Category Archives: Speaking with the Stars

Raphael is Coming

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

14 February 2017 – Astro-Weather: In what seems a fitting tribute, the planet named after the Roman goddess of love shines brilliantly in the evening sky on Valentine’s Day. Venus gleams in the west-southwest within a half-hour after sunset. It grows even more prominent as darkness settles over the landscape. The planet lies among the background stars of Pisces the Fishes.

The Moon rises around 10 pm, with Jupiter following up below it 40 minutes later. Then only 10 or 15 minutes later, fainter Spica follows Jupiter (look to Jupiter’s lower right). By dawn on the 15th the trio has moved over to the high southwest, as shown above.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast Day of St. Valentinus – English 18th-century antiquarians Alban Butler & Francis Douce, noting the obscurity of Saint Valentine’s identity, suggested that Valentine’s Day was created as an attempt to supersede the pagan holiday of Lupercalia. Many of the current legends that characterize Saint Valentine were invented in the fourteenth century in England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer & his circle, when the feast day of February 14 first became associated with romantic love. During the Middle Ages, it was believed that birds paired in mid-February. This was then associated with the romance of Valentine. (see more in the essay below)

Loose Company by Leon Battista Alberti

1404 – Birthday of Leon Battista Alberti an Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher & cryptographer; he epitomised the Renaissance Man

1502 – Spanish Inquisition: The Catholic Monarchs issue a decree forcing Muslims in Granada to convert to Catholicism or leave Spain

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray

1920 – The League of Women Voters is founded in Chicago

1945 – World War II: On the first day of the bombing of Dresden, the British Royal Air Force & the United States Army Air Forces begin fire-bombing Dresden.

1945 – World War II: Navigational error leads to the mistaken bombing of Prague, Czechoslovakia by an American squadron of B-17s

1989 – Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster

1990 – 192 people are killed when Indian Airlines Flight 605 crashes in Bangalore, India

1998 – An oil tanker train collides with a freight train in Yaoundé, Cameroon, spilling fuel oil. One person scavenging the oil created a massive explosion which kills 120

2005 – YouTube is launched by a group of college students

2008 – Northern Illinois University shooting: A gunman opened fire in a lecture hall of the DeKalb County, Illinois university resulting in 16 fatalities (including gunman) & 21 injuries.

2011 – As a part of Arab Spring, the Bahraini uprising begins with a ‘Day of Rage’

2017 – Prayers for a life well lived on this Deathday of our beloved Richard Dancey – Christian Community Priest. This morning at 6:30 am I got a call from Carol Kelly with the shocking news that Richard had passed away at 4:30AM. He had just come down with the flu two days ago, and Margaret lamented that when he gets the flu he usually gets really sick. Early this morning he was having trouble breathing and was experiencing pain in his shoulders/lungs/chest. Margaret called 911 but by the time they arrived he had already passed and they were not able to revive him. They did not take him in to the hospital, and they were able to avoid his receiving an autopsy.

Richard will be laid up at the house on Colesville Road in Silver Spring for the coming days and I can let you know the time and place of the funeral when that is arranged. It will not be able to be in the chapel for space reasons.

Please talk with one another to make sure people have heard the news. I will also call those who do not have email. Please call me with any other questions and I will send out funeral information when I hear.

We had a scheduled talk on Wednesday night in Chicago. Please come to the church at 6:30 that we can be together to share and remember this earthly life of Richard and help him to begin his tremendous new journey.

With love to you all, Rev. Ann Burfiend

‘May my heart-love reach to soul-love.
May my love’s warmth shine to spirit-light.
Thus, I draw near to you.
Thinking spiritual thoughts WITH you,
Feeling cosmic love IN you,
Willing in spirit THROUGH you –
Weaving with you
One in experience’.

~Rudolf Steiner

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 POD (Poem Of the Day)

~The sigh encircles my spine
As the snakes entwine the caduceus
Releasing I open to their healing
My heart a hidden fire
Burns a hole in the mountain
For I Know
With mercy in his wings
Raphael is coming
~hag

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The Truth about Valentines’ Day
~According to hag

Have you ever wondered where this hearts & flowers frivolity came from? Well it wasn’t always about chocolates & sappy hallmark cards. Let’s look back to the origins of this Holiday & set the record straight. For one thing, Valentinus was a very common Roman name meaning strong, effective fertility. Please excuse me if I must commit a little history here, but basically the church fathers were trying to replace a very potent ancient Roman festival called Lupercalia with a Christian martyr named Valentinus, to usurp the power of this rite of great antiquity. Now don’t get me wrong, frivolity has its place, & so it was in the festival of Lupercalia, a ritual of purification & fertility, sacred to the Wolf-Goddess Rumina. Maybe you’ve heard of Her, the She-Wolf & founder of Rome?!? The festival of Lupercalia was celebrated on the ides of February (the 15th)…& February comes from the Latin word ‘februare’…meaning tool of purification.

The rite began in the cave of the She-Wolf, where legend has it, the founders of the city, Romulus & Remus, were suckled by the Wolf-Goddess. As fate would have it a sacred fig tree (symbol of the feminine sex) grew outside the cave & vestals would come, with cakes made from the corn of last year’s grain harvest, laying them beneath the fig tree as offerings.

Meanwhile Rumina’s priests would preside over the sacrifice of a goat. Now this was a pretty big deal since it was the only time of year a goat was used as a sacrifice. It was an offering given to the guardian angels associated with the crops, & the ancestral guardians, as well as the guardians of the city & community. The priests would mark their foreheads with its blood, which was then ritualistically wiped clean with a ‘Februare’ or tool of purification, which was, in this case, wool, dipped in the milk of the goat. The priests would then dress themselves in the skin of the sacrificial animal, & using strips of the hide they would fashion a scourge, another tool of purification. They would then jog around in their little loincloths, running up & down Rome’s seven hills, wielding their strips of hide, ‘purifying’ anything & anybody in their path.

Women seeking pregnancy & easy childbirth lined the streets, extending hands, or baring their bodies, to afford a better target, to be briefly & symbolically ‘purified’ as they passed by. Fertility, of course, is worthless without sex, so as time passed, sex became the festival’s primary focus for the average Roman citizen, & the occasion took on a character much like carnival.

When the church tried to ban it, the people needless to say, stubbornly resisted. Hence the substitute of St. Valentine’s Day emerged, with its more innocent version of love.

And let’s face it folks, the real Cupid was not the cute little cherub he is today, but rather, a very randy Roman God responsible for a more tangible fertility.

So all the frivolous frivolity aside, let’s take ourselves back to the days when the Wolf Goddess, Rumina, was at the heart, of this time of celebration, as we purify & purge all of our afflictions & ills before we begin to plant the new seeds of creativity. For by the ancient calendars, winter is ended by the ides of February, & Spring, a season of new beginnings, has arrived.

So on Valentine’s Day, let’s remember the potent powers of the Wolf, asking Her to spare the herds, taking only what She must, to keep us free & fertile & abundant, like the crops – as fruitful, & as wild as we want to be.

Peace & Blessed Bee…

~ Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Question Everything

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

11 February 2017 – Astro-Weather: La Bella Luna shines below Regulus & the Sickle of Leo after dark. Saturn rises 3 hours before the Sun & climbs high in the southeast by the time morning twilight begins. The ringed planet shines among the much fainter background stars of Ophiuchus the Serpent-bearer.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast Day of Saint Blaise. From being a healer of bodily ailments, he became a physician of souls, then retired for a time to a cavern where he remained in prayer. As bishop of Sebastea, Blaise instructed his people as much by his example & words, as by his many miracles. From all parts, the people came flocking to him for the cure of bodily & spiritual ills.  He is said to have healed animals (who came to the saint on their own for his assistance) & to have been assisted by animals.

The governor was jealous, Blaise was arrested. When he was led away, the story goes, they met a poor woman whose pig had been seized by a wolf. At the command of Blaise, the wolf restored the pig to its owner, alive & unhurt. When he had reached the capital & was in prison awaiting execution, the old woman whose pig he had saved came to see him, bringing two fine wax candles to dispel the gloom of his dark cell.

In 316, Agricola, the governor of Cappadocia sent to kill the Christians, arrested the bishop Blaise. As he was being led to jail, a mother set her only son, choking on a fish-bone, at his feet, & the child was cured straight away. Regardless, the governor, unable to make Blaise renounce his faith, beat him with a stick, ripped his flesh with iron combs, & beheaded him. Consequently, Saint Blaise is invoked for protection against injuries & illnesses of the throat.

In many places on the day of his feast the blessing of St. Blaise is given: 2 burning candles, blessed on the feast of the Presentation of the Lord (“Candlemas”), are held in a crossed position by a priest over the heads of the faithful or the people are touched on the throat with them. At the same time the following blessing is given: “May Almighty God at the intercession of St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr, preserve you from infections of the throat and from all other afflictions“. Then the priest makes the sign of the cross over the faithful.

Blaise is considered one of the ‘Fourteen Holy Helpers’. His cult became widespread in Europe in the 11th & 12th centuries & his legend is recounted in the 14th-century Legenda Aurea. Saint Blaise is the saint of the wild beast.

In iconography, Blaise is represented holding two crossed candles in his hand (the Blessing of St. Blaise), or in a cave surrounded by wild beasts, as he was found by the hunters of the governor. He is often shown with the instruments of his martyrdom, steel combs. The similarity of these instruments of torture to wool combs led to his adoption as the patron saint of wool combers in particular, & the wool trade in general

Joy McAllen

Feast Day of St. Gobnait, Irish patron Saint of BeeKeepers. She was born in County Clare in the 5th or 6th Century, & is said to have been the sister of Saint Abban. She fled a family feud, taking refuge in the Aran Islands. Here an angel appeared & told her that this was “not the place of her resurrection” & that she should look for a place where she would find nine white deer grazing. She found the deer at the place now known as St. Gobnet’s Wood.

Celtic lore held bees in high esteem, believing the soul left the body as a bee or a butterfly. Gobnait is said to have added beekeeping to her life’s work, developing a lifelong affinity with them. She started a religious order & dedicated her days to helping the sick. She used honey as a healing aid. She is credited with saving the people at Ballyvourney from the plague.

One story tells of how she drove off a brigand by sending a swarm of bees after him and making him restore the cattle he had stolen.

St Gobnait’s well is situated to the North of Ballyagran. It is said that a white stag can sometimes be seen at the well

660 BC – Foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu

AD 55 – Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus, heir to the Roman emperorship, dies under mysterious circumstances in Rome. This clears the way for Nero to become Emperor

1534 – Henry VIII of England is recognized as supreme head of the Church of England

1650 – Deathday of René Descartes, French mathematician & philosopher

1790 – The Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitions U.S. Congress for the abolition of slavery

1847 – Birthday of Thomas Edison, American engineer and businessman, developed the light bulb & phonograph

1858 – The Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. Bernadette Soubirous’s first vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes, France. ‘I Am the Immaculate Conception‘. We celebrate her message of peace, & healing. 14-year-old peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, was gathering firewood in the countryside when a beautiful woman, standing on a rock in a natural grotto, appeared to her. This began a series of 18 apparitions in which Bernadette spoke & prayed with the woman. On one visit, the mysterious woman instructed Bernadette to dig into the dry ground & drink from the spring that flowed there. Although no spring was visible, Bernatdette scratched at the ground & a spring began to bubble up. To this day, the waters continue to flow, which have a miraculous healing property. Lourdes is well-known for the many miracles of healing that have taken place there over the years

1861 – American Civil War: The United States House of Representatives unanimously passes a resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state

1937 – A sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers

1971 – Eighty-seven countries, including the United States, United Kingdom,& Soviet Union, sign the Seabed Arms Control Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons on the ocean floor in international waters

1978 – Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare & Charles Dickens

1979 – The Iranian Revolution establishes an Islamic theocracy under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

1981 – Around 100,000 US gallons of radioactive coolant leak into the containment building of TVA Sequoyah 1 nuclear plant in Tennessee, contaminating 108 workers

1990 – Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa after 27 years as a political prisoner

2011 – The first wave of the Egyptian revolution culminates in the resignation of Hosni Mubarak & the transfer of power to the Supreme Military Council after 18 days of protests

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Aurora Weaver

~Hail breath of Wisdom
Humming forth from
The throat of my beloved…
You thrill me
Like a seed bell calling spring…
~hag

***

“There are no right answers to wrong questions,” says science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin. All our efforts to hunt down solutions will be for naught unless we frame our teething troubles elegantly & accurately. And that’s why we must be conscientious about coming up with the very best questions.

And as I like to say:
The Question is Love
& Love is the Answer!

But it’s also important to remember this advice from filmmaker John Cassavetes: “All my best ideas come from having no answer, from not knowing.” I hope that testimony cheers you up, my friend. Because, as hard as it may be to imagine, we are on the verge of a breakthrough as we sit in the discomfort of unknowing. As we surf the chaotic flow & monitor the confusing hubbub, we are brewing the perfect conditions for an outburst of creativity. So rejoice in the blessing of not knowing!

Yet at the same time, we have a mandate to create our life story as a primordially eternal work of art – So head in the direction of quests that clear your mind of clutter & mobilize your gutsy brilliance, putting your trust in dreams that inspire & deftly sweep aside distracting worries.

See you there

~ Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Current Festival & Program Events

 

good sore

Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Speaking with the Stars

6 February 2017 – Astro-Weather: Venus appears brilliant in the early evening sky starting a half-hour after sunset. The Goddess of Love will remain the evening sky’s brightest point of light through late March, 10 times brighter than the second-brightest object, Jupiter. Venus lies among the background stars of Pisces the Fishes, slightly east of that constellation’s Circlet asterism.

David Borden

The sky’s biggest asterism (informal star pattern) is the Winter Hexagon, & the Moon shines inside it tonight & tomorrow night. Start with brilliant Sirius at the Hexagon’s bottom. Going clockwise from there, march through Procyon, Pollux & Castor, Menkalinan & Capella high up, Aldebaran down to Capella’s lower right, down to Rigel in Orion’s foot, & back to Sirius. Betelgeuse sparkles inside the Hexagon, south of the Moon this evening.

The Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, at 10:02 am CST – 229,172 miles away from us

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

628 – Feast day of Amandus, the patron saint of all who produce beer: brewers, innkeepers & bartenders. He is also the patron of vine growers, vintners & of the Boy Scouts. He was of noble birth but at the age of twenty he became a monk against the wishes of his family. From there he went to became a pupil of bishop Austregisilus. There he lived in solitude in a cell for fifteen years, living on no more than bread & water.

After a pilgrimage to Rome, he was made a missionary bishop in France, he evangelized the pagan inhabitants of Ghent, later extending his field of operations to all of Flanders. Initially he had little success, suffering persecution & undergoing great hardships. However, after performing a miracle (bringing back to life a hanged criminal) the attitude of the people changed & he made many converts. He founded a monastery at Elnon where he served as abbot of for four years. Amandus was made a bishop in 628.

Returning to France in 630, he angered Dagobert I by attempting to have the king amend his life. In spite of the intervention of Saint Acarius, Amand was expelled from the kingdom. Later Dagobert asked him to return & tutor the heir to the throne. Amand however declined. In 633, Amandus founded two monasteries in Ghent; one at Blandinberg, & the other named for St. Bavo. His next missionary task was among the Slavic people of the Danube valley in present-day Slovakia but this was unsuccessful. Amand went to Rome & reported to the Pope. While returning to France, he is said to have calmed a storm at sea. In 639, he built an abbey near Tournay

1347 – Birthday of Dorothea of Montau, the guardian of the country of the Teutonic Knights & patron saint of Prussia. Born to a wealthy farmer from Holland, she was married at the age of 16 to the swordsmith Adalbrecht of Danzig (Gdańsk), an ill-tempered man in his 40s. Almost immediately after marrying she began to experience visions. Her husband had little patience with her spiritual experiences & abused her. Later, both made pilgrimages to Cologne, Aachen, & Einsiedeln. While Dorothea, with her husband’s permission, was on pilgrimage to Rome, he died in 1389. Of their nine children eight died. The surviving daughter, Gertrud, joined the Benedictines.

In the summer of 1391 Dorothea moved to Marienwerder (Kwidzyn), & with the blessing of the Teutonic Order, established a hermit’s cell against the wall of the cathedral. She never left that cell for the rest of her life.

Dorothea led a very austere life. Numerous visitors sought her advice & consolation, & she had visions & revelations

1465 – Birthday of Scipione del Ferro, Italian mathematician & theorist

1582 –Birthday of Mario Bettinus, Italian mathematician, astronomer, & philosopher

1612 – Birthday of  Antoine Arnauld, French mathematician, theologian, & philosopher

1695 – Birthday of  Nicolaus II Bernoulli, Swiss-Russian mathematician & theorist

1778 – American Revolutionary War: In Paris the Treaty of Alliance & the Treaty of Amity are signed by the United States & France signaling official recognition of the new republic

1748 – Birthday of Adam Weishaupt, German philosopher & founder of the Illuminati. After Pope Clement XIV’s suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, Weishaupt became a professor of canon law, a position that was held exclusively by the Jesuits until that time. In 1775 Weishaupt was introduced to the empirical philosophy of Johann Georg Heinrich Fede. Both Feder &Weishaupt would later become opponents of Kantian idealism.

“At a time, however, when there was no end of making game of and abusing secret societies, I planned to make use of this human foible for a real and worthy goal, for the benefit of people. I wished to do what the heads of the ecclesiastical and secular authorities ought to have done by virtue of their offices…” ~ Adam Weishaupt

On 1 May 1776 Weishaupt founded the “Illuminati” in the Electorate of Bavaria. He adopted the name of “Brother Spartacus” within the order. The character of the society was an elaborate network of spies & counter-spies. Each isolated cell of initiates reported to a superior, whom they did not know: a party structure that was effectively adopted by some later groups.

Weishaupt was initiated into the Masonic Lodge “Theodor zum guten Rath“, at Munich in 1777. His project of “illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason, which will dispel the clouds of superstition and of prejudice” was an unwelcome reform. He used Freemasonry to recruit for his own quasi-masonic society, with the goal of “perfecting human nature” through re-education to achieve a communal state with nature, freed of government & organized religion. Presenting their own system as pure masonry, Weishaupt & Adolph Freiherr Knigge, who organized his ritual structure, greatly expanded the secret organization.

Weishaupt’s character & intentions have been variously assessed: from those such as the Abbé Barruel & John Robison who regarded him as a ‘human devil’ & saw his mission as one of malevolent destructiveness, to those who view him as a humane & benign, albeit willful, social reformer. Writing on this topic, Dr. Tony Page comments: “Weishaupt’s plan was to educate Illuminati followers in the highest levels of humanity and morality (basing his teachings on the supremacy of Reason, allied with the spirit of the Golden Rule of not doing to others what one would not wish done to oneself), so that if Illuminati alumni subsequently attained positions of significance and power (such as in the fields of education and politics), they could exert a benevolent and uplifting influence upon society at large. His project was utopian and naively optimistic, and he himself was certainly not without flaws of character – but neither he nor his plan was evil or violent in and of themselves. It is one of the deplorable and tragic ironies of history that a man who tried to inculcate virtue, philanthropy, social justice and morality has become one of the great hate-figures of 21st-century ‘conspiracy’ thinking.”

After Weishaupt was exiled, he received the assistance of Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg & lived in Gotha writing a series of works on illuminism, including A Complete History of the Persecutions of the Illuminati in Bavaria (1785), A Picture of Illuminism (1786), An Apology for the Illuminati (1786), & An Improved System of Illuminism (1787).

After Weishaupt’s Order of Illuminati was banned & its members dispersed, it left behind no enduring traces of an influence, not even on its own former members, who went on in the future to develop in quite different directions.

1820 – The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society depart New York to start a settlement in present-day Liberia

1895 – Birthday of Babe Ruth

1918 – British women over the age of 30 get the right to vote

1951 – The Broker, a Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train derails near Woodbridge Township, New Jersey. The accident kills 185 people & injures over 500 more. The wreck is one of the worst rail disasters in American history

1952 – Elizabeth II becomes queen regnant of the United Kingdom & the other Commonwealth realms upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a tree house at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya

1959 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit

1959 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished

1976 – In testimony before a United States Senate subcommittee, Lockheed Corporation president Carl Kotchian admits that the company had paid out approximately $3 million in bribes to the office of Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka

1989 – The Round Table Talks start in Poland, thus marking the beginning of the overthrow of communism in Eastern Europe

1996 – Birgenair Flight 301 crashed off the coast of the Dominican Republic, & all 189 people inside the airplane are killed. This is the worst accident/incident involving a Boeing 757

2012 – A 6.9 magnitude earthquake hits near the central Philippines off the coast of Negros Island causing at least 151 deaths & injuring 112 others

2013 – A 8.0 magnitude earthquake hits the Solomon Islands killing 101 people & injuring 117 others

2016 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake hits southern Taiwan, killing at least 138 people & injuring over 530 more

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Catherine Molland

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Good sore
Like wiggling a loose tooth…
The shoveling & sledding
Loosening the whole of me
Thump blood mingling
With the elementals awakening…
~hag

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Helena Nelson Reed

Mysteries of the Celtic Goddess Brigid

Thursday February 9th 2017 -7 pm
at the Theosophical Society in America
1926 North Main Street
Wheaton, IL 60187

Invoking the Practical Alchemy of the Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid 
To Purify, Awaken, & Galvanize Your Head, Heart, and Hands

Brigid’s festival is the 1st of the cross-quarter days in the wheel of the year, a time of spiritual re-dedication and initiation. Brigid invites us to forge and shape ourselves, as the tools of our own destiny. Come Renew Yourself. Together we will thaw the winter & rouse the mysteries growing within…

Hazel Archer Ginsberg is a Spiritual Midwife, and Trans-denominational Minister, working in an eclectic style that inspires connections – initiating us into the magic, waiting to be revealed, in the cycle of the seasons. Festivals Coordinator of the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society. Lecturer, Promoter, Blogger, Poet & Performance Artist.  www.ReverseRitual.com.

$10 nonmembers   $5 members

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Current Festival & Program Events

 

 

 

 

Charm the plow, & kiss the candle

Celestial Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Remembering, Speaking with the Stars

2 February 2017 – Astro-Weather: Today is Groundhogs Day, where the fate of winter rests on the shoulders of a furry rodent, for those muggles who believe in a more modern folklore.  If he the sticks his head out of his burrow this morning & sees his shadow, we’ll have 6 more weeks of winter. But if the weather is cloudy, it means spring is right around the corner.

What does this have to do with astronomy? Groundhog Day celebrates one of the 4 cross-quarter days. February 2 is the traditionally celebrated date betwixt the winter solstice & the vernal equinox. (The actual cosmic alignment happens tomorrow when the Sun reaches 15 degrees Aquarius & is called by some, Candlemas, still others Brigid’s Day or Imbolc – the lambing season – the time of year when the belly of the great mother quickens with the growing light*)

Right after dark this week, face east & look overhead. The bright star there is Capella, the Goat Star. To the right of it, by a couple of finger-widths at arm’s length, is a small, narrow triangle of stars known as “the Kids.” Although they’re not exactly eye-grabbing, they form a never-forgotten asterism with Capella.

Jupiter rises around 10 pm CST & climbs highest in the south about an hour before morning twilight commences. The benevolent god shines against the backdrop of Virgo, just north of that constellation’s brightest star, Spica.

This morning, viewers get a bonus because this giant appears to have a “black eye.” It is actually the dark shadow of Ganymede, the solar system’s largest moon, which crosses Jupiter’s north polar region from 1:51 to 4:25 am CST

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary The 40th day of the Christmas-Epiphany season, commemorating the presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Joseph & Mary brought the child into the Temple, & when Simeon & Anna the prophetess, saw Him, they knew the prophesy of ‘The Chosen One’ had been fulfilled.

We see the connection between the Buddha & Jesus of Nazareth in the stories of Asita & Simeon. When Asita, the great Indian sage, saw Siddhartha as a young child, before he had reached Buddhahood, he was able to recognize what the child would become. It was Asita’s heart’s desire to see the Buddha before he died, so he wept because he was an old man & would not live to see him become the Buddha. This wise seer was then reborn in the time of Jesus as Simeon introduced in Luke 2:29-30 as the temple priest who waits for the Messiah. He recognizes the Buddha in the Nathan Jesus, so he praises god & says now he can die happy, having fulfilled his heart’s desire.

Mariä Lichtmess – Candlemas, Christian Churches bless the candles to be used for the New Year.

Imbolc –  means ‘in the belly’ or ‘in the milk’ – ‘the lambing season’. Among the Celts, the pagan celebration of Imbolc honors the Triple Goddess Brigid, associated with purification & the fires of the forge, to call in the powers of the sun. Folks would carry torches & cross the fields in procession, praying to the goddess to purify the ground before planting. Crêpes are a tradtional food, with their round form &  golden color -reminiscent of the sun, an appropriate symbol during Imbolc, as this is the time of the year when the days get longer, & the roots begin to stir.

In churches, the torches were replaced by blessed candles whose glow was supposed to take away evil & symbolize that Christ is the light of the world. They would then take the candles to their homes to bring protection thruout the New Year. In 1372 this celebration became associated with the purification of Mary at the Temple (similar to the churching of women).

Lupercalia – The ancient Romans celebrated this festival in honor of Lupercus, & Feralia the god & goddess of fertility & shepherds. A theme of purification was also present. There was a custom of the Vestal Virgins offering cakes made with wheat from the old crop so that the following crop would be fruitful. (more on the above feasts to follow on another BLOG)

Feast of the Bear – From antiquity to the Middle Ages, bears were a cult symbol of the Germans, Scandinavians & the Celts. On this day they celebrated the end of hibernation. This was around the time when the bears would leave their dens to see if the weather was mild. For a long time, the Catholic Church sought to eradicate these pagan practices. To do this, it instituted the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple which is celebrated on February 2, which corresponds to the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary. However, the celebrations of the bear & the return of the  light continued, with bonfires & other torchlight processions. Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century instituted the feast of candles, or Candlemas. From the twelfth to the eighteenth century, Candlemas was called “chandelours” which means bear in French, in many areas (including the Alps, Pyrenees, Ardennes) where the memory of the cult of the bear was still very present. There is also the Aosta Saint-Ours, & Saint Blaise (which means “bear”). Candlemas is also the beginning of the carnival period; the bear is the carnival animal par excellence.

 Frederic Leighton

Feast of Persephone  – In addition, the Festa candelarum in Rome commemorated the search for the Spring Goddess Persephone, by her mother the Goddess of Life, Demeter, kidnapped by the King of the Other World Hades. This festival symbolizes the return of the Light. The myths of Sleeping Beauty or Theseus & Ariadne, for example, relate to the release or liberation of the light (Dawn of the year) by the “solar knight”.

 Gerbrand van den Eeckhout

Feast day of Cornelius a Roman centurion. He is depicted in the New Testament as a God-fearing man who always prayed & was full of good works.  Cornelius receives a vision in which an angel of God tells him that his prayers have been heard, he understands that he’s chosen for a higher alternative. The angel then instructs Cornelius to send the men of his household to Joppa, where they will find Simon Peter, who is residing with a tanner by the name of Simon (Acts 10:5ff).

The conversion of Cornelius comes after a separate vision given to Simon Peter (Acts 10:10–16) himself. In the vision, Simon Peter sees all manner of beasts & fowl being lowered from Heaven in a sheet. A voice commands Simon Peter to eat. When he objects to eating those animals that are unclean according to Mosaic Law, the voice tells him not to call unclean that which God has cleansed.

When Cornelius’ men arrive, Simon Peter understands that through this vision the Lord commanded the Apostle to preach the Word of God to the Gentiles. Peter accompanies Cornelius’ men back to Caesarea. When Cornelius meets Simon Peter, he falls at Peter’s feet. Simon Peter raises the centurion & the two men share their visions. Simon Peter tells of Jesus’ ministry & the Resurrection; the Holy Spirit descends on everyone at the gathering & they all begin speaking in tongues, praising God

1786 – Birthday of Jacques Philippe Marie Binet, a French mathematician, physicist & astronomer. Binet’s Formula expressing Fibonacci numbers in closed form is named in his honour.

Delphine Lebourgeois

1882 – Birthday of James Joyce, Irish novelist, short story writer, & poet

1971 – Idi Amin replaces President Milton Obote as leader of Uganda

1972 – The British embassy in Dublin is destroyed in protest at Bloody Sunday

1976 – The Groundhog Day gale hits the north-eastern United States & south-eastern Canada, killing 112

1987 – After the 1986 People Power Revolution, the Philippines enacts a new constitution

1990 – Apartheid: F. W. de Klerk announces the unbanning of the African National Congress & promises to release Nelson Mandela

2007 – The worst flooding in Indonesia in 300 years begins. Death toll 804

2012 – The ferry MV Rabaul Queen sinks off the coast of Papua New 300 dead

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Carol Buchman

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Let the crystals fall
To add form to the light
Thru the white I will see
The single star that calls to me
The gibbous moon falls away so that I may live
Free to stumble
Free to fly with my snow angel
Listening, waiting, willing
The sap to rise
~hag

***

Genny Rosen

A Glimpse into
Brigid, the Alchemical Triple Goddess
of the 4 fires & the purifying waters
which gives birth to healing.

 A long time ago, nigh the beginning, near the waters of a sacred well, at the first crack of pink in the young morning of the Cross-Quarter between Winter & Spring, at the very threshold – the goddess Brigid slipped into the world, & the waters of the world rippled with joy.

Up rose a column of fire – out of the head of the new goddess – that burned to the very sky. Brigid reached up & broke away a flaming plume from her crown & dropped it on the ground before her. There it leapt & shone, creating a new hearth.

Then from the fire of her hearth, Brigid used both hands to draw out a leaping tongue of heat, swallowed it, & felt the fire burn straight to her heart. There stood the goddess, fire crowning her head, fire leaping inside her heart, glowing & shooting from her hands, & dancing on the hearth before her.

The waters of the sacred well quickened as Brigid built a chimney of brick about her hearth. Then she formed a roof of thatch & walls of stone. And so it was that by the waters of the sacred well the goddess built the forge in which she keeps the 4 fires which have served the world evermore.

Out of the fire in Brigid’s hands baked the craft of bending iron. Out of the fire on Brigid’s hearth & the waters of her sacred well came the healing potions, teas, & tinctures. Out of the fire on Brigid’s head flared out writing & poetry. Out of the fire in Brigid’s heart spread the warmth of compassion.

Word of the gifts of Brigid’s fire traveled deep & wide. People flocked to learn from Brigid the secret of using fire to soften iron & bend it to the shape of their will. The people called it smithcraft, & made wheels, pots, & tools that did not break.

All the medicine plants of the earth were gathered & brought to the house of the goddess. With their leaves, flowers, bark, & roots, they offered themselves to the waters of her sacred well. Brigid made healing brews. She gave a boy with weak teeth an infusion of the dandelion root. She gave a young woman the decoction of raspberry leaf to help her womb carry a child. An old bent man, took from Brigid wintergreen bark for his ache & black cherry juice for the gout. She gave comfrey to a girl with a broken leg & blue cohosh to another to bring her moon-blood without pain. Brigid infused motherwort, licorice root, & dried parsley for a woman who was becoming a crone. “Cup a day,” said Brigid, “that you stay supple & strong.”

The people were healed & wanted Brigid’s recipes. “But we can’t remember which plants for which healings, where to gather them or how long to steep them,” they told Brigid.

The fire on Bridget’s head blazed bright. She took up a blackened stick & made marks with it on a flat piece of bark. “These are the talking marks,” She said. “They are the way to remember what you don’t want to forget.”

The talking marks also let the people write down the stories of her wisdom. Here is one that fits for us today:

Once 2 men, came to Brigid, both had a terrible case of leprosy.

“Bathe yourself in my well.” said Brigid to the 1st man. And so it was that at every place the healing waters touched, the man’s skin turned whole again.

“Now bathe your friend,” said Brigid.

Repulsed, the man backed away from his friend. “I won’t touch him,” he said.

“Then you are not truly healed,” said the goddess. With that truth revealed, the 1st man’s leprosy returned & the goddess herself bathed & healed the 2nd man.

“Return to me with compassion,” she said to the 1st man. “There find your healing.”

The folk hold the wisdom of the goddess close; & every year on Imbolc they thank Brigid for her well of wisdom & her fires of hand, hearth, head & heart.

Brigid is a Triple goddess holding the archetype of the Maiden, Mother & Crone. In her maiden aspect, she is said to charm new life into the cold heart of Winter, with her white birch wand, to help him open his eyes to the promise of Spring. Imbolc literally means ‘in the belly’ it is the lambing season after all, when the milk begins to flow.

Traditionally a time of purification — so clean your house! Brigid will thank you for it. If you have any Christmas greenery lingering, burn it now. And bathe with warm milk for health & beauty.

Leave a silk ribbon on your doorstep for Brigid to bless: It can then be used for healing purposes

Give an offering: cake, buttered bread & milk will do — outside your door: Brigid & her cow are said to walk through the neighborhood tonight. In the city it is proper to give food to the homeless.

Make your own Brigid Cross, a fiery sun-wheel & hang it up, especially in the kitchen where her influence can bless your food.

Meditate upon what you would like to see grow in health & strength this year: for yourself, your family, your community, the Earth, & ask for Bride’s blessing upon your prayers.

When my daughter was young, we would gather with other Waldorf families during this magical time to honor & explore the power of the Triple Goddess within us, through storytelling, crafting fiery Sun-Wheel’s around the fire, sharing a potluck meal, & making a scavenger hunt in the woods.

Now is the time of the stirring, when the sap begins to rise & the waters to flow. While frost still bites & winds still blow, the light is growing stronger, & life begins to wake. It is the time of year when the belly of the great mother quickens with the growing light, for this is the feast of Brigid – the midwife of the New year who births the sun. Through the union of fire & water, we can work the magic to bring in healing & call in the spring.

Thank you, Brigid, for the smith-craft of your forge, the soothing healing teas, the talking marks, & for the warmth of compassion. May we use it wisely to prepare for growth & renewal, performing the ancient rituals of spring cleaning, purifying & anointing the body electric, awakening the spirit within…A time of spiritual re-dedication, of self-blessing & initiation, of affirming & energizing creative work…A time of blessing the seeds & consecrating the garden tools…A time to purify & get fertile, so let’s charm the plow, & kiss the candle, to re-kindle, a need-fire, as a welcoming beacon, to call back, our dormant power, to heat up, our potential, & re-seed our creativity. As we add fuel to the fire of our community, one spark warms us all, a purifying fire, that burns clean & opens the way to the true power of love & light from deep within us all…

~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg 

Come join me in a ritual celebrating the Mysteries of the Celtic Goddess

Brigid by Helena Nelson Reed

Thursday February 9th 2017 -7 pm
at the Theosophical Society in America
1926 North Main Street
Wheaton, IL 60187

Invoking the Practical Alchemy of the Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid 
To Purify, Awaken, & Galvanize Your Head, Heart, and Hands

Brigid’s festival is the 1st of the cross-quarter days in the wheel of the year, a time of spiritual re-dedication and initiation. Brigid invites us to forge and shape ourselves, as the tools of our own destiny. Come Renew Yourself. Together we will thaw the winter & rouse the mysteries growing within…

Hazel Archer Ginsberg is a Spiritual Midwife, and Trans-denominational Minister, working in an eclectic style that inspires connections – initiating us into the magic, waiting to be revealed, in the cycle of the seasons. Festivals Coordinator of the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society. Lecturer, Promoter, Blogger, Poet & Performance Artist.  www.ReverseRitual.com.

$10 nonmembers   $5 members

Live Webcast

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Current Festival & Program Events

Vibrate the Word in love

Celestial Event, Festival, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Speaking with the Stars, The Bridging Project: Life & Death

27 February 2017 – Astro-Weather: New Moon, exact at 8:07 pm CST. At its New phase, the Moon crosses the sky with the Sun & so remains hidden in our star’s glare.

One of the biggest asterism in the heavens right now is the Winter Hexagon. It fills the sky toward the east & south after dinnertime. Start with brilliant Sirius at its bottom. Going clockwise from there, march through Procyon, Pollux & Castor, Menkalinan & Capella very high, Aldebaran over to Capella’s lower right, down to Rigel in Orion’s foot, & back to Sirius. Betelgeuse shines inside the Hexagon, off center.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Chinese Lunar New Year of the Red Fire Rooster*

1756 – Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in full Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. A prolific & influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard & violin, he composed from the age of 5 & performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless & traveled in search of a better position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security.

Mozart’s physical appearance described him as “a remarkably small man, very thin and pale, with a profusion of fine, fair hair of which he was rather vain, except for his large intense eyes, he gave no signs of his genius.” His facial complexion was pitted, a reminder of his childhood case of smallpox. He loved elegant clothing. Of his voice his wife later wrote that it “was a tenor, rather soft in speaking and delicate in singing, but when anything excited him, or it became necessary to exert it, it was both powerful and energetic”.

Mozart usually worked long & hard, finishing compositions at a tremendous pace as deadlines approached. He often made sketches & drafts; unlike Beethoven’s these are mostly not preserved, as his wife sought to destroy them after his death.

Mozart lived at the center of the Viennese musical world, & knew a great number & variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, & aristocrats, including some acquaintance with the Emperor Joseph II. He enjoyed billiards & dancing, & kept pets: a canary, a starling, a dog, & a horse for recreational riding. He had a startling fondness for scatological humor, which is preserved in his surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, & in his correspondence with his sister & parents. Mozart also wrote scatological music, a series of canons that he sang with his friends.

During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, & operas, & portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze & two sons. He composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, & choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, & his influence is profound on subsequent Western art music

***

Toppie Lou

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Beware the seduction of talk,
The many nonsense words,
Thorns & faded flowers
Speak instead the language of the Sun
The yawn & shudder of the newborn
Speak for the gods hidden in things that cry
Uncover their faces…
Thru your own light
Vibrate the Word in love
~hag

***

*Celebrations start tonight on the New Moon for the Chinese New Year, considered a “Spring Festival“, & goes for 15 days, ending with the Full Moon on the Lantern Festival, February 10-11th. This is based on the ancient Chinese calendar that existed when the Shang Dynasty was in power during the 14th Century B.C. The Chinese calendar is a complex timepiece; its parameters set according to the lunar phases as well as the solar solstices & equinoxes. The Chinese calendar also follows the Chinese zodiac, meaning each year is represented by one of 12 signs of the Zodiac.

2017 is a Fire Rooster Year. According to Chinese astrology, each year is associated with one of five elements as well as an animal, including gold (metal), wood, water, fire or Earth. The element, combined with the zodiac animal, set the astrology for the year. This year is a fire year, & so those born in 2017 are Fire Roosters. The last Fire Rooster Year was 1957.

This Lunar festival is centuries old, it is a time to honor deities as well as ancestors. According to tales & legends, the beginning of the Chinese New Year started with a mythical beast called the Nian, who had the reputation of eating the villagers, especially children. One year, all the villagers decided to go hide from the beast. Then an old man appeared & said that he was going to stay to get revenge on the Nian. All the villagers thought he was insane. The old man put up red papers & set off firecrackers. The day after, the villagers came back to their town to see that nothing was destroyed. They assumed that the old man was a deity who came to save them. The villagers then understood that the Nian was afraid of the color red & loud noises. When the New Year was about to come, the villagers would wear red clothes, hang red lanterns, or scrolls on windows & doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian. From then on, Nian never came to the village again. And the legends say that eventually the Nian was captured by Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk.

The first day of this festival is for the welcoming of the deities of the heavens & earth, officially beginning at midnight. It is a traditional practice to light fireworks, & burn bamboo sticks to make as much of a din as possible to chase off the evil spirits. Many people, abstain from meat on the 1st day because it is believed this will ensure longevity. Some consider lighting fires & using knives to be bad luck on New Year’s Day, so all food is cooked before hand. It is also considered bad luck to use the broom on New Year’s day, so It is traditional for every family to thoroughly cleanse the house, the day before, on the eve, in order to sweep away any ill-fortune & to make way for good incoming luck. Windows & doors will be decorated with red color paper-cuts & couplets with popular themes of “good fortune” or “happiness”, “wealth”, & “longevity”. Dumplings are often created to resemble gold & silver ingots to represent riches & foods like hard-boiled eggs, fish & chicken are all associated with prosperity. Spring rolls tend to represent wealth & sweet rice balls represent family togetherness.

Most importantly, the 1st day of Chinese New Year is a time to honor one’s elders, so families visit the oldest & most senior members of their extended families, usually their parents, grandparents & great-grandparents.

For Buddhists, the first day is also the birthday of Maitreya Bodhisattva the Buddha-to-be.

Members of the family who are married also give red envelopes containing cash known as ‘lai see’, to junior members of the family, mostly children & teenagers; to suppress aging & the challenges associated with the coming year. Business managers also give bonuses through red packets to employees for good luck, smooth-sailing, good health & wealth. The amount of money doesn’t matter as it is only symbolic, however, it is usually an even number. The numbers 8 & 88 are considered especially lucky because “eight” sounds like a word that means “prosperity.”

New Year in China is the largest period of human migration on earth. Everyone goes back home to visit their families, & with so many migrant workers, this equates to hundreds of millions of people!

Praying in a temple during Chinese New Year is said to be a particularly blessed activity, & will lead to a smooth coming year. In Shanghai, China’s biggest city, thousands flock to Longhua Temple, the city’s biggest temple, to pray for good fortune.

At temple fairs in many Chinese cities, traditional performances can be seen: dragon dances, lion dances, & imperial performances like an emperor’s wedding. In North China people perform various versions of the Rice Sprout Song.

As Chinese people believe that the year’s start affects the whole year, are many superstitions & taboos for the Spring Festival season. These taboos usually apply up to a month before the festival & continue to the end of the festival (day 15, the Lantern Festival). Some Chinese people believe that they shouldn’t wash their hair in the first three days because that will wash away good luck. A cry of a child is believed to bring bad luck to the family, so the young are placated fastidiously. Another interesting thing is red underwear…You will see red underwear sold at supermarkets & street markets. Also no begging: To ask for a loan is a big “no-no”.

新年的祝福，平日的希冀，愿你心境祥和、充满爱意，愿你的世界全是美满，愿你一切称心如意，快乐无比。

Xīnnián de zhùfú, píngrì de xījì, yuàn nǐ xīnjìng xiánghé, chōngmǎn ài yì, yuàn nǐ de shìjiè quán shì měimǎn, yuàn nǐ yīqiè chènxīn rúyì, kuàilè wúbǐ.

At New Year and always, may peace and love fill your heart, beauty fill your world, and contentment and joy fill your days.

“I am alert
Ready to take action
The first on the scene
The last to leave
I take chances
But I am precise
I know where things belong
I am orderly and fastidious
Nothing escapes me
I am always prepared
I never give up or in
I AM THE ROOSTER”

~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg 

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The Bridging Project – Between Life and Death from Soul to Soul

Audio/Video Conference – February 1, 2017 – 7:15 pm CST

The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to our conversation with special guest Mark Miller.  Mark is a registered architect in the states of Illinois and Michigan, and is a member of the Passive House Alliance US and co-founder of the Chicago chapter of the organization (Passive House is the world’s highest energy efficiency standard).  www.phaus.org

Mark’s talk is titled: “Spirit Parks, an Alternative to Cemeteries”.  Mark will be discussing the spiritual intentions of traditional western cemeteries; overview of how different cultures embrace memorialization and creating a “place” for connecting with the dead; and he will present his thoughts on what the next evolutionary step in places of memorialization may look like and why.

Mark has published various articles and delivered lectures on Zen Architecture, Passive House and Green Design.  Mark’s spirituality includes past and current practices in western and eastern traditions;  Mark is an active member of the Chicago Waldorf School community, where his children have attended for 13 years.  Mark has designed several projects for the school incorporating Steiner’s philosophy within the architectural design wherever possible. www.zenplusarchitecture.com 

This will be a “go-to-meeting” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer).  To connect to the audio/video-conference:

Option 1.  Click link below if you wish to connect through your computer (a headset is recommended) https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/490464125

Option 2.  Call in using your telephone.

United States: +1 (571) 317-3116

Canada: +1 (647) 497-9372

Access Code: 490-464-125

Option 3. You can use a combination of Options 1 and 2 (computer and phone)

Please join us!

Agenda – 7:15  Verse

7:18  Welcome and Introductions

7:25  Introduce guest speaker

7:30  Guest Speaker: Mark Miller (45 minutes)

8:15  Q&A – state your name & location before asking a question

8:28  Close with verse

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Saturday 4 February 2017,  3 pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP

The Madonna Sequence

Presented by Debra Barford & Christine Culbert

The Madonna Pentagram, was first recommended by Dr. Rudolf Steiner in 1911 as an enlivening, curative therapy. Raphael’s paintings of the Madonna express secret truths. These images invite us to look into the deeper significance of the flow of energy stimulated within us as our attention is guided through the five-pointed-star-like movement of the images in relation to one another, accompanied by the appropriate tones on the lyre. Rudolf Steiner described the healing effects of Raphael’s Madonna’s in August 1908, and between 1908 and 1911 he directed Dr. Felix Peipers to arrange fifteen images as a therapeutic meditation. Sometimes called the Raphael Madonna Series, these fifteen pictures invite our active contemplation. Each image can awaken inner pictures that lift us into communion with realms beyond the physical world, stirring our feelings of wonder and reverence and opening our souls to divine mysteries.

$10 donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

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Mysteries of the Celtic Goddess

brigid-helena-nelson-reedBrigid by Helena Nelson Reed

Thursday February 9th 2017 -7 pm
at the Theosophical Society in America
1926 North Main Street
Wheaton, IL 60187

Invoking the Practical Alchemy of the Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid
To Purify, Awaken, & Galvanize Your Head, Heart, and Hands

Brigid’s festival is the 1st of the cross-quarter days in the wheel of the year, a time of spiritual re-dedication and initiation. Brigid invites us to forge and shape ourselves, as the tools of our own destiny. Come Renew Yourself. Together we will thaw the winter & rouse the mysteries growing within…

Hazel Archer Ginsberg is a Spiritual Midwife, and Trans-denominational Minister, working in an eclectic style that inspires connections – initiating us into the magic, waiting to be revealed, in the cycle of the seasons. Festivals Coordinator of the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society. Lecturer, Promoter, Blogger, Poet & Performance Artist.  www.ReverseRitual.com.

$10 nonmembers   $5 members

Live Webcast

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DIGITAL Pandora: Imaging HOPE by Gretchen Steele

Art Opening 7 pm – 9 pm Friday February 17th, 2017 at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP

A Performance Art Exhibit & Gallery Reception with an opportunity for participants to create their own collage art to be shown at the Closing exhibit March 31st, 2017

DIGITAL Pandora: Imaging HOPE is a multi-media art exhibit including work inspired by the myth of Pandora as a narrative of hope – by Gretchen Steele

The exhibit includes multi-media collages on paper, large-scale (5’ x 5’) collaged fabric prayer cloths, a performance art piece titled Embodied Compass ll: Reliquary Immersion, and a participatory SEA (Socially Engaging Artwork) inviting viewers to collaborate in a collaged community mural using a images (from the artist’s photo bank of the previous performance piece, Embodied Compass l: Digital Pandora) and marker-based drawing materials.

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The 156th Anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s Birthday on the New Moon/Solar Eclipse

Sunday February 26th 2017, 3 pm – 5 pm

We will celebrate Steiner’s birthday and the solar eclipse by analyzing his horoscope in the most respectful manner.  Astrologer Victoria Martin will expound on some classic interpretations of Rudolf Steiner’s Birth chart – For instance did you know he was born on a Full Moon, near the zenith of the sky aligned to Saturn? Victoria will also go further by adding the fixed stars, which according to Brian Gray at Steiner College, are basic components in Astrosophy.

The Solar eclipse, on Sunday February 26th 2017 indicates a new phase of Steiner’s influence, which is especially potent for the next six months!

Victoria will also do 3-minute readings for each participant to see where their birthdays fit in Steiner’s horoscope!

This can be even more precise if the entire horoscope of participants is available, so please email your date, time, and place of birth to viccimartin@gmail.com.

We can also look into the 2017 trends if there is interest! And if time allows Hazel Archer Ginsberg will give a brief overview of the phases in Rudolf Steiner’s life.

 $10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP

For more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

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An evening Discourse &  Full day Workshop with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg at

Fostering Sustainable Agriculture through Research, Education and Policy since 1984

What is Anthroposophy?

Friday March 3rd 2017,  Potluck Social 5:30 pm  Lecture –7 pm – 9 pm

A Hands-on Discourse with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

What can the human being (anthropos) of today do to recognize our inherent wisdom (sophia) to access the source of spiritual knowledge, for our own inner development, and for the evolution of the earth and all of humanity?

What would it be like to support each other in community, as we strive to penetrate the mystery of our relationship with the spiritual world?

How does this ‘Spiritual Science’ built on the research of Rudolf Steiner, speak to the riddles of existence: our artistic needs, the truth of karma, the mystery of evil, life after death and so much more?

Come Explore this Modern Path of Initiation with:

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, and the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society. Founder of Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year– Presenter, Poet, & Trans-denominational Minister.

Register here

Also:

 Saturday March 4th 2017 –

A Experiential Three Part Workshop* with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

‘The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity’

Some of the topics treated in this experiential workshop are: The nature of the brain, the development of speech, angelic beings, ancient language, Zarathustra, Buddha, & Christ.

‘The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity: Some Results of Spiritual-Scientific Research into Human History and Development’ consists of three sections. Each section was originally a lecture (6, 7, & 8 June 1911) but was subsequently reworked by Steiner & cast into the form of an essay.  It is available without a fee at Rudolf Steiner Archives 

Session #1 – 10 am – 12 noon:
• Introductions
• The divine wisdom working in the human being in the 1st three years of life.
• Through inner striving we can contact again and consciously build on this wisdom which is connected to the Christ impulse.
• Activity- Biography work: Our 1st conscious memory – a preview of the “I”.

Noon – 1:30 pm – Lunch

Session #2 – 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm:
• The childlike condition of humanity in ancient times, directed by higher spiritual beings.
• A look into the evolution of these guiding spirits –progressive as well as regressive –
• Revealing the necessity of the ‘two kinds of evil’.
• The importance of Spiritual Science to avoid error.
• Activity – Labyrinth Walk

3:30 pm – 4 pm – Break

Session #3 – 4 pm – 6 pm:
• A survey of the Post-Atlantean age, our present epoch.
• The Christ connection with the progressive spiritual beings
• Modern science as the work of the regressive spiritual beings
• A peek into the future
• Activity – The Golden Legend & The Rose Cross Mediation: An artistic rendering

*(Workshops can be taken as a whole or individually, details to follow)

Register here

Michael Fields W2493 County Rd ES
East Troy, WI 53120, USA