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.

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“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

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

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

Verse for the Michaelic Age:  ALL

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

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

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

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

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 GinsbergHazel@ReverseRitual.com

20 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: Although Mercury passed between the Sun & Earth just eight days ago, the planet named for the fleet-footed messenger god in Roman mythology lives up to its reputation this week as it climbs into view before sunrise. You can find the innermost planet above the eastern horizon 30 minutes before sunup. Mercury climbs higher & brightens rapidly as it heads toward greatest elongation next week, when it appears a half-hour before sunrise

Anne North

***

Looking at the past to see the present, co-creating the future:

“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

622 – Muhammad & Abu Bakr arrived in Medina

1378 – Cardinal Robert of Geneva, called by some the “Butcher of Cesena“, is elected as Pope Clement VII, beginning the Papal schism. He was the 1^st antipope residing in Avignon, France

1498 – The Nankai earthquake generates a tsunami that washes away the building housing the statue of the Great Buddha at Kōtoku-in in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan. Over 10,000 die

1519 – Ferdinand Magellan sets sail from Sanlúcar de Barrameda with 270 men on his expedition to circumnavigate the globe

1737 – The Walking Purchase– between the Penn family, the proprietors of Pennsylvania, & the Lenape Tribe (also known as the Delaware). This document may have been an unsigned, unratified treaty, or even an outright forgery (Encyclopædia Britannica refers to it as a “land swindle”. The Penns’ agents began selling land, an area of 1,200,000 acres, in the Lehigh Valley to colonists while the Lenape still inhabited the area

1893 – Charles Duryea road-tests the first American-made gasoline-powered automobile

1906 – Founding of the Paracelsus Branch, Basel Switzerland

1913 – The laying of the Foundation Stone of the 1^st Goetheanum

1913 – Founding of the Moscow Branch of the Anthroposophical Society

1933 – Deathday of Annie Besant. In 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky. She became a member of the Theosophical Society & a prominent lecturer. She established the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain. Over the next few years she established lodges in many parts of the British Empire. In 1907 she became president of the Theosophical Society, whose international headquarters were in Adyar, Madras. She also became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress. When World War I broke out in 1914, she helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India. This led to her election as president of the India National Congress. In the late 1920s, Besant travelled to the United States with her protégé & adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom she claimed was the new Messiah & incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929. She is thought to be the reincarnation of Giordano Bruno

1941 – Holocaust 403 Jews (128 men, 176 women & 99 children) were murdered by Einsatzkommando 3 in Nemencing, Latvia.

1942 – Holocaust in Letychiv, Ukraine. In the course of two days the German SS murders at least 3,000 Jews

1973 – Billie Jean King beats Bobby Riggs in the Battle of the Sexes tennis match at the Houston Astrodome

***

~The shining ones laughed

Slapping each other’s backs

“Have you forgotten so soon

What you have learned in the lotus pool?

Try not thinking so much.

Look at the words in your heart.”

I looked & I saw…

~hag

***

Today I begin a series on Michaelmas. This year I have been working with

MICHAELMAS AND THE SOUL-FORCES OF MAN By RUDOLF STEINER

Summary by Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

Lecture 1. How can humanity, the earth citizen, become once more a citizen of the cosmos? The expansion of life’s horizon into cosmic reaches brings the human being into the picture of Michael’s Conflict with the Dragon.

The Dragon is not found in the sense world. Where is he? The dragon lives within the human being. “…the outer cosmic conflict of Michael and the Dragon was transferred to the inner human being, because only in human nature could the Dragon now find his sphere of action.”

Because of that Michael now works with us to fight the dragon within human nature.

Steiner gives this picture of the dragon writhing around the animalistic part of humanity, even coiling around the heart; but then — behind us, at the back of the head — the outer cosmic figure of Michael, towering, radiant, retaining his cosmic nature but reflecting it in the higher human nature, so that our etheric body reflects etherically the cosmic figure of Michael. Then there would be visible in the human head — but working down into the heart — the power of Michael, crushing the Dragon and causing blood to flow down from the heart to the limbs.” So we can put our will into action

“…. In the intellect we are isolated from the world, because everyone has their own head, and in that head, their own thoughts. But In our Gemüt we cannot do that, the Gemüt is not dependent upon the head, but on the rhythmic system, bringing us back to where we belong, as a being in the cosmos.”

The Gemüt, as meaning something like: ‘the mind warmed by a loving heart and stimulated by the soul’s imaginative power’.

“…So with our Gemüt we can say: The power of the Dragon is working within me, I might not see it — but I can feel it as a force that wants to drag me down below myself. But in the spirit I see the luminous Angel whose cosmic task has always been the vanquishing of the Dragon. I concentrate my Gemüt upon this glowing figure, I let its light stream into my Gemüt, so that my illumined and warmed Gemüt will bear within it the strength of Michael. And out of a free resolution I will be able, through my alliance with Michael, to conquer the Dragon’s might in my own lower nature.”

“…this activated Gemüt enters into a living relationship with the whole cosmos the moment it indeed comes to life.

Life will not have a true soul content until we can develop cosmic impulses in our Gemüt.”

Tomorrow I will bring my summary of lecture 2

Xox ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

PS. I have fixed the problem with the comments. It is now functioning, so please feel free to continue to co-create the conversation

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