12 April 2017 – Astro-Weather: Right after dark, the Sickle of Leo stands vertical, high in the south. Its bottom star is Regulus, Leo’s brightest. Leo the lion is walking horizontally westward, with the Sickle forming his front leg, chest, mane, & part of his head
Mars continues to put on a nice show these April evenings appearing high in the west an hour after sunset & doesn’t dip below the horizon until after 9 pm CDT.
~Seed Moon Full & Bright
Holy week, the Fool takes flight ~hag
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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
3rd Night of Passover
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1204 – Enrico Dandolo conquers Constaninople. He is remembered for his blindness, piety, longevity, & shrewdness, & is infamous for his role in the 4th Crusade & the Sack of Constantinople in which he, at age ninety & blind, led the Venetian contingent
1925 – The last Leading thought given by Rudolf Steiner
1927 – Rocksprings, Texas was hit by an F5 tornado that destroyed 235 of the 247 buildings in the town & killed 172 townspeople & injured 205
1934 – The U.S. Auto-Lite strike begins, culminating in a five-day melee between Ohio National Guard troops & 6,000 strikers& picketers
1945 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies in office; Vice President Harry Truman, becomes President upon Roosevelt’s death
1955 – The polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective
2002 – A suicide bomber blows herself up at the entrance to Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda Market, killing 7people & wounding 104.
2007 – A suicide bomber penetrates the Green Zone & detonates in a cafeteria within a parliament building, killing Iraqi MP Mohammed Awad & wounding more than 20other people.
2013 – 2 suicide bombers kill three Chadian soldiers & injure dozens of civilians at a market in Kidal, Mali
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Karen Bing
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Into my Inner Essence
Gushes the riches
Of the sense world…
The Wisdom of The Logos finds Herself
In the mirror-image of my Eye,
That Her Power out of me
May shape anew the eternal resurrection…
~hag
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The Foundation Stone Meditation was given as our spiritual touchstone. And it becomes an actual path with which we can maintain our connection to the being of Rudolf Steiner. If we stand on this Foundation Stone of Love we can live into the destiny given at the Christmas Conference. Our efforts then become a gift of gratitude to this great initiate for the sacrifice he offered up when he united his karma with that of the Society. “We experienced what this sacrificial deed entailed” wrote Marie Steiner von Sivers, “an immense abundance of spiritual revelations he brought down & that he paid for with his death”
At the end of her ‘appeal for reconciliation’ in 1942, Marie Steiner wrote, “Can we not in view of this sacrifice & this death, for which as individuals & as society members all of us certainly bear guilt, for he assumed OUR karma, can we not forget, reconcile, & open wide our gates to the seekers? We must be able to work together again, denying collaboration to nobody who is faithful to the cause & to Rudolf Steiner.”
If we do our part, working on our own inner development, as well as practicing love & forgiveness to work out our karma in community, to merge the 2 streams of the Platonists & Aristotelians into the middle stream of Lazurus-John – then the Anthroposophical Society can become the earthly instrument of Divine Will it is meant to be.
I wrote this in response to the recent AGM in Dornach & after becoming inspired by reading “May Human Beings Hear It” by Sergei O. Prokofieff – a true conscious human being & anthroposopher.
‘At the turning point of time
The cosmic spirit-light of the world
Entered the stream of earth existence.
Darkness of night had ceased its reign;
Day-radiant light
Shone forth in human souls:
Light
That gives warmth
To simple shepherd’s hearts;
Light
That enlightens
The wise heads of kings.
Light divine,
Christ-Sun,
Warm
Our hearts;
Enlighten
Our heads;
That good may become
What from our hearts
We are founding,
What from our heads
We direct,
With focused will’ ~RS FSM
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An offering from Frank Agrama:
“Elderberries 3Fold Cafe, is a cultural initiative to transform society through service. The platform blurs the lines between who is serving who, due to the all-around experience of transformation, for both server and docent, co-worker and community.
Our opportunity in Chicago, is fertile. The well-maintained anthroposophically rooted movements surrounding, will have a space to meet one another. The social organism can experience a new level of synergy and thus renewal. In a refreshing and inspiring way, we have an opportunity to redefine the value of an Anthroposophical Community Center.
Besides holding a space for social nourishment, a key ingredient to consider is empowering the youth. As both a gathering and co-working space, the youth impulse can find a moral and activating home base alongside the elders, welcoming opportunities for mentorship as well as leadership within the space and ultimately out into the world.
