Greetings friends on this last Sunday in March – Today in the Heartland Father Winter is teasing & testing the tender spring things – making hardy & strong what will soon become supple in their greening. The intrepid soul of the Chicagoan knows to keep the big coat & the pair of shorts handy at all times. We know that the seasons make the human being hardy too, strengthening our faith. So even though its 22 degrees outside, with a blustery wind whipping in from the lake – we know – This is the seed time…when the chains of death are broken & life bursts forth from the earth. Each day another minute of light triumphs over the darkness. The elementals arise, & wait for us to work with them in good will. The Sun stretches out its hand to the child within us all, bidding us to return from the land of the dead, to be cloaked in the fresh rain. Enlivened with the sweet scent of aspiration on our breath, we can joyfully step forth. As the wild flowers send their pastel shoots up from the brown compost, our souls dance in delight.  Our Lenten despair turns to hope, sorrow to joy, want to abundance…

If we do not spring forward, we will surly slip back. It’s time to venture out of the cave into the cold fresh possibility that exists at the change of season.

Within our own mind many detailed explanations may exist – excuses? -that keep us from moving forward. To put these parts of ourselves into perspective, we can see them in relation to the 4 basic elements…

It’s helpful to be specific about what you want to change – Choose the area of your life you want to focus on, such as relationships, health, career, clarity around direction, spiritual growth…etc…

Then begin in the East: Air – What thoughts bind you? Are you too scattered in your thinking, can’t make up your mind? Too dogmatic? Suffer from monkey mind? Inner critic on overdrive? What do you need so that you can create a positive thought pattern? What does a free mind look like?

South: Fire – What binds your will? Or are you too impulsive? Too willful, or perhaps your will is unfocused? Not able to take action? Feel fearful-unsafe? What do you need to empower your will force so you are free to take action?

West: Water – What emotions bind you? Are you too sensitive? Do you hold on to old feelings? Or are you rigid, frozen, not able to be empathic? Can’t go with the flow? How can you reclaim your creative fertility & be compassionate to yourself?

North: Earth – Does necessity bind you? Are you stuck in the mud? A perfectionist? Is nothing ever good enough? Perhaps you find it hard to complete things? What would it look like to be grounded, productive, prosperous & steadfast in your determination to create & manifest?

Perhaps this Spring season will call you to re-dedicate yourself to the 6 Basic Essential Exercises…

From Rudolf Steiner: A meditant should do these six exercises:

1. Control of Thought: Think about a simple object for at least five minutes. Hold it fast in thoughts without going over to other things. This exercise arouses a feeling of firmness in the pupil as it activates the chakra between the eyebrows. One should send this feeling through the brain and down the backbone.

2. Control of will (acting on your own initiative): Do an unimportant thing every day at a certain time. This exercise also gives firmness.

3. Develop equanimity, that is, one shouldn’t fluctuate between rejoicing to heaven and despairing to death. A joke can be enjoyed just as much if one doesn’t laugh boisterously at; one can bear a pain better if one doesn’t wallow in it too much. This gives one a feeling of quiet calm that one lets stream from the heart to the arms, and out through the hands.

4. Positivity: See the beautiful and true elements in all things. Christ Jesus admired the beautiful teeth in a rotting dog, where his disciples only saw ugliness. One can discover at least a small kernel of truth and something beautiful in everything. If one does this exercise for some time it gives one a feeling of great joy.

5. Open mindedness: Always be open to new things. One should never say: I never heard of that, that can’t be, or I don’t believe that. One should always leave the possibility open that one can learn something from everything that people say. Thereby one can learn from children, animals and everything else. This gives one the feeling that one could also perceive things while one is partly outside one’s body.

6. Inner Harmony: This exercise is a combination of the preceding ones, so that one can combine two and two or any way one wants. By doing this, one gets the feeling that one has grown beyond the limits of one’s skin.

By practicing these basic exercises we develop our soul forces of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, creating new spiritual organs of perception. May we all take up the work of transformation which will lead us into the Resurrection.

Blessings of becoming dear friends

~hag

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated with added titles by Roy Sadler
Mothering Sunday in England is the 4th Sunday of Lent, the 2nd of Passiontide
(not the 2nd Sunday in May as it is in the US)
and in this week’s spring verse Earth’s Mother can be the spirit’s jubilating force.
PASSIONTIDE 1I, Mothering Sunday
The World’s Fulfilment
v50
Earth’s Mother speaks…
her joy of growth in every bud’s unfurling,
revealing the inherent forces of her being,
is speaking to the human I:
In bringing into you my life
released from its enchantment,
I reach my true fulfilment.

The mirror verse
EASTERTIDE III
Foundation of the Self
v3
The human spirit speaks…
the growing I, in self-forgetfulness
and mindful of its primal state,
is speaking to the whole enwoven world:
In you, releasing chains
of private wants and pains,
I root my inborn truth.

27 March 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: At dawn the waning crescent Moon is below Venus, Mars, and Saturn, which now form an isosceles triangle

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1915 – Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States is put in quarantine for the second time, where she would remain as a prisoner for the rest of her life.

1966- DeathDay of Karl Konig, Founder of Camphill

1981 – The Solidarity movement in Poland stages a warning strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walk off their jobs for four hours.