Category Archives: Quote

Adversity / Resilience…

Biography, History, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote

Those who work with the Original indications in the Calendar of the Soul know that Rudolf Steiner lists the birth & death days, as well as other significant occurrences of various individualities, along with the dates in the calendar.  He said of this: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of mankind’s spiritual development” ~Rudolf Steiner

TODAY 31 August in 1943 – Deathday of Elisabeth Vreede, a Dutch mathematician, astronomer & Anthroposophist – one of Rudolf Steiner’s closest co-workers, part of the the original Vorstand in Dornach 

Elisabeth Vreede was born in Holland, at The Hague, on 16 July 1879. She was the second child of her father, who was a lawyer, & her mother, who was devoted to charitable work. She was a sensitive person, & later on in her life she played an important part in the Anthroposophical life in Holland.

Elisabeth Vreede came into contact with Theosophy in her home growing up. She was interested early on in the starry sky, & while learning French, she read the works of Camille Flammarion, a French astronomer & author. Because of his scientific background, he approached spiritism & reincarnation from the viewpoint of the scientific method, writing, “It is by the scientific method alone that we may make progress in the search for truth. Religious belief must not take the place of impartial analysis. We must be constantly on our guard against illusions.”

At the University of Leyden she studied mathematics, astronomy, Sanskrit, & philosophy (especially Hegel). She was also actively involved in student life, founding a boat club & was a council member of the students’ union.

After receiving her diploma in 1906, she gave instruction at a higher girl’s school in mathematics until 1910. From 1910, she lived in Berlin, worked on her dissertation, & occasionally worked as a secretary for Rudolf Steiner. In April 1914, she moved to Dornach to help in the building of the first Goetheanum & was often found there carving wood.

During the War years (1916/17) Elisabeth Vreede broke off from her residence in Dornach in order to work in Berlin as a coworker of Elisabeth Rotten, a Quaker, peace activist & educational progressive, looking after prisoners of war. She was very much aware of the life & sufferings of her contemporaries.

Einige Briefe aus dem Jahr 1943, Elisabeth Vreede

Her first meeting with Rudolf Steiner took place at the Theosophical Congress in London in 1903. Vreede was leader of the mathematics & astronomy sections in the Goetheanum in Dornach from 1926 till 1935. In her capacity as leader of the Mathematical-Astronomical Section she wrote a monthly letter, then available by subscription, about both modern astronomy & classical astrology in the light of spiritual science. The letters included explanations of the fundamentals of astronomy & discussions of astrology in the modern world, with reference to such topics as the procession of the equinoxes, comets, solar & lunar eclipses, & the meaning of the Christian holidays such as Easter & Whitsun. The Letters in English translation were published in 2007 with the title Astronomy and Spiritual Science.

Cichorei | Elisabeth Vreede

Rudolf Steiner said of her: ‘this individuality does not wish to be recognized …’ Elisabeth Knottenbelt in her memoirs describes statements about her: that ‘she incarnated too early’ for the sake of serving Rudolf Steiner. “for this task [the work with Rudolf Steiner] she had assumed the sacrifice of a premature incarnation. One who, for the sake of a spiritual mission, comes in this way to earth too early must forego a lot. To a great extent one leaves one’s karmic circle of human beings behind in the spiritual word. Her life was thus really a quite lonely one, only a few persons were grouped around her without any real connection.”

After the War, Rudolf Steiner developed his idea of the threefold social order & she too had an intense interest in this initiative & work. She was the first to bring this idea of a threefold social order to England.

Around 1918, Dr. Vreede began to construct the library & archive at the Goetheanum. Using her own means, she purchased the expensive lecture transcripts as soon as they were typed from notes. In 1920 she moved to Arlesheim, Switzerland, where she had built a little house for herself. It was the second house for which Steiner had given the model in 1919.

In 1924, Steiner appointed her to head the Mathematical-Astronomical Section of the School of Spiritual Science of the recently reestablished Anthroposophical Society, & she belonged to the board of directors of the general Anthroposophical Society from 1925 to 1935.

