Category Archives: Community

Identity

August 8, 2023Calendar of the Soul, Chicago Event, Community, Festival, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Event~hag

Greetings friends – I am just now coming back – with the 4^thQuarter Moon & the building up of the Perseid Meteor showers – fresh from Seminar 4 of the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology (AAP) where the theme was dealing with the 3^rd Septennial – age 14-21 asking: Who Am I ? – The Search for Identity & Authenticity.

And Hallelujah – Because the border restrictions imposed by the Corona crisis finally loosened in May, Dr. James Dyson, Simon Kuttner, & Zheni Nasi were able to join us in person for the 1^st time! – Bringing a distinctly glorious soul-shift in the state of our communion this go-round.

I will no doubt be unpacking our deep dive into the polarities that get sparked during the teenage years, on the micro & macro levels – with all its astral dynamics, as the digestion proceeds.

For now, I’ll just share this echo: Having gathered at Camphill Kimberton on the Full Thunder-Buck Moon during the Cross-Quarter Time of the 2^nd Harvest, between the Summer Solstice & The Autumn Equinox – with the local biodynamic sweet corn plumb & golden, I could sense the ‘Spirit of Place’ standing strongly with the guiding Spirit behind AAP, vibrating thru us all.

And as we contemplated together the essence of adolescence – it seemed to me that in looking at the macro level of human evolution, that perhaps society at large is stuck in those teenage years – a reactive raging
turmoil – the result of a lack of identity – of not yet being able to fully achieve a connection to the Higher “I”…

James Dyson painted a gripping picture of the Youth Movement he was part of – How in 1970, over 400 young people came together for a conference in Spring Valley. Michael Babitch, the long time Camphiller I was staying with was also at this seminal gathering, fresh from the Peace Corp.

Sparked by the success & growing interest within the Youth Movement at that time, James then went on to work with a team of young people to bring a conference to the Goetheanum in 1973. He spoke about the rigidity of the Elders there, & the many obstacles they faced. And yet over 1000 young people from all over the world came together in the light of Anthroposophy!

Was this the longed for ‘Culmination’ that Steiner spoke about?

James & so many others in that volatile time were helped to find their star by finding each other. Many of those earnest young people went on to become practitioners of Anthroposophical Initiates in the world.

It reminded me of what Steiner said at the end of the Christmas Conference – 8:30 pm on 1 January, 1924 in The Responsibility Incumbent on Us: “And so, my dear friends, bear out with you into the world your warm hearts in whose soil you have laid the Foundation Stone for the Anthroposophical Society, bear out with you your warm hearts in order to do work in the world that is strong in healing. Help will come to you because your heads will be enlightened by what you all now want to be able to direct in conscious willing. Let us today make this resolve with all our strength. And we shall see that if we show ourselves to be worthy, then a good star will shine over that which is willed from here. My dear friends, follow this good star. We shall see whither the gods shall lead us through the light of this star.

Light Divine
Christ-Sun,
Warm thou
Our hearts,
Enlighten
thou
Our heads!“

Many questions arose about whether this Responsibility Incumbent on Us was heeded. Has Dornach become simply a place holder, a memorial – at worst a mausoleum…? –

Or is it perhaps a sheath – an inverted chalice over the etheric essence of the 1^st Goetheanum – a protective Michaelic Sheild – a concrete cradle, like the moon, holding the host of the etheric substance of ‘The Word’ released by the sacrificial fire to flow into & permeate the cosmic ethers..?

Are we willing & able to do the hard work of not only reading the Cosmic Script, but actually putting what has been inscribed in the ethers into practice in our lives, thru the purifying of our soul forces, for the highest human evolution…?

The years of biodynamic farming on the Dornach hill gives the land a spiritual glow; & the ancient Hermitage still seems to have some juice – At best – can the Goetheanum become a guiding light to the future…?

It’s up to us – & yes, ‘the Ordering of Space & the Course of Time’ will tell –

What I do know is – that it’s 100 years since the re-founding – And these are the kind of questions we must be asking.

And of course, as we have discussed many times here on RR – it is a Rosicrucian law that after 100 years ‘the Tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz is opened’. This imagination reveals a deep occult truth – The seeds that were planted by the great Christian Initiates that were not able to bear fruit in the last century, can now rise from the grave to become not only a Resurrection, but a furthering, & a Renewal – an opportunity to meet “I” to “I” to enact the New Mysteries of Love & Freedom.

