Category Archives: Poetry

Doctor & Saint

May 18, 2016Chicago Event, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering~hag

May 18, 2016 “The history of the world is but the biography of great men”. ~THOMAS CARLYLE

1048 – Birthday of Omar Khayyám, Persian mathematician, astronomer, & poet

1474 – Birth-day of Isabella d’Este, Regent in Mantua, (a city in Lombardy, Italy) one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance, a major cultural & political figure. She was a patron of the arts, supporting Raphael, Mantegna, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, as well as a leader of fashion, whose innovative style of dress was copied throughout Italy & at the French court. She was called: The “liberal & magnanimous Isabella” “supreme among women” “The First Lady of the world”.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination.

1896 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that the “separate but equal” doctrine is constitutional

1910 – The Earth passes through the tail of Comet Halley.

1933 – New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority

1951 –United Nations Security Council Resolution 93, adopted after hearing a report that a “prearranged & planned attack ordered by Israel authorities” was “committed by Israel regular army forces against the Egyptian regular army” in the Gaza Strip on February 28, 1951.

The Council condemned this attack as a violation of the cease-fire previsions of UNSC Resolution 54 & as inconsistent with the obligations of the parties under the General Armistice Agreement between Egypt and Israel & under the United Nations Charter.

The Council again called upon Israel to take all necessary measures to prevent such actions & expressed its conviction that the maintenance of the General Armistice Agreement is threatened by any deliberate violation of it & that no progress towards the return of peace in Palestine can be made until both parties comply strictly with their obligations.

~ ~ ~

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: no pity or wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

But helpless pieces in the game He plays,
Upon this chequer-board of Nights and Days,
He hither and thither moves, and checks… and slays,
Then one by one, back in the Closet lays.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out of the same Door as in I went.

With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour’d it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d—
“I came like Water, and like Wind I go.”

Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither, willy-nilly blowing.

And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop’t we live and die,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And answer’d “I Myself am Heav’n and Hell”

~ Omar Khayyám

~ ~ ~

From Marke Levene : Chicago is the Next Step on the Journey

The origin of the drama that we call The Working of the Spirit came in the form of an imagination experienced by Marke Levene. This experience occurred to him at the end of decades’ long work with the mystery dramas written and produced by Rudolf Steiner from 1910 through 1914.

When in 2012 after a pralaya (rest) of 17 years Marke made a decision to pursue production of what he had observed and engaged the help of a circle of past and new associates. The emphasis has been since the beginning on producing a work with artistic integrity. Michael Hedley Burton worked with the group to produce drafts of the text of the drama. Over years and in meetings at locations around the world persons of the development group in sometimes heated exchanges honed the imagination and text into a work with artistic merit. Marke and his company of actors felt well enough about the product that they have brought it for the first time to the public in the form of a readers’ theater. The unveiling took place first in Copake, NY. Members in the audience had to react and speak with the cast following the performance and throughout the next day. And now you may be able to join in this first unveiling. Read more here.

Lemniscate Arts & The Readers Theatre Presents: Opening the Realm of New Mystery Drama –

“The Working of the Spirit” –

Saturday May 21 and Sunday May 22, 2016.

10:30am to 6:30pm – Each day is a staged reading in full with breaks, of the new drama.

Contribution $15.00 – $45.00 per presentation –

Get your tickets now at www.workingofthespirit.org

The troupe of actors will arrive in Chicago to rehearse May 18, 19, & 20 with the readings happening May 21 & 22.

Some of the actors need housing in Chicago. If you have space in your home, contact Barbara Richardson brichardson@centerforanthroposophy.org

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

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

Beacon of Possibility

May 17, 2016Chicago Event, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

May 17, 2016 “The thing itself is one; the images are many. What leads to a perceptive understanding of the thing is not the focus on one image, but the viewing of many images together.” ~Rudolf Steiner

1510 – Death-day of Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter of the “golden age” of the Early Renaissance. He belonged to the Florentine School under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Among Botticelli’s best-known works are The Birth of Venus & Primavera.

1606 – Murder of False Dmitriy I, the only Tsar ever raised to the throne by means of a military campaign. He was the first, & most successful, of three “impostors” who claimed, during the Time of Troubles, to be the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible.

Dmitriy married polish priestess Marina Mniszech. It was the usual practice that when a Russian Tsar married a woman of another faith, she would convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but she didn’t because Dmitriy had obtained the support of Polish King Sigismund III Vasa & Pope Paul V by promising to reunite the Russian Orthodox Church & the Holy See.

This was considered a betrayal. Ten days after his marriage, commoners stormed the Kremlin & killed Dmitriy. The body was put on display & then cremated, the ashes shot from a cannon towards Poland.

He was the primary character in the opera Boris Godunov, & Modest Mussorgsky’s opera of the same name. His story is also told by Schiller in Demetrius, by Antonín Dvořák in his opera Dimitrij, & Rainer Maria Rilke recounts the overthrow of the False Dimitriy in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge; Rilke’s only longer prose work. Harold Lamb fictionalizes the demise of the False Dimitriy in “The Wolf Master”.

1792 – New York Stock Exchange founded

1922 – Riot at a Rudolf Steiner lecture in Munich, reported in the New York Times: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C01E5DF1F3CE533A25754C1A9639C946395D6CF

1973 – Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate.

~ ~ ~

~I have stoked the great fires of perhaps

And become the beacon of possibility

Leading the way into the unknown

Embers of right now…

~hag

~ ~ ~

“We must emphasize again and again that the anthroposophical world-conception fosters a consciousness of the common source of art, religion and science. During ancient periods of evolution these three were not separated; they existed in unity. The Mysteries which fostered that unity were a kind of combination art institute, church and school. For what they offered was not a one-sided sole dependence upon language. The words uttered by the initiate as both cognition and spiritual revelation were supported and illustrated by sacred rituals unfolding, before listening spectators, in mighty pictures” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Arts and Their Mission 1923

Lemniscate Arts & The Readers Theatre Presents: Opening the Realm of New Mystery Drama –

“The Working of the Spirit” –

Saturday May 21 and Sunday May 22, 2016.

10:30am to 6:30pm – Each day is a staged reading in full with breaks, of the new drama.

Contribution $15.00 – $45.00 per presentation – Get your tickets now at www.workingofthespirit.org

The troupe of actors will arrive in Chicago to rehearse May 18, 19, & 20 with the readings happening May 21 & 22.

Some of the actors need housing in Chicago. If you have space in your home, contact Barbara Richardson brichardson@centerforanthroposophy.org

We Are

May 16, 2016Chicago Event, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering~hag

May 16, 2016

1164 – Death-day of Heloise, pupil & lover of Abelard

1568 – Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England

1770 – A 14-year-old Marie Antoinette marries 15-year-old Louis-Auguste who later becomes king of France

1888 – Nikola Tesla delivers a lecture describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currents to transmit electric power over long distances

1916 – A century ago today, diplomats from Britain & France set about carving up the former Ottoman Empire, drawing boundaries & separating peoples based on Western imperialist interests, which came to be the Sykes–Picot Agreement. The disastrous effects of the agreement were felt immediately & continues to shape the Middle East today as it lies at the root of the nightmares in Syria &Iraq.

Helmuth von Moltke’s ‘worst day’ – a message received by Rudolf Steiner from Moltke after his death. Steiner followed this soul in the spiritual world where previews of the future were seen, ie. The rise of Hitler & many other things; read ‘Light for the New Millennium’ edited by T. H. Meyer. This collection of previously unpublished letters & documents deals with themes that are of tremendous significance for our time: karma & reincarnation; life after death; the workings of evil…http://www.perseus.ch/PDF-Dateien/MoltkeIntroduction.pdf

1918 – The Sedition Act of 1918 is passed by the U.S. Congress, making criticism of the government during wartime a prison offense

1920 –Pope Benedict XV canonizes Joan of Arc

1966 – The Communist Party of China issues the “May 16 Notice”, marking the beginning of the Cultural Revolution

1988 – A report by the Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin & cocaine

~ ~ ~

~We are

Growing, remembering, forgetting, becoming…

The many are One

Face changing expression

~hag

~ ~ ~

Lemniscate Arts presents: Opening the Realm of New Mystery Drama –

“The Working of the Spirit” –

Saturday May 21 and Sunday May 22, 2016. at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618

10:30am to 6:30pm – Each day is a staged reading in full with breaks, of the new drama.

Contribution $15.00 – $45.00 per presentation – Get your tickets now at www.workingofthespirit.org

A Mystery Play is a dramatic form that has been passed down through the ages. It differs from other plays by showing on stage the connection between the spiritual world and the earth; it reveals the activity of the spiritual beings who work from the heavens to help or hinder human beings in their earthly lives.

The troupe of actors will arrive in Chicago to rehearse May 18, 19, & 20 with the readings happening May 21 & 22.

They are looking for housing in Chicago. If you have space for an actor to stay in your home contact Barbara Richardson brichardson@centerforanthroposophy.org

They are also filling in some of the parts with local actors. If you would like to read a part contact director Marke Levene 707-695-2969

Lemniscate Arts, One International Blvd, Suite 400, Mahwah, NJ 07495 registered 501(c)3

Friday the 13th

May 13, 2016Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Spring~hag

Friday the 13^th May 2016, 2nd Quarter Moon “Study the past if you would define the future.” ~Confucius

Image: 0051465001, License: Rights managed, Restrictions: Image available for use in the Corbis Education Offering., Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was ordered burned at the stake by King Philip IV of France. Illustration from the end of the 19th century., Place: Paris, France, Model Release: No or not aplicable, Credit line: Profimedia.com, Corbis — Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was ordered burned at the stake by King Philip IV of France.

1314 – 54 Templars burnt at the stake in Paris.

“…With a mysticism such as was unfolded by the Knights Templar, something spiritual is added to the spiritual “effects” of the world. And inasmuch as this took place, humanity was actually brought a stage further in its evolution. Through this experience of the Templars, the Mystery of Golgotha was understood, and also experienced, at a higher stage than before. Something was now present in the world, in regard to this Mystery of Golgotha, which was formerly not there”…

“Fifty-four Templars were burned at the stake in 1314. Fifty-four souls went up into the spiritual worlds. And from that time on, supersensibly and invisibly, without its being outwardly perceptible to the facts of history, there began in European humanity a spiritual development that owed its origin to the fact that individual souls were continually being inspired from the spiritual world with what these fifty-four souls carried through the gate of death into the spiritual world…” ~Rudolf Steiner The Templars, Dornach, 2nd October 1916, GA 171

1846 – Mexican–American War: The United States declares war on Mexico.

1880 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.

1917 – Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima. Three children report the first apparition in Fátima, Portugal.

~ ~ ~

Friday the 13^th

What is at the root of “triskadekaphobia” ? (the fear of the number 13) All numbers have their own cosmic vibration and “13” is considered an unstable number. From the time when humans first used numbers to measure things, the number 12 has represented a common cosmic standard. There are 12 months of the year, 12 hours on the clock, 12 signs of the Zodiac, 12 Tribes of Israel, 12 Apostles, 12 Knights of the Round Table and so on. The number 13 represents disruption to the established order.

The modern basis for the aura that surrounds Friday the 13th stems from Friday May the 13th, 1314. On this date, the Pope of the church in Rome, in Conjunction with the King of France, carried out a secret death warrant Against “the Knights Templar”. The Templars were terminated as heretics, never again to hold the power that they had wielded for so long. On this date their Grand Master, Jacques DeMolay, along with 54 other Templars, were arrested and killed; and so began the antipathy to Friday the 13th.

But In pre-Christian societies, reliance on a lunar calendar meant that Friday the 13th could coincide with the Full Moon or New Moon. It was a day to honor the goddess Freya, which is where we get the name for Friday, ruler of the planet Venus, in a day-long love-fest! Friday the 13th symbolized a day for everyone to let go, party, and sacrifice routine. Such breaks in the usual order allowed for the restoration of balance and harmony.

The Scandinavian belief that the number 13 signified bad luck sprang from their mythological 12 demigods, who were joined by a 13th -Loki, a cruel trickster god who often brought great misfortune upon humans .

The number 13, in the Christian faith, is the number of people at the Last Supper, with the 13th guest at the table being the traitor, Judas.

Whether or not a person considers Friday the 13th as unlucky, belief in superstitions offers a sense of control in stressful situations. Today’s beliefs may very well be tomorrows superstitions.

Until then, however, don’t step on a crack!

Take a cue from our forebears. They saw the number 13 as a lucky omen, a time to make a new beginning and seek new roads to success and satisfaction as we open our heart and mind to new opportunities, luck and love!

~hag

~ ~ ~

Dear Friends –

During our time together on this Whitsun day, we will creatively explore ‘Biography work’ which teaches us to approach the exploration of our life experience with the objectivity of a scientist and the soulfulness of an artist. Questions can act as catalysts for a new way of seeing each other, a new quality of interacting to arise.

As Steiner’s Whitsun verse states: “This portal’s key the Soul may fashion, If she herself grow strong within the strife”

Whitsun-Day, 15 May 2016, 2pm -4pm ~Festival of United Soul Endeavor, A Biography Atelier with Leah Walker

$10 includes all artistic materials

Warmth: Contraction/Expansion –

The Pulse of Me & We – AUM = A – I stand for myself, U – I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life

Welcome Circle

What is Whitsun?

What is Biography Work?

It is good to remember that biography work (just like Whitsun) is really for the future–a more human and moral future. It is an antidote to our increasing individuality, a remedy for the isolation so many of us feel deeply, painfully. It is a new art form. In this, our current time, we may simply take small steps with and through biography–we may strive to develop this potentially great work. ~Leah Walker

Exploring Ourselves as ‘Social Artist’:

‘Postcards’ – Imaginations that deepen our inner feeling for the role others play in creating who we are.

‘Life Triptych’ – Spontaneous Sketches, that open us to real moments from our lives; revealing the nature of our Spirit Self-hood.

We may therefore picture to ourselves that, by uniting in brotherliness in working groups, something hovers invisibly over our work, something like the child of the forces of the spirit self– the spirit self that is nurtured by the beings of the higher hierarchies in order that it may stream down into our souls…In our groups we perform work that streams upward to those forces that are being prepared for the spirit self. ~Rudolf Steiner, Preparing for the Sixth Epoch, Dusseldorf, June 15, 1915

Spirit Recalling, Spirit Sensing, Spirit Beholding

Light divine,

Christ-Sun,

Warm Our hearts;

Enlighten Our heads;

That good may become

What from our hearts, We are founding,

What from our heads, We direct,

With focused will.

~Rudolf Steiner, The foundation Stone Mediation

Snacks to Share encouraged !

For more info. Contact ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg ReverseRitual@gmail.com

~ ~ ~

Lemniscate Arts presents: Opening the Realm of New Mystery Drama –

“The Working of the Spirit” –

Saturday May 21 and Sunday May 22, 2016.

10:30am to 6:30pm – Each day is a staged reading in full with breaks, of the new drama.

Contribution $15.00 – $45.00 per presentation – Get your tickets now at www.workingofthespirit.org

The troupe of actors will arrive in Chicago to rehearse May 18, 19, & 20 with the readings happening May 21 & 22.

They are looking for housing in Chicago. If you have space for an actor to stay in your home contact Barbara Richardson brichardson@centerforanthroposophy.org

They are also filling in some of the parts with local actors. If you would like to read a part contact director Marke Levene 707-695-2969

Lemniscate Arts, One International Blvd, Suite 400, Mahwah, NJ 07495 registered 501(c)3

~ ~ ~

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

In Truth & Beauty I Stand

May 12, 2016Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Lecture, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Spring~hag

May 12, 2016

1820 – Birthday of Florence Nightingale, Italian-English nurse, social reformer, & statistician

1921 – Birthday of Joseph Beuys, German sculptor, performance artist & illustrator

1933 – The Agricultural Adjustment Act is enacted to restrict agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies.

2002 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.

2008 – An 8.0 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan, China, kills over 69,000 people

~ ~ ~

Pentathlon Chant:

In Truth & Beauty I Stand – Athena Your Wisdom Lights My way

In Truth & Beauty I stand – Centered In Strength & Purpose

In Truth & Beauty I Stand – To Carry the Torch of Victory!

In Truth & Beauty I Stand – In-between Heaven & Earth I Am

In Truth & Beauty I Stand – Upright & Reverent I Wear the Crown

In Truth & Beauty I Stand – To Carry The Torch of Victory!

~hag

~ ~ ~

Part 4, the last of this series, from the lecture: Vitae Sophia- The New Mysteries of ‘I’ and ‘WE’, a ‘Hero’s Journey’ from head to heart by Hazel Archer Ginsberg

As Anthroposophers we know that when people are united in higher wisdom, when communities arise, not thru necessity or heredity, but through free will, a group-soul descends from the spiritual worlds.

And human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the source of wisdom, like flowers turning toward the sun.

Where separate egos are united by a common truth, “Where the senses can know no more”, the higher group-soul can descend.

If, today, together we Will to turn our hearts towards a higher wisdom, to set fire to the forces of knowledge in our souls, redeeming our intelligence, our Anthroposophical angel, if you will, can anchor & embody itself in the environment we prepare for it.

For this to happen, we need to let go of judgment. When we let go of opinion, we can find truth. And then we can let the ground of our souls become warm.

With focused will we can let the ‘Light Divine

Warm our Hearts

Enlighten our Heads’

That Good May Become’.

So let’s apply some spiritual science eh? Heat rises right? & so it is with our inner being. When we warm our hearts, then the spirit responds. The light-flame from above, answers, to the warmth-flame from below.

And how do we do this? By celebrating the festivals of course.

Schiller once said “Take the divine into your will & it descends from its cosmic throne.”

~ ~ ~

Odilon Redon

This ends the lecture Click to read the entire thing

Come join us for our upcoming Whitsun Festival May 15 featuring Biography Worker Leah Walker

Until soon

Blessings & Peace –

~hag = Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Current Festival & Program Events

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Category Archives: Poetry

Doctor & Saint

Beacon of Possibility

We Are

Friday the 13th

In Truth & Beauty I Stand

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