Category Archives: Festival

Alone Together

Biography, Community, Festival, History
Cynthia Christine

In the 10 Days…

Dear friends, as seekers on the path, have you ever felt utterly alone, overwhelmed, or even a bit lost? Rudolf Steiner speaks of this in ‘How to know Higher Worlds’ & in the ‘5th Gospel’.

We have an opportunity, especially at this time of year, to recognize & acknowledge that uncomfortable feeling of isolation that can come from our striving; a mirroring of the experience of the disciples those 10 days between Ascension & Whitsun, when waiting feels like wrestling.

Since the time of Christ’s Ascension, humanity can now follow in the expansion of the one who has ascended to heaven. A path up to the heights has been prepared for us to tread.  There, we grow wings.  For this to happen we must let the ground of our soul become warm.  Just as air only rises when it becomes warm, so it is with our inner being.  If our soul does not become warm with enthusiasm, it does not rise to meet the heights. 

Meditation & prayer are ways of warming our “I” so that our soul can carry out its own ascension.

Not the type of prayer consisting of mere words recited by rote from the head—which does not warm the soul’s ground—& not the kind of prayer into which all sorts of wishes & desires make an appeal ‘for something.’ 

But a meditation, like the Foundation Stone, spoken from the heart, from the human feeling nature, which not only warms the soul of the individual, but adds light to the community of other souls who are also working to build the ‘Dodecahedron of Love’ in service to the All. This allows our soul to ascend to where our True Self exists. 

The soul’s union with the spirit then comes to be; & only in this way does the human being become complete.  Our “I”, which until it is cultivated, merely hovers above us, but with this kind of warmth, we then become filled with the Higher Self. In this way during the 10 days, we can do our part to approach that sphere out of which the flames of Whitsun descend.

Umberto Boccioni

On the one hand, the Whitsun flames have warmth, & on the other hand, they possess light.  Warmth must arise first out of human hearts like a fire.  Then the Spirit responds out of the sphere of the Father, where The Christ & the Father are One. The light flame of the Spirit sinks down, joining the warmth flame of the praying heart.  The light flame from above answers to the warmth flame from below.  Only when we actively strive, with sufficient patience & endurance, working to become warm, may we hope for illumination. Becoming warm is our task, then illumination is the answer from heaven. 

Dana Burk

As the gifts of light from a higher realm come towards us, Whitsun expands into the world – But only if our thinking can change into heart-thinking; which will have an effect on the whole activity of human life, softening the prevailing intellectual forces which are so rigid & dark, with a cold hard cleverness. 

Once the human being begins to truly think with warmth, then the Holy Spirit enters our heart-thinking, for then our True Higher Self thinks in us. 

Jane Spakowski

Let us sit in the loneliness together during these days, feeling the blessing of Christ’s Grace bestowed on us thru the Ascension. Knowing that in the future, which we are creating in each moment even now, a new thinking, a new culture, can finally come into being from the breath that touches us out of the Spirit of the coming Pentecost.

Move will be revealed…

Until soon ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, Wikipedia Commons)

“Greek philosophy beautifully compared the human soul with a bee. The world of colour and light offers the soul honey which it brings with it into the higher world. The soul must spiritualize sense experience and carry it up into higher worlds.” ~Rudolf Steiner 1906

545 – Deathday of Saint Clotilde – patron saint of Les Andelys, Normandy. Wife of the Frankish king Clovis I, & princess of the kingdom of Burgundy. In 511, the Queen founded a convent for young girls. The natural spring there is known for healing skin diseases.Queen Clotilde’s cult made her the patron of queens, widows, brides & even those in exile. In Normandy she was venerated as guarding the lame & those who suffered violent death from ill-tempered husbands.

1924 – Deathday of Franz Kafka a German novelist & short story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism & the fantastic, typically features isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments & incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, & has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, & absurdity. His best known works include “Die Verwandlung” (“The Metamorphosis”), Der Process (The Trial), & Das Schloss (The Castle). The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those in his writing. Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today part of the Czech Republic. He trained as a lawyer, & after completing his legal education he was employed with an insurance company, forcing him to relegate writing to his spare time. Over the course of his life, Kafka wrote hundreds of letters to family & close friends, including his father, with whom he had a strained & formal relationship. He became engaged to several women but never married. He died in 1924 at the age of 40 from tuberculosis.

1943 – The founding of the Nachlassverein by Marie Steiner

1989 – Deathday of Ayatollah  Khomeini, Iranian religious leader & politician

2013 – The trial of United States Army private Chelsea Manning for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks begins in Fort Meade, Maryland

Image result for wArmth & light painting
Jenn Nelson

POD (Poem Of the day)

~Look, I have light
In my eyes
& on my skin…
The star is warming…
And everything alive is turning
Into something else
Deep in the alchemical Heart
Of some annihilating
Ever creative fire
That is burning unnoticed
Waiting to touch
Me & you…
~hag

Holding Space

Biography, Community, Festival

I am living into the approaching mood of Pentecost – The festival of the Word, a new Language of the Sophia-Logos, holding the ideal of Free Speech!  Our day star Sun is speaking thru the  stars of the Bull at this time, that region of the Zodiac connected to the human Larynx, giving us the capacity for self-expression.

The current World events must be given voice. Pentecost is the festival of NOW, highlighting the challenging relationships of self & community –  Offering us an opportunity to transcend polarities. 

Giving us a chance to ask: How do we work as individuals to transform our ingrained sympathies & antipathies? How do we purify our astral nature in order to make ourselves into a vessel worthy to receive the Holy Spirit, giving us the possibility of manifesting the ‘Spirit Self’, the True Self which will provide the capacity to create new social forms..?

Right now I am deep in what Rudolf Steiner defines as a time of profound sadness that comes with the 10 days between Ascension & Pentecost, an echo of the grief & loss expereinced by the disciples. He describes it as ‘a sorrow such as cannot be compared with any other sorrow on earth’ –A kind of death experience on a spiritual level. And just like in the old mystery traditions, after the time of catharsis & preparation, there is a mystical death; so here too there is a kind of loss & experience of death. The #10 is the number of completion.

Pablo Damas

Steiner points out: ‘All real knowledge, all knowledge that can truly be called great is born from pain, from inner travail…And out of this pain, out of this infinite sorrow, there sprang what we call the Mystery of Pentecost…Having lost sight of the Christ in external clairvoyant vision (the 40 days with the Resurrected Christ), the disciples found it again in their inmost being…found it through sorrow, through pain.  (May 17, 1923, Christiana)

Donna Vector

Here we have a great reversal. In ancient times the human being experienced the True Self, the Higher I AM, in the cosmos outside of them, in the Sun sphere, thru initiation, by leaving the body. 

Ninetta Sombart

Even with Lazarus, the first Christian initiation performed on Earth, in public, by the Christ, Lazarus was “called forth” by Christ as the hierophant from without.

Pentecost inaugurates a new age, when human beings thru a personal path of self-guided catharsis comes to an awakening of the Higher I AM in “their inmost being” as a force of transformative power, which is the force of love.

The Greek word for grace is, “charis”, which means the free love from God.  In ancient Greek, there are several words for love:  eros – romantic love; philia – brotherly/family love; agape – divine love, or love of the human for the divine. 

Johannes Demmer

Charis is higher than agape, because it is the love of the Divine for the human being. This is the highest form of love.

Thinking of Pentecost as being 50 days after Easter, & in looking at the # 5, we see the 4 bodies of the human being: physical, etheric, astral & “I” – given a 5th dimension – a new spiritual aspect is added: The Spirit-Self, the Higher Ego.

Aggripa

The pentagram is the symbol of the true human being.  The numbers 4 & 5 raised to the 10th power, indicate a process taking place at a higher spiritual level, which is how the events described in 40 days = Ascension – & 50 days = Pentecost,  are meant to be understood, both as historical events of Christ’s union with the earth, but also as initiatory events taking place on a higher plane for humanity.

In the 12th of Steiner’s lectures on the ‘Gospel of John’, which he describes as the most spiritual perspective given by the writers of the gospels, he speaks of how John never uses the name Mary, but always says: “the mother of Jesus”.  He equates this with the ‘Virgin Sophia’ – the purified astral body.  It is this Virgin Sophia = the Mother of Jesus, who is “in their midst” at Pentecost. 

The story goes on to say that they were all together in one place, using the word which is often translated as house, but in Greek it means “a shared, common place” – in this case: The Upper Room where they experienced the Last Supper.  Into this community space, with the Virgin Sophia in their midst, came the Holy Spirit, the Universal Ego, the true I AM, which can then speak out of this purified astral body. 

This Holy Spirit came with a rushing of wind & flames that individualized onto each of the disciples, & “stayed upon each of them”(this is the same term used at the Baptism of Jesus) They then began to speak a new language “as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance.”  This was a speaking, which transcended earthly languages, for everyone understood & were amazed.

In this same lecture from the Gospel of John cycle, Steiner addresses this question: ‘a person thus illuminated, who has received the Holy Spirit into himself, speaks in a different manner.  How does he speak? …he is not expressing ‘his’ own opinion. His views do not come into consideration.  His personal (earthly) ego has been eclipsed which means that…it has become impersonal and it is the Cosmic Universal Ego’.

He continues this Pentecostal theme in a lecture on Whitsunday, 1910: ‘This Holy Spirit enables us to become free human souls.  As the Spirit of Freedom, it streamed out through the first disciples…in the first Pentecostal festival….We can become free only when we find ourselves again in spirit and out of the spirit become master over the spirit within ourselves. Our true spirit is the universal human spirit, which we recognize as the Pentecostal power of the Holy Spirit.. which we must bring to birth in ourselves and allow to become manifest…This will bring to life in our souls something which overleaps all boundaries separating the different parts of humanity’.

Leszek Forczek

This brings us back to the great call of our current time of Pentecost – which is the great social question of our time: the individual in relation to the whole, the community. 

Today we face immense questions about the future of humanity, with division, polarization, lack of understanding & failed communication, creating the social problems of our time. 

Only by a social & personal catharsis which can allow for the true spirit of freedom, the true I AM, to eclipse our small personal egotism & the lower impulses of our nature, can a new community & new language of universal sister/brotherhood be created. 

Only out of the spiritual recognition of the universal Human Being, will the ideas & applications of a new approach to fraternity in economics; equality in human rights; & freedom in the cultural/spiritual life, be accomplished. 

May we strive to serve this goal out of the spirit of The Sophia.

~hag

2 June 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Spot Bella Luna in the west after sunset. As twilight fades, you can make out Pollux above the Moon, then Castor to the right of Pollux.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, Wikipedia Commons)

455 – Sack of Rome

1098 – First Crusade: The first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city; the second siege began five days later.

1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts; she was found guilty and later hanged

necklace

1743 – Birthday of Alessandro Cagliostro, Italian occultist and explorer. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe relates in his Italian Journey, that during the trial of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace*, Cagliostro said that he had been born of noble birth but abandoned as an orphan upon the island of Malta. He claimed to have traveled as a child to Medina, Mecca, & Cairo, & was then admitted to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, where he studied alchemy, the Kabbalah, & magic. (*The Affair of the Diamond Necklace – an incident in 1781 at the court of Louis XVI of France involving his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The reputation of the Queen, which was already tarnished by gossip, was ruined by the implication that she had participated in a crime to defraud the crown jewelers of the cost of a very expensive diamond necklace. The Affair was historically significant as one of the events that led to the French populace’s disillusionment with the monarchy, which, among other causes, eventually culminated in the French Revolution)

1793 – French Revolution: François Hanriot, leader of the Parisian National Guard, arrests 22 Girondists selected by Jean-Paul Marat, setting the stage for the Reign of Terror.

1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States

1882 – Deathday of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian general & politician. Spoken of as a high initiate in the Hibernian Mysteries in ‘Karmic Relationships’ Vol 1, lec. 11 by Rudolf Steiner (June 2nd is also Festa della Repubblica -The Italian National Republic Day)

1922 – Start of the West-East Congress in Vienna, opened by Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz. At this conference Rudolf Steiner gave his last lecture on Threefolding (1917 – 1922)

a collection of my Anthroposophical videos for your free viewing

Here & There

Community, Festival, History, Quote

~Under the Clouds
The Robins nod & bow & walk & fly…
All Beings
In the ethers spin
Exchanging countless exhaled breaths…
We are growing, remembering, forgetting, Becoming…
We are the many…
One face changing expression..
~hag

When the disciples experienced the Ascension, which was for them not merely the proof of the whole immeasurable significance of the Christ impulse for the formative forces of every human soul after death, but was at the same time, the event thru which they were able to attain the fullest most all-encompassing knowledge of the new relationship between microcosm & macrocosm.

~hag

Because of the Ascension the human soul can come into contact with the cosmic sphere where Christ derived the forces for His Resurrection Body. The sphere of the Father, where the Atma, or future Spirit Human, is derived.

~hag

And now, since in the Resurrection, Christ has united the forces of the cosmic midnight hour directly with earth evolution, this created a bridge for all human beings over the cosmic abyss, unlocking the gate between the cosmic midnight hour & the midday moment of cosmic existence. 

The Ascension provided the opportunity for The Holy Spirit, who illuminates individual ego-consciousness, to be able to appear in earthly evolution among human beings at Whitsun, to pour into them the true knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha & the Ascension in full wisdom.

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is a direct consequence of the Resurrection & the Ascension.

But to be able to receive this Universal Healing Spirit & Wisdom of the Divine Sophia we must wait – willingly & trustingly experiencing the pain of seeming separation. The clear headed awakening must allow an open space – a pure empty vessel for the spirit to fill. As individuals we must feel that loneliness, which Steiner describes in ‘How To Know Higher Worlds’ as a preparation for initiation.

Encircling with us in that sacred space we can join with other seeking souls. We can engage with our Angel. We can invite the so-called dead & our unborn descendants to hold the space with us, knowing that the Comforter, the Paraclete will come…

Then the Christ impulse can enter human souls thru the mediation of the Holy Spirit, so that we can retain ego-consciousness without being overwhelmed by Christ’s powerful Sun nature. The benevolent Sun, that gives life generating warmth to all existence, is a bridge, connecting the Above & the Below, the inside with the outside, the Me with the We…

~hag

28 May 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Jupiter and Mars appear almost equally close to each other on Sunday and Monday mornings. But watch their changing orientation. The actual conjunction is shown above, on Sunday the 29th.

Da Vinci

“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

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, The Present Age magazine, Wikipedia)

Emmanuel Lafont

585 BC – the 1st prediction of a solar eclipse by the Greek philosopher & scientist Thales, which occurs while Alyattes is battling Cyaxares in Halys, leading to a truce. This is one of the cardinal dates from which other eclipse dates can be calculated

1696 – Birthday of Leopold Gyorgy Rakoczy, also known as Comte de St. Germain, an incarnation of the individuality known as Christian Rosenkrutz

1892 – In San Francisco, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club

1961 – Peter Benenson’s article The Forgotten Prisoners is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.

1995 – The 7.0 Mw Neftegorsk earthquake shook the Russian settlement of Neftegorsk, with 2,989 deaths &750 injured. The settlement was never rebuilt.

1999 – In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Last Supper is put back on display

A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor & Spirit Community with the Eastern, Central and Western Regional Councils of the Anthroposophical Society in America

Sunday 29 May 2022 –  at 3 – 4:30 pm PT / 4-5:30 MT / 5-6:30 pm CT / 6-7:30 pm ET

We will be working with Rudolf Steiner’s THE FIFTH GOSPEL GA 148, Lecture II, 2 October 1913, Oslo

The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, our individual “I”, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is strongly felt during this time of the consciousness soul age. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create this type of culture, and the opportunity is here for each of us to meet, human to human, where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength comes from our personal development and is enhanced by weaving our gifts together with others, knitting our social world in conscious community.

For more info. contact Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

Topic: All Regions Whitsun

Time: May 29, 2022 05:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

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The Holy Grail Study Group with the CRC
Mysteries of the Holy Grail – from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation
June 1, 2022 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern)
“Anyone who approaches these mysteries today must feel that they are confronting and challenging themselves by striving for the virtues of Parzival, while knowing that — because of modern conditions — they are in fact someone else also, the wounded Amfortas. Today we bear this divided nature within us: aspiring Parzival, wounded Amfortas. That is what self-knowledge must lead us to feel. From this recognition will flow the forces which make a unity again of this duality, and will thus advance us a little further in world evolution.”~ from Chapter 15,  Rudolf Steiner, The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Chapter 15 “Acknowledging Amfortas,” excerpts from Steiner’s lecture given at Berlin on 7 February 1913 (GA 144, lecture IV), will be the focus of the June 1 meeting.

A transcript of the entire lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link. * Please consider giving to the development and maintenance of the digital library of Rudolf Steiner’s work.  Scroll to the bottom of this message to read more about the RSArchive.org and SteinerLibrary.org
The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our ongoing  study conversation.  The study has been divided among two volunteers who will summarize their section to rebuild it as a foundation for our conversation. Please familiarize yourself with the lecture if possible so you will feel comfortable sharing your reflections and thoughts with the group.

This collection of lectures has been republished by Rudolf Steiner Press under the title: “The Mysteries of the Holy Grail — from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation.”  The book was compiled and edited by Matthew Barton, published by Rudolf Steiner Press in 2010.

This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer).  To connect to the audio/video-conference:

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There is a knighthood of the 21st century
whose riders do not ride through the darkness
of physical forests as of old,
but through the forest of darkened minds.
They are armed with a spiritual armor
and an inner sun makes them radiant.
Out of them shines healing,
healing that flows from the knowledge
of the human being as a spiritual being.
They must create inner order, inner justice,
peace and conviction in the darkness
of our time. ~Karl Konig

Agenda for this meeting (CST)
 7:15  Welcome and Introductions        
7:18  Verse
7:25  Study led by volunteers
Note: CRC team will ID volunteers
          Mariarosa – pages 117-123b
          Marianne – pages 123b-129
7:50  Conversation
8:25   ID volunteers for next meeting
8:28  Close with verse

New Sun

Biography, Community, Festival, History, Poetry, Quote, Speaking with the Stars
Jacques Le Grant

“The Ascension of Christ — the sky into which the Risen One grows — is our very Earth itself. Through Him, the Earth is transformed into Heaven.” ~Emil Bock, The New Testament in the Light of Spiritual Science

Here is the link to last nights Ascension presentation for The Boston Branch.

To continue this contemplation, here are a few more thoughts that I didn’t have time to bring yesterday:

With Anthroposophy we know that the victory over death thru Christ’s deed on Golgotha makes it possible for humanity to continue to reincarnate into physical bodies. Our physical bodies have earth-gravity, but our etheric bodies have Sun levity, SO if Christ’s deed had not taken place, not only would our physical bodies deteriorated over time, but also our etheric bodies would have left the physical for good as well, & the existence of humankind would have come to an end, having no formative forces to give them life.

Christ remains in union with the Earth, which rescues for the Earth the Sunward-striving etheric body.

We know that until the Mystery of Golgotha, the Sun was the dwelling place of the Christ. The human etheric body, which was in danger of being drawn out towards the Sun, like clouds, & dispersed –is held together, contained thru Christ’s cosmic deed, so that we are not dispersed, but can remain individuals.

~hag

At the Baptism the Christ Being united with the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth & was therefore united with earthly evolution as a whole.

At the Transfiguration The Christ permeates the etheric body of Jesus.

In the scene of the transfiguration, Christ reveals his higher Sun nature –to the 3 chosen disciples – A visionary manifestation of the fully transformed etheric body, which radiates light like a Sun.

These events are mirrored, & transformed by the mystery of Golgotha. Ascension relates to the Transfiguration & Whitsun to the Baptism.

In the Ascension Christ showed the connection to the spiritual Sun forces which became manifest in the Transfiguration with the etheric bodies of all human beings.

When Christ entered into Jesus at the Baptism, His Sun-Being took over the ego of Jesus, the Zarathustra soul had to leave the body or be completely overpowered.

After the Resurrection the Christ impulse can live within humankind without taking over the ego-consciousness. But in order for this to happen Christ had to Ascend, to open the way for the Holy Spirit to descend.

The benevolent Sun, that gives life generating warmth to all existence, is a bridge, connecting the macrocosm with the microcosm.

Christ has united with the earth in order to make it the New Sun of a New Universe.

The Descent into Hell rescued the physical forces for humanity; the Ascension rescued the formative forces. We can picture the connection between the descent into Hell on Holy Saturday with the Ascension which is the metamorphosis of the scene of the Transfiguration; – & in Whitsun, the transformation of the Baptism.

Just as the experience of the Ascension lies between Easter & Whitsun, so between Good Friday & Easter lies the event known as Christ’s Descent into Hell. Both hold the image of Christ disappearing from sight.

The image of The ‘phantom body of Christ’ is the reconstituted New Adam.

And the ‘Resurrection Body’, points us in the direction of our future evolution, not back to the garden, but going forward, toward the New Jerusalem.

That is why after the Resurrection the Being of Christ couldn’t be touched by Mary Magdalana in the old garden. But then after the time of meeting the 2 on the road to Emmas, Christ in His Angelic form continued materializing & dematerializing at will. This ‘etheric body of Christ’ encompasses the whole of humanity. It is like a cell that is multiplying; growing ever more evident in the etheric realm. –

Rudolf Steiner calls it a redeeming of the group-soul of humankind. A group-soul unified thru Christ in Free Will.

The expression “Put on the Resurrection Body” used by the apostle Paul, is a true picture of what can happen for us. – An imagination of this is secreted in the allegory of the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz , an initiatory image of the 3-fold Festival of Easter-tide…

May we ever strive to ascend, honing our individual development, so that together we can ‘worthily fulfill’ the chalice in the Upper room of our conscious community, into which the Sophia can enkindle & overflow – pouring thru us into the world…

~hag

2022, May 27: Dazzling Venus, Lunar Crescent, Mars Nears Jupiter – When the Curves Line Up

27 May 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Waning Bella Luna & Venus (occult Mercury) in conversation

The Best Sky Sights of 2022 – The Amazing Sky


Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s orginal Calendar of the Soul, The Present Age magazine, Wikipedia)

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is mateo-cerezo_1637-1666_magdalena.jpg
Mateo Cerezo

Birthday of Mary Magdalene – “…Mary Magdalene focuses on the inner worlds of initiation. We imagine that, not through outer pomp and pageantry, but through gnosis or direct knowing, she seeks union with the Divine. Hers is the path of the sacred marriage, accomplished within.” ~ from the preface of ‘The Gospel of Mary Magdalene’ by Jean-Yves Leloup, David Tresemer, PhD, and Laura-Lee Cannon.

The Barque of Dante by Eugène Delacroix

1265 – Birthday of Dante (thought to be reincarnated as King John of Saxony. Beyond his political work, John was busy with literature. Under the pseudonym Philalethes he translated to German Dante’s Divine Comedy)

1564 – Deathday of John Calvin an influential French theologian & pastor during the Protestant Reformation, called Calvinism, influenced by the Augustinian tradition. The aim of Calvin’s political theory was to safeguard the rights and freedoms of ordinary people.

1840 – Deathday of Paganini an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, & composer – the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time.

1860 – Giuseppe Garibaldi begins his attack on Palermo, Sicily, as part of the Italian unification.

A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries: Bubonic plague hits San Francisco

1907 – Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco


1907 – Birthday of Rachel Carson, American biologist, environmentalist, and author


1933 – The Century of Progress World’s Fair opens in Chicago – Anthroposophers Ehrenfried Pfeiffer & Guenther Wachsmuth came to this!

A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor & Spirit Community with the Eastern, Central and Western Regional Councils of the Anthroposophical Society in America

Sunday 29 May 2022 –  at 3 – 4:30 pm PT / 4-5:30 MT / 5-6:30 pm CT / 6-7:30 pm ET

We will be working with Rudolf Steiner’s THE FIFTH GOSPEL GA 148, Lecture II, 2 October 1913, Oslo

The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, our individual “I”, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is strongly felt during this time of the consciousness soul age. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create this type of culture, and the opportunity is here for each of us to meet, human to human, where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength comes from our personal development and is enhanced by weaving our gifts together with others, knitting our social world in conscious community.

For more info. contact Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

Topic: All Regions Whitsun

Time: May 29, 2022 05:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

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The Holy Grail Study Group with the CRC
Mysteries of the Holy Grail – from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation
June 1, 2022 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern)
“Anyone who approaches these mysteries today must feel that they are confronting and challenging themselves by striving for the virtues of Parzival, while knowing that — because of modern conditions — they are in fact someone else also, the wounded Amfortas. Today we bear this divided nature within us: aspiring Parzival, wounded Amfortas. That is what self-knowledge must lead us to feel. From this recognition will flow the forces which make a unity again of this duality, and will thus advance us a little further in world evolution.”~ from Chapter 15,  Rudolf Steiner, The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Chapter 15 “Acknowledging Amfortas,” excerpts from Steiner’s lecture given at Berlin on 7 February 1913 (GA 144, lecture IV), will be the focus of the June 1 meeting.

A transcript of the entire lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link. * Please consider giving to the development and maintenance of the digital library of Rudolf Steiner’s work.  Scroll to the bottom of this message to read more about the RSArchive.org and SteinerLibrary.org
The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our ongoing  study conversation.  The study has been divided among two volunteers who will summarize their section to rebuild it as a foundation for our conversation. Please familiarize yourself with the lecture if possible so you will feel comfortable sharing your reflections and thoughts with the group.

This collection of lectures has been republished by Rudolf Steiner Press under the title: “The Mysteries of the Holy Grail — from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation.”  The book was compiled and edited by Matthew Barton, published by Rudolf Steiner Press in 2010.

This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer).  To connect to the audio/video-conference:

Video Conference Details:Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 882 1050 5106
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If you have questions, please contact Mary Mertz mary.mcginnis@juno.com or Alberto Loya aloyavaca@utexas.edu.

There is a knighthood of the 21st century
whose riders do not ride through the darkness
of physical forests as of old,
but through the forest of darkened minds.
They are armed with a spiritual armor
and an inner sun makes them radiant.
Out of them shines healing,
healing that flows from the knowledge
of the human being as a spiritual being.
They must create inner order, inner justice,
peace and conviction in the darkness
of our time. ~Karl Konig

Agenda for this meeting (CST)
 7:15  Welcome and Introductions        
7:18  Verse
7:25  Study led by volunteers
Note: CRC team will ID volunteers
          Mariarosa – pages 117-123b
          Marianne – pages 123b-129
7:50  Conversation
8:25   ID volunteers for next meeting
8:28  Close with verse

Chosen

Biography, Community, Festival, Upcoming Event
Umbra Perchiazzi

On this Ascension Thursday I attended the Act of Consecration at our local Christian Community. For this Festival the green on the Priest’s chasuble changes to gold. The epistle speaks about how Christ having completed the ‘sending’ by The Father, is now the meaning of the Earth. His ascending is our ascending. The ‘Father Ground of the World’ is now accessible to us in the aura of the Earth, opening us to future worlds that we are called to co-create.

Rev. Jeana Lee spoke a beautiful sermon using the imagination of a dandelion – How it is a reflection of the Sun. And then it dies – transforming into a globe of seeds to be dispersed by the wind, reappearing everywhere…

In The Gospel reading from John 16, we hear what The Christ says to the disciples, preparing them for when He would leave them on Good Friday, & then return to bring them the esoteric teachings during the 40 days after the Resurrection (John 16:25:  “Though I have been speaking to you figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father”)

Then on Ascension Thursday He seems to leave them again to make way for the Holy Spirit. It is now during these 10 days until Pentecost when we feel most alone: “The hour is coming, it has already come, when you will all be scattered, each to their own loneliness”

This is an opportunity calling us to consciously gather in the ‘Upper Room’, each of us facing our own loneliness together. Reviewing how the life of Christ lives in our lives today…So that we can will to be a pure vessel for the Holy Spirit –  Open to the fires of enthusiasm that empower us to take up our cross & do our work in the world.

Many are called few are chosen. YOU are called. You are welcome, to join us in co-creating the Upper Room in the ethers tonight:

Dear friends if you will to join us on Ascension Thursday – Please contact Diane McGary, mcgary.family@comcast.net – Then you will receive an email with the zoom link.

The Anthroposophical Society in Greater Boston is offering an exciting Event on Ascension Thursday, May 26th   4 pm PT / 6 pm CT / 7pm – 8:30 pm Eastern time.

Climbing Jacob’s Ladder – Celebrating the Festival of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg & Eurythmy with Maria Ver Eecke

“In heavy clouds let Him ascend
And so also let Him downward tread.
In cooling streams let Him be sent,
In flames of fire blaze His descent,
In air & essence, sound & dew
To permeate our whole earth thru” ~Novalis

Ascension is a Festival of the Elements, & of the Hierarchies, it relates to the Transfiguration & the fulfillment of the promise of the ‘Second Coming’. Together we will explore the mystery of ‘As Above so Below’.

            Hazel Archer-Ginsberg is a trans-denominational minister, essayist, lecturer, performer, and poet. She writes and curates ‘Reverse Ritual, Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year’ and the ‘I Think Speech’ podcast. Hazel’s been the Cultural Events and Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch in Chicago for over 10 years. She is a member of the Central Regional Council, the School for Spiritual Science, the Esoteric Youth Circle, and the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America.

                  Register by contacting Diane McGary, mcgary.family@comcast.net

Hope to see you there!! – YES! Please feel free to spread the word!

Yours, Diane McGary, mcgary.family@comcast.net