My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~i shepherd the birds in flowering branches
wet
with steaming fragrance…
~hag

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“In Zarathustra Nietzsche sketches the world for which he had searched in vain in Wagner, separated from all reality…The disappointment which his idealism had caused him, drove him into a hostile mood toward all idealism. During the time following his separation from Wagner, his works become accusations against ideals. “One error after another is placed upon ice; the ideal is not refuted — it freezes to death.”

 After this Nietzsche looks for refuge in reality; he deepens himself in the more recent natural science, in order that through it he can gain a true guide to reality. All worlds beyond this world, which lead human beings away from reality, now become abominable, remote worlds for him, conceived out of the fantasy of weak human beings, who do not have sufficient strength to find their satisfaction in immediate, fresh existence. Natural science has placed the human being at the end of a purely natural evolution. Through the fact that the latter has conceived the human being out of itself, all that is below him has taken on a higher meaning. Therefore, man should not deny its significance and wish to make himself an image of something beyond this world. He should understand that he is not the meaning of a super-earthly power, but the “meaning of this earth.” What he wishes to attain above what exists, he should not strive for in enmity against what exists.

Nietzsche looks within reality itself for the germ of the higher, which is to make reality bearable…Humanity has the possibility to become superhumanity. Evolution has always been. The human being should also work at evolution. The laws of evolution are greater, more comprehensive than all that has already been developed. One should not only look upon that which exists, but one must go back to primeval forces which have engendered the real.

An ancient world conception questioned how “good and evil” came into the world. It believed that it had to go behind existence in order to discover “in the eternal” the reasons for “good and evil.” But with the “eternal,” with the “beyond,” Nietzsche had also to reject the “eternal” evaluation of “good and evil.” Man has come into existence through the natural; and “good and evil” have come into existence with him. The creation of mankind is “good and evil.” And deeper than the created is the creator. The “human being” stands “beyond good and evil.” He has made the one thing to be good, the other to be evil. He may not let himself be chained through his former “good and evil.” He can follow further the path of evolution which he has taken till now. From the worm he has become a human being; from man he can develop to the superman. He can create a new good and evil. He may “reevaluate” present day values.

Nietzsche was torn through his spiritual darkness. The evolution of the worm to the human being was the idea which he had gained from the more recent natural science. He himself did not become a scientist; he had adopted the idea of evolution from others. For them it was a matter of the intellect; for him it became a matter of the heart. The others waged a spiritual battle against all old prejudices. Nietzsche asked himself how he could live with the new idea. His battle took place entirely within his own soul. He needed the further development to the superman in order to be able to bear mankind.

Thus, by itself, in lonely heights, his sensitive spirit had to overcome the natural science which he had taken into himself. During his last creative period, Nietzsche tried to attain from reality itself what earlier he thought he could gain in illusion, in an ideal realm. Life is assigned a task which is firmly rooted in life, and yet leads over and above this life. In this immediate existence one cannot remain standing in real life, or in the life illuminated by natural science. In this life there also must be suffering. This remained Nietzsche’s opinion. The “superman” is also a means to make life bearable. All this points to the fact that Nietzsche was born to “suffer from existence.” His genius consisted in the searching for bases for consolation.

The struggle for world conceptions has often engendered martyrs. Nietzsche has produced no new ideas for a world conception. One will always recognize that his genius does not lie in the production of new ideas. But he suffered deeply because of the thoughts surrounding him. In compensation for this suffering he found the enraptured tones of his Zarathustra. He became the poet of the new world conception; the hymns in praise of the “superman” are the personal, the poetic reply to the problems and results of the more recent natural science.

All that the nineteenth century produced in ideas, would also have been produced without Nietzsche. In the eyes of the future he will not be considered an original philosopher, a founder of religions, or a prophet; for the future he will be a martyr of knowledge, who in poetry found words with which to express his suffering”.

~Rudolf Steiner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom, Part 4: The Personality of Friedrich Nietzsche, A Memorial Address

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” ~H.G. Wells

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

25 August 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: First-quarter Moon. Come nightfall, Bella Luna shines just above Antares & the head of Scorpius.

79 – Deathday of Pliny the Elder, Roman commander & philosopher – died while attempting to rescue a friend from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Stabiae that had just destroyed the cities of Pompeii & Herculaneum. The prevailing wind caused by the sixth & largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption overcame his ship

1270 – Deathday of Louis IX of France, the Crusader King, devoted to his people, founding hospitals, visiting the sick like his patron St. Francis, even caring for people with leprosy. Louis united France. Every day he invited 13 guests from among the poor to eat with him.

1530 – Birthday of Ivan the Terrible

1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers

1744 – Birthday of Johann Gottfried Herder, German poet, philosopher, friend of Goethe

“…Herder looks upon the sunrise as a symbol of all waking life — not only in Nature, but also in the human soul, in the human heart. The feeling of dawn within the human soul itself, as though the sun were rising from inner depths — this was wonderfully portrayed by Herder when he tried to show how the poetic mood entered into human evolution, and how this poetic feeling had once upon a time been quickened by all that man could experience when he looked at the rising sun.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Human Questions and Cosmic Answers

1814 – The U.S. Library of Congress was destroyed by British forces

1867 – Deathday of Michael Faraday, English physicist & chemist, who contributed to the study of electromagnetism.  Albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his study wall, alongside pictures of Isaac Newton & James Clerk Physicist Ernest Rutherford stated, “When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and of industry, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Faraday, one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time”.

