23 September 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Now Bella Luna on the eve of the Full Harvest Moon, shines even farther left of Mars after dark. Look lower right of the Moon, by roughly half that distance, for Fomalhaut, the Autumn Star, low & slowly on its way up in the southeast.
Stephanie Allison
Uranus reaches opposition one month from today, but it already has become a tempting evening target. The ice giant world rises before 8 pm CDT & climbs above the eastern horizon by 11 pm, in southwestern Aries, south of the Ram’s brightest star, Alpha.
“A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.” ~Robert A. Heinlein
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY ( Watch for repeating themes & interesting ‘coincidences’)
63 BC – Birthday of Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire & its first Emperor. Augustus’ reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted for nearly fifteen hundred years through the ultimate decline of the Western Roman Empire & until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Both his adoptive surname, Caesar, & his title Augustus became the permanent titles of the rulers of the Roman Empire for fourteen centuries after his death. The cult of Divus Augustus continued until the state religion of the Empire was changed to Christianity in 391
Dereck Clark
1193 – Deathday of Robert de Sablé, French knight, the eleventh Grand Master of the Knights Templar & Lord of Cyprus
1338 – The Battle of Arnemuiden was the first naval battle of the Hundred Years’ War & the first naval battle using artillery, as the English ship Christopher had three cannon & one hand gun.
1409 – Battle of Kherlen, the second significant victory over Ming dynasty China by the Mongols since 1368.
1459 – Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the English War of the Roses, takes place.
1641 – The Merchant Royal, carrying a treasure of over 100,000 pounds of gold (worth over £1 billion today), is lost at sea off Land’s End.
1779 – John Paul Jones on board the USS Bonhomme Richard wins the Battle of Flamborough Head.
1846 – Astronomers Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, John Couch Adams & Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune
Anna Kulisz
1909 – The Phantom of the Opera (original title: Le Fantôme de l’Opéra), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, is first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois.
1911 – Pilot Earle Ovington makes the first official airmail delivery in America under the authority of the United States Post Office Department
1913 – Roland Garros of France becomes the first to fly in an airplane across the Mediterranean (from St. Raphael France to Bizerte, Tunisia)
1930 – Birthday of Ray Charles, American singer-songwriter, pianist.
1939 – Deathday of Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist & psychiatrist
1943 – The Nazi puppet state known as the Italian Social Republic is founded.
1968 – Deathday of Padre Pio, a Franciscan friar, priest, stigmatist, & mystic. On September 20, 1918, while hearing confessions, Padre Pio had his first occurrence of the stigmata. This phenomenon continued for fifty years, until the end of his life. The blood flowing from the stigmata smelled of perfume or flowers: the odour of sanctity.
People who had started rebuilding their lives after World War I, began to see in Padre Pio a symbol of hope. Those close to him attest that he began to manifest several spiritual gifts, including the gifts of healing, bilocation, levitation, prophecy, miracles, extraordinary abstinence from both sleep & nourishment, the ability to read hearts, the gift of tongues, the gift of conversions.
At the time of Padre Pio’s death, his body appeared unwounded, with no sign of scarring. Doctors who examined his body found it empty of all blood.
1973 – Deathday of Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet & diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate
1983 – Gulf Air Flight 771 is destroyed by a bomb, killing all 117 people on board.
2004 – Over 3,000 people die in Haiti after Hurricane Jeanne produces massive flooding & mudslides.
***
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~I Am
A book without a cover
The Queen of Chaos on tippy-toes…
Dreaming of procrastination
I tie
The key onto the kite…
I gather
Earth crammed with heaven…
My 4 winds fold-in
Mountain dwellers from far & wide
Grass weavers, potters, & music makers…
I watch
Black earth & red earth join in a buckle of sky
As Hermes teaches me to be
Direct…
~hag
Lecture 3. The sun circles – The Druid and the Mithras Mysteries; Observation of the sun yielded knowledge of the connection between heaven and earth. The great language of the heavens was deciphered, and then applied to earthly things.
Through the heart organization the course of nature was perceived within the human being, and through the heart science the spirit of the sun’s annual passage through the zodiac was studied. In this way initiates read in the heavens what was to be done on earth.
“…the human heart is really a subconscious sense organ.”
This was taught in the Mithras Cult.
“…The disciple was taught to perceive the course of the seasons within himself by means of his heart organization.
the heart-science of the old Mithras pupils; what they really studied when they looked at themselves through their heart was the spirit of the sun’s annual passage through the zodiac. In this way the human being experienced themself as a higher being, riding on his lower nature; (the Bull) and therefore it was fitting that the cosmos should be arranged in a circle around him; in this manner cosmic spirituality was experienced.
