Course Number 231154 / Zoom Date: Thursday, May 11 Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST Cost $33
Gerald Shepherd
When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.
Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.
Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.
11 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Venus, the brightest planet, dominates the western sky after sunset each night. In fact, Venus will continue to dazzle you for months. Mars is fading in brightness in the western evening sky, setting around midnight.
1917 – Rudolf Steiner stops giving private consultations & releases his pupils from any obligations to silence around what they recevied as meditative advice etc. which was previously required.
1930 – Deathday of Imme von Eckardstein – Anthroposophical Artist who did the artistic design 1st for the Berlin Branch, Then in the Spring of 1911 she was invited by Marie von Shivers to join Rudolf Steiner in Italy. During that time they worked on the design for the dome ceiling of the Esoteric School in Stuttgart.
Imme was the one who posed the question of the Cycle of the Year which brought the Calendar of the Soul thru Rudolf Steoner, with her illustrations in 1912/13. Rudolf Steiner worked with her to develop images for the calendar to bring awareness of the waking & sleeping rhythms & elemental forces thruout the course of the year. According to Steiner: “The ancient, traditional glyphs of the zodiac are no longer effective”. Steiner instructed Imme to watch the sunrise & sunset everyday & to paint what forces she percieved there to bring in new conscious creative life forces into play.
Nancy Poer
~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor
1 – 2:30 pm Central Time Saturday 27 May 2023 on zoom
We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Pentecost Festival Time: May 27, 2023 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
~on the afternoon As the lilacs were flowering I stood in my garden & heard death fingering his lyre Among the wild violets… 8 was the # of his song 1 note divining the octave, harmony returning… I laid aside my troubles, gathering what I knew Dressed in the habit of a human I hurried toward the light – bearing the light within Toward the unknown Springing … ~hag
~John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.
8 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waning gibbous moon, nearing its last quarter phase, passed through the center of the Teapot – an asterism in Sagittarius the Archer – this morning. They will be close tomorrow, you can catch the moon and the Teapot after midnight until dawn.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler EASTERTIDE V The Resurrection of the Soul v5 In light, whose fertile weaving from depth of spirit into blossoming reveals the beauty of the gods’ creating, the being of the soul is shining, widening, enlivened in the presence of the world and resurrected from narrow selfhood’s inner power.
LENT III The Light’s Awakening Of Love v48 In light, whose flowing from the heights would be the world’s empowering of soul, let shine the certainty of cosmic thought that solves soul riddles and focusing its radiance in human hearts empowers light’s awakening of love.
According to Rudolf Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul today is: The Birthday of Hermes & Job
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1760 – Death-day of Count Zinzendorf , A social reformer & bishop of the Moravian Church. The Zinzendorf family belonged to one of the most ancient of noble families in Lower Austria. Among his ancestors was the Emperor Maximillian I.
Zinzendorf did not intend to found a religious organization distinct from the area’s Lutheran Church, but to create a Christian association, by demonstrating practical benevolence, that might awaken dull Lutheranism. He began to think that true Christianity could be best promoted by free associations of Christians, which in the course of time might grow into churches with no state connection.
In 1722, Zinzendorf offered asylum to a number of refugees from Moravia & Bohemia & built the village of Herrnhut on a corner of his estate.
Out of study & prayer, the community formed a document known as the Brüderlicher Vertrag, the ‘Brotherly Agreement’, today known as “The Moravian Covenant for Christian Living.” The Moravian Church is one of the few denominations that emphasizes a code of Christian behavior over specific creeds.
In these communities, a radical equality of spiritual life was practiced. Nobility & Native Americans shared common quarters; slaves were full members of the Church & could be elected to offices of leadership.
Zinzendorf was consecrated bishop in Berlin on 20 May 1737. Zinzendorf’s interest in missionary work was sparked by meeting two Inuit children.
In 1736, accusations from neighboring nobles & questions of theological orthodoxy caused Zinzendorf to be exiled from his home in Saxony. He & a number of his followers moved to Marienborn (near Büdingen) & began a period of exile & travel, during which he became known as the “Pilgrim Count.”
In 1741, Zinzendorf visited Pennsylvania, becoming one of the few 18th century European nobles to have actually set foot in the Americas. In addition to visiting leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, he met with the leaders of the Iroquois.
Zinzendorf’s theology strongly included the emotional life of the believer as well as the intellectual. He criticized the coldly intellectual approach common in his day, & built a great deal of practice around the transformation of the emotions. He referred to this as the “religion of the heart.”
1805 – Death-day of Friedrich Schiller, some say he was poisoned (GA 64) The coffin containing what was purportedly Schiller’s skeleton, was brought in 1827, into the Weimarer Fürstengruft (Weimar’s Ducal Vault), later also Goethe’s resting place. On 3 May 2008, scientists announced that DNA tests showed that the skull of this skeleton is not Schiller’s, & his tomb is now vacant.
Friedrich Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, physician, historian, & playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous & influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning human freedom. Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship & these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller & Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision.
Schiller wrote many philosophical papers on ethics & aesthetics. He synthesized the thought of Immanuel Kant with the thought of the German Idealist philosopher, Karl Leonhard Reinhold. He elaborated Christoph Martin Wieland’s concept of die schöne Seele (the beautiful soul), a human being whose emotions have been educated by reason, so that Pflicht und Neigung (duty & inclination) are no longer in conflict with one another. Beauty, for Schiller, is not merely an aesthetic experience, but a moral one as well: the Good is the Beautiful.
His philosophical work was particularly concerned with the question of human freedom, a preoccupation which also guided his historical researches, & found its way as well into his dramas. Schiller wrote important essays on the question of the sublime, addressing one aspect of human freedom—the ability to defy one’s animal instincts, such as the drive for self-preservation, when, for example, someone willingly sacrifices themselves for conceptual ideals.
“…I should like to speak today about an individual who was incarnated about the second century A.D. in Rome, as it then was, and who with great sensitiveness of perception had witnessed the willing martyrdom suffered by the Christians in their efforts to promulgate their cause in the Roman Empire. This individual had also witnessed the terrible injustices and the many forms of depravity and corruption which were so rife in the Roman Empire at that time. Numberless manifestations of Good and Evil were witnessed and experienced by this individual. With the methods of spiritual research which enable such happenings to be recognised, we find this individual drawn into the tumultuous happenings which at that time, during the second half of the second century A.D., were experienced in the Roman Empire in connection with the spread of Christianity. There is something extremely moving about this individual when the eye of spirit is directed upon him in the way I explained last time with reference to other individuals in their repeated earthly lives.
In this individual who lived to a very great age and who had witnessed so much Good in deeds of supreme sacrifice in the sphere of germinating Christianity, and so much that was evil and bad in Roman life at that time, there arose a kind of realisation which was also a question: Where is the balance, the mean? Is there only the wholly Good and the wholly Evil in the world?
With the consciousness of Imagination and Inspiration one can follow quite clearly how this individual was subsequently reborn in the eleventh century, as a woman. The experiences undergone in the life as a woman levelled out the hard, steel-like angularity of soul which had developed during the Roman incarnation when he had reached a great age. This trait was softened and mellowed and became a faculty of inner, thoughtful contemplation of Good and Evil. This individual then came again to the Earth in the eighteenth century and was born as the German poet, Friedrich Schiller.
And now study Schiller’s life and see how it develops, striving to find a middle condition, a balance, a mean. Schiller needed Goethe before he could get rid of all that had remained in him from the conviction that there is only Good, there is only Evil. Read Schiller’s dramas, and you will understand them if you think of his earlier incarnation.
What circumstances lie behind Schiller’s life and outlook? The experiences he had undergone in the Roman incarnation continued to be alive within him, but he had subsequently incarnated as a woman in the Middle Ages. And then, in his life between death and a new birth, it was in the Saturn sphere that the most significant development of his karma took place.” Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume VI, Stuttgart, 1st June, 1924 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA240/English/RSP1971/19240601p01.html
1921 – Birthday of Sophie Scholl, German activist, working with the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother, Hans. As a result, she was executed by guillotine.
This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it.Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll
Course Number 231154 / Zoom Date: Thursday, May 11 Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance
Gerald Shepherd
When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.
Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.
Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.
Nancy Poer
~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor
1 – 2:30 pm Central Time Saturday 27 May 2023 on zoom
We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Pentecost Festival Time: May 27, 2023 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Greetings Friends – Today on this Walpurgis Night, as we stand on the Eve of Beltane – hearlding the lusty month of May – picture at the same time, Pluto, god of the underworld, going into retrograde.
Here we see how the mysteries of birth & death bring us to the same portal seen from different sides.
ETHEL WYNNE M. QUAIL
Also at this time, right before the Festival of Ascension, the ‘Fae’ are powerfully surging & stiring in the essence of their various elements.
These spirit-beings are of an ethereal nature – betwixt the human being & the Angels, inhabiting the formative forces of our etheric world – Energy beings of ‘force’ rather than ‘form.’
Their energies are especially potent & accessible during the magical Cross-Quartertimes.
ETHEL WYNNE M. QUAIL
Perhaps you have noticed that a new awareness of the Gnomes, Undines, Sylphs & Salamanders, is returning..? People are awakening to the reality of worlds beyond the limit of the body-based senses –
And more & more folks are feeling the call to cultivate relationships with these elemental beings.
Spiritual Science tells us that it is one of humanities great tasks; & anyone who refuses to be deadened by the materialistic world-view can reconnect with these essential sprites who share our Earth home.
ETHEL WYNNE M. QUAIL
When we ignore, or even worse, pollute, degrade or lay waste to the Earth, Water, Air, or abuse the warmth element, we are destroying their world, too. We tear apart the exquisitely woven tapestry of all creation, allowing the adversarial forces to take over these beings.
ETHEL WYNNE M. QUAIL
This Beltane season, perhaps you might make an intention to reclaim & commune with these elemental beings..?
It can begin with a simple walk in Nature.
ETHEL WYNNE M. QUAIL
As you notice your feet on the earth, taking in everything around you, consciously inhale Sunlight – & with the exhale create an imagination of a wave of pure light raying down into the soil beneath your feet – into the many interwoven roots – all the way down thru the 9 inner layers to the center of the Earth…
Feel the Christic counterforce from Shambhala pulling up again like sap rising to refill your loving cup.
Be the conduit for a wave of golden light – let it flow thru you, up from the depths – down from the heights – Be a holy human chalice overflowing with selfless Sun & perfect Starlight pouring healing into all life
ETHEL WYNNE M. QUAIL
Perhaps you might – Look around – & notice 3 natural things that are calling out to you.
Send a vortex of light from the Sun thru your heart – & connect with what calls, in just the right way that each living thing needs.
ETHEL WYNNE M. QUAIL
Now extend that connection to everything & everyone around you.
Rest…& be at peace in this feeling of oneness.
ETHEL WYNNE M. QUAIL
You might ask for a message from the Elemental realm…
Open your soul forces to receive impressions that may come to you.
The response may manifest as a feeling, or a movement of light, a sparkling out of the corner of your eye, a joyful rising within; or a call for help…It may come as words or images in your mind’s eye.
Be open for signs from the mineral, plant, or animal kingdom; bird or insect movements, wind, or sounds that may carry a message for you.
Send back peace, & love & gratitude…
ETHEL WYNNE M. QUAIL
It helps to be consistent – to reach out & connect thruout the seasons.
Be a spiritual scientific researcher & document your impressions, which can reveal hidden patterns.
What is the communication like in the mornings, at high-noon, at sunset or midnight…?
Kelba Nealy
The elemental beings need us to demonstrate that we are committed to cultivating a dialogue, a conscious conversation – then trust develops, & a relationship emerges…
Then friends, Let’s share our stories around the Beltane fire & watch the sparks rise within our own formative forces – & in all worlds…
Beltane Blessings
~hag
30 April2023 – “Speaking with the stars”: Tomorrow on Beltane, Mercury the messenger of the gods, will be passing between the Earth and the Sun as seen from the Earth, called inferior conjunction. Mercury will be shifting from the evening sky to the morning sky and will begin emerging from the glow of dawn on the east-northeastern horizon about 10 days later.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler EASTERTIDE IV – BELTANE The Marriage Gift v4 I feel the essence of my being, so speaks perceptive feeling that in the sunlit world unites with floods of light; it warms the clear mind and marries Man and World.
The mirror verse PASSIONTIDE I The Passiontide Hope v49 ‘I feel the force of Cosmic Being’, so speaks clear thinking, recalling its own spirit’s growth in world nights’ darkness, and bowing to the dawning cosmic day with inner rays of hope.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (From the Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner & Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Fritz Roeber
Walpurgis Night, In Germanic folklore Walpurgisnacht, also called Hexennacht, literally “Witches’ Night” – the eve of the feast day of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess in Francia. In Goethe’s Faust we see 2 scenes: ‘Romantic Walpurgis Night’ the night of a witches’ meeting on the Brocken, the highest peak in the Harz Mountains, a range of wooded hills in central Germany; and later in Part 2 a ‘Classical Walpurgis Night’ is featured.
65 – Seneca, teacher of Nero, murdered
1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.
1877 – Birthday of Alice B. Toklas, an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century. Life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein
1885 – The Niagara Reservation becomes New York’s first state park, ensuring that Niagara Falls will not be devoted solely to industrial & commercial use
1939 – The 1939-40 New York World’s Fair opens
1945 – Adolf Hitler commits suicide
1963 – The Bristol Bus Boycott is held to protest the Company’s refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, drawing national attention to racial discrimination in the United Kingdom
This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it.Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll
Course Number 231154 / Zoom Date: Thursday, May 11 Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance
Gerald Shepherd
When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.
Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.
This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.
Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.
40 Days after The Resurrection = Ascension Festival
We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
50 Days after The Resurrection = Our Pentecost Festival
~I am a cackle of joy in the throat of wild geese returning… The apex of the V flapping the wind into warmth – The fire of wet Hyacinth flaming from an earthly stem Black mud rejoicing… ~hag
~John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.
29 April 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Bella Luna – as waxing gibbous moon is near the backward question mark known as the Sickle. She is also close to Leo’s brightest star, Regulus. The Sickle represents the Lion’s head and shoulders.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated with added titles by Roy Sadler EASTERTIDE III Foundation of the Self v3 The human ego speaks… the growing I, in self-forgetfulness and mindful of its primal state, is speaking to the whole enwoven world: ‘In you, releasing chains of private hopes and pains, I root my inborn truth’.
The mirror verse PASSIONTIDE 1I (Mothering Sunday in UK) The World’s Fulfilment v50 Earth’s Mother speaks… her joy of growth in every bud’s unfurling, revealing the inherent forces of her being, is speaking to the human I: ‘In bringing into you my life, released from its enchantment, I reach my true fulfilment’.
“Appearance of St. Catherine & Michael to Joan of Arc,” by Hermann Stilke
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (From the Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner & Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Feast Day of Saint Endelienta, a Cornish saint of the 5th century. She is believed to be a daughter of the Welsh King Brychan, & legend says that she was a goddaughter of King Arthur. She lived as a hermit at Trentinney where she subsisted on the milk of a cow.
Giovanni-di-Paolo
1380 – Death Day of Catherine of Siena, Italian mystic, philosopher, a Scholastic philosopher & theologian & saint. She is believed to have had miraculous visions & felt herself to be united in marriage with Jesus.
Born as the Black Death-ravaged in Siena, Italy, to Lapa Piagenti, the daughter of a local poet, & Giacomo di Benincasa, a cloth dyer who ran his enterprise with the help of his sons. Lapa was about forty years old when she gave premature birth to twin daughters Catherine & Giovanna. She had already borne 22 children, but half of them had died. Giovanna was handed over to a wet-nurse & died soon after. Catherine was nursed by her mother & developed into a healthy child. She was two years old when Lapa had her 25th child, another daughter named Giovanna. As a child Catherine was so merry that the family gave her the pet name of “Euphrosyne”, which is Greek for “joy” & the name of an early Christian saint.
Catherine had her first vision of Christ when she was five or six years old: She & a brother were on the way home from visiting a married sister when she is said to have experienced a vision of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, & JohnAt age seven, Catherine vowed to give her whole life to God.
When Catherine was sixteen, her older sister Bonaventura died in childbirth; already anguished by this, Catherine soon learned that her parents wanted her to marry Bonaventura’s widower. She was absolutely opposed & started a massive fast, & cut off her long hair as a protest.
“Build a cell inside your mind, from which you can never flee.” In this inner cell she made her father into a representation of Christ, her mother into the Blessed Virgin Mary, & her brothers into the apostles. Serving them humbly became an opportunity for spiritual growth. She chose to live an active & prayerful life outside a convent’s walls following the model of the Dominicans. Eventually her father gave up & permitted her to live as she pleased.
Her custom of giving away clothing &food without asking anyone’s permission cost her family significantly, but she demanded nothing for herself.
In about 1368, age twenty-one, Catherine experienced what she described in her letters as a “Mystical Marriage” with Jesus. Catherine received, not the ring of gold & jewels that her biographer reports in his version, but the ring of Christ’s foreskin.” Catherine herself mentions the foreskin-as-wedding ring motif in one of her letters, equating the wedding ring of a virgin with a foreskin; she typically claimed that her own wedding ring to Christ was simply invisible
As social & political tensions mounted in Siena, Catherine found herself drawn to intervene in wider politics. She began travelling with her followers throughout northern & central Italy advocating reform of the clergy & advising people that repentance &renewal could be done through “the total love for God.” In Pisa, in 1375, she used what influence she had to sway that city & Lucca away from alliance with the anti-papal league whose force was gaining momentum & strength. It was in Pisa that she received the stigmata.
She received the Holy Eucharist almost daily. This extreme fasting appeared unhealthy in the eyes of the clergy & her own sisterhood. Her confessor ordered her to eat properly. But Catherine claimed that she was unable to, describing her inability to eat as an infermità (illness). From the beginning of 1380, Catherine could neither eat nor swallow water. On February 26 she lost the use of her legs. St Catherine died in Rome, on 29 April 1380, at the age of thirty-three, having suffered a stroke eight days earlier.
Jeanne d’Arc à la bataille de Patay. Jeanne, as commander of the French army, leads the assault at Patay, where the French won a crushing victory over the English~Franck Craig
1429 – Joan of Arc – the Maid of Orléans, defeats the English which begins the process that ended with England’s complete expulsion from the continent.
“It was necessary that the Maid of Orleans went through a kind of unaware initiation to fulfill her historical mission.It concerned an initiation that could take place in the time of the thirteen nights between the 25th December and 6th January.In the last time before birth the human being is especially accessible to unaware influences from the spiritual world.
On the 6th January the Maid of Orleans was born, to whom the Christ Impulse was implanted just before she saw the physical sunlight.The Maid of Orleans intervened in the course of history in such a way that everything that happened later was determined through it.
The whole map of Europe would be different, also the spiritual life if the English had won.
The Maid was a servant of St. Michael. She was a warrior of his Will and brought this spiritual will to Earth by her determination and actions.In the Central European civilisation were the springs for the whole spiritual culture of the future, the foundation of the ego-culture.
The human ego had to enkindle itself in the outside world, to be awake and realised internally. Thus the ego-culture of Central Europe was aroused from the objective events, the heroic sacrifices, that have brought the changes into etheric bodies and continue to do so, through the recorded memory.
It is necessary that, there would be souls, who send thoughts into the spiritual world like extending arms and bring down the consciousness from the spiritual world, souls conscious of spirit.The proper purpose of all our endevours is to gain a living connection between the physical and spiritual worlds.
From the courage of the fighters, From the blood of the battles, From the grief of the bereaved, From the nation’s sacrifices Will grow up the fruits of spirit If souls aware of spirit turn Their senses to the spirit land.”
~Rudolf Steiner, Spiritual Science, a Necessity for the Present Time, The Relation of Man to his Folk Soul – Nuremberg, March 13, 1915, GA 159
“In order to throw a little light on the occult understanding of history, we may ask the question: What would the development of modern Europe have been if at the beginning of the 15th century the Maid of Orleans had not entered the arena of events? Anyone who thinks, even from an entirely external point of view, of the development that took place during this period, must say to himself: Suppose the deeds of the Maid of Orleans were erased from history … then, according to the knowledge obtainable from purely external historical research, one cannot but realise that without the working of higher, super-sensible Powers through the Maid of Orleans, the whole of France, indeed the whole of Europe in the 15th century, would have taken on an altogether different form. Everything in the impulses of will, in the physical brains of those times, was directed towards flooding all Europe with a general conception of the State which would have extinguished the folk-individualities and under this influence a very great deal of what has developed in Europe during the last centuries through the interplay of these folk-individualities would quite certainly have been impossible.
Imagine the deed of the Maid of Orleans blotted out from history, France abandoned to her fate without this intervention, and then ask: Without this deed, what would have become of France? And then think of the role played by France in the whole cultural life of humanity during the centuries following! Add to this the facts which cannot be refuted and are confirmed by actual documents concerning the mission of the Maid of Orleans. This young girl, certainly not highly educated even by the standards of her time, suddenly, before she is twenty years old, feels in the autumn of 1428 that spiritual Powers of the super-sensible worlds are speaking to her. True, she clothes these Powers in forms that are familiar to her, so that she is seeing them through the medium of her own mental images; but that does not do away with the reality of these Powers. Picture to yourselves that she knows that super-sensible Powers are guiding her will towards a definite point — I am speaking to begin with, not of what can be told about these facts from the Akasha Chronicle, but only of what is confirmed by documentary evidence.
We know that the Maid of Orleans confided her vision first of all to a relative who — one would almost say, by chance-happened to understand her; that after many vicissitudes and difficulties she was introduced to the Court of King Charles who, together with the whole French Army, had come to his wit’s end, as the saying goes. We know too, how after every conceivable obstacle had been put in her way, she finally recognised and went straight to the King, who was standing among such a crowd of people that no physical eye could have distinguished him. It is also known that at that moment she confided to him something— he wanted to test her by it — of which it can be said that it was known only to him and to the super-sensible worlds. You also know from ordinary history that it was she who, under the unceasing impulse and urge of her intense faith — it would be better to say, through her actual vision — and in face of the greatest difficulties, led the armies to victory and the King to his crowning.
Who intervened at that time in the course of history? — None other than Beings of higher Hierarchies! The Maid of Orleans was an outer Instrument of these Beings, and it was they who guided the deeds of history”. ~Rudolf Steiner, Occult History, Lecture 2, Stuttgart, 28th December 1910
1862 –The Capture of New Orleans by Union forces in the American Civil War.
1899 – Birthday of Duke Ellington, American pianist, composer, & bandleader
1901 – Birthday of Hirohito, Japanese emperor
1910 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the People’s Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public
1945 –The German army in Italy unconditionally surrenders to the Allies.
1945 – Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker they both commit suicide the following day
1945 – Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops
1991 – A cyclone strikes the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 miles per hour killing at least 238,000 people & leaving as many as 10 million homeless
1991 – The 7.0 Mw earthquake affects Georgia with a maximum intensity killing 370 people
1992 –Riots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 53 people are killed & hundreds of buildings are destroyed
This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it.Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll
Course Number 231154 / Zoom Date: Thursday, May 11 Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance
Gerald Shepherd
When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.
Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.
This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.
Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.
40 Days after The Resurrection = Ascension Festival
We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
50 Days after The Resurrection = Our Pentecost Festival
“Anthroposophy itself must become like an inner festival of Resurrection for the human soul. It must bring an Easter mood into the human being’s world-conception.” – Rudolf Steiner, The Easter Festival in relation to the Mysteries.
Easter Salutations – I apologize for the tech difficulties around the Mary Magdalene zoom presentation – so frustrating, I know.
Blessings as we move thru the Resurrection into the Mystery of the 40 days until Ascension.
~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
“A jubilant breath pervades the prayers of Easter, expressing itself twice, as with inward necessity, in the word “rejoice”…First, the breathing soul-sphere of the whole planet rejoices, that renewed cosmic sphere of sunlit clouds, air and wind into which the earth grows in Spring; then, the inward life of man, touched by the Risen Christ, rejoices too. We recognize the wide span of the soul at Easter: it comprises the outward and the inward world, macrocosm and microcosm.” – excerpt from “The Three Years” by Emil Bock.
Karyn Zarubica
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated with added titles by Roy Sadler
HOLY WEEK Communion In The Body v52 When drawn from depths of soul the spirit is communing with the beauty arising from the springlife’s cosmic harmony, then streaming from the heavens life’s force invigorates the human body and powerfully binds the spirit’s being to the human presence.
From the soul’s inner being the spirit turned towards the springlife’s beauty in Holy Week. At Easter the world’s revelation awakens joy in the soul, releasing thought from an invigorated body to find our spiritual origin. A new year begins. The soul’s longing has been fulfilled and the spirit, the light of the world, is now speaking in us..
EASTER In Unison With Light v1 When streaming from the cosmic spheres the sun to human sense is speaking and joy from depths of soul is with the light as one in seeing, then drawn from sheath of self thoughts rise to far horizons and dimly bind the human being to the spirit’s presence.
These two verses mirror each other more than any other pair.
9 April 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars” – This morning my beloved & I, with our sweet bird dog Winnifred J. Rabbit, attended the Easter Sunrise at the Great Inland Sea of Chicago, where waning Bella Luna was high in the South as the New Sun rose…Glorious – He is Risen – Risen In deed.
Feast Day of of Mary Cleophas, who was at the crucifixion with Mary Magdalen & Mary-Sophia the Mother of Jesus
1241 –The Templars were called in to help defeat the Mongol Invasions. The Templars worked hard to preserve the integrity of Europe. 73 years later – a little over the span of a human life – they were exterminated by the same forces that worked in the Mongols Ghengis Kahn & Kublai Kahn.
1626 – The death day of Francis Bacon. In Karmic Relationships Steiner indicates that in a former life he was, Harun al Rashid.
“I have already spoken, here at Dornach too, of Lord Bacon of Verulam as the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid. We know how intense and determining an influence Bacon’s conceptions had on the whole succeeding evolution of the spiritual life, notably in its finer impulses and movements. Now the remarkable thing is this, that in Lord Bacon himself something took place which we may describe as a morbid elimination of old spirituality. For such spirituality he had after all possessed when he was Haroun al Raschid.
And thus we see, proceeding from the impulse of Lord Bacon, a whole world of daemonic beings. The world was literally filled supersensibly and sensibly with daemonic beings. (When I say “sensibly” I meant not, of course, visibly, but within the world of sense.)
Now it chiefly fell to the individuality of Alexander to wage war against these daemonic idols of Lord Bacon, Francis Bacon of Verulam. And similar activities, exceedingly important ones, were taking place on earth below. For otherwise the materialism of the 19th century would have broken in upon the world in a far more devastating way even than it did. Similar activities, taking place in the spiritual and in the physical world together, were allotted to the stream of Michael, until at length at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century there took place in super-sensible regions what I have already described as the enactment of a great and sublime super-sensible ritual and ceremony”.
This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it.Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll
Course Number 231154 / Zoom Date: Thursday, May 11 Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance
Gerald Shepherd
When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.
Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.
This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.
Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.
Nancy Poer
~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices& Eurythmy
Saturday 27 May 2023 on zoom
We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/capture-of-new-orleans-large-56a61c2f5f9b58b7d0dff6bf.jpg?w=604&ssl=1)