1900 – Deathday of Friedrich Nietzsche. Rudolf Steiner mentioned that in a previous life he was a Franciscan monk. Steiner also wrote: Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom GA5. The enigmatic Friedrich Nietzsche was seen by Steiner, but was lying in a coma near death. Nietzsche’s philosophy receives a scholarly & critical treatment & is then related to Nietzsche, the man.

At one point in his life, Rudolf Steiner brought out an edition of some of Nietzsche’s writings. In seeing that Nietzsche’s ideas received a public exposure, Steiner was not identifying himself as one of Nietzsche’s disciples, but rather assuring philosophical readers that this important link in the spiritual development of occidental thought should not be ignored.

Here is Steiner’s Memorial Address The Personality of Friedrich Nietzsche

1914 – World War I: The library of the Catholic University of Leuven is deliberately destroyed by the German Army. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes Gothic & Renaissance manuscripts are lost

1916 – The United States National Park Service is created

1933 – The Diexi earthquake strikes Sichuan, China & kills 9,000 people

1944 – World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies

1948 – The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: “Confrontation Day” between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss.

1950 – President Harry Truman orders the U.S. Army to seize control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike

1981 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn

1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune

2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space becoming the first man-made object to do so

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August 27-30 How We Will 2020: 3-Folding our Cultural Revolution is continuing its journey of transforming our ideals into action. The theme this year is Forming Curative Communities: actively uniting with one another in the emerging economic, political/rights and social/cultural/spiritual forms seeking to reshape the ills plaguing humanity into a healthy social organism for our time. 

How We Will 2020 – Registration – Presenter bio’s

Online and In Person

Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost & Cultural Hub: 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago 60618

Co-Sponsored by the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago

Schedule

Thursday August 27
9:00 Joan Jaeckel and Rosemary McMullen:   Welcome:  Forming Curative Communities of Responsibility
9:30 Nana Woo and Truus Gareats:  Eurythmy
9:45 Stan Padilla:  New Fire
10:30 Break 15 minutes
11:00 Naim Edwards:  Edible Landscapes
12:15 Lunch
1:30 Dottie Zold & Joan Jaeckel:  Threefold Activism – 1919-1921 & Research Fellowship
2:15 Kait Ziegler:  Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival – On the Front Lines
3:30 Break 30 minutes
4:00 Akil Bell:  WILLING MOVEMENT:  Three questions could support the inspiring of the formation of curative communities. 
5:15 Dinner
6:30 Monika:  Myriad Village – Co-creating Intentional Communities
7:15 Angela Foster:  Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
End 8 pm

Friday August 28
9:00 Truus Gareats & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy
9:15 Stan Padilla:  New Fire
9:45 Frank & Patrice:  Unbreakable Agreement & ALIANT
10:20 Break 10 minutes
10:30 Michaela Gloeckler:  Archetypal Pictures – Ita Wegman and the Young Doctors
Noon Lunch
1:15 Bart Eddy:  Brightmoor Makers Rocking Hearts for Detroit
2:15 Melody Brink:  stART international trauma pedagogy – Lesbos – On the Front Lines
3:00 John Bloom:  Toward Justice Through Freedom
4:45 Dinner
6:00 Daniel Collett:  Seeds
6:10 Kim Sherobbi:  To Nurture Community Leadership – Birwood Community House & The James and  Grace Lee Boggs Center
7:00 Angela Foster:  Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
Goethe’s Day of Birth
8:00 End

Saturday August 29
9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy
9:15 Stan Padilla:  New Fire
9:30 Laura Summer:  Art Dispersal – Art for 100% of the People
10:00 Michaela Gloeckler:  Forward Together
11:30 Break 15 minutes
11:45 Melody Brink:  The Birdhunters of Antropocenia in story-form, written by Nathaniel Williams and   with original music by Aldo Lavaggi
12:20 Lunch
1:15 Bart Eddy:  Ideas to Action
2:15 John Bloom:  Capital, Money, Spirit and Matter
3:45 Break 30 minutes
4:15 Patrice Maynard:  Prototyping ALIANT Alliance
5:30 Dinner
7:00 Brandon & Lucien:  Song Offering & Painting
7:15 Community-led conversation:  A Christian/Buddhist/Spirit Conversation:  Money –what does love got to do with it?
8:15 End

Sunday August 30
9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo:  Eurythmy
9:15 Nicanor Perlas:  The Future is What We Fight For
10:45 Break
11:00 Hazel Archer-Ginsberg:  The New Isis Myth
11:30 Laura Summer:  Art Dispersal
1:00 Lunch
2:00 Patrice Maynard:  Prototyping ALIANT Alliance
3:15 Lucien:  Tone, Words, Trees
3:45 Janna, Elizabeth & Frank:  Standing Under the Sign of Michael
4:15 Stan & Robbi:  Closing the Sacred Fire Community
5:00 End

EXTRA DAY FOR THOSE WISHING TO JOIN ON Monday, August 31st 

9:00 Mutual Aid Networks (MANS):  Kait Ziegler of the Poor People’s Campaign:  A National Call for Moral Revival will share how she and GroundGamesLA raised $100,000 in a week’s time to support unprotected families during the Covid 19 early days by using the MANS format created by Stephanie Rearick of Madison, Wisconsin.

10:15 Next Steps ALIANT: Patrice, Frank, Dottie together with friends will lead a conversation on next steps…

Afternoon Field Trip! A Visit to Sweet Water Foundation

How We Will 2020

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New Music by Ultra-Violet Archer PILOT put together during the Corona-Crisis when she had to leave Oberlin College. She is now at YIP. Bandcamp is good to artists, most of the proceeds go to the musicians – Support young artists!