If we start to follow our thinking in a state of tranquil contemplation, with attention centered within the heart, a message may begin to unfold.
The spiritual center of our earthly existence resonates as subtle currents in the form of a Being of Light, which can continue to work towards its own transformation.
The lifelines of this emerging form collect at the base of the spine & become a bearer of this eternal grace, moving dynamically into the heart-center, where, in a system of vibratory circles, all the forces intersect & concentrate themselves. This center is the source of the inner fire of unending love.
We are the gold at the end of the rainbow, a radiant aura of Light & color, able to receive the powerful beam of currents from the cosmos. We rise in our thinking & Spirit descends – strikes the center & directly generates a harmoniously vibrating spiritual body-field.
All is weaving, pulsating rhythm, enshrined in the circle, the logo of infinity.
The sign of unity is accomplished 1st in the vertical, meeting the horizontal at the crossroads, which then births the center – the spiritual heart, the true “I”, where we must cultivate the offering of the 7 Roses, whose fragrance wafts out, feeding all worlds -a new garden – a verdant network of subtle being – fresh formative forces of light, thru which harmony unfolds, blossoms & ripens.
All is striving movement – intuitive, Wisdom-filled transformation, on a plane that is free of the sleep of the unexamined life.
The result is that the field of inner, heart-vision can be extended toward others & the world.
If we contemplate these energies, these imaginations, these thoughts, in reverent, open minded love, we can create a conscious transition – from slave to sovereign – from shroud to crown – from a matter-bound human being in space, to a Being of Light – We become: Anthroposophia – in time out of time, NOW.
(dedicated to Jordan Walker of ‘Wisdom Working’ & Angela Foster of ARC & Anthroposophy Atlanta)
Francene Hart
“In my heart, Sun-strength shines, In my soul, World-warmth works. I will breathe, The strength of the Sun, I will feel, The warmth of the world. Sun-strength fills me, World-warmth penetrates me.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Mantric Sayings, GA 268
24 May 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Open your inner senses to ‘observe’ the distant dwarf planet Pluto this morning. Rising higher with each hour after midnight. Picture this planet of revolutionary change meeting up in the west with the benevolent King -bright Jupiter. to the east the father god of Time Saturn joins them.
Bella Luna passes south of Mercury in the dawn twilight, north of asteroid Vesta, both meeting blocked by the rising Sun.
Alenander Mak
1543 – Death-day of Nicolaus Copernicus
1612 – Death-day of Sir Robert Cecil, Secretary of State for King James.
1844- 1st telegraph message by Samuel Morse “What hath God wrought?”
ISIS by Saskia
POD
From the dream last night:
~My double motioned toward a door That opened from air into air. With her eyes she asked “Does your heart know the name of this gate?” “Being” I said “And the lands on either side?” “Now & then” “Pass then, she smiled & see now the New Isis” I stepped thru & nothing changed, Yet I had entered heaven. And in the distance a jackal howled at the stars. ~hag
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Shari Landau
~Vitae Sophia~ A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Online Whitsunday, 31 May 2020 from 10 am–11:15 am EDT Zoom Call*
Through leading thoughts and conversation we are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year. Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, ‘Anthroposopher’, working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.
Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire
Recently I fell into the rabbit hole, looking outwards, searching for culprits of this ‘plan-demic’, this pandemonium. And now again I am pulled to continue to investigate thru the lens of spiritual-science, to ask what task this illness holds for us as individuals & for humanity as a whole. I have written a lot about how Rudolf Steiner describes epidemics as events that belong to the progress of humanity, serving to enhance our spiritual & moral development. So, on a personal & global, karmic level, we need to ask: Why have I called in this ‘pandemic’?
Every illness is always associated with a task – this is something we know especially from the field of Anthroposophical Medicine. New abilities need to be acquired, which often involve a personal catharsis – involving deep layers of the soul – an investigation of karma – a striving to ‘Know Thyself’. If you listen to your inner self, what do you perceive there?
From an anthroposophical point of view we can think that humanity has laid the spiritual foundation for this current world event. In the Karma Lectures Rudolf Steiner addressed this aspect of epidemics. “These illnesses work according to a wise world plan. The human soul finds the opportunity to compensate what had been caused by the Ahrimanic influence and by certain earlier Luciferian influences. If other conditions of avoidance are now brought forward to delay this compensation, this is again becomes subject to far reaching karmic laws that add to the dept. We can see from this that we really must not look at these questions superficially“. ~Rudolf Steiner, Manifestations of Karma, THE NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF KARMA IN THE PERSONAL AND INDIVIDUAL, AND IN HUMANITY, THE EARTH AND THE UNIVERSE, GA 120.
It makes me think of how when the dragon was cast out of heaven, enabling the human being to become its host, there was a disruption in the karmic order of humanity. The angels that separated from the Choir Master Michael & came down to earth brought a kind of chaos into the karma of many. Are all the measures imposed upon us ‘for our own good’ part of this prevention of our karmic compensation?
John Flury
We can turn again to Rudolf Steiner’s explanation: “From this you can see that for a karmic compensation, which we would be able to remove from one side through prevention, or a temporary seeming cure, there would have to be a compensation in another direction again. We then only create the need to seek other opportunities and influences if we remove the initial influences. Now let us suppose that many epidemics, common causes of illness, can simply be seen to lead back to the fact that those people who subconsciously bring in these ‘causes of illness’, want to clear away what they have acquired through karma.
For example in the smallpox epidemic we can see the organs of unkindness.
If we were able to remove these organs, the cause of unkindness would still remain and the souls concerned would then have to seek the appropriate compensation in another way, in this or another incarnation.
We can understand what is going on when we point out something that we certainly have to count on, and that is the following. Today, indeed, a great deal of external influences and causes are being cleared away that would otherwise have been sought, as illnesses, to balance out certain karmic things that mankind has been carrying around since earlier ages. But by doing so, we only remove the possibility that man will be forfeited to the external influences: We make his outer life more pleasant or even healthier in the short term. But by doing this we only achieve that what man would have sought as karmic compensation in the corresponding disease relationship, must now be sought in another way. The souls which are kept back in this way today in a health-related relationship are thus condemned to seek this karmic balance in another way. And they will have to seek it, not just in one way, but in numerous cases, in often more dire cases.
By making their physical life guarded, the soul will be influenced in the opposite way; it will be in a way influenced that it will gradually feel a certain emptiness, an unsatisfactoriness, an unfulfilled feeling.
And if it were to go on in such a way, that the outer life would become more and more disconnected, more and more unrelated, as one can have it according to the general ideas in purely materialistic life, then such souls would have less and less incentive to progress in themselves. A desolation of the souls would in a certain sense “go hand in hand“.~Rudolf Steiner, Manifestations of Karma, THE NATURE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF KARMA IN THE PERSONAL AND INDIVIDUAL, AND IN HUMANITY, THE EARTH AND THE UNIVERSE, GA 120.
Marke Benes
Ok, so when are we going to stop avoiding ourselves & begin to ask: What is the task of this dis-ease? Which ‘organs’ are calling to be developed in the sense spoken of here by Steiner ?
“Greek philosophy beautifully compared the human soul with a bee. The world of colour and light offers the soul honey which it brings with it into the higher world. The soul must spiritualize sense experience and carry it up into higher worlds.” ~Rudolf Steiner 1906
1429 – Joan of Arc lifts the Siege of Orléans, turning the tide of the Hundred Years’ War.
1902 – In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of Saint-Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.
1933 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a one-year campaign to help the Harijan movement
1884 – Birthday of Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States, 33 degree Mason.
1922 – D. N. Dunlop resigns from the Theosophical Society
1891 – Death Day of Helena Blavatsky, Russian-English mystic & author, said to be the reincarnation of Cagliostro by Emil Bock. In her will, HPB suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her death & read from Sir Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia & from The Bhagavad Gita. Lotuses grew in unusual profusion one year later. Hence, May 8 became known as White Lotus Day.
1903 – Deathday of Paul Gauguin, French painter and sculptor. His work was influential to the French avant-garde & many modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso & Henri Matisse.
1929 – Death Day of Pauline von Kalckreuth, early anthroposophist
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John Brophy
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~god Bee The Mother As She carried Her child May She carry Her own Soul… As Her child was born, May She give birth & life & form to Her own higher Truth… For Her Soul shall be Her most potent birth… ~hag
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Amanda Sage
Anthroposophy Atlanta Lunch & Learn (Zoom Call) – “Crowning” with Hazel Archer-Hazel Archer Ginsberg, and Eurythmist Raven Garland– Is this ‘global pandemic’ entreating us to awaken to the etheric realm that we share in common with the earth? Perhaps the coronavirus is an admonition for us to reconnect to the sun-forces now imbued with the Etheric Christ, waiting to be recognized and employed in these current evolving conditions – an invitation for all of humanity to rise to a higher stage of initiation – a Crowning re-birth.
For our first call, we have invited our friend from Chicago, Hazel Archer Ginsberg to share some of her work. To support Hazel’s content, we are thrilled that Raven Garland will lead us in simple, yet powerful eurythmy at the end of the call. Please join us if you are able! It is free-of-charge and everyone is invited.
“Crowning” With Hazel Archer Ginsberg and Raven Garland Time: May 18, 2020, 11:30 am – NOON CDT – 12:30 pm – 1 pm ET – Zoom link: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/77977043476
Meeting ID: 779 7704 3476 Password: HAZEL
May 21st, 7:15 – 9 pm ‘Spirit Beholding’ Ascension Festival 2020 with the CRC
“…Like an evening vapor after the sunset…” ~Novalis – A free online Ascension Festival with the Central Regional Council – Ascension Thursday – May 21, 2020 – 7pm – 8:15pm CDT (8pm – 9:15pm EDT)
Join the Central Regional Council and special guest Raven Garland on an artistic exploration of the Mystery of Ascension. We will offer leading thoughts, intermingled with poetry and Eurythmy, to be followed by open conversation.
In the clouds, between the depths of earth and heavenly heights, in the sphere of the etheric realm, we see the primal image of metamorphosis.
Is this global pandemic entreating us to ‘Practice Spirit Beholding’ to awaken to the etheric realm we all share in common with the earth?
We can ‘Practice Spirit Recalling’ to remember we received our etheric body on Old Sun. In practicing ‘Spirit-Sensing’ we may feel perhaps the Coronavirus is an admonition for us to reconnect to the sun-forces now imbued with The Etheric Christ, waiting to be recognized and engaged in the current evolving conditions. This is an invitation for all of humanity to rise to a higher stage of initiation – a global Coronation.
The fulfillment of the secret promise of the Ascension is the Second Coming. Will we choose to participate?
FREE – ALL are Welcome
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:
Option 2. Call in using your telephone. United States: +1 (346) 248 7799 or +1 (312) 626 6799 Access Code: 869-9874-8216 The PASSWORD is: Ascension
Option 3. You can use a combination of Options 1 and 2 (computer and phone). If you use the phone, please turn off the audio on your computer to prevent audio feedback.
For more info. contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@peoplepc.com
“In heavy clouds let Him ascend And so also let Him downward tread. In cooling streams let Him be sent, in flames of fire blaze His descent, In air and essence, sound and dew, To permeate our whole earth through”. ~Novalis
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~Vitae Sophia~ A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Online Whitsunday, 31 May 2020 from 10am–11:15am EDT Zoom Call*
Through leading thoughts and conversation we are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year. Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, ‘Anthroposopher’, working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.
Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire
“…A legend has arisen about Shakespeare and whole libraries have been written about each of his works. Academics have given many interpretations of his plays, and finally a number of writers have decided that an uneducated actor could not have produced all the thoughts which they discovered in Shakespeare’s works, and they became addicted to the hypothesis that not William Shakespeare, the actor of the Globe Theatre, could have written the plays which bear his name, but some other highly learned man, for example Lord Francis Bacon of Verulam, who in view of the low estimation of literary activity at that time, borrowed the actor’s name. These suppositions are based on the fact that no manuscripts written by Shakespeare’s hand have ever been found; they are also based upon a notebook discovered in a London library with single passages in it which are supposed to correspond with certain passages in Shakespeare’s plays.
But Shakespeare’s own works bear witness that he is their author. His plays reveal that they were written by a man who had a thorough knowledge of the theatre and the deepest understanding for theatrical effects.
That Shakespeare himself did not publish his plays was simply in keeping with the general custom at his time. Not one of his plays was printed during his lifetime. They were carefully kept under wraps; people were to come to the theatre and see the plays there, not read them at home. Prints which appeared at that time were pirated editions, based on notes taken during the performances, so that the texts did not completely correspond to the original versions, but were full of errors and mutilations.
These partial omissions and mistakes led certain researchers to claim that Shakespeare’s plays, as they were then available, were not works of art of any special value and that originally they must have existed in quite a different form.
One of these researchers is Eugen Reichel, who thinks that the author of Shakespeare’s plays was a man with a certain definite worldview. But such opinions are contradicted by the fact that the plays, in the form in which they now exist, exercise such an extraordinary influence. We see this great effect in plays that have undoubtedly been mutilated, for example in Macbeth. The hold of Shakespeare’s plays on his audience was proved by a performance of Henry V under the direction of Neuman-Hofer at the inauguration of the Lessing Theatre. It did not fail to produce a powerful impression in spite of an extremely bad translation and poor acting.
Shakespeare’s plays are above all character dramas. The great interest which they arouse does not so much lie in the action, as in the wonderful development of the individual characters. The poet conjures up before us a human character and unfolds his thoughts and feelings in the presentation of an individual personality.
This artistic development, which culminated in Shakespeare, was made possible by the preceding phase of cultural development: the Renaissance. Shakespeare’s character-dramas could only arise as a result of the higher estimation of the individual during the Renaissance. During the early middle ages we find, even in Dante and in spite of his strong personality, the basic expression of the Christian ideas of that time. The Christian type of his time, not the individual human personality, appeared in the foreground. This was the general conception. The Christian principle had no interest in the individual personality. But little by little a new worldview aroused interest in the Individual human being. Only gradually did a new interest in the individual arise by means of the different viewpoint.
The fact that Shakespeare’s fame spread so quickly proves that he found an audience keenly interested in the theatre, that is to say, with a certain understanding for the representation of the personality as offered by Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s chief aim was to describe individual characters, and he was far from presenting to his audience an ethical or moral idea. For example, the idea of tragic guilt, as found in Schiller’s dramas, who thought that he had to encumber his hero with it in order to justify his downfall, does not exist in Shakespeare’s plays. He simply allows the events to take their course consistently, uninfluenced by the idea of guilt and atonement. It would be difficult to find a concept of guilt in this sense in any of his plays.
Shakespeare also did not intend to present a certain idea, not jealousy in Othello or ambition in Macbeth, no, simply the definite characters of Othello, Macbeth, or Hamlet. Just because he did not burden his characters with theories was he able to create such great ones. He was thoroughly acquainted with the stage, and this practical knowledge enabled him to develop his action in such a way as to thrill an audience. In the whole literature of the world there are no plays which are so completely conceived from the standpoint of the actor. This is a clear proof that Shakespeare, the actor, has the merit of having written these plays.
Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564. His father was in fairly good circumstances, so that his son was able to attend the Latin grammar school in his hometown. There are many legends about Shakespeare’s youth. Some say that he was a poacher and led an adventurous life. These things have been adduced against his authorship, yet these very experiences could only enrich his dramatic creation. Even the fact that in spite of his good education he was not encumbered with higher academic study, gave him the possibility to face things more freely and in a far more unprejudiced way. The poet’s adventurous nature explains to some extent some of the greatest qualities in his plays: the bold flight of his fantasy, his sudden transformations in the action, his passion and daring, all bear witness to a life full of movement and color.
In 1585, when Shakespeare’s financial conditions were no longer in a flourishing state, he went to London. There he began his theatrical career in the most menial way, by holding the horses of the visitors while they were enjoying the performance. He then became supervisor of a number of such boys who had to hold the horses’ reins, and was at last admitted to the stage. In 1592 he played his first important role.
His fame soon began to spread — both as an actor and as a dramatist — and his conditions improved, so that in 1597 he was able to buy a house in Stratford. After he became part-owner of the Globe Theatre he was a wealthy man.
The plays written during Shakespeare’s first period: Love’s Labour Lost, As You Like It, etc., do not differ so greatly from the plays of his contemporaries, of Marlowe and others; their expressive power, their purity and naturalness were moreover impaired by a certain artificial note which was the fashion in those days. The great character-plays, which were to establish his fame for all time, followed: Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Julius Caesar.
Some of Shakespeare’s biographers and commentators wish to deduce from certain of his later plays troubled experiences which embittered him. But in Shakespeare’s case this is difficult to establish, because his identity withdraws behind his characters. They do not voice his thoughts, but they all think and act in accordance with their own disposition and character.
It is consequently useless to ask what Shakespeare’s own standpoint may have been on certain difficult questions. For it is not Shakespeare, but Hamlet who broods over the problem of “to be, or not to be”, who recoils from his father’s ghost, just as Macbeth recoils from the witches. Whether Shakespeare believed in ghosts and witches, whether he was a churchgoer or a freethinker, is not the point at all: He simply asked himself: how should a ghost or a witch appear on the stage so as to produce a strong effect upon the audience? The fact that this effect is undiminished today proves that Shakespeare was able to answer this question.
We should not forget that the modern stage is not favourable to the effect which Shakespeare’s plays can produce. The importance which is now attributed to props, costumes, the frequent changes of scenery, etc. diminish the effect which is to be produced by the characters in the plays — for this remains the chief thing. In Shakespeare’s time when a change of scenery was simply indicated by a notice-board, when a table and a chair sufficed for the furniture of a royal palace, the effect produced by the characters must have been much greater than today.
Whereas in the modern theater so much depends on scenery, props, etc., when the playwright usually gives a detailed description of the scenery so that the effect of his plays may be handicapped by bad staging, Shakespeare’s plays leave a strong impression, even when performed badly.
And when a times comes in which we again see the essential more than is the case today, will the effect of Shakespeare’s art be ever greater: through the power of characterization which remains alive and unequaled through the centuries.”
William Shakespeare ~Notes of a Lecture given by Dr. Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, May 6, 1902, GA 51, Schmidt Number: S-0338, Lecture eleven of thirty-eight lectures in the lecture series entitled, Philosophy, History, and Literature, published in German as, Über Philosophie, Geschichte und Literatur. Based on an essay, Bn 29.1.28, entitled, Another Secret of Shakespeare’s Works.
Note from Marie Steiner: Friends who heard that notes existed of a lecture on Shakespeare given by Dr. Steiner in 1902 at the Workmen’s School in Berlin expressed the wish to read these notes. They were taken down by Johanna Mücke, who did not know shorthand, so they do not claim to be complete. The 7 pages of typescript may correspond to about 25 pages of the original text of the lecture. But important points emerge even from these incomplete notes.
23 April 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: As twilight fades, look way down below Venus near the horizon to pick up the thin, crescent Moon starting a new lunation.
”History, if thoroughly comprehended, furnishes something of the experience which a man would acquire who should be a contemporary of all ages, and a fellow-citizen of all peoples.” ~Joseph Roux, Meditations of a Parish Priest
1st Day of the festival of Ramadan, observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting, prayer, reflection &community. A commemoration of Muhammad’s first revelation, the annual observance of Ramadan is regarded as one of the Five Pillars of Islam & lasts twenty-nine to thirty days, from one sighting of the crescent moon to the next.
Fasting from sunrise to sunset is obligatory for all adult Muslims who are not acutely or chronically ill, travelling, elderly, pregnant, breastfeeding, diabetic, or menstruating. The predawn meal is referred to as suhur, & the nightly feast that breaks the fast is called iftar. The spiritual rewards of fasting are believed to be multiplied during Ramadan. Muslims devote themselves to prayer, recitation of the Quran, & the performance of charitable deeds as they strive for purity& heightened awareness of God.
Martorell
303 – Death day & Feast of Saint George, Roman soldier & martyr. One of the ‘14 Holy Helpers’ immortalized in the myth of Saint George & the Dragon. In the legend a dragon or crocodile makes its nest at the spring that provides water for the city of Lydda in the Holy Land. Consequently, the citizens have to dislodge the dragon from its nest to collect water. So, each day they offer the dragon at first a sheep, then a maiden. The victim is chosen by drawing lots. One day, this happens to be the princess. The monarch begs for her life to be spared, but to no avail. She is offered to the dragon, but then Saint George appears on his travels. He faces the dragon, protects himself with the sign of the Cross, slays the dragon, & rescues the princess. The citizens abandon their ancestral paganism & convert to Christianity
1869 – Birthday of Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz – was born in Prague (then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to an aristocratic family with royal connections. Polzer-Hoditz was one of Rudolf Steiner’s most valued, independently-minded colleagues. Leaving behind his background traditions, he would become a key player in Steiner’s regenerative threefold social impulses, working tirelessly for a genuinely unified, free Europe. He also fought to protect Rudolf Steiner’s esoteric legacy & the integrity of the Anthroposophical Society.
Following Steiner’s untimely death, Polzer-Hoditz fostered a broad range of friendships & alliances with key figures such as D.N. Dunlop, Walter Johannes Stein, & Ita Wegman. In a bid to avoid further division & conflict, he made significant interventions to alter the tragic course of events that consumed the Anthroposophical Society, although he was unable to stop the major split within the membership that followed. In the final decade of his life, he concentrated his energies on world issues & on influencing events, especially in Europe, while lecturing widely & writing books. In contrast to the destructive special interests of the national & religious groups that craved dominion & power, Polzer-Hoditz sought to build a true understanding between Central & Eastern Europe & to cultivate a spiritual connection with the West.
According to anthroposopher T.H. Meyer, Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz had an experience that brought to the surface one of his past incarnations as Hadrian, 76 AD – 10 July, 138 AD, who was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He is known for building Hadrian’s Wall, which marked the northern limit of Britannia. He also rebuilt the Pantheon & constructed the Temple of Venus & Roma. He is considered to have been a humanist, & he is regarded as one of the ‘Five Good Emperors’.
Hadrian was born into a Hispano-Roman family. During his reign, he traveled to nearly every province of the Empire. An ardent admirer of Greece, he sought to make Athens the cultural capital of the Empire and ordered the construction of many opulent temples in the city. He used his relationship with his Greek lover Antinous to underline his love of Greek culture leading to the creation of one of the most popular cults of ancient times. He spent extensive amounts of time with the military; he usually wore military attire & even dined & slept amongst the soldiers. Late in his reign he suppressed the Bar Kokhba revolt in Judaea, renaming the province Syria Palaestina
1891 – Birthday of Russian composer, & conductor Sergei Prokofiev, egarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. A graduate of the St Petersburg Conservatory, Prokofiev initially made his name as an iconoclastic composer-pianist, achieving notoriety with a series of ferociously dissonant & virtuosic works for his instrument. Prokofiev’s greatest interest, however, was opera.
After the Revolution, Prokofiev left Russia & resided in the United States, then Germany, then Paris, making his living as a composer, pianist & conductor. During that time he married a Spanish singer, Carolina Codina, with whom he had two sons. In the early 1930s, the Great Depression diminished opportunities for Prokofiev’s ballets & operas to be staged in America & western Europe. Prokofiev, who regarded himself as composer foremost, resented the time taken by touring as a pianist, & increasingly turned to Soviet Russia for commissions of new music; in 1936 he finally returned to his homeland with his family. He enjoyed some success there – notably with Lieutenant Kijé, Peter & the Wolf, Romeo & Juliet, & above all with Alexander Nevsky.
The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred him to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In 1948 Prokofiev was attacked for producing “anti-democratic formalism”, so with his standing compromised & his income severely curtailed, he was forced to compose Stalinist Soviet music, such as the cantata On Guard for Peace.
Prokofiev died at the age of 61 on 5 March 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin. He had lived near Red Square, & for 3 days the throngs gathered to mourn Stalin, making it impossible to carry Prokofiev’s body out for the funeral service at the headquarters of the Soviet Composers’ Union. He is buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. He was an atheist
1919 – Opening of the 1st Waldorf School, Stuttgart Germany. Waldorf education, is based on the educational philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. Its pedagogy emphasizes the role of imagination in learning, striving to integrate holistically the intellectual, practical, & artistic development of pupils.
Steiner’s division of child development into three major stages is reflected in the schools’ approach to early childhood education, which focuses on practical, hands-on activities & creative play; to elementary education, which focuses on developing artistic expression & social capacities; & to secondary education, which focuses on developing critical reasoning & empathic understanding.
The overarching goal is to develop free, morally responsible, & integrated individuals equipped with a high degree of social competence.
Qualitative assessments of student work are integrated into the daily life of the classroom, with quantitative testing playing a minimal role in primary education & standardized testing usually limited to that required for college entry. Individual teachers & schools have a great deal of autonomy in determining curriculum content, teaching methodology, & governance
1945 – Deathday of Albrecht Georg Haushofer (a German geographer, diplomat, author & member of the German Resistance to Nazism. Haushofer was born in Munich, the son of the retired World War I general.
Obtaining an insight in Nazi politics, Haushofer approached to German resistance circles. Following the outbreak of World War II.
High-ranking members of the Nazi Party looked disapprovingly upon his half-Jewish mother. Incarcerated in Berlin Moabit Prison, he wrote his Moabit Sonnets, posthumously published in 1946. In the night of 22/23 April 1945, as Red Army troops already entered Berlin, Albrecht Haushofer & other inmates were shot in the neck by SS troopers. His body was discovered by his brother Heinz on 12 May 1945.
One of the sonnets, titled Schuld or “Guilt”, was on his person at the time of his execution. It reads as follows:
Guilt I am guilty, But not in the way you think. I should have earlier recognized my duty; I should have more sharply called evil evil; I reined in my judgment too long. I did warn, But not enough, and not clearly enough; And today I know what I was guilty of. ~ Albrecht Haushofer
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Shelley Bain
TOD (Thought Of the Day)
Every April 23 the ancient Romans celebrated a festival known as Robigalia. Among the rites they performed were ceremonies to exorcise the god of rust & mildew. Let’s consider reviving that old practice. We could all benefit from spending a few days bringing awareness to what may be insidious rot, especially on a metaphorical level. Let’s scour the muck, glop, & grime out of our collective psyche.
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SAVE THE DATE: Ascension Thursday 21 May 2020 ‘Coming in the Clouds’ a CRC Festival Celebration, 7 pm CDT online
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Lifting the Veil of The New Isis -Sophia, a Telling of the New Isis Myth, with Leading Thoughts, on the Being of Anthroposophia, w/ Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Friday, 29 May 2020, 7:30 – 9:30 pm at Groh Farm, 135 Temple Rd, Wilton, NH
(if the lockdown is still in effect, look for an online connection)
$10 suggesteddonation – RSVP deb@anthroposophy.org – Sponsored by the Anthoposophical Society in NH
Our dear Dr. Steiner said: ‘It is not the Christ we lack, but the knowledge of Christ, the Sophia of Christ, the Isis of Christ we are lacking.’ In ‘Ancient Myths and the New Isis Mystery: Their Meaning and Connection with Evolution’ Lecture 3; given in Dornach, 6 January 1918, by Rudolf Steiner; we hear how the power of ‘The Word, the power of The Logos’, must be resurrected through our striving to activate the Wisdom of Anthroposophia within each of us. Join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg for a powerful presentation Lifting the Veil of the New Isis-Sophia, to bring Light to Love.
Jo Jayson
~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-GinsbergSaturday, 30 May, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm Groh Farm, 135 Temple Rd, Wilton, NH
(if the lockdown is still in effect, look for an online connection)
Eurythmy: AUM = A – I stand for myself, U- I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life
Social Sculpture: Steiner’s ‘Blue Dot Exercise’– Through Art, the bridge between science & spirit, we warm the ‘I’, to open the heart, in support of healthy community.
What are my gifts-What are my tools? How can I place them in right relationship within the social realm? How can I hone them to strengthen and enhance the world?
Living into the Foundation Stone of Love – How can we take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” a path leading from ‘Sprit Recollection’, to ‘Sprit Sensing’, to ‘Sprit Beholding’?
Enter the Labyrinth of ‘Vitae Sophia’ – Human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the source of wisdom, like flowers turning toward the sun.
$30 suggested donation at the door, with potluck lunch to follow (please bring a dish to share) RSVP deb@anthroposophy.org Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire
3 June 2020 – a Round Table Discussion 7 pm – 9 pm on ‘The Sophia’ with John Bloom, Joan Sleigh, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg & Carrie Schuchardt at The House of Peace in Ipswich, MA.
(if the lockdown is still in effect, look for an online connection)
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year.Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, ‘Anthroposopher’, working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.
My friends – We will soon be dealing with a challenge we have never faced before, or maybe we have (the great flood comes to mind) but not in this way. We are being asked: How do we synchronize two major archetypes – the Lover & the Warrior.
Kali Mann
As always, it will be a daunting task, a trail of initiation, if you choose to accept it.
We are being asked to cultivate the tender, considerate, impulses of the inner Lover, while simultaneously feeding the fiery discipline of our Righteous Warrior-Self, as we approach what appears to be an abyss (or is it a portal – a Threshold into a new reality?)
Panni Bharti
So it’s extremely important that the Wisdom of the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ gets across. If we understand the necessity for this crucifixion, & understand that it is a preparation for a resurrection – an empowerment toward New Life, then we will be equipped to go through it, without too much fear, trusting in the logic of the Divine Transformation.
The power that is ‘doing this to us’ is coming towards us with both a quality of terrifying destruction & extreme grace. The destruction is, in fact, a form of that extreme grace – IF what we build out of it is moral. It is quite clear that humanity is now terminally ill, & can only be transfigured by a totally shocking revelation of our shadow side, which only appears to come from outside us. And this is what we’re living through, these shadow sides exploding in every direction because we have done nothing but betray the sacred in us.
Alphonse Maria Mucha
Those who turn to Wisdom, illuminating the intellect with the new forces of the etheric heart that are striving to be born through the Anthroposophia within us; those who cultivate the Light of Michaelic thinking; those who realize the truth behind the illness, will be given extraordinary protection, strength, & revelation.
We will be empowered in the core of ourselves to become what we must now become–a spiritual revolutionary, devoting our entire life & all our spiritual resources to the preservation of the planet, for the highest good of all.
Finding the Divine Feminine, in whatever form you want to find her, realizing the great task that she’s here to assist us with, will calm & guide us, to forge forward in the work ahead.
Megan Kasper
Let us learn the secret language of light again. Also the letters of the dark. Re-member the flight patterns of birds, the syllables of wolf howl & bird song, the moving pantomime of branch & leaf, valleys & peaks of whale calls, the long sentences of ants moving in unison, the forming & re-forming of clouds, the codices of stars. Let us, reconstitute the world, sign by sign & melody by melody.
Marulyn Wells
Let us sing the world back into the very Heart of the Holy Name of God.
~hag
***
Jacob Ashby
6 April 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: a few hours before sunrise, look for Jupiter, Saturn, & Mars marching upward in the southeastern sky. These 3 Sacred outer world planets are gearing up for a major convocation as Pluto slowly approachs its aphelion, the farthest point in its orbit from the Sun.
“What is to be the starting force & impulse for events in social & ethical life must come out of the spiritual world.” ~Rudolf Steiner, New Spiritual Impulses in History” Dornach 16 December, 1917
582- Death & Feast Day of Eutychius of Constantinople, Toward the end of his life, Eutychius maintained an opinion that after the resurrection the body will be “more subtle than air” & no longer a tangible thing. This was considered heretical, because it was taken as a denial of the doctrine of physical, corporeal resurrection.
Henry Nelson O’Neil
1520 – Deathday of Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael. He died on Good Friday. He was also born on Good Friday in 1483.
“It must seem strange that Raphael was the same person as a thorny character like John the Baptist.How could it happen that this thorny man, who had to pave the way for the Mystery of Golgotha in such a violent way, reappeared as the gentle, pliable, charming Raphael? But look at this. Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, died when Raphael was eleven. He was a painter. He was not a great painter so far as external achievements go, but he had great ideas in his head, although he could not put them on camas because he had no technical skill. He was also a poet. There was a great deal of fantasy in him, but the physical capacities simply were not there. He went early through the portal of death, and then his forces worked into his son. In Raphael’s hands and imagination worked all that his father could send into the physical world. One can say that the old Giovanni Santi was a painter without hands in the supersensible world, for in a wonderful karmic relationship he supplied, in combination with the Christ-filled individuality of the Baptist, what came to expression in Raphael. The supersensible world had to work with the physical world to achieve this result. It shows how the so-called dead are able to influence those who have been left behind…” ~ Rudolf Steiner, On the Relationship with the Dead, 23 April 1913
Raphael, as we know from was an Italian painter & architect
of the High Renaissance. Raphael was enormously productive, running an
unusually large workshop &, despite his death at 37, leaving a large body
of work. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace. From 1517 until his death, Raphael lived in the Palazzo
Caprini in the Borgo, in rather grand style in a palace designed by Bramante.
He never married, & was thought to be bi-sexual. He is said to have had
many affairs, but a permanent fixture in his life in Rome was “La
Fornarina”, Margherita Luti, the daughter of a baker (fornaro) named
Francesco Luti from Siena.
The story goes that Raphael’s premature death on
Good Friday, which was also his 37th birthday, was caused by a night of
excessive sex with Luti, after which he fell into a fever &, not telling
his doctors that this was its cause, was given the wrong cure, which killed him.
At his request, Raphael was buried in the Pantheon.
His funeral was extremely grand, attended by large
crowds. The inscription in his marble sarcophagus, an elegiac distich written
by Pietro Bembo, reads: “Ille hic est Raffael, timuit quo sospite vinci,
rerum magna parens et moriente mori”, meaning: “Here lies that famous
Raphael by whom Nature feared to be conquered while he lived, and when he was
dying, feared herself to die.”
1472 –Birthday of Lucas Cranach the Elder, a German Renaissance painter & printmaker
1869 – Celluloid is patented
1896 – In Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games is celebrated, 1,500 years after the original games are banned by Roman emperor Theodosius I
1930 – Gandhi raises a lump of mud and salt and declares, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire,” beginning the Salt Satyagraha
1965 – Launch of Early Bird, the first commercial communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit
1971 – Deathday of Igor Stravinsky, Russian-American pianist, composer, & conductor
1992 – Deathday of Isaac Asimov, American science fiction writer
2008 – The 2008 Egyptian general strike starts led by Egyptian workers later to be adopted by April 6 Youth Movement & Egyptian activists
2015 – Deathday of Ray Charles
***
Greetings friends – The Central Regional Council welcomes you to a Zoom Study Group Meeting on the Karma of Epidemics
April 8th 2020, 7:15 pm CST
“Imagine a people which was composed entirely of liars, the astral plane would be populated solely by the corresponding demons and these demons would be able to express themselves in a constitutional tendency to epidemics. Thus there is a certain species of bacilli who are the carriers of infectious diseases; these beings are the progeny of the lies told by human beings; they are nothing else than physically embodied demons generated by lies.” (GA 99 – L.6)
Please familarize yourself with the lecture if possible to contrbute to the discussion. Theosophy of the Rosicrucian The Law of Destiny Schmidt Number: S-1539 Lecture VI https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0099/19070530p01.html
One tap mobile +13126266799,,451374910# US (Chicago) +16465588656,,451374910# US (New York)
Dial by your location +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US +1 301 715 8592 US Meeting ID: 451 374 910 Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/adZ7jft0hb
If you have questions, please contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@peoplepc.com
Let us stand together with courage in this now, as we look to our future with equanimity, holding all that comes before us as being guided by a divine directive waiting to be revealed by our patient spiritual investigation.
Many of us are doing constructive things like the Hallelujah in Eurythmy, & other hygienic exercises, along with The Foundation Stone Meditation or Rhythms at Sunrise (or anytime) every morning to create a high vibration of Love & Light – Please join us for the healing of all.
Yours in service ~The CRC team: Marianne Fieber, Alberto Loya, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, David Howerton, Lisa Dalton For more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Dear Friends – My beloved ‘practice buddy’ (Thanks Patrick Kennedy for this phrase) Angela Foster & I had a check-in with the need to express the anxiety that is living in the world & in us – an attack on our soul forces.
We placed Michael in a leminscate between us, activating the sword of discernment, & picturing his shield as a rib cage around our heart.
The eurythmy gesture for the constellation of Cancer, which houses the Bee Hive Cluster & rules the rib cage, came to mind.
Krzysztof Kacperek
Remembering that we are in the Season of Lent, we handed over everything that was too overwhelming to carry, into the arms of Mother Mary, in an imagination that these unredeemed astral attacks could be transformed, passing from Her hands into the Sacred Heart of Christ, transformed by the Holy Spirit, & held by the ‘Father Ground of the World’ as a healing impulse in the ‘Depths of Worlds Begetting Life’.
Then later, at 2nd breakfast, with my husband,-my other practice buddy, we talked about how the adversarial powers are working really hard. They are highly intelligent, & have a systematic, long term plan.
So what about us?
Of course on a personal level we know we need to work on our own individual inner development thru the basic exercises etc…But, what about the Anthroposophical Society as a World-Wide Movement?
Can we, as an association of members, create some sort of Michaelic plan?
Kilian- Voss
It’s great that many of
us are stepping up our Eurythmy & Meditation practice, offering these up to
the world. And, yes, we are really good at ‘Spirit-Recalling’, remembering the
past – folks are gearing up for the 100 year anniversary of the laying of the
New Foundation Stone at the Christmas Conference in 1923-24, right now.
Many of us strive to focus in with Spirit-Sensing’ – aligning with “World rhythms bestowing grace upon souls’ – Working to bring awareness of the etheric Christ encircling us.
Peter & Birgitte Fich Christiansen
And I believe the impulse for a ‘Sophia Conference’ in 2022 is truly what is needed as a herald to our future ‘Spirit-Beholding’. The dimension of Wisdom is so needed if we are to light the way to the New Isis & our incarnation with the Maitreya Buddha, to embody Manichaeism in order to redeem evil.
Barbara Cadario
Of course the elephant in the room in dealing with the AS (Anthroposophical Society) still trumpets with the residue of the mismanagement of the Society after Steiner’s death (which BTW had to do, in part, with trying to compromise under the pressures of political Nazi authorities) Recently much healing within the AS has taken a leap with the official acknowledgement of the oustings & the ‘reinstating’ of key members like Ita Wegman & Elizabeth Vreed.
Justin Singh
But, can each of us honestly say we have rooted out the residue of divisiveness lurking within, expressed thru antipathies & misplaced sympathies, jealousies, our refusal to see the other as a karmic mirror, our aversion to those in the ‘other stream’ that think differently than us…
Barely Mantz
Friends, ‘The door is open’, we are being called to take action. How can we work together to create true unity with all that we have been given thru Rudolf Steiner & Anthroposophy?
Will we, as a collective, respond to the necessity coming from all worlds?
We must be the 1st responders, we must stand on the front lines & put our Spiritual World-View into Practice – creating a chalice that offers the healing medicine, in Love & freedom.
Ariana Heaertsong
Here is the daily Rhythm of the Foundation Stone for Saturday:
28 March 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waxing crescent Moon shines to the left of Venus in twilight. As night deepens, you’ll find them forming a triangle with the fingertip-sized Pleiades over them.
“Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.” ~ Thomas Aquinas
1483 – Birthday of Raphael,(Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino) Italian painter & architect. In Rudolf Steiner’s last address he speaks about this individualities’ previous lives as the 1st man: Adam, The prophet Elijah &John the Baptist
1515 – Birthday of St. Teresa of Ávila, From the Pastoral Medicine lecture #5: “In the case with such personalities as St. Teresa there is continuous healing coming from the spirit. When we study these individuals, we find that as a first stage the ego organization separates from the rest of the human organism. It then draws the astral body closely to it, in a certain sense away from the physical-etheric organism. This is in the waking state. What is the consequence of this? You can easily see that this puts the individual into a kind of dream condition. From a spiritual-scientific point of view the ego, by drawing the astral body to itself, is not allowing it to enter the physical and etheric bodies completely, and this brings about a kind of dream condition. But because of the special karmic density, both ego and astral body are strong, and they bring into the dream condition receptivity for the perception of the spiritual world. Dream is transformed into a state in which the individual is really able to see into the spiritual world and to feel the presence of spiritual beings.” ~Rudolf Steiner
1592 – Birthday of John Amos Comenius, Czech bishop Pansophia educator. Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as an adviser to Harun-al-Rashid in the Karmic Relationships Vol. 6 lecture 8. “…Haroun al Raschid and his wise Counsellor passed through the gate of death. But after their life between death and rebirth they continued to pursue their earthly aims in remarkable ways. It was their aim to introduce Arabian modes of thinking into the European world with the help of the rudiments of the Intelligence now spreading in Europe. And so after Haroun al Raschid had passed through the gate of death, while his soul was traversing spiritual, starry worlds, we see his gaze directed unswervingly from Baghdad across Asia Minor, to Greece, Rome, Spain, France and then northwards to England. Throughout this life between death and rebirth his attention was directed to the South and West of Europe. And then Haroun al Raschid appeared again in a new incarnation — becoming Lord Bacon of Verulam. Bacon himself is the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid who in the intervening time between death and rebirth had worked as I have just described.
But the other, the one who had been his wise Counsellor, chose a different direction — from Baghdad across the Black Sea, through Russia and then into Middle Europe. The two individualities took different paths and directions. Haroun al Raschid passed to his next earthly goal as Lord Bacon of Verulam; the wise Counsellor during his life between death and a new birth did not divert his gaze from the sphere where influences from the East can be increasingly potent, and he appeared again as Amos Comenius (Komenski), the great educational reformer and author of “Pan-Sophia.” And from the interworking of these two individualities who had once been together at the Court in Baghdad there subsequently arose in Europe something which unfolded — more or less at a distance from Christianity — in the form of Arabism derived from influences of that past time when the Intelligence had first fallen away from Michael on the Sun.
Here we have indicated something that lies as sub-strata of the soil into which we to-day have to sow the seeds of Anthroposophy. We must ponder deeply over the inner and spiritual reality behind these things”.
1749 – Birthday of Laplace, a French scholar whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics & astronomy. He summarized & extended the work of his predecessors in his five-volume Mécanique Céleste (Celestial Mechanics) (1799–1825). He restated & developed the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the Solar System and was one of the first scientists to postulate the existence of black holes and the notion of gravitational collapse. Sometimes referred to as the French Newton or Newton of France, he has been described as possessing a phenomenal natural mathematical faculty superior to that of any of his contemporaries. He was Napoleon’s examiner when Napoleon attended the École Militaire in Paris in 1784.
Rudolf Steiner speaks of him in Karmic Relationships: Volume I Lecture 10, as being in the court of Mamun in Baghdad in the period from 813 to 833, cultivating astrological-astronomical knowledge. Laplace in that incarnation was a brilliant personality in whom Mamun placed deep confidence & to whom appeal was always made when it was a question of reading the portents of the stars. Steiner also connects Laplace with Kant in several lectures.
1941 – DeathDay of Virginia Woolf, English novelist, essayist, short story writer.
1943 – DeathDay of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Russian pianist, composer, & conductor
1985 – Deathday of MarcChagall, Russian-French painter & poet
1994 – DeathDay of Eugène Ionesco, Romanian-French playwright & critic
***
Steven Yates
POD (Poem Of the Day)]
~This is the hour The passion & the power This is the hour The chalice & the tower…
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