Category Archives: Festival

I Am a Thought Made manifest

June 25, 2016Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Speaking with the Stars~hag

25 June 2016 – ASTRO WEATHER: Look high in the northwest after darkness falls & you’ll be greeted by the familiar sight of the Big Dipper. It forms the body & tail of Ursa Major the Great Bear. Use the Pointers, the two stars at the end of the Dipper’s bowl, to find Polaris, which lies due north. Polaris marks the end of the Little Dipper’s handle. On June evenings, the relatively faint stars of this dipper arc directly above Polaris.

1767 – Mexican Indians riot sending the Jesuit priests home

1767 – Deathday of Georg Philipp Telemann, a German Baroque composer & multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family’s wishes. Telemann one of the most prolific in history, was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time—he was compared favorably both to his friend Johann Sebastian Bach, who made Telemann the godfather & namesake of his son & to George Frideric Handel. Telemann made an important link between the late Baroque & early Classical styles.

1822 – Deathday of E. T. A. Hoffmann, a Prussian Romantic author of fantasy & horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman & caricaturist. His stories form the basis of Jacques Offenbach’s famous opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He is also the author The Nutcracker of which the famous ballet is based.

1876 – Battle of the Little Bighorn & the death of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.

1900 – The Taoist monk Wang Yuanlu discovers the Dunhuang manuscripts, a cache of ancient texts that are of great historical & religious significance.

1910 – Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird is premiered in Paris

1924 – Beginning of the Curative Pedagogical Course by Rudolf Steiner in Dornach

1940 –France officially surrenders to Germany

1947 –The Diary of Anne Frank is published

1950 – The Korean War begins with the invasion of South Korea by North Korea

1978 – The rainbow flag representing gay pride is flown for the first time during the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade

1991 – Croatia & Slovenia declare independence from Yugoslavia

***

Carl Herpfer

~Weaving garlands of wort & hibiscus,

I am a thought made manifest

~hag

***

Who is this John the Baptist?

Studying Rudolf Steiner’s work on the Gospels, we gain profound insights that have the power to touch deep truths buried in the unconscious regions of our soul, regarding one of the most powerful personalities in the history of humankind. In the Gospel of St. John the Evangelist, right after the mighty description of the evolution of the cosmos, we read: “There came a man, send from God, his name was John.” (John 1.6.)

In the original Greek, Johannes, is made up of the vowels “E – O – Ah“, three very powerful Eurythmy gestures. The “E” represents the upright human being – one arm pointing toward heaven, the other grounding toward the earth; an admonition to be here now. The “O” is a round gesture of “inwardness”, an embracing of the soul. The “Ah” is an opening to heavenly revelation; both arms raised in a V, becoming a vessel that opens to heaven, a gesture of “vision”.

The Gospel of St. Luke describes the birth of John; how an angel appeared to the priest Zechariah, telling him, “your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, & you shall call him John.” (Luke 1.13.) The angel also foretells the task of this being John: “… even from his mother’s womb will he be filled with the Holy Spirit. And he will turn many sons of Israel to the Lord their God again. He will be his forerunner and will pave his way, bearing within him the spirit and power of Elijah, to change men’s hearts so that fathers shall rediscover the meaning of childhood, and those who have become alienated from God shall find the meaning of Good again. So shall he make a well-prepared people ready for the Lord “(Luke 1.15-17.)

The birth of John takes place just after the height of Summer, on June 24^th, framed by the births of the two Jesus children. On the one hand, the birth of the Matthew Jesus child on January 6th, with the visitation of the ‘three wise men from the East’, taking place in Bethlehem. And months later, we hear of the other birth, of the Luke Jesus child, on December 24^th, with the heavenly revelation to the shepherds.

In another mystery, we see the spiritual body or angel of Gautama Buddha, which appears in the etheric-astral realm, first, in the meeting between Elizabeth, (just before John the Baptist is born), with Mary, the mother of Jesus (Luke 1.39-56.) & then also at the revelation to the shepherds (Luke 11.8-15.).

Rudolf Steiner tells us that the Gospel of St. Luke brings us a new form of Christ-centered Buddhism, expressing the kind of love & compassion, that can be understood by even the simplest souls. The connection of the Buddha to JB & his mysterious influence on Christianity can be seen throughout the life of John the Baptist.

