Anthroposophy in Hawkes Bay
Calendar of Coming Events
-- Diary Dates
In the Rudolf Steiner Centre, 401 Whitehead Road, Hastings unless stated otherwise.
- Friday 11 July. 7 pm. Leading Thoughts Study Group. p181 "The Freedom of Man and the Age of Michael"; LT 162-164
- Saturday 5 July. 9:30 to noon. School of Spiritual Science.
- Monday 7 July at 7 pm. 1st of 4 Conversations on RS's Foundation Stone Meditation. Then 14, 21, 28 July.
- Friday 3 to Monday 6 October. Salutogenesis Course.
- Monday 5 to Sunday 11 January 2026. Social Eurythmy Course, at Michael Park School, Ellerslie.
Sine Die (without a day)
David Urieli has offered to continue speaking on the theme he started at the Festival for the Dead - the journey of human souls after death.
We will find a date and let you know.
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-- Regular Groups
Leaders of Regular Study Groups are invited to list what your group is doing, when and where and how those interested can join you. Details to info@anthrohb.nz
- Friday Leading Thoughts Study Group meets on 2nd and 4th Friday of the month at 7 pm in the Foyer. All Welcome. Next meetings 7 pm on Fridays: 27 June, 11 & 25 July, 8 & 22 August, 12 & 26 September.
- Conversations on RS's Foundation Stone Meditation. Mondays 7, 14, 21 & 28 July.
- School of Spiritual Science from 9:30 to noon on Saturdays 5 July, 2 August, 6 September, 4 October, 1 November & 6 December.
- HB Branch Committee meetings 5:30 pm Thursdays 10 July, 14 August, 11 September, 9 October, 13 November & 11 December.
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Attention Room users. Cecile came to clean on Friday a week ago and found the Main room was cosily warm as someone had not ensured that the air conditioning heater was turned off properly - probably for several days. Please check thoroughly before you leave the building as the costs mount.
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Why did Rudolf Steiner call the Christmas Conference of 1923/24
and shape it the way he did with a Foundation Stone?
Conversations on this theme start on Monday 7th July at 7pm at the Centre, then weekly.
Christopher Bacchus
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Taruna College is excited to be once again offering the following workshops:
Winter Warmer Craft workshops on the 26th July. Are you keen to try your hand at gilded letter creating; needle felting; pottery; flax weaving or tea towel printmaking! Workshops are $125 for the day, some of the workshops have an extra materials fee.
For more information or to register go to Taruna’s website https://www.taruna.ac.nz/courses-and-workshops/winter-warmers-craft-workshops/
Enlivening the Earth Biodynamics Workshop on the 11 - 13 July
This workshop will involve hands on stir and spread of 500, utilizing the rhythms of the biodynamic farming and the gardening calendar. The workshop is designed for those who want to use biodynamic regenerative practice in their own farm or garden. We are grateful to the Kete Ora Trust for sponsorship of this workshop #keteoratrust
Price $350 for the three day workshop. For more information follow our link: https://www.taruna.ac.nz/courses-and-workshops/biodynamic-learning-pathways/
Noho ora mai
Charmaine Wilson
Business Manager
Taruna College
33 Te Mata Peak Road
06 877 7174
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Elemental Beings
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Sussing the Solstices
Trying to understand what is happening at the Solstice requires a form of pictorial imagination. Normally, we look at the world from our eyes in our head from where we are standing on the surface of the earth, but for this we have to let go of our normal consciousness and imagine looking at ourselves, or the earth, from some distant position in space and envisage, in our imagination, the forms created (or followed) by the sun, moon and planets as they move relative to each other.
For the solstice, imagine viewing the earth from a point on the ecliptic plane at right angles to the line joining the earth to the sun. The earth itself spins daily on its axis which is not perpendicular to the plane but tilted by 23.4⁰ from perpendicular, so giving us our seasons. The diagram shows the situation for Hastings, NZ at the solstices when the earth is opposite sides of its orbit in June and December.
Now move back to Earth where we experience the earth beneath our feet as flat or horizontal, not hanging off the bottom of the earth. We can see ourselves looking out of a North-facing window at the Sun at the Solstices at very different angles of elevation: a low 27⁰ in winter and a high 73.8⁰ in summer for Hastings. Nearer the Equator the elevation would be higher; nearer the poles lower.
Next, imagine yourself in the house looking out an east-facing window and you follow/trace the rising sun across the eastern sky through the morning after sunrise at key times of the year: namely at Solstices and Equinoxes, and a month before and after [total 7 paths].
At the Equinox, the Sun rises due East, angled to the North. At the Equator the Sun would rise vertically, but in Hastings NZ at a latitude of 39.6⁰ South, the angle of the Sun's path is 39.6⁰ North of vertical. At the South pole, at the Spring Equinox, the Sun moves anticlockwise around the horizon half-risen, then day by day it spirals higher until by the Summer Solstice the Sun is still moving anticlockwise but at an elevation of 23.4⁰ above the horizon. 6 months of day followed by 6 months of night.
At the Equator there are 365 very similar days as far as the sun's path is concerned.
At Summer Solstice in Hastings, the Sun rises about 90 minutes earlier, nearly 30⁰ south of east at the same angle making a high arc and setting 30⁰ south of west about 90 minutes later.
At the Winter Solstice, the Sun rises about 90 minutes later, nearly 30⁰ northof east at the same angle making a low arc and setting 30⁰ north of west about 90 minutes earlier.
The last diagram shows a trace of the Sun's path as seen from a North-facing window. This shows where the sun is on its path at CLOCK time Noon. You will notice that the Sun is not due north as one might expect. The clock is supremely mechanical and does not reflect the movement of the solar system - the clock divides the year into exactly equal days and it is set to solar time for a position to the East of NZ - the 180⁰ meridian. Hastings NZ longitude is only 176.84⁰ East of Greenwhich. Every degree of difference leads to an error of 4 minutes. In Hastings that is about 13 minutes later; in western Southland it amounts to 56 minutes later. Other variations are due the fact that the earth's orbit is not a circle but an ellipse and the earth is nearer to the Sun [perihelion] in early January [4th] and so moves faster making days slighter shorter, whereas on July 3rd it is further away [aphelion] moves slower and days are slightly longer. The difference mounts up to 15 minutes. The tilt of the earth, which relates to the twice yearly Solstices, also has an effect. The analemma [8] shows the variation in the position of the Sun at Clock noon over the year. It combines an annual rhythm and a twice yearly rhythm.
However, let's be clear that I am not advocating a return to Sundial time! The buses would not run on cloudy days.... Civil society needs a single legal time over a whole region or time zone. Even China has a single time (based on Beijing solar time) for the whole of China which has a 5-hour-wide time zone - in western China the sunrises around 10 o'clock!
What we could do without is the jump back and forth to so-called Daylight Saving Time!!
RB
