Greetings friends on this Holy Tuesday - the day of Mars has been reached, & the conflict with the corrupt Pharisees erupts. An Apocalyptic future is revealed with the prophecy spoken by The Christ “…the time will come when not one stone will be left on another…” in Luke 21: 5-38 - bending the Mars spirit to His purposes.
I am starting to feel like the shadow of the Lunar eclipse energy that has been hanging over me since last week is starting to lift, as I contemplate:
The second stage of Rosicrucian Initiation - Imaginative Cognition - the knowledge which unites & expands the study-stage. A Practice of picturing the essence behind all physical expression, as the Spirit of the Earth.
Just as our body is ensouled, so is Mother Earth – what we see is the external expression for an indwelling spirit. This second stage teaches us to see every single flower in the meadow as the outer expression of a living being. Opening our consciousness to experience the countenance of every stone, plant, animal, as well as our neighbor, as a revelation of their inner eternal essence - an outer expression of the indwelling Christic Earth Spirit.
Realizations like these are cultivated by the Rosicrucian disciple of the Grail, thru the Rose Cross Meditation. Developing the ability to behold the chalice of the flower which receives the Sun-ray, calling forth the pure reproductive forces which slumber in the plant – as an inner vision of the “Holy Lance of Love.”
Then, at first, when we look at the human being, possessing a physical & etheric body just as the plant does, it appears as if we are standing higher than the plant. And yet, all that the plant harbors within itself is perfectly pure & chaste, in alignment with the Divine Will of its purpose. In the human being, because of the addition of our astral body, which is most often unconsciously steeped in impure desire, the selfless quality of the plant is missing & must be cultivated.
The Rosicrucian strives to bring forth what is to be the future of evolution – That human beings will become virtuous & pure, like the Rose - speaking out The Word, as a creative force in the world, thru the development of a new spiritual organ - a transformed larynx.
Objective & pure, without selfish desire, without unconscious urges, our generative organ will become like the calyx of the Rose - which turns upward to the Spiritual Ray of Wisdom - the ‘Holy Love Lance’. Fructified by Love & Wisdom, we shall be able to bring forth our own image.
In our questing toward the Grail, we use our Imaginative Cognition to see the Rose, even though it is at a lower stage, as an example of this pure chalice. Humankind must re-establish this chalice, in moral chastity, opening to the Spiritualized Sun-Ray, to achieve the Holy Grail - our future birth-rite.
We are ever striving for this great Ideal, which will come to pass in the slow evolution of the whole human race, but must be practiced earlier by the initiate. We work to create, first thru Imagination, this higher evolution of humankind. These living pictures are potent, not like the dead abstract thoughts produced by our materialistic age. When we picture evolution in such lofty images as the Grail, we help manifest a new reality.
Imaginative Cognition works thru the light forces of the etheric body into our life’s blood - the medium which acts formatively on our physical organism. And as time goes on, we will increasingly become more & more able to work on our physical organism thru our etheric body.
Building up our Imaginative Knowledge, based on truth - is healing - it gives the blood vitality in its circulation. We become strong thru our devotion, & this allows healing to work out from these subtle bodies.
The second stage experienced in the Christian Initiation correlates to The Scourging —
Life brings all kinds of suffering— physical, moral, intellectual, spiritual. The disciple must endure suffering with perfect equanimity of soul and heroic courage. We must conquer physical and moral fear. When we become fearless, we may be able to see, in lucid dream, the scene of the Scourging.
As our compassion deepens we may begin to see ourselves in the Christ Who is scourged.
Certain symptoms in physical life accompany this event. There is an intensification in the life of feeling, a wider sense of what can be called a love of life. Thru his Spiritual Science Rudolf Steiner gives us the example of this heightened sensibility transferred to the world of intelligence, in the life of Goethe - his sublime intelligence on the one hand, but also his intense sympathy with all living beings and the whole of Nature. Such sensitiveness is a refinement and an extension of the forces of life and love. It corresponds to this second stage of Christian initiation and is the compensation for the trial of the Scourging. Humanity acquires a feeling of love for all beings and this gives us a sense of living in the heart of Nature herself.
This stage of initiation correlates to the etheric body and along with the second Beatitude is the antidote to the second layer of the inner earth, called the Fluid Earth, which is held under tremendous pressure by the Mineral Earth. Steiner describes this layer as ‘dimly sentient’, calling its effect ‘negative of life’, it destroys & dissolves, expels and kills all life, it is a realm of death.
“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” The medicine of this stage proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount as revealed by Steiner expands this Beatitude: “Blessed or God-filled are they who do not banish sorrow, but who endure it, developing the power of Ego whereby they can find the Paraclete or Holy Spirit who reveals itself thru the ego”
tomorrow takes us further…
~Hag
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY:
1812 – Caracas earthquake took place in Venezuela on what was Maundy Thursday killing over 20,000 people. The seismic movement was so drastic that in a zone named Valecillo a new lake was formed & the river Yurubí was dammed up. Numerous rivulets changed their course in the valley of Caracas, which was flooded with dirty water. The earthquake consisted of two seismic shocks occurring within the span of 30 minutes. The first destroyed Caracas & the second Mérida, where it was raining when the shock occurred. Since the earthquake occurred on Maundy Thursday, while the Venezuelan War of Independence was raging, it was explained by royalist authorities as divine punishment for the rebellion against the Spanish Crown.
1827 – Death-Day of Ludwig van Beethoven, German pianist & composer
1830 – The Book of Mormon is published in Palmyra, New York.
1856 – Birthday of Fritz Lemmermayer, an Austrian writer, journalist & closest childhood friend of Rudolf Steiner in Vienna. Fritz was a passionate anti-materialist, he wanted to devote his life to the creation & maintenance of spiritual values. In 1883 he completed his novel “The Alchemist”. Rudolf Steiner met Lemmermayer again in 1886 in the circle of the poet Marie Eugenie delle Grazie. An extensive correspondence attests to the close friendship between the two (see GA 38).
Steiner says: Fritz Lemmermayer, with whom I was later on terms of intimate friendship, I came to know at one of delle Grazie’s afternoons. A highly noteworthy man. Whatever interested him he expressed with inwardly measured dignity. In his outward appearance he resembled equally the musician Rubinstein and the actor Lewinsky. With Hebbel he developed almost a cult. He had definite views on art and life born out of the sagacious understanding of the heart, and these were unusually fixed. He had written the interesting and profound romance, Der Alchemist(3), and much besides that was characterized by beauty and depth. He knew how to consider the least things in life from the view-point of the most vital. I recall how I once saw him in his charming little room in a side-street in Vienna together with other friends. He had planned his meal: two soft-boiled eggs, to be cooked in an instantaneous boiler, together with bread. He remarked with much emphasis while the water was heating to boil the eggs for us: “This will be delicious!” In a later phase of my life I shall again have occasion to speak of him ~Rudolf Steiner, The Story of My Life, Chapter VII Lemmermayer & Steiner joined the ranks of the Viennese artist circle in the house of the protestant priest Alfred Formey. In 1891 Lemmermayer was vice president of Schrifstellerbundes Iduna , named after Iduna , the Norse goddess of youth & immortality a counterweight against the currents of naturalism. Lemmermayer became a member of the Anthroposophical Society in 1920. He Steiner on many trips through Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Holland & England. This led to his 1929 published memories, where he spoke about Rudolf Steiner, Robert Hamerling & other personalities of the Austrian intellectual life of the 80s. In addition, Lemmermayer published in the weekly ” Das Goetheanum “.
1874 – Birthday of Robert Frost, American poet & playwright
1892 – Deathday of Walt Whitman
1979 – Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin & Jimmy Carter sign the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty in Washington, D.C
This is really getting good, Hazel. Your analysis is wonderful, and very thought provoking. I am contemplating heavily on the Sermon on the Mount, using Steiner's lecture from March 15, 1910, ref. GA 118. Also, the stages of the specifically Christian Initiation, which requires much strength and concentration in order to perceive these relevant stages as having living moments in our lives. The Rosicrucian path is an evolution of the former path that comes out of the East, which is based on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjail. Yet, this Rosicrucian path is still largely unknown in the West, and so, thanks for making it more well known.
The Feast of Annunciation, which Max also pointed out, and occurs regularly every year on March 25th, is deferred an octave when it takes place during Holy Week. This means it will be celebrated this year on April 8th, in conjunction with the total solar eclipse, and your retreat in Dallas. Is that not remarkable? I see it as a further sign of your upward-tending direction.