Greetings friends on this last Sunday in March – Today in the Heartland Father Winter is teasing & testing the tender spring things – making hardy & strong what will soon become supple in their greening. The intrepid soul of the Chicagoan knows to keep the big coat & the pair of shorts handy at all times. We know that the seasons make the human being hardy too, strengthening our faith. So even though its 22 degrees outside, with a blustery wind whipping in from the lake – we know – This is the seed time…when the chains of death are broken & life bursts forth from the earth. Each day another minute of light triumphs over the darkness. The elementals arise, & wait for us to work with them in good will. The Sun stretches out its hand to the child within us all, bidding us to return from the land of the dead, to be cloaked in the fresh rain. Enlivened with the sweet scent of aspiration on our breath, we can joyfully step forth. As the wild flowers send their pastel shoots up from the brown compost, our souls dance in delight. Our Lenten despair turns to hope, sorrow to joy, want to abundance…
If we do not spring forward, we will surly slip back. It’s time to venture out of the cave into the cold fresh possibility that exists at the change of season.
Within our own mind many detailed explanations may exist – excuses? -that keep us from moving forward. To put these parts of ourselves into perspective, we can see them in relation to the 4 basic elements…
It’s helpful to be specific about what you want to change – Choose the area of your life you want to focus on, such as relationships, health, career, clarity around direction, spiritual growth…etc…
Then begin in the East: Air – What thoughts bind you? Are you too scattered in your thinking, can’t make up your mind? Too dogmatic? Suffer from monkey mind? Inner critic on overdrive? What do you need so that you can create a positive thought pattern? What does a free mind look like?
South: Fire – What binds your will? Or are you too impulsive? Too willful, or perhaps your will is unfocused? Not able to take action? Feel fearful-unsafe? What do you need to empower your will force so you are free to take action?
West: Water – What emotions bind you? Are you too sensitive? Do you hold on to old feelings? Or are you rigid, frozen, not able to be empathic? Can’t go with the flow? How can you reclaim your creative fertility & be compassionate to yourself?
North: Earth – Does necessity bind you? Are you stuck in the mud? A perfectionist? Is nothing ever good enough? Perhaps you find it hard to complete things? What would it look like to be grounded, productive, prosperous & steadfast in your determination to create & manifest?
Perhaps this Spring season will call you to re-dedicate yourself to the 6 Basic Essential Exercises…
From Rudolf Steiner: A meditant should do these six exercises:
1. Control of Thought: Think about a simple object for at least five minutes. Hold it fast in thoughts without going over to other things. This exercise arouses a feeling of firmness in the pupil as it activates the chakra between the eyebrows. One should send this feeling through the brain and down the backbone.
2. Control of will (acting on your own initiative): Do an unimportant thing every day at a certain time. This exercise also gives firmness.
3. Develop equanimity, that is, one shouldn’t fluctuate between rejoicing to heaven and despairing to death. A joke can be enjoyed just as much if one doesn’t laugh boisterously at; one can bear a pain better if one doesn’t wallow in it too much. This gives one a feeling of quiet calm that one lets stream from the heart to the arms, and out through the hands.
4. Positivity: See the beautiful and true elements in all things. Christ Jesus admired the beautiful teeth in a rotting dog, where his disciples only saw ugliness. One can discover at least a small kernel of truth and something beautiful in everything. If one does this exercise for some time it gives one a feeling of great joy.
5. Open mindedness: Always be open to new things. One should never say: I never heard of that, that can’t be, or I don’t believe that. One should always leave the possibility open that one can learn something from everything that people say. Thereby one can learn from children, animals and everything else. This gives one the feeling that one could also perceive things while one is partly outside one’s body.
6. Inner Harmony: This exercise is a combination of the preceding ones, so that one can combine two and two or any way one wants. By doing this, one gets the feeling that one has grown beyond the limits of one’s skin.
By practicing these basic exercises we develop our soul forces of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, creating new spiritual organs of perception. May we all take up the work of transformation which will lead us into the Resurrection.
Blessings of becoming dear friends
~hag
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated with added titles by Roy Sadler Mothering Sunday in England is the 4th Sunday of Lent, the 2nd of Passiontide (not the 2nd Sunday in May as it is in the US) and in this week’s spring verse Earth’s Mother can be the spirit’s jubilating force. PASSIONTIDE 1I, Mothering Sunday The World’s Fulfilment v50 Earth’s Mother speaks… her joy of growth in every bud’s unfurling, revealing the inherent forces of her being, is speaking to the human I: In bringing into you my life released from its enchantment, I reach my true fulfilment.
The mirror verse EASTERTIDE III Foundation of the Self v3 The human spirit speaks… the growing I, in self-forgetfulness and mindful of its primal state, is speaking to the whole enwoven world: In you, releasing chains of private wants and pains, I root my inborn truth.
27 March 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: At dawn the waning crescent Moon is below Venus, Mars, and Saturn, which now form an isosceles triangle
1915 – Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States is put in quarantine for the second time, where she would remain as a prisoner for the rest of her life.
Just a little check-in today. The tide that will bring us into Convergence in Santa Fe, during Orthodox Easter, is building. Our Temple Experience into the New Mysteries, which will be at the heart, has been contracting & expanding – breathing in me – & picking up inspiration from the periphery. I had let is rest for a while, & now I am sculpting it again, touching it tenderly with fresh eyes.
It is ever clear that The Sophia, is a divine being from a high-ranking Hierarchy who becomes Anthroposophia by joining herself with the development of our human heart-thinking.
Twin of the Christos, Mother of Michael, & a vast Pleroma of wisdom beings, including the ever becoming human being, she is the source & sum total of all higher wisdom which has been predestined for humanity. She seeks to unite us again with the highest spiritual worlds from which we originated, by working within our soul forces – for she is the archetype of the human soul.
From time immemorial she has inspired the Mysteries. In the past she was only seen as thru a veil. Since the Mystery of Golgotha she is seeking to achieve a deeper connection with the human being on Earth keeping step with the descent & sacrifices of Christ.
She has made her own sacrifices. The Apocalypse of John shows the imagination in which she stands above our intensely rift epoch as ‘The Woman clothed with the Sun, the Moon under her feet, & upon her head a crown of 12 stars’. The attacks of the dragon are aimed at her. She is at the center of this cosmic war. Michael intervenes to protect her.
This divine being that has become for us Anthroposophia, seeks to arise in our many burning questions, & live in our thinking & willing. Rudolf Steiner’s very 1st ‘Leading Thought’ points to the reality of this, which can be experienced in many ways – He describes this intimately & dramatically in November 1923 at a lecture in the Hague shortly before the Christmas Conference when he says: “When we more & more through living Anthroposophical contemplation get to experiencing the contents of Anthroposophy with the heart, then it will really be for us as if living beings enter our soul. Then it appears more & more that Anthroposophy herself is a living being. And we become aware that something through Anthroposophy knocks on the door of our hearts & says: Let me in, because I am you yourself; I am your true human being.” (GA 259)
Will you be there for the unveiling?
~hag
The Anthroposophical Society in America presents: Sophia Rising: Unveiling the Wisdom of Being Human in Santa Fe, New Mexico ~ April 21-24, 2022 Hotel Santa Fe Hacienda and Spa
‘ANTHROPOSOPHIA: OUR ALCHEMICAL WEDDING’ with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg and Friends. At the heart of this convergence isa Grand Experiential Soul Journey to ‘Know Thyself’’ – A Temple Experience in the New Mysteries, built up and worked on during all the WEAVING sessions, preparing us to enter a deeply intensive initiatory experience – a ‘Movable Feast’ with various stations engaging us in group eurythmy, singing, Steiner verses, color gestures in art, and a telling of the New Isis Myth. Passing through Trials of the Soul we meet powerful Spiritual Beings on the way to our sacred marriage – a union of Warmth and Light, so that we can unveil the ‘Sophia Rising’ within ourselves, and the world.
26 March 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waning crescent Moon passes the dawn planet triangle.
1812 – Caracas earthquake took place in Venezuela on what was Maundy Thursday killing over 20,000 people. The seismic movement was so drastic that in a zone named Valecillo a new lake was formed & the river Yurubí was dammed up. Numerous rivulets changed their course in the valley of Caracas, which was flooded with dirty water. The earthquake consisted of two seismic shocks occurring within the span of 30 minutes. The first destroyed Caracas & the second Mérida, where it was raining when the shock occurred. Since the earthquake occurred on Maundy Thursday, while the Venezuelan War of Independence was raging, it was explained by royalist authorities as divine punishment for the rebellion against the Spanish Crown.
1812 – A political cartoon in the Boston Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.
1827 – Death-Day of Ludwig van Beethoven, German pianist & composer
1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.
1856 – Birthday of Fritz Lemmermayer, an Austrian writer, journalist & closest childhood friend of Rudolf Steiner in Vienna. Fritz was a passionate anti-materialist, he wanted to devote his life to the creation & maintenance of spiritual values. In 1883 he completed his novel “The Alchemist”. Rudolf Steiner met Lemmermayer again in 1886 in the circle of the poet Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. An extensive correspondence attests to the close friendship between the two (see GA 38).
Steiner says: Fritz Lemmermayer, with whom I was later on terms of intimate friendship, I came to know at one of delle Grazie’s afternoons. A highly noteworthy man. Whatever interested him he expressed with inwardly measured dignity. In his outward appearance he resembled equally the musician Rubinstein and the actor Lewinsky. With Hebbel he developed almost a cult. He had definite views on art and life born out of the sagacious understanding of the heart, and these were unusually fixed. He had written the interesting and profound romance, Der Alchemist(3), and much besides that was characterized by beauty and depth. He knew how to consider the least things in life from the view-point of the most vital. I recall how I once saw him in his charming little room in a side-street in Vienna together with other friends. He had planned his meal: two soft-boiled eggs, to be cooked in an instantaneous boiler, together with bread. He remarked with much emphasis while the water was heating to boil the eggs for us: “This will be delicious!” In a later phase of my life I shall again have occasion to speak of him ~Rudolf Steiner, The Story of My Life, Chapter VII Lemmermayer & Steiner joined the ranks of the Viennese artist circle in the house of the protestant priest Alfred Formey. In 1891 Lemmermayer was vice president of Schrifstellerbundes Iduna , named after Iduna , the Norse goddess of youth & immortality a counterweight against the currents of naturalism. Lemmermayer became a member of the Anthroposophical Society in 1920. He Steiner on many trips through Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland & England. This led to his 1929 published memories, where he spoke about Rudolf Steiner, Robert Hamerling & other personalities of the Austrian intellectual life of the 80s. In addition, Lemmermayer published in the weekly ” Das Goetheanum “.
1874 – Birthday of Robert Frost, American poet & playwright
1892 – Deathday of Walt Whitman
1902 – Deathday of Cecil Rhodes – British imperialist & mining magnate
1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin & Jimmy Carter (I love you JC) sign the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~from my own body I give birth to all time. look now with new eyes & stir the season within… ~hag
Tune in to our Zoom broadcasts, brief presentations of aspects of this course, with lots of time for Q&A. Intended to total 20 minutes in length. These are given on different days so you might find one that would work best for you. Each of these brief sessions will be different!
March 28, Monday, 9 AM Mtn. (morning)
Star Wisdom comes alive through active embodiment within each participant, made possible by working together in the instrument of the StarHouse—or within your sacred imagination in your own home. This immersion facilitates each participant forming conscious relationships with zodiacal and planetary beings.
Join us for an exploration, based on spiritual science and star wisdom, into the following themes:
This course, to train practitioners in Star Wisdom will take place in the StarHouse June 2022. It is designed to train beginners who are willing to ride a steep learning-curve, and long-time astrologers.
Our teaching weaves experiential activities (embodiment) and conceptual learning so you learn it more thoroughly.
On-line too: The course will also be on-line (live-streamed, interactive). A manager on our end will coordinate actively with those attending via Zoom, including relaying questions to the presenters for comment. (We plan that the event will be filmed and edited, and parts of it made available as a course through our website.)
Our approach to astrology is informed and inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s indications found sprinkled throughout his six thousand lectures, as it has been developed by a small group of astrosophers over several decades. This deeper understanding of, and interaction with, the heavens is based on:
A sidereal (star-based) view of the heavens, emphasizing the active and dynamic role of the beings working from stars and constellations
Equal length zodiacal signs (relating to the lineage of Zarathustra), equal houses, and recognizing the Earth’s role and significance to the birth chart
Anthroposophy (thus called astrosophy, with its particular guidance for understanding the beings indwelling the zodiacal and planets)
Identifying and working with spiritual themes in our lives in a way made practical by the research of Robert Powell, and the indications of cosmic Christianity, as understood through Anthroposophy.
And other features that we will teach.
Some topics that we will cover:
New and traditional methods for interpreting a birth chart
Zodiacal constellations in the birth chart
Understanding the meaning in the patterns of the moving planets
Planetary aspects in the birth chart
The important role of the twelve equal houses, in the birth chart
How transiting planets interplay in the time-stream of life, presenting challenges and opportunities
Determining the time of conception and its own chart
The care necessary to regard the information of a person’s sacred birth moment with reverence and understanding
The importance of understanding reincarnation and karma for human development
The journey between death and rebirth, and why that is important for human destiny
Human Life phases: the 7-year periods of our life biography and the relation of those periods to the planetary spheres
The role of self-development for a practitioner of New Astrology
Commitment: This intensive requires participation in five-plus full days.
Dates: Begin Thursday evening, June 23, 2022, 7 PM, through midday Tuesday June 28. On June 24-27, we will go from 9 AM to 5 PM. Evenings are for homework, integration, and optional study groups. Lunches will be provided, including the last day, Tuesday.
Limits: Enrollment will be limited to 24 in-person participants and others will participate on-line. In-person will go through an application process. More important than years practicing astrology is your motivation to learn. Our present on-line courses (New Astrology, series 1 and series 2) will be made available to all registered participants and can provide a strong foundation to a motivated person with little experience. After application for In-person participants, one of our team will arrange a phone call to interview you.
Scholarship program: We plan to have a scholarship program to which those of means can contribute. Please consider contributing to this fund to support others taking this course.
Costs: Cost of on-site/in-person for the whole course $1100. On-line (live-streaming) $800. A deposit will hold your place.
Meals and Snacks: Lunches provided every day including Tuesday (just after the end of the course). Dietary restrictions are queried on the application. Snacks and tea are provided mid-morning and mid-afternoon every day.
Lodging: You will need to find your own lodging and transport. Some lodging is available in nearby residences, and the Retreat Cabin near the StarHouse. These can fill up quickly, so please make your request soon. Other lodgings nearby are the Boulder Adventure Lodge (a-lodge.com), which fills up in summertime quickly. More information will be sent after registration.
The Holy Grail Study Group with the CRC Mysteries of the Holy Grail – from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation April 6, 2022 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern)
“The pupils of the Grail were told of a state which humans would attain in future. Possessed of clear, alert consciousness, their being would be purified, the substance of the human body would become as pure and chaste as that of the plant, and their organs of reproduction transformed.”~ from Chapter 12 Rudolf Steiner, The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Chapter 12“The Higher Calyx” and Chapter 13“The Resonant Chalice,” excerpts from Steiner’s lectures given at Nuremberg on 2 December 1907 (GA 92) and Stuttgart 16 September 1907 (GA 101) … will be the focus of the April 6 meeting.
Chapters 12 and 13 in the book can be found online at the CRC’s website by clicking this link A transcript of the 2 December 1907 lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link A transcript of the 16 September, 1907 lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link * Please considergiving 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 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:
Meeting ID: 882 1050 5106 One tap mobile +13017158592,,81116556762# US (Germantown) +13126266799,,81116556762# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
7:15 Welcome and Introductions 7:18 Verse 7:25 Study led by volunteers Note: CRC team will ID volunteers Michael – Chapter 12 Tom – Chapter 13 7:50 Conversation 8:25 ID volunteers for next meeting 8:28 Close with verse
The Anthroposophical Society in America presents: Sophia Rising: Unveiling the Wisdom of Being Human in Santa Fe, New Mexico ~ April 21-24, 2022 Hotel Santa Fe Hacienda and Spa
Join us in New Mexico, the ‘land of enchantment’, resonant with light ether and deep history, as we enliven Sophia. Join together in community as Sophia emerges and rises in her many facets and expressions- past, present, and future.
Come and experience Sophia Rising as we honor the elements, the landscape, and each other.
VENUE & TRAVEL
Our gathering will take place at the lovely Native American-owned Hotel Santa Fe. We recommend you book your stay with the hotel to create a connected communal atmosphere for our gathering. The hotel has a full restaurant, pool, hot tub, and spa, as well as kivas and cozy sitting areas. Please call or email to make reservations with our special room rate for suites at $179/night. Each suite includes a refrigerator, microwave and sitting area. So much of what Santa Fe has to offer is within walking distance from the hotel.
**Ask for ASA Gathering to book with our special rate of $179/night for a suite. **
Registrants will receive suggested activities from our local organizers to explore in Santa Fe before or after our gathering. Extending your stay? The special ASA hotel rate is available for 3 days prior to and 3 days after the ASA gathering.
HOTEL and VENUE ADDRESS: 1501 Paseo de Peralta Santa Fe, NM 87501 Phone: (877) 259-3409
TICKETS The ticket price includes access to all conference activities, snacks, coffee/tea and beverages, dessert reception Thursday, dinner Friday, lunch Saturday and brunch on Sunday.
Early Bird Only with Room Booking – After 2/26 more tickets will be released!
SCHEDULE (subject to minor changes)
THURSDAY, April 21
7 pm Gathering Together – with a dessert reception
7:30- 8:30 pm ArtActs: Past – Present – Future Eurythmy, and Singing,
FRIDAY, April 22
Explore Santa Fe on your own and continued arrivals
1:00 – 2:30 pm Welcome: Spirit of Placewith organizers
WEAVING EARTH Opening Ceremony with Angela Foster and friends
2:30pm-3:00pm Break
3:00-4:30 pm Encountering the Celestial Goddess Anthroposophia with Mary Stewart Adams
HeartMath with Michele Mariscal
4:30-4:45 pm Break
4:45- 6:00 pm WEAVING AIR ArtActs Eurythmy, Singing, and Speech
6:00-7:30 pm Dinner Together*
7:30 pm Fireside Chats – Story and Sharing – Breakout circles led by friends and organizers 8:30 pm
Stargazing with Mary Stewart Adams
SATURDAY, April 23
Breakfast – On your own
8:30 – 9:30 am WEAVING ETHER Eurythmy
9:30 – 10:00 am Break
10:00 -11:15 am The Virgin of Guadalupe: Sophia Rising in the Americaswith Stephanie Georgieff – The Virgin of Guadalupe is one of the first recorded apparitions in the Americas. Revealing herself to a Nahuatl Native and ultimately to the Bishop of New Spain and his entourage in December of 1531, this image has continued to inspire countless souls for nearly 500 years. The symbolism and timing of her appearance presents deep mysteries for our age, and points to the ultimate Sophianic impulse for the present and future of Humanity.
11:30 – 12:30 pm WEAVING STORIES Biography Work
12:30 – 2:00 pm Lunch Together*
2:00 – 4:00 pm ‘ANTHROPOSOPHIA: OUR ALCHEMICAL WEDDING’ with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg and Friends. At the heart of this convergence isa Grand Experiential Soul Journey to ‘Know Thyself’’ – A Temple Experience in the New Mysteries, built up and worked on during all the WEAVING sessions, preparing us to enter a deeply intensive initiatory experience – a ‘Movable Feast’ with various stations engaging us in group eurythmy, singing, Steiner verses, color gestures in art, and a telling of the New Isis Myth. Passing through Trials of the Soul we meet powerful Spiritual Beings on the way to our sacred marriage – a union of Warmth and Light, so that we can unveil the ‘Sophia Rising’ within ourselves, and the world.
4:00 – 4:30 pm Break
4:30 – 5:30 pm WEAVING COLOR Invoking Natura: Sensing the Cosmic within the Earthly Pastels with Helen-Ann Ireland
8:00-9:30 pm WEAVING COMMUNITYSophia Rising- Past, Present, and FutureMC’d by Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer. Sign up to bring something to share! Poetry, Instruments, Story
SUNDAY, April 24
8:00 – 9:00 am WEAVING LIGHT Bathe in the Natural Warmth and Harmony of the Metal Gold with Helena Hurrell – A metal color light therapy experience inspired by the glass windows at the Goetheanum
9:00-10:30 am WEAVING FIRE with Carrie Schuchardt HeartMath with Michele Mariscal
10:30 – 12:00pm Brunch Together*
12:00-1:00 pm WEAVING WATERWater Ritual with Joyce Reilly and Friends WEAVING WHOLENESSClosing with Angela Foster and Friends
Notes: *Meals marked with an asterisk are included in the price of the ticket – Coffee, tea, and snacks will also be provided through the conference
A quiet ‘Sanctuary Room’ will be provided for contemplation
PRESENTERS AND GUIDES (Not a full list-more to come!)
Mary Stewart Adams is a Star Lore Historian, and host of the weekly public radio program and podcast “The Storyteller’s Night Sky”. Through her research in spiritual science and her education in literary arts, Mary has developed a unique, humanities-based approach to understanding our relationship with the stars. Her work is further augmented by an extensive knowledge of ancient mythologies and fairy tales, which she relates to the research and ideas of contemporary astronomy in order to understand the new star wisdom of astrosophy.
Eyahnna DalBo (artist of the Sophia Rising painting) came to anthroposophy 30 years ago when her daughter attended a Waldorf school. Her studies have included an undergraduate degree in fine art and graduate work in psychology using the arts for healing. In her private practice, she developed various energetic modalities. Her experience with subtle energy fields gave her the opportunity to teach and take part in designing a curriculum for a 2-year program focusing on energy healing. As a consultant, she initiated numerous therapeutic programs to assist in pioneering the field of art therapy. Through the gift of an apprenticeship with indigenous people she was able to bring their practices and ceremonies to what she offered deepening her ability to be of service. As an artist, she continues to utilize the spoken word, movement, sound, and visual imagery to honor and create a field that fosters awareness, growth, and transformation.
Angela Foster has been an active student of anthroposophy since 2008. After growing up in Texas, Angela is now embracing life in Atlanta, Georgia as an artist, teacher, and mom of two daughters, shepherd to two mini sheep. As a conscious practitioner of “beginner’s mind”, Angela has completed programs in foundation studies in Anthroposophy numerous times and is currently enrolled in Foundation Studies in Goethean Science through the Nature Institute. She and her husband manage the Anthroposophical Resource Center (ARC) an initiative in Decatur, Georgia that offers space for community events and serves as a little house for Anthroposophia.
Stephanie Georgieff, MS is an author, podcaster and pilgrim. Residing mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, she has written several books on The Divine Feminine as presented through the genre of The Black Madonna, The Virgin of Guadalupe and The Divine Sophia. She has spoken at conferences and venues throughout North America, the United Kingdom and Europe. The Black Madonna Speaks is her latest endeavor, a weekly podcast exploring the mysteries of The Black Madonna from an Anthroposophical and Esoteric Chritian perspective, along with artists, poets, authors and scholars on the subject.
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual: Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year & the ‘I Think Speech’ Podcast. Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Anthroposopher – working as the Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, & as the Central Regional Council representative on the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America. Past Video Recordings.
Helena Hurrell joyfully met Anthroposophy in San Fransisco in 1977 and has been working with individuals and groups as a Waldorf educator since 1981 and then throughout her life trained to become a therapist while living in Australia, the UK and North America. She is currently in private practice in Colorado blending the therapeutic work she offers through her love of color ~ as an Art and Metal Color Light Glass Therapist trained in the UK and Germany. Both of these trainings are certified by the Medical Section at the Goetheanum. Metal Color Light Therapy is a relatively new initiative originated by the late Marianne Altmaier who developed this therapy and training out of her deep interest in and knowledge of the Goetheanum windows in Dornach. Helena’s website: www.helioscenter.org
Helen-Ann Ireland has been involved in anthroposophical studies for over 30 years as a Waldorf teacher, member of the School for Spiritual Science, Class holder, and now as chair of the Anthroposophical Society of America. A special interest has been in the area of the Divine Feminine and the Being of Sophia.
Michele Mariscal has 30 years of experience in the health and wellness field. She is a skilled facilitator in soft skills, speaker, coach and author. She is an Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist as well as a Trainer and Coach with the Institute of HeartMath. She facilitates greater heart-based living for individuals and organizations Michele is also a five-time author with her most recent publication of Growing Through Grief – The Alchemy of Healing from Loss.
Joyce Reilly Joyce studied psychology in college and was fascinated by the idea of a therapeutic community. She has worked in Camphill for many years, and is trained as a Waldorf and Therapeutic teacher. She founded Gheel House, a therapeutic community near Kimberton Pennsylvania, still thriving after 37 years. Joyce’s interests expanded to international conflict work and refugee resettlement. She works with organizations such as the Janusz Korczak Association, Karuna Peacebuilders, Kiwimbi International, Good Grief, the Worldwide Storytelling and Puppetry Association, and especially with the New York Anthroposophical Branch, and also works part-time at the local public library. Joyce is also trained in Psychosynthesis therapy and Anthroposophical psychology – currently practicing as a life coach and counselor.
Carrie Schuchardt co-founded The House of Peace in 1990, a home that is a physical and spiritual refuge for victims of war in a community with adults with special needs. In the last 15 years over 400 refugees from approximately 30 countries have been received in the healing embrace of The House of Peace, giving supportive assistance in establishing themselves in the US. In addition to the daily work of The House Peace, Carrie participates in many activities for the conversion of consciousness and policies from war to peace. Carrie has begun a network of women who witness publicly, Women Weeping, where women dress in mourning carrying symbolic lifeless children in order to help people feel what is rarely expressed in the media: the grief of hundreds of thousands of mothers in war zones around the world who lose their children to the terrible violence of war.
Maria Ver Eecke is presently the therapeutic eurythmist for the School of Eurythmy, Spring Valley, NY. She taught eurythmy for forty years in Waldorf schools, a charter school, and a home-school program. Maria met anthroposophy in Maseru, Lesotho, when she was a class teacher in an English-medium preparatory school. Currently she is the editor of the newsletters for the Eurythmy Association of North America and the Association of Therapeutic Eurythmy in North America.
~Air & Earth are my horizons Water & Warmth a flowing form – My in-between. O trembling star in the bright memory of morning Am I just a grain of sand blowing East to West? NO! The world is more than bright metal. On my lips live The promise of ripening wheat & prayers of peace… ~hag
806 – The death-day of Harun al Raschid. Interesting that Rudolf Steiner speaks about this individuality in the Young Doctors Easter Course: Lecture IV, which Steiner gave at the time of the Easter Paradox in 1924.
“…But now just think of the Court of Harun al Raschid, where ancient medicine flourished. The Old Mystery Wisdom, still preserved in tradition, was living in the existing knowledge concerning the being of man. There were two men at that court: Harun al Raschid himself, the organizer of the great academy of spiritual life which grew and developed under his influence; and another, who in earlier times had been an initiate. In the days of Harun al Raschid the initiation did not come to the surface.
Harun al Raschid reincarnated as Lord Bacon of Verulam (1561–1626) and with his kind of thinking which was thoroughly steeped in Arabism, he renewed the natural-scientific thinking, from the West. Such was the path he took in his life between death and rebirth. If you would study Lord Bacon you would find how greatly medicine was influenced thereby. Indeed you would be amazed. The other man, the initiate, was reborn in the soul of Amos Comenius (1592–1670). Comenius’ life was one of aspiration towards the spirit, but he turned everything into intellectual conceptions.
Again, another personality in Arabism — he did not live at exactly the same time as Harun al Raschid, but he played a part in the battle of Zeres de la Frontera — was reborn as Charles Darwin (1809–1882). And so the influences that are working in natural science and especially in medicine, are re-embodiments of ancient conceptions from which Christianity was excluded. Such conceptions did not constitute an evolution of Christianity, but Christianity was excluded as Arabism embraced Europe in its fold. Medicine itself was most of all affected in this sense.”
1830 – Birthday of Robert Hamerling – an Austrian poet and writer . He was one of the most widely read German-speaking authors of his time. His main works include the epic Ahasuerus in Rome (1865), which first made him known to a wide readership, and The King of Sion (1869).
From Rudolf Steiner in: THE PRESENCE OF THE DEAD, GA 154, Appendix II. Robert Hammerling: Poet and Thinker, 26 April 1914, Berlin
“Hamerling’s life and personality are an example of a soul growing out of and beyond its environment, and of an individuality’s development. He was the son of a poor weaver. Since they were completely impoverished, his parents were evicted from their home at a time when Hamerling was not yet capable of even saying “I.” His father was forced to go abroad while his mother remained in the Waldviertel area, in Schonau, with the young boy. There the child experienced the beauties of the Waldviertel region. A scene from that time remained always in his memory of an experience he believed actually gave him his own being. The seven-year-old boy was going down a hill. It was evening, and the sun was setting in the west. Something came toward him, golden, out of the golden sunshine, and Hamerling describes what was shining forth in the golden light as follows:
Among the most significant memories of my boyhood, but also most difficult to convey, are the often strange moods that passed through my soul when I was a roaming boy. In part they came from the moment’s lively impressions and stimulation, usually from nature around me, in part they were waking dreams and premonitions. Speaking about himself, the mystic Jakob Böhme used to say that the higher meaning, the mystical life of the spirit was awakened in him miraculously at the moment when he was dreamily absorbed in gazing at a pewter bowl sparkling in the sunlight. 8 Perhaps every spiritual person has a pewter bowl like Böhme’s as the origin of his real inner awakening. I vividly recall a certain evening when I was about seven years old. I was going down a hill, and the sunset shone toward me like a miracle, a spiritual vision. It filled my heart with an unforgettably strange mood, with a presentiment that today seems to me like a calling, reflecting my future destiny. In high spirits, I hurried toward an unknown destination; yet, at the same time my soul was filled with a melancholy that made me want to cry. If that moment could have been explained out of the surrounding circumstances, if it had not been so completely unique, it would surely not have remained so indelibly in my memory.
Thus, in the poet’s seventh year the poetic and spiritual muse drew near. At that time, the seed for everything that was later to become of this soul was laid into it from out of the cosmos, so to speak. The nice thing is that Hamerling ascribes his poetic calling to such an event, as if it were a miracle the cosmos itself performed on him.
Because of his parents’ poverty, the boy had to be educated at the Cistercian monastery of Zwettl. 10 In return for his school lessons, he had to sing in the monastery choir. At that time, Hamerling was between ten and fourteen years old. He formed a close relationship to a strange personality at the monastery, namely, Father Hugo Traumihler, a person completely given over to mystical contemplation and a strict ascetic life. At that time the boy already possessed a thirst for the beauty of the cosmos and an urge to deepen his soul. You can imagine that he was inspired by the inner experiences Father Traumihler described from his inner contemplation of the secrets of the heart and soul. He was a mystic of a very elementary, primitive kind who nevertheless made a deep impression on Hamerling’s soul.
But it is impossible to talk about the poet Hamerling without mentioning what was such a great part of his longing: the longing to be a great human being.”
Catt Landa
1905 – Deathday of Jules Verne – prolific French author whose writings laid much of the foundation of modern science fiction. (a fav. of mine growing up)
Tune in to our Zoom broadcasts, brief presentations of aspects of this course, with lots of time for Q&A. Intended to total 20 minutes in length. These are given on different days so you might find one that would work best for you. Each of these brief sessions will be different!
March 28, Monday, 9 AM Mtn. (morning)
Star Wisdom comes alive through active embodiment within each participant, made possible by working together in the instrument of the StarHouse—or within your sacred imagination in your own home. This immersion facilitates each participant forming conscious relationships with zodiacal and planetary beings.
Join us for an exploration, based on spiritual science and star wisdom, into the following themes:
This course, to train practitioners in Star Wisdom will take place in the StarHouse June 2022. It is designed to train beginners who are willing to ride a steep learning-curve, and long-time astrologers.
Our teaching weaves experiential activities (embodiment) and conceptual learning so you learn it more thoroughly.
On-line too: The course will also be on-line (live-streamed, interactive). A manager on our end will coordinate actively with those attending via Zoom, including relaying questions to the presenters for comment. (We plan that the event will be filmed and edited, and parts of it made available as a course through our website.)
Our approach to astrology is informed and inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s indications found sprinkled throughout his six thousand lectures, as it has been developed by a small group of astrosophers over several decades. This deeper understanding of, and interaction with, the heavens is based on:
A sidereal (star-based) view of the heavens, emphasizing the active and dynamic role of the beings working from stars and constellations
Equal length zodiacal signs (relating to the lineage of Zarathustra), equal houses, and recognizing the Earth’s role and significance to the birth chart
Anthroposophy (thus called astrosophy, with its particular guidance for understanding the beings indwelling the zodiacal and planets)
Identifying and working with spiritual themes in our lives in a way made practical by the research of Robert Powell, and the indications of cosmic Christianity, as understood through Anthroposophy.
And other features that we will teach.
Some topics that we will cover:
New and traditional methods for interpreting a birth chart
Zodiacal constellations in the birth chart
Understanding the meaning in the patterns of the moving planets
Planetary aspects in the birth chart
The important role of the twelve equal houses, in the birth chart
How transiting planets interplay in the time-stream of life, presenting challenges and opportunities
Determining the time of conception and its own chart
The care necessary to regard the information of a person’s sacred birth moment with reverence and understanding
The importance of understanding reincarnation and karma for human development
The journey between death and rebirth, and why that is important for human destiny
Human Life phases: the 7-year periods of our life biography and the relation of those periods to the planetary spheres
The role of self-development for a practitioner of New Astrology
Commitment: This intensive requires participation in five-plus full days.
Dates: Begin Thursday evening, June 23, 2022, 7 PM, through midday Tuesday June 28. On June 24-27, we will go from 9 AM to 5 PM. Evenings are for homework, integration, and optional study groups. Lunches will be provided, including the last day, Tuesday.
Limits: Enrollment will be limited to 24 in-person participants and others will participate on-line. In-person will go through an application process. More important than years practicing astrology is your motivation to learn. Our present on-line courses (New Astrology, series 1 and series 2) will be made available to all registered participants and can provide a strong foundation to a motivated person with little experience. After application for In-person participants, one of our team will arrange a phone call to interview you.
Scholarship program: We plan to have a scholarship program to which those of means can contribute. Please consider contributing to this fund to support others taking this course.
Costs: Cost of on-site/in-person for the whole course $1100. On-line (live-streaming) $800. A deposit will hold your place.
Meals and Snacks: Lunches provided every day including Tuesday (just after the end of the course). Dietary restrictions are queried on the application. Snacks and tea are provided mid-morning and mid-afternoon every day.
Lodging: You will need to find your own lodging and transport. Some lodging is available in nearby residences, and the Retreat Cabin near the StarHouse. These can fill up quickly, so please make your request soon. Other lodgings nearby are the Boulder Adventure Lodge (a-lodge.com), which fills up in summertime quickly. More information will be sent after registration.
The Holy Grail Study Group with the CRC Mysteries of the Holy Grail – from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation April 6, 2022 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern)
“The pupils of the Grail were told of a state which humans would attain in future. Possessed of clear, alert consciousness, their being would be purified, the substance of the human body would become as pure and chaste as that of the plant, and their organs of reproduction transformed.”~ from Chapter 12 Rudolf Steiner, The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Chapter 12“The Higher Calyx” and Chapter 13“The Resonant Chalice,” excerpts from Steiner’s lectures given at Nuremberg on 2 December 1907 (GA 92) and Stuttgart 16 September 1907 (GA 101) … will be the focus of the April 6 meeting.
Chapters 12 and 13 in the book can be found online at the CRC’s website by clicking this link A transcript of the 2 December 1907 lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link A transcript of the 16 September, 1907 lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link * Please considergiving 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 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:
Meeting ID: 882 1050 5106 One tap mobile +13017158592,,81116556762# US (Germantown) +13126266799,,81116556762# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
7:15 Welcome and Introductions 7:18 Verse 7:25 Study led by volunteers Note: CRC team will ID volunteers Michael – Chapter 12 Tom – Chapter 13 7:50 Conversation 8:25 ID volunteers for next meeting 8:28 Close with verse
The Anthroposophical Society in America presents: Sophia Rising: Unveiling the Wisdom of Being Human in Santa Fe, New Mexico ~ April 21-24, 2022 Hotel Santa Fe Hacienda and Spa
Join us in New Mexico, the ‘land of enchantment’, resonant with light ether and deep history, as we enliven Sophia. Join together in community as Sophia emerges and rises in her many facets and expressions- past, present, and future.
Come and experience Sophia Rising as we honor the elements, the landscape, and each other.
VENUE & TRAVEL
Our gathering will take place at the lovely Native American-owned Hotel Santa Fe. We recommend you book your stay with the hotel to create a connected communal atmosphere for our gathering. The hotel has a full restaurant, pool, hot tub, and spa, as well as kivas and cozy sitting areas. Please call or email to make reservations with our special room rate for suites at $179/night. Each suite includes a refrigerator, microwave and sitting area. So much of what Santa Fe has to offer is within walking distance from the hotel.
**Ask for ASA Gathering to book with our special rate of $179/night for a suite. **
Registrants will receive suggested activities from our local organizers to explore in Santa Fe before or after our gathering. Extending your stay? The special ASA hotel rate is available for 3 days prior to and 3 days after the ASA gathering.
HOTEL and VENUE ADDRESS: 1501 Paseo de Peralta Santa Fe, NM 87501 Phone: (877) 259-3409
TICKETS The ticket price includes access to all conference activities, snacks, coffee/tea and beverages, dessert reception Thursday, dinner Friday, lunch Saturday and brunch on Sunday.
Early Bird Only with Room Booking – After 2/26 more tickets will be released!
SCHEDULE (subject to minor changes)
THURSDAY, April 21
7 pm Gathering Together – with a dessert reception
7:30- 8:30 pm ArtActs: Past – Present – Future Eurythmy, and Singing,
FRIDAY, April 22
Explore Santa Fe on your own and continued arrivals
1:00 – 2:30 pm Welcome: Spirit of Placewith organizers
WEAVING EARTH Opening Ceremony with Angela Foster and friends
2:30pm-3:00pm Break
3:00-4:30 pm Encountering the Celestial Goddess Anthroposophia with Mary Stewart Adams
HeartMath with Michele Mariscal
4:30-4:45 pm Break
4:45- 6:00 pm WEAVING AIR ArtActs Eurythmy, Singing, and Speech
6:00-7:30 pm Dinner Together*
7:30 pm Fireside Chats – Story and Sharing – Breakout circles led by friends and organizers 8:30 pm
Stargazing with Mary Stewart Adams
SATURDAY, April 23
Breakfast – On your own
8:30 – 9:30 am WEAVING ETHER Eurythmy
9:30 – 10:00 am Break
10:00 -11:15 am The Virgin of Guadalupe: Sophia Rising in the Americaswith Stephanie Georgieff – The Virgin of Guadalupe is one of the first recorded apparitions in the Americas. Revealing herself to a Nahuatl Native and ultimately to the Bishop of New Spain and his entourage in December of 1531, this image has continued to inspire countless souls for nearly 500 years. The symbolism and timing of her appearance presents deep mysteries for our age, and points to the ultimate Sophianic impulse for the present and future of Humanity.
11:30 – 12:30 pm WEAVING STORIES Biography Work
12:30 – 2:00 pm Lunch Together*
2:00 – 4:00 pm ‘ANTHROPOSOPHIA: OUR ALCHEMICAL WEDDING’ with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg and Friends. At the heart of this convergence isa Grand Experiential Soul Journey to ‘Know Thyself’’ – A Temple Experience in the New Mysteries, built up and worked on during all the WEAVING sessions, preparing us to enter a deeply intensive initiatory experience – a ‘Movable Feast’ with various stations engaging us in group eurythmy, singing, Steiner verses, color gestures in art, and a telling of the New Isis Myth. Passing through Trials of the Soul we meet powerful Spiritual Beings on the way to our sacred marriage – a union of Warmth and Light, so that we can unveil the ‘Sophia Rising’ within ourselves, and the world.
4:00 – 4:30 pm Break
4:30 – 5:30 pm WEAVING COLOR Invoking Natura: Sensing the Cosmic within the Earthly Pastels with Helen-Ann Ireland
8:00-9:30 pm WEAVING COMMUNITYSophia Rising- Past, Present, and FutureMC’d by Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer. Sign up to bring something to share! Poetry, Instruments, Story
SUNDAY, April 24
8:00 – 9:00 am WEAVING LIGHT Bathe in the Natural Warmth and Harmony of the Metal Gold with Helena Hurrell – A metal color light therapy experience inspired by the glass windows at the Goetheanum
9:00-10:30 am WEAVING FIRE with Carrie Schuchardt HeartMath with Michele Mariscal
10:30 – 12:00pm Brunch Together*
12:00-1:00 pm WEAVING WATERWater Ritual with Joyce Reilly and Friends WEAVING WHOLENESSClosing with Angela Foster and Friends
Notes: *Meals marked with an asterisk are included in the price of the ticket – Coffee, tea, and snacks will also be provided through the conference
A quiet ‘Sanctuary Room’ will be provided for contemplation
PRESENTERS AND GUIDES (Not a full list-more to come!)
Mary Stewart Adams is a Star Lore Historian, and host of the weekly public radio program and podcast “The Storyteller’s Night Sky”. Through her research in spiritual science and her education in literary arts, Mary has developed a unique, humanities-based approach to understanding our relationship with the stars. Her work is further augmented by an extensive knowledge of ancient mythologies and fairy tales, which she relates to the research and ideas of contemporary astronomy in order to understand the new star wisdom of astrosophy.
Eyahnna DalBo (artist of the Sophia Rising painting) came to anthroposophy 30 years ago when her daughter attended a Waldorf school. Her studies have included an undergraduate degree in fine art and graduate work in psychology using the arts for healing. In her private practice, she developed various energetic modalities. Her experience with subtle energy fields gave her the opportunity to teach and take part in designing a curriculum for a 2-year program focusing on energy healing. As a consultant, she initiated numerous therapeutic programs to assist in pioneering the field of art therapy. Through the gift of an apprenticeship with indigenous people she was able to bring their practices and ceremonies to what she offered deepening her ability to be of service. As an artist, she continues to utilize the spoken word, movement, sound, and visual imagery to honor and create a field that fosters awareness, growth, and transformation.
Angela Foster has been an active student of anthroposophy since 2008. After growing up in Texas, Angela is now embracing life in Atlanta, Georgia as an artist, teacher, and mom of two daughters, shepherd to two mini sheep. As a conscious practitioner of “beginner’s mind”, Angela has completed programs in foundation studies in Anthroposophy numerous times and is currently enrolled in Foundation Studies in Goethean Science through the Nature Institute. She and her husband manage the Anthroposophical Resource Center (ARC) an initiative in Decatur, Georgia that offers space for community events and serves as a little house for Anthroposophia.
Stephanie Georgieff, MS is an author, podcaster and pilgrim. Residing mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, she has written several books on The Divine Feminine as presented through the genre of The Black Madonna, The Virgin of Guadalupe and The Divine Sophia. She has spoken at conferences and venues throughout North America, the United Kingdom and Europe. The Black Madonna Speaks is her latest endeavor, a weekly podcast exploring the mysteries of The Black Madonna from an Anthroposophical and Esoteric Chritian perspective, along with artists, poets, authors and scholars on the subject.
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual: Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year & the ‘I Think Speech’ Podcast. Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Anthroposopher – working as the Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, & as the Central Regional Council representative on the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America. Past Video Recordings.
Helena Hurrell joyfully met Anthroposophy in San Fransisco in 1977 and has been working with individuals and groups as a Waldorf educator since 1981 and then throughout her life trained to become a therapist while living in Australia, the UK and North America. She is currently in private practice in Colorado blending the therapeutic work she offers through her love of color ~ as an Art and Metal Color Light Glass Therapist trained in the UK and Germany. Both of these trainings are certified by the Medical Section at the Goetheanum. Metal Color Light Therapy is a relatively new initiative originated by the late Marianne Altmaier who developed this therapy and training out of her deep interest in and knowledge of the Goetheanum windows in Dornach. Helena’s website: www.helioscenter.org
Helen-Ann Ireland has been involved in anthroposophical studies for over 30 years as a Waldorf teacher, member of the School for Spiritual Science, Class holder, and now as chair of the Anthroposophical Society of America. A special interest has been in the area of the Divine Feminine and the Being of Sophia.
Michele Mariscal has 30 years of experience in the health and wellness field. She is a skilled facilitator in soft skills, speaker, coach and author. She is an Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist as well as a Trainer and Coach with the Institute of HeartMath. She facilitates greater heart-based living for individuals and organizations Michele is also a five-time author with her most recent publication of Growing Through Grief – The Alchemy of Healing from Loss.
Joyce Reilly Joyce studied psychology in college and was fascinated by the idea of a therapeutic community. She has worked in Camphill for many years, and is trained as a Waldorf and Therapeutic teacher. She founded Gheel House, a therapeutic community near Kimberton Pennsylvania, still thriving after 37 years. Joyce’s interests expanded to international conflict work and refugee resettlement. She works with organizations such as the Janusz Korczak Association, Karuna Peacebuilders, Kiwimbi International, Good Grief, the Worldwide Storytelling and Puppetry Association, and especially with the New York Anthroposophical Branch, and also works part-time at the local public library. Joyce is also trained in Psychosynthesis therapy and Anthroposophical psychology – currently practicing as a life coach and counselor.
Carrie Schuchardt co-founded The House of Peace in 1990, a home that is a physical and spiritual refuge for victims of war in a community with adults with special needs. In the last 15 years over 400 refugees from approximately 30 countries have been received in the healing embrace of The House of Peace, giving supportive assistance in establishing themselves in the US. In addition to the daily work of The House Peace, Carrie participates in many activities for the conversion of consciousness and policies from war to peace. Carrie has begun a network of women who witness publicly, Women Weeping, where women dress in mourning carrying symbolic lifeless children in order to help people feel what is rarely expressed in the media: the grief of hundreds of thousands of mothers in war zones around the world who lose their children to the terrible violence of war.
Maria Ver Eecke is presently the therapeutic eurythmist for the School of Eurythmy, Spring Valley, NY. She taught eurythmy for forty years in Waldorf schools, a charter school, and a home-school program. Maria met anthroposophy in Maseru, Lesotho, when she was a class teacher in an English-medium preparatory school. Currently she is the editor of the newsletters for the Eurythmy Association of North America and the Association of Therapeutic Eurythmy in North America.
One of my beloved ‘practice buddies’ & I had a check-in with the need to express the anxiety that is living in the world & in us – which feels like an attack on our soul forces. We placed the Time Spirit Michael in a leminscate between us – activating the sword of discernment – & picturing his shield as a ribcage around our heart.
The eurythmy gesture for the constellation of Cancer, which houses the Bee Hive Cluster & rules the ribcage, came to heart & mind.
Remembering that we are in the Season of Lent, we handed over everything that was too overwhelming to carry, into the arms of Mother Mary, in an imagination that these ongoing astral attacks can & must be transformed, passing from Her hands into the Sacred Heart of Christ, transformed by the Holy Spirit, & held by the “Father Ground of the World” as a healing impulse in “Depths of Worlds Begetting Life”.
Then later, at 2nd breakfast, with my husband – another dear practice buddy, we talked about how the adversarial powers are working really hard. They are highly intelligent, & have a systematic, long term plan.
So what about us? What is our plan?
Of course on a personal level we know we need to work on our own individual inner development thru the basic essential exercises etc…But what about the Anthroposophical Society as a world-wide movement? Can we, will we, as an association of members, create some sort of Michaelic plan of action?
It’s great that many of us are stepping up our Eurythmy & Meditation practice, offering these up to the world. And, yes, we are really good at “Spirit-Recalling”, remembering the past – folks are gearing up for the 100 year anniversary of the laying of the New Foundation Stone of Love into the hearts of the 800 members at the Christmas Conference in 1923-24, right now.
