This is traditionally the time when the herb St. John’ wort reaches its full potency & since it is a solar herb, it is used as a plant medicine to bring the power of the Sun to people who suffer from depression.

The wise women of old would place St. John’s Wort & other healing herbs around the home for protection as they dried;  They threw the stalks into the Midsummer bonfires, & when the coals had cooled down the ashes were mixed with water & sprinkled on the fields, the 4 corners of the home & the on the head & feet of the children.

Our herbs this year are stellar. I have already harvested tons of basil & sage, catmint & lemon grass, parsley & oregano…

Royal fern seeds gathered at Full Moon are said to make you invisible. Rub the blossoms on your eyelids to see the wee-folk, which will also make you wealthy & wise; but be sure & carry a bit of rue in your pocket or you might be ‘Pixie-led’. Can’t find the rue, then turn your clothes inside out & follow the old ‘Ley-Lines’, which will keep you from getting lost in faeiry land.

The ancient Druids celebrated the Summer-Tide as the Wedding of Heaven & Earth. The Goddess manifests as Mother Earth & the God, as the Sun King.

Can you feel this marriage within your own human/Divine nature?

Plant Spirits, Faeiry Folk, thank you for sharing your gifts – Continue to teach us how to live in harmony with the essence of your healing magic.

~hag

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

28 June 2023 – “Speaking with the Stars”

Feast of Saint Vitus, a Christian saint from Sicily. He died as a martyr during the persecution of Christians by co-ruling Roman Emperors Diocletian & Maximian in 303. Vitus is counted as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers of medieval Roman Catholicism. Saint Vitus’ Day is celebrated on 28 June on the Gregorian Calendar.

In the late Middle Ages, people in Germany & countries such as Latvia celebrated the feast of Vitus by dancing before his statue. This dancing became popular & the name “Saint Vitus Dance” was given to the neurological disorder Sydenham’s chorea. It also led to Vitus being considered the patron saint of dancers & of actors, comedians, dancers, of entertainers in general a& epileptics. He is also said to protect against lightning strikes, animal attacks & oversleeping.

1712 – Birthday of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher & polymath

1831 – Birthday of Joseph Joachim, Austrian violinist, composer, & conductor; friend of Herman Grimm.

1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria & his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo; this is the casus belli of World War I.

“…May I remind you — I have often mentioned it — that the death of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is one of those concealed events of the present day, despite all that occurred on the external physical plane. I have stressed especially that if the physical and spiritual worlds are taken together, then for them as a totality there was something present before the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that became different after that event. It does not matter in such cases what things look like in external maya! What occurs inwardly is the important thing. As I told you: What rose up as the soul of Franz Ferdinand into the spiritual worlds became a focal point for very strong, powerful forces, and much of what is now happening is connected with the very fact that a unique transition took place between life and so-called death, so that this soul became something quite different from what other souls become…

Seen quite externally, why was Franz Ferdinand rather important? He was important because in his being, in all his inclinations — you must take the external manifestation as a symbol of what lived within — he was the external expression of certain streams. In him there lived something which, if only it had been able to free itself, bore the deepest understanding for the individual development of the Slav peoples. You might indeed call him an intense friend of all that belongs to the Slavs. He understood — or perhaps I should say: something living in him of which he was not fully aware understood — what forms would be necessary for the social life of the Slavs if they were to develop as individual peoples…

There may be men here in Europe who, look upon the outbreak of the present war as being connected with the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Heir Apparent to the Throne. I do not say that this is untrue or that there is no truth in it, but on the basis of this event they can explain certain occurrences that they trace back to this murder of July 1914.

There may also be other persons who stress that, in a Western newspaper of January 1913, the statement appeared that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was to be murdered in the near future for the well-being of European humanity. What I mean to say is that we may go back as far as the actual murder, but we may also go back to the notice of it that appeared in a Western newspaper in January 1913.

It is also possible to go back to the murder of Jaures on the last evening before the war began — probably never entirely explained, as I recently suggested. But it is equally possible to go back to the same newspaper to which I just referred, which carried the statement in 1913 saying that if conditions in Europe should lead to war, Jaures would be the first to meet his death — You may consult a certain occult almanac that was sold for forty francs and find in the issue for 1913, which was printed, of course, in 1912, the statement that he who was expected to be the ruler in Austria would not be the ruler, but rather a younger man, whom people wouldn’t even now consider as the successor to the old Emperor Franz Josef. That was printed in a so-called occult almanac for 1913; printed, therefore, in the autumn of 1912. Moreover, in the same almanac for 1914, printed in 1913, the same remark was repeated because obviously the attempt on Emperor Franz Josef’s life had miscarried in 1913. When these things are seen more clearly, the connection will someday be discovered that exists between what actually happens externally and what is cooked up by hidden, dark sources. Many will recognize the threads that lead from public life into this or that brotherhood., and how stupid it is for other brotherhoods continually to declare that silence should be maintained regarding certain mystery truths. Such people may be as innocent as children, in spite of the fact that they may be old members of this or that brotherhood of Freemasons which lay claim to secret sources. Nevertheless, they further intensify the obscurity and darkness that is already present among human beings…” ~ Rudolf Steiner, THE KARMA OF VOCATION, GA 172, Lecture VII
19 November 1916, Dornach

1919 – The Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending the state of war between Germany & the Allies of World War I.

“…You all know that Woodrow Wilson’s “fourteen points” arrived at the dreadful chaotic point civilised life had entered. What were these fourteen points actually? They were basically nothing other than abstract principles of an unworldly man, a person who knew little about reality, who appeared in Versailles where he could actually have played an important role. This man who was a stranger to reality wanted to show the world how to get organised according to principles founded on intellectualism. One only had to experience with what inspiration civilised mankind hung on to these fourteen points, however with the exclusion of a large part of the central European population, they unfortunately also fell for these fourteen points after a short period of time…” ~Rudolf Steiner, THE IMPULSE FOR RENEWAL IN CULTURE AND SCIENCE
GA 81, lecture V. Anthroposophy and Social Science, 9 March 1922, Berlin

1950 – Korean War: Suspected sympathizers are executed in the Bodo League massacre.

1950 – Korean War: Packed with its own refugees fleeing Seoul & leaving their 5th Division stranded, South Korean forces blow up the Hangang Bridge in an attempt to slow North Korea’s offensive. The city falls later that day.

1950 –North Korean Army conducts the Seoul National University Hospital massacre. Over 900 doctors, nurses, patients & wounded soldiers, were killed. The Korean People’s Army shot or buried the people alive. The civilian victims alone numbered 1900.

1964 – Malcolm X forms the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

1969 – Stonewall riots begin in New York City, marking the start of the Gay Rights Movement.

~I am leaping forth
Ripping veils
Making naked the essential
Streaking light with sound
Tamping down the dirt
To make the circle round
& the Earth glad.
The Stars notice
When I sing
~hag