Behold the human being of flesh & bone And there you behold Death, Yet, Look within the bones And you will behold the Awakener –
To follow thru with the thoughts developed in yesterday’s’ essay Bildungsroman from Steiner’s ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’ – Death represents & fulfills itself in the 4th element – earth. As we have previously explored, the other elements – warmth, air, water – have their essence in the spiritual world, & are only a mere semblance here on earth – The interesting thing is that in the whole sphere of physical existence – death is the only true reality!
“We have tried to trace the world of Maya back to reality and in doing so we have shown that all Fire is sacrifice, everything of the nature of Air is the generous virtue of giving, and the Fluid element of water – the result of renunciation and resignation. To these three truths we have to-day added the fact that the true nature of the Earth or solid matter is death, the cutting off of any substance from its cosmic purpose. Because this severing has entered, death itself enters the world of Maya or illusion as a reality…” ~Rudolf Steiner Lecture 5
We know that the physical body without the etheric, astral & “I” is separated from its source – The moment something is cut off from what gives it meaning in the spiritual sense – it dies. Crazy to think that the seed of this was 1st sown back on old Saturn with the rejection of the Sacrifice of the Spirits of Will by some of the Cherubim. And so when we come into the 4th earth embodiment, we understand that Death would not exist if there were no element of earth.
Because the mineral, plant & animal kingdoms have their spiritual essence in the higher worlds, Only the human being can actually experience death! Not even the gods knew what death was.
But then at the Turning Point of Time when the Being of Love incarnated into a human body for the first & only time, & gave us the ultimate sacrifice thru the deed of Golgotha, we can now receive the gift that gives true meaning to earth existence – the victory of life over death! – A healing redemption to that original sacred wound – reclaiming the corner stone that was rejected – to make the Temple whole once again.
Will we accept this sacrifice, this offering, this vital gift?
Thinking of these connections, I feel that if I don’t make my own selfless sacrifice, live into the virtue of bestowing, & renunciation, I can never fully understand & embody this gift of redemption, this transformation of death into life.
These insights into the inner realities of evolution, as well as all the other insights of Spiritual Science given to us by Steiner, are meant to be chewed on, digested, & transformed thru our doing, to convert our soul forces into new organs of perception.
We are meant to imitate the gods, just as children imitate their parents. And somehow, especially recently, I find myself feeling called to take this on more & more. My process of initiation no longer feels theoretical. I can say I have tasted sacrifice, & the rejection of sacrifice – & I have chosen to make my own renunciation – letting go of bestowing seems the hardest for me right now; I’m still yearning to share. But mostly I am standing with death – face to face with what is dead in me – my moral failings, my unworthiness, the beasts that I harbor in my soul forces. Yet I have entered the underworld willingly to lay in the tomb in my search for freedom. Yes, friends, it’s true, being excluded from one’s essence & purpose is death. But unless we die we cannot be born again.
To quote Adriana Koulias from her book ‘The Sixth Key’: “To know the meaning of life, one has to understand death, and to understand death, one has to know the meaning of evil. You see they are interdependent”
As I stand at this threshold, I am listening to John the Baptist crying in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’ as Isaiah the prophet said’ Asking myself: Is it possible to repent, to truly forgive, to change my heart & mind, so that I can have my own Damascus experience?
Well, I am willing to die trying, because I know that once I begin to understand Anthroposophia while in the physical body, once I can live as ‘Christ in me’ – that impulse can be worked on further, cultivated in the higher worlds.
And so in this tearing open of the sacred wound, I hope to heal…
Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago
Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate(credit card or PayPal)
Please type ‘Adriana’ in the memo for your payment
To register & receive the Zoom codeemail your receipt of payment to the Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg hag@rschicago.org
For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.
Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.
This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social. Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.
During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.
In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.
For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’
Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing. She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.
Dear friends – I have been swimming in the old moon phase as of late, in my work with Lecture 4 & 5 of Steiner’s ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’ – exploring how suffering & pain as manifestations of the soul came into our human nature with our astral body, & how this is bound up with cosmic evolution, after having first been experienced by Spiritual beings in the hierarchy of the Thrones – the Spirits of Will.
C. V. Bodenhausen
Living into what Goethe styles: “Only one who knows longing knows what I suffer” – I have been listening to this song given voice by many composers: Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt from a poem that appears in Book 4 of Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – A kind of every-man’s hero’s journey of self-realization. The story, which can be referred to as ‘a Bildungsroman’ or initiation story; centers on Wilhelm’s attempt to escape the empty life of a bourgeois businessman. After a failed romance with the theater, Wilhelm commits himself to the mysterious ‘Tower Society’.
Steiner brings in the light: “The citizens of earth who feel this mood of longing — the very very best for us to feel – are those who enter our own movement of Spiritual Science…That which rises from sub-consciousness must in the sense of today be brought into touch with the study of the universal existence living in the world… In this sense anthroposophy is a response to those longings which dwell in the depths of the soul. As everything that happens in the world has had a prelude, we need not wonder at a person who today longs through spiritual science for satisfaction in the powers of their soul, above all, when the unconscious soul-forces akin to longings, would consume themselves as longing.”
Georgiana Houghton
As was laid out in my earlier essay Homesick, thru the activity of the Dynamis – the Spirits of Movement, with their gift of picture consciousness, the otherwise empty inner self that suffers from longing, can be filled with a healing balm.
The Spirits of Movement also bring those beings whose sacrifice was rejected into a circuit moving around the higher beings – We see this outpictured in the image of the planets revolving around the Sun.
In lecture 5 Steiner gives this picture: “If the whole substance of a planet could flow into the Sun and it not be rejected, the Beings of that planet would find different conditions of existence within the Sun from those they meet with in the planet outside, since the Sun throws them back: an estrangement takes place, it is an alienated from its origin.
If you can picture the feelings of such Beings, you will have an idea of what may be called: “The exclusion of a certain portion of Cosmic Beings from their essential meaning, their great cosmic purpose. The consequence of this is that the “displacement” — if we may once more speak symbolically — of the rejected incense, of the rejected sacrificial substance, excludes it from the course of the rest of cosmic processes.
If you grasp these thoughts with your feeling — not with your reason, you will perceive that this represents something like a rending away from the universal cosmic order. To the Cherubim who renounced the sacrifice it is only something they put away from them; to the Spirits of Will that were rejected, it is something that bears the imprint of alienation from one’s own origins.
If we can present these things to our soul through inner feelings, in this idea of alienation from source dwells in what we call – death!
Death is none other than that which necessarily enters the universe with the rejection of the sacrificial substance of those Beings who then had to retain it within themselves. Thus we advance from the resignation, the renunciation of what has been rejected by the higher Beings — which we encounter at the third stage of evolution — as Death.
And the true meaning of death is nothing other than the state of not being in ones’ true place – of exclusion from one’s true place”
Hugo Simberg
To reveal the qualities of the ‘true spiritual reality’ behind the Earth embodiment, we see that thru death we meet the element we call earth. Steiner identifies the earlier stages as the willingness to sacrifice, on old Saturn, expressing itself as warmth; the virtue of bestowing, on old Sun, bringing us the outward appearance of air; & resignation or renunciation, on old moon, which is the nature of water – And we must remember dear seekers, that we can only find these spiritual qualities if we look into our own souls.
If death is the Spirit behind earth & Christ has conquered death thru his human incarnation & deed on Golgotha, we are now free thru our love filled willing to reclaim our true place – by becoming the 10th hierarchy – as we co-create the planet of Redemption.
Ever thinking with you & the angels
~hag
30 November 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Mars is closest to Earth tonight, at 8 pm CST.
First-quarter Moon (exact at 8:37 am CST). The Moon is in the dim water bucket that stick-figure Aquarius spills as he runs. Upper left of the Moon shines bright Jupiter. They tilt at an increasing angle as the evening progresses and the sky turns.
Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago
Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate(credit card or PayPal)
Please type ‘Adriana’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose
To register & receive the Zoom code email your receipt of payment to the Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg.
For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.
Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.
This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social. Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.
During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.
In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.
For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’
Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing. She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.
“The first light of Advent is the light of stones. Stones that live in crystals, & in seashells & in bones.”
Sulamith Wulfing
Greetings friends on this 1st Sunday of Advent – Everything feels displaced for me this year – Even our Thanksgiving weekend was more untraditional than usual. Somehow this morning I don’t quite feel ready to meet the sting of Advent – Latin for ‘that which is coming’ – A time of preparation, of waiting in the dark, for the return of the light, at Winter Solstice, a time deeply connected with the challenge of the Scorpion.
