The Octave of the Assumption:
Tradition celebrates two main feasts of Mary in August. The first is the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on August 15, & the second is the Feast of the Queenship of Mary on August 22 (also known as The feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary)
The feast of the Assumption has been celebrated since the 5th or 6th century & for many years its festival was extended by an octave.
Our ancestors celebrated all major feasts for eight days = for an octave. Essentially the same liturgy was said, using the same liturgical texts each day of the octave.
The eighth day of the octave was seen as a heightened experience, honoring the spiritual themes of the feast for the last time. For this reason a complimentary feast was often instituted on this eighth day.
When it came to the Assumption, it had an octave celebration for many centuries. Then on May 4, 1944, Pope Pius XII established the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on August 22, the octave day of the feast of the Assumption. He did this so that by her intercession may be obtained “peace among nations, the love of purity and the practice of virtue.”
However, Pope Paul VI decided to switch the feasts of the Immaculate Heart and the Queenship of Mary. The feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was joined to the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (celebrated on the Saturday following the feast of the Sacred Heart, typically around the Summer Solstice June 20) and the Queenship of Mary was moved to August 22. Mary becomes the “Queen of Heaven.” The power of the Queenship of Mary is that she is a “Queen of Peace.”
“May all recognize more clearly and venerate more devoutly the merciful and maternal sway of the Mother of God. May this feast help to preserve, strengthen and prolong that peace among nations which daily is almost destroyed by recurring crises. Is she not a rainbow in the clouds reaching towards God, the pledge of a covenant of peace?”
After her Assumption into Heaven, Mary has become our Queen & is right there beside her Son, The Being of Love, listening to our prayers. She is the true “Queen of Peace,” who can help us turn the tide of war & conflict thru her powerful intercession.
May we strive to make our hearts Immaculate to share the true Crown of our Queen & become a beacon of Love & peace in our world.
~hag
POD (Poem Of the day)
~Walking the Peace Path
With the Queen of Heaven
Gathering hot iron
From the falling stars.
Climbing the Tree of Life
to anoint Michael s sword with Sulphur.
My heart beating in immaculate rhythm
I reach for The Anointed One.
Tying the key to the kite
In the gathering clouds…
~hag
22 August 2020 – “Speaking with the Stars”: Look below Bella Luna at nightfall for the Virgin holding the sheaf of wheat – Spica.
Late on these evenings of late summer, Fomalhaut, the Autumn Star, makes its inevitable appearance above the southeast horizon.By 11 p m you should have no trouble identifying it low in the southeast.
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Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
“The aim of science is to discover and illuminate truth. And that, I take it, is the aim of literature, whether biography or history… It seems to me, then, that there can be no separate literature of science.” ~Rachel Carson
Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary & the Queenship of Mary– a logical follow-up to the Assumption, now celebrated on the octave day of that feast
392 –Birthday of Eugenius elected – the last Roman Emperor to support polytheism
476 – Birthday of Odoacer a soldier became the first King of Italy. His reign is commonly seen as marking the end of the Western Roman Empire
565 –Birthday of Columbaa, Christian saint -one of the ‘Twelve Apostles of Ireland’ reports seeing a monster in Loch Ness, Scotland
1241 – Deathday of Pope Gregory IX, established the Papal Inquisition
1849 – The first air raid in history. Austria launches pilotless balloons against the city of Venice
1864 – Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention
1862 – Birthday of Claude Debussy
1902 – Cadillac Motor Company is founded
1902 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President to ride in an automobile
1913 – 1st performance of Rudolf Steiner’s 4th Mystery Drama: The Souls’ Awakening
1932 – The BBC begins television broadcasting using John Logie Baird’s system
1941 – World War II: German troops begin the Siege of Leningrad
1944 – World War II: Holocaust of Kedros in Crete by German force
*1947 – Deathday of Francis Delaisi, French social economist spoken of by Rudolf Steiner in ‘Fall of the Spirits of Darkness’ Lecture 14 Dornach, 28 October 1917 (see except below)
1961 – Ida Siekmann dies attempting to cross the Berlin Wall
1962 – The OAS attempts to assassinate French president Charles de Gaulle
1971 – J. Edgar Hoover & John Mitchell announce the arrest of 20 of the Camden 28, a group of “Catholic left” anti-Vietnam War activists who executed a raid on a Camden, New Jersey draft board
2006 – Russian passenger plane crashes over eastern Ukraine, killing all 170 people on board
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*Lecture 14 Dornach, 28 October 1917
“For once, therefore, a man woke up and saw that what mattered was not to proclaim democracy but to see the full reality, not to follow slogans, but to see things as they are. This would be particularly important today, for people would then realize that the events which reign with such blood and terror over the whole of humanity are guided and directed from just a few centres. People will never realize this if they persist in the delusion that nation is fighting nation, and allow the European and American Press to lull them to sleep over the kinds of relations that are said to exist between nations. Everything said about antagonism and opposition between nations only exists to cast a veil over the true reasons. For we shall never arrive at the real truth if we feed on words in order to explain these events, but only if we point to actual people. The problem is that this tends to be unpalatable today. And the man who woke up and wrote these statements in 1910 also presented some highly unwelcome accounts in his book. He produced a list of fifty-five individuals who are the real rulers and exploiters of France. The list can be found in Francis Delaisi’s La Democratie et les Financiers, written in 1910; the same man has also written La Guerre qui vient, a book which has become famous. In his La Democratie et les Financiers you will find statements of fundamental significance. There you have someone who has woken up to reality. The book contains impulses which allow one to see through much of what we should see through today, and also to cut through much of the fog which is made to wash over human brains today. Here again, we must resolve to look to reality.
The book has, of course, been ignored. It does, however, raise issues which should be raised all over the world today, for they would teach people much about the reality which others intend to bury under all their declamations on democracy and autocracy and whatever the slogans may be. The book also gives an excellent exposition on the extremely difficult position in which members of parliament find themselves. People think they can vote according to their convictions. But you would have to know all the different threads which tie them to reality if you wanted to know why they vote for one thing and against another. Certain issues really must be raised. Delaisi does so. Thus, for example, he considers a member of parliament and asks the question: Which side should the poor man support? The people pay him three thousand francs a year and the shareholders pay him thirty thousand francs!’ To pose the question is to answer it. So the poor dear man gets his three-thousand-franc allowance from the people, and thirty thousand francs from the shareholders! I think you will agree it is a good piece of proof, a sign of real acumen, to say: How nice that a socialist, a man of the people like Millerand has gained a seat in parliament! Delaisi’s question goes in another direction. He asks: How far can someone like Millerand, who was earning thirty thousands francs a year for representing insurance companies, be independent?
So for once someone did wake up. He is well aware of the threads which run from the actions of such an individual to the different insurance companies. But such things, reported by someone who is awake and sees the truth, are ignored. It is, of course, only too easy to talk about democracy in the Western world. Yet if you wanted to tell people the truth you would have to say: ‘The man called so and so is doing this, and the one called so and so is doing that.’ Delaisi has found fifty-five men — not a democracy but fifty-five specific individuals — who, he says, govern and exploit France. There, someone has discovered the real facts, for in ordinary life, too, a feeling must awaken for the real facts..
It is not a bad thing to know these things, which are ingredients of reality. They must be seriously considered. And one is guided to develop something of a nose for reality when one takes up anthroposophy, whilst the materialistic education people have today, with innumerable channels opening into it from the Press, is designed to point not to the realities but to something which is cloaked in all kinds of slogans. And if someone does wake up, as Delaisi did, and writes about how things really are, how many people get to know about it? How many people will listen? They cannot listen, for it is buried by — well, by a life that again is ruled by the Press. Delaisi shows himself to be a bright person, someone who has gone to a lot of trouble to gain real insight. He is no blind follower of parliamentarianism, nor of democracy. He predicts that the things people think are so clever today will come to an end. He says so expressly, also with reference to the ‘voting machine’ — which is approximately how he puts it. He is entirely scientific and serious in his discourse on this parliamentary voting machine, for he understands the whole system which leads to these ‘voting machines’, where people are made to believe that a convinced majority is voting against a mentally unhinged minority. He knows that something else will have to take the place of this if there is to be healthy development.
This is not yet possible, for people would be deeply shocked if you were to tell them what will take its place. Only people initiated into spiritual science can really know this today.Forms which belong to the past will definitely not take its place. You need not be afraid that someone speaking out of anthroposophy will promote some kind of reactionary or conservative ideas; no, these will not be things of the past, but they will be so different from the ‘voting machine’ which exists today that people will be shocked and consider this madness. Nevertheless it will enter into the impulses of evolution in time. Delaisi, too, says: In organic development certain parts lose their original function and become useless but still persist for some time; in the same way, these parliaments will continue to vote for quite some time, but all real life will have departed from them.”
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA177/English/RSP1993/19171028p01.html
Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg
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August 27-30 How We Will 2020: 3-Folding our Cultural Revolution is continuing its journey of transforming our ideals into action. The theme this year is Forming Curative Communities: actively uniting with one another in the emerging economic, political/rights and social/cultural/spiritual forms seeking to reshape the ills plaguing humanity into a healthy social organism for our time. Please join us if you’d like to hear from, and collaborate with those on the front lines inspired out of the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s work: can your own hopes for the world find a way to connect with others striving to do the good as our friend Bernard Lievegoed was wont to say? Our own hero Ella Baker shares: ‘we must not stop until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make the struggle for freedom and human dignity everyday, in the year, every year, until they win it.’
Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020
Schedule
Thursday August 27
9:00 Dottie and Frank: Welcome: Forming Curative Communities of Responsibility
9:30 Nana Woo and Truus Gareats: Eurythmy
9:45 Stan Padilla: New Fire
10:30 Break 15 minutes
11:00 Naim Edwards: Edible Landscapes
12:15 Lunch
1:30 Dottie Zold & Joan Jaeckel: Threefold Activism – 1919-1921 & Research Fellowship
2:15 Kait Ziegler: Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival – On the Front Lines
3:30 Break 30 minutes
4:00 Akil Bell: WILLING MOVEMENT: Three questions could support the inspiring of the formation of curative communities.
5:15 Dinner
6:30 Monika: Myriad Village – Co-creating Intentional Communities
7:15 Angela Foster: Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
End 8 pm
Friday August 28
9:00 Truus Gareats & Nana Woo: Eurythmy
9:15 Stan Padilla: New Fire
9:45 Frank & Patrice: Unbreakable Agreement & ALIANT
10:20 Break 10 minutes
10:30 Michaela Gloeckler: Archetypal Pictures – Ita Wegman and the Young Doctors
Noon Lunch
1:15 Bart Eddy: Brightmoor Makers Rocking Hearts for Detroit
2:15 Melody Brink: stART international trauma pedagogy – Lesbos – On the Front Lines
3:00 John Bloom: Toward Justice Through Freedom
4:45 Dinner
6:00 Daniel Collett: Seeds
6:10 Kim Sherobbi: To Nurture Community Leadership – Birwood Community House & The James and Grace Lee Boggs Center
7:00 Angela Foster: Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily
Goethe’s Day of Birth
8:00 End
Saturday August 29
9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo: Eurythmy
9:15 Stan Padilla: New Fire
9:30 Laura Summer: Art Dispersal – Art for 100% of the People
10:00 Michaela Gloeckler: Forward Together
11:30 Break 15 minutes
11:45 Melody Brink: The Birdhunters of Antropocenia in story-form, written by Nathaniel Williams and with original music by Aldo Lavaggi
12:20 Lunch
1:15 Bart Eddy: Ideas to Action
2:15 John Bloom: Capital, Money, Spirit and Matter
3:45 Break 30 minutes
4:15 Patrice Maynard: Prototyping ALIANT Alliance
5:30 Dinner
7:00 Brandon & Lucien: Song Offering & Painting
7:15 Community-led conversation: A Christian/Buddhist/Spirit Conversation: Money –what does love got to do with it?
8:15 End
Sunday August 30
9:00 Truus Garaets & Nana Woo: Eurythmy
9:15 Nicanor Perlas: The Future is What We Fight For
10:45 Break
11:00 Hazel Archer-Ginsberg: The New Isis Myth
11:30 Laura Summer: Art Dispersal
1:00 Lunch
2:00 Patrice Maynard: Prototyping ALIANT Alliance
3:15 Lucien: Tone, Words, Trees
3:45 Janna, Elizabeth & Frank: Standing Under the Sign of Michael
4:15 Stan & Robbi: Closing the Sacred Fire Community
5:00 End
EXTRA DAY FOR THOSE WISHING TO JOIN ON Monday, August 31st
9:00 Next Steps ALIANT: Patrice, Frank, Dottie together with friends will lead a conversation on next steps.
11:00 Mutual Aid Networks (MANS): Kait Ziegler of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will share how she and GroundGamesLA raised $100,000 in a week’s time to support unprotected families during the Covid 19 early days by using the MANS format created by Stephanie Rearick of Madison Wisconsin.
Invitation and Registration are now open:How We Will 2020
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The Central Regional Council Invite all to our Michaelmas Festival:
‘Courage born of Wisdom’
Wednesday 23 September 2020 – The Autumnal Equinox – 7:15 pm CDT – 8:30 pm
CRC performs a telling of a tale from ancient Chaldea where EA gives birth to Marduk, precursor to Michael.
then “Wisdom Build herself a house*”…7 members of the various sections of the Anthroposophical Society will stand as Wisdom’s 7 Pillars to share how Courage was born from Wisdom leading to their work in the world.
with a closing about the connection between Michael, The Christ & Anthroposophia!
FREE – Zoom details to follow
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Joan d’Arc – The power behind the Will Michaelmas Festival 26-27 Sept. 2020
Save the Date for Our Michaelmas Festival & Youth Gathering Saturday 26 September 2 pm – 4 pm, Sunday 27 Sept. 2 pm – 4 pm
This years theme will be an exploration of Joan d’Arc…
Including a performance of ‘The Passage” by Lucian Dante Lazar
In person & online presentations on the theme of Joan of Arc
Details TBA
Sponsored by: The Rudolf Steiner Branch, Elderberries Biodynamic Outpost & 3-Fold Cultural Hub
for more info. contact Festivals coordinator Hazel Archer-Ginsberg
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