6 July 2016 – ASTRO-WEATHER – Neptune rises shortly before 10:30 p.m. CDT this week & climbs above the southern horizon in Aquarius by the start of morning twilight
Mercury passes behind the Sun from Earth’s perspective at 10 p.m. CDT & remains hidden in our star’s glare. It will return to view in the evening sky by the end of the month
International Kissing Day
Feast Day of the 1st Prophet – Isaiah 7:14 “Therefore the Lord shall give you by itself a sign; Behold, a virgin shall be with child and will bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel”
Feast Day of Saint Romulus of Fiesole. Like the Romulus of ancient Roman legend, the story goes he was also abandoned, suckled by a wolf, & captured, raised & baptized by Saint Peter
1415 – Deathday of Jan Hus, considered the first Church reformer, since he lived before Luther, Calvin & Zwingli. Hus was a key predecessor to Protestantism. He was burned at the stake for heresy on this day.
1535 – Sir Thomas More is executed for treason against King Henry VIII of England
Blue Circus by Marc Chagall
1887 – Birthday of Marc Chagall, Belarusian-French painter & poet
1892 – 3,800 striking steelworkers engage in a day-long battle with Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike, leaving ten dead & dozens wounded
1917 – World War I: Arabian troops led by Lawrence of Arabia capture Aqaba from the Ottoman Empire during the Arab Revolt
1935 – Birthday of the 14th Dalai Lama
1944 – Jackie Robinson refuses to move to the back of a bus, leading to a court-martial
1944 – The Hartford circus fire, kills approximately 168 people &injures over 700
1947 – The AK-47 goes into production in the Soviet Union.
1957 – John Lennon & Paul McCartney meet for the first time, as teenagers at Woolton Fete, three years before forming the Beatles
1962 – Deathday of William Faulkner, Nobel Prize laureate
1962 – As a part of Operation Plowshare, the Sedan nuclear test takes place
1971 – Deathday of Louis Armstrong
1988 – The Piper Alpha drilling platform in the North Sea is destroyed by explosions & fires. 167 oil workers are killed
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~A lightning bolt…Sudden Glory…
Holding space in space
A liquid lotus in heat
Streaming electric dew
Touching deeply I receive it
Like a hickey on the throat of the sky
~hag
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The “School of the Sounds” reverberating still…
The art of speech teaches us to speak consciously in the exhalation process, bringing an artistic dynamic to the breath. The transformative forces of these breath-infused phonemes & rhythms are able to work in a living way directly into our being, right into the health-bestowing ether body.
“We express our whole being in the process of expiration” ~Rudolf Steiner Spiritual Relations in the Human Organism
At the top of the in-breath (in the inspiration) there is a stillness, a mini pralaya, an anticipatory hearing of what is about to be spoken – & this is an expression of the astral body.
Interesting to think of the tongue as “the souls’ organ of touch” working into the astral body. Hitting the palate or the teeth, exercises the etheric body. Practicing sounds that work from the lips make vibrant our ‘I’, inclining us toward the outer world. In this process the vowels provide the inner substance which is shaped by the consonants.
Of course the tempo & rhythm is important too. We can direct our intention to have an effect on the blood thru the speaking of quick consonants, or affect breathing & thinking thru slower speech.
The in-breath (I just love that the word inspiration applies here) plays a large role in the ability to remember. The out-breath, in contrast plays the role in lovingly giving ourselves over to the future.
“I think speech
I speak
I have spoken
I seek for myself in the spirit
I feel myself within myself
I am on the way to the spirit
To myself”
~RS
But what about listening?
Marie Steiner-von Sivers says: “We have actually completely lost the ability to understand in hearing, and in everyday life we are willing to still tolerate hearing while understanding. Yet there is an essential difference between understanding in hearing & hearing in understanding.” ~Speech and Drama
So how can we be sensitive to a process of ensouling sound & word to support mobility in listening, & in our thinking? This hearing-feeling -thinking furthers the forces of memory & is helpful in making our remembering more lively & active. Memory bestows light & allows us to develop our personality & our ‘I’ forces.
Light & air surround us, the more harmoniously we are able to embody the sounds we speak, the lighter & more light-bearing we can become within. To be awake to these processes we feel our way to primal, archetypal forces which allow us to understand earth existence between birth & death.
In life after death, it is the forces of memory & of love with which we breathe, in conjuction with spiritual beings – since memory & love work together like breath here on earth.
Let’s see what tomorrow brings
Until soon
Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
