Monthly Archives: October 2016

“When you sit in the Sukkah, ‘the shade of faithfulness,’ the Shechina spreads Her wings over you…”

17 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: Brilliant Venus stands out low in the southwest during evening twilight. The planet is above the horizon a half-hour after sunset & sets as twilight comes to a close. Venus is the brightest object in the evening sky after the Moon. Although you’ll be hard-pressed to see any background stars against the twilight, the inner world officially passes from the constellation Libra into Scorpius today

Vega is the brightest star high in the west these evenings. 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 distant orange Tarazed. Straight down from Tarazed runs the stick-figure backbone of the constellation Aquila, the Eagle

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master-bertram-von-minden-grabow-altarpieceBertram Von Minden

The Master said, “A true teacher is one who, keeping the past alive, is also able to understand the present.” ~ Confucius, Analects 2.11

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1091 – The London Tornado, the earliest reported tornado. The wooden London Bridge was demolished, & the church of St. Mary-le-Bow as well as other churches in the area, were demolished, as were over 600 (mostly wooden) houses. For all the damage inflicted, the tornado claimed 2 victims

1604 – Kepler’s Supernova: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus

1771 – Premiere in Milan of the opera Ascanio in Alba, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, age 15

1829 – 1st murder attempt on Kasper Hauser

1849 – Deathday of Frédéric Chopin, Polish pianist & composer

1887 – Deathday of Gustav Kirchhoff, a German physicist who contributed to the fundamental understanding of electrical circuits, spectroscopy, & the emission of black-body radiation by heated objects.

1888 – Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie)

1956 – The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England

1961 – Over 400 Algerian protesters are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of former Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police

1965 –New York World’s Fair closes after a two-year run. More than 51 million people had attended the event

1989 – The 6.9 Mw Loma Prieta earthquake shakes the San Francisco Bay Area &the Central Coast. 63 people were killed

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sycamore-tree-zachaeous

MY POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I come to shout the wisdom of air…

I come with a sycamore seed in my mouth…

I come to the great inland sea to sow my tree…

& you are there to meet me…

~hag

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shechina-bannerLinda Frimer

When you sit in the Sukkah, ‘the shade of faithfulness,’ the Shechina spreads Her wings over you…”

The harvest season is upon us once again…The Jewish New Year has begun, Sweet with the seal of At-One-ment…& now, the ancient celebration of Sukkot comes,

to bring community together for a unique opportunity to experience an amazing blend of Honoring the Ancestors, Giving Thanks, & opening to receive prosperity’s blessings

Please join us in spirit as we: Share food, Tell stories, Create Autumn Art, Invite in the Matriarchs of the Torah, & many other loving ancestors, & perform the ancient ritual of waving the Lulav, for blessings of abundance…

The Festival of Sukkot is quite a drastic transition, from one of the most solemn holidays in our year- Yom Kipper, to one of the most joyous. This festival is sometimes referred to as the ‘Season of our Rejoicing’. Sukkot began last night, &  lasts for seven days.

The word “Sukkot” means “booths,” & refers to the temporary dwellings that we build to celebrate this holiday. The name of the holiday is frequently translated as “The Feast of Tabernacles,” & Like Passover & Shavu’ot, Sukkot has a dual significance: Historical & Agricultural.

The holiday commemorates the forty-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters. Sukkot is also a harvest festival, & is sometimes referred to as the ‘Festival of Ingathering’.

This is harvest time, so we decorate the sukkah with the bounty of autumn, dried squash & corn, pumpkin & gourds, all the vegetables that make you think of Halloween & Thanksgiving. Building & decorating a sukkah is a fun, family project, much like decorating the Christmas tree.

Another observance related to Sukkot involves what are known as The Four Species, etrog (a citrus fruit, representing the heart), a palm branch (in Hebrew, lulav, representing the spine of the upright human being), two willow branches (arava, representing our eyes) & three myrtle branches (hadas, representing our lips & tongue). We take these four plants & use them to “rejoice.” The six branches are bound together & referred to collectively as the lulav. The etrog is held separately. With these four species in hand, one recites a blessing & waves the species in all six directions (east, south, west, north, up & down, symbolizing the fact that the Divine is everywhere).

Ushpizot is an Aramaic word meaning guests. According to Jewish tradition, each night of Sukkot, a different set of guests is invited to rejoice with us in the Sukkah. While the custom of inviting Ushpizin, seven biblical male leaders, has been widely celebrated, there are also medieval sources that suggest inviting the seven female prophetesses: Sarah (Genesis 16,21), Miriam (Exodus 2:1-9; 15:20-21), Deborah (Judges 4-5), Hannah (I Samuel 25), Huldah (II Kings 22:10-20), and Esther (Book of Esther).

So come join us in spirit, with thoughts of peace in the Middle East & everywhere, & be part of this experiential celebration…What great leaders, proud Matriarchs or daring Daddies would you like to invite into the sukkah…? Let this ancient tradition made new, empower you…

Blessings & Peace

 ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

The Ripened Fruits of Thinking

16 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: The variable star Algol in Perseus reaches minimum brightness at 8:49 CDT. If you start tracking it this evening, you can watch it more than triple in brightness by dawn. This eclipsing binary star runs through a cycle from minimum to maximum & back every 2.87 days. Algol remains visible all night, passing nearly overhead around 1:30am CDT

The Moon reaches perigee -the closest point in its orbit around Earth-at 6:34pm CDT. It is then 222,364 miles away from us

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

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

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1311 – The beginning of the Council of Vienne by Pope Clement V against the Templar order

1793 – Marie Antoinette, widow of Louis XVI, is guillotined at the height of the French Revolution

arnold-bocklin-roger-freeing-angelica-1873Arnold Bocklin

1827 – Birthday of Arnold Bocklin , a Swiss symbolist painter portraying mythological, fantastical figures along classical architecture constructions creating a strange, fantasy world. Böcklin is best known for his five versions of the Isle of the Dead, which partly evokes the Cemetery close to his studio where his baby daughter Maria had been buried.

arnold-bocklin-isle-of-the-deadArnold Bocklin

Rudolf Steiner speaks of him as an Arthurian Knight: Thus even in the 9th century, in the paganism of Europe, there still lived much of the pre-Christian Christianity. That is the remarkable fact. Moreover even in that time the belated followers of European paganism understood the Cosmic Christ far more worthily and truly than those who received the Christ in the Christianity that was spread officially under that name. Strangely we can see the life around King Arthur radiate into the present time, continued even into our time, placed into the immediate present by the sudden power of destiny. Thus I beheld in seership a member of the Round Table of King Arthur, who lived the life of the Round Table in a very deep and intense way, though he stood a little aside from the others who were given more to the adventures of their knighthood. This was a knight who lived a rather contemplative life, though it was not like the Knighthood of the Grail, for this did not exist in Arthur’s circle. What the knights did in the fulfilment of their tasks, which in accordance with that age were for the most part warlike campaigns, was called by the name ‘Adventure’ (Aventure). But there was one who stood out from among the others as I saw him, revealing a life truly wonderful in its inspiration. For we must imagine the knights going out on to the spur of land, seeing the wonderful play of clouds above, the waves beneath, the surging interplay of the one and the other, which gives a mighty and majestic impression to this very day. In all this they saw the Spiritual and were inspired with it, and this gave them their strength. But there was one among them who penetrated most deeply into this surging and foaming of the waves, with the spiritual beings wildly rising in the foam with their figures grotesque to earthly sight. He had a wonderful perception of the way in which the marvellously pure sun-influence played into the rest of nature, living and weaving in the spiritual life and movement of the surface of the ocean. He saw what lived in the light nature of the sun, borne up as it were by the watery atmosphere as we can see to this day, the sunlight approaching the trees and the spaces between the trees quite differently than in other regions, glittering back from between the trees, and playing often as in rainbow colours. Such a knight there was among them, one who had a peculiarly penetrating vision of these things. I was much concerned to follow his life into later time to see the individuality again. For just in this case something would needs enter into a later incarnation of a Christian life that was almost primitive and pagan, that was Christian only to the extent that I have just described. And this in fact was what appeared, for that Knight of the Round Table of King Arthur was born again as Arnold Böcklin. This riddle which had followed me for an immensely long time, can only be solved in connection with the Round Table of King Arthur. Thus you see that we have a Christianity tangible with spiritual touch to this very day, a Christianity before the Mystery of Golgotha which shed its light even into the time that I have just outlined ~Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture III

1834 – Much of the ancient structure of the Palace of Westminster in London burns to the ground

1846 – William T. G. Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Ether Dome

1854 – Birthday of Oscar Wilde, Irish author, poet, & playwright

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1922 – The founding of the Esoteric Youth Circle by Rudolf Steiner. Notes from the various preparatory discussions for the founding of the Group:

If I am to go into what I understand with the term “esoteric group” then let me say that if you want to take the esoteric earnestly, you must say to yourself that it is an action out of the impulses from the spiritual world. One can strive toward this. Anthroposophy is a path to this end. To build such a community would constitute a decision to set upon this path.

The spiritual is a living element & so such a group must not be something dead. The group must be a force-group. The health of each part is the health of the whole. It is the mutual taking on of karma that is created in such a community. There is then mutual suffering to live through, but also mutual joy. People must be treated like fellow human beings, with all their imperfections.

What you seek is to find a friend in the spiritual world. The important thing is to remain spiritually true to the friend once found. Therefore, the 1st requirement is that you learn quite precisely what spiritual loyalty is.

Your community will have in it something of the primordial mystery of all human community. This mystery is that, what we ourselves do within the community bears no fruit for us ourselves, but for others, & that the fruits for us come from others.

We must work for the progress of humanity – Just as the physical social life consists of deeds done together, so too we strive for common deeds in the spirit – thus actually, for a social working in the suprasensible.

We must endeavor to carry spirit into the furthest consequences of our actions. This alone – that we bring spirit & love into our will – can make it possible to stand firmly against being overrun by the cultural machine. Too few people today develop real initiative. There is a lot of willfulness, but little will.

The true meditation is a fulfilling of the spiritual will that the Time Spirit bears with itself. Where such meditation is practiced, a spiritual force is able to work into the earthly events. Spiritual worlds want to work in to earthly events today, but they can do this only when, through human meditation, space is created for it. Through meditation, something like an empty space comes about. Into this space, the spiritual beings can enter with their effects. And the power of meditating such a meditation in common increases by potentization.

When we do this community-meditation, it will bring about a deeper connection of the core of our being with our sheaths.

These meditations, when used correctly, could become something like windows into the spiritual world. The words & pictures given, form only half of what is to be entrusted to us. The other half we are to find ourselves through spiritual activity.

Each of you must feel joy for the success of the other. You must avoid every feeling of rivalry & have the awareness that what each of you accomplishes, you accomplish through the power of all of the others.

Uniting yourself through a mutual promise to strive toward a common spiritual goal – & leaving one another completely free in actions & judgements in life – such a community based on this is something completely new in the evolution of humanity. And it is what is most necessary today.

For someone who comes to specific results on the esoteric path, there is always the danger of delusions of grandeur. Such a community as yours can be a protection against this. For in it, you strive together to cross the threshold of the spiritual world. And there each of you has to say that you have the efforts of all the others to thank for what you have achieved personally.

Effects will arise in the destiny between human beings who are connected with us in the community physically & spiritually. The community will never die out. With the 1st community members who reincarnate, the community returns to Earth.

By persevering with the exercises we have a chance to stand up to Ahrimanic powers that no one person can withstand.

Through the reading of the oath given by Rudolf Steiner on 16 October 1922, in the presence of the others, the admittance into the community was effected.

And now consider your community as having been founded by the spiritual world itself…Now get to know each other well.

This gave us the idea to tell each other our biography at the mutual acceptance into membership.

What has taken place now is a 1st in the post-Christian era: human beings themselves chose, out of freedom before the spiritual world, to join together esoterically’.

The 12 founding members:

Daniel van Bemmelen, co-founder of the 1st Dutch Waldorf School

Georg Groot MD, 3-fold social order, co-worker in the Berlin Group of the College Association

Herbert Hahn, called by Steiner to teach at the Independent Waldorf School in Stuttgart

Ernst Lehrs, teacher at the Waldorf school in Stuttgart, served on the committee for the Independent Anthroposophical Society founded for the youth. Later taught in The Hague, London, & Aberdeen. Also taught with his wife Maria Roeschl in the Rudolf Steiner Seminar.

Rene Maikowski, business manager of the Association for Anthroposophical College Studies, also a Waldorf teacher.

Wilhelm Rath, bookseller, man of letters, farmer, was on the committee of the Independent Anthroposophical Society.

Wilhelm Selling, mechanical engineer, colonial officer in Africa, in charge of the Theosophical library, mentor of the youth work in Berlin

Karin Selling, part of the Scandinavian Theosophical Society, teacher at the Waldorf School in Stockholm

Emma Smit, teacher & organizer of the Independent school in The Hague

Maria Spira, came from the Zionist Youth Movement, married Wilhelm Rath

Albrecht Strohschein, business man, 1st co-worker in the Der Kommenden (The Coming Day) in Stuttgart, student of psychology in Jena, co-founder of the therapeutic pedagogical movement

Kurt Walther, postal officer, lecturer, & leader of many courses, the successor of Marie Steiner in the Executive Council of the Anthroposophical Socety,married Wilhelm Sellings sister Clara Selling, who was part of Steiner’s household

The Nuremberg Trials — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

1946 – Nuremberg trials: Execution of the convicted Nazi leaders of the Main Trial

1964 – China detonates its first nuclear weapon

1968 – United States athletes Tommie Smith & John Carlos are kicked off the US team for participating in the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute

1984 – Desmond Tutu is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

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Calendar of the Soul Thirtieth Week [October 16, 2016 – October 22, 2016]

There flourish in the sunlight of my soul

  The ripened fruits of thinking;

  To conscious self-assurance

  The flow of feeling is transformed.

  I can perceive now joyfully

  The autumn’s spirit-waking:

  The winter will arouse in me

  The summer of the soul

~Rudolf Steiner

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heartwomanblurfun

Libra continued:

Perceive the white mist, which spreads across the fields of brown stubble like a soft cloth. Nature is resting, & conceals in her womb the seeds of future growth. So rests in our souls the seed of future life. What the future will bring us seems covered by these mists, & the darkening. But now the time has come when in the longer nights the spiritual seed wants to be cherished & nurtured. We can belong to ourselves again igniting our inner light. If we foster this calm self-contemplation in our busy lives, even if only for a few minutes every day, we can live with a deep serenity, thru this dark season, & also into the future, which is shrouded in the darkness of time.

We must remember that all human life must fluctuate, like the scales between two poles, it cannot be fixed. Day & night, life & death, activity & quietness, the out-breath & the in-breath, are the swings of the pendulum, the rhythms which bear us thru the cycle of the year, & enable us to mature into our true being, when we have found the inner observer at the fulcrum of the scales.

From this mood is prepared the soil from which the future fruits of the soul will ripen.

Blessings on our ever striving journey

 ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

The crisis of the “I”

15 October 2016 – Astro-Weather:

full-moon-clouds-danelion

Full Moon officially arrives at 11:23 pm CDT TONIGHT. You can find it rising in the east around sunset & peaking in the south around 1 am. It dips low in the west by the time morning twilight starts to paint the sky. The Moon lies in southern Pisces near that constellation’s border with Cetus. October’s Full Moon goes by the name “Hunter’s Moon,” or the “Blood Moon”, as this is the time of the harvest of livestock in some cultures. In early autumn, the Full Moon rises about half an hour later each night compared with a normal lag close to 50 minutes. The added early evening illumination helps hunters & farmers bring in the last of the crops

Uranus reaches opposition & peak visibility today. Opposition officially arrived at 6 am CDT, when the outer planet lies opposite the Sun in our sky. This means it rises at sunset, climbs highest in the south around 1 am, & sets at sunrise. The planet lies in southern Pisces northwest of Piscium. Although Uranus normally shines brightly enough to glimpse with the naked eye under a dark sky, you won’t see it tonight because the Full Moon lies to its south

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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, 1918

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

virgil-quotes-5

70 BC – Birthday of Virgil, an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, & the epic Aeneid, considered the national epic of ancient Rome. Modeled after Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the Trojan refugee Aeneas as he struggles to fulfill his destiny & arrive on the shores of Italy—in Roman mythology the founding act of Rome. Virgil’s work has had wide & deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dante’s guide through hell & purgatory

1764 – Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspires him to begin work on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

1783 – The Montgolfier brothers’ hot air balloon makes the first human ascent

1793 – Queen Marie Antoinette of France is tried & convicted in a swift, pre-determined trial in the Palais de Justice, Paris, & condemned to death

1815 – Napoleon I of France begins his exile on Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean

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1844 – Friedrich Nietzsche, German composer, poet, & philosopher. Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom written by Rudolf Steiner. Nietzsche was seen by Steiner, but was lying in a coma near death. Rudolf Steiner brought out an edition of some of Nietzsche’s writings. In seeing that Nietzsche’s ideas received a public exposure, Steiner was not identifying himself as one of Nietzsche’s disciples, but rather assuring philosophical readers that this important link in the spiritual development of occidental thought should not be ignored.

WHEN I BECAME acquainted with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche six years ago, ideas had already formed within me which were similar to his. Independently, and from completely different directions, I came to concepts which were in harmony with those Nietzsche expressed in his writings: Zarathustra, Jenseits von Gut and Böse, Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogie der Moral, Genealogy of Morals, and Götzendämmerung, Twilight of Idols. In my little book which appeared in 1886, Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung, The Theory of Knowledge in Goethe’s World Conception, this same way of implicit thinking is expressed as one finds in the works of Nietzsche mentioned above.

This is why I feel myself impelled to draw a picture of Nietzsche’s life of reflection and feeling. I believe that such a picture will be most like Nietzsche when it is created according to his last writings. This I have done. The earlier writings of Nietzsche show him as a searcher. He presents himself to us as a restless striver toward the heights. In his last writings we see him when he has reached the summit, and at a height commensurate with his very own spiritual quality. In most of the writings which have appeared about Nietzsche up to now, this development is represented as if in the various periods of his writing he had more or less contradictory opinions. I have tried to show that there is no question of a change of opinion in Nietzsche, but rather of a movement upward, of a development of a personality in a manner fitting to it, which had not yet found a form of expression in accord with his innate points of view in those first works.

The final goal of Nietzsche’s creativity is the description of the “superman.” I considered my chief task in this writing to be the characterization of this type. My characterization of the superman is exactly the opposite of the caricature developed in the currently popular book about Nietzsche by Frau Lou Andreas Salomé. One cannot put into the world anything more contrary to Nietzsche’s spirit than the mystical monster she has made out of the superman. My book shows that in Nietzsche’s ideas nowhere is the least trace of mysticism to be found. I did not allow myself to be drawn into the refutation of Frau Salomé’s opinion that Nietzsche’s thoughts in Menschliches, All-zumenschliches, Human, All Too Human, were influenced by the works of Paul Rée, the editor of Psychological Observations, and The Origin of Moral Feelings, etc. Such an average brain as that of Paul Rée could make no important impression on Nietzsche. Even now I would not touch upon these things at all if the book of Frau Salomé had not contributed so much toward the spreading of downright disagreeable judgments about Nietzsche. Fritz Koegel, the excellent publisher of Nietzsche’s works, bestowed upon this bungled piece of work its deserved treatment in the Magazine for Literature.

I cannot conclude this short preface without giving hearty thanks to Nietzsche’s sister, Frau Foerster-Nietzsche, for the many friendly deeds I experienced from her during the period in which this book developed. I owe to her the hours spent in the Nietzsche Archives, and the mood out of which the following thoughts were written. ~RUDOLF STEINER, Weimar, April 1895.

1863 – American Civil War: The H. L. Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship, sinks during a test, killing its inventor, Horace L. Hunley

1878 – The Edison Electric Light Company begins operation

1894 – The Dreyfus affair: Alfred Dreyfus is arrested for spying -a political scandal that divided France, often seen as a modern & universal symbol of injustice, & remains one of the most striking examples of a complex miscarriage of justice, where a major role was played by the press & public opinion.

The scandal began with the treason conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian & Jewish descent. Sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, Dreyfus was imprisoned on Devil’s Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years.

Evidence came to light identifying a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real culprit. After high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days. The Army then accused Dreyfus of additional charges based on falsified documents. Word of the military court’s framing of Dreyfus & of an attempted cover-up began to spread, chiefly owing to J’accuse, a vehement open letter published in a Paris newspaper by famed writer Émile Zola. Activists put pressure on the government to reopen the case.

Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. The intense political & judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called “dreyfusards”), & those who condemned him (the anti-dreyfusards), such as Édouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper La Libre Parole. The new trial resulted in another conviction &a 10-year sentence but Dreyfus was given a pardon & set free.

Eventually all the accusations against Dreyfus were demonstrated to be baseless.

The conviction was a miscarriage of justice based upon faulty espionage & blatant antisemitism, as well as a hatred of the German Empire following its annexation of Alsace& part of Lorraine in 1871

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1917 – World War I: At Vincennes outside Paris, Dutch dancer Mata Hari is executed by firing squad for spying for the German Empire

1934 – The Soviet Republic of China collapses when Chiang Kai-shek‘s National Revolutionary Army successfully encircles Ruijin, forcing the fleeing Communists to begin the Long March

1940 – The President of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, is executed by the Spanish dictatorship of Francisco Franco

1944 – The Arrow Cross Party (very similar to Hitler’s NSDAP (Nazi party)) takes power in Hungary

1945 – World War II: The former premier of Vichy France Pierre Laval is shot by a firing squad for treason

1946 – Deathday of Hermann Göring, a German politician, military leader, & leading member of the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Göring was wounded during the failed coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. He became addicted to morphine after being treated with the drug for his injuries. After helping Adolf Hitler take power in 1933, he became the second-most powerful man in Germany. He founded the Gestapo in 1933, & later gave command of it to Heinrich Himmler. Göring was appointed commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe (air force) in 1935, a position he held until the final days of World War II. By 1940, he was at the peak of his power & influence; as minister in charge of the Four Year Plan, he was responsible for much of the functioning of the German economy in the build-up to World War II. Hitler promoted him to the rank of Reichsmarschall, a rank senior to all other Wehrmacht commanders, & in 1941 Hitler designated him as his successor & deputy in all his offices.

