“The youth movement today is searching for the spirit in nature. This searching lives as a kind of call to the spirit in the heart. This call to the spirit, however, was very little met for humanity since the fifteenth century, through its particular world karma, it had gradually to lose the spirit.
But, you must not forget that what is living, in order to exist, always needs the dead. You have only to think that in all living substance must be imbedded, as a bony or form of scaffolding, that which was received out of the universe as the dead.
During our whole earthly life, therefore, we carry death within ourselves. It was known in ancient times that it is precisely this death element through which the living can gain revelations of the spiritual. From ancient Roman times there still resounds a phrase like, In sale sit sapienta (Wisdom rests in the salt.).
It was felt in the times when traditions of an ancient, instinctive clairvoyant wisdom still existed, that in the salt, out of which the bones and other scaffolding are built, was spiritual light, sapienta (wisdom).
We live again in a time of transition.
Nature builds itself a wisdom-bearing crystal. This wisdom-bearing crystal can delight us when we wander out into nature. At the same time, however, we must be clear that the gods had to die—not an earthly death but the death of transformation, which means the transition into the unconscious—in order to be reborn in the light-reflecting forms of the crystal. Today, when we look out into what is dead, we must bring into our feeling again the fact that there, shining through to us, is the life of the gods that for thousands of years has lain unconscious in nature. We must find within our souls the possibility of sensing and feeling this light that can approach us from the sun, and also everywhere in nature, as the light of the gods, quickening our hearts…
...It is not the intellect that is striven for in anthroposophy; but rather one becomes, in the best sense of the word, a "priest," if one wants to learn.
We must learn to understand in our hearts what it is that transforms the merely intellectual conception of the spirit, which remains estranged from nature, into the spirit that has been truly worked for, which finds its path again into the world of facts concerning nature…
You transform what you are already able to know today—for the time of Michael is here—transform what apparently lives only in ideas into real devotion. Then you will be on the best path. You are on the best path of all if you transform thinking into devotion. Just think what everything could become in that case! Meditating means to transform what one knows into devotion…
With the youth of today it does not amount to much when anthroposophy is transformed more and more into abstractions, when it is transformed into ideas, concepts, and even science. Now the young people who come want to experience, to live everything in deeds, in the true understanding of nature.
It has been said that we are the ones who forge the sword of Michael. However, there is something more to it. It has to do with the reality in the hidden world that, what needs to be prepared as the sword of Michael needs to be carried out on an altar, which cannot be seen externally. This altar is located under the Earth, underground, really. The understanding of nature powers leads to the understanding that the sword of Michael needs to be forged on an altar which is underground. There it needs to be found by receptive souls. The main thing is that you contribute by helping so that more and more souls find the sword of Michael. And it is not enough that it is forged. The task is only completed when the sword is found...
To get to know the powers of nature beneath the earth leads to the understanding that the sword of Michael, as it is being forged, must be carried to an altar that lies beneath the earth. There it must be found by receptive souls.
It depends on your help, on your contribution, for this sword of Michael to be found by more and more souls. And it is not enough for it to be forged; something is really achieved only when it is found.
You must have the strong but at the same time the modest self-conviction as young people that you are karmically called upon to carry the sword of Michael out into the world, to search for it and find it. Then you will have received what you are searching for…
And you will recognize it in a truly pictorial way, so that the spirit of abstraction, that frightful Ahrimanic spirit, is not able to touch you too.
We must return to a pictorial experience of the soul…And then if you are still able to dream a little, you will be able to live with the heavenly dreams in nature.
If you do this, you will form a community in accordance with your heart—a community in which step by step you will find what you are seeking. Let us keep this alive in our consciousness! Let it fill our souls!” ~Rudolf Steiner (GA 217A The Task of Enlightenment of Youth, Address in Koberwitz, June 17, 1924)
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Indications from the orignal Calendar of the Soul by Rudolf Steiner + Antrhowiki)
3 events on 8 May connected to the Archangel Michael: 490, 1429, 1945
The Feast of the Apparition of Michael at the Garganico Sanctuary of San Michele in Monte Sant’Angelo. In the year 490, when a nobleman of this small village lost the best bull in his herd, he went searching for him and found the bull kneeling in a deserted cave. The cave was inaccessible, and so in order to scare the bull out of the cave, the nobleman shot an arrow at it, but to his amazement the arrow turned around and struck him instead! He fell on his face & prayed.
A being appeared at the entrance to the cave: “I am the Archangel Michael and I am always in the presence of God. This cave is sacred to me. The Bull’s Blood need not be shed. What will be asked here in prayer will be granted as sure as my Countenance is of The Christ. Build therefore on this mountain and dedicate the cave to Christian worship.”
Saint Michael’s Cave was named “the Celestial Basilica”. It is one of the seven sacred sites along a line stretching from Ireland to Israel, known as “The Sword of Saint Michael“.
(Interesting to think that the Bull was sacred to Mithras, an early incarnation of the Being Michael. And many depictions show a ‘celestial’ connection as well.)
1429 – Joan of Arc who worked closly with the Archangel Michael lifts the Siege of Orléans, on this day, turning the tide of the Hundred Years’ War. For years, vague prophecies had been circulating in France concerning an armored maiden who would rescue France. Many of these prophecies foretold that the armored maiden would come from the borders of Lorraine, where Domrémy, Joan’s birthplace, is located. As a result, when word reached the besieged citizens of Orléans concerning Joan’s journey to see the King, expectations and hopes were high.
The city of Orléans commemorates the lifting of the siege with an annual festival, including both modern and medieval elements and a woman representing Joan of Arc in full armor atop a horse.
On 8 May Orléans simultaneously celebrates the lifting of the siege and V-E Day – Victory in Europe in 1945 – the day that Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies to end World War II in Europe.
1891 – Death Day of Helena Blavatsky, Russian-English mystic & author, said to be the reincarnation of Cagliostro by Emil Bock. In her will, HPB suggested that her friends might gather together on the anniversary of her death & read from Sir Edwin Arnold’s The Light of Asia & from The Bhagavad Gita. Lotuses grew in unusual profusion one year later. Hence, May 8 became known as White Lotus Day.
1922 – D. N. Dunlop resigns from the Theosophical Society
1929 – Death Day of Pauline von Kalckreuth, painter - dedicated her artistic & personal ambitions entirely to anthroposophy. She '“sacrificed so unconditionally that it created a strength that made many things possible.” Life partner with artist Sophie Stinde
Sangraal: A Pentecost Pilgrimage
with Mysteria Mystica Americana (MMA)
Saturday 18 May 2024 Noon – 1:30 PM Central Time
Creating Sacred Space on Zoom ID: 705 017 4041 - Passcode: MMA
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7050174041?pwd=j1AkESGygaKVFaD0T7r2lfV533BWfm.1&omn=87316485500
w/ Richard Cloud, Hazel Archer, Lisa Loving Dalton, Zakaria Manella. And friends: Alexander Torrenga, Jeffery Levy.
Celebrating the Feast of Mary Magdalene
w/ Hazel Archer
Through the Gospel of Mary Magdalene take an initiatory journey honoring a sacred purification process.
This course for the Infinity Foundation is available on Zoom. You will be emailed a Zoom link closer to the time of the class. The course will also be recorded and you will receive a link to watch it.
Course 242133 | Zoom
Date Monday, July 22
Time 7:00 - 8:30 PM CT
Cost $35/30 payment 10 days in advance
Hi Hazel,
I thought we were friends. Everything you write inspires me, and the event of Ascension will be interesting to hear about. I was just reading about it here:
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/AscenPent/19230507p01.html
Also, the New Moon of May will begin to yield a mystery that it keeps enclosed until we reveal it.
https://www.moongiant.com/phase/today/
Hazel...I hadn't heard that Mithrias was early incarnation of Michael?
I saw the underground temple in London and of course only men were members. Of course.
Buy I read that there is certainly a temple to Isis nearby. I feel like the time in nigh for someone to find it.