Category Archives: Rudolf Steiner Quote

From Chaos into Purpose

Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Insight, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars, The Bridging Project: Life & Death

7 August 2017 – Astro-Weather: The fixed date of the 2nd Harvest known as Lammas is popularly celebrated on August 1st or 2nd – but Today the Cross-Quarter of Lammas is exact –When the Sun reaches 15% of Leo – This day marks the actual midpoint between the Summer Solstice & the Autumnal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.

The Full Moon of August is called The Corn or Sturgeon Moon (exact at 1:11 pm CDT). Bella Luna rises around sunset. Once it’s dark, try to see through the moonlight to find the Moon resting in the northeastern corner of the constellation Capricornus the Sea Goat. That’s where the Corn Moon always resides at this time of year.

When the Sun, Earth, & Moon line up in space, eclipses sometimes come in pairs. So, as everyone in North America readies for The Great American solar eclipse on August 21’st (occurring at new Moon), a partial lunar eclipse sneaks in just two weeks earlier  – TODAY – at the preceding full Moon.

This glancing encounter with Earth’s core shadow, the umbra, takes nearly 2 hours from start to finish, visible from the Eastern Hemisphere.

The eclipse belongs to Saros 119 & is # 61 of 82 eclipses in the series. Each series typically lasts 12 to 13 centuries.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful flowers, what might not the heart become in the long journey towards the stars?”~ G K Chesterton

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James Christensen

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Look, how
The charm is everywhere…
How it rests between the breath…
How it comes when called
Forth from chaos into purposeful hands,
Light to my feet
It fills my head with heat…
~hag

***

Persian Scholar Al-Biruni (C.E. 973-1048)

Taking into consideration what we talked about from the research of Rudolf Steiner in yesterday’s Blog offering, it is important to be as conscious as possible today during the Lunar eclipse, which is working to attract, & bring to the surface, our lowest, animalistic urges & unconscious impulses.

Today when the Earth comes between the Sun & Moon, we can picture the shadow that moves over the moon as being an assemblage of the human shadow-self, acting as a magnet for the adversarial powers.

Knowing that the spiritual significance of a lunar eclipse exists for this purpose, we can use this opportunity to bring our shadow self to light – to recognize our responsibility to make conscious what is usually in the dark – to bring healing & integration to our souls.

This is an important step toward the work we are called to do during the solar eclipse.

We must recognize that this build-up of shadow-forces, culled from human beings today, will be part of what is released into the spiritual world at the time of the solar eclipse. Could the adversarial beings be using these dark forces to bring about a 3rd crucifixion? The 1st Mystery of Golgotha was on the physical realm, the 2nd occurred in the etheric realm – let me explain:

Steiner tells us, that after the 1st Mystery of Golgotha, The Christ united with the Earth, no longer in an individual physical body, He can be recognized in a being belonging to the Hierarchy of the Angels. Kind of hard to imagine, but think back to that clue from the Old Testament: ‘And the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses’/ Steiner says: ‘As an angel, Christ could always be found by those who were clairvoyant…In this angel form, He has always been united with evolution’. Steiner doesn’t say so directly, but it makes me think of the connection with the Nathan Soul, the Angel Being he worked with in the Pre-Earthy Deeds – the original Adam Kadmon – that pure, innocent soul part which separated off from Adam, the 1st Human, before the fall.

Through the coming of this new age of Michael, humanity can gradually begin to understand all that the Christ Impulse signifies. It wasn’t possible to really understand it before this. For instance starting in the 16th century thru the beginning of the 19th Century, when influences were coming in from the spiritual world from the Archangel Gabriel to bring modern science, there also entered into humanity a very materialistic world view that was antagonistic to spiritual insights. So more & more, as human beings passed into the spiritual worlds at the gate of death, they brought with them these materialistic ideas, which were polluting these higher realms & which prevented their souls from taking up fortifying spiritual influences for their next lives. Because of this another sacrifice was needed.

So, Steiner tells us, Christ, who had taken on the outer form of this Angelic Being, suffered an ‘extinction of consciousness’, as a result of the opposing forces that had been brought into the spiritual worlds by these materialistic souls who had passed thru the gate of death. These ‘seeds of earthly materialism’ which were increasingly carried into the spiritual world & which caused more & more darkness, built, what Steiner calls, the ‘black sphere of materialism.’ Christ took this black sphere into His Angelic being, for the purpose of transforming it- putting into action the Manichean principle that takes on evil in order to redeem it. This black sphere caused a ‘death by suffocation’ for the Angel Being in which the Christ is manifesting himself since the Mystery of Golgotha. 

This sacrifice by Christ in the 19th century is comparable to the sacrifice on the physical plane through the Mystery of Golgotha & can be called the 2nd crucifixion of Christ, on the etheric plane. This spiritual death by suffocation, which brought about the extinction of consciousness in the Angelic Being, is a repetition of the Mystery of Golgotha in the etheric.

It took place to make possible a revival of the Christ consciousness, which wasn’t accessible to human souls on earth at the time of the original Mystery of Golgotha. This revival makes it possible for humanity to gain clairvoyant vision starting in the 20th century. So what was lost in the way of consciousness by humanity in the individuation process brought on by the necessity of modern science, will arise again as a new form of clairvoyant vision.

Steiner names the starting date as 1933. The 2nd World War with its Nazism tried to cover this revelation up.

It was for the sake of humanity that this Being suffered an extinction of consciousness in the etheric world, so that thru this sacrifice humanity could gain a resurrection of consciousness that will lead us to perceive the Etheric Christ.

And so the question I am living with today is: Does this series of eclipses point to another “black sphere of materialism” that could cause an extinction of Christ’s astral body? And what does that mean? Will that sacrifice bring a sea-change in human consciousness as the others have?

In this time of the Consciousness Soul, human beings we are called to actively participate in this cosmic & earthly event, in awakened consciousness.

Holding the light in love

~ Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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The Central Regional Council is hosting a Bridging to the ‘Great American Eclipse’ in St. Louis – August 19-22, 2017 

Transfiguration

Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Insight, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars, The Bridging Project: Life & Death

6 August 2017 –The Eve of the Full Corn Moon – Tomorrow’s partial Lunar eclipse herald’s the Solar eclipse on the New Moon 21 August  2017. And even though we won’t see the Lunar eclipse here in America, its impact affects all.

“…of an eclipse of the moon, the man of today merely says: “Now the earth comes between the sun and the moon; hence we see the shadow cast upon the moon by the earth.” That is the physical explanation. But in this case also the old initiate knew that a spiritual reality was behind the physical fact. He knew that when there is an eclipse of the moon, thoughts stream through darkness down upon the earth; and that such thoughts have a closer relationship with the subconscious life than with the conscious life of the human being. The old initiates often made use of a certain simile when speaking to their pupils. It is; of course, necessary to translate their words into modern language, but this is the gist of what they said: “Visionaries and dreamers love to go for rambles by moonlight, when the moon is full. There are, however, certain people who have no wish to receive the good thoughts coming to them from the cosmos, but who, on the contrary, are desirous of getting hold of evil, diabolical thoughts. Such people will choose the moment of a lunar eclipse for their nocturnal wanderings…”

Acting as a “safety-valve, the lunar eclipse, exists for the purpose of allowing the evil thoughts which are present in the cosmos to approach those human beings who are desirous of being possessed by them. people do not, as a rule, act in full consciousness, but the facts are nevertheless real — just as real as the attraction of a magnet for small particles of iron. Such are the forces at work, in the cosmos.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Human Questions and Cosmic Answers.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The Feast of the Transfiguration of Christ – “We find the transfiguration scene in all the evangelists except St. John. This is significant. Let us clarify the meaning of this scene. What takes place? Jesus goes with three disciples Peter, James and John, up a mountain: this means into the inner sanctuary where one is initiated into higher worlds and where one also speaks in occult language. The disciples were carried up into a higher state of consciousness. They saw then that which is not transitory but eternal. Moses and Elias appear and Jesus himself with them. What does this mean? In occult science the word Elias means the same as El — the goal, the way. Moses is the spiritual scientific word for truth. By the fact that Elias, Moses and Jesus appear you have the fundamental Christian truth: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. Jesus himself says — this is a fundamental Christian mystical truth — “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (John, ch. 14, v. 6) ~ Rudolf Steiner, The Gospel of St. John, 3rd Lecture

Alexandr Ivanov.j

70 AD- The Second Temple of Jerusalem is destroyed by Roman legions under Titus. For 420 years, the 2nd Temple constituted a divine presence – the point where heaven & earth met. Its presence is sorely missed, its absence mourned.

1945 – The Atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, an act of genocide on President Harry Truman’s orders.

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~In the cardboard sky
The Thunder gods gather in
A procession of chattering dark wind
Laying eggs of other lives
Of blue souls in weaving sighs
Where incense rises in long dreams
To be weighed
In the over-ripe fruit trees
~hag

***

Rudolf Steiner gave us a lot of hints on to how to come to terms with ‘Evil’. He calls it evil because it ‘misses the mark’, but he reveals that the gods themselves called their opponents into being. Humanity, striving toward Freedom, stands as the Tenth Hierarchy & has as its task to integrate the vast gifts of Nature & Spirit while accepting the possibility, & finding the strength to lead evil (i.e.: Lucifer & Ahriman) back to the good.

“In the Primal Beginning was the Word
And the Word was with God
And a God was the Word.
The same was in the Primal Beginning with God.
It was there where all things came into being,
And nothing came into being but through the Word.
In the Word was the Life, and the Life was the Light of men.

In the Primal Beginning is the Thought,
And the Thought is with God,
And a God-like being is the Thought.
In it is Life,
And the Life shall become the Light of my Ego.
And may the Divine Thought shine into my Ego
That the darkness of my Ego may grasp the Thought Divine.

In the Primal Beginning is the Thought,
And Infinite is the Thought.
And the Life of the Thought is the Light of the Ego.
May light-giving Thought fill the Darkness of my Ego,
That the Darkness of my Ego may grasp the Living Thought
And live and weave in its Divine Primal Beginning.

In the Primal Beginning is Memory,
And the Memory lives on further,
And Divine is the Memory.
And the Memory is Life.
And this Life is the Ego of Man
Which streams into Man himself,
Not he alone, the Christ in him.
When he remembers the Divine Life
In his Memory is the Christ.
And as the radiant Life of Memory
Christ will pour Light
Into every Darkness of the immediate present.

In the Primal Beginning was the power of Memory.
The power of Memory shall become Divine;
And a Divinity shall the power of Memory become.
All that arises within the Ego shall become
Something which has arisen
Out of the Christ-permeated, God-permeated Memory.
In it shall be the Life;
In it shall be the radiant Light
Which, out of the Thinking which remembers,
Shines into the Darkness of the present time.
May that Darkness as it is to-day
Comprehend the Light of the Memory
Which has become Divine!”

~Rudolf Steiner, Background of the Mystery of Golgotha –Pre-Earthly Deeds of Christ, March 7th, 1914

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The Central Regional Council is hosting a Bridging to the ‘Great American Eclipse’ in St. Louis – August 19-22, 2017 

Speaking from Soul to Soul with the Solar Eclipse At the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse, St. Louis, Missouri August 19, 5 PM CST through August 21, 5pm CST

Read the article from Das Goetheanum

RETREAT CONTENT: At this Central Regional retreat, we take The ‘Bridging Project’ into the realm of ‘Speaking with the Stars’. In the life between death and re-birth the human being is engaged in an intimate conversation with the ‘Stars’. We will prepare for, view and work to hold the light during the ‘Great American Solar Eclipse’, which will sweep from West to East across all of America, and will be visible in the St. Louis area on Monday August 21st 2017. Through the social arts of folk eurythmy, song, study, color, meditation, and an interactive pageant*, we will engage with the spiritual significance of this powerful cosmic and earthly event. Afterward we will process, share and continue the conversation, working to understand the mysteries of the will. 

click here for a List of possible  activities to do around the Solar Eclipse

RETREAT LOCATION: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse is located just south of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, overlooking the Mississippi River(https://www.csjsl.org/motherhouse-services/take-a-tour.php). On Monday, we will travel to a TBD park or nature area about one hour south of St. Louis to experience the full solar eclipse, returning to The Motherhouse in the late afternoon.

TRANSPORTATION: Transportation is at the discretion of the participants (not included in retreat cost). The planning team will try to facilitate ride sharing opportunities if you request our assistance.  The closest airport is Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (Code: STL) ( http://flystl.com/)

LODGING PLANS: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse has 8 single and 2 double rooms available for the CRC conference. A few rooms have private bathrooms, and there are several shared bathrooms across the hall from the bedrooms. Rooms will be assigned on a first-registration basis to conference participants. If capacity allows, we will try to accommodate additional participants, whether at Carondelet or at local members’ homes.

MEALS: Meals will be provided by the Sisters of Carondelet during the fixed times listed below. Conference participants not staying at The Motherhouse are also able to order meals through this registration form. Vegan, vegetarian, non-dairy and gluten-free diets can be accommodated if requested in advance. Coffee, tea and ice water will be provided. Breakfast: 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM $7 Lunch: 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM $10 Dinner: 5:15 AM – 6:15 PM $11

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The Sisters of Carondelet are environmentally conscious, and no disposable water bottles are allowed in the property (but re-usable bottles are allowed)  Additional information will be provided to registered participants in July

click here to register  

 

“We shall come rejoicing”…

Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars, The Bridging Project: Life & Death

1st August 2017 – Astro-weather: This evening the waxing gibbous Moon forms a triangle with Antares to Her lower left & brighter Saturn more directly to Her left.

Dariusz Slusarski.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

 “History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man”. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley

Feast Day of Joseph of Arimathea – according to all four Gospels, the man who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus after the crucifixion. A number of stories that developed during the Middle Ages connect him with both Glastonbury, where he is supposed to have founded the earliest Christian oratory, & also with the Grail legend.

“One must penetrate to an understanding of the Mystery of the Bread, which is said to have been broken by Christ Jesus in the same chalice in which Joseph of Arimathea caught His blood. As legend tells it, this chalice was then removed to Europe, but was preserved by angels in a region high above the surface of the earth until the arrival of Titurel [Note 9] who created for this Grail, this sacred chalice, a temple on Mont Salvat”  ~Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, April 16, 1921

30 BC – Augustus Octavian enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman Republic

30 BC – Deathday of Mark Antony, Roman general & politician

1464 – Deathday of Cosimo de’ Medici, Italian ruler

1469 – Louis XI of France founds the chivalric order called the Order of Saint Michael in Amboise

1714 – Deathday of Queen Anne of Great Britain

1819 – Birthday of Herman Melville, American novelist, short story writer, & poet

1842 – The Lombard Street riot erupts in Philadelphia. A parade was held by over 1,000 members of the black Young Men’s Vigilant Association on Philadelphia’s Lombard Street between 5th & 8th streets in commemoration of the 8th anniversary of the end of slavery in the British West Indies.  As the paraders neared Mother Bethel Church, they were attacked by an Irish Catholic mob. The rioters moved west, setting fires & attacking firefighters & police as they went, heading for the home of African-American leader Robert Purvis. Purvis & his home were reportedly saved from the Irish mob solely by a Catholic priest’s intervention.

Requests to the mayor & police for protection initially led to the arrest of several of the victims & none of the rioters. Over three days of attacks, the 2nd African American Presbyterian Church, the abolitionist Smith’s Hall, & numerous homes & public buildings were looted, burned & mostly destroyed. The mayor had credible evidence of a plan to burn several local churches, which he ignored. Eventually, as the rioting began to subside, the local militia was brought in to restore order.

1936 – The Olympics opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler

1971 – The Concert for Bangladesh, organized by former Beatle George Harrison, is held at Madison Square Garden in New York City

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Jeff Gooden

 

(Lammas/ Lughnassad poem – Aug. 1st )

CORN RIGS & WHEELS [15 degrees Leo]

CICADAS TRANCE
IN THETA WAVES OF SOUND

THE SICKLES REAP IN BORDERTIME
OPENING THE GATEWAY TO THE WEST

DRAGONS FLY
INTO THE MOUTH
OF THE HOLLOWMAN –
HIS EYES BLAZE
AS HE GLIMPSES HER WAITING WOMB
ALL RIPE & HOT – HER PHOENIX TOMB
A FIERCE ALCHEMICAL FURANCE –
BAKED IN THE LION FIRE
OF TETRAMORPH ANGELS
JOHN BARLEYCORN MUST DIE
GRIND THE GRAIN
TO MAKE THE BREAD & BEER

MOULDED CHRYSOKOLLA –
THE KNEADED WICKERMAN
FULFILLS THE SACRIFICE
& SITS UPON HER ALTAR –
NEXT TO BRAIDED CORN DOLLIES
& MOIST CAKE

AT THE TOP OF THE HILL –
THE SUN
COVERED WITH PITCH & TAR
& TIED TO THE SPIKED WHEEL OF CATHERINE…
IS SET AFLAME –
THE BLAZING DISK ROLLS IN IMMOLATION
TO IT’S DECLINE

BURN THE OLD STRAW EFFIGY
AT THE FUNERAL GAMES
TO BLESS THE FIRST GRAINS

WATCH SOTHIS RISE –
MORNING FIRST SCORCHER
CELESTIAL JACKAL
HERALD OF THE NEW YEAR –

FLOOD THE FIELDS
WITH YOUR SCINTILLATING SERUM

& WE MEET ONCE AGAIN
ONCE AGAIN, ONCE AGAIN
IN A YEAR & A DAY
TO BEHEAD THE LOAF
& EAT…

~hag

***

“Bringing in the Sheaves” – Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness, sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve: Now begins the harvest and the time of reaping, we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves.

So perhaps you’d like to bake a loaf of bread on Lammas. If you’ve never made bread before, this is a good time to start. Honor the source of the flour as you work with it: remember it was once a plant growing on the mother Earth. If you have a garden, add something you’ve harvested–herbs or onion or corn–to your bread. If you don’t feel up to making wheat bread, make corn bread. Or gingerbread people. Or popcorn. What’s most important is intention. All that is necessary to enter sacred time is an awareness of the meaning of your actions.

 

Shape the dough in the figure of a man or a woman & give your grain-person a name. If he’s a man, you could call him Lugh, the Sun-King, or John Barleycorn, or the Pillsbury Dough Boy, or Adonis or Osiris or Tammuz.

Pauline Campanelli in The Wheel of the Year suggests names for female figures: She of the Corn, She of the Threshing Floor, She of the Seed, She of the Great Loaf (these come from the Cyclades where they are the names of fertility figures), Freya (the Anglo-Saxon and Norse fertility Goddess who is also called the Lady & the Giver of the Loaf), the Bride (Celtic) and Ziva or Siva (the Grain Goddess of, the Ukraine, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia).

Another way to honor the Grain Goddess is to make a corn doll. This is a fun project to do with kids. Take dried-out corn husks and tie them together in the shape of a woman. She’s your visual representation of the harvest. As you work on her, think about what you harvested this year.

Give your corn dolly a name, perhaps one of the names of the Grain Goddess or one that symbolizes your personal harvest. Dress her in a skirt, apron & bonnet & give her a special place in your house. She is all yours till the spring when you will plant her with the new corn, returning to the Earth that which She has given to you.

“we shall come rejoicing”…

xox  ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Kari Marie Olson

The Bridging Project – Between Life and Death from Soul to Soul
August 2, 2017 – 7:15 pm CST (8:15 pm EST)
The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to our conversation with special guest Gisela Wielki.
 
Gisela Wielki was born and raised in Germany. Obtained her degree in early childhood education, followed by a three year study at the Seminary of the Christian Community in Stuttgart (ordained in 1970.) Gisela was sent to the New York Congregation in 1972, and then lived in Chicago from 2002 to 2010 as a one of the founding directors of the English speaking seminary. Gisela has spent many years working with children, youth and young adults in Christian Community summer camps, youth and young adult conferences
Please read to prepare for the session:
Our theme for the evening shall be multifaceted:
 
Death is not the final stage of life
There is no deathday without a birthday
What is death? Who is death?
Not so, death is not just an entry into a new state of consciousness.
Death and the significance of the body
Death and the building of a new body through Christ and with Christ
Pen and paper may be useful
 
Option 1. Click link below if you wish to connect through your computer (a headset is recommended)
https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/762393301
Option 2. Call in using your telephone.
United States: +1 (312) 757-3129
Canada: +1 (647) 497-9350
Access Code: 762-393-301
Please join us!
Agenda
7:15 Welcome and introductions
7:18 Verse
7:20 Introduce guest speaker
7:25 Guest Speaker: Gisela Wielki (50 minutes) 8:15 Q&A – Please state your name, location before asking a question
8:28 Close with verse

 

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The Central Regional Council is hosting a Bridging to the ‘Great American Eclipse’ in St. Louis – August 19-22, 2017 

Speaking from Soul to Soul with the Solar Eclipse At the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse, St. Louis, Missouri August 19, 5 PM CST through August 21, 5pm CST

Read the article from Das Goetheanum

RETREAT CONTENT: At this Central Regional retreat, we take The ‘Bridging Project’ into the realm of ‘Speaking with the Stars’. In the life between death and re-birth the human being is engaged in an intimate conversation with the ‘Stars’. We will prepare for, view and work to hold the light during the ‘Great American Solar Eclipse’, which will sweep from West to East across all of America, and will be visible in the St. Louis area on Monday August 21st 2017. Through the social arts of folk eurythmy, song, study, color, meditation, and an interactive pageant*, we will engage with the spiritual significance of this powerful cosmic and earthly event. Afterward we will process, share and continue the conversation, working to understand the mysteries of the will. 

click here for a List of possible PDF activities to do around the Solar Eclipse

RETREAT LOCATION: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse is located just south of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, overlooking the Mississippi River(https://www.csjsl.org/motherhouse-services/take-a-tour.php). On Monday, we will travel to a TBD park or nature area about one hour south of St. Louis to experience the full solar eclipse, returning to The Motherhouse in the late afternoon.

TRANSPORTATION: Transportation is at the discretion of the participants (not included in retreat cost). The planning team will try to facilitate ride sharing opportunities if you request our assistance.  The closest airport is Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (Code: STL) ( http://flystl.com/)

LODGING PLANS: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse has 8 single and 2 double rooms available for the CRC conference. A few rooms have private bathrooms, and there are several shared bathrooms across the hall from the bedrooms. Rooms will be assigned on a first-registration basis to conference participants. If capacity allows, we will try to accommodate additional participants, whether at Carondelet or at local members’ homes.

MEALS: Meals will be provided by the Sisters of Carondelet during the fixed times listed below. Conference participants not staying at The Motherhouse are also able to order meals through this registration form. Vegan, vegetarian, non-dairy and gluten-free diets can be accommodated if requested in advance. Coffee, tea and ice water will be provided. Breakfast: 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM $7 Lunch: 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM $10 Dinner: 5:15 AM – 6:15 PM $11

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The Sisters of Carondelet are environmentally conscious, and no disposable water bottles are allowed in the property (but re-usable bottles are allowed)  Additional information will be provided to registered participants in July

click here to register 

 

Consolidation

Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, The Bridging Project: Life & Death

30 July 2017 – Astro-Weather: 1st Quarter Moon is in Libra, look to Her upper left for Spica & Jupiter at dusk, & far right for Scorpius & Saturn.

Starry Scorpius is sometimes called “the Orion of Summer” for its brightness & its prominent red supergiant (Antares in the case of Scorpius, Betelgeuse for Orion). But Scorpius passes a lot lower in the south than Orion. That means Scorpius has only one really good viewing month: July – which is almost over. Catch Scorpius in the south-southwest now right after darkness is complete.

Look for the 2 stars especially close together in the tail. These are Lambda Upsilon Scorpii, known as the Cat’s Eyes. The cat is tilting his head & winking – pointing west (right) by nearly a fist-width toward Mu Scorpii, look for a much tighter pair known as the Little Cat’s Eyes.

By the time morning twilight starts to paint the sky, brilliant Venus already dominates the scene. The planet rises around 4 am CDT. It’s hard to mistake the Goddess of Love for anything else she shines far brighter than any other object in the morning sky.

***

Sarah Born

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“We understand only the very smallest part of human history and of our own life if we consider it in its external aspect, I mean in that aspect which we see from the limited view-point of our earthly life between birth and death. It is impossible to comprehend the inner motives of history and life unless we turn our gaze to that spiritual background which underlies the outer, physical happenings“.  ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture III

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

762 – Baghdad is founded

1626 – An earthquake in Naples, Italy, kills about 10,000 people

1733 – The first Masonic Grand Lodge in the future United States is constituted in Massachusetts

1965 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare & Medicaid

1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again

1818 – Birthday of Emily Brontë

1863 – Birthday of Henry Ford

1898 – Deathday of Otto von Bismarck, 1st Chancellor of Germany

1894- Birthday of Ernst Lehrs a German anthroposophist, science teacher in the 1st Waldorf School in Stuttgart, lecturer & writer. Having fought in World War I, he then studied science & graduated with a PhD in 1923. In 1935 he moved to The Netherlands, where he worked as a teacher, before moving to Britain as a Jewish refugee from the Nazis. In 1952 he returned to Germany & worked as a lecturer at the newly established course in anthroposophic special education in Eckwälden, where he remained until his death.

In his important work “Man and Matter”, Ernst Lehrs talks about how today’s researcher is an uninvolved spectator, he reveals not only how science has led inescapably to the illusions it believes in today, but more important how we may correct in ourselves the misconceptions science brings into our views through today’s education, giving us a spiritual understanding of nature based on the work of Goethe; which requires an activation of the cognitive consciousness, leading the true researcher back to themselves.

Ernst Lehrs was a personal pupil of Dr. Rudolf Steiner, one of the 12 founding members of the Esoteric Youth Circle.

Written by Ernst Lehrs  a few days after the burning of the 1st Goetheanum: “His (Rudolf Steiner’s) open criticism in various directions concerning the Society & the various activities within it in the weeks leading up to the fateful Christmas-New Year’s time, made one clear about the fact that it was due to the failure on the part of the Society that the necessary spiritual protection was missing from the building. Yet, it was out of an experience of this failure that the impulse for the Youth Course arose, as well as what led to the coming about of our specific endeavor. Thus the idea arose among us that we should ask Rudolf Steiner if, & how we could contribute to the Anthroposophical Society ‘consolidating’ itself again – as one of us put it. With this in mind, we asked to be allowed to speak with him. In the Glass House, on January 3, 1923, we asked about our helping toward consolidation of the Society, Rudolf Steiner answered in a calm tone with emphatic earnestness; “Just keep yourselves consolidated, & the Society will be consolidated.” Then he gave the advice that we should sit together on a regular basis & in symposium-like conversations, reflect again & again upon the foundational impulse of our group.”

***

Sulamith Wulfing

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~The eye is open 
Watching 
Old men grip & grasp 
Blinking at Women yearning
Streaming with children spinning dizzy 
Vapors rise
Flesh falls
The eye recalls
The beauty of an ordinary Summer day
It sees me 
Looking for you

~hag

***

Preparing for the 2nd Harvest: Lammas Day

The Wheel turns from St. John’s Tide with its message of the inner Christ Sun and the mirroring of the Holy nights, to the Sun in the heart of the lion (or at least it’s where Regulus, the heart of the lion, was a couple of thousand years ago!) Lammas, or Loaf mas, a cross quarter festival traditionally celebrated at the beginning of August, marks the point when we leave the Garden, and earn our own way, “by the sweat of our brow”.

The harvest of grain, and the baking of bread, represents the first child of the cosmic union of Sun and Earth. It symbolizes the essence of humanity, born from this union, for the loaf is more than a gift of nature, it is made by the combined forces of nature with the will forces of human activity.

The harvest season is a time of judgment. We are called upon to sift through the things that have grown up during the past half-year, and decide what we will keep and what we will cut away. We must make choices, and act on them. The cycle of life turns past the peak of growth, into the time of release.

In astrology, the moon, five eighths past the new moon, is called the “disseminating moon”. During this phase, what has built up in the waxing cycle begins to be released into the environment. We start to see the results of our work. At Lammas, the sun is five-eighths of the way around the Wheel from Winter Solstice. Growth has reached its peak, and the life of the Sun God has begun to bleed off into the fruit and grain.

The King is Dead Long Live the King – for now is also the time of sacrifice, of death in service of life. Some of the first fruits are ready for harvest, but some, too unripe to be eaten, must be plucked anyway. These are culls, removed so they won’t drain the life force from the good fruit. If everything was left on the tree, the life force would be diluted, or worse, the bad fruit could weigh down a branch until it breaks, destroying the entire crop, or sometimes killing the tree. The culls are taken so the rest of the fruit, and those who depend on the crop for survival, might live.

John Barleycorn must die… ‘Cut in half and buried, then beaten with sticks, and finally crushed between stones’… as the song goes, nevertheless rises once again. Bread is the perfect sacrifice for “Loaf Mass” or Lughnassadh as the Celtics called it, for they knew that this festival is more than just the first fruits of the earth — it also involves the first fruits of human labor. Grain is processed by human craft, and joined with the four elements to make the staff of life.

We will explore this ancient, yet ever renewable Cross-Quarter holiday, further tomorrow.

In gratitude ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Kari Marie Olsen

The Bridging Project Between Life and Death from Soul to Soul

2 August 2017 – 7:15 pm CST(8:15 pm EST)

With special guest Gisela Wielki, sharing her many years’ experience working with the so-called dead from the perspective of a Christian Community Priest

 ***

The Central Regional Council is hosting a Bridging to the ‘Great American Eclipse’ in St. Louis – August 19-22, 2017 

Speaking from Soul to Soul with the Solar Eclipse At the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse, St. Louis, Missouri August 19, 5 PM CST through August 21, 5pm CST

Read the article from Das Goetheanum

RETREAT CONTENT: At this Central Regional retreat, we take The ‘Bridging Project’ into the realm of ‘Speaking with the Stars’. In the life between death and re-birth the human being is engaged in an intimate conversation with the ‘Stars’. We will prepare for, view and work to hold the light during the ‘Great American Solar Eclipse’, which will sweep from West to East across all of America, and will be visible in the St. Louis area on Monday August 21st 2017. Through the social arts of folk eurythmy, song, study, color, meditation, and an interactive pageant*, we will engage with the spiritual significance of this powerful cosmic and earthly event. Afterward we will process, share and continue the conversation, working to understand the mysteries of the will. 

click here for a List of possible  activities to do around the Solar Eclipse

RETREAT LOCATION: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse is located just south of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, overlooking the Mississippi River(https://www.csjsl.org/motherhouse-services/take-a-tour.php). On Monday, we will travel to a TBD park or nature area about one hour south of St. Louis to experience the full solar eclipse, returning to The Motherhouse in the late afternoon.

TRANSPORTATION: Transportation is at the discretion of the participants (not included in retreat cost). The planning team will try to facilitate ride sharing opportunities if you request our assistance.  The closest airport is Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (Code: STL) ( http://flystl.com/)

LODGING PLANS: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse has 8 single and 2 double rooms available for the CRC conference. A few rooms have private bathrooms, and there are several shared bathrooms across the hall from the bedrooms. Rooms will be assigned on a first-registration basis to conference participants. If capacity allows, we will try to accommodate additional participants, whether at Carondelet or at local members’ homes.

MEALS: Meals will be provided by the Sisters of Carondelet during the fixed times listed below. Conference participants not staying at The Motherhouse are also able to order meals through this registration form. Vegan, vegetarian, non-dairy and gluten-free diets can be accommodated if requested in advance. Coffee, tea and ice water will be provided. Breakfast: 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM $7 Lunch: 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM $10 Dinner: 5:15 AM – 6:15 PM $11

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The Sisters of Carondelet are environmentally conscious, and no disposable water bottles are allowed in the property (but re-usable bottles are allowed)  Additional information will be provided to registered participants in July

click here to register 

 

3 Dead Presidents

Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars, Summer

4th of July 2017 – Astro-Weather:  Waiting for fireworks to start? Point out some sky sights to folks around you. The waxing gibbous Moon is almost due south at dusk. Look lower left of it for orange Antares, one of the brightest “red” supergiants in the sky. Left of Antares is Saturn. Meanwhile, much farther to the right of the Moon, Jupiter shines brightly in the southwest.

No holiday better epitomizes summer in the United States than Independence Day. And the season’s namesake asterism — the Summer Triangle — will be on prominent display as fireworks ring out across the land. The trio’s brightest member, Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp, stands nearly overhead in late evening. The asterism’s second-brightest star, Altair in Aquila the Eagle, then lies about halfway from the southeastern horizon to the zenith. Deneb, the luminary of Cygnus the Swan, marks the Summer Triangle’s third corner. Although it is this asterism’s dimmest star, it’s the brightest point of light in the northeastern sky.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1054 – A supernova, called SN 1054, is seen by Chinese Song dynasty, Arab, & Amerindian observers near the star Zeta Tauri. For several months it remains bright enough to be seen during the day. Its remnants form the Crab Nebula.

1776 – American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence of the 13 States is adopted by the Second Continental Congress

1807 – Birthday of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian general and politician

1826 – Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president of the United States, dies the same day as John Adams, 2nd president of the United States, on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. (see article below)

1855 – The first edition of Walt Whitman’s book of poems, Leaves of Grass, is published In Brooklyn.

1862 – Lewis Carroll tells Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & its sequels.

1872 – Birthday of Calvin Coolidge, lawyer & politician, 30th President of the United States

1886 – The people of France offer the Statue of Liberty to the people of the United States.

1902 – Deathday of Vivekananda, Indian monk & saint

1914 – The funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand & his wife Sophie takes place in Vienna, six days after their assassinations in Sarajevo.

1918 – Bolsheviks kill Tsar Nicholas II of Russia & his family

1934 – Deathday of Marie Curie, French-Polish physicist & chemist, Nobel Prize laureate

***

THE “AMERICAN” or “THREEFOLD” VERSE by Rudolf Steiner given to Ralph Courtney, a pioneer of Anthroposophy in North America for the Threefold Group in New York City, which later established the Threefold Community in Spring Valley (now Chestnut Ridge). This verse for the American spirit speaks of the inner unity of human beings and of support from the spiritual world for our efforts:

“May our feeling penetrate to the center of our hearts –
And seek, in love, to unite with those who share our goals,
And with the spirits who look down benevolently
On our hearts earnest strivings.
Sending us strength from realms of light, to illuminate our love“.

***

 

Thomas Jefferson & John Adams were ideological opposites & election rivals, but the two Founding Fathers reconciled late in life—which made their nearly simultaneous deaths on July 4, 1826, all the more meaningful. On the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson uttered his last words, “Is it the fourth yet?” before passing away. Later that same day, Adams also died, but not before saying, “Thomas Jefferson survives,” unaware his dear friend had already passed on.

Five years later, on July 4, 1831, James Monroe, the last presidential Founding Father, died as well. The fifth U.S. president had attempted to write an autobiography, but was unable to complete it as his health slowly deteriorated after his wife died the year before.

Interesting that there has only been 1 president born on the 4th of July – Calvin Coolidge, the nation’s 30th president, in 1872.

“Three of the four presidents who have left the scene of their usefulness & glory expired on the anniversary of the national birthday, a day which of all others, had it been permitted them to choose [they] would probably had selected for the termination of their careers,” wrote the New York Evening Post the day after Monroe’s death.

Adams served as the second president from 1797 to 1801, followed by Jefferson, who served until 1809. But long before the 13 colonies had won their independence, Adams & Jefferson played vital roles in creating the document that declared men were created equal & entitled to “life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness.”

Adams, in a letter to a friend in 1822, recalled how Jefferson was placed on the committee to write the document. “Mr Jefferson came into Congress in June 1775 and brought with him a reputation for literature, science, and a happy talent at composition. Writings of his were handed about, remarkable for the peculiar felicity of expression,” Adams wrote.

The irascible Adams also described why he insisted that Jefferson write the draft: “Jefferson proposed to me to make the draught. I said I will not; You shall do it. Oh No! Why will you not? You ought to do it. I will not. Why? Reasons enough. What can be your reasons? Reason 1st. You are a Virginian, and Virginia ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason 2d. I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular; You are very much otherwise. Reason 3d: You can write ten times better than I can. ‘Well,’ said Jefferson, ‘if you are decided I will do as well as I can.’”

The importance of July 4 might have surprised some Founding Fathers. The Continental Congress declared freedom from Britain on July 2 & approved the Declaration on Independence on July 4. Most members signed the document in August.

Adams thought Americans would remember July 2 as their “Day of Deliverance” from Britain. In a letter to his wife, Abigail, he wrote, “It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

While Adams & Jefferson represented their states in the Continental Congress, a teenage Monroe dropped out of college in 1776 to fight in the Revolution, enlisting in the 3rd Virginia Regiment, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Many historians consider Monroe the last president from the Founding Fathers.

Adams & Jefferson would live to see the country expand well beyond the original 13 states. Adams was 90 when he died of a heart attack. Jefferson had been in declining health for years before dying at 83.

“People interpreted their deaths in a religious manner,” said Michael Meranze, a U.S. history professor at UCLA. “It was clearly taken symbolically as both the birth and growth of the early republic.”

In 1826, for instance, Rep. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts delivered a two-hour-long eulogy in Boston suggesting their deaths were a sign that God was protecting the nation.

“As their lives themselves were the gifts of Providence, who is not willing to recognize in their happy termination, as well as in their long continuance, proofs that our country and its benefactors are objects of His care?” Webster said.

~ Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

The Central Regional Council is hosting a Bridging to the ‘Great American Eclipse’ in St. Louis – August 19-22, 2017 

Speaking from Soul to Soul with the Solar Eclipse At the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse, St. Louis, Missouri August 19, 5 PM CST through August 21, 5pm CST

Read the article from Das Goetheanum

RETREAT CONTENT: At this Central Regional retreat, we take The ‘Bridging Project’ into the realm of ‘Speaking with the Stars’. In the life between death and re-birth the human being is engaged in an intimate conversation with the ‘Stars’. We will prepare for, view and work to hold the light during the ‘Great American Solar Eclipse’, which will sweep from West to East across all of America, and will be visible in the St. Louis area on Monday August 21st 2017. Through the social arts of folk eurythmy, song, study, color, meditation, and an interactive pageant*, we will engage with the spiritual significance of this powerful cosmic and earthly event. Afterward we will process, share and continue the conversation, working to understand the mysteries of the will. 

RETREAT LOCATION: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse is located just south of downtown St. Louis, Missouri, overlooking the Mississippi River(https://www.csjsl.org/motherhouse-services/take-a-tour.php). On Monday, we will travel to a TBD park or nature area about one hour south of St. Louis to experience the full solar eclipse, returning to The Motherhouse in the late afternoon.

TRANSPORTATION: Transportation is at the discretion of the participants (not included in retreat cost). The planning team will try to facilitate ride sharing opportunities if you request our assistance.  The closest airport is Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (Code: STL) ( http://flystl.com/)

LODGING PLANS: The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Motherhouse has 8 single and 2 double rooms available for the CRC conference. A few rooms have private bathrooms, and there are several shared bathrooms across the hall from the bedrooms. Rooms will be assigned on a first-registration basis to conference participants. If capacity allows, we will try to accommodate additional participants, whether at Carondelet or at local members’ homes.

MEALS: Meals will be provided by the Sisters of Carondelet during the fixed times listed below. Conference participants not staying at The Motherhouse are also able to order meals through this registration form. Vegan, vegetarian, non-dairy and gluten-free diets can be accommodated if requested in advance. Coffee, tea and ice water will be provided. Breakfast: 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM $7 Lunch: 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM $10 Dinner: 5:15 AM – 6:15 PM $11

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The Sisters of Carondelet are environmentally conscious, and no disposable water bottles are allowed in the property (but re-usable bottles are allowed)  Additional information will be provided to registered participants in July

click here to register 

***