2 May 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Venus rises above the eastern horizon about an hour before sunrise. The brilliant planet of Love dominates the predawn sky as the rosy glow heralding the Sun’s arrival grows brighter. Look for her next to the waning crescent Moon.
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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1519 – Death Day of Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, & architect. “…We know how Leonardo worked at the “Last Supper”. He often went and sat on the scaffolding and brooded for hours in front of the wall, then he would take a brush and make a few strokes and go away again. Sometimes he only went and stared at the picture and went away again. When he was painting the Christ Figure, his hand trembled. Indeed, if we put together all that we can find concerning this subject we must say that neither outwardly nor inwardly was Leonardo happy when painting this world-renowned picture. Now there were people at that time in Milan who were displeased with the slow progress of the picture, for instance a Prior of the monastery, who could not see why an artist could not paint such a picture quickly, and complained to the Duke. He too thought the affair had lasted too long. Leonardo answered: “The picture is to represent Jesus Christ and Judas, the two greatest contrasts; one cannot paint them in one year; there are no models for them in the world, neither for Judas nor for Christ”. After he had been working at the picture for years, he said he did not know whether he could finish it after all! Then he said that if finally he found no model for Judas he could always use the Prior himself! It was thus extraordinarily difficult to bring the picture to a conclusion but within himself Leonardo did not feel happy. For this picture showed the contrast between what lived in his soul and what he was able to represent on the canvas. Here it is necessary to bring forward a hypothesis of Spiritual Science, which may be reached by anyone who studies what can by degrees be learned about this picture.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Leonardo da Vinci, His Spiritual and Intellectual Greatness, At the Turning Point of the New Age
1611 – The King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker
1729 – Birthday of Catherine the Great of Russia, the longest-ruling female leader of Russia. The Catherinian Era, is often considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire & the Russian nobility. She enthusiastically supported the ideals of The Enlightenment, thus earning the status of an enlightened despot. As a patron of the arts she presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment, a period when the Smolny Institute, the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe, was established.
1772 – Birthday of Novalis, the pseudonym & pen name of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, poet, author, mystic, & philosopher of Early German Romanticism. His study of mineralogy & management of salt mines in Saxony, was often ignored by his contemporary readers Novalis concerned himself with the scientific doctrine of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, which greatly influenced his world view, transforming Fichte’s Nicht-Ich (German “not I”) to a Du (“you”), an equal subject to the Ich (“I”). This was the starting point for Novalis’ Liebesreligion (“religion of love”) dedicated to his beloved Sophie who died of tuberculosis.
“…When we consider the life of Novalis, what an echo we find there of the Raphael life for which Hermann Grimm had so fine an understanding! His beloved dies in her youth. He is himself still young. What is he going to do with his life now that she has died? He tells us himself. He says that his life on Earth will be henceforth to “die after her”, to follow her on the way of death. He wants to pass over already now into the super-sensible, to lead again the Raphael life, not touching the Earth, but living out in poetry his magic idealism. He would fain not let himself be touched by Earth life.
When we read the “Fragments” of Novalis, and give ourselves up to the life that flows so abundantly in them, we can discover the secret of the deep impression they make on us. Whatever we have before us in immediate sense-reality, whatever the eye can see and recognise as beautiful — all this, through the magic idealism that lives in the soul of Novalis, appears in his poetry with a well-nigh heavenly splendour. The meanest and simplest material thing — with the magic idealism of his poetry he can make it live again in all its spiritual light and glory.
And so we see in Novalis a radiant and splendid forerunner of that Michael stream which is now to lead you all, my dear friends, while you live; and then, after you have gone through the gate of death, you will find in the spiritual super-sensible worlds all those others — among them also the being of whom I have been speaking to you today — all those with whom you are to prepare the work that shall be accomplished at the end of the century, and that shall lead mankind past the great crisis in which it is involved.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis – The Last Address – Dornach, Michaelmas Eve, 1924
1933 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler bans trade unions
1945 –Fall of Berlin: The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin & Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag building
1952 – The world’s first ever jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet 1 makes its maiden flight, from London to Johannesburg
1972 – In the early morning hours a fire breaks out at the Sunshine Mine located between Kellogg and Wallace, Idaho, killing 91 workers.
1986 –The City of Chernobyl is evacuated six days after the disaster
1998 – The European Central Bank is founded in Brussels in order to define & execute the European Union’s monetary policy
2000 – President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military
2008 – Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Burma killing over 138,000 people & leaving millions of people homeless
2008 – Chaitén Volcano begins erupting in Chile, forcing the evacuation of more than 4,500 people.
2011 – Osama bin Laden, is killed by the United States special forces in
2014 – Two mudslides in Badakhshan, Afghanistan, leave over 2,500 people dead
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
~The portals of perception
Raw & cluttered await
The revealing –
It is my Self I see –
A 1000 colors swirling in liquid light
A star covered in rising clouds
Hung by a thread from its ocean Moon
Hail Self
Traversing eternity
In moral steps of time
Where the Guardian beckons
~hag
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“…The hatred and antipathy in the world today can indeed be followed by international love with healing in its wings. This is indeed possible. But we are living in an age when all that is possible must be consciously, deliberately and freely striven for by human beings. There must be knowledge of the conditions requisite for uniting the peoples of the Earth, in order that, as a result of this knowledge, each individual people may help to make the waves of love follow those of hatred.
Human love alone has power to heal the wounds of hatred. If humankind has no wish for this love, chaos will remain. That is the terrible alternative now facing human beings who have knowledge. Those who realize its terrors know that the souls of men dare not sleep, for otherwise, as a result of the powerlessness caused by the sleep into which the souls of the peoples have fallen, the healing waves of love will not be able to flow over the waves of hatred.
Human beings who realize this will acquire the kind of knowledge that flows from a spiritual conception of the relationships between the peoples. They will take this knowledge into their feeling — love for humanity will be born. They will take this knowledge into their will – deeds for humanity will be accomplished.
The evolution of the age, with all the terrible paralysis that is appearing at the present time, places a solemn duty before the soul: to gather together all that can unite humankind in love and array it in opposition to the destructive elements that have made their appearance in recent times. This quest for loving unification, for unifying love is not merely a vague feeling. To those who understand the conditions of life today, it is the very highest duty of man.” ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Peoples of the Earth in the Light of Anthroposophy’, Stuttgart, March 10th, 1920 http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19200310p01.html
In 1962, Karl König offered this verse to the friends in America:
The eternal rays
Of the Holy Spirits of Light
Build the tower of human trust,
Which is formed in our hearts
Out of brotherly love.
The eternal piers
of the helping Spirit-Messengers
Bear the bridge of faithfulness
That arches from I to I
In what we do.
So do we become united and strong
In the work that we have begun
And which we are committed in the spirit
To bring to completion.
May the greeting from soul to soul
Ring through the fellowship of our doing.
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Tuesday 7 May 2019 in Ann Arbor Michigan
& also
Sat. 25 May 2019 – 7 pm – 9 pm in Chicago
Climbing Jacobs Ladder: Celebrating the Feast of Ascension
Leading Thoughts & original art-collage projections with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Eurythmy with Mary Ruud
Social Art with Nancy Melvin
$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged
Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019
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| The Karma Project A Western Approach to Reincarnation & Karma May 8, 2019 – 7:15 pm CST (8:15 pm EST)View this email in your browser |
| The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to a presentation on the psychological understanding of karma, with special guests Drs. Roberta Nelson and David Tresemer. Guidance – and challenge – from Rudolf Steiner (August 3, 1924): “If we want to experience our karma in a comfortable way — it will surely take vengeance on us in one way or another … to be anthroposophists we must be able to observe our own experience of karma with constant wide-awake attention.” |
| Roberta Nelson is Faculty Chair in the 3-year programs offered by the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology (AAP). She has a doctorate in Counselor Education that qualifies her to supervise, educate, and counsel. In addition, Roberta is dual licensed as a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) as well as a Licensed Addiction Counselor (LAC) in the state of North Dakota. She has other trainings and certifications in Psychosynthesis, EMDR, NVC, and other modalities. David Tresemer is President of AAP. He has a doctorate in psychology from Harvard. He has written about various aspects of anthroposophy applied to issues in our world, the most relevant for this webinar being contributing to and editing of The Counselor: As If Soul and Spirit Matter (to which Roberta Nelson was a major contributor) and Slow Counseling, as well as quarterly columns in Lilipohmagazine. Our approach on May 8: An anthroposophic psychology must take seriously the different functions of body, soul, and spirit. Spirit—light, freedom, beyond time and space; Physical Body—vehicle for experience and expression; Soul—the mediator. Karma—held as precious in Spirit, stamped into the Physical Body, and worked in Soul. Whereas the Spirit sings in light and freedom, the Soul learns through darkness and constraints, through struggles. The anthroposophic notion of karma helps us understand how we can wrestle with our own being, transforming through experience. Audio-video: We will have some images on screen, though we will describe these to those who join by telephone. PREPARATION: Please have a pen and blank paper. If you have chalk-based pastels, please have those ready as well. Audioconference Details Option 1. Click link below if you wish to connect through your computer (a headset is recommended): https://zoom.us/j/689514145 Option 2. Call in using your telephone. United States: (646) 558-8656 or: (669) 900-6833 Access Code: 689-514-145 Please join us!Agenda (Central Time) 7:15 Welcome and introductions 7:18 Verse 7:20 Introduce guest speaker 7:25 Guest Speakers: Drs. Roberta Nelson & David Tresemer (45 minutes) 8:10 Q&A – Please state your name, location before asking a question 8:28 Close with verse |
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Sunday 19 May 2019, 2 pm – 4 pm- Social Sculpture Workshop around the ‘URPFLANZE’ with Victoria Martin. More details to follow
$20 for art supplies + Snacks to Share Encouraged
for more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
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Whitsun: A Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Sunday 2 June 2019 at the Branch 2 pm – 4 pm
also
10 am – 1 pm Saturday 8 June 2019 -4804 Sewanee Road, Nashville, TN 37220. for more info. contact Cathy Green cgreen@grasslandaquatics.com
also
12 Noon Potluck, Program 1 pm -4 pm Whitsunday 9 June 2019, In Knoxville, TN. for more info. contact William Rogers wmerogers@gmail.com
also
7 pm – 10 pm 11 June 2019, Ashville, TN. for more info. contact Marnie Muller
Eurythmy: AUM = A – I stand for myself, U- I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life
Social Sculpture: Steiner’s ‘Blue Dot Exercise’: Through Art, the bridge between science & spirit, we warm the ‘I’, to open the heart, in support of healthy community.
Leading Thoughts with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg*
What are my gifts-What are my tools? How can I place them in right relationship within the social realm? How can I hone them to strengthen and enhance the world?
Enter the Labyrinth of Vitae Sophia: Human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the source of wisdom, like flowers turning toward the sun.
Living into the Foundation Stone of Love: How can we take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” a path leading from ‘Sprit Recollection’, to ‘Sprit Sensing’, to ‘Sprit Beholding’?
*Hazel Archer-Ginsberg is the founder of the website and blog Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year (www.reverseritual.com). She is an Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, and “Anthroposopher.” She works as the Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch as well as with the Traveling Speakers Program, and she serves on the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.
Read about this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019
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