Category Archives: Soul to Soul

“The Gate is Opened”

Autumn, Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Remembering, Soul to Soul

19 October 2017 – Astro-Weather: Exact at 2:12 p.m. CDT –  New Moon

Dan Matutina

The modest Orionid meteor shower is active for the next few nights in the early-morning hours. The shower’s radiant is near Orion’s Club, low in the east after midnight & high in the south by the beginning of dawn. Bella Luna is exploring the underworld, so the sky will be free of moonlight.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1512 – Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology

1781 – At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis’ sword & formally surrendered to George Washington & the comte de Rochambeau. The Revolutionary War Ends

1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grande Armée of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Ulm. 30,000 prisoners are captured & 10,000 casualties inflicted on the losers

1812 – Napoleon Bonaparte retreats from Moscow

1813 – The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats

1893 – Deathday of Lucy Stone, a prominent American orator, abolitionist, & suffragist, & a vocal advocate & organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women’s rights & against slavery at a time when women were discouraged & prevented from public speaking. Stone was known for using her maiden name after marriage.

Stone’s organizational activities for the cause of women’s rights yielded tangible gains in the difficult political environment of the 19th century. Stone helped initiate the first National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts & she supported & sustained it annually, along with a number of other local, state & regional activist conventions. She assisted in establishing the Woman’s National Loyal League to help pass the Thirteenth Amendment & thereby abolish slavery, after which she helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association AWSA, which built support for a woman suffrage Constitutional amendment by winning woman suffrage at the state & local levels.

In the long-running & influential Woman’s Journal, a weekly periodical that she founded & promoted, Stone aired both her own & differing views about women’s rights. Called “the orator”, the “morning star” & the “heart & soul” of the women’s rights movement, Stone influenced Susan B. Anthony to take up the cause of women’s suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that “Lucy Stone was the first person by whom the heart of the American public was deeply stirred on the woman question.”

1897 – Deathday of George Pullman, an American engineer & industrialist. He designed & manufactured the Pullman sleeping car & founded a enslaving ‘company town’ for the workers who manufactured it.

During an 1894 downturn in manufacturing demand, he lowered wages & required workers to spend longer hours at the plant, but did not lower prices of rents & goods in his company town. He gained presidential support by Grover Cleveland for the use of federal military troops which left 30 strikers dead in the violent suppression of workers there to end the Pullman Strike of 1894. A national commission was appointed to investigate the strike, which included assessment of operations of the company town. In 1898 the Supreme Court of Illinois ordered the Pullman Company to divest itself of the town which became a neighborhood of the city of Chicago

Image result for Founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society in Belin with Rudolf Steiner as the General Secretary

1902 – Founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society in Belin with Rudolf Steiner as the General Secretary

1915 – J.P. Morgan arranges the biggest foreign loan in history – a $500 million war loan to Britain & France – passing global financial control from the UK to the US

1936 – Deathday of Lu Xun, a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. Writing in Vernacular Chinese as well as Classical Chinese, Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist, & poet. After the May Fourth Movement, Lu Xun’s writing began to exert a substantial influence on Chinese literature & popular culture. Though sympathetic to socialist ideas, Lu Xun never joined the Communist Party of China

1937 – Deathday of Ernest Rutherford, a New Zealand physicist & Nobel Prize laureate, who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday

He conducted research that led to the first “splitting” of the atom in 1917 in a nuclear reaction between nitrogen & alpha particles, in which he also discovered & named the proton

1950 – Deathday of Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet & playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, & was also known for her feminist activism. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work

1950 – Iran becomes the first country to accept technical assistance from the United States under the Point Four Program, a technical assistance program for “developing countries” announced by President Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address

1984 – Roman Catholic priest from Poland, Jerzy Popiełuszko, associated with the Solidarity Union, was murdered by three agents of the Polish communist internal intelligence agency

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MY POD (Poem Of the Day)

~O the beauty & terror of it all…
The crying of the gods & Her children
The red flowers withered in the last golden light…
The names of all the Powers shout out
From the bent blades of yellow grass,
By clouds, by rocks underwater, by the darkness in the mouths
Of caves, by dead boys & teachers slain
Under the chilled asphalt,
& in the swirling sands of eternity…
~hag

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Rise Up! Life As A Labor Of Love

The call 1st came in as the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America was being introduced on the opening night of the AGM in Phoenix.

The date was Friday October 13th 2017. We were wishing John Bloom, our beloved General Secretary a joyful Happy Birthday.  I remarked that this date was highly charged, since it was also the 710th anniversary of the arrest & torture of the Templars. *  I later came to realize that it was also exactly 100 years ago in 1917, when over 100,000 people in Fátima, Portugal witnessed The “Miracle of the Sun”.  *

All through the dinner reception my phone was ‘blowing up’ with reports. But it was during the Prison Outreach Poetry & Open Mic Art Session that it was confirmed: Cynthia Trevillion, long time teacher at the Chicago Waldorf School, had been killed – shot in the head & neck by a stray bullet.

She was walking with her husband John, also a teacher at CWS, to meet friends for dinner. The Trevillion’s were always hosting AWSNA colleagues coming in from Detroit or elsewhere to do evaluations, since they live around the corner from the Chicago Waldorf School. They were only four blocks from home when they were caught in gang crossfire. Someone in a black SUV opened fire on two young men standing on the street near the CTA’s Morse & Glenwood Red Line station.

Just 30 minutes before Cynthia Trevillion’s death, a 15-year-old boy was also shot a few blocks away.

To announce this news after hearing the poetry from the Anthroposophical Prison Outreach Program, some on death-row for murder, was significant. Together we did the eurythmy Hallelujah, which we continued to offer throughout the conference.

We pondered the hidden karma of this ‘perfect storm’: the ‘auspicious’ date; the connection between these seemingly unrelated individualities; was Cynthia helping these young men in death as she had helped her students in life? Why the head & neck? What could this mean for her next life? And what of her death stars? – The particular cosmic configuration at the time of her passing held the dramatic picture of a pre-dawn alignment of Regulus, the ‘Kingly Star’ at the heart of Leo the Lion, sitting in the upturned chalice of the waning crescent moon; with Venus & Mars on the horizon!

This is the “Grail Moon” which Rudolf Steiner references: “…the name of the Grail is found in the stellar script…in the gold-gleaming sickle of the moon…the dark part of the moon emerges…and there, in occult writing…is to be found the name of Parsifal.“

“…what we see at rest in the golden vessel of the moon is actually the spiritual power of the Sun…it appears to us as the bearer of the Sun-Spirit…within the moon’s vessel in the form of the wafer-like disc.” *

So much to contemplate, as we send Cynthia our love in her journey now in the life between death & a new birth; for this is a big part of the practical work of Anthroposophy, to connect the living with the ‘so-called-dead’ – to Enter the Spiritual World consciously – To take to heart the words we heard on the morning of Friday the 13th from of the Guardian at the Threshold; “The Gate is Opened”.

Back home in Chicago, there have been various memorials at the beach & a local restaurant. The vigil & wake were conducted at the Christian Community Church. The school canceled classes so students, teachers & staff could attend the service. CWS will also host a ‘Celebration of Cynthia’ where we will be sure to have plenty of wholesome food, as Cynthia was a proponent of the Weston A. Price, Wise Traditions Diet. I will miss exploring the alchemy of a good bone-broth, the merits of cultured butter & trading batches of sauerkraut with this dear friend. But I will stay connected with her through my Thresholds work. The Central Regional Council has been working with this theme for the last year in our “Bridging Project: Between Life & Death – From Soul to Soul”.

Through Spiritual Science I am consoled by the thought that a death in the physical world is a birth in the Spiritual World.  Cynthia is strongly held by many communities around the world, as she was at this year’s AGM, giving a deeper dimension to the title: “Rise Up! Life as a Labor of Love”.

View the gallery of photos from the AGM

~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year

Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago and the Central Regional Council of The Anthroposophical Society

  • October 13th 1307 – Hundreds of Templars in France are simultaneously arrested by agents of Phillip the Fair, to be later tortured into a “confession” of heresy. Once freed of the Inquisitors’ torture, many Templars recanted their confessions. Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but in 1310 Philip blocked this attempt, using the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris. With Philip threatening military action unless the pope complied with his wishes, Pope Clement finally agreed to disband the Order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, which officially dissolved the Order. As for the leaders of the Order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his confession & insisted on his innocence. But he was declared guilty of being a relapsed heretic & was sentenced to be burnt at the stake in Paris on 18 March 1314. De Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, calling out from the flames that both Pope Clement & King Philip would soon meet their end. Pope Clement died only a month later, & King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year
  • October 13th 1917 – The “Miracle of the Sun” is witnessed by an estimated 100,000 people in the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal. The people had gathered because the 3 shepherd children, who originally claimed to have seen Our Lady of Fátim, had predicted that at high noon the lady who had appeared to them several times would perform a great miracle. According to many witnesses, after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke & the sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky. It was said to be significantly duller than normal, & to cast multicolored lights across the landscape, the people, & the surrounding clouds. The sun was then reported to have careened towards the earth before zig-zagging back to its normal position. Witnesses reported that their previously wet clothes became “suddenly & completely dry, as well as the wet & muddy ground that had been previously soaked because of the rain that had been falling.” According to reports, a panorama of visions, including those of Jesus, Our Lady of Sorrows, & of Saint Joseph blessed the people. The event lasted approximately ten minutes
  • from: Christ and the Spiritual World, The Search for the Holy Grail By Rudolf Steiner

