Discoursing

Cattie Blanchet

A story of the Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid on ‘I Think Speech

Amanda Sage

Dear Friends, Today 108 years ago on 3 February 1913 we can re-call the very 1st AGM of the newly formed Anthroposophical Society, held in Berlin, with the cycle of lecture called The Mysteries of the Orient & of Christianity (GA 144)

Rudolf Steiner opened the conference on this day with the lecture: The Being of Anthroposophy.

Iris

I thought to share some relevant quotes for your inspiration on this day:

“…The being of anthroposophy is intimately connected with the being of our time- not with our own immediate little present moment, of course, but with the whole age within which we stand.

Today I want to point out the character of this being by speaking of the necessity for establishing anthroposophy in our time.

“Love, who commands the chambers of my mind
Discoursing of my lady passionately,
From hour to hour speaks things of her to me
At which my intellect bids me demur.
Sweetly his words make music of such kind
My soul, which hears and feels how they agree,
Exclaims, ‘Alas, that I can never be
Equal to saying all I hear of her!
Such things appear within her fair aspect
As show they bear the joys of paradise
I mean, both in her smile and in her eyes,
Where Love brings them as if he brought them home.”

It seems very clear. A poet has written a love poem…This poem was not written today, however, but was written by Dante

Mary and The Divine Comedy – Casual Histrionics

Dante himself told us…that the beloved lady, with whom he had so direct and personal a relationship, was none other than Philosophy. Dante says that when he speaks of the lady’s eyes and says that what they say is no lie, he means the evidence of truth; and by her “smile,” he means the art of expressing the truth communicated to the soul; and by “love,” or amor; he means scientific study the love of the truth.

People who do not know how the times – into which our soul is ever growing with new life-change, lack any idea that Dante was just one (among many) of those with the capacity for a concrete experience of a passionate and personal relationship, immediate and of the soul, with Lady Philosophy, such as we today can feel only toward a man or woman of flesh and blood. In this sense, Dante’s time is past. The modern soul no longer approaches Lady Philosophy – the woman, Philosophy  as a being of the same, fleshly nature as itself as Dante did.

When the Greeks present something, it is Sophia, not Philosophia. And they present her in such a way that, again, we experience her as a living being, as an immediate presence. We experience the Greek Sophia as an immediate, living being, just as Dante feels Philosophy to be. Always, however, we feel this Greek Sophia – and I ask you to please go through the descriptions that exist – to be an elemental force, as it were, an active being who intervenes in existence through action.

Albrecht Dürer - Die Philosophie (c. 1502, collection of Hartmann Schedel,  Bavarian State Library) | Albrecht durer, Art history, Iconography

Beginning around the fifth century A.D., we find that Philosophia is first represented, initially described by poets in the most varied guises: nurse, benefactor, guide, and so on. Then somewhat later, painters begin to represent her. Thus, we reach the period during the Middle Ages called Scholasticism, when many philosophers really felt they were experiencing a directly human relation when they became aware of beautiful, noble Lady Philosophia, who actually approached them from the clouds. Many medieval philosophers, in fact, felt the same deep, burning feelings toward the Lady Philosophia as she floated toward them on the clouds as Dante describes toward his Lady. And anyone who can feel such things will find a direct connection between Raphael’s Sistine Madonna floating on the clouds, and the exalted Lady Philosophia.

…the Greeks confronted Sophia, or Wisdom, as a being, so to speak, whom they could encounter standing before them in a particular place, Two beings then -Sophia and the Greek – faced each other, as if Sophia were a definite objective entity, to be looked at, with all the objectivity of the Greek’s way of seeing.

How then does the consciousness soul confront Sophia? This is done so that it brings the I into direct relationship with Sophia while at the same expressing -much more so than the objective being of Sophia the activity of the I within the relationship between the consciousness soul and this Sophia. “I love Sophia” was the natural feeling of an age that still had to encounter the being we designate as Philosophy – an age that was preparing the consciousness soul and, out of the relationship between the I and the consciousness soul (on which the greatest value must be placed), was working toward representing Sophia as simply as it represented everything else. It was natural for the time of the intellectual soul – which was preparing for the consciousness soul- to express this relationship to Philosophy. And because things came to expression slowly and gradually, this relationship was being prepared during Greco-Latin times.

Philosophy is no longer the “woman” she was to Dante and others who lived in his time.

..we now live in the age of the consciousness soul and look toward the dawn of the age of the spirit-self, and we know in this way that something is again becoming objective to human beings – something that looks forward to the coming times that will be gained by what we have won through the time of the consciousness soul.

What, therefore, must be developed? It must unfold that, once again, as a matter of course, a “Sophia” becomes present. But we must learn to relate this Sophia to the consciousness soul, bring her down directly to human beings. This is happening during the age of the consciousness soul. And thereby Sophia becomes the being who directly enlightens human beings. After Sophia has entered human beings, she must take their being with her and present it to them outwardly, objectively. Thus, Sophia will be drawn into the human soul and arrive at the point of being so inwardly connected with it that a love poem as beautiful as Dante wrote may be written about her.

Sophia will become objective again, but she will take with her what humanity is, and objectively present herself in this form. Thus, she will present herself not only as Sophia, but as Anthroposophia as the Sophia who, after passing through the human soul, through the very being of the human being, henceforth bears that being within her, and in this form she will confront enlightened human beings as the objective being Sophia who once stood before the Greeks.

What we receive through anthroposophy is our very own being.

Kristena West

This once floated toward us in the form of a celestial goddess with whom we were able to enter into relationship. This divine being lived on as Sophia and Philosophia, and now we can once again bring her out of ourselves and place her before us as the fruit of true anthroposophical self-knowledge. We can wait patiently until the world is willing to test the depth of the foundations of what we have to say, right down to the smallest details. It is the essence of anthroposophy that its own being consists of the being of the human, and its effectiveness, its reality, consists in that we receive from anthroposophy what we ourselves are and what we must place before ourselves, because we must practice self-knowledge.”

***

Marie Knoble

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

https://earthsky.org/tonight/the-double-cluster-in-perseus

3 February 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

A History of American Currency

1690 – The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in the Americas

The 15th Amendment Was Ratified More Than 150 Years Ago, but the Fight to  Protect Black Voters Continues | Teen Vogue

1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.

Pablo Picasso | Gertrude Stein | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Picasso

1874 – Birthday of Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright

Rockwell Finally Appears as Himself in Triple Self-Portrait | The Saturday  Evening Post

1894 – Birthday of Norman Rockwell, American painter & illustrator

Deep attention - Theology - TLS

1909 – Birthday of Simone Weil, French mystic & philosopher

Life Drawings: 5 February 1913 “16th Amendment, federal income tax,  ratified, the Thin Edge of the Wedge”

1913 – The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose & collect an income tax.

1913 – The 1st AGM of the Anthroposophical Society in Berlin, where Rudolf Steiner gave the lecture series “The Mysteries of the Orient and of Christianity”

Faces of Death: 20 Death Masks of Famous and Infamous People

1924 – Deathday of Woodrow Wilson. Rudolf Steiner has a lot to say about what was behind this individuality & in his former incarnation as Muawiya

The day the music died: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens & Big Bopper killed in plane  crash (1959) - Click Americana

1959 – Rock & roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, & J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson are killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.

1961 – The United States Air Forces begins Operation Looking Glass, & over the next 30 years, a “Doomsday Plane” is always in the air, with the capability of taking direct control of the United States’ bombers & missiles in the event of the destruction of the SAC’s command post.

***

Robert Rhodes

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Walk willingly between fire & ice…
Where the shadows of forever
& the light of Now
Clutch & release the world…
The empty filling & the full emptying…
So live with the certainty
That your Yin loves your Yang
Over & over, in to the out…
& dance the joy of movement ever changing…
~hag

***

The Bee — Celtic Spirit Books

Invitation: Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021, 6-8pm eastern (online using zoom)

“Candlemas Time with the Bee”

We will be celebrating a quiet and beautiful festival with the Bee. This ceremony will include artistic and meditative activity as we journey with the Bee into her connection to the Earth, the Cosmos, and the Human Soul. 

Please have ready: some real honey and a spoon, a beeswax candle and matches, some seeds you plan to plant this year, paper and colored pencils.

Please email “ineshoneybee@yahoo.com” before to registerand we will send you a zoom link. You may register any time before 5pm eastern on February 3rd.

May Humanity and Earth be Each Other’s Medicine 

Celebrating Life during the nodal points of the seasons has given Humanity the opportunity to realign with the rhythms of Earth and the Cosmos for thousands of years… the “Festival Year” emerged, spanning all time and all cultures, traditions, and religions of the world. Today, possibly due to the increase in technology and fast pace, consumer-driven lifestyles, many people have found it difficult to connect with the seasons and rhythms of Life or have given up the culture of festival and ceremony altogether.  

Yet we have entered a time during which our realignment with the Earth is more crucial than ever before… not only for our own health and wellbeing, but also for the renewal of the Earth herself. An opportunity for healing is created when we can hold in our conscious attention the nodal points of the year and the interconnected rhythms of Life… the animal, plant, and mineral beings.

These beings we share this planet with are ready for our consciousness and care. And when we create a space of openness and communication, we may just discover that they more than happily participate… for all of us do share the same “Festival Year” of Earth.

May the Peace of the Heavens in our Earth-home we find… for all Stones, Plants, and Animals, and all of Humankind.

Warmly, Ines Katharina Kinchen ineshoneybee@yahoo.com

***

The Karma Project
Manifestations of Karma Study Group
February 3, 2021 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern)

Take the case of Luther. You cannot just simply ascribe everything he experienced and endured to his karma; you must be clear that those things which are due to happen in the course of human evolution must come about through human agency and that these individual agents have to be brought out of the spiritual world, without consideration whether they are fully ready in themselves.  They are born for the purposes of human evolution, and a karmic path has to be interrupted or lengthened, so that the individuality concerned may appear at a certain time.  In such cases a destiny is thrust upon specific individuals which need have no relation to their past karma.  But to have achieved something between birth and death sets up on earth later karmic causes, so that though it is true that a Luther was born for humanity and had to bear a destiny which had no connection with his former karma, yet what he accomplished on earth will be connected with his later karma.“~Rudolf Steiner, Manifestations of KarmaChapter 8“Karma of the Higher Beings”, Hamburg, 25 May, 1910 … focus of the February 3 meeting.

The lecture can be found online at the RS Archive (eLib) by clicking this link: 
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA120/English/RSP1984/19100525p01.html
The Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our ongoing  study conversation.  The study has been divided among four volunteers who will summarize their section to rebuild it as a foundation for our conversation. Please familiarize yourself with the lecture if possible so you will feel comfortable sharing your reflections and thoughts with the group. This collection of lectures has been republished by Rudolf Steiner Press under the title: “Manifestations of Karma.”  This book is a translation from German of Die Offenbarung des Karma (Ga 120), published in English by Rudolf Steiner Press in 1996.

This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer).  To connect to the audio/video-conference:

Video Conference Details:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84043185047
Meeting ID: 840 4318 5047

Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kclU2SSTF

If you have questions, please contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@utexas.edu
Agenda for our Study Call
 
7:15  Welcome and Introductions        
7:18  Verse
7:25  Study led by five volunteers
Note: CRC team will ID volunteers
          Camille – pg. 147 to 151
          Travis – pg. 151 to 156
          Ana – pg. 156 to 161
          Rosemary – pg. 161 to end
8:05  Conversation
8:28  Close with verse
Destiny
I bear within me what has Been
I feel within me what is Becoming
In willing, I carry both toward the Future
 Faith looks upon what has Been
And is founded upon Truth
 Trust looks upon what will be
And is founded upon Hope
 Love Embraces Here and Now
Eternal Becoming
Eternal Being
~Rudolf Steiner

4 thoughts on “Discoursing

  1. Hi Hazel,

    Thank you for the excerpts from the lecture given in Berlin on 3 February 1913. You selected the important places where the Being Anthroposophia of today can, and must, be likened to the beloved Beatrice that Dante knew in the flesh, and who died, giving rise to Philosophia.

    The next day, 4 February 1913, Rudolf Steiner gave a very intimate biographical lecture in which he explains away certain criticisms on the part of Annie Besant that led to the expulsion of the German Section of the Theosophical Society in 1912. This lecture is available in the German language, or through purchase in English. It describes the only time that Rudolf Steiner ever spoke of the incident in Pottschach when he was seven years old and where his discarnate cousin came into the railway station and spoke and gestured to him in her etheric body, and then disappeared into the stove! He explains in detail what effect this had on him for the beginning of the beingness of Anthroposophy. Then, he goes on to explain two other incidents in which certain early emissaries helped guide his growth and development, such as Felix Kogutski, the herb gatherer.

    http://steiner-klartext.net/pdfs/19130204a-02-01.pdf

    http://steiner-klartext.net/pdfs/19130204a-01-01.pdf

    https://www.skylarkbooks.co.uk/Shop/media/self_education_rudolf_steiner.htm

    In June of 1923, ten years after founding the Anthroposophical Society in 1913, Steiner speaks here of the Being Anthroposophia, and Her personal attributes.:

    “Anthroposophists today must not think that they have only the same commitments which future anthroposophists will have when they exist by the million rather than the thousand. When limited numbers are active in the vanguard of a movement they have to show commitment of a much higher order. It means that they are obliged to show greater courage, greater energy, greater patience, greater tolerance and, above all, greater truthfulness in every respect. And in our present third stage a situation arose which specifically tested our truthfulness and seriousness. It related in a certain sense to the subject matter discussed at one point in the lectures to theologians. Irrespective of the fact that individual anthroposophists exist, a feeling should have developed, and must develop, among them that Anthroposophia exists as a separate being, who moves about among us, as it were, towards whom we carry a responsibility in every moment of our lives. Anthroposophia is actually an invisible person who walks among visible people and towards whom we must show the greatest responsibility for as long as we are a small group. Anthroposophia is someone who must be understood as an invisible person, as someone with a real existence, who should be consulted in the individual actions of our lives.

    Thus, if connections form between people — friendships, cliques and so on — at a time when the group of anthroposophists is still small, it is all the more necessary to consult and to be able to justify all one’s actions before this invisible person.

    This will, of course, apply less and less as anthroposophy spreads. But as long as it remains the property of a small group of people, it is necessary for every action to follow from consultation with the person Anthroposophia. That Anthroposophia should be seen as a living being is an essential condition of its existence. It will only be allowed to die when its group of supporters has expanded immeasurably. What we require, then, is a deeply serious commitment to the invisible person I have just spoken about. That commitment has to grow with every passing day. If it does so, there can be no doubt that everything we do will begin and proceed in the right way.”

    https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA258/English/RSP1993/19230616p01.html

  2. Thank you, Hazel, for providing a link to the audio recording of your story, “Celtic Triple Goddess Brigid.” It’s such a gem of a story and of your telling.

    1. Hi Linda – Brigid is one of my fav. archetypes. I am thinking of doing another story from her again today!
      Thanks for listening!
      xox

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