Dear friends – In thinking back to the laying of the Foundation Stone for the 1st Goetheanum, called at that time the ‘Johannas Bau’, 110 years ago on 20 September 1913– (Read the transcript of that elementally charged ceremony in an essay I shared HERE) I can’t help but connect this to the arson that destroyed the ‘House of the Word’ 10 years later.
In the amazing ‘Play for Voices’ by Richard Ramsbotham, called “The Burning of the Goetheanum” a powerful occult secret is revealed thru his research capturing biographical insights from those who were there.
I met Richard for the 1st time in person this Summer at the ‘AHA‘ conference ‘The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia“, where he gave me a signed copy of this amazing telling of the Anthroposophical Biography we all share.
As we know Dr. Steiner designed this incredible ‘House of the Word’. Along with all the craftsmen & volunteers, that he worked with to co-create a powerful synthesis of diverse artistic & sensory forms infused with spiritual significance, he also employed Architect Schmid-Curtius & Engineer Englert to pull off this never before organic building achievement of the connecting domes.
From Emil Molt we hear: “The building supervision lay in the hands of the engineer Englert, the former director of the Basel building association that had produced the special concrete base for the building. Dr Steiner gave Englert the task of anchoring the two cupolas at their section in such a way that they would mutually support each other. At first, Englert declared the problem insoluble according to his calculations. He was given some directions by Dr Steiner then, lo and behold, a few days later he had solved what he had at first thought impossible.” ~Emil Molt and the beginnings of the Waldorf School movement: Sketches from an autobiography. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1991. Page 114.
From Steiner we learn: “Technically, it was an extremely difficult task to accomplish — to bring the two cupolas together —there didn’t seem to be a way to fit two spherical surfaces one into the other. So I really must mention here that we did succeed through the insight and effort of our friend, the esteemed Basel engineer Joseph Englert, who solved this architectural problem which had heretofore never been solved.” ~Rudolf Steiner, 10 April 1915, in Basel GA 289
From the biography of Joseph Englert, which Ramsbotham opens for us in his play – we learn that from an early age Englert had a powerful fascination with occult phenomena of all kinds. In particular he dabbled in mediumism, spiritualism, & was an accomplished astrologer. We was a member of the Theosophical society & heard Steiner speak for the 1st time in Basel in 1906.
As mentioned in the essay on the laying of the Foundations Stone, he was at the original founding as board member & treasurer of the Johannesbauverein – the building committee. But:
“In the second half of 1918 there was a series crisis of trust between Englert & the other board members, & after a stormy meeting on 10 January 1919, Englert not only resigned from the board, but also from the construction management. As a result, he also turned away from Anthroposophy…Shortly afterwards his marriage ended in divorce & in 1922 he moved to Lugano. There he became friends, with Hermann Hesse.”~ https://biographien.kulturimpuls.org/detail.php?id=1479
Englert also cast Horoscope charts for Hermann Hesse. In his novel “Klingsor’s Last Summer”, Hesse Depicts Englert as the Dark Magician.
Clara Selling Walther, who lived with Rudolf Steiner & Marie von Sivers at 30 Motzstrasse in Berlin, for 20 years, tells us that after Englert broke away from Anthroposophy he converted to Catholicism & became a Jesuit. After the fire at the Goetheanum she wrote down some recollections: “A body was found, of a crippled man, a watchmaker. Herr Doctor said he was NOT the arsonist. ‘Oh, No! Old Englert was the only one who knew everything about the cupolas’.”
Russian novelist Andrei Bely, another artistic associate who worked on the Goetheanum, wrote about Englert:
“I appreciated Englert…but I also suspected him ever more strongly of being marked out by a secret tragedy. I sensed his growing fascination with the abyss surrounding us. He suffered a fall. He separated from Steiner, in dissonance & discord, and converted to Catholicism.”
After the burning Steiner spoke to Ita Wegman & a small group of esoteric students, about how the 2 Dark Brotherhoods working behind the Jesuits & the Freemasons – usually enemies – joined together for the 1st time to destroy the ‘House of the Word’.
Steiner quotes what the astrologers working for the Freemasons started as a rumor in the media, which was then picked up & flamed into a fever by the Catholic Church: “Spiritual sparks have flown into the Goetheanum; physical sparks of fire will leap into it too, bringing an end to the glory of Dornach”
We know the fire stared in the ‘White Room’ which is where the Christian Community Priests were ordained. There are stories from the eurythmists who also used that room, that a strange wind ‘like an elemental force’ blew the cover off a sky light. To reach that room the arsonist would have known to come thru the sky light that allowed access to the inside space between the 2 cupolas which led right down to the make-shift altar left there from the ceremonies of the new Priests.
This space between the 2 cupala’s, which the engineer Englert was so proud of, is beautifully described by Painter & Eurythmist Margarita Woloschina who speaks about how Englet took her on a tour under the scaffolding to show her the construction of the Cupola’s:“Both Cupolas were double-shelled, according to the principle of the sounding board of a violin. It was an extraordinary experience to stand in the space between the 2 half-spheres of the inner & outer roofs of the small cupola, where all normal spatial relationships were as though annulled.” ~ The Green Snake: An Autobiography
We know from experience that the 2 once oppositional adversarial powers are now working together against humanity in many ways.
The question for us today 110 years after the original laying of the Foundation Stone is: When will the 2 Anthroposophical streams, often called the Platonists & the Aristotelians, consciously stive to work together for the good?
