Cosmic Communion: Star Wisdom, vol 4: With Monthly Ephemerides and Commentary for 2022 (Star Wisdom 2020)

Cosmic Communion includes articles on star wisdom (Astrosophy) and a guide to the correspondences between stellar configurations during the life of Christ and those of today. The guide includes a complete sidereal ephemeris and aspectarian, geocentric, and heliocentric for each day of 2022. Published annually, new volumes are available beginning in November for the coming year.

According to Rudolf Steiner, each step taken by Christ during his ministry, from the Baptism in the Jordan to his Resurrection, was in harmony with, and an expression of, the cosmos. The Star Wisdom series is concerned with these heavenly correspondences during the life of Christ and is intended to help one to build a foundation for cosmic Christianity, the cosmic dimension of Christianity. It is this approach that, until now, has been largely missing from Christianity and its two-millennia history.

Readers can begin this path today by contemplating the movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets against the background of the zodiacal constellations (sidereal signs) in relation to corresponding stellar events during the life of Christ. In this way, the possibility is opened for attuning in a living way to the life of Christ, who since the beginning of his Second Coming in 1933 is now spiritually present in the etheric aura of the Earth.

This edition of Star Wisdom commemorates the 100-year anniversary of Steiner’s lecture series Man and the World of Stars, given at the end of 1922. It was during the final lecture of that course―“Spiritual Knowledge is a True Communion . . .”―that flames began to flick at the walls of the first Goetheanum. At the core of the offerings to this year’s edition of Star Wisdom is the theme of “Cosmic Communion” as described by Steiner in that lecture―imbuing dying Nature with the fire of soul and spirit through human cognition, carrying it into the future.

This edition begins with a fantastic “Letter to the Editor” from reader René Bastien, in which he addresses some of the intricacies of the timeline of the Holy Grail and the life of Parzival that can be discovered through a close reading of Estelle Isaacson’s The Grail Bearer and The Younger Kyot. This exemplifies the theme of the next article, a classic offering from Robert Powell on Grail chronology―understanding history through spiritual knowledge, specifically via the faculty of Intuition. Joel Matthew Park continues this practice of Grail chronology in “Sacrifices of Jesus and Christ, Part I,” setting the stage for further investigation of modern ecosophical practice, which will be featured in the second part of this article next year.

Krisztina Cseri then offers the follow up to last year’s article “Rudolf Steiner and the Christmas Conference.” Whereas last year she focused more on the macrocosmic aspects that made the end of 1923 the most potent time to lay the Foundation Stone, this year she deals with microcosmic aspects in Rudolf Steiner’s astrological biography that set the stage for this sacrificial deed.

In both Joel Matthew Park’s article on the houses, “The Archetypal Language” and Amber Wolfe Rounds’ article “Tone Art,” the focus comes even more directly to the rays of human activity and Mother Earth toward the starry heavens―to the new form of cosmic ritual that is our theme for this year.

The monthly commentaries for 2022 are provided by Joel Matthew Park and supported by Julie Humphreys’ astronomical previews for each month. They offer us an opportunity to connect the spiritual with the stellar configurations of 2022. This guide to direct interaction between human beings on Earth and angels, as well as other heavenly beings connected with the stars, is intended to help the reader develop the capacity to receive wisdom-filled teachings from the spiritual hierarchies.

Joel Matthew Park is a husband, father, and Christian Hermeticist based in Copake, New York. From 2011 to 2019 he was a life-sharing coworker at Plowshare Farm (a Camphill affiliate), farming and candlemaking with people from a variety of countries, ages, and developmental backgrounds. During this time, he earned a certification in Social Therapy from the School of Spiritual Science through the Camphill Academy. He has been living and working in Camphill Village Copake since 2019. After a time devoted to elder care, he has become increasingly involved in teaching in the Camphill Academy, on topics such as Stargazing, the Karma of Vocation, Theosophy, the Human Soul, the Festival Year, and Philosophical Perspectives. Joel has been a student of Anthroposophy since 2008 and a Christian Hermeticist since 2010. In 2014, he met Phillip Malone; together, the two of them have been investigating the Tarot of Marseilles since 2016. Since then, Joel has led two retreats on “Tarot and the Art of Hermetic Conversation” (2017 and 2019). The fruits of Joel and Phillip’s collaboration in this realm can be found at the-unknown-friends.com. In 2015, he joined the Grail Knighthood, a group-spiritual practice offered through the Sophia Foundation. Through this, he met Robert Powell, whose work he had been studying since 2009. Since then, Joel has been working actively with him to continue the karma research Robert began in 1977 and exemplifies in works such as Hermetic Astrology, volumes I and II, and Elijah, Come Again. Joel’s first contribution was to the Journal for Star Wisdom 2018 (published Nov. 2017), after which he became editor for the journal’s continuation, the Star Wisdom series. The first volume of this series was published in November 2018. A selection of Joel’s writings can be found on his TreeHouse website, treehouse.live.

Robert A. Powell, PhD, is an internationally known lecturer, author, eurythmist, and movement therapist. He is founder of the Choreocosmos School of Cosmic and Sacred Dance, and cofounder of the Sophia Foundation of North America. He received his doctorate for his thesis The History of the Zodiac, available as a book from Sophia Academic Press. He is the author and coauthor of numerous work, including The Sophia Teachings (a six-tape series), as well as numerous books on star wisdom (Astrosophy), the divine feminine (Sophia), the Christian Mysteries, and sacred movement. He has also been a contributing editor of the annual journal Star Wisdom. He translated the spiritual classic Meditations on the Tarot and co-translated Valentin Tomberg’s Lazarus, Come Forth! Robert teaches a gentle form of healing movement: the sacred dance of eurythmy, as well as the Cosmic Dances of the Planets and signs of the zodiac. Through the Sophia Grail Circle, Robert facilitates sacred celebrations dedicated to the Divine Feminine. He has also offered numerous workshops in Europe and Australia, and with Karen Rivers, cofounder of the Sophia Foundation, and has led pilgrimages to the world’s sacred sites since 1996.

Krisztina Cseri was born in 1975 in Hungary. She graduated as an economist and worked in the production and financial controlling field at various companies for twelve years. Krisztina began to work with astrology in 2002 and attended a course from 2004 until 2007. She became a student of Anthroposophy at Pentecost 2009, when a friend invited her to the anniversary celebration of Rudolf Steiner’s “Budapest lectures.” Owing to the impact of that event, she soon left her financial career. She first encountered the work of Willi Sucher and Robert Powell in 2010. In 2012, with her husband, she founded the Hungarian Sophia Foundation. They have a small publishing company and translate and distribute books on spiritual themes. Krisztina has translated six books written by Robert Powell (and Kevin Dann) into Hungarian and in 2020 finished translating Meditations on the Tarot into Hungarian. She is the mother of two children and lives with her family in a village near Budapest.

Amber Wolfe Rounds is a second-generation astrologer with 15 years of experience. She provides astrology services, including predictive forecasting, natal charts for individuals, composite readings for couples or groups, and workshops. Amber composes and performs musical scores from astrology with Zizia. She earned a Waldorf Certificate and an MEd from Antioch University New England after submitting her thesis, Tone Art: Anthroposophy, Astrology, Music.

Julie Humphreys is a graduate of Stanford and a former pediatric nurse and Waldorf mom. An early interest in astrology lay dormant for more than three decades until she was introduced to the sidereal system, the works of Robert Powell, and the visions of Anne Catherine Emmerich. She has taken great joy in researching astrological phenomena for the Journal for Star Wisdom. Julie lives in Carmel, California, where shooting stars and the Milky Way are often visible.