Elisabeth Vreede - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia

In 1935 the separation within the Anthroposophical Society took place & she was expelled from the executive council & excluded along with her long-time friend & co-member, Dr. Ita Wegman from the board of directors. She was also cut off from the observatory & archives that she herself helped assemble.

The last years of her life became more lonely. She was cut off from her friends abroad by the War. The death of Ita Wegman at the beginning of March, 1943, was a great shock for her.

Astronomy and Spiritual Science: The Astronomical Letters of Elisabeth Vreede: Vreede, Elisabeth, Koetzsch, Ronald, Riegel, Anne, Davidson, Norman: 9780880105880: Amazon.com: Books

Here is a quote from a letter written by her prior to her removal from the executive council: “The Being of Anthroposophy – I myself have always felt it as a spiritual being newly created by Dr. Steiner, as it were the first hierarchical Being that men have begotten, quite young and still underdeveloped, as is the case with a child—a Being that must now begin to develop further through our common work as a ‘community of knowledge’, and with the cooperation of its creator from the spiritual world. Just for this reason I find it so painful when attacks are continually made against part of the active members such as to exclude them from the work, from creating together the Being of Anthroposophy.”

Rudolf Steiner saw her in connection with the Platonic stream, & had indicated that she had incarnated earlier than planned in order to meet him on Earth.

Rudolf Steiner is reputed to have said that Dr. Vreede understood his work more deeply than anyone else.

Dr. Vreede gave a lecture on 3 January 1926, which was first publish in the Anthroposophical Movement in Vol. 6, Nos. 42 to 46, called The World of the Stars and Human Destiny. In it she addressed the appropriate use of Astrology in our time:

“You will now understand to what purpose we have a horoscope, and that it is not there in the first instance for our own sake. You will understand that when a horoscope is made for a person’s satisfaction, there is always a certain amount of egoism connected with it; for he does not possess it for this purpose! And if you take the passages in our literature where Dr. Steiner speaks about Astrology (there are passages in many of the cycles and lectures) you will find how he emphasizes again and again that Astrology must be something social, which pays no attention to the individual but has social aims. In a true Astrology only what is universally human is considered and not the satisfaction of the egoism of the human being. By considering it egoistically, that deed of Michael is undone whereby other beings ought to be saved from plunging into the abyss.

When Dr. Steiner asked the position of the stars at the moment of a birth, it was always with reference to children who lacked one or other of the forces just described. It was then possible to learn from it which of these forces was not there in the right sense; thus it could be gathered what this human soul lacked before birth. And then it might be possible under certain circumstances to find a cure. Here we see how the matter is carried away from what is egoistic and into the social, when such abnormal children may in this way find a cure, which otherwise might perhaps not be possible. But in those children in whom certain forces were not brought in at birth these influences remain present. …Thus we see how Astrology can be used when it is kept in Michael’s sense, and not in the sense in which it is so often practiced today.”

In 1928 she invited Willi Sucher to come to Dornach & collaborated with him in working out the death asterograms of historical personalities, which was part of his substantial historic research, & which he further worked out in the late 30’s & 40’s, doing the charts & therapeutic research of special needs children in England & Scotland.

On the anniversary, in 1943, of Rudolf Steiner’s death, she spoke to the circle of friends & co-workers at the Ida Wegman clinic. They wanted to commemorate not just Rudolf Steiner but the many others who were leading Anthroposophists but were no longer known to most. She spoke in a devoted way about Edith Maryon, who also died in 1924, & Alice Sauerwein. She portrayed Count Keyserlingk & Louis Werbeck, Caroline von Heydebrand & Eugen Kolisko.

At the beginning of May 1943 she spoke once more on the 400th anniversary of the death of Copernicus. At the lecture it was noticed that only by exceptional exertion could she keep herself upright. Just a few days later on 6 May, she had to take to her bed. She had never been ill nor depended on people until that point. Thanks to the devoted care of Frau Schunemann, she was treated at home until her passing on 31 August 1943 in Ascona.

