Category Archives: Celestial Event

SOL INVICTA

December 21, 2016Celestial Event, Insight, Meditation, Poetry, Quote, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars, Winter~hag

21 December 2016 – Astro-Weather: The Ursid meteor shower peaks tonight. The shower’s radiant — the point from which the meteors appear to originate — lies in the constellation Ursa Minor, near the Little Dipper’s bowl. The radiant is visible in the north all night, but it climbs higher as dawn approaches. The waning crescent Moon won’t interfere much after it rises around 2 am tomorrow morning, though your best views likely will come between 11 pm & 1am. Observers with clear skies should be able to see 5 to 10 Ursid meteors per hour.

Earth’s Winter Solstice occurs at 6:44 am CST. At that moment, the Sun reaches its farthest point south in the sky. The solstice marks the official beginning of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, & tonight has more hours of darkness than any other. From mid-northern latitudes, however, the earliest sunset occurred about two weeks ago & the latest sunrise won’t happen until early January.

Step out at the beginning of dawn Thursday morning the 22nd, & high in the south you’ll find Jupiter, fainter Spica, & the waning crescent Moon in a line.

“When we look up to the wonder of the starry world, when we contemplate the whole process of the universe with its glories and marvels, then we are led at last to the feeling that all the glory that lies open to our view in the whole universe that surrounds us only has meaning when it is reflected in an admiring human soul.” ~Goethe

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

Triumphant in man’s deepest soul
Lives the Spirit of the Sun;
Quickened forces, set astir,
Awake the feelings to His presence
In the inner winter life.
Hope, impulse of the heart,
Beholds the Spirit victory of the Sun
In the blessed Light of Christmas,
The sign of highest life
In the winter’s deepest night. ~Rudolf Steiner

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

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

Winter Solstice or Yule

The O Antiphons, also known as The great Os are Magnificat antiphons used at Vespers of the last seven days of Advent in Western Christian traditions. The importance of the “O Antiphons” is twofold. First, each one is a title for the Messiah. Secondly, each one refers to the prophecy of Isaiah of the coming of the Messiah.

O Oriens – The Dawn Breaking, the Light of the World (A literal translation of the Latin yields “O Rising Sun”, but the poetic “O Morning Star” or “O Dayspring” is often preferred)

O Oriens,
splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae:
veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Morning Star,
splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:
Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Isaiah had prophesied: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.” ~Isaiah 9:2

Blue Christmas, also called the Longest Night in the Western Christian tradition, is a day in the Advent season marking the longest night of the year. On this day, some churches hold a church service that honors people who have lost loved ones in that year. There is an interesting convergence for this day as it is also the traditional feast day for Saint Thomas the Apostle. This linkage invites making some connections between Thomas’s struggle to believe the tale of Jesus’ resurrection, the long nights just before Christmas, & the struggle with darkness & grief faced by those living with loss

Caravaggio

72 – Deathday of Thomas the Apostle, called Didymus which means “the twin” one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, according to the New Testament. He is informally called doubting Thomas because he doubted Jesus’ resurrection when first told (in the Gospel of John account), followed later by his confession of faith, “My Lord and my God“, on seeing Jesus’ wounds.

Traditional legend written centuries later claim he travelled outside the Roman Empire to preach the Gospel, travelling as far as Tamil Nadu & Kerala in present-day India. According to tradition, he baptized many people, founding what today is known as Saint Thomas Christians or Nasranis. After his death, the relics of Saint Thomas the Apostle were enshrined as far as Mesopotamia in the 3rd century. In 1258, some of the relics were brought to Abruzzo in Ortona, Italy, where they have been held in the Church of Saint Thomas the Apostle. He is often regarded as the Patron Saint of India, & the name Thoma remains quite popular among Christians in India

1804 – Birthday of Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

1907 – The Chilean Army commits a massacre of at least 2,000 striking saltpeter miners in Iquique, Chile.

1910 – An underground explosion at the Hulton Bank Colliery No. 3 Pit in Over Hulton, Westhoughton, England, kills 344 miners.

1913 – Arthur Wynne’s “word-cross“, the first crossword puzzle, is published

1919 – American anarchist Emma Goldman is deported to Russia

1940 – Deathday of F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist & short story writer

1945 – Deathday of George S. Patton, American general

1946 – An 8.1 Mw earthquake & subsequent tsunami in Nankaidō, Japan, kills over 1,300 people & destroys over 38,000 homes

1963 –”Bloody Christmas” begins in Cyprus, resulting in the displacement of 25,000-30,000 Turkish Cypriots & destruction of more than 100 villages

1967 – Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a heart transplant, dies in Cape Town, South Africa, having lived for 18 days after the transplant

1968 –Apollo 8 is launched placing its crew on a lunar trajectory for the first visit to another celestial body by humans

1973 – The Geneva Conference on the Arab–Israeli conflict opens

1988 – A bomb explodes on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270

1992 – A Dutch DC-10, flight Martinair MP 495, crashes at Faro Airport, killing 156

1994 – Mexican volcano Popocatépetl, dormant for 47 years, erupts

2004 – Iraq War: A suicide bomber killed 22 at the base next to the main U.S. military airfield, the single deadliest suicide attack on American soldiers

***

SOL INVICTA { THE FEAST OF THE UNCONQUERED SUN }

THE BREATH OF NATURE IS SUSPENDED
IN THE VAST & HOLY NIGHT
WE WAIT WHILE WITHIN
THE DARK KING IS TRANSFORMED
INTO THE INFANT LIGHT

THE MOTHER
SLUMBERING THRU THE WINTER OF HER LABOR ABIDES…
HER COLD VELVET CHAOS
INDUCING THE IMMACULATE PROMISE OF LIGHT

HER BODY IS SALT
SAVOR ITS PATIENT SONG OF DEATH IN LIFE
PLUNGE INTO HER DORMANT SERUM
& RISE WITH THE MIDNIGHT SUN

PAY YOUR PENNY –
RECONCILED PROCEED –
COMMENCE THE JOURNEY STEEP
OF THE CARDINAL EARTH
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
IN ADVENT DEEP
WE ARE AWAKE IN THE NIGHT
TO FEAST ON CAKES OF CARAWAY SOAKED IN CIDER…
PASS THE SPARK TO THE NEW WISHING LOG
FOR THE ALL NIGHT VIGIL
FIRE OAK ROOTS IN A CIRCLE
LET THEM BURN UNTIL DAWN

THE HUSHED CENTER THICK AS FRUITCAKE
& THE EVERGREEN CIRCUMFERENCE
A LIGHTED WREATH – ARE ONE – FOR ALL

A STATE VAST ENOUGH & STILL ENOUGH
TO ALLOW THE POWER OF LOVE
TO RETURN AT LAST

LET THE TANG OF JUNIPER & HOLLY
SHOUT WITH INCENSE TO THE COMFORTER
& THE BELLS RING OUT THE WORD –

‘THE KING IS DEAD LONG LIVE THE KING’
WE CALL OUT EMMANUEL –
SHEPHERDS QUAKE & SERAPHIM SING
FOLLOWING THE STAR THAT SHOWS US THE HOMELESS AVATAR
OUR WINTER BORN KING

EAT PHOSPHORUS WITH THE IVY GIRLS –
AMULET SPRIGS ABOVE THE PORTALS –
TRANSMIT THE RIDDLE OF MISTLETOE WITH WASSAIL KISSES –
& PASS THRU THE GATE OF YULE-TIDE
TO SUCCEED THE ZENITH & CALL THE SUN RISE
IN CRIMSON SASH & CANDLED CROWN
WITH LUCY BRIDE
SHE DANCES THE SILENT SPACE
WITH OPEN HANDS
TO SPIN THE WHEEL THROUGHOUT THE LONGEST NIGHT
SINGING ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY’ SWEET SUN KING
SOON TO REVEAL LOVES PURE LIGHT

IN THE VAST & HOLY DARK
THE VAST & HOLY DARK
THE VAST & HOLY DARK
SOON TO REVEAL
LOVES PURE LIGHT

IN THE VAST & HOLY DARK
THE VAST & HOLY DARK
THE VAST
& HOLY
NIGHT
~hag

***

Entering into the Longest Night
Entering into the Birth of Light
Consecrating the expected Nativity
Of a New Solar Year
In Yule-Tide Exultation
In the light of Transformation…

The battle between old & new – Dark & Light…The winter solstice is the dark before the dawn, a time of renewal, giving us the most primordial myths of humankind: In Old Norse mythology, the Sun goddess was swallowed up by the wolf of darkness, but was reborn as her daughter, the maiden goddess of the underworld, who rose again to illumine the world. In Greece & Rome, midwinter marked the birth of gods, such as Mithras & Dionysus, who died & journeyed into the underworld, winning gifts for humankind before their miraculous rebirth. We must honor the dark before calling in the light.

The esoteric meaning of this time of year can be gleaned from the ancient mystery schools. In the Hellenistic world, initiates into the Mysteries of Isis had to undergo a ceremony of death & rebirth in which they entered the underworld to gaze upon the “sun at midnight.” This ceremony, which had its origins in ancient Egypt, speaks of the journey of the soul into the fecund depths of the subconscious mind, where we meet the Guardian at the gate, which opens to the dark sea of spirit from which all creation comes forth, purified & born anew.

To this day people gather at sacred sites as far apart as Newgrange in Ireland & the temple of Karnak in Egypt, to celebrate the miracle of the sun’s return at the darkest time of the year – In the pitch-black sanctuaries of caves & earth chambers, to wait for the birth of new light & life.

Of course when we strive to walk the modern path of initiation, working the 6 basic exercises every day, we don’t wait for the outward sun to shine, we must labor to give birth to the light within, for ourselves.

At a time when the fate of our planet & all her creatures hangs in the balance, let each of us journey down into the cave of the soul to drink from the secret well of wisdom & find the hidden flame within the dark — then return bearing our own unique gift of Light for the world.

The gift of the light (Gesture: Both hands scoop up light & bring it to your heart)
We thankfully take, But nothing may be, Just alone for our sake.
The more we give light (Hands move outward) The one to the other
It shines & spreads life (Arms move out horizontally, spreading light)
Growing still further,
Till every spark is set aflame. (Right hand in front of chest shows the proof of a flame.)
Till every heart, Joy shall proclaim. (Eurythmy Ah — arms up, palms upward)

May the cave of your heart be ever bright –

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

The Feast Day of St. Michael & All the Heavenly Hosts

September 29, 2016Autumn, Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Lecture, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

29 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: The Moon has one final hurrah this morning before it disappears into the Sun’s glare. The waning crescent, now just 2 percent lit, slides below Mercury. The pair rises nearly 90 minutes before the Sun & climbs above the horizon 45 minutes ahead of sunrise.

Any clear evening this week is a good time to explore the constellation Sagittarius the Archer. This star group lies just west of due south around 7pm CDT time, near the time twilight ends. The brightest stars within the constellation form a distinctive asterism in the shape of a teapot. The central regions of the Milky Way pass through Sagittarius.

***

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” ~Mark Twain

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

The Feast Day of St. Michael & All the Heavenly Hosts, also called MICHAELMAS

1227 – Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, is excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for his failure to participate in the Crusades. A man of extraordinary culture, energy, & ability Frederick II was called stupor mundi (the wonder of the world), by Nietzsche, also the first European, the first modern ruler – by many historians, Frederick established in Sicily & southern Italy a modern, centrally governed kingdom with an efficient bureaucracy.

He was aKing of Germany, of Italy, & Burgundy. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage & his connection with the Sixth Crusade.

He was frequently at war with the Papacy, hemmed in between Frederick’s lands in northern Italy & his Kingdom of Sicily (the Regno) to the south. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to call him an Antichrist.

Speaking six languages (Latin, Sicilian, German, French, Greek & Arabic, Frederick was an avid patron of science & the arts. He played a major role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. His Sicilian royal court in Palermo, saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature & on what was to become the modern Italian language.

He was also the first king who explicitly outlawed trials by ordeal as they were considered irrational.

Caravaggio

1571 – Birthday of Caravaggio, Italian painter

1717 – An earthquake strikes Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city’s architecture & making authorities consider moving the capital to a different city

1789 – The United States Department of War first establishes a regular army with a strength of several hundred men

1789 – The 1st United States Congress adjourns

1812- Birthday of Caspar Hauser, grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Theories link him with the grand ducal House of BadenThese claims, & his subsequent death by stabbing, sparked much debate & controversy.

“…It was the case of that human being, so enigmatic for many people, who was once placed into this city in a mysterious way, and who in just as mysterious a way met his death in Ansbach. An author, in order to indicate the mystery of his life, wrote that as he was carried out to burial the sun was setting on the one horizon and the moon was rising on the other. I speak, as you know, of Caspar Hauser. If you disregard all the pros and cons that have been asserted, if you look only at what has been fully verified, you will know that this foundling — who was one day simply there in the street, and who since he did not know whence he came, was called the Child of Europe — could neither read nor write when he was found. At an age of twenty years he possessed nothing of what is gained through the intellect but he had a remarkable memory. As they began to instruct him, as logic entered his soul, his memory disappeared. This transition in consciousness was accompanied by something else. He possessed at first an incredible, an entirely inborn truthfulness and it was precisely in this truthfulness that he went more and more astray. The more he nibbled, so to say, at intellectuality, the more it vanished. There would be many things to study were we to enter deeply into this human soul which had been artificially held back. It is not difficult for the student of Spiritual Science to credit the popular tradition, so unacceptable to the learned people of to-day, which relates that while Caspar Hauser still knew nothing, while he still had no idea that there were beings besides himself of different form, he exercised a remarkable effect upon quite savage creatures. Savage animals humbled themselves and became mild, something streamed from him that made such beasts gentle, although they savagely attacked anyone else. We could in fact penetrate deeply into the soul of this remarkable personality, so enigmatic to many, and you would see how things that cannot be explained from ordinary life are led back through Spiritual Science to spiritual facts. Such facts cannot be learnt by speculation but only by spiritual observation, though they are comprehensible to an unbiased and logical thinking.

All this has only been said in order to show you that the modern consciousness has evolved from another, an age-old-state when man was not in direct touch with outer objects in the modern sense, but on the other hand was in connection with facts and beings of the spiritual world.” ~Rudolf Steiner, The Apocalypse of St. John, Spiritual Science — The Gospel — The Future of Mankind

1885 – The first public electric tramway in the world is opened in Blackpool, England

1902 – Deathday of Émile Zola a French novelist, playwright, journalist, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, & an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France & in the exoneration of the falsely accused & convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J’accuse. Zola was nominated for the first & second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 & 1902. His death from carbon monoxide poisoning is suspected to have been murder

1924 – Ludwig Polzer holds his 1^st First Class Lesson

1954 – The convention establishing CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is signed

1957 – Twenty MCi) of radioactive material is released in an explosion at the Soviet Mayak nuclear plant at Chelyabinsk

1981 – Deathday of Adolf Arenson, German composer & Anthroposopher. Arenson editied many of Rudolf Steiner’s works, & composed the music for many of the plays & productions. Steiner mentions him at the end of Wonders of the World lecture 1

2008 – Following the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers & Washington Mutual, The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in its history

2009 – The 8.1 Mw Samoa earthquake strikes with a maximum Mercalli intensity. A destructive tsunami follows, leaving 189 dead & hundreds injured.

2013 – Over 42 people are killed by members of Boko Haram at the College of Agriculture in Gujba, Nigeria

***

St. Michael’s Harvest Song

In autumn comes Saint Michael with sword and with shield
Passes over meadow and orchard and field.
He’s on the path to battle ‘gainst darkness and strife –
He is the heavenly warrior protector of life.

***

Liane Collot D ‘ herbois

Human consciousness is ever evolving. The Zeitgeist is flavored by the various attributes of the 7 Archangels who take turns ruling a portion of the epoch. In 1879 Michael became the Time Spirit of our age. When he was last up, he ruled the Hebrew folk as they were preparing the vessel for the Christ Being to enter a human form. Back then he held the countenance of Jehovah, the god of the Hebrew people.

At the ‘Turning point of Time’ Michael got a promotion to become an Archai & took on the countenance of The Christ.

In 1899 the Kali Yuga ended & the gates to the spiritual world were opened once again. Around that time, at the end of the 19^th century, the fixed date of September 29th came to be called: The Feast Day of St. Michael & All the Heavenly Hosts. The old legends would always preface the famous story of the battle against the dragon, with an enumeration of the 9 angelic realms, with Michael standing before us as the King & herald of all the hierarchies.

And so as we strive to create the festival of the future, which we call Michaelmas, we are invited to stand in balance between the light & the dark, around this time of the equinox, to look back to the fruits of the past, & to prepare by looking to what is coming toward us from the future.

To look where we have been & to where we are going. To contemplate the angelic choirs – that we may look to our future selves – that we may think, here & now, that step by step, we can courageously build our own strong & steady rung on the ladder of evolution, teaching us to count the human being as the 10th hierarchy. It is to this that the mighty sun-being Michael directs our gaze; which we must in turn direct to the world of nature – Replacing dead sense-bound thinking, represented by the Dragon, with Imaginative Cognition, (to reclaim the Cosmic intelligence) living heart-thinking, fostered by Michael, to reveal the Living Christ, as the fundamental force of the Universe.

I will publish the full notes to the lecture I will give at tomorrow’s Chicago Michaelmas Festival, over the next week.

May Michael fortify our “I” & strengthen our Will, giving us the courage to find the Spirit behind the living Cosmos.

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

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

Optional Community Potluck Dinner 5pm – 6:45pm at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Heart-Thinking: Michael Beckoning

7pm – The Midwest Eurythmy Group will perform the Michaelmas Verse from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul

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

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

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

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.

$10 Donation & Snacks to Share Encouraged

For more info. Contact Festivals Coordinator Hazel Archer Ginsberg Hazel@ReverseRitual.com

Forge me with fire, a sword for my smiting

September 28, 2016Autumn, Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Lecture, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

28 September 2016 – Astro-weather: Mercury is now in the midst of its finest morning apparition of 2016. The planet reaches greatest elongation today, lying west of the Sun & appearing high in the east 45 minutes before sunrise.