Göring focused on the acquisition of property & artwork, much of which was taken from Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Informed on 22 April 1945 that Hitler intended to commit suicide, Göring sent a telegram to Hitler requesting permission to assume control of the Reich. Considering it an act of treason, Hitler removed Göring from all his positions, expelled him from the party, & ordered his arrest.

After World War II, Göring was convicted of war crimes & crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials. He was sentenced to death by hanging, but committed suicide by ingesting cyanide the night before the sentence was to be carried out

1953 – British nuclear test Totem 1 is detonated at Emu Field, South Australia.

1954 – Hurricane Hazel devastates the eastern seaboard of North America, killing 395 & causing massive floods as far north as Toronto, as far south as North Carolina

1956 – Fortran, the first modern computer language, is shared with the coding community for the first time

1965 – Vietnam War: The Catholic Worker Movement stages an anti-war rally in Manhattan including a public burning of a draft card; the first such act to result in arrest under a new amendment to the Selective Service Act

black-panther-bobby-seale-huey-newton

1966 – The Black Panther Party is created by Huey P. Newton & Bobby Seale

1969 – Vietnam War; The Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam is held in Washington D.C. & across the US. Over two million demonstrate nationally; about 250,000 in Washington D.C.

1990 – Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to lessen Cold War tensions and open up his nation

1997 – The Cassini probe launches from Cape Canaveral on its way to Saturn

2001 – NASA’s Galileo spacecraft passes within 112 miles of Jupiter’s moon Io

2003 – China launches Shenzhou 5, its first manned space mission

2013 – A 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes the Philippines, resulting in more than 1215 deaths

st-teresa-of-avila

Feast Day of Saint Teresa of Ávila, who lived in the 16th century, an age of exploration as well as political, social & religious upheaval. She was a woman; she was a contemplative; she was an active reformer.

As a woman, Teresa stood on her own two feet, even in the man’s world of her time. She was “her own woman,” entering the Carmelites despite strong opposition from her father. She is a person wrapped not so much in silence as in mystery. Beautiful, talented, outgoing, adaptable, affectionate, courageous, enthusiastic, she was totally human. Like Jesus, she was a mystery of paradoxes: wise, yet practical; intelligent, yet much in tune with her experience; a mystic, yet an energetic reformer. A holy woman, a womanly woman.

Teresa was a woman “for Christ,” a woman of prayer, discipline & compassion. Her heart belonged to God. Her ongoing conversion was an arduous lifelong struggle, involving ongoing purification & suffering. She was misunderstood, misjudged, opposed in her efforts at reform. Yet she struggled on, courageous & faithful; she struggled with her own mediocrity, her illness, her opposition. And in the midst of all this she clung to God in life & in prayer. Her writings on prayer & contemplation are drawn from her experience: powerful, practical & graceful. A woman of prayer; a woman for God.

Teresa was a woman “for others.” Though a contemplative, she spent much of her time & energy seeking to reform herself & the Carmelites, to lead them back to the full observance of the primitive Rule. She founded over a half-dozen new monasteries. She traveled, wrote, fought—always to renew, to reform. In her self, in her prayer, in her life, in her efforts to reform, in all the people she touched, she was a woman for others, a woman who inspired & gave life.

Her writings, especially the Way of Perfection & The Interior Castle, have helped generations of believers.

In 1970, the Church gave her the title she had long held in the popular mind: Doctor of the Church. She & St. Catherine of Siena were the first women so honored.

Ours is a time of turmoil, a time of reform & a time of liberation. Modern women have in Teresa a challenging example. Promoters of renewal, promoters of prayer, all have in Teresa a woman to reckon with, one whom they can admire & imitate.

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darkmorningglory

MY POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I have held the striped pebble of love

Lightly in my palm

Tightly in my heart-whole

I have smelled truth in the autumn rain

& I remember how to go

Beyond the horizon

Where light knows

Where no darkness grows –

Meet me there if dare…

~hag

***

libra-cots

Every evening the Sun sets earlier & rises later every morning. Darkness takes the light, slowing into its somber realm. The sign of the scales, Libra, is the only zodiac that is not a living creature; it owes its origin to the realm of created things, of mechanics. According to Rudolf Steiner it was only incorporated into the imagery of the Zodiac later in order to delineate the world of light in the upper signs more clearly from the 5 lower “nightly” signs. It is entirely dependent on the outer world, best expressed in its function of “deliberation”.

persephone-pom

In ancient Greece the descent of the Sun into the autumn region of the dark zodiac signs was seen in the image of the abduction of Persephone, stole away from her mother Demeter, by Pluto, lord of the underworld. The Greeks hid their faces in fear from the powers of darkness & waited longingly for the return of Persephone who would awaken to new life in the Spring.

michael-scales-dragon-liane-collot-dherboisLiane Collot d Herbois

But since Christ’s descent into the shadow realm of death, in order to reconquer it for the realm of light, human beings have looked at the descent into the realm of darkness in a different way – thru the image of the mighty Archangel Michael bearing the balance of the world in his hands – carrying the resurrection into the dark in order to realize our true human potential in the confrontation with the forces of evil. This individuation process can only be fulfilled in the realm of earth & death. But here the human being of the present time is threatened with the danger of giving in to the lower driving forces which powerfully press in from our unconscious sense perceptions. Here the scale, as the sign of the human archetype, appears before the human soul pointing the way forward, to balance us between the grain-bearing Virgin & the death-dealing Scorpion. There is a separation of the “wheat from the chaff’ – the weighing, in the “Scales of Judgement.” Will Michael be able to maintain the balance of the world? That is the most earnest question which is spoken by his gaze. In the realm of the spirit his victory is assured, But on earth???

This question touches on our human contribution to the Michael Imagination – it has to do with the crisis of the “I”, which exists for everyone today. Is the average human being awake to this aspect? Ready & able to work to overcome this crisis of humankind on earth? If we take this into our soul-life we can feel called to take up this struggle, knowing that the outcome depends on our behavior, with even the smallest matters, as well as the great tests of our times. Thru this commitment we can rise to become a spiritual comrade, a co-creator of the divine world. we are called in the Age of Michael to rise from being a ‘servant of God’ to being a ‘friend & brother/sister of Christ’ as promised in the Gospel of St. John 15:15.

In looking up to this world destiny of the human being in the dark time of the year which is now setting in, we find the inner emphasis that is so easily lost today, because we lose our balance to the swings of the pendulum in our soul-life. The approaching winter can invoke (in some) the hum-bug that is open to greed, like an old man seeking to dispel the fear of death thru selfish pleasure or grabby possession. The balance of the soul swings back & forth between melancholy & self-satisfied control, until it can find its center in the true “I”.

libra

The image of the scales can become for us the means to orient our soul & spirit at this turning point in the year.

More on this tomorrow

Until soon

 ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Time Signals from the Universe

14 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: Saturn remains a gorgeous sight in the evening sky all week. It stands high in the southwest an hour after sunset & doesn’t set until 10pm CDT. The ringed world shines among the background stars of southwestern Ophiuchus

oct-14-2016

This is the time of year when the Big Dipper lies level in the north-northwest in mid-evening. Look two fists at arm’s length above it for Kochab, the brightest star in the bowl of the Little Dipper.

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

intercession-of-the-theotokos-pokrova-bogorodicyPokrova Bogorodicy

The Intercession of the Theotokos or the Protection of Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary, is a feast of the Mother of God celebrated in the Eastern Orthodox & Byzantine Churches.

The Slavic word Pokrov, like the Greek Skepê has a complex meaning. First of all, it refers to a cloak or shroud, but it also means protection or intercession. It is often translated as Feast of the Intercession.

According to Eastern Orthodox Sacred Tradition, the apparition of Mary the Theotokos occurred during the 10th century at the Blachernae church in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) where several of her relics (her robe, veil, & part of her belt) were kept. St. Andrew the Blessed Fool-for-Christ, saw the dome of the church open & the Virgin Mary enter, moving in the air above him, glowing, surrounded by angels & saints. She knelt & prayed with tears for all in the world. The Virgin Mary asked Her Son, Jesus Christ, to accept the prayers of all the people entreating Him & looking for Her protection. Afterwards, She spread Her veil over all the people in the church as a protection.

St Andrew turned to his disciple, St. Epiphanius, who was standing near him, & asked, “Do you see, brother, the Holy Theotokos, praying for all the world?” Epiphanius answered, “Yes, Holy Father, I see it and am amazed!

According to the Primary Chronicle of St. Nestor, the inhabitants of Constantinople called upon the intercession of the Mother of God to protect them from an attack by a large Rus’ army. The feast celebrates the destruction of this fleet.

1582 – Because of the adoption of the Gregorian calendar this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain

tea-party-burning-francis-blackwell-mayerFrancis Blackwell Mayer

1773 – Just before the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, several of the British East India Company’s tea ships are set ablaze at the old seaport of Annapolis, Maryland

1884 – The American inventor, George Eastman, receives a U.S. Government patent on his new paper-strip photographic film

1888 – Louis Le Prince films first motion picture: Roundhay Garden Scene

e-e-cummings-a-politician

1894 – Birthday of E. E. Cummings

1898 – The steamer ship SS Mohegan sinks after impacting the Manacles near Cornwall, United Kingdom, killing 506

1908 – The Chicago Cubs defeat the Detroit Tigers, 2–0, clinching the World Series. Their last win to date…GO CUBBIES!

1912 – While campaigning in Milwaukee, Theodore Roosevelt, is shot & mildly wounded by John Schrank, a mentally-disturbed saloon keeper. With the fresh wound in his chest, & the bullet still within it, Roosevelt still carries out his scheduled public speech

1913 – Senghenydd colliery disaster, the United Kingdom’s worst coal mining accident claims the lives of 439 miners

1933 – Nazi Germany withdraws from the League of Nations & World Disarmament Conference

1943 – Prisoners at the Nazi German Sobibór extermination camp in Poland revolt against the Germans, killing eleven SS guards, & wounding many more. About 300 of the Sobibor Camp’s 600 prisoners escape, & about 50 of these survive the end of the war

1944 – Linked to a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is forced to commit suicide

1952 –Battle of Triangle Hill is the biggest & bloodiest battle of the Korean War

1962 – The Cuban Missile Crisis begins

1964 – Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence

1964 – Leonid Brezhnev becomes the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, ousting former leader Nikita Khrushchev, sending him into retirement as a nonperson in the USSR

1968 – Vietnam War: The United States Department of Defense announces that the U.S. Army & U.S. Marine Corps will send over 24,000 soldiers & Marines back to Vietnam for involuntary second tours of duty in the combat zone there

1968 – Apollo program: The first live TV broadcast by American astronauts in orbit performed by the Apollo 7 crew

1979 – The first Gay Rights March on Washington, D.C., draws 100,000 people

1981 – Citing official misconduct in the investigation and trial, Amnesty International charges the U.S. Federal Government with holding Richard Marshall of the American Indian Movement as a political prisoner

1981 – Vice President Hosni Mubarak is elected as the President of Egypt one week after the assassination of the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat

1982 – U.S. President Ronald Reagan proclaims a War on Drugs

1984 – “Baby Fae” receives a heart transplant from a baboon

1994 – The Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, The Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, receive the Nobel Peace Prize for their role in the establishment of the Oslo Accords & the framing of the future Palestinian Self Government

***

libra

MY POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Libra, Lady Justice:

My meetings with you have been quick & fleet

From thought to meaning

From plus to fraction;

Is life fair in a moment’s interaction?

You, bestow desires, or passions deplete,

& decide from the start, but are discreet,

Allowing judgement to change thru action –

By disavowing outside distraction

The scales are now replete

~hag

***

time-daliDali

Shared by Jonathan Hilton of the Astrosophy Research Center

“…Might it be possible that we do not notice certain rhythms of time with regard to more subtle rhythms of human existence—for instance, our cultural life, and so on—because we have not yet developed a proper sense for time beyond our merely physical requirements? The fact that we live in an age in which prophets appear, proclaiming a glorious ascent of humanity in the future, while others speak of ultimate decline, shows that humanity has not achieved a universally valid cognition of ‘cultural time’. Humanity today is like a congregation of human beings, who have lost their sense of time—through some strange accident—and are now quarreling among themselves as to whether it is morning or evening. Therefore, it is not astonishing that modern humanity has managed to put itself into a cultural and social crisis that has no example in history. We also need time signals from the universe with regard to the foundation of cultural life.” (Willi Sucher, Time Signals from the Universe)

 ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

 

Autumn: A Guided Meditation

13 October 2016 – Astro-Weather: The gibbous Moon lights the southeastern sky after dark. Look upper left of it, by a couple of fists at arm’s length, for the Great Square of Pegasus tilted up onto one corner. Far lower right of the Moon is Fomalhaut

moon-phases-woman-isao-tomoda_jjvzywx Isao Tomoda

***

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” ~H.G. Wells

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast Day of Edward the Confessor, the last king of the House of Wessex. Some portray this king’s reign as leading to the disintegration of royal power in England.

Feast Day of Gerald of Aurillac, who suffered illness as a child, & in later life became blind. He seriously considered joining a religious order, but was persuaded against it. Nevertheless, secretly tonsured under his habitual cap, he consecrated his life in service to God, gave away his possessions, took a personal vow of chastity & prayed the breviary each day. He is the patron saint of the disabled, handicapped, & physically challenged.

54 – Emperor Claudius is poisoned to death under mysterious circumstances. His 17-year-old stepson Nero succeeds him

Image: 0051465001, License: Rights managed, Restrictions: Image available for use in the Corbis Education Offering., Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was ordered burned at the stake by King Philip IV of France. Illustration from the end of the 19th century., Place: Paris, France, Model Release: No or not aplicable, Credit line: Profimedia.com, Corbis

1307 – Hundreds of Templars in France are simultaneously arrested by agents of Phillip the Fair, to be later tortured into a “confession” of heresy. Once freed of the Inquisitors’ torture, many Templars recanted their confessions. Some had sufficient legal experience to defend themselves in the trials, but in 1310 Philip blocked this attempt, using the previously forced confessions to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris. With Philip threatening military action unless the pope complied with his wishes, Pope Clement finally agreed to disband the Order, citing the public scandal that had been generated by the confessions. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, he issued a series of papal bulls, which officially dissolved the Order. As for the leaders of the Order, the elderly Grand Master Jacques de Molay, who had confessed under torture, retracted his confession & insisted on his innocence. But he was declared guilty of being a relapsed heretic & was sentenced to be burnt at the stake in Paris on 18 March 1314. De Molay reportedly remained defiant to the end, calling out from the flames that both Pope Clement & King Philip would soon meet their end. Pope Clement died only a month later, & King Philip died in a hunting accident before the end of the year

visitation-albertinelliMariotto Albertinelli

1474 – Birthday of Mariotto Albertinelli, an Italian High Renaissance painter of the Florentine school. He was a close friend & collaborator of Fra Bartolomeo & their joint works appear as if they have been painted by one hand

1582 – Because of the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, this day does not exist in this year in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain

whirlpoolgalaxy

1773 – The Whirlpool Galaxy is discovered by Charles Messier

1792 –The cornerstone of the United States Executive Mansion (known as the White House since 1818) is laid

miracle-of-the-sun

1917 – The “Miracle of the Sun” is witnessed by an estimated 100,000 people in the Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal. The people had gathered because the 3 shepherd children, who originally claimed to have seen Our Lady of Fátim, had predicted that at high noon the lady who had appeared to them several times would perform a great miracle. According to many witnesses, after a period of rain, the dark clouds broke & the sun appeared as an opaque, spinning disc in the sky. It was said to be significantly duller than normal, & to cast multicolored lights across the landscape, the people, & the surrounding clouds. The sun was then reported to have careened towards the earth before zig-zagging back to its normal position. Witnesses reported that their previously wet clothes became “suddenly & completely dry, as well as the wet & muddy ground that had been previously soaked because of the rain that had been falling.” According to reports, a panorama of visions, including those of Jesus, Our Lady of Sorrows, & of Saint Joseph blessed the people. The event lasted approximately ten minutes

1962 – The Pacific Northwest experiences a cyclone the equal of a Cat 3 hurricane. Winds measured above 150 mph at several locations; 446 people died

1972 – An Aeroflot Ilyushin Il-62 crashes outside Moscow killing 174

1972 – Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashes in the Andes mountains, near the border between Argentina & Chile. By December 23, 1972, only 16 out of 45 people lived long enough to be rescued

1976 – A Bolivian Boeing 707 cargo jet crashes in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, killing 100 (97, mostly children, killed on the ground)

1983 – Ameritech Mobile Communications (now AT&T) launched the first US cellular network in Chicago

1988 – Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian writer regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, to explore themes of existentialism. wins Nobel Prize in Literature; the only Arab to win the prize. As a consequence of his outspoken support for Sadat’s Camp David peace treaty with Israel his books were banned in many Arab countries. Mahfouz was on an Islamic fundamentalist “death list”. In 1994 an Islamic extremist succeeded in attacking the 82-year-old novelist by stabbing him in the neck outside his Cairo home. He survived, permanently affected by damage to nerves of his right upper limb. After the incident Mahfouz was unable to write for more than a few minutes a day & consequently produced fewer & fewer works

1992 –Antonov Airlines crashes near Kiev, Ukraine killing 80

2010 – The Copiapó mining accident in Copiapó, Chile comes to an end as all 33 miners arrive at the surface after surviving a record 69 days underground awaiting rescue

***

heartwomanblurfun

MY POD (Poem Of the Day)

~I travel the back of a snake

An unbroken seal on the book of myself

Giving my mind the pleasure of creation

My heart thinks

& love opens the way…

~hag

***

autumnwoman2

Autumn: A Guided Meditation

You float…you feel a gentle breeze began to dance you through the air like a leaf in the fall. This is a very comforting feeling, like being carried in your mother’s arms. There is no fear. You spin through the sky, flying over fields & forests…

As the wind gently releases, you slowly begin to sink down toward a wilderness of trees. Gently, Gently…You reach the ground landing on a well-trodden path.

You begin, now, to walk the path heading in a familiar direction. As you walk, you notice the 1st hint of color changing the trees…& the silence, broken only by the gentle breeze…the song of birds & other animals. Ahead of you, the path opens up to a larger area. You arrive at this place, & know that it is a Sacred Place.

It may be a grove, or a shady spot under a large tree. It may be a clearing, or a meadow. It may be a stone-circle, or a temple. However it appears to you, you know this is a Sacred Place, it feels safe & powerful.

Enter this Sacred Place…You may wish to remove your shoes because the ground is holy…You may wish to make an offering, or sing a blessing…As you enter this place, you see the bright figure of a woman ahead of you. She looks very familiar. She calls your name, & asks you to come forward. You are unable to make out her face, as she is engulfed in a brilliant glow. She leans forward; you close your eyes, & embrace. As you stand in the arms of this bright woman, she whispers a truth to you. It is a well-reasoned, logical truth. It may be something you already know, but are unaware of. It may be something which makes wonderful sense to you, & makes your mind open with wonder. It may be a mystical teaching which will require further thought. Whatever it may be, you know you are blessed by this amazing teaching…

Then the bright woman braids a chain of flowers into your hair…you touch your fingers to your head knowing your mind has been forever changed, opened, to all the possibilities of positive thinking that will transform your thoughts into things…

You spin with joy, noticing all at once, that the bright woman has vanished & now, standing before you, is a dark figure, looking strangely familiar. Again, you are unable to make out her face. But you notice she is carrying a bundle over her shoulder. She lays her burden down on the ground at your feet. The dark woman speaks to you, with a voice that resonates in a similar way as the first figure; yet deeper, more mellow & mysterious…She calls you by name, & asks you to come forward. You do so. You close your eyes, & embrace this dark woman…Your embrace is a full of compassion & warmth.

She gently whispers a truth in your ear. It is a truth which you feel is right. The truth touches your heart & frees your soul. You feel like a bird, soaring through the skies, singing a song of joy. When you open your eyes you become aware that the dark woman has vanished, & the bundle she was carrying & left at your feet has transformed into a large piece of rich honey-colored amber. You pick it up & hold it in your hand…the sun calls you to lift the amber up…bring it up into the light…let the sunshine merge with this solid symbol of your vitality…breathe in the pranic life-force emanating from your true purpose made manifest…

Put this treasure in your pocket, as you leave the Sacred Place…forever knowing that the sacred place goes where your intention flows…Knowing that union is possible between the many parts of our beings…walk in confidence… balanced in the light & dark of your most authentic self…walk the path toward the wilderness.

You pass the trees, & notice that the colors of their leaves are becoming more pronounced. You see the squirrels busy collecting nuts, & the birds beginning their southward journey. You pass the point where you began walking on this path.

You begin ascending a large hill. You walk upward…upward…up the hill, until you reach the top. There you find that you can see the surrounding countryside all around you. You have an amazing view of your Sacred Place. As you stand there in the sun, you feel your mind & body as it begins to change. Knowing in every cell of your being that we all sink into the earth like a seed in its season, released into the fertile earth. Feel the last wave of the Summer heat vanish, you are in a warm blanket of earth, waiting, listening, waiting…feeling the loving arms of Mother Earth transforming you…

Put on the colors of autumn, & feel the breezes washing you. A glad gust takes hold of you, & floating in the air, you dance away from the wilderness…away from the Sacred Place…Back to yourself. As the wind loosens its grip…you land, back into yourself, grounded, renewed & ready to walk the talk…Ready to Be…Ready to Begin, the labor of love, called your life…

See you there

xox

 ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg