Beheading John the Baptist

August 29, 2016Insight, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul~hag

29 August 2016 – Astro-Weather: Late summer nights are prime Milky Way time. After dark, the Milky Way runs from Sagittarius in the south, up & left across Aquila, through the big Summer Triangle very high in the east, & on down thru Cassiopeia to Perseus rising low in the north-northeast

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“History, historical life, will only be seen in the right light when a true consciousness of the connection of the so-called living with the so-called dead can be developed” – The Living and the Dead by Rudolf Steiner, Berlin, 5th February, 1918

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Gustave-Moreau

33 – Beheading of John the Baptist

708 – Copper coins are minted in Japan for the first time

1632 – Birthday of John Locke, English physician & philosopher

1756 – Frederick the Great attacks Saxony, beginning the Seven Years’ War

1758 – The first American Indian reservation is established, at Indian Mills, New Jersey

1778 – American Revolutionary War: British & American forces at the Battle of Rhode Island

1786 – Shays’ Rebellion, an armed uprising of Massachusetts farmers, begins in response to high debt & tax burdens

1825 – Independence of Brazil from the Kingdom of Portugal

1831 – Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction

1842 – End of the First Opium War; China is forced by England to accept the opium trade & to surrender Hong Kong

1885 – Gottlieb Daimler patents the Reitwagen – the world’s first internal combustion motorcycle

1898 – The Goodyear tire company is founded

1941 – Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, is occupied by Nazi Germany following an occupation by the Soviet Union

1943 – German-occupied Denmark scuttles most of its navy; Germany dissolves the Danish government

1949 –The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb– First Lightning or Joe 1

1965 – The Gemini V spacecraft returns to Earth

1966 – The Beatles perform their last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco

2005 – Hurricane Katrina devastates the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing an estimated 1,836 people & causing over $108 billion in damage

International Day against Nuclear Tests

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Dean Flock

John the Baptist, truly the greatest of all Men – Still human, He hovers as an Eagle in the realm of the Angels. After his beheading He became the protector of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ & especially of John the Evangelist.

El Greco

Did the Eagle land in the beginning of the 20th century on the shoulder of Rudolf Steiner to guide him towards the Second Coming?

Richard Anderson

“Elijah was destined to be one of the ruling figures in the régime inaugurated by Moses. There had to be Individualities who were not wholly contained in the human personality; one part of their being was in the earthly personality and the other in the spiritual world. Elijah was an Individuality of this nature. Only part of his being was present in his personality on the physical plane; the Ego-hood of Elijah could not penetrate fully into his physical body. He must therefore be called a personality ‘filled with the Spirit’. A figure such as Elijah could not possibly be brought into existence through the normal forces by which other men are placed in the world. In the normal way the human being develops in the mother’s body in such a way that through physical processes the Individuality who has been incarnated previously simply unites with the physical embryo. This could not be so in the case of an Individuality such as Elijah. Other forces had to intervene, concerned with the part of the Individuality that reached into the spiritual world. His development was necessarily attended by influences working upon him from outside. Hence when such Individualities are incarnated they appear as men who are ‘inspired’, ‘impelled by the Spirit’. They appear as ecstatic personalities whose utterances far surpass anything that might issue from their normal intelligence.

The man who lived as ‘Elijah’ was an outstanding example of this. The words uttered by his mouth and the actions performed by his hands did not proceed only from the part of his being actually present in his personality; they were manifestations of divine-spiritual Beings in the background.

When this Individuality was born again he was to unite with the body of the child born to Zacharias and Elisabeth. We know from the Gospel itself that John the Baptist is to be regarded as the reborn Elijah. But in him we have to do with an Individuality who in his earlier incarnations had not habitually developed or brought fully into operation all the forces present in the normal course of life. In the normal course of life the inner power or force of the Ego becomes active while the physical body of the human being is developing in the mother’s womb. The Elijah-Individuality in earlier times had not descended deeply enough to be involved in the inner processes operating here. The Ego had not, as in normal circumstances, been stirred into activity by its own forces, but from outside. This was now to happen again. But the Ego was now farther from the spiritual world and nearer to the Earth, much more closely connected with the Earth than the Beings who had formerly guided Elijah. The transition leading to the amalgamation of the Buddha-stream with the Zarathustra-stream was now to be brought about.