“The stars bear for us the traces of the Deeds of the Gods which lead through the Beings of the hierarchies to the frontiers of Divinity Itself.” ~Elisabeth Vreede

http://www.rsarchive.org/RelAuthors/VreedeElizabeth/Anthro_Astro.php 

31 August 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars” – from AstrosopherJonathan Hilton:
I want to call to your awareness the steady permeation of the sphere around the Earth with small satellites which communicate with ground receivers to provide a global internet web network around our planet. The larger company creating this web of internet satellites is SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk. Starlink is the name of this particular component of the SpaceX corporation. Their goal is to create a network of up to 30,000 small satellites in low orbit around the Earth to form a complete internet web for global access on all parts of the Earth. As of July, 3,000 satellites have been put into orbit. Today is one of five launches in August of about 60 satellites per launch, adding another 300 satellites.

Astronomers are objecting to these satellites because they create light pollution in space obstructing astronomical viewing. The white lines are trails of light from 25 of 60 recently launched Starlink satellites.

The deeper issue is of course the permeation of the sphere around the Earth with 30,000 communication satellites forming this electronic web! Starlink satellites are in what is called “low orbit” which means they are as close to the Earth as possible without being in an atmospheric layer which will cause them to burn up like meteors do on entering a certain layer of our atmosphere. So they orbit at about 340 miles (550 km) altitude which is above the life ether sphere in what is called the thermosphere, which covers a long range of distance and can also be called the cosmic warmth ether layer. The lower levels of this layer are where we find the aurora events.

The question then is in what ways this web of satellites and their accompanying electro/magnetic activity affects the spiritual layers of our Earth, even the capacities for spiritual thoughts to ascend and descend from the heavens. One must not see this strictly spatially but that the spatial is an image of a consciousness which seeks to consume, so to speak, or perhaps subsume, spiritual consciousness into its realm.

So how do we respond to a technological process enveloping our Earth in a web of internet? One can only meet it by first being full awake to what is happening and second by meeting this technological consciousness with spiritual consciousness. One way to do this through astrosophy is to realize that our picture of the cosmos as a spatial realm of matter is false. Rather is the cosmos a great realm of consciousness of beings of ascending ranks, who wish to participate with humanity in its evolutionary process, as well as human beings ascending and descending from death and into birth, bringing the will of the divine into Earth existence and carrying the fruits of life into the cosmos.

The higher beings do not interfere in our freedom but do await our conscious union with them as co-creators in building the new cosmos of spiritual substance born out of our transformative working in the Earth.

When we work out of astrosophy to not picture the planets as material bodies, or “energies”, but rather as spheres of higher consciousness which we can, through a path of cognition, hear and unite ourselves with, then we break through the web of electronic ahrimanic deception into the realm of true being.

With warm greetings, Jonathan Hilton, Astrosophy.com

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (commons,rsarchive.org, Astrosophy.com)

JEAN-BAPTISTE REGNAULT

Feast Day of Joseph of Arimathea & Nicodemus. Rudolf Steiner speaks about these individualities as initiates many times. Here are a few examples: http://www.rsarchive.org/Search.phphttp://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA103/English/AP1962/19080525p01.html

12 – Birthday of Caligula

1528 – Deathday of  Matthias Grünewald a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century. Only ten paintings—several consisting of many panels—& thirty-five drawings survive, all religious, although many others were lost at sea in the Baltic on their way to Sweden as war booty. His largest and most famous work is the Isenheim Altarpiece

1740 – Birthday of Johann Friedrich Oberlin, mystic, philanthropist, social Christian. Rudolf Steiner spoke about him in his lectures on Occult History http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0126/19101227p01.html

1803 – Meriwether Lewis & William Clark start their expedition to the west

1869 – Deathday of Mary Ward, Irish astronomer & entomologist, killed when she fell under the wheels of an experimental steam car built by her cousins. She was the world’s first person known to be killed by a motor vehicle

1886 – The 7.0 Charleston earthquake hits South Carolina. Sixty people were killed & damage is estimated at $5–6 million

1888 – Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper’s confirmed victims

1895 – German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his Navigable Balloon

1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector

1907 – The Anglo-Russian Convention between the United Kingdom & Russia. The agreement led to the formation of the Triple Entente, linking the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, & the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland – igniting the Great War.

