Daily Archives: October 2, 2017

Will to Awaken

2 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: Tonight marks the unofficial start of the annual Orionid meteor shower. Although the Orionids won’t peak for nearly three weeks (on the night of October 20/21), you should start to see a few shower members in the early morning hours. These meteors appear to radiate from the northern part of the constellation Orion the Hunter.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Mehregān (Persian: Mithra Festival) is a Zoroastrian & Persian festival, celebrated since the Zoroaster era, celebrating the Persian god Mithra (an earlier incarnation of Michael), & to honor the Yazata of “Mehr” which is responsible for friendship, affection & love. It is also widely referred to as Persian Festival of Autumn. Mehrgān was celebrated in an extravagant style at Persepolis. Not only was it the time for harvest, but it was also the time when the taxes were collected. Visitors from different parts of the Persian Empire brought gifts for the king all contributing to a lively festival.

If the gift-giver needed money at a later time, the court would then return twice the gift amount. Kings gave two audiences a year: one audience at Nowruz & another at Mehregān. During the Mehregān celebrations, the king wore a fur robe & gave away all his summer clothes.

Nowadays for this celebration, the participants wear new clothes & set a decorative, colorful table. The sides of the tablecloth are decorated with dry marjoram. A copy of the Khordeh Avesta (“little Avesta”), a mirror & a sormeh-dan (a traditional eyeliner or kohl) are placed on the table together with rosewater, sweets, flowers, vegetables & fruits, especially pomegranates & apples, & nuts such as almonds or pistachios. A few silver coins & lotus seeds are placed in a dish of water scented with marjoram extract.

A burner is also part of the table setting for kondor/loban (frankincense) & espand (seeds of Peganum harmala, Syrian rue) to be thrown on the flames.

At lunch time when the ceremony begins, everyone in the family stands in front of the mirror to pray. Sharbat is drunk & then—as a good omen—sormeh is applied around the eyes. Handfuls of wild marjoram, lotus & sugar plum seeds are thrown over one another’s heads while they embrace one another.

 

The International Day of Non-Violence – The birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, referred to in India as Gandhi Jayanti, a national festival celebrated in India to mark the occasion of the birthday of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the “Father of the Nation”. It is one of the three national holidays of the country

Louis Janmot

Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels, Catholics set up altars in honor of guardian angels as early as the 4th Century, & local celebrations of a feast in honor of guardian angels go back to the 11th Century

1187 – Siege of JerusalemSaladin captures Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule

1452 – Birthday of Richard III of England, the last king of the House of York. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marked the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the historical play Richard III by William Shakespeare

1552 – Conquest of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible, The Grand Prince of Moscow. His conquests transformed Russia into a multiethnic & multicontinental state spanning almost one billion acres. Ivan managed countless changes in the progression from a medieval state to an empire & emerging regional power, & became the first ruler to be crowned as Tsar of All the Russias.

Historic sources present disparate accounts of Ivan’s complex personality: he was described as intelligent & devout, yet given to rages & prone to episodic outbreaks of mental instability, that increased with his age, affecting his reign. In one such outburst, he killed his groomed & chosen heir Ivan Ivanovich. This left the Tsardom to be passed to Ivan’s younger son, the weak & intellectually disabled Feodor Ivanovich.

Ivan’s legacy is complex: he was an able diplomat, a patron of arts & trade, founder of the Moscow Print Yard, Russia’s first publishing house, a leader highly popular among the common people (see Ivan the Terrible in Russian folklore) of Russia, but he is also remembered for his paranoia && arguably harsh treatment of the Russian nobility. The Massacre of Novgorod is regarded as one of the biggest demonstrations of his mental instability & brutality

1803 – Deathday of Samuel Adams, American philosopher & politician

1869 – Birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, Indian activist & philosopher

1925 – John Logie Baird performs the first test of a working television system

1928 – The Opus Dei, is founded by Josemaría Escrivá.

1937 – Dominican Republic ‘strongman’ Rafael Trujillo orders the execution of the Haitian population living within the borderlands; approximately 20,000 are killed over the next five days

1941 – World War II: In Operation Typhoon, Germany begins an all-out offensive against Moscow

1942 – World War II: Ocean Liner RMS Queen Mary accidentally rams & sinks her own escort ship, HMS Curacoa, off the coast of Ireland, killing 239 crewmen

1947 – Deathday of P. D. Ouspensky, a Russian mathematician & esotericist known for his expositions of the early work of the Greek-Armenian teacher of esoteric doctrine George Gurdjieff, whom he met in Moscow in 1915. He shared the (Gurdjieff) “system” for 25 years in England & the United States, having separated from Gurdjieff in 1924 personally, for reasons he explains in the last chapter of his book In Search of the Miraculous, a recounting of what he learned from Gurdjieff during those years. After Ouspensky broke away from Gurdjieff, he taught the “Fourth Way”, as he understood it, to his independent groups.

Gurdjieff proposed that there are three ways of self-development generally known in esoteric circles. These are the Way of the Fakir, dealing exclusively with the physical body, the Way of the Monk, dealing with the emotions, & the Way of the Yogi, dealing with the mind. What is common about the three ways is that they demand complete seclusion from the world. According to Gurdjieff, there is a Fourth Way which does not demand its followers to abandon the world. The work of self-development takes place right in the midst of ordinary life. Gurdjieff called his system a school of the Fourth Way where a person learns to work in harmony with his physical body, emotions & mind. Ouspensky picked up this idea & continued his own school along this line.

He finally gave up the system in 1947. (“A Record of Meetings”, published posthumously) “you must make a new beginning” after confessing “I’ve left the system”

Marcel Duchamp

1968 – Deathday of Marcel Duchamp, French painter & sculptor

1990 – Xiamen Airlines Flight 8301 is hijacked & lands at Guangzhou, where it crashes into two other airliners on the ground, killing 128

1996 – The Electronic Freedom of Information Act Amendments are signed by U.S. President Bill Clinton

1996 – Aeroperú Flight 603, a Boeing 757, crashes into the Pacific Ocean shortly after takeoff from Lima, Peru, killing 70

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Ingrid Flowser

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~A word, a vibration, a message
Is coursing thru my blood
The rust in my veins
Causes combustion
Making room
For the cosmic iron
To etch itself into my palms
Activating my limbs –
Forging my will to awaken
~hag

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Anna Todaro

You, my dearly beloved, need more magic in your life…
You seem to be suffering from a lack
of sublimely irrational adventures
& eccentrically miraculous epiphanies…
Not to mention inexplicably delightful interventions…
At the same time, make sure the magic you attract
is not pure fluff – It needs some grit to get a good groove on
It’s got to have a kicking big back beat
& an abyss challenging melody
that keeps you honest…

So come Be
a burning churning throb
of magic mojo

~xox

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

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Rise Up! Life as a Labor of Love – Anthroposophical Society in America
Annual General Meeting and Conference –

Fri, Oct 13 at 1:00 pm to Sunday, Oct 15 at 1:00 pm at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ

Wednesday and Thursday ‘How We Will Rise Up! Youth and Youthful Gathering’ at Desert Marigold. Email for more information. 

Also: at the Heard Museum Friday morning, October 13, from 9:30-11:30 am for members of the School for Spiritual Science. Bring your blue cards!

Please register online through www.anthroposophy.org!

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All Souls Festival Weekend Retreat and Festival
Fri, Nov 3 at 7:00 pm to Sunday, Nov 5 at 11:00 am
At the Minnesota Waldorf School in the Twin Cities, MN.

Join us for this Culmination of “The Bridging Project: Between Life and Death from Soul to Soul. Walk the pathway of our beloved across the threshold, being present for them, and preparing for our own journey.

Cost $75 (registration required, click here)

Journey of the Soul Festival – Saturday, Nov 4 at 7:00 to 9:00 pm Suggested Donation $10 at the door – All are welcome

Life after death
Life before birth
Only by knowing both
Do we know eternity
~ Rudolf Steiner

Sponsored by: Central Regional Council (CRC) and Twin Cities Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

Questions: Dennis Dietzel dennis.dietzel@gmail.com,@Marianne Diietel mariannemdietzel@gmail.com, Linda Bergh hellolindabergh@gmail.com