I thought to share this recording from Palm Sunday as part of our The 8-Fold Path to Easter – Holy Week 2021 where we gathered online for 30 minutes, to take turns sharing indications from Holy Week, the 7 rhythms of the Foundation Stone Meditation & Rudolf Steiner/The Buddha’s 8 –fold Path, known as the ‘Weekday Exercises’
Ninetta Sombart
Palm Sunday – Matthew 21: 1-11
“Christ enters the Holy City on the first day of Holy Week. It is at first an unpretentious sight. He rides through the gate of the city upon a donkey, followed by His faithful believers. But suddenly, as though he were the God of Spring himself, His entry creates a frenzy in the souls of the people.
It is as though the crowd were seized with the ecstasy of a pagan Spring Festival. Primitive rites are revived when the people cast down palm branches from the trees. The palm has always ranked as the tree-symbol of the sun which shines in the Spring sky with renewed strength.
The crowd spread His path with the symbol of the sun.
Is He in fact perhaps the Friend and Lord of the Sun who has been promised to man as the great King of the Light?
Is the original spiritual significance of the city of Jerusalem to be released from enchantment, the city which sheltered on Mount Zion one of the oldest sun-sanctuaries of humankind, before it was overshadowed by Mount Moriah, the Mount of the Moon, with the Temple of Solomon?
Has the time of Melchisededek, the great Sun-Initiate, come back?
It would appear as though the Christ had now really found entrance into humanity. The high Sun- Spirit has already lived for three years in a human body and undergone earthly destiny. He held back and kept silence; and whenever He stepped forward He was met with hostility and lack of understanding.
Is all this now to take a new direction? Is destiny to find a solution in an ecstatic jubilation?
No, this is the beginning of the most solemn week in human history. The same men who strew palms and break forth into fervid Hosannas will shriek with fanatical hatred a few days later: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” The Cross on Golgotha, the symbol of death, will companion the palm branch, the symbol of life. It is the Christ Himself who brings about the sudden reversal of feeling. He passes through the ecstatic crowd in silence, with grave countenance. He sees through the acclamations; they are merely superficial, and He aims at deeper levels. His will is directed to something very different.”
~Indication from Emil Bock “Holy Week”
And so the Journey Begins – again & once again…
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated with added titles by Roy Sadler
HOLY WEEK Communion In The Body v52 When from the depths of soul the spirit’s drawn towards 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.
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.
altar piece Colijin de Coter
Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,Song-Circle withVelsumVoices = Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer
Holy Saturday 8 April 2023
1 pm – 3pm CT a hybridevent
in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
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 a Hybrid event in person* & 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.
For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.orgCultural Events & Festivals Coordinator *Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate
Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE
Lament of Mary Magdalene at the tomb ~JOSE LUIS CASTRILLO
Greetings friends – All the while, as we experience the darkness before the dawn during Passion-Tide – “my Self lies lamenting on the ground” – we can also feel the stirring of transformative healing in the catharsis of our faithful endeavoring.
~hag
The ‘Great Physician’ is felt in the presence of the Healing Spirit – Rising from the caduceus of The Archangel Raphael – Pulsing out into the world every Spring.
These health giving powers redeem great evil. The hardening, or the dissolving of our breathing, the forces which make for illness, can be a catalyst for catharsis & change, when we meet them in Christened consciousness.
If we allow this active imagination of the Archangel of Spring to arise in our thinking, it can lead directly to a way of life that engenders a Living Ritual – embracing The Holy Spirit, which must be cultivated & preserved on Earth – thru our human being.
~hag
Inspired from Rudolf Steiner’s The Breathing Process of the Earth
This weekend thru our exploration of the Categories of Aristotle with Claudia Fontana & our working with the Evolutionary Sequence in Eurythmy we were fortified!
This cultural program was conceived as an opening to the Spring Festivals. Then as Claudia was leading us thru forms to poems by Novalis about the Sophia, I realized that we were gathering for the Eurythmy workshop on The Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary which is also the deathday of Novalis – So perfect!
photo by pianist Jonathan Hadley
Thanks to Claudia & to all who took part in the journey in all worlds.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated with added titles by Roy Sadler PASSIONTIDE 1II Cleanse The Temple v51 The senses’ wealth is pouring into human inwardness; the Cosmic Spirit finds itself in human eyes, which must, reflecting it, revitalise their seeing.
Eleanor Merry in her Calendar of the Soul beautifully expresses, “The sense-organs will become transmitters of Spiritual Light from Earth to Heaven.” Karl König notes that in this period before Easter, it is a deeply moving experience for the soul to recognize that the Cosmic Spirit seeks for and finds the human; in the period after Easter, it will be the human beings’s turn to rediscover the Spirit ruling in the world.
the mirror verse EASTER II Participate v2 Arising into senses’ all-enwoven outwardness thought’s power sheds its separate strand; the worlds of spirit find again their human offspring, whose soul must find her seed in them but in herself the fruit.
1827 – Death-Day of Ludwig van Beethoven, German pianist & composer
1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.
1856 – Birthday of Fritz Lemmermayer, an Austrian writer, journalist & closest childhood friend of Rudolf Steiner in Vienna. Fritz was a passionate anti-materialist, he wanted to devote his life to the creation & maintenance of spiritual values. In 1883 he completed his novel “The Alchemist”. Rudolf Steiner met Lemmermayer again in 1886 in the circle of the poet Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. An extensive correspondence attests to the close friendship between the two (see GA 38).
Steiner says: Fritz Lemmermayer, with whom I was later on terms of intimate friendship, I came to know at one of delle Grazie’s afternoons. A highly noteworthy man. Whatever interested him he expressed with inwardly measured dignity. In his outward appearance he resembled equally the musician Rubinstein and the actor Lewinsky. With Hebbel he developed almost a cult. He had definite views on art and life born out of the sagacious understanding of the heart, and these were unusually fixed. He had written the interesting and profound romance, Der Alchemist(3), and much besides that was characterized by beauty and depth. He knew how to consider the least things in life from the view-point of the most vital. I recall how I once saw him in his charming little room in a side-street in Vienna together with other friends. He had planned his meal: two soft-boiled eggs, to be cooked in an instantaneous boiler, together with bread. He remarked with much emphasis while the water was heating to boil the eggs for us: “This will be delicious!” In a later phase of my life I shall again have occasion to speak of him ~Rudolf Steiner, The Story of My Life, Chapter VII Lemmermayer & Steiner joined the ranks of the Viennese artist circle in the house of the protestant priest Alfred Formey. In 1891 Lemmermayer was vice president of Schrifstellerbundes Iduna , named after Iduna , the Norse goddess of youth & immortality a counterweight against the currents of naturalism. Lemmermayer became a member of the Anthroposophical Society in 1920. He Steiner on many trips through Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland & England. This led to his 1929 published memories, where he spoke about Rudolf Steiner, Robert Hamerling & other personalities of the Austrian intellectual life of the 80s. In addition, Lemmermayer published in the weekly ” Das Goetheanum “.
1874 – Birthday of Robert Frost, American poet & playwright
1892 – Deathday of Walt Whitman
1902 – Deathday of Cecil Rhodes – British imperialist & mining magnate
1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin & Jimmy Carter (I love you JC) sign the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C
Juan de Flandes
“Lazarus – Come Forth” – Through The Word & Eurythmy
w/ Rev. Jeana Lee, Mary Ruud & Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Starting at Sundown Friday 31 March 2023 7 pm – 8:30 pm CT at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson
Leading Thoughts & Close of Day with Rev. Jeana Lee
Continuing on Lazarus Saturday 1 April 2023 10 am – 12 noon CT at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago 4249 N. Lincoln Ave
Night School Check-in w/ Hazel Archer – Eurythmy w/ Mary Ruud
$10 more or less or pay what you will Please bring a potluck dish to share for the luncheon after the Festival
For more info. contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hag@rschicago.org
Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Recogniton
For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate
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
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
1- 3 pm CT – Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & 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.
