Greetings friends – All my current essay’s are now being posted on Substack. I hope to see you there…xox
~hag
Whenever I reach a Turning Point in my life-stream – I step in. Bringing ‘Biography Work’ into this Conscious Threshold experience shows the flow from the past swirling into the now – conveying clarity into connectivity. And from the analysis of the rhythmic tides, the glacial overview emerges. Slow-motion waves cresting & ebbing, spilling & pooling – exposing a new perception of the undercurrents.
O look – the future flux is rising up in the Wellsprings of my Soul – becoming a welcoming ocean of possibility.
I think about my deep immersion in:
1) The 1st Class of the Michael School of Spiritual Science – working in me to transform my astral body into Spirit-Self.
2) The Consecration of my humanness as I serve at the altar of the Christian Community – opening me to my Higher “I” & the New-Group-Soul in Christ.
3) My daily meditative rhythm as a dedicated member of the Esoteric Kries – to create a New kind of Social-Working imprinting the inner planes with spiritual imaginative impulses.
Bringing these 3 aspects together in my life has led me to the revelation – the duty – to take what was given to us in the Ancient Mysteries – renewed & transmitted 100 years ago by the great Initiate Rudolf Steiner – further – into the New Rosicrucian Mysteries of the 2nd Class of the Free High School for Spiritual Science – this working transforms etheric body into Life-Spirit.
This is the task at hand for humanity – to consciously meet the Being of Christ in the Etheric.
The Misraim Dienst=Service, gives us a modern ritual-working that reveals & galvanizes the revelations that flowed out of the imaginations of the Supersensible School of Michael at the end of the 18th & 19th Centuries. Activating the Reverse Cultus now, but this time – here on earth.
Hella Wiesberger reports that in a letter Marie Steiner von Sivers mentions: “In Class II much of what he had given us in the Mystica Aeterna (the esoteric group working with the cognitive rituals of the Memphis-Misraim Service) would flow into it imaginatively.
And that in Class III this would have been transformed into moral strength.”
The adversarial powers working thru the Jesuits of the Roman Church & the Dark Occult Brotherhoods saw the power of this combination of 1st Class, Christian Community & the Misraim Dienst. Their Jealousy burnt down the 1st Goetheanum & shortened the life of Rudolf Steiner.
That reside lingers & has infected many with unconscious fear, disallowing the right relationships to unfold, & fostering an unwillingness to take Spiritual Science into the New Mysteries.
But friends, as we stand now at the Centennial of the Re-founding of Anthroposophy, we cannot let the destruction of the adversarial beings, or the mistakes of past, keep us from moving forward. We must bring the Imaginations, fired up in the Michael School & thru the burning, down from the ethers into the actions of a New Mystica Aeterna in America.
Let us keep looking Above & Below the surface – Into the Heights & Depths, the Center & the Periphery, with open-mindedness, in the endeavoring to Know ThySelf…
20 October 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: We won’t be able to see Occult Mercury, reach superior conjunction at 1 A.M. CDT. But this Wandering Planet will become an evening star visible after sunset in November.
1781 – At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis’ sword & formally surrendered to George Washington & the comte de Rochambeau. The Revolutionary War Ends
1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grande Armée of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Ulm. 30,000 prisoners are captured & 10,000 casualties inflicted on the losers
1812 – Napoleon Bonaparte retreats from Moscow
1813 – The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats
1893 – Deathday of Lucy Stone, a prominent American orator, abolitionist, & suffragist, & a vocal advocate & organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women’s rights & against slavery at a time when women were discouraged & prevented from public speaking. Stone was known for using her maiden name after marriage.
Stone’s organizational activities for the cause of women’s rights yielded tangible gains in the difficult political environment of the 19th century. Stone helped initiate the first National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts & she supported & sustained it annually, along with a number of other local, state & regional activist conventions. She assisted in establishing the Woman’s National Loyal League to help pass the Thirteenth Amendment & thereby abolish slavery, after which she helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association AWSA, which built support for a woman suffrage Constitutional amendment by winning woman suffrage at the state & local levels.
In the long-running & influential Woman’s Journal, a weekly periodical that she founded & promoted, Stone aired both her own & differing views about women’s rights. Called “the orator”, the “morning star” & the “heart & soul” of the women’s rights movement, Stone influenced Susan B. Anthony to take up the cause of women’s suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that “Lucy Stone was the first person by whom the heart of the American public was deeply stirred on the woman question.”
1897 – Deathday of George Pullman, an American engineer & industrialist. He designed & manufactured the Pullman sleeping car & founded a enslaving ‘company town’ for the workers who manufactured it.
During an 1894 downturn in manufacturing demand, he lowered wages & required workers to spend longer hours at the plant, but did not lower prices of rents & goods in his company town. He gained presidential support by Grover Cleveland for the use of federal military troops which left 30 strikers dead in the violent suppression of workers there to end the Pullman Strike of 1894. A national commission was appointed to investigate the strike, which included assessment of operations of the company town. In 1898 the Supreme Court of Illinois ordered the Pullman Company to divest itself of the town which became a neighborhood of the city of Chicago
1902 – Founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society in Belin with Rudolf Steiner as the General Secretary
1915 – J.P. Morgan arranges the biggest foreign loan in history – a $500 million war loan to Britain & France – passing global financial control from the UK to the US
1936 – Deathday of Lu Xun, a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. Writing in Vernacular Chinese as well as Classical Chinese, Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist, & poet. After the May Fourth Movement, Lu Xun’s writing began to exert a substantial influence on Chinese literature & popular culture. Though sympathetic to socialist ideas, Lu Xun never joined the Communist Party of China
1937 – Deathday of Ernest Rutherford, a New Zealand physicist & Nobel Prize laureate, who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday
He conducted research that led to the first “splitting” of the atom in 1917 in a nuclear reaction between nitrogen & alpha particles, in which he also discovered & named the proton
1950 – Deathday of Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet & playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, & was also known for her feminist activism. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work.
Save the Dates for Community Workings
October 21-22
Orionids Meteor Shower Predicted Peak
October 23
Venus at Greatest Western Elongation
October 28
Full Hunter’s Moon and Partial Lunar Eclipse
~Alex Gray
All Souls Festival – Election Day 7 November 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Bon-fire
Celebrating: The Festival of the Dead, & Martinmas
Dear Friends – If are to enliven our Festival Life, which can often feel like an unactualized commemoration, we must apply the New Mysteries of Spiritual Science to the Seasonal Round. The future is calling up in us the power to co-create a Michaelmas Festival that has significance for humanity in our present age. As the Autumn Harvest-Tide advances, & the trees begin to bare their skeletons; Natura transforms into the wise Winter Hag. Persephone, a maiden no more, becomes Queen of the Underworld.
The Easter Resurrection ever sprouting, seen in the innocent Youth & the fertile Mother, must be now be cultivated within.
As we take in & redeem the decay, we must also conceive of how the Soul of Earth contracts inwardly. The far-flung field, becomes the Masonic Workbench, the inner forge, en-couraging us to hone & shape the Cosmic Iron of the Stars on the altar of our hearts into our sword of Michaelic thinking. Consecrating the Foundation Stone at the center of the labyrinthine womb of The Mothers! It is within this Honeycomb Womb/Tomb that we must cultivate the New Sun, reborn at Winter Solstice.
As we do this Great Work thru our own personal inner development, we also cultivate outwardly our Communal Social Life – Investing in a community that can only become living thru tolerance, interest, mutual respect & unselfish Love.
Our heart-thinking living as a social reflection will unite us with the ‘ever present help of the Spiritual World’ waiting to meet us in the Reverse Ritual which we can apply in the co-creation of a Michaelmas-Tide, as the complement & continuation of the Easter-Tide.
Fostering unity in the 3-fold community.
Dear friends – During this Michaelmas Season, let us courageously unite, so that we can heal & redeem social organizations – consciously reweaving the web – freeing ourselves from the corporate spiders that seek to sting & enslave us.
Freedom thru discernment. Mutuality thru shared goals. Equity thru human rights. A marriage of Spirit & Matter. A New Civilization where Science, Art & Spirituality Unite – exemplified in our Festival Life.
An alchemical evolution in the retort of our Soul Forces of Thinking, Feeling & Willing. Windows into the cosmic course that reveal & resolve the Riddles of the Universe. Out of the union of Wisdom & Love we can act creatively, uniting our human willing with Divine Willing.
The harvest time does not let us recline – we must be active. ‘Relaxed with pep’ – reviewing the seasons behind us, giving thanks for the blessings received. Listening to what comes next…
As I mentioned in the last essay Michaelmas as Movable Feast, the 8 Sabbats on the Wheel of the Year correspond to the phases of the Moon – with the Autumnal Equinox relating to the Last Quarter phase of the lunar cycle. This is a time when we completly change direction. We experience a Reversal. We flip from equal light into the waning darkness. Exposing the 8th Sphere.
As a society we are in this disseminating phase – a real crisis phase. We know it’s time to move on to something new. It is time to re-evaluate everything!
We have now, at this time, an initiatory opportunity to Meet the Mysteries of the Unmanifest – which can lead us into true renewal.
And the New Moon Solar eclipse of 14 October 2023 is a cosmic sign from the spiritual world – a ‘Key Call’ for those who have ears that see, eyes that hear, & hearts that think…
~hag
The 1st New Moon after the Autumnal Equinox –Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, annular solar eclipse
All are welcome to meet on the inner planes during any part of the duration of the Solar eclipse – which Spiritual Science tells us is like the releasing of a safety valve – allowing the unbridled astral urges of the adversarial forces living in humanity, which are normally held in check by the spiritual beings working in the rays of the Sun, to instead surge out to infect the cosmic spaces, including our beloved dead & the unborn. (More on this soon)
For those who would like to gather in person I will be facilitating a Michaelmas Speaking with the Stars retreat 13-15 October 2023 at Cahokia Mounds – a sacred Mississippian Indian site in Collinsville, Illinois, called by the ancients: Sun City. We will gather to co-create ‘a New Group-Soul United in Christ’ thru Art-Acts, & other experiencial activities to collectively build a cogititive imagination for healing, working with Sophia-Michael-Christ, embracing all worlds with Love & Light. We will be employing the ‘Woodhenge’ zodiac site, as well as Monks Mound, & the Mississippi River trail…etc…Space is limited contact Hazel@ReverseRitual.com
~Roland Ruocco
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler MICHAELMAS II Spirit Sunlight’s Dawn v27 To penetrate my depths of being arouses longing, ardently divining, that I, self-contemplating, find I am the gift the summer sun’s bequeathed that lives in autumn mood as warming seed, a spring of strength empowering my soul.
It is the first verse of the Soul Calendar’s second half of the year, its turning point. The soul’s attention now turns inward, longing to know herself. The summer’s gift can be compared to each night’s sleep when higher beings implant a moral purpose. The verse is like a morning prayer as the soul awakens with the inspired will for the spirit’s Christmas birth: the spirit-germ of the self is a reflection of the Michael being whose fiery will expressed itself last week.
MICHAELMAS Michaelic Firepower v26 Natura, in the being of my will I bear your soul of motherhood and in my will enkindled firepower my spirit impulses are tempered, steeled, that feeling of the selfhood formed from them bear I in me.
(I sent Hazel last week a synopsis of the Michaelmas conference i enjoyed in my English home town, and a little reflection of part of my biography. She put it into the comments of her ‘Forged in Star-Fire’ post.)
8 October 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Draconid meteor shower is ramping up this evening to a peak tomorrow morning. The Draconids owe their name to the constellation Draco the Dragon, and are created when the Earth passes through the dust debris left by comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner. The comet takes about 6.6 years to make a single revolution around the Sun.
1793 – Deathday of John Hancock, the first man to sign the historic document, was a Freemason.
1852 – Deathday of Franz Graffer – His memoirs Kleine Wiener Memoiren, are the source for the Comte de St. Germain‘s appearance in Vienna…
1871 – Slash-and-burn land management, months of drought, and the passage of a strong cold front cause the Peshtigo Fire, the Great Chicago Fire & the Great Michigan Fires to break out
1939 – World War II: Germany annexes western Poland.
1969 – The opening rally of the Days of Rage occurs, organized by the Weather Underground in Chicago. The Days of Rage demonstrations were a series of actions taken over a course of three days by a counterculture-era group ‘Students for a Democratic Society’. The group planned the October 8–11 event as a “National Action” built around John Jacobs’ slogan “bring the war home”. The resolution read, “The Elections Don’t Mean Shit—Vote Where the Power Is—Our Power Is In The Street”. It was adopted by the council, prompted by the effects of the 1968 Democratic National Convention protest activity in August.
1982 – Poland bans Solidarity & all other trade unions.
1990 – Second Intifada: Israeli police kill 170 Palestinians & wound over 100 near the Dome of the Rock.
2001 – U.S. President George W. Bush announces the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security.
2005 – The 7.6 Mw Kashmir earthquake leaves 86,000–87,351 people dead, 69,000–75,266 injured,& 2.8 million homeless.
2014 – Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola, dies.
Annular solar eclipse total phases composite panorama during Totality , moon covers the sun’s visible outer edges to form a “ring of fire” shot using mylar solar film , very rare natural event Sun, Moon and Earth are aligned. A total eclipse , An annular eclipse , A hybrid eclipse, partial eclipse
Save the Dates for Community Workings
October 14
Annular Solar Eclipse
October 21-22
Orionids Meteor Shower Predicted Peak
October 23
Venus at Greatest Western Elongation
October 28
Full Hunter’s Moon and Partial Lunar Eclipse
All Souls Festival – Election Day 7 November 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Bon-fire
Celebrating: The Festival of the Dead, & Martinmas
Greetings friends – There is so much to contemplate during this Michaelmas Season. Virtue for SEPT 21 – OCT 20 – Contentment becomes Equanimity. OPPOSITE: Dissatisfaction
At this time, the flowers wither, fruit & nuts fall from the trees & decompose, leaving their empty husks on the ground; grains are sorted or stored before being sown, to ensure a new cycle of growth. This process of decomposition & sorting also concerns the human being.
Just as the fruit is separated from the tree & the seed from the fruit, so is the soul separated from the body, in sleep, in meditation, in death…The body is the envelope -the wrapping – & the soul is the seed that is planted in the soil of the spiritual world.
