Category Archives: Insight

Fired up

September 21, 2023Community, Insight, Quote, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events~hag

Dear friends – In thinking back to the laying of the Foundation Stone for the 1st Goetheanum, called at that time the ‘Johannas Bau’, 110 years ago on 20 September 1913– (Read the transcript of that elementally charged ceremony in an essay I shared HERE) I can’t help but connect this to the arson that destroyed the ‘House of the Word’ 10 years later.

In the amazing ‘Play for Voices’ by Richard Ramsbotham, called “The Burning of the Goetheanum” a powerful occult secret is revealed thru his research capturing biographical insights from those who were there.

I met Richard for the 1^st time in person this Summer at the ‘AHA‘ conference ‘The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia“, where he gave me a signed copy of this amazing telling of the Anthroposophical Biography we all share.

As we know Dr. Steiner designed this incredible ‘House of the Word’. Along with all the craftsmen & volunteers, that he worked with to co-create a powerful synthesis of diverse artistic & sensory forms infused with spiritual significance, he also employed Architect Schmid-Curtius & Engineer Englert to pull off this never before organic building achievement of the connecting domes.

From Emil Molt we hear: “The building supervision lay in the hands of the engineer Englert, the former director of the Basel building association that had produced the special concrete base for the building. Dr Steiner gave Englert the task of anchoring the two cupolas at their section in such a way that they would mutually support each other. At first, Englert declared the problem insoluble according to his calculations. He was given some directions by Dr Steiner then, lo and behold, a few days later he had solved what he had at first thought impossible.” ~Emil Molt and the beginnings of the Waldorf School movement: Sketches from an autobiography. Edinburgh: Floris Books, 1991. Page 114.

From Steiner we learn: “Technically, it was an extremely difficult task to accomplish — to bring the two cupolas together —there didn’t seem to be a way to fit two spherical surfaces one into the other. So I really must mention here that we did succeed through the insight and effort of our friend, the esteemed Basel engineer Joseph Englert, who solved this architectural problem which had heretofore never been solved.” ~Rudolf Steiner, 10 April 1915, in Basel GA 289

From the biography of Joseph Englert, which Ramsbotham opens for us in his play – we learn that from an early age Englert had a powerful fascination with occult phenomena of all kinds. In particular he dabbled in mediumism, spiritualism, & was an accomplished astrologer. We was a member of the Theosophical society & heard Steiner speak for the 1^st time in Basel in 1906.

As mentioned in the essay on the laying of the Foundations Stone, he was at the original founding as board member & treasurer of the Johannesbauverein – the building committee. But:

“In the second half of 1918 there was a series crisis of trust between Englert & the other board members, & after a stormy meeting on 10 January 1919, Englert not only resigned from the board, but also from the construction management. As a result, he also turned away from Anthroposophy…Shortly afterwards his marriage ended in divorce & in 1922 he moved to Lugano. There he became friends, with Hermann Hesse.” ~ https://biographien.kulturimpuls.org/detail.php?id=1479

Englert also cast Horoscope charts for Hermann Hesse. In his novel “Klingsor’s Last Summer”, Hesse Depicts Englert as the Dark Magician.

Clara Selling Walther, who lived with Rudolf Steiner & Marie von Sivers at 30 Motzstrasse in Berlin, for 20 years, tells us that after Englert broke away from Anthroposophy he converted to Catholicism & became a Jesuit. After the fire at the Goetheanum she wrote down some recollections: “A body was found, of a crippled man, a watchmaker. Herr Doctor said he was NOT the arsonist. ‘Oh, No! Old Englert was the only one who knew everything about the cupolas’.”

Russian novelist Andrei Bely, another artistic associate who worked on the Goetheanum, wrote about Englert:

“I appreciated Englert…but I also suspected him ever more strongly of being marked out by a secret tragedy. I sensed his growing fascination with the abyss surrounding us. He suffered a fall. He separated from Steiner, in dissonance & discord, and converted to Catholicism.”

After the burning Steiner spoke to Ita Wegman & a small group of esoteric students, about how the 2 Dark Brotherhoods working behind the Jesuits & the Freemasons – usually enemies – joined together for the 1st time to destroy the ‘House of the Word’.

Steiner quotes what the astrologers working for the Freemasons started as a rumor in the media, which was then picked up & flamed into a fever by the Catholic Church: “Spiritual sparks have flown into the Goetheanum; physical sparks of fire will leap into it too, bringing an end to the glory of Dornach”

We know the fire was discovered in the ‘White Room’ which is where the Christian Community Priests were ordained. There are stories from the eurythmists who also used that room, that a strange wind ‘like an elemental force’ blew the cover off a sky light.

Asja Turgeniev, mentioned something about a large mirror falling off the wall. That skylight blew off just before the first ever Weihehandlung (Act of Consecration) – the inaugural moment of the Christian Community. To reach that room the arsonist would have known to come thru the sky light that allowed access to the inside space between the 2 cupolas which led right down to the make-shift altar left there from the ceremonies of the new Priests.

This space between the 2 cupala’s, which the engineer Englert was so proud of, is beautifully described by Painter & Eurythmist Margarita Woloschina who speaks about how Englet took her on a tour under the scaffolding to show her the construction of the Cupola’s:“Both Cupolas were double-shelled, according to the principle of the sounding board of a violin. It was an extraordinary experience to stand in the space between the 2 half-spheres of the inner & outer roofs of the small cupola, where all normal spatial relationships were as though annulled.” ~ The Green Snake: An Autobiography

We know from experience that the 2 once oppositional adversarial powers are now working together against humanity in many ways.

The question for us today 110 years after the original laying of the Foundation Stone is: When will the 2 Anthroposophical streams, often called the Platonists & the Aristotelians, consciously stive to work together for the good?

And Yes, we are meant to expand out the polarity – Hey, Let’s explore the transcendent 3^rd – We can square the Circle – Step into the pentagram, The 6-pointed heart-star – the 12 points of View…etc…In Christic Revelation…

Let us close this theme with a quote from ‘WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE GOETHEANUM’, GA 84, 9 April 1923, Basel : “The Goetheanum could burn down. A catastrophe has swept it away. The pain of those who loved it is so great that it cannot be described…But Anthroposophy is built out of spirit, and only flames of spirit can touch this. Just as the human soul and spirit are victor over the physical when this is destroyed in death, so Anthroposophy must live, even though it has lost its Dornach home..

What Anthroposophy is to be for the further development of humanity, is built of spirit. This will not be destroyed by the flames of the spiritual life, for these flames are not destroying flames; they are strengthening flames, flames that give more life than ever. And all that life which is to be revealed through Anthroposophy as life of knowledge of the higher world, must be tempered by the flames of the highest inspiration of the human being, soul and spirit. Then Anthroposophy will continuously evolve.” ~Rudolf Steiner

Maybe you’re thinking: Ok so -Why are you even bringing up this arsonist business anyway?

I guess for me it’s always interesting to try & understand what moves thru individuals who affect world history. Always after 100 years – What could not be spoke of then – must now come to light. The forces that lived in those that have fallen to their lower selves, becoming pawns for the adversarial powers, where are these forces living today? Can we meet them before they create a destructive fire? Spiritual Science tells us that events are certainly written in the stars, & yet – if we stay awake & watch thru the dark night – we can work with the stars to steer humanity toward the light…

Bring on the fire of selfless enthusiasm…

xox

~hag

SUNDAY 24 September 2023

Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire

Celebrating:

*The Autumnal Equinox

*World Eurythmy Day

*Yom Kippur

*Michaelmas Festival

6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

30 September 2023 – Our Annual Michaelmas Festival & Zinniker Farm Day – Biodynamic preparation making and Michaelmas 2023 – Food for Thought

The time for biodynamic preparation making is upon us. We will be making and burying the chamomile, yarrow and dandelion compost preparations. This offers hands on activity. We will be walking through grass and working in the soil. Please dress accordingly and be ready to get dirty.

After the potluck join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg in an experiential activity at the bon-fire called: Food for Thought –

Bounty: What spiritual gifts have you harvested in your life so far this year?
Farewells: What no longer serves? What is over? Say good-bye/ thank you.
Preserves: What will you keep as seed for the future?

Date: September 30th, 2023 at the Zinniker Farm
Time: 1:30pm, potluck dinner
Please bring a dish to share
Suggested donation: $15-25 for more info.

Identity

August 8, 2023Calendar of the Soul, Chicago Event, Community, Festival, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Event~hag

Greetings friends – I am just now coming back – with the 4^thQuarter Moon & the building up of the Perseid Meteor showers – fresh from Seminar 4 of the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology (AAP) where the theme was dealing with the 3^rd Septennial – age 14-21 asking: Who Am I ? – The Search for Identity & Authenticity.

And Hallelujah – Because the border restrictions imposed by the Corona crisis finally loosened in May, Dr. James Dyson, Simon Kuttner, & Zheni Nasi were able to join us in person for the 1^st time! – Bringing a distinctly glorious soul-shift in the state of our communion this go-round.

I will no doubt be unpacking our deep dive into the polarities that get sparked during the teenage years, on the micro & macro levels – with all its astral dynamics, as the digestion proceeds.

For now, I’ll just share this echo: Having gathered at Camphill Kimberton on the Full Thunder-Buck Moon during the Cross-Quarter Time of the 2^nd Harvest, between the Summer Solstice & The Autumn Equinox – with the local biodynamic sweet corn plumb & golden, I could sense the ‘Spirit of Place’ standing strongly with the guiding Spirit behind AAP, vibrating thru us all.

