Today 3 February is The Feast of Saint Blaise, which merges with Candlemas & many other rites that herald the promise of Spring…These various Festivals, Saints’ Days, rites, & remembrances are not separate, they are all pearls on a single necklace, progressively lit, from epoch to epoch, one after the other – going forward, as part of the ensuing enkindling of evolving light called forth from the Sun. These traditions, blessed by all spiritual & religious peoples, are relied upon especially by those who love & work the land, those who steward the animals, plants & stones – those who consciously interact with the Elemental Beings…And those who value inner development…
The Candlmas of St Blaise – A Halo of Healing Flame, a conscious igniting – a banking of bonfires – This Holy Day, part of a series of progressive gems heralding the light – can bring the old seeds to freshly spaded earth – noting well the time for rebirth.
Our ancestors (ourselves in past lives) created these successive celebrations, meant to foster the tender light rising up from the womb of creative darkness. And now it’s up to us to renew these ideas, intentions, doings & markings of grace, to plan new works & fresh creations.
As we spoke about in the essay Cross-Quarter Passage in many cultural traditions folk costume up as animal totems for a festive parade, wearing wild wooly pelts; dancing & singing, & holding torches to revival the growing light.
The women of Ireland make effigies of ‘Bride’ or Brigid from wheat; & fiery sun wheel crosses from the reeds…Bride would go from house to house to bless & welcome the children to be born that year, & then the community would throw these effigies over the bluffs to shake loose the seed from the wand. When some took root, it would be a sign of a good year. The field of Brigid wheat would then be ceremoniously milled to make a special bread for weddings.
In our time now, we live in an increasingly disconnected environment, fraught & unprecedented over all the earth…swirling with fear & hypnotic terror from those afoot ever trying to cancel the wedding & douse the light. That this was so is not the startling thing in itself, really it can be seen as a grace if we take it as an opportunity. But as I try to see thru the churning fog of our time, the grey sky dull against the dirty snow – all dim & pale – & in its own way beautiful – what I see that truly startles me, is that for a century, many anthro-folk have disabused the massive longing in the modern soul for ritual that opens us to the mysteries, not only in nature, seen thru the circuit of our yearly dance around the Sun, but in our very souls – That our “Spirit-I” must be the blade of a sharpened shovel that transforms the earth of our bodies – scraping past boulders – bending to the task – our etheric body lifting that wet clod of heavy dirt up & flipping it over on itself, our astral purifing the earth, to break open our very being, in order to receive Spirit…
It is clear that so many souls are drawn to re-membering the times of seeking to light what was once dark…& in succession, to fire-up our thinking in this present age – a literal & figurative conception, a re-birth of the ancient ideals that do not come from outside of us, but rise up season after season, from within our soul forces of thinking, feeling & willing – which are yearning to be transformed…
Friends – Nothing is lost in Time that cannot be renewed. Nothing of goodness & light is lost to those who have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the soul to sense, & the thinking heart to create – modern ritual that has meaning for us today – Realigning our cognitive imagination in the New Mysteries.
When I was a child, on the Feast of Saint Blaise, we all trod off to St. Gertudes’s in Franklin Park, IL. where I was Baptized, the Church my Italian Grandmother (my Strega Nona) went to, often in snow so high that it was like walking thru white tunnels, shoveled out by gangs of teenage boys looking to earn a dollar.
During the Mass, the priest would hold two large white blazing candles, crossed in an X at our throats – saying a prayer that all sickness be cured & our words be filled with love. “Per intercessionem S. Blasii liberet to Deus a malo gutteris et a qouvis alio malo.” = ‘St. Blaise goes before the Creator of all to ask that thy throat be blessed & not harmed or harmful, & that you be protected from all ills & evils.’ It was a re-setting of the throat chakra – an opening of the voice – asking that we remain close to Christ, to let the soul speak purely – to not be disheartened, or polluted by anything that takes us away from seeing & speaking in love, kindness, awareness, & in truth. A return to the light of consciousness sounding – empowering The Word within – a Christening of our thoughts – which inevitably fly from our lips into the world.
There are many ways to understand this blessing with fire, including a root cure of illness – like raising the body’s temperature during fever, or passing thru a fire-trial to reach a cleaner way of being…
Nowadays the priest no longer uses lit candles. What the priest of unlit candles misses is the bestowing of extreme love, & careful administration to cause no harm in the cure.
Can we awaken again out of the darkness of false caution, into a true heightened care, motivated by selfless love?
Can we be the one holding the lit candles?
~hag
3 February 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The bright waxing gibbous moon climbs in the east, near the twin stars of Gemini. The brighter star is golden Pollux, and the fainter one is white Castor. Although the twin stars don’t look alike, they’re noticeable near each other in the sky for being bright and close together. Also nearby is Procyon, the brightest star in Canis Minor the Lesser Dog.
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
Dear Friends, Today 110 years ago on 3 February 1913 we can re-call the very 1st AGM of the newly formed Anthroposophical Society, after the split from the Theosophical Society, held in Berlin, with the cycle of lectures 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.
“…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. Philosophy is no longer the “woman” she was to Dante and others who lived in his time...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. 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.
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.
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.” ~Rudolf Steiner
May we receive this being, that is our birthright, with grace & develop her within us with intention & love.
~hag
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1690 – The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in the Americas
1870 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to male citizens regardless of race.
1874 – Birthday of Gertrude Stein, American novelist, poet, playwright
1894 – Birthday of Norman Rockwell, American painter & illustrator
1909 – Birthday of Simone Weil, French mystic & philosopher
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” & spoke for the 1st time about the Being of Anthroposophy!
1924 – Deathday of Woodrow Wilson. Rudolf Steiner has a lot to say about what was behind this individuality & in his former incarnation as Muawiya
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.
ArtNight 3 February 2023
@ the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
Doors open at 7:30 pm
8 pm – Sharings Start – $12 (pay online)
YOU MUST RSVP at this Link
ArtNight has been described as a 21st-century Salon. We gather once a month in Chicago. People sign up to present and perform what they’re passionate about,
having facilitated discussions and activities, and enjoying food from local establishments.
What we’re trying to do.
- Establish spaces where doing what you love is normal.
- Promote passion instead of perfection. You don’t need to be famous, talented, attractive, virtuosic or wealthy – it’s meaningful and important to do what you love no matter who you are and you should be supported.
- Create genuine connections in substance-free environments.
- Encourage curiosity and learning.
- Be a place where you can have fun without shame or embarrassment.
Article about ArtNight
The ArtNight night starts off with a vibe. As people filter in, we hang out,
talk to strangers who’ll become our friends, and we settle down before we
settle in for the next couple hours.
The ArtNight itself starts off with a welcome activity. Don’t worry,
it’s not your classic, awkward high school ice breaker.
Now it’s time for the main event. The people who volunteered to share do their thing. We watch and listen and experience and ask questions
and fall in love with them, loving their passions.
In between the sharing, we take a break for that meaningful discussion
we keep mentioning. Every ArtNight has a specific discussion topic,
and everyone is encouraged to share their experiences.
It’s always a dialogue, never a debate.
The ArtNight closes out with a vibe. We eat, and we reconnect with the
people we met earlier. All of this was to get to know people
for who they actually are – so we keep doing it.
YOU MUST RSVP to attend
The Mystery of Ascension with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
This course is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it. Go to the Infinity Foundation web site to enroll
Course Number 231154 / Zoom
Date: Thursday, May 11
Time 7:00 – 8:30 PM CST
Cost $33/23 payment 10 days in advance
When we tune into the Cycle of the Seasons, we experience that as the Earth breathes out in the Springtime, the beings of nature reach upwards towards the heights. The longing of the human soul also strives to meet this mood of ascension, which attunes all life to the cosmic expanses.
Together we will gain insights in how to rise up to our Higher Self by participating in this harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds.
This reconnection between heaven & earth was prefigured in the story of Jacob’s ladder from the Old Testament. Through his dream of the ‘stairway to heaven’, Jacob gave us a prophecy in the picture of a golden ladder on which choirs of Angels traverse between the ‘Above & Below’. The Mystery of the Ascension of Christ, 40 days after the Resurrection at Easter, fulfilled Jacob’s Prophecy. Christ as the Being of Love became the living bridge connecting us to the eternal.
Through this workshop we will learn how humanity will also be transfigured in the fullness of time. The company of the Angelic Hierarchies wait for us, their younger siblings, to ascend, first of all in our thinking, to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while by our sides.
Hi Hazel,
I finally purchased the lecture that Steiner gave the day after the one on February 3, 1913, and here is where he goes into the event in the Pottschach railway station when he was about eight years old.
https://earthschooling.info/thebearthinstitute/product/self-education-autobiographical-reflections-1861-1893-steiner/
You likely know something of the story, and so, here is the synopsis. The little boy is sitting on a bench in the waiting area and someone vaguely familiar walks in. She comes directly over to him and gestures and speaks. She says, “Try now and later to do for me as much as you can”. She remains for a while and continues to gesture. Then, she goes over to the heat stove and disappears into it.
Steiner describes in detail how this became the moment in which “The Being of Anthroposophy” arose in his life of just eight years. Here is what he says about this experience:
“Now, someone who experiences something like this in his early childhood and tries to understand it in accordance with the disposition of his soul, knows , if he experiences such a thing consciously, how one lives in the spiritual worlds. And since the instreaming illumination of the spiritual worlds is to be discussed here only in relation to points that are directly necessary, let it be suggested here at once that from that event onward a life in the boy’s soul began to develop which thoroughly revealed to him the worlds out of which not only the outer trees, the outer mountains, speak to the human soul but also the worlds that are behind them. From that point in time onward, the boy lived with the spirits of nature, which can be observed quite particularly in such a region; he lived with the creative beings behind things, and he allowed them to work upon him in the same way as he allowed the outer world to work upon him.”
So, this becomes the veritable genesis of the so-called, “Being Anthroposophia”, which Steiner would identify and describe some ten years later with the lectures on the history of the Anthroposophic Movement, GA 258, June 1923.
What is of particular magnitude in the lecture of February 3, 1913, is that Steiner invokes Dante throughout its discourse, and Steiner had indicated the previous August, that Dante actually reincarnated in the 19th century, and in a way that was influential for him.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA138/English/AP1980/19120826p01.html
“In the successive epochs of human evolution we find one remarkable phenomenon. I could give examples of what I have just told you of the confusing way in which initiates on reincarnating sometimes appear to have come down from their heights. You would probably be much surprised if I told you, for instance, in what way Dante was reincarnated in the nineteenth century. But it is not my task here to discuss further this result of my own investigation and what was established for me. Rather have I to bring forward with strong proof the things known to everyone conversant with occultism, letting everything else recede into the background and stating nothing that is not generally recognised where bona fide occultism is upheld.”
“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.
“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.”
Die to be reborn as the New Isis
The Spiritual Dante. One day She will go to Her resting place. Until then, the commitment is to get Anthroposophy on its feet as a going concern. Millions need to be established as members, just like the Catholic church today. Then, She returns to Shamballa.
During a Pralya all can rest, perhaps even Shamballa, but now & in all time we strive & transform