17 | August | 2023 | Cognitive Ritual

~New Moon Maiden
Innocent scythe of alteration
Teach us to value our hidden gestation
Even as you move into the light
Let us give voice
To what is secret
Let us make visible
What is occult
Let us make familiar
What has been disowned
Blessed be the darkness
For out of it
We shall make ourselves
whole
~hag

In this Dark of the Moon time, when Bella Luna is taking up the mysteries of the Underworld. And Venus (which Steiner calls ‘Occult or Ptolemaic Mercury’ – I wrote about this here) after having been the Evening Star all Spring & Summer is making passage between Earth & the Sun – Veiled for now by Light. After 21 August this Being so close to Earth & Sun returns again to the East before dawn – to shine as the Morning Star.

~Howen/ Upsplash

A few days ago, Hideo Nishimura of Kakegawa, Japan, was photographing the night when he captured a new comet! – Comet C/2023 P1 Nishimura – currently moving in front of the constellation Gemini the Twins, low in the dawn sky. The comet was hiding in the sun’s glare before Nishimura picked it up. And, by next month, it might be bright enough to see with the unaided eye!

~Eddie Irizarry

Look for the new comet on 3 September (CG’s B-Day) 2023, some 45 minutes before sunrise, appearing with Venus (Occult Mercury) as Morning Star.

Yes – every year at this time the Cosmic Iron enters Earth’s atmosphere, following the rhythms of the cosmos – bringing the forces harnessed in the metal sacred to the planet Mars, & the Being Michael. But why is that? What’s the reason behind this charming sky show that urges us to make wishes? And what does all this have to do with iron?

Interior of Chiesa dei Gesuiti (Venice) – left nave – The Martyrdom of St Lawrence – Titian

To add to the lore, the August meteor showers are also called the “Lacrime di San Lorenzo”—St. Lawrence’s tears – the last of the seven deacons of Rome to die, martyred in August 258 AD, during the persecution of the emperor Valerian.

When he was summoned before the executioners, Lawrence was ordered to bring all the wealth of the Church with him. He showed up with a handful of crippled, poor, & sick people, & when questioned, replied that “These are the true wealth of the Church.” He was immediately sent to his death, being cooked alive on a ‘gridiron’.

Legend has it that his last words were a quip to his killers: “Turn me over, I’m done on this side!”

Italian lore also holds that the fiery bits of debris seen during a meteor shower are representative of the coals that killed St. Lawrence.

After that, people began calling the August meteors the “The tears of St. Lawrence,” even though the celestial phenomenon pre-dates the Saint, being associated with Perseus, & in our time now with the Mighty Archai Michael. These correspondences are very interesting, finding a valid explanation in the results of a spiritual-scientific investigation.

According to Anthroposophy in Summer a specific process takes place in the human organism, as light & heat grow stronger & more potent. This is a sulphurising process. From a spiritual perspective human beings start shining ‘like glow-worms’ surrounded by a yellow-bluish “sulphur” flame. This flame is associated with the spiritual beings of ‘fallen light’ which want to take advantage of human freedom for their purposes.

“From the standpoint of the cosmos this is actually a majestically beautiful sight, for it is in this glorious astral light that human beings shine out into the cosmos during the ‘Dog Days of Summer’, but at the same time it gives occasion for the Ahrimanic power to draw near to humanity. For this adversarial power is very closely related to the sulphurising process in the human organism.

We can see how, on the one hand, the human being shines out into the cosmos in the St. John’s light, & on the other, how the dragon-like serpent-form of Ahriman winds its way among the human beings shining in the astral light & tries to ensnare & curtail us, to draw us down into the realm of half-conscious sleep & illusion”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons & the Archangels

This process of subtle combustion in the human organism causes what comes so natural in Summer – a dream-like state where human instincts arise, gaining power over the forces of consciousness & awareness. Who hasn’t experienced this during summer? And it’s not for nothing, it is important to have that outbreath to come in contact with the cosmic reaches.

But we need to understand that from this perspective the ahrimanic forces are not interested in awakening clairvoyance in humanity. That would be an old form of clairvoyance, anyway. All they want, is to control human beings – fooling us thru our own lower instincts.

When this process of expansion comes to its peak at the Summer Solstice—we must start to come back down to earth or there is a danger we fall victim to the Luciferic influences that would draw us away from life. But the wisdom of the cosmos gives human beings the antidote. The balancing impulse to counter the forces of sulphur rising from the ground, is the Cosmic Iron.

“And when in high summer, from a particular constellation, meteors fall in great showers of cosmic iron, then this cosmic iron, which carries an enormously powerful healing force, is the weapon which the gods bring to bear against Ahriman, as dragon-like he tries to coil round the shining forms of men.

The force which falls on the earth in the meteoric iron is indeed a cosmic force whereby the higher gods endeavour to gain a victory over the Ahrimanic powers, when autumn comes on. And this majestic display in cosmic space, when the August meteor showers stream down into the human shining in the astral light, has its counterpart — so gentle and apparently so small — in a change that occurs in the human blood.

This human blood, which is in truth not such a material thing as present-day science imagines, but is permeated throughout by impulses from soul and spirit, is rayed through by the force which is carried as iron into the blood and wages war there on anxiety, fear and hate.

The processes which are set going in every blood-corpuscle when the force of iron shoots into it are the same, on a minute human scale, as those which take place when meteors fall in a shining stream through the air. This permeation of human blood by the anxiety-dispelling force of iron is a meteoric activity. The effect of the raying in of the iron is to drive fear and anxiety out of the blood”. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Four Seasons & the Archangels

From this perspective we can contemplate the amazing show of the meteor showers which go on into September as we make our way toward Michaelmas. We can look at them knowing that the forces of the cosmos are at work to help us.

Fear & anxiety are two adversarial forces, that have been ensnaring us all. So this makes having an awareness of the meteor showers even more important – worthy of contemplation & active participation.

May the Cosmic Iron of the gods be with you, to defeat all the inner & outer obstacles that stand in your way.

~hag