And as we contemplated together the essence of adolescence – it seemed to me that in looking at the macro level of human evolution, that perhaps society at large is stuck in those teenage years – a reactive raging
turmoil – the result of a lack of identity – of not yet being able to fully achieve a connection to the Higher “I”…

James Dyson painted a gripping picture of the Youth Movement he was part of – How in 1970, over 400 young people came together for a conference in Spring Valley. Michael Babitch, the long time Camphiller I was staying with was also at this seminal gathering, fresh from the Peace Corp.

Sparked by the success & growing interest within the Youth Movement at that time, James then went on to work with a team of young people to bring a conference to the Goetheanum in 1973. He spoke about the rigidity of the Elders there, & the many obstacles they faced. And yet over 1000 young people from all over the world came together in the light of Anthroposophy!

Was this the longed for ‘Culmination’ that Steiner spoke about?

James & so many others in that volatile time were helped to find their star by finding each other. Many of those earnest young people went on to become practitioners of Anthroposophical Initiates in the world.

It reminded me of what Steiner said at the end of the Christmas Conference – 8:30 pm on 1 January, 1924 in The Responsibility Incumbent on Us: “And so, my dear friends, bear out with you into the world your warm hearts in whose soil you have laid the Foundation Stone for the Anthroposophical Society, bear out with you your warm hearts in order to do work in the world that is strong in healing. Help will come to you because your heads will be enlightened by what you all now want to be able to direct in conscious willing. Let us today make this resolve with all our strength. And we shall see that if we show ourselves to be worthy, then a good star will shine over that which is willed from here. My dear friends, follow this good star. We shall see whither the gods shall lead us through the light of this star.

Light Divine
Christ-Sun,
Warm thou
Our hearts,
Enlighten
thou
Our heads!“

Many questions arose about whether this Responsibility Incumbent on Us was heeded. Has Dornach become simply a place holder, a memorial – at worst a mausoleum…? –

Or is it perhaps a sheath – an inverted chalice over the etheric essence of the 1^st Goetheanum – a protective Michaelic Sheild – a concrete cradle, like the moon, holding the host of the etheric substance of ‘The Word’ released by the sacrificial fire to flow into & permeate the cosmic ethers..?

Are we willing & able to do the hard work of not only reading the Cosmic Script, but actually putting what has been inscribed in the ethers into practice in our lives, thru the purifying of our soul forces, for the highest human evolution…?

The years of biodynamic farming on the Dornach hill gives the land a spiritual glow; & the ancient Hermitage still seems to have some juice – At best – can the Goetheanum become a guiding light to the future…?

It’s up to us – & yes, ‘the Ordering of Space & the Course of Time’ will tell –

What I do know is – that it’s 100 years since the re-founding – And these are the kind of questions we must be asking.

And of course, as we have discussed many times here on RR – it is a Rosicrucian law that after 100 years ‘the Tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz is opened’. This imagination reveals a deep occult truth – The seeds that were planted by the great Christian Initiates that were not able to bear fruit in the last century, can now rise from the grave to become not only a Resurrection, but a furthering, & a Renewal – an opportunity to meet “I” to “I” to enact the New Mysteries of Love & Freedom.

And what became clear to me sitting in our circle of 50 earnest souls, is that the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology is a true guiding light, a practical, experientially based Mystery School for our time – chalk full of all the pushes & pullings that are the key notes of initiation – The not so beautiful karmic realtionships, that so sorely test us, & the intense trials that inner development brings…

Dear friends, together we can stand with the ‘Representative of Humanity’ spared by the flames of jealousy, to unveil the New Isis = to live into the truth that: “Love is the result of Wisdom that has been reborn in the I” – ever cultivating Anthroposophia within ourselves as we ‘Awaken to Community’ – To fulfill ‘the Mystery of the “I” giving back to the Gods’, in the co-creation of a New Golden Civilization – “I” into it”.

~hag

8 August 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Early tomorrow morning, the waning crescent moon will pass the dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster, aka the Seven Sisters. And on Thursday, the even thinner moon will be close to bright orange star Aldebaran, fiery Eye of the Bull in the constellation Taurus.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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 II
Can I Imagine My Soul’s Need?
v18
Can I make wide my soul
that she unite with seed
of Cosmic Word conceived?
I feel my foresight asking me
to find the strangth my soul will need
to form her spirit garment worthily.

This is the Soul Calendar’s first question verse
and its mirror is the only other one.

ADVENT II
Can True Being Inspire Me?
v35
Can I experience true being
that it may find itself anew
in soul’s creative urge?
I feel a power trusting me
to make my Self with modesty
a member of the Cosmic Self.

~Dali

Sunday 13 August 2023

Prep-Stir – Potluck – Bonfire

To celebrate The 2^nd Harvest = Lammas

The Perseid Meteor Showers, Venus/Sun Conjunction

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

And a bon voyage Blessing for Ultra-Violet Archer

7 – 9 pm

at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile

Please Bring Food & Drink to share,

& a jar for the prep

RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

The Palladium

July 31, 2023Biography, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

(part 6 -the final bit of the series)

Greetings friends on this Eve of the Full Thunder-Buck Moon – The Eve of the Cross-Quarter often called Lammas or Loaf-Mass in honor of the grain harvest.

I am leaving tomorrow for my next session of AAP Training, so I wanted to wrap up this series of reflections from “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing Anthroposophia” Conference. Here are the links to the earlier essays part 1 – part 2 – part 3 – part 4 – part 5

To further the emphasis on the healing task of the Arts, the perfect capper to ‘Realizing Anthroposophia’ came in the form of a spoken word performance by Richard Ramsbotham, with captivating music by Godlind Gadeke – “In Search of the Hidden Sources of Healing” – Through the death-forces in our culture to the rebirth of the spirit! Taken directly from the diaries of Countess Johanna von Keyserlingk written up in her book: “The Journey to Byzantium – The Palladium of Victory”, where she poetically describes her super-sensible experiences in Constantinople in 1926.

Yes, it’s the same Countess von Keyserlingk who together with her husband Count Carl von Keyserlingk hosted Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course at their estate in the obscure village of Koberwitz near Breslau, Germany (now Kobierzyce, near Wrocław, Poland).

Her highly developed clairvoyant ability, verified by Rudolf Steiner, opens her to the dread deed of 869 – the banishment of the Spirit – which plunges humanity into materialism. Facing this darkness, she also experiences the full potential to overcome this pronouncement – bringing a rebirth of Spirit – a healing of the sickness prevailing in our culture.

Perhaps you attended the amazing zoom series: “Shining a Light into the Darkness” initiated by Dr. Melissa Greer of Carah Medical Arts, for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Branch? Richard Ramsbotham gave the first two talks on the Academy of Gondishapur. Melissa asked him to contribute something for the Conference & this is what he felt called to bring! She sent him my essay on the Countess: Johanna von Keyserlingk: Vessel for the Etheric Christ for art & background.

Countess Johanna von Keyserlingk was deeply affected by Rudolf Steiner’s death, feeling it as blow to humanity. The only hope she thought, must come thru the aid of the Spiritual World, which she was very much in-touch with. This launched her on a quest to re-discover the lost “Palladium – The Sun-Jewel of Pallas Athena”.

~Nike (Victory) offers an egg to a snake entwined around a column surmounted by the Trojan Palladium

Many tales speak of the Palladium (like the Spear of Destiny) – as conferring spiritual rulership of the world for whoever holds it.

~Odysseus and Diomedes steal the Palladium from Troy

Steiner described the search for the Palladium as a quest for human freedom. “Legends tell of the removal of The Palladium, the Treasure of Wisdom, from Troy to Rome, from Rome to Constantinople, when Roman Christianity was secularized. They tell of its future removal to the East…& they tell of the necessity for this Sun-Treasure to receive new light from the West…How it must wait until it is redeemed spiritually in the West, released from the dark shadows of a purely external knowledge…

The Sun-Mystery has disappeared into the nether regions of human existence. Through spiritual-scientific development we must find it again…

Today people are looking expectantly towards – Washington! Not those “Washingtons” having conferences looking for an open door for trade to China -but those that speak with the tones of the spiritual world – conferences conducted in the West that will bring salvation – which develop in such a way that the Palladium can be kindled once again to light. For like a fluorescent body, the Palladium, in itself, is dark; if it is suffused with light, then it becomes radiant. And so it is with the wisdom of the East: dark in itself, but it will light up when it is permeated by the spiritual light, The Sun-Wisdom of the West.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Cosmosophy, GA 208, 6 Nov. 1921

The journey the Countess takes is not about finding a physical object, but of striving to understand the spiritual causes for the sickness of society – & for the spiritual healing of it all. This brought her first into contact with the dark powers involved with the Council of Constantinople in 869.

From Rudolf Steiner: “…At the Council of Constantinople (in 869) it was decreed that the spirit did not exist; it was dogmatically stated that the human being consisted only of body and soul, and it was heresy to speak of a human spirit. In the same way attempts will be made to decree the soul, the inner life, as nonexistent.

The time will come — and it may not be far off — when quite different tendencies will come up at a congress like the one held in 1912 (involving the start of WW1) and people will say: It is pathological for people to even think in terms of spirit and soul. ‘Sound’ people will speak of nothing but the body. It will be considered a sign of illness for anyone to arrive at the idea of any such thing as a spirit or a soul. People who think like that will be considered to be sick and — you can be quite sure of it — a medicine will be found for this.

At Constantinople the spirit was made non-existent. The soul will be made non-existent with the aid of a drug. Taking a ‘sound point of view’, people will invent a vaccine to influence the organism as early as possible, preferably as soon as it is born, so that this human body never even gets the idea that there is a soul and a spirit.

The two philosophies of life will be in complete opposition. One movement will need to reflect how concepts and ideas may be developed to meet the reality of soul and spirit. The others, the heirs of modern materialism, will look for the vaccine to make the body ‘healthy’, that is, makes its constitution such that this body no longer talks of such rubbish as soul and spirit, but takes a ‘sound’ view of the forces which live in engines and in chemistry and let planets and suns arise from nebulae in the cosmos. Materialistic physicians will be asked to drive the souls out of humanity.

People who think that playful ideas will help them to look ahead to the future are very much mistaken. We need serious, profound ideas to look ahead to the future. Anthroposophy is not a game, nor just a theory; it is a task that must be faced for the sake of human evolution.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, THE FALL OF THE SPIRITS OF DARKNESS, GA 177, 5. Changes in Humanity’s Spiritual Make-up, 7 October 1917, Dornach

Dear friends – As we meet each of the many 100 year milestones that ask us to transform & renew what was wrought in Steiner’s time, we can see many parallels. Ramsbotham’s question to us thru this artistic work is: As we stand against the abyss of the ‘4^th Industrial Revolution in which ‘biological & digital identities would be merged’ How can we uncover the hidden mysteries of Healing? What is asked of us today?

As Countess Johanna von Keyserlingk says:

“We were aware that humanity had struck against something in front of which we were powerless. So If we are not to go under, Spiritual Powers need to come to humanity’s aid.”

Thank you Dear Richard for this moving piece. The voice of the Countess rings forth today with light filled hope thru your work.

May we quest together for the renewed Sun-Jewel of AnthropoSophia – that every human soul become a Star & the Earth a New Sun…

To finalize: Here is what I put on the Ideas for the future card:

Conference or workshop theme ideas: Preventative ‘Medicine’ / Social Health

In the spirit of the ‘Cosmic Communion’ in the New Mysteries of Healing, does anyone else feel a calling to bring a Renewal to Pastoral Medicine, in the light of the Reverse Cultus, co-creating Rites of Passage to help folks meet the milestone moments marking the 7 year cycles, perhaps in conjunction with Waldorf Teachers, as a preventative measure – a psycho/spiritual medicine that may allow a healing catharsis, so that perhaps the soul doesn’t have to resort to becoming ill to have a threshold experience…?

May we ennoble the Cultural Realm in Freedom thru Love…

I will be off-line until 9 Aug. 2023 – I will try to send out remotely a few inspirations for Lammas tomorrow

May the bread of life nurture the Christ in you

~hag

“How can I do the Good?” part 2

July 26, 2023Biography, Birth / Death Days, History, Insight, Poetry~hag

Greetings friends & welcome to this attempt to digest & explore my experiences at “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia” Conference. Here is part 1 – an overview around ‘the summer of 1923 in Penmaenmawr, when Ita Wegman asked Rudolf Steiner if there could be a path for the mysteries to come into medicine again in our age’.

Please remember these reflections are only my personal impressions, a mixture of considerations gleaned from our esteemed speakers: Dr.’s Ursula Flatters, James Dyson, & Marion Debus. I am sure every participant takes in what they uniquely need to hear, & hopefully comes away with a new perspective that can be put into practice. So please feel free to add your thoughts as well!

In this incarnation, I have always felt a dis-comfort with being in the body, a sense of well being is not often present. My ‘Life Sense’ is perhaps overly acute, but this has allowed me to experience the Ego Sense – The “I” of the Other – more strongly as well.

Dis-ease comes from the past –

Something was lost or knocked out of balance within the soul-forces & is seeking a recalibration – It is often a karmic wake- up call – an opportunity for growth thru catharsis.

We can Will to reconnect to our Pre-personal “I” – The “I” of our unborn-ness; & to the original primal forces of the Zodiac living in our physical organs, & the Planetary Beings who formed us.

Many Anthroposophical remedies employ the 7 metals (mineral world) representing the Planets, or treatments using the animal & plant kingdoms potentized to the degree that the physical matter becomes spiritualized, to help us realign with our Divine Blueprint…

Healing comes from the future –

We meet a dis-ease so we can experience transformation & healing. We must let go – to let come. We build up a health plan, an imagination of wholeness, & then release all expectation of the out-come. Patience is needed. Yet it is not a passive waiting, it is an Active, Faith & Trust filled Doing – Building a Foundation of Study – Biography & Psycho-Spiritual work to Know Thy-Self, an ordered consistent Meditation & daily Practice with Esoteric Exercises…etc…A Cultivation of silent stillness – A sacred space for the light of the Holy Spirit to enter with healing in her wings.

We listen – to receive inspiration. This cultivates that middle, ever present Christic space, between the 2 streams of Time, allowing us to anchor our Higher Self, so that it can receive Intuition for the co-creation of wholeness. This is the mystery of healing – Karma is freed –

The 2 streams of Time meet in the present creating a transcendent 3^rd space for Social Relationship – ‘when 2 or 3 are gathered…’

We can imagine our time in the Michael School, & our practicum thru the Cosmic Cultus – & then we must apply this Wisdom in the “I” to “I” Encounter‘ in our time together now.

Are we unconsciously using power over others? Or are we consciously cultivating power with others – supporting & sharing our gifts in communion?

How do we resurrect the ‘Temple Legend’ to redeem the sword of Cain in the future stream of rightful willing – Bestowing a blessing – a unified restoration of the spiritual essence within the Priestly Abel stream…

Do we Will to become our Brother’s Keeper – in the Freedom of Love…?

~hag

~Pamela Matthews

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~My song raps itself around
The belly of the New Sophia
Pulsing in union with The Logos
In rhythm with the Sun streaming
In the All-Space of the Fixed Stars
Forming fresh consonants
Into the aura of imaginations
That inform my soul thru rolling vowels
Of planetary bodies
That sing their echo into my open ear…
~hag

Sergei Olegovitch Prokofieff
16 January 1954 – † 26 July 2014

Today 26 July is the deathday of Sergei O. Prokofieff – the 1^st to confirm my connection with the New Isis. And his dedication to the 1^st Class Lessons birthed in me a true knowing. He opened the living reality of the ‘New Mysteries’, revealing the relationship of the Christ-Sophia in this Michaelic age, with Rudolf Steiner & Christian Rosenkreutz, which we as human beings are called to explore & develop. “The Cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation – A Esoteric Study of the Festivals” is my Bible – my calling, my life’s work. “The Occult Significance of Forgiveness” changed my life (I am of course still striving here) And the massive work “May Human Beings Hear It” which convinced me to dedicate myself to the Foundation Stone Meditation, pointing up the living reality of the Christmas Conference, which I feel a personal & collective responsibility to fulfill.

My heart spills over with gratitude for this true initiate, this real anthroposopher, this true human being, who continues to be my mentor from across the Threshold.

“Anthroposophia seeks to become a new group-soul for that part of humankind which is united within the General Anthroposophical Society founded by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference of 1923-24, thereby representing a kind of archetype for the whole of future evolution & at the same time initiating that universally human process which Rudolf Steiner described in the following words: ‘When people gather together in voluntary associations, they group themselves around focal points. The feelings that stream together at such a focal point now gives Beings the opportunity to work as a kind of group-soul, though in a completely different sense from the former unconscious group-souls. All previous group-souls were beings who made man unfree. These New Beings, however, are wholly compatible with the freedom & preservation of human individuality’.

Anthroposophia would seek to become the 1^st of these Beings in our time. However, whether this is possible depends not on this Being alone, but also on human beings.

Thus by uniting with one another in the General Anthroposophical Society out of a love for Anthroposophia & a wish to serve her as a real, living Being, anthroposophist’s throughout the world have the task of together creating on Earth something akin to an all embracing soul-chalice into which this supersensible Being, the youngest member of the heavenly Sophia, can descend. And this means none other than the beginning of the incarnation of the heavenly Sophia on Earth. (this will come about in the 7^th epoch, but of which we must prepare now)

Only from this grandiose perspective can we really understand the inner significance of the deed wrought by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference, a deed which represents the high-point & culmination of the entire 21 year development of the anthroposophical movement (1902-23) – a ‘Turning Point of Time’ – For it signified the birth on Earth of her ego in the sheaths of the General Anthroposophical Society. In this way the foundation was laid, or-one could say-the possibility created, for the further working of Anthroposophia in the midst as a New Group-Soul.” ~Sergei O. Prokofieff, “The Heavenly Sophia and the Being Anthroposophia”

May we take up this task to give birth to Anthroposophia, this Being of Human Wisdom, within ourselves, to serve the world.

~hag

Sergei Olegovitch was the grandson of the composer Sergei Prokofiev. Born in Moscow, he studied fine arts & painting at the Moscow School of Art. He encountered anthroposophy in his youth, & soon made the decision to devote his life to it. 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. Prokofieff was a prolific author; 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. Prokofieff left us a treasure trove of Works

Thank you dear Sergei for your continued inspiration.

~hag

26 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Tonight the bright waxing gibbous moon will pass the star with the strange sounding name Zubenelgenubi – the alpha star in Libra the Scales ~Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast of Saint Anne, mother of Mary, & grandmother of Jesus according to apocryphal Christian & Islamic tradition.

1856 – Birthday of George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright & critic, Nobel Prize laureate.

1875 – Birthday of Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist & psychotherapist. Jung was also an artist, craftsman & builder as well as a prolific writer. Many of his works were not published until after his death & some are still awaiting publication.

Among the central concepts of analytical psychology is individuation—the lifelong psychological process of differentiation of the self out of each individual’s conscious & unconscious elements. Jung considered it to be the main task of human development. He created some of the best known psychological concepts, including synchronicity, archetypal phenomena, the collective unconscious, the psychological complex, & extraversion / introversion.

When Jung was six months old, tension between his parents was growing. Emilie Jung, his mother was an eccentric & depressed woman; she spent considerable time in her bedroom where she said that spirits visited her at night. Although she was normal during the day, Jung recalled that at night his mother became strange & mysterious. He reported that one night he saw a faintly luminous & indefinite figure coming from her room with a head detached from the neck, floating in the air in front of the body. Jung was a solitary, introverted child.

From childhood, he believed that, like his mother, he had 2 personalities—a modern Swiss citizen & a personality more suited to the 18th century. Personality Number 1″, as he termed it, was a typical schoolboy living in the era of the time. “Personality Number 2” was a dignified, authoritative & influential man from the past. A number of childhood memories made lifelong impressions on him. As a boy, he carved a tiny mannequin into the end of the wooden ruler from his pencil case & placed it inside the case. He added a stone, which he had painted into upper & lower halves, & hid the case in the attic. Periodically, he would return to the mannequin, often bringing tiny sheets of paper with messages inscribed on them in his own secret language. He later reflected that this ceremonial act brought him a feeling of inner peace &security. Years later, he discovered similarities between his personal experience & the practices associated with totems in indigenous cultures, such as the collection of soul-stones near Arlesheim or the tjurungas of Australia. He concluded that his intuitive ceremonial act was an unconscious ritual, which he had practiced in a way that was strikingly similar to those in distant locations which he, as a young boy, knew nothing about. His observations about symbols, archetypes, & the collective unconscious were inspired, in part, by these early experiences combined with his later research.

At the age of 12, shortly before the end of his first year at the Humanistisches Gymnasium in Basel, Jung was pushed to the ground by another boy so hard that he momentarily lost consciousness. A thought then came to him—”now you won’t have to go to school anymore.” From then on, whenever he walked to school or began homework, he fainted. He remained at home for the next 6 months until he overheard his father speaking hurriedly to a visitor about the boy’s future ability to support himself. They suspected he had epilepsy. Confronted with the reality of his family’s poverty, he realized the need for academic excellence. He went into his father’s study & began pouring over Latin grammar. He eventually overcame the urge & did not faint again. This event, Jung later recalled, “was when I learned what a neurosis is.”

Jung did not plan to study psychiatry since it was not considered prestigious at the time. But, when looking at a psychiatric textbook, his interest was immediately captured—it combined the biological & the spiritual, exactly what he was searching for.

In 1895 Jung began to study medicine at the University of Basel. Barely a year later in 1896, his father Paul died & left the family near destitute. They were helped out by relatives who also contributed to Jung’s studies.

During his student days, he entertained his contemporaries with the family legend, that his paternal grandfather was the illegitimate son of Wolfgang Goethe & his German great-grandmother, Sophie Ziegler. In later life, he pulled back from this tale, saying only that Sophie was a friend of Goethe’s niece.

I will be away 1-8 August 2023

After- Image 4

July 14, 2023Biography, Insight, Quote, Upcoming Event~hag

After-Image 1 & After-Image 2 & After-Image 3

Dear friends – Welcome to this last essay in the series based on our work with the After-Image during the ‘Fire in the Heart’ Christian Community Conference.

Anthroposophy asks us to live into the idea that there is a kind of reversal from what we see in the material world & what we experience in the Spiritual Worlds. This kind of Reversal is one of the reasons the Backwards Review or “Ruchschau” is recommended before sleep. In German Ruchschau, actually translates as ‘viewing movement’ which makes sense since the Etheric/Life-Body of Formative Forces is a Time-Body expressed thru rhythm & habits.

The Ruchschau is a potent alchemical force – a practical way of consciously entering into the spiritual world. It centers on taking memory pictures across the threshold into the spiritual world during sleep. We are more likely to then to receive a further after-image in the morning.

Dennis Klocek calls the backward review “a practice of soul distillation…The backwards review trains us to repeatedly form and dissolve pictures with personal will. When done at the threshold of sleep, this practice amounts to willing life pictures across the abyss of dream and on into the spiritual world. In the morning I can briefly establish a link to them by listening to my heartbeat.”

