With the Rising of Sirius a sacred gate that joins the Earth with the Cosmos is opened. The ancient Egyptians knew this – their temples were aligned to this constellation heralding the flooding of the fertile Nile & The Festival of Lights for Isis of the Sea – called the Lychnapsia.
~White-robed priestess’ of Isis perform the water ritual. ~painting from Herculaneum.
The sacred story attached to this Sais Festival was that lamps were lit & set afloat on the sea to assist Isis in Her search for the body of Osiris.
Sopdet or Sothis is the ancient personification as an Egyptian goddess of the star Sirius- conflated with Isis & Anubis.
Later in Greece & Rome it became known as The Festival of Torches or The Nemoralia a 3-day event celebrated on the Ides of August (August 13–15) in honor of the goddess Diana.
This festival commemorates the foundation of Diana’s Temple upon the Aventine Hill on the shores of Lake Nemi. In antiquity, woman would decorate the lake with lamps. Then, they would march with hunting hounds, along the shore carrying torches. There, they would sacrifice the fruits of the harvest to Diana & honor the Rex Nemorensis (King of the Wood) as well as Egreria (The Lady of the Lake).
The Golden Bough speaks of this as the original impulse behind Excalibur, the mythical sword of King Arthur.
Italian Stega’s like my Grandmother keep this festival as well. Many from Southern Italian traditions view it as an ideal time to renew one’s vows & oaths to the Goddess.
The date has also become associated with the underworld Goddess Hecate, because of the connection to death & Resurrection. In Greece even today Hekate is given offerings during the height of summer to protect the crops against blight & storms.
~Michel Sittow
Himmelfahrt Mariae – The Feast Day of the Assumption of The BVM – The Dormition – celebrates the “falling asleep” (death) of the Theotokos. Her body was not subjected to the usual process of physical decay but was “assumed” into heaven & reunited there with her eternal spirit in the Holy Trinity.
Many see this Christian Festival as incorporating aspects of these ancient Holy Days. It is still common in some parts of the Eastern Orthodox tradition for worshippers to make offerings of new wheat to the Theotokos on this day.
So much to tune into
~hag
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
What was given to those who were in the Super-sensible Michael School came into the world as Anthroposophy. To the statement about the origin of the Cognitive-Ritual, around the New Mysteries, given later as part of the ‘Comic Cultus’, Rudolf Steiner wrote in a letter from
August 15th, 1906:
“This ritual can be nothing else than a mirror image of what is a fact on the higher plane. At the end of the 18th & beginning of the 19th Century there hovers in the immediate neighborhood of the physical world of sense, a great super-sensible event, consisting of super-sensible acts of ritual, an unfolding of mighty pictures of the spiritual life of beings of the universe, the beings of the hierarchies, in connection with the great ether-workings of the universe, & the human workings upon Earth. It is interesting to see how at this most favorable moment a little miniature picture of this super-sensible ritual & action flowed into Goethe’s spirit. Transformed & changed in miniature we have this picture set down by Goethe in his fairy story of the Green Snake & the beautiful Lily…”
One of the themes central to this tale is that of the Temple – with its Three Kings: the representations of Wisdom, Beauty, & Strength. This is also characterized by Rudolf Steiner as a path of initiation: The power of perception of the Golden King coming from the Imaginative faculty giving us Wisdom; that of the Silver King, an inspiration from the equanimity of feelings; & that of the Bronze King, which we are still learning to strengthen, building us up to Intuition springing from the Will.
The Three altars, in the the Fairy Tale, are also in Steiner’s Cognitive-Ritual, & artisticly shown in the Temple scenes of the Mystery dramas.
Also from the letter of August 15, 1906, Steiner further states, that the ritual appropriate for our time, was prefigured by esotericists & in particular the initiate Melchizedek, stating over 2,300 years ago, & then taken up by “The Rosicrucians who said: “Shape the world in such a way that it contains, Wisdom, Beauty, & Strength, then will Wisdom , Beauty & Strength, be mirrored in us. If you have used your time to this end, then you will depart from this life taking with you the mirror-image of Wisdom, Beauty, & Strength. Wisdom is the image of Manas; Beauty, piety, goodness, the image of Buddhi; Strength is the image of Atman…It is not through idle contemplation that the human being progresses on Earth, but by incorporating Wisdom, Beauty & Strength into the Earth”.
From Marie Steiner in reference to Steiner’s autobiography The Story of My Life, she writes: “When Rudolf Steiner first made his public appearance with the intention of removing the veil of esotericism, he took Goethe’s Fairy Tale as his starting point, & spoke about the altars of Wisdom, Beauty, & Strength. He placed them in the Temple of his Mystery Dramas & spoke to us in greater depth about their significance. And again he placed them into our Esoteric School (specifically in the Cognitive-Reverse Ritual of the Misraim Service) & let us approach again & again the various aspects of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, which are an expression of these altars”.
A start had been made in fulfilling the central demand of Goethe’s Fairy Tale: to bring the Mysteries – ie. the Temple – out of occult obscurity into the full light of day, to the attention of the public.
Rudolf Steiner: “What is Anthroposophy in its reality? My dear friends, if you comprehend all the wonderful, majestic imaginations which are present as a Super-sensible Reverse Ritual & translate them into human concepts, that is Anthroposophy” ~Dornach, July 8, 1924, Karmic Relationships Vol. 3.
In this sense Goethe’s fairy Tale, developed further in the Cognitive-Ritual, with its Three altars, was the sign & seal of Rudolf Steiner’s activity, brought out of the depths of the Temple, since the time when the Mysteries 1st existed, & handed over to humankind as the New Mysteries.
This has been my biggest inspiration for my work with the Reverse Ritual
~hag
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
In Italy remnants of the ancient celebration Of the Assuption of mary 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.
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
Rudolf Steiner describes him as having forgot his true destiny by failing to recognize Kasper Hauser
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
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
Saturday 23 September 2023
Community Prep-Stir / Potluck / Bon-fire
*Autumnal Equinox
*Yom Kippur
*Michaelmas Festival
6 – 8 pm at the Lucchesi-Archer-Ginsberg domicile
Please Bring Food & Drink to share, & a jar for the prep
