~my words are forged in star-fire that i may speak the language of earth a sacrifice on the altar of angels… ~hag
3 October 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The variable star Algol in Perseus is in the East around 9 pm CDT above Bella Luna. Algol is called the Demon Star because it changes brightness quite noticeably, even to the naked eye.
508 BC – Deathday of Lucretia an ancient Roman woman whose fate played a vital role in the transition of Roman government from the Roman Kingdom to the Roman Republic. She committed suicide after being raped by an Etruscan king’s son was the immediate cause of the anti-monarchist rebellion that overthrew the monarchy. As a result of its sheer impact, the rape itself became a major theme in European art & literature
Deathay of Jarius. The record of the daughter of Jairus is a combination of miracles of Jesus in the Gospels (Mark 5:21–43, Matthew 9:18–26, Luke 8:40–56) The story immediately follows the exorcism at Gerasa. Jairus, a patron or ruler of a Galilee synagogue, had asked Jesus to heal his 12-year-old daughter. As they were traveling to Jairus’ house, a sick woman in the crowd touched Jesus’ cloak & was healed of her sickness. Jesus turned round to the woman & says: “Take heart, daughter,” your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” Moments later, a messenger arrived with the news that Jairus’ daughter had died, & he was advised not to trouble Jesus any further. However, Jesus responded: Be not afraid, only believe. (Mark 5:36) Jesus continued to the house, where he informed all those present that the girl was not dead but asleep. He then went upstairs & restored the little girl to life. In Mark’s account, the Aramaic phrase “Talitha Koum” (transliterated into Greek as ταλιθα κουμ meaning, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”) is attributed to Jesus
Deathday of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a Syrian Christian theologian & philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, the author of the set of works commonly referred to as the Corpus Areopagiticum or Corpus Dionysiacum, portraying himself as the Athenian convert of Paul of Tarsus mentioned in Acts 17:34 (Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus) This attribution to the earliest decades of Christianity resulted in the work being given great authority in subsequent theological writing in both East & West. His works are mystical & show strong Neoplatonic influence. For example he uses Plotinus’ well-known analogy of a sculptor cutting away that which does not enhance the desired image.
In a letter addressed to Polycarp, pseudo-Dionysius asks “What have you to say about the solar eclipse which occurred when the Savior was put on the Cross? At the time the two of us were in Heliopolis and we both witnessed the extraordinary phenomenon of the moon hiding the sun at the time that was out of season for their coming together…. We saw the moon begin to hide the sun from the east, travel across to the other side of the sun, and return on its path so that the hiding and the restoration of the light did not take place in the same direction but rather in diametrically opposite directions.…” This is illustrated in an astronomical fresco in the main gallery of the Escorial Library, near Madrid, Spain, which shows Dionysius the Areopagite observing an eclipse at the time of Christ’s crucifixion.
Luke, 23-45 (It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over all the land until the ninth hour. 45The sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn down the middle) We can notice a quadrant & an astrolabe in the hands of the amazed men!
287 AD – Deathday of Saint Candidus. The Golden Legend states that he was a commander of the Theban Legion, which was composed of Christians from Upper Egypt. He opposed Maximian, who had ordered them to harass the local Christians in his name, stating that “we are your soldiers, but we are also servants of the true God. We cannot renounce Him who is our Creator and Master, and also yours even though you reject Him.” Candidus, along with St. Maurice, the other staff officers & 6,600 soldiers, were martyred at the Swiss town of Saint Maurice-en-Valais
1226 – Deathday of Francis of Assisi, Italian friar & saint. Based on a study of the life of Francis of Assisi, Rudolf Steiner shows how the development of morality is based on the belief in the Divine at the bottom of every human soul, on the boundless love that springs from this belief, and on the hope for each human soul that it can find its way back to the Divine. Anthroposophical Ethics…St. Francis, Lecture III
1250 – Deathday of Gilbertus Anglicus. His major work, the Compendium Medicinae, written in Latin, running to seven books, is an attempt to provide a comprehensive encyclopedia of medical & surgical knowledge as it existed in his day. He quotes extensively from Roger of Palma, & acknowledges that his work is indebted to Greek physicians including Galen, Hippocrates & Theophilus Protospatharius, & Arab physicians such as Averroes & Avicenna.
1884 – Birthday of, Paul Foster Case, an American occultist, founder of Builders of the Adytum (B.O.T.A.), original member of Alpha et Omega, an organization that inherited the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Paul Foster Case played the organ in the Congregational Church, where his father was a deacon. In childhood, he started working to have lucid dreams. Rudyard Kipling, spurred his interest in their correspondence, confirming that such a phenomenon is possible, & can be developed.
Case became a member of the Order of Alpha et Omega, but he was distrustful of Enochian Magic. He explored certain practical ceremonial magic, with his sometime partner Moina Mathers.
Case was fascinated by the “New Thought” movement, he met William Walker Atkinson, & co-authored the modern literary mystification “The Kybalion”, as one of the anonymous “three wise men”.
from my library
Case studied various yoga’s & the karma of past lives, & was said to have worked with “the healer Dr. Fludd” who claimed that the Count Saint-Germain had sent him to be his teacher.
1990 – German Unity Day (Tag der Deutschen Einheit) commemorates German reunification when the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) joined the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), so that for the first time since 1945 there existed a single German state.
1995 – O. J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson & Ronald Goldman
2008 – The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is signed by President George W. Bush – commonly referred to as a bailout of the U.S. financial system, is a law enacted in response to the subprime mortgage crisis authorizing the United States Secretary of the Treasury to spend up to $700 billion to purchase distressed assets, especially mortgage-backed securities, & supply cash directly to banks.
All Souls Festival – Election Day 7 November 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire
Celebrating: The Festival of the Dead, & Martinmas
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep
RSVP Hazel@ReverseRitual.com
Annular solar eclipse total phases composite panorama during Totality , moon covers the sun’s visible outer edges to form a “ring of fire” shot using mylar solar film , very rare natural event Sun, Moon and Earth are aligned. A total eclipse , An annular eclipse , A hybrid eclipse, partial eclipse
Save the Dates for Community Workings TBA:
October 14
Annular Solar Eclipse
October 21-22
Orionids Meteor Shower Predicted Peak
October 23
Venus at Greatest Western Elongation
October 28
Full Hunter’s Moon and Partial Lunar Eclipse
The 1st New Moon after the Autumnal Equinox –Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023, annular solar eclipse
Thank you to everyone who gathered with the Regional Councils of the ASA for our 1st Roots & Renewal Session: From Artemis to the Representative of Humanity and Beyond. In this series we are taking stock of the signposts from the past as well as forging our way forward – toward the Jubilee – the 100-Year anniversary of the Refounding of the Anthroposophical Society, at the Christmas Conference; when Rudolf Steiner took on the leadership of the Society, making the sacrifice to align his karma with ours, strengthening our connection to the movement – to Anthroposophia, & the Spiritual Beings working with us to manifest Spiritual Science on Earth during this Michaelic Age.
Those of you who follow this blog know I am keen on making karmic connections around the birth & death days of influential individualities. While researching, I came across Steiner attributing July 21st as the Birthday of Alexander the Great – which he also reveals was the very same day in 356 BC that the Temple of Ephesus went up in flames.
Legend has it that the Goddess Artemis, to whom the Temple was dedicated, was away that day – busy attending to the birth of Alexander. I love to look behind these kinds of myths & stories to see the spiritual reality speaking.
These connections peaked my interest, so I got to work creating a compilation of insights from 4 lectures by Rudolf Steiner where he outlines the influences between the burning of the Temple of Ephesus, (which BTW was considered one of the 7 Wonders of the World) the birth of Alexander the Great, & the burning of the 1st Goetheanum 100 years ago in 1922, so this year in 2022, it seems especially important to explore the spiritual underpinnings of this event, in relation to these other turning points in time.
Three of the lectures I worked with are from those famous evening lectures that Steiner gave during the Christmas Conference: WORLD HISTORY IN THE LIGHT OF ANTHROPOSOPHY. Those of you who joined us for the Epic of Gilgamesh Storytelling during the ASA Holy Nights adventure may remember that these lectures were our foundation. – Reading further, Steiner transitions quite seamlessly into the Mysteries of Ephesus & Alexandria.
And the 4th resource comes a few months after the Christmas Conference at Easter-Tide in 1924, where Steiner reveals how the Mysteries of Ephesus became inscribed into the Cosmic Ethers after the Burning of the Temple; & how Aristotle, the teacher of Alexander the Great, was able to receive these mysteries by reading the Cosmic Script. Renewing them – he brought these mysteries back to the world in what we call the ‘Aristotelian Categories’.
So amazing to make these cosmic & historic connections – & bring them into our thinking now – And then really it’s up to us to make something of them.
Steiner tells us that these categories have not been properly understood; they are thought of as a mere list; but they are meant to be meditated on, in order to fully receive the essence beyond the logical form.
After reading the compilation together last night, we co-created the Social Sculpture that the break-out room provides. Asking ourselves things like: How can we be awake to this reality of ‘The Jealously of the gods’? As well as ‘The Jealously of Men’ so prevalent today? Some folks also pondered the Aristotle’s Categories.
For me, thru working with this material, (over 90 pages in these 4 powerful lectures) I have been striving to use my imaginative thinking to carry the clues that Steiner gives to connect the mysteries that stand behind: The Colossus of Artemis, which was a symbol of the Logos before it came to Earth in a human form, & the Representative of Humanity, The Word made manifest – The Christ impulse of Wonder, Compassion, & Conscience giving meaning to human evolution. A lightbulb goes off in my heart & mind when I add in the open secret that: ‘The Group’ is in reality a veil of the New Isis – which the true human being is called to remove, bringing the full blossom of Wisdom to the seed of Love.
It all becomes clear that we are meant to connect the dots inscribed into the ethers thru the burning of these 2 Temples – One to Artemis, the Comic Logos & the other to Anthroposophia, the Truth-Wrought-Word of the Human Being. Written in the cosmic script we find the old clairvoyance bestowed thru initiation into the Mysteries of Ephesus, being carried into the thinking of Aristotle, to inform Alexander’s Michaelic Campaign – Bringing the Mysteries of the East in a renewed form to the West; preparing the way for the Christ Event that came at the Turning Point of Time.
And then following the individualities of Aristotle & Alexander into their lives reunited once again on the Dornach hill, standing together before the burning of the Goetheanum – as the New Mysteries of the Reverse Cultus became inscribed also into the ethers, expanding & evolving the Cosmic Script, renewing The Logos – which awaits our interaction.
Friends, the Statue of the Representative of Humanity stands with us today as the living link between the past, present & future – if we will to unveil the New Isis hidden in the hand-hewn carving, whose essence dwells in the Dodecahedron of Love, that we must cultivate within our heart-thinking – to open our humanness to the Wisdom of the Christ – then the burning will not have been in vain…
We can explore this further together at the ‘Renewing the Mysteries Conference’.
