Category Archives: History

Middle Ground

Dear friends – I posted the lecture by Steiner on the Geographic Double from my offering American Magnetism in another part of cyber-space, & it got all kinds of wacky responses. Old Vikings declaring that Steiner was wrong since there was no ‘evidence’ that ships came to America from Norway before the history books say; or on the other extreme saying the Norwegians took this journey on the astral plane. The gentleman’s proof being that he himself has often does so…Everyone completely ignoring the whole point of the lecture: That the Ahrimanic Double is strongest in America.

Meanwhile around the breakfast table my husband CG said it seemed to him that the Ahrimanic double possessed the Europeans when they finally did come to America driving them to commit genocide on the Native Americans in the name of commerce & white supremacy.

This feels like where the real discussion should go.

The spiritual powers kept a veil over those destructive forces, which the Native Americans were not susceptible to, but which the Europeans were vulnerable to, for as long as possible, but when the Church wanted to have access to the abundant resources across the sea the conquers were released consequences be dammed.    

Friends, to practice Spiritual Science means we have to be awake to our personal tendencies toward the Ahrimanic denial of spirit -I have to see it to believe it- & the flights of Luciferic fancy, which declares everything is only spirit. May we meet each other on the middle ground where the Christ can live among us

~hag

Chart showing 4 positions of cresecent moon, Mercury, stars, and slanted line of ecliptic.

6 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: On the mornings of July 5 to 8, 2021, watch for the waning crescent moon to travel in front of the constellation Taurus the Bull. You’ll see the moon’s position change from day to day as it sweeps closer and closer to the sunrise.

The shrinking crescent first sweeps by the Pleiades star cluster (aka the
Seven Sisters). Then Bella Luna will pass the bright red star Aldebaran (Eye of the Bull in Taurus). It’s part of a V-shaped star grouping that forms the Bull’s face. This pattern is called the Hyades.

Finally, a very slim crescent will pass the bright yet elusive planet Mercury (occult Venus)

International Kissing Day

Feast Day of the 1st Prophet – Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord shall give you by itself a sign; Behold, a virgin shall be with child and will bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel”

Feast Day of Saint Romulus of Fiesole. Like the Romulus of ancient Roman legend, the story goes he was also abandoned, suckled by a wolf, & captured, raised & baptized by Saint Peter

Jan Hus: The Goose before the Swan – Grace and Truth Community Church

1415 – Deathday of Jan Hus, considered the first Church reformer, since he lived before Luther, Calvin & Zwingli. Hus was a key predecessor to Protestantism. He was burned at the stake for heresy on this day.

1535 – Sir Thomas More is executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England

1887 – Birthday of Marc Chagall, Belarusian-French painter & poet

1892 – 3,800 striking steelworkers engage in a day-long battle with Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike, leaving ten dead & dozens wounded

1907 – Birthday of Frida Kahlo

1917 – World War I: Arabian troops led by Lawrence of Arabia capture Aqaba from the Ottoman Empire during the Arab Revolt

1935 – Birthday of the 14th Dalai Lama

1944 – Jackie Robinson refuses to move to the back of a bus, leading to a court-martial

1957 – John Lennon & Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, three years before forming the Beatles

1962 – Deathday of William Faulkner, Nobel Prize laureate

1962 – As a part of Operation Plowshare, the Sedan nuclear test takes place

1971 – Deathday of Louis Armstrong

1988 – The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions & fires. 167 oil workers are killed

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~beware the right tool in the wrong hands…
use the keen sword of discretion, wise choice & good judgement
to reclaim the wand of power
& whittle the world right…
~hag

Monday 12 July 2021 from 7 – 10 pm  
The Chicago Chapter of ‘Merry Prep-stirs’ will meet to work with BD 500, practicing the Spiritual Science of Biodynamics so that ‘The Earth May Be Healed’.

Bon-Fire & Pot-Luck Social Gathering
on the occasion of Hazel’s natal return & the Conjunction of Venus and Mars

Please Bring Food & Drink, a song, poem or Question to Share in Community

RSVP by 10 July 2021 for address & directions to the Homestead of Hazel, Ultra-Violet Archer & Chuck Ginsberg

 “And so we picture, from below upwards, in bluish, blackish shades the force of gravity, to which an upward impulse is given by the gnomes; and flitting all around the plant…[is] the undine power that blends and disperses substances as the plant grows upwards. From above downwards, from the sylphs, light is made to leave its imprint in the plant and molds and creates the form which descends as an ideal form and is taken up by the material womb of the earth; moreover fire spirits flit around the plant and concentrate cosmic warmth in tiny seed points. This is sent down to the gnomes together with the seed power, so that down there they can cause the plants to arise out of fire and life.” ~Rudolf Steiner, HARMONY OF THE CREATIVE WORD

Conjunction (appulse) between Venus (occult Mercury) & Mars on 12 July 2021

Columbia Bless America

Sevi Temtel

Ok here’s what wanted to come thru today – from Rudolf Steiner: “Chaos is arising because reality has changed; reality is becoming fuller and richer than anything people are able to think of or create in their heads. And we shall have to be clear in our minds that we are faced with a choice: to go on beating each other to a pulp, shooting at one another, in the way we do now, because we do not know how to bring order into the world, or to start developing concepts and ideas to match the complexity of the situation. A spiritual movement must exist where people seek to develop concepts which meet the real situation.” ~Fall of the Spirits of Darkness, Lecture 5: Changes in Humanity’s Spiritual Make-up, October 7, 1917

Dima Goryinov

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
SAINT JOHNSTIDE III
The Chalice of the Senses

v14
Completely open to the senses’ revelation
I lost my own impulse;
thought’s dream seemed, numbing me,
to rob me of myself,
but waking now there comes
in all the senses’ glory cosmic thought.

This is the first verse of the Soul Calendar’s second movement
that Karl König describes as the voice of the Baritone,
who will now be incarnating spirit with imaginative insight.
His final verse is at Michaelmas, after which in his mirror verses
the Soprano will be inspired to birth the Spirit Child at Christmas.
This week’s mirror verse is her final one.

NEW YEAR
The Chalice of the Spirit

v39
Completely open to the spirit’s revelation
I win the light of cosmic being;
thought’s clarifying power grows
to give me who I am
and waking from the power of thinking
my own real feeling flows.

Hilma af Klint

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) 

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

earthandsky.org

5 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: As dawn begins on the 6th, the waning crescent Moon hangs between the Pleiades above it and Aldebaran below it.

Православие

Feast Day of the Prophet Hosea (meaning ‘salvation’, ‘he saves’ or ‘he helps’) – often seen as a “prophet of doom”, but underneath his message of destruction is a promise of restoration. The Talmud claims that he was the greatest prophet of his generation.  The period of Hosea’s ministry extended to some sixty years, and he was the only prophet of Israel of his time who left any written prophecy.They that sow the wind reap the whirlwind”

Feast Day of St. Cyril & St. Methodius, two brothers – Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries-known as the “Apostles to the Slavs”. They are credited with devising the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet used to transcribe Old Church Slavonic.

755 – Deathday of St. Boniface, destroyer of Celtic Christianity. Some traditions credit Saint Boniface with the invention of the Christmas tree. Boniface is celebrated as a missionary; he is regarded as a unifier of Europe, by German Catholics.

Birthday of St. Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury – Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church, who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. His works were copied and disseminated in his lifetime and exercised an influence on the Scholastics, including Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. His thoughts have guided much subsequent discussion on the procession of the Holy Spirit and the atonement. His work also anticipates much of the later controversies over free will and predestination.

As a child, he had a miraculous vision of God on the summit of the Becca di Nona near his home, with God asking his name, his home, and his quest before sharing bread with him.

Anselm’s canonization was requested of Pope Alexander III by Thomas Becket at the Council of Tours in 1163. Anselm was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church or the doctor Marianus (“Marian doctor”). A chapel of Canterbury Cathedral south of the high altar is dedicated to him; it includes a modern stained-glass representation of the saint.

1833 – Deathday of Nicephore Niepce, French inventor of the camera

1915 – In response to the First World War, Rudolf Steiner writes the essay “Thoughts during a time of war – for Germans and those who do not feel they must hate them”

POD (Poem Of the Day)

Columbia Bless America.
O ancient Spirit of Place
Appear again as the Dove of Liberty
& teach us how to fly
Into our true destiny
That we may weave the laurel
In evolutions revolution
In this time of great turning
Let the truth of our hearts entwine
To conquer terror with tenderness
~hag

American Magnetism

This speaks to the best of America FREEDOM by Jon Batiste

Listen to “I think Speech’

Greetings Friends – May ‘Independence’ reverberate in our collective consciousness, as we work towards a Global Interdependence Independence -A mutual dependency upon the independence of every nation & its people – not imposed by the corporate elite, but out of the inner Freedom & love of the human being for humanity – Imagine everyone celebrating our differences with great admiration & respect…

Let’s remember the meaning of ‘Independence Day’ celebrated on the ‘4th of July’ – It’s about freedom from oppression… ‘No taxation without representation’…& all that…the center point being the Declaration of Independence.

When was the last time you read this important document of our countries origin? You can print it off the net. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”

Have we gained independence from one tyranny all those years ago, only to allow it to happen again on a world scale? Maybe it’s time to open our eyes & read the fine print of our birthright – reclaim our rights & go forward as a united community of World people, in peaceful justice, in equity, in reason – with compassion, having come through so much pain – to really start to, not just declare our independence, but to really live it – As individuals, as well as with the united community of the whole planet…

It’s interesting to look at what Spiritual Science has to say about America.

In ‘The Mystery of the Double: Geographic Medicine’, Rudolf Steiner tells us that when we are born we not only acquire a physical body we become permeated by an Ahrimanic double a being with ‘a Mephistophelian intelligence’, & ‘a very strong will’. Thru them we carry electrical streams in us.

‘These beings of purely Mephistophelian intelligence, want to conquer the earth, and to do this they need bodies; they do not have bodies of their own’. But they are afraid of death & have to leave us when we die.

Had the Mystery of Golgotha not occurred, conditions on earth would have been such that these beings would long ago have attained the possibility of remaining within the human being when he is karmically predestined for death. Then they would have completely triumphed over human evolution on earth, they would have become masters of human evolution on earth.’

This has long been known to certain occult brotherhoods. They withheld this from humanity. ‘These egotistically minded occult brotherhoods make it a power issue, intending thereby to enhance their own power.’

But the human being must learn about the double within ‘if the human race is not to experience endless hindrances, really endless horrors’.

This double is the creator of all physical illnesses that emerge spontaneously from within the human being; coming not through outer injuries, and not from the human soul; they come from this being. He is the creator of all organic illnesses.

And Lucifer, Ahriman’s brother, ‘is the creator of all neurasthenic and neurotic illnesses’.

Thus medicine must become spiritual in two directions’

The Earth as a living organism streams out‘different forces, among them magnetism and electricity, as well as life-giving forces.  ‘All these forces come up out of the earth and influence people in the most varied ways at different points on the earth. They influence the human being in various ways according to the geographical formation. This is a very important fact – The double uses these forces that stream up out of the earth.’

‘Some of these beings are especially pleased with the Eastern hemisphere: Europe, Asia, Africa. They choose to make use of the bodies of human beings born there. Others choose bodies born in the Western hemisphere, in America.

So…one of the most important tasks of the future will be to foster again something that has been interrupted: geographic medicine, medical geography…the connection of the illness-producing being in man with earthly geography, with all the fusions, with all the outward radiations that emerge from the earth in the various regions. It is very important for the human being to become acquainted with these things, for his life depends on it.’

For this reason spiritual science must now spread, the present time calls upon the human being to reach an understanding of these things in a conscious way in order to find a relationship to these things. The human being must become strong in this epoch in order to adapt his existence to these beings’.

But before the 5th post Atlantean epoch the human being had to be protected from encountering the Ahrimanic double which is especially strong in America.

A really significant arrangement was required: Beginning in the ninth century and especially from the twelfth century on, the entire shipping exchange with America with the kind of ships there were at that time, was abolished’. This may sound very strange to you. You will say, “We have never heard anything like this in history.”

In many respects, history is just a fable convenue a legend; for in earlier centuries of European development, ships continually sailed from the Norway of that time to America.

Of course it was not called America it had a different name at that time. America was known to be the region where the magnetic forces particularly arose that brought the human being into relation with this double. For the clearest relations to the double proceed from that region of the earth that comprises the American continent. And in the earlier centuries people sailed over to America in Norwegian ships and studied illnesses there. The illnesses in America brought about under the influence of earthly magnetism were studied by Europe.

Then it was necessary for the connection with America to be gradually forgotten, and this was essentially brought about by the Roman Catholic Church through its edicts.

And only after the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch was America ‘rediscovered’ in a physical, sense-perceptible way.

Europe had to be protected for a long time from all these influences; and it could not have been protected if the European world had not been completely shut off from America in the centuries before the fifteenth century..”

And so dear friends how does this picture add to the history of our Country?

Something to contemplate on this 245th year anniversary of ‘Independence’.

~hag

4th of July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Mercury reaches greatest western elongation 3 P.M. CDT. If you’re already up early to enjoy the Moon & Uranus, you can also find this small planet in the morning sky. Mercury rises about 80 minutes before sunrise. Use Aldebaran, the eye of the Bull, as a signpost: This star rises 30 minutes earlier and sits due west of the messenger of the gods.

Sunrise: 5:37 A.M.
Sunset: 8:32 P.M.
Moonrise: 2:00 A.M.
Moonset: 3:54 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waning crescent (24%) ~astronomy.com

1054 – A supernova, is seen by Chinese Song dynasty, Arab, & Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula

1744 – The Iroquois are forced to cede lands between the Allegheny Mountains & the Ohio River to the British colonies

1776 – American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress

Connie Landro

1826 – Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, dies the same day as John Adams, second president of the United States, on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence.

1827 – Slavery is abolished in New York State

Library of Congress

1855 – In Brooklyn, New York City, the first edition of Walt Whitman‘s book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published

1862 – Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

1863 – American Civil War: Siege of Vicksburg: Confederate Army surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant after 47 days of siege

1863 – American Civil War: The Army of Northern Virginia withdraws from the battlefield after losing the Battle of Gettysburg, signaling an end to the Southern invasion of the North

1886 – The people of France offer the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States

1914 – The funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand & his wife Sophie takes place in Vienna, six days after their assassinations in Sarajevo

1918 – Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia & his family

1934 – Leo Szilard patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb

1934 – Deathday of Marie Curie, French-Polish physicist & chemist, Nobel Prize laureate

1941 – Nazi troops massacre Polish scientists & writers in the captured Ukrainian city of Lviv

1941 – World War II: The Burning of the Riga synagogues with 300 Jews locked in the basement

1943 – World War II: The Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history & the world’s largest tank battle, begins in Prokhorovka village

1950 – Radio Free Europe first broadcasts

1966 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act

~Mine is
A heart of ruby-red –
A Crimson hot
dark as murder on a Holy Day
pulsing sense organ.
Mine is a fist of emerald & gold –
the gnarled roots
of a rosewood bursting
with thorns
& bright blossoms
in the Sun…
~hag

Emancipation

Virginia Lenox

Listen on the ‘I Think Speech’ podcast

Greetings friends on this EVE of our emancipation – May the dawning of the age of Aquarius start to rise in our hearts so when the divine ripening is upon us we will reap a true harvest of sister & brotherhood founded on Love & Peace. In the meantime let’s make every moment a milestone, where we step lightly to bring healing to each other & to our Mother Earth.

Every morning I go out into my wild garden. I do my meditations. I breathe in the sunrise. I watch & listen to the signs & signals from the natural world, ever present in my little piece of biodynamic bottomland at the edge of the Great Inland Sea of Chicago.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is garden-July-2-2020.jpg

The Milkweed is flowering & the butterflies have come to lay their eggs on the leaves. So fascinating to contemplate this delicate creature – I think of what Steiner says: “…it is the butterfly corona, which first calls us into earthly existence.” (Symphony of the Creative Word) I spoke about this in ‘The Crowning’.

Jennifer Capston

The clover, feverfew, & spiderwort are rampant & the bees are all over it.

In Ancient Times - The Honey Bee

Bees have a special place in human history. The mythology, art & mystery that surrounds them is potent, & indicates a close & reciprocal relationship between the bee, the secrets of the Universe, & humanity, as partners in life’s great journey.

Traditionally the bee was perceived as a being that bridged the gap between the physical & the unseen world, the intermediary between two states of existence.

10 Best Master/Mistress of Animals images | Mistress, Animals, My favorite  things

In many cultures priestesses or ‘illumined ones’ have been referred to as ‘Bees’. The bee was an emblem of Potnia, the Minoan-Mycenaean “Mistress”, also referred to as “The Pure Mother Bee”. Her priestesses received the name of “Melissa” which means bee.

Those worshipping Artemis & Demeter, as well as the Delphic priestess, are also referred to as a “bee”. Pindar, an Ancient Greek poet from Thebes, notes that she remained “the Delphic bee” long after Apollo had usurped the ancient oracle & shrine. “The Delphic priestess chewed a laurel leaf, & sought her inspiration in the honeycomb”.

Fabio Deltrica

The Homeric Hymn to Apollo acknowledges that Apollo’s gift of prophecy first came to him from three bee maidens, usually identified with the Thriae – a trinity of pre-Hellenic Aegean bee goddesses.

The Kalahari Desert’s Sand people tell of a bee that carried a mantis across a river. The exhausted bee left the mantis on a floating flower but planted a seed in the mantis’s body before it died. The seed grew to become the first human.

In Egyptian mythology, bees grew from the tears of the sun god Ra when they landed on the desert sand.

The bowstring on Hindu love god Kamadeva’s bow is made of honeybees.

Leonardo Digenio

Orators, powerful speakers, & those who can enrapture their audience thru their linguistic ability are said to have lips that have been anointed with honey.

Doug Lefpton

From the earliest times of our agrarian history the relationship between farmers & the bees that pollinate & confirm their crops has been one of reciprocal respect. The bee is the agent of pollination, the catalyst that brings about change & the connection that facilitates fertilization, allowing the crop to mature, develop & reproduce. It is easy to see why their function is considered so important & why the bee is ascribed a mystical place within the human experience.

Daisy Mellen

In the last decade there has been an alarming decline in bee colony numbers. It is a worldwide happening & indicative of a shift occurring within the planet’s own equilibrium – a call to ‘Repent, & make straight the path’, as John the Baptist would say.


Miyazaki

The bees are allies; not only the key to our food supply, but an important intermediary, a messenger from those peripheral realms of human awareness where perceptions come from ‘beyond the veil’ – they are messengers of the Sun.

The bee carries a signal or a frequency that enables transformation; what is barren becomes fertile, initiating the process of regeneration.

Cappy Thomson

The bee, in this context, represents an interlocutor between our immediate mundane awareness & the potential of human cognizance.

Angie Wright

Look to the flora & fauna; experience & honor the elemental worlds; all nature – as messengers of what was, what is, & what is to come.

Mare Delivin

Yes, friends, we live in challenging times. Good, bad or indifferent is not a criteria; we are seeing events in our lifetimes that have a significant bearing upon the way human evolution will unfold.

Baler Bogler

The relationship between human interaction & the planet is fragile, & the most potent expression of what we will become – either architects of our own demise, or the agents of a transcendent future, is in our hands.

~hag

Painted Desert Moon & Venus with the Beehive Cluster ~astronomy.com

3 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: July’s early evening skies are given over to a race between Earth’s two closest neighbors: Venus and Mars. The Red Planet starts out ahead, but after a close conjunction on 12 July, Venus will pull into the lead.

Tonight, Mars sits east of Venus, in a sparse region of Cancer the Crab. Venus, blazing brightly is passing through a more interesting landscape: It’s skipping through the northern reaches of the famous Beehive Cluster (M44), also called Praesepe or the Manger. They’ll set around 9 pm CDT

Sunrise: 5:36 A.M.
Sunset: 8:32 P.M.
Moonrise: 1:14 A.M.
Moonset: 1:55 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waning crescent (42%)

Linda Breakwater

 Looking at the past to see the present, co-creating the future:

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) 

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

Those who work with the Original indications in the Calendar of the Soul know that Rudolf Steiner lists the birth & death days, as well as other significant occurrences of various individualities, along with the dates in the calendar.  He said of this: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of mankind’s spiritual development” ~Rudolf Steiner

Deathday of Cornelius – a Roman centurion who is considered to be the first Gentile to convert to the faith. Cornelius receives a vision in which an angel who instructs Cornelius to send the men of his household to Joppa, where they will find Simon Peter.

The conversion of Cornelius comes after a separate vision given to Simon Peter (Acts 10:10–16) himself. In the vision, Simon Peter sees all manner of beasts & birds being lowered from Heaven. A voice commands Simon Peter to eat. When he objects to eating unclean animals, the voice tells him not to call unclean that which God has cleansed. When Cornelius’ men arrive, Simon Peter understands that through this vision the Lord commanded the Apostle to preach the Word of God to the Gentiles.

283 – Deathday of Anatolius. Prior to becoming one of the great lights of the Church, he enjoyed considerable prestige at Alexandria, & was credited with a rich knowledge of arithmetic, geometry, physics, rhetoric, dialectic, & astronomy. He was one of the foremost scholars of his day in Aristotelean philosophy.

Deathday of St. Norbert of Xanten, who avoided ordination to the priesthood & even declined an appointment as bishop. One day as he rode to Vreden, a thunderbolt struck him off his horse. After this near-fatal accident, his faith deepened, he renounced his appointment at Court & returned to Xanten to lead a life of penance. St Norbert was a great devotee of the Eucharist & Our Lady.

1035 – William the Conqueror becomes the Duke of Normandy

Battle of Gettysburg Painting by War Is Hell Store

1863 – The U.S. Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, PA, ended after three days. It was a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~corn & clouds & cattle are gods renewing…
i am the god of myself…
lift me up imagination into creation
to the geni of genesis
where the gods give us their hands
i feel Her here
at the back of my head…
~hag

You are welcome to freely view Video’s of past presentations

Thought Crystals

Mineral World; Plant World, by ARILD ROSENKRANTZ

You are welcome to freely view Video’s of past presentations

Listen on the ‘I Think Speech’ podcast

In the sense world we see the being of Nature sprouting, budding —from the powers of sleep the forces of vegetative growth, are given form. But in this sleeping Nature, the spiritual which animates & weaves thru everything in Nature is revealed. May we be awake to this spirit. As human beings we must not become blinded by the light, falling into a trance – drifting off into the rising warmth.

In summer humanity is bound up with Nature, but, if we have right feeling & perception for it, objective spirituality comes towards us from out of Nature’s interweaving life. And so, to find the essential human being during the St. John’s tide, we must turn to the essential spirituality within the outer world – present behind everything in Nature.

Marie Wilnsdorf

If we follow Natura in high summer with deepened spiritual insight & with perceptive eyes, we discover the Archangel of Summer Uriel, who directs our gaze into the depths of the Earth itself. We find that the minerals down there send their inner crystal-forming process towards us more vividly than at any other time of the year; shaping itself into lines, angles & surfaces. “If we are to have an impression of it as a whole, we must picture this crystallizing process as an interweaving activity, colored throughout with deep blue”.*

We can feel our human thinking, feeling & willing creating forms in the blue depths of the earth’s crust; permeated with force by the silver-gleaming crystal lines of the mineral world which holds the imprint of highest spiritual realms.

Using our imaginative thinking, we can ask: “How is it that these silver-sparkling crystal lines & waves are working within me? What is it that lives & works there, silver-gleaming in the blue of the Earth? — then one knows: That is cosmic Will. And one has the feeling of standing upon cosmic Will”.*

~hag

~hag, Robert Wallace

*THE ST. JOHN IMAGINATION, by Rudolf Steiner ~from the Four Seasons and the Archangels Lecture 4

Elihu Vedder

30 June 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars:” The planet Uranus stands about high two hours before sunrise. You’ll find it in the east, glowing a faint in a sparse region of Aries the Ram.

Consider swinging your gaze to nearby Taurus, where the Pleiades are rising.

