Greeting Friends – I am fresh from “The Mysteries of Healing: Realizing AnthropoSophia” Conference, put on by the AHA, spearheaded by Dr. Melissa Greer of Carah Medical Arts, a non-profit, Community-supported practice, working with Social 3-folding. In Gaelic Carah means “friend”. In Welsh it means “love” between friends and neighbors. In Indonesian it means “the way” and “wise”.

The Steiner verse spoken each day by Molly McIntyre set the soul mood:

“Wisdom in the Spirit
Love in the Soul
Power in the Will:
They guide me
They hold me
I trust them.
I offer myself to them”.

More than 80 dedicated Anthro doctors, therapists, various practitioners & inter-related souls, gathered on the sacred land of Camphill Soltane to ask “How can I do the Good?”.

The impulse to renew the ancient mysteries of healing brought by Ita Wegman to Rudolf Steiner 100 years ago, was alive & palpable.

August 1923 was a profound turning point for the ‘Movement’, which led to the new founding of the Society, with Rudolf Steiner uniting us to AnthropoSophia at the Christmas Conference.

During that potent time in Penmaenmawr = “Head of the Great Stone”, & Ilkley – there on the North coast of Wales, dotted with ancient Neolithic pre-Druidic ritual sites – & more than 250 large spirals, & a curved swastika carved into the rocky outcroppings, a break-thru occurred for Rudolf Steiner & Dr. Ita Wegman.

Connecting to the healing impulse radiating there brought further evidence of the ‘Northern stream‘, described often by Spiritual Science & in Germanic mythology – giving us glimpses into the Druidic, Trotten & Hibernian mystery school traditions.

The Druid Priests in particular were healers, working with the elemental realms to create remedies & medicines. This is captivatingly described by Steiner in THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS, 26 August 1923, Penmaenmawr & in other lectures including: MAN IN THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE: “The actions of the sun on plants was revealed to the Druid Priest; he could see that a particular kind of plant-life flourishes at a particular time when the sun is active in a particular way. He could trace the spiritual activity of the sun and see how it pours and streams into flower, leaf and root; and it was the same with animals...We see it best of all in what the Druid priests possessed as a science of healing.”

Interesting to contemplate the connection between the veneration of the Druid Priests working with mistletoe, a parasitic plant that never touches the earth, intwining instead around a mighty oak tree – & the fact that Ita Wegman was one of the first to use Mistletoe (Viscum album) as a healing remedy for cancer.

Thinking of the Druids as a Priest – as well as a Healer, made me recall the Pastoral Medicine lectures – which Steiner gave just a few days after he had returned from Penmaenmawr…!

Are not the Priests Healers, & the Doctors Priests…?

Yes, I know – at that time Steiner saw the 2 streams as being separate. But more & more it seems we are being called to marry the streams. Perhpas when Ita Wegman asks her question, she is seeing a more integrated reality – a true renewal of the ancient mysteries. Dr. Ursula Flatters mentioned that according to her journals, Ita Wegman had been mulling over this question for 10 years.

During the various talks by Dr.’s Ursula Flatters, James Dyson, Marion Debus – many times their experience showed that to “do the Good” we have to let go of our ego-driven-human-will; this opens the space for the inspiration & intution of our Higher “I” – Anthroposophia, & the Holy Spirit to enter-in the work of healing.

More about that soon.

In ‘Mysterien- und Geisteschichte der Menschheit’, Gunther Wachsmuth reports what was experienced by Rudolf Steiner at the stone circle now known as the ‘Twelve Apostles’, on Ilkley Moor, constructed over 9000 years ago.

And in “The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner.” Wachsmuth writes: “During his trips to England, In Penmaenmawr, Steiner visited a Druid circle: In keeping with the spiritual atmosphere of the place, the conversation centered on the Mysteries of the Druids and their opposite pole in Europe, the cult of Mithras, by which the Southern Mysteries were contrasted to the Northern Mysteries seen here. Before Steiner’s spiritual eye the ancient Druid culture came to life upon the spot. Indeed he himself seemed to change into a Druid priest, speaking with intimate knowledge and understanding as he began to explain the arrangement and the function of the stones, a unique and strange picture, as now in the loneliness of this lofty plateau Rudolf Steiner entered into the midst of the Druid circle. He told me to lift my gaze above the stones towards the mountain peaks surrounding the plateau, and described to me, with an intensity in his retrospect as if the event were occurring at that moment, how once the Druid priests, through viewing the signs of the zodiac passing along the horizon in the course of the year, were able to experience the spiritual cosmos, the beings within it, and their mandates to humanity.”

From Rudolf Steiner a month later in MICHAELMAS AND THE SOUL-FORCES OF MAN: “…In the immediate vicinity of Penmaenmawr were to be found two such sun-circles adjoining each other; and in this particular neighborhood, where even in the spiritual life of nature there is so much that has a different effect from that of nature elsewhere, what I have set forth in various anthroposophical lectures concerning the Druid Mysteries could be tested with the utmost clarity.

There is indeed a quite special spiritual atmosphere in this region where — on the island of Anglesea — the Society of King Arthur had a settlement…

…these sun-circles are arranged in the number twelve, like the twelve signs of the zodiac; and on the mountain we had climbed we found a large sun-circle and nearby a smaller one. If one had ascended, perhaps in a balloon, and looked down upon these two Druid circles, ignoring the insignificant distance between them, the same ground plan would have presented itself — there is something profoundly moving about this — as that of the Goetheanum in Dornach which was destroyed by fire.”

Steiner’s “Druidenstein painting“,“ which he gifted to Ita Wegman after their experiences in Penmaenmawr, depicts the shimmering etheric & astral overlay powerfully resonate there, shown in dramatic stages.

I’m sure there are others better able than myself to share a Spiritual Scientific artistic study of the color details & what the images all represent, so I’ll just emphasize that for me, this imagination describes the Druid Priests being able to perceive The Mystery of Golgotha – written on the Sun-drenched tapestry of the elemental world, & in the stellar script, at the Turning Point of Time.  A fulfillment of the teachings foreseen for thousands of years in the ancient Mystery Schools. The Cosmic Christ had taken human incarnation, & thru the medicine of his blood permeating the body of the Earth, a healing seed was set into all realms which they perceived.  

I picture The Druid Priests working deeply in a sort of ‘biodynamic’ way with the earth thru their healing practices, to prepare the way in the far distant future, for our Earth to become a New Sun…

These potent imaginations along with my impressions of the conference will continue to unfold in a series of essays that I will strive to assemble before I go off to the AAP training 1-8 August…

Until soon

~hag

25 July 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Look for Bella Luna as the 1st quarter Moon near the bright star Spica in Virgo the Maiden.

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
On Saturday the sun entered the sign of Leo,
whose Eurythmy gesture is Enthusiasm,
THE ENTHUSIASM OF THE YEAR
The Spirit’s Treasure
v16
My foresight is commanding me
to harbour inwardly the spirit’s gift
that God’s fruit ripen
in ground of soul
for Selfhood’s harvest.

In the mirror verse the sun enters the sign of Capricorn.
WINTER SOLSTICE – ADVENT IV
The Midnight Sun
v37
My heart anointed impulse strives
to bear the spirit light
into world-winter-night
that shining seeds of soul
take root in cosmic ground,
and in the senses’ dark
God’s all-transfiguring Word resound