THE ROSICRUCIAN FELLOWSHIP
THE SUMMER SOLSTICE SERVICE
THE SUMMER SOLSTICE SERVICE
Music.
Third stanza of Rosicrucian Opening Hymn sung by audience.
Words by Max Heindel
(Tune: "Sweet Hour of Prayer.")
Let's strive to know that we may do.
What lift's, enobles, is right and true.
With love to all and hate to none,
Let's shun no duty that should be done.
For knowing how to act aright,
And doing it from morn till night,
From day to day and year to year,
We conquer self and sin and fear.
The Service
Reader unveils Emblem and gives salutaion: "My
dear Sisters and Brothes, may the roses bloom upon
your cross." (Answer from the audience: "And upon
yours, also.")
We are now at the time of the Summer Solstice,
the season during which physical manifestation on
Earth reaches its height.
Each year a spiritual wave of vitality enters the
Earth at the winter solstice to impregnate the dor-
mant seeds in the frozen ground, to give new life to
the world whereon we live, and this work is done
during the winter months while the Sun is passing
through the zodiacal signs Capricorn, Aquarius, and
Pisces.
Cosmically the Sun is born on the longest and
darkest night of the year when Virgo, the Celestial
Virgin, stands upon the eastern horizon at midnight
to bring forth the immaculate Child. During the
months next following, the Sun passes through the
violent sign Capricorn where, mythically, all the
powers of darkness are concentrated in a frantic en-
deavor to kill the Light-bearer, a phase of the solar
drama which is mystically presented in the story of
King Herod and the flight into Egypt to escape death.
When the Sun enters the sign Aquarius, the water-
man, in February, we have the time of rain and
storms; and as the Baptism mystically consecrates the
Saviour to His work of service, so also the floods of
moisture that descend upon the Earth soften and
mellow it so that it may yield the fruits whereby the
lives of those who dwell here are preserved.
Then comes the Sun's passage through the sign
Pisces, the fishes. At this time the stores of the pre-
ceding year have been almost consumed and man's
food is scarce. Therefore we have the long fast of
Lent which mystically represents, for the aspirant,
the same ideal as that cosmically shown by the Sun.
There is at this time the 'carne-vale', the farewell to
the flesh, for everyone who aspires to the higher life
must at some time bid farewell to the lower nature
with all its desires and prepare himself for the
Passover which is then near.
In April, when the Sun crosses the celestial equator
and enters the sign Aries, the Lamb, the cross stands
as a mystic symbol of the fact that the canidate
to the higher life must learn to lay down the mortal
coil and begin the ascent of Golgotha, 'the place in
the skull'; thence to cross the threshold into the
invisible world. Finally, in imitation of the Sun's
ascent into the signs of the northern heavens, to
foster with its warming rays the growth of the seed
in the soil which has been revitalized by the Christic
wave during the winter months, he must learn that
his place is with the Father and that ultimately he
is to ascend to that exalted place.
So it is that at the present time, during the season
culminating June 21st. the Great Christ Spirit has
reached the World of Diving Spirit, the throne of
the Father. During July and August, while the Sun
is in Cancer and Leo, He is rebuilding His Life Spirit
vehicle which He is to bring to the world and with
it rejuvenate the Earth and the life kingdoms evolv-
ing in and upon it.
Without this annual mystic wave of vital energy
from the Cosmic Christ, physical life would be an
impossibility. There could be no physical bread and
wine, nor the trans-substantiated spiritual tincture
prepared by alchemy from the heart blood of the
disciple. Physical existence is the school or labora-
tory in which we learn to transmute the base metal
of our lower natures into the shining luster of the
Philosopher's Stone, and thus make possible our lib-
eration into the higher spheres, where our exalted
Ideal, the Christ, is at present.
There are factors behind all manifestations of
Nature----intelligences of varying degrees of conscious-
ness, builders and destroyers, who perform important
parts in the economy of Nature. Midsummer is the
sporting time of the earth-goblins and similar enti-
ties concerned in the material development of our
planet, as shown by Shakespeare in his "Midsum-
mer Night's Dream."
The semi-intelligent action of the sylphs lifts the
finely divided vaporized particles of water prepared
by the undines, from the surface of the sea and carries
them as high as they may before partial condensation
takes place and clouds are formed. These particles
of water they keep until forced by the undines to
release them. When we say it storms, battles are
being fought on the surface of the sea and in the
air, sometimes with the aid of salamanders to light
the lightning torch of separated hydrogen and oxy-
gen and send its awe-inspiring shaft crashing zigzag
through the inky darkness, followed by ponderous
peals of thunder that reverberate in the clearing at-
mosphere, while the undines triumphantly hurl the
rescued raindrops to earth that they may again be
restored to union with their mother element.
The little gnomes are needed to build plants and
flowers. It is their work to tint them with the in-
numerable shades of color which delight our eyes.
They also cut the crystals in all the minerals and
make priceless gems that gleam from golden diadems.
Without them there would be no iron for our machin-
ery nor gold wherewith to pay for it. They are
everywhere and the proverbial bee is not busier. To
the bee, however, is given credit for the work it does,
while the little Nature Spirits that play such an
immensely important part in the world's work are
unknown save to a few so-called dreamers and fools.
At the summer solstice the physical activities of
Nature are at their apex or zenith, therefore "Mid-
summer Night" is the great festival of the fairies
who have wrought to build the material universe,
nourished the cattle, nurtured the grain, and are
hailing with joy and thanksgiving the crest wave of
force which is their tool in shaping the flowers into
the astonishing variety of delicate shapes called for
by their archetypes and tinting them in unnumbered
hues which are the artist's delight and despair.
On this greatest of all nights of the glad summer
season, they flock from fen and forest, from glen and
dale, to the Festival of the Fairies. They really bake
and brew their etheric foods and afterwards dance in
ecstasies of joy---the joy of having brought forth and
served their important purpose in the economy of
Nature.
It is and axiom of science that nature tolerates
nothing that is useless; parasites and drones are an
abomination; the organ that has become superfluous
atrophies, and so does the limb or eye that is no
no longer used. Nature has work to do and requires
work of all who would justify their existence and
continue as a part of her. This applies to plant and
planet, man and beast, and to the fairies as well.
They have their work to do; they are busy folk and
their activities are the solution to many of Nature's
multifarious mysteries.
These are points which we should endeavor to
realize thoroughly in order that we may learn to
appreciate this season of the year as keenly as we
should. What a cosmic calamity should our Heavenly
Father fail to provide the means for our physical
existence and sustenance each year! The Christ of
last year cannot save us from physical famine any
more than last year's rain can drench the soil and
swell the millions of seeds that slumber in the Earth
and await the germinal activities of the Father's life
to begin their growth; the Christ of last year cannot
kindle anew in our hearts the spiritual aspirations
which urge us onward in the quest any more than
last summer's heat can warm us now. The Christ of
last year gave us His love and His life to the last
breath without stint or measure; when He was born
into the Earth last Christmas, He endued with life;
the sleeping seeds which have grown and gratefully
filled our granaries with the bread of physical life;
He lavished the love given Him by the Father upon
us, and when He had wholly spent His life, He died
at Easter-tide to rise again to the Father, as the
river, by evaporation, rises to the sky.
But endlessly wells the divine love; as a Father
loveth his children, so doth our Heavenly Father love
us, for He knows our physical and spiritually frailty
and dependence.
May we take advantage of the opportunities
offered us during this season that the coming of the
Christ Spirit again in the autumn shall find us with
greater facility for responding to the powerful spir-
itual vibrations with which we shall be infused at
that time.
We will now concentrate on Divine Love and Service.
Concentration
Music. (Stanza of Closing Hymn.)
Words by Max Heindel
( Tune: "God Be with You Till We Meet Again.")
God be with you till we meet again;
In His love each day abide you,
That His wisdom's Light may guide you;
God be with you till we meet again.
Refrain:
Till we meet, till we meet,
Till we meet, the Rosy Cross to greet,
Till we meet, till we meet,
God be with you till we meet again.
Reader veils the Emblem and gives parting admonition:
"And now, my dear Sisters and Brothers,
as we part to reenter the material world, may we go
out with a firmer resolve to express in our daily lives
the high spiritual ideals we have received here, so
that day by day we may become more worthy men
and women, more worthy to be used as self-conscious
channels for the beneficial workings of our Elder
Brothers in the service of humanity."
