Category Archives: Biography

Ecclesia

June 4, 2022Biography, Community, Festival, History, Speaking with the Stars~hag

Dear freinds – I greet you on this eve of Pentecost. I will be celebrating Whitsun in Viroqua WI. at the ‘Turning Place’ this year so I wanted to touch in before the trip.

Working with the Whitsun imagination empowers us to creatively explore how we can engage in the lifting out of the ‘me’ into the ‘we’, out of opinion into wisdom; warming the “I”, to open the heart, in support of healthy community. Can we endeavor to strengthen our individual soul forces, to collectively open the portal into the Spirit worlds?

As Steiner’s Whitsun verse states: “This portal’s key the Soul may fashion If she herself grow strong within the strife” …

We can create an Ecclesia, a vessel, a chalice, a sheath for the Spirit. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas conference, where the reversed Whitsun, was born, the idea of moving the spirit that has flowed thru the head – into the heart, transforming it into wisdom to redeem our intelligence, & then back out as a gift to humanity – transforming the larynx along the way.

Our work is to take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” – a path leading from ‘Sprit Recollection’, to ‘Sprit Sensing’, to ‘Sprit Beholding’.

In this sense the Christmas Conference, in all its spiritual reality reveals itself as the true Whitsun for anthroposophers – Those who strive to take into their souls the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit concerning the human being – Anthropos-Sophia, which is the knowledge of the grail held aloft by Michael in this present age of the consciousness soul.

Let’s think about it. The foundation stone was formed by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas conference out of the Father-forces rising from the depths – gravity, unconscious will; as well as the Son-forces working in the periphery-warmth, creative love; with the Spirit-forces descending from the heights- consciousness, wisdom.

Thru Steiner’s profound mystery deed, an altogether new relationship of the macrocosmic forces working within the human being = the thoughts of the Spirit revealed in the human head- Christ working in the heart- & the will of the Father fulfilled in the deeds of the limbs, was made openly manifest.

When Steiner took on the karma of the society he gave the Michaelic impulse the possibility of flowing directly into the earth sphere & into those active in the Anthroposophical society.

Here we see a direct relationship with the original Pentecost, which was the 3rd & final stage of Christ the Sun Being’s union with the stream of Earthly Being, & the mission of Anthroposophy, as the Proclamation of World Pentecost.

Yes, we live in a potent time, when divergent karmic streams have the possibility of coming together-‘That Good May Become,’ a time when, some say, the Platonists of the School of Chartres & the Aristotelian-Dominicans, The Arthur & Grail streams with true Rosicrucianism, meet the new Michaelic Grail imagination arising in the human soul. A renewed chalice whose substance is Love, whose form is Imagination & whose light of thought which radiates, is redeemed Michaelic Intelligence.

This transforms the stone of the wise, into the dodecahedral foundation stone of love. For Michael frees thoughts from the realm of the head, opening a path to the heart, bringing forth that shining, raying-out of the divine chalice, that celestial light of redeemed intelligence, which like the radiance of the Spiritual Sun, can unite into a single whole the Spiritual substance of Divine love & human love, in the Holy Grail that was set into our souls at the Christmas conference. Calling ever & again for a renewal of the spiritual quest.

See you at the ‘Turning Place’

~hag

4 June 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day(RSarchives)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, Anthrowiki, Wikipedia Commons)

1647 – Deathday of Canonicus, Grand Chief Sachem of the Narragansett Indian Tribe at the time of the Pilgrims landing in Plymouth.

1896 – Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, & gives it a successful test run

1913 – Emily Davison, a suffragette protesting for women’s rights is trampled by King George V’s horse.

1919 – Women’s rights: The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, & sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.

1939 – The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.

1975 – The Governor of California Jerry Brown signs the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law, the first law in the U.S. giving farmworkers collective bargaining rights

1989 – The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People’s Liberation Army, with at least 241 dead.

my heart is a furrowed field
that the Sun rolls over
beating out the fallowness
with never-ending beams
infusing my will to receive…
~hag

Alone Together

June 3, 2022Biography, Community, Festival, History~hag

In the 10 Days…

Dear friends, as seekers on the path, have you ever felt utterly alone, overwhelmed, or even a bit lost? Rudolf Steiner speaks of this in ‘How to know Higher Worlds’ & in the ‘5^th Gospel’.

We have an opportunity, especially at this time of year, to recognize & acknowledge that uncomfortable feeling of isolation that can come from our striving; a mirroring of the experience of the disciples those 10 days between Ascension & Whitsun, when waiting feels like wrestling.

Since the time of Christ’s Ascension, humanity can now follow in the expansion of the one who has ascended to heaven. A path up to the heights has been prepared for us to tread. There, we grow wings. For this to happen we must let the ground of our soul become warm. Just as air only rises when it becomes warm, so it is with our inner being. If our soul does not become warm with enthusiasm, it does not rise to meet the heights.

Meditation & prayer are ways of warming our “I” so that our soul can carry out its own ascension.

Not the type of prayer consisting of mere words recited by rote from the head—which does not warm the soul’s ground—& not the kind of prayer into which all sorts of wishes & desires make an appeal ‘for something.’

But a meditation, like the Foundation Stone, spoken from the heart, from the human feeling nature, which not only warms the soul of the individual, but adds light to the community of other souls who are also working to build the ‘Dodecahedron of Love’ in service to the All. This allows our soul to ascend to where our True Self exists.

The soul’s union with the spirit then comes to be; & only in this way does the human being become complete. Our “I”, which until it is cultivated, merely hovers above us, but with this kind of warmth, we then become filled with the Higher Self. In this way during the 10 days, we can do our part to approach that sphere out of which the flames of Whitsun descend.

On the one hand, the Whitsun flames have warmth, & on the other hand, they possess light. Warmth must arise first out of human hearts like a fire. Then the Spirit responds out of the sphere of the Father, where The Christ & the Father are One. The light flame of the Spirit sinks down, joining the warmth flame of the praying heart. The light flame from above answers to the warmth flame from below. Only when we actively strive, with sufficient patience & endurance, working to become warm, may we hope for illumination. Becoming warm is our task, then illumination is the answer from heaven.

As the gifts of light from a higher realm come towards us, Whitsun expands into the world – But only if our thinking can change into heart-thinking; which will have an effect on the whole activity of human life, softening the prevailing intellectual forces which are so rigid & dark, with a cold hard cleverness.

Once the human being begins to truly think with warmth, then the Holy Spirit enters our heart-thinking, for then our True Higher Self thinks in us.

Let us sit in the loneliness together during these days, feeling the blessing of Christ’s Grace bestowed on us thru the Ascension. Knowing that in the future, which we are creating in each moment even now, a new thinking, a new culture, can finally come into being from the breath that touches us out of the Spirit of the coming Pentecost.

Move will be revealed…

Until soon ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, Wikipedia Commons)

“Greek philosophy beautifully compared the human soul with a bee. The world of colour and light offers the soul honey which it brings with it into the higher world. The soul must spiritualize sense experience and carry it up into higher worlds.” ~Rudolf Steiner 1906

545 – Deathday of Saint Clotilde – patron saint of Les Andelys, Normandy. Wife of the Frankish king Clovis I, & princess of the kingdom of Burgundy. In 511, the Queen founded a convent for young girls. The natural spring there is known for healing skin diseases.Queen Clotilde’s cult made her the patron of queens, widows, brides & even those in exile. In Normandy she was venerated as guarding the lame & those who suffered violent death from ill-tempered husbands.

1924 – Deathday of Franz Kafka a German novelist & short story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism & the fantastic, typically features isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments & incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, & has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, & absurdity. His best known works include “Die Verwandlung” (“The Metamorphosis”), Der Process (The Trial), & Das Schloss (The Castle). The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those in his writing. Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today part of the Czech Republic. He trained as a lawyer, & after completing his legal education he was employed with an insurance company, forcing him to relegate writing to his spare time. Over the course of his life, Kafka wrote hundreds of letters to family & close friends, including his father, with whom he had a strained & formal relationship. He became engaged to several women but never married. He died in 1924 at the age of 40 from tuberculosis.

1943 – The founding of the Nachlassverein by Marie Steiner

1989 – Deathday of Ayatollah Khomeini, Iranian religious leader & politician

2013 – The trial of United States Army private Chelsea Manning for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks begins in Fort Meade, Maryland

Image result for wArmth & light painting — Jenn Nelson

POD (Poem Of the day)

~Look, I have light
In my eyes
& on my skin…
The star is warming…
And everything alive is turning
Into something else
Deep in the alchemical Heart
Of some annihilating
Ever creative fire
That is burning unnoticed
Waiting to touch
Me & you…
~hag

Holding Space

June 2, 2022Biography, Community, Festival~hag

I am living into the approaching mood of Pentecost – The festival of the Word, a new Language of the Sophia-Logos, holding the ideal of Free Speech! Our day star Sun is speaking thru the stars of the Bull at this time, that region of the Zodiac connected to the human Larynx, giving us the capacity for self-expression.

The current World events must be given voice. Pentecost is the festival of NOW, highlighting the challenging relationships of self & community – Offering us an opportunity to transcend polarities.

Giving us a chance to ask: How do we work as individuals to transform our ingrained sympathies & antipathies? How do we purify our astral nature in order to make ourselves into a vessel worthy to receive the Holy Spirit, giving us the possibility of manifesting the ‘Spirit Self’, the True Self which will provide the capacity to create new social forms..?

Right now I am deep in what Rudolf Steiner defines as a time of profound sadness that comes with the 10 days between Ascension & Pentecost, an echo of the grief & loss expereinced by the disciples. He describes it as ‘a sorrow such as cannot be compared with any other sorrow on earth’ –A kind of death experience on a spiritual level. And just like in the old mystery traditions, after the time of catharsis & preparation, there is a mystical death; so here too there is a kind of loss & experience of death. The #10 is the number of completion.

Steiner points out: ‘All real knowledge, all knowledge that can truly be called great is born from pain, from inner travail…And out of this pain, out of this infinite sorrow, there sprang what we call the Mystery of Pentecost…Having lost sight of the Christ in external clairvoyant vision (the 40 days with the Resurrected Christ), the disciples found it again in their inmost being…found it through sorrow, through pain. (May 17, 1923, Christiana)

Here we have a great reversal. In ancient times the human being experienced the True Self, the Higher I AM, in the cosmos outside of them, in the Sun sphere, thru initiation, by leaving the body.

Even with Lazarus, the first Christian initiation performed on Earth, in public, by the Christ, Lazarus was “called forth” by Christ as the hierophant from without.

Pentecost inaugurates a new age, when human beings thru a personal path of self-guided catharsis comes to an awakening of the Higher I AM in “their inmost being” as a force of transformative power, which is the force of love.

The Greek word for grace is, “charis”, which means the free love from God. In ancient Greek, there are several words for love: eros – romantic love; philia – brotherly/family love; agape – divine love, or love of the human for the divine.

Charis is higher than agape, because it is the love of the Divine for the human being. This is the highest form of love.

Thinking of Pentecost as being 50 days after Easter, & in looking at the # 5, we see the 4 bodies of the human being: physical, etheric, astral & “I” – given a 5^th dimension – a new spiritual aspect is added: The Spirit-Self, the Higher Ego.

The pentagram is the symbol of the true human being. The numbers 4 & 5 raised to the 10^th power, indicate a process taking place at a higher spiritual level, which is how the events described in 40 days = Ascension – & 50 days = Pentecost, are meant to be understood, both as historical events of Christ’s union with the earth, but also as initiatory events taking place on a higher plane for humanity.

In the 12^th of Steiner’s lectures on the ‘Gospel of John’, which he describes as the most spiritual perspective given by the writers of the gospels, he speaks of how John never uses the name Mary, but always says: “the mother of Jesus”. He equates this with the ‘Virgin Sophia’ – the purified astral body. It is this Virgin Sophia = the Mother of Jesus, who is “in their midst” at Pentecost.

The story goes on to say that they were all together in one place, using the word which is often translated as house, but in Greek it means “a shared, common place” – in this case: The Upper Room where they experienced the Last Supper. Into this community space, with the Virgin Sophia in their midst, came the Holy Spirit, the Universal Ego, the true I AM, which can then speak out of this purified astral body.

This Holy Spirit came with a rushing of wind & flames that individualized onto each of the disciples, & “stayed upon each of them”(this is the same term used at the Baptism of Jesus) They then began to speak a new language “as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance.” This was a speaking, which transcended earthly languages, for everyone understood & were amazed.

In this same lecture from the Gospel of John cycle, Steiner addresses this question: ‘a person thus illuminated, who has received the Holy Spirit into himself, speaks in a different manner. How does he speak? …he is not expressing ‘his’ own opinion. His views do not come into consideration. His personal (earthly) ego has been eclipsed which means that…it has become impersonal and it is the Cosmic Universal Ego’.

He continues this Pentecostal theme in a lecture on Whitsunday, 1910: ‘This Holy Spirit enables us to become free human souls. As the Spirit of Freedom, it streamed out through the first disciples…in the first Pentecostal festival….We can become free only when we find ourselves again in spirit and out of the spirit become master over the spirit within ourselves. Our true spirit is the universal human spirit, which we recognize as the Pentecostal power of the Holy Spirit.. which we must bring to birth in ourselves and allow to become manifest…This will bring to life in our souls something which overleaps all boundaries separating the different parts of humanity’.

This brings us back to the great call of our current time of Pentecost – which is the great social question of our time: the individual in relation to the whole, the community.

Today we face immense questions about the future of humanity, with division, polarization, lack of understanding & failed communication, creating the social problems of our time.

Only by a social & personal catharsis which can allow for the true spirit of freedom, the true I AM, to eclipse our small personal egotism & the lower impulses of our nature, can a new community & new language of universal sister/brotherhood be created.

Only out of the spiritual recognition of the universal Human Being, will the ideas & applications of a new approach to fraternity in economics; equality in human rights; & freedom in the cultural/spiritual life, be accomplished.

May we strive to serve this goal out of the spirit of The Sophia.

~hag

2 June 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Spot Bella Luna in the west after sunset. As twilight fades, you can make out Pollux above the Moon, then Castor to the right of Pollux.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, Wikipedia Commons)

455 – Sack of Rome

1098 – First Crusade: The first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city; the second siege began five days later.

1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts; she was found guilty and later hanged

1743 – Birthday of Alessandro Cagliostro, Italian occultist and explorer. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe relates in his Italian Journey, that during the trial of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace*, Cagliostro said that he had been born of noble birth but abandoned as an orphan upon the island of Malta. He claimed to have traveled as a child to Medina, Mecca, & Cairo, & was then admitted to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, where he studied alchemy, the Kabbalah, & magic. (*The Affair of the Diamond Necklace – an incident in 1781 at the court of Louis XVI of France involving his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The reputation of the Queen, which was already tarnished by gossip, was ruined by the implication that she had participated in a crime to defraud the crown jewelers of the cost of a very expensive diamond necklace. The Affair was historically significant as one of the events that led to the French populace’s disillusionment with the monarchy, which, among other causes, eventually culminated in the French Revolution)

1793 – French Revolution: François Hanriot, leader of the Parisian National Guard, arrests 22 Girondists selected by Jean-Paul Marat, setting the stage for the Reign of Terror.

1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States

1882 – Deathday of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian general & politician. Spoken of as a high initiate in the Hibernian Mysteries in ‘Karmic Relationships’ Vol 1, lec. 11 by Rudolf Steiner (June 2^nd is also Festa della Repubblica -The Italian National Republic Day)

1922 – Start of the West-East Congress in Vienna, opened by Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz. At this conference Rudolf Steiner gave his last lecture on Threefolding (1917 – 1922)

a collection of my Anthroposophical videos for your free viewing

= I

May 31, 2022Biography, History, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

~with simple sandals
i walk before my Beloved
but in the house of heaven my feet are still…
my breast is a lyre that hums,
my lungs fill with living fire,
a cool breeze encircles me,
there is no need for haste…
~hag

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) ESOTERIC LESSONS I
GA 266, # 34, Hamburg, 31 May 1908

“One must repeatedly let what one had heard in esoteric classes pass before one’s soul, and only then will one gradually get out the forces that are hidden in what’s given.

Most scientific thinking is unproductive. But when we occupy ourselves with what’s given to our thinking in esoteric classes we occupy ourselves with productive thoughts, and that’s a source of strength for our soul. Such thoughts must pass through our soul in the right order. Just as nothing could exist in an organism if a leg was attached where an arm was supposed to be, so everything in our thinking must be consequent. Let’s place such a thought structure before our soul today.

One says a lot about wisdom. But wisdom isn’t what’s often called wisdom today. One gets smart through experience, but wisdom is the force that streams into us from the spiritual world and then streams out again. Wisdom also comes from the mouth of babes. When what streams out comes more from the feeling, it’s wisdom, but when it stimulates a man into action so that productivity predominates, it’s love. But one has to know what love really is. Someone may feel sympathy for a man’s misfortune, but that isn’t real love. Sympathy only becomes love if one steps in and helps him. Wisdom and love make up the I. The I is love and wisdom that have become will. This is the higher triad.