1939 – Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day thus starting World War II in Europe

1943 – Deathday of Elisabeth Vreede, a Dutch mathematician, astronomer & Anthroposophist – one of Rudolf Steiner’s closest co-workers, part of the the original Vorstand in Dornach (see above)

1957 –Malaysia gains its independence from the United Kingdom

1980 – Flood in Ibadan after 12 hours of heavy downpour, killed over 300 people & properties worth millions destroyed

1986 – Aeroméxico Flight 498 collides with a Piper PA-28 Cherokee over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air & 15 on the ground

1986 – The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 423.

1987 – Thai Airways Flight 365 crashes into the ocean near Ko Phuket, Thailand, killing all 83 aboard

1997 – Deathday of Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Fayed & driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris

1999 – A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including two on the ground

2005 – The 2005 Al-Aaimmah bridge stampede in Baghdad kills 1,199 people

2012 – A 7.6-magnitude earthquake strikes the Philippine province of Eastern Samar

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Be heading

Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote
Gustave-Moreau

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.

El Greco

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

Leonardo Da Vinci

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

Crack the Code to Freedom

History, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote

Dear freinds – TODAY in 1498 – Michelangelo is commissioned to carve the Pietà.

“In Michelangelo we have a spirit who helped human evolution on its way because he had a maturity of soul which enabled him to imprint on the world of space and matter significant facts from the spiritual world. He stood wholly in the great current of his times yet his own inmost quality was not fully understood. A friend once wrote to him that even the Pope feared him; and yet in his soul there lived all the greatness of Christian impulses which flowed into his work. While he felt himself at one with the great Christian impulses he yet lived at the dawn of a later epoch — closely though it was still connected with earlier ages. The content of older Christian impulses still affected his soul and out of that he created something which in its form and artistic method was already part of the ties in which we ourselves live. Hence comes the mood of the poem which he wrote — probably during his last days as he looked back over his life — and which makes it clear what our relation is to him, and how we should allow his influence over us to work:

Now hath my life across a stormy sea like a frail barque reached that wide port, where all are hidden, ere the final reckoning fall of good and evil for eternity.

Now know I well how that fond phantasy, which made my soul the worshipper and thrall of earthly art, is vain; how criminal is that which all men seek unwillingly.

Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed, what are they when the double death is nigh?

The one I know for sure, the other dread. 

Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest my soul that turns to His great Love on high Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread. ~ Michelangelo

Michelangelo was a great poet also, and the poems of his which survive show the same spirit which we have found in his sculpture and painting. The last three lines of this sonnet make it clear that he could never be at ease in the world, and that was fundamentally true of him all his life. He was a sort of hybrid, still part of the old but already living within the new. This is particularly evident in that work which he carried out at the instigation of one of the Popes: the tombs of Giuliani and Lorenzo dei Medici.

Dawn & Dusk
Day & Night

In this chapel: the four allegorical figures, arranged two and two: Day and Night, Dawn and Dusk. I have often gazed at them; in fact they are one of the things which by a sort of spiritual compulsion I always look at longest when I have had the privilege of being in Florence. These figures are not mere allegories without force and without vitality. Use every means that Spiritual Science gives you to look at them and think about them; then if we remember that what anthroposophy calls the ego and the astral body leave the physical and etheric bodies at night, and if we ask ourselves what qualities and gesture of the etheric body we should select to represent plastically the truth which Spiritual Science tells us — how, that is, we should picture the physical body of the sleeping human being if we really feel him to be what Spiritual Science describes him as being — we know that he should be represented in the form which Michelangelo has given to “Night”. It is not just a symbol of night but the true spiritual reality of man as he really is in sleep which we have before us in this female figure. Thus Michelangelo, who knew so well how to set the figures in his works within the same space in which we ourselves stand, was also well aware what it means if the soul and spirit leaves man’s physical body but leave it with life still within it. If we also study the other individual members of the human being and then look at the other figures in the tomb, we shall see how closely they run parallel with what I once called spiritual chemistry.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Michelangelo, Berlin, 8th January, 1914

26 August 2022– “Speaking with the Stars

Michelangelo

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“To truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world.” Rudolf Steiner

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast day of Samuel, literally meaning “Name of God” in Hebrew, is a leader & Judge of ancient Israel. He is also known as a prophet & is mentioned in the second chapter of the Qur’an.  Aa a seer, Samuel is associated with the bands of musical ecstatic roaming prophets.

Feast Day of Melchizedek, (“God most high”) Priest & king of Salem mentioned in the 14th chapter of the Book of Genesis. He brings out bread and wine & blesses Abram. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, he is depicted as being “Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” Jesus Christ is identified as “a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek”

“Even when some individual was to be the leader of a particular people he would be required to develop a measure of understanding for every human soul. This is indicated magnificently in the Old Testament in the passage describing the meeting between Abraham and Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High. Those who understand this passage know that Abraham, who was destined to become the leader of his people, underwent an Initiation at this time — even if not in full consciousness as is the case in later Initiations. Abraham’s Initiation was connected with realisation of the Divine element that can flow into all human souls. The passage which tells of the meeting of Abraham with Melchizedek contains a deep secret connected with the evolution of humanity. “~Rudolf Steiner, Between Death & Rebirth, Lecture 2

Feast Day of The Black Madonna of Częstochowa, The Virgin Mary is shown as the “Hodegetria” (“One Who Shows the Way“)The icon has been intimately associated with Poland for the past 600 years.

Its history prior to its arrival in Poland is shrouded in numerous legends which trace the icon’s origin to St. Luke who painted it on a cedar table top from the house of the Holy Family.

The same legend holds that the painting was discovered in Jerusalem in 326 by St. Helena, who brought it back to Constantinople & presented it to her son, Constantine the Great.

The legend concerning the two scars on the Black Madonna’s right cheek is that the Hussites stormed the Pauline monastery in 1430, plundering the sanctuary. Among the items stolen was the icon. After putting it in their wagon, the Hussites tried to get away but their horses refused to move. They threw the portrait down to the ground, as the robber struck the painting twice, the face of the Virgin Mary started to bleed; in a panic, the scared Hussites retreated & left the painting

Women’s Equality Day

1498 – Michelangelo is commissioned to carve the Pietà

1789 – The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is approved- directly influenced by Thomas Jefferson, working with General Lafayette. Also by the doctrine of “natural right“, held to be universal: valid at all times & in every place, pertaining to human nature itself. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by law. Inspired in part by the American Revolution, & also by the Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution & had a major impact on the development of freedom & democracy in Europe & worldwide

1791 – John Fitch is granted a United States patent for the steamboat

1795 – Deathday of Cagliostro, the alias of the occultist Giuseppe Balsamo, an Italian adventurer & self-styled magician. He became a glamorous figure associated with the royal courts of Europe where he pursued various occult arts, including psychic healing, alchemy & scrying. His reputation lingered for many decades after his death. Steiner called him an initiate.

1883 – Eruption of Krakatoa

1910 – Birthday of Mother Teresa

1914 – Rudolf Steiner meets Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff, near Koblenz

1920 – The 19th amendment to United States Constitution takes effect, giving women the right to vote

1942 – The Holocaust in Chortkiv, western Ukraine, over 4000 die

1970 – The feminist movement, led by Betty Friedan, leads a nationwide Women’s Strike for Equality

1995 – Deathday of Daskalos, the Greek word for teacher, a Greek Cypriot mystic & healer. He set up the circle, “The Researchers of Truth.”

1999 – Russia begins the Second Chechen War

David Deak

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

I feel the fire burning – my thoughts spark the flame
A voice calls out the question
Echoing with my name.
Hidden in dark chambers – a purpose dwells deep
Be patient to unveil Her
So what’s unlocked, will never sleep
Where is Love to pulse in rhythm?
Pain ringing the alarm: What you reap, this you sow.
Then will the seed be watered, & then begin to grow
And crack the code to Freedom
To let the Sun of Wisdom speak from the heart & flow.
~hag

Portals of Perception

History, Insight, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote
David Anderson

Some notes & thoughts gleaned from a zoom session with Dr. James Dyson during our recent AAP  training: Why did Anthroposophy come into the world when it did? While pondering this question in my meditation this morning I came across this quote by Steiner:

“The change took place to begin with in the spiritual world, in that the Beings who had been leading hitherto were replaced by that spiritual Being who may be described as the Being of Michael. Michael, has taken over the Spiritual guidance of humankind. The fact that Michael is now entering the soul-life and spiritual life of humankind has its visible counterpart on Earth. An ever growing number of people begin to realize that  the human being is livingly and constantly connected, not only through their physical body with the Earth, but through their soul and spirit with the spiritual world.

The human being is thus growing into conscious spiritual knowledge. This is the one aspect of the leadership of Michael, but there is also another. To be sincerely filled with spiritual knowledge also affects the human heart, the human soul. The more the light of Spiritual Science spreads, the less will it remain a mere theory; it will pour out into human feeling, — it will be present in the form of true human love, in ever widening circles.” ~Rudolf Steiner, PLANETARY SPHERES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON MANS LIFE ON EARTH AND IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS, VI. Christ and the Metamorphoses of Karma, 19 November 1922, London

Besides the fact that Anthroposophy was primed in the spiritual world thru the Michael School & the Cosmic Cultus in preparation for the New Michael age which began in 1879, just as the kali Yuga was ending, Dyson also thinks Anthroposophy came into the world to usher in the new clairvoyance. (Something we have been exploring thru the Vidar research )

But Dyson asks, How can this be if we can’t even wake up to the Higher Self within ourselves or truly see the divinity within other human beings…since we seem to be facing the ruins of a social karma..?

Rudolf Steiner’s core mission was to bring a practical understanding of karma & reincarnation to the West, but he had to take over the task of bringing Anthroposophy into the world since his teacher Karl Julius Schroer (Plato in an earlier incarnation) was not able to bring his cosmic thinking into the consciousness soul age. Dyson thinks that if Steiner hadn’t died so young he would have brought more insights connecting his core mission with Psychosophy.

Further notes: The human encounter is a threshold experience. Therapy (ie. the knowing of thyself) helps us to have a new kind of relationship to others & to the world.

How can we expand the idea of subject / object in the realm of the physical out into the etheric where the angels & elemental beings as well as our interrelationships live..? This involves the redemption of thinking.

Tomorrow we will explore ‘Psychosythesis’…

Until soon

~hag

23 August 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: As summer progresses and Arcturus moves down the western sky, the kite figure of Bootes sprouts from Arcturus toward the upper right. The Big Dipper slants at about the same height in the northwest, to the Kite’s right.

Vuk

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (sourced from Steiner orginal Calendar of the Soul, Wikipedia Commons, Sky&Telescope)

Sergiu Roman

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” ~Aldous Huxley

Feast Day of Vulcan – The god of fire – including the fire of volcanoes, deserts, metalworking and the forge in ancient Roman religion and myth. He is often depicted with a blacksmith’s hammer. The Vulcanalia was the annual festival held August 23 in his honor. His Greek counterpart is Hephaestus, the god of fire and smithery.

Black Ribbon Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism & Nazism

International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade & its Abolition

vesuveus

79 – Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire

1244 – Siege of Jerusalem: The city’s citadel, the Tower of David, surrenders to Khwarezmian (Persian) Empire

1382 – Siege of Moscow: The Golden Horde led by khan Tokhtamysh lays siege

1572 –St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre a wave of Catholic mob violence, directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants) during the French Wars of Religion. Traditionally believed to have been instigated by Catherine de’ Medici, the mother of King Charles IX.

1754 – Birthday of Louis XVI of France – the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as Citizen Louis Capet during the four months just before he was executed by guillotine. He was the son of Louis, Dauphin of France, son and heir-apparent of King Louis XV, and Maria Josepha of Saxony. When his father died in 1765, he became the new Dauphin.

1839 – The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong. The ensuing 3-year conflict will later be known as the First Opium War

1914 – World War I: Japan declares war on Germany

1939 – World War II: Nazi Germany & the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret addition to the pact, the Baltic states, Finland, Romania, & Poland are divided between the two nations.

1942 – World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad

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

1944 – Freckleton Air Disaster: A United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into a school in Freckleton, England killing 61 people

earth rise nasa

1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon

1970 –César Chávez leads the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history

1973 – A bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, turns into a hostage crisis, who begin to sympathize with their captors, leading to the term “Stockholm syndrome”

song revo

1989 – Singing Revolution: Two million people from Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania stand on the Vilnius–Tallinn road, holding hands for restoration of independence

1990 – Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union

1990 – Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western “guests” (actually hostages) to try to prevent the Gulf War

1991 – Tim Berners-Lee opens the World Wide Web to new users

1996 – Osama bin Laden issues message entitled ‘A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.’

2000 – Gulf Air Flight 072 crashes into the Persian Gulf killing 143

2011 – A magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurs in Virginia as a result of ‘Fracking’. Damage occurs to monuments & structures in Washington D.C. with damage estimated at 300 million

Marilina Mascias

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~The portals of perception
Raw & cluttered await
The revealing –
It is my Self I see –
A 1000 colors swirling in liquid light
A star covered in rising clouds
Hung by a thread from its ocean Moon
Hail Self
Traversing eternity
In moral steps of time
Where the Guardian beckons
~hag

Vidarmas

Biography, Community, Festival, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote

Greetings – On Saturday 20 August 2022, a group of us met in the Upper Room of the Rudolf Steiner Branch, Chicago, to explore the idea of co-creating a New Festival called Vidarmas to acknowledge the Archangel Vidar, in connection to our need to experience ‘The Etheric Christ‘ which is our task in this age.

We opened with the recitation of a Poem by ~Mac Andrew called ‘Woden and the Grail‘:

And Odin hung for nine days
from the Earth’s One Tree,
his eye gouged for wisdom gained,
a loss so he could see.

He waited long upon this throne
as Godlike days passed.
For the future he’d wait to see;
how to make his time last.

The One-God was coming
for this was surely told
but how to manage tomorrow
for the long lost Gods of old.

His wolves, and horse, and crows
they stood and gathered near
looking long for his wisdom
against the lives they held so dear.

Then Odin smiled upon the ninth day
for the answer there did lie
within the Earthen Tree
he had helped himself to tie.

Lowered now to the ground,
sodden by his many tears,
he drew nigh his greatest friends
those who waited the many years.

Turning to the tree he drew
deep from within its heart
a living chalice made of wood
from which to make a start.

Come my friends gather round
and for the past do not wail
as we hold the future steady now
within this Earthen Holy Grail.

While Lucien wrote on the black board, I shared a few leading thoughts gleaned from my work with Prokofieff’s indications encapsulating the Spiritual Science of Rudolf Steiner in his amazing book: “The Cycle of the year as a Path of Initiation Leading to an Experience of the Christ Being, An Esoteric Study of the Festivals” – the 12th & final chapter on: “The Modern Mysteries of the Etheric Christ” expounding on “The Vidar Mystery”.

Druidic ‘gravestone’ of Vidar found in Niederdollendorf near Colonge

a few Highlights:
“This individuality of Wotan or Odin (who Steiner calls an Archangel) is the same as the one who later appeared with the same mission under the name Buddha”. (GA105 August 14 1908)

“When the Buddha appeared to the shepherds in the picture of the ‘heavenly host’, he was not in a physical body but in an astral body. He had assumed a body in which he could still send his influences to the Earth….This body is called a Nirmanakaya’. ” (GA 114, 17 September 1909)

Every human being has a guardian angel; before Siddhārtha became the Gautama-Buddha he had one too. When he achieved Buddhahood his angel was ‘freed’ & went on to work with the Christ thru the pre-earthly deeds & with the Nathan Soul who then incarnated as the Luke Jesus. You can read about this angel in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 2 & in Matthew 1:18–25.

Steiner speaks about the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha with all its “Youthful forces” becoming the astral body of the Nathan Jesus when he was 12.

It is the Buddha’s’ Angel, who we later learn is Vidar, who comes to the aid of the etheric body of Christ Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when the Ahrimanic death forces were threatening to kill the body before Christ’s deed on Golgotha was completed. “An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him”. (Luke 22-43)

According to Rudolf Steiner in 1879 the Angel of Gautama Buddha ascends into the sphere of the Archangels, taking the place vacated by Michael, who at this time completes his ascent to the rank of Archai. This angel being then went on to work with the Christ in the etheric.

Then we went around & read together Rudolf Steiner’s Lecture THE MISSION OF FOLK-SOULS, GA 121,, Lecture XI, 17 June 1910, Christiania – Here is a powerful quote from our study:

“All these details which are set forth in the ‘Twilight of the Gods’, correspond with that which is to appear to humankind in a newer etheric vision, which in reality refers to the future. The Fenris Wolf will still remain. Oh, there is a deep, deep truth concealed in this account of the Fenris Wolf remaining behind in conflict with Odin. In the near future of humankind there will be no danger so great as the tendency to remain satisfied with the old clairvoyance, — instead of developing the new by means of new forces — the danger that humanity might be tempted to remain satisfied with what the old astral clairvoyance of primal ages could give, namely, soul-pictures such as that of the Fenris Wolf. It would also be a severe trial for that which has to grow up in the domain of Anthroposophy, if in that, the tendency towards all sorts of confused, chaotic clairvoyance should arise…

Something very different must come in. And what that is, is, however, known to Celtic-Germanic-Norse mythology — it is well aware of its existence. It knows, that there exists the etheric form in which will embody that which we shall once again see as the etheric form of Christ. And this alone will succeed in driving out the confused clairvoyant power which would bewilder humankind…
Vidar, who has kept silence all the time, will overcome the Fenris Wolf. That also is told us in the ‘Twilight of the Gods’.

Anyone who recognizes the importance of Vidar and feels him in their soul, will find that beginning in the twentieth century the capacity can again be given to humanity with which to see Christ.

Vidar, who belongs to us all, will again stand before the human being. Vidar was kept secret in the Mysteries and secret Schools as a god who would receive his mission only in the future.”

We had lively discussions throughout the evening. Then to get us up on our feet to vibrate from our lips & lungs, Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer of The Musical initiative: Velsum: Voices of Ancient Futurism brought us a song they wrote for the occasion.

Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Come upon us.
Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Give us your trust.

Let us meet you in the threshold.
Let us know you in the Light.
Let us carry forth your banner
In selfless might!

Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Come upon us.
Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Give us your trust.

In the flowing of the spirit
From the Northern sickle moon,
We will harvest your new impulse
In joyous truth!

Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Come upon us.
Vidar!
Vidar!
Vidar!
Give us your trust.

Lucien & Ultra invited us to co-write a 3rd verse; so folks pop-corned ideas, & we will work more with that for our next gathering…

Here are the links to the recordings of the song they taught us.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/QLvn4bSTEbjSptZe6

https://photos.app.goo.gl/AGbartxJFFJmNvTf9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/cc8YQTQHZeyGBsaL7

Lucien suggested we end by doing a group poem, each going around saying 1 word. Here is what came forth from our collective efforts for our closing verse: “Speak from the light wherein resolution leads to our hearts fulfillment of the Etheric Christ with courage.”

Vidar at the gates of Shambala by Daniel Ospina

Daniel Ospina the artist of this amazing painting held a meeting at the same time in Ireland where they also read the lecture. The invitation was taken up by other branches including one in Colombia as well. If you dear reader have also taken up this impulse to know Vidar, please share your insights. Let’s keep this knowing going.

Many Thanks to Are Thoresen for sparking our interest in this Being whose powerful mission is calling us to participate.

May the Spiritual Scientific Research that we began into the Festival we are calling Vidarmas, continue to thrive.

~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch, Chicago