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Greetings friends – In working with the 8-fold Path as given by Rudolf Steiner in the daily exercises, Friday asks us to contemplate `RIGHT MEMORY‘, in the endeavor to learn as much as possible from life – An opportunity to right a wrong that we have made in the past, a chance to remember what we have learned from experience. It can also help us in the present moment to be tolerant & learn from others.
As I approach my natal return this facility presses & I call up pieces of my biography.
One of my 1st memories as a child was when I was about 3 years old. My family used to go on little vacations in Wisconsin to a place called Druse Lake with other beloved family friends to cool off in the Summer. We’d stay in one big cabin. The children would splash around in the calm sweet water all day trying not to get too sunburned, & at night the adults would play cards while the children slept in a puppy pile in the next room. That year, it was right before my 4th birthday, I remember falling asleep listening to the laughter of the parents playing cards, the smell of cigarettes & clinking glasses. Suddenly I was awakened by a bright beam of moonlight shining in thru the sliding glass doors, straight into my sleeping eyes. I felt sure that Bella Luna was calling me. I got up giggling & followed the trail of the full moon out the door onto the beach. With my arms stretched out in front of me I walked in the sand toward the slivery trail illuminating a wide path on the water.
One of the ‘uncles’ saw me out there, just as I was about to step into the water, he flew out the door with is fat cigar on the side of his mouth & swooped me up in his arms. He playfully tossed me up in the air asking ‘Where do you think you’re going little miss’? ‘To the man in the moon’ I said. Boy did he get a kick out of that! He carried me back into the room where the adults were & made me repeat what I had said while they all tittered & patted my hands & head. I was placed on my mother’s lap who said, “Are you the rabbit that lives on the moon’. I was confused & said ‘No. I was just listening.’ That got them laughing all the more. I was passed around the room, hugged by everyone & laid back in the room with the other sleeping children.
So when doing ‘biography work’ we can take a memory, such as this, calling it to mind vividly, sensing every detail, (the smells of the suntan lotion, the alcohol on my uncles breath, the cigars, the feel of my slightly sunburned skin, the sand in my pants, the faces of my ‘cousins’…etc…) bringing it all back with enthusiasm.
And then we must let the picture, the sensations, every sense bound image, go. Let everything drop away.
Then just sit with the feeling.
Then let that go.
After a lot of practice of simply living into that opened space, there comes the possibility to encounter the spiritual beings that are behind the biographical event. We move from ‘imagination’, where we see inner images, to ‘inspiration’, where we begin to sense the forces of spiritual beings behind the images, communicating our true origins, including our personal karma & destiny.
This can bring us to ‘intuition’ revealing the Beings themselves.
Go ahead try it for yourself. Take a memory, make it vivid. Then take it away…& see what comes up…?
Happy Friday
~hag
9 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: New Moon – exact at 8:17 p.m. CDT.
Venus (occult Mercuery) continues to shine low in the northwest during twilight. Mars, to her upper left. They set before twilight’s end. Watch the two planets close in and reach their conjunction about ½° apart on July 12th and 13th.
When twilight ends, you’ll find the two brightest stars of summer, Vega and Arcturus, about equally near the zenith: Vega toward the east, Arcturus toward the southwest. About a third of the way from Arcturus to Vega is the faint semicircle of Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, with its modestly bright crown jewel, Alphecca or Gemma, on its front. Nearly two thirds of the way from Arcturus to Vega is the Keystone of Hercules.
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives)
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul; The Present Age, Wikipedia)
1677 – Deathday of Angelus Silesius a German Catholic priest and physician, known as a mystic and religious poet. While studying in the Netherlands, he began to read the works of medieval mystics and became acquainted with the works of the German mystic Jacob Böhme. Silesius’s mystical beliefs caused tension between him and Lutheran authorities and led to his eventual conversion to Catholicism. He took holy orders under the Franciscans and was ordained a priest in 1661.
1807 – The Treaties of Tilsit are signed, on a raft in the middle of the Neman River, by Napoleon I of France & Alexander I of Russia.
1815 – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord becomes the first Prime Minister of France. The name “Talleyrand” has become a byword for crafty, cynical diplomacy; some believe that he was a traitor, betraying in turn the Ancien Régime, the French Revolution, Napoleon, & the Restoration.
1848 – Deathday of Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege, He is considered the father of analytic philosophy, where he concentrated on the philosophy of language & mathematics; responsible for the development of modern logic. Though largely ignored during his lifetime, Giuseppe Peano & Bertrand Russell introduced his work to later generations of logicians & philosophers
1850 – U.S. President Zachary Taylor dies after eating raw fruit & iced milk, to be succeeded by Millard Fillmore
1868 – The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship
1877 – Alexander Graham Bell, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Thomas Sanders & Thomas Watson form the Bell Telephone Company
1896 – William Jennings Bryan delivers his Cross of Gold speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In the address, Bryan supported bimetallism or “free silver”, which he believed would bring the nation prosperity. He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, “you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold”. Bryan’s address helped catapult him to the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination; it is considered one of the greatest political speeches in American history.
For twenty years, Americans had been bitterly divided over the nation’s monetary standard. The gold standard, which the United States had effectively been on since 1873, limited the money supply but eased trade with other nations, such as the UK, whose currency was also based on gold. Many Americans, however, believed that bimetallism (making both gold & silver legal tender) was necessary for the nation’s economic health. The financial Panic of 1893 intensified the debates, & when Democratic President Grover Cleveland continued to support the gold standard against the will of much of his party, activists became determined to take over the Democratic Party organization & nominate a silver-supporting candidate in 1896.
Bryan had been a dark horse candidate with little support in the convention. His speech, delivered at the close of the debate on the party platform, electrified the convention & is generally credited with getting him the nomination for president. However, he lost the general election to William McKinley & the United States formally adopted the gold standard in 1900
1903 – Future Soviet leader Joseph Stalin is exiled to Siberia for three years
1904 – First ‘Esoteric Class Lesson’ by Rudolf Steiner in Berlin
1937 – The silent film archives of Fox Film Corporation are destroyed by the 1937 Fox vault fire.
1943 – The Allied invasion of Sicily soon causes the downfall of Mussolini & forces Hitler to break off the Battle of Kursk
1962 – Starfish Prime tests the effects of a nuclear test at orbital altitudes, it produces an artificial radiation belt in space
Monday 12 July 2021 from 7 – 10 pm
The Chicago Chapter of ‘Merry Prep-stirs’ will meet to work with BD 500, practicing the Spiritual Science of Biodynamics so that ‘The Earth May Be Healed’.
Bon-Fire & Pot-Luck Social Gathering
on the occasion of Hazel’s natal return & the Conjunction of Venus and Mars
Please Bring Food & Drink, a song, poem or Question to Share in Community
RSVP by 10 July 2021 for address & directions to the Homestead of Hazel, Ultra-Violet Archer & Chuck Ginsberg
“And so we picture, from below upwards, in bluish, blackish shades the force of gravity, to which an upward impulse is given by the gnomes; and flitting all around the plant…[is] the undine power that blends and disperses substances as the plant grows upwards. From above downwards, from the sylphs, light is made to leave its imprint in the plant and molds and creates the form which descends as an ideal form and is taken up by the material womb of the earth; moreover fire spirits flit around the plant and concentrate cosmic warmth in tiny seed points. This is sent down to the gnomes together with the seed power, so that down there they can cause the plants to arise out of fire and life.” ~Rudolf Steiner, HARMONY OF THE CREATIVE WORD
Conjunction (appulse) between Venus (occult Mercury) & Mars on 12 July 2021