When it’s reflected in the lower I, love and wisdom become thinking, willing and feeling, respectively. Reflected even further down they become the four temperaments. Men have composite temperaments, but angels only have one each. The first kind of angels are those who work the choleric temperament into human beings. Such people like to do things. Sanguine angels inject people with a temperament that makes them receptive to all sublime and beautiful things, although such people aren’t very active. They get enthused easily but don’t stick to anything very long.

Phlegmatic angels influence people so that they’re not interested in what others have created. They do not leave such a creation the way it is, they repeatedly change it, they make everything flowing and indefinite. This is already expressed in the word phlegma, which means slime. Phlegmatics can’t make decisions and resolutions and so they’re always missing opportunities. Their bodies have soft and indefinite forms, they walk softly as they weave back and forth. And yet such people can also be choleric in their insistence on particular foods that they like. Melancholic angels work on a person so that they see everything in himself, he’s only occupied with himself, he does nothing for progress. So he doesn’t enjoy creation and becomes dull and dark. One must judge all characters on the basis of what the individual does for the whole’s progress. If one reflects these qualities even further down then choleric corresponds to fire, air to sanguine, phlegmatic to water, and melancholic to earth — there everything becomes rigid and solid.

One should hold such figures before one repeatedly. They make it possible that our soul organism is built up in the right way. One must think through such figures clearly. Our inner life can’t be strengthened by thoughts that oscillate back and forth. The soul gets stronger if one places such forms before one’s spiritual eye.

31 May 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, Wikipedia Commons)

‘The Feast of the Visitation’ – The visible actors (see Luke 1:39-45) are Mary & Elizabeth, although Jesus & John the Baptist steal the scene. John leaps with joy in the womb of Elizabeth, who in turn, is filled with the Holy Spirit & addresses words of praise to Mary—words that echo down through the ages. Then comes the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55).

One of the invocations in Mary’s litany is “Ark of the Covenant.” Like the Ark of the Covenant of old, Mary brings God’s presence into the lives of other people. As David danced before the Ark, John the Baptist leaps for joy. As the Ark helped to unite the 12 tribes of Israel by being placed in David’s capital, so Mary has the power to unite all in her Son.

1809 – Deathday of Austrian composer Franz Haydn

Poetry Friday: Celebrating 200 Years Of Walt Whitman | KNAU Arizona Public Radio

1819 – Birthday of Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist, & journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism & realism, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene.

1875 – Deathday of occultist Eliphas Levy. Steiner refers to his Mexican incarnation in the Karma lectures Vol. 2

1942 – Deathday of Reinhard Heydrich, assinated in Prague. A high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, one of the main architects of the Holocaust. Many historians regard him as the darkest figure in the Nazi elite; Adolf Hitler described him as “the man with the iron heart”.

1962 – Deathday of Adolf Eichmann, a German Nazi SS, one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was working with Reinhard Heydrich facilitating & managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to extermination camps. In 1960, he was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Following a widely publicized trial in Israel, he was found guilty of war crimes & hanged on this day in 1962.

The Holy Grail Study Group with the CRC
Mysteries of the Holy Grail – from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation
June 1, 2022 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern)
“Anyone who approaches these mysteries today must feel that they are confronting and challenging themselves by striving for the virtues of Parzival, while knowing that — because of modern conditions — they are in fact someone else also, the wounded Amfortas. Today we bear this divided nature within us: aspiring Parzival, wounded Amfortas. That is what self-knowledge must lead us to feel. From this recognition will flow the forces which make a unity again of this duality, and will thus advance us a little further in world evolution.”~ from Chapter 15, Rudolf Steiner, The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Chapter 15 “Acknowledging Amfortas,” excerpts from Steiner’s lecture given at Berlin on 7 February 1913 (GA 144, lecture IV), will be the focus of the June 1 meeting.

A transcript of the entire lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link. * Please consider giving to the development and maintenance of the digital library of Rudolf Steiner’s work. Scroll to the bottom of this message to read more about the RSArchive.org and SteinerLibrary.org

The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our ongoing study conversation. The study has been divided among two volunteers who will summarize their section to rebuild it as a foundation for our conversation. Please familiarize yourself with the lecture if possible so you will feel comfortable sharing your reflections and thoughts with the group.

This collection of lectures has been republished by Rudolf Steiner Press under the title: “The Mysteries of the Holy Grail — from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation.”  The book was compiled and edited by Matthew Barton, published by Rudolf Steiner Press in 2010.

This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer). To connect to the audio/video-conference:

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There is a knighthood of the 21st century
whose riders do not ride through the darkness
of physical forests as of old,
but through the forest of darkened minds.
They are armed with a spiritual armor
and an inner sun makes them radiant.
Out of them shines healing,
healing that flows from the knowledge
of the human being as a spiritual being.
They must create inner order, inner justice,
peace and conviction in the darkness
of our time. ~Karl Konig

Agenda for this meeting (CST)
7:15 Welcome and Introductions
7:18 Verse
7:25 Study led by volunteers
Note: CRC team will ID volunteers
Mariarosa – pages 117-123b
Marianne – pages 123b-129
7:50 Conversation
8:25   ID volunteers for next meeting
8:28 Close with verse

Spring Farm Day at Zinniker’s

May 30, 2022Biography, Celestial Event, Community, History~hag

About 30 folks met over the weekend for a fabulous Farm Day at the Zinniker’s. After much chill & rain it was a glorious afternoon. We noticed a big change when we arrived because Ruby the old mean farm dog didn’t come barking. Petra said she had just recently gone into the group soul; & even though she only loved Mark & scorned the rest of us, she was sorely missed. The Zinnikers have a new 4 month old blue healer named Pepper, who has the opposite temperament, all sweetness – totally laid back for a puppy.

Many friends that I haven’t seen since the last farm day came & it was great to catch up. Amy Grau, is a wise heart-force in action. Connecting over the state of the world was affirming & brought a true Christic outlook to life for me. Angie Curtes came out from her farm in West Bend where she manages her family’s 80- acre Organic Certified farm, featuring a heat-controlled biodynamic compost system which lies at the heart of the farm, resulting in her business Grounded LLC where she grows medicinal crops for animal & human well-being, including Alfalfa-Grass Hay, Echinacea purpurea (Purple Cone Flower), & cannabidiol (CBD)-rich Industrial Cannabis Sativa Hemp. GROUNDED also sells compost & offers large & small scale compost workshops. We are going to have her come out with a truck load of compost that we can sell thru the Branch & the Christian Community as a fund raiser. There is something about Angie that lights up my heart. Every time I see her, which isn’t often enough, I feel a deep love & connection, which is rare for me.

Walter Goldstein of the Mandaamin Institute lives around the corner with his wife Benta. “Mandaamin” means Corn Spirit, in the native Algonquian language. Walter has been breeding corn in Wisconsin since 2011. This name is perfect since he uses ancient varieties of grain to enhance the quality & sustainability of modern corn crops.

To start, as folks trickled in, they found us picking the oak bark prep 505 out of the cow skulls. Oak bark is placed in the skull & left in water over winter. It helps pull the earthly forces back into the soil, when the water activity is working too strongly, like after too much rain, or at Full Moon. It also helps protect against fungal diseases. It helps the vegetation maintain its true archetypal form. It adds calcium & phosphorus into the soil in a living form. The transformed plant material was lighter in color than usual; Mark thinks it’s because it has been a dry year.

Then we made our way thru the fields to that magic spot on the land where the cow horns are buried. Many shovels gingerly dug in, to unearth the 60 or so horns. This year they had a reddish color. The 500 Horn manure prep works on root development, giving vitality to the formative forces of the plants, promoting growth. The micro-life in the soil is activated, boosting the Ego component of the plants.

Next we made a parade thru the fields to another magic spot where we buried the 503 last September – the cow intestines filled with chamomile. This prep helps retain the nitrogen & calcium in the soil. It strengthens the plant’s regenerative life. It also stimulates manganese & boron, & acts on bringing in the good bacteria for nitrogen fixation in the soil.

The march continued to the 3^rd spot where the 506 prep is buried – the mesentery (a huge the piece that joins part of the small intestine to the back wall of the abdomen of the cow) stuffed with dandelion flowers. (Petra said the only way they could get the butcher to save the mesentery for them was to call it by its culinary name ‘lace fat’. It is used especially in French cooking to wrap around a roast to let the fat in it baste the meat.) This prep stimulates the potassium & silica bacteria in the soil to enable it to work more effectively with the growth forces. Silica makes the plants more sensitive. It can help increase flowering & the filling out of the fruit. It brings nourishing qualities & also stimulates the magnesium, boron & selenium in the soil.

We took all these treasures back, & then emptied the cow horns. The kids loved tapping the horns & pulling out the rich substance. After this joyful labor we laid out the potluck feast – a little bit of everything, including, of course, Zinniker pot roast, homemade bread & fresh rhubarb crisp.

Tim Zinniker always makes the perfect bonfire. And this time instead of drums we brought the Maypole that Elizabeth & David Dorn gave us, & Elizabeth Kelly led us in a wonderful weaving Maypole dance, while Ultra-Violet & Lucien sang.

As twilight was coloring up the sky many families bid farewell. But I won’t leave until I go sing for the cows. So some of us took a hike to the back pastures where the herd was gathered for the night. This is my favorite part of being on the farm, communing with these majestic animals. As soon as they see us they come over to say hello. They especially loved when Lucien played his beautiful wood flute; they all stopped & starred. It was astonishing to observe their rapt attention & calm reverent stillness.

Pepper the new blue healer was running after the cows, barking & trying to nip a few that were curious & wanted to make friends. He played with one of the young bulls nose to nose for a long time. Mark shaking his head saying the pup has a lot to learn about herding & being a farm dog.

The twilight lingered & the painted sky was a thrilling display revealing the essence of the Ascension. What a blessing to be on that sacred land to experience this seasonal energy. We all lingered, hugging goodbye many times before we actually hit the road, making our way back to the city…

We’ll be back next week for the egg run. God Bless the Zinnikers & all the creatures big & small that they support.

xox

~hag

Here’s the link to last nights ALL REGIONS WHITSUN offering

30 May 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Tau Herculid meteor shower is expected to peak tonight & tomorrow morning. This brings to mind the labors of Hercules who is upside down in the heavens right now. Today is also New Moon stationed at the knee of Hercules.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) The Gospel of St. John, Lecture 10, THE EFFECT OF THE CHRIST IMPULSE WITHIN HUMANKIND. Lecture 11, The Christian Initiation 30 May 1908

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, The Present Age magazine, Wikipedia Commons)

Jeanne dArc by François Nicolas Chifflart

1431 – Deathday of Joan of Arc, French martyr & saint, burnt at the stake by the British under Duke of Bedford.

1593 – Deathday of Christopher Marlowe, English poet & playwright

Peter the Great (1672 - 1725) Biography - Life of a Tsar of Russia

1672 – Birthday of Peter the Great Czar of Russia. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist & medieval political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, based on The Enlightenment.

1778 – Deathday of Voltaire, French philosopher & author. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as being a former pupil of the mysteries in Karmic Relationships Vol. 2.

1806 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel

1935 – Deathday of Daniel Nicol Dunlop , a Scottish entrepreneur, founder of the World Power Conference & other associations, a theosophist-turned-anthroposophist. Thought to have been a Templar in a former life. Dunlop saw Rudolf Steiner for the first time when he was still General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, both of them expressed their intimate spiritual connection &respect for one another. Dunlop started the anthroposophical “Human Freedom Group & anthroposophical Summer Schools. In 1928 he organized the first & only World Conference on Anthroposophy & in 1929 he was elected General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain. He had a deep friendship with Eleanor Merry, who supported his work, especially after the death of his own wife, Eleanor in 1932. As a result of conflicts & power struggles within the General Anthroposophical Society, leading to its splintering in April 1935, Dunlop was expelled together with a number of other leading members. He died shortly afterwards of an appendicitis. Dunlop enlisted the help of fellow anthroposophist Walter Johannes Stein in the hope of founding a World Economic Organization, but his death prevented this.

Ludwig Graf Polzer-Hoditz - Sophia Institute

1936 – Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz resigns from the General Anthroposophical Society on the 1 year anniversary of his friend D.N. Dunlop’s death, in protest after many of his contemporizes were expelled from the Society.

1937 – Memorial Day massacre: Chicago police shoot & kill 10 labor demonstrators

1989 –The 33-foot high “Goddess of Democracy” statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Category Archives: Biography

Ecclesia

Alone Together

Holding Space

= I

Spring Farm Day at Zinniker’s

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