1 November 2016 – Astro-Weather: Venus, Saturn, & the thin crescent Moon shine through the fading twilight low in the southwest.
Draw a line from Altair, the brightest star high in the southwest after dark, to Vega, the brightest high in the west. Continue the line onward half as far, & you hit the Lozenge: the pointy-nosed head of Draco, the Dragon
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“We understand only the very smallest part of human history and of our own life if we consider it in its external aspect, I mean in that aspect which we see from the limited view-point of our earthly life between birth and death. It is impossible to comprehend the inner motives of history and life unless we turn our gaze to that spiritual background which underlies the outer, physical happenings”. ~Rudolf Steiner, Karmic Relationships, Volume IV: Lecture III
Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
ALL SAINTS DAY “After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands…. [One of the elders] said to me, ‘These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9,14)
The earliest observance of a feast in honor of all the saints is an early fourth-century commemoration of “all the martyrs.” In the early seventh century, after successive waves of invaders plundered the catacombs, Pope Boniface IV gathered up some 28 wagonloads of bones & reinterred them beneath the Pantheon, a Roman temple dedicated to all the gods. The pope rededicated the shrine as a Christian church. According to Venerable Bede, the pope intended “that the memory of all the saints might in the future be honored in the place which had formerly been dedicated to the worship not of gods but of demons” (On the Calculation of Time).
The Anglo-Saxon theologian Alcuin observed the feast on November 1 in 800, as did his friend Arno, Bishop of Salzburg. Rome finally adopted that date in the ninth century.
The Massacre of the Innocents, part of the El Dia de los Muertos celebration, honors the biblical account of infanticide by Herod. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Herod ordered the execution of all young male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem, in an attempt to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn King of the Jews whose birth had been announced to him by the Magi. Understood as the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy: “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, saying, ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more”.
1512 – The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is exhibited to the public for the first time.
1520 – The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of South America connecting the Pacific & the Atlantic Oceans, is first ‘discovered’ & navigated by Ferdinand Magellan during the first recorded circumnavigation voyage
1570 – The All Saints’ Flood devastates the Dutch coast, breaking the dikes. The total number of dead in the tens of thousands, 100,000 people became homeless. Livestock was lost in huge numbers. Winter stocks of food & fodder were destroyed.
1604 – William Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello is performed for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London
1611 – Shakespeare’s play The Tempest is performed for the first time, at Whitehall Palace in London
1755 – In Portugal, Lisbon is totally devastated by a massive earthquake & tsunami, killing 90,000 people
1765 – The British Parliament enacts the Stamp Act on the Thirteen Colonies in order to help pay for British military operations in North America
1838 –Birthday of Khedrup Gyatso – 11th Dalai Lama
1870 – In the United States, the Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) makes its first official meteorological forecast
1911 – The first dropping of a bomb from an aircraft in combat, during the Italo-Turkish War
1918 – Malbone Street Wreck: The worst rapid transit accident in US history occurs under the intersection of Malbone Street & Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, with 202 deaths
1941 – American photographer Ansel Adams takes a picture of a moonrise over the town of Hernandez, New Mexico that would become one of the most famous images in the history of photography. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes hired Adams for six months to create photographs of lands under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. Adams was accompanied by his young son Michael & his best friend Cedric Wright on a long road trip around the west. They came upon the scene while traveling through the Chama River valley toward Española in late afternoon on November 1.
1948 – Off southern Manchuria, 6,000 people die as a Chinese merchant ship explodes & sinks
1950 – Pope Pius XII claims papal infallibility when he formally defines the dogma of the Assumption of Mary
1951 – Operation Buster–Jangle: 6,500 American soldiers are exposed to ‘Desert Rock’ atomic explosions for training purposes in Nevada. Participation is not voluntary
1952 – The United States successfully detonates Ivy Mike, the first thermonuclear device, at the Eniwetok atoll. The explosion had a yield of ten megatons TNT equivalent
1955 – The bombing of United Airlines Flight 629 occurs near Longmont, Colorado, killing all 39 passengers & five crew members aboard. Blown up with dynamite placed in the checked luggage by Jack Gilbert Graham to kill his mother as revenge for his childhood & to obtain a large life insurance payout. Within 15 months of the explosion, Graham—who already had an extensive criminal record—was tried, convicted, & executed for the crime
1956 – The Springhill mining disaster in Springhill, Nova Scotia kills 39 miners; 88 are rescued
1957 – The Mackinac Bridge, the world’s longest suspension bridge at the time, opens to traffic connecting Michigan’s upper & lower peninsulas
1960 –John F. Kennedy announces his idea of the Peace Corps
1963 – The Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, with the largest radio telescope ever constructed, officially opens
1970 – Club 5-7 fire in Saint-Laurent-du-Pont, France kills 146 young people
1982 – Honda becomes the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the United States with the opening of its factory in Marysville, Ohio; a Honda Accord is the first car produced there
2013 – Paul Anthony Ciancia opens fire at Los Angeles International Airport, killing a US Transportation Security Administration employee, & wounding seven other people. After the shooting ended, Ciancia was found to be carrying a note stating that he “wanted to kill TSA”. It also mentioned “fiat currency” & the New World Order. The common theme of this theory is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government—which will replace sovereign nation-states—& an all-encompassing propaganda whose ideology hails the establishment of the New World Order as the culmination of history’s progress. Many influential historical & contemporary figures are said to be part of this cabal that operates through many front organizations to orchestrate significant political & financial events, ranging from causing systemic crises to pushing through controversial policies, at both national & international levels, as steps in an ongoing plot to achieve world domination. The judge votes to keep Ciancia’s statements sealed.
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POD (Poem Of the Day)
~My soul duels with worms
Hidden in the clay of my being
Tainting & gnawing the scroll of my mythos
Witch I spit
Out in
Vacillating antipathy…
Yet my heart is kept
Whole when I sing
Thru the Living Word…
A sinner marching with the Saints
I stretch canvas & continue
Practicing
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Beloved Being – Life is a Loom…& we are the weavers of this fabric we call Reality…Our bodies: a bone spindle, shuttling bobbin Souls…Our fibers interlacing, Spinning straw into gold…& yes sometimes a strand of sorrow is added to the weft…These dark threads are just as needed in a weavers skillful hand as the threads of gold & silver in our patterns spun in sand…& now as the fire of life goes inward, & rest lies upon the patient land…Our Craft is the Art of Transforming the patchwork shadow, the wounded ancestor, the demure descendant, every loose fiber, Into a fabric of healed wholeness & Peace…
May your transformation be ever-full of grace.
PS. I will be in Boston the next few days & will return to the blog next week, where I hope to do a write-up on my time in the Tone Eurythmy Course with Jan Ranck
Until soon
xox
Join us for our Annual All Souls Festival
Especially scheduled this year on Election Night Tuesday 8 November 2016
Potluck 6 pm, Festival 7 pm – 9 pm
Get away from the media frenzy- As We Create a Healing Sanctuary thru Story & SongTo Honor Our Dearly Departed working with us from the Spiritual World
Nancy Melvin will lead us in a song-circle, & we will engage with Columbia the Folk-Spirit of America, & The Founding Mothers & Fathers of our country, as well as the Native Americans who were here before us.
Contact Deborah Rogers with the names of your beloved ones who have died this year, to be read in the circle beewisdom33@yahoo.com
“Feel how we gaze lovingly into heights that now call you to other work.
May your power reach out from spirit-realms to the friends you left behind.
Hear our soul’s request sent to you in confidence;
We need here, for our earthly work, strong power from spirit lands-
We thank our friends now dead for this.
A hope that makes us happy, a loss that pains us deeply:
Let us hope that you light our lives, far-and-near, un-lost,
A soul-star in the spiritual firmament.” ~Rudolf Steiner
Happy All Saints and Souls, dear Hazel! Enjoy thecTone Eurythmy Week in Beantown! Love and thanks, Kathryn
Thanks Kathryn! Blessings to you & yours at this liminal crossquarter time.
xox