Every day, if we are awake to it, we can come across numerous clues about the Great Riddle of Life — you know, the brain-teasing, heart-stretching enigmas that tap on our shoulder, with Messages from our higher “I”.
So be alert! Revelations may arrive from unexpected sources & inadvertent teachers. Even seemingly insignificant events may be pregnant with pithy hints.
To cultivate the right kind of receptivity, be on the lookout not only for crisp answers, but also for ideas about how to formulate the Great Riddle more clearly.
Imagine that your life is a detective story. The goal is not to solve a crime, but to solve the mystery of why we’re here on earth, so we can carry out the special mission we’ve come to accomplish.
Admit it, sometimes you go for months without even looking for clues; sleepwalking through the world, reacting blindly to the tricks that the gods use to try to wake us up.
Then there are those phases when hot leads & fresh evidence pop up all over the place, convincing you beyond a shadow of a doubt that magic is one of the fundamental properties of reality. This, my friend, is one of *those* times.
For years now, I’ve been trying to cultivate a more mature relationship with ‘obstacles’. I work to see them less as punishments doled out by evil adversaries, & more as interesting, growth-inducing challenges provided by my higher Self & a generous universe – Opportunities to practice equanimity, & pour love onto those that I bump up against in my striving to balance karma.
Throughout the day I strive to live into the meditations of my ideals: to Be – in Love – to give – selflessly with no expectation, or worldly reward.
Singing: I am opening up in sweet surrender to the luminous love light of the One, I am opening, I am opening…
I am saying YES – Today I am ready for the next big breakthrough in my noble struggle to refine how I struggle.
~hag
Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner, Translated by Roy Sadler
v21
I feel a strange new strengthening,
fruit bearing power with a maturing seed
of who I am, and on a starlit loom in me
a dawning vision weaving
my pathway to my real being.
and it’s mirror in the 2nd week of November,
v32
I feel my own fruit-bearing power
present me to the world,
and strengthen my innate intent
to turn towards and find the clarity
within life’s weaving of its destiny
23 August 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Picture the constellation Gemini as two stick figures, whose heads are the bright stars Castor and Pollux, with their bodies stretching out to the southwest.
An hour before sunrise, the Twins are lying on their side in the east, with Pollux closer to the horizon than Castor. Halfway between Pollux’s head and toes you’ll find bright Venus!
Just past the Twins’ toes is the easily recognizable constellation of Orion the Hunter, whose belt is nearly perpendicular to the horizon. Orion’s right shoulder is marked by the famous red giant Betelgeuse, which recently underwent a strange dimming episode that caused it to fade noticeably. Astronomers now ascribe the episode to a “stellar sneeze,” during which it blew out a cloud of dust that blocked some of the star’s light from reaching Earth, making it appear to dim. hmmm, what’s that trying to tell us?
Sunrise: 6:20 A.M.
Sunset: 7:45 P.M.
Moonrise: 11:33 A.M.
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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
The festival of Vulcan, the god of fire, including volcanoes, deserts, metalworking and the forge in ancient Roman religion and myth. The Vulcanalia was the annual festival held August 23 in his honor, when the summer heat placed crops & granaries most at risk of burning. During the festival bonfires were created in honor of the god so he wouldn’t take the harvest. He is often depicted with a blacksmith’s hammer. His Greek counterpart is Hephaestus.
Feast Day of Rose of Lima. ‘Saint Rose’ is the patroness of the Americas, sacred to the indigenous people, in Lima, Peru.
Born Isabel Flores y de Oliva in Lima, the capital city of Peru, her nickname, “Rose,” came from a childhood incident in which a household servant attested to having seen the child’s face turn into a mystical rose. She took the name formally as her own, at her confirmation in 1597.
As a young girl, in emulation of St. Catherine of Siena, she began to fast three times a week and performed severe penances in secret. When she was admired for her beauty, Rose cut off her hair and burned her face, upset that men were beginning to take notice of her. She rejected all suitors against the objections of her friends and her family. Despite the censure of her parents, she spent many hours contemplating the Blessed Sacrament, which she received daily, an extremely rare practice in that period. She was determined to take a vow of virginity, which was opposed by her parents who wished her to marry.
After daily fasting, she took to permanently abstaining from eating meat. She helped the sick and hungry around her community, bringing them to her room and taking care of them. Rose sold her fine needlework, and took flowers that she grew to market, to help her family. She made and sold lace and embroidery to care for the poor, and she prayed and did penance in a little grotto that she had built. Otherwise, she became a recluse, leaving her room only for her visits to church.
She attracted the attention of the friars of the Dominican Order. She wanted to become a nun, but her father forbade it, so she instead entered the Third Order of St. Dominic while living in her parents’ home. In her twentieth year she donned the habit of a tertiary and took a vow of perpetual virginity. She only allowed herself to sleep two hours a night at most, so that she had more hours to devote to prayer. She donned a heavy crown made of silver, with small spikes on the inside, in emulation of the Crown of Thorns worn by Christ.
For eleven years she lived this way, with intervals of ecstasy, and eventually died on 23 August 1617, at the young age of 31. It is said that she prophesied the date of her death. Her funeral was held in the cathedral, attended by all the public authorities of Lima.
She was the first American-born saint.
Black Ribbon Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism & Nazism
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade & its Abolition
79 – Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire
1989 – Singing Revolution: Two million people from Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania stand on the Vilnius–Tallinn road, holding hands for restoration of independence
2011 – A magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurs in Virginia as a result of ‘Fracking’. Damage occurs to monuments & structures in Washington D.C. with damage estimated at 300 million
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August 27-30 How We Will 2020: 3-Folding our Cultural Revolution is continuing its journey of transforming our ideals into action. The theme this year is Forming Curative Communities: actively uniting with one another in the emerging economic, political/rights and social/cultural/spiritual forms seeking to reshape the ills plaguing humanity into a healthy social organism for our time. Please join us if you’d like to hear from, and collaborate with those on the front lines inspired out of the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s work: can your own hopes for the world find a way to connect with others striving to do the good as our friend Bernard Lievegoed was wont to say? Our own hero Ella Baker shares: ‘we must not stop until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make the struggle for freedom and human dignity everyday, in the year, every year, until they win it.’
Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020
Schedule
Thursday August 27
9:00 Dottie and Frank: Welcome: Forming Curative Communities of Responsibility
9:30 Nana Woo and Truus Gareats: Eurythmy
9:45 Stan Padilla: New Fire
10:30 Break 15 minutes
11:00 Naim Edwards: Edible Landscapes
12:15 Lunch
1:30 Dottie Zold & Joan Jaeckel: Threefold Activism – 1919-1921 & Research Fellowship
2:15 Kait Ziegler: Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival – On the Front Lines
3:30 Break 30 minutes
4:00 Akil Bell: WILLING MOVEMENT: Three questions could support the inspiring of the formation of curative communities.
5:15 Dinner
6:30 Monika: Myriad Village – Co-creating Intentional Communities
7:15 Angela Foster: Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
End 8 pm
Friday August 28
9:00 Truus Gareats & Nana Woo: Eurythmy
9:15 Stan Padilla: New Fire
9:45 Frank & Patrice: Unbreakable Agreement & ALIANT
10:20 Break 10 minutes
10:30 Michaela Gloeckler: Archetypal Pictures – Ita Wegman and the Young Doctors
Noon Lunch
1:15 Bart Eddy: Brightmoor Makers Rocking Hearts for Detroit
2:15 Melody Brink: stART international trauma pedagogy – Lesbos – On the Front Lines
3:00 John Bloom: Toward Justice Through Freedom
4:45 Dinner
6:00 Daniel Collett: Seeds
6:10 Kim Sherobbi: To Nurture Community Leadership – Birwood Community House & The James and Grace Lee Boggs Center
7:00 Angela Foster: Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
Goethe’s Day of Birth
8:00 End
Saturday August 29
9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo: Eurythmy
9:15 Stan Padilla: New Fire
9:30 Laura Summer: Art Dispersal – Art for 100% of the People
10:00 Michaela Gloeckler: Forward Together
11:30 Break 15 minutes
11:45 Melody Brink: The Birdhunters of Antropocenia in story-form, written by Nathaniel Williams and with original music by Aldo Lavaggi
12:20 Lunch
1:15 Bart Eddy: Ideas to Action
2:15 John Bloom: Capital, Money, Spirit and Matter
3:45 Break 30 minutes
4:15 Patrice Maynard: Prototyping ALIANT Alliance
5:30 Dinner
7:00 Brandon & Lucien: Song Offering & Painting
7:15 Community-led conversation: A Christian/Buddhist/Spirit Conversation: Money –what does love got to do with it?
8:15 End
Sunday August 30
9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo: Eurythmy
9:15 Nicanor Perlas: The Future is What We Fight For
10:45 Break
11:00 Hazel Archer-Ginsberg: The New Isis Myth
11:30 Laura Summer: Art Dispersal
1:00 Lunch
2:00 Patrice Maynard: Prototyping ALIANT Alliance
3:15 Lucien: Tone, Words, Trees
3:45 Janna, Elizabeth & Frank: Standing Under the Sign of Michael
4:15 Stan & Robbi: Closing the Sacred Fire Community
5:00 End
EXTRA DAY FOR THOSE WISHING TO JOIN ON Monday, August 31st
9:00 Next Steps ALIANT: Patrice, Frank, Dottie together with friends will lead a conversation on next steps.
11:00 Mutual Aid Networks (MANS): Kait Ziegler of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will share how she and GroundGamesLA raised $100,000 in a week’s time to support unprotected families during the Covid 19 early days by using the MANS format created by Stephanie Rearick of Madison Wisconsin.
Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020
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Joan d’Arc – The power behind the Will Michaelmas Festival 26-27 Sept. 2020
Save the Date for Our Michaelmas Festival & Youth Gathering Saturday 26 September 2 pm – 4 pm, Sunday 27 Sept. 2 pm – 4 pm
This years theme will be an exploration of Joan d’Arc…
Including a performance of ‘The Passage” by Lucian Dante Lazar
In person & online presentations on the theme of Joan of Arc
Details TBA
Sponsored by: The Rudolf Steiner Branch, Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost & 3-Fold Cultural Hub
for more info. contact Festivals coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
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