Category Archives: Biography

Vidar Speaks

Biography, Calendar of the Soul, Community, Festival, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events

Thank you for your kind responses to this series around the Camphill Beaver Run Holy Nights experience. Many are thirsting to hear about such communities where a Christened Anthroposophia thrives in thought, word & deed. Here are the 2 essays so far Festival of Offering, Come Unity.

On New Year’s Eve day we began with ‘The Festival of Offering’, which set a powerful tone, & then we went into our intimate groups for Reflections from the Night. My group was graciously facilitated by Dr. Raphael Knauf, who began our sessions speaking: ‘Community above us. Christ in us’. I am always in awe of how deeply my fellows live into their thinking & are able to articulate these spiritual ideas so eloquently. We can learn so much from each other when we make a space to listen & share.

Susan Overhauser, who is one of the brilliant facility members for our AAP training brought alive for us ‘Vidar as a Guide in the Etheric’.

This young Archangel is the inspiring Being of Community life, connected with the pure ether forces:

Big thanks to Rob Treiste for this cool chart

The Four Ethers & the Four Elements overlap to create the seven layers of the Physical-Etheric World, & the 7-fold human being. To begin to understand this gives us insight into our task with Vidar.

I remember looking into Norse mythology thru the lens of Spiritual Science when my girl was in 4th grade at the Chicago Waldorf School. Rudolf Steiner tells us that Wotan or Odin was an Archangelic being, who later appeared as Siddhārtha carrying on the mission of Odin to become the Gautama-Buddha.

Javier Dominguez

Vidar, unseated by Loki, becomes the silent Aesir – the only one to survive Ragnarok, conquering the Fenrris Wolf who wants to devour the Sun.

Important to remember that every human being has a guardian angel; & that before Siddhārtha became the Buddha he had one too. When he achieved Buddhahood, his angel was ‘freed’. After much time as the silent Aesir, this angel went on to work with the Nathan Soul & with the Christ thru the pre-earthly deeds etc…(You can read about this Angel in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 2 & in Matthew 1:18–25)

Robert Paulson

Rudolf Steiner connects Buddha’s angel with Vidar. So we can see that Vidar is linked, not only to what we hear about him thru mythology, but also to Buddhism, & to the ‘Nathan Soul’ – that pure paradisiacal ‘Sister Soul of Adam’ that did not go thru the fall from paradise – but was held back in the Mother-lodge to be able assist the mission of Christ.

Steiner speaks about the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha with all its “Youthful forces” as an intermigling with the astral body of the Nathan Jesus when he was 12. These Youthful forces are a characteristic of Vidar & his work with the formative forces of the etheric.

Paulo Veronesse

Thru Spiritual Science we learn it is Vidar, who comes to the aid of the Christ Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, fortifing his etheric body when the Ahrimanic death forces were threatening to kill the physical body of Jesus before Christ’s deed on Golgotha was completed. “An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him”. (Luke 22-43)

To put things into perspective we can think how everything changes; growth/transformation embraces all beings – evolution is working not only in humanity but in the ‘gods’. When the Archangel Michael got promoted to Archai, the being known as Vidar, who used to be associated with the Northern Mysteries, stepped into Michael’s position as ruling Archangel of the Sun, becoming Universal in his service, cosmopolitan like Michael.

According to Rudolf Steiner Vidar, could have become an Archangel long before that, but he took the path of renunciation, of silence – listening & waiting – building up forces, until 1879; only then did Vidar take the place vacated by Michael, to work specifically with the Christ during the 2nd crucifixion in the etheric.

The silent Aesir now speaks. Vidar’s task is essential for our present age; he creates the etheric sheath for the Being of Christ, so that we can develop a new clairvoyance to perceive & receive this Etheric Christ.

Vidar wants to work with us to achieve the necessary formative forces needed to conquer the many Ahrimanic & Luciferic influences that plague us today – So that we can attain a level of super-sensible acuity to work with Christ in our own etheric bodies.

Vidar will guide us so that we too can become Christ bearers – creating CHRISTOPHOROS ( Χριστόφορος ) in us.

Vidar was with us in the Michael School & the super-sensibile Cultus, & he helps us now & into the future, to put these lessons into practice with discernment; making us ready to achieve access to all the ethers: warmth, light, sound, life. To consciously employ them – which will help us purify our astral body & transform our etheric body.

We will need these tools to meet the mystery of evil.

Elizabeth Wang

In our striving to harmonize our astral & etheric currents, we create new spiritual organs, described by Steiner in ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’ as an ‘etheric lattice’. This gives us a reflective apparatus for our pure thinking – allowing our thoughts to press or imprint directly into our ether body – creating an etheric bridge to the Christ – giving us access to cosmic memory & the gifts from the 5th sacrifice of Christ ie. the suffocation in the etheric attended by Vidar & the Nathan Soul – this sacrifice was the catalyst for our new clairvoyance!

Thruout this gathering I kept thinking: How can I bring these ideas back to my community. Right now in everyday practical terms my take away is that Vidar as Guardian of the etheric forces can brings us together in our various groups striving to live into the Spiritual Science of Christ-Sophia. We have to be aware that an elemental being will come & inhabit the etheric forms we create – consciously with Love & Light – or unconsciously thru what is adversarial in us…

Vidar as an Archangel for our time speaks with the language of Pentecost – the fires of purification & purpose. And thru the Holy Spirit connected to Anthroposophia we can work with Vidar in our search for the Holy Grail when we ask the Parzival question of each other, in a true mood of service & enthusiasm, so that when we are ripe we can become co-creators of a new Universe.   

To close Susan Overhauser, who has worked with this new Archangel for many years, gave us a powerful Vidar verse that she wrote. Come August I hope to host Susan here in Chicago for our newly created Vidar-mas Festival which we inaugurated last year on 20 August.

In my next essay I will get into the events of the afternoon & evening of NYE. Including insights into a magnificant performance of a new play by Glen Wiliamson & Laurie Portocarrero rightly entilted ‘Fire in the Temple’.

Thanks for tuning in…

Until soon ~hag

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
EPIPHANY II
At the Altar of the Heart
v41
The soul’s creative power
from depths of heart aspires
to fire the forces of the gods
to right activity in human life
and form itself in human love
and human deeds.

and the mirror verse:
SAINT JOHN’S FESTIVAL
At the Altar of the Senses
v12
The world’s light-glancing beauty
compels me from the depths of soul
to free the god-enwoven powers of my life
in cosmic flight, forsake myself
and trusting, seek myself
in worldwide cosmic light and warmth.

Candlemas – a Cross-Quarter Festival Heralding Spring – with Willow Summer & Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Wednesday 25 January 2023 – Program – 3 pm – Potluck – 5 pm, Please Bring Food & Drink to Share

Storytelling: The Alchemy of Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid,

The Year of the Water Rabbit – Tu B’Shvat – Beeswax Crafting – Singing

Rudolf Steiner’s Seed Meditation – from ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’

‘Charm the Plow’ – Bless & Consecrate the Farm tools

Three Springs Community Farm 15300 Bodega Hwy, Bodega, CA 94922

Contact Willow for more info.

Velsum Voices Presents: ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’

A Benefit Concert to support Nancy Jewel Poer and the community events at White Feather Ranch

Saturday, 28 January 2023, at 2 pm PT

In the Peace Garden at White Feather Ranch, Placerville, CA

All Ages – Love Donation – Contribute what you will

Come join us for Velsum’s West Coast Debut!

Dress in warm clothes for a hearty heart-filled afternoon of music and celebration. We will have an outdoor fire. If it is too chilly we can meet in the Ranch House. Pack your own picnic lunch or dinner.

Can’t make the concert? You can still Donate to Nancy’s web site

*RSVP to receive directions to White Feather Ranch  hazel@reverseritual.com

‘Velsum‘ is a musical initiative formed through Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer. The songs are inspired to develop our human capacity for Love and Logic. Velsum is a celebration of harmony, rhythm, prayer, and the human voice. Each song is permeated with a sincere interest in the other, the self, the world, and the cosmos. ‘”Velsum’s music is a product of listening.” We hope that by listening to these songs, you feel heard. ~Velsum

Lucien and Ultra met as children at the Chicago Waldorf School, and became friends and collaborators as young adults. They now write, record and perform original music through the initiative Velsum. They debuted the show ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’ last winter at Angelic Organics Farm, and have performed it throughout the Midwest. Through weaving harmonies, poetic recitations, and movement, New Nightingale, New Rose invites the audience on a quest for love and wisdom.  A joyful experience awaits young and old!

Here is a short video clip of Velsum, and here you can find their link to all links! https://linktr.ee/velsum

~Velsum: Ancient Futurism~ Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer 

Here is a short video clip of Velsum find them on Instagram, Bandcamp, apple music, soundcloud, spotify, youtube

Ultra-Violet Archer – (b. Chicago, IL, 1999) is a songwriter and music producer, exploring music as a tool for healing and storytelling. After studying at Oberlin College & Conservatory and spending a year in Järna, Sweden, at the International Youth Initiative Program, she currently studies music at Columbia College Chicago. She strives to make music that invites people to honor the parts of themselves they feel but can’t yet put into words.  https://linktr.ee/UltraVioletArcher

Lucien Dante Lazar (b. Chicago, IL, 1994) is an interdisciplinary artist whose praxis is founded in the intersections of art, science, and spirituality. He received his BA from Bard College (2016), his MFA from California College of the Arts (2020), and is currently working on his PhD in the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness program at California Institute of Integral Studies. His dissertation will concern the pedagogy of spiritual development through the diversity of the arts.

PRESENTS:

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

Gerald Shepherd

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.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

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.

Come unity

Biography, Community, Festival, History, Insight, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events

Today is follow up from my essay: Festival of Offering in which I shared my essential take away from the ‘Fire in the Temple’ gathering. Today I begin an overview of the many aspects of this life changing event:

Friends, I have been to a lot of ‘Anthroposophical conferences’ over the years, which have all been amazing in their own ways. From the beginning I knew the ‘Fire in the Temple’ Holy Nights gathering would be on a vastly different level. The conference team: Guy Alma, Dr. Raphael Knauf, Andreas Schuschke, Jacquelyn Bieringer & Mary Wildfeuer, worked it out so that everyone coming had a ride from the airport & a place to stay in the community! Andreas Schuschke a member of Camphill for 30 years, one of the key people carrying the conference, did the airport pickups & wouldn’t take any $ for gas. When I arrived at Whitestone house I was greeted by the house holder, Carsten Callesen, who is on many governing committees at Beaver Run, as well as Medical director. And in my room there was a little welcome package full of treats!

I could feel the whole village holding us. This Camphill community brings in the heart & essence of community – generous hospitality, & true service – it highlights the spiritual aspects of our Movement.

The gathering began with an option to attend ‘The Consecration of the Human Being’ with the Christian Community Priest from Devon, Penn. Rev. Jong Won Choi in the amazing Rainbow Hall.

This was followed by a glorious communal lunch (every snack & meal was bountiful – I cannot stress enough how important good food is to foster community, with time to stretch out & be social. This caring gesture creates a mood of love that nourishes & helps us digest the content on every level & cannot be received in any other way!)

Guy Alma, Director of Development, welcomed us with warmth & humor. In keeping with the theme of building up & living into the 1st Goetheanum as an etheric being, we were invited to participate in a variety of artistic offerings:

*Modeling & formwork of the Architraves of the small Cupola with Rudiger Janisch & Herb Walsh.

*Working with the Planetary Seals, drawing & conversation with Peggy Hirt

*Torn shapes/form drawing of the Red Window with Becky Rutherford

*Acrylic painting on large canvas of the initiates in the small cupola with Guy Alma

*The forms of the Goetheanum in Eurythmy with Gillian Shoemaker, who I adore having worked with her thru the AAP training.

We were also invited to sign up for 2 intimate Discussion Groups. One working with the ‘Reflections of the Night’, & the other, a ‘Conversation Group’ ‘ grappling with these evocative questions:

*What phenomena form the wood of the World Cross?
*Who has erected the Cross?
*Who is crucified there?
*When will the Roses grow from the Cross?
*What forces lie behind the Roses growth?
*How can we work as individuals, together, to bring these healing forces to life?

Rudiger Janisch laid out his many artistic renderings of the 1st Goetheanum to help us build it up in our imagination & then step in to ‘Find our seats’. I have experienced this presentation 3 times now, 1st when I brought Rudiger out to our Chicago Branch, then at the last AAP session. And each time a new layer is added. He points out that we have all experienced the etheric Goetheanum as we made our way out of the spiritual world into our present incarnation.

~hag

It’s interesting to contemplate that even though Rudolf Steiner said in 1914: ‘Not one thing of this building will remain…’ he still went forward with the work anyway!

The soul forces that went into the artistic manifestation of this Temple of the New Mysteries remains – these forces cannot be destroyed.

Yes, it’s true that the beautiful physical material became a burnt offering – but the selfless will forces that went in to co-create it remain – inscribed in the ethers – waiting for us to enter into – to take up – thru a cognitive ritual that employs our intentional, conscious, individual & collective soul forces.

This striving will transform our not only our Thinking, Feeling & willing but every one of our subtle bodies.

Will we reclaim the spiritual essence of this offering, & work to overcome what is written: The ‘Envy of human beings’?

We see an important parallel with the burning of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, releasing the mysteries of The Word into the ethers in order to point up the ‘Envy of the lower gods‘ & to inaugurate a new age in human consciousness –

Francesco Hayez

We can think how Aristotle was able to read this sacred inscription in the starry script, bringing it down into his ‘Categories’. I have often spoken about this using quotes from Steiner’s Easter lecture of 1924.

At this Centennial milestone we are being called to rise up in ‘Cosmic Communion’ – to enter this modern Temple of the Word & bring down these will forces – a selfless will – inspired by Spirit.

The 2nd Goetheanum is like the shield of Michael, a protective shell over the etheric being of the Johannes Bau – A complete metamorphosis of the House of the Word – a tuning inside out, just as the Foundation Stone that was laid in the ground containing the Macrocosmic Lord’s Prayer needs to be transformed into the Our Father. The physical double dodecahedron was further spiritualized into the ‘Foundation Stone of Love’ laid in our hearts at the Christmas Conference Refounding thru Rudolf Steiner, which we must work toward in this Centennial Year..

To cap the day Jacquelyn Bieringer brought in ‘The Heavenly Sophia, The Virgin Mary Sophia, and Anthroposophia’ – Reminding us that this Being must be cultivated in the space between each of us in community. Setting the stage & giving focus to what is behind our movement: “I must be Mary & give birth to Christ within” ~Sileus

Such a great way to begin & make our way to the ‘Fire in the Temple’.

~hag

14 January 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

Candlemas – a Cross-Quarter Festival Heralding Spring – with Willow Summer & Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Wednesday 25 January 2023 – Program – 3 pm – Potluck – 5 pm, Please Bring Food & Drink to Share

Storytelling: The Alchemy of Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid,

The Year of the Water Rabbit – Tu B’Shvat – Beeswax Crafting – Singing

Rudolf Steiner’s Seed Meditation – from ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’

‘Charm the Plow’ – Bless & Consecrate the Farm tools

Three Springs Community Farm 15300 Bodega Hwy, Bodega, CA 94922

Contact Willow for more info.

Velsum Voices Presents: ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’

A Benefit Concert to support Nancy Jewel Poer and the community events at White Feather Ranch

Saturday, 28 January 2023, at 2 pm PT

In the Peace Garden at White Feather Ranch, Placerville, CA

All Ages – Love Donation – Contribute what you will

Come join us for Velsum’s West Coast Debut!

Dress in warm clothes for a hearty heart-filled afternoon of music and celebration. We will have an outdoor fire. If it is too chilly we can meet in the Ranch House. Pack your own picnic lunch or dinner.

Can’t make the concert? You can still Donate to Nancy’s web site

*RSVP to receive directions to White Feather Ranch  hazel@reverseritual.com

‘Velsum‘ is a musical initiative formed through Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer. The songs are inspired to develop our human capacity for Love and Logic. Velsum is a celebration of harmony, rhythm, prayer, and the human voice. Each song is permeated with a sincere interest in the other, the self, the world, and the cosmos. ‘”Velsum’s music is a product of listening.” We hope that by listening to these songs, you feel heard. ~Velsum

Lucien and Ultra met as children at the Chicago Waldorf School, and became friends and collaborators as young adults. They now write, record and perform original music through the initiative Velsum. They debuted the show ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’ last winter at Angelic Organics Farm, and have performed it throughout the Midwest. Through weaving harmonies, poetic recitations, and movement, New Nightingale, New Rose invites the audience on a quest for love and wisdom.  A joyful experience awaits young and old!

Here is a short video clip of Velsum, and here you can find their link to all links! https://linktr.ee/velsum

~Velsum: Ancient Futurism~ Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer 

Here is a short video clip of Velsum find them on Instagram, Bandcamp, apple music, soundcloud, spotify, youtube

Ultra-Violet Archer – (b. Chicago, IL, 1999) is a songwriter and music producer, exploring music as a tool for healing and storytelling. After studying at Oberlin College & Conservatory and spending a year in Järna, Sweden, at the International Youth Initiative Program, she currently studies music at Columbia College Chicago. She strives to make music that invites people to honor the parts of themselves they feel but can’t yet put into words.  https://linktr.ee/UltraVioletArcher

Lucien Dante Lazar (b. Chicago, IL, 1994) is an interdisciplinary artist whose praxis is founded in the intersections of art, science, and spirituality. He received his BA from Bard College (2016), his MFA from California College of the Arts (2020), and is currently working on his PhD in the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness program at California Institute of Integral Studies. His dissertation will concern the pedagogy of spiritual development through the diversity of the arts.

PRESENTS:

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

Gerald Shepherd

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.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

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.

Etheric Patterns

Biography, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events
August 2019 Astrology And The Invincible Sun | Mystic Medusa Astrology
Baxter Lennon

Dearly Beloved – A friend wanting to reach out to me today on my 1/2 Birthday sent her well wishes along with something I wrote 2 years ago. And when I read it, I was amazed that it speaks about ‘after images’, which is what I wrote about a few days ago in my last essay ‘Festival of Offering’.

How interesting that this theme is showing itself as a pattern in my biography. But isn’t that the way the etheric realm works – Thru patterns & rhythms..?

And then it makes even more sense to know that:

TODAY in 1910 – Rudolf Steiner gives the 1st lecture ever on the Etheric Reappearance of The Christ, to members in Stockholm Sweden. At the same time as the “introduction” of Krishnamurti was happening in Adyar India.

The lecture is called: ‘True Nature of the Second Coming – Preparation for this Event through the Development of Etheric Vision‘ ~RS http://wn.rsarchive.org/…/English/APC1961/19100125p02.html (the archives have the version of the lecture that he gave later on 25 July 1910, Stuttgart)

Then on January 25th 19213 Rudolf Steiner begins the series ‘The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric’ for the members in Dornach http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lect…/ReapChrist/ReaChr_index.html

A modified version of my post ‘Reappearance’ from 12 Feb. 2021:

I am holding in my consciousness that we are in the season of Epiphany, which is often defined as a revelation, I can’t help picturing it as cartoon image of the lightbulb over the head -indicating a sudden, intuitive insight – where it all makes sense.

An Epiphany is often related to the appearance or manifestation of a spiritual being or phenomenon  – But I don’t think a true Epiphany happens by chance, or comes as some fliting flash that quickly fades away.

I think of the example in the book of Matthew – how the Magi prepared, perhaps for lifetimes before they made it to Epiphany.  

And in the 5th Gospel we read how Jesus of Nazareth was prepared 1st thru 42 generations, & then for 30 years, before he received the Christ in the Baptism by John in the Jordan. 

And we have to work thru all of the 13 Holy Nights to reach the Epiphany, which is not just a day, but a season, which takes us into the 1st stirrings of Spring.

Thru all that is happening to darken or distract us in the world, I have been trying to live into this, working to see thru a glass darkly – looking – always searching – for the ‘Star of Grace’ which can reveal the revelation – The Star heralds the appearance.

Umbra Perchiazzi

And this ‘appearance’, this ‘manifestation’, didn’t just stop with the physical incarnation of Christ Jesus, it advances further as the appearance or advent of the Angel of Christ in the etheric world. And it just so happens that 113 years ago today, Rudolf Steiner gives the 1st lecture ever on the Etheric Reappearance of The Christ.

Sometimes when I contemplate this amazing mystery, it comes to me in the picture of an assembly – a convocation, a summit of Spiritual Beings, kind of like what is described in the Gospel of Luke 2:9: “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them..”  

But mostly I see it as an intimate meeting. Or even like blind date, where we are introduced thru a mutual friend – thru our connection to Anthroposophia, which gives us the wisdom to see with new eyes. We receive from this part of ourselves the invite – the entre’ to the cosmic party.

It’s an open invitation, but it takes more than just spinning around 3 times to remove the blindfold –  to lift the veil that separates us from meeting this reality.

Leo Klein

The Christ, in his rhythmical Presence, presses forward into the etheric realm, into the realm of formative forces which envelop the earth, to fortify & maintain all life.

And Steiner says “Humanity on its natural path of development must touch consciously into the etheric realm with our soul forces” – 

So that gets me asking, Ok, how do we do our part on this natural path, to develop those soul forces of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, in this new way?

How do we employ Imagination, Inspiration & Intuition without the expectation that we need to experience some sort of phenomenon, but by upholding the utmost faith & patience that we will achieve some beginning glimmering when our karma allows – an awakening of our etheric eyes, a new supersensible sensing, where we can experience the life-body…

David Taulbee Anderson

Steiner says “We think we see with our eyes, but we don’t literally see with these outer organs. They are a fairly dead body in us. We see by means of these organs, only through etheric activity.”

Seeing Eye to Eye—Colorblindness and Out of the Box Spotfire Tools - BPI - The destination for everything process related

He explains that we perceive colors as the result of etheric activity. 

If we look at green & afterwards at a white sheet of paper, we see it’s reversal as red. (hmm the Christmas colors, go ahead give it a try) This seeing is due to the continuation of the etheric activity of the eye, which answers to the impressions of colors. We see a balance. We never see an actual color as it is, but always a balance.

We produce complementary colors thru the etheric activity of our eye; & what we see – the final physical effect, is a balance, even if we are not consciously aware of it. (Think 3D Glasses!)

But when we do make it our intention to be conscious, we became co-creators of this new etheric sight.

For more practical exercises in seeing into the etheric, I recommend working with Baruch Urieli’s amazing book: Learning to Experience The Etheric World – with the very interesting sub-title: Empathy, the After-Image & a New Social Ethic.

Rudolf Steiner suggests in his lectures ‘From Jesus to Christ’, (Which is a journey we can take during the Holy Nights) that it is our own etheric activity which lightens up that sphere in which the Etheric Christ is present.

And I have also come to ‘see’ that thru our own activity in connection with The Sophia as a Being of Wisdom, we can shed some Light on the Being of Love – who is waiting in the realm of the formative forces for us to perceive & interact with.

It is an activity, which in its clarity & beauty, can be strengthened not only thru the specific spiritual disciplines of the Spiritual Science: The 6 Basic exercises, & the meditative path – but thru moral development, which brings the complmentary balance, a true wholeness.

For me right now Faith, Love & Hope are helping to give a flow to my moral progress.

When we take hold of the reins of our soul forces & steer them where our higher “I” wants to go, it improves the etheric light – which we can pour from our heart down into the limbs & then back up to our head – & then out thru our eyes, into the etheric world to light up the Christ!

And so now coming around again to this ½ b-day revelation, I am grateful for the synchronicity & the reminder that this is our work…  

~hag

Reappearance on The “I Think Speech Podcast

Candlemas – a Cross-Quarter Festival Heralding Spring – with Willow Summer & Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Wednesday 25 January 2023 – Program – 3 pm – Potluck – 5 pm, Please Bring Food & Drink to Share

Storytelling: The Alchemy of Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid,

The Year of the Water Rabbit – Tu B’Shvat – Beeswax Crafting – Singing

Rudolf Steiner’s Seed Meditation – from ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’

‘Charm the Plow’ – Bless & Consecrate the Farm tools

Three Springs Community Farm 15300 Bodega Hwy, Bodega, CA 94922

Contact Willow for more info.

Velsum Voices Presents: ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’

A Benefit Concert to support Nancy Jewel Poer and the community events at White Feather Ranch

Saturday, 28 January 2023, at 2 pm PT

In the Peace Garden at White Feather Ranch, Placerville, CA

All Ages – Love Donation – Contribute what you will

Come join us for Velsum’s West Coast Debut!

Dress in warm clothes for a hearty heart-filled afternoon of music and celebration. We will have an outdoor fire. If it is too chilly we can meet in the Ranch House. Pack your own picnic lunch or dinner.

Can’t make the concert? You can still Donate to Nancy’s web site

*RSVP to receive directions to White Feather Ranch  hazel@reverseritual.com

‘Velsum‘ is a musical initiative formed through Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer. The songs are inspired to develop our human capacity for Love and Logic. Velsum is a celebration of harmony, rhythm, prayer, and the human voice. Each song is permeated with a sincere interest in the other, the self, the world, and the cosmos. ‘”Velsum’s music is a product of listening.” We hope that by listening to these songs, you feel heard. ~Velsum

Lucien and Ultra met as children at the Chicago Waldorf School, and became friends and collaborators as young adults. They now write, record and perform original music through the initiative Velsum. They debuted the show ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’ last winter at Angelic Organics Farm, and have performed it throughout the Midwest. Through weaving harmonies, poetic recitations, and movement, New Nightingale, New Rose invites the audience on a quest for love and wisdom.  A joyful experience awaits young and old!

Here is a short video clip of Velsum, and here you can find their link to all links! https://linktr.ee/velsum

~Velsum: Ancient Futurism~ Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer 

Here is a short video clip of Velsum find them on Instagram, Bandcamp, apple music, soundcloud, spotify, youtube

Ultra-Violet Archer – (b. Chicago, IL, 1999) is a songwriter and music producer, exploring music as a tool for healing and storytelling. After studying at Oberlin College & Conservatory and spending a year in Järna, Sweden, at the International Youth Initiative Program, she currently studies music at Columbia College Chicago. She strives to make music that invites people to honor the parts of themselves they feel but can’t yet put into words.  https://linktr.ee/UltraVioletArcher

Lucien Dante Lazar (b. Chicago, IL, 1994) is an interdisciplinary artist whose praxis is founded in the intersections of art, science, and spirituality. He received his BA from Bard College (2016), his MFA from California College of the Arts (2020), and is currently working on his PhD in the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness program at California Institute of Integral Studies. His dissertation will concern the pedagogy of spiritual development through the diversity of the arts.

PRESENTS:

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

Gerald Shepherd

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.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

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.

Festival of Offering

Biography, Calendar of the Soul, Community, Festival, History, Upcoming Events

Greetings & Happy New Year Dear Friends – While I was at the ‘Fire in the Temple’ Holy Nights Gathering, my soul was filled with life changing spiritual treasures which I have been eager to spill from the fullness of my loving cup. But somehow I couldn’t find the words that would begin to convey this powerful social & deeply evocative experience.

Camphill Beaver Run in Pennsylvania, is in the same neck of the woods where I travel for my AAP trainings at Camphill Kimberton – located in what some folks call the ‘Keystone’ or ‘Quaker’ State outside the City of Brotherly Love, where the Appalachian Mountains run thru the center, with the Allegheny & Pocono mountains rolling thru the Camphill communities rich with Biodynamic agriculture & the selfless impulse of service initiated by Dr. Karl Konig.

I always travel a day before the convergence commences – It gives me a chance to commune with the Spirit of Place & get a lay of the land. The weather was super mild & sunny, so I hiked around, drawn to a flowing brook where I strongly felt the aura of the indigenous Lenape of the Algonquin Tribe, whose name means “the real people”.

Later in conversation at the Whitestone house where I was staying, I had a long conversation with a co-worker & teacher at the Karl Konig School. I learned that when Dr. Konig went on a lecture tour to Silesia he met & married Tilla Maasberg, who was a Moravian. It was thru her that Konig was brought into a deep connection with the social & religious impulses of the “Herrnhut” brotherhood which was dear to Tilla.

The village of Herrnhut “The Lord’s Watch,” came about thru a little band of Moravian fugitives asking if they might take asylum on the land of Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who agreed to shelter them on his estate.

Count Zinzendorf was dismayed at the division between denominations & longed to unite the different factions in a spiritual peace. He was the first to speak of “Ecumenism.”

Herrnhut become a gathering place for many religious exiles. Folks spoke different languages – customs & creeds varied. Lutherans, Schwenkfelders, Separatists, Reformed & Brethren, lived side by side. As we might well imagine, squabbles developed. But then the community began a Bible study, holding all-night prayer vigils where they could confess & confront their sins in good will with one another, to work thru their karma. The community established “bands” – groups of 2 or more who would commune together encouraging each other spiritually.

The Holy Spirit moved thru their hearts, & the differences dissolved. Folks embraced one another in forgiveness & a spirit of love. Christ became central to their thinking.

They established a 24 hour around-the-clock prayer vigil which lasted one hundred years!

The Herrnhut Brotherhood was a busy & industrious community fostering arts & crafts & team work: spinning, weaving, carpentry, pottery, & farming…

Herrnhut became a remarkable experiment in what a Christian community could be, as well as a major catalyst for social reform. Dr. Konig brought some of this impulse into his anthroposophical Camphill intiative.

I knew Karl Konig had been in an internment camp with several other Anthroposophists, where he worked on his drawings for the Calendar of the Soul, but I had not known about this piece of history. It was fascinating to learn that he was introduced to this stream. I am always amazed how our biographies bring us into contact with various people & influences that go on to form the destiny of our lives.

I carried this enlightening conversation deeply into my thinking, & found this powerful impulse living thru my experience of the “Festival of Offering” which we were invited to participate in twice during the gathering.

This service is held every week at Beaver Run in the magnificent Rainbow Hall – a mini Goetheanum with a vaulted stage dome that has colored windows, which they open for color therapy sessions twice a week.

For the Festival of Offering the stage is set all in red – red curtains in the background, a red altar with a sharply peaked triangular top & 2 thrones with the same shape. In the center in a thick blue frame is ‘The Study of Christ for the last supper’, by Leonardo da Vinci.

Below that are 7 white candles in black holders, taller on the ends, tapering down to the middle. 3 lay people dressed all in black carry the service, which is a sublime evocation that includes prayers & a seasonal Gospel inspired reading. At the end these co-worker officiants come thru the congregation & touch our third eye in a call & response benediction.

This service is full of profound reverence which speaks to the heart of every “I”. What I found most compelling was the magic moments when after looking upon the scene of the red altar, one closes the eyes – & the striking after image pulses in – the red altar becomes pure etheric green – the image of Christ shimmers from blue to purple to red – the center transforms into a Sun filled yellow. The black candle sticks & the 3 servers in black, glow white & yellow with red aura outlines – it’s incredible – awe inspiring – exhilarating!

A veritable training for our etheric vison! I am still holding these images which are forever etched in my mind’s eye, purifying & imprinting these Christened etheric vibrations into all my sheaths.  

Of all the potent content, the loving hospitality, the living example of a healthy co-working community, the deep conversations & connections, of which I will attempt to share over the next days – This Festival of Offering touches me like a flash of revelation that has beckoned me across the Threshold into an active vison of the etheric Christ…

I pray I can continue to carry this revelation into the practical envisioning of the etheric Goetheanum, as we head toward the Centennial renewal of Anthroposophy – the opening of the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz – giving us the opportunity to read & speak the ‘Temple of the Word’ that was imprinted into the starry script when the ‘Johannes Bau’ became a burnt offering – a sacrifice like the 2nd crucifixion which was an offering that makes possible the opening of our etheric sight. May we all see 2023 as The Year of WE!

~hag

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
Here are the Christmas and New Year verses that I’m sorry I didn’t send Hazel in time for her Christmas Eve post. I hope you’ve all had enlightened Holy Nights, and now at Epiphany may the fiery force of the Cosmic Word arise in you from the heart’s love world, the first of just 3 mentions of love in the Soul Calendar.

CHRISTMAS
The Spirit Child
v38
I feel the Spirit Child set free
from spell in womb of soul;
in heart’s bright radiance
from seed of holy Cosmic Word
the heaven’s fruit of hope
is growing into farthest worlds
rejoicing from my being’s ground of God.

NEW YEAR
The Chalice of the Sense of Self
v39
Devoted to the spirit’s revelation
I win the light of Cosmic Being;
thought’s clarifying power grows
to give me who I am
and waking in me
from thinking’s power Selfhood’s feeling flows.

EPIPHANY
Love’s Offering
v40
And when I am in spirit’s depths
then in my ground of soul
the heart-formed love world fills
my self-bound vain delusions
with power of the World Word’s fire.

The mirror verse:
SAINT JOHNSTIDE II
The Spirit Bond
v13
And when I am in senses’ heights
the gods’ true Word from spirit fire-worlds
is flaming in my depths of soul:
“Foreseeing, seek your vision, find your star,
divine in spirit ground
the spirit bond with who you are”.

Candlemas – a Cross-Quarter Festival Heralding Spring – with Willow Summer & Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Wednesday 25 January 2023 – Program – 3 pm – Potluck – 5 pm, Please Bring Food & Drink to Share

Storytelling: The Alchemy of Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid,

The Year of the Water Rabbit –

Tu B’Shvat –

Rudolf Steiner’s Seed Meditation – from ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’

‘Charm the Plow’ – Bless & Consecrate the Farm tools

Three Springs Community Farm 15300 Bodega Hwy, Bodega, CA 94922

Contact Willow for more info.

Velsum Voices Presents: ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’

A Benefit Concert to support Nancy Jewel Poer and the community events at White Feather Ranch

Saturday, 28 January 2023, at 2 pm PT

In the Peace Garden at White Feather Ranch, Placerville, CA

All Ages – Love Donation – Contribute what you will

Come join us for Velsum’s West Coast Debut!

Dress in warm clothes for a hearty heart-filled afternoon of music and celebration. We will have an outdoor fire. If it is too chilly we can meet in the Ranch House. Pack your own picnic lunch or dinner.

Can’t make the concert? You can still Donate to Nancy’s web site

*RSVP to receive directions to White Feather Ranch  hazel@reverseritual.com

‘Velsum‘ is a musical initiative formed through Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer. The songs are inspired to develop our human capacity for Love and Logic. Velsum is a celebration of harmony, rhythm, prayer, and the human voice. Each song is permeated with a sincere interest in the other, the self, the world, and the cosmos. ‘”Velsum’s music is a product of listening.” We hope that by listening to these songs, you feel heard. ~Velsum

Lucien and Ultra met as children at the Chicago Waldorf School, and became friends and collaborators as young adults. They now write, record and perform original music through the initiative Velsum. They debuted the show ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’ last winter at Angelic Organics Farm, and have performed it throughout the Midwest. Through weaving harmonies, poetic recitations, and movement, New Nightingale, New Rose invites the audience on a quest for love and wisdom.  A joyful experience awaits young and old!

Here is a short video clip of Velsum, and here you can find their link to all links! https://linktr.ee/velsum

~Velsum: Ancient Futurism~ Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer 

Here is a short video clip of Velsum find them on Instagram, Bandcamp, apple music, soundcloud, spotify, youtube

Ultra-Violet Archer – (b. Chicago, IL, 1999) is a songwriter and music producer, exploring music as a tool for healing and storytelling. After studying at Oberlin College & Conservatory and spending a year in Järna, Sweden, at the International Youth Initiative Program, she currently studies music at Columbia College Chicago. She strives to make music that invites people to honor the parts of themselves they feel but can’t yet put into words.  https://linktr.ee/UltraVioletArcher

Lucien Dante Lazar (b. Chicago, IL, 1994) is an interdisciplinary artist whose praxis is founded in the intersections of art, science, and spirituality. He received his BA from Bard College (2016), his MFA from California College of the Arts (2020), and is currently working on his PhD in the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness program at California Institute of Integral Studies. His dissertation will concern the pedagogy of spiritual development through the diversity of the arts.

The Present

Biography, Community, Festival, Upcoming Event

Blessings dear friends on this eve of the eve of Adam & Eve’s day –
For many years I have offered readings for each of the Holy Nights, but this year I will be at the ‘Fire in the Temple’ conference at Beaver Run in Penn. – fasting from all things cyber.

I will also work with the indications given by Astrosopher Jonathan Hilton in a reverent Speaking with the Stars during this Holy Time out of Time, as well as the Midnight star pictures given by Alan Thewless.

It came to me this afternoon that along with reading Steiner’s 5th Gospel, I will also work with the Gospel of John, as given in the New Testament & from the lectures by Steiner, while exploring how I can link my heart to the 1st Goetheanum inscribed into the ethers after the burning 100 years ago, to work towards a Cosmic New Year, & prepare for the renewal of the Christmas Conference in 2023.

“When Jesus of Nazareth died on the Cross, at that moment there was born for the earth something that was previously to be found only in the Cosmos.

The death of Jesus of Nazareth was the birth of the Cosmic Love within the sphere of the earth.

This is, so to speak, the first knowledge we are able to read from the Fifth Gospel.” ~Rudolf Steiner , THE FIFTH GOSPEL, GA 148, Lecture II

Here is the link to the recording of Adriana’s presentation  The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’.

And here is her Power Point Presentation

In this time of reflecting back & looking forward, in my imagination I see the future as a line arcing out in front of us. The past is a line extending behind. But space is curved. So at that mysteries midpoint in the leminscate, the future meets the past – & the eternal circle is joined in wholeness. And guess what? – we call that, The Present – The Now – A sacred space, the place, in time & space, where we can meet ourselves wherever we go. We even meet ourselves when we greet each other. And so we can share this present together, this gift of now, unwrapping it together in the spirit of Peace, Love & Wisdom…

Open to the dark
of the vast universe between stars…
The mystery of the tomb
& the waiting womb

Wrap this darkness gently about you like a comfortable blanket…Float gently now in its depths…Grow here, nourished by an invisible cord that connects you to the Source of all life…Floating gently in the dark…Softly rocking in the dark…And although it is dark, we realize that what surrounds us is not empty, but – like the womb – full of life. Take a moment now to sense the swirling, nurturing energy of the dark.

And now, as the energy increases, there is a spark…& the dark gives birth – See that spark of new life now as it glows, watch that spark now, watch it as it grows. Glowing brighter & brighter, it grows into a flame. And as you look at this flame, its light fills you with warmth…the light fills you with love. And as you feel the increased love & warmth within you, the visible intensity of the flame slowly diminishes, & as it does, in its place, slowly coming to light, is the outline of a present. A gift…Becoming more tangible, until you can see its form clearly. Look how it is wrapped in a glistening filament of light.
This gift has your name on it, inscribed with glimmering fire. Is your name written in a special color? Is the inscription special in any other way? Approach your wrapped present now more closely. What shape is it? How big is it? What color is the wrapping? Pick it up: Is it light? heavy?
And now go ahead, unwrap your gift…How easy or difficult is it to unwrap? Does it take time to reveal itself? Do you need a tool to loosen the binding? Or does the veil just drop away…?

When you finish opening your present….Receive your gift. What is it? Look at it carefully. Experience it fully. Accept it. Accept your gift with joy. Feel your heart warm with the love of this present moment, the continuous universal love with which this gift is given to you again & again.
And now, if it is your will, from your heart, send out gratitude for this gift, send out thanks for this gift, send it out – like light – like a bright beacon back to the Great Mother, back to the Father Ground, out to the Universe – Send out your eternal thanks for this gift of now…

Now, it’s important to find a place for this gift. A safe space where you can access this gift, a place to put this gift to work, so that when you use it, what you share may bless the world, as well as give you the strength you need during the whole of the New Year. What is your gift to the world?

Lighting a candle:
Deep in the ground of the human soul
Of victory assured
The Spirit-Sun is living
All through the winter of the inner life
The faithful heart divines it. ~Rudolf Steiner

See you in the dark
Find you in the light
On Epiphany…
Xox
~hag

Amy Giacomelli.

~Follow the Star~

Epiphany Friday 6 January 2023

Option to Join us 1st for ‘The Word on Fire’- Eurythmy with Jan Ranck 4:30 pm ($25 suggested contribution)

Potluck: 6 pm – Festival: 7 pm – 8:30 pm

To cap the Holy Nights, we gather to co-create an Epiphany on the Birthday of Joan of Arc, recalling the gifts of the Magi, & the Baptism, for an art-full community envisioning of the New Year 2023

Eurythmy with Jan Ranck

Song Circle with Velsum Voices

Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Please Bring Food & Drink to Share

$10 more or less Love Donation Encouraged

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate