20 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: Although Mercury passed between the Sun & Earth just eight days ago, the planet named for the fleet-footed messenger god in Roman mythology lives up to its reputation this week as it climbs into view before sunrise. You can find the innermost planet above the eastern horizon 30 minutes before sunup. Mercury climbs higher & brightens rapidly as it heads toward greatest elongation next week, when it appears a half-hour before sunrise
Anne North
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Looking at the past to see the present, co-creating the future:
“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
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
622 – Muhammad & Abu Bakr arrived in Medina
1378 – Cardinal Robert of Geneva, called by some the “Butcher of Cesena“, is elected as Pope Clement VII, beginning the Papal schism. He was the 1st antipope residing in Avignon, France
1498 – The Nankai earthquake generates a tsunami that washes away the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha at Kōtoku-in in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan. Over 10,000 die
1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe
1737 – The Walking Purchase– between the Penn family, the proprietors of Pennsylvania, & the Lenape Tribe (also known as the Delaware). This document may have been an unsigned, unratified treaty, or even an outright forgery (Encyclopædia Britannica refers to it as a “land swindle”. The Penns’ agents began selling land, an area of 1,200,000 acres, in the Lehigh Valley to colonists while the Lenape still inhabited the area
1893 – Charles Duryea road-tests the first American-made gasoline-powered automobile
1906 – Founding of the Paracelsus Branch, Basel Switzerland
1913 – The laying of the Foundation Stone of the 1st Goetheanum
1913 – Founding of the Moscow Branch of the Anthroposophical Society
1933 – Deathday of Annie Besant. In 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky. She became a member of the Theosophical Society & a prominent lecturer. She established the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain. Over the next few years she established lodges in many parts of the British Empire. In 1907 she became president of the Theosophical Society, whose international headquarters were in Adyar, Madras. She also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress. When World War I broke out in 1914, she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India. This led to her election as president of the India National Congress. In the late 1920s, Besant travelled to the United States with her protégé & adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom she claimed was the new Messiah & incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929. She is thought to be the reincarnation of Giordano Bruno
1941 – Holocaust 403 Jews (128 men, 176 women & 99 children) were murdered by Einsatzkommando 3 in Nemencing, Latvia.
1942 – Holocaust in Letychiv, Ukraine. In the course of two days the German SS murders at least 3,000 Jews
1973 – Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome
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~The shining ones laughed
Slapping each other’s backs
“Have you forgotten so soon
What you have learned in the lotus pool?
Try not thinking so much.
Look at the words in your heart.”
I looked & I saw…
~hag
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Today I begin a series on Michaelmas. This year I have been working with
MICHAELMAS AND THE SOUL-FORCES OF MAN By RUDOLF STEINER
Summary by Hazel Archer Ginsberg
Lecture 1. How can humanity, the earth citizen, become once more a citizen of the cosmos? The expansion of life’s horizon into cosmic reaches brings the human being into the picture of Michael’s Conflict with the Dragon.
The Dragon is not found in the sense world. Where is he? The dragon lives within the human being. “…the outer cosmic conflict of Michael and the Dragon was transferred to the inner human being, because only in human nature could the Dragon now find his sphere of action.”
Because of that Michael now works with us to fight the dragon within human nature.
Steiner gives this picture of the dragon writhing around the animalistic part of humanity, even coiling around the heart; but then — behind us, at the back of the head — the outer cosmic figure of Michael, towering, radiant, retaining his cosmic nature but reflecting it in the higher human nature, so that our etheric body reflects etherically the cosmic figure of Michael. Then there would be visible in the human head — but working down into the heart — the power of Michael, crushing the Dragon and causing blood to flow down from the heart to the limbs.” So we can put our will into action
“…. In the intellect we are isolated from the world, because everyone has their own head, and in that head, their own thoughts. But In our Gemüt we cannot do that, the Gemüt is not dependent upon the head, but on the rhythmic system, bringing us back to where we belong, as a being in the cosmos.”
The Gemüt, as meaning something like: ‘the mind warmed by a loving heart and stimulated by the soul’s imaginative power’.
“…So with our Gemüt we can say: The power of the Dragon is working within me, I might not see it — but I can feel it as a force that wants to drag me down below myself. But in the spirit I see the luminous Angel whose cosmic task has always been the vanquishing of the Dragon. I concentrate my Gemüt upon this glowing figure, I let its light stream into my Gemüt, so that my illumined and warmed Gemüt will bear within it the strength of Michael. And out of a free resolution I will be able, through my alliance with Michael, to conquer the Dragon’s might in my own lower nature.”
“…this activated Gemüt enters into a living relationship with the whole cosmos the moment it indeed comes to life.
Life will not have a true soul content until we can develop cosmic impulses in our Gemüt.”
Tomorrow I will bring my summary of lecture 2
PS. I have fixed the problem with the comments. It is now functioning, so please feel free to continue to co-create the conversation
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