“…A spirit of reverence for the ancient cultures pervades us when we see deeper into them and work to rediscover, how to apply this heart-science now.
Steiner talks in lecture 3 about the relationship between the various phases of the moon and the weather. “…looked at in a spiritual-scientific way the moon presents itself as a sort of fortress in the cosmos. From the outside, not only the light-rays of the sun but all the external effects of the universe are reflected by the moon down to the earth; but in the interior of the moon there is a complete world that nowadays can be reached only by ascending, to the spirit world.”
“…higher beings who occupied etheric bodies only, and whose instruction was imparted to human beings as though inoculating the etheric body with higher wisdom.”
“…it was simply a case of his having to breathe and of his blood circulating in him; and it was in his circulation that he willed.”
We know now that what the individual planets tell us provides the vowels of the world-script; and all that forms around the vowels when the planets pass the constellations of the zodiac gives us the consonants.
This kind of Cosmic experience leads us to participation in the cosmos; in this way we can achieve a spiritualized instinct for the meaning of the seasons with which our organic life as well as our social life is interwoven — an instinct for the different ways in which the earth stands to the cosmos while on its way from spring to summer, and again from summer through autumn into winter. Celebrating festivals that have social significance, in the same way that the forces of nature, through our physical organization, make us one with our breathing & circulation.
“…As the blood circulation inside us is essential for our existence, the circulation of the elemental beings between earth and the heavens is indispensable for us as well.”
At the Autumnal Equinox – the wheel of the year turns & we find ourselves moving into the time of the harvest. In the tropical zodiac, at equinox, we say the Sun is crossing the celestial equator, moving from Virgo into Libra, the sign of the scales – a time to take stock. Are the scales balanced? Do they tip & spill? Are they full? Do we know what to harvest & what to plow under? Can we identify & cut away outworn habits & emotional baggage that can choke our growth?
But in sidereal astrosophy we see the Sun in relation to the actual constellations as they are now, with the Sun actually appearing in the crown of stars in the constellation of the Virgin. When we use the tropical zodiac, the 4-foldness of the Equinoxes & Solstices form The Cross, which reminds us of an event that occurred only once in history, at the time of the incarnation of Christ. Then, the start of Spring was at 0 degrees of Aries, the Ram – the 1st sign in the zodiac.
At the Equinoxes we have the horizontal beam, a balance of light & darkness. At the Solstices we have the vertical beam, an opposition of light & dark. At Autumn Equinox the Sun is balanced in Libra, which then marks the transition from light to dark. Libra is a threshold, a gateway between the upper chakras & the lower chakras. In the upper signs, from Aries thru Virgo we have a memory of the cosmic human being before it was formed on Earth. From Libra to Pisces, the human form meets the physical world. So we can look at the upper half of the zodiac as being related to our past cosmic creation by the ‘gods’ & the lower half of the zodiac as our human journey of ‘The fall’ & then hopefully our redemption out of our own ego forces.
The Sidereal zodiac shows us the vernal point has moved thru the ‘procession of the equinoxes’, so that it is now descending thru the lower half of the zodiac, taking humanity along on its evolutionary journey.
Adoring this great cross, formed from the 4 Cardinal Points of the Equinoxes & Solstices, are the 7 Festivals: Michaelmas, Advent, Christmas, Easter-tide Ascension, Whitsun & St. John’s-tide. These festivals are the 7 Cosmic Roses unfurling from the center of The Cross.
So today on this Autumnal Equinox, we can contemplate & celebrate this solar moment of equality & balance, experienced by everyone around the globe. We can also think about how the world has changed, how the constellations have moved on, how The Christ has united with the Earth, & is now working in us to redeem our evolution.
We can take our initiation in hand when we consciously co-create the festivals in the solar-cycle of the year, working to unfold the 7 Roses of transformation within, & out in the world.
And so it is my friends, that we begin our journey, like Persephone, into the dark of the year…feel your power go within like the seed planted deep within the darkness of the Earth…We must be initiated into these dark mysteries before we can truly celebrate life’s renewal…
The apples fall from the tree, the corn & grain are gathered in, the grapes are crushed for wine…The Sun God is sacrificed to the night & the fertile Mother assumes the face of the Wise Crone – the Harvest Hag challenging us to face our shadow…
Balanced Blessings
~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
***
MICHAELMAS AND THE SOUL-FORCES OF MAN By RUDOLF STEINER, a Summary by Hazel Archer Ginsberg
Lecture 3. The sun circles – The Druid and the Mithras Mysteries; Observation of the sun yielded knowledge of the connection between heaven and earth. The great language of the heavens was deciphered, and then applied to earthly things.
Through the heart organization the course of nature was perceived within the human being, and through the heart science the spirit of the sun’s annual passage through the zodiac was studied. In this way initiates read in the heavens what was to be done on earth.
“…the human heart is really a subconscious sense organ.”
This was taught in the Mithras Cult.”
“…The disciple was taught to perceive the course of the seasons within himself by means of his heart organization.
the heart-science of the old Mithras pupils; what they really studied when they looked at themselves through their heart was the spirit of the sun’s annual passage through the zodiac. In this way the human being experienced themself as a higher being, riding on his lower nature; (the Bull) and therefore it was fitting that the cosmos should be arranged in a circle around him; in this manner cosmic spirituality was experienced.
“…A spirit of reverence for the ancient cultures pervades us when we see deeper into them and work to rediscover, how to apply this heart-science now.
Steiner talks in lecture 3 about the relationship between the various phases of the moon and the weather. “…looked at in a spiritual-scientific way the moon presents itself as a sort of fortress in the cosmos. From the outside, not only the light-rays of the sun but all the external effects of the universe are reflected by the moon down to the earth; but in the interior of the moon there is a complete world that nowadays can be reached only by ascending, to the spirit world.”
“…higher beings who occupied etheric bodies only, and whose instruction was imparted to human beings as though inoculating the etheric body with higher wisdom.”
“…it was simply a case of his having to breathe and of his blood circulating in him; and it was in his circulation that he willed.”
We know now that what the individual planets tell us provides the vowels of the world-script; and all that forms around the vowels when the planets pass the constellations of the zodiac gives us the consonants.
This kind of Cosmic experience leads us to participation in the cosmos; in this way we can achieve a spiritualized instinct for the meaning of the seasons with which our organic life as well as our social life is interwoven — an instinct for the different ways in which the earth stands to the cosmos while on its way from spring to summer, and again from summer through autumn into winter. Celebrating festivals that have social significance, in the same way that the forces of nature, through our physical organization, make us one with our breathing & circulation.
“…As the blood circulation inside us is essential for our existence, the circulation of the elemental beings between earth and the heavens is indispensable for us as well.”
***
Mabon (an ancient Celtic name for the Autumnal Equinox)
A salmon swallows the nut of wisdom
And leaps from the river’s dark depths –
A bright flash of silver in the bent rays of light
A hawk wheels in the eye of the Sun,
His elongated shadow moves
Over an ancient green mound
A fox gleams gold and russet there at the fringe of the forest
Her eyes glinting secrets
From the coming twilight realm
A Maiden sits silent
Clasping two crossed swords
In elegant equipoise
On his knee the King muses by a deep pool…
Soul tied to the wheel
Crystalized in the last shock of corn
Pierced by the oblique sun lit spear
With eyes that see
Down into the root
Where autumn grain waits
To Be
Easter-Tides’ Seed
The death of bedazzled day
And the dawn of focused night
Meet in symmetry
Halfway
Thru the cycle
We enter the return
Sail West Beloved Sun King
We follow You
Into the Dawning Dark
21 September 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Mars shines well to the right of the waxing gibbous Moon this evening. Between them is boat-shaped Capricornus — or as I sometimes see it in a dark sky, a huge, smiling clown mouth gaping down at the world.
Around the closing days of summer (the equinox is tomorrow), you always find the Sagittarius Teapot moving to the right of south during evening & tipping increasingly far over to the right, as if pouring out summer’s end.
***
“The Master said, “A true teacher is one who, keeping the past alive, is also able to understand the present.” (Analects 2.11)” ~Confucius
Feast of St. Matthew, a 1st-century Galilean, the son of Alpheus. As a tax collector he was literate in Aramaic & Greek. After his call, Matthew invited Jesus home for a feast. On seeing this, the Scribes & the Pharisees criticized Jesus for eating with tax collectors & sinners. This prompted Jesus to answer, “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners” (Matthew 9:12-13)
19 BC – Deathday of Virgil, Roman poet
1780 – Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.
1792 – The National Convention declares France a republic & abolishes the absolute monarchy
1860 – Deathday of Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher & author
1866 – Birthday of H. G. Wells
1912 – Birthday of Chuck Jones, American animator, producer, & screenwriter
1934 – A large typhoon hits western Honshū, Japan, killing 3,036 people
1938 – The Great Hurricane of 1938 makes landfall on Long Island in New York. The death toll is estimated at 500-700 people
1942 – In Dunaivtsi, Ukraine, Nazis murder 2,588 Jews
1972 – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos signs Proclamation № 1081, placing the entire country under martial law marking the beginning of his authoritarian rule
1976 – Orlando Letelier is assassinated in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Chilean socialist government of Salvador Allende, overthrown in 1973 by Augusto Pinochet
1991 – Armenia is granted independence from Soviet Union
1993 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin suspends parliament & scraps the constitution, triggering the Russian constitutional crisis
1996 – The Defense of Marriage Act passes the United States Congress. The law prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriage, while allowing states to adopt any marital definition of their choosing
1998 – Deathday of John Wood, Anthroposophical translator
1999 – Chi-Chi earthquake occurs in central Taiwan, leaving over 2,400 people dead
***
David Newbatt
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Striving on the Peace Path Gathering hot iron From the falling stars Climbing the Tree of Life To anoint Michael’s sword
~hag
***
John Stolfo
Lecture 2. Steiner says that since the dragon is a super-sensible being in the sense of world — it attracts the super-sensible elemental forces that stream toward humanity out of nature and unites with them, with the result that the human being, instead of releasing the plant elementals from their spell through our soul and Gemüt, unites them with the Dragon – allows them to perish with the Dragon in our lower nature.
The elemental beings dwelling in minerals, plants, and animals must rise to a higher existence in the evolutionary process. This can only be accomplished by passing through human beings. Steiner says we have a cosmic aim within the entire world evolution; linked with the further development of these elemental beings.
When we enter into a right relationship with them, they can attain to this higher stage of evolution.”
“…We must acquire a feeling, a Gemüt content, telling us that every blossom bears testimony to the existence of an enchanted elemental being within it; and we will learn to feel the longing in this elemental being to be released by us, instead of being delivered up to the Dragon. And when the flowers wither in the autumn we will know that we have succeeded in contributing a bit to the progress of spirit in the world, in enabling an elemental being to slip out of its plant when the blossoms wither and fall and become seed. But only if we can permeate ourselves with the powerful strength of Michael are we able to lead this elemental being up into the spirit for which it yearns.
“…We must really live into & experience the cycles of the seasons. We can experience spring as the birth of elemental beings longing for the spirit, and in autumn, activate their liberation from the dying plants and withering blossoms. We can sense the transformation of nature as part of our own destiny: we will coalesce with all that grows there, because our free individuality can pour itself out in sacrifice into the cosmos. — this is how we can contribute to Michael’s Conflict with the Dragon.”
“…So can you see? that what leads to true a Michaelmas Festival must be an event of the human Gemüt, a Gemüt event that can once more experience the cycle of the seasons as a living reality…”
”…the ability to experience in our blood circulation the pulse-beat of outer existence as we do our own innermost being that is the preparation needed for the Michael Festival.”
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.
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
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 1stantipope residing in Avignon, France
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
1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe
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
1893 – Charles Duryea road-tests the first American-made gasoline-powered automobile
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 isthought 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
***
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~i sing the rain
in fresh contemplation
of change…
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.”
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*
***
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
***
Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
The Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACEfor classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…
17 September 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waxing gibbous Moon stands close to Saturn’s upper left this evening. Look for Saturn due south as darkness falls this week. It shines more than a full magnitude brighter than any of the background stars in its host constellation, Sagittarius.
***
History by William Baziotes
I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience ~ Zbigniew Herbert (from Chris Manvell)
1179 – Deathday of Hildegard of Bingen, “the Sybil of the Rhine” a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, & polymath.
She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama, the oldest surviving morality play. She wrote theological, botanical, & medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, & poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.
Hildegard 1st saw “The Shade of the Living Light” at the age of three. Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, but at the age of 42, Hildegard received instruction from God, to “write down that which you see and hear.” Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering: “But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. (…) And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, ‘Cry out therefore, and write thus!’
Hildegard’s visions caused her to see humans as “living sparks” of God’s love.
On 17 September 1179, when Hildegard died, her sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies & cross over the room where she was dying.
“Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around Him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honor. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground, and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.”
Howard Chandler Christy
1787 – The United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia
1859 – Joshua A. Norton declares himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States.”Born in England, Norton spent most of his early life in South Africa, he emigrated to San Francisco with an inheritance, but he lost his fortune investing in Peruvian rice & Norton’s public prominence faded. He reemerged to lay claim to the position of Emperor of the United States, & ‘Protector of Mexico’. He was treated deferentially in San Francisco, ¤cy issued in his name was honored in the establishments he frequented.
Though some considered him insane or eccentric, citizens of San Francisco celebrated his regal presence & his proclamations, such as his order that the United States Congress be dissolved by force & his numerous decrees calling for a bridge crossing connecting San Francisco to Oakland, &a corresponding tunnel to be built under San Francisco Bay.
At his funeral two days later, nearly 30,000 people packed the streets of San Francisco to pay homage. Norton has been immortalized as the basis of characters in the literature of writers Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Christopher Moore, Maurice De Bevere, Selma Lagerlöf, & Neil Gaiman
1908 – The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge. He becomes the first airplane fatality
1916 –Manfred von Richthofen (“The Red Baron“), a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France, in World War I
1928 – The Okeechobee hurricane strikes southeastern Florida, killing more than 2,500 people. It is the third deadliest natural disaster in United States history, behind the Galveston hurricane of 1900 & the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
1939 –The Soviet Union joins Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in World War II
1939 –German submarine U-29 sinks the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous in World War II
1948 – The Lehi, also known as the Stern gang, assassinates Count Folke Bernadotte, who was appointed by the United Nations to mediate between the Arab nations & Israel. Lehi = “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel” was a Zionist paramilitary organizationfounded by Avraham (“Yair”) Stern in Palestine. Its aim was to evict the British authorities from Palestine by force, allowing unrestricted immigration of Jews & the formation of a Jewish state, a ‘new totalitarian Hebrew republic’
1961 – Deathday of Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish diplomat, economist, author & the second secretary-general of the United Nations. Soon after his appointment Hammarskjöld was interviewed on radio by Edward R. Murrow. In this talk he declared: “But the explanation of how man should live a life of active social service in full harmony with himself as a member of the community of spirit, I found in the writings of those great medieval mystics [Meister Eckhart and Jan van Ruysbroek] for whom ‘self-surrender’ had been the way to self-realization, and who in ‘singleness of mind’ and ‘inwardness’ had found strength to say yes to every demand which the needs of their neighbours made them face, and to say yes also to every fate life had in store for them when they followed the call of duty as they understood it.”
He was en route to negotiate a cease-fire on 18 September when his plane crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia. Hammarskjöld & fifteen others died in the crash. The circumstances of the incident are still not clear. There is some evidence that suggests the plane was shot down. Göran Björkdahl (a Swedish aid worker) wrote in 2011 that he believed Dag Hammarskjöld’s 1961 death was a murder committed in part to benefit mining companies like Union Minière, after Hammarskjöld had made the UN intervene in the Katanga crisis. Björkdahl based his assertion on interviews with witnesses of the plane crash & on archival documents. Former U.S. President Harry Truman commented that Hammarskjöld “was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said ‘when they killed him’.”
1978 – The Camp David Accords brokered by President Jimmy Carter, is signed by Egyptian PresidentAnwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime MinisterMenachem Begin
2001 – The New York Stock Exchange reopens for trading after the September 11 attacks, the longest closure since the Great Depression
2006 – Fourpeaked Mountain in Alaska erupts, marking the first eruption for the long-dormant volcano in at least 10,000 years
2011 – Occupy Wall Street movement begins in Zuccotti Park, New York City
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Hilma Af Klint
~ Holy Spirit,
giving life to all life, moving all creatures,
root of all things,
washing them clean,
wiping out their mistakes,
healing their wounds,
you are our true life,
luminous, wonderful,
awakening the heart
from its ancient sleep.~ Hildegard of Bingen
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Hilma Af Klint
Cloud Gazing
A very interesting meditation cloud gazing; part Rorschach, part cosmic divination. Recently I have felt called to watch the sky every day. Even for 5 minutes much can be revealed. I remain watchful & act as witness to the messages – in the formations, in the wind, in my body, in all of nature.
How is dawn speaking today, what will dusk want? Noon brings its own power. The robin’s song this year seems particularly urgent, yet lonesome. I send out gratitude & love, & listen for the echo of the elementals.
Moving through the clouds is that a choir of Angels, see it there…? They seem so active & willing to connect with those who are keen to look up & read the starry script, to read the augury without falling into illusion, to witness without judgment, to get out of the way & yet to participate fully.
Was it Ben Franklin who was an initiate in weather watching?
The etheric realm is an open secret for those who have eyes to see, look up & join in the co-creation of our evolution.
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.
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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, 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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AGM 2018 Friday, Oct 5 – Sunday, Oct 7 in New Orleans, Louisiana
The newly renovated (& lazured) Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…
Stephanie Allison
Dereck Clark
Anna Kulisz
Ayse Domeniconi
Caravaggio
Mars by WilliamTurners
