Category Archives: Festival

Festival – April 1st – April Fools Day

Festival

Blessings of the Wise Fool on this April 1st –

Both Judas and Mary Magdalene are typical Mercury people; they are active and temperamental; something is always happening round them.

Mary Magdalene transforms her restlessness into peaceful devotion, and the capacity for love.

She anoints the head of Christ with precious spikenard oil, a spiritual act.

Christ accepts what this woman does as a sacrament of death – a fulfillment of the Last Anointing.

 

Judas declares her deed extravagant and becomes indignant. He pretends to want something for the poor; yet it is only self-deception, not a genuine social impulse, but his own inner restlessness. His unrest springs from a deeply hidden fear, and it leads to his betrayal of Christ.

Such a soul cannot show devotion; above all, it cannot love. A restless person is not capable of real love; for love is possible only where the soul has found peace.

Thus, in the two figures, Mary Magdalene and Judas, two roads separate as at a crossroads. One leads to the realization of the nearness of Christ; the other into the dark night.

All the figures taking part in these scenes on Holy Wednesday -Mary, Martha, Lazarus, and Judas, show us separate approaches in the expression of the mysteries.

Judas is the man without ritual. He loses self-control when he comes into the sphere of true ceremonial worship.

Mary Magdalene is the sacramental soul.

Mercury, who for the Greco-Roman world was both the God of Healing and also the God of merchants and of thieves,

comes now into the orbit of the Christ Sun. The scene in the house of Lazarus and her sisters at Bethany shows how Mercury, the God of Healing, can himself be healed by the Sun of Christ.»

 

~ excerpted from Emil Bock’s “Holy Week”, A Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter

 

‘The Best Fool is the Fool for Love’

 

1 April Fool’s Day, 7-8pm* at thebranch

Holy Wednesday

 

The 2 sides of Mercury: Healer/Thief

Mary Magdalene’s pre-burial anointing, the impulse for Judas’s betrayal

 

Group Eurythmy: Hallelujah in the ‘Lamb of God Heptagram’

Study of Emil Bock’s “Holy Week”, A Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter

*Followed by an Optional ‘Close of Day’ at 8:15pm, at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson

Holy Tuesday Insight – Harmony Thru Conflict

Festival,

 

Now the day of Mars has been reached and the conflict flares up in earnest. Goethe’s statement that world history is nothing else than a continuous fight of belief against unbelief touches the truth that is given in all detail during the Tuesday of Holy Week.

All opposition to Christ and hostility to the Spirit has its root in unbelief, in deeply hidden weakness and fear.

To work upon one’s own soul demands the greatest courage.

The wedding garment is the soul become radiant through purification. The oil in the lamps is a picture of the forces of the soul to be won by struggle.

The talents increased by personal effort are the spiritual organs in man brought to further development. To hold the balance between earthly duties and spiritual ideals, gains sovereignty over all earthly conditions. Even if, as at that time, a monster occupies the throne,

He is able to say “Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things which are God’s.”

In the concluding vision of the dividing of mankind, the true quality of inner courage is described:

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

The true path to the spirit shows itself in the power to love. Love is the opposite of fear. All genuine inner development begins with inner courage and finds its goal in love. So His words of spiritual battle end in words of love.

 

 

 

 

Festival – Palm Sunday

Festival,

Dear Friends –

Palm Sunday – Matthew 21: 1-11

Christ enters the Holy City on the first day of Holy Week. It is at first an unpretentious sight. He rides through the gate of the city upon a donkey,

followed by His faithful believers. But suddenly, as though he were the God of Spring himself, His entry creates a frenzy in the souls of the people.

It is as though the crowd were seized with the ecstasy of a pagan Spring Festival. Primitive rites are revived when the people cast down palm branches rom the trees. The palm has always ranked as the tree-symbol of the sun which shines in the Spring sky with renewed strength.

The crowd spread His path with the symbol of the sun.

Is He in fact perhaps the Friend and Lord of the Sun who has been promised to man as the great King of the Light?

Is the original spiritual significance of the city of Jerusalem to be released from enchantment, the city which sheltered on Mount Zion one of the oldest sun-sanctuaries of mankind, before it was overshadowed by Mount Moriah, the Mount of the Moon, with the Temple of Solomon?

Has the time of Melchisededek, the great Sun-Initiate, come back?

It would appear as though the Christ had now really found entrance into humanity. The high Sun- Spirit has already lived for three years in a human body and undergone earthly destiny. He held back and kept silence; and whenever He stepped forward He was met with hostility and lack of understanding.

Is all this now to take a new direction? Is destiny to find a solution in an ecstatic jubilation?

No, this is the beginning of the most solemn week in human history. The same men who strew palms and break forth into fervid Hosannas will shriek with fanatical hatred a few days later: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” The Cross on Golgotha, the symbol of death, will companion the palm branch, the symbol of life. It is the Christ Himself who brings about the sudden reversal of feeling. He passes through the ecstatic crowd in silence, with grave countenance. He sees through the acclamations; they are merely superficial, and He aims at deeper levels. His will is directed to something very different.»

~Emil Bock “Holy Week”

And so the Journey Begins

29 March 2015, 2- 4pm at the branch

Palm Sunday – The old Sun –

Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem – The Prophesy fulfilled

Group Eurythmy: Hallelujah in the ‘Lamb of God Heptagram’ with Johanna Rohde

Study of Emil Bock’s “Holy Week”, A Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter

 

Attached is a copy of the text, please print it out for yourself.

If you need a copy printed for you or for more information, 

Contact Hazel Archer Ginsberg

 

30 March (Rudolf Steiner’s Death Day) 7-8pm at the branch

Holy Monday

The fig tree, symbol of the old clairvoyance, cursed –

Moon-forces must be renewed -The cleansing of the Temple

Group Eurythmy: Hallelujah in the ‘Lamb of God Heptagram’ with Johanna Rohde

Study of Emil Bock’s “Holy Week”, A Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter

 

31 March, 7-8pm at the branch

Holy Tuesday

Conflict with opponents – bending the Mars spirit to His purposes

An Apocalyptic future revealed

Group Eurythmy: Hallelujah in the ‘Lamb of God Heptagram’ with Johanna Rohde

Study of Emil Bock’s “Holy Week”, A Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter

 

1 April Fool’s Day, 7-8pm at the branch

Holy Wednesday

Mary Magdalene’s pre-burial anointing, Judas’s betrayal –

the 2 sides of Mercury: Healer /Thief

Group Eurythmy: Hallelujah in the ‘Lamb of God Heptagram’ with Johanna Rohde

Study of Emil Bock’s “Holy Week”, A Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter

For insights into this year’s Easter-Tide from Dr. Ross Rentea of the Lili Kolisko institute clink here http://www.koliskoinstitute.org/blog/

Feast Day of Lazarus-John – Easter-Tide Happenings

Festival,

Greetings Dear Friends on this Feast Day of Lazarus-John

“An initiation is veiled by the story of Lazarus in the Gospel of St. John. It has never been understood except by those who knew from their esoteric schools what was concealed behind it. When Christ was informed that Lazarus was ill, He replied: ‘The sickness is not unto death, but that the God in him should be made manifest!’ It means that the Christ-divinity shall be made manifest in and through Lazarus.

Remember that when there was question of the ‘life’ that had fled from Lazarus, and which the sisters Martha and Mary longed to have restored,

Christ answers: ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life!’  The life was to return to Lazarus.

Lazarus meantime beheld the spiritual world. And inasmuch as Christ is the leader of that spiritual world, Lazarus had been filled with the Christ-power and the vision of Christ. Christ poured out His power upon Lazarus and Lazarus arose a new man.

A word in St. John’s Gospel arrests our attention. It is said that the Lord ‘loved’ Lazarus. The same word is used for the disciple ‘whom the Lord loved’.

What does this mean? The Akashic records reveal this to us. Who was Lazarus after he had risen from the dead? He was none other than the writer of the Gospel of St. John, the Lazarus who was initiated by Christ.

Christ poured into the soul of Lazarus the tidings of His own existence, so that the message of the fourth Gospel — the Gospel of St. John — might resound through the world as a description of Christ’s own being. This is also why the disciple John is not mentioned in the Gospel before the story of Lazarus. The individuality of Lazarus had been transformed into the John-individuality, in the sense of the Christian initiation.

Lazarus became an initiate in the new sense of the word, though the old forms were retained in a measure,  a transition was created from the old to the new initiation.”

~Rudolf Steiner – The Gospel of St. John Lecture 7

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Saturday March 28

10:30 am – 12 noon, study of Easter, Rudolf Steiner’s Watercolor Painting.

For more information, contact Carolyn Arnett at (773) 539-3688

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Our Holy Week Study starts:

Sunday March 29th, Palm Sunday, 2:00 – 4:00pm

The old Sun – Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem – The Prophesy fulfilled

Group Eurythmy: Hallelujah in the ‘Lamb of God Heptagram’ with Johanna Rohde

Study of Emil Bock’s “Holy Week”, A Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter

 

If you would like a copy of the text, or for more information, 

Contact Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Holy Monday March 30th, (Rudolf Steiner’s death day) 7–8pm*

Holy Tuesday March 31st, 7-8pm*

Holy Wednesday April 1st, 7-8pm*

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

Group Eurythmy: Hallelujah in the ‘Lamb of God Heptagram’ with Johanna Rohde

Study of Emil Bock’s “Holy Week, A Spiritual Guide from Palm Sunday to Easter”

 

*Followed by an optional ‘Close of Day’ at 8:15pm at theChristian Community 2135 W. Wilson

 

Maundy Thursday, 6pm ‘Silent Supper’, Study 7pm at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson

Good Friday, Study 7pm followed by “The Judas Drama” at 8:15pm with Music &Eurythmy 

at the Christian Community 2135 W. Wilson

 

 

~Erkenntnisfeier~

A Cosmic Recapitulation of the Mystery of Golgotha

 

April 4th, Holy Saturday (Full Lunar Eclipse) 5:00am – 7:00am at the Branch

Group Eurythmy:  Hallelujah in the ‘Lamb of God Heptagram’ withJohanna Rohde

The Inner layers of the Earth, & the Spiritual Significance of Eclipses by Hazel Archer Ginsberg

“The Golden Legend” – Leading into an Artistic Exploration of the Rose Cross Meditation

Group Study of Emil Bock’s “Holy Week” for Holy Saturday

 

April 5th, Easter Sunday 2:00 – 4:00pm at the Branch

Group Eurythmy:  Hallelujah in the ‘Lamb of God Heptagram’ withJohanna Rohde

The Legend of Shambhalla by Richard Dancey

Singing, Group Study of Emil Bock’s “Holy Week” for Easter Sunday

Two Eurythmy Performances by the Midwest Eurythmy Group:

The “Calendar of the Soul” Verse for Easter, Featuring Speech ArtistChrista Macbeth

And The “Hallelujah”

A pot-luck feast to follow