16 July 2019 – “Speaking with the Stars“:

PARTIAL ECLIPSE OF THE THUNDER MOON: It’s happening tonight – Bella Luna will pass through the shadow of Earth, off center, plunging 65% of the lunar disk into darkness. This movie created by space artist Larry Koehn shows how the 3-hour eclipse will unfold:

The eclipse begins at approximately 20:00 UT, reaching maximum coverage an hour and a half later. The timing favors observers in Africa and the Middle East, with some visibility in South America, Europe, Asia and Australia as well. North Americans will see none of the eclipse–only a normally bright full Moon east of Saturn. Bella Luna shines near the border between the constellations Sagittarius the Archer & Capricornus the Sea Goat.

According to folklore, July’s full Moon is the “Thunder-Buck Moon,” named after the booming electrical storms of northern summer & honoring the rack of the horned creatures. This is the last significant lunar eclipse until May 2021, when the “Flower Moon” will be shadowed, so tune in!

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Pietro Novelli

Feast Day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary in her role as patroness of the Carmelite Order, Christian hermits living in the Holy Land during the late 12th & early to mid-13th century. They built in the midst of their hermitages a chapel which they dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, whom they conceived of in chivalric terms as the “Lady of the place.” Our Lady of Mount Carmel was adopted in the 19th century as the patron saint of Chile, in South America.

Since the 15th century, popular devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel has centered on the Scapular, a sacramental associated with promises of Mary’s special aid for the salvation of the devoted wearer. Since the Middle Ages, Our Lady of Mount Carmel has been related to Purgatory, where souls are purged of sins in the fires. In some images, she is portrayed as accompanied with angels and souls wearing Brown Scapulars, who plead for her mediation.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel was seen in the apparitions of Cova da Iria in Fátima, Portugal, by Lúcia Santos & her co-visionary companions Jacinta & Francisco Marto & as many as 70,000 witnesses of the extraordinary events during the Miracle of the Sun. She also appeared to Saint Simon Stock to whom she gave the Brown Scapular. The Garabandal apparitions, in Spain, were reported to be images of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. Also in Acquafondata, Italy, the apparition of the Virgin of Mount Carmel, was seen on July 16, 1841. There is still today a small sanctuary on the site.

622 – Mohammed’s flight from Mecca, which came to determine the beginning of the Islamic calendar. He hid in a cave where a spiders web quickly grew over the entrance so that the enemy was fooled into thinking he wasn’t there.

1054 – Three Roman legates break relations between Western & Eastern Christian Churches through the act of placing an invalidly-issued Papal bull of Excommunication on the altar of Hagia Sophia during Saturday afternoon divine liturgy. Historians frequently describe the event as the start of the East–West Schism.

1879 – Birthday of Elisabeth Vreed – Dutch philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer & anthroposopher. Elisabeth Vreede came into contact with Theosophy in her home growing up. She was interested early on in the starry sky, read the works of Camille Flammarion & learned French at the same time. At the University of Leyden she studied mathematics, astronomy, philosophy (especially Hegel) & Sanskrit. She was also actively involved in student life, founding a boat club, & was a council member of the students’ union.

Her first meeting with Rudolf Steiner took place at the Theosophical Congress in London in 1903. Vreede was leader of the mathematics & astronomy sections in the Goetheanum in Dornach from 1926 till 1935. In her capacity as leader of the Mathematical-Astronomical Section she wrote a monthly letter, then available by subscription, about both modern astronomy & classical astrology in the light of spiritual science. The letters included explanations of the fundamentals of astronomy & discussions of astrology in the modern world, with reference to such topics as the precession of the equinoxes, comets, solar & lunar eclipses, & the meaning of the Christian holidays such as Easter & Whitsun. The Letters in English translation were published in 2007 with the title Astronomy and Spiritual Science.

In 1935 the separation within the Anthroposophical Society took place & she was expelled from the executive council & 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.

The last years of her life became more lonely. She was cut off from her friends abroad by the War. The death of Ita Wegman at the beginning of March, 1943, was a great shock for her.

Rudolf Steiner said of her: ‘this individuality does not wish to be recognized …’ Elisabeth Knottenbelt in her memoirs describes statements about her: that ‘she incarnated too early’ for the sake of serving Rudolf Steiner. “for this task [the work with Rudolf Steiner] she had assumed the sacrifice of a premature incarnation. One who, for the sake of a spiritual mission, comes in this way to earth too early must forego a lot. To a great extent one leaves one’s karmic circle of human beings behind in the spiritual word. Her life was thus really a quite lonely one, only a few persons were grouped around her without any real connection.”

Here is a quote from a letter written by her prior to her removal from the executive council: “The Being of Anthroposophy – I myself have always felt it as a spiritual being newly created by Dr. Steiner, as it were the first hierarchical Being that men have begotten, quite young and still underdeveloped, as is the case with a child—a Being that must now begin to develop further through our common work as a ‘community of knowledge’, and with the cooperation of its creator from the spiritual world. Just for this reason I find it so painful when attacks are continually made against part of the active members such as to exclude them from the work, from creating together the Being of Anthroposophy.”

Read her biography from the Astrosophy Research Center

1942 – Holocaust: Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup.The government of Vichy France orders the mass arrest of 13,152 Jews who are held at the Winter Velodrome in Paris before deportation to Auschwitz.

1945 – Manhattan Project: The Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

1948 – The city of Nazareth, revered by Christians as the hometown of Jesus, capitulates to Israeli troops during Operation Dekel, the largest offensive by Israeli forces in the north of Palestine in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Israeli aircraft bombed Saffuriya village & caused panic among the population; many of the villagers fled northwards toward Lebanon, others found shelter in Nazareth, leaving about 100 elderly people behind. Nazareth surrendered to the Israelis.

1969 –Apollo 11, the first mission to land astronauts on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Kennedy, Florida. The 1st ‘moomwalk’ 20 July 1969.

1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr., piloting a Piper Saratoga aircraft, dies when his plane crashes into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. His wife, Carolyn Bassette  & sister-in-law are also killed

2007 – An earthquake of magnitude 6.8 & 6.6 aftershock occurs off the Niigata coast of Japan killing 280 people, injuring at least 5800 & damaging a nuclear power plant.

2014 – Deathday of Ruth Zinniker – The biodynamic movement owes so much to Ruth and the whole Zinniker family. Their farm has been a source of inspiration for thousands of people, many of whom came there to work as apprentices when they were young people and have gone on to be important leaders in the biodynamic movement. Ruth had a place in her heart for all these people and many others. She warmed the movement with her social gesture and her fiery enthusiasm. Thank you dear Ruth, thank you Zinniker family, for all you have given to help seed the biodynamic movement in North America. — Robert Karp

***

TOD (Thought Of the day)

“I know not what my past still has in store for me,” testified the Indian spiritual poet Tukaram… I believe most of us can say the same thing, & here’s why: The events that happened to us once upon a time keep transforming as we ripen. They come to have
different meanings in light of the ever-new experiences we have. What seemed like a setback when it first occurred may eventually reveal itself to have been the seed of a blessing. A wish fulfilled at a certain point in our history might come back to haunt us later on. I bring up these ideas, because I think we are all primed to reinterpret our past, so we can co-create a more truthful now, to beget a more beautiful future…

***

From Rudolf Steiner’s Human Questions Cosmic Answers: “…when there is an eclipse of the moon, the man of today merely says: “Now the earth comes between the sun and the moon; hence we see the shadow cast upon the moon by the earth.” That is the physical explanation. But in this case also the old initiate knew that a spiritual reality was behind the physical fact. He knew that when there is an eclipse of the moon, thoughts stream through darkness down upon the earth; and that such thoughts have a closer relationship with the subconscious life than with the conscious life of the human being. The old initiates often made use of a certain simile when speaking to their pupils. It is; of course, necessary to translate their words into modern language, but this is the gist of what they said: “Visionaries and dreamers love to go for rambles by moonlight, when the moon is full. There are, however, certain people who have no wish to receive the good thoughts coming to them from the cosmos, but who, on the contrary, are desirous of getting hold of evil, diabolical thoughts. Such people will choose the moment of a lunar eclipse for their nocturnal wanderings.

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. The other safety-valve, the lunar eclipse, exists for the purpose of allowing the evil thoughts which are present in the cosmos to approach those human beings who are desirous of being possessed by them. people do not, as a rule, act in full consciousness, but the facts are nevertheless real — just as real as the attraction of a magnet for small particles of iron. Such are the forces at work, in the cosmos.”

The tradition on the Italian side of my family: My Strega Nona told us that Bella Luna was a great mirror reflecting the Sun, & that during a lunar eclipse, we must practice the very old tradition of breathing on a mirror. We had a contest who could fog up the mirror the most. Grandmother told us that a wolf swallowed the Moon during an eclipse & that our breath would cause the wolf to cough it up & return it to the sky.

My Irish mother used to tell us the Viking tale about two wolves who wish to eat the Sun & Moon. Skoll (repulsion) goes after the Sun & Hati, running ahead of the Sun, goes after the Moon. When either are caught, there is an eclipse. When this happens, the people on Earth rush to rescue the Sun or Moon by making as much noise as they can in hopes of scaring off the wolves. So we would bang on pots & pans to drive the wolfs away.

The lesson here my friends is that as human beings we must participate in these cosmic conversations. We must be involved – active – co-creators in the ever evolving interchange.

~hag