There I find the secret path…

11 March 2017 – Astro-Weather: Bright Bella Luna hangs a few degrees below & left of Regulus this evening. The Sickle of Leo extends from Regulus toward the upper left.

Bella Luna is equally full this evening & tomorrow night in the Americas. That’s because the exact time of full Moon, 11:54 am March 12th CST, lands halfway between the two evenings. Tonight the Moon shines by the dim hind leg of Leo. Tomorrow evening it’s by the dim head of Virgo.

Venus shines brilliantly in the western sky after sunset all week. The inner planet of Love glows brighter than the evening sky’s second-brightest point of light, Jupiter. Venus shows up easily within a half-hour after sunset & remains on view until nearly 8 pm CST.

Late tonight comes the second-brightest asteroid occultation predicted this year for North America – A star in Leo’s snout, just in front of the Sickle.

Daylight-saving time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday morning for most of North America. Clocks spring forward.

TODAY: the Sun enters the astronomical constellation of Pisces, the stars of this cultural age

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“We understand only the very smallest part of human history and of our own life if we consider it in its external aspect, I mean in that aspect which we see from the limited view-point of our earthly life between birth and death. It is impossible to comprehend the inner motives of history and life unless we turn our gaze to that spiritual background which underlies the outer, physical happenings” ~Rudolf Steiner. Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture III

222 – Emperor Elagabalus is assassinated, along with his mother, Julia Soaemias, by the Praetorian Guard during a revolt. Their mutilated bodies are dragged through the streets of Rome before being thrown into the Tiber. Elagabalus served as a priest of the Syrian god Elagabal, barely 14 years old, when he became emperor, initiating a reign remembered mainly for sex scandals &religious controversy.

Elagabalus showed a disregard for Roman religious traditions & sexual taboos. He replaced the traditional head of the Roman pantheon, Jupiter, with Elagabalus. He forced leading members of Rome’s government to participate in religious rites celebrating this deity, over which he personally presided. Elagabalus was supposedly “married” as many as five times, lavished ‘favors’ on male courtiers & was reported to have prostituted himself in the imperial palace. He developed a reputation among his contemporaries for extreme eccentricity, decadence, & zealotry. His behavior estranged the Praetorian Guard, the Senate, & the common people alike.

336 BC – Deathday of Attalus important courtier of king Philip II of Macedonia.

Attalus’ niece Cleopatra Eurydice married king Philip II of Macedonia. At the wedding, Attalus made a prayer that Cleopatra give birth to a male heir. This was seen as a direct insult to Alexander the Great.

Philip II appointed Attalus & Parmenion as commanders of the advance force that would invade the Persian Empire in Asia Minor. After Philip II had been assassinated & Alexander became king, Cleopatra Eurydice, her two children, & Attalus were all killed.

According to a story of Aristotle‘s, Attalus sexually assaulted Pausanias of Orestis in retribution for besmirching the reputation of Attalus’ friend (possibly relation), also named Pausanias, an event that led to the latter Pausanias’s death. Philip II assassination by Pausanias of Orestis has been tied to this affair since Pausanias was upset that Phillip had not punished Attalus.

At the time of the accession of Alexander the Great to the Macedonian throne, Attalus was stationed with Parmenion & the Macedonian advance army in Asia Minor. In the wake of Phillip II’s death, it is alleged by hostile sources that Demosthenes of Athens wrote a letter to Attalus promising Athens’ support if the two made war on Alexander.

Attalus submitted Demosthenes’ letters to Alexander & pledged his support to the king. However, Alexander had Attalus killed, remembering the past insult of Attalus. Even without the resentment between the two men, Alexander probably felt Attalus was too ambitious to remain alive, & would have good reason for revenge after the deaths of Cleopatra Eurydice & her children.

638 – Deathday of Sophronius of Jerusalem, the Patriarch of Jerusalem venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox & Catholic Churches. He was a monk & theologian who was the chief protagonist for Orthodox teaching in the doctrinal controversy on the essential nature of Jesus & his volitional acts.

Sophronius was of Byzantine Greek, as well as Syrian Arab descent. A teacher of rhetoric, Sophronius became an ascetic in Egypt & then entered the monastery of St. Theodosius near Bethlehem. Traveling to monastic centres in Asia Minor, Egypt, & Rome, he accompanied the Byzantine chronicler St. John Moschus, who dedicated to him his celebrated tract on the religious life, Leimõn ho Leimõnon (Greek: “The Spiritual Meadow”) (and whose feast day in the Eastern Orthodox Church, 11 March is shared with Sophonius’)

He traveled to Alexandria, Egypt, & to Constantinople to persuade the respective patriarchs to renounce Monothelitism, a heterodox teaching that espoused a single, divine will in Christ to the exclusion of a human capacity for choice. Sophronius’ extensive writings on this question are all lost.

Although unsuccessful in this mission, Sophronius was elected patriarch of Jerusalem in 634. Soon after his enthronement he forwarded his noted synodical letter to Pope Honorius I & to the Eastern patriarchs, explaining the orthodox belief in the two natures, human & divine, of Christ, as opposed to Monothelitism.

In 637, after the conquest of Jerusalem by Muslim armies, the Muslim caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab came to Jerusalem & toured the city with Sophronius. During the tour of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the time for the Muslims’ prayer came, & despite Sophronius’s offer to Umar to pray inside the Church, Umar chose to pray outside. The caliph’s reason for declining to pray there was because in the future Muslims might say that Umar prayed here & use it as an excuse to build a mosque there. Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to build a mosque there. So appreciating the caliph’s intelligence Sophronius gave the keys of the church to him. Unable to refuse it the caliph gave it to a family of Muslims from Medina. The keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre still remain with the Muslim family.

1702 – The Daily Courant, England’s first national daily newspaper is published for the first time

1818 – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein; or The modern Prometheus, is published

1824 – The United States Department of War creates the Bureau of Indian Affairs

1864 – The Great Sheffield Flood kills 1238 people in England

1888 – The Great Blizzard of 1888 begins along the eastern seaboard of the United States, shutting down commerce & killing more than 1400

1918 – The 1st case of Spanish flu occurs, the start of a devastating worldwide pandemic

1990 – Lithuania declares itself independent from the Soviet Union

2007 – Georgia claims Russian helicopters attacked the Kodori Valley in Abkhazia, an accusation that Russia categorically denies later

2011 – An earthquake measuring 9.0 in magnitude strikes Sendai, Japan, triggering a tsunami killing thousands of people. This event also triggered the second largest nuclear accident in history, classified as a Level 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale

2012 – A U.S. soldier kills 16 civilians in the Panjwayi District of Afghanistan near Kandahar

2016 – At least 221 people are killed by flooding & mudslides in São Paulo, Brazil

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POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Lady of the Wheel, of the Fates, of the Fist…
Beneath Her robe curls a caterpillar in an empty sky
Her flame is sharp – Her hands are quick
She burns flesh into ash & light
Yet Her mouth is wet & soothing
Her teeth are the rattling seeds of the sistrum, a brilliant moment in time
She molds my form in wax & tosses it into the flames
There I find the secret path...
~hag