Category Archives: Upcoming Events

In Union Bee

Listen to the ‘I Think Speech‘ Podcast for today

“On the river stands the Temple in which the marriage of the Young Man with the beautiful Lily takes place – the marriage with the supersensible. The realization of the free personality is possible in a human soul whose forces have bridged the state of regularity with the divine forces of transformation.” ~ Rudolf Steiner, ‘Goethe’s Standard of the Soul’

Let your union ripen
Let your union deepen

Brent Barup

In your mind’s eye, can you see before you a sacred grove, a place of verdant life-force, in spring bloom? Can you feel that grove calling to you, life-force to life-force, drawing you deeper into the heart of the grove? Can you open your senses, letting the sights, sounds, & scent of the sacred wash over you? Can you reach out & touch the plants, filled with life-force…?

How do they feel? Can you sense the ground beneath your feet? Are there animals here, making sound, trying to communicate?

What is the color of their sound? Can you see with your ears? Taste with your eyes? Do you feel called to let your body move with the life-force of this place? How does this movement manifest within you?

Through union we awaken
Through union we are brazen

And that life-force, that seed of life-force inside you, is it drawn to a plant, a bush, or a tree, & can you see a fruit so filled with the seeds of life-force that it calls to you, calls to the life-force flowing through your blood? Your life-force to its life-force.

If you feel called, if you dare, can you pluck that ripe fruit, take it in your hand, savoring its texture, its aroma, &, if you will, will you take a bite of its rich life-force, the seeds & flesh of its life-force joining your life-force, as your attention expands further, to a place of unity with pure life-force energy.

In union we take action
In union our heart is open

Frida Kalho

And in this place of unity, what if you could marry yourself?

How does life-force flow within you? What parts of yourself would you wed to yourself? What are your strengths & gifts? Who are your allies, what are your tools? Where are your shadows, the parts of you that needing polishing?

How can you stand complete & whole unto yourself, knowing yourself in all your parts? Is there a gesture, a motion, a movement that can integrate self to self, can you let that flow thru your body?

How can you create a life,
that celebrates the life-force as an integrated Web of Energy
integrated & whole…
In the harmony of the elements balanced & blessed…
How can you use this season of fertile gifts to become
more integrated & whole…?

Your personal alchemical marriage-
Takes courage, knowledge, & voyage…
The Self an integration of life’s message

And in this place of unity, what if you could marry your community?

What communities are you a part of? Call them back. Call back how they feed you, how you feed them. How does life-force flow & move in exchange between self & community?

Call back how they serve you, call back how they don’t serve you. With what tools, with what allies can you serve & heal community? Where is the light, & where is the shadow? How can you wed your community with love beyond all reason? Is there a gesture, a motion, a movement that can integrate self to community, can you let that flow thruyour body?

Andrew Mazorol and Tynan Kerr – BOOOOOOOM! – CREATE * INSPIRE * COMMUNITY *  ART * DESIGN * MUSIC * FILM * PHOTO * PROJECTS
Andrew Marolzel

What do you want to wed
What do you want to shed
What will you grow in your seedbed
What are your marriage vows
What are your not alloweds
What power will your wedding arouse

And in this place of unity, what if you could marry the universe?

How do you live in relationship with the world? In relationship with the sum of all the communities, all the animals, all the plants, all the rocks & stones & bones of our ancestors? How can you live in sacred marriage with the world? Life-force to life-force, all connected, married, in a circle of life feeding life, life-force feeding life-force.

How can you nurture & heal the universe as the universe nurtures & holds you? Is there a gesture, a motion, a movement that can integrate self to universe, can you let that flow thru your body?

Beth Merkel

What mystery is unfolding in the heart-fires we are holding
In our hand we our molding a new destiny

Imagine building a nurturing matrix
In the heart of a rising phoenix
A mystic union stronger then steel & bricks
a marriage of ethics & frolics…

Kenneth Yung

We are here, in a place of unity, of sacred marriage, self to self, self to community, self to universe, the union of all, of the elements, of life-force itself. Can you let that union, that sacred marriage flow thru your body, in gesture, movement, dance, & song?

One self in union with oneself
One unity together in community
One world united in myself

Do you take your Self to be your True Authentic Self…in the presence of the Divine & in the witness of this community, do you promise to love yourself with an affirming devotion. Care for yourself with tenderness, seek to strengthen yourself, comfort & encourage yourself…To share the good times & hard times, integrated & whole…To make your heart a sanctuary of warmth & peace… integrated & whole…if you do, let your heart say, I do…& be integrated & whole… May this community of faith witness this sacred attunement…integrated & whole…

Yen Shaer

Consecrating that sacred marriage of self to self, self to universe, life-force to life-force.

Let the sacred Love Dance of the Divine within begin…Let the Wedding of Heaven & Earth, the Bridal Feast of the True Authentic Self begin…Let the organic betrothal with Mother Earth, in wedded bliss, begin…

Nancy Rourke

Self to Self…
Parts Become One…
Earth to Sky & Moon to Sun…
1st fruits
Bless this Union
Celebrate the Gifts that come

I love you
~hag

~John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

8 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars” : The bright waning gibbous moon will glow near fiery Antares, the brightest star in Scorpius the Scorpion, before dawn on May 7 and 8, 2023. You can catch the moon and Scorpius starting around midnight until dawn.

Simone DiMeglio

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)

3 events on 8 May connected to the Archangel Michael: 490, 1429, 1945

The Feast of the Apparition of Michael at the Garganico Sanctuary of San Michele in Monte Sant’Angelo. In the year 490, when a nobleman of this small village lost the best bull in his herd, he went searching for him and found the bull kneeling in a deserted cave. The cave was inaccessible, and so in order to scare the bull out of the cave, the nobleman shot an arrow at it, but to his amazement the arrow turned around and struck him instead! He fell on his face & prayed.

Weddings, Trout and Roman Roads in Radožda – Macedonia For 91 Days

A being appeared at the entrance to the cave: “I am the Archangel Michael and I am always in the presence of God. This cave is sacred to me. The Bull’s Blood need not be shed. What will be asked here in prayer will be granted as sure as my Countenance is of The Christ. Build therefore on this mountain and dedicate the cave to Christian worship.”

La misteriosa Linea Sacra di San Michele Arcangelo – Le vie del mistero

Saint Michael’s Cave was named “the Celestial Basilica”. It is one of the seven sacred sites along an imaginary line stretching from Ireland to Israel, known as “The Sword of Saint Michael“. (Interesting to think that the Bull was sacred to Mithras, an early incarnation of the Being Michael. And many depictions show a ‘celestial’ connection as well.)

Painting of Joan of Arc at the siege of Orléans
Jules Eugène Lenepveu

1429 – Joan of Arc who worked closly with the Archangel Michael lifts the Siege of Orléans, on this day, turning the tide of the Hundred Years’ War.

For years, vague prophecies had been circulating in France concerning an armored maiden who would rescue France. Many of these prophecies foretold that the armored maiden would come from the borders of Lorraine, where Domrémy, Joan’s birthplace, is located. As a result, when word reached the besieged citizens of Orléans concerning Joan’s journey to see the King, expectations and hopes were high.

The city of Orléans commemorates the lifting of the siege with an annual festival, including both modern and medieval elements and a woman representing Joan of Arc in full armor atop a horse. 

On 8 May Orléans simultaneously celebrates the lifting of the siege and V-E Day – Victory in Europe in 1945 – the day that Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies to end World War II in Europe.

1891 – Death Day of Helena Blavatsky, Russian-English mystic & author, said to be the reincarnation of Cagliostro by Emil Bock. In her will, HPB suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her death & read from Sir Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia & from The Bhagavad Gita. Lotuses grew in unusual profusion one year later. Hence, May 8 became known as White Lotus Day.

1903 – Deathday of Paul Gauguin, French painter and sculptor. His work was influential to the French avant-garde & many modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso & Henri Matisse.

1922 – D. N. Dunlop resigns from the Theosophical Society

Pauline von Kalckreuth “Straße aus Tolkemit

1929 – Death Day of Pauline von Kalckreuth, a German Artist & early anthroposophist

1933 – Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast of self-purification and launched a one-year campaign to help the Harijan movement

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

Infinity x’s Infinity

Dear friends – I have been working hard to take the highly esoteric concepts involved in understanding the 2nd aspect of the 3-fold Festival of Easter – the Ascension – into a digestible process that unfolds within the soul of the new friends I am presenting to from the Infinity Foundation. I hope you will join us too, I could use the moral support of some friendly faces!

Infinity Foundation is the Chicago area’s leading holistic education center and globally on Zoom. We provide experiential courses in personal, professional, and spiritual growth to enhance your life…”

Being in these powerful 40 days between Easter & Ascension, I continue to ponder the latest AAP training that brought in what I have called the 7’sApplying these concepts to my everyday working.

Thru my research into the Festival life as a Path of conscious Initiation into the New Mysteries, I have come to see that since the event of the 1st Easter, a new rhythm has been established – a fresh cycle for the ever becoming human being. This new cycle is not a four/eight-rhythm as seen in the wheel of the year, associated with the physical world of space, but rather a Seven-fold-rhythm leading into the unmanifest eternal realm of Time – a new dimension of formative forces, that we can cultivate in the etheric realm & in our own Life Body.

Dr. Friedrich Rittelmeyer, a founding priest of the Movement for Religious Renewal, once asked Rudolf Steiner how one could come to an experience of the Christ in this etheric.

Steiner answered, “by living with the cycle of the year”.

And so it is…

~hag

6 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The Eta Aquariid meteor shower peaks today — unfortunately under a Full Moon! Because the Moon is up all night and sets after sunrise, shower meteors will be difficult to catch in the brighter sky.

Nonetheless, if the weather is mild and you’re up before the Sun, it’s worth a try. The shower’s radiant lies in the east, just above Saturn. The ringed planet serves as an excellent guidepost, so let’s check it out first.

Saturn is high an hour before sunrise. Look southeast to find it — you may still see the four bright stars that mark the Square of Pegasus asterism to the planet’s upper left. Far above it lies the Summer Triangle, pointing nearly straight up.

Irene Hardwicke Olivieri Artist Interview | Scribble08 by Mark Murphy |  Art, Art block, Artist
Irene Wardwicke

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (so thankful for rsarchive.org/)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (From the Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner & Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Meagan O’ Santter

“What is to be the starting force & impulse for events in social & ethical life must come out of the spiritual world.” Rudolf Steiner, New Spiritual Impulses in History” Dornach 16 December, 1917

Birthday of St. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved. Thru the research of Rudolf Steiner (GA 93, 264, 265) we hear of this individuality in other lives as: Hiram, Lazarus, Christian Rosenkreutz, St. Germain.

680 Death-day of Muawiyah Caliph. The meaning of Muawiyah in Arabic is “young fox”. Muawiyah worked as a scribe for Muhammad.

In 639, Muawiyah was appointed as the governor of Syria. Under his governance the Syrian army became a major military force. Muawiya was one of the first to realize the full importance of having a navy. During his naval expeditions he took Rhodes & later Cyprus; then shifted his focus back towards Constantinople, & Anatolia. By his creation of a fleet, Muawiyah was the driving force of the Muslim effort against Byzantium. His navy raided the Byzantine islands & coasts at will. The shocking defeat of the imperial fleet by the young Muslim navy at the Battle of the Masts in 655 was of critical turning point. It opened up the Mediterranean, considered a “Roman lake”, & began a centuries-long series of naval conflicts over the control of the Mediterranean. This also allowed the expansion of the state into Africa & Spain. Trade between the Muslim eastern & southern shores & the Christian northern shores almost ceased during this period, isolating Western Europe from developments in the Muslim world. Muawiyah was crowned as caliph at a ceremony in Jerusalem in 661.

We learn from Karmic Relationships Vol. 7 lecture 6 that he was reincarnated as Woodrow Wilson.

1871 – Birthday of Christian Morgenstern, was a member of the General Anthroposophical SocietyDr. Rudolf Steiner called him ‘a true representative of Anthroposophy’. 

In 1881 his mother Charlotte died of a lung disease which he inherited from her and which was to overshadow his life with a long series of sanatorium stays. Morgenstern was a German author & poet from Munich. He worked for a while as a journalist in Berlin, but spent much of his life traveling through Germany, Switzerland, & Italy, primarily in a vain attempt to recover his health. His travels, though they failed to restore him to health, allowed him to meet many of the foremost literary & philosophical figures of his time in central Europe.

In January 1909 he met Rudolf Steiner , with whom he became a close friend, and in the same year he joined the German section of the Theosophical Society led by him. When this organization was split up in 1912/1913, he stayed on Steiner’s side and became a member of the Anthroposophical Society.

Morgenstern’s comical poetry still inspires today. Morgenstern unfolds his amiable, but sometimes also shrewd language wit especially in the poetry collection Galgenlieder: “How the toad sings so foolishly in the nearby reed!” His best-known poem is The Impossible Fact . The conclusion became a catchphrase: “[…] because, he concludes with razor-sharpness, what cannot be cannot be.” In “Scholastikerprobleme” he discussed how many angels could sit on a needle. Many Germans know some of his poems & quotations by heart.

• “I shall excavate the strata of my soul.”
• “I’m a man of limits: forever physically, emotionally, morally and artistically on the brink of plunging into the abyss. Yet I manage to keep my balance and possess presence of mind.”
• “I bear no treasures within me. I only possess the power to transform much of what I touch into something of value. I have no depths, save my incessant desire for the depths.”

Morgenstern’s poems have been set to music by many composers

Christian Morgenstern was also an acclaimed translator, rendering into German various prominent works from Norwegian and French, including the dramas and poems of Henrik Ibsen, Knut Hamsun, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson & August Strindberg. He died of tuberculosis.

Natalia Toledo

Moonrise
In the tops of the forest,
the rigid and black
in the pale twilight sky
ghosts,
hangs a big one
shiny soap bubble.

It is slowly loosening
from the branches
and floats up
in the ether.

Down in the thicket
lies Pan,
in the mouth
a long reed,
there is still the foam on it
of the nearby pond
encrusted shimmers.

He blew bubbles,
the cheerful god:
but most of them
planted him treacherously.


Just one
held up bravely
and flew out
from the crowns.

There she drifts shimmering
carried by the wind,
across the country.
Rises higher and higher
the fragile ball.

But Pan looks
with a pounding heart –
restrained breath –
after her.

~Christian Morgenstern

Founder Angela Curtes will be at the Spring Farm Fair on Sunday, (see below)
but you are invited to check out her website to learn more about & preorder products
for Earth & Body healing.
*Angie’s Gold Living Compost
*SILVER Seed Start Potting Mix –
 
*100% Organic Certified Echinacea Purpurea Herbal Extract
*& MORE…!

Ultra-Violet Archer & Lucien Dante Lazar on Instagram & All links

The Merry Prepstirs of Chicago will be there with 500 & 501, Come help stir & take home some magic juice for your garden (please bring your own jar!)

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

Deliberate

“…The hatred and antipathy in the world today can indeed be followed by international love with healing in its wings. This is indeed possible. But we are living in an age when all that is possible must be consciously, deliberately and freely striven for by human beings. There must be knowledge of the conditions requisite for uniting the peoples of the Earth, in order that, as a result of this knowledge, each individual people may help to make the waves of love follow those of hatred.

Human love alone has power to heal the wounds of hatred. If humankind has no wish for this love, chaos will remain. That is the terrible alternative now facing human beings who have knowledge. Those who realize its terrors know that the souls of men dare not sleep, for otherwise, as a result of the powerlessness caused by the sleep into which the souls of the peoples have fallen, the healing waves of love will not be able to flow over the waves of hatred.

Human beings who realize this will acquire the kind of knowledge that flows from a spiritual conception of the relationships between the peoples. They will take this knowledge into their feeling — love for humanity will be born. They will take this knowledge into their will – deeds for humanity will be accomplished.

The evolution of the age, with all the terrible paralysis that is appearing at the present time, places a solemn duty before the soul: to gather together all that can unite humankind in love and array it in opposition to the destructive elements that have made their appearance in recent times. This quest for loving unification, for unifying love is not merely a vague feeling. To those who understand the conditions of life today, it is the very highest duty of man.” ~Rudolf Steiner, ‘The Peoples of the Earth in the Light of Anthroposophy’, Stuttgart, March 10th, 1920 

Dolores Develde

In 1962, Karl König offered this verse to the friends in America:
The eternal rays
Of the Holy Spirits of Light
Build the tower of human trust,
Which is formed in our hearts
Out of brotherly love.
The eternal piers
of the helping Spirit-Messengers
Bear the bridge of faithfulness
That arches from I to I
In what we do.
So do we become united and strong
In the work that we have begun
And which we are committed in the spirit
To bring to completion.
May the greeting from soul to soul
Ring through the fellowship of our doing.

2 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars:” Pluto stands stationary against the background stars of Capricorn. The dwarf planet is now an early-morning presence rising around 2 am CDT.

Sunrise: 5:59 A.M. – Sunset: 7:56 P.M. – Moonrise: 4:56 P.M. – Moonset: 4:36 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous (90%)

TOP 25 QUOTES BY NOVALIS (of 112) | A-Z Quotes

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (so thankful for rsarchive.org)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (From the Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner & Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

1519 – Death Day of Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, & architect. “…We know how Leonardo worked at the “Last Supper”. He often went and sat on the scaffolding and brooded for hours in front of the wall, then he would take a brush and make a few strokes and go away again. Sometimes he only went and stared at the picture and went away again. When he was painting the Christ Figure, his hand trembled. Indeed, if we put together all that we can find concerning this subject we must say that neither outwardly nor inwardly was Leonardo happy when painting this world-renowned picture. Now there were people at that time in Milan who were displeased with the slow progress of the picture, for instance a Prior of the monastery, who could not see why an artist could not paint such a picture quickly, and complained to the Duke. He too thought the affair had lasted too long. Leonardo answered: “The picture is to represent Jesus Christ and Judas, the two greatest contrasts; one cannot paint them in one year; there are no models for them in the world, neither for Judas nor for Christ”. After he had been working at the picture for years, he said he did not know whether he could finish it after all! Then he said that if finally he found no model for Judas he could always use the Prior himself! It was thus extraordinarily difficult to bring the picture to a conclusion but within himself Leonardo did not feel happy. For this picture showed the contrast between what lived in his soul and what he was able to represent on the canvas. Here it is necessary to bring forward a hypothesis of Spiritual Science, which may be reached by anyone who studies what can by degrees be learned about this picture.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Leonardo da Vinci, His Spiritual and Intellectual Greatness, At the Turning Point of the New Age

1611 – The King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time in London, England, by printer Robert Barker

1729 – Birthday of Catherine the Great of Russia, the longest-ruling female leader of Russia. The Catherinian Era, is often considered the Golden Age of the Russian Empire & the Russian nobility. She enthusiastically supported the ideals of The Enlightenment, thus earning the status of an enlightened despot. As a patron of the arts she presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment, a period when the Smolny Institute, the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe, was established.

1772 – Birthday of Novalis, the pseudonym & pen name of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, poet, author, mystic, & philosopher of Early German Romanticism. His study of mineralogy & management of salt mines in Saxony, was often ignored by his contemporary readers Novalis concerned himself with the scientific doctrine of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, which greatly influenced his world view, transforming Fichte’s Nicht-Ich (German “not I”) to a Du (“you”), an equal subject to the Ich (“I”). This was the starting point for Novalis’ Liebesreligion (“religion of love”) dedicated to his beloved Sophie who died of tuberculosis.

Darren Paulie

Everything beloved is the centre point of a paradise.” – Novalis

Novalis took the name from “de Novali” which was an old family name. The future Baron von Hardenberg was born into a noble German family in lower Saxony. He was sent to a religious school as a boy, but he was stifled by the strict atmosphere and he never adjusted to its severe discipline. He later lived with his uncle who introduced him to the French literature and rational philosophy. He then went to Weissenfels, where his father moved, and entered the Eisleben gymnasium. In 1790-91 he studied law at the University of Jena, where he met Friedrich von Schiller and Friedrich Schlegel. Novalis completed his studies at Wittenberg in 1793.

In the 1790s, the ideas of the French Revolution spread among idealistic intellectual circles throughout Europe, greatly inspiring the young Novalis. He was also deeply moved by reading the mystical philosophical writings of Goethe. Goethe’s book “Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship”, which he read in 1795, influenced him deeply; he considered it the Bible for the “New Age”. In 1795-96 he studied the works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. At the age of 21 he moved to Tennstädt and took up job in civil service.

When Novalis was a young man, he fell in love with a teenage girl named, appropriately enough, Sophie (Sophia is a personification of the goddess of wisdom, the feminine embodiment of the divine in Western gnostic traditions). His experience of love for the young woman was so deep that it became a transformative, “mystical” experience for the young and impressionable Novalis, whose reading had made him receptive to the concept of ideal love. Sadly, Sophie von Kühn died two years later of tuberculosis.

In 1798 Novalis published a series of philosophical fragments, “Fragmenten”. The loss of his beloved caused an infinitude of pain and sorrow for the hapless young lover, but it also served as strong inspiration and source of creative energy. His “Hymnen an die Nacht” (Hymns to the Night – 1800) was the resultant work. This is a collection of prose, poetry and aphorisms in praise of the sacred encounters with nature, night, sleep, and the magnetic connection between the masculine and the feminine.

Novalis – organic radicals

Novalis died at the age of 29 of tuberculosis, the same disease that claimed Sophie. He is considered one of the early German Romantics, and he is sometimes referred to as “the prophet of the Romantics”. ~from nicholasjv.com

Philipp Otto Runge’s Der kleine Morgen inspired by Novalis’s ideas
Raphael 

“…When we consider the life of Novalis, what an echo we find there of the Raphael life for which Hermann Grimm had so fine an understanding! His beloved dies in her youth. He is himself still young. What is he going to do with his life now that she has died? He tells us himself. He says that his life on Earth will be henceforth to “die after her”, to follow her on the way of death. He wants to pass over already now into the super-sensible, to lead again the Raphael life, not touching the Earth, but living out in poetry his magic idealism. He would fain not let himself be touched by Earth life.

When we read the “Fragments” of Novalis, and give ourselves up to the life that flows so abundantly in them, we can discover the secret of the deep impression they make on us. Whatever we have before us in immediate sense-reality, whatever the eye can see and recognise as beautiful — all this, through the magic idealism that lives in the soul of Novalis, appears in his poetry with a well-nigh heavenly splendour. The meanest and simplest material thing — with the magic idealism of his poetry he can make it live again in all its spiritual light and glory.

And so we see in Novalis a radiant and splendid forerunner of that Michael stream which is now to lead you all, my dear friends, while you live; and then, after you have gone through the gate of death, you will find in the spiritual super-sensible worlds all those others — among them also the being of whom I have been speaking to you today — all those with whom you are to prepare the work that shall be accomplished at the end of the century, and that shall lead mankind past the great crisis in which it is involved.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis – The Last Address – Dornach, Michaelmas Eve, 1924

May 2, 1924 – Deathday of Edith Maryon an English sculptor who worked closly with Rudolf Steiner on the carving of the First Goetheanum & on the Scultural Group called The ‘Representative of Humanity’. From Anthrowiki: Edith Maryon grew up as the second of six children of the wealthy master tailor John Simeon Maryon and his wife Louisa Church in central London. She attended a girls’ school and later a boarding school in Geneva, Switzerland . In the 1890s she studied sculpture at the Central School of Design in London , from 1896 at the Royal College of Arts , which she appointed in 1904 as an “Associate”. She went public with sculptural portraits and created reliefs in a classically inspired, traditionalist style.

After first meeting Rudolf Steiner in 1912/13, she moved to Dornach in the summer of 1914 and played a decisive role in the construction of the first Goetheanum . Together with Steiner, she was largely responsible for the design of the well-known large-scale sculpture The Representative of Humanity between Lucifer and Ahriman as well as colored eurythmy figure sculptures, which she also executed in wood. These works are stylistically close to Expressionism . Edith Maryon resisted any haste. For this reason, the work was not destroyed in the fire of the first Goetheanum on New Year’s Eve 1922/23, but has been preserved and is still on display in the (second) Goetheanum today.

When there was a housing shortage in Switzerland, Edith Maryon – together with Paul Johann Bay – designed three houses for employees on Dornacher Hügel between 1920-22. At that time called “English houses”, today they are called eurythmy houses .

Edith Maryon was in constant personal or letter contact with her teacher, Dr. Steiner. In a brotherly and sisterly way, he confided a great deal to her and dedicated some of his texts to her. While working in the sculptor’s studio around 1916, she once saved him from a serious, perhaps fatal, fall. In 1923 (after the burning of the first Goetheanum) Edith Maryon fell seriously ill. At the end of the year she was appointed head of the section for fine arts at the Goetheanum (without being able to hold the office) and died the following year of complications from tuberculosis .

Grass-fed • Holistic • Regenerative • Biodynamics – Thank you to all who will to support the Zinniker Farm. May we continue to build a bigger table. Please contribute.

 Zelle: or Venmo

Blessings on the Farmers https://familyfarminitiative.com/

Ultra-Violet Archer & Lucien Dante Lazar on Instagram & All links

The Merry Prepstirs of Chicago will be there with 500 & 501, Come help stir & take home some magic juice for your garden (please bring your own jar!)

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

Listen to the Beltane offering on the ‘I Think Speech Podcast

Your Alchemical Wedding

T. Jaelen

Listen to Today’s offering on the ‘I Think Speech Podcast

Lisa Lockhead

Congratulations Beloved –
& Welcome to Your Royal Wedding Party
Where You marry You…Come on, Say I do…
as you dance to the beat of your throbbing heart
around the blazing bonfire in May Day Jubilation…
Go on, break taboos, buck the rut rote,
& overthrow conventional surface stuff
with your blithe grace & jaunty charm
in your one-of-a-kind thrift store Wedding gown…

But 1st, There are a couple of provisional caveats –
A reminder – that the beautiful truth won’t always be simple or shiny & bright;
a good marriage takes work
to gleam & keep green…
O yes, it can get murky & super dense, convoluted even,
or perhaps kaleidoscopic…
the bird song whispering sweet somethings
may sound more like a marching band
than a panpipe playing a quaint folk song…
a pounding dissonant kinky version of Stravinsky’s Rite Of Spring
(if you’re lucky)

When you ‘Give Peace & Dance’ (remember when?)
you’re likely to be quivery & atwitter in your vows
due to encounters with the Great Unknown –
arrivals from beyond the Wild Blue Yonder –
that will blow your mind,
recalibrate your philosophy of life,
& pique your cognitive curiosity.

So Rejoice…
Your date with the numinous
is stirring the divine in you,
in an awe-inspiring, fire-friendly
Reverse Ritual…
(if you will it)

Your old self,
which may have become stuck
in a gnarly snarl deep inside your old habits
must become the fuel you will use
to burn away what does not serve…
This bonfire will liberate
the New True You.

Let the flames circulate a fresh combustion in your holy blood –
& a spiraling sense of release & purpose will predominate…
Then, as the New You, commits
to the mystic union of Love & Freedom,
flexing its vital force
in a foreshadowing of future willing
illumination proceeds,
& the initiation that follows
will bring you great tasks
quaking with responsibility
& many mighty orgasms of communal de-light…
(as karma & Grace will allow)

And now let us open to the mighty being Michael:

Michael: O human being, as your Time Spirit, I stand in uprightness sending you courage to redeem the cosmic intelligence. Hold with me, the countenance of the Being of Love in your heart-thinking; & know the Wisdom of my Mother, The Divine Sophia, in your purified soul; so that you may embody Anthroposophia.

For on this May Day you are invited to join together these two parts of yourself, in an Alchemical union; remembering the promise you made whilst in my supersensible school; & then later as we enacted the Cosmic Cultus. Now, here on Earth, you, O human being, are called to reunite the Warmth & The Light.

Hear now from the Guardian at the Threshold:

Guardian: You are invited to contemplate your ‘Declaration of Intent’ – What are the vows you will make to yourself? What are the intentions that you will consecrate in the Temple of your Heart? What do you want to come forth from this union of: Soul & Spirit – Wisdom & Love – Warmth & Light?…The Union of the Being of Love, with the Wisdom of Anthroposophia – The joining of Warmth – to the Light of human Understanding…

Blessed be all those about to be united thru the interweaving of Love & Light. Blessed be our allies in the Spirit World, aligned with Love & Light, who attend us in this glorious ceremony of rededication…

Dear friends, in the silence of your heart, resonate, if it is your will, with the intention for union, & speak the word:

May the Love-in-me, be ever warm & ready to serve
May the Light-in-me strive for true understanding & harmony
That I may live in wholeness, & work in goodwill for the All.
Now, & for all ages to come…

Dearly Beloved, I now pronounce you Christos-Sophia
Receive the kiss of your Higher Self as you jump the broom to consciously cross the threshold…

And so now dear friends, with this new sense of Self ever transforming, you are invited to dance the 1st dance, singing:
‘Open-Minded,
Whole-Hearted,
Hands-on Faith’ –
‘Let all you do be done in the Wisdom of Love’

xox
~hag

1 May 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars:” Let’s open the month of May by observing the stunning red carbon star V Hydrae. Located in Hydra the Water Snake, this star lies due south an hour after sunset, some 30° high. It remains visible all evening to the far upper right of bright Sirius in Canis Major the Big Dog.

Mercury is in inferior conjunction at 6 P.M. CDT. Although the solar system’s smallest, speediest planet is now behind the Sun from our point of view, it will emerge from our star’s glare before the end of the month.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (From the Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner)

Rudolf Steiner’s brother Gustav, sister Leopoldine & their caretaker Margarethe Karner

1942 – Deathday of Gustav Steiner, Rudolf Steiner’s brother. Franziska Steiner their mother, is said to have suffered a severe shock from a railway accident shortly before the birth of her son Gustav. The fact that their youngest child was born deaf may be related to this.

As seen from the family’s letters, Gustav required constant care and supervision. At times he was very nervous and excited and ‘«’caused quite unpleasant behavior as a result’.

Gustav Steiner loved to read the newspaper, so Leopoldine his siter always had to provide him with newspapers. The fact that he liked to eat a lot made the sister sorrowful in the times when it was so difficult to get food. 

When the sister could no longer take care of her brother because of her increasingly deteriorating eyes, a relative, Mrs. Barth, first looked after the siblings. However, Leopoldine Steiner didn’t get along with her. Then the nurse and anthroposophist Margarethe Karner took over the care of the siblings. When she herself fell ill in the 1930s, Gustav Steiner joined the Jahn-Hamburger family in 1936, first in Vienna, then in Gresten near Scheibbs in Lower Austria during the war years.

Thanks to Wolfgang Vögele’s initiative to record the memories of the daughter of this family, Gertrud Schmied-Hamburger, we know a lot about Gustav Steiner’s last years. Gertrud Schmied-Hamburger reports that he was able to speak a few words, but «of course, he spoke to us in sign language». When Gustav wanted something from someone, he tried to make himself understood with a kind of beep. He was «not shy of people at all» but approached all people and asked them about their name days.  He was «actually of robust health. He was loving and very happy to help, as far as he could help […]. He got us wood […]. He did a great job of that. He also untied strings and picked seeds. He was always helpful. He never freaked out.» Obviously, his agitated nervousness, which is often reported in the family’s letters, had subsided in the later years of his life.

It is touching that in his later years, he loved to copy the works of his brother: first many prophecies and the soul calendar, then followed by ‹How do you gain knowledge of the higher worlds?› and ‹Theosophy›. As Hede Hamburger reported to Johanna Mücke on June 23, 1937, this copying work was «by itself the most important» to him.

At the end of April 1942, Gustav probably had a kind of intestinal obstruction and had to be admitted to the clinic in Scheibbs, where apparently no medical measures were applied. Gustav Steiner died of heart failure there on the first night after his admission.

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 Lucien Dante Lazar & Ultra-Violet Archer

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

RSVP for code Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

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.

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

Listen to Today’s offering on the ‘I Think Speech Podcast

V

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I am a cackle of joy in the throat of wild geese returning…
The apex of the V flapping the wind into warmth –
The fire of wet Hyacinth flaming from an earthly stem
Black mud rejoicing…

~hag

~John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky.

29 April 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Bella Luna – as waxing gibbous moon is near the backward question mark known as the Sickle. She is also close to Leo’s brightest star, Regulus. The Sickle represents the Lion’s head and shoulders.

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

EASTERTIDE III
Foundation of the Self
v3
The human ego speaks…
the growing I, in self-forgetfulness
and mindful of its primal state,
is speaking to the whole enwoven world:
‘In you, releasing chains
of private hopes and pains,
I root my inborn truth’.

The mirror verse
PASSIONTIDE 1I (Mothering Sunday in UK)
The World’s Fulfilment
v50
Earth’s Mother speaks…
her joy of growth in every bud’s unfurling,
revealing the inherent forces of her being,
is speaking to the human I:
‘In bringing into you my life,
released from its enchantment,
I reach my true fulfilment’.

“Appearance of St. Catherine & Michael to Joan of Arc,” by Hermann Stilke

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (so thankful for rsarchive.org/)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (From the Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner & Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Image result for St Endelienta

Feast Day of Saint Endelienta, a Cornish saint of the 5th century. She is believed to be a daughter of the Welsh King Brychan, & legend says that she was a goddaughter of King Arthur. She lived as a hermit at Trentinney where she subsisted on the milk of a cow.

Giovanni-di-Paolo

1380 – Death Day of Catherine of Siena, Italian mystic, philosopher, a Scholastic philosopher & theologian & saint. She is believed to have had miraculous visions & felt herself to be united in marriage with Jesus.

Born as the Black Death-ravaged in Siena, Italy, to Lapa Piagenti, the daughter of a local poet, & Giacomo di Benincasa, a cloth dyer who ran his enterprise with the help of his sons. Lapa was about forty years old when she gave premature birth to twin daughters Catherine & Giovanna. She had already borne 22 children, but half of them had died. Giovanna was handed over to a wet-nurse & died soon after. Catherine was nursed by her mother & developed into a healthy child. She was two years old when Lapa had her 25th child, another daughter named Giovanna. As a child Catherine was so merry that the family gave her the pet name of “Euphrosyne”, which is Greek for “joy” & the name of an early Christian saint.

Catherine had her first vision of Christ when she was five or six years old: She & a brother were on the way home from visiting a married sister when she is said to have experienced a vision of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, & JohnAt age seven, Catherine vowed to give her whole life to God.

When Catherine was sixteen, her older sister Bonaventura died in childbirth; already anguished by this, Catherine soon learned that her parents wanted her to marry Bonaventura’s widower. She was absolutely opposed & started a massive fast, & cut off her long hair as a protest.

“Build a cell inside your mind, from which you can never flee.” In this inner cell she made her father into a representation of Christ, her mother into the Blessed Virgin Mary, & her brothers into the apostles. Serving them humbly became an opportunity for spiritual growth. She chose to live an active & prayerful life outside a convent’s walls following the model of the Dominicans. Eventually her father gave up & permitted her to live as she pleased.

Her custom of giving away clothing &food without asking anyone’s permission cost her family significantly, but she demanded nothing for herself.

In about 1368, age twenty-one, Catherine experienced what she described in her letters as a “Mystical Marriage” with Jesus. Catherine received, not the ring of gold & jewels that her biographer reports in his version, but the ring of Christ’s foreskin.” Catherine herself mentions the foreskin-as-wedding ring motif in one of her letters, equating the wedding ring of a virgin with a foreskin; she typically claimed that her own wedding ring to Christ was simply invisible

As social & political tensions mounted in Siena, Catherine found herself drawn to intervene in wider politics. She began travelling with her followers throughout northern & central Italy advocating reform of the clergy & advising people that repentance &renewal could be done through “the total love for God.” In Pisa, in 1375, she used what influence she had to sway that city & Lucca away from alliance with the anti-papal league whose force was gaining momentum & strength. It was in Pisa that she received the stigmata.

She received the Holy Eucharist almost daily. This extreme fasting appeared unhealthy in the eyes of the clergy & her own sisterhood. Her confessor ordered her to eat properly. But Catherine claimed that she was unable to, describing her inability to eat as an infermità (illness). From the beginning of 1380, Catherine could neither eat nor swallow water. On February 26 she lost the use of her legs. St Catherine died in Rome, on 29 April 1380, at the age of thirty-three, having suffered a stroke eight days earlier.

Banner
Jeanne d’Arc à la bataille de Patay. Jeanne, as commander of the French army, leads the assault at Patay, where the French won a crushing victory over the English~Franck Craig

1429 – Joan of Arc – the Maid of Orléans, defeats the English which begins the process that ended with England’s complete expulsion from the continent.

It was necessary that the Maid of Orleans went through a kind of unaware initiation to fulfill her historical mission.It concerned an initiation that could take place in the time of the thirteen nights between the 25th December and 6th January.In the last time before birth the human being is especially accessible to unaware influences from the spiritual world.

On the 6th January the Maid of Orleans was born, to whom the Christ Impulse was implanted just before she saw the physical sunlight.The Maid of Orleans intervened in the course of history in such a way that everything that happened later was determined through it.

The whole map of Europe would be different, also the spiritual life if the English had won.

The Maid was a servant of St. Michael. She was a warrior of his Will and brought this spiritual will to Earth by her determination and actions.In the Central European civilisation were the springs for the whole spiritual culture of the future, the foundation of the ego-culture.

The human ego had to enkindle itself in the outside world, to be awake and realised internally. Thus the ego-culture of Central Europe was aroused from the objective events, the heroic sacrifices, that have brought the changes into etheric bodies and continue to do so, through the recorded memory.

It is necessary that, there would be souls, who send thoughts into the spiritual world like extending arms and bring down the consciousness from the spiritual world, souls conscious of spirit.The proper purpose of all our endevours is to gain a living connection between the physical and spiritual worlds.

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the grief of the bereaved,
From the nation’s sacrifices
Will grow up the fruits of spirit
If souls aware of spirit turn
Their senses to the spirit land.”

~Rudolf Steiner, Spiritual Science, a Necessity for the Present Time, The Relation of Man to his Folk Soul – Nuremberg, March 13, 1915, GA 159

“In order to throw a little light on the occult understanding of history, we may ask the question: What would the development of modern Europe have been if at the beginning of the 15th century the Maid of Orleans had not entered the arena of events? Anyone who thinks, even from an entirely external point of view, of the development that took place during this period, must say to himself: Suppose the deeds of the Maid of Orleans were erased from history … then, according to the knowledge obtainable from purely external historical research, one cannot but realise that without the working of higher, super-sensible Powers through the Maid of Orleans, the whole of France, indeed the whole of Europe in the 15th century, would have taken on an altogether different form. Everything in the impulses of will, in the physical brains of those times, was directed towards flooding all Europe with a general conception of the State which would have extinguished the folk-individualities and under this influence a very great deal of what has developed in Europe during the last centuries through the interplay of these folk-individualities would quite certainly have been impossible.

Imagine the deed of the Maid of Orleans blotted out from history, France abandoned to her fate without this intervention, and then ask: Without this deed, what would have become of France? And then think of the role played by France in the whole cultural life of humanity during the centuries following! Add to this the facts which cannot be refuted and are confirmed by actual documents concerning the mission of the Maid of Orleans. This young girl, certainly not highly educated even by the standards of her time, suddenly, before she is twenty years old, feels in the autumn of 1428 that spiritual Powers of the super-sensible worlds are speaking to her. True, she clothes these Powers in forms that are familiar to her, so that she is seeing them through the medium of her own mental images; but that does not do away with the reality of these Powers. Picture to yourselves that she knows that super-sensible Powers are guiding her will towards a definite point — I am speaking to begin with, not of what can be told about these facts from the Akasha Chronicle, but only of what is confirmed by documentary evidence.

We know that the Maid of Orleans confided her vision first of all to a relative who — one would almost say, by chance-happened to understand her; that after many vicissitudes and difficulties she was introduced to the Court of King Charles who, together with the whole French Army, had come to his wit’s end, as the saying goes. We know too, how after every conceivable obstacle had been put in her way, she finally recognised and went straight to the King, who was standing among such a crowd of people that no physical eye could have distinguished him. It is also known that at that moment she confided to him something— he wanted to test her by it — of which it can be said that it was known only to him and to the super-sensible worlds. You also know from ordinary history that it was she who, under the unceasing impulse and urge of her intense faith — it would be better to say, through her actual vision — and in face of the greatest difficulties, led the armies to victory and the King to his crowning.

Who intervened at that time in the course of history? — None other than Beings of higher Hierarchies! The Maid of Orleans was an outer Instrument of these Beings, and it was they who guided the deeds of history”. ~Rudolf Steiner, Occult History, Lecture 2, Stuttgart, 28th December 1910

Image result for 1862 –The Capture of New Orleans by Union forces

1862 –The Capture of New Orleans by Union forces in the American Civil War.

1899 – Birthday of Duke Ellington, American pianist, composer, & bandleader

1901 – Birthday of Hirohito, Japanese emperor

Image result for 1910 people budget

1910 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passes the People’s Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public

1945 –The German army in Italy unconditionally surrenders to the Allies.

Related image

1945 – Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker they both commit suicide the following day

Image result for 1945 – Dachau concentration camp is liberated

1945 – Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops

1991 – A cyclone strikes the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 miles per hour killing at least 238,000 people & leaving as many as 10 million homeless

1991 – The 7.0 Mw earthquake affects Georgia with a maximum intensity killing 370 people

Image result for 11992 –Riots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King.

1992 –Riots in Los Angeles, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 53 people are killed & hundreds of buildings are destroyed

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.

40 Days after The Resurrection = Ascension Festival

Community Bonfire, Pot-Luck, & Prep Stir

Ascension Thursday 18 May 2023

6 – 8 pm at the home of Hazel & Chuck Ginsberg

Please bring food & drink to share –

RSVP to Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

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

RSVP for code Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

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.

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