We aim to host the arts, as they emerge in the forms that they arrive to us, be it poetry, music, theater, conversation, workshop, or as studio space rented in the back.
The cafe will bring new opportunities to meeting and sharing anthroposophy, authentic, vital, and personal. Our goal is to enrich, expand and empower the local community. Thank you”.
So my friends – We are each sharing our hopes that this initiative can be realized in Chicago. We’d love to hear from you. What do you think?
You can read more from Frank Agrama, (& see his art) & other Youth in the current issue of Being Human: “So, friends, what should we write about the Youth Section?”
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Holy Wednesday from Emil Bock’s The Three Years – Matthew 26: 3-16
The “Still Week” – as Holy Week is called in some countries – is not really still until the middle day is past. On Palm Sunday the city was in a state of tremor; on Monday the tables of the vendors and money-changers were overturned in the Temple; on Tuesday, sword-thrusts were dealt in spiritual conflict between Christ and His opponents. It is not until the last part of the week that stillness descends. Wednesday, Mercury Day, is the turning point. The mercurial element of living movement represents the transition from the first unquiet days of the “Still Week” to those in which the consummation of Christ’s life moves into ever deeper stillness.
Towards evening on Wednesday a scene stands out which, although it has also occurred before, takes on a special significance on this middle day of balance. The Christ has turned from the tumult of the city to the quiet country town of Bethany, beyond the Mount of Olives. He stays in the circle of those with whom He is particularly united. A meal has been prepared for Him as on other evenings. But it is as though a certain radiance fell upon the scene, shining in advance from the Meal which will be celebrated the next day. A presentment of the Last Supper hovers round the community at the table. The country town of Bethany, quiet as it is, has shortly before been the scene of the raising of Lazarus, the event which had given the signal for battle. Lazarus is one of those gathered round the table; and it is he, as we know, who is described by the Gospel as resting on the heart of Jesus the next evening. At the Last Supper it is he who is nearest to Christ, both outwardly and inwardly.
Two women also belong to the community at table, Martha and Mary Magdalene, whom the Gospel of St. John states to be the sisters of Lazarus. They have been led by the hand of Providence into this circle, which is more related by the spirit than by blood. In the life of each of these three persons there has been an event which brought a radical transformation. For Lazarus it was the awakening from the grave, the great release of the John-spirit for its flight to the heights. For Mary Magdalene the event lay somewhat farther back; it is called in the Gospel a “driving out of devils”. She had been healed of the tragedy of “possession” and had experienced the freeing and purifying of her soul.
For Martha there had also been a significant event; she is said in early Christian tradition to be the woman who was healed of the issue of blood. Destiny had decreed that she should bring with her into life a weakness through which her bodily organism was unable to hold its forces together. Through meeting with the One Who could heal her, a staying power, a formative force, drew into her body, just as an inner peace had entered the soul of Mary Magdalene. The brother and sisters of Bethany became the intimate friends of Christ through healings of the spirit, the soul and the body.
As they all sit at the table with the disciples, Mary is recorded as having anointed the feet of Christ with precious spikenard ointment and wiped them with her hair. St John’s Gospel says that the whole house was filled with the perfume. Mary Magdalene had performed a similar act a year and a half previously. She had experienced a freeing and redeeming through her meeting with the Christ, and in order to show her overflowing gratitude she had, as the Gospel of St. Luke describes, anointed the feet of Christ and dried them with her hair. St. John’s Gospel, in the introductory words to the awakening of Lazarus, refers to this earlier scene (11,2). Mary Magdalene is described in St. Like’s Gospel as the “great sinner”, and it is possible, according to old traditions, that she was a prostitute, driven by demons, in the mundane watering place of Tiberias, near her home at Magdala. But was does her act of anointing signify now? It is the type and symbol of a sacramental act. Therefore, when others declare her deed extravagant and become indignant, Christ can accept what this woman does as a sacrament of death, as a fulfillment of the Last Anointing. On the occasion of the earlier anointing he had said, “Be still; she has loved much, much will be forgiven her.” And one can feel how Mary has since been able to deepen the natural forces of earthly love erring on false paths, and transmute them into religious devotion, and the capacity for sacrifice.
Then the solemn stillness is suddenly broken by a figure who forms a complete contrast to Mary Magdalene.
It is one of the apostles and when he sees the deed of Mary he loses self-control. This is Judas. He says that the precious money which has just been squandered could have been given to the poor, and thus many social needs might have been relieved. St. John’s Gospel, however, makes it plain that his real motives are not the ostensible ones. The Gospel openly calls him a thief. It may well be that the anger which Judas felt at the deed of Mary Magdalene gave the final impetus to his act of betrayal. He had waited a long time in tense expectation that Jesus would come forward publically: then a political miracle would inevitably follow. In this feverish impatience, it seems to him that Christ wastes His time; and finally at Bethany his patience can endure no more. In uncontrolled irritation he goes out to those who lie in wait for the Christ. The second crucial event of the Wednesday is the betrayal by Judas.
Both Judas and Mary Magdalene are typical Mercury people; they are active and temperamental. One of the virtues of their nature is that they are never tedious; something is always happening round them. Mary Magdalene, however, subdues her restlessness and transforms it into devotion, peace and the capacity for love. One can see from the Gospel account that true devotion is the final achievement of an active soul, a soul for whom peace is not mere immobility, but mobility redeemed, made inward. Mary Magdalene has been storm tossed: she has endured sinister experiences. But now an intense power of devotion grows from all that was formerly dark and disturbing. This intensity will later lift her above all other human beings; to her it is granted to be the first to meet and behold the Risen Christ.
Judas is the type of the restless man who must always be outwardly active. He pretends to want something for the poor. However good and commendable social activity may be, it is often only self-deception. The underlying motive is not always a genuine social impulse, but very often one’s own inner restlessness. Many people would be most unhappy if they were obliged to do nothing for a time. It would then be seen that their social zeal is no true inner activity, but a yielding to an unacknowledged weakness. In Judas this kind of mercurial soul meets with a dark fate. His unrest springs from a deeply hidden fear, and it leads to his betrayal of Christ Jesus. Such a soul cannot show devotion; above all, it cannot love. A restless person is not capable of real love; for love is possible only where the soul has found peace. Thus, in the two figures, Mary Magdalene and Judas, two roads separate, as at a crossroads. One leads to the realization of the nearness of Christ; the other into the dark night, into tragedy and suicide.
Marta, the other sister of Lazarus, is a transition, as it were, between Judas and Mary Magdalene. St. Luke’s Gospel tells the story of Mary and Martha earlier on, and has a purpose in doing so. Martha is the constantly active one who could not exist without undertaking some service. One cannot deny the genuine nature of her devotion, but one must not be blind to the fact that the unrest from which she was healed in the body has remained in her soul. Mary, who listens with devotion, is described as the one that has chosen the good part.
The figures taking part in these scenes on the Wednesday show us the crossroads which we must face before we may hope for admittance to the sphere of Maundy Thursday. The ways separate in face of the mystery of the sacrament. Judas is the man without ritual. He becomes restless and loses self-control when he comes into the sphere of true ceremonial worship. Mary Magdalene is the sacramental soul. On the following evening, when the circle of disciples will be united in the Sacrament as under a great dome, it will be apparent who is nearer to Mary, and who to Judas.
Mercury, who for the Greco-Roman world was both the God of Healing and also the God of merchants and of thieves, comes now into the orbit of the Christ Sun. The scene in the house of Lazarus and her sisters at Bethany shows how Mercury, the God of Healing, can himself be healed by the Sun of Christ.»
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Greetings Friends on this Holy Wednesday –
FYI: NO STUDY Holy Thursday or Good Friday
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15 April 2017, Holy Saturday – Our Annual Easter Festival:
‘The Mystery of Golgotha – Then & Now’
2 pm – 4 pm
What was the Mystery of Golgotha?
What is the Mystery now?
What will it be for the future?
~Art Projections & Discourse with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Group work: Based on Baruch Urieli’s
‘Learning to Experience the Etheric World,
Empathy, the After-Image and a New Social Ethic’
A sneak peak of Our New Art Exhibition by Victoria Martin “I” SEE HEAVEN’
$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged
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16 April 2017, Easter Sunday – 4 pm – 6 pm
The Midwest Eurythmy Group will perform
The Easter Verse from the Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner & Bach Fugue Bb minor ‘5 Voices’ & Prelude #22
Focused Discussion, an Artistic Activity, & Group Eurythmy
$10 Donation goes to support the Midwest Eurythmy Group
Snacks to Share Encouraged (Hazel will bring her famous slow cooked leg of lamb 🙂
At the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) rudolfsteinerbranch@yahoo.com – calendar of events Check out our Web site! Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)
