Greetings dear Ones on this Holy Moonday, still pulsating with the forces of the lunar eclipse which ended this morning at 4:32 AM. Our gathering of Conscious Community last night went deep & wide. A salon of Goethean conversation; feasting; a guitar passing between many hands, voices blending – Calling down the Moon - Rising up in hope - like the freedom flames banked by holy coals in the bowled earth-pit of our backyard hearth-fire. In the periphery - an elemental chorus soared in the vernal stirring of the Biodynamic barrel compost preparation from Zinniker Farm, as Bella Luna, wearing a misty veil, rose over the rooftops, ready to face her shrouding trial.
The diverse crowd held a core-majority of young folk who shaped with conscious intention a non-judgmental sacred space, where the confluence of energies swirling in from all realms - heavily topped by this lunar eclipse at Passion-Tide - could be held with integrity & grace.
I was tasked by a dear one with making a sacramental offering to the fires of transformation. After a story blessing & a good grounding, the violet-flame was put to work – discharging formidably cathartic images: Burning Templars - a sacrificial release of vested deeds - overlaid with a redolence of singed hair, a white billowing in the black vestment, puffing up with a wild noxious smoke - becoming a full-on embodiment - taking up the lunar eclipse energies - dispersing it in orange & blue sparks. Then collapsing like the bad witch from the Wizard of Oz, melting into a tar-black molten blob.
One of the young women remedied the reeking stink of polyethylene with pine branches & the wood from Christmas trees scavenged from the alley, which relived the air. And the deed was done – a purification that reached every dimension - from the personal, to the collective, to the cosmic.
The ‘Great Physician’ was felt - the presence of the Healing Spirit - expanding strongly from the Caduceus of The Archangel Raphael – Pulsing out into the World as it does every Spring.
Our active imagination inspired by our thinking Intuition, led us to directly manifest a way of being that engenders a Living Rite - embracing this Healing Spirit, preserving on Earth the power to redeem.
It was intense to experience / witness the splitting that comes out in the hardening, or its opposite - the dissolving of our breathing – which makes for illness – & yet these forces are, & must be, a catalyst for catharsis & change - when we meet them in Christ consciousness.
And so, in the light of this Moonday of Holy Week, while wrestling with the cursing of the fig tree, representing the old clairvoyance, exemplifying the need to purify our Moon-forces - the lower desires inhabiting our astral body - extending out into the social realm - where the Christ in us drives out the money changers, in the cleansing of the Temple – So that the symbol of the fig can be reclaimed as the symbol of the Divine Feminine, renewed to become The New Isis-Mary-Sophia that lives as Anthroposophia in us – an inner marriage of Love & Wisdom.
And from this sacred, alchemical wedding, there is a consummation - seen in today’s Feast of the Annunciation, also known as the Feast of the Incarnation (Festum Incarnationis), Conceptio Christi (Christ’s Conception) - This beloved Marian Festival commemorates the day that the Archangel Gabriel announced that the Luke Mary, the Christian form of The Virgin Sophia, was pregnant with the Son of God – born 9 months later, on the 25th of Dec. How’s that for a nice little Spring fertility symbol. This Feast of The Conception is also known by the more ancient name, Lady Day.
25 March also happens to be the Deathday of Novalis*, the German polymath, poet, novelist, philosopher who brought many insights into the mystic marrage with the Sophia.
Holy Moly - I wasn’t planning on delving into last night’s salon workings – But events arise that call to be incorporated into the improvision within life’s cycling - So the overlay is here, ready for anyone who wills to connect the dots, as an advancement of our Holy Week Theme of Encountering the Inner Layers of the Earth as a Rosicrucian / Christian Initiation…
Which begins with: Study. In the Rosicrucian sense this encompasses the ability to be immersed in a content of thought not taken from the physical, but from the higher worlds – Which can mature as we engage in the life of pure thought – which includes: following the cosmic evolution of humanity within the various planetary epochs, & the working to understand the ethics of being human.
The Rosicrucian way lets the facts of world-becoming in the cosmos speak objectively. The ‘Great Work’ is in filling these thoughts with enthusiasm so that they don’t stay stuck in the intellect, but are able to flow into the feeling life. Then thinking, infused with bliss or blessedness becomes Heart-Thinking. This practical thought-study is self- directed, done in freedom, not according to the will of a guru or the rules of an outside institution.
This is the 1st step of the Rosicrucian Initiation. And this goes hand in hand with the foundational stage of Christian Initiation:
The Washing of the Feet - a preparatory exercise of a moral character, relating to the scene where Christ washes the feet of the disciples before the Easter Festival - an example of profound humility and devotion.
In a deeper sense, the story relates to the evolution of all beings in Nature. The scene is really a reference to the law that the higher is a product of the lower. The plant could not exist without the mineral, the animal needs the plant. And humanity sustains life from the plants & animals. The esoteric meaning of the Washing of the Feet is that Christ Jesus, the Son of God, could not accomplish His great deed without being centered in the circle of the 12, representing the Zodiac.
This stage of initiation corresponds to the 1st layer of the inner earth, associated with the physical body, called the Mineral Earth. This topmost layer is like an eggshell containing everything known to natural science. Thin and fragile, it allows volcanic eruptions from deeper layers to emerge.
Rudolf Steiner felt compelled to speak for the 1st time about the interior of the earth at Easter in 1906, because Mt. Vesuvius had just erupted on 6 April. The San Francisco earthquake hit on 18 April . Valparaiso Chile had an 8.2 magnitude quake on 16 August 1906, and then the next day, the Aleutian Islands got struck by a devastating magnitude 8.35 quake. Even though these signals were loud and clear that the topic of the interior of the earth was calling out to be heard and heeded, Steiner found his audience reluctant or unable to engage in this intense, difficult topic at that time.
Steiner then began to work with Christ’s ‘Sermon on the Mount’ in connection with this topic - regarding the Beatitudes as the antidote, the medicine needed to work in these realms.
The 1st Beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” is revised for our understanding of this 1st stage of initiation to read: “Blessed are they who are beggars for the Spirit, for if they develop their Higher “I” to rule the outer bodies in the right way, they will find within themselves the kingdom of heaven.”
Spiritual Sceince tells us that the neophyte who meditates on this theme can gain a vision of the Washing of the Feet in the astral world during sleep. Then the candidate is ready to pass to the second stage of the Christian initiation…
until soon
~hag
25 March 2022 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Spica – aka Alpha Virginis – is the brightest star - depicted as golden grain of wheat - in the constellation Virgo the Maiden. In the 100s B.C., Spica helped the Greek astronomer Hipparchus discover the precession of Earth’s poles when he visited an ancient Egyptian temple in Thebes. The temple had been constructed about 2,000 years prior and was thought to be oriented according to Spica's heliacal rising — the time of year when the star becomes briefly visible above the eastern horizon just before sunrise. Noting that Spica had “drifted” during the passing millennia led Hipparchus to theorize the slow drift of precession.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
The archangel Gabriel’s salutation: “Hail, Mary full of grace, the LORD is with thee” (Luke 1:28; gratia plena Dominus tecum), & Mary’s response to God’s will, “be it done to me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38; fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum). The “angelic salutation” is the origin of the Hail Mary prayer & the Angelus; the second part of the prayer comes from the salutation of Saint Elizabeth to Mary at the Visitation.
1655 – Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.
*1801 – Deathday of Novalis. From Rudolf Steiner: “…Novalis could glance back to a time in which gods moved among men, when everything took place spiritually because spirits and souls had not yet descended into earthly bodies. He perceived a point of transition: how death hit the world and how the human beings during this time placed death as their earthly shadowing and how he tried to brighten it up through fantasy and art. But death remained a riddle.
Then something of universal significance happened. Novalis could perceive the universal meaning of what had happened at that time on earth. Souls from the kingdoms of nature descended to the earth. Forgotten were the memories of their spiritual original existence, yet a unique spiritual Being remained in this universal womb of creation from which everything descended. One Being provisionally held back; it had held itself above and only provisionally sent its gift of grace downward, and then, when human beings needed it the most, it also descend into the earthly sphere. It remained in the spiritual spheres above the being of the spiritual light, this Being was hidden behind the physical sun. It held itself in heavenly spheres and descended when human beings needed to once again be able to rise up to spiritual worlds. It descended with the Mystery of Golgotha when Christ appeared in a physical body.
Humanity understands Christ in His universal unfolding when the life of Jesus of Nazareth is followed back to His spiritual origins, to the unsolvable riddle of death. The Greek spirit of death appears as a pondering muse, as an enigma which cannot be solved. Even the Greeks sensed that the riddle which is hidden in the youth’s soul, found its solution with the Event of Golgotha, that here victory overcomes death and as a result a new impulse is given to humanity.
This Novalis could see and as a result there appeared to him, from the mystery of faith and the mystery wisdom, the Star which the old Magi had followed. As a result he understood the actual essence of what the Christ death implied. In the night of the soul the riddle of death revealed itself to him, the riddle of the Christ. This was it, which this extraordinary individual wanted to learn — through the memory of earlier lives — what the Christ, what the event of Golgotha signified for the world.” ~ Novalis and his “Hymns to the Night” Lecture by Rudolf Steiner in Berlin, “Matinee” 26 October 1908
1867 – Birthday of Arturo Toscanini, Italian-American cellist & conductor
1918 – Deathday of Claude Debussy, French composer
1957 – United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” on obscenity grounds.
1965 – Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama
TONIGHT March 25, 2024
7:00 to 8:30 pm
VIDEO Presentation:
Mysteries of the Celtic Goddesses w/
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
Minneapolis Theosophical Society is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting:
Description: Celtic mythology was passed on orally by Druid priests, and worship of Celtic Goddesses was discouraged by the Romans and Christians. However, many Celtic figures were integrated into the new culture, and the resurgence of Druid and Pagan movements has sparked interest in Celtic goddesses. Learn how goddesses like the trifold goddess Brigid, with her powers of Fire of Inspiration, Hearth, and Forge, is celebrated today.
The Sermon on the Mount; The Beatitudes
When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. 2 He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying,
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5
The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 “Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every day. 20 And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, 21 and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man’s table; besides, even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. 22 Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, that you send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 But he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’” Luke 16