Beings in Conjunction

July 12, 2021History, Insight, Poetry, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Speaking with the Stars~hag

My gifts to you ‘I think Speech’ podcast & the collection of Recordings of past presentations

(June 21 to July 21) “Selflessness Becomes Catharsis”

The fullness of the resplendent Summer with its lush, colorful gardens & flowering meadows, undulating like heat waves in a dream over the earth, embraced in a mantle of warmth. I give myself up to the fullness of the motherly Sun, in order to become, a sun myself. My soul a flaming glow blazing full of yearning for the open stillness of the wide starry sky.

“Lose yourself to find yourself”

Today too on my natal return, these words sound out to me from those heavenly heights. But how, after the ‘I’ has made its way into us, can we lose ourselves in order to find ourselves again in the ‘I’ of the World?

Perhaps it’s by sacrificing our intellectual knowledge to the spirit of the world! This is the secret of the Summer mysteries: the transformation of the intellectual knowledge of the head, into the warmth-bearing substance of the will!

Seen from the aspect of biography, this turning point, is mirrored after the middle of life, where the downward curve of life sets in – understood in July’s glyph of the crab, symbol of the constellation Cancer. (here is an amazing video for the constellation Cancer in Eurythmy)

We are called to give up the armoring of materialism, which is a danger that lucks in the summer feeling. Only when the crab reveals its spiritual secret can it bestow its wisdom to us.

This secret is transformation. The old & worn out reaches its completion, which is expressed in the involving spiral of the shell. – This narrowing passage of the spiral leads to an end, from which there is no escape – And then we see that the new beginning of the evolving spiral is separated from the involving spiral by an abyss.

How can we cross this abyss? Only by a courageous leap over the void! This archetypal motif always appears when what is old & exhausted reaches its end, & the new approaches, which can only be achieved thru new soul forces.

Today too this turning point, not only in the wheel of the year, but of world events before us -This stream of the past, that carries the seed of death within it – This stream of materialistic understanding & formation of time, armored within a rigid structure, can only be overcome by a courageous leap. For from that rigid structure no new seeds of the future can emerge. These seeds must be developed by a completely new set of soul forces, into which streams the light of true spiritual knowledge.

The time of summer is especially appropriate for cultivating within us, with warmth, these new concept-seeds of thought, in order to shape new imaginations with which we can approach the metamorphic processes of nature. Thinking in pictures means following intuitively this cosmic transformation processes of nature, for She Herself, the great World Mother, is woven out of cosmic imaginations. Thru this we form in our souls what we see in nature right now: the ripening of fruits, the fruitification of involution, in order to bear the seeds of summer thru the winter.

This turning point of the year can stand before us a guiding motif:

“Take into your soul, in Selfless-Devotion, the rich pictorial language of outer nature, & through it, try to solve the riddle of the world pictures of cosmic happenings. Through this you walk the path of alchemical transformation which leads to catharsis (purification). For catharsis means to be ready to humbly lay aside the proud thinking which has hardened & encrusted itself in modern intellectuality, in order to sacrifice it on the altar of the world spirit, so that it can transform itself into warming forces of will & imaginative world pictures. In doing this, we accomplish the demand of our age, which requires this sacrifice of us. And at the same time we accomplish the inner purification of our souls, which only in breaking through the rigid armour of intellectual thought can experience resurrection in the realm of creative world thoughts!”

We cultivate thinking & make it mature through developing qualities which seem not to be related at all to thinking – through devotion & insight – not so much through logical exercises, but when we observe this & that, & use processes in nature to penetrate into hidden mysteries. It is through devotion to questions of nature & humanity, through the attempt to understand complicated people, through an intensification of attention, that we make our thinking astute.

Little cultivation of insight & devotion makes us grumpy hypochondriacs. What is so very necessary for thinking does not at all depend on thinking. All self-will, all self-seeking, has a destructive effect on thinking…Devotion, willingness for sacrifice with respect to the most insignificant objects & occurrences, has a favorable effect on one’s thinking & one’s mood.” ~Rudolf Steiner GA 130, lecture 2

12 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Venus (occult Mercury) and Mars orbit the Sun on either side of Earth. But, in the July evening sky, Venus outshines Mars. Look west after sunset now to see these Beings in conjunction.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

100 BC – Birthday of Julius Caesar, Roman politician & general

Feast Day of St. Veronica – According tradition, Veronica was moved with sympathy when she saw Jesus carrying his cross to Golgotha & gave him her veil that he might wipe his forehead. Jesus accepted the offering, held it to his face, & then handed it back to her—the image of his face miraculously impressed upon it.

