When human beings stand in reverence & awe in their striving to take in the great revelations & truths coming from the spiritual world behind world events, we imbue ourselves with a feeling of wonder that can develop into a force of attraction for the Christ Impulse.
As the Logos is drawn in, the Christ Impulse unites with our individual human soul, to the extent that we are capable of standing in awe of cosmic mysteries.
The astral body of Christ, which The Sophia purifies in us, is derived from all the feelings of wonder that we have lived into thru our individual soul forces.
The second attribute that human souls must develop to attract the Christ Impulse is the feeling of compassion. Whenever a feeling of compassion or shared joy develops in a human soul, it serves as a force of attraction for the Christ Impulse. Through compassion & love, The Logos unites with our human soul. Compassion & love lived into by humanity are the forces from which the Christ will shape his own etheric body until the end of the Earth phase of evolution.
When we picture that the etheric body of The Christ develops out of human feelings of compassion & love, the biblical statement, ‘What you have done to the least of my brothers, you have done to me,’ becomes very real.
A third higher attribute that enters the human soul is the awakening & heeding of conscience; placing greater value on this ‘still small voice’, than on our own individual instincts. Christ unites most intimately with conscience, (as he did with John the Baptist), deriving his physical body from impulses of conscience in individual human souls.
Aceneo Killiopze
Today will you stand in Reverence & Awe; in Compassion & Love; letting that ‘still small voice of Conscience ring out with truth – as we embody & manifest the Christ within & out in the world…?
331- Birthday of Julian the Apostate. In Rudolf Steiner’s Kama Lectures Vol. 4, lec. 6, he hear about him as Herzeloyde & Tycho Brahe.
1882 – More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay are killed when a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbor
1889 – The Great Seattle Fire destroys all of downtown Seattle
1892 – The Chicago “L” commuter rail system begins operation
1934 – New Deal: The U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission
1944 – D-Day -155,000 Allied troops land on the beaches of Normandy in France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe from Nazi control during World War II.
Winston Ferrme
1961 – Deathday of Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist & psychotherapist
Gardner Cox
1968 – Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Democratic Party senator from New York, brother of 35th President John F. Kennedy, dies from gunshot wounds inflicted on June 5
1982 – The Lebanon War begins. Forces under Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon invade southern Lebanon
2002 –A near-Earth asteroid estimated at ten meters in diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece & Libya; estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb
Fabrizio Cassetta
1875 – Birthday of Thomas Mann, German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, & the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic & ironic epic novels are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist & the intellectual. His analysis & critique of the German soul used modernized German & Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche & Schopenhauer.
***
~The Hive hums Wings grow out of the ether of my bones In anticipation of the rite Steeped in royal jelly I contemplate the hexagramma mysticum & prepare to dance the lemnisus infinitorum… ~hag
***
Friday 19 June 2020 – Front Range Anthroposophical Café presents:
Cosmic Rapture Grounded in Jubilant Hearts – From Summer Solstice to St. John’s-Tide –with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
To pass the test of Summer we will explore many questions:
What is the Spiritual Significance of a Solar Eclipse on Summer Solstice?
How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of the Summer-Tide, to consciously embody ‘the spiritual wisdom of the gods’?
Who is the mysterious Archangel of Summer?
What is the secret to healing the ‘soul-fever’ so prevalent in society today?
Together we will work to strengthen our true “I”, enlivening our will forces.
We look forward to seeing you on Friday 19 June 2020 shortly before 6 pm (Pacific), 7 PM (Mountain) 8 pm (Central), 9 pm (Eastern).
Here is the link to our Anthroposophical Café and all you need to do to join us is click on it: https://zoom.us/j/294724669.
Warmly, Karen vann Vuuren, Tom Altgelt, Jamie York, and our growing circle of Café Friends – It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
~i am the mud between the toes of the Beloved… make of me a poultice for the healing, that from our commingling the lotus may take root – …a strong foundation for the blossoming…
~hag
Today 3 June 2020 Venus (which Steiner calls occult or Ptolemaic Mercury – see references below) meets Mars, hidden behind the glare the Sun – Healing Love, squaring up with the god of war, in the fiery warmth of the solar logos…What does this dance portend? And how can we join the conversation?
The famous unveiling of the open secret of the Copernican reversal of Mercury & Venus occurred in the 3rd lecture of ‘The Apocalypse of St. John’, by Rudolf Steiner, on 20 June 1908:“Here I come to a point where a little secret, so to say, must be unveiled, one which may only be divulged at this point. In truth if we wish to speak esoterically, as the writer of the apocalypse has done, we must speak of Mercury as the morning star. By the morning star John meant Mercury: I have given the direction towards thine `I’, to the morning star, to Mercury. – You may still find in certain books of the Middle ages, which describe the true state of affairs, that the stars of our planetary system are enumerated thus: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and then Earth is followed not as it is now by Venus, Mercury, but by the reverse, Mercury, Venus.” This reversal mentioned again on 5 September, 1908, in Egyptian Myths and Mysteries, Experiences of Initiation, Mysteries of the Planets, LECTURE 4 – The Experiences of Initiation. The Mysteries of the Planets. The Descent of the Primeval Word: “Here I would like to add one thing, because misunderstandings have crept into the naming of the planets. In all occult nomenclature, what astronomers call Venus is called Mercury, and vice versa. Astronomers know nothing of the mysteries behind this, because in the past it was not desired that the esoteric names should be revealed. This happened in order to conceal certain things.”
Crispin van de Passe
The first scientifically important use of this reversal occurs in April 1909 in the cycle called ‘The Spiritual Hierarchies and Their Reflection in the Physical World’: “You must picture the earth as the starting point and around it a sphere of influence reaching up to the moon. This is followed by a realm reaching up to Mercury, then one to Venus, and then one up to the sun. Now you may be astonished at the sequence of the planets as I have given it here. You might think that if this is the earth and this is the sun, that I should draw Mercury in the immediate vicinity of the sun, and then Venus. But that is not correct. The names of these two planets have been interchanged by a later astronomy. What is called Mercury today was known in ancient teachings as Venus, and the planet referred to as Venus nowadays was always known as Mercury. We cannot rightly understand what is said about Venus and Mercury in ancient writings if we assume them to refer to the present planets of these names. At the time when the world system was turned topsy-turvy, when the earth was robbed of its central position, not only the perspective was completely altered, but the opportunity was taken of interchanging the names of Mercury and Venus.”
In the 1910 cycle available as ‘Macrocosm and Microcosm’, referring to the application of the many facts he is presenting, Steiner says, “The moon revolves around the Earth and the planets usually called Mercury and Venus are nearer to the Sun and revolve around it. I emphasize here that in the course of time a change has taken place in the names of these two planets. The planet that is called Mercury to-day was formerly Venus, and the planet called Venus today was formerly called Mercury. Therefore you should think of these designations reversed, so that they do not correspond with current astronomical designations. The planet lying nearer the Sun must be known as Venus and the planet lying farther away from the Sun must be known as Mercury.”
In the 12 June 1910, lecture Steiner uses the term: `Ptolemaic’ Venus & Mercury’ as opposed to the Copernican.
In ‘The Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and the Kingdoms of Nature’, April 1912: “Thus these normally developed Spirits of Motion so work down from the planets that they succeed one another in the process of human evolution, and reveal themselves in the great civilization impulses in the evolution of the earth which reach out beyond the sphere of the Spirits of the Age. Thus, for example, from that Spirit of Motion who worked down from the planet which present-day astronomy calls Venus, and which ancient astronomy called Mercury (for these two names have been exchanged), from that Spirit of Motion came originally the impulse of the civilisation which was expressed in Buddhism.”