Mars continues to put on a nice show these September evenings. The Red Planet appears high in the south-southwest in early evening. Mars lies among the background stars of western Sagittarius. And this evening, it slides south of the massive star-forming region known as the Lagoon Nebula (M8)

As dawn brightens Thursday morning the 29th, look for a super-thin crescent Moon near Mercury very low in the east.

***

“God is an intelligible sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere”. ~Alanus ab Insulis

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

551 BC – Birthday of Confucius, Chinese teacher, editor, politician, & philosopher of the Spring &Autumn period of Chinese history

1203 – Deathday of Alanus ab Insulis, Theologian, poet, teacher at Chartres. Alan’s philosophy was a sort of mixture of Aristotelian logic and Neoplatonic philosophy. The Platonist seemed to outweigh the Aristotelian in Alan, but he felt strongly that the divine is all intelligibility and argued this notion through much Aristotelian logic combined with Pythagorean mathematic

“Do not hold as gold all that shines as gold”

In the Anticlaudianus he sums up as follows: Reason, guided by prudence, can unaided discover most of the truths of the physical order; for the apprehension of religious truths it must trust to faith. This rule is completed in his treatise, Ars catholicae fidei, as follows: Theology itself may be demonstrated by reason. Alainus even ventures an immediate application of this principle, & tries to prove geometrically the dogmas defined in the Creed

Giovanni Segantini

1899 – Deathday of Giovanni Segantini,an Italian painter known for his large pastoral landscapes of the Alps. He was one of the most famous artists in Europe in the late 19th century. In later life he combined a Divisionist painting style with Symbolist images of nature. He was active in Switzerland for most of his life.

1924 – Rudolf Steiner gave his Last Address in Dornach GA 238 The Individuality of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis with the Michael Meditation:

Springing from Powers of the Sun,

Radiant Spirit-powers, blessing all Worlds!

For Michael’s garment of rays

Ye are predestined by Thought Divine.

He, the Christ-messenger, revealeth in you —

Bearing mankind aloft — the sacred Will of Worlds.

Ye, the radiant Beings of Aether-Worlds,

Bear the Christ-Word to Man.

Thus shall the Heralds of Christ appear

To the thirstily waiting souls,

To whom your Word of Light shines forth

In cosmic age of Spirit-Man.

Ye, the disciples of Spirit-Knowledge,

Take Michael’s Wisdom beckoning,

Take the Word of Love of the Will of Worlds

Into your soul’s aspiring, a c t i v e l y !

1978 – Deathday of Pope John Paul I, born Albino Luciani, served as Pope until his sudden suspicious death 33 days later. His reign is among the shortest in papal history.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

***

Katlyn Breene

~Flowing from the living waters

The cosmic fount foams up

To moisten my mind’s eye with salt & sulphur,

Forming a mercurial lachrymation

Beading brilliant, Mixing & Pooling

The cosmic iron in my blood scintillating slowly

Within the shining spark of thinking

A way to read intrinsic meaning into being…

The writing is on the wall my friend

Add your etching to enhance

The conscious conversation & Be

Heard…

~hag

***

Forge me with fire, a sword for my smiting

Fright to my foes and flames for my fighting

Shape me a shield forceful and fierce

Stalwart and shapely to fend against fears

Strike me a spear of speed as a shaft

Fearless to fly as a shot to the start

Staunch be my front against fury assailed

Strong be my soul where the feeble have failed

***

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

Optional Community Potluck Dinner 5pm – 6:45pm at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Heart-Thinking: Michael Beckoning

7pm – The Midwest Eurythmy Group will perform the Michaelmas Verse from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul

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

Copper Rod Eurythmy: ALL

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 GinsbergHazel@ReverseRitual.com

Tie the Key onto the Kite

September 23, 2016Autumn, Celestial Event, Chicago Event, Festival, Insight, Lecture, Poetry, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

23 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: The starry W of Cassiopeia stands high in the northeast after dark. The right-hand side of the W (the brightest side) is tilted up. Look along the second segment of the W counting down from the top. Notice the dim naked-eye stars along there- The one on the right is Eta Cassiopeiae. The “one” on the left, fainter pair: Upsilon1 & Upsilon2 Cassiopeiae.

Last-quarter Moon (exact at 4:56 am CDT). The Moon rises around midnight. Once it’s fairly well up you’ll see that it’s in Gemini, with Castor & Pollux to its left. Orion is much farther to its right, north of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse.

***

“A generation which ignores history has no past — and no future.” ~Robert A. Heinlein

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

63 BC – Birthday of Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire & its first Emperor. Augustus’ reign laid the foundations of a regime that lasted for nearly fifteen hundred years through the ultimate decline of the Western Roman Empire & until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. Both his adoptive surname, Caesar, & his title Augustus became the permanent titles of the rulers of the Roman Empire for fourteen centuries after his death. The cult of Divus Augustus continued until the state religion of the Empire was changed to Christianity in 391

1193 – Deathday of Robert de Sablé, French knight, the eleventh Grand Master of the Knights Templar & Lord of Cyprus

1338 – The Battle of Arnemuiden was the first naval battle of the Hundred Years’ War & the first naval battle using artillery, as the English ship Christopher had three cannon & one hand gun.

1409 – Battle of Kherlen, the second significant victory over Ming dynasty China by the Mongols since 1368.

1459 – Battle of Blore Heath, the first major battle of the English War of the Roses, takes place.

1641 – The Merchant Royal, carrying a treasure of over 100,000 pounds of gold (worth over £1 billion today), is lost at sea off Land’s End.

1779 – American Revolution: John Paul Jones on board the USS Bonhomme Richard wins the Battle of Flamborough Head.

1846 – Astronomers Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, John Couch Adams & Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune

1909 – The Phantom of the Opera (original title: Le Fantôme de l’Opéra), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, is first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois.

1911 – Pilot Earle Ovington makes the first official airmail delivery in America under the authority of the United States Post Office Department

1913 – Roland Garros of France becomes the first to fly in an airplane across the Mediterranean (from St. Raphael France to Bizerte, Tunisia)

1930 – Birthday of Ray Charles, American singer-songwriter, pianist, (d. 2004)

1939 – Deathday of Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist & psychiatrist

1943 – World War II: The Nazi puppet state known as the Italian Social Republic is founded.

caccioppoli

1968 – Deathday of Padre Pio, a Franciscan friar, priest, stigmatist, & mystic. On September 20, 1918, while hearing confessions, Padre Pio had his first occurrence of the stigmata. This phenomenon continued for fifty years, until the end of his life. The blood flowing from the stigmata smelled of perfume or flowers: the odour of sanctity.

People who had started rebuilding their lives after World War I, began to see in Padre Pio a symbol of hope. Those close to him attest that he began to manifest several spiritual gifts, including the gifts of healing, bilocation, levitation, prophecy, miracles, extraordinary abstinence from both sleep & nourishment, the ability to read hearts, the gift of tongues, the gift of conversions.

At the time of Padre Pio’s death, his body appeared unwounded, with no sign of scarring. Doctors who examined his body found it empty of all blood.

1973 – Deathday of Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet & diplomat, Nobel Prize laureate

1983 – Gulf Air Flight 771 is destroyed by a bomb, killing all 117 people on board.

2004 – Over 3,000 people die in Haiti after Hurricane Jeanne produces massive flooding & mudslides.

***

~I Am

A book without a cover

The Queen of Chaos on tippy-toes…

Dreaming of procrastination

I tie

The key onto the kite…

To gather

Earth crammed with heaven

My 4 winds fold-in

Mountain dwellers from far & wide

Grass weavers, potters, & music makers…

I watch

Black earth & red earth join in a buckle of sky

As Hermes teaches me to be

Direct…

~hag

***

MICHAELMAS AND THE SOUL-FORCES OF MAN by RUDOLF STEINER

Summary by Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Lecture 3. The sun circles – The Druid and the Mithras Mysteries; Observation of the sun yielded knowledge of the connection between heaven and earth. The great language of the heavens was deciphered, and then applied to earthly things.

Through the heart organization the course of nature was perceived within the human being, and through the heart science the spirit of the sun’s annual passage through the zodiac was studied. In this way initiates read in the heavens what was to be done on earth.

“…the human heart is really a subconscious sense organ.”

This was taught in the Mithras Cult.

“…The disciple was taught to perceive the course of the seasons within himself by means of his heart organization.

the heart-science of the old Mithras pupils; what they really studied when they looked at themselves through their heart was the spirit of the sun’s annual passage through the zodiac. In this way the human being experienced themself as a higher being, riding on his lower nature; (the Bull) and therefore it was fitting that the cosmos should be arranged in a circle around him; in this manner cosmic spirituality was experienced.

“…A spirit of reverence for the ancient cultures pervades us when we see deeper into them and work to rediscover, how to apply this heart-science now.

Steiner talks in lecture 3 about the relationship between the various phases of the moon and the weather. “…looked at in a spiritual-scientific way the moon presents itself as a sort of fortress in the cosmos. From the outside, not only the light-rays of the sun but all the external effects of the universe are reflected by the moon down to the earth; but in the interior of the moon there is a complete world that nowadays can be reached only by ascending, to the spirit world.”

“…higher beings who occupied etheric bodies only, and whose instruction was imparted to human beings as though inoculating the etheric body with higher wisdom.”

“…it was simply a case of his having to breathe and of his blood circulating in him; and it was in his circulation that he willed.”

We know now that what the individual planets tell us provides the vowels of the world-script; and all that forms around the vowels when the planets pass the constellations of the zodiac gives us the consonants.

This kind of Cosmic experience leads us to participation in the cosmos; in this way we can achieve a spiritualized instinct for the meaning of the seasons with which our organic life as well as our social life is interwoven — an instinct for the different ways in which the earth stands to the cosmos while on its way from spring to summer, and again from summer through autumn into winter. Celebrating festivals that have social significance, in the same way that the forces of nature, through our physical organization, make us one with our breathing & circulation.

“…As the blood circulation inside us is essential for our existence, the circulation of the elemental beings between earth and the heavens is indispensable for us as well.”

We dig deeper, with more Michaelmas tomorrow

Until soon ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

***

Michaelmas Festival: 7pm –9pm Friday, 30 September, 2016 – Optional Potluck Dinner 5:30pm at The Rudolf Steiner Branch 4249 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago

Heart-Thinking: Michael Beckoning

7pm – The Midwest Eurythmy Group will perform the Michaelmas Verse from Rudolf Steiner’s Calendar of the Soul

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

Copper Rod Eurythmy: ALL

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 GinsbergHazel@ReverseRitual.com

We begin our journey, like Persephone, into the dark

September 22, 2016Autumn, Celestial Event, Insight, Poetry, Quote, Remembering, Rudolf Steiner Quote, Soul to Soul, Speaking with the Stars~hag

22 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: Autumn begins in the Northern Hemisphere, & Spring in the Southern Hemisphere, at the Equinox – 9:21am CDT. This is when the Sun crosses the equator heading south for the season

Our Day-star rises due east & sets due west today. Equinox” comes from the Latin words “equi” meaning “equal” & “nox” meaning “night.” This implies that there will be equal amounts of daylight & darkness, however that is not exactly the case

If the Sun were a point of light & Earth had no atmosphere, everyone would get 12 hours of sunlight & 12 hours of darkness. But the presence of air & the finite size of our star make today 8 minutes longer than 12 hours. This year, the sun will rise at 6:38am CDT on the equinox & will set at 6:47pm

Exactly equal day & night won’t happen until September 25 with sunrise as 6:42 am CDT & sunset at 6:42 pm CDT. This day is known as the Equilux! -“Lux” being Latin for light.

Also, every year when summer turns to fall, Deneb takes over from brighter Vega as the zenith star around the time when twilight fades into night

***

Audrey Hamel

“What is to be the starting force & impulse for events in social & 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

Lectures by Rudolf Steiner on this date

1452 – Birthday of Savonarola, an Italian Dominican friar, prophet & preacher active in Renaissance Florence. He was known for his prophecies of civic glory, the destruction of secular art & culture, & his calls for Christian renewal. He denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule & the exploitation of the poor.

While Savonarola intervened with the French king, the Florentines expelled the ruling Medici &, at the friar’s urging, established a “popular” republic, declaring that Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the world center of Christianity.

When Florence refused to join Pope Alexander VI’s Holy League against the French, the Vatican summoned Savonarola to Rome. He disobeyed & further defied the pope by preaching under a ban, highlighting his campaign for reform with processions, bonfires of the vanities, & pious theatricals. In retaliation, the Pope excommunicated him & threatened to place Florence under an interdict. A trial by fire proposed by a rival Florentine preacher to test Savonarola’s divine mandate turned into a fiasco, & popular opinion turned against him. Savonarola & two of his supporting friars were imprisoned. Under torture, Savonarola confessed & the Church condemned, hanged, & burned the three friars in the main square of Florence.

Savonarola’s devotees, the Piagnoni, kept his cause of republican freedom & religious reform alive well into the following century, although the Medici—restored to power in 1512 with the help of the papacy—eventually broke the movement.

1791 – Birthday of Michael Faraday, English physicist & chemist. Although Faraday received little formal education, he was one of the most influential scientists in history. It was by his research on the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a direct current that Faraday established the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. Faraday also established that magnetism could affect rays of light & that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, & it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became practical for use in technology.

As a chemist, Faraday discovered benzene, investigated the clathrate hydrate of chlorine, invented an early form of the Bunsen burner & the system of oxidation numbers, & popularized terminology such as “anode”, “cathode”, “electrode” & “ion”.

Faraday was an excellent experimentalist who conveyed his ideas in clear & simple language. Albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his study wall, alongside pictures of Isaac Newton & James Clerk Maxwell. 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.”

1991 – The Dead Sea Scrolls are made available to the public for the first time by the Huntington Library

***

Chris Manvell

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

Mabon (an ancient Celtic name for the Autumnal Equinox)

A salmon swallows the nut of wisdom
And leaps from the river’s dark depths –
A bright flash of silver in the bent rays of light

A hawk wheels in the eye of the Sun,
His elongated shadow moves
Over an ancient green mound

A fox gleams gold and russet there at the fringe of the forest
Her eyes glinting secrets
From the coming twilight realm

A Maiden sits silent
Clasping two crossed swords
In elegant equipoise

On his knee the King muses by a deep pool…

Soul tied to the wheel
Crystalized in the last shock of corn
Pierced by the oblique sun lit spear

With eyes that see
Down into the root
Where autumn grain waits
To Be
Easter-Tides’ Seed

The death of bedazzled day
And the dawn of focused night
Meet in symmetry

Halfway
Thru the cycle
We enter the return

Sail West Beloved Sun King
We follow You
Into the Dawning Dark

~hag

***

At the Autumnal Equinox – the wheel of the year turns & we find ourselves moving into the time of the harvest. In the tropical zodiac, at equinox, we say the Sun is crossing the celestial equator, moving from Virgo into Libra, the sign of the scales – a time to take stock. Are the scales balanced? Do they tip & spill? Are they full? Do we know what to harvest & what to plow under? Can we identify & cut away outworn habits & emotional baggage that can choke our growth?

But in sidereal astrosophy we see the Sun in relation to the actual constellations as they are now, with the Sun actually appearing in the crown of stars in the constellation of the Virgin.

When we use the tropical zodiac, the 4-foldness of the Equinoxes & Solstices form The Cross, which reminds us of an event that occurred only once in history, at the time of the incarnation of Christ. Then, the start of Spring was at 0 degrees of Aries, the Ram – the 1^st sign in the zodiac.

At the Equinoxes we have the horizontal beam, a balance of light & darkness. At the Solstices we have the vertical beam, an opposition of light & dark. At Autumn Equinox the Sun is balanced in Libra, which then marks the transition from light to dark. Libra is a threshold, a gateway between the upper chakras & the lower chakras. In the upper signs, from Aries thru Virgo we have a memory of the cosmic human being before we were formed on Earth. From Libra to Pisces, the human form meets the physical world. So we can look at the upper half of the zodiac as being related to our past cosmic creation by the ‘gods’ & the lower half of the zodiac as our human journey of ‘The fall’ & then hopefully our redemption out of our own ego forces.

The Sidereal zodiac shows us the vernal point has moved thru the ‘procession of the equinoxes’, (The Sun moves backward thru the constellations) so that it is now descending thru the lower half of the zodiac, taking humanity along on its evolutionary journey.

Adorning this great cross, formed from the 4 Cardinal Points of the Equinoxes & Solstices, are the 7 Festivals: Michaelmas, Advent, Christmas, Easter-tide Ascension, Whitsun & St. John’s-tide. These festivals are the 7 Cosmic Roses unfurling from the center of The Cross.

So today on this Autumnal Equinox, we can contemplate & celebrate this solar moment of equality & balance, experienced by everyone around the globe. We can also think about how the world has changed, how the constellations have moved on, how The Christ has united with the Earth, & is now working in us to redeem our evolution.

We can take our initiation in hand when we consciously co-create the festivals in the solar-cycle of the year, working to unfold the 7 Roses of transformation within, & out in the world.

And so it is my friends, that we begin our journey, like Persephone, into the dark of the year…Feel your power go within, like the seed planted deep within the darkness of the Earth…We must be initiated into these dark mysteries before we can truly celebrate life’s renewal…

The apples fall from the tree, the corn & grain are gathered in, the grapes are crushed for wine…The Sun God is sacrificed to the night & the fertile Mother assumes the face of the Wise Crone – the Harvest Hag challenging us to face our shadow…

Balanced Blessings

~Hazel Archer Ginsberg

Cognitive Ritual

~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian

Category Archives: Celestial Event

SOL INVICTA

The Feast Day of St. Michael & All the Heavenly Hosts

Forge me with fire, a sword for my smiting

Tie the Key onto the Kite

We begin our journey, like Persephone, into the dark

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