Hazel Archer Ginsberg Joins the General Council

After many years of service to the Anthroposophical Society in America, on staff and on the regional and national councils, Marianne Fieber has stepped off to pursue new initiatives, amid many expressions of gratitude for her artistic contributions and generous spirit. The General Council has now welcomed Hazel Archer Ginsberg as Central Regional Council representative.

Having grown up in the wastelands of suburbia, I found refuge in the wilds of nature which sprung up in the empty lots behind the track housing. Developing a rich inner life, singing, writing plays or poetry, and harvesting plants to make herbal medicines with my grandmother, helped get me through the mendacity of a public school education, graduating high school in three years at age 15.

I backpacked around the sacred sites of Europe for a year, and then took my heart to San Francisco on a full scholarship to study Philosophy & Comparative Religion (with a minor in Women’s Studies) at SFSU. There in the dusty halls of dead thinking, I met Rudolf Steiner’s Spiritual Science through fate and the discovery of Owen Barfield, and began to work with the basic books on my own. (It was almost 25 years later when I finally discovered that there was such a thing as an Anthroposophical Society!)

Destiny had prepped me through Rosicrucianism which came into play at an early age, (another long story I would be happy to relate over coffee) but I didn’t officially join the Societas Rosicruciana in America (SRIA), headquartered in Kingston, NY, until I moved to NYC after college.

I began applying my Midwest work ethic, and my eclectic blend of teachings in the Big Apple. I became a neighborhood leader working with disenfranchised youth. It was almost impossible for former drug addicts, runaways, and artist types to find affordable housing in Manhattan, so the focus of my community activism was with the “Homesteading Movement.” We became “squatters” renovating several blocks of abandoned city-owned buildings on the “Lower East Side.” Through this community I spearheaded many artistic initiatives such the experiential guerrilla Theatre Troupe, “The Valkyries.” I was also a singer, songwriter, and drummer, performing in several “No New York” genre original bands (Heal, Health Hen, Baby Boom) recording and touring extensively in the U.S. and Europe. In the 1980s, the Lower East Side was a cultural Mecca and we were featured at CBGB’s, the Mud Club, the Bitter End, the Beat Kitchen, etc. When I wasn’t on tour, I was a vegetarian chef, and diligently worked the Rosicrucian path traveling to upstate NY for the SRIA workings.

I also studied for four years and was ordained as a Trans-denominational Minister at the Spiritual Science Center of Maryland, a school dedicated to teaching comparative religions, philosophy, and service to humanity.

I moved to Chicago when my uncle was dying of AIDS. I became a sous-chef at a vegetarian restaurant, and started co-creating with a “Hermetic Order” which had a healing center on the Northside, and sacred land in Indiana, making plant medicines again.

I became the founder & facilitator of

• the SheDrums MysteryLodge, featuring workshops, Retreats & Rites of Passage for Women

• “the WE drum Tribe” = “the Heart-Beat of Chicago’s Conscious Community”

• D.E.V.A. (Divine Expressions of Vital Alchemy), a collaborative dance company that embodied the Divine Feminine through seasonal myth-telling performances

• Sanctuary Dance: the Chicago facilitator for the annual International EarthDance, a worldwide dance event to promote unity across cultures

• producer, director, writer and videographer for The Earth Network, a monthly program focused primarily on environmental, political, and spiritual issues

• Mother-Earth-Minute eight times a year at Lake Street Church in Evanston

• classes on the Wheel of the Year for the Chicago Park District

• videographer for Richard Shay (Art Shay’s son) working with the likes of Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, and Gene Siskel

• WRD Environmental Consultant for the Chicago Conservation Corps (C3).

When I was almost 40 years old, I had my daughter Ultra-Violet Archer, and married Chuck Ginsberg. It wasn’t until my girl was at the Chicago Waldorf School that I finally heard about the Anthroposophical Society, and discovered that the branch was within walking distance from our house!

Through the Waldorf school I trained with Kim John Payne’s Social Inclusion Intervention and Mediation program called “Justice Without Blame,” and went on to do Hakomi, and Matrix leadership training in team building and consensus processes.

As a Minster I started a business called “Milestones” creating custom ceremonies for all occasions: traditional weddings, as well as same sex marriages, fertility rituals, baby blessings, renewal of vows, home and corporate blessings, crossing over ceremonies, funerals, memorials/ celebration of life, and other rites of passage, specializing in coming of age initiations for girls and women.

I studied with Susanne Down and founded “Wisdom Roots Puppetry” working in the Waldorf tradition of therapeutic seasonal story, song and ensouled puppetry.

I have been the Cultural Events and Festivals Coordinator for the Rudolf Steiner Branch in Chicago for about ten years, and a member of the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society for seven years. I am a member of the First Class of the School of Spiritual Science, and of the Esoteric Youth Circle.

I have long been inspired by Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul where he commemorates feast days, and birth and death days of important individualities, and about four years ago I founded “Reverse Ritual: Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year” and recently the “I Think Speech” podcast where I strive to reveal the patterns connecting the seasonal round with human karma, great historical events, as well as repeated weather patterns, natural catastrophes, wars, and the many milestones that can help us understand the past, stand with courage in the present, and see what is wanting to come in from the future.

I look forward to serving on the General Council of the Anthroposophical Society in America, especially at this important “turning point” in world history as we approach the 100-year anniversary of the Christmas Conference, a true Whitsun event for the evolution of humanity.

A collection of the many presentations, programs and festivals that I offer or facilitate is on YouTube (www.youtube.com/channel/UC-K-0SnCuVkSxiIbfJierJA). Reverse Ritual is at reverseritual.com and I Think Speech is at https://anchor.fm/hazel-archer-ginsberg

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg is a trans-denominational minister, essayist, lecturer, poet, and anthroposopher working as the Cultural Events and Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch (www.rudolfsteiner.org/chicago) and on the ASA Central Regional Council (www.rudolfsteiner.org/central-region).