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.
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 – 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.
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?”
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.
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
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’.
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.
Yes, Friends, I often look back – to see where I stand now – & to get a clue of how to go forward. Today’s Inspiring quote which touches on themes from the Affect Change post, is from the contents of the Esoteric Lessons, given in Stuttgart, by Rudolf Steiner on this day 17 September in 1917, the anniversary of the Deathday of Hildegard of Bingen, “the Sybil of the Rhine”.
“It’s very important for modern people to get a strong dose of esoteric life. Plagues, epidemics and wars would rage among men in a terrible way if the wise masters hadn’t decided to give mankind a deepening in the spiritual realm….
Unfortunately often this egotistical age can’t make proper use of such high capacities…Even people who have reached a certain stage in esoteric training can’t stand certain truths. And yet these are the very highest truths, and your training will eventually enable to you to receive them….
~ Kinjal Gorakh
We speak of reincarnation and the law of karma. One can tell oneself: I don’t believe in reincarnation, but I can assume that it exists. I’ll act as if my assumption is true and wait to see what comes of it. A person who thinks and acts like this will make amazing discoveries. In everything that happens to them they will think: I caused this in a past life and now bear the consequences of my own deeds. If such a person unconsciously did something foolish and is punished for it, they’ll think: I’ll make myself aware of this foolishness, so that I can see that I was the one who brought on these ugly consequences. This is the real meaning of: Whoever hits you on the right cheek, turn the other one to them also.
Anyone who succeeds in looking for the cause of everything that hits them from outside, sees that it begins within oneself, has accomplished a great deal. One who does this will soon notice that it brings them forward, that they begin to loosen karmic chains and increasingly gets control of their life. Such a person treads their life’s path freely and surely.
One can verify all anthroposophical teachings in the same way. So let’s all try to bring ever more spirituality into life, and make the light and life that the great masters stream into us alive.
You should all realize that the battles anthroposophy and especially esotericism will have to fight with the outer world will get ever bigger. There it’s a matter of standing fast, my sisters and brothers, stand fast, as you look at your goal and at the great masters who stand by us.” ~Rudolf Steiner
Together with you
~hag
17 September 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Look very low in the southwest in early evening twilight for the waxing crescent Moon. Can you see Spica twinkling to her lower right of the waxing curved sickle that is Bella Luna?
Then look for Comet Nishimura at perihelion. You have only a narrow time window between when twilight is still too bright and the comet gets too low and sets.
I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience ~ Zbigniew Herbert
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1179 – Deathday of Hildegard of Bingen, “the Sybil of the Rhine” a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, & polymath.
She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama, the oldest surviving morality play. She wrote theological, botanical, & medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, & poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.
Hildegard 1st saw “The Shade of the Living Light” at the age of three. Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, but at the age of 42, Hildegard received instruction from God, to “write down that which you see and hear.” Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering: “But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. (…) And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, ‘Cry out therefore, and write thus!’
Hildegard’s visions caused her to see humans as “living sparks” of God’s love.
On 17 September 1179, when Hildegard died, her sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies & cross over the room where she was dying.
“Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around Him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honor. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground, and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.” ~Hildegard of Bingen
1787 – The United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia
1859 – Joshua A. Norton declares himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States.” Born in England, Norton spent most of his early life in South Africa, he emigrated to San Francisco with an inheritance, but he lost his fortune investing in Peruvian rice & Norton’s public prominence faded. He reemerged to lay claim to the position of Emperor of the United States, & ‘Protector of Mexico’. He was treated deferentially in San Francisco, ¤cy issued in his name was honored in the establishments he frequented.
Though some considered him insane or eccentric, citizens of San Francisco celebrated his regal presence & his proclamations, such as his order that the United States Congress be dissolved by force & his numerous decrees calling for a bridge crossing connecting San Francisco to Oakland, &a corresponding tunnel to be built under San Francisco Bay.
