15 August 2018 –“Speaking with the Stars”: La Bella Luna officially reaches fullness this morning 8:29 am CST. You can find her rising in the eastern sky around sunset & then watch her climb highest in the south by 1 am. She dips low in the west by the time morning twilight starts to paint the sky. The Moon lies against the backdrop of Capricornus the Sea Goat, though its bright glow nearly drowns out the faint stars in this constellation.
Venus passes on the far side of the Sun ( “superior conjunction”) from our perspective at midnight tonight. Of course, the Sun’s glare totally obscures her. The Goddess of Love will return, switching over to an evening star in October.
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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
My best friend is the person who in wishing me well, wishes it for my sake. ~Aristotle
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Himmelfahrt Mariae Feast Day of the Assumption of Mary, is the day the mother of Jesus Christ, ‘died’. Her body was not subjected to the usual process of physical decay but was “assumed” into heaven & reunited there with her soul. This holiday, which has been celebrated since the fourth century CE, is a Christian version of an earlier harvest festival &, in many parts of Europe, is known as the Feast of Our Lady of the Harvest.
Feast of Isis
For centuries celebrations were held in the honor of the goddess Isis of the Sea, who was born on this day according to mythology. With the coming of Christianity church leaders decided that the easiest way to handle this pagan ritual was to simply change it into a Christian holiday, hence the introduction of Assumption Day came forth.
In Italy remnants of the ancient celebration include night time bonfires & public illuminations, symbolic of the Sun. The idea of prosperity is also evident in the throwing of coins from windows down to the street in some cultures. Symbolic images of the Virgin Mary & her assumption into heaven are paraded throughout the day. Blue is the color most often associated with the Virgin Mary. It symbolizes truth & clarity, & it is the color of the sky, which symbolizes heaven. The lily, which is a symbol of purity, chastity, & simplicity, is also associated with the Virgin Mary.
Like the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption was not always an official dogma of the Roman Catholic Church – not until Pope Pius XII ruled it so in 1950. It is regarded as the principal feast day of the Virgin Mother.
636 – Arab–Byzantine wars: The Battle of Yarmouk between Byzantine Empire & Rashidun Caliphate begins.
717 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik begins the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople, which will last for nearly a year.
718 – Arab–Byzantine wars: Raising of the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople.
778 – The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, at which Roland is killed
1038 – Deathday of King Stephen I, the first king of Hungary
1057 – Deathday of King Macbeth, killed at the Battle of Lumphanan by the forces of Máel Coluim mac Donnchada
1248 – In honor of the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral, built to house the relics of the Three Wise Men, is laid
1281 –The Mongolian fleet of Kublai Khan is destroyed by a “divine wind” for the second time in the Battle of Kōan in Japan
1309 – The city of Rhodes surrenders to the forces of the Knights of St. John, completing their conquest of Rhodes. The knights establish their headquarters on the island & rename themselves the Knights of Rhodes
1534 – Jesuit Order Founded
1549 – Jesuit priest Francis Xavier comes ashore at Kagoshima, Japan
1769 – Birthday of Napoléon Bonaparte
1812 –The Battle of Fort Dearborn is fought between United States troops & Potawatomi at what is now Chicago
1843 – Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest still intact amusement parks in the world, opens in Copenhagen, Denmark (Tivoli inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland)
1910 – Very 1st performance of Rudolf Steiner’s 1st Mystery Drama “The Portal of Initiation” opens in Munich
1914 – Julian Carlton, A servant of architect Frank Lloyd Wright murders seven people & sets fire to the living quarters of Wright’s Wisconsin home, Taliesin
1914 – The Panama Canal opens to traffic with the transit of the cargo ship SS Ancon
1915 – A story in New York World newspaper reveals that the Imperial German government had purchased excess phenol from Thomas Edison that could be used to make explosives for the war effort & diverted it to Bayer for aspirin production
1917 – Deathday of Hermann Joachim, Anthroposopher & Freemason. Rudolf Steiner did his funeral address see GA 261
1935 – Will Rogers & Wiley Post are killed after their aircraft develops engine problems during takeoff in Barrow, Alaska
1939 – The Wizard of Oz premieres at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in LA
1941 – Corporal Josef Jakobs is executed by firing squad at the Tower at 7:12 am making him the last person to be executed at the Tower of London for espionage
1945 – Surrender of Japan in World War II, Korea gains Independence from Japan. The Allies proclaimed V-J Day a day after
1947 – India gains Independence from British rule after near 190 years of Crown rule & joins the Commonwealth of Nations
1948 – The Republic of Korea is established south of the 38th parallel north
1965 – The Beatles play to nearly 60,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York City, an event later regarded as the birth of stadium rock
1969 – The Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in upstate New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era
1971 – President Richard Nixon completes the break from the gold standard by ending convertibility of the United States dollar into gold by foreign investors. Nixon also announced a 90-day freeze on wages, rents & prices
2001 – Astronomers announced the discovery of the first solar system outside our own. They had discovered two planets orbiting a star in the Big Dipper
2013 – The Smithsonian announces the discovery of the olinguito, the first new carnivoran species found in the Americas in 35 years
2015 – North Korea moves its clock back half an hour to introduce Pyongyang Time, 8½ hours ahead of UTC
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My POD (Poem Of the Day)
~She is the early light
& the purpose of dusk
Who Is
The song bird of The Logos renewed…
She will
Rattle the seeds of the sistrum
To Awaken
A brilliant moment in eternity: Today
I will
Lift Her veil…
~hag
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– “I AM STANDING ON HOLY GROUND” –
Today on this Feast of the Assumption of Mary, I am cultivating the feeling that as I move through the world, that everywhere I go, wherever I am, I am standing on holy ground. In my backyard this morning, watching the butterflies & beetles, I was imagining all the life processes that unfold outside of my conscious awareness: my body digesting food & the circulating of my blood. I pictured the trees working with the elemental beings, taking in carbon dioxide, water, & sunlight to synthesize their nourishment. I felt the micro-organisms in the soil beneath my feet endlessly toiling away to create humus.
I ‘see’ the bee as a spiritual messenger – an interlocutor – Carriers of the Solar-Logos – an intermediary, between the human being & the Spiritual realms – Opening us to those peripheral dimensions of human awareness where super-sensible perceptions can awaken.
The bee carries a signal or frequency that enables transformation; it enables the sterile to become fertile & initiates the process of regeneration…
Even if you don’t ‘perceive’ any of these things directly; can you use your imaginative cognition to feel how alive & active & real the spiritual world is, working behind all that we see in the nature world?
And so I ask: What other growth & transformation might be going on in secret?
Ahh, what a perfect time to tune-in to all the vitalizing alchemy that is usually hidden, as I contemplate the mystery of the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of god.
Xox
Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
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14-15 Sept. Gino Ver Eecke workshops
The Meditative Path: An Exploration of Self and Community withGino Ver Eecke*
Join us for a weekend of lectures, discussion and artistic work to explore The Meditative Path of Knowledge through the lens of Anthroposophy.
Sat. 14 Sept. 7-9pm: The Meditative Path of Knowledge in Anthroposophy
Sunday 15 Sept. 2-4pm: The Call for Self-Knowledge. How to Meet the Demands of Life?
Participants will benefit most from attending both sessions, as Gino intends to guide us in an imaginative picture over the weekend. However, if you cannot attend both sessions, you may still attend as your schedule allows.
There is no set fee to attend; suggested donation for the weekend is $50.
To reserve your spot, or for more information and the suggested reading list contact Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
*Gino Ver Eecke met Anthroposophy in his birth town of Roeselare, Belgium, at the young age of 16. After spending a year on a BioDynamic farm in Switzerland, he moved to Chestnut Ridge, NY, to complete his Eurythmy training. He has been active as an amateur actor, most notably in the role of Benedictus in the 10 day festival and performance of the Rudolf Steiner’s four Mystery Dramas in 2014. Currently he guides the work of the Threefold Branch of the Anthroposophical Society in Chestnut Ridge. He can be reached at gfbver@gmail.com
Suggested reading by Rudolf Steiner:
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, CW 10, First Chapter.
Occult Science, Chapter V Cognition of the Higher World. Initiation. CW 13
Theosophy, Chapter IV: The Path of Knowledge, CW 9
The Stages of Higher Knowledge, CW 12
Lecture: What is Self Knowledge? CW 108 Vienna Nov 23, 1908
Anthroposophical ideas are vessels fashioned by love, and man’s being is spiritually summoned by the spiritual world to partake of their content.
Anthroposophy must bring the light of true humanness to shine out in thoughts that bear love’s imprint; knowledge is only the form in which man reflects the possibility of receiving in his heart the light of the world spirit that has come to dwell there and from that heart illumine human thought.
Since anthroposophy cannot really be grasped except by the power of love, it is love-engendering when human beings take it in a way true to its own nature. That is why a place where love reigned could be build in Dornach in the very midst of raging hatreds. Words expressing anthroposophical truths are not like words spoken elsewhere today; rightly conceived, they are all really reverential pleas that the spirit make itself known to men.
The building erected in Dornach was built in this reverential spirit. Love was embodied in it. That same love manifested itself in renewed sacrifice during the night of the Goetheanum fire. It was spirit transformed into love that was present there.
~Rudolf Steiner, From a lecture given in Stuttgart January 23 , 1923. Awakening to Community GA 257
The content of what is spiritually perceived can only be reproduced in pictures (imaginations) through which inspirations speak, which have their origin in spiritual entity intuitively perceived. ~ From Occult Science Preface: Sixteenth to Twentieth Edition
I. Study of spiritual science, in which one employs one’s power of judgment gained in the physical-sensory world.
II. Acquiring imaginative knowledge.
III. Reading the occult script-corresponding to inspiration.
IV. Living into the spiritual environment — corresponding to intuition.
V. Knowledge of the relationships between microcosm and macrocosm.
VI. Union with the macrocosm.
VII. Total experience of all previous experiences as a fundamental mood of the soul.
From Occult Science Chapter 5 Cognition of the Higher Worlds, Initiation
What may be known through imagination, inspiration, and intuition about the higher worlds in connection with the Christ mystery will increasingly permeate the thought, feeling, and will-life of humanity. The “concealed knowledge of the Grail” will be revealed; as an inner force it will permeate more and more the manifestations of human life.
From Occult Science Chapter 6 The Present and Future of Cosmic and Human Evolution
When we no longer follow personal interests in our actions, when we do what we have to do in such a way that we follow the inner necessities that a rightly understood law of karma places on us, when we give our deeds to the outer world with inner equanimity and in accordance with this law, then we overcome estimation through our own higher I who is then the doer.
And when bound by the strength of this I we no longer let ourselves be driven by the streams and influences that storm in on us from the outer world we can then make right judgments about the outer world and we gather wisdom from it. It reveals its inner nature to us when we stand before it with equanimity, and when we think and act in such a way that we know: All of my thoughts, feelings and deeds influence the whole, nothing exists for itself; I want to give everything to humanity, let everything be dedicated to the service of mankind. When this lives in a pupil as the basic feeling, he then develops Buddhi, the Christ principle. ~ GA 266 Esoteric Lesson, Hamburg, 5-24-’08
Within the Earth evolution is contained what has evolved during the preceding Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions. The earth man finds “wisdom” in the processes that take place in his environment. This wisdom is present as the result of what had happened previously. The Earth is the descendant of the ancient Moon which, with all that belonged to it, formed itself into the “cosmos of wisdom.” The Earth is the beginning of an evolution through which a new force is added to this wisdom. It brings the human being to the point where he feels himself an independent member of the spirit world. This rests on the fact that his ego is fashioned by the Spirits of Form during the Earth evolution, just as upon Saturn the Spirits of Will formed his physical body, upon the Sun the Spirits of Wisdom his life-body, and upon the Moon the Spirits of Motion his astral body. The manifestation of wisdom appears through the co-operation of the Spirits of Will, Wisdom, and Motion. The Earth beings and Earth processes can harmonize in wisdom with the other beings of their world through the work of these three classes of spirits. From the Spirits of Form the human being receives his independent ego. In the future this ego will harmonize with the beings of Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan through the power that is added to wisdom by the Earth evolution. This is the power of love. In earth humanity this power of love must take its beginning, and the “cosmos of wisdom” unfolds itself into a “cosmos of love.” Everything that the ego is able to unfold within itself is to become love. The exalted Sun Being Whom we are able to characterize in the description of the Christ evolution manifests Himself as the all-encompassing “archetype of love.” Thus the seed of love is planted into the innermost core of human nature. And from there it is to flow into the whole of evolution. Just as the previously formed wisdom reveals itself in the forces of the sensory external world of the earth, in the present-day “nature forces,” so in the future love will reveal itself in all phenomena as a new nature force. It is the mystery of all evolution into the future that knowledge and all that the human being does through a true understanding of evolution is a sowing of seed that must ripen as love, and the greater the force of love coming into being, the greater will be the accomplishments of creative force in the future. In what will be created from love will lie the strong forces leading to the above described culminating result of spiritualization. The greater the amount of spiritual cognition that flows into human and earth evolution, the greater will be the number of fertile seeds for the future. Spiritual knowledge is transmuted by its very nature into love. The entire process that has been described, beginning with the Greco-Latin cultural epoch and extending through our present epoch, shows how this transformation is to take place, and also shows that the beginning of development into the future has been made. What has been prepared during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions as wisdom acts in the physical, ether, and astral body of man; there it shows itself as “cosmic wisdom”; in the “ego,” however, it becomes “inner wisdom.” From the Earth stage onward, “wisdom of the external world” becomes inner wisdom of man. Intensified in the inner life, it becomes the seed of love. Wisdom is the pre-condition of love; love is the result of wisdom reborn in the ego. ~ From Occult Science Chapter 6 The Present and Future of Cosmic and Human Evolution