Everything was to be rejuvenated. Thus it was the Nirmanakaya of Buddha which now stirred the Ego-force of John into activity, having the same effect as spiritual forces that had formerly worked upon Elijah. At certain times the being known as Elijah had been rapt in states of ecstasy; then the God spoke, filling his Ego with a force which could be communicated to the outer world. Now again a spiritual force was present — the Nirmanakaya of Buddha hovering above the head of the Nathan Jesus; this force worked upon Elisabeth when John was to be born, stimulated within her the embryo of John in the sixth month of pregnancy, and wakened the Ego. But being nearer to the Earth this force now worked as more than an inspiration; it had an actual formative effect upon the Ego of John. Under the influence of the visit of her who is there called ‘Mary’, the Ego of John the Baptist awoke into activity. The Nirmanakaya of Buddha was here working upon the Ego of the former Elijah — now the Ego of John the Baptist — wakening it and penetrating right into the physical substance.” ~Rudolf Steiner, from The Gospel of St. Luke

Caravaggio

“If we pass on to the sixth chapter of Mark we hear fully described how King Herod had John the Baptist beheaded. The tortured conscience of Herod arouses a strange foreboding in him. When he hears all that has occurred through Christ Jesus he says, “John, whom I beheaded, has been restored to life!” Herod feels that, though the physical personality of John had gone away, he is now all the more present! He feels that his atmosphere, his spirituality — which was none other than the spirituality of Elijah, is still there. His tormented conscience causes him to be aware that John the Baptist, that is, Elijah, is still there.

But then something strange happens. We are shown how, after John the Baptist had met his physical death, Christ Jesus came to the very neighborhood where John had worked. I want you to take particular notice of a remarkable passage and not to skim over it lightly, for the words of the Gospels are not written for rhetorical effect, nor journalistically. Something very significant is said here. Jesus Christ appears among the throng of followers and disciples of John the Baptist, and this fact is expressed in a sentence to which we must give careful attention: “And as Jesus came out He saw a great crowd,” by which could be meant only the disciples of John, “and He had compassion on them …” (Mark 6:34.) Why compassion? Because they had lost their master, they were there without John, whose headless corpse we are told had been carried to his grave. But even more precisely is it said, “for they were like sheep who had lost their shepherd. And He began to teach them many things.” It cannot be indicated any more clearly how He teaches John’s disciples. He teaches them because the spirit of Elijah, which is at the same time the spirit of John the Baptist, is still active among them. Thus it is again indicated with dramatic power in these significant passages of the Mark Gospel how the spirit of Christ Jesus entered into what had been prepared by the spirit of Elijah-John. Even so this is only one of the main points, around which many other significant things are grouped.

I will now call your attention to one thing more. I have several times pointed out how this spirit of Elijah or John continued to act in such a way as to impress its impulses into world history. I have often mentioned that the soul of Elijah-John appeared again in the painter Raphael. This is one of those facts that call attention to the metamorphoses of souls that take place under the impetus given by the Mystery of Golgotha. Because it was also necessary that in the post-Christian era such a soul should work in Raphael through the medium of a single personality; what in ancient times was so comprehensive and world encompassing now appears in such a different personality as that of Raphael. Can we not feel that the aura that hovered round Elijah-John is also present in Raphael? That in Raphael there were such similarities to these two others that we could even say that this element was too great to be able to enter into a single personality but hovered round it, so that the revelations received by this personality seemed like an illumination? Such was indeed the case with Raphael!” ~Rudolf Steiner, Gospel of Mark: Lecture 3

self portrait of Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino known as Raphael

“The truth is, my dear friends, this earthly personality of Raphael was completely yielded up and was only present through what Lazarus-John gave to this soul to be poured out into colour and line for all mankind.

Such was the life of this being. And it was so, that this Raphael life could only be, as it were, absolved in another life of thirty years — in Novalis. And so we see Raphael die young, Novalis die young — one being, who came forth from Elijah-John, appearing before mankind in two different forms, preparing through art and through poetry the true Michael mood of soul, sent down by the Michael stream as messenger to men on Earth.

And now we behold the wonderful artistic power of Raphael come to life again in Novalis in poetry that stirs and enraptures the hearts of men. All that through Raphael was given to human eyes to see, — of this could human hearts drink deep, when it came again in self portrait of Novalis.

When we consider the life of Novalis, what an echo we find there of the Raphael life for which Hermann Grimm had so fine an understanding! His beloved dies in her youth. He is himself still young. What is he going to do with his life now that she has died? He tells us himself. He says that his life on Earth will be henceforth to “die after her”, to follow her on the way of death. He wants to pass over already now into the super-sensible, to lead again the Raphael life, not touching the Earth, but living out in poetry his magic idealism. He would fain not let himself be touched by Earth life.