And what became clear to me sitting in our circle of 50 earnest souls, is that the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology is a true guiding light, a practical, experientially based Mystery School for our time – chalk full of all the pushes & pullings that are the key notes of initiation – The not so beautiful karmic realtionships, that so sorely test us, & the intense trials that inner development brings…

Dear friends, together we can stand with the ‘Representative of Humanity’ spared by the flames of jealousy, to unveil the New Isis = to live into the truth that: “Love is the result of Wisdom that has been reborn in the I” – ever cultivating Anthroposophia within ourselves as we ‘Awaken to Community’ – To fulfill ‘the Mystery of the “I” giving back to the Gods’, in the co-creation of a New Golden Civilization – “I” into it”.

~hag

8 August 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Early tomorrow morning, the waning crescent moon will pass the dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster, aka the Seven Sisters. And on Thursday, the even thinner moon will be close to bright orange star Aldebaran, fiery Eye of the Bull in the constellation Taurus.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The vision of St. Dominic receiving the Rosary from the Virgin by Bernardo Cavallino

1170 – Saint Dominic, founder of the Dominicans

1576 – The cornerstone for Tycho Brahe’s Uraniborg observatory is laid on the island of Hven.

1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

1879 – Deathday of Immanuel Hermann Fichte, German philosopher and academic

1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It is the Wright Brothers’ first public flight.

1929 – The German airship Graf Zeppelin begins a round-the-world flight.

1946 – First flight of the Convair B-36, the world’s first mass-produced nuclear weapon delivery vehicle, the heaviest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft, with the longest wingspan of any military aircraft, and the first bomber with intercontinental range.

1974 – President Richard Nixon, in a nationwide television address, announces his resignation from the office of the President of the United States effective noon the next day.

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
LAMMASTIDE II
Can I Imagine My Soul’s 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.

This is the Soul Calendar’s first question verse
and its mirror is the only other one.

ADVENT II
Can True Being Inspire Me?
v35
Can I experience true being
that it may find itself anew
in soul’s creative urge?
I feel a power trusting me
to make my Self with modesty
a member of the Cosmic Self.

~Dali

Sunday 13 August 2023

Prep-Stir – Potluck – Bonfire

To celebrate The 2^nd Harvest = Lammas

The Perseid Meteor Showers, Venus/Sun Conjunction

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

And a bon voyage Blessing for Ultra-Violet Archer

7 – 9 pm

at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring Food & Drink to share,

& a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

Breaking Bread

August 1, 2023Community, Festival, Summer~hag

“Bringing in the Sheaves” – Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness, sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve: Now begins the harvest and the time of reaping, we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves…”

Today 1 August 2023 on this Thunder-Buck Full Moon, we meet the 2^nd Harvest (the 1st was the herb harvest at St. John’s). The Feast of Lammas or Lughnasadh begins today & goes thru August 8th when we hit the astrological Cross-Quarter between Summer Solstice & Fall Equinox. It is a long season bringing us all the way thru Summer.

It is also the Feast Day of Joseph of Arimathea – According to all four Gospels, the man who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus after the crucifixion. A number of stories that developed during the Middle Ages connect him with both Glastonbury, where he is supposed to have founded the earliest Christian oratory, & also with the Grail legend.

“One must penetrate to an understanding of the Mystery of the Bread, which is said to have been broken by Christ Jesus in the same chalice in which Joseph of Arimathea caught His blood. As legend tells it, this chalice was then removed to Europe, but was preserved by angels in a region high above the surface of the earth until the arrival of Titurel who created for this Grail, this sacred chalice, a temple on Mont Salvat” ~Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, April 16, 1921

The Wheel turns from St. John’s Tide with its message of the inner Christ Sun and the mirroring of the Holy nights, to the Sun in the heart of the Lion (or at least it’s where Regulus, the heart of the lion, was a couple of thousand years ago!) Lammas, or Loaf mas, a Cross-Quarter festival traditionally celebrated at the beginning of August, marks the point when we leave the Garden, and earn our own way, “by the sweat of our brow”.

The harvest of grain, and the baking of bread, represents the first child of the cosmic union of Sun and Earth. It symbolizes the essence of humanity, born from this union, for the loaf is more than a gift of nature, it is made by the combined forces of nature with the will forces of human activity.

The harvest season is a time of judgment. We are called upon to sift through the things that have grown up during the past half-year, and decide what we will keep and what we will cut away. We must make choices, and act on them. The cycle of life turns past the peak of growth, into the time of release.

In astrology, Bella Luna, when she is five-eighths past the New Moon, is called the “Disseminating Moon”. During this phase, what has built up in the waxing cycle begins to be released into the environment. While today in the Lunar cycle we have reached the Full Thunder-Buck Moon; In looking at the relationship of Earth & Sun at this time of year – We start to see the results of our work we are beginning a ‘Disseminating phase’. Because At Lammas, the Sun is five-eighths of the way around the Wheel from Winter Solstice. Growth has reached its peak, & the life of the Sun God has begun to bleed off into the fruit & grain.

The King is Dead Long Live the King – for now is also the time of sacrifice, of death in service of life. Some of the first fruits are ready for harvest, but some, too unripe to be eaten, must be plucked anyway. These are culls, removed so they won’t drain the life force from the good fruit. If everything was left on the tree, the life force would be diluted, or worse, the bad fruit could weigh down a branch until it breaks, destroying the entire crop, or sometimes killing the tree. The culls are taken so the rest of the fruit, and those who depend on the crop for survival, might live.

John Barleycorn must die… ‘Cut in half and buried, then beaten with sticks, and finally crushed between stones’… as the song goes, nevertheless rises once again. Bread is the perfect sacrifice for “Loaf Mass” or Lughnassadh as the Celtics called it, for they knew that this festival is more than just the first fruits of the earth — it also involves the first fruits of human labor. Grain is processed by human craft, and joined with the four elements to make the staff of life.

So bake a loaf of bread on Lammas. If you’ve never made bread before, this is a good time to start. Honor the source of the flour as you work with it: remember it was once a plant growing on mother Earth. If you have a garden, add something you’ve harvested–herbs or onion or veggies. If you don’t feel up to making wheat bread, make corn bread, or gingerbread people, or popcorn. What’s most important is intention. All that is necessary to enter sacred time is an awareness of the meaning of your actions.

Saying Grace with you at Camphill Kmberton

~hag

“Love is…(part 5)

July 30, 2023Biography, Calendar of the Soul, Celestial Event, Community, History, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

“Love is the result of Wisdom that has been reborn in the I”

This shimmering Steiner Quote is one of my guiding lights. When I saw it included in the promo for “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing Anthroposophia” Conference, It was one more reason I knew I had to go.

Here are my reflections so far: part 1 – part 2 – part 3 – part 4

As I mentioned yesterday The Arts have a very enlivening, community building, therapeutic effect. Every day we had group singing. The evolutionary piece entitled ‘Ahura Mazdao’ given by Diane Barnes was a treasure to work with. (Diane gave me a copy of the music to work with, so excited, thank you)

From Rudolf Steiner: “…Let us try to condense into simple language the doctrines which Zarathustra tried to inculcate into his disciples. He spoke thus: “Man, as we perceive him, is not merely composed of a physical body, for this physical body is but the outer manifestation of the Spirit. Just as the physical body is nothing but the manifested crystallisation of the Spiritual in man, so the Sun, in so far as it is a body of luminous matter, is nothing but the external body of a spiritual Sun.” The spiritual part of man is spoken of as the “Aura” — or “Ahura,” to use the old expression — in distinction to his physical body and in the same sense the spiritual part of the physical Sun may be called the “Great Aura,” for it is all-embracing. Zarathustra called that which lies behind the physical Sun, Aura Mazda or Ahura Mazdao — the Great Aura. With this spiritual essence behind the Sun, all spiritual experiences and conditions are bound up, just as the existence and well-being of plants, animals and all that lives on Earth are bound up with the physical Sun. Behind the physical Sun lives the spiritual Lord and Creator, Ahura Mazdao. This is the derivation of the name “Ormuzd,” Spirit of Light. While the Indians searched mystically in the inner self to find Brahma, the Eternal, shining like a luminous centre in man, Zarathustra pointed his disciples to the great periphery, showing them that the mighty Spirit of the Sun, Ahura Mazdao, the Spirit of Light, dwelt in the physical body of the Sun. Ahura Mazdao has to face his enemy — Ahriman, the Spirit of Darkness — just as man, who bears within himself the enemies of his good impulses, strives to raise his real spiritual being to perfection and has to battle against his lower passions, desires, and the delusive images of lying and falsehood.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, GA 60 ZARATHUSTRA

We had a session of Eurythmy with Linda Larson. And Therapeutic Speech with Molly McIntire, who right away announced: ‘Clear speaking forms the organs’, & I could feel myself standing more upright.

We worked to harmonize our breathing, realizing that Rhythmic Speaking has an ordering effect. Long short, or short, long – the heartbeat.

Dynamic Speaking – Frees & strengthens – Alliteration helps us breathe the stars down to the earth. This is the Nordic Stream.

Stylistic Speaking has an awakening effect. There are different styles, Lyric, Epic, Dramatic. So much fun.

And Gesture-Filled Speaking has a purifying effect.

Active – Straight line, quick to the point
Thoughtful – Self-Centered, rounder tones
Seeking – Asking/Begging
Standing your ground – Holding off Blocking
Antipathy – Flying away
Sympathy – Reaching out, Gentle

We did lip sounds relating to the “I” to free the Feeling life, P,B,F,M,W

Tongue & Teeth Sounds to enliven Astral Thinking T,D,N,S,F,TH,L,

Plate -Back of the Mouth Sounds for the Etheric will, Cg,Ng, eRRR

How powerful Steiner’s Speech & Drama Course of 1924, must have been, where he describes the revelation of speech as relating to the Greek Gymnastics. Every time we speak, the words run, leap off the diaphragm, wrestle off the vocal cords, hit the discus of the tongue, to fly like the javelin out the mouth with intention toward the goal, landing the target like a shot-put.

I loved working with Molly, I look forward to collaborating with her in the future.

Everyday I am feeling better. Thanks for all your well wishes

xox

~hag

30 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Southern Delta Aquariid meteor shower peaks today, although the brightening Moon will make spotting shower meteors a challenge. Fortunately, the Moon sets about three hours before sunrise, providing a short but effective window for trying to catch early-morning meteors. An hour before sunrise, the radiant is above the southwestern horizon. The Southern Delta Aquariids’ radiant lies in Aquarius, about halfway between the star 3rd-magnitude Skat and the similarly bright star Deneb Algedi in eastern Capricornus. This year, however, there’s another landmark to help you find it: Saturn is above (northeast of) the radiant. So, you can find Saturn in the sky and drop down a little to locate the point from which shower meteors will appear to radiate.

However, once you’ve found this point, look a little south or west of it — this is where you’re likely to spot the best meteors with the longest trains, rather than at the radiant itself. The Southern Delta Aquariids are expected to produce roughly 25 meteors per hour around the peak, so while it’s not going to be a stunning show, you can expect to catch at least a few bright shooting stars.

Sunrise: 5:57 A.M.
Sunset: 8:16 P.M.
Moonrise: 7:08 P.M.
Moonset: 2:54 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous (94%) ~astronomy.com

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler

Karl König described the Soul Calendar’s 4 quarters as 4 voices:
1 – the Tenor, with sense perception conceiving spirit;
2 – the Baritone, with imaginative insight incarnating spirit;
3 – the Soprano, with inspiration for the spirit’s Christmas birth;
4 – the Alto, with intuitive love for a new spring world.
And in these pivotal, mirror verses of the Cosmic Word
I’ve put in the words, not present in the original,
of imagine & inspire (& intuit in v43, v17’s opposite)

LAMMAS
The Bread
v17
The Cosmic Word,
I’ve had the grace to lead
through senses’ gates to soul ground, speaks:
‘Imagine in your spirit’s depths my world expanse
to find in future Me in you’.

ADVENT III
The Wine
v36
The Cosmic Word,
mysteriously urging to be heard,
is speaking in my depths of being:
‘Inspire your life’s endeavour with my spirit light
to sacrifice yourself through Me’.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

TODAY 30 July in 1894- Birthday of Ernst Lehrs a German anthroposophist, science teacher in the 1^st Waldorf School in Stuttgart, lecturer & writer. Having fought in World War I, he then studied science & graduated with a PhD in 1923. In 1935 he moved to The Netherlands, where he worked as a teacher, before moving to Britain as a Jewish refugee from the Nazis. In 1952 he returned to Germany & worked as a lecturer at the newly established course in anthroposophic special education in Eckwälden, where he remained until his death.

In his important work “Man and Matter”, Ernst Lehrs talks about how today’s researcher is an uninvolved spectator, he reveals not only how science has led inescapably to the illusions it believes in today, but more important how we may correct in ourselves the misconceptions science brings into our views through today’s education, giving us a spiritual understanding of nature based on the work of Goethe; which requires an activation of the cognitive consciousness, leading the true researcher back to themselves.

Ernst Lehrs was a personal pupil of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, one of the 12 founding members of the Esoteric Youth Circle, which celebrated its 100 year anniversary on 16 October 2022.

Written by Ernst Lehrs a few days after the burning of the 1^st Goetheanum: “His (Rudolf Steiner’s) open criticism in various directions concerning the Society & the various activities within it in the weeks leading up to the fateful Christmas-New Year’s time, made one clear about the fact that it was due to the failure on the part of the Society that the necessary spiritual protection was missing from the building. Yet, it was out of an experience of this failure that the impulse for the Youth Course arose, as well as what led to the coming about of our specific endeavor. Thus the idea arose among us that we should ask Rudolf Steiner if, & how we could contribute to the Anthroposophical Society ‘consolidating’ itself again – as one of us put it. With this in mind, we asked to be allowed to speak with him. In the Glass House, on January 3, 1923, we asked about our helping toward consolidation of the Society, Rudolf Steiner answered in a calm tone with emphatic earnestness; “Just keep yourselves consolidated, & the Society will be consolidated.” Then he gave the advice that we should sit together on a regular basis & in symposium-like conversations, reflect again & again upon the foundational impulse of our group.”

“How can I do the Good?” part 4

July 29, 2023Biography, Community, Quote~hag

~Kinjal Gorakh

Greetings friends, Thank you for being part of this journey of reflection from “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia” Conference

Here is part 1 – part 2 – part 3

Today (& most everyday) I am asking: What is the role of karma in healing?

We have explored this question many times throughout the Corona Crisis which is still gripping the world, steething underground in the deep places where we hold fear, hatred & doubt – Right now it feels like a low grade fever, not enough heat to burn away what does not serve – a simmering fire that breeds anxiety without the power of transformation.

I think about how when I was a child we were given ‘baby aspirin’ whenever our temps rose. Remember that stuff – tastes like a chalky creamsicle. We loved it. But I wonder if because of this suppression of fever we created generations of people who are now suffering chronic illnesses because they were not able to burn off the hereditary overlay, the ‘sins of the fathers’, during the appropriate phase in childhood.

Dr. Ursula Flatters mentioned that we can’t just treat the symptoms, because sometimes they signal disease – & sometimes they are a sign of a healing response.

We must practice living thinking – the living thinking of the Angels. To think away the physical. The foundation is based on concentration, a building up of the imagination, inspiration & intuition, unselfish study, communing with nature, & to be able to see life as it is, not only as we want it to be – To enter the field of karma consciously takes uprightness & morality. The best self-knowledge is to know yourself in relation to others.

From Sergei Prokofieff: “…The encounter with the living being AnthropoSophia in the spiritual world stands in the most intimate inner connection to the threefold path of study. For on this path, we try to develop faculties of thinking, feeling and will that are not bound to the senses and which we can take with us into the spiritual world into which we enter every night. By this means we were enabled to awaken in this world and perceive the living being AnthropoSophia. Thus, these two things belong together: what manifests itself exoterically as study has its esoteric counterpart in one’s gradual approach in the spiritual world to the being AnthropoSophia and to one’s direct encounter with her. In this way, study becomes the first stage of initiation. For, like all subsequent stages, it leads to a supersensible encounter with a spiritual being.

The next step will be that we try to open up what has been experienced in the night to the light of day, so as to raise this spiritual encounter to our waking consciousness. This can, however, be achieved only by dint of extensive meditation. The endeavor to become a true representative of the supersensible being AnthropoSophia on the Earth must always be felt to be an important condition for such an encounter. Thus, we may be sure that sooner or later we shall also experience this being with full consciousness, and this will be for us like a real meeting with a spiritual teacher here on Earth. From this moment onwards the being AnthropoSophia will herself be our guide in the spiritual world; and in every question pertaining to our life and actions we shall be able to seek her advice. In the following words Rudolf Steiner describes this direct and personal relationship which then becomes possible with this being who stands so close to humanity: ‘AnthropoSophia is in herself an invisible human being, who goes amongst visible human beings, and towards whom we have the greatest conceivable responsibility…, who must indeed be regarded as an invisible human being, as someone with a real existence, who should be consulted in all life’s individual actions,… to whom we are responsible in every moment of our lives… It is absolutely necessary that everything that happens is to be viewed in consultation with the human being AnthropoSophia… as a living being… So that is what is necessary: true seriousness in our following of that invisible human being, of whom I have just spoken.’

If we have established such a relationship to the living being AnthropoSophia, we shall soon notice that our whole life changes, because we have found our spiritual teacher. The wonderful thing is that the being AnthropoSophia leaves us absolutely free in everything. But if it is our will to follow this being, she leads us on the path described of above to the knowledge of esoteric Christianity. For her most important task today is to lead human beings in the sense of the Time-Spirit to becoming conscious of the great cosmic-earthly mysteries of the living Christ.” ~The Heavenly Sophia, and The Being AnthropoSophia ~Sergei Prokofieff – Steiner quotes: Feb 3, 1913. The Essence of Anthroposophy; Dec 25, 1923 Dornach

This passage by S.O.P. & R.S. is my fav.

I related to many of Dr. Ursula Flatters’s stories of how she has come to be able to do her work in the world. She spoke of being a new doctor joining a clinic with a new group of colleagues – She saw them sitting together & knew she ‘recognized them’ & felt that surley they would ‘see’ her too…but they didn’t. They weren’t able to meet her as she would have liked –

And so I ask: Is it a matter of the time not being right? Or a clue pointing to our own weakness getting in the way? How can we objectively map our relationships?

To become free – to be worthy of answering the call of the Manichean future, we have to sacrifice the unconscious demands we place on others.

It was interesting to hear Dr. Marion Debus remind us that if we wish for things to be different, then we cannot be co-creators with the creator gods. But if we say YES, to all we are facing, we conquer fear! – Then courage & trust bring healing, & understanding will come in time.

Each illness is an experience at the Threshold – it is our task to make this experience conscious. Health of soul & body work together but must be treated separately. Often an illness is the result of the soul getting stuck in the body – The diagnosis looks at how they mix – how is the levity – & how is the gravity – working?

The arts often reveal this, giving a living picture. More on this soon.

Healer Know Thy Self – Not “I” but Christ in me…

~hag

29 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waxing gibbous moon is passing in front of the Teapot, an asterism in the constellation of Sagittarius the Archer. ~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“We understand only the very smallest part of human history and of our own life if we consider it in its external aspect, I mean in that aspect which we see from the limited view-point of our earthly life between birth and death. It is impossible to comprehend the inner motives of history and life unless we turn our gaze to that spiritual background which underlies the outer, physical happenings“. ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture III

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Today os the Feast Day of St. Martha, sister to mary Magdalene & Lazurus – “Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus” (John 11:5). Saint Martha is mentioned in three Gospel passages: Luke 10:38-42, John 11:1-53, and John 12:1-9, and the type of friendship between her and her siblings, Mary and Lazarus, with the Lord Jesus is evident in these passages. In the gospel of Luke, Martha receives Jesus into her home and worries herself with serving Him, a worry that her sister Mary, who sat beside the Lord’s feet “listening to Him speak,” doesn’t share. Her complaint that her sister is not helping her serve draws a reply from the Lord who says to her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.” The overanxiousness she displays in serving is put into the right context by Jesus who emphasizes the importance of contemplating the Divine before all things.

Yet she is seen next in John, outside the tomb of her brother Lazarus who had died four days earlier, as the one who receives the Revelation from the Lord that “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

When asked by the Lord if she believed this she said to Him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world,” displaying her great faith which is confirmed by Jesus’ subsequent raising of her brother Lazarus from the grave.

In the third and last instance, we see Martha, again in John, at a house in Bethany where Jesus was reclining at table with her brother Lazarus after he had raised him from the dead. During dinner, John’s Gospel tells us, “Martha served.” She is revealed here performing the same task as when we first saw her, but now her service is infused with her faith, and the brevity of the description suggests the silence and peace in which she serves as opposed to the nervous anxiety she displayed earlier. Martha, whom we have seen serving, in Luke, and then believing, earlier in John, is now seen expressing her belief in the action of serving the Lord.

Saint Martha is the patron of housewives, servants, waiters and cooks.

Legend relates that Martha then went to Tarascon, France, where a monster, the Tarasque, was a constant threat to the population. The Golden Legend describes it as a beast from Galatia; a great dragon, half beast and half fish, greater than an ox, longer than a horse, having teeth sharp as a sword, and horned on either side, head like a lion, tail like a serpent, that dwelt in a certain wood between Arles and Avignon. Holding a cross in her hand, Martha sprinkled the beast with holy water. Placing her sash around its neck, she led the tamed dragon through the village.

After-Image 3

July 13, 2023Biography, Community, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Event~hag

After-Image 1 & After-Image 2

After taking our after-image impressions from the altar candles during the ‘Close of Day’ into Night School, the group returned the next day with lively descriptions of their experiences of the Light Ensouled.

At the risk of turning on the fire hose, (which my husband reminds me I tend to do, offering too much information) I spoke a bit about the role of empathy in the cultivation of the after-image, how important it is to initiate the marriage of warmth & light – Love & Wisdom = Christ/Sophia – & how that relates to what Rudolf Steiner brought thru his Karmic Relationships lectures in August 1924, from Torquay around the coming together of the ‘2 Streams’ – The Arthur Stream = Light, & the Grail Stream = Warmth.

There is a mysterious connection with how the Life-Spirit or etheric essence of the Christ rose up for the earth in the 9^th Century, & at the same time, as a kind of oppositional after-image comes the ‘Abolition of the Spirit’ at the 8th Ecumenical Council of 869, brought on because of the failed unification in the spiritual world of the individualities of Aristotle & Alexander, with Harun al Rashed & his counselor.

I prefaced this with an overview of the 4 main Christian Festivals – How at Easter we see a redemption of the physical body thru the overcoming of Death with the Resurrection of Christ, leading in the future to the achievement of what Spiritual Science calls The ‘Spirit-Human.’ The Transfiguration & Ascension brings the possibility for the rescuing of our Etheric Body – ‘Life-Spirit’. And with the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the purification of our Astral Body, to bring us ‘Spirit-Self’.

In our present age, one of the many tasks of humaity, besides recognizing evil, is to work with the after-image so that, like the vision of The Transfiguration & Ascension, we can enliven our Life-Body, allowing us to meet the Etheric Christ.

At this point we got up to do the hygienic eurythmy gestures for Faith, Love & Hope – Eurythmy being a powerful way to strengthen our etheric body.

I brought a Steiner verse to pair with the Love A gesture:

“In purest outpoured light
shimmers the godhead of the world.

In purest Love towards all that lives
Outpours the godhood of my soul

I rest within the godhead of the world
There shall I find myself
Within the godhead of the world.”

After sharing our reflections about the eurythmy, I spoke about how when Paul had his Damascus Experience of the Etheric Christ, he was struck blind for 3 days. So much here to contemplate in regards our theme eh…?

In “Learning to Experience the Etheric World, Empathy, the After-Image & a New Social Ethic” Baruch Urieli has a short chapter called: ‘The Archetype of the After-Image’ – where he fills out the picture of Mary Magdalene’s deed in anointing the feet & head of Christ – & how on Easter morning she looks into the empty tomb to see 2 Light-Beings, sitting at the foot & head. When the angels ask her why she is weeping, she turns & sees Jesus as the Gardener (the plant Kingdom is connected to the etheric realm). When he speaks her name, she turns once more, & recognizes Christ in his risen Life-body.

These events show how empathy can bring on the after-image – how the love & compassion of Mary Magdalene is an example of the ‘New Power of Will’ (The New Yoga Will which uses light not air) – which enables the opening of the etheric space to inner vision. Urieli: “For that further step to happen we must ‘Turn once more’ – we must ‘Re-turn’ to that space which is the home of our “I Am”, the space where our name resounds.”

In 1923 Rudolf Steiner gave medical student Helene von Grunelius ‘The Warmth Meditation” & described it “as the way for medical practitioners to behold the etheric Christ.”

“You detect at this point what life, which has poured into the world, actually is. Where can the source of this life be found? It can be found in what stirs the moral ideals and prompts us to say that if we allow ourselves to be filled by the light of moral ideals today, they will bear life, matter, and light and create worlds. We carry that world-creating element, and the moral ideal is the source of all that creates worlds.” ~Rudolf Steiner

~Brad Huck

This idea of creating ‘The New Jerusalem‘ is the basis of my work with an initiative that I call The ‘10:10 Thought-Seed’ Imagination – ‘Project Egregore’ – which is a collective ‘Thought-Form’ of Good Will – a “key-call” to the Spiritual powers on the Inner Planes, to enlist their aid in the graceful unfolding of our highest human destiny.

Through our continued, & consistent intention to visualize the Human Being as a Star & the Earth as a Sun, our positive egregore grows in the etheric realm of formative forces allowing us to meet & work with Christ in His Life-Body.

Our goal is to co-create a new ‘Group-Soul United in Christ’ thru our daily 10:10 contemplation.

For the practicum we all gazed into the beeswax candle set upon a pillar while I spoke the Meditative Thought-Seed many have been working with. In-between verses we shut our eyes to experience the after-image.

Yellow – For Thinking:
“When I think light, my soul shines,
When my soul shines, the earth is a star,
When the earth is a star, then I am, a true human being”.
~Herbert Hahn

Red – 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

Blue – 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

Another way to access the Etheric World, & a powerful way of strengthening our Life-Body, is to speak meditative verses, like I shared yesterday, backwards – since everything in the spiritual world is revealed thru its reversal –

Thinking – In Reverse:
I Am a True Human Being
The Earth is a Star
My Soul Shines
I Think Light

Feeling – In Reverse:
I Am a True I Am
The Earth Resounds
My Heart Sings
I feel Love

Willing – In Reverse:
I Am a Free Human Being
The Earth Heals
My Hands Help
I Will Life

Tomorrow I will share my powerful after-image experience at the altar.

Until soon

~hag

13 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: On the mornings of July 13 and 14, 2023, the waning crescent moon will pass the Pleiades star cluster, one of the many gems of Taurus the Bull. The bright orange star Aldebaran will shine nearby. Also, look for the glow of earthshine on the darkened portion of the moon. ~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

In conjunction with our after-image theme of seeing into the Etheric we have Today – the anniversary of the third Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima on Friday, July 13, 1917. The three secrets involve Hell, World War I & World War II.

Sacred Heart Of The Virgin Mary | Di maria, Maria mãe de jesus, Virgem maria

Our Lady told the children that to save the sinners from hell, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to Her Immaculate Heart. She asked for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart, & the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

From the Fourth Memoir: The Story of the Apparitions by Lucia Santos the oldest of the 3 children:

‘A few moments after arriving at the Cova da Iria, near the holmoak, where a large number of people were praying the Rosary, we saw the flash of light once more, and a moment later Our Lady appeared on the holmoak.

— Your Grace, what do you want of me? — I asked.

— I want you to come here on the 13th of next month, to continue to pray the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you.

— I would like to ask you to tell us who you are, and to work a miracle so that everybody will believe that you are appearing to us.

— Continue to come here every month. In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle for all to see and believe.

I then made some requests, but I cannot recall now just what they were. What I do remember is that Our Lady said it was necessary for such people to pray the Rosary in order to obtain these graces during the year. And she continued:

— Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially whenever you make some sacrifice: O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation (порт. reparação) for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

As Our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. Terrified and as if to plead for succour, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly:

— You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion (port. a devoção) to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.

— To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation (port. a Comunhão reparadora) on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved; etc… Do not tell this to anybody. Francisco, yes, you may tell him.

— When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: O my Jesus, forgive us, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need.

After this, there was a moment of silence, and then I asked:

— Your Grace, is there anything more that you want of me?

— No, I do not want anything more of you today.

Then, as before Our Lady began to ascend towards the east, until she finally disappeared in the immense distance of the firmament’.

1298 – Deathday of Blessed Jacobus de Varagine, an Italian chronicler & archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, of Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, a collection of hagiographies of the legendary lives of saints of the Middle Ages. The Golden Legend is the source of the Rose Cross Meditation that Rudolf Steiner often quoted.

1527 – Birthday of John Dee, English-Welsh mathematician, astronomer, & astrologer & occultist

1727 – The founding of The Herrnhuter Brotherhood, The Moravian Church – Unitas Fratrum – Unity of the Brethren – predating the Protestant Reformation by a century, it was really the 1^st Protestant Church, with its heritage dating back to the Bohemian Reformation in the fifteenth century. It places a high value on ecumenism, personal piety, music -communio sub utraque specie, married priests, & eliminating indulgences & the idea of Purgatory. The Church’s emblem is the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei) with the flag of victory, surrounded by the Latin inscription: Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur “Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow Him”

1889 – Deathday of Robert Hamerling an Austrian poet. Rudolf Steiner gave his funeral address. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA154/English/AP1990/19140426p01.html

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica characterizes Hamerling as one of the most remarkable poets of the modern Austrian school, describing his imagination as rich & his poems as full of life & color. In his most popular poem, Ahasver in Rom (1866), the emperor Nero is the central figure. Among his other works, Venus im Exil (1858); Der König von Sion (1869), characterized as a masterpiece; Die sieben Todsünden (1872) Blätter im Winde (1887); Homunculus (1888); Amor und Psyche (1882). His novel, Aspasia (1876), a finely-drawn description of the Periclean age, & his tragedy Danton und Robespierre (1870), showed Hamerling’s genius.

In Karmic Relationships Vol. 2, lecture 6, Steiner describes him as a pupil of Plato in an earlier incarnation.

1963 – Deathday of Albert Steffen a poet, painter, dramatist, essayist,& novelist. He joined the Anthroposophical Society in 1912 & became its president after the death of its founder, Rudolf Steiner, in 1925. Steffen was chief editor of the society’s journal, Das Goetheanum, from 1921-1963

His earliest works, predating his encounter with anthroposophy, already manifest a spiritual awareness. His later works, which reflect a vision of the world permeated by metaphysical powers of good & evil, draw on a wide range of esoteric European & Asian traditions

I will be heading out for our next training 1-7 August 2023

Here is a newsletter with an article I wrote about my expereince working with Steiner’s Inner Realities of Evoultion

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Category Archives: Community

Identity

Breaking Bread

“Love is…(part 5)

“How can I do the Good?” part 4

After-Image 3

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