After his life as an ascetic, JB begins publicly preaching & baptizing. In the 5^th Gospel, Steiner describes how JB was close to the community of the Essenes, as well as with his young cousin, Jesus of Nazareth. John the Baptist’s sermon at the river Jordan shows how the teachings of Buddha come forward in a new form. – Just like the Buddha declared certain truths & warnings in his famous sermon at Benares some five hundred years before, so too did JB speak in a similar way. Buddha says: “Do not think, because you are a Brahman, you are able to advance …“, John changes this admonition to fit his time, saying: “Do not think, because you are children of Abraham …” Buddha gave the teaching of love & compassion – JB gave the parable of the man who has two coats, how we must share with those that have none. And just as the monks came to Buddha with questions, now the tax collectors & soldiers come to John the Baptist.

Yep there’s more tomorrow

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Join our community gathering:

Sunday June 26^th, 2pm -4pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP

He Must Increase but I Must Decrease– Exploring the Mysteries of Midsummer

with special guest Robert Karp, Co-Director of the Biodynamic Association.

How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of summer and St. John’s tide? Who is the mysterious archangel of Midsummer described by Rudolf Steiner and what is his relationship to John the Baptist? Can we trace his influence in modern culture, in modern America? What transformation does he seek to bring into our souls and into our communities?

These are some of the questions we will explore in this talk and, in a series of social-artistic exercises that will be incorporated into the talk.

***PLEASE BRING YOUR JOURNAL if you have one***

Hammer Dulcimer by Dr. Elaine Wagner

Rudolf Steiner’s Summer Mantra, Read by Elisabeth Swisher

Labyrinth Walk with ~hag

For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

The Name John as a Title of Initiation

June 24, 2016Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Remembering~hag

24 June 2016 – Brilliant Jupiter appears high in the west as darkness falls & remains on display until around midnight. The giant planet shines against the backdrop of southern Leo the Lion.

Feast Day of John the Baptist. Rudolf Steiner revealed his other lives as Elijah, Raphael, Novalis in GA 120

1314 – First War of Scottish Independence: The Battle of Bannockburn

1374 – A sudden outbreak of ‘St. John’s Dance’ causes people in the streets of Aachen, Germany, to experience hallucinations & begin to jump & twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion

1717 – The first Freemasonic Grand Lodge in the world is founded in London. Benjamin Franklin was a member.

1812 –Napoleon invades Russia

1916 – Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million-dollar contract

1922 – Assassination of Walther Rathenau, a German statesman who served as Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic.

1938 – A 450 metric ton meteor hits Chicora, Pennsylvania

1973 – The UpStairs Lounge arson attack takes place at a gay bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Thirty-two people die.

1976 – Deathday of Rudolf Kreutzer entrepreneur, anthropsopher

2002 – The Igandu train disaster in Tanzania kills 281, the worst train accident in African history.

2004 – In New York, capital punishment is declared unconstitutional

2012 – Lonesome George, the last subspecies of the Galápagos tortoise, dies

~ ~ ~

Sandra Wilson

~At dawn the thread of Time unfurls

Sunlight streams across Space

Time reaches in both directions

Knotted in the golden orb of the moment

The Eye opens, the Heart unlocks, the Navel yawns

& takes the World in its belly

~hag

~ ~ ~

Bartolomé Esteban Perez Murillo

St. John’s Tide starts on the fixed date of June 24, the birthday of John the Baptist

The name John is really a title, it represents the best of humanity, devoted to what is beyond the little self, alive to the revelation of the spirit brought by Christ. At the center of history, the summons of JB was to turn inward, & confront the lower self. St. John’s Day is a perfect time to re-assess & re-balance ourselves in this metanoia.

The Gospel of St. John the Evangelist emphasizes the divine spark in humanity & tells us that this divinity appeared in its supreme form as the Logos Himself.

The God who was buried in matter is born again in Jesus of Nazareth. And so it is for every individual human being – there is a mighty experience, which may be called the birth of the higher self – Just as the child is born of the mother, so too the divine Ego is born of the striving human being. Awakening to Initiation is possible, & when it is taken up, life as we know it takes on a new dimension.

When the human principle in Jesus of Nazareth had reached its highest development, & his body had become an expression of the spirit within him, he was ripe to receive the Christ in the Baptism by John. His body had unfolded its full power, as the radiant sun at midsummer.

This had been prophesied. The spirit was to be born out of the darkness, like the Sun which increases in power towards solstice, waxing strong until St. John’s day, & then begins to wane.

It was the Baptist’s mission to proclaim this: ‘He who was announced by the prophets of old, the Son of the spiritual realms, born of the spirit, behold, He hath appeared.’

John the Baptist was active up to this turning point of time. First, he lived a life of renunciation, then, preparing the way, thru baptism. And with the path made straight, the inner spirit-light could shine forth ever more brightly, reflecting the Christ light.

JB was able to behold the approach of Jesus of Nazareth, as the increase of the Sun, & say ‘I must decrease, as the Sun decreases after midsummer day.’ But The Christ as the spiritual Sun will increase, & ‘his Light will shine forth from out of the darkness.’

This is how the universal Ego of humanity is reborn, & the condition fulfilled for the rebirth of the individual higher self in every human being.

This is – the most vital event in the evolution of each individual human: the rebirth of the immortal being which can issue forth from the ordinary Ego. This is inseparable from the greatest of all events, the deed of Christ on Golgotha.

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Join us for our St. John’s festival:

Sunday June 26^th, 2pm -4pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP

He Must Increase but I Must Decrease– Exploring the Mysteries of Midsummer

with special guest Robert Karp, Co-Director of the Biodynamic Association.

These are some of the questions we will explore in this talk and, in a series of social-artistic exercises that will be incorporated into the talk.

***PLEASE BRING YOUR JOURNAL if you have one***

Hammer Dulcimer by Dr. Elaine Wagner

Rudolf Steiner’s Summer Mantra, Read by Elisabeth Swisher

Labyrinth Walk with ~hag

For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

Love speaks Truth in the deep rolling thunder

June 23, 2016Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering~hag

23 June 2016 “The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ~George Orwell

Tonight is Saint John’s Eve

International Widows Day

“For Everyone: We aren’t satisfied with simple answers to complicated questions today as curious Mercury forms an irritable alignment with unrelenting Pluto. Embarking on a hero’s journey to uncover the original source of a sensitive issue is an admirable strategy unless our detective work turns compulsive. Thankfully, the emotionally detached Aquarius Moon enables us to approach our problems conceptually and increases our chances of finding the truth”. ~R.Levine

1456 – Birthday of Columbus

1868 –Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called the “Type-Writer.”

1887 – The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada creating the nation’s first national park, Banff National Park

1894 – The International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris

1910- Birthday of Jean Anouilh. One of France’s most prolific writers after World War II, much of Anouilh’s work deals with themes of maintaining integrity in a world of moral compromise. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for Becket or Honour of God & his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles’ classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain’s Vichy government.

1942 –The first time the gas chamber at Auschwitz is used on a train full of Jews from Paris

1947 – The United States Senate overrides Harry Truman’s veto of the Taft–Hartley Act

1960 – The Food & Drug Administration declares Enovid to be the first oral contraceptive pill in the world – recalled in the U.S. in 1988, along with other first-generation high-estrogen COCPs

1985 – A terrorist bomb aboard Air India Flight 182 brings the Boeing 747 down off the coast of Ireland killing all 329 aboard

2001 – The 8.4 Mw earthquake shakes coastal Peru. A tsunami followed, leaving at least 74 people dead, & 2,687 injured

2006 – Rene Querido, General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. Teacher, writer (The Golden Age of Chartres) pupil of W.J. Stein.

~ ~ ~

~The Spirits of Will flash code in the lightning

Love speaks

Truth in the deep rolling thunder

The Gnomes know its Midsummer

Fat Undines splash against the warm fecund earth

& steam up in a vital whiff

Of ozone wafting in the moist air

Filling my breath with purple sky

I walk home

~hag

~ ~ ~

So many forces interweaving in the imagination of St. John’s Eve, but I think I’d like to center on the idea that, in the new mysteries we strive at St. John’s Tide toward an enhanced awareness of our will forces – Rudolf Steiner speaks about how we are dreamy in our feeling & asleep in our willing, so we really have to make an effort to follow John the Baptist & ‘make straight the path’, an effort to enable the higher ego to come to expression ever more fully in the mysterious recesses of our personal priorities with respect to our will.

The summertime union between the sun & earth is actually a re-union between the spiritual beings of the sun & their human offspring. In the Summer-Tide, through ‘the great window of heaven’ we experience this interaction between humanity & the sun forces, which helps us develop an awareness of our ego. We can contemplate this dynamic & bring it to life in our soul most strongly at this time of year.

Rudolf Steiner tells us that at midsummer the Trinity reveals itself out of the heart of this cosmic activity. A sounding, like the music of the spheres, that calls us to explore our own inner harmony with the cosmos. To answer the echo that unites us to the eternity of the Trinity.

Also important: Can we learn, to be still & small enough to hear the voice of conscience?

At the fullness of Summer, the light is so bright that it leaves no room for the shadow to hide. High Noon is the hour of judgment – a good time to remember what John said “Then you will know the truth, & the truth will set you free.”

So as we lift up our hearts to meet ‘the heights & depths of the universe’, where we feel ‘Not I, but Christ in me’ – To say as John the Baptist said “He must increase, but I must decrease” we respond to the summertime call for a yearly reviewing of our deeds, looking with courage to the errors of the past, enduring all the pain self-knowledge brings, so that someday, with hearts lifted, we may say: Yes, I am, and Christ in me!

For the true power of our Ego will increase like Christ increases. And when our false ego decreases, we grow in Christ. Just as John the Baptist, after he was beheaded, concentrated his spirit self into the apostles, especially Lazarus John.

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

FESTIVAL GATHERING:

Sunday June 26^th, 2pm -4pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP

He Must Increase but I Must Decrease– Exploring the Mysteries of Midsummer

with special guest Robert Karp, Co-Director of the Biodynamic Association.

These are some of the questions we will explore in this talk and, in a series of social-artistic exercises that will be incorporated into the talk.

***PLEASE BRING YOUR JOURNAL if you have one***

Dulcimer music by Dr. Elaine Wagner

Rudolf Steiner’s Summer Mantra, Read by Elisabeth Swisher

Labyrinth Walk with ~hag

More details coming soon. For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

Stellar is the golden seed from which the corn arises

June 22, 2016Chicago Event, Festival, Poetry, Quote, Remembering~hag

22 June 2016 –

Saturn reached its peak earlier this month, when it appeared opposite the Sun, & our view of the ringed planet remains spectacular. It is on display nearly all night among the background stars of southern Ophiuchus, hanging in the southeastern sky as darkness falls & climbing highest in the south around 11:30 p.m

Feast of St. Thomas More, “a man for all seasons,” literary scholar, lawyer, father of 4 & chancellor of England. He would not support Henry VIII’s divorce & remarriage. Beheaded on Tower Hill, London, 1535

1527 Deathday of Niccolo Macchiavelli – “The Prince”

1633 – The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe

1805 – Birthday of Giuseppe Mazzini, an Italian politician, journalist & activist for the unification of Italy spearheading the Italian revolutionary movement. Freemason – Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as a Hibernian initiate with Garibaldi & Cavour

1839 – Cherokee leaders Major Ridge, John Ridge, & Elias Boudinot are assassinated for signing the Treaty of New Echota, which had resulted in the Trail of Tears

1941 –Hitler invades the Russia in Operation Barbarossa

1942 – Pledge of Allegiance formally adopted by Congress

1969 – The Cuyahoga River catches fire in Cleveland, Ohio, drawing national attention to water pollution, & spurring the passing of the Clean Water Act & the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency

1978 – Charon, a satellite of the dwarf planet Pluto, is discovered by American astronomer James W. Christy

1990 – Checkpoint Charlie is dismantled in Berlin.

2002 – An earthquake measuring 6.5 Mw strikes northwestern Iran killing 261 people & injuring 1,300 others

2010 – Deathday of Ekkehard Meffert anthroposophist who studied geology, geography, philosophy (with a thesis on Cusa), Education, politics & history. Best known for his biography of Mathilde Scholl, one of the first esoteric students of Rudolf Steiner

~ ~ ~

Wolfgang Harms

~Stellar is the golden seed from which the corn arises,

Earthly is the Sun on the hill from which spirals day…

My body nourishes some unfolding time & purpose

My heart lifts like the Moon

& power quivers on the water…

I shine bronze & gold

& silver in the mirror of the unveiled Isis…

Today

The fixed stars & the circling planets are glad…

~hag

~ ~ ~

“He Must Increase but I Must Decrease.” (John 3:30)

John the Baptist – born in the light of the Summer Sun, just after the Solstice, six months before Jesus, whose birth is celebrated just after the Winter Solstice.

Along with references to the light of the Sun, there are many lamp & fire symbols in the Old Testament that prepare the way for the Christ, in which this being appeared in ‘flames of fire’ & ‘clouds of glory’, such as the burning bush (Exodus 3), & the refiner’s fire (Malachi 3:2)

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”(Psalm 119:105)

Solomon compares prayer with a lamp, & teaching with light, (Proverbs 6:23) “like the shining of the sun, burns evermore, and leads to eternal rest.”

Rabbis were often called “Lamps of the Law,” & David was “The Lamp of Israel” (2 Samuel 21:17). Compare the remarkable parallel spoken of in the prototype of the Baptist: “Then stood up Elias the prophet, as fire, and his word was kindled like a lamp” (Ecclesiasticus 48:1). This speaks to the promised light which was to appear, & Elias as the torchbearer who kindles the lamb to light the bridegroom’s way.

“He was not the Light, but came to bear witness to the Light” (John 1:8). Here we see the distinction between the lamp (John the Baptist) & the Light (The Christ)

2 Peter 1:19 tells us: “We also have the message of the prophets, which has been confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to this message, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”

John the Baptist, as the Forerunner of the Christ, is the flame signal of the Messiah, the last Old Testament form of the pillar of fire, or the candlestick in the temple. “He was the burning and shining lamp (λύχνος, not φῶς) and there was nothing you wanted more than to bask for a while in that light”. (John 5:35) Here we experience the Baptist as Christōsphoros, the harbinger of the Christ-Light (Φωσφόρος) – the “Light-Bearer”,.

“John replies in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.” (John 1:23)

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.” (Matthew 6:22). We also find that, under the symbol of lamps of fire, the messengers of God, are repeatedly set forth (Matthew 5:14-16; Matthew 25:1-8; Revelation 1:20; Philippians 2:15).

Like the call of conscience from John the Baptist, the need arises to let the light of the higher ego shine into our being.

Let us seek to know the will forces that through our deeds become part of the earth’s being, & make straight the path to the New Jerusalem.

(See also these references: John 1:5, John 1:7, John 1:8, John 1:9; & compare John 3:19-21, John 8:12; John 9:5; John 12:46)

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Come join us:

Sunday June 26^th, 2pm – 4pm

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP

He Must Increase but I Must Decrease– Exploring the Mysteries of Midsummer with special guest Robert Karp – Co-Director of the Biodynamic Association.

How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of Summer and St. John’s tide?

Who is the mysterious archangel of Midsummer described by Rudolf Steiner, and what is his relationship to John the Baptist?

Can we trace his influence in modern culture, in modern America? What transformation does he seek to bring into our souls and into our communities?

These are some of the questions we will explore in this talk and, in a series of social-artistic exercises that will be incorporated into the talk.

Please Bring your Journal & Eurythmy shoes if you have them

Dulcimer music by Dr. Elaine Wagner

Rudolf Steiner’s Summer Mantra – read by Elisabeth Swisher

Labyrinth Dance with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

Tipping Point

June 21, 2016Chicago Event, Festival, Poetry, Remembering, Summer~hag

21 June 2016 – International Yoga Day

1002 – Birthday of Pope Leo IX, a German aristocrat & a powerful ruler of central Italy while holding the papacy. His citing of the Donation of Constantine in a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople brought about the Great Schism between the Catholic & Orthodox churches.

1205 – Deathday of Enrico Dandolo, Duke of Venice, infamous for his role in the Fourth Crusade & the Sack of Constantinople in which he, at age ninety & blind, led the Venetian contingent. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as being possessed by an Ahrimanic spirit (today there is a popular video game named after him)

1667 – Dutch surrender New Amsterdam to the British – it’s renamed it New York

1898 – The United States captures Guam from Spain

1900 – Boxer Rebellion. China formally declares war on the United States, Britain, Germany, France & Japan, as an edict issued from the Empress Dowager Cixi

1914 – Deathday of Bertha von Suttner a Czech-Austrian pacifist & novelist. In 1905 she was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1930 – Deathday of a Ludwig Noll, German physician & friend of Rudolf Steiner. Noll was a pioneer of Anthroposophic medicine. He was head of the German section of the Theosophical Society in 1911, then became medical advisor with Rudolf Steiner in 1914, applying his esoteric training to homeopathy. The Kassel Ludwig Noll Hospital is named for him.

1942 – World War II: A Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at nearby Fort Stevens.

1964 – Three civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney & Mickey Schwerner, are murdered in Neshoba County, Mississippi, United States, by members of the Ku Klux Klan

1970 – Penn Central Transportation Company declares bankruptcy, largest ever US corporate bankruptcy up to this date

2004 – SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight

2006 – Pluto‘s newly discovered moons are officially named Nix & Hydra.

2009 – Greenland assumes self-rule.

2012 – A boat carrying more than 200 refugees capsized in the Indian Ocean between the Indonesian island of Java & Christmas Island, killing 187 people

~ ~ ~

Dear Faireyland Friends –

The Solstice Doorway of Light will stand open for 3 days – So we have time & space to celebrate the Sun, giver of life – So we can think, how, each second, the Sun transforms four million tons of itself into light – Giving itself over, to become energy, that we take in with every meal. All life, has been feasting on the Sun’s energy stored in the form of wheat or reindeer, as each day the Sun dies & is reborn as the vitality of Earth.

Every child needs to learn this simple truth: She is the energy of the Sun! And it’s our job to organize life on earth so that every face shines with the same radiant de-light.

Can we as human beings learn that generosity is not only possible, but required? Look to the center of the solar system for our role model, a magnificent stellar bounteousness, pouring forth free energy, every day, without stop – without complaint, or the slightest hesitation. This is the way of the universe. This is the way of life. And this is the way in which each of us joins the cosmological lineage, accepting the Sun’s gift of energy, & transforming it into creative action that will enable society & all life on earth to flourish.

Throughout time, the Solstices have been honored as power points. Twice each year we move into a window in space-time when the Sun & Earth communicate in their extremes, & energy is exchanged in a dance of light & dark – a Tipping Point in consciousness, in the service of evolution…(Unlike the Equinoxes -which are all about perfect balance-the Solstices are a Tipping Point – toward or away from The Light)

The Summer & Winter Solstices are key reference points in our solar year, marking the changing light. What would it be like to pay attention to where the light comes in to your room everyday, so bright & early now, & then watching its changing position thru-out the year? Where do the rays glance at Michaelmas time? At the Winter Solstice…?

So dearly beloved – take a moment in the next few days to Stop…with the Sun…Close your eyes…& Look Up… consciously absorbing the photonic energy generously generated by the loving heart of our central star – Tiny rays of intelligence from the Mind of the Divine, translated thru the Sun – Spiritual Beings beaming all around us, especially now…

At our current point in the long cycles of Earth-time, the Summer Solstice aligns
with THE GALACTIC EDGE…of our known world…it is a time when we can tune into information ‘from a galaxy far, far away’… Could this Edge be the source of new ideas for changing the game on earth…? Here we can pause, with the Sun, to open the door to this expanded consciousness…

Will you walk thru this door with me…?

The Turning of the Ages in this sense is not just the movement from epoch to epoch, a 2,500 year cycle, it is a much longer round – a 26,000 year cycle, associated with the Precession of the Equinoxes.

Why am I bringing this up? Because the power of this shift from one 26,000 year cycle to another is most profoundly felt at the Solstices…

Does anyone else hear this strange music?

~Sun your number is 1

Multiplied by Billions

I am 1 too

With a thousand longings for unity

Before the after

An exaltation of now

In the timelessness of 1

Where I walk without flinching

Thru the burning cathedral of the Summer-Tide –

My bank of wild grass

Ever majestic & full of music

An eternal fire of renewal, pressing life

Against my skin & lips & soul

…See you there…

~hag
Blessings Beloved Ones – You are my Sunshine…

Xox

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Come join us:

Sunday June 26^th, 2pm – 4pm

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP

He Must Increase but I Must Decrease– Exploring the Mysteries of Midsummer with special guest Robert Karp – Co-Director of the Biodynamic Association.

How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of Summer and St. John’s tide?

Who is the mysterious archangel of Midsummer described by Rudolf Steiner, and what is his relationship to John the Baptist?

Can we trace his influence in modern culture, in modern America? What transformation does he seek to bring into our souls and into our communities?

These are some of the questions we will explore in this talk and, in a series of social-artistic exercises that will be incorporated into the talk.

Please Bring your Journal & Eurythmy shoes if you have them

Dulcimer music by Dr. Elaine Wagner

Rudolf Steiner’s Summer Mantra – read by Elisabeth Swisher

Labyrinth Dance with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

“In the Summer the Earth is more given up to the atmosphere surrounding it. Humanity too is given up to the wide cosmic expanse. In the Summer he feels himself united with the Upper Gods. Man waited for the Midsummer season — the time when the Sun is at the zenith of its power — in order, at this season, and in certain places he regarded as sacred, to establish contact. He availed himself of his natural connection in Summer with the whole etheric environment, in order out of his deepest feelings, to make an offering: the thoughts that had been revealed by the Upper Gods to man were now offered back up to them in upward-streaming feelings.” ~Rudolf Steiner

~ ~ ~

Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)

Check out our Web site! Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Category Archives: Festival

I Am a Thought Made manifest

The Name John as a Title of Initiation

Love speaks Truth in the deep rolling thunder

Stellar is the golden seed from which the corn arises

Tipping Point

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