Category Archives: Poetry

Kamaloca

September 12, 2022Biography, History, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars~hag

In Bloom Painting by Todd Trainer — Scarlet Bonner

POD
~Bloom, my upright skeleton
With soft flowers of vital compost
Fetid in Autumn’s withering
Bloom, heart-head dreaming
My Crone womb carries you forward
Willing the grave to sprout from within
Bloom, soul-forces purified & ready
Let tears embrace the wind
To wipe weary eyes – unsealing the focus
Bloom now, in freedom won
~hag

Dear friends – I felt it important to bring forth the ideas from Anthroposophy around these mysterious “Pre-Earthly Deeds” from yesterday’s post MY TURN – to remind us that “The Christ Will encircling us holds sway, in world-rhythms bestowing grace upon souls” – That the spiritual world is forever gifting us.

How can we better receive the investment? Can we triple it, & then give back unselfishly of ourselves too?

During this illness I have felt the presence of the so-called dead very strongly. So many have been enslaved by the adversarial forces using them to further sickness & destruction in the world – Many are just lost, having lived a barren materialistic existence & are now stuck as hungry ghosts who can never be satisfied. Many are yearning to work with us to spiritualize the Earth. They want to help us create the conditions for the 6^th Cultural Epoch that they need to be born into.

CG (yep he got it too) & I were talking about how going thru this has felt like a kind of Kamaloca experience. This was a real lightbulb moment – to think how for 1/3 of our lives on earth we will suffer the heat & cold of our undigested passions in our spiritual journey of expanding out to the Moon Sphere before we can pass thru the other planetary dimensions in our life between death & rebirth.

Many a-long night I wished for the sweet arms of death to enfold me, so that I could be born into the spiritual world, free of my body, but then this Kamaloca thought quickened me to fight ever more to stay alive – And ask: How can I let go of my attachments now, to help lessen the load when my time does come to cross the threshold of death?

Xox

~hag

“…illness can be the very thing that makes us fit to carry out our karmic obligations in another life. Here we have a secret karmic connection between illness and further development, for in reality illness is a process of further development.” ~Rudolf Steiner, THE BEING OF MAN AND HIS FUTURE EVOLUTION, GA 107, Lecture VI. Illness and Karma, Berlin, 26th January 1909

12 September 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”:

Think Outside the Box | Jesús Gil Hernández — Jesus Gil Hernandez

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.~ Martin Luther King

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The Holy Name of Mary (Diary of a Parish Priest)

The Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary

In Our Lady’s time, Aramaic was the spoken language. In Hebrew, the name Mary is Miryam, Meaning: “Bitter Sea,” “Myrrh of the Sea”, “The Enlightened One,” “The Light Giver,” & especially “Star of the Sea”= Stella Maris.

One of the local traditions holds that this feast day was commemorated in Vienna by the creation of a new kind of pastry shaped in the form of a half-moon (the croissant) The feast is also a counterpart to the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.

The entry in the Roman Martyrology about the feast: The Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a day on which the inexpressible love of the Mother of God for her Holy Child is recalled, and the eyes of the faithful are directed to the figure of the Mother of the Redeemer, for them to invoke with devotion

1492 – Birthday of Lorenzo de’ Medici

Jung-Stilling, Johann Heinrich (1740-1817) - GAMEO

1740 – Birthday of J.H. Jung–Stilling, German poet & mystic, his nom de plume Stilling, derived from the characterization of German Pietists as “the still people in the countryside” Stillings acquaintance with Goethe at the University of Strasbourg ripened into friendship, & it was thru Goethe’s influence & assistance that Stilling’s first work, was put to paper & published (without Jung’s knowledge) in 1777.

1857 – The SS Central America sinks east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, drowning 426 passengers & crew. The ship was carrying 13–15 tons of gold from the California Gold Rush

1933 – Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction

1938 – Adolf Hitler demands autonomy & self-determination for the Germans of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia

historylookingback | Cave paintings, Lascaux cave paintings, Painting

1940 – Cave paintings are discovered in Lascaux, France.

1943 – World War II: Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, is rescued from house arrest on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzi, by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny

1959 – The Soviet Union launches a large rocket, Lunik II, at the moon

John Glenn, first American to orbit the Earth, dies at 95 | The Daily Gazette

1962 – President John F. Kennedy, at a speech at Rice University, reaffirms that the U.S. will put a man on the moon by the end of the decade

1974 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, ‘Messiah’ of the Rastafari movement, is deposed following a military coup by the Derg, ending a reign of 58 years

Remembering Steve Biko - Top 5 Quotes - SAPeople - Your Worldwide South African Community

1977 – South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko dies in police custody

You are invited: Saturday/Sunday 24-25 September 2022
The BDANC Fall Michaelmas Gathering
hosted Gloria Decater at Live Power Community Farm, Covelo

Saturday:
*Honoring the Cow
*Honoring the Elementals – with Hazel Archer Ginsberg
*Hands on prep making with Harald Hoven
*The Evolution of Biodynamic Legacy Farms – Old farms that need new farmers – Round table discussion with Gloria Decater and Chuck Ginsberg

*Bridging Heaven and Earth through Singing, Storytelling and Biography Work with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

The Michaelmas 2022 Bridging Project at Live Power Farm

We will work in conscious community to connect beyond the threshold for the future evolution of the Earth. Spiritual Science brings us many teachings on communicating with the ‘so-called dead’, working with the spiritual hierarchies, & coming to know the Christ as the meaning of the Earth. We can learn what our beloved dead & the unborn can teach us about what it means to be human in a spiritual sense here on Earth.

*Discussion about Sequential Spraying for Drought Remediation with Michael Aldinger
*Catered dinner

Sunday:
*Eurythmy – with Cynthia Hoven
*Anthroposophical Salon – with Hazel Archer Ginsberg and Nancy Poer

For details, accommodations, meal reservations and schedule see www.bdanc.org

Live Power Community Farm is a seasoned, long-time biodynamic farm whose farming family have passed through many seasons of soul, soil and spirit. Gloria Decater, whose husband Stephen crossed the threshold last year, is currently in the process of exploring how the future incarnation of this living farm individuality needs to evolve. Although the CSA aspect of the farm is on hold right now, Gloria has been continuing to host educational activities for children and adults.

PURCHASING PREPARATIONS: Preps must be ordered at least three days in advance – by Sept 21st – to be picked up at the meeting. These BD preparations are hand made by groups of BDANC practitioners on various BD farms around NORCAL. Supervision and distribution by Harald Hoven.

Horn Manure (500) $5 members/$7 non-members

Horn Silica (501) $3 members/$4 non-members

Compost Prep Set (502-507) $18 members/$21 non-members

Compost Prep (Barrel Compost) $5 members/$7 non-members

Contact Harald Hoven – Phone: (916) 837-8776 Email: hhoven@att.net

Union

September 5, 2022Community, Festival, Poetry~hag

Some thoughts on the Origins of Labor Day

Most folks probably don’t think of Labor Day as a holiday commemorating struggle & death. But that’s what it used to be.

The period between the Civil War & the Great Depression was a time of massive upheaval: The industrial revolution swept in, & millions of Americans were forced to leave their farms & move to cities in search of work in the newly-formed rail, steel, textile, & shipping industries.

Economic policymaking was ad hoc & primitive. Massive recessions regularly created mass poverty & threw enormous numbers of people out of work. The rules, both legal & social, were still being formed for how employers could treat employees, & how the wealth they all collectively produced would be distributed.

Inequality soared to enormous heights by the end of the period. The minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, laws against child labor, & more were only instituted after pitched political combat. Unions were growing as the one avenue by which workers could fight for their interests, & the economy saw waves of regular strikes & work stoppages that would be unheard of today.

Sometimes, the battles were literal: Employers & politicians were not shy about busting unions with police forces & hired enforcers. Riots, deaths, & bombings were not uncommon.

The first inklings of America’s Labor Day took shape in 1882, when the Central Labor Union (CLU) met in September in New York City for a labor festival. Peter McGuire, a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), who was inspired by a parade in Toronto in 1872 in support of a strike against 58-hour work weeks may have been the 1^st to propose the idea of a ‘Labor Day’. Other research points to Matthew Maguire, a machinist & member of the Knights of Labor. But somehow or another, the idea for a parade & yearly holiday to honor American workers was hatched.

The first parade of the new project was held in Manhattan on Sept. 5, 1882. It started out small, but then a band showed up, & workers’ groups from various industries began to flow in. Eventually the parade swelled to 10,000. After that initial success, various state & municipal governments began naming an official day to commemorate labor.

Then a massive recession hit in 1893. The job losses were devastating — & the frustration crystallized in a nationwide strike against the Pullman Company, a railroad car manufacturer & founder of one of the most infamous company towns in America, keeping the workers in appalling living conditions.

Railroad baron George Pullman created his eponymous town in 1880 just outside Chicago. It was a model of capitalist feudalism, with workers offered housing in line with their position in the company. Residents worked for Pullman’s company & their rent was automatically docked from their paychecks. They even had to bank at Pullman’s crooked bank. But Pullman’s business plummeted when the recession hit. Hundreds were laid off & wages were deeply cut — yet rents in the town did not decline.

In response, 4,000 of Pullman’s workers went on strike on May 11, 1894. On June 26, the American Railroad Union — led by Eugene V. Debs — called for a supporting boycott. One hundred & fifty thousand railway workers in 27 states joined the strike, refusing to operate Pullman rail cars. The massive halt to the rail industry & the interruption of U.S. mail cars set off a national crisis. Congress & President Grover Cleveland, looking to save face, rushed through a bill declaring Labor Day a national holiday. Cleveland signed it on June 28, 1894. He was backed by the AFL — the more conservative portion of the labor movement — which threw the first official Labor Day parade that year.

But it was a brutally ironic gesture. Six days later, under pressure from the furious leaders of the rail industry, & facing the virtual shutdown of U.S. mail trains, Cleveland invoked the Sherman Antitrust Act to declare the stoppage a federal crime. He sent in 12,000 federal troops to break the strike. Days of fighting & riots ensued, as strikers overturned & burned railcars, & the troops responded with violent crackdowns. Over 30 workers were killed before the strikers were dispersed & the trains restarted.

Debs was sent to prison, where he read Marx for the first time, setting him on the path to becoming arguably America’s most famous socialist.

Cleveland & others picked the September date for Labor Day as a kind of alternative to May Day, which had by then arisen as the principal day of celebration for workers’ movements around the world. On May 1, 1886, over 250,000 workers struck in Chicago, shutting down 13,000 businesses to demand a shorter work week for equal pay. After several days of peaceful protest, an ‘unknown assailant’ threw a bomb at police in Haymarket Square on May 4. The police responded by firing into the crowd, killing scores of people.

So it’s understandable that many on the left view Labor Day as a cynical ploy — a lazy apolitical three-day weekend, which distracts from the remembrance of when workers fought & died for the basic human decency of a shorter work week.

But you could also look at Labor Day as a remembrance of a time when the labor movement was a force to be reckoned with. Since the heyday of the New Deal, American membership in labor unions has collapsed. Millions of workers in modern service industries face capricious employment, low pay, & dismal conditions. Inequality has returned to its pre-Great-Depression levels, & the shared prosperity of the era immediately after the New Deal is a distant memory. Even the 40-hour work week is falling by the wayside.

All of which makes Labor Day ripe for reclaiming, in the name of some long-unfinished business.

~Inspired by an article by Jeffery Ross

5 September 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waxing gibbous Moon shines in the handle of the Sagittarius Teapot this evening. AND The dark edge of the Moon will occult (cover) one of the handle’s stars — Tau Sagittarii – for nearly all of the US, Canada, Mexico, and Central America. Some times: Boston, 11:52 p.m. EDT; Miami, 11:48 p.m. EDT; Chicago, 10:35 p.m. CDT; Denver, 9:10 p.m. MDT; Phoenix, 7:46 p.m. MST. Near the West Coast the event happens in bright twilight and may not be observable.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Deathday of Nathanael (Hebrew נתנאל, “God has given”) of Cana in Galilee, a disciple of Jesus Christ, mentioned in the Gospel of John in Chapters 1 & 21.

Jesus immediately characterizes him as “an Israelite in whom is no deceit”. Steiner said this is a reference to the fact that Nathanael had been initiated & had received the title “The Israelite.” Jesus’ quote: “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you”, shows their connection in the super-sensible world.

Deathday of Gaius Marius Victorinus, born in Africa he became a Roman rhetorician & Neoplatonic philosopher. He translated 2 of Aristotle’s books from ancient Greek into Latin: The Categories & On Interpretation

Deathday of Zacharias the Prophet, father of John the Baptist. He performed the priest’s office in Jerusalem during the reign of Herod. The Lord appeared before him, standing on the right side of the altar & said “Fear, not Zacharias,” assuring him that his prayer was well pleasing & it had inclined God to a great act of mercy. The Archangel Gabriel then visited Zacharias’ wife Elizabeth who had long been barren & told her that she would give birth to a son who would be called John, whose name signifies grace.

Zacharias said to the angel, “Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is well stricken in years.” The angel answered, “I am Gabriel, that stands in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings. And, behold, thou shall be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things be performed, because thou believes not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.”

Then the prophecy was fulfilled & John was born, & after Zacharias had written John’s name on a writing tablet, his mouth was filled with the Holy Spirit, his tongue was loosed, & he spoke, praising God.

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem & the Magi came from the East, they told Herod of the newborn king. Herod sent soldiers to slay all the children in Bethlehem, he especially remembered hearing about the miraculous birth of John. “What manner of child shall this be? Will this child be the King of the Jews?” He decided to kill John. The executioners could not find them, but the slaughter of innocents began.

When Elizabeth heard these cries, she took John & fled into the mountains. When she saw soldiers drawing near, she prayed to God & cried out to the rocky mount nearby and said, “O mountain of God, receive a mother and her child!” Immediately the mountain was split & she entered hiding herself & John from the executioners.

The soldiers returned to Herod, having not found the child, & Herod sent word to Zacharias in the temple saying, “Surrender your son John to me.” Saint Zacharias replied, “You will kill my body, but the Lord will receive my soul.” The executioners straightway fulfilled Herod’s command & fell upon Zacharias between the temple & the altar. His blood was spilt on the floor & became hardened like rock as a witness against Herod & a testimony to Zacharias.