Can we overcome the consequence of the error & evil in our astral nature, reflected also in society so strongly today, which has separated us from our true divine nature – So that we might prepare the way for the birth of Christ in us at Christmas-tide..?
YES! We can use Advent as a time for transforming the fallen parts of our souls, so we can truly meet the Christmas birth. Advent is a true festival of our current time in world evolution -a karmic call to rededicate ourselves to our spiritual development with its focus on the confrontation with evil.
Cornelis Cornelisz
In the northern hemisphere, the darkness, & the death of nature, mirror the descent of humanity from the light into the darkness of matter at the Fall.
This ‘missing of the mark’ gives us the chance to cultivate freedom. I am ever striving to connect inwardly to the love, conscience & intelligence of my higher self, listening deeply to what is coming up in my thoughts & feelings.
I offer them up as questions, as hopes, for transformation, for healing, for redemption of my lower self. It’s hard to sit still, to wait, to be observant, to be malleable & open to change. I have received many not so pleasant insights into parts of myself that need purification, terrifying, or shameful glimpses into my double. Sometimes coming from very unexpected sources, blunt synchronicities, various frenemies, uncanny dreams & visions.
The transformation of the Scorpion, into an Eagle, is a big step; but we can go further – We are called to bring in the essence of the Dove!–This must be our work – Opening to the Michael-Sophia-Christ flame, the true I Am, born anew in the chalice of the heart at Christmas.
I am inspired by the image of Mary – the Mother God – gestating the emergent body of Jesus within her. Every breath she takes, every beat of her heart, every thought in her mind, devoted to forming the perfect human being capable of holding the divine.
I think of the approaching soul of Jesus, the pure, innocent Nathan soul, described in Luke’s Gospel, preparing to enter into this immaculate body – This soul which has never incarnated into a human being before.
But then I can’t help comparing that original purity & dignity with the way people treat each other these days – so much cliquish derision, cruel disrespect & hatred; all the discrimination – Delusions! that separate & enslave us.
Then I try to think about how this is part of some great plan – to wake us up – to divide the wheat from the chaff, so that we can reclaim our place in the universe as conscious, Christened human beings.
Sulamith Wülfing
Can we use this time to become more aware of the way in which we are disconnected from our source? Can we strive to fulfill to our purpose, as we work to remember our Divine origin?
YES! We celebrate Advent to awaken our connection with the cosmic purpose in the Universe.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
ADVENT I New Selfhood’s Wonder v34 Mysteriously to feel with newly risen sense of Self old treasure re-enlivening in me shall rouse a tide of cosmic forces that pouring into my endeavour for the world will print me into what is real.
LAMMASTIDE III May Memory Awake My Self v19 Mysteriously to sheathe my life’s new seed with memory be now my striving’s further aim that strengthening it shall awake my inner power to become
Greetings Dear Ones – Yes, the Holiday Season is upon us. Come join us today at 2 pm CT on this 1st Sunday of Advent 27 November 2022
‘Being Mary’ – A Creative Advent Exploration with Rev. Jeana Lee
Doors open at 1:45 pm, program starts at 2 pm CT at theRudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
Rev. Jeana Lee grew up in the central coast region of California before attending Smith College where she earned a degree in Chemistry. She encountered Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education while living in Boulder, CO, and worked as a Waldorf high school teacher in Spring Valley, NY. There she met The Christian Community and was ordained in May of 2021. She is now a priest in the Chicago, IL congregation.
Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago
Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate(credit card or PayPal)
Please type ‘Adriana’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose
To register & receive the Zoom code email your receipt of payment to the Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg.
For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.
Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.
This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social. Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.
During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.
In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.
For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’
Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing. She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.
Dear friends – In many essays here on RR I am often called “to follow the path of humankind’s spiritual development” – Which Steiner explains is revealed in the Calendar of the Soul. And so I ask: How do our cosmic origins affect our lives today?
In order to transport ourselves into what went on spiritually in the ancient evolutionary phases, we have to raise our inner vision to a time when the human soul 1st aspires to comprehend the nature of the Spirits of Wisdom, & begins to prepare for a higher striving. This has its origin in what may be called: a “readiness to bestow,” a willingness to give, to give of oneself.
With this contemplation we encounter a soul-mood of “longing”. And what is this longing? Steiner describes it as a “Homesickness”.
It is a kind of willing; an unattainable yearning of the will.
We can characterize the mood of the Thrones, those Spirits of Will whose sacrifice was rejected, to be of this nature. What we may discover in the depths of our own soul-life as longing, is a heritage coming to us from these primeval times.
Just as we have inherited other qualities from these ancient stages of evolution – the sacrifice of Fire, the giving quality of air, & the renunciation that lives in water – we also inherit from ancient Moon, all kinds of longings, all kinds of repressed wishes impossible to fulfil – of will that is lamed.
Thru the rejection of the sacrifice there came into existence beings with a repressed, held back will.
We can picture the ones whose sacrifice was accepted, we can rejoice in how they were able to join their will with the Spirits of Harmony, the choir of Beings a step above them on the ladder of evolution. As human beings we can relate to their feelings of joy & unity.
We can also relate to those who were rejected – excluded from this union – those that remained behind with repressed longings & wishes.
These Spirits of Will who wanted to offer all that dwelt within them were compelled, because of the rejection of their sacrifice, to draw back into themselves.
From this, Steiner shares that“egoity flashed up”! Which we can see is a big part of our heritage today. From Spiritual Science we learn that a mild form of this egoity is longing.
In those primal times we see how these beings who were forced to focus only on themselves, on their egoity, would be condemned to a one-sided development, IF something else had not entered evolution to redress the balance.
Georgiana Houghton
On ancient Moon we see arriving on the scene – the Spirits of Movement – who “prevent the condemnation & exile into one-sidedness.“
Movement here can be compared to the fluid movement of our own thought.Thru the watery element of old moon – The Spirits of Movement guide the rejected Spirits of Will that had been driven back into themselves; moving them out into relation with all the other higher Beings, bridging the gap – creating a relationship between those Beings.
We can get an idea of what was going on in the Cosmos at this stage of evolution if we reflect upon our own corresponding disposition of soul: when we feel stuck! We all know the torment of this, how it drives our state of mind.
As a way to numb ourselves when things become too painful, we may dumb it down – which can be described as“a state of boredom” – a feeling of ennui – a paralyzed will, a malaise.
But really, this ‘boredom’, at its core, is longing.
And as we may have experienced, the torment of longing can often be overcome thru our relationships – pulling us out ourselves into the other.
From Lecture 4 of Steiner’s ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’: “Thus we see that while the earth was passing through her Moon-phase, the Spirits of Movement brought into the lives of those beings who were filled with longing, and would otherwise have been desolate — for boredom is also a kind of desolation — the change which is brought about by movement, a constantly renewed relation to ever new beings and new conditions…We can then overcome the one-sidedness of longing by means of variety, by change and the movement of the things experienced.”
As the Spirits of Movement introduce change & movement into the Universe, the Will that is a longing, is transformed within these Beings into “thought pictures.” We can relate this to the fluid pictures of our human dreaming.
But even with the help of the Dynamis there is not the ability to completely merge with the higher beings, because this new aspect of ‘egoism’ within the will, prevents it.
But they are able to take in a transitory picture of the other being, which lives in them like a dream-picture. At this phase of development we see the arising of “picture-consciousness“.
It’s mind-blowing to think how we ourselves, as rudimentary human beings, passed thru this phase of evolution, so, yessiree bob, we too are infused with these feelings of longing & this ability to live into “thought pictures.”
Nancy Poer
What’s interesting to me is how this gift of the Spirits of Movement has in our time become so debased. The constant use of screens – an overloading of images coming from sub-nature which actually exasperates our craving – turning it into an addiction – distracting us from cultivating our own picture-consciousness, which I believe we are meant to use to perceive the Etheric Christ.
If we take this to heart, it gives us both the spiritual basis of what developed during the moon-phase of our Earth, & how this has affected “the deep subsoil of our being“. – It’s like how a movement under the surface of the ocean drives up the waves – this sub-conscious stuff influences us, without us being aware of its ancient cause.