For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.orgCultural Events & Festivals Coordinator *Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate
Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE
Greetings friends – Thanks to everyone who reached out to ask where I’ve been – Well besides dealing with some teeth issues (yep working out some heavy family karma) – I have been deep into an artistic rendering of my work with Mary Magdalene in preparation for our annual Easter Festival, which will begin on the eve of Lazarus Saturday; & then on the last day of Holy Week we will gather to explore the mystery of Mary Magdalene = She who anoints the ‘Anointed One’ in the holding of sacred space during the Harrowing of Hell on Holy Saturday. (Details on the Festivals below)
Sophie Takata
I tore myself away from the art making integration this morning since I had the honor of serving at the altar with Rev.Gisela Wielki who came in from NYC. Her sermon brought in the picture of how at this time of year – during Passion-Tide – the seeds buried in the darkness of the earth are breaking apart, dissolving their seed form, selflessly offering themselves up to a disintegration, a death – so that in their season, thru the power of the warmth of the Sun & the other elements, they can be reborn.
If we kept the seed in the palm of our hand simply admiring it’s wholeness it would never feed us. Wholeness has the quality of completeness, a kind of ending. Going into the darkness willingly, with intention & purpose to allow the disintegration is how we evolve – how we grow – reintegrating at a higher octave.
Lenny Fosterling
She connected this picture to the feeding of the 5000 from the Gospel of John – How Christ had to break up the loaves of bread to be able to nourish the people. The breaking up also allows the comic forces to enter, that is actually what feeds us Body, Soul & Spirit – When we break bread together to becomes the healing medicine that activates a new Wholeness.
This breaking apart reminds me of what happens when we stir a biodynamic preparation – we create the vortex in the prep & then it disintegrates thru the chaos when we reverse the stirring – allowing the cosmic forces to enter into the chaos to inform the vortex. The chaos opens us to the right divine order…
Tomorrow on the Vernal Equinox CG & I will join Petra & Mark Zinniker on their amazing biodynamic farm in WI to do a seasonal prep stir – blessing the land & the animals, & honoring the elementals. The mighty band of Merry Prep-stirs are encouraging everyone to do a stir on the Equinox so that the collective energy may cover the Earth with a glorifying intention. See you in the balance between dark & light.
~hag
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated with added titles by Roy Sadler PASSIONTIDE 1I, Mothering Sunday The World’s Fulfilment v50 Earth’s Mother speaks… her joy of growth in every bud’s unfurling, revealing the inherent forces of her being, is speaking to the human I: ‘In bringing you my life released from its enchantment, I reach my true fulfilment’.
It is Mothering Sunday in England this Sunday. It is an old Christian tradition in contrast to the American holiday of Mothers Day on the 2nd Sunday of May. There is no mention of the Earth in the original but to me it fits here. My translations are free expressions, adhering to its iambic meditative rhythm. Unlike other versions I quite often change the line order, which I recognise might be a problem for eurythmists following Steiner’s choreography. This is a literal version of the 1st 4 lines: There speaks to human selfhood, in mighty revelation and liberating its inherent forces, the joy-in-growth of world existence:
I’d be pleased to read comments from any of you meditating the verses. This is the mirror verse EASTERTIDE III Foundation of the Self v3 The human spirit speaks… the growing I, in self-forgetfulness and conscious of its origin, is speaking to the whole enwoven world: ‘In you, releasing chains that bind me to myself, I root my inborn truth’.
Feast Day of Joseph the Carpenter, husband of Mary the Mother of the Matthew Jesus.
1797 – Death Day of Christiane Wilhelmine Sophie von Kühn (March 17, 1782 – March 19, 1797) the love interest & eventual fiancée of the German Romantic poet & philosopher Friedrich von Hardenberg, known to many simply as Novalis. Her image famously appears in Novalis’ Hymns to the Night, a foundational text of the literary movement known as German Romanticism.
“Over I journey And for each pain A pleasant sting only Shall one day remain. Yet in a few moments Then free am I, And intoxicated In Love’s lap lie. Life everlasting Lifts, wave-like, at me, I gaze from its summit Down after thee. Your lustre must vanish Yon mound underneath — A shadow will bring thee Thy cooling wreath. Oh draw at my heart, love, Draw till I’m gone, That, fallen asleep, I Still may love on. I feel the flow of Death’s youth-giving flood To balsam and ether Transform my blood — I live all the daytime In faith and in might And in holy fire I die every night”.
Although Novalis’s love for Sophie has assumed mythic proportions, their time together was short . The two met on November 17, 1794 when Novalis was twenty-two & Sophie was only twelve. They became engaged on Sophie’s thirteenth birthday March 17, 1795. Sophie became sick in November 1795, & her sickness continued until her death at the age of 15 in March 1797. The loss of Sophie brought about a deep period of mourning & suffering in Novalis’ life.
Ludwig Tieck’s biography of Novalis describes Sophie, saying: “Even as a child, she gave an impression which–because it was so gracious and spiritually lovely–we must call superearthly or heavenly, while through this radiant and almost transparent countenance of hers we would be struck with the fear that it was too tender and delicately woven for this life, that it was death or immortality which looked at us so penetratingly from those shining eyes; and only too often a rapid withering motion turned our fear into an actual reality”.
1911 – Death day of Anna Eunike, Rudolf Steiner’s 1st wife. To supplement his income while working in Weimar, Steiner became tutor to the Eunike family. The father Eugen Friedrich Eunike had just died, & Anna was left behind as a widow with four daughters & a son. Rudolf Steiner had a deep connection with the deceased, following his after-death journey into the spiritual world. These insights helped Steiner form his seminal work “The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity”.
When the family moved to Berlin the friendship with Anna soon turned into a civil marriage, which Steiner kept very private. But we may see some clues into this relationship in the Mystery Dramas. During that time he was an instructor for the workers institute, of which Anna was very involved. The two separated when Steiner got involved with Theosophy; & in 1911 Anna Eunike dies at the fairly young age of 58. I often wonder if she selflessly sacrificed her unused etheric forces to help Rudolf Steiner in his mission.
1918 – The U.S. Congress establishes time zones & approves daylight saving time.
1945 –Adolf Hitler issues his “Nero Decree” ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany to be destroyed.
2018 – The last male northern white rhinoceros, Sudan, dies.
The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction… Is there a path to expansion…..?
PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA
Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50
Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?
Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.
In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.
During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.
Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.
Juan de Flandes
“Lazarus – Come Forth” – Through The Word & Eurythmy
w/ Rev. Jeana Lee, Mary Ruud & Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Starting at Sundown Friday 31 March 2023 7 pm – 8:30 pm CT at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson
Leading Thoughts & Close of Day with Rev. Jeana Lee
Continuing on Lazarus Saturday 1 April 2023 10 am – 12 noon CT at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago 4249 N. Lincoln Ave
Night School Check-in w/ Hazel Archer – Eurythmy w/ Mary Ruud
$10 more or less or pay what you will Please bring a potluck dish to share for the luncheon after the Festival
For more info. contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hag@rschicago.org
Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Recogniton
For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate
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 a Hybrid event in person* & 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.
For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.orgCultural Events & Festivals Coordinator *Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate
Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE
Bernardino Luini (Thanks to Faith DiVecchio for this image)
Dear friends, I have been deep into research, study & contemplation of the individuality we call Mary Magdalene. The work has intensified during this Lenten-Tide Season in preparation for our Easter Festival here at the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, on Holy Saturday. (see annoucement below). Besides the leading thoughts & art images I will share, I am writing a poem encompassing these findings & insights, which Velsum Voiceswill transform into a song for us to sing together on the day of the Fest.
