Category Archives: Insight

hanging on a cloud

May 9, 2019Chicago Event, History, Insight, Lecture, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

9 May 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The thick crescent Moon shines in the west after dusk, with Castor & Pollux to Her upper right & Procyon farther left.

Summer is more than five weeks away, but the Summer Triangle is making its appearance in the east, one star after another. The first in view is Vega, already low in the northeast as twilight fades. Next up is Deneb, lower left of Vega by two or three fists at arm’s length. It comes above the horizon around when twilight fades into full night. The third is Altair, which shows up far to their lower right around midnight.

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Image result for spirit veil painting — Anne Brontë

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

According to Rudolf Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul today is: The Birthday of Hermes & Job

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1760 – Death-day of Count Zinzendorf , A social reformer & bishop of the Moravian Church. The Zinzendorf family belonged to one of the most ancient of noble families in Lower Austria. Among his ancestors was the Emperor Maximillian I.

Zinzendorf did not intend to found a religious organization distinct from the area’s Lutheran Church, but to create a Christian association, by demonstrating practical benevolence, that might awaken dull Lutheranism. He began to think that true Christianity could be best promoted by free associations of Christians, which in the course of time might grow into churches with no state connection.

In 1722, Zinzendorf offered asylum to a number of refugees from Moravia & Bohemia & built the village of Herrnhut on a corner of his estate.

Out of study & prayer, the community formed a document known as the Brüderlicher Vertrag, the ‘Brotherly Agreement’, today known as “The Moravian Covenant for Christian Living.” The Moravian Church is one of the few denominations that emphasizes a code of Christian behavior over specific creeds.

In these communities, a radical equality of spiritual life was practiced. Nobility & Native Americans shared common quarters; slaves were full members of the Church & could be elected to offices of leadership.

Zinzendorf was consecrated bishop in Berlin on 20 May 1737. Zinzendorf’s interest in missionary work was sparked by meeting two Inuit children.

In 1736, accusations from neighboring nobles & questions of theological orthodoxy caused Zinzendorf to be exiled from his home in Saxony. He & a number of his followers moved to Marienborn (near Büdingen) & began a period of exile & travel, during which he became known as the “Pilgrim Count.”

In 1741, Zinzendorf visited Pennsylvania, becoming one of the few 18th century European nobles to have actually set foot in the Americas. In addition to visiting leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, he met with the leaders of the Iroquois.

Zinzendorf’s theology strongly included the emotional life of the believer as well as the intellectual. He criticized the coldly intellectual approach common in his day, & built a great deal of practice around the transformation of the emotions. He referred to this as the “religion of the heart.”

1805 – Death-day of Friedrich Schiller, some say he was poisoned (GA 64) The coffin containing what was purportedly Schiller’s skeleton, was brought in 1827, into the Weimarer Fürstengruft (Weimar’s Ducal Vault), later also Goethe’s resting place. On 3 May 2008, scientists announced that DNA tests showed that the skull of this skeleton is not Schiller’s, & his tomb is now vacant.

Friedrich Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, physician, historian, & playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous & influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning human freedom. Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship & these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller & Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision.

Schiller wrote many philosophical papers on ethics & aesthetics. He synthesized the thought of Immanuel Kant with the thought of the German Idealist philosopher, Karl Leonhard Reinhold. He elaborated Christoph Martin Wieland’s concept of die schöne Seele (the beautiful soul), a human being whose emotions have been educated by reason, so that Pflicht und Neigung (duty & inclination) are no longer in conflict with one another. Beauty, for Schiller, is not merely an aesthetic experience, but a moral one as well: the Good is the Beautiful.

His philosophical work was particularly concerned with the question of human freedom, a preoccupation which also guided his historical researches, & found its way as well into his dramas. Schiller wrote important essays on the question of the sublime, addressing one aspect of human freedom—the ability to defy one’s animal instincts, such as the drive for self-preservation, when, for example, someone willingly sacrifices themselves for conceptual ideals.

“…I should like to speak today about an individual who was incarnated about the second century A.D. in Rome, as it then was, and who with great sensitiveness of perception had witnessed the willing martyrdom suffered by the Christians in their efforts to promulgate their cause in the Roman Empire. This individual had also witnessed the terrible injustices and the many forms of depravity and corruption which were so rife in the Roman Empire at that time. Numberless manifestations of Good and Evil were witnessed and experienced by this individual. With the methods of spiritual research which enable such happenings to be recognised, we find this individual drawn into the tumultuous happenings which at that time, during the second half of the second century A.D., were experienced in the Roman Empire in connection with the spread of Christianity. There is something extremely moving about this individual when the eye of spirit is directed upon him in the way I explained last time with reference to other individuals in their repeated earthly lives.

In this individual who lived to a very great age and who had witnessed so much Good in deeds of supreme sacrifice in the sphere of germinating Christianity, and so much that was evil and bad in Roman life at that time, there arose a kind of realisation which was also a question: Where is the balance, the mean? Is there only the wholly Good and the wholly Evil in the world?

With the consciousness of Imagination and Inspiration one can follow quite clearly how this individual was subsequently reborn in the eleventh century, as a woman. The experiences undergone in the life as a woman levelled out the hard, steel-like angularity of soul which had developed during the Roman incarnation when he had reached a great age. This trait was softened and mellowed and became a faculty of inner, thoughtful contemplation of Good and Evil. This individual then came again to the Earth in the eighteenth century and was born as the German poet, Friedrich Schiller.

And now study Schiller’s life and see how it develops, striving to find a middle condition, a balance, a mean. Schiller needed Goethe before he could get rid of all that had remained in him from the conviction that there is only Good, there is only Evil. Read Schiller’s dramas, and you will understand them if you think of his earlier incarnation.

What circumstances lie behind Schiller’s life and outlook? The experiences he had undergone in the Roman incarnation continued to be alive within him, but he had subsequently incarnated as a woman in the Middle Ages. And then, in his life between death and a new birth, it was in the Saturn sphere that the most significant development of his karma took place.” Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume VI, Stuttgart, 1st June, 1924 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA240/English/RSP1971/19240601p01.html

read more about Schiller from the works of Rudolf Steiner:
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA053/English/UNK2014/19050504p01.html

https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA239/English/RSP1973/19240610a01.html

1877 – A magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the coast of Peru kills 4,541, including some as far away as Hawaii & Japan

1904 – The steam locomotive City of Truro becomes the first steam engine in Europe to exceed 100 mph

1921 – Birthday of Sophie Scholl, German activist, working with the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother, Hans. As a result, she was executed by guillotine

~ ~ ~

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Today I am
The thought of myself
In my Mothers forehead…
May I listen to the voice of the messenger
Bringing her song up from the dead –
A silver star bruised & hanging on a cloud
As I roll gold into life
Like the scarab
& stand with the flowering hawthorn on the obsidian altar…
~hag

~ ~ ~

“…If you want to grow a plant, you take a tiny seed and lay it in the soil. The whole plant, the whole life of the plant is compressed into this tiny seed. What comes out of this seed? First, the root. The life expands into the root. But then it contracts again and grows, still in a state of contraction, into a stem. Then it expands and the leaves come and then the blossom. Then there is again contraction into the seed and the seed waits until the following year. In the plant, therefore, we see a process of expansion — contraction; expansion — contraction.

Whenever the plant expands, it is the Sun which draws out the leaf or the blossom; whenever the plant contracts (in the seed or the stem) the contraction is due to the forces of the Moon. Between the leaves, the Moon is working. So that when we take a plant with spreading leaves and root, we can say, beginning with the seed: Moon — then Sun — again Moon — again Sun — again Moon, and so forth … with the Moon at the end of the process. In every plant we see Sun forces and Moon forces working in alternation. In a field of growing plants we behold the deeds of Sun and Moon” ~ Rudolf Steiner

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Sunday 19 May 2019, 2 pm – 4 pm- Social Sculpture Workshop around the ‘URPFLANZE’ with Victoria Martin. at the Rudolf Steiner branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago 60618

$20 for art supplies + Snacks to Share Encouraged

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Sat. 25 May 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: The ‘Easter Paradox’ & The Feast of Ascension

Leading Thoughts & Social Sculpture with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged
at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago 60618

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

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Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Eurythmy: AUM = A – I stand for myself, U- I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life

Social Sculpture: Steiner’s ‘Blue Dot Exercise’: Through Art, the bridge between science & spirit, we warm the ‘I’, to open the heart, in support of healthy community.

Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg*

What are my gifts-What are my tools? How can I place them in right relationship within the social realm? How can I hone them to strengthen and enhance the world?

Enter the Labyrinth of Vitae Sophia: Human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the source of wisdom, like flowers turning toward the sun.

Living into the Foundation Stone of Love: How can we take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” a path leading from ‘Sprit Recollection’, to ‘Sprit Sensing’, to ‘Sprit Beholding’?

Sunday 2 June 2019, 2 pm – 4 pm at the Rudolf Steiner branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago 60618

also

10 am – 1 pm Saturday 8 June 2019 -4804 Sewanee Road, Nashville, TN 37220. for more info. contact Cathy Green cgreen@grasslandaquatics.com

also

12 Noon Potluck, Program 1 pm -4 pm Whitsunday 9 June 2019, In Knoxville, TN. for more info. contact William Rogers wmerogers@gmail.com

also

11-12 June 2019, Ashville, TN. for more info. contact Marnie Muller

*Hazel Archer-Ginsberg is the founder of the website and blog Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year (www.rever seritual.com). She is an Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, and “Anthroposopher.” She works as the Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch as well as with the Traveling Speakers Program, and she serves on the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

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Friday 7 June 2019, 7-9pm

4804 Sewanee Road, Nashville, TN

‘Preparation, Illumination & Initiation’ – The Rosy Cross

Incorporating ‘The Golden Legend’, & the Plant vs. Human Kingdoms, To enliven our work with ‘The Rose Cross Meditation’.

Using our head, hands & heart we will enact this powerful Rosicrucian tool given to us by Rudolf Steiner, as a soul path of initiation, using imaginative cognition to build spiritual etheric forces; a Metamorphoses of Self & of World.

