Category Archives: Insight

Mid-Summers Eve

19 June 2016 – Happy Father’s Day

fathers day

On June 19, 1910, the governor of Washington proclaimed the nation’s first “Father’s Day.” However, it was not until 1972, 58 years after President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day official, that the day became a nationwide holiday in the United States.

The “Mother’s Day” we celebrate today has its origins in the peace-and-reconciliation campaigns of the post-Civil War era.

The campaign to celebrate the nation’s fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm. On July 5, 1908, a West Virginia church sponsored the nation’s first event explicitly in honor of fathers, a Sunday sermon in memory of the 362 men who had died in the previous December’s explosions at the Fairmont Coal Company mines. Slowly, the holiday spread.

However, many men continued to disdain the day. So struggling retailers & advertisers redoubled their efforts to make Father’s Day a “second Christmas” for men, promoting goods such as neckties, hats, socks, pipes & tobacco, golf clubs & other sporting goods, & greeting cards. When World War II began, advertisers began to argue that celebrating Father’s Day was a way to honor American troops & support the war effort. By the end of the war, Father’s Day may not have been a federal holiday, but it was a national institution.

In 1972, in the middle of a hard-fought presidential re-election campaign, Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making Father’s Day a federal holiday at last. Today, economists estimate that Americans spend more than $1 billion each year on Father’s Day gifts.

May all Father’s be like a beneficent protector king, compassionate, helpful & wise.

325 – 1st Council of Nicea concludes & promulgates the Nicene Creed

1566 – Birthday of James VI of Scotland & I of England, son of Mary, Queen of Scots; inspirer of William Shakespeare, Jacob Boehme, & Jacob Balde & the “Golden Age” of Elizabethan literature & drama. He sponsored the translation of the Bible that was named after him: the Authorised King James Version

1623 – Birthday of Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher & child prodigy.

1844 – Deathday of Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, defender of Goethean science, a French naturalist who established the principle of “unity of composition”. His scientific views had a transcendental flavor.

1862 – The U.S. Congress prohibits slavery in United States territories, nullifying Dred Scott v. Sandford.

1867 – Deathday of Maximillian I. Seeking to legitimize French rule in the Americas, Napoleon III invited Maximilian to establish a new Mexican monarchy for him. Many foreign governments refused to recognize Maximilian’s claim or regime. His self-declared empire collapsed, & he was executed by the Mexican government.

1917 – The solar eclipse of June 19, 1917

1936 – The solar eclipse of June 19, 1936

1953 – Julius & Ethel Rosenberg are executed at Sing Sing, in New York

1964 – The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is approved after surviving an 83-day filibuster in the United States Senate

2012 – WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange requests asylum in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy for fear of extradition to the US after publication of previously classified documents including footage of civilian killings by the US army

~   ~   ~

veil natureDoris Dumphy

Calendar of the Soul Thirteenth Week [June 19, 2016 – June 25, 2016]

And when I live in senses’ heights,

  There flames up deep within my soul

  Out of the spirit’s fiery worlds

  The gods’ own word of truth:

  In spirit sources seek expectantly

  To find your spirit kinship.

 

~   ~  ~

summerscience

Tomorrow 20 June 2016, is the Summer Solstice, exact 5:34pm CDT.

Astrologically the Summer Solstice, the height of the Sun, corresponds to the entry of the Sun into the sign of Cancer, which is interestingly a water sign governed by the moon. And this year, on Summer Solstice we will also experience the Full Moon! So tonight is the eve of what is traditionally called the Honey Moon or Strawberry Moon.

Cancer symbolizes the moving waters of our inner life, our moods & cycles, our instincts & intuition – our juiciness! It holds the force & power of our imagination, our emotions, our roots. A reflective, passive, cyclic force, this sign marks the intimate inner world of our personal & family bonds, as well as our larger collective family.

The Festival of Summer Solstice is sometimes called Midsummer’s Eve & it is celebrated like other ‘holy days’ on the Eve, starting at twilight, when the power is most concentrated.

Midsummer’s Eve is a magical time to communicate with the plant & fairy spirits, as it is the time of the herb harvest. All plants gathered this night are considered exceptionally potent for healing & ritual purposes.

St. John’s Wort & other healing herbs are placed around the home for protection as they dry. Since it is a solar herb, it is used to bring the power of the sun to people who suffer from depression. They are also thrown into the Midsummer bonfire, & when the coals have cooled down the ashes are mixed with water & sprinkled on the fields, the 4 corners of the home, & the on the head or feet of the children.

Royal fern seeds gathered at midnight on the eve are said to make you invisible; rub the blossoms on your eyelids to see the wee folk, which will also make you wealthy & wise, but be sure to carry a bit of rue in your pocket or you might be ‘pixie-led’. Can’t find the rue, then turn your jacket inside out & follow the old ‘Ley-Lines’, which will keep you from getting lost in fairy land.

Divination on matters of love are especially powerful on Midsummer’s Eve. Young women place yarrow or other herbs & flowers native to their part of the world peaking at this time, under their pillows, to dream of their future mates.

The ancient Druids celebrated the Summer Solstice as the Wedding of Heaven & Earth. The Goddess manifests as Mother Earth & the God as the Sun King.

summer marriage of sun & earth'

More lore tomorrow

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Upward Streaming

18 June 2016

sky june 18 2016

Near the Solstice, the twilight lingers well past 9 o’clock. The waxing Gibbous Moon, climbing into the southeast before sunset, is joined by Saturn as it starts to darken between 9 & 9:30 PM. They’ll track low in the southern skies, due south just before midnight. To their lower right is the red star Antares, while the much brighter Mars is well to the right.

uriel RS 2Rudolf Steiner

Feast Day of Archangel Uriel

Crater creator

1178 – Five Canterbury monks see the  Giordano Bruno crater  being formed. It is believed that the current oscillations of the Moon’s distance from the Earth are a result of this collision

1812 – War of 1812 began when the U.S. declares war on Great Britain, Canada, & Ireland

1815 –The Battle of Waterloo results in the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte

death contempation Antoine WiertzAntonie Wierz

1865 – Deathday of Antonie Wierz – Belgian romantic painter & sculptor

1873 – Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote

1900 – Empress Dowager Cixi of China orders all foreigners killed, including foreign diplomats & their families

1901 – Birthday of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov of Russia

1916 – Death day of Helmuth von Moltke, said by Steiner to have been Pope Nicholas I.

RS art 9, 21, 24

1924 – Rudolf Steiner travels to Koberwitz & Lauenstein to give the curative pedagogy lectures

1929 – Deathday of Michael Bauer – German teacher, author , lecturer, president after Carl Unger of the Anthroposophical Society

1940 – Appeal of 18 June by Charles de Gaulle

1971 – President Richard Nixon declares that illegal drugs are “public enemy number one”, which becomes popularized as the “War on Drugs“.

1979 – In Vienna, President Jimmy Carter & Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT)

1983 –Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space

~   ~   ~

Ophelia weaving garlandsRichard Redgrave

~ Weaving garlands of onion & hibiscus,

Succulent moon dew pooling

In the golden cleft

Of my warrior heart

I am a thought made manifest

~hag

~   ~   ~

smoke_signals_by_coolcurry-d41vcb9

Part 8 on the ST. JOHN IMAGINATION

“The teachers in the Mysteries said: “Every year at Midsummer, a solemn offering must be made to the Upper Gods in gratitude for the thoughts they vouchsafe to humanity; for if this is not done, it is all too easy for the Luciferic powers to invade man’s thinking and he is then permeated by these powers.

He can avoid this if every Summer he is mindful of how the Upper Gods have given him these thoughts, and at the Midsummer season lets his thoughts flow back again, as it were, to the Gods.” In this way the men of olden times tried to safeguard themselves from Luciferic influences.

The leaders of the Mysteries called together their pupils and enacted that solemn rite at the culmination of which the thoughts that had been revealed by the Upper Gods were now offered up to them in upward-streaming feelings.

The external rite consisted in solemn words being spoken into rising smoke which was thus set into waves. This act was merely meant to signify that the offering made by man’s inmost soul to the Upper Gods was being inscribed into an outer medium — the rising smoke — through form-creating words.

The words of the prayer inscribed into the rising smoke the feelings which the soul desired to send upwards to the Gods as an offering for the thoughts they had revealed.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Communion of Mankind  http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19221223p01.html#sthash.wBDzuZDX.dpuf

“…Now, humanity must learn to know the etheric and astral elements outside himself. This he can do only through the reverent deepening of spiritual science

This is what Anthroposophy intends when it speaks of a renewal of the festivals

We must come once more to an inner understanding of what the cycle of the year can mean to man in this connection; it can then be something even loftier than it was for man long ago”…~Rudolf Steiner, The Cycle of the Year as Breathing-Process of the Earth http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA223/English/AP1984/19230403p01.html

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

~   ~   ~

Moonday June 20, 2016 – It’s Summer Solstice & The Full Honey-Moon!!!

So come join our : St. John’s Tide Bon-Fire Social Gathering

7pm – 9pm

Pot-Luck Dinner in the backyard of Hazel & Chuck Ginsberg

Please Bring Food & Drink to Share in Community

RSVP ReverseRitual@gmail.com by TODAY for address & directions  

PS. there’s a Cub Game that night so be sure to come in for a sticker to put in your car.

If it’s storming – stay home & celebrate

St. John's RS GA 229 Plate V

Sunday June 26th, 2pm -4pm 

He Must Increase but I Must Decrease  Exploring the Mysteries of Midsummer 

with special guest Robert Karp, Co-Director of the Biodynamic Association.

How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of summer and St. John’s tide? Who is the mysterious archangel of Midsummer described by Rudolf Steiner and what is his relationship to John the Baptist? Can we trace his influence in modern culture, in modern America? What transformation does he seek to bring into our souls and into our communities?

These are some of the questions we will explore in this talk and, in a series of social-artistic exercises that will be incorporated into the talk.

Dulcimer music by Dr. Elaine Wagner.

Labyrinth Dance with ~hag

More details coming soon. For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com

I Come To Carry Light

17 June 2016 – International World Day to Combat Desertification & Drought.

big dipper in all seasons

Tonight the Big Dipper is beginning to drop a little into the northwestern skies from its position at the top of the sky in May. A Seneca Indian legend tells us that the bowl of the dipper is really a bear, with the closest star to the bowl a hunter with a bow & arrow. The middle star is a hunter with a cooking pot, & the third star is another hunter, gathering firewood to cook with.

1462 – Vlad Dracula (the Impaler) attempts to assassinate Mehmed II an Ottoman sultan forcing him to retreat from Wallachia

Taj Mahal

1631 – Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, will spend the next 17 years building her mausoleum, the .

1673 – French explorers Jacques Marquette & Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi River & become the first Europeans to make a detailed account of its course

1839 – In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issues the edict of toleration which gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands

Statue of Liberty face

1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor

1928 – Amelia Earhart began the flight that made her the first woman to successfully fly across the Atlantic Ocean

1940 – The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia

1967 – The People’s Republic of China announces a successful test of its first thermonuclear weapon

1972 – Watergate scandal begins: Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition

Dusky-Seaside-Sparrow-Extinct

1987 – With the death of the last individual of the species, the dusky seaside sparrow becomes extinct

1603 – Feast day of Joseph of Cupertino, Italian Franciscan friar who is honored as a Christian mystic & saint. He was said to have been remarkably unclever, but prone to miraculous levitation & intense ecstatic visions. He is the patron saint of air travelers, aviators, astronauts, people with a mental handicap, test takers & poor students.

1882 – Birthday of Igor Stravinsky, Russian pianist, composer, & conductor

~   ~   ~

carry the light

~I come

From light & To light

I return

My hands grasp the ring of colors

The gold beak of dawn

The blue eyes of day

The deep red blood of dusk

I gather

Myself, thought & bone

I come

To carry light

~hag

~   ~   ~

earth sun

Part 7 in: A Summary of THE ST. JOHN IMAGINATION, from ~the Four Seasons and the Archangels, Lecture 4, by Rudolf Steiner

In the Summer-Tide, through ‘the great window of heaven’ we experience an interaction between humanity & the sun forces, assisting us to develop an awareness of our Higher Ego. The summertime union between the sun & earth is actually a reunion between the divine gods of the spiritual sun & their offspring, humankind. We can contemplate this dynamic & bring it to life in our soul most strongly at this time.

We can seek to experience the Ego development of humankind by following the earnest gaze of the Archangel Uriel into the earth, guiding the union of the sun’s inner radiance with the being of the earth.

Like the call of conscience from John the Baptist, the need arises to let the light of the Higher Ego shine into our being, knowing that the union of creator & created is affected by the disharmony from the imperfect deeds of humanity.

We respond to the summertime call for a yearly ‘metanoia’ by reviewing our deeds of the past year, (like we do at the time of the Winter Solstice) while Uriel’s ‘eye of heaven’ gazes down upon us. Let us seek to know the will forces, that our deeds may add to the advancement of the earth’s being.

~   ~   ~

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Mysteries of the Will

16 June 2016 – shadow transit of Io, one of Jupiter’s moons begins at twilight, ends at 12:50am (17th)

jupiter-11-20-kwon

1361 – Deathday of Johannes Tauler, a disciple of Meister Eckhart, one of the most important Rhineland Mystics. He promoted a neo-platonist dimension in the Dominican spirituality of his time

1858 – Abraham Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois

1901 – Deathday of Herman Grimm, son of one of the “Brothers Grimm” compilers of indigenous folk tales.  His reputation is that of the arch-Romantic, Gründerzeit art historian, he was viewed as the intellectual successor of Goethe. His approach to art history was through the “Great Masters,” & a biographical account of art history. Rudolf Steiner spoke about his past lives as Pliny the Younger & Beatrice of Tuscany.

1903 – The Ford Motor Company is incorporated

1904 – Irish author James Joyce begins a relationship with Nora Barnacle & subsequently uses the date to set the actions for his novel Ulysses; this date is now traditionally called “Bloomsday

1911 – IBM founded in Endicott, New York

1920 – Dr. Rudolf Steiner, & Dr. Ita Wegman, founded “Futurum AG“, in Arlesheim, Switzerland, & “Der Kommende Tag AG (an incorporated company to encourage economic & spiritual values) in Stuttgart Germany. Both companies merged for economic reasons, & today is known as Weleda.

1932 – D.N. Dunlop plans “International Association for the Advancement of Spiritual Science

1936 – Deathday of Emil Molt, used concepts of the 3-fold social order in his business. Thru the guidance of Rudolf Steiner he became the founder of the first Waldorf School. Steiner spoke of him as the individuality called Charlemagne.

1961 – Rudolf Nureyev defects from the Soviet Union

1963 –Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space

1967 – The Monterey Pop Festival begins

1976 – Soweto uprising: A non-violent march by 15,000 students in Soweto, South Africa turns into days of rioting when police open fire on the crowd

2008 – California began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples

~   ~   ~

seed Bean-Rising

~My mouth & hands are green

Seedlings

Callused moments in time

Fluttering in the dirt

I play the earth

Like a flirting worm

~hag

~   ~   ~

John the baptist scroll

Part 6 in: A Summary of THE ST. JOHN IMAGINATION, from ~the Four Seasons and the Archangels, Lecture 4, by Rudolf Steiner

In the new mysteries, we strive at St. John’s Tide,

Toward an enhanced awareness of our will forces

An effort to ‘make straight the path’,

To recognize our potential for discordant, As well as selfless acts;

An effort to enable the Higher Ego to come to expression

Ever more fully in the mysterious recesses of our personal priorities

With respect to our will.

~   ~   ~

Tomorrow: Union with the Sun

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Current Festival & Program Events

Behold our Weaving

15 June 2016 –

sky 2016-june-16-17-18-moon-mars-saturn-antaressky 2016-june-planets-stars

Look for Mars & Saturn near Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. They make a noticeable triangle on the sky’s dome. Let the moon help guide your eye to Mars & the bright star Spica for the next several evenings. Then watch for the moon to swing away from Spica & more closely with Mars on June 16 & June 17. Then by June 18, the moon will move away from Mars to pair up with Saturn.

St. Vitus_CXXVr

303 – St. Vitus Day. In the late Middle Ages, people in Germany & countries such as Latvia celebrated the feast of Vitus by dancing before his statue. This dancing became popular & the name “Saint Vitus Dance” was given to the neurological disorder Sydenham’s chorea. It also led to Vitus being considered the patron saint of dancers, actors, comedians, & epileptics. He is also said to protect against lightning strikes, animal attacks & oversleeping

763 BC – Assyrians record a solar eclipse that is later used to fix the chronology of Mesopotamian history

991 – Deathday of Theophanu, Byzantine Empress of the Holy Roman Empire

1215 –Magna Carta sealed by King John of England & barons. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury to make peace between the unpopular King & a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, & limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons.

1648 – Margaret Jones is hanged in Boston for witchcraft

1667 – The first human blood transfusion is administered by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys

Benjamin_Franklin_Drawing_Electricity_from_the_Sky

1752 – Benjamin Franklin proves that lightning is electricity

1775 –George Washington is appointed commander-in-chief of the Continental Army

1816 – At the Villa Diodati in the village of Cologny, Switzerland, Lord Byron reads Fantasmagoriana to his four house guests — Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont, & John Polidori — & challenges each guest to write a ghost story, which culminates in Mary Shelley writing the novel Frankenstein, John Polidori The Vampyre, & Byron the poem Darkness.

1896 – The deadliest tsunami in Japan’s history kills more than 22,000 people

1904 – A fire aboard the steamboat SS General Slocum in New York City’s East River kills 1,000

Rembrandt Danaë

1985 – Rembrandt’s painting Danaë is attacked by Bronius Maigys, a Soviet national, later judged insane, who throws sulfuric acid on the canvas & cuts it twice with a knife

1991 – In the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo erupts in the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th Century. In the end, over 800 people die

~   ~   ~

death plus cardplaying

~Watch-Out

Death always comes in 3’s

Yet Life is…a singular breath

Time is…a passive eye

O justice

When will truth be law?

~hag

~   ~   ~

St. John's RS GA 229 Plate V

Part 5 in: A Summary of THE ST. JOHN IMAGINATION, from ~the Four Seasons and the Archangels, Lecture 4, by Rudolf Steiner

“…The Heights become Mysteries, the Depths become Mysteries, and man himself becomes a Mystery within the Mysteries of the Cosmos. Right into his bony system he feels the crystal-forming power. But he feels also how this same power is in cosmic union with the living power of light in the heavens above. He feels how all that comes about through mankind as morality in these Mysteries of the Heights lives and weaves in these Mysteries of the Depths, and in the conjunction between the two. He feels himself no longer sundered from the world around him, but placed within it, united above with the shining Intelligence, in which he experiences, as in the womb of worlds, his own best thoughts.

All this, too, would have to sound forth in musical tones — tones which carry these motifs on their wings and make them part of human experience. For these motifs are there. They do not have to be sought out; they can be read from the cosmic activity of Uriel. Here it is that Imagination passes over into Inspiration.

Man, however, lives in a certain sense as an embodied Inspiration, as a being brought into existence by Inspiration, in the Mysteries of the heights and depths and in the Mysteries of their conjunction. He lives in the Mysteries to which the Spirit-Father points upward; the Mysteries to which the Spirit-Mother points downwards, the Mysteries which are united by the fact that the Christ, though the working together of the Spirit-Father and the Spirit-Mother, stands directly before the human soul as the sustaining Cosmic Spirit.

That which is woven out of all these cosmic secrets I may put before you somewhat in the following way. It is as though the human being, placed in the midst of all that goes on in high summer, were to feel something like this. The first words endeavour to represent how the gaze of Uriel concentrates itself into Inspiration, united with the Spirit-tones of the whole choir:

Schaue unser Weben
Das leuchtende Erregen
Das warmende Leben
} The Heights
Lebe irdisch Erhaltendes
Und atmend Gestaltetes —
Als wesenhaft Waltendes
} The Depths
Fühle dein Menschengebeine
Mit himmlischen Scheine
Im waltenden Weltenvereine
} The Midst
The inner being of Man.

Here in these nine lines are the Mysteries of the Heights, the Mysteries of the Depths, and the Mysteries of the Midst, which are also those of the inner being of man. And then we have the whole gathered up as a cosmic statement of these Mysteries of the Heights, the Depths and the Midst, sounding out as though with organ and trumpet tones:

Es werden Stoffe verdichtet
Es werden Fehler gerichtet
Es werden Herzen gesichtet.

Here you have that which can permeate the human being at midsummer, supporting him, exalting him, confirming him — the St. John Imagination filled with Inspiration, the St. John Inspiration filled with Imagination — in these words:

Schaue unser Weben
Das leuchtende Erregen
Das warmende Leben
} The Heights
Lebe irdisch Erhaltendes
Und atmend Gestaltetes —
Als wesenhaft Waltendes
} The Depths
Fühle dein Menschengebeine
Mit himmlischen Scheine
Im waltenden Weltenvereine
} The Midst
The inner being of Man.
Es werden Stoffe verdichtet
Es werden Fehler gerichtet
Es werden Herzen gesichtet.

Behold our weaving, the kindling radiance, the warming life.
Live in the earth’s sustaining, and in the form-giving breathing,
with the power of true being.

Feel your very bones suffused with heavenly glory
in the presiding yoga of the worlds.

Substances are densified, errors are judged and rectified,
Hearts are sifted – Receive the light

~Rudolf SteinerTomorrow: A look into the Will

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

~   ~   ~

Moonday June 20, 2016 – It’s Summer Solstice & The Full Honey-Moon!!!

So come join our : St. John’s Tide Bon-Fire 

7pm – 9pm

Pot-Luck Dinner & Social Gathering in the backyard of Hazel & Chuck Ginsberg

Please Bring Food & Drink to Share in Community

RSVP ReverseRitual@gmail.com by June 17 for address & directions  

PS. there’s a Cub Game that night so be sure to come in for a sticker to put in your car.