‘Breathe Light’ – a little guided meditation for ‘Tune-in Tuesday on the ‘I Think Speech‘ podcast

We Are One
Silver Moon,
Beyond incarnation,
Future’s balance
Remembers tomorrow’s Child,
Whose cry ignites the cosmos’ Birth.
In Black Night Our Child drinks the Milky Day.
The Father Receives The Lord in Love’s Freedom
As the Star coughs Light who beholds Amen.
I Freely bless Happiness
Through Having A Child.
Witness Our Humanity
When God is Freedom Born.
I Am all Sin and Virtue
When Christmas Love’s God’s Flame.
A Child Births Now;
His Heart Has Humanity Birthed.
We are Sophia in Wisdom’s I,
Mary’s Resurrection.
Christ Mother,
Water birth,
The Father of Our Heart
Cradles Freedom’s Joy
As The Bethlehem of The Holy Spirit.
Amen.
~Lucien Dante Lazar, 4-3-21, For Easter Sunday

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Podcast ‘I Think Speech’

Yes, friends we are working the Buddha’s Noble 8-fold path – Rudolf Steiner’s ‘Weekly Excercises’ -Jump in – eyes & hearts & hands wide open!

From the Contents of Esoteric Classes
“Anyone who undertakes an esoteric training must be clear about what he is doing thereby. We’re karmically connected with what we are and do; we’re placed into the whole of earth existence by leading divine beings. Everything that we think, feel and will in the way of the most sublime beauty and the highest morality is always still connected with general evolution. But by deciding to begin an esoteric training we step out of this general development that’s guided by higher beings. Thereby we begin something absolutely new. In an esoteric training we stop being led by spiritual, divine beings and we become independent companions of these creator spirits.

Man on earth consists of the tetralogy: physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego, which are kept in harmony by higher beings. If we carry out the resolve to begin an esoteric training we then begin to work independently at the transformation of these individual bodies. This takes place through the exercises that are given to us. They gradually work on our etheric body in such a way that it becomes loosened from the firm structure of the physical body. This influence is not directly on the etheric body but on the astral body or soul which we work on through the regular daily or weekly repetition of exercises and pictures.

Every sound, word and sequence of sounds and concepts in the meditation verses is of some significance; they have an effect through the regular repetition while one completely forgets oneself.

When we wake up in the morning we sometimes have a dim memory of the spiritual world, of the world from which strength flows to us through our exercises, and some of an esoteric student’s nicest experiences are these faint memories of the world where we were at the sources of strength. If someone had to leave a friend who was dear to him, it could be that something about this person will flow into the esoteric pupil together with his memory of the spiritual world. Someone who’s given something like this should look upon it as grace.

After meditating for some times we notice that we’ve changed; we no longer say some of the unkind things that we used to and we acquire a much finer logic. We feel that we’ve improved. We get better.

But because we place ourselves outside of the customary framework we lose the support that’s given by convention. We become inwardly freer but thereby your bad sides come out more; then we notice how bad we are. We’re really a lot worse than we usually think.

Difficult, unpleasant hours come to every esoteric striver, and then it’s good to have some support. We find this support in the New Testament; we find advice and support for every case and situation and in every weakness; we only have to look for it. And if we don’t find it, we can comfort ourselves with the conviction that it’s our own weakness that keeps us from finding the right thing but that it’s nevertheless in the Bible.

Deceptions in clairvoyance can easily occur at first. One thinks that one is seeing something outside, and it’s one’s own interior that’s reflected there. It’s even worse with sounds that one thinks one hears; beings who want to pull a meditator down deceive him thereby.

An esoteric striver not only has to do his meditations, to pray in the best sense of the word, but also to watch, to be on the lookout for bad influences that want to interfere when an independent transformation of bodies is undertaken. An occult sentence against all deception is: Every path into the spiritual world goes through the heart. During the meditation one can feel that lines go from every point of the outer physical body towards a center, which is the heart. These lines then go on in the opposite direction and into the spiritual world. This is like a feeling that Christ is in one, and it’s a sign that there’s no deception.

Each of our members is connected with one sign of the Zodiac; forces from Leo flow down into our heart. Forces from the sun also stream into our heart. Likewise, fire spirits work on our heart. Leo, sun, and flame are often used as symbols for the heart. Like the heart every part of us is related to outside forces; we’ve grown out of the whole world and are imbedded in it.

If we really let this fact live in our soul we then rightly understand the verse:

In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.” ~Rudolf Steiner

6 April 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Let the waning crescent moon help guide your eye to the largest and second-largest planets of the solar system: Jupiter and Saturn, respectively. Because day by day the moon always travels eastward (in the direction of sunrise) relative to the backdrop stars (and planets) of the zodiac, watch for the moon to sweep past Saturn and then Jupiter in the days ahead.

At present, the king planet Jupiter and the ringed planet Saturn both reside in front of the constellation Capricornus the Seagoat. Bella Luna takes some 27 1/3 days to go full circle in front of the constellations of the zodiac, it takes Jupiter nearly 12 years and Saturn nearly 30 years.

The moon will pass out of the constellation Capricornus and into the constellation Aquarius after several days. But Jupiter won’t pass into the constellation Aquarius until April 25, 2021. Saturn, the most distant world that you can easily see with the eye alone, will remain in front of the constellation Capricornus for the rest of the year. In short, Jupiter stays in front of a constellation for about one year, while Saturn does so for about 2 1/2 years.

“What is to be the starting force & impulse for events in social & ethical life must come out of the spiritual world.” ~Rudolf Steiner, New Spiritual Impulses in History” Dornach 16 December, 1917

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

582- Death & Feast Day of Eutychius of Constantinople, Toward the end of his life, Eutychius maintained an opinion that after the resurrection the body will be “more subtle than air” & no longer a tangible thing. This was considered heretical, because it was taken as a denial of the doctrine of physical, corporeal resurrection.

TODAY in 1483 – Good Friday – Birthday of Raphael

TODAY in 1520 – Good Friday – Deathday of Raphael

“It must seem strange that Raphael was the same person as a thorny character like John the Baptist. How could it happen that this thorny man, who had to pave the way for the Mystery of Golgotha in such a violent way, reappeared as the gentle, pliable, charming Raphael? But look at this. Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, died when Raphael was eleven. He was a painter. He was not a great painter so far as external achievements go, but he had great ideas in his head, although he could not put them on camas because he had no technical skill. He was also a poet. There was a great deal of fantasy in him, but the physical capacities simply were not there. He went early through the portal of death, and then his forces worked into his son. In Raphael’s hands and imagination worked all that his father could send into the physical world. One can say that the old Giovanni Santi was a painter without hands in the supersensible world, for in a wonderful karmic relationship he supplied, in combination with the Christ-filled individuality of the Baptist, what came to expression in Raphael. The supersensible world had to work with the physical world to achieve this result. It shows how the so-called dead are able to influence those who have been left behind…” ~ Rudolf Steiner, On the Relationship with the Dead, 23 April 1913

Raphael, as we know from was  an Italian painter & architect of the High Renaissance. Raphael was enormously productive, running an unusually large workshop &, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace. From 1517 until his death, Raphael lived in the Palazzo Caprini in the Borgo, in rather grand style in a palace designed by Bramante. He never married, & was thought to be bi-sexual. He is said to have had many affairs, but a permanent fixture in his life in Rome was “La Fornarina”, Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker (fornaro) named Francesco Luti from Siena.

The story goes that Raphael’s premature death on Good Friday, which was also his 37th birthday, was caused by a night of excessive sex with Luti, after which he fell into a fever &, not telling his doctors that this was its cause, was given the wrong cure, which killed him. At his request, Raphael was buried in the Pantheon.

His funeral was extremely grand, attended by large crowds. The inscription in his marble sarcophagus, an elegiac distich written by Pietro Bembo, reads: “Ille hic est Raffael, timuit quo sospite vinci, rerum magna parens et moriente mori”, meaning: “Here lies that famous Raphael by whom Nature feared to be conquered while he lived, and when he was dying, feared herself to die.”

Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in his various incarnations, in ‘The Last Address’ – The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis. Dornach, Michaelmas Eve, 1924, GA 238

1472 –Birthday of Lucas Cranach the Elder, a German Renaissance painter & printmaker

1520 – Good Friday – Deathday of Raphael

1869 – Celluloid is patented

1930 – Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire,” beginning the Salt Satyagraha

1965 – Launch of Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit

1971 – Deathday of Igor Stravinsky, Russian-American pianist, composer, & conductor

1992 – Deathday of Isaac Asimov, American science fiction writer

2015 – Deathday of Ray Charles

The Karma Project Manifestations of Karma Study Group April 7, 2021 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern)View this email in your browser

“We can enjoy a great deal more in nature than that which immediately appeals to us, for we will discover, the more deeply we grasp what it is that has thus condensed into outer matter, that this world of nature in which we delight contains powerful healing substance: the right healing substance for every illness man may succumb to is hidden somewhere in nature.  And once we recognize nature as a healer we must try to understand its language, obey what it tells us and act accordingly.“~Rudolf Steiner, Manifestations of Karma, Chapter 10, “Free Will and Karma in the Future of Human Evolution”, Hamburg, 27 May, 1910 … focus of the April 7 meeting. The lecture can be found online at the RS Archive (eLib) by clicking this link: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA120/English/RSP1984/19100527p01.htmlThe Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our ongoing  study conversation.  The study has been divided among three volunteers who will summarize their section to rebuild it as a foundation for our conversation. Please familiarize yourself with the lecture if possible so you will feel comfortable sharing your reflections and thoughts with the group.This collection of lectures has been republished by Rudolf Steiner Press under the title: “Manifestations of Karma.”  This book is a translation from German of Die Offenbarung des Karma (Ga 120), published in English by Rudolf Steiner Press in 1996. This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer).  To connect to the audio/video-conference: Video Conference Details: Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88475518473 Meeting ID: 884 7551 8473 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdBJRUquk5 If you have questions, please contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@utexas.edu

Agenda for our Study Call  7:15  Welcome and Introductions         7:18  Verse 7:25  Study led by three volunteers Note: CRC team will ID volunteers           Laura – pg. 183 to 188           Stefano – pg. 189 to 195           Deb – pg. 195 to end 8:05  Conversation 8:28  Close with verse: Destiny I bear within me what has Been I feel within me what is Becoming In willing, I carry both toward the Future  Faith looks upon what has Been And is founded upon Truth  Trust looks upon what will be And is founded upon Hope  Love Embraces Here and Now Eternal Becoming Eternal Being ~Rudolf Steiner

Living into the spheres of cosmic Life and cosmic Light: from Easter Whitsun in the Calendar of the Soul with Lugi Morelli, Hazel Archer & Geoff Norris

13 May 2021 Ascension Thursday 5- 6:30pm PT / 6-7:30 pm MT / 7 pm – 8:30 pm CT / 8-9:30 pm ET

Join Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/7052931041?pwd=TStPVnpFRzlwZ0NpRURBZDNyYnpBQT09 Meeting ID: 705 293 1041 – Passcode: Ascension

Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/a961qZZhF

Verses & Group Speech – Geoff Norris

Ascension: Feast of the Elementals – Hazel Archer

Calendar of the Soul – Luigi Morelli : For those who are familiar with the Calendar of the Soul we could say that during spring and summer we follow the ascent of cosmic life, cosmic light, cosmic warmth and cosmic Word as gifts bestowed upon the human being by the cosmos. By being receptive to them we strengthen our connection to cosmos and Self.

We will briefly explore the dynamics of the year, then look at what qualities of soul we need to develop as we move into spring and summer, most particularly from Easter to Ascension and Whitsun. We will look at the verses of the calendar in conjunction with the artistic renditions of Anne Stockton and Karl König, drawn for each of the verses.

We will ask ourselves: How can we live into and grow from this time of the year? How can we deepen our inner relationship to the event of Ascension? What can we receive and what can we give?

Luigi Morelli – Cultures have been a great part of my upbringing, since I’m American born, part Italian, part Peruvian, mostly grew up in Belgium, and have lived the longest in the US. I have long had a passion for social change from a cultural perspective. Professionally this has brought me to working with the developmentally disabled in the intentional, holistic, communities of Camphill International and L’Arche International, and also in the mainstream. Being a founding member of the Wavecrest L’Arche Community in Los Angeles was a memorable experience. I have lived in intentional cohousing for the last ten years; first in Ecovillage Ithaca, now at Headwaters Cohousing in Cabot, in both places actively involved in community building and process facilitation.

Since 1999 I have found a vocation in researching/writing both about American history and/or about cultural/spiritual change, which you can find at www.millenniumculmination.net. Only of late have I started writing on meditative material I have used for years, publishing an essay on the Foundation Stone Meditation (also onsite) and one upcoming on the Calendar of the Soul. I love outdoors in many forms, gardening, hiking, skiing, love singing and playing flute, and enjoy most kinds of social events.