The Air Trial “The Working of the Spirit” Part 9

June 3, 2016, FRIDAY – The endeavor to learn as much as possible from life. – ‘RIGHT MEMORY.’

June 3 mars-saturn-antares-scorpius

Tonight our planet Earth will fly between the ringed planet Saturn & the sun, bringing Saturn to opposition. In other words, Saturn is opposite the sun in Earth’s sky. As a consequence, Saturn rises in the east at sunset, climbs highest up for the night at midnight & sets in the west at sunrise. It is visible all night, closest & brightest for this year.

1140 – The French scholar Peter Abelard is found guilty of heresy.

1839 – In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kg of opium confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War

1889 – The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles between a generator at Willamette Falls & downtown Portland, Oregon.

1898  –  Birthday of Siegfried Pickert a German anthroposophist, & co-founder of anthroposophical curative education. As early as 16 he was part of the Wandervogel movement. In Jena he worked with Albrecht Strohschein, & Franz Löffler . In 1921 he graduated from an anthroposophic college course in Stuttgart, where he met Rudolf Steiner. He deepened his anthroposophical studies at the Goetheanum in Dornach . In September 1923 he took a job as a teacher doing anthroposophic treatments at the John Trüper Youth Sanatorium, Sophienhöhe, in Jena. Encouraged by Steiner he founded Lauenstein, his own healing educational home. During this time Pickert corresponded regularly with doctor Ita Wegman .

1924 – Deathday of Franz Kafka

1943 – Marie Steiner founds the Nachlassverein

1989 – The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation

1989 – Deathday of Ayatollah Khomeini

~   ~   ~

waxsealsun_FULL

~TODAY I am:

The wax seal

On the letters to my Beloved

Broken open

Like a fig in the sun…

& TODAY what are you…?

~hag

~   ~   ~

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In thinking about: “The Working of the Spirit” by Michael Burton & Marke Levene. Part 9  (program for the Chicago reading)  

The “Trial by Air” of scene 12, probably has the most profound impact in terms of practical occult lessons for all anthroposophists in the whole of the play. I will take 2 days to work with the messages here.

Hilary says: “…I never want to be one of those who knows exactly what’s wrong with everyone else but does not have the will to come to grips with the demons in himself.”

Again I ask myself: How can we recognize what drives us, is it our Luciferic wish for recognition or status or some other personal desire? Can we be clear about our Ahrimanic tendencies towards putting everything & everyone into neat little boxes that leave no room for freedom?

I am stuck by how the characters in the drama consult each other, to gain a better perspective in the now, seeking to find the way into the future together. Michael Hedley Burton names the inner circle the ‘new spirit-economy group.’ This is evocative on several levels:  #1. It brings to the surface Steiner’s concept of karma & reincarnation, but goes deeper into the idea of shared soul parts. #2. In modern terminology this word spirit-economy is suggestive of one of the branchs within the idea of a Threefold Republic, a call to the future, 1st laid out by Steiner in 1912, to which the group is striving to employ in Hilary’s factory.

“The old is dying; the new is not yet born” … “Who will fetch the man with the lamp”. (from the Green Snake & the Beautiful Lily by Goethe)

Maria reminds us that “the future has been born! It’s just that we’re not ready for it yet”. And even though we try to give it refuge in our hearts, our actions seem blocked by destructive powers greater than the adversarial forces we are used to. In breaking thru into the mysteries of the will we meet the deepest evil of the Asuras.

Recognizing this, the characters question their own way of being. Knowing that some in their outer circle, especially Trautman, who in the past held the position at the altar in the West, which stands for the path of will, & who is now giving them grief, helps them stop to put into perspective their antipathy.

Johannes says: “It’s when we bring our earthy biases into the realm of spirit that things go amiss & people stop being able to listen to each other. Individuals go off into their own one-sidedness & start criticizing others & then, in no time, relationships between people have broken down.” Hilary asks why this always seems to happen when a great teacher dies; & we are reminded that the split within the anthroposophical society which happened after Steiner’s death has still not been fully healed.

But, as we will see, the ‘new spirit-economy group,’ with help from the spiritual world, is able to see those personalities that at 1st appear as antipathies, as figures that bring a greater initiation!

The wonder of creating an artistic rendering of how anthroposophy can be, is revealed by these characters, who seek to work things thru, in one way by remembering to align with those that have passed the threshold of death, receiving insight from the spiritual world. Knowing that in our time the spirit’s will is done thru people working together with each other & with the so-called dead.  For as Steiner tells us, even though we are ‘dreaming in our feelings & asleep in our will’ these are the places the dead work in us, so it is our duty to awaken in these realms.

If representatives of the various spiritual streams are able to meet in brotherhood, we can work harmoniously, using the gifts unique to each stream, to spiritualize the earth. How can we bring reverence & the mood of consecration “That good may become”?

I will leave you today with this: “In the past we said. “Not I, but the spirit working in me.” Now we must say. “I am, AND the spirit working in me”!

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

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