Dear friends, We are being asked to awaken in our soul forces of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, to recognize the signs of the times. There is an occult rule that what is revealed must often lay in the grave for 100 years before it can bear fruit. Here is a Quote from Rudolf Stiner given 101 years ago which I believe speaks especially to our current world crisis:
“There are in fact a large number of people, for example in the West, who are not simply reincarnated human beings but are the bearers of beings who have taken an extremely premature path of development and who should only appear in the form of humanity at a later stage of their evolution. Now these beings do not make use of the whole human organism but use chiefly the metabolic system of these Western human beings. Of the three members of the human nature they use the metabolic system and do so in such a way that, through these human beings, they work into the physical world. For one who can observe life with a certain accuracy, people of this kind even show outwardly that this is how it is with them. Thus, for example, a large number of those individuals who belong to Anglo-Saxon secret societies and who have great influence — we have spoken on a number of occasions in past years of the roll of these secret societies. In this way a completely different spirituality is working into present-day human beings and it will be an essential task to be able to take up a stand towards life from this point of view.
The first kind of beings are beings that have a particular attraction to what, in a sense, are the elemental forces of the earth; that have an inclination towards, a feeling for the elemental forces of the earth and are thus able to sense how, in any particular place, colonization could be carried out in accordance with the conditions of the climate and any other conditions of the earth, or how a trading connection can be established there, and so on.
The second kind of spirits of this nature are those that set themselves the task within their sphere of action of suppressing consciousness of self, of preventing full consciousness of the consciousness-soul from emerging, and thus produce in other people around them, amongst whom something like this spreads like an epidemic, a certain desire not to call themselves to account concerning the real motives behind their actions. One could say that an untruthful element which does not wish to look into the real impulses, but glosses over them; uses beautiful words, and all the while there is beneath it nothing, basically, but untruthful impulses. These [second kind of] beings, therefore, incarnate through the rhythmic system of certain people in the West.
The third kind of beings that work in the West are those which make it their task to cause the individual abilities in the human being to be forgotten — those abilities which we bring with us from the spiritual worlds when, through conception and birth, we come into physical existence — and to turn human beings more or less into a stereotyped replica of their nation. This is what this third kind of being gives itself as its special task: to prevent the human being from coming to individual spirituality. This last class of beings incarnates in the West through the head system, through the sensory-nervous system
So, while the first kind of beings had an affinity with the elemental nature of the ground of the earth, of the climate and so on, the second kind has a particular tendency to breed a certain superficial, untruthful element, and the third type of being the tendency to root out individual abilities and to turn people more or less into a stereotype, a copy of their nation, their race.
Thus we have here, observed from different angles, the characteristic of the Western world. We have characterized it, if I may put it so, by getting to know a fairly large number of people who are scattered in secret societies, in sects and the like, but whose humanity is constituted in the fact that it is not simply a matter of repeated incarnations, but the incarnation, in a way, of beings who in their development are prematurely here an the earth and who, therefore, attract particular followers or radiate like an epidemic their own exceptional qualities onto other human beings. These three different types of beings do indeed work through human beings and we understand human character only if we know what I have just related — if we know that what lives in public life cannot be simply explained superficially but has to be explained in terms of the intrusion of spiritual forces of this kind.
The appearance in Western human beings of these three kinds of forces, of beings at this particular stage of development, is encouraged by the fact that it is given to the West to develop a specifically economic way of thinking. The economic life is, as it were, the ground and soil from which something like this can spring up. And what then, in total, is the task these beings have set themselves?
They have set themselves the task of keeping life as a whole restricted to the mere life of economics. They seek gradually to root out everything else — everything of the spiritual life which even where it is most active, has shrunk into the abstractness of Puritanism — to root out spiritual life, to chip away the political life and to absorb everything into the life of economics.
In the West the people who come into the world in this way are the real enemies and opponents of the threefold impulse.
The beings of the first type prevent the emergence of an economic life that stands as an independent entity alongside the political-legal and spiritual facets of the social organism.
The beings of the second type, who make superficiality, phrase-mongering and untruthfulness their task, seek to prevent the establishing, alongside the economic life, of an independent democratic life of the State.
And the third kind of being those that suppress the individual abilities of the human being and do not want the human being to be anything other than a kind of stereotype of his race, his nation — work against the emancipation and independence of the spiritual life.
Thus in the West there are such forces which work in this way against the impulse of the threefold social organism. And anyone who, in a deeper sense, wishes to work for the spread of this threefold impulse must be aware that he has also to take into account spiritual factors like these that are present in human evolution. Indeed the powers on which one must call when one wants to bring something new into the development of humanity are faced not only with the things that any hard-headed philistine notices but also with things that are only laid open to a spiritual knowledge.
What use is it when people of today regard this as superstition and do not want to hear that such spiritual beings intrude through human beings? They are nevertheless there, these spiritual beings! And anyone who does not merely want to go through life with a sleeping soul, but with a fully awake soul, can observe the influences of these beings everywhere. If only, from the presence of the effects, people would allow themselves to be convinced a little of the existence of the causes!
This is the characteristic we find when looking towards the West. The West takes on this form because it lives completely in the most fundamental expression of the present epoch — in economic concepts, economic thinking.
And here again there are three types of beings working in the East who likewise have a great influence. Whereas in the West one has to draw attention to individual human beings through whom these beings incarnate, in the East one must point to a kind of hierarchy that can appear to the most varied people. Again it is three types of beings; not, however, beings that incarnate through people but beings that appear to people and also inspire them during sleep at night.
The first type of these beings prevents the human being from taking full possession of his physical body, hinders him from finding a connection with the economic element, with the public conditions of the present-day in general. These are the beings who seek in the East to hold back the economic life as it is needed in the threefold social order.
The second type of beings are those that produce over-individualization — a kind of, if I may put it so paradoxically, unegoistic egoism. This is all the more subtle in the way it is so frequently found in people, particularly of the East, who fancifully attribute to themselves all possible selflessness — a selflessness which, however, is in fact a particularly subtle form of self-seeking, a particulary subtle egoism. They want to be absolutely good, they want to be as good as it is ever possible to be. This, too, is an egoistic sentiment. This is something that can be called, paradoxically, an unegoistic egoism, an egoism arising from an imagined selflessness.
The third type of being that appears, in the way described, to human beings of the East are those beings that hold back the spiritual life from the earth; that spread, as it were, a dull mystical atmosphere over human beings, as can be found so frequently today, particularly in the East.
And again, these three types of spiritual beings, which work down from the spiritual world and do not incarnate into human beings, are the enemies of the threefold social organism. In this way the threefold impulse is hemmed in from the spiritual side in the East and from the human side, as described, in the West. Thus we see here the spiritual foundations underlying the differentiation.
We still have to add to this what is hostile to the threefolding in the European Centre so that, from a spiritual point of view, we gradually gain an idea of how one must equip oneself in order that the opposing powers — whether from the spiritual world, as in the East, or from human beings, as in the West, or from the Centre of Europe, in a way which I shall relate tomorrow — can be met by the threefold idea with an impulse that is of the greatest conceivable importance for humanity’s evolution. And in order to know how one must act with regard to these things one must be equipped with an armour of thoughts.
…The human being of the Centre was thrown into the extremes of west and east. He had to take in everything he experienced in the West but did not absorb it as deeply as the Westerner; he suffused it with what also came from the East. Hence the more malleable equilibrium in the Centre; but hence also the inner strife, the duality in the individualization of the souls of human beings of the Centre. The striving to find a harmony, a balancing out of this duality — which is so classicially, so magnificently, portrayed in Schiller’s Letters an Aesthetic Education in which two driving forces that are to be united — that of Nature and that of Reason — points clearly to this duality…” ~Rudolf Steiner, The New Spirituality and the Christ Expereience of the Twentieth Century, Lecture 1 & 2, Dornach, 22-23 October, 1920
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
~It is never dark in the beehive
For love shines like a sun
Yet we must make our own heat
The cluster pulsing like a heart
Works
To digest & share
~hag
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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
7 February 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Try finding the three morning planets: Venus, Jupiter & Saturn.
1478- Thomas More, Chancellor of England, author of Utopia, was condemned to death for betraying ‘occult’ secrets. Rudolf Steiner speaks about this in ‘Things in Past and Present in the Spirit of Man’ Lecture VIII – THOMAS MORE’S “UTOPIA”, May 2nd, 1916 Dornach
1878 – The doctrine of papal infallibility was established during the pontificate of Pope Pius IX.
1966 – Death day of Leopold van der Pals was a Danish/Dutch Anthroposophical composer He was in close contact with authors, musicians, artists & poets his whole life. Among them were Rudolf Steiner, Andrei Belyj, Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Lienhard, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Serge Koussevitzky & Alexander Scriabin. In 1907 he moved to Belin & met Rudolf Steiner, who made a great impression on him & introduced the idea of metamorphosis, derived from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. At the time, Berlin was a melting pot of musical development in the wake of the romantic era. Van der Pals experimented with new harmonic ideas & alternative cadenzas. He shaped his personal expression, a hybrid of different styles such as romanticism, impressionism, free tonality & inspiration from Russian & Nordic folklore. When his wife Marussja died in 1934. he withdrew himself to Ascona, Switzerland. Here Van der Pals wrote 80 poems to her memory; 45 of them were put to music. He then finally settled down in Dornach in Switzerland, where he lived during the remaining 31 years of his life.
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Weaving a non-gendered Feminist Reality with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg*
What are the qualities of the Divine Feminine? How can we use them to empower an innovative way of thinking, feeling & willing, to create a new world, where the human being is free?
Have paper & colored pencils at the ready for this hands-on workshop.
*Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual: Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year & the ‘I Think Speech’ Podcast. Trans-denominational Minister, Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Anthroposopher – working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.
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The 8-Fold Path to the Easter Elementals
Holy Week 2021 (March 28 – April 4): Starting on Palm Sunday then thru-out Holy Week including Easter Morning, we will meet every day on Zoom at 10:10 am (Central Time) to create together a Thought-Seed Egregore based on the Herbert Hahn Verse
“When I think light, my soul shines,
When my soul shines, the earth is a star,
When the earth is a star, then I am, a true human being”
& then we will take turns sharing the indications for that day from Rudolf Steiner / The Buddha’s 8 –fold Path, known as the ‘Weekday Exercises’ (let me know if you would like to lead one of the days? (5 min) Holy Week chart
Palm SUNDAY
Resolves or ‘RIGHT JUDGMENT.’ having been formed independently of sympathies and antipathies.
Holy MONDAY
Talking – ‘RIGHT WORD.’
Holy TUESDAY
External actions- ‘RIGHT DEED.’
Holy WEDNESDAY
The ordering of life. – ‘RIGHT STANDPOINT.’
Maundy THURSDAY
Human Endeavour. – ‘TO LET ALL THE EXERCISES BECOME A HABIT.’
Good FRIDAY
The endeavor to learn as much as possible from life. – ‘RIGHT MEMORY.’ (Remembering what has been learned from experiences).
Holy SATURDAY
To pay attention to one’s ideas. – ‘RIGHT OPINION.’
The octave of the New Sun
EASTER SUNDAY
To turn one’s gaze inwards –
‘RIGHT EXAMINATION.’
Whoever is holding the leading thoughts for that day will tie it into some 5-10 min. artistic exercise based on the indications
Group sharing (5 min)
We close with the ‘reversed’ Hahn verse.
I am a True Human Being
For the Earth is a Star
The Earth is a Star
When I Think Light
When I think Light
My Soul Shines
Then later in the afternoon on Easter Sunday – 4 April 2021, in person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online 2 pm – 4 pm Central Time.
Group Eurythmy with Mary Ruud
Hazel Archer – The octave of the New Sun
Keynote with Ines Katharina (Bee Keeper, Founder of the Biodynamic Emerald Honeybee Sanctuary, Waldorf Teacher) Ines will connect the Easter Thought with the Elemental Beings & the flight of the Queen Bee.
Mary Ruud will give us a performance of ‘Rock Spring Wonder’
We close with singing ‘Now the green Blade Riseth’
Potluck Social Time in the Schreinerei – Please bring food & drink to share
$10 Suggested Donation (can’t make it? or joining us online? please consider supporting this event, Thank you)
*Dear friends, please join the call at 10:05 am to get settled in so we can begin the Thought-Seed promptly at 10:10 am
Topic: The 8-Fold Path thru Holy Week 2021
Time: Starting on Palm Sunday Mar 28 – thru Easter Morning, 2021 10:10 AM Central Time
Every day, 8 occurrence(s)
Mar 28, 2021 10:10 AM
Mar 29, 2021 10:10 AM
Mar 30, 2021 10:10 AM
Mar 31, 2021 10:10 AM
Apr 1, 2021 10:10 AM
Apr 2, 2021 10:10 AM
Apr 3, 2021 10:10 AM
Apr 4, 2021 10:10 AM
Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/95633444828?pwd=Wk56K08vK2dNQUhhK0Q2S09zQWJrQT09 Meeting ID: 956 3344 4828 – Passcode: bee
Dial by your location Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/aX8X3nrr3 Meeting ID: 956 3344 4828 – Passcode: 425730
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Nancy Poer
