Category Archives: History

Soul Stirring

Biography, Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Community, Festival, History, Rudolf Steiner Quote
Victoria Mellon

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~She is
A fire raging, changing, going in
& Coming
Out of form in time
A mad genius, wind howling
& the beat of wings inspired
She is a star in the dark tomb
A shadow cast by sunlight
Life that can
Not be contained
A holy insurrection
Ever Marching…
~hag

Yes friends, it’s happening: Sophia is Stirring – Let the unveiling lift us all!

I have been deep in the birthing process – the creating of an Experiential, Initiatory Journey to ‘Know Thyself’, which at this moment I am calling: ‘Anthroposophia: Our Alchemical Wedding’ – A ‘Moveable Feast’ enacted on the last day of Passover / Orthodox Holy Saturday – as part of the ‘SOPHIA RISING: Unveiling the Wisdom of Being Human’ Convergence, with the ASA in Santa Fe New Mexico, 21-24 April 2022 (Hotel Santa Fe Hacienda and Spa)

Are you one of the many that hear the call to lift the veil?

Come join us as we take a Soul Journey – exploring the question of How to ‘Know Thy Self’ in preparation for the Alchemical Marriage of the Christened Sophia within.

Before we can make this Holy Matrimony we must first advance thru trials of the soul, as the Divine Sophia did when Her Being was dispersed into the astral realm.

To re-claim her, in our becoming as true Human Beings, we must pass through 3 stages:

1st – The ‘Harrowing of Hell’, where we face the hindrances to our soul forces: fear, hatred & doubt.

2nd – At the gate of ‘Kamaloca’, we stand before the Guardian of the Threshold to see ourselves for what we are.

Then strengthened by the courage of Michael, we encounter ‘the tempter’ & ‘the deceiver’.

Coming into balance, we enter the 3rd stage: ‘Paradiso’ – Where we redeem Isis-Sophia – to foster Anthroposophia within our soul forces, & to manifest: ‘SOPHIA RISING: Unveiling the Wisdom of Being Human’, in the world.

Stay tuned – Details on the Convergence coming soon.

~hag

22 January 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Now that Venus (occult Mercury) rises again as the “Morning Star” Mars, the God of War is once again courting the Goddess of Love.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN Occult HISTORY

1561 – Birthday of Francis Bacon – English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, & author. He served both as Attorney General & as Lord Chancellor of England. After his death, he remained extremely influential through his works, especially as philosophical advocate of materialism & practitioner of the scientific method during the scientific revolution. Bacon died of pneumonia, with one account by John Aubrey stating that he had contracted the condition while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in a previous incarnation as Haroun al Raschid

1729 – Birthday of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist & art critic – one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment era. His plays & theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature. He is widely considered by theatre historians to be the first dramaturg in his role at Abel Seyler’s Hamburg National Theatre.

From Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume I, Lecture 11 by Rudolf Steiner:

“Another personality, very well-known to you by name, is of exceptional interest in connection with investigations into karma. It is Lessing. The circumstances of Lessing’s life, I may say, have always interested me to an extraordinary degree. Lessing is really the founder of the better sort of journalism, the journalism that has substance and is really out to accomplish something. Before Lessing, poets and dramatists had taken their subjects from the aristocracy. Lessing, on the other hand, is at pains to introduce bourgeois life, ordinary middle-class life, into the drama, the life concerned generally with the destinies of men as men, and not with the destinies of men in so far as they hold some position in society or the like. Purely human conflicts — that is what Lessing wanted to portray on the stage. In the course of his work he applied himself to many great problems, as for example when he tried to determine the boundaries of painting and of poetry in his Laocoon. But the most interesting thing of all is the powerful impetus with which Lessing fought for the idea of tolerance. You need only take his Nathan the Wise and you will see at once what a foremost place this idea of tolerance has in Lessing’s mind and life. In weaving the fable of the three kings in Nathan the Wise, he wants to show how the three main religions have gone astray from their original forms and are none of them really genuine, and how one must go in search of the true form, which has been lost. Here we have tolerance united with an uncommonly deep and significant idea.

Interesting, too, is the conversation between Freemasons, entitled Ernst und Falk, and much else that springs from Freemasonry. What Lessing accomplished in the way of critical research into the history of religious life is, for one who is able to judge its significance, really astounding. But we must be able to place the whole Lessing, in his complete personality, before us.

We begin to get an impression of Lessing when we observe, shall I say, the driving force with which he hurls his sentences against his opponents. He wages a polemic against the civilisation of Middle Europe — quite a refined and correct polemic, but at every turn hitting straight home. You must here observe a peculiar nuance in Lessing’s character if you want to understand the make-up of his life. On the one hand we have the sharpness, often caustic sharpness, in such writings as The Dramatic Art of Hamburg, and then we have to find the way over, as it were, to an understanding, for example, of the words used by Lessing when a son had been born to him and had died directly after birth. He writes somewhat as follows in a letter: Yes, he has at once taken leave again of this world of sorrow; he has thereby done the best thing a human being can do. In so writing, Lessing is giving expression to his pain in a wonderfully brave way, not for that reason feeling the pain one whit less deeply than someone who can do nothing but bemoan the event. This ability to draw back into himself in pain was characteristic of the man who at the same time knew how to thrust forward with vigour when he was developing his polemics. This is what makes it so affecting to read the letter written when his child had died immediately after birth, leaving the mother seriously ill.

Lessing had moreover this remarkable thing in his destiny — and it is quite characteristic, when one sets out to find the karmic connections in his case — that he was friends in Berlin with a man who was in every particular his opposite, namely, Nikolai; an example of a true philistine. Although a friend of Lessing, he was none the less a typical philistine-bourgeois; and he had visions, most strange and remarkable visions.

Lessing, genius as he was, had no visions, not even dreams. Nikolai literally suffered from visions. They came, and they went away only after leeches had been applied. Yes, in extremity they actually applied leeches to him, in order that he might not be forever tormented by the spiritual world which would not let him alone.

At the close of his life Lessing wrote the remarkable essay, The Education of the Human Race, at the end of which, quite isolated, as it were, the idea of repeated earth-lives appears. The book shows how mankind goes through one epoch of development after another, and how the Gods gave into man’s hand as a first primer, so to speak, the Old Testament, and then as a second primer the New Testament, and how in the future a third book will come for the further education of the human race. And then all at once the essay is brought to a close with a brief presentation of the idea that man lives through repeated earth-lives. And there Lessing says, again in a way that is absolutely in accord with his character: The idea of repeated earth-lives does not seem so absurd, considering that it was present in very early times, when men had not yet been spoilt by school learning? The essay then ends with a genuine panegyric on repeated earth-lives, finishing with these beautiful words: “Is not all Eternity mine?”

When a man like Lessing utters a profound aphorism such as this on repeated earth-lives, there is, properly speaking, no possibility of ignoring it.

You will readily see that the personality of Lessing is interesting in the highest degree from a karmic point of view, in relation to his own passage through different earth-lives. In the second half of the 18th century the idea of repeated earth-lives was by no means a commonly accepted one. It comes forth in Lessing like a flash of lightning, like a flash of genius. We cannot account for its appearance; it cannot possibly be due to Lessing’s education or to any other influence in this particular life. We are compelled to ask how it may be with the previous life of a man in whom at a certain age the idea of repeated earth-lives suddenly emerges — an idea that is foreign to the civilisation of his own day — emerges, too, in such a way that the man himself points to the fact that the idea was once present in very early times. The truth is that he is really bringing forward inner grounds for the idea, grounds of feeling that carry with them an indication of his own earth-life in the distant past. Needless to say, in his ordinary surface-consciousness he has no notion of such connections. The things we do not know are, however, none the less true. If those things alone were true that many men know, then the world would be poor indeed in events and poor indeed in beings”.

1788 –Birthday of Lord Byron, a British poet, politician, & a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems, Don Juan & Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, & the short lyric poem, “She Walks in Beauty”.

He travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years. Later in his brief life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire, for which many Greeks revere him as a national hero.

He died in 1824 at the age of 36 from a fever contracted while in Missolonghi. Often described as the most flamboyant & notorious of the major Romantics, Byron was both celebrated & castigated in life for his aristocratic excesses, including huge debts, numerous love affairs – with men as well as women, as well as rumors of a scandalous liaison with his half-sister – & self-imposed exile. He also fathered Ada, Countess of Lovelace, whose work on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine is considered a founding document in the field of computer science.

Rudolf Steiner speaks about Lord Byron in the same lecture with Lessing- Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume I, Lecture 11:

“I began to take a special interest in the life of Lord Byron. And at that same time I got to know some Byron enthusiasts. One of them was the poetess, Marie Eugenie delle Grazie, of whom I shall have much to say in my autobiography. During a certain period of her life she was a Byron enthusiast. Then there was another, a most remarkable personality, a strange mixture of all possible qualities Eugen Heinrich Schmidt. Many of you who know something about the history of Anthroposophy will be familiar with his name.

He came to Vienna, a tall, slight man filled with a burning enthusiasm, which came to expression at times in very forcible gestures and so on. It was none the less genuine for that. And it was just this enthusiasm of Schmidt’s that gave me the required “jerk,” as it were. I thought I would like to do him a kindness, and as he had recently written a most enthusiastic and inspired article on Lord Byron, I introduced him to my other Byron enthusiast, Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. And now began a wildly excited discussion on Byron. The two were really quite in agreement, but they carried on a most lively and animated debate. All we others who were sitting round — a whole collection of theological students from the Vienna Catholic Faculty were there, who came every week and with whom I had made friends — all we others were silent. And the two who were thus conversing about Byron were sitting like this. — Here was the table, rather a long one, and at one end sat delle Grazie and at the other end, Eugen Heinrich Schmidt, gesticulating with might and main. All of a sudden his chair slips away from under him, and he falls under the table, his feet stretching right out to delle Grazie. I can tell you, it was a shock for us all! But this shock helped me to hit upon the solution of a particular problem.

Let me tell you of it quite objectively, as a matter of history. All that they had been saying about Byron had made a strong impression upon me, and I began to feel the keenest need to know how the karmic connections might be in the case of Byron. It was, of course, not so easy. But now I suddenly had the following experience. — It was really as if the whole picture of this conversation, with Eugen Heinrich Schmidt being so terribly impolite with his foot! — as if this picture had suddenly drawn my attention to the foot of Lord Byron, who was, as you know, club-footed. And from that I went on to say to myself: My beloved teacher, too, had a foot like that; this karmic connection must be investigated. I have already given you an example, in the affliction of the knee from which Eduard von Hartmann suffered, of how one’s search can be led back through peculiarities of this kind. I was able now to perceive the destiny of the teacher whom I loved and who also had such a foot. And it was remarkable in the highest degree to observe how on the one hand the same peculiarity came to view both in the case of Byron and of my teacher, namely, the club-foot; but how on the other hand the two persons were totally different from one another, Byron, the poet of genius, who in spite of his genius — or perhaps because of it — was an adventurer; and the other a brilliant geometrician such as one seldom finds in teaching posts, a man at whose geometrical imagination and treatment of descriptive geometry one could only stand amazed.

In short, having before me these two men, utterly different in soul, I was able to solve the problem of their karma by reference to this seemingly insignificant physical detail. This detail it was that enabled me to consider the problems of Byron and my geometry teacher in connection with one another, and thereby to find the solution”.

Steiner continues this thread in Karmic Relationships, Vol. V: Lecture IV

“…The two men were there before me in this inner picture. And the karma of my teacher, as well as the peculiarity of which I have told you, led me to the discovery that in the 10th or 11th century, both these souls had lived in their earlier incarnations far over in the East of Europe where they came one day under the influence of a legend, a prophecy. This legend was to the effect that the Palladium, which in a certain magical way helped to sustain the power of Rome, had been brought to that city from ancient Troy, and hidden. When the Emperor Constantine conceived the wish to carry Roman culture to Constantinople he caused the Palladium to be transported with the greatest pomp and pageantry to Constantinople and hidden under a pillar, the details of which gave expression to his overweening pride. For he ordered an ancient statue of Apollo to be set at the top of this pillar, but altered in such a way as to be a portrait of himself. He caused wood to be brought from the Cross on which Christ had been crucified and shaped into a kind of crown which was then placed on the head of this statue. It was the occasion for indulging in veritable orgies of pride!

The legend went on to prophesy that the Palladium would be transferred from Constantinople to the North and that the power embodied in it would be vested eventually in a Slavonic Empire. This prophecy came to the knowledge of the two men of whom I have been speaking and they resolved to go to Constantinople and to carry off the Palladium to Russia. They did not succeed. But in one of them especially — in Byron — the urge remained, and was then transformed in the later life into the impulse to espouse the cause of freedom in Greece. This impulse led Byron, in the 19th century, to the very region, broadly speaking, where he had searched for the Palladium in an earlier incarnation.”

Anders Post

1849 – Birthday of August Strindberg, a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist & painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg’s career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays & more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography, history, cultural analysis, & politics. A bold experimenter & iconoclast throughout, he explored a wide range of dramatic methods & purposes, from naturalistic tragedy, monodrama, & history plays, to his anticipations of expressionist & surrealist dramatic techniques.  From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of dramatic action, language, & visual composition. He is considered the “father” of modern Swedish literature & his The Red Room (1879) has frequently been described as the first modern Swedish novel.

During the 1890s he spent significant time abroad engaged in scientific experiments and studies of the occult. A series of psychotic attacks between 1894 & 1896 (referred to as his “Inferno crisis”) led to his hospitalization & return to Sweden. Under the influence of the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, he resolved after his recovery to become “the Zola of the Occult”. In 1898 he returned to playwriting with ‘To Damascu’s, which, like The Great Highway (1909), is a dream-play of spiritual pilgrimage. His ‘A Dream Play’ (1902) – with its radical attempt to dramatize the workings of the unconscious by means of an abolition of conventional dramatic time & space & the splitting, doubling, merging, & multiplication of its characters – was an important precursor to both expressionism & surrealism. He also returned to writing historical drama, the genre with which he had begun his playwriting career. He helped to run the Intimate Theatre from 1907, a small-scale theatre, modelled on Max Reinhardt’s Kammerspielhaus, that staged his chamber plays (such as The Ghost Sonata)

Rudolf Steiner gives an amazing account of his former life in as an initiate in ancient Egypt, in a karmic knot with another. They then both reincarnated together again Strindberg as Julia & his friend as Titus Livius. This account must be read in full.

1901 – Deathday of Queen Victoria ruling over the United Kingdom, Ireland & India. She inherited the throne aged 18. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy & ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. Their nine children married into royal & noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the sobriquet “the grandmother of Europe”. After Albert’s death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning & avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign her popularity recovered. Her Golden& Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.

Her reign of 63 years & seven months is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, & military change within the United Kingdom, & was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover. Her son & successor, Edward VII, belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father.

Victoria wrote an average of 2,500 words a day during her adult life. From July 1832 until just before her death, she kept a detailed journal, which eventually encompassed 122 volumes. After Victoria’s death, her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, was appointed her literary executor. Beatrice transcribed and edited the diaries covering Victoria’s accession onwards, & burned the originals in the process. Despite this destruction, much of the diaries still exist.

1910 – Deathday of Johann Steiner, father of Rudolf Steiner

“One spring day in 1860, an autocratic Hungarian magnate, a certain Count Hoyos, who owned several large estates in Austria, dismissed his game-keeper, because this game-keeper, Johannes Steiner wanted to marry Franziska Blie, one of the Count’s innumerable housemaids. Perhaps the old Count had a foreboding as to what a great spiritual revolution would be born of this marriage. (The baroque palace of Hom, where it happened, is still in the possession of the Hoyos family, and stands today just as it was one hundred years ago.) So Johannes Steiner had to look for another occupation, and got himself accepted as a trainee telegraphist and signalman by the recently opened Austrian Southern Railway. He was given his first job in an out-of-the-way request stop called Kraljevic (today in Yugoslavia), and there his first child, Rudolf, arrived on February 25-27, 1861. On the same day the child was taken for an emergency baptism to the parish Church of St. Michael in the neighboring village of Draskovec. The baptismal register was written in Serbo-Croat and Latin, and the entry still can be read today as of one Rudolfus Josephus Laurentius Steiner. “Thus it happened,” Rudolf Steiner writes in his autobiography, “that the place of my birth is far removed from the region where I come from.”

From the severity of the Puszta the family moved, when the boy was two years old, into one of the most idyllic parts of Austria, called “the Burgenland” since 1921. Comprising the foothills of the eastern Alps, it is of great natural beauty, very fertile, and drenched in history. It takes its name from the many Burgen, i.e. castles which at different times of history were erected on nearly every hill. During recent excavations coins bearing the head of Philip of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great, have been found near Neudörfl, where the Steiners now settled, and where a daughter and a younger son were added to the family.

The management of the Austrian Southern Railway seems to have taken a sympathetic view toward the promising boy, and agreed to move father Steiner as stationmaster to several small stations south of Vienna, so that the eldest son was able to attend good schools as a day student, and finally in 1879 could matriculate at the Technical University of Vienna, then one of the most advanced scientific institutions of the world. Until then Rudolf Steiner’s school life had been fairly uneventful, except that some of his masters were rather disturbed by the fact that this teen-ager was a voracious reader of Kant and other philosophers, and privately was engrossed in advanced mathematics.” ~From the intro to Christianity as Mystical fact

The Holy Grail Study Group with the CRC
Mysteries of the Holy Grail – from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation
February 2, 2021 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern)
“Out of the substance of soul and spirit, human beings have to fashion the tools with which to plough a way, the soul-way leading to the castle of the Grail, to the mystery of the Grail, to the mystery of bread and blood, to the fulfilment of the words ‘This do in remembrance of me’. This is, truly, in remembrance of the mighty event of Golgotha, if the symbol of the bread — of what, in other words, develops from the earth through the synthesis of cosmic forces — is understood. It is done in full remembrance if we understand once again how to grasp the world through a spiritualized cosmology and astronomy, and if we learn to comprehend the human being in terms of his essence: the element where the spiritual directly enters him — the mystery of the blood. The path that leads to the Holy Grail must be found through inner work in human souls. This is the task of cognition and the social task.”~Rudolf Steiner, 
The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Chapter 8, “The Lapse into Matter”, and Chapter 9, 
“Piercing the Thicket”, excerpts from Steiner’s lectures given at Dornach on 16 & 17 April 1921 … 
focus of the February 2 meeting.

Chapters 7, 8 & 9 in the book can be found online at the CRC’s website by clicking this link
A transcript of the 16 April, 1921 lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link
A transcript of the 17 April, 1921 lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link

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
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88210505106

Meeting ID: 882 1050 5106
One tap mobile
+13017158592,,81116556762# US (Germantown)
+13126266799,,81116556762# US (Chicago)

Dial by your location
        +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
        +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
        +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 882 1050 5106

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcHr5EVwrv

If you have questions, please contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@utexas.edu
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
          Michael – Chapter 8
          Camille – Chapter 9
7:50  Conversation
8:25   ID volunteers for next meeting
8:28  Close with verse
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

Rising

Biography, Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, History, Poetry, Quote, Rudolf Steiner Quote

Here in the Northern Hemisphere our Day-Star-Sun is rising about a minute earlier each morning & setting a minute later every evening. As a result, we can drink in about 15 minutes more sunlight every week. The psycho-physical effect of this steady influx is slowly rising, & in concert with a variety of astrological & evolutionary influences, will eventually reach critical mass. As a result, humanity will become Sun-like – a luminous beacon of warmth.

With this thought in mind, everything you shine upon will look brighter, & your own Sun-like beauty will be exceedingly visible, as well. So make each moment, the perfect time, to pursue your highest destiny.

But remember what Andrew Harvey, said: “If you’re really listening, if you’re awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold ever-more wonders.”

So…Be the seed that breaks open to the light. Roots pushing into the dark. Stem reaching. Blossom answering to the stars. Fruit – feeding the world.

~hag

upiter at dusk, Jan. 21, 2022

21 January 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Jupiter still shines brightly in the southwest at dusk, though lower each week. It makes a perfectly nice “Evening Star” to replace brighter Venus, which departed the evening a few weeks ago. To Jupiter’s lower left, Fomalhaut still twinkles (about two fists at arm’s length).


by Peter Paul Rubens, Venus supplicating Jupiter

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

259 – Deathday of St. Fructuosus, bishop of Tarragona arrested during the persecutions of Christians under the Roman Emperor Valerian. He was burned at the stake in the local amphitheater.

304 – Feast Day of St. Agnes of Rome a virgin martyr, 1 of 7 women, who along with the Blessed Virgin Mary, are commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass. She is the patron saint of chastity, gardeners, girls, engaged couples, rape survivors, virgins, & the Children of Mary. Agnes is depicted in art with a lamb. The name “Agnes” is derived from the feminine Greek adjective meaning “chaste, pure, sacred”

1793 – After being found guilty of treason Louis XVI of France is executed by guillotine

1841 – Birthday of Édouard Schuré, a French philosopher, poet, playwright, novelist, music critic, & publicist of esoteric literature. Born in the old cathedral city of Strasbourg. As a young boy he experienced events that, “Ieft traces upon my thoughts, to which my memory returns ever and again.” The result of these events he called “inner vision, evoked by impressions of the external world.” The first of these experiences occurred shortly after the death of his mother, when he & his father visited a resort in Alsace.  On the walls of one of the buildings the ten-year-old boy saw a remarkable series of frescoes, depicting the world of undines, sylphs, gnomes & fire-spirits. Before these representations of the Elemental Beings, the boy was transported into another world, the world of creative fantasy. Like a talisman, the pictures awakened the magic forces of wonder in the child soul, & the result was a new perception.

Not long after the death of his father, which occurred when Schure was fourteen, he visited Paris, & saw for the first time the classical sculptures in the Louvre. The beauty of the Venus di Milo, of Dionysus, of the wounded Amazon, penetrated deeply into the boy, awakening in him a love & appreciation for the world of ancient Greece, which was to play so significant a role in his later work as a playwright. In these sculptures Schure became aware of the fact that a divine beauty can be made manifest in physical substance through the magic of art. At about this same time Schure read a description of the Eleusinian Mysteries of Ancient Greece, & the inner pictures this evoked were so vivid, so compelling, that he dedicated himself to the task of recreating the sacred drama of Eleusis for modern humanity. For Schure was convinced that through the experiencing of such a drama, people of modern times can acquire a totally new conception of the relationship between the spiritual striving of the ancient world & the religious conceptions of today.

Parallel with these experiences of soul & spirit, Schure’s early years were devoted to formal education. Eventually he received his degree in law at the University of Strasbourg, but he never entered into practice. He visited Germany, remaining there for a few years, during which time he wrote Histoire du lied published in 1868. In this book he expressed his love for music & poetry which had been enhanced by his personal acquaintance with Richard Wagner, then living in Munich.

Shortly after his return from his travels in Germany, Schure married the sister of his friend, the composer Nessler.  They moved to Paris, where Schure continued his writing & studies, making friends with some of the most important men & women in the cultural life of France of his time. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Schure & his wife went to Italy.

In Florence Schure made the second great friendship of his life.  One day Malvida von Meysenbergs, the devoted admirer & helper of the philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, introduced Edouard Schure to a Greek lady, Margherita Albana Mignaty. The meeting made a profound impression upon Schure, an impression he was to recall clearly in the last year of his life: “When I saw those great sunny radiant eyes directed questioningly upon me, I felt my consciousness almost desert me, for my whole being seemed called upon to reveal itself.” In the presence of this beautiful woman, so reminiscent of the women of the classical Greece he so deeply loved, Schure once again found access to the spiritual world opening within him. In Margherita Albana Mignaty he discovered a soul to whom the unseen world was as immanent as the physical. This direct relationship with the spiritual world was the result of the death of her child, which had taken place some years before. Through their many conversations, Schure’s own spiritual perception broadened & deepened beyond anything he had previously imagined. He referred to her as his Muse, & saw in her a “spirit that moves mountains, a love which awakens and creates souls, and whose sublime inspiration burns like a radiant light.” on one occasion he asked her how she acquired such precise knowledge of the spiritual history of humankind, such intimate details concerning long-forgotten antiquity. Her reply was profoundly simple: “When I wish to penetrate to the very depths of a subject, I shut myself in my room and reveal myself to myself.” Through the inspiration of Margherita Albana Mignaty ‘as a testimony of a faith acquired and shared,’ Schure’s book The Great Initiates came into being.

Schuré now turned increasingly to the esoteric & the occult, his major influence being the famous French occultist-scholar Fabre d’Olivet.  In 1884, he met the founder of the Theosophical Society Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Although unwelcome in the Theosophical Society, he nevertheless entered.

In 1900, the actress Marie von Sivers came into contact with him because she intended to translate his works into German (The Great Initiates, The Sacred Drama of Eleusis & The Children of Lucifer). At the German Section of the Theosophical Society, he met the Austrian philosopher & later founder of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner. In 1906, Sivers brought about a meeting between Schuré & Steiner. Schuré was deeply impressed & thought of Steiner as an authentic ‘initiate’ in line with his The Great Initiates. After hearing Steiner lecture in Paris for the first time in 1906, Schuré in an ecstatic state ran home & wrote down the entirety of the lecture from memory. This first lecture, & the other lectures in the series (which Schuré wrote down) were published as Esoteric Cosmology. Subsequently, Steiner & von Sivers staged Schuré’s esoteric dramas at the Theosophical Congresses in Berlin & Munich. Schuré’s The Children of Lucifer, served as a precursor of Rudolf Steiner’s own esoteric dramas.

In 1908 Schuré brought out Le Mystère Chrétien et les Mystères Antiques, a French translation of Steiner’s work Christianity as Mystical Fact & the Mysteries of Antiquity.

Édouard Schuré was often visited by Rudolf Steiner in Barr, Alsace. Steiner produced many of Schure’s plays. In speaking about his book The Great Initiates Steiner says: “Édouard Schuré speaks about the ‘Great Illuminated,’ the Great Initiates, who have looked deeply into the background of things, and from this background have given great impulses for the spiritual development of mankind. He traces the great spiritual deeds of Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Pythagoras and Plato, in order to show the unification of all these impulses in Christ…. The light streaming from Schuré’s book enlightens those who wish to be firmly rooted in the spiritual sources from which strength and certainty for modern life can be drawn.” ~Rudolf Steiner

Thoughts on Rudolf Steiner by Edouard Schuré”

“Rudolf Steiner is both a mystic and an occultist. These two natures appear in him in perfect harmony. One could not say which of the two predominates over the other. In intermingling and blending, they have become one homogeneous force. Hence a special development in which outward events play but a secondary part.

Dr. Steiner was born in Upper Austria in 1861. His earliest years were passed in a little town situated on the Leytha, on the borders of Styria, the Carpathians, and Hungary. From childhood his character was serious and concentrated. This was followed by: a youth inwardly illuminated by the most marvelous intuitions, a young manhood encountering terrible trials, and a ripe age crowned by a mission which he had dimly foreseen from his earliest years, but which was only gradually formulated in the struggle for truth and life.

This youth passed in a mountainous and secluded region, was happy in its way, thanks to the exceptional faculties that he discovered in himself. He was employed in a Catholic church as a choir boy. The poetry of the worship, the profundity of the symbolism, had a mysterious attraction for him; but, as he possessed the innate gift of seeing souls, one thing terrified him. This was the secret unbelief of the priests, entirely engrossed in the ritual and the material part of the service. There was another peculiarity: no one, either then or later, allowed himself to talk of any gross superstition in his presence, or to utter any blasphemy, as if those calm and penetrating eyes compelled the speaker to serious thought. In this child, almost always silent, there grew up a quiet and inflexible will, to master things through understanding.

That was easier for him than for others, for he possessed from the first that self-mastery, so rare even in the adult, which gives the mastery over others. To this firm will was added a warm, deep, and almost painful sympathy; a kind of pitiful tenderness to all beings and even to inanimate nature. It seemed to him that all souls had in them something divine. But in what a stony crust is, hidden the shining gold! In what hard rock, in what dark gloom lay dormant the precious essence! Vaguely as yet did this idea stir within him — he was to develop it later — that the divine soul is present in all men, but in a latent state. It is a sleeping captive that has to be awakened from enchantment”. ~Edouard Schuré.

1861 – Feast Day of St. Meinrad a hermit known as the “Martyr of Hospitality”

1908 – New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, making it illegal for women to smoke in public, only to have the measure vetoed by the mayor

1924 – Deathday of Vladimir Lenin

1950 – Deathday of George Orwell

1959 – Deathday of Cecil B. DeMille

1960 – Avianca Flight 671 crashes at Montego Bay, Jamaica killing 137

1961 – 435 workers are buried alive when a mine in Coalbrook, South Africa collapses

1968 – A B-52 bomber crashes near Thule Air Base, contaminating the area after its nuclear payload ruptures. 1 of the 4 bombs remains unaccounted for after the cleanup

2003 – A 7.6 magnitude earthquake strikes the Mexican state of Colima, killing 529 & leaving approximately 10,000 people homeless

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I saw Her
Soul of the Universe
Lady of crossed Destinies
Queen of Honeyed Vibrations
She, Who is the name of Spirit
Pronounced into form
Cut into wax – tossed into flames
She, Who sets the secret paths
Plotting my life
Aligned with Divine Will…
Her Name is Holy Mine
~hag

The Holy Grail Study Group with the CRC
Mysteries of the Holy Grail – from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation
February 2, 2021 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern)
“Out of the substance of soul and spirit, human beings have to fashion the tools with which to plough a way, the soul-way leading to the castle of the Grail, to the mystery of the Grail, to the mystery of bread and blood, to the fulfilment of the words ‘This do in remembrance of me’. This is, truly, in remembrance of the mighty event of Golgotha, if the symbol of the bread — of what, in other words, develops from the earth through the synthesis of cosmic forces — is understood. It is done in full remembrance if we understand once again how to grasp the world through a spiritualized cosmology and astronomy, and if we learn to comprehend the human being in terms of his essence: the element where the spiritual directly enters him — the mystery of the blood. The path that leads to the Holy Grail must be found through inner work in human souls. This is the task of cognition and the social task.”~Rudolf Steiner, 
The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Chapter 8, “The Lapse into Matter”, and Chapter 9, 
“Piercing the Thicket”, excerpts from Steiner’s lectures given at Dornach on 16 & 17 April 1921 … 
focus of the February 2 meeting.

Chapters 7, 8 & 9 in the book can be found online at the CRC’s website by clicking this link
A transcript of the 16 April, 1921 lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link
A transcript of the 17 April, 1921 lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link

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
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88210505106

Meeting ID: 882 1050 5106
One tap mobile
+13017158592,,81116556762# US (Germantown)
+13126266799,,81116556762# US (Chicago)

Dial by your location
        +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
        +1 646 558 8656 US (New York)
        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
        +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
Meeting ID: 882 1050 5106

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kcHr5EVwrv

If you have questions, please contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@utexas.edu
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
          Michael – Chapter 8
          Camille – Chapter 9
7:50  Conversation
8:25   ID volunteers for next meeting
8:28  Close with verse
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

Bring Love into Willing

Calendar of the Soul, Celestial Event, History, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars
Szabolcs Bodo

~Today I will
Seize darkness by its limbs & shake it –
So that the souls of the good
Ancient swallowed gods
Fall out of the belly of obscurity –
The old, the few, the forgotten
Thought back into being
Whispering the secrets of Renewal
To bring Love into Willing…
~hag

16 January 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Welcome to the Eve of the 1st Full Moon of 2022 – the Wolf Moon, Snow Moon or Hunger Moon. We experience the energy of a Full Moon as it is cresting, so 3 days before, & also for 3 days after; though the real power is in the Eve before hitting exact on January 17, at 5:48 p.m. CST

Interesting to think of the Hopi name for this moon – Paamuya or Moon of Life at its Height – comparing the January Full Moon to the Summer Sun, for it follows the path of the Sun six months from now, riding high in the sky.

Thinking of it in terms of constellations, the January Sun beams in front of the constellation Capricornus. The January Full Moon shines in front of the constellation Cancer. Six months from now, the Sun will shine in front of that constellation.

All Full Moons are opposite the Sun. So we can expect to see Bella Luna in the East at dusk, tonight and tomorrow. She will climb upward in the evening hours, and soar to her highest point around midnight. If you’re an earlier riser, watch for her these next couple of mornings, low in the Western sky during the wee hours before sunrise.

Aja Trier

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Tyler Cantell

1838 – Birthday of Franz Brentano an influential German philosopher, psychologist, & priest whose work strongly influenced not only students Edmund Husserl, Sigmund Freud, Kazimierz Twardowski, Alexius Meinong, Carl Stumpf, Anton Marty, Christian von Ehrenfels, and Tomáš Masaryk, but many others whose work would follow &make use of his original ideas & concepts. Rudolf Steiner recalls the obituary he gave of Brentano as part of his lecture The Case for Anthroposophy where he also speaks about the Separation of the ‘Psychological from the Non-Psychological’ in Franz Brentano.

1901 – Deathday of Arnold Böcklin a Swiss symbolist painter. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in an incarnation as an Arthurian Knight

1945 – Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker

1954 – Birthday of Sergei Olegovich Prokofieff  – In the biographical sketch given by Rolf Herzog of the Christian Community we hear that Sergei kept secret his inner connection with the spiritual world; that as a child he never had the impression that this was his first time on the earth; and that, in his ninth year he rediscovered esoteric Christianity through the Parzival story which was read aloud to him from the libretto of Wagner’s opera by his grandfather, in their home in Moscow. Sergei, starting at the age of 14, spent his vacations in Max Voloschin’s home in the Crimea, where he found books by Rudolf Steiner in the comprehensive library there .

Sergei had a rich inner life with an intense adolescence of spiritual seeking that included many mystical experiences. From his own words: “Everything Rudolf Steiner spoke of was already known to me, but I was unable to express it in thoughts before then. What had lived in my soul as a general, undefined feeling was now penetrated by a conscious clarity of thought.”

In the years between 1971 and 1973, when he was 17 to 19 years old, he wrote extraordinary poetry about the path out of the darkness into the light – about spiritual battles and apocalyptic events, with profound honesty and dramatic inner force. “I was awakened in the night by the powerful inspiration, as though awakened by the verses themselves. I rushed to my desk in order to capture the poetic words and images quickly—often putting on paper a poem that had arisen fully formed in me—frequently more than one; it was as if they themselves were striving and streaming towards the page. They were the poems of a ‘soul on fire.’” These poems had remained hidden in a cupboard in his parent’s Moscow home— he had shown them to no one when they were written—until he rediscovered them there on a visit during his illness. He decided to publish them by a non-anthroposophical press in Moscow in a splendid volume of more than 400 pages entitled ‘The Mystic Fire of the Soul’.

The voice of the verses went silent around the time of his first moon node, when he decided out of the most profound depths of his soul not only to read the writings of Rudolf Steiner
but also to choose anthroposophy as the central task of his life and his destiny. With this, his biography changed: “Only when the decision had been made and I experienced with full force that my life had received new meaning and purpose was I led out of my original lonely condition by the guidance of my destiny—I was taking the first steps to serve those ideals
consciously which had previously lived below the surface in my soul and which now had become for me a fully conscious reality thanks to spiritual science.”

Prokofieff, wrote his first book, Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries, while living in Soviet Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was a co-founder of the Anthroposophical Society in Russia. At Easter 2001, he became a member of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland.

At the core of his work is an attempt to develop a deepened understanding for Christianity on the basis of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific research. Peter Selg, in his memorial address, after Sergei died an early death on 26 July 2014, described him as “this most inwardly faithful pupil of Rudolf Steiner and protector of his new revelation of Christ.” Sergei had a powerful way of bringing together complex connections & interrelationships from Steiner’s ideas.

As part of the Vorstand he felt it was his calling to fulfill Steiner’s ideal of making the Goetheanum into a contemporary Mystery Center. Read more about this amazing individual in the articles written about his life in ‘Anthroposophy Worldwide‘. Or pick up one of his many books, & read the fruits of his insights for yourself. Prokofieff was a prolific writer leaving us a treasure trove of Works.

1970 – Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects

Lydia Xeyon

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
EPIPHANY III
Seeing With The Heart
v42
The soul in gloom of winter moved
to bring to light her life’s own force
her impulse is to guide it far
and in the dark forefeel
through warmth of heart
the life the senses will reveal.

In winter’s darkness can we experience what it can tell us about ourselves
and the world, receiving through ‘warmth of heart’ new sense revelations?
In the mirror verse, exploring the beauty of the world in midsummer light,
can we lose ourselves, expand into the supersensory world to experience
the Cosmic Self, the Christ?

THE SUMMER SOLSTICE
Midsummer Wisdom
v11
It rests this sun’s high hour with you
to recognise the call of wisdom:
In you, absorbed in worlds where beauty lies,
through all your feeling realise:
the human I can lose itself
and find itself within the Cosmic I.

Emerge%20with%20us!%20(1)(1).png
Sometimes you need another chance. Because sometimes…the timing is better the second time around! 
Starting now through January 18 you can register with pro-rated tuition for Applied Anthroposophy. Access to all previous recordings from these programs will be included, leaving you free to catch up on your own time as you jump right into our current courses. 

Click here to register for Applied Anthroposophy by 1/18!

The Applied Anthroposophy Course (AAC) had over 180 people from all over the world participate in the first semester.  You have two options to register this January: 

1. Register for our weekly Seed Series Presentations (check out our stellar faculty here!)

2. Register for the Full Program which includes the Seed Series as well as the option to join up to six themed Chrysalis Groups that meet each week.  (I lead the Thursday morning Chrysalis Group: ‘The Cycle of the Year as Path of Initiation’ with artist Nancy Melvin, 9:30 am CT. )

Course Dates: January 26 – May 25, 2022

Full Program Tuition: $400*

Seed Series Only: $200

*Additional Youth and Equity Discounts available 

Don’t kill the Messenger

Celestial Event, Community, History
Terry Bentley

~In my retro dance with the Messenger
I meet the guardian on the horizon of the abyss
& become the falcon that flies between them…
In the sigh of night & in the bark of morning
I gain passage to hidden things…
The Spirit of the Law, Truth, Memory & Time are
My sails & rudders
Taking me thru the ‘Spirit’s Ocean Being’,
Deep with activated purpose …
Leading me to what 2022 must do…
~hag

15 January 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Overview of the Mercury (occult Venus) Signature for January.

  • Jan 2, 2022 : Mercury enters Aquarius
  • Jan 14, 2022 : Mercury turns retrograde at 10° 20′ Aquarius
  • Jan 23, 2022 : Sun ( 3Aqu22) Conjunct [ 3Aqu22] Mercury
  • Jan 26, 2022 : Mercury enters Capricorn
  • Jan 29, 2022 : Mercury [26Cap51] Conjunct (26Cap51) Pluto

MERCURY RETROGRADE FROM AQUARIUS TO CAPRICORN from Roberto Corona –
Aquarius is the zodiac sign of humanitarian ideals. Whereas Capricorn is a realist and pessimistic sign, that focuses on survival. So we can interpret the Mercury passage from Aquarius to Capricorn as a moment that may cause our mind to second-guess our ideals, in favor of a more practical approach.

This is not necessarily a bad thing, if we consider that Jupiter in Pisces is bringing new inspirations in this regard. Governments (Saturn in Aquarius) brought a form of change that goes against the population (Uranus in Taurus). This struggle needs to end, in order to create space for new spiritual impulses to emerge (Jupiter).

But before doing that we need to process all the media manipulation and the lies that we have suffered so far. The mind (Mercury) goes back (retrograde) to lies of the past (Pluto) in order to process them and to unveil the truth.

In general, this transit involves not only lies, omissions, but also power dynamics and manipulation—which are all Plutonic significations. This being said, in order to consciously process the transit we can ask ourselves:

*Are our ideals attainable?
*Do we have enough power to make them happen?
*Are we using them not to hide behind, to not face reality?
*Where has fighting for our ideals led us so far?
*What are the lies they have told us / we’ve been telling ourselves?

Joy Lenitean

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1929 – Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.

1969 – Deathday of Maria Röschl-Lehrs – Member of the Esoteric Youth Circle. Maria Röschl was the daughter of a financial officer from Vienna. Her mother was a native of the Polish landed gentry, so she grew up multilingual. The family moved to Vienna in 1895. From a very young age she was a very serious, & reserved.

After leaving school, Röschl took painting lessons & planned an artistic career, but finally decided to study at the University of Vienna to teach German philology, classical philology, art history & philosophy. Since she was interested in the importance of sleep for the human soul, she wrote her dissertation on the ‘Dream of Goethe’. In the course of her research she was found Rudolf Steiner’s Work “How to know higher worlds”, & was deeply impressed.

After completing her studies, Röschl initially gave private lessons & then taught German, Latin & Greek for five years at a Viennese girls’ grammar school.

In 1918 she met Karl Schubert, who introduced her to the Anthroposophical Society in Vienna & in 1920 she became a member. Through Schubert’s mediation, she discovered the Waldorf School in Stuttgart & began teaching Latin, Greek & took over the free religious education there from 1922. In March 1923, together with Herbert Hahn & Karl Schubert, she was able to hold Rudolf Steiner’s “sacrificial ceremony” for senior high school students & became Steiner’s personal student. After the Christmas Conference in 1924, she was appointed director of the youth section of the newly founded Free School of Spiritual Science & held this position until the spring of 1931.

Following the death of Rudolf Steiner in 1926, Röschl organized a two-year introductory course in anthroposophy together with young doctors & scientists in Dornach. Increasingly, however, their work was hampered by the ever-increasing crisis within the General Anthroposophical Society. Therefore, she decided in 1931 to return as a teacher to the Stuttgart Waldorf School. In 1935 she took over the management of the teacher training.

However, since the circumstances in Germany became unacceptable for her after the seizure of power by the National Socialists in 1933, she emigrated to Clent, a village in the English county of Worcestershire. In the Summer of 1933, Röschl & her husband traveled to Spring Valley NY in America as keynote speakers for the 1st Summer school at the Threefold Center.

In 1935 she accepted a job as private tutor in Costa Rica. After a stopover in Arlesheim, Röschl returned to England, where she married Ernst Lehrs another Waldorf teacher & anthroposopher, who had also emigrated to England. In 1940 she took the anthroposophic work to Scottish Aberdeen along with her husband, & Charles King. At that time she also worked with Ita Wegman as editor of the First Class School of Spiritual Science.

After the Second World War, Röschl worked in teacher training in Gloucester. In 1952 she finally returned to Germany with her husband & worked until her death in 1969 as a lecturer at the curative education seminar in Eckwälden.

From: “Into the Heart’s Land” – where Henry Banes mentions Maria Roeschl 

“It was 1933. The Threefold Farm, on Hungry Hollow Road in Spring Valley, New York, had celebrated its seventh birthday. The Rudolf Steiner School was five years old. Eurythmy was an established presence. Dr. Christoph Linder was building a practice based on the principles of anthroposophically extended medicine, which was also served by the Weleda pharmaceutical initiative. Anthroposophy was indeed beginning to put down roots, even though these were primarily focused in and around New York City.

At this time, Ralph Courtney and the Threefold Group undertook an initiative that was to have far-reaching consequences. Three distinguished representatives of the anthroposophical movement in Europe were invited to participate in the first anthroposophical summer school, to be held at the Threefold Farm that July.

Two of the three speakers were members of the faculty of the original Waldorf school in Stuttgart. The third was the young scientist destined to play a decisive role in the further evolution of Anthroposophy in America. Maria Roeschl and Ernst Lehrs were the teachers, later united in marriage while they lived in England after the Waldorf school closed in 1938 and the outbreak of World War II. Maria Roeschl was Austrian by birth; a woman of great erudition, a classical scholar, and a doctor of philosophy. But she was also an individual of inborn spirituality, deepened and disciplined through her years as a personal pupil of Rudolf Steiner. Ernst Lehrs was a teacher of science, a man of keen intelligence, and a personal pupil of Dr. Steiner. Both Roeschl and Lehrs taught the older students in Stuttgart. Maria Roeschl was a member of the circle of teachers who carried the “free religious instruction” and the services, inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner in response to the requests of parents of the School. At the time of the Christmas Foundation, Roeschl had been asked by Steiner to lead the “Section for the Spiritual Striving of Youth,” part of the newly inaugurated School of Spiritual Science (see chapter fifty-nine).

The young scientist Ehrenfried Pfeiffer was, in a very real sense, a protégé of Rudolf Steiner. Pfeiffer was thirty-four at the time of the first summer school conference. Ralph Courtney’s initiative, wholeheartedly backed and supported by Charlotte Parker and the Threefold Group, as well as by Henry Monges and the society’s council, was a real inauguration deed. This was subsequently confirmed by the fact that every following summer, without interruption, the Threefold Community hosted one, or more, conferences presenting one aspect or another of anthroposophical activity and research. ~ by Henry Barnes, The First Summer School

Applied Anthroposophy Course Accepting New Participants

One never knows what to expect from the unfolding of a new year.  But we can choose to engage ourselves in communities that support our positive becoming.  

Now in its second successful year, the online Applied Anthroposophy Course (AAC) had over 180 people participate in the first semester.  By popular request we are opening the second semester for new participants to join us.

Meeting on Zoom, we have participants from all over the world’s time zones and with a wide variety of availability in their schedules. There are two different registration options:

Weekly “Seed Series” Presentations include a list of world class faculty.  The calendar has the dates of the Second Semester presentations.  All the video recordings from semester one are available as well. 

The Full Program includes the weekly Seed Series as well as six themed “Chrysalis Small Groups” that meet each week. Full Program registrants are able to participate in as many themed groups as they like and are able. 

What all AAC participants have in common is the intention to apply the transformative insights of Spiritual Science to their lives.  

Please consider this opportunity to join us as we encourage each other’s meeting of the contemporary world with a sense of practical wonder. . . like a butterfly emerging into the light, transformed by all that took place in the depths of the chrysalis.

Second Semester Dates: January 26 – May 25, 2022.  

Registration for new participants is between January 8th – 18th.

Full Program Tuition: $400

Seed Series Only: $200

Additional Youth and Equity Discounts available for the BIPOC community, anyone who has lost their livelihood, is undergoing hardship, or lives in a country where the local currency is very low against the dollar.

Visit appliedanthroposophy.org for all the latest information.  

Still have a question?  

Don’t hesitate to contact us at emerge@appliedanthroposophy.org.

Applied Anthroposophy Course Accepting New Participants

One never knows what to expect from the unfolding of a new year.  But we can choose to engage ourselves in communities that support our positive becoming.  

Now in its second successful year, the online Applied Anthroposophy Course (AAC) had over 180 people participate in the first semester.  By popular request we are opening the second semester for new participants to join us.

Meeting on Zoom, we have participants from all over the world’s time zones and with a wide variety of availability in their schedules. There are two different registration options:

Weekly “Seed Series” Presentations include a list of world class faculty.  The calendar has the dates of the Second Semester presentations.  All the video recordings from semester one are available as well. 

The Full Program includes the weekly Seed Series as well as six themed “Chrysalis Small Groups” that meet each week. Full Program registrants are able to participate in as many themed groups as they like and are able. 

What all AAC participants have in common is the intention to apply the transformative insights of Spiritual Science to their lives.  

Please consider this opportunity to join us as we encourage each other’s meeting of the contemporary world with a sense of practical wonder. . . like a butterfly emerging into the light, transformed by all that took place in the depths of the chrysalis.

Second Semester Dates: January 26 – May 25, 2022.  

Registration for new participants is between January 8th – 18th.

Full Program Tuition: $400

Seed Series Only: $200

Additional Youth and Equity Discounts available for the BIPOC community, anyone who has lost their livelihood, is undergoing hardship, or lives in a country where the local currency is very low against the dollar.

Visit appliedanthroposophy.org for all the latest information.  

Still have a question?  

Don’t hesitate to contact us at emerge@appliedanthroposophy.org.

What is the Moral of the Story?

Biography, Celestial Event, History, Poetry
Debojyoti Boruah

Listen to the Story on the ‘I Think Speech‘ podcast

January Story (adapted from an Italian legend my Strega Nona used to tell)

It was early in the year still cold & biting was the wind.  A poor mother & her sweet daughter Ella lived in a small cottage outside the city near the great woods.  One morning, Ella put on her warmest winter clothes & went with her basket to look for a morsel of food for her good mother.
Ella asked everywhere for a crust of bread or a bit of carrot, but no one could spare a bite. Ella did not want to take an empty basket home, so she went into the woods to look for nuts & roots hidden under the snow.  On the way she found a little mouse whose tail was caught under a stone.  Ella gently freed him, & the mouse said, ‘Thank you kind child, I have been trapped here for a long time.  May good fortune find you’.  Then he scampered away through the frosty forest.

As she wandered on, she noticed a tree whose branches were so weighed down with snow, she thought they would break.  So she shook the tree until it could stand up straight again.  ‘Oh my,’ said the tree, ‘that feels much better, thank you dear child, may good fortune find you.’

Ella went on through the forest, & saw a little robin shivering from the cold. She picked the robin up & wrapped her carefully in her warm woolen hat until the robin stopped shivering.  ‘Thank you dear child,’ sang the robin, ‘I feel warm enough to fly now.  May good fortune find you.’ The bird flapped her wings & flew toward a cloud covered sun.

Ella had now walked deep into the woods where she knew a hazelnut tree grew.  ‘Perhaps I will find nuts here,’ she thought to herself.  So she started to dig under the snow, & sure enough her hard work payed off for she did indeed find nuts enough to fill her basket.  As she was digging here & there, a kind old woman with long silver hair appeared dressed all in white. She spoke to her with a voice as warm as light.

‘I am the Grandmother of the Year.  My four daughters & I have seen how thoughtful you are. My children each have a question for you.’

One daughter came all dressed in light green.  She smiled at Ella & asked her, ‘What is Spring like dear child?’

Ella answered, ‘Oh Spring is fresh & new & full of crocuses & daffodils & baby birds. I love Spring!’  The green daughter smiled at Ella & nodded.

Then a second daughter came all dressed in yellow, & asked, ‘What is Summer like dear child?’

‘Oh,’ said Ella, ‘Summer is a time to run & play in sunshine, tend the garden, pick flowers, & chase butterflies & fireflies.  I love Summer!’  The yellow daughter smiled & nodded.

Then a third daughter appeared dressed in red. She asked Ella, ‘What is Autumn like dear child?’

‘Autumn,’ said Ella, ‘is full of dancing leaves like flames, apples & pumpkins, & it is harvest time.  I love Autumn!’  The red daughter smiled & nodded.

Then the Grandmother of the Year’s fourth daughter appeared all dressed in pale blue.  ‘What is Winter like dear child,’ he asked.

‘Winter snow sparkles like the stars’, replied Ella.  ‘Our cheeks get rosy as we make snowmen, & we light candles in the house, & read books. I love Winter!’  This blue daughter also smiled & nodded.

Then the four daughters & the Grandmother of the Year who stood before her – disappeared.  Ella rubbed her eyes, & thought she had been dreaming, but when she looked in her basket of old nuts, they had turned into gold, frankincense & myrrh!

When she returned home her mother rejoiced.  They shared these riches with all who asked & were never poor or hungry again!

~hag

13 January 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”:

A satellite for 1 of every 15 points of light in the sky Astronomer Samantha Lawler has studied what will happen to Earth’s night sky if satellite companies follow through on their current plans to launch tens of thousands of communications satellites into Earth orbit. She wrote: “With no regulation, I know that in the near future, 1 out of every 15 points you can see in the sky will actually be relentlessly crawling satellites, not stars. This will be devastating to research astronomy and will completely change the night sky worldwide.” Read more about the race to save our skies.

“If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” ~Joseph Campbell

Tjugondag Knut dansas julen ut | Nordiska museet

(“Twentieth Day Yule”), or Tjugondag Knut (“Twentieth Day Knut”),  a traditional festival celebrated in Sweden & Finland on 13 January. Christmas trees are taken down on Tjugondag jul, & the candies &cookies that decorated the tree are eaten. In Sweden, the feast held during this event is called a Knut’s party (Julgransplundring, literally “Christmas tree plundering”)

Christmas Swedish Santa Claus Tomte Gnome Plush Doll Long Leg Handmade Collectible Dolls Christmas Decorations For Home|Pendant & Drop Ornaments| - AliExpress

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of the human being”. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

1090 – Birthday of Bernard of Clairvaux, Mystic, Theologian, Co-Founder of the Order of the Templars

1497 – Deathday of St. Veronica of Milan. Being very poor & having no formal education, she attempted to teach herself to read.  While making this effort one night, the Virgin Mary appeared to Veronica, & taught her in the form of three mystical letters: The first signified purity of intention; the second, abhorrence of murmuring or criticism; the third, daily meditation on the Passion. By the first she learned to begin her daily duties for no human motive, but for God alone; by the second, to carry out what she had begun by attending to her own affairs, never judging her neighbor, but praying for those who did wrong; by the third she was enabled to forget her own pains & sorrows in those of her Lord, & to weep hourly, but silently, over the memory of His wrongs.

Veronica became accustomed to nearly constant apparitions & religious ecstasies. She saw scenes from the life of Christ, yet these never interrupted her work. She joined an Augustinian lay order at the convent of Saint Martha in Milan at the age of 22. This community was very poor; Veronica’s job was to beg in the streets of the city for food.

She received a vision of Christ in 1494, & was given a message for Pope Alexander VI, so she traveled to Rome to deliver it. After a six-month illness, Veronica died on the date she had predicted, 13 January 1497.

1915 – The Avezzano earthquake shakes the Province of L’Aquila in Italy with a maximum intensity of XI (Extreme), killing over 32,610 people.

2001 – An earthquake hits El Salvador, killing more than 1800

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~May I ride in calm waters toward destiny
May my flesh be a sail propelled by the breath of true knowing
May the rhythm of my heart stir music that embraces darkness
May my spirit witness what my hands create,
The words I utter, the worlds I think…
~hag