This piece of cloth became known as the Veil of Veronica.The name “Veronica” itself is a Latinisation of Berenice (Greek: Βερενίκη, Berenikē, with a secondary form Beronike), a Macedonian name, meaning “bearer of victory”. The woman who offered her veil to Jesus was known by this name in the Byzantine East, but in the Latin West the name took a life of its own as a designation for a relic venerated in Rome as the true image of Jesus. Since the Latin word for “true” or “authentic” happens to be vera, the theory emerged that the name itself is derived from the Latin phrase “true image”, vera icon (one Latin word for image is icon, derived from Greek: εικόνα, eikona). In the 13th-century text & also in some later sources the term Veronica was used for the veil, not the person, but for centuries it has been better known as the name of the woman.

Eusebius in his Historia Ecclesiastica (vii 18) tells how at Caesarea Philippi lived the woman whom Christ healed of an issue of blood (Matthew 9:20-22). Legend was not long in providing the woman of the Gospel with a name. In the West she was identified with Martha of Bethany; in the East she was called Berenike, or Beronike, the name appearing in as early a work as the “Acta Pilati”, the most ancient form of which goes back to the fourth century. The fanciful derivation of the name Veronica from the words Vera Icon (eikon) “true image” dates back to the “Otia Imperialia” (iii 25) of Gervase of Tilbury (fl. 1211), who says: “Est ergo Veronica pictura Domini vera” (translated: “The Veronica is, therefore, a true picture of the Lord.”)

1804 – Former United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton dies after being shot in a pistol duel by Vice President Aaron Burr

1895 – Birthday of Buckminster Fuller, American architect & engineer, designed the Montreal Biosphère

1895 – Birthday of Oscar Hammerstein II, American director, producer, & songwriter

1904 – Birthday of Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet & diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate

1948 – Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion orders the expulsion of Palestinians from the towns of Lod and Ramla.

1967 – The ‘Newark riot’ was one of 159 race riots that swept cities in the United States during the “Long Hot Summer of 1967”. This riot occurred between July 12 & July 17, 1967. Over the four days of rioting, looting, & property destruction, 26 people died & hundreds were injured.

***

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~My Lips
Red as etherized blood
Speak charms into the mantrams.
Iron words
Hot from the cosmic forge
Speak the intellect of the Sun
Into the green of the earth.
Stars fall into my heart
A pool of fire
Giving light.
Come share my thoughts expanding
In the Summer-tide dream –
Beauty dancing in the thunder Clouds
Meets Love where He waits.
~hag

Point / Counter-point

July 11, 2021Insight, Remembering, Speaking with the Stars~hag

Wellspring: Thinking, Feeling, Willing. The Study of Man: lecture 5 of 14

Dear Friends – I am waking up with many thoughts from our First Class Lesson last night which have ripened thru night school. And as I grow older, more & more I see that how we use our soul forces has consequences – in our actions – in relation to others – to nature, to ourselves, & in the course of how human evolution will unfold…And I ask myself:

Is there a way that human beings can see & be, in & with the world, so that we can take hold of the process of becoming in such a way that it constantly develops anew, thru this seeing & being – A seeing that becomes a cognition of the heart; a way of being that develops a moral life? To be moral is to be in right relationship.

R. Steiner

How can we be a living moral expression of spiritual reality – Manifesting the essence behind the workings of this world? This kind of reality which we can seek to unveil for each other – which we can envision in every human being – is needed for us to become active co-creators – unfolding a reality of transformation – a humanizing – in all its relation ships.

Rudolf Steiner advanced a quest for knowledge that sought & recognized the power of our personal development in the meeting with the world, & thru the meeting with others. The act of knowing, becomes participation in these often challenging relationships, creating a wise perspective that is open to tolerance, developing interest, which can manifest Love – which, together with Freedom, is the goal of our humanness.

Understanding ‘the other’ as a free human being, poses the difficult trial of understanding them thru their own concepts. According to Steiner in his Philosophy of Spiritual Activity …”We must take over into our own spirit those concepts by which the other determines themselves.”

It is mutuality that enables knowing, which leads to empathy & understanding. A shared space arises in the relationship which not only has a center, but which is formed from the relationship of both ‘focal points’, an ability to see the point & the counter-point.

We can extend that center to include what Spiritual Science calls the 12 worldviews, with an emphasis on mutually enhancing polarities. If we learn to understand the 12 senses as put forth by Steiner, perhaps that can help us see the value of this idea of striving to see all perspectives out-pictured in these 12 archetypes.

Thru a sort of alchemical transfiguration, the distinct capacities of thinking, feeling, & willing – each emphasized by their respective worldviews – have the potential to be etherized into a new Earth-Sun, the center of a new zodiac – where the opposition between spirit & matter is overcome, so that human consciousness can be raised & transubstantiated by the power of the Christ in me – Christ in us.

See you in the Center

~hag

RUDOLF STEINER’S CALENDAR OF THE SOUL
translated (with added titles) by Roy Sadler
SAINT JOHNSTIDE IV
The Spirit’s Gift
v15
I feel, as if enchanted in the glory of the world,
the weaving of the spirit in appearance;
it’s veiled my own life
in drowsiness of sense
to give to me the strength
that in my narrow compass I
am powerless to give myself.

The Sun enters midway between Castor and Pollux in Gemini this week.
“In Greek myth, Pollux, the immortal and Castor, the mortal twin, symbolized higher and lower rank. But with Christ, as seen in the ‘washing of the feet’, the spiritual and the physical, the higher and lower, come together in brotherhood. As the twins have also represented Lucifer and Ahriman, the mid-July Sun between them carries a further spiritual gift —the Christ Sun putting Himself between Lucifer and Ahriman giving our “I” the power to be in balance—the power to know ourselves as an “I” between Lucifer and Ahriman…”
Eloise Krivosheia in Calendar-of-the-Soul-Verse-15.pdf (anthroposophyla.org)

this week’s mirror verse

CHRISTMAS
The Spirit Child
v38
I feel the spirit child set free
from spell in womb of soul;
in heart’s bright radiance
from seed of holy Cosmic Word
the heaven’s fruit of hope
is growing into farthest worlds
rejoicing from my being’s ground of God.

11 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Bright Venus and tiny Mars come to conjunction low in the western twilight, as the crescent Moon stands watch. On the other side of the sky, Saturn and Jupiter rise after dark. And before moonlight comes back, delve the deep sky in Scorpius and Sagittarius. ~ skyandtelescope.org

Venus and Mars warned by Mercury Painting by Bartholomeus Spranger

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day (RSarchives)

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY (Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul; The Present Age, Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia)

The feast day of Nertha, ancient Germanic Goddess of the Earth

1767 – Birthday of John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States. He began his diplomatic career as the U.S. minister to the Netherlands in 1794, and served as minister to Prussia during the presidential administration of his father, the formidable patriot John Adams. After serving in the Massachusetts State Senate and the U.S. Senate, the younger Adams rejoined diplomatic service under President James Madison, helping to negotiate the Treaty of Ghent (1814), which ended the War of 1812. As secretary of state under James Monroe, Adams played a key role in determining the president’s foreign policy, including the famous Monroe Doctrine. John Quincy Adams went on to win the presidency in a highly contentious election in 1824, and served only one term. Outspoken in his opposition to slavery and in support of freedom of speech, Adams was elected to the House of Representatives in 1830; he would serve until his death in 1848. ~history.com

1864 – Birthday of Peter Deunov, Bulgarian spiritual master and teacher of esoteric Christianity in the early 20th century, is also known for his inspired musical compositions and as the inventor of the Paneurhythmy, a sacred dance of the Universal White Brotherhood. Beinsa Duono is his Bulgarian spiritual name.

2012 – Astronomers announce the discovery of Styx, the fifth moon of Pluto

“…Pluto is a controversial planet as it is a newcomer, an outsider to the classic solar system. Willi Sucher describes the outer planets in this way: They are something like bystanders and try to speak to human beings about the invisible worlds, of the spiritual worlds of the divine hierarchies, of all that which is of an absolutely nonmaterial, even non-spatial, nature. If these messages are not received by human beings consciously, they can easily wreak “destruction” and thereby bring home the messages of the temporary nature of all Earth-material existence. Thus they would hope to bring humanity to a realization of the spiritual origin of all beings. (The Changing Countenance of Cosmology p.48)

Elsewhere he discusses Pluto as connected to the deepest realm of will forces, those forces with elemental power behind earthquakes, violent revolutions in humanity and even nuclear destruction.

This sphere he also relates to the third adversary spoken of by Steiner, the Asuras, fallen Spirits of Personality/Archai, who are now becoming active in humanity. Steiner states, For these Asuric Spirits will prompt what has been seized hold of by them, namely the very core of man’s being, the consciousness soul together with the ‘I’, to unite with earthly materiality. Fragment after fragment will be torn out of the ‘I’, … What thus becomes the prey of the Asuric powers will be irretrievably lost.

Elsewhere Steiner describes how their ability to work on the materialization and destruction of the human I, is due to the long term consequences of materialism in humanity and our failure to recognize our true spiritual nature.

However Pluto is also connected with the highest spiritual transformation of the will, which can be realized in the distant future as Spirit Man; the transmutation of matter as Christ transmuted matter in the resurrection. Christ-will, working in the human being, will lead to the higher realization of Pluto in humanity.

In these times, this process begins with bringing into the will the force of Christ, permeating it with moral deeds done out of love and service to others…” ~Jonathan Hilton

POD (Poem Of Day)

~While the stargazers are ripening I stand in my pasture –
From a distance I can hear Death
Fingering Her lyre amidst the lilies –
1 note dividing harmony
Returning…
Clothed in the skin of a Queen Bee
I hurry toward the heat source bearing the light within…
~hag

Phases

July 10, 2021History, Speaking with the Stars~hag

Listen at the ‘I think Speech’ Podcast – View past presentations HERE

Greetings friends – Yes, it’s true, I often become a pricky pear around the time of my natal return. So I am striving to move thru this time as consciously as possible, opening to insight & grace. I picked up ‘The Human Life’ by George & Gisela O’Neil to remind myself of some basics on The Phases of Human Life.

Our lives unfold in 3 main phases of development (bear in mind that the ages can vary for each individual, but the phases remain, so don’t get stuck on the numbers):

Body: maturing until age 21
Soul: emotional/psychological stability building up until around age 42
Spirit: potential spiritual maturity after age 42

These 3 groups can be divided into 7 year growth phases – (the ending or transition of each can be especially intense & challenging):

Bodily Development – 0-21yrs – The ultimate goal is to Awaken to Ego or ‘I’ awareness

0-7yrs – Unfolding the physical body. Learning: TRUST ‘The world is good’
7-14yrs – Unfolding the etheric body. Learning: FELLOWSHIP ‘The world is beautiful’
14-21yrs – Unfolding the astral body. Learning: INDEPENDENCE ‘The world is true’

Soul Development – 21-42yrs – Awakening the Eyes of the Soul – The Transformative Years (the fight years)

21-28yrs – Birth of the ‘I’ within the sentient soul. Learning: Experience becomes the primary urge
28-35yrs – Birth of the ‘I’ within the intellectual soul, also called the rational/feeling soul. Learning: Confronted by the realities of the world here we are struggling with ideals & necessities (31-33 are called ‘The Christ Years’ when we really ‘carry our own cross’ & take ourselves on)
35-42yrs – Birth of the ‘I’ within the consciousness soul. Learning: How to activate the will; sensing our own identity; ‘nothing happens anymore unless I make it happen.’

Spiritual Development – 42-63yrs – Awakening Our Spiritual Eyes – Gaining Wisdom (Notice I use the word potential here, as I believe not every human being strives for these)

42-49yrs – Potential awakening of spiritual-self. Learning: New possibilities & potentials appear – Personal Authority – Striving -finding our direction ‘The world turns upside down’
49-56yrs – Potential life-spirit unfolding. Learning: Change of life; promoting new causes; gaining strength to bring ideas into life. Expertise – ‘The world becomes harmonious’
56-63yrs – Potential spirit-man unfolding. Learning: That we must awaken to love & commitment to others; working as a healing force in communities. Role Modeling – ‘The world is filled with Wisdom’
63-until death – ‘Years of Grace’. Freedom to Be- to serve humanity – sharing the fruits of our life’s work – ‘The world is creative, AND this is not all there is’

Of course the earlier phases continue to work into the later phases, building on them, filling them out with experience & the wisdom gained.

Along with the O’Neil’s amazing work, I have dipped into Bernard Lievegoed’s book ‘Phases: The Spiritual Rhythms of Adult Life’ & a compilation of lectures on Biography from Rudolf Steiner put out by Steiner Press as ‘Biography: Freedom & Destiny, Enlightening the Path of Human Life.

It’s interesting to look at the connection between illness & biography. And also to see how not just human beings, but all the phases of human evolution seen throughout the epochs are reflected in the birth, maturation & death of civilizations & nations.

I am struck by the fact, that some human beings don’t have the inner strength to develop their true potential. They never really leave adolescence, so they aren’t able to truly bring in their ego or ‘I’ forces. Perhaps this is what we are seeing reflected in society today in the form of impulsiveness & a propensity toward violence.

I leave you with ‘The 3rd Tablet’ by Rudolf Steiner:
“I entered this sense-world
The heritage of thinking I bore with me
The power of a god has lead me here
(Ex deo nascimur – Out of the Godhead we are born)

And death stands at this journey’s end
I will to feel the Being of Christ
In matters dying He awakens Spirit Birth
(In Christo morimur – In Christ death becomes life)

In Spirit thus I find the World
And know myself amidst the Worlds evolving.
(Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus – In the spirit’s cosmic thoughts the soul awakens)”

Blessings & Peace ~hag

10 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: You can see Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer on these July nights. Its stars are faint, and you’ll need a dark sky. Look for Ophiuchus in the south at nightfall. The bright red star Antares in the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion can help you find it. Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer is depicted as holding Serpens the Serpent, which is considered a separate constellation. According to ancient Greek star lore, Ophiuchus is Asclepius, the physician who concocted a healing potion from the Serpent’s venom, mixing it with the Gorgon’s blood and an unknown herb. This potion gave humans access to immortality, until the god of the underworld appealed to Zeus to reconsider the ramifications of the death of death.

Even today, the Staff of Asclepius – the symbol of the World Heath Organization – pays tribute to the constellation Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer…hmmm…

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)

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856. The 10th of July is celebrated as #TeslaDay - a great day for students to learn about … | Science curriculum, Tesla, Science

Nikola Tesla Day

138 – Deathday of Emperor Hadrian, Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian is known for building Hadrian’s Wall, which marked the northern limit of Britannia. He also rebuilt the Pantheon & constructed the Temple of Venus & Roma. An admirer of the Greeks, he is considered by some to have been a humanist, & he is regarded as one of the Five Good Emperors.

165 – Deathday of Felicitas of Rome is a saint numbered among the Christian martyrs. A legend presents her as the mother of the seven martyrs: Alexander, Vitalis, Martialis, Januarius, Felix, Philip, Sylvanus. In Rudolf Steiner’s original Calendar of the Soul we see listed for today the Fairy Tale The Seven Ravens (Sieben Bruder) by Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm

1212 –London burns to the ground

1509 – Birthday of John Calvin, an influential French theologian & pastor during the Protestant Reformation

1778 – American Revolution: Louis XVI of France declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain

1832 – U.S. President Andrew Jackson vetoes a bill that would re-charter the Second Bank of the United States

Nikola Tesla quote: The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will...

1856 – Birthday of Nikola Tesla, a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, & futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system

1871 – Birthday of Marcel Proust, French novelist, critic, & essayist

1921 –‘Bloody Sunday’: 160 people are killed & 161 houses destroyed during rioting & gun battles in Belfast, Northern Ireland

1925 – Scopes Trial: the so-called “Monkey Trial” – a young high school science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of the Butler Act.

1938 – Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91-hour airplane flight around the world

1962 – Telstar, the world’s first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.

1966 – The Chicago Freedom Movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., holds a rally at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. As many as 60,000 people come to hear Dr. King as well as Mahalia Jackson, Stevie Wonder, & Peter, Paul and Mary.

1991 – Boris Yeltsin takes office as the first elected President of Russia.

POD (Poem Of the Day)

~i am
the sun roaring
beside 2 lions
named yesterday & tomorrow…
my feet are dusty
my lungs are full
for i am
the hostess of eternity
hot on the trail of Now…
~hag

Memory

July 9, 2021History, Insight, Speaking with the Stars~hag

In the mood to listen? Visit the ‘I Think Speech Podcast’

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 1^st 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 4^th 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.

Mural painting from Pompeii: Painting “Mars and Venus” – ars mundi

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

Hearts Learn

July 8, 2021History, Insight~hag

Listen: ‘I Think Speech’ podcast

In writing the pageant & preparing for ‘Building the Temple of the Heart’ – our 2021 ASA annual conference & members meeting co-hosted by the Central Regional Council, I came across again this meditation which Rudolf Steiner gave to Ita Wegman on his 63rd birthday, which I used a lot when the CRC was working with the theme of karma:

“Hearts interpret Karma
When hearts learn to read
The Word,
Which creates in
Human Life;
When hearts learn to
Speak the Word
Which creates in
The Human Being”

It reminds me that when Heart-Thinking has truly been activated, spirit knowledge is gathered thru the rhythmic center, not the nerve sense system of the head, which disregards the subjective as well as the feeling life where the Word resounds.

Starting now, & in the future, in union with the Wisdom of Anthroposophia, human hearts become more & more consciously connected to the same Divine spiritual forces that helped create humanity in the beginnings of time. This prepares US to become creators – builders of a new reality.

It has become possible for souls connected to Sophia/Michael to be engaged in a willed schooling of initiation – opening the portal to enter into closer communion with the etheric Christ. It is our evolutionary aim that our Anthroposophical training will lead to heart-knowledge, & that the etheric-eye-of-the-heart will become an organ of cognition.

This is made clear from the Michael-Letters:

“Hearts begin to have thoughts; that is the new way of thinking with the heart.”

“The newly developed heart-organ slowly transforms into an eye, or better, a sensing-heart-eye-organ.”

“Everyone who strives in the light of spiritual science and connects themselves with the creative World-Logos through heartfelt thoughts, sooner or later will learn to read Karma. By doing so we add to the substance of the etheric-youth or angel-being through which the etheric Christ reveals Himself today.”

“The Christ-force imprints human imaginations into the cosmic ether.”

“That which the human being experiences as strength of conscious imagination becomes world content.”

For those that strive to be spiritually active pupils in the Michaelic stream, the heart becomes, not only an eye for self-cognition, allowing us to truly ‘Know Thyself’ – in the realization of the Higher Self as an eternal being; it also becomes the eye-of-the-Ego-sense, the True ‘I’ – which perceives the ‘other’ in their true being – & an eye of cognition for supersensible beings, & for the etheric Christ.

Protected, cherished & supported in the True Michaelic Mystery-Culture of Will, we join in community with other light workers to ‘Build the Temple of the Heart’ –making it possible to perceive our chain of karma.

From doing the 10:10 Thought-Seed Meditation, I feel more & more that as our heart-sense becomes a cognitive organ; it is as if our heart is being transplanted into the Sun. I feel the Sun is within me, & that we are shining out with it. The Sun becomes an eye, an ear, as well as our organ of warmth. “We stand within the light, we touch spirit-beings with our light-organs.” Then we not only feel part of the Sun, we perceive ourselves “on the other side of the Sun”. * This then allows us to experience the whole universe within our being. And we become the center point for the joining of the Earth with the Sun.

Dear friends, there is a powerful esoteric call for us to support the creation of a New Sun-Earth. This is how the secret of the Grail can be revealed – as Christian Morgenstern says: “I lift my heart to you as a true vessel of the Grail …”* It is an experience of being totally imbued with the Spirit of eternity which fills the receiving soul of the Grail at the Sun-altar. Here Spirit, & the Soul Forces of Thinking, Feeling & Willing, unite. This is the Sophianic / Michaelic reality that we can build – a Temple in the New Jerusalem of the Heart.

See you there

Until soon

Blessings and Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

*GA 212

The position of Mercury and the Moon on July 8, 2021 — astronomy.org

8 July 2021 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Eve of the New Moon. Bella Luna passes north of Mercury at midnight. Both are level with each other above the horizon as they rise in Taurus, an hour before sunrise.

“When we look up into the starry heavens, the feeling of our soul’s home awakens in us. The feeling awakens: Before you came down to earth to a new incarnation you yourself were in those stars, and out of the stars, the moral law was imparted to you”. ~Rudolf Steiner

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)

Feast day of Aquila & Priscilla, Companions of the Apostle Paul. When Paul came to Corinth (probably in the year 50), he met them as tentmakers who had just arrived from Rome, because the Emperor Claudius had recently expelled the Jewish community. They all went together to Ephesus. Aquila & Priscilla are mentioned six times in the New Testament (Acts 18:2,18,26; Romans 16:3; 1 Corinthians 16:19; 2 Timothy 4:19), & the reader will note that in the odd-numbered mentions, Aquila’s name comes first, while in the even-numbered mentions, Priscilla’s comes first, as if to emphasize that they are being mentioned on equal terms.

Feast day of Saint Kilian an Irish missionary bishop & the Apostle of Bavaria. He was beheaded with 2 of his companions. Their skulls, inlaid with precious stones, have been preserved to this day. On St Kilian’s day, a glass case containing the three skulls is removed from a crypt, paraded through the streets before large crowds, & put on display in Würzburg Cathedral (dedicated to Kilian).

1099 – Some 15,000 starving Christian soldiers begin the siege of Jerusalem which took place from June 7 to July 15, 1099 during the First Crusade

1579 – Our Lady of Kazan, a holy icon of the Russian Orthodox Church, is discovered underground in the city of Kazan, Tatarstan

1625 – Birthday of Giovanni Domenico Cassini, an Italian mathematician, astronomer, astrologer & engineer. Cassini discovered four satellites of the planet Saturn & noted the division of the rings of Saturn; the Cassini Division was named after him.

1730 – A magnitude 8.7 earthquake causes a tsunami that damages more than 1,000 of Chile’s coastline, death toll unknown

1822 – Deathday of Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the major English Romantic poets, one of the most influential. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political & social views, Shelley did not see fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets & writers that included Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock, & his own second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, including his father-in-law, the philosopher William Godwin.

Shelley’s theories of economics & morality, for example, had a profound influence on Karl Marx; his early—perhaps first—writings on nonviolent resistance influenced both Leo Tolstoy & Mahatma Gandhi. Henry David Thoreau‘s Civil Disobedience was apparently influenced by Shelley’s writings and theories on non-violence in protest and political action.

Shelley became a lodestone to the subsequent three or four generations of poets, including important Victorian & Pre-Raphaelite poets such as Robert Browning and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He was admired by Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy, Bertrand Russell, W. B. Yeats, Upton Sinclair & Isadora Duncan. Shelley’s popularity and influence has continued to grow in contemporary poetry circles.

St. Irvyne; or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance is a Gothic horror novella written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1810 was published anonymously as “by a Gentleman of the University of Oxford” while the Shelley was an undergraduate. The main character is Wolfstein, a solitary wanderer, who encounters Ginotti, an alchemist of the Rosicrucian or Rose Cross Order who seeks to impart the secret of immortality.

1831 – Birthday of John Pemberton, chemist & pharmacist, invented Coca-Cola

1838 – Birthday of Eli Lilly, chemist, & businessman, founded Eli Lilly a global pharmaceutical company

1838 – Birthday of Ferdinand von Zeppelin German general & businessman, founded the Zeppelin Airship Company

1839 – Birthday of John D. Rockefeller, founded the Standard Oil Company

1876 – White supremacists kill five Black Republicans in Hamburg, South Carolina

1908 – Birthday of Nelson Rockefeller, 41st Vice President of the United States

1926 – Birthday of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross a Swiss-American psychiatrist, pioneer in near-death studies & the author of the groundbreaking book ‘On Death & Dying’ where she first discussed her theory of the five stages of grief

Today, 89 years ago, on 8 July 1932, Biodynamic champion Hugh Courtney, was born in the Heartland of Chicago, my hometown. He now spiritualizes the Earth from across the Threshold. (15 June 2020)

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Beings in Conjunction

Point / Counter-point

Phases

Memory

Hearts Learn

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