Category Archives: Speaking with the Stars

Against All Odds

Festival, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars

14 September 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”: It’s the last week of summer!

In twilight this evening, catch the crescent Moon in the southwest with Jupiter on her lower right. A line from the Moon through Jupiter points toward Venus, much lower.

Once nightfall is complete, the two brightest stars (not planets) are Vega high overhead & Arcturus in the west.

Draw a line down from Vega to Arcturus. A third of the way down you cross the dim Keystone of Hercules. Two thirds of the way you cross the dim semicircle of Corona Borealis with its one modestly bright star: Alphecca, the gem of the crown.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

We are the echo of the future ~W. S. Merwin (Thanks to Chris Manvell)

Feast of the Cross – According legend the True Cross was discovered in 326 by Saint Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, during a pilgrimage she made to Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was then built at the site of the discovery, by order of Helena & Constantine. The church was dedicated nine years later, on this same date, with a portion of the cross placed inside it.

Other legends explain that in 614, that portion of the cross was carried away from the church by the Persians, & remained missing until it was recaptured by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in 628. Initially taken to Constantinople, the cross was returned to the church in 629.

326 – Helena of Constantinople discovers the True Cross & builds the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

629 – Emperor Heraclius enters Constantinople in triumph after his victory over the Persian Empire

Sandro Botticelli

1321 – Deathday of Durante degli Alighieri – known as Dante

Image result for Agrippa

1486 – Birthday of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, German Occultist, theologian, astrologer, & alchemist

Image result for Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena

1723 – Grand Master António Manoel de Vilhena lays down the first stone of Fort Manoel in Malta. de Vilhena, a Portuguese nobleman was the 66th Prince of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Unlike many other Grand Masters, he was benevolent & popular with the Maltese people

1741 – George Frideric Handel completes his oratorio Messiah

Image result for 1752 – The British Empire adopts the Gregorian calendar

 

1752 – The British Empire adopts the Gregorian calendar, skipping eleven days (the previous day was September 2)

Image result for 1901 – U.S. President William McKinley dies

 

1901 – U.S. President William McKinley dies after an assassination attempt on September 6, & is succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt

Image result for Ip massacre

1940 –The  Ip massacre: The Hungarian Army, supported by local Hungarians, kill 158 Romanian civilians in Ip, Sălaj, a village in Northern Transylvania, an act of ethnic cleansing

Related image

1943 – World War II: The Wehrmacht starts targeting several Greek villages death toll over 500 people

1959 – The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it?

1960 – The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is founded

Image result for Congo Crisis

1960 – Congo Crisis: With CIA help, Mobutu Sese Seko seizes power in a military coup, suspending parliament & the constitution

Image result for 1969 – The US Selective Service selects September 14 as the First Draft Lottery dateImage result for 1969 – The US Selective Service selects September 14 as the First Draft Lottery date

1969 – The US Selective Service selects September 14 as the First Draft Lottery date

2008 – All 88 people on board Aeroflot Flight 821 are killed when the plane crashes on approach to Perm Airport

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

Sir Edward Coley

~I burn & radiate
In the empty space
Where fire appears blue
A jolt of essence
A glow of ether
A passion for stars & stones
~hag

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How We Will: Bare Bones Organizing – Threefolding Our Cultural Revolution

Review by Kait Ziegler

How do we stand deeply in spiritual space and also be of service in a social justice movement?” This question resonated throughout the space, weaving through the breaths of the individuals who came to How We Will with their own deep questions and capacities. It cascaded down the brightly hued, Lazure walls of the second, emerging Elderberries Threefold Cafe in Chicago, the Aquarian Heartland of the country. In this Heartland, our second forum was a beating heart with many different veins of communities connecting into a shared source of life, with two essential streams of spirituality and inner work intersecting with activism and social justice. The meeting of these two seemingly disconnected life journeys–inner and outer healing of ourselves and the world–sparked the moral imagination of how to build a meaningful bridge between the communities, and ask “how to build it?” and “why to build it?” There is also a question of if these two streams are really disconnected at all, and if they are not binary realms opposing one another, how do we locate the bridge which is already there as a fused, inseparable gesture?

The organizers and forum community offered the idea of Social Threefolding as the reasons for “Why” and “How”. Social Threefolding, a separation of the political, cultural, and economic spheres, was dived deeply into and acted as the blood running through the different veins to make the heart of our forum pump with life. Through panels like “Building Bridges”, “Against All Odds”, and “Why I Stand”, along with Theory U sessions and Threefold Breakout Groups, we investigated the inner and outer qualities of Threefold–technically, emotionally, spiritually, logistically, and more–both intangible and tangible realities of a new system being brainstormed and vigorously worked with. Through hearing insights from individuals working in the Poor People’s Campaign, as well as leaders around the country active in social justice and organizing work, we also explored the reality that, just as Rudolf Steiner was a community organizer and activist, we must also pick up the baton of organizing our local communities, intersecting with social justice awareness, if we are to practically and holistically bring the impulse of Social Threefolding into the world.

As a ribbon threading through our intellectually rich sessions, Melody and Ianthe led the community through an embodied, creative journey of co-leading the story of Goethe’s, “The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily“. With different small groups taking portions of the tale, we used our bodies, props, and imagination to tell the story at different times of the days which mirrored the times of the story, midnight to midnight, until the prophecy had been fulfilled. Melanie offered an evening imagination of, “Who is the lily?” which boldly illuminated the creative power of the story and its purpose– to open deep questions and themes in which to resonate in our souls.

Each interpretation is different of Goethe’s tale, but the feeling of it somehow generated a correlating and empowering question around our purpose of coming to How We Will, and what might come next. Like the convening of the old man, old woman, maidens, lily, snake, young prince, four kings, will-o wisps, ferryman, and the hawk, what might happen when all of us come together that cannot be achieved if working alone? Like the separated worlds of the two sides of the great river, with a great prophecy waiting to be fulfilled of true leadership, bridging an abyss, and building a sacred space, what is our collective prophecy which we must pick up as our task to help serve humanity and bridge the gaps which are present in our society? How do the streams of inner and outer work connect to topple the pillars of racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy, as the work does of the Poor People’s Campaign?

Our answers to these questions varied. At the closing of the forum, people spoke of their ideas that want to be put into action: a localized Threefold organizing project with research and development; outreach to the older generations within Anthroposophy; a housing trust to crumble borders and increase accessibility; building an international sacred space for youth; connecting Brightmoor Maker Space and Free Columbia to the new cafe space, and much more. There is a lot of inner and outer work to be done, and this will certainly not be our last How We Will, yet we made beautiful progress together. Though our initiatives might be separate, the blood of their intention is of one source. Social Threefolding and its qualities of striving for deeper freedom, equity and equality, as well as kinship is coursing through all of the gifts manifested from the forum. We will have to work and see what emerges in our upcoming future, and invite you to set a benchmark that brings us and our communities back together in Philadelphia in 2019 for our third How We Will. A six month interval will happen for those wishing to be a part of the Organizing Research looking at two cities in Los Angeles as our map.

We offer gratitude to all who came to How We Will, all of the organizers, all which emerged and was shared, and acknowledge the courage it takes to stand against all odds for the sake of humanity.

#HowWeWill
#SeparationOfPowers
#Threefolding

Another review from Tom Grode!

A FAIRY TALE

Webster’s: “a story with improbable events leading to a happy ending”.

Once upon a time I flew from Los Angeles to Chicago for How We Will — a four day gathering the end of summer at the Rudolph Steiner Branch.

Steiner lived and worked in Germany during the days following World War I. From Conscious Society: “Delivered in the context of post-war culture and chaos, these lectures form part of Rudolf Stenier’s energetic efforts to cultivate social understanding and renew culture through his innovative ideas based on “threefolding”. Steiner develops a subtle and discerning perception of how social dynamics could change and heal if they were founded on real insight into our threefold nature as individuals, social beings, and economic participants in the world. He doesn’t offer a programmatic agenda for change, but a real foundation from which change can organically grow.”

I flew to Chicago stressed and excited about the chaotic circumstances in my life. I flew to Chicago not really sure what I was walking into. I flew to Chicago anticipating something important would happen.

Around seventy people came to Chicago. Several of us came from Los Angeles. Several came from an artists community in rural upstate New York. Some guys came from Detroit. A sprinkling came from other parts of the country and many from Chicago.

Two young Storytelling ladies from Europe on the first day broke us into seven groups to take turns with a section of The Green Snake and Beautiful Lily fairy tale by Goethe. I never heard of The Green Snake and Beautiful Lily before. The different groups would perform their section of the story over the course of the next few days so by the end we presented the full story to one another.

We had just established Community Agreements, one of which was Trust The Process and so I suppose I broke the agreement because I quickly went to Google to read the whole story. The Green Snake and Beautiful Lily tells of a river separating two lands and a snake that sacrifices itself to become a bridge so people can freely walk over the river from land to land.

The Los Angeles folks were connected to Moral Mondays held by a vegan café Elderberries 3Fold on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. Moral Mondays is rooted in the work done by Rev. William Barber in North Carolina who launched Moral Mondays and later re-launched the Poor Peoples Campaign first launched by Martin Luther King now under the name Poor Peoples Campaign: a national call for moral revival. Some of the Moral Mondays folks are now major leaders in the Poor Peoples Campaign for California.

I flew to Chicago carrying three things:

1) My Native American name is Woorypot Moompet and much of the Poor Peoples Campaign foundation laid by Dr.King at the time of his assassination was his growing relationship with Native American leaders.

2) I’ve lived in Skid Row downtown Los Angeles since 2013 and the essence of Skid Row mirrors the essence of the Poor Peoples Campaign: a national call for moral revival.

3) A few years ago while staying in Pasadena I had a vision of two lines moving in outer space where they would eventually intersect. One line was called Martin Luther King and the other line was called William Seymour. When they intersected there was an explosion and inside the explosion appeared the word “justice”. Preacher Seymour, the son of slaves, was the leader of the Azusa Street Revival of 1906 in downtown Los Angles that birthed Pentecostal Christianity. Time-Life in 2001 put the Azusa Street Revival, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and Shekinah Glory, as #68 on their list of 100 Most Important Events of the Past One Thousand Years 1000–2000AD. Azusa is a Tongva word, Native indigenous people of Los Angeles, and is usually translated as Blessed Miracle or Healing. .

The threefolding process of Rudolf Steiner is based on a simple premise: human society used to be centralized courtesy of the Pharoah and the King. But the great wave has been away from centralization and this movement has resulted in three separate yet overlapping realms — Rights (government), Cultural, Economic. That premise then becomes the basis for systemic reformation and creating new systems.

Steiner developed Anthroposofy as a scientific form of Theosophy, a relationship with God and the spiritual realm based on mystical insights, and followers of Steiner weave Anthroposofy into Threefolding as part of exploring the Rights, Culture, and Economic realms for a healthier humanity.

In this fairy tale are many characters: a Ferryman, two Will O’ The Wisps, the Green Snake, a Weak Giant with a Strong Shadow, the Gold King, the Silver King, the Bronze King, a Fourth King (composite of the other three Kings), Old Man with Lamp, Wife of Old Man, Beautiful Lily, Young Man, Maiden, Mops the Dog, two Maiden Servants. As the seven groups rehearsed their turn to tell their section of the story, one wall was painted as a Green Snake and Beautiful Lily mural.

The rural New York artists sang folk songs wearing rural New York folk song clothing. The Detroit guys were led by an old white guy who kept spitting out rhymes. Words from Motor City mostly very pretty.

Meals were shared — every possible tasty variation of beans and rice. During one lunch I spoke to one of the rural New York artist folk singers and he told me how a Mohawk leader walked with them for counsel as they developed a Native theater piece featuring giant puppets, Excerpts of the Journey of the Peacemaker.

The Chicago folks were mostly older and over the days they wrestled with how to support a vegan café based on the one in Los Angeles about to be built in much of their Rudolf Steiner Branch building.

How We Will included expert threefolding teachers with Q and A plus group discussion. We also had panel discussions. One panel was Against All Odds and I spoke about the intense still to be finished roller coaster in City Hall for Skid Row to create a Skid Row Neighborhood Council as an official part of City government.

We closed our gathering in a circle where folks could step forward to announce some brand new practical effort as an invitation for others to support their journey. One of the Storytellers from England who helped lead our Green Snake theater process stepped into the circle bursting into tears as she shared her vision of how affordable housing can help bridge gaps between people, ending with her crying saying: “Why is this happening, I don’t even know how to do a mortgage”.

Tears can be a form of intercession. Intercession is a gap between what should never have been separated, and you step into that gap. Tears nurture the coming together.

The common aftermath of a mountaintop experience is folks return to normal life in the valley. This gathering could be different as everyone can follow online or in person the process to turn much of the Chicago Branch building into a threefolding vegan café based on the community-building momentum of How We Will.

“Finally, the crowd gradually dispersed, pursuing its own course; and the bridge, to this day, continues to swarm with travelers, and the temple is the most frequented one on the entire earth”.

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Dear Friends – A friendly reminder: The play “This War Is Not Inevitable” will be performed at Urban Prairie on Saturday night at 7 pm.  And at the Christian Community on Sunday Sept. 16th at 12:30 pm.

This two-actor performance is about Social Three-Folding in Middle Europe at the beginning of World War I and the beginning of the Waldorf School Movement.

It is acessable to all, and so relevant to the issues we are all facing today in the cultural, political and the economic realms, but refreshingly non-partisan.

Michael Burton, from New Zealand along with young Waldorf alumnus Christian Peterson, from Harlemville, will be performing.

We are so fortunate that they are able to stop in Chicago on their tour around the US!  So bring a neighbor or friend along!

All Contributions are appreciated. ?

~Johanna Rohde

PERFORMANCE OF THE PLAY Written by Michael Hedley Burton:Saturday, September 15th at 7 pm  Urban Prairie Waldorf School 1310 S. Ashland

PERFORMANCE CANCELED on Sept. 14th at Chicago Waldorf School

PERFORMANCE on Sunday, Sept 16th at 12:30 pm

At The Christian Community, 2135 West Wilson Ave, 60625

Suggested donation: $15, $25 or $40…depending on your circumstances.Books written by Michael Burton also for sale

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 Poetic Imagination, Metamorphosis and the Evolution of Consciousness with Luke Fischer

Sunday 16 September 2018, 4 – 6 pm At the Branch

In this lecture, poet and philosopher, Dr Luke Fischer will discuss ways in which the poetry and thought of Goethe, Rilke, Barfield, and Steiner contribute to an understanding of the evolution of consciousness and of the particular significance of poetic imagination. He will also shed light on how his own poetic and philosophical writings have addressed these topics.

Also: a short Poetry Reading and Piano Recital with Ryan Senger www.lukefischerauthor.com

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Veil Painting Workshop with David A. Dozier

Friday Sept. 21, 2018, 7 -9pm, Saturday Sept. 22, 10 am – 5 pm, Sunday Sept. 23, 10 am -1pm

Workshop fee: $135.00 for RSB members, $160.00 for non-members Supply fee: $135.00*

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 Friday 28 September 2018 – COMMUNITY MEETING at 7 pm with Ann Burfeind 

Checking in on our local Anthroposophical Initiatives:

Are you a Waldorf Teacher, Branch Member, Christian Community Member, Involved with Anthroposophical Medicine, or Bio-Dynamics, Interested in serving the Being of Chicago…? Please come & bring a report, of the new school, or your Spiritual Scientific research…ETC…

We will also have a review of the How We Will Forum2

All in the spirit of Michaelmas

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Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) Check out our Web site! Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America) 

The Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…

 

From Sulphur to Iron

Insight, Lecture, Poetry, Speaking with the Stars

6 September 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”:  Saturn appears due south now at its highest altitude as darkness falls in early September. The ringed planet shines brighter than any of the background stars in its host constellation, Sagittarius. Saturn’s slow westward motion against this rich Milky Way backdrop comes to a halt today.

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We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost. ~ Gaston Bachelard

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

According to the Julian calendar, the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started on this day in 3114 BC

Albinus: skeleton with less muscle

Deathday of Albinus a Platonist philosopher, who lived at Smyrna, pupil of Gaius the Platonist & teacher of Galen.  A short tract by him, entitled Introduction to Plato’s dialogues, has survived. After explaining the nature of the Dialogue, which he compares to a Drama, he  goes on to divide the Dialogues of Plato into four classes, logical, critical, physical, ethical, & mentions another division of them into Tetralogies, according to their subjects. He advises that the Alcibiades, Phaedo, Republic, & Timaeus, should be read in a series

Deathday of Magnus of Füssen, a missionary saint in southern Germany, of the Orkney Idalnds, also known as the Apostle of the Allgäu, a contemporary of Saint Gall & Saint Boniface

1522 – The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition, returns to Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world

1620 – The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America

1628 – Puritans settle Salem

1729 – Birthday of Moses Mendelssohn, a creative & eclectic thinker whose writings on metaphysics & aesthetics, political theory & theology, together with his Jewish heritage, placed him at the focal point of the German Enlightenment for over three decades

1847 – Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond & moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson& his family in Concord, Massachusetts

1860 – Birthday of Jane Addams, sociologist & author, Nobel Prize laureate

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~my feet are afire with the power of traveling,
arriving, departing, discovering each step…
with each movement
the moment begins again…

~hag

I will be gone to do a short speaking tour in LA, so I will be offline until Sept. 12th 2018, feel free to talk  amognst  yourselves! xox

***

Max Wolfhugel

Preparing for Michaelmas:

I watch the shadows lengthen. The angle of the sun, like the lance of Michael, a sunlit spear piercing awake my sleepy summer eyes, banishing the Sulphur, activating the iron in my blood. Am I ready to do battle with the dragon within?

If spiritual science is allowed to live in us & extend its transforming influence to our heart-space, what enters us as thoughts, is then changed, into the substance of light, into the purest light of thought. And in the living enthusiasm of the heart, this light of thought then rays out from our hearts into the macrocosm, as light of the redeemed intelligence of Michael; as enlivened human thought, which can be re-united with the world-thoughts of the gods.

Heart-Thinking is the essence of Michaelmas, as the festival of Enlightenment; where we can learn to experience an unfolding of our inner initiative & a free, strong, courageous will, opposing our love of ease. Yes, it’s easy this time of year, to want to get cozy on the couch, to snuggle up with the dragon, flipping thru the channels, fighting over the remote…

But it is our job to strive to complete the never ending story, with the new Michaelic mysteries put forth by Rudolf Steiner, a true emissary of Michael, teaching us to count the human being as the 10th hierarchy. And so, work we must, as we stand once more on the edge of autumn.

See you there…

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

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From Necessity to Freedom – The Evolution of Human Consciousness, Social Sculpture & Experiential Discourse with Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Saturday 8 September 2018 at the Los Angeles Branch 110 Martin Alley, Pasadena, CA 91105. Workshop 10 am – 5 pm

How can I Co-Create with Destiny, to spin the thread of my life with integrity, to heal and clear the collective karma, & achieve my True Becoming?

From the vaporous cleft of Mount Parnassus, and the birth place of Greek Philosophy, to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, and the Holy Grail – From Prophesy to Warning, from Fate to Karma, From Destiny to Free Will. 

What is YOUR life Question?

10 am – Doors Open

10:30 am – Explore the legends of The Greek Moirae and the Nordic Norns, the Orphic Hymn and the Prose Poem Edda

11:30 –Song Circle – To call in and to cut away

12:15 pm – Lunch

1:30 pm – Scrying with the Sibyls – The Prophets and the Sistine Chapel…The evolving human consciousness…

2:30 pm – Socratic Questioning – You have to ask the right question to get the right answer

3:15 pm – Break

3:30 pm – Once Upon A Time NOW – The new story

4 pm – Weaving Past, Present and Future

4:30 pm – Rudolf Steiner’s poem: DESTINY

5 pm – End

Hazel Archer Ginsberg, Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago, The Traveling Speakers Program, and the Central Regional Council of The Anthroposophical Society, Trans-denominational Minister and founder of ‘Reverse Ritual’ – ‘Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year’

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‘THIS WAR IS NOT INEVITABLE’ (The Threefold Social Organism Theatre Project )

A talk at The Rudolf Steiner Branch with Michael Burton

Thursday Sept. 13th 2018 at 7 pm

The play Written by Michael Hedley Burton and performed by Michael Burton and Christian Peterson, will be preformed at CWS & Urban Prairie Schools, Friday Sept. 14 & 15th. 

Rudolf Steiner launched the idea of the Threefold Social Organism (Threefold Social Order) in 1917 in the hope that this would help shorten the war and prevent another great conflagration from breaking out at a later date. The times were against him then and he was unsuccessful, but the question of the hour is: “Did what Steiner attempt in those years plant a seed that has waited a hundred years to mature in our own age?”

Suggested donation: $10, or more depending on your circumstances

For information about The Threefold Social Organism Theatre Project please contact Lightweight Theatre on 518 928 0491 or michaelburton999@yahoo.com.au or visit www.wordrenewal.org

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Poetic Imagination, Metamorphosis and the Evolution of Consciousness with Luke Fischer

Sunday 16 September 2018, 2 – 4pm

In this lecture, poet and philosopher, Dr Luke Fischer will discuss ways in which the poetry and thought of Goethe, Rilke, Barfield, and Steiner contribute to an understanding of the evolution of consciousness and of the particular significance of poetic imagination. He will also shed light on how his own poetic and philosophical writings have addressed these topics.

Poetry Reading and Piano Recital

Poet and philosopher, Luke Fischer, will share poems from his poetry collections A Personal History of Vision (UWAP Poetry, 2017) and Paths of Flight (Black Pepper, 2013). Pianist Ryan Senger will perform classical piano works.

Bio: Luke Fischer is a poet, philosopher, and writer. His books include the poetry collections A Personal History of Vision (UWAP Poetry, 2017) and Paths of Flight (Black Pepper, 2013), the monograph The Poet as Phenomenologist: Rilke and the New Poems (Bloomsbury, 2015), and the children’s book The Blue Forest (Lindisfarne Books, 2015). He has co-edited a number of works, including a special section of the Goethe Yearbook (2015) on “Goethe and Environmentalism.” He won the 2012 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize and his poems have been anthologized in the Best Australian Poems (2014, 2015, and 2017). He holds a PhD in philosophy and is an honorary associate of the University of Sydney, Australia. For more information see: www.lukefischerauthor.com

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Veil Painting Workshop with David Dozier

Friday Sept. 21, 2018, 7 -9pm

Saturday Sept. 22, 10 am – 5 pm

Sunday Sept. 23, 10 am -1pm

Workshop fee: $135.00 for RSB members, $160.00 for non-members Supply fee: $135.00*

Veil Painting is a watercolor technique special to artists working with the writings of Rudolf Steiner. Transparent watercolors are thinned far more than usual and glazed over one another on white paper to achieve subtle color washes, or ‘veils.’ The colors are never mixed anywhere but on the paper, and then only one at a time in a wash over dry colors. To avoid loss of time to stretching watercolor paper and waiting for it to dry overnight, students will use 300# cold pressed watercolor paper or heavy illustration board for wet media. We will focus on technique and work with painting motifs using Goethe’s Luster Colors (red, yellow, and blue) and Image Colors (white, black green, and peach), also exploring Goethe’s use of Characteristic Colors, Non-characteristic Colors, and Harmonious Colors in varying combinations on small panels, the Goethean color wheel on a larger panel, with space for a free painting to try and find an image out of the color itself. Supplies: All supplies will be provided for participants out of the supply fee, and will become their personal materials to take home including; brushes, paper, color, jars, rags, tape, ruler, pencil, sharpener, eraser. Participants will be completely equipped to work at home after the workshop, including colors and where to buy additional supplies when needed.

To Register Send check by September 7th to: David Dozier 1050 Columbia Ave. #3E Chicago, IL 60626

*Anyone taking the workshop that believes they already have all the tools and materials they need and wishes to avoid paying the supply fee should speak to Mr. Dozier personally at 773-627-0060, and review their tools and materials against the supply list with him by September 1st, since supplies have to ordered at least two weeks in advance.

Bio: Since 1997 David A. Dozier has taught art history, digital art, painting in oils, pastels and watercolor, black & white drawing, calligraphy and block printing at the Chicago Waldorf School, as well as drawing skills to adults in the Arcturus Rudolf Steiner Education program. He has a Master’s degree in Education (with a Certificate in Waldorf Education) from Antioch New England Graduate School, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual Communication from Layton School of Art and Design with academic accreditation from Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI.

Cosmic Iron

Celestial Event, Lecture, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars

11 August 2018, ‘Speaking with the Stars’: Perseid meteor showers

The Perseid meteor showers are back, heralding the season of Michael. The shooting stars awaken us. This dose of cosmic iron is the perfect medicine for today’s Lunur Eclipse. We must take it in consciously to strengthen our Michaelic impulse for the spiritual battle ahead.

According to Johnathan Hilton of the Astrosophy Research Center Perseus is a cosmic starry imagination of Michael.  He stands with sword of iron raised in one hand and in the other the decapitated head of Medusa with her serpent hair and eyes that turn all who gaze upon her to stone, symbol of the old clairvoyance. He has rescued Andromeda, the chained princess, from the approaching sea monster Cetus. From the forehead of Andromeda springs the constellation Pegasus, the winged intelligence.  This entire narrative contains deep imaginations of the work of Michael in the human being rescuing the threatened human soul from the destructive forces rising from the unconscious and the past in the sea monster and the deadening forces of Ahriman’s cold intellect in the gaze of Medusa.

A study of The Michael Mystery by Steiner can be a helping guide during this season.  In it he states: “Hearts begin to have thoughts,  that is the new way of thinking, with the heart.”  It is Michael’s intention that in the future, intelligence will flow through human hearts and be connected to the same divine spiritual forces that created the human in the beginning of time.

If we look for, or even use our imaginative cognition to picture inwardly this cosmic offering, we can carry the thought of Michael/Perseus in our heart-thinking, to consciously align with our Time-Spirit. Let us make the intention to be awake to the power of the Christ-Sun in the Earth, & the enlivening impulse of Anthroposophia within, which through our thinking hearts becomes enlightened by Wisdom, helping us overcome the darkness with love.

This annual celestial event, gifting us with the cosmic iron of Michael, begins as tiny specks of extra-terrestrial dust that hit Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds vaporizing from the friction with our atmosphere, leaving behind the streaks of light we call meteors. These dust particles were born in the comet known as 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which recently returned to the inner solar system in 1992. The giant planet Jupiter has nudged Swift-Tuttle’s debris stream closer to Earth’s orbit, So this year, we could see up to 150-200 meteors per hour, TONIGHT & TOMORROW NIGHT.

The best views will come in the predawn hours. The spectacle will continue to improve as dawn approaches because the shower’s radiant — the spot on the border between the constellations Perseus & Cassiopeia where the meteors appear to emanate from — climbs higher.

As always, you’ll see more meteors at a viewing site far from any artificial lights. Look about two-thirds of the way from the horizon to the zenith, but don’t get tunnel vision gazing at one location. Let your eyes wander so your peripheral vision can pick up meteors you otherwise might not see.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Those who work with the Original indications in the Calendar of the Soul know that Rudolf Steiner lists the birth & death days, as well as other significant occurrences of various individualities, along with the dates in the calendar.

He said of this: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of mankind’s spiritual development” ~Rudolf Steiner. This is my inspiration.

3114 BC – The Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations, notably the Mayans, begins

305 – Deathday of Saint Philomena, Steiner speaks of her as being a Greek priestess martyred at age 13 by Roman Emperor Diocletian.

559 – Birthday of Radegunde, Thuringian princess & Frankish queen, who founded the Abbey of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, named for holding the relic of the True Cross. Radegunde ate nothing but legumes & green vegetables, she was widely believed to have the gift of healing.

1253 –  Deathday of Saint Clare of Assisi, an Italian saint & one of the first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi

1464 – Deathday of Nicholas of Cusa, a German philosopher, theologian, jurist, & astronomer. One of the first German proponents of Renaissance humanism, he made spiritual & political contributions in European history. A notable example of this is his mystical or spiritual writings on “learned ignorance,” as well as his participation in power struggles between Rome & the German states of the Holy Roman Empire

1877 – The two moons of Mars were discovered by Asaph Hall, an American astronomer. He named them Phobos & Deimos

1896 – Harvey Hubbell received a patent for the electric light bulb socket with a pull-chain

1942 – Actress Hedy Lamarr & composer George Antheil receive a patent for a Frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones & Wi-Fi

1956 – Deathday of Jackson Pollock

1965 – the Watts Race Riots begin in Los Angeles, California

1972 – Vietnam War: The last United States ground combat unit leaves South Vietnam

1984 –”My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you that I just signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” -Said as a joke by senile President Ronald Reagan, while running for re-election, on his weekly Saturday address on National Public Radio.

2012 – At least 1306 people are killed & 3,000 others injured in a pair of earthquakes near Tabriz, Iran

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Cliff Smith

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I come with the comet
A priestess in the thought-skin of the lion
Spreading the roaring depth of myself out
Before friends & gods
To let them study me…
My ripened body is a rolled papyrus
Tied with red string that holds no pretense
Glow worms hide in the folds of my scroll
I am washed & ready for the new turning
Flashing with the hygienic iron-dust of shooting stars
Reborn in the cradle of my blood
~hag

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“…And when in high summer, from a particular constellation, meteors fall in great showers of cosmic iron, then this cosmic iron, which carries an enormously powerful healing force, is the weapon which the gods bring to bear against Ahriman, as dragon-like he tries to coil round the shining forms of men. The force which falls on the earth in the meteoric iron is indeed a cosmic force whereby the higher gods endeavour to gain a victory over the Ahrimanic powers, when autumn comes on. And this majestic display in cosmic space, when the August meteor showers stream down into the human shining in the astral light, has its counterpart — so gentle and apparently so small — in a change that occurs in the human blood. This human blood, which is in truth not such a material thing as present-day science imagines, but is permeated throughout by impulses from soul and spirit, is rayed through by the force which is carried as iron into the blood and wages war there on anxiety, fear and hate. The processes which are set going in every blood-corpuscle when the force of iron shoots into it are the same, on a minute human scale, as those which take place when meteors fall in a shining stream through the air. This permeation of human blood by the anxiety-dispelling force of iron is a meteoric activity. The effect of the raying in of the iron is to drive fear and anxiety out of the blood.

And so, as the gods with their meteors wage war on the spirit who would like to radiate fear over all the earth through his coiling serpent-form, and while they cause iron to stream radiantly into this fear-tainted atmosphere, which reaches its peak when autumn approaches or when summer wanes — so the same process occurs inwardly in man, when his blood is permeated with iron. We can understand these things only if we understand their inner spiritual significance on the one hand, and if on the other we recognise how the sulphur-process and the iron-process in man are connected with corresponding events in the cosmos.

A man who looks out into space and sees a shooting-star should say to himself, with reverence for the gods: “That occurrence in the great expanse of space has its minute counterpart continuously in myself. There are the shooting-stars, while in every one of my blood-corpuscles iron is taking form: my life is full of shooting-stars, miniature shooting-stars.” And this inner fall of shooting-stars, pointing to the life of the blood, is especially important when autumn approaches, when the sulphur-process is at its peak. For when men are shining like glow-worms in the way I have described, then the counter-force is present also, for millions of tiny meteors are scintillating inwardly in their blood.

This is the connection between the inner man and the universe. And then we can see how, especially when autumn is approaching, there is a great raying-out of sulphur from the nerve-system towards the brain. The whole man can then be seen as a sulphur-illuminated phantom, so to speak.

But raying into this bluish-yellow sulphur atmosphere come the meteor swarms from the blood. That is the other phantom. While the sulphur-phantom rises in clouds from the lower part of man towards his head, the iron-forming process rays out from his head and pours itself like a stream of meteors into the life of the blood.

Such is man, when Michaelmas draws near. And he must learn to make conscious use of the meteoric-force in his blood. He must learn to keep the Michael Festival by making it a festival for the conquest of anxiety and fear; a festival of inner strength and initiative; a festival for the commemoration of selfless self-consciousness…”

~ Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons and the Archangels Lecture I: The Michael Imagination http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA229/English/RSP1968/19231005p01.html

John Stolfo

May we all take arms with Michael in right awakened consciousness

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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Support the Youth: Art, performance, poetry.

Sunday August 12th 7-10pm

at Elderberries Chicago 4251 N. Lincoln Ave.

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HOW WE WILL

Thursday, August 30, 2018 at 2 PM- Monday, September 3, 2018 at 1 PM.

Frank Agrama and Dottie Zold, of the Elderberries Threefold Cafe, the Have Seeds House community, & the Urban First Aid – Art As Medicine are living into the Threefold Commonwealth. They have invited John Bloom of Rudolf Steiner Finance and Nathaniel Williams of Free Columbia and Seth Jordan of the ThinkOutWord movement to engage our deeper understanding of the principles of Rudolf Steiner’s social threefolding and the working relationships between the Economic/Kinship, Political/Equal Rights and the Cultural/Freedom realms.

Brian Gray of Rudolf Steiner College, will join us each night around a EarlyFire and Starry World imagination as we prepare the table of dedicating Elderberries 3Fold Cafe Chicago to Willi Sucher and his work with the starry worlds.

Kait Ziegler and Destiny Nolen, lead organizers in California’s Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, (PPC) will lead us on an exploration of the questions that are living very strongly and openly in the youth of today; who are looking for a more just, sustainable, diverse and humane world.

We have invited friends from all over the country and world working in the fields of Agriculture (Johannes Kronenberg) Medicine (Molly McMullen-Laird), Technology insights, New Economic Forms (Seth Jordan), Art (Kiara Nage) Community Activism (Daniel Evaeus), and Education (Elizabeth Roosevelt Weeks, Joan Jaeckel), to see how and where our core values intersect, and, if we can imagine how a threefold commonwealth structural form can come into being in today’s time.

And we invite YOU to bring your voice, questions and experiences, so we can have a large, diverse, representative community weaving through the differences and the commonalities of our core values.

Moving from study, conversation, prototyping, biography work (Leah Walker), presentations, initiative panels and artivism, Theory U will be the skill set structure we move through: deep listening, suspending our judgments, fears and cynicism. Creating a space for others to be safe and to be free allows for something new to come forth that will be our building blocks towards a Beloved Community of Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Open Will. This will be the way to our new humanity which of course we ourselves must be the image.

Registration is now open! https://howwewill.blog/register/

#HowWeWill2018
#BareBonesOrganizing
#ThreefoldingOurCulturalRevolution

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Thursday Sept. 13th 7-9pm

A conversation with Michael Burton

 IS WAR INEVITABLE?

The Threefold Social Organism – 1919 and 2019 – and the new mystery drama, ‘When the Will Awakens’, that gave birth to it.

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Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map) Check out our Web site! Chicago, IL (Anthroposophical Society in America)

The Elderberries 3-Fold Space is currently available for rental on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings, retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc… 

All are Welcome at the Table

Insight, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars

2 August 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Evenings this week are a great time to explore the constellation Sagittarius the Archer. This star group lies due south & is at peak altitude between 11 pm & 12 am. The brightest stars within the constellation form the shape of a teapot — a distinctive asterism once you’ve found it — though it’s misshapen this year with the presence of Saturn just north of these stars & the central regions of the Milky Way pass through Sagittarius, so it’s wroth a glance.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

“To cultivate Spiritual Science is no abstract pursuit. To cultivate Spiritual Science means to open the doors to those influences from beyond the earth which have been seeking to come down to the earth since the last third of the nineteenth century. The cultivation of Spiritual Science is in very truth a cosmic event of which we ought to be fully conscious” ~ Rudolf Steiner

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

March against Violence TODAY in Chicago

216 BC – The Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army at the Battle of Cannae

Feast day of “The Virgen de los Angeles” (the Virgin of the Angels) is Costa Rica’s patron saint, also known as La Negrita. According to tradition, La Negrita, the Black Virgin, is a small (less than a meter tall), representation of the Virgin Mary found on this spot on August 2, 1635 by a native woman. As the story goes, when she tried to take the statuette with her, it miraculously reappeared twice back where she’d found it. The townspeople then built a shrine around her. In 1824, the Virgin was declared Costa Rica’s patron saint. La Negrita now resides on a gold, jewel-studded platform at the main altar in the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles in Cartago. Each August 2, on the anniversary of the statuette’s miraculous discovery, pilgrims from every corner of the country (and beyond) walk the 22 km from San José to the basilica. Many of the penitent complete the last few hundred meters of the pilgrimage on their knees.

1832- Birthday of Henry Steel Olcott – an American military officer, journalist, lawyer & the co-founder & 1st President of the Theosophical Society. Olcott was the first well-known American of European ancestry to make a formal conversion to Buddhism. From 1874 on, Olcott’s spiritual growth & development with Helena Blavatsky & other spiritual leaders would lead to the founding of the Theosophical Society. In 1875, Olcott, Blavatsky, & others, notably William Quan Judge, formed the Theosophical Society in New York City. Olcott financially supported the earliest years of the Theosophical Society & was acting President while Blavatsky served as the Society’s Secretary. In December 1878, they left New York in order to move the headquarters of the Society to India.

1921 – Birthday of Enrico Caruso, Italian tenor & actor

1922 – Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-Canadian engineer, one of the people who invented the telephone

1922 – A typhoon hits Shantou, Republic of China killing more than 50,000 people

1924 – The last of Rudolf Steiner’s “19 Class Lessons” was given in Dornach.

1934 – Gleichschaltung: Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany following the death of President Paul von Hindenburg

1939 – Albert Einstein & Leo Szilard write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon

1943 – Jewish prisoners stage a revolt at Treblinka, one of the deadliest of Nazi death camps where approximately 900,000 persons were murdered in less than 18 months

1968 – Deathday of Antonio d’Achille , Aquinas scholar

1969 – Deathday of Anna Samweber – an active co-worker in Berlin with Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner-von Sivers. Her anecdotes & recollections were recorded by Jacob Streit during an intensive two days shortly before Anna’s death. They contribute a warm & intimate picture of Rudolf Steiner, the man, & his work. “Frau Dr Steiner owned a lovely diamond watch with her initials inscribed on the lid. It was broken, and I had to take it to a well-known watchmaker who lived a long way from the Motzstrasse (the house at 17 Motzstrasse in Berlin was where Rudolf and Marie Steiner lived from 1903 – 1913, and where the work of the Anthroposophical Society was carried on). It was late on a cold and foggy November evening when I made my way in the direction of Nollendorfplatz, where the building site for a subway was situated. I was walking along a long, wooden blank wall when suddenly two human shapes appeared from the dark and attacked me. I remembered that once Rudolf Steiner had told me that if ever I was in need I could call on him. So when these two attackers went for me, the one holding me from behind so that the other could rob me, I called inwardly and spontaneously: ‘Doctor, help me!’ At the same moment both fellows fell back like lightning and were gone. When Rudolf Steiner came for breakfast the next morning he greeted me with the words ‘Good morning, Sam. What was the matter that you cried so loud last night?’ When I told him about my experience and he had listened quietly, he said simply: ‘But I did help you, didn’t I?’ “ ~Anna Samweber from her book Erinnerungen an Rudolf Steiner (Reminiscences of Rudolf Steiner)

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TODAY is the Feast of St. Peter’s Chains – In commemoration of the miraculous deliverance of St. Peter, the visible head of the church, from prison. The entire event is described in the Acts of the Apostles, by St. Luke. Herod Agrippa, ruled over Judaea, with the title of king. During his evil reign, he beheaded, James the Great, brother of St. John. Herod then seized St. Peter, intending to make away with him in the same manner. Peter was taken prisoner, chained & locked in a narrow dungeon.

On the eve of his execution, an Angel appeared. Although heavily laden with chains, the holy Apostle was sleeping peacefully, guarded by the Angel, whose brightness illumined the dank dungeon.  Just before dawn the Angel tapped Peter on the side to wake him, saying: “Arise quickly. Put on your sandals & cloak & follow me.” The Apostle, who thought it all a dream, obeyed & followed the Angel, the tight harsh chains falling from his hands. They passed the first & second watches without attracting attention, & reached the iron gate which led to the main street. The gate opened without the aid of human hands. After that the Angel vanished & was seen no more. Peter proceeded immediately to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where the faithful were assembled in prayer.

When he knocked at the door, a servant, named Rhode, came, & asked who was there. Judging by the voice that it was Peter, she was so greatly startled with joy & astonishment, that, without opening the door, she ran back to announce the news. They believed that it must be his guardian Angel. Meanwhile, the Saint repeated knocking at the door. They opened it & saw, with amazement, their beloved shepherd safe & free from chains. Their joy on beholding him was as great as had been their grief when he was taken prisoner. Having given the sign for silence, St. Peter related all that had happened to him. They gave thanks to Divine Providence when he had ended, & learned to trust in future to the heavenly power & mercy.

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The year is 1100. The date is August 2nd. The monks in the abbey at Gloucester are celebrating the holy-day of St. Peter in Chains. One of the monks wakes from a strange dream in which God promises to strike down the wicked King who has abused the Holy Church. His superior, Abbot Serlo, on hearing of the dream sends a warning to the King, William the Red, who has oppressed all of England with taxes & disgusted many with his licentiousness & blasphemy. Red, as he is called, receives the message the following day while preparing to indulge in one of his favorite sports, hunting, in the New Forest.

Although there are no longer any people dwelling in the New Forest — they were all cleared out by Red’s father, William the Conqueror — there are rumors that it’s a hotbed of pagan activity. And August 2 is an important pagan holy-day. The Saxons call it Lammas, the Loaf-Mass. William the Red laughs at the warning from the monks & goes out hunting. A short time later, he is dead, struck in the chest by a stray arrow, & his brother, Henry, who was in the hunting party is riding hot-foot for Winchester & the crown.

James E. Doyle. 1864. Color lithograph.

Now some people say that William the Red was a Lammas sacrifice, that having made a wasteland of his kingdom, he was killed by the people (or the Gods) as a sacrifice to bring new life to the land. And some people say his brother Henry had him assassinated. And some people say that both versions are true.

This story comes to my mind when I think of Lammas because this tale of sacrifice & hunting, a dying King & a wasted land, embodies many of the dominant themes of Lammas, one of the four seasonal quarter-days, & perhaps the least well-known.

The Celts celebrate this festival from sunset August 1 until sunset on the actual cross quarter day which this year falls on August 7th 2018. They call it Lughnasad after the God Lugh. It is the wake of Lugh, the Sun-King, whose light begins to dwindle after the summer solstice.

The Saxon holiday of Lammas celebrates the harvesting of the grain. The first sheaf of wheat is ceremonially reaped, threshed, milled & baked into a loaf. The grain dies so that the people might live. Grain has always been associated with Gods who are killed & dismembered & then resurrected from the Underworld by the Goddess-Gods like Tammuz, Osiris & Adonis. Eating this bread, the bread of the Gods, gives us life. If all this sounds vaguely Christian, it is. In the sacrament of Communion, bread is blessed, becomes the body of Christ & is eaten to nourish the evolution of the faithful. And All are Welcome at the Table.

Shellie Whither

In Christo Morimur

xox  ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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How To Know, Confront, and Work with Evil

A Weekend Workshop with Rev. Bastiaan Baan

At the Christian Community, 2135 W. Wilson Chicago, Il. 60625

Saturday 4 August 2018, 10 am – 8 pm

Sunday 5 August 2018, 11:45am – 5 pm

Fee is a Sliding Scale $25 – $100

Please Rsvp to Rev.  Ann Burfeind 

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by Grace Kahn

20 August 2018 ~MORAL MONDAY~ CHICAGO 7 pm – 9 pm 

“When The Trees Melt Away In A Sun Soaked Cotton Dream”

A going going gone Party for the CWS Class of 2018 –

an PDF Art Exhibit PDF with PDF Musical Performances from the Youth at Elderberries Chicago 4251 N. Lincoln Ave.

Illustrations by Grace Kahn, Work by Shanti Rogers, Art booth by Liz Rosu-Rosenberg

Songs from “Beyond Blue and Red” by  Ultra-Violet Archer 

Chance Schneider & DJ Grapefruit Effect

$10 Donation –MORE or less (Youth under 21 FREE)

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How We Will: Organizing a Bare Bones PDF Threefold Cultural Revolution

 30 Aug. 2018 at 12 PM to 3 Sep. 2018 at 2 PM

 Registration is now openfor How We Will 2018 –

The ever growing list of Contributors: Plus new additions being added everyday

Hosted by The Elderberries 3Fold Cafe Chicago & Urban First Aid – Art As Medicine 4251 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago, IL 60618-2953

A central theme which we will explore at the forum will be the theory and practice of Social Three-folding, developed by Rudolf Steiner. Organizing for systemic change – a separation of powers into three different spheres of action fostering:

In the Economics Realm –a moral imagination of Kinship

In Rights/Governance – Equality

In Culture/Education/Spirituality – Freedom 

Through lectures, capacity building workshops, and collaborative design, we will develop ourselves as change agents with Three-folding activists from around the world. What new tools, skills, levels of listening, mindfulness, forms of capital and alternative currencies, and generative ideas can we gain in order to truly develop our cultural voice and potential to connect and heal our relationships, communities, nations, and the earth?

Come to the How We Will Forum to learn, listen deeply, and dig in with other communities that we might grow together, unified by a common vision of creating a more equitable world.

CHICAGO FRIENDS – WE NEED HOUSING!

We will also be building out the cafe space two weeks before and two weeks after for those who can come early &/or stay and help get this Elderberries 3Fold Cafe Chicago up and running!

In honor of this forum  Steiner Books is offering a 25% discount on all Social Responsibility titles until 7/31/2018 with the code: SR0718.

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Behead the Loaf & Eat

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

1 August 2018 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Southern Delta Aquariid meteor, is infusing us with cosmic iron, but the waning Moon remains in the sky all night, cutting the visibility. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye out for some “shooting stars” radiating from a point in the constellation Aquarius the Water-bearer.

Mars came closest to Earth yesterday just 5 days past the opposition with the Sun.

Venus dominates the western sky after sunset. The dazzling goddess of Love shines among the background stars of western Virgo. She appears an hour after sundown & sets just after 10 pm.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“An ethical misunderstanding, a clash, is impossible among ethically free human beings. Only someone who is ethically unfree, who obeys natural drives or the conventional demands of duty, will thrust aside someone who does not follow the same instincts and the same demands. To live in love of action, and to let live in understanding of the other’s will, is the fundamental maxim of free human beings.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity

The Harvest fest of Lammas or Lughnasadh begins today until August 7th when we hit the Crossquarter between Summer Solstice & Fall Equinox (see article below)

Feast Day of Joseph of Arimathea – according to all four Gospels, the man who assumed responsibility for the burial of Jesus after the crucifixion. A number of stories that developed during the Middle Ages connect him with both Glastonbury, where he is supposed to have founded the earliest Christian oratory, & also with the Grail legend.

“One must penetrate to an understanding of the Mystery of the Bread, which is said to have been broken by Christ Jesus in the same chalice in which Joseph of Arimathea caught His blood. As legend tells it, this chalice was then removed to Europe, but was preserved by angels in a region high above the surface of the earth until the arrival of Titurel who created for this Grail, this sacred chalice, a temple on Mont Salvat”  ~Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, April 16, 1921

30 BC – Augustus Octavian enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman Republic

30 BC – Deathday of Mark Antony, Roman general & politician

1464 – Deathday of Cosimo de’ Medici, Italian ruler

1469 – Louis XI of France founds the chivalric order called the Order of Saint Michael in Amboise

1714 – Deathday of Queen Anne of Great Britain

1819 – Birthday of Herman Melville, American novelist, short story writer, & poet

1842 – The Lombard Street riot erupts in Philadelphia. A parade was held by over 1,000 members of the black Young Men’s Vigilant Association on Philadelphia’s Lombard Street between 5th & 8th streets in commemoration of the 8th anniversary of the end of slavery in the British West Indies.  As the paraders neared Mother Bethel Church, they were attacked by an Irish Catholic mob. The rioters moved west, setting fires & attacking firefighters & police as they went, heading for the home of African-American leader Robert Purvis. Purvis & his home were reportedly saved from the Irish mob solely by a Catholic priest’s intervention. Requests to the mayor & police for protection initially led to the arrest of several of the victims & none of the rioters. Over three days of attacks, the 2nd African American Presbyterian Church, the abolitionist Smith’s Hall, & numerous homes & public buildings were looted, burned & mostly destroyed. The mayor had credible evidence of a plan to burn several local churches, which he ignored. Eventually, as the rioting began to subside, the local militia was brought in to restore order.

1936 – The Olympics opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler

1971 – The Concert for Bangladesh, organized by former Beatle George Harrison, is held at Madison Square Garden in New York City

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(Lammas/ Lughnassad poem – Aug. 1st )

CORN RIGS & WHEELS

CICADAS TRANCE
IN THETA WAVES OF SOUND

THE SICKLES REAP IN BORDERTIME
OPENING THE GATEWAY TO THE WEST

DRAGONS FLY
INTO THE MOUTH
OF THE HOLLOWMAN –
HIS EYES BLAZE
AS HE GLIMPSES HER WAITING WOMB
ALL RIPE & HOT – HER PHOENIX TOMB
A FIERCE ALCHEMICAL FURANCE –
BAKED IN THE LION FIRE
OF TETRAMORPH ANGELS
JOHN BARLEYCORN MUST DIE
GRIND THE GRAIN
TO MAKE THE BREAD & BEER

MOULDED CHRYSOKOLLA –
THE KNEADED WICKERMAN
FULFILLS THE SACRIFICE
& SITS UPON HER ALTAR –
NEXT TO BRAIDED CORN DOLLIES
& MOIST CAKE

AT THE TOP OF THE HILL –
THE SUN
COVERED WITH PITCH & TAR
& TIED TO THE SPIKED WHEEL OF CATHERINE…
IS SET AFLAME –
THE BLAZING DISK ROLLS IN IMMOLATION
TO IT’S DECLINE

BURN THE OLD STRAW EFFIGY
AT THE FUNERAL GAMES
TO BLESS THE FIRST GRAINS

WATCH SOTHIS RISE –
MORNING FIRST SCORCHER
CELESTIAL JACKAL
HERALD OF THE NEW YEAR –

FLOOD THE FIELDS
WITH YOUR SCINTILLATING SERUM

& WE MEET ONCE AGAIN
ONCE AGAIN, ONCE AGAIN
IN A YEAR & A DAY
TO BEHEAD THE LOAF
& EAT…

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

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“Bringing in the Sheaves” – Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness, sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve: Now begins the harvest and the time of reaping, we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves. Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, we shall come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves…”

The Wheel turns from St. John’s Tide with its message of the inner Christ Sun and the mirroring of the Holy nights, to Lammas, or Loaf mas, a cross quarter festival traditionally celebrated at the beginning of August, marks the point when we leave the Garden, and earn our own way, “by the sweat of our brow”.

The harvest of grain, and the baking of bread, represents the first child of the cosmic union of Sun and Earth. It symbolizes the essence of humanity, born from this union, for the loaf is more than a gift of nature, it is made by the combined forces of nature with the will forces of human activity.

The harvest season is a time of judgment. We are called upon to sift through the things that have grown up during the past half-year, and decide what we will keep and what we will cut away. We must make choices, and act on them. The cycle of life turns past the peak of growth, into the time of release.

In astrology, the moon, five eighths past the new moon, is called the “disseminating moon”. During this phase, what has built up in the waxing cycle begins to be released into the environment. We start to see the results of our work. At Lammas, the sun is five-eighths of the way around the Wheel from Winter Solstice. Growth has reached its peak, and the life of the Sun God has begun to bleed off into the fruit and grain.

The King is Dead Long Live the King – for now is also the time of sacrifice, of death in service of life. Some of the first fruits are ready for harvest, but some, too unripe to be eaten, must be plucked anyway. These are culls, removed so they won’t drain the life force from the good fruit. If everything was left on the tree, the life force would be diluted, or worse, the bad fruit could weigh down a branch until it breaks, destroying the entire crop, or sometimes killing the tree. The culls are taken so the rest of the fruit, and those who depend on the crop for survival, might live.

John Barleycorn must die… ‘Cut in half and buried, then beaten with sticks, and finally crushed between stones’… as the song goes, nevertheless rises once again. Bread is the perfect sacrifice for “Loaf Mass” or Lughnassadh as the Celtics called it, for they knew that this festival is more than just the first fruits of the earth — it also involves the first fruits of human labor. Grain is processed by human craft, and joined with the four elements to make the staff of life.

What is this day?
It is the day of Lammas.
What is the meaning of this day?
It is the mystery of the corn
What is the mystery of the corn?
That which is cut down will rise again.
Who will rise again?
We will rise again.
Who will rise again?
We will rise again.
Who will rise again?
We will rise again.

So bake a loaf of bread on Lammas. If you’ve never made bread before, this is a good time to start. Honor the source of the flour as you work with it: remember it was once a plant growing on mother Earth. If you have a garden, add something you’ve harvested–herbs or onion or veggies. If you don’t feel up to making wheat bread, make corn bread, or gingerbread people, or popcorn. What’s most important is intention. All that is necessary to enter sacred time is an awareness of the meaning of your actions.

Saying Grace with you ~hag

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How We Will We want you in the room!

We need your voice and your experiences as we shepherd in the Threefold Commonwealth at Elderberries Threefold Chicago!

Please join us as a diverse group of community-change-makers, bringing in new forms of: Culture, Economics and the Rights realm, share what it takes to move from ideas to ideals to action.

Rudolf Steiner spoke very clearly at the end of WWI, about what would take place if the entanglement of the economic and political leaders of the day were to continue unabated to the detriment of civil society: a great civil unrest and a humanity at the grave of civilization. He was also very clear that at the beginning of the 21st century a new impulse would be needed for the future of earth evolution and humanity. We are that new impulse.

Through Tilling the Soil of Our Souls, where the essence of Freedom, Liberty and Fraternity/Kinship, can take root, the essence required for this societal shift and structural change, we will work towards a culture of selflessness throughout the weekend so that a new America can truly come into being. We ourselves will have to be the image of this new humanity striving towards and embodying, as best we can, a Beloved Community.

Presentations, Strategizing, Biography Work, Story-telling, Art Practices, and Threefold breakout groups, will allow us to have a creative dialogue throughout the weekend. John Bloom, Nathaniel Williams, Leah Walker, Kiara Nagel, Elizabeth Roosevelt Weeks, Johannes Kronenberg, Seth Jordan, Kait Ziegler, Destiny Nolen, Dottie Zold and Frank Agrama, will help us tease apart where these three realms and their principles rightfully stand, building moral imaginations for a more conscious community.

Theory U will be the bare bones of our organizing which brings about a safe space for deep listening, suspending our judgments, fears and cynicisms. It is crucial to come to understand the structural principle of the Threefold Commonwealth concept and even more so that we find a way to our humanness in the places we disagree. Through ‘making room for the other’ and ‘allowing the other to be free’ we will find those co-creative ideas waiting to be lifted up for a healthy eco-system begging in our time to be born.

Panel discussions will take place: ‘Against All Odds: Standing for the Future’ – Fred Janney of Anthroposophical Prison Outreach, Dr. Molly McMullen-Laird of Rudolf Steiner Health Center in Michigan, Dr. David Gershan, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg of the Elderberries Grailroad initiative, Joan Jaeckal of the Shade Tree Community School in Watts, and Dana Erickson, Mylene Carberry, on the Front Lines.

Robbie Solway will co-lead a conversation on Youth led questions concerning ‘brother what ails thee?’ These panel discussions will also open out further for friends to share their own initiatives and experiences.

Elderberries Threefold Chicago and The Rudolf Steiner Chicago Branch will host the weekend. Our friends Carolyn Arnett, Gordon Edwards and Ann Burfeind will deepen our understanding of the history of Anthroposophy in Chicago, the people and the biography of the City by the lake.

Brian Gray, of Rudolf Steiner College, will join us as we dedicate Elderberries 3Fold Chicago Café to Willi Sucher and his work with the starry worlds.

We want you in the room! Who do you want in the room? Who is missing? Feel free to share with anyone who might find this Forum worth considering. 

#HowWeWill2018Chicago
#ThreefoldingOurCulturalRevolution