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Who is Michael?

October 15, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Dear Friends,

After the last posting one of the dear readers of this blog asked: “Who is Michael?”

This is a very nice question.  When we say Michael we refer of course to St. Michael, the Archangel that plays a central role in Anthroposophy .

I will give you one or two thoughts of my own but

I would like to invite as many of the other readers a possible

to share a couple of brief lines on

what St. Michael means to them!

This powerful spiritual being has been known for a long time in the evolution of humanity.  For example, in the Old Testament he appears as the angel that is fighting with Jacob and “blesses him” by renaming him Israel. The word Israel means “He who fights for God in a spiritual way”. Michael appears there first as a spiritual being that is so mighty that he represents the ” Face of God”.  He is specifically related to the night. He undergoes his own growth and maturation and, based on Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual scientific research, we know that he has now advanced to a “day spirit” and has become “the Face of Christ”. Incidentally, we also know a part of the activity of this being under the name of  St. George.

I’m looking forward to the contributions that might be coming on this topic.

Ross Rentea

A Michael Meditation

October 13, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Dear Friends,

First let me thank you all for the kind responses to the previous blog!

This of course should be our all most fervent wish: to establish a Michael community with conversations going back and forth from one to another.

For today I would like to share with you a Michael meditation that Rudolf Steiner gave sometime around 1910.It was given to an Italian anthroposophist. Needless to say I was impressed by the fact that this meditation directly addresses our need to overcome the anti-Michael spirits  in us that lead us to inertia, lassitude, and make our productive, creative Will life more difficult. these are the spirits that hinder our following through on our responsibilities:

 

Michael!

Lend me your Sword

That I may be armed

To overcome the Dragon in me.

Fill me with your Strength

That I may vanquish

The Spirits that want to lame me.

Work in me in such a way

That Light may stream

To mine I and I may thus be led

To actions that are worthy of you.

Michael!

Have an active Michael season!

Yours friendly,

Ross Rentea

 

 

Lunar Eclipse and Anthroposophy

October 8, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Today occurred the second of  four lunar eclipses. All that natural science can tell us about a lunar eclipse is that there is a perfect alignment in a row between the sun the earth and the moon with the earth being in the middle and obstructing the sun rays that are going to was the moon. Interestingly, depending on the pollution level on the earth the shadow cast on the surface of the moon will be either a “blood” red or a dirty black. On the newscasts the day before we were made to understand that short light waves are absorbed and only the long waves are led through which is what leads to the varying color differences.
Rudolf Steiner gives us a different story illuminating for us through his research the fact that a lunar eclipse is actually a valve through which a very negative influences can come from the cosmos to the earth. These influences can then be used by people who do not have the best intentions in mind. It gives the lunar eclipses a completely different meaning and it awakens us to the needs to take some action.

The two lunar eclipses of this year and the two of next year are particularly important. The first one of April 15, 2014 occurred on what Rudolf Steiner calls the Rafael day – the day that commemorates the Archangel of Healing. The one of October 8, 2014 occurred with the sun in Virgo and the moon in Pisces, a zodiac axis that Rudolf Steiner attributed a great importance to calling it “The Axis of Healing”. The next lunar eclipse will be on April 4, 2015 a day belonging to the historical Mystery of Golgotha (April 3 of the year 33 being the Friday of the Death on the Cross of the Christ and April 5 being the day of the historical Easter Sunday). Finally, the fourth eclipse will be on September 28, 2015 the day before the celebration of Michaelmas day.

The world at large concentrates, if at all, on the actual moment of the astronomical event like for example mentioning that this current lunar eclipse at its maximal point at exactly 5:15 AM Eastern daylight Time. To us it should be  obvious that the whole event is beginning of a process that at the very least will take several days during which these unwanted thoughts are coming to earth and then we needs to observed what new forms of “unfortunate thinking” is becoming manifest as a “new thought form on earth.

What can we do to help?

From an anthroposophic point of view it is understandable that a healing property can be brought to this event by increasing the Sun forces in us and around us.
First and foremost this can be done through meditation especially by reawakening in us thoughts connected to the Archangel Michael, who is the leader in the fight against nefarious Moon forces. since the current eclipse is so intimately related to a morning experience I’m including here this special Rudolf Steiner given Michael meditation:

We people of the Present (time)

Need the right Hearing

For the Spirit’s Morning Call,

The Morning Call of Michael.

Spirit Knowledge will

Open to the Soul

This true Morning Call- Hearing.

—————

I will follow this theme in my next blog.

Ross Rentea

 

New Article on Blackthorn and Prunus Spinosa Posted

September 30, 2014 by Leave a Comment

A new, fascinating article has been posted about Blackthorn elixir and Blackthorn in potentized form (Prunus Spinosa 6X).

Some highlights from the article include:

  • An overview of the Blackthorn plant and berries
  • Anthroposophic indications and uses
  • Why these remedies are ideal for autumn!

To read the article, click here and then click on the article you wish to read.

 

Register Now for Our Annual Fall Workshop!

September 2, 2014 by Leave a Comment

We are excited to announce a Weekend Intensive Workshop

The Zodiac:
Meditative and Therapeutic Aspects

November 6th – 9th, 2014
Hartland, WI

Twelve Moods Cover Page Zodiac Image
Artwork above by Kitsy McHenry, with kind permission from Mercury Press..

This year will focus on more learning and discovering, more practice and more applying.

This workshop will focus on the constellations of the zodiac and their influence on:

  • the 12 Zones of the human anatomy (the Mysterium Magnum);
  • the Eurythmy movements (emphasis on R. Steiner’s “12 Moods”);
  • Substances like the gemstones, calcium and silica;
  • the 12 Senses;
  • Clinical applications and more.
Of course we will present new research we have engaged in during the last year, however this year’s workshop will focus on working together as a group: potentizing a remedy together, making observations on minerals and precious stones; learning how eurythmy can help us deepen our anthroposophy. Our hope is that by working together we can come to new insights, especially understading Rudolf Steiner’s intentions and their applications in our lives.
We hope you join us!

Season’s Greetings, Easter Greetings!

April 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Dear Colleagues, Dear Friends,

Throughout the day we die a little and lose strength until we have to give all up and finally lie down, go to sleep, lose consciousness. We have to give up our most fundamental human qualities: no more speaking, no more standing upright, no more thinking. Other forces take over and help so that in the morning we can rise again, a “resurgence” takes place. We are restored to our full humanity again. Alas the process needs to be repeated.

This process is similar to the tiredness that happens in the metabolism Sunlight in treeswhere every out-breath – the result of bodily breakdown processes that create CO2 – must be followed by an invigorating in-breath with its life bringing oxygen. This also has to be repeated. Are we doing this just “out of ourselves “ or are other elements at play here?

Isn’t it interesting that in an archetypal human day we breathe 25,920 times; that in a life time we (again archetypically) “resurge” 25,920 times and that these rhythms are coinciding with the return of the Sun to the same cosmic place it was before in 25,920 years.

We are never alone. The Earth could never live without the Sun. And what if just as the human being is not just a physical body, but has  spiritual qualities that help us to strive for higher ideals that help us to constantly resurrect (from the Latin, resurgere) something noble out of the most downtrodden situations of life, what if Nature had these higher Beings also – that repeatedly infuse us with the forces that we might be lacking at the beginning of the breath, at the beginning of the day, at the beginning of the year. What if the life giving Sun also had its Being that unites itself ever more with the Earth and its inhabitants.

This might explain why we pay so much attention at True Botanica to expose our tinctures to at least seven consecutive morning Suns. These are the impulse that we hope to have our remedies aligned with.

We wish you all the Best in this season of Resurgence of the Sun, after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. We benefit from this Sun, a particularly Powerful one. We benefit from all the remedies that can be made, and have been made at this time, for this time.

But this Sun also benefits from our celebrating it, inviting it in, acknowledging it, not resisting it, not staying in the dark, in the tired, lost in an out-breathing. Then these forces can become ultimately not just forces of resurgence, but forces of Resurrection.

Let’s take in this special Spring Time and marvel at how much more healthy we can then be, how much more effective our medicines and nutrients can work. They help us if we help them.

Dedicated to You,

The True Botanica Foundation Team

Rudolf Steiner’s Birthday

February 25, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Today is Rudolf Steiner’s birthday. There is some controversy on whether he was born on February 25, or on February 27th 1861. Either way these next few days are a good time to turn our thoughts, feelings and will impulses toward this individuality.

To the Jesus Being the Three Kings brought Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

What can we bring Rudolf Steiner this year, and increasingly every year, as a worthy gift?

Rudolf Steiner once said that he did not want to be revered but rather he intensely wished to be understood. Because to truly and really understand him is to understand ourselves to Know Ourselves.

So let’s bring him our understanding. Let’s try to better comprehend his intentions, his impulses. Let’s ask the questions that will lead us to “get it”.

It is a worthwhile endeavor. Understanding his work, Anthroposophy, the science of the Spiritual Man, ultimately benefits us ourselves. As the saying goes

“It helps us to become what we are.”

Ross Rentea MD

 

Yes, Virginia, you can always tell the truth in the USA, and yes, there is a Santa Claus.

July 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Dear Dr. Rentea,

My name is Virginia and I am 8 years old.

Some of my friends say that we can always tell the whole truth in the USA. Is that so?

My Papa says, “Write the guys at the True Botanica company. (But I have also decided to write to the TB Foundation). See what they say. They always tell the whole truth”. (I don’t know why but then he had a hearty laugh.)

So I am writing to you: Please tell me: Can I always tell the truth in the USA?

Dear Virginia,

It’s confusing out there and your friends are both right and wrong. Let me explain.

First of all, you can, and you should, always, and I mean always, be honest and truthful with yourself.

Secondly you can, and you should, tell people around you the truth but only to the extent to which they can take it. While you do that help them to grow strong enough to tolerate the whole truth in due time. After all that’s what God does with us.

Then, if you keep all that in mind, when you are in public pretty much you can tell the truth as long as you are not in the business of manufacturing natural supplements.

You see, for example, if you are a manufacturer of a wonderful product containing berberine you cannot say that it may help people in the managing of diabetes – even though it is the truth. Dozens upon dozens of studies have shown that this natural plant extract does just that, but you cannot say it. Why? Because under an antiquated law only “drugs” can improve, or “mitigate” illnesses and in order for a substance to become a drug you need to spend millions of dollars in order to get it approved by the Food and Drug  (FDA) administration.

Here is another example. If you are producing a bag of tart cherries you cannot say on the same page where you display the product that tart cherries have been shown to lower uric acid levels and help with gout because that would make the tart cherries an “unapproved drug” and selling them as such can land you in jail.

We and many companies like us encounter this problem every day and you and your parents suffer because of it. We will never lie to you but we cannot tell you the whole truth either, which is that our ingredients are based on research that proves that they are effective in certain disease states.

I know that this is nonsense Virginia but the government has determined that we should only list our products and then instead of telling you right then and there what the research shows about those items we should let you hunt around the internet on your own in order to find out more details about them. This way instead of having licensed physicians (in our case) present carefully screened and balanced material you may then get the opinions of real quacks and the very snake oil peddlers that the government is trying to protect you from.

The problem is, Virginia, that the Supreme Court recently determined that you can even lie in some fields because freedom of speech needs to be safeguarded. If you lie about having earned military honors it may be annoying to your friends and neighbors but you are not going to have the government come after you and maybe put you in jail. But the Supreme Court has not gotten around to determining that under the First Amendment you can tell the truth in the supplement manufacturing field.

Sadly Virginia there are many powerful groups in the natural and food industry that fight to make sure those bad laws get followed by everybody and thus supposedly we create an “even playing field.” We should concentrate more on changing the bad laws rather than worrying about how to make them manageable. Otherwise it would be same as arguing which is the most humane way to treat slaves. Let’s abolish slavery!

Maybe you can ask your parents to help us do something about it.

Have a Wonderful 4th of July!

Razvan “Ross” Rentea MD

P.S. Since in our country, by and large, freedom of speech is protected, be careful, since people may not always be truthful with you. Watch out what comes at you. If say, in 20 years from now people tell you that you are really thin you should first look in the mirror before taking their word for it.

And one more thing. I think it was your great – grandmother that asked the editor of the New York Sun back in 1897 whether there is a Santa Claus. Virginia, I agree with him that yes, there is a Santa Claus, and totally honest freedom of speech, where you can tell the whole truth, lives in the same place of the loving heart that Santa Claus lives in.

Again Happy 4th of July.

What is Hope

January 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Hope for the New Year

“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

Hope is a state of the mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.

Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don’t, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you.”

(Vaclav Havel)

Our best wishes to all

Happy New Year

Dr. Ross Rentea and the Team