Category Archives: Lecture

this little light of mine

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.

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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 )

~hag

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.”

~hag

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.

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Lynet McDonald

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

Until tomorrow

~hag

***

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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

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

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

Image result for 1775 – Goethe young

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

Image result for 1870- Papal Infallibility is proclaimed by Pius IX

1870- Papal Infallibility is proclaimed by Pius IX

Image result for Leon Trotsky,

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

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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Jade Leyva.

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

Image result for mercury sun painting

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

***

~hag

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 

***

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

11=Daath

Jupiter by William Turner

6 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Jupiter sphere of Cosmic Wisdom, shines brilliantly in the southwestern sky as darkness falls this week. The giant planet gleams against the background stars of southern Ophiuchus the Serpent-bearer.

***

Susan Dobay

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Sleepers awake
& the awakened forget –
Such rhythm is the restless tide…
I rise gently
Fall softly…

***

~hag

Continuing thoughts on 11.11 (Read the 1st installment)

…In the Cabbala, the Jewish mystical tradition, the glyph of the Tree of Life, shows us the entire universe. The #11 is the elusive Sphere of Daath, which means “knowledge of, or crossing the Abyss”, it is located in between the Supernal Triangle (Kether, Chokmah & Binah) & the Sephiroth of the manifested world. Daath is represented by the imagination a camel crossing the desert, & can be compared with the “Dark Night of the Soul“. This state of the mind is essential to the ‘Great Work’. In contemplating this mysterious sphere we are brought into contact with the Guardian of the Threshold, Our Angel or Higher Self, which can safely conduct us over the Abyss.

Every letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a number. Part of the work of the Cabbalist is to use what is referred to as Gematria, where we add up the numbers of each word revealing secret combinations & connections that give us a deeper meaning thru the various, sometimes surprising corresponding attributes.

All these & many more add up to 11: LIGHT = 56 = 5 + 6 = 11, HEALING = 56 = 5 + 6 = 11, SHAMBHALA = 65 = 6 + 5 = 11, ENERGY = 74 = 7 + 4 = 11, OCCULT = 74 = 7 + 4 = 11, CROSS = 74 = 7 + 4 = 11, JESUS = 74 = 7 + 4 = 11, THE CHRIST = 110 = 11, MESSIAH = 74 = 7 + 4 = 11, REVERSE = 92 = 9 + 2 = 11, I AM WHO I AM = 92 = 9 + 2 = 11, DOORWAY = 101 = 11, THE LOGOS = 101 = 11, THE GROOM = 101 = 11, MELCHIZEDEK = 101 = 11, THE SOPHIA = 101 = 11

~hag

“11” also suggests the mystery of the human being coming face-to-face with the ‘Self’, where “1” meets “1”, Where our “I” meets itself as a reflection in the world (“…In matter thus I find the world, & know myself amidst the worlds becoming” ~RS)

~hag

11 can also represent a Dyad, 1 + 1 = 2 – or a Number repeated, & then we can see 11 as the mystic number of Womanhood, a dividing into two / mother & child.

In the Hebrew language the word for female is ascribed the letter Beth, which means house or womb. In eurythmy Virgo is the letter B as well. The 11th letter in the Hebrew Alphabet is Caph = palm (2 hands in prayer)

In Numerology the number 10 is the number of completion. 11 is considered the ‘Master Number’ which duplicates itself, & represents inspiration, illumination, & spiritual enlightenment. And yet it is an odd number, an unstable number. We will look into the #12 in a minute.

Our Day Star has a Sun Spot Cycle of 11 years. Rudolf Steiner tells us that there wasn’t always this phenomenon of sun spots- that this is the physical reality of the materialism on earth which is showing itself as decay on the Sun.

At the 11th hour in the life of Christ on earth, Judas, one of the 12 chosen disciples, betrays him. Judas ends up killing himself over having this hard destiny, which then leaves only 11 to pass through the rites of the Mystery of Golgotha. These 11 stay together, forming a dedicated conscious community, a prefiguring of the consciousness soul age which we are living into now. Then 50 days after the Resurrection, the 11, together in the upper room, receive the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Grace of the Dove, the flaming tongues, coming as promised on the rushing winds of Pentecost; The Sophia, baptizes them with fire, & the 11 become empowered with their individual missions, & together they are able to choose another from out of their community to round out the perfect Zodiac once again.

This experience of initiation shifts them into the wholeness of the Higher “I”, able to perform the deeds that the Christ did on earth, for themselves. (although they used a form of divination: they drew straws!) We can see this as an alignment of their will with the Divine Will, & also as a crossing of the threshold, a true rite of passage, from being called & conducted by higher worlds, to an ability to heed an inner calling which activates the will to action.

Could this original 11 be the origin of the now ubiquitous sighting of 11:11 everywhere? A call to rise up in our initiative, & to truly live as Christ in me…?

Revelation 11:11: And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. 12. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them

We continue these thoughts & more tomorrow.

Feeling the grace

~hag

***

Verna Blass

 Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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Feast Day of St. Columbia, who founded the Spiritual Center of Irish monks on Iona

1917 – lecture by Steiner: Behind the curtains of Outer History

Image result for 1860 – Abraham Lincoln is elected as the 16th President of United States.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln is elected as the 16th President of United States.

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1861 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America.

Image result for CSS Shenandoah is the last Confederate combat unit to surrender after circumnavigating the globe on a cruise on which it sank or captured 37 unarmed merchant vessels.

1865 – American Civil War: CSS Shenandoah is the last Confederate combat unit to surrender after circumnavigating the globe on a cruise on which it sank or captured 37 unarmed merchant vessels.

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1913 – Mohandas Gandhi is arrested while leading a march of Indian miners in South Africa.

Image result for 1928 – Herbert Hoover is elected the 31st President of the United States.

1928 – Herbert Hoover is elected the 31st President of the United States.

Image result for 1944 – Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility

1944 – Plutonium is first produced at the Hanford Atomic Facility and subsequently used in the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

Image result for Dwight D. Eisenhower

1956 – Dwight D. Eisenhower is reelected President of the United States.

Image result for resolution condemning South Africa's apartheid

1962 – The United Nations General Assembly passes a resolution condemning South Africa’s apartheid policies and calls for all UN member states to cease military and economic relations with the nation.

Image result for 1971 – The United States Atomic Energy Commission tests the largest U.S. underground hydrogen bomb, code-named Cannikin, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.\

1971 – The United States Atomic Energy Commission tests the largest U.S. underground hydrogen bomb, code-named Cannikin, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.

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1984 – Ronald Reagan is reelected President of the United States.

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2012 – Barack Obama is reelected President of the United States; Tammy Baldwin becomes the first openly gay politician to be elected to the United States Senate.

***

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

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

Image result for mercury sun painting

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

$10-$20 or pay what you will

For more info. contact Angela Foster

***

~hag

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

***

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 

***

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

Wake

5 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Fomalhaut is lower left of Bella Luna in Her waxing mode this evening. Very high in the southeast now is the Great Square of Pegasus. Its western side points down to Fomalhaut.

Image result for Fomalhaut painting

 Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

According to Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul Today is the Birthday of Elizabeth – Elisheba: (in the Hebrew אֱלִישֶׁבַע / אֱלִישָׁבַע “My God has sworn”; Mother of John The Baptist – The Gospel of Luke tells us Elizabeth was “of the daughters of Aaron” (1:5). She and her husband Zachariah were “righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (1:6–7), but childless. While he was in the temple of the Lord (1:8–12), Zacharias was visited by the angel Gabriel: But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. — Luke 1:13–15 Zacharias doubted whereby he could know this since both he and his wife were old. The angel identified himself as Gabriel and told Zacharias that he would be “dumb, and not able to speak” until the words were fulfilled, because he did not believe. When the days of his ministry were complete, he returned to his house (Luke 1:16–23).
After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.” — Luke 1:24–25
According to the account, the angel Gabriel was then sent to Nazareth in Galilee to her relative[Luke 1:36] Mary, a virgin, espoused to a man called Joseph, and informed her that she would conceive by the Holy Ghost and bring forth a son to be called Jesus. After she was also informed that her “relative Elizabeth” had begun her sixth month of pregnancy, she traveled to “Hebron, in the hill country of Judah”, to visit Elizabeth. (Luke 1:26–40)
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” — Luke 1:41–45

The Visitation, Mariotto Albertinelli, 1503
Mariotto Albertinelli,

Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home. When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son.

Image result for 15th century depiction of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, with Elizabeth on the left.

Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy. On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, but his mother spoke up and said, “No! He is to be called John.” They said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who has that name.” Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God.— Luke 1:56–64

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1811 – Salvadoran priest José Matías Delgado, rings the bells of La Merced church in San Salvador, calling for insurrection and launching the 1811 Independence Movement.