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year. Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, Anthroposopher, working as the Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

Traversing Eternity

May 2, 2019History, Insight, Lecture, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars, SpringLeonardo, Novalis~hag

2 May 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Venus rises above the eastern horizon about an hour before sunrise. The brilliant planet of Love dominates the predawn sky as the rosy glow heralding the Sun’s arrival grows brighter. Look for her next to the waning crescent Moon.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1519 – Death Day of Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, & architect. “…We know how Leonardo worked at the “Last Supper”. He often went and sat on the scaffolding and brooded for hours in front of the wall, then he would take a brush and make a few strokes and go away again. Sometimes he only went and stared at the picture and went away again. When he was painting the Christ Figure, his hand trembled. Indeed, if we put together all that we can find concerning this subject we must say that neither outwardly nor inwardly was Leonardo happy when painting this world-renowned picture. Now there were people at that time in Milan who were displeased with the slow progress of the picture, for instance a Prior of the monastery, who could not see why an artist could not paint such a picture quickly, and complained to the Duke. He too thought the affair had lasted too long. Leonardo answered: “The picture is to represent Jesus Christ and Judas, the two greatest contrasts; one cannot paint them in one year; there are no models for them in the world, neither for Judas nor for Christ”. After he had been working at the picture for years, he said he did not know whether he could finish it after all! Then he said that if finally he found no model for Judas he could always use the Prior himself! It was thus extraordinarily difficult to bring the picture to a conclusion but within himself Leonardo did not feel happy. For this picture showed the contrast between what lived in his soul and what he was able to represent on the canvas. Here it is necessary to bring forward a hypothesis of Spiritual Science, which may be reached by anyone who studies what can by degrees be learned about this picture.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Leonardo da Vinci, His Spiritual and Intellectual Greatness, At the Turning Point of the New Age

Image result for 1611 â The King James Version of the Bible is published

1611 – The King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker

Image result for Catherine the Great of Russia

1729 – Birthday of Catherine the Great of Russia, the longest-ruling female leader of Russia. The Catherinian Era, is often considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire & the Russian nobility. She enthusiastically supported the ideals of The Enlightenment, thus earning the status of an enlightened despot. As a patron of the arts she presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment, a period when the Smolny Institute, the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe, was established.

1772 – Birthday of Novalis, the pseudonym & pen name of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, poet, author, mystic, & philosopher of Early German Romanticism. His study of mineralogy & management of salt mines in Saxony, was often ignored by his contemporary readers Novalis concerned himself with the scientific doctrine of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, which greatly influenced his world view, transforming Fichte’s Nicht-Ich (German “not I”) to a Du (“you”), an equal subject to the Ich (“I”). This was the starting point for Novalis’ Liebesreligion (“religion of love”) dedicated to his beloved Sophie who died of tuberculosis.

Image result for Raphael the painter young

“…When we consider the life of Novalis, what an echo we find there of the Raphael life for which Hermann Grimm had so fine an understanding! His beloved dies in her youth. He is himself still young. What is he going to do with his life now that she has died? He tells us himself. He says that his life on Earth will be henceforth to “die after her”, to follow her on the way of death. He wants to pass over already now into the super-sensible, to lead again the Raphael life, not touching the Earth, but living out in poetry his magic idealism. He would fain not let himself be touched by Earth life.

When we read the “Fragments” of Novalis, and give ourselves up to the life that flows so abundantly in them, we can discover the secret of the deep impression they make on us. Whatever we have before us in immediate sense-reality, whatever the eye can see and recognise as beautiful — all this, through the magic idealism that lives in the soul of Novalis, appears in his poetry with a well-nigh heavenly splendour. The meanest and simplest material thing — with the magic idealism of his poetry he can make it live again in all its spiritual light and glory.

And so we see in Novalis a radiant and splendid forerunner of that Michael stream which is now to lead you all, my dear friends, while you live; and then, after you have gone through the gate of death, you will find in the spiritual super-sensible worlds all those others — among them also the being of whom I have been speaking to you today — all those with whom you are to prepare the work that shall be accomplished at the end of the century, and that shall lead mankind past the great crisis in which it is involved.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis – The Last Address – Dornach, Michaelmas Eve, 1924

1933 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler bans trade unions

1945 –Fall of Berlin: The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin & Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag building

Image result for 1952 â The world's first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1

1952 – The world’s first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1 makes its maiden flight, from London to Johannesburg

1972 – In the early morning hours a fire breaks out at the Sunshine Mine located between Kellogg and Wallace, Idaho, killing 91 workers.

1986 –The City of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the disaster

1998 – The European Central Bank is founded in Brussels in order to define & execute the European Union’s monetary policy

2000 – President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military

2008 – Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Burma killing over 138,000 people & leaving millions of people homeless

2008 – Chaitén Volcano begins erupting in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,500 people.

2011 – Osama bin Laden, is killed by the United States special forces in

2014 – Two mudslides in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, leave over 2,500 people dead

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~The portals of perception
Raw & cluttered await
The revealing –
It is my Self I see –
A 1000 colors swirling in liquid light
A star covered in rising clouds
Hung by a thread from its ocean Moon
Hail Self
Traversing eternity
In moral steps of time
Where the Guardian beckons
~hag

***

“…The hatred and antipathy in the world today can indeed be followed by international love with healing in its wings. This is indeed possible. But we are living in an age when all that is possible must be consciously, deliberately and freely striven for by human beings. There must be knowledge of the conditions requisite for uniting the peoples of the Earth, in order that, as a result of this knowledge, each individual people may help to make the waves of love follow those of hatred.

Human love alone has power to heal the wounds of hatred. If humankind has no wish for this love, chaos will remain. That is the terrible alternative now facing human beings who have knowledge. Those who realize its terrors know that the souls of men dare not sleep, for otherwise, as a result of the powerlessness caused by the sleep into which the souls of the peoples have fallen, the healing waves of love will not be able to flow over the waves of hatred.

Human beings who realize this will acquire the kind of knowledge that flows from a spiritual conception of the relationships between the peoples. They will take this knowledge into their feeling — love for humanity will be born. They will take this knowledge into their will – deeds for humanity will be accomplished.

The evolution of the age, with all the terrible paralysis that is appearing at the present time, places a solemn duty before the soul: to gather together all that can unite humankind in love and array it in opposition to the destructive elements that have made their appearance in recent times. This quest for loving unification, for unifying love is not merely a vague feeling. To those who understand the conditions of life today, it is the very highest duty of man.” ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Peoples of the Earth in the Light of Anthroposophy’, Stuttgart, March 10th, 1920 http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19200310p01.html

In 1962, Karl König offered this verse to the friends in America:
The eternal rays
Of the Holy Spirits of Light
Build the tower of human trust,
Which is formed in our hearts
Out of brotherly love.
The eternal piers
of the helping Spirit-Messengers
Bear the bridge of faithfulness
That arches from I to I
In what we do.
So do we become united and strong
In the work that we have begun
And which we are committed in the spirit
To bring to completion.
May the greeting from soul to soul
Ring through the fellowship of our doing.

***

Tuesday 7 May 2019 in Ann Arbor Michigan

& also

Sat. 25 May 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm in Chicago

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Celebrating the Feast of Ascension

Leading Thoughts & original art-collage projections with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

Social Art with Nancy Melvin

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

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The Karma Project
A Western Approach to Reincarnation & Karma
May 8, 2019 – 7:15 pm CST (8:15 pm EST)View this email in your browser

The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to a presentation on the psychological understanding of karma, with special guests Drs. Roberta Nelson and David Tresemer.

Guidance – and challenge – from Rudolf Steiner (August 3, 1924): “If we want to experience our karma in a comfortable way — it will surely take vengeance on us in one way or another … to be anthroposophists we must be able to observe our own experience of karma with constant wide-awake attention.”

Roberta Nelson is Faculty Chair in the 3-year programs offered by the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology (AAP). She has a doctorate in Counselor Education that qualifies her to supervise, educate, and counsel. In addition, Roberta is dual licensed as a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) as well as a Licensed Addiction Counselor (LAC) in the state of North Dakota. She has other trainings and certifications in Psychosynthesis, EMDR, NVC, and other modalities.

David Tresemer is President of AAP. He has a doctorate in psychology from Harvard. He has written about various aspects of anthroposophy applied to issues in our world, the most relevant for this webinar being contributing to and editing of The Counselor: As If Soul and Spirit Matter (to which Roberta Nelson was a major contributor) and Slow Counseling, as well as quarterly columns in Lilipohmagazine.

Our approach on May 8: An anthroposophic psychology must take seriously the different functions of body, soul, and spirit. Spirit—light, freedom, beyond time and space; Physical Body—vehicle for experience and expression; Soul—the mediator. Karma—held as precious in Spirit, stamped into the Physical Body, and worked in Soul. Whereas the Spirit sings in light and freedom, the Soul learns through darkness and constraints, through struggles. The anthroposophic notion of karma helps us understand how we can wrestle with our own being, transforming through experience.

Audio-video: We will have some images on screen, though we will describe these to those who join by telephone.

PREPARATION: Please have a pen and blank paper. If you have chalk-based pastels, please have those ready as well.

Audioconference Details

Option 1. Click link below if you wish to connect through your computer (a headset is recommended): https://zoom.us/j/689514145

Option 2. Call in using your telephone.
United States: (646) 558-8656 or: (669) 900-6833
Access Code: 689-514-145

Please join us!Agenda (Central Time)

7:15 Welcome and introductions
7:18 Verse
7:20 Introduce guest speaker
7:25 Guest Speakers: Drs. Roberta Nelson & David Tresemer (45 minutes)
8:10 Q&A – Please state your name, location before asking a question
8:28 Close with verse

***

Sunday 19 May 2019, 2 pm – 4 pm- Social Sculpture Workshop around the ‘URPFLANZE’ with Victoria Martin. More details to follow

$20 for art supplies + Snacks to Share Encouraged

for more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

***

Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Sunday 2 June 2019 at the Branch 2 pm – 4 pm

also

10 am – 1 pm Saturday 8 June 2019 -4804 Sewanee Road, Nashville, TN 37220. for more info. contact Cathy Green cgreen@grasslandaquatics.com

also

12 Noon Potluck, Program 1 pm -4 pm Whitsunday 9 June 2019, In Knoxville, TN. for more info. contact William Rogers wmerogers@gmail.com

also

7 pm – 10 pm 11 June 2019, Ashville, TN. for more info. contact Marnie Muller

Eurythmy: AUM = A – I stand for myself, U- I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life

Social Sculpture: Steiner’s ‘Blue Dot Exercise’: Through Art, the bridge between science & spirit, we warm the ‘I’, to open the heart, in support of healthy community.

Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg*

What are my gifts-What are my tools? How can I place them in right relationship within the social realm? How can I hone them to strengthen and enhance the world?

Enter the Labyrinth of Vitae Sophia: Human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the source of wisdom, like flowers turning toward the sun.

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

***

In the 40 Days

April 29, 2019History, Insight, Lecture, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars, SpringJoan of Arc, ReverseRitual, Rudolf Steiner, St. Catherine~hag

29 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Just after dark, the Sickle of Leo stands vertical, high in the south. Its bottom star is Regulus, the brightest of Leo. In second place is yellow Algieba above it. The Lion is walking horizontally westward. The Sickle forms his front leg, chest, mane, & part of his head. Denebola, in the tip of the Lion’s tail, which was featured in connection with the Vernal Full Moon, is once more revealed for our contemplation…

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Image result for joan of arc with Michael — “Appearance of St.. Catherine and Michael to Joan of Arc,” by Hermann Stilke (Left-hand panel of his Joan of Arc triptych)

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast Day of Saint Endelienta, a Cornish saint of the 5th century. She is believed to be a daughter of the Welsh King Brychan, & legend says that she was a goddaughter of King Arthur. She lived as a hermit at Trentinney where she subsisted on the milk of a cow.

1380 – Death Day of Catherine of Siena, Italian mystic, philosopher, a Scholastic philosopher & theologian & saint. She is believed to have had miraculous visions & felt herself to be united in marriage with Jesus.

Born as the Black Death-ravaged in Siena, Italy, to Lapa Piagenti, the daughter of a local poet, & Giacomo di Benincasa, a cloth dyer who ran his enterprise with the help of his sons. Lapa was about forty years old when she gave premature birth to twin daughters Catherine & Giovanna. She had already borne 22 children, but half of them had died. Giovanna was handed over to a wet-nurse & died soon after. Catherine was nursed by her mother & developed into a healthy child. She was two years old when Lapa had her 25th child, another daughter named Giovanna. As a child Catherine was so merry that the family gave her the pet name of “Euphrosyne”, which is Greek for “joy” & the name of an early Christian saint.

Catherine had her first vision of Christ when she was five or six years old: She & a brother were on the way home from visiting a married sister when she is said to have experienced a vision of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, & JohnAt age seven, Catherine vowed to give her whole life to God.

When Catherine was sixteen, her older sister Bonaventura died in childbirth; already anguished by this, Catherine soon learned that her parents wanted her to marry Bonaventura’s widower. She was absolutely opposed & started a massive fast, & cut off her long hair as a protest.

“Build a cell inside your mind, from which you can never flee.” In this inner cell she made her father into a representation of Christ, her mother into the Blessed Virgin Mary, & her brothers into the apostles. Serving them humbly became an opportunity for spiritual growth. She chose to live an active & prayerful life outside a convent’s walls following the model of the Dominicans. Eventually her father gave up & permitted her to live as she pleased.

Her custom of giving away clothing &food without asking anyone’s permission cost her family significantly, but she demanded nothing for herself.

In about 1368, age twenty-one, Catherine experienced what she described in her letters as a “Mystical Marriage” with Jesus. Catherine received, not the ring of gold & jewels that her biographer reports in his version, but the ring of Christ’s foreskin.” Catherine herself mentions the foreskin-as-wedding ring motif in one of her letters, equating the wedding ring of a virgin with a foreskin; she typically claimed that her own wedding ring to Christ was simply invisible

As social & political tensions mounted in Siena, Catherine found herself drawn to intervene in wider politics. She began travelling with her followers throughout northern & central Italy advocating reform of the clergy & advising people that repentance &renewal could be done through “the total love for God.” In Pisa, in 1375, she used what influence she had to sway that city & Lucca away from alliance with the anti-papal league whose force was gaining momentum & strength. It was in Pisa that she received the stigmata.

She received the Holy Eucharist almost daily. This extreme fasting appeared unhealthy in the eyes of the clergy & her own sisterhood. Her confessor ordered her to eat properly. But Catherine claimed that she was unable to, describing her inability to eat as an infermità (illness). From the beginning of 1380, Catherine could neither eat nor swallow water. On February 26 she lost the use of her legs. St Catherine died in Rome, on 29 April 1380, at the age of thirty-three, having suffered a stroke eight days earlier.

Image result for 1429 â Joan of Arc - the Maid of OrlÃ©ans, defeats the English

1429 – Joan of Arc – the Maid of Orléans, defeats the English which begins the process that ended with England’s complete expulsion from the continent.

“It was necessary that the Maid of Orleans went through a kind of unaware initiation to fulfill her historical mission.It concerned an initiation that could take place in the time of the thirteen nights between the 25th December and 6th January.In the last time before birth the human being is especially accessible to unaware influences from the spiritual world.

On the 6th January the Maid of Orleans was born, to whom the Christ Impulse was implanted just before she saw the physical sunlight.The Maid of Orleans intervened in the course of history in such a way that everything that happened later was determined through it.

The whole map of Europe would be different, also the spiritual life if the English had won.

The Maid was a servant of St. Michael. She was a warrior of his Will and brought this spiritual will to Earth by her determination and actions.In the Central European civilisation were the springs for the whole spiritual culture of the future, the foundation of the ego-culture.

The human ego had to enkindle itself in the outside world, to be awake and realised internally. Thus the ego-culture of Central Europe was aroused from the objective events, the heroic sacrifices, that have brought the changes into etheric bodies and continue to do so, through the recorded memory.

It is necessary that, there would be souls, who send thoughts into the spiritual world like extending arms and bring down the consciousness from the spiritual world, souls conscious of spirit.The proper purpose of all our endevours is to gain a living connection between the physical and spiritual worlds.

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the grief of the bereaved,
From the nation’s sacrifices
Will grow up the fruits of spirit
If souls aware of spirit turn
Their senses to the spirit land.”

~Rudolf Steiner, Spiritual Science, a Necessity for the Present Time, The Relation of Man to his Folk Soul – Nuremberg, March 13, 1915, GA 159

“In order to throw a little light on the occult understanding of history, we may ask the question: What would the development of modern Europe have been if at the beginning of the 15th century the Maid of Orleans had not entered the arena of events? Anyone who thinks, even from an entirely external point of view, of the development that took place during this period, must say to himself: Suppose the deeds of the Maid of Orleans were erased from history … then, according to the knowledge obtainable from purely external historical research, one cannot but realise that without the working of higher, super-sensible Powers through the Maid of Orleans, the whole of France, indeed the whole of Europe in the 15th century, would have taken on an altogether different form. Everything in the impulses of will, in the physical brains of those times, was directed towards flooding all Europe with a general conception of the State which would have extinguished the folk-individualities and under this influence a very great deal of what has developed in Europe during the last centuries through the interplay of these folk-individualities would quite certainly have been impossible.

Imagine the deed of the Maid of Orleans blotted out from history, France abandoned to her fate without this intervention, and then ask: Without this deed, what would have become of France? And then think of the role played by France in the whole cultural life of humanity during the centuries following! Add to this the facts which cannot be refuted and are confirmed by actual documents concerning the mission of the Maid of Orleans. This young girl, certainly not highly educated even by the standards of her time, suddenly, before she is twenty years old, feels in the autumn of 1428 that spiritual Powers of the super-sensible worlds are speaking to her. True, she clothes these Powers in forms that are familiar to her, so that she is seeing them through the medium of her own mental images; but that does not do away with the reality of these Powers. Picture to yourselves that she knows that super-sensible Powers are guiding her will towards a definite point — I am speaking to begin with, not of what can be told about these facts from the Akasha Chronicle, but only of what is confirmed by documentary evidence.

We know that the Maid of Orleans confided her vision first of all to a relative who — one would almost say, by chance-happened to understand her; that after many vicissitudes and difficulties she was introduced to the Court of King Charles who, together with the whole French Army, had come to his wit’s end, as the saying goes. We know too, how after every conceivable obstacle had been put in her way, she finally recognised and went straight to the King, who was standing among such a crowd of people that no physical eye could have distinguished him. It is also known that at that moment she confided to him something— he wanted to test her by it — of which it can be said that it was known only to him and to the super-sensible worlds. You also know from ordinary history that it was she who, under the unceasing impulse and urge of her intense faith — it would be better to say, through her actual vision — and in face of the greatest difficulties, led the armies to victory and the King to his crowning.

Who intervened at that time in the course of history? — None other than Beings of higher Hierarchies! The Maid of Orleans was an outer Instrument of these Beings, and it was they who guided the deeds of history”.

~Rudolf Steiner, Occult History, Lecture 2, Stuttgart, 28th December 1910

Image result for 1862 âThe Capture of New Orleans by Union forces

1862 –The Capture of New Orleans by Union forces in the American Civil War.

1899 – Birthday of Duke Ellington, American pianist, composer, & bandleader

1901 – Birthday of Hirohito, Japanese emperor

1910 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the People’s Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public

1945 –The German army in Italy unconditionally surrenders to the Allies.

1945 – Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker they both commit suicide the following day

Image result for 1945 â Dachau concentration camp is liberated

1945 – Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops

1991 – A cyclone strikes the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 miles per hour killing at least 238,000 people &leaving as many as 10 million homeless

1991 – The 7.0 Mw earthquake affects Georgia with a maximum intensity killing 370 people

Image result for 11992 âRiots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King.

1992 –Riots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 53 people are killed & hundreds of buildings are destroyed

***

Circle song:

~What mystery is unfolding
In the heart-fires we are holding
In our hand we our molding
A new destiny…
~hag

***

Thought of the day:

Michael supports us with the courage to die into Christ, while still living in the world. Can we come to understand & live into the principle of Resurrection that continues to grow within & around us, even if all we can see is the death process?

Just as the April showers swell the seed in a gradual surrender to life. I find I must continuously, & conscientiously choose to let go, & open to the greening, allowing my whole being to become a vessel for the fulfillment of the Resurrection, allowing The Risen Christ to teach me – thru Nature, thru other human beings, & thru my Higher-Self.

And always my question is: What does this look like as a lifestyle, as a right livelihood, as a Shared festival?…As a community experience, honoring & furthering the Resurrection, by aligning our will with the Divine Will – Learning to serve from a place of wholehearted listening…& a practice of, not I, but Christ in me…

***

Tuesday 7 May 2019 in Ann Arbor Michigan

& also

Sat. 25 May 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm in Chicago

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Celebrating the Feast of Ascension

Leading Thoughts & original art-collage projections with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud

Social Art with Nancy Melvin

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

***

Sunday 19 May 2019, 2 pm – 4 pm- Social Sculpture Workshop around the ‘URPFLANZE’ with Victoria Martin. More details to follow

$20 for art supplies + Snacks to Share Encouraged

for more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

***

Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Sunday 2 June 2019 at the Branch 2 pm – 4 pm

also

10 am – 1 pm Saturday 8 June 2019 -4804 Sewanee Road, Nashville, TN 37220. for more info. contact Cathy Green cgreen@grasslandaquatics.com

also

12 Noon Potluck, Program 1 pm -4 pm Whitsunday 9 June 2019, In Knoxville, TN. for more info. contact William Rogers wmerogers@gmail.com

also

7 pm – 10 pm 11 June 2019, Ashville, TN. for more info. contact Marnie Muller

Eurythmy: AUM = A – I stand for myself, U- I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life

Social Sculpture: Steiner’s ‘Blue Dot Exercise’: Through Art, the bridge between science & spirit, we warm the ‘I’, to open the heart, in support of healthy community.

Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg*

What are my gifts-What are my tools? How can I place them in right relationship within the social realm? How can I hone them to strengthen and enhance the world?

Enter the Labyrinth of Vitae Sophia: Human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the source of wisdom, like flowers turning toward the sun.

Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

***

Easter Bells

April 21, 2019Celestial Event, Festival, Insight, Spring~hag

And so the Sun has risen on this glorious Easter morn.

And as I stood at the dawning, holding the middle pillar between the Moon in the South-West & the New Sun on the Eastern Horizon, in my soul again I heard: ‘The Easter Bells are Ringing’, in ‘Jubilating Delight’; for the grave, & my heart are full, of light.

The Easter Paradox of 2019 has given us an extended opportunity to listen to this sounding, to become ever more attuned; to let go of judgement, petty polarities, & preconceived ideas; to learn & grow & move out of our comfort zone, to go on the Hero’s Journey, ready to meet the Lion & the Virgin, ready, when the time is right, to ask the Parsifal question…Ready to seek, as well as protect, the Grail…Ready & willing to fully participate, in the Cosmic & Earthly Resurrection – which stands as an open question to our Higher-Selves at the dawning of everyday.

And as the light spread blessings of warmth onto the Earth, the Water, the Air – John F. Kennedy’s famous inaugural address kept ringing in my mind: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” – Except instead of the nationalistic reference, the quote transformed into a calling from the spiritual world – an appeal to humanity as a whole – asking us to become a bridge for the Christ-Will – asking us to step up – asking: “What are WE meant to do for the spiritual world”?

Can we stand in our “I” & ask: What wants to come through? What is needed?
Can we give what we want ? In true freedom?

We have received so much. Isn’t it time that we worked to manifest a co-creation between Spiritual & Human Beings, which can help us to help ourselves?

The Easter Bells are ever calling us to attend the service. Can we heed, & live into, the Revelations given? Can we receive the ‘warmth that changes the beat of our heart, weaving in our blood a true fulfillment’?

‘Christ is Risen to you as the meaning of the Earth’!

If we align our will with the Divine Will, then we too can ‘Come Rise’!

Easter Blessings, dear friends – thank you for taking this journey into the heart of our Easter Paradox – but remember, we aren’t done yet…The Easter-Tide continues as we explore the esoteric teachings of Christ during the 40 days leading to Ascension, (May 2 & May 30) & then, after 50 days when we arrive at Pentecost, (May 12 & June 9) to receive the Holy Spirit!!!

Read all my spiritual research about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

And here is a link to the podcast ‘The Anthroposopher‘ where I talk about the history of “Easter” being celebrated long before Christianity. A time of rebirth & resurrection for both the Earth & the ancient Human Being, whose essence still speaks to us today in a story at the end given by Steiner & filled out by WJ Stein called: Can you see the Hare in the Moon?

See you on the road to Damascus

Happy Easter!

xox~hag

***

21 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Lyrid meteor shower is set to peak starting tonight April 21–22. But since Bella Luna was just full a few days ago her brilliance will hide the subtle showers. Even so, it’s worth scanning the skies for meteors. The radiant is on the border between Hercules & Lyra, low onthe northeastern horizon at dusk, continuing to rise throughout the night.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Ecclesiastic Easter

According to Rudolf Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul. today is the Birthday of Simeon, who recognized the Buddha in the Luke Jesus as he was the reincarnation of Asita see GA 114/16.9.09

Also according to Steiner today is the Birthday in 570 of Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam.

753 BC – Romulus founds Rome

1109 – Feast day of Saint Anselm of Canterbury, Benedictine monk, abbot, Doctor of the Church, philosopher & theologian who held the office of archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Anselm composed dialogues & treatises causing him to be credited as one of the founders of Scholasticism. He was famed as the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God & of the satisfaction theory of atonement.

1142 – Peter Abelard, a medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian, & preeminent logician. His love affair with, Héloïse d’Argenteuil has become legendary. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary describes him as “the keenest thinker and boldest theologian of the 12th Century”.

1506 – The three-day Lisbon Massacre comes to an end with the slaughter of over 1,900 Jews by Portuguese Catholics.

1910 – Deathday of Mark Twain, American novelist, humorist, & critic

1989 – Tiananmen Square protests. In Beijing, around 100,000 students gather in Tiananmen Square

2014 – The city of Flint, Michigan switches its water source to the Flint River, beginning the ongoing Flint water crisis which has caused lead poisoning in up to 12,000 people, & at least 15 deaths from Legionnaires disease, ultimately leading to criminal indictments against 15 people, five of whom have been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

The Grave of the Earth

April 20, 2019Celestial Event, Festival, History, Insight, Remembering, Speaking with the Stars, Spring~hag

20 April 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Bright Venus shows herself in East an hour before sunrise gracing the predawn sky as the rosy glow heralding the Sun’s arrival grows brighter. About an hour after dark, the Pointer stars forming the end of the Big Dipper’s bowl point straight down toward Polaris. Face north and look way up. Polaris is about three fists at arm’s length from the Pointers.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The Ecclesiastical Holy Saturday: Christ’s Hallowing of Hell

Image result for Pope Gregory IX introduces the Inquisition

1232 – Pope Gregory IX introduces the Inquisition

Image result for Pope Clement V â who abolished the Templar Order in 1312

1314 – Death day of Pope Clement V – who abolished the Templar Order in 1312 – Interesting to note that the Grand Master of the Templars Jacques de Molay, Not to mention the countless women accused of being a witch, were all burnt at the stake outside of Notre Dame Cathedral.

1535 – Sun Dog sighting, observed over Stockholm, an atmospheric optical phenomenon depicting a halo display.

1586 – Birthday of Saint Rose of Lima, patroness of the Americas, of indigenous people of the Americas, especially of Lima, Peru, of Sittard in the Netherlands, of India, & of the Philippines. St. Rose’s skull, surmounted with a crown of roses, is on public display at the Basilica in Lima, Peru, along with that of Saint Martin de Porres. It was customary to keep the torso in the basilica and pass the head around the country.

1889 – Birthday of Adolf Hitler (which BTW: was also Holy Saturday in that year)

Image result for 898 â U.S. President William McKinley signed a joint resolution to Congress for declaration of War against Spain, beginning the SpanishâAmerican War.

1898 – U.S. President William McKinley signed a joint resolution to Congress for declaration of War against Spain, beginning the Spanish–American War.

Image result for 1999 â Columbine High School massacreï»¿

1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and injured 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado.

***

Image result for mary magdalene notre dame

A few more thoughts to ponder about the burning of Notre-Dame:

This powerful Cathedral is considered to be in the very heart of Paris – the ‘zero point’ – at the center of a powerful vortex of interlacing ley lines.

And of course, as we know, most Churches are built on the sacred grounds of former temples or mystery centers. Beneath ‘Our Lady’ lay the ruins of a Temple to Isis. The Templars built this Cathedral in the 12^th century, in honor of Mary Magdalene, personified as the Black Madonna, symbol of the secret Wisdom of the Divine Feminine. And so, the former Egyptian Isis had been renewed & crowned by them: ‘Queen of Paris’.

You can see a statue of Saint Mary Magdalene outside the Western door, to the right of the Portal of the Virgin, between the Main Entrance & the Portal of the Last Judgment.

The statue of Saint Joan of Arc inside on the South wall of Notre Dame, features a key symbol linking her to Saint Mary Magdalene – a distinctive pouch hanging from her belt, mirroring the iconographic item traditionally depicted on the belt of Mary Magdalene.

By the Middle Ages the Goddess ‘Cybele’ had become another name for the Divine Feminine, ‘Our Lady of Wisdom’, or ‘Lady Philosophy’ of the French alchemists.

“Cybele, as Goddess of philosophy” is also portrayed on the Western portal of Notre-Dame. She has her feet on the earth & her head in the heavens. She holds two books, one open & one closed – symbols for exoteric & esoteric knowledge. Leaning on her breast is “Jacob’s ladder”, which represents the gradual path of knowledge, leading to her scepter of wisdom, in divine union.

Image result for fiery rebirth of the goddess Isis painting

Perhaps with this burning, the ‘point zero’ of Ile de la Cité – the Island that Notre-Dame sits on – is in the throes of a fiery re-birthing…

And let us not forget that many people have been burnt at the stake in front of Notre Dame – Notably the Grand Master of the Templars himself, Jacques de Molay. Not to mention the countless women accused of being a witch.

Interesting to note that the relic of the Crown of Thorns is housed there.

Could it be that the Divine Feminine, buried beneath Notre-Dame, is awakening once more, surging up thru all that is falsely imprisoned. Could it be that with this burning & unholy inscription into the ethers, the New Isis will rise & open a path like a fiery phoenix, to a true Resurrection, reborn out of the flames of the divine Feminine reclaimed..?

Image result for âGilets Jaunesâ or âyellow Jacketâ

Is ‘Our Lady’ trying to get our attention, just as the nationwide ‘Gilets Jaunes’ or ‘yellow Jacket’ protests have been vying for recognition, amid growing anger over rising fuel taxes & the high cost of living…?

Image result for âReichstag fireâ false flag

And/or is this an example of a “Reichstag fire” – a false flag facilitated by an authority to promote their own interests through popular sympathy?

So much to ponder on this Holy Saturday, when, in the words of the Creed in the Christian Community, The Christ “was lowered into the grave of the Earth…to rescue the souls of the dead who had lost their divine nature…” A sacred spot which thousands of years before had been experienced as the center of the Earth – which the ancients called the grave of Adam – A primeval gorge, which splits Jerusalem into two parts, believed to be the gate of the Underworld. The Good Friday earthquake tore open this original fissure, so that The Christ could make His Descent into Hell.

May the Saturn darkness become Easter Light, healing the realm of the dead – turning the grave of the Earth into a new Sun.

Blessings Dear friends & Sabbath Peace ~hag

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Category Archives: Insight

hanging on a cloud

Sat. 25 May 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: The ‘Easter Paradox’ & The Feast of Ascension

Traversing Eternity

Tuesday 7 May 2019 in Ann Arbor Michigan

Sat. 25 May 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm in Chicago

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Celebrating the Feast of Ascension

In the 40 Days

Tuesday 7 May 2019 in Ann Arbor Michigan

Sat. 25 May 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm in Chicago

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Celebrating the Feast of Ascension

Easter Bells

The Grave of the Earth

Sat. 25 May 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: The ‘Easter Paradox’ & The Feast of Ascension

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Tuesday 7 May 2019 in Ann Arbor Michigan

Sat. 25 May 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm in Chicago

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Celebrating the Feast of Ascension

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Tuesday 7 May 2019 in Ann Arbor Michigan

Sat. 25 May 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm in Chicago

Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Celebrating the Feast of Ascension

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