Category Archives: Insight

Sacred Activism

Sleeping Giant Art | Fine Art America

Dear Ones –

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Feast Day, I thought to remind us that we are the sleeping giant – The buried god – the banished Goddess – Yes, we can wake up in the dream to practice lucid tolerance, take interest, do love. So much is revealed when we Read between the lies. To question is to answer. Friends, there are no innocent by-standers. There is no us & them. The dragon & the frontlines are in us all. And truth is a triple-edged sword that we must fashion. From Equity, comes Solidarity, which forges Freedom.

When the deepest & most grounded spiritual practice becomes vision & is married to a pragmatic drive to transform all existing political, economic & social institutions, a Holy force—the power of Wisdom & Love in action—is born – a Sacred Activism.

Shannon Blenterman

We are called to align with the true course of evolution. To STOP & create even a sacred moment is to hold all of eternity – to receive & to share – serves. Hand-crafted, our sacred weapons must include prayer, contemplation, & meditation, with the aim of practicing Spiritual Science to land the ultimate target.

Amazon.com: CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT: H.E. SACRBOROUGH: Home & Kitchen
Edward Sacrobourg

Conception never ends. Change is the only constant. Everything must become a verb. The goal is in the doing. The way in, is the way out. ‘Matter into Spirit, Spirit into Matter’. Embrace the chaos in the stirring. All effects connect in the cause – which ripples in from the past to call in the forthcoming.

And Beloved – Today is, today is, today is the Day! So what is the one thing that YOU will do today?

~hag, with you on the frontlines in solidary with those who have sacrificed themselves for us.

I Think Speech’ Podcast Dedicated to MLK jr.

MLK Mural Project - Virtual Painting Workshop - FestivALL
Mount Brenden School mural

Inspirations from MLK jr.:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

“But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”

“Faith is taking the first step even when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

16 January 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Watch Me Catch Fire" by Marie Enger - Hero Complex Gallery
Marie Enger

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Tyler Cantell

1838 – Birthday of Franz Brentano an influential German philosopher, psychologist, & priest whose work strongly influenced not only students Edmund Husserl, Sigmund Freud, Kazimierz Twardowski, Alexius Meinong, Carl Stumpf, Anton Marty, Christian von Ehrenfels, and Tomáš Masaryk, but many others whose work would follow &make use of his original ideas & concepts. Rudolf Steiner recalls the obituary he gave of Brentano as part of his lecture The Case for Anthroposophy where he also speaks about the Separation of the ‘Psychological from the Non-Psychological’ in Franz Brentano.

1901 – Deathday of Arnold Böcklin a Swiss symbolist painter. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in an incarnation as an Arthurian Knight

1945 – Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker

1954 – Birthday of Sergei Olegovich Prokofieff  – In the biographical sketch given by Rolf Herzog of the Christian Community we hear that Sergei kept secret his inner connection with the spiritual world; that as a child he never had the impression that this was his first time on the earth; and that, in his ninth year he rediscovered esoteric Christianity through the Parzival story which was read aloud to him from the libretto of Wagner’s opera by his grandfather, in their home in Moscow. Sergei, starting at the age of 14, spent his vacations in Max Voloschin’s home in the Crimea, where he found books by Rudolf Steiner in the comprehensive library there .

Sergei had a rich inner life with an intense adolescence of spiritual seeking that included many mystical experiences. From his own words: “Everything Rudolf Steiner spoke of was already known to me, but I was unable to express it in thoughts before then. What had lived in my soul as a general, undefined feeling was now penetrated by a conscious clarity of thought.”

In the years between 1971 and 1973, when he was 17 to 19 years old, he wrote extraordinary poetry about the path out of the darkness into the light – about spiritual battles and apocalyptic events, with profound honesty and dramatic inner force. “I was awakened in the night by the powerful inspiration, as though awakened by the verses themselves. I rushed to my desk in order to capture the poetic words and images quickly—often putting on paper a poem that had arisen fully formed in me—frequently more than one; it was as if they themselves were striving and streaming towards the page. They were the poems of a ‘soul on fire.’” These poems had remained hidden in a cupboard in his parent’s Moscow home— he had shown them to no one when they were written—until he rediscovered them there on a visit during his illness. He decided to publish them by a non-anthroposophical press in Moscow in a splendid volume of more than 400 pages entitled ‘The Mystic Fire of the Soul’.

The voice of the verses went silent around the time of his first moon node, when he decided out of the most profound depths of his soul not only to read the writings of Rudolf Steiner
but also to choose anthroposophy as the central task of his life and his destiny. With this, his biography changed: “Only when the decision had been made and I experienced with full force that my life had received new meaning and purpose was I led out of my original lonely condition by the guidance of my destiny—I was taking the first steps to serve those ideals
consciously which had previously lived below the surface in my soul and which now had become for me a fully conscious reality thanks to spiritual science.”

Prokofieff, wrote his first book, Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries, while living in Soviet Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he was a co-founder of the Anthroposophical Society in Russia. At Easter 2001, he became a member of the Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach, Switzerland.

At the core of his work is an attempt to develop a deepened understanding for Christianity on the basis of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific research. Peter Selg, in his memorial address, after Sergei died an early death on 26 July 2014, described him as “this most inwardly faithful pupil of Rudolf Steiner and protector of his new revelation of Christ.” Sergei had a powerful way of bringing together complex connections & interrelationships from Steiner’s ideas.

As part of the Vorstand he felt it was his calling to fulfill Steiner’s ideal of making the Goetheanum into a contemporary Mystery Center. Read more about this amazing individual in the articles written about his life in ‘Anthroposophy Worldwide‘. Or pick up one of his many books, & read the fruits of his insights for yourself. Prokofieff was a prolific writer leaving us a treasure trove of Works.

1970 – Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects

Candlemas – a Cross-Quarter Festival Heralding Spring – with Willow Summer & Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Wednesday 25 January 2023 – Program – 3 pm – Potluck – 5 pm, Please Bring Food & Drink to Share

Storytelling: The Alchemy of Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid

The Year of the Water Rabbit – Tu B’Shvat – Beeswax Crafting – Singing

Rudolf Steiner’s Seed Meditation – from ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’

‘Charm the Plow’ – Bless & Consecrate the Farm tools

Three Springs Community Farm 15300 Bodega Hwy, Bodega, CA 94922

Contact Willow for more info.

Velsum Voices Presents: ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’

A Benefit Concert to support Nancy Jewel Poer and the community events at White Feather Ranch

Saturday, 28 January 2023, at 2 pm PT

In the Peace Garden at White Feather Ranch, Placerville, CA

All Ages – Love Donation – Contribute what you will

Come join us for Velsum’s West Coast Debut!

Dress in warm clothes for a hearty heart-filled afternoon of music and celebration. We will have an outdoor fire. If it is too chilly we can meet in the Ranch House. Pack your own picnic lunch or dinner.

Can’t make the concert? You can still Donate to Nancy’s web site

*RSVP to receive directions to White Feather Ranch  hazel@reverseritual.com

Velsum‘ is a musical initiative formed through Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer. The songs are inspired to develop our human capacity for Love and Logic. Velsum is a celebration of harmony, rhythm, prayer, and the human voice. Each song is permeated with a sincere interest in the other, the self, the world, and the cosmos. ‘”Velsum’s music is a product of listening.” We hope that by listening to these songs, you feel heard. ~Velsum

Lucien and Ultra met as children at the Chicago Waldorf School, and became friends and collaborators as young adults. They now write, record and perform original music through the initiative Velsum. They debuted the show ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’ last winter at Angelic Organics Farm, and have performed it throughout the Midwest. Through weaving harmonies, poetic recitations, and movement, New Nightingale, New Rose invites the audience on a quest for love and wisdom.  A joyful experience awaits young and old!

Here is a short video clip of Velsum, and here you can find their link to all links! https://linktr.ee/velsum

~Velsum: Ancient Futurism~ Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer 

Here is a short video clip of Velsum find them on Instagram, Bandcamp, apple music, soundcloud, spotify, youtube

Ultra-Violet Archer – (b. Chicago, IL, 1999) is a songwriter and music producer, exploring music as a tool for healing and storytelling. After studying at Oberlin College & Conservatory and spending a year in Järna, Sweden, at the International Youth Initiative Program, she currently studies music at Columbia College Chicago. She strives to make music that invites people to honor the parts of themselves they feel but can’t yet put into words.  https://linktr.ee/UltraVioletArcher

Lucien Dante Lazar (b. Chicago, IL, 1994) is an interdisciplinary artist whose praxis is founded in the intersections of art, science, and spirituality. He received his BA from Bard College (2016), his MFA from California College of the Arts (2020), and is currently working on his PhD in the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness program at California Institute of Integral Studies. His dissertation will concern the pedagogy of spiritual development through the diversity of the arts.

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Come unity

Today is follow up from my essay: Festival of Offering in which I shared my essential take away from the ‘Fire in the Temple’ gathering. Today I begin an overview of the many aspects of this life changing event:

Friends, I have been to a lot of ‘Anthroposophical conferences’ over the years, which have all been amazing in their own ways. From the beginning I knew the ‘Fire in the TempleHoly Nights gathering would be on a vastly different level. The conference team: Guy Alma, Dr. Raphael Knauf, Andreas Schuschke, Jacquelyn Bieringer & Mary Wildfeuer, worked it out so that everyone coming had a ride from the airport & a place to stay in the community! Andreas Schuschke a member of Camphill for 30 years, one of the key people carrying the conference, did the airport pickups & wouldn’t take any $ for gas. When I arrived at Whitestone house I was greeted by the house holder, Carsten Callesen, who is on many governing committees at Beaver Run, as well as Medical director. And in my room there was a little welcome package full of treats!

I could feel the whole village holding us. This Camphill community brings in the heart & essence of community – generous hospitality, & true service – it highlights the spiritual aspects of our Movement.

The gathering began with an option to attend ‘The Consecration of the Human Being’ with the Christian Community Priest from Devon, Penn. Rev. Jong Won Choi in the amazing Rainbow Hall.

This was followed by a glorious communal lunch (every snack & meal was bountiful – I cannot stress enough how important good food is to foster community, with time to stretch out & be social. This caring gesture creates a mood of love that nourishes & helps us digest the content on every level & cannot be received in any other way!)

Guy Alma, Director of Development, welcomed us with warmth & humor. In keeping with the theme of building up & living into the 1st Goetheanum as an etheric being, we were invited to participate in a variety of artistic offerings:

*Modeling & formwork of the Architraves of the small Cupola with Rudiger Janisch & Herb Walsh.

*Working with the Planetary Seals, drawing & conversation with Peggy Hirt

*Torn shapes/form drawing of the Red Window with Becky Rutherford

*Acrylic painting on large canvas of the initiates in the small cupola with Guy Alma

*The forms of the Goetheanum in Eurythmy with Gillian Shoemaker, who I adore having worked with her thru the AAP training.

We were also invited to sign up for 2 intimate Discussion Groups. One working with the ‘Reflections of the Night’, & the other, a ‘Conversation Group’ ‘ grappling with these evocative questions:

*What phenomena form the wood of the World Cross?
*Who has erected the Cross?
*Who is crucified there?
*When will the Roses grow from the Cross?
*What forces lie behind the Roses growth?
*How can we work as individuals, together, to bring these healing forces to life?

Rudiger Janisch laid out his many artistic renderings of the 1st Goetheanum to help us build it up in our imagination & then step in to ‘Find our seats’. I have experienced this presentation 3 times now, 1st when I brought Rudiger out to our Chicago Branch, then at the last AAP session. And each time a new layer is added. He points out that we have all experienced the etheric Goetheanum as we made our way out of the spiritual world into our present incarnation.

~hag

It’s interesting to contemplate that even though Rudolf Steiner said in 1914: ‘Not one thing of this building will remain…’ he still went forward with the work anyway!

The soul forces that went into the artistic manifestation of this Temple of the New Mysteries remains – these forces cannot be destroyed.

Yes, it’s true that the beautiful physical material became a burnt offering – but the selfless will forces that went in to co-create it remain – inscribed in the ethers – waiting for us to enter into – to take up – thru a cognitive ritual that employs our intentional, conscious, individual & collective soul forces.

This striving will transform our not only our Thinking, Feeling & willing but every one of our subtle bodies.

Will we reclaim the spiritual essence of this offering, & work to overcome what is written: The ‘Envy of human beings’?

We see an important parallel with the burning of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, releasing the mysteries of The Word into the ethers in order to point up the ‘Envy of the lower gods‘ & to inaugurate a new age in human consciousness –

Francesco Hayez

We can think how Aristotle was able to read this sacred inscription in the starry script, bringing it down into his ‘Categories’. I have often spoken about this using quotes from Steiner’s Easter lecture of 1924.

At this Centennial milestone we are being called to rise up in ‘Cosmic Communion’ – to enter this modern Temple of the Word & bring down these will forces – a selfless will – inspired by Spirit.

The 2nd Goetheanum is like the shield of Michael, a protective shell over the etheric being of the Johannes Bau – A complete metamorphosis of the House of the Word – a tuning inside out, just as the Foundation Stone that was laid in the ground containing the Macrocosmic Lord’s Prayer needs to be transformed into the Our Father. The physical double dodecahedron was further spiritualized into the ‘Foundation Stone of Love’ laid in our hearts at the Christmas Conference Refounding thru Rudolf Steiner, which we must work toward in this Centennial Year..

To cap the day Jacquelyn Bieringer brought in ‘The Heavenly Sophia, The Virgin Mary Sophia, and Anthroposophia’ – Reminding us that this Being must be cultivated in the space between each of us in community. Setting the stage & giving focus to what is behind our movement: “I must be Mary & give birth to Christ within” ~Sileus

Such a great way to begin & make our way to the ‘Fire in the Temple’.

~hag

14 January 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

Candlemas – a Cross-Quarter Festival Heralding Spring – with Willow Summer & Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Wednesday 25 January 2023 – Program – 3 pm – Potluck – 5 pm, Please Bring Food & Drink to Share

Storytelling: The Alchemy of Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid,

The Year of the Water Rabbit – Tu B’Shvat – Beeswax Crafting – Singing

Rudolf Steiner’s Seed Meditation – from ‘How to Know Higher Worlds’

‘Charm the Plow’ – Bless & Consecrate the Farm tools

Three Springs Community Farm 15300 Bodega Hwy, Bodega, CA 94922

Contact Willow for more info.

Velsum Voices Presents: ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’

A Benefit Concert to support Nancy Jewel Poer and the community events at White Feather Ranch

Saturday, 28 January 2023, at 2 pm PT

In the Peace Garden at White Feather Ranch, Placerville, CA

All Ages – Love Donation – Contribute what you will

Come join us for Velsum’s West Coast Debut!

Dress in warm clothes for a hearty heart-filled afternoon of music and celebration. We will have an outdoor fire. If it is too chilly we can meet in the Ranch House. Pack your own picnic lunch or dinner.

Can’t make the concert? You can still Donate to Nancy’s web site

*RSVP to receive directions to White Feather Ranch  hazel@reverseritual.com

Velsum‘ is a musical initiative formed through Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer. The songs are inspired to develop our human capacity for Love and Logic. Velsum is a celebration of harmony, rhythm, prayer, and the human voice. Each song is permeated with a sincere interest in the other, the self, the world, and the cosmos. ‘”Velsum’s music is a product of listening.” We hope that by listening to these songs, you feel heard. ~Velsum

Lucien and Ultra met as children at the Chicago Waldorf School, and became friends and collaborators as young adults. They now write, record and perform original music through the initiative Velsum. They debuted the show ‘New Nightingale, New Rose’ last winter at Angelic Organics Farm, and have performed it throughout the Midwest. Through weaving harmonies, poetic recitations, and movement, New Nightingale, New Rose invites the audience on a quest for love and wisdom.  A joyful experience awaits young and old!

Here is a short video clip of Velsum, and here you can find their link to all links! https://linktr.ee/velsum

~Velsum: Ancient Futurism~ Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer 

Here is a short video clip of Velsum find them on Instagram, Bandcamp, apple music, soundcloud, spotify, youtube

Ultra-Violet Archer – (b. Chicago, IL, 1999) is a songwriter and music producer, exploring music as a tool for healing and storytelling. After studying at Oberlin College & Conservatory and spending a year in Järna, Sweden, at the International Youth Initiative Program, she currently studies music at Columbia College Chicago. She strives to make music that invites people to honor the parts of themselves they feel but can’t yet put into words.  https://linktr.ee/UltraVioletArcher

Lucien Dante Lazar (b. Chicago, IL, 1994) is an interdisciplinary artist whose praxis is founded in the intersections of art, science, and spirituality. He received his BA from Bard College (2016), his MFA from California College of the Arts (2020), and is currently working on his PhD in the Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness program at California Institute of Integral Studies. His dissertation will concern the pedagogy of spiritual development through the diversity of the arts.

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Re-Patterning

Dear friends –
When all seems dead & barren on the face of the Earth, below the surface, the inner life is strengthened…& if we can let go of the false hustle & bustle imposed on us from without, & sit in the stillness of the darkness, where the heart-beat can be heard, There we will find the inner strength to let go of our fear of the dark. To let our eyes adjust to the dark. And soon we will see quite clearly in the dark. And then we can begin the work of Re-Patterning & opening to the inspiration of our Immaculate Conception – our pure thought, which creates the new paradigm…

Energizing Hope for the Sun’s return & the Earth’s renewal we make a ‘spiritual manger’ – a sacred space – in the cold black frozen places, that seem devoid of life, but are really just a sterilized palate – a clean slate, fresh & ready for the newly conceived light to be born into & fill…

At Advent, All our souls are pregnant with the possibility of giving birth to the light within. Wisdom fills us with this possibility that we may birth the Being of Love. This pure light is a becoming, it becomes, a rainbow, in us: shining with the colors of hope, truth & goodness; radiant with the hues of integrity, beauty & virtue, which overflow as joyous praise. In growing this rainbow within, we become, enlightened, with Good Will, bringing the power of Peace to bear in the world.
~hag

A contemplation for our 10:10 Thought-Seed:

Powerful beings who inhabit the spiritual worlds look with satisfaction and approval upon our thoughts about their world. They can help us only if we think about them; and although we may not have attained to clairvoyant vision into the spiritual world, if we know about these spiritual beings they can help us. In return for our study of spiritual science help comes to us from the spiritual world. It is not merely the things we learn, the knowledge we acquire, it is the beings of the higher Hierarchies themselves who help us when we know about them[…] The spiritual world helps us. We have need of it, we must know about it, and unite ourselves with it through conscious understanding“. ~ Rudolf Steiner – GA 168 – How Can the Destitution of Soul in Modern Times Be Overcome? – Zurich, October 10th, 1916

Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

17 December 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: You can see all 5 bright planets in the early evening sky in December 2022. You’ll need to start looking soon after sunset, because Venus and Mercury are close to the sunset glare. Saturn, Jupiter and Mars will be easy to spot, with Jupiter and Mars brighter than the brightest stars. As the month progresses, Venus will take its rightful place as the brightest of them all. And along with Mercury will be farther from the sunset, and easier to see. Beginning around December 24 – Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – you can watch as the waxing crescent moon begins moving up past the line of planets.

Hibiki Miyazaki

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast day of Lazarus – The biblical narrative of the raising of Lazarus is found in chapter 11 of the Gospel of John. Lazarus is introduced as a follower of Jesus, who lives in the town of Bethany near Jerusalem, the brother of Mary & Martha. The sisters send word to Jesus that Lazarus, “he whom thou lovest,” is ill. Instead of immediately traveling to Bethany, Jesus intentionally remains where he is for two more days before beginning the journey.

When Jesus arrives in Bethany, he finds that Lazarus is dead & has already been in his tomb for four days. He meets first with Martha & then Mary in turn. Martha laments that Jesus did not arrive soon enough to heal her brother & Jesus replies with the well-known statement, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die”. Later comes the famous simple phrase, “Jesus wept”.

In the presence of a crowd of mourners, Jesus comes to the tomb. Over the objections of Martha, Jesus has them roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb & says a prayer. He then calls Lazarus to come out (“Come forth”) & Lazarus does so, still wrapped in his grave-cloths. Jesus then calls for someone to remove the grave-cloths, & let him go.

The narrative ends with the statement that many of the witnesses to this event “believed in him.” Others are said to report the events to the religious authorities in Jerusalem.

The Gospel of John mentions Lazarus again in chapter 12. Six days before the Passover on which Jesus is crucified, Jesus returns to Bethany & Lazarus attends a supper that Martha, his sister, serves. Jesus & Lazarus together attract the attention of many & the chief priests consider having Lazarus put to death because so many people are believing in Jesus on account of this miracle.

The miracle of the raising of Lazarus, the longest coherent narrative in John aside from the Passion, is the culmination of John’s “signs”. It explains the crowds seeking Jesus on Palm Sunday, & leads directly to the decision of Caiaphas & the Sanhedrin to kill Jesus.

It is notable that at John 11:11, after being told by His disciples to fear those who would kill Him, & after the parable about living in darkness, Jesus references his own parable & states that Lazarus sleeps, & that He will go “wake him up”. The disciples thought Jesus meant Lazarus was actually sleeping in verse 12. Then, in verse 14, Jesus speaks plainly & tells them that “Lazarus has died”. This is to be clear that Lazarus has died in the flesh, & is not sleeping but going thru the 1st Christian initiation.

Lazarus is spoken of by Rudolf Steiner as becoming John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, & formerly as Hiram Abiff the Master Builder of Solomon’s Temple & Christian Rosenkreutz.

Antoine Callet

497 BC – The first Saturnalia festival was celebrated in ancient Rome.

1790 – The Aztec calendar stone is discovered at El Zócalo, Mexico City.

1819 – Simón Bolívar declares the independence of Gran Colombia in Venezuela. Gran Colombia was the most prestigious country in Spanish America. John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State & future president of the United States, claimed it to be one of the most powerful nations on the planet. This prestige, attracted to the nation unionist ideas of independence movements in Cuba, the Dominican Republic & Puerto Rico, which sought to form an associated state with the republic.

1833 – Deathday of Kaspar Hauser, the rightful Prince of Baden, died after a murder attempt on 12.12.1833

1873 – Birthday of Eleanor Charlotte Merry, an English poet, artist, musician & anthroposophist with a strong Celtic impulse & interest in esoteric wisdom. She studied in Vienna & met Rudolf Steiner in 1922 after becoming interested in his teachings. She went on to organize Summer Schools where Steiner gave lectures, & was secretary for the World Conference on Spiritual Science in London in 1928

Eleanor Charlotte Kynaston grew up in a liberal educational environment, her father being the well known classical scholar & professor of Ancient Greek, Herbert Snow aka KynastonIt was only at the age of 13 that she began to attend a regular school. This was also when she began to take a passionate interest in music. Two years later, her father became Deacon of Durham, so Eleanor grew up close to the beautiful cathedral. She was able to read the manuscripts that were kept in the monastic library, walking up & down amongst the Norman columns of the cathedral & experienced something of a real, concrete history, something completely different from what she read in her schoolbooks. It was the myths & legends that captivated her, & she learned by heart Tennyson’s King Arthur.

The stream of scholars & theologians that entered their house fed her spiritual longings.

As she grew up, she sought a career as singer, wanting to study music & art. At 19, she left home for a course of study in Vienna, which led not only to a fine command of the German language & development of her musical skills but also placed her in a kind of artistic-aesthetic inner crisis. Soon after her return to England, she married the well-known Oxford surgeon Merry, to whose professional commitments Eleanor Merry was to devote much of her energy besides the rearing of their son & daughter.

She learnt about Theosophy at the beginning of World War I when a copy of the “Secret Doctrine” of H.P. Blavatsky was sent her by persons unknown. As she read it, she felt as if guided by some unseen hand, & studied further works of Annie Besant & other Theosophists. After the war, she was made aware of Rudolf Steiner’s Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. In January 1922 she met Daniel Nicol Dunlop in London for the first time. He was reading a lecture of Rudolf Steiner’s to the anthroposophical group there. A few months later, her husband died of pneumonia, after which she had her first personal conversation with DN Dunlop. Dunlop was still fired up with gratitude over his meeting with Rudolf Steiner some few weeks previously.

She took part in the conference “Spiritual Values in Education” in Oxford that August, where she met Rudolf Steiner personally for the first time. She saw him first in a corridor & by his gait & the manner in which he looked at her, she had the impression: “He knows where he is going.”

She assisted D.N. Dunlop in the preparation of the subsequent Summer School in Penmaenmawr the following year, where a further conversation with Rudolf Steiner took place in which he recommended to her the new techniques in painting that had been developed under his guidance. She was soon exhibiting publicly in London& elsewhere. He also advised her to form as strong a bond as possible with Dunlop. This summer school, devoted to the theme “The Evolution of Consciousness” was felt by Steiner to be a milestone in the development of the anthroposophical movement.

Eleanor was present at the founding of the new General Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland around New Year 1923/24.

The theme of the ensuing Summer School at Torquay in 1924, “True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation” (GA 243), stemmed from a conversation she had with Rudolf Steiner on this occasion.

In her further work in Britain after Rudolf Steiner’s death, she wholeheartedly supported D.N. Dunlop’s efforts to create an open, inclusive & at the same time spiritually founded continuation of the anthroposophical work. She acted as secretary of the anthroposophical World Conference in London of 1928 &wrote a play around the figure of King Arthur for the youth conference initiated by David Clement in Glastonbury in 1932. More immediately than anyone, she experienced the dramatic events affecting Daniel Dunlop between 1929, when he became General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain & the spring of 1935, when he was expelled from the General Anthroposophical Society & died a short while later. After his death, she maintained intimate friendships with her half-sister, Marna Pease, Walter Johannes Stein & particularly Eugen Kolisko, whom she helped to build up the School for Spiritual Science, wrote numerous articles for their magazine “The Modern Mystic“, & wrote down the biographical notes Kolisko dictated to her. In the 1940s she led a painting school together with Maria Schindler as well as working with her on the book Pure Colour (1946), leading to large public exhibitions.

Jane Hudson

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~i’ve known that tempting feast of death when
while darkness filled the mind, the heart cried out –
let us listen & hear…
i know when the eye of truth
is plucked from the head,
only the blood of rage remains –
Can we make the change
to heal the Comforter?
Come & Call forth with me
a bright secret veiled in black cloth –
a heart-light beyond heaven which is the light within
re-kindled through sacrifice…

~hag

The 4th Sunday of Advent – 18 December 2022 
at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago, 2 pm – 3:30 pm CST 
(after Rev. Jonah Evans talk at the Christian Community)

The Individuality of Conscience and the Goetheanum 
with Lucien Dante Lazar

Out of our conscience, we witness the Christ in the other. And through this Seeing, our I is born within us, whose self-conscious interior is the I of God. This is a mystery of John the Baptist.



When Love enters the human heart as an awakening to freedom, the Wisdom of form enters our awareness, and color, that majesty of Light, teaches us about creation. This is a mystery of the painter Raphael.

When the Word approaches us, inspiring us in our language to find the Heavenly Sophia as intellect, we write truth and honor the New Revelation of the Christ and His marriage to Sophia. And out of this marriage, we learn about ourselves. This is a mystery of Novalis.

On this last Sunday of Advent dedicated to the Human Being & the Angels, we will engage in these three Christian gifts through the social encounter, our working with color, and our thinking through language. And we will strive to harmonize these three incarnations of this significant individuality with the birth, death, and resurrection of the Goetheanum.

$10-$50 or pay what you will at the door or online www.rschicago.org/donate(credit card or PayPal)

For more Info. contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator 
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) 
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

Resurrection of the Temple (The first Goetheanum) by Rita de Cassia Perez, Adriana’s mother

The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’

Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration

of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ to designate your payment

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal.

Please bring food & drink to share.

For more Info. contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618(map) https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar www.rschicago.org/donate

You are invited to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Adriana Koulias

Time: Dec 21, 2022, 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

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 Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.

This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social.  Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.

During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’

Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing.  She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.

Bildungsroman

Kumi Muttu

Dear friends – I have been swimming in the old moon phase as of late, in my work with Lecture 4 & 5 of Steiner’s ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’ – exploring how suffering & pain as manifestations of the soul came into our human nature with our astral body, & how this is bound up with cosmic evolution, after having first been experienced by Spiritual beings in the hierarchy of the Thrones – the Spirits of Will.

C. V. Bodenhausen

Living into what Goethe styles: “Only one who knows longing knows what I suffer” – I have been listening to this song given voice by many composers:  Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt from a poem that appears in Book 4 of Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship – A kind of every-man’s hero’s journey of self-realization. The story, which can be referred to as ‘a Bildungsroman’ or initiation story; centers on Wilhelm’s attempt to escape the empty life of a bourgeois businessman. After a failed romance with the theater, Wilhelm commits himself to the mysterious ‘Tower Society’.

Steiner brings in the light: The citizens of earth who feel this mood of longing — the very very best for us to feel – are those who enter our own movement of Spiritual Science…That which rises from sub-consciousness must in the sense of today be brought into touch with the study of the universal existence living in the world… In this sense anthroposophy is a response to those longings which dwell in the depths of the soul. As everything that happens in the world has had a prelude, we need not wonder at a person who today longs through spiritual science for satisfaction in the powers of their soul, above all, when the unconscious soul-forces akin to longings, would consume themselves as longing.”

Georgiana Houghton 

As was laid out in my earlier essay Homesick, thru the activity of the Dynamis – the Spirits of Movement, with their gift of picture consciousness, the otherwise empty inner self that suffers from longing, can be filled with a healing balm.  

The Spirits of Movement also bring those beings whose sacrifice was rejected into a circuit moving around the higher beings – We see this outpictured in the image of the planets revolving around the Sun.

In lecture 5 Steiner gives this picture: “If the whole substance of a planet could flow into the Sun and it not be rejected, the Beings of that planet would find different conditions of existence within the Sun from those they meet with in the planet outside, since the Sun throws them back: an estrangement takes place, it is an alienated from its origin.

If you can picture the feelings of such Beings, you will have an idea of what may be called: “The exclusion of a certain portion of Cosmic Beings from their essential meaning, their great cosmic purpose. The consequence of this is that the “displacement” — if we may once more speak symbolically — of the rejected incense, of the rejected sacrificial substance, excludes it from the course of the rest of cosmic processes.

If you grasp these thoughts with your feeling — not with your reason, you will perceive that this represents something like a rending away from the universal cosmic order. To the Cherubim who renounced the sacrifice it is only something they put away from them; to the Spirits of Will that were rejected, it is something that bears the imprint of alienation from one’s own origins.

If we can present these things to our soul through inner feelings, in this idea of alienation from source dwells in what we call – death!

Death is none other than that which necessarily enters the universe with the rejection of the sacrificial substance of those Beings who then had to retain it within themselves. Thus we advance from the resignation, the renunciation of what has been rejected by the higher Beings — which we encounter at the third stage of evolution — as Death.

And the true meaning of death is nothing other than the state of not being in ones’ true place – of exclusion from one’s true place”

Hugo Simberg

To reveal the qualities of the ‘true spiritual reality’ behind the Earth embodiment, we see that thru death we meet the element we call earth. Steiner identifies the earlier stages as the willingness to sacrifice, on old Saturn, expressing itself as warmth; the virtue of bestowing, on old Sun, bringing us the outward appearance of air; & resignation or renunciation, on old moon, which is the nature of water – And we must remember dear seekers, that we can only find these spiritual qualities if we look into our own souls.

If death is the Spirit behind earth & Christ has conquered death thru his human incarnation & deed on Golgotha, we are now free thru our love filled willing to reclaim our true place – by becoming the 10th hierarchy – as we co-create the planet of Redemption.  

Ever thinking with you & the angels

~hag

30 November 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Mars is closest to Earth tonight, at 8 pm CST.

First-quarter Moon (exact at 8:37 am CST). The Moon is in the dim water bucket that stick-figure Aquarius spills as he runs. Upper left of the Moon shines bright Jupiter. They tilt at an increasing angle as the evening progresses and the sky turns.

Arnold Bocklin

 Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

Holiday Market at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 
4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
10 December 2022 – from 11 am – 4 pm

Handcrafted gifts, décor & toys
Featuring Live Music, Puppetry & Candle Dipping!!!

If you would like to be a vendor contact Elizabeth Kelly 
eilisaineariadne@gmail.com

Resurrection of the Temple (The first Goetheanum) by Rita de Cassia Perez, Adriana’s mother

The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’

Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose

To register & receive the Zoom code email your receipt of payment to the Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg.

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.

 Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.

This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social.  Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.

During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’

Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing.  She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.

Homesick

John Latermultch

Dear friends – In many essays here on RR I am often called “to follow the path of humankind’s spiritual development” – Which Steiner explains is revealed in the Calendar of the Soul. And so I ask: How do our cosmic origins affect our lives today?

In order to transport ourselves into what went on spiritually in the ancient evolutionary phases, we have to raise our inner vision to a time when the human soul 1st aspires to comprehend the nature of the Spirits of Wisdom, & begins to prepare for a higher striving. This has its origin in what may be called: a “readiness to bestow,” a willingness to give, to give of oneself.

With this contemplation we encounter a soul-mood of “longing”. And what is this longing? Steiner describes it as a “Homesickness”.

It is a kind of willing; an unattainable yearning of the will.

We can characterize the mood of the Thrones, those Spirits of Will whose sacrifice was rejected, to be of this nature. What we may discover in the depths of our own soul-life as longing, is a heritage coming to us from these primeval times.

Just as we have inherited other qualities from these ancient stages of evolution – the sacrifice of Fire, the giving quality of air, & the renunciation that lives in water –  we also inherit from ancient Moon, all kinds of longings, all kinds of repressed wishes impossible to fulfil – of will that is lamed.

Thru the rejection of the sacrifice there came into existence beings with a repressed, held back will.

We can picture the ones whose sacrifice was accepted, we can rejoice in how they were able to join their will with the Spirits of Harmony, the choir of Beings a step above them on the ladder of evolution. As human beings we can relate to their feelings of joy & unity.

We can also relate to those who were rejected – excluded from this union – those that remained behind with repressed longings & wishes.

These Spirits of Will who wanted to offer all that dwelt within them were compelled, because of the rejection of their sacrifice, to draw back into themselves.

From this, Steiner shares that “egoity flashed up”! Which we can see is a big part of our heritage today. From Spiritual Science we learn that a mild form of this egoity is longing.

In those primal times we see how these beings who were forced to focus only on themselves, on their egoity, would be condemned to a one-sided development, IF something else had not entered evolution to redress the balance.

Georgiana Houghton

On ancient Moon we see arriving on the scene – the Spirits of Movement – who “prevent the condemnation & exile into one-sidedness.

Movement here can be compared to the fluid movement of our own thought. Thru the watery element of old moon – The Spirits of Movement guide the rejected Spirits of Will that had been driven back into themselves; moving them out into relation with all the other higher Beings, bridging the gap – creating a relationship between those Beings.

We can get an idea of what was going on in the Cosmos at this stage of evolution if we reflect upon our own corresponding disposition of soul: when we feel stuck! We all know the torment of this, how it drives our state of mind.

As a way to numb ourselves when things become too painful, we may dumb it down – which can be described as “a state of boredom” – a feeling of ennui – a paralyzed will, a malaise.

But really, this ‘boredom’, at its core, is longing.

And as we may have experienced, the torment of longing can often be overcome thru our relationships – pulling us out ourselves into the other.

From Lecture 4 of Steiner’s ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’: “Thus we see that while the earth was passing through her Moon-phase, the Spirits of Movement brought into the lives of those beings who were filled with longing, and would otherwise have been desolate — for boredom is also a kind of desolation — the change which is brought about by movement, a constantly renewed relation to ever new beings and new conditions…We can then overcome the one-sidedness of longing by means of variety, by change and the movement of the things experienced.”

As the Spirits of Movement introduce change & movement into the Universe, the Will that is a longing, is transformed within these Beings into “thought pictures.We can relate this to the fluid pictures of our human dreaming.

But even with the help of the Dynamis there is not the ability to completely merge with the higher beings, because this new aspect of egoism’ within the will, prevents it.

But they are able to take in a transitory picture of the other being, which lives in them like a dream-picture. At this phase of development we see the arising of picture-consciousness“.

It’s mind-blowing to think how we ourselves, as rudimentary human beings, passed thru this phase of evolution, so, yessiree bob, we too are infused with these feelings of longing & this ability to live into “thought pictures.

Nancy Poer

What’s interesting to me is how this gift of the Spirits of Movement has in our time become so debased. The constant use of screens – an overloading of images coming from sub-nature which actually exasperates our craving – turning it into an addiction – distracting us from cultivating our own picture-consciousness, which I believe we are meant to use to perceive the Etheric Christ.

If we take this to heart, it gives us both the spiritual basis of what developed during the moon-phase of our Earth, & how this has affected “the deep subsoil of our being. – It’s like how a movement under the surface of the ocean drives up the waves – this sub-conscious stuff influences us, without us being aware of its ancient cause.

Again Steiner hits the nail on the head: “By the constant succession of pictures, arising one after the other, the yearning is satisfied and brought into harmony; but should the pictures remain any length of time the old longing begins to glimmer faintly up from the depths and the Spirits of Movement call up new pictures. And when these have been there for a little time the longing arises again, demanding fresh ones. Now with respect to a soul-life such as this the momentous sentence must be pronounced: if this longing can only be satisfied by a continual flow of pictures following one after the other, there would be no end to the infinite flow. The only thing that can supervene on this is what must come if the endless flow of pictures is to be replaced by something that is able to redeem it otherwise than by mere pictures — namely, by realities! In other words, the planetary embodiment of our earth through which we have passed, when pictures were brought to us by the activity of the Spirits of Movement, must be replaced by that planetary phase of the earth’s embodiment which we call the phase of redemption. We shall see presently that the earth is to be called the “Planet of Redemption,” just as her last embodiment — that of the Moon-existence — may be called the “Planet of Longing”; longing capable of satisfaction yet flowing on endlessly.

Leo Klein

And while we live in the consciousness belonging to this earth, in which as we know redemption comes to us through the Mystery of Golgotha there arises continually within us from the subsoil of our soul, a never-ceasing craving for redemption. It is as though, on the surface, we had the waves of our ordinary consciousness — while below, in the depths of the sea of our soul-life, lives longing, which is the ocean-bed of our soul. This strives continually to ascend to the One who accomplishes the sacrifice, the Universal Being, Who is able to satisfy the longing once and for all time — not in a never-ceasing succession of pictures.”

May we take this into our thinking, feeling & willing.

~hag

18 November 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: All month Jupiter shines below the Great Square of Pegasus, boxy emblem of the fall sky.

Orion clears the eastern horizon by around 8 pm CT. now. Upper left of Orion, bright Mars glares. Keep going upper left of Mars & there’s Capella.

High straighter above Orion are Aldebaran & higher still, the little Pleiades cluster, the size of your fingertip at arm’s length.

Down below Orion, Sirius rises around 10 pm. Sirius always follows two hours behind Orion.

Darby Flank

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1923 – The founding of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society. Willem Zeylmans van Emmichhoven becomes its General Secretary.

1961- Deathday of Willem Zeylmans van Emmichhovena Dutch psychiatrist and anthroposophist. From 1923 until his death in 1961 he was chairman of the Dutch Anthroposophical Society. He was a familiar figure in public life & had a considerable influence on the Anthroposophic movement, particularly through his numerous lectures & his work as an author, which included the first biography of Rudolf Steiner.

Zeylmans was the son of a Dutch chocolate manufacturer. His mother came from Germany. In childhood he was often troubled by visions of color & emotional turmoil that later stimulated his preoccupation with what would later be called synesthesia: a condition when you hear a sound & automatically see a color. After recovering from an attack of typhoid, he entered medical school at eighteen, specializing in psychiatry. His interest in color, inspired by the painter Jacoba van Heemskerck & her friend & patron Marie Tak van Poortvliet, led him to research more about the effects of colors. He continued his medical studies in Leipzig under Wilhelm Wundt in 1919, where he became a member of the Anthroposophical Society. After meeting with Rudolf Steiner, he was encouraged to continue his research into the effect of colors & in his dissertation he wrote on “The effect of colors on the life of feeling.’’ On 27 September 1921 he was married to Ingeborg Droogleever Fortuyn, whom he had met for the first time many years earlier. Their first son was born in 1926.

At the age of 28, Zeylmans began lecturing on Anthroposophy to an enthusiastic public, as well as academic colleagues. He helped establish the first Waldorf School in The Hague, where he also founded a small psychiatric hospital, which soon moved into its own building (now the Rudolf Steiner Zorg). When the Anthroposophical Society was founded in the Netherlands, Rudolf Steiner appointed him as its first General Secretary. In addition to his psychiatric work Zeylmans undertook worldwide lecture tours. He spoke often about the effect of color on humans & gave advice to paint manufacturers, architects, directors of museums & artists.

Zeylman’s primary concerns were the rapprochement & understanding between the different nations & peoples, as well as a furtherance of cosmopolitanism. His attempt to found the global schools association suggested by Rudolf Steiner (a ‘”Weltschulverein”), to promote the dissemination & funding for free school education, failed due to resistance from anthroposophic circles against fostering broader public awareness.

In the face of increasing political fanaticism, another initiative Zeylmans took was to further interest for anthroposophy in European youth. In the summer of 1930 he organized a youth camp on the Stakenberg near Nunspeet in the Veluwe. More than a thousand participants gathered in working groups & heard lectures by leading anthroposophists like Eugen Kolisko, Walter Johannes Stein, Elisabeth Vreede & Ita Wegman on their thoughts to the situation of the time.

His work, however, was increasingly restricted by political developments. His involvement with the administration of the General Anthroposophical Society in Dornach Switzerland also met with increasing disapproval. The internal disputes since the death of Rudolf Steiner & his close collaboration with the physician Ita Wegman in 1935 led to his exclusion & that of the majority of the Dutch members.

After the war Zeylmans took up once again his international lecturing work. In 1954 he embarked on a global tour for nine months. Encouraged by Bernard Lievegoed, in 1960 he sought a mandate from the members of the Anthroposophical Society in the Netherlands to reunite it once more, after 25 years of separation, with the General Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Switzerland. He undertook a second journey through South Africa in 1961, visiting the newly established Waldorf schools & other institutions to give advice & hold lectures. During this trip, he died unexpectedly in Cape Town.

Resurrection of the Temple (The first Goetheanum) by Rita de Cassia Perez, Adriana’s mother

The ‘Envy of the Gods’ – The ‘Envy of Human Beings’

Presented by Adriana Koulias*

A Winter Solstice offering preparing us for the Centennial commemoration of the burning of the first Goetheanum.

21 December 2022, at 5 pm PT, 6 pm MT, 7 pm CT, 8 pm ET

Here is a link to the World Clock for your time zone

Online & in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Dear Friends – This special presentation is supported by your generous donations. $10-$50 or pay what you will www.rschicago.org/donate (credit card or PayPal)

Please type ‘Adriana’ on the line of your payment that says: Purpose

For those attending in-person doors open at 5:30 pm for our Potluck meal. Please bring food & drink to share.

To register & receive the Zoom code Contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

 Work on building the First Goetheanum, which was designed and supervised by Rudolf Steiner, began after the laying of the double dodecahedron foundation stone on the 20th of September 1913. Construction proceeded for a decade under enormous difficulties in the political, economic and cultural realms, brought on by the advent of the First World War. After the war when the building was near completion, the First Goetheanum was destroyed by an arsonist on New Year’s Eve 1922/1923.

This NYE 2022-23 will be the 100th anniversary of this event and the world is again facing many difficulties, political, economic and social.  Adriana’s lecture will explore what Rudolf Steiner meant by the ‘Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human beings’ and how a consciousness of this during the coming 12 Holy Nights can provide the necessary strengthening for the coming twelve months.

During this presentation Adriana will speak about the three gifts given by Rudolf Steiner in 1913: The naming of Anthroposophy, The Fifth Gospel, and The Laying of the Foundation Stone of the First Goetheanum. She will explore with us how we can link our hearts to the old Goetheanum during the coming 12 Holy Nights to prepare ourselves for the coming 12 months in 2023, so we can work towards a Cosmic New Year.

In this way we will celebrate the Jubilee of the Christmas Conference and the resurrection of the living impulse of the First Goetheanum in the most auspicious way.

For Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘My dear friends, may this link our hearts to the old Goetheanum which we had to consign to the elements. May it link our hearts also to the Spirit, to the Soul of this Goetheanum. With this vow before whatever is best within our being we want to live on not only into the new year. In strength of deed, bearing the spirit, leading the soul we want to live on into the new cosmic year.’ ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Envy of the Gods and the Envy of Human Beings.’

Adriana Koulias was born in 1960 in Brazil. Adriana moved to Australia when she was 9 years old where she lives today. She has studied art, operatic singing and nursing.  She has been studying Anthroposophy (awareness of our humanity) as given by Rudolf Steiner for 33 years and has since 2002-3 integrated this knowledge into several novels and a number of books, international lectures and articles online and in magazines.