20 January 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Tonight is the first lunar eclipse in 2019, with 6 more to follow: 3 solar & 3 lunar. Lunar eclipses occur at Full Moon when the Sun is in opposition, so that the Earth passes directly between them causing the Earth’s shadow to pass across the Moon. This eclipse will occur with the Moon in the stars of Cancer the Crab, & the Sun opposite in the fixed stars of Capricorn the Sea Goat. This Full Moon is also called a “supermoon” because it is at perigee, that point which brings it closest to the Earth, making it appear larger than normal.
Every eclipse has a life span which is about 70 years much like human life. This is called the Saros cycle
& this lunar eclipse is Saros 134 with a “life span” of 72
eclipses, with one eclipse every 18 years. This is the 27th eclipse in its
biography. Saros 134 was
“born” on April 1, 1550 & will
pass away on May 29, 2830. So you can see that we are looking at a long life
span over history. A thorough study of
these eclipse beings in relation to historical events would be interesting. We could ask, what happened in 1550 at this
eclipse birth? How did it unfold over
history?
This is the Full Moon that follows the New Moon which occurred at Epiphany
on January 6th, when we celebrated the incarnation of the Sun Spirit
into Jesus of Nazareth at the Baptism of John.
This new birth into the Earth began the reunion of humanity with its
true purpose: to freely serve the impulse of love that will transform our
Earth. So at this Full Moon we can activate
in us that which was born at Epiphany, an entirely new Sun impulse in the
Earth. In this way we counter-act the “shadow” that blocks the cosmic
Sun at Full Moon with our answer to this shadow force.
Closer than your breath & older than death… It dreams like a mountain, laughs like a river, Prays like the sun, & sings the way animals think… Plus, it’s always as fresh as the beginning of time… What is it?
***
Thoughts for Today (TOT)
The poet says the universe is composed of stories, not atoms. The musician declares that the universe is made of music, not matter. And some believe that if we habitually expose ourselves to toxic stories & only electronic sound, we could wind up living in the wrong universe, where it’s impossible to become the human genius we were born to be.
That’s why I implore you to nourish yourself with delicious, nutritious tales & living tunes that inspire you to exercise willpower for the highest good. Wean yourself from stories that have a reductive plot line fueled primarily by painful proceedings. More importantly, celebrate the luminous mysteries that have shaped your life story: the meandering fascinations that didn’t lead to tidy conclusions, the wobbly joys that fed your soul but didn’t do a thing to serve your false ego’s ambitions, the adventures whose success revolved around brain-teasing breakthroughs instead of exhausting triumphs over others, or a rehashing of suffering…Banish the “shadow” with peaceful purpose & simple joy. ~hag
19 January 2019 – “speaking with the Stars”: Tonight, bright Bella Luna, on the eve of the Full Wolf Moon, shines in Gemini with Castor& Pollux to her left, Betelgeuse farther to her right, & Procyon down below. Get ready for the Lunar Eclipse tomorrow!
After dinnertime, Sirius twinkles brightly under Orion in the southeast. Around 9 pm Sirius shines below fiery Betelgeuse in Orion‘s shoulder.
1736 – Birthday of James Watt, Scottish-English chemist & engineer, inventor of the steam engine.
1809 – Birthday of Edgar Allan Poe
1829 – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy receives its premiere performance
1853
– Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Il trovatore
receives its premiere performance in Rome.
1883 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey
1938
– Deathday of Rosa Mayreder – an
Austrian freethinker, author, painter, musician & feminist -The daughter of
a wealthy Viennese innkeeper who was able to work as a painter & writer
from her youth. She loved science & turned against the prevailing state of
affairs that generally only allowed a higher education to men. She loved anthropology & physics, but soon came
across the special meaning of language . Together with Hugo Wolf, she published the opera “The Corregidor“, she composed the libretto & was one of
Wolf’s sponsors.
In
1881 she married her childhood friend, the architect & later rector of the
Vienna University of Technology Karl
Mayreder . In the women’s movement she worked with activist Marie Lang & Marianne Hainisch in the early 1890s. In 1893 she founded the General Austrian Women’s Association.
From 1899 she published together with Marie Lang & Auguste Fickert the magazine “Documents of Women“.
Her
books “The Critique of Femininity ” as well as ” Gender and
Culture “ & also in conversations that she held in her diaries, she described
to the ‘culture-makers’, that it was important
for an equal ratio of the sexes. She gained recognition & approval
in literary circles. The opposition was found especially in the field of
medicine , which was perceived by her to falsely stress the ‘mental weakness of
women’ as a haven of arbitrariness, but also the degradation of women as a
sexual object. She turned against the discrimination of their gender & the
existing double standards. Her works were widely distributed &translated
into English.
Mayreder,
who first worked as a painter also founded the “Art School for Women & Girls” in the years before the
First World War with Olga Prager & Kurt Federn.
Before
& during the war, she was involved with Bertha von Suttner in the peace movement, & in 1919 became the
chairman of the “International
Women’s League for Peace and Freedom” (IFFF).
Rosa
Mayreder met Rudolf Steiner (with
whom she entered into a long& extensive correspondence) through women’s
rights campaigner Marie Lang. Mayreder wrote many passages in her diaries which
describe how enlightening Rudolf Steiner was for her thinking. Steiner spent time
with Mayreder & her husband at their villa discussing Goethe & politics
over the years & right up until Stiner’s death.
***
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Musical weaving’s play between the geometry of snowflakes
Called in by the Wolf Moon awaiting eclipse
I observe your composite chords
Note their flavor on my restless breath
& forward the tune to you…
~hag
***
Today is the eve of Tu B’Shvat – the “New Year for the Trees” which usually occurs every year on the eve of the February Full Quickening Moon,heralding the time of the Cross Quarter between Winter Solstice & Spring Equinox – Imbolc or Brigid’s day – when the sap begins to rise. But this year it comes at the time of a lunar eclipse of the January Wolf Moon!
Kabbalists have
used the tree as a metaphor to understand the relationship between the
spiritual & physical worlds. Spiritual Science tells us that the
human being is a reversed plant. Our head is the root & our limbs reach
for the stars. The higher spiritual realms connect the above & below, manifesting
their cosmic influence through our ‘branches & leaves’ – our heart &
lungs & limbs, our thinking, feeling & willing in the world.
In
the 16th century, the Kabbalists compiled a Tu B’Shvat “Seder” similar
to the Seder for Passover. It involves enjoying the fruits of the tree, &
discusses philosophical & Kabbalistic concepts, like the idea that by
eating with the highest intention we can repair the ‘fall’. The ‘sin’
against the Tree of Knowledge was that Adam & Eve ate its fruit before it
was ripe.
So,
what is it about waiting that transforms knowledge from hurtful to healthy? Do
we have faith that the spring will come & everything will grow & ripen
in its season?
Through
eating, we have a daily opportunity to correct a part of our soul, so deep
& intrinsic that it reaches back into the Garden of Eden.
The
custom on Tu B’Shvat is to eat fruits from the seven species for which the Land
of Israel is praised:“…a land of wheat and barley and
(grape) vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and (date)
honey” (Deut. 8:8).
On Tu
B’Shvat, it is also customary to eat a “new fruit” something we have
not yet tasted this year.
This festival lets us ask: Am I getting the
spiritual food I need, to truly live with grace, or is my tree withered by the
forces of information overload & rampant materialism?
Am I part of a strong community, providing a
warm & nurturing environment? Or am I cast into the pale bleak anonymity of
urban life & cyberspace?
Am I looking to future generations knowing
that I am providing them with the proper foundations for their lives?
The word “Shvat” is also related to
the Hebrew word for a staff or rod. A staff can be used as a symbol of power;
or as a cane to lean on. This is an underlying theme of the
month.
So as we open our thinking, feeling &
willing to align with the rising sap, in gratitude for the fruits of life; we
can use this time to focus on the idea of consciously using our daily behavior
as a medium for spirituality.
AD 69 – Otho seizes power in Rome, proclaiming himself Emperor of Rome, but rules for only three months before committing suicide, in order to steer his country from the path to civil war. A member of a noble Etruscan family, Otho was initially a friend & courtier of the young emperor Nero until he was effectively banished to the governorship of the remote province of Lusitania following his wife Poppaea Sabina’s affair with Nero. He allied himself with Galba, the governor of neighboring Hispania. Accompanying Galba on his march to Rome, he aspired to succeed the aged emperor, but revolted & murdered Galba on being passed over for the succession. He is said to have been of moderate height, splay-footed & bandy-legged, but almost feminine in his care of his person. He had the hair of his body plucked out, & because of the thinness of his locks wore a wig so carefully fashioned that no one suspected it. He used to shave every day & smear his face with moist bread to “better his looks”.
1559 – Elizabeth I is crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey, London, England.
1622 – Birthday of Molière, French actor & playwright
1759 – The British Museum opens.
1929 – Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
1934 – The Nepal–Bihar earthquake strikes killing an estimated 20,700 people.
1943 – The Pentagon is dedicated in Arlington, Virginia.
1962 – The Derveni papyrus, Europe’s oldest surviving manuscript dating to 340 BC, is found in northern Greece; a philosophical treatise that is an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem, concerning the birth of the gods, produced in the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras. It was composed near the end of the 5th century BC, “in the fields of Greek religion, the sophistic movement, early philosophy, and the origins of literary criticism it is unquestionably the most important textual discovery of the 20th century.” The roll itself dates to around 340 BC, during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, making it Europe’s oldest.
1969 – Deathday of Maria Röschl-Lehrs – Member of the
Esoteric Youth Circle. Maria Röschl was the daughter of a financial officer
from Vienna. Her mother was a native of the Polish landed gentry, so she grew
up multilingual. The family moved to Vienna in 1895. From a very young age she
was a very serious, & reserved.
After leaving school,
Röschl took painting lessons & planned an artistic career, but finally
decided to study at the University of Vienna to teach German philology,
classical philology, art history & philosophy. Since she was interested in
the importance of sleep for the human soul, she wrote her dissertation on the ‘Dream
of Goethe’. In the course of her research she was found Rudolf Steiner’s Work “How
to know higher worlds”, & was deeply impressed.
After completing her
studies, Röschl initially gave private lessons & then taught German, Latin &
Greek for five years at a Viennese girls’ grammar school.
In 1918 she met Karl Schubert, who introduced her to
the Anthroposophical Society in Vienna & in 1920 she became a member.
Through Schubert’s mediation, she discovered the Waldorf School in Stuttgart & began teaching Latin, Greek &
took over the free religious education there from 1922. In March 1923, together
with Herbert Hahn & Karl
Schubert, she was able to hold Rudolf Steiner’s “sacrificial
ceremony” for senior high school students & became Steiner’s personal
student. After the Christmas Conference
in 1924, she was appointed director of the youth section of the newly founded
Free School of Spiritual Science & held this position until the spring
of 1931.
Following the death of
Rudolf Steiner in 1926, Röschl organized a two-year introductory course in
anthroposophy together with young doctors & scientists in Dornach. Increasingly,
however, their work was hampered by the ever-increasing crisis within the
General Anthroposophical Society. Therefore, she decided in 1931 to return as a
teacher to the Stuttgart Waldorf School. In 1935 she took over the management
of the teacher training.
However, since the
circumstances in Germany became unacceptable for her after the seizure of power
by the National Socialists in 1933, she emigrated to Clent, a village in the
English county of Worcestershire. In the Summer of 1933, Röschl & her
husband traveled to Spring Valley NY in America as keynote speakers for the 1st
Summer school at the Threefold Center.
In 1935 she accepted a job
as private tutor in Costa Rica. After a stopover in Arlesheim, Röschl returned
to England, where she married Ernst
Lehrs another Waldorf teacher & anthroposopher, who had also emigrated
to England. In 1940 she took the anthroposophic work to Scottish Aberdeen along
with her husband, & Charles King.
At that time she also worked with Ita
Wegman as editor of the First Class School of Spiritual Science.
After the Second World War, Röschl worked in teacher training in Gloucester. In 1952 she finally returned to Germany with her husband & worked until her death in 1969 as a lecturer at the curative education seminar in Eckwälden.
1970 – Muammar Gaddafi is proclaimed premier
of Libya
2001 – Wikipedia, a free wiki content
encyclopedia, goes online
***
POD (Poem Of the Day)
~Light slides thru my thoughts
As I question the air –
The chorus begins…
The empty shells of trees fill with color
The curtain of serpents parts &
Time stands still…
Rolls backwards…
& I know
It is day…
~hag
***
From: “Into
the Heart’s Land” –
“It was July 1933. The Threefold Farm, on Hungry Hollow Road in Spring Valley, New York,
had celebrated its seventh birthday. The Rudolf Steiner School was five years
old. Eurythmy was an established presence. Dr.
Christoph Linder was building a practice based on the principles of
anthroposophically extended medicine, which was also served by the Weleda pharmaceutical initiative.
Anthroposophy was indeed beginning to put down roots, even though these were
primarily focused in and around New York City.
At this time, Ralph Courtney and the Threefold Group undertook an initiative that
was to have far-reaching consequences. Three distinguished representatives of
the anthroposophical movement in Europe were invited to participate in the
first anthroposophical summer school, to be held at the Threefold Farm that
July.
Two of the three speakers were members of the
faculty of the original Waldorf school in Stuttgart. The third was the young
scientist destined to play a decisive role in the further evolution of
Anthroposophy in America. Maria Roeschl
and Ernst Lehrs were the teachers,
later united in marriage while they lived in England after the Waldorf school
closed in 1938 and the outbreak of World War II. Maria Roeschl was Austrian by birth; a woman of great erudition, a classical
scholar, and a doctor of philosophy. But she was also an individual of inborn
spirituality, deepened and disciplined through her years as a personal pupil of
Rudolf Steiner. Ernst Lehrs was a teacher of science, a man of keen
intelligence, and a personal pupil of Dr. Steiner. Both Roeschl and Lehrs taught the older students in Stuttgart. Maria
Roeschl was a member of the circle of teachers who carried the “free religious
instruction” and the services, inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner in response to the
requests of parents of the School. At the time of the Christmas Foundation,
Roeschl had been asked by Steiner to lead the “Section for the Spiritual
Striving of Youth,” part of the newly inaugurated School of Spiritual Science
(see chapter fifty-nine).
The young scientist Ehrenfried Pfeiffer was, in a very real sense, a protégé of Rudolf Steiner. Pfeiffer was
thirty-four at the time of the first summer school conference. Ralph Courtney’s
initiative, wholeheartedly backed and supported by Charlotte Parker and the Threefold Group, as well as by Henry
Monges and the society’s council, was a real inauguration deed. This was
subsequently confirmed by the fact that every following summer, without
interruption, the Threefold Community hosted one, or more, conferences presenting
one aspect or another of anthroposophical activity and research. ~ by Henry Barnes, The First Summer School
11 January 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars”: As twilight fades this evening, how soon can you detect Mars glimmering above the Moon?
Orion is on display in the southeast these evenings, higher every week. But when the stars come out he’s still lower, and his three-star Belt is still nearly vertical. The Belt points up toward Aldebaran and, even higher, the Pleiades. Down below, the Belt points to where Sirius rises around the time twilight fades away.
“If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” ~Joseph Campbell
1825 – Birthday
of Karl Julius Schroer, professor of
German literature & language. Political developments in 1860 forced Schröer
to leave Hungary for Vienna. In the following years, Schröer researched the
folklore of the ethnic Germans, or Danube Swabians, of Hungary. As part of his
research, Schröer discovered a Medieval cycle of Danube Swabian mystery plays
in Oberufer, a village since
engulfed by the Bratislava’s borough of Ružinov. Schröer collected manuscripts,
made meticulous textual comparisons, & published his findings in the book
Deutsche Weihnachtspiele aus Ungarn (“The German Nativity Plays of
Hungary”) in 1857/1858. Several scholars later extended this work.
In Vienna,
Schröer became a major figure in Goethe scholarship. He was a founding member
of the Goethe Society of Vienna in 1878 & edited the society’s official
publication, “Die Chronik”, from 1886 to 1894.
Schröer was especially devoted to Faust scholarship, editing the work & providing a commentary in a two-volume edition of that play. In 1884 he published one of his most well-known works, a text dedicated to Goethe’s biography, manner of poeticizing, & relation to women: “Goethe und die Liebe” (Goethe and Love). Schröer also edited a six-volume edition of Goethe’s dramas. He campaigned for the erection of a Goethe monument in Vienna, which was approved in 1894 with a design by Edmund Hellmann. Schröer died on 16 December 1900, one day after the monument was unveiled.
He was Rudolf Steiner’s professor & the son of the educator & writer Tobias Gottfried Schröer. Steiner speaks about these 2 individualities in their former incarnations. Tobias as Socrates & Karl as the nun Hroswitha & Plato. See Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture X
***
POD (Poem Of the Day)
Olga Zelinskaya
~May I ride in calm waters toward destiny
May my flesh be a sail propelled by the breath of true knowing
May the rhythm of my heart stir music that embraces darkness
May my spirit witness what my hands create,
The words I utter, the worlds I think…
~hag
***
Kirsty Mitchell.
January Story (adapted from an Italian legend my Strega Nona used to tell)
It was early in the year still cold & biting was the wind. A poor mother & her sweet daughter Ella lived in a small cottage outside the city near the great woods. One morning, Ella put on her warmest winter clothes & went with her basket to look for a morsel of food for her good mother.
Ella asked everywhere for a crust of bread or a bit of carrot, but no one could spare a bite. Ella did not want to take an empty basket home, so she went into the woods to look for nuts & roots hidden under the snow. On the way she found a little mouse whose tail was caught under a stone. Ella gently freed him, & the mouse said, ‘Thank you kind child, I have been trapped here for a long time. May good fortune find you’. Then he scampered away through the frosty forest.
As she wandered on, she noticed a tree whose branches were so weighed down with snow, she thought they would break. So she shook the tree until it could stand up straight again. ‘Oh my,’ said the tree, ‘that feels much better, thank you dear child, may good fortune find you.’
Ella went on through the forest, & saw a little robin shivering from the cold. She picked the robin up & wrapped her carefully in her warm woolen hat until the robin stopped shivering. ‘Thank you dear child,’ sang the robin, ‘I feel warm enough to fly now. May good fortune find you.’ The bird flapped her wings & flew toward to cloud covered sun.
Ella had now walked deep into the woods where she knew a hazelnut
tree grew. ‘Perhaps I will find nuts here,’ she thought to herself.
So she started to dig under the snow, & sure enough her hard work payed off
for she did indeed find nuts enough to fill her basket. As she was
digging here & there, a kind old man with a long white beard appeared
dressed all in white. He spoke to her with a voice as warm as light.
‘I am the Grandfather of the Year. My 4 sons & I have seen how thoughtful you are. My children each have a question for you.’
One brother came all dressed in light green. He smiled at Ella & asked her, ‘What is Spring like dear child?’
Ella answered, ‘Oh Spring is fresh & new & full of crocuses & daffodils & baby birds. I love Spring!’ The green brother smiled at Ella & nodded.
Then a second brother came all dressed in yellow, & asked, ‘What
is Summer like dear child?’
‘Oh,’ said Ella, ‘Summer is a time to run & play in sunshine, plant a garden of flowers, & chase butterflies & fireflies. I love Summer!’ The yellow brother smiled & nodded.
Then a third brother appeared dressed in orange & reds. He
asked Ella, ‘What is Autumn like dear child?’
‘Autumn,’ said Ella, ‘is full of dancing leaves like flames, apples & pumpkins, & it is harvest time. I love Autumn!’ The orange & red brother smiled & nodded.
Then the Grandfather of the Year’s 4th son appeared all
dressed in pale blues. ‘What is Winter like dear child,’ he asked.
‘Winter snow sparkles like the stars’, replied Ella. ‘Our cheeks get rosy as we make snowmen, & we light candles in the house, & read books. I love Winter!’ This blue brother also smiled & nodded.
Then the 4 brothers & the Grandfather of the Year who stood before her, disappeared. Ella thought she had been dreaming, but when she looked in her basket of old nuts, they had turned into gold, frankincense & myrrh!
When she returned home her mother rejoiced. They shared
these riches with all who asked & were never poor & hungry again!
Orion stands in the east-southeast after dark, higher every week, but in early evening his three-star Belt is still nearly vertical. The Belt points up toward Aldebaran &, even higher, the Pleiades.
Down below, the Belt points to the horizon where Sirius rises around 6 or 7 PM CST. Just after Sirius clears the horizon, it twinkles faster as it gains altitude, & its flashes of vivid color blend into shimmering whiteness.
Neil Hague
Venus is at greatest elongation on this date, west of the Sun in the morning sky.
TODAY – According to the original Calendar of the Soul:
33 – Three Kings Day – The Baptism in the Jordan: The Incarnation of the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth.
Eugene Thirion
1412 – The Birthday of Joan of Arc
1828 – Birthday of Herman Grimm – Grimm’s father was Wilhelm Grimm, & his uncle Jakob Grimm, the philologist compilers of indigenous folk tales (“Brothers Grimm”). His other uncle was the painter engraver Ludwig Emil Grimm. Grimm’s reputation is that of the arch-Romantic, Gründerzeit art historian. He viewed himself as the intellectual successor of Goethe. His approach to art history was through the “Great Masters”, & arranging significance of art through a biographical account of art history. His tastes both typified & led German & continental taste. Homer, Dante & Shakespeare were the great writers of their age; in art, only Raphael & Michelangelo could compare. The nineteenth century’s adoration of Raphael is in large part Grimm’s doing.
POD (Poem Of the Day)
Gallo Organico
~Doves nest in my hair & spit fire from my head… My heart beats like a bee tongue among the withered roses As the Avatar winds of Sophia speak Wisdom into our bones… ~hag
***
Ninette Sombart
January 6th is The Feast of Epiphany, In Greek: epi-phanos which means shining forth, manifestation, striking appearance or vision of The Divine.
This day is also called: 12th night, Three Kings Day, The feast of La Bafana The Feast of Recognition, The Adoration of the Magi, The Manifestation of God, & Saturnalia.
In ancient Egypt the 6th of January was celebrated as the Festival of Osiris – revealing the mystery of the re-membering of the Sun-god. As you know, Osiris was overcome by his enemy Typhon or Set & the Goddess Isis, his beloved, seeks & eventually finds him. This notion of finding Osiris is a prefiguring of the Festival of The Three Kings, who also went looking for their representative of the Sun god. This ‘Epiphany’ was also celebrated by the Assyrians, the Armenians & the Phoenicians. Everywhere it is a Festival connected with a kind of universal baptism — a rebirth from out of the water.
suzie addicks
In the Act of Consecration, in the Epistle at Epiphany, a word
shines out like a star: Grace. 6 times it shines thru: ‘Star of Grace’, ‘Light
of Grace’, ‘Grace appearance of the world’s light’…Proclaiming that the shining
forth of the Grace of Christ is our Epiphany.
Epiphany, like Easter & Pentecost are holy days traditionally set aside for initiation rites, emphasizing the mysterious relationship between the elements of fire & water, which invokes the ability to see into the formative forces of the etheric realm.
In both the Eastern & Western churches
the feast of Epiphany additionally commemorates the marriage at Cana (see John
2:1-11), at which Christ performed his first miracle, an allegory for the
mixing of water & wine=liquid fire, changing water into fire, which the
ancients called The Alchemical Marriage, or the Great Work…
Epiphany, has been observed since before AD 194, so it is much older than our Christmas celebrations. It has always been a profoundly esoteric festival of the highest rank.
da vinci
At one time the Nativity & Epiphany were celebrated together & were referred to as the 1st & 2nd nativity; the 1st as the birth of the physical vessel prepared thru many generations from Adam down thru the House of King David; & the 2nd being Christ’s manifestation into that vessel, linked with the cosmic event of Christ’s baptism by John in the Jordan; & then moving with the blood into the earth in the death & resurrection of Easter.
William Henry
The Three
Kings from the East: Kaspar, Melchior & Balthazar, were wise men initiated
into the mysteries of the stars by Zarathustra. They followed the starry script
written in the heavens that was foretold by the ancient prophets, to Bethlehem,
where they paid homage to the Christ-child & presented him with gold,
frankincense & myrrh.
Gold reflects the kingship of The Christ as a ‘Solar King’. Frankincense, the incense of worship, for meditative & invocational purposes, symbolizes his priestly role, & myrrh, a purifying substance used in burial embalming, points to the crucifixion & resurrection.
El Greco
“…K. M. B…. these letters represent the names of the
Three Holy Kings: Kaspar, Melchior, Balthasar…these three wise men of the East
who brought offerings of three human virtues: with the gold – self-knowledge; with the
frankincense – self-piety, calling forth the higher “I”; & in the myrrh,
self- development & surrender, & the preservation of the eternal in the
self.
The 3 kings represent the evolution of humanity, &
show in their inclusiveness that The Christ Impulse is for all of humankind.
The twelve days of Christmas ends with the Feast of Epiphany which comes with its own traditions, rituals & symbols for the common folk. Carolers go from house to house; & in many homes the Christmas Tree is taken down & burnt in a big bonfire.
For the children this is an especially joyous occasion because, when the tree is taken down they get to “plündern” (raid) the tree of the sweets – the chocolate ornaments wrapped in foil or cookies, which have replaced the sugar plums, & become the raiders’ rewards.
Another tradition is to sprinkle the doorways with holy
water; & the mistress of the house would write with chalk K + M + B with
the number of the year above the house or barn door & say: “Kaspar,
Melchior, “Balthasar, behütet uns auch für dieses Jahr, vor Feuer und. ‘Protect our home from the perils of fire
& water’.
Our modern family does this every year…
You may have seen
it, especially if you’ve been to Germany or other parts of Europe – a mysterious series of letters &
numbers, looking to all the world like an equation, inscribed in chalk over a
doorway.
Epiphany (also known as Twelfth Night, Theophany, or Three Kings Day) marks the occasion of a time-honored Christian tradition of “chalking the doors.” The formula for the ritual — adapted for 2019 — is simple: take chalk of any color & write the following above the entrance of your home: 20 + K + M + B + 19…
The letters have two meanings: 1st
they represent the initials of the Magi —Kaspar,
Melchior, & Balthazar — who came to visit the Jesus of the Matthew
Gospel.
The letters are also an abbreviate of the
Latin phrase,Christus mansionem benedicat: “May Christ bless
the house.” The “+” signs represent the cross.
And the “20” at the beginning & the “19”
at the end mark the year.
Taken together, this
inscription is performed as a request that Christ bless the house & those
who dwell therein throughout the entire year.
The chalking of the doors is a
centuries-old practice throughout the world, though it appears to be
someone less well-known in the United States. It is, however, an easy
tradition to adopt, & a great practice where we can dedicate ourselves to
the ideals of the Christ-Impulse from the very beginning of each year.
When I was growing up, all the old Italian
ladies would do it after Epiphany Mass. It can be done at any church,
home, or dwelling. In the very old days the blessing was done by
either a priest or the head of the family, but here in the US, it’s usually the
grandmothers or the children that want to do it! This blessing can be performed
simply by just writing the inscription & offering an intention or short
prayer, or more elaborately, including songs, prayers, processions, the burning
of incense, & the sprinkling of holy water.
I remember the days when I
would go to the Epiphany Mass with my grandma, & they gave out satchels of
blessed chalk, incense, & containers of holy water blessed
especially for Epiphany. Another
common practice, that my Straga-ma always observed was to save a few
grains of the Epiphany incense until Easter, so that it could be burned
along with the Easter candle.
Practicing traditions like the chalking of the doors helps us to awaken to the mysteries behind the Holidays. It is a practical concrete way to observe & it serves as an outward sign of our dedication to being more conscious in our thinking, feeling & willing. To consciously take the time to bless our homes – the place where many of us will make the greatest strides in our spiritual growth, through observance of daily meditation, spiritual reading to the dead, & work offered freely with love – is vital.
It also serves as a reminder of the wise welcoming that the Magi gave to the Christ Child. We can also strive to be as welcoming to all who come to our homes. To greet the Christ within every body that crosses the threshold.
Blessings & Peace ~hag
***
Come explore the
Spiritual Scientific insights of this powerful Feast Day, reminding us, like
the moral of Shakespeare’s play, 12th
night, that we must make the most of this moment; for the NOW is a present
which shapes the future…
Sunday 6 Jan. Epiphany DAY, 2 pm – 4
pm
Eurythmy with Mary
Ruud
Leading Thoughts
& Storytelling with Ann Burfiend(Ann has been called to Vancouver & will be
leaving in a few weeks!!!)
Social Art, Movement &
Form Drawing with Nancy
Melvin
Rudolf Steiner Branch of The Anthroposophical
Society, 4249 North Lincoln Avenue. Chicago, IL 60618 (map)
Check out our Web site! (Anthroposophical Society in
America)The
Elderberries 3-Fold Space & the Flex Space are available for rental
on PEER SPACE for classes, events, meetings,
retreats, art exhibits, family parties, etc…