Many of us strive to focus in with “Spirit-Sensing”- aligning with “World rhythms bestowing grace upon souls” – Working to bring awareness of the etheric Christ encircling us.
And I believe the impulse for the ‘Sophia Rising Convergence’ is truly what is needed as a herald to our “Spirit-Beholding” – which is calling to be unveiled & activated NOW. The dimension of Wisdom must be engaged if we are to light the way to the New-Isis & our future incarnation with the Maitreya Buddha, to embody Manichaeism in order to redeem evil.
Of course the elephant in the room in dealing with the Anthroposophical Society still trumpets with the residue of the chaos in the Society, that has always sort of been there, but which was exasperated after Steiner’s death. (which, BTW, had to do, in part, with not taking up the karmic task of bridging the “2 Streams” which led to the compromising of the principles of truth & freedom –under the political pressures of Nazi authorities)
Can each of us honestly say we have rooted out the residue of divisiveness lurking within, expressed thru antipathies & misplaced sympathies – Stamped on us thru our vaccine status? Fear & defensiveness, one-sided othering – blame & shame – Our refusal to see the other – as a karmic mirror – our aversion to those in the ‘other stream’ who think differently than us…
Friends, Let’s open the door. How can we work together to create true unity with all that we have been given thru Rudolf Steiner & Anthroposophy? Will we, as a collective, respond to the necessity coming from all worlds, out-pictured in the global situations? We must put our spiritual world-view into practice, creating a chalice that offers the healing medicine, in the Wisdom of Love & freedom.
Stay tuned dear intrepid souls – the Spiritual World is asking for us to tune in together as we make our way toward the 100 year Jubilee of the Re-Founding – & NOW as we stand in the reflection of the burning of the 1st Goetheanum in 1922 an initiative is wanting to be born at Whitsun 2022 to unite us…
Will the tongues of fire speak your name in the upper room of our true Becoming?
~hag
SpringerLink
22 March 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: In a very dark sky, the realistic stick figure of Canis Major is fairly plain to see — the Big Dog is seen in profile prancing to the right on his hind legs, with Sirius on his chest as his shiny dog tag. But for many of us, only his five brightest stars show well through the light pollution. These form the unmistakable Meat Cleaver.
Sirius and Murzim (to its right) are the wide top end of the Cleaver, with Sirius sparkling on its top back corner. Down to Sirius’s lower left is the Cleaver’s other end including its short handle, formed by the triangle of Adhara, Wezen, and Aludra. The Cleaver is chopping toward the lower right.
The waning gibbous Moon rises in the early hours of Wednesday morning, among the stars of upper Scorpius. Best view: just before the first glimmer of dawn Wednesday, about 1½ hours before sunrise. The Bella Luna is due south then, hanging above the orange-red supergiant Antares.
1828 – Birthday of Fercher von Steinwand,an Austrian poet. From Rudolf Steiner in THE RIDDLE OF MAN, GA 20, Pictures from the Thought-Life of Austria
“I learned to know him at the end of the 1880’s in Vienna and for a short time associated with him personally. He was sixty years old at the time: a true figure of light, even externally; an engaging warmth shone from his noble features, eloquent eyes, and expressive gestures; through tranquil clarity and self-possession, this soul of an older man still gave the effect of youthful freshness. And when one came to know this soul better, its particular nature and creations, one could see how a feeling life instilled by the Carinthian Mountains united in this soul with a contemplative life in the power of the idealism in German world views. This contemplation (Sinnen) was already entirely native to his soul as a poetic world of pictures; this contemplation pointed with this world of pictures into the depths of existence; it confronted world riddles artistically, without the originality of artistic creation paling thereby into thought-poetry; one can observe this kind of contemplation in the following lines from Fercher von Steinwand’s Chorus of Primal Dreams:
Out of all regions Ever ascended, Wanders an ether in far-radiant arches; Travel the billows to Depths ever silent. There with our all-seeing Will as their cargo, Wending their way through the fog go our ferries; Sail between wonderful Banks new arising. There before all-warming Eyes of soft mildness Winding and turning we fashion our patterns Out all around dreaming Regions of star-fields. There to misfortune we N’er are indebted, There we constructed our fortresses hovering, And tribulations we Joyfully shattered. He who would paint you with Most holy features, Highest abode of our contemplative urgings: Wait for the swiftest Servants of love!
The following verses seek to portray how the soul, in thinking-waking daydreams, lives in far-away starry worlds and in immediate reality; then the poet continues:
No matter what careful Powers accomplish, Only on dreaming’s own wide-spreading pinions Can what is mighty be Gained now forever. Every o’erpowering greatness of action, All of the angels who guard what was planted Are given counsel by Dreams that inspire them.
Fercher von Steinwand then sings further about the penetrating of thinking, spiritualized to the point of dreaming, into the depths of the world, and about the penetrating of that kind of dreaming which is an awakening out of our ordinary waking state into those depths where the life of what is spiritual in the world can make itself tangible to the soul:
Life that our pulsating Hearts have perceived, Life that our struggling hearts have ascended To all the welcoming Cries of the spirits:
And then Fercher von Steinwand lets sound forth to the human spirit what the beings of the spirit realm speak to the soul that opens itself to them in inner contemplation:
Healed ones, now be here by Loving encircled! What you were seeking in uplifting hours, Here, you selected ones, Is it disclosed; Here in the grandeur of Halls of the Godhead, Where to the heart other hearts are so pleasing, Where buried voices are Sounding forth newly Where now the care-worn are Royally striving, Radiant souls now in smiles are all wreathed, Round all the wrecks of the Wheels of the ages — Only the blinded ones, Earth-bound and foolish, Were for the gulf of destruction begotten, Lost to the worlds of Spirit perfection! Weal to the sens’tive one Round whom we hover, Whom we enliven to bloss’ming existence, All without weaving in Fugitive shadows!
In the literary works of Fercher von Steinwand there then follows upon this Chorus of Primal Dreams his Chorus of Primal Impulses:
In the distances unbounded Of our ancient mother Night. Hark — to be in inward conflict Seems the deep mysterious might! Do we hear present’ment striding? Is our longing wide awake? Was a spirit-lightning lit? Are our dreams through spaces gliding? How now are powers by powers enraptured, Blessed exchanges! Now sudden hastenings. Then quiet lingerings, Reveling listenings Change into beckonings Marveling fearings! Charm of desiring Mounts, and sinks down, Sinks into hatred. Faced with the pallid Picture of embracing Cannot clasp hatred. Ramifications dim, Inclinings burgeoning, Send forth their tendrils. Ponderous inklings Dawn and go faltering O’er the wide spaces, Seem to give counsel Or to give guidance. What they’re preparing Is it the sowing Of immense actions, Of radiant ages? Who felt the furrows To be creative! Who wandered through them Blissfully savoring, Or disentangling, Grandeurs discovering! Yonder the stir is like spirits embracing We are enwarmed And are receiving, Seeking, and thinking, See ourselves lifted, Woven in joy with Highest beginnings. You wafting ‘round us, In us arising: “You are ideas! —”
May duration grow accustomed To what urge has conjured up; May adorning and appeasement In creation’s stream prevail. Sweetest light! in noble ringing Mounts my heart aloft to you: Linger at your western gate; Help to crown the deed of love! Risen from all earthly bonds is our impulse Soul — resurrected! But what is ripened Ruling, and valid Proves to be spirit! All that is circling, All earth foundations, All heavenly kindlings are Self-made in spirit, Came forth from spirit, Work through the spirit Powerful freedom from chaos did fashion Space for good fortune! Cloaked, with the dew of its deep-breathing mildness, Forest and field! Cared that the dew and the light be companions, Forming the hem of deep transfiguration — Cared that each droplet should float at the threshold of Spiritual radiance!
In Ferchervon Steinwand’s Complete Works (published by Theodor Daberkow in Vienna), there are also several indications about his life given by the poet himself when pressed by friends on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, He wrote, “I began life on March 22, 1828 upon the heights of the Steinwand above the banks of the Möll in Carinthia (Kärten); that means, in the midst of a defiant congregation of mountains with their heads held high, beneath whose domineering grandeur burdened human beings seem continuously to grow poorer,” Since, in his Chorus of Primal Impulses, we find the world view of German idealism cast in the form of a poetic creation, it is interesting to see how the poet, on his paths through Austrian spiritual life, receives impulses from this world view already in his youth. He describes how he enters the university in Graz: “With my credentials — which of course consisted only of my report cards — held tight against my chest, I presented myself to the dean. That was Professor Edlauer, a criminologist of high repute. He hoped to see me (he said) industriously present in his lecture course on natural law. Behind the curtain of this innocent title he presented us for the whole semester, in rousing lectures, with those German philosophers who, under the fatherly care of our well-meaning spiritual guardians were banned and kept from us: Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and so on — heroes, therefore; that means men who founded and fructified all areas of pure thinking, who gave the language and created the concepts for all the other sciences, and who, consequently, are illustrious names shining from our street comers today and seeming almost strange there in their particular diamond clarity. This semester was my vita nuova!”
Whoever learns to know Fercher von Steinwand’s tragedy Dankmar, his Countess Seelenbrand, his German Tones from Austria, and other works of his will be able through this to feel many of the forces that were working in the Austrian spiritual life of the second half of the nineteenth century. And everything about Fercher von Steinwand testifies to the fact that one receives out of his soul a picture from this spiritual life in clarity, truth, and genuineness. The amiable Austrian poet in dialect Leopold Hormann felt rightly when he wrote the words:
Far from all baseness All avarice and meanness; Foe of publicity, That loathesome false lady; German in soul, Strong yet with kindness Great in his thinking, No faltering and wavering, Proof against all objections: — Fercher von Steinwand!
1832 – The DeathDay of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – who Steiner names as a ‘sculptor & follower of Plato’ in Karmic Relations Vol 4 Lecture 10
Tune in to our Zoom broadcasts, brief presentations of aspects of this course, with lots of time for Q&A. Intended to total 20 minutes in length. These are given on different days so you might find one that would work best for you. Each of these brief sessions will be different!
March 28, Monday, 9 AM Mtn. (morning)
Star Wisdom comes alive through active embodiment within each participant, made possible by working together in the instrument of the StarHouse—or within your sacred imagination in your own home. This immersion facilitates each participant forming conscious relationships with zodiacal and planetary beings.
Join us for an exploration, based on spiritual science and star wisdom, into the following themes:
This course, to train practitioners in Star Wisdom will take place in the StarHouse June 2022. It is designed to train beginners who are willing to ride a steep learning-curve, and long-time astrologers.
Our teaching weaves experiential activities (embodiment) and conceptual learning so you learn it more thoroughly.
On-line too: The course will also be on-line (live-streamed, interactive). A manager on our end will coordinate actively with those attending via Zoom, including relaying questions to the presenters for comment. (We plan that the event will be filmed and edited, and parts of it made available as a course through our website.)
Our approach to astrology is informed and inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s indications found sprinkled throughout his six thousand lectures, as it has been developed by a small group of astrosophers over several decades. This deeper understanding of, and interaction with, the heavens is based on:
A sidereal (star-based) view of the heavens, emphasizing the active and dynamic role of the beings working from stars and constellations
Equal length zodiacal signs (relating to the lineage of Zarathustra), equal houses, and recognizing the Earth’s role and significance to the birth chart
Anthroposophy (thus called astrosophy, with its particular guidance for understanding the beings indwelling the zodiacal and planets)
Identifying and working with spiritual themes in our lives in a way made practical by the research of Robert Powell, and the indications of cosmic Christianity, as understood through Anthroposophy.
And other features that we will teach.
Some topics that we will cover:
New and traditional methods for interpreting a birth chart
Zodiacal constellations in the birth chart
Understanding the meaning in the patterns of the moving planets
Planetary aspects in the birth chart
The important role of the twelve equal houses, in the birth chart
How transiting planets interplay in the time-stream of life, presenting challenges and opportunities
Determining the time of conception and its own chart
The care necessary to regard the information of a person’s sacred birth moment with reverence and understanding
The importance of understanding reincarnation and karma for human development
The journey between death and rebirth, and why that is important for human destiny
Human Life phases: the 7-year periods of our life biography and the relation of those periods to the planetary spheres
The role of self-development for a practitioner of New Astrology
Commitment: This intensive requires participation in five-plus full days.
Dates: Begin Thursday evening, June 23, 2022, 7 PM, through midday Tuesday June 28. On June 24-27, we will go from 9 AM to 5 PM. Evenings are for homework, integration, and optional study groups. Lunches will be provided, including the last day, Tuesday.
Limits: Enrollment will be limited to 24 in-person participants and others will participate on-line. In-person will go through an application process. More important than years practicing astrology is your motivation to learn. Our present on-line courses (New Astrology, series 1 and series 2) will be made available to all registered participants and can provide a strong foundation to a motivated person with little experience. After application for In-person participants, one of our team will arrange a phone call to interview you.
Scholarship program: We plan to have a scholarship program to which those of means can contribute. Please consider contributing to this fund to support others taking this course.
Costs: Cost of on-site/in-person for the whole course $1100. On-line (live-streaming) $800. A deposit will hold your place.
Meals and Snacks: Lunches provided every day including Tuesday (just after the end of the course). Dietary restrictions are queried on the application. Snacks and tea are provided mid-morning and mid-afternoon every day.
Lodging: You will need to find your own lodging and transport. Some lodging is available in nearby residences, and the Retreat Cabin near the StarHouse. These can fill up quickly, so please make your request soon. Other lodgings nearby are the Boulder Adventure Lodge (a-lodge.com), which fills up in summertime quickly. More information will be sent after registration.
The Holy Grail Study Group with the CRC Mysteries of the Holy Grail – from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation April 6, 2022 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern)
“The pupils of the Grail were told of a state which humans would attain in future. Possessed of clear, alert consciousness, their being would be purified, the substance of the human body would become as pure and chaste as that of the plant, and their organs of reproduction transformed.”~ from Chapter 12 Rudolf Steiner, The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Chapter 12“The Higher Calyx” and Chapter 13“The Resonant Chalice,” excerpts from Steiner’s lectures given at Nuremberg on 2 December 1907 (GA 92) and Stuttgart 16 September 1907 (GA 101) … will be the focus of the April 6 meeting.
Chapters 12 and 13 in the book can be found online at the CRC’s website by clicking this link A transcript of the 2 December 1907 lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link A transcript of the 16 September, 1907 lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link * Please considergiving 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 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:
Meeting ID: 882 1050 5106 One tap mobile +13017158592,,81116556762# US (Germantown) +13126266799,,81116556762# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
7:15 Welcome and Introductions 7:18 Verse 7:25 Study led by volunteers Note: CRC team will ID volunteers Michael – Chapter 12 Tom – Chapter 13 7:50 Conversation 8:25 ID volunteers for next meeting 8:28 Close with verse
~I see the beginning Begin again from this end Coming forth well invoked & flowing like a web on the wind… ~hag
16 March 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Whether you’re up early or late today, there’s a tempting target in the north: the variable star Delta Cephei in Cepheus the King. This bright star sits east of Zeta Cephei, which marks the lower righthand (southeastern) corner of the house-shaped constellation.
1244 – Over 200 Cathars who refuse to recant are burned to death after the Fall of Montségur.
1966 – Death Day of Countess Johanna von Keyserlingk
Johanna von Keyserlingk & the Etheric Christ
Humanity is ripe for ‘the Christ experience’ like what Paul experienced outside Damascus. Johanna von Keyserlingk, the hostess of the conference in Koberwitz in 1924 where biodynamic agriculture was born, was also the hostess of powerful spiritual observations.
In her memoirs she describes how while walking with her governess in the Vienna Woods in 1887, as an 8-year-old girl of noble birth, she meets a thin, 26-year-old man, with dark hair & powerful eyes, who looks at her with a penetrating gaze. This meeting lives & works in her until, at the end of the 1st World War, as a 39-year-old Countess, she meets a 56-year-old man. She had already attended 2 of his lectures & read some of his books. After this meeting she is able to speak with him in private. He asks her where she was at the age of 8. After some thought, she remembers the place – Breslau, where she lived then. But he shakes his head, apparently he means something else with his question. Johanna has more conversations with him & six months later he repeats the question. Then she suddenly remembers the young man in the Vienna Woods who had looked at her with such wonderful eyes. This man was, of course, Rudolf Steiner.
On March 26, 1879, on the threshold of the beginning of the new Michael era, Johanna was born in Brno. Her father, which she described as a true despot, was the son of Scottish nobility -Karl von Skene. He went to Silesia via Austria & married her future mother, Klara Schoeller, who came from a family of industrialists. Together with 3 brothers (Karl, Philipp & Robert) she lived near her father’s estates.
Her clairvoyant powers were revealed early on, which was not unusual in her father’s Celtic line. These experiences made her both lonely & independent at an early age. She often sought comfort in nature, in the park near ancient trees, & there she had contact with the elemental spirits.
About this time she wrote: “I remember very well that as a small child I could look at the window between the bars of my bed and see the sun rise in the morning and that I experienced the sun as what other children see as their mother and father. I remember also, that the other children I played with often chased me, especial the time when I correctly predicted the death of an adult as if it were self-evident. However, when I noticed that not even my mother saw what I perceived spiritually, I kept silent.”
At the end of her teens, she became involved with Kant’s philosophy; with Angelus Silesius & with the poet Hölderlin. In 1899 when she was 21 years old, she married Count Carl Wilhelm von Keyserlingk, & had 3 boys: Wolfgang (1900), & a boy (1902) who soon died, & Adalbert (1905). They went to live in Klettendorff, not far from Breslau. Later this became the castle Koberwitz (1920), partly on the advice of Steiner.
Because of her devoted son Adalbert, most of the memoirs & notes were made public, but only after Johanna died at the age of 87. With intimate friends such as Rudolf Meyer (who lived in Koberwitz for 3 years), Emil Bock, Friedrich Rittelmeyer, Eliza von Moltke, Margarita Woloschina & Monica von Miltitz, she did share her experiences & her confidential conversations with Steiner during her life.
When she was 28, Johanna went thru a painful phase in her life. She was sick in bed due to an entopic pregnancy, which almost killed her. What she experienced was that some sort of strange individuality wanted to incarnate in her.
“When I had been given up by the doctors and felt that my life force was leaving me, I suddenly saw a shining figure next to the bed, from which a penetrating force emanated.”
And the first words she was able to speak after this experience were:
“Me and my house want to serve the Lord; for I have experienced what the captain of Capernaum experienced.” ( ~Matthew 8:5-10 ‘And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, 6 and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” 7Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” 8 But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9“For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” 10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. 11“I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed that very moment’. )
“When I heard from the doctors that there was no more salvation for me, which I had already experienced myself, I knew: now I will reach the goal of my life, the Christ. Either in death or in the spirit world. White starlight was around me, and I was thinking of the fevered son of Capernaum’s chieftain. Science dawned on me: when you now see the Christ, he can also restore earth life to you. There were energies buzzing next to me and a fire figure appeared next to my bed. Such strength emanated from him that I believed I could not bear it. It was like over-tensioning the atmosphere because of the pressing of the ether. I felt as if that would tear me apart and heard the words: Go, your faith has helped you …
It was a very white silence around me, and glittering life entered me from there. The pains were gone. The doctor came and assumed that this condition was agony. But life continued to shine, and when my husband asked what had happened, I could only say that in the New Testament he had to seek out the healing of Capernaum. As of this hour, there was only a common solution for us. Me and my house want to serve the Lord. My illness was gone and life took a different direction. But as bright was the light that I had seen, so dark was the time I had to live in the following years. It was like I was going to die. For years now I had experienced the terrible of death in all phases.”
Her next trial was that her brow bone, just above the root of the nose, literally shattered. Years later, bone splinters that had grown out had to be removed using tweezers. With the forehead chakra released in this radical way, her clairvoyant experiences increased in number & intensity.
She asked herself: What is expressed in this event? Perhaps people who were associated with Christ on earth had a role to play in preparing for His return in the etheric, starting in the 20th century; a karmic bond that is revealed in this time of the Second Coming. Rudolf Steiner talked about the youth of Nain, who was raised from the dead by Christ & so was initiated into a task for the future of humanity. Steiner also pointed out the connection between the resurrected Lazarus John & the teacher of humanity, Christian Rosenkreutz. This is also the time when Steiner describes Christ becoming the Lord of karma.
At the ‘Turning Point of Time’ the apostles gathered by Christ were the 1st to be inaugurated into this new impulse, there must be anthroposophers starting in the 30’s & into our time now that are able to receive the inspiration of Christ, now as Lord of Karma. Anthroposophy wants to be a movement of people who work to restore their karma.
Steiner tells us: Spiritual science “imposes enormous responsibility upon us, for it prepares for the concrete event of the reappearance of Christ.” It is known that Steiner took actual people as examples for some of the characters in his mystery dramas. Perhaps Johanna was the model for Theodora?
According to Steiner, Johanna had an awakened consciousness that would become normal perhaps a 1000 years in the future! Perhaps this ‘premature birth’ was what caused her so much pain in her life…? And yet, Steiner called the figure next to the sick bed of Johanna the Christ power.
In one of the conversations with Steiner, he also warned that Johanna was facing great Luciferic dangers, but that she had special qualities – the iron of Mars, that could protect her from this. He called her ‘the Iron Countess’.
In 1915, Johanna started to write down a series of imaginations that she received. This lead to a book that describes the fortunes of a grail knight going through a mental training: the was named book ‘Gralburg’ (Grail Castle). In the preface she writes:
In these imaginations my own experience in full reality passes by. It is lived more real than earthly events are experienced. As the images are there, that’s how I experienced them. Often the images and words sounded strange and inexplicable, I did not understand them and I do not understand much of them nowadays, but I could not change anything, because I wanted to stay with the truth. Often the end of an image was added as an explanation only after years. Real spirit beings met the spirit student, and they addressed him in real words. These spiritual words have actually been spoken to him.
As far as I can judge, these things have lived in the astral. The astral, however, takes place in the interior of the earth in the direction of midnight. This astral is invisible in itself and fine visible form force expresses itself in the periphery of the earth, in the ether world. That which happens invisibly in the depths, is imprinted in the ether and comes to visibility, and what I saw there I wrote down.
This book cannot be judged by a literary standard. I wrote it down for myself and I don’t feel the need for others to read it. If it were just me, I would put it in a desk drawer; and then it can be read after my death or not. And when I am asked now, yes, why do you spend it anyway, then I can only answer – not for my sake, but so that the others hear of the figure so lovingly striding through the hall.
‘Imagine a fine brilliance of tender sunlight flowing from his soul Imagine a pair of warm eyes, so full of love that you start to glow, and you kneel Imagine a mouth from which truth springs as if from a deep source the deity itself arises, it sounds so beautiful, that forever you would like to listen to this voice in reverence.
Imagine his hands caressing your hair with a gesture that heals all suffering. Yes, under their light springs the new life we seek! Imagine a ruler striding like this and highest heavenly threads are for him and where his foot goes is light that shows us the right way. Do you see his garment shining from afar then the fire starts to burn in your heart, it is so beautiful that you cannot comprehend it.
And he sees your suffering and he approaches you which makes your heart completely still. And gently, like the song of angelic children, the air that blows towards you is so lovely.
You can put your head on his knee in quiet humility and deep peace comes into you. The sun radiates from his holy body and sun flows over your mind, and you see jubilantly in the golden distance, your homeland, where he draws you’.
At the end of this ‘hymn’ her footnote : “At the sight of the Nazarene standing before me, written down in a short moment”.
Through the book: “Koberwitz 1924, Geburtsstunde einer neuen Landwirtschaft, moment of birth of a new agriculture”, many people learn the name of the Keyserlingk family. At the time, Koberwitz was an estate owned by the family, near Breslau.
At Pentecost in 1924, a gathering took place there in the penultimate year before Rudolf Steiner’s untimely death, to which many attendees have fond memories. From the descriptions of the different souls you can get the feeling that there was a true cosmopolitan Pentecostal Spirit. As the title of the book indicates, this was also the time & place where the birth of bio-dynamic agriculture happened.
Yes, a lot happened there in the days of June 7-17, 1924. For example, it was the first time the Whitsun Epistle was pronounced at the altar, during the Christian Community Service (established 2 years earlier). The impression arises that in Koberwitz a successful meeting between the royal & the priestly streams took place. In total there were 120 people, many with an agricultural background, but also many others who attended, for example, there were evening lectures on karma & the Eurythmy performances, that attracted folks such as Eliza von Moltke, Rittelmeyer, Bock, Wachsmuth, Koschützki, Marie Steiner, Vreede & many others. So these days were busy with all kinds of activities. It was later discovered that at night Steiner wrote whole parts of his autobiography, which appeared shortly afterwards in the weekly Das Goetheanum & were later compiled into his biography; he also received & answered countless mail correspondences.
In addition to esoteric hours, in the evening, a large number of people had personal conversations with Steiner. With all this work, it was surprising to many that Steiner, who made an extremely tired impression on arrival, gradually became more vital. From those 12 special days around Dr. Steiner arose many personal memories from the participants.
Here’s a good example of ‘how karma works’. In principle, the course was only intended for people with an agricultural background. And yet, Young Wilhelm Rath, as one of the initiators of the youth movement, passed by Koberwitz to deliver some notes by Walter Johannes Stein, in which he describes his own spiritual experiences, for Rudolf Steiner. The post-office was not appropriate for such personal documents, so WJ Stein asked Rath to hand them over personally. Because of this, Rath was then allowed to attend the entire Agricultural course, although Wachsmuth was worried at 1st about breaking the rules. This later turns out to be an important turning point in Rath’s career.
The book Koberwitz 1924 not only gives a nice impression of the conference but also of Johanna herself. We read that she played a harmonium for the guests, that she & her husband were the perfect hosts, & that she personally took care of the flowers & plants in the castle park. The Staff loved her. A chambermaid, who also wrote a contribution in the book heaped praises on her.
A life motto for the Count & Countess was: Founding places of love and peace, where the Christ can be resurrected – this was engraved on a memorial for Steiner after he died.
She described to Steiner, the image of a fairytale-like white mosque with a minaret & she heard the word Bosphorus. According to her, this was the answer to a question she had been dealing with for a long time.
Later on at Christmas 1925, after Steiner had died, she had severe pneumonia while in Sonnenhof in Arlesheim, where Ita Wegman nursed her. There, Mieta Waller asked her if she could use her clairvoyance to help find the Palladium in Constantinople. After all, legend tells that Emperor Constantine buried the Palladium under a large column. This question was the start of a long search that would be continued by her son Adalbert.
The Palladium has been called the greatest solar gem on Earth by Steiner, & world evolution depends on whether this underground sun-sanctuary is illuminated by “the sun of the west” – the new light of human thought. A truly cryptic description! Especially since Steiner also indicated that it would be an actual object buried somewhere. The comparison can then be made between the physically present cup of the last supper & the transcendent grail.
She made a trip to Constantinople, to Hagia Sophia & experienced all kinds of things that are described in her diary, including that she had seen this mosque in the image of a ghost. Physical indications & images not yet understood alternated. However, the Palladium was not found. It is questionable whether the Palladium might have been found spiritually. However, she said, this cannot be discussed it is “a question for the future”.
In the Achmedie Imperial Palace, she received gruesome images inscribed in the ether of the Council of Constantinople in 869 AD., where she recognized ahrimanic inspirations. Steiner often spoke of this council where the “spirit” of the human being was abolished. Here she experienced what Steiner called a second Golgotha, & the moment when the karma of humanity began to become disordered.
In Hagia Sophia, however, she experienced the luminous presence of Christ & of Michael, like ‘the sunrise of a new dawn‘.
It is a risk when people make statements about what they consider to be their previous incarnations. It was not Johanna’s intention that her own research would be made public during her lifetime. She did, however, discuss it with Steiner & her son Adalbert. He decided to publish the notes after her death.
In 1922 she visited a forest in Rawitz where she had been as a child. “When I arrived, the spirits of the trees and shrubs on this familiar road back started to speak to me, to my surprise. But what they told me this time was not pleasant to me. They told me: “You are free now, you have to deliver us, we are bound to these trees.” And they added, I had tied them to this place myself in a past life. I said to them, “Your trees are not old at all, how can I have met you before?” But they answer: Our fathers were already here, and in them our spirits have inherited themselves. – You shouldn’t leave until you deliver us”.
It is then explained to her how she could accomplish this salvation by making 3 crosses on the trunk while invoking the Father, Son & Holy Spirit. So she does this & from each one a strip of light is released, which then, according to her observation, dissolves in the light of Christ.
Shortly before this, she had images of a man who lived several hundred years ago, who loved to be in nature & had conversations with nature spirits. She had the impression that the man was also involved in magic. He spoke to her : “I am glad that you are here, I have also come to see you. You must carry on with the work that I have begun. I will show you what happened here, and you must then free what I have banned. “
It is characteristic of Johanna that she told Steiner this kind of experience. She was not yet sure about the meaning. Steiner confirmed that this man with faustic traits was a previous incarnation of hers, & that he had banished the elemental beings to the trees. That is why she now had to free them herself.
In an earlier conversation where Eliza von Moltke was also present, Steiner had said, “The countess once experienced that earth life is spiritual death.”
A central theme with Johanna that she always discussed with Steiner (she has about 28 sessions with him) is Shamballah or the golden land, as she calls it. She lived into the moment when the blood of Christ flowed into the earth initiating a new solar globe. She saw out of the earth’s core, a golden fire in the earth’s depth. Like Ptolemy she called this the primal sun. This connected her with Empedocles who plunged into the fire of Mount Etna.
She described it in the following way in a question to Steiner: “…originally there was the fire and the light. These lived together in a deep harmony. Then the light rejected the power of the fire, and the smoke, which could no longer rise in the light, returned and covered the fire, and so the primeval fire was covered with a layer of ash. This axis is the mineral of the Earth. At first people saw through it to their primal home, the primal sun, but the earth became more and more dense and the smoke darkened more and more. Man seemed to be separated from the primeval sun (which is paradise) by the mineral layer. With this primeval sun which has been revived by the Christ, man must try to unite again.”
Steiner confirmed to her that this primordial sun is also the land of Shamballah, where the initiates of all time took their inspiration and what will become visible to all people in the future. It is closely related to the etheric second coming of the Christ & His work on a new heaven & a new earth in which people must play an active role.
Steiner spoke fondly of the Iron Count & Countess, he called them that, not only because the Koberwitz land which was iron rich. He wanted Johanna to conquer & free her clairvoyance with her iron will, which was linked to her innate clairvoyance, & also from her dependence on Steiner’s influence.
Before she met Steiner, Johanna had a life where everything came to her. Spiritual guidance had provided for her fortunes. But this would change soon. They were able to remain in Koberwitz for only 4 years after 1924. A movement started immediately on several fronts, reinforced after Steiner’s death in 1925, that came to destroy the new bio-dynamic impulse. The fertilizer industry, including IG Farben, felt threatened by this new healing art. They wanted to buy the copyright describing the agricultural course for a large sum of money. But Count Carl declined, partly because he wanted to test it in practice before the course content was published. In the company where Carl worked with several co-owners, tensions grew & he had to leave the field in 1928. They also left Koberwitz. Shortly after, he died en route to Dornach. According to Johanna because of a broken heart.
Not much is known about her life after that, except that it was difficult. In 1941 she was captured by the Gestapo, & put under interrogation for days. She saw a figure next to the German officer. But she was not tempted to give in to this demonic being.
After 1945 she could no longer stay in Poland & fled to the west where she ended up in Stuttgart, completely destitute & incognito. In 1949 the book Koberwitz was published as a private edition. In the years before her death she went blind.
Just before this book went to press, she also wrote about Kaspar Hauser, & about her struggle to keep a relationship with Steiner in the spiritual world after his death: “While during the life of Rudolf Steiner one could still live in the sphere of his personal closeness without great effort, it was no longer possible after his death. After the death hour of 1925, there were still encounters in the astral for me. But I think that this is happening more and more at a distance. Was the atmosphere of the earth obscured by what was preparing for threats there in Germany? We were alone, as if deserted. It was as if there was an impenetrable dark night in the otherwise bright atmosphere”.
This shows how difficult it was to hold the Pentecostal substance of Koberwitz in the dark period that was holding sway. After his death she wrote:.
“It was on the morning of Rudolf Steiner’s cremation, which I did not go to. The teacher’s body was still laid out in his studio, where the aura of the beloved teacher appeared next to me. I was told to write. I took paper and pen and the following words came from his presence. Often I could not write quickly enough, then paused and waited until I was back, as Rudolf Steiner used to do when he dictated to me.
“My job has ended….What I could give, the people who were ready for it…I am going, because I found no ears that could hear the spiritual word behind the word…I am going, because I found no eyes that could see the ghosts behind the earth images…I go because I found no people who could realize my will…The mysteries remain hidden until I come back. I will come back and reveal the mysteries when I have succeeded in creating an altar, a cultic place for human souls, in spirit worlds. Then I’ll come back. Then I will continue to reveal the mysteries.”
“Those are to blame for my death, which have held back the culture of the heart. Had people pushed through their hearts into the depths, they would have found the strength for the challenges of this time.”
There are many Anthroposophers who do not consider these statements to come from Steiner but rather see them as a projection from Johanna herself, or from the adversarial forces trying to cloud the message.
We do know that Rudolf Steiner is able to teach his students from the spirit body, as indicated in the mystery dramas.
I will end with this short conversation with Steiner in 1924, before his death:
Johanna: “Mankind is spoiled anyway [miscarriages]“. Steiner: “Yes, you can say that.” Johanna: “But what will happen at the end of the century?” Steiner in despair: “I don’t know either – but Ahriman is also part of Christ.”
May we all find the “The Way, the Truth & the Life…& work to purify ourselves, to be a fit vessel for the Christ, & for the work of embodying Anthroposophia
Tune in to our Zoom broadcasts, brief presentations of aspects of this course, with lots of time for Q&A. Intended to total 20 minutes in length. These are given on different days so you might find one that would work best for you. Each of these brief sessions will be different!
March 14, Monday, 6 PM Mtn.
March 28, Monday, 9 AM Mtn. (morning)
Star Wisdom comes alive through active embodiment within each participant, made possible by working together in the instrument of the StarHouse—or within your sacred imagination in your own home. This immersion facilitates each participant forming conscious relationships with zodiacal and planetary beings.
Join us for an exploration, based on spiritual science and star wisdom, into the following themes:
This course, to train practitioners in Star Wisdom will take place in the StarHouse June 2022. It is designed to train beginners who are willing to ride a steep learning-curve, and long-time astrologers.
Our teaching weaves experiential activities (embodiment) and conceptual learning so you learn it more thoroughly.
On-line too: The course will also be on-line (live-streamed, interactive). A manager on our end will coordinate actively with those attending via Zoom, including relaying questions to the presenters for comment. (We plan that the event will be filmed and edited, and parts of it made available as a course through our website.)
Our approach to astrology is informed and inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s indications found sprinkled throughout his six thousand lectures, as it has been developed by a small group of astrosophers over several decades. This deeper understanding of, and interaction with, the heavens is based on:
A sidereal (star-based) view of the heavens, emphasizing the active and dynamic role of the beings working from stars and constellations
Equal length zodiacal signs (relating to the lineage of Zarathustra), equal houses, and recognizing the Earth’s role and significance to the birth chart
Anthroposophy (thus called astrosophy, with its particular guidance for understanding the beings indwelling the zodiacal and planets)
Identifying and working with spiritual themes in our lives in a way made practical by the research of Robert Powell, and the indications of cosmic Christianity, as understood through Anthroposophy.
And other features that we will teach.
Some topics that we will cover:
New and traditional methods for interpreting a birth chart
Zodiacal constellations in the birth chart
Understanding the meaning in the patterns of the moving planets
Planetary aspects in the birth chart
The important role of the twelve equal houses, in the birth chart
How transiting planets interplay in the time-stream of life, presenting challenges and opportunities
Determining the time of conception and its own chart
The care necessary to regard the information of a person’s sacred birth moment with reverence and understanding
The importance of understanding reincarnation and karma for human development
The journey between death and rebirth, and why that is important for human destiny
Human Life phases: the 7-year periods of our life biography and the relation of those periods to the planetary spheres
The role of self-development for a practitioner of New Astrology
Commitment: This intensive requires participation in five-plus full days.
Dates: Begin Thursday evening, June 23, 2022, 7 PM, through midday Tuesday June 28. On June 24-27, we will go from 9 AM to 5 PM. Evenings are for homework, integration, and optional study groups. Lunches will be provided, including the last day, Tuesday.
Limits: Enrollment will be limited to 24 in-person participants and others will participate on-line. In-person will go through an application process. More important than years practicing astrology is your motivation to learn. Our present on-line courses (New Astrology, series 1 and series 2) will be made available to all registered participants and can provide a strong foundation to a motivated person with little experience. After application for In-person participants, one of our team will arrange a phone call to interview you.
Scholarship program: We plan to have a scholarship program to which those of means can contribute. Please consider contributing to this fund to support others taking this course.
Costs: Cost of on-site/in-person for the whole course $1100. On-line (live-streaming) $800. A deposit will hold your place.
Meals and Snacks: Lunches provided every day including Tuesday (just after the end of the course). Dietary restrictions are queried on the application. Snacks and tea are provided mid-morning and mid-afternoon every day.
Lodging: You will need to find your own lodging and transport. Some lodging is available in nearby residences, and the Retreat Cabin near the StarHouse. These can fill up quickly, so please make your request soon. Other lodgings nearby are the Boulder Adventure Lodge (a-lodge.com), which fills up in summertime quickly. More information will be sent after registration.
The Anthroposophical Society in America presents: Sophia Rising: Unveiling the Wisdom of Being Human in Santa Fe, New Mexico ~ April 21-24, 2022 Hotel Santa Fe Hacienda and Spa
Join us in New Mexico, the ‘land of enchantment’, resonant with light ether and deep history, as we enliven Sophia. Join together in community as Sophia emerges and rises in her many facets and expressions- past, present, and future.
Come and experience Sophia Rising as we honor the elements, the landscape, and each other.
VENUE & TRAVEL
Our gathering will take place at the lovely Native American-owned Hotel Santa Fe. We recommend you book your stay with the hotel to create a connected communal atmosphere for our gathering. The hotel has a full restaurant, pool, hot tub, and spa, as well as kivas and cozy sitting areas. Please call or email to make reservations with our special room rate for suites at $179/night. Each suite includes a refrigerator, microwave and sitting area. So much of what Santa Fe has to offer is within walking distance from the hotel.
**Ask for ASA Gathering to book with our special rate of $179/night for a suite. **
Registrants will receive suggested activities from our local organizers to explore in Santa Fe before or after our gathering. Extending your stay? The special ASA hotel rate is available for 3 days prior to and 3 days after the ASA gathering.
HOTEL and VENUE ADDRESS: 1501 Paseo de Peralta Santa Fe, NM 87501 Phone: (877) 259-3409
TICKETS The ticket price includes access to all conference activities, snacks, coffee/tea and beverages, dessert reception Thursday, dinner Friday, lunch Saturday and brunch on Sunday.
Early Bird Only with Room Booking – After 2/26 more tickets will be released!
SCHEDULE (subject to minor changes)
THURSDAY, April 21
7 pm Gathering Together – with a dessert reception
7:30- 8:30 pm ArtActs: Past – Present – Future Eurythmy, and Singing,
FRIDAY, April 22
Explore Santa Fe on your own and continued arrivals
1:00 – 2:30 pm Welcome: Spirit of Placewith organizers
WEAVING EARTH Opening Ceremony with Angela Foster and friends
2:30pm-3:00pm Break
3:00-4:30 pm Encountering the Celestial Goddess Anthroposophia with Mary Stewart Adams
HeartMath with Michele Mariscal
4:30-4:45 pm Break
4:45- 6:00 pm WEAVING AIR ArtActs Eurythmy, Singing, and Speech
6:00-7:30 pm Dinner Together*
7:30 pm Fireside Chats – Story and Sharing – Breakout circles led by friends and organizers 8:30 pm
Stargazing with Mary Stewart Adams
SATURDAY, April 23
Breakfast – On your own
8:30 – 9:30 am WEAVING ETHER Eurythmy
9:30 – 10:00 am Break
10:00 -11:15 am The Virgin of Guadalupe: Sophia Rising in the Americaswith Stephanie Georgieff – The Virgin of Guadalupe is one of the first recorded apparitions in the Americas. Revealing herself to a Nahuatl Native and ultimately to the Bishop of New Spain and his entourage in December of 1531, this image has continued to inspire countless souls for nearly 500 years. The symbolism and timing of her appearance presents deep mysteries for our age, and points to the ultimate Sophianic impulse for the present and future of Humanity.
11:30 – 12:30 pm WEAVING STORIES Biography Work
12:30 – 2:00 pm Lunch Together*
2:00 – 4:00 pm ‘ANTHROPOSOPHIA: OUR ALCHEMICAL WEDDING’ with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg and Friends. At the heart of this convergence isa Grand Experiential Soul Journey to ‘Know Thyself’’ – A Temple Experience in the New Mysteries, built up and worked on during all the WEAVING sessions, preparing us to enter a deeply intensive initiatory experience – a ‘Movable Feast’ with various stations engaging us in group eurythmy, singing, Steiner verses, color gestures in art, and a telling of the New Isis Myth. Passing through Trials of the Soul we meet powerful Spiritual Beings on the way to our sacred marriage – a union of Warmth and Light, so that we can unveil the ‘Sophia Rising’ within ourselves, and the world.
4:00 – 4:30 pm Break
4:30 – 5:30 pm WEAVING COLOR Invoking Natura: Sensing the Cosmic within the Earthly Pastels with Helen-Ann Ireland
8:00-9:30 pm WEAVING COMMUNITYSophia Rising- Past, Present, and FutureMC’d by Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer. Sign up to bring something to share! Poetry, Instruments, Story
SUNDAY, April 24
8:00 – 9:00 am WEAVING LIGHT Bathe in the Natural Warmth and Harmony of the Metal Gold with Helena Hurrell – A metal color light therapy experience inspired by the glass windows at the Goetheanum
9:00-10:30 am WEAVING FIRE with Carrie Schuchardt HeartMath with Michele Mariscal
10:30 – 12:00pm Brunch Together*
12:00-1:00 pm WEAVING WATERWater Ritual with Joyce Reilly and Friends WEAVING WHOLENESSClosing with Angela Foster and Friends
Notes: *Meals marked with an asterisk are included in the price of the ticket – Coffee, tea, and snacks will also be provided through the conference
A quiet ‘Sanctuary Room’ will be provided for contemplation
PRESENTERS AND GUIDES (Not a full list-more to come!)
Mary Stewart Adams is a Star Lore Historian, and host of the weekly public radio program and podcast “The Storyteller’s Night Sky”. Through her research in spiritual science and her education in literary arts, Mary has developed a unique, humanities-based approach to understanding our relationship with the stars. Her work is further augmented by an extensive knowledge of ancient mythologies and fairy tales, which she relates to the research and ideas of contemporary astronomy in order to understand the new star wisdom of astrosophy.
Eyahnna DalBo (artist of the Sophia Rising painting) came to anthroposophy 30 years ago when her daughter attended a Waldorf school. Her studies have included an undergraduate degree in fine art and graduate work in psychology using the arts for healing. In her private practice, she developed various energetic modalities. Her experience with subtle energy fields gave her the opportunity to teach and take part in designing a curriculum for a 2-year program focusing on energy healing. As a consultant, she initiated numerous therapeutic programs to assist in pioneering the field of art therapy. Through the gift of an apprenticeship with indigenous people she was able to bring their practices and ceremonies to what she offered deepening her ability to be of service. As an artist, she continues to utilize the spoken word, movement, sound, and visual imagery to honor and create a field that fosters awareness, growth, and transformation.
Angela Foster has been an active student of anthroposophy since 2008. After growing up in Texas, Angela is now embracing life in Atlanta, Georgia as an artist, teacher, and mom of two daughters, shepherd to two mini sheep. As a conscious practitioner of “beginner’s mind”, Angela has completed programs in foundation studies in Anthroposophy numerous times and is currently enrolled in Foundation Studies in Goethean Science through the Nature Institute. She and her husband manage the Anthroposophical Resource Center (ARC) an initiative in Decatur, Georgia that offers space for community events and serves as a little house for Anthroposophia.
Stephanie Georgieff, MS is an author, podcaster and pilgrim. Residing mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, she has written several books on The Divine Feminine as presented through the genre of The Black Madonna, The Virgin of Guadalupe and The Divine Sophia. She has spoken at conferences and venues throughout North America, the United Kingdom and Europe. The Black Madonna Speaks is her latest endeavor, a weekly podcast exploring the mysteries of The Black Madonna from an Anthroposophical and Esoteric Chritian perspective, along with artists, poets, authors and scholars on the subject.
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual: Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year & the ‘I Think Speech’ Podcast. Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Anthroposopher – working as the Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, & as the Central Regional Council representative on the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America. Past Video Recordings.
Helena Hurrell joyfully met Anthroposophy in San Fransisco in 1977 and has been working with individuals and groups as a Waldorf educator since 1981 and then throughout her life trained to become a therapist while living in Australia, the UK and North America. She is currently in private practice in Colorado blending the therapeutic work she offers through her love of color ~ as an Art and Metal Color Light Glass Therapist trained in the UK and Germany. Both of these trainings are certified by the Medical Section at the Goetheanum. Metal Color Light Therapy is a relatively new initiative originated by the late Marianne Altmaier who developed this therapy and training out of her deep interest in and knowledge of the Goetheanum windows in Dornach. Helena’s website: www.helioscenter.org
Helen-Ann Ireland has been involved in anthroposophical studies for over 30 years as a Waldorf teacher, member of the School for Spiritual Science, Class holder, and now as chair of the Anthroposophical Society of America. A special interest has been in the area of the Divine Feminine and the Being of Sophia.
Michele Mariscal has 30 years of experience in the health and wellness field. She is a skilled facilitator in soft skills, speaker, coach and author. She is an Advanced Grief Recovery Specialist as well as a Trainer and Coach with the Institute of HeartMath. She facilitates greater heart-based living for individuals and organizations Michele is also a five-time author with her most recent publication of Growing Through Grief – The Alchemy of Healing from Loss.
Joyce Reilly Joyce studied psychology in college and was fascinated by the idea of a therapeutic community. She has worked in Camphill for many years, and is trained as a Waldorf and Therapeutic teacher. She founded Gheel House, a therapeutic community near Kimberton Pennsylvania, still thriving after 37 years. Joyce’s interests expanded to international conflict work and refugee resettlement. She works with organizations such as the Janusz Korczak Association, Karuna Peacebuilders, Kiwimbi International, Good Grief, the Worldwide Storytelling and Puppetry Association, and especially with the New York Anthroposophical Branch, and also works part-time at the local public library. Joyce is also trained in Psychosynthesis therapy and Anthroposophical psychology – currently practicing as a life coach and counselor.
Carrie Schuchardt co-founded The House of Peace in 1990, a home that is a physical and spiritual refuge for victims of war in a community with adults with special needs. In the last 15 years over 400 refugees from approximately 30 countries have been received in the healing embrace of The House of Peace, giving supportive assistance in establishing themselves in the US. In addition to the daily work of The House Peace, Carrie participates in many activities for the conversion of consciousness and policies from war to peace. Carrie has begun a network of women who witness publicly, Women Weeping, where women dress in mourning carrying symbolic lifeless children in order to help people feel what is rarely expressed in the media: the grief of hundreds of thousands of mothers in war zones around the world who lose their children to the terrible violence of war.
Maria Ver Eecke is presently the therapeutic eurythmist for the School of Eurythmy, Spring Valley, NY. She taught eurythmy for forty years in Waldorf schools, a charter school, and a home-school program. Maria met anthroposophy in Maseru, Lesotho, when she was a class teacher in an English-medium preparatory school. Currently she is the editor of the newsletters for the Eurythmy Association of North America and the Association of Therapeutic Eurythmy in North America.