Bella Luna passes south of Neptune before sunrise, in Aquarius, which sits above the southeastern horizon.

Sunrise: 5:35 A.M.
Sunset: 8:33 P.M.
Moonrise: 12:26 A.M.
Moonset: 11:54 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waning gibbous (62%)

~astronomy.org

Yqgdss

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives) 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul; The Present Age,)

1924 – First World Power Conference founded by D.N. Dunlop

The World Power Conference was conceived by the Scotsman Daniel Nicol Dunlop, a entrepreneur & Theosophist who later joined Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophical Society. He organized the first meeting which took place in London on 30 June 1924 & attracted 1,700 attendees from 40 nations. It was deemed so successful that the conference was established as a recurring event. In the beginning, the World Power Conference convened on a regular schedule every six years.

D.N. Dunlop was a pioneer of modern community building—in two areas in particular: industry & economics, & the sphere of the free spiritual life. In 1924 he founded the World Power Conferenceopened by the Prince of Wales in London that year. This was the first international conference to invite engineers & industrialists from all over the world (including Germany & Russia, two former World War adversaries), with the purpose of establishing a basis for co-operation & co-ordination in the production & technological use of energy resources within a modern world economy.

In 1929 a worldwide assessment of raw materials & energy resources was published in book-form with the title Power Resources of the World. The WPC gave birth to a permanent institution—the World Energy Council—that has its headquarters in London & has since held regular congresses in different capital cities throughout the world. The website of this private international organization records a short history of the institution which focuses on the profiles of five leading figures, beginning with Dunlop: ‘Shortly after World War I, Scotsman Daniel Dunlop, a visionary working in the British electricity industry, decided to bring together leading energy experts for a World Power Conference to discuss current and emerging energy issues. In 1923, he began working with countries around the globe to establish national committees that would stimulate attendance and prepare for technical participation at such a conference. The First World Power Conference was held the next year, 1924, in London and attracted 1,700 delegates from 40 countries. The meeting was so successful that those attending decided to establish a permanent organisation to continue the dialogue begun at the conference.

Within the spiritual-cultural sphere, Dunlop was a pioneer of the ‘summer school’—an idea which he actively pursued and brought to practical realization during his theosophical phase. Dunlop maintained that the ‘summer school’ was not in conflict with pure individual striving, but could potentize it— offer it fulfillment. For true individualism, if developed far enough, is exactly what socially conscious communities need if they are to progress.

The Present Age – Perseus Verlag

To a large extent these summer schools were gatherings of ‘communities of free spirits’. Following his encounter with Rudolf Steiner in 1922, Dunlop organized the great summer schools of Penmaenmawr &Torquay. According to Rudolf Steiner, these were ‘recorded in the Golden Book of the Anthroposophical Movement’. Steiner himself characterized Dunlop as a ‘far-seeing’ anthroposophist with visionary goals, endowed with clear and delicate perception, and remarkable human sensitivity & tact’. Despite Steiner’s very high public regard for him—Dunlop chose to remain in the background of events.

Daniel Nicol Dunlop met Rudolf Steiner in person in 1922. It was the Dutch manager Joseph van Leer who brought them together. They sat at the table together – Rudolf Steiner who spoke no English & Daniel N. Dunlop who spoke no German. Joseph van Leer stepped in as translator but what he didn’t see was that Rudolf Steiner took the hand of Daniel Dunlop & held it, under the table, during the whole of the conversationIn 1934, during one of his famous summer schools, Dunlop shared the memory of this with his friend Walter Johannes Stein. He made an even more interesting statement, that Rudolf Steiner on this occasion said to him, ‘We are brothers.’

Eleanor Merry, also an active member of the early British Anthroposophical Society, worked intensively with Dunlop for the last 14 years of his life during which time he told her that Rudolf Steiner gave him an insight into a former life of his where he, Dunlop, had been a member of the innermost circle of the Order of the Knights Templar ‘connected to all the ancient mysteries’ and had also worked within a secret society among the Templars’. Dunlop’s most deeply rooted intention was to serve the supra-personal goals of humanity, thereby sacrificing all personal & trivial motives & deeds.

Nature spirits by D.N. Dunlop