9 April 2017 – Astro-Weather: Right after dark, Orion is still well up in the west-southwest in his spring orientation: striding down to the right, with his belt horizontal. The belt points left toward Sirius & right toward Aldebaran &, farther on, the Pleiades
This is a good week to look for Sirius in the evening sky. Blazing as the night sky’s brightest star; only the Moon & Jupiter outshine it on April evenings.
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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Badger Sultan
Today is Palm Sunday – The old Sun – Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem – The Prophesy fulfilled
Feast Day of of Mary Cleophas, who was at the crucifixion with Mary Magdalen & Mary-Sophia the Mother of Jesus
1241 –Mongol Invasions which necessitated the help of the Templars. The Templars worked hard to preserve the integrity of Europe. 73 years later – a little over the span of a human life – they were exterminated by the same forces that worked in the Mongols Ghengis Kahn & Kublai Kahn. (from Adriana Koulias)
1626 – The death day of Francis Bacon. In Karmic Relationships Steiner indicates that in a former life he was, Harun al Rashid.
“I have already spoken, here at Dornach too, of Lord Bacon of Verulam as the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid. We know how intense and determining an influence Bacon’s conceptions had on the whole succeeding evolution of the spiritual life, notably in its finer impulses and movements. Now the remarkable thing is this, that in Lord Bacon himself something took place which we may describe as a morbid elimination of old spirituality. For such spirituality he had after all possessed when he was Haroun al Raschid.
And thus we see, proceeding from the impulse of Lord Bacon, a whole world of daemonic beings. The world was literally filled supersensibly and sensibly with daemonic beings. (When I say “sensibly” I meant not, of course, visibly, but within the world of sense.)
Now it chiefly fell to the individuality of Alexander to wage war against these daemonic idols of Lord Bacon, Francis Bacon of Verulam. And similar activities, exceedingly important ones, were taking place on earth below. For otherwise the materialism of the 19th century would have broken in upon the world in a far more devastating way even than it did. Similar activities, taking place in the spiritual and in the physical world together, were allotted to the stream of Michael, until at length at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century there took place in super-sensible regions what I have already described as the enactment of a great and sublime super-sensible ritual and ceremony”. ~RS
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Chris Manvell
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~At dawn the thread of Time unfurls –
Sunlight streams across Space –
Time reaches in both directions
Knotted in the golden orb of the moment.
The Eye opens, the Heart unlocks, the Navel yawns
& takes the World in its belly
~hag
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From Emil Bock’s Holy Week: Palm Sunday
Matthew 21: 1-11
«Christ enters the Holy City on the first day of Holy Week. It is at first an unpretentious sight. He rides through the gate of the city upon an ass, followed by His faithful believers. But suddenly, as though he were the God of Spring himself, His entry creates frenzy in the souls of the people. It is as though the crowd were seized with the ecstasy of a pagan Spring Festival. Primitive rites are revived when the people cast down palm branches from the trees. The palm has always ranked as the tree-symbol of the sun which shines in the Spring sky with renewed strength. The crowd spread His path with the symbol of the sun.
Is He in fact perhaps the Friend and Lord of the Sun who has been promised to man as the great King of the Light? Is the original spiritual significance of the city of Jerusalem to be released from enchantment, the city which sheltered on Mount Zion one of the oldest sun-sanctuaries of mankind, before it was overshadowed by Mount Moriah, the Mount of the Moon, with the Temple of Solomon? Has the time of Melchisededek, the great Sun-Initiate, come back?
It would appear as though the Christ had now really found entrance into humanity. The high Sun- Spirit has already lived for three years in a human body and undergone earthly destiny. He held back and kept silence; and whenever He stepped forward He was met with hostility and lack of understanding. Is all this now to take a new direction? Is destiny to find a solution in an ecstatic jubilation?
No, this is the beginning of the most solemn week in human history. The same men who strew palms and break forth into fervid Hosannas will shriek with fanatical hatred a few days later: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” The Cross on Golgotha, the symbol of death, will companion the palm branch, the symbol of life. It is the Christ Himself who brings about the sudden reversal of feeling. He passes through the ecstatic crowd in silence, with grave countenance. He sees through the acclamations; they are merely superficial, and He aims at deeper levels. His will is directed to something very different.»
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Hilma Af Klint
CHICAGO Holy Week Gatherings:
This year we dedicate our study to those who have crossed the threshold. We will be reading to the dead from “The Mystery of the resurrection in the light of Anthropsophy” by Sergei O. Prokofieff. We will incorporate ‘The Calendar of the Soul’ verse for Easter, Group eurythmy, & focused discussion.
Study: 9 April 2017, Palm Sunday 2 pm – 3 pm
*SPECIAL EVENT: 3 pm – 6 pm – Work Party at the branch with Elisabeth Swisher & the youth from CWS – All are Welcome
Study: 13 April 2017, Maundy Thursday 7 pm – 8 pm
Study: 14 April 2017, Good Friday 7 pm – 8 pm
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15 April 2017, Holy Saturday – Our Easter-Tide Festival:
‘The Mystery of Golgotha – Then & Now’
2 pm – 4 pm
What was the Mystery of Golgotha?
What is the Mystery now?
What will it be for the future?
~Art Projections & Discourse with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Group work: Based on Baruch Urieli’s
‘Learning to Experience the Etheric World,
Empathy, the After-Image and a New Social Ethic’
$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged
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16 April 2017, Easter Sunday – 4 pm – 6 pm
The Midwest Eurythmy Group will perform
The Easter Verse from the Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner & Bach Fugue Bb minor ‘5 Voices’ & Prelude #22
Then we will gather for our study & the reading to the dead from “The Mystery of the resurrection in the light of Anthroposophy” by Sergei O. Prokofieff. – We will incorporate an Artistic Activity related to the study, Group Eurythmy, & Focused Discussion.
$10 Donation goes to support the Midwest Eurythmy Group
& Snacks to Share Encouraged
(Hazel will bring her famous slow cooked leg of lamb :
at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP
