Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year
“To celebrate a festival really means to unite oneself in spirit with the cosmic spirit”. ~Rudolf Steiner
Our festival life is structured to include activities that stimulate head, hands and heart. We engage our thinking through lectures on Spiritual Science, learning, as Goethe did, what lives behind the laws of nature, engaging in creative thinking outside the box, like Einstein demonstrated, opening to insight and intuition to better solve the problems of the world. Movement and artistic endeavors motivate our will forces, creating balance and beauty, channeling creativity in a purposeful way that deepens our thoughts through action. Activities like storytelling, biography sharing, and singing consciously involve our feeling life, reducing stress, stimulating our imagination, creating connections and goodwill.
By strengthening our thinking, feeling and willing we lead more conscious lives, better able to serve the greater community -involved parents, good neighbors, mindful citizens, purposeful workers in our chosen fields of work in the world.
The Greek meaning of the word festival is “Shining Day”.
The festivals not only commemorate great historical events, cosmic truths and traditions; they are in themselves spiritual events that manifest in seasonal rhythms, and carry a significance that grows and deepens with the development of human evolution. The celebration of the festivals let us practice what Steiner calls ‘the Reverse-Ritual’ – The idea of ‘Openness to Above’. Instead of invoking Spirit down, as in days of old, we rise to the spirit, in our thinking. We study and celebrate these ‘Shining Days’ to sustain and renew ourselves and the world.
A festival has the quality of lifting us out of the ordinary and into the mysteries and magic of the rhythm of the seasons. Throughout history, festivals have emerged from people’s connection with their spiritual life and their search for the meaning of human existence.
“Through various festivals and rituals we acknowledge and celebrate our connection to and our responsibility toward each other and the world.” Celebrating festivals can bring us consciously to what we all experience instinctively in our daily lives, the changing cycles of the seasons and of life itself. ~excerpted from Festivals by Marilyn Pelryme.
“Celebrating festivals illuminates our life on earth with spiritual meaning and shows us the significance of our human existence in the universe. We human beings stand between the two worlds uniting them in ourselves. We are the crossing point where the upper circle representing the heavens flows into the lower one belonging to the earth.” ~Evelyn Frances Derry
Some Upcoming Festivals at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, Il. 60618
Michaelmas 2015: Sept. 27, 6:30pm – 11:30pm
All Souls: Nov. 8, 2015, 2pm – 4pm
Holy Nights 2015 -2106: Sunday Dec. 27- Wed. Dec. 30, 7pm – 9pm…Thursday Dec. 31 – NYE – 7pm – 1am…Jan. 1-5 7pm – 9pm
Holy Week 2016: March 20th – Palm Sunday 2pm – 4pm…March 21-26th – 7pm – 9pm…March 27th Easter Sunday – 2pm – 4pm
Pentecost: Sunday May 15, 2pm – 4pm
St. John’s: Sunday June 19, 2016 – 2pm – 4pm
Michaelmas 2016: Sunday Sept. 25th – 2pm – 4pm
I look forward to exploring these cycles with you
~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
