Category Archives: Remembering

1st Holy Night: Christmas Eve, Adam & Eve’s Day

Celestial Event, Festival, Insight, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars, Winter

24 December 2016 – Astro-Weather: The Pleiades & Hyades star clusters climb highest in the south during mid-evening & remain visible nearly the whole night. The Pleiades, also known at the Seven Sisters, appears like a small dipper. The larger Hyades forms the V-shaped head of Taurus the Bull

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

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The Feast of the Seven Fishes (Italian: Festa dei sette pesci), also known as The Vigil (Italian: La Vigilia), an Italian-American celebration of Christmas Eve with meals of fish & other seafood

1st Night of Hanukkah 

1914 – The marriage of Rudolf Steiner to Marie von Sivers

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 1st Holy Night: Christmas Eve, Adam & Eve’s Day

Constellation of Pisces, Fishes

The Sphere of the Human Being (ruling the feet)

‘From the light, thru the darkness, to the light’ – this is the path of human evolution symbolized by the region of the 2 Fishes. One fish swims down into the physical, where we are graced with 2 feet to walk upright upon the earth, until we are ready to swim back up to spirit.

It’s thought-provoking to remember that each epoch is ruled by a prevailing constellation, guided by a particular Time Spirit. Right now we are in the age of Pisces, guided by Michael. For our contemplation of the Holy Nights, it is interesting to think back to the last time the forces from this region of the Zodiac were raying down their influence. Rudolf Steiner’s research tells us it was when the Sun separated from the earth. The Christ-Being left the Earth with the Sun. The light that was within, began to shine from outside us.

And this constellation will be active again when the Inner Spiritual Sun, won thru individual freedom, begins to rise out of the darkness in the human soul. This is possible because Christ made the descent & united Himself with earthly evolution thru the mystery of Golgotha, gradually awakening the higher Sun-Self in humanity, making us worthy to become the 10th Hierarchy.

This has been the work of the Mystery schools since Lemurian times, referred to as the initiation of the Fishes. We see this reflected in many cultural legends: The great Manu learns of the impending flood from the Fishes. While in the Gilgamesh epic Enkidu is called ‘Son of the Fish’. The Guardian of the Grail receives the name the Fisher-King…etc…

John the Baptist had the task of preparing Jesus of Nazareth for the Fish-initiation which he performed at the Baptism in the Jordan.  And of course the closest disciples of Christ-Jesus were fishermen (Luke 5:10). Later the ancient symbol of the Fishes came to be associated with those that could be called the Bearer of the Christ.

David Newbatt

How striking it is to think that at the 1st Christmas, the symbol of the Fishes pointed, not only back, to the epoch when Christ left the Earth together with the Sun; but also prophetically, to our time now, (since 1930) where humanity has the possibility to experience the ‘Second Coming’ of Christ in the etheric; & then to the future time, when Christ will shine fully once again within the free & conscious human soul.

So here on the 1st Holy Night, in the constellation of Pisces, we find the Alpha & Omega of human evolution, expressing the very essence of Anthropos.

On this night what would it be like to hold a picture of our past selves, informing our present & future selves?

Mary Nichols

Virtue:  Magnanimity Becomes Love

Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Preparing for the Journey

Celestial Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars, Winter

23 December 2016 – Astro-Weather: Head outside in the early evening & you can see the Big Dipper scraping the northern horizon. This conspicuous asterism never rises or sets (“circumpolar” in astronomical parlance), though December evenings find it at its lowest ebb. This means that the constellation on the opposite side of the North Celestial Pole, the familiar W-shaped Cassiopeia, currently rides highest in the sky.

Sirius, the Dog Star, sparkles low in the east-southeast after dinnertime. Procyon, the Little Dog Star, shines in the east about two fist-widths at arm’s length to Sirius’s left. The two canine stars will be at the same height above your horizon soon after they rise.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“Study the past if you would define the future.”  ~Confucius

160  – Saints Victor & Corona are two Christian martyrs. They were killed in Roman Syria during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Their legend states that Victor was a Roman soldier of Italian ancestry, serving in the city of Damascus. He was tortured -including having his eyes gouged out- by a commander named Sebastian. While he was suffering from these tortures, the sixteen-year-old spouse of one of his brothers-in-arms, named Corona, comforted & encouraged him. For this, she was arrested & interrogated. Corona was bound to two bent palm trees & torn apart as the trunks were released

562 – Hagia Sophia in Constantinople reopened with a rebuilt dome after a series of earthquakes caused the original to collapse

605 – Deathday of Dagobert, murdered while hunting. The last Frankish king of the Merovingian dynasty . The prosperity of Dagobert’s reign, & the revival of the arts during this period, can be judged from the rich contents of the tombs of the period & from the goldsmiths’ work for the churches. Dagobert revised Frankish law, encouraged learning, patronized the arts, & founded the first great abbey of Saint-Denis

1539 – 1st mention of a Christmas tree at the Strasbourg Minster

1805 – Birthday of Joseph Smith, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

1888 – Deathday of Laurence Oliphant, occultist. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him: In the early years of this century I was several times in London. On the occasion of one of these visits I was prompted to make myself acquainted with an extraordinarily significant personality — to begin with, simply in his writings. And as in those days there were rather longer intervals between the journeys than there are now, I obtained from the Theosophical Library the books he had written — the books that is to say, of Laurence Oliphant.

Laurence Oliphant is a remarkably interesting and significant personality: he strikes you in this way directly you begin to study his writings. These books deal with the similarities to be found in different religions, with spiritual religions, and so forth; and all of them bear evidence of a deep understanding of how in the various processes of his body and soul, man is connected with the secrets of the universe. When you read Oliphant’s writings you have the impression: Here is a picture of man in his earth-life that owes its inspiration to deep cosmic instincts. The processes of the earthly life of man that are connected with birth, embryonic life, descent and so forth, are described in such a way as to show how man, as microcosm, is wondrously rooted in the macrocosm.

Now I was very soon led in this study to a point where the figure of the dead Laurence Oliphant stood before me, but not in a form which suggested that I had here to do with the individuality as he was then living after death; it was rather that what was contained in these writings (which may be described as setting forth a kind of cosmic physiology, a cosmic anatomy) began to come alive, began to spiritualise; and a figure appeared, not all at once entirely clear, but unquestionably there before me on many different occasions. I was able to make occult investigations into the matter and I could never do otherwise than bring the figure into connection with what came to me from reading Oliphant. It was very often there before me. At first I was often unable to satisfy myself as to what this figure wanted, what its manifestations meant. The whole manner of its appearance however, left me in no doubt whatever that it was none other than the individuality of Laurence Oliphant; and it was likewise clear to me that this figure had had a long life in the time between death and a new birth — that is to say, the birth as Laurence Oliphant — probably only broken by one earth-life that was not very significant for the rest of the world. What might not then be hidden in the personality of Laurence Oliphant! In short, this appearance of the figure of Laurence Oliphant suggested significant questions of karma.

When I entered on an investigation of the karma, a spiritual Being became manifest who is engaged in the elaboration of human karma, in the same way as the Mars Being of whom I told you in connection with Voltaire and with Ignatius Loyola.~ Cosmic Christianity: Lecture V

One of the most important guidelines that the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings communicate to pupils through a teacher is: Learn to be silent and you’ll get power; give up power and you’ll get will; give up will and you’ll get feeling; give up feeling and you’ll get knowledge. An esoteric must place these occult propositions before his soul in all work and action, and then some day he’ll experience that the four verses are true. One should note that the various forces can only be attained in sequence, so that one can never attain knowledge first and maybe then feeling and then will, and then power. For will arises from the renunciation of power, etc. We’ll give an example from the life of a very rich Briton, Laurence Oliphant, who lived in the middle of the last century. He and his wife had a noble love for their poorer neighbors and moved by this feeling they gave most of what they had to them; and then they migrated to New York. There they made enough money to go to Mt Tabor near Haifa. Here a strange phenomena arose. Oliphant began to write some very interesting and strange books about Genesis that were some of the strangest things that were written about the Bible at the time. But he could only have these thoughts with the help of his wife. After she died Oliphant could only keep on working for a short time, and then the inspiration of his deceased wife no longer reached the physical plane.~ From the Contents of Esoteric Classes, EL, Koeln, 12-1-’06

1913 – The Federal Reserve Act is signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve System

1972 – A 6.5 magnitude earthquake strikes the Nicaraguan capital of Managua killing more than 10,000

1986 – Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan & Jeana Yeager -the first aircraft to fly non-stop around the world without refueling

2002 – A U.S. MQ-1 Predator is shot down by an Iraqi MiG-25 in the first combat engagement between a drone & conventional aircraft

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Connor Zendejas

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~We are gods in the body of god…
Truth & Love Our Destiny…
Go then & make of the world something beautiful…
Set up a light in the darkness..
~hag

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Mieke Filmich

Tomorrow we begin our annual journey thru the HOLY NIGHTS, so I wanted to connect with you today, on this eve of the eve, to prepare the way, in the hopes that we can take this powerful initiatory passage together.

Each of the 12 days & 13 nights – From the Eve of the Sacred Birth, to the Eve of Epiphany, can be seen as a micro-cosmic experience of the macro-cosm, allowing us to approach the sublime gesture of the divine spiritual beings, whose outer vestments are the constellations of the zodiac – while simultaneously contemplating the events in our own lives, in order to uncover the golden threads connecting us to each other, as well as to the goals of Earth evolution, & to the divine spiritual nature that comes to birth again & again at this darkest time of year.

This sacred ‘Time out of Time’ provides an opportunity to contemplate, not only the great journey of the Cosmic Christ thru the zodiac into the body of Jesus; but also the path of Jesus to Christ; as well the evolution of every Human Being as a Star unfolding in an Earthly biography – for we as human beings are following both paths.

Lucas Cranach the younger

On Christmas Eve, we begin the contemplation with Adam & Eve, remembering that the fall was the reason The Christ Being made the sacrificial journey from the Godhead to become the Son of Man. The Holy Nights are completed on Epiphany, also recognized as the Baptism -when the Son of God – The Christ – entered human form.

So, when we look at the circle of the Zodiac during the Holy Nights we can find imprinted there a memory of that significant track from spiritual heights to human depths. The 12 apostles formed an outer version of these constellations around Jesus Christ. And we all incarnate into these various signs on our way to becoming spirit once again.

On December 25th, we are invited to consider the historical events behind the first Christmas. A thoughtful way to approach the birthday of Jesus is through the two Nativity stories in the Gospels, each very different from the other.  St. Matthew’s Gospel points to the Solomon Jesus, a re-incarnation of the great sage Zarathustra, actually born earlier in Bethlehem, in the time of Herod, when he is visited by Magi & then fled to Egypt. The Gospel of St. Luke points to the Nathan Jesus, born in Nazareth, a pure divine soul never incarnated before, that part of Adam that stayed in the spiritual world & prepared the way for the Christ.

The two Jesus children unite when the Luke child is twelve & the Matthew child is 14. We find this story in Luke 2:41-52 when his parents find him teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem. As Rudolf Steiner explained in the ‘Fifth Gospel’, the Luke Nathan Jesus takes on the soul forces (Ego) of the wise Matthew Jesus who sacrifices his life on the physical plane.

Di Vinci

Shortly before the Baptism in the Jordan, when Jesus was 30 years old, the Ego of the Solomon soul leaves Jesus & enters Mary, to make room for the Christ at the Baptism by John.

During the Renaissance, some artists knew of these profound secrets, & painted this occult theme showing 3 sacred children: the Luke Nathan Jesus as a boy & a second older boy, The Jesus form the Matthew Gospel, along with John the Baptist (cousin of the Luke Jesus)

 David Newbatt

Of course the mystery schools of old prepared their pupils for this journey even before the birth of Jesus. And any one familiar with the Dream Song of Olaf Åsteson knows that the legend speaks well to this:

“Come listen to me and hear my song
The song of a wonderful youth,
I’ll sing you of Olaf Åsteson
Who slept many days — ’tis the truth.

‘Twas Christmas Eve when down he lay
And slept so long all unknowing,
He never woke till the thirteenth day
When to Church the people were going.
Yes, it was Olaf Åsteson
Who lay so long a-sleeping… ”

Take these ideas into your thoughts, into your sleep – for tomorrow we begin to traverse the return path that leads thru the 12 constellations of the zodiac to a conscious union with the whole world of the Hierarchies.

Until soon –

Xox ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Current Festival & Program Events

The dark space between the stars

Insight, Meditation, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars, Winter

22 December 2016 – Astro-Weather: This is the time of year when Orion shines in the east-southeast after dinnertime. He’s well up now, but his three-star Belt is still nearly vertical. The Belt points up toward Aldebaran &, even higher, the 7 Sisters: the Pleiades. In the other direction, it points down to where bright Sirius is about to rise twinkling in the bright colors of the rainbow

The waning crescent Moon appears just above Jupiter in this morning’s sky. The benevolent king rises about a half-hour after our satellite bella Luna, & both are clear of the horizon by 2 am CST. They remain conspicuous until twilight is well underway. If you look carefully, you also should see Spica in their vicinity. Virgo the Maiden’s luminary lies about the same distance below Jupiter as the Moon stands above it.

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O Rex Gentium – Prince of Peace

O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum,
lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum:
veni, et salva hominem,
quem de limo formasti.

O King of the nations, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one:
Come and save the human race,
which you fashioned from clay.

Isaiah had prophesied: “For a child has been born for us, a son given us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6 – “He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” Isaiah 2:4

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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

304 – Deathday of Saint Florian a Christian holy man, and the patron saint of Linz, Austria; chimney sweeps; soapmakers, & firefighters. The “Florian Principle” (known in German language areas as “Sankt-Florians-Prinzip”) is named after a somewhat ironic prayer to Saint Florian: “O heiliger Sankt Florian, verschon’ mein Haus, zünd’ and’re an”, equivalent to “O Holy St. Florian, please spare my house, set fire to another one”. This saying is used in German much like the English “not in my back yard“, when the speaker wants to point out that some person tries to get out of an unpleasant situation by an action that will put others in that very same situation. The name Florian is considered synonymous with fireman in the German speaking world. In some cases call for a fireman will actually be spoken as calls for Florian.

856 – Damghan earthquake kills an estimated 200,000 people, the sixth deadliest earthquake in recorded history

1808 – Ludwig van Beethoven conducts & performs in concert at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with the premiere of his Fifth Symphony, Sixth Symphony, Fourth Piano Concerto (performed by Beethoven himself) & Choral Fantasy (with Beethoven at the piano)

1851 – India’s first freight train is operated in Roorkee, India

1890 – Cornwallis Valley Railway begins operation between Kentville &Kingsport, Nova Scotia.

1891 – Asteroid 323 Brucia becomes the first asteroid discovered using photography

1937 – The Lincoln Tunnel opens to traffic in New York City

1942 –Adolf Hitler signs the order to develop the V-2 rocket as a weapon

1989 – Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate re-opens after nearly 30 years, effectively ending the division of East & West Germany

1989 – Deathday of Samuel Beckett, Irish author, poet, & playwright, Nobel Prize laureate

2008 – An ash dike ruptured at a solid waste containment area in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing 1.1 billion US gallons of coal fly ash slurry

2010 – The repeal of the Don’t ask, don’t tell policy, the 17-year-old policy banning homosexuals serving openly in the United States military, is signed into law by President Barack Obama

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Darkness gives
Way to light…
Confusion to understanding…
My green heart
Witch was pitched into the fire
Sizzles like fresh kill…
& the stars fade like memory
The instant before dawn…
High in the East, Bella Luna rounds space
Opening like a laughing eye…
That which can be named must exist…
That which is named can be written…
That which is written is remembered…
What is remembered lives…
Let the rest
Rest…
~hag

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…’The wine dark sea’…
…The active dark womb…
…The dark space between the stars…
Wrap this darkness gently about you like a comfortable blanket…Float gently now in its depths…Grow here, nourished by an invisible cord that connects you to the Source of all life…Floating gently in the dark…Softly rocking in the dark…And although it is dark, we realize that what surrounds us is not empty, but – like the womb – full of life. Take a moment now to sense the swirling, nurturing energy of the dark.

And now, as the energy increases, there is a spark…& the  dark gives birth…See that spark now as it glows, watch that spark now, watch it as it grows. Glowing brighter & brighter, it grows into a flame. And as you look at this flame, its light fills you with warmth…the light fills you with love. And as you feel the increased love & warmth within you, the visible intensity of the flame slowly diminishes & as it does, in its place, slowly coming to light, is the outline of a present. A gift…becoming more solid, until you can see its form clearly. Look how it is wrapped in a glistening filament of light.

This gift has your name on it, inscribed in the glimmering material. Is your name written in a special color? Is the inscription special in any other way? Approach your wrapped present now more closely. What shape is it? How big is it? What color is its wrapping? Pick it up: is it light? heavy?

And now you unwrap your gift. How easy or difficult is it to unwrap?

You finish opening your present….now receive your gift. What is it? Look at it carefully. Experience it fully. Accept it. Accept your gift with joy. Feel your heart warm with the love with which this gift is given to you.

And now, from your heart, send out gratitude for this gift, send out thanks for this gift, send it out like light, like a beacon back to the Great Mother, back to the Father Ground, out to the Universe- both the dark & the light. Send out your thanks for this gift.

Now, if you wish, find a place for this gift, a safe place where you can access this gift, a place to put this gift to work, that it may bless the world & give you the strength you need during the whole of the New Year.

Lighting a candle:
Deep in the ground of the human soul
Of victory assured
The Spirit-Sun is living
All through the winter of the inner life
The faithful heart divines it

See you in the dark
Find you in the light
Xox ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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Current Festival & Program Events

Energizing Hope for the Sun’s return

Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars, Winter

20 December 2016 – Astro-Weather: Last-quarter Moon (exact at 7:56 pm CST).  Bella Luna rises around midnight. Once she’s up, you’ll see that she is in Virgo under the tail of Leo. Jupiter rises below the Moon about an hour & a half later. By dawn Wednesday morning, they’re all high in the south.

You are remembered, Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996)

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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

O Clavis David (Samuel anointing David):
O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel;
qui aperis, et nemo claudit;
claudis, et nemo aperit:
veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris,
sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Isaiah had prophesied: “I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open.” Isaiah 22:22

“His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onwards and for evermore.” Isaiah 9:7

“…To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.“Isaiah 42:7.

69 – Vespasian, formerly a general under Nero, enters Rome to claim the title of Emperor. While Vespasian besieged Jerusalem during the Jewish rebellion, emperor Nero committed suicide & plunged Rome into a year of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors. Rudolf Steiner speaks about Vespasian & Nero in Mysteries of the Sun and of the Threefold Man (you will find quite a lot about Nero in Steiner’s Karmic Relationships lectures)

1192 – Richard I of England (Richard the Lionheart) is captured & imprisoned by Leopold V of Austria on his way home to England after the Third Crusade

1522 – Suleiman the Magnificent accepts the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually settle on Malta & become known as the Knights of Malta.

1552 – Deathday of Katharina von Bora the wife of Martin Luther

1699 – Czar Peter I introduced a new calendar in Russia based on the birth of Christ

1916 –The battle of Verdun in WW1 results in a French victory after more than 9 months of intense fighting

1917 – Cheka, the first Soviet secret police force, is founded

1924 – Adolf Hitler is released from Landsberg Prison

1951 – The EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho becomes the first nuclear power plant to generate electricity. The electricity powered four light bulbs

1971 – The international aid organization Doctors Without Borders is founded by Bernard Kouchner & a group of journalists in Paris, France

1987 – In the worst peacetime sea disaster, the passenger ferry Doña Paz sinks after colliding with the oil tanker Vector in the Tablas Strait in the Philippines, killing an estimated 4,000 people

1995 – American Airlines Flight 965, a Boeing 757, crashes into a mountain in Colombia killing 259

International Human Solidarity Day

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

The power of Peace-The Birth of Love-The Light of Wisdom

Energizing Hope for the Sun’s return & the Earth’s renewal
We make a ‘spiritual manger’ – a sacred space –
In the cold black frozen places,
That seem devoid of life, but they are really just a sterilized palate –
A clean slate, fresh & ready
For the newly conceived light to be born into & fill…
~hag

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Kirsty Mitchell

When all seems dead & barren on the earth, below the surface the inner life is strengthened. Under the ice-covered exterior, a rich black loom embraces the kernel of our rebirth. And if we can let go of the false hustle & bustle imposed from without, & sit in the stillness of the dark, we will find that inner strength to let go of our fear of the dark, to let our eyes adjust to the dark, & soon we will see quite clearly in the dark, & then we can begin the work of re-patterning…

The hag has gone to seed & become bone…a fresh soul-frame for the new year.

Let us stand in uprightness at the door & dare to open the portal to face the abyss – To release ourselves, in consciousness, from the outer world for a sacred moment, that we may invoke our own immaculate conception – That we may surrender to the ‘Waking Dreaming’ – To celebrate the dark, where the inner life is honored & nurtured by the many Marys within…

Let the Power of faith lead us from the darkness into the birth of our own unique inner light…

 

The Darkness is coming…
But never fear…
The darkness is coming…
But the light is near…
The darkness is coming…
The darkness is here…

Together we can meet it with hope & peace

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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hi-dukes-new-year-lucky-stars-branch-poster-8-5x11-web-2

Start your New Year on the right foot at our annual New Year’s Eve Celebration!

Our evening will be spent in community, with various offerings and activities. Jutta & the Hi-Dukes ™ will play their exciting, unique blend of world music, for your family-friendly dancing pleasure. Everyone can take part because members of the band lead you through the traditional dances they present.

Doors open at 8:00 pm and the music will start around 9:00 pm. Your Donation of $10 goes to the band (You are always welcome to give more to support the branch as well)

Additional offerings and activities for the evening to be announced soon.

Please bring a favorite delectable dish to share.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP

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Mysteries of the Celtic Goddess

brigid-helena-nelson-reedBrigid by Helena Nelson Reed

Thursday February 9th 2017 -7 pm
at the Theosophical Society in America
1926 North Main Street
Wheaton, IL 60187

Invoking the Practical Alchemy of the Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid
To Purify, Awaken, & Galvanize Your Head, Heart, and Hands

Brigid’s festival is the 1st of the cross-quarter days in the wheel of the year, a time of spiritual re-dedication and initiation. Brigid invites us to forge and shape ourselves, as the tools of our own destiny. Come Renew Yourself. Together we will thaw the winter & rouse the mysteries growing within…

Hazel Archer Ginsberg is a Spiritual Midwife, and Trans-denominational Minister, working in an eclectic style that inspires connections – initiating us into the magic, waiting to be revealed, in the cycle of the seasons. Festivals Coordinator of the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society. Lecturer, Promoter, Blogger, Poet & Performance Artist.  www.ReverseRitual.com.

$10 nonmembers   $5 members

Live Webcast

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An evening Discourse &  Full day Workshop at

Fostering Sustainable Agriculture through Research, Education and Policy since 1984

Friday March 3rd 2017,  Potluck Social 5:30 pm  Lecture –7 pm – 9 pm

What is Anthroposophy?

A Hands-on Discourse with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

What can the human being (anthropos) of today do to recognize our inherent wisdom (sophia) to access the source of spiritual knowledge, for our own inner development, and for the evolution of the earth and all of humanity?

What would it be like to support each other in community, as we strive to penetrate the mystery of our relationship with the spiritual world?

How does this ‘Spiritual Science’ built on the research of Rudolf Steiner, speak to the riddles of existence: our artistic needs, the truth of karma, the mystery of evil, life after death and so much more?

Come Explore this Modern Path of Initiation with:

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, and the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society. Founder of Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year– Presenter, Poet, & Trans-denominational Minister.

Also:

 Saturday March 4th 2017 –

A Experiential Three Part Workshop* with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

‘The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity’

Session #1 – 10 am – 12 noon:
• Introductions
• The divine wisdom working in the human being in the 1st three years of life.
• Through inner striving we can contact again and consciously build on this wisdom which is connected to the Christ impulse.
• Activity- Biography work: Our 1st conscious memory – a preview of the “I”.

Noon – 1:30 pm – Lunch

Session #2 – 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm:
• The childlike condition of humanity in ancient times, directed by higher spiritual beings.
• A look into the evolution of these guiding spirits –progressive as well as regressive –
• Revealing the necessity of the ‘two kinds of evil’.
• The importance of Spiritual Science to avoid error.
• Activity – Labyrinth Walk

3:30 pm – 4 pm – Break

Session #3 – 4 pm – 6 pm:
• A survey of the Post-Atlantean age, our present epoch.
• The Christ connection with the progressive spiritual beings
• Modern science as the work of the regressive spiritual beings
• A peek into the future
• Activity – The Golden Legend & The Rose Cross Mediation: An artistic rendering

*(Workshops can be taken as a whole or individually, details to follow)

Michael Fields W2493 County Rd ES
East Troy, WI 53120, USA

To forgive means: To give energy for change.

Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars

19 December 2016 – Astro-Weather: With the Moon out of the evening sky, & the cold December air especially clean & clear, now is a fine time to commune with the spiritual beings of the fixed & wandering Stars. So bundle up, fill your thermos with hot chocolate & go for a night walk under the starry sky

Look for Mars which continues to put on a nice show these December evenings. It appears above the southwestern horizon once twilight fades to darkness, & it doesn’t set until after 9 pm CST. The Red Planet currently lies among the background stars of Aquarius

O & PS. Did you know that Mercury went Retrograde this morning, at 5:55am CST. Well it did, & it stay Retro until January 8, 2017

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Odilon Redon

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Looking at the past to see the present, co-creating the future:

“History, historical life, will only be seen in the right light when a true consciousness of the connection of the so-called living with the so-called dead can be developed” ~Rudolf Steiner – The Living and the Dead

According to Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual research in the original Calendar of the Soul , today is the Birthday of Abraham interestingly regarded as the father of the faithful by all 3 monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, & Islam

Birthday of Lot, nephew of Abraham 

Also celebrated today: O Radix Jesse
O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,
super quem continebunt reges os suum,
quem Gentes deprecabuntur:
veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;
before you kings will shut their mouths,
to you the nations will make their prayer:
Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

Isaiah had prophesied: “A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Isaiah 11:1 “On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.” Isaiah 11:10 Jesse was the father of King David, & Micah had prophesied that the Messiah would be of the house and lineage of David & be born in David’s city, Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). see Also: Isaiah 45:14, Isaiah 52:15 & Romans 15:12

150 – Deathday of Clement of Alexandria. His parents were educated pagans, having rejected paganism as a young man due to its perceived moral corruption, he travelled in Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine & Egypt. In his Protrepticus he displays an extensive knowledge of Greek mythology & mystery religions, which could only have arisen from the practice of his family’s religion. In Greece, he encountered the Ionian theologian, Athenagoras of Athens; while in the east, he was taught by the Assyrian, Tatian, & a Jew, Theophilus of Caesarea. In around 180, Clement reached Alexandria, where he met Pantaenus, who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement studied under Pantaenus, & was ordained to the priesthood by Pope Julian before 189.

As his three major works demonstrate, Clement was influenced by Hellenistic philosophy to a greater extent than any other Christian thinker of his time, & in particular by Plato & the Stoics. His secret works, which exist only in fragments, suggest that he was also familiar with pre-Christian Jewish esotericism & Gnosticism. In one of his works he argued that Greek philosophy had its origin among non-Greeks, claiming that both Plato & Pythagoras were taught by Egyptian scholars. Among his pupils were Origen & Alexander of Jerusalem. Clement is regarded as a Church Father & is venerated as a saint in Coptic Christianity, Ethiopian Christianity & Anglicanism

1776 – Thomas Paine publishes a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled “The American Crisis“. The first was released during a time when the Revolution was still viewed as an unsteady prospect. The opening lines are as follows: “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman”.

The pamphlet, read aloud to the Continental Army on December 23, 1776, three days before the Battle of Trenton, attempted to bolster morale as well as shame neutrals & loyalists toward the cause: “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph”.

Along with the patriotic nature of The American Crisis, it displayed Paine’s strong deist beliefs, inciting the laity with suggestions that the British are trying to assume powers that only God should have. Paine states that he believes God supports the American people, “that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent“.

Paine believes that Britain is essentially trying to enslave America. See The American Crisis – Common Sense pamphlet – The Age of Reason

1848 – Deathday of Emily Brontë, English novelist & poet

1907 – 239 coal miners die in the Darr Mine Disaster in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania

1915 – Birthday of Édith Piaf, French singer-songwriter & actress

1927 – Three Indian revolutionaries, Ram Prasad Bismil, Roshan Singh & Ashfaqulla Khan are executed by the British Empire

1932 – BBC World Service begins broadcasting as the BBC Empire Service

1941 –Adolf Hitler appoints himself as head of the Oberkommando des Heeres

1972 –The last manned lunar flight, Apollo 17, crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans, & Harrison Schmitt, returns to Earth

1974 – Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as Vice President of the United States under President Gerald Ford under the provisions of the 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution

2012 – Park Geun-hye is elected the first female president of South Korea

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Clavis Artis

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I have come
To this dark world
Like a satellite streaking —
I am the open eye gleaming —
A laser, sculpting, reality
With precise rays of promise
Sparking eternity —
Come Beloved, bring forth your art
& let us co-create the heart…
~hag

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Liba WS

We swiftly sidle toward the midnight hour of the year. All of Creation is holding its breath at this deep time, anticipating the birth, within each human heart, of wonder, & a willingness to cooperate in a living way with everything & everyone.

May we kindle the warm glow of good will to transform our emotional default setting to one peace & kindness. Each moment awaits our imaginative dedication.

So let’s toss all that is neither beautiful nor useful into the roiling cauldron of re-birth, that Time is so kindly providing us. Let us compost all past-patterns of self-sabotage, personal & collective. And let us humbly bow at the threshold of this New Year, to release & redeem all that we do not wish to take with us through the new door (20 KMB 17).

Remorse is said to be the highest of the negative states, that sinking feeling that can grip us when we fall for the compelling illusion of separateness, & forgot that we are all in one large, pulsing, shape-shifting-according-to-collaborative-intent-reality-dream. How will your thoughts add to this picture?

The Sufi say: “Estafirahlah”  “forgiveness of self and others.” And part of what “to forgive” means “to give energy for change.”

The protoplasm of reality is particularly susceptible to imprint now, by the power of word, story & metaphor.  Allowing ourselves one true hyperbole: Never before has the power of human story-telling been so essential in determining what dies & what lives.

Let us dedicate ourselves to animating a truly desirable story- A love story. We are here to re-dedicate ourselves to the responsibility of manifesting the highest qualities of the human being.

So, wherever we are, at this time of the Solstice, let us visualize & dedicate our unique & absolutely necessary Medicine, into the collective cauldron, to ladle ourselves up a big heaping cup of All-Heal.

‘The Medicine that makes whole’, brings into bubbling accord the elixir of Divine, Dynamic, Reverent, Integrity & Ingenuity.

See you there

Xox

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg