23 August 2017 – Astro-Weather:
After dusk as August nears its end, the Great Square of Pegasus looms up in the east, balancing on one corner. Extending leftward from the Square’s left corner is the main line of the constellation Andromeda, shaped like a giant Little Dipper, it currently scoops upward.
Frederic Leighton
The actual, meanwhile, is tipping over leftward in the north. As always, it’s rotated about 90° counterclockwise from Andromegasus.
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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Feast Day of Rose of Lima. ‘Saint Rose’ is the patroness of the Americas, sacred to the indigenous people, in Lima, Peru.
Black Ribbon Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism & Nazism
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade & its Abolition
30 BC – After the successful invasion of Egypt, Octavian executes Marcus Antonius Antyllus, eldest son of Mark Antony, & Caesarion, the last king of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt & only child of Julius Caesar & Cleopatra
Andrea Mantegna
20 BC – Ludi Volcanalici = games or chariot races, held within the temple precinct of Vulcan for the Fire God’s Feast Day, to mark the treaty with Parthia by Augustus
79 – Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire
1244 – Siege of Jerusalem: The city’s citadel, the Tower of David, surrenders to Khwarezmian (Persian) Empire
1382 – Siege of Moscow: The Golden Horde led by khan Tokhtamysh lays siege
1572 –St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre a wave of Catholic mob violence, directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants) during the French Wars of Religion. Traditionally believed to have been instigated by Catherine de’ Medici, the mother of King Charles IX.
Antoine Francosis Callet
1754 – Birthday of Louis XVI of France
1839 – The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong. The ensuing 3-year conflict will later be known as the First Opium War
1914 – World War I: Japan declares war on Germany
1926 – Deathday of Rudolph Valentino, Italian-American actor
1939 – World War II: Nazi Germany & the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret addition to the pact, the Baltic states, Finland, Romania, & Poland are divided between the two nations.
1942 – World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad
1944 – World War II: Marseille is liberated by the Allies
1944 – Freckleton Air Disaster: A United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into a school in Freckleton, England killing 61 people
1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon
1970 –César Chávez leads the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history
1973 – A bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, turns into a hostage crisis, who begin to sympathize with their captors, leading to the term “Stockholm syndrome”
1989 – Singing Revolution: Two million people from Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania stand on the Vilnius–Tallinn road, holding hands for restoration of independence
1990 – Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union
1990 – Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western “guests” (actually hostages) to try to prevent the Gulf War
1991 – Tim Berners-Lee opens the World Wide Web to new users
1996 – Osama bin Laden issues message entitled ‘A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.’
2000 – Gulf Air Flight 072 crashes into the Persian Gulf killing 143
2011 – A magnitude 5.8 earthquake occurs in Virginia as a result of ‘Fracking’. Damage occurs to monuments & structures in Washington D.C. with damage estimated at 300 million
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~Oh Mother see how I have ripened, becoming
Upright & tall as a weed tree on the parkway
Seeds sown on the wind
Swell up in the shade of the city street
Conversing with the blacktop softening in the sun
When the light comes after
The shadow playing in a passing cloud
Bent on the steam of my breathing
All is blue bliss
Even into deep caverns
Where secret waters run high
Pacing with the star-tides
Quenching the lioness
I shine
Renewing Regulus in the heart of heaven
And within the beat of heart & lung on earth
A circus-ring-riding
High on the rising wheat
With the Virgin pushing past
Hells plush taverns
Into Benediction
A sweet prayer of Love in action
A chord ever chiming
In a soft whisper thru my August soul
~hag
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“Per corem Leonis in signo virginis in sororitatem steallarum te salvamus” : “Through the heart of the lion, in the sign of the woman, we welcome you in the sisterhood of the stars”
With the solar eclipse energy radiating within me, I awoke with that mysterious Latin phrase in my head. I’m not sure where it comes from, but I do know that Right Now, roaring in the night sky, beating in our human heart, is the constellation Regulus.
Neil Hague
Venus is also holding sway; the Goddess of Love was highlighted during the Maximum Totality of the Great American solar eclipse. She was revealed only thru the darkening.
With the return of the light, only a few days later, with much to contemplate, I am experiencing a re-birth in my thinking about Columbia, the Folk-Spirit of America. She rises from the grave, like the resurrection of Lazarus – She comes forth to us – an initiate, wiser, mature, carrying the nature of the Holy-Spirit, the Dove of Peace.
The archetype of the strong woman leader – Virgin/Crone, Whole, Moral – is being out-pictured to us in a cosmic pageant.
What would it be like to, each of us, lift her up in our hearts? The tide rises slowly at 1st, a ripple thru individual human souls, swelling toward high-tide & the 100th monkey.
With the eclipse we have received a jolt to the heart of the Lion. A cosmic-heart massage that kneads & pulses – a contraction–expansion, that can help the human being cultivate an etheric heart – a new heart capable of living into the new mysteries – Heart-Thinking that brings a renewed spiritual vision, able to perceive the etheric Christ.
‘Becoming co-creators with Michael, in service of the Logos, in creating the new Earth-Sun’.*
A joyful service, like standing in the Mississippi, with kindred souls, singing “ This little Light of Mine ” as the Moon slowly slid off the Sun. (hmmm, that’s a lot of S’s…)
More as I digest…
Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
*Thanks to Jonathan Hilton, your profound understanding of Astrosophy always inspires me. http://astrosophycenter.com/
***
Baron Arild Rosenkrantz
Michaelmas & the Horn of Plenty – Fall Festivals Ancient and New –
September 22-24th 2017, Eugene Oregon
Saturday September 30th 2017 – 10:30 am – 4:30 pm, at the Theosophical Society 1926 N Main St, Wheaton, IL 60187
Sunday Oct. 1st, 2017 – 4 pm – 6 pm at the Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago
Come join our Experiential Workshop celebrating the Autumnal Equinox to prepare us for the journey into the dark of the year. We will look back to the fruits of the past, and prepare for what is coming toward us from the future. Our ancestors called this Sabbath – Harvest Home or Mabon. The Hebrew folk count this as part of the High Holy Days. In Greece and Rome it is dedicated to Dionysus, or Persephone and Demeter. Today, we are invited to stand with the powerful Archangel Micha-el, in balance, between the light and the dark, as we create the ‘festival of the future’, which we call ‘Michaelmas’. Forging confidence thru Heart-Thinking, Michael strengthens our Will & reinforces our higher “I” so that we have the Courage to find the Spirit behind the living cosmos.
Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – is a Spiritual Midwife, and Trans-denominational Minister, working in an eclectic style that inspires connections – initiating us into the magic, waiting to be revealed, in the cycle of the seasons. Festivals Coordinator & Council Member of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, and the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society. Founder of Reverse Ritual – Understanding Anthroposophy Through the Rhythms of the Year