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1831 – Nat Turner, American slave leader, is tried, convicted, & sentenced to death in Virginia.

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1862 –Abraham Lincoln removes George B. McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac.

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1872 – Women’s suffrage in the United States: In defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, & is later fined $100.

Image result for George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.

1895 – George B. Selden is granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile.

Image result for 1912 – Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th President of the United States

1912 – Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th President of the United States, defeating incumbent William Howard Taft. From Rudolf Steiner’s The Social Future: “Woodrow Wilson’s criticism of the present social order agrees almost word for word with the sentiments expressed even by Lenin and Trotsky, the gravediggers of modern civilization, of whom it may be said that, if their rule continues too long, even in a few places, it will signify the death of modern civilization and must of necessity lead to the destruction of all the attainments of modern civilization. In spite of this we must give expression to the paradox: Woodrow Wilson, who certainly imagined a very different reconstruction of social conditions from that of these destroyers of society, directs almost literally the same criticism against the present order as these others, and he comes to the same conclusion that legal and political conceptions in their present form are obsolete, and are no longer fitted to deal with the economic system. And, strange to say, when we try to find something positive and to test what Woodrow Wilson has produced in order to construct a new social organism, we find hardly any answer, only a few measures here and there, which have even been proposed elsewhere by someone much less scathing in his criticism. But he gives no answer to the question relative to the changes necessary in legal matters, in political conceptions and impulses, in order that these may control the demands of modern economic life and render it possible for them to intervene in its activities”.

Image result for Lenin calls for the October Revolution.

1917 – Lenin calls for the October Revolution.

Image result for 1940 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first and only President of the United States to be elected to a third term.

1940 – Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first and only President of the United States to be elected to a third term.

***

Meghan Howland

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~In Her copper beak
She carries my thoughts…
On Her wing my magnetic & starry dreams fly…
Above the grape arbor in a flurry of dark feathers
Beating the door
She follows the barge of my soul
With its cargo of rubies & emerald
Sailing soft into the hot diamond of the South…

~hag

***

~hag

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

Since perhaps you won’t be able to join us at the Martin Clinic in Atlanta GA. , I will share some of my thoughts with you here in a few installments before I set off for the ‘All Souls Southern Tour’ on Saturday November 9th (the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall)

Image result for 11:11

Have you experienced what it called the ‘Time Prompt Phenomenon’? In our digital age this synchronicity seems to happen a lot. You feel the urge to look up; & the cloak says 11:11…Is the Universe trying to get your attention?

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 11.11.png
~hag

Some claim that seeing 11:11 is a propitious sign. Others say that 11:11 signals a divine presence. This portent seems to happen more frequently when we are on a spiritual path of self-development. Many people are beginning to awaken to their higher selves & to the true nature of reality. Perhaps the 11:11 experience is a synchronicity that occurs when we become more conscious of the connection between the physical world outside, & the spiritual world within. This appearance of an abundance of 11:11 sightings seems to be a wake-up call, a prompt to snap out of the mundane, materialistic way of thinking, opening to the realm of the supersensible.

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In China, 11 represents The Tao – The Way, or union of the sky & the earth.

~hag (Bruce Rimall)

It is the union of the microcosm & the macrocosm. In mathematics it can be represented by 5 + 6 – related to the Pentagram & the Hexagram.

~hag

If you multiply 1111 by 1111 you get 1234321, representing a pyramid. 11 is also a number harmonious with Pi.

Scientists have found a gene on chromosome 11, which may be involved in DNA repair.

It seems that the # 11 is of central importance in understanding the mathematical infrastructure of the universe.

More to explore tomorrow…

Until soon

~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

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

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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

$10-$20 or pay what you will

For more info. contact Angela Foster

***

~hag

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

***

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 

***

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

Side by Side

24 October 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Every Autumn, & especially this evening, check out one of the flashiest stars in the sky – bright Capella twinkling with red & green flashes low in the northeastern sky at nightfall. Capella climbs upward through the night, & this month, soars high overhead in the wee hours before dawn. Capella is in the constellation Auriga the Charioteer, but since antiquity it has carried the name Goat Star.

If you could travel to it in space, you’d find that Capella is really two golden stars, both with roughly the same surface temperature as our local star, the sun … but both larger & brighter than our sun. So here is a golden point of light that flashes red & green when it’s low in the sky. Why does it do that?

The reality is that every star in the sky undergoes the same process as to produce its colorful twinkling, for every star’s light must shine through Earth’s atmosphere before reaching our eyes. But not every star flashes as noticeably as Capella. The atmosphere splits or “refracts” the star’s light, just as a prism splits sunlight. When you see Capella higher in the sky, you’ll find that these glints of red & green will disappear.

Keep looking up my friends!

***

Polly Kramer

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast day of Archangel Raphael, Healing symbol of Mercury. Time Spirit from 850-1190

1260 – Chartres Cathedral is dedicated in the presence of King Louis IX of France

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1601 – Death day of Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer & alchemist. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him here in Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture VI: “We were tracing the thread of evolution which enters into the spiritual life of the present time, and we left off with the individuality of Julian the Apostate. I told you that this individuality was next incarnated in one who is only known by legendary accounts, whose secret is contained in the Parsifal legend, in the name of Herzeleide. In this life as Herzeleide, the soul of Julian the Apostate entered into a far deeper inner life. The soul-life of the individuality was deepened, as was indeed necessary after the many storms and inner moods of opposition which he had undergone in his life as Julian the Apostate.

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But this later life of which I told you — this life as Herzeleide — spread itself out over the former life as Julian the Apostate like a warm embalming cloud. Thus the soul grew more intense and deep and inward, and grew richer, too, in manifold impulses of the inner life.

Anselm Kiefer 

Now this soul was among those who had carried over something of the ancient Mysteries. Julian had lived within the substance of the ancient Mysteries at a time when their light was still radiant in many ways. Thus he had received into himself much spirituality of the cosmos. All this had been as it were pressed back during the incarnation as Herzeleide; but it was none the less pressing forth in the soul, and thus we find the same individuality again in the 16th century; we find arising in him once more, in a Christianised form, what he had undergone as Julian the Apostate. For the same individuality reappears in the 16th century as Tycho de Brahe, and stands face to face with the Copernican world-conception which emerges within Western civilisation at that time.”

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1648 – The Peace of Westphalia is signed, marking the end of the Thirty Years’ War

1911 – Orville Wright remains in the air nine minutes & 45 seconds in a Wright Glider at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

Original Caption: 2/27/1918-Houdini showing how to slip handcuffs.

1926 – Harry Houdini’s last performance takes place at the Garrick Theatre in Detroit. Harry Houdini was born Ehrich Weisz on 24 March 1874 in Budapest, Hungary. The son of a Rabbi, he relocated with his family to America in 1876.  By the age of 17 he was known as Harry Houdini & left his family to pursue his career in magic. Booked for a two-week engagement in Detroit at The Garrick Theatre, he arrived in pain, but decided to perform the opening show on October 24th.  With much difficulty he performed, but cut the show short & was admitted to Grace Hospital.  It had been determined that he had a ruptured appendix. Surgery was not enough to spare Houdini’s life & he died on 31 October 1926 from peritonitis.

Image result for 1929 – "Black Thursday" stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.

1929 – “Black Thursday” stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.

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1945 – Founding of the United Nations.

1946 – Deathday of Emil Grosheintz – a dentist who had a practice in Basel, was an early anthroposopher, when the society was still connected to the theosophical movement. Rudolf Steiner loved him because of his sacrificial & conscientious work. His professional career as a dentist allowed him to accompany Steiner on many of his lectures. Like a leitmotiv, his life runs through the fact that he was always present as a witness in important moments of anthroposophy.

In 1906, Emil Grosheintz co-founded the Paracelsus branch in Basel. In 1907 he took part in the Munich Congress & became a member of the German section of the Theosophical Society in 1908.

In 1912, during a visit of Rudolf Steiner to his estate in Dornach, Grosheintz decided to make his land on the Dornach hill available for the construction of the first Goetheanum, & organized the purchase & donation of some further eastern plots.

In 1913 he became chairman of the Johannesbauverein. Because of his excellent organizational abilities & his experience, Emil Grosheintz became co-founder of the anthroposophical branch at the Goetheanum on September 12, 1920, & until May 9, 1943, he served as its first chairman &remained honorary chairman until his death

On 24 December 1914, Emil & Nelly Grosheintz-Laval were witnesses at the wedding ceremony of Marie & Rudolf Steiner.

On September 20, 1913, Emil Grosheintz & his wife Nelly Grosheintz-Laval took part in the laying of the foundation stone for the first Goetheanum. In the same year he moved with his wife & the two sons Hansi & Pierre into the Duldeck house designed for him by Rudolf Steiner on the Dornach hill near the Goetheanum.

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1975 – In Iceland, 90% of women take part in a national strike, refusing to work in protest of gaps in gender equality.

Image result for 1980 – The government of Poland legalizes the Solidarity trade union

1980 – The government of Poland legalizes the Solidarity trade union

Image result for 2008 – "Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history

2008 – “Bloody Friday” saw many of the world’s stock exchanges experience the worst declines in their history

***

TINA YU

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Today I AM:
Light behind mist
From the dark vortex of primal fire
Where the 1st light was born
which made the maker of gods & human-kind
Pressing the black world like a blinking eye
Into wakefulness…
Today: What are YOU?
~hag

 ***


From Occult History: Lecture 4 
by Rudolf Steiner

During the 16th century, in the year 1546, a remarkable man was born of a noble house of Northern Europe, and in his very cradle, so to speak, everything was laid — including family wealth — that could have led him to positions of great honour in the traditional life of that time. Because, in line with his family traditions, it was intended that he should occupy some eminent political or other high position, he was marked out for the legal profession and sent with a tutor to the University of Leipzig to study jurisprudence. The tutor tormented the boy — for he was still a boy when he was forced to study law — all day long. But at night, while the tutor was sleeping the sleep of the just and dreaming of legal theories, the boy stole out of bed and observed the stars with the very simple instruments he had himself devised. And very soon he knew not only more than any of the teachers about the secrets of the stars but more than was to be found at that time in any book. For example, he very soon noticed a definite position of Saturn and Jupiter in the constellation of Leo, turned to the books and found that they recorded it quite erroneously. The longing then arose in him to acquire as exact a knowledge as possible of this star-script, to record as accurately as possible the course of the stars. No wonder that in spite of all his family’s resistance he soon extracted the permission to become a natural philosopher and astronomer, instead of dreaming his life away over legal books and doctrines. And having considerable means at his disposal, he was able to set up a whole establishment.

This was arranged in a remarkable way. In the upper storeys were instruments designed for observing the secrets of the stars; in the cellars there was equipment for bringing about different combinations and dissolutions of substances. And there he worked, dividing his time between observations carried out on the upper floors of the building and the boiling, fermenting, mixing and weighing which went on in the cellars below. There he worked, in Order to show, little by little, how the laws that are written in the stars, the laws of the planets and fixed stars, the macrocosmic laws, are to be found again microcosmically in the mathematical numbers underlying the combinations and dissolutions of substances. And what he discovered as a living connection between the heavenly and the earthly he applied to the art of medicine, producing medicaments which were the cause of bitter animosity around him because he gave them freely to those he wanted to help. The doctors at that time, intent upon extorting high fees, raged against this man who was accused of perpetrating all sorts of “horrors” with what he endeavoured to bring down from the heavens to the earth.

Fortunately, as the result of a certain happening, he found favour with the Danish King, Frederick the Second, and as long as he retained this favour, all went well: tremendous insight was gained into the spiritual working of cosmic laws in the sense I have just described. This man did indeed know something about the spiritual course of cosmic laws. He dumbfounded the world with things which admittedly would no longer find the same credence to-day. On one Occasion, when he was at Rostock, he prophesied, from the constellation of the stars, the death of the Sultan Soliman, which came true within a few days of the date he had foretold. The news of this made the name of Tycho Brahe famous in Europe. To-day the world at large knows hardly anything more of Tycho Brahe, whose life lies such a short time behind us, than that he was somewhat of a crank and never quite reached the lofty standpoint of modern materialism. He recorded a thousand stars for the first time in the maps of the heavens and also made the epoch-making discovery of a type of star, the “Nova,” which flares up and vanishes again, and described it. But these things are mostly passed over in silence. The world really knows nothing about him except that he was still “stupid” enough to devise a plan of the cosmos in which the earth stands still and the sun together with the planets revolve around it. That is what the world in general knows to-day. The fact that we have to do here with a significant personality of the 16th century, with one who accomplished an infinite amount that even to-day is still useful to astronomy, that untold depths of wisdom are contained in what he gave — none of this is usually recorded, for the simple reason that in presenting the system in detail, out of his own deep knowledge, Tycho Brahe saw difficulties which Copernicus did not see. If such a thing dare be said — for it does indeed seem paradoxical — even with the Copernican cosmic system the last word has not yet been uttered. And the conflict between the two Systems will still occupy the minds of a later humanity. — That, however, only by the way; it is too paradoxical for the present age.

It was only under the successor of the King who had been well-disposed towards him that the enemies of Tycho Brahe arose an all sides. They were doctors and professors at the University of Copenhagen, and they succeeded in inciting the successor of his patron against him. Tycho Brahe was driven from his fatherland and was obliged to go south again. It was in Augsburg that he had originally set up his first great planisphere and the gilded globe on which he always marked the new stars he discovered — finally amounting to a thousand. This man was destined to die in exile in Prague. To this very day, if we turn, not to the usual textbooks, but to the actual sources, and study Kepler, let us say, we can still see that Kepler was able to arrive at his laws because of the meticulous astronomical observations made by Tycho Brahe before him. Here indeed was a personality who again bore the stamp, in a grand style, of what had been great and significant wisdom before his time; one who could not reconcile himself to the kind of knowledge that became popular immediately afterwards in the shape of the materialistic view of the world. Truly it is a strange destiny, this destiny of Tycho Brahe!

And now, placing both personal destinies side by side, think how endlessly instructive it is when we learn from the Akasha Chronicle that the individuality of Julian the Apostate appears again in Tycho Brahe, that Tycho Brahe is, so to say, a reincarnation of Julian the Apostate. Thus strangely and paradoxically does the law of reincarnation take effect when the karmic connection of the single individual are modified by world-historic karma; when the cosmic Powers themselves use the human individuality as their instrument.”

***

Dear Friends –
There are many opportunities to Celebrate ‘All Souls’
from various Anthroposophical angles in the Chicagoland area
& beyond:

Wednesday, 30 October 6:30-7:30 pm
Free 
webinar on the Festival of All Souls 
with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg.
  
We will explore the Journey of the Soul Between Death
and Rebirth with indications from Rudolf Steiner
 
In the realities that Spiritual Science brings us, 
we glean the importance of working with the ‘so called dead’
and the angelic worlds, for both our own and their development,
as well as for the future evolution of the Earth.

 
CLICK HERE for your log-in link to join us live. Just one simple step!
 
Can’t join us live? No problem.  A recording of the webinar will be emailed to you within 24
hours of the live session. 
 
Warmly, Laura Scappaticci, Program Director for the Anthroposophical Society in America
 
***
Thursday 31 October 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm
Halloween at the Theosophical Society in America
1926 North Main Street, Wheaton, IL 60187
 
“The Descent of the Goddess’ with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Together, we will explore the origins and purpose of “Halloween,” honor our beloved dead,
and experience a ritual performance where we will journey Inanna, Queen of Heaven
and Earth, and her sister Ereshkigal, Goddess of the Underworld.
 
$10 nonmembers, $5 members Live Webcast
 
For more info. or to carpool contact Hazel@ReverseRitual.com
 
***
Our Annual All Souls Festival: Meeting our Ancestors at the Threshold
 
7 PM – 9 PM Friday 1 November 2019
at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
 
*What can we learn from Spiritual Science about working
with the ‘so called dead’ and the ‘unborn’? 
with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
*Eurythmy
  *Artistic Explorations
  *Circle of Remembrance

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged
  For more info. contact Hazel@ReverseRitual.com
 ***
How about a Road-Trip?
Take the Journey of the Soul
in the Life Between Death & Rebirth

in the warm hospitality of our Branch Buddies in the South:
 
5 pm – 9 pm – Friday 16 November 2019, in Atlanta GA
Community Potluck Dinner  5 pm –
Please Bring a dish to Share
Program begins promptly at 6 pm
 Suggested Donation $15-25 or pay what you will – 
For more info. contact Angela Foster
 
***
 
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 

***

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
   

Scintillating Iron

12 August 2019, ‘Speaking with the Stars’: Perseid meteor showers

This annual celestial event, gifting us with the cosmic iron of Michael, peaks tonight!

The Perseids begin as tiny specks of extra-terrestrial dust that hit Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds vaporizing from the friction with our atmosphere, leaving behind the streaks of light we call meteors. These dust particles were born in the comet known as 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which recently returned to the inner solar system in 1992. The giant planet Jupiter has nudged Swift-Tuttle’s debris stream closer to Earth’s orbit.

The best views will come in the predawn hours of 13 August 2019, after the waxing gibbous Moon sets around 3 am CDT. The spectacle will continue to improve as dawn approaches because the shower’s radiant — the spot on the border between the constellations Perseus & Cassiopeia where the meteors appear to emanate from — climbs higher.

As always, you’ll see more meteors at a viewing site far from any artificial lights. Look about two-thirds of the way from the horizon to the zenith, but don’t get tunnel vision gazing at one location. Let your eyes wander so your peripheral vision can pick up meteors you otherwise might not see.

This dose of cosmic iron is our perfect spiritual medicine, as these shooting stars awaken us; but we must take this medicine in consciously to strengthen our Michaelic impulse for the spiritual battle ahead.

Perseus is the cosmic starry imagination of Michael.  He stands with sword of iron raised in one hand & in the other the decapitated head of Medusa with her serpent hair & eyes that turn all who gaze upon her to stone.  He has rescued Andromeda, the chained princess, from the approaching sea monster Cetus. From the forehead of Andromeda springs the constellation Pegasus, the winged intelligenceThis entire narrative contains deep imaginations of the work of Michael in the human being rescuing the threatened human soul from the destructive forces rising from the unconscious & the past in the sea monster, & the deadening forces of Ahriman’s cold intellect in the gaze of Medusa.

A study of The Michael Mystery by Rudolf Steiner can be a helping guide during this season.  In it he states: “Hearts begin to have thoughts, that is the new way of thinking, with the heart.”  It is Michael’s intention that in the future, intelligence will flow through human hearts & be connected to the same divine spiritual forces that created the human in the beginning of time.

Jim Lesure

If we use our imaginative cognition to inwardly picture this cosmic offering, we can carry the thought of Michael/Perseus in our heart-thinking, to consciously align with our Time-Spirit.

The Angel Standing in the Sun by JMW Turner

Let us make the intention to be awake to the power of the Christ-Sun in the Earth, & the enlivening impulse of Anthroposophia within, which thru our thinking hearts becomes enlightened by Wisdom, helping us overcome the darkness with love.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Turner

“To truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world.” ~Rudolf Steiner

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30 BC– Deathday of Egyptian Queen Cleopatra

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1827 – Deathday of 1827 – William Blake, poet, painter, mystic

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1831 – Birthday of Helena Blavatsky

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1848 – Deathday of George Stephenson, Renowned as the “Father of Railways”, he was an English civil & mechanical engineer who built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use steam locomotives- considered a great example of diligent application & thirst for improvement

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1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine

Image result for Helena Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in NY

1875 – Helena Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in NY

Image result for Thomas Edison invented the phonograph & made the first sound recording

1877 – Thomas Edison invented the phonograph & made the first sound recording

Image result for The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

1883 – The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Image result for The United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit

1914 – The United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit

1944 – Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions

1950 – Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre—American POWs are massacred by North Korean Army.

Image result for 1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: Thirteen prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.

1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: Thirteen prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.

Image result for 1953 - The Soviet Union secretly tested its first hydrogen bomb

1953 – The Soviet Union secretly tested its first hydrogen bomb

1953 – A 7.2 Ms earthquake shakes the southern Ionian Islands. 800 people were killed

Image result for 1955 – Deathday of Thomas Mann, a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, & the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate.

1955 – Deathday of Thomas Mann, a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, & the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic & ironic epic novels are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist & the intellectual. His analysis & critique of the European & German soul used modernized German & Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche & Schopenhauer

1960 – Echo 1A, NASA’s first successful communications satellite, is launched.

1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country’s racist policies

1976 –3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War

Image result for 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released

1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released

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1992 – Deathday of John Cage

1998 – Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion as restitution to World War II Holocaust victims

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2010 – Deathday of Isaac Bonewits, founder of Ár nDraíocht Féin

***

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I come with the comet
A priestess in the thought-skin of the lion
Spreading the roaring depth of myself out
Before friends & gods
To let them study me…
My ripened body is a rolled papyrus
Tied with red string that holds no pretense
Glow worms hide in the folds of my scroll
I am washed & ready for the new turning
Flashing with the hygienic iron-dust of shooting stars
Reborn in the cradle of my blood
~hag

***

“…And when in high summer, from a particular constellation, meteors fall in great showers of cosmic iron, then this cosmic iron, which carries an enormously powerful healing force, is the weapon which the gods bring to bear against Ahriman, as dragon-like he tries to coil round the shining forms of men. The force which falls on the earth in the meteoric iron is indeed a cosmic force whereby the higher gods endeavour to gain a victory over the Ahrimanic powers, when autumn comes on. And this majestic display in cosmic space, when the August meteor showers stream down into the human shining in the astral light, has its counterpart — so gentle and apparently so small — in a change that occurs in the human blood. This human blood, which is in truth not such a material thing as present-day science imagines, but is permeated throughout by impulses from soul and spirit, is rayed through by the force which is carried as iron into the blood and wages war there on anxiety, fear and hate. The processes which are set going in every blood-corpuscle when the force of iron shoots into it are the same, on a minute human scale, as those which take place when meteors fall in a shining stream through the air. This permeation of human blood by the anxiety-dispelling force of iron is a meteoric activity. The effect of the raying in of the iron is to drive fear and anxiety out of the blood.

And so, as the gods with their meteors wage war on the spirit who would like to radiate fear over all the earth through his coiling serpent-form, and while they cause iron to stream radiantly into this fear-tainted atmosphere, which reaches its peak when autumn approaches or when summer wanes — so the same process occurs inwardly in man, when his blood is permeated with iron. We can understand these things only if we understand their inner spiritual significance on the one hand, and if on the other we recognise how the sulphur-process and the iron-process in man are connected with corresponding events in the cosmos.

A man who looks out into space and sees a shooting-star should say to himself, with reverence for the gods: “That occurrence in the great expanse of space has its minute counterpart continuously in myself. There are the shooting-stars, while in every one of my blood-corpuscles iron is taking form: my life is full of shooting-stars, miniature shooting-stars.” And this inner fall of shooting-stars, pointing to the life of the blood, is especially important when autumn approaches, when the sulphur-process is at its peak. For when men are shining like glow-worms in the way I have described, then the counter-force is present also, for millions of tiny meteors are scintillating inwardly in their blood.

This is the connection between the inner man and the universe. And then we can see how, especially when autumn is approaching, there is a great raying-out of sulphur from the nerve-system towards the brain. The whole man can then be seen as a sulphur-illuminated phantom, so to speak.

But raying into this bluish-yellow sulphur atmosphere come the meteor swarms from the blood. That is the other phantom. While the sulphur-phantom rises in clouds from the lower part of man towards his head, the iron-forming process rays out from his head and pours itself like a stream of meteors into the life of the blood.

Such is man, when Michaelmas draws near. And he must learn to make conscious use of the meteoric-force in his blood. He must learn to keep the Michael Festival by making it a festival for the conquest of anxiety and fear; a festival of inner strength and initiative; a festival for the commemoration of selfless self-consciousness…”

~ Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons and the Archangels Lecture I: The Michael Imagination http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA229/English/RSP1968/19231005p01.html

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Betty Lin

May we stand upright with Michael in awakened consciousness, to let the iron sing in our heart-fired blood.

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

14-15 Sept. Gino Ver Eecke workshops

The Meditative PathAn Exploration of Self and Community withGino Ver Eecke*

Join us for a weekend of lectures, discussion and artistic work to explore The Meditative Path of Knowledge through the lens of Anthroposophy.

Sat. 14 Sept. 7-9pm: The Meditative Path of Knowledge in Anthroposophy

 Sunday 15 Sept. 2-4pm: The Call for Self-Knowledge. How to Meet the Demands of Life?

Participants will benefit most from attending both sessions, as Gino intends to guide us in an imaginative picture over the weekend. However, if you cannot attend both sessions, you may still attend as your schedule allows.

There is no set fee to attend; suggested donation for the weekend is $50.

To reserve your spot, or for more information and the suggested reading list contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

*Gino Ver Eecke met Anthroposophy in his birth town of Roeselare, Belgium, at the young age of 16. After spending a year on a BioDynamic farm in Switzerland, he moved to Chestnut Ridge, NY, to complete his Eurythmy training. He has been active as an amateur actor, most notably in the role of Benedictus in the 10 day festival and performance of the Rudolf Steiner’s four Mystery Dramas in 2014. Currently he guides the work of the Threefold Branch of the Anthroposophical Society in Chestnut Ridge. He can be reached at gfbver@gmail.com