If the backwards review is done regularly, it fortifies our Etheric/Life-Body, AND our dreams become more lucid…

~Odilon Redon

Ok, deep breath – here we go: On Sunday 9 July 2023, I awoke in the twittering twilight of a ‘Driftless-Region’ dawn, with the fragment of a dream:

I was standing in a garden. The air was fragrant. I looked to my left, & saw a large raised bed of tall star-gazer lilies, open & dripping nectar. On my right, was a huge field of rioting roses, some wide-petaled & exposed – others, a tight red bud. I could see their scent like a misty vapor, rising & falling. In the distance, rays of light pierced thru the leaves & clustered flowers of the Linden trees, which formed a ring at the edge of my vision. Swirling in the beamed light were many swarming honeybees – their intense hum & the smell of the flowers made me light-headed. I looked down at my feet, & dug my toes, which were painted red, into the rich black earth. I looked up at the big sky undulating with white clouds that were forming & re-forming. I was trying to make out the shapes when I awoke.

I put the dream away, hurrying to pack-up & get ready for the Act of Consecration, in which I was serving on the left.

I was excited to put into practice Steiner’s Candle-Gazing Exercise which we had been working with in our group over the last 2 days, up close at the altar where I could see all 7 flames.

At first I experienced the usual after-image of the yellow flame becoming violet at the center with a kind of rainbow effect bringing in green & orange, the candlesticks flipping from white to black, the firing up of the purple aura outlining the flowers, the altar, the window, & the bodies of the Priests.

When we got to the part in the service when the Priest makes the sign of the Cross horizontally over the Chalice, I experienced rays of yellow/violet/green light from the 6 candles streaming out – & arching into the tallest center candle. And from that center candle sprang, what I can only describe, perhaps, as a Salamander or Fire-Being of Light. It was shaped like a sea-horse, with bright primary red in the bottom circle ringed with green around the bottom edge, ringed upward with concentric circles of orange into yellow becoming misty white at the top, & at the bottom a white & grey wispy tail curling up like the sea-horse. I blinked & it plunged down into the altar. I felt it like a current in my body, piercing past me into the earth. Then it rose back up again – very fast – & disappeared into the ceiling.

I immediately broke out in a sweat. I felt my vision constricting & expanding at the same time. The light all around seemed overly bright, saturated with little rainbows that appeared in tiny squares, like pixels revealing something behind the light. I got concerned that I was going to faint. I worked to center myself, trying to control my breathing. I was dripping sweat.

While the Transubstantiation was happening, my vision was narrowing, the too bright light becoming velvet black, studded with flickering 4-pointed rainbow stars – like a Christmas card I said to myself.

The sound in the room became highly pitched. I consciously brought my attention down from my head into my throat – engaging my larynx – vibrating The Word within me. “O Christ, sick is the dwelling…O Christ, I confess…”

My vision was now fully inward, yet in the atmosphere I felt a pulsing, a kind of fireworks show – flashing like a coded message – it took me back to my dream. Was this forming & re-forming what the clouds were veiling?

(In retrospect, I woke up this morning thinking it was like the scene in the Bhagavata, when Arjuna opens Krishna’s sight to the eternal world…)

For a second I saw my Self falling like a tree in the forest, & I was concerned about where I would land?

When it came time for folks to come up to receive communion, I stood as the left-server at the end – the pillar reflecting the community. When the 1^st round of folks had all lined up, I knew I should slip out the door to get some fresh air.

I sat down on the cool stone steps of The ‘Old Main’ Building where the Christian Community holds their affiliate services, swimming in sweat, pushing up the sleeves of my white vestments. I knew I had a few moments to catch my breath since there would be several rounds with the over 50 folks in the Church who would be taking communion.

Pat, a nurse practitioner saw me leave & came out to check on me. I turned & she gasped: ‘My dear, you are as white as your collar’. She touched my forehead & exclaimed: ‘O, & very clammy’. She sat down with me for a bit until I knew I was good to go back in to take up my position. There were still 2 more rounds to go, so I was able to receive the chalice – & O Lordy – The ‘wine’ was especially enlivening.

Afterward I felt strange about what happened. No one asked me anything, which I wondered about; but I was also relieved, since I wouldn’t have been able to speak about it.

Going around the circle at the closing Plenum, I became uneasy. I didn’t feel ready to share. Would people think I was crazy, or irresponsible, or deluded…? I was so uncomfortable.

It wasn’t until after we had driven the 4 hours home that I was able to talk a bit about it to CG, UVA & LDL. Their open-heartedness took the load right off me. And I remembered that I had felt that same kind of lifting during the service on Friday morning – Such wonder – & reverent gratitude! And a reminder that my intention during the clay exercise was ‘Let go & let come’.

And now thru the digestion process, which always comes, for me, in having to put the experience into writing, deepening my persepctive, is able to live as an after-image of wholeness. Especially since it has become interwoven with the forces present during this time of my Natal Return, which always brings a profound retrospective.

Thank-you dear friends, for being part of my spiritual biography. May we all move ever closer to our highest destiny – forging the Wisdom of Love in Freedom.

Xox

~hag