Isaac Asimov once said “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds true discoveries, is not ‘Eureka! I have found it, this is IT, we have the answer once & for all, we have found the law!’ but rather ‘That’s funny . . . or that’s interesting…or hmm that doesn’t make sense…’ According to my analysis of current events our imminent destiny, if we choose to accept it, can lead us to some intriguing undertakings that begin with questioning the results. What would it be like to stay hungry for what piques our willingness to scratch below the surface & drives the search for the meaning behind the mystery. We must attune ourselves to anything that seems out-of-place or oddly juxtaposed – And ask What if…or Yes,AND.. or to resolve: ‘To each his own’…

27 January 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars’: Eve of the Full Wolf Moon shining tonight under Pollux & Castor.

This Saturn-day (1-30-21) there is a conjunction of Saturn with the Sun – And on Thor’s-day (2-4-21) it’s Jupiter’s turn to conjoin with our Day-Star Sun. Most auspicious & rare – especially as they occur on the corresponding planetary days of the week!

As the conversation between Saturn & Jupiter at the great conjunction resolves – a gift from the gods serving to open the way for our participation in the uniting of cosmic memory with the cosmic thoughts for the future – the speaking is transformed into a three-way conversation with Michael, holding the Christic countenance, pouring forth his cosmic intelligence from the Sun sphere.

Here we have another gift from the gods, another comic key to the revelation of Christ in the etheric. Something to contemplate in relation to the following passages from Karmic Relationships Vol 3 Lecture 3: “Michael is essentially a Sun-Spirit. He is therefore the Spirit whose task in our epoch is to bring about a deeper, more esoteric understanding of the truths of Christianity. Christ came from the Sun. Christ, the Sun-Being, dwelt on the earth in the body of Jesus and has lived since then in super-sensible communion with the human world. But before the whole Mystery connected with Christ can reveal itself to the soul, humankind must become sufficiently mature with the necessary deepening of will, which to a great extent must be achieved during the present Age of Michael.

Now whenever the Sun-forces work in upon the earth they are always connected with an impulse which streams into earthly civilisation as an inpouring wave of intellectuality, for in our sphere of existence everything possessed by the human being and by the world in general in the way of intellectuality, intelligence, derives from the Sun. The Sun is the source of all intellectual life operating in the service of the Spirit…

Michael who has been striving from the Sun for those on earth who perceive the Spiritual in the cosmos, desires henceforward to establish his citadel in the hearts and in the souls of human beings on earth. This is to begin in our present age. Christianity is to be guided into a realm of deeper truths inasmuch as understanding of Christ as a Sun Being is to arise within humanity through Michael, the Sun Spirit who has always ruled over the Intelligence, who can now no longer administer it in the cosmos but desires in future time to administer it in and through the hearts of men.”

Mercury is often called “elusive,” but this week it’s easy to find the messenger of the gods; Look low in the southwest about 50 minutes after sunset. Mercury goes retrograde during Satrun’s conjunction with the Sun on Saturday.

Venus is disappearing into the glow of sunrise.

Mars shines pale yellow-orange high in the south in late twilight.

Jupiter and Saturn are out of sight behind the glare of the Sun.

Uranus is just a few degrees below Mars in early evening.

Neptune is sinking away low in the southwest after dark.

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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” ~ Joseph Campbell

407 – The deathday of St. John Chrysostom The epithet Χρυσόστομος or Chrysostomos, means “golden-throat” in Greek & denotes his celebrated eloquence. As Archbishop of Constantinople, he was known for his preaching & public speaking, & his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical & political leaders. Chrysostom was among the most prolific authors in the early Christian Church. The Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom is sublime.

1302 – Dante Alighieri is exiled from Florence

1756 – Birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in full Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. A prolific & influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard & violin, he composed from the age of 5 & performed before European royalty. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but grew restless & traveled in search of a better position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in the capital, where he achieved fame but little financial security.

Mozart’s physical appearance described him as “a remarkably small man, very thin and pale, with a profusion of fine, fair hair of which he was rather vain, except for his large intense eyes, he gave no signs of his genius.” His facial complexion was pitted, a reminder of his childhood case of smallpox. He loved elegant clothing. Of his voice his wife later wrote that it “was a tenor, rather soft in speaking and delicate in singing, but when anything excited him, or it became necessary to exert it, it was both powerful and energetic”.

Mozart usually worked long & hard, finishing compositions at a tremendous pace as deadlines approached. He often made sketches & drafts; unlike Beethoven’s these are mostly not preserved, as his wife sought to destroy them after his death.

Mozart lived at the center of the Viennese musical world, & knew a great number & variety of people: fellow musicians, theatrical performers, fellow Salzburgers, & aristocrats, including some acquaintance with the Emperor Joseph II. He enjoyed billiards & dancing, & kept pets: a canary, a starling, a dog, & a horse for recreational riding. He had a startling fondness for scatological humor, which is preserved in his surviving letters, notably those written to his cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart around 1777–1778, & in his correspondence with his sister & parents. Mozart also wrote scatological music, a series of canons that he sang with his friends.

During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, & operas, & portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his death. The circumstances of his early death have been much mythologized. He was survived by his wife Constanze & two sons. He composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, & choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, & his influence is profound on subsequent Western art music

1775 – Birthday of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, German-Swiss philosopher Riddle of Man: German Idealism: Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, a lecture by Rudolf Steiner

“…For Schelling, the world riddle consists in the fact that he sees himself, with his soul awakened to egohood, confronted by a seemingly mute and lifeless nature. Out of this nature the soul awakens. This fact reveals itself to human observation. And the knowing, feeling human spirit delves down into this nature and through this nature fills itself with an inner world that then becomes spiritual life within it. Could this be so if there did not exist between the soul and nature a deeply inward relatedness at first hidden from human cognition? But nature remains mute if the soul does not make itself into the instrument of nature’s speech; nature seems dead if the spirit of man does not free life from the spell of semblance (Schein). The secrets of nature must sound forth from the depths of the human soul. But in order for this not to be a deception, it must be the essential being of nature itself that speaks out of the human soul. And it must be true that the soul only seemingly goes down into its own depths when it knows nature; in actuality, when it wants to find nature, the soul must travel through subconscious passages in order to delve down with its own life into the cycle of nature’s weaving…”

1901 –Deathday of Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer

1951 – Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with Operation Ranger

2011 – Arab Spring: The Yemeni Revolution begins as over 16,000 protestors demonstrate in Sana’a

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Poem answer to UVA’s song ‘piece by piece’:
The bow of color hovers like a hum
Beckoning within you
Tapping on your teeth
Whirling round your tongue
Waiting to be spit
Out thru your eyes
To reshape the spin
Calling to your playmates to meet you in the light
~hag