote operation of a computer

1941 – Ground is broken for the construction of The Pentagon

1941 – Charles Lindbergh’s Des Moines Speech accusing the British, & the Roosevelt administration of pressing for war with Germany

1943 – World War II: Start of the liquidation of the Ghettos in Minsk & Lida by the Nazis

1950 – Korean War: President Harry S. Truman approved military operations north of the 38th parallel

1954 – Hurricane Edna hits New England as a Category 1 hurricane, causing significant damage & 129 deaths

1961 – Hurricane Carla strikes the Texas coast as a Category 4 hurricane, the second strongest storm ever to hit the state, 129 people die

1968 – Air France Flight 1611 crashes off Nice, France, killing 89 passengers &six crew

1973 – Deathday of Salvador Guillermo a Chilean physician & politician, known as the first Marxist to become president of a Latin American country through open elections. Allende’s involvement in Chilean political life spanned a period of nearly forty years. As a member of the Socialist Party, he was a senator, deputy & cabinet minister. In 1970, he won the presidency. Allende adopted a policy of nationalization of industries & collectivisation; due to these & other factors, increasingly strained relations lead to his death. On 11 September 1973, the military moved to oust Allende in a coup d’état sponsored by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). As troops surrounded La Moneda Palace, he gave his last speech vowing not to resign. He was assassinated by the CIA assault rifle attack.

Following Allende’s death, General Augusto Pinochet declined to return authority to the civilian government, & Chile was later ruled by a military junta that was in power up until 1990, ending almost four decades of Chilean democratic rule. The military junta that took over dissolved the Congress of Chile & began a persecution of alleged dissidents, in which thousands of Allende’s supporters were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered.

1974 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 crashes in Charlotte, North Carolina, killing 69 passengers & two crew.

1976 – A bomb planted by Zvonko Bušić is found at New York’s Grand Central Terminal

1978 – Janet Parker is the last person to die of smallpox, in a laboratory-associated outbreak

1982 – The international forces that were guaranteeing the safety of Palestinian refugees following Israel’s 1982 Invasion of Lebanon leave Beirut. Five days later, several thousand refugees are massacred in the Sabra & Shatila refugee camps

1988 – The St. Jean Bosco massacre takes place in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

1992 – Hurricane Iniki, one of the most damaging hurricanes in United States history, devastates the Hawaiian islands of Kauai & Oahu

9/11 – 2001 – Two hijacked aircraft crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, while a third smashes into The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, & a fourth into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, in a series of coordinated suicide attacks by ??? Over 2,996 people are killed, many suffer illness associated with the clean up

***

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Bloom upright skeleton
With soft flowers of bitter dust
Fetid in Autumn’s withering
Bloom, heart-head dreaming
My Crone womb carries you forward
Willing the grave to sprout from within
Bloom, soul-forces purified & ready
Let tears embrace the wind
To wipe blank eyes screen fixed & unfocused
Bloom now in freedom won

~hag

***

Sir Edward Coley

Spiritual epiphany alert!
Yes, my dear bundles of rumbling DNA

Uncanny revelations are imminent!
Hope you don’t mind being shaken awake
in the middle of your regularly scheduled life…
It doesn’t matter if you’re a true believer
or a work-a-day TV viewer — YOU
will soon be invited
to have one of your logical certainties torn out
by the roots & replaced with a throbbing vision
of cosmic hoopla…
Brace yourself for the most pungent enlightenment you’ve had since your last mudwrestle
with an angel…

…for Long-standing versions of reality
are mutating…Stories that have remained fixed
are about to acquire unexpected wrinkles…
& from the crack in the godhead
new possibilities are pouring forth…

&…there’s something You can do
to ensure that the new versions of the old vision
are more empowering than the overlay:

1. Escape the cramped quarters of your own mind…
2. Slip away from the corners you’ve been backed into…
3. Stop telling the convoluted stories ‘they’ concocted
to rationalize why you should be afraid…
4. Get out of the loop & escape into the big,
fresh places that will rejuvenate
your eyes and heart…& for the foreseeable future,
5. take on the demeanor & spirit of a noble warrior
with high integrity & a fluid sense
of humor…

What I pray is that we won’t be satisfied with mediocre
half-truths; that it is ok to be focused
on cutting out waste, fraud, & delusion; that
it’s ok to be itchy to know more about the unacknowledged
games that are being played…Frustration, I hope,
will be our holy fuel…Unsweetened lemonade,
I trust, will be our rejuvenating drink…
These are blessings, my friend, not curses..!
I pray that you’ll pick one of those itchy scabs
until it bleeds
so the healing process can start over —
the right way this time…See…there goes that misplaced acceptance of
warped chunks of complications…Here comes
an opportunity to make a break for bubbly responsibility

True Human Freedom…
To take advantage, we’ll need to travel much lighter –
So please peel off your heart-armor – polish your sun-shield
Power the rust off your sword

Wipe that forty-pound sneer of doubt off your face –

Bury your broken-down theories by the wayside,
& donate all your unnecessary props
to the birds & the bees – Strip down –
for where we’re going, all you’ll need are
your good looks & a big fresh attitude…

I end this 9/11 epiphany with:

THE “AMERICAN” or “THREEFOLD” VERSE sent by Rudolf Steiner to Ralph Courtney, a pioneer of Anthroposophy in North America for the Threefold Group in New York City, which later established the Threefold Community in Spring Valley (now Chestnut Ridge). This verse for the American spirit speaks of the inner unity of human beings and of support from the spiritual world for our efforts:

May our feeling penetrate
To the center of our hearts –
And seek, in love, to unite with those who share our goals
And with the spirits who look down benevolently
on our hearts earnest strivings Sending us strength from realms of light
to illuminate our love.

In Peace & Good Will

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Dear Friends – Please join us for : An Open Conversation with John Bloom, our new General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America

Sunday September 24^th, 1 pm – 2:30 pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch

All are Welcome to discuss the fate of the Branch Building, the Elderberries Initiative; the state of the Anthroposophical Society today; as well as explore how we can best serve the ‘Being of Chicago.’

John Bloom was appointed General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America in October 2016. He is Vice President, Organizational Culture at RSF Social Finance. As part of his work at RSF he has been developing and facilitating conversations and programs that address the intersection of money and spirit in personal and social transformation. He writes frequently for RSF’s Reimagine Money blog and has fostered collaborative dialogues on the challenging social aspects money. As part of his work he has helped develop awareness of issues of land and biodynamic agriculture across the US. John has written two books, The Genius of Money, and Inhabiting Interdependence, both published by SteinerBooks. He lives in San Francisco.

Dear Friends – The Elderberries Three-Fold Café has been on Sunset Blvd. in the heart of Hollywood for over 9 years. They provide not only good healthy food, but nutrition for the soul – Rudolf Steiner’s Weekday Exercises are even on the back of the menu! The café is a hub for youth, hosting anthroposophical study groups, music, alternative film screenings etc – providing support for inner practices, meaningful work to those in need, & platforms for individual creative expression -imbuing all they do with a love for the future of our world.

Our 3-fold friends, Dottie Zold, Daniel Evaeus & Frank Agrama, came in from Los Angeles in March to speak with the Branch Council & have an open conversation with members & friends, about the possibility of opening a second Elderberries 3-fold Café in the unrented space at the branch*. It has long been the vision of Elderberries to create a “Michael Grail-Road” establishing 3-fold Café’s around the world where youth can come to find themselves thru anthroposophy.

Here are a few words about the Initiative from Dottie, Hazel Daniel & Frank Here are a few ‘testimonies’

Please help us pave the way for a 3-fold Cafe in the heartland!

Go to this link to find out more & donate if you will https://igg.me/at/michaelgrailroad/x/17233652

Thanks for supporting the future!

If you prefer to give a donation by check, or would like a receipt for tax purposes contact Chuck@ChuckGinsberg.com

*The good will of the Branch council & the membership at large shall determine whether this initiative will reside at the Branch. (Stay tuned for a ‘Special Members Meeting’ TBA) If it is not wanted here, Elderberries may take up root near a Waldorf School or other Chicago location.

You can get your donation back upon request if it doesn’t come thru, or you can choose to support the mission in LA, or other future hubs in the Michael-Grail Road around the country.

***

Michaelmas & the Horn of Plenty – Fall Festivals Ancient and New

Saturday September 23rd, 2017 – 4 pm – 6 pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch,4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL.

Saturday September 30^th 10:30 am – 4:30pm at the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL. 60187 – Pre-registration (630) 668-1571

Come join our Experiential Workshop celebrating the Autumnal Equinox to prepare us for the journey into the dark of the year. We will look back to the fruits of the past, and prepare for what is coming toward us from the future. Our ancestors called this Sabbath – Harvest Home or Mabon. The Hebrew folk count this as part of the High Holy Days. In Greece and Rome it is dedicated to Dionysus, or Persephone and Demeter. Today, we are invited to stand with the powerful Archangel Micha-el, in balance, between the light and the dark, as we create the ‘festival of the future’, which we call ‘Michaelmas’. Forging confidence thru Heart-Thinking, Michael strengthens our Will & reinforces our higher “I” so that we have the Courage to find the Spirit behind the living cosmos.

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

Singing with Elisabeth Swisher

***

ON-GOING:

Community Study – Wednesdays at 8:00 am- 9:40 am in the Library at the Chicago Waldorf School 1300 W. Loyola, Chicago

‘Anthroposophy’, which means Wisdom of the Human Being is a ‘Spiritual Science’ built on the research of Rudolf Steiner. Our current conversation explores: the riddles of existence, the truth of karma, the mystery of evil, historic connections, life after death and more. We incorporate ‘The Calendar of the Soul’, eurythmy, focused discussion and seasonal artistic explorations in our study. We are working with Karmic Relationships Vol. 2 currently. ALL are welcome.

Contact Hazel Archer Ginsberg (773-549-3026) Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

An immaculate bride buds forth from the stem of Jesse…

September 8, 2017Autumn, Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

8 September 2017 – Astro-Weather: Rise & Shine – the view at Dawn. Very low in the east as dawn brightens on Saturday morning September 9th, Mercury, to the right of Regulus, under bright Venus. Mars, fainter farther lower left.

Then before bed: Although September is typically a slower month for meteors than August, be on the lookout for a relatively new shower called the Epsilon Perseids. The shower peaks late this evening, though the best views will come after midnight once the Moon has set & Perseus rides high in the sky. So perhaps tonight before sleep you might make the intention to spiritually tune into this opportunity to receive this Michaelic gift of cosmic iron to fortify our blood.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history… It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.” ~Rachel Carson

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Mary’s birth has ‘officially’ been celebrated since the sixth century -A September birth, with the Sun in the constellation Virgo. Also noteworthy-the Eastern Orthodox Church begins its Church year in September, with the feast of the Immaculate Conception nine months earlier on 8 December.

The apocryphal book of James gives us this account: Anna & Joachim are infertile but pray for a child. They receive the promise of a child that will advance God’s evolutionary plan for the world.

St. Augustine connects Mary’s birth with the work of The Christ. He tells the earth to rejoice & shine forth in the light of her birth. “She is the flower of the field from whom bloomed the precious lily of the valley. Through her birth the nature inherited from our first parents is changed.”

“Today the barren Anna claps her hands for joy, the earth radiates with light, kings sing their happiness, priests enjoy every blessing, the entire universe rejoices, for she who is queen and the Father’s immaculate bride buds forth from the stem of Jesse”

1504 – Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Piazza della Signoria in Florence

1565 – The Knights of Malta lift the Ottoman siege of Malta, the climax of an escalating contest between a Christian alliance & the Islamic Ottoman Empire for control of the Mediterranean

1637 – Deathday of Robert Fludd, a prominent English Paracelsian physician & occultist, an astrologer, mathematician, cosmologist, Qabalist & Rosicrucian apologist.

1900 – Galveston hurricane: A powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people

1941 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins

1949 – Deathday of Richard Strauss, German composer

1978 – Black Friday, a massacre by soldiers against protesters in Tehran, provoked 700-3000 deaths, it marks the beginning of the end of the monarchy in Iran

1988 – Deathday of Dr Rita Leroi a few days before her 75th birthday. She attended the Stuttgart Waldorf School as a child. She went on to became a Clinical Assistant at the Ita Wegman Clinic in Arlesheim. She developed a deep interest in cancer & the Iscador treatment of this disease. In 1954 she married Dr Alexandre Leroi who was the leader of the Society for Cancer Research & Director of the Hiscia Research Institute in Arlesheim. It is here that Iscador is produced & researches into the many problems to be solved in developing it into an effective remedy are undertaken. In October 1963 the Lukas Klinik, devoted to the care & treatment of cancer patients, opened in Arlesheim & Rita Leroi became its Director & selected to be President of the International Anthroposophical Medical Association

1989 – Partnair Flight 394 drove into the North Sea, killing 55 people. The investigation showed that the tail of the plane vibrated loose in flight due to sub-standard connecting bolts that had been fraudulently sold as aircraft-grade

1994 – USAir Flight 427, on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, suddenly crashes in clear weather killing all 132 aboard; resulting in the most extensive aviation investigation in world history, altering manufacturing practices in the industry

International Literacy Day

***

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~The simple thrill of a sparrow’s song cuts the twilight
Opening the colors to dawn
I carry this melody in my belly-O-dee
Close to the egg of silence in my womb ba
& so it is
That I give birth to Today…
~hag

***

The Virtue for the month of September: Courtesy becomes steadiness of feeling.

Even though today it is still hot & muggy here in the Heartland, Autumn awaits, breathing in behind the rain black clouds, ready to break into the midst of the light-headedness of summer’s high flight, bringing sobriety & the resolve of the harvest.

Now the time has come when the contemplative Virgin of the heavens approaches, to gather us up in her blue mantle, like ears of corn, we are brought home from the fields of Summer.

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

If cosmic provisions are to become nourishment for 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 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?

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, 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.

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.

“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

In the lap of the BVM with you

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

The Elderberries Three-Fold Café has been on Sunset Blvd. in the heart of Hollywood for over 9 years. They provide not only good healthy food, but nutrition for the soul – Rudolf Steiner’s Weekday Exercises are even on the back of the menu! The café is a hub for youth, hosting anthroposophical study groups, music, alternative film screenings etc – providing support for inner practices, meaningful work to those in need, & platforms for individual creative expression -imbuing all they do with a love for the future of our world.

We are very fortunate in here in Chicago to be one of only a few Branches that own a building, a home for Anthroposophical work. But not having a tenant for over 4 years has us put in a dire position, & if something doesn’t shift soon we will lose the building.

When Elderberries 3-Fold Café came to visit us in Chicago we realized that are meant to use the entire building to further anthroposophy. We are called, my friends, to create centers for young people to meet, where they can discover who they are in the light of Anthroposophy, where they can work on their inner development, where they can work thru their karma together, with us, each learning from the other. We can save the Rudolf Steiner Branch by making it a home base in a network that supports Youth Initiatives, ‘bringing the Old & Young Souls together’. This goes hand in hand with the practical application of the ‘3-Fold Social Organism’, so needed in the world, which they are coming now to implement through practical Anthroposophy.

Please help us pave the way for a 3-fold Cafe in the Heartland! – one of the hubs on the ‘Michael Grail-Road’ which will further Anthroposophy around the planet.

OUR CAMPAIGN

Our $25,000 goal will provide us with the seeds required to get off the ground in Chicago and will cover:

Rent & Deposit
Construction / Materials
Tableware & Equipment
Furniture
Permits

Will YOU help support the future NOW?

***

Image result for karma painting

Spiritual Science Study Group – Starting Sept. 13th 2017 & then every Wednesday at 8:00 am- 9:40 am in the Library at the Chicago Waldorf School 1300 W. Loyola, Chicago. We are working with Karmic Relationships Vol. 2, Rudolf Steiner’s seminal mission. All Are Welcome.

***

Michaelmas & the Horn of Plenty – Fall Festivals Ancient and New

Saturday September 23^rd 2017 – 4 pm – 6 pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch, 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL. $10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

Saturday September 30^th 10:30 am – 4:30pm at the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL 60187 – Pre-registration (630) 668-1571, BYO Picnic Lunch

Come join our Experiential Workshop celebrating the Autumnal Equinox to prepare us for the journey into the dark of the year. We will look back to the fruits of the past, and prepare for what is coming toward us from the future. Our ancestors called this Sabbath – Harvest Home or Mabon. The Hebrew folk count this as part of the High Holy Days. In Greece and Rome it is dedicated to Dionysus, or Persephone and Demeter. Today, we are invited to stand with the powerful Archangel Micha-el, in balance, between the light and the dark, as we create the ‘festival of the future’, which we call ‘Michaelmas’. Forging confidence thru Heart-Thinking, Michael strengthens our Will & reinforces our higher “I” so that we have the Courage to find the Spirit behind the living cosmos.

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg –Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society. Founder of Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud, who just moved here from WI. Mary has been teaching Eurythmy to adults and children for more than 30 years. She works in several Waldorf teacher training courses for private, public and charter schools as well as Lifeways Early Childhood Training. Mary’ Masters of Liberal Arts thesis was Nature and Self, how our attitudes towards the natural world shape our concept of Self. Mary is also a trained Therapeutic Horsemanship teacher.

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Category Archives: Autumn

Spirit-Light of Thought

Scintillating

The laying of the Foundation Stone

question authority

An immaculate bride buds forth from the stem of Jesse…

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