Sophia Rising

Reflections on the April “convergence” in Santa Fe, New Mexico

by Maria Ver Eecke

“Sophia Rising—Unveiling the Wisdom of Being Human,” originally planned for Eastertide 2020, was intended to create a direct experience of the Divine Being of Sophia in relation to Anthropos-Sophia. I immediately was enchanted by the magic. The place itself invited spiritual practice. A warmhearted staff of indigenous people seemed truly happy to serve us at Hotel Santa Fe, owned and operated by people of the Pueblo. The three-story adobe structure was stunningly beautiful with displays of original artwork inside and out.

We met in the Kiva rooms. Kivas are traditional underground chambers used for ceremonial rituals by the Pueblo people throughout the Southwest. The four elements of earth, water, air, and fire were invoked as “Weaving” sessions, along with Weaving Ether, Color, Stories, Light, Wholeness, and Weaving Community. Three of us set up the central Kiva for our Weaving Art Acts, which involved interactive group singing, eurythmy, and call and response.

For me the three kiva rooms represented the threefold human being. The altar and podium for the speakers (with a screen for images & a virtual presentation) were in the first kiva of spiritual content. Our Alchemical Soul Journey was created in the central kiva of artistic creativity in the encircling round. Metal Color Light Therapy was practiced in the third kiva of willing deeds, along with social interactions and our tech support team.

After a dessert reception on the first evening, we were welcomed by Tess Parker, then we warmed the space with our voices and eurythmy.

The Spirit of Place was honored. People adorned the nature table with flowers, candles, icons, and meaningful objects (pieces of art or nature) to create an altar surrounding a colorful statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Weaving of Earth was led by Angela Foster and many who brought soil from home proceeded to the altar to place their individual offerings in a ceramic bowl, placed below the statue. Hazel Archer Ginsburg brought horn silica made on the Zinniker Farm, Wisconsin, the oldest biodynamic farm in America. A rosary from Ukraine and handmade paper roses added color to the dark earth.

Friday afternoon, Mary Stewart Adams spoke of “Encountering the Celestial Goddess Anthroposophia.” As a “star lore historian,” restoring the mythic grandeur of knowing the stars, she inspired by weaving myths and vivid imaginations, beginning with Emily Dickinson’s “From the Chrysalis.”

My cocoon tightens, colors tease,

I’m feeling for the air;

A dim capacity for wings

Degrades the dress I wear.

A power of butterfly must be

The aptitude to fly,

Meadows of majesty concedes

And easy sweeps of sky.

So I must baffle at the hint

And cipher at the sign,

And make much blunder, if at last

I take the clew divine.

Mary paints with her words and one envisions other worlds. She read an excerpt from Novalis’ fairy tale of human and earth evolution Eros and Fable, which we heard again at her conclusion; an excerpt:

As a small slender rod of iron, in the form of a serpent biting its own tail, touched the cradle of the sleeping Fable, who awoke “…and holding one hand toward the light, reached after the serpent with the other.” ‘Sophia,’ said he with a touching voice to the woman, ‘let me drink from the bowl.’ She gave it him without delay, and he could not cease drinking; yet the bowl continued full. [1]

1 You may find the story Eros and Fable at Living Waters Wellness Resources, livingwaterswellnessresources.weebly.com/eros-and-fable--novalis.html

Mary tells us that the Virgin Mary summons the Divine Sophia in the Divine Comedy by Dante (1265-1321). How long will it take us to awaken? William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) writes of “twenty centuries of stony sleep” in his poem “The Second Coming.” When did we lose our connection with the stars? Mary quoted poetry by John Donne (1572-1631):

And new philosophy calls all in doubt,

The element of fire is quite put out;

The sun is lost, and th’ earth, and no man’s wit

Can well direct him where to look for it.

Then in February 1913, Dr. Steiner began to speak of the Sophia being in relation to the human being. He tells us that knowledge of the divine feminine was lost. The time is now to weave with our starry companions.

Mary has the ability to make sense of celestial events and connect these happenings to human history. She shared a time line of three solar eclipses that create a remarkable pattern across North America and the US, where the eclipse shadows fall across two sites specifically related to the development and testing of the atomic bomb (Oak Ridge, TN, and Los Alamos, NM). The third is geographically related to the rising up of the divine feminine expressed by the Black Madonna statue outside St. Thomas Aquinas Chapel at St. Meinrad Archabbey, and The descent of the Holy Spirit sculpture, both in Indiana and in the path of totality of the 2024 solar eclipse.

Mary asks if solar eclipses bring healing to the earth as their pathways cover places of man-made destruction. Imagine that a solar eclipse helps open a safety valve to let off steam or an explosion: “our misused freedom is taken up by the sun and woven and given back to us.” When the sky darkens, the brightest planet is Venus; this goddess lifts a veil during a total eclipse. Venus watches who will gather up her wisdom and she seeks in the heart of each human being. A goddess watches and waits for us.

Mary discovered a statue of the Veiled Isis in Iowa at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, a “bronze allegorical statue of Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess of life,” a gift from the Belgian people in gratitude for his relief work in Belgium during World War I. [2]

2 More at hoover.blogs.archives.gov/2015/08/18/isis-the-wandering-goddess/

Nothing that we are given, or that we have to give, creates chaos. The New Isis according to Rudolf Steiner involves three steps.

Spiritual external manifestation of nature.

Awaken our inner light.

Speak words of consequence.

How may we take up misused forces of freedom? The spirit world speaks in riddles and asks questions. Whom do you seek? We have access to the Garden; Eve seeks Wisdom. Mary Magdalene is seeking Love. Christ asks, Whom do you seek? Let us stand in the garden at this moment of awakening.

Before each talk we had moments of inner quiet led by Michele Mariscal, leading us into the heart of the present moment. Michele offers professional counseling (inperson or online) with Heart-Based Living.

On Saturday morning we were graced with the story and images of The Virgin of Guadalupe: Sophia Rising in the Americas presented by Stephanie Georgieff. This is a miracle story from 1531, when the Virgin appears to a humble shepherd in Guadalupe and asks, “Where are you going?” Then she requests, “Build me a temple.” The questions are repeated in several meetings with Juan Diego, before he asks for a miracle as proof of his vision to show to the bishop. The image of the Virgin appearing on Diego’s poncho was only one of the miracles.3

3 A new edition of Georgieff’s book The Virgin of Guadalupe, Mysterious Messenger of Destiny is forthcoming.

“Alchemical Soul Journey: Anthroposophia—A Union of Wisdom and Love” was created by Hazel Archer Ginsberg and was enacted by a group of sixteen on Saturday afternoon. Lisa Dalton was our grand master of ceremony preparing us to “Know thou thyself” and leading us through three stages. The “Harrowing of Hell” was the first stage, where we face the hindrances to our thinking, feeling and will; this we did with the eurythmy soul exercises, Wonder–Ah, Love–A, and Hope–U; Jill McCormick intoned corresponding intervals of the fifth, third, and octave with her resonant voice. After each trial were five minutes for inner reflection to draw or write one’s responses to the questions of our present time.

At the second stage we stood at the threshold to meet the Guardian of the Threshold and our Time-Spirit Michael with eurythmy gestures, also to ward off “the tempter” and “the deceiver.” At the third stage we entered “Paradiso” ready to redeem the New Isis-Sophia and to foster Anthroposophia within our souls, and to manifest Sophia Rising: Unveiling the Wisdom of Being Human in the world! Hazel gave a first person interpretation of the New Isis Myth by Rudolf Steiner.

It was healing to join together with song, eurythmy, and drama, weaving a new community. The weaving of the EVOE , a greeting in eurythmy, allowed us to look deeply into the eyes of the other. Imagine the mood in the room when the group of one hundred individuals expressed Hallelujah silently in eurythmy!

On Saturday evening, many talented artists shared artistic offerings, framed by the songs of Lucien Dante Lazar and Ultra-Violet Archer, our hosts, who create their melodies and lyrics out of knowledge of spiritual science. Their voices harmonize so well, it was healing.

Sunday brought “Weaving Light” with metal color light therapy! Helena Hurrell and Lisa Edge brought a large glass window made with gold and etched with a lifted gesture rising from a spiral of dodecahedrons. We gazed on this light filled image for ten minutes and then reflected in quiet attention. Healing Light!

Carrie Schuchardt (l) and Mary Stewart Adams

Carrie Schuchardt of the House of Peace, Ipswich, Massachusetts, presented Weaving Fire. Carrie and John Schuchardt have been on many international peace delegations. One was to Russia in 2019, where they experienced Orthodox Easter with people singing and walking around the cathedral as bells rang out at midnight; “Christ is risen!” Images of Mary praying with lifted arms were hanging from the podium: the first an icon from St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine; the second a painting from St. Petersburg, Russia. Our own pilgrimage is to lift the veil and to behold the flame of the other, she told us.

We learned that Santa Fe means holy faith. Only 35 miles away is Los Alamos where unholy terror was unleased when scientists split the atom and used it for destruction. Robert Oppenheimer oversaw the construction of the Los Alamos laboratory and he is remembered as the father of the atomic bomb. He named it “Trinity” quoting John Donne’s Holy Sonnets : “Batter my heart, threeperson’d God.” Near the end of his life, Oppenheimer wrote: “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’”

The “Hibaku Maria” in Nagasaki

Carrie and John traveled to Japan to offer amends on behalf of our country. When the atomic bomb was dropped over Nagasaki City, 150,000 people were killed, some vaporized. “Miracles rise from the ashes” relates to a monk searching through the remains of the bombed Urakami Cathedral, dedicated to Mary the Merciful. What he found there was the severed head from its Maria statue. This rescued relic from the ruins is called Hibaku Maria. It is painful to view the image of the Madonna’s head with burnt-out eyes and is shocking at first, but we learn that Sophia lives in our sufferings. The Nagasaki Sophia is a trial by fire.

Carrie told us of Quan Yin, Mother of Great Compassion, who hears the cries of the world. It is told in the Lotus Sutra of the 14th century: “Call out her name and all will be made peace.” I was so fortunate to visit the House of Peace in Ipswich, Massachusetts, just the weekend before to hear about Karl Koenig’s life and work. There I prayed in the meditation room with a perpetual burning flame and many icons, and met Quan Yin for the first time. The spirit is tangible in the House of Peace. Karl Koenig wrote in 1964:

Every one of us is a piece of the Apocalypse. We are an apocalyptic people.

Apocalypse means revelation or unveiling. Christos-Sophia will guide us. When Carrie finished speaking, my closest friend and I experienced catharsis, sobbing in each other’s arms.

Weaving Water and Wholeness was the closing ceremony held by Joyce Reilly, Angela Foster and friends. How grateful I am for all these friends who led us so carefully into a communal experience of Sophia Rising!

Greeting actors playing in roles of spiritual beings filled me with love for all. Speaking words from the heart…Lifting our voices in song…Expressing our joy to be together. In gratitude we rejoiced in being together to acknowledge and to honor Anthropos-Sophia!

Maria Burbank Ver Eecke is a performing and therapeutic eurythmist, and editor of the newsletter of the Eurythmy Association of North America.

And Yet Not Full

gathered by Jordan Walker

a social poem woven from words spoken during the closing session of the “Sophia Rising” Conference in Santa Fe, NM on April 24th, 2022

Closing what was opened

Lost.

Found.

Dispersed.

Backwards in reverse.

Backwards through.

Here now with many friends

Weaving our hearts

Closing our eyes

in darkness

Rose.

Gold.

We all woke up somewhere

Friends before that.

Sacred Icon,

Sacred Being.

Building a stage

we woke up the wind.

Celestial grounding

we wove the room.

Soil connected

we were an open bowl.

Time for gratitude.

Time to sacralize the ordinary

Consecrate the mystery for our time.

A spoon full of salt water from one bowl to another.

Sweat.

Tears.

the Sea.

All the rivers…

…and yet not full.

Jordan Walker, pictured with Tess Parker, is a member of the program team for Sophia Rising, and for the Applied Anthroposophy Course.