Monthly Archives: August 2016

X-Factor

August 16, 2016Poetry, Quote, Remembering~hag

16 August 2016 – Astro-Weather: Mercury reaches greatest elongation today, when it stands 27° east of the Sun. The innermost planet hangs low in the west after sunset. Be sure to keep an eye on Mercury, Venus, & Jupiter during the next two weeks as the triangle they form grows tighter.

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“He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.” ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Rembrandt 1634

Abraham receives Isaac back from Yahweh, according to the spiritual research of Rudolf Steiner, GA 117

1705 – Deathday of Jacob Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician & theorist, founder of the calculus of variations. His most important contribution was in the field of probability

1744 – Birthday of Pierre Méchain, French astronomer who studied of deep sky objects & comets

1841 – U.S. President John Tyler vetoes a bill which called for the re-establishment of the Second Bank of the United States. Enraged Whig Party members riot outside the White House in the most violent demonstration on White House grounds in U.S. history

1842 – In New York City, the U.S. government took over operations of the City Despatch Post. This was the first congressionally authorized local postage delivery

1888 – Birthday of T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) British colonel & archaeologist

1899 – Deathday of Robert Bunsen, a German chemist, discovered caesium & rubidium, pioneer in photochemistry, & did early work in the field of organoarsenic chemistry. He developed the Bunsen burner, an improvement on the laboratory burners then in use

1948 – Deathday of Babe Ruth

1906 – An estimated 8.2 MW earthquake hits Valparaíso, Chile, killing 3,886 people

1913 – Birthday of Menachem Begin, Belarusian-Israeli Zionist politician, 6th Prime Minister of Israel, Nobel Prize laureate

1923 – Carnegie Steel Corporation put into place the eight-hour workday for its employees

1960 – Cyprus gains independence from Britain

1977 – Deathday of Elvis Presley

1989 – A solar flare from the Sun creates a geomagnetic storm that affects micro chips, leading to a halt of all trading on Toronto’s stock market

1999 – In Russia, Vladimir V. Putin was confirmed as prime minister by the lower house of parliament

2005 – Deathday (murder) of Brother Roger Schütz, founded the Taizé Community, an ecumenical monastic community in Burgundy, France

2012 – South African police fatally shoot 34 miners & wound 78 more during an industrial dispute near Rustenburg

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Golden Hexagram –

Raw Geometry –

Viscus wax

In sticky sacrifice…

~hag

***

Today I challenge myself to: Be honest.

And I ask: Have I had any of the following symptoms?

Lack of interest in trivial matters & a yearning for big, holy mysteries.
Unfamiliar but interesting impulses rising up in me demanding consideration.
Fresh insights into people & situations I’ve known a long time.
An altered sense of the flow of time.
Out-of-the-blue recall of long-forgotten memories.

Ok, so I am asking these questions because I know I can say YES!

And I continue to ponder, taking an inventory of all my inner voices, noticing both the content of what they say & the tone with which they say it. Some of them may be chatty & others shy; some blaring & others seductive; some nagging & needy & others calm & insightful.

Today I welcome all the voices in my head into the spotlight of my alert attention. I ask them to step forward & reveal their agendas.

Imagine that your life is a detective story. The goal is not to solve a crime, but to solve the mystery of why we’re here on earth, so we can carry out the special mission we’ve come to accomplish.

Sometimes we go for months without even looking for clues. We sleepwalk through the world, reacting blindly to the tricks that the gods use to try to wake us up.

Then there are those phases when hot leads, fresh evidence & opportunities, pop up all over the place, convincing us beyond a doubt that spirituality & magic are the fundamental properties of reality. Could this be one of ‘those’ times?

Through some cosmic intervention, a sad or bad or mad story will get tweaked prior to the final turn of the plot. Just as I’m getting ready to nurse my regrets, an X-factor or wild card will appear, transforming the meaning of a series of puzzling events. This may not generate a perfectly happy ending, since I know life is a process, but it will at least result in an interesting & redemptive epiphany.

What is the precise nature of that X-factor or wild card?

Perhaps a big secret will be revealed or some missing evidence will arrive or a mental block will crumble. And it’s likely that I will have an inspiration about how valuable my ‘problem’ has actually been.

I’m reminded of Jung’s formula, which is that we don’t so much solve our problems, as we outgrow them. We add capacities & experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.

Here’s to insightful growth & creative living!

XOX

Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Himmelfahrt Mariae

August 15, 2016Celestial Event, Poetry, Remembering, Summer~hag

15 August 2016 – Astro-Weather: Brilliant Jupiter remains a beacon in the western sky after sunset. Venus appears only about half as high as Jupiter, so you’ll need an unobstructed horizon to spot it. Fortunately, the inner planet glows brilliantly& will show up clearly under good atmospheric conditions.

Himmelfahrt Mariae Feast Day of the Assumption of Mary

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ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“History, historical life, will only be seen in the right light when a true consciousness of the connection of the so-called living with the so-called dead can be developed” – The Living and the Dead by Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 5th February, 1918

636 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The Battle of Yarmouk between Byzantine Empire and Rashidun Caliphate begins.

717 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik begins the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople, which will last for nearly a year.

718 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Raising of the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople.

778 – The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, at which Roland is killed

1038 – Deathday of King Stephen I, the first king of Hungary

1057 – Deathday of King Macbeth, killed at the Battle of Lumphanan by the forces of Máel Coluim mac Donnchada

1248 – In honor of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral, built to house the relics of the Three Wise Men, is laid

1281 –The Mongolian fleet of Kublai Khan is destroyed by a “divine wind” for the second time in the Battle of Kōan in Japan

1309 – The city of Rhodes surrenders to the forces of the Knights of St. John, completing their conquest of Rhodes. The knights establish their headquarters on the island & rename themselves the Knights of Rhodes

1534 – Jesuit Order Founded

1549 – Jesuit priest Francis Xavier comes ashore at Kagoshima, Japan

1769 – Birthday of Napoléon Bonaparte

1812 –The Battle of Fort Dearborn is fought between United States troops & Potawatomi at what is now Chicago

1843 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark (Tivoli inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland)

1910 – Very 1^st performance of Rudolf Steiner’s 1^st Mystery Drama “The Portal of Initiation” opens in Munich

1914 – Julian Carlton, A servant of architect Frank Lloyd Wright murders seven people & sets fire to the living quarters of Wright’s Wisconsin home, Taliesin

1914 – The Panama Canal opens to traffic with the transit of the cargo ship SS Ancon

1915 – A story in New York World newspaper reveals that the Imperial German government had purchased excess phenol from Thomas Edison that could be used to make explosives for the war effort & diverted it to Bayer for aspirin production

1917 – Deathday of Hermann Joachim, Anthroposopher & Freemason. Rudolf Steiner did his funeral address see GA 261

1935 – Will Rogers &Wiley Post are killed after their aircraft develops engine problems during takeoff in Barrow, Alaska

1939 – The Wizard of Oz premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in LA

1941 – Corporal Josef Jakobs is executed by firing squad at the Tower at 7:12am making him the last person to be executed at the Tower of London for espionage

1945 – Surrender of Japan in World War II, Korea gains Independence from Japan. The Allies proclaimed V-J Day a day after

1947 – India gains Independence from British rule after near 190 years of Crown rule & joins the Commonwealth of Nations

1948 – The Republic of Korea is established south of the 38th parallel north

1958 – Madonna Louise Ciccone, the entertainment icon is born near Detroit, Michigan

1965 – The Beatles play to nearly 60,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York City, an event later regarded as the birth of stadium rock

1969 – The Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era

1971 – President Richard Nixon completes the break from the gold standard by ending convertibility of the United States dollar into gold by foreign investors. Nixon also announced a 90-day freeze on wages, rents & prices

2001 – Astronomers announced the discovery of the first solar system outside our own. They had discovered two planets orbiting a star in the Big Dipper

2013 – The Smithsonian announces the discovery of the olinguito, the first new carnivoran species found in the Americas in 35 years

2015 – North Korea moves its clock back half an hour to introduce Pyongyang Time, 8½ hours ahead of UTC

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~She is the early light

& the purpose of dusk

Who Is

The song bird of The Logos renewed…

She will

Rattle the seeds of the sistrum

To Awaken

A brilliant moment in eternity: Today

I will

Lift Her veil…

~hag

***

– “I AM STANDING ON HOLY GROUND” –

Today on this Feast of the Assumption of Mary, I am cultivating the feeling that as I move through the world, that everywhere I go, wherever I am, I am standing on holy ground. In my backyard this morning, watching the butterflies & beetles, I was imagining all the life processes that unfold outside of my conscious awareness: my body digesting food & the circulating of my blood. I pictured the trees working with the elemental beings, taking in carbon dioxide, water, & sunlight to synthesize their nourishment. I felt the micro-organisms in the soil beneath my feet endlessly toiling away to create humus.

I ‘see’ the bee as a spiritual messenger – an interlocutor – Carriers of the Solar-Logos – an intermediary, between the human being & the Spiritual realms – Opening us to those peripheral dimensions of human awareness where super-sensible perceptions can awaken.

The bee carries a signal or frequency that enables transformation; it enables the sterile to become fertile & initiates the process of regeneration…

I don’t perceive any of these things directly; they’re invisible to me, & yet so alive & active & real.

And so I ask: What other growth & transformation might be going on in secret?

Ahh, what a perfect time to tune-in to all the vitalizing alchemy that is usually hidden, as I contemplate the mystery of the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of god.

Xox

Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Lift your Head

August 14, 2016Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Speaking with the Stars, Summer~hag

14 August 2016, Astro-Weather: The two inner planets lurk low in the western sky shortly after sunset this week. If you scan the horizon you should pick up Venus which shows up only because she shines so brightly. Mercury appears at nearly the same altitude but will be much harder to see because it glows more dimly. This morning, this innermost planet lies to the left of Venus & to Jupiter’s lower right.

Brilliant Jupiter remains a beacon in the western sky after sunset, but its days of prominence are numbered. It currently appears a half-hour after sunset & dips below the horizon during late twilight. The giant planet shines against the backdrop of western Virgo.

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ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“What is to be the starting force & impulse for events in social & ethical life must come out of the spiritual world.” Rudolf Steiner, New Spiritual Impulses in History” Dornach 16 December, 1917

600 BC – Birthday of Laozi, an ancient Chinese philosopher, writer – thought to be a contemporary of Confucius. The author of the Tao Te Ching & the founder of Taoism, also thought of as a deity in traditional Chinese religions.

1340 – Birthday of Meister Bertram of Minden, a German International Gothic painter primarily of religious art, 1^st to paint the serpent as a temptress with a human head

1842 – American Indian Wars: Second Seminole War ends, with the Seminole tribe forced from Florida to Oklahoma

1880 – Construction of Cologne Cathedral is completed

1888 – An audio recording of English composer Arthur Sullivan’s “The Lost Chord”, one of the first recordings of music ever made, is played during a press conference introducing Thomas Edison’s phonograph in London, England

1912 – U.S. Marines invade Nicaragua

1914 – World War I: Start of the Battle of Lorraine

1916 – Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary, joining the Entente in World War I

1922 – Deathday of Alfred Harmsworth (Lord Northcliffe) British press baron & pre-1914 warmonger

1935 – Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, creating a government pension system for the retired

1941 – World War II: Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt sign the Atlantic Charter

1945 – Japan accepts the Allied terms of surrender in World War II

1945 – Deathday of Helene Rochling, proof reader, & helper to Rudolf Steiner

1947 – Pakistan gains Independence from the British Empire & joins the Commonwealth of Nations

1956 – Deathday of Bertolt Brecht

2013 – Egypt declares a state of emergency as security forces kill hundreds of demonstrators supporting former president Mohamed Morsi

2015 – The US Embassy in Havana, Cuba re-opens after 54 years

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Lift your head

& let the eye fix you

With Her wink,

A soul-spark to harken & inspire…

Look up & move forward

You are the eye reflecting

The fire of your own Becoming

There is light

See

Enough to lead you home

~hag

***

This image was created by artist Imma von Eckardstein working from sketches given to her by Rudolf Steiner in the year 1912-13 for the new Calendar Of the Soul. The images are specifically related to an experience of the constellation in relation to the Sun in that constellation just prior to dawn in the northern hemisphere.

“…On August 10th, the Sun entered the astronomical constellation of Leo, the Lion. To more deeply understand the constellation of Leo one can turn to the deeds of Christ in relation to Leo. These deeds, according to Willi Sucher, stand as archetypes for humanity as a foundation for the new path of speaking to the stars. Below are two excerpts from Willi that point to a new understanding of Leo. “Leo is the archetype of all that which dwells within the “house” and from where the circulation radiates out into the totality of the body. So, what does it mean when Saturn is in that position? (Saturn carries the intentions or plan of the Father for world evolution) Saturn was, during most of the time of the Three Years, in Cancer. Christ dwelt in the “house,” the house of the originally divine human form, from which were imparted the new impulses of evolution to Earth existence. When Saturn enters Leo, (at the original Whitsun) we see something like a mighty communication of cosmic heart forces to the community of the first Christians. At the Whitsun Event they all experienced, as they were sitting there, something of the universality of the Christ impulse. They partook in it as a kind of cosmic communion. This was a tremendous, new manifestation of the meaning of Leo. The ancient symbol of Leo is the center point with the winding tail out to the periphery. You start out from the heart but then you move out to the periphery, for instance, to the periphery of the body, via the stream of the blood circulation. This happened, in a spiritual sense, to the entire community of first Christians who were present at the first Whitsun….at the time of Whitsun, Leo was given anew meaning. The original meaning was this: Once upon a time in the course of creation, the periphery was gathered together in order to build the human heart, for originally the archetypal functions of rhythm were right out in the periphery of the cosmos. These functions eventually became enclosed in the chest, the “house” of the human being. From the Christ events on, they can again expand toward the periphery. We can grow again toward the cosmos, but now in such a fashion that we maintain our integrity as a self. All this was spoken into the movement of Saturn during the Three Years by the deeds of Christ.” Willi Sucher, Cosmic Christianity, p 66/67

Another significant event associated with Leo at the time of Christ is in connection with a conjunction of Venus with the Sun. In its apparent loops around the Earth, Venus forms a great five pointed star or pentagram in the heavens, with the points being inferior and superior conjunctions. Part of the work of Willi Sucher was to connect these conjunctions with five events which signify a redemption of the old mysteries and the founding of the new Christian mysteries. One such point of this great new archetypal star of Venus occurred in Leo and is associated with the Beheading of John the Baptist by Herod through the efforts of his wife Herodias and her daughter Salome. We have in this event an image of the culmination of the old ego, the one in the center..the one “crying in the aloneness” sacrificed. “The ancient mysteries, which had run their course, were sacrificed in the head of John the Baptist. In Elijah, who was present in John, the ancient mysteries had reached their final culmination, the last eveningglow…This development culminated in the loop of Venus in Leo. The symbol that we use for Leo indicates a movement of involution from the periphery, which is then concentrated into what we see represented by the circle. Thus Leo leads us from the wide spaces of the universe down to the Earth and into ego-experience. At the time of Christ, the means of integrating the human being in the ancient mysteries of the cosmos had come to an end. The human being now had come to live in the ego.” Willi Sucher, Cosmic Christianity, p 87

Based on the research of Rudolf Steiner, we know that this sacrifice by John led to an expansion of his being to be of greater service to the Christ event. He worked from above, from the periphery, so to speak, as the guiding spirit of the Apostles as part of his greater mission contained in the mystery of John/ Lazarus. This is the other image of Leo as the movement through the center point, the eye of the needle, towards “not I but Christ in me”. With Jupiter in Leo until mid August and Venus and Mercury joining the Sun through Leo during August, it is a time for deeper understanding and feeling for the new Leo activity. What is the new spiritual communion of the human being with the world of humanity and with the world of spirit? What is this new rhythm of the heart, the self, in relation to these worlds? What does “Not I but Christ in me” truly mean? Perhaps an added insight can be gained from the fact that Rudolf Steiner was born with Saturn in Leo, suggesting his fundamental karmic task in service to humanity. Novalis was also born with Saturn in Leo (see Steiner on the relation of John to Novalis)”

~Jonathan Hilton from the ASTROSOPHY RESEARCH CENTER

So much food for thought

Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

“Compassion becomes Freedom”

August 13, 2016Insight, Poetry, Quote, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Summer~hag

13 August 2016 – Astro-Weather:

Look overhead around 10pm CDT any day this week & your eyes will fall on the brilliant star Vega in the constellation Lyra the Harp. Vega is the brightest member of the prominent Summer Triangle asterism. The Triangle’s second-brightest star, is Altair in Aquila the Eagle, southeast of Vega. The asterism’s dimmest member, Deneb in Cygnus the Swan, stands northeast of Vega. Although the brightening Moon diminishes the luster of stars this week, the Summer Triangle remains conspicuous.

ALSO: About 45 minutes before the Sun comes up, look for a bright object hovering just above the horizon in the east-southeast. This is the night sky’s brightest star – Sirius in the constellation Canis Major. The return of Sirius to the predawn sky was an occasion for celebration in ancient Egypt. Around 3000 b.c., this so-called heliacal rising of Sirius heralded the coming flood of the Nile River, an event upon which agriculture — & all life in Egypt — depended

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ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“Study the past if you would define the future.” ~Confucius

303 – St. Cassian of Imola, Patron Saint of Teachers, martyred during the reign of Julian the Apostate

1699 – Deathday of Marco d’Aviano, Capuchin monk. When he gave his blessing to a nun, bedridden for some 13 years, she was miraculously healed. The news spread far & wide, among those who sought his help was Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, whose wife had been unable to conceive a male heir. From 1680 to the end of his life, Marco d’Aviano became a close confidant & adviser to him. As the danger of war with the Ottoman Turks grew near, Marco d’Aviano played a crucial role in resolving disputes, restoring unity, & energizing the armies of the Holy League

1792 – King Louis XVI of France is formally arrested by the National Tribunal, & declared an enemy of the people

1802 – Birthday of Nikolaus Lenau, Austrian poet- wrote a version of Faust, Savonarola, Die Albigenser, Don Juan…etc…

1818 – Birthday of Lucy Stone a prominent American orator, abolitionist, & suffragist, known for using her maiden name after marriage. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women’s rights & against slavery at a time when women were discouraged & prevented from public speaking

1831 – Nat Turner witnesses a solar eclipse which caused the sky to appear a blue-green color, which he envisioned as a black man’s hand reaching over the sun. Eight days later he & 70 other slaves kill between 55-65 whites in Southampton County, Virginia

1860 – Birthday of Annie Oakley

1868 – A massive earthquake near Arica, Peru, causes an estimated 25,000 casualties, & the subsequent tsunami causes considerable damage as far away as Hawaii & New Zealand

1876 – The premiere of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the recently completed Bayreuth Festspielhaus

1898 – Carl Gustav Witt discovers 433 Eros, the first near-Earth asteroid to be found

1899 – Birthday of Alfred Hitchcock

1900 – Deathday of Vladimir Soloviev, a Russian philosopher, theologian, poet, pamphleteer & literary critic. It is widely held that Solovyov was one of the sources for Dostoyevsky’s characters in The Brothers Karamazov. Solovyov’s influence can also be seen in the writings of the Symbolist & Neo-Idealist writers of the later Russian Soviet era. His book The Meaning of Love can be seen as one of the philosophical sources of Leo Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata. It was also the work in which he introduced the concept of ‘syzygy’, to denote ‘close union’.

He influenced the religious philosophy of many including the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, (see War, Progress, and the End of History: Three Conversations, Including a Short Story of the Anti-Christ. Reprinted 1990 by Lindisfarne Books) Steiner speaks of Solovyov’s former incarnation as a visionary nun in the Middle Ages in his Karmic relationships Vol. 4 Lecture 8

1910 – Deathday of Florence Nightingale

1914 – The beginning of Rudolf Steiner’s Curative Education Course “For our Friends”

1926 – Birthday of Fidel Castro

1942 – Walt Disney’s fifth full-length animated film, Bambi, was released to theaters

1946 – Deathday of H. G. Wells

1961 – the Berlin Wall is erected

1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine to enjoy a ticker tape parade in New York City. That evening, at a state dinner in Los Angeles, they are awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Richard Nixon

1975 – Deathday of Kurt Henderwerk , veteran anthroposophical actor

1978 – One hundred fifty Palestinians in Beirut are killed in a terrorist attack during the second phase of the Lebanese Civil War

2004 – One hundred fifty-six Congolese Tutsi refugees are massacred at the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi

2015 – At least 76 people are killed & 212 others are wounded in a truck bombing in Baghdad, Iraq

International Lefthanders Day

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~…& the quiet that settles on our skin,

A light rain rinsing the pastel dawn

Into pale grey, keeps company

With those whose dreams are troubled

& whose love is still asleep…

~hag

***

F.B. Ferris

This morning I am thinking about “Compassion becomes Freedom” the Leitmotif for the month of August. As I awoke I noticed how the song birds seemed quieter – more demur then when I left for my ‘Faust Initiation’ in July. The soul of the Earth, after uniting with the world spirit in the heights of summer, is binding herself again to the earth with the inbreathing process, & the creatures of air are a barometer of this progression.

I imagine the lion-sun satiated, demonstrating a slowed rhythmic breathing, deepening into ripened power. The human being can only achieve this kingly power of inner mastery thru the test of freedom -To raise ourselves as “a splendid stranger made king of earthly nature” as Novalis puts it in his ‘Hymns to the Night’.

We strive for the inner harmony of the marriage of fire & water – where the lion-heart joins with the prudent head – then the “I” is transformed & baptized. This kingly power of overcoming the drives of the soul with sober wisdom goes hand in hand with the transformation of the blood, turning the fire into compassion, when we consciously take in the Michaelic iron from the stars. Only in this way can the human being free ourselves from the bonds of nature, converting rulership into courageous service.

The human being becomes free from the violence which binds all beings, when they can overcome themselves. And in this overcoming, we gain knowledge of the Self, as we walk the path to the Grail, just as Parzival took the path to freedom “through compassionate knowing” & understanding. This is what the tamed lion wisdom of this season teaches us.

“…See the sun-drenched vine, with its juice spiritualized to etheric sunlight! It is a picture of the purification & fermentation process of the “I”. It shows you how drives can be transformed when they are purified thru life’s bitter crisis, & flower as the wisdom of age. Your “I” bears the kingly power within itself thru which you can transform all that is lower within you & raise it to the heights. Without these drives you would not be a full human being, but you must tame & refine them in the crucible of the royal power of the “I”. Then they will bear for you the loveliest fruits which will ripen in the autumn of life to become saturated with the wisdom of life. You extend your soul beyond itself when, compassionately sharing in all that is human. You open your Self to the world. For human being means: transforming the kingly power of the “I” in sharing responsibility for all that is human! Then the thought that I am only a member of all mankind & am co-responsible for all that happens is no longer foreign to me. With such an attitude the human being’s whole way of thinking gradually changes…” ~Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of Higher Worlds

Ripening with you

in Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

What will your soul harvest?

August 12, 2016Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars, Summer~hag

12 August 2016 – Astro-weather: Tonight is the peak of the Perseid meteor shower (see yesterday’s blog offering for details https://reverseritual.com/glow-worms-hide-in-the-folds-of-my-blood-flashing-hygienic-iron-dust-from-shooting-stars/#comment-445) Today is also known as World Elephant Day, International Youth Day & in the United Kingdom the “Glorious Twelfth“, as it marks the traditional start of the grouse season.

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ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“To truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world.” Rudolf Steiner

30 BC– Deathday of Egyptian queen Cleopatra

1827 – Deathday of 1827 – William Blake, poet, painter, mystic

1831 – Birthday of Helena Blavatsky

1848 – Deathday of George Stephenson, Renowned as the “Father of Railways”, he was an English civil & mechanical engineer who built the first public inter-city railway line in the world to use steam locomotives- considered a great example of diligent application & thirst for improvement

1851 – Isaac Singer is granted a patent for his sewing machine

1875 – Helena Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society in NY

1877 – Thomas Edison invented the phonograph & made the first sound recording

1883 – The last quagga dies at the Artis Magistra zoo in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

1914 – World War I: The United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit

1944 – Nazi German troops end the week-long Wola massacre, during which time at least 40,000 people were killed indiscriminately or in mass executions

1950 – Korean War: Bloody Gulch massacre—American POWs are massacred by North Korean Army.

1952 – The Night of the Murdered Poets: Thirteen prominent Jewish intellectuals are murdered in Moscow, Russia, Soviet Union.

1953 – The Soviet Union secretly tested its first hydrogen bomb

1953 – A 7.2 Ms earthquake shakes the southern Ionian Islands. 800 people were killed

1955 – Deathday of Thomas Mann, a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, & the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic & ironic epic novels are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist & the intellectual. His analysis & critique of the European & German soul used modernized German & Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche & Schopenhauer

1960 – Echo 1A, NASA’s first successful communications satellite, is launched.

1964 – South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country’s racist policies

1976 –3,500 Palestinians are killed in the Tel al-Zaatar massacre, one of the bloodiest events of the Lebanese Civil War

1981 – The IBM Personal Computer is released

1992 – Deathday of John Cage

1998 – Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion as restitution to World War II Holocaust victims

2010 – Deathday of Isaac Bonewits, founder of Ár nDraíocht Féin

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Open your wings

& fly from the Moon

To the Sun

Carrying the stars

In your fierce talons

~hag

***

Having been out & about in adventure-land when August began, striving with Faust to be truly human, I didn’t have a chance to fully immerse myself here at Reverse Ritual in the bounty that August brings. And yet the ‘big wheel keeps on turning’…

The Sun is in Regulus, the heart of the lion , which calls to mind the image of the King of beasts, lazing in the shade of the trees in the hot afternoon sun.

The earth is baking under this late summer sun, battered by the sudden violence of summer storms, & the Perseid meteor showers, as the wheel turns to Lammas, a term used by our ancestors for the start of the harvest season. Although not the longest day of the year, the Lammas season is the hottest part of the year.

During Spring & Summer, the earth was cooler than the sky; now the heat has flowed from the air to penetrate the earth, which is filled — pregnant — with the fire of the Sun, returning this warmth to the sky. The heat of the sun comes to us from above & below, & it feels as if the crops could be baked into ripeness.

Even the storms of the season carry fire in their hearts. We have the lightning strokes of thunderstorms- the sudden downpours out of a clear sky. Tropical storms & hurricanes strike with the fury of a lioness enraged.

But…The seeds of darkness have been planted. The days may carry the peak of warmth, & yet the Sun has already begun to fade, & the nights begin to be noticeably shorter.

The cycle of life turns past the peak of growth & into the time of release. The life of the Green God has begun to bleed off into the grain & into the fruits on the trees.

‘The King is Dead Long Live the King’: Now is also the time of sacrifice, of death in service of life. Some of the first fruits are ready for harvest, but some, too unripe to be eaten, must be plucked anyway. These are culls, killed so they won’t drain the life force from the fruit we wish to keep. If all the fruit were left on the tree, the life force would be diluted, & none of the fruit would grow to maturity. And even worse, too much fruit can weigh down a branch until it breaks, destroying the entire crop, & sometimes killing the tree. So the culls are killed, that the rest of the fruit-& we who depend on the crop for our survival-might live.

John Barleycorn must die…Cut in half & buried, then beaten with sticks, & finally crushed between stones, nevertheless He rises once again. Bread is the perfect sacrifice for Lammas, or “Loaf Mass”, as the Anglo-Saxons called it.

It’s more than just the first fruits of the earth –it also involves the first fruits of human labor. Grain is processed by human craft, & combined with the four elements to make the staff of life.

Lammas marks the point where we leave the Garden, & earn our own way,

“by the sweat of our brow”. It is the time of coming to maturity, of taking responsibility for our own path. We select the seeds we plant, & from that we select the fruits we will eventually harvest.

The harvest season is upon us, a time of judgment – for we are called upon to sift through the things that have grown up during the past half-year, & decide what we will keep & what we will cut down. We must make choices, we must discern, & we must act on our choices.

Lammas is a festival of regrets & farewells, of harvest & preserves.

Regrets: Think of the things you meant to do this summer or this year that are not coming to fruition. You can project your regrets onto natural objects like pine cones & throw them into the fire, releasing them. Or you can write them on dried corn husks or on a piece of paper & burn them.

Farewells: What is passing from your life? What is over? Say good-bye to it. As with regrets, you can find visual symbols & throw them into the fire, the lake or the ocean. You can also bury them in the ground, perhaps in the form of bulbs which will manifest in a new form in spring.

Harvest: What have you harvested this year? What seeds have your planted that are sprouting? Find a visual way to represent these, perhaps creating a decoration in your house which represents the harvest to you. Or you could make a corn dolly or learn to weave wheat which were made by early grain farmers as a resting place for the harvest spirits.

Preserves: This is also a good time for making preserves, either literally or symbolically. As you turn the summer’s fruit into jams, jellies & chutneys for winter, think about the spiritual fruits that you have gathered this year & how you can hold onto them. How can you keep them sweet in the store of your memory?

This kind of contemplation can give us a good opportunity to reflect upon our hopes & dreams that were sown in the dawn of the year, came to life in the springtime, & are now perhaps ready to bear fruit. And on the spiritual level, we can ask ourselves what wisdom we have garnered so far this year: What will your soul harvest?

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Monthly Archives: August 2016

X-Factor

Himmelfahrt Mariae

Lift your Head

“Compassion becomes Freedom”

What will your soul harvest?

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