Again Steiner hits the nail on the head: “By the constant succession of pictures, arising one after the other, the yearning is satisfied and brought into harmony; but should the pictures remain any length of time the old longing begins to glimmer faintly up from the depths and the Spirits of Movement call up new pictures. And when these have been there for a little time the longing arises again, demanding fresh ones. Now with respect to a soul-life such as this the momentous sentence must be pronounced: if this longing can only be satisfied by a continual flow of pictures following one after the other, there would be no end to the infinite flow. The only thing that can supervene on this is what must come if the endless flow of pictures is to be replaced by something that is able to redeem it otherwise than by mere pictures — namely, by realities! In other words, the planetary embodiment of our earth through which we have passed, when pictures were brought to us by the activity of the Spirits of Movement, must be replaced by that planetary phase of the earth’s embodiment which we call the phase of redemption. We shall see presently that the earth is to be called the “Planet of Redemption,” just as her last embodiment — that of the Moon-existence — may be called the “Planet of Longing”; longing capable of satisfaction yet flowing on endlessly.
Leo Klein
And while we live in the consciousness belonging to this earth, in which as we know redemption comes to us through the Mystery of Golgotha — there arises continually within us from the subsoil of our soul, a never-ceasing craving for redemption. It is as though, on the surface, we had the waves of our ordinary consciousness — while below, in the depths of the sea of our soul-life, lives longing, which is the ocean-bed of our soul. This strives continually to ascend to the One who accomplishes the sacrifice, the Universal Being, Who is able to satisfy the longing once and for all time — not in a never-ceasing succession of pictures.”
May we take this into our thinking, feeling & willing.
~hag
18 November 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: All month Jupiter shines below the Great Square of Pegasus, boxy emblem of the fall sky.
Orion clears the eastern horizon by around 8 pm CT. now. Upper left of Orion, bright Mars glares. Keep going upper left of Mars & there’s Capella.
High straighter above Orion are Aldebaran & higher still, the little Pleiades cluster, the size of your fingertip at arm’s length.
Down below Orion, Sirius rises around 10 pm. Sirius always follows two hours behind Orion.
1923 – The founding of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society. Willem Zeylmans van Emmichhoven becomes its General Secretary.
1961- Deathday of Willem Zeylmans van Emmichhoven, a Dutch psychiatrist and anthroposophist. From 1923 until his death in 1961 he was chairman of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society. He was a familiar figure in public life & had a considerable influence on the Anthroposophic movement, particularly through his numerous lectures & his work as an author, which included the first biography of Rudolf Steiner.
Zeylmans was the son of a Dutch chocolate manufacturer. His mother came from Germany. In childhood he was often troubled by visions of color & emotional turmoil that later stimulated his preoccupation with what would later be called synesthesia: a condition when you hear a sound & automatically see a color. After recovering from an attack of typhoid, he entered medical school at eighteen, specializing in psychiatry. His interest in color, inspired by the painter Jacoba van Heemskerck & her friend & patron Marie Tak van Poortvliet, led him to research more about the effects of colors. He continued his medical studies in Leipzig under Wilhelm Wundt in 1919, where he became a member of the Anthroposophical Society. After meeting with Rudolf Steiner, he was encouraged to continue his research into the effect of colors & in his dissertation he wrote on “The effect of colors on the life of feeling.’’ On 27 September 1921 he was married to Ingeborg Droogleever Fortuyn, whom he had met for the first time many years earlier. Their first son was born in 1926.
At the age of 28, Zeylmans began lecturing on Anthroposophy to an enthusiastic public, as well as academic colleagues. He helped establish the first Waldorf School in The Hague, where he also founded a small psychiatric hospital, which soon moved into its own building (now the Rudolf Steiner Zorg). When the Anthroposophical Society was founded in the Netherlands, Rudolf Steiner appointed him as its first General Secretary. In addition to his psychiatric work Zeylmans undertook worldwide lecture tours. He spoke often about the effect of color on humans & gave advice to paint manufacturers, architects, directors of museums & artists.
Zeylman’s primary concerns were the rapprochement & understanding between the different nations & peoples, as well as a furtherance of cosmopolitanism. His attempt to found the global schools association suggested by Rudolf Steiner (a ‘”Weltschulverein”), to promote the dissemination & funding for free school education, failed due to resistance from anthroposophic circles against fostering broader public awareness.
In the face of increasing political fanaticism, another initiative Zeylmans took was to further interest for anthroposophy in European youth. In the summer of 1930 he organized a youth camp on the Stakenberg near Nunspeet in the Veluwe. More than a thousand participants gathered in working groups & heard lectures by leading anthroposophists like Eugen Kolisko, Walter Johannes Stein, Elisabeth Vreede & Ita Wegman on their thoughts to the situation of the time.
His work, however, was increasingly restricted by political developments. His involvement with the administration of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach Switzerland also met with increasing disapproval. The internal disputes since the death of Rudolf Steiner & his close collaboration with the physician Ita Wegman in 1935 led to his exclusion & that of the majority of the Dutch members.
After the war Zeylmans took up once again his international lecturing work. In 1954 he embarked on a global tour for nine months. Encouraged by Bernard Lievegoed, in 1960 he sought a mandate from the members of the Anthroposophical Society in the Netherlands to reunite it once more, after 25 years of separation, with the General Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Switzerland. He undertook a second journey through South Africa in 1961, visiting the newly established Waldorf schools & other institutions to give advice & hold lectures. During this trip, he died unexpectedly in Cape Town.
Resurrection of the Temple (The first Goetheanum) by Rita de Cassia Perez, Adriana’s mother
The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’
Presented by Adriana Koulias*
A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.
21 December2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET
Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago
Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate(credit card or PayPal)
Please type ‘Adriana’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose
For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.
To register & receive the Zoom codeContact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.
This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social. Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.
During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.
In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.
For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’
Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing. She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.
As we dive ever deeper into Steiner’s ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’ we see that by adding the concept of resignation to those of sacrifice & the virtue of bestowing, we take another step into the birthright of our authentic humanness – we unfold the spiritual fact that thru this act of resignation, of renunciation, of forgoing or refraining, the gods created evolution out of eternity.
This abstinence also opened the way to resistance – embodied by the Luciferic beings.
The gods allowed ‘evil’ to come into the world for the sake of human freedom, which can only be achieved by acquiring the strength thru resistance to lead evil back to good. And this capacity can only come about as a consequence of renunciation & resignation.
Elizabeth Wang
We are called to take this concept of refraining into our thinking, feeling & willing, so that meditative images can arise, & inspire us to apply this principle in our lives, in our karmic relationships, & to the world karma we all share, to heal the social sphere – to enact progress in our evolution & fulfill the Divine Christic plan.
This cosmic act of giving up the opportunity to receive a sacrifice of will substance performed on ancient Sun by the Cherubim is the essence behind fasting or ‘giving something up’ for Lent…This makes sense, it all feels right & purposeful – An eternal teaching moment.
And yet when we live into the experience of The Thrones – those beings of Will who devoutly surrendered their innermost being, who sacrificed their very substance; when we imagine their pure gift being declined – that they were not allowed to give it, that it was thrown back at them; the bond that could have been forged with the higher choir of the Cherubim left unmade – we feel the reverberations in the cosmos of these rejected will forces.
Moriotto Albertinelli
The biblical picture of Cain & Abel gives us much to contemplate in this regard. For Cain’s inner experience & the symbolic historical reaction personifies this ‘rejected sacrifice’‘, in an heightened way.
William Blake
It’s easy into fall into blaming Cain. But if we view his actions from the perspective of the inner realities of evolution, we see Cain & Abel out-picturing a cosmic act of surrender & resignation – as well as what was within those Spirits of Will whose sacrifice was refused – which gave rise to a mood of opposition toward those higher beings.
Margrit Prigge
In Lecture 4 Steiner tells us: “Coming nearer and nearer to the earthly life of the human being, we find this mood in ourselves — everyone knows it — as uncertainty, and at the same time as torment, in the hidden depths of soul-life. This feeling with which we are all acquainted holds sway in the secret depth of our soul-life, and sometimes pushes its way up to the surface; and then perhaps its torment is lessened. We often go about with these feelings without being aware of them in our superficial consciousness; yet there they are within us.
We might recall the words of the Goethe’s ‘Wilhelm Meister’, if we wish to convey an idea of the tormenting nature of this soul-mood with which is connected a certain degree of pain:“Only one who knows longing knows, knows what I suffer.” This longing lives continuously in the human being as a mood of soul.”
We will explore this feeling of Longing in the next essay.
Until soon
~hag
https://astronomy.com/
17 November 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Leonid meteor shower peaks, but the waning Moon will make spotting showers during the early morning predawn hours, when Leo is highest in the sky, the best bet for viewing.
Although the Leonids technically peaked late last night, the radiant in Leo the Lion is highest in the hours before dawn this morning. Look southeast in the hour or two before sunrise to again find bright Regulus. The Leonids’ radiant sits north of this star.
The Leonids come from dust left behind by passes of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle through the inner solar system.
“Art is a continuous setting free of the human spirit; it also educates humanity about how to act out of love. ” ~Rudolf Steiner
1624 – Deathday of Jakob Böhme, a shoemaker in Görlitz, Silesia, is regarded to be one of the most profound mystics in Germany.
“Jakob Böhme’s thoroughly healthy way of knowledge — his original deeper heart’s knowledge, so in accordance with the feeling of the people — beheld freedom as weaving and working through everything necessitated, working even through natural necessity. And Schelling, ascending from a view of nature in accordance with the spirit to a beholding of the spirit, felt himself in harmony with Jakob Böhme…
Hegel‘s world view has its place in the course of mankind’s spiritual evolution through the fact that in it the radiant power of thoughts lifts itself up out of the mystical depths of the soul, and through the fact that in Hegel’s seeking, mystical power wants to reveal itself with the power of the light of thought. And this is also how he sees his place in the course of this evolution. Therefore he looked back upon Jakob Böhme in the way expressed in these words (to be found in his History of Philosophy): “This Jakob Böhme, long forgotten and decried as a pietistic visionary, has regained his rightful esteem only in recent times; Leibniz revered him. His public has been greatly reduced by the Age of Enlightenment; in recent times his profundity has been recognized again. … To declare him a visionary means nothing. For if one wants to, one can call every philosopher so, even Epicurus and Bacon. … But as to the high esteem to which Böhme has been raised, he owes this particularly to the form of his contemplation and feeling; for, contemplation and inner feeling … and the pictorial nature of one’s thoughts the allegories and so on — are partly considered to be the essential form of philosophy. But it is only the concept, thinking, in which philosophy can have its truth, in which the absolute can be expressed and also is as it is in and for itself.” And Hegel finds these further words for Böhme: “Jakob Böhme is the first German philosopher; the content of his philosophizing is truly German. What distinguishes Böhme and makes him remarkable is … that he set the intellectual world into his own inner life (Gemüt), and within his own consciousness of himself he beheld, knew, and felt everything that used to be in the beyond. This general idea of Böhme proves on the one hand to be profound and basic; on the other hand, however, he does not achieve clarity and order in all his need and struggle for definition and discrimination in developing his divine views about the universe.”
Such words are spoken by Hegel, after all, only from the feeling: In the simple heart of Jakob Böhme there lived the deepest impulse of the human soul to sink itself with its own experience into world experience — the true mystical impulse — but the pictorial view, the parable, the symbol must lift themselves to the light of clear ideas in order to attain what they want. In Hegel’s world view Jakob Böhme’s world pictures are meant to arise again as ideas of human reason. Thus the enthusiast of thoughts, Hegel, stands beside the deep mystic, Jakob Böhme, within the evolution of German idealism”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Riddle of Man
1858 – Deathday of Robert Owen, Welsh manufacturer turned reformer, one of the most influential early 19th-century advocates of utopian socialism. His New Lanark mills in Lanarkshire, Scotland, with their social & industrial welfare programs, became a place of pilgrimage for statesmen & social reformers. He also sponsored or encouraged many experimental “utopian” communities, including one in New Harmony, Indiana, U.S.
1869 – In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is opened
1901 –October 1901 to April 1902, Rudolf Steiner delivered a series of lectures in the Theosophical Library leading from the ancient mysteries up to the mystery of Golgotha which provided a comprehensive expansion of the subject treated in the previous year on mysticism. These lectures were published as Christianity As Mystical Fact
According to T.H. Meyer & Johannes Hemleben, in his book “Rudolf Steiner: A documentary biography”: Today 17 NOVEMBER in 1901 Marie von Sivers asks THE question of Rudolf Steiner –Marie von Sivers “appeared one day” at one of Rudolf Steiner’s early lectures in 1900. In the autumn of 1901, she posed the question to Steiner, “Would it be possible to create a spiritual movement based on European tradition and the impetus of Christ?” Rudolf Steiner later reported:
With this, I was given the opportunity to act in a way that I had only previously imagined. The question had been put to me, and now, according to spiritual laws, I could begin to answer it.
From Rudolf Steiner’s The Story of My Life, Chapter 30: “The Brockdorffs were leaders of a branch of the Theosophical Society founded by Blavatsky. What I had said in connection with Goethe’s fairy-tale led to my being invited by the Brockdorffs to deliver lectures regularly before those members of the Theosophical Society who were associated with them. I explained, however, that I could speak only about that which I vitally experienced within me as spiritual knowledge.
In truth, I could speak of nothing else. For very little of the literature issued by the Theosophical Society was known to me. I had known theosophists while living in Vienna, and I later became acquainted with others. These acquaintance ships led me to write in the Magazine the adverse review dealing with the theosophists in connection with the appearance of a publication of Franz Hartmann. What I knew otherwise of the literature was for the most part entirely uncongenial to me in method and approach; I could not by any possibility have linked my discussions with this literature.
So I then gave the lectures in which I established a connection with the mysticism of the Middle Ages. By means of the ideas of the mystics from Master Eckhard to Jakob Böhme, I found expression for the spiritual conceptions which in reality I had determined beforehand to set forth. I published the series of lectures in the book Die Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens(2). At these lectures there appeared one day in the audience Marie von Sievers, who was chosen by destiny at that time to take into strong hands the German section of the Theosophical Society, founded soon after the beginning of my lecturing. Within this section I was then able to develop my anthroposophic activity before a constantly increasing audience.
No one was left in uncertainty of the fact that I would bring forward in the Theosophical Society only the results of my own research through perception…
My object was to set forth the evolution from the ancient mysteries to the mystery of Golgotha in such a way that in this evolution there should be seen to be active, not merely earthly historic forces, but spiritual supramundane influences. And I wished to show that in the ancient mysteries cult-pictures were given of cosmic events, which were then fulfilled in the mystery of Golgotha as facts transferred from the cosmos to the earth of the historic plane.
This was by no means taught in the Theosophical Society. In this view I was in direct opposition to the theosophical dogmatics of the time, before I was invited to work in the Theosophical Society. For this invitation followed immediately after the cycle of lectures on Christ here described.
Between the two cycles of lectures that I gave before the Theosophical Society, Marie von Sievers was in Italy, at Bologna, working on behalf of the Theosophical Society in the branch established there.
Thus the thing evolved up to the time of my first attendance at a theosophical congress, in London, in the year 1902. At this congress, in which Marie von Sievers also took part, it was already a foregone conclusion that a German section of the Society would be founded with myself – shortly before invited to become a member – as the general secretary.
The visit to London was of great interest to me. I there became acquainted with important leaders of the Theosophical Society. I had the privilege of staying at the home of Mr. Bertram Keightley, one of these leaders. We became great friends. I became acquainted with Mr. Mead, the very diligent secretary of the Theosophical Movement. The most interesting conversations imaginable took place at the home of Mr. Keightley in regard to the forms of spiritual knowledge alive within the Theosophical Society.
Especially intimate were these conversations with Bertram Keightley himself. H. P. Blavatsky seemed to live again in these conversations. Her whole personality, with its wealth of spiritual content, was described with the utmost vividness before me and Marie von Sievers by my dear host, who had been so long associated with her.
I became slightly acquainted with Annie Besant and also Sinnett, author of Esoteric Buddhism. Mr. Leadbeater I did not meet, but only heard him speak from the platform. He made no special impression on me.
All that was interesting in what I heard stirred me deeply, but it had no influence upon the content of my own views.
1907 – Birthday of Israel Regardie, English occultist & author
Resurrection of the Temple (The first Goetheanum) by Rita de Cassia Perez, Adriana’s mother
The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’
Presented by Adriana Koulias*
A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.
21 December2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET
Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago
Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate(credit card or PayPal)
Please type ‘Adriana’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose
For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.
To register & receive the Zoom codeContact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.
This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social. Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.
During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.
In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.
For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’
Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing. She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.
