Thank you dear friends for reaching out with your healing thoughts, CG & I are doing well physically, just a little tightness in my chest at this point. But the ‘attack on the Will’ is still like a dark veil over everything – extreme exhaustion – no desire or strength to do anything – a deep brain fog that is exceedingly difficult to pierce thru – filled with depressed feelings & hopeless voices that a dear friend described perfectly: “I will never get well” “What is the point of getting well?”
A true battle with the forces of darkness – An attack on the foundational aspect of the 12 senses, the ‘life’ sense in particular – I have always had a weak spot here in my constitution, never a good feeling of well-being…So I’m not surprised it is hitting me so hard here. I guess it’s time to take this in hand.
I am also working on seeing this trial as my wise friend has shared: “…experience led to the insight that affirmed my personal participation in what I had long viewed as a World Initiation; and that one of the most important trials is the redemption of Ahriman, through the “Christ In Me. – my only hope lay with the Light of Christ!” (I love you Roberta!)
To take this battle out of just my personal self & into this larger perspective is helpful. I am also renewing my dedication to the 10:10 Thought-Seed Meditation which I admit I had let become rote.
“Erst wenn ich Lichtes denke leuchtet meine Seele,
Erst wenn meine Seele leuchtet ist die Erde ein Stern,
Erst wenn die Erde ein Stern ist bin ich wahrhaft Mensch”!
~Herbert Hahn
For Thinking
“When I think light
My soul shines
When my soul shines
The Earth is a star
When the Earth is a star
I am, a true human being”.
Thinking Reversed:
I am a true human being
The Earth is a star
My soul shines
I think light
For Feeling:
When I feel warmth
My heart sings
When my heart sings
The Earth resounds
When the Earth resounds
I am a true I AM
Feeling Reversed:
I am a true I am
The Earth resounds
My heart sings
I feel warmth
For Willing:
When I will life
My hands help
When my hands help
The Earth heals
When the Earth heals
I am a free human being
Willing Reversed:
I am a free human being
The Earth heals
My hands help
I will life.
I am grateful that I have some presentations looming, it gives me something to live & strive for. So folks – Put me to work! – Let me know if there is an Anthroposophical subject, theme or Festival that you would like me to zoom into your community – “Through service, we triumph!”
~hag
17 September 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience ~ Zbigniew Herbert
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1179 – Deathday of Hildegard of Bingen, “the Sybil of the Rhine” a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, & polymath.
She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama, the oldest surviving morality play. She wrote theological, botanical, & medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, & poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.
Hildegard 1st saw “The Shade of the Living Light” at the age of three. Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, but at the age of 42, Hildegard received instruction from God, to “write down that which you see and hear.” Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering: “But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. (…) And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, ‘Cry out therefore, and write thus!’
Hildegard’s visions caused her to see humans as “living sparks” of God’s love.
On 17 September 1179, when Hildegard died, her sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies & cross over the room where she was dying.
“Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around Him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honor. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground, and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.”
1787 – The United States Constitution is signed in Philadelphia
1859 – Joshua A. Norton declares himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States.” Born in England, Norton spent most of his early life in South Africa, he emigrated to San Francisco with an inheritance, but he lost his fortune investing in Peruvian rice & Norton’s public prominence faded. He reemerged to lay claim to the position of Emperor of the United States, & ‘Protector of Mexico’. He was treated deferentially in San Francisco, ¤cy issued in his name was honored in the establishments he frequented.
Though some considered him insane or eccentric, citizens of San Francisco celebrated his regal presence & his proclamations, such as his order that the United States Congress be dissolved by force & his numerous decrees calling for a bridge crossing connecting San Francisco to Oakland, &a corresponding tunnel to be built under San Francisco Bay.
At his funeral two days later, nearly 30,000 people packed the streets of San Francisco to pay homage. Norton has been immortalized as the basis of characters in the literature of writers Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Christopher Moore, Maurice De Bevere, Selma Lagerlöf, & Neil Gaiman
1908 – The Wright Flyer flown by Orville Wright, with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge as passenger, crashes, killing Selfridge. He becomes the first airplane fatality
1961 – Deathday of Dag Hammarskjöld, Swedish diplomat, economist, author & the second secretary-general of the United Nations. Soon after his appointment Hammarskjöld was interviewed on radio by Edward R. Murrow. In this talk he declared: “But the explanation of how man should live a life of active social service in full harmony with himself as a member of the community of spirit, I found in the writings of those great medieval mystics [Meister Eckhart and Jan van Ruysbroek] for whom ‘self-surrender’ had been the way to self-realization, and who in ‘singleness of mind’ and ‘inwardness’ had found strength to say yes to every demand which the needs of their neighbours made them face, and to say yes also to every fate life had in store for them when they followed the call of duty as they understood it.”
