What is the requisite starting attitude?

To practice I must show-up, first.

Everyone comes as a beginner to self development everyday. To grow, I must move from where I am to my next step. To be where I am is a beginners fundamental stance, and to get to know oneself, the only way of progress. Some days I can’t find my grounded self, other days I’m grounded and I have the wind in my wings. One day; the body weighs heavy in my shoes and I am best suited for listening. Another day; I’ll make promises my track record can hardly bear. Somedays, I hold onto wounds and shame I dare not share. Knowing these things, and how to recognize them is where I’m going, so one day I can speak to another’s struggles. Today we’ll share from the books and bring our thoughts to attention and our breath to this life’s blood. The more we know, the more we know what we do not know. This is where we will be when illumination dawns. This is how we show up, where we really are, with reverence for truth and holding our friends with highest esteem, to meet each other in our striving. I must get to know failure from every side, see it’s darkness and feel it’s sting. And also, I must gather the keys to my own failures, to approach that bad path with new eyes, blind to those subtle assumptions, to guide me away from the routine toward new stand points and vision. I can bring curiosity with positivity to fein and parry these accustomed attacks of self-resignations with grace and jujitsu, with stealth of awareness, using the information and intuitive experience gained on this path, mixed into life’s successes and joys, achievements…buoyant, enlivened, soaring, vivified, flying in the great blue yonder, now! 

Tomorrow, I will search again, somehow, blindly for ground. Beginning again, in this cycle of a living soul’s struggles, returning to these journals to find myself. I pickup my shield and sword to find sustenance, to find myself in others and walk again toward the light of striving on the path, beginning again, again.

Hoping to see many of you there.  If you cannot make it, the session, minus the breakouts, is recorded and can later be viewed fro the FRAC site at https://frontrangeanthrocafe.org/

Robyn

We will never be able to discover the facts of the spiritual world unless we develop an attitude that acknowledges the facts of the physical world. The right way of experiencing the spiritual world must be developed here in the physical world. That is why we have been placed in the physical world: it is our task here to seek for ideas that are in harmony with objective reality, so that we acquire this ability and so that it becomes a habit we can carry with us into the spiritual world.

But today so many people base their assertions on nothing but emotion and are not in the least interested in whether they agree with objective reality. This is precisely the opposite of the direction in which humanity must move if it is to progress. And, especially in our materialistic age, the notion of thinking in accordance with reality has been so frightfully distorted by the influences we have been describing; thinking that is in accord with reality has become a rarity. And an honest attempt to think in accordance with reality today collides with all the contemporary thinking that is at variance with reality. 

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 170 – Riddle of Humanity: Lecture Thirteen: Dornach, 28 August 1916

Out car window, just now

Small Nuthatch fledge lights

On a stick on ground balancing watching 

Looks down to ground and pecks a speck

Dead branch rolls forward claws let go

Head diving under heels under twig rolling 

Upside down 2 seconds 2 legs kick then twist

Big Nuthatch lands nearby

Little Nut stands up looking around 

Big Hatch shares a gentle soliloquy 

They turn about and fly off

MRichter

Modern Initiation is available to every man. In the past, it took lifetimes to prepare. Today it takes effort and the passing of trials in order to gain the necessary experience to receive higher knowledge.  The chapters Preparation and Enlightenment describe the state of perception needed to see and hear in the higher worlds. 

1st. Fire Trial- To enter one must have common sense. After this trial, the candidate will gain a truer vision enabling them to see beyond the physical. The Fire trial burns away the veil that prevents seeing into the spiritual world. If this trial is passed successfully an occult script will appear. For safety, it is best to learn to read the occult script from a knowledgeable teacher. The candidate must learn to act out of this higher script. After this trial, the candidate can turn back and he will be enhanced and is a benefit to the world.

2nd. Water Trial- Is like swimming in deep water with no support. One must learn to read the writing of the occult script and accept the task given by the spiritual script. The candidate must prove he can move in the spiritual world free from personal biases and, prejudice or cherished opinion. Ordinary duties must still be tended to. 

3rd. Air trial- presence of mind is needed and quick decision making relying exclusively on the higher self.  The candidate learns to anchor into the higher self as a central point of reference. 

After passing this trial the candidate can enter the temple of higher wisdom.

The next task is to take the oath to protect higher knowledge and to use it in the service of humanity. At this point, the draught of forgetfulness is offered which quiets the lower memory to enable decisions to be made in the present- free of the past. 

Then the draught of remembrance is offered to acquire higher truths in the soul.

The candidate must raise herself up to and become one with this higher truth so it lives through him or her.

Basic principle of spiritual science is to be fully conscious

- those who choose not to pursue their training with open eyes may become mediums, but not clairvoyants

1^st experience 

– changes occur in our “soul organism” that appears in the center of the PB as a soul-spiritual cloud

- all our instincts, ideas, passions are within this cloud

 - sensual desires appear as dark rays

 - pure, noble thoughts appear as red-purple hues

 - logical thinking appear as yellow forms

 - muddled thoughts are indistinct

 - intolerant, opinionated thoughts appear sharp and inflexible

 - thoughts of others are flexible and changing

- the soul organism form extends from the inside of the head to the middle of the PB

- the organs of the soul organism, are known as chakras or petals

- 1^st is between the eyes

- 2^nd near the larynx

- 3^rd in region of the heart

- 4^th region of the solar plexus

- 5^th and 6^th in the lower abdomen/reproductive region

- A seer sees the chakras or petals in a state of motion and in different colors

- The student first sees light, later movement and rotation which is the beginning of clairvoyance

- larynx chakra has 16 petals, allows us to see clairvoyantly into the way of other soul beings

- heart chakra has 12 petals, opens cognition into the mentality and character of other souls

- solar plexus chakra has 8 petals, we gain insight into the abilities and talents of others

- 8 of the 16 petals of the larynx were formed in distant past in an earlier evolutionary stage

- 8 remaining petals we are to develop through conscious exercises

1^st soul process exercise – concerns how we acquire ideas or mental images with discipline, meaning each one is to become meaningful, that they are to provide an insight into the outer world

2^nd exercise – is to make conscious decisions, from trivial to meaningful with well thought reasons

3^rd exercise – contains speech. To speak with substance and meaning, avoiding cross talk and jumbled conversations, talking neither too much or too little

4^th exercise – concerns the ordering of outer actions. We should strive to have our activities integrate harmoniously into our surroundings and with others. And when a situation occurs, how best to respond and weigh the consequences, if any, of our initiatives.

5^th exercise – concerns the arrangement and organization of our life as a whole. How to live in harmony with both nature and spirit being neither hasty or lazy, or hyperactive or lax. To honor and support our health and regulate our habits for a harmonious life.