Part 6: Memphis – The Journey (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5)
As we drove from the Shoals to Memphis, Deb behind the wheel, the sky stretched out in front of us in a magnificent display of ever changing cloud forms & colors. This twilight show lingered, & we attended every shifting nuance – a lively conversation between human beings, & the elemental world.
After we made dinner in our Memphis digs, Deb was advocating a trip to the famous Beale Street to check out the local music scene. It was a cold evening & we were waffling. Then Angela read some passages from Orland Bishops book ‘The Seventh Shrine: Meditations on the African Spiritual Journey: From the Middle Passage to the Mountaintop’.
And we got fired up.
In the blank pages in the back of the book Angela had written down a dream she had when she 1st read Orland’s book. It was dated November 10th 2018 & spoke about a tree that had been upended, she was warning people to be careful as the ground was unstable, creating a possible sink hole. When I heard this I got shivers & was reminded of my experience walking in the Clyde Shepherd nature preserve. (see part 3) When I described that strange place, Angela said, O yes, that spot is a dried up reservoir, & it was a good thing I got out of there quickly since the ground was indeed unstable. Then we came to realize that my experience & her dream happened on the same date a year apart!.
That clinched it, even though it was after 9 pm, the 3 sisters felt called, right then & there, to go out to the Lorraine Motel where MLK was murdered.
The site was deserted, eerie in the cold moon light. Intellectually we knew it had been converted into the Civil Rights Museum, but it was hard to fathom. Standing there in front of the facade of this perfectly preserved 50’s style motel, we felt like we had gone back in time. We prayerfully circumambulated, paying homage, & looking for a spot to gather a bit of earth to add to Angela’s ‘Soul Soil’.
There is a feeling that this place is a like a vortex, a portal leading into the inner layers of the earth, where the blood of MLK is mixing with the blood of Christ, feeding the seed that will allow the earth to become a Sun.
It was all too much.
We got back into big Daddy Howell’s truck & drove to Beale Street. We could hear the music ebbing from the neon bedecked clubs calling folks to come dance. But we were the only ones out & about. We asked a local what was up & he said Memphis folks don’t come out when it’s cold.
So we had Bright Beale Street practically all to ourselves. We walked around listening to the music pouring into the street trying to decide where to go. A friendly hawker enticed in where a local band was in full swing.
It turned out to be a place owned by the famous wrestler Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler. And the band on stage was called ‘The Memphis Kings’. Ha! We knew we were in the right place. We danced & enjoyed the easy warmth of the atmosphere. When the set was done, a gentleman came up & called us the ‘Solid Gold Dancers’. We took that warmth into the night.
We continue the Journey Tomorrow in the cold light of day
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
My soul is cupped in the hands of a beggar
Shivering on the street
Held in the dark mouth of a small bird
The shell unbroken,
The heavy yolk floating…
Memories leak through letters bold & sleek.
Adjusting the dials
I swirl in the mind of the mountain
A labyrinth among spiced nectar & bees wax
Savoring the deep dark of the growing New
~hag
***
26 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: New Moon, exact at 9:06 am CST.
The bowl of the Little Dipper is descending in the evening at this time of year, by about 10 pm CST. it hangs straight down below Polaris.
The Andromeda Galaxy & the Perseus Double Cluster are cozying up, high toward the east early these evenings, to the right of Cassiopeia .
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
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13 – 14 December 2019
Rudiger Janisch
“The Spiritual Goetheanum, the threefold human being and the threefold social impulse”
Friday 13 December , 7 – 9 pm
Saturday 14 December, 9 am – noon
$50 for the whole Weekend Workshop or pay what you will
at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, 60618
Rüdiger has been working in Curative Education and teaching in professional training programs in Germany and the United States for over 40 years. A long-time student of anthroposophy, he serves on the Collegium of the School for Spiritual Science in North America. His contributions to adult education methods were recognized in the context of an international research project sponsored by the European Union. He has been a member of the core faculty of a joint ‘Training for Trainers’ program supporting Curative Education and Social Therapy in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan. He has also taught as an adjunct faculty member of the M.S. Ed program in Waldorf Remedial Education at Antioch University N.H. Having taught many different aspects of anthroposophy and Curative Education, he currently is focused on action research and the development of artistic and experiential approaches to the spiritual scientific study of the human being.
Fro more info. contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