When we read the “Fragments” of Novalis, and give ourselves up to the life that flows so abundantly in them, we can discover the secret of the deep impression they make on us. Whatever we have before us in immediate sense-reality, whatever the eye can see and recognise as beautiful — all this, through the magic idealism that lives in the soul of Novalis, appears in his poetry with a well-nigh heavenly splendour. The meanest and simplest material thing — with the magic idealism of his poetry he can make it live again in all its spiritual light and glory.

And so we see in Novalis a radiant and splendid forerunner of that Michael stream which is now to lead you all, my dear friends, while you live; and then, after you have gone through the gate of death, you will find in the spiritual super-sensible worlds all those others — among them also the being of whom I have been speaking to you today — all those with whom you are to prepare the work that shall be accomplished at the end of the century, and that shall lead mankind past the great crisis in which it is involved”. ~ The Last Address given by Rudolf Steiner The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis, Dornach, Michaelmas Eve, 1924

Leonardo da Vinci

Goethe’s Birthday/Augustine’s Deathday

August 28, 2016Lecture, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul~hag

28 August 2016 – Astro-Weather: Sunrise-6:15am, Sunset-7:30pm.

You can tell that summer’s days are numbered: When darkness falls, Cassiopeia has risen about as high in the northeast as the Big Dipper has dropped in the northwest.

Also, with August nearing its end, you can say hello to the Double Cluster in Perseus without having to stay up late. After dark, find the tilted W of Cassiopeia partway up the northeastern sky. Note the two stars of its lower-left segment (the faint end of the W). With a dark enough sky you can even make them out with the unaided eye Look for two little irregular cotton puffs, touching each other & tilted diagonally, as a distinct enhancement of the background Milky Way.

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Nikolaos Gyzis

“What is to be the starting force and impulse for events in social and ethical life must come out of the spiritual world.” Rudolf Steiner, New Spiritual Impulses in History” Dornach 16 December, 1917

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Philippe de Champaigne

430 – Deathday of Saint Augustine an early Christian theologian & philosopher whose writings influenced the development of Western philosophy. Among his most important works are The City of God & Confessions.

In his early years, he was heavily influenced by Manichaeism & afterward by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. He “established anew the ancient Faith.” After his conversion to Christianity in 387, Augustine developed his own approach to philosophy & theology, believing that the grace of Christ was indispensable to human freedom.

He is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, the alleviation of sore eyes.

632 – Deathday of Fatimah, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad

1189 – The Third or Kings’ Crusade, was an attempt to reconquer the Holy Land. The campaign was largely successful, regaining the important cities of Acre & Jaffa, but it failed to capture Jerusalem, the emotional & spiritual motivation of the Crusade.

After the Crusaders had driven the Muslims from Acre, Richard the Lionheart finalized a treaty granting Muslim control over Jerusalem, but allowing unarmed Christian pilgrims & merchants to visit the city.

Goethe-Netz Michael Mathias Precht

1749 – Birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German author, poet, playwright, & diplomat. In 1888, as a result of his work for the Kürschner edition of Goethe’s works, Rudolf Steiner was invited to work as an editor at the Goethe archives in Weimar. As well as the introductions & commentaries to 4 volumes of Goethe’s scientific writings, Steiner wrote 2 books about Goethe’s philosophy: The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe’s World-Conception (1886), which Steiner regarded as the epistemological foundation & justification for his later work, & Goethe’s Conception of the World (1897). Steiner writes about Goethe in many of his lectures, including commentaries on his play Faust.

1833 – The Slavery Abolition Act through most of the British Empire

1850 – Wagner’s Lohengrin premieres at the German National Theatre, Weimar

1859 – The Carrington event, Solar Storm disrupts electrical telegraph services & causes aurora to shine so brightly that they are seen clearly all over the earth’s middle latitudes.

1862 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run

1943 – World War II: In Denmark, a general strike against the Nazi occupation

1957 – U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, an ardent segregationist, begins a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act

1963 – March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom: The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech

1968 – Riots in Chicago, during the Democratic National Convention

1988 – Ramstein air show disaster: Seventy-five are killed & 346 injured

1990 – Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province

1990 – An F5 tornado strikes the Illinois cities of Plainfield & Joliet, killing 29

1993 – The Galileo spacecraft discovers a moon, later named Dactyl, the first known asteroid moon

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Neil Hague

Calendar of the Soul Twenty-third Week [August 28, 2016 – September 03, 2016]

There dims in damp autumnal air

The senses’ luring magic;

The light’s revealing radiance

Is dulled by hazy veils of mist.

In distances around me I can see

The autumn’s winter sleep;

The summer’s life has yielded

Itself into my keeping. ~Rudolf Steiner

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Goethe and the Evolution of Consciousness, by Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, August 19th, 1921

“…As a young man Goethe necessarily grew up in the outlook of his contemporaries and in the way in which they regarded the world and the affairs of human beings. But he really did not feel at home in this world of thought. There was something turbulent about the young Goethe, but it was a turbulence of a special kind. We need only look at the poems he composed in his youth and we shall find that there was always a kind of inner opposition to what his contemporaries were thinking about the world and about life.

But at the same time there is something else in Goethe — a kind of appeal to what lives in Nature, saying something more enduring and conveying much more than the opinions of those around him could convey. Goethe appeals to the revelations of Nature rather than to the revelations of the human mind. And this was the real temper of his soul even when he was still a child, when he was studying at Leipzig, Strassburg and Frankfurt, and for the first period of his life at Weimar.

Think of him as a child with all the religious convictions of his contemporaries around him. He himself relates — and I have often drawn attention to this beautiful episode in Goethe’s early life — how as a boy of seven he built an altar by taking a music-stand and laying upon it specimens of minerals from his father’s collection; how he placed a taper on the top, lighting it by using a burning-glass to catch the rays of the sun, in order, as he says later — for at seven years he would not, of course, have spoken in this way — to bring an offering to the great God of Nature.

We see him growing beyond what those around him have to say, coming into a closer union with Nature, in whose arms he first of all seeks refuge. Read the works written by Goethe in his youth and you will find that they reveal just this attitude of mind. Then a great longing to go to Italy seizes him and his whole outlook changes in a most remarkable way.

We shall never understand Goethe unless we bear in mind the overwhelming change that came upon him in Italy. In letters to friends at Weimar he speaks of the works of art which conjure up before his soul the whole way in which the Greeks worked. He says: “I suspect that the Greeks proceeded according to those laws by which Nature herself proceeds, and of which I am on the track.” — At last Goethe is satisfied with an environment, an artistic environment enfilled with ideas much closer to Nature than those around him in his youth. And we see how in the course of his Italian journey the idea of metamorphosis arises from this mood of soul, how in Italy Goethe begins to see the transformation of leaf into petal in such a way that the thought of metamorphosis in the whole of Nature flashes up within him.

It is only now that Goethe finds a world in which his soul really feels at home. And, if we study all that he produced after that time, both as a poet and a scientist, it is borne in upon us that he was now living in a world of thought not easily intelligible to his contemporaries, nor indeed to the man of to-day.

Those who embark upon a study of Goethe equipped with the modern scholarship acquired in every kind of educational institution from the Elementary School to the University, and with habitual thought and outlook, will never understand him. For an inner change of mental outlook is essential if we are to realise what Goethe really had in his mind when, in Italy, he re-wrote Iphigenia in Greek metre, after having first composed it in the mood of the Germanic North. Nor is it possible to understand Goethe’s whole attitude to Faust until we realise the fundamental nature of the change that had taken place.

After he had been to Italy, Goethe really hated the first version of Faust which he had written earlier. After that journey he would never have been able to write the passage where Faust turns away from the

“… heavenly forces rising and descending, Their golden urns reciprocally lending,” where he turns his back upon the macrocosm, crying: “Thou, Spirit of the Earth art nearer to me.”

…And many other passages can be read in the same sense. Take, for instance, that wonderful treatise written in the year 1790, on the Metamorphosis of the Plants (Versuch, die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erkennen). We shall have to admit that before his journey to Italy Goethe could never have had at his command a language which seems to converse with the very growth and unfolding life of the plants. And this is an eloquent indication of the place of Goethe’s soul in the whole sweep of evolution. Goethe felt a stranger to the thought of his time the moment he was obliged inwardly to ‘digest’ the result of contemporary scientific education. He was always striving for a different kind of thinking, a different way of approaching the world, and he found it when he felt that he had brought to life within him the attitude of the Greeks to Nature, to the World, to Man…” http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19210819p01.html

Venus-Jupiter Conjunction

August 27, 2016Insight, Poetry, Remembering~hag

27 August 2016 – Astro-Weather:

Venus-Jupiter conjunction*. Starting about 20 minutes after sunset, look low above the horizon due west (left of where the Sun went down). The two planets will be less than ½° apart at the time of twilight for most of the world. That’s so close that you may need binoculars to see that they are two objects, not one!

