Category Archives: Celestial Event

Thig an nathair as an toll

Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Festival, Insight, Meditation, Poetry, Remembering, Soul to Soul

Thig an nathair as an toll
The serpent will come from the hole

2 February 2018 – Today is Groundhogs Day, where the fate of winter rests on the shoulders of a furry rodent, for those muggles who believe in a more modern folklore.  If he the sticks his head out of his burrow this morning & sees his shadow, we’ll have 6 more weeks of winter. But if the weather is cloudy, it means spring is right around the corner.

What does this have to do with astronomy? Groundhog Day celebrates one of the 4 cross-quarter days, which mark the midpoints between the solstices & equinoxes. February 2 is the traditionally celebrated date betwixt the winter solstice & the vernal equinox. (The actual cosmic alignment happens tomorrow when the Sun reaches 15 degrees Aquarius & is called by some, Candlemas, still others Brigid’s Day or Imbolc – the lambing season – the time of year when the belly of the great mother quickens with the growing light)

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Darlene Davis

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary- The 40th day of the Christmas-Epiphany season, commemorating the presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Joseph & Mary brought the child into the Temple, & when Simeon & Anna the prophetess, saw Him, they knew the prophesy of ‘The Chosen One’ had been fulfilled.

We see the connection between the Buddha & Jesus of Nazareth in the stories of Asita & Simeon. When Asita, the great Indian sage, saw Siddhartha as a young child, before he had reached Buddhahood, he was able to recognize what the child would become. It was Asita’s heart’s desire to see the Buddha before he died, so he wept because he was an old man & would not live to see him become the Buddha. This wise seer was then reborn in the time of Jesus as Simeon introduced in Luke 2:29-30 as the temple priest who waits for the Messiah. He recognizes the Buddha in the Nathan Jesus, so he praises god & says now he can die happy, having fulfilled his heart’s desire.

1372 – Mariä Lichtmess – Candlemas, Christian Churches bless the candles to be used for the New Year.

 

Imbolc – Among the Celts, the pagan celebration of Imbolc honors the Triple Goddess Brigid, associated with purification & the fires of the forge to call in the sun. Folks would carry torches & cross the fields in procession, praying to the goddess to purify the ground before planting.

Brigid, whose name means “The Exalted One,” The Triple Goddess of poetry (fire in the head), healing, & smith-craft. She was born at sunrise while her mother was walking over a threshold, & so “was neither within nor without.” This is the state known as liminality, from the Latin, limen: a threshold – the state of being “in between” Space & Time.

Saint Brigid was renowned for her gift of healing. She wove the first piece of cloth in Ireland & wove into it healing threads which kept their power for centuries. Many healing wells & springs were named after her

Doris Planter

The legend of Brigid portrays the archetypes of the Maiden, Mother & Crone.

Crêpes with their round form & their golden color are made, reminiscent of the sun, an appropriate symbol during Candlemas, as this is the time of the year when the days get longer. It is also the time of year when the roots begin to stir.

This is traditionally a time of purification — so clean your house! If you have any Christmas greenery lingering, burn it now.

Willa Frigit

Make your own Brigid’s crosses & hang them up, especially in the kitchen where her influence can bless your food. The cross of Saint Brigid is a fiery sun-wheel turning.

Leave a silk ribbon on your doorstep for Brigid to bless: It can then be used for healing purposes.

Meditate upon what you would like to see grow in health & strength this year: for yourself, your family, your community, the Earth, & ask for Bride’s blessing upon your prayers.

Lupercalia – The ancient Romans celebrated this festival in honor of Lupercus, & Feralia the god & goddess of fertility & shepherds. A theme of purification was also present. There was a custom of the Vestal Virgins offering cakes made with wheat from the old crop so that the following crop would be fruitful.

 Francis-Davis-Millet

Thesmophoria: The Festival of Persephone & Demeter – In addition, the Festa candelarum in Rome commemorated the search for the Goddess of Light Persephone, by her mother the Goddess of Life Demeter, kidnapped by the King of the Other World Hades,. The festival of candles symbolizes the return of the Light. The myths of Sleeping Beauty or Theseus & Ariadne, for example relate to the release or liberation of the light (Dawn of the year) by the “solar knight”.

Bart Linder

Feast of the Bear – From antiquity to the Middle Ages, bears were a cult symbol of the Germans, Scandinavians & the Celts. On this day they celebrated the end of hibernation. This was around the time when the bears would leave their dens to see if the weather was mild. For a long time, the Catholic Church sought to eradicate these pagan practices. To do this, it instituted the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple which is celebrated on February 2, which corresponds to the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary. However, the celebrations of the bear & the return of the light continued, with bonfires & other torchlight processions. Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century therefore instituted the feast of candles, or Candlemas. From the twelfth to the eighteenth century, Candlemas was called “chandelours” which means bear in French, in many areas (including the Alps, Pyrenees, Ardennes) where the memory of the cult of the bear was still very present. There is also the Aosta Saint-Ours, & Saint Blaise (which means “bear”). Candlemas is also the beginning of the carnival period; the bear is the carnival animal par excellence.

 Gerbrand van den Eeckhout

Feast day of Cornelius a Roman centurion. He is depicted in the New Testament as a God-fearing man who always prayed & was full of good works & deeds.  Cornelius receives a vision in which an angel of God tells him that his prayers have been heard, he understands that he’s chosen for a higher alternative. The angel then instructs Cornelius to send the men of his household to Joppa, where they will find Simon Peter, who is residing with a tanner by the name of Simon (Acts 10:5ff).

The conversion of Cornelius comes after a separate vision given to Simon Peter (Acts 10:10–16) himself. In the vision, Simon Peter sees all manner of beasts & fowl being lowered from Heaven in a sheet. A voice commands Simon Peter to eat. When he objects to eating those animals that are unclean according to Mosaic Law, the voice tells him not to call unclean that which God has cleansed.

When Cornelius’ men arrive, Simon Peter understands that through this vision the Lord commanded the Apostle to preach the Word of God to the Gentiles. Peter accompanies Cornelius’ men back to Caesarea. When Cornelius meets Simon Peter, he falls at Peter’s feet. Simon Peter raises the centurion & the two men share their visions. Simon Peter tells of Jesus’ ministry & the Resurrection; the Holy Spirit descends on everyone at the gathering & they all begin speaking in tongues, praising God

1786 – Birthday of Jacques Philippe Marie Binet, a French mathematician, physicist & astronomer. Binet’s Formula expressing Fibonacci numbers in closed form is named in his honour.

Delphine Lebourgeois

1882 – Birthday of James Joyce, Irish novelist, short story writer, & poet

1971 – Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader of Uganda

1972 – The British embassy in Dublin is destroyed in protest at Bloody Sunday

1976 – The Groundhog Day gale hits the north-eastern United States & south-eastern Canada, killing 1,122

1990 – Apartheid: F. W. de Klerk announces the unbanning of the African National Congress & promises to release Nelson Mandela

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Shelby McQuilkin

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Let the crystals be bright & bitter
To add form to the light
Thru the cold I will see
The single star that calls to me
The waning moon falls away so that I may live
Free to stumble
Free to fly with my fallen angel
Listening, waiting, willing
The sap to rise
~hag

***

Devon Blake

Holy water…Sacred flame
Brigid we invoke your name
Bless my hands, my head, my heart
Source of healing, song & art.

I know, it’s easy to forget at this time of year when the skies are steel grey that stirring in the wind, is the spark of spring – waiting, to be ignited by the passion of our purpose…Can you feel the energy of the earth…Quickening…I feel it groaning & stretching in the earth of my body…Like a snake trying to shed its skin…I just want to be a molting bird…Dancing in the silent belly of February…

We know, She drums in the womb of her slumber…So much to do…So much to Be…Can you feel Her growing rhythms…Her song ever sung…‘Being is Becoming’…

 Keely Brinder

She…has many names…Today we call Her Brigid…Goddess of the forge, of creativity & poetry…Great Goddess of healing…whose feast-day marks the waxing light…called by some, Candlemas, others, groundhog’s day, still others, Imbolc…the lambing season…the time of year when the belly of the great mother quickens with the growing light…

Berttie Lyn

A time to purify & get fertile…So let’s, come together & charm the plow…Kiss the candle…& beat the drum to kindle, a need-fire…as a welcoming beacon…to call back, our dormant power…to heat up, our potential, & re-seed our creativity…as we add fuel to the fire of our community…One spark warms us all…A purifying fire, that burns clean & opens the way to the true power of love & light from deep within us…from the ancient & immortal tribes…from all the quarters of the cosmos…to come & warm our circle…to bring, their respected dimensions, into the eternity, of our circle, now…

Sulamith Wulfing

Our circle…which is open & ever changing…for we have a lot to honor in ourselves today…as we stand on the waning side of the full moon…Whispering the promise of passion like a communal chant that builds…Into the arrows of Eros, embracing our true heart in the eternal now of Valentine’s Day…And as we call in the Earth Dog of Chinese New Year February 16th 2018…

So, let us sing in the forces…Coming up from the center of our true free will, & call the power of our striving humanity into our rhythm of growing light…Together may we will thaw the winter & rouse the mysteries growing within…

~hag

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Transient by Chris Bodame

The Karma Project – A Western Approach to Reincarnation & Karma – Zoom Call open to All – February 7, 2018 – 7:15 pm CST

“…The body is subject to the laws of heredity; the soul is subject to self-created destiny or, to use an ancient term, to its karma; and the spirit is subject to the laws of reincarnation or repeated Earth lives.” ~Rudolf Steiner, A Western Approach to Reincarnation and Karma, Chapter 8, “Reincarnation of the Spirit and Destiny” (from Theosophy, Chapter 2) … This chapter is the focus of the February 7 meeting.

The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our ongoing study conversation. The study has been divided amongst five volunteers who will summarize their section to rebuild it as a foundation for our conversation. Please familiarize yourself with the lecture if possible so you will feel comfortable sharing your reflections and thoughts with the group.

This collection of lectures has been republished by Anthroposophic Press under the title: “A Western Approach to Reincarnation and Karma” The following is the link to Chapter 2 of Theosophy (from e.Lib):
http://wn.rsarchive.org/…/G…/English/AP1971/GA009_index.html

This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer). To connect to the audio/video-conference:
Option 1. Click link below if you wish to connect through your computer (a headset is recommended)
https://zoom.us/j/831956619
Option 2. Call in using your telephone.
United States: +1 669 900 6833 or +1 646 558 8656
Access Code: 831-956-619
Option 3. You can use a combination of Options 1 and 2 (computer and phone). If you use the phone, please turn off the audio on your computer to avoid audio feedback.

Please join us!

Agenda for our Study Call
7:15 Verse
7:18 Welcome and Introductions
7:25 Study led by six volunteers
Marianne – page 117 to 120
David – page 121 to page 124
Lisa – page 125 to page 128
Hazel – page 129 to 132
Alberto – page 133 to end
8:05 Conversation
8:20 Identify volunteers for the next study call, April 4
8:25 Share plans re: Speaker for March 7th 2018 – Fred Amrine!
8:28 Close with verse

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Spinning Destiny with the Fates

An Experiential Workshop with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Saturday, 10 February 2018 – 10:30 AM – 4:30 PM

At the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL 60187

Come face the Fates & meet the Sibyls in the Light of Anthroposophy & ask: Does Fortune smile? Is Justice blind? How can I Co-Create with Destiny, to spin the thread of my life with integrity, to heal and clear the collective karma, & achieve my True Becoming?

Through the insights of Rudolf Steiner,  the power of Myth-Telling, & Ritual-Tasks, such as interactive drumming, & Socratic questioning; we will journey into our soul-depths to stand before the “Daughters of Necessity” that we will transform to meet our true calling; asking: ‘What is my Highest Purpose?’

Please bring your own vegetarian lunch

$60 nonmembers $50 members $70 at the door

Register here

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg  –Spiritual Midwife, Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Blogger – Anthroposopher, working as the Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago. Founder of  www.reverseritual.com

Tap Root

Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Insight, Poetry, Remembering, Speaking with the Stars

30 January 2018 – Astro-Weather: Anyone with clear skies in parts of North America (not so much here in Chicago) & across the Pacific Ocean to Australia & eastern Asia can witness the total eclipse of the Blue (2nd Full Moon in a month) Super (moon at Perigee) Moon.

From North America, the eclipse occurs before dawn & delivers better views to those who live farther west. The eclipse’s partial phases start at 6:48 a.m. EST (3:48 a.m. PST). Those in the continent’s western two-thirds can view at least some of totality, which gets underway at 6:52 a.m. CST (4:52 a.m. PST). Totality last 76 minutes & can be seen in its entirety west of a line that runs from central North Dakota to New Mexico. The eclipsed Moon hangs among the background stars of Cancer with the Beehive star cluster to its northwest.

The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, just 27 hours before it is Full. At 4:57 a.m. EST on the 30th, it lies 223,068 miles away from us.

To read more about the Spiritual Scientific explanation of this cosmic event, go to this post by Johnathan Hilton

 

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

516 BCE – The Second Temple of Jerusalem finishes construction

1128 – Birthday of Alanus ab Insulis, Teacher at Chartres. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in many of his Karmic relationships lectures.

1661 – Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is ritually executed more than two years after his death, on the 12th anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed.

1882 – Birthday of Franklin D. Roosevelt, American lawyer and politician, 32nd President of the United States

1889 – Deathday of Archduke Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian crown, is found dead with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera in the Mayerling. From the research of Rudolf Steiner we hear about this suicide as being a karmic consequence of his life as Nero.

1933 – Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.

1945 – World War II: The Wilhelm Gustloff, overfilled with German refugees, sinks in the Baltic Sea after being torpedoed by a Soviet submarine, killing approximately 10,500 people

1948 – Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu extremist. A year earlier on this same date, W.J. Stein sent him Steiner’s Threefold Social Order

1956 – Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.’s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1969 – The Beatles’ last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London. The impromptu concert is broken up by the police.

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Beneath the crust of ice I hear
A ready roar
Rumble up from the tap root
Of the dogwood tree
It knows my secret name
Witch will rise with the sap
When Brigid-Bride calls me…
~hag

***

Today is Tu B’Shvat – the “New Year for the Trees ” which occurs every year on the eve of the Full Quickening Moon, around the time of the Cross Quarter between Winter Solstice & Spring Equinox. This is when the sap begins to rise.

Kabbalists have used the tree as a metaphor to understand the relationship between the spiritual & physical worlds. Spiritual Science tells us that the human being is a reversed plant. Our head is the root. The higher spiritual realms are where these roots come from, which then ultimately manifests their influence through branches & leaves – our heart & lungs & limbs, our thinking, feeling & willing in the world.

In the 16th century, the Kabbalists compiled a Tu B’Shvat “Seder,” similar to the Seder for Passover. It involves enjoying the fruits of the tree, & discusses philosophical & Kabbalistic concepts, like the idea that by eating with the highest intention we can repair the ‘fall’. The ‘sin’ against the Tree of Knowledge was that Adam & Eve ate its fruit before it was ripe.

Henry E. Huntington

So, what is it about waiting (perhaps, wading) that transforms knowledge from hurtful to healthy? Do we have faith that the spring will come & everything will grow & ripen in its season?

Through eating, we have a daily opportunity to correct a part of our soul, so deep & intrinsic that it reaches back into the Garden of Eden.

The custom on Tu B’Shvat is to eat fruits from the seven species for which the Land of Israel is praised: “…a land of wheat and barley and (grape) vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and (date) honey” (Deut. 8:8).

On Tu B’Shvat, it is also customary to eat a “new fruit” something we have not yet tasted this year.

Henry John Stock

This festival lets us ask: Am I getting the spiritual food I need, to truly live with grace, or is my tree being blown down by the forces of information overload & rampant materialism?

Am I part of a strong community, providing a warm & nurturing environment? Or am I cast into the pale bleak anonymity of urban life & cyberspace?

Am I looking to future generations knowing that I am providing them with the proper foundations for their lives?

The word “Shvat” is also related to the Hebrew word for a staff or rod. A staff can be used as a symbol of power; or as a cane to lean on. This is an underlying theme of the month.

So as we open our thinking, feeling & willing to align with the rising sap, in gratitude for the fruits of life; we can use this time to focus on the idea of consciously using our daily behavior as a medium for spirituality.

***

The Karma Project – A Western Approach to Reincarnation & Karma
February 7, 2018 – 7:15 pm CST (8:15 pm EST)
View this email in your browser

“ The course of human life between birth and death is determined in three different ways, and we are likewise dependent on three factors beyond birth and death.  The body is subject to the laws of heredity; the soul is subject to self-created destiny or, to use an ancient term, to itskarma; and the spirit is subject to the laws ofreincarnation or repeated Earth lives.”

~Rudolf Steiner, A Western Approach to Reincarnation and Karma, Chapter 8, “Reincarnation of the Spirit and Destiny” (fromTheosophy, Chapter 2) … focus of the February 7 meeting!

The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our ongoing  study conversation.  The study has been divided amongst five volunteers who will summarize their section to rebuild it as a foundation for our conversation. Please familiarize yourself with the lecture if possible so you will feel comfortable sharing your reflections and thoughts with the group.

This collection of lectures has been republished by Anthroposophic Press under the title: “A Western Approach to Reincarnation and Karma”
The following is the link to Chapter 2 of Theosophy (from e.Lib):
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/AP1971/GA009_index.html

This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer).  To connect to the audio/video-conference:
Option 1.  Click link below if you wish to connect through your computer (a headset is recommended)
https://zoom.us/j/831956619
Option 2.  Call in using your telephone.
United States: +1 669 900 6833  or +1 646 558 8656
Access Code: 831-956-619
Option 3. You can use a combination of Options 1 and 2 (computer and phone). If you use the phone, please turn off the audio on your computer to avoid audio feedback.

Please join us!
Agenda for our Study Call

7:15  Verse
7:18  Welcome and Introductions
7:25  Study led by six volunteers
Marianne – page 117 to 120
David – page 121 to page 124
Lisa – page 125 to page 128
Hazel – page 129 to 132
Alberto – page 133 to end
8:05  Conversation
8:20  Identify volunteers for the next study call, April 4
8:25 Share plans re: Speaker for March 7
8:28  Close with verse

***

Adrian Asatru

 

Spinning Destiny with the Fates

An Experiential Workshop with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Saturday, 10 February 2018 – 10:30 AM – 4:30 PM

At the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL 60187

Come face the Fates & meet the Sibyls in the Light of Anthroposophy & ask: Does Fortune smile? Is Justice blind? How can I Co-Create with Destiny, to spin the thread of my life with integrity, to heal and clear the collective karma, & achieve my True Becoming?

Through the insights of Rudolf Steiner,  the power of Myth-Telling, & Ritual-Tasks, such as interactive drumming, & Socratic questioning; we will journey into our soul-depths to stand before the “Daughters of Necessity” that we will transform to meet our true calling; asking: ‘What is my Highest Purpose?’

Please bring your own vegetarian lunch

$60 nonmembers $50 members $70 at the door

Register here

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg  –Spiritual Midwife, Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Blogger – Anthroposopher, working as the Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago.

Founder of  www.reverseritual.com

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Pop Up Valentine’s Market – Sunday February 11th – 1pm till 9pm
at the Elderberries Three-Fold Chicago space 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
Locally Hand-Crafted: Clothing, Art, Jewelry, Soy Candles;
+ Fair-Trade, Essential Oils, Supplements…

20 per cent of sales goes to a new heating & cooling system for the Branch

Would you like to be a vendor? contact Hazel

Thanks to those who responded to the call for items for Peer Space! I forgot to mention we also need folding tables, & a few garbage cans. Come see the newly lazured space & pick up a gift for your beloved ones

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Denise Yocco

Friday February 23rd 2018 -Open Community Conversation 7 pm – 9 pm

This is a call to All: Especially those working out of the various Steiner initiatives – Folks from The Chicago Waldorf School, City Garden & The Urban Prairie Waldorf School, The Christian Community, Arcturus, the Rudolf Steiner Branch, Elderberries, Angelic Organics, Zinniker’s Bio-Dynamic Farm…

Come be part of our ongoing conversation about the future of anthroposophy & its cultivation here in Chicago.

As a special treat, the Monday Eurythmy group will present a performance of Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul Verse  #47

We will also continue to explore the biography of famous Chicagoans. At this meeting, Mary Ruud will share her research on Harold Washington.

And as always, the floor will be open for conversation.

All are welcome

“We come here
To embrace what is common in each one of us –
Our love for a higher knowledge
Which unites us in understanding.
Let this Light of Knowledge unite
Each and All of us
Making rise in each
The raising of the Other”.
~Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) Check out our Web site! Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)

The newly renovated (& lazured) Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…

Wishing for warmth among bent feathers

Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering

13 January 2018 – Astro-Weather: Vega still twinkles quite low in the northwest after dusk. It’s sometimes called the Summer Star, but its way out of season now! It’ll soon be gone, to return to the evening sky next spring.

At dawn on tomorrow morning the 14th Bella Luna hangs above Mercury & Saturn. What does this speaking say?

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Faye Hall

“History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of the human being”. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

1090 – Birthday of Bernard of Clairvaux, Mystic, Theologian, Co-Founder of the Order of the Templars

1497 – Deathday of St. Veronica of Milan. Being very poor & having no formal education, she attempted, , to teach herself to read.  While making this effort one night, the Virgin Mary appeared to Veronica, &taught her in the form of three mystical letters:

The first signified purity of intention; the second, abhorrence of murmuring or criticism; the third, daily meditation on the Passion. By the first she learned to begin her daily duties for no human motive, but for God alone; by the second, to carry out what she had begun by attending to her own affairs, never judging her neighbor, but praying for those who did wrong; by the third she was enabled to forget her own pains & sorrows in those of her Lord, & to weep hourly, but silently, over the memory of His wrongs.

Veronica became accustomed to nearly constant apparitions & religious ecstasies. She saw scenes from the life of Christ, yet these never interrupted her work. She joined an Augustinian lay order at the convent of Saint Martha in Milan at the age of 22. This community was very poor; Veronica’s job was to beg in the streets of the city for food.

She received a vision of Christ in 1494, & was given a message for Pope Alexander VI, so she traveled to Rome to deliver it. After a six-month illness, Veronica died on the date she had predicted, 13 January 1497.

Tjugondag jul (“Twentieth Day Yule”), or Tjugondag Knut (“Twentieth Day Knut”),  a traditional festival celebrated in Sweden & Finland on 13 January. Christmas trees are taken down on Tjugondag jul, & the candies &cookies that decorated the tree are eaten. In Sweden, the feast held during this event is called a Knut’s party (Julgransplundring, literally “Christmas tree plundering”)

1898 – Émile Zola’s J’accuse…! exposes the Dreyfus affair – an open letter published in the newspaper L’Aurore where Zola spoke about President of France Félix Faure & accused the government of anti-Semitism & the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General Staff officer who was sentenced to lifelong penal servitude for espionage. Zola pointed out judicial errors & lack of serious evidence. The letter was printed on the front page of the newspaper & caused a stir in France & abroad. Zola was prosecuted for libel & found guilty. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to England, returning home in June 1899.

As a result of the popularity of the letter, even in the English-speaking world, J’accuse! has become a common generic expression of outrage & accusation against someone powerful.

1915 – The Avezzano earthquake shakes the Province of L’Aquila in Italy with a maximum intensity of XI (Extreme), killing over 32,610 people.

2001 – An earthquake hits El Salvador, killing more than 1800

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

 Irakli Dolidze

~O my soul
A winter sparrow that won’t rest
Wishing for warmth among bent feathers
Seized-songs rush
Shrill in my throat
Spreading sparks off my wings
Love forming a note
Flowing thru
Hollow bones I fly
From yesterday
The sun caught in the amber
O my hazel eye
~hag

***

Denise Yocco

“Try to find groups, smaller or bigger, who work together not only to study, but to carry out responsible work in the world. Stand with each other so that those who are standing know they are not standing alone, that each is trusted, and that he can trust the others.” — Bernard J. Lievegoed, MD (1905–1992), Doctor of Medicine & Psychiatry, Psychiatrist, Consultant for Organizational Development, Author

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SAVE THE DATE:  Lazure Workshop with Nancy Melvin – January 20-21 9am-5pm 

 $100 for the weekend (1/2 the proceeds go toward the ‘Furnace Fund’ for the Branch)

Lazure is a technique for applying several layers of transparent color washes on walls, enlivening interior spaces with breathing, light filled color.  We will Lazure the Branch’s newly renovated areas in anticipation of the Elderberries Cafe moving into the space.  We will look to Steiner’s indications for public spaces in Urban areas for color schemes.  The two day workshop will begin Saturday morning January 20th with color samples and participants can learn the brush technique which is radically different from painting with flat opaque paints.  Then right away on the first day we will test color layers and apply the first several washes on the walls.  There will be down time in between layers for participants to break for morning tea, for lunch and afternoon tea.  The next day will add layers and depth to the colors as needed.  By the end of the workshop you will learn all you need to know to go home and do this work in your home or office.

Nancy Melvin will lead the workshop, a former Waldorf Grades Teacher and teacher of wet on wet painting to children.  She has lazured many Waldorf classrooms, most recently the EC extension of CWS in Lincoln Square and the foyer of CWS’s EC area.

 for more info. Contact Nancy Melvin melvinstudiochicago@gmail.com

***

Spinning Destiny with the Fates

An Experiential Workshop with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Saturday, 10 February 2018 – 10:30 AM – 4:30 PM

At the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL 60187

Come face the Fates & meet the Sibyls in the Light of Anthroposophy & ask: Does Fortune smile? Is Justice blind? How can I Co-Create with Destiny, to spin the thread of my life with integrity, to heal and clear the collective karma, & achieve my True Becoming?

Through the insights of Rudolf Steiner,  the power of Myth-Telling, & Ritual-Tasks, such as interactive drumming, & Socratic questioning; we will journey into our soul-depths to stand before the “Daughters of Necessity” that we will transform to meet our true calling; asking: ‘What is my Highest Purpose?’

Please bring your own vegetarian lunch

$60 nonmembers $50 members $70 at the door

Register here

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg  –Spiritual Midwife, Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Blogger – Anthroposopher, working as the Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago.

Founder of  www.reverseritual.com

 

Ripple

Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering

12 January (my ½ birthday) 2018– Astro-Weather: Sirius, the Dog Star, rises in the east-southeast around the end of twilight now. Procyon — left of Sirius, by 2½ fists at arm’s length — precedes it up; “Procyon” is from the ancient Greek for “before the dog.”

But if you’re as far south as San Diego, the Gulf Coast, Jacksonville, or Cairo, Egypt, they rise almost at the same time.

Sky Party at Dawn Tomorrow Saturday the 13th, the waning crescent Moon hangs far to the lower left of Jupiter & Mars & upper left of Antares. Far to Bella Luna’s lower left, near the southeast horizon, find Mercury & Saturn. They’re in conjunction.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do”. ~Leonardo da Vinci

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1908 – A long-distance radio message is sent from the Eiffel Tower for the first time

Baron Arild Rosenkrantz

1910 – Rudolf Steiner gives the 1st lecture ever on the Etheric Reappearance of The Christ, to members in Stockholm Sweden. At the same time as the “initiation” of Krishnamurti in Adyar. True Nature of the Second Coming – Preparation for this Event through the Development of Etheric Vision ~RS Then on January 25th Rudolf Steiner begins the series The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric for the members in Dornach

1915 – The United States House of Representatives rejects a proposal to require states to give women the right to vote.

1918 – The Minnie Pit Disaster coal mining accident occurs in Halmer End, Staffordshire, in which 555 men & boys die

1932 – Hattie Caraway becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate.

1942 –President Franklin D. Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.

2010 – An earthquake in Haiti occurs, killing over 100,000 people & destroying much of the capital Port-au-Prince

***

POD (Poem Of the Day)

ROSIE OSMUN

~I tremble…
a leaf’s life, like a thought, passes from me
on the ripple of it’s own vibration…

~hag

***

Beowulf said: “Light holds you, Grendel. Light has you in its power. You, who have shunned the Sun, meet me, once stung by bees that drank the Sun. There’s honey in my veins, Grendel, a liquid sunlight that can kill you quite. These fingers that you feel are ten great stars. Stars have no fear. I do not fear you, Grendel. I do not fear, therefore I do not fight. I only hold you, child of Cain. I only fix you fast in your own evil, so that you cannot turn it out on any other. It is your own evil, Grendel, that undoes you. You must die, creature of night, because the light has got you in a last embrace.”

From Astrologer Victoria Martin

***

SAVE THE DATE:  Lazure Workshop with Nancy Melvin – January 20-21 9am-5pm 

 $100 for the weekend (1/2 the proceeds go toward the ‘Furnace Fund’ for the Branch)

Lazure is a technique for applying several layers of transparent color washes on walls, enlivening interior spaces with breathing, light filled color.  We will Lazure the Branch’s newly renovated areas in anticipation of the Elderberries Cafe moving into the space.  We will look to Steiner’s indications for public spaces in Urban areas for color schemes.  The two day workshop will begin Saturday morning January 20th with color samples and participants can learn the brush technique which is radically different from painting with flat opaque paints.  Then right away on the first day we will test color layers and apply the first several washes on the walls.  There will be down time in between layers for participants to break for morning tea, for lunch and afternoon tea.  The next day will add layers and depth to the colors as needed.  By the end of the workshop you will learn all you need to know to go home and do this work in your home or office.

Nancy Melvin will lead the workshop, a former Waldorf Grades Teacher and teacher of wet on wet painting to children.  She has lazured many Waldorf classrooms, most recently the EC extension of CWS in Lincoln Square and the foyer of CWS’s EC area.

 for more info. Contact Nancy Melvin melvinstudiochicago@gmail.com

***

John Collier

Spinning Destiny with the Fates

An Experiential Workshop with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Saturday, 10 February 2018 – 10:30 AM – 4:30 PM

At the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL 60187

Come face the Fates & meet the Sibyls in the Light of Anthroposophy & ask: Does Fortune smile? Is Justice blind? How can I Co-Create with Destiny, to spin the thread of my life with integrity, to heal and clear the collective karma, & achieve my True Becoming?

Through the insights of Rudolf Steiner,  the power of Myth-Telling, & Ritual-Tasks, such as interactive drumming, & Socratic questioning; we will journey into our soul-depths to stand before the “Daughters of Necessity” that we will transform to meet our true calling; asking: ‘What is my Highest Purpose?’

Please bring your own vegetarian lunch

$60 nonmembers $50 members $70 at the door

Register here

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg  –Spiritual Midwife, Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Blogger – Anthroposopher, working as the Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago.

Founder of  www.reverseritual.com

The Power of Freedom Reborn

Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Insight, Meditation, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote

11 January 2018 – Astro-Weather: After dinnertime the dim Little Dipper hangs straight down from Polaris, the end of its long handle — as if from a nail on the cold north wall of the sky. In warm June, by contrast, the Little Dipper’s bowl floats up from Polaris, like a helium balloon escaped from a summer party, trailing its string.

In the early dawn of Friday the 12th, the waning crescent Moon hangs to the lower left of Jupiter & Mars. It’s above Antares by a fairly similar distance.

Very far to their lower left, near the southeast horizon, find Mercury & Saturn as dawn brightens. They’re only about 1° apart. Mercury, on the right, is the brighter of the two.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Vladamir Kush

“If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” ~Joseph Campbell

1825 – Birthday of Karl Julius Schroer, professor of German literature & language. Political developments in 1860 forced Schröer to leave Hungary for Vienna. In the following years, Schröer researched the folklore of the ethnic Germans, or Danube Swabians, of Hungary. As part of his research, Schröer discovered a Medieval cycle of Danube Swabian mystery plays in Oberufer, a village since engulfed by the Bratislava’s borough of Ružinov. Schröer collected manuscripts, made meticulous textual comparisons, & published his findings in the book Deutsche Weihnachtspiele aus Ungarn (“The German Nativity Plays of Hungary”) in 1857/1858. Several scholars later extended this work.

In Vienna, Schröer became a major figure in Goethe scholarship. He was a founding member of the Goethe Society of Vienna in 1878 & edited the society’s official publication, “Die Chronik”, from 1886 to 1894.

Schröer was especially devoted to Faust scholarship, editing the work & providing a commentary in a two-volume edition of that play. In 1884 he published one of his most well-known works, a text dedicated to Goethe’s biography, manner of poeticizing, & relation to women: “Goethe und die Liebe” (Goethe and Love). Schröer also edited a six-volume edition of Goethe’s dramas. He campaigned for the erection of a Goethe monument in Vienna, which was approved in 1894 with a design by Edmund Hellmann. Schröer died on 16 December 1900, one day after the monument was unveiled.

Karl Julius Schroer was Rudolf Steiner’s professor & the son of the educator & writer Tobias Gottfried Schröer. Steiner speaks about these 2 individualities in their former incarnations. Tobias as Socrates & Karl as the nun Hroswitha & Plato. See Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture X

***

Jim Leasure

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Today I invoke:
The Lady of the pyre –
Lady of the heat who burns up transgression
Her flame is sharp, Her fingers are orange sparks
She speaks with a tongue of far-reaching flame
Her hands are quick; She burns flesh into ash & light
She is beyond necessity,
She is the power of Freedom reborn…
Today I am Hers…
~hag

***

The Anthroposophical Society’s annual theme for 2017/2018 asks the question: ‘How can the Foundation Stone Meditation promote peace-ability, a 100 years after the birth of the Social Three-folding Impulse’? (We worked with the Foundation Stone Meditation in speech & eurythmy on Epiphany this year)

Here are a few quotes from that correspondence sent out last year at this time:

“Rudolf Steiner pronounced this “new Apollonian word” of the “Know Yourself” for the first time on 25 December 1923, when he presented the result of his spiritual investigation of the human being, after a maturation period of over thirty years, clothed in the mantric words of the Foundation Stone Meditation.

When we work meditatively with the Foundation Stone, a “light of thoughts shines towards us” and enables us to draw new inspiration for our actions from the “spirit holding sway in the radiant light of thoughts around the dodecahedral stone of love”.

…it is essential today that each individual ‘I’ finds and experiences the original impulse anew. For this to happen, self-knowledge must not remain a subjective act, limited to the understanding of one’s own individuality, but we must seek to understand what is universally human in us and in others.

The objectivity of the Foundation Stone’s spirit light can transform the anthroposophical life. Rudolf Steiner saw the Foundation Stone as the ground on which individuals can erect a “building” together. In the years ahead we would like to use the three great exercises of “Spirit-Recalling”, “Spirit-Awareness” and Spirit Beholding” as the basis of our working together.

…working on the Foundation Stone can inspire elements of a socially effective and healing culture of the Spirit-Self. The three exercises must not be misunderstood as fixed spiritual techniques, however. They inspire spiritual life in three spheres and help us to develop the individual and social dimensions of Spirit Recalling, Spirit Awareness and Spirit Beholding, each of which constitutes a separate whole. Next year (2018) we will focus on Spirit Recalling in particular. May the forces we can draw from the source be our guiding star!

The appeal to the “human soul” addresses us as human beings in a threefold way. The three dimensions, in which we learn to feel ourselves cosmically embedded, connect us with the “Father-Spirit of the Heights”, the “Christ-Will encircling us” and the “Spirit’s world-thoughts”. This sense of being connected can gradually evolve as we respond through practice to the threefold call.

The very first invocation, “practice Spirit-Recalling”, inspires a wealth of questions, moods and exercises. Remembering is the central soul activity of the ‘I’.

In the cycle that accompanied the Christmas Conference (“World History and the Mysteries in the Light of Anthroposophy”) Rudolf Steiner looks at the memory of early humanity, inviting us to consider entirely different soul configurations. (We worked with these lectures 2 years ago during the Holy Nights)

Anthroposophy asks us to give a spiritual direction to our memory through practicing. In the context of the Christmas Conference Rudolf Steiner mentioned exercises for the enhancement of memory. In the lecture cycle “Mystery Knowledge and Mystery Centres” he recommends that we meditate on an event in our childhood or youth. (We have & will continue to explore this in our Biography work at the branch & with the Central Regional Council thru our new theme: Karma & Reincarnation)

In extending our gaze beyond the boundary of birth we enhance memory. We may ask ourselves what decisions were made before birth that have led to our present incarnation…awakening to other origins and destinies, because they determine our work, our encounters and relationships in an essential way and confront us with challenges as we try to live and work together, especially when we meet people with whom we don’t seem to “gel” or feel an affinity. Within the Anthroposophical Society we are called upon to work together as a community. A rightly cultivated memory can make us open for new ways of working together, for a new “sun karma” that will be a precondition for us to create a new culture of humaneness.

The review asks us to develop our will and our thinking at the same time.

We are not meant to dwell on our own thoughts and views when we look back, but on what comes to meet us in the outside world, in reverse order, so that our will can tear itself away from the physical. We expand into the world around us and experience how this world has formed us and what we have become through it. This kind of review, which can gradually become spirit-recalling, enables us to meet others in an imaginative way. The will effort involved in the review exercise promotes spirit-beholding. Because we have cultivated spirit-recalling, others can become image in us and express themselves imaginatively in spirit-beholding. And more than that: we find in this activity the foundations of the modern initiation experience.

Rudolf Steiner explained the transition from thinking to vision through will application…if we learn to behold the spiritual world through our will being, once it has become transparent, our thinking will become vision. By practicing spirit-recalling we will become able to achieve spirit-beholding and receive impulses for our actions from the spiritual world. In taking this step of working on the Foundation Stone Meditation together, out of the whole of anthroposophy, we hope to bring these fundamental exercises to life. ~Christiane Haid, Goetheanum Leadership and Jaap Sijmons, General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in the Netherlands.

***

Lazure Workshop with Nancy Melvin 

January 20-21, 2018, 9 am-5 pm Come to any or all of the sessions

$100 for the weekend (1/2 the proceeds go toward a new heating & cooling system for the branch)

Lazure is a technique for applying several layers of transparent color washes on walls, enlivening interior spaces with breathing, light filled color.  We will Lazure the Branch’s newly renovated areas in anticipation of the Elderberries Cafe moving into the space.  We will look to Steiner’s indications for public spaces in Urban areas for color schemes.  The two day workshop will begin Saturday morning January 20th with color samples and participants can learn the brush technique which is radically different from painting with flat opaque paints.  Then right away on the first day we will test color layers and apply the first several washes on the walls.  There will be down time in between layers for participants to break for morning tea, for lunch and afternoon tea.  The next day will add layers and depth to the colors as needed.  By the end of the workshop you will learn all you need to know to go home and do this work in your home or office.

Nancy Melvin will lead the workshop, a former Waldorf Grades Teacher and teacher of wet on wet painting to children.  She has lazured many Waldorf classrooms, most recently the EC extension of CWS in Lincoln Square and the foyer of CWS’s EC area as well as at the Angelic Organics Farm.

for more info. contact  Nancy Melvin

***

 Spinning Destiny with the Fates – An Experiential Workshop with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Saturday, 10 February 2018 – 10:30 AM – 4:30 PM

At the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL 60187

Come face the Fates & meet the Sibyls in the Light of Anthroposophy & ask: Does Fortune smile? Is Justice blind? How can I Co-Create with Destiny, to spin the thread of my life with integrity, to heal and clear the collective karma, & achieve my True Becoming?

Through the insights of Rudolf Steiner,  the power of Myth-Telling, & Ritual-Tasks, such as interactive drumming, & Socratic questioning; we will journey into our soul-depths to stand before the “Daughters of Necessity” that we will transform to meet our true calling; asking: ‘What is my Highest Purpose?’

Please bring your own vegetarian lunch

$60 nonmembers $50 members $70 at the door

Register here

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg  –Spiritual Midwife, Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Blogger – Anthroposopher, working as the Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago. Founder of  www.reverseritual.com