2 June 2017 – Astro-Weather: Brilliant Venus rises in the east around 2:30 am CDT. Although stunning in Her own right, Venus serves as a guide to distant Uranus. The outer planet is very close to the Goddess of Love for the next 3 mornings.
Also this evening The Moon, Jupiter, & Spica form a gently curving arc in the southwest
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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
“The Master said, “A true teacher is one who, keeping the past alive, is also able to understand the present.” (Analects 2.11)” ~Confucius
455 – Sack of Rome
1098 – First Crusade: The first Siege of Antioch ends as Crusader forces take the city; the second siege began five days later
1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts; she was found guilty and later hanged
1882 – Deathday of Giuseppe Garibaldi, Italian general & politician. Spoken of as a high initiate in the Hibernian Mysteries in ‘Karmic Relationships’ Vol 1, lec. 11 by Rudolf Steiner ( June 2nd is also Festa della Repubblica -The Italian National Republic Day)
1922 – Start of the Whitsun Conference or West-East Congress in Vienna, opened by Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz. At this conference Rudolf Steiner gave his last lecture on Threefolding (1917 – 1922)
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
~With simple sandals
I walk before my Beloved
But in the house of heaven my feet are still…
My breast is a lyre that hums,
My lungs fill with living fire,
A cool breeze encircles me,
There is no need for haste…
~Hag
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Liane Collot d’Herbois
Thoughts for Whitsun 2017
Many are called, but few are chosen…Will you elect of their own free will, to gather in the upper room…?
I have boiled down the fruits of my spiritual research on this potent festival into an introductory essay which I hope will set the tone of the day & perhaps engender a fruitful discussion & inspire further mediation on the essence of the subject.
As we move deeper into the glories of Spring, the elementals awaken & we experience in nature signs & images of the Earth-soul in ascension. The sense of arising spreads all around us. And in the play of the elements, fire seems to have the last word in the essential dialogue between the heights & depths. From above resounds the fiery word & the other elements follow the creative call with joy & the beauty of ascent.
Whitsun has been called a festival of flowers. We see this, out among the buds opening under the increasing power of the sun, under the etheric & astral influences.
The heart of the human being as it opens to warmth & light is like the flower, aligning itself to the sun which permeates the earth. And what pours down from the sun, giving the flower, our image in reverse, the potency it needs, is like the tongues of fire descending upon the heads of the disciples, for us humans.
Rudolf Steiner calls this Holy Day ‘The festival of United Soul Endeavor’. He lectured a great deal about Whitsun. He spoke about Spiritual Science as a Whitsun gift.
Today we can see Whitsun as a festival of the 1st fruits of the Spirit. The festival of today is not bestowed on us by nature. It must be called forth…
Some say it is a festival of the future, for we must grow ripe to withstand the surging of the Spirit. Whitsun is the festival of our true higher self, which as yet only hovers above us like a dove.
At the same time it is the festival of community, arising from the harmonizing of our higher selves which are ONE in the spirit –
The Cosmic Spirit of all pervading Love,
Healing Spirit, Spirit of Wisdom,
The Comforter,
Councilor,
Paraclete,
Sophia,
The Spirit of Truth..
“You shall know the truth – & the Truth shall make you free.”
Christ fulfilled His Deed for all mankind. And, to each human individual, in order that we may be able to understand this Deed, Christ sends the Healing Spirit, Fulfilling his promise that each person may have access to the effects of the Deed, which was accomplished for all.
Tomorrow we will delve deeper
Until soon ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
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