He was en route to negotiate a cease-fire on 18 September when his plane crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia. Hammarskjöld & fifteen others died in the crash. The circumstances of the incident are still not clear. There is some evidence that suggests the plane was shot down. Göran Björkdahl (a Swedish aid worker) wrote in 2011 that he believed Dag Hammarskjöld’s 1961 death was a murder committed in part to benefit mining companies like Union Minière, after Hammarskjöld had made the UN intervene in the Katanga crisis. Björkdahl based his assertion on interviews with witnesses of the plane crash & on archival documents. Former U.S. President Harry Truman commented that Hammarskjöld “was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said ‘when they killed him’.”
1978 – The Camp David Accords brokered by President Jimmy Carter, is signed by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
2011 – Occupy Wall Street movement begins in Zuccotti Park, New York City
The “Cognitive Ritual” of Anthroposophia – Living into the New Mysteries with~Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
FRIDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2022, Front Range Anthroposophical Cafe, 6 pm PT, 7 pm MT, 8 pm CT, 9 pm ET
When Rudolf Steiner founded the ‘New Mysteries’ thru Anthroposophia at the Christmas Conference of 1923-24, he laid the foundation on earth for a new “cultus”, which had been part of the Michael School in the Super-sensible world during the 18th & 19th Centuries. He referred to this practical aspect of the New Mysteries as: the “Cognitive Ritual”, the “Ritual of Knowledge”, the “Spiritual Communion of Humanity”, the “Cosmic Communion”, the “World Ritual”, the “Reverse Ritual”, or “the “Cosmic Ritual”. How is it different from the Sacramental Communion? And why is it important for us today?
You are invited: Saturday/Sunday 24-25 September 2022
The BDANC Fall Michaelmas Gathering
hosted Gloria Decater at Live Power Community Farm, Covelo
Saturday:
*Honoring the Cow
*Honoring the Elementals – with Hazel Archer Ginsberg
*Hands on prep making with Harald Hoven
*The Evolution of Biodynamic Legacy Farms – Old farms that need new farmers – Round table discussion with Gloria Decater and Chuck Ginsberg
*Bridging Heaven and Earth through Singing, Storytelling and Biography Work with Hazel Archer Ginsberg
The Michaelmas 2022 Bridging Project at Live Power Farm
We will work in conscious community to connect beyond the threshold for the future evolution of the Earth. Spiritual Science brings us many teachings on communicating with the ‘so-called dead’, working with the spiritual hierarchies, & coming to know the Christ as the meaning of the Earth. We can learn what our beloved dead & the unborn can teach us about what it means to be human in a spiritual sense here on Earth.
*Discussion about Sequential Spraying for Drought Remediation with Michael Aldinger
*Catered dinner
Sunday:
*Eurythmy – with Cynthia Hoven
*Anthroposophical Salon – with Hazel Archer Ginsberg and Nancy Poer
For details, accommodations, meal reservations and schedule see www.bdanc.org
Live Power Community Farm is a seasoned, long-time biodynamic farm whose farming family have passed through many seasons of soul, soil and spirit. Gloria Decater, whose husband Stephen crossed the threshold last year, is currently in the process of exploring how the future incarnation of this living farm individuality needs to evolve. Although the CSA aspect of the farm is on hold right now, Gloria has been continuing to host educational activities for children and adults.
PURCHASING PREPARATIONS: Preps must be ordered at least three days in advance – by Sept 21st – to be picked up at the meeting. These BD preparations are hand made by groups of BDANC practitioners on various BD farms around NORCAL. Supervision and distribution by Harald Hoven.
Horn Manure (500) $5 members/$7 non-members
Horn Silica (501) $3 members/$4 non-members
Compost Prep Set (502-507) $18 members/$21 non-members
Compost Prep (Barrel Compost) $5 members/$7 non-members
Contact Harald Hoven – Phone: (916) 837-8776 Email: hhoven@att.net
“From Gondishapur to Covid-19 and the 4th Industrial Revolution” with Richard Ramsbotham
Sun, Sep 25 at 3:00pm EST
How are our modern day approaches to pandemics, technology advancements and governments influenced by thinking impulses originating in The Academy of Gondishapur?
Register here:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7zwVmfGCRZ-5Nc0imZRI8w
Richard Ramsbotham was born in Northumberland in 1962. After attending Cambridge University and Emerson College he taught literature at Warsaw University (1989-1993) and then trained at the Artemis School of Speech and Drama. Since then he has worked as a teacher, lecturer, writer and theatre director. He is the author of ‘Who Wrote Bacon? Shakespeare, Bacon and James 1’; ‘An Exact Mystery – the Poetic Life of Vernon Watkins’; several plays and many articles on cultural, historical and current themes (e.g. 9/11 and Covid-19). He has also translated and directed Rudolf Steiner’s 4 Mystery Dramas. He is the co-founder of Fourfold Living Arts, an initiative bringing together the performing arts with the exploration of important cultural and current themes.
_______
Shining a Light into the Darkness
Path of Knowledge inner development is itself a process of shining light into the darkness.
As social challenges are intensifying, we are called upon more urgently to develop new capacities in understanding the human being, nature and medicine in wholeness. This series will focus on historical thinking influences which still darkly affect the soul of every modern human being.
Because we see everywhere today that the “light shines into the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not”, what is our response to the recognition of darkness which lives within the thinking of each of us?
This series is open to all who study anthroposophy.
Proceeds will benefit anthroposophic organizations worldwide.
Register here for all talks:
https://www.ideasbookstorekimberton.com/zoom
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2022 / 3PM EST
“From Gondishapur to Covid-19 and the 4th Industrial Revolution”
Richard Ramsbotham
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2022 / 3PM EST
“The Lives of Francis Bacon and the Anvil of Scientific Materialism”
Richard Ramsbotham
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2022 / 3PM EST
“Jesuitism, Bolshevism, and Americanism”
Rev. Patrick Kennedy
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2022 / 1PM EST
“Kaspar Hauser: Understanding his Task as Related to the World Today. How Does our Time Reflect the Events of the 19th Century and Transform Them?” Richard Steel
SUNDAY, JANUARY 8, 2023 / 3PM EST
“Living Picture Imaginations: Healing from the Effects of Propaganda”
Dennis Klocek
SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2023 / 3PM EST
“Overcoming Materialistic Thinking: Anthroposophic Pharmacy as a Modern Rosicrucian – Alchemical Path” Albert Schmidli
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2023 / 3PM EST
“What is Christianized Thinking in Medicine? Illness and Healing as Threshold Experiences“ Michaela Gloeckler, MD
SUNDAY, MARCH 5, 2023 / 3PM EST
“After Auschwitz. Reflections on the Future of Medicine and Society”
Peter Selg, MD
SUNDAY, MARCH 26, 2023 / 3PM EST
“Meeting Christ in the Etheric in Response to the Challenges of Our Times”
James Dyson, MD
Hazel, I loved that poem/mediation . . . “For Thinking, For Feeling, For Willing; Reversed.” Thanks for sharing. I find it expresses all there is. It’s very centering.
Rod Endacott
Thanks Rod – I am hoping others will take up these thought seeds with me – togther we can help the Earth to become a Star!
I set my phone to give me a notification for 10:10 am & pm & that is when I do these meditations…
I will look for you in the ethers
xox
The subject of affliction is something I’m finding interesting of late, perhaps because I’m seeing so many acquaintances dealing with it. Something is telling me that the very fact that we experience affliction is an indication to us that God cares for us. With Hildegard, it seems God used affliction to make the point that she was to be an instrument to communicate certain messages, after she initially brushed the idea off. Then, there’s the fact that Christ descended to the Earth realm, knowing that it’d involve some suffering – he may not have known all the details ahead of time, but knew that he’d be facing some opposition and temptations. In his case, we’re specifically told that he (I’m thinking this refers to the man Jesus more than the Christ Spirit) “learned obedience through what he suffered.” (Hebrews 5:8).
Solomon tried to communicate to us a long, long time ago that mourning is better than mirth. This is a hard truth for us humans to wrap our heads around, since we’d much rather enjoy the “passing pleasures” that this world can offer. Yet Solomon’s words stand firm: “Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” (Ecclesiastes 7:3,4)
The heart of the British people as a society will be strengthened as they spend their time mourning, even though it might appear somewhat ridiculous to many observers to watch them standing for hours in line. That’s another subject that bears more examination – the subject of death, but it’s a big subject. There’s the reality of death itself – how it began; then there’s the effects of its power, such as the fear that humans have of it. The fear of death is behind some of our human behavior, which I’m sure will show up at some point in your study of psychology.
This quote is from an article by John Piper called “Only Wounded Soldiers can Serve”:
“I was reading a book by James Stewart, a Scottish minister, last week. He writes, “In love’s service, only the wounded soldiers can serve.” That’s why I believe some of you are being prepared for some precious service of love right now: Because you are being wounded. Do not think that your wound has come to you apart from God’s gracious design. Remember his word: “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me. . . . I wound and I heal” (Deuteronomy 32:39).”
That word affliction is very powerful.
Interesting that you mention fear of death…My friend that I quoted today said it was something she faced with the sickness. For me it seems I grapple with fear of life.
I just finished reading a series of lectures by Steiner under the title ‘How do we find the Christ again?” It was given during the Holy Nights right after the world war in 1919.
And he stresses how many people have a fear of the spirit. That a new spiritual impulse came in at the beginning of the 19th Century & that most ‘educated’ people are fighting tooth & nail to avoid this new impulse, especially those in modern science. He speaks about how the Spirits of Form have passed their job of working with humanity to the Spirits of Personality – The Archai. He says that the reason the war happened was because people did not want to take up this new impulse. And that because the war happened & Wilson with his Arabinized abstract 14 points & the rest of the war mongers laid the war blame as they did on the German people, that we will always have war in the world. It’s very compelling.
And so I ask myself: Why are people afraid of the Spirit?
Well now, that’s interesting – a fear of life. That alone is worthy of some self-examination, to see where or in what that might be rooted. Are you a person that goes to extremes, so that you’re afraid you might take the forces of life to such an extreme that others will be critical? If that’s the case, are you overly concerned what others might think? or perhaps you judge yourself too harshly? Only you will know or understand where that might originate.
Also interesting that you find that word affliction powerful, like it touches a spiritual nerve. Steiner said, in relation to words, “It is not exactly easy to characterize our inner response to higher perceptions accurately, for we do not yet have the human words for it.” Your mention of the Archai had me reflecting back to Lecture 13 in The Fifth Gospel where he speaks of the Archai. Actually, he speaks of the 3 hierarchies above us, how our thoughts are thought by the Angels, while the Archangels take our souls into a particular age. About the Archai, he says “we must know: I am Archai food, I am digested by the Archai, this is their life, which I live in them….We are continually consumed by the Archai as we walk around here on Earth.” I know that I myself have been experiencing a much closer relationship with the Archai since learning all of this.
It’s a very pertinent question you offer in why people are afraid of the Spirit. My first response would be that it’s only some who are afraid, but they happen to be in the majority, and they are controlled by some who have a lot of power in today’s world. This is shown by someone like Putin, who has a great deal of power at his disposal for creating death and destruction – his mind seems to be on times past, on the glory of Russia when it had more clout, even to an almost maniacal, but definitely egoistical, degree. There are some bright lights though – people like New Zealanders, who are being led by a woman who seems to be more balanced and self-controlled, from what we hear of her. So because of people like Putin, stuck in their fixed ideas and in the glory of the past, we’re likely to continue to see wars, and famines, and various tumults in the earth. This may very well be rooted in a fear of the Spirit, because the Spirit would like to see humanity develop, and not destroy itself, but the laws of the Spirit are not the laws of our material world, sadly. If they were, there would be heaven on earth, and everything would function harmoniously.
Self-examination is defiantly my go to. The way I see it if I do have a ‘fear of life’ it has more to do with those 12 senses I was talking about, & how difficult it is for me to live into the first 4.
Yes, I do find that words that touch me deeply are ripe for further investigation. Steiner speaks of Hildegard of Bingen as being what today we would call ‘pathological’ – that many Saints were. Because of it her etheric body was so strong it could deal with her affliction, bringing the grace of god to her in amazing ways.
This notion of being a fit food for the Archai has been with me for a while. Although I have not been able to put it into perspective in thinking about Michael as of yet…?
Yes, Your example of people in power who are stuck in the past is a good example of fear of spirit. But I wonder about the other example where a govt is ‘liberal’ which gives them a reason to put the country into total lockdown ‘for the good of the people’ – it seems like 2 different kinds of oppression both stemming from fear of the spirit.
https://www.amazon.com/Iodine-Need-Cant-Live-Without/dp/0966088239
http://www.drdalepeterson.com/Iodine_f979f59fd58ccdcc01303b4bf.html
https://a.co/d/cBp7KCZ
https://nootropicsexpert.com/iodine/
Brain fog and fatigue are symptoms related to iodine deficiency.
Susceptibility to RNA viruses suggests low selenium levels.
Most viral pandemics originate from areas with selenium-poor soils.
Iodine is a more potent antioxidant than vitamin C.
Selenium is required for the regeneration of glutathione, the carrier of
“antioxidant power” within cells.
Thanks Scott