POD
~Bloom, my upright skeleton
With soft flowers of vital compost
Fetid in Autumn’s withering
Bloom, heart-head dreaming
My Crone womb carries you forward
Willing the grave to sprout from within
Bloom, soul-forces purified & ready
Let tears embrace the wind
To wipe weary eyes – unsealing the focus
Bloom now, in freedom won
~hag
Dear friends – I felt it important to bring forth the ideas from Anthroposophy around these mysterious “Pre-Earthly Deeds” from yesterday’s post MY TURN – to remind us that “The Christ Will encircling us holds sway, in world-rhythms bestowing grace upon souls” – That the spiritual world is forever gifting us.
How can we better receive the investment? Can we triple it, & then give back unselfishly of ourselves too?
During this illness I have felt the presence of the so-called dead very strongly. So many have been enslaved by the adversarial forces using them to further sickness & destruction in the world – Many are just lost, having lived a barren materialistic existence & are now stuck as hungry ghosts who can never be satisfied. Many are yearning to work with us to spiritualize the Earth. They want to help us create the conditions for the 6th Cultural Epoch that they need to be born into.
CG (yep he got it too) & I were talking about how going thru this has felt like a kind of Kamaloca experience. This was a real lightbulb moment – to think how for 1/3 of our lives on earth we will suffer the heat & cold of our undigested passions in our spiritual journey of expanding out to the Moon Sphere before we can pass thru the other planetary dimensions in our life between death & rebirth.
Many a-long night I wished for the sweet arms of death to enfold me, so that I could be born into the spiritual world, free of my body, but then this Kamaloca thought quickened me to fight ever more to stay alive – And ask: How can I let go of my attachments now, to help lessen the load when my time does come to cross the threshold of death?
Xox
~hag
“…illness can be the very thing that makes us fit to carry out our karmic obligations in another life. Here we have a secret karmic connection between illness and further development, for in reality illness is a process of further development.” ~Rudolf Steiner, THE BEING OF MAN AND HIS FUTURE EVOLUTION, GA 107, Lecture VI. Illness and Karma, Berlin, 26th January 1909
12 September 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”:
Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.~ Martin Luther King
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
The Feast of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary
In Our Lady’s time, Aramaic was the spoken language. In Hebrew, the name Mary is Miryam, Meaning: “Bitter Sea,” “Myrrh of the Sea”, “The Enlightened One,” “The Light Giver,” & especially “Star of the Sea”= Stella Maris.
One of the local traditions holds that this feast day was commemorated in Vienna by the creation of a new kind of pastry shaped in the form of a half-moon (the croissant) The feast is also a counterpart to the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.
The entry in the Roman Martyrology about the feast: The Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a day on which the inexpressible love of the Mother of God for her Holy Child is recalled, and the eyes of the faithful are directed to the figure of the Mother of the Redeemer, for them to invoke with devotion
1492 – Birthday of Lorenzo de’ Medici
1740 – Birthday of J.H. Jung–Stilling, German poet & mystic, his nom de plume Stilling, derived from the characterization of German Pietists as “the still people in the countryside” Stillings acquaintance with Goethe at the University of Strasbourg ripened into friendship, & it was thru Goethe’s influence & assistance that Stilling’s first work, was put to paper & published (without Jung’s knowledge) in 1777.
1857 – The SS Central America sinks east of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, drowning 426 passengers & crew. The ship was carrying 13–15 tons of gold from the California Gold Rush
1933 – Leó Szilárd, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction
1938 – Adolf Hitler demands autonomy & self-determination for the Germans of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia
1940 – Cave paintings are discovered in Lascaux, France.
1943 – World War II: Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, is rescued from house arrest on the Gran Sasso in Abruzzi, by German commando forces led by Otto Skorzeny
1959 – The Soviet Union launches a large rocket, Lunik II, at the moon
1962 – President John F. Kennedy, at a speech at Rice University, reaffirms that the U.S. will put a man on the moon by the end of the decade
1974 – Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, ‘Messiah’ of the Rastafari movement, is deposed following a military coup by the Derg, ending a reign of 58 years
1977 – South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko dies in police custody
You are invited: Saturday/Sunday 24-25 September 2022
The BDANC Fall Michaelmas Gathering
hosted Gloria Decater at Live Power Community Farm, Covelo
Saturday:
*Honoring the Cow
*Honoring the Elementals – with Hazel Archer Ginsberg
*Hands on prep making with Harald Hoven
*The Evolution of Biodynamic Legacy Farms – Old farms that need new farmers – Round table discussion with Gloria Decater and Chuck Ginsberg
*Bridging Heaven and Earth through Singing, Storytelling and Biography Work with Hazel Archer Ginsberg
The Michaelmas 2022 Bridging Project at Live Power Farm
We will work in conscious community to connect beyond the threshold for the future evolution of the Earth. Spiritual Science brings us many teachings on communicating with the ‘so-called dead’, working with the spiritual hierarchies, & coming to know the Christ as the meaning of the Earth. We can learn what our beloved dead & the unborn can teach us about what it means to be human in a spiritual sense here on Earth.
*Discussion about Sequential Spraying for Drought Remediation with Michael Aldinger
*Catered dinner
Sunday:
*Eurythmy – with Cynthia Hoven
*Anthroposophical Salon – with Hazel Archer Ginsberg and Nancy Poer
For details, accommodations, meal reservations and schedule see www.bdanc.org
Live Power Community Farm is a seasoned, long-time biodynamic farm whose farming family have passed through many seasons of soul, soil and spirit. Gloria Decater, whose husband Stephen crossed the threshold last year, is currently in the process of exploring how the future incarnation of this living farm individuality needs to evolve. Although the CSA aspect of the farm is on hold right now, Gloria has been continuing to host educational activities for children and adults.
PURCHASING PREPARATIONS: Preps must be ordered at least three days in advance – by Sept 21st – to be picked up at the meeting. These BD preparations are hand made by groups of BDANC practitioners on various BD farms around NORCAL. Supervision and distribution by Harald Hoven.
Horn Manure (500) $5 members/$7 non-members
Horn Silica (501) $3 members/$4 non-members
Compost Prep Set (502-507) $18 members/$21 non-members
Compost Prep (Barrel Compost) $5 members/$7 non-members
Contact Harald Hoven – Phone: (916) 837-8776 Email: hhoven@att.net
I don’t know why, but these events remind me of the Lord of the Rings… when Gandalf (the Grey) knows what lies ahead in Khazad-Dum, but proceeds nevertheless. We then see he descends into an ‘abyss’ after a confrontation with the ‘Balrog’. Fortunately, returns as Gandalf the White, even stronger than before.
I am also reminded of Staretz Silouan – the Monk of Mount Athos, I previous mentioned. Now I see what you mean about this. Here is a passage I am reminded of (and just to note, this is of an Eastern Orthodox perspective.. to put a disclaimer on the terms used):
“Man’s consciousness that he is unworthy of God, and his condemnation of himself for every sin, in strange fashion makes him kin with the Spirit of Truth, and sets his heart free for divine love. And with the increase of love and the light of truth comes revelation of the mystery of the redeeming descent into hell of the Son of God. Man himself becomes more fully like Christ; and through this likeness to Christ in the ‘impoverishment’ of His earthly being he becomes like to Him also in the fulness of Eternal Life. God embraces all things, even the bottomless abysses of hell, for there is no domain outside His reach, and the Saints behold and abide in hell, but it has no power over them, and the manner of their abiding differs from the abiding of those who constitute hell.
The Lord’s bidding to the Staretz- Keep they mind in hell, and despair not – reveals the unique path to complete purification and divine love. This is the unmysterious mystery of the Saints.”
I can only assume that ‘passion’ – in Anthroposophical terms – is akin to ‘sin’ – of course a rather jarring and much used term. But regardless, I do feel that there is something to what you say about reducing one’s own ‘term’ in Kamaloca. Is this what the ‘Saints’ did? For if we went through deep meditation, while still in a physical body, we are essentially ‘shedding’ what we would do anyway in Kamaloca.
Blessings to you and Chuck!
hmm I guess I wasn’t thinking of passion or desire as sin per say, which to me means missing the mark. But when looked at in the big picture it seems more like an indication of what needs to be purified in our soul forces,
The time of Kamaloca or purgatory is certainly one of purification, & so is illness.
Forgive me, I didn’t mean to use ‘sin’ as an off-putting term. Nevertheless, I can only imagine that any process of purification goes down to the most subtle ‘passions/desires’ that are very, very, difficult to detect. (speaking for myself).
No, I don’t think the word ‘sin’ is offputting when you say it, although it does hold a charge in general in the world doesn’t it.
O yes the ones we aren’t even aware of, wow, ye, I hadn’t thought of that…I guess I have my hands full with the ones that are glaring in my face. 🙂
It’s another of life’s paradoxes, that the one who loses their life will save it. When we give away that which is most valuable to us, we are gifted with unimaginable blessings.
I wonder if our fear hold us back? Fear of illness fear of death.through our illnesses we must find the will to heal ; to enthuse ourselves with the “ flame of cosmic spirit” as Dr Steiner said before this own death. . To them free ourselves through our spiritual development with the earthly body we have been given in all its imperfections…. To heal in a bridge between our spirit and our body. I guess as I wrote out my thoughts. We work through the virtues of each month. Compassion patience and strong will forces. ??? I hope what I have written is understandable. And helpful sending gratitude for this posts❤️Xo
Yes in deed Patricia our fear holds us back on many fronts.
I am really feeling what you shared around Steiner’s verse to Enthuse ourselves.
To accept the body, to love it & honor it as a temple without loosing sight of our spiritual origins – Yes to be the bridge.
And thanks for the reminder to live into the vitues of the month.
Blessings
“…with the earthly body we have been given in all its imperfections”
Patricia, you’ve hit on something with this thought – that is, that our Better Self, our Higher Self, whatever you like to call it, is always leading us and encouraging us to press on towards our higher development, with the understanding that we’re presently living in a frail earthly body. This is part of the dichotomy, the split personality, we’re always living with. That Higher Self is always connected to the spiritual world, and has our best interests in mind. So when our earthly body is ill, it behooves us to take time to listen to our Higher Self and to the lessons we can learn. Some prefer to drown out, to suppress, our inner voice that the Higher Self uses, but for those who listen to that inner voice, our Higher Self is pleased and eager to help us out of our predicament.
Thank you Hazel for inspiring us to think enlivened thoughts. That’s quite the experience you and CG are going through; sounds like a fulfillment of Steiner’s words you quoted from the Illness and Karma lecture – the illness is leading to further development. I can relate regarding losing the attachments. I’m a person who has tried to minimize my “attachments” for most of my life, and still find as I’m aging that there’s a continual need to shed those things that tend to accumulate, things that were useful for a while but lose their usefulness as I develop and transition to a new phase in my experience. I see many people who can’t park in their garages because they’ve accumulated so many attachments; that’s when I’m glad I’m not a hoarder. Usually it’s their children who have to figure out what to do with all that extra baggage after they’ve passed over.
Very insightful quote from Dr. King. When I was on Facebook I saw a lot of people whose soul life consisted of short quotes which I refer to as spiritual “fast food”. Just as our physical bodies depend on what we feed them, so our souls need to be fed, and it’s rare to come across people today who like to think deeply and digest good, nourishing food for the soul. It’s hard to know true freedom though without doing some deep thinking. As Dr. King said, it pains many people to do that, so they remain in bondage, even though they’ll adamantly deny the fact.
Hi Maverick –
Steiner has so much to say regarding illness & karma, which I find gives a grounded perspective especially when suffering.
Yes, the attachments. I too am not very materialistic, but I still hold sympathy & antipathy in strong ways…
Were you referring to the Steve Biko quote? Strong words – to lay down our lives for human rights
No, though that’s a good quote also. I was referring to the Martin Luther King quote that followed directly after the Steiner quote from Illness and Karma.
O yes, of course, still got that brain-fog I guess…thanks