25 May 2017 – Astro-Weather: New Moon exact at 2:44 p.m. CDT. At its New phase, Bella Luna crosses the sky with the Sun, & so remains hidden by our day star. Because the Moon reaches perigee, the closest point in its orbit around Earth, only six hours later (at 8:21 p.m. CDT), residents in coastal areas can expect higher than normal tides for the next few days. At perigee, the center of the Moon lies 221,958 miles from Earth’s center.
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?” Cicero, Orator (46 BCE)
*Ascension – 40 days after Easter
240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley’s Comet.
1085 – Death-day of Pope Gregory VII – One of the great reforming popes, best known for the ‘Investiture Controversy’, attacking the practice of simony (trafficking for money in “spiritual things”- named after Simon Magus, who is described in Acts 8:9–24 as offering Peter & John, payment in exchange for their empowering him to impart the Holy Spirit to anyone he laid hands on) & his dispute with Henry IV. In Rudolf Steiner’s Karma Lectures Vol. I/12 he was revealed as Haeckel in a previous life.
“…We will take another very well-known personality, Ernst Haeckel. Ernst Haeckel is famous as an enthusiastic adherent of a certain materialistic Monism — enthusiastic, one may say, to the point of fanaticism. He is well enough known to you; I need not give you any description of Haeckel. Now when we are led back from this personality to a former incarnation, we come to Pope Gregory VII, the monk Hildebrand, who afterwards became Pope Gregory VII.
I have chosen this instance so that you may see how differently the same individuality may express himself externally, in accordance with the cultural “climate” of the period. One would certainly not expect to look for the reincarnation of Pope Gregory VII in the 19th century representative of materialistic Monism.
The things that a man brings to manifestation on the physical plane, with the means afforded by external civilisation, are far less important to the spiritual world than one is inclined to suppose. Behind the personalities of the monk Hildebrand and Haeckel lies something wherein they are alike and this is of much greater account than the differences between them. One of them fights to the utmost to enhance the power of Roman Catholicism, and the other fights to the utmost against Roman Catholicism, but for the spiritual world it makes little difference. These things, fundamentally speaking, are important for the physical world only; they are quite different from the underlying elements in human nature which count in the spiritual world…”
1803 – Birthday of Ralph Waldo Emerson an American essayist, lecturer, & poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism.
1803- Birthday of Edward Bulwer Lytton an English novelist, poet, playwright, & politician. Theosophists Annie Besant & especially Helena Blavatsky incorporated his thoughts & ideas, from: ‘The Last Days of Pompeii’, ‘Vril’, ‘The Power of the Coming Race’ & my fav. ‘Zanoni’, in her own books. He coined the phrases “the great unwashed”,”pursuit of the almighty dollar”, “the pen is mightier than the sword”, “dweller on the threshold”, as well as the well-known opening line “It was a dark and stormy night”.
1904 – Birthday of Wilhelm Jordan a German writer & politician, seen as “a precursor of Nietzsche and pioneer of Darwin in Germany”; Known for his books ‘Mysterium Demiurgos’ & his translation of the Edda.
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
Under the clouds
The Robins nod & bow & walk & fly…
All birds
Of the ethers spin
In countless exhaled breaths…
We are growing, remembering, forgetting, Becoming…
We are the many…
One face changing expression..
~hag
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*Ascension
William Blake
“…The Christ-will encircling us holds sway, In world rhythms, bestowing Grace upon souls…”
However closely heaven & earth are aligned, their relationship is not always the same. In this we see the miracle of the seasons –the breathing-in & breathing-out of the earth soul.
At the time of the Ascension of Christ, nature celebrates the ascension of the soul of the earth. It is not by chance that the 40 days between Easter & Ascension coincide with the spring season when the earth soul begins its out-breath. Every year, when the earth breathes out in springtime, the mystery of the Ascension of Christ, Who is the Spirit of the Earth, is renewed.
Ascension is a festival of the hierarchies. Remember, that when Christ descended thru the heavens, & came into human form, the hierarchies lost His presence. They could only find Him by looking into the depths – bearing witness to the God Who entered physical existence, to remind earthly humanity of its cosmic citizenship.
At the Ascension, the mystery of the resurrection was brought for the 1st time to the company of heaven – Signaling the return of the lost world of earth into the community of the stars. Since that time, the life of this planet is renewed with the cosmic forces that stream earthward.
The sacrifice of Christ initiated on earth, was the antidote to the consequences of death brought on by the Fall – the redemptive deed that turns death into life.
The Concentrated seed of Christ’s deed, continues to grow in the earth thru the connection to the stars. When the Risen Christ returned ‘to sit at the right hand of the Father’, at the Ascension, He became the bridge between the above & below.
As the Christ has ascended, so too, in the fullness of time will humanity be transfigured. The company of the hierarchies wait, for us, their younger siblings to ascend in our thinking to meet them in fellowship, as they work all the while at our sides.
The Christ-Revelation ‘coming in the clouds’ is here- Showing us the bridge that brings a harmonizing spring-dialogue between the worlds. At the Ascension Christ becomes “Lord of the heavenly forces upon earth”.
The fulfillment of the secret promise of the Ascension is the Second Coming. It was said to the apostles, “He will come again, in like manner, as you have seen Him go up into the clouds of heaven.” The Ascension is the seed of this Second Coming, & the Second Coming is the fulfillment of the Ascension.
There is more to think & share – Tomorrow
~Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
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