20 May 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: This evening look for the bright “wondering star” at the upper right of Bella Luna, which is none other than the Beneficent King: Jupiter.

“…So the positions of the planets actually show what human beings themselves have previously engraved in those spheres. When we consider the position of the planets astronomically, and also the position of the planets in relation to the fixed stars, these are a kind of indication of what we have ourselves inscribed there. The actual planets are not of consequence; what affects us is what we have ourselves inscribed in each sphere. Here we have the real reason why the constellations of the planets do indeed work upon the human being. It is because the human being passes through the spheres. When the Moon stands in a particular position relative to Jupiter and to a fixed star, the members of this configuration work together. This means the qualities of Jupiter together with those of the Moon and the fixed star work upon the person, and thereby occurs what can come about through their working together. So it is actually our moral legacy, deposited during the life between death and birth, that appears karmically in the new life as star configurations in our destiny. That is the deeper basis for the constellation of the stars and its connection with human karma”. ~Rudolf Steiner, lecture March 3, 1913.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

World Bee Day – Birthday in 1734 of Anton Janša, the pioneer of beekeeping.The purpose of this international day is to acknowledge the role of bees & other pollinators for our ecosytem

325 – The First Council of Nicaea is formally opened, starting the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church. Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the divine nature of God the Son & His relationship to God the Father, the construction of the first part of the Nicene Creed, & establishing uniform observance of the date of Easter, & the promulgation of early canon law.

1497 – John Cabot sets sail from Bristol, England, on his ship Matthew looking for a route to the west.

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Calicuta India.

1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.

1609 – Shakespeare’s sonnets are illicitly published in London, by Thomas Thorpe.

1631 – The city of Magdeburg in Germany is seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire & most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty Years’ War.

1645 – Yangzhou massacre: the 10-day massacre of 900,000 residents of the city of Yangzhou, part of the Transition from Ming to Qing.

1802 – By the Law of 20 May 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstates slavery in the French colonies, revoking its abolition in the French Revolution.

1813 – Napoleon Bonaparte leads his French troops into the Battle of Bautzen in Saxony, Germany, against the combined armies of Russia and Prussia. The battle ends the next day with a French victory

1862 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act into law

1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people.

1891 –The first public display of Thomas Edison’s prototype kinetoscope

1902 – Cuba gains independence from the United States.

1940 –The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1956 – In Operation Redwing, the first United States airborne hydrogen bomb is dropped over Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean

1983 – First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.

1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

***

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~To my body I gave the power of my heart
Bee love & create I said
Beat within the grace of the world’s rhythms
A radiant sun
In tune with the music of becoming
A ferry thru dark churning waves
An oasis flowing with fresh waters
On the high tide of blessings
To open my head
to pure thought unfolded
~hag

***

The Honeybee, Sustainer of Life on Earth
By Gunther Hauk

Rarely are we aware of the very subtle interrelationships of life, for they are hidden by the facts that jump out at you. We all know that the bison provided meat, hides and bones for the American Indians. And yet, these gifts were almost side effects compared to the critical, yet less-seen role that the bison had of building up the deep, rich humus in the prairies, a richness in fertility creating the breadbasket of our nation. Our conventional agriculture is still relying on this richness, but depleting it by the year.

When we think of the honey bee, we think of her gifts of pollinating about 3/4 of our daily food, of the honey she prepares out of the nectar of plants, of pollen and propolis. These, too, are minor contributions to life on earth, compared to the far greater importance she holds as sustainer of life. She shares this task with all the stinging insects, the hornets and wasps, the other bee species and the ants.

“Sustainer of life?? Isn’t this a bit exaggerated?”- you might ask. It may seem so, but the facts verify this statement. Let me explain. If we pose the question about which group of organic substances are at the basis of all life processes in plant, animal and the human being, the answer might astonish and surprise most people. It’s the acids! Little do we consider acids as the basis of our physical life since we experience them as caustic, corrosive, or even dangerous. This they are, but in homeopathic dilution, we find them in all life processes in nature, in every part of our body: DNA, fatty acids, amino acids, peptic acid, uric acid, folic acid, just to name the more familiar ones. Without these acids, no life processes could take place.

In plants it is the oxalic acid that provides the basic life-giving substance. Oxalis clover, rhubarb, and wood sorrel have lots of it and we can taste the sour acid element more easily than in most vegetables. In the animal kingdom, specifically in the stinging insects, it is the formic acid that plays a major role. Formic acid (formica = the ant) is the poison we feel when an ant bites us or a wasp or bee stings us. Each of these species produces a variation of formic acid.

As the bees and wasps receive nectar and pollen from the flowers, they are able to take in some of this oxalic acid, but they do not only take, they also provide a gift for the plants. As these insects fly and crawl through nature, they in return distribute their formic acid. An old forest ranger in Germany once told me that wherever ants are missing in forests, the forests lose their vitality and die more quickly than if there is an ample amount of these insects around. Thus, ant colonies are being reestablished and protected in European forests to keep the trees healthy.

This formic acid, in finest dilution, wafts through the air and in Spring the germinating seeds and budding perennials receive this formic acid that has been produced the year before and still saturates the atmosphere, as their Spring tonic. So, on such a basic level, these stinging insects are the nurturers of life on earth since plants provide food, directly or indirectly, to all other beings.

Oxalic and formic acid each acts as an invigorator, as a boost to the life processes for the other kingdom. It is with the help of minute quantities of formic acid that the earth’s entire plant life grows and thrives. And, on the other hand, it is the plants’ oxalic acid that stimulates and invigorates all of the animal and human kingdom. The commonly accepted image we have of life being based on fight and competition, with the survival of the fittest, loses its sting when we consider this grandiose symbiosis, this mutually beneficial interrelationship.

Let us take a closer look at the role these acids play in our very own lives. As we eat our spinach, broccoli, chard, carrots, the fruit and berries, we also take up the oxalic acid contained in them. Now a mysterious transformation occurs: we are able to change this acid into our very own formic acid. Actually, one can achieve this very process in the chemical laboratory. Glycerin is added to oxalic acid in a retort; when heated, carbon dioxide escapes and the steamy vapors will condense, lo and behold, as formic acid. As we have small amounts of glycerin in our body, the fire of our digestion is able to instigate this transformation and we all know that carbon dioxide is exhaled with our breath.

It is an established fact that our entire endocrine processes—governing growth, health, reproduction—function by virtue of miniscule amounts of the secretion created by the pituitary gland. Little, if any, scientific knowledge exists that on the same level of importance, this process of transforming oxalic acid into formic acid lets us live as spiritual beings in a physical body *(Rudolf Steiner, “Bees”).

For our life on Earth we depend on the vast numbers of individual stinging insects, which enliven the plant kingdom with their formic acid. Our attitude toward these insects will have to undergo a drastic revision, away from disdain, anger, and fear toward gratitude and respect, toward nurturing instead of killing.

Considering the honey bee, the ants, wasps and hornets, we can now understand that our lives depend on them. But why does the honey bee take a special place among all these formic acid producing insects? In contrast to the solitary bumblebee, carpenter and orchard bees, the hornets and wasps, honey bees live through the winter as a colony of perhaps 10 -20 thousand individual workers. By the end of March they may have already doubled their numbers and by the summer solstice reach 40-60 thousand individual worker bees. Bumble or orchard bees, wasps or hornets have only young queens surviving the winter and it takes two to three more months until a colony of several hundred insects can do their enlivening work in nature. The vast numbers of honeybees flying already in early Spring not only contribute to the much needed pollination, but to the amount of formic acid released into nature.

Now we may better appreciate the statement that our very lives depend on the care of the honeybee, on beekeeping. To those who are aware of this fact, Colony Collapse disorder (not only a national, but rather a global phenomenon) becomes a crisis far more serious than global warming. In the US alone we have lost millions of colonies in the last two decades. Can farmers, gardeners, forest rangers witness a decline in natural vitality? You bet! Not only our elm trees are practically gone, now it’s our ash trees, coastal oaks, beeches and other species that are being diminished in great numbers. Of course we will try to find the causes in beetles, viruses or air pollution. These may be a contributing factor, but on a much deeper level, it is the diminishing of the multitudes of stinging insects—many of these are simply diminished by the monocultures and lack of forage, as well as by all the poisons and pollution put into our environment— that pose a real threat to nature’s and our own well-being.

My book “Toward Saving the Honeybee” (first published in 2002) predicted a serious crisis if the present day exploitive, highly mechanized beekeeping practices, combined with our poison-loaded agriculture, do not find their way to a new paradigm. Both are the major components, are at the root of the Colony Collapse Disorder phenomenon.

In 2006, before CCD, Spikenard Farm was founded with the vision to establish a biodynamic farm with a honeybee sanctuary at its heart. A sanctuary is a place where a being is cared for in the best possible way so that a healing can take place. Annual and perennial forage is being planted and organic, sustainable beekeeping methods are being taught, methods that are, to a great part, diametrically opposed to conventional beekeeping practice.

In 1923, in his lectures on bees and other insects, Rudolf Steiner said that, if we were not to change the industrialized beekeeping methods (which had been introduced two to three decades before), the honeybee might not survive the 20th century. This statement was not accepted by Mr. Mueller, the beekeeper attending the lectures. Steiner simply said that the long-term effect of these methods could not be seen right away. He offered Mr. Mueller a conversation in 80 years.

I wonder what Mr. Mueller has to say now?

***

Sun. 26 May 25th 2019 – The ‘Easter Paradox’ Workshop 1 pm – 4pm

The 2nd Coming leading to a “World Whitsun”

A Journey thru the ‘Easter Paradox’ of 2019, thru Ascension into Whitsun as a ‘United Soul Endeavor’ 

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud: AUM = A – I stand for myself, U- I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life

Social Sculpture with Deborah Rogers: Are you an ‘Autumn Person’ or a ‘Spring-time Person’? Through Art, the bridge between science & spirit, we warm the ‘I’, to open the heart, in support of healthy community.

What are my gifts-What are my tools? How can I place them in right relationship within the social realm? How can I hone them to strengthen and enhance the world? Leading Thoughts & original art-collage projections with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

Enter the Labyrinth of Vitae Sophia – Human hearts, once warmed, can rise up to meet the source of wisdom, like flowers turning toward the sun.  

Eurythmy with Mary Ruud: Living into the Foundation Stone of Love  – How can we take our individual Inner Whitsun & expand it, into what Steiner calls the “World Festival of Knowledge” a path leading from ‘Sprit Recollection’, to ‘Sprit Sensing’, to ‘Sprit Beholding’?

$10 for art supplies & Snacks to Share Encouraged

for more info. contact Hazel

Read a compilation of research into this year’s interesting ‘Easter Paradox’ – A Cosmic Wake Up Call: The Easter Paradox of 2019

Also on 7 May at the Rudolf Steiner House in Ann Arbor MI, the headquarters for the Anthroposophical Society in America

also:

10 am – 1 pm Saturday 8 June 2019 -4804 Sewanee Road, Nashville, TN 37220. for more info. contact Cathy Green cgreen@grasslandaquatics.com

also

12 Noon Potluck, Program 1 pm -4 pm Whitsunday 9 June 2019, In Knoxville, TN. for more info. contact William Rogers wmerogers@gmail.com

11-12 June 2019, Ashville, TN. for more info. contact Marnie Muller 

*Hazel Archer-Ginsberg is the founder of the website and blog Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year (www.reverseritual.com). She is an Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, and “Anthroposopher.” She works as the Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch as well as with the Traveling Speakers Program, and she serves on the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

*** 

Friday 7 June 2019, 7-9pm

4804 Sewanee Road, Nashville, TN

‘Preparation, Illumination & Initiation’ – The Rosy Cross

Incorporating ‘The Golden Legend’, & the Plant vs. Human Kingdoms, To enliven our work with ‘The Rose Cross Meditation’.

Using our head, hands & heart we will enact this powerful Rosicrucian tool given to us by Rudolf Steiner, as a soul path of initiation, using imaginative cognition to build spiritual etheric forces; a Metamorphoses of Self & of World.

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year. Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, Anthroposopher, working as the Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

***