Category Archives: Upcoming Events

Riot in Munich

Jackie Von Tobel

~i was in-between
when i 1st felt its glace
i lived in its fire & never knew
i was asleep, dreaming blue dreams in the egg of the world
the eye opened & closed, blinking once perhaps
as it does every million years
& i came from unknowing into knowing…
i left my place yawning
i was naked in a bed of light
then i opened like a purple flower
& am still
growing…
~hag

17 May 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Jupiter & the Moon rose together this morning around 5:30 am even as the sky was growing brighter with the impending sunrise. Bella Luna passes in front of Jupiter at 10 am CDT – this occultation is an event visible from much of North America, Canada, & Greenland. Continuing on its journey, the Moon passes north of Mercury at 9 pm CDT.

Sunrise: 5:43 A.M.
Sunset: 8:10 P.M.
Moonrise: 4:32 A.M.
Moonset: 6:20 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waning crescent (4%)

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) | Ressamların Eserlerini ve Hayatlarını  Anlatan Sanat Platformu

1510 – Death-day of Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter of the “golden age” of the Early Renaissance. He belonged to the Florentine School under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Among Botticelli’s best-known works are The Birth of Venus & Primavera.

Grigory Valuyev - Wikipedia
Grigory Valuyev

1606 – Murder of False Dmitriy I, the only Tsar ever raised to the throne by means of a military campaign. He was the first, & most successful, of three “impostors” who claimed, during the Time of Troubles, to be the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible.

Dmitriy married polish priestess Marina Mniszech. It was the usual practice that when a Russian Tsar married a woman of another faith, she would convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but she didn’t because Dmitriy had obtained the support of Polish King Sigismund III Vasa & Pope Paul V by promising to reunite the Russian Orthodox Church & the Holy See.

This was considered a betrayal. Ten days after his marriage, commoners stormed the Kremlin & killed Dmitriy. The body was put on display & then cremated, the ashes shot from a cannon towards Poland.

He was the primary character in the opera Boris Godunov, & Modest Mussorgsky’s opera of the same name. His story is also told by Schiller in Demetrius, by Antonín Dvořák in his opera Dimitrij, & Rainer Maria Rilke recounts the overthrow of the False Dimitriy in The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge; Rilke’s only longer prose work. Harold Lamb fictionalizes the demise of the False Dimitriy in “The Wolf Master”.

New York Stock Exchange ruled 1792-2012

1792 – New York Stock Exchange founded

1922 – Riot at a Rudolf Steiner lecture in Munich on 15 May 1922, reported in the New York Times on 17 May.

Rudolf Steiner – the sensation of his day

By NNA correspondent Wolfgang G. Vögele

REVIEW | Rudolf Steiner’s „blockbuster“ lecture tours in 1922 have been documented for the first time in Archivmagazin, including the attack on him by Nazis in Munich.

The famous concert agency Wolff & Sachs, organised two lecture tours by Steiner through several German cities. On the first tour in January 1922, Steiner spoke in front of about twenty thousand people. But this roll ended unexpectedly when during the second tour in May militant opponents from nationalistic populist (voelkisch) circles organised trouble in Munich and Elberfeld so that Steiner decided against a third tour.

What had happened? In Munich, Steiner had been “physically threatened and put in danger of his life by hooligans at the instigation of a newspaper,” as Friedrich Rittelmeyer wrote in Rudolf Steiner Enters My Life. Had the conspirators really planned to remove Steiner in an assassination attempt?

A lengthy introduction to the period shows that democracy in the young Weimar Republic was by no means secure. Right-wing terrorist organisations tried to assassinate leading politicians. Growing inflation brought about a feeling of insecurity among broad sections of the population.

The practical solutions promoted by anthroposophy in various fields of knowledge and life, primarily the movement for the threefold order of the social organism, made it a target for nationalistic and antisemitic forces. They saw Steiner as a stooge of the victorious powers and the agent of a global Jewish and Masonic conspiracy. Hitler’s mentor, Dietrich Eckart, had published a long article about Steiner in 1919 in which he mocked Steiner’s social impulse as “threefolding puppet”. Hitler himself decidedly rejected threefolding as early as 1920. According to police intelligence reports, when after his speech at the Munich Hofbräuhaus on 11 May 1920 one person recommended the threefolding idea as a possible solution to the social question, Hitler replied: “We don’t want any new ideas but to defend the old ones which have been seen to be correct.”   

The reaction of nationalistic populist (voelkisch) groups to Rudolf Steiner is set out in detail. This is followed by chapters on the progress of the tour, the correspondence, business documents, an index of the papers relating to the Wolff & Sachs tours in the Rudolf Steiner Archive, a list of press reports, press reports and reminiscences of eye-witnesses. All texts have been provided with explanatory notes.

The dramatic occurence, which took place on the evening of 15 May 1922 in Munich’s premier hotel “Vier Jahreszeiten”, was even reported as a “riot” in the New York Times. The headline says: “RIOT AT MUNICH LECTURE.  Reactionaries Storm Platform When Steiner Discusses Theosophy”.

It becomes clear from eye-witness reports that many people decided specifically as a result of the lectures on this tour to engage more deeply with anthroposophy.

“Thus Heinrich Liedvogel wrote how grateful he was that his father had taken him along to the lecture as a recalcitrant eighteen-year-old and that Rudolf Steiner had at the time made an ‘indelible impression’ on him which stayed with him for the rest of his life. He was impressed how Rudolf Steiner  silenced the hecklers which were, however, subsequently to seize power. Fifteen year later (1933) he experienced in the same hall how the ‘clique of those earlier hecklers’ had ‘grown into a dragon which had, at least outwardly, destroyed the intellectual life of Germany’.” (p. 48)

Hans Büchenbacher, who in Munich had become aware at an early stage that Steiner was on a death list and that an attack was planned, organised his own protection force since the police had refused to take the appropriate measures.

Steiner, too, aware of the threat to his life, had asked Büchenbacher whether he should give the lecture at all. “It will probably reach the point that I can only speak any longer in the occupied Rhineland.” (The Rhineland was occupied by the Allies from 1918 to 1930.)

All the memoires agree in their description that after the lecture, while the audience was still applauding, attackers stormed the platform as the speaker was just about to leave the hall. He only just succeeded in closing the door behind him. Meanwhile the anthroposophists pushed the attackers down from the platform. There followed a scuffle, other reports refer to a general brawl. The attackers had worn swastikas. They were equipped with sticks, knives and firearms. Newspaper reports from Munich document the brutal actions of the Nazis against individuals and events by dissenters. 

Shortly before the incident, the Munich weekly Heimatland (edited by the subsequent editor-in-chief of the Völkische Beobachter, the organ of the Nazi Party) wrote: “Are there no longer any men in Munich who feel themselves to be German and who will prevent the arrival of such a scoundrel? Above all, will our battle-hardened youth with its patriotic ethos tolerate this provocation? If ever there is a target worthy of rotten eggs and apples, there is none more worthy for this kind of projectile of contempt than the anthroposophical Cagliostro and betrayer of the homeland.”

For the Nazis, Steiner was a parasitic “enemy of the people”. The Völkische Beobachter wrote: “Our pencil bristles at seriously engaging with such a charlatan and enemy of the German people. He has millions at his disposal to pollute our nation with his teachings and through his influence on the widest circles he has turned into a danger to our present and our future.” (p. 211).

Steiner’s Dornach collaborator Edith Maryon, who had been worried about Steiner beforehand already, received a telegram: “Survived Munich. Steiner”.

This documentation makes clear once again the incompatibility of anthroposophy and nationalistic racist thinking.

There will be few people today inclined to present Steiner as a martyr. Yet many details have to be overlooked to reach the opinion that the Munich incident was a harmless interruption by some boisterous students. Steiner, against whom the press had agitated beforehand, was in danger of being beaten up and, if possible, “eliminated”. That this did not happen is due to the clever defensive measures of the anthroposophists.

The extraordinary courage with which Steiner exposed himself to the ever more brutal actions of his opponents to present his ideas must be admired. He finished the tours, which he admitted exhausted him, with unshakeable equanimity and his familiar self-discipline.

The lectures given on the tours which have now been published as GA 80a in the complete works. They form an extraordinary bundle within Steiner’s public lectures. They are individual lectures – the speaker was only able to present briefly things he set out in greater detail in lecture cycles – yet they have the appeal of precision. They are an introduction to the nature of his worldview from the mature perspective of the 60-year-old.

It is not evident from the tone of the lectures that they were held in a sometimes tense atmosphere. A large part of the audience appears willing to follow the speaker in his for them unusual and demanding lines of thought. The great applause, which even the newspaper reporters experienced as being unusual, certainly did not come just from anthroposophists since they only formed an insignificant minority among the more than thousand people in the audience on each occasion.

In almost every lecture Steiner fought against misunderstandings and the caricatures of his teachings. He differentiated his epistemological method sharply from experimental parapsychology, eastern yoga, and emotive mysticism and kept attempting to make the scientific nature of his research method clear from ever new perspectives.  He also referred to the way in which anthroposophy could be productive in education, medicine, the religious life, etc.

The lectures give an insight into what an introduction to the nature of anthroposophy looked like almost 100 years ago. The notes explain the location and audience numbers. Entries from Steiner’s notebooks, press reviews and two recollections of the incident in Munich are included.

Rudolf Steiner: Das Wesen der Anthroposophie. Dreizehn von der Konzertagentur Wolff & Sachs organisierte öffentliche Vorträge, gehalten in Berlin, München, Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main, Mannheim, Köln, Elberfeld und Breslau zwischen dem 19. November 1921 und dem 18. Mai 1922, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Basel 2019

Watergate Hearings Audio : US Senate : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming  : Internet Archive

1973 – Watergate scandal: Televised hearings begin in the United States Senate

Anthroposophia & the Redemption of Lucifer – A Pentecost Festival for 2023

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, & Velsum Voices Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer

1 – 2:30 pm Central Time Saturday 27 May 2023 on zoom

Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Pentecost Festival
Time: May 27, 2023 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041?pwd=WkNaNDlPS0VIMTJUUkE1ZkFMaDh5dz09

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041
Passcode: Whitsun

50 Days after The Resurrection = Our Community Pentecost Gathering – Community Bonfire, Pot-Luck, & Prep Stir

Whitsunday 28 May 2023

5 – 7 pm at the home of Hazel & Chuck Ginsberg

Please bring food & drink to share –

RSVP to Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

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

MOM

Listen to the podcast for Mother’s Day on ‘I Think Speech

Happy Mother’s Day to all motherers – Motherhood is a soul quality – If you have cradled, fed, held, hugged, nurtured, counselled, driven around, stayed up late for, cleaned up after, shared joys, shared heartaches, nursed late at night, helped out, cheered on, fought for, worried about, taken pride in, stood behind, defended, believed in, & loved with all your heart above & beyond what is asked for in any other situation, unconditionally & respectfully…If you are a place called ‘home’ to someone – a refuge from the world, an embrace full of warmth & understanding – then you are a mother.

And we can remember & honor the fact that we all have life & the continuity of life, growth & change on our planet because of the Mother-line. The Mothers have gifted all with the pulse & rhythm of life – the heart of the Mother ! The Mother-Line connects all of Humanity. Happy Mother’s Day to Grandmothers, Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Aunties, Girlfriends, all Kindred & Mother Gaia who sustains us all !

Belinda Grey

The Her-Story of MOTHER’S DAY- The earliest mother’s day celebrations, can be traced back to the Spring Festivals of the ancients, honoring the Mother of the gods…& the Queen Bee…

Much later…in the 1600’s, England celebrated a day called ‘Mothering Sunday’, honoring the matriarchy…the Queens of England…

As Christianity spread thruout Europe the celebration changed to honor the ‘Mother Church’…

Here in the US, in 1870, Julia Ward Howe – the woman that actually wrote the words to the battle hymn of the republic, knowing all too well the horrors of war, called for women to rise up & oppose war in all its forms. She wanted women to come together across national lines, to recognize what we hold in common above what divides us, & to commit to finding peaceful resolutions to conflicts. She called it “Mother’s Day For Peace”

Her idea was influenced by Anna Jarvis, a young Appalachian homemaker, who had attempted starting in 1858, to improve sanitation thru what she called Mothers’ Work Days. She organized women thru-out the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, & in 1868 she began work to reconcile Union & Confederate neighbors.

Anna Jarvis’ daughter, also named Anna Jarvis, would of course have known of her mother’s work, & the work of Julia Ward Howe. Much later, when her mother died, this second Anna Jarvis started her own crusade to found a ‘Memorial Day for Women’.

The first ‘Mother’s Day’ was celebrated in West Virginia in 1907 in the church where the elder Anna Jarvis had taught Sunday School. So to pay homage to her ancestor, she began a campaign to establish a national Mother’s Day on the 2nd Sunday of May…the anniversary of her mother’s death…which just happened to be 40 days after Easter…as a day dedicated to peace.

And from there the custom caught on – spreading eventually to 45 states. Finally the holiday was declared officially by states beginning in 1912.

And in 1914, hoping to get the female vote & also as a distraction from his declaration of the 1st World War, President Woodrow Wilson, confirmed the first national Mother’s Day. So ironic as the original impulse was all about working to prevent war.

But what does it mean to us today…? You know I’m not taking about the commercialized happy-faced take-your-mother-to-brunch-cliché’s. Hallmark may not be talking…but this is heavy stuff…the concept of ‘mother’ is highly charged for most of us…we all have, or had, a mother…good or bad or in-between…We may be a mother ourselves…what does that bring up…plenty…right…there’s a lot there I know…

So maybe today we can try & access some of these impressions & feelings & memories…to pound out the pain…rattle the wonder…to sing our story…to dance in the healing process…to mother ourselves…

Happy Mother's Day Peace Sign Gif ☮️ ❤️ | Happy mothers day, Peace sign, Mothers  day

So choose your weapon of peace…your surgical tool…your pruning shears, or hammer, or monkey wrench…A drum or shaker…these will do…as we explore & experience our Mother’s Day anthem ponding in the heart-beat we all share…

Blessings to all those who create & give life…

xox

~hag

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (rsarchive.org is such a blessing!)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Indications from the orignal Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner + Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

~John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

14 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: On the mornings of May 12-14, 2023, look for the waning last quarter crescent moon near Saturn. Its closest approach to Saturn will be on the morning of May 13. You can catch the moon and Saturn for a few hours before dawn. Saturn is getting easier to see as it’s climbing away from the sun in the morning sky.

St. Matthias

Feast Day of Matthias – According to the Acts of the Apostles, Matthias was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot following the betrayal of Jesus & his subsequent suicide. This calling as an apostle is unique, since his appointment was not made personally by Jesus, since it was after the Ascension, but made before the descent of the Holy Spirit at Whitsun.

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois & begins its historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.

1947 – Winston Churchill‘s speech in London declares a “United States of Europeis “indispensable” for “an authoritative, all-powerful world order”.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | 1948: The State of Israel is founded

1948 – Founding of the State of Israel

1912 – Death-Day of Johan August Strindberg, something of a polymath, Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist & painter, Strindberg was also a telegrapher, theosophist, painter, photographer & alchemist. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him in Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture II:

“…Thus I made the acquaintance of this doctor, a man of our own day. When I met him I was in the company of another person whom I had known very well for a long time. This other person had always made, I will not say a deep, but a very thorough impression on me. He was exceedingly fond of the society of men who were interested in occultism in the widest possible range, though an occultism somewhat externally conceived. He was fond of relating the views of his many acquaintances on all kinds of occult matters, and especially on the occult connections of what the modern artist should strive for, as a lyric and epic poet, or as a dramatist. Around this person there was what I might call a kind of moral, ethical aura. I am applying the word ‘moral’ to all that is connected with the soul-qualities under the command of the will.

I was paying a visit to him, and in his company I found the other man first mentioned, whom I knew by reputation and respected very highly for his literary and medical career. Everything that took place during this visit made a deep impression on me and impelled me to receive the whole experience into the realm of spiritual research.

Then a very remarkable thing happened. By witnessing the two persons in the company of one another, and by the impression which my new acquaintance made on me — (I had known him for a long time as an eminent literary and medical man and had a great regard for him, but this was the first time that I saw him in the flesh) — by these impressions I gained certain perceptions. To begin with however, it enabled me, not to investigate in any way the connections in life and destiny of my new acquaintance. On the contrary, my seeing them together shed light as it were upon the other one, whom I had long known. And the result was this. — He had lived in ancient Egypt, not in his last, but in one of his former lives on earth. And (this is the peculiar thing) he had been mummified, embalmed as a mummy. Soon afterwards I discovered that the mummy was still in existence. Indeed a long time afterwards I saw the actual mummy. This, then, was the starting-point. But once the line of research had been kindled in connection with the person whom I had long known, it shed its light still farther, and eventually I was enabled to investigate the karmic connections of the other man, my new acquaintance, the doctor. And the following was the result.

As a general rule one is led from one earthly life of a human being to the preceding one. But in this case intuition led far back into ancient Egypt, to a kind of chieftain in ancient Egypt. It was a chieftain who in a certain sense, indeed in a very interesting way, possessed the ancient

Egyptian Initiation, but had become somewhat decadent as an Initiate. In the further course of his life, he began to take his Initiation not very seriously, indeed he even treated it with a certain scorn. Now this man had a servant, who in his turn was extremely serious. This servant was of course not initiated; but both of them together were given the task of embalming mummies and procuring the substances for this purpose, which was no easy matter.

Now especially in the more ancient periods of Egypt, the process of embalming mummies was very complicated and demanded an intimate knowledge of the human being, of the human body. Nay more, of those who had to do the embalming — if they did it legitimately — deep knowledge of the human soul was required. The chieftain of whom I spoke had been initiated for this very work, but he gradually became, in a manner of speaking, frivolous in relation to this, his proper calling. So it came about that in the course of time he betrayed (so they would have put it in the language of the Mysteries) the knowledge he had received through his Initiation to his servant, and the latter gradually proved to be a man who understood the content of Initiation better than the Initiate himself. Thus the servant became the embalmer of mummies, and at length his master did not even trouble to supervise the work, though of course he still took advantage of the social position, etc., which this honourable task involved. But at length his character became such that he no longer enjoyed great respect, and he thus came into various conflicts of life. The servant, on the other hand, worked his way up by degrees to a very, very earnest conception of life, and was thus taken hold of, in a remarkably congenial way, by a kind of Initiation. It was no real Initiation, but it lived within him instinctively. Thus a large number of mummies were mummified under the supervision and co-operation of these two people.

Time went on. The two men passed through the gate of death and underwent the experiences of which I shall speak next time — the experiences in the super-sensible which are connected with the development of karma or destiny. And in the Roman epoch they both of them came back to earthly life. They came back at the very time when the dominion of the Roman Emperors was founded, in the time of Augustus — not exactly, but approximately, in the time of Augustus himself.

The chieftain, who had gradually become a really frivolous Initiate, and who, when he had passed through the gate of death, had felt this as an extraordinarily bitter trial of earthly life, experiencing it in all the bitterness of its effects — we find him again as Julia, the daughter of Augustus. She married Tiberius, the step-son of Augustus, and led a life which to herself seemed justified but was considered, in the Roman society of that time, so immoral that at length both she and Tiberius were banished.

The other man — the servant who had worked his way from the bottom upwards nearly to the grade of an Initiate — was born again at the same time, as the Roman historian Titus Livius, or Livy.

It is most interesting how Livy came to be an historian. In the ancient Egyptian times he had embalmed a large number of mummies. The souls who had lived in the bodies of these mummies — very many of them — were reincarnated as Romans. And certain ones among them were actually reincarnated as the seven Kings of Rome. For the Seven Kings were no mere legendary figures. Going back into the time when the chieftain and his servant had lived in Egypt, we come into a very old Egyptian epoch. Now through a certain law which applies especially to the reincarnation of souls whose bodies have been mummified, these souls were called back again to earth comparatively soon. And the karmic connection of the servant of the chieftain with the souls whose bodies he had embalmed was so intimate, that he had to write the history of the very same human being whom in a previous life he had embalmed, though naturally, he also included the history of many others whom he had not embalmed. Thus Titus Livius became an historian. Now I would like some, indeed as many of you as possible, to take Livy’s Roman History, and, with the knowledge that results from these karmic connections, to receive a real impression of his style. You will see that his peculiar penetration into the human being and his tendency at the same time towards the style of the myth, is akin to that intimate knowledge of man which an embalmer could attain.

We do not perceive such connections until the corresponding researches have been made. But once this has been done, a great light is shed on many things. It is difficult to understand the origin of the peculiar style of Titus Livius, who as it were embalms the human beings whom he describes. For such is his style. Real light is thrown upon it when we point to these connections.

Thus we have the same two people again as Julia and Titus Livius. Then Julia and Livy passed once more through the gate of death. The one soul had had the experience of being an Initiate to a considerable degree, and having then distorted his Initiation by frivolous conduct. He had discovered all the bitterness of the after-effects of this in the life between death and a new birth. He had then undergone a peculiar destiny in his new life on earth as Julia, of which life you may read in history. The result was, that in his next life between death and a new birth (following on the life as Julia) he conceived a strong antipathy to this his incarnation as Julia. And in a curious way this antipathy of his was universalised. For spiritual intuition shows this individuality in his life between death and a new birth as though perpetually crying out: “Would that I had never become a woman! It was the evil that I did in yonder life in ancient Egypt which led me thus to become a woman.”

We can now trace the life of these two individualities still farther. We come into the Middle Ages. We find Livy again as the glad poet and minstrel in the very centre of the Middle Ages. We are astonished to find him thus, for there is no connection between the external callings. But the greatest possible surprises that a human being can possibly have are those that result from a real study of successive lives on earth. The Roman historian, with his style that proceeded from a knowledge of man acquired in embalming mummies, with his style so wonderfully light — we find him again as the poet Walther von der Vogelweide. His style is carried upwards, as it were, upon the wings of lyric poetry.

Walther von der Vogelweide lived in the Tyrol. He had many patrons; and among his many patrons there was one very peculiar man, who was on familiar terms with alchemists of every kind, for there were scores of alchemists at that time, in the Tyrol. This man was himself the owner of a castle, but he frequented all manner of alchemists’ dens and hovels. In so doing he learned extraordinarily much, and (as happened in the case of Paracelsus too) by spending his time in the dens of alchemists he was impelled to study all occult matters very intensely, and gained an unusually intense feeling for occult things. He thus came into the position of rediscovering in the Tyrol what was then only known as a legend, namely, the Castle in the Mountain — the Castle in the Rocks — (which indeed no one would have recognised as such, for it consisted of rocks, it was hollowed out of the rocks) — I mean, the Castle of the Dwarf King Laurin. The daemonic nature in the district of the Castle of the Dwarf King Laurin made a profound impression on him. Thus there was a remarkable combination in this soul — Initiation which he had carried into frivolity, annoyance at having been a woman and having thus been drawn into the sphere of Roman immorality and, at the same time, Roman cant and hypocrisy about morals; and lastly, an intimate knowledge, though still only external, of all manner of alchemical matters, which knowledge he had extended to a clear feeling of the nature-daemons and of other spiritual agencies in nature.

These two men — though it is not recorded in the biography of Walther, nevertheless it is the case — Walther von der Vogelweide and this other man often came together, and Walther received many an influence and impulse from him.

Here we have an instance of what is really a kind of karmic law. We see the same people drawn together again and again, called to the earth again and again simultaneously, complementing one another, living in a kind of mutual contrast. It is interesting once more, to enter into the peculiar lyrical style of Walther. It is as though at last he had grown thoroughly sick of embalming dead mummies and had turned to an entirely different aspect of life. He will no longer have anything to do with dead things, but only with the fullness and joy of life. And yet again, there is a certain undercurrent of pessimism in his work. Feel the style of Walther von der Yogelweide, feel in his style the two preceding earthly lives: feel too, his restless life. It is extraordinarily reminiscent of that life which dawns upon one who spends much of his time with the dead, when many destinies are unburdened in the soul. For such indeed was the case with an embalmer of mummies.

Now we go on. — My further researches into this karmic chain led me at length into the same room where I had visited my old acquaintance, whom I had recognised as an Egyptian mummy. And now I perceived that this very mummy had been embalmed by the other man whom I now met in his room. The whole line of research led me back to this same room. In effect, I found the soul who had passed through the servant of the old Egyptian embalmer, through Titus Livius, through Walther von der Vogelweide (the most celebrated of the Middle High German lyric poets) — I found him again in the doctor of our time, in Ludwig Schleich.(a German surgeon,writer philosopher, poet & painter)

Thus astonishingly do the connections in life appear. Who, with the ordinary consciousness alone, can understand an earthly life? It can only be understood when we know what is there in the foundations of a soul. Theoretically, many people know that deep in the foundations of the soul there are the layers of successive earthly lives. But it becomes real and concrete only when we behold it in a specific instance.

Then inner vision was directed out of this room once more. (For in the case of the other man, who had been mummified by this one, I was led to no more clues — at any rate to no important ones.) On the other hand I now perceived the further soul-pilgrimage of the old chieftain, of Julia, of the discoverer of Laurin’s Castle. For he came back to earth as August Strindberg.

Now I would like you to take the whole life and literary work of August Strindberg and set it against the background which I have just described. See the peculiar misogyny of Strindberg, which is no true misogyny, but proceeds from quite different foundations. Look, too, at all the strange daemonic elements that occur in his works. See his peculiar attraction to all manner of alchemistic and occult arts and artifices. And at length, look at the adventurous life of August Strindberg. You will find how well it stands out against the background which I have described.

August-Strindberg-Quotes-1

Then read the Memoirs of Ludwig Schleich, his relations to August Strindberg, and you will see how all this arises once more against the background of their former earthly lives. Indeed, from the Memoirs of Ludwig Schleich a very remarkable light may suddenly arise, a light truly astonishing. For the man in whose company I first met Ludwig Schleich — the man of whom I said that in his ancient Egyptian life he was mummified by Schleich — it is he of whom Schleich himself tells in his Memoirs that he led him to Strindberg. In a past life, Strindberg and Schleich had worked together upon the corpse. And the soul who dwelt in that body, led them together again.

Thus, all that we have to explain to begin with about repeated earthly lives and the karmic connections in general, becomes real and concrete. Only then do the facts that appear in earthly life become transparent. A single human life on earth is an entire mystery. What else can it be, until seen against the background of the former lives on earth?” ~ Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture II http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA238/English/APC1957/19240907p01.html#sthash.phuf3nNA.dpuf

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, & Velsum Voices Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer

1 – 2:30 pm Central Time Saturday 27 May 2023 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.

Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Pentecost Festival
Time: May 27, 2023 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041?pwd=WkNaNDlPS0VIMTJUUkE1ZkFMaDh5dz09

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041
Passcode: Whitsun

50 Days after The Resurrection = Our Pentecost Festival

Community Bonfire, Pot-Luck, & Prep Stir

Whitsunday 28 May 2023

5 – 7 pm at the home of Hazel & Chuck Ginsberg

Please bring food & drink to share –

RSVP to Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

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

Athena’s Wisdom

Pentathlon Chant:

In Truth & Beauty I Stand – Athena Your Wisdom Lights My way
In Truth & Beauty I stand – Centered In Strength & Purpose
In Truth & Beauty I Stand – To Carry the Torch of Victory!

In Truth & Beauty I Stand – In-between Heaven & Earth I Am
In Truth & Beauty I Stand – Upright & Reverent I Wear the Crown
In Truth & Beauty I Stand – To Carry The Torch of Victory!

~hag

Listen to the tune on today’s ‘I Think Speech ‘ Podcast

Laurence Liebenguth

12 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Last Quarter Moon occurs today. This phase of Bella Luna is visible well into the daytime, allowing all to observe her the stars of in Capricornus. And right now she is leading Saturn thru the sky.

Sunrise: 5:48 A.M.
Sunset: 8:05 P.M.
Moonrise: 2:20 A.M.
Moonset: 12:22 P.M.
Moon Phase: Waning crescent (49%)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1820 – Birthday of Florence Nightingale, Italian-English nurse, social reformer, & statistician

Joseph Beuys i like america

1921 – Birthday of Joseph Beuys, German sculptor, performance artist & illustrator

1933 – The Agricultural Adjustment Act is enacted to restrict agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies.

2002 – Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro becoming the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.

2008 – An 8.0 magnitude earthquake in Sichuan, China, kills over 69,000 people

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, & Velsum Voices Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer

1 – 2:30 pm Central Time Saturday 27 May 2023 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.

Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Pentecost Festival
Time: May 27, 2023 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041?pwd=WkNaNDlPS0VIMTJUUkE1ZkFMaDh5dz09

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041
Passcode: Whitsun

50 Days after The Resurrection = Our Pentecost Festival

Community Bonfire, Pot-Luck, & Prep Stir

Whitsunday 28 May 2023

5 – 7 pm at the home of Hazel & Chuck Ginsberg

Please bring food & drink to share –

RSVP to Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

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

Spring-Dialogue

TONIGHT:

PRESENTS:

The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

This course is available on Zoom. 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

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.

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.

11 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Venus, the brightest planet, dominates the western sky after sunset each night. In fact, Venus will continue to dazzle you for months. Mars is fading in brightness in the western evening sky, setting around midnight.

Amanda Sage

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1917 – Rudolf Steiner stops giving private consultations & releases his pupils from any obligations to silence around what they recevied as meditative advice etc. which was previously required.

1930 – Deathday of Imme von Eckardstein – Anthroposophical Artist who did the artistic design 1st for the Berlin Branch, Then in the Spring of 1911 she was invited by Marie von Shivers to join Rudolf Steiner in Italy. During that time they worked on the design for the dome ceiling of the Esoteric School in Stuttgart.

Imme was the one who posed the question of the Cycle of the Year which brought the Calendar of the Soul thru Rudolf Steoner, with her illustrations in 1912/13. Rudolf Steiner worked with her to develop images for the calendar to bring awareness of the waking & sleeping rhythms & elemental forces thruout the course of the year. According to Steiner: “The ancient, traditional glyphs of the zodiac are no longer effective”. Steiner instructed Imme to watch the sunrise & sunset everyday & to paint what forces she percieved there to bring in new conscious creative life forces into play.

Nancy Poer

~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor 

with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, & Velsum Voices Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer

1 – 2:30 pm Central Time Saturday 27 May 2023 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.

Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Pentecost Festival
Time: May 27, 2023 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041?pwd=WkNaNDlPS0VIMTJUUkE1ZkFMaDh5dz09

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041
Passcode: Whitsun

50 Days after The Resurrection = Our Pentecost Festival

Community Bonfire, Pot-Luck, & Prep Stir

Whitsunday 28 May 2023

5 – 7 pm at the home of Hazel & Chuck Ginsberg

Please bring food & drink to share –

RSVP to Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

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

Soul Riddle

~on the afternoon
As the lilacs were flowering
I stood in my garden & heard death fingering his lyre
Among the wild violets…
8 was the # of his song
1 note divining the octave, harmony returning…
I laid aside my troubles, gathering what I knew
Dressed in the habit of a human
I hurried toward the light – bearing the light within
Toward the unknown Springing …
~hag

~John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

8 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waning gibbous moon, nearing its last quarter phase, passed through the center of the Teapot – an asterism in Sagittarius the Archer – this morning. They will be close tomorrow, you can catch the moon and the Teapot after midnight until dawn.

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

EASTERTIDE V
The Resurrection of the Soul
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.

LENT III
The 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
empowers light’s awakening of love.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

According to Rudolf Steiner’s Original Calendar othe Soul today is: The Birthday of Hermes Job

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1760 – Death-day of Count Zinzendorf , A social reformer & bishop of the Moravian Church. The Zinzendorf family belonged to one of the most ancient of noble families in Lower Austria. Among his ancestors was the Emperor Maximillian I.

Zinzendorf did not intend to found a religious organization distinct from the area’s Lutheran Church, but to create a Christian association, by demonstrating practical benevolence, that might awaken dull Lutheranism. He began to think that true Christianity could be best promoted by free associations of Christians, which in the course of time might grow into churches with no state connection.

In 1722, Zinzendorf offered asylum to a number of refugees from Moravia & Bohemia & built the village of Herrnhut on a corner of his estate.

Out of study & prayer, the community formed a document known as the Brüderlicher Vertrag, the ‘Brotherly Agreement’, today known as “The Moravian Covenant for Christian Living.” The Moravian Church is one of the few denominations that emphasizes a code of Christian behavior over specific creeds.

In these communities, a radical equality of spiritual life was practiced. Nobility & Native Americans shared common quarters; slaves were full members of the Church & could be elected to offices of leadership.

Zinzendorf was consecrated bishop in Berlin on 20 May 1737. Zinzendorf’s interest in missionary work was sparked by meeting two Inuit children.

In 1736, accusations from neighboring nobles & questions of theological orthodoxy caused Zinzendorf to be exiled from his home in Saxony. He & a number of his followers moved to Marienborn (near Büdingen) & began a period of exile & travel, during which he became known as the “Pilgrim Count.”

In 1741, Zinzendorf visited Pennsylvania, becoming one of the few 18th century European nobles to have actually set foot in the Americas. In addition to visiting leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, he met with the leaders of the Iroquois.

Zinzendorf’s theology strongly included the emotional life of the believer as well as the intellectual. He criticized the coldly intellectual approach common in his day, & built a great deal of practice around the transformation of the emotions. He referred to this as the “religion of the heart.”

1805 – Death-day of Friedrich Schiller, some say he was poisoned (GA 64) The coffin containing what was purportedly Schiller’s skeleton, was brought in 1827, into the Weimarer Fürstengruft (Weimar’s Ducal Vault), later also Goethe’s resting place. On 3 May 2008, scientists announced that DNA tests showed that the skull of this skeleton is not Schiller’s, & his tomb is now vacant.

Friedrich Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, physician, historian, & playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous & influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning human freedom. Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship & these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller & Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision.

Schiller wrote many philosophical papers on ethics & aesthetics. He synthesized the thought of Immanuel Kant with the thought of the German Idealist philosopher, Karl Leonhard Reinhold. He elaborated Christoph Martin Wieland’s concept of die schöne Seele (the beautiful soul), a human being whose emotions have been educated by reason, so that Pflicht und Neigung (duty & inclination) are no longer in conflict with one another. Beauty, for Schiller, is not merely an aesthetic experience, but a moral one as well: the Good is the Beautiful.

His philosophical work was particularly concerned with the question of human freedom, a preoccupation which also guided his historical researches, & found its way as well into his dramas. Schiller wrote important essays on the question of the sublime, addressing one aspect of human freedom—the ability to defy one’s animal instincts, such as the drive for self-preservation, when, for example, someone willingly sacrifices themselves for conceptual ideals.

“…I should like to speak today about an individual who was incarnated about the second century A.D. in Rome, as it then was, and who with great sensitiveness of perception had witnessed the willing martyrdom suffered by the Christians in their efforts to promulgate their cause in the Roman Empire. This individual had also witnessed the terrible injustices and the many forms of depravity and corruption which were so rife in the Roman Empire at that time. Numberless manifestations of Good and Evil were witnessed and experienced by this individual. With the methods of spiritual research which enable such happenings to be recognised, we find this individual drawn into the tumultuous happenings which at that time, during the second half of the second century A.D., were experienced in the Roman Empire in connection with the spread of Christianity. There is something extremely moving about this individual when the eye of spirit is directed upon him in the way I explained last time with reference to other individuals in their repeated earthly lives.

In this individual who lived to a very great age and who had witnessed so much Good in deeds of supreme sacrifice in the sphere of germinating Christianity, and so much that was evil and bad in Roman life at that time, there arose a kind of realisation which was also a question: Where is the balance, the mean? Is there only the wholly Good and the wholly Evil in the world?

With the consciousness of Imagination and Inspiration one can follow quite clearly how this individual was subsequently reborn in the eleventh century, as a woman. The experiences undergone in the life as a woman levelled out the hard, steel-like angularity of soul which had developed during the Roman incarnation when he had reached a great age. This trait was softened and mellowed and became a faculty of inner, thoughtful contemplation of Good and Evil. This individual then came again to the Earth in the eighteenth century and was born as the German poet, Friedrich Schiller.

And now study Schiller’s life and see how it develops, striving to find a middle condition, a balance, a mean. Schiller needed Goethe before he could get rid of all that had remained in him from the conviction that there is only Good, there is only Evil. Read Schiller’s dramas, and you will understand them if you think of his earlier incarnation.

What circumstances lie behind Schiller’s life and outlook? The experiences he had undergone in the Roman incarnation continued to be alive within him, but he had subsequently incarnated as a woman in the Middle Ages. And then, in his life between death and a new birth, it was in the Saturn sphere that the most significant development of his karma took place.” Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume VI, Stuttgart, 1st June, 1924 https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA240/English/RSP1971/19240601p01.html

read more about Schiller from the works of Rudolf Steiner:
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA053/English/UNK2014/19050504p01.html

https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA239/English/RSP1973/19240610a01.html

1921 – Birthday of Sophie Scholl, German activist, working with the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother, Hans. As a result, she was executed by guillotine.

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.

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 Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer

1 – 2:30 pm Central Time Saturday 27 May 2023 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.

Hazel Archer is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Pentecost Festival
Time: May 27, 2023 01:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041?pwd=WkNaNDlPS0VIMTJUUkE1ZkFMaDh5dz09

Meeting ID: 705 017 4041
Passcode: Whitsun

50 Days after The Resurrection = Our Pentecost Festival

Community Bonfire, Pot-Luck, & Prep Stir

Whitsunday 28 May 2023

5 – 7 pm at the home of Hazel & Chuck Ginsberg

Please bring food & drink to share –

RSVP to Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

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