Greetings dear friends – Today, 11.11.22, is the perfect occasion to begin a sharing of my recent AAP experience, being that it is Martinmas. This Feast Day exemplifies the theme of our seminar: Sacrifice & the healing of the ‘Sacred Wound’. I invite you to explore with me the ‘Inner Realities of Evolution’ given by Steiner around this time of year in 1911. It takes the depictions from ‘Occult Science’ & ‘Cosmic Memory’ to a whole new level, bringing us into the inner experience of the hierarchical beings themselves!
In the 1st lecture, given on All Hallows, we take a journey into the aspects of the ancient Saturn embodiment of Earth. Steiner describes his struggle to enter into this existence clairvoyantly, how it must be approached with ‘inner firmness’ & certainty’. He reveals that as a modern human being this realm can fill us with ‘fear & terror at the sight of Saturn’s endless void’, because there is an absence of all space & time. Steiner gives us the tools to counteract this sickening vertigo thru the suggestion to uphold the virtues of Christ found within practical Anthroposophy & the Gospels. When we can get past our horror of the void, by grounding ourselves in love, trust, gratitude, & the will to serve, we can encounter The Thrones, the Spirits of Will, as a ‘surging sea of courage’.
At the same time what lights up for us is a sense of Harmony streaming in from The Cherubim. This becomes a glow that stirs a divine reverence within the Spirits of Will, inspiring them to sacrifice their very Being to the Cherubim. Steiner gives a beautiful imagination of the Thrones kneeling with complete devotion & courage before the Cherubim, offering the flaming warmth of reverence. From this sacrificial union Time is born – The Beings of Time – The Archai. This warmth is the spirit behind what we experience on earth in the physical form of the element of fire.
When we live into these pictures of experience we realize that the existence of these ancient forces work on into our present age & will continue on into the future thru our understanding & active participation.
Next we will enter the experience of the ancient Sun embodiment of Earth.
Until then, Remember, that as we journey into the darkest time of the year, we can kindle warmth within our soul forces. The example of Martin’s cloak can remind us of the sacrifice of the Spirits of Will in our primal beginnings. This Festival is a call to emulate the higher spiritual beings.
Celebrating Martinmas renews our divine spark so that we may warm the world in our true becoming.
~hag
Here is a recording of ‘Martinmas & the 11:11 Phenomenon‘ – The story of St. Martin with Nancy Melvin; & then starting at 25:42 – The 11:11 connection with Hazel Archer
11.11.22 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The waning gibbous Moon rises less than an hour after nightfall is complete, with Mars shining to her upper right. A week ago it was Jupiter’s turn with the Bella Luna, & 3 days before that it was Saturn’s. The Moon doesn’t play favorites; She makes a point of visiting each planet every month, not to mention its own phase-maker, the Sun.
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Feast Day of Martin of Tours.
1918 – Armistice of 11/11 ending the fighting in the First World War between the Allies & Germany – also known as the Armistice of Compiègne after the location in which it was signed – &the agreement that ended the fighting on the Western Front. It went into effect at 11 a.m. Paris time on 11 November 1918 (“the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month”), & marked a victory for the Allies & a complete defeat for Germany, although not formally a surrender. The Germans were responding to the policies proposed by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson* in his Fourteen Points of January 1918. Although the armistice ended the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty, the Treaty of Versailles. And the world is still at war.
*”…‘Spiritual science brings forward a truth such as: What takes place in the historical life of man, and consequently in the life of political impulses, has nothing to do with the ordinary consciousness, it can have nothing to do with it; but can only be understood and applied through imaginative consciousness.’ We might even say as regards the most distinctive representatives of the anti-social historic conception, that President Wilson’s view must be replaced by an imaginative knowledge of the truth. And Wilson’s ideas are very widespread (far more people are of his way of thinking than is supposed). Names are of no moment, only the facts under which men live are of consequence. I may be allowed to be somewhat outspoken about Wilson, because in the course of lectures given in Helsingfors before the war, already then I pronounced my judgment of him and did not need to wait for the war to learn of what spirit he is who sits on the throne of America. At that time fulsome praise of Woodrow Wilson could be heard everywhere; it has not long ceased. The world is now very much wiser, and knows that the man who now occupies the throne of America drafted his most powerful republican document from one issued by the late Emperor of Brazil, Don Pedro, in 1864. Wilson copied this exactly except that the passage, ‘I must intervene in the interests of South America’ is altered to ‘I must intervene in the interests of the United States of America,’ etc., with the necessary recasting.” ~Rudolf Steiner, THE PRESENT POSITION OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE.
“…If we follow this Muavija, one of the earliest successors of the Prophet, as he passes along the undercurrent and then appears again, we find Woodrow Wilson.
In a shattering way the present links itself with the past. A bond is suddenly there between present and past. And if we observe how on the sea of historical happenings there surges up as it were the wave of Muavija, and again the wave of Woodrow Wilson, we perceive how the undercurrent flows on through the sea below and appears again — it is the same current.
I believe that history becomes intelligible only when we see how what really happens has been carried over from one epoch into another. Think of the abstraction., the rigid abstraction, of the Fourteen Points. Needless to say, the research did not take its start from the Fourteen Points — but now that the whole setting lies before you, look at the configuration of soul that comes to expression in these Fourteen Points and ask yourselves whether it could have taken root with such strength anywhere else than in a follower of Mohammed.
Take the fatalism that had already assumed such dimensions in Muavija and transfer it into the age of modern abstraction. Feel the similarity with Mohammedan sayings: “Allah has revealed it”; “Allah will bring it to pass as the one and only salvation.” And then try to understand the real gist of many a word spoken by the promoter of the Fourteen Points. — With no great stretch of imagination you will find an almost literal conformity.
Thus, when we are observing human beings, we can also speak of a reincarnation of ideas. And then for the first time insight is possible into the growth and unfolding of history.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume I
1821 – Birthday of Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian philosopher & author
1855 – Deathday of Soren A. Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher, theologian, & cultural critic who was a major influence on existentialism & Protestant theology in the 20th century. He attacked the literary, philosophical, & ecclesiastical establishments of his day for misrepresenting the highest task of human existence—namely, becoming a free human being in an ethical & religious sense.
1887 – August Spies, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer & George Engel are executed as a result of the Haymarket affair. It began Tuesday May 4, 1886, as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day & in reaction to the killing of several workers the previous day by the police. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast & ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers & at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded.
The Haymarket affair is generally considered significant as the origin of international May Day observances for workers. The site of the incident was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1992, & a public sculpture was dedicated there in 2004.
1966 – Deathday of Hilde Boos-Hamburger, painter & co-worker with Rudolf Steiner EXPERIENCES IN PAINTING THE CUPOLAS OF THE FIRST GOETHEANUM by Hilde Boos-Hamburger
“Every artistically striving person making closer acquaintance with Rudolf Steiner and his anthroposophy is likely to have experienced in a quite individual manner the agreeable shock: here lie all the possibilities for the further development of art. In one way or another it may have gone with him as with the writer of these recollections when she first read through (not yet actually studied!) the book Theosophy, without understanding the essential, yet riveted by the crystal-bright formation of this work, and having to say to herself: Even if I cannot survey it, it is nonetheless evident: Here lies a comprehensive work of art! This first impression did not deceive, for with every subsequent work taken up, every book, every lecture, not to mention the Mystery Dramas, there opened up new experiences and vistas previously undreamed of. – These will surely be found most felicitously expressed in the poem by Christian Morgenstern (1871–1914) dedicated to Rudolf Steiner:
“To beauty does your work lead:
For beauty in the end
Streams in through every revelation
That surrounds us.
Out of human-sufferings
Upward to ever higher harmonies
You release the dizzying feeling,
Till, united
In accord with the
Inestimable proclaimer of GOD
And HIS never-to-be-grasped splendor
It vibrates in the love-light
Of blessedness….
From beauty does your work come, to beauty does it lead.”