There are so many amazing resources to work with. Besides the Synoptic Gospels, there are the Gnostic texts, most notably ‘The Gospel of Mary Magdalene’ a 1st century papyrus codex discovered in Cairo in 1896, written in Sahidic Coptic.
After taking 46 pages of notes, I have narrowed things down to 8 pages from which I am curating the poem. And for the presentation itself I have decided to hone it into a few essential elements: The casting out of the 7 demons as initiation, The Anointing, Holding witness at the foot of the Cross & at the Tomb, & the 3 Marys as The Myrrhophores – an ancient sect of women who work with Threshold oils.
I have been holding this process close, but decided to mention it today as it is the Deathday in 604 of Pope Gregory I, the one who denigrated The Magdalene by mislabeling her a prostitute – issued in Homily 33 from 591 AD (Leloup xiv). And although the Catholic Church officially redacted this decreein 1969, his depiction of Mary Magdalene is still believed by many as the “Gospel Truth”. The power of one pope to change the world’s perception of a powerful woman, hundreds of years after the fact, & for over a thousand years into the future, gives one pause for thought.
Then on 3 June 2016 = ‘the Feast of the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus’, Pope Francis, elevated the Sainthood of Mary Magdalene giving her Feast Day as 22 July. The announcement quotes:
~Rabanus Maurus Magnentius (a Frankish Benedictine monk born in 780, theologian, poet, archbishop in Mainz, Germany) in his Prologue from: ‘De vita Mariae Magdalenae = On the life of Mary Magdalene, he said of her that she was: ‘Beloved of Christ and greatly loved by Christ’ “Dilectrix Christi et a Christo plurimum dilecta”.
Saint Anselm of Canterbury hails her: “Chosen because you are beloved and beloved because you are chosen of God” (“Electa dilectrix et dilecta electrix Dei” ~ Oratio LXXIII ad sanctam Mariam Magdalenam)
The ‘Angelic Doctor’Saint Thomas Aquinas calls Mary Magdalene the“apostolorum apostola” = Apostle of the apostles – because she announces to the 11 what they in turn are able to announce to the whole world after the Pentecost.
According to the 2016 Vatican press release the decision will “reflect more deeply on the dignity of women, and the greatness of the mystery of Divine Mercy.”
This made me think of: Exodus 25:22 – “The Ark of the Covenant was a box of acacia wood overlaid with gold both inside and out. It had a golden cover called the Mercy Seat with two golden Cherubim spreading their wings above. It was the place God chose to meet with His people.”
Dear Friends – Something powerful is seeking to come thru at this time, so strong that even the Vatican feels the shift in the ethers.
Olivia Tautkus
I will leave you to ponder, as I am, this connection between Mary Magdalene & the Mercy Seat – Thinking on how ‘the veil was rent in twain’ with Christ’s deed on Golgotha – revealing the ‘Holy of Holies’ to all –
Blessings on this 1st Sunday of Passion-Tide.
~hag
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated with added titles by Roy Sadler LENT 4, PASSIONTIDE I The Passiontide Hope v49 ‘I feel the force of Cosmic Being’, speaks clear thinking, recalling its own spirit’s growth in world nights’ darkness, and turning to the dawning cosmic day with inner rays of hope.
Its mirror verse is at the fire festival of Beltane. In ancient times it was a full moon Celtic marriage festival. ‘Marry’ is my free translation of ‘unite’. EASTERTIDE IV, BELTANE The Marriage Gift v4 ‘I feel the essence of my being’, speaks senses’ feeling that in the sunlit world unites with floods of light; to clarity of thought it would bring warmth and marry Man and World.
The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction… Is there a path to expansion…..?
PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA
Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $12
Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50
The Categories of Aristotle: A process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion…
Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?
Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.
In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.
During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.
Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.
“Lazarus – Come Forth” – An exploration of the 1st Christian Initiation, thru the Word & Eurythmy
with Rev. Jeana Lee, Mary Ruud & Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Starting at Sundown on Friday 31 March 2023 7 pm – 8:30 pm CT at the Christian Community 2135 W. WilsonLeading Thoughts & Close of Day with Rev. Jeana Lee
Continuing on Lazarus Saturday 1 April 2023 10 am – 12 noon CTNight School Check-in w/ Hazel Archer – Eurythmy w/ Mary Ruud at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago 4249 N. Lincoln Ave
$10 more or less or pay what you will Please bring a potluck dish to share for the luncheon after the Festival
For more info. contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hag@rschicago.org
Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection
For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate
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 a Hybrid event in person* & 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.
For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.orgCultural Events & Festivals Coordinator *Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate
Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE
O look – another veil has dropped – a fresh insight has emerged – a challenging crossroad has appeared…Now what?
Head down & plodding I could easily miss it – open to adventure I may choose to take the road less traveled – or perhaps I’ll just sigh & say, nah, too much trouble – no – it feels like an obstacle – a trap – a turn for the worst – a chance to get lost…
But maybe – I am – fully prepared to ford the ravine – to scale the…um… well, maybe not the mountain, but surely a good sized mole-hill – to bump into wonder – Then I can stand on this milestone of the moment – in the tickling triumph of discovery – wrought thru with little breadcrumb clues & simple surprises…Knowing – I am – taking every step – with reverence – in awareness – that at every turning point, there is often a stumbling – into opportunity – disguised as a problem…
Yep I had a break thru in my thinking last night, & nope it wasn’t very pretty – Enlightening? Hell Yes. Still processing? Always Yes…And I know that this trans-personal revelation – this knowing of myself – this practical Anthroposophy which has lead me once more to the Threshold of the abyss to meet the Guardian – who sends me once again to stand in front of the Seraphim with the flaming sword – So…OK – I won’t be jumping up & running hither & thither, cause I’m not sure what to do with this break thru, with this explanation, this excuse..?
Sooo…I will – let it steep before I leap – Be 4 – I can – take my time – Be cause – I know – a magic twisty rise – will arise – up into a fresh future – And so…I engage in another wrestling match with my angel – a reckoning with my past – accompanied by a slap in the face from the future.
Happy Sun Day.
~hag
Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.
5 March 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: You’ll find the moon shining near Regulus in Leo the Lion & the backward question mark shape of the Sickle on the evenings tonihgt & tomorrow. The glowing waxing gibbous moon may wash out fainter stars, as it reaches full phase on the morning of March 7. You can see the Bella Lina & Leo thru the night until around sunrise.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated with added titles by Roy Sadler This week’s verse is the birthday verse of Rudolf Steiner even though this year it begins 8 days after his birth date. In 1861 Easter was on March 31st, so preparing for the transition to the Lentan lunar calendar v44 & v45 would have been in the same week: the new moon was on its Saturday, February 9th, leading to the full moon in v48, in Virgo in front of the stars of Leo whose eurythmy gesture is Enthusiasm, on Monday February 25th when Steiner was born with enthusiasm for the power of cosmic thought to awaken love. LENT III 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 awakens love.
The verse is part of the Calendar’s light quartet, and as Rudolf Steiner lectured to young doctors on Nov.30 1919, “with every breath of air, we take not only air but also light into ourselves, and we transform this light within us and make it our own as we do any other substance: we digest it, we make it an integral part of our self.”
It is a climax verse, the 7th mention of the heart and the 3rd of love, their last appearance till next winter, the heart at the Solstice and love at Epiphany.
The mirror verse, with a free translation here of its first part, is my birthday verse. I encountered the Soul Calendar in a eurythmy class nearly 50 years ago I am grateful now to be sending my translations here and would appreciate any comments as I work on them with hope to publish them.
Easter V Soul Resurrection 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.
The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction… Is there a path to expansion…..?
PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA
Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $12
Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50
The Categories of Aristotle: A process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion…
Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?
Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.
In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.
During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.
Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.
Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection
For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate
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 a Hybrid event in person* & 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.
For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.orgCultural Events & Festivals Coordinator *Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate
Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE
