Cloud gazing in the days between Ascension & Whitsun
When the apostles experienced the Ascension, which was for them not merely the proof of the whole immeasurable significance of the Christ impulse for the life of every human soul after death, but was at the same time, the event thru which they were able to attain the fullest most all-encompassing knowledge of the new relationship between microcosm & macrocosm.
Because of the Ascension the human soul can come into contact with the cosmic sphere where Christ derived the forces for His Resurrection Body. The sphere of the Father, where the Atma, or future Spirit Human, is derived.
And now, since in the resurrection, Christ has united the forces of the cosmic midnight hour directly with earth evolution, this created a bridge for all human beings over the cosmic abyss, unlocking the gate between the cosmic midnight hour & the midday moment of cosmic existence.
The Ascension provided the opportunity for The Holy Spirit, who illuminates individual ego-consciousness, to be able to appear in earthly evolution among human beings at Whitsun, to pour into them the true knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha & the Ascension in full wisdom.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is a direct consequence of the Resurrection & the Ascension.
The events of Easter, Ascension & Whitsun form the foundation of the only moveable feasts in the cycle of the year, which succeed one another in accordance with a strictly cosmic law, having to do with the alignment of Sun, Full Moon & Earth after the Spring Equinox.
At the Baptism the Christ Being united with the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth & therefore was united with earthly evolution as a whole.
At the Transfiguration Christ permeates the etheric body of Jesus. In the scene of the transfiguration, Christ reveals his higher sun nature –to the 3 chosen disciples – A visionary manifestation of the fully transformed etheric body, which radiates light like a Sun.
Ascension relates to the Transfiguration & Whitsun to the Baptism. We see in the Ascension the metamorphosis of the scene of the Transfiguration; -& in Whitsun, the transformation of the Baptism by John in the Jordan. And the Annunciation relates to Whitsun as we shall soon see.
In the Ascension Christ showed the connection to the spiritual Sun forces, which became manifest in the Transfiguration, with the etheric bodies of all human beings.
When Christ entered into Jesus at the Baptism, His Sun-Being took over the ego of Jesus. –After the resurrection the Christ impulse can live within mankind without taking over the ego-consciousness. But in order for this to happen Christ had to Ascend.
10 days after the Ascension or 50 days after the Resurrection, Christ sent the Holy Spirit- that Divine Being of the Trinity that does not overpower, but enhances the ego of humankind.
Now the Christ impulse can enter human souls thru the mediation of the Holy Spirit, so that we can retain ego-consciousness without being overwhelmed by Christ’s powerful sun nature. The benevolent Sun, that gives life generating warmth to all existence, is a bridge, connecting the macrocosm with the microcosm.
~hag
~Vitae Sophia~ A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Online Whitsunday, 31 May 2020 from 10 am–11:15 am EDT Zoom Call*
Through leading thoughts and conversation we are called to redeem the ether spheres to create an Ecclesia, a chalice for The Sophia. Then the spirit flame can spread out to become what Steiner called a “World Whitsun”, which began in earnest at the Christmas Conference. The Whitsun Festival highlights one of the greatest challenges of being human: placing our individual gifts, in right relationship within the social realm. This challenge is especially strong now during this ‘pandemic’. Our groups striving to know Spiritual Science must work together as a community, to have the possibility to create a new culture where a sacrament is possible in every encounter. Our individual strength is enhanced by weaving our gifts together, kindling our social world in conscious community.
*Join Zoom Meeting on computer https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85927907854
Meeting ID: 859 2790 7854
or Dial in by phone: Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbEIk8kgk1 Meeting ID: 859 2790 7854
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year. Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, ‘Anthroposopher’, working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.
Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire
For more info. contact deb@anthroposophy.org
28 May 2017 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Bella Luna waxes ever brighter as she wends her way eastward past the Regulus today & tomorrow, dancing over to Spica on June 1st.
If you want to catch a last glimpse of Venus before she vanishes from the evening sky, find a location with a flat western horizon & look that way right after sunset. The dazzling planet is now racing between Earth & Sun as she passes us on her inner orbit. The end of May brings her too close to the Sun to observe, &she slips into the morning sky after solar conjunction on June 3rd.
The fleet planet Mercury is still quite visible in the west after sunset, but he is beginning to fade in brightness.
Jupiter & Saturn greet those up at midnight. They are very easy to spot just east of the “teapot” asterism of Sagittarius, & they will remain close together in the sky for the remainder of the summer & fall.
Ruddy Mars continues to plod eastward through the faint stars of Aquarius, & should be easy to spot if you’re up well before dawn. He is gradually brightening as Earth catches up to him, & there is nothing even remotely as bright or red-tinted in this part of the sky. He will continue to brighten until opposition in early October, when he will outshine mighty Jupiter!
(Thanks Steve Hale for the link )
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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
“We understand only the very smallest part of human history and of our own life if we consider it in its external aspect, I mean in that aspect which we see from the limited view-point of our earthly life between birth and death. It is impossible to comprehend the inner motives of history and life unless we turn our gaze to that spiritual background which underlies the outer, physical happenings”. ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture III
585 BC – the 1st prediction of a solar eclipse by the Greek philosopher & scientist Thales, which occurs while Alyattes is battling Cyaxares in Halys, leading to a truce. This is one of the cardinal dates from which other eclipse dates can be calculated
1892 – In San Francisco, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club
1961 – Peter Benenson’s article The Forgotten Prisoners is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.
1995 – The 7.0 Mw Neftegorsk earthquake shook the Russian settlement of Neftegorsk, with 2,989 deaths &750 injured. The settlement was never rebuilt.
1999 – In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Last Supper is put back on display
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Under the Clouds
The Robins nod & bow & walk & fly…
All birds
Of the ethers spin
In countless exhaled breaths…
We are growing, remembering, forgetting, Becoming…
We are the many…
One face changing expression
Unmasked, we are the countenance of Christ
~hag
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Greetings friends –The Merry Prep-Stirs of Chicago are doing a Whitsun Prep – coordinating with many other Bio-Dynamic folks around the world, & YOU are invited.
Come stir in Social Solidarity around the campfire.
7 pm CDT Friday 29 May 2020
BYO beverages or snacks. Musical instruments encouraged Contact Hazel@ReverseRitaul.com for details
From Rand Carter: IT’S MERRY PREPSTIR TIME
May 2020 evening of Friday, May 29 (Fire) – BD #500
Morning of Saturday, May 30 (Fire) – BD #501
This is an extra special celebration – For Whitsun weekend, & 30 May is also World Biodynamic Farming Day. Rudolf Steiner gave the Agriculture Course at Whitsun time in 1924. ‘The intention of the Merry Prepstir Spray Initiative community is to break the boundary perception of individual farms and yards and move the influences to continents and beyond.’
***
Friday 19 June 2020 – Front Range Anthroposophical Café presents:
The New Mysteries of St. Johns-Tide with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
To pass the test of Summer we will explore many questions:
- How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of the Summer-Tide, to consciously embody ‘the spiritual wisdom of the gods’?
- Who is the mysterious Archangel of Summer?
- Who is John the Baptist? What do his sayings “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” And “He must increase, but I must decrease.” really mean?
- What is the secret to healing the ‘soul-fever’ so prevalent in society today?
- What is the mystery of the Dragon-fly, & other elemental beings?
- How can we understand the ‘Cycle of the Year as Breathing Process of the Earth’?
Together we will work to strengthen our true “I”, enlivening our will forces.
8 pm – 9 pm – CDT – We look forward to seeing you on Friday 19 June 2020 shortly before 7 pm (Mountain time.) Here is the link to our Anthroposophical Café and all you need to do to join us is click on it: https://zoom.us/j/294724669.
Warmly, Karen vann Vuuren, Tom Altgelt, Jamie York, and our growing circle of Café Friends – It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Dear Hazel,
Thank you for all your wonderful posts.
I am an English poet and would like to send you my Whitsun poem.
WHITSUN SONG
What future flame had Abraham?
What radiates through Christ’s Words?
What flight of Holy Spirit birds
awakes within me who I am?
In Easter’s rise I hear the call
for life’s new world and I rejoice.
But what if some past darkness haunts
a soul with untold pain? Or what if
the dark be witnessed, and its rift
from light when heard be bridged, hurt’s cause
be understood, forgiven, and a choir
enlighten every voice with Witsun fire?
The power of nature circulates
its energy through every cell.
The breath of every nightingale,
the dark’s deep need of song, invites
a new dawn light’s ascending joy.
The sun’s faint imminence awakes
the morning chorus that unites
the Earth with her beloved’s voice.
When light appears it empowers,
renewing the invisible air
birds’ tiny windpipe bones vibrate
as every woodland space endows
a song’s melodic contour line
round atmospheric health’s earthshine.
Our own lifesong, our human grace,
and music of the spheres when sun
in inner landscape resonates,
forms one mosaic, common tongue.
O spirit of the world be here
in every voice and atmosphere.
Sir Michael Tippet’s ‘New World’ wish
for “One Humanity, One Justice”*,
composed, received in one world chalice
with each one’s message from love’s source,
can grow, become a human chorus
that everywhere distills, to bear the fate
ferment makes, what makes each belong:
light’s depths of joy, the wine of song.
*In Tippet’s opera, ‘New World’, Jo Ann, a child psychologist, wants to work with young victims
of an urban conflict in ‘Terror Town’, but she is so afraid she doesn’t venture from her apartment.
In the last act she is cured of her fears, and can go out again into the world.
The presenter summarises the final message as “One Humanity, One Justice”.
I am also translating Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul.
THE ASCENSION VERSE
Arisen from my own persona
my real self appears
in powers of time and space
as revelation of the spheres
the world is showing me as paradigm
that is divine and everywhere portrays
the image in whose mirror I come true.
ASCENSIONTIDE’S THRESHOLD VERSE FROM SPRING TO SUMMER
Attracted by the world’s inviting light
my Self is threatening to flee.
Now you, my future, dawn your star in me,
and my divining, firmly as of right
replace the power of thought
that in the senses’ glory leaves me.
THE WHITSUN VERSE
In concert with the gods’ creating
the senses’ power grows,
suppressing thinking’s force
to dimness of a dream.
When bonding with my soul
would be a holy being
my human thinking must be stilled,
in quiet dream existence satisfied.
With my best wishes for your Whitsun bridge to the Holy Spirit,
Roy Sadler
Thanks Roy
Many Blessings of the Spirit!
xox
Dear Hazel. It is with deep concern and heavy heart I see that we continue this Zoom virtual meetings to discuss Divine Anthroposophy. Have we not developed a consciousness as to what we are doing to the Divine Being as we put her through electronic devices? Are we throwing electronic speers at her? Electrocuting her? The devices void of spirit and soul! How long will Divine Anthroposophia continue to stay with us? Are our Godly gifts thinking, feeling and willing being distorted by the materialistic usage of these electronic devices with black forces?
We need, devotion and reverence that can only come from self effort in the correct way in our individual meditations!
Without judgement and deep concern, your friend, Marian Shearer.
Dear Marian – Thank you for reaching out. I share your concerns about the sub-forces working to enslave us in cyber space.
And i believe we are meant to redeem these space, just as we must redeem the Sophia who has been dismembered & flung out into the vast distances of space by Lucifer & waits for us to embopdy her as Anthroposophia. We must be Michaelic warriors set to do battle with the sword of love & light. That’s why whenever i do a zoom i always create a group intention before we begin, we need to be conscious & put the beings working in these realms to work for the highest good, making it our collective intention to consecrate the ethers, with good will. Yes, & lets’ thank these beings for doing their job to wake us up to our task of redeeming & transforming the Ethernet, into an altar. Let us unite in Social Solidarity, in our human uprightness, to co-create a sacred space for the wisdom of The Sophia to enter with grace.
I think we have to rend everything we have out of every possible direction and opportunity. I also appreciate Marian’s plight, but here is something that seems to reflect how much extension and expansion of one’s whole compass is being brought into the challenge to decide in order to excel. Remember, earth evolution is a changed system from its original design:
31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; 32 but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” 33 But he said to Him, “Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!” 34 And He said, “I say to you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know Me.” Luke, ch. 22, v. 31-34
So, it seems to me that we are being tested by every means possible. If Satan’s realm contains the very means to communicate to our fellows, then we have to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis, and continue the Odyssey as best we can. Thus, the Internet, which in truth is a redemption of the Etheric World, owing to Christ’s evolution in the etheric realm of the earth in order to develop the moral ether, is actually being displayed here. Maybe one day this will be recognized, and we can dispel the notion of “light speed” as the universal constant that replaced the etheric world. Now, that would set science on its ear, wouldn’t it?
I think of this concern/question/task, as a call to enter the Manichean path – a willingness to develop our light body so that we do not need to run away from eveil, but we can consciously take it in & thru our love & light, transform & redeem it.
Hi Hazel,
You wrote something here that invites an important comment. For several years now I have been encouraging that the dating of Michaelmas be reconsidered in relation to its being a movable festival like Easter. This would help serve to open up other possibilities.
You wrote:
“The events of Easter, Ascension & Whitsun form the foundation of the only movable feasts in the cycle of the year, which succeed one another in accordance with a strictly cosmic law, having to do with the alignment of Sun, Full Moon & Earth after the Spring Equinox.”
Rudolf Steiner gave a rather seminal lecture concerning Whitsun here just as he was immersed in the second volume of the KR. In fact, he announces that he is going to Koberwitz, Poland to give the Agriculture Course, but he will return to finish it up. Now, what is interesting here is that Venus (occult Mercury) had reached inferior conjunction at this very time, and so while Steiner was giving these lectures on agriculture, Mercury came forth out of the early morning twilight as the proverbial “Morning Star”. Remember that Mercury is the ‘lucky star of anthroposophy’.
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/AscenPent/19240604p01.html
Now, there is really no good reason to calculate Michaelmas as a fixed date, i.e., September 29th, when it is based on the autumnal equinox. So, it should be based on the similar formulation concerning Easter. And this opens up the further possibility of seeing an actual event of personal Pentecost in late November, which coincides with Michael’s victory in the War in Heaven, and creating the Event of 1879.
As you can imagine, I have had much resistance to the idea of recalculating Michaelmas as a movable feast, and especially from the Catholics, who especially hold to their feast days. Yet, the biggest resistance occurs from those who simply don’t care. And this represents the larger populace, don’t you think?
I think it’s important to be open to what the spiritual world brings us, so i respect this vision.
Just as the procession of the equinox’s tell us we can not stay fixed.
Indeed, and this calculation would have a slight variance. It would have to be based on the first New Moon on or after the autumnal equinox and, of course, the Sunday after. This is because Easter is based on Ascent at springtime, which the Full Moon represents. Michaelmas is based on Descent at fall-time, and wherein the New Moon represents the “Earth-Shine” as a reflection that the Mystery of Golgotha actually did take place.
Of course, it is only a suggestion, and expect much resistance to the idea. We humans tend to hate change, and especially when it comes to the coveted dates of festivals. My Catholic friend said some years ago by now, “No, Steve, no way. September 29th is set as fixed and rigid and you can’t change it”. I had to agree that it would be very difficult.
I only bring it up now, after several years in dormancy, because you are festivals coordinator, and serve to give the opportunity again for its proposal. Thanks for that.
i am intrigued by this valid thinking, & would like to hear more.
When would Michaelmas come then in 2020 according to this method?
Sunday October 18, 2020.
https://www.calendar-12.com/moon_phases/2020