Can you hear the Voice of Conscience?

13 June 2016 – The next few days brings the earliest sunrises of the year. Although the Northern Hemisphere’s longest day doesn’t occur until Earth’s Summer Solstice (on June 20 this year), Earliest Sunrise happens before, & Latest Sunset several days after.

Tobias Domingos_SequeiraDomingos Sequeira

175 BC – Tobias accompanied by the Archangel Raphael

313 – The Edict of Milan, signed by Constantine the Great and co-emperor Valerius Licinius granting religious freedom throughout the Roman Empire

1231 – Feast Day of Anthony of Padua, Portuguese priest & saint

1381 – The Peasants’ Revolt, also called Wat Tyler’s Rebellion or the Great Rising. The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic & political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340s, the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years’ War, & instability within the local leadership of London. Inspired by the sermons of the radical cleric John Ball, & led by Wat Tyler, a wide spectrum of rural society, including many local artisans & village officials, rose up in protest, burning court records & opening the local gaols. The rebels sought a reduction in taxation, an end to the system of unfree labor known as serfdom.

King Richard II, then aged 14, retreated to the safety of the Tower of London. On 13 June, the rebels destroyed the Savoy Palace. The following day, Richard met the rebels & acceded to most of their demands, including the abolition of serfdom.

1525 – Martin Luther marries Katharina von Bora, against the celibacy rule decreed by the Roman Catholic Church for priests and nuns

1774 – Rhode Island becomes the first colony to ban the importation of slaves

1864 – Birthday of Rudolf Kjellén a Swedish political scientist & politician who first coined the term “geopolitics”, Rudolf Steiner spoke about him in Karma of Untruthfulness GA 173/174

1865 – Birthday of W. B. Yeats, Irish poet & playwright, Nobel Prize laureate

1886 – Deathday of Ludwig II of Bavaria, patron of Wagner

1886 – A fire devastates much of Vancouver, British Columbia

1966 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their rights before questioning them

1971 – Vietnam War: The New York Times begins publication of the Pentagon Papers

~   ~  ~

lightningfirestarter

~I am cloaked in light

Loved & touched & bound by light, To enter Light…

My heart bares scars to prove I’ve lived

I’ve learned

The story of my existence as I live it

As it is spoken from the mouths of gods…

I lift my face to eternity

And am blessed by the kiss of Day

~   ~   ~

St. John's RS GA 229 Plate V

Part 3 in: A Summary of THE ST. JOHN IMAGINATION, from ~the Four Seasons and the Archangels, Lecture 4, by Rudolf Steiner

Can you hear the voice of conscience?

At the fullness of Summer, the light is so bright that it leaves no room for the shadow to hide. High Noon is the hour of judgment – a good time to remember what John said Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

What is this deep longing we can have as human beings, to understand the purposeful Summer gaze of the powerful Archangel Uriel? Looking downward we have the impression we can learn to look with spiritual eyes into the blue, silver-gleaming depths of the Earth in summer. And Steiner tells us that weaving around these silver-gleaming crystalline rays are shapes — he calls them “disturbing shapes, which continually gather & dissolve”. We can come to an imagination that we may perceive these shapes ashuman errors which stand out against the natural order of regular crystals here below.

It is to this that Uriel directs his earnest gaze. Here during the height of summer the imperfections of humankind, in contrast to the regularity of the growing crystal forms, are measured. From Uriel we gain the impression of how human morality becomes interwoven with nature.

Here we see that the moral world-order is not abstract, we see that humanity has an effect in the world, for good or for ill. On the one hand, “all that is in human virtue & human excellence rises up with the silver-gleaming lines & is seen as the clouds that envelop Uriel (red). It enters into the radiant Intelligence, transmuted into cloud-shaped works of art”.

But it is impossible to look towards the increasingly earnest gaze of Uriel, directed towards the depths of the Earth, without also seeing there the human deeds that have missed the mark. To this the Archangel must direct us with: wing-like arms, raised in earnest admonition, and this gesture by Uriel has the effect of imparting to humankind, what Steiner calls,  ”the historic conscience”.

This is Uriel’s “warning gesture”, pointing out how shabby humanity’s moral compass has become. And this reality comes as a mighty, living picture into our conscience.

And now if we have gained the impression of the connection of human morality with the crystalline element below and of human virtues with the shining beauty above, and if we take these connections into our inward experience, the real St. John Imagination will come to meet us”.

Tomorrow we meet Demeter

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

“You clouds of summer, radiant with Intelligence…”

12 June 2016, This evening The 1st Quarter Moon forms a great, nearly straight line with Spica to her left, & Jupiter & Regulus to her lower right.

cosmic cloak

1240 – At the instigation of Louis IX of France, an inter-faith debate, known as the Disputation of Paris, starts between a Christian monk & four rabbis

1429 – Hundred Years’ War: Joan of Arc leads the French army in their capture of the city & the English commander, William de la Pole.

1519 – Birthday of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany

1665 – England installs a municipal government in New York City (the former Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam)

1915 – Today is the 101st Birthday of David Rockefeller an American banker who served as chairman of Chase Manhattan Corporation. He is the oldest living member of the Rockefeller family, the only surviving child of John D. Rockefeller.

1929 – Birthday of Anne Frank, 1942 –receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday

1943 – Holocaust: Germany liquidates the Jewish Ghetto in Brzeżany, Poland Around 1,180 Jews are led to the city’s old Jewish graveyard & shot

1964 – Anti-apartheid activist and ANC leader Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison for sabotage in South Africa

1967 – Loving Day is an annual celebration held on the anniversary of The US Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia declaring that all U.S. state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.

1991 – Russians elect Boris Yeltsin as the president of the republic

1994 – Deathday of Nicole Brown Simpson the ex-wife of O. J. Simpson & the mother of two of his children. She was killed at her home in Brentwood, LA,  along with restaurant waiter Ron Goldman. O.J. Simpson was acquitted of the murders but was later found liable for the deaths in a civil trial.

2006 – Deathday of György Ligeti, composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as “one of the most important avant-garde composers of the twentieth century” & “one of the most innovative & influential among progressive figures of his time”.

Born in Transylvania, Romania, he lived in Hungary before emigrating to Austria. He became professor of composition at the Hamburg Hochschule für Musik und Theater.

He is best known by the public for the use of his music in film soundtracks. Most famously in the films of Stanley Kubrick, particularly with the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

~   ~   ~

cots June 9-15 To lofty summer heights.Van James

Calendar of the Soul – Twelfth Week [June 12, 2016 – June 18, 2016]

The radiant beauty of the world

  Compels my inmost soul to free

  God-given powers of my nature

  That they may soar into the cosmos,

  To take wing from myself

  And trustingly to seek myself

  In cosmic light and cosmic warmth. 

~   ~   ~ 

St. John's RS GA 229 Plate V

Part 2 in: A Summary of THE ST. JOHN IMAGINATION, from ~the Four Seasons and the Archangels Lecture 4, by Rudolf Steiner

When we look up to the heavens at MidSummer, we gain the impression of expansive cosmic Intelligence. We get the feeling that cosmic Intelligence is alive everywhere , an impression of many beings that live together & within each other, woven through with light; the polar opposite of the Will.

Down below, deep within the Earth, we feel —that in the blue darkness everything is experienced as will forces.  Yet up above we feel — everything we perceive is illumined, permeated, with a feeling of intelligence.

Within this radiant activity there appears the extremely earnest countenance of the Archangel Uriel, which arises glowing warmly out of the pervading radiant Intelligence (red head in the yellow, Plate V). We have the impression that this being forms its body of light, out of the radiant Intelligence. And for this to happen at the height of summer, the elemental spirits of the Earth must soar upwards. And as they do, they weave themselves into the shining Intelligence up above, & the shining Intelligence receives them into itself. And out of that gleaming radiance Uriel takes form.

It is with great earnestness that this representative of the weaving cosmic forces, seeking to embody himself in a vesture of light, appears in the time of summer. The intelligence of Uriel arises from the working together of the planetary forces, supported by the working of the fixed stars of the Zodiac. The deeds accomplished by Uriel in the radiant light, preserves the thoughts of the cosmos, in his thoughts.

The feeling comes: “You clouds of summer, radiant with Intelligence, in which are reflected up above the blue crystal-formations of the earth below, just as these blue crystal-formations mirror in turn the shining Intelligence of the summer clouds — out of your shining there appears in high summer, with earnest countenance, a concentrated Imagination of Cosmic Understanding…Through the power of attraction residing in the concentrated cosmic Intelligence of Uriel, the silver forces (white) are drawn upwards, and in the light of this inwardly shining Intelligence, as seen from the Earth, they appear as radiant sunlight, densifying into a glory of gold. One has the immediate feeling that the gleaming silver, streaming up from below, is received by the sunlit radiance above. And the earth-silver — the phrase is quite correct — is changed by cosmic alchemy into the cosmic gold which lives and weaves in the heights.”

With the sprouting, springing life, we can no longer speak of matter permeated by spirit, as it is in winter. We have to speak of spirit woven through with matter – with silver and gold.

Tomorrow we follow Uriel’s gaze into human morality & conscience.

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Current Festival & Program Events

Shavuot

Saturn-Day 11 June 2016

alexander-the-great- quote

323 – Deathday of Alexander The Great

1184 BC – Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned

1194 – Fire at Chartres Cathedral

1346 – Birthday of Charles IV (the last initiate to become Holy Roman Emperor

1364 – Deathday of Agnes of Hungary, patroness of Konigsfelden monastery

1924 – Rudolf Steiner sends Ita Wegman a letter speaking about her incarnation as Alexander The Great.

1963 – Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam

1963 – John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionize American society. Proposing equal access to public facilities, end segregation in education and guarantee federal protection for voting right

1994 – End of Soviet occupation of East Germany

~   ~   ~

bird girl

~Birthed by a bird song

Fixed in the stars

All that I am

Released in a Whitsun wind

Said I should fly

~hag

~   ~  ~

ruthgleaning

Today begins: Shavuot, an ancient Jewish Festival that celebrates the giving of the Torah, the first harvest, & the ripening of the first fruits. In the bible, Shavuot is called by various other names: Feast of Weeks, Feast of The First Fruits& Feast of the Giving of the Law.

This year it begins at sunset tonight & goes till June 15, 2016.

The farmers of Israel would begin their spring harvests with the barley crop at Passover. The harvest continued for seven weeks as the other crops & fruits began to ripen.

As each fruit matured, the farmer would tie a ribbon around the branch. This ribbon signified that these fruits were Bikkurim, or the first fruits.

At Shavuot the farmers would gather the Bikkurim into baskets & bring them to the city of Jerusalem.The farmers living close would bring fresh fruits, while those who had to travel a long distance carried dried raisins, figs, etc.

This joyful journey was celebrated with the music of fifes, timbres, & drums. As the pilgrims approached the city walls they were greeted by the inhabitants of the city.

Along with being a Harvest holiday & celebrating the Revelation of Torah; Shavuot honors the spiritual journey of Ruth:

The Scroll of Ruth is sung & celebrated as an integral part of the Jewish & Christian liturgical years; sections of it are also recited as part of the Protestant wedding ceremony.

A number of biblical scholars, have speculated that the Book of Ruth may have been written by a woman – its story is not only expressed entirely from a woman’s point of view, but the grammar of the original Hebrew shows an unusual content of gender equality, & only in Ruth do we find the unique feminine dual Hebrew endings. In fact the name “Ruth” literally means, “woman friend.”

There is also a hidden teaching in Ruth, a kind of women’s mysteries, & an allegory of the spiritual marriage.

The tender friendship between Ruth & Naomi, so unusual with a mother-in-law, has been celebrated in poetry, in prose & in art the world round. The scene between Naomi & her daughters in parting is bittersweet. As soon as Naomi decided to return to her own country, her 2 daughters in-law, whose husbands had died, assisted her in making the necessary preparations. Ruth secretly made her own, having decided to go with Naomi to the land of Judea.

When the appointed day arrived, mounted on three gray donkeys, they departed. A few miles out Naomi proposed to rest by the roadside to say farewell, &, after thanking them for all the love & kindness they had shown her, advised them to go no farther, but return to their home in that land of plenty. She told them frankly that life with her in a new strange land, would be hard, & she didn’t want them to sacrifice all the pleasures of their young lives for her.

Sad & lonely with the loss of their husbands, parting with Naomi seemed to intensify their grief. United in a common sorrow, the three women stood gazing in silence into each other’s faces, until Naomi, with her usual self-control & common sense, again pointed out to them all the hardships involved. Her words made a deep impression on Orpah. She hesitated & at last decided to abide by Naomi’s advice; but not Ruth.

Naomi had a peculiar magnetic attraction for Ruth, a charm stronger than kindred, country or ease. Her expressions of steadfast friendship in making her decision were so tender & sincere that they have become household words. She said: “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.”

Having bade farewell to Orpah, they journeyed together & made a home for themselves in Bethlehem. Naomi owned a small house, on the outskirts of town. After a few days of rest, Ruth said to Naomi, I must not sit here with folded hands, or spend my time in visiting neighbors, or in search of amusement, but I must go to work, to provide food & clothes.

Since it was the season for the wheat & barley harvests, Ruth heard that laborers were needed in the fields. It was evident that Ruth believed in the dignity of labor & of self-support. She threw her whole soul into her work & proved a blessing to her mother.

Naomi remembered that she had a rich kinsman, Boaz, whose name means strength. Ruth was employed in the field of Boaz; & in due time he took note of the fair maiden from Moab.

In harvest time he needed many extra hands, & he came often among the reapers to see how the work went. He heard such good accounts of Ruth’s industry, dignity & discretion that he ordered his men to make her work as easy as possible, to leave plenty for her to glean & to carry home in the evening. This she often sold on the way, & bought something which Naomi needed.

Naomi & Ruth enjoyed their evenings together. Naomi did not spend the day in idleness either. She had her spinning-wheel & loom to make their garments; she worked also in her garden, raising vegetables, herbs & chickens; & they talked over their day’s labor as they enjoyed their simple supper of herb tea, bread & watercress. Their menu was often made more tempting, thanks to Ruth’s generous purchases on her way home.

Boaz was the son of Salmon & Rahab, & according to the Chaldee, was not only a mighty man in wealth but also in wisdom, a most rare & excellent conjunction. Boaz was of the family of Elimelech, of which Ruth, by marriage, was a part also. Since Ruth had adopted the country of Naomi & was a proselyte to her faith, her marriage with Boaz was in accordance with Jewish custom. Boaz prized Ruth for her virtues, for her great moral qualities of head & heart.

Naomi was told by the spirit of prophecy, that from Ruth’s line should descend the most righteous men of the age, namely, David, Daniel, & the King Messiah.

In due time the prayer was answered, & Ruth bore a son. Naomi loved the child & shared in its care. But Ruth said: “The love of Naomi is more to me than that of seven sons could be.” Naomi was a part of Ruth’s household to the day of her death & shared all of her luxuries & happiness.

The child’s name was Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David. The name Obed signifies one who serves. (The motto of the Prince of Wales is ich dien – “I serve.” )

On Shavuot, folks light candles, decorate with greenery, eat dairy food, study Torah, attend prayer services, & read the Book of Ruth.

Tomorrow we return to our study of St. John’s Tide

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

THE ST. JOHN IMAGINATION

June 10, 2016

This morning – An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.2 rocked Southern California, rousing residents out of bed at about 1:05 a.m. PT .

The quake was centered about 13 miles north-northwest near Borrego Springs in the desert east of Los Angeles, the U.S. Geological Service reported.

On the west side of Los Angeles, about 100 miles from the epicenter, the quake produced a long shaking motion lasting about 30 seconds. Near Los Angeles International Airport, window blinds shook & the building structure rolled in steady waves. The quake was also felt in San Diego.

40 AD – Birthday of Apollonius of Tyana, a Greek Neopythagorean philosopher, around the time of Jesus.

671 – Emperor Tenji of Japan introduces a water clock (clepsydra) called Rokoku.

1190 –Frederick I Barbarossa drowns in the river Saleph while leading an army to Jerusalem

1786 – A landslide dam on the Dadu River created by an earthquake ten days earlier collapses, killing 100,000 in the Sichuan province of China

1886 – Mount Tarawera in New Zealand erupts, killing 1,530 people & burying the famous Pink & White Terraces. Eruptions continue for 3 months creating a large, fissure across the mountain peak

1898 – Spanish–American War: U.S. Marines land on the island of Cuba

1915 – Birthday of Saul Bellow, Canadian-American author & playwright, Nobel Prize laureate

1963 – Equal Pay Act of 1963 aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex (see Gender pay gap) was signed into law by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program

1964 – United States Senate breaks a 75-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, leading to the bill’s passage.

1967 – The Six-Day War ends: Israel and Syria agree to a cease-fire

1977 – The Apple II, one of the first personal computers, goes on sale

2002 – The first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans is carried out by Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom

~   ~   ~

eye light

~O fickle winds & swirling dust

Mirage of trees in Summer

Let me remember what is real

~hag

~   ~   ~

A Summary of THE ST. JOHN IMAGINATION, by Rudolf Steiner ~from the Four Seasons and the Archangels Lecture 4

In the sense world we see the being of Nature sprouting, budding —from the powers of sleep the forces of vegetative growth, are given form. But in this sleeping Nature, the spiritual which animates & weaves through everything in Nature is revealed.

In summer humanity is bound up with Nature, but, if we have right feeling & perception for it, objective spirituality comes towards us from out of Nature’s interweaving life. And so, to find the essential human being during the St. John’s time, at midsummer, we must turn to the objective spirituality in the outer world, & this is present everywhere in Nature.

If we follow Nature in high summer with deepened spiritual insight & with perceptive eyes, we find our gaze directed to the depths of the Earth itself. We find that the minerals down there send their inner crystal-forming process towards us more vividly than at any other time of the year; shaping itself into lines, angles & surfaces. “If we are to have an impression of it as a whole, we must picture this crystallizing process as an interweaving activity, colored throughout with deep blue”.

St. John's RS GA 229 Plate V

We can feel that as a human form we have grown out of the blue depths of the earth’s crust; permeated with force by the silver-gleaming crystal lines.

Using our imaginative thinking, we could ask: “How is it that these silver-sparkling crystal lines & waves are working within me? What is it that lives & works there, silver-gleaming in the blue of the Earth? — then one knows: That is cosmic Will. And one has the feeling of standing upon cosmic Will”.

Tomorrow we look up to the heights

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Current Festival & Program Events

Nero fiddled while Rome burned…

June 9, 2016

rome is burning

53 – The Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.

68 – The Roman emperor Nero commits suicide, after quoting Homer’s Iliad. In 64 AD, most of Rome was destroyed in the Great Fire of Rome, which many Romans believed Nero himself had started in order to clear land for his planned palatial complex, the Domus Aurea. Nero’s rule is associated with tyranny & extravagance. He is known for many executions, including that of his mother. Nero was rumored to have had captured Christians dipped in oil & set on fire in his garden at night as a source of light. This view is based on the writings of Tacitus, Suetonius & Cassius Dio, the main surviving sources for Nero’s reign. Facing a false report of being denounced as a public enemy who was to be executed, he committed suicide, the first Roman emperor to do so.

373 – Feast Day of Ephrem the Syrian, Turkish hymnographer & theologian

597 – Feast day of Columbanus the Elder, Irish Celtic Christian. Rudolf Steiner speaks about him as the individuality Iona in GA 178, where the sacredness of Ireland is described. http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA178/English/RSP1966/19171119p02.html

Madonna maesta Duccio di Buoninsegna

1311 – Duccio’s Maestà Altarpiece, a seminal artwork of the early Italian Renaissance, is unveiled & installed in Siena Cathedral in Siena, Italy

1870 Deathday of Charles Dickens

1915 – William Jennings Bryan resigns as Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State over a disagreement regarding the United States’ handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania

Donald-Duck-in-The-Wise-Little-Hen-donald-duck-7495151-550-401

1934 – Donald Duck made his debut in the Silly Symphonies cartoon “The Wise Little Hen.”

1940 – Norway surrendered to the Nazis during World War II

1941 – The Christian Community is banned in Germany

1954 – McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

1967 – Six-Day War: Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria.

~   ~   ~

pleiades_elihu_vedder

~Fingering the rags of my exquisite mortality

I leap up from matter to ride the current of spirit

Swirling like incense on the altar

7 grains of frankincense

Smoldering in the flame

7 sparks dancing in the ethers

Reaching, always reaching

Up, out, into

The 7 stars

Splitting the northern sky

There I nestle with my sisters

In the lap of the bear

Ever watchful & awake in my striving

~hag

~   ~   ~

RS where thoughts come from

“The teachers in the Mysteries spoke to their pupils somewhat as follows. They said: “Every year at Midsummer, a solemn offering must be made to the Upper Gods in gratitude for the thoughts they vouchsafe to humanity. For if this is not done it is all too easy for the Luciferic powers to invade man’s thinking and he is then permeated by these powers. He can avoid this if every Summer he is mindful of how the Upper Gods have given him these thoughts and at the Midsummer season lets his thoughts flow back again, as it were, to the Gods.”

In this way the men of olden times tried to safeguard themselves from Luciferic influences. The leaders of the Mysteries called together those who were in a sense their pupils and in their presence enacted that solemn rite at the culmination of which the thoughts that had been revealed by the Upper Gods were now offered up to them in upward-streaming feelings.

The external rite consisted in solemn words being sung or spoken into rising smoke which was thus set into waves. This act was merely meant to signify that the offering made by man’s inmost soul to the Upper Gods was being inscribed into an outer medium — the rising smoke — through form-creating words. The words of the prayer inscribed into the rising smoke the feelings which the soul desired to send upwards to the Gods as an offering for the thoughts they had revealed. – See more at: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19221223p01.html#sthash.wBDzuZDX.dpuf

firecircle

Friday June 24th –St. John’s Tide– 7pm – 9pm

Bon-Fire Social Gathering

Pot-Luck Dinner at the Home of Hazel & Chuck Ginsberg

Please Bring Food & Drink to Share in Community

RSVP by June 22 ReversRitual@gmail.com for address & directions   

~   ~   ~

st. John-the-baptist

Sunday June 26th, 2pm -4pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch of the Anthroposophical Society 4249 N. Lincoln Ave, Chicago IL. 60618. MAP

He Must Increase but I Must Decrease– Exploring the Mysteries of Midsummer 

with special guest Robert Karp, Co-Director of the Biodynamic Association.

How do we stand wakefully within the sublime mysteries of summer and St. John’s tide? Who is the mysterious archangel of Midsummer described by Rudolf Steiner and what is his relationship to John the Baptist? Can we trace his influence in modern culture, in modern America? What transformation does he seek to bring into our souls and into our communities?

These are some of the questions we will explore in this talk and, in a series of social-artistic exercises that will be incorporated into the talk.

Dulcimer music by Dr. Elaine Wagner.

More details coming soon. For more info. Contact Hazel ReverseRitual@gmail.com