Birth of The BVM

September 8, 2016Autumn, Insight, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

8 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: The Moon this evening forms a roughly vertical lineup with Saturn and Antares below it, while brighter Mars glows yellow-orange to their left.

Although September is typically a slower month for meteors than August, be on the lookout for a relatively new shower called the Epsilon Perseids. The shower peaks late this evening, though the best views will come after midnight once the Moon has set & Perseus rides high in the sky. So perhaps tonight before sleep you might make the intention to spiritually tune into this opportunity to receive this Michaelic gift of cosmic iron to fortify our blood.

***

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history… It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.” ~Rachel Carson

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Mary’s birth has ‘officially’ been celebrated since the sixth century -A September birth, with the Sun in the constellation Virgo. Also noteworthy-the Eastern Orthodox Church begins its Church year in September, with the feast of the Immaculate Conception nine months earlier on 8 December.

The apocryphal book of James gives us this account: Anna & Joachim are infertile but pray for a child. They receive the promise of a child that will advance God’s evolutionary plan for the world.

St. Augustine connects Mary’s birth with the work of The Christ. He tells the earth to rejoice & shine forth in the light of her birth. “She is the flower of the field from whom bloomed the precious lily of the valley. Through her birth the nature inherited from our first parents is changed.”

“Today the barren Anna claps her hands for joy, the earth radiates with light, kings sing their happiness, priests enjoy every blessing, the entire universe rejoices, for she who is queen and the Father’s immaculate bride buds forth from the stem of Jesse”

1504 – Michelangelo’s David is unveiled in Piazza della Signoria in Florence

1565 – The Knights of Malta lift the Ottoman siege of Malta, the climax of an escalating contest between a Christian alliance & the Islamic Ottoman Empire for control of the Mediterranean

1637 – Deathday of Robert Fludd, a prominent English Paracelsian physician & occultist, an astrologer, mathematician, cosmologist, Qabalist & Rosicrucian apologist.

1900 – Galveston hurricane: A powerful hurricane hits Galveston, Texas killing about 8,000 people

1941 – World War II: Siege of Leningrad begins

1949 – Deathday of Richard Strauss, German composer

1978 – Black Friday, a massacre by soldiers against protesters in Tehran, provoked 700-3000 deaths, it marks the beginning of the end of the monarchy in Iran

1988 – Deathday of Dr Rita Leroi a few days before her 75th birthday. She attended the Stuttgart Waldorf School as a child. She went on to became a Clinical Assistant at the Ita Wegman Clinic in Arlesheim. She developed a deep interest in cancer & the Iscador treatment of this disease. In 1954 she married Dr Alexandre Leroi who was the leader of the Society for Cancer Research & Director of the Hiscia Research Institute in Arlesheim. It is here that Iscador is produced & researches into the many problems to be solved in developing it into an effective remedy are undertaken. In October 1963 the Lukas Klinik, devoted to the care & treatment of cancer patients, opened in Arlesheim & Rita Leroi became its Director & selected to be President of the International Anthroposophical Medical Association

1989 – Partnair Flight 394 drove into the North Sea, killing 55 people. The investigation showed that the tail of the plane vibrated loose in flight due to sub-standard connecting bolts that had been fraudulently sold as aircraft-grade

1994 – USAir Flight 427, on approach to Pittsburgh International Airport, suddenly crashes in clear weather killing all 132 aboard; resulting in the most extensive aviation investigation in world history, altering manufacturing practices in the industry

International Literacy Day

***

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~The simple thrill of a sparrow’s song cuts the twilight

Opening the colors to dawn

I carry this melody in my belly-O-dee

Close to the egg of silence in my womb ba

& so it is

That I give birth to Today…

~hag

***

The Virtue for the month of September: Courtesy becomes steadiness of feeling.

Even though today it is still hot & muggy here in the Heartland, Autumn awaits, breathing in behind the rain black clouds, ready to break into the midst of the light-headedness of summer’s high flight, bringing sobriety & the resolve of the harvest.

Now the time has come when the contemplative Virgin of the heavens approaches, to gather us up in her blue mantle, like ears of corn, we are brought home from the fields of Summer.

The constellation of the Virgin has always been regarded in the ancient mysteries as the bearer of the bread of life -Full filled at the ‘Tuning Point of Time’ in the ‘miracle of the loaves & the fishes’, as well as the ‘Last Supper’.

If cosmic provisions are to become nourishment for the “I”, we must make a connection with the powers of the depths, which lie opposite the Virgin along the axis of the Zodiac, in the constellation of Pisces, the sign of the Fishes. With this balance of Above & Below we can truly feed the “I” – & say as St. John did: “I am the Bread of Life”!

This begs the question, which our current culture has to answer: How can the food of life, which is so often taken in unconsciously, in greedy gulps -instead be taken up & internalized with a wakeful & reverent consciousness?

If the Bread of Life is to be fully digested by the “I”, then what is required is the destruction of our selfish desires, making us ‘virgin’ again, that we may give birth to the ‘Christ in me’, to preserve & focus the activity of the will, freeing the “I” from outdated husks, to feed the Christ self.

In the social realm, the royal virtue of courtesy brings the giddiness of summer’s unconscious expansion back into a steadfast feeling of thoughtful care. A soul hygiene that brings the pendulum into right relationship, just as every out-breath is followed by an in-breath -The austerity of the Virgin leading us into the balanced scales of Libra in preparation for Michaelmas.

This must be developed in the practice of our social life. If we practice this high ideal of courtesy, not just a surface, conventional politeness, we can acquire the right heart-felt feeling, which awakens an inner organ that can reveal to us the true being of the other person, as well as opening our connection to the elemental beings, that look to us to release them from the withering blooms.

“If the sheath-bearing Virgin, who draws near with golden rays of autumn sun, in the blue firmament, is to nourish you with what she provides, you must take up this food that is the Bread of Life in your innermost being.

That you can only do, when you develop not only your senses, but with them, open up the spirit of your soul to the world around you, & deepen in your heart the fruits of your life, that you gather, shape & organize. Only the right heartfelt tact gives you the possibility of recognizing the human being in others & of becoming aware of your own human nobility!” ~Rudolf Steiner

In the lap of the BVM with you

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Bee-Speak

September 7, 2016Uncategorized~hag

7 September 2016 – Astro-Weather:

Evenings this week are great times for exploring Sagittarius, the constellation of the Archer. This star group lies due south around 9 pm, just as the last vestiges of twilight fade away. The central regions of the Milky Way pass through Sagittarius. The brightest stars within the constellation form the shape of a teapot.

For a more esoteric look https://sway.com/8gvTgTPzvoY7LMGf

***

“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” ~Winston S. Churchill

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

70 – A Roman army under Titus occupies & plunders Jerusalem

251 – Deathday of Saint Regina a virgin martyr born in Autun, France

1191 – Third Crusade: Battle of Arsuf – Richard I of England defeats Saladin at Arsuf. The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was a crusader state established in the Southern Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, but its history is divided into two distinct periods. The sometimes so-called First Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187, when it was almost entirely overrun by Saladin. After the subsequent Third Crusade, the kingdom was re-established in Acre in 1192, & lasted until that city’s destruction in 1291. This second kingdom is sometimes called the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Kingdom of Acre, after its new capital.

1228 – Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II lands in Acre, Israel, & starts the Sixth Crusade

1695 – Henry Every perpetrates one of the most profitable pirate raids in history with the capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai. In response, Emperor Aurangzeb threatens to end all English trading in India

1927 – The first fully electronic television system is achieved by Philo Farnsworth. (In later life, Farnsworth invented a small nuclear fusion device)

1936 – Deathday of Benjamin The last thylacine (Tasmanian tiger) a carnivorous marsupial dies alone in its cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania

1940 –The German Luftwaffe begins the Blitz, bombing London & other British cities for over 50 consecutive nights

1945 – Japanese forces on Wake Island, which they had held since 1941, surrender to U.S. Marines

1945 – The Berlin Victory Parade

1953 – Nikita Khrushchev is elected first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1979 – The Chrysler Corporation asks the United States government for US$1.5 billion to avoid bankruptcy

1986 – Desmond Tutu becomes the first black man to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa

1999 – A 5.9 magnitude earthquake rocks Athens, rupturing a previously unknown fault, killing 643, & leaving 50,000 people homeless

2004 – Hurricane Ivan, a Category 5 hurricane hits Grenada, killing 139 & damaging 90% of its buildings.

2005 – Egypt holds its first-ever multi-party presidential election

2008 – The US Government bails out the two largest mortgage financing companies in the US, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac.

2012 – A series of earthquakes in Yunnan, China, kills 889 people

***

s.edelstein

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Golden Hexagram

Raw Geometry

Viscus wax

In sticky sacrifice

~hag

***

Martin Bridge

BEE-cause

From the earliest times of our agrarian history the relationship between farmers & the bees that pollinate & confirm their crops has been one of reciprocal preservation. The bee as agents of pollination, are the catalyst that brings about change & facilitates fertilization, allowing the crop to mature, develop & reproduce. It is easy to see why their function is so important & why the bee is ascribed a mystical place within the human experience.

Bees have an important place in human history, yet come, as we all do, from the spiritual realm. The mythology that surrounds them is potent, & indicates a close, reciprocal relationship between the bee & the human race- companions in the great plan of divine evolution.

The Kalahari Desert ‘San’ people tell of a bee that carried a mantis across a river. The exhausted bee left the mantis on a floating flower but planted a seed in the mantis’s body before it died. The seed grew to become the first human.

Traditionally the bee was perceived as a creature that bridged the gap between the physical & the super-sensible world – the intermediary between these states of existence.

The bee was an emblem of Potnia, the Minoan-Mycenaean “Bee Mistress”, also referred to as “The Pure Mother Bee”. Her priestesses received the name of “Melissa” (“Bee”), as did some of the Delphic oracles, as well as those worshipping Artemis & Demeter .

In Egyptian mythology, bees grew from the tears of the sun god Ra when they landed on the desert sand.

The bowstring on Hindu love god Kamadeva’s bow is made of honeybees.

The Homeric Hymn to Apollo acknowledges that Apollo’s gift of prophecy first came to him from 3 Bee maidens, usually identified with the Thriae, a trinity of pre-Hellenic Aegean Bee Goddesses.

Orators, powerful speakers & those who can enrapture their audience through their linguistic ability are said to have lips that have been anointed with honey.

Bee-holding in reverence

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Our Westering Daystar

September 6, 2016Autumn, Poetry, Remembering~hag

6 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: As summer approaches its end, Vega becomes the zenith star around the end of twilight. And Arcturus, shines moderately low in the west.

Distant Uranus rises around 10 pm CDT & climbs above the eastern horizon by midnight, in Pisces. Uranus glows bright enough to see with the naked eye under a dark sky.

The Moon reaches apogee, the farthest point in its orbit around Earth, at 1:45 pm CDT. It is then 251,689 miles from Earth’s center.

***

We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost. ~ Gaston Bachelard

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

3114 BC – According to the proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started

Deathday of Albinus a Platonist philosopher, who lived at Smyrna, pupil of Gaius the Platonist & teacher of Galen. A short tract by him, entitled Introduction to Plato’s dialogues, has survived. After explaining the nature of the Dialogue, which he compares to a Drama, he goes on to divide the Dialogues of Plato into four classes, logical, critical, physical, ethical, & mentions another division of them into Tetralogies, according to their subjects. He advises that the Alcibiades, Phaedo, Republic, & Timaeus, should be read in a series

Deathday of Magnus of Füssen, a missionary saint in southern Germany, also known as the Apostle of the Allgäu, a contemporary of Saint Gall & Saint Boniface

1522 – The Victoria, the only surviving ship of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition, returns to Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the world

1620 – The Pilgrims sail from Plymouth, England, on the Mayflower to settle in North America

1628 – Puritans settle Salem

1729 – Birthday of Moses Mendelssohn, a creative & eclectic thinker whose writings on metaphysics & aesthetics, political theory & theology, together with his Jewish heritage, placed him at the focal point of the German Enlightenment for over three decades

1847 – Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond & moves in with Ralph Waldo Emerson & his family in Concord, Massachusetts

1860 – Birthday of Jane Addams, sociologist & author, Nobel Prize laureate

***

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Today I am

A dusky grape

Ripening in the oblique rays

Of our westering daystar…

~hag

***

Preparing for Michaelmas:

I watch the shadows lengthen. The angle of the sun, like the lance of Michael, a sunlit spear piercing awake my sleepy summer eyes, banishing the sulphur, activating the iron in my blood. Am I ready to do battle with the dragon within?

If spiritual science is allowed to live in us & extend its transforming influence to our heart-space, what enters us as thoughts, is then changed, into the substance of light, into the purest light of thought. And in the living enthusiasm of the heart, this light of thought then rays out from our hearts into the macrocosm, as light of the redeemed intelligence of Michael; as enlivened human thought, which can be re-united with the world-thoughts of the gods.

Heart-Thinking is the essence of Michaelmas, as the festival of Enlightenment; where we can learn to experience an unfolding of our inner initiative & a free, strong, courageous will, opposing our love of ease. Yes, it’s easy this time of year, to want to get cozy on the couch, to snuggle up with the dragon, flipping thru the channels, fighting over the remote…

But it is our job to strive to complete the never ending story, with the new Michaelic mysteries put forth by Rudolf Steiner, a true emissary of Michael, teaching us to count the human being as the 10th hierarchy. And so, work we must, as we stand once more on the edge of autumn.

See you there…

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Spiritualizing Bat Emanations

September 5, 2016Autumn, Insight, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul~hag

5 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: The constellations Ursa Major the Great Bear & Cassiopeia the Queen lie on opposite sides of the North Celestial Pole, so they pivot around the North Star Polaris throughout the course of the night & the year. In early September, these two constellations appear equally high as darkness falls. You can find Ursa Major & its prominent asterism, the Big Dipper, above the northwestern horizon. Cassiopeia’s familiar W-shape, which currently lies on its side, appears the same height above the northeastern horizon. As the night progresses, Cassiopeia climbs above Polaris while the Big Dipper swings below it.

***

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” ~Aldous Huxley

El Greco

Deathday of Nathanael (Hebrew נתנאל, “God has given”) of Cana in Galilee, a disciple of Jesus Christ, mentioned in the Gospel of John in Chapters 1 & 21.

Jesus immediately characterizes him as “an Israelite in whom is no deceit”. Steiner said this is a reference to the fact that Nathanael had been initiated & had received the title “The Israelite.” Jesus’ quote: “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you”, shows their connection in the super-sensible world.

Deathday of Gaius Marius Victorinus, born in Africa he became a Roman rhetorician & Neoplatonic philosopher. He translated 2 of Aristotle’s books from ancient Greek into Latin: The Categories & On Interpretation

Deathday of Zacharias the Prophet, father of John the Baptist. He performed the priest’s office in Jerusalem during the reign of Herod. The Lord appeared before him, standing on the right side of the altar & said “Fear, not Zacharias,” assuring him that his prayer was well pleasing & it had inclined God to a great act of mercy. The Archangel Gabriel then visited Zacharias’ wife Elizabeth who had long been barren & told her that she would give birth to a son who would be called John, whose name signifies grace.

Zacharias said to the angel, “Whereby shall I know this? For I am an old man and my wife is well stricken in years.” The angel answered, “I am Gabriel, that stands in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings. And, behold, thou shall be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things be performed, because thou believes not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.”

Then the prophecy was fulfilled & John was born, & after Zacharias had written John’s name on a writing tablet, his mouth was filled with the Holy Spirit, his tongue was loosed, & he spoke, praising God.

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem & the Magi came from the East, they told Herod of the newborn king. Herod sent soldiers to slay all the children in Bethlehem, he especially remembered hearing about the miraculous birth of John. “What manner of child shall this be? Will this child be the King of the Jews?” He decided to kill John. The executioners could not find them, but the slaughter of innocents began.

When Elizabeth heard these cries, she took John & fled into the mountains. When she saw soldiers drawing near, she prayed to God & cried out to the rocky mount nearby and said, “O mountain of God, receive a mother and her child!” Immediately the mountain was split & she entered hiding herself & John from the executioners.

The soldiers returned to Herod, having not found the child, & Herod sent word to Zacharias in the temple saying, “Surrender your son John to me.” Saint Zacharias replied, “You will kill my body, but the Lord will receive my soul.” The executioners straightway fulfilled Herod’s command & fell upon Zacharias between the temple & the altar. His blood was spilt on the floor & became hardened like rock as a witness against Herod & a testimony to Zacharias.

***

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Today I am

Spiritualizing bat emanations

With a laser stare

Pulsing from the lemon-yellow crystals

Of my pineal pyramid

Into the circle squared…

Today I am

A kernel cracking

~hag

***

The Origins of Labor Day

Most folks probably don’t think of Labor Day as a holiday commemorating struggle & death. But that’s what it used to be.

The period between the Civil War & the Great Depression was a time of massive upheaval: The industrial revolution swept in, & millions of Americans were forced to leave their farms & move to cities in search of work in the newly-formed rail, steel, textile, & shipping industries.

Economic policymaking was ad hoc & primitive. Massive recessions regularly created mass poverty & threw enormous numbers of people out of work. The rules, both legal & social, were still being formed for how employers could treat employees, & how the wealth they all collectively produced would be distributed.

Inequality soared to enormous heights by the end of the period. The minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, laws against child labor, & more were only instituted after pitched political combat. Unions were growing as the one avenue by which workers could fight for their interests, & the economy saw waves of regular strikes & work stoppages that would be unheard of today.

Sometimes, the battles were literal: Employers & politicians were not shy about busting unions with police forces & hired enforcers. Riots, deaths, & bombings were not uncommon.

The first inklings of America’s Labor Day took shape in 1882, when the Central Labor Union (CLU) met in September in New York City for a labor festival. Peter McGuire, a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), who was inspired by a parade in Toronto in 1872 in support of a strike against 58-hour work weeks may have been the 1^st to propose the idea of a ‘Labor Day’. Other research points to Matthew Maguire, a machinist & member of the Knights of Labor. But somehow or another, the idea for a parade & yearly holiday to honor American workers was hatched.

The first parade of the new project was held in Manhattan on Sept. 5, 1882. It started out small, but then a band showed up, & workers’ groups from various industries began to flow in. Eventually the parade swelled to 10,000. After that initial success, various state & municipal governments began naming an official day to commemorate labor.

Then a massive recession hit in 1893. The job losses were devastating — & the frustration crystallized in a nationwide strike against the Pullman Company, a railroad car manufacturer & founder of one of the most infamous company towns in America, keeping the workers in appalling living conditions.

Railroad baron George Pullman created his eponymous town in 1880 just outside Chicago. It was a model of capitalist feudalism, with workers offered housing in line with their position in the company. Residents worked for Pullman’s company & their rent was automatically docked from their paychecks. They even had to bank at Pullman’s crooked bank. But Pullman’s business plummeted when the recession hit. Hundreds were laid off & wages were deeply cut — yet rents in the town did not decline.

In response, 4,000 of Pullman’s workers went on strike on May 11, 1894. On June 26, the American Railroad Union — led by Eugene V. Debs — called for a supporting boycott. One hundred & fifty thousand railway workers in 27 states joined the strike, refusing to operate Pullman rail cars. The massive halt to the rail industry & the interruption of U.S. mail cars set off a national crisis. Congress & President Grover Cleveland, looking to save face, rushed through a bill declaring Labor Day a national holiday. Cleveland signed it on June 28, 1894. He was backed by the AFL — the more conservative portion of the labor movement — which threw the first official Labor Day parade that year.

But it was a brutally ironic gesture. Six days later, under pressure from the furious leaders of the rail industry, & facing the virtual shutdown of U.S. mail trains, Cleveland invoked the Sherman Antitrust Act to declare the stoppage a federal crime. He sent in 12,000 federal troops to break the strike. Days of fighting & riots ensued, as strikers overturned & burned railcars, & the troops responded with violent crackdowns. Over 30 workers were killed before the strikers were dispersed & the trains restarted.

Debs was sent to prison, where he read Marx for the first time, setting him on the path to becoming arguably America’s most famous socialist.

Cleveland & others picked the September date for Labor Day as a kind of alternative to May Day, which had by then arisen as the principal day of celebration for workers’ movements around the world. On May 1, 1886, over 250,000 workers struck in Chicago, shutting down 13,000 businesses to demand a shorter work week for equal pay. After several days of peaceful protest, an ‘unknown assailant’ threw a bomb at police in Haymarket Square on May 4. The police responded by firing into the crowd, killing scores of people.

So it’s understandable that many on the left view Labor Day as a cynical ploy — a lazy apolitical three-day weekend, which distracts from the remembrance of when workers fought & died for the basic human decency of a shorter work week.

But you could also look at Labor Day as a remembrance of a time when the labor movement was a force to be reckoned with. Since the heyday of the New Deal, American membership in labor unions has collapsed. Millions of workers in modern service industries face capricious employment, low pay, & dismal conditions. Inequality has returned to its pre-Great-Depression levels, & the shared prosperity of the era immediately after the New Deal is a distant memory. Even the 40-hour work week is falling by the wayside.

All of which makes Labor Day ripe for reclaiming, in the name of some long-unfinished business.

Something to think about today while you’re grilling on the BBQ.

Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Heart-Thinking: Michael Beckoning

September 4, 2016Chicago Event, Festival, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

4 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: In the afterglow of sunset the Crescent Moon low in the southwest points the way to bright Venus. Just below the Moon look for twinkling Spica

***

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

From Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul: Birth & Deathday of MOSES

According to Egyptian astrologers, the liberator of the children of Israel was to be born on this day- So all the male children were to be thrown into the water by order of King Pharaoh. Jochebed, Amram‘s wife, mother of Miriam, & Aaron, gave birth to her third child, a boy that morning at sunrise. Right from that moment the house was filled with a radiant light, so they knew he was an extraordinary child. After three months, Jochebed saw that she would not be able to conceal her child any longer. So she made a small, water-proof basket & set him down among the papyrus reeds growing on the brink of the Nile. Miriam remained nearby to watch the baby.

The day was hot, & King Pharaoh’s daughter, Bithya, came out to the river, accompanied by her maids, to take a bath in the cool waters of the Nile. Suddenly, she heard the wailing of a small child, & she found the basket. Intrigued by the child’s beauty, Bithya tried to figure out a way to enable her to keep him for herself & save him from death, for she understood that this boy was from a Jewish family.

The child refused to be nursed by any of the Egyptian maids-in-waiting, & continued to weep. At this moment, Miriam came over to the princess & offered to find a Jewish nurse. Bithya was glad of this solution, so Miriam rushed home & brought her mother Jochebed, to be his ‘nurse’. For two years the baby was left in his mother’s care.

Meanwhile Bithya told Pharaoh about the boy she had adopted. Her father did not object as he felt sure that the danger had already been averted years ago. So Moses was taken to the royal court, where he grew up as the princely adopted son of the Pharaoh’s daughter.

Once it happened that Moses was playing on King Pharaoh’s lap. He saw the shining crown, studded with jewels, reached for it & took it off. Pharaoh, asked his astrologers for the meaning of this action. They interpreted it to mean that Moses was a threat to Pharaoh’s crown & suggested that the child be put to death before it could do any harm. But one of the king’s counselors suggested that they should first test the boy to see whether his action was prompted by an evil intelligence, or if he was merely grasping for sparkling things as any other child would.

Pharaoh agreed to this, & two bowls were set down before young Moses. One contained gold & jewels, & the other held glowing fire-coals. Moses reached out for the gold, but an angel re-directed his hand to the coals. Moses snatched a glowing coal & put it to his lips. He burned his hand & tongue, but his life was saved.

After that fateful test, Moses suffered from a slight speech defect. He could not become an orator, but G‑d’s words that were spoken to him & with the help of his brother Aaron & sister Miriam, he was able to fulfill his mission.

At age 20, Moses fled Egypt after killing an Egyptian he saw beating a Jew &made his way to Midian, where he married Zipporah, the daughter of Jethro, & fathered two sons, Gershom & Eliezer.

When he was 80 years old, Moses was shepherding his father-in-law’s sheep when G‑d revealed himself to him in a burning bush at Mount Horeb (Sinai) & instructed him to liberate the Children of Israel.

Moses took the Israelites out of Egypt, performed numerous miracles for them (the ten plagues in Egypt, the splitting of the sea, extracting water from a rock, bringing down the manna, etc), received the Torah from G‑d & taught it to the people, built the Mishkan (Divine dwelling) in the desert, & led the Children of Israel for 40 years as they journeyed through the wilderness; but G‑d did not allow him to bring them into the Holy Land. Moses passed away on his 120th birthday on Mount Nebo, within sight of the land he yearned to enter.

(Buddha was also born & died on the same day)

***

Calendar of the Soul 24th Week [September 04, 2016 – September 10, 2016]

Unceasingly itself creating

Soul life becomes aware of self;

The cosmic spirit, striving on,

Renews itself by self-cognition,

And from the darkness of the soul

Creates the fruit of self-engendered will

~Rudolf Steiner

***

Michaelmas Festival: 7pm –9pm Friday 30 September, 2016

The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Heart-Thinking: Michael Beckoning

7pm – Piano & Voice – Kristen Wray & David Wray performing Nacht und Träume + Ganymed – By Franz Schubert. Kristen Wray is a fiber and metal weaving artist, an energy healing practitioner, as well as a classically trained singer. David Wray is a classics professor at the University of Chicago specializing in ancient Roman poetry. Kristen and David regularly perform together in music student recitals on the university campus.

Activating Our ‘Gemut’: The mind warmed by a loving heart & stimulated by the soul’s imaginative power – Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Copper Rod Eurythmy: ALL

If I’m to be a valiant knight, Then there’s a battle I must fight , And I must choose right from the start, Not strength of arm But strength of heart, My sword shall of good steel be made, And love the keenness of the blade

Grimm’s Tale “The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs” by Laura Donkel

Verse for the Michaelic Age: ALL

We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what approaches us from the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future.

We must look forward with absolute equanimity to whatever may come. And we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a cosmic guidance full of wisdom.

It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live without any security in material existence and to live with pure trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world.

Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us. For this let us seek awakening to the reality of the spirit from within ourselves, every morning and every evening. ~Rudolf Steiner

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. Contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Saturday 15 October 2016

Calaj.com Artists Janet Trierweiler Schaefer & Matthew Schaefer present:

“Silent Lecture” Art Exhibit & Discussion

2pm – 5pm at the Branch

Details Coming Soon

Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. Contact Hazel Archer Ginsberg

https://reverseritual.com/festivals-2/festival-dates/current-festival-events/

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Birth of The BVM

Bee-Speak

Our Westering Daystar

Spiritualizing Bat Emanations

Heart-Thinking: Michael Beckoning

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: