In these 4 weeks of Advent, we can have a capacity to see what has been invisible, & name what has been unspeakable. If we make up our minds, we can become adept at solving complicated problems & creating brilliant new ones. We can summon extraordinary power to dissolve restrictions, & impose creative boundaries; outwit evil & dream up tricky new ways to be good.
Hilma af Klint
Let’s dust off our hearts & drum up freedom – to escape apathy, & rebel against blind tradition, sculpting instead, raw truths fresh from eternity – to purposefully apply in this moment.
POD (Poem Of the day)
Dora Flecton
~In my mind I scoop up the blue virtue of sky & set it in my heart Then my fingers fly out & circle above like a hawk Serpents writhing in our talons Tempered by a 1000 doves Feathering the clouds into a white fire & I wept, for Without love or loss or pain I would never learn peace… ~hag
***
1 December 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: On these December evenings, turn toward the northern sky to see the famous constellation Cassiopeia the Queen. She swings directly over Polaris, the North Star, at roughly 7 pm CST. Cassiopeia – sometimes called The Lady of the Chair – is famous for having the shape of a telltale W or M. Because Cassiopeia returns to the same spot in the sky about four minutes earlier with each passing day, or 1/2 hour earlier with each passing week, or two hours earlier with each passing month, look for Cassiopeia to be at her high point over Polaris, the North Star, in early January.
1955 – American Civil Rights Movement: In Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man & is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to that city’s bus boycott.
1969 – Vietnam War: The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.
Ok, & so what’s up with all these airplane crashes on this date?
1974 – TWA Flight 514, a Boeing 727, crashes northwest of Dulles International Airport, killing all 92 people on board.
1974 – Northwest Airlines Flight 6231, another Boeing 727, crashes northwest of John F. Kennedy International Airport.
1981 – Inex-Adria Aviopromet Flight 1308, a McDonnell Douglas MD-80, crashes in Corsica, killing all 180 people on board.
1984 – NASA conducts the Controlled Impact Demonstration, wherein an airliner is deliberately crashed in order to test technologies and gather data.
***
Wed. 2 December 2020 – 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm CT
The Karma Project with the Central Regional Council“…We can understand that someone who goes to a place where he may succumb to an infection will have been driven there under the influence of a certain level of karmic consciousness…”
At Elderberries Urban 1st Aid – Art as Medicine 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
Urban First Aid – Art As Medicine is initiating a Johannine Painting Circle that will begin on Thursday, December 3rd at the Elderberries space on Lincoln Avenue, next to the Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago. Nancy Melvin will be our instructor during the season of Advent.
Calling all wistful painters who long to explore but are afraid for lack of skill.
We will work very simply. Not painting an image, rather an exercise in perception, a meditation using simple brush work to develop a keen eye for relationships, worked in silence with the finest of watercolor paints and papers.
Immersing ourselves in the flow of the year, we open ourselves to the Advent season. The richest botanical colors of the year have flared and now passed. Bold yellows and sharp puce, flaming reds, dark burgundies and deep blue greens dominated our vision just last week. Let us come together to find color on our paint brushes and immerse ourselves in the elementary color exercises given to First Graders at a Waldorf School.
Angela Lord’s book, Color Dynamics is a practical workbook that you can purchase from Hawthorn Press to augment our sessions if you’d like. After attending the first session to learn the set up, practice and clean up, you can miss our group and still do the work at home with your own materials and join us when you can. Socially distant tables with paints and paper provided.
There are no paywalls. You are invited to make a contribution that will help the cost of supplies and initiative. A sliding scale from $0 to $15. If you’d like to gift a higher amount this will support others who are unable to contribute financially.~Nancy Melvin
Nancy Melvin is a watercolor, lazure, natural dye and textile artist who is married to a trompe l’oeil muralist who also specializes in signage, oils, gold leaf and woodblocks. They run Melvin Studio together and raised two Waldorf students. Nancy taught at Chicago Waldorf and Great Oaks Waldorf School before founding MADE HERE, her clothing line currently at Union Handmade, 3860 N. Lincoln Ave and Buddy in the Chicago Cultural Center.
***
Sunday 20 December 2020, 2 pm – 3pm CT
‘Awakening to the Light in the Darkness’: A Christmas Contemplation with Rev. Craig Wiggins. In-Person at The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online
Unwrapping our Cosmic Gift: Thoughts on the Christmas Conference 1923
with the Central Regional Council. Themes inspired by Prokofieff’s book: May Human Beings Hear it! include: Turning Points of Time; Christ, Sophia and Michael; Foundation Stone Meditation.
Stay tuned for details. For more info. contact Hazel Archer hag@rschicago.org
***
Nancy Poer
Wednesday 6 January 2021, 2 pm – 4 pm CT
Joan’s Epiphany ‘What Joan of Arc Calls for Today’
In-Person at Elderberries Bio-dynamic Outpost & The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online Today on the Birthday of Joan of Arc we welcome special Guest Nancy Poer
We will also explore ‘The Destinies of Individuals and of Nations’, Lecture 5, ‘The Nature of the Christ Impulse and the Michaelic Sprit Serving It’ by Rudolf Steiner with Leading Thoughts by Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Social Sculpture: “The Passage” with Luicen Dante Lazar, + Singing & Eurythmy
This year there is an eeriness behind the strings of lights wrapped around town by masked men – Forced cheer behind the red bows & Santa hats. Although I have to say it was sweet that the ‘Black Friday’ madness was halted in its grasping tracks.
Burnel Trepp
We were all still in a state of shock when Easter came & went. Now it seems folks will do anything to acquire a semblance of moving forward. But in addition to these lights, the stark admonition of Advent is tapping us. And the Earth’s edging reflections slowly approached the waxing moon, in her fullness, in an attempt to swallow her up in darkness. Did you have any interesting dreams this morning? Starting at 1:32 am CST till 5:53 am this morning, while you were probably still asleep, the Bull’s eye took a big bite of Bella Luna. Steiner calls eclipses safety-valves, “In Human Questions, Cosmic Answers”, he says: ‘the lunar eclipse, exists for the purpose of allowing the evil thoughts which are present in the cosmos to approach those human beings who are desirous of being possessed by them. People do not, as a rule, act in full consciousness, but the facts are nevertheless real — just as real as the attraction of a magnet for small particles of iron.’
Use the Moon to find the bright orange star Aldebaran: the fiery eye of the Taurus– the brightest star in the constellation. Aldebaran was honored as one of the Four Royal Stars in ancient Persia along with Regulus, Antares, & Fomalhaut. The name of the star derives from the Arabic word for “the follower” as it seems to follow the Pleiades, an open star cluster in the constellation Taurus.
We are going to have a Solar eclipse before the end of 2020. Today on 30 November a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse took place at in Taurus.
The second eclipse is going to be way more important, since it’s going to be a Total Solar Eclipse occurring on 14 December in Libra.
A Full Moon always counter balances the forces coming from the Sun. As we know, a lunar eclipse happens during a Full Moon, because the Sun, Earth & Moon are aligned in this order, with the Earth getting in the way, casting a shadow.
From a Hermetic perspective, a New Moon (solar eclipse) relates to Willing & a Full Moon (lunar eclipse) to Thinking. Since a New Moon is the beginning of a fresh cycle, it always starts with an act of will. Only at the end of a cycle can we stop & examine what we have done. That moment of clarity & awareness, which we can grasp thru our thinking, comes with the Full Moon.
Brook Spoalman
Novel intuitions are now erupting from my unworthy but willing heart, awakening me from any trance I’ve been ensnared in, so that I may defy all obstructions that would hinder my ability to express my soul’s code. Unique capacities are being liberated, potentials activated.
For I know – There is a demand for r-evolution, a rally cry, that summons us to rise – to reach – for the stars – to research – the God within, to find the eternal spirit in each other, to live a real life, bringing the light of wisdom to make love come true, & it can only be found in you – eternally residing inside our shared heart-beat, which holds us in common with the wholeness of the Uni-verse, from Alpha to Omega, from the seed to the stars.
Feast of Saint Andrew born in the village of Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee. “The first striking characteristic of Andrew is his name: it is not Hebrew, as might have been expected, but Greek, indicative of a certain cultural openness in his family. He was a fisherman like his brother St. Peter. Jesus called them to be his disciples by saying that he will make them “fishers of men.” Andrew told Jesus about the boy with the loaves and fishes (John 6:8), & when Philip wanted to tell Jesus about certain Greeks seeking Him, he told Andrew first (John 12:20–22). Andrew was present at the Last Supper, & was one of the four disciples who came to Jesus on the Mount of Olives to ask about the signs of Jesus’ return at the “end of the age”. (Mark 13:30) Andrew is said to have been martyred by crucifixion. In the Western Esoteric tradition, Andrew is associated with the astrological sign of Virgo.
1961 – Deathday of Ehrenfried Pfeiffer a German scientist, soil scientist, leading advocate of biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophist & student of Rudolf Steiner.
Ehrenfried Pfeiffer began work with Rudolf Steiner in 1920 to develop & install special diffuse stage lighting for eurythmy performances on the stage of the first Goetheanum.
After Steiner’s death in 1925, Pfeiffer worked in the private research laboratory at the Goetheanum in Dornach. He became manager & director of the 800-acre experimental biodynamic Loverendale farm in Domburg in the Netherlands. This farm was set up to carry out some of the agricultural studies of the Goetheanum laboratory. The work of testing & developing Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture Course of 1924 was an international enterprise coordinated by Pfeiffer at the Natural Science Section of the Goetheanum.
Pfeiffer’s most influential book ‘Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening’ was published in 1938 simultaneously in at least five languages, English, German, Dutch, French, & Italian.
The following year, just months before the outbreak of World War II, Pfeiffer ran Britain’s first biodynamics conference, the Betteshanger Summer School & Conference, at the estate of Lord Northbourne in Kent. Pfeiffer’s Betteshanger Conference is regarded as the ‘missing link’ between biodynamic agriculture & organic farming.
Pfeiffer first visited the U.S. in 1933 to lecture to a group of anthroposophists at the Threefold Farm in Spring Valley, New York on biodynamic farming. His consulting was essential to the development of biodynamic agriculture in the U.S.
Pfeiffer developed an analytical method using copper chloride crystallization & used this technique as a blood test for detecting cancer. As a result, Pfeiffer was invited to the U.S. in 1937 to work at the Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia. While in the U.S., he continued to consult with those interested in biodynamic farming & helped to form the Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association in 1938.
In 1940 he immigrated to the U.S. from Switzerland with his wife Adelheid, escaping the advance of German troops into France. They brought with them their son Christoph & daughter Wiltraud.
With the advent of World War II in Europe, Pfeiffer took his family to Kimberton, Pennsylvania, where Alaric Myrin offered Pfeiffer the opportunity to create a model biodynamic farm & training program.
Starting in the late 1930s he taught biodynamic farming & gardening at the Kimberton Farm School. One of his students, Paul Keene, who worked & studied with Pfeiffer there for two years & shortly thereafter co-founded Walnut Acres, recalls: “… he helped bring all of life together for us in a definite coherent pattern”.
Aiming to continue his work training biodynamic farmers, Pfeiffer bought a farm in Chester, New York, where a small colony arose focused on farming, education, & the administration of the Biodynamic Association.
His copper chloride sensitive crystallization theory brought him an honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine from Hahnemann Medical College & Hospital in Philadelphia in 1939. He studied chemistry & became a professor of nutrition in 1956. Pfeiffer wrote on the dangers of pesticides & DDT a& Rachel Carson consulted with him when she was writing Silent Spring.
In 1961, at his home in Spring Valley, N.Y., he suffered from a series of heart attacks, lingering for several days, but ultimately was not given the proper medical care & died. His wife subsequently took over the operation of their farm in Chester, New York.
Pfeiffer was a pioneer of biodynamic agriculture in Europe, Britain, & America. He is most widely known for his innovative work in composting. He conducted extensive research on the preparation & use of biodynamic compost & was the inventor of BD Compost Starter, a compost inoculant. For many years Pfeiffer served as a compost consultant to municipal compost facilities.
***
POD (Poem Of the day)
~you & i are pure as dream lasting as music opulent as the Goddess… We are given the gift of becoming… ~hag
***
Wed. 2 December 2020 – 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm CT
The Karma Project with the Central Regional Council“…We can understand that someone who goes to a place where he may succumb to an infection will have been driven there under the influence of a certain level of karmic consciousness…”
At Elderberries Urban 1st Aid – Art as Medicine 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
Urban First Aid – Art As Medicine is initiating a Johannine Painting Circle that will begin on Thursday, December 3rd at the Elderberries space on Lincoln Avenue, next to the Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago. Nancy Melvin will be our instructor during the season of Advent.
Calling all wistful painters who long to explore but are afraid for lack of skill.
We will work very simply. Not painting an image, rather an exercise in perception, a meditation using simple brush work to develop a keen eye for relationships, worked in silence with the finest of watercolor paints and papers.
Immersing ourselves in the flow of the year, we open ourselves to the Advent season. The richest botanical colors of the year have flared and now passed. Bold yellows and sharp puce, flaming reds, dark burgundies and deep blue greens dominated our vision just last week. Let us come together to find color on our paint brushes and immerse ourselves in the elementary color exercises given to First Graders at a Waldorf School.
Angela Lord’s book, Color Dynamics is a practical workbook that you can purchase from Hawthorn Press to augment our sessions if you’d like. After attending the first session to learn the set up, practice and clean up, you can miss our group and still do the work at home with your own materials and join us when you can. Socially distant tables with paints and paper provided.
There are no paywalls. You are invited to make a contribution that will help the cost of supplies and initiative. A sliding scale from $0 to $15. If you’d like to gift a higher amount this will support others who are unable to contribute financially.~Nancy Melvin
Nancy Melvin is a watercolor, lazure, natural dye and textile artist who is married to a trompe l’oeil muralist who also specializes in signage, oils, gold leaf and woodblocks. They run Melvin Studio together and raised two Waldorf students. Nancy taught at Chicago Waldorf and Great Oaks Waldorf School before founding MADE HERE, her clothing line currently at Union Handmade, 3860 N. Lincoln Ave and Buddy in the Chicago Cultural Center.
***
Sunday 20 December 2020, 2 pm – 3pm CT
‘Awakening to the Light in the Darkness’: A Christmas Contemplation with Rev. Craig Wiggins. In-Person at The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online
Unwrapping our Cosmic Gift: Thoughts on the Christmas Conference 1923
with the Central Regional Council. Themes inspired by Prokofieff’s book: May Human Beings Hear it! include: Turning Points of Time; Christ, Sophia and Michael; Foundation Stone Meditation.
Stay tuned for details. For more info. contact Hazel Archer hag@rschicago.org
***
Nancy Poer
Wednesday 6 January 2021, 2 pm – 4 pm CT
Joan’s Epiphany ‘What Joan of Arc Calls for Today’
In-Person at Elderberries Bio-dynamic Outpost & The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online Today on the Birthday of Joan of Arc we welcome special Guest Nancy Poer
We will also explore ‘The Destinies of Individuals and of Nations’, Lecture 5, ‘The Nature of the Christ Impulse and the Michaelic Sprit Serving It’ by Rudolf Steiner with Leading Thoughts by Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Social Sculpture: “The Passage” with Luicen Dante Lazar, + Singing & Eurythmy
In Sidereal Astrosophy, we look to the wisdom revealed in the position of the star-beings present now in the dome of the sky. During the 4 weeks of Advent (the 1st Sunday of Advent begins today November 29th 2020) the Sun is passing through the stars of Scorpio. The term “Advent” – is Latin for ‘that which is coming’. So this is the time of preparation, of waiting in the dark, for the return of the light, at Winter Solstice, & it is deeply connected with the challenge of the Scorpion. – Can we overcome the consequences of error & evil that has separated us from our true divine nature? Advent can be seen as the time of transforming the fallen parts of our souls, so we can truly meet the Christmas birth. It is a Winter Metanoia – a reflection of the Summer-tide call for repentance by John the Baptist, born opposite the Christ child on the wheel of the year.
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the darkness & death of nature mirror the descent of humanity from the light into the darkness of matter at the Fall. This time of Advent, reflects our journey away from the Divine Sun into the lower realm as represented by Scorpio – in the course of the rebellion called the ‘War in Heaven’ with the later infusion of Luciferic tendencies upon the human astral body.
Rudolf Steiner describes this rebellion in Occult Science: An Outline, & from another perspective in, The Spiritual Hierarchies and their Reflection in thePhysical World: “Beings from the sphere of the Mights (Dynamis), to put it tritely, were detached; they were placed in the course of evolution so as to bring about obstacles instead of acting as progressive influences. We have come to know this as the War in Heaven….[later in Lemurian times]..The beings who stayed behind, whom we call Luciferic beings approached the human astral body –they were unable to reach the “I” – and injected into the astral body the results of the War in Heaven…humans now had been given the possibility of error and evil, but at the same time also received the capacity to rise above error and evil through their own strength…Thus we can see that only because the Dynamis were given adverse orders did humans receive the possibility of reaching their goal by means of their own powers, something that even the Seraphim cannot attain through their own endeavors. That is the crucial fact…Humans have to fulfill a completely new mission in the world, the mission we have just characterized, and descended into the earthly world in order to accomplish it. Christ came into the world as man’s free helper; not as a God working from above, but as the first-born among many.”
Advent is that time of the year when we can come to terms with the consequences of the error & evil that is in our own astral nature, reflected in our society so strongly today, as well as doing the work to develop the strength to overcome these tendencies, so that we might prepare the way for the birth of Christ in us at Christmas-tide. This is our activity now for every human being during Advent. It is in this confrontation & transformation of evil in our lives, in our time, that we can begin to renovate the stars of Scorpion, to offer back to the divine what has fallen away, out of freedom.
Advent is a true festival of our current time in world evolution – a karmic call for humanity to awaken to our path of spiritual development with its focus on the confrontation with evil.
The transformation of the Scorpion, not this time into the eagle, but into the dove, this must be our work – Opening to the Christ flame, the true I Am, born anew in the chalice of the heart at Christmas.
Also interesting to note that tomorrow 30 November 2020, is a Full Moon Lunar Eclipse! What is seeking to be born from the shadow? What is longing for deliverance?
The Christian Community reading for this week speaks of this turbulent time:
Raphael
1st Advent – Luke 21:25-36
“And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars; and upon the earth, the nations will be constricted with anxiety and doubt with the advent of these spiritual revelations, as before a roaring sea and waves. And men will lose their inner strength of soul out of fear and foreboding of what is coming over the living earth: for the dynamic powers of heaven will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud, in the sphere of life, with dynamic power and great radiant glory.
And when these things begin to happen, stand upright and lift up [raise] your soul to the spirit, for your deliverance draws near.
Amen, the truth I say to you: this present age of Man’s being shall not pass away until all has happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Guard yourselves lest the perceptive power of your hearts be smothered by an excess of food and drink and by over-concern with the cares and worries of life, and the light of these spirit events break upon you suddenly like a snare…for it will come upon all who dwell upon the face of the whole earth. So be awake in the spirit at all times, praying, so that you may have the strength to live through all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man”.
We celebrate Advent to awaken our connection with the cosmic purpose in the Universe. Can we use this time to become more aware of the way in which we are disconnected from our source? Can we strive to awaken our purpose, as we work to remember our Divine origin.
Sri Aurobindo
I think of the Mother God gestating the emergent body of Jesus within her. Every breath she takes, every beat of her heart, every thought in her mind, devoted to forming the perfect human being capable of holding the divine.
I think of the approaching soul of Jesus, the pure, innocent Nathan soul, described in Luke’s Gospel, preparing to enter into this immaculate body – This soul which has never incarnated into a human being before.
I can’t help comparing that original purity & dignity of humanity with the way people treat each other now-a-days – so much derision, disrespect & hatred, all the discrimination, how can these lies appear to so many as truth, a selfishness that they are willing to kill for?
Then I try to think about how this is part of some great plan to wake us up, to divide the wheat from the chaff, so that we can reclaim our place in the universe as conscious, Christened human beings.
During this time, we deepen our relationship to the world around us by recognizing & celebrating the strength & beauty of all four kingdoms of the natural world.
During the first week, we pay tribute to the mineral world.
Bet Tarkenson
During the second week, we focus on the plant kingdom.
In the third week, we celebrate the kingdom of animals.
And the fourth week speaks to the human being, & our destiny as Angel Beings.
As we pass through these weeks, it moves us toward a deeper understanding of our place in the universe, of all that supports us, & all that we aspire to, as well as all that needs our care & protection.
The four candles represent many four-fold wonders, such as the four seasons of the year or the four virtues of Peace, Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul, , translated by Roy Sadler, helps:
v35, Advent, Can I absorb true being that it may find itself anew within my soul’s creative urge? I feel a power trusting me to make myself with modesty a member of the Cosmic Self.
v35 and its mirror, v18, are the only question verses. If we rise to the Advent challenge and become a member of the Cosmic Self the Spirit Child can be born in us in a month’s time at Christmas. Six weeks later the Soul Calendar has a unique line, its only trochaic one. Rudolf Steiner describes the iambic rhythm as the meditative movement the soul requires to relate to the world. But at Candlemas just one line, ‘Eingedenk vollzogener Geistgeburt’, balances all the other Soul Calendar lines. If we can become a member of the Cosmic Self at Advent, feel the Spirit Child set free from womb of soul at Christmas & are mindful of the Spirit’s Birth fulfilled at Candlemas, Easter can arise in our souls and what follows progress.
v44, Candlemas, And when I grasp the senses’ new allure the clarity of soul, mindful of the spirit’s birth fulfilled, imbues the world’s bewildering, sprouting growth with my creative will of thinking.
The Candlemas mirror at Whitsuntide, and the verse for the southern hemisphere now, v9, And when I let my own will go life’s cosmic warmth, the summer’s herald, will fill my soul and spirit being; my spirit vision is commanding me to lose myself in light, and ardently my foresight’s calling, ‘lose yourself to find your Self’.
Advent Sunday’s mirror at Lammastide as the soul becomes pregnant with the Spirit Child, v18, Can I make wide my soul that she unite with seed of Cosmic Word conceived? I feel my foresight asking me to find the strangth my soul will need to form her spirit garment worthily.
***
29 November 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Bella Luna comes Full at 3:30 a.m. Monday morning CST. She shines between Aldebaran below, & the Pleiades above. Aldebaran is easier to see through the moonlight than the 7 Sisters are.
A penumbral eclipse of the Moon happens early Monday morning for North America. The Moon’s north side will skim through the penumbra, the pale outer fringe, of Earth shadow. The Moon will be deepest into the penumbra at mid-eclipse, at 3:43 a.m. Monday morning CST. WE may see a trace of shading on the Moon as much as 45 minutes before & after that time.
1898 – Birthday of C.S. Lewis, one of the Inklings
1939 – Deathday of Eugen Kolisko, an Austrian-German physician & educator, born in Vienna. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna, & in 1917 became a lecturer of medical chemistry. Eugen Kolisko is remembered for his pioneer work in anthroposophy. He was introduced to anthroposophy through his classmate, Walter Johannes Stein. In 1914, he first attended lectures given by Rudolf Steiner. Consequently, he became a member of the Anthroposophical Society, & in 1920 was invited as an instructor to the newly established Waldorf School at Stuttgart by Emil Molt.
Kolisko specialized in preventative medicine, & at the Waldorf School he worked with other teachers in creating a curriculum that focused on the spiritual & physical development of school children. He was instrumental in construction of several artistic therapies, such as anthroposophic music therapy & eurythmy. During the 1930s, he left the Waldorf School in Stuttgartbecause of the Nazi’s, relocating to England in 1936, where he undertook the establishment of a private educational institute. Kolisko died of cardiac failure outside London.
1947- UNO divides Palestine
***
Wed. 2 December 2020 – 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm CT
The Karma Project with the Central Regional Council“…We can understand that someone who goes to a place where he may succumb to an infection will have been driven there under the influence of a certain level of karmic consciousness…”
At Elderberries Urban 1st Aid – Art as Medicine 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
Urban First Aid – Art As Medicine is initiating a Johannine Painting Circle that will begin on Thursday, December 3rd at the Elderberries space on Lincoln Avenue, next to the Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago. Nancy Melvin will be our instructor during the season of Advent.
Calling all wistful painters who long to explore but are afraid for lack of skill.
We will work very simply. Not painting an image, rather an exercise in perception, a meditation using simple brush work to develop a keen eye for relationships, worked in silence with the finest of watercolor paints and papers.
Immersing ourselves in the flow of the year, we open ourselves to the Advent season. The richest botanical colors of the year have flared and now passed. Bold yellows and sharp puce, flaming reds, dark burgundies and deep blue greens dominated our vision just last week. Let us come together to find color on our paint brushes and immerse ourselves in the elementary color exercises given to First Graders at a Waldorf School.
Angela Lord’s book, Color Dynamics is a practical workbook that you can purchase from Hawthorn Press to augment our sessions if you’d like. After attending the first session to learn the set up, practice and clean up, you can miss our group and still do the work at home with your own materials and join us when you can. Socially distant tables with paints and paper provided.
There are no paywalls. You are invited to make a contribution that will help the cost of supplies and initiative. A sliding scale from $0 to $15. If you’d like to gift a higher amount this will support others who are unable to contribute financially.~Nancy Melvin
Nancy Melvin is a watercolor, lazure, natural dye and textile artist who is married to a trompe l’oeil muralist who also specializes in signage, oils, gold leaf and woodblocks. They run Melvin Studio together and raised two Waldorf students. Nancy taught at Chicago Waldorf and Great Oaks Waldorf School before founding MADE HERE, her clothing line currently at Union Handmade, 3860 N. Lincoln Ave and Buddy in the Chicago Cultural Center.
***
Sunday 20 December 2020, 2 pm – 3pm CT
‘Awakening to the Light in the Darkness’: A Christmas Contemplation with Rev. Craig Wiggins. In-Person at The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online
Unwrapping our Cosmic Gift: Thoughts on the Christmas Conference 1923
with the Central Regional Council. Themes inspired by Prokofieff’s book: May Human Beings Hear it! include: Turning Points of Time; Christ, Sophia and Michael; Foundation Stone Meditation.
Stay tuned for details. For more info. contact Hazel Archer hag@rschicago.org
***
Nancy Poer
Wednesday 6 January 2021, 2 pm – 4 pm CT
Joan’s Epiphany ‘What Joan of Arc Calls for Today’
In-Person at Elderberries Bio-dynamic Outpost & The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online Today on the Birthday of Joan of Arc we welcome special Guest Nancy Poer
We will also explore ‘The Destinies of Individuals and of Nations’, Lecture 5, ‘The Nature of the Christ Impulse and the Michaelic Sprit Serving It’ by Rudolf Steiner with Leading Thoughts by Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Social Sculpture: “The Passage” with Luicen Dante Lazar, + Singing & Eurythmy
Yesterday in a unique social sculpture experience, Lucien Dante Lazar transformed the Rudolf Steiner Branch & Elderberries Chicago into a Modern Rosicrucian laboratory & Temple, for what he calls ‘The Passage’. But 1st we gathered in the Upper Room where after a check-in of the very diverse group – young & old, we heard a bit about Lucien’s personal journey which has steered him to Apply the Philosophy of Anthroposophy to all his artistic gifts. He then led us in a series of movements which he created & uses to open himself to the etheric realm. This softened the group, & prepared us for a holy witnessingof the rendering in color & form of – ‘our group soul’, which he did on a large sheet of paper taped to the wall. With deliberation he would pause & take in the energies of the chamber, seeming to focus at the edge of the sense world to see what was inscribed from our souls there, & using the various pastels, translating it onto the page. All the while the Sun was setting in the western windows, suffusing the room with a neon orange light.
Slowly a series of colors became the image of a human figure – our collective forces in that moment. The dust that formed at the bottom was like reading the ashes of a sacred fire, which gave me thrill bumps, for the signature that was written there was so powerful, & rang true somehow, but the meaning of which I cannot put into words.
We were then promoted to create our own color gesture of: ‘What sees you?’. Immediately I thought of my angel, so I went to work trying to convey its essence with the rich Waldorf block crayons.
My Angel Sees Me ~hag
We left our work & went down to the Urban 1st Aid Art as Medicine, Elderberries space, lit only with candles. The installation of Lucien’s tapestry, made from natural fibers, was set up from when he shared ‘The Passage’ at our Michaelmas Festival. Beginning by facing the white surface of the piece, which to me represents the purity of his mentor Joan of Arc, Lucien began to sing into the fibers, calling forth her essence. The resonating of his exquisite vocalizations set every larynx vibrating, charging the atmosphere, thrilling down into the bones.
The energy shifted, & he moved behind the sculpture, stepping into the piece like a seal maiden stepping into the skin of, in this case, Joan of Arc.
His voice moving in a vast range, from deep rich baritones; scaling up & up, becoming her voice, until it cracked open the stars; & set my chakras spinning.
Somehow after this mighty transformative experience, we all made our way back to the Upper Room of the Branch, where we were instructed to do a quick write up of what was living in us. For me it was like an intimate voyage within, & at the same time, beyond – perfectly expressing what the Consciousness Soul Age is calling for. I felt that I was standing at the gate to the future which beckoned me into an eternal tunnel, and so I wrote:
‘Infinity upon a Time – We ripened in the warmth of a freely offered gift. In oneness we wafted until we garnered breath…& form…swirling into creation, we reflected the Divine…& soon fell into the mud, so we could learn to fashion it into art. We became the fingers of the gods – All the while boiling in the retort of alchemical alteration – readying us for the mystic marriage with The Christos-Sophia.
Worship activates our will – so we could tend the New Rose Garden, where the wood from the Tree of Life & the Tree of Knowledge grow together to form the target for Love to land – & expand – & give us – the meaning of the Earth.
A Rose Cross Renewed – Refining us, as we forge the Being of Anthroposophia, & with the regained cosmic Thinking of Michael, we Reclaim the 3-fold working of Art, Science, & Spirituality – Head, Hands, & Heart.
Yes. Now. We must live this New Story, & Speak it, thru our Soul Forces, of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, with Wisdom’s Love, to rend the veil & reveal the unified field of the etheric realm which marries us all, & opens humanity to a fresh seeing, a wholesome being, for freedoms purpose.’
After a few minutes of writing we circled up & took turns sharing what was behind our picture: ‘What Sees Me?’; & offering up our impressions & our writing.
How enlightening to hear the impact for each soul; some so different, some speaking as in a chorus – the struggles & the heightenings, the insights & echoes, tears & merriment, the intellect & the poetry, all reflecting the truth of the sacred moment that was carved out for us.
Thank you Lucien for leading us into this, our true reality.
~hag
***
Wed. 2 December 2020 – 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm CT
The Karma Project with the Central Regional Council“…We can understand that someone who goes to a place where he may succumb to an infection will have been driven there under the influence of a certain level of karmic consciousness…”
At Elderberries Urban 1st Aid – Art as Medicine 4251 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
Urban First Aid – Art As Medicine is initiating a Johannine Painting Circle that will begin on Thursday, December 3rd at the Elderberries space on Lincoln Avenue, next to the Rudolf Steiner Branch of Chicago. Nancy Melvin will be our instructor during the season of Advent.
Calling all wistful painters who long to explore but are afraid for lack of skill.
We will work very simply. Not painting an image, rather an exercise in perception, a meditation using simple brush work to develop a keen eye for relationships, worked in silence with the finest of watercolor paints and papers.
Immersing ourselves in the flow of the year, we open ourselves to the Advent season. The richest botanical colors of the year have flared and now passed. Bold yellows and sharp puce, flaming reds, dark burgundies and deep blue greens dominated our vision just last week. Let us come together to find color on our paint brushes and immerse ourselves in the elementary color exercises given to First Graders at a Waldorf School.
Angela Lord’s book, Color Dynamics is a practical workbook that you can purchase from Hawthorn Press to augment our sessions if you’d like. After attending the first session to learn the set up, practice and clean up, you can miss our group and still do the work at home with your own materials and join us when you can. Socially distant tables with paints and paper provided.
There are no paywalls. You are invited to make a contribution that will help the cost of supplies and initiative. A sliding scale from $0 to $15. If you’d like to gift a higher amount this will support others who are unable to contribute financially.~Nancy Melvin
Nancy Melvin is a watercolor, lazure, natural dye and textile artist who is married to a trompe l’oeil muralist who also specializes in signage, oils, gold leaf and woodblocks. They run Melvin Studio together and raised two Waldorf students. Nancy taught at Chicago Waldorf and Great Oaks Waldorf School before founding MADE HERE, her clothing line currently at Union Handmade, 3860 N. Lincoln Ave and Buddy in the Chicago Cultural Center.
***
Sunday 20 December 2020, 2 pm – 3pm CT
‘Awakening to the Light in the Darkness’: A Christmas Contemplation with Rev. Craig Wiggins. In-Person at The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online
Unwrapping our Cosmic Gift: Thoughts on the Christmas Conference 1923
with the Central Regional Council. Themes inspired by Prokofieff’s book: May Human Beings Hear it! include: Turning Points of Time; Christ, Sophia and Michael; Foundation Stone Meditation. For Zoom Details contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@utexas.edu
***
24 December 2020 – 5 January 2021, 11 am – 11:30 am CT
ASA Holy Nights 2020-21 “A Rose By Any Other Name…”
International online gathering on the Theme of the Divine Feminine.
Hosted by Laura Scappaticci & Tess Parker, featuring the Sophia Working Group.
Stay tuned for details. For more info. contact Hazel Archer hag@rschicago.org
***
Nancy Poer
Wednesday 6 January 2021, 2 pm – 4 pm CT
Joan’s Epiphany ‘What Joan of Arc Calls for Today’
In-Person at Elderberries Bio-dynamic Outpost & The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online Today on the Birthday of Joan of Arc we welcome special Guest Nancy Poer
We will also explore ‘The Destinies of Individuals and of Nations’, Lecture 5, ‘The Nature of the Christ Impulse and the Michaelic Sprit Serving It’ by Rudolf Steiner with Leading Thoughts by Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Social Sculpture: “The Passage” with Luicen Dante Lazar, + Singing & Eurythmy
Wednesdays 9:30-11:00 am – Karmic Relationships Vol 8 by Rudolf Steiner. We incorporate ‘The Calendar of the Soul’, eurythmy, focused discussion and seasonal artistic explorations in our study. All are Welcome. We meet in person in the Upper Room at the Branch.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” from ‘Critical Path’~ Buckminster Fuller
“Working with the Word in ‘Steiner Archetypal Speech’ is a learning to breathe the light of Christ and the sound of Christ . The speech forming force is the Christ force of love, and an antidote to the fear which the dark force is currently spreading round the globe. Breathe in light-life and love, not dark death and hate. Find yourSelf, Enliven the Word, Free the World”. ~Geoff Norris, Speech Artist
Darrel Hamon
This time we are living in will be one which our descendants, if they choose to be born, will tell stories about. We are the characters & narrators of this story-telling. So it’s up to us to pick the theme. Will the leitmotif be: A glorious new Turning Point in Time, where we learn to breathe light, & collectively outwit the nemesis, to undo an ancient knot, freeing humanity, to fulfill our divine purpose? Or will the chronicle twist around a convoluted plot, which ends with a whimper, as the decline of civilization blindly unfolds? Or perhaps the story will never even get written; just sound bites punched up with numbers & charts spit out by machines. – A repeated promotion of fear, feeding the propaganda, laying the ground for the global dosing. If we allow this dead-end scenario, what of our descendants? Will their DNA still be human? Will we step up, or succumb to the slide?
Cat Charissage
I resonate with the story that Geoff Norris is speaking: “This is how the larynx becomes the generative organ of the future, giving birth to the etheric babe . Speech mysteries abound. The Mysteries of Ephesus entered this realm, the Artemis mysteries, which have been Christened in the Sprachgestaltung – in Steiner Speech . The Christ force is the speech forming force and this speech force is the future – the logos”.
May we join our gifts together, to inspire & inscribe the true story of our fate.
Feast day of Barlaam & Josaphat two legendary Christian martyrs & saints, based on the life of the Gautama Buddha. The tale tells how an Indian king persecuted the Christian Church in his realm. When astrologers predicted that his own son would become Christian, the king imprisoned the young prince Josaphat, who nevertheless met the hermit Saint Barlaam & converted to Christianity. After much tribulation the young prince’s father accepted the true faith, turned over his throne to Josaphat, & retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated & went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam. The tale derives from a second to fourth century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, via a Manichaean version, the Arabic Kitab Bilawhar wa-Yudasaf (Book of Bilawhar and Yudasaf).
8 BC – Deathday of Horace, the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus; who crafted elegant hexameter verses & caustic iambic poetry. His career coincided with Rome’s momentous change from a republic to an empire. An officer in the republican army, he was befriended by Octavian’s right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas, & became a spokesman for the new regime.
511 – Feast Day of Clovis, the first king of the Franks to unite all of the tribes under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of royal chieftains to rule by a single king, ensuring that the kingship was passed down to his heirs. He is considered to have been the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the Frankish kingdom for the next two centuries. His name is Germanic, composed of the elements hlod (“fame”) & wig (“combat”), & is the origin of the later French given name Louis, borne by 18 kings of France. Clovis is also significant due to his conversion to Christianity in 496, largely at the behest of his wife, Clotilde, who would later be venerated as a saint for this act, celebrated today in both the Roman Catholic Church & Eastern Orthodox Church. The adoption by Clovis of Catholicism led to widespread conversion among the Frankish peoples, to religious unification across what is now modern-day France, Belgium & Germany, & three centuries later to Charlemagne’s alliance with the Bishop of Rome & in the middle of the 10th century under Otto I the Great to the consequent birth of the early Holy Roman Empire.
784 – Deathday of Vergilius of Salzburg an Irish Bishop & early astronomer.
1830 – Saint Catherine Labouré reported that the Blessed Mother appeared to her during evening meditations. She displayed herself inside an oval frame, standing upon a globe. She wore many rings set with gems that shone rays of light over the globe. Around the margin of the frame appeared the words Ô Marie, conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous (“O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee”). As Catherine watched, the frame seemed to rotate, showing a circle of twelve stars, a large letter M surmounted by a cross, & the stylized Sacred Heart of Jesus crowned with thorns & Immaculate Heart of Mary pierced with a sword. Asked why some of the gems did not shed light, Mary reportedly replied, “Those are the graces for which people forget to ask.” Sister Catherine then heard the Virgin Mary ask her to take these images to her confessor, telling him that they should be put on medallions, & saying “All who wear them will receive great graces.”
The chapel in which Saint Catherine experienced her visions is located at the mother house of the Daughters of Charity in Rue du Bac, Paris. Her incorrupt body is interred in the chapel, which continues to receive daily visits from Catholic pilgrims today.
***
POD (Poem Of the day)
~Where priests murmur in crumbling churches I fly Dropping feathers Thru sacred fires… In my mouth I hold the poison That brings night mares to unbelievers & healing to the wise… ~hag
***
Wed. 2 December 2020 – 7:15 pm – 8:30 pm CT
The Karma Project with the Central Regional Council“…We can understand that someone who goes to a place where he may succumb to an infection will have been driven there under the influence of a certain level of karmic consciousness…”
Stay tuned for details. For more info. contact Hazel Archer hag@rschicago.org
***
Nancy Poer
Wednesday 6 January 2021, 2 pm – 4 pm CT
Joan’s Epiphany ‘What Joan of Arc Calls for Today’
In-Person at Elderberries Bio-dynamic Outpost & The Rudolf Steiner Branch Chicago & online Today on the Birthday of Joan of Arc we welcome special Guest Nancy Poer
We will also explore ‘The Destinies of Individuals and of Nations’, Lecture 5, ‘The Nature of the Christ Impulse and the Michaelic Sprit Serving It’ by Rudolf Steiner with Leading Thoughts by Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Social Sculpture: “The Passage” with Luicen Dante Lazar, + Singing & Eurythmy
Wednesdays 9:30-11:00 am – Karmic Relationships Vol 8 by Rudolf Steiner. We incorporate ‘The Calendar of the Soul’, eurythmy, focused discussion and seasonal artistic explorations in our study. All are Welcome. We meet in person in the Upper Room at the Branch.
