Monthly Archives: October 2016

EVERY ENDING – A NEW BEGINNING

October 31, 2016Autumn, Festival, Poetry, Remembering, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

31 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: There’s no Moon this Halloween. Vega is the brightest star high in the west. Less high in the southwest is Altair, not quite as bright. Just upper right of Altair, by a finger-width at arm’s length, is orange Tarazed, looking like Altair’s little sidekick but actually a much bigger & brighter star far in the background.

If you like observing challenges, head outside this evening to look for Uranus, bright enough to glimpse with the naked eye from under a dark sky. The planet reached opposition & the peak of its 2016 apparition earlier this month, & it remains a fine sight. Around 8pm CDT, Uranus lies about halfway from the southeastern horizon to the zenith. The distant world resides in southern Pisces just northwest of Piscium.

The Moon reaches apogee, the farthest point in its orbit around Earth, at 2:29 pm CDT- 252,688 miles (from Earth’s center

***

Buddha on thought sprung from love

The thought manifests as the word.

The word manifests as the deed.

The deed develops into habit.

And the habit hardens into character.

So watch the thought and its ways with care.

And let it spring from love,

Born out of concern for all beings.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Hop-tu-Naa is a Celtic festival celebrated in the Isle of Man on 31 October. Predating Halloween, it is the celebration of the original New Year’s Eve (Oie Houney). It is thought to be the oldest unbroken tradition in the Isle of Man

Samhain is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season & the beginning of winter or the “darker half” of the year. It is the cross quarter between the autumn equinox & the winter solstice.

The Mound of the Hostages, a Neolithic passage tomb at the Hill of Tara, is aligned with the Samhain sunrise. It is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature & many important events in Irish mythology happen or begin on Samhain.

It is the time when cattle are brought back down from the summer pastures & when livestock are slaughtered for the winter. As at Beltane, special bonfires are lit.

Like Beltane, Samhain is seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world & the Otherworld can more easily be crossed. This means the Aos Sí, the ‘spirits’ or ‘fairies’, can more easily come into our world, so offerings of food & drink are left outside for them.

The souls of the dead are also thought to revisit seeking hospitality. Feasts are had, at which the souls of dead kin are beckoned to attend, & a place set at the table for them.

Mumming & guising were part of the festival in olden times, which involved people going door-to-door in costume (or in disguise), often reciting verses in exchange for food.

Divination rituals & games were also a big part of the festival.

Day of the Dead (Spanish: Día de Muertos) Theis multi-day holiday focuses on gatherings of family, to pray for, & remember thise who have died, to help support their spiritual journey.

Traditions connected with the holiday include building altars called ofrendas, honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, & the favorite foods & beverages of the departed, & visiting graves with these as gifts. Visitors also leave possessions of the deceased at the graves.

Scholars trace the origins of the modern Mexican holiday to indigenous observances dating back hundreds of years and to an Aztec festival dedicated to the goddess Mictecacihuatl. The holiday has spread throughout the world, being absorbed within other deep traditions for honoring the dead.

475 – Romulus Augustulus is proclaimed Western Roman Emperor

683 – During the Siege of Mecca, the Kaaba catches fire & is burned down. The Holy Kaaba also referred as “The Cube”, is a building at the center of Islam’s most sacred mosque, Al-Masjid al-Haram, in Mecca, al-Hejaz, Saudi Arabia. It is the most sacred site in Islam. It is considered the “House of Allah” & has a similar role to the Tabernacle & Holy of Holies in Judaism. Wherever they are in the world, Muslims are expected to face the Kaaba when performing salat (prayer)

The Kaaba is a stone cube structure which is made of marble & limestone. The wall directly adjacent to the entrance of the Kaaba has six tablets inlaid with inscriptions, & there are several more tablets along the other walls. Along the top corners of the walls runs a green cloth embroidered with gold Qur’anic verses. Caretakers anoint the marble cladding with the same scented oil used to anoint the Black Stone outside. Three pillars stand inside the Kaaba, with a small altar or table set between one & the other two. Lanterns or crucible censers hang from the ceiling. A golden door—the Babut Taubah meaning “Door of Repentance” on the right wall (right of the entrance) opens to an enclosed staircase that leads to a hatch, which itself opens to the roof. Both the roof & ceiling (collectively dual-layered) are made of stainless steel-capped teak wood.

Each numbered item in the following list corresponds to features noted in the diagram image.

Al-Ḥajaru al-Aswad, “the Black Stone“, is located on the Kaaba’s eastern corner. Its northern corner is known as the Ruknu l-ˤĪrāqī, “the Iraqi corner”, its western as the Ruknu sh-Shāmī, “the Levantine corner”, & its southern as Ruknu l-Yamanī, “the Yemeni corner”. The four corners of the Kaaba roughly point toward the four cardinal directions of the compass. Its major (long) axis is aligned with the rising of the star Canopus toward which its southern wall is directed, while its minor axis (its east-west facades) roughly align with the sunrise of summer solstice & the sunset of winter solstice.
The entrance is a door set 2.13 m (7 ft) above the ground on the north-eastern wall of the Kaaba, which acts as the façade. In 1979 the 300 kg gold doors replaced the old silver doors in 1942. There is a wooden staircase on wheels, usually stored in the mosque between the arch-shaped gate of Banū Shaybah & the Zamzam Well.
Meezab-i Rahmat, rainwater spout made of gold. Added in the rebuilding of 1627 after the previous year’s rain caused three of the four walls to collapse.
Gutter, added in 1627 to protect the foundation from groundwater.
Hatim, a low wall originally part of the Kaaba. It is a semi-circular wall opposite, but not connected to, the north-west wall of the Kaaba composed of white marble.
Al-Multazam, the roughly 2 meter space along the wall between the Black Stone & the entry door. It is sometimes considered pious or desirable for a hajji to touch this area of the Kaaba, or perform dua here.
The Station of Abraham (Maqam Ibrahim), a glass & metal enclosure with what is said to be an imprint of Abraham’s feet. Abraham is said to have stood on this stone during the construction of the upper parts of the Kaaba, raising Ismail on his shoulders for the uppermost parts.
Corner of the Black Stone (East).
Corner of Yemen (South-West). Pilgrims traditionally acknowledge a large vertical stone that forms this corner.
Corner of Syria (North-West).
Corner of Iraq (North-East). This inside corner, behind a curtain, contains the Babut Taubah, Door of Repentance, which leads to a staircase to the roof.
Kiswah, the embroidered covering, is a black silk & gold curtain which is replaced annually during the Hajj pilgrimage. Two-thirds of the way up is a band of gold-embroidered Quranic text, including the Shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith.
Marble stripe marking the beginning & end of each circumambulation.
The station of the Archangel Gabriel

802 – Empress Irene is deposed and banished to Lesbos. Conspirators place Nikephoros, the minister of finance, on the Byzantine throne

1517 –Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg

1711 – Birthday of Laura Bassi, Italian physician, physicist, & academic. The first woman in the world to earn a university chair in a scientific field of studies.

1876 – A monster cyclone ravages India, resulting in over 200,000 deaths

1922 – Benito Mussolini is made Prime Minister of Italy

1926 – Magician Harry Houdini dies of gangrene & peritonitis that develops after his appendix ruptures

1979 – Western Airlines Flight 2605 crashes on landing in Mexico City, killing 73 people.

1984 – Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is assassinated by two Sikh security guards. Riots break out in New Delhi & other cities and around 3,000 Sikhs are killed.

1994 – American Eagle Flight 4184 crashes near Roselawn, Indiana, killing 68

1996 – TAM Transportes Aéreos Regionais Flight 402 crashes in São Paulo, Brazil, killing 99 people

1999 – EgyptAir Flight 990 crashes into the Atlantic Ocean near Nantucket, killing all 217 people on board

2000 – Singapore Airlines Flight 006 crashes on takeoff from Taipei, killing 83

2011 – The global population of humans reaches seven billion. This day is now recognized by the United Nations as Seven Billion Day

2015 – Metrojet Flight 9268 is bombed over the northern Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board

***

Vera Pavlova

Brown Bough & Besom
STRADDLE THE THRESHOLD JANUS STYLE
THE MYSTIC FACE PIERCING THE VEIL
DIVINING THE FUTURE
THE SCORCHING EYE SIDE SEEING INTO THE GRAVE
PLEASURING THE PAST TO CELEBRATE THE DEAD
& REMIND THEM OF THE WOMB OF THE GREAT MOTHER
THE LORD OF MISRULE PRESIDING
WITH THE MISTRESS & LADY OF THE TOMB
ADORNING THE TRANCE MASK
SEKHEM, DIS & NEFERTUM
THEY SET THE BALEFIRE
& PRONOUCE THE SPELLWORK BY THE MOON
TO ROAST THE SLAUGHTERED STOCK
OF THE FINAL HARVEST
SET EXTRA PLACES AT THE TABLE
LEAVE OFFERINGS FOR THE FEAST OF SPIRITS
GINGERBREAD & POMEGRANTES
BEETS & PUMPKIN PIE
MUGWORT, SAGE & ALLSPICE
YARROW, CAMPHOR, RYE
DUNK THE NOVICE HEAD
IN THE CAULDRON OF REGENERATION
FOR THE APPLE BOBBING BAPTISM
TO MARK THE HIGH HOLY DAY
WHEN THE SCORPIAN BECOMES THE EAGLE
& THE SAINTS COME OUT TO PLAY
BREATHE IN THE MIST
THAT RISES AT MIDNIGHT
FROM THE BURIAL MOUNDS
& SPEAK WITH THE VOICE OF THE ABYSS
AN ORACLE FOR THE NEW YEAR
GREETING CHAOS WITH A KISS
THE GATES OF FAERY STAND OPEN
IN TIME OUT OF TIME
EVERYWHERE & NOWHERE – HERE & THERE
WHEN EVERYTHING IS GATHERED
THE FIELDS LIE FALLOW
& THE ATMOSPHERE IS RARE
ALL SOULS MUST RETURN AT COCK-CROW
WHEN THE TRICK CAN NO LONGER DARE
ONLY NOW
LET THE DEAD WALK
TO SHOW THE LIVING
THAT EVERY ENDING
IS BUT A NEW BEGINNING

~hag

***

Halloween 2016 (The election & the Cubs aside)

I walk up my garden path, across a carpet of red & gold maple leaves, reflecting on how this stunning beauty comes to be. From bud break in early Spring, green predominates, as chlorophyll absorbs the sunlight & powers growth. Then, as the outer life-force slackens, the true colors appear from behind their green mask.

Perhaps there’s a lesson here that we can apply to our lives here on earth: the green being our physical self – our earthly concerns, where we are caught up in the material matters of our daily lives – and it’s only when we reflect & go inside that the rich, deeper colors can appear.

When we pass the threshold into the spiritual world in our meditative life we see that these are not two worlds apart.

Since ancient times this cross-quarter time is considered one of the high holy days of the year. It’s a time to meditate on our link with the Other Side, that realm we slip into when we dream, or die, or dance with ecstasy, or loosen the binds of our logical minds, to hopefully negotiate a smart new treaty with our dark side.

Many people are so frightened of this realm that they avoid ever knowing it, consequently ensuring it will always haunt them like an ominous shadow. That must be one of the reasons why Halloween has taken on such a gruesome aspect. But when we create the safety of sacred space, the power of All Hallows is a source of power & renewal for us.

During this season the veil between the world of the living & realm of the dead is thin. It’s an opportunity to communicate with our ancestors, to heal old wounds, to open to their blessings. One of your dead relatives may have something to share, if you are open to hear their message.

You could also catch a glimpse of yourself as you were in the distant past, or will be, in the far future -for what is time, but a construct to mark the circle of eternity..?

Contemplate the fact that there will come a time when you will die…Imagine yourself as the person you will be on that day…

Look back on your life & think about all the things you wish you would have done that you didn’t do…Then come back in time to the person you are today & perhaps you will chose to get started on accomplishing these things sometime in the next three months…the dark of the year…

Let this time inspire you to catch a glimpse of the other side of the veil & pay reverence to your ancestors.

You have two biological parents, four grandparents, & eight great-grandparents. You wouldn’t be you if it weren’t for those 14 people. The legacy they bequeathed you plays a major role in determining your virtues & vices, your attractions & aversions; & this is a perfect spiritual & astrological moment to get to know them better. In fact, deepening your connection to your family’s history will provide crucial clues, as you seek to reinvigorate your tired old perspectives on long-running dilemmas.

Look within…to evolve your understanding of where you came from & where, therefore, you belong…

Think on those ancestors aligned with love & light that you would like to honor…Maybe you have unresolved issues that you would like to work out…?

Think on them that made us…call out their names, speak their stories if you will, as you cook their favorite foods & light incense as an offering to the dead…

Or maybe you’d like to skip right over the direct bloodline thing & honor a historical ancestor that has inspired your life…?

Here in America, Halloween calls for an interaction with spooky strangers, that come out of the night, knocking on our door, shouting, give me a treat or you’ll get a trick. On a spiritual level, trick-or-treat, can be seen as a demand that strangers – a symbol of the unfamiliar parts of ourselves – give up their gifts to us – There is a lot of energy that gets locked up in the dark, & Halloween is an opportunity for us to dialogue with the dark, the shadow side of The Self, & call that energy back.

Light & dark are not opposites, but 2 parts of the same cycle…In order to fully appreciate the festivals of light, that return with the winter solstice, we must 1st grow in the dark womb of our perennial inward journey; & with the veil between the worlds so thin, great transformations are possible, since the power of all the dimensions are available to us.

And it’s not only the veil between the physical & spiritual worlds that thin, it can also be the division between any 2 polarities, like the left & right hemispheres in our brains for instance; or between any 2 realities that are struggling to coexist – like war & peace for instance.

This dark night can represent a resolution of paradox, a respectful meeting of the different sides of the same coin, which can initiate the healing transformation required, in order to let the light back into our lives, once we’ve come to understand -& own our side of the dark…

Homework: Dress up as who you want to be in the coming year

Xox

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Re-heat my half-bake

October 21, 2016Autumn, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

21 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: Our cosmic conversation continues: The Orionids – Peak these next few days Oct 20-22 2016. The meteor shower of the Mighty Hunter Orion is underway, with the earth traveling once again through the trail of cosmic dust left by Halley’s Comet.

From an article by Dr Elizabeth Vreede: ” Comets represent an element that does not wholly enter the usual sphere of cosmic law, although they still contain a trace of the direct working of spiritual powers, indeed, of the very highest — the Seraphim and Cherubim. Before ordinary law may be broken through, the very highest power and insight is required. The various comets, indeed, are agents of a very special nature in our planetary system, their polar antithesis being in the moons. Just as the moons are a kind of corpse which the planetary system trails along with it, so, on the other side, the comets may be spoken of as constant purifiers of the spiritual atmosphere within the solar system. In earlier times men thought of them as the “scavengers of God,” and many superstitions have gathered around them. To the eye of Spirit, too, the mission of the comets is perpetually to expel impure astral forces from the Cosmos or to introduce new impulses.”

5 things you need to know about the Orionid meteor shower:

The meteors are actually debris from the Comet Halley – The Comet Halley hasn’t paid Earth a visit since 1986, but pieces of the famous space rock still show up every fall. Each year, around October 20-22, our planet intersects with the comet’s orbit, according to Earth Sky. Pieces of Halley disintegrate in Earth’s upper atmosphere nearly 60 miles above the planet’s surface, but not before creating quite the spectacle for those down below.
Let’s be honest, watching this thing is a commitment. Experts agree that the shower will take place before dawn on October 21 or 22, but can’t pinpoint an exact date.
10-20 Meteors Could Fall Each Hour – The Orionid Meteor Shower is a “modest shower.” That means you won’t see a constant stream of glowing rocks plummeting toward Earth at any given moment. Don’t let that fool you. Those watching from dark or rural locations will still have a front row seat for the kind of spectacle that only comes from space.
…And They’ll Be Traveling At 41 Miles Per Second – You read that right. 41 miles per second. These rocks are literally scorching across the sky as they enter Earth’s atmosphere. Roughly half of these blazing fast meteors will leave gas trails behind them that are visible for a few seconds after the meteor is gone.
From. Every. Direction.- The Orionids flying from the sky this month are named after the constellation Orion, where they appear to radiate. The thing is, these meteors generally aren’t visible until they’re at least 30 degrees from that radiant point. This means they can appear any & everywhere in the night sky. If watching with a party, focus on different areas of the night sky & be sure to call out the meteors as you see them.

Saturn & Antares now form a more compact, right triangle with bright Venus low in the southwest at dusk

***

As the sun relates to the constellations during the course of the year, there are contemplations that correspond to these relationships. Bringing these meditations into daily practice is a moral activity that brings a conscious change that everyone may experience. Here is such a practice from the Calendar of Virtues: For Scorpio – (October 21 – November 20.) Patience becomes Insight [Opposite: Loss of Temper]

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1097 – First Crusade: Crusaders led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, & Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, begin the Siege of Antioch

William Lionel Wyllie's panoramic painting of the Battle of Trafalgar in the Victory gallery in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard — William Lionel Wyllie

1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Battle of Trafalgar: A British fleet led by Vice Admiral Lord Nelson defeats a combined French & Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve

1833 – Birthday of Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist & engineer, invented dynamite & founded the Nobel Prize

1867 – The Medicine Lodge Treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders. The treaty requires Native American Plains tribes to relocate to a reservation in western Oklahoma

1879 – Thomas Edison invents the first commercially practical incandescent light bulb

1892 – Opening ceremonies for the World’s Columbian Exposition are held in Chicago, though because construction was behind schedule, the exposition did not open until May 1, 1893

1945 – Women’s suffrage: Women are allowed to vote in France for the first time

1959 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order transferring Wernher von Braun & other German scientists from the United States Army to NASA

1965 – Comet Ikeya–Seki approaches perihelion, passing 279,617 miles from the sun

1969 – Deathday of Jack Kerouac

***

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Break my ache –
Still my agitate
Rip thru my restless skin
Rubbed raw – pity full & late to the gate
Re-heat my half-bake
While I conjugate
~hag

***

Immediately following the seven-day festival of Sukkot comes the festival of Shemini Atzeret, The holiday at the end of Sukkot, during which are recited prayers for rain, & Simchat Torah (October 23-25, 2016) when we conclude — & begin anew — the annual Torah reading cycle. The holiday is marked with unbridled rejoicing, especially during the “hakafot” procession, as we march, sing & dance with the Torah scrolls.

“On Simchat Torah,” goes the chassidic adage, “we rejoice in the Torah, & the Torah rejoices in us; the Torah, too, wants to dance, so we become the Torah’s dancing feet.”

As the month of Tishrei comes to a close, we have experienced & celebrated the most powerful moments of the Jewish year. As the Torah reading cycle comes to an end, & we start reading the Torah all over again, what new lessons, insights, & inspiration will we derive this time around?

Shemini Atzeret Rain Feast, this ritual reflects a theology wherein people help to carry out the work of God. The story of Ḥoni Ha-M’ageil:

Long ago, in the Land of Israel, there was a terrible drought. Usually the rain fell in abundance between Shemini Atzeret and Passover, but this year there hadn’t been a drop, and Passover was only a couple of weeks away! The people were almost ready to give up hope. Without rain, there would be no crops and no way to survive. In desperation, they turned to a man named Ḥoni Ha-M’ageil, Ḥoni the Circle Drawer, and asked him to pray for rain. Ḥoni had an especially close relationship with God and a strong desire to help others. He instructed the people to bring their ovens, which they kept outside in those days, into their homes, so that the ovens would not be destroyed by rain. And then he prayed for rain. The people were hopeful. But no rain fell.

Some people would have given up then, after praying to no avail, but not Ḥoni. He was a persistent man. Ḥoni then drew a circle in the sand and stood right in the middle of it and said, “Ribbono shel Olam! Master of the Universe, Your children have turned to me, because I am almost like a member of Your family. I swear by Your Great Name—I will not move from this circle until You take pity on Your children!”

Suddenly it began to drizzle. Some people would have stopped then, with their promise to bring rain fulfilled, but not Ḥoni. Ḥoni could hear his disciples saying, “We look to you to save us from death. This drizzle will not be enough.”

So Ḥoni said to God, “This is not what I wanted. I wanted enough rain to fill up every cistern, ditch, and cavern.” Then it began to rain violently. Some say that each individual raindrop was the size of a softball, if not larger. Most people would have stopped then, and gone inside to seek shelter from the storm, but not Ḥoni. Ḥoni could hear his disciples saying, “We look to you to save us from death. This storm is powerful enough to destroy the whole world!”

So Ḥoni said to God, “This is not what I meant either. I am asking You for the rain of blessing and graciousness.” Now it rained the right way, but there was still so much water that the Israelites had to head for high ground. They all gathered at the Temple Mount, the highest point then in Jerusalem.

Then Ḥoni’s disciples came up to him and said, “Just as you prayed for it to rain, now pray for it to go away!” Ḥoni prayed once again, “Ribbono shel Olam! Master of the Universe, Your children are a delicate people. They cannot endure too much or too little of anything. May it be Your will that the rain cease and there be relief for the world.”

The wind began to blow, the clouds dispersed, and the sun shone bright once again. The people went out into the fields and were able to gather fresh mushrooms and vegetation for a great and wonderful feast.

In the absence of Ḥoni Ha-M’ageil, we must come with a plan that cannot fail. We ask that You bless the earth with rain, But realize that action works as a chain, So we will pour the first few drops, & pray ‘til Pesach it never stops.

(Pass pitchers of water around for participants to pour (very lightly) in all directions outside of the circle. Once everyone has poured water, recite together:

So too, may Adonai shower us all with blessing and provide for the needs which are most pressing. We pray for all to enjoy a harvest of bounty, Here in the United States and in every county. May no one go hungry even once this year, Whether friend or stranger, far or near. Let our deeds reinforce our heartfelt prayers.Let us take action before taking our chairs.

Participants exit the circle & retrieve the food they brought to donate. Then participants pack the food into boxes, which will be taken to a local food pantry.

When all of the donations have been packed, recite together: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ הַמֵּכִין מָזוֹן לְכָל בְּרִיּוֹתָיו. Ba-ruch a-tah A-do-nai, ha-mei-chin ma-zon l’-chol b’-ri-yo-tav. Blessed are You, Adonai, who provides enough food for all of Your creations.

After this part of the ritual, everyone can enjoy a festive meal in the sukkah.

The joyous climax of Simchat Torah is the dancing of hakafot (lit. “circles”), during which we dance & sing with the Torah scrolls.

chochmah velo k’silut, tevunah velo kalut rosh. Lamdeinu Torat chesed she’taachilenu bayamim haba’im uvechol sha’ah. Amen. Source of Life, every year you plant within us a new tree of life. May it be your will that this year our interpretations will blossom forth kindness and not cruelty, wisdom and not foolishness, awareness and not thoughtlessness. May you teach us a Torah of love that will nourish us in the coming days at every hour. Amen.

Or try this: During the hakafot let your dance be a reflection of the new wisdom you want to receive in the coming year.

Simchat Torah is also a symbolic move from death to life – the death of Moses & of the old year, the birth of the New Year & the newly created plants, animals, & humans. It is the rebirth of the Torah. That makes Simchat Torah a good time to celebrate all renewals & transformations.

If you have experienced a major change during the year, such as the loss of a loved one or a relationship, a wedding, conversion, coming out, or birth of a child, you can recite the following prayer as the Torah scroll used for Deuteronomy is exchanged for the Torah scroll used for Genesis (or as the Torah scroll is rolled from one place to another).

K’shem shehaTorah niglelet mimakom lemakom besimcha uveshalom, ken eglol mimakom lemakom berachamim uve’ratzon.

Just as the Torah is rolled from place to place amid joy and peace, so too may I roll from place to place surrounded by compassion and good will.

Tonight I begin a 10 day journey into a Tone Eurythmy Therapy Course with Jan Ranck, so I will be taking a sabbatical from the blog, until All Hallows Eve.

Blessings & Peace

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

For info. on the Tone Eurythmy Therapy Course, The Bridging Project –From Soul to Soul-Between Life and Death, October 26, 2016 – 7:15 pm CST & our Annual All Souls Festival click: https://reverseritual.com/festivals-2/festival-dates/current-festival-events/

Like a seed blown home

October 20, 2016Autumn, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

20 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: Jupiter appears in the morning sky this week. It rises as morning twilight begins & climbs high in the east 45 minutes before sunrise. You won’t mistake the giant planet for any other object, it’s brighter than any other morning object besides the Moon

After dark, spot the W of Cassiopeia standing on end high in the northeast. The third segment of the W, counting from the top, points almost straight down. Extend it twice as far down and you’re at the Double Cluster in Perseus. This pair of star-swarms is dimly apparent to the unaided eye in a dark sky

***

Buddha – On thought sprung from love:

The thought manifests as the word.

The word manifests as the deed.

The deed develops into habit.

And the habit hardens into character.

So watch the thought and its ways with care.

And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings…

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day – One of the many for today is : Dornach, 20 October 1917 – Excerpt from: Fall of the Spirits of Darkness LECTURE 10 – The Influence of the Backward Angels

The masses of humanity go through life as if asleep, without thought; they are completely unaware of what is going on in groups, some of them quite large, which may be right next door. Today, more than ever, people are much given up to illusion. Just consider the way in which many people keep saying today: ‘lt is amazing how effective modern communications are and how this brings people together!

I have spoken of this to show that it is entirely possible today for the mass of people to know nothing of radically new developments which are right on their doorstep.

The ahrimanic powers will also thrive if people nurture the elements which they desire to spread among people today: prejudice, ignorance and fear of the life of the spirit. There is no better way of encouraging them.

Just think how many people there are today who actually make it their business to foster prejudice, ignorance and fear of the spiritual powers.

So you see, the people who consider themselves to be the most enlightened today are living with entirely unrealistic ideas.

Since 1879 the situation is like this: people go to school and acquire scientific attitudes and thinking; their philosophy of life is then based on this scientific approach and they believe only the things which can be perceived in the world around us to be real, whilst everything else is purely imaginary. When people think like this, and infinitely many people do so today, Ahriman has the upper hand in the game and the ahrimanic powers are doing well. Who are these ahrimanic powers which have established their fortresses in human minds since 1879? They are certainly not human. They are angels, but they are backward angels, angels who are not following their proper course of evolution and therefore no longer know how to perform their proper function in the spiritual world that is next to our own. If they still knew how to do it, they would not have been cast down in 1879. They now want to perform their function with the aid of human brains. They are one level lower in human brains than they should be. ‘Monistic’ thinking, as it is called today, is not really done by humans. People often speak of the science of economics today, a science in which it was said at the time when the war started that it would be over in four months — I mentioned this again yesterday. When these things are said by scientists — it does not matter so much if people merely repeat them — they are the thoughts of angels who have made themselves at home in human heads. Yes, the human intellect is to be taken over more and more by such powers; they want to use it to bring their own lives to fruition. We cannot stand up to this by putting our heads in the sand like ostriches, but only by consciously entering into the experience. We cannot deal with this by not knowing what monists think, for example, but only by knowing it; we must also know that it is Ahriman science, the science of backward angels who infest human heads, and we must know about the truth and the reality.

It is indeed true, and initiates have always said so: ‘When human beings are filled with spiritual wisdom, these are great horrors of darkness for the ahrimanic powers and a consuming fire. It feels good to the ahrimanic angels to dwell in heads filled with ahrimanic science; but heads filled with spiritual wisdom are like a consuming fire and the horrors of darkness to them.’ If we consider this in all seriousness we can feel: filled with spiritual wisdom we go through the world in a way which allows us to establish the right relationship with the ahrimanic powers; doing the things we do in the light of this, we build a place for the consuming fire of sacrifice for the salvation of the world, the place where the terror of darkness radiates out over the harmful ahrimanic element.

Let those ideas and feelings enter into you! You will then be awake and see the things that go on in the world. ~Rudolf Steiner

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1941 – World War II: Thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in German-occupied Serbia are murdered in the Kragujevac massacre

1944 – Liquefied natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland & then explodes; the explosion & resulting fire level 30 blocks & kill 130

1947 – The House Un-American Activities Committee begins its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood, resulting in a blacklist that prevents some from working in the industry for years

1976 – The ferry George Prince is struck by a ship while crossing the Mississippi River between Destrehan & Luling, Louisiana. 78 passengers & crew die, &only 18 people aboard the ferry survive

1982 – During the UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow & HFC Haarlem, 66 people are crushed to death in the Luzhniki disaster

1991 – The Oakland Hills firestorm kills 25 & destroys 3,469 homes, causing more than $2 billion in damage

1991 – A 6.8 Mw earthquake strikes the Uttarkashi region of India, killing more than 1,000 people

2011 – Libyan Civil War: National Transitional Council rebel forces capture ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte & kill him shortly thereafter

***

MY POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I festoon the grey day

With laser eyes & fierce cackles that call the wind to deliver me

Like a seed blown home

To fertile caverns…

I smell a change coming

A shape turning leaves into souls

Sheathed in paper hats torn from the mundane head

Born anew to the eternal flesh

Of freedoms reign

~hag

***

Another observance related to Sukkot involves what are known as The Four Species.

The “Etrog,” a Citron, resembles the heart, the driving force behind all our actions, the place of understanding & wisdom.

The “Lulav,” a Palm Branch, resembles the spine, symbolizing uprightness.

The Myrtle Branches, resemble, in their almond-shape, the eyes, with which we behold the World. Symbol of enlightenment.
The Willow Branches, resemble the lips, with which we give expression to our thoughts &feelings, Thru prayer.

By holding these four together in a tight bond we represent the unity that is the goal for all the People of this one world. The bond represents the conversion of a set of separate individuals into one human family.

The four species must be taken together as a unit. So too, to achieve happiness, we must use all our gifts in unison. We can’t say one thing & do another. We must unify our feelings, our actions, our speech & our intentions.

The four species also represent the Name of God, Yud Heh Vav Heh. Again, the key here is unity. God may have many names but She is One. Whether things may appear to us as good or evil, we must realize that it all comes from The Divine. In life we must deal with the good & the bad for true growth.

“How can the lulav sing if its leaves do not rustle?”

The motion of the wavings is highly significant. On a basic level it simply expresses our joy, thanks-giving & praise of Nature at the time of the harvest. It represents the fertility of the land, abundance & prosperity, & the desire for rain.

The waving also represents our complete immersion in the holiday. On one level, we are surrounded by the sukkah. On another level, through this motion (of bringing in toward us), the protection of the sukkah & all that the festival of Sukkot represents enters us.

The lulav becomes a conduit of peace & the presence of the Divine that comes from every direction – Transcendence & immanence.

We gather in & then we ourselves are gathered in & interwoven beautifully—redemption, universal peace , brotherhood, & completion.

Can I get an Amen?

& remember: “How can the lulav sing if its leaves do not rustle?”

ALL: a song for the elements –“Air I am, fire I am water, earth & spirit I am”.

Or Harvest Blessing Chant

“Our hands will work for peace & justice

Our hands will work to heal the land

Gather round the harvest table

Let us feast & bless the land”

With joy, I end this series of offerings on Sukkot

xox

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Let the invisible be seen

October 19, 2016Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

19 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: The Great Square of Pegasus is now high in the east-southeast after dark, still, for now, balancing on one corner

The modest Orionid meteor shower should be active for the next several mornings, but the light of the waning gibbous Moon will interfere with the viewing

Mars continues to put on a nice show these October evenings. The Red Planet lies among the background stars of Sagittarius & appears high in the south-southwest after darkness falls. While you look at Mars this evening, it should have a new visitor from Earth sitting on its surface. The European Space Agency’s ExoMars Schiaparelli module is scheduled to touch down on Martian soil shortly before 10 am CDT. Although largely a test to demonstrate the technology needed for future missions, Schiaparelli will capture 15 black-&-white images on its way to the surface

***

1512 – Martin Luther becomes a doctor of theology

1781 – At Yorktown, Virginia, representatives of British commander Lord Cornwallis handed over Cornwallis’ sword & formally surrendered to George Washington & the comte de Rochambeau. The Revolutionary War Ends

1805 – Napoleonic Wars: Austrian General Mack surrenders his army to the Grande Armée of Napoleon Bonaparte at the Battle of Ulm. 30,000 prisoners are captured & 10,000 casualties inflicted on the losers

1812 – Napoleon Bonaparte retreats from Moscow

1813 – The Battle of Leipzig concludes, giving Napoleon Bonaparte one of his worst defeats

1893 – Deathday of Lucy Stone, a prominent American orator, abolitionist, & suffragist, & a vocal advocate & organizer promoting rights for women. 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. Stone was known for using her maiden name after marriage.

Stone’s organizational activities for the cause of women’s rights yielded tangible gains in the difficult political environment of the 19th century. Stone helped initiate the first National Women’s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts & she supported & sustained it annually, along with a number of other local, state & regional activist conventions. She assisted in establishing the Woman’s National Loyal League to help pass the Thirteenth Amendment & thereby abolish slavery, after which she helped form the American Woman Suffrage Association AWSA, which built support for a woman suffrage Constitutional amendment by winning woman suffrage at the state & local levels.

In the long-running & influential Woman’s Journal, a weekly periodical that she founded & promoted, Stone aired both her own & differing views about women’s rights. Called “the orator”, the “morning star” & the “heart & soul” of the women’s rights movement, Stone influenced Susan B. Anthony to take up the cause of women’s suffrage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that “Lucy Stone was the first person by whom the heart of the American public was deeply stirred on the woman question.”

1897 – Deathday of George Pullman, an American engineer & industrialist. He designed & manufactured the Pullman sleeping car & founded a enslaving ‘company town’ for the workers who manufactured it.

During an 1894 downturn in manufacturing demand, he lowered wages & required workers to spend longer hours at the plant, but did not lower prices of rents & goods in his company town. He gained presidential support by Grover Cleveland for the use of federal military troops which left 30 strikers dead in the violent suppression of workers there to end the Pullman Strike of 1894. A national commission was appointed to investigate the strike, which included assessment of operations of the company town. In 1898 the Supreme Court of Illinois ordered the Pullman Company to divest itself of the town which became a neighborhood of the city of Chicago

1902 – Founding of the German Section of the Theosophical Society in Belin with Rudolf Steiner as the General Secretary

1915 – J.P. Morgan arranges the biggest foreign loan in history – a $500 million war loan to Britain & France – passing global financial control from the UK to the US

1936 – Deathday of Lu Xun, a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. Writing in Vernacular Chinese as well as Classical Chinese, Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist, & poet. After the May Fourth Movement, Lu Xun’s writing began to exert a substantial influence on Chinese literature & popular culture. Though sympathetic to socialist ideas, Lu Xun never joined the Communist Party of China

1937 – Deathday of Ernest Rutherford, a New Zealand physicist & Nobel Prize laureate, who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics. Encyclopædia Britannica considers him to be the greatest experimentalist since Michael Faraday

He conducted research that led to the first “splitting” of the atom in 1917 in a nuclear reaction between nitrogen & alpha particles, in which he also discovered & named the proton

1950 – Deathday of Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet & playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, & was also known for her feminist activism. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work

1950 – Iran becomes the first country to accept technical assistance from the United States under the Point Four Program, a technical assistance program for “developing countries” announced by President Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address

1984 – Roman Catholic priest from Poland, Jerzy Popiełuszko, associated with the Solidarity Union, was murdered by three agents of the Polish communist internal intelligence agency

***

Pikishi

MY POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Let the invisible be seen…

Watch

As the ball of dung turns gold

See the ball bounce back & break

As beetles fly into the sun…

~hag

***

Tivu tivu ushpizin ila’in. Tivu tivu ushpizin ka’dishin. Tivu tivu ushpizin dim’hemnuta Tivu b’tzila de-shechina

Reader: Be seated, be seated, exalted guests. Be seated, be seated, holy guests. Be seated be seated, guests of faithfulness, be seated in the shade of the Shechina. This harvest hut, green boughs, ripe fruit, they are sweet with meaning.

All: We long for the link with each other and with our ancestors of the desert.

Reader: In the seasons of rich harvest, we gather each other in; we pause in the leafy shade in the sukkah of peace.

All: We listen inwardly; we thirst for spiritual richness; we invite the shechinah, the in-dwelling spirit of the Creator.

Reader: We know how fragile these shelters are. We remember Miriam unsheltered in the desert. We honor her and all our mothers, all the courageous makers of brief and loving safety–the cradle of rushes; the huppah; the hidden bunker; the sukkah; the circle of a mother’s strong arms.

All: The shelter is frail; the love is long.

Reader: We will weave our branches together. We will make each other stronger.

ALL: We shall reap in joy.

Reader: The Book of Proverbs tells us: Wisdom, Hochmah, is a woman. She has built her house, she has prepared the feast, set out the wine and called forth the people. She pours forth her spirit for us.

All: Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. we shall reap in joy

Reader: She is a tree of life to those who hold her, and happy is everyone who honors her.

All: Sit, sit, honored guests. Sit, sit, wise guests. sit, sit, absent guests for whom we have waited. Sit, sit. The meal has been prepared already — this time you do not have to cook or serve.

Reader: Ushpizot is an Aramaic word meaning guests. One Sukkot custom that became popular in the Middle Ages, based on the mystical text known as the Zohar, was to invite “invisible” guests to the sukkah along with “visible” ones. Who shall we call forth this year?

May our beloved dead bless us as we send our love to them.

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

“Flaumen un die Beren”

October 18, 2016Autumn, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

18 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: Be sure to keep an eye on the Moon tonight. The waning gibbous rises around 8:30pm CDT in the company of the Hyades star cluster in Taurus. Observers can see Luna pass in front of Theta1 & Theta2 Tauri. Watch the two stars reappear from behind the Moon’s dark limb around 11pm CDT.

The main event, however, starts more than two hours later. Observers can then watch as Aldebaran dips behind the bright limb of our satellite. This eye-catching occultation occurs from 12: 37am CDT to 1:20am CDT. It happens every 27 or 28 days, once per lunar month, in a long series that began on January 29, 2015, & ends on September 3, 2018

***

“When we look up to the wonder of the starry world, when we contemplate the whole process of the universe with its glories and marvels, then we are led at last to the feeling that all the glory that lies open to our view in the whole universe that surrounds us only has meaning when it is reflected in an admiring human soul”. ~Goethe

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast Day of Luke the Evangelist. The early church fathers ascribed to him authorship of both the Gospel according to Luke & the book of Acts of the Apostles. The New Testament mentions Luke a few times, & the Pauline epistle to the Colossians refers to him as a Greek doctor; so he is thought to have been both a physician & a disciple of Paul. He is believed to have been a martyred, hung in an olive tree.

The Roman Catholic Church & other major denominations venerate him as Saint Luke the Evangelist & as a patron saint of artists, (He was the first icon painter. He painted pictures of the Virgin Mary & Child) physicians, surgeons, students & butchers.

Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on The Gospel of St. Luke, provides the solution to the riddle of the contradictions in the accounts of the genealogy & childhood of Jesus in Matthew & Luke when he unveils for the first time the secret of the two Jesus children. He also describes the workings of Zarathustra, the relation between the Buddha & Jesus child, & more

320 – Pappus of Alexandria, Greek philosopher, observes an eclipse of the Sun & writes a commentary for The Great Astronomer (Almagest)

1009 – The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Christian church in Jerusalem, is completely destroyed by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, who hacks the Church’s foundations down to bedrock

1356 – Basel earthquake, the most significant historic seismological event north of the Alps, destroys the town of Basel, Switzerland, over 500 die

1648 – Boston Shoemakers form first American labor organization

1914 – The Schoenstatt Marian Movement is founded in Germany, founded by Father Joseph Kentenich as a means of spiritual renewal in the Catholic Church. Schoenstatt means “beautiful place, it emphasizes a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, upholding her as a perfect example of love & purity

1922 – The British Broadcasting Company (later BBC Corporation) is founded by a consortium, to consolidate the British Empire

1929 – The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council overrules the Supreme Court of Canada in Edwards v. Canada when it declares that women are considered “Persons” under Canadian law. The case, put forward by the Government of Canada on the lobbying of a group of women known as the Famous Five, began as a reference case which ruled that women were not “qualified persons” & thus ineligible to sit in the Senate. The Persons Case was a landmark, 1st it established that Canadian women were eligible to be appointed senators. Second, it established what came to be known as the “living tree doctrine“, that says that a constitution is organic & must be read in a broad & liberal manner so as to adapt it to changing times

1931 – Deathday of Thomas Edison

1939 – Birthday of Lee Harvey Oswald

1954 – Texas Instruments announces the first transistor radio

***

Amanda Sage

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Sober on the gusty draft

Of the moist darkness gathering need

I eat the bread of life & die…

I know myself in a field enduring…

I am ever-after

Changing, while the eye of the watcher shines & takes me in…

~hag

***

Sukkot is the third of four Jewish Autumn holidays – Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot & Simchat Torah. The theme of these holidays in a nut shell is to prepare ourselves for the next year. Rosh Hashanah is the seed of the New Year – we celebrate the New Year & put ourselves on the right path.

At Yom Kippur, we clear ourselves of the old with forgiveness.

With Sukkot, we shelter & protect our new ideas & new ways of living to give them a chance for success. Traditionally, we build a temporary shelter & eat meals in it for seven days – some people even sleep in the sukkah!

We hear the story of Manna from Heaven, which reminds us that we will be cared for & protected if we are open to it. And of course there is a feeling of joy because we are celebrating the fall harvest. This holiday is like an early Thanksgiving.

In ancient times, people would spend all day in the fields during the harvest season to get the work done & would shelter themselves from the midday sun in a temporary dwelling, the sukkah. Just like our ancestors who wandered in the desert.

And the last of these festivals is Simchat Torah, this year it falls on Oct. 24th, & it’s the holiday in which we come to the end of the Torah scroll, which is partially read each week, & it all begins again at the beginning.

Sukkot comes during the month of “Elul” which means “search.” Elul is a time to search our hearts.

The mazal (constellation) for Elul is Virgo (betulah) a young, independent woman.

It is taught that the Hebrew letters for ELUL (aleph, lamed, vav, lamed) are an acronym for the verse from Song of Songs: I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine.

Elul arrives when the plums are purple & ripe & the pears were ready for picking. So Elul is called the time of the “Flaumen un die Beren” (the plums & pears).

In Yiddish these two words have additional meanings: “Flaumen” means flames, & “Beren” means to burn. So this is a time to search our hearts, & to seek The Divine with fiery, burning intensity. While Enjoying plums & pears as you do so!

Some traditions:

Recite Psalm 27 every day “God is my light and my helper, whom shall I fear?”

Visit the graves of loved ones throughout the month in order to remember & honor those people in our past who inspire us to live more fully in the future.

Begin all letters written during the month of Elul with wishes that the recipient have a good year. The standard blessing is K’tiva V’Chatima Tova (a good writing & sealing), meaning that the person should be written & sealed in the Book of Life.

Tomorrow I will share about Ushpizot, the tradition of inviting the spirits of our ancestors to join us.

Until soon

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Monthly Archives: October 2016

EVERY ENDING – A NEW BEGINNING

Re-heat my half-bake

Like a seed blown home

Let the invisible be seen

“Flaumen un die Beren”

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