Category Archives: Upcoming Events

Vashti/Esther

Today on the eve of the Full ‘Worm’ Moon of Spring comes the two day celebration of the Jewish Festival Purim.

On Purim nothing is as it seems…& all that is hidden shall be revealed…

One of the meanings of the name Esther, the star of the Purim story, is concealment – that hidden level of divinity beyond our awareness.

The book of Esther called the ‘Megillah’ has the opposite meaning = revelation.

Put the two together & we get the paradoxical reality of life – which often seems like mission impossible – yet every trial is a spiritual reality hiding the essence of the Divine in the everyday world…

Purim is traditionally a masquerade. One of the reasons to dress up is to ‘hide’- an allusion to the hidden hand of G-d in the Purim miracle, The name of G-d is never spoken & yet is made manifest thru a woman named  Esther (= Ishtar = where we get our name for Easter – A fertility goddess of Spring, She is a warrior, yet a goddess of love, marriage & childbirth, & of fate)

On Purim we can live into an act of faith – which demonstrates that even when the presence of the Divine is hidden from us, it is always there – often working thru us!

Spiritual powers have a hand in pulling the strings, even when things seem to be ‘just happening.’

Although the name of G-d is never mentioned In the Book of Esther = The “Gantze Megillah” – The Divine plan was just disguising itself in this palace soap opera:

It all began in Ancient Persia. The Holy Temple that had stood in Jerusalem was destroyed more than 50 years earlier, & the Jews were subjects of the mighty Persian empire which extended over 127 lands. Three years after King Ahasuerus ascended the Persian throne, when he felt secure in his new position, he celebrated by throwing a grand 180 day-long party for all his subjects.

Following this extravagant gala, The King hosted a smaller week-long party for the favored residents of the capital city.

In the women’s quarters, his wife Queen Vashti, hosted her own party for the womenfolk.

On the seventh day of this party, The King “was merry with wine,” & he commanded his wife Queen Vashti to appear before all the drunk men—he wanted to show off her exquisite beauty. But Queen Vashti balked at this request. So the men became angry & the drunken King ordered Queen Vashti’s execution.

She was beheaded, (like John the Baptist), her head presented on a platter to the drunken mob. (There is much we could say in commentary around this sacrifice which often goes unexamined in this story about a woman’s right to body sovereignty & the deep connections to the stories of Demeter & Innana, etc…)

When the King sobered up, he was lonely for a wife. His advisors suggested that he orchestrate a beauty pageant. Officers were appointed in all the king’s lands, & all beautiful girls would be brought to the King, & the girl who found favor in the king’s eyes would be the new queen.

The leader of the Jews at that time was named Mordechai. He had a cousin, Esther, who was orphaned as a young girl. Mordechai raised her & treated her as a daughter. Though she had no desire to be the queen, Esther, like many others, was forcibly taken to the king’s harem, to participate in the contest…

While all the other contestants beautified themselves with perfumes & lotions, Esther did nothing. But as fate would have it when she appeared before the king, he immediately liked her best, & Esther became the new Queen of Persia.

Mordechai begged Queen Esther not to divulge her nationality – even to the king…

Shortly after Esther became queen, Mordechai overheard two of the king’s chamberlains discussing a plot to assassinate the king. So Mordechai had them reported, & the two traitors were hanged…

Meanwhile, Haman, a virulent Jew hater was promoted to the position of Prime Minister. Immediately after his promotion, he got the King to issue a decree ordering everyone to bow down whenever Haman appeared as an extension of the King. So Haman would walk around with a large idol on his head…

When Mordechai, refused to bow down, Haman was infuriated. He resolved to take revenge against all the Jews & threw lots to determine the day when he would implement his plan. The lot fell on the 13th day of the Hebrew month of Adar (March)…

Haman approached King Ahasuerus & told him the Jews were planning an uprising against the King. So the King told Haman  “the nation is yours to do with as you please.” Haman immediately sent proclamations to all the King’s land, sealed with the royal signet ring, ordering the people to rise up against the Jews & kill them all – men, women, & children – on the day the lot declared…

When Mordechai became aware of the decree, he rent his garments & put on sackcloth. He sent a message to Queen Esther, imploring her to approach the king & beg him to spare the Jewish people. Queen Esther reminded him that according to the rules anyone who entered the king’s presence un-summoned would be put to death—unless the king extended to that person his golden scepter. “And as it is, I have not been summoned by the king for thirty days” -Queen Esther said…

Mordechai sent another message: “Perhaps you were made Queen for just this purpose”. So Queen Esther prayed & then agreed to approach the king. But 1st she asked Mordechai to gather all the Jews & have them fast with her for 3 days & 3 nights.

Mordechai gathered all the Jews of the city & they fasted, repented & prayed…

After the 3 days, Queen Esther put on royal garb & entered the chambers of the King. The King softened & extended his scepter. “Why have you come?” he asked. “What is your request?”

Queen Esther responded: “I would like to invite you O King & your advisor Haman to a small feast I have prepared.”

So King Ahasuerus & the puffed up Haman joined Queen Esther for a wine-feast. During, the king again asked Queen Esther whether she had anything to request. Queen Esther responded “Yes, come again tomorrow, with Haman to join me for another feast, & then I will tell you my request”…

Haman left the party with grandiose ideas of himself as the King’s right hand man invited to the most honored occasions with the King. This made him think that he himself should be king. In this high mood he saw Mordechai standing at the king’s gate– who still refused to bow to him – this enraged the evil man. When he arrived home, he brooded, & decided to erect a gallows, to show Mordechai his power by hanging him in front of all. Then while talking with his servants he hatched a plan to usurp the King, promising his minions grand positions when he was ruler.  

Evil mingled with the night air, & sleep eluded the King that night, so he asked his servants to read to him from the Royal Chronicles. They just happened to open the book to read of how Mordechai had saved the King’s life when 2 of his chamberlains were devising a plot to kill him…The King asked: “Was Mordechai ever rewarded for this fine act?” “No he was not,” the servants responded…

The next day Haman entered the king’s courtyard to ask the king’s permission to hang Mordechai! But before Haman could utter a word, the King addressed him: “My Haman, in your estimation, what shall be done to a person who the king wishes to honor”? Haman, was certain that the king wished to honor him, so he responded: “Bring royal garments & a royal horse, & let one of the king’s nobles dress the man & lead him on the horse through the city streets, proclaiming: See what is done for the man whom the king wishes to honor!’…

“Let it be so,” the King responded. “Now, go get the garments & the horse and do so for Mordechai the Jew!” Haman shocked & angry as he was, had no choice but to comply. He went & honored Mordechai as the king had ordered, but he couldn’t hold his grumbling tongue, so that Mordecai heard Haman telling one of the servants that soon he would be giving the orders as king. Haman planned kill the king when the attack on the Jewish people was occurring in order to blame it on them.

Mordecai was able to tell the king of Haman’s plan & show him the gallows he had erected.

At the 2nd feast prepared by Queen Esther, the king asked Haman what he would do if he knew someone was not honoring the king? Haman thinking of how Mordecai had not bowed down to him said, “I would hang him from the highest gallows & leave his body there for 3 days to rot as an example” The king paused. Then he asked Queen Esther “What is your request?”

Queen Esther found the courage to reply saying: “If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, let the life of the Jewish people be saved, for they are my people.” Remembering the chronicles that listed Mordecai’s loyalty the king, & of Haman’s evil plan, ordered that Haman be hanged on the very gallows he had built for the Jew…

On that day, Haman’s estate was given to Queen Esther, & Mordechai was appointed Prime Minister in Haman’s place…

The evil one was dead, but his decree was still in effect. According to Persian law, once a king issues a decree it cannot be rescinded. So on the request of Queen Esther, the king promptly wrote up a decree that countermanded Haman’s edict to the effect that the Jews had permission to defend themselves against any attack. And since the guards all knew that the Queen & Prime Minister were both Jewish, many were saved.

After that, Mordechai & Queen Esther established the holiday called “Purim” which means lots, to commemorate these amazing events –

Snip, snap, snout, this tail is all told out…

And so yes dear friends, all that is hidden shall be revealed.

Blessings to all

~hag

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

12 BC – The Roman Emperor Augustus is named Pontifex Maximus, incorporating the position into that of the emperor.

632 – The Farewell Sermon of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

1475 – Birthday of Michelangelo, Italian painter & sculptor

1619 – Birthday of Cyrano de Bergerac, French author & playwright

1806  – Birthday of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. – poet. She campaigned for the abolition of slavery & her work helped influence reform in the child labor legislation. Her prolific output made her a rival to Tennyson as a candidate for poet laureate on the death of Wordsworth.

1888 – Deathday of Louisa May Alcott, American novelist & poet, best known as the author of the novel Little Women. Raised by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May & Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she also grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, & Henry David Thoreau. Alcott was an abolitionist & a feminist & remained unmarried throughout her life.

1893 – Birthday of Eleonore Clara Maria Lory Maier-Smits – the 1st Eurythmist

1943 – Norman Rockwell published Freedom from Want in The Saturday Evening Post with a matching essay by Carlos Bulosan as part of the Four Freedoms series

1964 – Boxing champion Cassius Clay takes the name Muhammad Ali

1975 – For the first time the Zapruder film of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is shown

1986 – Deathday of Georgia O’Keeffe, American painter – the “Mother of American modernism”. In 1905, O’Keeffe began her serious formal art training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago & then the Art Students League of New York, but she felt constrained by her lessons that focused on recreating or copying what was in nature…The rest is herstory…

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

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.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE

Shake it but don’t break it

O look – another veil has dropped – a fresh insight has emerged – a challenging crossroad has appeared…Now what?

Head down & plodding I could easily miss it – open to adventure I may choose to take the road less traveled – or perhaps I’ll just sigh & say, nah, too much trouble – no – it feels like an obstacle – a trap – a turn for the worst – a chance to get lost…

But maybe – I am – fully prepared to ford the ravine – to scale the…um… well, maybe not the mountain, but surely a good sized mole-hill – to bump into wonder – Then I can stand on this milestone of the moment – in the tickling triumph of discovery – wrought thru with little breadcrumb clues & simple surprises…Knowing –  I am – taking every step – with reverence – in awareness – that at every turning point, there is often a stumbling – into opportunity – disguised as a problem…

Yep I had a break thru in my thinking last night, & nope it wasn’t very pretty – Enlightening? Hell Yes. Still processing? Always Yes…And I know that this trans-personal revelation – this knowing of myself – this practical Anthroposophy which has lead me once more to the Threshold of the abyss to meet the Guardian – who sends me once again to stand in front of the Seraphim with the flaming sword – So…OK – I won’t be jumping up & running hither & thither, cause I’m not sure what to do with this break thru, with this explanation, this excuse..?

Sooo…I will – let it steep before I leap – Be  4 – I can – take my time – Be cause – I know – a magic twisty rise – will arise – up into a fresh future –  And so…I engage in another wrestling match with my angel – a reckoning with my past – accompanied by a slap in the face from the future.

Happy Sun Day.

~hag

Chart via John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

5 March 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: You’ll find the moon shining near Regulus in Leo the Lion & the backward question mark shape of the Sickle on the evenings tonihgt & tomorrow. The glowing waxing gibbous moon may wash out fainter stars, as it reaches full phase on the morning of March 7. You can see the Bella Lina & Leo thru the night until around sunrise.

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated with added titles by Roy Sadler

This week’s verse is the birthday verse of Rudolf Steiner even though this year it begins 8 days after his birth date. In 1861 Easter was on March 31st, so preparing for the transition to the Lentan lunar calendar v44 & v45 would have been in the same week: the new moon was on its Saturday, February 9th, leading to the full moon in v48, in Virgo in front of the stars of Leo whose eurythmy gesture is Enthusiasm, on Monday February 25th when Steiner was born with enthusiasm for the power of cosmic thought to awaken love.
LENT III
Light’s Awakening Of Love
v48

In light, whose flowing from the heights
would be the world’s empowering of soul,
let shine the certainty of cosmic thought
that solves soul riddles
and focusing its radiance in human hearts
awakens love.

The verse is part of the Calendar’s light quartet, and as Rudolf Steiner lectured to young doctors on Nov.30 1919, “with every breath of air, we take not only air but also light into ourselves, and we transform this light within us and make it our own as we do any other substance: we digest it, we make it an integral part of our self.”

It is a climax verse, the 7th mention of the heart and the 3rd of love, their last appearance till next winter, the heart at the Solstice and love at Epiphany.

The mirror verse, with a free translation here of its first part, is my birthday verse. I encountered the Soul Calendar in a eurythmy class nearly 50 years ago I am grateful now to be sending my translations here and would appreciate any comments as I work on them with hope to publish them.

Easter V
Soul Resurrection
v5

In light, whose fertile weaving
from depth of spirit into blossoming
reveals the beauty of the gods’ creating,
the being of the soul is shining, widening,
enlivened in the presence of the world
and resurrected
from narrow selfhood’s inner power.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

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.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE

Love & Wisdom Kiss

MARCH in like a lion…Out like a lamb” doesn’t apply to our weather here in Chicago at least not today on this March 1st 2023…

Unless of course you consider that we are experiencing a powerful conjunction of Venus & Jupiter written into the stars of Pisces at sunset this evening!

From Astrosopher Jonathan Hilton: “Venus and Jupiter stand just into that fish (the Southern Fish) of the two fishes in Pisces, which is swimming towards Aquarius, our future, who one can see pouring the cosmic living water down upon the Sun now in Aquarius…

Rudolf Steiner once described this Piscean age as the time when humanity learns to stand on its own two feet. Pisces is connected to the hands and feet and thus to the will, through which we can transform the Earth or destroy it. Its now in our hands in this time of freedom to turn away from the gods or unite with them. In the two fish we can also see a picture of duality, even polarities, in which we live in this age of decision and choice. We stand always in the tension between the two…

Now we have Jupiter joining Venus here in Pisces, directly below the star Alpheratz. Both of these planetary spheres of being ask us to move into the future towards our higher calling. Jupiter as the sphere of the Spirits of Wisdom, wants to become the realization of our higher ideals, the awakening of the new living thinking, the foundation stone for the New Jerusalem…

Alpheratz is the star marking the forehead (third eye?) of Andromeda as well as the tip of the wing of Pegasus arising from the head of Andromeda. She has just been rescued by Perseus from the sea monster. Clearly Alpheratz carries a special call to humanity’s future evolution towards the new winged thinking, the living or etheric thinking, arising out of the transformed soul (Andromeda)…

Venus, that sphere of love and reintegration with the divine, became through Christ’s deeds on the Earth, the sphere which carries the new Christ mysteries in the Earth, the foundation for the new mysteries out of the true I Am. Yet Venus, the pentagram, can become the downward pentagram of Lucifer, serving only self-love, self-serving egotism, even the pentagram that serves black magic. The choice in our time of freedom, is up to us.

So perhaps one can see that a simple look up to the stars in the early evening sky during the coming week can expand from a feeling of awe and beauty for the two beautiful bright stars to an immense cosmic imagination to inspire our communion with the higher worlds of being.

We are in the season of Lent, a time of preparation for Easter, of remembering the suffering and sacrifice of Christ in his incarnating into flesh. It is a time when we can come to a deeper feeling for the sacrifice and death in us that can lead to resurrection. Just yesterday a friend gave me a poem, which to me speaks to this starry configuration and indeed in general to our feeling for the stars. It is titled Night Sky, by Kathleen Raine.

There came such a clear opening of the night sky,
The deep glass of wonders, the dark mind
In unclouded gaze of the abyss
Opened like the expression of a face.
I looked into that clarity where all things are
End and beginning, and saw
My destiny there: “So” I said, “no other
Was possible ever.
This is I. The pattern stands so for ever”.
What am I? Bound and unbounded,
A pattern among the stars, a point in motion
Tracing my way. I am my way. It is I.
I travel among the wonders.
Held in that gaze and known
In the eye of the abyss,
“Let it be so”, I said,
And my heart laughed with joy
To know the death I must die.

~read the article by Jonathan Hilton
Astrosophy.com

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

399 – Death Day of Socrates – scholar, teacher and philosopher born in ancient Greece. His Socratic method laid the groundwork for Western systems of logic and philosophy. When the political climate of Greece turned against him, Socrates was sentenced to death by hemlock poisoning.

1244 – The Cathar fortress of Montsegur falls into the hands of the Inquisition

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

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.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE

Baptism of a Modern Initiate

Greetings dear friends on this anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s Baptism on 27 February in 1861 –

I have been pondering the mysterious Birth of Rudolf Steiner for quite a while. Last year a group of us held a 3 day vigil from 25-27 February to live into this mystery. Many folks argue that we should celebrate Steiner’s birthday on the 27th of February, his Baptism day. Steiner himself names the 27th as his date of birth in his autobiography.

When we think of the connection with the Christ impulse, we can compare the powerful working that happens in the 3 day vigil between Good Friday & Easter Sunday, with the birth of Steiner who was given up for dead at his birth – We can also see a link with how the Cosmic Christ entered into the vessel of Jesus of Nazareth at the Baptism –

Maybe Steiner’s entelechy needed the Baptism rite to fully commit to incarnation…?

On a mundane level, I have also thought, well maybe Steiner simply names his birth date as 27 February because that is what his official papers say – Or then again, perhaps it’s because by not divulging his true birth date he thought it might afford him protection against the adversarial agencies that could use the cosmic information in his natal chart to thwart his mission..?

Those who can read a person’s destiny written in the stars, are able to use those impulses for their own purposes – for or againist that person…

But then this year, because I work deeply with Steiner’s Original Calendar of the Soul, where we can see the connections between cosmic & earthly historical events, as well as birth & death dates of influential human beings who have shaped our evolution – last night it occurred to me:

27 February is a very auspicious day – perhaps Steiner uses this date for his birthday as a pointer & to a great mystery:

27 February is the death day of Mani (277) – the highest initiate; who “According to Rudolf Steiner, the Young Man of Nain, the son of a widow, whom Christ Jesus raised from the dead, became Mani, the founder of Manicheism, in his following incarnation, and will become the Maitreya Buddha in time to come…” to guide humanity thru Christic love to redeem evil… (from a recorded conversation with Christian Community priests Walter Klein and Emil Bock in 1924)

AND today is also the death day of Comte de St. Germain (1784), an incarnation of Christian Rosenkreuz, whose ‘tomb is opened every 100 years’ allowing the secret teachings of our highest evolution to be revealed so that they can become manifest in the world…

Could Steiner be revealing to us his profound connection with these 2 great servants of humanity?

It is true that those whose death day is the same as our birthday become our co-workers & mentors during that life.

Is that why he put 27 February as his birth date in his autobiography…?

Ever pondering

~hag

27 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Waxing Bella Luna shines just a degree or two from Mars tonight, as shown above. Watch their separation change hour by hour. The Moon occults Mars for parts of the Arctic. Spot the big, bright, equilateral Winter Triangle in the south-southeast. Sirius is its brightest and lowest star. Betelgeuse is above Sirius by about two fists at arm’s length. Left of them shines Procyon.

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated with added titles by Roy Sadler

LENT II
Joy Will Arise
v47
From worldwide womb
will rise the joy of growth,
enlivening the senses’ glory:
and may it find my strength of thought
defended by the strength of God,
the living bedrock of my being.

It was Steiner’s birthday last Saturday, but his birthday verse was not last week’s or this one. In 1861 Easter was early on March 31st. He was born on the day of the full moon in the week of v48, a very special birthday verse as I shall explain next week.
This is a quote from Eleanor Merry in her Calendar of the Soul Commentary, relevant to both v47 & 48, “When our thinking can unite with the light of the Sun, it becomes creative for the future. And when we can be quickened within by the same powers that quicken the outer world into life, then will joy infill our deeds, and they will be in harmony with the deeds of Cosmic Beings.

This is this week’s mirror verse.
ASCENSION
The Risen Self
v6
Arisen from my own persona
my real self appears
as revelation of the spheres
that in the powers of time and space
the world is showing me as paradigm
that is divine and everywhere portrays
the image in whose mirror I come true.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

(Interesting to note those who share a birthday with Steiner’s Baptism day: Constantine the Great, St. John Chrysostom, Mozart, Friedrich Schelling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Giuseppe Verdi – see below)

Constantine from BL Royal 19 E VI, f. 202 - PICRYL Public Domain Image

272 – Birthday of Constantine the Great, Roman emperor

File:John Chrysostom, St. Paul the Apostle Orthodox Church, Dayton,  Ohio.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

407 – Deathday of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his preaching & public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical & political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, & his ascetic sensibilities. The epithet Χρυσόστομος (Chrysostomos, anglicized as Chrysostom) means “golden-mouthed” in Greek & denotes his celebrated eloquence. Chrysostom was among the most prolific authors in the early Christian Church exceeded only by Augustine in the quantity of his surviving writings. John was born in Antioch in 349 to Greco-Syrian parents. His mother Anthusa as a pagan & his father was a high-ranking military officer. John’s father died soon after his birth & he was raised by his mother. As a result of his mother’s influential connections in the city, John began his education under the pagan teacher Libanius. From Libanius, John acquired the skills for a career in rhetoric, as well as a love of the Greek language & literature.

A late medieval legend relates that, when John Chrysostom was a hermit in the desert, he was approached by a royal princess in distress. The Saint, thinking she was a demon, at first refused to help her, but the princess convinced him that she was a Christian & would be devoured by wild beasts if she were not allowed to enter his cave. He therefore admitted her, carefully dividing the cave in two parts, one for each of them. In the morning she had given birth to a child she claimed was his. He then went to Rome to beg absolution, which was refused. Chrysostom made a vow that he would never rise from the ground until his sins were expiated, & for years he lived like a beast, crawling on all fours & feeding on wild grasses & roots. One day the princess reappeared, suckling the saint’s baby, who miraculously pronounced his sins forgiven. This last scene was very popular from the late 15th century onwards as a subject for engravers & artists.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1777 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 177… | Flickr

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

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

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

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

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

Friedrich von Schelling – Store norske leksikon

1775 – Birthday of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him between Johann Gottlieb Fichte, his mentor in his early years, & Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, his former university roommate, early friend, & later rival. Some later philosophers such as Martin Heidegger & Slavoj Žižek have shown interest in re-examining Schelling’s body of work. Quotes:

“Nature is visible Spirit; Spirit is invisible Nature.” (Ideen, “Introduction”)

“History as a whole is a progressive, gradually self-disclosing revelation of the Absolute.” (System of Transcendental Idealism, 1800)

“Has creation a final goal? And if so, why was it not reached at once? Why was the consummation not realized from the beginning? To these questions there is but one answer: Because God is Life, and not merely Being.” (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)

“Only he who has tasted freedom can feel the desire to make over everything in its image, to spread it throughout the whole universe.” (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)

“As there is nothing before or outside of God he must contain within himself the ground of his existence. All philosophies say this, but they speak of this ground as a mere concept without making it something real and actual.” (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, 1809)

“God then has no beginning only insofar as there is no beginning of his beginning. The beginning in God is eternal beginning, that is, such a one as was beginning from all eternity, and still is, and also never ceases to be beginning.” (Quoted in Hartshorne & Reese, Philosophers Speak of God, Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1953, p. 237.)

A Scientist's Mind, a Poet's Soul — The New Atlantis

1807 – Birthday of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

File:Rudolf Steiner. .jpg - Wikimedia Commons

1861 – The emergency Baptism of Rudolf Steiner

Happy 200th, Giuseppe Verdi | Chicago Public Library

1901 – Deathday of Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi an Italian opera composer. Verdi was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, & developed a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera . In his early operas Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. An intensely private person, Verdi however did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements & as he became professionally successful was able to reduce his operatic workload & sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), & the operas Otello (1887) &Falstaff (1893). His operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his ‘middle period’: Rigoletto, Il trovatore & La traviata.

1922 – A challenge to the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, is rebuffed by the Supreme Court

1939 – United States labor law: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes violate property owners’ rights & are therefore illegal

2004 – The initial version of the John Jay Report, with details about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal in the United States, is released. The report determined that, during the period from 1950 to 2002, a total of 10,667 individuals had made allegations of child sexual abuse. Of these, the dioceses had been able to identify 6,700 unique accusations against 4,392 clergy over that period in the USA, which is about 4% of all 109,694 ordained clergy i.e. priests or deacons or members of religious orders, active in the USA during the time covered by the study. Roughly 4% of them were accused. However, of these 4392 accused, only 252 (5.7% of those accused or less than 0.1% of total clergy) were convicted. The number of alleged abuses increased in the 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, declined in the 1980s, & by the 1990s had returned to the levels of the 1950s. In summary, over a 50-year period, out of more than 100,000 priests deacons & religious order clergy, 4,392 (~4.4%) were accused of sexual abuse, 252 (<0.26%) were convicted & 100 (<0.1%) sentenced to prison

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

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.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE

Path to Easter

Greetings Beloved Ones on this Ash Wednesday 2023 – The start of the Lenten-Tide Season.

My father’s people, the Italian side, were Catholic.  I attended many wonderful incense filled, pageant-like Masses with my Grandmother, (who was a not so secret ‘Strega’) dedicated to The Blessed Virgin Mary & all the Saints, in an practical ‘peasant = of the land’, kind of way.

My mother’s folks from Ireland ‘wore the orange’ = Protestant/unionist’, but called themselves Baptist after becoming farmers in Tennessee. My mother had to convert to Catholicism in order to marry my father, as that was the way in those days. As children my siblings & I, who were baptized in the Catholic Church, were never-the-less bussed off to ‘Baptist Bible School’ for the simple reason that the bus came to our corner every Sunday – which conveniently afforded our hard working parent’s a day off from us 4 kids.

I did not have a good experience there. On the outside they preached a sexist totalitarian ‘morality’ (no dancing-really?) & yet behind closed doors the pastor molested certain ‘chosen ones’- myself included. So as you might imagine I swore off organized religion; & related more to my Strega Nona’s more practical way of worshipping, with Mary = The Divine Feminine at the center.

Thru karmic circumstances I started working the path of the modern Rosicrucian, at a very young age, which is, I would say, an Esoteric or Cosmic Christian path. Since discovering Rudolf Steiner in college I have lived deeply into the truth of being an Anthroposopher –

After meeting Rev. Gisela Wielki when the Christian Community Seminary was here in Chicago & thru the love of Rev. Richard Dancey, I became an active member of the Christian Community Church, part of an international movement for religious renewal, founded in 1922 with the help of Rudolf Steiner, which has a kind of Lent – a shorter Passion-tide.

And yet this year I feel the need to use the opportunity afforded by the 40 days of Lent to deepen my inner work.

There is something powerful about the rhythm of 40 days – which shows up often in the Bible.

Since the number 40 appears so often in contexts dealing with judgment or testing, many understand it to be the number of “probation” or “trial.” For instance:

In the Old Testament, when God destroyed the earth with water – He caused it to rain 40 days & 40 nights (Genesis 7:12).

After Moses killed the Egyptian, he fled to Midian, where he spent 40 years in the desert tending flocks (Acts 7:30).

Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days & 40 nights (Exodus 24:18).

Moses interceded on Israel’s behalf for 40 days & 40 nights (Deuteronomy 9:18, 25).

Three kings reigned for 40 years each: Saul, David & Solomon – That’s no coincidence. Forty years is considered a generation in the Bible (i.e.  a new group of Israelites that rises up, sustains itself, then dies off). For the three kings of antiquity, this measurement of time also contains a warning—20 years of their rule was marked by prosperity & 20 years by ruin

The Law specified a maximum number of lashes a man could receive for a crime, setting the limit at 40 (Deuteronomy 25:3).

The Israelite spies took 40 days to spy out Canaan (Numbers 13:25).

The Israelites wandered for 40 years (Deuteronomy 8:2-5).

Before Samson’s deliverance, Israel served the Philistines for 40 years (Judges 13:1).

Osmar Schindler

Goliath taunted Saul’s army for 40 days before David arrived to slay him (1 Samuel 17:16).

When Elijah fled from Jezebel, he traveled 40 days & 40 nights to Mt. Horeb (1 Kings 19:8).

The number 40 also appears in the prophecies of Ezekiel (4:6; 29:11-13) Ezekiel laid on his right side for 40 days to “bear the iniquity” of Judea’s sins & Jonah (3:4).

In the New Testament, Jesus fasted for 40 days (Matthew 4:2). (So did Moses & Elijah)

There are 40 days between The Resurrection & The Ascension (Acts 1:3), When the disciple received the esoteric teachings of the Risen Christ.

According to Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul 23 February was the day Lazarus was raised from the dead, being that Good Friday & Easter came on 3/5 April.

The normal gestation of a human Pregnancy usually last 40 weeks

And so dear friends, I will be taking this 40 day journey a Path to the Resurrection – asking myself: When I stand at the dawning of the New Sun on Easter Sunday, how do I want to be different?

22 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”
Image result for spirits working with us painting
Georgiana Houghton

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1632 – Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published.

1732 – Birthday of George Washington, American general & politician, 1st President of the United States

1788 – Birthday of Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher & author

1876 – Birthday of Ita Wegman, founder of Anthroposophical medicine & close collaborator of Rudolf Steiner. She also developed a special form of massage therapy, called rhythmical massage, & other therapeutic treatments.

Ita Wegman, as she was known throughout her life, was born as Maria Ita Wegman in Indonesia, the first child of a Dutch colonial family. Around the turn of the century, she returned to Europe (she had visited before) & studied therapeutic gymnastics & massage. In 1902, when she was 26, she met Rudolf Steiner for the first time. Five years later she began medical school at the University of Zurich, where women were not discriminated to study medicine. She was granted a diploma as a medical doctor in 1911 with a specialization in women’s medicine & joined an existing medical practice.

In 1917, having opened an independent practice, she developed a cancer treatment using an extract of mistletoe following indications from Steiner. This first remedy, which she called Iscar, was later developed into Iscador & has become an approved cancer treatment in Germany & a number of other countries.

By 1919 she had a joint practice together with two other doctors, also women. In 1920 she purchased land in Arlesheim, where she opened her own clinic, the Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut, the first center for anthroposophical medicine. In 1922 she founded a therapeutic home for mentally handicapped children, Haus Sonnenhof, also in Arlesheim, & co-founded a pharmaceutical laboratory, Weleda, that has since grown into a significant producer of medicines & health-care products.

In the following year, Rudolf Steiner asked Wegman to join the Executive Council of the newly reformed Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. She also directed the Medical Section of the research center at the Goetheanum. Together, Wegman & Steiner wrote what was to be Steiner’s last book, Extending Practical Medicine, which gave a theoretical basis to the new medicine they were developing. The book was partly written while Wegman cared for Steiner, who was already terminally ill. Wegman founded a new medical journal, Natura, the following year.

In 1936, the clinic opened a second home in Ascona, Switzerland. Shortly thereafter, difficulties between Wegman & the rest of the Executive Council flared up, & Wegman was asked to leave the Council; in addition, she & a number of supporters had their membership in the Anthroposophical Society itself withdrawn. The medical work flourished, however, & Wegman travelled extensively in support of the rapidly growing movement to extend medicine’s limits; she was especially active in the Netherlands & England during this time. Wegman died in Arlesheim in 1943, at the age of 67.

Ita Wegman is a close collaborator with Rudolf Steiner thruout many incarnations:

Eabani – Gilgamesh
Cratylus – Artemisia in the era of Heraclitus of Ephesus
Aristotle – Alexander the Great
Schionatulander – Sigune
St Thomas
Aquino – Reginald of Piperno confessor to Aquino
Dr. Rudolf Steiner – Dr. Ita Wegman

On the Work of the Archangel Michael by Ita Wegman

1943 – Deathday of 1943 – Hans & Sophie Scholl, German activists. Sophie a German student along with her brother Hans were anti-Nazi political activists, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. They were convicted of high treason after distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich (LMU).

In the early summer of 1942, Scholl, his sister Sophie, Willi Graf, Kurt Huber, Christoph Probst, & Alexander Schmorell, co-authored 6 anti-Nazi Third Reich political resistance leaflets. Calling themselves the White Rose, they instructed Germans to practice nonviolent resistance against the Nazis. The group had been horrified by the behavior of some German soldiers on the Eastern Front, where they had witnessed cruelty towards Jews in Poland & Russia.

Hans & Sophie Scholl & Christopher Probst were beheaded by Johann Reichhart in Munich’s Stadelheim Prison. The execution was supervised by Dr. Walter Roemer, the enforcement chief of the Munich district court. Scholl’s last words were “Es lebe die Freiheit!” (“Long live freedom!”). Shortly thereafter, most of the other students involved were arrested & executed as well.

1932 – Birthday of Ted Kennedy, an American politician who served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts for over forty years from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died & is the fourth-longest-continuously-serving senator in United States history, having served there for almost 47 years.

For many years, Ted Kennedy was the most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, & he was also the last surviving, longest-living, & youngest son of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. & Rose Kennedy. He was the youngest brother of John F. Kennedy—the 35th President of the United States—& Senator Robert F. Kennedy, both victims of assassination, & the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.

The Categories of Aristotle – a process of contraction…
Is there a path to expansion…..?

PUBLIC LECTURE AND EURYTHMY WORKSHOP WITH CLAUDIA FONTANA

Friday 24 March 2023 – Lecture 7 pm CT – 8:30 pm – Purchase tickets at the door or pay online
$12

Saturday 25 March 2023 – Workshop – 9 am CT– (10:30 am 1/2 hour break – 11 am) 12:30 pm CT CT– Purchase tickets at the door or pay online $50

The Categories of AristotleA process of contraction…exploring a path to expansion

Does one have to be a philosopher of great erudition to approach Aristotle’s gift to humanity……his Categories?

Perhaps , YES! But an initial acquaintance with them can lead out of the confinement of the intellectual concept to an experience of expansion supported by Eurythmy.

In the evening lecture Claudia will introduce the life of the Categories before they became concepts – Bringing the symbols in a sequence of sounds  (called the Evolutionary Sequence ) out of their conceptual form, to life, supported by Eurythmy and examples of poetry.

During the workshop we will enter into the movement of the poetry presented  during the lecture. This will be accessible to Eurythmists as well as to anyone interested in the life of language, poetry and our alphabet.

at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical Society
4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://www.rschicago.org/happenings/calendar 
www.rschicago.org/donate

For more info contact Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Claudia Fontana saw a Eurythmy performance when still a teenager. Unbeknownst to her at the time, that performance was the gate to her destiny path. Soon thereafter she studied Eurythmy in Vienna and subsequently spent fourteen years as a performer with the Dornach, London and Stuttgart Eurythmeum ensembles. Teaching became the next challenge which she happily met in the United States, Europe. Before Covid, she spent seven years teaching all levels in Thailand, Malaysia and China. She resides in Ann Arbor, MI still performing and teaching.

Mary Magdalene & the Women at the Tomb – A Festival of Resurrection

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg,

Song-Circle with Velsum, 

Eurythmy – & an artistic break out session

Holy Saturday 8 April 2023

1 pm – 3pm CT hybrid event in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & on zoom

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
www.rschicago.org/donate

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll

Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance

Gerald Shepherd

When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.

Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.

This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.

Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Velsum Voices & Eurythmy

Saturday 27 May 2023 a Hybrid event in person* & on zoom

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.

Zoom: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83663366670?pwd=L292UzlOR1pkZjBXSWpxK1B2b0o1dz09 Meeting ID: 836 6336 6670 / Passcode: 397593

For more Info. contact Hag@RSChicago.org Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator
*Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60618 (mapwww.rschicago.org/donate


Find a collection of the many RECORDINGS of Presentations, Programs & Festivals HERE