And Yes, we are meant to expand out the polarity – Hey, Let’s explore the transcendent 3rd – We can square the Circle – Step into the pentagram, The 6-pointed heart-star – the 12 points of View…etc…In Christic Revelation…
Let us close this theme with a quote from ‘WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE GOETHEANUM’, GA 84, 9 April 1923, Basel : “The Goetheanum could burn down. A catastrophe has swept it away. The pain of those who loved it is so great that it cannot be described…But Anthroposophy is built out of spirit, and only flames of spirit can touch this. Just as the human soul and spirit are victor over the physical when this is destroyed in death, so Anthroposophy must live, even though it has lost its Dornach home..
What Anthroposophy is to be for the further development of humanity, is built of spirit. This will not be destroyed by the flames of the spiritual life, for these flames are not destroying flames; they are strengthening flames, flames that give more life than ever. And all that life which is to be revealed through Anthroposophy as life of knowledge of the higher world, must be tempered by the flames of the highest inspiration of the human being, soul and spirit. Then Anthroposophy will continuously evolve.” ~Rudolf Steiner
Maybe you’re thinking: Ok so -Why are you even bringing up this arsonist business anyway?
I guess for me it’s always interesting to try & understand what moves thru individuals who affect world history. Always after 100 years – What could not be spoke of then – must now come to light. The forces that lived in those that have fallen to their lower selves, becoming pawns for the adversarial powers, where are these forces living today? Can we meet them before they create a destructive fire? Spiritual Science tells us that events are certainly written in the stars, & yet – if we stay awake & watch thru the dark night – we can work with the stars to steer humanity toward the light…
Bring on the fire ofselfless enthusiasm…
xox
~hag
SUNDAY 24 September 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire
Celebrating:
*The Autumnal Equinox
*World Eurythmy Day
*Yom Kippur
*Michaelmas Festival
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share,& a jar for the prep
30 September 2023 – Our Annual Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day – Biodynamic preparation making and Michaelmas 2023 – Food for Thought
The time for biodynamic preparation making is upon us. We will be making and burying the chamomile, yarrow and dandelion compost preparations. This offers hands on activity. We will be walking through grass and working in the soil. Please dress accordingly and be ready to get dirty.
After the potluck join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg in an experiential activity at the bon-fire called: Food for Thought –
Bounty: What spiritual gifts have you harvested in your life so far this year? Farewells: What no longer serves? What is over? Say good-bye/ thank you. Preserves: What will you keep as seed for the future?
Date: September 30th, 2023 at the Zinniker Farm Time: 1:30pm, potluck dinner Please bring a dish to share Suggested donation: $15-25 for more info.
~I hear the words that shatter space My tongue curls around the tone of Iron rising from the rust in the oblique angle of the Autumning sun… There the Prime Principality beckons… ~hag
Happy Birthday to the Christian Community, founded on this day 101 years ago TODAY in 1922!
Rudolf Steiner joyfully accepted the very first inquiry from young theologians, Gertrud Spörri & Johannes Werner Klein. And in a mood of devoted willingness he give the first Priest course.
Already in March 1920 Rudolf Steiner stressed to Gertrud Spörri – at the time of the first doctors’ course – that he would be pleased about a possible lecture cycle for the renewal of religious life. He said that he could speak in a more intimate manner than he could with the doctors.
Was it because of Rudolf Steiner’s own Christ experience, or because he was at home in the ritual-sacramental practice thru his work with the Misraim Service?
In looking at the whole anthroposophical movement, the young priests who founded The Christian Community, had a special closeness to Rudolf Steiner. He spoke to them in an especially intensive, intimate way, with an emphasis out of his own biography, in spite of the objectivity with which he developed the content.
‘So, now that you are full of plans, let us begin,’ Steiner said on June 15, 1921; speaking of ‘our cause’; ‘our meetings’; as well as the necessity that it take place only if ‘we can find enough people’; ‘then we will make progress.’
Rudolf Steiner was the spiritual leader, the communicator of the insights out of the supersensible world, making these insights freely available.
He never spoke to the doctors concerning ‘our cause’; or even to the Waldorf teachers, whose school he invested so much time & love for the children. But in his teaching of the theologians, they experienced him as radiant, joyful, knowledgeable & totally in his element, ‘like a fish in water,’ as Emanuel Zeylmans van Emmichoven once said. ~Peter Selg
Here is an account by Rudolf Steiner: “At the end of September and beginning of October 1921, there assembled at the Goetheanum a number of German theological students who bore in their hearts the impulse for a religious renewal in the Christian sense. The work that was begun then found its fulfilment in September 1922.
The hours spent with these students, in the small hall of the south wing – the very spot where later the fire was first discovered (The Goetheanum was destroyed by arson on the New Year’s Night 1922 – 1923) – were for me an experience that I cannot but reckon as one of the solemn festivals of my life. There, in company with a group of men and women fired with a noble enthusiasm it was possible to enter on the path that carries the knowledge of the spirit into religious experience.” ~Rudolf Steiner on the founding of The Christian Community. From “Growing Point – The Story of the Foundation of The Christian Community” by Alfred Heidenreich~
The celebration of the first Act of Consecration of Man (the Christian Community Mass) constituted the birth of The Christian Community on 16 September 1922 in Dornach, Switzerland, guided into being through the immeasurable & selfless help of Dr. Rudolf Steiner.
From Rudolf Stiener to the Priests: “My dear friends, take this into your souls: the Act of Consecration is to become alive. Through this you will earn the right to place yourselves in the earth’s becoming and through the Act of Consecration be present within the earth’s becoming. Then may you express the following truth: If this Act of Consecration is not performed then the earth will waste away and remain without nourishment. It would be just as if no plants would grow. Plants grow in the physical world; the Act of Consecration of Man must grow in the spiritual realm. If it was not enacted there on this higher level it would be the same as if on the lower level of the physical earth no plants would grow. A human-being only has the right to say this when he or she succeeds in continuously enlivening the Act of Consecration so that this self-expressed word ‘human-being’ has been achieved in the correct manner and being and weaving, within the earthly existence, through achieving the three steps of inner soul development…” ~COURSE FOR PRIESTS OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, GA 345, Lecture III, 13 July 1923, Stuttgart
1732– In Campo Maior, Portugal, a storm hits the Armory & a violent explosion ensues, killing two thirds of its inhabitants over 30,000 people!
1893 – Settlers make a land run for prime land in the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma
1908 – The General Motors Corporation is founded.
1920 – The Wall Street bombing: A bomb in a horse wagon explodes in front of the J. P. Morgan building in New York City killing 38 & injuring 400. The bombing was never solved, although investigators & historians believe it was carried out by Galleanists (Italian anarchists), a group responsible for a series of bombings the previous year. The attack was related to postwar social unrest, labor struggles, & anti-capitalist agitation in the United States
1947 – Typhoon Kathleen hits Saitama, Tokyo, at least 1,930 killed
1961 – The United States National Hurricane Research Project drops eight cylinders of silver iodide into the eyewall of Hurricane Esther. Wind speed reduces by 10%, giving rise to Project Stormfury
1961 – Typhoon Nancy, with possibly the strongest winds ever measured in a tropical cyclone, makes landfall in Osaka, Japan, killing 173 people
1977 – Deathday of Maria Callas, Greek operatic soprano
1978 – The 7.4 Mw earthquake affects the city of Tabas, Iran with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent). At least 15,000 people were killed
1987 – The Montreal Protocol is signed to protect the ozone layer from depletion
2004 – Hurricane Ivan makes landfall in Gulf Shores, Alabama as a Category 3 hurricane, killing 124
30 September 2023 –
Our Annual Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day
Biodynamic preparation making and Michaelmas 2023 –
Food for Thought
The time for biodynamic preparation making is come up again very soon. We will be making and burying the chamomile, yarrow and dandelion compost preparations. This offers hands on activity. We will be walking through grass and work in soil. Please dress accordingly and be ready to get dirty.
After the potluck join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg in an experiential activity at the bon-fire called: Food for Thought –
Bounty: What spiritual gifts have you harvested in your life so far this year? Farewells: What no longer serves? What is over? Say good-bye and thank you. Preserves: What will you keep as seed for the future?
Date: September 30th, 2023 at the Zinniker Farm Time: 1:30pm, potluck dinner Please bring a dish to share Suggested donation: $15-25 for more info.
Greetings friends on this Eve of the New Moon – I am striving, like you, thru Spiritual Science, in the continual digestion of past, present & future world events, to not only uncover the supersensible reality behind the various physically manifested phenomenon – naming the forces working in what we see out-pictured in our collective reality – but also to ask questions?
And one of the main questions many of us are asking is: How can we affect positive change?
We know that as individuals we are tasked with consistently practicing the inner development work described in Rudolf Steiner’s basic book: ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’. This first step is a life-long process, not a theory – but a conscious Initiatory practice… – Then with a firm moral foundation that allows us to build new spiritual organs, we are meant to join our gifts together to build the Temple of the New Mysteries – A Michaelic Oasis/Fortress that enables us to counteract the adversarial forces thru our collective endeavor – which involves rising in our thinking to meet the spiritual beings who are willing to work as our allies for the highest evolution of humanity.
Here on RR we have brought forth the intention to co-create change thru what I call: Project Thought-Seed (Egregore 10:10 )
Do you feel as I do that we must become spiritual warriors? We cannot realistically hope to affect change by physical means alone. The 3-fold Social Organism is in deep dis-ease. The Economic & Political realms are thoroughly corrupt, so in re-awakening the moral civil center of the Spiritual/Educational/Cultural realm in freedom, we can endeavor to take up the practice of building up affirmative imaginations on the inner planes as a counterforce to the adversarial powers working in the world.
This kind of willed-visualizationbecomes a “key-call” to the Spiritual Powers aligned with love & light, to enlist their aid.
Our collective Good Will can form a cosmic energy field for healing – planting what Dion Fortune called “Seed ideas in the group mind of humanity” to co-create intentions for our Highest human evolution – that the Earth may become a Sacred Planet – a Sun – & every Human Being a Star.“What is sown in our highest thought will grow and bear seed.” It only takes the square root of any number of people to create true change.
To further explain ‘the working’, we can do together, let’s look at what this positive group energy can be, from a spiritual scientific point of view:
An egregore is a positive group thought-form, & when intentionally created, becomes a kind of ‘entity’ with the power to help & influence.
Whenever we meditate, pray, study a sacred image, or create an inspiring work of science, art, or literature, we radiate into time & space positive thoughts & emotions which benefit the all. Thru concentration exercises we can build Thought-Forms in the astral where we can meet in spirit.
Our goal is to co-create a new ‘Group-Soul United in Christ’ – which has the power to affect the ultimate positive change we want to see in the world.
As a psychic ‘entity’, the egregore exists between the material & spiritual worlds, & is connected to both. It is a living creation of our highest intentions.
We have the power to manifest thought-forms of good will together –to collectively build a cognitive imagination of Michael-Christ-Sophia, protecting & embracing us with love & light.
The forces built up thru our collective egregore fortifies & sustains us. The intentional visualization of the Earth as a Sun, increases thru our efforts over time – becoming more & more realized thru our repeated affirmational actions.
Here is the Meditative Thought-Seed I have been working with:
For Thinking: “When I think light, my soul shines, When my soul shines, the Earth is a Star, When the Earth is a Star, I am, a true human being”. ~Herbert Hahn
I love to reverse the verses: I Am A True Human Being The Earth is a Star My Soul Shines I think Light
For Feeling: When I feel Love, my heart sings When my heart sings, the Earth resounds When the Earth resounds, I am a true I AM
I Am A True I am The earth Resounds My Heart Sings I Feel Love
For Willing: When I will life, my hands help When my hands help, the Earth heals When the Earth heals, I am a free human being
I Am A Free Human Being The Earth Heals My Hands Help I Will Life
~ hag
Of course just a simple moment of sending your good will out into the ethers is potent too.
If you are interested you can read about the origins for this Thought-Experiment which came about during the start of the Corona Crisis.
So dear friends, here is something we can actually do to counteract evil – to make our world a better place.
I hope to see you in the ethers every day 10:10 AM, (&/or PM) (but please don’t worry if you can’t tune in at 10:10, just do it whenever you think of it, which may be many times a day, or perhaps only occasionally, don’t stress it, just do what you can with a loving heart-mind)
~hag
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler AUTUMN PRELUDE III The Yield Of Summer v23 In autumn haze the senses’ lure fades; a mist arising veils the light’s revealing. In widths of space I see the autumn landscape fall asleep; the summer’s yielded me her being for me to reap
This week’s octave is its mirror verse: the Celtic Wise Woman festival of Samhain [‘Summer’s End’] when the summer’s being begins to shine as the summer of the soul, the cosmic light living on with inner power.
SAMHAIN – HALLOWEEN The Summer Of The Soul v30 In sunlight of my soul the fruit of thinking ripens; all feeling turns to sureness of self-awareness. I joy to sense the autumn’s rousing of the spirit; within me will the winter wake the summer of the soul.
PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE: Due to the farm day at Angelic Organics we are changing our Chicago Festival to: FRIDAY 22 September 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire Celebrating
*Autumnal Equinox
*Yom Kippur
*Michaelmas Festival
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share,& a jar for the prep
30 September 2023 – Our Annual Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day
Biodynamic preparation making and Michaelmas 2023 – Food for Thought
The time for biodynamic preparation making is come up again very soon. We will be making and burying the chamomile, yarrow and dandelion compost preparations. This offers hands on activity. We will be walking through grass and work in soil. Please dress accordingly and be ready to get dirty.
After the potluck join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg in an experiential activity at the bon-fire called: Food for Thought –
Bounty: What spiritual gifts have you harvested in your life so far this year? Farewells: What no longer serves? What is over? Say good-bye and thank you. Preserves: What will you keep as seed for the future?
Date: September 30th, 2023 at the Zinniker Farm Time: 1:30pm, potluck dinner Please bring a dish to share Suggested donation: $15-25 for more info.
Greetings friends – I trust that your Labor Day was light filled.
Matthew 11:28-30: “28 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
We brought a highlight to the biography of Elizabeth Vreede on her Death-day recently. And today I ran across this lecture which she gave on 11 July 1930, so I thought to share this interesting snippet:
“In conclusion, I would like to share with you the beautiful words of comfort which Rudolf Steiner spoke once during the time when we were standing in the midst of battle. It was in Copenhagen in 1911, when he was giving three lectures which were then printed in the little book ‘The Spiritual Guidance of Humankind.’
The three lectures that were then used as a basis for the book were preceded by this introduction, which, however, was not included in the printing, and which indeed also would not have fitted there. I would like to read to you the conclusion from this lecture. It is my own transcription- I do not have any other- and regrettably incomplete in places. But even if it were complete, it could hardly convey the immeasurable love, forgiveness and comfort that streamed from Rudolf Steiner to his listeners in this lecture. These were approximately his words:
~Henry Brown Fuller
‘A period of time such as ours, portending such tremendous events of soul, presents a special opportunity for us to enter profoundly into ourselves. In addition to the many duties that flow out of our movement, we must also draw into our own hearts, our own souls, so that we may clearly appreciate that only through sacrifice, are we able to follow the way which can bring a certainty in regard to the Mystery of Golgotha.
Significant times such as these must necessarily bring us something confirming the truth of the old saying, ‘where there is great light, there is much darkness’- Shadows that arise along with those gifts of which we have spoken here. This possibility of error necessarily exists in combination with the outpouring of great truths. Thus, more than at other times the human soul is at present open to error. It is also true that in the coming days of enlightenment, the greatest possible errors may occur. Error is easily possible for the weak human heart precisely because we shall be experiencing enormous events.
In consideration of what the occultists of all ages, with clear warning voices, have spoken about this possibility of error, we must learn to practice the tolerance of which we have spoken here. A blind subjection must, on the one hand, be avoided, for that can actually foster the possibility of error. On the other hand, it is also necessary to have an open heart for the new forces that will to flow now from spiritual worlds into humankind. Whoever is a good Anthroposophist knows that if we wish to foster the Light that is now wanting to stream into humankind, then we must recognize the errors that will flow into us along with the light.
