~on the afternoon
As the lilacs were flowering
I stood in my garden & heard death fingering his lyre
Among the wild violets…
8 was the # of his song
1 note divining the octave, harmony returning…
I laid aside my troubles, gathering what I knew
Dressed in the habit of a human
I hurried toward the light – bearing the light within
Toward the unknown Springing …
~hag
8 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waning gibbous moon, nearing its last quarter phase, passed through the center of the Teapot – an asterism in Sagittarius the Archer – this morning. They will be close tomorrow, you can catch the moon and the Teapot after midnight until dawn.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
EASTERTIDE V
The Resurrection of the Soul
v5
In light, whose fertile weaving
from depth of spirit into blossoming
reveals the beauty of the gods’ creating,
the being of the soul is shining, widening,
enlivened in the presence of the world
and resurrected
from narrow selfhood’s inner power.
LENT III
The Light’s Awakening Of Love
v48
In light, whose flowing from the heights
would be the world’s empowering of soul,
let shine the certainty of cosmic thought
that solves soul riddles
and focusing its radiance in human hearts
empowers light’s awakening of love.
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
According to Rudolf Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul today is: The Birthday of Hermes & Job
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1760 – Death-day of Count Zinzendorf , A social reformer & bishop of the Moravian Church. The Zinzendorf family belonged to one of the most ancient of noble families in Lower Austria. Among his ancestors was the Emperor Maximillian I.
Zinzendorf did not intend to found a religious organization distinct from the area’s Lutheran Church, but to create a Christian association, by demonstrating practical benevolence, that might awaken dull Lutheranism. He began to think that true Christianity could be best promoted by free associations of Christians, which in the course of time might grow into churches with no state connection.
In 1722, Zinzendorf offered asylum to a number of refugees from Moravia & Bohemia & built the village of Herrnhut on a corner of his estate.
Out of study & prayer, the community formed a document known as the Brüderlicher Vertrag, the ‘Brotherly Agreement’, today known as “The Moravian Covenant for Christian Living.” The Moravian Church is one of the few denominations that emphasizes a code of Christian behavior over specific creeds.
In these communities, a radical equality of spiritual life was practiced. Nobility & Native Americans shared common quarters; slaves were full members of the Church & could be elected to offices of leadership.
Zinzendorf was consecrated bishop in Berlin on 20 May 1737. Zinzendorf’s interest in missionary work was sparked by meeting two Inuit children.
In 1736, accusations from neighboring nobles & questions of theological orthodoxy caused Zinzendorf to be exiled from his home in Saxony. He & a number of his followers moved to Marienborn (near Büdingen) & began a period of exile & travel, during which he became known as the “Pilgrim Count.”
In 1741, Zinzendorf visited Pennsylvania, becoming one of the few 18th century European nobles to have actually set foot in the Americas. In addition to visiting leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, he met with the leaders of the Iroquois.
Zinzendorf’s theology strongly included the emotional life of the believer as well as the intellectual. He criticized the coldly intellectual approach common in his day, & built a great deal of practice around the transformation of the emotions. He referred to this as the “religion of the heart.”
1805 – Death-day of Friedrich Schiller, some say he was poisoned (GA 64) The coffin containing what was purportedly Schiller’s skeleton, was brought in 1827, into the Weimarer Fürstengruft (Weimar’s Ducal Vault), later also Goethe’s resting place. On 3 May 2008, scientists announced that DNA tests showed that the skull of this skeleton is not Schiller’s, & his tomb is now vacant.
Friedrich Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, physician, historian, & playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous & influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning human freedom. Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship & these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller & Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision.
Schiller wrote many philosophical papers on ethics & aesthetics. He synthesized the thought of Immanuel Kant with the thought of the German Idealist philosopher, Karl Leonhard Reinhold. He elaborated Christoph Martin Wieland’s concept of die schöne Seele (the beautiful soul), a human being whose emotions have been educated by reason, so that Pflicht und Neigung (duty & inclination) are no longer in conflict with one another. Beauty, for Schiller, is not merely an aesthetic experience, but a moral one as well: the Good is the Beautiful.
His philosophical work was particularly concerned with the question of human freedom, a preoccupation which also guided his historical researches, & found its way as well into his dramas. Schiller wrote important essays on the question of the sublime, addressing one aspect of human freedom—the ability to defy one’s animal instincts, such as the drive for self-preservation, when, for example, someone willingly sacrifices themselves for conceptual ideals.
“…I should like to speak today about an individual who was incarnated about the second century A.D. in Rome, as it then was, and who with great sensitiveness of perception had witnessed the willing martyrdom suffered by the Christians in their efforts to promulgate their cause in the Roman Empire. This individual had also witnessed the terrible injustices and the many forms of depravity and corruption which were so rife in the Roman Empire at that time. Numberless manifestations of Good and Evil were witnessed and experienced by this individual. With the methods of spiritual research which enable such happenings to be recognised, we find this individual drawn into the tumultuous happenings which at that time, during the second half of the second century A.D., were experienced in the Roman Empire in connection with the spread of Christianity. There is something extremely moving about this individual when the eye of spirit is directed upon him in the way I explained last time with reference to other individuals in their repeated earthly lives.
In this individual who lived to a very great age and who had witnessed so much Good in deeds of supreme sacrifice in the sphere of germinating Christianity, and so much that was evil and bad in Roman life at that time, there arose a kind of realisation which was also a question: Where is the balance, the mean? Is there only the wholly Good and the wholly Evil in the world?
With the consciousness of Imagination and Inspiration one can follow quite clearly how this individual was subsequently reborn in the eleventh century, as a woman. The experiences undergone in the life as a woman levelled out the hard, steel-like angularity of soul which had developed during the Roman incarnation when he had reached a great age. This trait was softened and mellowed and became a faculty of inner, thoughtful contemplation of Good and Evil. This individual then came again to the Earth in the eighteenth century and was born as the German poet, Friedrich Schiller.
And now study Schiller’s life and see how it develops, striving to find a middle condition, a balance, a mean. Schiller needed Goethe before he could get rid of all that had remained in him from the conviction that there is only Good, there is only Evil. Read Schiller’s dramas, and you will understand them if you think of his earlier incarnation.
What circumstances lie behind Schiller’s life and outlook? The experiences he had undergone in the Roman incarnation continued to be alive within him, but he had subsequently incarnated as a woman in the Middle Ages. And then, in his life between death and a new birth, it was in the Saturn sphere that the most significant development of his karma took place.” Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume VI, Stuttgart, 1st June, 1924 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA240/English/RSP1971/19240601p01.html
read more about Schiller from the works of Rudolf Steiner:
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA053/English/UNK2014/19050504p01.html
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA239/English/RSP1973/19240610a01.html
1921 – Birthday of Sophie Scholl, German activist, working with the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother, Hans. As a result, she was executed by guillotine.
The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll
Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance
When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.
Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.
Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.
~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor
with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, & Velsum Voices Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer
1 – 2:30 pm Central Time Saturday 27 May 2023 on zoom
We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Pentecost Festival
Time: May 27, 2023 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041?pwd=WkNaNDlPS0VIMTJUUkE1ZkFMaDh5dz09
Meeting ID: 705 017 4041
Passcode: Whitsun
50 Days after The Resurrection = Our Pentecost Festival
Community Bonfire, Pot-Luck, & Prep Stir
Whitsunday 28 May 2023
5 – 7 pm at the home of Hazel & Chuck Ginsberg
Please bring food & drink to share –
RSVP to Hazel@ReverseRitual.com
Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE