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Gustav Klimt

An All Souls Festival & a Lecture by Andrei Onegin on occasion of The 100th Anniversary of The October Bolshevik Revolution

Sunday October 29th 2017 Doors open at 1:30 pm – Program begins promptly at 2 pm

Hallelujah in Eurythmy for Cynthia Trevillion & all our Beloved across the Threshold

Overcoming Human Instincts with the Help of Spiritual Science by Andrei Onegin

3 pm – break

3:30pm – a Bridging Between Life & Death from Soul to Soul

~ Group Eurythmy with Elena Baba

~ Circle of Remembrance

~ Artistic rendering of the Calendar of the Soul Verse #30

~ Questions to the Universe – A Social Exercise

~ Open Community Conversation – The idea was shared at our 1st ‘Open Conversation’ in Sept. to meet once a month to share biographies of great Chicagoans & to further our connection the Elderberries Initiative.

Close – 5 pm, Snacks & Social Time

To Add Your Dearly Departed to the list of those to be Remembered, Please contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged – Feel free to bring pictures & memories to share

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All Souls Festival and Retreat
At the Minnesota Waldorf School in the Twin Cities, MN. 

Week-end Retreat including Festival
Fri, Nov 3 at 7:00 pm to Sunday, Nov 5 at 11:00 am

Cost $75 (registration required, click here)

Journey of the Soul Festival – Saturday, Nov 4 at 7:00 to 9:00 pm -Suggested Donation $10 at the door – All are welcome

Walk the pathway of our beloved across the threshold, being present for them, and preparing for our own journey.

“Life after death
Life before birth
Only by knowing both
Do we know eternity”
~ Rudolf Steiner

Culmination of “The Bridging Project: Between Life and Death from Soul to Sou

Sponsored by: Central Regional Council (CRC) and Twin Cities Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

Questions: Dennis Dietzel dennis.dietzel@gmail.com, Marianne Dietzel mariannemdietzel@gmail.com, Linda Bergh hellolindabergh@gmail.com

I am sorry.  Please forgive me.  I love you. Thank you.

Autumn, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul

30 September 2017 – Astro-Weather: Bella Luna’s absence from the morning sky these next few days provides an excellent opportunity to view the zodiacal light. From the Northern Hemisphere, early autumn is the best time for viewing this elusive glow before sunrise. It appears slightly fainter than the Milky Way, so you’ll need a clear moonless sky & a site site located far from the city. Look for a cone-shaped glow that points nearly straight up from the eastern horizon shortly before morning twilight begins (around 5:30 am CDT). The Moon remains out of the morning sky until October 4, when the waxing gibbous returns & overwhelms the much fainter zodiacal light.

Arcturus shines in the west these evenings, sinking as twilight fades away. Equally-bright Capella is rising lower in the north-northeast, as bright as Vega high overhead.

By mid-evening Arcturus & Capella shine at identical heights. When it happens, turn around and look low in the south-southeast (well to the lower left of the Moon tonight). There you’ll find Fomalhaut at the same height too.

 

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Belkis Melisa Krgn

When we look up to the wonder of the starry world, when we contemplate the whole process of the universe with its glories and marvels, then we are led at last to the feeling that all the glory that lies open to our view in the whole universe that surrounds us only has meaning when it is reflected in an admiring human soul. -~Goethe

TODAY is Yom Kippur*

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

Sigmund Gleismüller

395 – John the Evangelist settles in Patmos to write the Apocalypse

Caravaggio

420 – Deathday of St. Jerome also called Hieronymus, Roman priest, theologian, patron saint of translators, librarians & encyclopedists. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him in From Jesus to Christ lecture 4, saying he had to ‘falsify’ the Gospel of St. Matthew, because it was too esoteric for folks at the time:

When we know this, we understand that the original Gospel of Matthew could not be imparted without further preparation because men were not ripe to receive what was in it. For if Jerome, a Father of the Church, was himself not ripe for what it contained, then certainly other men were not. Those who were originally in possession of these communications, the Ebionites, did not impart them because, if received by unripe persons, they would have been so distorted that they must have led to what Jerome meant when he said that they would serve not for edification but for destruction. Now Jerome understood this; yet he allowed himself to impart in a certain way the Gospel of Matthew to the world. ~Rudolf Steiner

1207 – Birthday of Rumi, Persian mystic & poet

1791 – The first performance of The Magic Flute, the last opera by Mozart to make its debut, took place at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna, Austria

1791 – The National Constituent Assembly in Paris is dissolved; Parisians hail Maximilien Robespierre & Jérôme Pétion as “incorruptible patriots”

1882 – Thomas Edison’s first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) begins operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin

1914 – Birthday of Johannes Tautz – a Historian, Religious scholar, Anthroposophist, Author & Waldorf teacher. After the German capitulation, Tautz was imprisoned by the Czechs, Americans & Russians but managed to escape in the summer of 1945 back to his family in Bad Boll. He was soon approached by Erich Gabert in Stuttgart to join the Waldorf School that was about to be opened as its German & History teacher. On 1 November 1945 he stood before his first 9th grade at the Free Waldorf School, Uhlandshöhe.

Soon Johannes Tautz decided to look up his “predecessor”, the first history teacher at the Waldorf School, Walter Johannes Stein. The conversations with Stein provided an orientation & inspiration for all of his further work as a teacher, lecturer & writer; in his lecturing work at national & international conferences and in the “Hague Circle”, a coordinating international group of Waldorf teachers.

He likewise received particular guidance from Emil Bock regarding a Christological view of world history & from Jürgen von Grone about the destiny of Germany &in particular to the figure of Helmuth von Moltke.

In 1966 Tautz held three lectures about the spiritual background to National Socialism, which later appeared in print under the title Attack of the Enemy – The Occult Inspiration Behind Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in 1976. In it he looks at a number of personalities connected with questionable occult practices with which leading Nazis had been close during the time of the movement’s growth.

In 1979 he edited a collection of biographical portraits together with Gisbert Husemann of the circle of founding Waldorf teachers around Rudolf Steiner.

Together with a young friend, Thomas Meyer, he visited the daughter of Walter Johannes Stein, Clarissa Johanna Muller, in Ireland where she was living in order to look through her father’s literary estate. They found the typescript of Stein’s dissertation annotated by Rudolf Steiner, letters & meditations of Steiner for Stein, his mother & for his brother, who fell in a mysterious manner in WWI. Letters & notes of Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz, Eliza von Moltke, Ita Wegman, D.N Dunlop & many other personalities were discovered & formed the basis of Tautz’s biography of Stein in 1989

In 1993 he initiated the editing of a collection Rudolf Steiner’s letters & notes to Eliza von Moltke together with the post mortem communications & the letters of Helmuth von Moltke himself. The decision to publish these was to prevent or anticipate a partial publication without an appropriate commentary on the subject that had been announced. A previous instance of this content being used had been in the book The Spear of Destiny by Trevor Ravenscroft which, in the opinion of Tautz had been written “without the necessary protection of background knowledge for the deeply-penetrant & difficult to understand material.” Further reading

1938 – The League of Nations unanimously outlaws “intentional bombings of civilian populations”

1962 – Labor leader César Chávez founds the National Farm Workers Association, which later becomes United Farm Workers

1982 – Cyanide-laced Tylenol kills six people in the Chicago area. Seven are killed in all

1993 – The 6.2 Mw Latur earthquake shakes Maharashtra, India with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe) killing 9,748 & injuring 30,000

1999 – The Tokaimura nuclear accident causes the deaths of 2 technicians, many others affected by radiation poisoning, in Japan’s second-worst nuclear accident

2009 – The 7.6 Mw Sumatra earthquake shakes central Sumatra with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). 1,115 people dead, many injured & left homeless

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“Do you know what you are?
You are a manuscript of a divine letter.
You are a mirror reflecting a noble face.
This universe is not outside of you.
Look inside yourself;
everything that you want,
you are already that.” 

~Rumi

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*Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which began last night at sunset, falls 10 days after Rosh Hashanah, & is the culmination of the entire High Holy Day drama. It is the holiest day of the Jewish year or, as the Bible describes it, the “Sabbath of Sabbaths”. During the 24 hours of Yom Kippur, the biblical commandment to fast from food & water, while engaging in intense soul-searching, & praying for forgiveness is practiced. Yom Kippur is a day of inner purification & of reconciliation with the creator & with our fellow human beings. It is a reminder of the frailty of human existence & our duty to act charitably toward the less fortunate.

The inspiring, yet sobering, words of Isaiah 58 are read publicly in the synagogue on Yom Kippur “This fasting I have chosen,” says the prophet Isaiah, “Is it not done to loose the chains of injustice & untie the cords of bondage? To set the oppressed free & break every yoke? Are we not meant to share our food with the hungry & to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, you must clothe him, & not turn away from your fellow man?”

There are number of customs & traditions associated with the Holy Day of Yom Kippur. For example: the mikvah, or ritual bath.  The scripture says “You shall immerse yourselves in water & be purified.” This practice, from which Christian baptism originated, symbolizes purification & regeneration, as well as new birth, through repentance. Another custom is to greet each other by saying ‘May your name be inscribed in the Book of Life’ Gmar Chatimah Tova.

The High Holy Days are divided into two parts: The first is the inscribing which begins on Rosh Hashanah & finishes on Yom Kippur when the final “sealing” of fate takes place for the year. Parents customarily bless their children with the priestly benediction: “May it be the will of our Father in Heaven to put into your heart love & reverence. May your eyes be directed, may your mouth speak wisdom, & your heart strive for holiness. May your hands be occupied with good deeds & your feet hasten to do the will of the divine. May He grant you sustenance without stress & with profit, out of His hand that is open wide. May you be inscribed & sealed unto a good, long life. And so shall it be. Amen.”

It is also customary to give extra charity before the holiday, & to light memorial candles for departed family members.

As with all Jewish festivals, the woman formally ushers in the holiday by lighting the candles at sundown. Evening services commence with the recitation of the Kol Nidrei prayer, a plea for absolution from any & all unfulfilled vows a person may have made in the course of the year.

Contrary to popular belief, Yom Kippur is a day of hope & optimism in addition to a solemn day of soul-searching. The Day of Atonement provides a unique awareness of one’s own character & track record, as well as the opportunity to upgrade relationships with relatives, friends, associates & the community at-large. Yom Kippur’s focus on forgiveness, highlights humility, fallibility, compassion, soul-searching faith, thoughtfulness, being considerate, & accepting responsibility

Hildagard

Cabalistic tradition states that the first human being, Adam, was created on Rosh Hashanah.  And so it is that Human-beings are given an opportunity to recreate themselves spiritually, each year, on Yom Kippur.  This holiday is celebrated when the constellation of the scales give way to the virgin as herald in the heavens. Libra & Virgo symbolize key themes of Yom Kippur: Justice, balance, truth, symmetry, wholeness.

 

Libra is ruled by the planet Venus which reflects the beauty of love, & Virgo is ruled by Mercury the god of communications. During this season it is customary to walk to a body of fresh water & recite a special prayer, symbolically casting bread crumbs into the waters, a symbol of our sins: those actions that have missed the mark.

And now, at the risk of mixing metaphors, I’d like us to put into practice the Hawaiian ritual of forgiveness, called Ho‘oponopono – It stems from an understanding that everything in the world is connected, in spite of our feelings of ‘separateness’.

What we do to ourselves & others has repercussions. Because of this unity everything that occurs in our own little world creates a resonance in others & in society as a whole. To heal the planet we first have to heal ourselves; to do this, we will  rely on four magic sentences: I am sorry.  Please forgive me.  I love you. Thank you. x4

In earnest wakefulness & practiced Peace –

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

From Light Thru Darkness Into New Light

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

Reflections from the ‘Great American Eclipse’ & the CRC ‘Speaking from Soul to Soul with the solar eclipse’ Retreat.

It was a destiny moment. And we all knew it. We had chosen, to incarnate at this time in history. We had chosen, to gather in a karmic knot at this Threshold Moment, to stand together as human beings, united with a common purpose; to explore the spiritual significance of this cosmic/earthly event with Christ Consciousness. Had we stood together like this in lives past, we wondered?

I felt honored to be in a circle with these kindred spirits, 37 intrepid souls, coming from all around the United States, & as far away as the Philippines & Germany, to work & witness & hold the light.

When our Chicago caravan arrived in St. Louis, we saw, not just 1 rainbow, but a sheet of rainbows melting in & out of the clouds as we circumambulated the  Mother-House.

And work we did; embodying the New Mysteries of the Will, thru folk eurythmy, song, powerful verses, including the Foundation Stone, & deep discussions, as insights arose within us. Together we envisioned, co-created & staged the pageant: ‘From Light Through Darkness Into New Light’.

All the while we held the picture of the larger cycles, acknowledging the 100+ year rhythm of Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas, the 3-Fold Social Organism, and lectures involving the ‘double’, & the ‘Occult Background of World War I’; actively exploring ‘Cosmic & Human Metamorphoses’ & the Mystery of Golgotha.

In thinking of the eclipse as a ‘living being that comes into & out of incarnation’ (from Astrosopher Elizabeth Vreed), it was interesting to contemplate the past, present & future thru the Saros cycle of this eclipse series, which was born on January 4th 1639,  repeating every 18 years, 11 days. This ‘eclipse being’ will bring 77 eclipse events. The ‘Great American eclipse’ was its 22nd pass over the sun. The series ends on April 17, 3009. (The longest eclipse will occur on June 25, 2522, with a maximum duration of totality for 7 minutes, 12 seconds!)

We all felt the pressing import from the fact that this eclipse would touch only America, especially at this time in history, creating a need in us to be fully conscious. We asked ourselves: Could this solar eclipse be a herald to the Western incarnation of Ahriman – or an occasion calling for another sacrifice of the Christ, like the pre-earthly deeds, the Mystery of Golgotha, & the 2nd crucifixion in the etheric? We wanted to name the adversary, but we did not dwell there, & these beings were not part of the pageant.

In the evening – we immersed ourselves in a meditation envisioning our human heart as an expanding Sun, (from Peter Seleg’ book: The Ensouled Sun of Man: A Heart Meditation, which was given to Ita Wegman’s mother Henriette for her 73rd birthday by Rudolf Steiner) Then we stood together in freedom, holding the reigns in the 3-Fold Social organism of the Cultural Realm, with its emphasis on education & spirituality, to meet our own ‘Portal of Initiation’. With thanks to our dear Dr. Steiner, we dedicated our pageant to our beloved dead, to the spirit of the Mississippi River, & all of America, our angels & all the spiritual beings working for the light. After quoting Dickens:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. . .”

We presented our pageant to the spiritual world. (for the photo album click here)

On the morning of the eclipse we arrived early at Bee Tree Park, & while we circled up, 8 hawks circled above us. It was blazing hot & dripping humidity, & the sky was crystal clear, as we stood on the deck overlooking the River. Some of us lay in the partial shade so we could comfortably look up at the dazzling sky as the moon slowly slid over the sun. We watched the quality of the light change around us & in nature. The trees provided a lightshow, imprinting crescent-shapes thru the leaves onto the steamy grass. Someone said the people looked transparent, like angels. The energy was very dis-incarnating, folks were giddy or overwhelmed with emotion, others chatting away. I had wanted to stay at the Mother-House during the eclipse so we could be contemplative & undisturbed in our spiritual scientific activities, but my colleagues on the CRC team wanted to be there in that lovely public setting, & so it was.  And even though we had reserved the overlook, a small crowd of local families had also gathered. Some of us did speak out Steiner’s Sun-Heart Verse, & The Michael Meditation; we held onto the Lord’s Prayer & sang a-bit, but it was clear, the group was dispersed in the crowd, & we each stood alone, with only our personal double & the guardian at the Threshold. It was as if the sound was pressurized, & yet at the same time, it was being sucked up & out, dissipating in the growing dark.

But even as the light slowly waned into an odd twilightish glow, there came a nod from the heavens, & I knew the stars were waiting for us to speak to them, encouraging us to stand with them to hold the light ensouled in our Human Heart-Sun.  And as the eclipse was coming closer to totality I knew I WAS “speaking to the stars” with Michael, The Christ-Messenger, at my side, courageously holding the Consciousness Soul, contributing Heart-Thinking to create a positive evolution for humanity & for Mother Earth.

And O was it beautiful!- astoundingly magnificent! – awesome in its might! – invoking wonder & awe! I gasped & shuttered, overcome with emotion & deep reverence. The diamond effect was glorious. At the maximum totality time stood still. A collective in-breath held for what felt like an eternity in those few minutes.  And there in that strange twilight, Venus the Goddess of Beauty was laid bare, off to the right, with Regulus the heart of Leo the Lion beaming out on the left; 2 centennials of Love flanking the solar eclipse, revealed only as the veil of light was removed in the darkening. The image that flashed up in my mind was that the eclipse was a crater or black hole that took me into the center of the earth & then spit me out into cosmic spaces, where I touched the veil of Isis. Salt tears poured from my eyes & mixed with the sweat on my face. It was hard to catch my breath again & resume a steady rhythm. A dear one laid their hands upon my head.

When the diamond appeared again signaling the end of totality, & the slow  beginning of the Sun’s return, I began to softly sing, ‘The Earth, the Air, the Fire the Water, Return, Return, Return, Return’… a song suggested by my dear CRC colleague…but I was told to ssshhh by a person who then promptly turned her back to the sky & started chatting. That shook me, it woke me up as if from a spell, & I came back fully into myself. I then knew I had to leave the public area & go off on my own. I followed the crescent-light from the leaves & walked into the trees. Soon I found I was on a path going down to the River. It was steep, so I walked slowly, willing with the hierarchies, moving my limbs with keen awareness. I came to a little rock outcropping where a dear member of our group, who had come all the way from the Philippines to join us, was sitting. She was like a sweet forest nymph there in the strange light. She spoke to me in kind whispers, a balm to my raw, open-heart, telling me, Yes, I was on a path to the River & that others were there. I slipped & slid on the steep hill, the bright russet dirt, dusting my slick skin. I had to cross a train track – just in time – I found a rope to help me climb the rest of the way down, before a train clicked & clacked by.  And there on the shore were 4 lone pilgrims, each on their separate chosen spot by the Rivers edge. When I appeared from the cliff they all came together & we waded into the muddy water, singing ‘Amazing Grace’, ‘This little Heart of Mine’, & some other gospel spirituals while the moon continued to move off, making way for the Sun Renewed. Two more friends soon appeared & came down to the River asking to be baptized. Such joy in the returning light.

Soon I needed to ascend, back up from the bottom land at the River’s edge, up into the trees once more, to catch the crescent show before the eclipse had completely ended. On my way to the tracks I glanced down & found a piece of petrified wood that has rings which look like the progression of an eclipse. A dear one with pockets carried it up for me. I was surprised how easy the ascent was compared to the descent.

When I reached the overlook, only a few friends were still there. I was surprised that folks would leave before the completion of the eclipse; it was eerie to see the place so deserted. The 6 of us made a little altar of found objects from nature in the center of the overlook, & a dear one lead us in a spiraling contraction- expansion. Just as we finished, Thunder roared. And just as the eclipse was ending we saw a rainbow in the same direction the Moon had moved off into, & again the Thunder sounded, echoing in the distance. Just then my Chicago friends pulled up in the car, shouting ‘curb-side service for the Queen of the Sun’!

When we got back to the Mother-House, we showered, rested & broke bread with the sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, who had created a diorama made-up of Oreo cookies showing the stages of the eclipse, & who served moon-pies for desert. Then we gathered to hear leading thoughts from Steiner’s 5th Gospel.

We shared the budding insights from our eclipse experience. I had come to realize that the woman who had ssshhhed me had given me a great gift, becoming a mirror to my double. At breakfast the next morning I was grateful that we were able to share perspectives with love. In the age of the Consciousness Soul we are meant to bump up against each other. Steiner made karma & reincarnation the focus of his work, & this must become our work as well. After sharing, we closed with the Foundation Stone Mediation & the Hallelujah in eurythmy, which we repeated upon awakening the next morning to end our retreat.

Driving home, our little caravan decided to stop at the Cahokia Mounds, to bring our radiant energy to the dead buried there in the remains of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization – one of the greatest cities of the world, larger than London in AD 1250. This was the perfect capper to our retreat, especially since it was part of our ‘Bridging Project’ working with the ‘so-called dead’. We sent them our love as we stood at the center of ‘Woodhenge’, a cosmic map aligned with the zodiac, cedar logs marking out the place of the Sun at the equinoxes & Solstices; then we climbed ‘Monks Mound’ the highest & most sacred of the 100’s of mound sites. The thunder clouds gathered & the wind, now chilly, brought us into balance between the past, the present & the future.

With reverence & wonder

~ Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

Der Fokus

Celestial Event, Central Regional Council, Festival, Insight, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars, The Bridging Project: Life & Death

Greetings Friends –

Manami Lingerfelt

Just a quick note before I head off to the Central Regional Council Retreat ‘Speaking From Soul to Soul with the Solar Eclipse’ in St Louis. Here is the official article I was asked to write for the Der Fokus page in Das Goetheanum.

I wrote at least 4 versions covering this cosmic/earthly event from various angels. Here is one version in English.

Paul Nash

No matter where you are on 21 August 2017 during the ‘Great American Eclipse’ I hope you will join with those of us working to hold the light.

Here is a link with some ideas for activities

Also, check-out the pageant “From Light Through Darkness into New Light”

See you on the other-side

xox

Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

PS. Those of you in the Chicago area, come check-out this Youth Initiative ‘The Dawn Before the Dark’ at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Sat. Aug. 19 2017, 6 pm-10 pm (see details below)

Current Festival & Program Events

The song bird of The Logos renewed

Insight, Poetry, Quote, Soul to Soul

15 August 2016 – Astro-Weather: In early dawn Wednesday morning the 16th, look east for the waning Moon near Aldebaran, as shown here. Below them is Orion, with his three-star belt nearly vertical.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“History, historical life, will only be seen in the right light when a true consciousness of the connection of the so-called living with the so-called dead can be developed” – The Living and the Dead by Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 5th February, 1918

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Himmelfahrt Mariae Feast Day of the Assumption of Mary

636 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The Battle of Yarmouk between Byzantine Empire and Rashidun Caliphate begins.

717 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik begins the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople, which will last for nearly a year.

718 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Raising of the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople.

778 – The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, at which Roland is killed

1038 – Deathday of King Stephen I, the first king of Hungary

1057 – Deathday of King Macbeth, killed at the Battle of Lumphanan by the forces of Máel Coluim mac Donnchada

1248 – In honor of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral, built to house the relics of the Three Wise Men, is laid

1281 –The Mongolian fleet of Kublai Khan is destroyed by a “divine wind” for the second time in the Battle of Kōan in Japan

1309 – The city of Rhodes surrenders to the forces of the Knights of St. John, completing their conquest of Rhodes. The knights establish their headquarters on the island & rename themselves the Knights of Rhodes

1534 – Jesuit Order Founded

1549 – Jesuit priest Francis Xavier comes ashore at Kagoshima, Japan

1769 – Birthday of Napoléon Bonaparte

1812 –The Battle of Fort Dearborn is fought between United States troops & Potawatomi at what is now Chicago

1843 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark (Tivoli inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland)

1910 – Very 1st performance of Rudolf Steiner’s 1st Mystery Drama “The Portal of Initiation” opens in Munich

taliesin_cover2

1914 – Julian Carlton, A servant of architect Frank Lloyd Wright murders seven people & sets fire to the living quarters of Wright’s Wisconsin home, Taliesin

1914 – The Panama Canal opens to traffic with the transit of the cargo ship SS Ancon

1915 – A story in New York World newspaper reveals that the Imperial German government had purchased excess phenol from Thomas Edison that could be used to make explosives for the war effort & diverted it to Bayer for aspirin production

1917 – Deathday of Hermann Joachim, Anthroposopher & Freemason. Rudolf Steiner did his funeral address see GA 261

1935 – Will Rogers & Wiley Post are killed after their aircraft develops engine problems during takeoff in Barrow, Alaska

1939 – The Wizard of Oz premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in LA

1941 – Corporal Josef Jakobs is executed by firing squad at the Tower at 7:12am making him the last person to be executed at the Tower of London for espionage

1945 – Surrender of Japan in World War II, Korea gains Independence from Japan. The Allies proclaimed V-J Day a day after

1947 – India gains Independence from British rule after near 190 years of Crown rule & joins the Commonwealth of Nations

1948 – The Republic of Korea is established south of the 38th parallel north

Image result for Madonna

1958 – Madonna Louise Ciccone, the entertainment icon is born near Detroit, Michigan

beatles nyc

1965 – The Beatles play to nearly 60,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York City, an event later regarded as the birth of stadium rock

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1969 – The Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era

1971 – President Richard Nixon completes the break from the gold standard by ending convertibility of the United States dollar into gold by foreign investors. Nixon also announced a 90-day freeze on wages, rents & prices

2001 – Astronomers announced the discovery of the first solar system outside our own. They had discovered two planets orbiting a star in the Big Dipper

2013 – The Smithsonian announces the discovery of the olinguito, the first new carnivoran species found in the Americas in 35 years

2015 – North Korea moves its clock back half an hour to introduce Pyongyang Time, 8½ hours ahead of UTC

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

Peter Paul Rubens

~She is the early light
& the purpose of dusk
Who Is
The song bird of The Logos renewed…
She will
Rattle the seeds of the sistrum
To Awaken
A brilliant moment in eternity: Today
I will
Lift Her veil…
~hag

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Titian

“I AM STANDING ON HOLY GROUND” –

Today on this Feast of the Assumption of Mary, I am cultivating the feeling that as I move through the world, that everywhere I go, wherever I am, I am standing on holy ground. In my backyard this morning, watching the butterflies & beetles, I was imagining all the life processes that unfold outside of my conscious awareness: my body digesting food & the circulating of my blood. I pictured the trees working with the elemental beings, taking in carbon dioxide, water, & sunlight to synthesize their nourishment. I felt the micro-organisms in the soil beneath my feet endlessly toiling away to create humus.

I ‘see’ the bee as a spiritual messenger – an interlocutor – Carriers of the Solar-Logos – an intermediary, between the human being & the Spiritual realms – Opening us to those peripheral dimensions of human awareness where super-sensible perceptions can awaken.

The bee carries a signal or frequency that enables transformation; it enables the sterile to become fertile & initiates the process of regeneration…

I don’t perceive any of these things directly; they’re invisible to me, & yet so alive & active & real.

And so I ask: What other growth & transformation might be going on in secret?

Ahh, what a perfect time to tune-in to all the vitalizing alchemy that is usually hidden, as I contemplate the mystery of the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of god.

Xox

Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

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‘The Dawn before the Dark’, a Pre-Eclipse Art Show
August 19th 6 pm – 10 pm
One-Night Only Pop-Up Event at
the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society
4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Showcasing Art by:
Zosia Nowak,
Grace Kahn,
Maci Greenberg,
Zoe Miller,
Andrea Benatar,
Koko Stubitsch
Shanti Rogers

Live Music by Ultra-Violet Archer, Maci Modean, Joe Hartz & others TBA

DJ: the Grapefruit Effect (Charles Saineghi)

A Night of Art, Music, Vendors & POSITIVITY

Love donations appreciated – 20 per cent of all proceeds goes to help support the Rudolf Steiner Branch

Want to exhibit or perform?
contact Ultra who is curating the show
(I will be in St. Louis for the CRC eclipse Retreat)

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