At his funeral two days later, nearly 30,000 people packed the streets of San Francisco to pay homage. Norton has been immortalized as the basis of characters in the literature of writers Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Christopher Moore, Maurice De Bevere, Selma Lagerlöf, & Neil Gaiman
1908 – The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge. He becomes the first airplane fatality
1916 –Manfred von Richthofen (“The Red Baron“), a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France, in World War I
1928 – The Okeechobee hurricane strikes southeastern Florida, killing more than 2,500 people. It is the third deadliest natural disaster in United States history, behind the Galveston hurricane of 1900 & the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
1939 –The Soviet Union joins Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in World War II
1939 –German submarine U-29 sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous in World War II
1948 – The Lehi, also known as the Stern gang, assassinates Count Folke Bernadotte, who was appointed by the United Nations to mediate between the Arab nations & Israel. Lehi = “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel” was a Zionist paramilitary organization founded by Avraham (“Yair”) Stern in Palestine. Its aim was to evict the British authorities from Palestine by force, allowing unrestricted immigration of Jews & the formation of a Jewish state, a ‘new totalitarian Hebrew republic’
1961 – Deathday of Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish diplomat, economist, author & the second secretary-general of the United Nations. Soon after his appointment Hammarskjöld was interviewed on radio by Edward R. Murrow. In this talk he declared: “But the explanation of how man should live a life of active social service in full harmony with himself as a member of the community of spirit, I found in the writings of those great medieval mystics [Meister Eckhart and Jan van Ruysbroek] for whom ‘self-surrender’ had been the way to self-realization, and who in ‘singleness of mind’ and ‘inwardness’ had found strength to say yes to every demand which the needs of their neighbours made them face, and to say yes also to every fate life had in store for them when they followed the call of duty as they understood it.”
He was en route to negotiate a cease-fire on 18 September when his plane crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia. Hammarskjöld & fifteen others died in the crash. The circumstances of the incident are still not clear. There is some evidence that suggests the plane was shot down. Göran Björkdahl (a Swedish aid worker) wrote in 2011 that he believed Dag Hammarskjöld’s 1961 death was a murder committed in part to benefit mining companies like Union Minière, after Hammarskjöld had made the UN intervene in the Katanga crisis. Björkdahl based his assertion on interviews with witnesses of the plane crash & on archival documents. Former U.S. President Harry Truman commented that Hammarskjöld “was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said ‘when they killed him’.”
1978 – The Camp David Accords brokered by President Jimmy Carter, is signed by Egyptian PresidentAnwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime MinisterMenachem Begin
2001 – The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression
2006 – Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska erupts, marking the first eruption for the long-dormant volcano in at least 10,000 years
2011 – Occupy Wall Street movement begins in Zuccotti Park, New York City
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler AUTUMN PRELUDE IV The Fruit Of Will v24 In constant self-creation the soul grows self-aware; the spirit of the world strives onward in new self-knowledge re-enlivened, creating from the darkness of the soul the sense of selfhood’s harvest of the will.
MICHAELMAS IV Michaelic Hope v29 To have the inner fire to kindle thinking’s radiance and draw the meaning of experience from worldwide spirit’s well of power is now for me the summer’s heritage, is autumn’s peace… and winter’s hope.
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 come up again very soon. 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 work in 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 and 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
~Art Of The New Deal: How Artists Helped Redefine America During The Depression
Labor Pains 2023
While firing up the BBQ & setting out the disposable plates, most folks probably don’t think about Labor Day as a holiday commemorating the battle for human rights. But this is its origin.
~Thomas Hart Benton
In the volatile time between the Civil War & the Great Depression there was a massive sea-change within society – The industrial revolution was sweeping in – & millions of Americans were forced to leave their farms & move to cities in search of work. They found themselves on the assembly line in dark factories & in the newly-formed rail, steel, textile, & shipping industries.
Soon economic recession became a thing, creating mass poverty – throwing enormous numbers of people out of work. The Rights realm, in relation to the Economic & Cultural realms, was not up to morally dealing with how employers should treat their workers. There was no clear concept of how the wealth they all collectively produced would be distributed. Inequality soared to enormous heights. Growing corporations were making workers their indentured slaves.
Labor Unions were growing as the one avenue by which workers could fight for their interests, & the economy saw waves of regular strikes & work stoppages that would be unheard of today. The minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, laws against child labor, & more were only instituted after pitched political combat.
Sometimes, the battles were literal: Employers & politicians were not shy about busting unions with police as well as hired enforcers. Riots, deaths, & bombings were not uncommon.
The first inklings of America’s Labor Day took shape in 1882, when the Central Labor Union (CLU) met in September in New York City for a labor festival. Peter McGuire, a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), who was inspired by a parade in Toronto in 1872 in support of a strike against the 58-hour work week, may have been the 1st to propose the idea of a ‘Labor Day’. Other research points to Matthew Maguire, a machinist & member of the Knights of Labor. But somehow or another, the idea for a parade & yearly holiday to honor American workers was hatched.
The first parade of the new project was held in Manhattan on Sept. 5, 1882. It started out small, but then a band showed up, & workers’ groups from various industries began to flow in. Eventually the parade swelled to 10,000. After that initial success, various state & municipal governments began naming an official day to commemorate labor.
Then a massive recession hit in 1893. The job losses were devastating — & the frustration crystallized in a nationwide strike against the Pullman Company, a railroad car manufacturer & founder of one of the most infamous company towns in America, keeping the workers in appalling living conditions.
Railroad baron George Pullman created his eponymous town in 1880 just outside Chicago. This is part of the history that has affected the ‘Spirit of Place’ in which I live here in Chicago. It was a model of capitalist feudalism, where workers were moved into housing in line with their position in the company. Residents worked for Pullman’s company & their rent was automatically docked from their paychecks. They even had to bank at Pullman’s corrupt bank. But Pullman’s business plummeted when the recession hit. Hundreds were laid off & wages were deeply cut — yet rents in the town did not decline.
In response, 4,000 of Pullman’s workers went on strike on May 11, 1894. On June 26, the American Railroad Union — led by Eugene V. Debs — called for a supporting boycott. One 100,50 railway workers in 27 states joined the strike, refusing to operate Pullman rail cars. The massive halt to the rail industry & the interruption of U.S. mail cars set off a national crisis.
Congress & President Grover Cleveland, looking to save face, rushed through a bill declaring Labor Day a national holiday. Cleveland signed it on June 28, 1894. He was backed by the AFL — the more conservative portion of the labor movement — which threw the first official Labor Day parade that year.
~Pullman Strike, 1894 Drawing by Granger
But it was a brutally ironic gesture. Six days later, under pressure from the furious leaders of the rail industry, & facing the virtual shutdown of U.S. mail trains, President Cleveland invoked the ‘Sherman Antitrust Act’ to declare the work stoppage a federal crime. He sent in 12,000 federal troops to break the strike. Days of fighting & riots ensued, as strikers overturned & burned railcars, & the troops responded with violent crackdowns. Over 30 workers were killed before the strikers were dispersed & the trains restarted.
President Cleveland & others picked the September date for Labor Day as a kind of alternative to May Day, which had by then arisen as the principal day of celebration for workers’ movements around the world. On May 1, 1886, over 250,000 workers struck in Chicago, shutting down 13,000 businesses to demand a shorter work week for equal pay. After several days of peaceful protest, an ‘unknown assailant’ threw a bomb at police in Haymarket Square on May 4. The police responded by firing into the crowd, killing scores of people. Some speculate that this assailant was a paid provocateur.
How ironic that now Labor Day is just an excuse for a commercialized, lazy-apolitical 3-day weekend, which his been totally disconnected from the remembrance of when workers fought & died for the basic human decency of a shorter work week.
And we can also look at Labor Day as a remembrance of a time when the labor movement was a force to be reckoned with. Since the heyday of the New Deal, American membership in labor unions has collapsed. And of course like everything that turns corporate, the Labor Unions became corrupt. Today Millions of workers in modern service industries face capricious employment, low pay, & dismal conditions. Inequality has returned to its pre-Great-Depression levels, & the shared prosperity of the era immediately after the New Deal is a distant memory. Even the 40-hour work week is falling by the wayside.
Dear freinds – Labor Day is ripe for renewal. Isn’t it time to take up The 3-Fold Social Organism as inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s Spiritual Science?
There isn’t, nor should there be, a ready-made ‘social program’ or ‘regulation’ to solve all of our problems. We each have to take-up social ideals that serve the highest good of the all – & work together to transform the communities we belong to. We must each work with the ‘Spirit of Place’ in which our karma has placed us, to co-create a movement for Freedom based on Love, in our Cultural Sphere; Equity in our Rights Realm; & in the sphere of Economics, we must foster an association of Sister/brotherhood – Then our Labor pains will give birth to a practical 3-fold Social Movement that brings harmony to humanity.
~hag
~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.
4 September 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The trio will rise after 10 pm – visible thru dawn.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler AUTUMN PRELUDE II The Ripening Of Self v22 The cosmic light lives on with inner power, becomes the light of soul and shines in depths of spirit to free the fruits of Cosmic Self that from them in the course of time the Human Self will ripen.
This is the second verse of the Light Quartet: its mirror verse in November is the third one. ALL HALLOWTIDE II The Ripening Of Creative Powers v31 The light from spirit depths strives outwards like the sun, becomes life’s strength of will and shines in senses’ dullness to free the forces that ripen creative powers in human work the soul initiates.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of humankind’s spiritual development“)
“And when Moses came down from the mount Sinai, he held the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands,: and he knew not that his head was horned with light from the conversation of the YHWH. And Aaron and the children of Israel seeing the head of Moses horned with light were afraid to come near… he gave them in commandment all that he had heard of the YHWH in mount Sinai…And having done speaking, he put a veil upon over his head…~ Exodus 34:29-35
Birth & Death-day of MOSES (from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul):
According to Egyptian astrologers, the liberator of the children of Israel was to be born on this day – So all the male children were to be thrown into the water by order of King Pharaoh.
Jochebed, Amram‘s wife, mother of Miriam, & Aaron, gave birth to her third child, a boy that morning at sunrise. Right from that moment the house was filled with a radiant light, so they knew he was an extraordinary child. After three months, Jochebed saw that she would not be able to conceal her child any longer. So she made a small, water-proof basket & set him down among the papyrus reeds growing on the brink of the Nile. Miriam remained nearby to watch the baby.
The day was hot, & King Pharaoh’s daughter, Bithya, came out to the river, accompanied by her maids, to take a bath in the cool waters of the Nile. Suddenly, she heard the wailing of a small child, & she found the basket. Intrigued by the child’s beauty, Bithya tried to figure out a way to enable her to keep him for herself & save him from death, for she understood that this boy was from a Jewish family.
The child refused to be nursed by any of the Egyptian maids-in-waiting, & continued to weep. At this moment, Miriam came over to the princess & offered to find a Jewish nurse. Bithya was glad of this solution, so Miriam rushed home & brought her mother Jochebed, to be his ‘nurse’. For two years the baby was left in his mother’s care.
Meanwhile Bithya told Pharaoh about the boy she had adopted. Her father did not object as he felt sure that the danger had already been averted years ago. So Moses was taken to the royal court, where he grew up as the princely adopted son of the Pharaoh’s daughter.
Once it happened that Moses was playing on King Pharaoh’s lap. He saw the shining crown, studded with jewels, reached for it & took it off. Pharaoh, asked his astrologers for the meaning of this action. They interpreted it to mean that Moses was a threat to Pharaoh’s crown & suggested that the child be put to death before it could do any harm. But one of the king’s counselors suggested that they should first test the boy to see whether his action was prompted by an evil intelligence, or if he was merely grasping for sparkling things as any other child would.
Pharaoh agreed to this, & two bowls were set down before young Moses. One contained gold & jewels, & the other held glowing fire-coals. Moses reached out for the gold, but an angel re-directed his hand to the coals. Moses snatched a glowing coal & put it to his lips. He burned his hand & tongue, but his life was saved.
After that fateful test, Moses suffered from a slight speech defect. He could not become an orator, but G‑d’s words that were spoken to him & with the help of his brother Aaron & sister Miriam, he was able to fulfill his mission.
At age 20, Moses fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian he saw beating a Jew &made his way to Midian, where he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, & fathered two sons, Gershom & Eliezer.
When he was 80 years old, Moses was shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep when G‑d revealed himself to him in a burning bush at Mount Horeb (Sinai) & instructed him to liberate the Children of Israel. Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, performed numerous miracles for them (the ten plagues in Egypt, the splitting of the sea, extracting water from a rock, bringing down the manna, etc), received the Torah from G‑d & taught it to the people, built the Mishkan (Divine dwelling) in the desert, & led the Children of Israel for 40 years as they journeyed through the wilderness; but G‑d did not allow him to bring them into the Holy Land. Moses passed away on his 120th birthday on Mount Nebo, within sight of the land he yearned to enter.
According to Konrad Burdach, Rudolf Steiner connects Moses in a later incarnation as Goethe, in a special lecture in the GA 138 series
1150 – Feast day of St. Rosalia – born of a Norman noble family that claimed descent from Charlemagne. Devoutly religious, she retired to live as a hermit in a cave on Mount Pellegrino, where she died alone in 1166. Tradition says that she was led to the cave by two angels. On the cave wall she wrote “I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, Lord of Roses, and Quisquina, have taken the resolution to live in this cave for the love of my Lord, Jesus Christ.”
In 1624, a plague beset Palermo. During this hardship Saint Rosalia appeared first to a sick woman, then to a hunter, to whom she indicated where her remains were to be found. She ordered him to bring her bones to Palermo and have them carried in procession through the city.
The hunter climbed the mountain & found her bones in the cave as described. He did what she had asked in the apparition. After her remains were carried around the city three times, the plague ceased. After this Saint Rosalia was venerated as the patron saint of Palermo, & a sanctuary was built in the cave where her remains were discovered.
On September 4 there is a tradition of walking barefoot from Palermo up to Mount Pellegrino. In Italian American communities in the United States, the September feast brings large numbers of visitors annually to the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn in New York City.
1882 – The Pearl Street Station in New York City becomes the first power plant to supply electricity to paying customers.
1886 – After almost 30 years of fighting, Apache leader Geronimo, with his remaining warriors, surrenders to General Nelson Miles in Arizona.
1888 – George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak& receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.
1949 – The Peekskill riots erupt after a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York.
1951 – The first live transcontinental television broadcast takes place in San Francisco, from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference.
1957 – Little Rock Crisis: Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, calls out the National Guard to prevent African American students from enrolling in Central High School.
1957 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel.
1965 – Death-Day of Albert Schweitzer, French-Gabonese physician, theologian, missionary, & Nobel Prize laureate.
From the memoirs of Albert Schweitzer (1875 – 1965): “My first encounter with Rudolf Steiner took place on the occasion of a Theosophical conference in Strasbourg. If I’m not mistaken, it was in 1902 or 1903. Annie Besant, with whom I was acquainted through Strasbourg friends, introduced us. At that time Rudolf Steiner acted in connection with the Theosophical Society, not so much because he shared its convictions, but because he found in its members the possibility to find understanding and interest for the spiritual truths which he had to make known.
The language mostly used at that Theosophical conference was French. So they counted on me, because I spoke German, to take care of the Austrian guest, which I gladly did. I arranged it so we were neighbors at meals during the conference. From the beginning, he was the talker and I the listener and questioner during our conversations.
Before we had consumed the soup, a discussion spontaneously arose about his studies of Goethe in Weimar and about Goethe’s Weltanschauung (or world view). I immediately became aware that my companion had extensive knowledge of natural science. It was a great surprise to me that he spoke of the need to recognize the importance of Goethe’s knowledge of nature. He had been able to penetrate from a superficial knowledge of the sense world to a more profound knowledge of spiritual being. I knew something about Goethe’s natural scientific writing and the places where he sought a perceptual knowledge. My table partner realized that he had an attentive listener beside him. He gave a lecture. We forgot that we were supposed to be eating. In the afternoon we stood around together, not paying much attention to what was happening at the Theosophical conference.
When the discussion turned to Plato, I could participate more. Steiner surprised me here as well, in that he revealed hidden aspects of Plato’s knowledge that I had not yet appreciated.
When Steiner asked me what concerned me especially in theology, I answered that it was research into the historical Jesus. Well, I felt the moment to have come in which I could take the conversation in hand and began to lecture him about research into the life of Jesus and about which Gospel contained the oldest tradition. To my astonishment, he did not discuss this subject. He let me lecture on without saying a word. I had the impression that he was mentally yawning. I got off my theological social-scientific high horse and put it in the stable, and waited for what would come.
Then something remarkable happened. One of us, I don’t remember which, began to speak of the spiritual decline of culture as the fundamental, unnoticed problem of our time. Thus we realized that we were both preoccupied with it. We had not expected that of each other. A lively discussion resulted. We learned from each other that we had both taken on a lifetime mission of working for the emergence of a true culture enlivened by the ideal of encouraging people to become truly thinking beings. We parted with this consciousness of belonging together without arranging for another meeting. But the consciousness of togetherness remained. We each followed the activities of the other.
I never took part in Rudolf Steiner’s flights of thought in the spiritual sciences. But I know that he elevated many people through those flights and made new human beings of them. His disciples have made excellent contributions in many fields. I have followed Rudolf Steiner’s life and activities with heartfelt participation. Notable were his successes until World War I, the problems and hardships that accompanied them, his courageous efforts in the postwar confusion to create order through teaching about the Threefold Social Organism, his founding of the Goetheanum in Dornach, where his thought-world found a home, the pain caused by its destruction by fire on New Year’s Eve 1922-3, the courage with which he went about its reconstruction, and finally the spiritual greatness of his tireless teaching and activity during the suffering of the last months of his life on earth.
Neither did he lose sight of me. He took note of the 1923 publication of my Verfall und Wiederaufbau der Kultur and Kultur und Ethik. In a lecture, he appreciated the analysis of the cultural problems those books offered but made no secret of his regret that I tried to solve the problems with ethical thinking alone, without the help of spiritual science. During my meeting with him, his face with his wonderful eyes made an unforgettable impression on me.”
Albert Schweitzer also reported on this meeting to the composer-conductor Bruno Walter:
“I continually occupied myself with Steiner and was always conscious of his importance. What we had in common was that we both wanted culture to stand in place of its lack. This bond arose in Strasburg. He expected culture from ethical thinking and the knowledge of spiritual science. According to my nature, I had to stay with letting it arise through concentration on the essence of the ethical. In this way I came to the ethics of Reverence for Life and hoped for the emergence of culture from it. I know that Rudolf Steiner regretted my remaining in the old way of thinking. But we had both experienced the same responsibility to lead men to true culture again.”
Albert Schweitzer reported to Camille Schneider in Strasburg in 1951:
“Our goals are the same. Our paths are apparently different. Whereas Rudolf Steiner as spiritual researcher advances towards the experience of Christ by means of exercises, thinking, and mysticism, I have attempted to encounter Christ Jesus through thoughtful knowledge of the eschatological content of his teachings. And I encounter him daily in my work with the blacks of Africa. From this twofold experience, I derive the foundation of my life’s ethic. That is what matters to me.”
In 1922, after the First World War, Albert Schweitzer visited Rudolf Steiner in Dornach. Camille Schneider reports:
“Albert Schweitzer informed me that he once visited Rudolf Steiner in Dornach. He couldn’t say exactly in what year. He spoke with him about the necessity, after World War I, for a new penetration of cultural life with religious impulses and said that he recognized him to be a great man, who with comprehensive knowledge and astounding wisdom transforms all the information and opinions we hear or read daily without always understanding their deeper meanings. ‘An initiate in the sense of Edouard Schuré’, Dr. Schweitzer added, because shortly before we had spoken about Schuré and his book The Great Initiates.”
Emil Bock dates this meeting in autumn, 1922:
“Many years ago – it was 1922 – we were in preparation for the founding of the Christian Community in Dornach, and I went to Dr. Steiner in order to ask him something. He received me with glowing eyes: ‘Just think! Albert Schweitzer was with me today. He is really an important personality.'”
1998 – Google is founded by Larry Page & Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.
Saturday 23 September 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire
*Autumnal Equinox
*Yom Kippur
*Michaelmas Festival
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share,& a jar for the prep
I feel the fire burning – my thoughts spark the flame A voice calls out the question Echoing my name Hidden in dark chambers – a purpose dwells deep Be patient to unveil Her What is unlocked, will never sleep Where is Love to pulse in tempo Pain ringing the alarm: What you reap, this you sow Then will the seed be watered, & then begin to grow So crack the code to Freedom From the heart a rhythmic flow To let the Sun of Wisdom speak A cosmic anthem we all know ~hag
~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.
27 August 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Earth flies between the sun and Saturn on placing the ringed planet opposite the sun – at opposition – in our sky. Saturn at opposition is in the dim constellation Aquarius the Water Bearer. In addition, if you have a dark sky, you can see the dim but pretty constellation Capricornus the Sea-goat. It has the shape of an arrowhead. Indeed, you can see them crossing the sky all night, traveling along the ecliptic, the same path the sun travels during the day. Also, the bright star Fomalhaut is nearby.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler At times I imagine the Calendar’s verse development as if it were a human biography, with each verse number having a meaning in itself. The senses’ dream in early summer can resemble child experience, new gifts and beginnings in the second quarter teenage creative imagination, v20 is like a trial to become adult (Overcoming Lucifer) and now v21, the magic 3×7, offers the key to the door that opens life’s destiny in its mirror verse, 32: 4×8. After 52 years can the 53rd birthday become a resurrection that ‘unites with light as one’ and proceeds through the years of verses with conscious destiny?
AUTUMN PRELUDE I The Key To Selfhood’s Door v21 I feel a strange new strengthening, fruit-bearing power of becoming; I sense the seed maturing and on a starlit loom a dawning vision weaving the pathway to my real being.
ALL HALLOWTIDE III The Gift Of Destiny v32 I feel my own fruit-bearing power present me to the world and strengthen my innate intent to turn towards the clarity within life’s web of destiny