Let us take confidence in knowing that there has never been a movement in which such open, loving hearts could be fostered as in our present- day movement. May we realize that it is better to be attacked by those who believe they have the only truth, in their opinion, than to attack them ourselves…between those two extremes there lies indeed a long path.
Despair may descend on us with the thought in these difficult times ‘How can I distinguish truth from error?’ In our striving, let us try to live in such a way that we can be strengthened by the idea that the truth will indeed be what can provide the highest impulses for humankind: The truth shall be closer to me than I am to myself. If I have this relationship to truth and if I should err in this Incarnation, then in the next Incarnation the truth itself will lead me back to what is right. It is better to err in this frame of mind than to cling to dogmas.
If we honestly strive for truth, then truth will be the victorious impulse in the world; through us, and through its inherent power.
If the communications of spiritual truths can awaken such feelings in the human soul, then there will be fulfilled in these Souls the mission of the new spiritual Revelation which has come into humankind – and will come ever more strongly in the future – in order to lead us up into spiritual worlds’ “.
TODAY in 1919 – Opening of the 1st Waldorf School in Stuttgart “A Ceremony of Cosmic Order”
“We can accomplish our work only if we do not see it as simply a matter of intellect or feeling, but, in the highest sense, as a moral spiritual task. Therefore, you will understand why, as we begin this work today, we first reflect on the connection we wish to create from the very beginning between our activity and the spiritual worlds. With such a task, we must be conscious that we do not work only in the physical plane of living human beings.
In the last centuries, this way of viewing work has increasingly gained such acceptance that it is virtually the only way people see it. This understanding of tasks has made teaching what it is now and that the work before us should improve. Thus, we wish to begin our preparation by first reflecting upon how we connect with the spiritual powers in whose service and in whose name each one of us must work. I ask you to understand these introductory words as a kind of prayer to those powers who stand behind us with Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition as we take up this task.
It is our duty to see the importance of our work. We will do this if we know that this school is charged with a particular task. We need to make our thoughts very concrete; we need to form our thoughts so that we can be conscious that this school fulfills something special. We can do this only when we do not view the founding of this school as an everyday occurrence, but instead regard it as a ceremony held within Cosmic Order. In this sense, I wish, in the name of the good spirit whose task it is to lead humanity out of suffering and misery, in the name of this good spirit whose task it is to lead humanity to a higher level of development in education. I wish to give the most heartfelt thanks to this good spirit who has given our dear friend Mr. Molt the good thoughts to do what he has done for the further development of humanity at this time and in this place, and what he has done for the Waldorf School. We are united with him in feeling the greatness of the task and of the moment in which it is begun, and in feeling that this is a festive moment in Cosmic Order, he will be able to work in our midst with the necessary strength.
We wish to begin our work with this in mind. We wish to see each other as human beings brought together by karma, who will bring about, not something common, but something that, for those doing this work, will include the feeling of a festive Cosmic moment. ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Foundations of Human Experience’.
CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF WALDORF EDUCATION Even the large scale of the photograph did not permit the inclusion of hundreds of personages and Beings who deserve to appear. Among those from the Past are: Adam and Eve, Abraham, Joseph, St. Luke, St. Paul, St Odelia, St Christopher, Pythagoras, Thales, Julius Caesar, William Blake, Buddha, Cicero, Albertus Magnus, Brunetto Latini, Zarathustra, Gilgamesh and Ibani, Novalis, Schiller, Christian Morgenstern, Karl Koenig, A.C. Harwood, Margaret Froehlich, Henry Barnes, Roy Wilkinson, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and many, many others.
Our thanks to Paul McCartney, Jann Haworth, and Peter Blake, creators of the iconic album cover for the Beatles’ inimitable Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band .
Among those from the Present who should take their place in this photographic Pantheon are: Patrick Wakeford-Evans, Ted Mahle, Roberto Trostli, Torin Finser, Karine Munk Finser, John Alexandra, Betty Staley, Douglas Gerwin, Arthur Auer, Norman Davidson, Clifford Monks, Arline Monks, Ida Oberman, Brian Gray, Michael Heffernan, Jaimen McMillan, Bonnie River, Thom Schaefer, Donna Long, Prairie Adams, Anna Rainville, David Mitchell, Chip Romer, Allegra Allesandri, Susan Olson, Kim John Payne, Jamie York, and many, many others. ~Eugene Schwartz
Saturday 23 September 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire Celebrating
*Autumnal Equinox
*Yom Kippur
*Michaelmas Festival
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share,& a jar for the prep
~Art Of The New Deal: How Artists Helped Redefine America During The Depression
Labor Pains 2023
While firing up the BBQ & setting out the disposable plates, most folks probably don’t think about Labor Day as a holiday commemorating the battle for human rights. But this is its origin.
~Thomas Hart Benton
In the volatile time between the Civil War & the Great Depression there was a massive sea-change within society – The industrial revolution was sweeping in – & millions of Americans were forced to leave their farms & move to cities in search of work. They found themselves on the assembly line in dark factories & in the newly-formed rail, steel, textile, & shipping industries.
Soon economic recession became a thing, creating mass poverty – throwing enormous numbers of people out of work. The Rights realm, in relation to the Economic & Cultural realms, was not up to morally dealing with how employers should treat their workers. There was no clear concept of how the wealth they all collectively produced would be distributed. Inequality soared to enormous heights. Growing corporations were making workers their indentured slaves.
Labor Unions were growing as the one avenue by which workers could fight for their interests, & the economy saw waves of regular strikes & work stoppages that would be unheard of today. The minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, laws against child labor, & more were only instituted after pitched political combat.
Sometimes, the battles were literal: Employers & politicians were not shy about busting unions with police as well as hired enforcers. Riots, deaths, & bombings were not uncommon.
The first inklings of America’s Labor Day took shape in 1882, when the Central Labor Union (CLU) met in September in New York City for a labor festival. Peter McGuire, a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), who was inspired by a parade in Toronto in 1872 in support of a strike against the 58-hour work week, may have been the 1st to propose the idea of a ‘Labor Day’. Other research points to Matthew Maguire, a machinist & member of the Knights of Labor. But somehow or another, the idea for a parade & yearly holiday to honor American workers was hatched.
The first parade of the new project was held in Manhattan on Sept. 5, 1882. It started out small, but then a band showed up, & workers’ groups from various industries began to flow in. Eventually the parade swelled to 10,000. After that initial success, various state & municipal governments began naming an official day to commemorate labor.
Then a massive recession hit in 1893. The job losses were devastating — & the frustration crystallized in a nationwide strike against the Pullman Company, a railroad car manufacturer & founder of one of the most infamous company towns in America, keeping the workers in appalling living conditions.
Railroad baron George Pullman created his eponymous town in 1880 just outside Chicago. This is part of the history that has affected the ‘Spirit of Place’ in which I live here in Chicago. It was a model of capitalist feudalism, where workers were moved into housing in line with their position in the company. Residents worked for Pullman’s company & their rent was automatically docked from their paychecks. They even had to bank at Pullman’s corrupt bank. But Pullman’s business plummeted when the recession hit. Hundreds were laid off & wages were deeply cut — yet rents in the town did not decline.
In response, 4,000 of Pullman’s workers went on strike on May 11, 1894. On June 26, the American Railroad Union — led by Eugene V. Debs — called for a supporting boycott. One 100,50 railway workers in 27 states joined the strike, refusing to operate Pullman rail cars. The massive halt to the rail industry & the interruption of U.S. mail cars set off a national crisis.
Congress & President Grover Cleveland, looking to save face, rushed through a bill declaring Labor Day a national holiday. Cleveland signed it on June 28, 1894. He was backed by the AFL — the more conservative portion of the labor movement — which threw the first official Labor Day parade that year.
~Pullman Strike, 1894 Drawing by Granger
But it was a brutally ironic gesture. Six days later, under pressure from the furious leaders of the rail industry, & facing the virtual shutdown of U.S. mail trains, President Cleveland invoked the ‘Sherman Antitrust Act’ to declare the work stoppage a federal crime. He sent in 12,000 federal troops to break the strike. Days of fighting & riots ensued, as strikers overturned & burned railcars, & the troops responded with violent crackdowns. Over 30 workers were killed before the strikers were dispersed & the trains restarted.
President Cleveland & others picked the September date for Labor Day as a kind of alternative to May Day, which had by then arisen as the principal day of celebration for workers’ movements around the world. On May 1, 1886, over 250,000 workers struck in Chicago, shutting down 13,000 businesses to demand a shorter work week for equal pay. After several days of peaceful protest, an ‘unknown assailant’ threw a bomb at police in Haymarket Square on May 4. The police responded by firing into the crowd, killing scores of people. Some speculate that this assailant was a paid provocateur.
How ironic that now Labor Day is just an excuse for a commercialized, lazy-apolitical 3-day weekend, which his been totally disconnected from the remembrance of when workers fought & died for the basic human decency of a shorter work week.
And we can also look at Labor Day as a remembrance of a time when the labor movement was a force to be reckoned with. Since the heyday of the New Deal, American membership in labor unions has collapsed. And of course like everything that turns corporate, the Labor Unions became corrupt. Today Millions of workers in modern service industries face capricious employment, low pay, & dismal conditions. Inequality has returned to its pre-Great-Depression levels, & the shared prosperity of the era immediately after the New Deal is a distant memory. Even the 40-hour work week is falling by the wayside.
Dear freinds – Labor Day is ripe for renewal. Isn’t it time to take up The 3-Fold Social Organism as inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s Spiritual Science?
There isn’t, nor should there be, a ready-made ‘social program’ or ‘regulation’ to solve all of our problems. We each have to take-up social ideals that serve the highest good of the all – & work together to transform the communities we belong to. We must each work with the ‘Spirit of Place’ in which our karma has placed us, to co-create a movement for Freedom based on Love, in our Cultural Sphere; Equity in our Rights Realm; & in the sphere of Economics, we must foster an association of Sister/brotherhood – Then our Labor pains will give birth to a practical 3-fold Social Movement that brings harmony to humanity.
~hag
~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.
4 September 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The trio will rise after 10 pm – visible thru dawn.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler AUTUMN PRELUDE II The Ripening Of Self v22 The cosmic light lives on with inner power, becomes the light of soul and shines in depths of spirit to free the fruits of Cosmic Self that from them in the course of time the Human Self will ripen.
This is the second verse of the Light Quartet: its mirror verse in November is the third one. ALL HALLOWTIDE II The Ripening Of Creative Powers v31 The light from spirit depths strives outwards like the sun, becomes life’s strength of will and shines in senses’ dullness to free the forces that ripen creative powers in human work the soul initiates.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of humankind’s spiritual development“)
“And when Moses came down from the mount Sinai, he held the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands,: and he knew not that his head was horned with light from the conversation of the YHWH. And Aaron and the children of Israel seeing the head of Moses horned with light were afraid to come near… he gave them in commandment all that he had heard of the YHWH in mount Sinai…And having done speaking, he put a veil upon over his head…~ Exodus 34:29-35
Birth & Death-day of MOSES (from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul):
According to Egyptian astrologers, the liberator of the children of Israel was to be born on this day – So all the male children were to be thrown into the water by order of King Pharaoh.
Jochebed, Amram‘s wife, mother of Miriam, & Aaron, gave birth to her third child, a boy that morning at sunrise. Right from that moment the house was filled with a radiant light, so they knew he was an extraordinary child. After three months, Jochebed saw that she would not be able to conceal her child any longer. So she made a small, water-proof basket & set him down among the papyrus reeds growing on the brink of the Nile. Miriam remained nearby to watch the baby.
The day was hot, & King Pharaoh’s daughter, Bithya, came out to the river, accompanied by her maids, to take a bath in the cool waters of the Nile. Suddenly, she heard the wailing of a small child, & she found the basket. Intrigued by the child’s beauty, Bithya tried to figure out a way to enable her to keep him for herself & save him from death, for she understood that this boy was from a Jewish family.
The child refused to be nursed by any of the Egyptian maids-in-waiting, & continued to weep. At this moment, Miriam came over to the princess & offered to find a Jewish nurse. Bithya was glad of this solution, so Miriam rushed home & brought her mother Jochebed, to be his ‘nurse’. For two years the baby was left in his mother’s care.
Meanwhile Bithya told Pharaoh about the boy she had adopted. Her father did not object as he felt sure that the danger had already been averted years ago. So Moses was taken to the royal court, where he grew up as the princely adopted son of the Pharaoh’s daughter.
Once it happened that Moses was playing on King Pharaoh’s lap. He saw the shining crown, studded with jewels, reached for it & took it off. Pharaoh, asked his astrologers for the meaning of this action. They interpreted it to mean that Moses was a threat to Pharaoh’s crown & suggested that the child be put to death before it could do any harm. But one of the king’s counselors suggested that they should first test the boy to see whether his action was prompted by an evil intelligence, or if he was merely grasping for sparkling things as any other child would.
Pharaoh agreed to this, & two bowls were set down before young Moses. One contained gold & jewels, & the other held glowing fire-coals. Moses reached out for the gold, but an angel re-directed his hand to the coals. Moses snatched a glowing coal & put it to his lips. He burned his hand & tongue, but his life was saved.
After that fateful test, Moses suffered from a slight speech defect. He could not become an orator, but G‑d’s words that were spoken to him & with the help of his brother Aaron & sister Miriam, he was able to fulfill his mission.
At age 20, Moses fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian he saw beating a Jew &made his way to Midian, where he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, & fathered two sons, Gershom & Eliezer.
When he was 80 years old, Moses was shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep when G‑d revealed himself to him in a burning bush at Mount Horeb (Sinai) & instructed him to liberate the Children of Israel. Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, performed numerous miracles for them (the ten plagues in Egypt, the splitting of the sea, extracting water from a rock, bringing down the manna, etc), received the Torah from G‑d & taught it to the people, built the Mishkan (Divine dwelling) in the desert, & led the Children of Israel for 40 years as they journeyed through the wilderness; but G‑d did not allow him to bring them into the Holy Land. Moses passed away on his 120th birthday on Mount Nebo, within sight of the land he yearned to enter.
According to Konrad Burdach, Rudolf Steiner connects Moses in a later incarnation as Goethe, in a special lecture in the GA 138 series
1150 – Feast day of St. Rosalia – born of a Norman noble family that claimed descent from Charlemagne. Devoutly religious, she retired to live as a hermit in a cave on Mount Pellegrino, where she died alone in 1166. Tradition says that she was led to the cave by two angels. On the cave wall she wrote “I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, Lord of Roses, and Quisquina, have taken the resolution to live in this cave for the love of my Lord, Jesus Christ.”
In 1624, a plague beset Palermo. During this hardship Saint Rosalia appeared first to a sick woman, then to a hunter, to whom she indicated where her remains were to be found. She ordered him to bring her bones to Palermo and have them carried in procession through the city.
The hunter climbed the mountain & found her bones in the cave as described. He did what she had asked in the apparition. After her remains were carried around the city three times, the plague ceased. After this Saint Rosalia was venerated as the patron saint of Palermo, & a sanctuary was built in the cave where her remains were discovered.
On September 4 there is a tradition of walking barefoot from Palermo up to Mount Pellegrino. In Italian American communities in the United States, the September feast brings large numbers of visitors annually to the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn in New York City.
1882 – The Pearl Street Station in New York City becomes the first power plant to supply electricity to paying customers.
1886 – After almost 30 years of fighting, Apache leader Geronimo, with his remaining warriors, surrenders to General Nelson Miles in Arizona.
1888 – George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak& receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.
1949 – The Peekskill riots erupt after a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York.
1951 – The first live transcontinental television broadcast takes place in San Francisco, from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference.
1957 – Little Rock Crisis: Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, calls out the National Guard to prevent African American students from enrolling in Central High School.
1957 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel.
1965 – Death-Day of Albert Schweitzer, French-Gabonese physician, theologian, missionary, & Nobel Prize laureate.
From the memoirs of Albert Schweitzer (1875 – 1965): “My first encounter with Rudolf Steiner took place on the occasion of a Theosophical conference in Strasbourg. If I’m not mistaken, it was in 1902 or 1903. Annie Besant, with whom I was acquainted through Strasbourg friends, introduced us. At that time Rudolf Steiner acted in connection with the Theosophical Society, not so much because he shared its convictions, but because he found in its members the possibility to find understanding and interest for the spiritual truths which he had to make known.
The language mostly used at that Theosophical conference was French. So they counted on me, because I spoke German, to take care of the Austrian guest, which I gladly did. I arranged it so we were neighbors at meals during the conference. From the beginning, he was the talker and I the listener and questioner during our conversations.
Before we had consumed the soup, a discussion spontaneously arose about his studies of Goethe in Weimar and about Goethe’s Weltanschauung (or world view). I immediately became aware that my companion had extensive knowledge of natural science. It was a great surprise to me that he spoke of the need to recognize the importance of Goethe’s knowledge of nature. He had been able to penetrate from a superficial knowledge of the sense world to a more profound knowledge of spiritual being. I knew something about Goethe’s natural scientific writing and the places where he sought a perceptual knowledge. My table partner realized that he had an attentive listener beside him. He gave a lecture. We forgot that we were supposed to be eating. In the afternoon we stood around together, not paying much attention to what was happening at the Theosophical conference.
When the discussion turned to Plato, I could participate more. Steiner surprised me here as well, in that he revealed hidden aspects of Plato’s knowledge that I had not yet appreciated.
When Steiner asked me what concerned me especially in theology, I answered that it was research into the historical Jesus. Well, I felt the moment to have come in which I could take the conversation in hand and began to lecture him about research into the life of Jesus and about which Gospel contained the oldest tradition. To my astonishment, he did not discuss this subject. He let me lecture on without saying a word. I had the impression that he was mentally yawning. I got off my theological social-scientific high horse and put it in the stable, and waited for what would come.
Then something remarkable happened. One of us, I don’t remember which, began to speak of the spiritual decline of culture as the fundamental, unnoticed problem of our time. Thus we realized that we were both preoccupied with it. We had not expected that of each other. A lively discussion resulted. We learned from each other that we had both taken on a lifetime mission of working for the emergence of a true culture enlivened by the ideal of encouraging people to become truly thinking beings. We parted with this consciousness of belonging together without arranging for another meeting. But the consciousness of togetherness remained. We each followed the activities of the other.
I never took part in Rudolf Steiner’s flights of thought in the spiritual sciences. But I know that he elevated many people through those flights and made new human beings of them. His disciples have made excellent contributions in many fields. I have followed Rudolf Steiner’s life and activities with heartfelt participation. Notable were his successes until World War I, the problems and hardships that accompanied them, his courageous efforts in the postwar confusion to create order through teaching about the Threefold Social Organism, his founding of the Goetheanum in Dornach, where his thought-world found a home, the pain caused by its destruction by fire on New Year’s Eve 1922-3, the courage with which he went about its reconstruction, and finally the spiritual greatness of his tireless teaching and activity during the suffering of the last months of his life on earth.
Neither did he lose sight of me. He took note of the 1923 publication of my Verfall und Wiederaufbau der Kultur and Kultur und Ethik. In a lecture, he appreciated the analysis of the cultural problems those books offered but made no secret of his regret that I tried to solve the problems with ethical thinking alone, without the help of spiritual science. During my meeting with him, his face with his wonderful eyes made an unforgettable impression on me.”
Albert Schweitzer also reported on this meeting to the composer-conductor Bruno Walter:
“I continually occupied myself with Steiner and was always conscious of his importance. What we had in common was that we both wanted culture to stand in place of its lack. This bond arose in Strasburg. He expected culture from ethical thinking and the knowledge of spiritual science. According to my nature, I had to stay with letting it arise through concentration on the essence of the ethical. In this way I came to the ethics of Reverence for Life and hoped for the emergence of culture from it. I know that Rudolf Steiner regretted my remaining in the old way of thinking. But we had both experienced the same responsibility to lead men to true culture again.”
Albert Schweitzer reported to Camille Schneider in Strasburg in 1951:
“Our goals are the same. Our paths are apparently different. Whereas Rudolf Steiner as spiritual researcher advances towards the experience of Christ by means of exercises, thinking, and mysticism, I have attempted to encounter Christ Jesus through thoughtful knowledge of the eschatological content of his teachings. And I encounter him daily in my work with the blacks of Africa. From this twofold experience, I derive the foundation of my life’s ethic. That is what matters to me.”
In 1922, after the First World War, Albert Schweitzer visited Rudolf Steiner in Dornach. Camille Schneider reports:
“Albert Schweitzer informed me that he once visited Rudolf Steiner in Dornach. He couldn’t say exactly in what year. He spoke with him about the necessity, after World War I, for a new penetration of cultural life with religious impulses and said that he recognized him to be a great man, who with comprehensive knowledge and astounding wisdom transforms all the information and opinions we hear or read daily without always understanding their deeper meanings. ‘An initiate in the sense of Edouard Schuré’, Dr. Schweitzer added, because shortly before we had spoken about Schuré and his book The Great Initiates.”
Emil Bock dates this meeting in autumn, 1922:
“Many years ago – it was 1922 – we were in preparation for the founding of the Christian Community in Dornach, and I went to Dr. Steiner in order to ask him something. He received me with glowing eyes: ‘Just think! Albert Schweitzer was with me today. He is really an important personality.'”
1998 – Google is founded by Larry Page & Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.
Saturday 23 September 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire
*Autumnal Equinox
*Yom Kippur
*Michaelmas Festival
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share,& a jar for the prep
