May our feeling
 penetrate
To the centerpoint
 of our hearts
And seek, in love,
 to unite itself
With human beings
 of like goal
And with spirit beings,
 full of grace,
Who strengthen us
 from realms of light
And illuminate our love
While gazing down
On our earnest,
 heart-felt striving.

Rudolf Steiner, 1923
a verse sent to America
 

Practices Leading to a Culture of the Heart – an international theme for study in 2008.

Sep 13/14, Sat/Sun, 9:30 am to 5:30 pm:
Health & Life Repatterning Toolkit –
Family Constellations Weekend Workshop
with Alison Rose Levy & Andreanna Rainville
To Register
or E-mail Allison, or call 914-963-3069. At Anthroposophy NYC.

Sep 26-28, Fri/Sat/Sun:
HONORING THE PAST, RECOGNIZING THE WAY FORWARD –
Remembering and celebrating the first Anthroposophical Summer School, 75 years ago, with inter-generational round tables on Sat. Details here, and pdf with full schedule here. Takes place at Threefold Educational Center, in Rockland County, NY.

Oct 13-Dec 15, 7pm, ten Mondays:
Through Your Life’s Looking Glass -
Reflections on the Meanings of Your Biography
10-Week Biography Workshop (limited to 15 participants)
with Lynn Jericho. To participate call 201-333-9106; click for additional info.

Sep 5 – General Society Members
MEMBER’S EVENING

Sep 8/22/29 – Linda Larson
EURYTHMY WORKSHOP SERIES

Sep 11 – David Lowe
TURNER’S IMAGINATION

Sep 12 & 14 –David Lowe
MUSEUM WALKS AT THE MET

Sep 13-4 – Alison Rose Levy (affiliated program)
HEALTH & LIFE REPATTERNING TOOLKIT

Sep 15 – David Lowe
ART OF 1907

Sep 17 – Group
CURRENT EVENTS

Sep 18 – Dorothy Emmerson
AWAKENING OUR SINGING VOICES

Sep 20 – Art Exhibit Opening
MANY FACES

Sep 24 – Gertrude Reif Hughes
READING RUDOLF STEINER

Sep 26 – Hans Schumm
MICHAELIC IMAGES BY THE PAINTER GERARD WAGNER

Sep 27 – Hans Schumm & David Anderson
PAINTING WORKSHOP

Sep 26-8 – Threefold Educational Center (affiliated program)
HONORING THE PAST, RECOGNIZING THE WAY FORWARD

Sep 28 – Hospitality Committee
MICHAELMAS COMMUNITY DINNER & CONCERT

Sep 30 – Lynn Jericho
MICHAEL & YOUR SOUL’S TRUE CHALLENGE
 

Oct 10 / 11 – Tim Hoffman
RUDOLF STEINER’S PATH TO ANTHROPOSOPHY

Oct 13 - Dec 15 – Lynn Jericho Biography Workshop (affiliated program - see at left)

Oct 17-19 – Annual General Meeting, Anthroposophical Society in America, and Conference on Christian Rosenkreuz, in Los Angeles

Oct 18 – Laurie Portocarrero & Matthew Dexter
THE LITTLE PRINCE

Oct 19 / Nov 23 / Dec 16 – Linda Larson
EURYTHMY WORKSHOPS

Oct 31 – Eugene Schwartz
IS ANTHROPOSOPHY IN DANGER OF BECOMING POPULAR? Mark Booth's "The Secret History of the World"

Nov 8 – Robert McDermott
ANTHROPOSOPHY & AMERICA - Problems & Solutions

Nov 13 – Keith Francis
THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS – 1 of 5

Welcome back to our fall season. Do sign up (below) for our e-newsletter, and view or download the printed program and September calendar.
 

It's a great month for the arts, as you see at left, and our Gallery 138 opens a new season Sept. 20th with an exhibit from ArtSpirit called "Many Faces." These masks and collages (right; click to enlarge) are created by the Holy Apostles’ Soup Kitchen Drumming and Art Group. Read more here about this project that combines social, musical and visual arts.
 

As I sit down to write this letter it is high summer – July 28th, to be precise – and, thanks to superabundant rain, the Massachusetts countryside is lush and green. When you read my words it will be September, the first autumn colors will be appearing, and we shall be close to Michaelmas. The significance of today’s date is that exactly eighty-four years ago Rudolf Steiner gave a magnificent lecture ^[1] in which he described the process by which, under the guidance of the Archangel Michael, human beings gradually gained the ability to think and act independently of their ancient spiritual mentors. Michael is one of the seven Archangels who, for successive periods of about three hundred years, have the spiritual leadership of human evolution. Having been the ruling Archangel in the early years of classical Greece, when the descent of the cosmic intelligence began, Michael again took up that position towards the end of the nineteenth century, shortly before the dark age of the Kali Yuga ended. It was not by accident that, a few years later, the Anthroposophical Society was founded, in the belief that, having been kicked out of the nest by the divine beings who fostered our evolution for so long, we can now find our way back to the spirit in freedom.

I say “belief” rather than “knowledge” because it is not a foregone conclusion that things will work out that way. We must strive to create the Michaelic spirit of courage within ourselves so that we can defeat the Ahrimanic powers that wish to bind the human being to the material world and take the divine intelligence for themselves. At an earlier stage of our history the human heart was united with the cosmic intelligence, but now, through the work of the hierarchies, the intelligence has moved into our brains and nerves, a process so powerful that it was accompanied by cosmic thunders and lightnings. We became head-men instead of heart-men, and when Michael returned he found an intelligence bereft of spirituality through its exposure to Ahriman’s forces. As Steiner says, if we are to succeed in following the path of Michael, “these thunders and lightnings must become enthusiasm in the hearts and minds of anthroposophists.” Head and heart must be united so that, in Steiner’s words, “hearts begin to have thoughts.”

Thinking is a divine gift, and, like many gifts, it can become a burden, so that one is often tempted to remain in a realm of unformed feeling. To unite heart and mind is to bring feeling and thinking together, so that feeling is given form and direction and thought is endued with warmth. Let us use our capacities joyfully and remember that when the divine powers decided to download the cosmic intelligence into the human soul they certainly expected us to use it.

Keith Francis

[1] Karmic Relationships, Vol. 3, Lecture 7, Dornach, July 28, 1924

Keith directs the 15th Street Singers which resumes weekly rehearsals on Oct. 19th. He will give a series of lectures on the "Evolution of Consciousness" beginning Nov. 13th.

Click here for some other recent letters.

Open the new September newsletter (PDF); right-click to download.