The human being is a fruit…& when we are ripe, we must not fall to the ground like the fruits & seeds of the earth, we must journey with consciousness into the spiritual world.
Autumn is the season for that separation of which Hermes Trismegistus speaks: ‘You shall separate the subtle from the gross, gently and with great skill.’
To separate the subtle from the gross is to separate the spiritual from the material, & the whole of nature undergoes this process of alchemy at Autumn-Tide, in preparation for the coming of new light & life. And yet most people have no idea what to cut out or re-cycle: they swallow everything whole, & are rarely content.
And so this is what we have to learn from Michael: Discernment! Which is also the counter measure to cast out Ahriman – We must discern what to choose, & how to separate the pure from the impure, the useful from the useless, the harmful from the beneficial.
The absence of judgment in this respect is the cause of many misfortunes. Michaelmas is resplendently rich in meaning for those who understand that it can bring them the courage to cultivate true freedom & liberation.
So put the sword of Michael to use, to bless & bestow, as well as to cut away what does not serve – To separate the wheat from the chaff -To sharpen the mind & protect the heart.
Stand as a peaceful warrior for change
~hag
5 October 1872 – the Birthday of Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a Protestant German minister, & theologian; friend of Rudolf Steiner; co-founder & driving force of The Christian Community.
Growing up in Frankish Schweinfurt – his father was a Lutheran minister – it was already clear to him as a child that he wanted to go into a religious profession. From 1890 Rittelmeyer studied philosophy & Protestant theology. His teacher Oswald Külpe, encouraged him to write his dissertation on Friedrich Nietzsche.
He also went on a study trip to meet theologians & socially-engaged ministers of the time, as well as members of the Moravian Church. From 1895 to 1902 he was at the Stadtvikar in Würzburg. In 1903 he took up the preachership of Heilig-Geist-Kirche in Nuremberg. There he married Julie Kerler on 5 April 1904. Rittelmeyer worked & closely collaborated with Christian Geyer, the head preacher of the Sebalduskirche, together they produced two joint volumes of sermons. Around 1910 they both led discussions with the Bavarian church council on a liberal interpretation of the Bible.
Also inn 1910 the Nuremberg school teacher Michael Bauer enabled Rittelmeyer to have his first encounter with Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. Rittelmeyer described the encounter & discussed Steiner’s personality & work in his book ‘Rudolf Steiner Enters my Life’.
Rudolf Steiner Comes Into My Life by Friedrich Rittelmeyer
“It was on August 28th, 1911, the anniversary of Goethe’s birthday, that I saw Rudolf Steiner for the first time. I had to go on a short journey and I managed to attend the Theosophical Summer Conference at Munich on the Sunday. For six months, practically all my spare time had been devoted to reading Dr. Steiner’s works, but I still had no thought as yet of joining the Society. In spite of this, I was allowed to attend all the meetings without any kind of obligation. When I went into the room I was surprised at the atmosphere I found there. The audience, for the most part, gave one an impression of strangeness. A certain type of passive, sensation-mongering mentality troubled me. Especially when I saw men with long hair, my impulse was to run away. Later on, all these things changed decidedly for the better, when the “theosophical” shells were laid aside and Rudolf Steiner began to attract more and more men of a scientific turn of mind. He certainly suffered a great deal in those earlier years, but out of respect for personal freedom he did not on principle enter into external trivialities of this kind and tried gradually to educate the people from within.
What pleased me was the evidence of a mood of festive devotion. It was not difficult to see that this was a festival of man. These people were filled with joy that they were in the presence of one whom they felt to be quite out of the common, a leader worthy of all respect, and who yet went about among them as a man among other men. Although I felt an outsider, and was repelled by many things I saw, I was interested to find how genuinely and sincerely a man was being regarded as an “event” in humanity. Everything breathed in honour of manhood, for these people felt themselves in the presence of a great figure of the human race. Something of this kind must have been experienced before one can realise the silent effect which a single individual can have upon those around him. This was particularly in evidence during the dramatic performances. Those who took part were not presenting their art with an eye to Press and public, but as if they felt a higher being looking through them, and they were therefore striving without personal vanity to offer their sacrifices in the revealed presence of a Divine world. Quite a new conception of art as worship arose within me...
Here, in very truth, was a kingly mind in the realms of knowledge, far-seeing and mighty in its freedom. He let a science of Nature come to flower around us, a wisdom far more stimulating than the dead knowledge of the day and a science in which religion could breathe anew...
In everything I said and asked I found myself in the presence of an unmistakable expert. There was nothing I could say that he did not seem already to know. Whereas in other conversations I had had with outstanding men I always refrained from speaking about certain experiences because one was accustomed to find no understanding, here I could touch upon whatever intimate and delicate subjects I liked and was always answered by genuine human kindliness and a superior power that could not but inspire every confidence...
If only people could have seen how he spoke of these matters in personal conversation! His great dark eyes became even more alert. With a consciousness of responsibility than which nothing greater or purer could be imagined, he spoke every word with hesitation. It was as if, all unseen, he had passed into a temple where he was acting before the eyes of higher powers. One could have wished that all the sensitive minds of humanity had been present to witness such a spectacle! If the teaching of reincarnation were to be renewed in a Christian sense it could not have been entrusted to a more scrupulous mind...
Only a warped nature could fail to perceive that here one was standing in the very light of truth. The man before us was telling of a world in which he himself was living. The many hundreds of sermons I had heard about Christ came up in the background of my mind. They faded into shadows. “We speak of that which we do know and testify of that which we have seen.” — A new proclamation of Christ was there. A new Christ-era was dawning — as yet in the first faint rays of the promised morning. The lecture itself spoke of this — spoke without the least trace of selfish longing for what has yet to come, proclaiming simply what is and would like to bestow itself upon us. Anyone who witnessed this could doubt no longer but that a fully authorized servant of Christ was standing before him...
There was also far too much easy chattering about anthroposophical truths and a great deal of blind following of the leader of Anthroposophy. Such is the tragedy that is bound up with greatness, a tragedy that will always be there when a great man appears. But Rudolf Steiner never failed to let it be known that the men he liked best were those who stood before him in freedom and self-assurance. Even wilfulness did not altogether displease him, although he could not regard it as a quality likely to promote the cause of Anthroposophy. The way in which he combined the pressing need of the cause with respect for personal freedom always called forth my unqualified admiration. If it were a matter of choosing, he invariably put the freedom of a man before the needs of the cause. For he regarded the future temple of mankind as lost if it were built upon mediæval foundations...”
In 1916 Rittelmeyer was sent to the Neue Kirche in Berlin, working as preacher there. He opposed the First World War, & with 4 other Berlin theologians signed a proclamation of peace & understanding on the occasion of Reformation Day (October 1917).
In September 1922 he established the “Movement for Religious Revival” (Christengemeinschaft) Rittelmeyer acted as its first “Erzoberlenker” or Head Priest, & from its base in Stuttgart was the leading envoy right up to his death. To do this great deed he sacrificed his eminent position within the Lutheran Chruch, in order to lead The Christian Community, an international movement for religious renewal founded with the co-operation of Rudolf Steiner.
1921 – French journalist Jules Sauerwein, Interviewed Rudolf Steiner about the cause of WW1. ‘Of all the kings, monarchs, presidents, ministers, scholars, artists, writers and prominent figures in business whom I have come to know in the course of the decades of my profession, none has made such a deep impression on me as the German philosopher Rudolf Steiner.’
ESSAYS ON THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL ORGANISM, GA 24
“You know that if your opponents are to be believed, the Chief of General Staff is said to have lost his head first and then the Battle of the Marne because of you.”
That is the question that I asked the famous spiritual researcher and sociologist Rudolf Steiner, born German-Austrian. I have had sincere admiration and friendly feelings for him for more than fifteen years. It gave me great satisfaction at the time to translate several of his theosophical works into French. Whenever my travels permit, I do not fail to visit Dr. when passing through Basel. Steiner in Dornach to pay a short visit.
This time I met him again at the strange and enormous building, which was given the name Goetheanum by his students in honor of Goethe as a forerunner of spiritual science. I have already written in “Matin” about the man as well as about the building and its wonderful location, on the last foothills of the Jura crowned by castle ruins.
Rudolf Steiner had just returned from Germany after giving lectures on his teachings to thousands of enthusiastic listeners in Stuttgart and Berlin. On the same day in Dornach he received a group of 120 theologians with whom he discussed theological and religious questions. A number of these theologians, on the basis of Dr. Steiner’s teachings to tackle a redesign of religious life.
Dr. Steiner was currently working on a huge group in wood sculpture depicting Christ and the underlying seductive powers, Lucifer and Ahriman. This is one of the most impressive creations I have ever seen; it will form the central end of the smaller domed room in the Goetheanum. As I watched the listeners climb the hill in small groups to gather for the lecture, Dr. Steiner from the attacks of his opponents. Clericals and pan-Germans and fanatical followers of various religious denominations fight against him with every weapon and at every opportunity.
The fear of the truth
When I asked him directly the question about General von Moltke, he directed his piercing eyes at me, which looked at me from a face furrowed by forty years of intense intellectual struggle.
«What you tell me doesn’t surprise me. No means will be shied away from to expel me from Germany and possibly also from Switzerland. These attacks come from a variety of backgrounds. But insofar as they extend to my relationships with Moltke, they have a very specific goal. They want to prevent the publication of some notes that Moltke made for his family before his death and which I should arrange for publication in bookstores with the consent of Mrs. von Moltke.
These memoirs should have been published in 1919. Immediately before its publication, a person in charge of the Prussian diplomatic representation in Stuttgart visited me to tell me that this publication was impossible and that they would not want it in Berlin. Later a general who had been in positions with General von Moltke and Wilhelm II came to me and gave me the same ideas. I protested against this and wanted to ignore it. I thought of turning to Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau, who was then in Versailles; but couldn’t achieve anything. My efforts were all the more unsuccessful because at the same time Ms. von Moltke was approached with ideas that she could not escape.
Why these fears? These memoirs are by no means an indictment of the imperial government. But what they show, perhaps worse, is that the imperial government was in a state of complete confusion and under an incomprehensibly careless and ignorant leadership. One can apply the sentence that I wrote down in my foreword to the responsible personalities: <It was not what they did that contributed to the calamity, but the entire nature of their personalities.>
I can add that it was due to the peculiar circumstances that ultimately the weight of the decisive resolutions fell on a single man, the Chief of General Staff, who saw himself forced to do his military duty because politics was at a standstill had arrived. I never spoke to him about political or military questions before Moltke resigned. It was only later, when he was seriously ill, that he naturally spoke openly to me about all these matters, and since this will interest you, I will tell you what he told me himself and what can also be seen from his unpublished memoirs.
At the end of June 1914, Moltke, who had been chief of staff since 1905, went to Karlsbad for health reasons. Until his death he knew nothing about a Potsdam meeting on July 5th or 6th. He only returned to Berlin in good health after the ultimatum to Serbia. Since his return, he said, he had been firmly convinced that Russia was going to attack. He clearly foresaw the tragic development that things were bound to take, that is, he believed in the participation of France and England in the world conflict. He wrote a memorandum for the emperor that pointed out the need for measures to be taken. The German General Staff’s plan had essentially been fixed for a long time. It was set up by Moltke’s predecessor, von Schlieffen. You know its basics: Large masses were to be thrown against France in order to achieve a rapid decision in the West at any cost. A weak defensive army was planned against Russia, which was to be replenished later following the decision in the western theater of war.
Beguiled people
Von Moltke had changed his predecessor’s plan in one important point. While Schlieffen had planned to march through Belgium and Holland at the same time, Moltke had renounced Holland in order to give Germany breathing space in the event of a blockade.
When Moltke came to the castle on Friday, July 31st, he found people completely confused. As he said, he had the impression that he found himself in the position of having to make a decision all on his own. On that day, the Kaiser did not yet sign the mobilization order, an order which in Germany was tantamount to a declaration of war, because as soon as this order was given, everything, including the first operation at certain hours, took place with an inexorable automatism. For that day, Wilhelm II contented himself with proclaiming the impending danger of war. The following day, on Saturday, August 1st, at four o’clock in the afternoon, he summoned Moltke again, and over the next six hours the following drama unfolded.
Moltke meets the Kaiser in the presence of Bethmann Hollweg, whose knees were literally shaking, the War Minister Falkenhayn, General von Plessen, Lyncker and a few others. The Kaiser strongly objected to the Chief of Staff’s intentions. He says he received the best news from England. Not only would England remain neutral – as George V informed him – but she would even prevent France from taking part in the war. Under these conditions it would be logical to throw the entire army against Russia. No, Moltke replied, the plan must be carried out in the East and the West as it was determined if we do not want to bring about the greatest disaster.
The technical reasons
The objections don’t affect Moltke; he refuses to change anything. He argues that the mobilization order must be followed without any delay. He does not believe in the English telegrams, and with the mobilization order in hand that William II has just signed, he is dismissed, leaving the others in a state of complete confusion. So it came about that the decision to break out of war had to be made for purely military reasons. On the way from the castle to the general staff, his car is overtaken by an imperial automobile. Moltke is recalled on behalf of the emperor. The emperor is more excited than ever. He shows his chief of staff a telegram from England. He believes he can see with absolute certainty from this telegram that that the conflict would be confined to the East and that England and France would remain neutral. <There must, he concludes, <immediately be given an order to the army not to act in the West.> Moltke’s answer is that an army cannot be subjected to the alternative of orders and counter-orders. Then, while Moltke stood by, the Kaiser turned to the wing adjutant on duty and ordered him to immediately convey the order to the command of the 16th Division in Trier that they should not march into Luxembourg. Moltke goes home. Shocked because he expects the greatest disaster to come from such measures, he sits down at his table. He explains that he cannot take any measures for the army in accordance with the Emperor’s telephone order. This order is brought to you by an adjutant for your signature. He refuses to sign and postpones the order. He remained in a state of dull exhaustion until 11 o’clock in the evening, even though he had returned from Carlsbad in good health. The bell will ring at 11 a.m. The emperor asks about him again. He immediately goes to the castle. Wilhelm II, who had already retired, throws on a dressing gown and says: Everything has changed. Calamity is approaching. The King of England has just declared in a new telegram that he has been misunderstood and that he assumes no obligation on either his behalf or that of France. He concludes by saying: Now you can do whatever you want. And now the war begins. despite the fact that he had returned from Carlsbad completely healthy. The bell will ring at 11 a.m. The emperor asks about him again. He immediately goes to the castle. Wilhelm II, who had already retired, throws on a dressing gown and says: Everything has changed. Calamity is approaching. The King of England has just declared in a new telegram that he has been misunderstood and that he assumes no obligation on either his behalf or that of France. He concludes by saying: Now you can do whatever you want. And now the war begins. despite the fact that he had returned from Carlsbad completely healthy. The bell will ring at 11 a.m. The emperor asks about him again. He immediately goes to the castle. Wilhelm II, who had already retired, throws on a dressing gown and says: Everything has changed. Calamity is approaching. The King of England has just declared in a new telegram that he has been misunderstood and that he assumes no obligation on either his behalf or that of France. He concludes by saying: Now you can do whatever you want. And now the war begins. Everything has changed. Calamity is approaching. The King of England has just declared in a new telegram that he has been misunderstood and that he assumes no obligation on either his behalf or that of France. He concludes by saying: Now you can do whatever you want. And now the war begins. Everything has changed. Calamity is approaching. The King of England has just declared in a new telegram that he has been misunderstood and that he assumes no obligation on either his behalf or that of France. He concludes by saying: Now you can do whatever you want. And now the war begins.
Gloomy omens
In the month of August I saw General von Moltke once, on August 27th in Koblenz. Our conversation revolved around purely human matters. The German army was still in full victory. There was also no reason to talk about what wasn’t there yet. The Battle of the Marne unfolded later. I hadn’t seen Moltke again until then. It took place under conditions which must have profoundly shaken von Moltke’s expectations. During the test maneuvers he had several times carried out a cautious advance on the right wing, which could have been considered for a march on Paris. Kluck, who had overall command of the right wing, advanced too quickly three times. Every time Moltke said to him, If you advance just as quickly at the crucial moment, we will lose the war in an emergency. When Kluck’s army was threatened with being surrounded, Moltke found himself gripped by a terrible premonition. The thought occurred to him: the war could be lost for Germany. That seems to me to be part of the <psychology> of the course of the war. When von Moltke returned to headquarters on September 13th, he gave the impression of a deeply shaken man. Those around the emperor thought he was sick. From that moment on, Falkenhayn was in fact in command, without having the official title. Later, when Moltke had to stay in bed, Wilhelm II visited him. Am I still in charge of the operations? he asked the emperor. “I actually believe that you still are,” Wilhelm II replied.
But now a new example of the opinion that people had of Wilhelm II in his own environment. One day, when von Moltke described to me the feelings of deep suffering he felt returning via Belgium after the capture of Antwerp, I asked him for the first time about the invasion of Belgium. How come, I asked. that a war minister could claim in the Reichstag that the plan to invade Belgium did not exist. This minister, replied Moltke, did not know my plan, but the Chancellor was up to date. And the emperor? Never, said Moltke: he was too talkative and indiscreet. He would have told the whole world! » ~Jules Sauerwein.
The lecture cycle now being published in its entirety for the first time in English has always been known as the “French Course” for an interesting reason — although it is directed to anthroposophists everywhere as much as any other of Rudolf Steiner’s major cycles. The course was given in September, 1922 exclusively to members of the Society, and it was held in the old Goetheanum. French members were specially invited, and a considerable number of them were present. A French translation was provided by Jules Sauerwein, a distinguished bilingual French member, editor of Le Matin, the leading Parisian newspaper of the time, whose sister Alice was to become in the following year the first General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in France. Determined to spare no effort to make the cycle, difficult and detailed though it was, comprehensible to the French members present, Rudolf Steiner every night prepared an outline of what he was to say, and gave it to Jules Sauerwein the following morning, so that he could study it and decide how best he could translate it into French. During the lectures Steiner paused three or four times to allow him to translate the gist of what he had said, a procedure he followed also with George Adams Kauffman during these years when the audience was composed of English-speaking members…
The outline prepared by Rudolf Steiner for Jules Sauerwein has survived, and it is extremely interesting to compare it with the course. Steiner explained on several occasions that when he lectured he spoke always directly out of his supersensible perception of the spiritual worlds and could never speak out of what he remembered or had given previously. It will be evident that he did not deviate from his rule even when he had given his translator an outline of what the night before he had decided he would say. Especially the last highly esoteric lectures of the course when he speaks of the influence of the Christ in earth evolution go so much farther than the outline that Sauerwein must have felt he had been given little enough to help him through his exceptionally difficult task.” ~ Stewart C. Easton
5 October 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The last-quarter Moon awaits night owls, as it hangs over late-rising Gemini
610 – Coronation of Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, responsible for introducing Greek as the Eastern Empire’s official language. The year Heraclius came to power, the empire was threatened on multiple frontiers. Heraclius drove the Persians out of Asia Minor and pushed deep into their territory, defeating them decisively in 627 at the Battle of Nineveh. Then peaceful relations were restored to the two deeply strained empires.
Heraclius soon experienced a new event, the Muslim conquests. Within a short period of time, the Arabs conquered Mesopotamia, Armenia & Egypt.
Heraclius entered diplomatic relations with the Croats & Serbs in the Balkans. He tried to repair the schism in the Christian church by promoting a compromise doctrine called Monothelitism. Eventually, however, this project of unity was rejected by all sides of the dispute.
Heraclius was long remembered in the Western church for his reputed feat in recovering the True Cross, which had been captured by the Persians.
After a tour of the Empire Heraclius returned the cross on March 21, 630. For Christians of the Western Medieval Europe, Heraclius was the “first crusader”. The iconography of the emperor appeared in the sanctuary at Mont Saint-Michel. The story was included in the Golden Legend, the famous 13th century compendium of hagiography, and he is sometimes shown in art showing scenes of Heraclius & Constantine I’s mother Saint Helena, traditionally responsible for the excavation of the cross.
The scene usually shown is Heraclius carrying the cross; according to the Golden Legend he insisted on doing this as he entered Jerusalem, against the advice of the Patriarch. At first, when he was on horseback (shown above), the burden was too heavy, but after he dismounted & removed his crown it became miraculously light, & the barred city gate opened of its own accord
~Fra Filippo Lippi
6th Century – Feast day of Saint Placidus & Saint Maurus, disciples of Saint Benedict. Legend has it that Saint Maurus was sent a dream – an order from Saint Benedict’s to rescue Placidus from drowning. Maurus ran across the surface of the lake below the monastery, & drew Placidus safely to shore.
1789 – French Revolution: Women of Paris march to Versailles to confront Louis XVI of France about his refusal to promulgate the decrees on the abolition of feudalism, demand bread, & have the King & his court moved to Paris.