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Fabrizio Cassetta

“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.” ~George Orwell

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

348 – Ulfilas devised the Gothic alphabet & translated the Bible from Greek into the Gothic language

410 – The sacking of Rome by the Visigoths ends after three days

1730 – Birthday of Johann Georg Hamann, ‘the Magnus of the North –A German philosopher, whose work was used by his student J. G. Herder as a main support of the Sturm und Drang movement. Goethe & Kierkegaard considered him to be the finest mind of his time

1770 – Birthday of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German philosopher of “absolute idealism” described a “Protestant Aquinas – the originator of the thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad along with Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Hegel has influenced many thinkers & writers- the philosophies of Marx & Nietzsche, phenomenology, German existentialism, & psychoanalysis

1813 – French Emperor Napoleon I defeats a larger force of Austrians, Russians, & Prussians at the Battle of Dresden

1832 – Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War

1859 – Petroleum is discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania leading to the world’s first commercially successful oil well

1881 – The Georgia hurricane makes landfall near Savannah, Georgia, resulting in an estimated 700 deaths

1883 – Eruption of Krakatoa: Four enormous explosions destroy the island of Krakatoa & cause years of climate change

1893 – The Sea Islands hurricane strikes the United States near Savannah, Georgia, killing an estimated 1,000-2,000 people

1916 – The Kingdom of Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary, entering World War I as one of the Allied nations

1924 – Introduction of the Michael sign by Rudolf Steiner after a breach of the mantras from the 1^st Class of the School of Spiritual Science in London

1942 – Sarny Massacre – the execution of 18,000 people mostly Jews, in the Nazi-occupied city of Sarny, then part of Poland, on August 27 – 28, 1942

1962 – The Mariner 2 unmanned space mission is launched to Venus by NASA

1963 – Deathday of W. E. B. Du Bois, American sociologist, historian, & activist

1975 – Deathday of Haile Selassie, Ethiopian emperor

1991 – Moldova declares independence from the USSR

2003 – Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years

2011 – Hurricane Irene strikes the United States east coast, killing 77 & causing an estimated $15.6 billion in damage

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Looking at my shadow against the curtain –

It moves as I do. It’s hands are mine

I clap them & stamp my feet

Making my shadow dance

Asking: Is the darkness all I have to fear?

~hag

***

Venus-Jupiter conjunction

It might seem odd to talk about the Star of Bethlehem during the month of August, instead of in December, when we recount the story of three wise men guided to the birthplace of the Matthew Jesus child, by a bright object in the sky.

There have been numerous possible ‘scientific’ explanations of what the Star of Bethlehem may have been. One of those proposed possibilities will play out in the night sky tonight after sundown (Aug. 27, 2016): an exceedingly close encounter between the two brightest planets, Venus & Jupiter.

Two planets coming this close together makes for a very striking sight.

It must be remembered that the Chaldeans who occupied Mesopotamia 2,000 years ago were astute observers of the night sky & were very familiar with the motions of the sun, moon & planets. They would never simply mistake something like the bright star Sirius or a bright planet as being something out of the ordinary. These ancient stargazers were much better acquainted with the stars & constellations than anyone in our 21st century world. But if something very rare took place in the sky, the ancient skywatchers would have noticed it immediately.

Tonight’s Venus-Jupiter encounter is one of those rare events, & something similar appeared in the sky more than 20 centuries ago.

Taken literally, the biblical account of the story of the Star of Bethlehem calls for not one, but two “stars.” One to be seen at the start of the Magi’s journey, while the other appearing to them upon their arrival in Bethlehem.

Interestingly, in August of 3 B.C., Venus & Jupiter were prominent in the predawn eastern sky, & on Aug. 12 B.C. they came within just 0.15 degrees of each other as seen from the Middle East. Incidentally, this sign would have been seen “in the east,” explaining the phrase in the Book of Matthew.

Ten months later, Venus & Jupiter got together again for an even more spectacular encore on June 17, 2 B.C., when at sundown from Babylonia they were separated by just 0.01 degrees, (just like tonight!!!) right above the western horizon as the sky grew dark.

The two planets could have appeared to coalesce into a single “star” somewhat brighter than Venus alone.

The fact that Jupiter & Venus had such a close conjunction at this time in history has led some people to theorize that it could be an explanation for the Star of Bethlehem. Not quite Astrosophy, but interesting none-the-less.

It certainly will be interesting to see what kind of spectacle Venus & Jupiter will offer this evening. Unfortunately, unlike 2,000 years ago, seeing the two planets will be a bit of a challenge. Skywatchers who wish to observe the event should make sure they have a clear view of the western horizon, with no tall obstructions, like trees or buildings, to block the view.

In other parts of the world, Venus & Jupiter will appear to come quite close to each other, though not quite as close as NY viewers will see them.

To appreciate just how often Venus & Jupiter come so close together, we have to go as far back as Nov. 14. 1660. Our next opportunity will come on the morning of Nov. 22, 2065, when Venus & Jupiter will be merged together as one brilliant singular point of light as they rise above the east-southeast horizon just before sunrise.

See you then

Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

One Who Shows the Way

August 26, 2016Uncategorized~hag

26 August 2016 – Astro-Weather: Venus & Jupiter have closed to only 1° apart, very low in the west after sunset. That’s less than a finger-width at arm’s length. Tomorrow they reach complete conjunction

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“To truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world.” Rudolf Steiner

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast day of Samuel, literally meaning “Name of God” in Hebrew, is a leader & Judge of ancient Israel. He is also known as a prophet & is mentioned in the second chapter of the Qur’an. Aa a seer, Samuel is associated with the bands of musical ecstatic roaming prophets.

Feast Day of Melchizedek, (“God most high”) Priest & king of Salem mentioned in the 14th chapter of the Book of Genesis. He brings out bread and wine & blesses Abram. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, he is depicted as being “Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” Jesus Christ is identified as “a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek”

“Even when some individual was to be the leader of a particular people he would be required to develop a measure of understanding for every human soul. This is indicated magnificently in the Old Testament in the passage describing the meeting between Abraham and Melchizedek, the priest of the Most High. Those who understand this passage know that Abraham, who was destined to become the leader of his people, underwent an Initiation at this time — even if not in full consciousness as is the case in later Initiations. Abraham’s Initiation was connected with realisation of the Divine element that can flow into all human souls. The passage which tells of the meeting of Abraham with Melchizedek contains a deep secret connected with the evolution of humanity. “~Rudolf Steiner, Between Death & Rebirth, Lecture 2

Feast Day of The Black Madonna of Częstochowa, The Virgin Mary is shown as the “Hodegetria” (“One Who Shows the Way“)The icon has been intimately associated with Poland for the past 600 years.

Its history prior to its arrival in Poland is shrouded in numerous legends which trace the icon’s origin to St. Luke who painted it on a cedar table top from the house of the Holy Family.

The same legend holds that the painting was discovered in Jerusalem in 326 by St. Helena, who brought it back to Constantinople & presented it to her son, Constantine the Great.

The legend concerning the two scars on the Black Madonna’s right cheek is that the Hussites stormed the Pauline monastery in 1430, plundering the sanctuary. Among the items stolen was the icon. After putting it in their wagon, the Hussites tried to get away but their horses refused to move. They threw the portrait down to the ground, as the robber struck the painting twice, the face of the Virgin Mary started to bleed; in a panic, the scared Hussites retreated & left the painting

Women’s Equality Day

1498 – Michelangelo is commissioned to carve the Pietà

1789 – The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is approved- directly influenced by Thomas Jefferson, working with General Lafayette. Also by the doctrine of “natural right“, held to be universal: valid at all times & in every place, pertaining to human nature itself. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by law. Inspired in part by the American Revolution, & also by the Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution & had a major impact on the development of freedom & democracy in Europe & worldwide

1791 – John Fitch is granted a United States patent for the steamboat

1795 – Deathday of Cagliostro, the alias of the occultist Giuseppe Balsamo, an Italian adventurer & self-styled magician. He became a glamorous figure associated with the royal courts of Europe where he pursued various occult arts, including psychic healing, alchemy & scrying. His reputation lingered for many decades after his death. Steiner called him an initiate.

1883 – Eruption of Krakatoa

1910 – Birthday of Mother Teresa

1914 – Rudolf Steiner meets Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the German General Staff, near Koblenz

1920 – The 19th amendment to United States Constitution takes effect, giving women the right to vote

1942 – The Holocaust in Chortkiv, western Ukraine, over 4000 die

1970 – The feminist movement, led by Betty Friedan, leads a nationwide Women’s Strike for Equality

1995 – Deathday of Daskalos, the Greek word for teacher, a Greek Cypriot mystic & healer. He set up the circle, “The Researchers of Truth.”

1999 – Russia begins the Second Chechen War

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My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~Standing in the obvious

Plunging my hands

Into the oblique angles

Of the obscure…

Any suggestions…?

~hag

***

Michelangelo

“In Michelangelo we have a spirit who helped human evolution on its way because he had a maturity of soul which enabled him to imprint on the world of space and matter significant facts from the spiritual world. He stood wholly in the great current of his times yet his own inmost quality was not fully understood. A friend once wrote to him that even the Pope feared him; and yet in his soul there lived all the greatness of Christian impulses which flowed into his work. While he felt himself at one with the great Christian impulses he yet lived at the dawn of a later epoch — closely though it was still connected with earlier ages. The content of older Christian impulses still affected his soul and out of that he created something which in its form and artistic method was already part of the ties in which we ourselves live. Hence comes the mood of the poem which he wrote — probably during his last days as he looked back over his life — and which makes it clear what our relation is to him, and how we should allow his influence over us to work:

Now hath my life across a stormy sea like a frail barque reached that wide port, where all are hidden, ere the final reckoning fall of good and evil for eternity.

Now know I well how that fond phantasy, which made my soul the worshipper and thrall of earthly art, is vain; how criminal is that which all men seek unwillingly.

Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed, what are they when the double death is nigh?

The one I know for sure, the other dread.

Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest my soul that turns to His great Love on high Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread. ~ Michelangelo

Michelangelo was a great poet also, and the poems of his which survive show the same spirit which we have found in his sculpture and painting. The last three lines of this sonnet make it clear that he could never be at ease in the world, and that was fundamentally true of him all his life. He was a sort of hybrid, still part of the old but already living within the new. This is particularly evident in that work which he carried out at the instigation of one of the Popes: the tombs of Giuliani and Lorenzo dei Medici.

Dawn & Dusk

Night & Day

In this chapel: the four allegorical figures, arranged two and two: Day and Night, Dawn and Dusk. I have often gazed at them; in fact they are one of the things which by a sort of spiritual compulsion I always look at longest when I have had the privilege of being in Florence. These figures are not mere allegories without force and without vitality. Use every means that Spiritual Science gives you to look at them and think about them; then if we remember that what anthroposophy calls the ego and the astral body leave the physical and etheric bodies at night, and if we ask ourselves what qualities and gesture of the etheric body we should select to represent plastically the truth which Spiritual Science tells us — how, that is, we should picture the physical body of the sleeping human being if we really feel him to be what Spiritual Science describes him as being — we know that he should be represented in the form which Michelangelo has given to “Night”. It is not just a symbol of night but the true spiritual reality of man as he really is in sleep which we have before us in this female figure. Thus Michelangelo, who knew so well how to set the figures in his works within the same space in which we ourselves stand, was also well aware what it means if the soul and spirit leaves man’s physical body but leave it with life still within it. If we also study the other individual members of the human being and then look at the other figures in the tomb, we shall see how closely they run parallel with what I once called spiritual chemistry.” ~Rudolf Steiner, Michelangelo, Berlin, 8th January, 1914

Dusk Night

Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom

August 25, 2016Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote~hag

25 August 2016 – Astro-Weather: During the middle of the day today, the last-quarter Moon occults Aldebaran. The orange star will wink out on the Moon’s bright edge, then reappear from behind the Moon’s invisible dark edge up to an hour or more later.

August is prime Milky Way time. After dark, the Milky Way runs from Sagittarius in the south, up & left across Aquila & through the Summer Triangle very high in the east, on down through Cassiopeia to Perseus rising low in the north-northeast.

***

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” ~H.G. Wells

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

79 – Deathday of Pliny the Elder, Roman commander & philosopher – died while attempting to rescue a friend from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Stabiae that had just destroyed the cities of Pompeii & Herculaneum. The prevailing wind caused by the sixth & largest pyroclastic surge of the eruption overcame his ship

El Greco

1270 – Deathday of Louis IX of France, the Crusader King, devoted to his people, founding hospitals, visiting the sick like his patron St. Francis, even caring for people with leprosy. Louis united France. Every day he invited 13 guests from among the poor to eat with him.

1530 – Birthday of Ivan the Terrible

1609 – Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to Venetian lawmakers

1744 – Birthday of Johann Gottfried Herder, German poet, philosopher, friend of Goethe

1814 – The U.S. Library of Congress was destroyed by British forces

1867 – Deathday of Michael Faraday, English physicist & chemist, who contributed to the study of electromagnetism. Albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his study wall, alongside pictures of Isaac Newton & James Clerk Physicist Ernest Rutherford stated, “When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and of industry, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Faraday, one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time”.

Eduard Munch

1900 – Deathday of Friedrich Nietzsche. Rudolf Steiner mentioned that in a previous life he was a Franciscan monk. Steiner also wrote: Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom GA5. The enigmatic Friedrich Nietzsche was seen by Steiner, but was lying in a coma near death. Nietzsche’s philosophy receives a scholarly & critical treatment & is then related to Nietzsche, the man.

At one point in his life, Rudolf Steiner brought out an edition of some of Nietzsche’s writings. In seeing that Nietzsche’s ideas received a public exposure, Steiner was not identifying himself as one of Nietzsche’s disciples, but rather assuring philosophical readers that this important link in the spiritual development of occidental thought should not be ignored.

Here is Steiner’s Memorial Address The Personality of Friedrich Nietzsche

1914 – World War I: The library of the Catholic University of Leuven is deliberately destroyed by the German Army. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes Gothic & Renaissance manuscripts are lost

1916 – The United States National Park Service is created

1933 – The Diexi earthquake strikes Sichuan, China & kills 9,000 people

1944 – World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies

1948 – The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing: “Confrontation Day” between Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss.

1950 – President Harry Truman orders the U.S. Army to seize control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike

1981 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn

1989 – Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Neptune

2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space becoming the first man-made object to do so

***

Hieronymus Bosch

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~To wrap mysteriously in memory

That Witch has been newly conceived,

Brings further meaning to my striving…

& growing stronger awakens

The power of Selfhood in my inward Being

For in Becoming –I give my Self to me, for you…

~hag

***

“In Zarathustra Nietzsche sketches the world for which he had searched in vain in Wagner, separated from all reality…The disappointment which his idealism had caused him, drove him into a hostile mood toward all idealism. During the time following his separation from Wagner, his works become accusations against ideals. “One error after another is placed upon ice; the ideal is not refuted — it freezes to death.”

After this Nietzsche looks for refuge in reality; he deepens himself in the more recent natural science, in order that through it he can gain a true guide to reality. All worlds beyond this world, which lead human beings away from reality, now become abominable, remote worlds for him, conceived out of the fantasy of weak human beings, who do not have sufficient strength to find their satisfaction in immediate, fresh existence. Natural science has placed the human being at the end of a purely natural evolution. Through the fact that the latter has conceived the human being out of itself, all that is below him has taken on a higher meaning. Therefore, man should not deny its significance and wish to make himself an image of something beyond this world. He should understand that he is not the meaning of a super-earthly power, but the “meaning of this earth.” What he wishes to attain above what exists, he should not strive for in enmity against what exists.

Nietzsche looks within reality itself for the germ of the higher, which is to make reality bearable…Humanity has the possibility to become superhumanity. Evolution has always been. The human being should also work at evolution. The laws of evolution are greater, more comprehensive than all that has already been developed. One should not only look upon that which exists, but one must go back to primeval forces which have engendered the real.

An ancient world conception questioned how “good and evil” came into the world. It believed that it had to go behind existence in order to discover “in the eternal” the reasons for “good and evil.” But with the “eternal,” with the “beyond,” Nietzsche had also to reject the “eternal” evaluation of “good and evil.” Man has come into existence through the natural; and “good and evil” have come into existence with him. The creation of mankind is “good and evil.” And deeper than the created is the creator. The “human being” stands “beyond good and evil.” He has made the one thing to be good, the other to be evil. He may not let himself be chained through his former “good and evil.” He can follow further the path of evolution which he has taken till now. From the worm he has become a human being; from man he can develop to the superman. He can create a new good and evil. He may “reevaluate” present day values.

Nietzsche was torn through his spiritual darkness. The evolution of the worm to the human being was the idea which he had gained from the more recent natural science. He himself did not become a scientist; he had adopted the idea of evolution from others. For them it was a matter of the intellect; for him it became a matter of the heart. The others waged a spiritual battle against all old prejudices. Nietzsche asked himself how he could live with the new idea. His battle took place entirely within his own soul. He needed the further development to the superman in order to be able to bear mankind.

Thus, by itself, in lonely heights, his sensitive spirit had to overcome the natural science which he had taken into himself. During his last creative period, Nietzsche tried to attain from reality itself what earlier he thought he could gain in illusion, in an ideal realm. Life is assigned a task which is firmly rooted in life, and yet leads over and above this life. In this immediate existence one cannot remain standing in real life, or in the life illuminated by natural science. In this life there also must be suffering. This remained Nietzsche’s opinion. The “superman” is also a means to make life bearable. All this points to the fact that Nietzsche was born to “suffer from existence.” His genius consisted in the searching for bases for consolation.

The struggle for world conceptions has often engendered martyrs. Nietzsche has produced no new ideas for a world conception. One will always recognize that his genius does not lie in the production of new ideas. But he suffered deeply because of the thoughts surrounding him. In compensation for this suffering he found the enraptured tones of his Zarathustra. He became the poet of the new world conception; the hymns in praise of the “superman” are the personal, the poetic reply to the problems and results of the more recent natural science.

All that the nineteenth century produced in ideas, would also have been produced without Nietzsche. In the eyes of the future he will not be considered an original philosopher, a founder of religions, or a prophet; for the future he will be a martyr of knowledge, who in poetry found words with which to express his suffering”.

~Rudolf Steiner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom, Part 4: The Personality of Friedrich Nietzsche, A Memorial Address

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Beheading John the Baptist

Goethe’s Birthday/Augustine’s Deathday

Venus-Jupiter Conjunction

One Who Shows the Way

Friedrich Nietzsche, Fighter for Freedom

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