Category Archives: History

Initiative

August 17, 2021Festival, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

The General Council of the ASA = hag, John Bloom, *Gino Ver Eecke*, Deb Abrahams-Dematte, Helen-Ann Ireland, *Christine Burke*, Dave Alsop, Dave Mansur, John H Beck, *Micky Leach*, Katherine Thivierge, missing: Nathaniel Williams

Greetings friends –

I am still re-acclimatizing after an intensely stimulating retreat with the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America. We met for the 1^st in-person gathering since the onset of the Corona-Crisis, at the Rudolf Steiner House in Ann Arbor, MI, the home of the ASA with its offices, including the work of the prison outreach program. It also houses the Great Lakes branch; & it’s only a few steps from the amazing Nichols Arboretum.

The beautiful brick building was built as the ‘Acacia Fraternity’, in 1923, for the sons of Masons attending the University of Michigan. A plaque engraved on the corner stone reads: “For the good of humankind” in Greek.

I was asked by Helen-Ann, the Chair of the Council, to bring 2 sessions of artistic activity for our retreat. I thought it would be engaging & powerful to explore the ‘Two main streams in Anthroposophy’ through a short theatrical-piece of famous quotes. So we all took on characters speaking in the voices of some famous Platonic & Aristotelian individualities from the past.

Besides being enlivening, the goal of this recitation was to help us contemplate where we may stand in these streams. It is always my hope that we will look to how we can learn from & appreciate the other tributaries; remembering that just as with the temperaments, none are ‘better or worse – right or wrong’; we are called to balance them all within us.

Clues as to your ‘original stream’ might be characters from history that you may feel drawn to. Being conscious of our sympathies & antipathies can reveal a lot. Do you relate more toward inner development or service? Do you resonate to the tales of Arthur & the Round Table or those of Parzival & the Holy Grail? Which of the original Vorstand members do you have an affinity with? Which panel of the FSM is your fav? It might also help to think which of the 6 basic exercises is easiest, which hardest for you; or what your favorite basic book is…?

We began with singing a song I learned when I presented at the “YIP Initiative Forum: Are You Listening?” And ended with a song written by Ultra-Violet Archer that was perfect: ‘You & Me, we are the leaves of the same tree, growing anew, & falling, side-by-side, come along for the ride’…

Then we worked with a piece i called: A Play on Words, complied by ~hag from Quotes by: Rudolf Steiner/Aristotle/Aquinas; Christian Rosenkreutz/Lazurus-John; Plato/Hroswitha; Alanus ab Insulis/ Lievegoed; Alexander the Great/Ita Wegman; Goethe; Schiller; Fichte; Schelling; Hegel; Marie Steiner; Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven; Sergei O. Prokofieff.

We switched off playing the different parts, & thru Nathaniel’s encouragement, had fun making gestures & connecting. It was an enlivening time, a wonderful way to loosen up while still doing deep anthroposophical exploration.

The spirit of place still holds the aura of Dr. Ernst Katz, a professor of physics at the University of Michigan, who together with his wife, Katherine, fostered the growth of anthroposophy in Ann Arbor for sixty years. Folks in the community regaled him thru many stories of how he touched their lives during a potluck-initiative-sharing with the GC on Saturday evening.

The long weekend was all about embodying initiative, which has become the driving force behind the General Councils’ focus & worldview. As a person of initiative myself, this is very exciting.

Before I left for the retreat my husband CG & some friends who own a biodynamic cranberry marsh met with Farmer John & Haidy Peterson of Angelic Organics, for a brainstorming session on how to create a ‘Community Farm Initiative’ to support biodynamic farmers working to ‘Spiritualize the Earth’, & to bring ‘Culture back to Agriculture’.

It seems, dear friends, that we are all being called to waken to our will.

Will you wkae for heavens sake?

~hag

Farmer Dan Gannon ‘Community Farm of Ann Arbor’

“Be a person of initiative, and take care that the hindrances of your own body or hindrances that otherwise confront you do not prevent you from finding the center of your being, where the source of your initiative lies. Likewise, you will find that all joy and sorrow, all happiness and pain, depend on finding or not finding your own individual initiative” ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume III, The Karmic Relationships of the Anthroposophical Movement, 1 August 1924, Dornach, GA 237

The calling of Anthroposophia & Michael is to become human beings of initiative – an unfolding of our karma. What meets us in this life depends on the extent to which we can become actively & willingly, conscious of it.

“…the Vorstand declares that it places itself within the Society in the freest manner possible: it wants nothing else but to be a group of people with initiative for the cause of Anthroposophy. To live fully in initiative for the cause of Anthroposophy will have to be the heart’s blood of this Vorstand. It is not a representative of people in the abstract; it is a representative of the anthroposophical cause here at the Goetheanum…The membership and the Vorstand, and their relationship with one another, is thought of as being quite generally human in an entirely free way in the future. We have not achieved this as yet; we must make it obvious to all the world...” ~ The Christmas Conference, Part Two: The Proceedings of the Conference – Rudolf Steiner’s Opening Lecture and Reading of the Statutes, 24 December, 11.15 a.m.

17 August 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: After nightfall, look far below Bella Luna for the Cat’s Eyes in the tail of Scorpius – Lambda and Upsilon Scorpii, canted at an angle; the cat is tilting its head to the right. And the cat has a bleary eye; Upsilon is fainter than Lambda.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“Nescire autem quid antequam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. (To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.)” ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1560 – The Roman Catholic Church is overthrown & Protestantism is established as the national religion in Scotland

1585 – A first group of colonists sent by Sir Walter Raleigh under the charge of Ralph Lane lands in the New World to create Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina

1586 – Birthday of Johann Valentin Andrea, who wrote: The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz

1687 – Deathday of Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen , kidnapped at the age of 10 by Hessian soldiery, – in their midst tasted the adventures of military life in the Thirty Years’ War. He was made Schultheiss (magistrate) at Renchen in Baden where he devoted himself to literary pursuits. Greatly influenced by previous utopian & travel literature, he wrote the Simplicissimus series, inspired by the events & horrors of the Thirty Years’ War which devastated Germany from 1618 to 1648, it is regarded as the first adventure novel in the German language & the first German novel masterpiece. The full subtitle is “The life of an odd vagrant named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim: namely where and in what manner he came into this world, what he saw, learned, experienced, and endured therein; also why he again left it of his own free will.” It attained a readership larger than any other seventeenth-century novel

1668 – A magnitude 8.0 earthquake causes 8,000 deaths in Anatolia, Ottoman Empire

Vietnam 2016 | Basilica of Our Lady of La Vang — Suzanne Nuyen

1798 – The Vietnamese report a Marian apparition in Quảng Trị, an event which is called Our Lady of La Vang

1807 – Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world

1911 – The 1^st performance of Rudolf Steiner’s 2^nd Mystery Drama, The Trial of the Soul, in the Gardener’s Place Theatre in Munich. In all 4 four plays. Steiner showed how spiritual development might manifest in a freely formed, but karmically-knit group of people. The experiences of the main characters of the play, particularly Johannes, Capesius & Strader, represent 3 different aspects of the path of initiation – “differing according to the karma of the respective individualities.” Steiner described his process of artistic creation as “images that grew like the leaves of a plant”.

1918 – Bolshevik revolutionary leader Moisei Uritsky is assassinated

1924 – Rudolf Steiner visits Tintagel, mystery center & court of King Arthur.

On his final visit to Britain, Rudolf Steiner’s schedule of lecturing was hectic. He delivered three lectures a day during the Anthroposophical Society’s Summer School at Torquay (11-22 August 1924) – but that is another story…Steiner took one day out of that busy schedule, to go as far west as he ever ventured in that lifetime – to the west coast of Cornwall.

Tintagel is the legendary home of King Arthur, Merlin, the sword Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake, the Knights of the Round Table, Sir Lancelot, Queen Guinevere, & the court of Camelot.

Midway through the Torquay Summer School, on Sunday August 17th, Rudolf Steiner declared “I want to go to King Arthur” (see Eleanor Merry, 1956, in Villeneuve, 2004, p.1051). A cavalcade of three cars ventured forth from the southern beachside resort town of Torquay, across the verdant moors of Dartmoor, to the spectacularly positioned Tintagel, on the west coast of Cornwall.

Eleanor Merry & D.N. Dunlop were the two organizers of the Torquay Summer School. Both were part of the entourage to Tintagel. Merry reports that: “At last we came again to the sea, and straight ahead of us, at the top of a green cliff, were the last fragments of King Arthur’s castle of Tintagel. A deep rocky chasm divided this from a second rugged cliff, where still other remains could be seen” (quoted in Villeneuve, 2004, p.1052) Merry continues: “Dr. Steiner was at first silently absorbed in the wonderful view. All around was sunshine, and fleeting cloud-shadows and little hurrying rainbows – and a stormy and angry sea”.

The entourage included at least two of the 11 attendees of Steiner’s Agriculture Course at Koberwitz, namely Dr. Elisabeth Vreede & Guenther Wachsmuth. That course (7-16 June, 1924) laid the foundations for the development of biodynamic agriculture.

Wachsmuth remembered: “On that unforgettable day Rudolf Steiner went with us to the place on the rough rocky western coast of Cornwall, Tintagel, where the castle of King Arthur had once stood … That strangely densified spiritual atmosphere we shall never forget, so intensely to be felt as Rudolf Steiner climbed the strange projecting cliff on the lonely coast of Cornwall where the last walls of the castle of King Arthur towered over the roaring sea … He spoke there, standing on the cliff, about the experience of the Knights of King Arthur … He spoke of the teachings of Merlin … The immediacy of the spiritual vision in this place was so intense that, during his descriptions, the entire reality, the external life and action … of King Arthur’s knights, stood before us as actual experience” (Wachsmuth, 1989, pp.563-4)

The Tintagel visit occurred just two months after Steiner’s Agriculture Course & less than six weeks before Rudolf Steiner retreated from public life entirely. On this, his tenth visit to Britain, Steiner taught about Anthroposophy & Waldorf education. An opportunity for agriculture lectures in Britain did not arise, & there had been no British attendees at the Koberwitz course. We can speculate that the attendance of Wachsmuth & Vreede, who had attended at Koberwitz – as well as Tintagel, in this case along with Marna Pease – may have seeded the early interest in Britain in Anthroposophic agriculture which evolved into biodynamics.

Marna Pease went on to be the secretary of Britain’s Anthroposophical agricultural Foundation which was founded in 1928. Elizabeth Vreede attended, in London, as a guest at the first Annual Meeting of the Anthroposophical Agricultural Foundation.

Despite the intensity with which Rudolf Steiner engaged with his missions, including the Torquay Summer School, he was, by this time terminally ill from being ‘poisoned’ eight months earlier. Wachsmuth described this final visit to Britain: “During … the last trip of Rudolf Steiner in his life on earth, he suffered tragically from the destructive illness. Outwardly, nothing of this could be observed. He met daily all the requirements of the comprehensive program & his lecturing activity. He spoke introductory words at artistic programs, had numerous conferences, & took part in the excursions, but every meal caused in his ill condition renewed suffering, which he bore courageously without a word of complaint … He permitted nothing to be known by those at the conference regarding his illness” (Wachsmuth, 1989, p.563).

Just a month after this tenth visit to Britain, Rudolf Steiner retreated entirely from public life (on 28 September, 1924), & he died on 30 March 1925

References:

AAF. (1929). Annual Meeting of the Anthroposophical Agricultural Foundation, Minutes: 3 pp. typescript.

Ashley, M. (2010). A Brief History of King Arthur. London: Constable & Robinson.

Collison, H. (1925). Rudolf Steiner. X a.m. 30th March, 1925, R.I.P. Anthroposophical Movement, 2(13), 101.

Kolisko, L. N. (1936). The Moon and the Growth of Plants (M. Pease, Trans.). London: Anthroposophical Agricultural Foundation.

Paull, J. (2011a). Attending the First Organic Agriculture Course: Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course at Koberwitz, 1924. European Journal of Social Sciences, 21(1), 64-70. Paull, J. (2011b). Biodynamic Agriculture: The journey from Koberwitz to the World, 1924-1938. Journal of Organic Systems, 6(1), 27-41.

Pease, M. (1937). A New Farming and Gardening: For Enquirers (Leaflet No. 2, 2nd Series). Bray-on-Thames, Berkshire: Anthroposophical Agricultural Foundation.

Steiner, R. (1924a). On the conduct of this news-sheet, & the share members should take in it. Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain Monthly News-Sheet for Members, January, 8. Steiner, R. (1924b). To all members: Our summer courses in Torquay. Anthroposophical Movement, 1(24 August), 81-83.

Steiner, R. (1933). Nine Lectures on Bees: Given in 1923 to the workmen at the Goetheanum (M. Pearse, Trans.). London: Anthroposophical Agricultural Foundation.

Villeneuve, C. (2004). Rudolf Steiner in Britain: A Documentation of his Ten Visits, Volume 11, 1922-1925. Forest Row, UK: Temple Lodge.

Wachsmuth, G. (1989). The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner

Wannamaker & R. E. Raab, Trans. 2nd edition; first published in German 1941). Blauvert, NY: Spiritual Science Library.

Whitehead, A. (2010). Rudolf Steiner: Journey of a Grail Knight Warrior. Blackheath, NSW: Golden Beetle Books

Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Festival Gathering: Tuesday 28 September on the eve of Michaelmas with Rev’s Jeana Lee & Victoria Capon

Potluck at 5:30
Talk at 7pm

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

Meeting The Dragon With Our Four Fold Being – A talk and collaborative sculptural creation
and then transformation – Bring your found objects to help build the dragon!
Then our inspiration can come to life through our collaboration.

Jeana Lee was recently ordained as a priest of the Christian Community Movement for Religious Renewal and sent to the congregation in Chicago. Previously she taught chemistry and math at Green Meadow Waldorf high school. She enjoys swimming in the lake and is interested in questions of sin and redemption.

Victoria hails from the east coast and is new to Chicago. Before attending seminary she taught at the Waldorf School of Cape Cod. Now she is happily settling into serving the chicago CC congregation and exploring the Windy City

Join us for the Applied Anthroposophy Course 2021-2022!

October 13, 2021 – May 25, 2022

I will be leading a ‘Chrysalis Group on Thursday mornings 8am PT / 10 am CT / 11am ET /

https://appliedanthroposophy.org/chrysalis

We invite you to join us as we explore big, essential questions together…

What is contemporary culture asking for now?

What are you being called to bring to the world?

How will Anthroposophia assist you in the task?

The Applied Anthroposophy Course (AAC) brings transformative online content to the alchemy of individual and group inner work.

The mission is to explore the urgent issues of our time and awaken meaning through the lens of spiritual philosophy, inner reflection, and outer action. Visit appliedanthroposophy.org for more information!

Click Here to Register Now

How much does it cost?
FULL PROGRAM YEARLY TUITION*

Standard Rate: $750
Supporter Rate: $900
Youth Rate: $450
Equity Rate: $450

SEED SERIES YEARLY TUITION

Weekly Presentations Only: $300
*Monthly payment options are also available.

What is included?

Inspiring keynote speakers
Highlights from the anthroposophical movement
Themed discussion groups on diverse topics
Recordings of all presentations
The warmth of a shared learning community with participants from all over the world

Learn More and Register Today!

We look forward to an exciting and memorable year of exploration and growth.

See you there!

Warmly,

The Applied Anthroposophy Organizing Team

Angela Foster, Tess Parker, and Jordan Walker

Gorgon’s Gear

August 8, 2021Celestial Event, History, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars, Summer~hag

The Perseid meteor showers are starting to launch – heralding the season of Michael. These shooting stars awaken us. This dose of cosmic iron is the perfect medicine for our on going world-corona crisis. But we must take it in consciously to strengthen our Michaelic impulse for the spiritual battle ahead.

Perseus: what's in a name? - OpenLearn - Open University — Edward Burne-Jones

“…And when in high summer, from a particular constellation, meteors fall in great showers of cosmic iron, then this cosmic iron, which carries an enormously powerful healing force, is the weapon which the gods bring to bear against Ahriman, as dragon-like he tries to coil round the shining forms of men. The force which falls on the earth in the meteoric iron is indeed a cosmic force whereby the higher gods endeavour to gain a victory over the Ahrimanic powers, when autumn comes on. And this majestic display in cosmic space, when the August meteor showers stream down into the human shining in the astral light, has its counterpart — so gentle and apparently so small — in a change that occurs in the human blood. This human blood, which is in truth not such a material thing as present-day science imagines, but is permeated throughout by impulses from soul and spirit, is rayed through by the force which is carried as iron into the blood and wages war there on anxiety, fear and hate. The processes which are set going in every blood-corpuscle when the force of iron shoots into it are the same, on a minute human scale, as those which take place when meteors fall in a shining stream through the air. This permeation of human blood by the anxiety-dispelling force of iron is a meteoric activity. The effect of the raying in of the iron is to drive fear and anxiety out of the blood.

And so, as the gods with their meteors wage war on the being who would like to radiate fear over all the earth through his coiling serpent-form, and while they cause iron to stream radiantly into this fear-tainted atmosphere, which reaches its peak when autumn approaches or when summer wanes — so the same process occurs inwardly in man, when his blood is permeated with iron.

We can understand these things only if we understand their inner spiritual significance…” ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons and the Archangels Lecture I: The Michael Imagination http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA229/English/RSP1968/19231005p01.html

Perseus and Andromeda Poster by Gustave Moreau — Gustave Moreau

Perseus, the radiant point of this shower, is a starry imagination of Michael. He stands with sword of iron raised in one hand & in the other the decapitated head of Medusa with her serpent hair, & eyes that turn all who gaze upon her to stone. Perseus has rescued Andromeda, the chained princess, from the approaching sea monster Cetus. From the forehead of Andromeda springs the constellation Pegasus, the winged intelligence. This entire narrative contains deep imaginations of the work of Michael in the human being rescuing the threatened human soul from the destructive forces rising from the unconscious, & from the outmoded past, seen in the imagination of the sea monster – & also representing the deadening forces of Ahriman’s cold intellect in the gaze of Medusa.

The Michael Mystery : Dr Rudolf Steiner : 9781621481225

A study of ‘The Michael Mystery’ by Steiner can be a helping guide during this time. In it he gives us our task: “Hearts must begin to have thoughts; that is the new way of thinking – with the heart.” It is Michael’s intention that in the future, intelligence will flow thru human hearts, & with ‘Spirit Recalling’, reconnect to the same divine spiritual forces that created the human in the beginning of time.

Manuscript Miniatures: BL Harley 4431 The Book of the Queen — BL Harley

If we look for, or even use our imaginative cognition to picture inwardly this cosmic offering, we can carry the thought of Michael/Perseus in our heart-thinking, to consciously align with our Time-Spirit.

Perseus Art | Fine Art America — Tory Feldonen

And let us make the intention to be awake to the power of the Christ-Sun in the Earth; & the enlivening impulse of Anthroposophia within; which through our thinking hearts becomes enlightened by Wisdom, helping us overcome the darkness with love.

~hag

Crescent Moon passing Venus, Aug 9-11, 2021

8 August 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: New Moon – exact at 8:50 a.m. CDT

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Islamic New Year begins at sundown

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

1170 – Saint Dominic, founder of the Dominicans

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

1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

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

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

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

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

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

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
LAMMASTIDE III
To Sheathe The Newly Conceived
v19
Mysteriously to sheathe
my life’s new seed with memory
be now my striving’s further aim
that strengthening it shall awake
my own true force within me
and in becoming give me who I am.

This is the last summer verse.
Its mirror is the first winter verse.

ADVENT I
To Feel Old Treasure Re-enlivening
v34
Mysteriously to feel
with newly risen sense of who I am
old treasure re-enlivening within me
shall rouse a tide of cosmic forces
that pouring into my endeavour for the world
will in becoming print me into that which is.

Transfiguring

August 6, 2021Celestial Event, Festival, History, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars, Summer~hag

Greetings friends on this Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ, a cosmic metamorphosis that prepared the way for the deed on Golgotha & was a pre-figuration of the Ascension.

“We find the transfiguration scene in all the evangelists except St. John. This is significant. Let us clarify the meaning of this scene. What takes place? Jesus goes with three disciples Peter, James and John, up a mountain: this means into the inner sanctuary where one is initiated into higher worlds and where one also speaks in occult language. The disciples were carried up into a higher state of consciousness. They saw then that which is not transitory but eternal. Moses and Elias appear and Jesus himself with them. What does this mean? In occult science the word Elias means the same as El — god the goal – the way. Moses is the spiritual scientific word for truth. By the fact that Elias, Moses and Jesus appear, you have the fundamental Christian truth: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus himself says — this is a fundamental Christian mystical truth — “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (John, ch. 14, v. 6) ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Gospel of St. John, 3^rd Lecture

Today in 70 AD- The Second Temple of Jerusalem is destroyed by Roman legions under Titus. For 420 years, the 2^nd Temple constituted a divine presence – the point where heaven & earth met.

Hiroshima: The Anti-Transfiguration - Brian Zahnd — Hiroshima: The Anti-Transfiguration – Brian Zahnd

6 August is also the anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, an act of genocide on US President Harry Truman’s orders.

I think of all those souls who crossed the threshold together, at that time. How
will their sacrifice bear fruit…?

Krishna with Aruna in the Bhagavad Gita:
“A thousand simultaneous suns
Arising in the sky
Might equal that great radiance,
With that great glory vie.”

Astrology STARTALK from Tim Rubald: 2019

Interesting to contemplate these pivotal events today in 2021 which occur on the actual astrological cross-quarter date of Lammas (Loaf-mass) when the Sun enters 15 degrees of fiery Leo the Lion (in the tropical zodiac) – the exact midpoint between Summer Solstice & the Autumnal Equinox – a time of harvest, when the plant is sacrificed to make the bread.
“The king is dead love live the king”.

We stand now also in the dark of the Moon (New Moon & Islamic New Year 8 Aug) on the edge of the Perseid Meteor Showers which peak in a few days…

Suuny Unii

Those of us working in the Sophia Group & the planning committee for the ‘Sophia Conference’ happening in the Spring of 2022 are especially attuned to this duel anniversary since the location of the conference will be in New Mexico where the atomic bomb was engineered & tested. The site chosen was a remote corner of the desert, south of Los Alamos, New Mexico, known as the “Jornada del Muerto,” or “Journey of Death.” Robert Oppenheimer named the site of the testing “Trinity” inspired by the poems of John Donne.

In the juxtaposition of these 2 world changing events we see not only the polarity of life & death, but the opportunity to bring the Wisdom of the Sophia in – with her connection to the Holy Spirit of the Trinity – calling in the ‘Healing Medicine that makes whole’ -to avail ourselves to the ‘Advocate, The ‘Comforter’ The ‘Mediator’ with the Being of Love – The Christos.

Together we can redeem & transfigure the fallen light of nuclear death, into the light of Wisdom & Love.

Blessings & Peace –

~hag

THE TRINITY by John Donne

“O blessed glorious Trinity,
Bones to philosophy, but milk to faith,
Which, as wise serpents, diversely
Most slipperiness, yet most entanglings hath,
As you distinguish’d, undistinct,
By power, love, knowledge be,
Give me a such self different instinct,
Of these let all me elemented be,
Of power, to love, to know you unnumbered three.”

Here is an interesting piece about the Transfiguration by Edouard Schure – French philosopher, poet, playwright, novelist, music critic, & publicist of esoteric literature – collaborator with Marie & Rudolf Steiner.

“In every great moment of his life, we see Christ Jesus withdrawing to the mountain to pray. Did not the Vedic sage say, “Prayer sustains heaven and earth and rules the gods?” Jesus knew this power of powers. Usually he did not allow any companion to share the times when he descended into the arcanum of his consciousness. However, on one occasion he led Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, John and James, to a high mountain in order to spend the night there. Tradition has it that the place was Mount Tabor. There that mysterious scene which the Gospels describe under the name The Transfiguration took place between the Master and his three most initiated disciples.

According to Matthew, the Apostles saw the luminous, diaphanous form of the Master appearing, in the transparent shadows of an oriental night, his face shining like the sun, his garments radiant as light. Then two forms, which they took for those of Moses and Elias appeared beside him. Trembling they came out of their strange prostration, which seemed to them like both a deep sleep and an intense waking state. Beside them they saw the Master, who touched them in order to awaken them completely. The transfigured Christ was never erased from their memory.

But what had Jesus himself seen, what had he experienced during that night which preceded the decisive deed of his prophetic career? He passed through a gradual disappearance of earthly things under the fire of prayer and an ascension from sphere to sphere on wings of ecstasy. Slowly it seemed to him that through his deep consciousness he was returning into a previous existence, which was entirely spiritual and divine. Far from him were the suns, worlds, earths, whirlwinds of painful incarnation, while in a homogeneous atmosphere was a fluid substance, an intelligent Light.

In this radiance legions of heavenly beings formed a moving canopy, a firmament of ethereal bodies, white as snow, from which emanated gentle rays of light. On the shining cloud where he himself was standing, six men in priestly clothing and of powerful stature are lifting a gleaming Chalice in their united hands. They are the six Messiahs who already have appeared on earth; the seventh is he himself, and this Cup signifies the Sacrifice which he must experience by becoming incarnate on earth in his turn. Beneath the cloud the thunder rolls, a black abyss opens, the circle of generations, the gulf of life and death, the earthly hell appear before him. With a supplicating gesture the Sons of God elevate the Cup. Heaven waits motionless …

With a gesture of acceptance Jesus spreads his arms in the form of a cross, as though he embraces the world. Then the Sons of God kneel, faces to the ground; angels with long wings and lowered eyes carry the shining Chalice upward into the vault of Light. Hosanna! rings out from heaven to heaven, melodious and ineffable . . . But without even hearing it, he plunges into the abyss …

This is what once took place in the world of Archetypes, in the Bosom of the Father, where the Mysteries of eternal Love are celebrated, and where the movements of the stars pass in waves of living Light. This is what Jesus had sworn to fulfill; this is why he was born, this is why he had struggled upon earth. And now the mighty promise gripped him again at the end of his work, through the fullness of his spiritual consciousness, by means of which he had entered into the revelation of a divine ecstasy.

Deep vow, dread Chalice! Nevertheless, it was necessary to drink from it. After the rapture of ecstasy, he awakened in the depths of the abyss, at the brink of martyrdom. There could be no further doubt; the time had come. Heaven had spoken, earth cried aloud for help.

Then, slowly retracing his steps, Jesus again went down to the valley of the Jordan and took the road to Jerusalem.”

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6 August 2021

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~In the cardboard sky
The Thunder gods gather
In a procession of chattering dark wind weavings
Flashing signs of other lives
Royal blue souls in zig-zagging sighs
Stop
Where heat rises like dust after the bomb
To be weighed
In the over-ripe fruit trees
For the transfiguration
~hag

Union

August 4, 2021Celestial Event, History, Insight~hag

Today is the 20 year anniversary of the Wedding of Hazel Archer & Chuck Ginsberg, married in Berkley Springs, West Virginia. Our karmic meeting & whirlwind engagment would make a great movie, but long story short: We decided to elope, so I began to research a place where we could go with our girl Ultra-Violet who was 1 & a half & still nursing. I had a long list of requisites: Hot Springs, natural child care, & the perfect non-denominational minister, chief among them. I wrote our ceremony & found an amazing officiant in the area who loved our concepts & added to our vision of what we wanted to bring forth. I am in awe of the myriad layers of magic that came together to create the best Wedding & Honeymoon ever.

We chose August 4^th for our Wedding date because in 2001 it was the ‘Kabbalistic Day of Love’. Known as the ‘Jewish Valentine’s Day’, Tu B’Av is celebrated for 3 days around the Lammas Full Moon.

It is written, “There is no better time than Tu b’Av, a time when nations are meant to mingle with each other and where each and every person bestowed their goodness upon their fellow human beings” (Tiferet Shlomo). The kind of love Tu b’Av represents is an unconditional love that has to spread thru out the whole of humanity. (And it is no coincidence that it comes right after Tisha B’Av, which represents the polar opposite—unfounded hatred)

The recognition of an unfounded hatred that dwells in our hearts is the precondition for the attainment of unconditional love between us, as it is written, “Tu b’Av is the correction and mitigation of Tisha b’Av” (Likutey Halachot).

It may not be intuitive to us humans at every moment, but the whole of nature works in this way. Evolution displays a dynamic interplay of two opposite forces, to create a transcendent third. Whether the poles manifest as plus & minus, hot & cold, ebb & flow, male & female, night & day…these often adversarial swings create levels of conflict & self-interest which can then open us to greater levels of reciprocity & connection. This is how ancient bacteria evolved from hostile competition, to shared responsibility, for the advancment of evolution. Our bodies also exemplify this perfectly, with up to 100 trillion individual cells, integrated to create a unified level of life. This way of seeing science is helpful during this confusing corona-crisis.

About 4,000 years ago, Abraham, understood that this natural dynamic also applies to human society. When the Babylonians around him sank into self-interest & separation, he recognized that stuck state as a precursor for the possibility of a new degree of human connection. Abraham “seeded love for all people” with the vision of a higher human union & “went from city to city, kingdom to kingdom, until thousands joined him…& they became a unified people” Which as Anthroposophy tells us gave us the vessel for the Christ – the Universal Impulse of Love to become human.

The Hebrew calendar says it is time for the ‘Festival of Love’, but our current reality shows that people are more divided than ever. Yet, just as Abraham saw thousands of years ago, the hatred & separation that persist today are not coincidental. It’s an evolutionary stage, a precursor to the next degree of unity. And in our time, there is even more that’s brewing under the surface.

How can we hold altruistic connections above the growing self-interest? The method of attaining true love unconditional among human beings must become a priority.

We are called to upgrade our human nature from the annihilation of selfish-love which leads us to crises, & leaves us with a very limited perception of reality; to a transformation – a force of universal love that permeates all of nature – a spiritual harvest waiting to be sown.

Tu B’Av, is marked by being on the Full Moon when the spiritual powers are strong & available to us so that we can bring all polarized energies into balance. This harmony creates the perfect environment for love.

May we seize every opportunity, awakening to the cosmic clues in every milestone!

~hag loves CG + you…xox

4 August 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

Mysteries of the Body & Blood

August 3, 2021Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Festival, History, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

Greetings friends on this the Feast day of Nicodemus. As fate would have it, yesterday as I was doing some research about the Holy Grail for the Pageant: ‘The Royal Art: A Social Pilgrimage of the Soul’ (for the ASA AGM on Sunday 10 October); I was reading from Sergei O. Prokofieff’s book ‘The Spiritual Origins of Eastern Europe and the Future Mysteries of the Holy Grail’ Chapter 3 ‘Scythianos & the Grail Stream’, where he reveals the connection between this great initiate of the mysteries of the physical body (The blood & body) & his 2 pupils – Joseph of Arimathea & Nicodemus. So this powerful individuality was already ‘visiting me in the night’.

Just like Lazarus, Nicodemus does not belong to the tradition of the Synoptic Gospels & is only mentioned by John, who brings him in 3 times, devoting more than half of Chapter 3 of his Gospel, a few verses of Chapter 7 & again in Chapter 19.

The first time Nicodemus is mentioned, he is identified as a Pharisee who comes to see Jesus “at night”. John places this meeting shortly after the Cleansing of the Temple & links it to the signs which Jesus performed in Jerusalem during the Passover feast. “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him” (John 3:2).

Then follows a conversation with Nicodemus about the meaning of being “born again” or “born from above” (Greek: ἄνωθεν), & the mention of seeing the “kingdom of God”.

In Chapter 7, Nicodemus advises his colleagues among “the chief priests and the Pharisees”, to hear & investigate before making a judgment concerning Jesus. Their mocking response argues that no prophet comes from Galilee. Nonetheless, it is probable that he wielded a certain influence in the Sanhedrin.

Finally, when Jesus is buried, Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh & aloes—about 100 lbs [John 19:39]

“We have already pointed out in these lectures that in the words of Christ-Jesus to Nicodemus, we must recognize a conversation between Christ and a personality who is able to perceive what can be beheld outside of the physical body by means of higher organs of cognition if developed to a certain stage. For those who understand such things, this is clearly and distinctly indicated in the Gospel wherein it is stated that Nicodemus came to Christ-Jesus “in the night,” meaning in a state of consciousness in which the human being does not make use of his outer sense organs.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Gospel of St. John, lecture VI -THE “I AM”

You can also find some amazing insights about Nicodemus from the work of Emil Bock in his book ‘The Three Years’ Chapter 8.

3 August 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Today is a great day to view Saturn, which reached opposition at 1 am last night. If you’re up early, the ringed planet won’t set until nearly sunrise; if you’re an evening observer, it will rise again as the Sun sets in Capricornus the Sea Goat.

Bella Luna reaches apogee, the farthest point from our planet in its orbit. ~astronomy.com

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1829 – Birthday of Laurence Oliphant – a Member of the British Parliament, was a South African-born British author, traveler, diplomat, intelligence agent, & Christian mystic. (see Steiner’s Quote below that in a former life he was Ovid)

From Rudolf Steiner in Karmic Relationships, VIII: Lecture V

“In the early years of this century I was several times in London. On the occasion of one of these visits I was prompted to make myself acquainted with an extraordinarily significant personality — to begin with, simply in his writings. And as in those days there were rather longer intervals between the journeys than there are now, I obtained from the Theosophical Library the books he had written — the books that is to say, of Laurence Oliphant.

Laurence Oliphant is a remarkably interesting and significant personality: he strikes you in this way directly you begin to study his writings. These books deal with the similarities to be found in different religions, with spiritual religions, and so forth; and all of them bear evidence of a deep understanding of how in the various processes of his body and soul, man is connected with the secrets of the universe. When you read Oliphant’s writings you have the impression: Here is a picture of man in his earth-life that owes its inspiration to deep cosmic instincts. The processes of the earthly life of man that are connected with birth, embryonic life, descent and so forth, are described in such a way as to show how man, as microcosm, is wondrously rooted in the macrocosm.

Now I was very soon led in this study to a point where the figure of the dead Laurence Oliphant stood before me, but not in a form which suggested that I had here to do with the individuality as he was then living after death; it was rather that what was contained in these writings (which may be described as setting forth a kind of cosmic physiology, a cosmic anatomy) began to come alive, began to spiritualise; and a figure appeared, not all at once entirely clear, but unquestionably there before me on many different occasions. I was able to make occult investigations into the matter and I could never do otherwise than bring the figure into connection with what came to me from reading Oliphant. It was very often there before me. At first I was often unable to satisfy myself as to what this figure wanted, what its manifestations meant. The whole manner of its appearance however, left me in no doubt whatever that it was none other than the individuality of Laurence Oliphant; and it was likewise clear to me that this figure had had a long life in the time between death and a new birth — that is to say, the birth as Laurence Oliphant — probably only broken by one earth-life that was not very significant for the rest of the world. What might not then be hidden in the personality of Laurence Oliphant! In short, this appearance of the figure of Laurence Oliphant suggested significant questions of karma.

When I entered on an investigation of the karma, a spiritual Being became manifest who is engaged in the elaboration of human karma…

Now the investigations which I described in Torquay led me into close contact with the spirit of Brunetto Latini, the teacher of Dante. When one penetrates into these spiritual worlds in the manner described, it also becomes possible to stand before individualities in the form in which they lived in a particular epoch. Thus one can stand face to face with Brunetto Latini, the great teacher of Dante in the 13th century. Brunetto Latini still possessed a knowledge whereby nature was seen, not in the abstraction of natural laws, but as under the influence of living spiritual Beings. On the way back to his native town of Florence from his post as Ambassador in Spain, Brunetto Latini heard all kinds of reports that troubled and disturbed him, and in addition he had a slight sunstroke. In this condition and under the influence, too, of the pathological disturbances, glimpses came to him of nature in her creative work, of cosmic creation, and of the connection of man with the planetary world. What he was able to see was wonderful and sublime and no more than a shadow-picture of it subsequently found its way into the great work of Dante — the Divine Comedy.

But now if we follow this Brunetto Latini, we find that in a critical moment, when the knowledge was like to suffocate him, when it seemed to him that he might go astray from true knowledge and fall into error — in this critical moment, Ovid became his guide, Ovid, the Roman author of the Metamorphoses which contain such wonderful visions of the old Greek age, though expressed in the prosaic, characteristically Roman style.

And so we meet the individuality of Ovid together with Brunetto Latini. If we have a true grasp of the connection we can see Brunetto Latini, in the pre-Dante time, actually together with Ovid. Ovid is with him. And now, precisely in connection with the scientific, medical researches of which I was speaking, Ovid revealed himself as Laurence Oliphant.

In reality, Ovid was the guide in the spiritual world for many Initiates, appearing again as Laurence Oliphant with his sublime treatment of physiology and pathology. This connection between Laurence Oliphant and Ovid is of most far-reaching import and is one of the most illuminating examples one could possibly find. ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, VIII: Lecture V

1929 – Krishnamurti dissolves the Order of the Star in the East

1936 – Jesse Owens wins the 100 meter dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, at the Berlin Olympics.

1977 – Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world’s first mass-produced personal computers

On August 3, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, United States. 21 year old Patrick Crusius shot & killed 23 People & injured 23 others, in an act of domestic terrorism -a hate crime described as the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history.

Shortly before the shooting Crusius posted a manifesto with white nationalist anti-immigrant themes, online, citing that year’s earlier Christchurch mosque shootings & the right-wing conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement as inspiration for the attack.

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I travel inwardly
I gather berries that have fallen
Fully ripened to the ground
& swing the scythe under hot blue skies…
What is remembered, lives…
~hag

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Category Archives: History

Initiative

Gorgon’s Gear

Transfiguring

Union

Mysteries of the Body & Blood

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