Dear friends – In the original Calendar of the Soul, Rudolf Steiner tells us: ‘What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of humankind’s spiritual development’.

1916-17 were crucial years in the evolution of humanity; the repercussions of which, 103 years later, must become conscious for the modern world.

Rudolf Steiner gave us ‘The Occult Background of the War’ under the title: The Karma of Untruthfulness, Vol. 1 & Vol 2 – given at the vital point in the war when there was the best hope for peace. But the Western Allies rejected all offers, & on 6 April President Woodrow Wilson took the US into war.

A month before the Russian Revolution ended the 300 year-old rule of the Romanovs. The 1^st American troops arrived in June & from May to October 1917 ‘visions’ of the Virgin mary were seen at Fatima.

Today is the anniversary of the third Apparition of Our Lady of Fatima on Friday, July 13, 1917. The three secrets involve Hell, World War I & World War II.

Our Lady told the children that to save the sinners from hell, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to Her Immaculate Heart. She asked for the consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart, & the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays.

From the Fourth Memoir: The Story of the Apparitions by Lucia Santos the oldest of the 3 children:

‘A few moments after arriving at the Cova da Iria, near the holmoak, where a large number of people were praying the Rosary, we saw the flash of light once more, and a moment later Our Lady appeared on the holmoak.

— Your Grace, what do you want of me? — I asked.

— I want you to come here on the 13th of next month, to continue to pray the Rosary every day in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, in order to obtain peace for the world and the end of the war, because only she can help you.

— I would like to ask you to tell us who you are, and to work a miracle so that everybody will believe that you are appearing to us.

— Continue to come here every month. In October, I will tell you who I am and what I want, and I will perform a miracle for all to see and believe.

I then made some requests, but I cannot recall now just what they were. What I do remember is that Our Lady said it was necessary for such people to pray the Rosary in order to obtain these graces during the year. And she continued:

— Sacrifice yourselves for sinners, and say many times, especially whenever you make some sacrifice: O Jesus, it is for love of You, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation (порт. reparação) for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

As Our Lady spoke these last words, she opened her hands once more, as she had done during the two previous months. The rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. Terrified and as if to plead for succour, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us, so kindly and so sadly:

— You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion (port. a devoção) to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.

— To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation (port. a Comunhão reparadora) on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved; etc… Do not tell this to anybody. Francisco, yes, you may tell him.

— When you pray the Rosary, say after each mystery: O my Jesus, forgive us, save us from the fire of hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who are most in need.

After this, there was a moment of silence, and then I asked:

— Your Grace, is there anything more that you want of me?

— No, I do not want anything more of you today.

Then, as before Our Lady began to ascend towards the east, until she finally disappeared in the immense distance of the firmament’.

On 7 November the Bolsheviks seized power, the same day Steiner began his 7 lectures on the ‘Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double’ given in St. Gallen Zurich & Dornach between 6 & 25 November 1917.

2 days later the British Government’s Balfour Declaration to Lord Rothschild was published, which promised a national home in Palestine for the Jewish people.

On the Western Front 6 Nov. 1917 was the appalling slaughter of the Third Battle of Ypres – 600,000 dead – which Steiner attributed to the karma of materialism – the direct result of too many people being asleep to world events & to the ways in which spiritual realties play into these events.

In these lectures Steiner shows the relationship of the ‘Fall of the Spirits of darkness’ cast out of the spiritual world & draws attention to the actions of elite power groups serving these beings: ‘Awareness alone…clear recognition and understanding of spiritual realties together with willingness to recognize the objective evil forces at work in the world and their purpose in the scheme of things – these are the only means that can be of real help in modern humanity’s predicament.’  

Can we see a parallel today?

~yours in service

~hag

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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100 BC – Gaius Julius Caesar – “The Gallic Wars”

1298 – Deathday of Blessed Jacobus de Varagine, an Italian chronicler & archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, of Legenda Aurea, the Golden Legend, a collection of hagiographies of the legendary lives of saints of the Middle Ages. The Golden Legend is the source of the Rose Cross Meditation that Rudolf Steiner often quoted.

1527 – Birthday of John Dee, English-Welsh mathematician, astronomer, & astrologer & occultist

1727 – The founding of The Herrnhuter Brotherhood, The Moravian Church – Unitas Fratrum – Unity of the Brethren – predating the Protestant Reformation by a century, it was really the 1^st  Protestant Church, with its heritage dating back to the Bohemian Reformation in the fifteenth century. It places a high value on ecumenism, personal piety, music -communio sub utraque specie, married priests, & eliminating indulgences & the idea of Purgatory. The Church’s emblem is the Lamb of God (Agnus Dei) with the flag of victory, surrounded by the Latin inscription: Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur “Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow Him”

1863 – New York City draft riots: violent demonstrations that were the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots remain the largest civil & racial insurrection in American history, aside from the Civil War itself

1878 – Treaty of Berlin: The European powers redraw the map of the Balkans. Serbia, Montenegro & Romania become completely independent of the Ottoman Empire

1889 – Deathday of Robert Hamerling an Austrian poet. Rudolf Steiner gave his funeral address.  http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA154/English/AP1990/19140426p01.html The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica characterizes Hamerling as one of the most remarkable poets of the modern Austrian school, describing his imagination as rich & his poems as full of life & color. In his most popular poem, Ahasver in Rom (1866), the emperor Nero is the central figure. Among his other works, Venus im Exil (1858); Der König von Sion (1869), characterized as a masterpiece; Die sieben Todsünden (1872) Blätter im Winde (1887); Homunculus (1888); Amor und Psyche (1882). His novel, Aspasia (1876), a finely-drawn description of the Periclean age, & his tragedy Danton und Robespierre (1870), showed Hamerling’s genius. In Karmic Relationships Vol. 2, lecture 6, Steiner describes him as a pupil of Plato in an earlier incarnation.

1923 – The Hollywood Sign is officially dedicated. It originally reads “Hollywoodland ” but the four last letters are dropped after renovation in 1949

1943 – Battle of Kursk was the final defeat of the German army. With the Soviet line at Kursk protruding into enemy territory, the Germans attempted to attack from different directions. Given time to reposition their defenses, the Soviets held off the offensive before launching a counterattack. Facing the American invasion of Sicily & the threat of an Italian collapse, Hitler decided to call off operations at Kursk, its failure shifting the balance of power.

1963 – Deathday of Albert Steffen a poet, painter, dramatist, essayist,& novelist. He joined the Anthroposophical Society in 1912 & became its president after the death of its founder, Rudolf Steiner, in 1925. Steffen was chief editor of the society’s journal, Das Goetheanum, from 1921-1963. His earliest works, predating his encounter with anthroposophy, already manifest a spiritual awareness. His later works, which reflect a vision of the world permeated by metaphysical powers of good & evil, draw on a wide range of esoteric European & Asian traditions

1973 – Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of the “Nixon tapes” to the special Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in.

2013 – George Zimmerman is found not guilty in the shooting of Trayvon Martin

2013 – Typhoon Soulik kills at least nine people & affects more than 160 million in East China &Taiwan.

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Hail seamstress of the cloth of life
whose thread is gold
whose needles are fire
i’ll not sever the cord for fear of entanglement
but learn to weave with you a web
of ever changing harmony…

~hag

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August 8-18 ‘Classroom Alive’ Youth Open-Source Learning in Chicago

We’re starting up with Culture in our community – join young people here in Chicago for a 10 day walking journey – Classroom Alive Chicago!

Exploration & experiencial learning all over Chicagoland, starting at at Elderberries 3-Fold Bio-dynamic Outpost & Cultrual Hub 4251 N. Lincolon Ave. Chicago, IL. 60618

for more info. contact Ultra-Violet Archer, or Frank Agrama

Details TBA #ClassroomAliveChicago2020

Thank you for forwarding this flier for any interested young people –

Co-sponsored in part by The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Festival & Program Coordinator

August 20-23, 2020 Questions of Courage Youth Conference at Elderberries

Questions of Courage 2020 in Chicago – August 20-23 Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost and 3Fold Cultural Hub 4251 N. Lincolon Ave. Chicago, IL. 60618

August 20: Check-in, share conversation, build the ground for the journey together.

August 21-22: Travel to Wisconsin Move together towards the land, link up with Farmer John and Haidy Angelic Organics Biodynamic Farm, and also with Dana and Phil Burns at Healing Traditions and Alizur farm. Connect with the land, plants, animals, and one another, through creative explorations and “roughin’ it” type amendments. Sleep under the stars or indoors.

August 23: Return to Chicago Enter back into the metropolitan context, into the social questions of urban life, and close the gathering together at Elderberries, setting the ground for future work out of questions of courage that are present.

Other locations and collaborators are currently in dialogue, and will be updated here.

The gathering is essentially about stepping into the living natural element, step by step, making an integral connection, with one another, ourselves, and the elements that support us here on the Earth…”

registration: https://docs.google.com/…/1FAIpQLSdY7KXHkjUPV2h9UD…/viewform

Thank you Elderberries for giving us an anchor to build our heartland gathering around!

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August 27-30, HOW WE WILL 2020

At Elderberries 3-fold Bio-Dynamic Outpost

for more info. contact Frank Agrama or Dottie Zold

Details TBA Co-sponsored in part by The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago -Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Festival & Program Coordinator

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