“Try to find groups, smaller or bigger, who work together not only to study, but to carry out responsible work in the world. Stand with each other so that those who are standing know they are not standing alone, that each is trusted, and that he can trust the others.” — Bernard J. Lievegoed, MD (1905–1992), Doctor of Medicine & Psychiatry, Psychiatrist, Consultant for Organizational Development, Author

‘Every Human being must be a being of initiative‘ ~Rudolf Steiner

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Struggling to upturn a stone
I stretch out my thought
& let the scent of her spice lead me
Seeing beyond the veil
Where no secrets hide
Our hands work together to birth new cakes
An old woman looks up while spinning strands
My silent face
Fills a small window into the world
& the bees on the weeds are a blessing
~hag

Three days until Classroom Alive takes foot! 

You are invited to join our last support circle zoom call!  We are excited to share our route with you and talk coordinating rides, food and supply donation, and other ways that those of you not physically walking with us might help carry us in spirit. 

See you there TOMORROW, Thursday August 6th, 1pm Chicago time CDT, 11 am PST, 2 PM EST 

-The Midwest Classroom Alive sole-power team 

Zoom Meeting:
https://zoom.us/j/623699415

Meeting ID: 623 699 415

Dial by your location
        +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
        +1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
        +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)
        +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
        +1 646 876 9923 US (New York)

Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/acKx03OfHZ

***

August 20-23, 2020 Questions of Courage Youth Conference at Elderberries

Questions of Courage 2020 in Chicago – August 20-23 Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost and 3Fold Cultural Hub 4251 N. Lincolon Ave. Chicago, IL. 60618

August 20: Check-in, share conversation, build the ground for the journey together.

August 21-22: Travel to Wisconsin Move together towards the land, link up with Farmer John and Haidy Angelic Organics Biodynamic Farm, and also with Dana and Phil Burns at Healing Traditions and Alizur farm. Connect with the land, plants, animals, and one another, through creative explorations and “roughin’ it” type amendments. Sleep under the stars or indoors.

August 23: Return to Chicago Enter back into the metropolitan context, into the social questions of urban life, and close the gathering together at Elderberries, setting the ground for future work out of questions of courage that are present.

Other locations and collaborators are currently in dialogue, and will be updated here.

The gathering is essentially about stepping into the living natural element, step by step, making an integral connection, with one another, ourselves, and the elements that support us here on the Earth…”

registration: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSdY7KXHkjUPV2h9UD…/viewform

Thank you Elderberries for giving us an anchor to build our heartland gathering around!

Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost + Threefold Cultural Hub, 4251 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618

Co-sponsored in part by The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Festival & Program Coordinator

***

August 27-30 How We Will 2020: 3-Folding our Cultural Revolution is continuing its journey of transforming our ideals into action. The theme this year is Forming Curative Communities: actively uniting with one another in the emerging economic, political/rights and social/cultural/spiritual forms seeking to reshape the ills plaguing humanity into a healthy social organism for our time. Please join us if you’d like to hear from, and collaborate with those on the front lines inspired out of the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s work: can your own hopes for the world find a way to connect with others striving to do the good as our friend Bernard Lievegoed was wont to say? Our own hero Ella Baker shares: ‘we must not stop until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make the struggle for freedom and human dignity everyday, in the year, every year, until they win it.’

Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020

Michaela Gloeckler of the Medical Section in Dornach and cofounder of Allianz ELIANT brings the Archetypal Picture of Ita Wegman and the Young Doctors and their courageous movement for a Michaelic renewal of civilization as a World War II raged all around them. 



Bart Eddy of Brightmoor Makers and Sunbridge will speak to what it takes to initiate our ideals into action that are inspired by the our higher natures and our wish to serve others in our time. His ‘brought down to earth visioning’, is serving the youth in one of the poorest parts in Detroit where entrepreneurs for the good are in training, not only learning to support their own livelihoods but also empowering change in their communities where devastating health and environmental issues abound: his inspired ideas for our time keep unfolding new forms for these youth! 



Kait Ziegler of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, and Repairers of the Breach, working with Reverends William Barber and Liz Theoharis, and a small beyond dedicated team, will share on this ‘turning inside out’ and what it takes to organize for social change along side of four pillars: Racism, Poverty, Ecological Devastation and the War/Prison Economy which requires a new narrative above all and a capacity to work with those who have very divergent views in the activist community. John Bloom of Rudolf Steiner Finance and General Secretary of the Anthropsophical Society will offer a conversation Toward Justice and Freedom and Capital, Money, Spirit and Matter.



