Dear friends – I have been swimming in the old moon phase as of late, in my work with Lecture 4 & 5 of Steiner’s ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’ – exploring how suffering & pain as manifestations of the soul came into our human nature with our astral body, & how this is bound up with cosmic evolution, after having first been experienced by Spiritual beings in the hierarchy of the Thrones – the Spirits of Will.

Living into what Goethe styles: “Only one who knows longing knows what I suffer” – I have been listening to this song given voice by many composers:  Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt from a poem that appears in Book 4 of Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – A kind of every-man’s hero’s journey of self-realization. The story, which can be referred to as ‘a Bildungsroman’ or initiation story; centers on Wilhelm’s attempt to escape the empty life of a bourgeois businessman. After a failed romance with the theater, Wilhelm commits himself to the mysterious ‘Tower Society’.

Steiner brings in the light: “The citizens of earth who feel this mood of longing — the very very best for us to feel – are those who enter our own movement of Spiritual Science…That which rises from sub-consciousness must in the sense of today be brought into touch with the study of the universal existence living in the world… In this sense anthroposophy is a response to those longings which dwell in the depths of the soul. As everything that happens in the world has had a prelude, we need not wonder at a person who today longs through spiritual science for satisfaction in the powers of their soul, above all, when the unconscious soul-forces akin to longings, would consume themselves as longing.”

As was laid out in my earlier essay Homesick, thru the activity of the Dynamis – the Spirits of Movement, with their gift of picture consciousness, the otherwise empty inner self that suffers from longing, can be filled with a healing balm.  

The Spirits of Movement also bring those beings whose sacrifice was rejected into a circuit moving around the higher beings – We see this outpictured in the image of the planets revolving around the Sun.

In lecture 5 Steiner gives this picture: “If the whole substance of a planet could flow into the Sun and it not be rejected, the Beings of that planet would find different conditions of existence within the Sun from those they meet with in the planet outside, since the Sun throws them back: an estrangement takes place, it is an alienated from its origin.

If you can picture the feelings of such Beings, you will have an idea of what may be called: “The exclusion of a certain portion of Cosmic Beings from their essential meaning, their great cosmic purpose. The consequence of this is that the “displacement” — if we may once more speak symbolically — of the rejected incense, of the rejected sacrificial substance, excludes it from the course of the rest of cosmic processes.

If you grasp these thoughts with your feeling — not with your reason, you will perceive that this represents something like a rending away from the universal cosmic order. To the Cherubim who renounced the sacrifice it is only something they put away from them; to the Spirits of Will that were rejected, it is something that bears the imprint of alienation from one’s own origins.

If we can present these things to our soul through inner feelings, in this idea of alienation from source dwells in what we call – death!

Death is none other than that which necessarily enters the universe with the rejection of the sacrificial substance of those Beings who then had to retain it within themselves. Thus we advance from the resignation, the renunciation of what has been rejected by the higher Beings — which we encounter at the third stage of evolution — as Death.

And the true meaning of death is nothing other than the state of not being in ones’ true place – of exclusion from one’s true place”

To reveal the qualities of the ‘true spiritual reality’ behind the Earth embodiment, we see that thru death we meet the element we call earth. Steiner identifies the earlier stages as the willingness to sacrifice, on old Saturn, expressing itself as warmth; the virtue of bestowing, on old Sun, bringing us the outward appearance of air; & resignation or renunciation, on old moon, which is the nature of water – And we must remember dear seekers, that we can only find these spiritual qualities if we look into our own souls.

If death is the Spirit behind earth & Christ has conquered death thru his human incarnation & deed on Golgotha, we are now free thru our love filled willing to reclaim our true place – by becoming the 10^th hierarchy – as we co-create the planet of Redemption.  

Ever thinking with you & the angels

~hag

30 November 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Mars is closest to Earth tonight, at 8 pm CST.

First-quarter Moon (exact at 8:37 am CST). The Moon is in the dim water bucket that stick-figure Aquarius spills as he runs. Upper left of the Moon shines bright Jupiter. They tilt at an increasing angle as the evening progresses and the sky turns.

 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

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’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose

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

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.