Editor's Page
The Book by Frank Thomas Smith
I
met Dr. Hableben during a working vacation in the Traslasierra valley,
which means, literally, Beyond-the-mountains. The mountain range in
question is just east of the Andes and about five hundred miles west
of Buenos Aires. So much for geography. I include it in order to
indicate that my encounter with him took place in a relatively remote
part of the planet. I went to Traslasierra at the invitation of a group of families who had fled
the urban chaos of Buenos Aires and wanted to start an alternative
school for their children. They felt that I, as an expert of sorts in
alternative education and coordinator of a teacher-training seminar
in Buenos Aires, could provide some of the knowledge and impetus they
would need...
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El Libro Traducido por María Teresa Gutiérrez
Conocí al Dr. Hableben durante unas
vacaciones de trabajo en el valle de Traslasierra, que significa, literalmente,
más allá de las montañas. La cadena en cuestión está próxima a los Andes, hacia
el este, y queda a unos novecientos kilómetros al oeste de Buenos Aires. Suficiente
en cuanto a geografía. Lo menciono para indicar que el encuentro tuvo lugar en
un punto relativamente remoto del planeta. Viajé a Traslasierra por invitación de un
grupo de familias que habían huido del caos urbano de Buenos Aires y querían iniciar
una escuela alternativa para sus hijos. Creían que yo, como suerte de experto
en educación alternativa y coordinador de un seminario de formación docente en
Buenos Aires, podía ofrecerles algo del conocimiento y del impulso que
necesitaban.
Continuar
Current Events
What
Does an “America-First” Foreign Policy Actually Mean? - Putting
the U.S. Military First, Second, and Third by William J. Astore
What does an “America-first” foreign policy
look like under President Donald Trump? As a start, forget the
ancient label of “isolationism.” With the end of
Trump’s first 100 days approaching, it looks more like a
military-first policy aimed at achieving global hegemony, which means
it’s a potential doomsday machine. Candidate Trump vowed he’d make
the U.S. military so strong that he wouldn’t have to use it,
since no one would dare attack us -- deterrence, in a word. The
on-the-ground (or in-the-air)
reality is already far different. President Trump’s
generals have begun to unleash
that military in a manner the Obama administration, hardly shy about
bombing or surging, deemed both excessive and risky to civilians...
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Resurrecting
the Unholy Trinity - Torture, Rendition, and Indefinite Detention Under Trump
by Rebecca
Gordon
When George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
launched their forever
wars -- under the banner of a “Global War on Terror”
-- they unleashed an unholy trinity of tactics. Torture, rendition,
and indefinite detention became the order of the day. After a partial
suspension of these policies in the Obama years, they now appear
poised for resurrection. For eight years under President Obama,
this country’s forever wars continued, although his
administration retired the expression “war on terror,” preferring to describe
its war-making more vaguely as an effort to “1">degrade
and destroy” violent jihadists like ISIS. Nevertheless, he
made major efforts to suspend Bush-era violations of U.S. and
international law, signing executive orders to that effect on the day
he took office in 2009. Executive Order 13491, “Ensuring
Lawful Interrogations,” closed the CIA’s secret torture
centers -- the “black sites” -- and ended permission for
the Agency to use what had euphemistically become known as “enhanced
interrogation techniques.”
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Features
When Nations Apologize by Edwin Battistella
An analogy is haunting the
United States – the analogy of fascism. It is virtually
impossible (outside certain parts of the Right-wing itself) to try to
understand the resurgent Right without hearing it described as –
or compared with – 20th-century interwar fascism. Like fascism,
the resurgent Right is irrational, close-minded, violent and racist.
So goes the analogy, and there’s truth to it. But fascism did
not become powerful simply by appealing to citizens’ darkest
instincts. Fascism also, crucially, spoke to the social and
psychological needs of citizens to be protected from the ravages of
capitalism at a time when other political actors were offering little
help. The origins of fascism lay in a promise to
protect people. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a rush of
globalisation destroyed communities, professions and cultural norms...
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Cultivating Compassion by Thich Nhat Nanh
Precepts
in Buddhism and commandments in Judaism and Christianity are
important jewels that we need to study and practice. They provide
guidelines that can help us transform our suffering. Looking deeply
at these precepts and commandments, we can learn the art of living in
beauty. The Five Wonderful precepts of Buddhism—reverence for
life, generosity, responsible sexual behavior, speaking and listening
deeply, and ingesting only wholesome substances—can contribute
greatly to the happiness of the family and society. I have recently
rephrased them to address the problems of our times:
Continue reading
Cultivar Compasión -
Los preceptos del budismo y los mandamientos del judaísmo y del cristianismo son joyas importantes que
necesitamos cultivar y practicar. Proporcionan pautas que nos pueden ayudar a
transformar nuestro sufrimiento. Observando profundamente estos preceptos y
mandamientos, podemos aprender el arte de vivir en la belleza. Los Cinco
Preceptos Maravillosos del Budismo—reverencia por la vida, generosidad, comportamiento sexual responsable, hablar y escuchar con profundidad, e ingerir sólo sustancias saludables—pueden
contribuir en gran medida a la felicidad de la familia y la sociedad.
Recientemente los he reformulado para abordar los problemas de nuestro tiempo:
Continuar
From Judith von Halle's childhood diary - 1982 (10 years old)
Good
evening Adonai, King of the world!
You know, I learned
something else. It was like a trial in the night, but in the daytime.
It is the following. Many
flowers and plants like to suck up the
disorderly, ungodly soul colors of the people around them. One can
observe it. This afternoon we were in a florist shop where I watched
people and then I observed the lively colors of the customers. Each
one looked different, because they were different. What
happens is that the impure soul colors are sucked up by many plants.
Like in a dream the people moved to “their” plants
without knowing why. And the disorderly, impure in them went to
particular plants. These
plants became hot..well...at least somewhat warmer than their normal
temperature. The disorderly, impure soul colors feel especially
comfortable in the warmth! In the moment when they are sucked up by
the warm plants, they make the plants poisonous...
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Del Diario infantil de Judith von Halle - 1982 (10 años de edad)
Buenas noches Adonai, Rey del mundo!
Sabes, aprendí algo más. Era como una prueba en la noche, pero en el día. Es lo siguiente. Muchas flores y plantas tienen gusto de chupar para arriba los colores desordenados, impuros del alma de la gente alrededor de ellos. Uno puede observarlo.
Esta tarde estuvimos en una tienda de floristería donde vi gente y luego observé los colores vivos de los clientes. Cada uno parecía diferente, porque eran diferentes. Lo que sucede es que los colores impuros del alma son absorbidos por muchas plantas. Como en un sueño la gente se trasladó a "sus" plantas sin saber por qué. Y los desordenados, impuros en ellos iban a plantas particulares. Estas plantas se calientan ... bien ... por lo menos algo más caliente que su temperatura normal. ¡Los colores desordenados, impuros del alma se sienten especialmente cómodos en la calor! En el momento en que son absorbidos por las plantas cálidas, hacen las plantas venenosas... Continuar
Fiction
Falling Down and Getting Up by JP Miller
The first time I
noticed the Tickle was almost three years after I had left the Army.
Without notice, as I stepped across that magical line into
Capitalism’s greatest accomplishment--into Wal-Mart World--my ears start ringing. Tinnitus? Artillery Ears? I'm used to that.
But my skull opened up and a feather entered my head and tickled my
brain. It was that funny bone uncomfortable feeling like something
buzzing and poking at my gray matter, torturing me with insane
laughter. Then the world went upside down. My eyes are twitching and
my legs are shaking. The space in my lungs is filled with fire. The
chest pain traveled down my left arm to exit my tingling fingers. A
heart attack? I dropped to my knees. I lay out. One of those obese
lady shoppers in a electric, drivable shopping cart ran over my feet
as she rushed to buy more food. My legs were rubber, my ears rang
out, and my eyes closed. Then, I saw those 105s with Willy Pete
rounds impacting a little ville north of Mosul---the white phosphorus
burning. Burning so bright it hurt your eyes... Continue reading
Elves and Emeralds by Gaither Stewart
Rafael opened his eyes. He smiled. There it was, the sun. The yellow sun Mamá had painted on the ceiling had long bright arms. She said his waking up should be sunny. He loved his Mamá. She was very beautiful. Everyone said so. When he was grown he would marry her. Slightly raising his head he turned his eyes across the room. It was big. It was full of their things. The table and the two blue chairs where they ate. The sink. All the shelves with their dishes and their food. The gas burner. The table with their television. The soft chair where Mamá sat and his low stool for watching TV. In the corner the box with his toys. He had to put everything into it each night before he went to bed. He could see the long hood and the silver fenders of the red car the Señora had given him. How he loved cars. The Señora and the Señor always said coche, but he said carro...
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Miryam - Part Two by Luise Rinser
But I decided
for something else. I had long wanted to go to Bethany to visit my relatives. I
got as far as Qumran on the first trip, not farther. This time I
didn’t reach it either. Again something intervened. At an inn I
met some people who were going to Enon. There was a man there, Yochanan by
name, a great repentance preacher. The people told me that he prophesized the
end of time. Great catastrophes will come, he said, fire will fall from heaven,
the sea will rush up and devour the land, the greatest part of humanity will be
killed. However, the possibility of salvation exists: whoever turns away from
sin and completely changes his life will survive the catastrophe. But one must
repent, and baptism is part of that, the great purifying bath. Only the pure
can enter the realm of heaven that the Messiah will found, here and soon.This was the
talk of the Essenes. The madness of the desert monks. This Yochanan was surely
one of them from the lion caves, one who hated life and love, one of the
people-robbers, one of my enemies, whom I had cursed so bitterly...
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Anthroposophy
Judith von Halle - Interviewed by Michel Gastkemper
MG: In readers' letters your name has been mentioned and commented upon.
That is a remarkable situation. With today's interview, I hope to
make you better known to our readers. I hope you are willing to tell
us something about yourself. Naturally I have some questions, but I
will ask them during the discussion. Today you told us something
about your youth, but I don't know how much of it is for public
consumption. Therefore, for this interview can you say something
about yourself, how you grew up, what you experienced. A difficult
question of course.
JvH: I already talked about that [this morning in a lecture about Faith
and Knowledge]. I grew up in a non-anthroposophical family and I was
told nothing about anthroposophy. I had a very active inner life. As
long ago as I can remember I had a relationship to what we call the
spiritual world. "Spiritual world" can mean anything, for one can
understand almost anything by it. In my case it was not in a
confessional religious way, but an experience a person can have with
super-sensible worlds, and that's something that I already
experienced strongly as a child. Therefore, I asked myself very early
about the world and about human beings in that context. I also
wondered why so few people discussed the reality of the spiritual
world. That was an important question for me as a child: Why is it a
taboo?
Continue reading
Evolution and Extraterrestrials by Rudolf Steiner
This
is a time when a great deal of attention, ranging from serious
science to science-fiction, is being devoted to “outer space.”
There is speculation on various levels about visitants from other
worlds. Behind it all there may be an instinctive feeling —
true in itself though often distorted in expression — that the
apparent isolation of man on earth is not final; that man is not
alone in the universe. We are therefore reprinting here a lecture
(first published in English in the quarterly, “Anthroposophy,”
for Easter, 1933, and long out of print) in which Rudolf Steiner
spoke, briefly and enigmatically, of the need to recognise and
welcome certain beings, “not of the human order,” who
since the seventies of the nineteenth century have been descending
from cosmic spheres into the realm of earth-existence, bringing with
them “the substance and content of Spiritual Science.” —
The Editors [of the Golden Blade]
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The Gospel of John - The Nature of the Virgen Sophia and the Holy Spirit by Rudolf Steiner
Yesterday we
reached the point of discussing the change which takes place in
the human astral body through Meditation, Concentration and other
practices which are given in the various methods of initiation.
We have seen that the astral body is thereby affected in such a
way that it develops within itself the organs which it needs for
perceiving in the higher worlds and we have said that up to this
point, the principle of initiation is everywhere really the same
— although the forms of its practices conform wholly to the
respective cultural epochs. The principal difference appears with
the occurrence of the next thing which must follow. In order that
the pupil may be able actually to perceive in the higher worlds,
it is necessary that the organs which have been formed out of the
astral part, impress or stamp themselves upon the ether body, be
impressed into the etheric element...
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"Apologia" concerning the publication of the the First Class Lessons: English /
Español
Poetry
The Lone Man by Frank Thomas Smith
Now is today,
which will be
yesterday,
and was once
tomorrow.
Render time as you would
a bouquet of roses to your love.
They,
like all the beauties of the
world,
will, quicker than a lie,
whimper and die...Continue
Strange Fruit by Billy Holiday
Southern trees bear strange
fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies
swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the
poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant
south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of
magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning
flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to
pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the
sun to rot, for the leaves to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter
crop...
Continue.
You can find us under the
Southern Cross in the Traslasierra Valley, Province of Córdoba, Argentina. Visitors always welcome. Just follow the sign that reads: La Cruz del Sur.
Frank Thomas Smith, Editor
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