Category Archives: Rudolf Steiner Quote

Life Craft

Biography, Celestial Event, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events

POD (Poem Of the Day)

Life Craft
Sculpted by The Word
Shaped by desire
Fired by deed
Standing poised between fate & will…
& from the suck of breath & the pull of space
In my rhythmic heart
Verses for the future fly
There where
A glimmer caught
My eye I
Turned to see the primal warmth
In the fires of perhaps
A beacon of mortal possibility
Etched in the bones of my skull
At the edge of
Peripheral vision
That I might
Recollect my
Self divine
~hag

15 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Portrait of Galileo by Justus Sustermans

1564 – Birthday of Italian astronomer, mathematician and physicist Galileo Galilei. Galileo grew up in a musical family in Florence, where he began his education in a monastery. He studied medicine at the University of Pisa. Due to financial problems, he didn’t finish his degree, but his years at the university introduced him to mathematics and physics, & Aristotle’s philosophy. As Dante had put it some centuries before, Aristotle is “the Master of those who know”

Galileo published “La Bilancetta” (The Little Balance), his first scientific book, which gained him a reputation. The book commented upon the story of how the king of Syracuse asked Archimedes to verify whether his crown was made of pure gold or a mix of metals.

Galileo quickly figured out the mechanics of the spyglass, improving the original design into a telescope that magnifies normal vision up to 20 times.

He drew the moon’s surface, showing that its surface is bumpy and rocky. In January 1610, he discovered the four most massive moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Today, we know them as the Galilean moons. He laid out all of his findings in his book “Sidereus Nuncius” (The Starry Messenger). Galileo observed that Venus went through phases, just as the moon does.

In 1618, Galileo found himself in a controversy about the nature of comets. earning him the anger of the Inquisition part of the Roman Catholic Church. They declared him suspect of heresy, but he recanted & was able to live comfortably & continue his work.

From THE PRINCIPLE OF SPIRITUAL ECONOMY, GA 109 – I. The Principle of Spiritual Economy in Connection with Questions of Reincarnation: An Aspect of the Spiritual Guidance of Mankind
Heidelberg, January 21, 1909

“When a pioneering personality dies, his or her etheric body is always preserved, and occult schools have always known the artifical methods by which this was accomplished. Considering now another characteristic case, we can say that it was important for certain purposes in the more modern age that the etheric body of Galileo was preserved. He was the great reformer of mechanical physics whose accomplishments were so tremendous that one can say many of the purely practical accomplishments of the modern age would not have come about without his discoveries, for all technical progress rests on Galileo’s science of integral and differential calculus, mechanics, and so on. With regard to Galileo, it would have been a waste in nature’s economy had his etheric body, the carrier of his memory and talent, been lost. And that is why his etheric body was transferred to another human being: Michail Lomonosov, who came from a poor Russian village and was later to become the founder of Russian grammar and classical literature. Lomonosov, however, is not the reincarnated Galileo, as might be supposed as a result of superficial investigation. ” ~Rudolf Steiner

1781 – Deathday of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist & art critic – an outstanding representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays & theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature.

“The circumstances of Lessing’s life, I may say, have always interested me to an extraordinary degree. Lessing is really the founder of the better sort of journalism, the journalism that has substance and is really out to accomplish something. Before Lessing, poets and dramatists had taken their subjects from the aristocracy. Lessing, on the other hand, is at pains to introduce bourgeois life, ordinary middle-class life, into the drama, the life concerned generally with the destinies of men as men, and not with the destinies of men in so far as they hold some position in society or the like. Purely human conflicts — that is what Lessing wanted to portray on the stage. In the course of his work he applied himself to many great problems, as for example when he tried to determine the boundaries of painting and of poetry in his Laocoon.

But the most interesting thing of all is the powerful impetus with which Lessing fought for the idea of tolerance. You need only take his Nathan the Wise and you will see at once what a foremost place this idea of tolerance has in Lessing’s mind and life. In weaving the fable of the three kings in Nathan the Wise, he wants to show how the three main religions have gone astray from their original forms and are none of them really genuine, and how one must go in search of the true form, which has been lost. Here we have tolerance united with an uncommonly deep and significant idea…

We begin to get an impression of Lessing when we observe, shall I say, the driving force with which he hurls his sentences against his opponents. He wages a polemic against the civilisation of Middle Europe — quite a refined and correct polemic, but at every turn hitting straight home. You must here observe a peculiar nuance in Lessing’s character if you want to understand the make-up of his life. On the one hand we have the sharpness, often caustic sharpness, in such writings as The Dramatic Art of Hamburg, and then we have to find the way over, as it were, to an understanding, for example, of the words used by Lessing when a son had been born to him and had died directly after birth. He writes somewhat as follows in a letter: Yes, he has at once taken leave again of this world of sorrow; he has thereby done the best thing a human being can do. (I cannot cite the passage word for word, but it was to this effect.) In so writing, Lessing is giving expression to his pain in a wonderfully brave way, not for that reason feeling the pain one whit less deeply than someone who can do nothing but bemoan the event. This ability to draw back into himself in pain was characteristic of the man who at the same time knew how to thrust forward with vigour when he was developing his polemics. This is what makes it so affecting to read the letter written when his child had died immediately after birth, leaving the mother seriously ill.

Lessing had moreover this remarkable thing in his destiny — and it is quite characteristic, when one sets out to find the karmic connections in his case — that he was friends in Berlin with a man who was in every particular his opposite, namely, Nikolai.

Of Lessing it can be said — it is not literally true, but it is none the less characteristic — that he never dreamed, because his intellect and his understanding were so keen. On this account, as we shall see tomorrow, he is for the spiritual researcher such an extraordinarily significant personality. But there is something in the very construction of his sentences, something in the home-thrusts with which he lays his opponent in the dust, that really makes every sentence a delight to read.

With Nikolai it is just the opposite. Nikolai is an example of a true philistine. Although a friend of Lessing, he was none the less a typical philistine-bourgeois; and he had visions, most strange and remarkable visions.

Lessing, genius as he was, had no visions, not even dreams. Nikolai literally suffered from visions. They came, and they went away only after leeches had been applied. Yes, in extremity they actually applied leeches to him, in order that he might not be for ever tormented by the spiritual world which would not let him alone…

At the close of his life Lessing wrote the remarkable essay, The Education of the Human Race, at the end of which, quite isolated, as it were, the idea of repeated earth-lives appears. The book shows how mankind goes through one epoch of development after another, and how the Gods gave into man’s hand as a first primer, so to speak, the Old Testament, and then as a second primer the New Testament, and how in the future a third book will come for the further education of the human race. And then all at once the essay is brought to a close with a brief presentation of the idea that man lives through repeated earth-lives. And there Lessing says, again in a way that is absolutely in accord with his character (I am not quoting the actual words, but this is the gist of it): Ought the idea of repeated earth-lives to seem so absurd, considering that it was present in very early times, when men had not yet been spoilt by school learning? The essay then ends with a genuine panegyric on repeated earth-lives, finishing with these beautiful words: “Is not all Eternity mine?” ~ Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships: Volume 1, Lecture 11

TODAY in 1924 Rudolf Steiner founded the 19 step School of Michael on earth: The Esoteric Lessons for the First Class of the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in Dornach

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

The Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Insights about Mary Magdalene with Faith DiVecchio, 

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT a hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate

Tap in

Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars, Upcoming Events
Padro Cardona

POD (Poem Of the day)

Come celebrate the unseen powers that sustain the world…
Pay reverence to what’s underneath:
The Holy column of support
The liminal benediction from above
The christened periphery
An awakened still-point within
Elusive, uncanny & darkly delicious…
Harken to inner vitality peaking
with thinking as smart as it gets
acting as if
every move is a tap dance…
~hag

10 February 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Sirius the Dog Star blazes in the southeast after dinnertime, below Orion. It’s the brightest star of Canis Major. Comet ZTF passes Mars this evening and tomorrow evening. Right after the end of twilight, face south and look very high, almost overhead. The comet is upper left of Mars. Tomorrow evening, Saturday, the comet will be below Mars.

Image result for etheric heart

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

547 – Death day of St. Scholastica, foundress of the women’s branch of Benedictine Monasticism. The patron saint of nuns, & convulsive children. She is invoked against storms & rain. The most commonly told story about her is that she would go & visit her twin brother Benedict of Nursia near his abbey once a year, They would spend the day praying & discussing sacred texts. Sensing the time of her death was drawing near, Scholastica asked him to stay with her for the evening so they could continue their discussions. Not wishing to break his Rule, Benedict refused, insisting that he needed to return to his cell. At that point, Scholastica closed her hands in prayer, & after a moment, a wild storm started outside. Benedict asked, “What have you done?”, to which she replied, “I asked you & you would not listen; so I asked my God & he did listen. So now go off, if you can, leave me & return to your monastery.” Benedict was unable to return to his monastery, & they spent the night in discussion. Three days later, from his cell, her twin saw her soul leaving the earth & ascending to heaven in the form of a shining white dove

Image result for St. Austrebertha.

630 – Feast Day of St. Austrebertha. A popular legend states that one day, while looking for the donkey whose task it was to carry the laundry of the monks to the convent, she came across a wolf. The wolf admitted to killing the donkey & begged for forgiveness. Austrebertha forgave the wolf but commanded him to carry the laundry himself, a task that the wolf performed for the rest of its life

1909 – Deathday of Felix Koguzki – a peasant herb collector – a simple man of the land who had deep insights into the spiritual world . Rudolf Steiner got to know him during his student days in 1880, when he regularly took the train from Inzersdorf to Vienna, where they exchanged ideas about the spiritual world. Steiner says that he was endowed with a totally elemental & creative wisdom. With the herb gatherer he finds a spiritual friend & does not feel so alone. Thru Félix Koguski, he comes into contact with a very high spiritual master who initiates him. ‘Master M’ shows him the Rosicrucian connection between modern & occult science, religion & the spiritual forces that weave the threads of history. The master led Steiner to read Fichte which aided in strengthening his thoughts so that young Steiner came to a decisive awakening of his soul forces. From this the germs of his book Occult Science were born. The masters main guideline was: “You can only defeat the dragon if you wear its skin” an awakening to the Micaelic Impulse. Felix Koguzki was the living model of Felix Balde from Steiner’s Mystery Dramas & is regarded as the messenger of the secret master as reported in GA 262 (pp. 30-31 ). There it says: “I did not meet M. ( Master) right away, but first of all a messenger from him who was fully initiated into the secrets of the effectiveness of all plants and their connection with the cosmos and with human nature. “( GA 262 , p. 16). Steiner writes about his encounter with Koguzki in “My Course of Life”:

…as if he as a personality were only the organ of speech for a spiritual content that wanted to speak from hidden worlds. When you were with him you could look deep into the secrets of nature. He carried his bundle of medicinal herbs on his back; but in his heart he carried the results which he had gained from the spirituality of nature in his gathering. I have seen some people smile, who at times joined them as a third party when I walked through Wiener Alleegasse with this “initiated” person. It was no wonder. Because its expression was not understandable from the start. In a sense, you first had to learn your “intellectual dialect”. At first I couldn’t understand him either. But from the first time I met him, I had the deepest sympathy for him. And so it gradually became to me.

Image result for rudolf stiener 1880

If one takes the usual concept of “learning”, one can say: “Learning” could not be done from this man. But if you yourself had the view of a spiritual world, you could gain deep insights into it through someone else, which was completely fixed in it.

And at the same time everything that was enthusiasm was far removed from this personality. When you came into your home, you found yourself in the midst of the most sober, simple country family. Above the door of his house were the words: “In God’s blessing everything lies.” One was entertained, as with other villagers. I always had to drink coffee, not from a cup, but from a “mug” that held almost a liter; in addition I had to eat a piece of bread that was huge. But the villagers didn’t look at the man for a fanatic either. The way he behaved in his hometown made every ridicule bounce off. He also had a healthy sense of humor and knew how to talk to young and old at every meeting in the village in such a way that people enjoyed his words.

This man remained close to my soul, even when life had led me away from him again. You can find him in my Mystery Dramas in the figure of Felix Balde. “( GA 28)

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to understand Aristotle’s gift to humanity – his Categories? Let us explore a path to an experience supported by Eurythmy.

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am – 12 noon CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

The Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Insights about Mary Magdalene with Faith DiVecchio, 

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT a hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate

The Preparers

Celestial Event, Community, History, Insight, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Upcoming Events
Rita Cassia

Dear friends, I thought to bring back into focus our ‘Thought Seed project‘ with this 10:10 Testament: In our present age we have a mighty opportunity – Every human being (Anthropos) has the inherent wisdom (Sophia) to solve the riddles of existence, & to transform both self & society – to give birth within ourselves to the being of Anthroposophia – to develop our higher ‘I’ on the earth. In the ‘Apocalypse of John: Lecture XII’ Rudolf Steiner said: “We are preparing for the preparers. The Anthroposophical spiritual movement is today but a very small flame; in the future it must develop into a mighty spiritual fire!” Our current world situation calls us to be alert to the formative forces that can either drag us down into the abyss of unconscious slavery OR these forces can be developed in awakened consciousness into a New Etheric-Sun Heart, which must begin to be enlivened even if at 1st it is just thru our Cognitive-Imagination, so that in our many incarnations we can continue this work.

Zosia Nowak

These new more conscious formative forces must be built up thru our individual efforts, we can then bring these fruits together in freedom to co-create a larger ‘Love imbued egregore‘– a shared Christic Etheric Body of Sophia-Michael – as a seed for all of human evolution, in which we consciously participate in a formative Sun-becoming process. This must be a systematic, spiritually scientific praxis, not some fantasy or illusion. It is built up & formed, step by step, in a disciplined, consistent way – a fully conscious method put into the practical application of the 4 stages of the Reverse-Cultus:

  1. Communion as pure thinking – “Spiritual Knowledge is a real communion, the beginning of a cosmic ritual that is suitable for human beings today”. We rise in our thinking to commune with the spiritual world behind sense perception.
  2. Transubstantiation or Transformation – from matter to spirit
  3. Offering a selfless meeting Ego to Ego “That good can become”
  4. Revelation of destiny unfolding as “Christ in Me”

These essential guidelines of the modern spiritual path, that were given to us a 100 years ago by Rudolf Steiner, are the New Mysteries which will prepare us to be transformed & adapted to the Social-Cognitive Art of a modern come-unity of Anthroposophia.

etheric heart ~Rudolf Steiner

BTW: Please don’t get discouraged if you can’t always join into the 10:10 Thought Seed. Perhaps you can start by setting your alarm to at least mark it. Even a split second moment of attention adds to the spark.

Here’s a wonderful Steiner verse that fits well with the growing light that hearlds the promise of Spring’s new beginnings.

Sun, thou bearer of rays,
Thy light’s power over matter
Magics life out of the earth’s
Limitless rich depths.

Heart, thou bearer of soul,
Thy light’s power over spirit
Magics life out of the human being’s
Limitless deep inwardness.

If I gaze upon the Sun
Her light speaks to me in radiance
Of the Spirit, filled with grace,
Wielding through the beings of worlds.

If I feel within my heart
The Spirit speaks its own true word
About the human being, loved by him
Through all time and eternity.

Looking upwards, I can see
In the Sun’s bright disc
The mighty heart of worlds.

Looking inwards, I can feel
In the heart’s warm beat
The human Sun ensouled. ~Rudolf Steiner

Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

7 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The green comet – will pass near the red planet – Mars – in mid-February. Here’s how to see them: See that green line across our chart? That’s the ecliptic, or path the sun travels during the day. Look along that line for 2 bright reddish objects, a planet and a star. The green comet will sweep past red Mars around February 10 and 11. It’ll go on to pass the red-orange star Aldebaran, Eye of the Bull in the constellation Taurus. The comet is faint now and moving fast away from our sun. You’ll need a dark-sky to see it.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1478 – Birthday of Thomas More, Chancellor of Enhland, author of Utopia, according to Rudolf Steiner in GA 167 & 171 he was condemed to death for betraying occult secrets.

Editorial cartoon (by Thomas Nast) depicts a defiant Pope Pius IX (1792 – 1878) as he stands on railroad tracks and attempts to block a train labelled ‘Progress, 19th Century’ with nothing more than an umbrella labelled ‘The Ecumenical Council,’ mid 19th century. The ecumenical council, First Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church, issued a statement on papal infallibility which is referred to by the cartoon caption, ‘I am infallible.’ (Photo by Stock Montage/Getty Images)

1878 – Deathday of Pope Pius IX head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. At the time of his election, he was seen as a champion of liberalism and reform, but the Revolutions of 1848 decisively reversed his policies. Yet he emphasized Mary’s role in salvation & promulgated the dogma of the Immaculate Conception – that Mary, the Mother of God, was conceived without original sin. His chief legacy is the dogma of papal infallibility – preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine! Pope John Paul II beatified him in 2000.

1966 – Deathday of composer Leopold van der Pals. In 1907, after four years of basic musical education in Lausanne, Van der Pals moved to Berlin where he met Rudolf Steiner, who made a great impression on him and introduced the idea of metamorphosis, derived from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. At the time, Berlin was a melting pot of musical development in the wake of the romantic era. Van der Pals experimented with new harmonic ideas and alternative cadenzas. He shaped his personal expression, a hybrid of different styles such as romanticism, impressionism, free tonality and inspiration from Russian and Nordic folklore. In 1915, due to World War I, Van der Pals moved to Arlesheim & then DornachSwitzerland.

The Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Insights about Mary Magdalene with Faith DiVecchio, Song-Circle with Velsum, Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT a hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

We are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map) www.rschicago.org/donate

ArtNight our Beaux-Ideal

Biography, Calendar of the Soul, Celestial Event, Community, Festival, Rudolf Steiner Quote
photo by Jay Faulkner

Dear friends, I am thrilled to testify that with all the divisiveness in our world today it was refreshing & energizing to experience the phenomenon that is ArtNight – where a ’20 something’ crowd (although all ages are welcome) comes together for a sober 1st Friday event – creating a conscious community where everyone is encouraged do what they love, & to share it in the affirmative environment that is generated.

At the Rudolf Steiner Branch in Chicago we offer a ‘Shared Space Agreement’ encouraging folks to bring their social initiatives & share them in our community space. We have things like early childhood playgroups, watercolor painting classes, a mom & tot exercise class, Martial Arts demonstrations, Live music concerts, special events & celebrations, gallery openings…etc…

On 3 February 2023 the ArtNight Team: Founder & facilitator:Jared Hochberg; Patrick Fang: co-facilitator, AV, & newsletter guy; Kiki King: co-facilitator, outreach coordinator; & Jay Faulkner: Social media, film/photography – brought a diverse group of about 90 young people – Including artist-venders selling their work – various ‘presenters’ who sign up by contacting the organizers before-hand for a 5 or 15 minute time slot, & sometimes free food that is donated by different venues. This month there was stand-up comedy, a young entrepreneur promoting her business, dance, music, film…And what makes the evening so special is that it is very interactive. After each offering questions & feedback are encouraged. And what I loved most, there are opportunities for group activities – at the beginning to break the ice – in the middle, there are small group sessions to go deep – & social cappers that bring everyone together at the end.

The most amazing part of ArtNight is the vibe – such generous enthusiasm, total support – a relaxed, ‘go with the flow’ – accepting attitude – a sense of adventure & a willingness to engage in exploring what others are passionate about without judgement – no tension from competition – no hipster posers or head trips – absolute authenticity – a spirit of fun & of being in the moment – a truly safe sober space, where folks can be vulnerable & real – It was like being around Waldorf grads who can shake your hand, & look you in the eye, so earnest, polite & helpful – they listen, & take genuine interest in the other, asking questions & giving encouragement – & drum roll please – there is an atmosphere of pure Good Will & warm Heartedness!!!

Only a few Branch members were there, which is too bad, since these young people are beaux-ideal exemplars for us – holding an important spiritual impulse that I would sincerely label as unconditional Love – which we all need to foster in this world.

NatalieFuentesAleman.com

A dear friend who is relatively new to Anthroposophy was telling me just last week that he wanted to buy some art for his apt. He ended up purchasing 2 original paintings. He said it was kismet.

Johnna Ceick wetpaintbyjohnna.com

I am always looking to support young artists, so I bought one too, as well as a print.   

Our Branch space was definitely uplifted, thoroughly enlivened with positive youthful forces. It was striking to hear their perspective of how the lockdown affected them on many levels, & so powerfully beautiful to see how they brought these & other personal experiences into their artistic expressions.

photo by Jay Faulkner

Every month there is a conversational theme, & this month it was ‘Friendship’. We all got a handout with suggested questions we could ask each other. I was in a group of 4 young men around 25 years old who were open & willing to share their biography. It felt safe, fun & intimate; a great way to get to know complete strangers, allowing the founding of a relationship. I was surprised at how many were curious about Anthroposophy. It reminded me that I need to polish up my elevator speech in case any hidden Michaelites are meant to hear about Spiritual Science. Yes, our karma meets us in the most interesting & often unexpected ways.  

Natalie Fuentes-Aleman

ArtNight is very all-inclusive, everyone is invited to share what interests them, or simply come as you are to have an experience & make some new friends.

And if you have a social initiative that needs a sacred space, check out our ‘Shared Space Agreement’ at the Rudolf Steiner Branch in Chicago. The social cultural realm must become a living chalice pouring out the opportunity to learn, heal, & grow spiritually.

“When human beings meet together seeking the spirit with unity of purpose, then they will also find their way to each other…” ~Rudolf Steiner

~hag

5 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Quickening Moon reached fullness today. Bella Luna, hanging with Leo the Lion, rises in the east-northeast within a few minutes of sunset. Once the Moon is well up after dark, you can see it forming an isosceles triangle once again with Regulus and Algieba, the two brightest stars of Leo’s Sickle glimmering through the moonlight. Regulus is about a fist below the Moon. Algieba (Gamma Leonis) is a fist to the Moon’s lower left.

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
CANDLEMAS
Thought’s Creative Will
v44
And when I grasp the senses’ new allure
the clarity of soul,
mindful of the Spirit-birth fulfilled,
imbues the world’s bewildering,
fresh sprouting growth
with my creative will of thinking.

There is a unique line here with a different format to every other line in the Soul Calendar. If you recognise it and have an idea of its significance I invite you to bring your own thought’s creative will to the comment section, which I look forward to reading and replying to.

The mirror verse
CORPUS CHRISTI
Lose Yourself In Light
v9
And when I let my own will go
the summer’s coming fills my soul
and spirit life with cosmic warmth;
my spirit vision is commanding me
to lose myself in light, and ardently
my foresight’s calling: ‘lose yourself.
to find your Self’.

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Here’s a blast from the past: ~hag Bringing in the Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid to The Theosophical Society

​

Necklace of light

Biography, Celestial Event, Festival, History, Rudolf Steiner Quote

Today 3 February is The Feast of Saint Blaise, which merges with Candlemas & many other rites that herald the promise of Spring…These various Festivals, Saints’ Days, rites, & remembrances are not separate, they are all pearls on a single necklace, progressively lit, from epoch to epoch, one after the other – going forward, as part of the ensuing enkindling of evolving light called forth from the Sun. These traditions, blessed by all spiritual & religious peoples, are relied upon especially by those who love & work the land, those who steward the animals, plants & stones – those who consciously interact with the Elemental Beings…And those who value inner development…

The Candlmas of St Blaise – A Halo of Healing Flame, a conscious igniting – a banking of bonfires – This Holy Day, part of a series of progressive gems heralding the light – can bring the old seeds to freshly spaded earth – noting well the time for rebirth.

Our ancestors (ourselves in past lives) created these successive celebrations, meant to foster the tender light rising up from the womb of creative darkness. And now it’s up to us to renew these ideas, intentions, doings & markings of grace, to plan new works & fresh creations.

As we spoke about in the essay Cross-Quarter Passage in many cultural traditions folk costume up as animal totems for a festive parade, wearing wild wooly pelts; dancing & singing, & holding torches to revival the growing light.

The women of Ireland make effigies of ‘Bride’ or Brigid from wheat; & fiery sun wheel crosses from the reeds…Bride would go from house to house to bless & welcome the children to be born that year, & then the community would throw these effigies over the bluffs to shake loose the seed from the wand. When some took root, it would be a sign of a good year. The field of Brigid wheat would then be ceremoniously milled to make a special bread for weddings.

In our time now, we live in an increasingly disconnected environment, fraught & unprecedented over all the earth…swirling with fear & hypnotic terror from those afoot ever trying to cancel the wedding & douse the light. That this was so is not the startling thing in itself, really it can be seen as a grace if we take it as an opportunity. But as I try to see thru the churning fog of our time, the grey sky dull against the dirty snow – all dim & pale – & in its own way beautiful – what I see that truly startles me, is that for a century, many anthro-folk have disabused the massive longing in the modern soul for ritual that opens us to the mysteries, not only in nature, seen thru the circuit of our yearly dance around the Sun, but in our very souls – That our “Spirit-I” must be the blade of a sharpened shovel that transforms the earth of our bodies – scraping past boulders – bending to the task – our etheric body lifting that wet clod of heavy dirt up & flipping it over on itself, our astral purifing the earth, to break open our very being, in order to receive Spirit…

It is clear that so many souls are drawn to re-membering the times of seeking to light what was once dark…& in succession, to fire-up our thinking in this present age – a literal & figurative conception, a re-birth of the ancient ideals that do not come from outside of us, but rise up season after season, from within our soul forces of thinking, feeling & willing – which are yearning to be transformed…

Friends – Nothing is lost in Time that cannot be renewed. Nothing of goodness & light is lost to those who have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the soul to sense, & the thinking heart to create – modern ritual that has meaning for us today – Realigning our cognitive imagination in the New Mysteries.

When I was a child, on the Feast of Saint Blaise, we all trod off to St. Gertudes’s in Franklin Park, IL. where I was Baptized, the Church my Italian Grandmother (my Strega Nona) went to, often in snow so high that it was like walking thru white tunnels, shoveled out by gangs of teenage boys looking to earn a dollar.

During the Mass, the priest would hold two large white blazing candles, crossed in an X at our throats – saying a prayer that all sickness be cured & our words be filled with love. “Per intercessionem S. Blasii liberet to Deus a malo gutteris et a qouvis alio malo.” = ‘St. Blaise goes before the Creator of all to ask that thy throat be blessed & not harmed or harmful, & that you be protected from all ills & evils.’ It was a re-setting of the throat chakra – an opening of the voice – asking that we remain close to Christ, to let the soul speak purely – to not be disheartened, or polluted by anything that takes us away from seeing & speaking in love, kindness, awareness, & in truth. A return to the light of consciousness sounding – empowering The Word within – a Christening of our thoughts – which inevitably fly from our lips into the world.

There are many ways to understand this blessing with fire, including a root cure of illness – like raising the body’s temperature during fever, or passing thru a fire-trial to reach a cleaner way of being…

Nowadays the priest no longer uses lit candles. What the priest of unlit candles misses is the bestowing of extreme love, & careful administration to cause no harm in the cure.

Can we awaken again out of the darkness of false caution, into a true heightened care, motivated by selfless love?

Can we be the one holding the lit candles?

~hag

Chart via John Jardine Goss/ Theresa Wiegert/ EarthSky.

3 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The bright waxing gibbous moon climbs in the east, near the twin stars of Gemini. The brighter star is golden Pollux, and the fainter one is white Castor. Although the twin stars don’t look alike, they’re noticeable near each other in the sky for being bright and close together. Also nearby is Procyon, the brightest star in Canis Minor the Lesser Dog.

Marie Knoble

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

Amanda Sage

Dear Friends, Today 110 years ago on 3 February 1913 we can re-call the very 1st AGM of the newly formed Anthroposophical Society, after the split from the Theosophical Society, held in Berlin, with the cycle of lectures called The Mysteries of the Orient & of Christianity (GA 144)

Rudolf Steiner opened the conference on this day with the lecture: The Being of Anthroposophy. 

Iris

“…The being of anthroposophy is intimately connected with the being of our time- not with our own immediate little present moment, of course, but with the whole age within which we stand.

Today I want to point out the character of this being by speaking of the necessity for establishing anthroposophy in our time. Philosophy is no longer the “woman” she was to Dante and others who lived in his time...What, therefore, must be developed? It must unfold that, once again, as a matter of course, a “Sophia” becomes present. But we must learn to relate this Sophia to the consciousness soul, bring her down directly to human beings. And thereby Sophia becomes the being who directly enlightens human beings. After Sophia has entered human beings, she must take their being with her and present it to them outwardly, objectively. 

Sophia will become objective again, but she will take with her what humanity is, and objectively present herself in this form. Thus, she will present herself not only as Sophia, but as Anthroposophia as the Sophia who, after passing through the human soul, through the very being of the human being, henceforth bears that being within her, and in this form she will confront enlightened human beings as the objective being Sophia who once stood before the Greeks.

What we receive through anthroposophy is our very own being.

Kristena West

This once floated toward us in the form of a celestial goddess with whom we were able to enter into relationship. This divine being lived on as Sophia and Philosophia, and now we can once again bring her out of ourselves and place her before us as the fruit of true anthroposophical self-knowledge. We can wait patiently until the world is willing to test the depth of the foundations of what we have to say, right down to the smallest details. It is the essence of anthroposophy that its own being consists of the being of the human, and its effectiveness, its reality, consists in that we receive from anthroposophy what we ourselves are and what we must place before ourselves, because we must practice self-knowledge.” ~Rudolf Steiner

May we receive this being, that is our birthright, with grace & develop her within us with intention & love.

~hag

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1690 – The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in the Americas

1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.

Picasso

1874 – Birthday of Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright

1894 – Birthday of Norman Rockwell, American painter & illustrator

1909 – Birthday of Simone Weil, French mystic & philosopher

1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose & collect an income tax.

Rudolf Steiner

1913 – The 1st AGM of the Anthroposophical Society in Berlin, where Rudolf Steiner gave the lecture series “The Mysteries of the Orient and of Christianity” & spoke for the 1st time about the Being of Anthroposophy!

1924 – Deathday of Woodrow Wilson. Rudolf Steiner has a lot to say about what was behind this individuality & in his former incarnation as Muawiya

1959 – Rock & roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, & J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.

1961 – The United States Air Forces begins Operation Looking Glass, & over the next 30 years, a “Doomsday Plane” is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States’ bombers & missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC’s command post.

ArtNight 3 February 2023
@ the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Doors open at 7:30 pm
8 pm – Sharings Start – $12 (pay online)

YOU MUST RSVP at this Link

ArtNight has been described as a 21st-century Salon. We gather once a month in Chicago. People sign up to present and perform what they’re passionate about,
having facilitated discussions and activities, and enjoying food from local establishments.

What we’re trying to do.

  1. Establish spaces where doing what you love is normal.
  2. Promote passion instead of perfection. You don’t need to be famous, talented, attractive, virtuosic or wealthy – it’s meaningful and important to do what you love no matter who you are and you should be supported.
  3. Create genuine connections in substance-free environments.
  4. Encourage curiosity and learning.
  5. Be a place where you can have fun without shame or embarrassment.

Article about ArtNight

The ArtNight night starts off with a vibe. As people filter in, we hang out,
talk to strangers who’ll become our friends, and we settle down before we
settle in for the next couple hours.
​
The ArtNight itself starts off with a welcome activity. Don’t worry,
it’s not your classic, awkward high school ice breaker.
​
Now it’s time for the main event. The people who volunteered to share do their thing. We watch and listen and experience and ask questions
and fall in love with them, loving their passions.
​
In between the sharing, we take a break for that meaningful discussion
we keep mentioning. Every ArtNight has a specific discussion topic,
and everyone is encouraged to share their experiences.
It’s always a dialogue, never a debate.
​
The ArtNight closes out with a vibe. We eat, and we reconnect with the
people we met earlier. All of this was to get to know people
for who they actually are – so we keep doing it.

YOU MUST RSVP to attend

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.