Dear friends – In our quest to unveil the secret teachings available to us during this Easter-Tide as we make our way to the Ascension & strive to make ourselves worthy of the grace of The Sophia on Pentecost, I offer up these words of power from Rudolf Steiner:
“…If we study the things that stand side by side in the world we find in what a peculiar way the economic life, the political rights life, and the spiritual life are entangled. If we do not wish to perish because of the extreme degeneration which has come into the spiritual life and the rights life, we must turn to the Threefold Social Order, which from independent roots will build an economic life now struggling to emerge, but unable to do so unless a rights life and a spiritual life, developed in freedom, come to meet it. These things have their deep roots in the whole of humanity’s evolution and in human social life; and these roots must be sought. People must now be made to realize that way down at the bottom, on the ground I might say, crawls the economic life, managed by Anglo-American habits of thought; and that it will be able to climb up only when it works in harmony with the whole world. Otherwise the gaining of world dominion will become a fatality for it.
If the world continues in the course it has been taking under the influence of the degenerating spiritual life derived from the Orient, then this spiritual life, although at one end it was the most sublime truth, will at the other rush into the most fearful lies. Nietzsche was impelled to describe how even the Greeks had to guard themselves from the lies of life through their art. And in reality art is the divine child which keeps men from being swallowed up in lies. If this first branch of civilization is pursued only one-sidedly, then this stream empties into lies. In the last five or six years more lies have been told among civilized humanity than in any other period of world history; in public life the truth has scarcely been spoken at all; hardly a word that has passed through the world was true.
While this stream empties into lies (see drawing), the middle stream empties into self-seeking; and an economic life like the Anglo-American, which should end in world-dominion — if the effort is not made to bring about its permeation by the independent spiritual life and the independent political life, it will flow into the third of the abysses of human life, into the third of these three. The first abyss is lies, the degeneration of humanity through Ahriman; the second is self-seeking, the degeneration of humanity through Lucifer; the third is, in the physical realm, illness and death; in the cultural realm, the illness and death of culture.
The Anglo-American world may gain world dominion; but without the Threefold Social Order it will, through this dominion, pour out cultural death and cultural illness over the whole earth; for these are just as much a gift of the Azuras as lies are a gift of Ahriman, and self-seeking, of Lucifer. So the third, a frightful companion of the other two, is the scourge of the Azuric powers!
We must get the enthusiasm from these things which will fire us now really to seek ways of enlightening as many people as possible. Today the mission of those with insight is the enlightenment of humanity. We must do as much as possible to oppose to that foolishness which fancies itself to be wisdom, and which thinks it has made such marvellous progress — to oppose to that foolishness what we can gain from the practical aspect of anthroposophically-orientated spiritual science.
My dear friends, if I have been able to arouse in you in some measure the feeling that these things must be taken with profound seriousness, then I have attained a part of what I should very much like to have attained through these words.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Mysteries of Light, of Space, and of the Earth, lecture IV, Dornach, December 15, 1919
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16 April 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Right after dark, the Sickle of Leo stands vertically upright due south. Its bottom star is Regulus, Leo’s brightest. Leo himself is walking horizontally westward. The Sickle forms his front leg, chest, mane, & part of his head.
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
According to Dr. Steiner TODAY is the birthday of Aaron = mountain of strength, illuminator – born in Egypt three years before his brother Moses, & after his sister Miriam.
When the time for the Exodus out of Egypt came, Aaron was the “mouth” or “prophet” of Moses, because he was gifted speaker.
When Moses ascended the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, Aaron was permitted to accompany him part of the way, & to behold the manifestation in the burning bush.
Later the chiefs of the tribes were each required to bring Moses a rod bearing the name of his tribe. These were laid overnight in the tabernacle, & in the morning it was found that Aaron’s rod “for the house of Levi” budded, blossomed, & yielded almonds. Aaron was able to turn that rod into a snake to try & persuade the Pharaoh to ‘Let the people go’.
Aaron was considered a type of Christ figure in his official character as the 1st high priest, & was intended to lead the people of Israel to look forward to the time when “another priest” would arise “after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:20).
1889- Birthday of Charlie Chaplin, English actor, director, producer, screenwriter, & composer
1828 – Death-day of the painter Francisco de Goya
In 1944, during World War II, the allied forces start bombing for the 1st time in Belgrade, killing about 1,100 people. It was Orthodox Easter.
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Into my Inner Essence
Gushes the riches
Of the sense world…
The Wisdom of The Logos finds Herself
In the mirror-image of my Eye,
That Her Power out of me
May shape anew the eternal resurrection…
~hag
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The Sacred Gateway: Conscious Living, Conscious Dying, and the Journey Beyond ONLINE CONFERENCE APRIL 17-19, 2020
The Connection between Epidemics, the souls of the Dead, and the Spiritual World, with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg and Eurythmist Raven Garland, on Saturday 18 April 10:45 am – 12:15 am CDT (11:45 am-1:15 pm EDT, 8:45 am – 10:45 am PDT)
Here is a Worksheet with Quotes & Leading Thoughts
& on Sunday 19 April 12:15 pm – 1:45 pm CDT (1:15 pm – 2:45 pm EDT, 10:15 am – 11:45 am PDT): Festivals for the Dead, the Unborn and the Evolution of Earth -Then and Now with with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg and Eurythmist Raven Garland.
Here is a Worksheet for Sunday
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SAVE THE DATE: Ascension Thursday 21 May 2020 ‘Coming in the Clouds’ a CRC Festival Celebration, 7 pm CDT online
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Lifting the Veil of The New Isis -Sophia, a Telling of the New Isis Myth, with Leading Thoughts, on the Being of Anthroposophia, w/ Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Friday, 29 May 2020, 7:30 – 9:30 pm at Groh Farm, 135 Temple Rd, Wilton, NH
(if the lockdown is still in effect, look for an online connection)
$10 suggesteddonation – RSVP deb@anthroposophy.org – Sponsored by the Anthoposophical Society in NH
Our dear Dr. Steiner said: ‘It is not the Christ we lack, but the knowledge of Christ, the Sophia of Christ, the Isis of Christ we are lacking.’ In ‘Ancient Myths and the New Isis Mystery: Their Meaning and Connection with Evolution’ Lecture 3; given in Dornach, 6 January 1918, by Rudolf Steiner; we hear how the power of ‘The Word, the power of The Logos’, must be resurrected through our striving to activate the Wisdom of Anthroposophia within each of us. Join Hazel Archer-Ginsberg for a powerful presentation Lifting the Veil of the New Isis-Sophia, to bring Light to Love.
~Vitae Sophia~A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg Saturday, 30 May, 9:30 am – 12:30 pm Groh Farm, 135 Temple Rd, Wilton, NH
(if the lockdown is still in effect, look for an online connection)
Eurythmy: AUM = A – I stand for myself, U- I stand for humanity, M – I stand for Life
Social Sculpture: Steiner’s ‘Blue Dot Exercise’– 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?
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’?
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.
$30 suggested donation at the door, with potluck lunch to follow
(please bring a dish to share) RSVP deb@anthroposophy.org Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire
as part of the tour
3 June 2020 – a Round Table Discussion 7 pm – 9 pm on ‘The Sophia’ with John Bloom, Joan Sleigh, Hazel Archer-Ginsberg & Carrie Schuchardt at The House of Peace in Ipswich, MA.
(if the lockdown is still in effect, look for an online connection)
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 of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.
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Dear Hazel,
You have indicated an important diagram here wherein “Illness and the Death of Culture” is attributed to the presence of the Azuras here in the West, and in control of the Economic Life of the threefold social order. This is very true, and serves as further proof that Sorath migrated from France to England, and then America with the colonization of the New World in the early 17th century.
You notice how this has the effect of making the East Ahrimanic, i.e., Asia , Russia, China, and making Europe, and especially Central Europe, Luciferic. Steiner knew that a decidedly luciferic stream stood to develop out of his anthroposophical movement, and so he attempted at all points to keep it as intellectual as possible, and for the attainment of new knowledge. He wanted his audience to get beyond his personality and charisma, and pay close attention. That is why Carl Unger often gave an introductory lecture on the epistemological parameters of spiritual science. It was designed to balance the luciferic with the ahrimanic, and gain a sober reflection of the facts about to be revealed in Steiner’s main course. Unger gave some 500 of these lectures, and Steiner was most appreciative of the work of his main student, disciple, and “right-hand man”. Yet, Unger never got the position he was supposed to received after the death of Steiner, and remained rather obscure and isolated there in Stuttgart until his murder in Nuremberg on 4 January 1929. He went there to give the lecture, “What Is Anthroposophy?”, but was shot and killed before speaking one word.
Seems to me there are many in the Anthroposophical Society today who lean toward the Ahrimanic side…
Yes Unger had an interesting destiny