1 September 2016 – Astro-Weather: Did you feel the New Moon pushing into an annular eclipse of the Sun, crossing central Africa from Gabon to Madagascar, this morning around 4:07am? (see more below) When the moon creates a ring of sunlight during an eclipse instead of completely blocking the solar disk, it’s known as an annular eclipse or “ring of fire” eclipse

This evening the Saturn-Mars-Antares triangle is perfectly isosceles! Check it out at sunset.

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“The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.” ~Marcus Aurelius

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Jerrry Hilston

International Random Acts of Kindness Day

717 – Siege of Constantinople: The Muslim armada with 1,800 ships, is defeated by the Byzantine navy through the use of Greek fire

1449 – Tumu Crisis: Mongols capture the Emperor of China

1715 – Deathday of King Louis XIV of France, he reigned for 72 years—the longest of any major European monarch

1804 – Juno, one of the largest asteroids in the Main Belt, is discovered by the German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding

1838 – Deathday of William Clark. Along with Meriwether Lewis, Clark helped lead the Lewis & Clark Expedition of 1804 to 1806 across the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Ocean, &claimed the Pacific Northwest for the United States.

1894 – Over 400 people die in the Great Hinckley Fire, Minnesota.

1897 – The Tremont Street Subway in Boston opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America

1914 – St. Petersburg, Russia, changes its name to Petrograd

1923 – The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo & Yokohama, killing over 105,000 people

1939 – Adolf Hitler signs an order to begin the systematic euthanasia of mentally ill & disabled people

1951 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 95 relating to Arab–Israeli conflict is adopted

1952 – The Old Man and the Sea, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Ernest Hemingway, is first published

1969 – A coup in Libya brings Muammar Gaddafi to power

1974 – The SR-71 Blackbird sets (& still holds) the record for flying from New York to London in 1 hour, 54 minutes. A speed of 1,435.587 miles per hour

1979 – The American space probe Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn

1983 –Korean Air Lines Flight 007 is shot down by a Soviet Union jet fighter. All 269 on board die, including Congressman Lawrence McDonald

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~Opening to the medicine of the venom

~hag

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Elaina Booth

September is a powerful month of cosmic alliances, beginning with the Sun, Moon, & Earth aligning for an annular solar eclipse in Virgo. Although the path crosses central Africa & northern Madagascar, it will be felt globally.

We have an opportunity to look into our shadow self to then realign with our highest intentions. We can release at the deepest levels & honor what needs to end while starting out on a new foot.

It’s a dynamic opportunity to speak to the Beings of the celestial spheres, to be vulnerable & open to the truth as it really is within our deepest self. But that’s only a part of the picture…

The eclipse & New Moon cycle in Virgo is colored & highly influenced by Mercury’s retrograde – helping us to really feel into the thought patterns ready to be released that serve an old consciousness.

We take stock of our inner resources, honor our harvest & hone our craft. Its a non-linear time, with potential for great productivity.

Saturn square Neptune is dominant now too. Whenever the outer planets dance they open us to the global picture where social-political lessons can come into focus.

A closing square is about a shift in consciousness – realizing the overview of a cycle, summing up, & re-orienting – beginning to turn away from the old, accepting what is & forgiving what was, while beginning to feel the first influences of the new from the supersensible plane.

Saturn rules the structures enforcing the beliefs we hold. Neptune, on the other hand is a dissolver of boundaries, pointing toward unity, idealism – the best that can be imagined, spiritual unity, the visionary aspect of imagination.

Neptune says we must dream true about welcoming in the highest consciousness we can at this time. Neptune in Pisces is inviting us to look not outside ourselves for truth, meaning & direction, but within.

Saturn in Sagittarius is struggling with the last vestiges of dogma & the disillusionment of beliefs in a purely physical existence cut off from the feminine & Spirit.

Mutable signs ask for growth & being flexible, learning how to adapt to shifting circumstance.

Can you allow yourself a little quality time alone, every day, to fertilize the process instead of fixating on the ‘product’?

With this eclipse triggering the Saturn-Neptune square along with a square to heated Mars, what is dis-eased in our lives, may become apparent.

Soul sickness is evident in our world & has been a challenge to navigate. We have witnessed great suffering & division between cultures & ideals.

Eclipses tend to have a habit of revealing what has been hidden so it feels like this eclipse shatters the last illusion.

But in the midst of all these challenging patterns, there is an opening to use this potent energetic pattern to its tune into the highest frequencies within ourselves, if we align with Virgo’s healing wholeness.

Mercury retrograde, the ruler of this eclipse, invites you to slow down & take your time when considering your options at the moment.

Remember, an eclipse tends to amplify unconscious contents.

This is great for building up our discipline & doing the inner work- not so great for depression, repression, aggression, stuckness & moon-karma – so be awake!

The inner work we do on ourselves is what clears the blockages in our field that prevent us from being the empty chalice that is ready, willing, & able to be filled by Spirit- so focusing on our inner/shadow work, making necessary self- adjustments, & deepening in our integrity, self-honesty & truthfulness with others is a prerequisite to fully accessing all the gifts of this time.

We can also shift the patterns as we wear them out.  Then we can breathe into this space with a deeper kind of self-surrender, the kind where we get ourselves back refreshed, relaxed, restored.

From Rudolf Steiner:

“An eclipse of the sun is due to the fact that the moon comes between the sun and the earth, cutting off the rays of the sun.

 At the time of a solar eclipse, for instance, something totally different takes place in the part of the earth affected from what is happening when there is no eclipse. When we know that on the one hand the rays of the sun penetrate down to the earth and on the other hand the forces or rays of will stream out to meet the sun.  At an eclipse, these forces radiate into the darkness, and there ensues a period of time, short though it may be, in which all that is of the nature of will upon the earth flows out into universal space in an abnormal way. It is different altogether from what takes place when there is no eclipse. Ordinarily, the physical sunlight unites with the radiations of will streaming towards it. When there is an eclipse, the forces of will flow unhindered into cosmic space.

 The old initiates knew these things. They saw that at such a moment all the unbridled impulses and instincts of humanity surge out into the cosmos. And they gave their pupils the following explanation. They said: Under normal conditions the evil impulses of will which are sent out into the cosmos by human beings are, as it were, burned up and consumed by the rays of the sun, so that they can injure only man himself, but can do no universal harm. When, however, there is an eclipse of the sun, opportunity is given for the evil which is willed on earth to spread over the cosmos. An eclipse is a physical event behind which there lies a significant spiritual reality.

 Eclipses of the sun and moon, recurring as they do in the course of every year, may really be looked upon as “safety-valves.” A safety-valve is there to avert danger, to provide an outlet for something or other — steam, for instance — at the right moment. One of the safety-valves which makes its appearance in the cosmos and to which we give the name of a solar eclipse, serves the purpose of carrying out into space in a Luciferic way, the evil that spreads over the earth, in order that evil may work havoc in a wider, less concentrated sphere. Such are the forces at work, in the cosmos.” ~Human Q’s & Cosmic A.

Together we can call on & co-create with Michael, a shield of light, using the sword to cut thru what does not serve.

See you there

Blessings & Peace ~Hazel Archer Ginsberg 

31 August 2016 – Astro-Weather: The meteor shower peaks before dawn. Although this minor shower usually produces only 6 meteors per hour, but viewers recorded up to 130 meteors per hour in 2007, & with the New Moon Solar eclipse arriving tomorrow, conditions couldn’t be better for checking it out

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Those who work with the Original indications in the Calendar of the Soul know that Rudolf Steiner lists the birth & death days, as well as other significant occurrences of various individualities, along with the dates in the calendar.  He said of this: “What is presented here can be useful to those who wish to follow the path of mankind’s spiritual development” ~Rudolf Steiner

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Feast Day of Joseph of Arimathea & Nicodemus. Rudolf Steiner speaks about these individualities as initiates many times. Here are a few examples: http://www.rsarchive.org/Search.php http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA103/English/AP1962/19080525p01.html

12 – Birthday of Caligula

1528 – Deathday of  Matthias Grünewald a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century. Only ten paintings—several consisting of many panels—& thirty-five drawings survive, all religious, although many others were lost at sea in the Baltic on their way to Sweden as war booty. His largest and most famous work is the Isenheim Altarpiece

1740 – Birthday of Johann Friedrich Oberlin, mystic, philanthropist, social Christian. Rudolf Steiner spoke about him in his lectures on Occult History http://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0126/19101227p01.html

1803 – Meriwether Lewis & William Clark start their expedition to the west

1869 – Deathday of Mary Ward, Irish astronomer & entomologist, killed when she fell under the wheels of an experimental steam car built by her cousins. She was the world’s first person known to be killed by a motor vehicle

1886 – The 7.0 Charleston earthquake hits South Carolina. Sixty people were killed & damage is estimated at $5–6 million

1888 – Mary Ann Nichols is murdered. She is the first of Jack the Ripper’s confirmed victims

1895 – German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his Navigable Balloon

1897 – Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector

1907 – The Anglo-Russian Convention between the United Kingdom & Russia. The agreement led to the formation of the Triple Entente, linking the Russian Empire, the French Third Republic, & the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland – igniting the Great War.

1939 – Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station, creating an excuse to attack Poland the following day thus starting World War II in Europe

1943 – Deathday of Elisabeth Vreede, a Dutch mathematician, astronomer & Anthroposophist – one of Rudolf Steiner’s closest co-workers, part of the the original Vorstand in Dornach (see more below)

1957 –Malaysia gains its independence from the United Kingdom

1980 – Flood in Ibadan after 12 hours of heavy downpour, killed over 300 people & properties worth millions destroyed

1986 – Aeroméxico Flight 498 collides with a Piper PA-28 Cherokee over Cerritos, California, killing 67 in the air & 15 on the ground

1986 – The Soviet passenger liner Admiral Nakhimov sinks in the Black Sea after colliding with the bulk carrier Pyotr Vasev, killing 423.

1987 – Thai Airways Flight 365 crashes into the ocean near Ko Phuket, Thailand, killing all 83 aboard

1997 – Deathday of Diana, Princess of Wales, her companion Dodi Fayed & driver Henri Paul die in a car crash in Paris

1999 – A LAPA Boeing 737-200 crashes during takeoff from Jorge Newbury Airport in Buenos Aires, killing 65, including two on the ground

2005 – The 2005 Al-Aaimmah bridge stampede in Baghdad kills 1,199 people

2012 – A 7.6-magnitude earthquake strikes the Philippine province of Eastern Samar

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Larry Young

My POD (Poem Of the Day)

~My hands are pillows of power

Awakening the sleepers…

For the Rhythm is a restless tide…

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Elisabeth Vreede was born in Holland, at The Hague, on 16 July 1879. She was the second child of her father, who was a lawyer, & her mother, who was devoted to charitable work. She was a sensitive person, & later on in her life she played an important part in the Anthroposophical life in Holland.

Elisabeth Vreede came into contact with Theosophy in her home growing up. She was interested early on in the starry sky, & while learning French, she read the works of Camille Flammarion, a French astronomer & author. Because of his scientific background, he approached spiritism & reincarnation from the viewpoint of the scientific method, writing, “It is by the scientific method alone that we may make progress in the search for truth. Religious belief must not take the place of impartial analysis. We must be constantly on our guard against illusions.”

At the University of Leyden she studied mathematics, astronomy, Sanskrit, & philosophy (especially Hegel). She was also actively involved in student life, founding a boat club & was a council member of the students’ union.

The first meeting with Rudolf Steiner took place early on at the Theosophical Congress in London in 1903. Her parents were theosophists & she as well. Rudolf Steiner made a huge impression on her. A year later at the Congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society at Amsterdam in 1904, she heard a lecture on ‘Mathematics & Occultism’ that Steiner gave. The next European Congress was in 1906, where Steiner held a cycle of 18 lectures.

After receiving her diploma in 1906, she gave instruction at a higher girl’s school in mathematics until 1910. From 1910, she lived in Berlin, worked on her dissertation, & occasionally worked as a secretary for Rudolf Steiner. In April 1914, she moved to Dornach to help in the building of the first Goetheanum & was often found there carving wood.

During the War years (1916/17) Elisabeth Vreede broke off from her residence in Dornach in order to work in Berlin as a coworker of Elisabeth Rotten, a Quaker, peace activist & educational progressive, looking after prisoners of war. She was very much aware of the life & sufferings of her contemporaries.

After the War, Rudolf Steiner developed his idea of the threefold social order & she too had an intense interest in this initiative & work. She was the first to bring this idea of a threefold social order to England.

Around 1918, Dr. Vreede began to construct the library & archive at the Goetheanum. Using her own means, she purchased the expensive lecture transcripts as soon as they were typed from notes. In 1920 she moved to Arlesheim, Switzerland, where she had built a little house for herself. It was the second house for which Steiner had given the model in 1919.

In 1924, Steiner appointed her to head the Mathematical-Astronomical Section of the School of Spiritual Science of the recently reestablished Anthroposophical Society, & she belonged to the board of directors of the general Anthroposophical Society from 1925 to 1935.

Rudolf Steiner saw her in connection with the Platonic stream, & had indicated that she had incarnated earlier than planned in order to meet him on Earth.

Dr. Vreede gave a lecture on 3 January 1926, which was first publish in the Anthroposophical Movement in Vol. 6, Nos. 42 to 46, called The World of the Stars and Human Destiny. In it she addressed the appropriate use of Astrology in our time:

“You will now understand to what purpose we have a horoscope, and that it is not there in the first instance for our own sake. You will understand that when a horoscope is made for a person’s satisfaction, there is always a certain amount of egoism connected with it; for he does not possess it for this purpose! And if you take the passages in our literature where Dr. Steiner speaks about Astrology (there are passages in many of the cycles and lectures) you will find how he emphasizes again and again that Astrology must be something social, which pays no attention to the individual but has social aims. In a true Astrology only what is universally human is considered and not the satisfaction of the egoism of the human being. By considering it egoistically, that deed of Michael is undone whereby other beings ought to be saved from plunging into the abyss.

When Dr. Steiner asked the position of the stars at the moment of a birth, it was always with reference to children who lacked one or other of the forces just described. It was then possible to learn from it which of these forces was not there in the right sense; thus it could be gathered what this human soul lacked before birth. And then it might be possible under certain circumstances to find a cure. Here we see how the matter is carried away from what is egoistic and into the social, when such abnormal children may in this way find a cure, which otherwise might perhaps not be possible. But in those children in whom certain forces were not brought in at birth these influences remain present. …Thus we see how Astrology can be used when it is kept in Michael’s sense, and not in the sense in which it is so often practiced today.”

In 1928 she invited Willi Sucher to come to Dornach & collaborated with him in working out the death asterograms of historical personalities, which was part of his substantial historic research, & which he further worked out in the late 30’s & 40’s, doing the charts & therapeutic research of special needs children in England & Scotland.

In 1935 the separation within the Anthroposophical Society took place & she was expelled from the executive council, her section passed to other leadership. She was excluded, along with her long-time friend & co-member, Dr. Ita Wegman, from the board of directors. She was also cut off from the observatory & archives that she herself helped assemble.

Rudolf Steiner is reputed to have said that Dr. Vreede understood his work more deeply than anyone else.

On the anniversary, in 1943, of Rudolf Steiner’s death, she spoke to the circle of friends & co-workers at the Ida Wegman clinic. They wanted to commemorate not just Rudolf Steiner but the many others who were leading Anthroposophists but were no longer known to most. She spoke in a devoted way about Edith Maryon, who also died in 1924, & Alice Sauerwein. She portrayed Count Keyserlingk & Louis Werbeck, Caroline von Heydebrand & Eugen Kolisko.

At the beginning of May 1943 she spoke once more on the 400th anniversary of the death of Copernicus. At the lecture it was noticed that only by exceptional exertion could she keep herself upright. Just a few days later on 6 May, she had to take to her bed. She had never been ill nor depended on people until that point. Thanks to the devoted care of Frau Schunemann, she was treated at home until her passing on 31 August 1943 in Ascona.

“The stars bear for us the traces of the Deeds of the Gods which lead through the Beings of the hierarchies to the frontiers of Divinity Itself.” ~Elisabeth Vreede

http://www.rsarchive.org/RelAuthors/VreedeElizabeth/Anthro_Astro.php