Witness

Memphis Morn– The Journey (part 1part 2part 3part 4part 5, part 6 )

Image result for pine tree abstract painting
~Jenn Houle

The mares were bounding all thru the night. I awoke at 4:44 am my head splitting, the dream pounding. I stood at the threshold looking down into a deep gorge shaped like the liberty bell. There was a huge white boulder shaped like a skull that had been cleaved in two by an ancient pine tree growing up from its center. Suddenly I was across the threshold with my back to the tree. Like a strong wind Beings were rushing up & out of the rock, pushing up my spine & out of my mouth: ‘Give me passage or give me peace’. The ground spoke like thunder & unlocked in front of me, revealing more Beings seeking utterance; some to entreat, others to impart ‘The Code’. In the dream I understood; but when I woke I was only left with a deep feeling of unease. Later, tears streaming, I tried to relate the dream to my sisters as we cozyed up on my bed, in the growing light.

~Angela Foster

After breakfast Angela happened to open a book she didn’t even remember packing, & out fluttered a note that her 11 year old daughter Penelope had hid there which said: ‘This is your Sol calling’. What a blessing from the future, in that now.

~hag

With this rich, intense morning as our foundation, we packed up & made our way, this time in the light of day, back to the Lorraine Motel, where MLK was murdered on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST.

Image result for vintage cars outside the Lorraine motel
~hag

Last night’s eerie feeling moving into a solemn trepidation, we entered the building to find a modern Civil rights museum graphed on to the old motel.

~Photo by Deb Abrahams-Dematte

We lingered in the lobby with a sculpture depicting human beings making their way up the mountain. I noticed that behind it was another metal sculpture housing what was meant to be an eternal flame. But it was unlit; standing there neglected, cold & dark. So the 3 sisters gathered around; sending our collective light into it, feeling our eternal flame spreading out from that place in Memphis TN. enkindling the world. Angela placed a red paper rose petal there, from last year’s AGM in New Orleans, that she was using as a book mark – a token of our collective fire.

~hag

She chose to stay at the periphery, while Deb & I went inside the ‘National Civil Rights Museum’, a renowned educational & cultural institution.

~hag

We made our way thru the interactive exhibits chronicling the American Civil Rights Movement, with compelling presentations of iconic moments, like the video’s of the lunch-counter protests, which were brutal to witness, & a replica of the Greyhound Bus destroyed by white supremacists during the Freedom Rides. It was emotionally charged, to experience five centuries of this dramatic history.

Image result for boarding house from which Ray is believed to have fired the fatal shot.
~hag

We then went across the street to the boarding house where James Earl Ray initially confessed (& later recanted) to shooting King.

Looking for a spot to plant the ‘Soul Soil’ we found a grassy knoll between the motel & the boarding house, a strange oasis, in the line of fire, peppered with beech trees. This berm, out in plain sight, completely open, but unencumbered by people, was a secluded sanctuary.

~Photo by Deb Abrahams-Dematte
~hag

There was one patch of ground, shaped like a heart that was devoid of grass, naked & ready for our offering. I made an invocation & prayer, Angela planted the offering, & we did the Hallelujah right there in the open, feeling completely held.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is Southern-tour-2019-mississippi-woith-pryamid-rotated.jpg
~Photo by Deb Abrahams-Dematte

In a mood of purposeful completion, we knew our next spot was to be the River. The mighty Mississippi, a few blocks away, called & we came.

~photo Angela Foster

Then it was time for us to make our way to Nashville. We had a date with Athena at the Parthenon.

until soon

~hag

*** 

~Darla Nepth

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Spirit hands raising me up
From the dead
Weight of sunset
With its ballast of offerings –
The suffering of light
Stars blinking out torch-songs
As my limbs decline
Into the wind whipped fall
Of night.
~hag

***

MercuryatGWE1119

27 November 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”

 Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day 

 ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast day of Barlaam & Josaphat two legendary Christian martyrs & saints, based on the life of the Gautama Buddha. The tale tells how an Indian king persecuted the Christian Church in his realm. When astrologers predicted that his own son would become Christian, the king imprisoned the young prince Josaphat, who nevertheless met the hermit Saint Barlaam & converted to Christianity. After much tribulation the young prince’s father accepted the true faith, turned over his throne to Josaphat, & retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated & went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam. The tale derives from a second to fourth century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, via a Manichaean version, the Arabic Kitab Bilawhar wa-Yudasaf (Book of Bilawhar and Yudasaf).

8 BC – Deathday of Horace, the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus; who crafted elegant hexameter verses & caustic iambic poetry. His career coincided with Rome’s momentous change from a republic to an empire. An officer in the republican army, he was befriended by Octavian’s right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas, & became a spokesman for the new regime.

511 – Feast Day of Clovis, the first king of the Franks to unite all of the tribes under one ruler, changing the form of leadership from a group of royal chieftains to rule by a single king, ensuring that the kingship was passed down to his heirs. He is considered to have been the founder of the Merovingian dynasty, which ruled the Frankish kingdom for the next two centuries. His name is Germanic, composed of the elements hlod (“fame”) & wig (“combat”), & is the origin of the later French given name Louis, borne by 18 kings of France. Clovis is also significant due to his conversion to Christianity in 496, largely at the behest of his wife, Clotilde, who would later be venerated as a saint for this act, celebrated today in both the Roman Catholic Church & Eastern Orthodox Church. The adoption by Clovis of Catholicism led to widespread conversion among the Frankish peoples, to religious unification across what is now modern-day France, Belgium & Germany, & three centuries later to Charlemagne’s alliance with the Bishop of Rome & in the middle of the 10th century under Otto I the Great to the consequent birth of the early Holy Roman Empire.

784 – Deathday of Vergilius of Salzburg an Irish Bishop & early astronomer.

Image result for Saint Catherine Labouré

1830 – Saint Catherine Labouré reported that the Blessed Mother appeared to her during evening meditations. She displayed herself inside an oval frame, standing upon a globe. She wore many rings set with gems that shone rays of light over the globe. Around the margin of the frame appeared the words Ô Marie, conçue sans péché, priez pour nous qui avons recours à vous (“O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee”). As Catherine watched, the frame seemed to rotate, showing a circle of twelve stars, a large letter M surmounted by a cross, & the stylized Sacred Heart of Jesus crowned with thorns & Immaculate Heart of Mary pierced with a sword. Asked why some of the gems did not shed light, Mary reportedly replied, “Those are the graces for which people forget to ask.” Sister Catherine then heard the Virgin Mary ask her to take these images to her confessor, telling him that they should be put on medallions, & saying “All who wear them will receive great graces.”

The chapel in which Saint Catherine experienced her visions is located at the mother house of the Daughters of Charity in Rue du Bac, Paris. Her incorrupt body is interred in the chapel, which continues to receive daily visits from pilgrims today.

***

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

2 thoughts on “Witness

    1. instead of history, it is OUR Herstory…
      Thanks dear friend for exposing yourself by entering into this cyber medium…
      More journey’s to follow! xox

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