1793 – French Revolution: Christianity is disestablished in France
1864 – The Indian city of Calcutta is almost totally destroyed by a cyclone; 60,000 die
1948 – The 1948 Ashgabat earthquake kills 110,000, equivalent to almost 10% of the USSR’s Turkmen population. Due to censorship by the national (Soviet Turkmen) government, the event was not widely reported in the USSR’s media. Historians tend to agree that the ban on reporting the extent of the casualties & damage did not allow the central Soviet government to allocate enough financial resources to adequately respond
1966 – Near Detroit, Michigan, there is a partial core meltdown at the Enrico Fermi demonstration nuclear breeder reactor
1970 – The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is founded
1982 – Chicago Tylenol murders: Johnson & Johnson initiates a nationwide product recall in the United States for all products in its Tylenol brand after several bottles in Chicago are found to have been laced with cyanide, resulting in seven deaths
1986 – Israeli secret nuclear weapons are revealed. The British newspaper The Sunday Times runs Mordechai Vanunu’s story on its front page under the headline: “Revealed — the secrets of Israel’s nuclear arsenal”
All Souls Festival – Election Day 7 November 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire
Celebrating: The Festival of the Dead, & Martinmas
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep
RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com
Annular solar eclipse total phases composite panorama during Totality , moon covers the sun’s visible outer edges to form a “ring of fire” shot using mylar solar film , very rare natural event Sun, Moon and Earth are aligned. A total eclipse , An annular eclipse , A hybrid eclipse, partial eclipse
Save the Dates for Community Workings TBA:
October 14
Annular Solar Eclipse
October 21-22
Orionids Meteor Shower Predicted Peak
October 23
Venus at Greatest Western Elongation
October 28
Full Hunter’s Moon and Partial Lunar Eclipse
The 1st New Moon after the Autumnal Equinox –Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, annular solar eclipse
Global Event: Total Solar Eclipse Local Type: Total Solar Eclipse in Fort Worth, Texas Begins: Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 12:22 pm Maximum: Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 1:41 pm 1.005 Magnitude Ends: Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 3:01 pm Duration: 2 hours, 39 minutes Totality: 2 minutes, 34 seconds
Greetings Friends – During this time after the Autumnal Equinox & the beginning of the Michaelmas Season, a shift occurs within us, echoing outside of us in nature, & reflected in various cultural expressions & traditions.
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, comes 10 days after Rosh Hashanah, & is the culmination of the entire High Holy Day drama. It is the Holiest Day of the Jewish year or, as the Bible describes it, the “Sabbath of Sabbaths”. During the 24 hours of Yom Kippur, the biblical commandment to fast from food & water, while engaging in intense soul-searching, & praying for forgiveness is practiced. Yom Kippur is a day of inner purification & of reconciliation with the creator & with our fellow human beings. It is a reminder of the frailty of human existence & our duty to act charitably toward the less fortunate.
This ancient tradition is just as important now as it was for our ancestors, maybe even more so.
Isaiah by Marc Chagall
The inspiring, yet sobering, words of Isaiah 58 are read publicly in the synagogue on Yom Kippur “This fasting I have chosen,” says the prophet Isaiah, “Is it not done to loose the chains of injustice & untie the cords of bondage? To set the oppressed free & break every yoke? Are we not meant to share our food with the hungry & to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, you must clothe him, & not turn away from your fellow man?”
Forgiveness Marc Chagall
It is the moment in time to dedicate mind, body, & soul to reconciliation – with God, our fellow human beings, & ourselves; a time to turn to those whom we have wronged, acknowledging the pain we might have caused. At the same time, being willing to forgive & to let go of certain offenses & the feelings of resentment they provoked in us. This journey for both seekers & givers of pardon mirrors the journey a soul takes after death.
There are number of customs & traditions associated with the Holy Day of Yom Kippur. For example: the mikvah, or ritual bath. The scripture says “You shall immerse yourselves in water & be purified.” This practice, from which Christian baptism originated, symbolizes purification & regeneration, as well as new birth, through repentance. Another custom is to greet each other by saying ‘May your name be inscribed in the Book of Life’ Gmar Chatimah Tova.
The High Holy Days are divided into two parts: The first is the inscribing which begins on Rosh Hashanah & finishes on Yom Kippur when the final “sealing” of fate takes place for the year. Parents customarily bless their children with the priestly benediction: “May it be the will of our Father in Heaven to put into your heart love & reverence. May your eyes be directed, may your mouth speak wisdom, & your heart strive for holiness. May your hands be occupied with good deeds & your feet hasten to do the will of the divine. May He grant you sustenance without stress & with profit, out of His hand that is open wide. May you be inscribed & sealed unto a good, long life. And so shall it be. Amen.”
Our names are inscribed into the Mother Earth at the time of our birth. And thruout our many lives we add to this imprinting – Thru our thoughts, words & deeds – thru our interactions with other people, we create a trail that we traverse. And this pathway makes its mark.
So what happens to all that we inscribe into the Earth?
I think of the tale of ‘Eros & Fable’ by Novalis. In it there is a wise woman, named Sophia of course, who has a bowl of oracle water. When a scroll is immersed in it, all the nonessential writing is dissolved, leaving only what has lasting significance. Then this inscription is set into the great book.
But what happens to the rest? Does it become food for the adversary?
At this time of year we can imagine that our life story is dipped into this chalice. Our true name, our true eternal Self is not dissolved. But everything that must dissolve represents how we didn’t live up to our true name – How we missed the Mark.
And so it is that the question arises for each of us: How much of us is junk food & how much of our divine nature can be inscribed in the Book of Life?
It is also customary to give extra charity before the holiday, & to light memorial candles for departed family members.
As with all Jewish festivals, the woman formally ushers in the holiday by lighting the candles at sundown. Evening services commence with the recitation of the Kol Nidrei prayer, a plea for absolution from any & all unfulfilled vows a person may have made in the course of the year.
Marc Chagall
Contrary to popular belief, Yom Kippur is a day of hope & optimism in addition to a solemn day of soul-searching. The Day of Atonement provides a unique awareness of one’s own character, a track record, as well as the opportunity to upgrade relationships with relatives, friends, associates & the community at-large. Yom Kippur’s focus on forgiveness, highlights humility, fallibility, compassion, soul-searching faith, thoughtfulness, being considerate, & accepting responsibility
Hildegard
Cabalistic tradition states that the first human being, Adam, was created on Rosh Hashanah. And so it is that Human-beings are given an opportunity to recreate themselves spiritually, each year, on Yom Kippur. This holiday is celebrated when the constellation of the scales give way to the virgin as herald in the heavens. Libra & Virgo symbolize key themes of Yom Kippur: Justice, balance, truth, symmetry, wholeness.
Libra is ruled by the planet Venus which reflects the beauty of love, & Virgo is ruled by Mercury the god of communications.
During this season it is customary to walk to a body of fresh water & recite a special prayer, symbolically casting bread crumbs into the waters, a symbol of our sins: those actions that have missed the mark.
And now, at the risk of mixing metaphors, I’d like us to put into practice the Hawaiian ritual of forgiveness, called Ho‘oponopono – It stems from an understanding that everything in the world is connected, in spite of our feelings of ‘separateness’.
Trudy Suden
What we do to ourselves & others has repercussions. Because of this unity everything that occurs in our own little world creates a resonance in others & in society as a whole. To heal the planet we first have to heal ourselves; to do this, we will rely on four magic sentences: I am sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you. x4
In earnest wakefulness & practiced Peace –
~hag
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler AUTUMN EQUINOX Soul Luminescence v25 I may, belonging to myself now, begin to shine a dawning inner light across the darkening of space and time. To sleep is nature’s urge; the depths of soul shall wake and bear the sun’s warm glow through winter storms and snow.
The Equinox was on Saturday. I align the verses so that v38 is always at Christmas, so this Equinox verse is a week late… until next year when Christmas will be on Tuesday and the Autmn Equinox on Sunday.
This week’s mirror verse can be a meditation every morning on awakening. MICHAELMAS 111 Soul Sunpower v28 I can, revived within, now feel my own wide breadth of being, my strength of sun-empowered soul whose radiance of thinking solves life’s riddles and lifts the wish-fulfilling wings left lame by hope.
24 September 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The bright gibbous moon moves into the constellation Capricornus on the evenings of September 24 and 25. Comet Nishimura, has now moved from the morning sky to the evening sky. The comet is in bright twilight!
According to the Calendar of the Soul today is the Festival of Persephone, part of The Eleusinian Mysteries, held annually in honor of Demeter & Persephone. The most sacred & revered of all the ritual celebrations of ancient Greece. They were instituted in the city of Eleusis, just west of Athens, possibly as far back as the early Mycenaean period, & continued for almost two thousand years. Large crowds of worshippers from all over Greece (& later, from throughout the Roman empire) would gather to make the holy pilgrimage between the two cities & participate in the secret rites, generally regarded as the high point of Greek life.
622 – Muhammad & his followers completed their Hijra from Mecca to Medina to escape religious persecution. Rudolf Steiner tells us Muhammad was able to see into the etheric realm. Legend has it that the enemy was just seconds from capturing them when they ducked into a cave, where they surly would been found, except a spider wove a giant web & a dove made a nest at the entrance, so when the enemy come to the cave they thought – they can’t be here, since the web was so intricate & the nest so well established.
787 – Second Council of Nicaea: The council assembled at the church of Hagia Sophia
1046 – Deathday(drowned) /Feast of St. Gellert
1541 – Deathday (murdered) Theophrastus Paracelsus, a Swiss German philosopher, physician, botanist, astrologer, & occultist. He is credited as the founder of toxicology. He is also a famous revolutionary for utilizing observations of nature, rather than referring to ancient texts, something of radical defiance during his time. He is credited as the first to note that some diseases are rooted in psychological conditions.
Paracelsus’ most important legacy is his critique of the scholastic methods in medicine, science & theology. As a physician of the early 16th century, Paracelsus held a natural affinity with the Hermetic, Neoplatonic, & Pythagorean philosophies central to the Renaissance. Paracelsus rejected the magic theories of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa & Nicolas Flamel in his Archidoxes of Magic.
Astrology was a very important part of Paracelsus’ medicine & he was a practicing astrologer. Paracelsus devoted several sections in his writings to the construction of astrological talismans for curing disease. He also invented an alphabet called the Alphabet of the Magi, for engraving angelic names upon talismans.
1916 – Rudolf Steiner’s 2nd lecture on the Mexican Mysteries
1789 – The United States Congress passes the Judiciary Act which creates the office of the United States Attorney General & the federal judiciary system, & orders the composition of the Supreme Court of the United States
1869 – “Black Friday“: Gold prices plummet after Ulysses S. Grant orders the Treasury to sell large quantities of gold after Jay Gould & James Fisk plot to control the market
1896 – Birthday of F. Scott Fitzgerald, novelist & short story writer
1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaims Devils Tower in Wyoming as the nation’s first National Monument
1914 – World War I: The Siege of Poland begins
1948 – The Honda Motor Company is founded
1950 – Forest fires black out the sun over portions of Canada & New England. A blue moon is seen as far away as Europe
1957 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends 101st Airborne Divisiontroops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation
1960 – USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is launched
SUNDAY 24 September 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire
Celebrating:
*The Autumnal Equinox
*World Eurythmy Day
*Yom Kippur
*Michaelmas Festival
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share,& a jar for the prep
30 September 2023 – Our Annual Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day – Biodynamic preparation making and Michaelmas 2023 – Food for Thought
The time for biodynamic preparation making is upon us. We will be making and burying the chamomile, yarrow and dandelion compost preparations. This offers hands on activity. We will be walking through grass and working in the soil. Please dress accordingly and be ready to get dirty.
After the potluck join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg in an experiential activity at the bon-fire called: Food for Thought –
Bounty: What spiritual gifts have you harvested in your life so far this year? Farewells: What no longer serves? What is over? Say good-bye/ thank you. Preserves: What will you keep as seed for the future?
Date: September 30th, 2023 at the Zinniker Farm Time: 1:30pm, potluck dinner Please bring a dish to share Suggested donation: $15-25 for more info.
“Golden light is turning grey, Mists begin to rule the day. Bare the trees, their branches lift; Clouds of dead leaves earthward drift.
Through the field the farmer goes, Seeds of ripened corn she sows; Trusts the earth will hold it warm, Shelter it from cold and harm.
For she knows, that warmth and light Live there, hidden from our sight; And beneath a sheltering wing, Deep below, new life will spring!
Deep below, deep below, new life will spring!”
Dear friends – As I prepare for our Annual Michaelmas Festival, I am contemplating: What was, What is, What will be…Asking many questions such as: How can we renew the Autumnal Mysteries of Eleusis out-pictured in the myth of Persephone..? Can we apply the lessons of how the young innocent, narcissistic maiden, feeling a call from the future – becomes captivated in the Underworld – to bring light into the darkness of her unconscious human soul..?
I ponder her initiation into the inner sanctum of the Self, which allows a leap in her evolution – Joining her new won powers to the force of Demeter’s fertile purpose. This trial & transformation is not done in complete isolation – She receives the help of her ecstatic Sun brother Dionysus, & the humor of the mysterious Crone Baubo, with her ribald songs, in perfect iambic metre, which were sung to relieve the emotional tension at the Eleusinian Mysteries.
And in her stepping into this conscious dying of the onesidedness of the physical light, which then allows the spiritual light to flourish, she recalls her unborness, her divine origin – & brings that mystery back to Earth in the Spring.
Dionysus, reflective precursor to the great Sun gods, lifts her from the depths to the divine heights – As the Queen & Bride. The ancient Eleusinian Mysteries were a celebration of this holy marriage. The echo of this lives on, even into the first centuries of Christianity, before the further densification of the human being could no longer receive its true message.
But dear friends, what was lost, can be refounded – on a higher conscious level – If we experience the cycle of the year as a path of initiation, we can not only participate in the reality which we can observe in outward Nature, & in the Elemental life, which is shifting & ever changing; but we can also see the reality behind the inward aspects of the Mystery of Christianity which is ever evolving – giving an impetus to our inward soul-focus at this milestone time of the year.
Christ, as The Cosmic Being of Love, has become the meaning & the life of the Being of Earth – A Sacred marriage feast that we are invited to attend & celebrate.
In the Autumn-Tide time, when we pluck the ripe fruits, bringing in the harvest, reaping what we have sown, we can feel a deep gratitude to the Elemental forces working for Natura, waiting for us to acknowledge them – for our mutual evolution.
Here in the Windy City, the Autumn rains are pulling the dried seeds off the plants. Natura has not yet begun to array herself in a colorful cover, which always reveals the after-image of the life forces. And then after that magical display – as the withering death-forces come more & more to the surface, Natura cannot give us anything else – We are left to ourselves – so that we can dis-cover in ourselves the eternal – that which goes beyond Space & Time.
When nature dies in Autumn, we must awaken to the divine within – The eternal call to the deepest part of our “I”, hidden in our burgeoning soul – What was, what is & what will be, is revealed.
~Wolfgang Grasse
The New Christian Mysteries bring us a fresh tradition that we can unfold as a Festival of Michael – a practical, living imagination of the Mighty Principality holding the countenance of Christ – activating the Time Spirit guardian of our present age within our lives.
The wise prophets of the ancient Hebrew people recognized this seasonal signal & called it their New year in these ‘Days of Awe’. And we can remember that in Hebrew, the name Michael is a question – asking: “Who is like God..?” This is an appeal to humanity – O Human Soul – Step up to your true destiny!
This year we are coming together for our Annual Michaelmas Festival to serve the various impulses on 2 occasions:
SUNDAY 24 September 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire
Celebrating:
*The Autumnal Equinox
*World Eurythmy Day
*Yom Kippur
*Michaelmas Festival
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share,& a jar for the prep
30 September 2023 – Our Annual Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day – Biodynamic preparation making and Michaelmas 2023 – Food for Thought
The time for biodynamic preparation making is upon us. We will be making and burying the chamomile, yarrow and dandelion compost preparations. This offers hands on activity. We will be walking through grass and working in the soil. Please dress accordingly and be ready to get dirty.
After the potluck join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg in an experiential activity at the bon-fire called: Food for Thought –
Bounty: What spiritual gifts have you harvested in your life so far this year? Farewells: What no longer serves? What is over? Say good-bye/ thank you. Preserves: What will you keep as seed for the future?
Date: September 30th, 2023 at the Zinniker Farm Time: 1:30pm, potluck dinner Please bring a dish to share Suggested donation: $15-25 for more info.
“…The etheric Christ will be perceived through the development of the etheric body, and also through impressions of autumn which the human being weaves into himself. Why was Christ here in a physical body? It was so that man could develop higher in order to acquire the capacity to perceive the Christ more and more in the etheric…
As it happens so often that great things that should be brought into the world in the right way are so badly misunderstood, we must try to prepare ourselves for what should come. And if we want to approach the spirit at the point where the spirit of nature also speaks to us morally, then we may say to ourselves: all Spiritual Science is in a certain respect a preparation to help us understand what has been said about past events when we discussed the changes that take place in the course of time.“
~Rudolf Steiner, ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY AND THE MISSION OF CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUTZ, GA 130, II. The Christ Impulse in Historical Development II, 19 September 1911, Locarno
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
The Feast of San Gennaro, an Italian-American festival. Originally a one-day religious commemoration, the festival was first celebrated in the United States in September 1926, when immigrants from Naples congregated along Mulberry Street in the Little Italy section of Manhattan in New York City. The immigrant families on Mulberry Street who started the feast, a group of cafe owners, erected a small chapel in the street to house the image of their patron Saint. They invited all to partake of their wares, asking the devoted to pin an offering to the ribbon streamers that are hung from the statue’s apron. This money was then distributed to the needy poor of the neighborhood. Over time, the festival expanded into an 11-day street fair organized & run by people outside the neighborhood. It is now an annual celebration of food & drink, & a major tourist attraction. Centered on Mulberry Street, which is closed to traffic for the occasion, the festival generally features sausages, zeppole, street vendors, games, parades and other such attractions.
The Feast of Our Lady of La Salette*
634 – Siege of Damascus: The Rashidun Arabs under Khalid ibn al-Walid capture Damascus from the Byzantine Empire
1692 –The only death by peine forte et dure in American history was Giles Corey, who was (“pressed to death”) during the Salem witch trials, after he refused to enter a plea in the judicial proceeding. According to legend, his last words as he was being crushed were “More weight”, even though he was thought to be dead as the weight was applied.
*1846 – Two French shepherd children, Mélanie Calvat & Maximin Giraud, experience a Marian apparition on a mountaintop near La Salette, France, now known as Our Lady of La Salette. They returned from the mountain where they had been minding cows & reported seeing “a beautiful lady” on Mount Sous-Les Baisses, weeping bitterly. They described her as sitting with her elbows resting on her knees & her face buried in her hands. She was clothed in a white robe studded with pearls; & a gold colored apron; white shoes & roses about her feet & high head-dress. She wore a crucifix suspended by a necklace from her neck.
According to their account, she continued to weep even as she spoke to them, first in French, then in their own dialect. After giving a secret to each child, the apparition walked into a hill & vanished. The following day the children’s account of the apparition was put into writing & signed by the visionaries & those who had heard the story.
According to the children’s account, the Virgin invited people to respect the repose of the seventh day, & the name of God. She sorrowfully threatened punishment, in particular a scarcity of potatoes, which would rot. The context of these punishments places the warning just prior to the winter of 1846–1847, which was in Europe, & especially in Ireland & in France, a period of famine in the months which followed the apparition. This was one of the factors of the apparition’s popular appeal
1864 – American Civil War: Third Battle of Winchester: Union troops under General Philip Sheridan defeat a Confederate force commanded by General Jubal Early. With over 50,000 troops engaged it was the largest battle fought in the Shenandoah Valley & was not only militarily decisive in that region of Virginia but also played a role in securing Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1864
1881 – U.S. President James A. Garfield dies of wounds suffered in a July 2 shooting. Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker, at the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station in Washington. Among those at the station was Robert Todd Lincoln, who sixteen years before had watched his father die from an assassin’s bullet. Vice President Chester A. Arthur becomes President upon Garfield’s death
1893 – Women’s suffrage: In New Zealand, the Electoral Act of 1893 is consented to by the governor giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote
1812 – Deathday of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the banking dynasty
1940 – Witold Pilecki is voluntarily captured and sent to Auschwitz to smuggle out information and start a resistance
1946 – The Council of Europe is founded following a speech by Winston Churchill at the University of Zurich, calling for a “United States of Europe”
1952 – The US bars Charlie Chaplin from re-entering the country after a trip to England
1957 – First American underground nuclear bomb test (part of Operation Plumbbob)
1976 – Turkish Airlines Flight 452 hits the Taurus Mountains, killing all 154 passengers & crew
1976 – Two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom II jets fly out to investigate a UFO when both independently lose instrumentation & communications as they approach, only to have them restored upon withdrawal
1985 – A Violent. 8.0m earthquake hits Greater Mexico City area, killing at least 5,000 people, & destroys about 400 buildings
1989 – A terrorist bomb explodes UTA Flight 772 in mid-air above the Tùnùrù Desert, Niger, killing 171
“The impression of something living, something realistic, is produced by what has arisen in living imagination from decanted dreams.” ~Rudolf Steiner, from a lecture on September 19, 1924, ‘Speech and Drama’ (GA 282):
