Continuing on from yesterday’s “Awakening to Community” exploration of the AAP training (Association for Anthroposophical Psychology) I will open with a question Alan Thewless began his seminar with: What is the soul’s connection to the whole cosmos?
The astral body is music! – The etheric body works out of the rhythms of cosmic sculpture, with the astral body moving in the cosmic melody – We are the Rhythm & Melody of the Uni-verse!
The 7 planets living in our organs & chakras are the bridge to the Music of the Spheres! We go out to the periphery & then come back into the center of ourselves.
Saturn is as the Guardian to the Solar System – a boundary to the Stars of the constellations – from the sense world to the spiritual world, holding the energy of the ‘Priest’.
Jupiter asks: What is wisely working in us? The Kingly energy
Mars is our critical thinking – bringing us necessity & discernment: Yes or no; affirming our individuality – our ability to assert ourselves. We can ask: Am I being too critical, to harsh? The warrior.
In the Sun Sphere we say Yes to who we are. The administrator
We come to earth to give this something to the world – we come to care, bringing in the Venus quality of faithfulness & our gift of experiencing & creating beauty – to be & to give Love. The Care Giver
Once this love is part of us we can truly share & teach, working out of the Mercury sphere. The teacher.
The Moon brings our digested experience into our thinking. The Artist.
The planets – the wandering stars – are connected with Time – the vowels. The constellations of the Zodiac – the fixed Stars – bring us the concept of Space – the formative forces of the consonants. Our etheric body is the bridge between the 2.
Experiencing the cosmos within us, as well as out in nature, revitalizes our etheric being & the universe responds with joy at our interaction.
Alan asked: Which planetary quality do you most resonate to? Then we were invited to stand with a group of our fellows each in their chosen place. I was with the Saturn group – the Priests. What about you?
More tomorrow…Until soon (BTW: you can still join our cohort for the 3 year the training)
~hag
20 August 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: The last-quarter Moon shone between Mars and the Pleiades early Friday morning the 19th. On Sunday morning the 21st it’s between the horntips of Taurus: Beta and fainter Zeta Tauri.
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day – “…Suppose that you could take the human being as you see him here and turn him inside out so that his inside — the heart, for instance — would become the outer surface. If this could be done taking hold of him in the inmost heart and turning him inside out like a glove, then man would not remain man as we see him here; he would enlarge into a universe. For if we had the faculty to concentrate in a single point within our heart, and then to turn ourselves inside out in spirit, we could become this world that we otherwise experience between death and a new birth. That is the secret of the inner side of the human being. The heart of the human being is also a world turned inside out. That is how the physical, earthly world is really connected to the spiritual world. We must get used to this “turning inside out.” If we do not, we will never get the right idea concerning how the physical world that surrounds us here relates to the spiritual world.” ~Rudolf Steiner, TODAY 100 years ago – THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY, PART 2: THE MYSTERY OF TRUTH, GA 214, I. Meditation: The Path to Higher Knowledge, 20 August 1922, Oxford
Dear freinds – Anthroposophy gives us the opportunity to work with the Cycle of the Year as a modern path of Initiation into the New Mysteries. In our striving we not only renew, but we are being called from the future to co-create entirely new Festivals.
Join us in doing Spiritual Scientific research into the Being called Vidar –
Vidar-mas? – An exploration that may perhaps lead into a new Festival for this Archangel of our Time.
Having received insights from Are Thoresen at the Rudolf Steiner Branch, Chicago last week, we are taking up our own research into the new Archangel Vidar, who stands as Guardian to the Threshold of the Etheric Realm, in protection of the Nathan Soul, opening the Northern Stream of Initiation to those who would approach the Etheric Christ . In a recent spiritual experience, Are Thoresen suggested that August 20th may be the Feast Day of Vidar..?
All are invited to join us, where ever you are, in reading a lecture by Rudolf Steiner which brings to life this new Archangel Vidar.
We welcome your feedback as to whether or not August 20th resonates as a new Feast Day that we might call Vidar-mas..?
THE MISSION OF FOLK-SOULS, GA 121, Lecture XI, 17 June 1910, Christiania https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/19100617p01.html.
Meeting in-person at the Rudolf Steiner Branch in Chicago or wherever you are
20 August 2022, at 5 pm PT / 6 pm MT / 7 pm CT / 8 pm PT
From Maverick a student of Astrosophy: “On the sheets given us by the Star House called “Sun Chronicle of the Christ Events”, Aug. 20th shows the Sun in sidereal longitude at 2 to 3 degrees in Leo – where the Sun is at home in the sign it rules. The Christ events occurring then are: Aug.20th – the conversation at Jacob’s well (so the 1st time Christ Jesus revealed to anyone other than the disciples that He was the Messiah), and Aug. 20/21st – the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg, Cultural Events & Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch, Chicago
Dear friends – As Anthroposophers we are called to do active Spiritual Scientific research, not take any persons word for anything. So being that the Festival Life can be a path of initiation into the New Mysteries, we thought to explore this Being Vidar further in connection to our task in this age of understanding the etheric Christ, which Rudolf Steiner speaks about in GA 121, the lecture we will study together today. By doing so we are in no way suggesting that we are to replace Michael as the Time Spirit holding the Zeitgeist of the age, or that this exploration would in any way eradicate Michaelmas as the true Christian Festival that it is.
Druidic gravestone of Vidar found in Niederdollendorf near Colonge
“…The communications given out from Rosicrucian sources must be tested rather than believed, tested not superficially by the superficial methods of modern science, but ever more conscientiously…The more you test them, the more you will find them confirmed from this source. You must accept nothing on authority. The best students of Spiritual Science are those who take what is said as a stimulus in the first place and test it by the facts of life itself. For in life too, at every stage of life, you can test what is given out from the sources of Rosicrucianism. It is far from my intention in these lectures to lay down dogmas and claim that the facts are such and such and must be believed. Verify them by an exchange of views with people of able and active mind and you will find confirmation of what has been said as a prophetic indication of the future manifestation of Christ. You need only open your eyes and verify it objectively; we make no appeal to belief in authority. This need to test everything received from Spiritual Science should become a kind of basic attitude permeating our whole approach.
I should like to impress upon you, therefore, that it is not anthroposophical to accept a statement as dogma on the authority of this or that person; but it is truly anthroposophical to allow oneself to be stimulated by Spiritual Science and to verify what is communicated by life itself.” ~Rudolf Steiner, THE MISSION OF THE INDIVIDUAL FOLK SOULS, GA 121, 11. Nerthus, Freyja and Gerda. Twilight of the Gods. Vidar and the new Revelation of Christ, 17 June 1910, Oslo
Interesting lecture on the Folk Spirits. I’m going to handle this one with caution, as I’m still not sure what to make of it. Early in the lecture, Steiner speaks of the “gods” who came down from various planets to inhabit Earth, but he doesn’t distinguish between those who were evolved, and those who may have been retarded. The bad ones always seem to somehow get intermingled with the good ones, so I want to be cautious.
In the meantime, I happened to read (again) Lecture 19 from GA 174, and towards the end came across this that may interest you. I have to type it out, as the archive seems to have removed GA 174 for some reason:
“It is the hierarchy of the archangeloi, the archangels, who work on us via the airy element. And everything that works in us from the hierarchy of the archangeloi – both those who have progressed normally and those who are retarded – work via the system of ganglia. Also this is the route by which the folk spirits work, for they belong to the hierarchy of the archangeloi. The work done by the folk spirits in the human being takes its effect through the organs which are connected with the system of ganglia.”
So take care of those systems of ganglia if you want to promote the work of the folk spirits. And get plenty of the airy element. Cheers.
You are ever wise Maverick to be awake to what is.
I love how Steiner’s many lectures come to us just when we need them.
I looked up Ganglia: They are “part of peripheral nervous system. They work as relay station for nerve signals. One nerve enters and another nerve exits from each ganglion (singular: ganglion plural: ganglia). There are 2 types of ganglia : Sensory & Autonomic.”
I have chills. This is an ongoing issue for me health wise because of the stenosis of the spine that gives me various painful symptoms – I see this as Ahriman & Luicfer not being held in balance by the Christ force in my being…I will breathe into this, thank you my friend
As you breathe into it, you can express appreciation that the archangeloi and the folk spirits work with the human being – he says the archangeloi work ON us through the airy element, and the folk spirits work IN us through the ganglia. It raises appreciation for ourselves as human beings, that these beings are helping us in our destiny to become the NEW human being, as we germinate together with that which will be the NEW earth.
Hi Hazel. Glad to see you back online 🙂 First of all, happy anniversary to you and Chuck!
I very much like this notion of a ‘Vidarmas’. I’ve been looking forward to Are’s English version of his book, and I see that it is available now. Would have been great to be able to hear his insights in person.
Now, Vidar came into my radar a couple of years ago. What initially interested me, was that he and only a few other ‘second generation’ Gods survive Ragnarok – as told in the Völuspá, if I’m not mistaken. Baldur (and Hod) were essentially resurrected. The others, Vidar’s brother Vali, and Thor’s two sons Modi and Magni also survive. They dwell in what is called Idavöll, or ‘meeting place of the gods, or also interpreted as the ‘Shimmering Fields’.
Most interpretations will see Vidar as a god of Vengeance. But in this new light, perhaps it can be seen in a new way, where a Being which acted upon vengeance will ultimately embody Forgiveness. Also, Modi and Magni inherited Thor’s hammer – Mjölnir – which is supposed to help end the cycle of ‘violence’ that once permeated before.
What this feels like, is that these Gods are intimately connected to Humanity to help usher us in through the next Cultural Epoch. We can see with Vidar, as stated in the above lecture, “he will become the active friend of cooperative work, of cooperative endeavour.” Something that comes to mind with cooperative work that actually ‘works’, is when the co-op is in sync, and there is less need for chatter and more room for active flow.
Furthermore, the act of Silence – which Vidar is known as embodying – is the one who slays Fenris the Wolf “Through Fenris Wolf death enters into the organism of language – dead languages, e.g. Latin, have therefore become vicitms of the Fenris Wolf.” This is exactly the stream – materialism, dead science – which anthroposophy is the antidote for – living science/art… by way can be achieved through the help of more ‘silence’ and hence… ‘observation’. We are getting into the whole core of what Goethe was striving for!
Greetings Dear KJ – Thanks for adding your insights to the research. I love this Vidar Rader!
I also find looking at the ancient myth to be an interesting juxtapostion – a real reveasal as you say.
I love this quote from the lecture:
“All these details which are set forth in the ‘Twilight of the Gods’, correspond with that which is to appear to mankind in a newer etheric vision, which in reality refers to the future. The Fenris Wolf will still remain. Oh, there is a deep, deep truth concealed in this account of the Fenris Wolf remaining behind in conflict with Odin. In the near future of mankind there will be no danger so great as the tendency to remain satisfied with the old clairvoyance, — instead of developing the new by means of new forces — the danger that man might be tempted to remain satisfied with what the old astral clairvoyance of primal ages could give, namely, soul-pictures such as that of the Fenris Wolf. It would also be a severe trial for that which has to grow up in the domain of Anthroposophy, if in that, the tendency towards all sorts of confused, chaotic clairvoyance should arise, and an inclination to value the clairvoyance illuminated by reason and science less highly than the old chaotic one which does not possess this prerogative.
These remains of the old clairvoyance would wreak a fearful vengeance, by confusing the vision of men with all sorts of chaotic pictures. Such clairvoyance cannot be met by that which itself proceeded from old clairvoyant power, but only by that which during the Kali Yuga has been developed as a healthy force into a new clairvoyance. The power given by the old Archangel Odin, the old clairvoyant powers, cannot save man; something very different must come in. And what that is, is, however, known to Germanic Norse mythology, — it is well aware of its existence. It knows, that there exists the etheric form in which will embody that which we shall once again see as the etheric form of Christ. And this alone will succeed in driving out the confused clairvoyant power which would bewilder mankind, if Odin did not overcome the Fenris Wolf, which represents nothing but the backward clairvoyance. Vidar, who has kept silence all the time, will overcome the Fenris Wolf. That also is told us in the ‘Twilight of the Gods’.
Anyone who recognizes the importance of Vidar and feels him in his soul, will find that in the twentieth century the capacity can again be given to man with which to see Christ. Vidar, who belongs to us all in Northern and Central Europe, will again stand before him. He was kept secret in the Mysteries and secret Schools as a god who would receive his mission only in the future. Only indefinite statements are made even regarding his picture. This may be seen from the fact that a picture has been found in the vicinity of Cologne, of which no one knows whom it represents, but which is none other than a likeness of Vidar.”
There is another link to GA 121 that includes an appendix that has some interesting point I’m regards to Fenris:
“(b) The original language of Atlantis was a unity. It was the creation of Odin with the formative forces of the laryngeal organism. Through the alliance of Odin and Loki, Ahrimanic forces entered into the etheric body and the organism of speech. The power of Ahriman (present in the undivided, primal language of Atlantis) perished after the Atlantean catastrophe — this is the Fenris Wolf of Nordic tradition. Wherever human speech or language becomes a means of concealing the spiritual world or denying its reality, we find the influence of the Fenris Wolf. Where the word describes only sensible phenomena or physical facts to the exclusion of supersensible or spiritual facts, Odin has succumbed to the Fenris Wolf. Ahrimanic influences gradually blunt the response of the etheric body. It loses its former receptivity to life processes: this is reflected in the shifting of consonants in the Indo-European languages (Grimm’s Law). On the one hand, new elements are added, on the other, articulation becomes more indefinite, more insensitive; symptoms of paralysis set in — amalgamations, loss or disappearance of certain vowels and consonants. The original language which was a unity is split up into diverse tongues, into dialects. Here is seen the influence of the Fenris Wolf. Through the Fenris Wolf death enters into the organism of language — dead languages, e.g. Latin, have therefore become victims of the Fenris Wolf.”
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA121/English/RSP1970/MF1970_appendix.html
I also want to include something which filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky said in an interview, that I feel has relation to this (Journal for Anthroposophy 1985 no. 42 Autumn Page 41):
“We suffer from the fact that our words have lost their meaning. Steiner wrote about that too, that our language is not yet a real language. It does not express anything and to a certain extent we are at the same level as animals. Demagogy is the worst sickness of the present time: trickery, empty talk. People’s deeds are the deciding factor, not their words-my hero’s deed is so absurd that the average person simply cannot decide what the deed consists of.”
https://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/nyrud/id/5048
Then we have Steiner, and Morgenstern, on this topic as well, in GA 271 lecture 6:
“In reality, speech lives in three different spheres. There is the sphere where speech can be regarded as an instrument for mutual understanding between human beings and in science. What the seer experiences with regard to this may seem strange, but none the less it is a fact; the seer feels this application of speech, as a means of everyday mutual understanding and for the expression of intellectual science, to be a degradation of speech to something that is alien to its innermost nature. Seership realises speech to be the instrument enabling a race of men to live in community. What lives in speech, with its manifold forms and nuances of sound, etc., is, if rightly understood, art. Speech, as the instrument of expression in a race, is art, and the creative power in speech is the creative power common to the people who speak it.
Use of speech as the means of everyday mutual understanding is really a degeneration of its fundamental nature. Those who have a feeling for what lives in speech and is revealed in the subconsciousness, know that the creative power in speech is akin to poetry, to art. Artistic natures have a disagreeable impression when speech is debased unnecessarily into the sphere of commonplace intercourse. Christian Morgenstern is an example. He was not afraid to build the bridge between artistic creation and seership; he did not believe that artistic originality is spoilt by endeavors to penetrate into the spiritual world; he felt that the poetic urge is in him was akin to the forces underlying plastic, architectonic art. Morgenstern expresses what he feels about speech when he says that chatter is an abuse: “All careless chatter has, at its basis, uncertainty about the import and value of the single word. To the chatterer, speech is something indefinite, vague … but speech gets its own back in the very sound of such words as Verschwommenes, Schwimmer.
Morgenstern felt that there is a creative power in speech and that a degeneration takes place when, in prose, speech becomes merely an instrument of understanding between human beings.
The seer has still a third kind of spiritual experience in regard to speech, What he sees is not in the form of words, nor does it express itself directly in words. Thus it is difficult for the seer to make himself intelligible to the external world, because most people think in words and cannot conceive of living activity that transcends words. A man who has conscious experience in the spiritual world has a feeling of frustration when he has to pour into an already formed speech what he experiences; but because he silences the factors of mental presentations and memory, he is able to quicken within him the creative forces of speech themselves — creative forces that were working at the evolution of man at the stage when speech was born.”
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/SA3520_index.html
In our current time, with how speech is used, and even debased to a degree, Vidar strikes as an important figure… the Silent One who cleaved the maw of Fenris. Key points, ‘thinking in words’ versus spiritual activity that ‘transcends words’. This is how our thoughts become dead. True art, on the other hand, requires voluntary inwardly expression – outwards. This is nothing like atavistic clairvoyance, which is non voluntary, and the source comes from outside.
Thanks Kyle for the thought-provoking comments and research. They could certainly stimulate some discussion. For example, I’m not sure that I agree with the translator that Ahriman’s influence perished with the fall of Atlantis – while it’s true the physical, geographical continent perished, yet the Atlanteans, or at least many of them, who had contributed to the decline of that one language, were scattered to other lands, in effect distributing the power of Ahriman to those lands. Ahriman’s power may have been held in check for a time, until these Atlanteans got settled into their new situations, but the destruction of the language seems to have continued.
The translator does make an interesting point about the dead languages being the victim of Fenris Wolf. Very interesting that he mentions Latin – perhaps this is why Dante chose to write in a new language other than Latin, which became the foundation for what we call Italian now? Also of interest is that at the outset of his “journey”, Dante had to overcome his fear of the 3 beasts, one of which was a wolf. Dante’s work of art in the form of the Divine Comedy has endured for about 600 years – it remains to be seen if Steiner’s works of art, who used language to a great extent, will endure as long. My personal feeling on that is that they will, since his use of language brings to life the spiritual entities that language should lead us to.
I see in my own self this battle between Odin and Loki – between what wants to be a language of unity, and that which would bring division. I also see the Fenris Wolf rearing its ugly head at times. I wonder if that isn’t the real lesson here – that these are symbols of battles that we each face? It seemed to be the case for Dante, that he needed to overcome his 3 beasts, and be exposed to the Inferno, then experience Purgatorio, in order to move on to Paradisio.
Hi Maverick. I can only assume what the translator meant by ‘perished’ is more akin to ‘losing influence’. There is a connection with this in the Michael Mystery GA26 lecture 4:
“Thoughts now appear within the field of human consciousness — dead, abstract Thoughts. These Thoughts are tied to the physical human body. Man must recognize them as his own progeny.
When, in days of yore, Man turned his soul’s gaze in the direction where now his own Thoughts appear to him, he then beheld divine Spirit-beings. He saw his whole existence bound up with these Beings, in all that he was, down to his physical body. He must confess himself the product of these Beings, — not only their product in all that he was, but also in all that he did. Man had no Will of his own; all that he did was a manifestation of Divine Will…”
And later:
“…With his dead Thoughts, he feels himself released from the spiritual world, — he feels himself planted down completely into the physical world.
But hereby he is at the same time brought into the sphere of the Ahrimanic Mind. The Ahrimanic form of mind has no great power in those regions, where the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies keep Man within their own immediate sphere, — either by working within him themselves, as in primeval times, or, as later, by the brightness of their ensouled or living reflection. So long as the workings of super-sensible Beings continue in this way to enter into all the workings of Man, — until, that is, about the fifteenth century A.D. — the powers of Ahriman find within the field of human evolution only a faint echo, one might say, of their strength.”
We are only speaking of a relatively short period of time, where humanity ‘enters’ the ‘Sphere of Ahriman.’ Now, that is a peculiar phrase in itself. Geographically speaking, we didn’t ‘move’, but the Sphere itself is the perception. We literally do not see the world the way people did five hundred years ago, and before.
I can only assume that the translator’s reference to ‘dead language’ came from Lecture 6 of GA225 Three Perspectives of Anthroposophy. – which happens to not be available online, but can be listened to. The general notion of it, is that starting in the 4 century CE, the Latin language gradually ceased being experienced inwardly. The other factor in this, is that Latin has been the vehicle for the natural science, materialism… which in turn, is the study of matter – which in turn, is dead stuff. The Logos loses its meaning.
I would fail to a proper summary of the lecture, but one thing stands out. These living myths come from the vernacular, not Latin. It is a relatively new phenomena in the history of humanity, where speech has lost its magic… and I believe this is strongly connected with the fifteenth century being a turning point, or a downgrade… but a necessary one for our own inner Freedom.
Resurrect the Logos!
Let the Silent One Speak –
Converse with the mineral, plant, animal & human kingdoms
Connect the Cosmic with the Earthly – In thoughts realized thru the expereice of Truth –
where the New Fire of the “I”
Pulsing into the Warmth, Light, Tone & Life ethers
Find the Christ in the me & the we…
Unclear as a Zoom link will be made available for August 2oth meeting, Vidar. Am interested in participating, Eastern Standard Time would be?
No Zoom, just read the lecture at home 8 pm ET.
Then I welcome your insights as we research this Being Vidar & a possible Vidarmas Festival of the Future…
When I contemplate how amazing the human being is, I wonder why some give so much time and attention to the study of the physical, material world. As the excerpt from Steiner’s lecture says, if we were turned inside out, we’d discover we have a universe inside ourselves. That alone is surely worthy of a lifetime of study.
Then, as if the human being that is formed, or “woven together”, in the womb isn’t amazing enough, you add to that, the fact that what’s being formed is only to be a vessel for a soul to enter, a soul that will bring with it experiences from many previous incarnations on Earth, as well as many sojourns to the various planets, and you realize why it’s no wonder the hierarchies (and Sophia) take such delight in working with and guiding human beings towards their destiny.
Your new path of discovery, Hazel, will make you an excellent Priest, since you already have a good understanding of the human being; I’m sure it’ll increase your understanding greatly. One could spend their whole life acquiring understanding of how amazing human beings are. Thanks for the inspiring thoughts today. Cheers.
O Maverick I love how you always get into the essence of these things. Yes the Soul forces within the cosmic music of our Being holds a whole other universe – consisting of all our individual AND collective experiences & karma…Spiritual Science gives us the contemplation that the ‘Human Being is the Religion of the Hierarchies’ ! What a blessing in deed.
And we appreciate how you raise the level of spiritual vibes with your perceptions – so inspiring to be reminded that we are the “religion of the hierarchies”. Had forgotten that wonderful phrase; thank you.
Certainly makes a person strive to be upright…