‘I Think Speech‘ Podcast for today.
Greetings friends – I was hoping my headache would subside so I could share my dream from this morning, but hells bells Sarah Sue no luck. What does Steiner say about pain? Well off hand I remember recently reading in our ‘Manifestations of Karma’ lectures by our dear Dr. Steiner, that an illness involving pain or inflammation is Luciferic – Illness with tumors or cancer are more Ahrimanic. I also remember at another time reading how ‘pain is crystalized wisdom’. Ha, then I started thinking of the song by Sting, ‘King of Pain’. Anyway humor always helps.
For the last few nights in an attempt to bring some insights into a karmic conundrum, I have been employing one of Steiner’s ‘Karma exercises’ – where you take a physical attribute or mannerism that sticks out for you of the person you are working to get some clarity about into your sleep. The 1st night I actually slept pretty well & woke up feeling as if my angel had removed a brick from my shoulders. This was a powerful affirmation because after a long hard conversation, the 2 of us had said we were going to hand it over to our angels.
But last night my monkey mind was running mad with a conversation involving the 3rd person in the triad, & I couldn’t rest. I finally got out of bed around 3 am & wrote out some questions. After my sunrise adulations, which always do wonders for my soul, I laid down for a bit before I had to prepare for my ‘Tune-in Tuesday’ presentation for our 6 BE community. And that’s when I had the dream:
I had been assigned to open Pandora’s Box. I even looked like a painting of our dear unlucky heroine, with the Grecian robes & wreathed hair etc. I braced myself, & with a shiver lifted the lock, cracking open a large chest. I remember thinking, that it called to mind the image of the Holy Ark of The Covenant, bright shining metal with long handles, but the golden angels on top looked very Egyptian. At first all that happened was that a big honey bee came zig zagging out, & I thought ‘O how beautiful, it’s a bee. This is great.’
So then I opened the box all the way. But then the bee turned out to be a hornet in disguise, & she was followed by a whole nest of killer hornets. I put my body in front of the box to try & keep them from all coming out. I looked down to see my now bare breasts covered with stings – swelling & oozing with poison. I struggled to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. Actually I was saying to myself open your eyes, open your eyes, even though in the dream I was trying to close them.
Anyway that was when the hornet, who had at first been disguised as a bee, came back into view, this time it had a human face that looked like a crumbled piece of paper. I gasped because I recognized who it was, & when I did, the face dissolved into dust.
The Egyptian Angels lifted me up & whispered in my ear. And I knew what to do. That’s when I woke up. I had a pounding headache, but I went into my study & started doing the eurythmy gestures for ‘Faith, Love, & Hope’.
I do these most every day at Sunrise, but I had done something else this morning. While I was doing ‘Faith’ which I like to call ‘Ah Ha’ for awe & reverence, it was so strange, I struggled with it. I found it very awkward. Usually I love this one. I have always felt it came easy for me to practice reverence. But then I realized that while it comes easy to have Faith in the seasonal expressions of beauty, I don’t always bring that faith or awe into my human relationships.
And now writing this I am wanting to hope that perhaps because I let the hornet disguised as a bee bring its full wrath upon me, that maybe now our karmic debt could be paid. But, I know for this to happen, I will have to apply compassion in the form of ‘Faith, Love & Hope’ not just in a general way, but specifically toward the hornet & then maybe she would actually become a honey bee. And maybe my headaches would go away…
~hag
27 April 2021 – “speaking with the Stars”
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (From the Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner & Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Feast day of Our Lady of Montserrat – One of the Black Madonnas of Europe, (“the little dark-skinned one” or “the little dark one”)- Believed by some to have been carved in Jerusalem in the early days of the Church. The Patron Saint of Catalonia, an honor she shares with Saint George. The famed image once bore the inscription ”Negra Sum Sed Formosa” (Latin: I am Black, but Beautiful).
The hymn to the Virgin of Montserrat, known as “el Virolai” is sung at noon on her feast day & begins with the words: “Rosa d’abril, Morena de la serra…” (April rose, dark-skinned lady of the mountain…). Therefore, this virgin is sometimes also known as the “Rosa d’abril”
Feast Day of St. Zita, the Italian patron saint of maids, often appealed to in order to help find lost keys. Born in Tuscany in the village of Monsagrati, not far from Lucca. At the age of 12, she became a servant in the Fatinelli household. For a long time, she was unjustly despised, overburdened, reviled, & often beaten by her employers & fellow servants for her hard work & obvious goodness. The abuse did not deprive her of her inward peace, & her love of those who wronged her. Her faith gradually moved the family to a religious awakening.
Zita often said to others that devotion is false if slothful. She considered her work assigned to her by God. She always rose several hours before the rest of the family to pray.
One anecdote relates a story of Zita giving her own food to the poor. One morning, Zita left her chore of baking bread to tend to someone in need. Some of the other servants told on her & when they went to investigate, they claimed to have found angels in the kitchen, baking the bread for her.
St. Zita died peacefully in her sleep & a star appeared above the attic where she lay. After 150 miracles were proven, she was canonized in 1696.
Her body was exhumed in 1580, discovered to be incorrupt, but has since become mummified. St. Zita’s body is currently on display for public veneration in the Basilica di San Frediano in Lucca.
On her feast day families bake a loaf of bread in her honor.
470 – Birthday of Socrates – teacher of Plato. “Socrates gathers his pupils around himself, but how does he feel in relation to them? His manner of treating these pupils has been called the art of a spiritual midwife because he wished to draw out from the souls of his pupils what they themselves knew, and what they were to learn. He put his questions in such a manner that the fundamental inner mood of the souls of his pupils was stirred to movement. He transmitted nothing from himself to his pupils, but elicited everything from them. The somewhat dry and prosaic aspect of Socrates’ view of the world and the way he presented it comes from the fact that Socrates actually appealed to the independence and to the innate reasoning power of every pupil.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Gospel of Mark: Lecture 4
399 BC – Deathday of Socrates
711 – Tarik ibn Ziyad, (who according to the spiritual scientific research of Rudolf Steiner in Karmic relationships Vol. 1 Chapter 10, reincarnated as Darwin) leads his army into Gibraltar
1667 – John Milton, blind & impoverished, sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for 10 pounds
1882 – Deathday of R.W.Emerson essayist, lecturer, & poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism & a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, & he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays & more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.
Emerson gradually moved away from the religious & social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating & expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay “Nature”. Following this work, he gave a speech entitled “The American Scholar” in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America’s “intellectual Declaration of Independence”.
Emerson wrote most of his important essays as lectures first & then revised them for print. His first two collections of essays, Essays: First Series (1841) & Essays: Second Series (1844), represent the core of his thinking. They include the well-known essays “Self-Reliance”, “The Over-Soul”, “Circles”, “The Poet” &”Experience”. Together with “Nature”, these essays made the decade from the mid-1830s to the mid-1840s Emerson’s most fertile period.
Emerson wrote on a number of subjects, never espousing fixed philosophical tenets, but developing certain ideas such as individuality, freedom, the ability for humankind to realize almost anything, & the relationship between the soul & the surrounding world. Emerson’s “nature” was more philosophical than naturalistic: “Philosophically considered, the universe is composed of Nature and the Soul”. Emerson is one of several figures who “took a more pantheist approach by rejecting views of God as separate from the world.”
He remains among the linchpins of the American romantic movement, & his work has greatly influenced the thinkers, writers & poets that followed him. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was “the infinitude of the private man.” Emerson is also well known as a mentor & friend of Henry David Thoreau, a fellow transcendentalist.
(Spoken of by Rudolf Steiner as Tacitus in Vol 2 lecture 5, of Karmic Relationships. Tacitus was considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians. He lived in what has been called the Silver Age of Latin literature, & is known for the brevity & compactness of his Latin prose, as well as for his penetrating insights into the psychology of power politics )
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~I am blind until the moment I see
Thru another soul’s eyes
Listening with my hands
Lips pressed in prayer
My head rests in love
Limbs moving in sync with the will
Of spirit ensouled
The Logos in lemniscate
Strengthening the ether
In visible speech we stand
Together at the center of forever
~hag
The Karma Project – Manifestations of Karma Study Group May 5, 2021 – 7:15 pm Central (8:15 pm Eastern) |
“This is the other aspect of the karma of higher beings — that we develop a power of love which is not confined to humanity alone but which penetrates right into the cosmos. We shall be able to channel this love into beings higher than ourselves, and they will accept this as our offering. It will be a soul sacrifice. This sacrifice in soul will rise up to those who once poured their gifts upon us like the smoke of incense rising up to the spirits in times when human beings still possessed the gifts of the spirit. In those days they were only able to send up the symbolic smoke of sacrifice to the gods. In times to come they will send up streams of love to the spirits and out of this offering of love higher forces will pour down to humankind, which will work, with ever-increasing power, in our physical world, directed by the spiritual world. These will be magical forces in the true sense.“~Rudolf Steiner, Manifestations of Karma, Chapter 11, “Individual Karma and Shared Karma”, Hamburg, 28 May, 1910 … focus of the May 5 meeting. The lecture can be found online at the RS Archive (eLib) by clicking this link: https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA120/English/RSP1984/19100528p01.htmlThe Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America invites you to join our ongoing study conversation. The study has been divided among four volunteers who will summarize their section to rebuild it as a foundation for our conversation. Please familiarize yourself with the lecture if possible so you will feel comfortable sharing your reflections and thoughts with the group.This collection of lectures has been republished by Rudolf Steiner Press under the title: “Manifestations of Karma.” This book is a translation from German of Die Offenbarung des Karma (Ga 120), published in English by Rudolf Steiner Press in 1996. This will be a “Zoom” conference call allowing us an opportunity to see one another while conversing (or audio only if you prefer). To connect to the audio/video-conference: Video Conference Details: Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81210110113 Meeting ID: 812 1011 0113 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdBJRUquk5 If you have questions, please contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@utexas.edu |
Agenda for our Study Call 7:15 Welcome and Introductions 7:18 Verse 7:25 Study led by three volunteers Note: CRC team will ID volunteers Camille – pg. 202 to 207 Travis – pg. 207 to 212 Mary – pg. 212 to 218 Hazel – pg. 218 to end 8:05 Conversation 8:28 Close with verse |
Living into the Spheres of Cosmic Life and Cosmic Light: Easter, Ascension, Whitsun in the Calendar of the Soul with Luigi Morelli, Hazel Archer and Geoff Norris – Zoom Host Frank Agrama
13 May 2021 Ascension Thursday 5- 6:30pm PT / 6-7:30 pm MT / 7 pm – 8:30 pm CT / 8-9:30 pm ET / 1 am – 2:30 am GMT / 2 am – 3:30 am CET
Join Zoom meeting: https://zoom.us/j/7052931041?pwd=TStPVnpFRzlwZ0NpRURBZDNyYnpBQT09
Meeting ID: 705 293 1041 – Passcode: Ascension
Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/a961qZZhF
Welcome – Frank Agrama
Verse #6 – Geoff Norris
Ascension: The Secret Teachings, The Elementals, & The Etheric Christ – Hazel Archer
Calendar of the Soul – Luigi Morelli
For those who are familiar with the Calendar of the Soul we could say that during spring and summer we follow the ascent of cosmic life, cosmic light, cosmic warmth and cosmic Word as gifts bestowed upon the human being by the cosmos. By being receptive to them we strengthen our connection to cosmos and Self.
We will briefly explore the dynamics of the year, then look at what qualities of soul we need to develop as we move into spring and summer, most particularly from Easter to Ascension and Whitsun. We will look at the verses of the calendar in conjunction with the artistic renditions of Anne Stockton and Karl König, drawn for each of the verses.
We will ask ourselves: How can we live into and grow from this time of the year? How can we deepen our inner relationship to the event of Ascension? What can we receive and what can we give?
Break-out Groups
Group Speech Work with Geoff Norris
“Angels, in the early morning
May be seen the Dews among,
Stooping — plucking — smiling — flying —
Do the Buds to them belong?”
~Emily Dickenson
Closing Thoughts – Hazel Archer
For more info. contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer
Events & Festivals Committee of the Rudolf Steiner Branch
of The Anthroposophical Society, 4249 North Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
https://donate.rschicago.org/
***
Sangraal: A Pentecost Pilgrimage & Whitsun Festival with the Central Regional Council an experiential ‘Pageant’ written by Hazel Archer, taking us on a Quest from The Cauldron of Ceridwen, to The Holy Grail, & into The Sacred Vessel of the Sophia.
Join us on Whitsunday 23 May 2021, at 11 am PT / 12 noon MT / 1 pm – 2:30 pm CT / 2 pm ET / 8 pm CET
Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81181550712 Meeting ID: 811 8155 0712
Dial by your location
Meeting ID: 811 8155 0712
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kBw1EgrIR
After working with Karma & Reincarnation for 3 years the CRC has chosen a new Theme: ‘The Mysteries of the Holy Grail, from Arthur and Parzival to Modern Initiation’
You are also invited to get the Book & Join us for study sessions through out the year as well. contact Alberto Loya aloyavaca@utexas.edu for more info.
Hi Hazel. Left you an [unrelated] msg on Messenger; too long to include here 💗
O thank you Elizabeth, I just replied.
I would like to continue a conversation thru email if possible hazel@reverseritual.com
what a blessing to meet you
xox