Steiner then relates that: “If we observe the planet Saturn in our system we find that the life stream which permeates the earth directly from him is connected with the substance we call lead: so we have a basic substance which is inwardly animated by Saturn. From Jupiter we get tin as the main substance; from Mars, iron; and in the occult sense, from Venus, copper. With regard to Mercury we must take into consideration that he was later confused with Venus. The life activity (in the sense of true occult nomenclature) produced creatively by Mercury, on account of its greater proximity when it penetrated the earth-organism, bears a still greater resemblance to the planet itself, for Mercury stands nearer the earth than the other planets. Therefor the substance has been given the same name as the cosmic body itself, namely, mercury or quick-silver.”
On 11 June, 1912, in ‘Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy’, Steiner calls the “… astronomical Venus, the traditional, Ptolemaic Mercury… employing therefore in this case not the old terminology which was altered by Kepler . . . ”
On 3 Nov. 18 Nov. & 15 & 22 Dec. 1912, the use of the Ptolemaic or occult Venus is again specified to be the astronomical Mercury.
In the lecture cycle ‘Ancient Myths‘ on 8 Jan. 1918, Steiner uses the Ptolemaic sequence to specify planet-Zodiac sign relationships.
From ‘Materialism and the Task of Anthroposophy’: “Just as this ancient astronomy was subsequently obscured after the fourth century and physical astronomy took the place of the old etheric astronomy in the fifteenth century”.
In ‘Health and Illness, Vol. II’: “..and it was only twenty-five to thirty-five hundred years ago that people looked upon the planets in a completely different scientific way.”
Dear friends – May we be willing to change our way of thinking to receive the true messages coming from the spiritual beings of the Cosmos rightly…
“Greek philosophy beautifully compared the human soul with a bee. The world of colour and light offers the soul honey which it brings with it into the higher world. The soul must spiritualize sense experience and carry it up into higher worlds.” ~Rudolf Steiner 1906
545 – Deathday of Saint Clotilde – patron saint of Les Andelys, Normandy. Wife of the Frankish king Clovis I, & princess of the kingdom of Burgundy. In 511, the Queen founded a convent for young girls. The natural spring there is known for healing skin diseases. Queen Clotilde’s cult made her the patron of queens, widows, brides & even those in exile. In Normandy she was venerated as guarding the lame & those who suffered violent death from ill-tempered husbands.
1924 – Deathday of Franz Kafka a German novelist & short story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work, which fuses elements of realism & the fantastic, typically features isolated protagonists faced by bizarre or surrealistic predicaments & incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers, & has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, & absurdity. His best known works include “Die Verwandlung” (“The Metamorphosis”), Der Process (The Trial), & Das Schloss (The Castle). The term Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe situations like those in his writing.
Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, today part of the Czech Republic. He trained as a lawyer, & after completing his legal education he was employed with an insurance company, forcing him to relegate writing to his spare time. Over the course of his life, Kafka wrote hundreds of letters to family & close friends, including his father, with whom he had a strained & formal relationship. He became engaged to several women but never married. He died in 1924 at the age of 40 from tuberculosis.
1943 – The founding of the Nachlassverein by Marie Steiner
1989 – Deathday of Ayatollah Khomeini, Iranian religious leader & politician
2013 – The trial of United States Army private Chelsea Manning for leaking classified material to WikiLeaks begins in Fort Meade, Maryland
***
MANIFESTATIONS OF KARMA: June 3rd, 2020 Zoom Meeting with the Central Regional Council 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm CDT “He who observes human life carefully — not simply in a superficial way — may find remarkable connections in it. Unfortunately, the phenomena of human life are at present observed for only short periods of time, hardly even for a few years; people are not accustomed to connect what has happened after a long period of time, with what may have happened previously as the cause. There are very few at the present day who study the beginning and the end of a man’s life in their relationship to each other; nevertheless this relationship is extraordinarily instructive.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Manifestations of Karma
Chapter 1, “The Nature and Significance of Karma in the Personal and Individual, and in Humanity, the Earth and the Universe, Hamburg, 16 May, 1910 … focus of the June 3 meeting.
Meeting ID: 811 1655 6762 One tap mobile +13017158592,,81116556762# US (Germantown) +13126266799,,81116556762# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) Meeting ID: 811 1655 6762
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kclU2SSTFIf you have questions, please contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@peoplepc.com Agenda for our Study Call
7:15 Welcome and Introductions 7:18 Verse 7:25 Study led by five volunteers Note: CRC team will ID volunteers Marianne – first section Travis – second section Lisa – third section Alberto – fourth section Hazel – fifth section 8:05 Conversation 8:28 Close with verse
***
Friday 19 June 2020 – Front Range Anthroposophical Café presents:
The New Mysteries of St. Johns-Tide with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
To pass the test of Summer we will explore many questions:
How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of the Summer-Tide, to consciously embody ‘the spiritual wisdom of the gods’?
Who is the mysterious Archangel of Summer?
Who is John the Baptist? What do his sayings “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” And “He must increase, but I must decrease.” really mean?
What is the secret to healing the ‘soul-fever’ so prevalent in society today?
What is the mystery of the Dragon-fly, & other elemental beings?
How can we understand the ‘Cycle of the Year as Breathing Process of the Earth’?
Together we will work to strengthen our true “I”, enlivening our will forces.
We look forward to seeing you on Friday 19 June 2020 shortly before 7 PM (Mountain time.) Here is the link to our Anthroposophical Café and all you need to do to join us is click on it: https://zoom.us/j/294724669.
Warmly, Karen vann Vuuren, Tom Altgelt, Jamie York, and our growing circle of Café Friends – It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
The world was on fire this Whitsun weekend. This is the shadow-side of the inner fire that was meant to be cultivated during (the lockdown at) Easter-Tide. Chicago is still on an indefinite mandatory curfew. How do we reconcile these imbalances that fuel oppression?
When we align with the festival life, we set our Self on the path of initiation. These points of development become milestones in our own consciousness. Each time we pause to contemplate these nodes of activity we can come to a new & deeper understanding of ourselves as inhabitants & co-creators of this Universe.
In the cycle of the seasons Pentecost is a culmination, the crown of Easter-tide, a maturing point, the beginning of the receiving of our “I” thru the spirit, which continues to ripen with the New Mysteries of St. John’s.
Conception begins at the Baptism; we go into labor on Golgotha; & at Pentecost we give birth to our Higher Self. This birth – this joining of the human & the divine, plants the seed for the spiritualizing of all matter, & the freeing of the human being, thru love. – Beginning a new conception-labor-birth cycle, in the light of Moral Wisdom & Free Will.
At Pentecost, the veil that separates us from the spiritual worlds falls away; the essential spark emerges, & sets ablaze each human soul that has made itself ready to take up the responsibility of living differently in this newly united world.
This uniting can not be done alone, we must be “Together with one accord”beyond the confines of our earthly consciousness, without our materialistic way thinking, & our reactionary feelings, or our misguided selfish will. The fire of Pentecost must be allowed to burn all that away.
So what is this fire?
We find the answer when we identify the source of warmth within us. This warmth is living in our blood. Our blood is the host for our “I Am”. It is a Healing Fire. The mighty rushing winds of change that come at Pentecost stirs up this fresh healing fire, to enliven & renew our blood, to enable the “I AM” to fire up our formative forces, enlivening our etheric body, purifying our astral body, & flowing into our will, which creates change in the world.
Let us invoke that warmth, that healing wholeness, to practice Heart-Thinking – free from the Babylon of separate language. Instead, may we be empowered to speak what is true to every heart.
A thinking that belongs to the here & now; not an intellectual thinking based on old habits, or illusions of a charted, calculated future. We experience it as a moment of Truth – Aletheia = a not forgetting, an overcoming of forgetting, or an un-forgetting; so that we nourish the “I Am”, that eternal part of every human being, our True Self.
Unified, as individuals standing in wholeness, we are fired-up in true Social Solidary, where all, are free.
1812 – War of 1812: U.S. President James Madison asks the Congress to declare war on the United Kingdom
1967 – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles is released
1968 – Deathday of Helen Keller, American author & activist
~ ~ ~
Syne Turner
~I embrace the hair on your resting head I am not here To raise order out of chaos or bind darkness with the light I am here To change, to do the things left undone – Words unsaid will be pronounced Broadcast – From my clapping hands Like seeds tossed into the clefting shadow… My limbs, a wild disco ball Spinning with stars, are awake & willing. ~hag
~~~
CRC Karma Project – June 3rd, 2020 Zoom Meeting 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm CDT “He who observes human life carefully — not simply in a superficial way — may find remarkable connections in it. Unfortunately, the phenomena of human life are at present observed for only short periods of time, hardly even for a few years; people are not accustomed to connect what has happened after a long period of time, with what may have happened previously as the cause. There are very few at the present day who study the beginning and the end of a man’s life in their relationship to each other; nevertheless this relationship is extraordinarily instructive.“~Rudolf Steiner, Manifestations of Karma, Chapter 1, “The Nature and Significance of Karma in the Personal and Individual, and in Humanity, the Earth and the Universe, Hamburg, 16 May, 1910 … focus of the June 3 meeting.
Meeting ID: 811 1655 6762 One tap mobile +13017158592,,81116556762# US (Germantown) +13126266799,,81116556762# US (Chicago)
Dial by your location +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) Meeting ID: 811 1655 6762
If you have questions, please contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@peoplepc.comAgenda for our Study Call
7:15 Welcome and Introductions 7:18 Verse 7:25 Study led by five volunteers Note: CRC team will ID volunteers Marianne – first section Travis – second section Lisa – third section Alberto – fourth section Hazel – fifth section 8:05 Conversation 8:28 Close with verse
Friday 19 June 2020 – Front Range Anthroposophical Café presents:
The New Mysteries of St. Johns-Tide with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
To pass the test of Summer we will explore many questions:
How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of the Summer-Tide, to consciously embody ‘the spiritual wisdom of the gods’?
Who is the mysterious Archangel of Summer?
Who is John the Baptist? What do his sayings “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” And “He must increase, but I must decrease.” really mean?
What is the secret to healing the ‘soul-fever’ so prevalent in society today?
What is the mystery of the Dragon-fly, & other elemental beings?
How can we understand the ‘Cycle of the Year as Breathing Process of the Earth’?
Together we will work to strengthen our true “I”, enlivening our will forces.
We look forward to seeing you on Friday 19 June 2020 shortly before 7 PM (Mountain time.) Here is the link to our Anthroposophical Café and all you need to do to join us is click on it: https://zoom.us/j/294724669.
Warmly, Karen vann Vuuren, Tom Altgelt, Jamie York, and our growing circle of Café Friends – It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
HERE IS THE RECORDING of Vitae Sophia~ A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, with Guest Speakers Lisa Dalton & Geoff Norris
Online Whitsunday, 31 May 2020 Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire
Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
“The dove descending breaks the air With flame of incandescent terror Of which the tongues declare The one discharge from sin and error. The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre- To be redeemed from fire by fire. Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire.” ~T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
George Floyd, a 46 year old black man, is handcuffed on his stomach as a Minneapolis police officer presses his knee into his neck. Floyd lies immobilized, groaning on the pavement as cars rush by, police radios beep & bystanders gather, yelling that his nose is bleeding, entreating the officers. “Hey, let him breathe, man!”
“Please, man!” Floyd begs as he is ground into the pavement. His cries mix with the ambient noises around him. They are the disjointed sounds from the clash of belief systems & competing visions of sovereignty, of ownership, of authority over black bodies compressed into the narrow frame of Floyd’s last moments.
“Momma!” the black man calls out. “Momma! I’m through,” the dying man says.
A call to your mother is a special prayer, a sacred invocation. George Floyd’s mother died two years ago, but he called her now, in his darkest hour of need.
“He is a human being!” comes an anguished plea from someone in a desperate attempt to engage the officers’ reason, or compassion, or oath of office. But in that moment, those officers are beyond the reach of their own humanity.
I didn’t want to click on the video. I didn’t want to see another police snuff film. I didn’t want to watch whatever it is that compels someone to put his knee into a man’s neck, until he can no longer draw breath. But I heard this black man had called out to his momma as he lay dying – A prayer since time immemorial, a sacred call. And we are asked to bear witness.
Dying soldiers called out for their mothers, according to Civil War battlefield reports. Last year, an article from The Atlantic cited a hospice nurse. “Almost everyone is calling for ‘Mommy’ or ‘Mama’ with the last breath.”
The Mother is the anchor – A way for those who are close to the edge to find their way back, or to find their way home.
As bystanders scream at Minneapolis officers, “He’s dying. You’re f—ing killing him,” Floyd is no longer moving, he is perhaps already dead.
To call out to his mother is to be seen by his creator – The one who gave him life.
‘The Feast of the Visitation’ – The visible actors (see Luke 1:39-45) are Mary & Elizabeth, 2 MOTHERS TO BE, although Jesus & John the Baptist steal the scene. John leaps with joy in the womb of Elizabeth, who in turn, is filled with the Holy Spirit & addresses words of praise to Mary—words that echo down through the ages. Then comes the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55).
One of the invocations in Mary’s litany is “Ark of the Covenant.” Like the Ark of the Covenant of old, Mary brings God’s presence into the lives of other people. As David danced before the Ark, John the Baptist leaps for joy. As the Ark helped to unite the 12 tribes of Israel by being placed in David’s capital, so Mary has the power to unite all in her Son.
1809 – Deathday of Austrian composer Franz Haydn
1819 – Birthday of Walt Whitman, American poet, essayist, & journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism & realism, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene.
1875 – Birthday of occultist Eliphas Levi. Steiner refers to his Mexican incarnation in the Karma lectures Vol. 2
1916 – Battle of Jutland, beginning of the end of British sea power
1942 – Deathday of Reinhard Heydrich, assassinated in Prague. A high-ranking German Nazi official during World War II, one of the main architects of the Holocaust. Many historians regard him as the darkest figure in the Nazi elite; Adolf Hitler described him as “the man with the iron heart”.
1962 – Deathday of Adolf Eichman, a German Nazi SS, one of the major organisers of the Holocaust. Eichmann was working with Reinhard Heydrich facilitating & managing the logistics of mass deportation of Jews to extermination camps. In 1960, he was captured in Argentina by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. Following a widely publicized trial in Israel, he was found guilty of war crimes & hanged on this day in 1962.
~ ~ ~
~I bring offerings to She who is & Them that are not: Moly & frankincense & visions of peace unending… I bring turquoise & silver & carnelian, the stone of earth’s joyful singing… I bring the earth, ground deep into the pores of my skin… I bring yesterday & today & the Sun & the waning crescent Moon Rising at midnight between them I come with the roar of wind & time – like 2 lions mating in my mind’s eye To give birth to my breath… ~hag
***
Friday 19 June 2020 – Front Range Anthroposophical Café presents:
The New Mysteries of St. Johns-Tide with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
To pass the test of Summer we will explore many questions:
How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of the Summer-Tide, to consciously embody ‘the spiritual wisdom of the gods’?
Who is the mysterious Archangel of Summer?
Who is John the Baptist? What do his sayings “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” And “He must increase, but I must decrease.” really mean?
What is the secret to healing the ‘soul-fever’ so prevalent in society today?
What is the mystery of the Dragon-fly, & other elemental beings?
How can we understand the ‘Cycle of the Year as Breathing Process of the Earth’?
Together we will work to strengthen our true “I”, enlivening our will forces.
We look forward to seeing you on Friday 19 June 2020 shortly before 7 PM (Mountain time.) Here is the link to our Anthroposophical Café and all you need to do to join us is click on it: https://zoom.us/j/294724669.
Warmly, Karen vann Vuuren, Tom Altgelt, Jamie York, and our growing circle of Café Friends – It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Last night with the Quarter Moon lighting our way, folks gathered for a Merry Prep-Stir. It was the start of the Jewish festival Shavuot, & all were in a celebratory mood of gratitude & reverence. I began with a few antidotes & a dedication, & then everyone stepped forward one by one to add a pinch of BD 500 to the stirring bucket – uniting individual prayers with the collective intention of spiritualizing & healing all life. And then the stirring began! And we sang “Spirit to matter, matter to spirit…” Such joy as the vortex was spun & the thrill of the chaos was welcomed in the leminscate between rhythm & commotion.
As the stars came out, Bella Luna rose higher in the southwest, below the belly of Leo’s stick-figure lion pattern, forming a nearly equilateral triangle with Leo’s Regulus & Gamma Leonis (Algieba). We saw Mercury, & Capella, but Venus was already low in the West behind the tree line, on her way to the underworld for a time before she rises again as the evening star…
The young folks played music, cello, guitars, bass, hand drums & shakers, singing galore! – Adding the power of sound vibration to the forces entering the stir. The garden was lush from lots of rain & the bonfire was blazing, warming & highlighting the power of all the elementals.
As the evening wore on I spoke about Shavuot, called by various names: Feast of Weeks, Feast of The First Fruits & Feast of the Giving of the Law.
It celebrates the spring harvest. In olden times as each fruit ripend, the first of each type would not be eaten, but instead the farmer would tie a ribbon around the branch. This ribbon signified that these fruits were Bikkurim, or the first fruits.
At Shavuot the farmers would gather the Bikkurim into baskets & bring them to the city where they would be shared with the wider community. This joyful occasion was celebrated with the music of fifes, timbres, & drums.
To commemorate, for the 3 nights during Shavuot, folks light candles, decorate with greenery, eat dairy food, study Torah, attend prayer services, & read the Book of Ruth. (I will tell this amazing story of Ruth & Naomi tomorrow as part of my Whitsun festival)
Along with being a Harvest holiday & celebrating the spiritual journey of Ruth, Shavuot celebrates the Revelation of Torah.
Many of the traditions & customs of Shavuot have evolved from the legends & stories describing the experiences of Moses at Mount Sinai. According to tradition the people actually overslept on the morning when Moses returned from the mountain. To compensate for this, folks hold an all-night vigil on the eve of Shavuot. They stay awake from dusk to dawn, singing to the spirits of nature.
It was getting late, so we took a break from the music & everyone grabbed a jar of the potentized prep & aspurged the neighborhood. Our friend next door, who was having his 1st experience as a Merry Prep-stir, told all that he could tell that his garden was changed thru our previous sprayings. What a delight to see our Merry band fliting about on the city streets with our buckets & jars spreading droplets of magic on the lawns, gardens & parkways.
The young folks made good on the all-night vigil. And this morning there is a perceivable presence in the air surrounding our property. The bees are happy, the bird song responding with thanks & praise.
~hag
Nancy Poer
~Vitae Sophia~ A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Online Whitsunday, 31 May 2020 from 10 am–11:15 am EDT Zoom Call*
Through leading thoughts and conversation we are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year. Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, ‘Anthroposopher’, working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.
Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire
I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience. ~ Zbigniew Herbert (Poet) 1924 – 1998
1431 – Deathday of Joan of Arc, French martyr & saint, burnt at the stake by the British under Duke of Bedford.
Burned at the stake as a heretic after a politically-motivated trial, Joan was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. Born of a fairly well-to-do peasant couple in Domremy-Greux (southeast of Paris), Joan was only 12 when she experienced a vision and heard voices that she later identified as St. Michael the Archangel, Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret of Antioch. During the Hundred Years War, she led French troops against the English and recaptured the cities of Orléans and Troyes. This enabled Charles VII to be crowned as king in Reims in 1429. Captured near Compiegne the following year, she was sold to the English and placed on trial for heresy and witchcraft. Professors at the University of Paris supported Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvis, the judge at her trial; Cardinal Henry Beaufort of Winchester, England, participated in the questioning of Joan in prison. In the end, she was condemned for wearing men’s clothes. The English resented France’s military success–to which Joan contributed. On this day in 1431, she was burned at the stake in Rouen, and her ashes were scattered in the Seine River. A second Church trial 25 years later nullified the earlier verdict, which was reached under political pressure. Remembered by most people for her military exploits, Joan had a great love for the sacraments, which strengthened her compassion toward the poor. Popular devotion to her increased greatly in 19th-century France and later among French soldiers during World War I. Theologian George Tavard writes that her life “offers a perfect example of the conjunction of contemplation and action” because her spiritual insight is that there should be a “unity of heaven and earth.” Joan of Arc has been the subject of many books, plays, operas, and movies. “Joan of Arc is like a shooting star across the landscape of French and English history, amid the stories of the Church’s saints and into our consciousness. Women identify with her; men admire her courage. She challenges us in fundamental ways. Despite the fact that more than 500 years have passed since she lived, her issues of mysticism, calling, identity, trust and betrayal, conflict and focus are our issues still.” (Joan of Arc: God’s Warrior, by Barbara Beckwith)
1593 – Deathday of Christopher Marlowe, English poet & playwright
Paul-Delaroche
1672 – Birthday of Peter the Great Czar of Russia. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist & medieval political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, based on The Enlightenment.
1778 – Deathday of Voltaire, French philosopher & author. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as being a former pupil of the mysteries in Karmic Relationships Vol. 2.
1806 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel
1935 – Deathday of Daniel Nicol Dunlop , a Scottish entrepreneur, founder of the World Power Conference & other associations, a theosophist-turned-anthroposophist. Thought to have been a Templar in a former life. Dunlop saw Rudolf Steiner for the first time when he was still General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, both of them expressed their intimate spiritual connection &respect for one another. Dunlop started the anthroposophical “Human Freedom Group & anthroposophical Summer Schools. In 1928 he organized the first & only World Conference on Anthroposophy & in 1929 he was elected General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain. He had a deep friendship with Eleanor Merry, who supported his work, especially after the death of his own wife, Eleanor in 1932. As a result of conflicts & power struggles within the General Anthroposophical Society, leading to its splintering in April 1935, Dunlop was expelled together with a number of other leading members. He died shortly afterwards of an appendicitis. Dunlop enlisted the help of fellow anthroposophist Walter Johannes Stein in the hope of founding a World Economic Organization, but his death prevented this.
1936 – Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz resigns from the General Anthroposophical Society on the 1 year anniversary of his friend D.N. Dunlop’s death, in protest after many of his contemporizes were expelled from the Society.
1937 – Memorial Day massacre: Chicago police shoot & kill 10 labor demonstrators
1989 –The 33-foot high “Goddess of Democracy” statue is unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators
1998 – The 6.5 Mw Afghanistan earthquake killed over 5,000
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Friday 19 June 2020 – Front Range Anthroposophical Café presents:
The New Mysteries of St. Johns-Tide with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
To pass the test of Summer we will explore many questions:
How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of the Summer-Tide, to consciously embody ‘the spiritual wisdom of the gods’?
Who is the mysterious Archangel of Summer?
Who is John the Baptist? What do his sayings “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” And “He must increase, but I must decrease.” really mean?
What is the secret to healing the ‘soul-fever’ so prevalent in society today?
What is the mystery of the Dragon-fly, & other elemental beings?
How can we understand the ‘Cycle of the Year as Breathing Process of the Earth’?
Together we will work to strengthen our true “I”, enlivening our will forces.
We look forward to seeing you on Friday 19 June 2020 shortly before 7 PM (Mountain time.) Here is the link to our Anthroposophical Café and all you need to do to join us is click on it: https://zoom.us/j/294724669.
Warmly, Karen vann Vuuren, Tom Altgelt, Jamie York, and our growing circle of Café Friends – It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