935 – Birthday of Roswitha of Gandersheim – Who Steiner reveals in his last Karma lecture had a former incarnation as Plato, & who was also Steiner’s teacher Karl Julius Schöer (Vol. 9 lecture 10)

German Dramatist & nun Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim wrote the first plays known to be written by a woman after Sappho. She was a canoness, poet, dramatist, and historian. Surmised from internal evidence of the writings that she was born about 930 or 935, and died after 973, perhaps as late as 1002

Of Saxon background, Hrotsvitha became canoness of a convent in Gandersheim, near Göttingen. The convent was self-sufficient, known in its time for being a cultural and educational center. A “free abbey,” not connected to the hierarchy of the church.

Hrosvitha at the Benedictine convent, reading from a book.Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Hrotsvitha wrote plays on Christian themes. She also wrote poems and prose. In her lives of the saints and in a life in verse of Emperor Otto I, Hrostvitha chronicled history and legend. She wrote in Latin as was usual for the time. Because of allusions in the writing to Ovid, Terence, Virgil, and Horace, we can conclude that the convent included a library with these works.

The plays are unlike morality plays that Europe favored a few centuries later. Whether the plays were read aloud or actually performed, is unknown.

The plays include two long passages, one on mathematics and one on the cosmos.

The plays are known in translation by different titles:

Abraham, also known as The Fall and Repentance of Mary.
Callimachus, also known as The Resurrection of Drusiana.
Dulcitis, also known as The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Irene, Agape and Chionia or The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Agape, Chionia, and Hirena.
Gallicanus, also known as The Conversion of General Gallicanus.
Paphnutius, also known as The Conversion of the Thais, the Harlot, in Plays, or The Conversion of the Harlot Thais.
Sapienta, also known as The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Faith, Hope, and Charity or The Martyrdom of the Holy Virgins Fides, Spes, and Karitas.
The plots of her plays are either about the martyrdom of a Christian woman in pagan Rome or about a pious Christian man rescuing a fallen woman.

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~the barley grows in straight rows,
the stalks unfurl following their divine purpose…
Truth rides visibly thru the world
Have you not seen it?
Drink in the light & praise the cup of forever
spilling out the golden flow of eternity…
Let grace roll down your head like holy oil
warmed in the hands of SHE…
~hag

August Bridging

September 4, 2022Biography, Calendar of the Soul, Community, Festival, History, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~When the light comes after
The shadow playing in a passing cloud
Bent on the steam of my breathing
All is blue bliss
Even into deep caverns
Where secret waters run high
Pacing with the star-tides.
Quenching the lioness
I shine
Renewing Regulus in the heart of heaven
A circus ring riding
High on the rising wheat
With the Virgin pushing past
Hells plush taverns
Into Benediction,
A sweet prayer of Love in action
A chord ever chiming
In a soft whisper thru my August soul
~hag

You are invited: Saturday/Sunday 24-25 September 2022
The BDANC Fall Michaelmas Gathering
hosted Gloria Decater at Live Power Community Farm, Covelo

Saturday:
*Honoring the Cow
*Honoring the Elementals – with Hazel Archer Ginsberg
*Hands on prep making with Harald Hoven
*The Evolution of Biodynamic Legacy Farms – Old farms that need new farmers – Round table discussion with Gloria Decater and Chuck Ginsberg

*Bridging Heaven and Earth through Singing, Storytelling and Biography Work with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

The Michaelmas 2022 Bridging Project at Live Power Farm

*Discussion about Sequential Spraying for Drought Remediation with Michael Aldinger
*Catered dinner

Sunday:
*Eurythmy – with Cynthia Hoven
*Anthroposophical Salon – with Hazel Archer Ginsberg and Nancy Poer

For details, accommodations, meal reservations and schedule see www.bdanc.org

Horn Manure (500) $5 members/$7 non-members

Horn Silica (501) $3 members/$4 non-members

Compost Prep Set (502-507) $18 members/$21 non-members

Compost Prep (Barrel Compost) $5 members/$7 non-members

Contact Harald Hoven – Phone: (916) 837-8776 Email: hhoven@att.net

THE KARMA OF MATERIALISM, GA 176, Lecture 6. Reflections on the Times, 4 September 1917, Berlin

“It is especially important in our time that the reality of spiritual life is not confused with the way people interpret this reality. We live in an age when human understanding and human conduct are strongly influenced by materialism. However, it would be wrong to think that because our age is materialistic, spiritual influences are not at hand, that the spirit is not present and active. Strange as it may seem it is possible, particularly in our time, to observe an abundance of effects in human life which are purely spiritual. They are everywhere in evidence and, the way they manifest, one could certainly not say that they are either invisible or inactive. The situation is rather that people, because of their materialistic outlook, are incapable of seeing what is manifestly there. All they see is what is so to speak “on the agenda.” When one looks at people’s attitude to the spirit, at the way they react when spiritual matters are spoken of, it reminds one of an incident which took place several decades ago in a Central European city. There was an important meeting of an important body of people and the degeneration of moral standards came under discussion. Immoral practices had begun to have adverse influence on certain financial transactions. Naturally a large part of this distinguished body of people wanted financial matters to be discussed purely from the point of view of finance. But a minority — it usually is a minority on such occasions—wanted to discuss the issue of moral corruption. However a minister got up and simply tossed aside such an irrelevant issue by saying: “But gentlemen, morality is not on the agenda.” — It could be said that the attitude of a great many people today in regard to spiritual matters is also one that says: But gentlemen, the spirit is not on the agenda. It is manifestly not on the agenda when things of importance are debated. But perhaps such debates do not always deal with the reality, perhaps the spirit is present, only it is not put on the agenda when human affairs are under discussion.”~Rudolf Steiner

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
AUTUMN PRELUDE II
The Ripening Of Self
v22
The cosmic light
lives on with inner power,
becomes the light of soul
and shines in depths of spirit
to free the fruits of Cosmic Self
that from them in the course of time
the Human Self will ripen.

This is the second verse of the Light Quartet:
its mirror verse in November is the third one.
ALL HALLOWTIDE II
The Ripening Of Creative Powers
v31
The light from spirit depths
strives outwards like the sun,
becomes life’s strength of will
and shines in senses’ dullness
to free the forces
that ripen creative powers
in human work the soul initiates.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of humankind’s spiritual development“)

Birth & Death-day of MOSES (from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul):

According to Egyptian astrologers, the liberator of the children of Israel was to be born on this day- So all the male children were to be thrown into the water by order of King Pharaoh. Jochebed, Amram‘s wife, mother of Miriam, & Aaron, gave birth to her third child, a boy that morning at sunrise. Right from that moment the house was filled with a radiant light, so they knew he was an extraordinary child. After three months, Jochebed saw that she would not be able to conceal her child any longer. So she made a small, water-proof basket & set him down among the papyrus reeds growing on the brink of the Nile. Miriam remained nearby to watch the baby.

The day was hot, & King Pharaoh’s daughter, Bithya, came out to the river, accompanied by her maids, to take a bath in the cool waters of the Nile. Suddenly, she heard the wailing of a small child, & she found the basket. Intrigued by the child’s beauty, Bithya tried to figure out a way to enable her to keep him for herself & save him from death, for she understood that this boy was from a Jewish family.

The child refused to be nursed by any of the Egyptian maids-in-waiting, & continued to weep. At this moment, Miriam came over to the princess & offered to find a Jewish nurse. Bithya was glad of this solution, so Miriam rushed home & brought her mother Jochebed, to be his ‘nurse’. For two years the baby was left in his mother’s care.

Meanwhile Bithya told Pharaoh about the boy she had adopted. Her father did not object as he felt sure that the danger had already been averted years ago. So Moses was taken to the royal court, where he grew up as the princely adopted son of the Pharaoh’s daughter.

Once it happened that Moses was playing on King Pharaoh’s lap. He saw the shining crown, studded with jewels, reached for it & took it off. Pharaoh, asked his astrologers for the meaning of this action. They interpreted it to mean that Moses was a threat to Pharaoh’s crown & suggested that the child be put to death before it could do any harm. But one of the king’s counselors suggested that they should first test the boy to see whether his action was prompted by an evil intelligence, or if he was merely grasping for sparkling things as any other child would.

Pharaoh agreed to this, & two bowls were set down before young Moses. One contained gold & jewels, & the other held glowing fire-coals. Moses reached out for the gold, but an angel re-directed his hand to the coals. Moses snatched a glowing coal & put it to his lips. He burned his hand & tongue, but his life was saved.

After that fateful test, Moses suffered from a slight speech defect. He could not become an orator, but G‑d’s words that were spoken to him & with the help of his brother Aaron & sister Miriam, he was able to fulfill his mission.

At age 20, Moses fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian he saw beating a Jew &made his way to Midian, where he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, & fathered two sons, Gershom & Eliezer.

When he was 80 years old, Moses was shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep when G‑d revealed himself to him in a burning bush at Mount Horeb (Sinai) & instructed him to liberate the Children of Israel. Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, performed numerous miracles for them (the ten plagues in Egypt, the splitting of the sea, extracting water from a rock, bringing down the manna, etc), received the Torah from G‑d & taught it to the people, built the Mishkan (Divine dwelling) in the desert, & led the Children of Israel for 40 years as they journeyed through the wilderness; but G‑d did not allow him to bring them into the Holy Land. Moses passed away on his 120th birthday on Mount Nebo, within sight of the land he yearned to enter.

According to Konrad Burdach, Rudolf Steiner connects Moses in a later incarnation as Goethe, in a special lecture in the GA 138 series

1150 – Feast day of St. Rosalia – born of a Norman noble family that claimed descent from Charlemagne. Devoutly religious, she retired to live as a hermit in a cave on Mount Pellegrino, where she died alone in 1166. Tradition says that she was led to the cave by two angels. On the cave wall she wrote “I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, Lord of Roses, and Quisquina, have taken the resolution to live in this cave for the love of my Lord, Jesus Christ.”

In 1624, a plague beset Palermo. During this hardship Saint Rosalia appeared first to a sick woman, then to a hunter, to whom she indicated where her remains were to be found. She ordered him to bring her bones to Palermo and have them carried in procession through the city.

The hunter climbed the mountain & found her bones in the cave as described. He did what she had asked in the apparition. After her remains were carried around the city three times, the plague ceased. After this Saint Rosalia was venerated as the patron saint of Palermo, & a sanctuary was built in the cave where her remains were discovered.

On September 4 there is a tradition of walking barefoot from Palermo up to Mount Pellegrino. In Italian American communities in the United States, the September feast brings large numbers of visitors annually to the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn in New York City.

1882 – The Pearl Street Station in New York City becomes the first power plant to supply electricity to paying customers.

1886 – After almost 30 years of fighting, Apache leader Geronimo, with his remaining warriors, surrenders to General Nelson Miles in Arizona.

1888 – George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak& receives a patent for his camera that uses roll film.

1949 – The Peekskill riots erupt after a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, New York.

1951 – The first live transcontinental television broadcast takes place in San Francisco, from the Japanese Peace Treaty Conference.

1957 – Little Rock Crisis: Orval Faubus, governor of Arkansas, calls out the National Guard to prevent African American students from enrolling in Central High School.

1957 – The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel.

1965 – Death-Day of Albert Schweitzer, French-Gabonese physician, theologian, missionary, & Nobel Prize laureate.

1998 – Google is founded by Larry Page & Sergey Brin, two students at Stanford University.

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Greetings, Three Springs Community Farm Biodynamic Apprenticeship Program is now accepting applications for the 2023 Season (program starting February 1st, 2023)

Participants in this year-long immersion in regenerative farming gain experience in Biodynamic methods, immerse themselves in nature, and build lifelong relationships with like minded earth stewards. Our 80 acre farm and training site is located in beautiful West Sonoma County between the towns of Freestone and Bodega.

Please go to this program description for info and details:

Apprenticeship Position 2023.pdf

If you are interested in applying, follow this link for the application: https://forms.gle/GJfnXczoKBimc7328

Our Financial Assistance application may be found here: https://forms.gle/kmGJanTUZaY1J4j9A

Please forward this posting to anyone you know who might be interested. Newsletter or bulletin board postings are greatly appreciated!

Thank you, Willow Summer, Farmer / Director, Three Springs Community Farm Foundation

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August 29, 2022Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

According to Rudolf Steiner in his original Calendar of the Soul, TODAY 29 August ’33 – The Beheading of John the Baptist

“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

John the Baptist, truly the greatest of all Men – Still human, He hovers as an Eagle in the realm of the Angels. After his beheading He became the protector of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ & especially of John the Evangelist.

Did the Eagle land in the beginning of the 20th century on the shoulder of Rudolf Steiner to guide him towards the Second Coming?

“Elijah was destined to be one of the ruling figures in the régime inaugurated by Moses. There had to be Individualities who were not wholly contained in the human personality; one part of their being was in the earthly personality and the other in the spiritual world. Elijah was an Individuality of this nature. Only part of his being was present in his personality on the physical plane; the Ego-hood of Elijah could not penetrate fully into his physical body. He must therefore be called a personality ‘filled with the Spirit’. A figure such as Elijah could not possibly be brought into existence through the normal forces by which other men are placed in the world. In the normal way the human being develops in the mother’s body in such a way that through physical processes the Individuality who has been incarnated previously simply unites with the physical embryo. This could not be so in the case of an Individuality such as Elijah. Other forces had to intervene, concerned with the part of the Individuality that reached into the spiritual world. His development was necessarily attended by influences working upon him from outside. Hence when such Individualities are incarnated they appear as men who are ‘inspired’, ‘impelled by the Spirit’. They appear as ecstatic personalities whose utterances far surpass anything that might issue from their normal intelligence.

The man who lived as ‘Elijah’ was an outstanding example of this. The words uttered by his mouth and the actions performed by his hands did not proceed only from the part of his being actually present in his personality; they were manifestations of divine-spiritual Beings in the background.

When this Individuality was born again he was to unite with the body of the child born to Zacharias and Elisabeth. We know from the Gospel itself that John the Baptist is to be regarded as the reborn Elijah. But in him we have to do with an Individuality who in his earlier incarnations had not habitually developed or brought fully into operation all the forces present in the normal course of life. In the normal course of life the inner power or force of the Ego becomes active while the physical body of the human being is developing in the mother’s womb. The Elijah-Individuality in earlier times had not descended deeply enough to be involved in the inner processes operating here. The Ego had not, as in normal circumstances, been stirred into activity by its own forces, but from outside. This was now to happen again. But the Ego was now farther from the spiritual world and nearer to the Earth, much more closely connected with the Earth than the Beings who had formerly guided Elijah. The transition leading to the amalgamation of the Buddha-stream with the Zarathustra-stream was now to be brought about.

Everything was to be rejuvenated. Thus it was the Nirmanakaya of Buddha which now stirred the Ego-force of John into activity, having the same effect as spiritual forces that had formerly worked upon Elijah. At certain times the being known as Elijah had been rapt in states of ecstasy; then the God spoke, filling his Ego with a force which could be communicated to the outer world. Now again a spiritual force was present — the Nirmanakaya of Buddha hovering above the head of the Nathan Jesus; this force worked upon Elisabeth when John was to be born, stimulated within her the embryo of John in the sixth month of pregnancy, and wakened the Ego. But being nearer to the Earth this force now worked as more than an inspiration; it had an actual formative effect upon the Ego of John. Under the influence of the visit of her who is there called ‘Mary’, the Ego of John the Baptist awoke into activity. The Nirmanakaya of Buddha was here working upon the Ego of the former Elijah — now the Ego of John the Baptist — wakening it and penetrating right into the physical substance.” ~Rudolf Steiner, from The Gospel of St. Luke

“If we pass on to the sixth chapter of Mark we hear fully described how King Herod had John the Baptist beheaded. The tortured conscience of Herod arouses a strange foreboding in him. When he hears all that has occurred through Christ Jesus he says, “John, whom I beheaded, has been restored to life!” Herod feels that, though the physical personality of John had gone away, he is now all the more present! He feels that his atmosphere, his spirituality — which was none other than the spirituality of Elijah, is still there. His tormented conscience causes him to be aware that John the Baptist, that is, Elijah, is still there.

But then something strange happens. We are shown how, after John the Baptist had met his physical death, Christ Jesus came to the very neighborhood where John had worked. I want you to take particular notice of a remarkable passage and not to skim over it lightly, for the words of the Gospels are not written for rhetorical effect, nor journalistically. Something very significant is said here. Jesus Christ appears among the throng of followers and disciples of John the Baptist, and this fact is expressed in a sentence to which we must give careful attention: “And as Jesus came out He saw a great crowd,” by which could be meant only the disciples of John, “and He had compassion on them …” (Mark 6:34.) Why compassion? Because they had lost their master, they were there without John, whose headless corpse we are told had been carried to his grave. But even more precisely is it said, “for they were like sheep who had lost their shepherd. And He began to teach them many things.” It cannot be indicated any more clearly how He teaches John’s disciples. He teaches them because the spirit of Elijah, which is at the same time the spirit of John the Baptist, is still active among them. Thus it is again indicated with dramatic power in these significant passages of the Mark Gospel how the spirit of Christ Jesus entered into what had been prepared by the spirit of Elijah-John. Even so this is only one of the main points, around which many other significant things are grouped.

I will now call your attention to one thing more. I have several times pointed out how this spirit of Elijah or John continued to act in such a way as to impress its impulses into world history. I have often mentioned that the soul of Elijah-John appeared again in the painter Raphael. This is one of those facts that call attention to the metamorphoses of souls that take place under the impetus given by the Mystery of Golgotha. Because it was also necessary that in the post-Christian era such a soul should work in Raphael through the medium of a single personality; what in ancient times was so comprehensive and world encompassing now appears in such a different personality as that of Raphael. Can we not feel that the aura that hovered round Elijah-John is also present in Raphael? That in Raphael there were such similarities to these two others that we could even say that this element was too great to be able to enter into a single personality but hovered round it, so that the revelations received by this personality seemed like an illumination? Such was indeed the case with Raphael!” ~Rudolf Steiner, Gospel of Mark: Lecture 3

self portrait of Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino known as Raphael

“The truth is, my dear friends, this earthly personality of Raphael was completely yielded up and was only present through what Lazarus-John gave to this soul to be poured out into colour and line for all mankind.

Such was the life of this being. And it was so, that this Raphael life could only be, as it were, absolved in another life of thirty years — in Novalis. And so we see Raphael die young, Novalis die young — one being, who came forth from Elijah-John, appearing before mankind in two different forms, preparing through art and through poetry the true Michael mood of soul, sent down by the Michael stream as messenger to men on Earth.

And now we behold the wonderful artistic power of Raphael come to life again in Novalis in poetry that stirs and enraptures the hearts of men. All that through Raphael was given to human eyes to see, — of this could human hearts drink deep, when it came again in self portrait of Novalis.

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

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

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

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Time reaches
In all directions
Knotted in the golden orb of the moment…
The eye opens, the heart opens, the navel yawns
& takes the world in its belly…
Everything else is sky…
~hag

1+2=3

August 28, 2022Biography, Poetry~hag

Greetings friends on this Sunday – Today I was musing how I recently returned from a conference that leaned heavily on the Priestly – the Abel / Shepherds side of the New Mysteries, which has prompted me to prepare a presentation for the Front Range Anthroposophical Café, (Friday 23 Sept. 2022) where I will talk about the other side, the Rosicrucian – Cain / Kingly stream, mostly from the point of view of the Reverse Cultus, or Cognitive Ritual of Anthroposophia, which actually bridges the 2 streams.

Working with AAP I’ve been thinking about the left & right hemispheres of the brain – how in some folks the left or more logical side (Aristotelian) is dominate; & for others the right side, held to be more creative (Platonist), holds sway.

Interestingly ironic though isn’t it that the left hemisphere controls the movement on the right side of our body & vis versa…Which reminds me how, a woman has a male etheric body, & a man has a female etheric…

So for me It’s never an either / or, but an integration of the 2 to create a transcendent 3^rd…which I think of as the Christ-Sophia-Michael.

So at the AAP Training Retreat when I heard the term ‘Psychosynthesis’, a psychological model coined by Dr. Roberto Assagioli, as an evolution of psychological thinking to include body, mind & spirit in the application of psychotherapy & self-development, the idea greatly appealed to me, since I am ever striving to bring balance. I haven’t read Dr. Assagioli’s book yet, these are just some insights gleaned from Laurie Schmiesing’s super cool presentation: “Introducing a Transpersonal Psychology— Psychosynthesis”.

Glyphs are a wonderful Rosicrucian device to help us bridge the 2 hemispheres of the brain. And this ‘Egg’ reminded me that we choose our own experience. The dashes (which Steiner used in his drawings) represents the idea that energy is always moving, it is never fixed – sometimes the top expands down, the middle swells out, or perhaps the bottom half of the egg pushes up, coloring our experience of reality.

The ‘transpersonal’ calls us – it’s’ our potential, our aspirations & purpose, our pre-earthly intentions & our post-mortem digestions…

Can we access our higher will? Are we open to receiving grace? How can we creatively use it? Can we witness with awareness & not get stuck in the content…?

To reach pure thought we must empty ourselves – become ‘content-less’ so something spiritual can come in…Everything must flow in – out – past – present- future in relationality.

We need to build our capacity to witness – the good, the bad, the ugly – all parts of the whole. The adversarial forces work hard to interfere with our relationality…

How do we bridge the Transpersonal Self to the personal self? How do we recognize the stages of sentient, intellectual & consciousness soul, so we don’t get stuck in any one phase…?\

Can we transcended ancestral karma – even our own DNA…Our own instincts & impulses…? What about artificial RNA…?

How do we process trauma? – The negative story – the not being seen – didn’t get the full gaze of the Mother? Or maybe it was the inappropriate seeing of the Father ..?– How do we make up for the ‘primal wound’? How do we heal the ‘wounded child’ that runs raging right now in society’s sub-personality…?

How can we re-member that Love & Freedom go together…?

Ok that’s enough for today 😉

~hag

28 August 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
AUTUMN PRELUDE I
My Future’s Power
v21
I feel a strange new strengthening,
fruit-bearing power of becoming,
and on a starlit loom in me
a dawning vision weaving
my pathway to my real being.

ALL HALLOWTIDE III
The Gift Of Destiny
v32
I feel my own fruit-bearing power
present me to the world
and strengthen my innate intent
to turn towards the clarity
within life’s web of destiny

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

430 – Deathday of Saint Augustine an early Christian theologian & philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western philosophy. Among his most important works are The City of God & Confessions. In his early years, he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism & afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. He “established anew the ancient Faith.” After his conversion to Christianity in 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy & theology, believing that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom. He is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, the alleviation of sore eyes.

1749 – Birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German author, poet, playwright, & diplomat. In 1888, as a result of his work for the Kürschner edition of Goethe’s works, Rudolf Steiner was invited to work as an editor at the Goethe archives in Weimar. As well as the introductions & commentaries to 4 volumes of Goethe’s scientific writings, Steiner wrote 2 books about Goethe’s philosophy: The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe’s World-Conception (1886), which Steiner regarded as the epistemological foundation & justification for his later work, & Goethe’s Conception of the World (1897). Steiner writes about Goethe in many of his lectures, including commentaries on his play Faust.

~Amid a crush of flowers
The heart ripens…
A fruit fallen to the earth
Spilling seeds
Like blood-wine on the altar…
~hag

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