Comet Swan Happening NOW: Rudolf Steiner tells us that comets are governed by the Cherubim & the Seraphim, sent into our solar system on a “god-willed mission.” Their task is to purify the astral realm, & to bring a positive impulse into human evolution. “The comet will encounter the Earth just at the time when great possibilities in spiritual life as well as great darkness will lie open to humanity!”

“Something of an elemental nature, something that stirs up, and, in a certain condition, is necessary in order to rightly maintain the progress of evolution in the cosmos — that is the nature of the comets” (Rudolf Steiner, March 5, 1910).

Rudolf Steiner points out that the nucleus of the comet is quite different from the tail. The nucleus attracts & collects harmful, astral substance, which densifies around the nucleus as it progresses further into our physical universe, taking on material form, this is what we see, but it is working even when we can’t see it; then it carries this harmful astral substance out of our planetary system. This astral substance is transformed by the comet, & what streams out from the tail is completely changed as a result.

The word Apocalypse means Revelation.  Comets bring a Revelation, a new impulse of growth. This can incite fear & foreboding. Anything new & unknown is often resisted, sometimes with terrible force & violence. The old is clung to, spiritual progress & evolution, are fiercely opposed especially by the adversarial beings seeking an enslaved world order, not the one that progresses humanity towards their spiritual goals.

Rudolf Steiner tells us in ‘The Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature’ – 10 lectures given in Helsinki, 3–14 April, 1912, that the appearance of comets creates “…fine organs that are suited to the progressive evolution of the ego…” And the comet signifies that the ego “…acquires new physical and etheric organs for this progressed ego to make use of…”

So what does the Swan Comet signify? Is it enabling the development of specific “fine organs” that will lead to the natural clairvoyance – the new thinking needed in our time to move forward in evolution out of the materialistic age?

And what kind of opposition might we expect from this? What forms will it take in humanity in the activity of the opposing spiritual beings? Does the coronavirus pandemic have any relation to these comets? Is the pandemic a medical question only, or is it an initiation question with some biological component as a catalyst? There is an interesting parallel between what modern science says about comets & about viruses, which is worth further research & consideration. Looking at the question of the “purpose” of corona virus, we need to consider a deeper spiritual relationship. If behind all material processes, there is consciousness at work, is this pandemic an earthly shadow, or mirror of this comet activity (as above, so below)? Is the death & fear it brings, in a larger scheme, a veil hiding a new mission on the Earth?

These cosmic events include the rare meeting of Saturn, Jupiter, & Pluto, with several planetary configurations around that triad, & the approaching Great Conjunction at Winter Solstice 2020, which carries the theme of a ‘new annunciation’. Could it be that with his great light we are seeing a great shadow, & that opposition will arise ever more strongly to preserve the past, to hold back evolution towards its goals?

This Great Conjunction enters the stars of Capricorn. It will remain in Capricorn for its next three cycles after 2020 (3 x 60 years), meaning that this Great Conjunction will repeat in Capricorn, carrying the great annunciation theme in this constellation, until 2199, when it is on the boundary into Aquarius, the stars of the new Age.

Capricorn is the constellation of initiation. It is also the constellation that carries the memory, &, therefore, the dynamics of the great War in Heaven.

The battle into the future will be for the creation of the cosmos of love. The planetary events during this time – the current comets, & the pandemic are all stages in a great transition, which Steiner describes in relation to comets, as a “certain condition necessary in order to rightly maintain the progress of evolution in the cosmos,” to lead us into the 6th Cultural Age.

In this sense, every change or transition in earthly life, as in human life, is accompanied by struggle, tribulation, even death in some form… or by catharsis. For what is catharsis but the painful death of the old in us & in the world in order to make way for the new to be born? Catharsis is as old as initiation itself, & a necessary part of it. The old self must die in order for the new higher self to be born. This is the path of spiritual development, the transformation of the lower astral nature into the pure vessel for the birth of The Sophia in us. It is the path of “not I, but Christ in me.” It is the new initiation.

If we look now at the spiritual nature of the constellations, thru which comet Swan passes, it will shed some light on the nature of what it is bringing us. Swan was first noticed near Fomalhaut, which swims under the water poured out by Aquarius. Aquarius is the constellation of our future age, the 6th Cultural Age, when the vernal point will enter this constellation, in which humanity should develop the Spirit Self. Aquarius pours out the cosmic living water of the divine world, the etheric life.

It then passes into Pisces, the stars of our current age, where our tasks are to develop sister/brotherhood with our earthly world, & our fellow human beings, as well as with the divine world.

Then it moves just into Aries, which is connected to thinking & the ego being, &, to the “reversal” of thinking that no longer descends into the brain, but begins the upward development to the new thinking, or as Willi Sucher calls it, clair-thinking.

It then moves into Perseus, that figure who is a representative of Michael, who slays Medusa, the thinking that turns the human being to stone, & slays Cetus, the sea monster, the old atavistic clairvoyance. Perhaps these mythological creatures are images of Ahriman (stone gaze) & Lucifer (sea monster).

The entire story of Perseus is spread out above the path of Swan in the added constellations of Andromeda & Pegasus, above Aries & Pisces. Andromeda, the human soul, is saved by Perseus, & from Andromeda arises Pegasus, the white winged intelligence, the new thinking. The star in the wing of Pegasus is the same star as in the forehead of Andromeda.

As Swan comet reaches its pinnacle, nearest the Sun at perihelion, it moves from Perseus into Auriga, the Sun Charioteer, near the star Capella. Auriga forms the shape of a pentagon in the heavens. It tells the story of the chthonic son of Hephaestus (the lame god), & in other versions the son of Hermes/Mercury, who built & drove the chariot of the Sun.

The star Capella in Auriga in Hindu mythology is associated with the heart of Brahma. In Greek mythology, it is associated with the goat that suckled Zeus, as well as the horn of the goat that was transformed into the Cornucopia, the horn of plenty, of abundant life.

All of these imaginations are rich in content! So Comet Swan traverses the heavens thru these constellations, which all in some way point to the new faculties, & future of the human being – to our becoming the Sun Charioteer, which can be likened to the development of a ‘Solar Ego’ – the Christ-in-me who drives the Sun Chariot thru the ethers, uniting the earth once again with the Spirit of Sun.

May we take up the reigns with clear sight, an open heart & steady hands.

`hag – compiled from the research of Astrosopher Jonathan Hilton

***

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

27 May 2020

Birthday of Mary Magdalene – According to T.H. Meyer & ‘The Present Age’

1265 – Birthday of Dante thought to be reincarnated as King John of Saxony. Beyond his political work, John was busy with literature. Under the pseudonym Philalethes he translated to German Dante’s Divine Comedy

1564 – Deathday of John Calvin an influential French theologian & pastor during the Protestant Reformation, called Calvinism, influenced by the Augustinian tradition. The aim of Calvin’s political theory was to safeguard the rights and freedoms of ordinary people.

1840 – Deathday of Paganini an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, & composer – the most celebrated violin virtuoso of his time.

1907 – Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco

1907 – Birthday of Rachel Carson, American biologist, environmentalist, and author

~ ~ ~

1933 – The Century of Progress World’s Fair opens in Chicago

1941 – World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaims an “unlimited national emergency”
***

POD

~I follow the path to the Sun
Moment by moment, season to season
But to travel East is to grieve in darkness.
I find my star radiating from the Earth Heart
Shining in the rainbow clouds
Working in my skin.
And so I reflect with the Moon, cycle by cycle
Toting fertile moisture in the mix
My skeleton filling with the resurrection
Knowing
I shall not fall to forgetfulness.
~hag

***

Friends, when we gather to redeem the ether spaces & co-create our Whitsun Fest together 31 May 2020, please consider lighting a candle, or placing a plant, or fresh cut flowers next to your computer, to help strengthen the life-forces during our Zoom gathering.

~Vitae Sophia~ A Whitsun Festival of United Soul Endeavor with Hazel Archer-Ginsberg

During our time together we will work with the Whitsun imagination to creatively explore how we may engage in the lifting out of the ‘me’ into the ‘we’, out of opinion into wisdom; warming the I, to open the heart, in support of healthy community – to find the ‘we’ in ‘me’. We will endeavor to strengthen our individual soul forces to give birth to Anthroposophia & collectively open the portal into the Spirit worlds.

 Online Whitsunday, 31 May 2020 from 9 am – 10:15 am CDT (7 am – 8:15 am Pacific, 8 am – 9:15 am Mountain, 10 am–11:15 am EDT, ) Zoom Call

*Join Zoom Meeting on computer https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85927907854 

Meeting ID: 859 2790 7854

or Dial in by phone: Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbEIk8kgk1 Meeting ID: 859 2790 7854

Hazel Archer-Ginsberg – Founder of Reverse Ritual Understanding Anthroposophy through the Rhythms of the Year. Essayist, Lecturer, Poet, Trans-denominational Minister, ‘Anthroposopher’, working as the Festivals Coordinator of the Chicago Rudolf Steiner Branch, The Traveling Speakers Program, & the Central Regional Council of the Anthroposophical Society.

Sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in New Hampshire

For more info. contact deb@anthroposophy.org