Nicanor Perlas, a long time advocate for social change in the Philippines and youth mentor, will shape a conversation around ‘The Future will be what we Fight For’. His country continues to be on lockdown where they are not allowed to go outside their houses even for food and whose president recently said that he ‘would work with the military to distribute the vaccine’.



Laura Summer of Free Columbia, an art and education initiative in Philmont New York, will present on New Forms Around Art – Art Dispersal and Local Grants to increase diversity in diverse communities. Art Accessible to 100% of the People! 

Naim Edwards, Seneca Gonzalez, Melody Brink, Kristin Buckbee, Akil Bell, Monika Pudelko, Joan Jaeckel, Patrice Maynard, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, 

Dottie Zold and Frank Agrama of the Elderberries community and newly formed Circles for a Renewal of Culture non profit, will invite an open conversation as to how it is that the Steiner students here in our country and around the world can be good advocates for emergent healing forms, where the essence of what is human is at the center of our concerns. This threefold social form has yet to be realized and yet we see all around us new forms coming into being. What do the Steiner students have to contribute to the conversation of human rights in these three realms and do we have the will to unite together for the common good of humanity? Can we organize for the future needs out of the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s work in the world? Do we have the will for this? If so can we make a beginning at organizing and shaping our actions now?


 

Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020

***

Michael: His Mission & Ours! Michaelmas Festival Sept. 27-29, 2020

Save the Date for Our Michaelmas Festival & Yourth Gathering Sunday 27 September 2 pm – 4 pm, Monday 28 Sept. & Tuesday 29 Sept.  

Sponsered by: The Rudolf Steiner Branch, Elderrberries Biodynamic Outpost & 3-Fold Cultural Hub, & Angelic Organics  Biodymanic Farm

In person & online presentations

Details TBA

contact Dottie Zold or Festivals coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Dear friends – Buckle your seatbelt! Those who are willing to dive deep are invited to take up today’s blog post. But 1^st let’s tune into Michael’s Cosmic Iron which is coming in even now, giving us the strength to use our heart-thinking to discern & redeem the truth.

Have you ever caught a ‘shooting star’?  Well, start looking & make a wish. The annual Delta Aquariids meteor shower started Sunday, July 12 (my b-day) & will be visible each night until Sunday, August 23. Summer’s first major cosmic event peaks tonight & tomorrow! It’s one of the longest running meteor showers of all, with some of the slowest-moving shooting stars – Expect about 10-20 per hour.

The alpha Capricornids are active from July 2 – August 10 with maximum activity tomorrow with visual rates usually around 3 per hour. The radiant is on the Capricornus/Aquila border.

The July gamma Draconids (GDR) were first noticed by Japanese observers in 2009. This stream is active from July 21-31. The radiant is in southeastern Draco southeast of Eltanin (gamma Draconis). The radiant also lies due north of the star Vega (alpha Lyrae).

And of course more to come in August.

Ok, now that we have fired up our iron will with Michael’s sword & shield, here are my thoughts for today, including a long Steiner quote that is putting out an extremely potent call for our time now. I hope you will stay with me.

Our blueprint as human beings has the goal of recognizing that we come from Spirit, to live into matter. Thru our evolution, as we become more conscious, we have the task of discovering our higher “I”, & then uniting creatively with matter, with the intention of transforming it once again into Spirit – by aligning with ‘the Spirit’s Cosmic Thoughts’ to awaken the soul – to motivate an active art-full willing, stirred by Free-Thinking, directed by the Grace of Love.

This blueprint of our birthright, is like a treasure map that has twists & turns, & plenty of obstacles built in. We need these obstacles to help motivate us, pushing our comfort zone, so we can gain the strength to overcome inertia. We are called to exercise faith to overcome these obstacles. And we are meant to see these adversarial forces for what they are, so we don’t give into them, try to run & hide, get distracted along the way, or get fooled into thinking we have arrived at the goal.  

Our current world situation is a test. Can we cultivate the middle pillar where Love stands in uprightness, holding the balance; – & not get pulled into the 2 polarities of cold & hot (East/West) – or sit in dullness, completely disconnected, asleep in the deadening lukewarm-ness…?!?

At its worst, one pole wants us to devolve into a group-soul type conformity, (fascist socialism) going along with a prescribed narrative motivated by fear, & corporate greed, set up by puppet masters touting false #’s to back their claims; setting us up to rat out or shame each other if we don’t follow the party line, using the term conspiracy theory (invented by the CIA to discredit anyone who dared question the assignation of Robert F. Kennedy) calling those who question authority, dangerous to society. At its best, folks are just trying to keep themselves & others ‘safe’.

(but as you will read from Steiner, an imposed ‘caring’ will not achieve the ideal of empathy & social solidarity which is the aim of the 6th cultural epoch)

The other side is doing the same thing – engendering a divisiveness based on untruthfulness – but from the angle of radical individualism. The ideal of Freedom is important, but unfortunately, it has been sullied by the ‘Make America Great’ – ME 1^st crowd’, willing to shoot others who don’t agree; inciting riots thru paramilitary crowd control, maligning peaceful protesters to make them look like un-American anarchists. At its best, the hot side unites people against social injustice.

But don’t be fooled, dear friends, these polarities are playing ‘good cop, bad cop’ they are different sides of the same filthy lucre, & they both want the same thing – to keep us fighting against each other – to keep us blind to our true humanity.

The plan-demic is all about keeping us from reaching the next step of our human evolution, which I briefly indicated above, & which includes: the implementation of the 3-Fold Social organism; the awakening to The Christ Impulse revealed in the etheric, & the unveiling of the New Isis-Sophia.

For those who have been able to read thus far, thank you. Now here is what Rudolf Steiner has to say (please forgive my little sidebar interjections in parenthesis) :

“The essential point is that at a definite time — depending, upon the attitude men themselves adopt, it will be earlier or later, or at worst not at all, — a threefold truth will be revealed to mankind by the Angels.

Firstly, it will be shown how his own genuine interest will enable man to understand the deeper side of human nature. A time will come — and it must not pass unnoticed — when out of the spiritual world men will receive through their Angel an impulse that will kindle a far deeper interest in every individual human being than we are inclined to have to-day.

This enhanced interest in our fellow-men will not unfold in the subjective, leisurely way that people would prefer, but by a sudden impetus a certain secret will be inspired into man from the spiritual side, namely, what the other man really is: a divine being; and this will kindle interest in every individual. This will particularly affect the social life.

Secondly: From the spiritual world the Angel will reveal to man that, in addition to everything else, the Christ Impulse postulates complete freedom in matters of religious life, that the only true Christianity is the Christianity which makes possible absolute freedom in the religious life. We must know that every person is sacred, and we cannot be happy if any other is suffering.

And thirdly: Unquestionable insight into the spiritual nature of the world. We will know that everything in the material world is spirit incarnate, and to think and act accordingly.

But let it be emphasised that this impending event confronts the will of man. Many things that should lead to conscious awareness of this event may be and indeed are being left undone.

For as you know, there are other beings working in world-evolution, beings who are interested in deflecting man from his proper course: these are the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic beings. And they set about doing this by curbing man’s free will. They try to cloud his understanding of the exercise of his free will.

True, they desire to make him ‘good’ —but automatic goodness, automatic spirituality, without free will. Lucifer desires that man shall be led automatically, he wants to deprive him of his free will, to make man into a being who acts as a reflection, as an automaton, without free will. (wear the mask or you are a bad person)

Free will can be acquired only on the Earth but the Luciferic beings want to have nothing to do with the Earth; they want only Saturn-, Sun-, Moon-evolution, and to remain at those stages. In a sense they hate the free will of man. Thereby on the one side the danger would arise that prematurely, before his Spiritual Soul is in full function, man would become a being whose actions are those of a spiritual puppet and he would sleep through the ‘impending revelation’. (Our ability to encounter the ‘Etheric Christ’)

But the Ahrimanic beings too are working to obscure this revelation. They rather kill out in man the consciousness of his own spirituality. They endeavour to instill into man the conviction that he is nothing but a completely developed animal. Ahriman is in truth the teacher par excellence of materialistic Darwinism, and modern science.

He is also the great teacher of all those technical and practical pursuits in Earth-evolution where there is refusal to acknowledge the validity of anything except the external life of the senses, where the only desire is for a widespread technology. To kill, to darken in man the consciousness that he is an image of the Godhead — this is what the Ahrimanic beings are endeavouring by subtle scientific means of every kind to achieve in our age of the Spiritual Soul.

A great danger may arise and men must be alert to it. If they are not, instead of the event that should play a momentous part in shaping the future evolution of the Earth, (which must include the vision of the Etheric Christ) a great danger to this evolution will supervene.

What if humanity on earth should persist in sleeping through the momentous spiritual revelation of the future? If this were to happen in respect of the freedom of the religious life, for example, if men were to sleep through the repetition of the Mystery of Golgotha on the etheric plane, the reappearance of the etheric Christ, or other matters as well, then the Angels would have to try different means of achieving what the pictures they weave in the astral body of man are intended to achieve. If men do not allow this to be achieved in the astral body while they are awake, the Angels would, in this case, endeavour to fulfill their aims through their sleeping bodies.

Here lies the great danger for the age of the Spiritual or Consciousness Soul. This is what might still happen if, before the beginning of the third millennium, men were to refuse to turn to the spiritual life. The third millennium begins with the year 2000.

But what would be the outcome if the Angels were obliged to perform this work without man himself participating, to carry it out in his etheric and physical bodies during sleep?

The dreaded outcome in the evolution of humanity would unquestionably be threefold. Firstly, it would become instinct instead of conscious spiritual activity and therefore baleful. It is so indeed: certain instinctive knowledge that will arise in human nature, instinctive knowledge connected with the mystery of birth and conception, with sexual life as a whole, threatens to become baleful if the danger of which I have spoken takes effect. Certain Angels would then themselves undergo a change.

The effect in the evolution of humanity would be that certain instincts connected with the sexual life would arise in a pernicious form instead of wholesomely, in clear waking consciousness. These instincts would not be mere aberrations but would pass over into and configure the social life, would above all prevent men — through what would then enter their blood as the effect of the sexual life — from unfolding brotherhood in any form whatever on the earth, and would rather induce them to rebel against it. This would be a matter of instinct.

And what do you suppose the scientific experts will say when such instincts come into evidence? They will say that it is a natural and inevitable development in the evolution of humanity. But light cannot be shed on such matters by modern science.

Natural science will be totally blind to the event of which I have told you, for if men become half devils through their sexual instincts, science will as a matter of course regard this as a necessity. Scientifically, then, the matter is simply not capable of explanation, for whatever happens, everything is falsely explained by science. The fact is that such things can be understood only by spiritual, super-sensible cognition. That is the one aspect.

The second aspect is that from this work which involves changes affecting the Angels themselves, still another result accrues for humanity: instinctive knowledge of certain medicaments — but knowledge of a baleful kind!

Everything connected with medicine will make a great advance in the materialistic sense. Men will acquire instinctive insights into the medicinal properties of certain substances and certain treatments — and thereby do terrible harm. But the harm will be called useful. A sick man will be called healthy, for it will be perceived that the particular treatment applied leads to something pleasing. People will actually like things that make the human being — in a certain direction — unhealthy. (Vaccines)

Knowledge of the medicinal effects of certain processes and treatments will be enhanced, but this will lead into very baleful channels. For man will come to know through certain instincts, what kind of illnesses can be induced by particular substances and treatments. And it will then be possible for him either to bring about, or not to bring about, illnesses, entirely as suits his egotistical purposes.

The third result will be this. Man will get to know of definite forces which, by means of quite easy manipulations — by bringing into accord certain vibrations will enable him to unleash tremendous mechanical forces in the world. (5G) And the whole of technical science will sail into desolate waters. But human egoism will find these desolate waters of tremendous use and benefit.

If a form of medicine injurious to humanity were ever to take root, (Covid-19 vaccine, etc…) if a terrible aberration of the sexual instincts were to arise, (child porn rings, sexual violence against women, etc…) if there were baleful doings in the sphere of the purely mechanistic forces of the world, (5G) an unspiritual conception of life would see through none of these things, would not perceive how they deviate from the true path…

The sleeper, as long as sleep lasts, does not see the approach of a thief who is about to rob him; he is unaware of it and at most he finds out later on, when he wakes, what has been done to him. But it would be a bad awakening for humanity!

Man would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes and substances and would experience such satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses that he would regard them as evidence of a particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness! In a certain respect, ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness. Nothing of this would be perceived because it would all be regarded as necessity. But it would denote an aberration from the path which, in the nature of humanity itself, is prescribed for man’s essential being.

If a feeling has been acquired of how Spiritual Science penetrates into and affects our whole attitude of mind, I believe that there can also arise the earnestness required for receiving such truths as have been presented today. From this earnestness there can stem what ought indeed to stem from all Spiritual Science: the acknowledgment of definite obligations, of definite responsibilities in life. Whatever our position may be, whatever we have to do in the world, the essential thing is to foster the thought that our conduct must be permeated and illumined by our anthroposophical consciousness. Then we contribute something towards the true progress of humanity.” ~ excerpt from The Work of the Angels In Man’s Astral Body. A Lecture By Rudolf Steiner, Zurich, 9th October, 1918, GA 182.

Friends, we are all in this together!

~hag

***

There are many ways to help us hold this form! You could help by connecting us to Midwestern friends or initiatives, lending or gifting food/supplies, contributing financially, spreading the word, or lacing up your hiking boots and walking with us!

To make a financial donation thru paypal go to urbanfirstaidla@gmail.com

Greetings! My name is Ultra-Violet Archer, a 2018 graduate of the Chicago Waldorf School.I am inviting you to be co-creators of a walking-learning journey taking place in the heartland this coming August.

For ten days, myself, a group of fellow journeyers, and maybe even you, will walk out our living questions across the Midwestern landscape, forging connection with each other, those we meet along the way, and the land itself. Our journey begins in Madison, Wisconsin on August 8th and ends at Elderberries Bio-dynamic Outpost and Threefold Cultural Hub in Chicago Illinois on the 18th.

Along the way we will share food, song, and story, while meeting and holding conversation with local food, farm, and community initiatives. Classroom Alive is the name of the game, and we’d love for you to become a fellow player.

For more information or to register, find Classroom Alive Chicago on Facebook or email circlesforarenewalofculture@gmail.com

Ready to walk? sign up here: https://form.jotform.com/202047534622145…

With love and light,
Ultra, Stefan, Robbie, Frank, Dottie, and the rest of the Classroom Alive sole-power team

August 20-23, 2020 Questions of Courage Youth Conference at Elderberries

Questions of Courage 2020 in Chicago – August 20-23 Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost and 3Fold Cultural Hub 4251 N. Lincolon Ave. Chicago, IL. 60618

August 20: Check-in, share conversation, build the ground for the journey together.

August 21-22: Travel to Wisconsin Move together towards the land, link up with Farmer John and Haidy Angelic Organics Biodynamic Farm, and also with Dana and Phil Burns at Healing Traditions and Alizur farm. Connect with the land, plants, animals, and one another, through creative explorations and “roughin’ it” type amendments. Sleep under the stars or indoors.

August 23: Return to Chicago Enter back into the metropolitan context, into the social questions of urban life, and close the gathering together at Elderberries, setting the ground for future work out of questions of courage that are present.

Other locations and collaborators are currently in dialogue, and will be updated here.

The gathering is essentially about stepping into the living natural element, step by step, making an integral connection, with one another, ourselves, and the elements that support us here on the Earth…”

registration: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSdY7KXHkjUPV2h9UD…/viewform

Thank you Elderberries for giving us an anchor to build our heartland gathering around!

Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost + Threefold Cultural Hub, 4251 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618

Co-sponsored in part by The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Festival & Program Coordinator

August 27-30, Dr. Michaela Glockler, John Bloom, Nicanor Perlas, + more -HOW WE WILL 2020

SAVE THE DATE – August 27 – 30 2020 Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost and 3Fold Cultural Hub in person in Chicago and also Online

Friends, Dr. Michaela Glockler, Nicanor Perlas, John Bloom, storyteller Melody Brink, biographer Linda Bergh and Seneca Gonzalez! are added to our collaborators for this How We Will – Forming Curative Communities.

We have a few more responses that we are waiting for before we send out our invitations and our website. Turning Point in Time!

At Elderberries 3-fold Bio-Dynamic Outpost 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL. 60618

for more info. contact Frank Agrama or Dottie Zold

Details TBA

Co-sponsored in part by The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Festival & Program Coordinator

Michael: His Mission & Ours! Michaelmas Festival Sept. 27-29, 2020

Save the Date for Our Michaelmas Festival & Yourth Gathering Sunday 27 September 2 pm – 4 pm, Monday 28 Sept. & Tuesday 29 Sept.  

Sponsered by: The Rudolf Steiner Branch, Elderrberries Biodynamic Outpost & 3-Fold Cultural Hub, & Angelic Organics  Biodymanic Farm

In person & online presentations

Details TBA

contact Dottie Zold or Festivals coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg