Category Archives: Insight

Healing the Ancestral Line

November 21, 2019Autumn, Celestial Event, History, Insight, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars~hag

Greetings friends – The question for me is always, where do I start? For this 1st installment of the write-up for the ‘All Souls Southern Tour’, what came was to just be real, to be vulnerable, to start with the genesis of my own All Souls healing journey. And so it is:

Verse for Our Beloved Dead by Rudolf Steiner:

May my heart-love reach to soul-love.
May my love’s warmth shine to spirit light.
Thus, I draw near to you.
Thinking spiritual thoughts with you,
Feeling cosmic love in you,
Willing in spirit through you –
Weaving with you
One in experience.

I have always had an ‘Ancestor Shrine’. A kind of altar table layered with pictures, Mass cards, candles, crystals, bells, art offerings & the letters I written to the dead over the years. My Strega Nona taught me to place a fresh glass of water there every morning with a greeting. Starting with the Michaelmas season I often feel a pull to consciously tune in more. Sometimes I awake with the idea to bring a favorite food or an urge to sit there in meditation, or offer my research or reading; this ‘altar’ is after all, right next to my computer in my study where I do all my spiritual scientific work. Last year I began to know that I could recite the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ with my parents in mind. For many years it was difficult for me to engage with them, as the karmic knot was too tight, too painful. But my angel insisted, & so I push thru, & little by little the forgiveness & healing expands into all worlds.

As fate would have it a few years ago I was asked to come out to Nashville & Knoxville TN. to bring various anthroposophical programs, & I knew it was another opportunity for me to do some ancestral healing.

I have spoken about how my mother’s people came to the Knoxville/Milan/Skullbone TN area from Ireland. They raped & pillaged into the Chickasaw tribe, intermarrying, but then proceeding to become founders of the KKK in that area. Feeling the shame of the ‘sins of the father’s’, I had avoided the South all my life, going only once before when I was in a band, stopping in while on tour, for a family reunion after my mother had died.

I often imagine that my parents are still in the Kamaloca phase in their life between death & rebirth. Our dear Dr. Steiner shares with us that the human soul spends the beginning of this journey in what he refers to as the ‘Region of Burning Desires’ (in Hindu it is called Kamaloca, or in Christian verbiage-purgatory). On average we spend 1/3 of our lives in sleep, the little death, & so it is that we spend this same ratio purifying our passions, coming to terms with & reviewing our recent life on earth. This is a crucial time to reach across the threshold to help those on the other side in this phase closest to earth, especially since they are experiencing our time together. And so I offer them this Steiner Prayer:

I look to you in the spirit world
In which you are.
May my love mitigate your heat.
May my love mitigate you’re cold.
May it come through to you and help you
To find the way
From the spirit’s darkness
To the spirit’s light.

Tomorrow my girl turns 20. & I know the work that I do on healing the ancestral line will reverberate into the future for all my relations…

I am so grateful to my Southern friends, who have allowed me to meet this part of myself, thru the work that I share, to do some deep healing; welcoming me into their communities, which I see as my chosen family.

Coming this time for our ‘All Souls Southern Tour’, there was a big shift, which I will go into tomorrow.

Thanks for walking with me on the path…

~hag

***

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~The clouds cut
A formless form
Into the heavy throne of some kind of queen
Only never my mother.
& yet a clue unfolds & holds
The encoded map
Star clusters speaking the scope
Of the stream, sunk
In the occlusion of tears & corals
Pried away from glistening birds
Weaving treasures into stinging prayers
& future symphonies.
~hag

***

Image result for regulus waning moon Nov. 21 2019

21 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Look for Bella Luna waning in the east next to Regulus the next few mornings.

Image result for meteor shower known as the Alpha Monocerotids Nov. 21 2019

A very obscure meteor shower known as the Alpha Monocerotids is currently plowing streams of dusty particles that sputter off comet nuclei when they approach the Sun. The peak occurs TONIGHT starting around 10:50 pm CST. The shower’s radiant is in the obscure constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn, not far from the bright star Procyon, the easternmost star in the Great Winter Circle. Procyon will be low in the eastern sky at 10 pm.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

164 BCE – Judas Maccabeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restores the Temple in Jerusalem. This event is commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.

1676 – The Danish astronomer Ole Rømer presents the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light.

1694 – Birthday of Voltaire, a French Enlightenment writer, historian, & philosopher famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity, especially the Roman Catholic Church, as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile & prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poems, novels, essays, & historical & scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters & more than 2,000 books & pamphlets. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties, despite the risk this placed him in under the strict censorship laws of the time. He adopted the name Voltaire in 1718, following his incarceration at the Bastille. It is an anagram of AROVET LI, the Latinized spelling of his surname, Arouet, & the initial letters of le jeune (“the young”). According to a family tradition he was known as le petit volontaire (“determined little thing”) as a child, & he resurrected a variant of the name in his adult life. The name also reverses the syllables of Airvault, his family’s home town in the Poitou region. Voltaire perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the Church as a static and oppressive force useful only on occasion as a counterbalance to the rapacity of kings, although all too often, even more rapacious itself. Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma, & the French institutions of his day.

1783 – In Paris, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier & François Laurent d’Arlandes, make the first untethered hot air balloon flight.

1789 – North Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution & is admitted as the 12th U.S. state.

1811 – Death day of Heinrich von Kleist, German poet & author, spoken about by Rudolf Steiner in THE INNER ASPECT OF THE MOON-EMBODIMENT OF THE EARTH. How can we fail to recognise that this man’s spirit in its entirety as he stands before us, is an actual living embodiment of that which dwells in the depths of the Soul, which we must trace back to something other than the life of earth if we wish to recognise it? Has not Heinrich Von Kleist described in the most significant manner what may live within a man (a description of which you will find at the very beginning of The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Mankind), as something transcending him and driving him, and which he will only understand later on if he does not snap the threads of his life before! Think of his ‘Penthesilea’; how much more there is in her than she can span with her earthly consciousness! We should not be able to describe her at all, did we not take for granted that her Soul was immeasurably further advanced than the narrow little soul (although it was a great one) which she could span with her earthly consciousness. Hence a situation must arise which artistically introduces the whole process of the Drama. Indeed, it was necessary to prevent the whole transaction — which Kleist introduces with Achilles — from being grasped with the higher consciousness; otherwise the whole tragedy could not be perceived. Hence Achilles is called ‘her’ Achilles. What lies in the higher consciousness must be plunged into the non-conscious. Again, what part does this subconsciousness play in Katchen Von Heilbronn, especially in the remarkable relation between her and Wetter Von Strahl, which plays no part in the higher consciousness, but in the deeper strata of the Soul where dwells the forces of which man knows nothing, which pass from one to another. When we have this before us we can trace the spiritual nature of the world’s forces of gravity and attraction. For instance, in the scene where Katchen stands before her admirers, do we not feel what lives in the subconsciousness, and how it is related to what is outside in the world which has been dryly called the forces of our planet’s attractions? Yet only 100 years ago a truly penetrating and striving mind was not able to find his way into that subconsciousness. But it must be done to-day. And the tragedy of a Prince of Homburg strikes us in a very different way now. I should like to know how an abstract thinker, one who accounts for everything by reason alone, could account for a figure such as the Prince of Homburg, who carried out all his great deeds in a kind of dream-state, even those leading finally to victory. Kleist indicates very clearly that he could not possibly gain the victory by means of his higher consciousness, for as far as that was concerned he was not a particularly great man, for he whines and whimpers over everything he has to do. Only when by a special effort of the will, he brings up what dwells in the depths of his Soul, does he play the man.

1877 – Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.

Image result for 1905 – Albert Einstein's paper that leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula, E = mc², is published in the journal Annalen der Physik.

1905 – Albert Einstein’s paper that leads to the mass–energy equivalence formula, E = mc², is published in the journal Annalen der Physik.

Image result for Franz Joseph I of Austria

1916 – Deathday of Franz Joseph I of Austria, spoken about by Steiner in The History and Actuality of Imperialism

The Emperor of Austria, who now belongs to the deposed royalty, before he was chased out carried around along with his other titles a most unusual one: Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slovenia, Galizia, Lodomeria, Illyia and so on. Among all these titles was also “King of Jerusalem!” The Austrian Emperor also carried, until he was no longer emperor, the title “King of Jerusalem.” It came from the crusades. It would be impossible to give a better example of meaninglessness than this. And such meaninglessness plays a much greater role than you imagine. It is a question of whether we can arise to a recognition of the present-day platitudes. It is made difficult because those who live in platitudes are the verbal representatives of the old concepts that stagger around in their brains imitating thoughts. But one can only achieve real thinking again when the inner soul-life is filled with substance and that can only come from knowledge of the spiritual world, of spiritual life. Only by being relieved by the spirit can one become a complete person, after having been constipated with platitudes. What I described yesterday as a feeling of shame will result in the call for the spirit. And the propagation of the spirit will only be possible if the spiritual/cultural sector is allowed to develop independently.

Image result for 1927 – Columbine Mine massacre: Striking coal miners are attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes.

1927 – Columbine Mine massacre: Striking coal miners are attacked with machine guns by a detachment of state police dressed in civilian clothes.

***

13 December 2019 Rudiger Janisch:

The 3 fold human being , the Foundation Stone & the 3 fold social organism 7 pm – 9 pm &

14 December 2019- 9 am – noon

Rüdiger has been working in Curative Education and teaching in professional training programs in Germany and the United States for over 40 years. A long-time student of anthroposophy, he serves on the Collegium of the School for Spiritual Science in North America. His contributions to adult education methods were recognized in the context of an international research project sponsored by the European Union. He has been a member of the core faculty of a joint ‘Training for Trainers’ program supporting Curative Education and Social Therapy in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan. He has also taught as an adjunct faculty member of the M.S. Ed program in Waldorf Remedial Education at Antioch University N.H. Having taught many different aspects of anthroposophy and Curative Education, he currently is focused on action research and the development of artistic and experiential approaches to the spiritual scientific study of the human being.

Contact rjanisch@camphill.edu

***

Winnow Well

November 20, 2019Autumn, History, Insight, Poetry~hag

20 November 2019 – Beloved One – I have just returned from the ‘Southern Tour’ my heart full, my head dancing & my hands open. The many miracles of the journey are churning, about to be born into the Logos shared. But 1st, I feel I must touch down here in the ‘City of Big Shoulder’s’ to bring all my revelations home to this spirit of place, with this seasonal story:

Once upon an autumn day, cut thru with the thought of Winter, a little leaf was heard to sigh, as leaves often do when a blustery wind is swirling about. A nearby twig asked: “What is the matter, little leaf?” And the leaf said, “The wind just told me that one day it would pull me off & throw me down to die!”

The twig told this to the branch & the trunk told it to the bark, & when the roots heard it, the tall tree rustled all over, & sent back word to the leaf, “Do not be afraid, you shall not go until you want to.” And so the leaf stopped sighing, but went on nestling & singing. Every time the wind spoke, the tree shook itself & stirred up all its leaves, the branches bobbed, the thin twig twittered, & the little leaf danced merrily up & down, as if nothing could ever pull it off.

And so it was all thru the month of October. And then November came, & it grew colder still. And as the outer light faded, the little leaf noticed that all the leaves around it became brighter. Some were yellow & some scarlet, & some striped with gold or curled with brown. The little leaf asked the tree what this change meant. And the tree said, “All these leaves are getting ready to fly away, & they have put on these beautiful colors to celebrate.”

Then the little leaf began to want to go, too, & grew very beautiful in thinking of it, & when it was bright orange, like the wings of a butterfly, it noticed that the branches that held it to the tree, had no color in them at all; & so the leaf said, “O branches, why are you so leaden-colored & we so golden?” And the tree answered:“I must keep on my work-clothes, for my time has not yet come – but your clothes are for holiday, since your task is almost complete.”

Just then a stiff gust of wind came, & the leaf let go, without worry, & the wind took it up & turned it over & over, & whirled it like a spark of fire in the air… & then it dropped gently down under the edge of the tree, among hundreds of other brightly colored leaves. There the little leaf lay dreaming of the sun & stars. And when the child picked it up & held it to the light, it flew out again& became the light.

~hag, adapted from a children’s story of old

Sister Suffragettes outside the Parthenon in Nashville TN

Dear friends, YES! I plan to share insights from the ‘Southern Tour’ as soon as the ongoing digestion process allows & I have time to get all the images together… so stay tuned…xox

product_title] - Orenco Originals LLC Counted Cross Stitch — The Dove & Scythe by Charles Demuth

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I take the sword I was given & winnow well…~hag

“Speaking with the Stars”: Orion the Hunter clears the eastern horizon by about 7 pm CST. High above Orion shines orange Aldebaran. Above Aldebaran is the little Pleiades cluster, the size of your fingertip at arm’s length. Far left of Aldebaran and the Pleiades shines bright Capella.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“The best Anthroposophists are those who take what is said as a stimulus in the first place, and then place it at the service of life, so as to prove it by life itself.” ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Mission of the Folk Souls’ lecture 11

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1805 – Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, premieres in Vienna.

1945 –Trials against 24 Nazi war criminals start at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg

1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation

1910 – Deathday of Leo Tolstoy, Russian author & playwright

“In 1828, Leo Tolstoy is born in a family of Russian counts about which he himself says that the family immigrated originally from Germany. Then we see Tolstoy losing certain higher goods of life. Hardly he is one and a half years old, he loses the mother, the father in the ninth year. Then he grows up under the care of a relative who is, so to speak, the embodied love, and from her spiritual condition, the marvellous soul condition had to flow in his soul like by itself. However, on the other side, another relative who wants to build up him out of the viewpoints of her circles, out of the conditions of time as they formed in certain circles influences him. She is a person who is completely merged in the outward world activity which later became very odious to Tolstoy and against which he fought so hard. We see this personality striving from the outset to make Tolstoy a person “comme il faut,” a person who could treat his farmers in such a way, as it was necessary in those days, who should receive title, rank, dignity, and medals and should play a suitable role in the society.

Then we see Tolstoy coming to the university; he is a bad student as he absolutely thinks that everything that the professors say at the University of Kazan is nothing worth knowing. Only oriental languages can occupy him. In all other matters, he was not interested. Against it the comparison of a certain chapter of the code of Catherine the Great (1729–1796) with The Spirit of the Laws (1748) by Montesquieu (Charles de Secondat, Baron de M., 1689–1755) attracted him. Then he tries repeatedly to manage his estate, and we see him almost getting around to diving head first into the life of luxury of a man of his circles, diving head first into all possible vices and vanities of life. We see him becoming a gambler, gambling big sums away. However, he has hours within this life over and over again when his own activities disgust him, actually. We see him meeting peers as well as men of letters and leading a life, which he calls a worthless, even perishable one at moments of reflection. However, we also see — and this is important to him who looks with pleasure at the development of the soul where this development manifests in especially typical signs — particular peculiarities appearing with him in the development of his soul which can disclose us already in the earliest youth what is, actually, in this soul.

Thus, it is of immense significance, what a deep impression a certain event makes on Tolstoy at the age of eleven years. A friendly boy once told him that one has made an important discovery, a new invention. One has found — and a teacher has spoken in particular of the fact — that there is no God that this God is only an empty invention of many human beings, an empty picture of thought. Everything that one can know about the impression that this boy’s experience made on Tolstoy shows already how he absorbed it that in him a soul struggled striving for the highest summits of human existence.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, Where and How Does One Find the Spirit? Tolstoy and Carnegie, Berlin, 28th January, 1909

see also Origin and Goal of the Human Being, Lecture V, Theosophy and Tolstoy

1976 – Deathday of Lili Kolisko, remembered for her pioneer work in anthroposophy, attending lectures by founder Rudolf Steiner starting in 1914. She developed the Capillary Dynamolisis method (Steigbildmethode), testing the idea that not only the moon, but the other planets as well, have an influence over earthly fluids. To test this, she dissolved metals classically associated to each planet & observed the pictures left by their absorption over a filter paper. She noticed consistent differences of the patterns according to the position of the planets in relation to sun & earth. Lilly Kolisko also worked on the development of a remedy for foot and mouth disease & methods for assessment of food quality from an anthroposophic standpoint. She was married to Dr. Eugen Kolisko.

Lily Kolisko: Workings Of The Stars In Earthly Substances by Allan Balliett

May we all answer to our highest calling…

Blessings dear friends

until soon

“Mercury, as evening star, stood in the sign of Libra, the balance.”

November 9, 2019Autumn, Festival, History, Insight, Lecture, Poetry, Remembering~hag

9 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: In early evening, look high above Bella Luna for the Great Square of Pegasus through the moonlight. It’s standing on one corner. The line from its top star through its bottom star points to the Moon.

Happy 85th birthday, Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) We miss you!

***

Today is the 5^th installment of: ‘Mercury Dances across the Face of the Sun’ – Read the 1^s^t, 2^nd , 3^rd & 4^th chapters.

Dear Friends – Interesting to note that when Rudolf Steiner performed the ceremony to bury & consecrate the Foundation Stone of the 1^st Goetheanum, on the evening of September 20^th 1913, during a fearsome thunderstorm with all the elements wildly participating, the only Planetary Being he invoked was Mercury; writing in the document laid with the stone, that this deed was performed while “Mercury, as evening star, stood in the sign of Libra, the balance.”

The lamb skin parchment (depicted above) was signed by the attendees, & read out by Steiner; & then interred within the submerged double copper dodecahedra. The short-hand notes from the time, record Steiner reading the various inscriptions on the document, which included the all-important references to the angelic hierarchies & the Rosicrucian dictum E.D.N.; J.C.M.; P.S.S.R., followed by this statement:

“This Stone we lower into the kingdom of the condensed elements as symbol of the force for which we endeavor to strive through 3, 5, 7, 12, laid by the Johannes-Bau Verein, Dornach, on the 20th day of September 1,880 years after the Mystery of Golgotha, that is 1913 after the birth of Christ, when Mercury as the evening star stood in Libra”.

Image result for Schiller from his essay ‘Letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man’,

The term ‘condensed elements‘ is reminiscent of Schiller from his essay ‘Letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man’, a short work that Steiner describes as being of the highest philosophical significance. The importance that Steiner placed on the laying of this foundation stone, as well as the significance of the document & each part of its content, cannot be underestimated. It is also of high significance that here Steiner refers to Mercury as the evening star – again an indication (which I am still investigating) as to the so-called ‘interchange’ between Venus & Mercury.

Rudolf Steiner described the laying of the Foundation Stone as an act of descending the microcosm into the macrocosm. As god of communication, Mercury was invoked to witness what Steiner later christened as an example of: the Reverse Ritual – a new mystery; in this case calling for balanced communication, calling for us as human beings to step up, & speak up, in our conversation with the cosmos – Calling for us to build a firm foundation within ourselves –

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 11-cc.png

A foundation strong enough to withstand the fires of sacrifice when the corner stone was transformed into The Foundation Stone Meditation, becoming the living word, The Logos, the foundation Stone of Love, at the Christmas Conference, after the Johannes-Bau had burned to ash. Then we see how Mercury steps in as psycho-pomp, escorting a Persephone renewed, as representative of All Souls who journey in the underworld – the 1^st spark of the fires of Isis redeemed.

Rudolf Steiner demonstrated this great mystery of reversing the ritual in our call to speak once more to the stars, a gift to Marie Steiner on the Christmas Eve the year before.

And so it was, 1 solar cycle later, this time with Ita Wegman by his side, after a lecture to the Christian Community priests on NYE, Steiner stood with her on the Dornach hill & watched the Goetheanum go up in flames, opening a vision of the burning of Ephesus, an opening into the spiritual world allowing Ita Wegman to see into her past incarnations & for Steiner, to truly begin his core mission of bringing karma & reincarnation to the Western world.

And then after another solar cycle, the Foundation Stone that was planted in 1913 blossomed thru the blood of sacrifice into the foundation stone of love, which our beloved teacher selflessly poured into our hearts – as the Logos renewed.

In 1913, before the events of the 1^st World War had begun, Mercury witnessed the stone as it was laid into earth, calling for balance. And Venus as the New Isis is calling from the future, to be reclaimed, & named as sacred witness, as we endeavor to understand thru our own free will forces, what it means to participate in the renewal of the Foundation Stone, laying it into the heart of the World as the Sacred Word. On 11.11.19, with the 100 year anniversary of the Christmas Conference looming, as Mercury makes his retrograde journey across the face of the Sun,

we are called to heal our wounded hearts, moving from a community of the “11” which suffered a “betrayal”, to a unity in community which resonates with the “11” who thru the empowerment of inner development, acknowledges & accepts one another as fellow Michaelites.

My friends, we are called today to join our voices together in our ‘Speaking with the Stars’, in full consciousness. Enabling us to redeem the wisdom of the Sophia & wed it with the Christ within.

Tomorrow we touch on Rudolf Steiner’s involvement with WW1 & Armistice Day

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Image result for Faust descent to the mothers

In the Original Calendar of the Soul, Steiner speaks about today being when ‘Faust makes his descent to the Mothers’ (more about that on 11.11.19)

1888 – Rudolf Steiner’s ‘Aquinas experience’ – after giving a lecture on ‘Goethe as father of a new aesthetics’ the Cistercian priest Wilhelm Neumann, Steiner’s friend made this remark: “The seeds of this lecture you gave today are to be found already in Thomas Aquinas”. This opened Steiner to his earlier incarnation.

1918 – The second German Empire ends – Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates after the German Revolution, & Germany is proclaimed a Republic.

1923 – Hitler’s attempted coup in Munich

9–10 November 1938 – Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, was a pogrom against Jews throughout Nazi Germany, carried out by SA paramilitary forces and German civilians. The German authorities looked on without intervening. Jewish homes, hospitals, & schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria, & the Sudetenland, & over 7,000 Jewish businesses were either destroyed or damaged. Kristallnacht was followed by additional economic & political persecution of Jews, it is viewed by historians as part of Nazi Germany’s broader racial policy, & the beginning of the Final Solution & The Holocaust.

1989 –Fall of the Berlin Wall: East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall, allowing its citizens to travel to West Berlin

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

As I prepare to meet the Baba Yaga
The thought of snow angles oblique –
A fat half cracked frozen seed
Staring at the cut corn.
As husks rustle & blink bare
White spider legs dance on a web of grey
While I warm the cold with my breath.
~hag

***

How about a Road-Trip?

THE ALL SOUL’S SOUTHERN TOUR!
Take the Journey of the Soul
in the Life Between Death & Rebirth
in the warm hospitality of our Branch Buddies in the South:

Quick overview of the week:

Nov 10, 1st Class Lesson at the ARC in Atlanta GA

11.11.19 – Martinmas / Mercury Transit Gathering 4:11 pm – 6:11 pm at the Martin Clinic

Nov 12, Hazel and Deb Abrahams-Dematte will be in Atlanta, send any thoughts for must-see spots before we head out on the road trip

Nov 13, Gathering at Helene Burkarts’ ALL SOULS’ FESTIVAL 10 am-2 pm (see below)

Nov 14, Tuscumbia site visit, Helen Keller’s birth place

Nov 15, Memphis, death place of MLK, home of Elvis Presley

Nov 16, Nashville program ALL SOULS’ FESTIVAL 10 am – 2 pm

Nov 17 Knoxville program ALL SOULS’ FESTIVAL 1 pm – 5 pm

Nov 18 return to ATL

11/11/19, at the Martin Clinic – Humanizing Medicine – in Atlanta GA, 4:11 pm – 6:11 pm with a community potluck to follow

On this auspicious day we will gather to look at the mystery of 11:11, & the connections between, Martinmas, MLK, The Journey of the Soul, Armistice Day, The laying of the Foundation Stone, & a Rare Cosmic Alignment – The Transit of Mercury across the Sun.

‘Speaking with the Stars’ with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Storytelling with Enid Hancock

Leading thoughts with Mark Hancock, Angela Foster

Votive Art with Angela Foster

Biography work with Jolie Luba

Together we will sprinkle the BD preps around the Clinic

$10-$20 or pay what you will

For more info. contact Angela Foster

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ALL SOULS JOURNEY – Exploring the Life between Death & Rebirth

10 am – 2 pm, Wednesday 13 November 2019, Auburn, Alabama, Community Potluck lunch – Please Bring a dish to Share – Suggested Donation $20-$50 or pay what you will – for more info. contact Helena Burkhart

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10 am – 2 pm, Saturday 16 November 2019 in Nashville TN
Community Potluck lunch – Please Bring a dish to Share –
Suggested Donation $20-$50 or pay what you will –
For more info. contact Cathy Green Or Barbara Bittles

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1 pm – 5 pm, Sunday 17 November 2019 Knoxville TN
Community Potluck Dinner – Please Bring a dish to Share –
Suggested Donation $20-$50 or pay what you will –
For more info. contact Bill Rogers

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg is a spiritual midwife and trans-denominational minister working in an eclectic style that inspires connections, initiating us into the magic waiting to be revealed in the cycle of the seasons. She is also the festivals coordinator of the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society, a lecturer, promoter, blogger, poet and performance artist. Learn more at www.ReverseRitual.com

Mercury in his retrograde dance, parades across the face of the Sun.

November 8, 2019History, Insight, Lecture, Poetry~hag

8 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: High above the gibbous Moon, pointing down is the eastern edge of the Great Square of Pegasus. This week, wintry Orion is clearing the eastern horizon by about 8 pm CDT. High above Orion shines orange Aldebaran. Above Aldebaran is the little Pleiades cluster, the size of your fingertip at arm’s length. And far left of Aldebaran & the Pleiades is bright Capella.

Dear Friends – The transit of Mercury (occult Venus) is coming up in three days! Are you ready!?!

Image result for mercury transit the sun EST

Today is the 4^th installment of: ‘Mercury Dances across the Face of the Sun’ – Read the 1^s^t, 2^nd & 3^rd chapters.

On 11/11, 2019, there is plenty of conversation to be had in our “Speaking with the Stars”. It of is the Eve of the Full Moon. The November Moon is called the Mourning Moon in acknowledgement of the Festival of All Souls; The Native Americans also called it the Beaver Moon, as this is the time when they actively build their huts for the winter.

And we are still receiving the strength of Michael – the gift of Cosmic Iron from The Taurid Meteor Shower, which Peaks 11/11-12.

And (drum roll please) the big event we have been leading up to & preparing for: a rare cosmic & earthly event: Mercury in his retrograde dance, parades across the face of the Sun. As messenger & god of divine communications, what does it mean to have that energy eclipsing the Sun? Mercury can be a trickster, & as the god of commerce, fickle; he is quick like quicksilver, & just as slippery, Mercurial, talkative, clever.

At his best, Mercury has also been known as Hermes Trismegistus, or Mercurius ter Maximus which in ancient Roman signifies ‘Thrice Born Intelligence’, because he communicated celestial & divine knowledge to humankind by writing. In ancient Egypt he was known as Thoth, also a god of writing, magic, & wisdom; who was ‘self-created’, born of the seed of Horus from the forehead of Set – two deities, who represented order & chaos. As the god of equilibrium & balance, Thoth presides over the judgment of the dead with Osiris in the Hall of Truth. Souls who feared they might not pass safely were encouraged to call upon Thoth for help.

What is interesting to think about with this transit, is that Mercury is indeed counted as one of the Roman psycho-pomps – escort to the souls of the dead, a guide leading them, as some legends tell us, to a volcano in Italy at sunset, which was known to be the entrance to the underworld. As psycho-pomp Mercury performs a kind of retro-reversal to his job as messenger of the gods, for now he returns the package back to the sender.

So this image of Mercury in his winged sandals, with all his many attributes, is eclipsing the Sun; of course since the planet Mercury is so much smaller than the Sun we call it a ‘transit’, a celestial journey across the face of our Day Star.

This dance only happens about 13 times a century. But as tiny as this Being is compared to the Sun, it is still an eclipse. What does this mean to us here on earth experiencing this eclipse? We can see this, as with all celestial alignments, as an opportunity for a cosmic communication? What can we add to this ‘Speaking to the Stars’?

Rudolf Steiner tells us that on a normal day the unbridged astral forces of will that stream forth from human beings is mediated by the rays of the Sun, ‘so that they can injure only man himself, but can do no universal harm’. So on the average day the Sun acts as the cosmic balancer, keeping those forces from raying out into space, which affects the harmony of the spheres, as well as the souls of the dead on the other side. But, when there is an eclipse, even a small one as in a Mercury transit, these forces flow unhindered into cosmic space.

In this case instead of wisdom & clear communication, instead of a commerce of brotherhood, we get more of the trickster, the thief, the negative attributes of Mercury, sent out into the cosmos by human beings, & Rudolf Steiner says: ‘opportunity is given for the evil which is willed on earth to spread over the cosmos. An eclipse is a physical event behind which there lies a significant spiritual reality’. So my friends, can we use our ‘Speaking with the Stars’ to counterbalance these forces, to bring positive, clear communication, acting as a true psycho-pomp, to protect our beloved dead, escorts leading dead thinking into the light; taking in that cosmic iron from the region of the Bull to help us lift our Michaelic Sword & Shield to uphold the message of harmony?

When the Copernican revolution brought human thinking into a materialistic modern science, changing from Aristotle’s idea of the universe, the earth centered Geocentric conception; to a Heliocentric model; some say Mercury & Venus were switched, so we can call Mercury, ‘Occult Venus’.

This is a lot to contemplate, but we can see that since they are the 2 closest planets to the earth & to the Sun, they certainly have a mystical connection. Can we imagine blending their powers to embody a loving communication, a clear heart-thinking?

Here we see the Motion of the Sun, Mercury, & Venus from the Earth. This geocentric diagram shows, the sun’s annual orbit, the orbit of Mercury for 7 years, & the orbit of Venus for 8 years, after which Venus returns to the same position in relation to the earth & sun. ~from the ‘Astronomy’ article of Encyclopædia Britannica 1771

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 11-series.png

There have been 11 Mercury Transits (Occult Venus) since the midpoint of the 20th century, the Transit of 11/11/19 makes 12

***“Mercury, as evening star, stood in the sign of Libra, the balance.”***

Tomorrow we contemplate the connection of this transit & the laying of the 1^st Foundation Stone by Rudolf Steiner.

Until soon

~hag

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1308 – Deathday of Duns Scotus, Scottish priest, Scholastic philosopher, & academic, considered to be one of the three most important philosopher-theologians of the High Middle Ages (together with Thomas Aquinas & William of Ockham)

1674 – Deathday of John Milton, English poet & philosopher. He wrote at a time of religious flux & political upheaval, & is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost (1667), written in blank verse.

1892 – The New Orleans general strike begins, uniting black & white American trade unionists in a successful four-day general strike action for the first time.

1895 – While experimenting with electricity, Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-ray.

1901 – Gospel riots: Bloody clashes take place in Athens following the translation of the Gospels into demotic Greek.

1917 – The first Council of People’s Commissars is formed, including Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky & Joseph Stalin.

1923 – Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government.

1933 –New Deal: US President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create jobs for more than 4 million unemployed.

***

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Now I seize
Darkness by its arms & shake it…
The souls of ancient swallowed women fall out
From the belly of obscurity…
The old She, the few, the many, the forgotten
Walk back into being
With me…
~hag

***

How about a Road-Trip?

THE ALL SOUL’S SOUTHERN TOUR!
Take the Journey of the Soul
in the Life Between Death & Rebirth
in the warm hospitality of our Branch Buddies in the South:

Quick overview of the week:

Nov 10, 1st Class Lesson at the ARC in Atlanta GA

11.11.19 – Martinmas / Mercury Transit Gathering 4:11 pm – 6:11 pm at the Martin Clinic

Nov 12, Hazel and Deb Abrahams-Dematte will be in Atlanta, send any thoughts for must-see spots before we head out on the road trip

Nov 13, Gathering at Helene Burkarts’ ALL SOULS’ FESTIVAL 10 am-2 pm (see below)

Nov 14, Tuscumbia site visit, Helen Keller’s birth place

Nov 15, Memphis, death place of MLK, home of Elvis Presley

Nov 16, Nashville program ALL SOULS’ FESTIVAL 10 am – 2 pm

Nov 17 Knoxville program ALL SOULS’ FESTIVAL 1 pm – 5 pm

Nov 18 return to ATL

11/11/19, at the Martin Clinic – Humanizing Medicine – in Atlanta GA, 4:11 pm – 6:11 pm with a community potluck to follow

‘Speaking with the Stars’ with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Storytelling with Enid Hancock

Leading thoughts with Mark Hancock, Angela Foster

Votive Art with Angela Foster

Biography work with Jolie Luba

Together we will sprinkle the BD preps around the Clinic

$10-$20 or pay what you will

For more info. contact Angela Foster

***

ALL SOULS JOURNEY – Exploring the Life between Death & Rebirth

***

this little light of mine

November 7, 2019Insight, Lecture, Poetry~hag

7 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The annual Leonid meteor shower ramps up this week. With Bella Luna currently waxing toward Full, the best views will come in the couple of hours after the Moon sets & before twilight starts to paint the sky. The shower will peak the morning of November 18, unfortunately under the watchful eye of a waning gibbous Moon.

The Moon reaches apogee, the farthest point in its orbit around Earth, at 4:36 am CDT.

***

Today’s 3rd installment of 11.11.19 is dedicated to the Christian Community Priests here in Chicago attending the Synod. ( read the 1st & 2nd )

11/11 is also Martinmas. St. Martin of tours, like Martin Luther King Jr, recognized that he had the capacity to bring healing out of his own resources by sharing his cloak (etheric body) with the shivering beggar (humanity).

Celebrating this Feast Day serves as a reminder that each of us has a connection in the etheric world, where the Christ is calling to be recognized & that each of us has a divine spark that we must ferry out into the world & share with others.

John Singer Sargent – Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose

On Martinmas the children hear the story of St. Martin, sing songs; & as darkness falls, venture out into the night with their lanterns, walking along a path lit with glowing luminaries, carefully carrying their glowing light in a mood of quiet reverence – An innocent prefiguring of the human soul in the life between death & rebirth.

Image result for this little light of mine heart

This symbolic act also brings home the deeper truth heard in the gospel song “This little light of mine.”

Interesting to note that MLK Sr. after visiting Germany, changed his name & his son’s name from Michael to Martin Luther. & MLK Jr. also named his 1st son Martin Luther.

So powerful to feel the sword & shield of Michael under the wings of these powerful human beings.

~Rudolf Steiner designed Apocalyptic seal

I love the story below, I don’t know who wrote it, it is not the typical Martinmas story, but one I thought to share as we make our way thru the dark in anticipation for the powerful events of 11.11.19

SAINT MARTIN’S LIGHT

A stranger once knocked on Martin’s door, and said: “I met an old woman living high in the hills. She is ill and needs your help. She asked for you.”

Martin wrapped bread and wine in a blanket, tied the bundle to his back and set off with his walking staff.

It was late in the day as Martin hurried along. At first he followed the highway and the going was smooth, but, at the foot of the hills, the road turned away to the south and Martin had to climb up into the woods. As he went along, storm clouds gathered and blocked the setting sun. A cold north wind began to blow, and he buttoned up his coat to keep warm. Soon the woods became as black as ink and Martin was forced to feel his way forward with his staff like a blind man.

Rain and sleet began to beat down on Martin’s head as he climbed and great rocks and boulders blocked his way. At last Marin tripped and fell. He looked around and saw nothing. It was too dark and the rain and sleet too fierce. He realized he was lost and no longer knew which way to go. So Martin did the only sensible thing a man can do when he cannot see the way and is completely lost: he prayed- and this was his simple prayer.

“Dear Lord, I have done my best,
But I can’t lay down to rest-
I am lost and cannot see,
Please send a light to comfort me.”

Martin looked up and saw a small light hovering in the air before him. He got to his feet, picked up his staff and followed it. The light lit the ground before him and even though he did not know where he was, he knew the light was leading him truly and that he would never stumble.

Higher and higher into the hills he climbed, the little light never wavering, until at last it stopped before a hut made of mud and sticks. It was the poorest hovel Martin had ever seen. He had to bend right over to get in the low doorway and when he was inside he saw and old, old, old woman lying on a bed of fir branches and moss.

Martin immediately untied the bundle from his back and spread the blanket over the woman’s thin body. He took out the loaf of bread, broke it into small pieces, and gave her one to eat. Then he opened the flask of wine, still warm from the heat of his body and put it to her lips.

Image result for woman clothed with the sun revelation — woman of the Apocalypse in *Hortus deliciarum* 1180

But, as soon as the wine touched her lips, the old woman stood up before Martin. All age fell from her and she looked both young and timeless. She became so bright that he thought the sun itself had risen into the sky behind her. Martin fell down on the ground and as he did so he saw in a vision the moon at her feet and a crown of stars on her head.

“Look up, Martin,” she said. “Do not be afraid.”

Martin raised his head and saw the little light, which had led him resting on the palm of her hand.

Image result for sun light heart in a woman's hand

“This is my gift to you,” she said. “It is the light of faithful knowing that lights your way. From now on, whenever you walk in darkness, this light will shine before you and lead the way.”

And so it was. From that day forth, as soon as darkness fell, the little light hovered before Martin and lit his way. The local people were amazed to see such a thing and called it Martin’s Lantern.

After he died, Martin was buried in the church where he worked and every year in early November, all the townsfolk gathered at dusk and each of them carried a lantern. Some carried theirs by hand and others, remembering how Martin always used a walking staff, tied theirs to a stick to swing before them. Out into the meadows and fields the townsfolk wandered, singing songs and winding though the darkness.

May we all find our way thru the darkness, enkindling & holding the wisdom of the true light within.

Until tomorrow

~hag

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

680 – The 6th Ecumenical Council commences in Constantinople

Image result for 1492 – The Ensisheim meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, strikes the Earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France

1492 – The Ensisheim meteorite, the oldest meteorite with a known date of impact, strikes the Earth around noon in a wheat field outside the village of Ensisheim, Alsace, France

1665 – The London Gazette, the oldest surviving journal, is first published

1775 – Goethe arrives in Weimar

Image result for 1775 – John Murray, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, starts the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America by issuing Lord Dunmore's Offer of Emancipation,

1775 – John Murray, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, starts the first mass emancipation of slaves in North America by issuing Lord Dunmore’s Offer of Emancipation, which offers freedom to slaves who abandoned their colonial masters to fight with Murray and the British

Image result for 1837 – Death-day of Elijah Parish Lovejoy an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor & abolitionist. He was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois.

1837 – Death-day of Elijah Parish Lovejoy an American Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor & abolitionist. He was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois.

1867 – Birthday of Marie Curie, Polish chemist & physicist, Nobel Prize laureate winner

1870- Papal Infallibility is proclaimed by Pius IX

1879 – Birthday of Leon Trotsky, Russian theorist & politician, founded the Red Army. Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks just before the 1917 October Revolution, immediately becoming a leader within the Communist Party. He would go on to become one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik Revolution

Image result for 1893 – Women in the U.S. state of Colorado are granted the right to vote, t

1893 – Women in the U.S. state of Colorado are granted the right to vote, the second state to do so

1913 – Birthday of Albert Camus, a French philosopher, author, & journalist. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay The Rebel that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957

1922 – The Order of the Freemason’s official ‘condemnation’ of Rudolf Steiner

1944 – Franklin D. Roosevelt elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States of America

1962 – Death-day of Eleanor Roosevelt, American humanitarian 39th First Lady of the United States

***

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I rise above the waxing moon
Gentling the horns with peat moss & beeswax,
Rounding up to the stars
Reaching
Beyond numbers that bind minds into boxes –
Let the vultures gobble the sin with the flesh…
Thru me the past flows like blood
Renewed in the heart convulsing –
A formula forthcoming
A blueprint unfolding gold
~hag

***

How about a Road-Trip?

THE ALL SOUL’S SOUTHERN TOUR!
Take the Journey of the Soul
in the Life Between Death & Rebirth
in the warm hospitality of our Branch Buddies in the South:

Quick overview of the week:

Nov 10, 1st Class Lesson at the ARC in Atlanta GA

11.11.19 – Martinmas / Mercury Transit Gathering 4:11 pm – 6:11 pm at the Martin Clinic

Nov 12, Hazel and Deb Abrahams-Dematte will be in Atlanta, send any thoughts for must-see spots before we head out on the road trip

Nov 13, Gathering at Helene Burkarts’ ALL SOULS’ FESTIVAL 10 am-2 pm (see below)

Nov 14, Tuscumbia site visit, Helen Keller’s birth place

Nov 15, Memphis, death place of MLK, home of Elvis Presley

Nov 16, Nashville program ALL SOULS’ FESTIVAL 10 am – 2 pm

Nov 17 Knoxville program ALL SOULS’ FESTIVAL 1 pm – 5 pm

Nov 18 return to ATL

11/11/19, at the Martin Clinic – Humanizing Medicine – in Atlanta GA, 4:11 pm – 6:11 pm with a community potluck to follow

‘Speaking with the Stars’ with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Storytelling with Enid Hancock

Leading thoughts with Mark Hancock, Angela Foster

Votive Art with Angela Foster

Biography work with Jolie Luba

Together we will sprinkle the BD preps around the Clinic

$10-$20 or pay what you will

For more info. contact Angela Foster

***

ALL SOULS JOURNEY – Exploring the Life between Death & Rebirth

***

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Category Archives: Insight

Healing the Ancestral Line

13 December 2019 Rudiger Janisch:

The 3 fold human being , the Foundation Stone & the 3 fold social organism 7 pm – 9 pm &

14 December 2019- 9 am – noon

Winnow Well

“Mercury, as evening star, stood in the sign of Libra, the balance.”

Mercury in his retrograde dance, parades across the face of the Sun.

this little light of mine

13 December 2019 Rudiger Janisch:

The 3 fold human being , the Foundation Stone & the 3 fold social organism 7 pm – 9 pm &

14 December 2019- 9 am – noon

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