Until soon
~hag
Renewing the Mysteries:The Founding of The Christian Community & the Burning of the First Goetheanum
Spring Valley, NY – August 8-13, 2022 REGISTER NOW!* lectures * artistic workshops * conversation * evening performances Hazel Archer-Ginsberg will be offering a program on Tuesday 9 August for the Free Initiative2:30 -3:30 pm ET – From Artemis to the New Isis
Many anthroposophists have understood the 1923/24 Christmas Foundation Conference as constituting a renewal of the Mysteries. Nine months after the Christmas Conference, speaking to the priests of the Christian Community, Rudolf Steiner pointed to a sequence from the founding of the Christian Community in September 1922 to the burning of the Goetheanum at the end of that year to the Christmas Conference.In this 100th anniversary year of both the founding of the Christian Community and the burning of the Goetheanum, can an exploration of these events help us to understand the nature of the New Mysteries?
The keynote speaker is Daniel Hafner, priest of the Christian Community. He will address this theme with a particular focus on the colored windows of the First Goetheanum.
The Act of Consecration of Man will be celebrated during the week and there will also be a Class Lesson for members of the School of Spiritual Science.
Venue: SPRING VALLEY, NY, Threefold Community, and The Christian Community
Feast Day of Mary Magdalene, sister of Martha & Lazarus; who stood beneath the cross on Golgotha, & who was the 1st to see the risen Christ…The woman initiate represents the soul in humankind, Aisha, as Moses called it. The once turbulent Mary Magdalene, whose seven demons Jesus had driven out according to the Biblical account, became his most devoted disciple.
It was at the farm in Bethany, with Mary, the mother of Jesus, Lazuars, Martha & the Magdalene that Jesus liked to rest from the labors of his mission. There He freely gave his most gentle consolations & in loving conversations He spoke of the Divine Mysteries which He did not yet always confide to his disciples. Sometimes at the hour when the gold of the sunset faded among the olive branches, when twilight slipped between their delicate foliage, Jesus became thoughtful. A shadow fell over his illumined face. He thought of the hardships of his work, the wavering faith of the Apostles, the powerful enemies in the world. The Temple, Jerusalem, humankind, with its crimes & ingratitude, rolling over Him like a living mountain. Struck by the solemnity of his voice, the women held his soul. However unchangeable the serenity of Jesus might be, they understood that His spirit was as though closed in the coffin of confinement which separated him from the joys of earth. They sensed the destiny of the Son of God; they felt His unshakable resolution.
Sometimes called simply the Magdalene, Mary is mentioned by name twelve times in the canonical gospels, more than any of the apostles. The Gospel of Luke 8:2-3 lists Mary as one of the women who traveled with Jesus & helped support his ministry “out of their resources”, indicating that she was wealthy. The same passage also states that seven demons had been driven out of her, a statement which is repeated in the longer ending of Mark. In all four canonical gospels, she is a witness to the crucifixion of Jesus &, in the Synoptic Gospels, she is also present at his burial. All four gospels identify her, either alone or as a member of a larger group of women, as the first witness to the empty tomb, & the first to testify to Jesus’s resurrection. For these reasons, she is known in many Christian traditions as the “apostle to the apostles”.
Mary is a central figure in later apocryphal Gnostic Christian writings, including the Dialogue of the Savior, the Pistis Sophia, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, & the Gospel of Mary. These texts portray her as Jesus’s closest disciple & the only one who truly understood his teachings. In the Gnostic gospels, Mary Magdalene’s closeness to Jesus results in tension with the other disciples, particularly Simon Peter.
During the Middle Ages, Mary Magdalene was conflated in western tradition with Mary of Bethany & the unnamed “sinful woman” who anoints Jesus’s feet in Luke 7:36-50, resulting in a widespread but inaccurate belief that she was a repentant prostitute or promiscuous woman. In 1969, the identification of Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany & the “sinful woman” was removed from the General Roman Calendar, but the view of her as a former prostitute has persisted in popular culture.
Mary Magdalene is considered to be a saint by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, & Lutheran churches—with a feast day of July 22. During the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church used Mary Magdalene as a symbol of penance. Other Protestant churches honor her as a heroine of the faith. The Eastern Orthodox churches also commemorate her on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers, the Orthodox equivalent of one of the Western Three Marys traditions.
Elaborate medieval legends from western Europe tell exaggerated tales of Mary Magdalene’s wealth & beauty, as well as her journey to southern France.
1099 –Godfrey of Bouillon is elected the first Defender of the Holy Sepulchre of The Kingdom of Jerusalem. After the successful siege of Jerusalem in 1099, Godfrey became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He refused the title of King, however, as he believed that the true King of Jerusalem was Christ, preferring the title of Advocate (i.e., protector or defender) of the Holy Sepulchre (Latin: Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri). He is also known as the “Baron of the Holy Sepulchre” & the “Crusader King”. Godfrey is a key figure in the theories put forth in the books The Holy Blood & the Holy Grail & The Da Vinci Code. In the Paradiso segment of his Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri sees the spirit of Godfrey, together with Roland’s, in the Heaven of Mars with the other “warriors of the faith”. Godfrey is depicted in Georg Friedrich Händel’s opera Rinaldo (1711) as Tasso’s “Goffredo”.
1499 – Battle of Dornach: The Swiss decisively defeat the army of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor & concluded the Swabian War between the Swiss & the Swabian League.
1893 – Katharine Lee Bates writes America the Beautiful after admiring the view from the top of Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs, Colorado. At the age of 33, Bates, an English professor at Wellesley College, had taken a train trip to teach a short summer school session at Colorado College. Several of the sights on her trip inspired her, & they found their way into her poem, including the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, the “White City” with its promise of the future contained within its gleaming white buildings; the wheat fields of America’s heartland Kansas, through which her train was riding & the majestic view of the Great Plains from high atop Pikes Peak. On the pinnacle of that mountain, the words of the poem started to come to her, & she wrote them down upon returning to her hotel room at the original Antlers Hotel. The poem was initially published two years later in The Congregationalist to commemorate the Fourth of July. It quickly caught the public’s fancy. Just as Bates had been inspired to write her poem, Samuel A Ward, too, was inspired. The tune came to him while he was on a ferryboat trip from Coney Island back to his home in New York City after a leisurely summer day & he immediately wrote it down. He was so anxious to capture the tune in his head, he asked fellow passenger friend Harry Martin for his shirt cuff to write the tune on.
1946 – King David Hotel bombing: A Zionist underground organisation, the Irgun, bombs the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, site of the civil administration and military headquarters for Mandatory Palestine, resulting in 491 deaths.
~aCord change – from a cosmos of wisdom to one of love… here the moon leaps out of the spiral… self-ignition, springing from the middle of the vortex, where the old ends & the new meets re-birth… ~hag
“…See the sun-drenched vine, with its juice spiritualized to etheric sunlight! It is a picture of the purification & fermentation process of the “I”. It shows you how drives can be transformed when they are purified thru life’s bitter crisis, & flower as the wisdom of age. Your “I” bears the kingly power within itself thru which you can transform all that is lower within you & raise it to the heights. Without these drives you would not be a full human being, but you must tame & refine them in the crucible of the royal power of the “I”. Then they will bear for you the loveliest fruits which will ripen in the autumn of life to become saturated with the wisdom of life. You extend your soul beyond itself when, compassionately sharing in all that is human, you open your Self to the world. For being human means: transforming the kingly power of the “I” in sharing responsibility for all that is human! Then the thought that I am only a member of all humankind & am co-responsible for all that happens is no longer foreign to me. With such an attitude the human being’s whole way of thinking gradually changes…” ~Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of Higher Worlds
TODAY : A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor & Spirit Community with the Eastern, Central and Western Regional Councils of the Anthroposophical Society in America
Sunday 29 May 2022 – at 3 – 4:30 pm PT / 4-5:30 MT / 5-6:30 pm CT / 6-7:30 pm ET
We will be working with Rudolf Steiner’s THE FIFTH GOSPELGA 148, Lecture II, 2 October 1913, Oslo
The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, our individual “I”, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is strongly felt during this time of the consciousness soul age. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create this type of culture, and the opportunity is here for each of us to meet, human to human, where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength comes from our personal development and is enhanced by weaving our gifts together with others, knitting our social world in conscious community.
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated with added titles by Roy Sadler ASCENSIONTIDE Come, Foresight v7 My Self is threatening to flee, drawn strongly to the world’s inviting light. Now you, my foresight, dawn your star and my divining, firmly as of right, replace the power of thought that in the senses’ glory leaves me.
This is part of the square quartet, the only one where the 4 related verses form a perfect square in the Soul Calendar’s lemniscate pattern. They correspond to the middle of each quarter in the year. It’s not mentioned anywhere else but I think these verses can be regarded as transitions between the seasons. They are a kind of crossing over the threshold to a new soul mood – in this first quarter leading to a union with the spirit through the senses at Whitsun and on into the summer. But for that the soul must overcome the luciferic temptation to mere sensual feeling. A heavenly restoring prescience – ‘Ahnen’ in German – is called for. Ahnen is the only word that I translate in association with its sound. ‘Ah’ has the eurythmic openness to the future and in this verse I’ve added the word ‘star’, not mentioned in the original.
Verses 7 and 46 are the only ones with the word ‘threatening’. When a new spring comes without proper thought clarity it can numb our consciousness. For thoughtful perception the power of memory (of what the Soul Calendar calls to awake in us from the spirit’s depths at Christmas) is needed, in contrast now to foresight for a new summer union with spirit.
LENT I Memory, Arise V46 The world is threatening to numb, my soul’s own inborn force. Now memory, companion me and in my sight enhance the penetration of my glance vitality of will alone sustains.
The Holy Grail Study Group with the CRC Mysteries of the Holy Grail – from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation June 1, 2022 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern) “Anyone who approaches these mysteries today must feel that they are confronting and challenging themselves by striving for the virtues of Parzival, while knowing that — because of modern conditions — they are in fact someone else also, the wounded Amfortas. Today we bear this divided nature within us: aspiring Parzival, wounded Amfortas. That is what self-knowledge must lead us to feel. From this recognition will flow the forces which make a unity again of this duality, and will thus advance us a little further in world evolution.”~ from Chapter 15, Rudolf Steiner, The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, Chapter 15“Acknowledging Amfortas,” excerpts from Steiner’s lecture given at Berlin on 7 February 1913 (GA 144, lecture IV), will be the focus of the June 1 meeting.
A transcript of the entire lecture can be found on the RS Archive by clicking this link.* Please considergiving to the development and maintenance of the digital library of Rudolf Steiner’s work. Scroll to the bottom of this message to read more about the RSArchive.org and SteinerLibrary.org
The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our ongoing study conversation. The study has been divided among two volunteers who will summarize their section to rebuild it as a foundation for our conversation. Please familiarize yourself with the lecture if possible so you will feel comfortable sharing your reflections and thoughts with the group.
This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer). To connect to the audio/video-conference:
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There is a knighthood of the 21st century whose riders do not ride through the darkness of physical forests as of old, but through the forest of darkened minds. They are armed with a spiritual armor and an inner sun makes them radiant. Out of them shines healing, healing that flows from the knowledge of the human being as a spiritual being. They must create inner order, inner justice, peace and conviction in the darkness of our time. ~Karl Konig
Agenda for this meeting (CST) 7:15 Welcome and Introductions 7:18 Verse 7:25 Study led by volunteers Note: CRC team will ID volunteers Mariarosa – pages 117-123b Marianne – pages 123b-129 7:50 Conversation 8:25 ID volunteers for next meeting 8:28 Close with verse
Ok friends – This post will take some deep thought, so go about your day if you don’t want to dig in…If you get thru it, please share your insights…I am quoting from the center point of the whole series of the 82 lectures by Rudolf Steiner on Karmic Relationships – this is a real turning point – in regards to the origin of Time. This has a esoteric connection with the 2nd of the 6 Basic Exercises ‘Control of Will‘. It also brings to light the significance of ourThought-Seed Project. Here are a few inspiring highlights:
“Our true being lies in the ego; and it is the ego which both suffers karma and creates it…
Steiner drew this on the board at this point
The Ether is like an empty nothingness to you. But when you regard the etheric environment as a totality, you behold the blue sky, of which we also say that it is not really there but that you are gazing into empty space. Now the reason why you see the blue of the sky is that you are actually perceiving the end of the Ether. Thus you behold the Ether as the blue of the heavens. The perception of the blue sky is really and truly a perception of the Ether. We may therefore say: In that we perceive the blue of the sky we are perceiving the universal Ether that surrounds us. In fact the boundary of the supersensible world becomes visible here.
Every star that we see glittering in the heavens is in reality a gate of entry for the Astral. Wherever the stars are twinkling and glittering in towards us, there glitters and shines the Astral…In all this wonderful configuration of radiant light, the invisible and super-sensible astral body of the Cosmos makes itself visible to us…In the starry heavens, we actually behold an expression of the soul-life of the cosmic astral world.
Think how living it all becomes when we know that the stars are an expression of the love with which the astral Cosmos works upon the etheric Cosmos — for this is to express it with perfect truth. Think then of those mysterious processes when certain stars suddenly light up at certain times. Stars that were not there before, light up for a time, and disappear again. For it is true indeed that in epochs when divine Beings desire to work in an especial way from the astral world into the etheric, we behold new stars light up and fade away again. (including comets)
The etheric body is laid aside soon after death. It is only the astral world that shines in towards us through the stars that has significance for the Ego in the life between death and a new birth. And in that world which glistens in towards us through the stars, in that world there live the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies with whom man forms his Karma between death and a new birth.
Indeed, when we follow this Ego in its successive evolutions through lives between birth and death and between death and a new birth, we cannot remain within the world of Space at all. For two successive earthly lives cannot be within the same space. They cannot be within that Universe which is dependent on spatial co-existence. Here therefore we go right out of Space and enter into Time. This is actually so. We go out of Space and come into the pure flow of Time when we contemplate the Ego in its successive lives on Earth.
Now consider this, my dear friends. In Space, Time is still present, of course, but within this world of Space we have no means of experiencing Time in itself. We always have to experience Time through Space and spatial processes. For example, if you wish to experience Time, you look at the clock, or, if you will, at the course of the sun. What do you see? You see the various positions of the hands of the clock or of the sun. You see something that is spatial. Through the fact that the positions of the hand or of the sun are changed, through the fact that spatial things are present to you as changing, you gain some idea of Time. But of Time itself there is really nothing in this spatial perception. There are only varied spatial configurations, varied positions of the hands of the clock, varied positions of the sun. You only experience Time itself when you come into the sphere of the soul’s experience. There you do really experience Time, but there you also go out of Space. There, Time is a reality, but within the earthly world of Space, Time is no reality.
David Brook
On Earth we experience Time only through Space — through points in Space, through the positions of spatial things. On Earth we do not experience Time in its reality at all. Once you grasp this, you will say: “Really to enter into Time we must go out of Space, we must put away all things spatial.”
Thoughts about repeated lives on Earth were possessed only by those human beings and groups that were able to conceive Time in its pure essence, Time in its spaceless character…
Van James
And now he may gaze upon the Christmas Mystery — the new-born Child, the Representative of Humanity on Earth, who, inasmuch as he is entering into childhood, is born into this world of Space. In the fullness and majesty of this Christmas thought, as he gazes on the Child that is born on Christmas Night, he exclaims: “Ex Deo Nascimur — I am born out of the Divine, the Divine that weaves and surges through the world of Space.”
When a man has felt this, when he has permeated himself through and through with it, then he may also recall what Anthroposophy has revealed to us about the meaning of the Earth. The Child on whom we are gazing is the outer sheath of That which is now born into Space. But whence is He born, that He might be brought to birth in the world of Space? According to what we have explained to-day, it can only be from Time. From out of Time the Child is born.
Ron Candrell
If we then follow out the life of this Child and His permeation by the Spirit of the Christ-Being, we come to realise that this Being, this Christ-Being, comes from the Sun. Then we shall look up to the Sun, and say to ourselves: “As I look up to the Sun, I must behold in the sunshine that Time, which in the world of Space is hidden. Within the Sun is Time, and from out of the Time that weaves and works within the Sun, Christ came forth, came out into Space, on to the Earth.”
What have we then in Christ on Earth? In Christ on Earth we have That, which coming from beyond Space, from outside of Space, unites with the Earth.
Ananda Telli
When we look up from the Earth to the Sun, we are at the same time looking into the flow of Time.
Now from this there follows something of great significance. Man only looks up to the Sun in the right way (even if it be but in his mind) when, as he gazes upwards, he forgets Space and considers Time alone. For in truth, the Sun does not only radiate light, it radiates Space itself, and when we are looking into the Sun we are looking out of Space into the world of Time. The Sun is the unique star that it is because when we gaze into the Sun we are looking out of Space. And from that world, outside of Space, Christ came to men.
Peter fenffe
At the time when Christianity was founded by Christ on Earth, man had been all too long restricted to the mere Ex Deo Nascimur, he had become altogether bound up in it, he had become a Space-being pure and simple.
Christ came to bring the element of Time again to men, and when the human heart, the human soul, the human spirit, unite themselves with Christ, then man receives once more the stream of Time that flows from Eternity to Eternity. What else can we human beings do when we die, i.e. when we go out of the world of Space, than hold fast to Him who gives Time back to us again? At the Mystery of Golgotha man had become so great an extent a being of Space that Time was lost to him. Christ brought Time back again to men.
Joffa Boschart
If, then, in going forth from the world of Space, men would not die in their souls as well as in their bodies, they must die in Christ, We can still be human beings of Space, and say: Ex Deo Nascimur, and we can look to the Child who comes forth from Time into Space, that he may unite Christ with humanity. But since the Mystery of Golgotha we cannot conceive of death, the bound of our earthly life, without this thought: “We must die in Christ.” Otherwise we shall pay for our loss of Time with the loss of Christ Himself, and, banished from Him, remain held spell-bound. We must fill ourselves with the Mystery of Golgotha. In addition to the Ex Deo Nascimur, we must find the In Christo Morimur. We must bring forth the Easter thought in addition to the Christmas thought. Thus the Ex Deo Nascimur lets the Christmas thought appear before our souls, and in the In Christo Morimur the Easter thought.
The Sun not only radiates the light; the Sun creates the Space itself. And the movement of the Sun is only a spatial movement within this created Space. Outside of Space it is a movement in Time. What seems apparent to us — namely, that the Sun is speeding on towards the constellation of Hercules — is only a spatial image of the Time-evolution of the Sun-Being.
To His intimate disciples Christ spoke these words: “Behold the life of the Earth; it is related to the life of the Cosmos. When you look out on the Earth and the surrounding Cosmos, it is the Father whose life permeates this Universe. The Father-God is the God of Space. But I make known to you that I have come to you from the Sun, from Time — Time that receives man only when he dies. I have brought you myself from out of Time, (“Time,” as here used, is what we usually designate as “Eternity”, i.e. a continuous, unbroken time-experience.) If you receive me, you receive Time as eternity, and you will not be held spell-bound in Space. But you find the transition from the one trinity — Physical, Etheric and Astral — to the other trinity, which leads from the Etheric and Astral to Spirit-Selfhood. Spirit-Selfhood is not to be found in the earthly world, just as the Earthly-Physical is not to be found in the Cosmos. But I bring you the message of it, for I am from the Sun.”
When those to whom Christ revealed these things had let the revelation sink deep into their being, then the moment came when they experienced the working of this mighty concept, in the fiery tongues of Pentecost. At first they felt the falling away, the discarding of the earthly-Physical as death. But then the feeling came; This is not death, but in place of the physical of the Earth, there now dawns upon us the Spirit-Selfhood of the Universe. “Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.”
Thus may we regard the threefold nature of the one half of the year. We have the Christmas thought — Ex Deo Nascimur; the Easter thought — In Christo Morimur; and the Whitsun thought — Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus.
In the interconnection of the Christmas, Easter and Whitsun festivals we understand the human freedom on Earth.
It is indeed the language of the stars which sounds towards us from the thoughts of Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide; from the Christmas thought, inasmuch as the Earth is a star within the Universe; from the Easter thought inasmuch as the most radiant of stars, the Sun, gives us his gifts of grace; and from the Whitsun thought inasmuch as that which lies hidden beyond the stars lights into the soul, and lights forth again from the soul in the fiery tongues of Pentecost.
Meditate this through, ponder it well; then for all the descriptive foundations I have already given you for an understanding of Karma, you will gain a right foundation of inner feeling.
Try to let the Christmas, Easter and Whitsun thoughts, in the way I have expressed them to you to-day.
Bert Kaplin
Just as once upon a time at the first Whitsun Festival something shone forth from each one of the disciples, so the thought of Pentecost should now become alive again for our anthroposophical understanding. Something must light up and shine forth from our souls…about the inner connections of Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide”.
~Rudolf Steiner’s 82 ‘Karmic Relationships’ lectures, which he gave after the Christmas Conference, from February thru September, 1924 – Lecture # 49 in the series, was not included in the English volumes. It only appears in the lectures on ‘The Festivals and Their Meaning’ as ‘The Whitsuntide Festival – Its place in the study of Karma’, given in Dornach on 4 June 1924.
Michael Richardson
“I hear the Word of the Sun, It reads: Let light shine into your heart, To strengthen your human power. Heart light shining You will be healthy Through the Solar Word”. ~Rudolf Steiner, 6 November 1922
Holiday Market at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago 18 December 2021 – from 11 am – 4 pm
Dear friends – Please Join Us as move toward the Winter Festival Season:
Thursday 23 December 2021 – The Eve of the Eve – 11 am PT / 12 pm MT / 1 pm CT / 2 pm ET / 7 pm UTC
A Christmas Festival with Heart-Opening Movement by Lucien Dante Lazar & a talk by our Christian Community Priest Rev. Jeana Lee
‘Divine Love and the Holy Child Within’
This will be a hybrid in-person & Zoom event Featuring our 2 camera technology with Mary Spalding
Doors open at 12:30 pm (Zoom Room open 12:45 pm for Social time) Snacks to Share Encouraged
Suggested donation $15.00 cash payment at the door or via the Rudolf Steiner Branch PayPal donation site – *Please make a note on the first line – type in: “Christmas Fest”! The Festival will be recorded
All around the world the season of midwinter is the traditional time for community bonding through storytelling. In laying the groundwork for the 100-year anniversary of the Christmas Conference, we bring the ancient Sumerian saga “The Epic of Gilgamesh” to life. Rudolf Steiner explored this story in Occult History during the Holy Nights of 1910; and again with the lectures “World History in the Light of Anthroposophy” given during those fateful Holy Nights in 1923 for the re-founding of the Society.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is perhaps the oldest written tale on Earth. The Sumerian version dates from around 3000 B.C. Later it was compiled from 12 clay tablets written in Akkadian cuneiform.
It is the “Hero’s Journey” of human evolution, a story of friendship, and a quest for the meaning of life – revealing Steiner’s core mission of bringing karma and reincarnation to the west.
Myths, fairytales, historical epics, and sagas open us up to powerful archetypes behind the human condition, revealing clues to ourselves – from the past, the present, and the future. What will we uncover about ourselves and each other during this year’s Holy Nights adventure in storytelling?
Tune in for any or all of the episodes of this dramatic reading, re-worked by Hazel Archer from various translations, and featuring friends from around the world.
What: The Epic of Gilgamesh: Story Telling during the Holy Nights hosted by the ASA, Hazel Archer, and friends.
Time: 22 minutes daily at 9 am PT / 10 am MT / 11 am CT / 12 pm ET / 5 pm UTC
Dates: December 24, 2021- January 5, 2022 for 13 consecutive days Can’t join us live? No problem. Each gathering will be recorded and posted on our Holy Nights page (link will be emailed upon registration).
How: Register Here! Then check your email for confirmation with the Zoom registration link.
Eurythmy for the Holy Nights with Jan Ranck ‘Tuning to the Stars’: Sacred Geometry, the Planets and the Zodiac
LIVE IN-PERSON 26-30 Dec. 2021 at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago 4 pm – 5 pm And at 7pm on 31 Dec. as part of our Annual NYE Gathering (details below)
$100 for all 6 sessions, or $22 for each individual session.
Make your payment using the Rudolf Steiner Branch PayPal or QuickPay with Zelle to chase@rschicago.org (Please indicate in the notes that it is for the “Holy Nights Eurythmy”)
Cash at the door, or send a check to: Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue Chicago, IL 60618-2953 USA
* Jan Ranck – Born in the USA, Jan Ranck studied music and comparative arts at Indiana University in Bloomington. She accompanied the London Stage Group on their 1976 USA tour and went on to study eurythmy at the Eurythmeum in Dornach with Lea van der Pals, where she subsequently taught. In 1984 she joined the faculty of The London School of Eurythmy. She left there to complete her eurythmy therapy training in Stuttgart in 1989, moving afterward to Israel, where she founded and directed the Jerusalem Eurythmy Ensemble (1990) and the Jerusalem Academy of Eurythmy (1992) and was an instructor in the Jerusalem Waldorf Teacher Bachelor Program in David Yellin Academic College from 1999. Jan has held Master Classes at various venues worldwide, including the Goetheanum and the MA Program in Eurythmy held at Emerson College and Spring Valley. She is the representative for Israel in the International Eurythmy Therapy Forum.
Friday 31 December 2021 Doors open at 6:30 pm
Join us for our Annual NYE Conscious Community Gathering – The Theme for 2022 is Cabaret – a Cultural Sharing!
All are invited to take the stage with an offering.
Circles Edge & other Waldorf alum will also perform
Please bring Festival Food & Drink to share
$20 Cash at the door or Make your payment using the Rudolf Steiner Branch PayPal or QuickPay with Zelle to chase@rschicago.org (Please indicate in the notes that it is for the “NYE”)
All proceeds go to support the Rudolf Steiner Branch – the young People hosting & The Band (Can’t make it? Send a $ gift PayPal)
7 – 8 pm – Eurythmy with Jan Ranck (separate fee $22 see above)
8 pm – Potluck Social
8:30 pm – Circles Edge & Friends warm the stage & host the open mic
Tuesday 4 January 2022 – (Zoom Details TBA) 11 am PT / 12 pm MT / 1 pm CT / 2 pm ET / 7 pm UTC
a talk with Christian Community Priest & Lenker for North America Rev. Craig Wiggins: ‘From Bethlehem to Golgotha: Birthing the Christ within at Epiphany’
Greetings friends – Can you feel the throb of our collective heart resounding…? We have offered up our deed like a sacred seed to all worlds. May it cultivate deep roots, bear good fruit, & take wing to flourish in every Being.
I woke up on this Indigenous People’s day & knew I had to give thanks at the Great Inland Sea. I offered up a rose from our pageant altar to the Spirit of Place, as the Sun was spreading a pink light on the water. I reflected on our powerful Conference ‘Building the Temple of the Heart’ & spoke the name “Mishigama” derived from the Chippewa Indian word meaning “large water” or “great lake”. As I watched the rose toss in the waves I contemplated the remarkable dream I awoke with:
Patty Dimene
I was swimming in a body of salt water that was an exquisite scintillating blue, alive with sparkling sunlight. I wasn’t alone, I could feel, but I couldn’t see the others swimming in a V behind me. We were heading to an island that was on the horizon. Suddenly the water sucked me into a kind of vortex – a tunnel that spun me around & contracted me down into the spout that spit me out into the air – a swirling greenish blue sky. I flailed around at 1st trying to catch my breath. I became a bit lucid & told myself to open my clenched shut eyes. I soon found that I was humming ‘The Heart is a Key’ song. It calmed me down, & buoyed me up, so that I gently floated down onto the island with some of the others who had been swimming with me (I recognized many of you!) We greeted each other by raising our hands in a sign of benediction, & made our way to a simple hut made of woven living wild grasses & light. When we stepped thru the humble bamboo door we beheld a vast cathedral with a vaulted ceiling – lit by magnificent colored windows bringing in the light which seemed to sing – a rainbow reverberating with tone. There were ever changing cloud formations obscuring the top of the spire. I took a deep full breath – my nose & mouth in a giant cartoon O – in came the light & air & sound – entering every part of my being – I awoke with a gasp.
Lenny Caple
I had been struggling all week with little sleep, tossing with anxiety dreams, so this felt like a real break thru – a clear affirmation of the ever present help of the spiritual world etching into & affirming my soul.
As Dennis mentioned during the conference closing, our process of laying the foundation for this Temple was rift with plenty of obstacles on many levels – a sign that this is an initiatory experience – which is ongoing – bringing to each of us our own unique task in the great working.
Thank you for your determination to do the work to serve the highest good for all – Our deed was a true gift – not only for the greater community, but for the spiritual worlds.
~hag
I plan to put together a photo gallery which I will share, & everyone is welcome to contribute to it.
And I would like to publish the pageant. Angela Foster mentioned that Laura Summer uses https://www.lulu.com/. I tried to download the PDF but it wouldn’t take it (it says: “Fonts: We found some fonts in your file that need to be embedded. Please review your PDF and make sure all Fonts are embedded.” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? also: “Transparency: We detected an element that may be transparent within your file. We strongly recommend flattening or removing any transparencies in your file.” HUH?) If anyone can help me figure this out so I can make this happen please reach out
Ruth Woroniecki
RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler MICHAELMAS 111 The Spirit Soul’s Awakening v28 I can, revived within, now feel my own wide breadth of being, my strength of sun-empowered soul whose radiance of thinking solves life’s riddles and lifts the wish-fulfilling wings left lame by hope.
The Soul Calendar verses can also be imagined in a 24 hour rhythm. This verse can be a meditation every morning on awakening; and its opposite, v2 (the Southern Hemisphere verse now) – with an alteration of its first line, ‘Arising into senses’ all-enwoven outwardness’, and its third line changed from present to a coming tense – can be a meditation every evening after completing a reverse review of the day’s events, as one prepares to sleep, for which one must release one’s thoughts.
adaptation of v2 at bedtime Into Soul Sleeptime To sleep in all-enwoven outwardness thought’s power sheds its separate strand; the spirit worlds will find again their human offspring, whose soul must find in them her seed… but in herself the fruit.
At Ascensiontide, v7, ‘my divining must replace the power of thought’, and then at Whitsun, v8, ‘human thinking must be stilled, in dreamlike presence satisfied’. As the second quarter of the year begins in v14 (7×2), ‘there comes in all the senses’ glory cosmic thought’. Not till soul daylight rhythm’s dawn this week, v28 (7×4), is thinking mentioned again. Now, to quote from Goethe’s fairy tale of ‘The Green Snake And The Beautiful Lily’, “The time has come”.
Each new day can arise with a new will for action: the crucible for change. And here are quotes from Eloise Krivosheia in ‘Anthroposophyla.org/verse 28 – Awakening Spirit’, ‘We feel our “seed gift of summer” has been liberated from its sheath and has begun to shine forth with creative power. We feel a lighting up of an inner birth of spirit! Thoughts, whose origin is divine, now permeate the Soul, which receives them, and in an expansion of its understanding, is eager to pour its thinking power out over the dark riddles of life. Desires and wishes find their fulfilment when their true nature is revealed by new “sunlight”, new “sun might of the soul”. But I know, too, that unravelling life’s riddles doesn’t just happen. I have to do something energetic myself. Nevertheless, how “hope” can be a laming influence may at first seem a puzzling idea. But when it is a hope that someone, or some spiritual being, is going to fix my problems, that all I need to do is suffer through until someone or something lifts my burdens, then this kind of hope is a weakening force. It is when spiritual knowledge is working through one’s own strength, that understanding and solutions are achieved and hope can take its rightful place’.
El Greco
