Category Archives: Celestial Event

ArtNight our Beaux-Ideal

Biography, Calendar of the Soul, Celestial Event, Community, Festival, Rudolf Steiner Quote
photo by Jay Faulkner

Dear friends, I am thrilled to testify that with all the divisiveness in our world today it was refreshing & energizing to experience the phenomenon that is ArtNight – where a ’20 something’ crowd (although all ages are welcome) comes together for a sober 1st Friday event – creating a conscious community where everyone is encouraged do what they love, & to share it in the affirmative environment that is generated.

At the Rudolf Steiner Branch in Chicago we offer a ‘Shared Space Agreement’ encouraging folks to bring their social initiatives & share them in our community space. We have things like early childhood playgroups, watercolor painting classes, a mom & tot exercise class, Martial Arts demonstrations, Live music concerts, special events & celebrations, gallery openings…etc…

On 3 February 2023 the ArtNight Team: Founder & facilitator:Jared Hochberg; Patrick Fang: co-facilitator, AV, & newsletter guy; Kiki King: co-facilitator, outreach coordinator; & Jay Faulkner: Social media, film/photography – brought a diverse group of about 90 young people – Including artist-venders selling their work – various ‘presenters’ who sign up by contacting the organizers before-hand for a 5 or 15 minute time slot, & sometimes free food that is donated by different venues. This month there was stand-up comedy, a young entrepreneur promoting her business, dance, music, film…And what makes the evening so special is that it is very interactive. After each offering questions & feedback are encouraged. And what I loved most, there are opportunities for group activities – at the beginning to break the ice – in the middle, there are small group sessions to go deep – & social cappers that bring everyone together at the end.

The most amazing part of ArtNight is the vibe – such generous enthusiasm, total support – a relaxed, ‘go with the flow’ – accepting attitude – a sense of adventure & a willingness to engage in exploring what others are passionate about without judgement – no tension from competition – no hipster posers or head trips – absolute authenticity – a spirit of fun & of being in the moment – a truly safe sober space, where folks can be vulnerable & real – It was like being around Waldorf grads who can shake your hand, & look you in the eye, so earnest, polite & helpful – they listen, & take genuine interest in the other, asking questions & giving encouragement – & drum roll please – there is an atmosphere of pure Good Will & warm Heartedness!!!

Only a few Branch members were there, which is too bad, since these young people are beaux-ideal exemplars for us – holding an important spiritual impulse that I would sincerely label as unconditional Love – which we all need to foster in this world.

NatalieFuentesAleman.com

A dear friend who is relatively new to Anthroposophy was telling me just last week that he wanted to buy some art for his apt. He ended up purchasing 2 original paintings. He said it was kismet.

Johnna Ceick wetpaintbyjohnna.com

I am always looking to support young artists, so I bought one too, as well as a print.   

Our Branch space was definitely uplifted, thoroughly enlivened with positive youthful forces. It was striking to hear their perspective of how the lockdown affected them on many levels, & so powerfully beautiful to see how they brought these & other personal experiences into their artistic expressions.

photo by Jay Faulkner

Every month there is a conversational theme, & this month it was ‘Friendship’. We all got a handout with suggested questions we could ask each other. I was in a group of 4 young men around 25 years old who were open & willing to share their biography. It felt safe, fun & intimate; a great way to get to know complete strangers, allowing the founding of a relationship. I was surprised at how many were curious about Anthroposophy. It reminded me that I need to polish up my elevator speech in case any hidden Michaelites are meant to hear about Spiritual Science. Yes, our karma meets us in the most interesting & often unexpected ways.  

Natalie Fuentes-Aleman

ArtNight is very all-inclusive, everyone is invited to share what interests them, or simply come as you are to have an experience & make some new friends.

And if you have a social initiative that needs a sacred space, check out our ‘Shared Space Agreement’ at the Rudolf Steiner Branch in Chicago. The social cultural realm must become a living chalice pouring out the opportunity to learn, heal, & grow spiritually.

“When human beings meet together seeking the spirit with unity of purpose, then they will also find their way to each other…” ~Rudolf Steiner

~hag

5 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Quickening Moon reached fullness today. Bella Luna, hanging with Leo the Lion, rises in the east-northeast within a few minutes of sunset. Once the Moon is well up after dark, you can see it forming an isosceles triangle once again with Regulus and Algieba, the two brightest stars of Leo’s Sickle glimmering through the moonlight. Regulus is about a fist below the Moon. Algieba (Gamma Leonis) is a fist to the Moon’s lower left.

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
CANDLEMAS
Thought’s Creative Will
v44
And when I grasp the senses’ new allure
the clarity of soul,
mindful of the Spirit-birth fulfilled,
imbues the world’s bewildering,
fresh sprouting growth
with my creative will of thinking.

There is a unique line here with a different format to every other line in the Soul Calendar. If you recognise it and have an idea of its significance I invite you to bring your own thought’s creative will to the comment section, which I look forward to reading and replying to.

The mirror verse
CORPUS CHRISTI
Lose Yourself In Light
v9
And when I let my own will go
the summer’s coming fills my soul
and spirit life with cosmic warmth;
my spirit vision is commanding me
to lose myself in light, and ardently
my foresight’s calling: ‘lose yourself.
to find your Self’.

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

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.

Here’s a blast from the past: ~hag Bringing in the Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid to The Theosophical Society

​

Necklace of light

Biography, Celestial Event, Festival, History, Rudolf Steiner Quote

Today 3 February is The Feast of Saint Blaise, which merges with Candlemas & many other rites that herald the promise of Spring…These various Festivals, Saints’ Days, rites, & remembrances are not separate, they are all pearls on a single necklace, progressively lit, from epoch to epoch, one after the other – going forward, as part of the ensuing enkindling of evolving light called forth from the Sun. These traditions, blessed by all spiritual & religious peoples, are relied upon especially by those who love & work the land, those who steward the animals, plants & stones – those who consciously interact with the Elemental Beings…And those who value inner development…

The Candlmas of St Blaise – A Halo of Healing Flame, a conscious igniting – a banking of bonfires – This Holy Day, part of a series of progressive gems heralding the light – can bring the old seeds to freshly spaded earth – noting well the time for rebirth.

Our ancestors (ourselves in past lives) created these successive celebrations, meant to foster the tender light rising up from the womb of creative darkness. And now it’s up to us to renew these ideas, intentions, doings & markings of grace, to plan new works & fresh creations.

As we spoke about in the essay Cross-Quarter Passage in many cultural traditions folk costume up as animal totems for a festive parade, wearing wild wooly pelts; dancing & singing, & holding torches to revival the growing light.

The women of Ireland make effigies of ‘Bride’ or Brigid from wheat; & fiery sun wheel crosses from the reeds…Bride would go from house to house to bless & welcome the children to be born that year, & then the community would throw these effigies over the bluffs to shake loose the seed from the wand. When some took root, it would be a sign of a good year. The field of Brigid wheat would then be ceremoniously milled to make a special bread for weddings.

In our time now, we live in an increasingly disconnected environment, fraught & unprecedented over all the earth…swirling with fear & hypnotic terror from those afoot ever trying to cancel the wedding & douse the light. That this was so is not the startling thing in itself, really it can be seen as a grace if we take it as an opportunity. But as I try to see thru the churning fog of our time, the grey sky dull against the dirty snow – all dim & pale – & in its own way beautiful – what I see that truly startles me, is that for a century, many anthro-folk have disabused the massive longing in the modern soul for ritual that opens us to the mysteries, not only in nature, seen thru the circuit of our yearly dance around the Sun, but in our very souls – That our “Spirit-I” must be the blade of a sharpened shovel that transforms the earth of our bodies – scraping past boulders – bending to the task – our etheric body lifting that wet clod of heavy dirt up & flipping it over on itself, our astral purifing the earth, to break open our very being, in order to receive Spirit…

It is clear that so many souls are drawn to re-membering the times of seeking to light what was once dark…& in succession, to fire-up our thinking in this present age – a literal & figurative conception, a re-birth of the ancient ideals that do not come from outside of us, but rise up season after season, from within our soul forces of thinking, feeling & willing – which are yearning to be transformed…

Friends – Nothing is lost in Time that cannot be renewed. Nothing of goodness & light is lost to those who have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the soul to sense, & the thinking heart to create – modern ritual that has meaning for us today – Realigning our cognitive imagination in the New Mysteries.

When I was a child, on the Feast of Saint Blaise, we all trod off to St. Gertudes’s in Franklin Park, IL. where I was Baptized, the Church my Italian Grandmother (my Strega Nona) went to, often in snow so high that it was like walking thru white tunnels, shoveled out by gangs of teenage boys looking to earn a dollar.

During the Mass, the priest would hold two large white blazing candles, crossed in an X at our throats – saying a prayer that all sickness be cured & our words be filled with love. “Per intercessionem S. Blasii liberet to Deus a malo gutteris et a qouvis alio malo.” = ‘St. Blaise goes before the Creator of all to ask that thy throat be blessed & not harmed or harmful, & that you be protected from all ills & evils.’ It was a re-setting of the throat chakra – an opening of the voice – asking that we remain close to Christ, to let the soul speak purely – to not be disheartened, or polluted by anything that takes us away from seeing & speaking in love, kindness, awareness, & in truth. A return to the light of consciousness sounding – empowering The Word within – a Christening of our thoughts – which inevitably fly from our lips into the world.

There are many ways to understand this blessing with fire, including a root cure of illness – like raising the body’s temperature during fever, or passing thru a fire-trial to reach a cleaner way of being…

Nowadays the priest no longer uses lit candles. What the priest of unlit candles misses is the bestowing of extreme love, & careful administration to cause no harm in the cure.

Can we awaken again out of the darkness of false caution, into a true heightened care, motivated by selfless love?

Can we be the one holding the lit candles?

~hag

Chart via John Jardine Goss/ Theresa Wiegert/ EarthSky.

3 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The bright waxing gibbous moon climbs in the east, near the twin stars of Gemini. The brighter star is golden Pollux, and the fainter one is white Castor. Although the twin stars don’t look alike, they’re noticeable near each other in the sky for being bright and close together. Also nearby is Procyon, the brightest star in Canis Minor the Lesser Dog.

Marie Knoble

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

Amanda Sage

Dear Friends, Today 110 years ago on 3 February 1913 we can re-call the very 1st AGM of the newly formed Anthroposophical Society, after the split from the Theosophical Society, held in Berlin, with the cycle of lectures called The Mysteries of the Orient & of Christianity (GA 144)

Rudolf Steiner opened the conference on this day with the lecture: The Being of Anthroposophy. 

Iris

“…The being of anthroposophy is intimately connected with the being of our time- not with our own immediate little present moment, of course, but with the whole age within which we stand.

Today I want to point out the character of this being by speaking of the necessity for establishing anthroposophy in our time. Philosophy is no longer the “woman” she was to Dante and others who lived in his time...What, therefore, must be developed? It must unfold that, once again, as a matter of course, a “Sophia” becomes present. But we must learn to relate this Sophia to the consciousness soul, bring her down directly to human beings. And thereby Sophia becomes the being who directly enlightens human beings. After Sophia has entered human beings, she must take their being with her and present it to them outwardly, objectively. 

Sophia will become objective again, but she will take with her what humanity is, and objectively present herself in this form. Thus, she will present herself not only as Sophia, but as Anthroposophia as the Sophia who, after passing through the human soul, through the very being of the human being, henceforth bears that being within her, and in this form she will confront enlightened human beings as the objective being Sophia who once stood before the Greeks.

What we receive through anthroposophy is our very own being.

Kristena West

This once floated toward us in the form of a celestial goddess with whom we were able to enter into relationship. This divine being lived on as Sophia and Philosophia, and now we can once again bring her out of ourselves and place her before us as the fruit of true anthroposophical self-knowledge. We can wait patiently until the world is willing to test the depth of the foundations of what we have to say, right down to the smallest details. It is the essence of anthroposophy that its own being consists of the being of the human, and its effectiveness, its reality, consists in that we receive from anthroposophy what we ourselves are and what we must place before ourselves, because we must practice self-knowledge.” ~Rudolf Steiner

May we receive this being, that is our birthright, with grace & develop her within us with intention & love.

~hag

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1690 – The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in the Americas

1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.

Picasso

1874 – Birthday of Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright

1894 – Birthday of Norman Rockwell, American painter & illustrator

1909 – Birthday of Simone Weil, French mystic & philosopher

1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose & collect an income tax.

Rudolf Steiner

1913 – The 1st AGM of the Anthroposophical Society in Berlin, where Rudolf Steiner gave the lecture series “The Mysteries of the Orient and of Christianity” & spoke for the 1st time about the Being of Anthroposophy!

1924 – Deathday of Woodrow Wilson. Rudolf Steiner has a lot to say about what was behind this individuality & in his former incarnation as Muawiya

1959 – Rock & roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, & J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.

1961 – The United States Air Forces begins Operation Looking Glass, & over the next 30 years, a “Doomsday Plane” is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States’ bombers & missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC’s command post.

ArtNight 3 February 2023
@ the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Doors open at 7:30 pm
8 pm – Sharings Start – $12 (pay online)

YOU MUST RSVP at this Link

ArtNight has been described as a 21st-century Salon. We gather once a month in Chicago. People sign up to present and perform what they’re passionate about,
having facilitated discussions and activities, and enjoying food from local establishments.

What we’re trying to do.

  1. Establish spaces where doing what you love is normal.
  2. Promote passion instead of perfection. You don’t need to be famous, talented, attractive, virtuosic or wealthy – it’s meaningful and important to do what you love no matter who you are and you should be supported.
  3. Create genuine connections in substance-free environments.
  4. Encourage curiosity and learning.
  5. Be a place where you can have fun without shame or embarrassment.

Article about ArtNight

The ArtNight night starts off with a vibe. As people filter in, we hang out,
talk to strangers who’ll become our friends, and we settle down before we
settle in for the next couple hours.
​
The ArtNight itself starts off with a welcome activity. Don’t worry,
it’s not your classic, awkward high school ice breaker.
​
Now it’s time for the main event. The people who volunteered to share do their thing. We watch and listen and experience and ask questions
and fall in love with them, loving their passions.
​
In between the sharing, we take a break for that meaningful discussion
we keep mentioning. Every ArtNight has a specific discussion topic,
and everyone is encouraged to share their experiences.
It’s always a dialogue, never a debate.
​
The ArtNight closes out with a vibe. We eat, and we reconnect with the
people we met earlier. All of this was to get to know people
for who they actually are – so we keep doing it.

YOU MUST RSVP to attend

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

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.

Sun Stands Still

Biography, Celestial Event, Community, Festival, History, Poetry, Upcoming Events, Winter

Welcome Friends on this Winter Solstice 2022 –

Entering into the Longest Night
Entering into the Birth of Light
Consecrating the prophetic Nativity
Of a new Solar year
In Yule-Tide Exultation
In the light of Transformation…

The battle between old & new – Dark & Light…

The Winter Solstice is the dark before the dawn, a time of renewal, giving us the most primordial myths of humankind: In Old Norse mythology, the Sun goddess was swallowed up by the wolf of darkness, but was reborn as her daughter, the maiden goddess of the underworld, who rose again to illumine the world.

In Greece & Rome, midwinter marked the birth of Sun gods, such as Mithras & Dionysus, who died & journeyed into the underworld, winning gifts for humankind before their miraculous rebirth.

Dahlia Khodur

In the Hellenistic world, initiates into the Mysteries of Isis had to undergo a ceremony of death & rebirth in which they entered the underworld to gaze upon the “Sun at Midnight.” This ceremony, which had its origins in ancient Egypt, speaks of the journey of the soul into the fecund depths of the subconscious mind, where we meet the Guardian at the Threshold, which opens to the dark sea of spirit from which all creation comes forth, purified & born anew.

To this day people gather at sacred sites as far apart as Newgrange in Ireland & the temple of Karnak in Egypt, to celebrate the miracle of the Sun’s return at the darkest time of the year – In the pitch-black sanctuaries of caves & earth chambers, to wait for the birth of new light & life.

All ways we must honor the dark before calling in the light.

The esoteric meaning of this time of year can be gleaned from the ancient mystery schools & its essence applied consciously now.

Let each of us journey down into the cave of the soul to drink from the secret well of wisdom & find the hidden flame within the dark – then return bearing our own unique gift of Light for the world.

The hag has gone to seed – & become bone…a fresh soul-frame for the new year. Let us stand in uprightness at the door & dare to open the portal to face the abyss – To release ourselves from the outer world for a sacred moment, that we may invoke our own immaculate conception – That we may surrender to the ‘waking dreaming’ – To celebrate the dark, where the inner life is honored & nurtured by the many Marys within…

The power of Peace – The Birth of Love – The Light of Wisdom

… ‘The wine dark sea’…
… The active dark womb…
… The dark space between the stars…

Let the Power of Faith lead us from the darkness into the birth of our own unique inner light…

The Darkness is coming…
But never fear…
The darkness is coming…
But the light is near…
The darkness is coming…
The darkness is here…

Engel Kunst


The gift of the light (Gesture: Both hands scoop up light & bring it to your heart)
We thankfully take, But nothing may be, Just alone for our sake.
The more we give light (Hands move outward) The one to the other
It shines & spreads life (Arms move out horizontally, spreading light)
Growing still further,
Till every spark is set aflame. (Right hand in front of chest shows the proof of a flame.)
Till every heart, Joy shall proclaim. (Eurythmy Ah — arms up, palms upward)

~hag

21 December 2022 “Speaking with the Stars”: The winter solstice occurs at 3:48 pm CST today.

Mercury reaches greatest elongation east of the Sun (20°) at 9 am CST this morning. The solar system’s smallest planet is visible in the evening twilight.

Nearby, blazingly bright Venus is to Mercury’s west (lower right). Although Venus is closer to the horizon, it’s so bright that it will remain easy to spot until it sets about an hour after the Sun. In just a few days, a delicate crescent Moon will join this pair in the Christmas Eve sky.

Finally, Mars passes north of the bright red giant Aldebaran in Taurus at 10 pm CST tonight.

Sunrise: 7:19 A.M.
Sunset: 4:38 P.M.
Moonrise: 5:22 A.M.
Moonset: 2:55 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waning crescent (4%)

Resurrection of the Temple (The first Goetheanum) by Rita de Cassia Perez, Adriana’s mother

TONIGHT: The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’ Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ to designate your payment

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal.

Please bring food & drink to share.

For more Info. contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618(map) https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar www.rschicago.org/donate

You are invited to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Adriana Koulias

Time: Dec 21, 2022, 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89586637726

Meeting ID: 895 8663 7726

One tap mobile

+13092053325,,89586637726# US

+13126266799,,89586637726# US (Chicago)

Find your local number: https://us06web.zoom.us/u/kbtvb8sTRI

 Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.

This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social.  Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.

During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’

Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing.  She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.

Love is Moral

Celestial Event, Festival, History, Quote, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events

Greetings friends on this Full Cold Moon of December also called: the Moon Before Yule, or the Long Nights Moon – The Celts called it the Oak Moon – Tonight Bella Luna ‘occults’ Mars (see below)

Ludo Sevcik

We’ve been exploring an interesting side of the soul forces as revealed by Rudolf Steiner in FAITH, LOVE, AND HOPE – GA 130. We started with Sheaths of Virtue; then we worked a bit with The Karma of Hope. In The 2nd Light of Advent we looked at the connection to the time of Advent. In “A Become” we stepped into the opportunity afforded us in this season to take on the “Trials” spoken about in Steiner’s “How to Know Higher Worlds”.

Today let’s go deeper into what Steiner gives us around the Virtue of Love.  As a background, as well as a look into the future, we are introduced to the idea that Love can only occur when we are able to embody morality. We see this thru the example of the successor of Gautama Buddha, incarnated in the personality of Jeshu ben Pandira, who lived about a hundred years before Christ.

Standing as we are today it’s easy to recognize that being clever intellectually doesn’t always have an equal degree of morality. And yet for the future to unfold in health, if humanity is to progress, morality must be added.

Morality which means being in right relationship, is a product of Love. If we are to advance in our evolution, our thinking must be imbued with heart. Steiner gives the example that according to the reckoning of karma, if a person is intelligent without being moral, in their next incarnation they will be stunted “with an intelligence that is crippled, so that immorality and stupidity coincide”. Steiner is clear that immoral people may be clever but they are really not able to think for themselves – they are easy prey for the adversarial beings to work thru them. “For immorality has a crippling effect upon intelligence. In other words, we are approaching the age when morality and what has now been described for the sixth post-Atlantean epoch as the shining into the ego-soul of the love-forces of the etheric body, point essentially to forces having to do with harmonizing those of intelligence and morality. ”

In working with the Rosicrucianism implicit in Spiritual Science we know that the meaning of the Earth comes from the sacrifice of Christ – as the Being of Love.

Many High Beings prepared the way for this ‘Turning Point in Time’. In this lecture Steiner introduces us to Jeshu ben Pandira. “There have been, & will continue to be, frequent incorporations of the individuality who appeared as Jeshu ben Pandira, until he rises from the rank of Bodhisatva to that of The Maitreya Buddha. According to our reckoning of time this will be in about 3,000 years, when a sufficient number of people will possess the above-mentioned faculties, and when, in the course of a remarkable incarnation of the individual who was once Jeshu ben Pandira, this great teacher of mankind will have become able to act as interpreter of the Mystery of Golgotha in a very different way from what is possible to-day.”

The depth of the Mystery of Golgotha can only be understood thru the harmony of morality, & intelligence in the etheric streams of the human heart, so that it can be out-pictured in the astral of the social sphere. If humanity can achieve this we will see the coming of a “Golden Age” in the 6th Cultural Epoch. If not we will head straight for the “War of All Against All” unprepared.

“…Through the dawning of the age of love, conditions for the age of morality must be prepared.”

May we use this Advent time, this time of preparing, to create a manger in our hearts for the light of Love to be born.

~hag

7 December 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Bella Luna in her Fullness will occult Mars, (pass directly in front of Mars) in the horns of the Bull, around 9:30 pm CST.

An excerpt from Jonathan Hilton: Occultations of planets by the Moon are not rare, however this is unique in that it is a Full Moon, which means it is happening when the Sun, in Scorpion, is opposite Mars and Moon. Mars is now exceptionally bright in the night sky, two times brighter than the brightest star, Sirius, so that even in the light of the Full Moon we will be able to see the bright reddish Mars disappear behind the Moon with the naked eye. The current brightness of Mars is because it is now retrograde in the heavens, meaning it is approaching closer to the Earth, which happens every two years.

How might we begin to understand this event out of astrosophy? First, we should consider that we are in the time of Advent. For most of every Advent season in our age, the Sun is passing through the stars of the Scorpion. It then steps into the arrow and bow of the Archer for the last week of Advent, and passes through the stars of the Archer for the Holy Nights. This is a significant imagination to carry during Advent. In Scorpio we have the memory of the Fall of the human being and the lower astral nature which can be transformed into Spirit Self.

Mars and the Full Moon tonight opposite the Sun in Scorpio can in many ways bring to our awareness a deeper consequence of our descent into matter. Mars joins this Full Moon bringing with it the fullness of what Mars has given to humanity. Mars represents the completed first half of Earth evolution. Mars also carries the memory of the previous incarnation of the Earth as Ancient Moon, when the astral body was bestowed on the human being and during which Lucifer rebelled against the higher Sun beings, a pre-figuring of his activity during Earth evolution as described in the story in Genesis. Mars is the god of war. Mars represents that sphere which has given the human being the capacity to separate the self and to confront and master the external world of the senses. Mars is all about “ME!”, the centric I am.

Taurus is also a constellation that is connected to our taking up of the material world, our descent into the weight of the Bull on the Earth. It carries the memory of the ancient Egyptian cultural age, the age of the pyramids, the heavy temples grounded on the Earth, yet with their tips oriented to the stars, just as the heavy earthy bull has horns tuning it into the stars. Yet Mars and Taurus are also both deeply associated with speech, with the Word. So, Mars carries the “sharp sword” of the word.

In our current times, I think we have all experienced the complete separation of the word from truth in so much of what we hear today. The word as lie, as tool of manipulation. The full story of Mars is the story of the Word becoming Flesh, losing its divine origin, its connection to the logos. Yet, since the event of Christ’s incarnation and resurrection, the Earth has begun its new development towards spiritualization out of the new Sun ego in us. Thus, Mars is undergoing a transformation, but only through the conscious working of human beings to restore the logos to the word. This is the long process of the Flesh becoming Word, through the new I AM force of Christ in the world.

For students of Rudolf Steiner, the deed of the Buddha in the healing process of Mars can be considered, which brought to the unruly, aggressive Mars sphere a step towards redemption and transformation. Rudolf Steiner speaks about how without this deed of Buddha, humans descending to incarnation through the Mars sphere would have been permeated with materialism and aggression. This cosmic deed of Buddha can be an inner practice of the human being as the eight-fold path which develops the Mars chakra.

Mars as well as Taurus also carry a future picture of the incarnation of the next Maitreya Buddha who will bring to humanity the full power of the creative Word as a force of goodness, as a moral force. ~ Jonathan Hilton, Astrosophy.com

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

43 BC – Cicero murdered

1941 – Japanese “surprise attack” on Pearl Harbor brings the USA into the 2nd World War

Holiday Market at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 
4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
10 December 2022 – from 11 am – 4 pm

Handcrafted gifts, décor & toys
Featuring Live Music, Puppetry & Candle Dipping!!!

If you would like to be a vendor contact Elizabeth Kelly 
eilisaineariadne@gmail.com

Resurrection of the Temple (The first Goetheanum) by Rita de Cassia Perez, Adriana’s mother

The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’

Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ in the memo for your payment

To register & receive the Zoom code email your receipt of payment to the Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg hag@rschicago.org

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.

 Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.

This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social.  Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.

During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’

Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing.  She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.

The 2nd Light of Advent

Calendar of the Soul, Celestial Event, Festival, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events

Some thoughts for the 2nd Sunday of Advent 2022, inspired in part by a quote from SIGNS AND SYMBOLS OF THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL ~Rudolf Steiner, GA 90f, I. Birth of the Light, 19 December 1904, Berlin – shared by Bill Rogers & his study group in Knoxville TN.

“. . . The fifth post-Atlantean epoch repeats the three preceding periods in the great process of Advent. The three weeks of Advent symbolize these earlier epochs, and in the fourth, the human being must once again pass through briefly the way the birth of the light was experienced at Christmas. ~Rudolf Steiner

When I read that Quote it felt like an affirmation of the work we have been doing in trying to understand the Steiner’s ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’ – Such blessings – More & more the threads weave into a tapestry of grace.

Being in the midst of all the Jubilee milestones, I have been thinking a lot about how at the Christmas Conference of 1923/24 when the great Rosicrucian initiate Rudolf Steiner brought the Spiritual Beings working to bring Anthroposophy to Earth into the Vessel of the Anthroposophical Society – Planting the Foundation Stone of Love into the Temple of the Human Heart – uniting us in our karma – it was the birth of Anthroposophia as preparation for the reappearance of Isis-Sophia – a spark in the consecration on Earth of the New Grail Mysteries.

The Christmas Conference that we are gearing up to meet again after 100 years, is felt every year at Christmas-Tide. This Festival celebrating the Birth of Light at the Turning Point of Time, like the refounding at the Christmas Conference is not a single event that is one & done. No, Steiner tells us: “It is not a memorial festival commemorating what has occurred in the past. The Christmas message does not say, “Christ has been born, Christ was born.” It says, “Today Christ is born.” Today is always emphasized. This is significant. The emphasis on today should be understood in the sense in which Christ has spoken, “I am with you always even unto the end of days.”

But before we can give birth every year to this New Light, we must 1st go thru the Challenge of Advent. At this time of the year, we are tasked with taking responsibility for our own moral development – especially because at this time of year our spiritual helpers withdraw from us.

The 2nd Week of Advent —
Focus: The Etheric Realm
Symbol: The Plant Kingdom
Abandoned by: The Archangels (move beyond the Folk Spirit of place)
Virtue: Temperance / Prudence (Beware the temptation to misuse our faculty of human speech)

The plant kingdom shows us the presence & working of the life-forces that make up the etheric realm. Plants teach us how the etheric element can take hold of matter & lift it into the light. The biggest lesson is that in this living plant world, nothing exists for itself alone. Plants reveal this as a pure revelation – Everything is interwoven into an ecology of mutual support – a unified living totality of beings.

Rudolf Steiner gives us wonderful descriptions of the plant & elemental beings. We can picture the ‘group ego of the plant’ as being located in the center of the earth. And with the help of the Gnomes the roots grow down into the darkness of gravity, in order to anchor themselves in these depths. Underground, all the plants are communicating with one another in an interlocking living cooperation.

Above, the plant also strives heavenwards. And with the help of the elemental beings of warmth (salamanders) & air (sylphs) & water (undines) they unfold their constantly evolving bodies in the light. The forces of the etheric world work from the periphery – generating powers of levity. These draw the plant upwards towards the light of the Sun – making of them a reflection of the stars.

Before our eyes, matter is enchanted into a living form. As the plant grows, from root to leaf, to flower – the life force sprouts, grows, adapts & changes. In the flower, it unfolds in ever higher octaves of fragrance & color. Finally, the plant reaches its perfection to give unselfishly of its fruits. It becomes life giving food, which in working with the mineral world, nourishes the animal & human kingdoms – Then it dies away. And in this death process it completely surrenders its essence to the seed – feeding future generations to come.

Because we have an etheric body, we are alive – Death occurs when the etheric body withdraws & the material world reveals its true reality as death. By working with plants, by studying & communing with them in loving attention, we can learn to perceive & understand this miracle of life.

We can learn to feel & respond to our own etheric body. For me, doing eurythmy helps in my perception of these etheric forces, both within myself & in the space around me. With practice, we can learn to affect our physical body thru consciously moving our etheric body. We can practice feeling the life-force pulsing in the space around & within us. We can explore molding & sculpting these forces with our articulate movements. When we work in this realm with dedicated intention, we are able to release the elemental beings from their material enchantment, so that they can become one with the Christ forces available in the etheric of the Earth – revealing in turn this super-sensible realm to us.

Go on – have a conversation with your house plants – give an offering to a tree!

O Tannenbaum, OTannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
Nein, auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter!

~hag

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
ADVENT II
Can True Being Inspire Me?
v35
Can I true being know
that it may find itself anew
within my soul’s creative urge?
I feel a power trusting me
to make my Self with modesty
a member of the Cosmic Self.

This verse and its mirror are the only question verses.

LAMMASTIDE II
Can I Imagine Spiritual Need?
v18
Can I make wide my soul
that she unite with seed
of Cosmic Word conceived?
I feel my foresight asking me
to find the strangth my soul will need
to form her spirit garment worthily.

4 December 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Cassiopeia Queen of Ethiopia boasted that she and her daughter Andromeda were more beautiful than all the Nereids, the nymph-daughters of the sea god Nereus. This brought the wrath of Poseidon, ruling god of the sea, upon the kingdom of Ethiopia.

Trying to save their kingdom, Queen Cassiopeia and king Cepheus consulted a wise oracle, who told them that the only way to appease the sea gods was to sacrifice their daughter.

Andromeda was chained to a rock at the sea’s edge and left to be killed by Cetus the sea monster. Perseus arrives to kill Cetus, saves Andromeda and marries her.

Poseidon thought Cassiopeia should not escape punishment, so he placed her in the heavens chained to a throne in a position that referenced Andromeda’s ordeal. The constellation resembles the chair that originally represented an instrument of torture. Cassiopeia is not always represented tied to the chair in torment, in some later drawings she holds a mirror, symbol of her vanity, while in others she holds a palm frond.

 Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

Holiday Market at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 
4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
10 December 2022 – from 11 am – 4 pm

Handcrafted gifts, décor & toys
Featuring Live Music, Puppetry & Candle Dipping!!!

If you would like to be a vendor contact Elizabeth Kelly 
eilisaineariadne@gmail.com

Resurrection of the Temple (The first Goetheanum) by Rita de Cassia Perez, Adriana’s mother

The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’

Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ in the memo for your payment

To register & receive the Zoom code email your receipt of payment to the Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg hag@rschicago.org

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.

 Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.

This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social.  Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.

During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’

Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing.  She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.