Category Archives: Lecture

Gemüt

20 September 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The yellow-orange point to the right of Bella Luna this evening is Mars. Once night is fully dark, look for Fomalhaut, the Autumn Star, rising about three fists to the Moon’s lower left.

 Mars by WilliamTurners

Mercury reaches superior conjunction at 9 pm CDT. This means the innermost planet lies on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth & remains hidden in our Day Star’s glare. It will return to view in the evening sky, though just barely, in late October.

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Image result for Rudolf Steiner and the theosophical society

Lectures by Rudolf Steiner on this date

Looking at the past to see the present, co-creating the future:

History, historical life, will only be seen in the right light when a true consciousness of the connection of the so-called living with the so-called dead can be developed” – The Living and the Dead by Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 5th February, 1918

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

622 – Muhammad & Abu Bakr arrived in Medina

Image result for 1378 – Cardinal Robert of Geneva, called by some the "Butcher of Cesena", is elected as Pope Clement VII

1378 – Cardinal Robert of Geneva, called by some the “Butcher of Cesena“, is elected as Pope Clement VII, beginning the Papal schism. He was the 1st antipope residing in Avignon, France

Image result for 1498 – The 1498 Nankai earthquake buddha

1498 – The 1498 Nankai earthquake generates a tsunami that washes away the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha at Kōtoku-in in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan. Over 10,000 die

Image result for 1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda

1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe

Image result for Walking Purchase

1737 – The Walking Purchase– between the Penn family, the proprietors of Pennsylvania, & the Lenape Tribe (also known as the Delaware). This document may have been an unsigned, unratified treaty, or even an outright forgery (Encyclopædia Britannica refers to it as a “land swindle”. The Penns’ agents began selling land, an area of 1,200,000 acres, in the Lehigh Valley to colonists while the Lenape still inhabited the area

Image result for 1893 – Charles Duryea road-tests the first American-made gasoline-powered automobile

1893 – Charles Duryea road-tests the first American-made gasoline-powered automobile

Image result for 1906 – Founding of the Paracelsus Branch, Basel Switzerland

1906 – Founding of the Paracelsus Branch, Basel Switzerland

Image result for 1906 – Founding of the Paracelsus Branch, Basel Switzerland

1913 – The laying of the Foundation Stone of the 1st Goetheanum

1913 – Founding of the Moscow Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

1933 – Deathday of Annie Besant. In 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky. She became a member of the Theosophical Society & a prominent lecturer. She established the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain. Over the next few years she established lodges in many parts of the British Empire. In 1907 she became president of the Theosophical Society, whose international headquarters were in Adyar, Madras. She also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress. When World War I broke out in 1914, she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India. This led to her election as president of the India National Congress. In the late 1920s, Besant travelled to the United States with her protégé & adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom she claimed was the new Messiah & incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929. She is thought to be the reincarnation of Giordano Bruno

1941 – Holocaust 403 Jews (128 men, 176 women & 99 children) were murdered by Einsatzkommando 3 in Nemencing, Latvia.

1942 – Holocaust in Letychiv, Ukraine. In the course of two days the German SS murders at least 3,000 Jews

1973 – Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome

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Image result for rain painting

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~i sing the rain
in fresh contemplation
of change…

~hag

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Image result for Michaelmas

Today I begin a series on Michaelmas.

MICHAELMAS AND THE SOUL-FORCES OF MAN By RUDOLF STEINER

a Summary by Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

Lecture 1. How can humanity, the earth citizen, become once more a citizen of the cosmos? The expansion of life’s horizon into cosmic reaches brings the human being into the picture of Michael’s Conflict with the Dragon.

The Dragon is not found in the sense world. Where is he? The dragon lives within the human being. “…the outer cosmic conflict of Michael and the Dragon was transferred to the inner human being, because only in human nature could the Dragon now find his sphere of action.”

Because of that Michael now works with us to fight the dragon within human nature.

Steiner gives this picture of the dragon writhing around the animalistic part of humanity, even coiling around the heart; but then — behind us, at the back of the head — the outer cosmic figure of Michael, towering, radiant, retaining his cosmic nature but reflecting it in the higher human nature, so that our etheric body reflects etherically the cosmic figure of Michael. Then there would be visible in the human head — but working down into the heart — the power of Michael, crushing the Dragon and causing blood to flow down from the heart to the limbs.” So we can put our will into action

“…. In the intellect we are isolated from the world, because everyone has their own head, and in that head, their own thoughts. But In our Gemüt we cannot do that, the Gemüt is not dependent upon the head, but on the rhythmic system, bringing us back to where we belong, as a being in the cosmos.”

The Gemüt, as meaning something like: ‘the mind warmed by a loving heart and stimulated by the soul’s imaginative power’.

“…So with our Gemüt we can say: The power of the Dragon is working within me, I might not see it — but I can feel it as a force that wants to drag me down below myself. But in the spirit I see the luminous Angel whose cosmic task has always been the vanquishing of the Dragon. I concentrate my Gemüt upon this glowing figure, I let its light stream into my Gemüt, so that my illumined and warmed Gemüt will bear within it the strength of Michael. And out of a free resolution I will be able, through my alliance with Michael, to conquer the Dragon’s might in my own lower nature.”

“…this activated Gemüt enters into a living relationship with the whole cosmos the moment it indeed comes to life.

Life will not have a true soul content until we can develop cosmic impulses in our Gemüt.”

Image result for Michaelmas

Tomorrow I will bring my summary of lecture 2

Xox

~hag

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 Veil Painting Workshop with David A. Dozier 773-627-0060

Friday Sept. 21, 2018, 7 -9pm, Saturday Sept. 22, 10 am – 5 pm, Sunday Sept. 23, 10 am -1pm

Workshop fee: $135.00 for RSB members, $160.00 for non-members Supply fee: $135.00*

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 Friday 28 September 2018 – COMMUNITY MEETING 

at 7 pm with Ann Burfeind 

Checking in on our local Anthroposophical Initiatives:

Are you a Waldorf Teacher, Branch Member, Christian Community Member, In the Arcturus Teacher Training, Involved with Anthroposophical Medicine, or Bio-Dynamics, Interested in serving the Being of Chicago…? Please come & bring a report, of the new school, or your Spiritual Scientific research…ETC…

We will also have a review of the How We Will Forum2

All in the spirit of Michaelmas

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Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map

Check out our Web site! Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America

The Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…

 

 

 

 

 

From Sulphur to Iron

6 September 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”:  Saturn appears due south now at its highest altitude as darkness falls in early September. The ringed planet shines brighter than any of the background stars in its host constellation, Sagittarius. Saturn’s slow westward motion against this rich Milky Way backdrop comes to a halt today.

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We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost. ~ Gaston Bachelard

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

According to the Julian calendar, the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started on this day in 3114 BC

Albinus: skeleton with less muscle

Deathday of Albinus a Platonist philosopher, who lived at Smyrna, pupil of Gaius the Platonist & teacher of Galen.  A short tract by him, entitled Introduction to Plato’s dialogues, has survived. After explaining the nature of the Dialogue, which he compares to a Drama, he  goes on to divide the Dialogues of Plato into four classes, logical, critical, physical, ethical, & mentions another division of them into Tetralogies, according to their subjects. He advises that the Alcibiades, Phaedo, Republic, & Timaeus, should be read in a series

Deathday of Magnus of Füssen, a missionary saint in southern Germany, of the Orkney Idalnds, also known as the Apostle of the Allgäu, a contemporary of Saint Gall & Saint Boniface

1522 – The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition, returns to Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world

1620 – The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America

1628 – Puritans settle Salem

1729 – Birthday of Moses Mendelssohn, a creative & eclectic thinker whose writings on metaphysics & aesthetics, political theory & theology, together with his Jewish heritage, placed him at the focal point of the German Enlightenment for over three decades

1847 – Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond & moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson& his family in Concord, Massachusetts

1860 – Birthday of Jane Addams, sociologist & author, Nobel Prize laureate

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~my feet are afire with the power of traveling,
arriving, departing, discovering each step…
with each movement
the moment begins again…

~hag

I will be gone to do a short speaking tour in LA, so I will be offline until Sept. 12th 2018, feel free to talk  amognst  yourselves! xox

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Max Wolfhugel

Preparing for Michaelmas:

I watch the shadows lengthen. The angle of the sun, like the lance of Michael, a sunlit spear piercing awake my sleepy summer eyes, banishing the Sulphur, activating the iron in my blood. Am I ready to do battle with the dragon within?

If spiritual science is allowed to live in us & extend its transforming influence to our heart-space, what enters us as thoughts, is then changed, into the substance of light, into the purest light of thought. And in the living enthusiasm of the heart, this light of thought then rays out from our hearts into the macrocosm, as light of the redeemed intelligence of Michael; as enlivened human thought, which can be re-united with the world-thoughts of the gods.

Heart-Thinking is the essence of Michaelmas, as the festival of Enlightenment; where we can learn to experience an unfolding of our inner initiative & a free, strong, courageous will, opposing our love of ease. Yes, it’s easy this time of year, to want to get cozy on the couch, to snuggle up with the dragon, flipping thru the channels, fighting over the remote…

But it is our job to strive to complete the never ending story, with the new Michaelic mysteries put forth by Rudolf Steiner, a true emissary of Michael, teaching us to count the human being as the 10th hierarchy. And so, work we must, as we stand once more on the edge of autumn.

See you there…

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

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From Necessity to Freedom – The Evolution of Human Consciousness, Social Sculpture & Experiential Discourse with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Saturday 8 September 2018 at the Los Angeles Branch 110 Martin Alley, Pasadena, CA 91105. Workshop 10 am – 5 pm

How can I Co-Create with Destiny, to spin the thread of my life with integrity, to heal and clear the collective karma, & achieve my True Becoming?

From the vaporous cleft of Mount Parnassus, and the birth place of Greek Philosophy, to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, and the Holy Grail – From Prophesy to Warning, from Fate to Karma, From Destiny to Free Will. 

What is YOUR life Question?

10 am – Doors Open

10:30 am – Explore the legends of The Greek Moirae and the Nordic Norns, the Orphic Hymn and the Prose Poem Edda

11:30 –Song Circle – To call in and to cut away

12:15 pm – Lunch

1:30 pm – Scrying with the Sibyls – The Prophets and the Sistine Chapel…The evolving human consciousness…

2:30 pm – Socratic Questioning – You have to ask the right question to get the right answer

3:15 pm – Break

3:30 pm – Once Upon A Time NOW – The new story

4 pm – Weaving Past, Present and Future

4:30 pm – Rudolf Steiner’s poem: DESTINY

5 pm – End

Hazel Archer Ginsberg, Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago, The Traveling Speakers Program, and the Central Regional Council of The Anthroposophical Society, Trans-denominational Minister and founder of ‘Reverse Ritual – ‘Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year’

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‘THIS WAR IS NOT INEVITABLE’ (The Threefold Social Organism Theatre Project )

A talk at The Rudolf Steiner Branch with Michael Burton

Thursday Sept. 13th 2018 at 7 pm

The play Written by Michael Hedley Burton and performed by Michael Burton and Christian Peterson, will be preformed at CWS & Urban Prairie Schools, Friday Sept. 14 & 15th. 

Rudolf Steiner launched the idea of the Threefold Social Organism (Threefold Social Order) in 1917 in the hope that this would help shorten the war and prevent another great conflagration from breaking out at a later date. The times were against him then and he was unsuccessful, but the question of the hour is: “Did what Steiner attempt in those years plant a seed that has waited a hundred years to mature in our own age?”

Suggested donation: $10, or more depending on your circumstances

For information about The Threefold Social Organism Theatre Project please contact Lightweight Theatre on 518 928 0491 or michaelburton999@yahoo.com.au or visit www.wordrenewal.org

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Poetic Imagination, Metamorphosis and the Evolution of Consciousness with Luke Fischer

Sunday 16 September 2018, 2 – 4pm

In this lecture, poet and philosopher, Dr Luke Fischer will discuss ways in which the poetry and thought of Goethe, Rilke, Barfield, and Steiner contribute to an understanding of the evolution of consciousness and of the particular significance of poetic imagination. He will also shed light on how his own poetic and philosophical writings have addressed these topics.

Poetry Reading and Piano Recital

Poet and philosopher, Luke Fischer, will share poems from his poetry collections A Personal History of Vision (UWAP Poetry, 2017) and Paths of Flight (Black Pepper, 2013). Pianist Ryan Senger will perform classical piano works.

Bio: Luke Fischer is a poet, philosopher, and writer. His books include the poetry collections A Personal History of Vision (UWAP Poetry, 2017) and Paths of Flight (Black Pepper, 2013), the monograph The Poet as Phenomenologist: Rilke and the New Poems (Bloomsbury, 2015), and the children’s book The Blue Forest (Lindisfarne Books, 2015). He has co-edited a number of works, including a special section of the Goethe Yearbook (2015) on “Goethe and Environmentalism.” He won the 2012 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize and his poems have been anthologized in the Best Australian Poems (2014, 2015, and 2017). He holds a PhD in philosophy and is an honorary associate of the University of Sydney, Australia. For more information see: www.lukefischerauthor.com

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Veil Painting Workshop with David Dozier

Friday Sept. 21, 2018, 7 -9pm

Saturday Sept. 22, 10 am – 5 pm

Sunday Sept. 23, 10 am -1pm

Workshop fee: $135.00 for RSB members, $160.00 for non-members Supply fee: $135.00*

Veil Painting is a watercolor technique special to artists working with the writings of Rudolf Steiner. Transparent watercolors are thinned far more than usual and glazed over one another on white paper to achieve subtle color washes, or ‘veils.’ The colors are never mixed anywhere but on the paper, and then only one at a time in a wash over dry colors. To avoid loss of time to stretching watercolor paper and waiting for it to dry overnight, students will use 300# cold pressed watercolor paper or heavy illustration board for wet media. We will focus on technique and work with painting motifs using Goethe’s Luster Colors (red, yellow, and blue) and Image Colors (white, black green, and peach), also exploring Goethe’s use of Characteristic Colors, Non-characteristic Colors, and Harmonious Colors in varying combinations on small panels, the Goethean color wheel on a larger panel, with space for a free painting to try and find an image out of the color itself. Supplies: All supplies will be provided for participants out of the supply fee, and will become their personal materials to take home including; brushes, paper, color, jars, rags, tape, ruler, pencil, sharpener, eraser. Participants will be completely equipped to work at home after the workshop, including colors and where to buy additional supplies when needed.

To Register Send check by September 7th to: David Dozier 1050 Columbia Ave. #3E Chicago, IL 60626

*Anyone taking the workshop that believes they already have all the tools and materials they need and wishes to avoid paying the supply fee should speak to Mr. Dozier personally at 773-627-0060, and review their tools and materials against the supply list with him by September 1st, since supplies have to ordered at least two weeks in advance.

Bio: Since 1997 David A. Dozier has taught art history, digital art, painting in oils, pastels and watercolor, black & white drawing, calligraphy and block printing at the Chicago Waldorf School, as well as drawing skills to adults in the Arcturus Rudolf Steiner Education program. He has a Master’s degree in Education (with a Certificate in Waldorf Education) from Antioch New England Graduate School, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual Communication from Layton School of Art and Design with academic accreditation from Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI.

Cosmic Iron

11 August 2018, ‘Speaking with the Stars’: Perseid meteor showers

The Perseid meteor showers are back, heralding the season of Michael. The shooting stars awaken us. This dose of cosmic iron is the perfect medicine for today’s Lunur Eclipse. We must take it in consciously to strengthen our Michaelic impulse for the spiritual battle ahead.

According to Johnathan Hilton of the Astrosophy Research Center Perseus is a cosmic starry imagination of Michael.  He stands with sword of iron raised in one hand and in the other the decapitated head of Medusa with her serpent hair and eyes that turn all who gaze upon her to stone, symbol of the old clairvoyance. He has rescued Andromeda, the chained princess, from the approaching sea monster Cetus. From the forehead of Andromeda springs the constellation Pegasus, the winged intelligence.  This 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 and the past in the sea monster and the deadening forces of Ahriman’s cold intellect in the gaze of Medusa.

A study of The Michael Mystery by 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 and be connected to the same divine spiritual forces that created the human in the beginning of time.

If we look for, or even use our imaginative cognition to picture inwardly this cosmic offering, we can carry the thought of Michael/Perseus in our heart-thinking, to consciously align with our Time-Spirit. 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 through our thinking hearts becomes enlightened by Wisdom, helping us overcome the darkness with love.

This annual celestial event, gifting us with the cosmic iron of Michael, begins 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, So this year, we could see up to 150-200 meteors per hour, TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT.

The best views will come in the predawn hours. 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.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Those who work with the Original indications in the Calendar of the Soul know that Rudolf Steiner lists the birth & death days, as well as other significant occurrences of various individualities, along with the dates in the calendar.

He said of this: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of mankind’s spiritual development” ~Rudolf Steiner. This is my inspiration.

3114 BC – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, notably the Mayans, begins

305 – Deathday of Saint Philomena, Steiner speaks of her as being a Greek priestess martyred at age 13 by Roman Emperor Diocletian.

559 – Birthday of Radegunde, Thuringian princess & Frankish queen, who founded the Abbey of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, named for holding the relic of the True Cross. Radegunde ate nothing but legumes & green vegetables, she was widely believed to have the gift of healing.

1253 –  Deathday of Saint Clare of Assisi, an Italian saint & one of the first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi

1464 – Deathday of Nicholas of Cusa, a German philosopher, theologian, jurist, & astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual & political contributions in European history. A notable example of this is his mystical or spiritual writings on “learned ignorance,” as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome & the German states of the Holy Roman Empire

1877 – The two moons of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer. He named them Phobos & Deimos

1896 – Harvey Hubbell received a patent for the electric light bulb socket with a pull-chain

1942 – Actress Hedy Lamarr & composer George Antheil receive a patent for a Frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones & Wi-Fi

1956 – Deathday of Jackson Pollock

1965 – the Watts Race Riots begin in Los Angeles, California

1972 – Vietnam War: The last United States ground combat unit leaves South Vietnam

1984 –”My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I just signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” -Said as a joke by senile President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, on his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio.

2012 – At least 1306 people are killed & 3,000 others injured in a pair of earthquakes near Tabriz, Iran

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Cliff Smith

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

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“…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

John Stolfo

May we all take arms with Michael in right awakened consciousness

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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Support the Youth: Art, performance, poetry.

Sunday August 12th 7-10pm

at Elderberries Chicago 4251 N. Lincoln Ave.

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HOW WE WILL

Thursday, August 30, 2018 at 2 PM- Monday, September 3, 2018 at 1 PM.

Frank Agrama and Dottie Zold, of the Elderberries Threefold Cafe, the Have Seeds House community, & the Urban First Aid – Art As Medicine are living into the Threefold Commonwealth. They have invited John Bloom of Rudolf Steiner Finance and Nathaniel Williams of Free Columbia and Seth Jordan of the ThinkOutWord movement to engage our deeper understanding of the principles of Rudolf Steiner’s social threefolding and the working relationships between the Economic/Kinship, Political/Equal Rights and the Cultural/Freedom realms.

Brian Gray of Rudolf Steiner College, will join us each night around a EarlyFire and Starry World imagination as we prepare the table of dedicating Elderberries 3Fold Cafe Chicago to Willi Sucher and his work with the starry worlds.

Kait Ziegler and Destiny Nolen, lead organizers in California’s Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, (PPC) will lead us on an exploration of the questions that are living very strongly and openly in the youth of today; who are looking for a more just, sustainable, diverse and humane world.

We have invited friends from all over the country and world working in the fields of Agriculture (Johannes Kronenberg) Medicine (Molly McMullen-Laird), Technology insights, New Economic Forms (Seth Jordan), Art (Kiara Nage) Community Activism (Daniel Evaeus), and Education (Elizabeth Roosevelt Weeks, Joan Jaeckel), to see how and where our core values intersect, and, if we can imagine how a threefold commonwealth structural form can come into being in today’s time.

And we invite YOU to bring your voice, questions and experiences, so we can have a large, diverse, representative community weaving through the differences and the commonalities of our core values.

Moving from study, conversation, prototyping, biography work (Leah Walker), presentations, initiative panels and artivism, Theory U will be the skill set structure we move through: deep listening, suspending our judgments, fears and cynicism. Creating a space for others to be safe and to be free allows for something new to come forth that will be our building blocks towards a Beloved Community of Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Will. This will be the way to our new humanity which of course we ourselves must be the image.

Registration is now open! https://howwewill.blog/register/

#HowWeWill2018
#BareBonesOrganizing
#ThreefoldingOurCulturalRevolution

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Thursday Sept. 13th 7-9pm

A conversation with Michael Burton

 IS WAR INEVITABLE?

The Threefold Social Organism – 1919 and 2019 – and the new mystery drama, ‘When the Will Awakens’, that gave birth to it.

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Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) Check out our Web site! Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)

The Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc… 

Inflamed with the Fire of Truth

20 May 2018 – Astro-Weather: Venus crossed the border from Taurus the Bull into Gemini the Twins yesterday, & tonight She slides north of the Beehive Cluster.

Sun in Bull: Pentecost by Jonathan Hilton

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Love is the final end of the world’s history, the Amen of the universe” ~Novalis

Jim Whalen

Pentecost (50 Days after Easter) Whitsunday:

  • Festival of United Soul Endeavor & Spirit Community
  • Festival of the Higher Self & the Universal Human Being
  • Festival of the Holy Spirit
  • Festival of Flowers
  • Festival of the human being released from materialism
  • Festival of the purified astral body

Martin Bridge

World Bee Day – Birthday in 1734 of Anton Janša, the pioneer of beekeeping.The purpose of this international day is to acknowledge the role of bees & other pollinators for our ecosytem

First Council of Nicaea

325 – The First Council of Nicaea is formally opened, starting the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church. Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of God the Son & His relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Nicene Creed, & establishing uniform observance of the date of Easter, & the promulgation of early canon law.

1497 – John Cabot sets sail from Bristol, England, on his ship Matthew looking for a route to the west.

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Calicuta India.

1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.

1609 – Shakespeare’s sonnets are illicitly published in London, by Thomas Thorpe.

1631 – The city of Magdeburg in Germany is seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire & most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty Years’ War.

1645 – Yangzhou massacre: the 10-day massacre of 900,000 residents of the city of Yangzhou, part of the Transition from Ming to Qing.

1802 – By the Law of 20 May 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstates slavery in the French colonies, revoking its abolition in the French Revolution.

1813 – Napoleon Bonaparte leads his French troops into the Battle of Bautzen in Saxony, Germany, against the combined armies of Russia and Prussia. The battle ends the next day with a French victory

1862 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law

1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people.

1891 –The first public display of Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope.

1902 – Cuba gains independence from the United States.

1940 –The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1956 – In Operation Redwing, the first United States airborne hydrogen bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean

1983 – First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.

1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

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Elaine Welker

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~To my body I gave the power of my heart
Bee love & create I said
Beat within the grace of the world’s rhythms
A radiant sun
In tune with the music of becoming
A ferry thru dark churning waves
An oasis flowing with fresh waters
On the high tide of blessings
To open my head
to pure thought unfolded
~hag

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Whitsun Contemplation

At the Turning Point of Time the ego or “I” of Zarathustra had to leave the body of Jesus at the Baptism, to allow the Christ Being to enter; appearing 1st like a dove above the head of John the Baptist as the voice of the father god was heard. Only the “I” of the Nathan Jesus, which was pure, could bear the Christ, & only for 3 years.

Knowing this we may ask: How can The Christ live in us without driving out our “I” or completely extinguishing our individuality with its cosmic forces?

We are able to strive to live into the ideal of ‘Not I, but Christ in me’, only because Christ sent the Holy Spirit, which enables the human “I” to receive the Christ Being fully. Rudolf Steiner tells us: “Christ wanted to dwell amongst humankind, but He did not want to obscure the emerging ego-consciousness of human beings. He had done this once in Jesus, in whom from the Baptism onwards a consciousness of the Son lived in place of his ego-consciousness. But this was not something that was to take place in people of future times. In the case of such people the ego was to be able to rise up in full consciousness, and yet the Christ could dwell with them…so Christ sent that divine being who does not extinguish ego-consciousness, that humanity might be able to retain their ego-consciousness and have the Christ dwell within them.” (GA 214, 30 July 1922) 

In the ‘Farewell Discourses’ from St. John’s Gospel, Christ Himself characterizes this coming of the Spirit of Truth: “But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit Whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and awaken your memory of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26)

In the 5th Gospel, Steiner talks about how for 40 days after the Resurrection, The Christ was able to provide secret teachings to the disciples about the mysteries of the spiritual world, together with its significance not only for the evolution of the human & earthly world, but also for the world of the gods. But that the disciples were in a sort of mystic state of mind, not fully conscious.

So, as also indicated in the ‘Farewell Discourses’, The Holy Spirit comes to reach right into the inner being of the disciples in order to dwell there as Wisdom, leading to a clear & conscious understanding of these essential secrets of the Mystery of Golgotha.

And so it is that this promise comes to fulfillment 50 days after the Resurrection, on that 1st Whitsun morning, amidst the surging winds, that the disciples might become apostles, taking up their individual tasks; speaking from the heart -the language that all may understand.

As spirit-pupils in the School of Spiritual Science striving to make the content of the Lessons of the 1st Class alive within us, especially the 18th lesson, which brings us to the Cosmic Realm of the Holy Spirit of Truth, the source of the Paraclete; we can achieve a reality where a renewed Whitsun is possible, now & in the times to come.

~hag

Here are my art collages from our Whitsun 2018

 

 

Air & Essence

10 May 2018 – Astro-Weather: These spring nights, the long, dim sea serpent Hydra snakes across the southern sky. Find his head, a rather dim asterism about the width of your thumb at arm’s length, in the southwest. (It’s lower right of Regulus by about two fists at arm’s length. Also, a line from Castor through Pollux points to it about 2½ fists away.) Lower left of this is Hydra’s heart, orange Alphard. Hydra’s tail stretches all the way to Libra in the southeast. Hydra’s star pattern, from forehead to tail-tip, is 95° long.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Bonnat

Feast Day of Job

Kathy Lee

1908 – Mother’s Day is observed for the first time in the United States, in Grafton, West Virginia.

1818 – Death day of Paul Revere, American engraver & soldier. Revere was the Grand Master of the Freemasons of Massachusetts when a box containing an assemblage of commemorative items was deposited under the cornerstone of the Massachusetts State House on 4 July 1795 by Governor Samuel Adams.

1924 – J. Edgar Hoover is appointed first Director of the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), & remains so until his death in 1972.

1933 – Censorship: In Germany, the Nazis stage massive public book burnings.

1940 – World War II: German fighters accidentally bomb the German city of Freiburg.

1940 – World War II: German raids on British shipping convoys & military airfields begin.

1940 – World War II: Germany invades Belgium, the Netherlands &Luxembourg.

1940 – World War II: Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain.

1940 – World War II: Invasion of Iceland by the United Kingdom.

1941 – World War II: The House of Commons in London is damaged by the Luftwaffe in an air raid.

1941 – World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland to try to negotiate a peace deal between the United Kingdom & Nazi Germany.

1994 – Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president.

1997 – The 7.3 Mw Qayen earthquake strikes Iran’s Khorasan Province, killing 10,567, injuring over 2,300, leaving 50,000 homeless, & destroying over 15,000 homes.

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Betty Lighe

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Chaos adds its odd time meter
To the harmony of the spheres
Can we hear beyond the speed of light?
~hag

***

Eddie Catz

Ascension Thursday!

The Christ-Revelation ‘Coming in the Clouds’ is here- Showing us the bridge that brings a harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds. At the Ascension Christ becomes “Lord of the heavenly forces upon earth”.  The fulfillment of the secret promise of the Ascension, is the Second Coming.

It was said to the apostles, “He will come again, in like manner, as you have seen Him go up into the clouds of heaven.”  The Ascension is the seed of this Second Coming, & the Second Coming is the fulfillment of the Ascension.

The poet Novalis touched on this occult truth:
“In heavy clouds let Him ascend
And so also let Him downward tread.
In cooling streams let Him be sent,
In flames of fire blaze His descent,
In air & essence, sound & dew
To permeate our whole earth thru”

These lines from Novalis are a true prayer revealing the occult connection between the Ascension & the Second Coming. Here we also see that elemental beings form the earth under the patronage & protection of the higher worlds. In this way Ascension can be called the Festival of the Elements.

When we attune ourselves to beings such as Raphael, Archangel of spring, we can awaken to the way these spiritual entities constantly interact with earth thru the elements. The messengers of cosmic warmth in the rays of the sun activate the ascension of the element of water. Through its union with air, clouds originate. In the cloud, between depths of earth & heavenly heights, in the sphere of the etheric realm, a mobile balance manifests. – We see it in the blue sky, dancing with ever changing clouds. It is the primal image of metamorphosis, of organic forming & transforming- the never-resting developing, blessed by the heights. For this reason, blossoms & fruits are in reality not just products of earth but heavenly forms filled with earthly substance, like us.

And so for 40 days after the Resurrection, amidst this seasonal activity, the apostles received from the risen Christ his esoteric teachings; essentially the contents of the 5th Gospel given to us by Rudolf Steiner. -Then they witnessed The Christ, being received into the clouds, passing out of their sight – an expansion of His being – like the unfolding of a flower into the universe.

Rudolf Steiner tells us, that at the same time, the vivid spiritual reality of what would have happened to earth existence if the mystery of Golgotha had not occurred; came into their consciousness. – It was revealed to them that human bodies would have so deteriorated that all of humanity would have perished.

Our physical bodies have earth-gravity, but our etheric bodies have sun levity, so if the Christ deed had not taken place, our etheric bodies would have left the physical for good as well, & the existence of mankind would have come to an end, having no formative forces to give them life.

So as a result of the conversations over the 40 days with The Risen Christ, the apostles were able to receive the primal sources of a new imaginative clairvoyance, removing the veil hiding the true image of death, which is really a facet of the Father-God in the aspect of Creator – What is born must die, but thru Christ death becomes life.

So in the scene of the Ascension we have an indication of the all-encompassing influence of the Christ Being, as the Lord of Karma, upon the life of the human soul after death.  –

To read the entire lecture:  Ascension: Climbing Jacobs Ladder

Blessings & Peace –

~hag = Hazel ArcherGinsberg 

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Ivan Filichev

Thursday 10 May 2018 – 7 pm – 9 pm

A Special Study for Ascension Thursday-

Easter, Ascension, Whitsun and the Essntial Nature of the Foundation Stone of the Christmas Conference” by Sergi O. Prokofieff from his book “The Cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation”

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Saturday May 12th 2018 – 10 am

Work Party in the Warehouse Space with Mihai Rosu. Snacks to share encouraged. Dress for mess.

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Liane Collot d’Herbois

Friday 18 May 2018, 7pm–9pm – The 3rd & final phase of Easter-Tide-

Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul-Endeavor,

Art Projections & Lecture with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg.

Musical Performances TBA, 

Experiential Social Art,

Foundation Stone Meditation

for more info. Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

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Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) Check out our Web site! Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)

The Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…